Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2024 February 13

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February 13

Citation needed

If a claim has a "citation needed" tag, it should be removed when there is no provided citation. I have observed examples such as, '"the army had 500 men (citation needed)" and others like, "the LDS church is a cult (citation needed)." Are these examples different? I feel that a claim about the LDS church being a cult should be removed if it is not cited, though it might not be as significant as an uncited claim about army size. LuxembourgLover (talk) 01:36, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

LuxembourgLover Well, obviously uncited material should be removed per WP:V. Just like how Template:More citations needed wasn't supposed to be spammed on hundreds of thousands of articles. But due to limited volunteer time, some maintenance categories just aren't paid attention to. Sungodtemple (talk • contribs) 02:28, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

LuxembourgLover, while the removal of uncited claims is desirable, this should preferable be done by an editor after that editor has made reasonable efforts to find a source to cite, and failed. {The poster formely known as 87.81.230.195} 90.199.107.217 (talk) 04:50, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

If material can be likely be cited, it's better to either leave the tag or to add a citation than to remove the claim entirely. That's what the tag is for. Remsense诉 05:38, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

David Blackburn (Royal Navy officer)

Citations 7 and 8 are the same - can they be "doubled up" please? Thank you in advance 115.70.23.77 (talk) 01:49, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Done. In the future, you can do so yourself (see Wikipedia:Named references). Sungodtemple (talk • contribs) 02:29, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

No one replied on Talk:Domain name

Why does no one reply my request on that page? It may seem the article is not a trending topic, thus people may have no mood in it. 2001:EE0:4BC4:48A0:A933:B9E2:B059:BDC (talk) 02:13, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

There is no need to discuss a change prior to making it unless you feel the change would be controversial. Go ahead and edit the article yourself, If someone later objects, they can revert you, and part of one of our normal editing and review processes. See WP:BRD. (BTW, this looks like a good change to me, so thanks!) -Arch dude (talk) 02:25, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

There is a bit of a backlog at CAT:ESP. You just need to be patient. RudolfRed (talk) 04:20, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Editing

How do I find articles to edit? I can't seem to find any problems.  Fewsnake (talk) 02:20, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Fewsnake maybe you can look at Special:Homepage - it can recommend articles needing attention and give you an intro on how to fix problems in articles. Sungodtemple (talk • contribs) 02:24, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Thank You! Fewsnake (talk) 02:27, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

@Fewsnake WP:TASKS may be of help. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:50, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Using the TimesMachine as an archive link

I'm working on Draft:Banner in the Sky and found a source in The New York Times. You can read the full article on ProQuest, but there is an archive of the newspaper article on the NYT's TimesMachine. I used the ProQuest link for the live URL and the TimesMachine archive as the archive URL. Generally I would only use the Wayback Machine or Archive.Today, which brings me to a few questions. Should I be using both links like that? I figure more people will be able to access the ProQuest article because librarians, students, professors, and Wikipedia editors get free access to ProQuest, which is why I used the ProQuest link. Whereas you have to pay for a subscription to the TimesMachine and it is technically an archive. If I keep it this way what should I put in the archive date field? I put the year and month that the TimesMachine was established, but I have no idea if it was archived at that time or not let alone the day. If I leave out the day it creates a citation error because the date is not properly formatted. TipsyElephant (talk) 03:17, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Should I be using both links like that? No. Do not misuse citation template parameters.

|archive-url= and |archive-date= are a pair that hold a snapshot of |url= on a specific date. In your example, the TimesMachine url is not a snapshot of the ProQuest url; the TimesMachine date-of-establishment is wholly unrelated to when the article was archived.

You might rewrite that citation like this:

{{Cite news |last=Lent |first=Henry B. |date=September 12, 1954 |title=The Challenge; BANNER IN THE SKY. By James Ramsey Ullman. |id={{proquest|113057091}} |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |page=252 |language=en-US}} Also [https://www.nytimes.com/1954/09/12/archives/the-challenge-banner-in-the-sky-by-james-ramsey-ullman-252-pp.html available from] ''[[TimesMachine]]'' {{subscription required}}

Lent, Henry B. (September 12, 1954). "The Challenge; BANNER IN THE SKY. By James Ramsey Ullman". The New York Times. p. 252. ProQuest 113057091. Also available from TimesMachine (subscription required)

If the quotation is important to the article, put the quotation in the article body and cite it. Quotations require citations; citations do not require quotations.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 15:03, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Biased Reverting vs. #5Pillars

Dear Help Desk,

Subject: Biased Reverting vs. #5Pillars

I was attacked with a revert for a description being too long. As a WOC Wikpedian, I have intermittently faced this kind of "revert attack" (akin to "dislike attacks on YouTube") when editing articles about Black subjects or living persons and women. I've been an editor since 2007. Active since 2016. Run WikiEdu courses. I'm not perfect. Know I make mistakes. There is no doing without mistakes in my world. But in this case, I was making a video of my editing for my WikiEdu course. It's kind of great to get a revert in action on video. But it's also tiring to have to do this kind of labor to react to microaggressions.

There was one edit among the 6-7 made in one. I have been on a campaign with my students to change "female" to "woman" particularly in hip-hop articles. Had a citation for it from the New Yorker, too. I think this was the trigger for the revert. #therearenorules #bebold

Is there anyway to call attention to this unruly and uncivil behavior? I intend to reach out to the editor on the article's talk page to avoid an edit war. I encountered something similar about 3 weeks ago when editing Leave the World Behind (film) page. Any advice is welcome!

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Latto&diff=1206206628&oldid=1206203689

Kindly, sheridanford (talk) 06:39, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

It doesn't look like you were reverted. They didn't remove the word 'women' either. What was done was fixing a broken wikilink, removing the source for the usage of the word 'women' (because it doesn't need one, it's just word choice), removing the provided examples of women rappers, and removing the description of what a black bar over the eyes means. I don't really have an opinion on those last two changes, but I can certainly see how they could be interpreted as unnecessary detail. I am not sure how the edit could be interpreted as any of attacking, microaggressions, or unruly and uncivil, though. Tollens (talk) 07:03, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

@Tollens. You're right. I overreacted when I noticed the negative bytes and assumed it was reverted. I also thought so because it happened 30 secs after I hit publish and I wasn't finished with my editing. The citation is educational on the woman thing. It's an editorial piece for readers to become more conscious of gender bias in both writing and editing (which I will not in the talk page). Men are not referred to as "males" in encyclopedia contexts unless the subject is biology.

This kind of subtle policing of context, esp. when nuance is being added to reflect the aesthetics of feminist issues for a new hip-hop single and the interpretation of the cover art signifying meaningful content is what I constantly confront around gendered or racialized topics and subjects. People are using rules to lord over people's important contributions to the sum of ALL human knowledge, not some firm notion of rules. What's the point of crowdsourcing if we put process over people in every case?

There description that the "description seems too long" is arbitrary at best or poorly worded. Wish there was more intent to collaborate vs compete with editing.

So given the fact that I, too, am begging for adherance to the pillar "there are no firm rules" about editing, and hoping to feel like my edits are viewed with positive intent, I'll go to the talk page to work this out. Or simply start a page with my WikiEdu course for "Sunday Service" for a deep dive. The upside here: a new story to share with my students. Thanks. sheridanford (talk) 12:39, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

SheridanFord, when someone reverts (or amends) an edit you've made, it's (usually) because they don't agree with that particular edit, not because they are part of some secret cabal with an agenda.

Reversion is part of the normal Wikipedia editing process called the Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle. You Boldly made an edit, someone else disagreed with some aspect of it and Reverted it, the next step is for the two of you (and anyone else who cares to join in) to Discuss the matter on their, your or preferably the Article's Talk page and come to a mutually agreed consensus. Wikipedia is a collaborative project.

Please assume other editors' good faith unless you have firm evidence to the contrary. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.199.107.217 (talk) 08:53, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

Userbox formatting

Hi. I added a lot of userboxes to my user page but they won't format properly with the sub-headings, which end up getting squished into the infobox. Could anyone please look into this issue and fix it? (anyone is free to edit my user page). Thanks! CanonNi (talk) 08:39, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

@CanonNi: Fixed with a bit of CSS trickery. Tollens (talk) 09:19, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Thank you so much! CanonNi (talk) 09:26, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Yasser Arafat Wikipedia Page

Yasser Arafat Wikipedia Page has a small, but critical typo, that it says he was President of the PLO from the year 1969-2004 instead of 1996-2004. I am currently writing a joint research paper on Palestinian and Israeli History and it was very confusing before I went through rabbit hole after rabbit hole to determine whether or not it was accurate. As you can imagine this distinction sets the time period of his leading the Palestinian nationalist movement as starting years too early. In an era of misinformation (especially around the topics of the Israel-Palestine general region) I am confident that Wikipedia will be able reamin accountable for any misinformation it has few and far between the wealth of factual knowledge it has to offer. I cannot do it myself as I am on a school account and they don't approve of that type of behavior (it's complicated). Thank you very much for reading, I hope to *od you aren't a robot, grateful wikipedia user. 98.210.207.85 (talk) 09:42, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

You are editing via an IP address- IP addresses are not accounts. Please raise concerns about the Yasser Arafat article on its associated talk page, Talk:Yasser Arafat. 331dot (talk) 09:44, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

It says he was chairman NOT president for that period? Theroadislong (talk) 09:47, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Help with reversing a REDIRECT

I created a page for Irving Capers Lord this morning. Apparently, I mis-spelled his name in the lede when I first posted it, but as I attempted to correct it, another editor had already created a redirect to "Irvin Capers Lord." I attempted to delete the redirect, but I may have just made more of a mess. COMMONNAME is not in doubt here, but I am not competent with all of the ins and outs of REDIRECT. Help, please!