Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2021 August 22

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August 22

Name change for touchtennis

The sport is touchtennis. Not Touchtennis. I specifically changed this to reflect the trademarked name for touchtennis.

For some reason, fozzie changed it back.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touchtennis— Preceding unsigned comment added by 2a02:c7f:e920:fe00:8d59:d567:3a61:1e62 (talk • contribs) 22 August 2021 10:32 (UTC)

Your edits were undone as they seemingly did not comply with the way Wikipedia deals with specialised titles. 'Fozzie' has amended the page so the titles display correctly. (Please remember to sign your posts on talk pages by typing four keyboard tildes like this: ~~~~. Or, you can use the [ reply ] button, which automatically signs posts.) Thank you. Eagleash (talk) 11:12, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

Well, snooker and baseball are normally "snooker" and "baseball", not "Snooker" and "Baseball"; yet their articles are so capitalized. I'm more interested in the caption "The only certified touchtennisTM racquet". Putting aside the odd "TM" for a moment, should I infer that some company only "certifies" one racquet, which happens to be the racquet that the same company sells? (And "certifies" for or against what, exactly?) -- Hoary (talk) 11:16, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, no, that there caption must surely go. ⁓ Pelagic ( messages ) 12:05, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

Though terms like iPad have entered general usage, we don't normally copy marketing stylisation in article titles or running text. (But compare k. d. lang with e e cummings.) ⁓ Pelagic ( messages ) 12:05, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

Philippine Summer Time

how do prevent my article or page from thing such as link rot? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Greatboss19 (talk • contribs) 11:54, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

@Greatboss19: You can use citation templates (e.g. {{cite web}}) with the |archive-url= parameter, and submit the web pages to the Internet Archive if they're not there already. See also Wikipedia:Link rot. Happy editing! (Please remember to sign your posts on talk pages by typing four keyboard tildes like this: ~~~~. Or, you can use the [ reply ] button, which automatically signs posts.). GoingBatty (talk) 15:16, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

EB1911

Dear Help desk. I ask for advice because I get into disputes with users from the WikiProject Encyclopaedia Britannica who mass-edit citations of Encyclopaedia Britannica 11th edition (EB1911). I like to cite EB1911 from Internet Archive, but they then "correct" such citations to point them to Wikisource instead.

For example, in the article Thomas Dillon, 4th Viscount Dillon, I cited EB1911 thus:

—in the text:
{{Sfn|McNeill|1911|p=[https://archive.org/details/encyclopdiabri16chisrich/page/392/ 392]|ps=: "... in 1643 he was compelled to resign the office without having set foot in Ireland."}}

—and in the source list:
{{Cite encyclopedia|last=McNeill |first=Ronald John |editor-last=Chisholm |editor-first=Hugh |editor-link=Hugh Chisholm |date=1911 |title=Leicester, Robert Sidney |encyclopedia=[[Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition|Encyclopædia Britannica]] |edition=11th |volume=16 |publisher=[[Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.|The Encyclopædia Britannica Company]] |location=New York |page=392 |oclc=43740094 |url=https://archive.org/details/encyclopdiabri16chisrich/page/392/}}

User ArbieP from WikiProject Encyclopaedia Britannica changed it to:

—in the text:
{{Sfn|McNeill|1911|ps=: "... in 1643 he was compelled to resign the office without having set foot in Ireland."}}

—and in the source list:
{{cite EB1911|wstitle= Leicester, Robert Sidney, Earl of |volume= 16 | page = 392, para: Robert Sidney, 2nd earl of Leicester |last1= McNeill |first1= Ronald John |author-link= Ronald John McNeill }}

I have discussed this with ArbieP on his talk page, but he goes on. I have also had similar experience some time ago with other users from this WikiProject. The essay WP:Mass editing seems to suggest that editors involved in mass edits should seek consensus. Wikipedia seems to have no rule that stipulates that Wikisource should be preferred over Internet Archive or similar providers of texts. It might be that WP:CITEVAR applies because of the template change in the citation from {{Cite encyclopedia}} to {{Cite EB1911}}. What should I do? With many thanks and best regards, Johannes Schade (talk) 13:00, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

Not really WP:CITEVAR because, under the bonnet, {{cite EB1911}} is {{cite encyclopedia}}. There is nothing wrong with your citation pair per se, my only quibbles are that the {{cite encyclopedia}} template should not hold |page=392 or the page-specific |url=https://archive.org/details/encyclopdiabri16chisrich/page/392/ because both are already in the {{sfn}} template.

Presumably you are WP:SAYingWHEREYOUREADIT so replacing your citation with one that you did not read seems to be a pointless exercise. Except, on the other hand, assuming that the text is identical, in the archive.org facsimile, print bleed-though from page 391 makes the print on page 392 less clear so it is easier, for me, to read the text at wikisource. Perhaps there is a better scan at archive.org that you could use instead of this one?

Courtesy ping: @ArbieP because that editor's name is mentioned in this discussion.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 15:11, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

Dear Trappist the monk. Thank you very much for your intervention. You are the expert. I understand that you rule that ArbieP is right to correct me because Wikisource's proofread "clean text" is better than Internet Archive's facsimile. I will amend my ways accordingly.—Now about your quibbles: I routinely give a page number and a URL in the inline citation and in the source list. In the given example they are identical, but in the general case they are not as the inline citation gives the page of the relevant passage, whereas the source list gives the page where the article begins. I often scan through source lists of Wikipedia articles hoping to discover an interesting source. If a URL is given, I can click through and read. If not, its absence might deter me from going any further as the source is probably inaccessible. With many thanks and best regards, Johannes Schade (talk) 10:56, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

Why do you want to link to the archive.org image-based version? Assuming that particular article has been proof-read, the text-based wikisource version is much more accessible to readers with visual disabilities and should (it seems to me) be used in preference. Chuntuk (talk) 23:18, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

Dear Chuntuk, personally, I like the facsimile because it feels like having the precious original in my hands. It also allows me to cite by page, column, and line (but in the example given above I did not) in books with dense multicolumn text where the relevant passage becomes difficult to find on the page. When a quotation is given, the reader can search in Wikisource for keywords found in the quotation. But you and Trappist the monk are probably right that readability (clean text, not facsimile) is prime for the reader. With many thanks and best regards, Johannes Schade (talk) 10:56, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

Good question from Chuntuk. If the format of a reference gives it apparent authenticity and this weighs more heavily with you than the accessibility of the content, then a facsimile will count for more than clear digitised print. Format and content are not the same, I value the latter. ArbieP (talk) 14:26, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

In the early days, Most items on Wikisource were transcribed from originals "by hand" from images on other sites. Nowadays, most are transcribed from images that have been copied onto Wikisource from another site and are in dejavu format. These images are accessible to the interested reader so the reader may validate the transcription or just see what the original looked like. To me, Wikisource is better that most of the images, because in many cases (especially for dates) it's easy to miss-read the scan, so you actually have a better chance to get it right with the Wikisource, where one or more transcribers have already looked at it. In the case of the Dictionary of National Biography, the transcription project s:Wikisource:WikiProject DNB used multiple images and picked the best image for each particular page, and in a few cases actually went to the library to look at the hard copy when no scan was acceptable for a page. -Arch dude (talk) 15:20, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

Original research reviewing request

Hi, I would like the page Oromia to be reviewed because of MfactDr is consistently presents primary sources that is directly copied from the subject Oromia government, not the federal government. See [1] and [2], for the sentence "The capital city of the State of Oromia is Addis Ababa, also known as Finfinne by Oromia Supreme Court. But he persistently deletes the highlighted "Oromia Supreme Court", despite these sources are primary source and Finfinne is used by Oromia Supreme Court according to them. I told him very well at its talk page to stop editing war and adviced him to search new independent secondary reliable sources for a meantime. However, he continues to insist and reverting many times when I told him these source should be used as claim and not notable unless secondary sources are available outside Oromia related website and authorship, such as international media outlets, BBC, CNN, Al Jazeera etc that are independently published by non-Oromo journalist and pundits in order to neutralize the article. The Supermind (talk) 16:17, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

@The Supermind: If you haven't done so already, you might want to ask the folks at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ethiopia or Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Africa to join the conversation on Talk:Oromia. Happy editing! GoingBatty (talk) 21:07, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

Reliability of Social Blade

Clearfrienda​ is claiming that Social Blade is not a reliable source. The issue with their claim is that almost every Internet personality's article uses Social Blade to update their subscriber, follower, and view stats. There are currently no guidelines pertaining to the reliability of Social Blade, so I came here straightaway. L33tm4n (talk) 20:42, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

@L33tm4n: Hi there! If you haven't done so already, you might want to ask at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard, and provide some examples where Social Blade is being used as a source. Happy editing! GoingBatty (talk) 21:35, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

@GoingBatty: Thank you. :) L33tm4n (talk) 00:18, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

How to determine if an article once existed but was deleted?

I'd like find out if there has ever been an article about Bob or Robert Meehan that has been deleted. ike9898 (talk) 23:52, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

@Ike9898: You can go to Special:Log, select Deletion Log, and then put in the title to search for. I went ahead and tried it, and found that in 2006 someone did try to create Robert Meehan, but the article was blanked and then deleted as non-notable. RudolfRed (talk) 23:57, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

My usual method is to enter the title in the normal search box and click the red link at You may create the page "Robert Meehan". This shows the deletion log. @Ike9898: As an administrator you can also use Special:Undelete to search deleted page titles without knowing the exact name. Seven Meehan's have been deleted. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:05, 23 August 2021 (UTC)