Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2018 July 8

= July 8 =

Change edit to be under username
Is it possible to change an edit I made to show my username instead of ip? I was logged in, opened the edit page in a new tab and was logged out without noticing and would like my attribution to be under my name. Vortena (talk) 03:10, 8 July 2018 (UTC)
 * The third point under WP:LOGGEDOUT would be relevant to you. But in my view, unless it's terribly important to link that edit to this fresh account of yours, which itself has just one edit, forget it and let's not bother the checkusers. Write back if you need more help. Lourdes  06:08, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

Which pronoun to use?
Looking through new articles, I came across Margaret Carr. The opening paragraph really jars me, because it talks about her using the pronoun "they". I have been looking for a guideline to cover whether it is best to use "she" or "they", but I can't find one. And I don't want to change it just based on my own preference. Can anybody point me to something that gives some guidance about which pronoun is appropriate? --Gronk Oz (talk) 13:13, 8 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, I've just changed it. No obvious reason for the plural with a singular subject, and as far as I can see none of the problems we sometimes have with transgender people. Jimfbleak -  talk to me?  13:23, 8 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Carr is listed under "Waikato Women Professors" on the university's site, so I see no good reason not to use 'she' in the article.  Tera TIX  13:31, 8 July 2018 (UTC)
 * G'day Gronk, there is a useful little article at Singular they. Two editors' views are at https://www.copyediting.com/singular-they-them-their-and/#.W0IZVS-ZPmE and http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-the2.htm Cheers, DAHall (talk) 14:05, 8 July 2018 (UTC)
 * I just found another article (Lynda Johnston) with similar pronoun usage created by the same editor (User:Stuartyeates) – maybe he could explain his reasoning behind the usage here?  Tera TIX  14:08, 8 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Sure. I avoid unnecessarily gendered language both as a point of principal and as a part of my work under the umbrella of WikiProject Countering systemic bias (I'm currently writing articles on every female professor in the country). Stuartyeates (talk) 20:19, 8 July 2018 (UTC)


 * Stuartyeates are you sure that this is policy? My understanding is that we reflect normal practice, rather than innovate, so for example we will use Kiev for the capital of Ukraine rather than Kyiv until the latter becomes prevalent in standard English. I see no evidence that the use of singular "they" for women is normal English practice. Also, if you wish to make it gender-neutral, wouldn't M. Carr instead of Margaret be more effective than an ungrammatical tweak? That's also against policy though. Jimfbleak - talk to me?  12:28, 9 July 2018 (UTC)


 * The new articles I'm writing use the template indicating that they're written in New Zealand English (see MOS:TIES), because the subjects are Kiwis (the policy gives creators pejorative on this in the case of ambiguity). Singular they is widely used and understood in New Zealand English, we're reasonably progressive in such things.  Stuartyeates (talk) 21:13, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

It seems to me there is a difference between a generic statement, and one about an individual. For example, the first source given by DAHall above is based on the example "A person...who eats only what they can get for nothing." That looks fine to me, largely because the person in question is as the dictionary says a "person of unknown or unspecified sex". But not when it is used for a specific individual such as Margaret Carr. Perhaps this in indeed a New Zealand / Australian difference in language; is it normal in NZ to use the plural when talking about a particular person? --Gronk Oz (talk) 12:33, 10 July 2018 (UTC)


 * It's not a plural, it's a singular they, as pointed out above. And yes it is normal to use it in situations such as this. Stuartyeates (talk) 21:10, 10 July 2018 (UTC)


 * I think the guidance you are looking for is MOS:GENDERID. Thinker78 (talk) 22:24, 10 July 2018 (UTC)


 * That guideline refers to cases where the gender might be questioned, which is clearly not the case here. I'm all for the singular they in ambiguous cases, but here it distracts the reader and creates the impression that there is ambiguity when there's actually none. Thus, we should not use the singular they here because (MOS:GNL) it cannot be used with clarity nor precision, and because it is in a single-gender context (we are talking about one person whose gender is known).  Tera TIX  00:27, 11 July 2018 (UTC)


 * I'm not relying on MOS:GENDERID. I'm relying on MOS:TIES. Stuartyeates (talk) 09:02, 11 July 2018 (UTC)


 * Can you point me to somewhere that says NZ English uses the singular they in unambiguous cases like this?  Tera TIX  10:38, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

Publish
I want to publish a new story about a person not yet published in wikipedia — Preceding unsigned comment added by Peter Oiboo Morintat (talk • contribs) 14:48, 8 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Please read "your first article" (WP:YFA). It is critically important that you establish the notability of the subject, as Wikipedia defines the term, not as you define the term. See WP:NOTABLE. If the subject is not notable, your article will not be accepted, no matter how well-constructed the article is. If you are associated with the subject, please read WP:COI, but you can still write the article.-Arch dude (talk) 15:21, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

List of American sculptors exhibited at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition
I am working on this chart, but for some reason the Reference section wants to appear before the chart. I know this is some minor formatting issue but I can't figure it out. If you can fix it or provide some direction (or both) that would be great. Thanks, Einar aka Carptrash (talk) 16:25, 8 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Fixed it. Usually when a table drops to the bottom like that, it's because the end-of-table marker is missing or malformed. -- John of Reading (talk) 16:30, 8 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you John, I figured it was something like that but could not figure it out. Carptrash (talk) 17:49, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

Creating a margin around an object or table
Dear experts,

In order to make an existing article more accessible to a general reader (it was created by detail hounds who would react badly if I edited it, and it would be a very difficult edit anyway) I want to insert a panel that summarises the immense amount of detail. It's like this:

I would like to have a small amount of space (say 2em) to the right of the panel. Could I please have advice on how to do that? Cheers, Dougal. DAHall (talk) 18:27, 8 July 2018 (UTC)


 * Something like this?

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetaur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetaur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
 * --  AxG /  ✉  18:34, 8 July 2018 (UTC)


 * Exactly, AxG! Just what I needed. Many thanks for sharing your knowledge! PS: What took you so long? -- 7 minutes!!! ;–)  — Preceding unsigned comment added by DAHall (talk • contribs) 18:46, 8 July 2018 (UTC)
 * I profusely apologise for being so slow, next time it'll take 6 minutes! ;) --  AxG /  ✉  18:50, 8 July 2018 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure this is a good idea. The Lede is supposed to perform this function: see WP:LEDE. You are basically attempting to create an entirely new way to do this that is not consistent with the look and feel of our other 5.6 million articles. I recommend you attempt to convince the other editors that the current lede is not consistent with our existing guideline, if that is in fact the case. -Arch dude (talk) 19:02, 8 July 2018 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your comment. I've just read back to my question and realise that I overlooked mentioning that it related not to an article but to text under a level 3 heading. I'm not intending to disrupt the look and feel of the lead section of the article (i.e., the section before the table of contents and the first heading described in Manual of Style/Lead section, which is what WP:LEDE redirects to). The lead section is not involved.


 * In the related Lead paragraph article covering another type of lead – the journalistic one – a sub-category is discussed under the heading Other introductions. It is the "introductory or summary line or brief paragraph, located immediately above or below the headline, and typographically distinct from the body of the article". There is a caution that in journalism, the lead paragraph should not be confused with this and other other terms.


 * Mindful that as stated in Manual of Style/Lead section, "the average Wikipedia visit is a few minutes" (footnoted as 4 minutes and 15 seconds currently) and that "the lead is the first thing most people will read on arriving at an article", the "At a glance" device will be proposed as a high-level overview of the writing underneath the level 3 heading. The extent would be either one or two sentences – shorter than the greeked text in the sample. Desirably I should instead re-write the writing, but it is highly detailed to a degree that is only of relevance to readers already intensely interested in the subject. I do not have that level of interest or in fact knowledge. So the content of the "At a glance" device is intended to summarise the immense amount of detail to make the article more accessible to a general reader, who most likely not bother to delve further in their 4 minutes and 15 seconds. :-)  DAHall (talk) 16:21, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm still a bit concerned that this is a new structural element that is perhaps not consistent with the rest of Wikipedia (but remember, I'm just one guy with one opinion). Other articles, especially in scientific fields, handle this either my adding an overview subsection, adding a separate "for dummies" article and linking to it, or splitting the horrible detail mess out into a separate article and replacing it with an overview and a link. Without looking at your article, I have no idea if any of these are appropriate. -Arch dude (talk) 16:55, 9 July 2018 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your comment ideas. I'm by no means wedded to the concept -- it's only one of several ideas at present -- and whatever way(s) ahead I come to favour will be flagged for discussion with other contributors. SCHolar44 (talk) 17:08, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

Which citation parameters to use
... on Wōdejebato. There are a bunch of duplicate template arguments in the citation section but I can't tell which ones to remove and which ones to keep. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 21:41, 8 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Please clarify your question. Do you think the article has too many citations, or does some particular citation have excess parameters within the citation template. If the latter, then which citation? -Arch dude (talk) 22:16, 8 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Like this one:
 * which is a mess. This source appears to be a series, though it doesn't need to say that twice.  I think that I would write it this way:
 * Further, because this base source (the Proceedings) is repeated multiple times, this article is a good candidate for.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 22:36, 8 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Further, because this base source (the Proceedings) is repeated multiple times, this article is a good candidate for.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 22:36, 8 July 2018 (UTC)
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 22:36, 8 July 2018 (UTC)


 * I think you should back up one level to analyse this. A template is intended primarily as a way to produce a readable unambiguous citation in a standard form. Decide what you want the result to look like, and then use the parameters that result in that form. As for harvc, If you as an editor feel that the articles will be improved by using it, then do so. -Arch dude (talk) 00:45, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
 * One element that is definitely redundant is the URL, when a DOI or similar "index" is present the url is not needed. URLs can and do change over time, the DOI not. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 07:21, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, the first issue were the "duplicate argument" issues that kindly resolved. The second one is that currently many citations to the Ocean Drilling Program have a superfluous title parameter but trying to remove it causes a "title parameter missing" error. To me it sounds conunterintuitive that one would need a chapter name, a series name but also a title name but maybe I am missing something... Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 12:38, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
 * There is a problem with Editor Wikid77's edit; 144, an important part of the citation's metadata was deleted. Sure, it appears in title but is no longer available as volume metadata citation scraping tools like Zotero.
 * In cs1|2 templates, title is never superfluous; it is required. According to this link, title for volume 144 is: Northwest Pacific Atolls and Guyots: Sites 871–880 and Site 801 so then series should be: Proceedings of the Ocean Drilling Program Scientific Results. I have tweaked my citation above accordingly.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 13:03, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I think I got it now. As for URLs I generally prefer to keep them separate from DOIs since I often use ResearchGate links or the like for access, but feel free to change them. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 13:35, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I think I got it now. As for URLs I generally prefer to keep them separate from DOIs since I often use ResearchGate links or the like for access, but feel free to change them. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 13:35, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

Unsourced content
Is there a specific duration of time that has to be waited out before a block of text followed by the 'Citation neeeded' template can be removed for being unsourced? Bookwormboy2 (talk) 22:46, 8 July 2018 (UTC)


 * It's not a matter of time, : it's whether anybody's made a reasonable effort to locate a source. --ColinFine (talk) 23:12, 8 July 2018 (UTC)
 * I think it's also polite to make a reasonable effort to notify the editor who introduced the information in the first place. e.g., by a comment on the artuicle's talk page with a ping to that editor. If the editor has not been active in awhile, you might want to give it some extra time. If the editor has a habit of not editing in the summer (school summer break) then, depending on the urgency, you might want to wait until the edit becomes active again, but this is a judgement call, since the editor can always put the information back in (with references) later. You should use a much quicker process for negative information about living people: take it out immediately per WP:BLP. Another editor should not reinstate it unless it is sourced. -Arch dude (talk) 00:57, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
 * WP:VERIFY states, "Any material that needs a source but does not have one may be removed. Please immediately remove contentious material about living people that is unsourced or poorly sourced". So you can remove immediately anything that is not sourced, but if you are willing and can it would be good if you find a source yourself instead of deleting the content outright. Thinker78 (talk) 04:34, 10 July 2018 (UTC)