Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)

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The miscellaneous section of the village pump is used to post messages that do not fit into any other category. Please post on the policy, technical, or proposals sections when appropriate, or at the help desk for assistance. For general knowledge questions, please use the reference desk.

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Update/shameless plug of WP:UPSD, a script to detect unreliable sources

It's been about 14 months since this script was created, and since its inception it became one of the most imported scripts (currently #54, with 286+ adopters).

Since last year, it's been significantly expanded to cover more bad sources, and is more useful than ever, so I figured it would be a good time to bring up the script up again. This way others who might not know about it can take a look and try it for themselves. I would highly recommend that anyone doing citation work, who writes/expands articles, or does bad-sourcing/BLP cleanup work installs the script.

The idea is that it takes something like

• John Smith "Article of things" Deprecated.com. Accessed 2020-02-14. (John Smith "[https://www.deprecated.com/article Article of things]" ''Deprecated.com''. Accessed 2020-02-14.)

and turns it into something like

• John Smith "Article of things" Deprecated.com. Accessed 2020-02-14.

It will work on a variety of links, including those from {{cite web}}, {{cite journal}} and {{doi}}.

Details and instructions are available at User:Headbomb/unreliable. Questions, comments and requests can be made at User talk:Headbomb/unreliable. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 13:08, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

• The script is great for identifying where a deprecated source is being used... but (as the script description itself notes) it is not great at determining whether a specific citation to the deprecated source is allowable. Remember that deprecation is NOT a “ban”. While we generally should not cite a deprecated source, there are rare exceptions where doing so is appropriate (for example, when citing it as a primary source for an attributed opinion). Sources always need to be examined in context. Blueboar (talk) 13:20, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

• Headbomb: How useful is this script for identifying sources known to contain disinformation? (Perhaps including a link to the script from wp:disinformation would be useful?) –xeno^talk 13:29, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

@Xeno: As long as something is identified as an unreliable source, it doesn't particularly care if something is a hoax, disinformation, quack nonsense, twitter stuff, or what have you. So while it doesn't specifically focus on disinformation, it probably catches a lot by virtue of identifying most social media sites, and plus whatever's been flagged as unreliable at WP:RSN and such. I agree that a link at that page would be useful, so I'll add one when I've got a chance. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:06, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia is hemorrhaging editors and falling apart

As I have pointed out elsewhere, the English Wikipedia is hemorrhaging active editors and the ones who remain are unable to hold back the tide of vandalism, misinformation, and bad writing that is overwhelming the Wikipedia project.

I just caught and fixed this vandalism that has been in the lead paragraph of the article on the United States Department of Health and Human Services for 9 years. (The error is obvious to anyone with experience in American health care law; the agency is always referred to as HHS, not the Health Department.) I regularly run into similar vandalism in many other less important articles but do not have the time or energy to fix them all. I am pleased to see that the Wikimedia 2030 project seems to be trying to address Wikipedia's long-term problems but they really need to hurry up. --Coolcaesar (talk) 04:42, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

If this edit (which doesn't seem to be vandalism) is 9 years old, it hardly says anything about the current state of affairs. In fact editing levels are stable, and the content is slowly improving. If you think the Wikimedia 2030 project is about anything like this, you are likely to be badly disappointed. Johnbod (talk) 04:49, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

This is why Wikipedia works: a desire to fix what is broken. If Wikipedia were not broken, would Wikipedia exist? - GreenC 05:36, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia is plainly not hamorrhaging editors. If anything, the numbers are trending slightly in the opposite direction. – Teratix ₵ 06:39, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

@Coolcaesar, what makes you conclude that the edit in question is actually vandalism, and not, say, an honest mistake? Wikipedia:Vandalism begins: On Wikipedia, vandalism has a very specific meaning: editing (or other behavior) deliberately intended to obstruct or defeat the project's purpose, which is to create a free encyclopedia. What evidence do you have that adding this incorrect name was deliberately intended to harm the encyclopedia? WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:13, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

First Community Affairs Committee office hour on May 13

Come talk with the Community Affairs Committee!

Hello, all. The Board of Trustees’ Community Affairs Committee (CAC) is hosting its first office hour on May 13, 2021 at 19:00 UTC.

The CAC is a new Board of Trustees committee established to assess, explore and address current and future community-related efforts. The Committee's Charter lists its full responsibilities, with the first 3 being a priority for this coming year. As part of our commitment to foster better communications with the Wikimedia Movement Community, and based on feedback received from community members requesting more availability from the Board of Trustees, the CAC will be hosting its first Office hours.

All the details are on Meta. Send registration requests and questions to: askcacwikimedia.org. Please help us spread the word by sharing this message with your local / online communities. Hoping to see as many of you as possible! Best, JKoerner (WMF) (talk) 20:43, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

Join in the Community Call on Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement (15 & 29 May)

The Universal Code of Conduct project facilitation team will be hosting round-table discussions for Wikimedians to talk together about how to enforce the Universal Code of Conduct on 15 and 29 May 2021 at 15:00 UTC.

The calls will last between 60 and 90 minutes, and will include a 5-10 minute introduction about the purpose of the call, followed by structured discussions using the key enforcement questions. The ideas shared during the calls will be shared with the committee working to draft an enforcement policy. Please sign up ahead of time to join. In addition to these calls, input can still be provided on the key questions at local discussions or on Meta in any language.

Thanks to everyone who has contributed to the Universal Code of Conduct 2021 consultations so far. Xeno (WMF) (talk) 19:13, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

(Cross posted from here)

Sports player articles?

There seem to be an awful lot of sports player articles on Wikipedia, and many of them are quite non-notable. Why is there an article on Tracy Baker for example, when, in contrast, WP:PROF makes it exceedingly difficult for the average professor to have an article? Praemonitus (talk) 03:18, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

Praemonitus, systemic bias, that's why. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 22:22, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

Also, it's really hard to find sources for an average professor that weren't directly written by and/or published by the professor, the professor's employer, or the professor's close colleagues. Imagine that you want to write an article about Alice Expert, a professor at Big U. Now imagine that you can't cite anything (including scholarly papers) written by Alice, anything from the university's publicity department, anything on Big U's website, or anything from her résumé. What sources do you have left? Usually nothing, in my experience.

By contrast, when you set the same rules for professional athletes, you have lots of sources left: the athlete's hometown media, local, regional, and national news reports, sports magazines, sports television shows, sports websites, record books, and maybe even a book published about the team. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:24, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

WP:NACADEMIC criterion 5 (endowed chairs) is the secret key for professors, in my experience. If you go to their bio page and it says "Jimmy Wales Professor of Wikipedia Studies" rather than just "Professor of Wikipedia Studies", you're good to go and don't have to worry about media coverage. It works better for institutions rich enough to endow their professorships, though. When you do need to find GNG coverage, a review of their book in an academic publication is often the best bet. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 07:12, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

Yes, I know that. But @Sdkb, how do you write the article? Just write whatever the prof wanted you to hear, because we don't need no stinkin' Wikipedia:Independent sources for professors? WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:03, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Most of these articles are destined to be WP:Permastubs containing only basic biographical details. Someone's birth date, education, and position are pretty intrinsically neutral. If their book has gotten a negative review or something, that can of course be mentioned, but many of these pages never get to the point where they're detailing book reception, either positive or negative. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 06:53, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

WP:NBASE, that's why. If you play in one professional game, you are "presumed notable." The same is true for a bunch of other sports. It's crazy, but there you go. There was a recent discussion of adjusting WP:NSPORT on its talk page if you fancy a long read. Chuntuk (talk) 09:58, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Chuntuk, Why is it crazy? I knew nothing about Tracy Baker before I read the article but I enjoyed reading it, and almost certainly enjoyed it more than reading about the average professor. S Philbrick(Talk) 00:38, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

Sphilbrick It's crazy because it drives a coach and horses through the GNG. Mr Baker would not be considered notable if his one day in the sun had occurred in any other field of endeavour. You may have enjoyed reading it, but how is it any more entertaining than this: "Trace Lee "Tracy" Baker (November 7, 1891 – March 14, 1975) was a professor of something at the university of Boston. He was born in Pendleton, Oregon, and studied at the University of Washington, where he played college baseball for the Huskies in 1910. Baker's only paper was published on June 19, 1911: a study of things. Baker served in the US Army during World War I. He died in Placerville, California, at the age of 83." Actually, Baker is nowhere near the most egregious example - we know things about his biography, and what he did in his one game. There are much worse "presumed notable" cases - go see how much enjoyment you can glean from this one: William Barker (Surrey cricketer) Chuntuk (talk) 07:05, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

The comparison of sportspeople and professors is an interesting one. In addition to WhatamIdoing's very valid point (that all sources are too close to the prof to use), there's another difference: academics are usually notable for what they've done, and if it's notable, it has a page of its own already. Sportspeople won't usually feature on the page about their sport unless they've done something truly shattering, far more important than merely playing in a top-level game. Given that an academic already has a page about what they did, there's no point in having a page about the person themselves, unless there's something interesting to write on it. People like Richard Feynman qualify for sheer life-interest, copiously documented. Historical figures like Rosalind Franklin qualify because of their background, their place in bigger history, the things that can be written about their family circumstances, and their roles in the dilemmas of the time (in Franklin's case, for example, the proper recognition of women in science). But I had a quick look at a more up-to-date, and typical example of an academic, in a subject close to my heart: False Discovery Rate. This subject is very closely associated with the names of Yoav Benjamini and Hochberg, who developed the whole concept. False discovery rates are very widely used, very important, and of broad interest; they well merit a big Wikipedia page. But poor Hochberg doesn't have a page at all, and Benjamini's is merely 6 lines summarised from his online CV and his GoogleScholar results, tacked onto his citations (as text without links). In my mind Benjamini is an important figure in statistics because of his work, but his personal page doesn't (yet) add much, and this is the dilemma for academics. It would be churlish to accuse Benjamini of not being notable; false discovery rates are definitely as dramatic as appearing in an international football match. But if the problem with sportspeople is that passing Wikipedia's criteria for notability doesn't actually make them interesting, the problem with professors is that doing something notable doesn't automatically make for a good page about the person. It's a tricky one. Elemimele (talk) 20:48, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

@Elemimele, let me say that I love your username. Palindromes are satisfying.

The people in your example are listed at False discovery rate#Literature. Do we really need to say more about them? Or maybe we should just redirect the links to that page, so that people who wanted to know about these scholars' works would actually learn about the false discovery rate? WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:11, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

The public is more interested in athletes than in professors. The media and publishers know this so there are more independent sources about them. If you are a professional athlete then it means people will pay to see you or your team and then some of them also want to read about you. Yoav Benjamini may be a significant professor but he only got 182 page views in the past 30 days and he is currently active. Tracy Baker got 81 but he was active 110 years ago. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:16, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

On Wikipedia, nearly every professional athlete in every professional sport is notable. When nearly everyone is notable, no one is notable - it is a catalog or database. Thus we mock them in conversations like this which are perennial. -- GreenC 01:10, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

Wondering how to get second/third opinions on a proposed edit

To whom it may concern,

Good faith newbie editor here trying to create a relatively uncomplicated entry on a subject that is red-linked. Unsure as to where and how to get help. Having fulfilled WIKI: BLOP guidelines and provided over 5 reliable, independent and verifiable sources article still rejected on somewhat confusing grounds, someone please help, Morayce (talk) 18:36, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

Morayce (talk) 18:36, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

Morayce, please go to the Teahouse. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 22:21, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

How should the COVID-19 pandemic be handled in article history sections?

Since the beginning of the pandemic, there have been editors adding lines to e.g. amusement parks or colleges saying e.g. In March 2020, it shut down operations due to the COVID-19 pandemic. For a while, the clear path was to revert these additions as obvious inappropriate recentism. We're not fully through the pandemic yet, but it's gone on long enough that it seems like it may ultimately be seen as more of a mini historical era and warrant brief mention the same way we might have a sentence in a history section describing how an institution navigated WW2. To the extent that it's possible to comment on a generalized issue (which I realize is limited), where do you all stand on this question? It ties in to some broader editorial philosophy questions about how to balance the huge reader demand for more current information with the encyclopedic objective of writing for the long term. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 21:41, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

Some of this was significant, either because the place is so big (e.g., Disney's amusement parks) or because it had such an effect on the business (any business that closed due to COVID problems). I imagine that a brief mention would be appropriate. A mention that ties it to the larger context, such as "Fun Park closed for 11 months during the pandemic, causing a loss of $2M in revenue for the one year but resulting in a significant increase in population size for the endangered roller-coaster insect" or "Big U kept the dorms open during the pandemic. This has been blamed for the unusually high number of deaths in the surrounding communities", would be better than just "It was open" or "It closed". WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:30, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Agree and nice examples! haha -- {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  ^talk 08:53, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

Is there anyway I can speak to a Arabic-speaking WIkipedian?

I really need some help as I don't speak the Arabic language, so what I am asking is for someone who speaks Arabic to correct a problem at the Arabic Wikipedia. SpinnerLaserzthe2nd (talk) 15:29, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

SpinnerLaserzthe2nd, Try asking on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Arabic -- RoySmith (talk) 15:41, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

I have noticed that Arabic speakers are rather thin on the ground here. There seems to be no problem finding someone who understands Polish or Bengali or Hebrew or German or Japanese or Spanish or Russian, but I think you will find it difficult to find anyone who knows Arabic. Phil Bridger (talk) 17:15, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Avicenno, Meno25, Mervat, Dyolf77, can any of you help @SpinnerLaserzthe2nd with this question? WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:02, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

The local embassy is probably a good place to ask as well, so I'm wondering why SpinnerLaserzthe2nd reverted their own edit there. –xeno^talk 23:29, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

I don't know how use the embassy. SpinnerLaserzthe2nd (talk) 23:40, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Exactly the way you did, except add a header and wait for a response. –xeno^talk 00:25, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

w:ar:تصنيف:مستخدم_en are arwiki users that have a "native English" babel box; you could look for one with recent edits. — xaosflux ^Talk 23:42, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Category:User ar-N are enwiki users that have "native Arabic" babel boxes as well, same as above. — xaosflux ^Talk 00:37, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

Hi, @WhatamIdoing and SpinnerLaserzthe2nd: I am an Admin on Arabic Wikipedia. SpinnerLaserzthe2nd, your edits were reverted twice. The first time was because they lacked sources. The secong because the editor who reverted you was confused about your edit. I have restored the article to the last version by you. Best wishes. --Meno25 (talk) 02:07, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

Thank you. Are you going to do the rest of the characters? Because all of the information on the "كوكوتاما" article has been incorrect. Please translate this article for correcting the characters section on the Arabic Wikipedia. SpinnerLaserzthe2nd (talk) 02:13, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

Hi, @WhatamIdoing and SpinnerLaserzthe2nd:. I will ask one of my wikipedia education program students to translate this article for you. Regards--Avicenno (talk) 22:10, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

Can you tell your student to translate the English version into the Arabic version because the characters section contains information about chcacters that has nothing to do with the show? Thanks. SpinnerLaserzthe2nd (talk) 22:11, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

Fake news from muslimmirror

• muslimmirror.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com

• muslimmirror dot com /eng/probable-mention-of-a-covid-19-like-pandemic-in-the-quran/ (don't bother visiting. the title says enough)
• muslimmirror dot com /eng/call-for-investigation-into-bill-gates-crimes-against-humanity-and-medical-malpractice/

I'm not linking this trash to avoid any unnecessary exposure. Quote from the post about Gates: Gates, UNICEF & WHO have already been credibly accused of intentionally sterilizing Kenyan children through the use of a hidden HCG antigen in tetanus vaccines. (for anyone who is curious, try Reuters)

The problem is that this site is used as a source in dozens of articles. Shouldn't we just blacklist this garbage? — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 13:37, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

@Beetstra: Does muslimmirror.com qualify for local or global blacklisting? Per Alexis Jazz above, the titles in the OP say enough to justify it and there have been numerous attempts to promote related fake science over many years, most notably at WP:Jagged 85 cleanup. Johnuniq (talk) 01:34, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

Johnuniq, if the link is not obviously spammed we generally need community consensus. Does not need to be a full RfC, just a couple of editors that agree that the site is totally useless and should never be linked to, and that constant cleanup is a total waste of time. Then just report to blacklist,  Defer to Local blacklist. Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:21, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

Beetstra, Johnuniq I've requested local blacklisting as you suggested. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 15:34, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

Am having trouble locating a cited reference

At Oliver Cromwell's head...I also asked about this issue at PBS's user talk since they had edited the article but thought maybe getting some more eyes on my dilemma could be helpful.

A source was added to the Oliver Cromwell's head article by PeterSymonds here (in 2009) and adjusted in 2014 here (in 2014). The article or book is referred to in a book published in 2014 - Severed: A History of Heads Lost and Heads Found written by Frances Larson. In the book's Sources section the reference is mentioned in the "Prologue:Oliver Cromwell's Head" subsection as:

Henry Howarth, 'The Embalmed Head of Oliver Cromwell', Archaeological Journal, 1911, pp 237-253.

I've been trying to fix up the Harvard cite issues at the Oliver Cromwell's head article but I've run into a severe problem with this source...it doesn't seem to exist (or at least I cannot find it). The Archaeological Data Service website which holds the archives for The Royal Archaeological Institute/The Archaeological Journal (the RAI is the organization which publishes the Journal) has no results for H. Howarth or Henry Howarth or any article under the title of The Embalmed Head of Oliver Cromwell.
So, here is the issue:

• There is an article with the title An Account of the Embalmed Head of Oliver Cromwell at Shortlands House, Kent, written by Sir James Edward Alexander and published by The Glasgow Archaeological Society in 1870, found here in Google Books and here at Jstor.

Unfortunately the PeterSymonds account seems to have gone dormant so I can't ask him where he got the info but it bothers me that I have been unable to find where it came from. Frances Larson does refer to this Howarth content and to it being published by an "Archaeological Journal" located in London but why can't I find it?!? I need some help here - maybe someone reading this can find the actual source material or maybe the sources have somehow possibly gotten mangled in the telling and re-telling of history and sources?...I dunno! Help! Thanks, Shearonink (talk) 17:35, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

A little research turns up Henry Hoyle Howorth as a possibility. The dates are right, and our article on him says that he was an amateur archaeologist who was published in journals. So there's a thread to pull and see if it turns something up. --Jayron32 18:14, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

This article here at Atlas Obscura cites the article as H.H. Howarth, and it has a link, which is Here is the original article. It starts on page 237. --Jayron32 18:18, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Jayron32 Oh bless you! Thank you for putting me out of my misery - I think this might be it. I'll take a look - Shearonink (talk) 18:21, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

I see that the actual title of the actual paper is "The Head of Oliver Cromwell", that the author is Henry Howorth...looks like the author of the one book I found the info in 1)didn't get the title of her source right (no "Embalmed") and 2)didn't get the name of the reference's author right either (no A in Howorth). Shearonink (talk) 18:28, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Geebus. Slight correction... No WONDER I couldn't find the "article"! The content in question is located under "Proceedings at Meetings" and is not listed separately in the Table of Contents. A point of trivia is that both the Cromwell head held by the Wilkinson family and the purported/discredited mummified head seen at the Ashmolean Museum were present at the meeting and were seen by the members of the Archaeological Institute on that date...I suppose it could be the only time they were together in one place. There were two papers presented at the meeting. The first was the Reverend Wilkinson who presented his great-grandfather's "A Narrative of the Circumstances concerning the Head of Oliver Cromwell" along with some personal reminiscences of his family's association with the skull on pages 233 through 236. Sir Howorth was the Chairman of the Society and presented a paper with the title of "The Head of Oliver Cromwell" that is on pages 237-251.

Thanks again for finding the info and the source. All is well...now all I have to do is fix the harv cites at the article. Heh - Joy joy. Shearonink (talk) 19:04, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Duplicate article

Sorry if I'm on the wrong place for this, it's my first time using the community pages and I wasn't sure where to approach for this, but I thought it was better to give it a shoot and give notice of this than to let the interface intimidate me from doing it.

I was looking at Category of Lists of proposals and discovered that the page List of proposed Amendments to the US Constitution is almost a carbon copy of List of proposed amendments to the United States Constitution, with what few differences it has being product of copying an earlier version of the page. The latter was created in 2004, while the former was a draft created in 2020 which was approved 5 days ago. Maybe I'm missing something, but I think there's no reason for this duplicate to exist. BirdCities (talk) 21:38, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

BirdCities, when you find a newly-created article that duplicates an existing article, you can submit it for speedy deletion under criteria A10. I've nominated the new article for CSD now. Schazjmd (talk) 21:50, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

I see, thank you! BirdCities (talk) 22:14, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Popularity of editing method

Which method is the most popular for editing? Is it the visual editor or the wikitext editor? --Heymid (contribs) 02:46, 13 May 2021 (UTC)