Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2020 May 5

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May 5

Change of User name

How do I change my Wikipedia user name? — Preceding unsigned comment added by YoRuggerDude (talk • contribs) 01:08, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Having your name changed means work for somebody else. Your contributions so far under this name have been so few that it just isn't worth that other person's time. Therefore simply create a new user ID and use that. -- Hoary (talk) 01:16, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Image Copyright

Hello, I am recently uploading several of my images on the Wikipedia articles I'm creating. That being said, I assure that these works are solely mine and I own the entire copyright. However, after uploading them on Wikipedia, do I still own the Copyright to them or Wikipedia does and I cannot use them anywhere else on my upcoming works? If so, I will have to consider stopping uploading my images. I'd like to get some help on this.

Update: Quisqualis, It's a bad thing then. I have uploaded some photos of rare insects and would like to withdraw them now, i.e. reclaim my copyright as I was not aware of it before. Is there any chance I could delete those images? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sajankc (talk • contribs) 06:19, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Sajankc (talk • contribs) 04:23, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Sajankc, all material on Wikipedia is free to use (by you or by anyone else) for any purpose. You give up your copyright when you upload your photo. If another party then uses "your" image for their own purposes (even commercial), you have no recourse.--Quisqualis (talk) 06:04, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

@Sajankc:, to clarify, you still own the copyright - you retain the right to do anything you want with it, but you grant an extremely permissive license to Wikimedia, allowing it to be reused both on and offsite so long as they credit you and duplicate the license. Nosebagbear (talk) 08:25, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Nosebagbear: Thank you. I'd be okay as long as I get the credit for my works. I'd be really pissed if I saw my works in someone else's publications/works without due credits. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sajankc (talk • contribs) 11:44, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

@Sajankc: You have uploaded them under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license, meaning others are legally required to give proper credit to you. --MrClog (talk) 11:49, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

MrClog: That's much assuring. Thank you so much! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sajankc (talk • contribs) 12:04, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

@Sajankc:You still own the copyright. You have now provided a very permissive license to anyone who copies it directly or indirectly from Wikipedia, but it's not an "exclusive" license, so you, the copyright owner, are free to use the images yourself in any way, and you are free to license the images to others under a different license. For example, CC-BY-SA requires that "derivative works" also have a CC-BY-SA license, so someone who wants to use your image on a web page or in a book would have to license the web page or book under CC-BY-SA. But they could instead come to you and negotiate for a different license. -Arch dude (talk) 14:52, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Language/Spelling

Hello, I'm curious if there's a way of changing the type of English spelling that I see when I use Wikipedia. I'd like to see either Canadian or UK English and not the American spelling. I'm finding that my kids are picking up bad habits and I'd like to nip it in the bud.

Thank you Mike Davis — Preceding unsigned comment added by MikeDavis78 (talk • contribs) 04:58, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Hello MikeDavis78. Not that I know of, but perhaps there's some clever off-WP gadget somewhere. You may find WP:ENGVAR of interest. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 05:19, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Do you mean text within an article, or within the Wikipedia framework itself? As mentioned above, Engvar is a good starting point - some articles are inherently American (Donald Trump), some are British (Harry Potter) and some are Canadian (Wayne Gretzky). Where an article has definite ties to a specific country, that country's English variation is used and if you see any discrepencies in such articles you're free to change them - and indeed you should. Some articles will have hidden templates in them to specify a particular usage - the Gretzky article has the following:

{{Use Canadian English|date=June 2019}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=January 2019}}

You should be aware - people can get uncharacteristically precious over spellings, especially geographical variations. Chaheel Riens (talk) 08:45, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Using a single reference across multiple articles

Is it possible to use the same reference across multiple articles, without having to type it out in full each time? We can use transclude to copy chunks of article "A" and reflect them in article "B" - can you do a similar thing with references? Chaheel Riens (talk) 08:34, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Hello, Chaheel Riens. Yes, you can transclude a file containing a reference. See here, where I'm transcluding User:ColinFine/samplereference. Whether there's any point in doing so is another question. And I haven't found a way to put the <ref> .. </ref> in the transclusion without getting a newline before the citation. --ColinFine (talk) 09:50, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

@Chaheel Riens: I'm a bit concerned about this. When you transclude, changes to the ref are not reflected in the change history of the articles into which the ref is included. By convention we use transclusion from template space and in a few other somewhat obscure places. I can see and advantage to your proposal, in certain cases, but I hope you will either include from template space, or in some other carefully-considered way. One possibility would be to add a transclude-able section in an article about the reference when such an article exists. -Arch dude (talk) 17:31, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Well, what set me thinking about it was a few recent edits over at Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, Jumanji: The Next Level and subsequently Kevin Hart regarding whether his character is named "Moose" or "Mouse". I wondered if there was a simple way of using the same film quote that clarifies this referenced across all three articles, and as I've used transclusion before (Tharg the Mighty) wondered again if this may be the way. In this example it's not really practical to transclude article content, it's the reference supporting content that's needed.

If a change is made to a section of article "A" which is transcluded into article "B" - is article "B"s history updated as well? Chaheel Riens (talk) 18:09, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

No. If article B is not edited, B's history is not updated. Changes in templates or any other pages transcluded in B do not appear in B's history. That is one reason why a number of templates say that they should be {{subst}}ed rather than transcluded. --David Biddulph (talk) 19:25, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

References

Ok, I'm not sure if I'm misunderstanding then - @Arch dude: seemed to imply that a change to a transcluded ref not updating the target article history was unusual, but that seems to be the norm? If that's the case then what's the difference between using a ref in transclusion or a regular piece of text for an article? Not being arsey, just wanting to know. Chaheel Riens (talk) 19:35, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

No difference. Any transclusion has this same effect. It's just that transclusion is not widely used except in conjunction with templates, so a casual user or editor may not be sensitive to it. If I am monitoring a page and it has a transcluded ref, then if you change the ref I will not be notified. This is not technically wrong, but it just feels funny. -Arch dude (talk) 21:00, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Righto - thanks for clearing that up. I wasn't aware of the lack of change history in a transcluded section, but it makes sense. In this specific example I don't think it matters - not being particularly controversial - but certainly somethign to bear in mind. Chaheel Riens (talk) 09:35, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Minor Edits

Hello, I'm having trouble posting minor edits. After making an edit, when I tick the minor edits box it often prompts me that it's about to leave the page (without saving), and if I get past that and tick the box and add my edit summary before pressing publish, it often reverts to the old article before the edit was made. It's frustrating to say the least. Any help would be much appreciated.Berek (talk) 08:39, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

It did not happen for me. Maybe it's a bug in your version? Wynn Liaw (talk) 14:56, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Deleted question

I advised an editor they could have a Wikipedia:Conflict of interest on the helpdesk yesterday and they deleted their question. Is this acceptable, or should I revert their edit so the query can be archived? TSventon (talk) 10:45, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Hi, TSventon. WP:REDACT makes it clear that that is not acceptable behaviour. It doesn't say explicitly what action should be taken: I would say that reinstating the whole discussion is appropriate, and perhaps warning the user. --ColinFine (talk) 11:29, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Hi, ColinFine that was what I thought, but I couldn't find the guidance. I have reinstated the discussion and informed the user. TSventon (talk) 12:00, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Regarding anthem of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia

Hello, I am relatively new to Wikipedia, so I thought I would ask a question here.

I have a better sound quality anthem of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia than what is featured on the article of the same name. I wanted to ask if we should replace the older version, and to hear others opinions on the matter. I can upload the sound file for review if requested.

If this is an inappropriate place to ask this question, please do tell me. Thanks in advance. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ViceChairman6492 (talk • contribs) 12:59, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

The right place to discuss it is on the talk page of the article in question. --David Biddulph (talk) 13:01, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

ViceChairman6492 This isn't necessarily an inappropriate place to ask, but a better place would be the article talk page, where editors that monitor that article regularly can weigh in and assist if needed. The talk page is at Talk:Kingdom of Yugoslavia. 331dot (talk) 13:02, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

• The anthem that is currently there is Public Domain due to age. The recording you have will also have to be freely licensed in order to use it here. Crow^Caw 13:27, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for the quick response. ViceChairman6492 (talk) 13:39, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

I am the owner of a page and people are erasing my updates

Hello,

The International SeaKeepers Society is my page for my company, people keep reverting the page back to 2015 edits, how can I keep people from deletingall of my updates?

- Ariel — Preceding unsigned comment added by AMadison463 (talk • contribs) 15:11, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

@AMadison463: Hi Ariel, nobody "owns" pages on Wikipedia. In addition, it is strongly discouraged to edit your own pages, see WP:COI. Sorry about that. Ed6767 (talk) 15:13, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) (Courtesy link: International SeaKeepers Society)

AMadison463, Hi Ariel. Unfortunately, nobody owns Wikipedia articles, and in particular not the people that they're written about. (See WP:OWN for more on this.) It looks like your edits were removed because they were considered not to be neturally written, and perhaps to be promotional in tone. Wikipedia tries hard to prevent things from a neutral point of view.

If the ISKS is your company, you should also read WP:PSCOI, which is a practical guide to handling a conflict of interest. In particular, you should declare your COI (i.e. that it's your company) on your user page or user talk page, and, in general, request that edits to the ISKS article be made on its talk page, rather than editing the article directly.

(By the way, if I'm correct that User:AMB463 is also you, you should note that you shouldn't use two accounts to contribute to Wikipedia, as it may be considered sock puppetry, which isn't allowed.) YorkshireLad  ✿  ^(talk) 15:20, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

@AMadison463: if by "your company" you mean that you are an employee or officer of the company or are otherwise compensated for editing, then you are not just "discouraged" from editing the article: you are prohibited from editing the article by the Wikimedia foundation's terms of use for this web site, which you agree to each time you hit the "publish" button. Please read WP:PAID. We do value your input. Please make edit suggestions on the article's talk page. -Arch dude (talk) 16:47, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Nobody "owns" any pages - it is strongly discouraged to edit your own pages? How can they be their own pages if nobody "owns" any pages? =) JIP | Talk 21:15, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

@JIP: the Wikipedia policy (WP:COI) is about conflict of interest, and does not use the term "own". The OP use the term "owner" to describe a page, and the folks who responded chose to use the term in response. -Arch dude (talk) 02:31, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

A direct quote from User:Ed6767 in this very discussion here in reply to User:AMadison463: "Hi Ariel, nobody "owns" pages on Wikipedia. In addition, it is strongly discouraged to edit your own pages, see WP:COI. Sorry about that." JIP | Talk 10:26, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

@JIP: Yes. What Ed6767 meant (if I may presume) was "... it is strongly discouraged to edit articles about you or your employer ...". —[AlanM1 (talk)]— 23:29, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

Requesting Flickr images to be uploaded to Commons

Is there a place where you can request other users to upload Flickr photos to Commons? Also, is there a place where you can request cropped versions of current Commons images? Sorry if this is not the correct place for this, I wasn't sure where to post this. Carfan568 (talk) 16:15, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

@Carfan568: If a Flickr image has been given a CC-BY-SA license at Flickr by the photographer that took it, then you may upload it to Commons. If it does not have the proper copyright license, then neither you nor anyone else except the copyright holder may upload it to commons. See Flickr's copyright page. If you are the photographer and it's your Flickr account, then give it the proper license at Flickr, and then upload it to Commons. -Arch dude (talk) 16:30, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

@Carfan568: There are several ways to crop an image. One way is to use Commons:CropTool. -Arch dude (talk) 16:37, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

@Arch dude: Sorry for not clarifying, but is there a place where I can specifically request other people to do so, if I give a link to a picture with a proper license? Carfan568 (talk) 16:58, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

@Carfan568: We are all volunteers, so you will need to attract the attention of someone who likes to do this stuff. I think you will have better luck over on Commons. Try starting at c:Help:Contents. It's often easier to learn to upload and crop yourself, but you are right, different folks may have different skills and interests. -Arch dude (talk) 18:10, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Iwilsonp made a change that I don’t agree with.

How do I have this discussion? — Preceding unsigned comment added by HollyWpress (talk • contribs) 16:44, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

HollyWpress You begin a discussion on the article talk page, explaining why you disagree with the edit, preferably with reasons based in Wikipedia guidelines, but at least using logical arguments. 331dot (talk) 16:46, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

HollyWpress, you were given good advice above, but you've ignored it and are continuing to edit-war at The Assets. Maybe you don't understand what 331dot meant by "the article talk page" – it's at Talk:The Assets. Start you discussion by clicking "New section" in the tab at the top. Maproom (talk) 07:42, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

printing of a broad page doesn't work

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:ElectronPdf&page=Comparison+of+e-readers&action=show-download-screen

The printing of a broad page (typically here the tables) doesn't work correctly, the last columns are not printed.

What is the solution ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ym21 (talk • contribs) 17:28, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

• Hi Ym21. Looks like I am seeing the same thing. This may look like a bug. Can you open a bug report at Wikimedia Phabricator providing details as to how to replicate the bug and stuff at https://whatsmybrowser.com/? You simply log on using the "Login using MediaWiki" button and use your Wikipedia credentials to log on to MediaWiki (if prompted) or reload the page when you see "You are centrally logged in as ...". The WMF dev team will then work to patch it. Thanks for raising this concern to us Wikipedia contributors. Have a good day. Aasim 21:23, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

I just received a FINAL WARNING for an ordinary edit (please see the last post on the TALK page of my username)

I removed a sentence from the headline of the article, Frank J. Tipler. The sentence in question states that a certain scientist has supposedly labelled his ideas as "pseudoscience". I believe that such form of criticism, if valid, should be explored in the body of the article, provided that the source is notable, and the point is fully developed. I even referenced this in the edit note. The person object of this article is an established scientist himself, and any sense of basic precautionary principle should clearly side on avoiding such type of labels in any case, specially in the headline (See: https://www.americanscientist.org/blog/from-the-staff/stop-using-the-word-pseudoscience)

I was threatened with being banned from Wikipedia for defaming the scientist that was referenced to make this label, George Ellis.

This judgment and the threat that I received is problematic on multiple levels.

First of all, is asserting that any given individual is not an authority on what constitutes science a form defamation, or indeed even any sort of personal attack? I believe it is common knowledge that there is no authority on who defines what is science. This is central to my point and to what I've been accused of.

The point of my edit was that it was an arbitrary label that falls short of properly considering the 'due weight' principle. I would even add that George Ellis himself would probably not be comfortable with such distinction. I believe my edit note was completely misconstrued as a form of defamation.

Furthermore, what makes it especially bizarre was the way the issue of authority was evoked to suggest a form of "defamation against biographical living persons". This was an edit to remove an assertion on the grounds of undue weight in the article of another person. It seems arbitrary to consider that this particular scientist is an authority on how Frank J.Tipler should be classified. Had I been guilty of failing to recognize this scientist's expertise, or notability for this particular assertion (which I was not), it would still not constitute a case of defamation against anyone.

In conclusion:

Generally, it could be considered problematic to label someone has being pseudoscientific based on the consensus of the scientific community. This is a problem worth a discussion of itself. In this case, I think it's safe to say that establishing a label from a particular individual is particularly egregious. And to read from the removal of this label as a form of defamation on my part is very hard to understand.

On a personal level, I must say that this threat is somewhat ironic, considering that my edit has solid grounds for being precisely the removal of a potential source of defamation.

Maziotis (talk) 18:07, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Courtesy ping to @ජපස: who doled out the warning. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 18:35, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the courtesy ping. I'll let others handle this. I don't think this user understands the basic rules of Wikipedia. jps (talk) 18:41, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

I would like to understand how I am being accused of defaming someone for whom I have not made any personal consideration whatsoever. Aside from my judgement as an editor on "Due Weight" in the article, this seems to be the central issue and the basis of the ban threat. Exactly what basic rule am I missing? Maziotis (talk) 19:02, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Here's the thing, articles that fall under WP:FRINGE are very carefully monitored and checked to make sure they are treated according to that guideline. As Wikipedia is a WP:MAINSTREAM encyclopedia, we are tasked with reporting mainstream evaluations. You may not like that a scientist declared Tipler's work to be pseudoscience, but that's what happened. The criticism is clearly attributed and is reliably articulated. It is extremely problematic to remove such mainstream evaluation while at the same time declaring in the edit summary that the scientist to whom the statement is attributed is not qualified to decide what science is. BLP is only one of the many issues with this approach. I think you are trying to right great wrongs here. That should be done on a website other than Wikipedia. jps (talk) 19:10, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

I don't even know anything about Tipler's work. All I know is that he is an established physicist, and that it doesn't make much sense to have a label about him on the headline that is essentially a comment from a colleague scientist.

I feel there is more than one issue here. Aside from the issue of authority and consensus on the term "pseudoscience", and even if you don't accept my edit on the grounds of "due weight", I still don't see how I defamed George Ellis. My point had nothing to do with Ellis's credibility and work as a scientist, or any other consideration on his character. As for the reliability of his considerations, I particularly addressed this by saying that they ARE relevant. Maziotis (talk) 19:27, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

If you don't know anything about the subject, it would probably be a good idea to start learning about the subject before you begin removing sourced information. jps (talk) 19:33, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

But I do know about the subject. I know he is a scientist. I know that the article is a biography about a person. And I have worked many years on the policy of due weight. What I know about 'general relativity' or 'string theory' is not relevant here. Maziotis (talk) 19:38, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Side note: There is nothing problamatic in stating that George Ellis is not the final authority on what constitutes science (which is a point that is relevant to my edit). Obviously, he is qualified as a scientist to help determine the scientific consensus on the matter, which should be discussed in the article according to policy. I think you may have missed my point or I didn't explain it properly.Maziotis (talk) 20:02, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

• Maziotis, if you read our article George F. R. Ellis, you will see that George Ellis is extremely well qualified as an authority on what constitutes real cosmology, versus pseudoscience. Also, you seem to be forgetting to mention that ජපස only warned you after you had started edit warring for your preferred version. In view of your belligerent edit summaries (please discuss content only, not other editors, especially in edit summaries), I think the warning was very reasonable. Bishonen | tålk 20:18, 5 May 2020 (UTC).

Please don't redirect me to George Ellis' page. I think you may be missing the point. I didn't question George Ellis' qualification as a scientist in any way. Nor am I weighing in on the validity of his statement. The issue here is not about cosmology. It's about due weight, or perhaps philosophy of science or scientific method, but not cosmology. Any valid scientific argument against Tipler's work should be discussed in the body of the article. There are no grounds for labels in the headline, specially from a single scientist (?!). George Ellis is qualified to criticize Tipler. I never questioned that. I believe scientists are qualified to criticize one another. This is true even when there isn't a scientific consensus on a matter. That is precisely the point of science.

This suspicion of a personal bias on my part is nonsense. I didn't know any of these names until I stumble on Tipler's page yesterday, and I have not made any changes on the George Ellis' article. So, I'm not trying to "right a wrong" here, as it has been suggested. I make small edits to better Wikipedia from time to time, as you can see by my 18-year-something history in here.

Also, I did not start any edit war. I stated my reason for the change, as cited in the text above. A different user changed it back with a personal note about Tipler. If anyone is not respecting policy, it isn't me. Maziotis (talk) 21:11, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Wikidata list template

Have I done something wrong here? Or is there just a delay in ListeriaBot helping me? I've pressed the update button a number of times and nothing is showing up. I tested my query with the SPARQL button and it seems to be pulling the four applicable Wikidata items... Thanks! Calliopejen1 (talk) 23:18, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

@Calliopejen1: According to [1] there are 2583 items in the WAITING state for en and much more than that for some other Wikipedias. Perhaps the bot is just backlogged. RudolfRed (talk) 23:58, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Calliopejen1 (talk • contribs) 00:00, May 6, 2020 (UTC)