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Making English city districts coextensive with their namesake cities

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.

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On the City of Bradford, Leeds, Sheffield, York, Doncaster, Wakefield, and Salford districts’ pages, it states that they consist of their namesake cities and other places, when actually those places became part of the namesake cities when the districts were formed, just like when Greater London was formed, many areas outside London became part of it. Because of this, I believe it would be a good idea to make these districts coextensive with their namesake cities. HamzaTheGreat2007 (talk) 21:56, 21 January 2026 (UTC)

HamzaTheGreat2007, I read this three times but still didn't understand it. So I chose one of the seven at random and looked for something that might be called Wakefield district's page. Wakefield (UK Parliament constituency) (itself a confusing article) tells me that this constituency no longer exists but is split between Wakefield and Rothwell and Ossett and Denby Dale. Then there's Wakefield and City of Wakefield. I'm now even more confused (and the confusion may or may not be what you're complaining of). Now, I may have a below-average IQ, but I suspect that I won't be unusual in being baffled by all of this and unsure of the cause of the bafflement. Perhaps you'd be better off introducing your suggestion with a description of the mess (in your view) around any one of the seven, and posting the reworded suggestion to the talk page of whichever single "WikiProject" seems most relevant (and not moribund). -- Hoary (talk) 22:53, 21 January 2026 (UTC)

@HamzaTheGreat2007 I think I understand. I very much wonder if I'm wrong, though.

It makes sense to me to say that in fact those parts that were absorbed by the larger cities no longer have the names they once had. But to make a retroactive declaration (as it were) that those names never existed and should be expunged from the descriptions in the articles, doesn't make sense to me. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 00:45, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

There are entirely separate articles, for example, on Milwaukee County, Wisconsin; on Milwaukee (town), Wisconsin and on Milwaukee, Wisconsin (the city). There is no reason not to have different articles on the different entities. --Orange Mike | Talk 02:44, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

This is different, because these districts are not counties, rather they are city districts inside counties, and also the town of Milwaukee was absorbed into the city of Milwaukee in 1955. My point still stands of merging these city districts with their namesake cities. HamzaTheGreat2007 (talk) 17:55, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you're saying, @HamzaTheGreat2007, and I lived in Bradford for 25 years. I think you may be proposing a merger of the articles Bradford and City of Bradford, and similarly for the other cities. If that's the case (or it's anything like that) I suggest raising it on the talk page of one of them (and put a pointer to it in the talk page of the other). See Merging for more information. ColinFine (talk) 11:25, 23 January 2026 (UTC)

Yes, I am suggesting for a merger of the cities and their namesake districts. HamzaTheGreat2007 (talk) 20:34, 23 January 2026 (UTC)

And I already have suggested this in the talk page of these city districts’ articles, but I have received no response. HamzaTheGreat2007 (talk) 20:36, 23 January 2026 (UTC)

We have separate articles for London and Greater London, even though they now cover the same geographical area (are coextensive). If you want a formal discussion, I suggest trying one example and using the WP:Merging process. Or accept the feedback from here and don't attempt a merger. TSventon (talk) 21:01, 23 January 2026 (UTC)

The difference is that these city districts’ pages state that they consist pf the namesake districts and places outside the city, when in reality, those places are part of the city proper. Because of this, the cities’ pages should be edited to have the same area and population as the districts. HamzaTheGreat2007 (talk) 22:22, 23 January 2026 (UTC)

Do you have reliable sources which say that the smaller settlements in the City of Bradford are part of Bradford proper, and so on? In my understanding Greater London was formed in 1965 to include most of the London conurbation. The City of Bradford and the other metropolitan boroughs of West Yorkshire were created in 1974 as parts of a national system of local government and they don't necessarily correspond to different conurbations. TSventon (talk) 22:37, 23 January 2026 (UTC)

• HamzaTheGreat2007 is correct as far as York is concerned (I can’t speak to the others). In 1996, the district of York was abolished and replaced with a new, larger district of York, which incorporated a number of the surrounding parishes.[1] Those parishes became part of York when the new district was formed. That 'City of York' page is a figment of someone's imagination - there is no district named "City of York", the name of the district is "York". --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 23:22, 23 January 2026 (UTC)

Malcolmxl5 you doubtless know more about York than I do. It seems that York and City of York have previously been merged and demerged, so I would recommend a discussion before merging them again. I assume the name "City of York" comes from City of York Council. TSventon (talk) 01:43, 24 January 2026 (UTC)

@TSventon. The council styles itself as "City of York Council". It's a terrible error to assume therefore that there must be a district named "City of York". — Malcolmxl5 (talk) 21:41, 24 January 2026 (UTC)

Does this mean the city districts’ pages will be merged into their namesake cities’ pages? HamzaTheGreat2007 (talk) 23:05, 24 January 2026 (UTC)

@HamzaTheGreat2007, they will be merged only if somebody merges them and either the merger is unopposed, or the consensus in a subsequent discussion is to merge. ColinFine (talk) 00:39, 25 January 2026 (UTC)

So is there anyone who can merge these pages or can there be a discussion for them to merge? HamzaTheGreat2007 (talk) 21:39, 25 January 2026 (UTC)

I strongly oppose all these mergers. Theres been longstanding consensus that these cities are distinct from the districts they form part of. Eopsid (talk) 17:49, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

Well, I still believe they should be merged because there are many areas that were historically in the home counties of London until Greater London was formed, but even after that, many people have still referred to them as being part of those counties, even though they really are part of London. HamzaTheGreat2007 (talk) 21:26, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

Very strongly oppose. Maybe It's Because I'm a Londoner, of the transpontine variety, even. :> MinorProphet (talk) 03:04, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

Well, I am a Londoner myself, and I have been to many places that were formerly part of the home counties until Greater London was formed, and they do not feel like the rest of London, yet I still accept the fact that they are part of London. Therefore, I still stand with merging these city districts’ pages. HamzaTheGreat2007 (talk) 20:04, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

Further making English city districts coextensive with their namesake cities

On the City of Preston page, I suggest merging it with the Preston page for the same reason as the other city districts I mentioned before. HamzaTheGreat2007 (talk) 20:54, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

If you want to propose an article merge, follow the instructions at WP:MERGE. – Scyrme (talk) 21:19, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

So this is a continuation of #Making English city districts coextensive with their namesake cities. That was hard to comprehend; and, once comprehended, not persuasive. If you want to persuade, simple repetition won't suffice. Also, this is the "help desk", but it's not clear what, if any, help you are after. -- Hoary (talk) 21:34, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

I am suggesting for the City of Preston district page City of Preston, Lancashire to be merged with the Preston page Preston, Lancashire HamzaTheGreat2007 (talk) 12:11, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

One is a settlement that has existed since the middle ages, the other is an administrative area that has existed since the early '70s, and may change again with another government re-org. I think it is better to keep them separate. Yes it’s confusing that the admin district has “City” in its name. Here in Australia we have City of Shoalhaven having its main city Nowra. ⁓ Pelagic ( messages ) 21:49, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

This is different as Nowra is not a proper city just like St Albans in England. Preston, however, is a proper city, which is why the Preston page Preston, Lancashire should be merged with the City of Preston page City of Preston, Lancashire HamzaTheGreat2007 (talk) 12:14, 1 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.

Add to existing or new sidebar?

I want to include a list of Jewish organizations / movements (which can be largely based on the currently existing Category:Jewish movements [2] and the categories within it) into a sidebar. I'm thinking between adding it onto the currently existing Jews and Judaism sidebar (can be seen to the right), or adding an entirely new sidebar for it. Which one should I do? Wikieditor662 (talk) 05:40, 25 January 2026 (UTC)

Why is the currently existing setup not enough? TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 05:52, 25 January 2026 (UTC)

I don't believe the current sidebar already contains a list of movements or organizations. Wikieditor662 (talk) 06:00, 25 January 2026 (UTC)

Ah, sorry. I didn't correctly connect in my mind [the categories already exist] with [... but they currently can't go into the sidebar]. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 16:15, 25 January 2026 (UTC)

No worries! So what do you suggest should be done? Or should I use my own discretion? Wikieditor662 (talk) 21:41, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

If you think links to Jewish organisations should appear on all (or most) pages about Judaism, it makes sense to modify the existing template rather than creating a new one and adding it to however many hundreds of pages. If it's only going to appear on a subset of Judaism-related pages, a new template would be the way to go. I'm not going to offer an opinion due to my lack of expertise in this area, and lack of detail in what you propose. However, this is quite a high-profile area, so I would suggest you seek consensus before making any changes - maybe in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Judaism, with a note left in Template talk:Jews and Judaism sidebar (or vice versa). Also create a mock-up in draft space so people can see exactly what you're suggesting. I suspect a sticking point might be "which Jewish organisations go on the sidebar list and which do not?" Chuntuk (talk) 15:02, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

If you think links to Jewish organisations should appear on all (or most) pages about Judaism I actually don't think so, articles like Judaism or Jewish History probably don't really need Jewish organizations appear in that. Wikieditor662 (talk) 19:31, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

@Chuntuk I've asked at Wikiproject Judaism and have gotten no responses a few days later. Does that mean they don't mind me creating it? Wikieditor662 (talk) 23:30, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

Is there a tool to find circular links?

I checked the first dozen or so of links in List of dams and reservoirs in Turkey and found and fixed - is there tool to check the rest? Chidgk1 (talk) 05:42, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

@Chidgk1: If you open the menu in the top right of a page labelled "tools" there's a link called "What links here". When you check the boxes to "Hide transclusions" and "Hide links" it'll give you a list of all the redirects which arrive at that article. It doesn't label which ones are circular, but it does at least narrow down the list of links to check. There are currently 67 redirects to the list. I checked a couple and the ones I checked were all used in the list article, redirecting back to the same list. Unfortunately I don't know an automatic way to just check if redirects are used at the destination, but hopefully this is more helpful than nothing. – Scyrme (talk) 13:45, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

@Chidgk1: If you install Anomie's link classifier, the circular redirects are given a different colouring to the others and are easy to spot. -- John of Reading (talk) 13:52, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

This is very helpful, though it goes a bit too far with recolouring links (it recolours even normal links, making them darker, which doesn't work well with dark mode). I had to make my own copy of the .css sheet to reduce the amount of recolouring it does.

I also replaced a few of the circular redirects in the list with interlanguage links, though I didn't do all of them. My understanding is that since a change last year, the bot no longer replaces interlanguage links where there's only a redirect rather than an article. It may be more helpful to replace the circular redirects with interlanguage links if the redirects are used elsewhere on Wikipedia, since at least if a reader ends up at the list they can find the Turkish-language article about the dams. Then again, if the plan is to have the redirects themselves be deleted entirely (not just not linked at the list), then feel free to remove the interlanguage links too. – Scyrme (talk) 18:12, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

@Scyrme I always use dark mode - yes you are right inter language links are much better than deleting Chidgk1 (talk) 12:07, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

@Chidgk1, not what you were asking for but related: Template:No self link. If used, it will suppress a circular link but not a link to another article. Meadowlark (talk) 10:31, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

Changing recovery email issue

I just went to log-in on a new device. I was asked to verify my login by entering the verification code sent to my email address. This alerted me to the fact that my recovery email address is no longer correct and I need to update it - the old address is redundant. I went to change the email address from where I was logged in on my phone. However, this triggered a login request to do so. Which of course is asking for the verification code. So I am stuck in a loop where I cannot update my recovery email without getting a code to my old email which no longer exists. How do I proceed? Kwib (talk) 17:09, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

See Help:Extension:EmailAuth. If you cannot access the recovery email address, you can contact cawikimedia.org. It is also worth noting that since December 2025, all Wikipedia users can have Two-factor authentication. This is much better than email verification, so it would be worth having this if you get back into the account.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 17:21, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

Thank you so much. Your advice was spot on and I have resolved the issue. Kwib (talk) 12:41, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

Son of Kasur. Prof Zafar Mansoor

Please don't post drafts for articles here at the Help Desk

Son of Kasur ... Prof. Zafar Mansoor Writer:-- Rehana Tabassam

Prof. Zafar Mansoor is a Senior Pakistani Poet, Short Story Writer, Critic and an eminent Academician of Kasur. He was born on First January, 1942 in Faridkot British India and migrated to Kasur, Punjab, Pakistan with his family in 1947 at the time of Partition. He got his early education in his home town from Government High Scool & Government Islamia College, Kasur. He graduated from Government Islamia College Civil lines, Lahore in the year 1963 & joined Government Amerson College Multan for further education. He did his Masters in Economics from Punjab University in the year 1969 and did his MBA from AU AJK in the year 2000. He joined Education Department as a lecturer and served in different Colleges of Punjab on different Academic & Administrative posions for about 40 years and finally retired as a Principal in Gujranwala in the year 2014.

Zafar Mansoor is a well known poet, Short Story Writer & Critic of Pakistan. His literary writings are being published in the top level literary magzines i.e Funoon, Takhleeq, Tehrerain, Mah-e-Nau etc. & in almost all the frontline Newspapers of Pakistan for about 50 years. In the year 1976, he compiled the first ever book of history of Kasur entitled ' Kasur, Ek Shehr, Ek Rawayat' published by Packages Ltd. Lahore under the supervision of District Administration, Kasur for which he was awarded with a cash prize & Appreciation by the Kasur District Administration. In the same year, he compiled his first book of poetry entitled ' Jalta Bujhta Manzar جلتا بجھتا منظر' (Under publication). In the year 1978, he was elected Secretary of Halqa Arbab-e-Zauq, Kasur and remained on this post uptil 1984. In 1979, he started writing a weekly literary Column in the daily ' Magrabi Pakistan, Lahore entitled
"Kasur ki Adbi Sargarmian قصورکی ادبی سرگرمیاں" and continued it till 1984. He also served as the Vice President of 'Majlis Bulleh Shah, Kasur' from 1978 to 1984. In fact from 1978 to1984 he was the center of almost all the literary & cultural activities of Kasur. 

In the year 1984, Zafar Mansoor shifted to Lahore and started partcipating in the literary and cultural activities of Lahore. He started writing literary column entitled 'Aks عکس' in the weekly literary edition of daily ' Imroze', Lahore in the year 1986 and continued it for several years. He remained associated with Radio Pakistan and Ptv Lahore for a long time as writer, presenter & host of literary programmes specially Mushairas and participated in different other literary, educational & social programmes of Radio Pakistan & Ptv Lahore. During this time, he was Joint Secretary of Halqa Arbab-e-Zauq, Lahore and aslo remained Member of Executive committee, Halqa Arbab-e-Zauq Lahore. He alo participated in the annual elections of Halqa Arbab-e-Zauq Lahore as Secretary. In 1992, he shifted to Gujranwala and joined a local college as principal. During his stay in Gujranwala, he activly participated in the literary, educational & cultural activities of the city & remained closely associated with Halga Arbab-e-Zauq, Anjman Taraqi Pasand Musannfeen & other Literary Societies of Gujranwala. In the year 2014, he retired as a Principal and is leading a retired life with his family in Gujranwala. He has also written a book of criticism of Urdu Literature entitled 'Naqd-o-Nazr-e- Qadeem- o- Jadeed نقدونظر_ قدیم و جدید' & compiled a book of his poems entitled ' Ishtbah-e-Nazr اشتباہ_ نظر' (Under publication) He is a life member of Academy of Letters Pakistan, Halqa Arbab-e-Zauq, Pakistan Writers Guild, Punjab, Lahore & Anjman Taraqi Pasand Musannfeen Pakistan. He has the honour of being awarded many literary and educational awards including Life Time Achievement Award confered by SGC, Punjab, Pakistan.

References:- 1- "Kasur ek Shehr ek Rawayat" published by packages Ltd Lahore under the supervision of District Administration Kasur 2- "Sukhan Waran-e-Kasur سخن واران_قصور" by Prof. Latif Asahr (Kasur) 3- "Adbi Directory Zila Kasur ادبی ڈائرکٹری ضلع قصور" by Dr. Riaz Anjam (Kasur) 4- 'Halqa Arbab-e-Zauq' by Younis Javaid (Lahore) 5- Poets of Pakistan (Website Acadamy of Letters Islamabad Pakistan) 6- Members' List " Halqa Arbab-e-Zauq Lahore, Kasur, Gujranwala 7- Members' List (Pakistan Writers Guild, Punjab) 8- Members List 'Anjman Taraqi Pasand Musannfeen, Pakistan 'انجمن ترقی پسندمصنفین پاکستان' 9- Monthly ' Funoon, Takhleeq, Tehrerain, Mah-e-Nau etc ( Literary magzines of Pakistan) 10- Daily 'Jang, Nawa-e-Waqt, Mushraq, Magrbi Pakistan, Imroze etc.

~2026-59040-9 (talk) 22:49, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

Do you have a question about using Wikipedia? —Antonissimo (talk) 00:19, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

the system ~2026-59670-7 (talk) 22:59, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

Hi ~2026-59040-9/~2026-59670-7. Please take a look at Wikipedia:The answer to life, the universe, and everything for some general information about Wikipedia; that particular page also contains (blue) links to other more detailed Wikipedia information pages. -- Marchjuly (talk) 00:41, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

I have left some introductory links on your talk page. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:49, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

List of articles related to project Australia that are protected etc

Interested in finding out what articles related to Project Australia are causing problems. Thank-you Wakelamp (talk) d[@-@]b 09:45, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

@Wakelamp You should be able to do this using PetScan. You could find the intersection of Category:WikiProject Australia articles and Category:Wikipedia extended-confirmed-protected pages, for example. Mike Turnbull (talk) 19:04, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

Thank you! I am having difficulties as it is returning 0 values

WikiProject Australia articles, Wikipedia extended-confirmed-protected pages Wakelamp (talk) d[@-@]b 09:17, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

How long does it take for a list to update?

Hi all,

I'm working on a split at the moment, from Puffing Billy Railway to Gembrook railway line. Step 5 is to check for other pages that include links that need to be rerouted, using the Special:WhatLinksHere tool. I've temporarily broken the link to the old article name in the template that appears in most of the results, how long will it take for WhatLinksHere to update its results (from 229, I expect at least 50 of those are false positives) so I can check the remainder and then repair the template?

Anothersignalman (talk) 15:41, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

Itll be when the individual pages are purged or otherwise get edited, I assume Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 16:00, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

@Anothersignalman: There is a job queue which does it automatically. It usually takes from seconds to hours. User:PrimeHunter/Source links.js produces source links on Puffing Billy Railway PrimeHunter (talk) 16:14, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

Ah ok, so if I check back in say two or three hours it might be done then? Anothersignalman (talk) 16:18, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

Actually nevermind, that source links tool is much better, thanks :) Anothersignalman (talk) 16:19, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

So there's no quick way to refresh the data that goes into WhatLinksHere, and I need to go through all the pages manually? Darn. Anothersignalman (talk) 16:14, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

You could try asking the owner of a null edit bot if they could do a null edit run for you. - X201 (talk) 16:29, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

...

Name change

The entry for Elaine Bernstein Partnow, aka Elaine Partnow, should be reversed. It should be Elaine Partnow, aka Elaine Bernstein Partnow. How can this be executed? EPartnow (talk) 20:27, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

So you are Elaine Bernstein Partnow? 331dot (talk) 20:31, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

You should initiate a requested move. See WP:RM for more information. – Scyrme (talk) 21:35, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

Discussion about a reverted edit

hello, earlier today i made an edit to this page Rosanna (song)

"This song won the Grammy Award for Record of the Year at the 1983 ceremony."

is incorrect

the *album*, not the song, won the 1983 Grammy for *Album* of the Year.

the edit was reverted by JalenBarks.

can the reversion be appealed?

thank you ~2026-62529-2 (talk) 05:24, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

Hi ~2026-62529-2. According to the official Grammy website here, the song did win "Record of the Year" for 1983. Is it possible that you got that information wrong? Did you find another reliable source saying something different? -- Marchjuly (talk) 05:42, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

ah gotcha thanks! sorry for the bother. ~2026-62529-2 (talk) 05:46, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

To answer the more general point, in future please follow the WP:DR process. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:45, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

Agrius cingulata

Agrius cingulata Hello, everyone! I need a link(s) for the first paragraph (first sentence). Please, add it to section "Description". Help me, please. СтасС (talk) 08:31, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

It's not clear what you want to link to, and from which text. Please clarify your request. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:46, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

I want you to add a link (reliable sources) in this text (first paragraph in the section "Description"). Here: "The imago has a wingspan of 3+3⁄4 to 4+3⁄4 inches (9.5–12 cm). Its robust body is gray brown with pink bands. The abdomen tapers to a point. The hindwings are gray with black bands and pink at the bases" It's not enough link(s). Do you understand me?--СтасС (talk) 11:06, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

Partly; what do you want the link to point to? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:21, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

I need links on two sentences: "Agrius cingulata, the pink-spotted hawkmoth or sweetpotato hornworm, is a moth in the family Sphingidae. The species was first described by Johan Christian Fabricius in 1775" and "The imago has a wingspan of 3+3⁄4 to 4+3⁄4 inches (9.5–12 cm). Its robust body is gray brown with pink bands. The abdomen tapers to a point. The hindwings are gray with black bands and pink at the bases".--СтасС (talk) 11:46, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

By "links" do you mean citations (references to external sources/publications)? If so, you can add a {{citation needed}} tag at the end of the sentence to request that other editors provide a reference. – Scyrme (talk) 12:01, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

Hello, @СтасС.

Finding good sources is the most important, and often the most time-consuming, part of creating an article. It is also the most important part of editing an article, (unless you are just working on copy-editing or formatting).

So, it's great that you see the need for sources for that article. But coming here and asking the Help Desk "I need somebody to do this major piece of work on this article" is not likely to have much success. ColinFine (talk) 14:58, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

@СтасС For the first tag of "citation needed", did you look in Fabricius's 1775 Systema entomologiae and discover that A. cingulata isn't in there?

Was it you who placed the citation tag, or someone else? I have a pretty strong suspicion that it's unnecessary. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 15:31, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

Does plagiarism require an admin to delete history?

I recently noticed that a section of Cognitive model was plagiarised (copy-pasted) from a paper. I deleted the plagiarised material and my edit summary explains what was plagiarised and in what revision. I don't know whether the plagiarised content should be deleted from past revisions as a copyright violation or how to notify an admin if indeed the article history does need to be cleaned. Can anyone here help? – Scyrme (talk) 11:58, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

@Scyrme See this policy page for what to do. Mike Turnbull (talk) 13:02, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

@Scyrme Short answer, yes. Revision deletion should be requested by placing {{copyvio-revdel}} Jimfbleak - talk to me? 15:10, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for the guidance. It's now been dealt with. – Scyrme (talk) 15:28, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

Ages of subjects

I’m a small donor and use you quite frequently. You used to say the subjects age as well as date of birth, (but I’m quite awful at math) and having to figure out someone’s age spoils my enjoyment. I’m 79 and although that’s not an excuse, I’d love if you could calculate someone’s age like you used to. Thank you so much Cherrill Faruzzi ~2026-64869-5 (talk) 20:02, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

Can you specify a certain article where this is an issue? 331dot (talk) 20:04, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

@~2026-64869-5: We usually state the age if the article has an infobox. We haven't changed practice so I guess you just happened to recently see some articles which never stated the age. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:12, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

Articles that do this (eg. Stephen Fry) often use a template, {{birth date and age}}, to automatically calculate the age from the date so it stays up to date as time passes. However, the template has to be manually added to each article; sometimes editors neglect to include it. – Scyrme (talk) 21:25, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

If you happen to read on a mac, you can press command+space to bring up a search bar that also works as a calculator. I'm bad at math too, it's a life saver mghackerlady (talk) (contribs) 23:07, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

Inclusion vs non-inclusion – Privacy of public figures

I hope I’m asking this question at the right place, because it’s the first time I am in a similar situation. Last November, I created an article about operatic soprano Mariam Battistelli. As you can read for yourselves, many of the sources listed mention her birth year, and with a more thorough research I managed to find one stating her full birth date and legal name. Over the past days, I contacted the subject in search of a licensed image of her to be included in the lead section, and while she provided me with one, she also requested that one of her given names and her birth year be removed from the article – which I complied with, with the information being now readable only in comments within the HTML code. However, I am wondering if I did the right thing, since WP:PUBLICFIGURE and WP:PRIVACY seem to be a little contradictory on the matter. On the one hand, I safeguarded the subject's privacy, but on the other I removed publicly available and perfectly sourced information regarding a public figure. I’d like to hear the opinions of other users. ~ IvanScrooge98 (talk) 23:20, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

WP:BLPKIND is relevant here.

Editors should make every effort to act with kindness toward the subjects of biographical material when the subjects arrive to express concern.

There's no reason we should make a point to include particular biographical information if the subject has expressed a desire that it not be there. It'd be one thing to remove mention of a notable scandal or something, but if it's just a name, who cares? The encyclopedia is not harmed by doing this small kindness. Athanelar (talk) 13:17, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

It also depends on things like how high profile the individual is and how easily the information is found or how widely available it is; we wouldn't remove Donald Trump's date of birth even if he asked because that information is widely available. I think you did the right thing in your case. 331dot (talk) 13:25, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

Thanks to both of you for weighing in. Yeah, I was most dubious about the non-inclusion of her birth name year because, unlike her full name, it’s widely reported. But putting things in perspective I agree it isn’t much of a loss considering that the subject’s relevance is strictly limited to her field of work. ~ IvanScrooge98 (talk) 13:30, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

Even though the name was widely reported, its real importance to readers is low. When something is widely reported and also important, it's different.

(Sometimes, "important or not" has grey areas; luckily not this time.) TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 17:22, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

I just noticed I typed “birth name” when I meant “birth year”. Just saying for the sake of precision. ~ IvanScrooge98 (talk) 00:28, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

What should I do about this?

When I was reviewing User:Oluwaseunonala12/sandbox, I clicked on reference 16 to look at the website and verify the info but it took my browser to a red screen that was along the lines of this website may be trying to install harmful software on your computer, I'm not going back to see it. I'm wondering if I need to remove the links or leave a warning on the user's talk page, I don't want someone to get malware reviewing a draft. Please ping when responding, and thank you, 🌀Hurricane Wind and Fire (talk) (contribs)🔥 23:28, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

Please see WP:RSNON. I don't know whether it applies in this particular case. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 23:40, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

@Hurricane Wind and Fire I corrected two links - please see if you still get the warning. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 23:44, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

@TooManyFingers I still got the warning. 🌀Hurricane Wind and Fire (talk) (contribs)🔥 00:18, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

chapter authors’ article titles with its hyperlinks on the publisher’s websites

Hi, editors. Is it okay to add the above info to the authors’ existing page? Yugongyishanusf (talk) 23:41, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

I'm sorry but I don't understand your question. What are you hoping to add? TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 23:45, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

If you're going to link, I think it's generally preferrable to use more stable links (could break if publisher changes their website) and avoid any appearance of commercial intent (focusing on the publisher rather than the publication). Better to use ISBN, DOI, or similar stable identifiers that provide more widely useful linking and index access. DMacks (talk) 12:01, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

Need help translating spanish pastas on YouTube

hello, I'm here just saying that I'm having problems with videos being english and some Spanish and I really wanted to know if there's any actual english translation that could help me? Mymikey23 (talk) 02:01, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

This is a help desk for questions related to using Wikipedia. It is not a general help/advice desk. Athanelar (talk) 13:08, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

again where I should comment that? JJMikey (talk) 01:29, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

@JJMikey, you could try the reference desk, but I'm not sure if they will have an answer either. They'll likely have a go at finding an answer though! Meadowlark (talk) 10:36, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

USA / Yanks / America

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.

---

Good Evening.

I urge you to accept USA, the States and Yanks, where you use America, American, Americans.

America / American in reference to USA, the States, Yanks, is the result of PR and cultural appropriation. It leaves out the rest of the New World, as well as a large part of Europe. I have not researched Africa, Asia, Oceania, as to USA, the States and Yanks.

In Australia, England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Northern Ireland, South Africa, New Zealand, Canada, one commonly refers to "us" as Yanks, and the USA as "the USA" or "the States". If they use America they are doing so to not annoy the chauvinistic term for Yanks and USA.

In Italy, Spain, they will describe emigration to America when they speak of Argentina, Chile, Brazil, et c. https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Am%C3%A9rica

In France, Canada is part of emigration to "Amerique" ("America") - https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Am%C3%A9rique

In Germany, same - https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amerika

In Italy - https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/America

In Portugal - https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Am%C3%A9rica

In Poland - https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ameryka

In Russia ("Америка") - https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%90%D0%BC%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%B0

America / American is the result of PR and cultural appropriation, and leaves out the rest of the New World, as well as a large part of Europe.

USA, the States, Yanks, is more universal. I urge you to accept USA, the States, and Yanks, and allow people like me to edit articles with USA, the States, Yanks, as appropriate.

Thank You. Klukie56 (talk) 02:03, 30 January 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.

Profile image

i want to update my profile image as i don't have one displayed. Can someone please upload it for me in my profile. I am the artist of the page and i have a personal image which i own ? BALLY SAGOO (talk) 02:07, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

BALLY SAGOO, what you call "my profile" is the article Bally Sagoo. You've already asked for the change, at Talk:Bally_Sagoo#Request_to_update_photograph. I note that (i) the article says you're 61 years old; (ii) the info on the file says that the photo is two weeks old; (iii) the person in the photo looks less like a 61-year-old, more like a 61-year-old's son or even grandson. So the request looks dubious. -- Hoary (talk) 06:50, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

I went with it, we'll see what happens. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:26, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

@BALLY SAGOO See Wikipedia:A picture of you. I recommend Wikipedia:A picture of you#Your own website, but as you can see, there are several ways. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:12, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

I'm not even sure that this article meets WP:GNG, it is very thinly sourced. And it is totally implausible that the new photo is a 61 year old, unless it has been AI enhanced in some way.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 07:33, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

For whatever reason, it looks reasonably like the pics at https://ballysagoomusic.com/about/. Maybe he has a good skin regimen. But yes, current sourcing makes one wonder if deletion is the way to go. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:36, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

I added this image thumb. Zuck28 (talk) 08:01, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

We'll see what happens. That uploader may also be required to prove ownership. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:26, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

Referencing errors on Siddharth Kara

Special:Diff/1335527008

Reference help requested. Thanks, ~2026-17931-4 (talk) 13:31, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

It is not clear to me what formatting error you are referring to. Could you please provide assistance in correcting the error you have noted? Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ~2026-17931-4 (talk) 13:31, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

I think they are referring to "access date requires URL". That warning tells you exactly that: for both references with the warning, the parameter "access date" has been given, but the parameter "URL" is still empty. There is no URL for the access date to be tied to. Fill in the URLs (and update the access date if necessary) and the warnings should go away. Barbalalaika 🐌 17:10, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

What template should I use for a context/scope note at the top of a page?

I have two articles talking about the same general thing; the first explicitly covers 1900 to 1958, the second 1955 to present (intentional slight overlap). Each has a paragraph from the other with {{main article|name}} included, but I'd like something to put at the top of each explicitly defining the scope that says something like, "This article covers [time period]; for [before/after], see [this page] instead". My instinct was {{context}} or {{further reading}} but neither of those do what I'm after. Are there any suggestions for what template I should use? Anothersignalman (talk) 14:51, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

I may be misunderstanding the ask, but could the articles not be titled the same but with the years included to disambiguate them? E.g. "History of Foo (1200-1600)" and "History of Foo (1601-1900)"? DonIago (talk) 15:02, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

Not really, because the two portions are different enough that they need different titles. One is Gembrook railway line, operated by the government and talking about the history and services, while the other is Puffing Billy Railway, (originally) operated by volunteers using recycled equipment, talking about the history of the railway preservation movement through to present-day operations. They just happen to share geography and (at a guess) about half the assets. It would also conflict with the normal naming scheme for articles like these. Anothersignalman (talk) 15:39, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

If templates like {{about}}, {{for}}, {{for-text}}, {{distinguish}}, {{main}}, or {{further}} don't work, you could use {{hatnote}}. – Scyrme (talk) 16:11, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

I think {{about}} works best for the example you gave.

This page is about [title] from [year] to [year]. For [title2] from [year] to [year], see title2.

– Scyrme (talk) 16:16, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

Yes, that's exactly what I was after, thanks :) Anothersignalman (talk) 08:00, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

Templates appearing in mainspace categories

Usually if a template is inappropriately appearing in mainspace categories, which is quite common, you can simply edit the template and remove the mainspace category from the bottom of the page like I did here. However when trying to remove Template:Foreign relations of Bangladesh from Category:Foreign relations of Bangladesh I am unable to do so. The categories are not at the bottom and even when editing the template documentation to remove the categories the template remains in the mainspace category. Does anyone know why this is? AusLondonder (talk) 18:18, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

Doesn't seem to be in there on my end (unless I overlooked it). Have you tried purging the page cache? – Scyrme (talk) 18:32, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

Ah that must be it. Weird, I did refresh a couple of times. Only happens when I have to edit the documentation and not just the main template page to remove the categories. AusLondonder (talk) 19:02, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

@AusLondonder: Refreshing the page doesn't purge the cache. If you open the "Page" menu on the top right of a page there's a link there to "Purge cache". Is it still in the category on your end after doing that? – Scyrme (talk) 19:11, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

Thanks yes it is gone now. I've removed hundreds of templates from mainspace categories and the template is gone from the categories immediately after editing and without having to purge. But it happened twice today with the two templates which required documentation edits so I'm guessing that is why and I'll keep in mind to purge next time. Thanks. AusLondonder (talk) 19:18, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

@AusLondonder: If a category is added by transclusion and you edit the trancluded page, in this case a /doc subpage, then you have to make a null edit of the transcluding page to update the category page right away. A purge only updates the purged page itself and not the link tables which control listings on category pages. The update should happen automatically at some time but it varies how long it takes (see Help:Job queue). PrimeHunter (talk) 20:27, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

Catherine O'Hara Page

Please update Catherine O'Hara Page as someone updated her page and stated that "she snuffed it" on today's date. Please take action to block this user from any further updates as this is extremely distasteful. ~2026-66584-8 (talk) 18:38, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

Hello, @~2026-66584-8. Thank you for reporting this piece of vandalism. It was reverted less than two minutes after it was made, and there have been many hundred edits to Catherine O'Hara since.

That was the only edit made by that Temporary Account, so there's not much point in taking any action. ColinFine (talk) 00:08, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

Question about BANREVERT

"Anyone is free to revert any edits made in violation of a ban or block, without giving any further reason; such reverts are also exempt from being counted under the three-revert rule. This does not mean that edits must be reverted just because they were made in violation of a block or ban (changes that are obviously helpful, such as fixing typos or undoing vandalism, can be allowed to stand), but the presumption in ambiguous cases should be to revert. When reverting edits, care should be taken not to reinstate material that may be in violation of such core policies as neutrality, verifiability, and biographies of living persons."

What is understood by this phrase? "This does not mean that edits must be reverted just because they were made in violation of a block or ban (changes that are obviously helpful, such as fixing typos or undoing vandalism, can be allowed to stand)"

The reason I'm confused is that I was under the impression all banned editing has to reverted. ~2026-66498-6 (talk) 19:18, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

Edits by banned or blocked editors generally should be reverted, but can be allowed to remain if they are minor changes(like typo fixes), or if the community sees value in keeping a particular edit. Another editor can restore a reverted edit on their own ability if it was otherwise proper. 331dot (talk) 19:30, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

To look at it another way, why would we want to restore obviously unhelpful things like typos or vandalism just because the editor who noticed it first happens to be evading a block/ban? Not everything a banned editor does is necessarily a problem. That said, whether the edit counts as "obviously helpful" is to be decided by editors in good standing, not the ban evading editor. – Scyrme (talk) 22:18, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

Notability check: Mollie Garfield

I want to get another opinion on notability before I get into making an article on Mary Garfield Stanley-Brown (wikidata:Q75766697; the daughter of James A. Garfield, wife of Joseph Stanley-Brown, and mother of Margaret Stanley-Brown). Besides mentions in biographies of her father, I found:

• A profile on the US National Park Service website: https://www.nps.gov/people/mary-mollie-garfield.htm
• One paragraph on the Smithsonian website: https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/mollie-garfield-papers-8174/biographical-note
• An article in the Archives of American Art Journal: doi:10.1086/aaa.45.1_2.25435100
• A book: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Mollie_Garfield_in_the_White_House/utYEAQAAIAAJ

Normally I'd say the book would bring it over the line, but it was written by her own daughter. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 19:49, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

@Thebiguglyalien: hi, if you don't get an answer here you could ask at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Women in Red. More sources would be useful, have you done (or asked somebody to do) a newspapers.com search? TSventon (talk) 18:00, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

There are mentions of her in newspapers, but the only secondary coverage is in obituaries, which is still routine. And I've found that WiR is more concerned about the number of articles created than the quality of sourcing. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 18:14, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

Editing revisions

Good evening. Why is it possible to edit previous revisions of pages? ~2026-24671-3 (talk) 20:28, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

There are reasons to click edit on a prior revision and then click Publish; typically to remove vandalism. Clicking Publish when editing a prior revision saves it as the current revision. 331dot (talk) 20:33, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

For clarity, when you "edit" a previous revision you are not editing the past version in the history. Publishing edits on a past revision will replace the current revision, not the revision listed in the history. Editing an old revision is equivalent to copying the source code of a past version and pasting it over the current revision of an article or page. – Scyrme (talk) 22:03, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

FwHaydo Page

Could somebody please make an FwHaydo Page? Thanks! Kivi36 (talk) 20:54, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

Very unlikely to happen. To meet the WP:Notability requirements for a Wikipedia article, a subject needs to have, as a general rule, at least 3 pieces published about them that all fulfill all the conditions summarised at WP:Golden rule.

My cursory search on the subject strongly suggests that this very minor social media 'personality' is very unlikely to meet those criteria, so at best this proposition is WP:Too soon. However, I am open to being proven wrong. If I am, then some volunteer who is both capable of creating an acceptable article (one of the more difficult tasks on Wikipedia), and motivated to do so will need to tackle the task. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2025-31359-08 (talk) 22:42, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

Use of an Autobiography as a Reference

Hi, is it okay to use a person's autobiography as a reference for a Wikipedia page about them? They are primary sources, yes, so I'd be allowed to use it, right? WP:BLPSPS makes it sound like I can, but it is worded a bit foggily. Sevenstxrsquid 🌊 22:57, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

Did the person write it themselves? AdmiralCarl (talk) 23:46, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

It wouldn't be an autobiography if they didn't. As for whether information from an autobiography can be used in an article, there is no simple yes or no answer. For simple non-promotional matters, maybe, but even that can sometimes be problematic. The proper place to ask such questions is Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard, specifying the source being cited, and the specific text it is proposed to be cited for. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:00, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

Oh. I should've researched what autobiography means. AdmiralCarl (talk) 00:06, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

In principle, true. But plenty of what are marketed and referred to as autobiographies are ghostwritten; and increasingly so, I imagine, thanks to LLM ghostwriters. (Not that this changes much, as the ghostwriter -- whether or not an LLM -- wouldn't be independent of the autobiographee.) -- Hoary (talk) 01:25, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

And ghostwriter means...? AdmiralCarl (talk) 01:35, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

See Ghostwriter – Scyrme (talk) 01:43, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

Oh, well then...I guess that raises the issue that the autobiography doesn't have to be by the person themselves. AdmiralCarl (talk) 01:45, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

Technically it does. If it is actually by a ghostwriter, and doesn't say so, then it is a biography masquerading as an autobiography.

However, the practice is so common (because "famous" people often don't have the time and/or ability to write their own autobiography) that it isn't usually regarded as a serious deception, and more often than not the 'ghosting' is fairly obvious and the ghostwriter's identity scarcely concealed and widely known.

For Wikipedia purposes, since the ghosted work is obviously written with the subject's active input, it is in practical terms as much a primary document as a real autobiography. so it can be used to corroborate that the subject states certain things as fact, but cannot contribute to demonstrating the subject's Notability. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2025-31359-08 (talk) 03:09, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

Thank you! Sevenstxrsquid 🌊 03:12, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

On behalf of everyone who helped @Sevenstxrsquid, you are welcome. AdmiralCarl (talk) 20:04, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

Well ... sort of not by them.

"I want there to be a book about me but I'm not willing to write it myself" just sounds way too familiar somehow. Not sure where I might have experienced that type of thing before. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 03:11, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

Chance of my Draft being accepted

Will my draft, titled Draft:Goodman Mfg. CK/CKL be potentially be accpeted into the mainspace via the AfC process? Also, could someone help me with finding more references for me (e.g. Articles in HVAC industry magazines or journals that discussed or reviewed the "Survivor" series or early CKL models, Articles analyzing the shift in coil design, Articles from non-Goodman, reputable, and independent HVAC experts analyzing 10 SEER units from the 1998-2006 era , major consumer report, a lawsuit, or a news article detailing the unit's significance or widespread failure/success, articles, books, or, if applicable, in-depth, third-party, specialized industry analysis that discusses the specific Goodman CK/CKL models ) and putting them in my draft? I do not want to risk my draft being rejected or deleted. BilltheBison (talk) (User who use train) 02:15, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

I doubt it can be considered encyclopedic in scope. Perhaps 1/4 to 1/10 of this information could go into a paragraph in the main Goodman article. --Orange Mike | Talk 03:03, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

Indeed, @BilltheBison, please be aware of WP:SUMMARY, WP:NOTCATALOG, and WP:SURPRISEME.

You dedicate an entire subsection to telling us the size of fuse required for each model of this air conditioner, for example. That is far too high and specific a level of detail than would ever be needed in an encyclopedia. Athanelar (talk) 09:26, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

Would it be possible for my draft to be accepted? BilltheBison (talk) (User who use train) 19:57, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

No. But some very little bits of it might go into a different article. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 20:01, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

Adding External Links

I translate German literature into English. Recently I have been adding external links on Wikipedia to the translations ony my website for authors such as Wilhelm Jensen, Detlev von Liliencron, Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach, and several others. Now, however, it looks like I am being blocked, and I am accused of being a spammer! All I am doing is trying to make modern English translations of German stories accessible. One of my webpages is the following: https://www.michaelhaldane.com/German%20Short%20Stories%20of%20the%20Late%20Nineteenth%20and%20Early%20Twentieth%20Centuries%20A-G.htm ~2026-67746-3 (talk) 06:06, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

(i) What is the username that seems to be blocked? (ii) Adding numerous links to a single website needn't be spamming, but it does sound like spamming. How is what you're doing not spamming? ("What I'm linking to is beneficial" or similar isn't a satisfactory response.) -- Hoary (talk) 06:33, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

(i) I did not enter my username to edit. I remember my password for Wikipedia but not my username. I received a message on screen saying that my behaviour was like that of a spammer and I could be blocked, and my edit was not accepted.

(ii) It is perfectly usual to add links to translations of author's works in the External Links section. I make no money from this. I am simply offering a link to what is, in some cases, the only English translation available of a particular story. The link is not irrelevant. The only thing I am trying to promote is awareness of the author in the English-speaking world. I honestly do not see how that could be considered spamming. ~2026-67746-3 (talk) 06:41, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

"Promoting awareness" is exactly equal to advertising. Non-requested advertising is exactly equal to spam. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 06:52, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

A=B, B=C is not a convincing argument. It is not advertising. It is trying to make a contribution to knowledge - is not that the point of Wikipedia? I myself often use the External Links section to access an author's works; it is in invaluable resource. Was every link provided in that section requested? ~2026-67746-3 (talk) 07:02, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

Sorry, I mistyped: "an" invaluable resource. ~2026-67746-3 (talk) 07:06, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

I honestly do not see how that could be considered spamming: oh, very easily. By which I don't mean correctly or fairly. Detlev von Liliencron is an example of an article with a link to your website. The link is described straightforwardly; its presentation isn't at all promotional. But what you could and I think should have done was instead to write on Talk:Detlev von Liliencron that you had made these translations, that you thought they would be appreciated by some readers, but that as you were the translator/webmaster you'd leave their possible addition to some other, disinterested editor. If you started on the wrong foot (though with the best intentions), it's not too late to adopt this approach. -- Hoary (talk) 07:39, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

I see. I honestly did not realise; if I were to wait for another editor, I might have a very long wait indeed! But this is a very fair and helpful reply, and I appreciate it. ~2026-67746-3 (talk) 07:47, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

Yes you indeed might. Wikipedia is, unfortunately, creaky, faulty, and slow-moving. But you can help yourself. First, get a username and use it, consistently. This will nudge people who might have a question toward thinking that if they took the trouble to write to you you'd be likely to see the question and reply to it. In your message on a particular writer's talk page, perhaps mention that you also have links for other writers that might similarly be of interest. On your own user page too, perhaps mention that you have translations available -- but be careful to avoid the risk that even the grumpiest editor would interpret this as self-promotion. (A user page is not for a CV.) Consider recommending good translations that aren't by you. Make helpful edits that are unrelated to translations. Et cetera. Happy editing! -- Hoary (talk) 08:10, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

Thank you for your help and your time. ~2026-67373-4 (talk) 08:48, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

Academic sources

First I knew that academic sources are considered best in Wikipedia. Then I found peer reviewed. After that when I search from google books and google scholar, some users say these are not reliable as the publisher is not reliable even though appearing on google scholar and books. I am not PHd student or professor from any top university. What is the full process to find sources.

Some users quote some google books whose content is not visible and hidden by google. How do they access them?

JSTOR is better than google scholar? ~2026-67322-6 (talk) 07:55, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

Hello, @~2026-67322-6. Only answering your middle paragraph: sources do not have to be available online. As long as a reader can in principle get hold of a copy (eg by subscribing to a service, or ordering it from a major library) that is good enough. So a link to Google books is almost always a convenience for readers, not an essential part of the citation; and if the snippet is not available, then it perhaps isn't much use.

The resource exchange and the Wikipedia Library are ways for editors to get access to online works that they cannot otherwise read. ColinFine (talk) 10:05, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

~2026-67322-6, your third paragraph: Google Scholar does not bring you academic papers. Instead, it provides links to where you might get them (if you are authorized, or have paid, to do so). A small but nontrivial minority of the papers can be accessed freely (you need no authorization and need make no payment). If you can use "the Wikipedia Library" ("TWL", see above) then you can use JSTOR in order to download many (but not all) of the papers that it hosts. If you hope to use TWL, I recommend that you get a username and make plenty of constructive edits, consistently logged in under this username. JSTOR has dud papers (as examples, it includes papers that provide psychoanalytical "explanations" for phenomena). Google Books has a rather higher percentage of duds than JSTOR has. I tend to use both, judiciously, when I'm attempting to research something. -- Hoary (talk) 11:37, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

Sortable table headings

Incident date	Name	Heading
2024	10	100
2022	0	1,000

Is there a way to make the sort arrow go unde the column heading to save space? So the column can be narrower. Late Night Coffee (talk) 08:12, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

@LateNightCoffee: See Help:Sortable tables § Sort under template. If space is at a premium, then Help:Sortable tables § Optimising tables for a narrow display in the same article has suggestions. Bazza 7 (talk) 10:22, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

Thank you for the links. It's for tables where the data is narrower than the heading, and the column ends up wider than it needs to be. I've added an example.example Late Night Coffee (talk) 10:37, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

article

I prepared an articleen english on the "history of Compitese", an area in the province of Lucca, Italy, where many Italian immigrants to the United States originate. It has now become an area popular with English and Northern European tourists seeking relaxation and peace. I also wrote the Compitese entry in the Italian Wikipedia. Who should I submit it to in order to obtain a publication authorization?Romualdo Giovannoni (talk) 09:29, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

Hello, @Romualdo Giovannoni.

I have added a header to User:Romualdo Giovannoni/sandbox which allows you to submit it for review. ColinFine (talk) 10:08, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

txRomualdo Giovannoni (talk) 16:56, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

@Romualdo Giovannoni How did you produce this translation? Your writing style in this comment is clearly different than that in your draft. If you used an AI tool or translator to produce the translation, you should know that machine-translated articles without proper human review are generally not allowed. "Wikipedia consensus is that an unedited machine translation, left as a Wikipedia article, is worse than nothing."

I suspect that this is the case because I see phrases like It should be noted before any narrative which, other than being inappropriate in tone (see WP:NOTED) sounds just clunky enough that it could be a direct translation from Italian. Athanelar (talk) 10:54, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

I had to adjust the tone to match the basic knowledge of English speakers, so I simplified it a lot. I’ll try to correct the form and present it again, but whom can I present it to? I didn’t use an AI translator — I studied English for eight years, perhaps badly — so if you point out the parts of the translation that sound awkward to you, I’ll be able to fix them more quickly.Tx. Romualdo Giovannoni (talk) 23:21, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

"Compitese" in English

I wrote an article in English on Compitese( Lucca). Who should I send it to? It's the translation of my similar entry in Italian.Romualdo Giovannoni (talk) 23:07, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

WP:Articles for creation has instructions on how to submit a draft for review. – Scyrme (talk) 23:40, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

Incendiary updates made by new users that appear anonymous

Recent updates made by user ~2026-672111-2 appear as a political opinion labeling a public news person by using inflammatory descriptions. The update was made by a user who newly created an account and has made a single update making it look like they are anonymous. Wolfgan20 (talk) 12:06, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

Hi @Wolfgan20, I think there's a small typo in the username and you probably meant this edit here. It was indeed problematic and I reverted it. – NJD-DE (talk) 12:43, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

Those are our new temporary accounts. The WMF thought exposing non-logged in editors IPs was a privacy issue so they implemented them a few months ago mghackerlady (talk) (contribs) 23:15, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

No_original_research explanation help

Hello, I hope its a proper place to ask about that I'm trying to ask.

I had read Wikipedia:No original research twice, but still failing to understand how it should work in some cases. I have some hypothetical example that should be easy to clarify some of them if explained.

Suppose there is some rather old (lets say early 90s) and obscure video game, let call it A. Reasoning for choosing a video game as a theme for the example: i) while being of low importance, such articles are still obviously exists in Wikipedia; ii) they are reasonably easy to be accessed by somebody, who want to actually verify something about them, unlike some other possible examples of a similar kind. To clarify: I don't have some particular game in mind, and I could try to reformulate my question using some other, non-game related example if it would be of more help.

So there is some hypothetical Wikipedia article about that game A. That article contain some description of it, including, for example, amount of levels in it; suppose it say A have 40 levels (levels here are merely for example, if it matter, they could be changed to amount of playable characters there, or amount of types of weapons player could use there, etc; while I think that amount of something is a good example for this question, again, if it for some reasons not good, I could try to think about some other example). This claim about 40 levels is supported by citing a some publication printed about the time of the game release in some game-dedicated magazine, one that is count as a reliable_source. The game A's manual doesn't contain the information about amount of levels in it at all (maybe it very short overall, or developers thought its not a something to reveal to a player outright, etc.). But the game A itself actually contain 30 levels only, something that could be verified by playing it, and, to make it more reliable, by some people who reverse-engineered it (optional). Erroneous info in printed magazine could be due to mere error of their own, some misunderstanding in communication with a game developing company, difference of final released version of game with some demo sent to a magazine, etc. Still its very unlikely the source in question would bother with retraction of false info of so low importance after so long time passed, even if would get some request for.

The question is then: there is a factually incorrect data in an article, supported by a reliable source, and there are ways to verify that the data in question is erroneous, but how to prove it? Game A is obscure, and other reliable sources didn't bothered to write about amount of levels there in their articles about it (or picked up the same wrong amount), so there is no way to put a correct reliable citation about it; its manual also provide no needed info. Anybody could play game A and then write down amount of levels there, but as I understand it would be precisely that "original research", that shouldn't happen. There is possibility that information about real amount of levels is present on some internet forums/blogs/some_other_social_media dedicated to old games, but as I understand it would fail reliable_source requirement, and in any way could be the same "original research", because somebody could just play the game A, verify the actual amount of levels there, write it down in some forum, then cite themself.

So the case is: i) there is a reliable source with the wrong information; ii) there is no reliable source with the correct information; iii) its trivial to show that information in a cited reliable source is wrong by doing original research. As latter is very discouraged, do I understand it right that article in Wikipedia would have to contain a verifiable wrong information, as long that information was published in reliable source and wasn't retracted, and no other reliable source bothered to publish a correct information? (and in this case there would be a conflict of 2 equally good sources then, additionally complicating it?) And even the fact that the correct information could be easily acquired is of no help at all, unless it somehow would find a way into a whitelisted source pool (that is unlikely for obscure old info to do without really dedicated effort by somebody). The case I used for a question I think is also very different from examples in Wikipedia:No original research regarding Wikipedia:You don't need to cite that the sky is blue, because, unlike them, it is about obscure information, that could be reasonably easy verified on its own with some effort, but had nobody "reliable", who published it yet.

It would be really weird to have an official guideline preferring to have an article with an actually wrong, but backed by a technically reliable source information, versus an article with an actually correct information; so there should be some workaround for it, just not clearly explained in Wikipedia:No original research, so if somebody would spare some time clarifying it, would be really appreciated.

Sorry, it turned out to be way more wordy than I planned, as I tried to write it clear and precise; if I missed something of importance in example still, I would try to clarify if needed. If its not proper place to ask such question, please, redirect me to a better one (I thought about Wikipedia:No original research/Noticeboard, but it looks like as a place for a real, not hypothetical cases).

Thanks in advance. ~2026-67684-5 (talk) 13:56, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

If you are going to come up with hypothetical questions, making them concise is more likely to get a response. Trying to disentangle that though, WP:NOR says we can't put original research into articles. What it doesn't say however is that we can't omit something from an article because we have reasonable grounds to suspect that though the source may be generally reliable, it is quite likely wrong for this specific thing. And note that WP:OR "does not apply to talk pages and other pages which evaluate article content and sources", meaning we can, and commonly do, engage in WP:OR when evaluating sources to see if they are reliable for specific content - this is an essential part of the editorial process, and not something that can be farmed out to WP:RS, since they aren't engaged in making evaluations according to Wikipedia's policies etc. If we don't have a reliable source for something, we simply don't mention it. AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:44, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for response.

I tried to write short version first, but it kept looking too abstract and vague for me no matter I tried without detailed example provided (I'm not so good in English), so I worried it would result in numerous clarifying questions in attempt to understand what is I'm about.

Do I understand you right, that in this example it would be possible to "omit" (thus remove) from the article the mention of 40 levels present in game A (but not add correct info about 30), despite it supported by a cited reliable source, because " we have reasonable grounds to suspect that though the source may be generally reliable, it is quite likely wrong for this specific thing"? This is what I'm asking about, because to show it we could only provide an "original research", that wouldn't be discouraged then? Precisely: one cannot use original research to add something to an article, but could use it to remove something from an article, even if it backed with reliable source? I thought it would seen as very disruptive action, so, probably I got it wrong now?

Not sure I understand part about evaluating right too. I understand that it would be possible to discuss it with others in Talk pages; I'm not sure how would it help in this example, unless somebody would be able to publish a correct info in reliable source as result of this communication. As I understand, even if somebody would show in Talk page that their original research is more correct than published source to others, it wouldn't make that research less original.

"If we don't have a reliable source for something, we simply don't mention it." < To clarify, because maybe I still failed to ask a question I'm about despite being wordy: I'm asking "What is a way to deal with a reliable source, that is put in a good faith, but turned out to be wrong, if it obscure enough to not have a good sources published that would disprove it, while it possible to disprove it with some simple check of actual object the article is about." So there is reliable source, its already mentioned, but its factually wrong; its too late to "simply not mention it" already. ~2026-67684-5 (talk) 16:34, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

@~2026-67684-5 Perhaps the essay WP:When sources are wrong will help you. Mike Turnbull (talk) 16:53, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

Sorry, I replied to a wrong user below. ~2026-67684-5 (talk) 18:45, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

You've probably heard of "cherry picking", in which someone quotes only the little parts of a source that support their idea, hoping everyone will ignore the fact that most of that source, and everything in the other sources, doesn't support their idea.

Well ... "reverse cherry picking", ignoring little parts of one source because they might be wrong (but the source is generally reliable and the rest of it is good), can be OK. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 16:55, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

Thank you very much, this article is definitely answer some questions I had about conflicting sources, but not much in scope of this one, sadly, other that the thing you summarized as "hoping everyone will ignore". So recommended way is to fix information to a correct one, and hope that as its about obscure thing, it would go without scrutiny, and in case it happen to bring attention, convince administrator to close eyes on it, by proving that the change is actually to a better, even if achieved not permitted way.

Some extra attempt to formulate it (I don't like that I had to use game as example, my point was to emphase on an "obscure and unimportant" part, but something what I tried to ask could been lost in it):

There is a Wikipedia article about some landmark X located in public accessible place at Y, again, one obscure enough, backed on a some article from reliable source from years ago about its existence. Later, but years ago, that landmark was destroyed, its not exist anymore ("later" is not recently, I understand there is special routine about recent events, I'm not about it), but as its obscure, nobody bothered to make any article about its destruction in reliable source. But, anybody could go to the place that landmark was, and verify its not exist anymore (and somebody even did it, but places they are published it is not reliable enough). Wikipedia:When sources are wrong still have no good explanation how to change "there is X located at Y [1]" to "there was X, located at Y, but not anymore" without an external source confirming it, despite its trivial to produce such source by themselves; it only account a cases of new, conflicting to original source [1], new source [2], updating it with correct information.

If that question not too concise enough for the place, or inappropriate for some other reason, tell, please. I'm very curious about it, but its not worthy of any possible nuisance at all. ~2026-67684-5 (talk) 18:43, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

Please don't waste people's time with hypothetical questions if you are looking for answers to a real one. And if you have a question regarding a real article tell us what article you are referring to. We are volunteers here, and are only likely to respond positively if you make some effort to get to the point. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:44, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

NOR doesn't mean "never research anything," it means "don't include your own research in Wikipedia articles." Looking for sources in the first place is technically 'original research'.

Excluding information from a particular source because your research leads you to believe that the source is unreliable about that particular piece of information is not a NOR issue.

NOR applies to situations like "I went out and interviewed the subject of this article about their life and want to include that information" or "I measured that building myself and it's this size." The point of NOR is that information like this is difficult to verify, because the only way anyone could check it would be to interview that person themselves or measure the building or what have you. That's why things have to be sourced to reliable, secondary sources: because then anyone can verify it by just checking whether the source says what you claim it does. Athanelar (talk) 14:09, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

I was asked to stop with it, but will dare to answer to clarify still. If it is wrong, tell, please.

I tried to precisely create examples that are essentially not about case of "information like this is difficult to verify", but about "information that is relatively easy to verify, but not important enough to have a source about it already, while have a source that is wrong about it very same time" instead.

Again, you really mean by "Excluding information from a particular source because your research leads you to believe that the source is unreliable about that particular piece of information is not a NOR issue." that one cannot add new information, that have no backing from a non-NOR source, but removal of some information backed by a reliable source that is in article merely basing on own original research is fine? Other user wrote something along that line, but not confirmed I got it right. ~2026-71679-5 (talk) 20:59, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

Reliable source

Is FamilySearch.org a reliable source? WVWG9652 (talk) 14:27, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

No. See WP:FAMILYSEARCH. In general Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources is the go-to place for this info. Cabayi (talk) 14:33, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

Well I found this: https://web.archive.org/web/20160313044148/https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:VG5C-CV4

And it lists California Death Index. WVWG9652 (talk) 15:03, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

You have just been told to read WP:FAMILYSEARCH. Read it. It makes it absolutely why we don't cite it as a source. AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:07, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

I just did and I understand. WVWG9652 (talk) 15:16, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

Our articles is not meeting your policies

Hi, Got your message that some of our articles is not meeting your policies , felt so disappointed for this

Just want to know in which particular article it happened ? and what we can do to rectify the same

so that we can continue our page on WIKIPEDIA Pravin lakhe (talk) 15:47, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

I think you are referring to the now-deleted content from your user talk page. You wrote a promotional essay, not an encyclopedia article. Please review the five pillars to learn more about Wikipedia, and use the new user tutorial. New drafts may be created and submitted via the Article Wizard. 331dot (talk) 15:55, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

Also, Wikipedia accounts are for a single person, not a group or couple. There is no "our", only a page that you may have written. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 23:25, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

Quick doubt on Film Notability for Future Films

Hey,

I am quite familiar with film articles, however, I am bit confused about future not released films.

If a film is covered in some reliable sources and not having a confirmed release date, is it eligible for an article? Because even the principal photography completed, some won’t get close to a release due to post production issues and other circumstances.

so If a film not having a release date and no notable production, is it eligible for a standalone Article ?

If yes/No why? Or exceptions whhat?

Thanks for your time to respond my query! AlphaCore talk 16:04, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

Am I reading your question correctly, can you create an article about a film if it doesn't meet the relevant notability requirements? Cabayi (talk) 16:49, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

@Cabayi My answer was and is No. I just need to clarify it. My question was if a film has done its principal photography but the release is not confirmed is it eligible to have a standalone article at that phase ? AlphaCore talk 17:00, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

Your question did not make it clear that you were asking for confirmation of your own judgement, It looked to me as if you were asking about an article you intended to create.

As well as the points raised by TooManyFingers I'd also consider the number of films which remain unreleased, either as a tax write-off or as a consequence of realising that if the film were released its actual value would not match its notional value in the production company's accounts forcing the producers to take an accounting loss. Cabayi (talk) 17:51, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

If an unreleased film has major coverage - big long stories that actually tell a lot of material about it, not announcements, not hype, not interviews - then it might be possible. For example if the shooting of it had highly publicized major events. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 17:01, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

@TooManyFingers Perfect, thats what I wanted. Because I was bit confused of Koragajja (film) AlphaCore talk 17:08, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

I'm not going to dive in because I'm no expert, but unfortunately the entertainment industry in that part of the world has built a huge sub-industry of hype and lies. It can be hard to tell what's really going on and what to report. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 17:17, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

(In other words, almost always no.) TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 17:06, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

Actually sometimes yes. See, for example, Category:Unreleased films and Category:Upcoming films, as well as Category:Cancelled films and Category:Unfinished films. Clarityfiend (talk) 19:56, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

@AlphaCore: Koragajja has been draftified once, so the next step if you think it is not notable would be an AFD nomination, which has just been done. TSventon (talk) 20:23, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

Hubble's Law page

Grist for a blog, perhaps. Not for an encyclopedia, and certainly not for this page. The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

From the following, do you realise there is a GRAVE and fundamemental mistake made by ALL cosmologists in ASSUMING the Hubble Constant RECIPROCAL at around 13.8 billion years is the age of the universe? It is in fact is the maximum time / distance from an observer to the “Hubble horizon” determined in range by the redshift, that at 13.8 billion is the furthest that can be observed!!!! The redshift limited Hubble time / distance “horizon barrier” thus is the maximum redshifted observable horizon. It is NOT the age of the “unobservable universe” that lays beyond the Hubble horizon of 13.8 billion. From this NO ONE can know the age of the universe, which could be infinitely large, old, or whatever your favourite "personal favourite guess" may be???!!! So,do you agree from this reasoning it is IMPOSSIBLE to know how old the universe REALLY is?? I have not the "bottle" to correct the Hubble Law page, but do you agree on the point I make? ClownBojo (talk) 17:23, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

Your use of words in all-capitals, multiple exclamation marks, and your blatant use of leading questions, do show how your thoughts are going right now. You're saying things that only make sense inside of your own thoughts. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 17:31, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

Please carefully read again what I say and try to understand why the assumption of the Hubble reciprocal of 13.8 billion is NOT the age of the universe, but relates only to within the hubble horizon distance. The same Wikipedia errors are duplicated on the big bang pages by misuse of the v = H0 x D statement when it comes to the age of the universe assumptions. Only the observable universe inside the Hubble horizon can be known. Anything occuring outside and beyond the hubble horizon is unseen and therefore remains unknown. ClownBojo (talk) 22:10, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

Your personal opinion on this is of no relevance to Wikipedia. We base article content on what published reliable sources have to say - and for astronomy, such sources would be those of the relevant scientific community. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:34, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

I don't see a single reference to a source. AdmiralCarl (talk) 18:13, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

xkcd:3155 ? Cabayi (talk) 19:14, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

Please carefully read again what I say and try to understand why the assumption of the Hubble reciprocal of 13.8 billion is NOT the age of the universe, but relates only to within the hubble horizon distance. The same Wikipedia errors are duplicated on the big bang pages by misuse of the v = H0 x D statement when it comes to the age of the universe assumptions. Only the observable universe inside the Hubble horizon can be known. Anything occuring outside and beyond the hubble horizon is unseen and therefore remains unknown. ClownBojo (talk) 22:13, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

What we are telling you is that your original research or opinion is not relevant. Wikipedia summarized published reliable sources. If you have sources that give your viewpoint, please offer them at Talk:Hubble's law. 331dot (talk) 22:19, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

Just input what I say into any AI platform. GROK himself says I am making a valid point. The following equation is a very good way of knowing Hubble's Constant:- 2 x oneMpc x C/Pi^21 = 70.9449 km/s/Mpc. The reciprocal of that is 13.778 billion (Hubble horizon). This way is supported by AI, and AI is far better than crudely trying to measure H0. AI is therefore proving a much more reliable source than outdated error prone Wikipedia dominated by stubborn mindsets. That's not the way to do science these days. You should put that H0 value of 70.9449 km/s/Mpc into your Hubble's law page as the accurate calculated value of H0 as the reference value. ClownBojo (talk) 22:43, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

Since you're not listening to us I have nothing more to add. 331dot (talk) 22:54, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

ClownBojo, you seem to completely misunderstand the purpose of Wikipedia. This is not a forum for discussing your personal theories. This is an online encyclopaedia, based on published sources, and that is all it is. Since you have done nothing whatsoever here except waste people's time with things which are utterly irrelevant to the project, I suggest you find somewhere else to peddle your theories, before we decide to oblige you to. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:38, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

Especially Grokipedia is not a reliable source as its knowledge goes as far as human knowledge does and have you ever heard of hallucinations? AdmiralCarl (talk) 23:45, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

Film budgets in infoboxes

Do film budgets in infoboxes include advertising costs? --Guy Macon (talk) 01:20, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

Not according to Template:Infobox film. DonIago (talk) 01:22, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

Thanks! --Guy Macon (talk) 01:35, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

American Heart Association's 2025 Update for TM for High Blood pressure

I want to ask you first before editing the following. The American Heart Association updated its recommendation in 2025, from 2017, for Transcendental Meditation for high blood pressure. The current reference Wikipedia has under Transcendental Meditation from the AHA is from 2017. It is therefore out of date.

I propose under Wikipedia: "Transcendental Meditation," after references [9] [10], to add the following:

The American Heart Association and American College of Cardiology have updated their 2025 High Blood Pressure Guideline — and they recognize the Transcendental Meditation (TM) technique as an evidence-based method for lowering blood pressure.

This is the first time any meditation technique has been included in an AHA/ACC hypertension guideline. TM may now be recommended alongside lifestyle changes and medical therapy.

The TM technique is the only meditation procedure cited, with evidence rated moderate to high quality. Other meditation and mindfulness practices were not included due to weaker data.

This AHA/ACC guideline represents the nation’s most authoritative high blood pressure treatment recommendations.

Reference:

JACC Journals › JACC › Archives › Vol. 86 No. 18  14 August 2025

2025 AHA/ACC/AANP/AAPA/ABC/ACCP/ACPM/AGS/AMA/ASPC/NMA/PCNA/SGIM Guideline for the Prevention, Detection, Evaluation, and Management of High Blood Pressure in Adults: A Report of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Joint Committee on Clinical Practice Guidelines

If I have your permission or further guidelines for refinement, I will make the edit.

Sincerely,

Will Davis Will M Davis (talk) 06:26, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

References

Will M Davis, if you want to propose a change to the article Transcendental Meditation, then go ahead and propose it, at the foot of Talk:Transcendental Meditation. -- Hoary (talk) 07:14, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

From your reply, I edited with my update. Will M Davis (talk) 06:53, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

Adding separate quotes for instances of named references

I've got this article I'm working on (Spelling Reform 1) and in it, there are named references sourced by PDFs. These PDFs are very long, and so per WP:Footquote, I'm wanting to add quotations to the references.

In a recent edit, I split the citations up to add these quotes, but DuplicateReferences doesn't like it and anyway, for each new reference created I'm having to repeat all the same information other than the quote and page number, which isn't ideal.

How can I go about this properly, like keep the named references as a single reference, but add different page numbers and quotations for each instance where the reference is used? Newbzy (talk) 08:26, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

One solution would be to put the quotes in footnotes (for example using {{efn}}).

You could use {{rp}} to show the page number, and put the {{efn}} inside that. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:24, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

Looking into the future, this is a great use-case for the sub-referencing feature currently being developed. DMacks (talk) 19:16, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

NPP Reviewing: Does this page qualify for an article/list

List of twin teammates in sports this seems like a really niche article, more like something that a kids book would have, does Twin teammates in sport qualify for a list in itself? Mwen Sé Kéyòl Translator-a (talk) 09:01, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

Like any article, the notability criteria for lists is whether the list represents a category/concept which has been discussed in secondary sources already; so the answer is whether you can find any sources discussing the phenomenon of twin teammates in sports. If not, deletion is appropriate. Athanelar (talk) 12:57, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

Well I did do a simple search and some articles talk about the phenomenon, not many but some, the articles unfortunately doesn’t list any sources at present. Mwen Sé Kéyòl Translator-a (talk) 13:09, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

Notability is based on whether sources exist, not whether they are included in the article at present. If there are enough sources to, in your judgement, substantiate the topic, then there's no grounds for deletion. Athanelar (talk) 13:34, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

Ok, good to know Mwen Sé Kéyòl Translator-a (talk) 15:01, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

I don't read sports much, but I've never seen that topic covered. I have seen a probably-notable amount of coverage of one set of twins who had a good and quite long career playing next to each other on the same NHL team, and I expect that any relatively successful set of twins in any sport is likely to be covered as well, but seeing different sets of twins covered separately like that doesn't support this topic.

If there are books or major articles (reliable ones) called "Twins in Professional Sports" or whatever, where they write about this as a general phenomenon, then yes. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 15:57, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

Template for article draft as userpage

Is there some sort of templated message I can send to new users about creating an article draft as their userpage?

Hi all,

As you can see over at Category:Candidates for speedy deletion, it would appear it's a pretty regular occurrence for new users create article drafts on their own userpage.

This message (along with this image) pops up when someone tries to do that:

Please do not draft new articles here—to do that, create a userspace draft.

This is your user page, a place to introduce yourself to other editors to help them understand your contributions. It is not a personal website, and may be deleted if used inappropriately. Please be mindful of your privacy when deciding what to share here.

Rather that re-type "Hello, User talk:Example, when you created User:Example you would have noticed that this message appeared..."

Please do not draft new articles here—to do that, create a userspace draft.

This is your user page, a place to introduce yourself to other editors to help them understand your contributions. It is not a personal website, and may be deleted if used inappropriately. Please be mindful of your privacy when deciding what to share here.

... is there an existing template-y (and hopefully non-WP:BITE-y) sort of message that could be sent in this sort of thing happens? I've looked at Wikipedia:Template index, and can't find one. (Admittedly, my search may have not been as thorough as I'd like to think it was.)

Thanks!

Shirt58 (talk) 🦘 09:14, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

There's always {{uw-userpage}}, but it's true that this template isn't directly specific to your case. However, the fact that userpages are not encyclopaedia articles or article drafts are the first two items addressed in the bulleted list, so if I didn't know better I'd say this template is your best bet (it's intended for talk pages of course). Newbzy (talk) 09:51, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

I don't know of a user-talk message to send them about it, but {{Userspace draft}} might be a good tag to put on the userpage itself. DMacks (talk) 19:05, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

@Newbzy and DMacks: thank you both! And also thank you to this helpdesk - this now answered question was made by an admin with ~60,000 edits and ~1,000 articles created. Shirt58 (talk) 🦘 09:51, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

Creating an account

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 there I’ve tried a few different user names to create an account and it keeps coming back with user id invalid. Why wouldn’t Binz32 work? ~2026-71055-3 (talk) 16:50, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

Replying at WP:Teahouse#Trouble creating user id Mike Turnbull (talk) 17:46, 1 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.

Indenting in the Visual editor

I know that in the Source editor, we use colons to indent text the equivalent of one tab stop, but I prefer to work in the Visual editor and haven't yet figured out how to do it there. Guidance, please—also the associated short cut, if there is one. Augnablik (talk) 18:14, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

From my knowledge, that is not possible in visual editor, unless you use spaces. AdmiralCarl (talk) | :) 21:43, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

@AdmiralCarl Do you mean that leading spaces have a special function in Visual, or do you mean just adding spaces by hand on each line?

Different screens or windows have different line lengths, so adding spaces by hand isn't really useful unless all your paragraphs happen to be very very short. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 22:54, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

No, as in just pressing the spacebar repeatedly.... AdmiralCarl (talk) | :) 22:55, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

Like they said, adding repeated spaces at the start of a line doesn't work if the text is long enough to wrap around to a new line. I also think it would get on other editor's nerves if you did that in ordinary text. Usually padding things out with spaces is only done in templates in the source code to make them easier to read. I know if I found an article that started a sentence with repeated spaces I would just delete the spaces or revert the edit as unhelpful. (Edit: I'm also not sure how that would actually look in the source code - what would the visual editor convert it to?) – Scyrme (talk) 23:42, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

@Augnablik: I gave the visual editor a try while logged out and it seems you can indent text in the same menu at the top that you use to add a bulleted list. The icon looks like three stacked lines with bullet points on the left. It only appears when editing articles, not in Talk page replies. That same menu also lists the keyboard shortcuts as Tab or Ctrl+] to add indentation and Tab+Shift or Ctrl+[ to remove indentation.

However, on my end those options were greyed out and I couldn't actually use them. I don't know why. Maybe those options are only available to logged in editors or have to be enabled in preferences? I honestly don't know. I don't personally use the visual editor when logged in. (In fact I don't even know how to switch to it; I can't find the option, so I suspect I disabled it in my user preferences at some point. When I click "edit" it goes directly to the source editor for me.)

Maybe Tab or the options in the bullet point menu work on your end? If they're also greyed out on your end and no-one here knows why, maybe the editors over at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) might have an idea as to why they're listed but not enabled. – Scyrme (talk) 23:56, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

Going directly to the source mode is done through the preferences; I enabled it but I don't remember where... AdmiralCarl (talk) 00:03, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

Update: I found the relevant preferences. Turns out you have to both check the option to "enable the visual editor" and also set the "editing mode" menu to "show both editor tabs" (I had it on "remember my last editor").

Situation on my end in the visual editor in is the same when I'm logged in. The options are listed, including shortcuts, but they're greyed out and I can't actually use them. – Scyrme (talk) 00:24, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

You found them, nice, and thank you, now I can change that option. AdmiralCarl (talk) 00:30, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

Utilisation of my videos on wikipedia

Hello, just minding why on a recent video, I can see on the stats analytics the fact that some views are from Wikipedia.

Could you please explain how this is working? Perhaps here's the title « Le VRAI problème chez Anyme (Racisme)"

I would like to know why I see some views from Wikipedia here, and I don't see my creation on the website on the Anyme023's page.

Thanks! -Kaiko ~2026-71409-3 (talk) 19:43, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

There was a similar question recently at Wikipedia:Help_desk/Archive 77#Youtube views coming from wikipedia? Cryptic suggested that, if your analytics give the exact urls people are going to, or at least prefixes of them, you can find [an answer] very efficiently with Special:Linksearch. TSventon (talk) 20:18, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

I searched the title at YouTube and found the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZacmi-ykRc. I cannot find any links to it in the English or French Wikipedia. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:43, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

How to retrieve my 20 years' worth of edits?

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)

Which 'username' are you referring to? I don't think it has ever been possible to register an IP address as a username. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:46, 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)

Please tell us what username you have been using. We aren't mind readers. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:30, 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)

I think this person may have asked this question already, either here or Teahouse, within the past month(ish), and never answered that time either. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 02:10, 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)

@~2026-71910-2 What EXACTLY was your user name? TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 02:06, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

A random sequence of twelve numbers. What's the point, anyway, it's not like the edit history can be retrieved somehow? JustARandomSquid (talk) 07:57, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

@JustARandomSquid With the IP, something like [3] can be found, and the OP might be a little happier. See also my comment below. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:05, 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 [4]." 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)

@~2026-71910-2: I've found your old IP (which is unusually static), but I don't want to reveal it here, even though I didn't use TAIV directly to obtain it. Registering an account at Special:CreateAccount will give you a persistent account that'll last for as long as Wikipedia exists, even if your IP changes. Children Will Listen (🐄 talk, 🫘 contribs) 15:56, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

Bot/tool to automatically add sidebar?

Template:Jewish Organizations

I've recently created the sidebar (seen to the right) of Jewish organizations, and I want to add this onto some relevant articles. However, there are dozens or even hundreds of articles in some of its sections, which I don't want to add manually. Is there a way to use a tool or a bot to automatically have it added to every article that's within a specific category? Wikieditor662 (talk) 00:06, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

Why a sidebar and not a template to go, far less distractingly, at the foot (like for example Template:Restaurants in the City of New York, as seen at the foot of, for example, The Coffee Shop (New York City))? -- Hoary (talk) 00:40, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

The lists here do seem excessively long for a sidebar. Sidebars have to share space with images and other templates, but expanding the "American" section, would likely displace most them from their intended location on the page. Usually sidebars are selective in what they include, rather than comprehensively trying to replicate the contents of a category.

Many sidebars link to a relevant category for a more comprehensive list of relevant articles (eg. {{Philosophy sidebar}} or {{Taoism}}, which have an explicit links to their main categories in the "above" or "below" links, or {{Human history}} which links to its main category in the "part of a series on" preamble at the top). This helps avoid the problem of trying to include everything.

If the intention is to have a comprehensive list organised by topic or region (as opposed to just an alphabetical listing in a category page), you can also make a "List of..." or "Outline of..." article and link to that in a prominent position in the sidebar/navbox, like {{Philosophy sidebar}} (sidebar) or {{Geography topics}} (navbox) do. – Scyrme (talk) 01:14, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

Yes, it's far too big and loosely connected for a sidebar. It has 411 links! Some of it could be split into multiple navboxes. Don't use header markup ==...== in templates. The sections are added to the table of contents so I removed the transclusion from this page. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:18, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

There are precedents for large/complex navboxes. For example, {{philosophy topics}} has full, large collapsible subsections organised by branch/topic, era/history, and region/geography. I know many editors prefer smaller navboxes too, but at least when navboxes get too large it's less intrusive than an overlong sidebar. Nothing on the page gets displaced far from where it's intended to be. In general, navboxes are less prone to causing arguments over what warrants inclusion in the template and what articles should use the template. Might be the way to go if Wikieditor662 is very adamant about not cutting the links down much. – Scyrme (talk) 01:44, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

Can it be both, where a navbox has more items, while the sidebar has only the most notable ones? Wikieditor662 (talk) 02:50, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

Yes. That's basically the current situation with {{Philosophy sidebar}} vs the navbox {{Philosophy topics}}. That said, sometimes if a sidebar and navbox are very similar an editor may list it at WP:TFD arguing that one of them should be deleted. – Scyrme (talk) 03:31, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

Use of Facebook as a citation

I am seeing a lot of articles with this. For example, Leonid Chernovetskyi, has a citation to https://www.facebook.com/login/?next=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fchernovetskiy

Should this be deleted or moved to the External links section or marked as citation needed ? Meltedrock (talk) 06:16, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

Facebook and other social media accounts do belong in External links. Facebook as a reference can be used sparingly, for example, "John Jones announced his candidacy for mayor of Swan Lake on Facebook." The sentence "John Jones is active on Facebook" might be true when the sentence was inserted, but it might not be true later, so I'm not crazy about using a Facebook page to support the article saying someone is active on Facebook, as Leonid Chernovetskyi does, sloppily, viz "Leonid Chernoverskiy belongs [sic] remains active on social media, including Facebook". The External link should be templated, viz:

* {{Facebook|Fchernovetskiy}}

which on Leonid Chernovetskyi will display as

• Leonid Chernovetskyi on Facebook

Anomalocaris (talk) 06:36, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

However, in this case, that shouldn't be added to Leonid_Chernovetskyi#External_links per WP:ELMIN. His official website would be enough even if it didn't link his FB, which it does. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:52, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

thanks @Gråbergs Gråa Sång and @Anomalocaris Meltedrock (talk) 08:24, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

Gråbergs Gråa Sång, Meltedrock: I believe WP:ELMIN is saying that ordinarily there should be only one official website. I don't think it's deprecating the listing of social media sites in External links. We might not want to list the Facebook page just because the subject of an article has a Facebook page, but if the article specifically notes that the individual is active on Facebook, it seems to me that it's fine to include their Facebook page in External links. —Anomalocaris (talk) 08:52, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

"Normally, only one official link is included. ... However, Wikipedia does not provide a comprehensive web directory to every official website. Wikipedia does not attempt to document or provide links to every part of the subject's web presence or provide readers with a handy list of all social networking sites."

If there is no firstnamelastname.com website, then it's fine to pick one social media, FB, insta, whatever, to do the WP:ELOFFICIAL job. Raegan_Revord#External_links and Johnathon_Schaech#External_links are examples. If the EL-section has a list of several subject social media, it's time for weeding. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:08, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

Please also see WP:NOSOCIAL - Arjayay (talk) 09:13, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

Which is under the heading "Except for a link to an official page of the article's subject, one should generally avoid providing external links to:" Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:50, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

Referencing errors on Special:Diff/1336159518

Special:Diff/1336159518

When will Citation Bot be online?

Thanks, Ahri Boy (talk) 06:30, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

What displays as laodong.vn https://laodong.vn/van-hoa-giai-tri/anh-trai-say-hi-chieu-lien-tiep-2-tap-trong-tuan-1380475.ldo. Retrieved 2026-02-02 lacks a title. Every cite template requires specification of a title. Also, it gives "laodong.vn" as the author. But a domain name can't be an author. There are other examples here too of generic names being presented as authors. If a web page doesn't specify one or more human authors, then simply skip the "first", "last", and "author" attributes. -- Hoary (talk) 08:42, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

Watchlist labels

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)

I think these were deployed across various wikis literally within the last 24 hours or less, and I guess the local documentation hasn't caught up yet. It looks like mw:Help:Watchlist labels is the place to start. Ping @Samwalton9 (WMF) who I think has been working on this. ClaudineChionh (she/her · talk · email · global) 12:37, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Thanks ClaudineChionh - although that page states "This page is currently a draft." and doesn't explain why you might wish to label things. - Arjayay (talk) 12:49, 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) 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)

@Arjayay I think my pop-up had a "next" button or something, and it disappeared after I had followed that to the end, like 2-3 clicks. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 12:40, 2 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)

Hi Samwalton9 (WMF) - For awareness, there's at least one other community talkpage that was wondering about the new feature: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Women in Red#Manage labels. --Rosiestep (talk) 16:05, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

Looks like it currently doesn't read "Got it" as "don't show me this tutorial again". Can't imagine it won't get patched soon. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 16:46, 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)

  @Mr Serjeant Buzfuz Are you seeing the popup every time you visit your Watchlist? It should only displayed once - after you click 'Got It' they won't be shown again. Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 10:22, 3 February 2026 (UTC)

• See also discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) § A new feature added, without community consent. A prominent announcement of this new feature before going live might have prevented some complaints/confusion. ClaudineChionh (she/her · talk · email · global) 23:21, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

New Article

Hello. I'm trying to request a new article, about myself and to say that I'm confused, is an understatement. For instance, there is no such button as "Publish changes" only "Publish page". Hoping someone can help. Echo-Reverb (talk) 17:29, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

"Publish" in our context simply means "save and make public", as all edits are public.

Are you attempting to create an article about yourself, or just request one? 331dot (talk) 17:32, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

Request one, preferably. Echo-Reverb (talk) 17:34, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

Well, you can request one at Requested Articles(if you're not there already)- but it is backlogged to the point of uselessness; any request you make will not be acted on for some time, if ever(and that's assuming you meet the relevant criteria for inclusion).

If you truly feel that you meet the relevant notability criteria(like musician or writer or academic or just a person) you are free to attempt to create an article about yourself, though its inadvisable; please see the autobiography policy. You would need to set aside everything that you know about yourself and limit yourself to summarizing what independent reliable sources have chosen on their own to say about you. Most people have great difficulty doing that about themselves, especially without prior Wikipedia editing experience. But, if you want to try nevertheless, you may create and submit a draft via the Article Wizard. It is rare for people to succeed in writing about themselves, but it does happen.

Be advised that a Wikipedia article is not necessarily a good thing. There are good reasons to not want one. 331dot (talk) 17:44, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

Thank you. That's helpful. Yes, I meant the criteria and it would be helpful to have everything in one place. Echo-Reverb (talk) 17:56, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

Ideally, the best place for you to have all information about yourself in one place is a personal website or social media account that you own and control. You will not have exclusive control over any Wikipedia article about you, and it may say things that you might prefer not be said as long as they appear in an independent reliable source and are not defamatory. Most people fail in attempting to write about themselves, but you are free to attempt to submit a draft as I advise. I might suggest that you use the new user tutorial first. 331dot (talk) 17:59, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

I'll sleep on it. Thanks. Echo-Reverb (talk) 18:01, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

Meet, I meant to say (no pun). Echo-Reverb (talk) 17:59, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

Please note that almost everyone who comes here for help is quite confident that they meet the criteria, and yet they very often don't meet them - often not even close to meeting them. The usual problem is Wikipedia:Notability. Within that category, common problems are

• sources that don't tell the subject's entire history
• sources that are influenced by the subject

We have to stick very close to being only a restatement of what's already in the sources. For example, the subject is allowed to fill in for themselves "My birthdate is February 2", but not allowed to fill in "I'm a well-known painter". For that reason, we need sources that truly speak for themselves - we have to be confident that if we just plopped the three best sources onto a table, readers would have the full story just from that.

And while sources that appear to have possibly been influenced by the subject (or their publicist or associates) are not completely useless, they are much closer to useless than subjects usually expect. They can't be used at all when it comes to telling your story - they can't be one of those "three best sources" mentioned in the previous paragraph. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 20:56, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

I’m pleased to say that a colleague has stepped in and will now be taking up the challenge. He’s set up a few pages previously and although we discussed it many years ago, I didn’t want to burden him, however, he thought I’d never ask. Bless him. ~2026-73285-7 (talk) 21:13, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

Just a note that if the person writing about you also works about you, they will have a Conflict of interest. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 21:18, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

Indeed, however, Sean doesn’t work for or with me, he’s a fan, but it just feels more comfortable to say colleague. I generally refer to individuals as “my good friend and colleague”. It works for me. ~2026-73285-7 (talk) 21:25, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

He will still have a conflict of interest. Editors have no need to contact the subject of an article. Theroadislong (talk) 21:31, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

And, @~2026-73285-7, Sean will still have the challenge of

• finding the independent reliable sources about you that are required to establish that you meet Wikipedia's criterai for notability (most of us don't); and if he cannot find them, telling you so, and not spending any more time on this project;
• setting aside everything that he knows about you except from those sources
• making sure that almost everything in the article is verifiable from a reliable published source that is wholly independent of you: not only not written or published by you, but not based on an interview or press release from you or your associates or organisations. (Some limited information may come from non-independent published sources: see primary)
• fairly summarising what those sources say, even if he disagrees with them or knows that you will disagree with them.

A Wikipedia article should be a neutral summary of what the majority of people who are wholly unconnected with the subject have independently chosen to publish about the subject in reliable publications, (see Golden rule) and not much else. What you know (or anybody else knows) about the subject is not relevant except where it can be verified from a reliable published source. ColinFine (talk) 21:57, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

If you had got someone who had never heard of you, AND was happy to write for free, AND you provided them absolutely no information but just left them to look it up for themselves, your sense of relief would be justified. But the situation you've described is, from Wikipedia's point of view, really no different from having you do it yourself (or only barely different). TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 22:27, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

User creating another user?

Sometimes in user creation logs, you'll see that it states that a user created another user account. How does the log know that? Does one not need to sign out in order to create another account? thetechie@enwiki:~$ she/they | talk 18:04, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

Hello! Users with the WP:Account creator user group are able to make accounts without needing to sign out, which the log knows and logs. I hope this answers your question! dot.py (alt) 18:08, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

I don't think that's it. The log in question I saw was a blocked user creating other accounts (which were later blocked as socks). thetechie@enwiki:~$ she/they | talk 18:10, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

Normal users can make up to 6 accounts per 24 hour period via Special:CreateAccount. Account creator allows users to make more than that. Skynxnex (talk) 18:11, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

I just checked, it looks like you don't actually need the account creator user group, you would just need to go to Special:CreateAccount. Account creators just aren't limited to the 6 accounts/day limit. dot.py (alt) 18:12, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

(edit conflict × 2) Logged in users can create accounts using Special:CreateAccount, and it will be logged that they created a new account from their account. Typically used for creating bot accounts or for ACC purposes. Tenshi! (Talk page) 18:14, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

This is also done by some of our less sophisticated sockmasters. Children Will Listen (🐄 talk, 🫘 contribs) 18:16, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

Anyone can create a new account while being signed in. Account creators can bypass the 6 account/IP/day limit. Children Will Listen (🐄 talk, 🫘 contribs) 18:11, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

submission of biography

A year ago I hired a wiki writing firm to assist with a biography of my Father. They were supposed to submit it to Wikipedia for review. They never did that and now they are not able to be contacted. I believe I was scammed and I REALLY wanted to speak with one of your representatives. I am not real computer literate but I have spent so much time and money on this project, I do not want to scrap it. Help, please. ~2026-72700-6 (talk) 19:03, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

This is a common scam. See Wikipedia:Scam warning. Sugar Tax (talk) 19:05, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

As you suspect, you were scammed. Please read the scam warning. In that regard, there's not much we can do to help you. You can contact your bank and have the charge declared fraudulent. You could contact your local authorities but there's probably not much they can do.

We can't do much to write the article for you; this is a volunteer effort, not a business. Writing a new article is challenging, but you can try by using the Article Wizard. I'd suggest using the new user tutorial. 331dot (talk) 19:08, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

The overwhelmingly important detail is that whomever you hired has no actual affiliation with Wikipedia itself. It's a third party that is totally independent, and you'd have to work with them directly (or with whatever other financial or legal services are relevant). So that's why we can't do anything...not because we aren't sympathetic or frustrated by this sort of situation. DMacks (talk) 19:12, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

I have a copy of the biography. Where can I submit it for Wikipedia review and suggestions? KANINGRYTA (talk) 19:19, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

@KANINGRYTA Visit WP:AFC , which is a submission vehicle an inexperienced or inexpert user will often use. 🇵🇸‍🇺🇦 Fiddle^Timtrent Faddle^Talk to me 🇺🇦‍🇵🇸 19:37, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

You may use the Article Wizard to create and submit a draft. However, you should first formally disclose your conflict of interest on your user page(User:KANINGRYTA) You should make sure that the draft is a summary of what independent reliable sources have chosen on their own to say about your father, and that it has no personal knowledge. You need to show that your father is a notable person(there are also narrower criteria for certain fields, like musicians) 331dot (talk) 19:37, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

@~2026-72700-6@KANINGRYTA In addition to what others have said, please forward your entire conversation with this 'wiki writing firm' to the reporting address at paid-en-wp@wikipedia.org so appropriate action can be taken against these scammers. Athanelar (talk) 22:34, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

Just a caution: when sending your entire conversation, do not omit, edit, or redact anything. Send every bit of it. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 23:01, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

Embedding an Animated GIF in an Article

I was trying to add an animation to an article. I have since reverted this edit, since the GIF was not animated unless you click on it. I have seen animations work without enlarging them on other articles. How can I make the GIF play all the time? Emgram (talk) 19:18, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

The File:Homotopy lifting gif.gif file on commons has a comment "Note: Due to technical limitations, thumbnails of high resolution GIF images such as this one will not be animated. The limit on Wikimedia Commons is width × height × number of frames ≤ 100 million." DMacks (talk) 20:40, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

Consistent display of timestamps

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)

So what essentially do you want help with (summarise the 4 paragraphs above) ? AdmiralCarl (talk) 22:38, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

I want to know whether numerous people who each have many years of experience on Wikipedia use such a script. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 22:56, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

You mean scrips that change UTC time to the time of the user (I've seen those on user pages and their talk)? AdmiralCarl (talk) 23:01, 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)

Thank you! I'll just switch my preference to UTC and be done with it. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 23:44, 2 February 2026 (UTC)