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January 6

Bellarine, Victoria

Reference number 22 is "Not Quite Right" (in red). Please fix. I am sorry. Srbernadette (talk) 06:01, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Before somebody kindly fixed it, reference 22 told the reader (in red) "Check date values in: |date=". This means that the value specified for the date is invalid. And the cite template read "date=20144", which (as it has not four but five digits) is several thousand years into the future. -- Hoary (talk) 06:09, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Emma Thynn, Marchioness of Bath

ref number 6 is in the red too - Im sorry, I will try not do any more editing this year! Please fix this reef. Thank you in advance. Srbernadette (talk) 09:42, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Did that help? Also the year has just started. Perhaps try to do more and better editing this year. Polygnotus (talk) 09:47, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Statement: True or false?

I think users with less than 500 edits can't be administrators. Gnu779 (talk) 13:06, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

There have been cases of admins from other Wikimedia projects but very few contributions on English Wikipedia, who are promoted to adminship here to facilitate particular cross-wiki tasks.

WP:ADMINship is a position of community trust, and editors with brief tenures and few contributions have not yet had the opportunity to build that trust. Folly Mox (talk) 13:13, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

So if someone was an editor with only about 100 edits, will they be or not? No, right? Gnu779 (talk) 13:17, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

See guidance at WP:RFA. The formal requirement for adminship is 500 edits and 30 days of experience. However, a user who only meets this minimum standard is almost certain not to pass an RFA. GMG^talk 13:19, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

So if I was a user with 505 edits, I can't still be? Gnu779 (talk) 12:11, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

You can run. But your odds of succeeding would be near zero. It's fairly common for RfA candidates with thousands of edits to be opposed by the community due to lack of experience. GMG^talk 12:19, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

So where can I apply? (I forgot) Gnu779 (talk) 13:15, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

Likely copyvio ?

First, I wish you a very happy new year !

I hope I'm not in the wrong section. Here is the main issue :

File:Herge with bust of Tintin.png

I wonder if this photography uploaded on en.wikipedia.org has not been made by Jacques Pavlovsky (just died in 2023) for french Sygma agency, September 18, 1975. Here other sources to evaluate this issue : https://www.gettyimages.in/detail/news-photo/belgian-cartoonist-georges-prosper-remi-aka-hergé-at-home-news-photo/1441929742

Exactly the same type of light, same time (1975), same haircut, same shirt with rolled up sleeves and same tie, same place (at home in Brussels), ...

And here, the same Tintin's bust statue in the exactly same state : https://www.gettyimages.in/detail/news-photo/belgian-cartoonist-georges-prosper-remi-aka-hergé-at-home-news-photo/583065342

Hergé was very conservative about photoshootings and it's very unlikely that any other photographer could have been worked at the same period for one of his last album of Tintin press promotion.

Regards. Tisourcier (talk) 13:20, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

@Tisourcier Looking at the NFCC tags on the image, it looks like the uploader made a good-faith effort to identify the photographer but failed. I think it's plausible that Pavlovsky is the photographer, in which case the author credit for the image should be changed. However, the image would still be usable on Wikipedia, since it meets the non-free content criteria. —C.Fred (talk) 13:34, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Article name change

Hello, I am debating whether should I change the name for the former Kandara Airport into Jeddah Airport, or keep it the same. The term “Kandara Airport” was probably coined by the former airport’s location to the area, and that people didn’t want to confuse it with the newer King Abdulaziz International Airport (nicknamed Jeddah Airport). And also, before 1981 when the new one was built, the former one was officially named Jeddah Airport according to historical documents and videos. If I changed it, it would have been more historically accurate. Any thoughts? Bollardant (talk) 14:50, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

The best place to discuss this is at Talk:Kandara Airport. When a subject has more than one possible name, it is best to get a consensus before renaming the article.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 14:57, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

A notice should also be added to Talk:King Abdulaziz International Airport as Jeddah Airport redirects there. A Wikipedia:Hatnote at King Abdulaziz International Airport or a Wikipedia:Disambiguation page at Jeddah Airport are alternative options. TSventon (talk) 15:13, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

What's my actual edit count?

As of before I add this topic:

Your impact: 371 Total edits

View all edits > User contributions for Therguy10: A user with 372 Edits.

Am I missing something here? Thanks! Therguy10 (talk) 18:21, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

There are a couple of things that impact your edit count, depending on what tools and methodology are being used. Some are based on all contributions, while others reduce your edit county by deleted edits (sometimes called "live" edits). Plus some pages are cached, for performance reasons, so their data might lag being by a few edits (or minutes)... For more information also see WP:EDITCOUNT. TiggerJay (talk) 18:37, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

@TiggerjayInteresting, I'll keep that in mind. I'll probably go off of my User Contribs but that's good to know that it can differ. Thank you! Therguy10 (talk) 19:58, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

@Therguy10: if you click on "Preferences", that will show you edit count. This is my 323,426th edit. Mjroots (talk) 11:47, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

@Mjroots: are you sure that 323,426 is a complete and accurate count? Your edit count report shows

Global edit counts (approximate) ► en.wikipedia.org 323,426

and

Live edits 322,487 · (98.9%) deleted edits 3,486 · (1.1%) Total edits 325,973

TSventon (talk) 13:21, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

@TSventon: as it says Global edit count - this includes other language Wikipedias, but not, as far as I know, Wikimedia Commons. Mjroots (talk) 15:09, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

Scrub that. Not sure then. The figure I gave was what shows up when the preferences tab is clicked. Mjroots (talk) 15:11, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

Reference errors

Greetings, can someone with more stamina and time go into Hualca Hualca and resolve the reference errors? I don't know how to fix the spurious sfn error, for instance. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 18:26, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

@Jo-Jo Eumerus:  Done Polygnotus (talk) 20:01, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Maintenance categories

Hello, I have a few discussions (1 and 2) concerning maintenance categories that I would like to bump - WT:CATP is pretty quiet. Would there be an appropriate noticeboard to bump these discussions? The village pump and subsidiary boards seems to be for larger discussions. Tule-hog (talk) 20:00, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

1) if you want to ask what a category is for, you can just ask its creator. I pinged them for ya.

2) looks like this topic died a natural death after Anne drew said According to the page's protection level you should be able to edit the page yourself. If you seem to be unable to, please reopen the request with further details. If you want feedback you could use Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) or WP:3O. Polygnotus (talk) 20:22, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Advice on appropriate informational/warning template

A user tagged me this afternoon on another user's talk page in the context of trying to recruit other editors to collectively undermine the work of me and a collaborator in our ongoing efforts to improve Postmodernism. Please see the comment here. (Apparently this has something to do with the off-Wiki group GSoW.[1] I'd never heard of it.)

This first editor has made only one edit to the article in question (or actually just its talk page), three years ago, with a minor question about the presence of a sidebar.

Aside from this ping (which I suspect was an accident), they have made no efforts to contact me or to offer criticism or suggestions on the article talk page.

Is there a template of some kind I could add to their user talk? Obviously some of this is just ignorance of Wikipedia culture and norms, but wow is this the wrong attitude to start with.

Thanks for your thoughts on how to handle this —

Cheers, Patrick (talk) 21:31, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

@Patrick Welsh: Are there any other relevant links you know of? If not, then it seems you are overreacting and failing to AGF. It is not (yet) clear if these are nefarious people doing nefarious deeds or simply people who have a boring content dispute about a boring wikipedia article which can be solved with a boring conversation. And my money is on the second option. There is an article about @Sgerbic: over at Susan Gerbic. Polygnotus (talk) 21:39, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

I'm afraid not, just the post at User talk:Sgerbic. OneSkyWalker's account dates back to 2006, but it has only 107 edits that, at least at a glance, appear innocuous.

GSoW is apparently a group that coordinates offline campaigns against stuff like pseudoscience on Wikipedia. I don't know anything about them except what's on their website, and that User:Sgerbic is the founder and principle coordinator. Patrick (talk) 21:49, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Meh, my advice would be to relax and invite them to have a conversation on the talkpage. Postmodernism is not a form of pseudoscience, and you are not a psychic, so I think you have nothing to worry about. Polygnotus (talk) 21:50, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Okay, I will take your advice. I really don't love the battleground mentality, however, or the deliberate secrecy. I mean why not at least try starting on the article talk page? Patrick (talk) 21:56, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Some internet users expect Wikipedia to be a turnbased combat game, and it certainly can be. But there are also many articles where polite people politely disagree about topics that are not very exciting (like Postmodernism). The mention of GSoW seems to be unrelated to Postmodernism article. And, if my Google-fu is to be trusted, the GSoW secrecy is based on old unrelated drama. Nothing to worry about. Polygnotus (talk) 22:02, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Just to be sure we're not talking past one another, I'm totally fine with editors coming to the article talk page full of objections to this-or-that shortcoming. I welcome it!

My problem here is that the editor did not do this. Instead, they went to the talk page of user who has not worked on the page seeking collaborators to edit the article in a way that they apparently expect in advance will wind up in arbitration.

Oh, and I have no problem with Susan Gerbic. I too am opposed to pseudoscience. Patrick (talk) 22:09, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

I understand. I can think of plausible non-nefarious reasons why that editor showed up at Susans talk instead of at the Postmodernism talk. I myself have also posted on a more experienced users talkpage saying something like "I think article x is imperfect what do you think" instead of posting on the talkpage of that article because I was unsure I wanted to get involved without the support of someone saner and more experienced than I am, and as a sanity check if my opinion even made sense. Polygnotus (talk) 22:13, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Something to play with

It's an AI bias checker. I'd use with extreme caution. It doesn't seem to like authoritative sources. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 21:57, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Yeah that is nonsense. It is simply a wrapper around an OpenAI API call. And why oh why do they hate webdesign so much? Polygnotus (talk) 22:05, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

They are demonic (favourite word of the month) sent to try you. I don't understand it. Webdesign is an establish industry with traditions. No need for it with a well established and well understood design ethos. scope_creep^Talk 22:20, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Where is doomguy when you need him? Polygnotus (talk) 09:20, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

J1 League

Are there instructions on how to access and use these updaters in Japanese football (soccer)? This is from Kawasaki Frontale Daxion (talk) 23:30, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

@Daxion: Your heading says {{Japanese football updater|KawasakF}}. That means it's calling Template:Japanese football updater. If you edit it then you can see some instructions at the top of the source code. If you mean how to call it then there is documentation for some similar templates in Category:Association football infobox updater templates: {{Brazilian football updater}}, {{English football updater}}, {{Spanish football updater}}, {{Welsh football updater}}. I haven't used any of them or examined the documentation but I guess they work similarly. PrimeHunter (talk) 09:13, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

January 7

Namespace number

Why there are numbers in namespace? What is the purpose of that namespace number? Vitaium (talk) 08:42, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

@Vitaium: Probably because that's how they get stored in the database(s). Imagine you have 6 million records in a database. Much better to store a zero for each of those to denote that its an article than the string "article". Polygnotus (talk) 08:49, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

@Vitaium: See Wikipedia:Namespace#Programming. Template code with namespace numbers can be copied between wikis where the names are different. Namespace numbers are also used in other places, e.g. some url's to restrict features like search or WhatLinksHere to selected namespaces. If you don't make namespace-dependent templates or tinker with url parameters then you may never need the numbers. PrimeHunter (talk) 08:56, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

I am not permitted to Requests for page protection/Increase/Form

I am trying to report persistent vandalism over the span of 6 months on the article Gang rape#India, I am not permitted to do so. I get the message
Failed to create request. Error code: abusefilter-disallowed. Please try again or ask for help at WT:RFPP.
Can you perhaps submit it for me? I don't think it can get fixed i've tried alot of things. ContributedEditor (talk) 09:53, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

Pinging the man behind the hair, our beloved Sideshow Bob, @Oshwah:. Polygnotus (talk) 09:59, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

The title of the article was triggering an edit filter. Your submission to WP:EFFP was already handled, no need to cross post. OhNoitsJamie ^Talk 15:43, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

Changing the italics in a title

Would like to propose this for Ikebana as it appears Roman and uncapped in Merriam-Web. thanks Shelter3 (talk) 11:28, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

@Shelter3: Ikebana use {{Italic title}} to deliberately display the title in italics per Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Text formatting#Non-English-language terms. Page names start with a capital letter unless the first word would usually be written lowercase at the start of a sentence like iPhone. Merriam-Webster is a dictionary so they want to show how a word is written inside a sentence but they still say Ikebana when the word starts a sentence. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Our sister project Wiktionary is a dictionary and their article is wiktionary:ikebana. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:00, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

Sorry to clarify, it is already IN italics and needs to be Roman. So: {{Roman title}}?--Shelter3 (talk) 11:46, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

@Shelter3: Ikebana uses {{Italic title}} to deliberately display the title in italics, so you could remove the Italic title template to remove the italics. The article is in UK English so arguably you should check a UK English dictionary. TSventon (talk) 11:59, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

Referencing edits, citations, etc from the talk page

I’ve been collaborating with someone on the talk page of an article, but I’ve had difficulty finding clear standards or easy methods for referencing an edit or citation from the article we’re discussing. I’ve even struggled to find a simple way to quote something someone has said on the talk page. After some searching and working with raw code, I was able to use something like Talk Quote Block.

Since talk pages seem so important, is there a page that outlines all the tools available for constructive discussion? If such a page exists, I’ve honestly tried to find it! :D Dr pangloss (talk) 13:34, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

I don't know about all of the available tools, but Help:Talk seems like a place to start. DonIago (talk) 14:23, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

How would you link to a citation in the article? Or a previous edit? I have just gone to the edit and copied the URL from the taskbar, or gone into the source code and copied the link to the citation if it has an external link or file. Dr pangloss (talk) 17:38, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

You can link to a previous edit as a WP:DIFF, if you mean a comparison of an old and new version of text; it sounds like you may have ultimately done something equivalent. If you wanted to link to a citation. I'd probably just quote the text where the relevant citation is listed, but it's not something I personally have needed to do thus far. DonIago (talk) 18:31, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

The template {{tq}} is sometimes useful for quoting text from an article or posting - it displays it in green. --ColinFine (talk) 19:06, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

{{Reflist-talk}} is also useful. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:13, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

Can't fix my error because edit source is no longer part of the section

Yes, I know I added the wrong citation markers. But now the page Ecclesiastes#Influence on Western literature doesn't include edit source, so I cannot go back and fix the mistake. Lalare (talk) 20:36, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

@Lalare, I've removed the empty ref tags inserted before the heading, that should fix it. Schazjmd (talk) 20:47, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

And I have added a missing "</ref>". TSventon (talk) 20:56, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

January 8

Hudson Bay

What did I do wrong with the {{sfn}} at Hudson Bay? It won't link to the actual book listing. It's references 16 and 21. Thanks. CambridgeBayWeather (solidly non-human), Uqaqtuq (talk), Huliva 04:49, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

@CambridgeBayWeather: It was just a typo. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:40, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for catching it. CambridgeBayWeather (solidly non-human), Uqaqtuq (talk), Huliva 08:09, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

2025 in country music

At 2025 in country music, does anyone know why there are songs under "Top new album releases"? --Jax 0677 (talk) 13:19, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

They mostly seem to have been added by IP 2603:8000:9401:B55:2407:F6EC:241A:CA3E and another IP in the same range. IP's often change, so these are quite likely to be the same person. There's probably no point in posting on the IP's user talk page for that reason.

I suggest raising the issue on Talk:2025 in country music, and get consensus for removing the songs from that table (perhaps moving them to another table?) You might also want to put a note on WT:COUNTRYMUSIC, pointing to the discussion you create.

Or else you can be WP:BOLD and rearrange the article yourself. ColinFine (talk) 15:05, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

The CODE is in the correct section, the SONGS are in the wrong section. I do not have the skill set to fix this without removing the tunes in their entirety. --Jax 0677 (talk) 15:23, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

Fixed by closing the table.[2] PrimeHunter (talk) 20:18, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

Thank you! --Jax 0677 (talk) 01:14, 9 January 2025 (UTC)

Question about reusing references and reliable sources

As my account is 3 days old, I would like someone to move this to the help desk itself:

Hi. I’ve inputted 2 claims into an article supported by the same source, and I’ve managed to cite the first claim but wanted to use the same citation on the second claim and I have problems with that. How do I use an existing citation on a different part of the article? Please use an example, because I understood I need to use names, but I am failing to actually use the names (I am not sure how to). Also, is The Economic Times a WP:RS? Waited2seconds (talk) 14:09, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

@Waited2seconds: the following source code:

Some wild assertion.<ref name="foo">the really great reference</ref> Another wild assertion.<ref name="foo"/>

results in:

Some wild assertion. Another wild assertion.

since I do not use the visual editor, I hope you can use the source editor. -Arch dude (talk) 14:39, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

I looked up The Economic Times at WP:RSN and found Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive 421#The Economic Times. As the discussion was inconclusive, I suggest using the source with caution, see WP:CONTEXTMATTERS. TSventon (talk) 14:58, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

References

Gaelic speakers/reader

Hi Folks, does anybody know any regular gealic speakers on Wikipedia who can translate loch names on a regular basis. Thanks. scope_creep^Talk 18:05, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

Most of the editors in Category:User gd-5 don't seem to have edited recently, but in Category:user gd-4 @SaoiDunNeachdain seems to be current, while @Akerbeltz says they've moved to gd-wiki, but I see they've edited here within the last two months. Whether either of these would be willing is another matter, of course. ColinFine (talk) 18:15, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

Are there any particular lochs that you have in mind? I have a book of Scottish place names, and know some online sources, which might help. (Incidentally, the name of the language is Gaelic.) AndrewWTaylor (talk) 21:10, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

@AndrewWTaylor: This one Loch a' Bhaid-luachraich. scope_creep^Talk 22:59, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

Merge conflicts - is there something I am missing?

I see that it has a diffing system, but on the merge conflict page, is it really asking me to open a new tab, switch both to code view and hand merge manually myself? The edit conflict help page states "Both the source code editor and the visual editor use CVS-style edit-conflict merging, based on the diff3 utility.", but I can't really find merge tools on the merge page. Dr pangloss (talk) 23:28, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

January 9

Access to citation indexes

Hi, I'm wondering how to determine WP:NACADEMIC #1, and specifically how to access the two citation indexes, Web of Science and Scopus. It seems that they require subscription to access them, so I'm wondering if there is a way to ask if someone could look them up, like asking about references at WP:RX?

I'm specifically wanting to check Draft:Elizabeth Miller (geologist) - the draft has been declined at AfC, with reference to WP:NPROF, but the decliner also said " Significant secondary coverage is needed" (although WP:NACADEMIC explicitly states that many academics "are notably influential in the world of ideas without their biographies being the subject of secondary sources.") I was able to see on Scopus that Elizabeth L Miller has authored 106 papers, and Google Scholar shows that some have been cited 200, 300 or 400 times, so I think there is a good possibility that she does meet Criterion 1 of WP:NACADEMIC - but how do I confirm that? Many thanks, RebeccaGreen (talk) 04:15, 9 January 2025 (UTC)

Pinging @WeirdNAnnoyed: who declined the submission. Polygnotus (talk) 05:42, 9 January 2025 (UTC)