Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2021 June 18

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June 18

Football box template

Hi, can the football box collapsible template be considered a table even if it is formatted in a template? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.165.228.241 (talk) 00:44, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

Steezy rae

Hi my name is Steezy Rae andim just wondering how I can get a wikipedia.

Not a good idea. See WP:AUTO for some guidance. RudolfRed (talk) 01:26, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

Policies related to adding artwork images

What are the policies and guidelines about adding artwork images/paintings to articles here (not commons)? Special:Diff/1029123465 -- DaxServer (talk) 07:26, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

The other uploads from the same user as well. -- DaxServer (talk) 07:30, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

If you are an artist, and are willing to upload your own work to Wikipedia on a compatible licence, then you are free to do so. Mjroots (talk) 07:56, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification! -- DaxServer (talk) 11:08, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

About awards/accolades received during one's career

I wanted to know what is the preferred method for mentioning such things in BLPs for CEO's/music producers. On this page there is an existing section for awards the individual has rec'd for his work as a music producer/songwriter. But he's also placed on various Billboard/Forbes/Variety rankings for his achievements as a businessman. While a few of these have been mentioned in the prose of the Career section, there are still quite a few not yet included, so I'd like some advice on the best way to include them.
I asked this 9 days ago on WT:BIOGRAPHY but got no response so trying here. I went ahead+created a "Recognition" section like on the Jeff Bezos article and added a listicle subhead in the interim, but I've seen varying things on other BLPs so I'm still unsure whether that's best or not. -- Carlobunnie (talk) 08:40, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

Carlobunnie, Please take a look at Wikipedia:BLP awards, where the appropriate mention of accolades is described. It states: "Dedicated "Awards" sections should be avoided in most cases."

Lately, the "awards industry" has become extremely inflated, as there is apparently money to be made by giving out tons of "awards". Wikipedia is primarily interested notable awards.--Quisqualis (talk) 19:17, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

@Quisqualis: the awards/listicle placements are notable ones (and have been covered by multiple reliable sources), which is why I asked what is the best way to include them. I've seen both dedicated award sections as well as mentions in the prose of "Career" sections hence my needing help. What you linked is someone's opinion, not an actual policy or guideline. If WP as a whole was actually following that, then many BLPs would need award/accolade sections removed from their articles. -- Carlobunnie (talk) 20:56, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

Contact details on Wiki page

Is it possible to have the phone number for a business on a Wiki page?

I'd say no, but if that business has a WP-article, a link to their official website can be added under "External links", and presumably that link will have contact info. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 10:04, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

It is technically possible, but Wikipedia policies strongly discourage, if not forbid it. However, articles about companies can have a link to the company's own website in the "External links" section, and people can find the phone number from there. JIP | Talk 12:23, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

Most company articles use an {{Infobox company}}. You can put the web site in the infobox also. That's where I think the typical reader is likely to look for it. This is also better if there is not already an "external links" section. -Arch dude (talk) 13:46, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

Wrong name of article in bibliography of Myanmar snub-nosed monkey

The 18 bibliography

Roos C, Zinner D, Kubatko LS, Schwarz C, Yang M, Meyer D, Nash SD, Xing J, Batzer MA, Brameier M, Leendertz FH, Ziegler T, Perwitasari-Farajallah D, Nadler T, Walter L, Osterholz M (2011). "A molecular phylogeny of living primates". BMC Evol Biol. 11 (3): 77. doi:10.1186/1471-2148-11-77. PMC 3068967. PMID 21435245.

The name of the article is: Nuclear versus mitochondrial DNA: evidence for hybridization in colobine monkeys

The link is correct!

I've corrected it; thanks for pointing this out. (You could have edited the page directly: "the encyclopaedia anyone can edit"!) Mike Turnbull (talk) 11:15, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

Vandalism

Hi, I just wanted to know. What did I do wrong? My edits were barely offensive. So if you would like tell me what I did wrong. Please tell me. Mr. Vice City (talk) 15:22, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

@Mr. Vice City: While I wouldn't call your edits blatant vandalism, they were not constructive: they didn't cite any reliable sources, and the language used is inappropriate for an encyclopedia. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 15:46, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

Use of pronoun

Per WP:Pronouns and WP:MOS, article should be written in NPOV and the writer must be invisible to reader. However, this does not implied to the most important articles, especially scientific topics and explicitly use our, us and we. I saw it in articles Universe, Problematic smartphone use and Human evolution. There should be grammar checking administrator to eliminate this issue. The Supermind (talk) 16:00, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

@The Supermind: All articles are maintained by volunteer editors. If you are interested in the topic of fixing grammar, consider joining the WP:GRAMMAR project to help out. RudolfRed (talk) 16:08, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Grammar Police Department is large, but the territory we cover is much larger. P.S. That should be "apply", not "implied". I'll let you off with a warning this time. Clarityfiend (talk) 21:45, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

@The Supermind: Wikipedia is a volunteer project. You can go on the page yourself and edit it so it complies with the policy. The problem is that there's not enough volunteers who are checking grammar so some stuff slips under the radar. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 21:31, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

@Chess: The guidelines in Wikipedia:Writing better articles WP:Pronouns and Wikipedia:Manual of Style#First-person pronouns are paradox stating that the pronouns in mathematical writing "the 'inclusive we' widely used in professional mathematics writing is sometimes used to present and explain examples in articles, although discouraged on Wikipedia." In Manual of style states that "The author's we found in scientific writing (We construct S as follows), though rephrasing to use passive voice may be preferable (S is constructed as follows)." In the WP:Pronouns, it means totally discouraged even if we use first-perspective pronouns in mathematical writing, which routinely discourages in any scientific writing. But it is permissible using pronouns in the latter one using scientific writing. What does mean? The Supermind (talk) 05:10, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

@The Supermind: Let's take the example of Human evolution. Here the sentence was "Genetic evidence has also been used to enhance ... our understanding of ..." and someone has (mistakenly) tried to edit this to "the understanding". The point is this: here, 'our' means 'all humans'. Whoever wrote the sentence is placing themselves in the same category as the reader - a fellow human. They are not speaking in the voice of a lecturer, and 'our' is not the speech of an author writing about their work on evolution, as it might have been in a scientific paper ("Figure 4 shows the major sources of variation revealed by our study of the dimensions of the toe-nails of sloths").

Incidentally, 'our' could have been omitted completely in the example of human evolution, but substituting 'the' doesn't work: it's clunky and inelegant English. 'The' is really only tolerable if you're specifying a particular sort of understanding (e.g. 'the current understanding', 'the political understanding' etc.), and even then it's a bit superfluous.

The usage of 'we' that would have been discouraged is "We use genetic evidence to...", because most of us don't. This would have been the encyclopaedia-editor speaking in the voice of the evolutionary scientist. Hence the difference in maths articles, where the lecturer will write "We prove this by describing a line from A to B", while the encyclopaedia editor might prefer "This can be proven by describing a line from A to B" (if the proof is of sufficient general importance to merit a mention).

Let's face it, pronouns are hard, and not very logical. Even in scientific publication there are enormous arguments, with some people vehemently opposed to any first-person pronouns whatsoever ("a study was carried out", even though clearly the study was carried out by the authors), while others get confused between first-person-singular and first-person-plural issues, happily tolerating "We studied..." but not "I studied..." in papers with a single author (so who were 'we'?). Best stay out of pronouns unless your English is superb and you're prepared to cross swords with the grammar police! Good luck! Elemimele (talk) 17:02, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

@Elemimele: "Genetic evidence has also been employed to resolve the question of whether there was any gene flow between early modern humans and Neanderthals, and to enhance the understanding of the early human migration patterns and splitting dates." An insertion is truly uncontroversial because "the" in the context is more figuratively used to refer as general meaning for human migration and splitting dates, and neutral than our, by comparison, which our here emphasized persuasive argument by reader sense. Regarding readers, the writer inclusively used our as all human beings (including readers), but I unexpectedly inserted article "the" and made much suitable to the sentence. Look the sentence and read intuitively. I'm not seeing the as big deal issue. The Supermind (talk) 19:21, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

@The Supermind: no, you're right, it's not a big deal issue. It's probably one of those things people will argue about for ever. I gave you my opinion because you asked; I think it's important to remember that a competent writer is likely to find it extremely irritating when someone 'corrects' a stylistic wording that they used intentionally and with forethought; and it may not improve the article. For that reason, I personally don't fiddle with someone else's grammar unless it's misleading/ambiguous, or another editor has already marked the article as requiring linguistic improvement. Elemimele (talk) 19:55, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

How to create a biography?

I wanted to create a biography on Wikipedia, about somebody. How do I do that? Please guide me. Mr. Vice City (talk) 16:26, 18 June 2021 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mr. Vice City (talk • contribs) 16:25, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

As a newer user I would strongly suggest you create a draft version so that more experienced users can review it and offer guidance before it "goes live." Additional guidance can be found at your first article and biographies of living persons. Beeblebrox (talk) 16:50, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

Hello, Mr. Vice City. My personal advice to anybody is not to even try creating a new article until you have spent a few months improving existing articles and learning how Wikipedia works. But when you do want to try, My first article tells you most of what you need. I see you have begun a biography in your sandbox, and that is a perfectly good place to go about it; but you have made the very common mistake of starting in the middle of the project. Writing (even a single word) belongs after you have done the most important part of the project, which is to find independent reliable sources| that contain signifcant coverage of the subject. One reason to do this first is that if you cannot find suitable sources, you know that the subject is not notable in Wikipedia's terms, and there is no point in spending any more time on trying to write about them. Another reason is that you should write from what the sources say, not from what you know. Every single piece of information that you put into the article should come from a reliably published source, and most of them from sources unconnected with the subject.

One final point: when people start editing, and immediately try to create an article about a person (or a company, or a band) it is often the case that the person (or company or band) is one that they have a connection with. If this applies to you, then you should read about editing with a conflict of interest before you start. --ColinFine (talk) 16:52, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

How to fix infobox image sizing?

Hello,

On the page for Ashraf Ghani, the image in the infobox is cutting off the native language spelling of his name just a little bit. How can I fix that? I tried resizing the image (from 220px to 200px to 150px) and that didn't help. I also tried adding a line break after the native language spelling and that didn't work either.

Additionally, is there anyway to combine multiple languages in the lang function? For example, if I wanted to combine Dari and Pashto, can I do something like lang|ps|prs|احمد ظاهر (not including brackets here so you can see) to indicate that that is the spelling in both languages? Basically I want the final result to look like this

Pashto/Dari: احمد ظاهر

Thanks for the help! WikiEditUsername7 (talk) 16:36, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

I always hate giving this type of answer, but it's possible the Help Desk is not the best place to ask this. WP:VPT may yield better answers. Beeblebrox (talk) 16:48, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

Hello, WIkiEditUsername7. I don't see a problem with the image and the name, either on my laptop (Firefox browser) or on my phone (Android Wikipedia app). As for the question about the template: I can't see anything in Template:lang which will support what you want to do, so I suspect you've done it the best way. --ColinFine (talk) 17:02, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

@Beeblebrox: @ColinFine: Thanks for taking a look! So for the image on Ashraf Ghani's page, on mobile it looks fine (both my iPad and iPhone). However, when looking at it on desktop mode on both my laptop (I tried both Firefox and Chrome browsers) and my iPad (Safari browser), the furthest left letter (ي) has the two dots under it being partially cut out by the image. Does that make sense? — Preceding unsigned comment added by WikiEditUsername7 (talk • contribs) 17:13, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

I can see the dots below the ya quite clearly above the image on both Firefox and the Android app, WikiEditUsername7. --ColinFine (talk) 17:49, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

{{lang}} wraps the text in HTML like so: <span lang="ps">احمد ظاهر</span>, so screen readers know how to pronounce it. But the lang HTML attribute may only contain one language code or none at all, so your best option is to choose one and put both languages in front like you already did in your question: Pashto/Dari: {{lang|ps|احمد ظاهر}}. – Rummskartoffel 17:24, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

@Rummskartoffel: Thanks!

Keeping images out of previews

Hi! How do you keep images out of an article preview? Asking for What a Song Can Do (Chapter One)... versacespaceleave a message! 17:29, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

@VersaceSpace: A specific image can be kept out of all previews by having an administrator add it to MediaWiki:Pageimages-denylist, but I'm not seeing a preview article on that article on my end, anyway. Don't know why that is, though, since there is a page image listed for it... – Rummskartoffel 22:04, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

Guidelines for citing a podcast

Hello, I'd like to write an article about Ugyhur film. There's very little information about this topic in English, but recently a podcast episode has come out, where a Uyghur director of 20 years is interviewed about the history of Uyghur film. He also taught at a major art/film institute in the Uyghur region. Would it be appropriate to base an article on the podcast? The episode's official website is https://www.weghurstories.com/. I will try to find as many corroborating sources as possible. My main question is if podcasts are not reliable a priori, which doesn't seem to be the case. Just wondering there was extra guidance here.

There is a template for citing a podcast: {{Cite podcast}}. You still have to satisfy yourself that the particular podcast you are citing meets the definition of a reliable source; in other words: is it produced independently of the subject? Does it have a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy? ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 20:47, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure that it needs to be vetted too thoroughly if the intent is to quote the director's own words from an interview, if you can confirm it is them speaking that is probably sufficient. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:54, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

Editing and replace dead links

Hi, Good Day, I have a question, that I am using Wikipedia for any problems and reading solutions to my problems. I am also editing Wikipedia pages and try to set spelling mistakes or punctuations. So during the editing when I found a dead link, can I replace that dead link with a relevant live link, which is giving the same information? How many dead links can I replace with relevant live links. Because recently I replace a dead link and got a warning message from wikipida. please guide me so that my Wikipedia account not banned from wikipida. Thank You Chris — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chris Layn (talk • contribs) 19:35, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

@Chris Layn: See WP:LINKROT for how to deal with dead links. Follow the advice you have been given to not replace links with links that are (or appear to be) spam. RudolfRed (talk) 20:03, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Chris Layn Generally, if a link used for reference is dead, you should look for an archive version. If you cannot find an archive version, there is good reason to keep many dead links in references. It may be useful to cite an additional source besides the dead one if you can find one that verifies the content. However, when adding sources, please make sure you understand what Wikipedia considers to be a reliable source. Marketing materials such as Best massage chair design.com are not generally considered reliable sources, and besides that, the page you cited from that website did not verify the content that the dead link you were replacing purportedly supported. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 20:06, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

the song of John Barleycorn / only 1 and it is by Traffic'( the 70s prog rock group )

Hello Sir, I do not know whether i am writing on the exact page here.

But for the topic in the Turkish wikipedia

https://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Barleycorn

I consistently tried and tried to edit and write that there is only one song and it's Traffic's.

The TR wikipedians now publish wrong info on whom the song belongs to.

They do not heed me.

Could i kindly please direct your attention so that the TR wikipedia readers get the Rightest info.

Thanks ! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vectoraldynamics (talk • contribs) 22:10, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

Vectoraldynamics We cannot help you with issues on the Turkish Wikipedia. Each language version of Wikipedia is its own project, with their own editors and policies. You will have to address your issue on the Turkish Wikipedia with whatever process they have to do so. 331dot (talk) 22:13, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

@Vectoraldynamics: Here is link to the Turkish Wikipedia Help Desk, where you can ask for help: [1] RudolfRed (talk) 22:58, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

Hello, Vectoraldynamics. As 331dot says, we cannot help you in any way about editing on tr-Wikipedia. But if you are saying what you appear to be saying in your question, you are factually wrong. John Barleycorn is a folk song, versions of which have been written down for at least 350 years. Thousands of people have sung it, and many have recorded it. --ColinFine (talk) 23:42, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

Hello there @ColinFine ColinFine.( i am in the stage of using the page , i left you a note and now that i have discovered the right way i am writing here, as well.

Thanks for your precious feedback of the song of John Barleycorn ( Must Die ) which is actually a folk song in the Roud index. However, as i know, it was re-arranged by Traffic ( the prog rock group of the 70's ) 's Steve Winwood into this magnificient video - and in the TR wikipedia it is filed under the influence in pop. culture section.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdI057Rs3wY

Thanks again for your attention.

@Vectoraldynamics: Please go ask at the Turkish Wikipedia, we cannot help with that. RudolfRed (talk) 02:18, 19 June 2021 (UTC)