Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2021 January 9

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January 9

Citing a PhD dissertation in author's biography

The common citation templates don't seem a good fit for dissertations. I have title and link for Harvey Butchart's 1932 PhD but it's none of Web, News, Book, or Journal. Style suggestions, please. Justaxn (talk) 03:50, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

@Justaxn: You can use {{Cite_thesis}} RudolfRed (talk) 04:06, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Thanks! Justaxn (talk) 15:45, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Distric Name Change

Dear Sir, By the Bangladesh Gov. decision at 02 April 2018 name of the District "Jessore" changed into Jashore. But in Wikipedia Headline the previous Spelling (Jessore) is still now. I think it will be late for user to find out "jashore" in Wikipedi. So please changed this name with " Jashore"

Thank's Saiham Biswas. Banglades — Preceding unsigned comment added by 103.120.166.106 (talk) 04:13, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

The lede of Jessore District mentions the official name. Wikipedia articles use WP:COMMONNAME not necessarily official names. RudolfRed (talk) 04:24, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

I started tweaking the phrasing for the cities (which already mention the renaming respelling), then realised that the sources only say that the districts had spelling changes. Does anyone know the official status for city/municipality names? See also the discussion from 2018 at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Bangladesh/Archive 7#Placename changes and Wikipedia policy, especially subsection "A different consideration". Pelagic ( messages ) – (12:36 Sun 10, AEDT) 01:36, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Hello

I am reporting you Persian Wikipedia to deviate the truth and history politically. https://fa.wikipedia.org/wiki/اعتراضات_آبان_۱۳۹۸_ایران In the website above, protestors were also patriots, but only Prince Reza Pahlavi is written. Among slogans all in favor of monarchy has been written but one which was against both Islamic regime and monarchy is not written: Marg bar setamgar che shah bashe che rahbar (Down with the cruel either Shah or Mullah). Their website does not allow me to edit, and they do not have any contact like you. I appreciate to take action against dictatorship and in favor of democracy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.198.9.37 (talk) 07:38, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Each language's Wikipedia is a separate project, with its own editors, administrators, and help facilities. You'll need to take this up at Persian Wikipedia's help center. —[AlanM1 (talk)]— 07:46, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

The help page appears to be at fa:راهنما:فهرست (I don't read Farsi). —[AlanM1 (talk)]— 07:48, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Parler

Hey,Wikipedia Can you guys take down that definition of parler. Its shit and a distortion, no wonder I was yelled at for not using you as a source, you are headstrong and dumb. You guys have no proof Parler promotes violence nor they played a role in what happened at the White House. Why do they need a “moderation policy”, is it because they need to be a “democrat”? Nobody is succumbing to your, Facebooks, and Twitters totalitarian and authoritarian regime. Why is it that I want to make edits deemed “vandalism” is it because being “wrong” or a “disagreement” is spoiling private property?? I guess that you have an excuse to not provide a realistic and professional definition of vandalism. As a democrat, I am objurgating this website for being contrary to the values of the democratic party. What is wrong with being open-minded and impartial?? I don’t care about you party, I care about values that reflect the company. As a democrat, I’ll give a sensible definition of parler on this webdite so you don’t have to justify your hypocrisy and idiocy. I can’t wait for Civil War. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.219.88.161 (talk)

Parler is semi-protected so you cannot edit it. Discussion of the article belongs at Talk:Parler. The article mentions the storming of the Capitol. It wasn't the White House which is not mentioned. PrimeHunter (talk) 08:08, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Vandalism: "willful or malicious destruction or damage to works of art or other property." according to Concise Oxford Englsh Dictionary. It notes the historical Vandals destroyed books and works of art. There's no distinction in the definition between private property(eg my car) public property (eg the US Capitol or the roadway outside my house) and communal property (eg our local co-op shop or the text of wikipedia.) The reference to books and therefore learning is analogous to Wikipedia surely Spinney Hill (talk) 10:09, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Font size

It seems to me that Wikipedia has changed the font size. Suddenly the text is very small. But only in the english version of the website, not the danish (which is my language). Compare for instance:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctica https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarktis

The text is normal on every website, except the english version of Wikipedia. Do you see the same? What can I do about it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.57.232.53 (talk) 09:40, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Maybe try resetting your browser's zoom settings (which are domain-specific). I do notice that the english and danish WIkipedia use different font sizes, but it isn't actually realy small. The english WIkipedia uses (timeless skin) 14 px text. This is 14px sized text The danish Wikipedia seems to use 15.2 px text This is 15.2 px sized text . For the default skin (vector, modernized version) they both use the same text size of 16 px. Victor Schmidt (talk) 10:52, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

If you are using Windows, press CTRL+0 to reset your magnification settings to the default.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 11:28, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Ctrl++ and Ctrl+- for larger and smaller. Accidental size changes are often caused by scrolling the mouse wheel while holding Ctrl. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:32, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Ctrl + 0 did the trick. Thank you very much. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.57.232.53 (talk) 12:04, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Mesne lord

Please check reference number 5 which is done incorrectly - regarding authors and publishers I think. Thanks. 175.32.84.145 (talk) 10:07, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

It was you who added it; perhaps you would care to correct it. Or at least say what's wrong with it, so that others may know to what it should be corrected. -- Hoary (talk) 12:46, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

It is the name of the publication - ref number 5 - that I cannot get correct - my computer does not let me see the whole name. Please fix and check that the publisher is correct too. Thanks. 175.32.84.145 (talk) 10:32, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Done.[1] PrimeHunter (talk) 11:06, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

I could just click a grey X at the top right of [2] to see it. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:10, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Mathematics

What is meaning of ratio — Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.114.131.217 (talk) 11:12, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

You may be interested in ratio. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 11:15, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Account Deletion

I want my account to be deleted forever. I have serious medical problems so I do not want anybody to know my account. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Imsatania (talk • contribs) 12:12, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Imsatania Accounts cannot be deleted, for both technical and legal reasons; you've made no edits, so you should just abandon your account. You may be able to request a courtesy vanishing in which your account name is randomized- but I'm not sure they will do that if you have no edits. 331dot (talk) 12:22, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

queries regarding publishing a page on Wikipedia

I'm unable to see the submit draft button, as I've already created a page under the name Naveen Kumar Jindal. Please guide me how to proceed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Naveen Kr Jindal (talk • contribs) 12:36, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Naveen Kr Jindal Who is "we" when you say "we need to publish this" in your sandbox? Only a single person should be operating your account. If you are not Naveen Kuman Jindal, you must change your username immediately by visiting Special:GlobalRenameRequest. I have added the appropriate information to the draft to allow you to submit it. If you have a conflict of interest or paid editing relationship, you must disclose that. 331dot (talk) 12:39, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Question - Automatic linking or always manual?

When you add [[ ]] to a name and/or create an article, is there a way to then automatically link/add [[ ]] to name in other articles or do you have to manually do it? For example, Actor X is mentioned in lots of film articles but doesn't have own page, own article now created, does [[ ]] have to be added manually to his name in all the film articles or is there a quicker way to do this?--HistoricalAccountings (talk) 12:58, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

It’s not automatically done. Sometimes however there exists already a WP:RED link to it, which afterwards the article is created, the link becomes blue, to indicate it now exists. For names, it should be easy to search, but the actors name may be shared by different people. An auto wiki link may inadvertently link to wrong topic, due to WP:DISAMBIG. ~ Shushugah (talk) 13:37, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

It also sounds like the sort of job you could do with AWB, but I've never used that myself. --ColinFine (talk) 13:39, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

AWB would be good for it. A search which finds articles mentioning Phoebe Augustine without linking to her anywhere in the page: "Phoebe Augustine" -linksto:"Phoebe Augustine". PrimeHunter (talk) 14:14, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

By coincidence today I noticed that there is a helper to do exactly what you want, HistoricalAccountings. It is explained at WP:FINDLINK. Mike Turnbull (talk) 14:37, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

@Michael D. Turnbull - that's a great tool, thank you!HistoricalAccountings (talk) 14:46, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

HistoricalAccountings, I have some experience with this which may or may not be translatable to other situations. I worked on improving the general article Honda_Sports_Award, in the number of individual situations, where an award winner did not have an article, and I was interested in the situation, I created an article. In almost all cases, the award winners name showed up in other articles, such as the article about the particular sports team. After creating the article, I did a search for the name to determine what needed to be done. As mentioned by Shushugah, in many cases, the name was a red link, and automatically converted to a blue link. However, even this could be tricky, as many athletes have common names, and the article might have a disambiguation with the sport, which may or may not match the red link that was created. Also, there are a number of cases where the name is in plain text and it needs linking, but there are also many cases where the name is in plain text but refers to someone other than the athlete. Because of these complications, I approached it manually. I use the search function to find all examples of the name and walk through them one by one deciding how to handle it. There were rarely more than 20. in the case where there might be many more which seems unlikely these days, I would have considered using AWB, but only to semi automate it— I would use AWB to walk through each example but I would carefully examine each one because of the complications I just suggested. I can't imagine that using AWB and accepting all would ever be a feasible alternative.--S Philbrick(Talk) 01:34, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

HistoricalAccountings, I wrote the above before seeing a reference to FindLink. I haven't looked at will use that tool but it sounds like a good alternative. I'll try to check it out if I find myself in a similar position in the future.--S Philbrick(Talk) 01:35, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Don't do it! Just because an article has the same name doesn't mean that it belongs to the same person. Always verify that the [[John Doe]] you link to is the relevant John Doe. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 18:27, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

My words at talk page of Tapan Misra was ignored.

My words here was ignored. It has been over 48 hours. Still no response. Should I ping the one of the editors of Tapan Misra page? Rizosome (talk) 16:04, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

I don't know why you think 48 hours is being 'ignored'. There's a good chance that none of the editors involved in that article have been online since you posted it. Bear in mind that all editors are volunteers and no-one is required to get back to you within a certain time frame. I have responded to the specific request on the talk page. --Paul ❬talk❭ 17:14, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

@Rizosome: A week is a better time frame to conclude that a response is unlikely (not everyone feeds their Wikihabit daily ). If the page is edited significantly by an editor who is still active (look at their contribs), then you could ping them. Another alternative is to note the WikiProjects interested in the article (at the top of its talk page) and mention it on the WikiProject's talk page. —[AlanM1 (talk)]— 20:18, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Resolved

Maps

Greetings, keepers of the eternal flame! Could someone please explain how the Wikimedia maps are displayed, mostly in infoboxes, such as eg Mimara Museum? Also, is it possible to have the map display as a standalone object like a normal image file? Cheers, >MinorProphet (talk) 18:42, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

@MinorProphet: as far as I can tell, these are created by infobox code. In general, interactive maps on Wikipedia are created via <mapframe> tags, though it can be pretty expensive getting them. For example, the map in the mentioned article use the following code:

<mapframe zoom="10" align="center" frameless="1" height="200" width="270">[
{"properties":{"title":"Mimara Museum","fill-opacity":0.5,"stroke":"#FF0000","stroke-width":3,"fill":"#606060"},"type":"ExternalData","service":"geoshape","ids":"Q1936046"},
{"properties":{"stroke-width":5,"stroke":"#FF0000","title":"Mimara Museum"},"type":"ExternalData","service":"geoline","ids":"Q1936046"},
{"type":"Feature","geometry":{"coordinates":[15.96694444,45.80833333],"type":"Point"},"properties":{"marker-color":"#5E74F3","title":"Mimara Museum","marker-symbol":"museum"}}
]</mapframe>

for infobox-style mapframes, you can use {{Infobox_mapframe}} for that, though I never used it myself. Non-interactive maps are usally yust images. Victor Schmidt (talk) 19:01, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

@Victor Schmidt:, thanks for your helpful and swift reply. However, neither the extensive code you quoted above, nor {{Infobox_mapframe}} seem to appear when I edit the article. What exactly is it that causes the map to be displayed? Obviously not all infoboxes have these maps. Cheers, >MinorProphet (talk) 19:45, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

@MinorProphet: that map code seems to be created by the Infobox (Infobox museum) internally, based on the coordinates in the coordinates parameter, or (as in this case) if available from Wikidata. This process (getting stuff from Wikidata) is automatic, as long as you know what Wikidata property you want to get. More on this is at Help:Wikidata#Template_building:_using_data_from_Wikidata. Victor Schmidt (talk) 19:54, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

The exact proccess the infobox uses to get this data also involves quite a few things and is complicated. The main job for the map code seems to be done by Module:Infobox mapframe. If you are interested in the technical aspect of how to get that code works, It basically tells Template:Infobox, which is the master for (nearly) all infoboxes on wikipedia, to insert the mapframe code generated by Module:Infobox mapframe as the fourth image (image4). Note that this question is probbably more somthing for wikipedia:Village pump (technical), since the experts for that are sitting there. Victor Schmidt (talk) 20:05, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Thanks @Victor Schmidt:, I think that tells me all I need to know. Thank you again for your helpful replies. >MinorProphet (talk) 20:16, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Resolved

to my satisfaction, anyway.

Link color

Resolved

Greetings. How do I add custom link colors? I clicked on User:Sangdeboeuf/vector.css but the page does not exist. Thank you. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 18:48, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

@Sangdeboeuf: But you can create it ;-) Victor Schmidt (talk) 18:50, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

OK then, do I just copy and paste the text shown at WP:LINKCOLOR for custom link styles? I haven't used CSS before. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 18:54, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

For starters, yes, you can simply copy the CSS from Help:Link_color#Styling_all_links_just_for_you. I do recommend that you have a read of CSS if you intend on modify it. Please note that the first big coding section are the default values. Victor Schmidt (talk) 19:05, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

OK, thanks. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 20:27, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Can I reset password using Committed Identity?

Related to a question above. If an account has a committed identity (WP:CID), can that be used for a password reset in the event that the email address for the account is either not set or is no longer available? The Signpost article says that it does, but that is from 2007 so I didn't know if anything has changed since then. Also, what are the general requirements for having WP:2FA enabled on a non-privilged account? RudolfRed (talk) 20:07, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

@RudolfRed: 1) I am not sure, but AFAIK resetting passwords via some other way than via a temporary password sent to your mailbox always requires developer intervention. It yust makes it easier to convince these folks that you are who you claim. 2) AFAIK there are no definitive requirements for non-privileged (those not listed at Help:ACCESS2FA) accounts, but AFAIK you can in theory always go to meta:Steward_requests/Global_permissions#Requests_for_2_Factor_Auth_tester_permissions and request access. You should read the help page beforehand, though, as setting up 2FA and doing it wrong is a sure way to lock you out of your account ;-) Victor Schmidt (talk) 21:49, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

(edit conflict) There is no automation in it. You have to get somebody with server access to set a new email address for you so you can receive a password. They only do it in rare cases for users with many edits or advanced user rights. As far as I know there are no guidelines about when they will consider it or which evidence you must give but I guess a committed identity would be a big help if you have no other significant evidence. Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2007-05-14/Committed identity says: "in the unlikely event that their account is compromised, they can convince someone else that they are the real person behind the username, even if the password has been changed by the hijacker". I don't know the 2FA practice but you might get an idea by looking at recent requests at meta:Steward requests/Global permissions/2020-12#Requests for 2 Factor Auth tester permissions or other months at meta:Special:PrefixIndex/Steward requests/Global permissions/2020. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:59, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the replies and the information. RudolfRed (talk) 03:50, 10 January 2021 (UTC)