Wikipedia:Teahouse/Questions/Archive 847

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Page blanking

What happens if I blank someones user talk pages? - 114.124.140.93 (talk) 08:06, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

You shouldn't unless there's a very good policy- or guideline-based reason for doing so as explained in Wikipedia:User pages#Editing of other editors' user and user talk pages. You may remove posts you've made as long as noboby has responded to them as explained in Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines#Editing own comments, but anything else you should leave as is. Now, you can blank your own user talk page if you want, except for type of posts specifically mentioned in Wikipedia:User pages#Removal of comments, notices, and warnings. As to what would happen if you do blank another editor's user talk page, you'll probably be warned and the content will be restored; if you continue to do such things despite being warned, the content will still be restored and ultimately an adminstrator will likely block your account to prevent any further disruption on your part. -- Marchjuly (talk) 08:16, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

But now, it may trigger the edit filter and disallow the edit. - 182.253.162.204 (talk) 14:32, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

Difference of opinion

I've been having a nice dialogue with another editor about a difference of opinion. It isn't a dispute, or an edit war, but I don't want it to become one. The page is somewhat active and I've been hoping that another editor would way in on our talk section, talk:St Donat's Castle#Citizen Kane's Doamin, but so far none have. How do I attract or ask other editors to take friendly looks at disagreements without escalation? StarHOG (Talk) 13:50, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

Hey StarHOG. See Wikipedia:Dispute resolution, which has a number of options available. You may want to consider starting with Wikipedia:Third opinion, or seek input from a related WikiProject, which can be found via the banners on the article's talk page. GMG^talk 14:15, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, I didn't waqnt to jump to dispute resolution, and yes, I've posted to projects before when situations like this have arisen, but this article doesn't seem to have a project page associated with it, so I was kind of up in the air. The Third Opinion was a great resource tip, thanks! StarHOG (Talk) 14:30, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

Hey StarHOG. Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history is probably the most active WikiProject of them all. So that might be a good place to start. GMG^talk 14:32, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

Filter log

How can I view the filter log through mobile? - 114.124.172.212 (talk) 15:10, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

Article Review

Hello,

I am expanding from AV patrol, and I want input on my article and answers to a question. I can only find one source for the history section, which is [1]. Can I legitimately only use that source for the section and get it moved into mainspace?

Thanks, Plaba123 (talk) 17:13, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

Here's a source for foundation date: [[2]]. There's some history here [[3]], although it's quoted from their own site. You could also use Charity Navigator [[4]] - it's a little better than their own site. I'd like to point out that your draft ignores the most notable thing about the group - that it's getting the most coverage for how it discriminates against non-Christians. That will be added by someone if your article is submitted. TimTempleton ^{(talk) (cont)} 17:41, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

@Timtempleton: Thanks for your help!

Change Username Displayed

Can I change my username or do I have to create a new account? Stanulisd (talk) 17:39, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

For information on altering your username, see Wikipedia:Changing username. TimTempleton ^{(talk) (cont)} 17:45, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

Editing

Hello Teahouse Thank you for offering to help me. I am trying to post a section about The Hunger Games and it will not let me post it. Now I do not want to have to read so many articles about why I can't and what I have to do to post it. Please help me. — Preceding unsigned comment added by The Unrelated (talk • contribs) 16:44, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

@The Unrelated: First, please sign all discussion comments with four tildes (~~~~), so we know who did it. Here, the bot signed it for you, but that's just good to keep in mind. As for your article, the issue appears to be that your subject already existed in Wikipedia. It's usually best to keep things confined to one article, which is why your submission was declined; after all, it would be a bit confusing if we had fifty different articles about Michael Jackson. (There are exceptions to this, but that is typically when the article is very long and could load very slowly on older technology; imagine trying to load the article Barack Obama on a dial-up connection!) If you would like to contribute to the coverage of the Hunger Games, we have plenty of existing articles you can feel free to improve!
As per your comment at the talk page for the Host Lounge, I do have to give you credit for having a better formed request that 95% of anything else on that talk page! However, that doesn't mean you posted it in the right place, sadly; that question would probably have better been placed here, the Teahouse. You will be able to create articles when you are autoconfirmed, which means that your account is at least 4 days old and has made at least 10 edits. -A lad insane (Channel 2) 17:56, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

Key point: There is an existing article about the film series The Hunger Games (film series). If you believe you can add content - with references - that is the place. What you wrote in your Sandbox is about comments by the actors, but without references. David notMD (talk) 17:58, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

Editing drafts for creation

Hello. I've been around a few months and am trying to get familiar with Wikipedia by editing articles for creation. I understand this is an OK thing to do. I am currently work on the draft for Damian Gorman. It was basically a pasted CV when I found it. I've been editing it for flow, spacing, and content to see if there is a decent article in there. Lots of the information is trivial, not directly relevant, repetitive, or unsourced. Is it typical to reject drafts of this quality? Should I give up or keep at it? How much editing should I do for articles for creation? Please let me know if I shouldn't spend more time with it or if its the job of the person who created the article to do such massive overhaul. Thanks!--DiamondRemley39 (talk) 23:36, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

The creator abandoned it in July, and may have lost interest in submitting it to AfC. David notMD (talk) 03:48, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

Hi DiamondRemley39 It sounds as if you're asking whether it's OK to edit something in the draft namespace. If that's the case, then the answer is technically yes since basically any Wikipedia page can be edited at any time by any editor (except if it's been protected for some reason). Whether you should edit the draft is a trickier question to answer and can depend upon a number of things. The goal of anything added to the draft namespace is (or at least should be) for it to someday be accepted as an article. Wikipedia is a collaborative editing project after all and most articles are improved over time by people working together, and this same way of thinking should also extend to drafts. People, however, can be very protective of their drafts and they might not respond favorably to others editing "their work", even if the edits actually are improvements. Of course, they don't WP:OWN the draft any more than they would own the article that it someday hopes to become, but they might have a certain vision for the draft and how it should be developed. So, instead of just jumping right in (unless it's to fix a serious policy or guideline violation, or an obvious formatting error) and taking over the draft, it might be a good idea to first offer to help on the user talk page of the creator. If they unequivically say "No thanks", then it's probably best to leave the draft be since any edits you make might be reverted and other problems between you and the other editor might develop. On the other hand, if they say "Sure", then at least you can discuss how the draft should be developed so as to not step all over each other by undoing each others work all the time. Now, if you come across a draft that hasn't been edited in awhile and the creator also hasn't edited in awhile, then post a message anyway as a courtesy. If you don't get a response, then it's probably OK to go ahead and just start editing. Drafts which go unedited for six months are subject to speedy deletion per WP:G13; so, maybe looking for something close to being deleted and seemingly abandoned is a better idea than on something just created. -- Marchjuly (talk) 08:21, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

Hello David notMD. Could you explain to me what exactly an abandoned draft is? And thank you to Marchjuly for explaining all that.--DiamondRemley39 (talk) 18:29, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

Officially, is a draft has not been edited (by the creator or other editors) for six months, it can be deleted. In this instance, not only did the creator stop editing this draft in July, but also made no other edits on any article since then. So, you were a wee bit jumping in, but the originator is no longer around. Once an article is an article, it's there for everyone to edit. With drafts, even though they can be seen, the thinking is to let the originator continue to build it before submitting to Articles for Creation (AfC) or just posting it into main space. i.e., as an article. Which is what MarchJuly wrote. David notMD (talk) 19:03, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

help meh plz

hey um i would like to know what i could make a page about can somone help meh? Pearl playa (talk) 16:19, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikipedia, Pearl playa! You could see if there's any topic mentioned in Wikipedia:Requested articles that you could write about. But it might be easier to start by editing existing articles before trying to write articles from scratch. You could try and look at a random article and see if there's something there you could improve. There's also maintenance categories which contain articles known to have specific problems. Categories like Category:Articles containing potentially dated statements from 2000. Another place to look for stuff to do is in WikiProjects. There's also the TeaHouse suggestions.

Whether you want to write articles from scratch or you're looking for stuff to fix in existing articles (or do both!), you might want to take a look at the manual of style. Best wishes. – Pretended leer {talk} 19:50, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

hey thanks for the help i appreciate it!-Pearl playa (talk) 21:47, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

Adding artwork

I would like to add artwork to a site that I have been contributing to. To get started, so that I can get familiar with the process, I would like to add two newspaper ads. One is from 1858 and the other from 1859. How do I get started? Gerald T. Ahnert (talk) 19:57, 17 October 2018 (UTC)Gerald T. Ahnert

Welcome back to the Teahouse, Gerald T. Ahnert. It sounds like your ads will be well out of copyright, so you might like to familiarise yourself by reading the guidelines on how to upload them, which you can find at: Wikipedia:Uploading images. I think most people upload directly to Wikimedia Commons, which is much stricter in ensuring compliance than is English Wikipedia. (there's an 'Upload file' link in the 'Tools' section on the far left side of every Wikipedia page should you only want to upload here.) The advantage of uploading to Commons is that others can use those images in any of the non-English versions of our encyclopaedia. Once you have uploaded to Commons, look for the little 'W' icon just above the image, labelled 'Use this file'. Click that and you can copy the text to insert a thumbnail image directly into your article. Let us know if you encounter any difficulties, and well try and help you out further. It would then help to include links to the relevant article or images so that Teahouse hosts can better see what you're trying to do. Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 22:00, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

WRONG INTERNATIONAL BOUNDRY OF INDIA

File:People's_Republic_of_China_(orthographic_projection).svg ON THIS PROJECTION , THE BOUNDRIES OF INDIAN STATE , J&K ARE NOT RIGHT.. HOPE YOU WILL CONSIDER THIS . — Preceding unsigned comment added by 139.167.70.10 (talk) 17:31, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

You'll have to discuss on the discussion page for the image: [[5]]. Your note is unclear what's wrong. TimTempleton ^{(talk) (cont)} 17:44, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

Your IP address is in India so I guess you are complaining that territory claimed by India but controlled by Pakistan or China is not depicted as part of India. See Line of Control and Q6 at Talk:India/FAQ. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:38, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

How to add photographs of physical newspaper articles to references?

Tea is like TeaHouse. Lnaceri000 (talk) 18:08, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

Hi there

How do I add citations which are photographs of newspaper & magazine articles (as they do not exist online)? I have read a number of help articles but cannot find anything on this topic. Thank you. (Tommyvanj (talk) 20:22, 14 October 2018 (UTC)) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tommyvanj (talk • contribs) 20:16, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

The short answer is that you don’t. You can cite the paper by giving the appropriate information, per WP:CITE, you can use the {{Cite news}} template and just fill in the fields. Uploading such photographs is probably not acceptable fair use. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:31, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

What about adding it into a different section like footnotes, or uploading the photograph to a server online and linking to the URL in the citation?Tommyvanj (talk) 21:04, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

@Tommyvanj: Sorry, that sounds tempting, but it's still not OK in most circumstances. Unless the image - or the newspaper itself - is out of copyright, and thus freely available, it's not an acceptable work-around to link to third party websites in the way you suggest. Your uploading of that image of a newspaper would, itself, be a breach of copyright, and so links to copyright material (text or image) would likely be removed from Wikipedia, or flagged up with a {{copyvioel}} template to draw editors' attention to possible infringement by linking. See WP:COPYLINKS for guidance on this, plus Wikipedia:External links/Noticeboard where discussion on copyright violations in External Links are discussed. Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 22:22, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

Bear in mind, Tommyvanj, that there is no requirement that sources be available online. Obviously it's convenient if they are, but they don't have to be. What's important is that they have been (reliably) published, so that they are in principle obtainable, eg through a major library; and that enough bibliographic information is given to locate them. If they're already online, fine (as long as they are not breaching copyright) but it's not usually appropriate to put them on the internet somewhere just so that they can be linked from a Wikipedia article. --ColinFine (talk) 22:45, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the help guys! - Tommyvanj (talk) 23:44, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

How to transfer data from sandboxes and where exactly id the Title Name placed in the Sandbox area?

I have to correct two dilemmas I understand I have but am not clear on the procedure. 1. I am apparently in the wrong sandbox which makes no sense since everything I do works well in producing a page. I have no idea how I got there or how to transfer it if necessary. 2. How do I designate the TITLE NAME to the site page using the sandbox? I have no indication on how that is accomplished. There are so many technical guides and rules I become baffled a bit. I have considered experimented with two different Title Names that are similar in purpose but one may lend itself better to Wikipedia than the other. There is too much data to have to add (edit) the pre-existing page on the subject because it nullifies most the information found on the page. This information will change the art world in a major way. I have done my homework. Saint Matthew and the Angel Redux --- or --- Resurrection of Saint Matthew and the Angel are two titles considered. Both have the same intent. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BARRY BARON (talk • contribs) 16:48, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

Hello Barry and welcome! Both problems are handled using the "move" function. See Help:How to move a page. That will both move the page to the "article space" AND rename it to the proper title. If you still have questions, please feel free to ask. --Jayron32 16:51, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

You've been at Teahouse on this topic for a while. I foresee two problems: 1) Your draft, as written, has huge sections of text without references. You have incorporated three references, and then added a list of references not tied back to the text. 2) There is an existing article about the painting Saint Matthew and the Angel. Your content disagrees with content on that page, but this does not mean you get your own article. A better way to approach this is change content in the existing article or start a section in the article's Talk, laying out your position - either way, with references. David notMD (talk) 21:52, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

@BARRY BARON: May I also add to what David notMD has said, please? I fear you are completely wasting your time trying to publish the results of your researches on Wikipedia by working on Draft:Saint Matthew and the Angel Redux. This is not - and I must repeat this, NOT - the place for any original research, as exciting as it might be, nor indeed how momentous that discovery might be to the art world. I need you to understand that Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia which distils, aggregates and reflects what has already been written by other reliable sources. We aren't the place to do that publishing de novo. In fact we have a policy on it, so please re-read  Wikipedia:No original research which begins with the statement, in bold: Wikipedia articles must not contain original research. Neither should that 'original research' be added into the existing article until such time as it has been published by reputable sources and/or covered in the mainstream media. Perhaps I can tell you a true story? Twenty years ago I discovered something in 'The Orrery' by Joseph Wright of Derby that none of the experts had ever noticed or commented on before. My museum's Director was one of the world's leading specialists on him, and was astonished when I commented on what, to me, was blindingly obvious - that every person in that painting (who were all seated or standing around a central light source representing the sun in the centre of that mechanical orrery) had each of their their faces representing one of the main phases of the moon. Now, had Wikipedia actually existed back then, I probably would not have been permitted to add that simple observation to the painting's article because it was original research (albeit, you can actually see this fact when you look at the painting, unlike in your research!). But luckily our museum subsequently published a leaflet on orreries, in which we reported this new - and to us, exciting - observation. So now, the leaflet that I wrote back then can be used today as a reliable citation to support that statement. Similarly, until such time as you get your work and discoveries taken seriously by a museum, a publisher or a news outlet, I see absolutely no future in you trying to report it here. There are far better ways to get attention to new research, and I urge you to focus here on other areas of art currently under-represented on Wikipedia. I do hope this helps you understand any future difficulties that you are bound to encounter if you ignore this advice and try to persist. I might also suggest you make a copy of what you have drafted here and store it off-wiki to help you prepare a publication in other media. This advice really is well-meant. Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 22:46, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

PS: I should also add that for some reason that I can't quite fathom yet, the content of your sandbox was moved by another editor into what we call 'draftspace', hence your apparent confusion over your being in the wrong sandbox. (Having now enquired, it turns out that the move was made in good faith, but in error.) Nick Moyes (talk) 00:27, 18 October 2018 (UTC)