Wikipedia:Help desk

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January 1

About cladograms on Arabic script

Hello everyone, can someone help me to figure out what is the issue I can't create a correct cladogram on Arabic script? The issue is the branches are reversed. And thanks. سنوببي (talk) 00:26, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

Hah, that's got to be an issue related to right-to-left text handling; on a page in an RTL language such as Arabic, the Web browser will dutifully flip everything by default. So you have to engage in some template wizardry so it doesn't flip the non-text elements of the cladogram. The place you want is Tech village pump, where you are likely to find help from editors experienced with Wikipedia's esoteric syntax. Hopefully that helps. --Slowking Man (talk) 02:43, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

Tom Taylor (Yorkshire cricketer)

Reference number 2 does not have the name of the year it (a medical journal) was published which is 1921. Please fix this up. I have failed. I'm sorry and that's it from me. Srbernadette (talk) 02:09, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

I was about to fix it, but User:Citation_bot beat me too it. There was a line break (ie enter/return on the keyboard) in the middle of the title element of the cite web reference.

TiggerJay (talk) 03:09, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

What's my email address?

The application for newspapers.com asks for:

    "The email for your account on the partner's website"

What is the correct format in this case? Humpster (talk) 08:37, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

This is beyond the scope of the Help desk, as it involves an external website.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 08:40, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

@Ianmacm: I think this relates to an application to use newspapers.com via Wikipedia:The Wikipedia Library at https://wikipedialibrary.wmflabs.org/applications/apply/26/ .

@Humphrey Tribble: have you tried example@example.com? If that doesn't work, Wikipedia:The Wikipedia Library has a talk page. TSventon (talk) 09:20, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

Language links

Is there a setting in user preferences to change the language links to appear in alphabetical order, all in same page? Now only a few language links to other Wikipedias are displayed. This started when I logged out, and I have not found yet ability to change it back. --40bus (talk) 15:09, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

@40bus: go to preferences, then to appearance and untick the compact language list option at the bottom of the list. I use Vector legacy skin, I don't know if that affects preferences. TSventon (talk) 15:44, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

I now removed the option. I had looked through that page many times and didn't see it. --40bus (talk) 18:24, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

Contacting sources

I created this draft article and it was declined. (I understand why it was declined --- I mistakenly used Original Research and had a severe lack of secondary sources; also WP:42) If I requested a reliable source to write about the said information, or at least part of it, could I in turn use it for citations and references? Thanks! Therguy10 (talk) 18:47, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

Sorry, no. All our sources must be published by some reliable source which exercised editorial control and judgement. So their writing an e-mail to you, or even publishing it on their blog, is generally not going to meet our need for verifiable information. --19:59, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

'Save page' button not appearing

The 'Save page' button is missing when I try to create a new page. This happens whether I create a new article directly, or create it in the Special:Mypage/ format. I'm using Chrome on an iMac, OS is Ventura 13.7.1. Same issue happens in Firefox. Whiterabbit6 (talk) 21:44, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

The button actually says "publish changes", it no longer says "save". 331dot (talk) 21:45, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

Thanks! Various instructions within Wikipedia itself refer to using the 'Save page' button, that's why I was confused. Whiterabbit6 (talk) 21:57, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

The pages which say "save" meaning "publish changes" should be updated. I fixed one here. TSventon (talk) 22:08, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

Please feel free to BOLDLY edit those or post them here for others to correct. TiggerJay (talk) 23:59, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

Antediluvian Crop Tool

Can somebody please install a working crop tool so we can crop pictures easily but leave all the meta data and attribution etc, merely adding a suffix cropped or cropped_ver1 etc? Meanwhile, can someone drop by my talk page and leave instructions. This should be much easier. I'd also like to use photoshop to fix the contrast etc., on existing photos, but I imagine that won't be allowed. Thanks Billyshiverstick (talk) 23:23, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

Billyshiverstick I believe that the crop tool is at Commons:Commons:CropTool on Commons, which is a separate project, so you could ask at Commons:Commons talk:CropTool. There may be practical reasons that the tool does not currently do what you want it to do. TSventon (talk) 23:31, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

Billyshiverstick, I sometimes use GIMP to fix the contrast, white balance, etc, of photos previously uploaded; nobody has expressed disapproval, and I have never feared that they would. I don't see why you shouldn't use Photoshop for the same purposes. -- Hoary (talk) 12:31, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

Since some time last year, I find that I am no longer able to upload a modified version of an image to Commons. However, there's no need to crop an image, you can just arrange to display a region of it, see User:Maproom/cropping.   Maproom (talk) 08:39, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

FastStone Image Viewer is free; it has a nice crop tool and plenty of other image editing features. I've used this for uploads to Commons and Wikipedia.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 08:44, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

January 2

Article class changes

Is there any way to check the progress of the number of articles in each class over time within a project? Wakelamp d[@-@]b (talk) 12:54, 2 January 2025 (UTC)a

@Wakelamp: Which project? Many have counts with page histories at Special:PrefixIndex/User:WP 1.0 bot/Tables. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:15, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter Thank you for that. I have now found the Australia project., but I would like to be able to compare it over a period of time . I am hoping that it will allow us time to co-ordinate what should be done..Wakelamp d[@-@]b (talk) 02:53, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

I have just asked the same question on the Wikimedia.research page. Wakelamp d[@-@]b (talk) 03:38, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

@Wakelamp: User:WP 1.0 bot/Tables/Project/Australia has a page history as I said. Click "View history" at the top or "Last edited" at the bottom to see the counts on other dates. See more at Help:Page history. PrimeHunter (talk) 08:43, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

How to find out if the number of articles quoting a source has decreased?

There is a great deal of antipathy towards the Murdoch press in Australia. Interested to see if there has been any systematic removal. Wakelamp d[@-@]b (talk) 12:58, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

There have been discussions about the reliability of these organizations on the Reliable sources noticeboard... you can look these up, but I believe that The Australian is listed as "generally reliable", and The Daily Telegraph (Sydney) as "generally unreliable". Regardless, these sources are still used in many articles. You can see this with the following search: Special:Search/insource:dailytelegraph.com.au Reconrabbit 15:34, 2 January 2025 (UTC)'

So, I found this neat tool which (says it) shows the occurrence of any string in the whole English Wikipedia. I searched on they string "|work=The Australian" and got 8,000 results which apparently is the limit. There are probably thousands upon thousands more, and this doesn't include "| work=The Australian" or "|work=the Australian" or bare URLS, and of course it only gives the present state and not change over time. So it's not any good for this. But it is cool. And you know there are at least 8,000 uses. Herostratus (talk) 02:01, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

@Reconrabbit thank you for your reply.anf your reference to the insource:. I am.more after what @User:Herostratus[mentioned but with the full number by month Wakelamp d[@-@]b (talk) 02:47, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

I have just asked the same question on the Wikimedia.research page. Wakelamp d[@-@]b (talk) 03:37, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

January 3

Automatic taxobox system: Way to display all entries in a page's Template:Taxonomy hierarchy (preferably automatically)?

For pages that use the template {{automatic taxobox}} (and related ones such as {{speciesbox}}), the taxonomic hierarchy displayed in the "Scientific classification" sidebar does not come from the page itself; rather, it comes from a different template which is automatically included. For example, the page Mammal automatically gets that information from the template {{Taxonomy/Mammalia}}. However, it only displays a limited subset of the information from that template, mainly (but not necessarily entirely) of the "Kings Play Chess On Fine Gold Stools" type. So you'll notice that the "Mammal" page displays seven levels, whereas the "Taxonomy/Mammalia" template that it pulls them from knows about twenty-five levels.

I get the reasoning -- it's like a "Greatest Hits" album -- but I like seeing the whole thing. I understand you can click on the editing icon next to "Scientific classification" to go to the associated taxonomy template, but I'm wondering if there's some way to have them displayed inline on the page instead of switching to a new page. Preferably I'd like this to be automatic, like a preference setting or maybe a user CSS setting. Does anyone know of such a thing? Thanks. - Rwv37 (talk) 00:59, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

Question about an article

What is the closest article that has a similar infobox to a country, but for the whole world? Interstellarity (talk) 01:29, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

Interstellarity, do you perhaps mean "Among articles that have as their subject the entire world, which has/have an infobox that is closest to that used for an individual country?"? If not, please elucidate. -- Hoary (talk) 01:55, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

@Hoary To be clear, yes, that is what I was talking about. Interstellarity (talk) 02:26, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

Sorry, Interstellarity, I don't know. I did guess, however; and what I found surprised me. We have Coal mining and Coal-mining region, and exploring the latter we encounter Category:Coal mining regions by country and Category:Coal mining regions in the United States. As coalfields can of course cross borders, it makes sense that Coal mining in Wyoming, for example, is independent of "coal mining regions". Still, it's somewhat odd. None of the (few) coal-mining-related pages I looked at have infoboxes; but it's easy to imagine how a single infobox template could be used for regions; for provinces, etc; and for nations. -- Hoary (talk) 08:53, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

Which place to go to for help in resolving a dispute

I find myself in a disagreement—a dispute, I’d have to say—with other editors of a biographical article on Ian Stevenson, an American psychiatrist who researched cases in which children claim to remember past lives.

I have been seeking to resolve the dispute through polite and constructive talk, but given the responses so far, it seems we may need some help. My question concerns which avenue for dispute resolution would seem most appropriate.

The issue in brief: On December 6, without prior discussion, one editor, being bold, deleted from various parts of the article 16,703 bytes of text. On the same day, he was joined by another editor, who deleted 1,009 bytes more. The edits undid roughly a year’s worth of work by me and other editors. The deletions consisted largely of material from high-quality reliable sources.

To complicate matters: On the Talk page and the Fringe Theories Noticeboard, the first editor went in for what might reasonably be seen as personal attacks.

Given the overwhelming extent of the sudden edits, I suggested on the Talk page that we restore the article to its previous state and then use a process of “talking and editing” to go through proposed deletions. Several editors quickly responded that we should do the opposite: Leave all the deletions in place and then incrementally consider what I might wish to see restored.

It appears to me that the editors responding are like-minded souls, at least some well known to one another—a “local consensus”—and that we would benefit from “outside” input.

My question concerns how to proceed. Should I post an RfC? Should I go to the Dispute Resolution Noticeboard”? Or what? I especially ask because although this essentially seems to me a content dispute, it also involves behaviors, such as personal attacks and disruptive editing, that would seem to deserve review.

I have practically no experience with dispute resolution outside of discussion on Talk pages, so I would be grateful for advice.

Thank you.

Cordially, O Govinda (talk) 02:13, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

If there has been extensive discussion on the article talk pages, and whatever content issue is not resolved by either editors involved (i.e. no consensus was able to be reached), than the DRN is the place to go. If behavior issues are in play, and such editor(s) fail to respond accordingly and with no regard for our policies and guidelines, than report it to admins. 2601AC47 (talk·contribs·my rights) Isn't a IP anon 02:20, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

BTW, I took a good look at the talk, and I would suggest taking into consideration what Psychologist Guy has told you for the last year and a half as far as that is concerned, especially about fringe theories. If it's a simple dispute (at this rate unlikely) between you two, than try getting a 3rd opinion. 2601AC47 (talk·contribs·my rights) Isn't a IP anon 02:32, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

O Govinda has repeatedly attempted to rewrite the article about Stevenson to present him in a more favourable light spanning over half a decade, and been repeatedly opposed every time. Govinda should probably WP:DROPTHESTICK at this point. Hemiauchenia (talk) 04:01, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

Page incorrectly marked as extended-protected

I have the user preference set to see hidden categories on pages like Wikipedia:Articles for creation/Redirects, which is part of the Category:Wikipedia extended-confirmed-protected pages, despite not actually being protected. I was wondering how this could have happened, and whether a request over at WP:RFUP would do anything. Cheers. LR.127 (talk) 03:19, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

The page is ECP-protected for "move" not for "edit". DMacks (talk) 07:24, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

Google Indexing Issue for Camdenmusique

Hi, I noticed that the "Camdenmusique" article is not appearing in Google search results. Could someone please help review it for potential indexing issues or explain why it might not be showing? Thank you! GD234 (talk) 05:25, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

Draft:Camdenmusique isn't an article; it's a draft. Google doesn't spider drafts. There's a template on the draft, inviting you to submit the draft for consideration as an article. -- Hoary (talk) 05:35, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

It was an article, but I moved it to draft. See related discussion at AN. voorts (talk/contributions) 05:41, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

@GD234 What is your personal connection with Camdenmusique? Shantavira|^{feed me} 10:08, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

I have a personal connection as someone involved with Camdenmusique's work. I’ve disclosed this on the Talk page in line with Wikipedia’s Conflict of Interest guidelines and am focused on ensuring the draft is neutral, factual, and well-sourced. GD234 (talk) 21:18, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

Where do I ask questions if the wikiproject is practically inactive

Recently asked for help on wikiproject law enforcement, it's been a day already and nobody has responded(other than an update by me).

May I ask where to ask for help if the wikiproject is practically inactive?

If I have to, i might also ask for help on wikiproject china but doesn't seem like it is particularly active either.

(also if possible help out on fixing wikipedia articles on chinese law enforcement and the wikimedia commons category, the entire place is a huge mess) Thehistorianisaac (talk) 10:11, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

My advise is to be patient, a day is a really short time to wait for response here in Wikipedia. You should be aware that Wikipedia editors are volunteers, and are not obligated to keep up with quotas or progress. For your requests, you basically need to wait for someone who is interested in these topics to help out. Tutwakhamoe (talk) 11:38, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

I understand, but I just want to know where to ask for help since wikiproject law enforcement is considered to be only semi-active Thehistorianisaac (talk) 11:43, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

Hello, @Thehistorianisaac. There isn't anybody. A WikiProject dies because nobody (or not enough) volunteer editors are willing to spend any time on it. The talk page, or talk pages of associated WikiProjects, are the most likely places to find people who are interested in reviving it, but there is no guarantee you will find anybody. It's a bit like asking "Where can I go for help to revive my local tennis club/book club/drama society that seems to have died?" ColinFine (talk) 14:10, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

That's sad

But good news it is still sort of semi-active, and sorting out wikimedia categories is stuff most people can do Thehistorianisaac (talk) 14:13, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

I agree that (semi)simple commons-category cleanups probably don't require project collaboration. For example, if there are two different cats, one for each of two different topics, but files are mis-placed, just change the cat. If one topic with a cat is a subtopic of another, likewise easy to put all the subtopic's files in a subcat rather than the parent-cat. There are some tools we have on commons that can help if there are lots of files to do at once. Let me know if you need help with that. DMacks (talk) 16:43, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for offering to help, so far the first problem i found is just simply people put the category for armed police(gendarme) in the category for people's police/public security bureaus(local civilian police) when it comes to categories for police inside a city; for this i will make another category for law enforcement in that city to split apart local civilian police and the armed police.

After this it's mostly just adding categories to other categories. Thehistorianisaac (talk) 03:33, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

Sounds like a good plan. A tag like {{About|what this one is about|what the other one is about instead|other cat name}} in each could help both readers and editors make sure they understand what is where. DMacks (talk) 07:51, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

Understood. Will start to work on it when i have time. Anyways, thanks to you'all for helping me out Thehistorianisaac (talk) 08:08, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

David Ekserdjian

Ref number 7 is all wrong and in "red". Please fix. Sorry, I cannot work this one out! — Preceding unsigned comment added by SrBernadette (talk • contribs) 10:32, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

You can't spell February! See this fix. Mike Turnbull (talk) 10:44, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

Names of media

I'm working on the article about Jorge Lanata, a journalist from Argentina. It is needed to mention several non-fiction media releases he has worked in: TV programs, newspapers, magazines, documentaries, etc; all with names in Spanish, and only some with articles to link. Which is the correct way to write them? Simple prose, as if the names are words like any other, as in Periodismo para todos? Quotation marks, as in "Periodismo para todos"? Italics, as in Periodismo para todos? Cambalachero (talk) 15:38, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

Please see MOS:TITLE. ColinFine (talk) 18:18, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

Accidentally created new article

I was in the process of creating an article for one of Abraham Lincoln's descendants when I saw that there was an AfD discussion for deleting it some time ago. I already published the page anyways as I was planning on coming back to it to continue editing before I saw the discussion. Any help on deleting/un-publishing? Thanks. Qqars (talk) 17:16, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

@Qqars: I have marked the page for G7 speedy deletion for you. Next time, you can just add {{db-author}} to the top of any page you made that you want deleted. JJP_Master (she/they) 17:19, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

Ah, thank you! I did see that but I wasn't sure if it would work since I didn't think this was in my own user space. Qqars (talk) 17:35, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

Hello, @Qqars. {{db-author}} isn't limited to user space, but it is limited to files with no significant contributions from anybody else. ColinFine (talk) 18:19, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

@Qqars: Another possibility for the case of wanting to continue working on it can be to move it to draft space; so "Foo" becomes "Draft:Foo". Feline Hymnic (talk) 10:50, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

Is a map slideshow possible?

I have just uploaded three maps (each 4954 × 2868 pixels) of the Kaliningrad Oblast, one with placenames in Russian Cyrillic, one with them in Romanized Russian, and one showing the old prewar German names. I would like to be able to display these in one or two articles as a slideshow without sacrificing resolution or size so that a user can pore over the map as it were, full size, and see the names change every 15 seconds or so. I have tried .gif animation, but online apps always see fit to shrink the images and it does not work the way I'd like it to. Is there a way in which what I want can be done? Kelisi (talk) 03:59, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

@Kelisi: As that's likely to fall foul of WP:ACCESSIBILITY, I wouldn't bother but, instead, display the three adjacently. If readers want to compare them in detail they can zoom or download the images. Bazza 7 (talk) 10:52, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

January 4

Copyvio or acceptable?

The article 1990 Luzon earthquake has two paragraphs with CN tags that are copied from https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00001734.htm. Would this be allowed per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:FAQ/Copyright#Can_I_add_something_to_Wikipedia_that_I_got_from_somewhere_else? or would it be copyvio? Wildfireupdateman :) (talk) 04:42, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

@Wildfireupdateman: Works produced by the U.S. federal government are in the public domain, so I don't think it'd be a violation. JJP_Master (she/they) 04:43, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

It's not copyrighted, so not copyvio. However, any paragraph-length direct copy must be attributed to avoid plagiarism. See WP:plagiarism. The attribution for a shorter direct copy is arguably handled by just citing the source, although that's a bit weak. It's more proper to use actual quotation marks and a cite. Plagiarisn: any copying without attribution. Copyvio: copying copyrighted material with or without attribution. -Arch dude (talk) 04:55, 4 January 2025 (UTC)