Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2017 April 28

= April 28 =

Article on Frank Canova
I'm getting interested in doing work with Wikipedia. If for no other reason than the latest article about Frank S Cannova.

It's mad up of WHOLE CLOTH!

I'm his nephew and godson and can testify that most is drivel if not absurdly wrong.

If you need facts, I can dredge up what I know. But come on, where's your cross check of sources ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.101.82.227 (talk) 00:42, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Are you by chance referring to the subject: Frank Cannova? Maineartists (talk) 01:06, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Information in an article must be from published reliable sources, not what you personally may know. RudolfRed (talk) 01:12, 28 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Welcome to Wikipedia. If you think something is wrong with an article, it's best to state your problems on the article's talk page. Note that anyone is an editor, and we do not know who our editors are. We require that statements in articles be verifiable (i.e. that the statements are supported by something that is published in a reliable source). If you see a statement that you feel is incorrect and that is not supported by a reliable source, you are free to remove it. -Arch dude (talk) 04:08, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

Picture Upload
How do I upload my Pic, as my account is 4 days old and I have made ten edits? please help!! its urgent and important..!! :) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dsharma1998 (talk • contribs) 03:11, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Your account was registered [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&user=Dsharma1998 roughly 89 hours] before you posted this message. That's not quite four full days. -- John of Reading (talk) 06:29, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
 * It almost simply isn't urgent. Let's start with a couple basics. Are you trying to upload a fair use image? If so, it is highly unlikely it is urgent. That's one of the few legitimate reasons for uploading an image to Wikipedia. If you are trying to upload a copyrighted image without a free license, then you can't do that anywhere unless it complies with fair use law. If the image is available under a free license, then it should be uploaded to commons and the four day limitation does not apply.-- S Philbrick (Talk)  13:01, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

Problem
I seem to have been stripped back to minimum functionality. None of my scripts appear to be working, nor do most of the functions that make life easy, such as hovering over links. I can't even change the down-arrowed "more" tab to the side-arrowed version. I'm logged in, and my admin functions still work, although I can't use eg Easyblock script and wikitext also OK. I'm using Firefox 53.0, and i've tried restarting Firefox. Any ideas? Jimfbleak - talk to me?  06:11, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Also no predictive search Jimfbleak - talk to me?  06:12, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Same here (the links will work if you refresh the page) and items have disappeared from the "Tools" section of the sidebar. This sort of occurrence is not uncommon – just the usual Wikipedia software glitches I expect Noyster (talk),  08:04, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Links don't work even after restarting firefox, let alone after refreshing... Jimfbleak - talk to me?  08:36, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
 * It works for me in Microsoft Edge. It sounds like your JavaScript isn't running. Do you have a show/hide link at the table of contents on this page? Do you see Navigation popups when you log out and hover over links at [//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Example?withJS=MediaWiki:Gadget-popups.js&withCSS=MediaWiki:Gadget-navpop.css]? Can you try another browser? PrimeHunter (talk) 10:06, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
 * PrimeHunter, no show/hide, no navigation links. I signed in in Edge, no different there Jimfbleak - talk to me?  10:15, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
 * this claims javascript is enabled in Firefox Jimfbleak - talk to me?  10:25, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Do you see show/hide at the top of the table of contents when you log out in Firefox or Edge? PrimeHunter (talk) 10:26, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
 * PrimeHunter Yes, I just tried in Firefox,and I could see (hide) in TOC. Incidentally, I should mention that i also tried a computer restart Jimfbleak - talk to me?  10:42, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
 * In about:config, javascript.enabled is set at default and true, which I'd guess is right Jimfbleak - talk to me?  10:53, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Also tried setting all preferences to default, that didn't work either <b style="font-family:Lucida;color:red">Jimfbleak</b> - talk to me?  12:13, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
 * JavaScript is enabled and working in your browser if you can see show/hide links in the table of contents anywhere. It just isn't running properly in your account. Clearing your entire cache sometimes helps. Do you have show/hide table of contents at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia?safemode=1? safemode=1 prevents personal CSS, JavaScript and gadgets from running. Just ignore that some of the formatting is odd. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:50, 28 April 2017 (UTC)


 * This may be down to Mediawiki suddenly dropping support for ES3 javascript browsers without providing any suggestions of how to migrate. Drop support for ES3 javascript browsers in MediaWik Aspro (talk) 12:47, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
 * This is because in this week release we dropped a ton of older Mediawiki specific JS. This only affects people who have not carefully kept their user scripts in check for the past 6 years and ignored all the warnings (which is probably most people). Just clear out all your user scripts, and add back one by one. —Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 12:53, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
 * I did some cleanup. Is is slightly better now ? —Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 13:10, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
 * do you use the monobook skin ? If so, you have some old style scripts in your User:Noyster/monobook.js. —Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 13:32, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you, yes I do – which parts of the .js page need to be removed and are there replacements for these facilities? I'm not aware of having received any warnings about this and it seems probable that many other users are in the same position <b style="color:seagreen">Noyster</b> (talk),  14:23, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
 * I've removed some old stuff, that i didn't feel like cleaning up and fixed a call. Should be better this way. —Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 15:28, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
 * that's much better, thank you. Twinkle, TFAhistoryand some of the scripts are working. Bizarrely, I still can't change the "more" tab from the dropdown to expanded tabs, and The easyblock and spamuserblock scripts aren't showing links. I use those a lot, any thing I can do to get them working? FWIW, the easyblock was updated relatively recently <b style="font-family:Lucida;color:red">Jimfbleak</b> - talk to me?  15:36, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Could you make a screenshot ? It's a bit hard to debug all this stuff at times, if you have never used it yourself. BTW. i disabled your Hotcat inclusion, you can enabled that in the Gadgets section of your preferences, that is much safer for the future. Easy block seems to work for me in Vector, so if that isn't working, then something else is interfering (its horrible code btw. 2009 stuff that's been patched and patched and patched). —Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 16:07, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
 * , whatever you have done seems to have fixed everything while I slept, easyblock and spamuserblock tabs now showing where appropriate. If there is anything still missing, I haven't found it yet. This coding stuff seems like witchcraft to me at the best of times, so many, many thanks for your help <b style="font-family:Lucida;color:red">Jimfbleak</b> - talk to me?  05:08, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

I can't save my edits
I spent hours editing a preexisting article using visual editing, but when I clicked "save changes," a red box popped up. It said "Error serving data to server. Empty server response." How can I fix this? I have zero experience with coding. — Preceding unsigned comment added by JukeboxJournalism (talk • contribs) 10:13, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
 * If it's a problem serving data to the server or getting a response from it, it could be your computer, your ISP, or the server. If it's your computer, we'd need more information to know how to fix it.  If it's your ISP, you'd have to go yell at them.   If it's a problem with the server itself, that'd be on the Wikimedia foundation to fix.
 * It's best to do large-scale rewriting off-site, in Microsoft Notepad or some similar program that remove formatting. Ian.thomson (talk) 10:20, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
 * I understand this won't help your current situation, but I never compose more than a sentence or two directly in an edit box. On the rare occasions that I have, it has often led to pain. Stuff happens, and it is almost never recoverable. I composed this message in an external editor. It is far easy to compose in an off-line editor then copy and paste.-- S Philbrick (Talk)  12:57, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
 * OT (but it may serve to help others) Agree 100%, S Philbrick . I've done that since day one. It also allows me to work on multiple articles; and step away from extensive edits that need more than a day to create. Maineartists (talk) 13:47, 28 April 2017 (UTC)


 * There's a similar report at commons:Special:Permalink/242319472, but saying the error message was "Error saving data to server", which is MediaWiki:Visualeditor-saveerror. —LX (talk, contribs) 16:24, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

Official Portraits?
So I've noticed that only the American politicians seem to have their official portraits in office, and I mean most if not every single one of them, but I don't see the same for many other pages that are non-American.

Care to have an explanation on why? Because there is many that do have an official portrait, including their staff and such. Many of them are just random shots from an event instead of their office where their picture as of their inauguration was taken. In addition, some don't even have portraits at all when they do.

For example, Donald Trump, Rex Tillerson. American politicians. François Hollande, Bernard Cazeneuve French politicians.

Sereniama (talk) 23:27, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
 * The explanation may lie in copyright practices. Are the official portraits of these politicians in the public domain, or does some unit of government retain copyright? Because if they are copyrighted, then we can't use them except in rare circumstances. -- Orange Mike &#124;  Talk  23:35, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
 * To expand on the above, works by the federal government in the US (but not the governments of individual states) are automatically in the public domain. In France the copyright is generally held either by the photographer or the government, meaning we can't use them without the consent of whoever owns the copyright—and that consent generally isn't given, as Wikipedia's reuse rules means that releasing a photograph for use on Wikipedia also allows anyone else in the world to use that photo for any purpose. Once Trump has been in office a while, there will almost certainly be some formal portraits released by the US government which we can use. &#8209; Iridescent 23:42, 28 April 2017 (UTC)