Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2023 June 23

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Help desk
< June 22 << May | June | Jul >> June 24 >
Welcome to the Wikipedia Help Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current Help Desk pages.


June 23[edit]

new page[edit]

I'm a TV Director and wondered how i make a wikipedia page? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Highgateboy (talkcontribs) 00:24, 23 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Highgateboy: Hi there! WP:AUTO explains that Wikipedia strongly discourages autobiographies. Creating a new Wikipedia article can be challenging, especially when you have a conflict of interest (COI). To learn how to edit, I suggest you start at Help:Introduction. I suggest spending a significant amount of time editing existing articles to hone your skills. When you're ready to create an article, you would gather multiple published independent reliable sources that have provided significant coverage of you, and determine whether they demonstrate that you meet Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, called "notability". If so, you could create an account and declare your COI on your user page. Then follow the instructions at Help:Your first article and summarize what the sources have published, and be prepared for a process that may include months of waiting for review, rejections, and rewrites, before an article is created. If you are successful, then you could never edit the article directly due to your COI, but could submit edit requests on the article talk page. Hope this helps. GoingBatty (talk) 02:43, 23 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

References not showing[edit]

Hello,

On the page Agriculture in California, the references are not showing. Would someone take a look and explain or fix what is wrong with the page? Thank you. Kaltenmeyer (talk) 02:04, 23 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Kaltenmeyer: Hi there! The article contains the hidden Category:Pages where post-expand include size is exceeded. WP:PEIS explains why the references aren't showing. Fixing the issue will be harder. GoingBatty (talk) 02:14, 23 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Kaltenmeyer - It's better now, but not all the references are showing. GoingBatty (talk) 02:26, 23 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! Kaltenmeyer (talk) 12:17, 23 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Kaltenmeyer: Headbomb did a lot of work to reduce the size of the references so they are now all visible. GoingBatty (talk) 14:09, 23 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Copyediting, proofreading and changes[edit]

Here i tried to do some changes and need discreet advice if something else to need.

Saad al-Ateeq

Regards, Love2read&write (talk) 08:47, 23 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

They way your comment is written suggests that English is not your language. I don't mean to offend; I suspect that you speak English far better than I speak any of the three languages I've tried to learn. But if you want to do copy editing and proofreading, you should probably do it in a language you have really mastered. Uporządnicki (talk) 12:46, 23 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps i can work with skilled editors like you who have a mastery of the English language to ensure accurate and polished content. While it's true that English may not be my native language, I have a strong passion for copy editing and proofreading therefore i am here to learn and build knowledge by seeking pieces of advice. I appreciate your perspective, and I understand that language learning can be a challenging process but i am trying harder and i feel that i am doing well. I do not hesitate to get validation as it keeps me motivated. i hope that you have seen the changes that i asked for. Any comments on that would be much appreciated. Love2read&write (talk) 05:00, 26 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Mobile ‘Reply’. Any way to get it to stop autosaving?[edit]

Anyone read about the guy who locked himself inside an ATM in 2017? Well i’ve got myself locked into having to edit the same ‘reply’ on ANI. The problem? I left the page, and came back, but the ‘expand thread’ button won’t function, for where my ‘in progress edit’ is, so I’ve got an edit in the works, that I can’t get into, and it’s greying out every other ‘reply’ option on the page.

Any idea how I can get the ‘Reply’ option to refresh / purge / Stop recovering the changes, and let go of tying me to an edit I can’t get into, and don’t even WANT to do, anymore? ANI moves ten edits an hour, anyway (well, feels like it!)

Might be a better question for Village Pump Technical, but got to WP:VILLAGEPUMP and it does say ‘TEAHOUSE or Help Desk’ for help Editing Wikipedia, soooo… MM (Give me info.) (Victories) 11:18, 23 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Matticusmadness does tapping the cancel button next to reply and refreshing work for you? Alpha3031 (tc) 13:53, 23 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
They can't get to the cancel button, apparently - their reply is in a collapsed thread that won't un-collapse. 199.208.172.35 (talk) 14:00, 23 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, right. I missed that, thanks for pointing it out. The nuclear option would be to clear cookies and session storage then logging back in then. Alpha3031 (tc) 14:08, 23 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
IP hit the nail on the head. I‘ll throw ANI at Special:Purge, and a cookie clear. Cheers. MM (Give me info.) (Victories) 15:55, 23 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Ref number 34 and 36 are wrong (in RED!) - sorry - please leave in quotes.

Ref number 34 is this book: R. Angus Buchanan, ed. (1996). Engineers and Engineering: papers of the Rolt Fellows. Bath University Press. ISBN 978-0861971183. (please leave the quote in)

Thank you. 175.38.42.62 (talk) 11:32, 23 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed. TSventon (talk) 11:56, 23 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Ref number 36 was published in 1819 - Please put that date - 1819 - into the ref and leave in the quote. thanks 175.38.42.62 (talk) 12:20, 23 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed. TSventon (talk) 12:37, 23 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Column break[edit]

If a page uses {{div col|colwidth=20em|rules=yes}} & {{div col end}} markup, is there a way to define where the column breaks? I just made what I think is a legitimate edit on Richard II (play) but the result is the column break is now in a less appropriate place. AndyJones (talk) 12:57, 23 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I know this is not possible with {{div col}}; I suspect that you can use the {{columns-start}}, {{column}} and {{columns-end}} to achieve the effect you want. Or see Category:Multi-column templates for more column-generating options... Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 13:30, 23 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

question; any inline template or tag for "humor"?[edit]

does wikipedia have an inline tag for "humor"? --Sm8900 (talk) 14:13, 23 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, many of them, @Sm8900. See the table here. 199.208.172.35 (talk) 14:16, 23 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
that's good! hey, are you an IP editor? how is it that you know more than me? [just kidding] it's not as if I don't know my way around wikipedia!! [sarcasm] lol in all seriousness. thanks for the help! much appreciated! [FBDB] Sm8900 (talk) 14:27, 23 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
An IP editor? Me? Naaaaah.[Joke] 199.208.172.35 (talk) 14:38, 23 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, I'm saving these. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 21:03, 24 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a good way to provide a list on an article but some of what would be in the article is listed on another page?[edit]

Hi all

I'm working to expand the article on ecocide (severe destruction of the natural environment), I want to include something like a 'in popular culture' section to list films, tv series, novels etc that depict ecocide. My issue is one of the ways ecocide could happen in nuclear war (although less likely that climate change etc), and List of nuclear holocaust fiction already exists and is really extensive. Is there a neat way to say on the article that the list on ecocide is a list of everything except nuclear holocaust and the nuclear stuff is on this other page? One idea is to split the list on the article by cause of ecocide and just have the section on nuclear say something like 'see List of nuclear holocaust fiction'. Does that sound an ok approach? Is there another I could use? Also is there a nice template to do this?

Thanks

John Cummings (talk) 21:56, 23 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, John. What is your criterion for deciding what films should go in that list? If you can find a reliable source that describes the film specifically as depicting ecocide, that's one thing, but if you are applying your own judgment on what counts, that seems to me to be original research. See WP:IPC#Content.
For your specific question, I'm not sure what would be best. Sometimes articles contain a brief summary of a topic together with the {{main article}} template, but I don't think that quite meets your needs. ColinFine (talk) 22:33, 23 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi ColinFine, yes I've found a source that describes several films as being about ecocide, its a who chapter in a film criticism book about depictions of nature called 'depictions of ecocide'. Additionally since the definition for ecocide is quite clear I'm confident we can use another word that describes the same thing e.g runaway climate change. John Cummings (talk) 00:18, 24 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a nice template to draw in the title and infobox image from an article into another article[edit]

Hi all

I want to create a list of notable people who have spoken about ecocide on the article, possibly in a table with their quotes. I'd like to find a nice simple way of displaying both their name and an image in the table in one cell. Is there a nice template that would draw this information in for me so I don't have to do it all manually and have to mess around with working out consistent image sizing?

Thanks

John Cummings (talk) 21:59, 23 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, again John. The best way to do this would be a template for each row, that drew the information from Wikidata. I don't know much about how to do this.
Again I'm dubious that this is appropriate for an encyclopaedia article. It sounds to me as if you are wanting to go beyond the purview of a Wikipedia article, which summarizes what reliable published sources say about a subject. ColinFine (talk) 22:41, 23 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hi again, thanks, I'll ask on Wikidata project chat, I'm sure I've seen one before. Just for information these are all from reliable sources, mostly from the Guardian, New York Times and a few others, its people like the Pope, UN Secretary General, Jane Goodall, Frans Timmermans, Chile Eboe-Osuji. John Cummings (talk) 00:22, 24 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Unless they specifically used that very word, this would be original research and synthesis; indeed, I'm not sure but what it would be original research even if they used that word. Wikipedia is not a search engine for finding every famous person who ever spoke about that topic. --Orange Mike | Talk 00:38, 24 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry if I wasn't clear, this is people specifically endorsing the idea the ecocide could be made an international crime e.g the quote from the Pope is “By ‘ecocide’ we should understand the loss, damage and destruction of ecosystems of a given territory, so that its enjoyment by the inhabitants has been or may be severely affected. This is a fifth category of crimes against peace, which should be recognised as such by the international community.” John Cummings (talk) 00:47, 24 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Might Wikiquote be a better place for this sort of thing? I fear that if you start a collection of quotes by 'famous' (aka notable) people here at en.wiki, editors will start adding unsourced stuff that may or may not be appropriate. I think that this sort of list will be just like 'In popular culture' sections where editors are always adding unsourced trivia that other editors have to remove. Please don't do this.
Trappist the monk (talk) 01:06, 24 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I'm not sure I understand, you don't want me to do something that is within the rules of Wikipedia because it might in the future encourage people to make things up and put them on there? Sorry if I've missunderstood something. John Cummings (talk) 13:53, 24 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It's straying into WP:TRIVIA. Note that Wikipedia largely operates by consensus, and so far, in this thread at least, consensus seems to be leery of such additions. 97.113.8.72 (talk) 15:36, 24 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]