Help desk
< October 22	<< Sep \| October \| Nov >>	October 24 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Help Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current Help Desk pages.

October 23

American singer, Toni Fisher.

American singer toni fisher was listed as being born on 4th. of December 1924. But other sources say that she was born 1931. What is the correct date? 180.150.38.127 (talk) 00:18, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Hi IP 180.150.38.127. The correct date of birth for Toni Fisher may be something that Wikipedia is unable to determine on its own. Wikipedia content, in principle, is only intended to reflect what's written in reliable sources; so, if reliable sources state that Fisher was born on December 4, 1924, then that's pretty much what the Wikipedia article is going to be expected to say as well. Of course, in some cases, reliable sources may give different dates of birth for the subject of an article, and in such cases Wikipedia content may reflect or otherwise make mention of such differences. So, if you think that's the case here, you can either try to add content to the article regarding the discrepancy in reliable sources with respect to her date of birth yourself, or you can start a discussion about it at Talk:Toni Fisher. Please be advised though that Wikipedia defines reliable sources in a specific way, and not everything found on the Internet is, for example, going to be considered a reliable source.

The Find a Grave page cited being cited as a source in the article isn't really considered a reliable source for Wikipedia's purposes per WP:RS/P#Find a Grave; however, somebody uploaded an image of a newspaper obituary for Fisher under her married name "Toni F. Monzello" to Find A Grave and that could be a reliable source for such information; unfortunately, only a clipping of the obituary is shown without any identifying information to the newspaper in comes from. The obituary does give her date of birth as December 4, 1924, but there's no real way to verify the source without knowing more about the paper it comes from. -- Marchjuly (talk) 01:13, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

I searched a few Utah newspapers and the mortuary listed in the obit and was unable to find a this person under birth- or married-name. If you'd like good evidence why public records are not RS, the cemetery grave-directory mentioned in that obit lists the the lifespan as born April 12 1924 died November 1 1999. DMacks (talk) 04:41, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

Undefined refs

If someone could help out the IP at Talk:Attention_Is_All_You_Need#undefined_references that would be awesome. Commander Keane (talk) 04:21, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Did it

Folly Mox (talk) 11:32, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

complementar respuesta...

podrían incluir respuesta de una AI... 181.203.90.143 (talk) 05:44, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

We don't want AI output. Its propositional content cannot be better than that of the junk with which it's fed. Its prose is slick and boring. -- Hoary (talk) 11:43, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Rename an article

There is a new article about Franz Meyer. German engineer. However, I discovered later that there is also an wikidata object : https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q94784222 belonging to a different Franz Meyer (with same birth and death date!). Therefore I think that it would be better to rename the article ..wiki/Franz_Meyer to wiki/Franz_Meyer_(engineer). I found that there is also a wikidata object https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q94784222 what may influence the wikipedia search to "Franz Meyer". Please help. --Nawennschon (talk) 06:50, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Additionally, it would be better to link this article to the de.wikipedia.org article: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Meyer_(Ingenieur). --Nawennschon (talk) 06:52, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

@Nawennschon: What makes you think they are different people? Franz Meyer (Q94784222) appears consistent with Franz Meyer. The images look like the same person at different ages. Wikidata calls him an astronomer and physician. Franz Meyer says engineer but also says he improved astronomical telescopes. Maybe physician should have been physicist. Those words are sometimes confused. PrimeHunter (talk) 09:57, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

It is clarified. Franz Meyer (Q94784222) is a german engineer and optics designer, not an astronomer an physician. It was wrong linked to Wilhelm Franz Meyer (Q126389) due to an wrong entry in wikidata (since a long time). Wilhelm Franz Meyer never worked at Carl Zeiss Jena. --Nawennschon (talk) 21:49, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

@Nawennschon: I see that you translated de:Franz Meyer (Ingenieur) as Franz Meyer. "(Ingenieur)" is added to the German article name because there are several articles on de Wikipedia with similar names and de:Franz Meyer is the list of people of that name with de Wikipedia articles. en Wikipedia only has one such article , so it does not need the extra "(engineer)". The Wikidata item Franz Meyer (Q94784222) is linked to de:Franz Meyer (Ingenieur) so I have linked it to the new English article.

I would recommend reading help:Translation to understand the issues in translating from other Wikipedia projects, e.g. de Wikipedia does not require that content should have Wikipedia:Inline citations. TSventon (talk) 10:47, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

@Nawennschon: actually, I see that you wrote de:Franz Meyer (Ingenieur) recently, so hopefully you know where the information came from. TSventon (talk) 12:55, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Hi TSventon, I added an additional source as reference and tried to translate Kugelmeyer and Kettenmeyer. Maybe this complete sentence is not useful for readers in english. (You may delete it).

The trouble I had was some wrong entry in the wikidata QId (Q94784222) : to Franz Meyer, an physician and astronomer: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Meyer_(Mathematiker) and also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Franz_Meyer With help of a Munich wikipedian this was corrected and now it seems ok. --Nawennschon (talk) 21:42, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

No need to rename the article. --Nawennschon (talk) 21:43, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Advanced question: cleanup templates broken on mobile

Bit of a tough question for the Help desk but it seems {{Specific section}} and {{Cleanup press release}} are broken on mobile. They don't display an icon and the text is cutoff. Maybe others in Category:Cleanup templates are borked also, someone needs to check. I couldn't think of the correct forum to ask this. Commander Keane (talk) 07:06, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

@Commander Keane: It appears to be deliberate. The omitted text is in the fix parameter of Template:Ambox#issue and fix. It gets the CSS class hide-when-compact. mw:Reading/Web/Projects/Mobile Page Issues#Proposed technical solutions suggests to hide it in mobile. If you always want to see the class in mobile then you can add .hide-when-compact {display:inline !important;} to Special:MyPage/minerva.css. The icon has the class mbox-image which is mentioned in mw:Recommendations for mobile friendly articles on Wikimedia wikis. You can display it with .mbox-image {display:inline !important;}. PrimeHunter (talk) 09:42, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

When do infant start seeing

When do infant start opening eyes 41.122.83.164 (talk) 09:46, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Try Infant visual development. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 10:13, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

A redirect that should not be a redirect!

I am lost, and I am afraid of making a huge mistake while trying to do the right thing..

The draft "Draft:Holy See–Syria relations" is mostly ready, but the title (Holy See–Syria relations) is already taken as a redirect (to a broad general subject) can it be posted instead of this redirect directly of is there a process.. same goes for: Holy See - Syria relations, Holy See-Syria relations, and Holy See – Syria relations; they all link to Foreign relations of the Holy See!

I made that draft simply out of frustration that such specific subjects (Holy See–Syria relations and mamy other countries not only Syria) are redirected to such a vastly broad subject. And when I finished my draft I found myself lost to how should I now make it take the place of the redirect. What should I do.. RamiPat (talk) 10:36, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

@RamiPat I don't think you have created many new articles before, so the safest thing to do might be to submit your draft for review by placing the template {{subst:submit}} at the top. The reviewer who accepts the draft will know how to replace the redirect with your new article. Alternatively, if you think the article will survive the new pages patrol, you can request it be moved over the existing redirect by asking at for help at WP:RMTR, as you can't do the move yourself. Mike Turnbull (talk) 11:13, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

My draft is being declined

Could you please let me know why the draft is declined? Draft:Supervisory Technologies (SupTech) Cambridgesusu (talk) 12:27, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Have you seen the messages left by the reviewer? 331dot (talk) 12:31, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

The draft article leans heavily on inline spamlinks to information from something call CambridgeSuptechnologies, so I gave this user a spamusername block. --Orange Mike | Talk 20:07, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

To add to all the above, on Wikipedia, 'leverage' is something you get from using a lever, and 'solutions' are what chemists play around with. We don't speak middle-management-marketing-cliché here... AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:20, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

It must have been written by a salesperson. It uses all the best buzzwords, but it's not clear whether it's aiming to promote a company, a technology, a product, or something else. Maproom (talk) 22:20, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Changing uploaded page from user to article

I'd be very grateful for some help. I accidentally uploaded from Sandbox an article as a user - so it's currently user:James Andrew Gunn but it should be an article simply on James Andrew Gunn. Do you know if there's any way this can be changed. It's about a scientist of historical interest. The scientific box also doesn't look good and I don't know how to change this. I'd be so grateful for any help.

DrLizzieBurns (talk) 14:45, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Can an admin delete James Andrew Gunn and then move User:DrLizzieBurns/sandbox into it please. - X201 (talk) 15:14, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

thank you for any help you can offer - so so appreciated. I've tried creating the following page with the information I created below but it looks a bit odd with a re-direct notice. Does this work? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Andrew_Gunn?redirect=no DrLizzieBurns (talk) 15:21, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

it looks like you've helped - or at least I could create a page and removed the 'redirect notice'. Does this look OK? Very grateful for any help you brought. Many thanks. James Andrew Gunn DrLizzieBurns (talk) 15:24, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Best option would still be for admin to delete the page and move the sandbox, complete with original edit history. Better than a copy and paste move. - X201 (talk) 15:46, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

No heading

नरेंद्र बहादुरशाही अमेरिका काम नरेंद्र बहादुर शाही (talk) 15:09, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Please help me नरेंद्र बहादुर शाही (talk) 15:10, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

रोजगार नरेंद्र बहादुर शाही (talk) 15:11, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Please speak in English. ‹hamster717🐉› ^{(discuss anything!🐹✈️ • my contribs🌌🌠)} 15:15, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Hello, @नरेंद्र बहादुर शाही. Judging from what you have added to Talk:United States Department of Labor, you are saying that you want to work in America.

This is an encyclopaedia. We cannot help you with anything other than using and editing the encyclopaedia. ColinFine (talk) 15:34, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Recommendations for how and where to find good sources

I've considered looking into O Holy Night and working on the article, but I'm stuck on where to find genuine, quality sources. Most of my work is stuff that I can find from doing a quick Google search, and this search engine makes the process of research incredibly easy. With a subject like this, however, most sources are casual blogs or have a forced religious perspective. It doesn't help that details about the nature of this song, and the people who wrote it, are disputed and sometimes embellished.

What and where the best way to search for sources that are more high quality, and also older and pre-internet? This is not my domain, embarrassingly. I know nothing about The Wikipedia Library, for example, so please dumb it down for me. Give me links, refer me to other users, anything. Panini! • 🥪 15:54, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

THe only thing I can suggest is to use {{find sources}}, thus: Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL. Some of the options (particularly "books" and "scholar") may be helpful. ColinFine (talk) 16:29, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

@Panini! The specialist search engine you linked to was, I think, optimised for games. This search is a much better version for general topics (I've added the "O Holy Night" target). I think you qualify to join the Wikipedia Library and I would recommend you do (see WP:TWL) and note also on that page the link to the resource exchange, which can be used if you know of a source you want but can't reach it, e.g. because it is paywalled. Mike Turnbull (talk) 14:25, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

.... looking at the Google search I just provided, it doesn't have much of use. A search at TWL gives plenty of hits including America Magazine: The Jesuit Review of Faith & Culture. Dec 2020, Vol. 223 Issue 7, p58-59 and USA Today Magazine. Dec 2010, Vol. 139 Issue 2787, p9 if you haven't seen them before. Mike Turnbull (talk) 14:40, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks @Michael D. Turnbull and @ColinFine! I linked that specific custom search engine because I mostly write about games, so thats tje one that worked for me up until recently. These will definitely help. Once I get a gist of what type of sources I'm looking for I should be able to take it from there myself. Panini! • 🥪 15:23, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

First article and COI

Hi everyone, this is my first time in English Wikipedia since my first language is Italian. First thing, I have to say that I will be paid to create the English Wikipedia page of an Italian Wikipedia page. I read all the infos about COI, and I disclose client and employer, as said in the Wiki pages, in my personal space, in the talk page of the draft, and in comments when I was saving my work. I wrote the draft in my personal page and, if I understood correctly, I can ask help to expert editors to see if everything is alright before to submit my draft for review. Could you help me? This is the draft of the page I did: User:CC-Berenice/sandbox/Vittorio Emanuele Falsitta I would also know if I do correctly with the disclose part. Thank you so much for your time and help! Berenice CC-Berenice (talk) 16:35, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Hello, @CC-Berenice. Yes, you have declared your PAID status correctly, and created a draft which you may submit. I have not looked at the draft closely (and in particular, have not looked at any of the sources) but on the face of it, it looks OK. The purpose of submitting is for a reviewer to look closely and decide whether it is adequate: we do not normally do pre-reviews.

I suggest you simply submit it: unfortunately, it can take anything from minutes to months before it gets reviewed. You can work on it while it is waiting for a review. ColinFine (talk) 16:58, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Help, please

My account was deleted 82.77.70.160 (talk) 16:46, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Hello. Accounts cannot be deleted, so whatever happened, that was not it. Please clarify what your account was called, and why you think it was deleted. ColinFine (talk) 16:59, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

It occurs to me that newcomers sometimes think that Wikipedia is like social media and "your page" is the same thing as "your account". Perhaps what you mean is that your user page was deleted, presumably because it violated one of the prohibitions in UPNO.

If that is the case, then your account still exists, and you can log into it with your password. A user page is optional, but my guess is that you tried to create a Wikipedia article in it, and that is not the right place: see WP:YFA. If you were writing about yourself, please be aware that that is very very strongly discouraged: see autobiography. ColinFine (talk) 20:50, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

Donations

I was willing to donate as requested,burwhen I try to pay wikiedia then asked m to increase the amount. Not a good strategy. A bit of an ambush, actually. 93.107.226.103 (talk) 16:50, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia editors have absolutely nothing to do with any aspect of donations, which are solicited by the Wikimedia Foundation. Please see donate:Problems donating ColinFine (talk) 17:01, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Welcome and thank you for your question about donations! To hide the fundraising banners, you can create an account and uncheck Preferences → Banners → Fundraising. The Wikimedia Foundation does not track the identity of IP addresses, so it doesn't know your age, income level or whether you donated in the past.
None of the Wikipedia volunteer editors here who add and improve content in articles receive any financial benefit. We all simply contribute our time because we care about building a great encyclopedia for you and innumerable others around the world to use.
If you cannot afford it, no one wants you to donate. Wikipedia is not at risk of shutting down, and the Wikimedia Foundation, which hosts the Wikipedia platform and is asking for these donations, is richer than ever.
You are welcome to communicate directly with the donor-relations team by emailing donate@wikimedia.org. Thank you! Just Step Sideways ^{from this world ..... today} 21:21, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

MOS:PRONOUN in articles where it applies

Does MOS:PRONOUN apply to large scale objects and structures such as the Milky Way? The article Gamma Ray Burst has multiple of them (i.e. No gamma-ray bursts from within our own galaxy). GeorgeMemulous (talk) 18:58, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

@GeorgeMemulous: I think it should apply. The guideline is terse and clear — an article should never refer to its editors or readers using I, my, we, us, our, or similar words — and gives just two exceptions, neither of which apply to that article or similar ones. The Gamma Ray Burst article has around eight, most of which are, as you say, "our galaxy". I can't think of any good reason why those can't be replaced with the more encyclopaedic "the Milky Way galaxy", or a similar construct as appropriate for the surrounding words and context. Bazza 7 (talk) 19:12, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

@GeorgeMemulous: I suggest ask at WT:MOS if in doubt. There is a 2022 discussion you could check at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 226#Does MOS:OUR cover "our Sun" where "our galaxy" seemed to be acceptable. TSventon (talk) 19:19, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

@GeorgeMemulous, if you bring it up at WT:MOS, you might suggest that they specify another exception when "our" applies to humankind as a whole, as in "our galaxy." FWIW, "our galaxy" appears on over 500 pages (and some other similar searches, e.g., "our species," also have a lot of hits), though of course that could just mean that a lot of people aren't paying attention to that part of the MOS. A search on "our galaxy" redirects to the Milky Way article and gives that as a prompt if you try to link the phrase "our galaxy." FactOrOpinion (talk) 19:49, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

I'd accept that GeorgeMemulous had a valid point if there were a chance of Wikipedia being used by beings from another galaxy. But my understanding of light cones convinces me that this isn't going to happen any time soon. Maproom (talk) 22:35, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Main Menu - how math blocks are displayed

If I'm not logged in, I see math blocks left justified. If I'm logged in, I see math blocks centered with smaller text.Rcgldr (talk) 03:16, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

@Rcgldr: Please link an example math block where you see the difference. What is your Skin and Math setting at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rendering? PrimeHunter (talk) 00:19, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter: example math block

I've now figured it out. With math setting to SVG, I get left justified math blocks. With math setting to MathML, I get centered math blocks with smaller text. What was confusing was the first time I looked at math setting, it showed SVG, but my actual setting was MathML. Thanks for the help. Rcgldr (talk) 03:37, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

citations

I am Doug Rea, my page has a notice on it saying it needs further citations. Trying to find a way to do this is IMPOSSIBLE. You have the WORST set up I've ever seen. Talk about going down a rabbit hole with NO INSTRUCTION NOR SHORT CUT is infuriating. Get rid of that stupid notice !!!! Drdouglasre (talk) 23:36, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

We can help you find the instructions. I'd suggest first reading the autobiography policy. You may propose changes to the article about you by using the edit request wizard. You may also want to read Referencing for beginners. Yes, there is a learning curve, but this setup is what makes Wikipedia one of the most visited websites on this planet. 331dot (talk) 23:55, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Hello, Drdouglasre. It would help if you took on board that Doug Rea is not "your page", it is Wikipedia's page about you, neither you nor anyone directly connected with you should directly edit it because of your/their Conflict of interest (instead you/they should make WP:Edit requests on its Talk page), and everything in it should be cited to a published Reliable source independent of you, as a verifiable reference – when it was first created in 2006 by Cassrea (presumably someone associated with you), Wikipedia's standards were looser, but it's desirable that the standards of all articles be raised as high as possible, and certainly above the current minimum threshold (which currently this article doesn't meet).

As to difficulty, Wikipedia is not Social media, it's a crowdsourced encyclopedia and inevitably learning how to edit it correctly takes some time and effort, just like (for example) learning a musical instrument. (Would you let a complete tyro sit in with your band at a professional performance?) Hope this helps. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.6.86.81 (talk) 08:14, 24 October 2024 (UTC)