Wikipedia:Teahouse/Questions/Archive 825

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creating two pages - Dr Fre and PENHA

Hi - I would like to create a page for Dr Zeremariam Fre and PENHA - Dr Fre has just been awarded the prestigious Desmond Tutu Fellowship award for his lifetime work on environmental care and as founder of the Pastoral and Environmental Network in the Horn of Africa (PENHA), of which Joanna Lumley is Patron. Could you point me in the right direction for new page creation? thank you Nicole — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nicolekenton (talk • contribs) 15:59, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

The page you need to read is WP:Your first article. --David Biddulph (talk) 16:04, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

Hello, Nicolekenton. David Biddulph has pointed you in the right direction. I would just like to give you a couple of words of caution. First, what you are proposing to do - create a new article - is one of the hardest tasks on Wikipedia, and I always advise new users to spend a few weeks, or months, improving some of our five million existing articles and learning how Wikipedia works. Second, I advise you to frame it as "writing an article" not "creating a page". Wikipedia is explicitly not about telling the world about something, no matter how praiseworthy that something may be: that is called promotion, and is strictly forbidden. Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia: it collects and summarises what has already been published about a subject - preferably by people unconnected with the subject. Wikipedia has very little interest in what any subject says or does (or wins) except insofar as an independent reliable source has talked about it. --ColinFine (talk) 20:16, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

Conflicting sources for BLP age

I came across a case of where the age of a living musician is conflicting. An article from Rolling Stone claims the musician in question (Adonis) was 19 when he recorded a certain song, however, going by his birth date sourced from Encyclopedia of Popular Music, he would've been around 22-23. Where should I ask for advice on how to handle this conflict? RoseCherry64 (talk) 19:56, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

If both appear to be reliable sources, then the article either needs to omit the information entirely, or to say that the sources disagree, without attempting to resolve the disagreement. If another reliable source discusses the conflict, we can of course report that source's conclusions. But any attempt to resolve the conflict in the article would be original research, which is forbidden. --ColinFine (talk) 20:21, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

Sorry for repeating my question, but where can I ask more experienced (music) biography editors for help? RoseCherry64 (talk) 20:55, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

RoseCherry64, You might try Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Musicians. I have not been involved with that project, but the title suggests that it might be the resource that you need. Eddie Blick (talk) 21:12, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

Thanks! RoseCherry64 (talk) 21:15, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

Indenting. Talk page.

Does one of the edit buttons insert a next-level-indent? MBG02 (talk) 20:47, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

Hi MBG02, as far as I can tell, no. You just change the indent level by typing more colons in source mode. › Mortee _talk 21:22, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

Picking sources/Poor choices of sources

Hi, I'm new. My question is, if I at some point accidentally choose a source that was a bad choice, how might another user point that out and how could I fix it and find a better source? (Or would they just delete it without saying why?)

Jecgecko (talk) 16:40, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

If you add content with a ref that is not considered suitable for Wikipedia (company press release, etc.) another editor may delete the content and ref, hopefully stating the cause. You can see editors' reasons by clicking on View history. I suggest you look at an article topic you are knowledgeable about and see the process. If editors are in disagreement the right place to conduct a debate is the article's Talk page. I noticed you User page stats student, cell biology. Medicine and health articles have a higher standard for citations, explained at WP:MEDRS. Briefly, no in vitro, no animal, no clinical trials. Respond here or create a new section at my Talk page if you have more questions. David notMD (talk) 16:51, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

Jecgecko, If you need more explanation than what the history provides, you can contact the editor who made the change via his or her talk page. That editor will probably be glad to advise you. Eddie Blick (talk) 21:36, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

Many edits?

If I'm making heavy editing on an article, can I make many edits or is it better to do just 1 or two edits? AGF (talk) 22:30, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

@Agf2: Hello and welcome to the Teahouse. While it's personal preference, you should save periodically to make sure the edits are saved, especially if there is heavy editing by other users on the article as well. Rosalina2427 ^{(talk to me)} 22:33, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

Thank you very much. AGF (talk) 22:40, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

Hi Agf2, two further thoughts: 1) making lot of small edits can also help if disagreements arise. It makes it clearer what your thinking was (through edit summaries) and if you do get reverted, it will be a small part of your work, not the whole thing. 2) Your user name happens to be very similar to a commonly cited Wikipedia guideline, AGF. Your signature looks confusing because of that. Might you consider picking a different name, or at least changing your signature to include the 2? Welcome to Wikipedia, and all the best. › Mortee _talk 23:23, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

Extreme example, but in effort to bring Luna moth to Good Article status, about 100 edits before the review started and 100 after. David notMD (talk) 01:23, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

@Agf2: While I would encourage newer editors to make small edits while they learn their way around Wikipedia, it's really a matter of personal preference between making small or large edits. One consideration when making a major overhaul or expansion of an article is that the intermediary stages may be a bit messy, disorganized, or contradictory. This may lead to edit conflicts as other editors try to clean up the intermediary stages while you're still working on the article. One solution is to put a template like {{under construction}} or {{in use}} at the top of the article (or section) so readers and editors will know you're working on it and that it may not not be entirely accurate moment-to-moment. Another solution is to do the editing in a sandbox, moving it to the article when you're finished. With the sandbox approach, you can also invite other editors to check your work and build consensus for the changes, if they might be controversial.

I hope this helps! – Reidgreg (talk) 13:22, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

Thank you very much for all answers, I got it clearly. AGF (talk) 23:31, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

Local vs Municipal elections

Hi, a newbie question here. I have found that local and municipal elections ale considered the same thing on English Wikipedia (municipal redirects to local), yet they seem to be a different things on Wikidata and articles on municipal elections in one language don't consider themselves to be articles on local elections in another (and vice versa). Should they be separate or merged, currently it seems like just a big mess. Thanks for explanation or hints on what to do. Zoted (talk) 21:47, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

In the United States, municipal elections are a subset of local elections, which also include county elections. I don't know about any other Anglophone country. In other languages the terms for different administrative subdivisions may not translate consistently, and I can't speak for Wikidata. I think that any discussion of whether to keep them separate or merge them should be on a case-by-case basis. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:20, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

In the UK, I don't think we use the term "municipal election". There are local elections and national ones. Elections for county councils, city councils, city mayors etc are all local. I'm not surprised that Wikidata is unable to maintain consistency since these level distinctions are quite arbitrary from society to society and Wikidata tries to be language-agnostic. › Mortee _talk 22:45, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

Yes. The differences between countries are enough, and then there are differences in languages. In the United States, Canada, and Australia, there is a level in between national and local, which is state or provincial, and that makes it complicated enough. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:57, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

To do better editing

How can Tea House teach me to do better editing on Wikipedia,please elaborate.

Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jyayan2 (talk • contribs) 19:39, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

Hi Jyayan2, welcome to the Teahouse. This is a place designed for newer users to ask any specific questions they have about how to edit Wikipedia. You can have a look through the page to see the kinds of things people ask. While you're getting to know Wikipedia, if there's something confusing or that you'd like confirmation about, you can ask us here. › Mortee _talk 20:53, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

Jyayan2, I agree with the comment above. Reading answers to other people's questions has helped me to learn about editing on Wikipedia. I will also suggest something that I have done — create a list of useful links that people post. When I read a post that contains a link that I think might help me in the future, I add that link to my list. Eddie Blick (talk) 21:27, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

Not that it's relevant any longer to our departed OP, but I have a similar list and I think it's a helpful strategy. › Mortee _talk 23:57, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

Here is my list User:Shushugah/documentation it's nice way to self document occasional problems and my solutions I found along the way. Shushugah (talk) 00:02, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

How to post my first article page

Hi everybody. I´ve been editing some pages but this is my first full page in Wikipedia but not sure how can I move it. Can anybody tell me or if somebody wants to take a look and help me post it? It´s a simple article about the novel "Lights on the Sea" that I recently read and, I realized that hasn´t had any page in Wikipedia. My idea is to fill more info about the book and the author but first I want to get sure if it´s enough neutral and figure it out how to move it to Wikipedia.

This is the articles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Josanva/sandbox — Preceding unsigned comment added by Josanva (talk • contribs) 00:44, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

@Josanva: Hello and welcome to the Teahouse! Looking at your article I am Sorry to say that your article might not be ready for Wikipedia this time. But don't be discouraged. Please read Your First Article then submit your draft to Articles For Creation. I myself had many of my articles declined. Keep trying and most importantly do not be discouraged.--Thegooduser Let's Chat 🍁 01:09, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

Replacing infoboxes

Hi, I found an article about a company in a non-Anglophone country with some outdated info in the infobox. Looking at the article in the country's native language, their infobox had some more up-to-date details. I could update it, but it seems that it would be difficult to keep up with. However, when I look at the page with the (undocumented) Infobox company/wikidata template (after adding the details to Wikidata), it seems like no information is lost from the current state, plus it would have the benefits of keeping up with Wikidata changes. However, when looking up the policy for this, I found a recent discussion on Wikidata infoboxes, and it seems to be a contentious issue. Additionally, I don't know of any other articles which use this template, so maybe it's not ready for primetime. Is there a policy in place for this? ARR8 (talk) 02:15, 3 September 2018 (UTC)