Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2023 October 22

__EXPECTED_UNCONNECTED_PAGE__ = October 22 =

Too much quoted text?
I need some feedback on whether there is too much quoted text from references at Intel HEX. I added a banner for this issue, but I'm not sure if it is the correct one. Thanks in advance! • Sbmeirow  •  Talk  • 01:41, 22 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes. Many of those quotations appear to be from online source that are not behind paywalls so the quotations are not really necessary.  If the quotations are important to the article, put them in the article body and cite them.  Quotations require citations; citations do not require quotations.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 02:07, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

Horizontal scrolling table?
Just wondering if someone more clever than me could fix the ethnicity table (to stop it from overflowing horizontally, or at least do it gracefully) at Saint Petersburg. Thanks. Brycehughes (talk) 03:12, 22 October 2023 (UTC)
 * The percentage columns were unnecessarily wide (due to the length of the heading). I have fixed that. Clarityfiend (talk)
 * Thanks. I gave another shot at the horizontal scroll and it seems to work okay... not sure if it's perfect but maybe good 'nuff. Brycehughes (talk) 10:23, 22 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Now if somebody could left indent the population figures, that would be nice (I can't find the documentation for that). Clarityfiend (talk) 03:37, 22 October 2023 (UTC)
 * I have right-aligned them. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:47, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

updating profile picture...
How do I update the profile picture on a biography page I'm working on? Is there a guide somewhere specifically about the correct procedure? Heideana (talk) 03:45, 22 October 2023 (UTC)


 * Take a photograph of Martin Burckhardt (if it is he) yourself, so that you, indisputably, are the copyright holder. Upload it to Wikipedia Commons, copylefting it (or, if you prefer, waiving all rights to it). Categorize it, etc. If you upload it there under some filename (say, Martin Burckhardt 2023.jpg), then in Wikipedia you can invoke it with the same filename (you don't have to say that it's at Commons).


 * But I don't think you need to worry about the image. Rather, the text. The "About" section contains some Deep Thought, involving, inter alia, "our sequential great Universal Machines with their outsourced historical unconscious Psychotopes" [Come again?], and it's completely unreferenced. -- Hoary (talk) 03:58, 22 October 2023 (UTC)


 * The draft article needs to provide evidence that anyone has taken Burckhardt's ideas seriously. Maproom (talk) 07:32, 22 October 2023 (UTC)


 * The draft also needs proper citations for almost the entire content. Or at least, all that remains after the postmodernist gobbledygook is removed. AndyTheGrump (talk) 10:23, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

Sandbox
A subpage I made to experiment with Infobox country was deleted for using Wikipedia as a web host. If I put a disclaimer that it is experimentation along with various family trees and infoboxes relating to a personal project on my sandbox, will it be deleted for the same reason? I wanted to make sure about things this time. Doctor Alex (talk · contributions · sandbox) 04:47, 22 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Your use of Wikipedia should be for the benefit of Wikipedia, Blocky44 ("Doctor Alex"), not for "a personal project". For the personal project, well, Mediawiki is free software, so you'd be free to install it on your own webserver and use it there. -- Hoary (talk) 06:20, 22 October 2023 (UTC)
 * But it would be placed on my sandbox and with a disclaimer. Also I do not have a webserver and did not realize I still had Doctor Alex in my signature. The sandbox is for experimentation, isn't it?
 * Blocky44 (talk · contributions · sandbox) 06:23, 22 October 2023 (UTC)
 * , your sandbox is for experimentation directly related to improving Wikipedia, not for general experimentation. Cullen328 (talk) 07:37, 22 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Alright, but where would I put general experimentation? Would I have to obtain a webserver for MediaWiki? If so, what does that mean and how?
 * Blocky44 (talk · contributions · sandbox) 07:49, 22 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Anywhere other than Wikipedia, . Web server gives an overview of the software and hardware requirements. Cullen328 (talk) 07:54, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

Fellow claiming to be a Wikipedia Moderator
A Fellow claiming to be a Wikipedia Moderator emailed me this evening and offered to create a Wikipedia page. While I am aware some of this is BS I'd like to refere to email - and the headers - to the appropriate notice board. Any suggestions? Or should I ignore. Whiteguru (talk) 09:39, 22 October 2023 (UTC)


 * See WP:SCAM for instructions. 331dot (talk) 09:43, 22 October 2023 (UTC)
 * OK, thanks. Whiteguru (talk) 09:46, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

Deleting all of my edits on a specific article
Can I request for deletion of all of my edits on a specific article? Plus looking for policy/guideline about deleted edits. Thanks. --Mann Mann (talk) 15:09, 22 October 2023 (UTC)


 * As it says at the bottom of every edit page By publishing changes, you agree to the Terms of Use, and you irrevocably agree to release your contribution under the CC BY-SA 4.0 License and the GFDL. Having articles written by multiple contributors subject to later arbitrary deletion by a single contributor would very likely be damaging to such articles, even if it were possible. AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:30, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

Spoilers in biographical articles
I posted a comment about this on one of the help or policy pages. I do not know where -- I can't find it "Spoilers" again. It's on one of the FAQ pages, perhaps; it took me an hour to find an appropriate place the first time. I never got any response.

My position was that spoilers are all right in an article about media, such as the solution to the murder mystery in an article about a "Columbo" show, a "Perry Mason" show or any number of other shows. I think that is established in the "Spoiler" policy; it's part fo the plot. However, it is not appropriate to say in a biographical article about an actor that the actor played the murderer. This came about because I am watching old Perry Mason shows (the shows do not have individual articles, where the spoiler would be part of the "Plot" section) and when I look up an actor, sometimes the article says he was the murderer on the show. That "spoiled" the show for me. I have been editing these spoilers out.

However, I just discovered that one was changed back without explanation. I have left a note on the talk page for that article. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Kevin_Hagen

I want to know if I doing the right thing, or should I not bother. I can give up any time. We can have spoilers in biographical articles, viz. In the article about Orson Welles, we can say he played the crooked cop and murderer in "Touch of Evil" as well as directing the movie. I don't think that's a good idea, but if someone boldly does it, would it be right to edit it out? Wastrel Way (talk) 20:40, 22 October 2023 (UTC) Eric


 * As usual, Wastrel Way, it comes down to what the sources say. If the sources identify the character played by this actor as the murderer, then the WP article may say so. If they don't, then that's probably original research, and shouldn't be in an article. (I suppose it's really synthesis, because the identity of the character as the murderer is presumably explicit in the show, which is an acceptable source for itself. But that's still a sort of OR). ColinFine (talk) 20:54, 22 October 2023 (UTC)
 * See Spoiler. Basically, it is irrelevant for Wikipedia whether information is a spoiler, and so spoilers can occur anywhere, and indeed should occur everywhere where they serve an encyclopaedic purpose. That a character played by an actor is a murderer sounds like encyclopaedically relevant information. Please do not remove spoilers from articles unless they need to be removed for reasons unrelated to being a spoiler. —Kusma (talk) 21:20, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

Rev'ed by draft author
I added a maintenance category + Template:Draft to the two draft articles Draft:Batman: The Video Game (Game Boy) and Draft:Mr. Tuff

My edits were later reverted by the author with the reasoning that i "wasn't an admin and i didn't had the authors permission to edit his draft" and that the edits were apparently "ruining his workflow"

Where do i go from here? Because I have no clue if i did something wrong --Trade (talk) 22:12, 22 October 2023 (UTC)


 * I'm about to post a message on the user's talk page. -- Hoary (talk) 22:41, 22 October 2023 (UTC)


 * See this. -- Hoary (talk) 22:48, 22 October 2023 (UTC)
 * @Trade: I just updated Category:Draft articles about video games with the instructions "This category is populated by draft topics template, using the parameter value "video-games". It should not be used directly." I also updated the drafts in this category. GoingBatty (talk) 17:22, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
 * How did you got the draft topics template to do that? Trade (talk) 18:26, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
 * It doesn't look like draft topics actually places drafts in the category Trade (talk) 00:08, 24 October 2023 (UTC)