Jump to content

Wikipedia:Teahouse/Questions/Archive 1025

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Archive 1020Archive 1023Archive 1024Archive 1025Archive 1026Archive 1027Archive 1030

inserting a photo help -

Created new article in sandboxJyolleck (talk) 14:49, 10 October 2019 (UTC) and have correctly uploaded image with necessary copyright information, but am struggling with inserting into the article

Hello, Jyolleck. Inserting an image into an article is straightforward: you need the precise name of the Image file in Wikipedia/Commons, including extensions, and with the right case. So in your <gallery> tag in User:Jyolleck/sandbox you would put
File:New York, A Photographic Portrait.jpg
But I'm not convinced that you have uploaded the image "with necessarily copyright information". File:New York, A Photographic Portrait.jpg says it is released under the GNU licence, but I do not see any evidence that this is so: you've just put "Evidence will be provided on request". Has the copyright owner (presumably Laredo) sent a message to OTRS according to donating copyright materials? Stating that it is "a free file" is not enough. --ColinFine (talk) 18:59, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
Hi, ColinFine. Thanks for your reply - I've been assisting Jyolleck with some of this - I think she was referring to this image, which was uploaded correctly and with all the necessary and proper attribution (I believe - please correct me if I'm wrong). We've since managed to insert that particular photo into the gallery. However, you're right when you say that you're not convinced File:New York, A Photographic Portrait.jpg) wasn't correctly uploaded/attributed. We'll be working on fixing that today.−−Crishti (talk) 14:40, 11 October 2019 (UTC).


Oh, right, Crishti, thanks for clarifying. I found one image uploaded (in Wikipedia) and didn't look further. But I don't see that File:Victor Laredo, New York, 1980s.jpg has the necessary information either. It says "CC BY-SA 4.0", but there is no evidence that the copyright owner has licensed it so. Indeed, you say "owned by Andre Laredo, son and estate owner", which suggests to me that he has a physical copy, but that does not entail that he owns the copyright. Unless the photo was taken under a contract which provides otherwise, the copyright is held by the photographer, not by the subject or his heirs.
Or was Andre Laredo the photographer? If so, then he will hold the copyright, but by virtue of being the photographer, not by being the heir. In that case, unless he has publicly released the photo (eg by posting it on a public website with an attached licence) he (not you, Jollyeck) needs to formally notify Wikimedia that he has released it, following the procedure in WP:donating copyright materials.
If the photo is not Andre Laredo's copyright, and the owner is untraceable, you still may be able to use it in the article: as long as all the terms in the non-free content criteria are met, you can upload an image to Wikipedia, (not Commons, which doesn't accept non-free material). This is often done for photos of deceased people, since there is no reasonable expectation that a free image is available. But if you take that route, you will have to wait until the draft has been accepted as an article, since one of the conditions is that non-free images can be used only in articles, not drafts. --ColinFine (talk) 16:00, 11 October 2019 (UTC)


Ah, I see! Thanks for this. These are all good questions, and very useful to know. We've been fumbling out way through, but clearly not that well! I believe Jollyeck is in contact with the photographer's son, so hopefully this can be resolved through those official channel sooner rather than later. I've been reading how-to editing/contributing guides, but your explanation is much clearer. We'll get back to it the article draft and see what happens - the alternative you suggest (uploading to Wikipedia rather than the Commons) might work, too. --Crishti (talk) 18:36, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

Removing extra sandbox/user pages

Hi, I am currently teaching a course using the Wiki Education platform. My students have generated a number of different sandboxes while they completed various training activities, and it is getting more difficult to find the right sandbox where their drafted materials are located. Is there an easy way to remove the extra pages that have been created but are no longer needed? Thanks! UWM.AP.Endo (talk) 19:30, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

The student can request deletion of any subpage in their userspace by pasting {{Db-userreq}} to the top of the page. An admin will then delete the page. --David Biddulph (talk) 19:33, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
Thanks! UWM.AP.Endo (talk) 19:36, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

Help me create a Disambiguation

I recently created the article Solid Fuel Ducted Ramjet. The common name for this thing is “SFDR” in Indian Parlance. However, SFDR currently redirects to Spurious-free dynamic range. I am not sure exactly how to create a disambiguation for these.— Vaibhavafro💬 06:41, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

Hi Vaibhavafro I believe what you might need to do is to first create a disambiguation page for "SFDR"; for example, a page like IOC (disambiguation). I'm not sure how common it is to create a disambiguation page for only two items, but this is the first thing that comes to my mind. Once you've created the disambiguation page, you should only need to change the target of the redirect "SFDR" from Spurious-free dynamic range to SFDR (disambiguation). Then, whenever anyone try to search "SFDR" they will be redirected to the disambiguation page where they can see both entries. Perhaps another way or a better way to do the same thing will be pointed out by a different Teahouse host. -- Marchjuly (talk) 07:53, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
 Done. Thanks @Marchjuly:— Vaibhavafro💬 08:12, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
Presumably the name of the dab page should be SFDR, not SFDR (disambiguation); see WP:DABNAME? --David Biddulph (talk) 09:22, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
@David Biddulph: I Agree with that. Is there a way to merge the dab with the redirect?— Vaibhavafro💬 10:10, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
An admin has moved it. --David Biddulph (talk) 10:18, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
Thanks David Biddulph for catching this. I only mentioned "SFDR (disambiguation)" as a possible example, but I should've mentioned WP:NOPRIMARY as well. -- Marchjuly (talk) 20:43, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

Upload video file?

I am editing my late fathers page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._Ramachandra_Menon

I have a compilation of short clips of his movies and photographs. It is around 24 minutes,158064 KB. It is in .mp4 format. Is there a way I can upload this to the page? Thanks, Goutham — Preceding unsigned comment added by Drgouthammenon (talkcontribs) 15:20, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

Hello, Goutham, and welcome to the Teahouse. Very bad idea, I'm afraid, for several reasons. First, in order to do so, you would need to release the material under a licence such as CC-BY-SA, which would allow anybody to reuse it for any purpose, including commercially: I would guess you don't want to do that (and you can only do that if you own all the copyrights). Secondly, Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia: it summarises what independent people have published about notable subjects, not what the subjects themselves have said or produced. Please find another way of publishing your compilation.
On another note, if Menon was your father, you have a conflict of interest and should not be editing the article about him directly. I acknowledge that the article reads neutrally, but much of the information you have added is unreferenced. It might seem perverse that Wikipedia is not willing to accept information from a relative, but one of the fundamental principles is that of verifiability, which requires that all information be derived from a reliable published source. --ColinFine (talk) 16:22, 11 October 2019 (UTC)


Thank you, ColinFine. I will avoid uploading the video. When I logged in there was a citation request tag, which I provided. Could you tell me what other citations are needed? Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by Drgouthammenon (talkcontribs) 16:31, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

@Drgouthammenon: I made some minor edits to the article, and merged the sources. There are only two. Most of the films listed are unsourced, so we really don't have any way of knowing for sure that your father did work on those films. If you have a good filmography source, you can post it on the talk page with an edit request, and someone will add it. (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.) TimTempleton (talk) (cont) 17:48, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

Thank you, The movie list is linked to pages within Wikipedia. I did not add anything new. I am not sure how else I can source this, since the other pages of the "movies" lists his name as the cinematographer. I will see if I can get some info from the IMDB. Drgouthammenon (talk) 18:06, 11 October 2019 (UTC)Drgouthammenon

Some of the movies are listed here https://m3db.com/films-cinematography/28737 but it is in Malayalam. Drgouthammenon (talk) 18:08, 11 October 2019 (UTC)Drgouthammenon

@Drgouthammenon: If the other articles list his name (I haven't checked), you won't need to source the titles, but since the article only has two sources, perhaps you might put in an edit request to add more biographical info with news about his work on his most important films? Perhaps list some awards or other recognition his work has gotten? Good luck. TimTempleton (talk) (cont) 18:57, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
Drgouthammenon, just above Timtempleton wrote: If the other articles list his name [...], you won't need to source the titles. I am fairly sure this is incorrect -- one Wikipedia article cannot serve as the source for another. If his name was listed in the onscreen ncredits of a film, the film itself serves as a source, just as a book is its own source for any of its contents . If some other source is listed in the film article, it can be copied to the biographical article, but should be double checked by the editor doing the copy if at all possible. DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 20:13, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
@DESiegel: Correct - I should have clarified - I'm assuming the info is sourced in the film articles, which is why I said I didn't check. TimTempleton (talk) (cont) 21:44, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
Yes, but even if it is sourced in teh film articles, it must still be sourced directly in the biographical article. I am sure that Timtempleton understands this, but i have seen many new editors who do not, thinking that if a source is 'somewhere on Wikipedia" that would do. Each article must stand on its own as far as sourcing goes, but it is fine to copy sources from one article to another, as long as they are checked. Drgouthammenon I wanted to be sure this was clear to you. DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 22:11, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

inquiring the revert of my addition

i edited the Al Manar National School, Handessa article but though i gave reference that reference was not accepted by a editor [danarnot] reason given its not a school website or directory but its a ministry website the factual is there how come he took the decision please help someone to clarify this also the same reference given to Zahira College, Kalmunai here is the link http://www.moe.gov.lk/english/images/Tech_Sub_Stream/tech_stream_sch_list.xls — Preceding unsigned comment added by Siyanco (talkcontribs) 06:33, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

Courtesy ping for @Dan arndt: - X201 (talk) 07:43, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
As per WP:WPSCH/AG#WNTI, removal of trivial non-notable information. There is no need to include school ciriculum. Dan arndt (talk) 02:35, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

How to add a contributions page to a user's signature

How to add a user's contributions page to their signature? Main CentralTime301 page and talk 01:33, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Hi Main CentralTime301. Try looking at WP:CUSTOMSIG for some general information, but another way might be to simply find someone who does that and simply post a message on their user talk page asking how. They probably won't mind telling you since they probably learned how to do it from someone else. -- Marchjuly (talk) 02:32, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
Hello, CentralTime301. Here is my signature:
[[User:DESiegel|DES]] [[User talk:DESiegel|<sup>(talk)</sup>]][[Special:Contributions/DESiegel|<sub>DESiegel Contribs</sub>]]
It is used with the "treat as wiki markup" box checked. As you see, it includes a link to my contributions page In general, the contributiuoins of User:Example can be linked to with ][[Special:Contributions/Example]]. See Wikipedia:Signature for more on sigs in general. DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 02:56, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Politically corrupt vandalism hunters?

off topic

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


These guys ruling swedish wikipedia are anti-drug extremists. Is it some kind of wikipedia policy to be pro-alcohol and anti-cannabis cause them alcohol pages are nothing like this? They don't care about sources, facts or nothing. Just a big fake wall of text with the most ugly picture they can find is what they must have cause everything else is drug-liberal. This is retarded. Bläh! Skalle-Per Hedenhös (talk) 23:45, 11 October 2019 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Skalle-Per Hedenhös (talkcontribs) 23:41, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

@Skalle-Per Hedenhös: Welcome to the English Wikipedia, which is absolutely not and in no way whatsoever in charge of the Swedish Wikipedia. Ian.thomson (talk) 23:47, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Hello, Skalle-Per Hedenhös and welcome to the Teahouse. I am afraid that wach version of Wikipedia is independant, adn makes its own rules and policies, and has its own culture. You would need to post on the Swedish Wikipedia to have any effect on what happens there. I do not think you will find the kind of thing you describe on the English-language Wikipedia, although we have our problems here. DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 23:50, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
Thanks. I understand but I guess is a global problem then that local madness kidnap some subjects. Wikipedia should never be a freetown for stupidity. It's a plant not a nuclear bomb. It should be ok to spread facts about all plants, not all but one.Skalle-Per Hedenhös (talk) 00:09, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
@Skalle-Per Hedenhös: See WP:NOTSOAPBOX and please read it without irony. Ian.thomson (talk) 00:19, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
Ofcourse. I think we all understand but what happen when the fake are so well accepted within society so you can not express an opinion against the order without loosing your job and be declared an idiot?

Does it sound crazy? Then read this canadian report about sweden: https://sencanada.ca/content/sen/committee/371/ille/library/gerald-e.htm#_ftn25

Skalle-Per Hedenhös (talk) 00:34, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
As per above, the English Wikipedia Teahouse is not really an appropriate place for this type discussion. If someone is having problems on Swedish Wikipedia, they should discuss them there. If you want to discuss whether WP:SOAP or WP:NOTFORUM is an appropriate part of Wikipedia policy than do so at WT:NOT. If you want to just generally point out some problems with Wikipedia, try the founder's user talk page and perhaps he will respond or email the Wikimedia Foundation as explained in Wikipedia:Contact us. Please don't restart this discussion up again. — Marchjuly (talk) 03:40, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Well then I know. Is it some kind of wikipedia policy to be pro-alcohol and anti-cannabis cause them alcohol pages are nothing like this? Answer is yes. This general problem will bite wikipedia in the tail and eat itself and grow out of proportion. It's not just swedish wikipedia. This encyclopedia will be madness in a nutshell. Better put head in the sand so don't see the problem coming. Thanks! Skalle-Per Hedenhös (talk) 00:53, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

@Skalle-Per Hedenhös: Nope. The Wikipedia policy is not to assume things about other Wikipedias which we are not a part of. We can't do anything about them. -A lainsane (Channel 2) 00:55, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
You do not understand the scope of the problem. This is nationalism. One people united around one funny idea that is totally wrong. Strategy is to make it so awkward to have an odd opinion so noone dare to express it. Very totalitarian mentality basically. Without some kind of international connection where one can discuss what is NPOV in global perspective this problem will implode into madness. Skalle-Per Hedenhös (talk) 01:09, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
Again (sigh), each country Wikipedia is an independent entity. There is no uber-Wikipedia.— Preceding unsigned comment added by David notMD (talkcontribs) 01:25, 12 October 2019 (UTC)


That is what it is. I happen to speak same language as them that is all. Each national wikipedia is an uber-wikipedia for us with the odd idea. No matter how many sources or facts we have they can label them as POV because of their own opinion. One wikipedia can go full fascist and call it NPOV cause no international discussion about what is NPOV is possible and what is national POV is obviously global NPOV according to nationalists. Skalle-Per Hedenhös (talk) 01:48, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
More off topic
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
OP has been blocked per WP:NOTHERE for continuing to use the Teahouse in inappropriate manner despite being advised to stop.

If the idea of consensus is not weak enough as it is truly unscientifical (emotional/political) combine it with the false consensus effect and it is the biggest problem wikipedia has. Further, what happen when everyone is so scared to say their opinion because of social repression so you can not guess if the opinion voiced is someones real opinion or something someone say not to be punished.

Maybe you don't think about this so much at english wikipedia cause with hundreds of millions of people someone will allways say the wrong stuff sometime. Now imagine it's a small language with a few million people and all are brain washed by public campaigns for decades. Then these funny guys go police and delete vandalism... Sounds like fiction but isn't. Go imagine! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Skalle-Per Hedenhös (talkcontribs) 04:09, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Hello Skalle-Per Hedenhös. I believe you are referring to Wikipedia in other languages, particularly those with less users than the English Wikipedia. However, this forum is specifically for help with editing the English Wikipedia. Perhaps you questions are best addressed to the Wikipedia foundation. You can contact them here https://wikimediafoundation.org/about/contact/ --DreamLinker (talk) 05:57, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
Thanks but I am not sure it is a problem exclusive for languages that is not multinational. All people that police wikipedia should reflect about these things. Articles in other languages do often use english wikipedia as a resource and this is an universal problem. The problems just become very apparent when nationalist view become global NPOV when it is clearly not.Skalle-Per Hedenhös (talk) 10:05, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Co-authoring a new article

Dear Teahouse Friends,

Thank you very much for help with two questions:

1. How can my co-author and I best create a new, large article where our contributions would appear to be equal, given we will make equal writing contributions?

2. Our subject is Nixon's 1969 White House Conference on Food, Nutrition, and Health. The three-day meeting had great impact, changing the course of nutrition policy in the U.S. The article we plan to contribute is appropriately large, with many links to and from existing Wikipedia articles. The 50th anniversary of Nixon's conference is December 2, 2019, and we would like to be complete and posted as far ahead of that date as possible. What is our best approach to the article review process, to which we will submit? — Preceding unsigned comment added by WooNour (talkcontribs) 12:47, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

@WooNour: See these simple instructions on how to write articles that won't be deleted, part of a longer guide I wrote covering a variety of issues new users face. You and your co-writer (who must be using a separate account from you) will have y'all's edits logged in the article history. Ian.thomson (talk) 12:53, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Thank you Ian.thompson. We think our best approach is for one of us to use the Wizard to create an encapsulating and worthy smaller article for review approval, and then to build out with equal editing contributions from there. Does that make sense as an appropriate approach? Best, WooNour — Preceding unsigned comment added by WooNour (talkcontribs) 13:18, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Hello, WooNour: you can do it that way if you like, or you could both work on the draft. But other editors may chip in whenever they like. In practice, people rarely edit a draft that somebody else is working on, unless they are invited to, or unless there is a serious problem with it; but certainly, as soon as the draft is reviewed and moved to main article space, other editors are likely to contribute. I really recommend you don't worry too much about who makes what contributions: if you look at the histories of many articles you will see hundreds of edits from dozens of editors. Good luck. --ColinFine (talk) 13:56, 9 October 2019 (UTC)
Just a note to clarify that more than one editor can contribute to the initial draft if you so wish. Dbfirs 13:55, 9 October 2019 (UTC)
Very helpful and greatly appreciated, Dbfirs. Any average estimate for time to move the draft of such an article as we contemplate to main article space post-submission? WooNour —Preceding undated comment added 14:25, 9 October 2019 (UTC)
You might be able to get some clue from Category:AfC pending submissions by age. — Preceding unsigned comment added by David Biddulph (talkcontribs) 14:40, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Thank you David Biddulph! It was very useful to be able to see the list of pending submissions to get an idea of possible timeframe. WooNour

@WooNour: May I ask why you are concerned about your contributions appearing equal? Wikipedia articles are not WP:OWNed by anyone and are routinely contributed to by many editors over time. If you're looking for a place to publish an article that you can then point to as your own work, I'm afraid you may be disappointed. Apologies if I've mis-understood your intentions. Thanks. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 16:06, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Thank you, AlanM1! While we have expertise and passion about a topic we know the fields of nutrition and food assistance will see as notable, we are motivated by a masters course assignment. We're sure our professor will look at the editing history to see how we both contributed, but we will be excited to see others contribute as well! Best, WooNour

Make sure that your professor reads WP:Student assignments. --David Biddulph (talk) 17:51, 9 October 2019 (UTC)
Submission to review time: Once submitted, reviewers pick what they want to review - it's not a queue. Although Wikipedia says up to eight weeks, the reality is that mayb 20-30% are in the pile longer than that. One path would be to create an essential core of the article - WITH REFERENCES - and submit it, then continue to work on the article while waiting for the review. David notMD (talk) 18:35, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Thank you David Biddulph and David notMD! Your advice is much appreciated. WooNour —Preceding undated comment added 14:47, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

What the Davids said – the key to getting the article accepted will be references to independent high-quality sources that demonstrate notability. This gives reviewers and other editors hope that the article will result in a useful addition, and motivate them to use their time to help. Best of luck. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 19:26, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
@WooNour: can you ask your professor to reach out to us at the Wiki Education Foundation for support? We have a suite of training materials and other free support for university faculty who are assigning Wikipedia editing as a class project. We support about 8,000 student editors each term, so we have lots of experience in guiding students effectively! Can you ask your professor to visit teach.wikiedu.org to register for a course page, and reach out to User:Helaine (Wiki Ed) at helaine@wikiedu.org with any questions? Thanks! --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 20:09, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
Hi WooNour. As LiAnna (Wiki Ed) noted, please have your instructor reach out to me so Wiki Education can provide support for your course. I did a little digging and was wondering if this is the course of which you're a part? Thanks Helaine (Wiki Ed) (talk) 20:42, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
Hi Helaine (Wiki Ed) and LiAnna (Wiki Ed). As it happens, our professor is a proficient Wiki editor and author, wise in the Wiki ethos. My colleague and I (atypical students with a combined age and experience in writing of over 100 years) are his only two students doing such a project, and so we both have his avid attention as needed. On the other hand, he has little time to invest in shepherding us. However, we will make absolute certain he is aware of your resources. With great appreciation for your offer of help, WooNour (talk) 21:16, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
WooNour, maybe you would like to submit the article for wp:DYK recognition? Any brand new article (i.e. new to mainspace, within 5 days of that) with at least 1,500 characters, can be nominated for mention in the DYK section of Wikipedia's main page, and that usually goes live onto the main page within a few days after the DYK is approved by the very active editors managing DYKs. You can identify yourself and the other editor as co-writers there, for you both to get explicit award/credit when the DYK is run. If you went this way, and asked for it explicitly, I am pretty sure the article could be put into mainspace now and the DYK mention could be run later, i.e. saved up to run on December 2, 2019 (you should maybe confirm about this by asking at, i think, wt:DYK). I am not active with DYK nominations myself currently (though i have about 50 DYKs i earned in the past, mentioned/linked from my userpage, so you can see what it is like). I believe writing articles and getting DYKs approved in advance is not too common, but it is often done for DYKs to be run on April 1 (April Fools Day) or other holidays, and sometimes to time other mentions to related anniversaries like you have here. Your DYK phrase could possibly be something like "Did you know... that Nixon's conference 50 years ago today had huge impact on [whatever]", and you would need very explicit sourcing in your article about whatever claim you make in that phrase. Not sure if you want to bother with this somewhat bureaucratic process, which most editors don't get involved with right away, but it is something to consider since you were asking how both of you could get explicit credit. Hope this helps. --Doncram (talk) 19:52, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
Doncram - What a helpful, great suggestion! Thank you. Having gotten a few days into editing and putting our primary article together, I see the co-authoring credit is not a big issue, although it would be cool to have others find interest in what we're doing. Getting eyes would, of course, be wonderful. We'll give it a shot! And the direction of your quote is spot on! Thank you again. Best regards, WooNour (talk) 20:18, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

WooNour, it sounds like with that much experience, you don't need advice about how to do research, come up with an organizational structure for an article (major sections, subsections), and so on, is that a fair statement? And that you probably also have publications to your credit already? If so, that's all to the good, but you should also be aware that there are a few things that are done a little differently at Wikipedia, and one or two that are radically different, from writing an academic paper for publication.

The main thing to know in the latter department, is that while in academia, producing innovative, striking, original research and publishing it is of the highest value and can gain you respect and accolades, at Wikipedia, original research is completely forbidden. Any original research published here, will likely be rapidly removed. So, don't do that. Instead, remember that Wikipedia is not an academic journal, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. In part, that means that we act as a secondary source for already published material. If it's new and original material, it doesn't belong here. Please have a look at Wikipedia:Original research, and follow that up with a look at WP:Verfiability, Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources, and Wikipedia:Citations.

Another thing that is a little different here, is the Introduction section, which is called the Lead at Wikipedia. The lead functions somewhat like an Abstract of an academic article, in that it summarizes the rest of the article, and does not have to be footnoted (as long as the body of the article is adequately referenced; but Wikipedia does not prohibit footnotes in the Lead); but there are also some differences. Please have a look at Wikipedia:Lead, and the sections MOS:LEADSENTENCE and MOS:LEADPARAGRAPH, as well as the rest of that recommendation.

One suggestion I would make, is to maintain transparency and develop the article openly on Wikipedia. Don't develop offline and then dump a 40,000 word article all at once into main space. I would recommend starting with a small stub article, with around three to five references. You may use the Talk page of the article to lay out your organizational plan, and seek feedback from other editors for how you plan to develop it. Then start adding material to the main article page, writing an explanatory edit summary for each new addition to the article.

Before you write your article, it's important to verify that the article, or a closely related one, doesn't already exist at Wikipedia, or you may expend a lot of effort for nothing. There are currently 6,931,776 articles on Wikipedia, and perhaps there's one on your topic out there already, or one that is similar. Try WP:Advanced search, or other editors can help you find out whether there is already an article about Nixon's 1969 food conference.

Finally, there is a protocol to use when writing on Talk pages and in forums like the Teahouse, such as signing your name, which I see you've figured out, and for responding to previous comments. Accordingly, I've refactored some of your responses above with additional indentation; hope that's okay with you. Please have a look at WP:THREAD. I Hope this helps, Mathglot (talk) 01:26, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

See, for example:
HTH, Mathglot (talk) 01:36, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
Dear Mathglot, Thank you for all the good advice. Best, WooNour (talk) 13:01, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

A question about DYK nominations

If I nominate an article for Wikipedia:Did you know today and it gets an initial positive response, how long will it take before it (potentially) actually appears at the Main page as a DYK? Specifically, I am talking about this nomination. Sorry for being a bit impatient.— Vaibhavafro💬 10:54, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Vaibhavafro, I think it's very individual, my first DYK took about a month from start to the promoted stamp, but I think that's unusually long. After that it took 5 days until it showed up on the mainpage. There's a list of approved DYK:s you can follow at Template:Did you know/Queue. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 12:43, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Welcome to the Teahouse Vaibhavafro. Work on around four weeks or so. As you probably know by now, there are various steps involved in the WP:DYK process. Simply getting the 'Good to go' feedback from the reviewer is the first one. That, itself, can take some time if there are back and forth questions around your nomination. (The only one sticking point I see for yours is the rather terse nature of the hook, itself, which isn't hugely interesting, nor does it give any context to where in the world this Special Group operates. At the very least, do consider adding "...of India..." to the hook. Once reviewed and approved, your nomination will then be moved from the 'Nominations awaiting approval' area to the 'Nominations approved' holding area. From there, the folks who run DYK select a balanced mixture of DYK hooks to go into the preparatory and queuing area, of which I think there are six separate. There can be many weeks of waiting before your nomination does get moved into the prepping area. These are sequential time slots into which the readied DYK nominations sit until it's their turn to appear on the Main Page. This whole process can take some weeks, so what I do is keep an eye on my nominations once they've been moved into the 'Approved' section because, once it is moved out from there, you can work out on which day/timeslot it will actually appear on the main page, and line up your friends to look out for it. By way of example, this year I wrote a biography of a deceased mountaineer called Andy Nisbet in 8th February, and it appeared on the Main Page on 18th March. Another recent one of mine took almost as long. Well done on creating your article, and good luck getting it approved and on show on the Main Page of Wikipedia. Best wishes, Nick Moyes (talk) 12:51, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
Thanks @Gråbergs Gråa Sång: for the reply and thanks @Nick Moyes: for you elaborate explanation and the suggestion. I could use a few more suggestions about what the hook can be since I am not really sure about what people would like and I am really a newbie to all this. What I do know is that the Indian readership would definitely be intrigued by the article. Feel free to post a few suggestions on my talk page, if you can spare a few minutes. Thank you.— Vaibhavafro💬 14:53, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Jotham Zvinongoza

Thank you Clovemoss.I now have an idea of what is required wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jotham Mapenhure Zvinongoza (talkcontribs) 18:27, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

@Clovermoss: I think this comment relates to this notification on the user's talk page Nick Moyes (talk) 20:22, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
Hi again Jotham Mapenhure Zvinongoza, I'm glad that you found my advice to be helpful. If you have any questions about editing Wikipedia, feel free to come here and ask. I would reccomend checking out The Wikipedia Adventure if you're interested - it's an interactive tutorial about editing Wikipedia.
@Nick Moyes: I could be wrong (feel free to correct me if I am), but I believe that this editor may be referring to the discussion on the talk page of their first article (which has been deleted). The gist was that they thought I was requesting deletion because a ref tag wasn't formatted properly and promised to fix it. I left a reply thanking them for trying to fix the ref tag and explained why I requested deletion, specifically mentioning how Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, so articles (especially about living people) need to be notable. I also mentioned how the Teahouse was a friendly place to ask questions about editing Wikipedia. Clovermoss (talk) 20:56, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

I want to check If The book I want to write an article on is notable or not

Hello,

I have previously tried to write an article about the book. I was confused about notable. I want to submit the article in the book "Walking with my soul". This book is published in August 2019 and has some reviews on newspapers as well, with a local media interview of the author. This book has 15 chapters and is based on true events as per the author. The chapters consist of a short story and a poem, some chapters are based on a social cause such as raising voice against rapes, Some chapters are based on religious views like God is one and there is no difference between human beings, A unique idea to achieve religious harmony is there. Verses from the Sikh Religion holy Book "Guru Granth Sahib" has been taken and some lines of First Sikh Guru "Guru Gobind Singh Ji" have been added to define humanity.

The book is available online as well and in poetry genre, it is currently best selling according to amazon.

So is this a notable work?

Please let me know. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sukh.editor (talkcontribs)

Welcome to the Teahouse, Sukh.editor. Please read Wikipedia:Notability (books), which explains the expected standards for showing that a book is notable. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 20:15, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Hello Sukh.editor, and welcome to Wikipedia. I think you are aware that there was a discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Walking With my Soul only a week ago about this, and the article was deleted as being promotional. For a brand new book, it is probably WP:TOOSOON for it to become 'notable' (See WP:NBOOK for our criteria). Has it won awards, been written about by multiple independent sources? When it has done so, you could prepare a new draft and submit it and those sources to Articles for Creation. But, if it resembles the original article without being supported by good sources proving it is 'notable', as defined by Wikipedia, then it will have no chance of remaining. I'm afraid that's probably the best answer I can offer. Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 20:19, 12 October 2019 (UTC)


I will Draft a new article but before doing that I want to confirm first. As the book talks about Belief in One God, Verses from Sikh Religions Holy Books , First Sikh Guru. It is the subject of trivial work. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sukh.editor (talkcontribs) 20:25, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

As you've been advised, please read the notability guidelines for books. 331dot (talk) 20:28, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
(edit conflict) @Sukh.editor: No, you cannot confirm notability first unless you supply some hyperlinks to Reliable Sources. Honestly, the best way is for you either to not attempt a second time, or to go via Articles for Creation. We are not here to help you promote your book, or that of another person. If you cannot show better sources that prove 'notability' than were used before, you will simply be wasting your time. It will be a waste of our time to go looking for them on your behalf. You simply have to read and assess what WP:NBOOKS states for yourself and form a conclusion as to whether you can succeed where you, or someone else, failed before. (Also: I presume you meant to write non-trivial!) (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.)
@Cullen328 and 331dot: I notice there has been a Wikidata entry created for this book. Is this normal, or is it gaming the system? I know nothing about editing Wikidata or flagging for notability. Who amongst our hosts might, do you think? Nick Moyes (talk) 20:38, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
I know nothing about WikiData. 331dot (talk) 20:41, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
The Wikidata item was added by the book's author User:Jasbeersingh05, who also asked the question at WP:Teahouse/Questions/Archive 1010#Adding an article for a book already published on online stores. --David Biddulph (talk) 20:54, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
Yes I saw that - it's the use (or abuse) of both Wikidata and Commons (I wonder if their cover picture is their own) for promotion that bothers me. I'm guessing maybe PrimeHunter's our man to advise on Wikidata protocols! Nick Moyes (talk) 21:02, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
I have now managed to answer my own question, and have submitted a Deletion request on Wikidata. Nick Moyes (talk) 22:01, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
One more point, Sukh.editor: you have repeatedly mentioned the subject of the book, apparently assuming that its worthiness makes a difference. It does not. Wikipedia has article on very worthy subjects, and on very deplorable subjects. All that matters is that people unconnected with the subject have recognised it as being worth writing about. --ColinFine (talk) 21:56, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

how to contribute to wikipedia for the first time

Hi ! I would contribute to wikipedia but I do not know how to start. Could someone help me ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Masporadict (talkcontribs) 22:30, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Hello, Masporadict. Great to have you at the Teahouse. You might find a few thoughts at the page called Help:Getting started. I'd just say, in addition, that it's always best to start slowly; look at a few articles on subject you are peronsally interested in, or are near you. Don't add any content based on your own personal experience, but only ever on publicly available (published) sources. Listen to other editors if they say you've not done something right (even if you don't quite follow what they mean). Just ask. Don't be disheartened if you do make mistakes (we all do at first...and I still do!). And do pop back here for any specific help if you get stuck. Do check out The Wikipedia Adventure - it's an interactive tour with 15 different badges that can be collected as you work through some introductory lessons. (Please sign your posts on talk pages by using four tildes like this: ~~~~.) Regards from the Uk, Nick Moyes (talk) 22:41, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Too few sources

I created a draft for a sports club from 2005, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:London_Magpies_Australian_Football_Club . I realize there are few sources. The only one I have is when the league awarded a Rookie of the Year. I have spoken with three former players who have provided me with photos but I don't believe these sources would be robust enough to expand the article further. For example, I know the field on which they played and have photos but no external source to verify that. The league in which this team played is still active but their public record-keeping is poor. I suppose I considered this page as a bit of expansion of the league's own page in case people were curious and not an in-depth exploration. — Preceding unsigned comment added by RichardMDRNunes (talkcontribs) 19:28, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Hello, RichardMDRNunes. I'm afraid I don't get what you are asking. --ColinFine (talk) 19:35, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
Thanks ConlinFine. My draft was declined because I could only find one source online and it was not considered independent enough. Can you direct me to an article that provides guidance on using first-person sources that can provide and verify facts for an article? --User:RichardMDRNunes
Hello, RichardMDRNunes The policy pages are verifibility, reliable sources, and independent sources. The answer is that, basically first-person sources cannot be used, unless the statements are published, and mostly not unless they are published in a reliable source. (Statements by the subject of a biographical article may be used if published on, say a personal web page, which would otherwise not be a reliable source, but such statements do not help establish Notability). The pictures do not need supporting sources if you took them. If you did not, a copyright release from the copyright owner, usually the photographer, would be needed, but in any case they would not help establish the notability of the club. That would need multiple, independent, published, reliable sources that discuss it in some depth. If those are not available, a separate article about the club will not be possible. Perhaps some info about the club mcould be included in the league article? DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 19:54, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
Thanks ConlinFine and DESiegel (talk · contribs). I will delete the draft until I can find additional sources. And I appreciate the note about depth of the subject. — Preceding unsigned comment added by RichardMDRNunes (talkcontribs) 01:12, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

A question about invitation

How do I invite people to look at articles I have changed. Jtarvin (talk) 12:09, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Jtarvin, you can ask in the talk page of the article. --Thegooduser Life Begins With a Smile :) 🍁 19:32, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
@Jtarvin: Welcome to the Teahouse. May I make two very important observations about your editing which you need to address before someone complains to you on your talk page? Firstly, do not mark your edits as minor unless they are genuinely small changes in punctuation or spelling. You have made numerous significant additions, yet marked them all as minor. This is not OK. When in doubt, don't ever check the 'minor edit' box. And always support new factual statements with references, and avoid basing your edits on personal knowledge.
Secondly, you are not leaving edit summaries for some of your changes. This is also quite bad practice. Please address this, as 93% of your edits have no explanatory summary to show what changes you've made. It helps both you and other editors to be able to see what changes have been made with each edit. If you keep forgetting, you can change your Personal Preferences here and click the box labelled Prompt me when entering a blank edit summary. Then you won't forget again! Also, take care to avoid using capital letters for nouns unless they're proper names (see this recent example. Does all this help you? Nick Moyes (talk) 20:53, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
The relevant pages on these topics are WP:MINOR, WP:ES, and MOS:CAPS. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 01:53, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Are there any other projects on Wikipedia like SuggestBot or Correct Typos in One Click?

I would like to know what other projects like these are on Wikipedia, as there isn't that much information on the internet for this topic. creativeRajat@lk 01:26, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

It's not clear what you're looking for. How about WP:CLEANUP or WP:GNOME which are different projects for helping to maintain the encyclopedia. There is also a Wikiproject directory at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Directory RudolfRed (talk) 02:12, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

New draft article

Please start a new section if you are asking about a different subject. Header added by ColinFine (talk) 21:54, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Hi, I have added a new article (Draft: Mehjoor Nagar Sikh Massacre). Added many references to the same. As it is my first article, still checking if it is good to accept this one or there is some information more needed.Sukh.editor (talk) 21:47, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Hello, Sukh.editor and welcome to the Teahouse. Draft: Mehjoor Nagar Sikh Massacre is not a bad start. First of all, please fill out the source citations with the titel of the cited article, the name of the publication, the author (when known), the publication date (when known), and the date you accessed any online sources. See referencing for Beginners. you can also see the one example I filled in on the draft for you. This makes it much easier to evaluate the sources you have used. The sources look reliable, and thye draft, while it could use some copy editing and format cleanup, is not in bad shpe. I suspect this will be approved fairly easily.
One thing. This event occurred back in 2001, but you say almost nothing about any later repercussions or followups. There were demands to arrest and charge those responsible -- were they charged? Were they convicted? The draft does not say. If sources over that, it would help. DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 02:38, 13 October 2019 (UTC)


Thanks, I will add the follow ups after. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sukh.editor (talkcontribs) 02:40, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

We've cleaned up the cites and some other minor issues, as you can see here. Please remember to sign your posts here and on other talk pages (only) with ~~~~ after your text. Thanks. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 03:20, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Can't edit using the "Edit" tab without it defaulting to "Edit Source"

I've used the "Edit" tab for years with no problem. Great feature!

Today, I logged in to make some minor changes on a couple of pages.

When I try to edit - I can no longer use the "Edit" (Visual Editor feature - much easier for me) - and am only given the "Edit source" option which I'm not as adept at.

I've tried to reset this in my preferences utilizing Wikipedia's "Enable VisualEditor" directions* - but nothing seems to work.

  • (logged in - unchecked Temporarily disable the visual editor while it is in beta - changed edit mode etc)

The two sites I wish to edit are: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Roy_(producer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moodtapes

I'm on an iMac - running OS Mojave 10.14.6 ... using Firefox 69.0.3

Really need help fixing this.

Thanks so much! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Whozjngalt (talkcontribs) 23:34, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Welcome, Whozjngalt. Did you look two lines beneath the "Temporarily disable VE whilst in beta" tickbox? There's an "Editing mode" option there. What is it set to? You have various default options. Even if you are in one editing tool, you can switch over via the big thick pencil icon on the right of the editing toolbar. You say you've been editing for years, yet this account has only made 36 edits, and began editing on 6th October. What were you using before? I'm wondering if only offering the source editor is the default position for new accounts? Perhaps some of the very new editors here could remind us old-timers? (Please sign your posts on talk pages by using four tildes like this: ~~~~.) Nick Moyes (talk) 00:31, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
@Nick Moyes: the default is to remember the last editor you used. On account creations, this value is prefilled with the source editor. My personal favorite is "Offer me both tabs", however, that option doesn't work globally for some reason. Victor Schmidt mobil (talk) 05:43, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

My first article itself is getting declined multiple times though I felt everything is fine and true to its nature.

Hello all,

Am desperate and feeling frustrated due to that fact that my first draft submission has been rejected multiple times. I have reviewed the entire articles n number of times, and seems to me that everything is normal. Can anyone please guide me.

page in question: Draft:Debashis_Chatterjee — Preceding unsigned comment added by Valiyaparambil (talkcontribs) 04:51, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Hello, Valiyaparambil. Do not feel desperate. You have made significant improvements after each decline. (Note, AfC says that a draft is "declined" when it has problems but the author is invited to address them and there is hope of eventual passage. It uses the term "rejected" when the reviewer think there is no possibility of the draft becoming an article, often due to policy violations.) I have been making some minor edits to the draft, but I think the tone issues have been dealt with. Many drafts are declined several times then approved. DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 06:05, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
I have accepted this, Valiyaparambil. It is now at Debashis Chatterjee. Hapy editing. DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 06:25, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Can anybody change it?

Hello, Ecuador protests have got worse and President Lenín Moreno ordered curfew and the militarization of Quito, meanwhile, three TV stations were burned down and police officers taken as hostages. Isn't that an uprising? Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 181.27.160.193 (talk) 00:27, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

If this is about a Wikipedia article, please discuss on that article's talk page. We go by what is reported in sources. RudolfRed (talk) 01:07, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
Hi IP 181.27.160.193. You might also be misunderstanding what Wikipedia is about. Wikipedia articles are not the same as newspaper articles or TV news reports and therefore they are not required to be continuously updated as events are unfolding. While it's true that anyone can change the content of an article, changes which are contrary to relevant Wikipedia policies and guidelines are likely to be reverted, particularly changes which are intended to set the record straight about something. -- Marchjuly (talk) 06:27, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

problems at the Cebu article

I wouldn't know how address things like "The time allocated for running scripts has expired". Perhaps somebody knowledgeable can look into that? Thanks. Bus stop (talk) 21:53, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

I guess the table is too long, i.e. it contains too many rows with calculations in them. Possibly removing the table to a separate page could resolve the issue, but I'm not sure about that. :( --CiaPan (talk) 22:30, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
CiaPan, Bus stop: Purging the page appears to have fixed it. --MoonyTheDwarf (Braden N.) (talk) 23:56, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
Bus stop, as seen from the talk page and User talk:Alice Zhang Mengping#Template:PHxxx this has happened before. While it makes sense to use Commons as a central source for images, it seems strange to store over 150 values in Wikidata and run that many individual queries at Wikidata in order to display a page. At times Wikidata is already bogged down running queries and the scripts will just time out. To avoid this one can stop using {{PH town table}} for the 53 entries, and hard code the numbers in the tables the way they are at Philippine province of Abra. Putting the table in a separate article, as is done with List of municipalities of Bohol, ran into the same problem today. StarryGrandma (talk) 00:59, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
Yes, it does appear to be fixed. Thanks to all. Bus stop (talk) 01:53, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
@StarryGrandma: Wasn't a key purpose of Wikidata to be able to centrally store data that could then be used in multiple articles to allow them to remain consistent with edits in just one place? 53 queries does not seem unreasonably high. Is there a discussion about this somewhere at Wikidata? —[AlanM1(talk)]— 17:11, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
AlanM1, I think Wikidata was conceived as storing information (facts) centrally that could be used in infoboxes and article text. It is not just 53 queries, since each row in the table does three queries. We've also run into problems graphing with Wikidata. That problem is being worked on and I assume at some point all these issues will be fixed. StarryGrandma (talk) 06:58, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Archive location

Am I crazy or did there used to be a third option for archive parameters on citations? I know there's archive-url and archive-date, but didn't there used to be an option for archive site as well? You could put in Archive.org, Archive.Is, Archive.today, WebCitation, NewspaperARCHIVE or similar.★Trekker (talk) 05:50, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

*Treker, you may be thinking of Template:Webarchive. StarryGrandma (talk) 07:08, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
(edit conflict)@*Treker: Perhaps there once was such a parameter but it was deprecated in favor of something else. You can probably use the |via= parameter if you want in such situations. -- Marchjuly (talk) 07:10, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Who can fix a map image?

The map at Australia–United States relations seems messed up. Antarctica is partially colored in. It's beyond my ability to fix, but where can I ask for someone to improve it? -Pine457 (talk) 04:47, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

 Done @Pine457: I modified File:BlankMap-World.svg based on the instructions in {{Infobox bilateral relations}} and uploaded the result as File:Australia United States Locator.svg. I then edited the article to use the new image. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 05:59, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
Thank you, Alan. -Pine457 (talk) 07:18, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

How do I make the side table box with the basic information?

How do I put the table like thing in a wiki page on the right-hand side? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lozzur (talkcontribs) 07:53, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

It'c called an infobox. I'm not good at reading instructions, so if I wanted to add an infobox to, say, an article on a tennis player, I would find an article on another tennis player, copy the infobox from there, and change all the parameter values. Maproom (talk) 08:23, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
Hello, Lozzur, and welcome to the Teahouse. If this is about Draft:Hub71, I'd like to point out that the reason that this draft is certain to be declined is not because it hasn't got an infobox, but because it has no references. An infobox (like an image) is a "nice to have" in an article. References to reliable published sources are an essential. Without sources, an article is worthless, because a reader is given no way to check its validity. I suspect that you have made the same mistake as most beginners (that I made at the beginning) of writing from your own knowledge. This is not how Wikipedia works: it is not interested in what you know, (or what I know, or what any random person on the Internet knows); and it especially is not interested in what the subject of the article says or wants to say about itself. It is only interested in what people unconnected with the subject have chosen to say about it in reliable published sources. So you need to find sources, wholly unconnected with Hub71 (not even based on interviews or press releases from it), which discuss it in detail. Then you need to go through the draft, and make sure that every single piece of information you mention can be confirmed from a published source. That is the only way to get your draft accepted as an article. You also need to tone down some of the promotional language: "is creating the optimal environment for transformative tech companies" is meaningless corporate-speak, inappropriate in an encylcopaedia. Finally, I may be wrong, but I'm guessing that you are connected with Hub71. If you are, you must declare this: see conflict of interest, and paid editing.
I'm afraid that writing new articles is one of the hardest tasks in Wikipedia. If you haven't already read your first article, I recommend you do so. --ColinFine (talk) 09:08, 13 October 2019 (UTC)


Hi Colin, Thank you for the advice! I have references, but is it because they are articles being written about Hub71? Do you have a way I can pick your brain as I find Wiki a bit difficult and don't want to do anything wrong? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lozzur (talkcontribs) 09:26, 13 October 2019 (UTC) ColinFine,

Hello, Lozzur. I'm not sure quite what you're asking. Yes, most references are to articles, or to books. They need to be in reliable sources (not social media, forums, or blogs), independent of the subject (not published by them, and not simply quoting them) and they need to talk at some length about the subject, not just list it, or mention it in passing. I'm happy to carry on talking to you here, but you'll need to ask specific questions (and the advantage of doing it here is that it is not just me you're talking to: other people might chip in with useful tips). As for doing something wrong: we all got it wrong when we started. As long as you are here to help us build an encyclopaedia (and not to have arguments, or just to promote something) you are welcome, and shouldn't get into any trouble. --ColinFine (talk) 10:09, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
@Lozzur: One thing to avoid is copy/pasting content from other sources, or only tweaking it so slightly that it's still closely paraphrased. You've done a little bit of that in your draft, which has a lot of a few 'techno-speak' terms, too. See this tool to reveal some of your copy pasting, which you should address. Try and use simple words and say things in your own way. Think encyclopaedia, not press release. Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 10:23, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
@Nick Moyes: are you looking at the updated version - this was an old version ( i actually thought it was a draft no one could see!) can you look at it and let me know.
@Lozzur: Draft:Hub71 was the page I was looking at, so 'yes, I think I was. Nothing placed on Wikipedia is ever private - anyone can see everything...if they now how to look for it - even deleted content. Thus I notice that you deleted controversial, cited content and added new, unreferenced content with these two edits - something that isn't acceptable. Always discuss removal of controversial material on the article's talk page first, please. Or at least explain via your 'edit summary' why you've chosen to do it. I see you've declared one Conflict of Interest (thank you), but this kind of editing makes people wonder whether you might have an agenda to clean up other articles by summarily deleting unfavourable content. (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.). Nick Moyes (talk) 10:54, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

I dont have an agenda but realize that many articles about the Middle East or companies here are used as a way to talk negatively about the region. Mubadala for instance most of it is outdated and focusing on the negtives (in my opinion). Im also confused for some edits when i refernce (especially pop culture) they dont allow the pop culture references or social media but NYT isn't going to post specific details about Lauren Conrad. This draft was an oppurtunity for me to finally get involved in the WIkiWorld as I think its important and would love to be apart of it! but its very confusing... im just learning so that I can get better and add more information into the WikiWorld.  

Super T vs. The Horned Mole

Can you make this a page?

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Kew1122 (talkcontribs) 16:12, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Hello, Kew1122, and welcome to the Teahouse. The Teahouse is a place to ask questions about editing Wikipedia. Your post appears to be the content of a draft article, which wouldn't usually belong on this page. Do you have a question about it? Cordless Larry (talk) 16:24, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
OK, so you've now replaced that with a question. To have the draft considered for publication, you'll need to submit it for review, Kew1122. I'll add a template to the draft shortly that lets you do that. However, I would suggest adding inline citations to the text before doing so - see Help:Referencing for beginners for how to do this. Cordless Larry (talk) 18:16, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Draft:Valley Fiber

Hi I am fairly new to Wikipedia. I created a draft article about an Internet Service Provider. It was rapidly rejected by a user who on his profile page says he is biased against including things about companies and corporations in Wikipedia. I am not paid or related to the company except for that it is my primary ISP. I have at least two sources that I think are reliable and significant regional sources. These are "The Winnipeg Free Press" which would be a Manitoba News source that has a readership throughout the whole province. The other regional source is "Siemens Says" who writes mainly about farm issues and about topics related to farming. I also have several local or regional within Manitoba sources included.

This is my first attempt at an article. I think if it is still not considered notable at this moment there certainly will likely be more articles published about them in the future.

Does this article still not meet the notability guidelines? Joeseph Sparrow (talk) 00:15, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Hello, Joeseph Sparrow, and welcome to the Teahouse. By "rejecting" rather than simply "declining" Draft:Valley Fiber the reviewer, DGG (a very experienced editor) has expressed the view that the subject is not now, and not likely to become, notable in the Wikipedia sense, and that no amount of editing will make this a valid article until and unless there are real-world developments leading to greater coverage of Valley Fiber than now exists. I see that the draft has a number of cited sources, but I have not yet reviewed them to see how they might or might not contribute to the notability of Valley Fiber. Many small to moderate sized companies are simply not notable in Wikipedia terms, and no valid article can be written about such firms. It requiresd independent published coverage, that is reliable, that is not strictly local, and that covers the topic in some depth to establish notability. It may be that Valley Fiber is one of those. If it is, but should there be additional coverage published in reliable sources, then Valley Fiber might become notable. DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 01:07, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Is the SuggestBot not working?

Hello Teahouse! So I was here to find the best way to improve Wikipedia, and then I found SuggestBot, which is a bot that sends me articles that I can improve on. I waited for ~2 days for it to send me articles. What is going on? Thanks, Pepperstarved (talk) 05:14, 14 October 2019 (UTC).

Welcome to the Teahouse, Pepperstarved. SuggestBot has three frequency settings: monthly, twice monthly and weekly. So, it is not unusual to have to wait more than two days. The bot needs to analyze your editing patterns. Please read User:SuggestBot/Getting Recommendations Regularly for more information. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 06:48, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

How do you know if your wikipedia draft has been accepted or not?

How do you know if your wikipedia draft has been accepted or not? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lozzur (talkcontribs) 06:43, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Welcome back, Lozzur. In relation to your draft (Draft:Hub71) it needs to be submitted for review before it can be accepted. Yours hasn't yet, so nothing will happen until you do submit it. I have just added {{AFC submission/draft}} to the top of your draft so that you can submit it when ready. This will still need a bit of work, especially removing PR-speak as I mentioned to you before. It needs shortening down, and your external links corrected (see External Links guidance for how to format these). Long lists of participants are trivial and pure advertising, and I would strip these out, but just keping the first sentence and references. Until you do, and keep things purely factual and non-promotional, it's probable this draft will be rejected as WP:TOOSOON and WP:PROMOTION. Keep it short and sweet and it might just have enough sources to meet Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies). (PS You'll see I've changed your formatting to fit in with our preferred style. We need all articles in mainspace to have a uniform appearance, rather than stand out as being shoddily laid out, though this never impacts on the key criterion for acceptance - Notability. Regards Nick Moyes (talk) 08:47, 14 October 2019 (UTC)  

Page after deletion

Hello everybody! An article with references was created where the promotional style of writing the article was used. I wanted to change it and use the correct links with a more encyclopedic style, but I did not have time. it was deleted. can I have this article myself and are there any restrictions after deleting it for the first time (it was created by another user)

John. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 5.167.121.225 (talk) 16:09, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Hello, Unregistered user, and welcome to the Teahouse. If you intend to improve a deleted article, a copy can in many but not all cases be undeleted and moved to draft or user space for improvement work. You can ask for this at WP:REFUND, or ask any of the admins who have announced a willingness to restore such deleted pages. As it happens, I am one such admin. But I would need to know the exact name of the page involved. DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 16:19, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
You will find communication about such issues easier if you register and use a free account here. There are a number of benefits. DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 16:19, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

A question about User Templates

I have seen some advanced/experienced users with exotic User Templates describing the user on their User pages. Is there a way, or is it permitted, to create custom User Templates for myself?— Vaibhavafro💬 16:46, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

@Vaibhavafro: Check out WP:USERBOX. There are instructions there on how to create a new one, but I suggest browsing through the existing ones first, as what you want may already exist. RudolfRed (talk) 16:57, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Regarding Baba Ramdev

There is difference between born date and early life column .. it is stated that he was born in 1951 . Whereas 1965 is also mentioned please correct this .. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2409:4063:4EAA:8CFA:1B7D:B323:8419:1B5C (talk) 16:53, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Vandalism 3 days ago. Reverted now. Thanks for letting us know. --David Biddulph (talk) 17:01, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Was helpful?

What if one of your edits are reverted, but it was helpful? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gumshoe97 (talkcontribs) 19:32, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Gumshoe97 Hello and welcome to the Teahouse. I don't see where any of your recent edits was reverted, but if one was, you should discuss the matter with the editor that performed the reversion, either on the article talk page or the user's talk page. 331dot (talk) 19:35, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Thank you Gumshoe97 (talk) 19:37, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Finding articles

How do I know if the page im trying to make has already been made? — Preceding unsigned comment added by DF1105 (talkcontribs) 16:42, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

(This had been part of previous query, but obviously a different editor). David notMD (talk) 18:22, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
@DF1105: the obvious answer, which is not intended to sound facetious, is simply to go and look for it! If it is a notable topic and there's a part of its name that you can look up, use the 'Advanced Search facility in the Wikipedia search box to look for that word in its title. If you're still not sure, you could do a web browser search for those same words, including Wikipedia as a domain search. (I often just put the word "wiki" after the keywords in Google as I'm lazy and it find pages in various language Wikipedias quite well). If you tell us your preferred title, I'm sure someone here could help you if you're stuck. (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.) Nick Moyes (talk) 20:16, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
DF1105, see Help:Your_first_article#Search_for_an_existing_article. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 19:48, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Can I change my username?

Is it possible to change my username? I didn't realize most ppl don't use their name and I'd like to change it to something that can't be tied to me directly. Clint.jenkins (talk) 19:25, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Clint.jenkins, Certainly, please see m:Steward_requests/Username_changes MoonyTheDwarf (Braden N.) (talk) 19:28, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
Clint.jenkins, since you haven't made a lot of edits, you can consider just abandoning this account and make a new one, that's allowed. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 19:44, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
@Clint.jenkins: I agree that this is the best approach for you. Just abandon this account, never ever use it again, and simply create a new account, and use only that one from now on. Nick Moyes (talk) 20:20, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Adding a person to a category list

Hi, in order to add a person to the Category: List of Canadian Artists, does the chicken come before the egg? Do I need to post a link in the Category section of the artist's page first, then go to that Category and add the person to the list? Or do I add the person to the list, then go to the person's Wiki page and add the Category link?

Cheers, Karen Pace — Preceding unsigned comment added by Karenpace (talkcontribs) 19:39, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Karenpace Hello and welcome to the Teahouse. If you add the category to the article, this will cause that article to appear in the category list; you shouldn't need to add anything to the Category page. 331dot (talk) 19:41, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Thank you! Karenpace (talk) 20:22, 14 October 2019 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Karenpace (talkcontribs) 19:59, 14 October 2019 (UTC) Addendum: I appreciate your help, but I tried adding it as a category (List of Canadian Artists) and it says that category doesn't exist. But it does! Then I tried to trace the origin name or Parent Category of it to see if that's what I need to post as the Category title, but had no luck. So I added her right into the Category, and assume I will have to wait to see if it is accepted or not. Which means I think I did exactly the opposite of what you suggested... I am at all loss as to why the Category exists, I can type it in to a search box and it comes up, but it won't show up as a link in a Category list at the end of an article page I'm editing. I am perplexed! =) Karenpace (talk) 20:27, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

The page List of Canadian artists exists, but that is a list, not a category. Category:Lists of Canadian artists exists (containing, as its name implies, a number of lists). Category:Canadian artists exists, containing numerous subcategories, and it is perhaps into one of those that you intended to put the article which you were editing? --David Biddulph (talk) 20:36, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
I know nothing about categories, but I can see you have capitalized "Artists", and the way Wikpedia works, that makes a difference. Now from what I can tell, you need to pick a subcategory, i.e. from Category:Canadian artists (it could just be Category:Canadian women artists). Fabrickator (talk) 20:50, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Past or present tense?

I was looking at the following page last week: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Donald_Trump_presidency_(2019_Q3)

I noticed that everyone is writing in present tense - but I think this should all be written in past tense. Any rules about this?

thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Clint.jenkins (talkcontribs) 13:15, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Teahouse/Questions/Archive 870#tense on timeline. Wikipedia doesn't seem to have an explicit guideline on this point, but many timelines on WP and elsewhere use the present tense. See also Historical present, particularly the sentence "In English, it is used above all in historical chronicles (listing a series of events)." Deor (talk) 14:46, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Hello, Clint.jenkins, and welcome to the Teahouse. MOS:TENSE says:
By default, write articles in the present tense, including those covering products or works that have been discontinued. Articles discussing works of fiction are also written in the present tense (see Wikipedia:Writing better articles § Tense in fiction). Generally, do not use past tense except for dead subjects, past events, and subjects that no longer meaningfully exist as such.
Timelines are something of a special case, but I would generally put them in present tense.(This is known as the "historical present".) If you think this one should be in the past tense, you can raise that on the article talk page. DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 15:00, 14 October 2019 (UTC)


That's stupid. Wikipedia doesn't have an actual rule about past vs. present-tense for timelines? Looking through the links you provided, there even appears to be disagreement among the editors/admins about this. Is there a way to raise this to someone that can make an actual rule, so that it's officially decided? I disagree about using present tense (aka Historical present) in timelines; if you're adding something to the timeline - it's almost guaranteed to be in the past, and when someone reads it - either 5 minutes or 5 years from now, it will be in the past, and should be read that way. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Clint.jenkins (talkcontribs) 15:58, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
Clint.jenkins The matter could be raised at Wikipedia talk:Timeline standards or at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style. The former is more specifically targeted on this subject, but the latter is much more widely read and followed. In either case, a pointer on the other page to the conversation would be a good idea. A formal RfC (Request for Comment) would be needed to nail down a guideline on this issue, but soem preliminary discussion might be a good idea before a full RfC is started. An RfC is the way to asses and perhaps form a consensus on such an issue. Note that there are many style issues on which Wikipedia does not have binding, project wide rules. In a few cases it has a rule not to have a rule, see WP:ENGVAR and WP:CITEVAR. DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 16:12, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
By the way, please sign comments on talk and discussion pages with four tildes (~~~~). The wiki software will convert this into your default or custom signature, normally including a link to your user page and a timestamp. This makes things much easier for other editors, and for the software when it needs to determine what are separate contributions to a thread. DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 16:12, 14 October 2019 (UTC)


Thanks for the suggestion. I was going to add a new section to Wikipedia talk:Timeline standards, but a brief look shows someone already asked this very question....in 2010. I get the sense that Wikipedia won't make a definitive decision on this or anything like this - just leaving it up to the consensus of the few that'll make a comment - but that's obviously not a good solution b/c here I am 9 years later asking the same question. I suppose adding adding/asking for an official request for comment, or adding a section to the manual of style is a good idea, but I'm starting to doubt it'll ever get addressed in either. I'm a little disappointing that Wikipedia doesn't have a more comprehensive style guide - I think that would solve A LOT of these questions that new ppl have. :( Clint.jenkins (talk) 16:38, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
Clint.jenkins I have opened a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Timeline standards#Past vs Present tense again, with a pointer from the MOS talk page. We will see how much attention it gets. As for your comment that I'm a little disappointing that Wikipedia doesn't have a more comprehensive style guide take a look though Wikipedia:Manual of Style and the more than 60 specific sub-pages of the MOS, and see if you still think it is insufficiently comprehensive. Also look at thee sometimes heated debates on WT:MOS (current and in the history) and on several of the talk pages of the sub-pages, such as Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers and Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biography, to mention just two active pages. It is not possible for the MOS to cover every case, and it is, like all of Wikipedia, a work in progress. You can help add to it if you so choose. DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 23:14, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Steps an article goes through before publication

I joined today. I immediately created a page on which I have written content describing myself. I thought that the content i have written would immediately be availed to the public but my checks have proved that i could have been wrong. I have two questions;

1. What should i do to have this profile of mine published to the public? 2. I have previously written a number of articles that have been published in the press in my country - Uganda. What should i do to have them published on wikipedia and available to the public.

Thank you

Bwino Fred Kyakulaga (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 17:45, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Hello, Bwino Fred Kyakulaga. Since you said that you made a profile about yourself, you need to read this. Having an autobiography is extremely discouraged since most people are not notable. Also, Wikipedia doesn't have "profiles", just articles. --LPS and MLP Fan (Littlest Pet Shop) (My Little Pony) 17:52, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
Another thing is that your userpage doesn't comply with WP:USERPAGES. You are welcome to have limited information about yourself, but that should not be 100% of your userpage content. Please note that your userpage is not for web hosting. Finally, userpages do not show up on Google results. --LPS and MLP Fan (Littlest Pet Shop) (My Little Pony) 17:58, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
Bwino Fred Kyakulaga(edit conflict)Hello and welcome to the Teahouse. Your use of the term "profile" suggests to me that you have a common misconception about what Wikipedia is. This is an encyclopedia and not social media where people tell the world about themselves. As an encyclopedia, Wikipedia summarizes what independent reliable sources with significant coverage say about article subjects that meet Wikipedia's special definition of notability. As a member of parliament, you do meet our definition of a notable politician, but autobiographical articles are strongly discouraged on Wikipedia. We are interested in what others say about you, not in what you have to say about yourself. In order for you to be successful in writing about yourself, you would essentially need to forget everything you know about yourself and only write based on what independent sources say. Most people cannot do that.
You have edited your user page, which is not article space. Articles (which lack "User:" in the title) can be submitted using Articles for Creation, but it is best if others write about you. An article about yourself is not necessarily desirable, see this page. 331dot (talk) 18:00, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
Make your personal website somewhere else and submit the address to the big search engines. —Tamfang (talk) 23:17, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

How to publish from my sandbox to wikipedia

I do not see the "more" and "move" near the search. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Poruja111 (talkcontribs) 20:14, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Poruja111 Hello and welcome to the Teahouse. Before you get that far, I noticed that your draft has no independent reliable sources to support its content. I would also ask if you have reviewed the notability criteria for biographies and more specifically the criteria for politicians. Generally, merely seeking public office does not merit someone a Wikipedia article, meaning that Mr. Jones would need to meet the more general criteria of a notable person. I also noticed that your draft reads much like campaign literature; do you work for his campaign? If you do, you will need to declare this in order to comply with the conflict of interest and paid editing policies. If you can resolve these issues, you can submit your draft for review using Articles for Creation. I would recommend this instead of just moving your draft into the encyclopedia, so you can get feedback before it is moved, instead of afterwards when it will be treated more critically. 331dot (talk) 20:20, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for your help. You are correct. Mr Jones is a personal friend who is running for office, but I do not work or volunteer for his campaign. Mr. Jones's opponent is a only candidate and already has a wiki page published. I am simply experimenting with my sandbox so that I can talk Mr. Jones through the process of moving his page from his sandbox to the published area when the time comes. Mr. Jones has already prepared his article in his own sandbox and needs me to talk him through the publication process. He already has citations in the work he has prepared. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Poruja111 (talkcontribs) 20:41, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Mr Jones needs to read the advice against autobiography. --David Biddulph (talk) 20:45, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
Poruja111 Wikipedia has articles, not just "pages". It's an important distinction. Without knowing who the opponent is, it could be that they meet the necessary notability criteria for a reason unrelated to their seeking office. As I indicated, generally merely seeking office does not merit someone an article. If that's the case for the opponent, that article can be proposed for deletion (more likely it would be made a redirect to the election article). Wikipedia is not a voter guide and does not necessarily provide equal time to everyone in an election; it depends on what independent reliable sources state. 331dot (talk) 20:53, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
Poruja111 The page User:Cecil Burton Jones, Jr./sandbox was deleted today under CSD G11 as being promotional. It seems to have contained content very similar to that in your sandbox -- similar enough to raise copyright issues. Who is the original author of the text in your sandbox, Poruja111? It is not OK to insert into Wikipedia, even in a sandbox, extensive text by someone else with out proper attribution, and without any indication of permission. If this was written by Mr Jones or his campaign, you need to attribute it to the source. DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 22:04, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Thank you. I am accustomed to sandbox being a place for development prior to publication. Where am I able to collaborate with my personal friend, Mr. Jones, on this joint effort, and when ready, have it evaluated for publication?--Poruja111 (talk) 22:22, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Poruja111 I'm going to chime in here to agree with the comments above and to let you know that I don't think Mr. Jones has enough media coverage to pass Wikipedia's notability guidelines. Simply running for a congressional district office isn't enough, since all you need to run as a major party candidate in Texas is file an application and pay a filing fee. These guidelines are more applicable. Indeed, the current leading candidate for Texas' 23rd district, Gina Ortiz Jones, was the previous Democratic nominee who closely lost by 1,000 votes, yet her article was still nominated for deletion twice. It was kept both times because of the large amount of media coverage of her and her campaign, so it's not a fair comparison. TimTempleton (talk) (cont) 22:24, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
Poruja111 As Tim states very well, Gina Jones merits an article due to the massive amount of media coverage she got. If you can show that Cecil Jones is getting equally massive coverage in the media, he would merit an article- but it would be strongly advised that you or Mr. Jones not write it yourself. Mr. Jones might also want to be aware that a Wikipedia article is not necessarily desirable. There are good reasons to not want one; any information about him, good or bad, can be in an article about him as long as it appears in an independent reliable source and is not defamatory. He cannot lock it to the text he might prefer or prevent others from editing it. 331dot (talk) 23:23, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
If Mr. Jones just wants to tell his potential voters about himself, he should use social media or his own campaign website, not Wikipedia. Wikipedia is only interested in what independent sources say about him, not in what he wants to say about himself. 331dot (talk) 23:24, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Poruja111, while a sandbox is indeed a place to develop work prior to publication, all pages on Wikipedia, including sandbox pages, are public even if not indexed by search engines, and some policies, such as the policy against promotional content, the policy on biographical pages, and the copyright policy apply to all pages on Wikipedia without exception. The most common venue for shared work on a draft followed by a review of the draft by an experienced editor would be the Draft namespace -- a page with a title such as Draft:Joe Example could be used to work on the text of a potential article about Mr. Example, either alone or with other editors. However, a user sandbox can also be used in this way. It is usually a poor idea to have multiple copies of essentially the same text on different page -- it can cause confusion. If there is a need to do this, there should be attribution of the source, see Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia for details. If you have further questions, feel free to ask them here or if you want to ask me individually, you can post to User talk:DESiegel I am happy to offer any help that I can. DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 23:33, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
I must agree with the comments by 331dot above. DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 23:34, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Direct Quote from a 1786 manuscript

Could anyone please tell me how I go about typing up a direct quote from a letter written in 1786, which has anomalies in terms of there being fairly wide gaps (the equivalent of.......) between phrases, since the author was writing in a hurry and was careless with punctuation. I have it typed up, ready to go, and in Word it is very easy to simply leave the gaps, but Wikipedia closes gaps, so if I tried to upload the following, for instance, (without the full stops keeping the words apart), it would all run together:

The Grand old Duke of York.......he had ten thousand men.......he marched them up to the top of the hill.......then he marched them down again.

If I uploaded that, without the full stops, the result would be:

The Grand old Duke of Yorkhe had ten thousand menhe marched them up to the top of the hillthen he marched them down again.

The only way I can think of is to do as I have, but inserting......to prevent the words joining up together, but that is absolutely not how the manuscript presents itself. The only other alternative would be to insert punctuation; full stops where there aren't any, and capitalising letters at the beginning of a new sentence, which again the author hasn't done. But if I do that it will no longer be a faithful transcription.

Please may I warn readers that I am 75 years of age, with very very limited IT capabilities, so could your explanations be like talking to an idiot child please?

Many thanks. Arbil44 (talk) 08:05, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Try non-breaking spaces     like this. Dbfirs 08:09, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Thank you. I have emailed you for clarification because, as I say, my IT skills are very weak. Arbil44 (talk) 08:53, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Testing! The Grand old Duke of York     he had ten thousand men     he marched them up to the top of the hill    then he marched them down again. Arbil44 (talk) 09:21, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Well, I've got the gist of it, but can I make the space a little bigger? Arbil44 (talk) 09:23, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Just edited the passage above to see what happens. I guess trial and error is the best way to learn. Arbil44 (talk) 09:30, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Yes, just put as many   &nbsp as you need. Alternatively, you could lay out separate lines using <br> Dbfirs 09:39, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Two more alternatives: Is there an image of the letter with an appropriate license that could be uploaded?; or use the <pre>...</pre> tags, which preserves the formatting (extra spaces, line breaks) of the text and uses a non-proportional font:

The Grand old Duke of York    he had ten thousand men    he marched them up to the top of the hill    then he marched them down again.
Something   else     here
And more    here

—[AlanM1(talk)]— 23:56, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Hello- Some user by the name of Ahmad had my photos posts taken down twice now using my own website as the reason for the "violation". Identifying sources should be done so accurately by confirming if they are the same copyright holder before removing revisions/profile additions. I would like my photo additions to be reinstated please. If you don't have the authority or capability, I'd like Wikimedia to intervene on my behalf, so Ahmad and whoever else will stop unfairly flagging my photos that I own the copyrights of that I'd like to be featured on my Wiki page. Thank you, Anchorandwings — Preceding unsigned comment added by Anchorandwings (talkcontribs) 01:22, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

I think an admin - or an experienced editor - might need to have a talk with the contributing editor at Cris Gunther and explain what WP:COI means and the possibility of being banned from editing on WP. Thanks. Maineartists (talk)
Anchorandwings, the file c:File:Cris Gunther- Hollywood Music In Media Award Winner.jpg was uploaded to, and deleted from, wikimedia commons, not to the English-language Wikipedia. An admin on commons deleted it, as a violation of copyright. (Apparently riley did the deletion.)_ You would have to raise the issue on Commons. Please understand that while you may indeed be the copyright owner of that image, we have no way to know that you are, unless you follow the procedure at Wikipedia:Donating copyrighted materials. If you follow that procedure, any files you upload should not be deleted because of copyright issues. All uploaded images must indicate their source, and if they have been published on a website, must include an appropriate copyright release clearly identified as being from the proper person. A post to Wikipedia will not do -- anyone can make such a post, and many do.
Ther are also some problems with the Cris Gunther to which you attempted to add these images, but i will address those elsewhere, as they were not asked about here. DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 01:58, 15 October 2019 (UTC) @Anchorandwings: DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 01:59, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
I would add that it is not really helpful to ask the exact same question in three different places at the same time. DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 02:00, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
I would further add that there is no such thing as your Wiki page. There may be an article about you, but that article belongs to Wikipedia and the whole community of editors. You, assuming that you are in fact the subject, have no particular right to control what does and does not get included in the article, nor to insist on its creation or on its deletion if you don't like the content. No more than you could control a newspaper story about yourself -- if anything, even less. See WP:OWN DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 02:08, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

Sending a page to draft from editing page

I have a page I'm editing, but it's not ready to made public. If I just make it pubilc it will be deleted because it's very much a work-in-progress. How can I save the page I'm editing as a draft so my work is saved?

Seamus M. Slack (talk) 02:30, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

"Publish changes" does not mean publish, it means save. If this was created as your Sandbox or a Draft, it shows up there. Hope this helped. David notMD (talk) 02:34, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

Hello, Seamus M. Slack. If you have not yet clicked publish, and the page is new, you can copy your test out of the edit box and save it on your computer locally. The n create a new page in the draft namespace, and past the text in. If the page has already been created, you can move it to the draft namespace, that is to a name that starts with "Draft:". I hope that was clear enough? DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 02:35, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
Thanks. That answered my question. Seamus M. Slack (talk) 02:38, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
HOWEVER, appears you just created Taos operating system as an article - not a draft - and given lack of referencing and other flaws, it is at high risk for being nominated at Articles for Deletion. David notMD (talk) 02:39, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

AND, the article scores 99%+ as copyright violation of https://sites.google.com/site/dicknewsite/home/computing/byte-articles/the-taos-operating-system-1991 David notMD (talk) 02:47, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

I have tagged it for speedy deletion as a copyright infringement WP:CSD#G12. Seamus M. Slack It is never accedptable to paste large quantities of text from anotehr website (or any outside source) into Wikipedia without attribution, and rarely with attribution. Even as a starting point in a draft, that will lead to speedy deletion. You must write in original words for Wikipedia. DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 02:50, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
When I reword I start with the old text and then change it. I wanted to save the Copyinfinging draft and mutate it into acceptable form. I tried moving it to a draft after saving it and it was speedy deleted. I don't know why you are talking to me this way? I wanted help putting this unsuitable page in storage until it was ready. I also did use ref and citetaiton in that page you deleted. Maybe there should be a save as draft button on the editing page. So what do you want to do with this page? Seamus M. Slack (talk) 03:08, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
Even in draft form, not acceptable to contain copyright material. You could work privately, on your own computer, and only move to a draft at Wikipedia after you have paraphrased content in your own words. David notMD (talk) 03:18, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
Seamus M. Slack The page was not speedy deleted, it was just tagged for deletion and awaiting a 2nd admin to do the deletion. You moved it to Draft and then blanked the page, removing both the deletion tag and the copyright-infringing text. However, that text remained in the page history. i have now done a revision deletion on all the versions of the page prior to the blanking, so that the infringing text cannot be seen except by editors with special rights. The problem is that Wikipedia cannot have such an infringing text present, not even for a short time as it is being revised. Not even for 5 minutes. It is not OK for that text to even stay in the publicly available page history.
I understand and accept that you were acting in good faith to create an article about a significant topic. But some policies here have very little give, and copyright infringement is one of them. You will have to create a new version without saving the copied text on Wikipedia. I would offer to mail you a copy, but since it is easily available on the site listed above in this thread, there doesn't seem to be any need to do that. You could, if you wish, work with that site open in one tab and your new draft in another, but please avoid direct copying or close paraphrasing. Also, you will need multiple reliable sources before this topic is ready for the main article space, of which the Byte article could be only one. Taht is al assuming you intend to go ahead with creating a fresh version in draft space. That is your choice to do or not do. DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 03:26, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
Article creation here at Wikipedia is one of the harder tasks an editor can undertake. Below are a series of steps that often work for this process.


  • First, review our guideline on notability, our policy on Verifiability, and our general notability guideline (GNG). Consider whether your subject clearly meets the standards listed there.
  • Second, read how to create Your First Article and referencing for beginners and again consider if you want to go ahead.
  • Third, If you have any connection or affiliation with the subject, disclose it in accordance with our guideline on Conflict of interest. If you have been or expect to be paid for making edits, or are making them as part of your job, disclose this according to the strict rules of the Paid-contribution disclosure. This is absolutely required; omitting it can result in you being blocked from further editing.
  • Fourth, gather sources. You want independent, professionally published, reliable sources with each discussing the subject in some detail. If you can't find several such sources, stop; an article will not be created! Sources do NOT need to be online, or in English, although it is helpful if at least some are. The "independent" part is vital. Wikipedia does not consider as independent sources such as press releases, or news stories based on press releases, or anything published by the subject itself or an affiliate of the subject. Strictly local coverage is also not preferred. Regional or national newspapers or magazines, books published by mainstream publishers (not self-published), or scholarly journals are usually good. So are online equivalents of these. (Additional sources may verify particular statements but not discuss the subject in detail. But those significant detailed sources are needed first.)
  • Fifth, use the article wizard to create a draft under the articles for creation project. This is always a good idea for an inexperienced editor, but in the case of an editor with a conflict of interest it is essential.
  • Sixth, use the sources gathered before (and other sources you may find along the way) to write the article. Cite all significant statements to sources. Do not express opinions or judgements, unless they are explicitly attributed to named people or entities, preferably in a direct quotation, and cited to a source. Do not use puffery or marketing-speak. Provide page numbers, dates, authors and titles for sources to the extent these are available. A title is always needed.
  • Seventh, when (well perhaps if) your draft is declined, pay attention to the comments of the reviewer, and correct the draft and resubmit it. During this whole process, if you face any unresolvable editing hurdles, or cannot comprehend any editing issue, feel free to post a request at the Teahouse or the help desk and ask the regulars. Repeat this until the draft passes review.
Congratulations, you have now created a valid Wikipedia article. DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 03:26, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

Why was my draft rejected?

Yes I have a question. My article about a "old white male artist" was rejected by the user QueerEcoFeminist. If I compare my article with other similar articles which where published on Wikipedia, I am getting doubts how far the judgement of QueerEcoFeminist is really objective. The user name is already a statement and program and I get the feeling too much personal dislike is the guideline here. With the judgement I can't go any further as its not more then empty hollow phrase. I can accept rejection or advise, but sorry in this case it's not deep enough nor detailed. First I thought to contact QueerEcoFeminist but when I read the personal page under which requirements my questions maybe will be answered I gave up because it comes very arrogant over. And no I have nothing against Queer, Eco, Feminist and people from India. Furthermore I am not a white old male but from Chinese decent, female and 29 years old. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lai Shi Chao (talkcontribs) 12:38, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Hello, Lai Shi Chao. It is frustrating to have your draft rejected. That is why I always advise new editors not to plunge straight into the difficult taks of creating a new article, but to spend a few weeks or months in the (arguably more valuable) task of improving some of our six million existing articles, and learning about Wikipedia.
In respect of the rejection of your draft, please assume good faith: just because somebody rejects a draft and has a username that implies a certain stand, please do not jump to the conclusion that they are biased against the subject. One thing you can do is to ask QueerEcoFeminist at their user talk page to explain further. But I will note that, though you have 53 references in your draft, most of them seem to be very low quality sources, irrelevant for establishing notability. I've only looked at the first dozen or so, but with the possible exception of the Carpentier book (which I do not have access to) not one of them is a place where somebody unconnected with Gerard has chosen to write at some length about Gerard. Exhibition catalogues may be useful to support the fact that the artist exhibited at such and such an exhibition, but they are primary sources, and cannot contribute to notability; nor can the artist's biography at various organisations they belong to, since these will almost certainly come from the artist themself and are again primary sources. (And I don't see anything on the landing pages of Berufskolleg Kartäuserwall or IADT that even mention Gerard, so I don't know why you think it might be appropriate to cite them: the purpose of a citation is to support a claim in the article, nothing else).
It is possible that among those citations there are some which will collectively establish that Gerard is notable (in Wikipedia's special sense). But I believe that QueerEcoFeminist would not have rejected (as opposed to declined) the draft unless they had searched for references and concluded there was not enough published to establish notability. If you don't accept that, I suggest you contact them on their user talk page, and cite some sources which do establish it. --ColinFine (talk) 14:06, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
ColinFine, The article count isn't quite at 6 million yet. Interstellarity (talk) 15:47, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
Interstellarity: most people would round "fifty thousand short of six million" to "six million"!. --ColinFine (talk) 15:54, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
By the time today's newcomer learns the ropes, it may well be over six million. —Tamfang (talk) 23:16, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
Fixing ping to QueerEcofeminist who has been named in this discussion. Nick Moyes (talk) 14:28, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
Nick Moyes, thanks for pinging me here Nick, I will try and answer issues raised here. QueerEcofeminist "cite! even if you fight"!!! [they/them/their] 05:04, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
Lai Shi Chao, I support what ColinFine said. If you've found some references that attest to the subject's notability (I can't tell myself as I know very little Dutch), make them easier for a reviewer to find by getting rid of all the worthless references – the ones that don't mention the subject, the ones he wrote himself, the ones that mention him without discussion. Maproom (talk) 08:30, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
Lai Shi Chao, One important thing, me believing or carrying some special name has nothing to do with why I rejected your draft. My userpage gave you a sense that I am arrogant enough to not approach at all, I am sorry for that. But I don't think I have ever shown arrogance anywhere. Second thing, as everyone is saying here, one needs to have reliable references and enough context which tells the reviewer that the subject of the article is notable enough to have an article on wikipedia. And a mere number of references doesn't help in this regard, we need to have WP:RS, WP:NARTIST. thanks QueerEcofeminist "cite! even if you fight"!!! [they/them/their] 04:42, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

IP Address

Hello, I edited a page without it logged in. For some reason I thought I was and I found out I wasnt and my IP address was made into an account. Because of that I heard I was blocked from editing under this account because some people tried to edit under my username. I need the IP address page removed and I am trying to reach an administrator to stop people from trying to use it on this platform. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tropetroop29 (talkcontribs) 02:12, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

Hello, Tropetroop29 and welcome to the Teahouse. You are not blocked -- that is, your account (Tropetroop29) is not blocked. It may be that the IP you were using was blocked when another person was using it, but that will not affect you as long as you are signed in. Users who do not log in are identified by their current IP addresses, but they are not really accounts. That is just the best identifier we have for those who do not log in. I am an admin, and i checked your block log -- there is nothing on it. There is no need to worry about blocks on any IP address that you may have been temporarily using. There is no need to remove the "IP address page". DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 02:25, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
By the way, for a while i had a problem where I was often logged out wthout warning. To avoid saving pages while not logged in, I added code that displays the "publish changes" (aka save) button in a green color if and only if am logged in. If i see the button in the standard color, i don't save, instead I log back in fist. If you want I can copy the code for this for you to your user talk page. Ask me if you want that. DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 02:28, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
Yes, this is a helpful trick and you can even change to color to something else if you want. -- Marchjuly (talk) 05:14, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
(edit conflict)Hi Tropetroop29. Please see WP:LOGGEDOUT for more details, but I'm not sure what you mean by Because of that I heard I was blocked from editing under this account because some people tried to edit under my username. because you wouldn't have been able to post at the Teahouse if your account was currently blocked; moreover, there's no record of your account ever being blocked. For reference, accounts (even IP accounts) cannot be deleted as explained at WP:UN#Deleting and merging accounts, but the records of any edits they make can sometimes be hidden from public view (sometimes even from administrators) depending upon the circumstances. -- Marchjuly (talk) 02:34, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

Twinkle vs rollback

I know this question must have been asked a thousand times earlier, but still I want to ask it. I recently started using Twinkle. What is difference between a twinkle rollback vs a ROLLBACK rollback? (Except for advanced features, like Huggle)— Vaibhavafro💬 04:36, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

Greetings, Vaibhavafro, and welcome to the Teahouse. Below is the best information I could find regarding Twinkle rollback versus standard rollback. If anyone else has additional information, I would be most grateful if they would add or correct it.
  • Twinkle is an open-source javascript tool. It performs rollbacks by running on the user's computer, and performing multiple transactions between the local browser and Wikipedia. Using its internal script, it locates and downloads the appropriate old version of the article, then re-uploads it and saves it as the current version. The user is given the option to add a custom edit summary for the rollback (unless the VANDAL option is selected, in which case the user is automatically taken to the rolled-back user’s talk page). Twinkle rollback may be used by any autoconfirmed user.
  • The built-in rollback tool performs a single transaction: the user clicks the "rollback" link and the rest happens on the server. This method is faster and more efficient for both the client and the server, with less processing/bandwidth burden on both ends (especially for people with slow connections); this is seen as one of its major benefits over Twinkle. There is no option for a customized edit summary, and there are therefore some restrictions on its use when an edit summary is expected (see WP:ROLLBACK#When to use rollback for a list of valid uses). Standard rollback may only be used by those with the rollbacker right.
I hope this helps! CThomas3 (talk) 05:32, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

Lao (Wine)

I want to create an article on Lao (Wine) . A traditional wine used by Tai people of south east Asia. I have enough content and references but why it send me to Sandbox ?? — Preceding unsigned comment added by PinkCobras (talkcontribs) 07:45, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

PinkCobras Hello and welcome to the Teahouse. New accounts cannot directly create articles until they are autoconfirmed, which means that the account must be four days old and have 10 edits or more. You only have three edits and just created the account today. If you want to create an article, you will need to use Articles for Creation. I would recommend doing so anyway as a new user, as successfully creating an article is harder than most people think it is, it is actually the hardest task on Wikipedia. You may want to read Your First Article and use the new user tutorial in the interim. 331dot (talk) 07:54, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

Worth it?

Having little experience with creating a page on wiki, I have encountered so many problems that I ask "Is it worth bothering with wiki?". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Noireallymeanit (talkcontribs) 10:03, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Well, your account is only about an hour old, and so it's perfectly reasonable for you to feel bewildered by all the different guidelines and policies; I think everybody is, to begin with, and it is a good idea to start slowly and cautiously. The answer to the question you ask really depends on what you mean by "worth bothering with" – if you are only interested in creating one specific article, the answer is probably "no". If, on the other hand, you are interested in contributing to the encyclopedia by improving it, many people do feel that it is worth it; one good way to get started is by forgetting all about creating new articles (it's the hardest thing to do here, and given how many other important improvements are needed, it makes little sense to start with article creation) and focus on making minor improvements, adding sourced information to articles, fixing language issues, and other things like that. --bonadea contributions talk 10:13, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
Hello, Noireallymeanit. Only you can answer that question. If you want to contribute to one of the largest cooperative projects ever launched, and help create one of the biggest knowledge resources ever created, then yes, it's worth it: but why would anybody expect that to be easy? If you have some other purpose, (such as telling the world about you, your band, your company, or even your very worthy charity), then no, it may not be worth it, as you will find it even harder to do that here.
I would note that creating a new article - acknowledged to be one of the hardest tasks on Wikipedia - is not the only way to contribute to it, and in my view often not the most valuable. Among our millions of articles we have many which are in desparate need of improvement: if new editors put one tenth the effort into that that some of them do into trying to create new articles, they would increase the value of Wikipedia far more than they do.
As I say, it's up to you whether you think it is worth contributing or not; but I hope you find a niche in Wikipedialand where you can contribute in a way that suits you, and can benefit both yourself and others by doing so. --ColinFine (talk) 10:18, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

OK. Case in point - how do I reply to comments on my comment? It seems everything related to wiki is arcane. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Noireallymeanit (talkcontribs) 10:28, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Well, just like you did. You edit the section and add it to the end. Posts should have a number of colons (':') in front of the text, with each new post having one more colon (starting with none). If you look at this section, for example, you can see that your question above had no colons in front, so I posted mine with one colon. The next poster should use two colons, etc. Also, on "talk pages" like this one (where the page title is Talk:Something, User talk:Something, etc.), you should sign your post by putting ~~~~ after it. For example, the next post after this in this section should look like:
 ::Blah blah blah ~~~~
The gory details of talk pages are at WP:TPG. I've posted a welcome message to your talk page at User talk:Noireallymeanit with some useful reading. I hope this helps. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 10:48, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
Some think you should use one more colon than the last comment. I think you should use one more colon than the comment to which you're responding. I fear this is a religious difference that will never be resolved. —Tamfang (talk) 06:39, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
Yes, one more than the comment to which you are replying. Explained, with examples, at WP:Indentation. --David Biddulph (talk) 07:55, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
You have put images on your User page, one relevant to crystallography. What do you intend to do with those? Your User page is a place to provide a bit of information about yourself in context of your intentions as an editor. Your Sandbox is a place to create and park content you may want to work on, before moving it to an article. David notMD (talk) 11:09, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
You are a new user, and already you're talking about "creating a page". Creating a new article of Wikipedia is indeed very difficult, at least until you have extensive experience of editing Wikipedia. If you've come here with the intention of creating an article on a specific subject, I'd agree, "it's probably not worth bothering". But if you're here to help improve Wikipedia, I'd recommend starting with simple things, like correcting spelling and grammar, and gradually building up your skills. Maproom (talk) 11:16, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Bollocks to it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Noireallymeanit (talkcontribs) 11:26, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @Noireallymeanit: Oh dear. It's easy to trip up here at first - but when people stick at it they tend to do OK. From the images you've uploaded to our sister project (Wikimedia Commons), it looks like you have a very technical background. I am a bit concerned that you've recently uploaded a couple of images which you claim as your own work, but at least one of which appear to come from previously published sources. Compare this image you uploaded today with [1] from 2003 to 2008. The other image on your userpage appears to come from a slideshare presentation, or the same source. Maybe you were the author of those works? But you will need to assure Wikimedia Commmons that you do indeed own the rights and are legally entitled to release it under a free-to-use Creative Commons licence, or they may well end up being deleted. If you can explain how you claim them as your own work, we might be able to guide you to ensure they are properly licenced. Nick Moyes (talk) 11:36, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
I've been at it since 2005 and I only ever created two articles: Vampire (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and List of enclaves and exclaves, each of which collects material that was repeated in two or more related articles, thus allowing those other articles to be more concise with better focus. Mostly what I do, and enjoy doing, is polish the language and improve the organization of other writers' content. (I can even do that, to some extent, for subjects about which I know nothing!) Creating new articles is far from the only worthwhile activity here. —Tamfang (talk) 06:47, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
@Tamfang and @DavidB: I agree. Just trying to keep the explanation here simple. Then, of course, there's the issue of whether to post last (here) or up with the comment to which I was responding. I would prefer the latter (up there), but there seems to be some opposition to that, thinking that it doesn't get seen. Of course, pings have come along now ... —[AlanM1(talk)]— 09:00, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

Pictures

Every time I want to see a picture on Wikipedia, it just comes up as a grey background with a teal-ish circle with a line through it. What does that mean and how can I get rid of it so i can see the pictures? Porygon-Z (talk) 22:49, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Hello Porygon-Z474. When I look up images of cartoon characters on Google, this happens to me. I think it is more of a search engine technical problem than a Wikipedia problem. You can still view the original image on the actual page. LPS and MLP Fan (Littlest Pet Shop) (My Little Pony) 23:01, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
Hi Porygon-Z. Does it happen when your browser is here at https://en.wikipedia.org or an external site like google.com? What is your browser? Do you see any of these:
  1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Example.jpg
  2. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a9/Example.jpg
  3. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Example.png
  4. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/70/Example.png
  5. https://en.wikipedia.org/static/images/poweredby_mediawiki_88x31.png
PrimeHunter (talk) 23:14, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
Hi guys! Well my computer is owned by a school administrator so there's that. Also I have seen pictures on here while still being restricted. This has been going on for a while so do you think you can help? Porygon-Z (talk) 01:34, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
@Porygon-Z474: Since I am a middle schooler, I totally understand your situation. I get annoyed when I browse the web for pictures using my school account and they are blocked. Try using a fake account and the images will not be blocked. LPS and MLP Fan (Littlest Pet Shop) (My Little Pony) 02:17, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
Also, now, I looked for pictures of something I like on my tablet, and I didn’t see any blocked images. So, you can try using your tablet or phone, if you have one at home, and you don’t get anything blocked. If you have anymore questions about Wikipedia, you can ask me or make a new thread. LPS and MLP Fan (Littlest Pet Shop) (My Little Pony) 02:26, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
Ah. Well you see high schools are really weird and so they like to play games and there really tolerant about it. I don't know if it was a school problem or something else do you know how I can get rid of it? Porygon-Z (talk) 02:46, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
Porygon-Z474, This sounds like it's the Lightspeed Systems filtering software. There is no known bypass for it. --MoonyTheDwarf (Braden N.) (talk) 12:43, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
@Porygon-Z474: Schools in many countries have a right to limit and to monitor internet access to their students, just as many employers do. Often there are blacklists of sites to protect users from visiting inappropriate or malware-laden websites, and often they want students to focus their time on schoolwork, or not to be exposed to unpleasant images (and there are quite a lot of those on certain pages of this encyclopaedia!). In addition, did you know that users on Wikipedia can change their own account settings so as not to display images by default (See: Help:Options to hide an image). Out of interest, are you also blocked (whilst at school) from accessing social media sites or images on any other websites, and are all other students similarly blocked - or is it just you? And is it on school devices, or your own?) If everyone is blocked from viewing images on Wikipedia pages on the school network, my take on this would be to consider whether you are expected or asked to use Wikipedia as part of your school studies. If you are, then I would suggest a number of you politely approach your head of year (or school's IT administrator) with a reasoned argument as to why they should change your schools permissions so you can all now see the images on Wikipedia as part of your assignments, and as part of your education. My own children use Wikipedia a lot for various classes they've taken, and the images have been integral to many of their homework projects. I hope this might be of use. Do please come back and let us know how you get on. Best wishes, Nick Moyes (talk) 10:30, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
I do have Light speed Systems and its my schools computer. Yet here's the thing: If In at school, Wikipedia is down; if I'm at home, Wikipedia works. I can still play games with Light speed system, yet now its saying that it a "custom block" at school. I don't know why that's happening, but it's annoying and now apparently its blocking the pictures on it. Maybe you can help me? Also, my school says Wikipedia is not reliable so we shouldn't use it. Is there a reason why? Porygon-Z (talk) 00:26, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
I don't know why but my school won't allow me to do a lot of things on my computer but those pictures, i cant view. I cant view anything now but i was able to at one point. Maybe there is something wrong? Porygon-Z (talk) 13:41, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

did I make the right decision?

I reverted edits here, since an anonymous editor made some major changes, including removing references, that caused the article to appear on Category:Pages with missing references list, a maintenance category I try to clean-up from time-to-time. Did I make the right decision? I did leave a note on User talk:2600:1014:B107:6956:8914:C5B0:CDA1:4624. I just wanted to get some feedback; the edits seemed to maybe be in good faith? = paul2520 (talk) 22:19, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

@Paul2520: I'd discuss on the article talk page. It seems that someone replaced a formatted table showing the characters appearances by season, with a section of prose describing them. I don't know why you couldn't have both, since they each took a lot of time to create, and from my season 1 knowledge appear to be correct, but you'll want consensus with people more closely following the article. TimTempleton (talk) (cont) 22:33, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
Thanks, Timtempleton! Will do. = paul2520 (talk) 13:50, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

Adding a new page (re: Sahara Hotnights: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahara_Hotnights).

Hi,

I am thinking of making a page for Sahara Hotnights the eponymous /album/ (6th) of the band of that name. At the moment, the link "Sahara Hotnights - 2011 (#6)" in the page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahara_Hotnights that says it is for the album just connects back to the same page (i.e. the band). There isn't currently a real page for the album - at least, I can't see one (could it be it is 'here', under a different name, and it is just the link that is wrong...?).

I've done a number of minor amendments to various pages across Wikipedia before, some just syntax, others informative to the subject. But I've never created a new page before and it's not jumping out at me, how to. Can anyone give me a few pointers please? I would basically want to copy one of the existing SH album pages and then start amending the data in the new page. When done, I'd update the above album link on the SH band page to point to the new SH album page.

Also - am I right to suppose, in this case, the band page is (and should remain) "Sahara Hotnights"; a new page for the album would be called "Sahara Hotnights (album)"? That kind of 'duplication' isn't handled by some other means (e.g. clever behind the scenes tech stuff)? I just looked at the Authority control / MusicBraiz links for example, which sounds like some form of technical disambiguation... but it's a bit beyond me! I guess I could find other similar examples of bands with albums of same name and copy but if you can confirm either way, would save me that bit of digging.

Oh - just seen comment about mobile view of visual editor. I'd prefer to /not/ get into visual editor at this stage. I'm in IT and typing and testing works well for me. I'm presuming the 'mobile view' is the term for creating/amending pages in the text box and doing formatting etc. 'myself'. That's fine - I prefer to know how the underneath works.

Thanks, Gordon Panther — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gordon Panther (talkcontribs) 2019-10-14T13:43:16 (UTC)

PS Note to self (!!) - the "Studio albums" section at bottom of page is also missing link to this 6th album.

Hello, Gordon, and welcome to the Teahouse. Writing a new article is one of the hardest tasks in Wikipedia, and I always advise new editors to spend a few weeks or months improving existing articles and learning how Wikipedia works first; I see you've been here years, but only made a few edits, so I hope you won't mind me addressing you as a new editor. The general information on how to go about it is at your first article; but the important thing to remember is that Wikipedia is only interested in what independent people have chosen to publish (in reliable places) about the subject. So your first step is finding places where people with no connection to the band have chosen to write at some length about the album (not the band). If you can find those, then you have established that the album is notable, and can write an article based on those sources. (I see you have already been inserting references to articles, so I apologise if I'm telling you what you already know).
Your first article advises you to use the articles for creation system, whereby you create a draft, and submit it for review when it is ready. One of the incidental advantages of that is that if there is doubt about the appropriate title for the article, or a question of disambiguation, the reviewer who accepts the draft will sort out the naming. But yes, I would think the appropriate title was "Sahara Hotnights (album)" - then there should be a hatnote on each article pointing to the other.
"Mobile view" is a view of Wikipedia pages optimised for mobile devices, as opposed to "desktop view". You can edit in either, but I know some people always use "desktop view" on their mobiles for editing. "Visual editor" is quite separate, and is contrasted with "source editor". (I always use the source editor, and I very rarely edit on my mobile, so I may be missing some subtleties here).
One final point: on a talk or discussion page such as this one, please sign your posts. Sometimes a bot will add a signature, but not always: it didn't in this case, and I have added a signature for you above. Happy editing! --ColinFine (talk) 18:47, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks very much Colin. I'll have a think through the above and see about how best to proceed. In this case, I'm thinking that although it's a whole new page, actually, most of it is going to be cut and paste (one of the other albums), then amend data (track names), which is why I thought it might make a good first go. I appreciate what you say though about external commentary and I'll look into that as part of the prep; reviews etc. I have made other Wikipedia amendments btw, outside of this user name (which is my real name), under a prior pseudo name, and, occasionally not signed in - so I've done other bits and bobs that wouldn't show up perhaps - though nothing major (I am more a very regular 'user' than a contributor. Well... I do chuck into the annual donation drives though because I value Wikipedia highly, and I do 'advertising' of a sort, in gently 'educating' folk who have picked up on the 'anyone can edit it' (implying, they erroneously think, it can therefore contain any old nonsense) which I count as 'input' of a sort. But yes, I would consider myself a 'noob'!

Well that all sounds grand and good fun, so I'll have a look through the links etc., do the research, and see how I get on! Thanks,

G.

Noted re: signings, I'll try to remember. Just click these 4 tildes, I think? Yes :) Gordon Panther (talk) 13:54, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

Why are all of the admins so unfriendly?

Why are all of the wikipedia admins so unfriendly? I was wondering because I had a discussion with several about my request for rollback privileges and they were all very grouchy itd. Dino245 (talk) 00:27, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

@Dino245: Well, to be eligible for the rollback tool, you usually need more than 200 mainspace edits and demonstrate a need for the right. --LPS and MLP Fan (Littlest Pet Shop) (My Little Pony) 00:39, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
Dino245, it might help you to remember that everyone involved with the actual production of the product that is English Wikipedia gets paid exactly the same amount as you - nothing. When someone requests a right they are not qualified for, that request is a waste of the time the administrator freely volunteered. I don't know about you, but to me, my free time is my most valued possession and it irritates more than someone wasting my money. This is a collegial cooperative endeavor. It is your responsibility to determine if you qualify for something prior to asking for it. John from Idegon (talk) 00:51, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
John from Idegon your response above epitomizes his/her complaint WP:BITE. It was unneccessarily snarky and rude . Indeed there are patient and thoughtful admins and editors,and exceedingly short tempered and rude ones. The latter is somewhat understandable considering how much "crap" one has to contend with (including mine). However if it is too much for you, you can always resign and find more peaceful endeavors. For speaking out I can expect WP:HOUND, if not from you then others.Oldperson (talk) 01:20, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
John's reply might have been a little terse/snarky/rude, but your response seems just as terse/snarky/rude. You could've simply made the same point without suggesting that he or anyone else "resign from Wikipedia" or speculating on how you now expect to be "hounded" by either John or others for "speaking your mind". WP:HOUND and WP:HARASS are serious accusations to make against other editor(s), even indirectly; so, if that's happening to you, you should seek assistance at WP:ANI because such behavior is not appropriate at all per WP:CONDUCT. At the same time, you need to be careful when throwing around words like "hound", etc. per WP:ASPERSIONS and WP:AOHA and often only serve to further exacerbate an existing situation or create a completely new problem altogether. -- Marchjuly (talk) 05:11, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Dino245, I saw your edit counter, and you have more than 200 mainspace edits. Also, the admin who declined your request, Juliancolton, had his reason for declining per this. I am pinging him so that maybe you both can discuss this. Also, please don't generalize all admins as "unfriendly". Finally, if your request gets declined, you must wait. --LPS and MLP Fan (Littlest Pet Shop) (My Little Pony) 00:52, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I have a limited experience with the admins, but they were quite patient and forgiving (for all but one, there are always exceptions ). However, they can appear as grouchy, as they have to deal with a lot of conflictual situations and not necessarily appropriate/warranted requests all day long, so they appear to reply in a terse fashion and expect users to know the rules (including the implicit ones, such as writing concisely). This can be confusing when the users don't know how to appropriately behave, but I was pleasantly surprised that the admins were accepting to clarify my misunderstandings when I asked them So I would say that you should not take these terse responses too personally, it's more likely due to a lack of time and over-accumulation of tasks than anything about you --Signimu (talk) 00:53, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Hi Dino245. Just want to add to what LPS and MLP Fan posted in that it's the "demonstrate a need for the right" part that might be why your request was denied by Juliancolton. Simply surpassing the required number of mainspace edits is not really a good indicator of the edit quality. Special privileges are only granted to those who have demonstrated to the WP:COMMUNITY that they will use said privileges in accordance with relevant policies and guidelines; so, what you might perceive as an admin being unfriendly, the admin probably sees as their looking out for the best interests of Wikipedia.Personally, sometimes the editors who want to be granted special privileges the most are the editors who probably need to be scrutinized a bit harder because they often seem to want them for the wrong reasons. Many editors have made thousands and thousands of positive edits to Wikipedia without having been granted any special privileges; so, it's not like you or anyone else needs them to be WP:HERE. Having you're request declined doesn't mean you can never ever be granted rollback privileges; it just means that someone feels, at least at this moment, that it might not be the right thing to do for a Wikipedia standpoint. Perhaps the thing for you to do is to continue to work on improving the encyclopedia, establish a better track record of positive contributions and prove these others wrong so that your next request will be approved. It might also help if you didn't "label" all admins as being unfriendly just you feel some admins didn't give you what you wanted (i.e. were unfriendly"). -- Marchjuly (talk) 01:04, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
@Dino245: Some very sensible points have already been made here. In particular, I agree with those who have alluded to the fact that permissions like rollback are pure utilities and do not reflect on the personal attributes of editors to whom they've been granted. When you request the rollback right, you're volunteering to help the project in a slightly different capacity, and for that offer of service, admins are always grateful. However, there are prerequisites which must be met before advanced permissions can be assigned. Objectively speaking, your editing history shows that you need more experience before we're comfortable assigning you these tools. Just yesterday you reverted numerous apparently good-faith edits without explaining why. Here you inappropriately removed talk page comments by another editor. You've violated 3RR here, forcing an article to be edit-protected. On your rollback request, you vastly overstated your mainspace contribution count, though I'm willing to accept that as a misunderstanding rather than an attempt at deception. Here you attempted to review your own GA nomination. This comment was blatantly threatening. And, most worryingly of all, here you confessed (or claimed) that your account has been compromised after it vandalized a high-visibility article. Any of these incidents would be enough of a reason to decline a rollback request, and together they form a long string of problematic editing. Again, none of this is personal, although it's important you understand that there is accountability on Wikipedia. Regards, – Juliancolton | Talk 16:55, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
@Dino245: OK, I might then come back in a couple more years to request my privileges then. (already have over 500 edits and 2 years)

RFC "magic links"

Howdy folks, I'm cleaning up Draft:Larry_Masinter and I'm not sure why all of the RFCs are magically turning into external links. I don't mind it, it's useful...but what's doing this? creffett (talk) 23:20, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

@Creffett: Those RFC magic links are depreciated. See Help:Magic_links for the replacement syntax. RudolfRed (talk) 00:02, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
RudolfRed, huh, I didn't actually think that "magic link" was the correct term for it, how about that. Thanks! creffett (talk) 00:06, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Need your help

Need an help from you end, i have been publish the article on Olive Trails : Division of RBKEI but that was deleted from you end, can you please help me for this... why article is deleted... if you want any confirmation from my end let me know. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Santoshpatnaik1987 (talkcontribs) 07:34, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

@Santoshpatnaik1987: welcome to the Teahouse. Have you read the explanations given on your user talk page? They do in fact tell you why the article you created was deleted. This post in particular gives you a lot of information. Don't forget to follow the blue links in the post for more information. Regards, --bonadea contributions talk 07:42, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Moving a Draft page to an article

Hello. I am trying to move a draft page for a pianist to a live (article) page, however a page with this persons name already exists; it's being used as a redirect, as it's an informal nickname for someone else. Should I be requesting a "technical move" or should I be submitting the article for review under 'Articles for creation'? Abermuffin (talk) 23:30, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

Hello, Abermuffin. Using AFC is always optional, but it does have the advantage that the accepting reviewer will sort out any renaming, redirects, disambiguation etc. If you are confident that the draft will pass muster, you can use RM. Looking at Drft:Bill Laurance, far too many of the references are not independent of Laurance, so I can't easily see if there are enough reliable, independent sources to establish notability. I would certainly recommend using AFC - but have a look at referencing for beginners, and remove a lot of the low-quality references. I also notice that the lead is inappropriate in tone: we don't use contractions like "he's" in articles; and the "Personal views" section is mostly original research - unless you can find an independent source which discusses his views and how they inform his art, none of that belongs in the article. --ColinFine (talk) 23:42, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
Hi ColinFine. Much appreciated answer! I will be reading through this reference article and editing as advised, as best I can. It's certainly not my intent to be publishing a poorly referenced article. Would you be able to provide an example of a reference independent of Laurance? By this, would an example be the record label websites which talk about him as those can be considered promoting the subject of the article? I just want to make sure I fully understand what would be unreliable. Abermuffin (talk) 23:51, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
@Abermuffin: you're probably better off naming the Draft:Bill_Laurance article Draft:Bill_Laurance_(musician), and putting a DAB hatnote on top of the other article. But avoid any sourcing written by anyone associated with him that stands to gain by promoting him. TimTempleton (talk) (cont) 01:12, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
HI, Abermuffin: the Guardian review is a good source for what it covers; but it doesn't say anything much about his life and career. So it will contribute to notability, (but not establish it on its own). --ColinFine (talk) 08:51, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Connecting two pages in different languages

Hi. How do I make a page connect to the same page in another language with «change language»? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Matti-trd (talkcontribs) 08:09, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

I don't know what you mean specifically by "change language»", but the method of linking articles in different languages is by Wikidata, either through "Edit links" under the "Languages" item at the foot of the left hand menu, or through "Wikidata item" under the "Tools" part of the menu. --David Biddulph (talk) 08:33, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
Hi Matti-trd, welcome to the Teahouse. I see you posted from the mobile version of the site. The interface is different there and some things are omitted. Start by clicking "Desktop" at the bottom of the article. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:14, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

How to translate English articles into German

Hi folks. What do I need to translate existing English articles into German? A certain software? .. or hardware? .. knowledge? (I am thinking to use my Samsung S4 Lollipop and hope not to need much more.) Thank You so much for Your help! Stefan — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lodidol (talkcontribs) 06:18, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

The standards for articles in the German Wikipedia are set there, rather than here on the English Wikipedia, but I suspect that a machine translation of the text would not be pf n acceptable standard. You'll find advice at WP:Translate us. --David Biddulph (talk) 08:23, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
Hello @Lodidol:, the German-Wiki advice for translating into German Wikipedia seems to be located at de:Wikipedia:Übersetzungen, or you could ask at the analogous German help forums for further questions. Every Wiki project is autonomous and has their own guidelines and processes. Hope this helps a bit. GermanJoe (talk) 10:46, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

How to cancel my user name change request

So just yesterday I submitted a username change request at Special:GlobalRenameRequest, but today I decided that I want to cancel the request. Can someone please tell me how to cancel it? Thanks, Dino245 ([[User talk:|talk]]) 01:50, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

@Dino245: I've posted this already on your user talk, but you can try emailing to the address given in meta:GRP#Requesting a global rename explaining the you'd like to cancel a previously made request. If you use the "wiki email form" and have your email preferences enabled, you can send an email from your Wikipedia account. There may be another way as well so perhaps a global renamer/Teahouse host like 331dot can clarify if there is.
I also posted on your user talk page about other persons possibly using your account to edit. This is not allowed per WP:SHAREDACCOUNT and if your account starts getting flag for problems, trying to argue "It wasn't me; it was someone else." is not going to help you at all. Simply put, don't let others use your account and make sure they can't use your account. -- Marchjuly (talk) 05:20, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
I'm not aware of a way to cancel a request that is put in; if it is carried out, you could make another request to change it back. 331dot (talk) 10:14, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Hi Dino245 (and others). I'm a global renamer (for real) so I can help you out.

I just had a look at the queue and your request was declined, though for a different reason. You had already gotten renamed a month ago, according to our records. In practice we ask that users wait at least six months between renamings, and usually limit the number of renamings to two. Exceptions can be granted and this is not a hard rule, but we typically ask that users carefully think their rename requests through before submitting them.

If you have any questions, feel free to let me know. —k6ka 🍁 (Talk · Contributions) 12:57, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Numbered notes

I have searched numerous how-to pages all of which explain reflist and the ref markup, but coming across this "Examples shown respectively are: [1][a][Note 1]" dealt with the first two but did not lead to being able to produce "note1" &c instead of a numbered reference. How please? Catchsinger (talk) 12:34, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Did you look at the examples in Help:Footnotes#Footnotes: groups? --David Biddulph (talk) 13:05, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

In fact, I had noticed it in passing through one of the longer how-to pages when looking for something else, but did not find it when specifically searching. Just the job - many thanks. Meanwhile, this is related: I have referenced two original manuscript sources but I now wonder if they should be notes instead - or does it not matter?

Thanks again Catchsinger (talk) 14:11, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Infoboxes

I'm pretty confused on the whole infobox thing, I read the article on infoboxes thinking it would help (it did not). I just need a brief summary on how to really make infoboxes for editing. Neararena (talk) 14:26, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Neararena, Hola y bienvenidos a la casa de té. Did you read this? Was it helpful? Interstellarity (talk) 15:07, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Question

So I (Creator of this account), already have a wikipedia account with a few edits and created articles. I have a few friends that love to edit and we wanted to have a account together, (As well as our individual accounts), so we could work on articles together to get them perfect. I do not know if that is allowed by wikipedia, but we all do have our individual wikipedia accounts, but we don't get notifications from each other's sandboxes. The single account would allow us to get email notifications so we know who/what someone in the group added. If a Wikipedia Admin reads this, please contact me. I have not made any edits with this account, so I could delete it if this idea is not allowed. -Thanks for reading and helpful advice. — Preceding unsigned comment added by EditingWork (talkcontribs) 15:21, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

EditingWork Hello and welcome to the Teahouse. I'm sorry but group accounts or sharing an account are not permitted. Each user must have their own account. 331dot (talk) 15:26, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
Accounts cannot be deleted, but can be abandoned. 331dot (talk) 15:27, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
Also, for what it's worth, I honestly don't think you need the shared account for what you are trying to achieve. Why not just add each other's sandboxes to your watchlists? Hugsyrup 15:35, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Has my article been submitted?

Hey, I wrote an article on the painter Jean Jones, but I'm not sure if it has been submitted for review or not? If not, what do I need to do to make this happen? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Harrylangham (talkcontribs) 16:20, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Hi Harrylangham - as it clearly states at the top of Draft:Jean Jones "Draft article not currently submitted for review." - as for how to - there is a button "Submit your draft for review!" which needs to be clicked - best wishes - Arjayay (talk) 16:25, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
And you asked the same question 4 weeks ago at the AFC help desk and received the same answer. --David Biddulph (talk) 16:30, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

27 Club statement!: The omitted 27 club member already has a WIKI page

Hi, the unmentioned 27 Club member I have found already has a page on Wiki! For some reason they have been omitted from the club and I would like to have them added as an historical fact, being that they have have a VERY significant impact on history and should be know for such!!!

Berzorker — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:6C55:4600:22B8:0:27B3:89A8:A39D (talk) 16:36, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

You should state who it is that you're actually talking about, and what sources note that they are notionally in the "27 Club". Also, this project is called Wikipedia, not "Wiki". Seraphimblade Talk to me 16:42, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Creating an artist page

Hi there. I'm working on an artist page which has been declined twice for the following reason: This submission's references do not show that the subject Notability|qualifies for a Wikipedia article. Actualy I have a lot of references and there are a lot of pages on wikipedia like this one, that have less references, and are published. Can I get some help, please.? Thanks

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Southernman_Robbie — Preceding unsigned comment added by AncaVes (talkcontribs) 07:45, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Hello, @AncaVes:, welcome to the Teahouse. First off, can I remind you to sign your posts on Talk, Reference and Help desks like this one with four tildes, i.e. ~~~~, so that we can all keep track of the conversation.
Addressing your query, what matters for Notability (please read that linked guideline) is not the number of citations to references, but the quality of those references. To establish the notability of a subject, we need at least two (though more is good) published references from Reliable sources (please go and read) that deal with the subject at some length – several paragraphs if not an entire piece – and which are independent of the subject; i.e. not published by the subject, or any one connected to the subject (including venues where he appears), or based on interviews with or publicity releases from the subject or their representatives.
Other references that are more brief, or which are connected to the subject in the ways described above, might be used to support specific facts about the subject (and everything in the article must be supported by citations to references), but they cannot support notability.
As for other articles, we do not accept "Other stuff exists" as justification, since in Wikipedia's earlier days standards were less stringent and some inadequately sourced articles have not yet been reviewed and either brought up to standard, or deleted if that isn't possible. The articles you mention may have sufficient references supporting their subjects' notability, with the additional references supporting specific facts, or they may not demonstrate notability, and may be deleted when someone gets round to it.
I hope that helps. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.200.41.118 (talk) 08:43, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
The advice on this is at WP:Other stuff exists. There are indeed a number of articles which do not meet current standards, and if you find them the methods of proposing their deletion are at WP:Deletion. --David Biddulph (talk) 08:26, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
Hi there @David Biddulph: thanks for the answer. Well, I do have some reliable references from articles in my references (see ref. 1, 2, 4, 27) AncaVes (talk) 09:43, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
Delete all the refs not considered reliable sources, and the content supported by those refs unless replacement reliable sources can be found. David notMD (talk) 17:01, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Moving Draft to Main Article.

Please advise how can I move my draft to Sandbox? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Shivajamale (talkcontribs) 19:57, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Shivajamale Hello and welcome to the Teahouse. You can submit it for a review using Articles for Creation, then if approved the reviewer will move it. 331dot (talk) 20:01, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
Hello, Shivajamale. If you are referring to Draft:Umali it is not nearly ready to be submitted for review, and if you did submit it without further improvement, I believe it would be declined. It has only one cited source, whoich is a bare URL, and that one is not working, at least for me. It currently consits of only two sentences. One of thsoie declares the local high school to be 'famous" with no supporting evidence, not even the name of the school. I am afraid this needs considerable work yet. If you want to move this to a sandbox or other user page the move function can be used to do this. DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 20:07, 18 October 2019(UTC)
DESpiegel For my education could you explain how to move an article backwards from Draft to Sandbox. I looked at the article, then the Move function and there was no option Move to Sandbox. Perhaps rename the Draft in the url space? Would that work?Oldperson (talk) 21:42, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
It looks like Shivali was asking for help the other way around, not to move into mainspace but backwards to Sandbox from draft.Oldperson (talk)
Oldperson That is why I tried to answer it both ways, as it was not clear to me what exactly Shivajamale wants to do. To move to a sand box or to a user page, the move function is the thing to use. This requires an "autoconfirmed" account, one that has at least 10 edits and is at least 4 days old. DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 21:38, 18 October 2019 (UTC) @Oldperson: DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 21:39, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
Oldperson One could move, say Draft:TestPage to User:Example/Sandbox or to User:Example/Drafts/TestPage (assuming that UserExample had created a draft "TestPage"). To do this one would use the move function. Although it is called "move" what it really does is to rename a page. It can change the namesapce, say from draft to user. All page renames are done using Move. Any autoconfirmed user can move a page, unless the page has been move-protected by an admin, which is rare. I wouldn't call this "backwards" exactly. Both a Draft and a user sandbox are places to work on a text not yet ready to be an article. It is possible to go right from a sandbox to the main article space when (if) a page is ready. One difference is that putting a text in draft invites others to work on it, while that is less clear for a sandbox or a userspace page. If a page is submitted to Articles for Creation the first reviewer will usually move it to Draft: if it is not already there. Also, drafts left untouched for 6 months can be speedy deleted under G13 which does not apply to user pages not marked as drafts. Has this clarified things a bit? DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 22:18, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
Oldperson, There isn't a special "move to sandbox" function, just the general move function, which can be used for any destination. David Biddulph is correct that User:Shivajamale/sandbox already exists, so a draft could not be moved to that page except by an admin, unless the current sandbox page was first deleted by an admin. But since that is there now is jsut a redirect from the move of a previous draft on a different topic to article space, such a deletion would be pretty much automatic if Shivajamale tagged the page with {{db-user}} or {{Db-move}}. The latter is the usual way to deal with a page that is holding up a move and is not itself of value to the project. Alternativly a new page such as User:Shivajamale/sandbox2 could be used. DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 22:39, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
A further case where a move is not possible by a non-admin user is when the destination title already exists (except in the conditions where move over redirect is permitted). It would therefore not be possible for the OP to move Draft:Umali to User:Shivajamale/sandbox, though he could move it to a user subpage such as User:Shivajamale/Umali, for example. --David Biddulph (talk) 22:30, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

The section heading: Moving draft to mainspace, is different than the actual question, therfore confusing.Oldperson (talk) 20:37, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

What happens when I make my 1000th edit?

I was wondering what happens when your edit counter on Wikipedia goes past 1000, because I make about 100 edits a week and I am nearing 750 edits. Is having over 1000 edits considered special? How many edits Wikipedia users usally have before they become admins? Thank you! Dino245 (talk) 22:10, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Dino245 I don't believe anything "happens" per se, as in new editing rights(unlike at 10 or 500 edits). Edit counts don't have as much meaning as people think they do, as many edits are routine or automated. Instead of being concerned with edit counts, just worry about the quality of your contributions(I am not suggesting your contributions are anything but quality, I haven't looked at them) and their usefulness to this project that we are all working on. There is no set edit count to become an administrator, but it is usually expected that a candidate have several thousand. Users that participate in RfA discussions are more concerned with the user's knowledge of Wikipedia policies, their judgement, temperament, and what their being an admin could bring to the project than their edit count(though edit count can be an indicator of those things). If you are interested in having administrator powers, I wouldn't worry about that as a goal and just work to be a good user; eventually others will see your potential as an admin and nominate you. Keep in mind that you can do 95% of things here without being an administrator. 331dot (talk) 22:22, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Hello, Dino245, and welcome to the Teahouse. Nothing very special happens at any number of edits. There is a set of "service awards" that people can choose to put on their own user pages, and the one for 1000 edits is "Apprentice Editor". You could put that on your user page if you choose to. I have a "service award" on my user page for a somewhat higher number. But please don't focus too much on your edit count. Beware of Wikipedia:Editcountitis. Welcome and happy editing. DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 22:27, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
You should get a notification with MediaWiki:Notification-header-thank-you-1000-edit. See more at mw:Help:Notifications/Notifications types#Milestone. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:51, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

/* neuroscientist */

Human perception of sound- Would anyone be interested in writing an article on William Softky, neuroscientist, reference article published in "Fair Observer" claiming Neil Young is right? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.209.140.181 (talk) 15:46, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Hi there, welcome to the Teahouse. This is a place to ask questions about how to edit Wikipedia, rather than request new articles, but there is a place for exactly that: Wikipedia:Requested articles. I hope this helps. › Mortee talk 23:53, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
Hello IP Editor. While it is true that Wikipedia:Requested articles exists, it has not lkead to any significant number of new articles in years. I advise against using it, as it is a waste of your time. You might do better to post on the discussion page of a relevant Wikiproject, such as Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/Neurology task force. DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 00:03, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

Disappearance of comment by my editor

Friends,

Editor DGG offered to review an article I submitted. Today, I received an automated email indicating that he had left a message about the article, which he had moved to draft status.

The first time I clicked the link to view his comment on the draft, the comment was visible. When I later returned to provide an answer to his query, the comment was gone, though earlier ones from other editors remain visible.

The relevant draft is at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Mayer_B._Davidson.

DGG or others, can you restore the message, please?

Many thanks for your continued help. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 1MedTech1 (talkcontribs) 23:36, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

1MedTech1, from checking the page history, it looks like DGG removed their own comment. Specifically, they did this because they were going to tell you to declare any conflicts of interest that you may have with the subject, only to then realize that you had already made the relevant declaration. signed, Rosguill talk 23:39, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for that information, Rosguill.

I had welcomed the opportunity to clarify my relationship because while I have done work for the subject's company, my work on a Wikipedia article about Dr. Davidson was a labor of love. I am deeply impressed by Dr. Davidson and want to see his 50 years of significant contributions to the diabetes field recognized during his lifetime.

If mention of his company is an issue, I suggest simply removing it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 1MedTech1 (talkcontribs) 00:07, 19 October 2019 (UTC)