Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2018 April 28

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April 28

Publish to review page

Hi there. How can I send me page in for review? I just created one.It is below

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Cierarogers — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cierarogers (talk • contribs) 02:21, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

@Cierarogers: Your article in its current state is too promotional and has too few references - see WP:REF and WP:GNG. Considering your username, you may also want to see WP:COI, WP:PAID, and/or WP:AUTOBIO. LittlePuppers (talk) 02:25, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

All good points; thought it worth pointing out the page they want reviewed is their userpage. As far as I know, those only get auto-reviewed for security/to make sure nobody's done anything majorly wrong that's eating CPU time it shouldn't be. But If they are just wanting a Peer Review for a userpage, there are guidelines they may want to review first.

Also wanted to make sure @Cierarogers: knows to sign their posts with four tildes (~~~~), to make sure that people know who to respond to outside of the Help Desk! :) Mesmerus 📬 📷 02:41, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

@Mesmerus: Good point - I assumed they were trying to publish an autobiography they had drafted in their userspace, but it's probably more likely that it's just their userpage. Thanks for the additional advice and fixing my formatting. LittlePuppers (talk) 02:52, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

Hi Again. I made the changes to my page to make it less promotional. I also added more references. Not sure how to change my username? In addition is there anything else that would help my page to be published? See below

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Cierarogers — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cierarogers (talk • contribs) 02:54, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

@Cierarogers: Do you want this as your userpage, or are your trying to write an autobiography and publish it on Wikipedia? LittlePuppers (talk) 03:06, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

I am trying to write an autobiography and publish it to wikipedia. For the page below

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Cierarogers — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cierarogers (talk • contribs) 03:19, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

Sorry guys and thanks for your help. Am I working with the wrong type of page to get published as an autobiography?Cierarogers (talk) 03:21, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

@Cierarogers: Please read WP:AUTOBIOGRAPHY - writing autobiographies and publishing them on Wikipedia is strongly discouraged for a variety of reasons. In addition, your article is quite short, most references are not reliable, verifiable, secondary sources, and it is still somewhat promotional. If you are indeed notable, someone else will probably write an article about you. LittlePuppers (talk) 03:35, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

I must agree with LittlePuppers knowing this -- one should never write an autobiography about oneself for Wikipedia. The Five Pillars puts it best.

1. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and is not a soapbox, an advertising platform, a vanity press, an experiment in anarchy or democracy, an indiscriminate collection of information, or a web directory.
2. Wikipedia is written from a neutral point of view.

To be completely blunt about it, you should not have this even on your userpage. Userpages are to describe who you are in regard to the wiki; your editing style, your contributions, etc. This is not related to the Wiki at all. At best, it is just a form of advertisement you are trying to slip in, and I do have a mind to nominate the page for WP:CSD if the page does continue to constitute more than a mention of your business. A link is questionable, but at the moment it is well over 1/4 of the page context, which is well past any reasonable boundary.

Pages used for blatant promotion or as a soapbox or battleground for unrelated matters are usually considered outside this criterion. For example: a five page résumé and advertising for your band will probably be too much, a brief three sentence summary that you work in field X and have a band named Y will be fine.

If you're looking for free advertisement, Wikipedia is not the place for you. Facebook and Twitter would likely serve you better and actually work with you to connect potential customers. The Wiki is an encyclopedia, not an advertisement. I realize this has come off somewhat bluntly, but as I'm unsure if you're trying to sneak this through or just new, I don't feel it would do anyone any good to dance around the issue. Please, by all means consult us if you would like to make a userpage to talk about yourself in relation to Wikipedia, and we'll be more than happy to help you focus what an appropriate mention to your business would be, as Promotional and advocacy material and links is considered Excessive unrelated content, and not permissible to have in a user page. Mesmerus 📬 📷 04:12, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

@Mesmerus: I've nominated it for CSD (WP:AUTOBIO and WP:PROMO) - User:Cierarogers is more than welcome to recreate her userpage if she wishes to contribute constructively to Wikipedia, but that may be a case of WP:TNT. LittlePuppers (talk) 04:21, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

Fair enough. I was just on about delivering the stern warning, as it may be they were simply unaware. Then again, I also live by WP:AGF, and that does tend to bite me at times, as humans can be quite dastardly when they want to. Given there's no contributions outside of that userpage, WP:TNT probably is the right call. And I think I can speak to that -- well over 60% of all my edits are my userpages, as I'm constantly tinkering with them like one massive sandbox (plus adding the Ribbons I make over at WP:RIBBONS because they're just so nice to look at at once. :) Also gonna @Cierarogers: to make sure they see the whole chain as WP:CSD can be done and over before one wakes from a nap has finished before I finished typing a comment about how quickly it could be finished. Definition of irony right there!. Mesmerus 📬 📷 04:29, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

Editor editing article about himself

Hi all.

An IP is claiming to be the person the article has written about [[1]] ... anyone with a little more experience want to field this one? TantraYum (talk) 03:31, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

@TantraYum: I'm also hesitant on what to do regarding this, but there are a few things that I'd like to mention that might help: everything must be verifiable and largely in secondary sources (which what he says isn't), and writing or editing autobiographies is strongly discouraged. I don't know to what extent we can remove stuff based on his request. The article is somewhat poorly sourced, but we generally discourage the removal of information that is in other reliable sources. I've also heard of something about using OTRS to verify identities, but I don't know how that works. LittlePuppers (talk) 03:43, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

• As I understand it, WP:BLP overrides WP:COI and WP:AUTO in this instance, because the editor has done almost nothing except removing unsourced material. BLP states that unsourced material should be removed immediately. -Arch dude (talk) 04:15, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

I've tagged the article as an unsourced Biography for now. There are zero sources for any personal details (and as far as can tell there never have been any). The external links to articles he has written do little but confirm that he did write some of the things mentioned in the article, and I'm not finding much in the way of independent sources to show his notability. There are mentions of things he's written, bios for him from places he's worked, and pages that seem to have copied their material form Wikipedia but that does not help. He might just pass the notability hurdle based on his athletic accomplishments 40-some years ago, but I'm not inclined to put the effort into this. As it stands it's a publicity piece (the "More information about his running and his writing, including article links, can be found at www.bob-cooper.com" pretty much says it all. I'll leave it for a while in case someone wants to work on it, bu t I won't argue against a deletion. Meters (talk) 04:27, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

user:Arch dude WP:BLP says that unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material should be removed immediately. There's nothing at all contentious about much of the material the IP removed. I'm not going to put it back in, but WP:BLP does not support removing it. Meters (talk) 04:32, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

And for that matter, not only was some of the material not contentious, you could even say it was sourced by the external links and the book listings. Meters (talk) 04:35, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

• "Contentious" is subjective. If the editor did not like this material, then it's contentious. As you say, if the material is actually based on reliable sources, it can be restored by any editor who wishes to do so, with proper inline references. -Arch dude (talk) 04:42, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

No. For example. the fact that he wrote a particular book is not contentious. An IP claiming to be the author removing that fact from the article does not make it contentious either. And the IP did not claim that he objected to most of the information . He simply said it was out of date. The only thing he explicitly objected to was his birth date, and I have absolutely no objection to that removal.

If you are going to quote policies on the Help page then you had better quote them accurately. You said "BLP states that unsourced material should be removed immediately" and that is clearly not what WP:BLP says. Meters (talk) 05:02, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

Conflicted about filing an SPI

I'm looking for insight from more experienced editors as to whether or not I should file an SPI. I am fully aware of how to file one, but I am conflicted as to whether or not I should take action in this instance. Recently I came across a number of articles created by a new editor. While preforming my standard practice of checking a page's log to see if was deleted in the past, I noticed a trend forming; many of these new editor's articles had previously been created by a blocked editor (a sockmaster) and then redirected or deleted. I dug into the matter further and now have few doubts that the "new" editor is in fact this blocked editor returning, as their editing style and content is the same. Normally I would file an SPI right away, but in this instance I am conflicted as the new articles are seemingly benign, the editor clearly has a passion for this type of article, and the sockmaster account was blocked just over nine years ago. That being said, some of the new articles contain flaws like copyright violations. I'm interested to see the thoughts of others on this matter.--SamHolt6 (talk) 10:57, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

I suggest contacting any admin, using email if necessary. Not everyone would object to undeclared return of a formerly-blocked person if the edits were good, but the fact they are recreating articles that the sockmaster had originally created would make me unwilling to overlook it. EdJohnston (talk) 16:06, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

@SamHolt6: I have a tendency to WP:AGF, but have also never had to deal with a sockpuppet situation myself, thankfully. Given the length of time in question, it may be the same person, but matured, or it could be somebody new in the residence/area, and the cultural tendencies are just very similar, coupled with a new user. I'd probably start by welcoming them on their talk page, inviting them to the Teahouse, to work on being a better editor, and dealing with the license issues. If they are the same person, and they are trying to scrape past once more, it will be obvious soon enough, and there will hopefully be enough evidence then for an SPI. In the meantime, AGF may be prudent. I would suggest waiting for other, more active thoughts, as I've only recently gone outside my little"WikiBubble". Mesmerus 📬 📷 16:05, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

@SamHolt6: Why were the articles previously deleted? Delete the copyright infringement, of course. LittlePuppers (talk) 16:20, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

Editing Wikipedia while using a VPN

Hi, I want to edit Wikipedia without having to disconnect from my VPN. Is there a way for me to do that? Should I submit a request for a global IP block exemption on Meta, or something else? --Hmxhmx 12:03, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

@Hmxhmx: Generally (as far as I know), such requests are only granted if you need to use a VPN to access/contribute to Wikipedia, not just because you want to (sockpuppets are unfortunately always trying to abuse anything they can). That said, you would request it there if you have an SUL or global account, and want to use the VPN to edit on multiple namespaces. If your account/edits are only on the English Wikipedia, then you would need to mail the functionaries-en[2] list, as you'll need someone with CheckUser/Oversight permissions for the English namespace, rather than a Steward for all of Wikimedia. The local page for IP Block Exemptions goes into more detail, and getting such rights on the English namespace is easier and quicker than getting Global Rights. Mesmerus 📬 📷 15:54, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

@Mesmerus:, thank you for your reply. I mainly contribute on the Croatian Wikipedia and here, on the English Wikipedia, but I also often replace lower-quality pictures from Commons with higher-quality ones (e.g. JPG maps with SVG maps) on many other language-versions of Wikipedia, so a global IP block exemption would be more useful to me. I will think this through and maybe submit a request on Meta, and, if it gets rejected, request an exemption locally on projects I use more frequently. --Hmxhmx 18:33, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

@Hmxhmx: in that case, you'll definitely want a Global exemption, and will need to ask the stewards, on the page you linked. If you're posting with the use of software such as Tor for privacy, it will likely be approved -- there's a section for exactly that case. But I took a look, and you've been around a while, so I think you'll be fine in either case -- I had incorrectly assumed prior that you were only somewhat newly registered. Shoulda knew better since you signed your post! XD Mesmerus 📬 📷 21:06, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

I'm not going to pretend I've looked closely at this, but I think I should point out an untuitive quirk. Global IP block exemption does not exempt you globally from all blocks, but only global blocks, so you will still need local IPBE to edit from any locally blocked VPN - this is often an issue on enwiki more than other wikis. You will probably be able to edit with Tor with only global block exemption, as not all Tor nodes are locally blocked. Whether your current VPN is currently locally blocked I couldn't say. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 21:34, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

Flags

Hello, I would like to ask a question. When there is a flag to the left of the name of the commander in the infobox, it should show flag of a country that he is from or flag of the army that he was leading? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:A317:2241:F280:A40C:DAB1:C899:825F (talk) 17:50, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

WP:FLAGBIO would appear to contain relevant advice on the subject: ‘’Use the flag and name of the country (be it a state or a nation) that the person (or team of people) officially represented, regardless of citizenship, when the flag templates are used for sports statistics and the like...Caution should be used in extending this convention to non-sporting contexts, as it may produce confusing results.’’ So, this would seem to suggest that if a flag is used, it should be the flag of the country they were commanding an army for, regardless of their origin. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:46, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

question

Dear Wikipedia, I am a fan of wikipedia since many years. Two days ago I realized someone in German wikipedia posted without my knowledge a page about me with basis mistakes such my nationality. I dont't speak German so I cannot contact the German wikipedia advisors as they always answer in German. They answered generally I cannot delete because I am an artist... This is not an answer. THE MOST IMPORTANT is that I don't want to have a wikipedia page and I avoid generally all kind of Social Facebook and Twiter etc. I THINK IS A VIOLATION ON MY PRIVACY. Please advise what to do. Sincerely Ilianamaria Alvarado — Preceding unsigned comment added by Yitroquantum (talk • contribs) 19:03, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

• The different language versions of Wikipedia are independent projects, each with (possibly) separate policies and and with separate administrators. Therefore, we cannot help you directly here, since we basically have nothing to do with our German counterparts. There is a sub-project here called Wikipedia:Local Embassy that is intended to help with communications such as yours.-Arch dude (talk) 19:49, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

how to delete a page about me posted by someoene else? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Yitroquantum (talk • contribs) 19:35, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

Generally, if you are notable, there would be no basis for removing such an article. By definition, such articles should be written by somebody not connected to you, to avoid conflict of interest and improve the odds of dispassionate, impartial writing. We do not ask whether you want an article to exist, but are delighted to help you insure that the information is correct and reflects the best sources available. --Orange Mike | Talk 22:04, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

Assuming as I do that you are the dancer and choreographer Iliana Maria Alvarado, looks to me like there's a fair amount of publicity stuff, at least, out there about you. You are not a recluse or a hermit: you maintain a public website, etc. Note that Wikipedia, in any language, is not any kind of social media platform; so a desire to avoid Facebook, Twitter, etc. is irrelevant to this discussion. --Orange Mike | Talk 00:41, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

If you are not notable, and have never been written about by any WP:Reliable source, then a Wikipedia article may well be a violation of your privacy, and can be deleted. If newspapers etc have written about you, then you need to take any privacy issues up with them because Wikipedia just reports what has already been written, so it is not Wikipedia that has invaded your privacy. As Mike mentions above, Wikipedia is ready to correct any inaccuracies and to remove any statements made if they lack WP:Reliable sources, but if you are already a public figure then an accurate article about you will be regarded as fair. You might like to take up your privacy complaint with the mysterious organisation "O12.PL SP. Z O.O." in MALOPOLSKIE, KRAKÓW 31-870 who set up the website about you? I don't speak German, but the article on the German Wikipedia looks very weak on sources, so you might have a good case for asking there for it to be deleted if their rules are similar to ours. Dbfirs 00:14, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

No Chance for deletion in the german Wikipedia. Good sources, not really weak. Only her citizenship is to clarify. Best regards. --Informationswiedergutmachung (talk) 10:56, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

Does the German Wikipedia not have the equivalent of WP:Notability (people)#Creative professionals? I've seen articles deleted here with similar weak sources, though possibly being a finalist in a competition might confer WP:Notability if it was independently reported. Dbfirs 11:13, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

We have. de:WP:RK#Personen. And weak sources? No, this article has good sources, only the citizenship is unknown, but therefore i deleted it in the german Wikipedia. Now I am offline, because here it is sunday, 01:19pm and the sun is shining. If you want to know more: send me a ping. Later I'll be back. --Informationswiedergutmachung (talk) 11:20, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for the link. The German rules sound very similar to those in the English Wikipedia. Thank you for deleting the disputed citizenship. Yitroquantum has put an unexplained deletion request on the talk page, but this is unlikely to achieve anything. Enjoy the sunshine. Could you send some over to England? The sky is grey here. Best wishes. Dbfirs 11:30, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

But I am not very amused if someone thinks Wikipedia is a fu***ng social network. We are not glitter, we are not fakebook. This is an real insult. --Informationswiedergutmachung (talk) 19:14, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

I have stricken out the pleasantries to which you object. I agree that Wikipedia is not a social network. I was merely trying to be nice to a person that I perceived to be a young editor. If the informality came across as sarcastic or patronising, then I apologise. That was not intended. I wish to have no further contact. Dbfirs 06:46, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

@Dbfirs: With someone the user Yitroquantum was meant. Not you. Sorry for the misunderstandning. Have a nice day. And: i will send some sunshine to england. :) Have a nice day. No sarcasm oder irony intended. Really! --Informationswiedergutmachung (talk) 12:10, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Undoing an erroneous redirect

Hi,

The link for Portland-Vancouver-Salem, OR-WA Combined Statistical Area from the page Combined Statistical Area redirects to Portland Metropolitan Area.

However the Portland Metropolitan area page only includes information on the Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR-WA Metropolitan Statistical Area. Page is here, contains a list, Portland is #18 on list. Combined_statistical_area

CSAs are bigger than MSAs, and combine MSAs. The P-V-Salem CSA includes four other MSAs beyond P-V-Hillsboro MSA.

I don't know how to undo the erroneous redirect. Any guidance would be welcome.

I don't know if there was once a correct page for the CSA; the existence of the link might suggest so. Nor do I know if undoing the redirect might restore it. Or is creating a redirect away from a previously extant article a form of editing that cannot be undone, unlike other edits? Clarification would be personally useful.

My guess is that once the erroneous redirect is fixed, I will need to create stub for the CSA. I would not be positioned to do much more than that at present. Does this seem right?

Thanks for any help you may be able to offer

--Chris Lowe (talk) 20:57, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

@Cclowe: There's two kinds of redirects I'm aware of, a {{softredirect}}, which automatically forwards you onto the page it links to, and a disambiguation, which is a landing page that lets users pick which interpretation they were looking for (sort of an intelligent search return). What I see on the page looks more like a normal wiki link, and I don't see any of the ones for item 18 as being red-links (ie page doesn't exist). If you know what link needs to be modified, or if you're trying to add a link, let me know what the link is and I can do it if you'd like -- it's just a matter of doing [[Link_to_page|Link Title]]. Mesmerus 📬 📷 21:13, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

Cclowe, Mesmerus The page Portland-Vancouver-Salem, OR-WA Combined Statistical Area has been a redirect to Portland metropolitan area#Combined Statistical Area since it was created on 21 March 2013‎ Presumably this was thought to be the best solution in the absence of a page specifically about the CSA itself. I suppose that there once was a section about the CSA in Portland metropolitan area, but there is not at this time. Anyone could edit Portland-Vancouver-Salem, OR-WA Combined Statistical Area and convert it from a redirect to an independent article, not forgetting to cite sources. As an "inhabited place" notability would be trivial to establish. Creating such an independent article would deal with the issue, and is probably the best possible solution. No other link would need to be changed, although a back link from Portland metropolitan area would probably be a good idea. Alternatively, a section "Combined Statistical Area" could be added to Portland metropolitan area, which would then be the target of the redirect, and might later be spun off. DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 15:39, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

CC BY 3.0

Would an image under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License (see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) be considered to be free or non-free? Basically, the license allows anybody to use and modify the image, and even use it for commercial purposes, as long as attribution is given.--SkyGazer 512 ^{What will you say? / What did I do?} 21:39, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

@SkyGazer 512: The image's license is considered a free one. The shorthand for that would be CC-BY 3.0; I don't know if images can be uploaded with that license, but I know that CC-BY-SA 3.0 is an option. The extra SA means "Share Alike"; simply put its just saying the image has to be shared under the same or a similar license if it is modified in any way. Of course, if CC-BY 3.0 is available, you should pick that. Mesmerus 📬 📷 22:01, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

Ok, thank you, that's definitely helpful to know. I thought I had seen somewhere that a license like that or similar to that was free content, but I wanted to be completely sure before actually uploading it. (Don't want it to be speedy deleted for being a copyright violation :))--SkyGazer 512 ^{What will you say? / What did I do?} 01:25, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

@SkyGazer 512: No worries; licensing can be tricky. :) Even if the picture was considered non-free, it may still be usable under fair use. Feel free to ask around here if you're ever unsure; I think Wiki editors are better than anyone else at the moment at figuring out licensing! Mesmerus 📬 📷 01:46, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

Mesmerus, I know non-free content is allowed, but for this specific image, I'm pretty sure it would not satisfy WP:NFCCP#1, because it's a living animal species that I'm wanting to upload (see what happened with File:Fissicrambus minuellus, a moth, full body with white background.png). And yes, I do agree that wiki editors are problem better than anyone else at figuring out licensing :). Best regards, --SkyGazer 512 ^{What will you say? / What did I do?} 01:56, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

@SkyGazer 512: Ah yes, animals almost never quallify against that for non-free rights. There's always somebody who can go and take a picture, and make it freely licensed instead. Trick is finding the right person, so it will be of decent quality! XD Thankfully, calling the zoos, research labs/schools near the animal's habitats usually yields some decent results. Mesmerus 📬 📷 02:05, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

Oh yeah, that would be a good idea. If there's an animal article in the future that I REALLY want to add an image to but there is no free image, I may try doing that. Again, thanks for the help.--SkyGazer 512 ^{What will you say? / What did I do?} 02:13, 29 April 2018 (UTC)