Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2023 October 10

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October 10

Editing quotes with errors

In another wiki (memory alpha) there is a quote that incorrectly stated an actors name. How would Wikipedia deal with this? If you fix it, it is no longer a quote. Thanks. 73.127.172.166 (talk) 03:32, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

We have {{sic}} to highlight misspellings or incorrect terms in a quote without altering it, and we could add an explanatory footnote clarifying the intended meaning if necessary. Might be easier to paraphrase. Folly Mox (talk) 03:44, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Hi there! Presuming the quote is important enough to keep, you could provide another published reliable source explaining the error in the quote. Then you could write something like: Although Fred stated "erroneous quote",<insert reference 1 here> Wilma stated "correction".<insert reference 2 here> GoingBatty (talk) 03:46, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, exactly what I was looking for. I’m the original poster. AlanneWiki (talk) 06:52, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

Seeking a volunteer to edit my Wiki page

I am lost. My page needs to be edited. I did receive a response from someone but didn't act on it because of crush of work. Now I can't access it anymore.

This is the situation. I have prepared a Word document that a volunteer case to guide an edit. It has a new photo a well. The current version is terribly out of date and contains an unethical edit by someone, a point I would like to discuss when a volunteer wishes to edit my page.

I do not wan to do the edit myself because I don't this that is appropriate. Also I have no ides how to do that. Thank you. Gerrit Verschuur Blikies (talk) 11:28, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

@Blikies I assume that by "page" you mean Wikipedia's article about you, which indeed you should not personally edit because of your conflict of interest. However, we do want articles to be accurate and welcome your input on its Talk Page, at Talk:Gerrit Verschuur, where you should follow the procedures outlines at WP:EDITREQUEST. There is a special template called {{edit COI}} which can be placed on the Talk Page to alert volunteers to your suggestions. Don't try to add lots of things in one request. Add specific changes, backed up by reliable sources and all should be well. As to the photograph, provided you are the copyright holder you can upload it to Wikimedia Commons and then create an edit request for it to be placed in the article. Mike Turnbull (talk) 11:37, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

Courtesy link Gerrit Verschuur. Theroadislong (talk) 11:37, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

Cross category assembly?

I *thought* there was a tool that made it easier to take to take things in both Category:Purple things and Category:People Eaters and move them into a new category Category:Purple People Eaters. Can someone please point me in the right direction?Naraht (talk) 13:30, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

@Naraht I think you are looking for one of the tools listed at Wikipedia:User_scripts/List#Categories_2, probably Cat-A-Lot, although as I've not used it myself, I'm not sure. Mike Turnbull (talk) 13:55, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

Is there a way to change an edit summary?

Because of my butter fingers, my edit here[1] doesn't have a real edit summary. I meant to type "Added 'A cover of the Ronettes' Be My Baby remained unreleased until 1998 when it was included in the career-spanning John Lennon Anthology box set.' as my edit summary but accidentally submitted my change before I typed that out. Is there a way to change an edit summary? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 14:23, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

@A Quest For Knowledge, No, you cannot change an edit summary. 🛧Midori No Sora♪🛪 ( ☁＝☁＝✈) 14:31, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

@Midori No Sora You can use the checkbox at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-editing to make sure that edits won't save unless you have entered an edit summary. For really important cases, you can make another small edit to a page immediately after the wrong summary and explain in the new summary what you missed. Mike Turnbull (talk) 15:03, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

@A Quest For Knowledge Sorry, pinged the wrong person..... Mike Turnbull (talk) 15:03, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

@Michael D. Turnbull: Thanks for the tip regarding that checkbox. It is now checked. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 17:11, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

Problem

Can someone please identify what is causing the error here:

{{Infobox settlement
|pushpin_map= {{Location map|World}}
|coordinates= {{coord|42|50|41|N|6|6|59|W}}
}}

Rodicol
Coordinates: 42°50′41″N 6°6′59″W

Sarangem (talk) 15:32, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

Hey @Sarangem, I'm guessing like this?

{{Infobox settlement
|pushpin_map   = Earth
|coordinates  = {{coord|42|50|41|N|6|6|59|W|display=it}}
}}

Help desk/Archives/2023 October 10
Coordinates: 42°50′41″N 6°6′59″W

🛧Midori No Sora♪🛪 ( ☁＝☁＝✈) 15:49, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing out Sarangem (talk) 15:56, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

"Pages with Broken Anchors"

Does anyone know what this means? Broken anchors? From the jazz Cleanup ListingVmavanti (talk) 16:38, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

@Vmavanti See WP:ANCHOR. These will be articles where there ought to be a section anchor for another article to link to but something has gone wrong. Mike Turnbull (talk) 17:17, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

I like fixing broken anchors (for some weird reason). I'm not gonna revive my bot for this but I'll have a go at doing it by hand. Winston365 (talk) 03:54, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

Leroy Waterman

I want to know why, after some 20 years being on Wiki, my article "Leroy Waterman" has been deleted. Divades (talk) 17:27, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

According to Leroy Waterman, it was deleted as a copyright infringement this past February 15th. 331dot (talk) 17:30, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

Also see answer to previous question at the Teahouse. 57.140.16.56 (talk) 18:15, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

Fixing error on front page when you don't have an account

Hi, what's the best place to suggest fixing some errors on the front page article (Terminator 2) for somebody who doesn't have an account? In the sentence, "According to Professor Jefffrey A. Brown, there was a growth of female-led action films in the wake of Alien's success" there are a few errors.

1. It should be Aliens', not Alien's. Aliens (James Cameron, 1986) is a different movie from Alien (Scott, 1979), and you can verify Aliens is the one referenced in Brown's article just by clicking the source. (you can see it at https://www.jstor.org/stable/1225765 .) 2. Jeffrey should have 2 "f"s rather than 3.

I tried posting this on the article's talk page a few hours ago without success, and now it's bugging my OCD. Thanks! 2600:1700:EDF0:2F50:F801:E52D:D72D:CAD1 (talk) 17:40, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

Update: Looks like the "Jefffrey" thing was fixed, but the wrong movie title is still there. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1700:EDF0:2F50:F801:E52D:D72D:CAD1 (talk) 17:42, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

Hi, only admins can edit the main page, other editors can post a request at WP:ERRORS. TSventon (talk) 17:44, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1700:EDF0:2F50:F801:E52D:D72D:CAD1 (talk) 17:48, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

It looks like it's been fixed. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 18:32, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

Having OCD isn't necessarily a negative in regards to Wikipedia. See User:ThatPeskyCommoner/The Huge Benefits of OCD-for-Wikipedians and Wikipedia:Editors with obsessive-compulsive disorder. As the second article says, " If a group of researchers had been given the task of creating a working/hobby environment specifically designed to attract people with obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD), it's hard to see how they could have come up with anything better than Wikipedia." I hope you register an account, there are lots of tools to help with organize Wikipedia that are only available to those with accounts.Naraht (talk) 12:59, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

youtuber wikipage

Hi, I have been volunteering with a youtube page run by a friend and things are growing more than ever now. Sure, it's not massive but the growth is enough to say, in the field we work in, live aviation footage, we have amassed 12,000 followers and that is growing at a steady rate to consider if a wiki page is a feasible thing.

At this point, I won't mention the finer details but do wonder if this is something at this stage that is allowed as I realise "noteable" is a grey area. So I would ask that and if not, what would change that ?

Thanks. God's Man Of Truth (talk) 18:52, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

God's Man Of Truth We don't have "wiki pages" here, we have articles. This is an important distinction that may affect your mindset. This person could have 12 million followers, and that is meaningless as far as notability as Wikipedia defines it is concerned. What matter is if a subject receives significant coverage in independent reliable sources, demonstrating how they meet the definition of a notable person. 331dot (talk) 18:57, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

Hi, in reality the noteable part is the service provided to many people at a variety of places, showing live events they would most likely never get to see. The service provided is also a growing community of like minded people who an average of 2-3 live streams per week at various military bases around the country. The person who films everything live doesn't see himself as noteable 'just a man with a camera' as he is a humble person. He indeed at this time has no idea I am writing to you but I know that's not an issue. I'm not sure Wiki will allow an article to exist on this, but I have full access to details, official youtube channel, official website and all the social media outlets connected. I just thought it may be something that would be viable. If not, that's cool. God's Man Of Truth (talk) 19:20, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

Then I was confused- for which I apologize- but the overall point remains. There needs to be independent reliable sources that discuss what makes him important/significant/influential. If that's his video work, there needs to be sources that discuss that on their own(not say, based on an interview with him). His own YouTube and social media cannot be used to establish notability, as those are all primary sources. We want to know what others say about him. The mere fact that he does a good thing is insufficient to merit an article, see WP:NOBLE for more information. 331dot (talk) 19:24, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

Twelve thousand followers???? On a planet of seven billion people, you're talking many orders of magnitude short of notability. When something like this starts getting articles written about it in aviation industry magazines, or better yet in the mainstream media, then somebody who does not have a conflict of interest will undoubtedly create an article. We don't care about inside sources, we care about what the external reliable sources have to say. Please also read our essay on "up-and-coming" topics. --Orange Mike | Talk 19:31, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

Orange Mike. You may wish to calm your written tone down. I don't care for the way you have spoken to me. God's Man Of Truth (talk) 19:40, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

Understood, thanks God's Man Of Truth (talk) 19:33, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

@God's Man Of Truth Other people have given you good but incomplete advice. Throughout my response I will include links to applicable policies and guidelines; I suggest you read or at least skim them, but they are a lot, so I'm trying to summarize.

• The way Wikipedia defines "notable" for our purposes is a little different than the dictionary definition of notable.
• You see, one of our core policies is that everything in the encyclopedia must be verifiable from reliable sources - in other words, that there must exist somewhere outside of Wikipedia a written source for all the information in this Encyclopedia so that a determined reader could fact check our articles and see where our information comes from.
• Because of this, our definition of notable revolves around the existence of sources, because no matter how worthy something is of note (the dictionary definition of notable), we cannot write about it unless there are sources to draw information from.
• Quoting from the General notability guideline: "A topic is presumed to be suitable for a stand-alone article or list when it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject." Breaking this down a bit
  • "Significant coverage" is coverage that "addresses the topic directly and in detail, so that no original research is needed to extract the content. Significant coverage is more than a trivial mention, but it does not need to be the main topic of the source material." - this can be a little squishy to nail down what is and is not significant coverage, but there are some examples listed here.
  • "Reliable sources" are often context-dependent, as a source can be reliable for some things but not for others. One major clue to if a source is reliable or not is if it has a reputation for fact checking and accuracy. Note that sources must be published - they must be "available to the public in some form". Articles should be primarily built around secondary sources, with extremely limited use of primary or tertiary sources to supplement information from secondary sources. This leads into the requirement that sources be independent, as if a person or company is publishing information about themself, it is virtually always considered a primary source.
  • "Independant" means that the source has no direct connection to the person or thing being written about. If a person or company is publishing information about themselves, or putting out press releases that the press is regurgitating, they have an incentive to make themselves look good, in other words, that information cannot be expected to be neutral and to tell a complete story. We don't want our articles to be based solely around what someone wants to say about themselves, we need our articles to be based around what other people who have no interest one way or another have had to say about them.

So, now that you know that notability as we use that word here is not about if something is worthy of note, it's about if we have sufficient sources from which to build an article about a topic, you are in a better position to know if your friend's YouTube channel is notable or not. So, is it? Can you point us to at least 3 reliable sources that are independent of the channel and your friend that have written about or discussed the channel in some detail? ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 22:11, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

Disambiguation oddity

Out of the Fog is a disambig page which includes in its list Out of the Fog (1962 film) which redirects to Montgomery Tully who directed the film. That seems odd. The only mention of the film on his page is in the filmography, and of course its wikilink is circular! If Out of the Fog (1962 film) is to appear at all on the disambig page, it should be a red link. Or, and this feels more logical to me, since its page doesn't exist, it's not helpul that it appears on the Disambig page at all. Thanks for any thoughts! Tobyhoward (talk) 20:53, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

Out of the Fog (1962 film) used to be a standalone article before it was redirected to the director's article. Since Montgomery Tully#Partial filmography is just a barely annotated list, it's difficult to incorporate the sourced material from the old version of Out of the Fog into that article as would be useful. It makes sense to me to keep Out of the Fog (1962 film) on the dabpage; less so to have the self-link in the Montgomery Tully partial filmography, which could be delinked for clarity.

There are three other articles that link to the title, so we have to take some care in cleaning up any changes we might make. The film table entry at List of British films of 1962 actually has more information than the bare link at Montgomery Tully, and might actually be a better redirect target. The source for that article's information about the film goes into some depth, and would be good to incorporate if you feel like expanding Out of the Fog (1962 film) back into a regular article, but I'm not sure if it establishes notability. Expanding the redirect is probably the best solution for the encyclopaedia assuming sufficient sources can be found, but others here might have better ideas. Folly Mox (talk) 22:01, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

Notable Cockneys

I recently noticed a potentially infinite list of 'Notable Cockneys' within the 'Cockney' article. Each person on the list has a separate link, but there doesn't appear to be a summarising source provided for the entire list. Could someone please clarify what the Wikipedia rules and guidelines say about the inclusion of such lists without a summarising source? Thank you! – Mariâ Magdalina (talk) 23:00, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

It seems most entries on the list do have a citation. Can you clarify your question? RudolfRed (talk) 23:09, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

Is it allowed to continuously augment the list with additional individuals, each accompanied by separate links, or is it mandatory to possess a single, dependable source that enumerates all the individuals comprehensively? – Mariâ Magdalina (talk) 23:22, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

It is allowed. There is no requirement that there be a single source with all the names listed. RudolfRed (talk) 00:10, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for your response. :)

I’ve noticed that in Wikipedia articles in other languages, such a practice has been prohibited. – Mariâ Magdalina (talk) 00:43, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

For instance, on the Russian language Wikipedia, this practice is prohibited by the Arbitration Committee, and it is also prohibited by an equivalent of the WP:NOR policy. Therefore, I wanted to ascertain whether this article is compliant, and if the list can continue to exist in its present format. – Mariâ Magdalina (talk) 01:04, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

If the list is getting too long, it can be split out into a List of Cockneys (suggest that a wikilinked article be the criteria for inclusion). What ru-Wiki does is their own business, it has no bearing on what en-Wiki does. Mjroots (talk) 06:24, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

Thank you. I acknowledge that each language edition of Wikipedia operates by its own set of rules and guidelines. My comment was merely aimed at providing context for why I posed the question. – Mariâ Magdalina (talk) 13:57, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

@Мария Магдалина More details at MOS:LIST. A rule-of-thumb is that lists within an article of, say, "notable cockneys" must only contain names that have Wikipedia biographies (i.e. are already Wiki-notable by virtue of that biography). Thus there should not be any red-linked names in the list but there doesn't need to be individual citation. Stand-alone lists can have redlinks, provided that the individual items meet the criteria for the list and there are cited sources that demonstrate their notability as a group. Mike Turnbull (talk) 23:08, 11 October 2023 (UTC)