Wikipedia:Help Desk - Excel Cannot Complete This Task With Available Resources

January 3

Afghan names

Dears; I posted a topic on Afghan names pronunciation and proper spelling but cannot find, even the draft one. I know it was waiting for the review but may I know the where about of my post please? â€" Preceding unsigned comment added by Beissed (talk • contribs) 01:01, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Oh dear, many things could have gone wrong. One is that you did not click on 'save' or you you saved to a non English version of Wikipedia. You do not have any edit history on English Wikiedia. Lets keep things simple before mentioning sandboxes. Which articles were you attempting to up date. We may then be able to follow the paper trail.--Aspro (talk) 01:51, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

@Beissed: User:Beissed/sandbox was deleted. We are an encyclopedia. Your page was not something an encyclopedia would consider to include. The former contents of deleted pages can only be seen by administrators. Do you want a copy for use outside Wikipedia? @Aspro: You cannot see deleted edits but the bottom of user contributions has edit counters which include deleted edits. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:03, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Help

1. Is there any guidance at when to use first person (Obama) and third person (he) particularly in biography article?
2. What kind of reference is it? ---> Obama (1995, 2004), p. 12.

Hddty. (talk) 02:26, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

"Obama" is not "first person." Not sure what you mean by "What kind of reference is it?" In general, good practice is just to use either his name or the third person pronoun to ensure good language flow. If the text you're writing refers to a time when Obama is president, it would be good practice to say "President Obama," not just "Obama." But if the text refers to his pre-presidency life, then omit "president." Read the passage, and then read it again to make sure the wording is not overly repetitive either way or confusing, especially if another "he" appears somewhere nearby in the sentence or paragraph. DonFB (talk) 03:21, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Obama (1995, 2004), p. 12 is a (poorly-formed, in my opinion) short-form citation. If you look at Barack Obama §References, there is a matching long-form citation:

Obama, Barack (2004) [1st. Pub. 1995]. Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance. New York: Three Rivers Press. ISBN 978-1-4000-8277-3. 

The short-form, refers to the long-form.

â€"Trappist the monk (talk) 03:41, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Editing a page

Tracey Browning (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Hi there

I have tried editing my page as the birthplace is incorrect. It says Mackay but it should say Melbourne. How do I contact the editor of my page? Its Tracey Browning basketball

Many thanks Tracey Browning â€" Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.187.141.76 (talk) 03:14, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

I see there has already begun a reverting of edits on this page. One simply cannot change information on a WP page without providing a reliable source to support the claim. Otherwise, it will keep being reverted. Please provide a WP:RS to back up your claim of birth. Best. Maineartists (talk) 03:24, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Because you are the subject, Wikipedia strongly discourages editing a page about yourself. I would recommend leaving a message on the article's Talk page. Click the "talk" tab at the top of the article page and ask an editor to help. It will almost certainly be necessary that an editor will be able to find the information you want to modify in a published reliable source. It won't be sufficient for an editor to make the change based solely on your message. By the way, multiple people have been contributing to the article (click "History" at the top to see); there is not a single editor. DonFB (talk) 03:31, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Tracey, the problem is that there is a published reference which gives the Mackay location (Reference number 1 in the article), and no references that say differently. I realize this must sound bizarre to you, as you obviously know better, but an encyclopedia goes by written sources rather than by word of mouth. That is why the editors above have emphasized the need for finding a reliable source. In the meantime, I have marked the birth-place as disputed in the article, with a link to the article's Talk page for discussion about the issue. --Gronk Oz (talk) 09:35, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Wikipedia just summarises what sources say, so your argument is really with FIBA if they have published incorrect information. The page is about you, but not "yours", so the best way to correct the error is to find an accurate source, as recommended above. Unfortunately, Google here in the UK doesn't seem to bring up any reliable sources to counter FIBA's inaccuracy. Scobo also have the wrong place of birth. I have found some limited evidence that suggests that these sources are wrong, but not enough to make the correction. Perhaps you will have more success searching from Australia. Facebook and LinkedIn do not count as reliable since they are user-created. There must be some articles in Australian newspapers that we could reference. Dbfirs 10 :03, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Given that the article is a BLP and the reliability of the source has been called into question, the information should simply be removed. It's better to be silent than wrong, particularly in BLPs. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 10:24, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

The editor had offered to send me proof, but I pointed her to OTRS (again) and gave her the specific email to use. I agree with removing the birthplace completely in the meantime. Meters (talk) 22:42, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Referencing music charts

Dear editors: I was called to an RFC at Talk:Revealed Recordings, and as a result I have been editing the articles of some of the musicians signed to Revealed Recordings. Many of them have multiple references to various music charts, all in the same format, as for example THIS ONE. A lot of these references have been added by the same now blocked editor. In the example, the musician has one single which placed on one of the charts, but there are references to all of the charts on which he did not place. Also, the name "Steffen Hung", who I am guessing is the owner of the chart company, is listed twice in each reference, even though the charts are computer generated from a database. He's not mentioned in the Ultratop article, bu Ultratop chart pages mention "Hung Medien" as copyright holder.

Of course I've seen plenty of references to music charts before (they are often used to show notability of musicians or albums), but this is the first time I've seen it so extensive. Am I correct in identifying this as an example of WP:CITESPAM? In this case the effect of the extra citations, which cite lack of chart performance, is to drive traffic to the charting website. Is there a guideline somewhere for correct use of music charts in references?â€"Anne Delong (talk) 05:38, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Access

Is there a way for editors to access books or journals cited in articles without actually finding the physical book or buying access to the journal?

It seems nearly impossible to actually verify many obscure references, as they are often magazines or books unlikely to be kept by typical libraries. You could easily fake an obscure reference if you know of a book with a title that seemingly pertains to the subject matter, but you know that the book had a printing run of less than 10,000 copies.

Benjamin (talk) 06:36, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Try WP:WRE - X201 (talk) 14:07, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Hey Benjamin. I would check out Wikipedia:WikiProject Resource Exchange/Resource Request and see if they can be of help.

And yes, it would be possible to fake information by using an obscure source, or for that matter, simply making up a source with a convincing sounding name. Unfortunately, most of what has been written throughout history was done prior to the internet, and only a fraction of that has been digitized and made available for public access. Restricting the encyclopedia to only online sources may likely remove half or more of our content. The only thing you can do is assume good faith and verify when you can, expecially if a claim seems outlandish, of apparently contradicted by other sources you do have access to. TimothyJosephWood 14:09, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

• For paywalled articles (common in articles related to scientific research), the resource exchange project folks have access to a lot of stuff, but for out-of-print editions of pre-1900 books, you are mostly out of luck.

The one time I used a really hard-to-get source, I put an exact quote supporting the inline cite, and I would encourage others to do similarly (the harder to find is the source, the most precise a reference you should use). The basic idea is a tradeoff between the ease of access to the source and the ease of access to the specific material - lots of people can see online newspapers, so as long as it is somewhere in the linked article it is bound be checked by someone with an attention span long enough; but the one librarian that can access the original editions should not have to read 1500 pages of a phylogeny treaty. Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 16:21, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Article name Vs real name Vs referred to in article as...

What is the policy regarding people who are primarily known by their stage name, rather than a real name? Whatever it is, it doesn't seem to be consistent - just these few examples from my watchlist present different approaches:

• Pitbull (rapper) - article refers to him solely as "Pitbull"
• iJustine - mostly referred to as "Ezarik"
• Jenna Marbles - referred to as "Marbles"
• Cheryl (entertainer) - referred to as "Cheryl", but given the frequency she changes her surname, that's easy to understand.
• Yolandi Visser - "Visser" not du Toit, yet her bandmate Ninja is articled as Watkin Tudor Jones, and referred to as such, with a single exception calling him "Ninja" in reference to Die Antwoord.

The preference seems to be to refer to them by the same name that is the article title, yet that is contradicted by the Visser/Ninja - both are on equal standing with regard to notability and AKA, yet one has an article for her stage name, and the other for his real name.

MOS:LEGALNAME seems to cover it at first glance, but only describes how a person should initially be introduced, not how they should be referred to throughout the article. Chaheel Riens (talk) 10:44, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

• Pitbull (rapper) is a disambiguation title based on WP:PRIMARYREDIRECT for a type of dog. While I cannot really assess the other cases, the rule is to use the name under which they are most commonly known, which is usually the stage name, for the title - see WP:COMMONNAME. I am not aware of any such guideline for the use inside the articles (I feel one should use the title name, but the guidelines are apparently silent - the article the MOS uses as an example, Slim Pickens, mostly calls him Pickens). Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 16:38, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

The Manual of Style has this: Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Biographies#Subsequent use which says subsequent references generally by surname. RJFJR (talk) 19:27, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

The (generally agreed) standard in pro wrestling articles is to use ring names for ring stuff and real names for real stuff. It'd make as much sense for stage names and stage stuff (the studio could count as a stage). A bit odd to imagine a court calling Trevor Smith "Busta", and a bit odd to imagine MTV billing him as "Smith". Context should matter, even if it's not a written guideline. InedibleHulk (talk) 00:06, January 5, 2017 (UTC)

Electrostatic discharge

The link to the Estonian translation is wrong.

It redirects you to an Estonian Wikipedia page covering "Gas solutions" or Gaasilahendused in Estonian. I tried to correct it but couldn't find the right place to do so.

Thank you! â€" Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.176.1.82 (talk) 11:14, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

It was right at the foot of the article, where inter-wiki language links used to be placed before Wikidata. I removed it in this edit. --David Biddulph (talk) 13:57, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Clean slate

Hello! Thank you for looking into this. I have been a user of Wikipedia since 2014, but recently I was accused of sockpuppetry. I admit to my mistakes of using multiple accounts. After being blocked indefinitely, now I realise that I want to make a fresh start. Is there any scope for this on Wikipedia? I am willing to be fully transparent in my approach in editing articles and fighting vandalism. I tried to look this up on Wikipedia's guidelines, but couldn't find an answer. Additionally, I understand that my account and contributions will be under constant monitoring, but that's okay, as I admit to my past mistakes and am ready to dive again. Can I get a clean slate? Thanks 1.186.38.86 (talk) 14:38, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Standard offer. TimothyJosephWood 14:50, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) You are not permitted to edit as an IP to bypass your block. Your user talk page tells you how to appeal your block, and see WP:Guide to appealing blocks. --David Biddulph (talk) 14:54, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

• See also Wikipedia:Clean start, which specifies that a clean start is not permitted if there are active bans, blocks or sanctions (...) in place against the old account. Getting a "clean slate" is in addition to the unblock request. Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 16:09, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for all your replies, Timothyjosephwood, David Biddulph, and Tigraan. The way I see it there's no scope for me to come back in the next six months. My unblock requests have been declined twice, and the "clean start" thing clearly mentions exclusion of people like me. I don't know if there is any other way because even if I create a new account and start afresh without making the same mistakes I made, people will think I am still a part of the sockpuppetry. Anyways, thanks for your inputs. Maybe, I will retry after June. 1.186.38.86 (talk) 04:07, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

2017 in music

Well can you move the talk 2017 in music to the 2017 in music article right now can you do it for me because 2017 has started. 2600:8803:7A00:19:8411:5797:7BA9:1305 (talk) 22:11, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

In general, a "prepared" article like this probably belongs at Draft:2017 in Music rather than on the planned talk page Talk:2017 in Music, but I moved it, no harm.Naraht (talk) 22:23, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

And to avoid confusion if anyone is looking for it, it's a lower case "m", so it wasn't Talk:2017 in Music but Talk:2017 in music. --David Biddulph (talk) 09:32, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Picture sources not loaded on the internet

Good day.

I want to know if pictures which are not loaded on the internet can be used as references for articles, i.e. they are found on a local device such as a camera or mobile phone. Also, how can I reference such a picture because the only reference to awards given to an individual in an article I am writing is a picture on a camera. There are no publications online about the giving of the awards.

Thank you very much for the help. â€" Preceding unsigned comment added by Vallydate (talk • contribs) 22:39, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Hello, Vallydate. If you do indeed mean "reference" (i.e. a source to verify information in an article), then all reference sources must be published (and so at least in principle available to every reader, though they might have to order them through a major library for example). An unpublished source, whether text or a picture, may not be used as a reference.

It's relatively unusual to be able to use a picture as a reference, because pitures don't usually make statements. It may be that a picture of two particular people together would count as a valid source for a claim that they met; but I'm not sure even of that - it smacks of original research. Similarly for an award. But certainly unless the picture had been published by a reputable publisher, it could not be taken as verification of anything - pictures are easily manipulated nowadays.

If you wanted to use a picture to illustrate an article (not as a reference), then provided you hold the copyright, you are welcome to upload the picture to Wikimedia Commons (releasing it under a suitable free licence as you go), and then use it in an article. So if it is on your phone, then you may well be able to do that. It would be common to describe the event in the caption to the picture - but it should not appear in the main text unless it is supported by a published reference, and I'm not sure it should really appear even in a caption. --ColinFine (talk) 23:11, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Just to add a little to this answer: I don't believe it would be possible at all for an article to avoid deletion if it were created with a supporting reference of nothing more than photos (or only one). Policies on reliability and verifiability do not contain provisions for this method of content verification. Sources must be published and reliable, as in textual, but as you've said, they don't exist for this event, so I'm pretty sure an article, if you created it, would soon be deleted. DonFB (talk) 23:23, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

@Vallydate: Clarifying: I believe the article you're writing is a biography of a living person, not a description of a single event, as I initially misunderstood. Articles about living persons have considerably stricter requirements than other types of articles on Wikipedia. For the article to remain, it will need published reliable sources that establish the person's notability. You should understand that references to sites like Facebook and LinkedIn are not accepted at Wikipedia as valid sources. DonFB (talk) 00:07, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Poor teacher needs help

Hey all--I'm setting up a Wikipedia class, and could do with some help. I want to devote two class periods to research into and discussion about Wikipedia; I'm thinking of topics like representation among editors (gender gap, race, other demographics), coverage of topics (pre-Internet documentation, developing nations--and the rather voluminous representation of typical male, white topics), and accuracy. I'd love to get some links to some (online) articles that I can incorporate. Thanks! Dr Aaij (talk) 23:43, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

• You might start at WP:BIAS. I suspect you and your students can go forward from there. If your research prospers, you can also edit that page to improve it. -Arch dude (talk) 03:02, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

You should also look at WP:Education program first as well, Dr Aaij: while I don't think you are intending to get your students to edit Wikipedia (which is what that is mainly about) you should be aware of both the resources available and the guidelines about how to do it. --ColinFine (talk) 09:06, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Hello Dr Aaij. The recent paper by Greenstein and Zhu (2016) on the accuracy of Wikipedia is worth reading. It says that highly edited Wikipedia articles do drift towards a neutral point of view. Good luck with your class. RobbieIanMorrison (talk) 21:04, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

January 4

Please help, our draft has been deleted, but the reason why i did not work on it recently is that i got cancer

After more than half a year of treatment, it seems i have managed to battle most of it, but it has been hard, and i had no energy or mind to follow up the declined draft

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:COOLympics

Now when i wanted to start looking at it again i found it has been deleted....Please, can you please help me get that back? I spent so much time on it before i got ill :(

Thank you VERY much if you can help fix this, and make the draft editable again!!!

Best regards

Liv Storli â€" Preceding unsigned comment added by Coolliv (talk • contribs) 00:16, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

@Coolliv:: Please follow the instructions at WP:REFUND/G13. Also, in future, please sign your messages with four tildes (~) to make it easier to reply! Thanks for editing Wikipedia. Triptothecottage (talk) 00:20, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Exclude all subpages from search

Is it possible to exclude all subpages from a Wikipedia search? Help:Searching gives only a way to restrict your search to subpages. I want to search the WP namespace without sifting through a thousand results for WP:Articles for deletion/Foo and the like. Is this possible? â€"67.14.236.50 (talk) 00:42, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

I don't know a way to eliminate subpages of all pages but -intitle:"Articles for deletion" or -prefix:"Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/" should come close to your specific goal. It still includes "Wikipedia:Templates for deletion" and others you may not want. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:55, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

X for deletion, featured picture candidates, sockpuppet investigations, WikiProject Spam, tips of the day… I don’t think they could all be excluded that way. â€"67.14.236.50 (talk) 02:15, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

This came up at WP:VPT recently, and there was no easy answer: Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 152#Complex searching. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:20, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Permanent link?

Is there a simple way of creating a kind of permanent link for a section that will be filed?--Hubon (talk) 03:18, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

For a section? No, those can be changed without notice. But you can get permalinks for any given revision from the edit history, and you can link to sections of those. But can you be more explicit in what you’re asking for? â€"67.14.236.50 (talk) 04:44, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. What I mean is: on German Wikipedia, we have a tool called "permanent link" in the tool section which we can create such permanent links with of the whole page at least, but that would totally suffice for me here, too. By the way, I know that sections are changed all the time... Best--Hubon (talk) 16:01, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

"Permanent link" under "Tools" in the left pane is part of the MediaWiki software so it's present in all wikis. You can turn it into a section link by later clicking the section in the table of contents and copy the url. It will not show edits made after you clicked "Permanent link". The English Wikipedia has a bot which sometimes updates section wikilinks after the section is archived. I don't know which cases are handled by the bot. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:47, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Of course â€" I must have overlooked that! Thank you very and sorry for the inconvenience. Best--Hubon (talk) 16:40, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Inaccuracies

How can I stop another user repeatedly altering an entry with the wrong information? â€" Preceding unsigned comment added by Feelgoodbingo (talk • contribs) 08:21, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Since this seems to be about a content dispute over The Chase (UK game show), there should be a discussion at Talk:The Chase (UK game show), per WP:BRD. †dismas†|^(talk) 08:24, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

The other user has left you a polite message on your talk page. In addition to the links provided there and by Dismas above, you might like to read WP:Referencing for beginners. Dbfirs 08:47, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

"New" editors with suspiciously advanced knowledge of Wikipedia

I have several times come across "new" editors who suspiciously hit the ground running displaying advanced knowldege of Wikipedia procedures etc. Yet the SPI process is based on the prerequisite that you have worked out which previous identity that editor is likely to have had. But what happens if you just dont know who the previous identity is likely to be. Surely any new editor who hits the ground running is intrinsically suspicious.--Penbat (talk) 09:55, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Suspicious != Harmful. Some people do in fact lurk, or have rebooted their online presence for legitimate reasons. We don't pry into it unless they're actually doing something that hurts the project or articles. --erachima talk 10:01, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Quite possibly but it must be quite common for editors to circumvent a block with a new Id yet it is not obvious who the previous Id was. It may require a lot of detective work.--Penbat (talk) 10:15, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Agreed that it is possible, Penbat. More often than not though these editors return to the same articles with the same edits/editing styles and get caught at SPI. Not a perfect process if they don't but usually not harmful. -- Dane ^talk 10:17, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

It's usually really obvious because they jump back into the same subject area and run into the same people they were fighting with before. --erachima talk 10:22, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Yes, there are all sorts of legitimate reasons to start a new account (I did so temporarily this year due to a glitch preventing me from operating this one... but the socks keep gnawing the same bones Jimfbleak - talk to me? 11:04, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Just to add another example, I registered an account in 2008 but it eventually got mothballed because it wasn't really useful at the time. The content I was editing was mostly quiet corners, and where I was on high visibility areas, the type of editing I was doing was low profile: copyediting, formatting, ref digging, etc. In other words, where I was engaged I was engaged with the encyclopedia more than I was with the community. In places where I did try to reach out, like here or here, I found nothing but empty talk pages, and no one has even commented there yet after eight years.

So some times you will find that people who register an account do so precisely because they intend to engage the community, because if you don't intend to do anything but quiet editing, an account isn't really useful, and an account only becomes attractive once you start to get frustrated by being anonymous. TimothyJosephWood 11:20, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Wow Timothyjosephwood. Applause. Couldn't have understood it better. Lourdes 14:17, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

• What Timothyjosephwood said. Anecdotical evidence based on myself: this AfD nomination was my 20th or so edit after my account was created. While I was not totally familiar with the process (I later !voted for deletion in that AfD, and nominated by hand although Twinkle is waaay less error-prone), an AfD case with policy links displays "advanced knowldege of Wikipedia procedures" - acquired by lurking around, not by phoenixpuppetry. Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 10:40, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Is this file properly published under OGL?

A certain Wikipedian translated Gladstone (cat) into other language Wikipedia, and she wants a cat's portrait we can use freely. That article is used File:GladstoneCat.png, but the image is uploaded only on enwiki and tagged {{Non-free use rationale 2}}. Even though it is tagged {{Non-free use rationale 2}}, it is also tagged {{OGL}} too. Is it properly published under OGL? If so, I can transfer it to Commons and use another wiki...--Kkairri (talk) 12:08, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Hi, Kkairri. I've done a little research on this matter, and the answer is it's ok to put the photo on Commons. For the record, here's my research, from the Commons Help Desk:

• Over at the Wikipedia Help Desk someone asked if it's ok to transfer a photo from English Wikipedia to Commons. The image in question is tagged with an OGL (Open Government License), which is issued by the United Kingdom. Is that an acceptable license for an image to be placed on Commons? The OGL license is included on the Wikipedia Free Licenses page, which makes me think OGL would be acceptable at Commons. There is a complicating factor that needs to be clarified. The image in question also has a conflicting license tag on its file page: a British Crown Copyright tag, which explicitly says it is a "non-free license for the purpose of Wikipedia." I don't know yet which license tag is correct for the image, OGL or Crown Copyright. Assuming Crown Copyright is not needed, and the OGL license is correct, can the image be uploaded to Commons? Thanks for any info. DonFB (talk) 22:19, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

OGL is accepted, there's a template {{OGL}}. Crown Copyright just means that the copyright holder is the crown, it's not a license and it doesn't conflict. --ghouston (talk) 22:26, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

DonFB (talk) 22:42, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for your advice! I'll transfer it into Commons.--Kkairri (talk) 01:55, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

ISBN

Mlíkovský, Jirí (2002). Cenozoic Birds of the World (PDF). Part 1: Europe. Prague: Ninox. p. 150. ISBN 80-901105-3-8 .  has an incorrect ISBN, even though it's the same on the linked text. I've looked at Help:CS1_errors#bad_isbn. I need this to be right since it will be in a WP:FAC eventually, thanks Jimfbleak - talk to me? 14:25, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Yes, that error was pointed out previously at Proardea. Other articles such as Trachyphonus use {{Listed Invalid ISBN}}. You might try contacting the publishers? --David Biddulph (talk) 14:54, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

|ignore-isbn-error=true

Do not use {{Listed Invalid ISBN}} in cs1|2 templates.

â€"Trappist the monk (talk) 15:00, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks to both Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:57, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Deletion of a page

Simon nwakacha bibliography (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
Simon Nwakacha (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Good day.

Please I don't understand why some new pages are deleted without much interaction. It takes a while before pages are put up yet it takes no time before they are deleted even those which are necessary. This is because I have put up a page which has been deleted even when I made the requested references about the bibliography of an important person. And I have not been asked about the importance of the person to determine the so-called notability and the page was already taken down. All the time it took me to put up the page has been a waste and I feel very, very offended about this.

The deletion relates to the page Simon Nwakacha bibliography.

Simon Nwakacha is the chairman of Imperial Schools Limited, one of the best schools in Kaduna state, Nigeria which has operated for 20 years. The school comprises of nursery, primary and secondary sections with over 1000 students and 150 staff. Imperial Schools Limited, under the leadership of Engineer Simon Nwakacha begun the construction of a private university three years ago, a mega (multi-billion naira) project in Kaduna state. Simon Nwakacha believes that with the size of the project, those who would be interetsed in taking part in some way would like to read and know about him to know whether to be associated with him. All the information provided about him are true.

Simon Nwakacha and I therefore feel seriously offended that whoever decided to take down the page has done so without any good faith and necessary enquiry.

I would like to retrieve the file or that it be put back up â€" Preceding unsigned comment added by Vallydate (talk • contribs) 15:31, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Hey Vallydate. It looks like your article has been tagged as being obviously promotional, and I have to say, even in the lead: He is open minded, friendly, generous, hardworking and Godly is in fact exceptionally promotional and completely inappropriate for an encyclopedia. This kind of language appears throughout the article, which is considerably long, but contains almost no references.

I would suggest reviewing guidance on writing your first article, and consider going through our Articles for Creation process, where hopefully experienced editors can give more specific guidance over time. It may be a good idea to get a bit more experience on Wikipedia generally, in order to learn how to write articles which comply with our policy on neutrality, because there is honestly no way the article in it's current form is going to survive without a substantial rewrite. TimothyJosephWood 16:12, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Why does my page show Wikipedia before title?

i have created a page Akademi South Asian Dance but its shows up as 'Wikipedia:Akademi South Asian Dance'. how can i correct it? Thanks â€" Preceding unsigned comment added by Akademi (talk • contribs) 16:45, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Hey Akademi. It looks like you have successfully moved the article into the correct "namespace" (see WP:ARTICLESPACE for further guidance). However, when you did you left behind a "cross namespace redirect". I have requested this be deleted mainly as cleanup, since it shouldn't be necessary to redirect to your article from the Wikipedia namespace. An admin should come along shortly and mop it up for us. TimothyJosephWood 16:55, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

You...also probably want to review our guidance on conflicts of interest since you appear to be editing as an official representative of a company. Failure to comply with this policy may result in sanctions up to and including the loss of editing privilege. TimothyJosephWood 16:58, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Yes, its does reads borderline advatorial made worse by a single purpose account but I don't think it should go for AfD as the org seem notable, although not strictly and unequivocally in a WP sense. Much like Mzoli's created by Jimmy Wales and deleted 22 minutes after (but reinstated and still here). Need a hell of a lot more work though. Will add official web site and removed cats in wrong place in article. The 'Akademi' bit before the title should go however. That is claiming ownership rather than overseeing. Suggest that Akademi stops editing now and let the article live by its own notability.--Aspro (talk) 20:01, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

I have just had a quick look at the article and it does not contain a single reference. Is it too early to hat it? DrChrissy ^(talk) 20:39, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Deleted. Advertising content taken extensively on the group's website with minor changes (e.g. "we" changed to "they"). And blocked - promotional username who has now twice created articles about this group - 2006 and 2017 (is this gap a record?) Bencherlite^Talk 00:02, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

@ Bencherlite and those others above. If it has been twice deleted, then surly it needs salting as well, to prevent it being recreated (without references again) and by a sock-puppet editing under a new user name? --Aspro (talk) 14:17, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

It's been created and deleted under two different titles (once each). I'm not going to start salting every possible combination of titles for two instances 11 years apart. Bencherlite^Talk 14:21, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Fair comment. Thanks for the quick reply. Rest assured though. In the mean time someone will bound to have come up with one of those annoying bots that do look for every combination and we' ll back-again discussing it. Ho Ho! At least in the new paper industry an editors job finishes when the presses start rolling but ours seem never ending. --Aspro (talk) 16:43, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Bot to detect spam pages?

Hello,

I recently found a citation which had become a spam page. I mentioned it in talk, and the citation was removed. This got me thinking, wouldn't it be fairly straightforward for a computer checks if a link in a citation has a bunch of redirects? It wouldn't find every spam page but it would find some and it could always be expanded to include other spam-like patterns.

I started looking at the bot policy, and I'm not entirely sure what direction I should go in. It states that there are bots, assisted editing tools, and scripts. I'm not sure if this type of program would actually be classified as a bot because it states that a bot should require no further decision making, but since we want to replace the citation with a different, valid citation of the same fact further decision-making will be required which makes it sound like an assisted editing tool. On the other hand, I saw that BracketBot exists, so I thought that perhaps this could do something similar where it notifies someone when it detects a dead citation. But then how would it determine who to send the message to? â€" Preceding unsigned comment added by Saffronsnail (talk • contribs) 17:16, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

See: WP:Spam blacklist --but what you are describing would require heuristics that WP's spambot doesn't do. --2606:A000:4C0C:E200:88A3:6217:E1F4:239C (talk) 18:49, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Changing "Other Uses" Text

Please see this question on the Reference Desk. Is it possible to change the text in this instance of the "Other Uses" template (I assume not), or should we change to using plain wikitext? Rojomoke (talk) 18:00, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Hopefully answered to everyone's satisfaction there. TimothyJosephWood 19:05, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Canada+province of Manitoba+Queen's Printer

The last query re: the above subject was in 2011/2012 I believe... Why is there no listing for a "queens printer" for the Province of Manitoba...this venerable and essential service was established in 1870 and deserves to be listed. R.M. Ginter Thank You â€" Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.76.201.4 (talk) 19:49, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

You might be able yourself to whip up a succinct paragraph on the topic using these links:

• http://www.gov.mb.ca/queensprinter/

• http://web2.gov.mb.ca/laws/statutes/ccsm/q010e.php

• https://books.google.com/books?id=kPIZAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA1614&lpg=PA1614&dq=Manitoba%2BQueen's+Printer&source=bl&ots=Db7Iw9YdNc&sig=HZewvq-kJppQVqXeVGu5yEGvqmM&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiT-efLranRAhVjh1QKHWNnBK84ChDoAQggMAQ

DonFB (talk) 20:51, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia citation format (WCF) bibliographic database project

Hello all. This post explores the idea of a python project to develop a modest Wikipedia citation format (WCF) native bibliographic database application. The software would be user local and represents a stop-gap measure until the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) develops a proper wiki-wide solution to the problem of handling references on Wikipedia.

Background

Creating and tidying WCF templates, like {{cite journal}}, is hard work. Zotero offers WCF export but does a really lousy job of formatting, being limited to horizontal output and an illogical ordering of fields. Its output invariably requires considerable hand processing.

On some occasions, almost all fields are missing, but it should be noted that the Zotero team would like help to improve its web translator routines. There are number of other projects which develop tools for harvesting bibliographic information and producing WCF cite templates. Harvesting citations is an upstream issue and such tools are different from and complementary to the proposal being presented here.

Once a particular citation template is complete and clean, there is no reference management software (that I know of) that can handle WCF natively or even remotely well. The Wikicite application is limited to Windows (I use Linux) and development seems to have stalled a few years back. The pybliographer project shares some structural similarities with what I am considering. It is no longer based on BibTeX, but pybliographer does not support WCF. Moreover, the last update was two years ago and traffic on their mailing list tanked around 2008 (if my memory serves me correctly their lead developer stepped aside about then). Notwithstanding, the pybliographer documentation is also a good place to start. JabRef is clearly active, but does not offer WCF import or export. Even so, it might be an option to contribute code to the JabRef project. The downside is that JabRef is built around BibTeX and their underlying data model may not be very compatible with WCF.

In terms of data design, some of the WCF templates are rather poor, for instance: chapter handling in {{cite book}} and location and date handling in {{cite conference}}. Nevertheless, we have to live with what we have.

The Wikimedia WikiCite project is, of course, the best answer, but it will be a while (several years?) before it is running comfortably.

Proposal

So perhaps a new native WCF reference management system is in order:

• written in current python (v3.5 at present on Ubuntu) and developed, in the first instance, on Linux
• run locally (that has downsides as well)
• command-line (at least while the core functionality is sorted)
• good search features
• checking and tidying (linting) of markup (the ultimate integrity check is running the template thru Wikipedia)
• offers a range of export options including HTML, Markdown, wiki markup, and formatted text, as well as BibTeX and RIS

In terms of scope:

• not international (because citation templates are highly language specific)

The command-line interfaces would be:

• wcflint â€" reprocess and tidy a selected citation â€" interacting thru the system clipboard
• wcffind â€" search the database using nominated fields and regular expressions â€" via the command-line
• wcfadd â€" add (or remove) a citation from the database â€" interacting thru one of several supported text editors (nano, emacs, vim, gedit)

I have already drafted up some of the software design. Please see the UML diagram (above) showing the core structure.

I am very interested in feedback, supportive or otherwise. This may not be the best place to raise this issue, so if anyone has suggestions for better forums on Wikipedia, I'd like to learn of them too.

with best wishes, RobbieIanMorrison (talk) 20:44, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Hi RobbieIanMorrison This very interesting topic is rather "out of scope" for the Help desk, but the Technical Village Pump is the right place to find Wikipedians interested in this type of thing. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 10:17, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Hello Dodger67. I thought as much. The posting has now moved to Wikipedia village pump/technical forum. Thanks for your suggestion. Best wishes. RobbieIanMorrison (talk) 10:53, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

I need someone at Wikipedia to help me restore a page that has been taken down

I am the Executive Director of the Jack Mitchell Archives. Last year, for some reason Jack's Wikipedia page was taken down for something supposedly copied without permission or copied incorrectly. All I want is for the sentence to simply be deleted and the page restored. Unfortunately I have not been able to figure out how to do this myself. If someone there can be so kind to help me, the page is located here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Mitchell_(photographer) Jack Mitchell himself provided the content to someone who composed the page under his instruction before he died in 2013. I do not know who he worked with, I believe it was an independent editor. Please help me. You can contact me through the Jack Mitchell webpage contact form http://www.jackmitchell.com/contact.php Craig B. Highberger â€" Preceding unsigned comment added by CBHighberger (talk • contribs) 21:44, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Pinging Justlettersandnumbers, who did the copyvio blanking last April. Maproom (talk) 22:31, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping, Maproom. CBHighberger, I'm sorry this hasn't got sorted out yet. However, I'm afraid I don't think there's much I can do there. I blanked the page because of foundational copyright violations by X4n6; because of the fairly hostile nature of that user's response to that, I don't feel that it would be at all appropriate for me to take any further action there. Someone will need to determine whether this was a one-off good-faith error, or part of a pattern, in which case a WP:CCI may be needed; but at this point that someone should not be me. Unfortunately the copyright problems board is severely back-logged, as is the whole contributor copyright investigation process.

So by far your best course would be to write a new, copyvio-free article at Talk:Jack Mitchell (photographer)/Temp. Unfortunately the page that you have already written there cannot be used, as it contains substantial copying from http://jackmitchell.com/bio.php (please see this comparison). I see that you are the author of that content. If you wish, you can release it to Wikipedia following the steps here, which would resolve the copyright matter; however, such material is not often found suitable for Wikipedia, so even if you donate it, it might well not be kept in the long run.

As for your suggestion that Mitchell worked with a Wikipedia editor to make the page, I find that most disturbing, as no conflict of interest was declared there. Would other editors care to comment? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 23:08, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Not the only issue either. The inclusion of highly selective gushing quotes makes this a hagiography. He is clearly notable, and you don't need a love fest in an encyclopaedic biography Jimfbleak - talk to me? 14:38, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

@ CBHighberger. Yes, agree that it will be easier to start again. You can do it here: User:CBHighberger/sandbox. Then submit the new improved article here: Wikipedia:Article wizard/Ready for submission. It is not practical for us to communicate with you via your professional link to jackmitchell.com - you will have to do it here on WP. Alternatively, get one of your staff that is computer savvy to register as an editor (declaring a Conflict of Interest from the very start so that we don't have go through this again) ; ( if it does go wrong for the second time it might get salted and blocked from being recreated a third time). As a rule of thumb. If someone is notable in the encyclopedic sense they already have had a Wikipedia page created for them. However, if they try to declare their notability on Wikipedia, the article often ends up in this mess. Hope this provides a workable and practical way out of the fix you find yourself in due to Jack going abou t it in the wrong way. --Aspro (talk) 15:13, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Aside:

Not only has Jack got:
Talk:Jack Mitchell (photographer) but
User:Jack Mitchell Photographer with without the parenthesis (quite a resumé he has on there too). Should the latter user-space not be deleted as it serves no purpose anymore. He is not ever going to be in need of it again from that dark-room up in the sky.--Aspro (talk) 16:27, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Draft:Pickspace

Draft:Pickspace https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Pickspace

How can I upload this article online?

79.177.179.30 (talk) 21:53, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

It is already online. If you mean "How do I get it moved to the main article space", then it must be moved there. But there are a couple things in the way of that. When it gets reviewed, the reviewer will see that you have not shown the subject to be notable per WP:CORP. Right now the referencing needs work. There is only one suitable reference that I see, though that is a guess on my part since I can't read Hebrew.

I suggest you wait for the article to be reviewed and then take the reviewer's suggestions on how to improve the article. †dismas†|^(talk) 00:40, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Help:Cite errors/Cite error references no text

What do I have to do to get this draft submitted and approved with the right type of citing/inline references? I don't understand the help page very well as you can see there's currently an error....

Thanks in advance. â€" Preceding unsigned comment added by Zonneroos (talk • contribs) 22:24, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

I guess this is about Draft:Regal Community Theatre Bathgate. It currently cites only one real reference, which is not enough to establish that the subject is notable. There is a second citation, but it doesn't actually cite anything, hence the error message. I have restored the line deleted by Zonneroos, which says "do not remove this line". Maproom (talk) 22:42, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Help:Cite errors/Cite error references duplicate key

the article's name is that of sharon kinne. The change I attempted to make related to an assertion that Sharon Kinne and her husband were married in the Mormon Tabernacle. I don't know what I did wrong when I made the change. Perhaps that is how their marriage was reported in the Kansas City newspaper or in books, but no one has ever been married inside the Mormon Tabernacle in its history. People are married in the Salt Lake Temple, about 100 yards to the east of the Mormon Tabernacle.

How do I make this change without fouling everybody up and leaving red marks all over the entry? â€" Preceding unsigned comment added by I. Pitidafu (talk) 22:31, January 4, 2017 (UTC)

• Hi I. Pitidafu, you seem to have done the change. I've cleaned up the red tags. Thanks. Lourdes 05:35, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Hier

"Hier" redirects to "Haier". Meanwhile, the target article doesn't contains that word, and only one page links to that redirect: Talk:Filesystem Hierarchy Standard/Archive1#This article needs to be better known. Should it be redirected to Filesystem Hierarchy Standard instead? --Djadjko (talk) 22:55, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Hi Djadjko. I would rather it be made a soft redirect to wikt:hier. What do you think? Lourdes 05:28, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

See hier. There's a better solution. Clarityfiend (talk) 07:52, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Clarityfiend, well done. Lourdes 07:58, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

January 5

page warning

I have created a page of well-famous person of Marrakesh namely Mohamed Dekkak. there is a caution to have at least 1 authentic source to remove the red caution. I have add in external links his live interviews on media sites. Can you please guide me further if there is need any further changes. â€" Preceding unsigned comment added by Thisimran1 (talk • contribs) 09:41, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Rather than external links, Wikipedia needs references (see WP:Referencing for beginners). Note also that to demonstrate notability the references need to be to published reliable sources independent of the subject. Wikipedia isn't intetrested in what the subject says about himself, but instead wants to know what reliable sources such as reputable newspapers or books say about him. --David Biddulph (talk) 10:06, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Creating a draft article

Hi there, I am tryng to create a draft article throught the article wizard process. When I click to save the article, I do not get a confirmation of submission, I get this:

Your edit includes new external links. These may be much welcomed links to references. Please note that the nofollow HTML attribute is applied to external links in Wikipedia, instructing search engines to ignore these links when computing page ranks. For information on our standards for adding links, please see our External links Guideline.

I have tried giving the 'live chat' the name of the article I would like to submit but because it will not let me save it there is nothing to view.

I would be very grateful if I can get some assistance with this. Thank you â€" Preceding unsigned comment added by Sw2016 (talk • contribs) 09:51, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Hey Sw2016, this is...a bit of a pickle, since I can't see what you are trying to put into the draft, and neither can anyone else. Have you tried maybe creating the draft with only the first sentence (no links, no refs, no nothing) and then adding the rest incrementally to try to narrow down what might be the problem? TimothyJosephWood 14:26, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

This is just reading between the lines. If the OP was to compose their article in their own sandbox first, we could all see it and help.--Aspro (talk) 15:30, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Hi Both, TimothyJosephWood, Aspro I have tried both of your suggestions and still getting the same message up. Even if I submit the first words! I havee tried logging out and logging in again but nothing appears to be working. Really don't understand where I am going wrong?

How do I delete a wikipedia draft page that I created?

How do I delete a wikipedia draft page that I created? I created a page for a colleague that has been rejected, though the page remains in draft. It would be good to be able to delete this and begin again. How do I do this? â€" Preceding unsigned comment added by Elvp2016 (talk • contribs) 13:37, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

You should be able to tag it with {{db-author}} Siuenti (talk) 13:41, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

There were contributions by editors other than the OP, so {{db-author}} does not apply. The draft can't be deleted at your request, as the conditions of your edit were that "you irrevocably agree to release your contribution". You can, however, continue to modify the draft. I have reinstated the previous feedback & comments which you deleted, as the routine is that this feedback remains for the benefit of yourself and subsequent reviewers, unless and until the draft is accepted for publication as an article. --David Biddulph (talk) 13:47, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Brigham Young two edits I placed yesterday ??

please excuse my ignorance in placing edits on an article you have...yesterday I had placed two very factual edits under Conflicts and Doctrinal position ,,,I was refused and didnt understand how to have the proper headings or what you required.Are my edits still present?If so,how can I place them into this article?Thanks DrRFunk â€" Preceding unsigned comment added by Honduras4321 (talk • contribs) 15:23, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Your edit was in the article history. It was malformatted and unsourced, and this was explained in the edit summary of the revert. It was also most clearly not a minor edit, though you had marked it as such. Are you saying that the later edit by the IP editor 75.169.217.58 was also you? That edit removed sourced text, so obviously that too was reverted. If you have concerns with the current content of the article you can start a new section on the article talk page, but you will need to cite reliable sources to support your views. --David Biddulph (talk) 15:37, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict)The changes that you made were reverted as good faith changes rather than vandalism. The edits made broke the formatting including adding the start of a reference without an ending which made both the text that you added and other early parts of the article to be moved. As for the actual text, the Mountain Meadows Massacre is already mentioned and there is actually an article on Brigham Young and the Mountain Meadows massacre which goes into a fair amount of depth. A referenced mention of Nancy Rigdon (daughter of Sidney Rigdon) might be appropriate, but actually if it was part of Sidney Rigdon's dissatisfaction with the remainder of the hierarchy, might be more appropriate on either the List of Brigham Young's wives in some way or the chronology on the page about Sidney Rigdon. Also see Help:Referencing for beginners in terms of referencing Wife19.Naraht (talk) 15:43, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

As an additional comment, Wife No. 19 while certainly a published source is about as far from a Neutral Source as I can imagine, and as such I'd be hesitant to use it without other sources. (Did John Cradlebaugh issue a report?)Naraht (talk) 15:55, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

how to respond to talk box?

Judyarnall (talk) 15:49, 5 January 2017 (UTC)Judy Arnall

Hello, please clarify what it is that you need help with. If you wish to reply to a message at your talk-page, you can either type a reply below the message (indent by typing a colon (:) at the start of your reply), or you can click on the word 'talk' after an editor's signature to go to their talk-page and leave a reply there. To respond to a message at an article talk-page, it is best to reply at that page. Eagleash (talk) 18:05, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

getting a start. articles I can write

Where can I find articles that have not been created yet? Thank you. --Dongrasgym2020 (talk) 16:36, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

If you are looking for topics on which articles have been requested, try WP:Requested articles, but before you try to create an article you ought to get some experience editing existing articles. Also, please read WP:Your first article. --David Biddulph (talk) 17:00, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Removal of page Scortual

Last year i created a page using a word Scortual. But it is deleted from your side with the comment that it does not fit your criteria. So it is ok. I send mail to delete it. But still after one year the discussion under that name which i had 1 year ago and its content are still available on google. I request you to please remove this page from all the websites that are linked with you. Because my friend is launching website under this name. And such kind of articles about website doesn't look good. Here are the websites where your page is visible.

http://wikivisually.com/wiki/User_talk:Maske7787 http://www.deevlo.com/vb/t9707862.html

I request you to remove the page from all the above links. â€" Preceding unsigned comment added by Maske7787 (talk • contribs) 16:49, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

The page was deleted from Wikipedia, but Wikipedia has no control over other websites which use its previous content (in accordance with the conditions under which the edit was made, namely that "you irrevocably agree to release your contribution under the CC BY-SA 3.0 License and the GFDL"). --David Biddulph (talk) 16:56, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

@Maske7787: Scortual was deleted in November 2015 and the deleted content is not found by Google. A mirror of your own talk page User talk:Maske7787 is found. You can delete the section if you want. This help desk post is also found by Google now. If you don't want something to be mentioned then stop mentioning it. Our license allows other websites to reuse our content. You agree to the license when you press save. We don't control other websites and cannot demand that they remove content which has been removed here. But if you do remove it from your talk page then others may update their copy later and remove it, and you avoid new copies being made. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:59, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Ya before one year i deleted it. Actually i am not used to the edit methods of wikipedia it is not user friendly. I just checked my user talk page . Nothing is mentioned there so how this websites copied the discussion from user talk page. I request you to delete my user talk page from your side. And also my account so that this name will get removed. â€" Preceding unsigned comment added by Maske7787 (talk • contribs) 17:12, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

You are permitted to blank the relevant section of your user talk page if you wish to do so (but it will remain in the page history). The account will not be deleted, as the terms of use require contributions to be attributed. If you have forgotten the terms of use to which you agreed, they are linked from the foot of every page, and available at Wikimedia:Terms_of_Use. --David Biddulph (talk) 17:34, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Can I submit an article

Hi I am the Executive Director of the Leukemia Research Foundation. I would like to see a description added to Wiki about the LRF. However, your instructions suggest avoiding posting about yourself, your company, etc. I get that. At the same time it would be written solely as reference and carefully worded so as not to be an advertisement. Can I do that and submit for your editors or is that a waste of time? Thanks. â€" Preceding unsigned comment added by Kradelet (talk • contribs) 18:12, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Although we advise very strongly against members of organizations creating articles about themselves, you appear aware of the dangers of having a conflict of interest and most probably can ovoid most them. LRF to my mind is notable, so suggest reading this: Wikipedia:Your first article and going through the steps. If the article gets accepted, then stand back and wait for other editors to contribute, otherwise you will fall into the trap of being a 'single purpose account' promoting your organization that you are connected too. It might still not work out well but at least you have tried. Suggest you use (say) Leukemia & Lymphoma Society as a guide to laying out the article. Remember, if it gets accepted it will be an article about LRF and not an article that the LRF owns. You must declare your COI when submitting. So, don't think it is a waist of time. Do other editors agree this is a notable org that we just haven’t got around to creating an article for?--Aspro (talk) 18:52, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Oh. One last an important thing. As you are the Executive Director you may be too busy to do this yourself and task it to someone else. They really must create their own account here and declare their conflict of interest as well. Please do not under any circumstances create a Wikipedia account that any of your staff can use. We do not allow joint accounts that can be used by more than one individual. Or you can try asking for such an article about LRF to be created at Wikipedia:Articles for creation which helps nullify the conflict of interest issues. Other than that... happy editing.--Aspro (talk) 19:05, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

English vs. British

Could someone explain the difference here to a stupid Yank? --†dismas†|^(talk) 20:31, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

English and British are both nationalities. England and United Kingdom are both countries. What's so confusing? <g> ... and btw this happens all the time. WP:UKNATIONALS is here to help. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 20:57, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

In general usage, their distinction is very blurry. Technically, there is a collection of islands called the "British Isles". The largest of these is called "Great Britain", often shortened to "Britain". For an American analogue, Hawaii is a chain of islands, the largest of which ("the big island") is known as "Hawaii". Most of the countries of England, Scotland, and Wales are on the island of Great Britain. Politically, the island is part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The U.K. is a sovereign country that consists of four countries â€" England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. There - is that clear now? No, I didn't think so, and that's why even people who live there often use the terms interchangeably.--Gronk Oz (talk) 01:23, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Oops - forgot to ping Dismas. --Gronk Oz (talk) 01:24, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

@Dismas: I don't want to drag this on, but it's worth noting that these things change. As recently as 2014, Scotland held a referendum to determine whether they would stay in the UK or not. It was defeated. If it had passed, I imagine that Scotland would still be located physically in the same place on the big island, but their citizens would no longer have been classed as British citizens (as they are now). --Gronk Oz (talk) 01:36, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Thank you all. I've just watched this video and it makes a bit more sense. So, basically, the edit makes things a bit more... precise? †dismas†|^(talk) 02:01, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Best way to respond to an archived thread?

I show up late to many wiki-discussions. Just wondering what is the practice if one wants to add a post to an archived thread. Thanks in advance, Ottawahitech (talk) 21:06, 5 January 2017 (UTC)please ping me

What is the point to adding to an archived thread? The discussion is finished. When it isn't, it gets re-posted. --Aspro (talk) 22:35, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

See also Help:Archiving a talk page#Continuing discussions. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:56, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Pronouns

I have an article of an establishment that recently closed. The pronouns have not been edited to be changed to past-tense, so I am wondering, is there a sort of tool that is available to change all of the pronouns in the article, or do I have to do it manually?

Thanks.

Beejsterb (talk) 22:51, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Which pronouns have a past tense? I thought that tense was something that applied to verbs? --David Biddulph (talk) 22:55, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

@Beejsterb: To actually answer your question, no: there is not a program or bot that will change tenses within an article. The few automated updates are things such as birth dates. Everything else (pertaining to grammar) is manually changed and adjusted by editors: i.e. if a subject dies. Hope this helps; and happy editing! Best. Maineartists (talk) 23:50, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

January 6

intrigation

what is the reasion make intrigation and its history â€" Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.224.23.26 (talk) 01:30, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

There is no word "intrigation" in the English language. --Orange Mike | Talk 01:56, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Maybe they meant irrigation? †dismas†|^(talk) 01:57, 6 January 2017 (UTC)