Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2020 March 16

= March 16 =

Family of Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge
Reference number  21  is  still in  red  and  I  cannot  fix  it -  especially  not on tis   mobile  device. Please fix  it  up if you  can   and thanks  203.132.68.1 (talk) 00:36, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
 * There are two ISBNs listed. Which is the correct one? Does the "undo" button work on your device? RudolfRed (talk) 01:06, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
 * ✅, I removed the short-form ISBN and kept the long one. Only one can be used in the cite template. MB 02:29, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
 * This is the third time in the last 2 weeks that this user has asked about the double ISBN problem..... Joseph2302 (talk) 07:45, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
 * And has had the same problem several times in the further past. We have come to accept that this user (who is easily recognisable by subject matter and writing style whether logged in or not) finds it very difficult to grapple with anything connected to coding, as well as being limited by available devices, but makes sufficiently valuable and extensive contributions to a range of articles that it's easier to just sort out the problems. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.197.27.39 (talk) 08:20, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Obchod na Korze/The Shop on Main Street
The Wikipedia page about this Oscar-winning film from Czechoslovakia ends with a sentence about the final scene in the film, which it describes as a dream sequence showing the widow Lautmann and her deceased husband dancing in their wedding clothes. I think that careful examination of the scene will show you that the man with whom the widow dances is not her deceased husband, but the decent carpenter who hangs himself after reaizing he has accidentally killed the widow Lautmann while trying to hide her from the militia who are rounding up the town's Jews for transport to camps. Keep in mind that the widow had earlier given the man some of her deceased husband's clothes, most notably the bowler hat we see in the dream sequence. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:304:CD90:9720:8D0F:254E:2348:C139 (talk) 01:03, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Please discuss this on the article's talk page. However, you will need to provide a reference to a reliable source (WP:RS) that agrees with you, because otherwise this is original research and not allowed on Wikipedia. of course, the same may apply to what is in the article now, which is why you need to discuss it. -Arch dude (talk) 03:04, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

You are missing a line item, The USS John E. Kilmer DDG-134 will be named for a U.S. Navy Hospitalman who won the MOH, but was killed in Korea.
You are missing a line item, The USS John E. Kilmer DDG-134 will be named for a U.S. Navy Hospitalman who won the MOH, but was killed in Korea. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:E000:1C02:8AAB:997A:BFA2:7972:186C (talk) 02:32, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
 * If this is about one of the articles here, please let us know which one. RudolfRed (talk) 03:17, 16 March 2020 (UTC)


 * I added it to the John E. Kilmer article, linking to USS John E. Kilmer (DDG-134). It you enjoy finding stuff we should add to Wikipedia, that's great. If you want to help further, please consider learning how to edit Wikipedia yourself. -Arch dude (talk) 03:24, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

New page preview system
Not sure if this is the right place, please move this post to the right place if this is not it.

I love the relatively new page preview system because it can greatly reduce the "rabbit hole" effect of wikipedia where you want to look up one thing but the description has other terms you need to look up and so on until you get side tracked so much 2 hours later you are looking at a nearly unrelated article.

But sadly the preview text is very often not helpful and gives so little relevant information that you need to click on the link after all and it's nearly the same as without the preview system. E.g. for movies, games, etc., the preview is usually 80% "meta information" like year of release / country of origin, platform the game was released for / genre, etc. but usually if there even is information about the content of a work of fiction it's actually cut off at the end the of the preview.

For other articles like e.g. physics articles the preview text is usually similarly just the introduction of the article before the actual summary of it or only half or less of the summary.

As mentioned, this means the page preview function is usually not very useful when it has enough space for a short but explanatory summary. I don't know how feasible it is to edit these page previews to give a good amount of information with the limited text available but at the moment the feature is sadly very often rather pointless. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:16B8:49B4:9300:99F0:5EE2:D621:4F4B (talk) 07:20, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
 * If you WP:REGISTER an account, you get access to the "Navigation Popups" gadget, which allows some control over the length of the initial preview, as well as providing a "more" link that lets you retrieve more of the article. —[ Alan M 1  (talk) ]— 07:37, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
 * The preview is taken automatically from the start of the page. We don't write pages with the preview in mind. Manual of Style/Lead section is the guideline for leads. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:45, 17 March 2020 (UTC)


 * I cross-posted the feedback at mw:Talk:Page Previews. I believe it genuinely help to have the developers have the user feedback, even if they decide against it (which is probable since there are tons of high-priority projects for few developers). Tigraan Click here to contact me 14:56, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Science article introductions / summaries are too complicated and use too many terms you have to look up as well
Many science related articles (especially physics) lack any really helpful introductions / summaries for laymen. As the majority of wikipedia users do not have much knowledge of science and come here to find out what a scientific term means, introductions / summaries that go into a lot of detail and are written for people that know the subject matter and are just looking for detailed explanation are not very helpful for most wikipedia users.

It's good that the main body of an article is very detailed and precise but the introduction / summary should not be like because it's a very important explanation for the people who do not know the subject. The articles are not going to suffer any real degradation in quality or precision either from the introduction / summary being simplified for laymen since for those who care about details and precision there is the main body, the other 95% of the article.

The main issue is that most of these summaries use scientific terms and so you are forced to look these up only to find more articles with summaries using other scientific terms and so the rabbit hole never ends.

I feel like this goes against the main purpose of wikipedia, being an encyclopedia for everyone and instead these articles are textbooks for students of these subjects and useless for everyone else. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:16B8:49B4:9300:99F0:5EE2:D621:4F4B (talk) 07:33, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
 * If you don't want to take on the task of clarifying them, we have maintenance templates such as Technical and Context that you can add to the article, or add a section to the article's own talk page to discuss specific concerns with other editors that may be interested and knowledgeable in the particular field. —[ Alan M 1  (talk) ]— 07:43, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
 * You might find the Simple English Wikipedia more suited to your needs.--Shantavira|feed me 08:31, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
 * People who "come here to find out what a scientific term means" might do better at Wiktionary. Maproom (talk) 14:38, 16 March 2020 (UTC)


 * You are basically correct: see Manual of Style/Lead section. The lead section is supposed to be "accessible". However, it is also supposed to be concise, to indicate why the subject is notable, and to mention the main points of the article, all without being too technical. This set of requirements is basically impossible to meet for some subjects. Some of our science articles have companion "overview" articles in an attempt to address your concerns. If you have the time, please try to improve our articles, or at least make comments in the articles talk page. -Arch dude (talk) 04:14, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
 * As an example, consider second law of thermodynamics (arguably the most important topic about thermodynamics, or at least in the top 3). I doubt someone without former knowledge of thermodynamics can make heads or tails of the first two paragraphs. Yet, they are probably as simple as they can be while still being entirely accurate. Tigraan Click here to contact me 14:21, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I made a lead section of a physics article clearer for the layperson, but it got reverted, so I gave up. Clarityfiend (talk) 05:10, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

I came across an article called Sexual Script theory by mistake. It is not a scientific article I think except in a very vague sense of the word "science." However it is equally impenetrable. I put a note on the talk page asking for clarification some time ago. Others have done the same. Although there have been some technical edits since then nothing has been altered to make it more readable. I looked it up on the Simple English Wikipedia as suggested above but it is absent. What I did find on that site was a statement that it was designed for those learning English. This is not what is required at all. I and the originator of this strand, I think, are native English speakers of reasonable intelligence who require technical subjects of which we know little explained to us. I was a professional lawyer and considered it was part of my job to explain technical legal concepts to others (clients and Magistrates.) I think some scientists and social scientists should be able to do the same. I am therefore disappointed at the reaction Clarityfiend received when he tried to change something. I will try to do something similar to the article I mentioned when I have the opportunity (with anti-Covid 19 measures beginning to bite that may be soon)Spinney Hill (talk) 09:58, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Yes, I agree with you. In the world of traditional publishing, it is very easy for the author to be self-focused on their own work ("look at me, the author, and what I know") and so a major task of the traditional editor is to have a focus of the intended readership ("you, the reader, will relate to this because..."). But here on Wikipedia, although we are technically referred to as "editors", all too often we write with an authorial self-focus rather than with editorial reader-focus. So articles often end up as a "brain dump of me" rather than as "here is your journey". Alas, I don't think there are any general, quick-fix easy answers. As others have said, you can take it to an article's talk page (although in my limited experience, this often only leads to a dark void). Feline Hymnic (talk) 11:07, 17 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Many talkpages don't have a lot of watchers. It can help if you at the same time put a "I have started a discussion about X at Y" message on related wikiprojects and noticeboards. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 13:37, 17 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Well, all I can say is "the original poster is right and it sucks", but I am not sure we can do much about it (apart from reminding people what the guidelines are). The problem is simply that there are not enough editors in niche topics. The "flagship articles" usually are decent but the more specific articles will have few editors because there are few people who have the knowledge necessary to write the bulk of the article. I do think physics is a hard-hit area in that respect but it is probably because I read more niche physics articles more than (say) niche history articles.
 * Note that I include myself in that criticism (I think the lead of our article electric field is worse now than at the time of my last edit but both versions must be utterly impenetrable to someone without a bachelor's education in sciences). The thing is, correcting mistakes is higher-priority than making articles readable, and (stereotype warning) us physicists are more interested in the former than in the latter anyway. Tigraan Click here to contact me 14:21, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
 * How about this version of the lead? It was almost entirely just a copy/paste re-arrangement of sentences (and occasional phrases) with minimal re-wording to hold it together as English. I also separated different subtopics into different paragraphs. The aim was to bring the outsider into the subject. (I'm not convinced that the "SI units" info needs to be in the lead at all, but I left it there for the moment to keep my changes restricted to the lead.) Feline Hymnic (talk) 17:43, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

S.S.Benifits
How much does U.S. Gov. Stand to save, if the corona virus attacks elderly and people with underlying health issues? (Considering u.s. had an outbreak like other countries) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.240.198.3 (talk) 14:36, 16 March 2020 (UTC)


 * This page is for help with editing Wikipedia. I suggest you read Financial impact of the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic and Socio-economic impact of the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic.--Shantavira|feed me 14:57, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Special:Content Translation
Translators do not work. --Вадзім Медзяноўскі (talk) 18:09, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
 * There is no special page by that name. See WP:TRANSLATE for translating pages.  Machine translations are not allowed on this Wikipedia  RudolfRed (talk) 18:18, 16 March 2020 (UTC)


 * , if you are referring to the links with names of non-English languages that are typically listed on the left of an English Wikipedia (EW) Article (or other) page under the heading 'Languages', these do not create or (usually) link to direct translations of that page; instead they link to articles on the same subject in the independent Wikipedias of those other languages. The links have to be manually created, so there may well be many non-English Wikipedia (NEW) articles that could be linked, but are not linked yet.
 * Such non-English articles are usually not direct translations of the EW article – some may have started out that way, but after creation they will have been further modified by that Wikipedia's editors.
 * The same applies to EW articles that were originally translated from articles in NEWs. All such articles are/were translated by human volunteers (see Translation): there is no Wikipedia automated function to make translations, and we do not accept direct machine translations because the technology available to date is not adequately accurate (see Translation). (Human translators may start with a machine translation, but will need to carry out extensive further work on it.)
 * I hope this was helpful, since your query was too terse to understand reliably. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.197.27.39 (talk) 04:55, 18 March 2020 (UTC)