Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2019 July 11

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July 11

Does Wikipedia have a profile feature?

Hi, just wanting to know when I sign up on Wikipedia is there a feature that allows me to create a profile or would my User page be considered my actual profile in Wikipedia?

Carolyn — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.145.133.158 (talk) 02:11, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

Answered at the Teahouse. Nick Moyes (talk) 02:29, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

Lupton family

In this section at the end of the page - Agnes and Norman Darnton Lupton - the "s" at the end of the name Norman should be removed (3rd last line) please remove the "s" at the end of the word Norman. i.e. "Normans and Agnes's donation to the Leeds Art Gallery included works by J....". I cannot do this on my normal device. Sorry and thanks 175.33.248.139 (talk) 02:33, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

I've added an apostrophe instead. I'm puzzled as to what device does not allow you to delete a character? Dbfirs 06:37, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

Regarding Draft Article Publishing on Wikipedia

I have created 2 draft articles on wikipedia and want to publish both articles Live but not able to find how to do this. Please give me support for solving this issue. — Preceding unsigned comment added by AniSingh1991 (talk • contribs) 06:19, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

AniSingh1991 New users cannot directly create articles until they are what is called 'autoconfirmed', the account being four days old and at least 10 edits. You can submit the drafts for review using Articles for Creation; however, I would not do that yet as your drafts would be rejected as promotional. If you were to just wait and make a couple more edits to move them to mainspace yourself, they would likely be nominated for deletion. Please read Your First Article and use the new user tutorial to learn what is expected of articles(such as needing independent reliable sources with significant coverage). If you are associated with the subjects you have written about, you also must review conflict of interest and paid editing. 331dot (talk) 07:30, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

Almost entire content of article disputed.

On one article's talk page I'm editing, it has been determined that the consensus of the primary sources and the editors is completely different. Although there's few published sources to back up the editors' claims, the editors have concluded that the topic as explained in most published sources about it does not actually exist - it was confused for other topics. Mot published sources, however, treat it as different. For now, I've almost entirely blanked the article to remove most of the incorrect information, and it's difficult for me to find any source that cites my side of it that isn't OR or disputed. However, there are many, many inconsistencies in the literature on the published topic. It's now very hard to add any cited information that wouldn't lead to a dispute about the factual accuracy of the topic. In fact, the topic may end up being a historical accident - something that should have never had an article on it in the first place.

Did I do the right thing in almost entirely blanking the page? ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 07:00, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

• That must be about V774104. The crux of the argument is that mainstream media (that would count as WP:RS) gave incorrect information. I will assume that to be true (I cannot check it for myself one way or another).

My feeling by reading the talk page is that the almost-blanking was justified per WP:BOLD because no other editor was likely to object strongly to it. That is rarely the case; page blanking is usually likely to be contentious (because it is usually used as a substitute for fixing solvable problems, in which case it is a no-no).

Re the whole "RS get it wrong" situation: a common Help Desk occurence is that we base the date/place of birth/death of semi-famous people off the local press obituaries, then the daughter/son of that person complains that the press got it wrong. Technically, policy requires we follow RS. It would certainly be against policy to write stuff that is directly contradicted by RS. However, it is not against policy to not write stuff even though supported by RS, so we can collectively exercise a pocket veto. (In the "wrong DOB" case, we usually remove the entry entirely, and/or leave a comment in the source saying that the obituary is likely wrong.) Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 08:50, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

I find this contribution a little confusing. There is a difference between a primary source and a published source. Sometimes they might be the same however. It may also be be a help to know what kind of article you are talking about or the name of the page and whether there are many published sources on the subject. In a historical article, for example, a letter (say from a soldier at the front in a war to his family) which is in your personel possession is a primary source and should not be used in the wikipedia article. If the letter is published in a book of letters or a book based on soldiers' letters (eg the excellent " Book of 1918" by Malcolm Brown it becomes a published source and might I think be used -but carefully. Most historical articles would however be based on a historian's published account of what happened (eg The First World war by John Keegan.)These are secondary sources. With a subject where there are lots of secondary sources, the article should be based on those sources, which are verifiable, rather than on what you believe to be the truth but have no published sources to back you up. Where there are lots of published sources they will often disagree. In that situation you can refer to both I think. This could be done by referring to the sources in the article which disagree. You might say for example "Professor X says that the russians attacked the Poles whereas Professor Y says the opposite happened. There are examples of this in some of the various articles about the Russian Revolutions of 1917 or about the Battle of Jutland for example. Wikipedia does however have a problem where there are very few sources which you might know to be incorrect. For instance I am a retired criminal lawyer. In one of my cases there was a quote from something I said which was published in the local newspaper but not only did they get my name wrong the paper incorrectly said I was a police officer. In the unlikely event of that case becoming the subject of a wikipedia article or part of an article it would be difficult to correct it and I am not sure how that could be done. Spinney Hill (talk) 09:18, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

@Spinney Hill: It's not a major article (it's really only of interest to extreme space nerds), but it has been concluded that most of the RS about it was written in a manner that led to confusion later on. You can read the talk page if you wish. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 09:24, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

Wrong word translated

Hello,

in the article : https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonas_Gon%C3%A7alves_Oliveira

it's saying that Jonas is homosexual

the english word is mononymously , that word does not mean homosexual, i think you should correct it please

thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.153.151.1 (talk) 09:54, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

No, 'mononymously' does not mean 'homesexual'. Rather 'known mononymously' means 'known under a single name', specifically 'known mononymously as Jonas' means 'commonly called just Jonas, without specifying Gonçalves or Oliveira'. That's correct and needs no correction.

What concerns homsexuality, that can be added, but has nothing to do with mononymousity. --CiaPan (talk) 10:05, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

This is a help page for the English Wikipedia. Other Wikipedia languages are usually not translations from English and we don't control their content. The Portuguese article had an unsourced claim that he is homosexual. It was probably vandalism and has been removed. It was not a translation from "mononymously" in the English article. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:33, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

How do I know which link is blacklisted?

Helped Others are also having the same issue. How do I know which link is black listed in this page? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qaidjoher_Ezzuddin Muffizainu (talk) 10:08, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

This same question has been answered at the Teahouse. Please don't post the same question in multiple places. RudolfRed (talk) 16:57, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

Wolverine edit

I, recently, added a one sentence addition to a paragraph that notes various sightings of wild wolverines. Since sightings of these critters are fairly rare, I thought the addition of my sighting would be appreciated, but when perusing the entry, I find that it has been removed. Curious, as to why. Hikertoo (talk) 10:46, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

Citing yourself isn't good practice. Was this reported in the local media? If so, you can cite that and it will be accepted. ― Дрейгорич / Dreigorich Talk 10:53, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

Since much of what we encounter in media these days is fake news, I find it strange that media reporting is used as a standard of acceptance. Because the wolverine disappeared into the wild before I even thought about my camera, I wasn't able to grab a photo of it, but that does not erase my sighting of the animal. I confirmed the appearance of the animal by comparing it with photos of wolverines. Since bears are common in the area, I at first thought it was a small bear, but upon further consideration I eliminated bear, because bears do not have bushy tails.172.221.106.178 (talk) 12:08, 11 July 2019 (UTC)172.221.106.178 (talk) 11:12, 11 July 2019 (UTC)172.221.106.178 (talk) 12:09, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

We try to stay clear of Fake news (in the original sense) and in general find it (news) preferable to anonymous/pseudonymous comments made on WP. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 15:23, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

How to Reset A Company's Wikipedia

Hi there,

The company I work for is trying to gain access to their Wikipedia page however it seems the person that created the page left without giving anyone the login details, is there a way to gain access or reset the password without normal access?

Due to confidentiality I cannot say who the company is.

154.117.146.194 (talk) 11:35, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

Hello, there is no 'log-in' for an individual page or for Wikipedia in general. Any person, with or without a Wikipedia account, can edit any page (subject to some restrictions where pages become disrupted). However, neither you nor any person connected to the mysterious company should edit the page. Please see WP:COI and WP:PAID for more information and for the required disclosures. Requests for changes can be made at the article talk page citing independent sources in corroboration. Also, it is not the company's page but Wikipedia's article about them. They have little, if any, say in what the page contains as Wikipedia reports on what has been written about a subject in independent reliable sources and not what a company has to say about itself. Eagleash (talk) 12:04, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

(ec) That's very good, I must say. Wikipedia policy on user accounts (Wikipedia:Username policy) strictly forbids using a company's account (WP:CORPNAME) or role account (WP:ROLE) for editing Wikipedia. Each account should represent an individual, a single person, and not be shared (WP:ISU & WP:NOSHARING). So, just create you own new account and edit from it. Be aware, however, that when you edit a page about your company, then you're in the WP:Conflict of interest and you are required to disclose it. The more, if you edit as your work, i.e. editing Wikipedia pages is (a part of) your job, the WP:PAID policy applies. --CiaPan (talk) 12:11, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

If you work for the company and intend to contribute about it, you must declare your company relationship per the paid editing policy. That is a Wikipedia Terms of Use requirement and not negotiable. 331dot (talk) 15:29, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

• You may not want to see who the company is, but (per 331dot) you will have to if you intend to edit further. Anyway, I can sense what company it is thanks to my extrasensory perception. I see a pair of letters... LG... LG Electronics, maybe?

(Extrasensory perception is not a thing, but Special:Contributions is, and you edited LG ThinQ.) Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 08:51, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

• Just for the record: the above attempt at being funny is a guess of the unnamed company's identity from OP's only two contributions, one is an edit on a company's product page and the other the HD post where they say they work for a company. I have no off-wiki information to confirm or infirm that guess. Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 14:08, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

Can I disable redirection to mobile version?

Helped

Until recently, I have usually been directed straight to the web version from the links in emails which inform me of changes to my watched pages, when opening them on my Android tablet. Although slower, it did allow me to see changes, use Twinkle and revert edits easily if necessary - which the mobile version doesn't seem to allow. Very frustrating. Changing the url doesn't work - it just changes back to the mobile version.

I've had a look in the help archives and haven't found anything positive, so I might be stuck with it - but can anyone advise if I there's a way to switch this off? Or alternatively, am I missing something in the mobile app which would allow me to revert edits? Laterthanyouthink (talk) 12:42, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

Hey Laterthanyouthink. Yeeeeah...the mobile version is pretty crappy for editing. If you scroll to the bottom of any page however, there should be a link to view on desktop version, and it should stay that way pretty consistently once you click it. GMG^talk 12:44, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

Hey GreenMeansGo. Aahh, finally got there, thank you! (Found that when editing in the beta app, which I was just then, had to do it twice - first time took me to the mobile web version, then clicked on desktop version there and, bingo!) Great, I'm very happy to have learned that. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 13:04, 11 July 2019 (UTC)