Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2021 December 5

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December 5

Donation

I have been donating for some time now and all of a sudden, I'm getting these donation requests. Why?? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:242:4180:8730:3066:45B2:50A3:334 (talk) 00:13, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

Hello. Since you are editing from an IP address, the Wikimedia Foundation has no way of knowing whether or not you have donated previously. This is the annual fundraising period. If you set up a Wikipedia account, you will then have the option to turn off fundraising messages in your account preferences. Cullen328 (talk) 01:11, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

Adding Correct Educational Information

Hello!

First of all, thank you for what you do. I just want to point out that my educational information on my Wiki page is not correct. My education is: MA Tufts University Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy (that is my Alma Mater and most recent degree). Second degree: MA European Languages and Literature, University of London. Third degree MFA The Iowa Writers Workshop, University of Iowa

It now says University of Maine (my BA which I don't consider my Alma Mater). I am happy to supply diplomas. Thank you for your help in advance.

Janine — Preceding unsigned comment added by Janinibini (talk • contribs) 01:32, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

Via a circuitous route, I inferred that the article is Janine di Giovanni. Thank you for not editing it directly. Please make this suggestion/request (and any later one) at Talk:Janine di Giovanni. Please wait a week or so; and if there's still no reaction (or no satisfactory reaction), then feel free to ask here. -- Hoary (talk) 01:53, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

@Janinibini: When posting on Talk:Janine di Giovanni, you can use the {{edit request}} template to get the attention of other editors. Or, you can use the Wikipedia:Edit Request Wizard if you like. Thanks for helping us to improve Wikipedia! GoingBatty (talk) 02:03, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

PopUps Asking for a Donation

I donate every year when I get a reminder into my gmail. Can someone stop this from happening? It is saying, "What is your email? We will send you a reminder. Don't look away". C'mon, please, I just want to use wikipedia in peace. I am one of the good guys who donates annually. Thank you, Carl — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:380:EC8C:EC2:2D58:1C90:5BD4:6570 (talk) 01:43, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

Simple. Create a user ID. Log in under that user ID. (This one log-in can last as long as one year.) Turn off the donation nagging. -- Hoary (talk) 01:48, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

Contributions $$

College teaches NOT to use Wikipedia as a Cite. I, personally, find Wikipedia a great resource for research information. If Wikipedia would provide a PO Box for donations, I believe a lot more support would be given. I would send a contribution via mail, never not online. No response needed. This is a valuable suggestion to you. Your audience comprised of varied ages, and you need to understand that not everyone is comfortable giving online. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.227.175.88 (talk) 04:39, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

Here are listed various ways to donate, not all of them online. -- Hoary (talk) 07:26, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

Digital repairs to old damaged paintings - will Wikipedia use these?

Query: sometimes I digitally edit/repair uncopyrighted paintings from Wikipedia. Can Wikipedia re-use these repaired images? If so, how would I go about linking them to the original without causing confusion, or should they be submitted elsewhere? Please note that while I can do simple edits, I don't have experience in other areas on Wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tzali (talk • contribs) 05:36, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

Tzali, if you uploaded them, then you'd have to choose one option among: (a) waiving any right you might have to them (or denying that you had any right), (b) copylefting them under one or other of the licenses acceptable to Commons, (c) copyright or -lefting them in any other way. If (a) or (b), you should upload them to Commons (if anywhere). If (c), then not to Commons, and I can't imagine how they'd be useful to Wikipedia or accepted by it. When uploading your files to Commons, you'd link them to wherever you cared to within your descriptions of them. Now, can Wikipedia re-use them (if uploaded)? Hard to say without seeing one or more samples. If, in this thread, you linked to two or three as they appear on other websites, then people here could comment on their likely usefulness to Wikipedia. -- Hoary (talk) 07:40, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

@Tzali: legally, your works are "derived works" of the uncopyrighted material. This is the equivalent of doing copy editing of public domain text. To the extent your work is "creative" you own the copyright in those "creative" enhancements. To cover this case, claim the copyright and release it under a compatible license when you add it to Commons. That's good enough for us. If someone else wants to claim that your enhancements are not "creative" enough to be copyrighted, we don't care: we are covered, so your work can be stay on Commons. Use on Wikipedia: Sure, as long as you attribute your source. In this case, the attribution will exist on the image description page of your uploaded image, you will provide a link to the source image and perhaps a brief description of your improvements. Also: Thank you very much for your efforts. -Arch dude (talk) 15:50, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for your prompt responses. I've just started doing some edits/repairs, but don't really have any suitable webpage to share samples, before seeking for approval to upload them. I create graphic designs for a digital magazine I publish and some online shops, so they won't be amateurish. Obviously there are some original paintings that are so badly damaged that I can't fix them, or so small they can't be worked on, so I won't be attempting to do anything with those. At the moment, I've just started doing Biblical paintings. I figured if I'm going to put in the effort, they might as well be shared for others to use, so I'll upload them to commons. I've no interest in copyrighting any of the updated images because I know how difficult useful images are to find or are too expensive for many people to buy. -- Tzali — Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.69.22.198 (talk) 10:37, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Donate page

On arrival at the site is information on donations. I already donate so is it possible to get past that page to what I need to find out more easily than it is now. Also I’m worried about what happens to my bank dd to you if you should fold. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23C5:DD50:601:8DF:D346:9C1:CB9A (talk) 10:31, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

Donations are collected by the Foundation, please direct any inquiries about your donation to the Foundation, see this page. As to messages you get when you view Wikipedia, Wikipedia has no way to know that the person sitting at your computer/holding your device at any given time has donated. You can suppress the donation requests by creating an account and changing your account preferences. 331dot (talk) 11:39, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

Plagiarism

I recently watched a YouTube video which had taken its 'script' practically verbatim from the relevant Wikipedia page , to make profit . Are Wikipedia ok with this? Regards Will — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lolathepixie (talk • contribs) 11:54, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

It is permitted to use our content for any reason, under the terms of the Attribution-ShareAlike license - see here. In short, they can use it, as long as the original source is credited, and any adaptations of the work are released under the same license. Realistically though, there are a lot of people that reuse our content without following this license. ~~ Alex Noble/1-2/TRB 13:14, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

Nirmal Baby Varghese

I have a doubt. The article Nirmal Baby Varghese I created was previously reviewed by an admin. It also showed up on Google search. But now why does that page not show up in Google search? BC171189 (talk) 17:10, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

BC171189, you asked the same question several days ago, here, and received an answer you seemed satisfied with. Do you have a new concern? Wikignome Wintergreen^talk 17:19, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

Hi @Wikignome Wintergreen: "The admin who reviewed my article, now blocked as a sockpuppet so the page was marked as unreviewed." This is the answer I got to my suspicion that day. But even though another admin reviewed it a week ago, why the article did not come up in Google search? BC171189 (talk) 17:47, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

Possibly because the Googlebots haven't recrawled it yet, BC171189. It seems to be properly marked as indexable on our end. Wikignome Wintergreen^talk 18:02, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

Hello User:Wikignome Wintergreen, I do not understand what you are saying. Do you think this will be resolved soon? BC171189 (talk) 18:19, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

BC171189, in order for a page to appear in a Google search, Google's bots - the software programs they use to find and index webpages - have to find and index the page (a process often called "crawling"). Apparently they haven't done so yet. There's nothing we can do on our end except make the page available for them to find. How long it will be until they find it, I don't know. Wikignome Wintergreen^talk 18:24, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

It's worth stating this now shows up on Google knowledge graph on a search, so it has been done. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 21:45, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

It shows up in the knowledge graph for me too, Lee Vilenski, but not in the actual list of search results. Very odd. Wikignome Wintergreen^talk 00:48, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, sometimes it is just that it shows up, but is a really low result, but I can't see that it is in this case. I have gone ahead and unreviewed/reviewed the article. It showing on Google knowledge graph means it is being indexed. It would seem an issue on their end, not ours. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 09:36, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

asking for money

Why doesn't wikipedia run ads to pay for their costs? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 107.130.202.225 (talk) 19:39, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Perennial proposals#Advertising — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 19:47, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

Changing entry designation

Hello, I am writing to get help in changing the designation of an entry of a political scientist who is listed as historian. Unfortunately, unlike the body of the text which is easily editable, I cannot access the edit function for the main designation. Please could you change "historian" to "political scientist" for Archie Brown:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archie_Brown_(historian)

please change to: Archie_Brown_(political scientist) Thank you! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sofya2020 (talk • contribs) 20:04, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

This article has far more substantial issues than its title. —A little blue Bori v^_^v ^{Jéské Couriano} 20:44, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

I see you've already requested this on the article's talk page, Sofya2020, and nobody has replied - probably few people have looked at that talk page. You could ask at requested moves, since technically what you are asking for is that the article be moved. But as Jeske says, the far far far more serious problem is that the article has not one single independent source.--ColinFine (talk) 22:20, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

Where to argue that a source is not usable?

I would like the argue that a certain source is unreliable for citation on Wikipedia, and I would like a place where I can invite discussion on the source, perhaps cumulating in an RfC. Is WP:RSN a good place, or is there a better one? Thanks, NotReallySoroka (talk) (formerly DePlume) 21:13, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

That is indeed the correct area, although it may depend on the source in question (it may have been brought up previously, so best to check) Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 21:39, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

How to solve a large scale dispute on an article which is going on for a decade?

There is a controversial article with a controversial title that needs changing, however, the talk page is all over the place with editors particularly who are suggesting a slew of different titles for the article making it impossible to address the original issue. This problem has allegedly been going on for a decade and still unsolved.

I had thought about starting a poll in the article's talkpage, and the least contentious name for the article would be used, but I am unsure following my reading on the topic here. Is this the right way to go about it or is that incorrect? If it is wrong, what should be done to correct the issue? MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 22:03, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

MarioSuperstar77 there is general advice at Wikipedia:Dispute resolution, could you mention the article if you want more specific advice? TSventon (talk) 22:17, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

Probably Mass killings under communist regimes.   Maproom (talk) 22:18, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

@MarioSuperstar77: I see a discussion is already under way. In an ideal world, editors would eventually reach a consensus to which would be the best title and request a move. But, considering the controversial topic, it's very likely that the discussion will lead to either a move request or a request for comment by an user and, hopefully, a consensus will be reached (which could always be to not change the title). Isabelle ^🔔 22:22, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

Deliberate redlink

Is it OK to create a redlink for a person who will never have an article, rather than have it unlinked and leave the reader guessing, e.g. [[Bob Hope (ski instructor)|Bob Hope]] as an extreme (and fictitious) example. Doug butler (talk) 22:19, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

No, that's against the explicit guidance at WP:Redlink. You can simply "disambiguate" in the article text. Wikignome Wintergreen^talk 22:25, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

To reduce the risk of a future editor making a wrong link, you might add a source comment like Bob Hope<!-- Not the actor, don't link him -->. PrimeHunter (talk) 08:48, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Create

How do I create a page that is not a draft? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jon Dales (talk • contribs) 23:07, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

Guidance on this can be found here. Amortias (T)(C) 23:11, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

Creating an article is easy, Jon Dales. Creating one that won't be deleted is somewhat harder. If you're wondering about your creation Draft:Viral Inu, I have to tell you that its chances of survival as an article are low. -- Hoary (talk) 23:18, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

graph capabilities

Hi. There are a few things I'd like to be able to do with {{Graph:Chart}}, and was wondering if they were possible.

1. Is it possible to have more than one Y axis? E.g., when evaluating whether a body might be a dwarf planet, astronomers look at albedo and density as well as size. So, it would be nice to be able to plot albedo and density against diameter in a single graph, so readers can see where high density and high albedo co-occur, and where they don't (e.g. Quaoar). It would be nice if, say, the density scale were the left Y axis, and the albedo scale the right Y axis.
2. Is it possible to suppress colors in pie charts? E.g. at List_of_Solar_System_objects_by_size there is a series of pie charts comparing the masses of objects in the Solar system, but they're SVGs and can't be easily updated. In the first, only the Sun (yellow), Jupiter and Saturn are visible, so in the second, for the 8 planets, the yellow is omitted so that Jupiter and Saturn have the same colors. Then in the 3rd, of the terrestrial planets and larger moons and planetoids, the colors of the giant planets are also omitted. It would be nice to be able to replicate this consistency with Graph:Chart, where updating would be easier.

— kwami (talk) 23:15, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

• @Kwamikagami: After a quick glance at Template:Graph:Chart#Parameters, I do not believe #1 (twin Y axes) is feasible. For #2, you can probably do that by specifying the colors manually via the parameter colors.

While I appreciate the immense work that was put in by the creators and maintainers of {{Graph:Chart}}, I do not think it is any match for external tools (nor should it be). For anything that is a tad complex, I would recommend creating the charts with your graphics package of choice (for instance Python/matplotlib), and uploading the generating code to the Commons description page (so that others might easily recreate and/or modify the graph). Tigraan^{Click here for my talk page ("private" contact)} 16:28, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks! That's half solved, which is better than I was hoping for.

Yes, it is pretty impressive how versatile it is. — kwami (talk) 22:12, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Donations to Wikipedia

I deeply appreciate the work you all do. I am an author who uses your pages frequently. I donate $20 each year to try to help (I'm not a best-selling author :-) But every time I go to a page I'm hit with another request for a donation and now the notice appears to be counting how many times I "ignore" the fund-raising plea.

I do not want to seem ungrateful for what you all do, so I've been deleting windows to get in to search. Is there a way for me to fix this? I would hate to be locked out eventually.

Thanks so much, Andrea K. Stein 23:24, 5 December 2021 (UTC)23:24, 5 December 2021 (UTC)23:24, 5 December 2021 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:6C67:147F:F1F8:E93A:8C9A:C5BF:4FD8 (talk)

Hello, Andrea. Thank you for your contributions. The Wikipedia software (which is separate from any system which knows about individual donations to the Wikimedia Foundation) has no way of knowing that the person on IP address 2600:6C67:147F:F1F8:E93A:8C9A:C5BF:4FD8 (which happened to be your address on this occasion, but might be different tomorrow, even if you are on the same device) has made a donation or not. If you create an account (which is free!) you can then set a preference not to be shown the donation banner. --ColinFine (talk) 23:57, 5 December 2021 (UTC)