Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2020 March 30

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March 30

I was assigned there from 1968 to 1970 in the 1922nd Comm Sq., Lt Col Frank Ely, 1922nd Comm Squadron Commander

Williams AFB AZ

I was assigned there from 1968 to 1970 in the 1922nd Comm Sq. Lt Col Frank Ely, 1922nd Comm Squadron Commander — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.124.195.86 (talk) 02:55, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

What change do you think we should make, and to which article? The 1922d is listed in the Williams Air Force Base article. -Arch dude (talk) 03:22, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Mixed-up authority control-links

Hello in the stub-article about the swedish slong track speed skater (Per Bengtsson) there is a mix up of authority control links most of them are not for the speed skater I believe, there was a merging on wikidata between a the speed skater and another swedish guy (Per Bengtsson (Q5570332)) with the same name and same birthyear, but different birthdate and birthmonth. For example the VIAF profilelink shows both wikidata names, and that is where I think the fault has been developing further on to other authority control profile-links. Since I'm not that much into these kinda profile-links since I don't really understand them. I only know the speed skater a little bit, and people I know in the speed skating family confirms that these two guys are not the same person. So what to to ? Anyone ? Best regards Migrant (talk) 03:39, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

James Bryce, 1st Viscount Bryce

In the family section, ref number 35 is largely in red (the quote) please leave it in but it needs to be in black. I cannot do it myself on this device. thanks175.33.49.35 (talk) 05:35, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

 Fixed -- John of Reading (talk) 06:34, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Need to fix my user name

I've been signed up to Wikipedia since 2007 and I can't believe I didn't notice a small but signifigant error in my user name here on Wikipedia. My user name as it currently is is "Rricci42". I wish to change it to "RRicci428" (the 2nd `r' is capitalized). I can't find a way to fix this. Can someone tell me how to fix this? TIA Rricci428 (talk) 11:10, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

@Rricci428: See Wikipedia:Changing username. Ian.thomson (talk) 11:14, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

@Ian.thomson: Thanks for the QUICK response. I could have held my breath from the time I posted that and your response!

Edit for clarity? How to question

I questioned how something was worded in an entry (Steve?) because that sentence needs work but I could not find where to ask for it to be reviewed. Do you have a mechanism for that? The sentence in question has someone (Steve, apparently) running somewhere--yet nowhere else above that sentence do I see any mention of Steve. Who is Steve? To make it more confusing, the sentence goes on to mention Stephen someone. Are they the same person? Someone wrote to me my change had been undone. Well, yeah. It's been changed back to the same confusing content. Is it common practice to just let errors or confusion stand until or unless someone has the definitive answer? How does one ask for others to at least take a look at something? The entry in question is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence_Lassandro — Preceding unsigned comment added by ElleCeeEditor (talk • contribs) 11:52, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

@ElleCeeEditor: Your edit was undone by 3125A with this edit as all it did was insert a question mark after the name 'Steve'. Although the content may appear confusing to you this is not the way to draw attention to it. It does not really help and appears unencyclopedic to the reader. It would probably be considered 'talking' within the article. For future reference, you can use a template like so {{clarify|date= month year}} placed, within the source, immediately after the confusing content. The place to discuss this is at the article talk page or at the talk page of the reverting editor. (See the link to their page at the end of the message they sent you). Please sign your posts on talk pages by typing four tildes (~~~~). THank you. Eagleash (talk) 12:10, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

@ElleCeeEditor: I have ascertained, via a look through the page history, that 'Steve' was the son of Lassandro's criminal accomplice. This fact had become removed from the page at some point as it was also displayed in an unencyclopedic way. Eagleash (talk) 12:32, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Momo (food)

Your information about ‘Momo’ is completely wrong. Momo is not at all related to India. It is a typical food from Nepal. You guys Definitely need to do more research on this. Nepal is not advance in technology so you will probably find less article from nepal and more from india. but that doesn’t mean it is related to India. Nepal and India is a different country, you cant write Indian for anything that is related to Nepal.

When i search Momo, it says ‘Indian Dish’. This is so wrong. It is a typical ‘Nepali Dish’. I studied in India and no-one knew what Momo was. Lately it is getting popular in India but this does not mean it is originated or related. I was in India for 4 years (2010-2014) and travelled almost all part of India and no one knew what Momo was. Not even a vegetarian MoMo. I am vegetarian and i had Momo since my childhood, in my home-country, Nepal. And Indian people only started eating Momo probably 5 years before. There are thousands of Nepali student in India and they craved for eating Momo While they are in India and they had to cook themself to satisfy their hunger of Momo. because Indian restaurant never know what it was And never used to sell . Some of the Nepali Who lived in India used to sell it in streets but only when Nepali people demands. But now a days Indian people have learned the test of Momo and it is getting popular. Go to Nepal and you will see what exactly Momo is for Nepali people. It is everywhere, street, restaurant, 5star hotel. You probably have to walk few steps to find another momo shop. And the spices used in it is not indian spices, it has typical Nepali species. Esecially in ‘Momo jhol’ (this is like a sauce). You can smell Momo everywhere in Nepal. Nepali people can’t leave without momo. and your information says it is Indian dish. Get some knowledge before you write anything. Because Wikipedia is momething people around the world read. Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.245.132.99 (talk) 14:07, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Where do you search on Momo to see "Indian Dish"?. It is not in Momo (food) which mentions several countries including Nepal many times. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:29, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Hey, welcome to Wikipedia! The article Momo (food) lists the dish as being native to "Tibet, Bhutan, Nepal, North Indian region of Ladakh". It is true that Google calls it an Indian dish, but that's not decided by Wikipedia. If you want to change how Google lists it, you can request so by Googling "momo dish" and then clicking "Feedback" under the box on the right. If you disagree with the Wikipedia article, you are welcome to iniate a discussion at Talk:Momo (food). Again, welcome to Wikipedia! Best, MrClog (talk) 14:33, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

I only tried a Google search on Momo and got Momo Challenge hoax in Google's box. I do get Momo (food) on "momo dish". Our stock answer:

Are you by any chance referring to a photo or text shown to the right of a Google search? Google's Knowledge Graph uses a wide variety of sources. There may be a text paragraph ending with "Wikipedia" to indicate that particular text was copied from Wikipedia. An image and other text before or after the Wikipedia excerpt may be from sources completely unrelated to Wikipedia. We have no control over how Google presents our information, but Google's Knowledge Graph has a "Feedback" link where anyone can mark a field as wrong.. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:29, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Want to know why an article was PROD in 2007

The article is List of sprinters. Why was this article deleted?—Naddruf (talk ~ contribs) 14:54, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

The reason given in the PROD is: "this article is simply unmanageable and could run into tens of thousands of names, providing little (if any) useful content". 331dot (talk) 14:56, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Which would be covered by the policy WP:NOTDIRECTORY - X201 (talk) 15:01, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

@Naddruf: The category system is better-suited for such things. See Category:Sprinters for all the sprinters, arranged in sub-categories by country and gender. —[AlanM1 (talk)]— 15:07, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

I don't agree with that. There is a reason to show the sprinters who won medals at major international competitions. I'm making the article because you can find the sprinters who were active in a particular period, those who won gold medals, and you can also look them up by a name and see how many there are by country. With this list you don't have to click through all the articles to find the major facts about them. It's not going to be tens of thousands, it will be several hundred. I am aware of the categories but using them to help build the articles. If you look in WP:NOTDIRECTORY, it says it is appropriate if the people are significantly associated and contribute to the topic. Maybe I can shorten the accomplishments section to just include the events and the timespan in which they won medals, instead of all the medals. Also see Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and navigation templates. —Naddruf (talk ~ contribs) 15:38, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

The deleted page was just two alphabetical lists of 126 male and 18 female sprinters with an article link and country abbreviation. Category:Male sprinters and Category:Female sprinters give the same info but for far more sprinters with no need to maintain separate lists. There may be ways to make a more meaningful list but note we already have pages like 100 metres at the Olympics#Medal summary and 100 metres at the World Championships in Athletics#Medalists. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:45, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Take a look at Draft:List of sprinters.—Naddruf (talk ~ contribs) 15:51, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

It's certainly better than the deleted page but when it's all about medals, I would like sortable columns for number of gold, silver, bronze and total, like List of multiple Olympic medalists. Abbreviations or would be OK to make narrow columns. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:32, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestions. I can make sortable columns for number of medals, and another column that lists all events they won medals in (which consists of 60 m, 100 m, 200 m, 400 m, 4x100 m relay, 4x400 m relay, and possibly some imperial distances), and one more column for years from beginning to end of their wins. I'm not sure whether it's necessary to segregate Olympics, World Championships, World Indoor Championships, and World/Continental Cup. These criteria were copied from List of middle-distance runners.—Naddruf (talk ~ contribs) 16:48, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

I think a column listing if they have held a world record (in 100, 200, or 400) would also be good.—Naddruf (talk ~ contribs) 16:52, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

It sounds like a lot of work (I'm not doing it) and a wide table. I would be OK with the combined medal counts. The year of first/last medal appears more relevant to me than lifespan here. I think only one of them is needed to give an indication of their era, and death year seems less important for people known for achievements as young. PrimeHunter (talk) 17:05, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, but I'm doing it (over time). I'll start adjusting the lifespan to years active and make only one set of medals.—Naddruf (talk ~ contribs) 17:08, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

@Naddruf: My original response was related to the plain meaning of the title, i.e., "List of [all] sprinters". The title should better reflect the specific criteria for the list. How about something like "List of medalist sprinters"? —[AlanM1 (talk)]— 17:47, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

Ok, that title would be okay.—Naddruf (talk ~ contribs) 18:41, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

What links to Xenon 2: Megablast

Why are the talk pages of pretty much every article related to computers suddenly linking to Xenon 2: Megablast? JIP | Talk 15:11, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

@JIP: The {{WikiProject Video games}} talk page banner transcludes {{WPVG announcements}}, which then transcludes a list of "good article" nominees. Click "show" to expand the wikiproject banner and then "show" again to expand the "Summary of Video games WikiProject open tasks". -- John of Reading (talk) 15:19, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

2020 coronavirus pandemic in New Mexico

my name is hubert allen and i am following covid19 in new mexico - who is posting? Love to chat with them thx [Redacted] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:8C3:4000:9C0:1B3:EF65:658B:C5D1 (talk) 15:57, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

The article talk page would be the best place to ask. See Talk:2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_New_Mexico - X201 (talk) 16:02, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, that's not what Wikipedia is for, unless you are chatting about how to improve the article. Please read WP:NOT. However, you may be able to find one of the Wikipedians working on the article (view the article's history or look at the article's talk page) and then go to their user talk page, and ask them to contact you on social media or e-mail. -Arch dude (talk) 16:16, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Help:Cite errors/Cite error ref no input

I'm trying to add a reference to the article "TAY SACHS Disease. I have a reference: Fraikor, Arlene L. "TAY SACHS Disease: Genetic Drift Among the AShkenazin Jews. Social Biology 1977, V.24. No.2, pp117-134. It could be reference number 63 in the reference section and the superscript number needs to be added after the sentence where the error is cited. Thanks

Goldsilver5979 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Goldsilver5979 (talk • contribs) 16:02, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

You'll find advice at Help:Referencing for beginners. --David Biddulph (talk) 16:41, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Where can I find articles that are known to not have promotional language?

I'm working on a project that uses machine learning, and as part of the training dataset I need a lot of articles that are known to not have promotional language. Any ideas for where I could find this? My first thought was WP:Good articles, but these articles aren't representative of an "average" Wikipedia article (they are usually a lot longer). I also thought that Category:Wikipedia protected pages might work, but there are very few there in comparison to good articles. Merlin04^talk_contribs 16:54, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

@Merlin04: It's hard to prove a negative. You might be able to train an AI on (revisions of) articles that have been flagged as being promotional and then have it look at our entire corpus of articles that have not been flagged, to see what the differences are. As a guess articles in certain categories (bands, businesses) with certain characteristics (recent creation dates about recently-created entities) will pop right up to the front. -Arch dude (talk) 17:27, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

I would add that if you are looking specifically to avoid promotional language, articles on historical topics (pre-1950) are less likely to contain promotionalism, especially if you exclude articles about extant companies, living people, and people who died in the last 30-50 years. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 18:54, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

As a crude filter, any article that has two or more of the words listed at WP:PEACOCK is suspect. Except of course for the help desk, which is the legendary, best, great, acclaimed, iconic, visionary, outstanding, leading resource for help about Wikipedia. -Arch dude (talk) 19:01, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Would there be a way to get the top 25,000 articles (by page views) from Wikipedia? From there I could try filtering out articles with words at WP:PEACOCK and ones in categories that could have a higher chance of being promotional. I found the MediaWiki RESTBase API, but it can only give me the top 1000 articles by views over a month. Merlin04^talk_contribs 23:27, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Creating a wikipedia article

Hi, I want to create a wikipedia article on Corona virus. Will wikipedia accept it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 223.230.133.179 (talk) 19:15, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

We already have several articles on many aspects of the coronavirus such as 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic and Coronavirus disease 2019, among dozens of others. 331dot (talk) 19:19, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Is a disambiguation page needed?

Is some type of disambiguation page needed for Birx and Deborah Birx? Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 21:01, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

intitle:Birx revealed we have Birx (surname). It's small but it seems the one to link if Deborah Birx isn't commonly known as just "Birx". I have added {{for|the surname|Birx (surname)}}.[1] PrimeHunter (talk) 21:25, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter: Thanks. That was helpful! Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 18:57, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

Resolved

Tables - layout

Hello! I'm working on a table (in my sandbox at present) and have two points I'd be grateful for help with. First, there is an extra, thin column on the right hand side of the table that I can't get rid of, and secondly I can't work out how to get text in selected cells to indent. (I've looked at Help:Table but couldn't work out how to apply the code mentioned there.) I've got the relevant cells aligned right at the moment, but aligned left and indented would be better. Pointers on either or both of these little problems would be most gratefully received. Tim riley talk 21:52, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

@Tim riley: "Suite in Three Keys" has a cell too much. This creates an extra column. It's easy to spot in Firefox because it's the only row where the cell in that column is surrounded by horizontal lines. Other browsers may render it differently. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:31, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

PrimeHunter, than you so much. Your advice worked a treat! Tim riley talk 22:34, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Edit source

For some stupid reason sometimes when i try to edit it says edit source which takes me to something that is confusing to me instead of just letting me editHomeofthething (talk) 23:43, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

You do seem confused. In "My pages | Preferences | Editing", make sure that "Temporarily disable the visual editor while it is in beta" isn't checked. -- Hoary (talk) 02:54, 31 March 2020 (UTC)