This is an archive of past discussions on Wikipedia:Help desk. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current main page.
Having Trouble Connecting to Wikipedia from Tablet
Latest comment: 4 months ago5 comments4 people in discussion
Im using a tablet from T Mobile but couldn't get into Simple English or the Regular English Wikipedia even while I'm using a strong password nobody else knows and I'm always with every day. Making matters worse, the systems wouldn't allow me to even change my password into a stronger code. Can somebody please help me with these situation problems here? Angela Kate MaureenPears20:54, 6 February 2026 (UTC)
The login system kept telling me the username and password were incorrect when they were not. Furthermore, the login system also wouldn't let me change my password to a stronger one. For some unknown reason I cannot log into my own actual account even though my password was correct. Angela Kate MaureenPears21:09, 6 February 2026 (UTC)
So you can't log in, Tropical Storm Angela. That is indeed a problem. I hope somebody has a suggestion. (It's not something simple, like accidentally having CapsLock on when it should be off?) But the systems wouldn't allow me to even change my password into a stronger code.... Furthermore, the login system also wouldn't let me change my password to a stronger one. That's reassuring. Or rather: of course. The ability to change somebody's password when they're not logged in could have disastrous consequences. -- Hoary (talk) 22:16, 6 February 2026 (UTC)
@Tropical Storm Angela You are clearly logged in at present since your posts here are correctly identified with your account. So is the real problem that your tablet device doesn't let you log in while the device you are using currently does? If so, the issue is with the tablet, not Wikipedia. If you really want to change your password, you should be able to do so now in this session and then go back to the tablet to ensure it stores the correct credentials. Mike Turnbull (talk) 22:37, 6 February 2026 (UTC)
Issa Boulos
Latest comment: 4 months ago3 comments3 people in discussion
Latest comment: 4 months ago24 comments12 people in discussion
I keep getting pop-ups about watchlist labels, but these have no explanation as to what they are meant to be used for, or links to where further information is available. They are not mentioned in Help:Watchlist, so where is there any information about them? - Arjayay (talk) 12:07, 2 February 2026 (UTC)
Hi, yep, I'm happy to help if you have questions with this. It's a Community Tech project but I've been working with them on it. Claudine has linked the relevant help page, which we've been keeping up to date, so feel free to copy over text to the local help page. If you have any questions, bugs, or feature requests feel free to let me know here and I can get those documented and passed on to the team! Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 12:45, 2 February 2026 (UTC)
Samwalton9 (WMF) As I posted above in an edit-conflict, that page states "This page is currently a draft." It also doesn't explain what the idea behind it was nor what it can be used for - please provide some examples. Thank you. - Arjayay (talk) 12:56, 2 February 2026 (UTC)
@Arjayay Good point! We hadn't got to finalising the page yet. I've just updated it, added images, and removed that Draft template. Is it clearer now? Is there anything there that you think could still be improved? Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 13:53, 2 February 2026 (UTC)
Thanks Samwalton9 (WMF) that is a lot clearer - but is it now linked from the pop-up? (I can't tell, as i dismissed them) - it is still not linked from Help:Watchlist, nor upon clicking the "Labels" link on my watchlist page - so how is a user supposed to find out about it? - Arjayay (talk) 14:05, 2 February 2026 (UTC)
@Arjayay When you're on Special:WatchlistLabels there is a Help link in the top right which points to this help page. As a local help page, I'll leave Help:Watchlist to be updated by local editors to include information about this feature or point to the MediaWiki help page. We might want to update the Help icon at Special:Watchlist to point to a more generic help page than the one that it currently links to, so I've filed T416179. We should also update mw:Help:Watching pages to point to our new help page too, we'll do that soon. Thanks for chatting this through - making sure new features are well documented can be hard! Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 15:02, 2 February 2026 (UTC)
Making sure new features are well documented is an item to put on every development project's predeployment checklist. Why would a developer push something live with a documentation page that literally states that it is in draft form? Please adjust the WMF's basic development deployment checklists; that, at least, should not be hard. – Jonesey95 (talk) 23:35, 2 February 2026 (UTC)
@Samwalton9 (WMF) How would someone know to "be" at Special:watchlist labels when they see the pop-up? The doc should be linked from the pop-up, and that should have certainly been step 1 of the implementation and tezting. If what I read here is true, it's incredible that this step was missed! David10244 (talk) 04:40, 7 February 2026 (UTC)
@Samwalton9 (WMF) I suspect that whatever bugs it might have, they're probably less important than this: whoever was dragging their feet complaining that this shouldn't be released yet, they must immediately (and permanently) be given the power to overrule the ones who decided to push ahead anyway. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 06:53, 3 February 2026 (UTC)
(edit conflict)Yes Gråbergs Gråa Sång it did have a "next" and then a second screen - neither of which linked to, or explained, anything - and the only way to stop it popping up every time I went to my watchlist, was to click the "Got it" button - even though the only thing I had "got" was annoyed at the unhelpful pop-ups. - Arjayay (talk) 12:49, 2 February 2026 (UTC)
The large box covers up or obscures Watchlist notices. Failed experiment or WMF make-work project? Better gone than present. Randy Kryn (talk) 16:43, 2 February 2026 (UTC)
Click the button like it says. Two clicks and it goes away. The idea is that you could (for example) make a label called "socks" and add it to pages on your watchlist that you want to occasionally check to see if a particular sock has returned. Then you can choose to view only the pages with that label. Johnuniq (talk) 00:13, 3 February 2026 (UTC)
Did that before I posted here. Please think of the tens of thousands of users who won't know to keep on clicking, and who will have to clear this needless box every time they look at their watchlist. Randy Kryn (talk) 00:42, 3 February 2026 (UTC)
"Click the button like it says. Two clicks and it goes away. The idea is that you could (for example) make a label called "socks" and add it to pages on your watchlist that you want to occasionally check to see if a particular sock has returned. Then you can choose to view only the pages with that label."
So you've added a feature without documentation, that I am never likely to use, and which obscures my Watchlist every time I try to look at it, and which I have to click twice to make it go away, because you know better than me what I "may" want to use? Have I summarised it correctly? Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 02:01, 3 February 2026 (UTC)
Latest comment: 4 months ago7 comments3 people in discussion
Hi
Years ago I created Category 2 and published it under GFL. It's a valuable example in the subject of Category theory. My page will be lost when the Web site is gone. So I think of contributing as an article here. Any consideration or objection before I start?
Thanks, ... PeterEasthope (talk) 17:13, 5 February 2026 (UTC)
Not original work; only documentation. For a mathematician, a simple example. The cited page notes "... suggested by Fred Linton in the first message to the Categories List on the day of 2008-02-15." Category 2 is just a simpler example parallel to category Set under the heading Category_theory#Examples. The heading is Examples but currently there's only one. Category Set is a more difficult example for a novice. If you object to 2, can you suggest another example simpler than Set? PeterEasthope (talk) 04:37, 7 February 2026 (UTC)
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.
Hey there! Can I change my username to have a space between DUOS and Global? I'm trying to create a page for my company, but it's not allowing me to publish a page without the corresponding name.
@DUOSGLOBAL: There is an even more fundamental question: is this company notable by our definition? See WP:NCORP there are perhaps 100 million companies in the world. Less than 100,000 of them are likely to meet our criteria for inclusion. Notability is the only absolute criterion for inclusion, and if the company is not notable, it does not matter which other rules, guidelines, or practices you follow: the company cannot have an article and if an article somehow sneaks in, it will be deleted. -Arch dude (talk) 23:51, 3 February 2026 (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.
To what extent does AGF apply to paid editors?
Latest comment: 4 months ago16 comments7 people in discussion
Hello! Ive recently been working on the backlog of COI edit requests where I frequently encounter paid editors. I was wondering what yall's thoughts were concerning paid editors and assuming good faith. Do you think the "barrier" to assuming bad faith is lower? Thanks! - Otherwise (Talk?) 17:33, 3 February 2026 (UTC)
Where is an example that made you ask this question?
A disclosed paid editor from the Expedia Group requested removal of a section of an article regarding a scandal saying it was not related to the Expedia Group, only a particular subgroup of it. They claimed they reviewed the sources of the relevant section and that "Expedia Group is only mentioned in passing in two sources as a part owner of Trivago". When I examined the same sources, it clearly stated that the Expedia Group as a whole was involved.
I'd recommend working on some of the more recent COI edit requests, if you're starting to feel a bit frustrated due to the creativity of the older requests. If ERs are just sitting there, there's a decent chance its bc the request is in some way deficient. One or more of long, biased, or poorly formatted. MetalBreaksAndBends (talk) (contribs) 17:06, 6 February 2026 (UTC)
I agree with TMF, @Mustbeotherwise. Paid editors who are new to Wikipedia (which many of them are) generally simply don't understand our policies on promotion, advertising, NPOV etc, and are here in good faith, trying to do something that they don't know might be impossible or forbidden. ColinFine (talk) 19:08, 3 February 2026 (UTC)
I've assumed good faith for all paid editors unless I have a reason not to. I feel like I should've worded my question a different way. I guess my question is, is it reasonable to have a lower threshold to assume bad faith for paid editors compared to non-paid editors? - Otherwise (Talk?) 19:54, 3 February 2026 (UTC)
The "official" answer is that it's the same as for anybody else: assume good faith until proven otherwise, and remember that people can do a lot of unproductive things in good faith.
My personal stance on the matter is that we have to remember what we ought to mean by 'good faith.' The usual way people seem to mean it is that anybody acting without disruptive or vandalistic intent is acting in 'good faith'. For me, though, 'good faith' means a good faith attempt to contribute to the encyclopedia: which means doing the necessary due diligence to familiarise oneself with our rules and standards to at least some extent before jumping headlong into editing, article creation, etc.
In my experience, paid editors most often are here with a singleminded intent to get their edits/draft published, and have absolutely no intent or desire to contribute to the encyclopedia outside of that. If it were up to most of them, they would happily create the most appalling, shoddily sourced, non-NPOV article you've ever seen and call it a day, because their goal is to publicise their company/employer/self, not to build an encyclopedia. They only care about meeting Wikipedia's standards because it is a barrier between them and getting their edits published. That, for me, is antithetical to 'good faith.'
If someone showed up to volunteer at a soup kitchen so they could record themselves doing it for internet clout, and as a result their food hygiene practices were subpar, they weren't interacting properly with the people coming in to get fed, etc, would anyone suggest they are acting 'in good faith?' In the Wikipedia sense of the word, they arguably would be, considering they aren't actively trying to sabotage the operation. But would anyone really think they're genuinely there to contribute to the operation? Of course not. Athanelar (talk) 19:16, 3 February 2026 (UTC)
Thank you for your thoughtful response. Well, I guess a better question would be, when is good faith proven otherwise? If an paid editor makes a false statement to support their change, do I still assume good faith? - Otherwise (Talk?) 19:48, 3 February 2026 (UTC)
When is good faith proven otherwise? I recall an incident where the subject of a biography tried to change it to be more favorable to him, was asked repeatedly to stop and use the talk page to propose requests, ended up being blocked for disruption, created a sockpuppet account to evade the block, and even hired someone to edit in his behalf rather than trying to appeal the block. Eventually he decided he'd suffered enough and came clean, admitting everything, but as far as I know the account is still blocked and the article is still in the state it was in before he came along. That's an example where an assumption of good faith became strained, and then impossible, within a short time. ~Anachronist (who / me) (talk) 07:25, 7 February 2026 (UTC)
Spammers, vandals, scammers, paid editors who refuse to disclose, editors who mostly engage in personal attacks or vendettas, are all exempt as far as I am concerned. ~Anachronist (who / me) (talk) 07:28, 7 February 2026 (UTC)
Consistent display of timestamps
Latest comment: 4 months ago7 comments4 people in discussion
I have a time zone preference set, but there are timestamps displayed that the preference doesn't affect. I don't like Wikipedia showing some converted and some non-converted times - I'd prefer them all to act the same. Consistency and reliability over convenience.
But convenience is nice too. I've seen at least one Wikipedia user script that says it will change Wikipedia's UTC to local time in places where that normally isn't done, but I'm not convinced it would be free of unintended consequences. I'd rather just switch off my time zone preference, see all of Wikipedia in UTC, and be certain Wikipedia is working right - unless there's some kind of indication like "Oh, tons of people use that script, it works great for me, never had a problem".
I'm not even sure I could identify all the possible pitfalls of messing with time display, let alone knowing how to check whether such a script deals with them correctly, and I figure there must be a good reason why Wikipedia doesn't show everything in everyone's local time by default.
Note: I have intentionally not linked to the script, because if I get much "Really? Never heard of that - where did you see it?" then I already know it's not for me. I don't want this to become an in-depth discussion of the particulars of running a time-display script and how to know where and whether it's behaving correctly; I just want to know if it's already in wide problem-free use. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 22:18, 2 February 2026 (UTC)
The time zone setting at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rendering is part of MediaWiki and only affects times shown in MediaWiki logs like page histories, wathclist, user contributions. Signatures have the time stamp hard coded as page text like 22:18, 2 February 2026 (UTC). The English Wikipedia has the user-made gadget (a script) "Change UTC-based times and dates, such as those used in signatures, to be relative to local time (documentation)" at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets. It's disabled by default but you can try it without editing your common JavaScript. I tried it once but disabled it for several reasons. It uses am/pm (could be changed with a user js setting), it changes the displayed time after the page has already loaded, it makes it harder to refer to a post by its time (always use the original UTC for that), and also harder (at least for me when I was inexperienced with it) to work out what else the user was doing at the time. Special:GadgetUsage says 22,848 users (1,025 active users) have enabled it. It works correctly as far as I know but not everybody will like it. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:42, 2 February 2026 (UTC)
Every few years I switch it to my local time zone, and then within a day I realize why I keep it at UTC. It's just too confusing with contribution history showing one time, and comment signatures showing something else. I know what my local time is, and I have the gadget enabled that shows the UTC clock in the upper right corner of any Wikipedia page, so I can judge how long ago a timestamp occurred. Good enough for me. ~Anachronist (who / me) (talk) 07:31, 7 February 2026 (UTC)
Delete a redirect page to move an article
Latest comment: 4 months ago4 comments3 people in discussion
I want to delete the redirect page Canon PowerShot SX280 HS. Can someone check if I did it the right way?
That isn't a redirect page, and would not be deleted. You are likely thinking of a different page that is actually a redirect to that one. ~Anachronist (who / me) (talk) 01:53, 7 February 2026 (UTC)
3 minutes before your comment, a user deleted the redirect page and also moved the page to its name. So yeah for you it looks like a normal page. Skranon (talk) 10:12, 7 February 2026 (UTC)
Grokipedia
Latest comment: 4 months ago4 comments4 people in discussion
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.
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.
Profile picture
Latest comment: 4 months ago3 comments3 people in discussion
@Mospeada11 Computer avatars have an article, with images. Any picture is inserted according to the instructions at Help:Pictures; the files are normally stored on our sister project, Wikimedia Commons. If you wish, you can put a picture of an avatar on your own user page. However, we don't use them as part of our signatures. Mike Turnbull (talk) 12:32, 7 February 2026 (UTC)
Viewing my Lists?
Latest comment: 4 months ago3 comments3 people in discussion
Hi ~2026-83879-4. You might want to ask about this at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football. This kind of thing has probably come up before regarding other articles about soccer/football players, and that particular WikiProject might have worked out an approach to applying WP:PRIMARYTOPIC specifically to such articles. -- Marchjuly (talk) 12:20, 7 February 2026 (UTC)
When there are only two subjects involved, it is more usual to place a hatnote at the top of each article linking to the other. Were there four or more, a disambiguation page would certainly be appropriate. If there were three, opinions might differ on whether hatnotes (each with two links) or a disambiguation page would be preferable. Hope this helps, and further opinions welcome. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2026-76101-8 (talk) 19:07, 7 February 2026 (UTC)
Latest comment: 4 months ago5 comments4 people in discussion
Hi. I am the General Manager of the Jarrett House. We are coming close to completing our renovation and I was recently made aware of our presence here on Wikipedia. While we are extremely excited to see this, it is somewhat disturbing to see the statement listed in the article about the tragic death of one of our beloved workers and local resident. I would ask that this statement be removed as it not only is disturbing to the staff, but mainly to be respectful to the surviving family members. The statement is not really anything that should be listed on Wikipedia, as other historic hotels do not have such information posted on their descriptions. Thank you for your attention to this. Your cooperation would be most appreciated by many people here. ~2026-84651-3 (talk) 05:39, 7 February 2026 (UTC)
I'll let somebody else handle this, other than to say that although the cited source for this briefly mentioned incident in the article The Jarrett House has succumbed to link rot, it survives here. -- Hoary (talk) 07:44, 7 February 2026 (UTC)
History doesn't disappear because time has passed. This was an event in the history of The Jarrett House that mattered enough to be reported.
Note that Wikipedia is not censored for anyone's benefit. This is a policy: WP:NOTCENSORED. If the information you find disturbing is cited to a reliable source, then it's public information, and it's fair game to include in the article. Whether it should be included is not for you to decide, it's for the community to decide, and you have made no proposal on the talk page about it.
You or someone else blanked that statement, and I have restored it. Because you have a conflict of interest, you shouldn't be making any substantive changes to the article directly. Use the WP:Edit Request Wizard to propose changes on the talk page, and a neutral editor will review your request. ~Anachronist (who / me) (talk) 07:44, 7 February 2026 (UTC)
This matter has been resolved after talk page discussion by several uninvolved editors. To the manager of the Jarrett House: I assume that there will news coverage when the renovations are complete and this historic hotel re-opens. Please return to the Help desk at that time, and editors will assist you in updating the article. The hotel is definitely notable and worthy of up-to-date coverage on Wikipedia. Cullen328 (talk) 21:43, 7 February 2026 (UTC)
Close Account
Latest comment: 4 months ago5 comments5 people in discussion
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.
(ec) Deleting an account is not possible for legal reasons, as all edits must be attributable. But you can request a vanishing, see WP:VANISH- however, you have no edits other than here. Just stop using and abandon your account. 331dot (talk) 16:13, 6 February 2026 (UTC)
If you want to delete your account because you want a new username, you can have your existing account renamed. See WP:CHU for more information. ~Anachronist (who / me) (talk) 01:57, 7 February 2026 (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.
Help on getting our page approved
Latest comment: 4 months ago7 comments5 people in discussion
Both drafts speedy-deleted in accordance with WP:CSD#G15.
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.
Hey Guys,
I am really seeking some help here. I organized to have a page done for one of our icons in Trinidad. He really would like and in my view deserves to have one done while he is still around for to see it as he is really getting down in age. Can someone take a look at it and tell me what I may need to do to have it approved?
I fixed your link, the whole url is not needed. The draft seems to also be at Draft:Anthony T. Bryan. You may resubmit that for a review to get feedback.
I strongly suspect that an LLM was used to at minimum source this draft. There is no way, assuming a human was involved in the process, that there should be four 404s and a 400 in a reference list nine strong. —Jéské Courianov^_^vthreadscritiques16:40, 7 February 2026 (UTC)
Trying to create "a page for somebody" to make them happy is a really really bad idea. Please see WP:PROUD for some of the reasons why it is not recommended.
Also, Wikipedia has no deadline, and trying to urge editors into helping you meet your deadline is more likely to annoy them than to get a positive result.
My earnest advice to new editors is to not even think about trying to create an article until you have spent several weeks - at least - learning about how Wikipedia works by making improvements to existing articles. Once you have understood core policies such as verifiability, neutral point of view, reliable, independent sources, and notability, and experienced how we handle disagreements with other editors (the Bold, Revert, Discuss cycle), then you might be ready to read your first article carefully, and try creating a draft. If you don't follow this advice but try to create an article without this preparation, you are likely to have a frustrating and disappointing experience with Wikipedia. ColinFine (talk) 17:18, 7 February 2026 (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 on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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.
want to add a reference page to oppose the page below
Latest comment: 4 months ago3 comments3 people in discussion
The article The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History is not a ranking of the hundred, or the ten, most influential people in history, JohnRathnam2026. It's merely an article about a (perhaps rather silly) book titled The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History. So you are, I am, anyone is free to disagree with what's written in the book; but our opinions are rightly ignored (unless perhaps we happen to be published by reliable sources). -- Hoary (talk) 23:09, 7 February 2026 (UTC)
Determining the actual displayed page size
Latest comment: 4 months ago6 comments3 people in discussion
Jax 0677 it means that the "Post-expand include size" or displayed size of the page is 760,014 bytes, out of a possible maximum size of 2,097,152 bytes. TSventon (talk) 22:22, 7 February 2026 (UTC)
@Jax 0677 and TSventon: That's not the meaning of post-expand include size (PEIS). It means how much content in total was transcluded from other pages during evaluation of the page, including content passed between templates without being part of the final page. The source text of the page doesn't contribute to PEIS so a huge page without transclusions would have PEIS 0. If you want the size of the final wikitext after everything is evaluated then you could use Special:ExpandTemplates and find the size of the "Result" field, e.g. by saving it to a text file and let your operating system say how large the file is. For Gun laws in the United States by state I get 332 kB. PEIS is much larger at 733 kB because a lot of content is passed around two or more times during evaluation. Some downloaded content like images doesn't contribute to either of the sizes. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:58, 7 February 2026 (UTC)
Help with deleting a page submission
Latest comment: 4 months ago11 comments7 people in discussion
Hi: We had an intern help us try to submit a page on behalf of our non-profit last semester. She did it under her personal account which I don't know and has stopped responding so we can't get her help in deleting the submission. Can you help. The submission was for School the World, an education NGO based in Boston.
Thanks for the clarification, Mike. We understand the conflict of interest issue now and won’t be taking that draft forward.
Just to confirm procedurally: does the existing draft need to be deleted or otherwise closed before any unrelated editor could create a new draft in the future, or can it simply remain until it expires? Appreciate the guidance. Lara.hoyem (talk) 23:00, 6 February 2026 (UTC)
It can remain until it expires. After it expires, it can be resurrected for further improvement by making a request at WP:REFUND. Or it can be created anew. If you want to delete it to start afresh, let me or another administrator know the situation and we can easily delete it. ~Anachronist (who / me) (talk) 01:56, 7 February 2026 (UTC)
I would like to delete the article. She is not eligible to submit due to her conflict of interest so she will not be resubmitting it at all. Thank you for your help. Lara.hoyem (talk) 15:49, 7 February 2026 (UTC)
Done, it's deleted.
A point of clarification: The only venue available for editors with a conflict of interest to write articles is in draft space, submitting an article for review. Therefore, she is eligible to submit it. We expect COI editors to submit drafts via the WP:AFC process instead of editing in mainspace.
For the record, everyone's edits must be under their own account. It is not permitted to share accounts or have a "role" account that is passed on to whoever has a certain position over time. DMacks (talk) 04:24, 7 February 2026 (UTC)
Is this source significant coverage
Latest comment: 4 months ago3 comments3 people in discussion
I have a quick question regarding sigcov- could anyone look at this link and tell me if it meets WP:SIGCOV? I'm editing HDF Explorer right now, so I'm figuring out if this would count as external coverage -- I'm leaning toward no
Latest comment: 4 months ago3 comments3 people in discussion
This is probably very simple to anyone else. But I have made many reading lists of topics. I can’t figure out to view them, how to see all the Reading Lists I’ve made. Thanks for any help. ZZBUFF (talk) 00:18, 8 February 2026 (UTC)
ZZBUFF, while logged in to en:Wikipedia as ZZBUFF you haven't made any list. You also don't seem to have made such edits to other-language Wikipedias or to other Wikimedia websites while logged in as ZZBUFF. -- Hoary (talk) 07:15, 8 February 2026 (UTC)
Reading lists are a feature of the Wikipedia mobile app: they are not supported on the desktop or website version. If you are asking about a way to view your lists within the app, I don't know: WP:VPT may be a better place to ask.
Latest comment: 4 months ago6 comments6 people in discussion
Why was our page deleted? We were told to fix the references,so we were working on those. Some brand new ediotor deleted the page. We submitted a couple of days ago and were still workng on the draft and a brand new editor (this is what it says on his page). How can we get this fixed.
The editor was This page does not exist. The deletion, protection, and move log for the page are provided below for reference.
MPGuy2824 isn't a 'brand new editor'. He is a 'new page reviewer'(someone who reviews new pages) and an admin (hence being able to delete articles/drafts). As for why the draft was deleted, you have already been told - 'obvious LLM'. If you are unhappy with this, I suggest you discuss it with MPGuy2824. AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:34, 7 February 2026 (UTC)
Latest comment: 4 months ago9 comments4 people in discussion
Is there a definition somewhere of what counts as a "revert"? So far I've found detailed lists of n "exceptions" without much detail about what DOES count as a revert.
How closely does it need to resemble the previous version?
Does just removing something count as a "revert" to before it was added?
Any method that successfully gets rid of (more or less all of) someone's previous edit, counts as a revert. But "editing their edit", so it's still there but you changed it some, is not a revert. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 18:40, 4 February 2026 (UTC)
And yes, just removing something that got added is definitely a revert. (But again, not if you only changed a certain part of it.)
@LateNightCoffee I think, if any of this came to a dispute resolution, they would look at the pattern of how the person acted. If it looks like Person A really intended to undo whatever Person B had done, they would probably call it a revert, no matter how it was accomplished. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 19:30, 4 February 2026 (UTC)
@TooManyFingers I don't want to make a formal complaint. I just wanted to tell someone to stop removing my contributions to a page. But I wanted to check I was right about the rule first. They delete various things, often things I've added, about 3 times per day. Late Night Coffee (talk) 06:08, 5 February 2026 (UTC)
You seem (just at a glance) to be making massive and controversial changes to a very controversial article. I'm not convinced that you're really doing valuable things to that article, at least not all the time. I think, on that article, you need to back off, slow down, and make better quality smaller edits. I'm not seeing you as "the good guy" at all in those conflicts; I'd be reverting a lot of it too. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 06:49, 5 February 2026 (UTC)
If what you're adding is being reverted, the proper approach is to start a discussion about including it, not forcing it back in after the revert. The purpose of WP:1RR is to prevent edit warring, not to give first-mover advantage to someone wanting to include disputed content, which would flip WP:ONUS over. CoffeeCrumbs (talk) 16:06, 8 February 2026 (UTC)
Original Research?
Latest comment: 4 months ago8 comments5 people in discussion
Hello! Is this article definitely compliant with the requirements? Specifically, is it not original research? I don’t see any sources among the ones cited that periodize USSR history according to the reigns of Lenin, Stalin, Brezhnev and so on. Senya48 (talk) 16:13, 8 February 2026 (UTC)
Currently, the sources cited in the article deal with the history of the USSR, but none of their authors identify or treat the period from 1927 to 1953 separately as the era of Stalinism. These are merely a selection of works on Soviet history that cover various specific aspects. The notion of a distinct “Stalinism period” is not articulated or established in any of the provided sources. Maybe I’m wrong, but when a concept or period is only mentioned in passing in the sources and not actually presented or named as such by them, that amounts to original research. At present, none of the existing citations/references is headed or described as “History of the USSR (1927–1953)” or uses any similar periodization label. Senya48 (talk) 17:26, 8 February 2026 (UTC)
This is quite a long article with over 100 references. If there are sections/pieces that you think aren't suitably sourced, you would be best to mention this on the talk page, or mark individual bits with {{failed verification}}. Lee Vilenski(talk • contribs)17:31, 8 February 2026 (UTC)
Frankly speaking, my concerns apply to the article as a whole, rather than to specific sections. Historians likely do not periodize the history of the USSR into distinct eras according to the last names of state leaders, as I have been unable to find any source on the internet that asserts the opposite. Senya48 (talk) 17:37, 8 February 2026 (UTC)
Having an article on the "Stalinist Era" is not Wikipedia:original research as reliable, published sources exist for the term. Whether it is the best periodisation for the history of the Soviet Union is a different question. TSventon (talk) 18:01, 8 February 2026 (UTC)
Senya48, unsurprisingly, we have a well-referenced article Stalinism which begins Stalinism is the means of governing and Marxist–Leninist policies implemented in the Soviet Union (USSR) from 1927 to 1953 by Joseph Stalin. Perhaps some of those references could be added to the article in question or you could do your own search of the massive historical literature on this era. Cullen328 (talk) 00:00, 9 February 2026 (UTC)
notability and self publishing
Latest comment: 4 months ago5 comments4 people in discussion
If a notable critic publishes their review on their YouTube channel, is their review considered self-published and therefore ineligible for use on Wikipedia? Or does this not pose an issue under Wikipedia's policies? Vastmajority20025 (talk) 21:52, 8 February 2026 (UTC)
Yyou could say "Critic so-and-so noted on his YouTube channel that...." if so-and-so is notable enough to have a standalone Wikipedia article that you can link to, and provided that the video is just an extension of the critic's primary profession. ~Anachronist (who / me) (talk) 23:36, 8 February 2026 (UTC)
...provided that it's in the video creator's area of expertise. A Nobel laureate in physics making a video about election fraud wouldn't be considered a reliable source on that topic regardless of the Nobel Prize effect. ~Anachronist (who / me) (talk) 01:14, 9 February 2026 (UTC)
How can I delete a page?
Latest comment: 4 months ago6 comments5 people in discussion
The only article you have created recently is rather old and has contributions from many editors, so it cannot be deleted by request. You moved it to a new name, leaving a redirect behind, which is the correct situation because the article may be found by searching for either name. ~Anachronist (who / me) (talk) 23:25, 8 February 2026 (UTC)
Latest comment: 4 months ago2 comments2 people in discussion
I've just written an article on Bertrand Pierre Castex, which has been assessed against B-class criteria by MilHistBot. It comes up good for all areas except "Referencing and citation". The article is liberally peppered with references, all to RS, so I don't really see what more I need to do to get across the line to B-ness. I'd ask the reviewer, but it's a bot. Chuntuk (talk) 14:16, 9 February 2026 (UTC)
I got this error and don't quite understand where it was introduced. I would like to fix it, and it would be great to get some help on this.
A dates error. References show this error when one of the date-containing parameters is incorrectly formatted. Please edit the article to correct the date and ensure it is formatted to follow the Wikipedia Manual of Style's guidance on dates. (Fix | Ask for help)
You have "date=2015-09", SCSHI. I don't think this is permissible. By contrast, either "date=2015-09-27" or "date=September 2015" would be, I think. (My choice of "27" is of course meaningless, other than to illustrate a date format.) -- Hoary (talk) 08:09, 9 February 2026 (UTC)
Latest comment: 4 months ago3 comments2 people in discussion
Hello all, I just created Bythinella conica and the species is being shown as B. c. - this was my first try at building a taxobox. Why's the specie being shown like that and how can I make the whole name show up? Cheers! Barbalalaika 🐌20:05, 9 February 2026 (UTC)
@Barbalalaika: It appears the first words in taxon are automatically abbreviated to a letter. There was a space before the ref so it probably thought the ref was a word and abbreviated the first two words. I have removed the space and now only the first word is abbreviated. Is that OK? I don't know the practice in the field. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:16, 9 February 2026 (UTC)
This help desk is solely for answering questions regarding using Wikipedia. Even if we knew what a 'sqau' was (it doesn't appear to be a word in the English language) we wouldn't answer it here. AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:52, 10 February 2026 (UTC)
Latest comment: 4 months ago7 comments4 people in discussion
Your page isn't complete as there's no mention of the song "Andy Gump" from 1923. I own a player piano roll for this song from that year whose lyrics are based on many of the characters in the comic strip. If you want, I could transcribe the lyrics and forward along with a copy of the roll box label. Thank-you. - Mark. ~2026-90579-5 (talk) 20:10, 9 February 2026 (UTC)
The piano roll and lyrics prove that the song exists, but they don't prove that neutral reporters were interested enough in that song to write about it. If you can find discussions of this particular song in newspapers, magazines, or other reliable reporting, that would be great. (Mere mentions don't count.) But just showing that the song exists is not enough to get it included.TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 21:44, 9 February 2026 (UTC)
Notability would be required for an article about that song and/or that piano roll. Notability is not separately required for each part of an article about a notable subject. Inclusion of this song in the The Gumps is a matter of editorial judgement. -Arch dude (talk) 21:56, 9 February 2026 (UTC)
You could transcribe and put it on Commons, but Wikisource is actually a more appropriate location. I'm not sure of the best way to establish the provenance. But an image of the roll box label is a start. Where are the lyrics? on the roll itself? if so, it may be awkward to add images of the original. Since it's from 1923, it's now in the public domain and you are not violating any copyright, wherever you choose to put it. After it's on Wikisource, you can reference it from the Wikipedia article. You are actually referencing the roll, not your transcription, and your transcription is a courtesy copy. -Arch dude (talk) 21:51, 9 February 2026 (UTC)
Latest comment: 4 months ago3 comments2 people in discussion
Hello, I want to change the title of my article. It should be capitalized instead of lowercase and I don't know how to do it. Can anyone help me? It says Temo re and should be Temo Re.
Latest comment: 4 months ago4 comments4 people in discussion
I am making changes to a professor's page, whom I personally know. Why are the changes being changed back. I am making corrections. Brendaskent (talk) 18:34, 4 February 2026 (UTC)
@Brendaskent Please familiarise yourself with the Bold, Revert, Discuss cycle. When someone reverts a bold edit you made, your next course of action should be to discuss with them why they reverted you, not to continue to try to push your changes through; doing so is called edit warring. Athanelar (talk) 21:14, 4 February 2026 (UTC)
Also @Brendaskent that therefore means you have a COI, if I know someone personally I can’t add information which is unverified about them, f they have told me their favourite colour is blue, but no secondary sources say it is blue, then I cannot add that the person’s favourite colour is blue, despite it being true (that rhymed 😅). The Grenadian Historian (Aka. Mwen Sé Kéyòl Translator-a) (talk) 12:33, 10 February 2026 (UTC)
How to deactivate my account
Latest comment: 4 months ago6 comments2 people in discussion
Due to work reasons, my IP address keeps jumping repeatedly. I registered an extra account and want to deactivate it. I hereby declare that I did not intend to do so БегарьІс (talk) 10:50, 10 February 2026 (UTC)
Thank you. Following your guidance on WP:VANISH, I hereby formally request the vanishing/closing of my two accidentally created alternate accounts, as I will only use my main account User:БегарьІс.The accounts to vanish/close are:1. 温室雏菊2. BiekeaersiReason: They were created unintentionally due to frequent IP changes from my work network. I have ceased using them and declared this on my user page.Please proceed with vanishing or renaming these accounts to a closed state. Thank you. БегарьІс (talk) 12:39, 10 February 2026 (UTC)
Latest comment: 4 months ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Hello
The article on Romanian grammar: Romanian grammar has a set of links to external web resources under it's 'References' section. Unfortunately, one of the links directs to a website that apparently displays pornographic material.
The link is found under reference no. 11 (an article by Maria Aldea in Romanian). ~2026-91452-2 (talk) 10:48, 10 February 2026 (UTC)
Or perhaps they have paid money to a scam merchant in the belief that they are paying it to somebody connected with Wikipedia. If that is the case, @~2026-90844-7, I'm afraid there's nothing we can do. Please read WP:SCAM. ColinFine (talk) 15:59, 10 February 2026 (UTC)
"This article needs additional citations..."
Latest comment: 4 months ago6 comments4 people in discussion
Hello, This is my article Temo Re Here is a baner "This article needs additional citations for verification."
I wouldn't say you need to do anything to remove the banner, but you probably shouldn't remove it if you created the article. However, please note that while you may have created the article, now that it is in mainspace it isn't "your" article. At this point anyone can edit it, including removing the banner. As having the banner there doesn't harm the article in any way, and may in fact may lead to improvement, I wouldn't worry about it. DonIago (talk) 15:03, 10 February 2026 (UTC)
@Nanita2008 Just a note: one citation was included exactly the same twice in a row for the same item; another citation was used twice in different places. I gave those citations names, and removed the duplicates. The result is neater and easier, and nothing was lost or changed except the unnecessary copying. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 16:13, 10 February 2026 (UTC)
Editing suburbs near Paris’ articles
Latest comment: 4 months ago17 comments8 people in discussion
On suburbs near Paris, it states that they are suburbs of Paris, when they should say they are suburbs near Paris in order to prevent people from thinking they are actually part of Paris. The reason I am asking for this to be done for me rather than doing it myself is because there are a ton of articles like this. HamzaTheGreat2007 (talk) 22:30, 9 February 2026 (UTC)
In English, a 'suburb' is an outlying, generally residential, area considered part of a larger city, and thus it wouldn't make sense to suggest that there were 'suburbs' on the perimeter of Paris that weren't suburbs of Paris - where else would they be suburbs of? Note that this is an unofficial designation, and depending on relevant legislation, the suburb may have its own local government, rather than being legislatively part of the larger city. Whether Wikipedia should describe a specific locale as a suburb of another would depend on what sources cited say. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:43, 9 February 2026 (UTC)
Um, what? 'Part of Paris' in what sense? As I've stated above, whether an area is described as a suburb or not has nothing to do with legislation, and instead depends on how sources characterise it. AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:58, 10 February 2026 (UTC)
I do not know if this is an English variation issue, but in American English, the word "suburb" is never (or extremely rarely) applied to an area within the city limits of the large city. It is applied to smaller cities and towns and villages or possibly unincorporated communities that surround that core city but are not formally part of it. Cullen328 (talk) 02:05, 10 February 2026 (UTC)
If that is true, then presumably sources won't be found to characterise areas within US city limits as suburbs ('City Limits' in non-US contexts can be a rather amorphous concept: see e.g. London, which has an inner 'City' - the 'Square Mile' - and a larger area administered by the Greater London Authority which is (approximately) what most people would be referring to most of the time when describing something (e.g. The houses of Parliament) as being in 'London'. In some contexts, for some people, even the GLA area isn't considered the outer limit of 'London', taking instead the M25 as the border) If we follow sources, the issue doesn't arise. If articles are characterising areas as suburbs without such sources, they probably shouldn't be, but they need to be looked at in context - we can't generalise, and shouldn't be deciding for ourselves. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:26, 10 February 2026 (UTC)
That clearly isn't answering the question I asked. At no point did the OP suggest that Paris was a suburb of Paris. You stated earlier that If they were actually part of Paris, they couldn't be called suburbs! Justify that with a citation, or at least with a clear explanation. Are you attempting to apply preferred terminology in one context (e.g. Cullen's description of how it works in the US), rather than the broader terminology applied elsewhere (see my remarks on London)?. If so, that isn't how we do it - we go by sources. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:39, 10 February 2026 (UTC)
I think the real takeaway here is that 'suburb' is a functional description (of a peripheral locale providing residential accommodation for a larger city or conurbation) rather than a legislative one, and that the way this description is generally applied may well vary considerably from one country to another. As a functional description, it is essentially opinion (I've not seen a formal definition, and there are obviously going to be edge cases), though one that probably doesn't merit wording as such if sources are clear. I'd argue for example that it is entirely reasonable to describe Surbiton as a 'London suburb' in Wikipedia's voice, given that it is not only widely described as such, but actually serves as the archetype for 'leafy London suburbs'. AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:09, 10 February 2026 (UTC)
HamzaTheGreat2007, the correct expression in English is suburbs of Paris. Suburbs of New York are never part of New York, and suburbs of Paris are never part of Paris. French does it just like we do, and even uses the same preposition, of. The French preposition de (lit: 'of') in the expression, une/la banlieue de Paris means "a/the suburb/s of Paris", so they exclude parts of the city when using banlieue just like we do in English with suburb. Mathglot (talk) 10:06, 10 February 2026 (UTC)
I'm surprised no one mentioned Île-de-France. Its pretty much the term used to mean Paris and its suburbs. As others said, it might be best to add 'Suburbs of Paris' or 'Paris region' since everyone knows Paris but may not have an idea of what Île-de-France is about (or may think it means a random region of France). JuniperChill (talk) 19:11, 10 February 2026 (UTC)
Latest comment: 4 months ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Reference help requested.
In Chandragupta II, I added a reference (reference number 75) but it displayed error in red, because the authors' names were only written in the first name category. However the issue is, I am unaware of how to add more than one author names for the source (for the first and second names' categories). I would greatly appreciate if someone could fix it for me. Thank you.
Thanks, Pinkish Flowers (talk) 18:52, 10 February 2026 (UTC)
Hello, Pinkish Flowers. Please read the documentation at Template: Cite book. I suggest that you try to solve this problem yourself. Currently, three editor names are shoehorned into the parameter for the author's first name. That generates an error message. You can see that you can add editor parameters to the template, as explained in the documentation. Lots of extra parameters are not included in the basic, stripped down version of citation templates, but can be added on a case by case basis. This is such a case. Cullen328 (talk) 19:12, 10 February 2026 (UTC)
Referencing errors on Ecosystem service
Latest comment: 4 months ago2 comments2 people in discussion
I have added an in-text citation (#42) for the "Ecosystem service" page, but it is saying there's a referencing issue because of the dates. I believe it is because the journal article I'm using does not include a specific day, so the in-text citation/reference also does not have a specific day. What would be the best way to rectify this?
How do those with accounts bookmark or save pages for easy retrieval later?
Latest comment: 4 months ago8 comments5 people in discussion
How do those with accounts bookmark or save pages for easy retrieval later?
I have created an account several years ago. I would like to be able to save or bookmark certain pages for quick retrieval at a later date. How's a brother do that? :) LansingMike (talk) 19:32, 10 February 2026 (UTC)
If just bookmarking it with your browser doesn't work for you (eg. you need to access the page from a computer that isn't yours, so you need it to be saved to your account), you can add it to your "watchlist" (Help:Watchlist) by clicking the star icon next to the "View history" link at the top right. The star icon
Note, when you add something to your watchlist there will be a little popup with a drop down menu. If you want you want save the page permanently, rather than for a limited time, make sure it's set to "Permanent". (I think it's permanent by default, but you should check to make sure.)
Any pages you add to your watchlist will be listed on your "Edit watchlist" page. You can find that page by first going to your watchlist then clicking the link near the title of the page labelled "Edit watchlist".
You can find the main page for the watchlist by clicking on the icon at the top right that looks like a menu (three horizontal lines stacked) with a little star in one corner. It's next to the icon that looks like a symbol of a person. If you can't find the icon, it might be because you scrolled down the page. Scroll to the top, it should be there. – Scyrme (talk) 20:20, 10 February 2026 (UTC)
So you know you've found the right page, here are links that will take you to the pages I'm talking about directly:
Better yet, if you improve the article, it's not only added to your watchlist by default, but you (or anyone knowing your username) can find that article in your contributions. Doug butler (talk) 22:12, 10 February 2026 (UTC)
Absolutely true - though using this as a bookmarking system certainly wouldn't be for everyone. I've made little edits on many things that I'm not interested in saving for later. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 22:27, 10 February 2026 (UTC)
That's true if there's only a few, though if there's lot it may be easier to just click the star than to go to the user page and edit it manually each time.
@LansingMike: If you'd rather make a short list on your user page, but are unsure how to make one, just click this link: Special:MyPage. You can edit it like a normal article, and you can then find it again later by clicking your username in the menu with the person-shaped symbol in the top right. For more information about user pages, see Help:User pages. – Scyrme (talk) 00:18, 11 February 2026 (UTC)
Non Admin Closure in Discussions
Latest comment: 4 months ago4 comments3 people in discussion
Hi! I just closed the page Template:Verizon 200 at the Brickyard with the result of delete, but it has come up with speedy delete on there. There were options for like tags review, ready to delete, ETC. I am a Non Admin and am aware I should be careful with these things. To avoid any scrutiny for non admin closures in the futures, I just want to ask, what should I tag it with when doing a non admin closure for template deletion? It was still in use on some pages, but none in mainspace. As a non admin, I am very careful with what I close in discussions. I generally only close discussions where there is clear consensus, or re list when it is pretty clear there is no consensus, and I probably would be like this if I was an admin anyways. So what are some instructions anyone, particularly admins would give me when handling this situation? Or any situation of template deletion, as it is the only one I am pretty sure where non admins can close discussions as delete. Any instructions, tips suggestions, or just anything I should learn around this? Servite et contribuere (talk) 18:10, 10 February 2026 (UTC)
First of all, non-admins should never close a discussion where the result of that discussion will require admin tools; such as closing to delete. To my knowledge, templates are no exception.
Athanelar Well I've seen other non admins close discussions that have resulted in delete. It might be this way because some templates require removal before deletion. And a lot of the time, the closing admin is different to the deleting admin. Servite et contribuere (talk) 20:26, 10 February 2026 (UTC)
In general non-admins aren't supposed to close as delete when they can't delete, but templates & categories are a bit different, since they need to be removed from pages before they get deleted anyways, is my understanding. Those are the two listed exceptions I see at WP:NACD. ScalarFactor (talk) 02:58, 11 February 2026 (UTC)
How to retrieve my 20 years' worth of edits?
Latest comment: 4 months ago19 comments9 people in discussion
In 2005 I began editing at Wikipedia using my IP Address as my username. Having just changed my broadband supplier I discover that my username is no longer recognised to login here. Who can help, please, to let me change my username and retrieve those past edits? - CLOFM ~2026-71910-2 (talk) 23:43, 1 February 2026 (UTC)
Well when I joined Wiki in 2005 it certainly let me use my 12-digit number and plenty of people did do that back then. There's only one slot for entering our "username" when we login - unless you know otherwise! - clofm ~2026-71910-2 (talk) 00:07, 2 February 2026 (UTC)
PS - Andy, you can still see plenty of IP numbers as usernames when you view the history of an article. OK maybe not as many as once upon a time, but my username is still visible in plenty of histories. clofm ~2026-71910-2 (talk) 00:13, 2 February 2026 (UTC)
Those IP numbers aren't usernames. It was never possible to use an IP as a username on Wikipedia; that was explicitly not allowed. Instead, if you edited without logging in to an account, it would use your IP like a 'temporary username' of sorts.
I think it is quite possible that you were editing logged out the whole time you thought you were using your IP as a username. In any case, it would be helpful if you'd tell us what that IP address was, so we can find your contributions. Athanelar (talk) 01:39, 2 February 2026 (UTC)
Presiously, if you did not create an account, your edits were attributed to your IP, which was assigned by your ISP. All those edits still exist and are still attributed to those IPs in article histories; if you know the IP, you can see the list of all if its edits. However, they could never be transferred to another attribution--neither a different IP if your IP changed nor an actual account if you created one. If your IP changed your contributions list did not follow you. Retaining "all your edits" even as you change IPs was one of the advantages of creating an account.
Now we have "temporary accounts" that are automatically created if you make an edit without creating a regular account. Like IP non-accounts, TA edits cannot be transferred, so if your TA changes, your previous edits do not follow you. Like IP edits, TA edits do not transfer if you change TA (but like IP you can always look up those old edits if you know the TA name). Unlike IPs, TA identity is designed to automatically live with your device, so if you switch IPs your TA stays the same and your history is intact. However, TA accounts automatically and non-optionally expire in 90 days, and might also change if you switch browsers or delete your cookies. If you make an edit afer that, you get a new TA with no contributions history.
Overall, the only way to retain beyond 90 days is now to create an account. And from that account, you can add a note that you previously edited using IP... and TA... so others can see that history of yours. DMacks (talk) 01:52, 2 February 2026 (UTC)
This person claims to have specific knowledge of the numbers they were using. If they have the numbers, I want to help them. If in fact they don't have the numbers, I want to expose their lie. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 08:19, 2 February 2026 (UTC)
@~2026-71910-2 Find an article you know you edited. Look at the edit history, and find an edit you made. The edits you made with that IP are linked from there. If you made edits with several IP:s, repeat as necessary. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:56, 2 February 2026 (UTC)
Aha! Thanks to everybody who has replied. I see now how my own memory has played a trick. As DMacks says: it wasn’t so much me *entering* my IP number as username in 2005 but simply starting to edit and by default my IP number became the index for my edits like a temporary account today. And thanks to Athanelar for your clarification and to Gråbergs Gråa Sång for the hint for reaching my history… I’ve been lucky to have the same IP address for 20 years, until now, but clearly I now must create a named account… As for AndyTheGrump (living his name to the hilt) and TooManyFingers, I have not mentioned that IP address of mine because the rules, published at the top of this column, say explicitly: “Do not provide your email address or any other contact information.” On balance, job done, so thanks all round. ~2026-71910-2 (talk) 12:21, 2 February 2026 (UTC)
@~2026-71910-2 If you want, when/if you make a named account, you can note on your userpage something like "My previous edits can be seen at ." It's up to you, and as you say, revealing ones IP can have some unwanted effects, that's why we now have the WP:TA thing instead. Then again, your IP has been in the open for 20 years on WP, and still is, if one knows where to look. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 12:30, 2 February 2026 (UTC)
The short answer is that Ezra Tucker is not on Wikipedia because no one has written a Wikipedia article about Ezra Tucker. That doesn't mean that someone shouldn't write about Ezra Tucker, just that they haven't yet. I just did a quick Google search, and it seems like there may be sources that could be used to write about him, if someone was interested.
Latest comment: 4 months ago3 comments3 people in discussion
i used to be able to click on coordinates and it would open a new tab where i could click on google maps. that feature no longer seems to work.please advise.....i really liked that feature... mechmike12 (talk) 00:34, 11 February 2026 (UTC)
GeoHack pages were down for a day or two, until sometime yesterday I think. (Well, not down exactly, but one was shown a page lacking the usual links to various online maps.) It still looks somewhat wonky to me, but it seems to be working now. Deor (talk) 12:18, 11 February 2026 (UTC)
I deleted the entire content of the article and rewrote it.
Latest comment: 4 months ago7 comments5 people in discussion
Hello, my article about the georgian writer and actor Temo Rekhviashvili has been deleted several times. Due to the lack of sources, I deleted the article completely and started over. In my opinion, I have cited enough sources in this version of the article to confirm his popularity. Do you think I am wrong and should it be deleted again? Nanita2008 (talk) 23:07, 10 February 2026 (UTC)
@Nanita2008: Taking a quick look, it seems like the references you have are for his works rather than him as an individual. I thought the Publishing Perspectives reference might be about him, but it only lists his name once in passing as one of the guests, mentioning which award he won but nothing else. These references may work for establishing notability for his works, but not necessarily for a biography about him as a person. It may help to include some more biographical details with references which are about him as the subject, not only works he has written or starred in. I don't think this means you need to delete and start over, just that it would help to add more. – Scyrme (talk) 00:02, 11 February 2026 (UTC)
@Nanita2008 Please note that having more sources is not the goal - the goal is better sources. If you had only three sources but all of them were excellent, it would be enough. But if your sources are not good, even having 100 of them doesn't help.
I've never looked at {{Excerpt}} before, but I see that certain templates are excluded by default, and I suspect it is somehow not treating {{multiple image}} correctly. But I haven't looked closely.
Are you perhaps seeing the warning note that says that only autoconfirmed users can edit it, and thinking that that is telling you you cannot edit it? ColinFine (talk) 17:36, 11 February 2026 (UTC)
Hi, I need to make some updates to my wiki page. Is it appropriate for me to do that myself or should that be done by someone else? it. Please advise. Many thanks!
Pam Pam Sheyne (talk) 23:25, 10 February 2026 (UTC)
@Jéské Couriano: I don't think she's asking for help about edit requests. She's asking for advice about whether it's appropriate to edit an article that's about herself. – Scyrme (talk) 23:35, 10 February 2026 (UTC)
Hi Pam Sheyne. I've added some general information to your user talk page intended to help editors like yourself. The information contains (blue) links to more detailed Wikipedia pages that contain information you should find helpful. You might also want to take a look at Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons#Relationship between the subject, the article, and Wikipedia because it also pertains to your situation. It's important to understand that even though there exists a Wikipedia article about you, it isn't really your Wiki page per se in the sense that you have any editorial control over it. So, any changes made to the page by not just you but anyone are going to need to be done in accordance with relevant Wikipedia policies and guidelines. Finally, Wikipedia:Username policy#Real names and Wikipedia:Wikipedia is in the real world. Users are allowed to use their real names as the username when editing Wikipedia; however, every edit they make with their account will be publicly visible. Because of this, accounts for users whose username is the same as that of a specific identifiable person (e.g., someone with a Wikipedia article written about them) are sometimes blocked as a precaution against damaging impersonation. If this happens in your case, don't worry; you'll be given guidance on things you can do to have your account reinstated in good standing. It looks like another account named Pamela Sheyne was once used to add a photo to the article; so, now there are essentially two accounts claiming to be you who have or who are trying to edit the article. Such a thing isn't an ideal situation for Wikipedia and is probably going become an issue if the other older account shows up again and tries to edit the article. -- Marchjuly (talk) 03:24, 11 February 2026 (UTC)
Note for @Pam Sheyne and indeed everyone else here that I have taken the liberty of draftifying the article to Draft:Pam Sheyne. The article was entirely lacking inline citations, which of course is a major WP:BLP issue, so rather than blanking the unsourced content (read: the entire article) I have draftified it for Pam or anyone else to improve the sourcing and submit the article through AfC.
It would almost be better, if every Wikipedia article about a person was renamed. Instead of calling the articles "Firstname Lastname", they'd all become "Summary of the Significant Coverage of Firstname Lastname by Reliable Independent Reporters, With No Material From Firstname Lastname or Their Supporters".
Hi I am Pam Sheyne. I have some issues and additions needed on my page (which has been put into draft by an editor) and wondering who can do that for me as I don't believe I am able to do that for myself. Please advise, thank you! Pam Sheyne (talk) 18:32, 11 February 2026 (UTC)
The page that was here last week was deleted, when the material from it was turned into a draft so that you could edit it. (Unless you mean there's yet another page here somewhere.)
What I'm about to say is not strictly true, and it's not a Wikipedia rule either - but I have a feeling that it would help, so here goes: I think that from your point of view, the only things allowed to go into your article are what you would call "All the things that have been said about me in the press without my knowledge and without my cooperation". TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 22:44, 11 February 2026 (UTC)
broken image on page
Latest comment: 4 months ago2 comments2 people in discussion
A boy is blocking me from changing a generic title to be more specific
Latest comment: 4 months ago4 comments4 people in discussion
This article Chinese independent high school is solely about independent Chinese high schools in Malaysia. The title right now is too generic and I've added Malaysia in brackets to the title however a boy keeps reverting it. The boy is Singaporean Chinese so he does not understand the topic but keeps on reverting all my edits. I do not know how to proceed, please help me! Thank you. N niyaz (talk) 12:27, 11 February 2026 (UTC)
Please do not refer to contributors as 'boys', or make assumptions based on ethnicity. As for your attempt to rename the article, you omitted a closing bracket, for a start, which was clearly inappropriate. I suggest you start a civil discussion on the talk page, and if that doesn't reach consensus, seek dispute resolution. AndyTheGrump (talk) 12:43, 11 February 2026 (UTC)
I think you've very badly misunderstood what's needed, to write an article like this. You have barely anything worthwhile to say about Van Neistat, because hardly any of your references are even about him. To write a Van Neistat article, you need large major sources that are literally about Van Neistat - not about his brother, not about their iPods, but about him. Where there's no interview, and the reporter goes on and on for multiple paragraphs telling about Van Neistat's entire career (not just one event in his career). TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 01:41, 12 February 2026 (UTC)
HodgeBrad, remove all references that are interviews. Remove all references that are brief passing mentions. Remove all references to YouTube videos unless they are from the official channels of major media outlets. Remove all references that focus on his brother. Remove all content verified only by the references you just removed. Only keep references that devote significant, in-depth coverage to Van Neistat as a person. Is there much left? Cullen328 (talk) 01:48, 12 February 2026 (UTC)
where do i write article.
Latest comment: 4 months ago12 comments8 people in discussion
This is not always the case. Many editors, including myself, spent some of their first edits drafting and submitting articles. I don't think we should be too down on people enthusiastic to give it a whirl. Cremastra (talk·contribs) 01:33, 4 February 2026 (UTC)
I have researched some Generals of the First World War.
I have come across a SPINKS sale catalogue when his property was sold after his death.
The catalogue contains much more info about his life than is currently published.
How do I go about having it included?
Would someone be interested in helping?
This is not my work, I simply discovered it. Attribution will be the SPINKS the Auction House
Draft article
SPINKS AUCTION DECEMBER 2020
Auction: 20003 - Orders, Decorations and Medals
Lot: 2
Sold by Order of a Direct Descendant
LIEUTENANT-GENERAL
SIR CHARLES MacPHERSON DOBELL KCB CMG DSO ADC FRGS
(1869-1954)
Charles Dobell's collection of Orders, Decorations, Medals and archival memorabilia represents a comprehensive memorial to a soldier whose place among his peers was recognised by his inclusion in John Singer Sargent's group portrait 'Some Generals of the Great War'. The extraordinary collection offered here, amassed by an inveterate souvenir collector who - it is evident - rarely threw anything away, encapsulates a world long departed in a way guaranteed to make those with an interest in it reflect upon his long career.
Apprenticeship
Dobell was raised in the family home, the palatial Villa Beauvoir in Sillery, Quebec; his father had emigrated from Liverpool and become rich in the lumber trade. After preliminary education in Quebec, Dobell went to Charterhouse School in England in 1883 for two years.
Returning to Canada, he entered the Royal Military College, Kingston, in September 1886 as Cadet No. 221 and was placed in B Company. In 1890, Dobell graduated with Honours, his conduct being noted as 'Very Good'. He was marked 'Distinguished' in seven out of thirteen obligatory subjects, with the same mark in four voluntary subjects. He was Company Sergeant Major of his company and wore a proficiency badge for Artillery Practice with another for being top of his class in Equitation. He was awarded three 'subject' prizes, received the Lord Stanley prize, graduated fourth of his intake and was one of only four cadets recommended in 1890 for commissions in the British army.
In August 1890, he was commissioned into 1st Bn. Royal Welsh Fusiliers, then stationed in Lucknow but warned for duty on the North-West Frontier. The battalion arrived in Peshawar early in December 1890, by which time Dobell had joined and assumed command of F Company. Early in 1891, he accompanied the battalion on an expedition to punish recalcitrant tribes in the Black Mountains of Hazara: it was a short-lived but effective campaign that earned him his first campaign Medal.
Late in 1891, aged 22, he was ensign for the Regimental Colour at a parade in Peshawar. Just a few months before his death, aged 85, in July 1954, he was present as that same Colour was marched off parade for the last time, to be laid up in St David's Cathedral, Pembrokeshire, after seventy-four years' service. In so many ways, that Colour - now preserved in the Regimental Museum - characterises Dobell's loyal service to the Regiment that welcomed him in 1890.
Experience and Responsibility
Dobell remained with the 1st battalion for the next five years, living the life of a British subaltern stationed in northern India: he learned how to command men; he rode; he shot; he probably fished. He had been a member of Kingston's Gymnastics Class and had left the college marked as 'Distinguished' in Drills and Exercises; an accomplished horseman, he was clearly a very fit young officer. Having achieved a First Class mark in Gymnastics at Lucknow in June 1892, he returned to his battalion to become regimental gymnastics instructor in April 1893. Concurrently, he passed both lower and higher standard Hindustani and obtained qualifications in Transport and Musketry in 1894. Promotion to lieutenant came in November 1892 and was accompanied by the duties of acting adjutant in May 1893; during the same period, he changed companies three times, thus obtaining wide experience of the men of his battalion. He also took leave - no doubt to go shooting - and caught his fair share of the illnesses associated with life in India. The battalion remained in northern India until embarking for Aden in October 1896. Dobell continued on to Malta to join the 2nd battalion and become its adjutant. No sooner had he settled into the appointment with his new battalion than a crisis emerged that set him on course for advancement.
Tipped for Stardom
Crete's Greek population had long resented Turkish rule. Early in 1897, this resentment became sectarian violence: the Cretans proclaimed union with Greece and rose in rebellion against the Turks; the Turks responded, bloodily. An international force from the 'Great Powers' was assembled and deployed to Crete to control the situation; as part of that force, 2nd Bn. The Royal Welsh Fusiliers disembarked at Candia early in April 1897. Working with allies attempting to separate warring factions, while also exercising objectivity and military discipline, has become commonplace for British soldiers in the post-1945 world but was relatively new in 1897. The senior officers of 2nd Royal Welsh Fusiliers were very good at it and three brevet promotions were awarded in recognition. One was to Dobell, who was to be made brevet major when promoted to captain: the promotion and thus the brevet happened almost immediately and simultaneously in 1899.
The crisis in Crete being resolved in 1898, the battalion embarked for Hong Kong and arrived in January 1899. War broke out in South Africa in October 1899 and Dobell began firing off telegrams asking for permission to join any unit, anywhere, on leave if necessary: anything to be involved. Eventually, his persistence (and his father's influence) triumphed and by late December 1899 he was attached to the staff of 2nd (Special Service) Bn., Royal Canadian Regiment. In February 1900, he was given command of 2nd Mounted Infantry battalion and exercised it with such success as to be mentioned in dispatches and created a Companion of the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) in 1901.
In July 1900, long before his DSO was gazetted, he was recalled from South Africa to China to resume the adjutancy of the 2nd battalion, then engaged in suppressing the 'Boxer Rebellion'. Once again, Dobell served in an international force created by the 'Great Powers' for a peace-keeping role. Relinquishing the adjutancy late in 1900, he continued to serve in Peking until the final withdrawal of British forces from that city in 1901. In 1902, he passed the examination for entry to the Staff College, entering the College in January 1903. Thus, as a captain and brevet major, aged 33, with a DSO, three campaign medals and experience of both administration and field command, Dobell joined an elite cadre of future staff and general officers.
The Staff Officer
A photograph of the Staff College students in the intake of 1903, contained in one of Dobell's photograph albums, is an evocative image of a departed age. Sir Henry Rawlinson, later Field Marshal Lord Rawlinson, was the commandant; few officers are without campaign medals, many have DSOs and two have VCs; all are in their regiment's full dress uniform.
Leaving Staff College in 1904, Dobell was appointed temporary lieutenant-colonel to command 1st Bn. the Northern Nigeria Regiment, West African Frontier Force, in 1905. He commanded that unit in the Northern Nigeria campaign of 1906, being mentioned in dispatches twice and awarded the brevet of Lieutenant-Colonel, concomitant upon his being promoted major; he also added basic Hausa to his various linguistic skills.
Promoted substantive Major and thus brevet Lieutenant-Colonel in 1907, he returned to England to enter the War Office as General Staff Officer grade 3, to be promoted GSO2 in 1909, to be appointed ADC to King George V and brevet Colonel in 1910, to relinquish his War Office appointment in 1911 and to be promoted substantive Lieutenant-Colonel commanding 2nd Bn. The Bedfordshire Regiment in 1912, then stationed in South Africa. In time of peace, such rapid advancement was unusual and must reflect not only Dobell's innate talent but also his ambition, professionalism and connections. Command of 2nd Bedfordshires was short-lived: he was promoted substantive Colonel and temporary Brigadier-General in September 1913 and given the post of Inspector-General of the West African Frontier Force.
During his rapid rise in the Army in the decade 1904-14, he found time to marry, in March 1908: his wife was a widow with two daughters and would present him with a daughter, Judith, in South Africa in 1912. Earlier in 1908, he had saved one R.E. Ford from drowning in the lake at Stoke Park, Buckinghamshire, and received a Testimonial from the Royal Humane Society as a result: as with so many other papers relevant to his long career, this Testimonial is pasted into his scrapbook.
The outbreak of war in August 1914 found Dobell home on leave. Since it was evident that Germany's two West African colonies of Togoland and the Cameroons were vulnerable to attack, Dobell's advice was sought on how best to capture them.
Success in the Cameroons
Britain's principal targets were the colonies' wireless stations and the ports: the one able to report movements of British shipping in the Bights of Benin and Biafra to German surface raiders, the other able to shelter and re-provision the surface raiders. In addition, capture of the ports would enable a blockade to be established that ought to starve the colonies of Togoland and the Cameroons into submission, thus minimising the need for extensive land operations in an unfavourable terrain and climate. Thus Dobell advised, specifying that naval support of ground troops would be necessary.
Given command of British forces, and ultimately Allied forces, for the expedition, Dobell sailed with his staff for West Africa in S.S.Appam on 31st August 1914. By the time he arrived off the Cameroons port of Duala, on 25th September, events had overtaken planning and Togoland had already, effectively, fallen to British and French troops. Duala was briefly bombarded by H.M.S. Challenger and, increasingly encircled by British and French ground troops, surrendered, the German forces having already evacuated the port and retreated inland. However, although the coastal strip had been secured, a sizeable German presence remained in the interior. German tactics throughout the ensuing campaign reflected their strategy of holding ground and denying Allied forces overall victory in order to retain the colony as a bargaining tool for the end of the war.
German defence was stubborn and protracted: despite severe limitations in materièl and in Intelligence, its unity of purpose contrasted significantly with that of the Allies, all three of whom - British, French and Belgian - pursued their own nationally inspired aims and consequently failed effectively to work together. Dobell's experience, in Crete and in China, was unable to counteract that. The longer the campaign continued, the more attenuated through casualties the Allied forces became; there were limitations in the number and quality of reinforcements available. The campaign became one of attrition, largely fought by black infantry on both sides, until eventually German forces escaped into the neutral Spanish colony of Muni. Dobell could only direct the campaign to a limited extent, so diverse were the Allied forces engaged and so limited the communications, but his role in the eventual Allied victory, when it came in February 1916, was undeniably significant. It was recognised too: by the KCB and the Commander's Cross of the Légion d'Honneur in 1916, coming after the CMG in the New Year Honours of 1915 and promotion to major general in June 1915. By 1916, so stagnant had the campaign in France and Flanders become, any success of Allied arms had to be celebrated, rewarded and publicised and so it was for Dobell in West Africa.
Disappointment in Palestine
The logic of taking a General fresh from success in a torpid campaign in tropical Africa and appointing him to command a desert-based force in the Middle East may escape those equipped with 20:20 hindsight but, in mid-1916, that is what the War Cabinet did with Dobell. His first role in that theatre was as Commander Western Frontier Force in June 1916. He was then appointed Commander of troops on the Suez Canal and Eastern Frontier Force in October 1916, following promotion to temporary Lieutenant-General in September. In that role, he and his superior, Sir Archibald Murray, have been held responsible for the failure of the first two battles of Gaza in 1917. While not a wholly unfair judgment, it has been made in hindsight and with little appreciation of the circumstances, among which the evident chaos of the Middle Eastern Force's command structure, inadequate staff work and Intelligence and reasonable concerns about the Force's logistics, especially in relation to the wellbeing of its horses, loom large. The first two attacks on Gaza were certainly badly handled and the second disastrously bloody. However, small recognition has been given to the immense and successful preparation work executed by Dobell and Murray before their replacement by Chetwode (his Field Marshal's Baton sold in these rooms) and Allenby that led to the eventual capture of Gaza and then Palestine. That said, it was certainly not Dobell's finest hour: perhaps too much was expected of him by the politicians in London, always hungry for favourable headlines and expecting miracles.
Redemption in India
Despite the modern condemnation of Dobell for his part in the failure to take Gaza after two attempts in 1917, he cannot have been wholly damned in the opinion of the British War Cabinet since no sooner had he returned home than it sent him abroad again, this time to Command 2nd (Rawalpindi) Division in India. He remained there until 1920, serving during the 3rd Afghan War of 1919 and being mentioned in dispatches twice. Briefly officiating as G.O.C. Northern Command India in 1920, he returned home to go on half pay in that year and in 1923 retired as an honorary Lieutenant-General. In 1926, he was appointed Colonel of The Royal Welch Fusiliers and retained that post until 1938, being noted as a particularly active and attentive Colonel. Even after relinquishing the Colonelcy, he retained his links with the Regiment, throughout the Second World War and until a few months before his death.
No I’m NOT the same person as Casosos, what would be the point? I thought the information I had discovered might be worthy of adding to existing material. ~2026-84066-3 (talk) 21:49, 6 February 2026 (UTC)
Sorry for the confusion then - I didn't see why you'd be responding to Casosos's question by adding what you added. Your material might be able to be added to the appropriate article, but only if you remove all statements that look as if they could be your opinion or speculation. Every little detail needs to be credited to an independent reliable source. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 23:02, 6 February 2026 (UTC)
I feel that way often when I'm down in the weeds with something on Wikipedia.
Please remember to sign in when you edit. When you sign out, you become a temporary account, as seen by your signature in your last comment. ~Anachronist (who / me) (talk) 07:04, 7 February 2026 (UTC)
John Duncan (artist), we're told, is "an American multi-platform artist". The multiplicity of platforms isn't described as including canvas, walls, or other paintable surfaces. "His events and installations are a form of existential research, often confrontational in nature", whatever that means ... well, it's an article created twenty years ago by an SPA, so no great surprise that it contains many gems, just one of which is Bus Ride sexually stimulated unsuspecting passengers on a city bus with a liquid poured into the ventilation system in order to observe the results; the premise -- that there exists a liquid which if poured into a ventilation system sexually stimulates those who are ventilated -- is, I humbly suggest, bollocks. The work of John Duncan (painter) isn't obviously confrontational in nature or anything else, but his last work "was completed in spite of the critical antagonisms Duncan was facing at the time", in which the "critical antagonisms" go unexplained. These two people are effectively distinguished by the combination of (A) artist/painter and (B) a hatnote on John Duncan (artist). Their respective titles aside, the article John Duncan (painter) is in moderate need of improvement and the article John Duncan (artist) in acute need of same. -- Hoary (talk) 22:56, 8 February 2026 (UTC)
I hadn't heard of Orgazmo, Anachronist; what I read reminds me of Flesh Gordon, or what little I saw of it before I dozed off. But back to the article John Duncan (artist): its lead describes the man's "existential research" etc in the present tense, yet it's sourced to something published in 2001. I'm so ancient that 2001 doesn't seem so long ago, but even I couldn't perpetrate the present tense here with a straight face. And yet people (especially at the teahouse) routinely claim to have trouble finding articles that need improvement. Strange. -- Hoary (talk) 00:00, 9 February 2026 (UTC)
Orgazmo wasn't pornographic, it was about making pornographic films, and featured a device that you could aim at innocent passersby to give them instant orgasms. Your mentioning Bus Ride reminded me of that. But you're right, both articles can use cleanup. ~Anachronist (who / me) (talk) 01:08, 9 February 2026 (UTC)
Yes, Anachronist, I'd understood. (Incidentally, I found Flesh Gordon far less pornographic than soporific.) A difference between Orgazmo and Bus Ride is that the former is presented as amusing fiction, whereas Wikipedia uncritically recycles a credulous account of the latter (sourced to John Duncan: Work 1975-2005, a book by John Duncan). -- Hoary (talk) 02:01, 9 February 2026 (UTC)
Its not very standard across articles though, and if someone were to add a source that was primary, and not tag it, it would suggest to the reader that it wasn't primary.
Apologies, but I am not quite following. 5 different language user pages were created. I remember resetting my preferences about then . Wakelamp (talk) d[@-@]b15:06, 12 February 2026 (UTC)
I'm only guessing (but I think it's a good enough guess) that some action you did was counted by the wiki software as an edit. Some wikis are set to send an automatic Welcome message on a person's first edit.
As mentioned above, and as proved by your reaction, many users find these automatic welcomes confusing, pointless, rude, or whatever, and there's a proposal in the works to make the wikis stop doing it, or at least to do it more reasonably. (And one of the main complaints is that what they're classifying as an "edit" currently includes a number of things that aren't ordinarily thought of as editing.) TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 16:51, 12 February 2026 (UTC)
Link to "Once Human" at "Category:Once Human albums"
Latest comment: 4 months ago3 comments2 people in discussion
I fixed it by setting the correct article as an unnamed first parameter for {{Albums category}}. I also set the display text to not display the parenthetical, so it's consistent with the category title. Category:Once Human albums now links to the band rather than the disambiguation page. – Scyrme (talk) 23:04, 12 February 2026 (UTC)
Latest comment: 4 months ago15 comments5 people in discussion
Hello, just to wrap up an issue quickly, on the Akwete_cloth page, user:Dolpina, is continuously editing and deleting citations from sourced material I had posted, and claims I “made up the sources, and content” despite having clearly linked the citations in detail. Would an admin be able to look over this?
Yep, on the talk section of said page, but they continually delete my sourced content saying I’m making it up, which is hilarious, so now it’s an issue only a mod could solve, really. Dangermanmeetz (talk) 05:24, 12 February 2026 (UTC)
I did consider it a person attack because that person didnt hear my side of things and just believed the person interested in POV editing. Dolpina (talk) 11:33, 12 February 2026 (UTC)
Please how am I a vandal for pointing out original research? That isn't what was said in the sources and I called it out. I tagged 3rd parties for help and he quickly reverted the page before it was locked. He/she is the one interested in POV editing. Dolpina (talk) 11:32, 12 February 2026 (UTC)
@Dangermanmeetz: It looks both of you were reverting each other back and forth, which isn't really look good for either you of Dolpina in the eyes of a typical Wikipedia administrator. If content you add to an article is disputed by another user (even content supported by citations), and they give a policy- or guideline-based reason why (e.g., they feel the content isn't not supported by the sources cited), then the burden falls the person wanting to add/re-add the disputed content to go to the article's talk and start a discussion explaining why doing so is in accordance with relevant policies and guideline, including even seeking a consensus to re-add the content. Disagreements over a content and sources isn't really considered vandalism per se, particularly when the other person seems to at least be giving policy- or guideline-based reasons for reverting. You both now have, also, started competing threads on the article's talk page, which also isn't a really good idea. Perhaps the best thing for you both to do would be to take a break, let things cool down a bit, and then go back to the article's talk page to see if you can resolve your differences in accordance with WP:DR. If you both keep on going as you have been going, an administrator is likely to step in, but neither of you may like the outcome of that happening. -- Marchjuly (talk) 05:41, 12 February 2026 (UTC)
Appreciate the response, though I would say the issue is moreso that the objections by the other user is not in line with what is actually occurring. By claiming I’m “making my own content” and saying what I’m citing and writing are different with no proof (I’ve also linked the book and page I cited a couple times), it just seems deliberately dishonest, especially when we get into the ethnic framing of it (if you’re familiar with Nigerian ethnic tensions) which take place on the site all the time. Dangermanmeetz (talk) 05:53, 12 February 2026 (UTC)
Regardless of how right you are or how wrong you think the other person is, you just don't keep reverting back and forth to your preferred version, which look like is exactly what you both were doing. There's no exemption for WP:3RR when it comes to a content dispute or disagreement over sources; moreover, if the subject matter is as contentious as you state, then maybe even WP:1RR could be a problem. You both should, in principle, be following WP:DISPUTERESOLUTION process in trying to resolve this. There are various steps to that process; so, if one doesn't yield any positive results, move to the next one. Arguing back and forth via edit summaries, including threats of getting each other banned, doesn't typically move things in a positive direction at all. In my opinion, the best thing you could do to diffuse the situation would be to self-revert the disputed content as a show of good faith and then seek a consensus to re-add it through discussion on the article's talk page. -- Marchjuly (talk) 06:33, 12 February 2026 (UTC)
I would prefer the version of the article be reverted to the pre edit warring stage then we start from there. I feel more neutral people be involved and check the sources and the subject matter. I have tagged random 3rd parties. It feels unfair that his is left up for a week. It should be about accuracy and truth, and non POV pushing,rather than fastest fingers. Dolpina (talk) 11:36, 12 February 2026 (UTC)
Both of you, @Dolpina and @Dangermanmeetz need to get off your "I am right and they are wrong" kick. At this point what matters is that you both do your very best to reach consensus - which starts by really listening to the other person's point of view. Repeated reversion doesn't do it, nor does insisting that you are right and they are wrong, and nor does appealing to some "authority" to rule.
I've been open to it, but they don't seem to be. Not much I can do with someone insisting on making his own conclusions, not made in a source while separately accusing me of vandalizing another unrelated page, because I reverted vandalism/POV. I am still open to it but at some point whether or not I intervened, anyone who cares enough about the topic will see the discrepancies. Anyone who cares enough about the subject should feel free to contribute before it is equivalent to a personal blog post. Dolpina (talk) 17:07, 12 February 2026 (UTC)
You can't control what others are going to do, but you should be fine as long as you're discussing things in good faith and limit your comments to the content being discussed and not the other person, you should be fine. A user can't ignore a WP:CONSENSUS; so, focus on establishing a consensus by showing how your concerns about the content and cited sources are in accordance with relevant Wikipedia policies and guidelines. If a consensus is established that you're correct, the content will be removed; if the other user tries re-add it despite consensus, they will find out from a Wikipedia administrator that such a thing isn't allowed. If they persist even at beyond that point, they will learn that they can't win by most likely ending up being blocked. -- Marchjuly (talk) 07:58, 13 February 2026 (UTC)
Fans page
Latest comment: 4 months ago3 comments3 people in discussion
Hi ~2026-98415-8. That kind of thing wouldn't be allowed on Wikipedia for the reasons given in Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not, but there are other types of websites (including some that are similar in format to Wikipedia) where such a thing might be OK to do. Please take a look at Wikipedia:Alternative outlets for some information on alternatives to Wikipedia. -- Marchjuly (talk) 07:48, 13 February 2026 (UTC)
I also can't get the map to update to the address I loaded, and now see a citation which goes to a different link than what I thought I pasted in. Under Enrollment, I pasted in an updated source, but that URL links to a citation number which goes to a different URL.
Can I get some pointers? Sorry to have misfired on all this.
Hello, IterantFocus. According to the cited website, an appropriate title for the first reference is "School Name: Horace Mann School For The Deaf Hard Of Hearing". That should be placed in the "title" field of the citation template. You should fill as many fields as is practical. Some fields can be left blank such as the author fields for an unsigned article or the date field for an undated article, but the title is considered so important that the template generates an error message if the title field is left blank. Cullen328 (talk) 20:47, 12 February 2026 (UTC)
Thank you for the direction! Ultimately when I looked in code instead of the visual editor I saw what I must have dropped out when I made my edits.
Is there any chance you can help me with why the map doesn't agree with the address? I don't see anything suggesting how it's pulling a dated address. Could it just be a caching issue? IterantFocus (talk) 21:19, 12 February 2026 (UTC)
It was pulling the location from the "coord" template at the bottom of the page. I moved the coord template up into the infobox (not necessary, but it's easier to find) and changed the coordinates to match the address. Andrew Jameson (talk) 13:40, 13 February 2026 (UTC)
Hi, first of all, welcome to wikipedia. I was the one that reverted your edit, because the language you used appeared to be promotional in tone. Dark-World25 (talk) 14:32, 12 February 2026 (UTC)
Hi I'm happy if you want to keep the text the same - all I did was change it to the description we currently use on our website home page. But the logo/image is our old one and needs to be changed Chiva75863 (talk) 14:37, 12 February 2026 (UTC)
@Chiva75863 As the logo you added does not appear anywhere on the charity's website (ie with the strapline), I have uploaded the updated logo as found on the website. I have also moved the article to the charity's current name, and reverted the odd change you made to add a "display title" to a redirect - but things like redirects are obviously complicated and difficult for a completely new editor to understand. I think the charity now has the correct incoming redirects - from the old/long name, and from the CAPS version. I note that the Charity commission still uses the long form of name, and does not even mention "Chiva" as a "working name" as is done for many other charities. PamD15:11, 12 February 2026 (UTC)
@Chiva75863 And the text you added was copied from the charity's home page but not sourced to anywhere. The original version of the page, which I created around the time of that long-ago royal wedding, listed the "aims" and directly cited the charity's "aims and objectives" page. Over the years various edits had managed to separate those bullet points from any sourcing, and indeed they seem to have disappeared from the website, being replaced by the two paragraphs you copied. I've now replaced your paragraphs in the article, but showing clearly that the text is quoted verbatim and showing its source, the home page. PamD15:16, 12 February 2026 (UTC)
You say our charity page. You have two misunderstandings. Firstly, it is not "yours"; it is a Wikipedia article about a topic (in this case, some charity). Secondly, it an article, not a page.
"Pages" are things on websites and social media. If that website and media are yours, then they are "your page". But that's not Wikipedia. Indeed, if you are closely associated with the topic that needs editing then, although others may edit the article, you probably should avoid editing it directly yourself, but instead make well-sourced edit requests at the talk page. See WP:COI and WP:PAID. Hope that helps clear things up. Feline Hymnic (talk) 16:57, 12 February 2026 (UTC)
As Andy Mabbett has pointed out, Feline Hymnic, even according to Wikipedia's own terminology a Wikipedia article is a page. And, as you concede, "Pages" are things on websites and social media; so since Wikipedia's articles are things on on the website wikipedia.org, for Wikipedia to call them pages is hardly surprising. As for the claim that a page/article about some organization is not theirs, this would fly in the face of the Standard English use of the genitive. My page/article isn't the page about me, but this is ruled out simply because you have no reason to think that such a page exists. But it could be the page/article to which I recently devoted much time, the page I'm complaining about, the page I seem to be obsessed with, the page I'm helping push to FA. And if it did turn out that there was a page about me, "my page" could mean that too. WP:BLPN currently has mentions of "Siddiqui's article" (i.e. Aafia Siddiqui's article; en:Wikipedia's article on Aafia Siddiqui) and this subject's article" (i.e. Jamie Shea's article; en:Wikipedia's article on Jamie Shea); I'm happy to report that nobody has yet popped up to trumpet any delusion about some implication that Siddiqui/Shea "possesses" the respective article. -- Hoary (talk) 00:12, 13 February 2026 (UTC)
Thank you Pam D for updating it for me, and for everyone's advice. As a small charity I just wanted to make sure the information was up to date to benefit our support users. I apologise I am not very clued up about Wikipedia - I didn't mean to cause any offense to anyone or break any rules. I'm happy to close my account on here now the "article" is up to date. Have a great day everyone. Chiva75863 (talk) 09:00, 13 February 2026 (UTC)
@Chiva75863 Please stay around and if there is news about Chiva, or changes needed to the article, comment on its talk page giving references so that someone else can update the article/page. And now that you've dipped a toe into editing, perhaps see if there are other articles which you could improve or update, backed up with reliable independent published sources: perhaps your home town, interests, or HIV topics? PamD16:40, 13 February 2026 (UTC)
the post is not making live and its under sandbox for days!
Latest comment: 4 months ago5 comments5 people in discussion
My earnest advice to new editors is to not even think about trying to create an article until you have spent several weeks - at least - learning about how Wikipedia works by making improvements to existing articles. Once you have understood core policies such as verifiability, neutral point of view, reliable, independent sources, and notability, and experienced how we handle disagreements with other editors (the Bold, Revert, Discuss cycle), then you might be ready to read your first article carefully, and try creating a draft. If you don't follow this advice but try to create an article without this preparation, you are likely to have a frustrating and disappointing experience with Wikipedia. ColinFine (talk) 16:47, 13 February 2026 (UTC)
Latest comment: 4 months ago3 comments2 people in discussion
Hello there. I've been having long-time problems with a user using multiple IP addresses. Their most recent edits regard Bosnian footballer Ermin Bičakčić. They have removed relevant content (contract info about him signing for a new club, an image, as well as a separate part about his new club because the "club is not relevant enough and [he] is nearing the end of his career", which is an incredibly subjective and illogic reason). He has also changed the access-date and language format which is currently in use in the vast majority of articles on wikipedia. They have done this to multiple former Bosnian national team players' articles. Evidently their main account has been blocked due to some reasons, and for years they've been evading furhter blocks by using multiple IP addresses. I do not intend to edit war with them, while trying to discuss anything with them on any players' talk page is, unfortunately, not going to work (I've tried before). They are just incredibly stubborn, and their edits are not contributing to anything. What should I do? Bakir123 (talk) 09:36, 13 February 2026 (UTC)
@Bakir123 The sequence of edits, all from different temporary accounts, suggests that if this is a single individual they are "clever" in having their device(s) associated with different accounts. The simplest thing to do is to request page protection at WP:RPP. The somewhat more complicated thing would be to take it to WP:ANI but I don't think that would help much in this instance given how many accounts are involved. Mike Turnbull (talk) 10:09, 13 February 2026 (UTC)
Latest comment: 4 months ago13 comments5 people in discussion
For different types of English used in quite a few articles, we often use "'s" for singular nouns such as "Charles's" (which I've added to) from Rise of the Planet of the Apes (since this is an American film, for reference, one of the plot section quotes reads Charles's condition returns as his immune system becomes resistant to ALZ-112.).
However, I have a general question: on other articles, should we use the "'s" for singular nouns for different forms of English (i.e. British, Australian, etc.)? Thanks, sjones23 (talk - contributions) 08:54, 10 February 2026 (UTC)
That is an apostrophe, not a comma. Its placement is decided by how the possessive is pronounced as well as the variety of English in use. The Oxford Manual of Style says US English is more likely to support ... genitive possessives ... with British English tending instead to transpose the words and insert "of": e.g. "the effects of the catharsis" rather than "the catharsis' effects". There is more information the apostrophe article. Shantavira|feed me09:38, 10 February 2026 (UTC)
For the plural of a surname when it's not possessive, there must not be any apostrophe, and an s must be added even if there already was one - if the name already ends in s, stick in an e for padding. "The Burnses were here yesterday, but the Flintstones, the Joneses, and the Smiths were not".
You are compliant with MOS if you code Kongs's and the Flintstones's pet, Dino, but if that grates on your ears, just reword to avoid it. Mathglot (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 11:54, 10 February 2026 (UTC)
For the possessive/genitive singular, isn't the norm for most names ending in -s to just use an apostrophe by itself? That is, Charles' not Charles's. – Scyrme (talk) 01:47, 11 February 2026 (UTC)
Yes, I know Wikipedia uses the MOS, I just don't have every guideline and shortcut memorised. Looks like the MOS recommends that in cases where the final S would be omitted, the text should instead be rephrased so the suffix isn't necessary, though you're right that it doesn't omit the S when the suffix is used rather than avoided. Strange that the only exception is for abstract nouns preceding the word "sake", rather than just abstract nouns consistently. (I know it's to preserve common idioms; I still think it's strange.) – Scyrme (talk) 21:18, 11 February 2026 (UTC)
Understanding how AI chatbots like OpenAI are used to research sources for Wikipedia
Latest comment: 4 months ago3 comments3 people in discussion
Hi all
Today I noticed an edit on a page where the reference had '?utm_source=chatgpt.com' at the end of the URL. This makes me wonder how many contributors are using AI chatbots as ways to collate information and sources for Wikipedia.
Does anyone know of any studies on this?
Is there any way to search the raw wikitext of Wikipedia to see how many times URLs with some kind of sign the source was suggested by AI? Eg ?utm_source=chatgpt.com
Are there any bots on Wikipedia which would remove these signs eg removing ?utm_source=chatgpt.com from the reference URLs?
2. User:Gnomingstuff has lots of great tricks for scraping for AI-generated content. I think they have pings off but you could ask at their talk page.
3. No, nor would we want one; AI editing is discouraged and under steadily-increasing restrictions, and fingerprints like this are important tools to catch it.
Latest comment: 4 months ago8 comments3 people in discussion
Is there a procedure for drafting a template?
I looked at WP:Namespace and it only lists Draft: and Template:, but not something like Template draft:. I'm unsure what the appropriate namespace is for an experimental template, particularly one which may otherwise get automatically categorised into a maintenance category as having errors due to its being incomplete.
I know I can sketch things out in a user sandbox, but it's difficult to experiment & troubleshoot without being about to insert the template into a user page to test if it works properly and responds to parameters as intended. – Scyrme (talk) 20:48, 12 February 2026 (UTC)
I think that suggestion is for if you want to try out the examples/markup used by that help page, rather than if you want to work on a new template. The template sandbox is good for short experimentation, but I was looking for something suitable for longer term project. (The sandbox is shared, so isn't reserved for a single project and gets wiped every 12 hours.) – Scyrme (talk) 21:51, 12 February 2026 (UTC)
But I don't understand your point about difficult to experiment & troubleshoot . I test templates all the time that are in my user space; what difficulty are you having, exactly? You can create a test cases page with a range of tests, and refresh the page every time you tweak your test template, and see if that broke or fixed anything. Is that what you mean? Mathglot (talk) 20:06, 13 February 2026 (UTC)
@Mathglot: How would I insert the template into a test page? Usually to insert a template you would add {{TEMPLATENAME|parameter1=some|parameter2=thing}}, but since the template isn't in the template namespace that doesn't work. – Scyrme (talk) 20:31, 13 February 2026 (UTC)
Scyrme, just as you showed above, with the full pagename including namespace and full path where you wrote TEMPLATENAME. The software only looks for a template in template space by default when you do not provide a namespace, but when you do provide one, then it looks there. Here's one in my user space:
Latest comment: 4 months ago4 comments3 people in discussion
Hi how can i add the translation of this page in german in englih? I don't think i have the editor right or how can i submit it to be translated? thank you Jojoraebbit (talk) 19:28, 11 February 2026 (UTC)
The German article de:Alex Márquez (Filmeditor) is not sourced adequately for an English Wikipedia article, so a direct translation will not be acceptable. The one existing source may be usable, but it is presumably a tertiary source: we generally require at least three reliable secondary sources, each meeting all the criteria in WP:golden rule.
So in order to create an English article on Marquez, it will be essential to find at least two more sources which meet all the criteria, and then write an article based entirely on those reliable independent sources. It may be possible to translate parts of the German text, but if that includes information which is not in those reliable independent sources, those parts should not be in the English text; so it is likely to be more effective to treat the English article as a new article, and use Articles for creation. ColinFine (talk) 20:38, 11 February 2026 (UTC)
Jojoraebbit, I agree with Colin. It may be necessary to ignore the German article (except for background, and maybe some references) and just write the article from scratch, rather than translate existing content. See Help:Your first article for how to proceed. Mathglot (talk) 22:26, 13 February 2026 (UTC)
How to get my profile on Wikipedia?
Latest comment: 4 months ago20 comments8 people in discussion
Wikipedia isn’t made up of “profiles” like LinkedIN, Wikipedia biographies of living people are about people who have enough secondary and reliable sources to be written about (and must be notable enough), holding a public office can demonstrate notability but you’ll have to hold the public office first, and then you would also have to state your conflict of interest as the subject, meaning you can only put verifiable information on the article (which you can make via AFC although autobiographies aren’t advised). The Grenadian Historian (Aka. Mwen Sé Kéyòl Translator-a) (talk) 11:56, 11 February 2026 (UTC)
Profile ("A summary or collection of information, especially about a person") is a perfectly ordinary word for someone to use about a Wikipedia biography. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edit
"Profile" has more than one meaning. One of them certainly is something like (off the top of my head) "a collection of information about a person, often but not necessarily including their photograph, curated and maintained by that person or their representatives, to be displayed to the public". I didn't look at Wiktionary, but if one of its definitions isn't recognizably similar to that, then it's only because no one has added it yet. Absence from Wiktionary isn't conclusive. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 23:00, 12 February 2026 (UTC)
Even if someone did add that definition to Wiktionary (feel free to try that), it still won't invalidate my statements and it won't demonstrate that that was what was meant in this case. WP:AGF has not yet been rescinded. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits23:10, 12 February 2026 (UTC)
I’m just stating what I have seen others say about the word “Profile“ it seems the original use of the word profile would fit, but what the word has turned into wouldn’t exactly (the meaning of “profile” in the public conscious appears different to the meaning in actual dictionaries, which does happen from time to time). The Grenadian Historian (Aka. Mwen Sé Kéyòl Translator-a) (talk) 09:43, 13 February 2026 (UTC)
The word has not "turned into" anything and it's original meaning remains valid.
What you apparently misunderstand the word to exclusively now mean is not "the meaning of 'profile' in the public conscious", but one of several meanings, and far from the usual or commonest one. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits10:43, 13 February 2026 (UTC)
I don’t misunderstand the word, I understand the meaning, but words do change in meaning, look at the French words which are slightly different in English, Sympathique isn’t the same as Sympathetic despite the latter coming from the former, among other words. I was just pointing out that profile can put a different idea into someone’s head, mainly due to internet profiles which have somewhat changed how we perceive the word “profile”. The Grenadian Historian (Aka. Mwen Sé Kéyòl Translator-a) (talk) 10:49, 13 February 2026 (UTC)
Do not assume that the negative idea the word put into your head is the one meant by the enquirer, when other reasonable and positive interpretations are reasonably possible. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits10:58, 13 February 2026 (UTC)
You have repeatedly insisted, without a shred of evidence, that the enquirer wishes to do things which would be in breach our policies. Of course that's a negative interpretation of what they actually said Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits11:50, 13 February 2026 (UTC)
By indicating they are a US Senate candidate, they strongly suggest they want a "profile" here to enhance their campaign, not improve Wikipedia. AGF hasn't been violated here.
You may be correct about the dictionary definitions of the word, but that is not how many people use the word in my many years of experience here. Many people equate "Wikipedia article" to "social media profile". This may be incorrect, but it happens nevertheless. By describing this we're trying to steer people towards knowing what exactly articles are- summaries of what has been written about them, not necessarily what they want to say about themselves. 331dot (talk) 09:50, 13 February 2026 (UTC)
The reason they want to be included in Wikipedia may be what you suggest, but even if so it does not mean that they want something "made to be about the person in a promotional way" or "curated and maintained by that person or their representatives", and it is an egregious failure to AGF to assume that they do when they have said or done nothing to that effect. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits10:46, 13 February 2026 (UTC)
A Wikipedia article on a politician can only be drawn from how reliable independent publications have analyzed their career in politics. A candidate has no career in politics (yet). Wikipedia's article about any person is to document what the public already knew about their career. (Using myself as an example, the public knows nothing of my career, so there couldn't be an article about me. It's not a platform for me to tell about myself.) TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 17:50, 11 February 2026 (UTC)
Adding easily checked statements to a Wikipedia article
Latest comment: 4 months ago12 comments6 people in discussion
Hi. I would like to add the following sentence to the Wikipedia article on the song "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You":
The main repeating bass line in the Led Zeppelin version uses the same sequence of relative note intervals and relative note durations as the main repeating bass line at the start of the verse of the 1966 Summer in the City (song) by The Lovin' Spoonful.
To my mind, just listening to the first 7 seconds of Led Zeppelin's version of "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You" and the first 14 seconds of The Lovin' Spoonful's "Summer in the City" makes it very clear that the above statement is true. But I'm not allowed to just state that?
I found a Facebook post by some guy 3 years ago who made the same point (using less precise wording than my statement uses). So if I just included a link to that less precisely worded Facebook post, then I could add my above sentence to the Wikipedia article on the song "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You"?
We generally do not include random facts in Wikipedia articles simply because they are true. The question is not whether someone can verify that fact by listening to the song, but rather why we should mention such a random piece of trivia at all?
The need for reliable sources is twofold; firstly to verify the information, but also to demonstrate to us that the information is significant enough for reliable sources to have commented on it. For example, you'll notice that Wikipedia biographies don't tend to make a point of mentioning peoples' hair or eye colour even if these things are easily 'verifiable' merely by looking at their photos.
To my mind, the first time that a particular bass line which ends up being a major part of three major rock hits (Summer in the City, Led Zeppelin's Babe I'm Gonna Leave You, and Chicago's "25 or 6 to 4", in chronological order of release) is a significant piece of information. This is because whoever "first" came up with that bass line should perhaps get a little extra "credit", since it's probably more likely that they initially composed that bass line, and probably more likely that subsequent uses of it were due to those later musicians having heard the initial "hit" that used it (in this case, the number one hit "Summer in the City"), and then incorporated it into their own song later. (I realize that this may not have been true for Jimmy Page.) Thanks to Cullen328 below, I now have a reference for what I was saying. Now I just need to find a reference that also discusses "25 or 6 to 4" using that same bass line (in a very major way, even)! Bjdpc (talk) 07:33, 12 February 2026 (UTC)
'Significance' is not our criteria for inclusion but rather 'notability,' i.e., whether a subject and information about that subject has been discussed in reliable sources. Notability generally should follow from significance; if a piece of information is truly significant, then one should expect that somebody would have written about it, as in this case. Athanelar (talk) 09:43, 12 February 2026 (UTC)
WP:N dictates we can only create articles about subjects that are covered by RS, by summarising the information available in those RS. QED, facts included in existing articles can essentially only consist of those things that are covered by the same RS that demonstrate the subject's notability (aside from the limited WP:ABOUTSELF case, but that doesn't apply here.) Any claim of a fact's 'significance' must necessarily be supported by a secondary RS, which is also part of the subject's notability. Athanelar (talk) 10:00, 12 February 2026 (UTC)
Sorry, you still have it wrong. While your first sentence is correct, the next one (starting QED) is false. Sources in an article by no means have to be among those that establish its notability; that is just wildly off base. Mathglot (talk) 22:43, 13 February 2026 (UTC)
If you can find where well-known reporters from trusted publications thought this was important, like it got serious coverage in a Rolling Stone article or whatever, then there would be more of a chance of putting it in. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 17:56, 11 February 2026 (UTC)
Bjdpc, I found a 2016 book called Experiencing the Rolling Stones: A Listener's Companion that also discusses other songs of that era. Take a look at Note 19 that makes a comparison of these two performances similar to the one you made. Cullen328 (talk) 05:10, 12 February 2026 (UTC)
Thanks a lot, Cullen328. I really appreciate you finding that reference. Now I just need to learn how to insert that reference in my statement. (Sorry - I'm almost completely new to editing Wikipedia.) Is it trivial to do that? If so, could let me know what I should insert in my listing, and if not, could give me a link to the part of the Help section that discusses that. If so, thanks a lot. And thanks again for the reference. Bjdpc (talk) 07:06, 12 February 2026 (UTC)
Refer to Help:Citing sources. Based on what the article Babe I'm Gonna Leave You already uses, you should use a template like {{cite book}}. So you would add something like <ref>{{cite book |last= |first= |title= |publisher= |year= |page=}}</ref>, with the relevant information after each equals sign (last and first are respectively the author's last and first name), after the statement that you want this source to support. -- Maddy from Celeste (WAVEDASH)08:32, 12 February 2026 (UTC)
Unable to see “Move” option on Hindi Wikipedia articles
Latest comment: 4 months ago4 comments4 people in discussion
@ROLEXMEENA: Could you provide more information? Like at least linking to what you mean by "Hindi Wikipedia articles"? We're on the English-language Wikipedia so there are no articles in the Hindi language here. Are you talking about the Hindi-language Wikipedia? Or do you mean something else? – Scyrme (talk) 18:41, 13 February 2026 (UTC)
Thanks for the clarification. However, the title Orne (river) is still inherently ambiguous, since Orne (Moselle) is also a river, and the disambiguator "river" does not distinguish between them. Hatnotes and the disambiguation page help navigation, but a more specific disambiguator in the title would be clearer. ~2026-98545-5 (talk) 21:56, 13 February 2026 (UTC)
Latest comment: 4 months ago4 comments3 people in discussion
I was looking through the naming conventions and I noticed that Wikipedia:Naming conventions (music) wasn't in the subcategory for the arts, so I added it. When I went to remove the base category I couldn't find it anywhere on the page nor could I use HotCat to remove it. Is there any reason for this? Drowssap18:34, 14 February 2026 (UTC)
Latest comment: 4 months ago4 comments4 people in discussion
Hello Help, I attempted several times to login using my User Name: "GSR Soc" and password without success. I requested a "forgot password reset" expecting advice sent to my email but received nothing. I checked 24 hours later - still nothing. Please can you assist? Many thanks:) ~2026-99853-4 (talk) 23:29, 13 February 2026 (UTC)
@~2026-99853-4: There is no user account by that name. This is the English Wikipedia, a Wikimedia wiki. Is that where you think you have an account? There are many unrelated wikis. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:38, 13 February 2026 (UTC)
This is the second time you have made this sort of error-report. And for the second time, someone has promptly responded that they do not see the problem, and that your message does not have enough detail for someone to help figure it out. Please make sure you are specific when reporting a problem. Otherwise a lot of people might wind up wasting a lot of time and benefitting nobody. DMacks (talk) 06:18, 15 February 2026 (UTC)
When should the phrases "pregnant woman", "pregnant person", and "pregnant man" be used on Wikipedia?
Latest comment: 3 months ago3 comments3 people in discussion
I heard an editor started replacing the phrase "pregnant person" with "pregnant woman" in almost every instance, while repeatedly saying "standing for the truth" in edit summaries. They were then given a 31 hour block: Special:Contributions/Oifwejiofwje
As Athanelar said, we should go with what the source says. In this case, I think at least some of the edits were appropriate (I haven't check all of them), but it was clear they were making these edits willy-nilly in a WP:RGW sense, not because they had checked the original source in each one of those cases. CoffeeCrumbs (talk) 15:17, 15 February 2026 (UTC)
$1m
Latest comment: 3 months ago9 comments6 people in discussion
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.
Bundy standoff says directing Bundy to pay over $1 million in withheld grazing fees but in reality the grazing fees themselves were like 40-50k and the rest was penalties and interest accumulated over the years. “The fees themselves are probably only about $40,000 to $50,000,” Whipple said. “But then of course it keeps doubling, then with the IRS and the government entities, you’re talking about an entirely different figure.” The $1m number makes the government seem unreasonable when he actually had to pay a far more manageable sum but refused for decades. Polygnotus (talk) 05:25, 15 February 2026 (UTC)
Hello, Polygnotus. The article has been unprotected for about six years and can be edited by anyone. Please edit the content to more accurately summarize the sources. Cullen328 (talk) 06:36, 15 February 2026 (UTC)
I don't know how y'all do this. I'm just not comfortable doing much typing unless I'm sitting at a stereotypical computer, ideally with my personal keyboard and very large monitor. Doing anything on my phone takes twice as long for me, even if I disregard the extra time spent because of "hot dog fingers." CoffeeCrumbs (talk) 15:09, 15 February 2026 (UTC)
I'll look for issues on my phone, but fix them on my laptop. My issue is the autocapitalization of the first character of searches which causes reserved words like insource not to work.Naraht (talk) 15:41, 15 February 2026 (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.
Aelita
Latest comment: 3 months ago3 comments3 people in discussion
Latest comment: 3 months ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Thank you for your message regarding my recent edit to the Samastipur page.
I understand that my addition of the "Digital Media" section regarding Samastipur News was reverted. I am relatively new to editing Wikipedia and my intention was to add relevant local information, not to spam or vandalize.
Could you please guide me on why this specific addition was considered non-constructive?
Was it a lack of reliable citations (references)?
Or is it an issue with the notability of the media outlet?
I would appreciate your advice on how I can improve the content to meet Wikipedia's standards, or if I should provide third-party sources (like major newspapers) to verify the information before adding it again.
Thanks for your help. Samastipurnewsedit (talk) 17:16, 15 February 2026 (UTC)
One major problem is that you cut out very large chunks of the existing article and gave false edit summaries (not slightly-mistaken ones, but giving a completely wrong impression of what you were really doing). TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 17:28, 15 February 2026 (UTC)
I want become Editor
Latest comment: 3 months ago6 comments4 people in discussion
Hi, I started editing Wikipedia about two days ago. I’m reading the guidelines and trying to learn properly.
I’m also a digital artwork creator and have uploaded some of my creative work to Wikimedia Commons. As a new editor, can I help by improving articles or giving feedback, and is it possible to become a page reviewer later? ButterflyCat (talk) 09:52, 7 February 2026 (UTC)
Hi there, thank you so much, and welcome to the community! You absolutely can improve articles. You don't have to be a page reviewer to do that, such as by formatting pages per the manual of style, adding citations, or copyediting. You can also give feedback on talk pages of articles or drafts, or talk pages of users who create them. If you have a good track record for this, you can request the permission so you can "patrol" pages so they are indexed on search engines like Google! There are many things to do on Wikipedia, feel free to see the Dashboard for some tasks you can help out with. jolielover♥talk11:20, 7 February 2026 (UTC)
@ButterflyCat When you upload any work to Commons, you are agreeing to license that work under one of the Creative Commons licenses. I believe that allows anyone to reuse your work for any purpose (with attribution). There are other details (that I'm not too familiar with); if you are OK with this, then great. If not -- you may want to take your work down.
Page reviewers review pages and edits; however they may edit. You don't have to be one, @ButterflyCat. What you are doing right now (editing, I assume?) is good enough. If you want to be extended confirmed later, then that's entirely different! Purplemaker (talk) 23:20, 15 February 2026 (UTC)
Sufficient evidence for living public figures' birth year (and/or date)
Latest comment: 3 months ago4 comments4 people in discussion
Hello - I would like to add the birth year for a living person.
Caveat: I realize none of the following are acceptable, but sharing to let you know what I know. Their state's voter reg rolls are public and it lists the actual birth date. Their wedding announcement in the NY Times lists the age of the person (which I realize only marks their age on that day, and doesn't reliably narrow down the birth year). Their college lists their graduating year (again: not reliable). Their Public Facebook Page lists their college and graduation year as well as high school and graduation year (and there's a photo saying "Me at 18 in 1980"). Also, a Facebook post by them corroborates their wedding anniversary and age at that time. And every year on the same date they acknowledge birthday greetings on Facebook--which is the same date on the voter reg rolls.
Again: I understand none of those meet your standards. But what would? If the wedding announcement in the NY Times says the person was 25 in May 2005, would I have to find articles referencing them and their age as 24 in, say, January--and then 25 in April? Or what would be sufficient documentation? Thank you. Limeginger (talk) 03:35, 15 February 2026 (UTC)
Converting simple things like this into abstract theoretical questions makes them more difficult to answer, and might reduce your chance of success. Please start by saying exactly who you're talking about. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 04:04, 15 February 2026 (UTC)
It doesn't seem to me that Limeginger has asked any "abstract theoretical questions". I don't have any opinion on the (non-) issue and am disinclined to research it. I'd tend toward ignoring the matter of birth date, guessing that if it interested other editors then some of them would unearth more precise facts, eventually. However, a date span seems possible -- and it could be explained in a Template:Efn. (Does some issue hinge on this person's birth date?) -- Hoary (talk) 23:29, 15 February 2026 (UTC)
If this is for the infobox, I'd just use {{Age as of date}}, based on the NYT source. If you wanted an exact birth date, you could do a routine WP:CALCULATION if the Facebook posts are from a verified profile (per WP:ABOUTSELF) and give you a birthday. So if they say on FB their birthday is (e.g.) 1 April, and you know from NYT they were 25 when they got married in May 2005, then it's a pretty routine calculation to say they were born 1 April 1980. Nil🥝00:33, 16 February 2026 (UTC)
$1m (2)
Latest comment: 3 months ago4 comments4 people in discussion
Bundy standoff says directing Bundy to pay over $1 million in withheld grazing fees but in reality the grazing fees themselves were like 40-50k and the rest was penalties and interest accumulated over the years. “The fees themselves are probably only about $40,000 to $50,000,” Whipple said. “But then of course it keeps doubling, then with the IRS and the government entities, you’re talking about an entirely different figure.” The $1m number makes the government seem unreasonable when he actually had to pay a far more manageable sum but refused for decades. Polygnotus (talk) 05:25, 15 February 2026 (UTC)
If you have an idea for how to improve a Wikipedia article, the best thing you can do is edit it yourself. The second best thing you can do is raise your concerns on the article's talk page. In this case, you would want to make a new topic over at Talk:Bundy standoff.
I have trouble writing with a smartphone too, although I've never tried editing Wikipedia on one. If you have a personal computer of any sort, try editing Wikipedia on that device instead. MEN KISSING(she/they) T - C - Email me!22:36, 15 February 2026 (UTC)
@Polygnotus you have made over 41,000 edits over the last 3.5 years, and since you are a fairly experienced editor, I don't understand why you are repeatedly posting this off-topic content here. You have asked no question in what you posted. What are you hoping will happen? CodeTalker (talk) 05:44, 16 February 2026 (UTC)
SPA account adding links only to their own website
Latest comment: 3 months ago2 comments2 people in discussion
User:CulverHist's only contribution to Wikipedia is to add citations to their website chrisbungostudios.com, a user-generated directory of film and video filming locations (with some commercial aspects). I'm not sure if this is appropriate. Any advice? Dave.Dunford (talk) 11:10, 16 February 2026 (UTC)
Only use it when a person's exact height is important to what is said about them in the article. If they're an actor, saying "he was very tall" in the article is already enough - we don't care about the exact number. If they're a boxer or a basketball player, knowing that they're 6' 7½" can matter a lot. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 06:43, 16 February 2026 (UTC)
So in this case, athletes, models, and other special cases that height is needed in a infobox then. Thus basically means that some infoboxes don't need to have their height listed if it's not useful like a chef or a singer for example. TyronesEditsPages (talk) 09:13, 16 February 2026 (UTC)
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.
Stephenfoery, I am an administator and so could read your deleted userpage. It was entirely self-promotional and that type of content is not permitted on Wikipedia. Use social media to promote yourself, not an encyclopedia. The deletion had nothing to do with your sexual orientation. It would have been deleted if you had been promoting your books about asteroids or butterflies. The administrator who deleted iteditor who tagged it for deletion is User:Theroadislong, who acted correctly in my opinion. The current content on your userpage is bizarre and tendentious. I encourage you to remove it. Cullen328 (talk) 18:26, 15 February 2026 (UTC)
I apologize for my error that was the result of a too quick look. Significa liberdade deleted the content. I believe that the deletion was correct. The content consisted of promotion of books instead of discussion of the editor's work on Wikipedia. Cullen328 (talk) 18:35, 15 February 2026 (UTC)
I didn't see your userpage, but based on what others are saying here, it sounds as if your user page may have been inappropriate due to excessive self promotion. Your Wikipedia user page should be more focused on what you do here on Wikipedia, not what you do outside of Wikipedia. Talking about articles on Wikipedia you've written is okay, and talking about your personal life is okay, but talking excessively about books you have authored is not.
As for "institutionalized homophobia", I suppose your mileage may vary, but I've found that Wikipedia's community is quite progressive and welcoming. I hope I can assure you that the subject matter of your books had nothing to do with the deletion of your user page. MEN KISSING(she/they) T - C - Email me!22:29, 15 February 2026 (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.
Disinformation
Latest comment: 3 months ago5 comments5 people in discussion
Friends have a local business that used to be affiliated in part with a national chain. Some time ago, they split ways. The national chain posted on a wiki page and on Yelp that the store was permanently closed, which is blatantly untrue. Can I go in and re-write the malicious disinformation? Dlewis925 (talk) 03:10, 16 February 2026 (UTC)
@Dlewis925: There's a conflict of interest issue here, so you should instead use Wikipedia:Edit Request Wizard/COI to request an edit to the article. It would help if you could provide independent sources for any information you want added or changed. However, if the article currently states that the store was closed but does not provide any sources about that, then you wouldn't need a source to request that claim simply be deleted from the article. Additionally, if you definitely know it was someone affiliated with the chain that has been editing the article, then they should have declared a conflict of interest. It would help if you could link the article here so other editors could investigate. – Scyrme (talk) 03:41, 16 February 2026 (UTC)
If it's blatantly untrue then you can fix it, regardless of CoI (which should still be declared, on your edit summary or on the article's talk page).
Anyone who challenges you for doing so may be directed to WP:COISELF, which says "An exception to not editing an article about yourself or someone you know is made if the article contains defamation or a serious error that needs to be corrected quickly."Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits11:50, 16 February 2026 (UTC)
Is the "untrue statement" cited to some published source? If not, it seems easily removeable by anyone, even COI. If it's cited, then an alternate cite is required to dispute it. DMacks (talk) 12:13, 16 February 2026 (UTC)
Question about article assessment
Latest comment: 3 months ago4 comments3 people in discussion
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.
I need money for my home and business.
My humble request is that. I am a helpless person. I have two small babies. I do not have a place to live with them. I do not have a partner. I cannot even feed them. So please help me a little. So that I can live with my two babies. And I can do business and eat. After a few days, there will be a storm and I have nowhere to stay with my two babies. Please help me.
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.
Avoiding circular links in <imagemap>
Latest comment: 3 months ago3 comments2 people in discussion
Today's Featured Article, Abraham Lincoln, has an ImageMap in the Emancipation Proclamation section with poly lines identifying the people depicted in a portrait. One of those people is Lincoln himself, and it seems like there is a dilemma here: If we make Lincoln's name at the end of the relevant line a wikilink, it will be a circular link, but if not, the ImageMap extension throws an error reading "Error: No valid link was found at the end of line 6." @SchroCat removed the circular link ( - revision shows the error message), and I reinstated it to avoid the error (), but I'm wondering if there is anything that can be done to avoid both these problems in the case where an ImageMap depicts the subject of the article it's being used in. Opus 113 (talk) 18:08, 16 February 2026 (UTC)
@Opus 113 You can use a section anchor link, like [[Abraham Lincoln#Emancipation Proclamation|Abraham Lincoln]], or link to [[Emancipation Proclamation|Abraham Lincoln]] (he is holding it). Polygnotus (talk) 18:28, 16 February 2026 (UTC)
Thanks for the suggestions. The first one at least has the advantage that readers who click the link won't lose their place in the article - if there isn't a technical way around this issue, maybe that is the thing to do. Opus 113 (talk) 19:46, 16 February 2026 (UTC)
Referencing errors on Nkiru Balonwu
Latest comment: 3 months ago10 comments5 people in discussion
For Ref 29 (which you added), {{cite web}} needs a title. You need to specify the title, | title = "Dr. Nkiru Balonwu, a social entrepreneur passionate about improving the realities of women and girls in Africa"|
For 14 and 16 (which I don't think you just added) the problem is that the author's last name is given as "editor", which is not satisfactory. Ref 14 has author "Vanessa Obioha", so it should say |last = Obioha |first = Vanessa". Ref 16 has no author credited, so the last argument should be left blank. ColinFine (talk) 22:58, 15 February 2026 (UTC)
You've omitted the title. You need to add ‹See TfM›|title=Dr. Nkiru Balonwu, a social entrepreneur passionate about improving the realities of women and girls in Africa
(And the website is "RefinedNG".)
Incidentally, this source alarms me. It tells us for example: Balonwu is a strategic communication and stakeholder engagement specialist. This means nothing to me and I can't help wondering if it's intended just to obfuscate and impress. If it does mean something, then what? -- Hoary (talk) 23:04, 15 February 2026 (UTC)
Well, it seemed more plausible than "Army radio operator who is also a highly-skilled matchmaker among vampire hunters", even though to my mind vampire hunters are the true stakeholders. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 01:05, 16 February 2026 (UTC)
Yes, Andy Mabbett, {{Blue}} is poor markup: it's semantically vapid; and on top of that, fiddling with just one of color and background-color and ignoring the other is very poor practice. -- Hoary (talk) 23:27, 16 February 2026 (UTC)
Centring text in some columns in a table
Latest comment: 3 months ago3 comments2 people in discussion
Hello experts, I'm bewildered by the advice in Help:Table and Template:Table alignment concerning how to specify the alignment of text in a column when you want it to differ from the default that has been specified. In my case, narrative text in the table is left-aligned by default but in 5 columns I want to apply "text-align: center;". None of the advice has worked for me – on past record, almost certainly because of me! I would be grateful if someone could visit User:SCHolar44/Yinkanie and advise or correct – also on any other poor coding that's evident (I'm an eager learner). Cheers,Simon–SCHolar44 🇦🇺💬 at 12:34, 16 February 2026 (UTC)
Latest comment: 3 months ago12 comments8 people in discussion
I done edits on James Dean's page using p.m. because I thought it was preferred in American English but someone reverted it and said MOS:PUNCT and I can't see what they're referring to there as many pages use p.m. it isn't as common in British English but the page I done was American English any clarity on this would be helpful or if someone could explain what he was pointing out to me. Thank you ItsShandog (talk) 08:34, 13 February 2026 (UTC)
MOS:TIME doesn't specifically mention it, but its acceptable examples show both a.m./p.m. and am/pm.
That said, MOS:RETAIN applies here; i.e., there's generally no need to make these kinds of stylistic changes to the form of English used if one style has already been established in the article. Athanelar (talk) 09:15, 13 February 2026 (UTC)
I always was curious why not just use 24 hour time like the rest of the world? Most Americans understand it too, as far as I can tell. ~Anachronist (who / me) (talk) 09:37, 13 February 2026 (UTC)
In my experience, many Americans don't (or pretend not to) or complain about the use of what they call "military time". How much of this is genuine and how much is rage baiting I'm not sure. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2026-76101-8 (talk) 17:47, 13 February 2026 (UTC)
I've never experienced it as rage baiting. I've seen total incomprehension, and I've seen un-ironic "why bother learning fancy tricks when I'm already using the system everyone knows". But this is from Canadians, who are (at least by stereotype) less inclined toward rage baiting.
Agree wit TMF. It's genuine. I got used to 24-hour time elsewhere, and when living in the U.S. (or communicating with Americans) I would get blank looks when using 24-hour expressions. Mathglot (talk) 08:12, 14 February 2026 (UTC)
I do think 12 hour should be the default for articles that have ties to US/Canada, seeing as they (outside the military) almost exclusively use that. Its common in the UK where my phone says 17,00 and the shop sign saying that it closes at 4,30 pm on Sundays. Its a normal life in the UK using both systems simultaneously, just like having to deal with mph and metres. And times are said in the 12 hour format (even when reading form 24 hour) except in the context of railways. JuniperChill (talk) 20:29, 16 February 2026 (UTC)
I'm visiting Singapore at the moment, and noticed that while everything is metric, residential real estate is still referenced in square feet. They also use 24-hour or AM/PM simultaneously.
MOS:TIME first bullet-point does specifically mention that either with or without periods is acceptable. I think MOS:STYLERET is the more specifically relevant guideline about not changing from one to another acceptable style without good reason, and MOS:DATEVAR is good precedent too for being consistent within any one specific article. DMacks (talk) 21:27, 16 February 2026 (UTC)
How to get my translation published?
Latest comment: 3 months ago7 comments5 people in discussion
Hi, everyone! Just a minute ago, I published a draft of an English-language translation for the Spanish-language article on the Virgin of Urkupiña, es:Virgen de Urkupiña. But it looks like I can't publish it, because publishing is limited to extended confirmed editors. How can I get the translation published? Thank you!! Duffmorton (talk) 08:01, 16 February 2026 (UTC)
One of the reasons (the main reason, I think) that the translation tool is not available to inexperienced editors is that many, perhaps most, articles in other Wikipedias are not referenced adequately for a new article in the English Wikipedia. (English Wikipedia is one of the strictest - perhaps the strictest - about this).
Consequently, only experienced editors (who in theory should understand the criteria for notability, reliable sources, and verifiability) are allowed to use the tool, and anybody else needs to put their version through review at articles for creation.
Unfortunately if the source article is not satisfactorily sourced, then that generally means that it has been written backwards, and needs to be rewritten from scratch to make it acceptable to English Wikipedia.
I have added a header to your draft which will allow you to submit it for review when it is ready.
I notice that the draft begins with a template from Spanish Wikipedia which does not exist in English Wikipedia. You'll need to investigate whether or not there is a corresponding template in English Wikipedia, and if so change its name and arguments appropriately. ColinFine (talk) 11:47, 16 February 2026 (UTC)
Thank you very much for the guidance! Right now, I'm trying to put in more sources and other changes. Is there a way for me to use (for now) only a few well-cited sections of the original Spanish-language article as the basis for the translated English-language article? And if I do this, can I save the rest of the translation somewhere? My hope, here, would be to set things up so that I or others can return later to obtain sources for the remaining sections of the article and eventually get them into the published English-language article. Duffmorton (talk) 06:53, 17 February 2026 (UTC)
Citation overkill
Latest comment: 3 months ago2 comments2 people in discussion
I was editing article (1) Roundhay, which includes a section Roundhay#Oldest surviving film, describing a film shot there which "is believed to be the oldest surviving film in existence", with a link to article (2) Roundhay Garden Scene. Another user has repeatedly marked the statement in article (1) as needing a source. However, article (2) contains several sources for the statement and, in my opinion, a source does need to be shown in article (1).
Is there a general rule on this? If every article which linked to a second article had to re-cite the sources from the second article, then WP would rapidly be swamped by excessive citations. The opening paragraph of the WP:Citation overkill article says "If a page features citations that are mirror pages of others, or which simply parrot the other sources, they contribute nothing to the article's reliability and are detrimental to its readability." Masato.harada (talk) 10:55, 17 February 2026 (UTC)
@Masato.harada: You don't need to cite every source from the second article, you just need to provide suitable citations for the claims made in the current article. While readability of an article is a valid concern, the reader is no more obliged to read the list of citations than they are to actually read the cited sources. If you decide to apply your logic and ignore the requirements for providing cited sources, you will be likely to find your edits being reverted. Fabrickator (talk) 11:16, 17 February 2026 (UTC)
How long should you wait before nominating an article for deletion?
Latest comment: 3 months ago2 comments2 people in discussion
I've noticed that current events articles often get a lot of !keep votes right after they happen, and then eventually progress into !delete or !redirect. I have made the mistake of WP:RAPIDly nominating articles for deletion before, and know that when this happens, it's more likely they'll be kept than anything else. About where is the time an article no longer meets WP:LASTING, if it stops? CutlassCiera00:09, 17 February 2026 (UTC)
WP:USERBIO tells us userpages should not contain Inappropriate or excessive personal information unrelated to Wikipedia. While it is, in my opinion, completely unnecessary and superfluous to use one's userpage as a list of identity labels, I would say it's neither 'inappropriate' nor 'excessive' and so nothing needs to be done about it. Athanelar (talk) 18:51, 17 February 2026 (UTC)
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.
Ambassador Loeb would like to replace the current B&W photo with a color headshot. It is his personal picture and over 20 years old. He would also like to add a paragraph regarding his Military service. I have tried to change the picture which is uploaded and shows in the thumbnails but wont replace the current photo. I tried to add the paragraph which I was able to add but I can't get the font and font size from the tool bar. Nothing matches what is currently there. I was going to try and cut and paste from a word document but I don't want to screw up what is currently on the Wiki. I have spent days trying to do this and I really need some help. Ambassador lob is in his 90s and I am trying to help him.
Please let me know what I am doing wrong and can you help me.
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.
2007 T20 world cup
Latest comment: 3 months ago3 comments2 people in discussion
Lizzie Elkin First, as you are editing about a client, the Terms of Use require you to comply with the paid editing policy and make a formal disclosure on your user page.
The trouble you are having is that you are telling us what you want the world to know about your client, like its activities and offerings. That is the wrong approach. You need to summarize what independent reliable sources with significant coverage have chosen on their own to say about the company, showing how it meets the special Wikipedia definition of a notable company. "Significant coverage" is usually critical analysis and commentary as to what sources view as important/significant/influential about the topic, not what it views as its own importance. Most companies on Earth actually do not meet the criteria to merit a Wikipedia article, just as most people do not.
Please read WP:BOSS, and show it to your client; this explains why it is very unlikely you will succeed at what you are attempting, especially as a new user without prior editing experience. Writing a new article is the most difficult task to perform here, and it's harder with a conflict of interest. 331dot (talk) 12:41, 18 February 2026 (UTC)
Splitting an article into existing pages & deleting
Latest comment: 3 months ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Hi,
I want to propose splitting a stub article across 2 different articles and then deleting the original page. The page is First XI, which I would propose splitting between Glossary of cricket terms & Glossary of association football terms. I'm not sure this warrants a full article on its own & it cites no sources.
Is there a standard practice for doing this, both a split & request for deletion? Also, how should redirects be handled? Most links to First XI come from sports-related pages so can be redirected to their corresponding sports glossary, but some redirects are neutral between sports (see most here ). As I type this maybe this is evidence against the split.
First: your terminology is off, to 'split' an article is to create a new article from a section of an existing article. Combining one or more articles together is called a 'merge'.
Second, there's no need here for any complex procedure. You're free to boldly WP:BLAR (BLank And Redirect) the First XI article if you think it's sensible; if someone disagrees they can just revert.
I would like to clarify what the authors are referring to when they mentioned the "Eastern Hathor Basin" (page 43/ PDF page 9/19). Looking at the map of Ganymede, and based on the latitude and longitude given of 69° S, 265° W, I think what they are calling "Eastern Hathor Basin" is actually Hathor Basin itself, and they mislabeled the crater. Therefore, the correct name of the subject should have been called "Eastern Teshub Basin". (see map below)
The authors names are Pierre G. Thomas | Olivier P. Forni | Philippe L. Masson.
Hi IapetusCallistus. "Wikipedia" is a a collaborative editing project made up of WP:VOLUNTEERs from all over the world; so, there's really no "central office" per se which could aid you in contacting the authors of this paper. One of the volunteer editor's could, I guess, decide to try and help you out (I guess), but you're probably better off trying to contact these people yourself via the Laboratoire de Geologie Dynamique Interne, UniversitP de Paris XI, Orsay, France. Given that the paper was published in 1984, there's no way to know for sure whether any of the authors are still at that university or even whether they're still alive. You could try googling their names to see whether you getting any hits; you might get lucky and find more recent information about one or more of them which contain more current contact info. -- Marchjuly (talk) 02:12, 18 February 2026 (UTC)
The Université de Paris XI was subsumed into Paris-Saclay University in 2019, so the original laboratory and the department it belonged to no longer exist. I think the equivalent department today is the Paris-Saclay Geosciences Laboratory, which now occupies the same buildings (Bâtiment 504 et 509) of the Orsay campus, but based on the staff listed the original authors no longer work there. I doubt anyone would have any luck in contacting the current staff about this. If the original authors are still active with another institution, even if their contact info were publicly available, it's unlikely they remember much about this after over 40 years. – Scyrme (talk) 03:41, 18 February 2026 (UTC)
Thank you so much for the detailed explanation. Awwww.. bummer. I guess I'll have to wait until 2031 before ESA Juice mission arrives at Ganymede for more information. IapetusCallistus (talk) 13:26, 18 February 2026 (UTC)
Yes, absolutely. Just make a normally-formatted comment, like any other contributor to the discussion. Some people like to add '(Non-administrator comment)' or similar to their posts, but this is neither required, nor in my opinion particularly helpful. WP:AN and WP:ANI are for discussion of topics where admin intervention may prove necessary (i.e. to impose blocks etc). They are not places where admins alone determine for themselves how issues should be dealt with. Admins are given their tools to assist the community with ensuring the proper functioning of the project, but it is down to the community as a whole to determine, after discussion, what action may be required.
If you do post on the admin noticeboards, try to be concise and on topic, and to provide diffs etc when necessary. It helps a lot to get your posts taken seriously. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:55, 12 February 2026 (UTC)
You may find {{Non-admin comment}} useful, in particular its documentation, as well as try to study the norms of the page. Wikipedia:ANI advice does not apply to this question, but may be informative. Do note that excessive interest in ANI is rarely found to be a positive. -- zzuuzz(talk)16:59, 12 February 2026 (UTC)
Speaking as an adminstrator who has been active at WP:ANI for many years, I want to say that productive comments by non-administrators are always welcome. Productive comments are those that analyze the actual evidence or present new evidence, that are based on a solid understanding of policies, guidelines and behavioral norms, and that encourage de-escalation of disputes and reasonable solutions, instead of inflaming matters. Cullen328 (talk) 19:43, 12 February 2026 (UTC)
And speaking as a non-administrator who's been about on Wikipedia for a fair old time too, I'd have to suggest that we generally prefer comments by admins that 'analyze the actual evidence or present new evidence, that are based on a solid understanding of policies, guidelines and behavioral norms'... etc, though we don't always get them. I don't consider it particularly helpful to imply that admins are somehow immune from some of the problematic behaviour we see at WP:AN/WP:ANI. We really don't need 'us and them' distinctions on noticeboards. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:37, 13 February 2026 (UTC)
AndyTheGrump, I did not intend to imply that administrators never engage in inappropriate behavior there. Some of us ocasionally miss the mark. The question was about non-administrators commenting and that is what I tried to address, but your clarification is appreciated. Cullen328 (talk) 03:31, 13 February 2026 (UTC)
I have to ask, why would you want to? ANI, otherwise known as the WP:CESSPIT, is a time-sucking drama board. I try to ignore it as much as I can but occasionally get pulled in against my will when necessary. ~Anachronist (who / me) (talk) 09:42, 13 February 2026 (UTC)
Believe it or not, digging into dreary nuts and bolts of problems and trying to be help make sense of things is something I find quite appealing. So it is certainly possible! And I like to believe I may have even been useful at times, though I can't deny the possibility it's just that I've never been quite objectionable enough to warn or sanction. CoffeeCrumbs (talk) 16:38, 13 February 2026 (UTC)
Latest comment: 3 months ago8 comments7 people in discussion
There is such wrong remark about Mohammad Reza the Hing Of Iran. it is important that you a fat check - the intnerview with Oriana Fallaci that it is referred to in the wikipedia .
the interview about women was as follow, not what you allowed to be read here - nothing about dispicable claim of sex object. pleaser correct .
During a 1973 interview with Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci, she challenged him directly on his comments about women. In that interview, he made statements suggesting that women had not produced major creative or political achievements comparable to men. Fallaci strongly objected and confronted him. ~2026-99083-6 (talk) 01:11, 14 February 2026 (UTC)
@Mathglot: I think what they mean is they object to the preceding bit Mohammad Reza often spoke of women as sexual objects who existed only to gratify him because they interpreted it as being what she vehemently objected to his attitudes towards women refers to.
However, I'm unsure whether that's the intended interpretation. It may be that the reference cited mentions both that he objectified women and that he was confronted in an interview about his attitudes towards women, but not that he necessarily objectified women in the interview itself or that Fallaci confronted him about objectification, rather than about asserting that women had not produced major creative or political achievements comparable to men.
I don't have access to the reference so can't check which interpretation is closest to what it states, nor if it provides the extra detail about the nature of his statements in the interview provided by 2026-99083-6. – Scyrme (talk) 04:02, 14 February 2026 (UTC)
OP, please note that we do not refer to anyone as a "Great King" in discussions among Wikipedia editors. This Pahlavi's title was "Shah" in reliable English language sources. Cullen328 (talk) 07:54, 14 February 2026 (UTC)
Latest comment: 3 months ago10 comments6 people in discussion
Hello to all at Wikipedia and thank you so much much for creating the Thomas Edison Film Festival page. I am deeply grateful!!! My name is Jane Steuerwald, the TEFF Director/Executive Director of the Thomas A. Edison Media Arts Consortium. Today I tried to create an account so I could either add to or verify information on the Thomas Edison Film Festival page. I hope I did this correctly, but honestly I am not sure. Is there anyone there who can assist me? BTW - On a personal note, I have been a monthly supporter of Wikipedia for a number of years, and am a huge fan of what you do. I am deeply honored that this page was created. With sincere gratitude, Jane Steuerwald TEFF Director (talk) 22:33, 14 February 2026 (UTC)
@TEFF Director: The "View history" tab on Thomas Edison Film Festival shows it was created by User:Djflem in 2023. There are other contributors but Djflem wrote nearly all the current content and can be contacted at User talk:Djflem. They have over 100,000 edits and I don't know whether they are still interested in this article but that's what I would try if you want to discuss the content. If you have more general questions about editing then you can ask here. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:28, 15 February 2026 (UTC)
Please accept my apology. I didn't understand this. I was just making a correction to the site - TEFF does not accept feature films - only shorts. I also have read in a number of comments that since I am the director of TEFF I should not be making any changes. Again, I am so sorry - my only agenda was to correct some minor errors in our policies. FYI - we have a page on FilmFreeway too in case anyone is looking for accurate information about the history, mission, and practices of TEFF. Last question - should I change my user name? I created an account with a user name of TEFF Director. I assumed that that would be desirable as I am not pretending to be someone "neutral." One thing is certain - I will completely refrain from making any direct corrections to the site, and once again, I really am grateful that the page has been created. We are a modest non-profit arts organization with lots of heart - no red carpet aspirations. And I want to keep it that way. Thank you for listening and for your help. Jane Steuerwald, TEFF Director. TEFF Director (talk) 16:00, 15 February 2026 (UTC)
No apology necessary; you're new here and came and asked for advice. There's nothing wrong with that.
Thank you so much! Do you have any recommendations for a user name? Do people use their "real" names or something made up? My approach is always to be honest about who I am but if the is not advised, I can adjust. Your advice is appreciated! Jane TEFF Director (talk) 17:07, 15 February 2026 (UTC)
It can be your actual name (first, or last, or both, or a nickname), a made-up name, a goofy phrase, etc. And it can include your affiliation along with your name (or whatever else you make up). But it can't just be an organization-name or job-title (a shared "WP:ROLE" account) because the policy is that each account is tied to one person. In the future, someone else from the same organization or with the same job-title might want to edit here. DMacks (talk) 19:17, 15 February 2026 (UTC)
It'd be advisable to keep it (unless it's insecure or otherwise rendered useless). Does the film festival have a website where it states that it only accepts shorts? I'm pretty sure that would fall under our "about self" exception and be usable as a source mghackerlady (talk) (contribs) 18:34, 18 February 2026 (UTC)
Where is Wikipedia?
Latest comment: 3 months ago5 comments5 people in discussion
WHAT HAPPENED TO WIKIPEDIA??? For years I have used AND CONTRIBUTED to Wikipedia. Now I click on my favorite link to Wikipedia and I am taken to a news page but no option to look up info. I use Wikipedia several times a week and consider it a treasure of information. After ½ hr of searching and clicking links I can not find the "old" Wikipedia. What happened? Where is it? Do I need to descend to google search again for info?
@Gck80: Depending on circumstances like screen size, you may have to click a magnifying glass icon to get a search box. If the change was in 2023 then you can get back to the old Wikipedia when you are logged in by selecting "Vector legacy" at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rendering. Please post a link to the page your favorite link leads to. The English Wikipedia is at https://en.wikipedia.org. That link says en.wikipedia.org in case something outside Wikipedia changes the url for you. Many other websites show our content but sometimes close or change. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:40, 15 February 2026 (UTC)
You would presumably have to contact the school in question. There's not much Wikipedia can do about this. This is generally for help with Wikipedia issues. CoffeeCrumbs (talk) 07:34, 16 February 2026 (UTC)
مرحبًا! هذه هي الويكيبيديا الإنجليزية، يجب أن تسأل عن الويكيبيديا العربية (كن أكثر وضوحًا بعض الشيء، على الرغم من أنني أشك في أن كون سؤالك باللغة العربية يجعله أكثر تحديدًا) (أعتذر عن اللغة العربية السيئة، فأنا أستخدم ترجمة جوجل) mghackerlady (talk) (contribs) 19:07, 18 February 2026 (UTC)
How yo make a wiki page of someone
Latest comment: 3 months ago4 comments4 people in discussion
After a considerable search for reliable, secondary, in-depth sources independent of the person. And after a lot of thinking. Who are you thinking of writing up? (Your boss? Yourself?) -- Hoary (talk) 04:15, 18 February 2026 (UTC)
Hoary is correct that finding (and citing) significant coverage in reliable, independent sources is by far the most important step in writing an acceptable Wikipedia article. Once you have those sources, pretty much all you have to do is neutrally summarize what they say. Please read the help page Your first article for additional advice. Cullen328 (talk) 06:29, 18 February 2026 (UTC)
Latest comment: 3 months ago4 comments3 people in discussion
I put a request in the abortion article talk page for a change in the paraphrasing which I believe is most consistant with the rules. Someone replied with an essay which I believe wasn't relevant, so I explained that. However, other than this there hasn't been a reply. Abortion is a very prominent topic, and I'm sure many people are watching that page, so how come there haven't really been any replies to this? And how should I proceed? Wikieditor662 (talk) 20:56, 13 February 2026 (UTC)
I commented. The lack of positive responses to your idea could be for different reasons, but it's certain that you don't currently have the option to go ahead. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 21:17, 13 February 2026 (UTC)
I chimed in, for what it's worth. You should still leave it to consensus in this case and it is currently against you. I would advise maybe contributing somewhere else since that article is hell on earth to manage and we tend to be extra protective of it because people with agendas like to very subtly change things to fit an agenda, and this is arguably one of the most important articles to keep free from that mghackerlady (talk) (contribs) 18:27, 18 February 2026 (UTC)
I wouldn't mind helping out with the article, however, I assume only the top sources are required for such an article, and I'm not sure if I'll have access to those.
Also, do you have evidence that a large amount of people are secretly manipulating the article on purpose for an agenda?
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.
Hi. I am attempting to write my first Wikipedia article. I have gotten familiar with the general rules and also corrected my drafts over the course of about a month. I am not sure how off base I am with my submission at this point and would love some help. Particularly, it seems that different people are on the fence about if my article will qualify under the notability standards. Can someone help with that so I don't spend too much of my time on something that isn't ready to be approved. Thank you Tomdvocate (talk) 17:00, 18 February 2026 (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.
Region of "Angeln"
Latest comment: 3 months ago8 comments4 people in discussion
Since one year now, i am trying to add an infobox to the article of "Angeln", the region where the name of England and the English language ultimately derives from, and therefore, although pretty small, a very important region. The infobox includes four pictures, and summarizes the main geographical facts about Angeln. It can be seen in the previous version of "Angeln". However, everytime i insert it, it is being deleted again. What can be done about that? Greetings Ephesos21 (talk) 15:19, 18 February 2026 (UTC)
Yes, but back then I asked about all the changes in general. This time I'm only asking about the infobox. The only way I can add content to the article is by discussing everything individually, so I'm asking specifically about the infobox for now. The infobox only contains four images and summarizes the obvious facts about the peninsula. Is there any justification for deleting an infobox if someone adds one to an article? Ephesos21 (talk) 15:49, 18 February 2026 (UTC)
You asked about the infobox last year and the answer was, please follow the process at WP:DR. Note that the use of infoboxes is neither required nor prohibited for any article, see MOS:INFOBOXUSE. TSventon (talk) 15:58, 18 February 2026 (UTC)
Ok, but it's strange that none of this seems to bother you. As a regular user, you could also support my changes. You can compare my version with the current one, and it's quite obvious that my version is a significant improvement. Generally speaking, it's odd that someone would try to delete an infobox, because nothing is more informative than such a box. It's absolutely baffling why anyone would find my version worse than the current one, unless they're deliberately trying to make the region look as bad as possible. Ephesos21 (talk) 16:06, 18 February 2026 (UTC)
I asked the other person what their arguments against an infobox were, but I haven't received a reply. How long do I have to wait before I can insert the infobox? Ephesos21 (talk) 18:26, 18 February 2026 (UTC)
Ephesos21, instead of worrying about an infobox, you should work on improving the referencing of the article in compliance with the core content policy Verifiability. That article is in terrible shape and any editor would be perfectly justified in removing vast quantities of unreferenced content. Once the article is properly referenced and complies with core content policies, then you can think about optional things like infoboxes. Cullen328 (talk) 22:45, 18 February 2026 (UTC)
Usurped official website in infobox
Latest comment: 3 months ago4 comments3 people in discussion
That template still makes a link. If it was usurped rather than just becoming a defunct/dead link, it may not be safe to keep the link. – Scyrme (talk) 01:50, 19 February 2026 (UTC)
I've added Website defunct for now, but I do think it would make sense to have a distinct template for usurped urls, such as could warn users who click on them before continuing to the site (speaking as someone who clicked on the UPNE link). I see there's Template:Usurped but that's explicitly for archive urls so not applicable here Placeholderer (talk) 01:51, 19 February 2026 (UTC)
Juan de Mena
Latest comment: 3 months ago2 comments2 people in discussion
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.
I am a Bangladeshi and I want to come to your country and work in your company. Can you help me in any way? If you can help me, please let me know. Please help me. ~2026-10987-46 (talk) 04:48, 19 February 2026 (UTC)
This is the Help desk for editing the English language Wikipedia, which is a worldwide volunteer project. Wilipedia is not a company in the traditional sense. "Your country" is meaningless here since Wikipedia editors live in hundreds of countries. We cannot offer emigration assistance. Good luck to you. Cullen328 (talk) 04:53, 19 February 2026 (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.
Referencing errors on Peter Parnall
Latest comment: 3 months ago4 comments2 people in discussion
Latest comment: 3 months ago3 comments2 people in discussion
Why isn't the bot archiving my talk page? Perhaps it was the irregular page numbers, but the size is now approaching half a meg, which is causing performance issues. JayCubby14:57, 19 February 2026 (UTC)
Latest comment: 3 months ago4 comments3 people in discussion
Is there a way to search through our notifications—like for the name of a sender or key words in a topic—when we’re working on our phone rather than our computer?
Hello, Richlevine00. Chief Blue Horse was renamed Blue Horse (Lakota leader) because we do not use honorific titles in article names. It was then discovered that the article contained copyright violations and it was deleted in 2019 for that reason. Copyright compliance is very important. Please read all of the messages on your talk page. Cullen328 (talk) 18:04, 19 February 2026 (UTC)
Griffith 4o0
Latest comment: 3 months ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Why is an incorrect picture of a Griffith 400 posted in the article?
I presently own Griffith 4006055 which was originally used as the Griffith 400 picture. The posted picture is NOT a Griffith 400 due to its incorrect hood. How does a "CORRECT" picture of a Griffith 400 get posted? ~2026-11202-73 (talk) 18:33, 19 February 2026 (UTC)
Specifically, in 2022 an editor called Prova MO (who hasn't edited now since the middle of 2024) replaced the image that was there before Image that was in the article till 2022 by the current one, saying "Better quality image". The current image was taken from a Flickr picture (here) which is identified as "TVR Griffith 400 (1966)".
If you think the image is wrong, you are welcome to replace it. I think you are saying that the image originally in the article was correct. If that is so, it is easy to replace: you just edit the article and replace File:TVR Griffith 400 (1966) 003.jpg by File:1966Griffith400.JPG. Make sure you explain in the edit summary why you are changing the image, so people won't think this is vandalism. ColinFine (talk) 19:00, 19 February 2026 (UTC)
Clarification on fair‑use image for Nancy Guthrie
Latest comment: 3 months ago10 comments2 people in discussion
Hi, I see that there is a discussion going on about the image of Nancy Guthrie and whether the image is fair use. I was under the impression, from lots of other missing‑person pages, that it is fair use to use an image to identify them under:
"This work is copyrighted (or assumed to be copyrighted) and unlicensed. It does not fall into one of the blanket acceptable non‑free content categories listed at Wikipedia:Non‑free content § Images or Wikipedia:Non‑free content § Audio clips, and it is not covered by a more specific non‑free content licence listed at Category:Wikipedia non‑free file copyright templates. However, it is believed that the use of this work:
To illustrate the subject in question
Where no free equivalent is available or could be created that would adequately give the same information
On the English‑language Wikipedia, hosted on servers in the United States by the non‑profit Wikimedia Foundation,
qualifies as fair use under United States copyright law. Any other uses of this image, on Wikipedia or elsewhere, may be copyright infringement. See Wikipedia:Non‑free content and Wikipedia:Copyrights."
Lots of other missing‑person pages use this, even Featured ones, so I just want to get clarity on this. Do they have to be missing for an extended period of time before it is fair use? I am assuming that is the issue for the discussion. Otherwise, how are other missing‑person pages allowed to use fair‑use images? ItsShandog (talk) 15:45, 19 February 2026 (UTC)
Hello, ItsShandog. We can use non-free images of people who have died, but the hope is that Nancy Guthrie is still alive. The relevant policy language can be found at Non-free content- images. If you mention specific other articles, we can address the reasoning for other images. Sometimes an image of a missing person is released free of copyright, removing any obstacle to its use on Wikipedia. Cullen328 (talk) 18:13, 19 February 2026 (UTC)
If you look at several missing‑person articles — for example Natalee Holloway, which is a Featured Article, and Maura Murray, which is a Good Article — both use fair‑use images. One case involves a subject who is now presumed dead, while the other involves a subject who is not, yet both articles use the same non‑free rationale — the same one I quoted earlier. This is the standard approach across missing‑person articles, including the examples I mentioned and many others, a lot of whom have never been declared dead or have no proof of death and remain missing in the same way as Nancy. ItsShandog (talk) 18:20, 19 February 2026 (UTC)
Natalee Holloway and Maura Murray have been missing so long that they can be presumed dead. The same does not apply to Nancy Guthrie. Cullen328 (talk) 18:28, 19 February 2026 (UTC)
But that’s exactly what I was asking in the previous question — do the subjects have to be missing for a certain amount of time before a fair‑use image is allowed? Even in cases where someone is presumed dead, many of those individuals are not legally declared dead, so the situation is the same as any other long‑term missing person. So what would the time frame be — two years, three years, four years? How long does someone have to be missing before a fair‑use image becomes acceptable under that interpretation? ItsShandog (talk) 18:32, 19 February 2026 (UTC)
Laws vary by country, but in the US, seven years missing leads to a legal presumption that the person is dead. At that point, their estate can be distributed to heirs. The time is shorter based on circumstances like shipwrecks. Cullen328 (talk) 18:36, 19 February 2026 (UTC)
So any person who has been missing for more than seven years is allowed to have a fair‑use image, but anyone missing for less than that would not be allowed one unless they were legally declared dead or confirmed dead? That makes sense if that is the rule, but this is exactly why I was asking for clarity — I was confused about whether there is actually a time requirement.
There is also the FBI poster on the page. I know the poster itself is in the public domain, but the photograph of Nancy that appears inside the poster would not be. So what happens in that situation, since the overall poster is public domain but the embedded image is not? ItsShandog (talk) 18:40, 19 February 2026 (UTC)
ItsShandog, you seem to be asking for an easy, hard-and-fast rule. But copyright law is very complex and each contested image needs to be evaluated on its own merits. It is clear that a person who has been missing for a few weeks is in a different category than a person who has been missing for several decades without proof of life. As for the FBI poster, keep in mind that photos taken by employees of the US federal government as part of their job duties are copyright free and in the public domain. But copyrighted photos distributed by the US government do not lose their copyright status. I encourage you to think in different terms than a missing person "is allowed to have" a photo. The question is about the suitability of specific photos, not missing people. One photo may be acceptable and another one not acceptable. When a photo is contested, a convincing policy based argument must be given to keep that specific photo. "Similar articles have similar photos" is a weak, unconvincing argument. Cullen328 (talk) 19:30, 19 February 2026 (UTC)
I understand what you’re saying, and I’m not trying to create a hard‑and‑fast rule. The reason I’ve been asking these questions is because I’m trying to understand how NFCC is actually being applied in practice. NFCC doesn’t contain any time‑based requirement, yet the concern being raised here seems to rely on the idea that Nancy hasn’t been missing long enough. That’s why I’ve been looking at comparable articles — not to say “other articles do it”, but to understand what the actual distinction is meant to be.
I’ve also found new examples of recent missing‑person cases that use fair‑use images, which makes the time‑based argument even harder to follow. For instance, Gus Lamont has only been missing since September last year, and Sudiksha Konanki has been missing since March last year. Both of those cases are very recent, neither involves a legal presumption of death, and both use fair‑use images under the same type of rationale. Their images were uploaded around the same time the disappearances happened — exactly the same situation as Nancy’s.
I’m assuming there is some kind of review process for these images, so if they were unsuitable under NFCC I would expect them to be flagged for deletion as well. That’s why I’m struggling with the rationale being given here. I understand your point about each image being evaluated individually, but at the same time the explanation doesn’t make sense when you look at how similar cases are handled. If every case is judged on the specific image rather than the fact that the person is missing, then I’m trying to understand what the actual difference is between those photos and Nancy’s, because the circumstances are extremely similar other than the fact she is presumed kidnapped. ItsShandog (talk) 20:14, 19 February 2026 (UTC)
We now have a discussion going on in two places, which is sub-optimal. Your assumption that there is some kind of "central approval authority" that OKs these photos is incorrect. That does not exist. It is done by individual volunteer editors on a case by case basis, as is taking place here and at Files for discussion, which is the appropriate place to make a decision about this specific image. If no volunteer notices that an image is erroneously licensed, then nothing will be done about it. In the case of Sudiksha Konanki, her parents have asked that she be declared legally dead. That is a major difference from the Guthrie case. As for Gus Lamont, perhaps there is an aspect of Australian copyright law that I do not know about. My hunch is that this image should probably be deleted but I am not going to nominate it myself because I do not know enough about the specific circumstances. Cullen328 (talk) 20:42, 19 February 2026 (UTC)
adding note
Latest comment: 3 months ago4 comments3 people in discussion
Hello!
I am unable to add a note to an already existing page. Maybe my settings are not well configured.
May you give me full & detailed instructions?
Thanks. Settignano (talk) 11:09, 19 February 2026 (UTC)
@Settignano: Some pages a protected but I cannot tell from your post whether that's the issue here. Please always give the exact title or URL of any page you want help with. Also say where in the page you want to add the note. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:34, 19 February 2026 (UTC)
This is the first of your (so far) two edits. Your edit summary: "this is my first fixing thingy so i don't really know but i changed a misspelling". You changed an instance of ⟨millimetres⟩ to ⟨millimeters⟩.
The millimetre (SI symbol: mm; international spelling) or millimeter (American spelling) is a unit of length in the International System of Units (SI), equal to one thousandth of a metre, the SI base unit of length.
So ⟨millimetres⟩ is hardly a misspelling. However, the spelling might be undesirable all the same, if the article Switchblade is -- quotations, etc, aside -- in US English. (See National varieties of English.) So, does the article appear to be in US or in UK English?
But what's a far bigger problem is that "Single action OTF knives" is completely unreferenced. Do you happen to have access to reliable information about switchblades? If not (and of course most people don't), then is there some subject area about which you do have good, reliable, published information? -- Hoary (talk) 23:49, 19 February 2026 (UTC)
Response above written when far too sleepy. And so: If a spelling is unfamiliar, don't assume that it's mistaken. Do not attempt to convert what's written in "British" (non-US) English into US (non-British) English, or of course vice versa. Misspellings and the like are rarely as important as referencing. See how referencing works in good articles and improve it in not-so-good articles. Don't think of using "artificial intelligence" to help you or Wikipedia: it's nowhere near as "intelligent" as many of its users assume. HTH! -- Hoary (talk) 02:24, 20 February 2026 (UTC)
I want to be featured on Wikipedia
Latest comment: 3 months ago5 comments4 people in discussion
Wikipedia does not host social media style profiles where people tell about themselves. This is an encyclopedia of articles, which are typically written by independent editors wholly unconnected with the subject. Those articles summarize what independent reliable sources with significant coverage have chosen on their own to say about the subject, showing how it meets the special Wikipedia definition of notability- such as a notable person.
Please see the autobiography policy. While not forbidden, writing about yourself is discouraged. However, if independent sources have written about you and what makes you notable, and you think you can set aside what you know about yourself, only summarizing the sources, you may use the Article Wizard to create and submit a draft. 331dot (talk) 01:13, 20 February 2026 (UTC)
@Versions111: please do not give misleading information. User pages are not provided as a means to create 'profiles'. Contributors who usefully participate in the project, e.g. by making a significant number of edits to subjects with which they have no connection, are permitted to post limited autobiographical content, per Wikipedia:User pages guidelines. Signing up and then doing nothing but create a promotional userpage is unacceptable: the page is very likely to be deleted, and the contributor risks being blocked. AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:23, 20 February 2026 (UTC)
Latest comment: 3 months ago3 comments3 people in discussion
In some pages, after the notes (see above), there is a list of books and other written/printed documents to delve deeper into the topic.
Headlines are both "References" or "Bibliography".
Which is the correct one? Settignano (talk) 09:58, 20 February 2026 (UTC)
The usual heading, if I'm understanding you correctly (and if the "books and other written/printed documents" are in addition to the works cited in the article), is "Further reading". See MOS:FURTHER. Deor (talk) 15:20, 20 February 2026 (UTC)
A page about a person
Latest comment: 3 months ago5 comments3 people in discussion
Find sources where people wholly unconnected with the subject have chosen to publish about the subject at some length, in a reliable publication (see WP:42 for more detail).
If you cannot find the sources, the subject is not notable (as Wikipedia uses the word) and you should go and do something else.
If you can find several such sources, then an article is possible. "Forget" everything that you know about the subject, and write a neutral summary of what the sources say - even those that you disagree with.
Unpublished information cannot be used; and nothing you personally know about the subject can be used unless it has been reliably published. ColinFine (talk) 10:40, 20 February 2026 (UTC)
Hi, I am familiar with the criteria but whatever I do myself will by definition be biased, given that I used to know him. There is WP:RSN but no equivalent for notability. I was hoping to get some others to build the page. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 13:18, 20 February 2026 (UTC)
Latest comment: 3 months ago3 comments3 people in discussion
This user Dangermanmeetz seems to have a problem with me, with following proper sources content and misinterpretation. We've had an issue with edit warring, and I called helpful voices to the Akwete cloth talk page. His edits were by and large declared wrong and my alarm on his false sourcing and original research was correct. I gave sources on the talk page even to appeal to all concensus on other motifs, all to be fair. I reverted to the version that goes with what the talk page concensus was. After the talk page discussions in which his sources were debunked, which he barely contributed in, he only reappears to make an edit while chastising me for his perceived wrong.
He says that the akwete cloth wasnt only inspired/ copied from ikaki designs from aso olona. Well, that is not what the statement says, because the sources say "main", "most popular" etc, but he seems to have some problems with that. That is what he specifically tweaks while chastising me rudely, also he doesnt reverted to his previous "common" motif version and edits it to" a motif" which isnt how the source presents it, because the sources are pretty clear cut on the level of importance of the ikaki/ikakibite motif.
This isn't even like in the main paragraph of the article even if it deserves to be, but to keep peace it is placed and has been placed in the motifs section. But that isn't enough for him, he has to diminish facts.
Here is what he said when he made his edit
"Again, Dolpina continues to misrepresent history despite the fact that another user explained in clear detail that there are OTHER designs that were not gotten from Aso Olona. The user has learned absolutely nothing."
What exactly am I to do here with someone who seems hellbound on picking a fight, and not accepting reality of sourced concensus. I find his behaviour off-putting and his tone suggesting he is more interested in edit warring again. Dolpina (talk) 15:23, 20 February 2026 (UTC)
And this isn't about being right or wrong (I haven't even looked at your arguments). It's about behaviour: it takes two to fight. ColinFine (talk) 17:39, 20 February 2026 (UTC)
Adult animation
Latest comment: 3 months ago3 comments2 people in discussion
Also, is Dark Justice more softcore or Hardcore? The list says softcore, the article on Dark Justice itself says hardcore. Unfortunately, this might not get answered, considering how obscure Dark Justice Is.~2026-24671-3 (talk) 17:52, 20 February 2026 (UTC)
The answer to a question about why something is in a particular article is nearly always because some editor decided it was appropriate to put it in, and nobody has since decided to take it out.
I suggest you post an item on that talk page, saying something like: "I don't believe ... belong in the list because ..., and I would like to remove them".
Then either somebody will come and argue the matter with you, or if nobody objects in, say, a week, you can remove them from the list yourself. As always, especially when removing material from an article, be sure to give a brief explanation in your edit summary. ColinFine (talk) 21:33, 20 February 2026 (UTC)
Deleted draft
Latest comment: 3 months ago5 comments2 people in discussion
Hi - I had a draft deleted a few months back, and I want to get retrieve it and see whether it's worth working on. Who can I ask to undelete it? Blackballnz (talk) 01:54, 21 February 2026 (UTC)
Latest comment: 3 months ago7 comments2 people in discussion
I was editing Mass media in Vietnam when I found some words that have been translated from Vietnamese to English, but they seem like literal more than contextual translations. Should I keep them in Vietnamese or English? EmperorChesser13:45, 19 February 2026 (UTC)
@EmperorChesser: can you give an example? The article was tagged as a rough translation on 10 June 2022, so you are not alone in thinking that the language needs improvement. TSventon (talk) 14:43, 19 February 2026 (UTC)
Alright, in the article's History section, there's this sentence: That year, during an international reception, Ho Chi Minh asked cinematographer Phan Thế Hùng:"When will you let our people watch television?"
After I re-reviewed the translation, I think it may be a good translation already. To be honest, the original speech is difficult to be translated into another language, but I came up with "When can our people watch television?", which isn't really close to the literal translation; it will be better if both the original and the translated version are displayed. EmperorChesser15:21, 19 February 2026 (UTC)
@EmperorChesser: I don't think that sentence is particularly important, so a slightly imperfect translation is probably OK. Obviously English and Vietnamese are very different so there will often be more than one way to translate a sentence. I wouldn't add the Vietnamese version as 99% (made up statistic) of en Wikipedia readers will not understand it. However there are likely to be worse examples of machine translation, so if you can improve those you will improve the article. And if you (have time to) fix the major problems you could remove the rough translation tag. TSventon (talk) 21:51, 20 February 2026 (UTC)
This page does not exist. The deletion, protection, and move log for the page are provided below for reference.
14:08, 10 November 2025 Explicit talk contribs deleted page Philip Shishov (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Philip Shishov (XFDcloser)) (thank)
See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Philip Shishov. Whether you requested deletion or not has nothing to do with why the article was deleted. Per the note at the top of the AfD discussion, you can ask for it to be restored, but note that unless the subject can be shown to meet the necessary criteria (e.g. through significant coverage in secondary sources) it is liable to be deleted again. And also note that if you are Shishov, you need to read Wikipedia:Conflict of interest.AndyTheGrump (talk) 08:02, 21 February 2026 (UTC)
Como empiezo la biografía del psicólogo citado
Latest comment: 3 months ago4 comments3 people in discussion
This is the English-language Wikipedia. Any biography hosted here will have to be written in English. See Help:Your first article but note that creating new articles is very difficult for inexperienced contributors, and frequently results in failure and frustration. Would you perhaps be better off trying the Spanish-language Wikipedia? AndyTheGrump (talk) 07:48, 21 February 2026 (UTC)
Luis Mauricio Sibilla
psicólogo destacado mendocino, aportó en varias áreas de psicología,aporte a libros,investigación sobre conceptualización en palomas y etología,publicados en Psicologí abstract y presentados por el destacado profesor de Psicología Profesor Carlos Fachinelli en Bohum,Alemania.Sibilla uno de los primeros en trabajar en computación para niños en el (CPA)Centro de .Luego de graduarse,fue un pionero en equinoterapia para niños con diversos problemas neurológicos y psicológicos.
Pericias psicológicas y consultor de empresas.Su dedicación al bienestar de los demás lo llevó a realizar consutorio en Clínica Psicológica y asesoramiento de empresas..Es muy dedicada y vasta su trayectoria,muy estimados por su comunidad.Dedicó su vida a la psicología hasta su muerte el 10 de enero de 2025.
Hello, I am new to Wikipedia. I would like to ask whatgeneric naming refers to as when I was editing Birmingham City Council it was stated something likeyour edit is deleted due to detected generic naming
Zakariah Hayat Khan, the message asks you to correct errors in your edit, it hasn't been deleted. First and last in a reference template should be human first and last names, if it is useful to add an organisation as an author, you can put the whole name as "author", rather than splitting it between first and last. Category:CS1 errors: generic name has a list of words like editor which should not be entered in the first and last fields.
In your edit the problems are likely to be |last2=correspondent |first2=Neha Gohil Midlands in the Guardian reference and |last=Council |first=Birmingham City in the www.birmingham.gov.uk reference. Both strings can be removed as they don't provide any extra information. You could also replace |website=www.birmingham.gov.uk, which duplicates the url, with |website=Birmingham City Council. TSventon (talk) 19:37, 21 February 2026 (UTC)
Unfortunately, Special:WhatLinksHere doesn't seem to work for Special pages so there doesn't seem to be an easy way to check for redirects (and I'm not sure that these shortcuts work as redirects anyway).
I was able to find a list of aliases at MW:Special page names. However, the list doesn't seem to be up to date. Some of the aliases don't work, even when trying variations with/without spaces or variations in capitalisation, and others are missing (Special:CA for Special:CentralAuth). That said, it did include some that were not already listed (eg. Special:Users for Special:ListUsers).
I suspect there's an up-to-date array of aliases ($specialPageAliases) located in MessagesEn.php, but it's probably only accessible to admins. May be worth asking over at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical).
As an aside, I'm not sure adding shortcuts to that list as regular entries is a good idea, since it pads out the list with non-unique entries. If it were to include shortcuts, it may be be better to include them as subpoints, like:
Got a very helpful reply which provided a link to an API query which gives the up-to-date list. Here's a summary of aliases and shortcuts, omitting aliases where the only difference was upper case was changed to lower case:
Update: I've gone ahead and updated Help:Special page §Alphabetical order to list shortcuts/aliases. That page also already listed some links which redirect to other special pages, but which are not aliases of one another according to the list given by the API. I've left them in, but haven't labelled them as shortcuts/aliases. – Scyrme (talk) 22:11, 21 February 2026 (UTC)
Latest comment: 3 months ago2 comments2 people in discussion
I have started to archive my talk page (first manually, now through a bot) to hide old warnings as it may be less impressionable as an AfC reviewer. Now, I want to be able to sort them chronologically, with the first being 24-25 as I had rarely any edits and conversations in 24, and then yearly from then onwards. However, I am finding it difficult to do so with the following aspects:
1. My main talk page only says "Archive 1" and "Archive 2" without the year in parentheses, despite page moves. I do not know what will fix this.
2. Now, when I click on the links, it goes to the old page name set to &redirect=no. I was hoping someone here would know how to resolve that as well.
Latest comment: 3 months ago6 comments4 people in discussion
I'm going improving an article that has a decently high number of article splits. Specifically, it is a city, and has many sections common to cities (e.g. History, Transportation), but also corresponding articles (e.g. History of [City], Transportation in [City]). I'm trying to shepherd the article through a GA nomination, and think the main article meets criteria, but am unsure whether the splits also need to be brought up to the main standard.
I despair about how much time it is taking to go through and verifying a single 300-citation article, let alone going through these splits and not just verifying, but building out and image-adding. I'd prefer not to if not necessary, but don't want to waste a GA reviewer's time given the backlog on noms.
If there is a general policy, I was not able to find it on a casual look on the Good Article page. Any guidance or a redirection to ask my question there would be appreciated. Kwkintegrator (talk) 02:35, 22 February 2026 (UTC)
Kwkintegrator, let's imagine that the city in question is Ottawa. Supposing for a moment that it is so, are you asking whether it's true that
"The article Ottawa has a section titled 'History'. This has a hatnote: Main article: History of Ottawa. In order for Ottawa to be promoted to GA, would History of Ottawa first have to be promoted to GA; and likewise for other articles (such as Geography of Ottawa) similarly pointed to by hatnotes atop other sections"
? If this is what you are asking, then "yes" would greatly surprise me. Where have you read a suggestion that this is so? But perhaps I have utterly misread your question. -- Hoary (talk) 07:17, 22 February 2026 (UTC)
Kwkintegrator, I agree with Hoary. A Good Article assessment is an assessment of that article and not in any way an assessment of related articles. I would also like to point out that there is no need to frame your question as a hypothetical. Evasiveness is not helpful. When you are asking a question about a specific article, please furnish the title of the article. Cullen328 (talk) 07:47, 22 February 2026 (UTC)
@Hoary@Cullen328Ottawa is absolutely the article in question. Just figured for the specifics were not particularly relevant, apologies for the inconvenience. Your phrasing of that question is pretty close, I suppose the only thing I'd change is that I'm not asking about the status of the "History of Ottawa" page needing to get to GA status prior to "Ottawa" receiving GA status.
The succinct question is then: "The article Ottawa has a section titled 'History'. This has a hatnote: Main article: History of Ottawa. In order for Ottawa to be promoted to GA, is the quality of the articles corresponding to these section titles taken into account?"
To answer another good question, I have never seen a suggestion that article splits that are linked out to need be maintained at the same quality. The question stems from my own reasoning that someone might see the relationship between Ottawa and Geography of Ottawa as hierarchical/subsidiary, and thought I'd look for an answer proactively.
To answer the last topic of discussion, I am not looking to attempt to get Ottawa to featured topic status. The question is very much limited only to the Good Article process. Kwkintegrator (talk) 13:55, 22 February 2026 (UTC)
The answer is no. Outside of glossary links (where links should actually exist on the page being referenced) we don't look at other pages. We would, however, expect some sort of summary of the article in the main article. Lee Vilenski(talk • contribs)14:09, 22 February 2026 (UTC)
Accidentally introducing unknown params on mobile editor
Latest comment: 3 months ago3 comments2 people in discussion
I occasionally use the mobile app to make suggested edits by adding short descriptions and images. However, another user recently left me a message on my talk page saying that when I added an image, caption, and alt text, I introduced unknown parameters. Here's the edit where they fixed my mistake.
I'm trying to understand what I did wrong and how I can prevent it from happening again. I was using the pre-written fields on the mobile app (a field that says "caption" and typing in a caption, and the same for alt text). I wasn't manually putting in parameters or using the source editor. How can I make sure I'm using the correct parameters when editing on mobile like this? Should I go back and fix all the other image edits I've made on mobile?
Maintenance template removal after content improvements
Latest comment: 3 months ago6 comments4 people in discussion
Hello,
I edited an article to remove promotional tone and added reliable sources to improve neutrality and verifiability.
Could you please clarify how maintenance templates are typically removed after improvements? Is there a formal review process or are they removed as editors verify the changes?
@GPD editor Do you have any kind of professional relationship with CoreMedia? 'GPD editor' sounds like the sort of username we see from content writers at marketing firms. Athanelar (talk) 15:02, 22 February 2026 (UTC)
Hello,
Thank you for your message.
I do not have any direct relationship with CoreMedia. I was asked by a third party to help improve the article by removing promotional language and aligning the content with Wikipedia’s neutrality and sourcing guidelines.
My intention is solely to ensure the article complies with Wikipedia standards.
"I do not have any direct relationship with CoreMedia. I was asked by a third party..."—This implies that you have an indirect relationship, and/ or are acting on behalf of someone with either a direct or indirect relationship, with CoreMedia.
I'm sorry, but personal knowledge is not an acceptable source; a source must be published somewhere in a reliable source that can be verified by the public. Anyone can claim to be anyone here, so we require sources. 331dot (talk) 18:18, 22 February 2026 (UTC)
How to fix dead link template with archived copy?
Latest comment: 3 months ago12 comments4 people in discussion
So I was looking at my list of pages and I noticed someone had attempted to tag a link as dead on the article Some Kind of Wonderful (film).
It is for a fansite devoted to the film and has a lot of information on the movie. It also appears to have been added a LONG time ago to the article.
The website appears to be permanently down, however I found a mostly intact copy on the Wayback machine.
How can I edit this into the page without going against the RFC about the Archive, if it pertains to this instance?
I'm sorry, but if the deadlink was to a fansite, it was almost certainly not a reliable source, and should not have been cited in the first place. The citation, and any information in the article which depends only on that citation, should be removed. ColinFine (talk) 14:36, 18 February 2026 (UTC)
@ColinFine Hello! It is in the external links section and wasn't cited in the main article as far as I can see. How do I change the link from a dead link to an archived one? Urbanracer34 (talk) 16:28, 18 February 2026 (UTC)
By changing the parameter url-status in the citataion to url-status=dead. If there is an archive-url parameter pointing to the archive, this will cause the citation to show that link as "archived at". ColinFine (talk) 20:51, 18 February 2026 (UTC)
@ColinFine Hello! I think we're getting our wires crossed. I want to make the link under "external links" point to an archived copy. How exactly do I do this step-by-step? I don't recall doing this before. Thanks! Urbanracer34 (talk) 21:20, 18 February 2026 (UTC)
Oh I see, @Urbanracer34, so it's just an external link, not a citation. My answer related to a citation template such as {{cite web}}.
Simply replace the URL with the URL of the archived copy. If you like, you can make the display text (after the pipe) explain that this is an archived copy, but I don't think there's much need. ColinFine (talk) 22:17, 18 February 2026 (UTC)
Latest comment: 3 months ago3 comments2 people in discussion
Is there any tips or suggestions to shorten a lead paragraph? I noticed that this article I looked at has a lengthy lead, which looks bulky and has people not want to read it. I try not to cut too much content in the lead since some of it is why people look articles in the first place. TyronesEditsPages (talk) 03:02, 23 February 2026 (UTC)
TyronesEditsPages, there is some guidance at MOS:LEADLENGTH, which says The leads in most featured articles contain about 250 to 400 words. "barbershop music" has a lead of 372 words, which is quite long. The lead should summarise the content of the remainder of the article, so you could look for information which is only present in the lead and move it to a relevant section. An example could be the detail about bass, lead, baritone and tenor singers. TSventon (talk) 03:18, 23 February 2026 (UTC)
Yes, I did took a look at MOS:LEADLENGTH before. I know a majority of Wikipedians aren't fond in the niche genre but still, is there any ways to have content still there without removing a lot of it in the lead? I could use my sandbox to try something since some information in the lead is already mentioned in the body paragraphs leading forward. TyronesEditsPages (talk) 03:24, 23 February 2026 (UTC)
Missing Data of Ramchandra Potdukhe MLA 1962
Latest comment: 3 months ago2 comments2 people in discussion
I have reliable sources showing that Ramchandra Paikaji Potdukhe was MLA in 1962 for Chandrapur constituency. His name is missing from the list. Can an editor please verify and update? I can provide references Spbot30 (talk) 07:58, 23 February 2026 (UTC)
Latest comment: 3 months ago3 comments2 people in discussion
Reference help requested.
How do I fix citations when the author is just Reuters, and doesn't specify actual names?
Also when manually citing, how do I format with multiple authors? I think it might be introducing a citation error.
Thanks, Apixie701 (talk) 05:03, 23 February 2026 (UTC)
"Reuters", "QQ.com Staff [Anon.]", "English, 36Kr", "Sina Finance Staff", and the like fail to specify the actual author(s), Apixie701. If this is all the information that you have for the authorship of a source, don't use any of "last=", "first=", or "author=". Don't attempt to specify the author(s). For something written by two identified humans, follow the pattern "first1=Karl | last1=Marx | first2=Friedrich | last2=Engels". You'll find this explained in Template:Cite book (and the others: Template:Cite journal, etc). Happy editing! -- Hoary (talk) 07:01, 23 February 2026 (UTC)
PS To say that a news story came to (for example) a local newspaper via Reuters (and thus wasn't locally produced) can be helpful, Apixie701. And the citation templates offer agency= for this purpose. Template:Cite news tells us that the agency= field is used for The news agency (wire service) that provided the content; examples: Associated Press, Reuters, Agence France-Presse. Do not use for sources published on the agency's own website; e.g. apnews.com or reuters.com; instead, use work or publisher. May be wikilinked if relevant. The template documentation also helps with A news article released by a news agency and having no credited author. -- Hoary (talk) 11:06, 23 February 2026 (UTC)
Similar upcoming TV series drafts
Latest comment: 3 months ago2 comments2 people in discussion
I have developed a draft at Draft:Soul (2027 TV series) which is currently more comprehensive and cited than the existing Draft:Spirit (TV series) (imo). Because there is a one-way interaction restriction in place—specifically, the creator, Aidillia, of the other draft is restricted from interacting with me—I want to avoid any appearance of a conflict or a tussle over the content. Could a neutral editor please review both versions and merge the higher-quality content and citations into a single draft? I want to ensure the best possible version of the article moves forward while strictly respecting existing interaction boundaries.
Latest comment: 3 months ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Article: Liberty City Seven this article contain false and outdated information and is causing harm to the Bio of Narseal Batiste. How can this article be deleted ~2026-12154-79 (talk) 17:11, 23 February 2026 (UTC)
The Liberty City Seven article will not be deleted, since the subject is notable by our definition. Any statement in the article that is supported by a cited reliable source will remain in the article. If such a statement is outdated or false, the updated or true information can be added if there is a cited reliable source. Your best approach to do this is probably to raise your issues on the article's talk page at talk:Liberty City Seven. -Arch dude (talk) 17:38, 23 February 2026 (UTC)
Image Uploading to Wikimedia
Latest comment: 3 months ago4 comments2 people in discussion
"
File:Linaria altaica.jpg has been marked as a possible copyright violation. Wikimedia Commons only accepts free content—that is, images and other media files that can be used by anyone, for any purpose. Traditional copyright law does not grant these freedoms, and unless noted otherwise, everything you find on the web is copyrighted and not permitted here. For details on what is acceptable, please read Commons:Licensing. You may also find Commons:Copyright rules useful, or you can ask questions about Commons policies at the Commons:Help desk. If you are the copyright holder and the creator of the file, please read Commons:But it's my own work! for tips on how to provide evidence of that.
The file you added has been deleted. If you have written permission from the copyright holder, please have them send us a free license release via COM:VRT. If you believe that the deletion was not in accordance with policy, you may request undeletion. (It is not necessary to request undeletion if using VRT; the file will be automatically restored at the conclusion of the process.)
This file is a copyright violation for the following reason: Bot license review not passed: iNaturalist author is using Cc-by-nc-4.0: https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/106477171
Warning: Wikimedia Commons takes copyright violations very seriously and persistent violators will be blocked from editing."
Was this removal correct? If so how should i do better next time, and if not how can it be reversed?
Files on Commons are licensed under CC_BY_SA, which permits commercial use. When you uploaded the file there you violated its Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license. It's not that you used it commercially yourself, but by relicensing, you told the rest of the world that it's OK to use commercially. -Arch dude (talk) 17:24, 23 February 2026 (UTC)
Latest comment: 3 months ago6 comments3 people in discussion
Hi,
I'm new to updating information and need to know several things...1) how do I add additional references for verification of an event. I also need to update the name of the page to reflect the correct name of the organization and do I need to add the registered trademark of the organization? Any help would be great... GiacomoNeilsen (talk) 18:01, 23 February 2026 (UTC)
Having just noticed your declaration as a paid editor (thank you for making it!), I will add that you should not be editing that article directly at all, but should be making Edit requests instead. --ColinFine (talk) 18:55, 23 February 2026 (UTC)
Latest comment: 3 months ago2 comments2 people in discussion
I would like to add a page for a new bridge. It is a special bridge - one of the only new pedestrian suspension bridges in the U.S.
-87.8145 -87.8145 PH Chase (talk) 18:56, 23 February 2026 (UTC)
Sounds like a good idea, a cursory search suggests it has received enough coverage to suggest it may qualify as WP:Notable, and if you find at least three Reliable sources conforming to all the requirements summarised at WP:Golden rule, you are most welcome to do so. You might like to read Help:Your first article. Good luck and happy editing! {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2026-76101-8 (talk) 19:54, 23 February 2026 (UTC)
Cancel donation
Latest comment: 3 months ago2 comments2 people in discussion
I've added a {{archives}} box to provide access to the old archives from before the split. I also changed the bot configuration so it makes new archives as subpages of the new talk page rather than adding to the old archives. – Scyrme (talk) 22:04, 23 February 2026 (UTC)
I'd recommend not writing about yourself. In terms of references, you need to use the right parameter. So, the |URL= parameter should just be the url. |website is just the name of the website... Lee Vilenski(talk • contribs)22:13, 23 February 2026 (UTC)
It looks like you're pasting entire references into a single parameter. You need to move the information to the correct parameter. For example only the title should go after ‹See TfM›|title=, only a URL link should go after ‹See TfM›|url=, etc.If you're still having a lot of trouble, there are tools which will help you format references correctly. If you click the link ">Cite" above the editing area it will open those tools. If you're using the source code editor (not the visual editor), then you have to open the "Templates" menu after clicking ">Cite", and choose one of the templates in the drop down list. This will produce a form you can fill out to insert a reference. – Scyrme (talk) 22:21, 23 February 2026 (UTC)
Regarding the specific error you mentioned here, it looks like that's because you have the name of a publication or website in ‹See TfM›|archive-url= instead of a URL link. Such information belongs in a parameter like ‹See TfM›|website=, ‹See TfM›|magazine=, ‹See TfM›|work=, or ‹See TfM›|newspaper=. The ‹See TfM›|archive-url= parameter is for a link to a website archiving service like the Wayback Machine. – Scyrme (talk) 22:29, 23 February 2026 (UTC)
Latest comment: 3 months ago3 comments3 people in discussion
Asia Rose Simpson's Correct Age And Birthyear According To The Eat Bulaga's Segment The Age Is Right Which Is 18 Years Old And 2007 But Not Yet Announced The Birthmonth Of Asia Rose Thank You For This Questions Gabby121995 (talk) 12:36, 21 February 2026 (UTC)
How do I stop someone I suspect is abusing sockpuppets?
Latest comment: 3 months ago2 comments2 people in discussion
The user batbaqna88 asked for a page to be restored, claiming it was "theirs" (presumably being the subject, as the account has no past contributions or contributions other than asking for Philip Shishov to be restored). Shortly after, a temp account made a string of edits on the article. This seems to me like someone with a COI abusing sockpuppets to edit an article about themselves, but am not entirely sure how to proceed mghackerlady (talk) (contribs) 22:41, 23 February 2026 (UTC)
Latest comment: 3 months ago4 comments4 people in discussion
I am 85 years old and would like to create a personal page that will allow people to look me up. Somehow, someone has already done that in the Spanish version of Wikipedia and it contains inaccurate information. Would you be kind enough to assist me in this endeavour. Thank you Orade1944 (talk) 06:00, 23 February 2026 (UTC)
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not social media. The best place for people to look you up would be a social media account or a personal website. Your age is not relevant. Please also note that having posted this request here, you may receive messages offering to create an article for payment. Please see WP:SCAM. Shantavira|feed me09:20, 23 February 2026 (UTC)
Hello! Wikipedia doesn't allow people to make pages for themselves. Wikipedia summarises what reliable sources say about topics, so unless you're notable enough to have significant coverage in said sources (think the NYT, CNN, or more domain specific sources of a similar prestige) it's unlikely someone will decide to make an article for you. I suggest you be weary of people telling you they can make you one for a price, that kind of thing isn't allowed and scammers like to browse the helpdesk to prey on ignorant but otherwise good meaning people like yourself
Size of widely circulated Reuters image of Andrew in car (currently 387 × 258 px)
Latest comment: 3 months ago2 comments2 people in discussion
I have a question about the appropriate non‑free size for a Reuters photograph used in the Andrew Mountbatten‑Windsor article. The file is the widely circulated image of him sitting in his car as he left Aylsham police station. It was not uploaded by me, but I noticed that it is currently at 387 × 258 px (146 KB), and I wanted to check whether that is too large for a modern non‑free press photograph. My understanding is that non‑free images should generally be reduced to around 250–300 px in width, with a much smaller file size, to comply with NFCC. ItsShandog (talk) 13:11, 23 February 2026 (UTC)
There's no universally accepted calendar era for the Chinese lunar calendar. There's a table with some of the various historic/traditional ones used at Chinese calendar §Epochs which includes a conversion for the current year. – Scyrme (talk) 00:27, 24 February 2026 (UTC)
Birthday mode
Latest comment: 3 months ago2 comments2 people in discussion
If this is not about donations to Wikipedia, this help desk can't help you. You can usually cancel any repeating payments/direct debits via your bank. – Scyrme (talk) 01:53, 24 February 2026 (UTC)
Translation towards Spanish videos
Latest comment: 3 months ago3 comments3 people in discussion
I noticed this too. It seems to happen when enabling the quality prediction filters (likely have problems, very likely have problems, etc.). Day Creature (talk) 04:17, 24 February 2026 (UTC)
Latest comment: 3 months ago6 comments3 people in discussion
I'm currently working on a list article in my userspace. Where it says under a ship name to "see another ship name", is it possible to link so that clicking on the link takes you to the relevant entry? As the list is currently in my user space, I take it that if it is possible, the links will need to be changed once the list is in mainspace. If that is the case, I just need to know how to do it, and will save the creation of such links once the list is in mainspance. If anyone can show me an article where this is done, it would be appreciated. Mjroots (talk) 16:45, 23 February 2026 (UTC)
Vandalism on the "Ogiri" page that comes in waves from ip edits to newly created accounts
Latest comment: 3 months ago3 comments2 people in discussion
I have just reverted a vandalism, blatant disruptive attempt and ignoring and removal of sources at the Ogiri page. The issue is that it is more periodic than persistent vandalism amd attempts have been made before, gets reverted only for another one to try days, weeks or months later. It's a pattern of close vandalism though, meaning days to weeks now. I want to request for the page to be locked by an admin to help prevert another wave of vandalism attempts. Dolpina (talk) 21:01, 24 February 2026 (UTC)
Latest comment: 3 months ago9 comments4 people in discussion
In relation to Combination eating utensils, I have a question about how certain headings should be formatted and which is best. For the Knork and Spife sections, would it be fine to include the subheading "Historial" under each, to include the historical versions and predecessors, or is that too much subdivision? SonOfYoutubers (talk) 06:44, 24 February 2026 (UTC)
It's a judgment call, as there is almost nothing about subsections at MOS. I note that both sections fit on one screenful on my 15" laptop, but clearly that's just an observation, not a guideline. What are your thoughts, pro & con? Mathglot (talk) 10:50, 24 February 2026 (UTC)
@Mathglot In terms of pros, it helps organize the paragraphs better and it helps differentiate between what people usually consider as "knorks" and "spifes" (aka modern perception of those utensils) vs. historical examples that still technically constitute as "knorks" and "spifes" per their literal definition. In terms of cons, there isn't a terrible lot of information under each section, so as I said, I'm unsure if it might be too much subdivision. SonOfYoutubers (talk) 01:29, 25 February 2026 (UTC)
If you do decide to subdivide, be aware of a technical limitation in the MW software: there cannot be more than one section with the same exact name in an article. DMacks (talk) 13:09, 24 February 2026 (UTC)
Well, you can create them, they just won't work properly in some contexts. That's...not desireable behavior even if there is a work-around. That's why Help:Section says don't do it. DMacks (talk) 21:31, 24 February 2026 (UTC)
@DMacks @Pigsonthewing I think, if I decide to subdivide, I could fix this by simply specifying "Historical spifes" and "Historical knorks", or I could alternatively say "Spife predecessors" and "Knork predecessors", but this implies evolution so I'm unsure. SonOfYoutubers (talk) 01:31, 25 February 2026 (UTC)
While you are thinking about section heading names, have a look at MOS:NOBACKREF. It's a guideline, so if the obvious/best headings aren't compliant, then they aren't; but it's something to consider. Mathglot (talk) 01:40, 25 February 2026 (UTC)
@Mathglot Both seem compliant I think, besides the reference to a higher-level heading, but it does fulfill the "make it clearer" exception if there are concerns with technical limitations of identically named sections. SonOfYoutubers (talk) 01:47, 25 February 2026 (UTC)
Referencing errors on Peter Noone
Latest comment: 3 months ago4 comments3 people in discussion
@MoorePenWiki: In reference #13, you'll see the error stating "Check date values in: |date= (help)". Click on that "help" link and scroll down to the table marked "Examples of unacceptable dates and how to fix them", and note this row:
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.
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.
Courtesy link: Draft:School the World
Done, it's deleted.
_003.jpg){kind=link}
