Help desk
< June 19	<< May \| June \| Jul >>	June 21 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Help Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current Help Desk pages.

June 20[edit]

unified login temporarily disabled?[edit]

I may have resolved my issue by changing my password, but I've never had this problem in over 8 years (or longer). I'm always logged in to the English wikipedia (up to the 365 days), but today the unified login to wikimedia commons no longer worked for me. This used to work. [1] shows I have 132 attached accounts, including commons and meta. I am using the latest Firefox for Windows 8. I tried logging in to commons on Chrome using my password that I've never changed but it reports "Incorrect username or password entered. Please try again." Again, I'm curious why I had to change my password to resolve this issue. -84user (talk) 02:51, 20 June 2019 (UTC) EDIT to raise the prior issue that led me to discover the unified login failing, and that is the Mark as Read choice in my Notifications (View Notices on top line to right of View Alerts) has no effect: clicking mark as read made the blue dot empty, but the notice was still there and a refresh page returned the status to unread. Is there a more direct way to get Mark as Read, or maybe ,mark all notices as read, to work? (only workaround I found was an awkward visitng of the actual source of the notice and refreshing the page, in my case was on wikidata). Somehow the notice system is not syncing? -84user (talk) 03:08, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

All syncing systems (including password/email updates and user renaming) seem to be slow at the moment, it can take a couple of hours. Jannik Schwaß (talk) 04:47, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Quran (8:67) - "It is not for a Prophet that he should have prisoners of war until he had made a great slaughter in the land..." add to Kosovo, Bangladesh, Turkey, Pakistan, Croatia ....all the way back to 7th century Arabia please.[edit]

It is not for us to interpret the words of the prophet Mohammad....simply to carry them out or die immediately. More like Satan inspires him. Not God who created Man. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.193.64.67 (talk) 05:22, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

If you are asking for a quotation to be added to the articles about five or more nations, then no. If you want some other help, please ask for it more clearly. -- Hoary (talk) 05:25, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I would assume the asker considers this relevant contextual information for pages about Muslim-majority countries. We shall make that addition as soon as we are done with adding Exodus 22:20 (or any other such example) to Christian-majority countries (i.e., never). Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 15:20, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Football club kit patters[edit]

Helped
I am currently updating Dumbarton FC seasons pages including the addition of historical kits worn by the players during that season.

I have source material for the styles (historicalkits.co.uk) but other than 'trial and error' am unaware of any guide on the coding required for displaying the kits on the relevant page.

For example the 1876-77 season shows the following code:

Is there a reference point I can go to for future changes? Aitkegs (talk)

Hi @Aitkegs: Is this what you're looking for? Template:Football kit/pattern list. Orville1974 (talk) 08:21, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Orville1974: Perfect - many thanks Aitkegs (talk)

Hello, Aitkegs. I'm not convinced that historicalkits.co.uk is regarded as a reliable source. See the discussion at WP:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 69#Manchester United F.C. Kit Sources. --ColinFine (talk) 17:42, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@ColinFine: Noted. However I do not rely on a single source. The Historical Kits site was just a good example of what I was trying to investigate i.e. kit patterns. Aitkegs (talk)

Contacting Wikipedia editors for a specific discipline[edit]

Hi - I work in a University and we want to set up a Wikipedia Edit event. We'd like to contact the editorial team for the discipline we are looking to edit to get some advice. How do we do this? Thanks, Andy

134.36.253.160 (talk) 10:42, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hey anon. It's not required, but a good first step would be registering an account and/or enabling email, which will make it a great deal easier for others to communicate with you over time. Other than that, if you could give us more information about what university you are working with, or what field you are interested in, we can probably be more helpful. There are preexisting groups on some campuses already, with some programs partnering with the Wiki Educational Foundation to incorporate editing Wikipedia into their curriculum. We also have a range of WikiProjects that are organized geographically and by subject area. GMG ^talk 10:55, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Uploading the logo of a company[edit]

Hi,

I want to upload a logo of a company. could you upload it for me?

Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by 1994ams (talk • contribs) 11:28, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@1994ams: I can say that you need to read the posts on your user talk page(User talk:1994ams) about conflict of interest and your username. 331dot (talk) 11:30, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Individual Reverts my Good Faith Edits[edit]

I don't know what this individual has against me and my expertise on "his" particular subject. I don't want an edit war, but I don't know what to do about it. He just says "you are wrong" without describing the specifics. He even deletes my additions to citations. What can I do about this?

Softtest123 (talk) 12:32, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Can you be a bit more specific? Your contribution history is very sporadic; otherwise you are bound to receive generic "Take it to their Talk Page and work it out" responses. Maineartists (talk) 12:49, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Sure. I like to work on Wikipedia when I'm not busy, or as it applies to the work I am doing. Right now I am working on Floating-point arithmetic. The latest history there shows my revert and my explanation. I think he doesn't read my references, so I think it is something personal. I can give you point of interest on this, though I am not really sure why he reverts my stuff except that he reverts a lot of stuff on Floating-point arithmetic. I think he is claiming ownership or something.

And isn't it okay to have multiple references for a factoid? There is often minor differences in perspectives of various citation authors. There are multiple experts in any field and one should study them all to be knowledgeable.

Softtest123 (talk) 14:23, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Just to let others know, the user in question (User:Vincent Lefèvre) seems to be some 'expert' on the subject disputed. He even has his own website about him which can be found via a link on the user's page. Just pointing this out so that others know how to approach. Regards, Willbb234 (talk) 15:45, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Softtest123: It looks like it's a disagreement on "whos paper to use", why don't you open a discussion on the talk page and discuss why you want to change the reference from the existing one to your prefered reference. - FlightTime (open channel) 15:52, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I never intend to replace a reference. Is there a Wikipedia rule against multiple citations for a single factoid? I have no doubt that Professor Lefèvre is an expert on applications of floating point arithmetic. I am an expert on implementation of floating point in hardware. I, too, have a home page, but it is the home page of my floating point company and I think it is against Wikipedia rules to cite one's own company. Inarguably I have few publications on this topic except one: US patent 9817662B2, Alan A. Jorgensen, "Apparatus for Calculating and Retaining a Bound on Error During Floating Point Operations and Methods Thereof", issued 2017-11-17. I think it likely that this will be an important work because it solves the problem of floating point error that has existed for over 75 years, nearly my whole lifetime. (Floating point error cannot be eradicated, but it can be detected, which it is not in the current floating point standard.) It is natural that there will be controversy, but I think that this controversy should not be reflected in the manner that Wikipedia articles are edited; the controversy should just be defined. I have, as yet, to see a cogent argument countering my statements.

A paper has been submitted for publication and I have been promised an accept/decline response this week.

I am seeking guidance. I simply wish to post substantiated information on Wikipedia without it being deleted.

Softtest123 (talk) 16:57, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Softtest123: No there is no such rule about multiple references, to an extent, but in this instance you are NOT adding a reference, you are replacing the existing one, like I mentioned above. - FlightTime (open channel) 17:58, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

There's a discussion on the talk page now. My engineering calculus training has left me years ago, so I'm not going to be much help, but there's no reason you can't discuss this there, and come to a resolution, if you are intelligent about it. TimTempleton ^(talk) ^(cont) 18:02, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@FlightTime: That particular edit was a reversion because my edit had been replaced and I could see no reason to retype the whole thing. I have no problem with the Goldberg-91 reference. It could have been added, but he replaced my reference which, as I have noted, is the earliest reference to floating point error that I have ever found. I think it is important to know how long floating point error has been known and not resolved.

Softtest123 (talk) 19:15, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I'm taking this issue back to the talk page and replacing the deleted section as stated there with my reasons.

Softtest123 (talk) 19:23, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Well, good luck with that. Please do us all a favor and review WP:INDENT. - FlightTime (open channel) 19:27, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

A reference should be helpful to the reader. The patent in question really is not (but this is not the purpose of patents). This is why I replaced this reference by the paper from Goldberg ("What Every Computer Scientist Should Know About Floating-Point Arithmetic"), which is an often cited reference by the community. Softtest123 reverted my change, saying "This patent is the earliest know reference to floating point error [...]". But the goal of a reference is not to be the first one. Moreover, I would be very surprised that the notion of cancellation were not known before (the patent is from 1962). Thus I think that the reference should be changed back to Goldberg's paper. Vincent Lefèvre (talk) 19:29, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

It would seem that when two editors use the term: "I" with little communication as to "why", it most definitely ends with not only confusion but lines being drawn and personalities shown rather than policies. It's always best to simply take it to the Talk Page and gain consensus. After all, WP is a community. Best to you both. Maineartists (talk) 20:53, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Logo Loading[edit]

Hello! Please tell me what I do wrong when loading the company logo - they constantly write to me that the copyright of the image is violated, although the owner of this site has allowed me to use its logo, which I upload. Another person does the same thing and they never write anything about it to him. For example, his download is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Spinet_logo.png and the same is mine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Carsscanner_logo.jpg - what's the difference? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Webseon (talk • contribs) 14:40, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Webseon: We cannot just take your word that the owner of this site has allowed me to use its logo, and furthermore we need a much more precise release of copyright ("yeah, you can upload it to Wikipedia" is insufficient). Reading the page Wikipedia:Donating copyrighted materials should dispel any misunderstandings, and gives the procedure to correctly upload such logos.

As for your example, first of all, plenty of stuff on Wikipedia is wrong but it is not a reason to add similar wrong things, and secondly, File:Spinet_logo.png has been tagged for speedy deletion as a copyright violation (which will likely happen soon). Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 15:11, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

But the good news, Webseon, is that Logos are often used in Wikipeda articles without requiring permission, as they can often be used in a way which meets all the criteria in the non-free content criteria. You have to show when uploading how they meet these criteria. See WP:LOGOS for more information. --ColinFine (talk) 17:49, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

User blocked for 48 hours for disruptive editing. See User talk:Webseon. TimTempleton ^(talk) ^(cont) 17:54, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

birth certificate citation[edit]

how should public records such as birth certificates be cited? cite book?, Mkoronowski (talk) 17:45, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Mkoronowski: This is a new one for me. I'm unsure whether you can post a birth certificate, for various reasons. I'd first be concerned about violations of privacy. Even public State records ask that you provide a reason for your search. Then, unless the certificate is posted online on a reliable web site, of which none exist that I'm aware of, referencing one in your possession would likely be considered WP:OR. If you were able to find a good reliable web site showing a birth certificate, such as for a deceased celebrity who had some controversy about their birth, you could simply use the Template:Cite web template. Other helpers may have more insight into this. TimTempleton ^(talk) ^(cont) 18:15, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure what jurisdiction you live in(and I don't need to know, don't share if you don't wish to), but usually records like birth certificates are not accessible to the general public, at least for many years or even decades. If it's not accessible to the general public, it can't be used as a source. Even if it's accessible, I would attempt to find other sources first. 331dot (talk) 18:51, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Not only would the birth certificate have to be available to the public, but if the person is still alive, you can't use it (WP:BLPPRIMARY). Jc3s5h (talk) 18:59, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Publishing of Burdwan Institute of Pharmacy Wiki Page.[edit]

Dear Wikipedia ,

The Shishu Niketan(Society),Bhatchala,P.O. Sripally,Burdwan-713103,W.B. Regd. under WB Act XXVI of 1961, No S/37776 of 1982-83 proposes to establish a pharmacy college in the name and style of Burdwan Institute of Pharmacy with the course Diploma in Pharmacy(D.Pharma) from the academic session 2019-20. For this purpose to the society has taken a venture to launch this job oriented course. The society meant for educational purpose and serving the society for more than 45 years.

Kindly publish our article . I am also attaching the website - http://burinspharma.in/

Thanking You ,

Warm Regards ,

Secretary Burdwan Institute of Pharmacy — Preceding unsigned comment added by 103.43.83.10 (talk) 18:07, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

You're better off starting here and being mindful of any conflict of interest Wikipedia:Articles for creation. TimTempleton ^(talk) ^(cont) 18:17, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Secretary. You need to start by determining which reliable publications, wholly unconnected with the Institute of Pharmacy, have already published significant material about the Institute. If (as I suspect) there are none yet, then it is TOOSOON. If there are such sources then an article can be written about it, based almost entirely on what those sources say: Wikipedia has no interest in what the Institute (or any other subject) wishes to say about itself. Wikipedia is not for promotion (or, in other words, telling the world about something). It is only interest in subjects that the world has already taken note of. --ColinFine (talk) 19:14, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Help:Cite errors/Cite error ref too many keys[edit]

Leon E Rosenberg List of memberships in Infobox scientist has been red flagged because it has too many keys. How can I get rid of the red flags in the inbox?

Leon E Rosenberg173.61.129.43 (talk) 18:07, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Done Leon E. Rosenberg appears to have been fixed by editor FlightTime. TimTempleton ^(talk) ^(cont) 18:21, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, sorry running late to post reply here. There were many markup errors in the newly added content. - FlightTime (open channel) 18:28, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

can't save edits in my sandbox page[edit]

Helped
I'm editing this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:BrucePL/sandbox/MOR_edits?action=edit

Tried to save my edits and got HTTP error 404.

What's going one? I've been editing this page for days. BrucePL (talk) 18:41, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @BrucePL: Try refreshing your cache: WP:BYPASS. That usually clears it up. Orville1974 (talk) 18:48, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Head shot image[edit]

My boss Laura Eason would like to add her headshot to her Wiki page, Laura Eason. I've tried to upload the headshot from my computer, but my permission is denied. How can I add this photo? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Liz.efrankel (talk • contribs) 19:40, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Liz.efrankel: I would first inform you that if you are here at the direction of your boss, you are required by Wikipedia's Terms of Use to review and comply with the paid editing policy; you should also review the conflict of interest policy. Please also note that the article is an article about your boss. not "her Wiki page". If any message came up when you attempted to upload the photo, please share it, but you need to actually have the rights to the photo in order to be able to upload it, and the photo has to have a license compatible with Wikipedia's(the photo needs to be able to be reproduced with attribution for any purpose). Please read the image uploading guidelines and donating copyrighted materials for more information. 331dot (talk) 19:47, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Should the categories for "sub-Roman Britain" include the late 4th century?[edit]

Roman rule in Britain began to collapse in 383 (according to this website's own article), but did not fully end until about 410. Should the categories of this and associated pages include the 4th century, then? Or should it just be ignored, since Roman rule didn't extend (much) into Scotland and thus never all of Britain anyway? (Edit: Sorry that I initially forgot to sign.)--Thylacine24 (talk) 23:17, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Under the section Meaning of terms the period of sub-Roman Britain is defined as 410 to either 597 or 633. 383 does not occur in the article. Therefore I wouldn't include the 4th century at all. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 07:51, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Martin of Sheffield on the 4th century. Until January 2019 the lead mentioned a period beginning with the Crisis of the third century. However the article covers parts of Scotland so I think it could be included in the Scottish 5th and 6th century categories.TSventon (talk) 08:42, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]