Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2019 October 27

= October 27 =

Editing a BLP to include a birthday
I am acquainted with the subject of a Wikipedia BLP. The subject would like the article about them to reflect their actual birth date (rather than just the year), but there seems not to be a RS for it anywhere. The subject has expressed to me their willingness to share a scan of their birth certificate, by way of verification. (In fact, they offered that I could post it to the article talk page, but I am obviously reluctant to do that.) I am not well-versed in this area; is there a workable mechanism to add this information? Thanks, JBL (talk) 00:30, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
 * No, there is no way to do that with documents such as you describe. We do not draw on what purports to be original research or statements from the subject of the article, but on published content in reliable sources. So, if an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association or the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction mentions the birth date, we could use it; but anybody can post what purports to be a birth certificate. -- Orange Mike &#124;  Talk  01:07, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
 * WP:SELFPUB allows something like the birth date if they publish it on an official website or somewhere a reader can confirm it is them. It is not enough that a Wikipedia editor knows it is really them. See also WP:BLPPRIVACY. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:21, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
 * I understand how reliable sourcing works. (That should have been obvious from my comment.) I was asking about other avenues.   Thanks, so you think WP:SELFPUB is the best/only other option?  (WP:BLPPRIVACY is the opposite of the relevant issue here.) --JBL (talk) 12:20, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes, WP:SELFPUB is needed if there is no published reliable source. WP:BLPPRIVACY is opposite but means we have to be extra careful to check that the subject doesn't mind having it published. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:29, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Got it, thanks -- I will pass the information along. --JBL (talk) 13:55, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Saturday Night Football
What No Saturday Night Football Game November 2. 68.103.78.155 (talk) 00:42, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
 * If an article is missing some information, please be Bold and add it, or post on that article's talk page. RudolfRed (talk) 01:53, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

A user has violated 1RR
I believe that LD1998 has violated 1RR on the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries article. Specifically, these two edits here: and. David O. Johnson (talk) 01:38, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Please follow the instructions at Talk:2020_Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries on how to post to the noticeboard for this. RudolfRed (talk) 01:56, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Thank you. I have started the process. David O. Johnson (talk) 02:32, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Editing the page Comfort women
Hello, I would like to ask you how I can edit this page. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comfort_women

I'm researching a bit about this issue. However, this page is only focus on the Japanese. I know 122 the UN and the US Korean comfort women sued Korean government in 2014. I would like to add this fact. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Usagidot (talk • contribs) 02:41, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
 * , Then be bold and add it! That's the fundamental spirit of Wikipedia: anyone can edit it. If you see something you want to change, do it. If you don't yet have enough edits to make the change, then leave a message on Talk:Comfort women and discuss the change there. Make sure that if you add material that it has a reliable source, which you include. Captain Eek  Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 04:28, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
 * The article Comfort women is semi-protected due to persistent disruptive editing, which means that it can only be edited by "autoconfirmed" users - in most cases this means Wikipedia user accounts that are more than four days old and have made at least 10 edits.  does not meet those criteria yet, so instead go the article's Talk page (Talk:Comfort women) and request the change you want there, using the Edit semi-protected template to gain attention.  Please be specific about exactly what words you want added / deleted / changed at what point in the article, and as  says be sure to include a reliable reference to support your statements.--Gronk Oz (talk) 06:36, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

How to get deleted page re-added
Hello,

There was a page called “Jordan Lawson” that was deleted a while ago and I am writing to find out how to get the page re-added or how to create a new one if original page cannot be re-added. Thank you! There are several reliable and independent sources related to this person that would help/alleviate any previous issue(s) about the page and why it may have been deleted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.94.82.185 (talk) 06:04, 27 October 2019 (UTC)


 * Hello, IP editor. The article was deleted in November 2017 after a discussion (at Articles_for_deletion/Jordan_Lawson).  That previous discussion said that "acting and musician roles are minor ... the three references are a press release and two blog posts."  So the first thing you should do is to read through that discussion and be certain that the situation has genuinely changed, and those reasons for deleting it no longer apply.  Then the next step would be to approach the deleting Admin  to explain why you believe he is notable now.  Provide specific references.  Please note that there are specific criteria for an actor or musician being notable, at WP:MUSICBIO or WP:NACTOR, and you will need to show how he meets these criteria. --Gronk Oz (talk) 06:23, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Muhammad Tariq Waseem
INNOVATIVE PANACEAS FOR PAKISTAN’S CORRUPTION ILLS AUTHORS’S PROFILE A. 1. Government College University, Lahore a) Director, Planning & Development b) M.Phil. Economics Students Research Thesis Supervisor c) Member, University Purchase Committee d) Member, University Works Committee e) In charge, Career Guidance and Placement Centre f) In charge, Research Projects g) Convener, Project Monitoring Committee 2. Chief Economist / General Manager (Planning), Punjab Industrial Development Board, (PIDB), Lahore. 3. Subject Specialist (Economics and English), Punjab Textbook Board, Lahore. 4. Research and Statistical Officer, Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Lahore 5. Member, Sick Units Committee, Government of the Punjab 6. Member, Industrial Policy for Punjab, Government of the Punjab 7. Member, Industrial Technology Policy, Government of Pakistan 8. Author, Weekly ‘’Investment Guide’’, Daily ‘’The Pakistan Times’’ Lahore 9. Economic Advisor, DESCON Group of Companies Lahore. 10. Consultant, Punjab Economic Research Institute, Lahore. 11. Member, Board of Directors, Pattoki Sugar Mills, Pattoki 12. Co.opt. Member, Working Group on Promotion of Investment, Federal Ministry of Finance. B. Estimated Total No. of Economics Research Studies, PC1s, Publications, Articles, Projects, Textbooks of English Nearly 350 and Economics and Industrial and Business Feasibility Studies, etc. C. Latest Book (2017) “Pakistan’s Corruption Tsunami: Curse, Contours, Causes, Challenges and Cures” (166 pages).

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Nusratali3625 (talk • contribs) 08:13, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Do you have a question related to using or editing Wikipedia. If so, please post it in this thread. Please note, Wikipedia is not a place for political debate or for advancing causes. Thank you. Eagleash (talk) 10:31, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

What will happen if the US will censor you?
You're not censored, but you're on the US servers What will you do if the US will try to censor you? The US have the first amendment and all this, but the US still did lynch black people in the 19 century or did censor any socialism in the 20 century. If there will be a world war 3 the US can fall into censorship. What will you do then? Go to .onion? 37.171.117.31 (talk) 11:15, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
 * This page is not for posing hypotheticals, but a place to seek assistance with using Wikipedia. 331dot (talk) 11:18, 27 October 2019 (UTC)


 * You can try to ask this at User talk:Jimbo Wales. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 17:45, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Work theft
Hello ! I know that everything I do on wikipedia is without copyright, and that's perfectly fine. However, I usually prepare big projects on my sandbox. Recently, a user took an unfinished project from my sandbox to post it on the article I was working on, without asking me and therefore using my work under their username. Am I at the right place ? What are my options ? Because I don't think this is in any way a correct behavior...

CocoricoPolynesien (talk) 11:38, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
 * They have to attribute the source per Copying within Wikipedia, e.g. with "Copied content from User:CocoricoPolynesien/sandbox" in the edit summary. You can do it in a dummy edit to the article, making it clear which edit you refer to. You can also ask them to do it. It's unusual to copy content from an active user without asking them but it's not officially against rules. You could try to deter it with a big notice at top saying something like "This is draft material and not currently suited for mainspace". If others have not spend time on it in the article then you could also ask the user to revert it so you can post it when it is ready. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:09, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much ! CocoricoPolynesien (talk) 12:21, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Your work is copyrighted, you own the copyright, and the other user violated your copyright because they did not adhere to the terms of the license (CC-BY-SA) that you granted to that user (and to everybody else, of course) when you put it in your sandbox. We do not have a mechanism to remedy this. If you are only slightly annoyed, do as PrimeHunter suggested. If you feel very strongly about this, then undo the other user's edit as a copyright violation and then insert your material under your own name. If the other user does not acknowledge that they committed a copyright violation, we can go further, but please try to handle this yourself simplify life for our overworked volunteers. -Arch dude (talk) 16:18, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
 * I have put a notice on my sandbox and did a dummy edit as PrimeHunter told me. I've also noticed the user and he/she apologized. I do not wish to go any further as the situation was resolved peacefully. Thank you too for your response ! CocoricoPolynesien (talk) 21:56, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Creating a page for Brooke Besikof
How does a page get created for Brooke Besikof — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:8802:2000:32A:C409:F320:12A9:F252 (talk) 17:07, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
 * You can use the Article Wizard to create a draft of the article. Once you've created a draft, you can submit it for review, where experienced editors will look over it to make sure it meets our policies, and then will create it for you. Captain Eek  Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 19:11, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
 * But remember that it won't be a "page for" Brooke Besikof, but an article about Brooke Besikof, and will be based on what independent people have published about the subject, not on what the subject says or wants to say. --ColinFine (talk) 23:57, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
 * There doesn't seem to be enough media coverage of her to warrant an article. TimTempleton (talk) (cont)  06:52, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

"Span style" change?
Hello all, I have been maintaining the sort portion of the sortable table at "List of online music databases" since 2013. Recently I've noticed that there has been a deep-level change that has broken the workaround that I used to use to accomplish proper sorting. I took a brief look through the Help Desk to see if I could find any discussion of this and the closest I could find from this year was this thread answered by, but I don't know if this is actually relevant... I'm guessing the change may have happened in 2018 and I just missed the memo. I've been unavailable for much of 2018 so that's my assumption, but I know that workaround worked as of.

Anyway does anyone know how to accomplish the same kind of sorting as I was using previously? What's the modern way to force a -style sort?

Apologies in advance if my question is explained poorly. -Thibbs (talk) 17:08, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
 * I have implemented the current standard method with data-sort-type="number" to force number sorting, and using data-sort-value when a cell does not start with a number or should sort by another number.[//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_online_music_databases&diff=923314344&oldid=922928539] PrimeHunter (talk) 19:36, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Thank you! -Thibbs (talk) 19:39, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

CC BY-SA 2.0 and sui generis database right
Before going further, could I check whether this is the right place to ask about the applicability of CC BY-SA 2.0 to sui generis database right? I've looked at the help page here and it only mentions 3.0. Thanks. Eteb3 (talk) 20:14, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

New Editor: Querying articles tagged with templates or mentioning key words in the talk page
Hi there,

tl;dr (skip to the questions) I'm a new editor interested in reviewing articles that exhibit contradictions (articles that contradict themselves, other articles, or external sources). I think the templates Contradicts others and Self-contradictory are relevant insofar as other editors can use them to mark articles they've identified as having contradictions. There also appear to be categories like the one below that compile these, but it doesn't look like they're updated often.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Category:Articles_contradicting_other_articles&pageuntil=Sinora#mw-pages

My three questions:
 * 1) Is there a way for me to query existing articles that have been tagged with templates like "Contradicts others"?
 * 2) Is there a way for me to query existing articles for which the talk pages uses the word "contradiction"?
 * 3) Is there a way for me to query articles that have previously been tagged with templates like "Contradicts others", but which are no longer (e.g., because the contradiction was resolved)? (so I can, e.g., look at how past editors have handled contradictions - just delete the fact under consideration, cite to external sources, reach out to the person who added the fact to begin with, etc.)

Thanks! Jw 135813 (talk) 20:19, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Welcome, and thanks. We need all the help we can get. One way to find the articles that use a template is to go to the template page and then click on the "what links here" link in the left-hand column. To find all talk pages with the word "contradiction", you will need to do an advanced search. The advanced search box is available at the top of the search results page. start by searching for "contradiction", then use advanced search to restrict your search to the "talk:" space, like this. For your third question, you need search skills beyond mine. I would use editorial judgement instead: find sources and fix the contradiction in the article text based on the sources, with references. When the sources disagree, note the contradiction in the text unless one of the sources is clearly in error. -Arch dude (talk) 15:59, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

How to change the appearance of a page
On this page (User talk:Joseph A. Spadaro/Sandbox/Page128) ... what do I need to do, to make the three boxes appear side-by-side ... instead of on top of one another? Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 20:55, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
 * [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Joseph_A._Spadaro/Sandbox/Page128&diff=923331316&oldid=923325381 Here] is one way to do it with Help:Table and nowrap begin. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:46, 27 October 2019 (UTC)


 * Thank you. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 20:49, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

(Fancy shmancy searching) with (plain as rain hit list)
When searching for articles is there a way to get output that is just a simple list of wikilinked article titles, and little else? The idea is to have one per line on one screen of text. Thanks NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 21:16, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
 * There may be better ways, but one way to do this is to search using AutoWikiBrowser. It provides dozens of ways to create a list of articles, one of them being to run a Special:Search-style search in mainspace. And having built a list, one of the things you can do with it is to save it as a text file, one-per-line with double square brackets. -- John of Reading (talk) 21:46, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks, John, I haven't ever looked at that. Will be fun to check out. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 21:50, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
 * You can place this in if you want it permanently:


 * You could also place it in a skin.css which is not your default like Special:MyPage/monobook.css to enable seeing it by changing skin or adding  to a search url. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:08, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
 * That is sweet!! Thanks PrimeHunter! NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 23:10, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
 * , @AnybodyElse... is there way to make a checkbox or toggle? Someway to flip to the simple format without having to remember the url tweak or drill down in preferences? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 00:17, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
 * I examined User scripts/List and found Search Suite which lists it as one of the features. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:20, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Awesome again! One more question since you're on a roll... I'm in the US, so what PowerBall numbers should I pick? ............. Thanks very much! NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 13:29, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

Subpage in mainspace
I recently stumbled upon Antonio Vivaldi/The Four Seasons, which is a redirect that no mainspace article links to. As far as I know, Wikipedia doesn't allow subpages in the mainspace. What should be done about this page? ◢    Ganbaruby!    (talk to me) 22:22, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Since there are no subpages in main space, the / is part of the article name. You don't need to do anything with the redirect.  RudolfRed (talk) 23:19, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
 * As WP:SP explains, subpages were used in article space until 2004; this redirect, which dates back to 2003, is a relic from that system. These very old redirects are specifically mentioned in point 4 of WP:RKEEP as redirects that should be kept, as it's likely there are incoming links to them from other websites. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 13:13, 28 October 2019 (UTC)