Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2023 December 4

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December 4

annoying template

why is the board in Xiangqi § Modern play not displaying correctly? ltbdl (talk) 01:36, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Probably because the footer is currently using this: local footer = args[67] or pargs[67] or '' (the value assigned to {{{67}}}) which just happens to be the leftmost cl on the board. Should be local footer = args[93] or pargs[93] or '' so that the footer reads Initial arrangement of figures?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 02:06, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

thanks! ltbdl (talk) 02:12, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Hugh Grosvenor, 7th Duke of Westminster

Ref number 19 was a blog -which we cannot use. Please remove it - I cannot on my device. thanks 115.70.23.77 (talk) 03:02, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

 Removed. 🛧Midori No Sora♪🛪 ( ☁＝☁＝✈) 05:09, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Latin

Please can someone with a very good knowledge of Latin check out this edit. My ancient schoolboy Latin suggests the editor has failed to recognise a simple plural verb and wrongly made it singular. But I also have vague memories of impersonal constructions (like 'methinks') where singular is correct. Bjenks (talk) 04:39, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

@Bjenks: Hi there! In case you do not receive a response from a Latin expert here, you may want post the question on the article's talk page, and ask the editors at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Latin to join the conversation on the article talk page. Happy editing! GoingBatty (talk) 05:30, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

@Bjenks another place you could try is Wikipedia:Reference desk/Language. Quaelibet appears to be correct, as "Vivant membra quaelibet" gets over a thousand hits in Google books and "Vivant membra quaelibent" only four. I think quodlibet and quaelibet are both forms of the pronoun wikt:quilibet#Latin, but I am not an expert. TSventon (talk) 10:46, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

@Bjenks Yes, Lesgles's edit was correct. Although the -libet looks like a verb, it's not conjugated in the various forms of quilibet. Deor (talk) 17:59, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Effects of pornography

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T352628
Resolved

There is something wrong at that article. It does not allow me to remove bold letters from a section title. tgeorgescu (talk) 06:32, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Oh, that's bizarre. Remsense留 06:35, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

@Remsense: It says "[c867a72e-ac5d-4b74-ad11-bd9084c0a12d] 2023-12-04 06:43:31: Fatal exception of type "Wikimedia\Rdbms\DBQueryError" " tgeorgescu (talk) 06:44, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Tgeorgescu, I'll point some people who might be privy to this here. Remsense留 06:46, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Worked just fine for me, although some below didn't. Edit's done, either way. Queen of Hearts ❤️ (no relation) 07:06, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Error message when editing

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T352628
Resolved

I'm trying to edit a page,[1], and get an error message I've not seen before, [3228d684-e259-477d-a359-db71698e5abd] 2023-12-04 06:47:33: Fatal exception of type "Wikimedia\Rdbms\DBTransactionSizeError". Any advice? Thanks. KJP1 (talk) 06:46, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

I see the editor above is getting the same issue. KJP1 (talk) 06:50, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

From what I've read initially, this plus the above report is an internal production error that's just cropping up. A ticket is being filed at WP:Phabricator, and it will be handled from there. Thanks for reporting! e: ticket here. Remsense留 06:50, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Database error when trying to edit an article

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T352628
Resolved

I posted this on the talk page of the article itself, but then thought this might be the better place to ask. Essentially, I'm trying to fix a minor problem with an article, and being greeted with an error message. More detail is in my post on the article's talk page, but I'll paste the error message itself here for ease of reference:

[bb5ad4fc-e7b2-411b-92a8-78201adada13] 2023-12-04 06:39:17: Fatal exception of type "Wikimedia\Rdbms\DBQueryError"

I Googled the error message, but mostly found people who were trying to do more esoteric things with MediaWiki software, not edit a Wikipedia page as I was trying to do.

Thanks, 2601:189:8180:3C80:7413:B2B:3C63:DB03 (talk) 06:52, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Aha, looks like somebody else already had the same issue, and posted while I was writing my post. Thanks for the info, @Remsense. Do you have any idea of a timeline on the fix?

2601:189:8180:3C80:7413:B2B:3C63:DB03 (talk) 06:53, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

In the meantime, I've done a very hacky fix. Queen of Hearts ❤️ (no relation) 06:56, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

2601:189:8180:3C80:7413:B2B:3C63:DB03, the ticket has been filed by someone who's more used to this process than I am so far—here is the ticket. They (Novem Linguae), idly guessed that it wouldn't be an instant fix.
I doubt it will be a matter of hours and days, and rather just a matter of hours, if that helps. Totally guessing though. Remsense留 06:58, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks both! I guess I'll keep my fingers crossed.

2601:189:8180:3C80:7413:B2B:3C63:DB03 (talk) 07:09, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

@2601:189:8180:3C80:7413:B2B:3C63:DB03, @KJP1, @tgeorgescu, it seems like it was a small database hiccup: the backend server had a spike in response times, but it seems to have gone back down now. Tentatively, you all should be good? Remsense留 07:09, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Unfortunately not - just tried again on the same page and got this, [1c06c105-bf1e-48ad-8f50-f7f3f2e2e731] 2023-12-04 07:11:28: Fatal exception of type "Wikimedia\Rdbms\DBQueryError"] KJP1 (talk) 07:12, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Oh, well. I would say at this point, the place to check will be the associated Phabricator ticket. I hope you can resume editing ASAP! Remsense留 07:16, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

No problem - I'll just have to be patient. Thanks for taking a look. KJP1 (talk) 07:19, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Would it be helpful if I updated here when the error cropped up on a new article, for data / reproducibility purposes? Or would that just clutter up the page with information that's not particularly relevant to solving the problem? 2601:189:8180:3C80:7413:B2B:3C63:DB03 (talk) 15:37, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Unable to edit

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T352628
Resolved

I am having trouble publishing edits on Wikipedia. Whenever I attempt to publish, I get an error message saying, "Error, edit not published. [28056456-4629-4f53-81a1-d11cc48181e3] Caught exception of type Wikimedia\Rdbms\DBQueryError". NiteshTALK 08:38, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Nitseh003 Is there a certain article this occurs on? Did you have trouble making this post? 331dot (talk) 08:50, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

No, this didn't happen in just one article; initially, this error occurred on the article 2023 Telangana Legislative Assembly election article, and then I encountered the same error while editing several other articles. However, I didn't have trouble making this post. NiteshTALK 09:05, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Other users have run into this as well, and the site's technical people are working on it. See phab:T352628. -- John of Reading (talk) 09:57, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

John of Reading Same here. Been getting this exact error message repeatedly. Any update/timeframe for this to be fixed? hundenvonPG (talk) 13:45, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

@HundenvonPenang: No, I'm not technical enough to understand the problem! But it's been marked as a top priority problem on Phabricator. -- John of Reading (talk) 13:48, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

I appreciate it. hundenvonPG (talk) 13:51, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Categories and templates

Hi, I've just started editing and I've been finding uncategorized pages and adding categories using HotCat. However, the lists of uncategorized pages mostly consist of templates. At first I was just ignoring them because I wasn't sure what to do with them, but now I see that HotCat doesn't even allow you to add categories. Can they just be ignored? If so, is there a way of filtering them out from the list of uncategorized pages? Orange sticker (talk) 09:51, 4 December 2023 (UTC) Orange sticker (talk) 09:52, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

@Orange sticker: Which list of uncategorized pages? Please always be specific and link any page you refer to or want help with. Special:UncategorizedPages appears to only have articles. Category:All uncategorized pages is mostly templates. We call it a category and not a list when the page name starts with "Category:". You can find articles there with incategory:"All uncategorized pages", or use the "Search in" box to pick namespaces. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:01, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks! I didn't know about Special:UncategorizedPages - all the links in the Community Portal take you to Category:All uncategorized pages which is difficult to navigate. Orange sticker (talk) 11:05, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

@Orange sticker: HotCat avoids templates because they are tricky. Categories for the template itself should be inside <noinclude>...</noinclude> or on a documentation subpage which is transcluded inside <noinclude>...</noinclude>. Otherwise the categories will also be added to pages using the template. Categories for pages using the template are often added in complicated ways which depend on the parameters or namespace where the template is called. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:36, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Database error when editing

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T352628
Resolved

I'm trying to edit a page List of Rick and Morty characters, and get an error messages:

• [2c398c0a-dfe6-4750-a41a-010c7639fc59] Caught exception of type Wikimedia\Rdbms\DBQueryError
• [6d4253f4-cafc-409c-b4bc-b98bfcd6cb3c] Caught exception of type Wikimedia\Rdbms\DBQueryError
• [717bf950-0131-4b2e-a4cb-615e59bd0309] Caught exception of type Wikimedia\Rdbms\DBQueryError
• Server returned error: HTTP 500.

etc. Lado85 (talk) 11:49, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Same. If I reload it tends to work, but there is definitely something amiss.  Mr.choppers | ✎  11:53, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

This seems to be related to the questions above. I'll add the Phabricator link. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 16:33, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

DBQueryError

while editing the page National Democratic Alliance (India), error Wikimedia\Rdbms\DBQueryError prompts out while publishing my edits how to fix the issue? Lionel Messi Lover (talk) 12:38, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

I don't think it's just you (see two sections above). I'll see if there is a phab ticket for this. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 12:41, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

We have a ticket out at [2] for it. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 12:45, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Lee Vilenski - Lee, do the tech people have any estimated time to resolve this? It's still happening as at 12:51, and it's bloody annoying if you're stupid enough to do a block of work before trying to save - like I just did. KJP1 (talk) 12:52, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Yes, It's pretty annoying and only happening in one article in my server .i.e. [[National Democratic Alliance (India)]] Lionel Messi Lover (talk) 13:33, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Database error when editing article

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T352628
Resolved

I keep getting errors when editing the article List of Asterix volumes. The error message is something like this:

Database error

A database query error has occurred. This may indicate a bug in the software.

[820db32b-6ad2-4f6b-a1ec-4b3ee71b322c] 2023-12-04 13:43:10: Fatal exception of type "Wikimedia\Rdbms\DBQueryError"

What is going on here? JIP | Talk 13:44, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

@JIP: The technical people are working in it. -- John of Reading (talk) 13:46, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Yes. It appears that I am having this issue too. Does anyone have any idea on when this will be resolved? Scorpions1325 (talk) 16:32, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Database error

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T352628
Resolved

I also do have problem at Lady Marmalade - [de19c027-f6b5-4f70-9c3f-4bb8500f636c] 2023-12-04 13:47:30: Fatal exception of type "Wikimedia\Rdbms\DBQueryError" --- Cat12zu3 (talk) 13:52, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

@Cat12zu3 This is a known problem, being worked on: see section immediately above this one. Mike Turnbull (talk) 13:56, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Is there a PROD] log?

I know how to access lists of pages currently proposed for deletion, but not how to see a list of redlinks of successfully deleted pages. I know Twinkle has a feature like this but it isn't retroactive. Mach61 (talk) 14:10, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

The history of User:DumbBOT/ProdSummary is about as good as you're going to get. —Cryptic 14:29, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

There's Category:Proposed_deletion. - UtherSRG (talk) 16:53, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Can we allow a user who claims to be the same person person as the Biography of a Living Person upload a photo of themself onto it?

Can we really trust someone just to upload a picture of themself onto Wikipedia, imagine if Elon Musk were so brazen as to make a Wikipedia page for himself and upload a photgraph of himself there from his cellphone? I don´t know the policy, on this somehow it just sounds sketchy, I ask this question because this is what exactly happened in the case of Kenny Smith, whose current infobox photo was uploaded by a user who is now banned for being Kenny Smith. I just wanted to be extra sure. StrongALPHA (talk) 15:23, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

@StrongALPHA There are two steps in placing an image into a Wikipedia article. The first is to upload it to Wikimedia Commons with a suitable license. We want to encourage notable people to do that, and there is no conflict of interest in their doing so. The second step is to place the correct image code onto the article so the picture appears. That's where the COI is relevant. Ideally, the person who updates the article to include the image should be independent: and of course they need to check that the image is appropriate and of the person it is supposed to be. WP:ASFAQ specifically encourages article subjects to add photographs. Mike Turnbull (talk) 15:32, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Right place to ask for category creation that requires an administrator's approval?

I submitted a request at Wikipedia:Articles for creation/Redirects and categories. Is that the right place, or is there a more appropriate forum lurking somewhere? Clarityfiend (talk) 16:12, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Clarityfiend given your edit count you could have just created the cat directly. Sungodtemple (talk • contribs) 17:02, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

The requested category is fully create-protected, meaning only an administrator can create it. The protection log summary says "please contact any administrator if you need to create this category", so I would recommend that Clarityfriend contact any active administrator and make a case for creation. A post at WP:AN would also be reasonable. Speaking just for myself, I would need a lot of persuading, and I would want to know what counterarguments there are to counteract the consensus at the last CfD. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 17:11, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

AN it is then. Convicted pedophiles exist, pedophiles who've written about their pedophilia exist (Erwin Schrödinger), and it certainly satisfies WP:CATDEF. I'm not talking about uncertain cases like Lewis Carroll. Clarityfiend (talk) 13:11, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

If university

If university scholoars, or anyone references your information, or provides links, does Wikipedia allow this? As this is what is done in education where you reference or provide links to backing up information or a quote or landmark 2A00:23C7:B881:3D01:AD1B:C2BC:9A34:BA1C (talk) 16:55, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Once you click "publish changes", the edit belongs to Wikipedia. People can link to Wikipedia all they wish. Wikipedia shouldn't really be used in a scholarly work, but if it was, it would need to be cited. Anyone can use Wikipedia information for any purpose with attribution. 331dot (talk) 17:01, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

"belongs to Wikipedia" is inaccurate. Wikipedia does not have more right to the edit than others but when you make the edit, you release it with Wikipedia:Text of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. This allows Wikipedia and everybody else to share it if they follow a few rules like giving attribution. PrimeHunter (talk) 17:43, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

That's true of course, but I find it helps people to explain it that way, especially when some think that they can remove an edit they made just because they don't want it here any more. It's not exclusively up to them once they click publish. 331dot (talk) 17:57, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

IP editor. See WP:REUSE. Wikipedia itself isn't a reliable source but the sources our article cites should be reliable, in general. Mike Turnbull (talk) 17:01, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Database error

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T352628
Resolved

I'm trying to edit List of political parties in Japan and I get this error message each time:

Database error

A database query error has occurred. This may indicate a bug in the software. [c5116397-4b0d-47d7-a3c5-83098b85fb5b] 2023-12-04 17:38:53: Fatal exception of type "Wikimedia\Rdbms\DBQueryError"

What should I do? Can anyone else fix this please? Helper201 (talk) 17:41, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Helper201Please see the 7 different threads about this further up the page - Arjayay (talk) 17:45, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Edit undone

According [this article], India who hosted the 2023 ICC cricket world was under sportwashing and the source that has been put up for it is an opinion piece done by the [(the website heading itself says that it's an opinion and not a news)]. According to the byrules of Wiki, opinions can't be used as sources on wikipedia. And The Guardian is full of opinions against India. 2. All the cricket playing full members are supposed to host at least ICC event this decade. It's not like India went ahead and forced everyone to award them with the tournament. It has a democratically elected system which decides the hosts. Therefore, my edit should be considered and not be removed. - My edit [[3]] 205.254.171.139 (talk) 18:25, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

You have asked much the same question on the teahouse. Please ask questions only in one place. Let's deal with this one there. Wikipedia:Teahouse#Opinion based Edit which I removed was undone --Tagishsimon (talk) 18:41, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Diagrams in Chess Defense

Hi 😊 I'm a chess learner. Mostly topics discussed about in chess are in two parts: Chess openings (King's Gambit etc) And Chess Defense ( Sicilian Defense etc) Opening belongs to white and defense belongs to black. The diagrams of all chess topics on Wikipedia are white side down and black side up. I just want that discussing defense the illustrative diagrams must be black side down for easy understanding. Thanks 😊 Dr.Nixami (talk) 18:50, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Hi Dr.Nixami, I agree with your point but I don't think that this belongs here. The Help Desk is for questions and this would belong better on a talk page, perhaps Talk:Chess? Best regards, TypoEater (talk) 19:00, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

@Dr.Nixami: Talk:Chess is for the content of the specific article Chess. General discussion about chess articles is better at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chess. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:18, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

OK thanks, I didn't know WikiProject Chess was a thing. Thanks for clarifying! TypoEater (talk) 14:48, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:MobileDiff/1188310174

Why was this template present? JackkBrown (talk) 19:04, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Hi, the redirect Truffaldino targets one of those anchors, so at least that one should be restored, probably since it seems like a fine redirect.

It should be in the section heading for "Variants", which is immediately below where it was, per Template:Anchor since it's putting anchors for the variants in that section that don't have articles. It does looks like maybe right now only only exists as a redirect targeting one of those anchors (which is now broken). The other ones, Guazetto, Zaccagnino, and Bagatino could potentially be removed/fixed if they're inaccurate or will never be used (for example, I don't know Italian but it seems like guzaetto should maybe be guazzetto instead?). Skynxnex (talk) 19:33, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

@Skynxnex: have I restored it correctly? JackkBrown (talk) 20:29, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

@JackkBrown: According to the documentation at {{Anchor}} the template should be substituted when used in a section header. RudolfRed (talk) 20:35, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Agree with RudolfRed; looks correct other than lack of WP:SUBST. I've done so: Special:Diff/1188361179. The main reason to do the substitution in this case, I believe, is to help the software correctly show the section name in edit summaries (see the autogenerated one in the one I've linked as an example of what it will avoid in the future). Substituting a template, in case one doesn't know, is as simple as adding "substs:", so {{substs:Anchor|Test}} to replace the template with the expanded wikitext. Skynxnex (talk) 22:55, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

What do the dots mean on the watchlist?

In the watchlist there are dots on the left of each edit. At first I thought these were just bullet points, but I've just noticed that most are coloured blue, but some are white. What do these dot colours mean? —Panamitsu (talk) 22:43, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Hi @Panamitsu, solid/filled in dots means that change was made to the page after you last visited that page. Empty dots mean you have visited that page after that change. There is, with at least most themes, help text hidden near the top which describes it as "Changes to pages since you last visited them are shown with solid markers." (for vector-2022). But it is easy to miss. Skynxnex (talk) 23:04, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

It may not be readily apparent because, if you click on an edit to see what got changed and then just click the "back" button on your browser, the watchlist page data is not refreshed - the button will often still show as if you haven't seen it yet. Refreshing that page usually fixes this. Matt Deres (talk) 15:56, 6 December 2023 (UTC)