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Help with Mbaka draft

Can someone help review the article Draft:Camillus Anthony Ejikemeuwa Mbaka and possibly De-orphan it?Nwachinazo (talk) 06:24, 30 July 2017 (UTC)

Hello Nwachinazo and welcome to the Teahouse.

You should have an idea of what other articles on Wikipedia would benefit from a link to your article, but those links cannot be added while it is still in Draft: space.

The review process is backlogged. I consider it somewhat impolite to ask here at the Teahouse to jump the queue. If you have specific questions about how to edit your draft, this is the right place. You can continue to improve your article while you are waiting for the review. I can tell you that a few of the most common reasons for a draft being declined are: 1) promotional or non-neutral language in describing the subject, 2) failure to provide sufficient independent, reliably sources that establish the notability (as Wikipedia defines is) of the subject, and 3) failing to provide sources for substantive statements made about the subject. You should aim to have at least one citation per paragraph (outside the lead, which can simply summarize material from the body). If you find you have written anything that cannot be tied to a source, it's best to leave it out. — jmcgnh^{(talk) (contribs)} 07:19, 30 July 2017 (UTC)

jmcgnh wrote "The review process is backlogged. I consider it somewhat impolite to ask here at the Teahouse to jump the queue." Nwachinazo has been editing for only about two months here and may not have known about the backlog till they read your reply. Remember, please don't bite the newbies and assume good faith.
--Thnidu (talk) 05:57, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

You should aim to have at least one citation per paragraph

Which Wikipedia policies and guidelines state?While I accept all other statements above, the above I quoted is a matter of opinion rather than policy/guideline I know of. Anyway, you can educate me more! Nwachinazo (talk) 17:07, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

All of my comments were in the spirit of advice. To have a stretch of sentences without a citation most likely means that you have unsourced material or are pulling too much from a single source. There may be exceptions, such as plot summaries, which is why I used the words "should aim" rather than anything stronger. — jmcgnh^{(talk) (contribs)} 02:21, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Periods in College Degrees? (BA) vs. (B.A.)

I'm working on improving politicians' infoboxes and am wondering what is the correct standard to use in the parameter "education"? JocularJellyfish (talk) 14:51, 30 July 2017 (UTC)

Hell, JocularJellyfish, and welcome to the Teahouse. Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Abbreviations#Abbreviations widely used in Wikipedia specifically says BA (or AB) without periods or spaces. It also says: "The Manual of Style on abbreviations, above, eschews the use of periods with acronyms (M.D., Ph.D.)." (note that the red text indicates an example of what not to do.) This seems pretty clear to me. DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 15:12, 30 July 2017 (UTC)

Thank you. JocularJellyfish (talk) 15:16, 30 July 2017 (UTC)

Paging @Safiel: JocularJellyfish (talk) 15:16, 30 July 2017 (UTC)

@DESiegel and JocularJellyfish: Referring again to Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Full_stops_and_spaces The MoS indicates that STOPS should be used in American English style articles. Yes, that MoS article appears to contradict itself farther down. However, I have been on Wikipedia for a good eight years, during which time, the common usage in American English articles was full stops, (B.A.) I am well aware that on British English and Australian English articles, STOPS are not used. In my own personal experience in school and at work, I have always used STOPS and was taught to use STOPS. And I know STOPS are still the predominant usage outside of Wikipedia in the United States. I think it might be necessary to clarify the MoS as to the common United States usage versus the common British and Australian usages. Safiel (talk) 17:08, 30 July 2017 (UTC)

Safiel You are correct that usage outside of Wikipedia permits "B.A." as well as "BA", although I think the trend is in favor of the latter. While the MOS does favor periods after abbreviations for US/North American usage, it also indicates that abbreviation that are also acronyms should not use periods. Specifically, MOS:POINTS says Modern style is to use a full point (period) after a shortening (although there are many exceptions) but no full point with an acronym. This is true for all varieties of English. In any case, I think the more specific guidance at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Abbreviations#Abbreviations widely used in Wikipedia takes precedence over any more general direction. But an RfC could always be created to clarify this. @JocularJellyfish: DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 17:22, 30 July 2017 (UTC)

JocularJellyfish, I might add that we generally do not use postnominals, such as "Joe Smith, PhD" and in prose, it is probably more appropriate to write out the degree's name, such as "Joe Smith has a doctorate in philosophy." John from Idegon (talk) 10:55, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

John from Idegon, I was aware of that. My question is relating to the infobox. – JocularJellyfish ^Talk_Contribs 14:09, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

For what it is worth individual universities and colleges differ in their recommended styling too. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 14:20, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

@DESiegel: An "acronym" is not simply an abbreviation. An abbreviation is M.D. to indicate "medical doctor." According to our very own Wikipedia article on the topic, an acronym is a word or name formed from an abbreviation from the initial components in a phrase or a word, usually individual letters (as in NATO or laser) and sometimes syllables (as in Benelux). Since "M.D" and "Ph.D." are abbreviations that fail the qualifications of serving as acronyms, to apply the rules that are set out for acronyms is a futile exercise. To wit, "md" is not a word, "phd" is not a word, neither of them are pronounced as words. They are always pronounced as simple initials. If they were words, then this would make them also acronyms. For example, since the abbreviation "POTUS" (President of the United States) is used by government officials, being pronounced as a word, "potus," then it qualifies as an acronym - even though "potus" is not otherwise an English word. B'H. MichaelAngelo7777 (talk) 11:07, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Page not accepted

Hey guys! I am really perplexed about something. I submitted a page for review and came out as not accepted. I did my research and read wikipedia's rules, reviewed the changes an editor suggested and I thought I was in the right path. The reason I got was lack of notability and the suggestion was: "What would've best convinced is museum collections or at least major reviews". My article is about Ken Light, he is a photojournalist and among other references I used The New York Times or the SFMOMA. I don't understand what notability is if those don't count as relevant sources. Sorry about showing my frustration but I really spent a lot of time doing research and making sure I was respecting Wikipedia's rules.

I thank you in advance for any suggestions.

Best, Saravazq (talk) 19:35, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

Hi Saravazq. From what I can see, the NYT article wasn't completely about him but about his work; however, you have enough other sources that are clearly about him that I'd be inclined to think he's notable. One problem I saw in the draft was that your refs are below external links instead of above them, but that's an easy fix. You can try again and might ask WP:WikiProject Arts or WP:WikiProject Photography if they have any suggestions. White Arabian Filly ^Neigh 22:02, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

Hello Saravazq -- Less is more, especially for a new article. I think Ken Light is notable. Instead of lists of books and shows, you want to say about him:

• He's good enough that Berkeley made him a full professor in an endowed chair
• Huffington Post says he the greatest since Bourke-White
• He won the Pulitzer in photojournalism, or something

If people want the list of books, they go to Amazon. If the want the list of shows, they go to his website. WP tells about him, the stuff he might not say about himself. Just my two cents. Rhadow (talk) 22:35, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

Rhadow White Arabian Filly :Thank you so much guys for your feedback! I changed the order of the External Links, added collection museums, a quote from an art critic that talks about his work, specified a little more about his work at Berkeley and mentioned that he received 2 National Endowment for the Arts. I am going to resubmit it now and see what you guys think. Thank you again.

Best, Saravazq (talk) 18:56, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

The National Endowment for the Arts is an organisation, Saravazq, so it doesn't make sense to state that Ken Light received two of them. Do you mean two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships? If so, the source cited doesn't mention that he received two. Cordless Larry (talk) 19:15, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

Cordless Larry Yes, I meant the fellowship, sorry. The source cited mentions that he received fellowships but doesn't say how many. I should have used this source: https://www.lensculture.com/ken-light. I resubmitted it already, I guess it is too late to change it now?

I didn't receive a notification of your ping, Saravazq, because you did not sign the above post. To answer your question, you can continue to edit the draft while it is in the review queue. Cordless Larry (talk) 12:21, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Comedy:

The Teahouse has a link to 'Articles to Improve' and 'Suggestions'. So I joined {{WikiProject Comedy}}, in which one of the ways to participate is to place a project banner on the talk pages of all articles within the scope of the project. I wanted to get involved in this project, and added my name to the participants' list. I've updated over 50 pages so far.

I seem to be quite confused. Apparently, I am under the impression that the very first item on the task list here: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Comedy#Things_you_can_do implies that every talk page in Wikipedia that has anything to do with the topic of "comedy" are to be tagged. This is obviously wrong. I was told that I need to be more careful. I need to be careful not to edit "too many pages."

How do we tell which talk pages may be tagged, and which to avoid?? Here is the first task: Place the {{WikiProject Comedy}} project banner on the talk pages of all articles within the scope of the project. What are the limitations of the "scope of the project?" I didn't know I was tagging too many articles! Sorry! B'H.
MichaelAngelo7777 (talk) 15:20, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

@2422889236x: Sorry, I wasn't clear previously. You are not doing anything wrong. I was merely saying be careful of tagging indiscriminately. It's better to choose a narrow topic first, and work your way down based on my experience with WikiProjects. Regards, Alex Shih^Talk 15:30, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

@Alex Shih: Clarify. Is the tag appropriate for anything to do with comedy, any article having an aspect of comedy? Specifically, I'm inclined to tag any article about a comedian; any person known publically for their humor; a humorous theater production; a humorous televised production; a humorous motion picture production; a humorous article in a magazine or newspaper or website; a humorous book; terms that relate to comedy or humor; concepts having to do with humor, comedy, laughter; research on comedy, laughter, humor; and the like. I am not clear on what you are specifying is "indiscriminately." Where are the boundaries of discrimination, in your perspective? B'H.
MichaelAngelo7777 (talk) 12:00, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Citations in infoboxes

(I've only started actively editing recently, so please let me know if this isn't the place to ask this sort of question.)
I was somewhat surprised to find out that one of the articles I created recently (Gordon Vette) was listed by AlexNewArtBot as potentially eligible for Did You Know, so I'm trying to get it prettied up before the 7 day window passes. I had included some information in the article's infobox ("spouse," "relatives," and "education") that I haven't cited yet because I wasn't sure how to do that. I've never seen a citation in a infobox before, so I don't know what the procedure for that is.
Probably also worth mentioning is that the information comes from some slightly unorthodox sources. The subject of the article has done some really amazing things in aviation which have been well covered, but biographical sources are scarce. He's recently deceased, so what information I have been able to find on his family members (listed in the "spouse" and "relatives" section) and his education are from his funeral program and his Facebook page, respectively. I have no doubt that this information is correct based on oblique references to it in more traditional sources, but I'm not sure how it would look to cite these things on the page... SaAnKe 16:53, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

Hi SaAnKe, welcome to the Teahouse. I think one thing you should be aware of if you aren't already is Wikipedia's biographies of living persons policy ("BLP"). In summary, Wikipedia is such a widely read source that publishing full names of otherwise low-profile, living individuals could have the unintended consequence of invading their privacy. Per the "Privacy of names" section of BLP, it is preferable to omit the names of family members of article subjects unless they have high-quality coverage in reliable sources. I don't think Facebook or Vette's funeral program are good sources for this, so I would be inclined to omit the names of Vette's children in the article, or simply mention how many children he has.

As for citing the information, you can add a citation to information in an infobox the same way you added a citation to information in the article's body, using <ref>...</ref> tags, refToolbar, or the "add citation" function of VisualEditor (see Help:Referencing for beginners). However, as a matter of personal editorial preference, I do not believe it is necessary to duplicate a citation in an infobox if the information is already cited and mentioned in the article's body, unless it is something contentious. I hope this information is helpful; if you are confused or have any further questions, please feel free to ask here. Mz7 (talk) 18:04, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

@Mz7: Thanks for answering so quickly! I wasn't sure if that part of BLP applied since he died in 2015, but it's probably better to err on the side of protecting privacy. Follow-up question: it's OK to just name his son, who has his own TV show, right? I think that interview with him would qualify as high-quality coverage in a reliable source. SaAnKe 19:22, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

@SaAnKe: BLP applies to information about any living person, not just the subject of the article, so it's more about the privacy of the children themselves, who are presumably still living, rather than the deceased. Now, on the other hand, since his son has his own TV show, it's probably fine to mention him, citing that source. Mz7 (talk) 19:26, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

Thanks so much! I really appreciate the advice. SaAnKe 19:30, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

@SaAnKe: You're welcome! If you have any other questions, this is a great place to ask. Mz7 (talk) 19:41, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

While I doubt it would apply in that particular instance, notice that BLP is relevant to recently deceased persons as well. Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 08:48, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

Can you watchlist a page without watchlisting the talk page?

I'm wondering if it's possible to watch edits made to a page without having edits on the talk also come up in my watchlist. Is there a technical ability to do this? If there is a way I can't seem to find it. Eventhorizon51 ^(talk) 18:15, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

@Eventhorizon51: Much as many of us would like that ability (or vice versa) it's not possible. Nthep (talk) 18:49, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

@Nthep: Wow, that's disappointing. I really thought there'd be a way to do that. It seems like something that'd be really easy to implement. Eventhorizon51 ^(talk) 19:58, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

Eventhorizon51: I expect it would be easy to implement, and that it's not implemented for a good reason. If someone thinks something in an article needs changing, but suspects their proposed changes may be controversial, they should describe their intentions on the talk page first, inviting other editors' views. After a week or two, if no-one disagrees, they can reasonably go ahead and make the changes. If they then get opposition from editors who follow the article but can't be bothered to read its talk page, it'll be annoying. Maproom (talk) 23:09, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

I don't see that as a problem, Maproom - if some people fail to take notice of the TP post in time because they chose to watchlist the article but not the TP, too bad.

IMO the ability would not very useful on articles, but it would be on internal pages - I would very much like to watchlist Wikipedia talk:Teahouse but not Wikipedia:Teahouse, for instance. Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 08:45, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

It is unclear (at least to me) whether or not my User page exists

Hi. When I log onto Wikipedia, I am taken automatically to what I have always believed to be my one and only Ian.fraser1 page on Wikipedia, i.e. the UserTalk page that is named User Talk:Ian.fraser1. However, once I am logged onto Wikipedia and click on the Ian.fraser1 link that appears in the top navigation bar, I am taken to a page that states the following: Wikipedia does not have a user page with this exact name. In general, this page should be created and edited by User:Ian.fraser1. If in doubt, please verify that "Ian.fraser1" exists.

I find this message confusing. Should I simply ignore it, or do I need to create a User:Ian.fraser1 page?

Thanks in advance for any advice you can provide. Best regards.Ian.fraser1 (talk) 21:17, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

@Ian.fraser1: Hello and welcome. Once you post content to it, your user page will be created. The text you saw is there simply because you have not posted any content to the page. FYI you may wish to see the Userpage guidelines. 331dot (talk) 21:21, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

In addition to 331dot's reply, you don't have to have a userpage if you don't want to. Some users never create one; others create one as a redirect to their talk page. It's up to you. White Arabian Filly ^Neigh 21:25, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) It's optional to create a user page. Your user page User:Ian.fraser1 has not been created. A red link indicates the page does not exist. User talk:Ian.fraser1 is called your talk page and not your user page. See Wikipedia:User pages for what you can place on your user page if you choose to create it. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:27, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

Thanks very much 331dot, White Arabian Filly and PrimeHunter. Love your names. I should have been less literal and more creative when creating mine! Thanks to all three of you, I now understand what's what and will stop worrying. Cheers!Ian.fraser1 (talk) 21:35, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

Ian, let me add a little "color" to the excellent advice you've received already. Altho a userpage is not required, and there are many very long term editors that do not have one, I'd suggest creating one. The purpose of the userpage is so you can tell the Wikipedia community a little about yourself and your interests on Wikipedia. Many editors use their userpage as a kind of "homepage" here, placing useful links and the like there. My userpage has all sorts of junk on it. When I first started editing, I had quite a bit of time on my hands and creating my userpage gave me a place to hone my skills with the layout mark-up and using templates, a place where no one would care at all if I really bollocks thing up. Kinda like why Microsoft bundled Solitare into the early editions of Windows. It gave you a place to hone your mouse skills without fear of screwing up that important spreadsheet. The other reason is a bit of other editor's behavior here. I am sure you have come to realize that there are editors that patrol recent changes here. Having a "red letter" username kinda makes you stand out and most likely, your edits will get scrutinized a bit closer. That may actually be a good thing, depending on your receptiveness to criticism and your skill levels. So, I would suggest creating a userpage, even if the only thing you do with it is redirect it to your talk page. Just my 2¢. John from Idegon (talk) 17:40, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for your 2¢, John. Much appreciated. I do plan to create a userpage in due course, as soon as I can find the time! Cheers!Ian.fraser1 (talk) 17:50, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

Tags for unreliable references

Please send me to the essay or policy where I can find tags for the following:

• Video used as a primary source
• PAC used as a source
• Organization's own website used as a source
• Dodgy periodical or e-zine used as a source
• An oped from a reputable periodical used as a source of fact

Many thanks Rhadow (talk) 01:15, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

There is nothing wrong with most of those, Rhadow, and they should not be tagged. A video is fine provided that it was created in a way that makes it a reliable source. An official copy of a news program, for example. An organization's own web site is fine for its views, such as its mission statement. It is also fine for uncontroversial factual statements, such as its size, date of founding, and current officers. See WP:SPS. If by PAC you mean political action committee, this may or may not be OK, depending on the nature of the statement being sourced. "Dodgy" is a judgement call. An oped may or may not be reliable for a factual statement, it depends on the reputation of the author and the publication, and the exact nature of the statement. If a tag is wanted, {{unreliable sources}} would do for most of these, but look at Wikipedia:Template messages/Cleanup for many other possibilities. DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 01:33, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

Hello DES -- Ok, I'll be more specific.

• An amateur video of an apparently drunk politician ina hallway supporting an article's claim in text that the subject was drunk in a House session.
• An article on a PAC website quoted as fact (small and rabid)
• An article from Breitbart quoted as fact; not confirmed by another source
• Self-reported size of portfolio under management when it is not otherwise publicly available from Bloomberg or Forbes, say.

Look over my shoulder if you want. The judgement part doesn't scare me. I just want to use the tags people recognize. Thanks for {{unreliable sources}} and Wikipedia:Template messages/Cleanup. Many thanks Rhadow (talk) 02:07, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

Rhadow, your first example of the amateur video of an allegedly drunk politician is an obvious violation of our policy on biographies of living people, and should be removed immediately. It could be a lookalike, or the person could be sick or having a bad reaction to a prescription medication or fooling around. Links to that amateur video and any accusations of drunkenness based on that video should be removed immediately, with talk page warnings against restoring it. Report any attempts to restore that content to the noticeboard WP:BLPN as soon as you see it. When in doubt about the reliability of a source, the proper noticeboard is WP:RSN. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 05:43, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

Rhadow, I agree with Cullen328 above, links to the video should be removed, and the accusation of drunkenness should also be removed, unless it is separately supported by reliable sources. Unless tere are multiple RSs certifing that the video is what it purports to be, and that would be unlikley.

Pretty much the only thing a "small and rabid" PACs site can be cited for its its own views, or the statements of its own members. I would remove the cite, and tag the statement of fact with {{cn}} if I thought it plausible that a source would be forthcoming, or simply remove it as having no reliable source if not, or if it is a negative or controversial statement in a BLP. I would triet Brietbart in exactly the same way.

However, i would treat the self-reported portfolio size as a valid use of an SPS, unless there was some specific reason to thiunk the source likely to engage in distortion, or a history of dishonesty from the source. DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 12:52, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

DESiegel -- The guy was drunk. On camera he described his address and admitted to drinking. The amateur video was taken by a baiting student journalist. It's just ugly. There is one copy on YouTube and another embedded in a Blaze article. I blanked the section. I wish someone would PROD the whole article, as the editor's two other articles have been. Rhadow (talk) 13:28, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

Rhadow If you think that the article should be deleted, and that such deletion would be uncontroversial, you are as much entitled to PROD it as any other editor in good standing. It doesn't take an admin or a 'experienced editor" to PROD an article. In this case, however, I would advise against it. As an elected member of a state (sub-national) legislature, the person is pretty much inherently notable, so a PROD would not be uncontroversial. See WP:NPOL, which reads that Politicians and judges who have held international, national or sub-national (statewide/provincewide) office, and members or former members of a national, state or provincial legislature. are normally notable. DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 22:19, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

Encyclopediac style of writing

What are characteristics of encyclopediac style of writing? Sinner (talk) 01:50, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

Welcome back to the Teahouse, Sinner. It's a bit subjective, and you'll get different answers from different users here. I think of encyclopedic writing as being clear, concise, and dispassionate. It imparts what is known about a given subject, and also summarizes major published opinions about the subject, always impartially and without giving excessive attention to any one opinion or appearing to either promote or deprecate the subject. That's not a comprehensive answer, but it's a start. A good way to see what the Wikipedia community at large thinks constitutes encyclopedic writing is to read some of Wikipedia's featured articles, which have all undergone considerable scrutiny by experienced editors and are often considered to epitomize encyclopedic writing at its best. Rivertorch^FIRE_WATER 05:02, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

Please add a bit more! What should be done exactly? Sinner (talk) 15:30, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

What should be done about what? You need to be specific in your questions if you want specific answers. Rivertorch^FIRE_WATER 15:48, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

Hi again Nazim Hussain Pak. Read Wikipedia:Writing better articles. It is long but is a very good explanation of what an encyclopedia article should be. See the section WP:TONE for what makes encyclopedia writing different from other writing. StarryGrandma (talk) 02:43, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

It has never remained a problem with me Rivertorch, still I am not roaming in this thread, here I am very specific in my question, my other way of discussion is currently first thread in Teahouse, Not to be rude... But if you have a question about use of what, then wikipedia is not a language tutorial, learning language is private affair of users, it is not duty of wikipedia to teach languages. Sinner (talk) 02:51, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

You are not being specific. And for your second part, what are you talking about? Alex Shih^Talk 03:04, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Alex Shih, title of thread clearly shows what I'm talking about, it is not questionable. I'm asking about style of writing, so I'm really specific in my question. I asked what should be done exactly to get an encyclopediac style of writing? Sinner (talk) 03:29, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Wouldn't that vary with the subject of the article? Just because your question is specific doesn't mean that it can be succinctly answered. As examples of good writing we can look to publications such as National Geographic (magazine) The New Yorker or The Economist. Bus stop (talk) 03:14, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Well, I don't know. National Geographic seems an odd example. But even magazines that are renowned for excellence in writing, such as The New Yorker, have styles that are quite inappropriate for an encyclopedia. In any case, Sinner, you really weren't specific. There are multiple elements involved in writing for various contexts, and it's too complex a topic to summarize neatly here at the Teahouse (or anywhere else, for that matter). It's something you'll likely pick up over time. The more Wikipedia articles you read, the more intuitive it will become for you. That's why I suggested looking at Featured Articles. Also, as I suggested above, there is some subjectivity—not everyone will agree what encyclopedic style is or should be. For instance, I have long believed that Wikipedia's house style lends itself to writing that is somewhat lacking in richness and color; in the interest of being easily understood by the greatest number of readers, we often wind up with unnecessarily drab prose. This isn't a terrible thing—going to the other extreme would be far worse—but it's something I keep in mind. There is room for some individuality of style at Wikipedia. When it gets out of hand, someone generally comes along and tones it down, so it's fine. Rivertorch^FIRE_WATER 04:18, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

I actually favor dry, drab, and formulaic writing in the encyclopedia, especially in the lead. One private reason is that it will make it easier for near-future robots to digest the contents of WP and, in the long run, it may be they, and not people, who do most of the reading. — jmcgnh^{(talk) (contribs)} 06:11, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

I think the question "What is encyclopedic writing?" is a good question because I hear too often the argument that such and such is "more encyclopedic" than something else. It annoys me when that argument is used without further explanation because "encyclopedic" can be difficult to define. Bus stop (talk) 06:38, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Reliable Source of Publishing company

Hello, I am very beginner. Thank you for your support.

I tried to upload new article, but wasn't approved due to the reliable source. I thought this URL of the publishing company will work for that. Isn't it enough to authorize? There is no other official link from others in English yet. (There are many in Japanese page, and there is the Wiki Japanese page already.) http://www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/9425

It would be great if you can provide advice on this.

Regards, Pinablue JPN Pinablue JPN (talk) 03:43, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

Welcome to the Teahouse, Pinablue JPN. Consider whether the subject of your article is notable, as Wikipedia defines it. The basic criterion is this: "People are presumed notable if they have received significant coverage in multiple published secondary sources that are reliable, intellectually independent of each other, and independent of the subject". (See WP:PEOPLE for the full guideline.) Is that the case with the subject you've been writing about? I looked over your draft article, and I'm not persuaded. To me, it frankly looks more like a CV or LinkedIn page than an encyclopedia article. Please note that each Wikipedia has its own guidelines, so the existence of an article on jp.wp doesn't help establish notability here at en.wp. On the other hand, Japanese sources are hardly verboten, as long as they meet the same requirements for reliability and independence from each other and the subject. Rivertorch^FIRE_WATER 05:17, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

Hello Pinablue JPN. We require coverage in independent reliable sources to establish the notability of the topic of a Wikipedia article. In this case, your only reference is to a book publisher's page describing an author of a book that they issued. That is not adequate to show notability. I recommend that you read and study Your first article. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 05:28, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

Transcluding a part of a page

In User:forceradical/Altuserpage I have tried to transclude the deletion discussion on to the 'Wikipedia in other lang section' but it seems one collapsible section is not working.Please HelpRADICAL SODA^(FORCE) 07:24, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

Clarification:The IP which edits there is me logged out since I do not want my contributions to be swamped by a lot of edits in userspace.RADICAL SODA^(FORCE) 07:24, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

@Forceradical: Hello! I tried to fix it for you, have a look. The problem was these dashboard sections doesn't transclude well under another template, probably something to do with {{collapse bottom}}. Alex Shih^Talk 09:44, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

Listed Buildings Notability

I have a problem, basically i don't know what the consensus is for Listed Buildings, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Suydam House, where apparantly NRLP buildings may be notable simply for having a listing. This would allow approximately 400,000 new articles plus as similar lists are not currently included. see this external link: https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/what-is-designation/listed-buildings/ which states there are 500k historic buildings listed in the UK. (i predict some will already have articles or be duplicates.) I have no idea how to get a decision on this so a policy or something that covers it would be great. A Guy into Books (talk) 08:28, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

Hey A Guy into Books. I'm not aware of a specific written policy or guideline on the issue, but that's not always necessary to establish consensus. The most basic form of consensus is a sort of "consensus in practice", where if, for example, basically all articles on theses subjects survive AfD because they are listed, then this becomes a kind of precedent. Although this has to be founded in the end on some solid reasoning, and not purely circular (these usually survive AfD, therefore this should survive AfD, therefore these usually survive AfD).

At the end of the day however, our general notability guideline is ultimately the arbiter of whether articles should be kept, and whether more specific notability guidelines are themselves valid, and if no more specific guideline exists, the standard defaults to GNG.

As to the sheer number of articles, Wikipedia isn't a paper encyclopedia, and we're not the least bit pressed for space. The project can (and likely will eventually) easily accommodate several million more articles than we have today. So the establishment or interpretation of a policy shouldn't be grounded mainly or mostly on the sheer number of articles that would be created, but rather on whether there are sufficient reliable sources available to be able to write those article to an encyclopedic level of quality. TimothyJosephWood 13:49, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

Hi, A Guy into Books. I cannot speak to the practice anywhere else, but getting a structure listed on the NRHP requires very extensive documentation. The requirement of this extensive documentation, which is either available online or by request to the Department of Interior (getting the entire database online is a work in progress), creates the presumption of sufficient sourcing to pass WP:GNG. Having worked on one, I can tell you from experience, there is more than enough sourcing available in the application documentation to pass GNG easily. John from Idegon (talk) 17:11, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

@Aguyintobooks: another thing to consider is that the AFD discussion you have linked to is about the US National Register of Historic Places and it's standard of information required before a property is listed is pretty different from the England's National Heritage List for England (and its Welsh, Irish and Scottish equivalents) so being on NHLE may not have a similar level of evidence on it. In those situations as Timothyjosephwood says the WP:general notability guidelines need to be your guide and you should base any article on the sources you can find. I'd hate to try and defend an article on any of the 3,415 milestones on NHLE solely on the basis that being listed makes them notable. Nthep (talk) 18:35, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

I will just comment on Nthep's comment regarding the standard of information for listing being different on the NRHP and NHLE, in general to be listed on the NHLE the property has to be nominated for listing by an interest group. then detailed property history and reasons the building is of historic value are considered by Historic England. Normally surveys will be carried out and the listing discussion in local government meetings.

any changes to the building then must be fully documented and inspected at every major stage in addition to normal building controls.

The main difference is Historic England will normally only publish a summary of the listing on their website, and i doubt they would appreciate a ton of FOI requests to get the original data.

I don't actually know how buildings get listed on the NRHP, but i presume it is similar. the other issue is that Historic England and its predecessors made several bulk inclusions of older buildings (country houses, castles and the like) simply because their long term survival was considered to make them relevant for protection.

so really the question is that as Historic England thinks these buildings are relevant, does that make them notable? or is a second factor required for notability. A Guy into Books (talk) 07:57, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Let's put it this way, that a structure is listed is an indicator that it is likely to be notable but, imo, is not sufficient on its own. As I said there are over 3,000 milestones that are on NHLE, most are because they are old but that alone isn't grounds for saying they meet the notability criteria and are worthy of a stand alone Wikipedia article. Discovering their history and any other significance is what would be needed to establish notability. Nthep (talk) 12:53, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

• The only principle you need to consider when deciding whether or not to write a stand-alone article about some topic is "Is there enough reliable independent source material from which one could gather information to write a reasonable length article". If the answer is yes, write the article. If the answer is no, don't write the article. See WP:GNG, WP:42, etc. Every other discussion on this matter is unnecessary distraction and obfuscates the simple guidance of "Find source material first, and if there's enough, write the article, if there isn't, don't write the article". --Jayron32 13:22, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

can someone give me the proper reference code i really dont know the proper

Rearm21 (talk) 08:39, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

Hi Rearm21, welcome to the Teahouse. You can use Template:Cite web and see the documentation there. Your example parameters would be (view source to see the code). See more at Help:Referencing for beginners. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:13, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

References

Cannot delete the text with the size of the picture on top of an illustration

Hey there, Cannot delete the text with the size of the picture on top of an illustration Any clue ? Ilona1203 (talk) 09:41, 2 August 2017 (UTC)ilona1203

Hi Ilona1203. This is a help page for the English Wikipedia. After examining the wikis you have edited at Special:CentralAuth/Ilona1203, I guess your question is about the French Wikipedia. Please say which page a question is about in the future. fr:Carl Emery uses fr:Modèle:Infobox Sportif. The documentation shows the image parameter only expects the file name and not code for a formatted image. The template then adds its own image code. This is often but not always the case for infoboxes, also at the English Wikipedia. I have fixed it.[1] PrimeHunter (talk) 11:03, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

Oh woaw, thank you PrimeHunter. Just learned something new. Ilona1203 (talk) 12:36, 2 August 2017 (UTC)ilona1203

Close connection

Hi, I created a new page: Robert Ray (artist) and am being advised that: A major contributor to this article appears to have a close connection with its subject.

All of the material in the article has been sourced and quotes attributed. When you have a moment, may I please ask for your take as to how this should be revised?

Many thanks! RRay Estate (talk) 16:04, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

@RRay Estate: Hello and welcome. That tag is an indicator to other editors that the article should be reviewed because it seems to have been created by someone associated with the subject. I haven't examined the page in detail to know specifically what should be changed yet, but from your name I gather that you represent Robert Ray's estate. You may need to change your username as a username cannot be that of a group or organization, or otherwise be shared(such as with a colleague or successor to your position). To change your name please visit this page for instructions. If it is true that you represent Mr. Ray's estate, you will need to review the conflict of interest policy before you edit further; generally editors should not directly edit in areas where they have a conflict of interest(though there are indirect ways to do so). If you are employed by the Estate or otherwise paid by them to edit here, you are required by Wikipedia's Terms of Use to review and comply with the paid editing policy as well. 331dot (talk) 16:10, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

Review Draft

Please review my draft Draft:Jane Chun and give me some feedback on what to amend. Yuritan0308 (talk) 16:24, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

Hey Yuritan0308. Looking at the source in the draft:

1. Doesn't seem to be functioning,
2. Doesn't appear to mention the subject of the article
3. Doesn't appear to mention the subject of the article
4. Doesn't seem to be functioning.

In order to establish that the subject meets our standards for notability, you need to show that she has received in depth coverage in reliable sources. This means sources about her specifically, and not sources about the band she was a part of, but which do not mention her as an individual at all. TimothyJosephWood 16:47, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

There is no reference even indicated for her signing by a label. Further, searching the label, I find (from the US) no evidence that it even exists. It is very doubtful you have the makings of an article with this subject. John from Idegon (talk) 16:53, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

It exists, but you're probably going to need to read Korean in order to tell much about it. TimothyJosephWood 17:04, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

Thank you so much. I will seek for Korean friend to help on the Korean source.

Yuritan0308 (talk) 09:12, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

When to include accolades and awards?

This is an issue I have come across a few times and wondering what are the specific policies and guidelines are that are attached to this. Especially if its a BLP page.

Are there requirements to include or not include regarding the listing and or mentioning of accolades and/or rewards? Xcuref1endx (talk) 20:18, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

Hey Xcuref1endx. As long as the material is well sourced, it seems like the issue would be striking a balance between notability, due weight, and promotionalism:

• First, awards can contribute to notability and are often a large part of why certain individuals have an article at all to begin with, so they can be important for an encyclopedic understanding.
• Second, article content should generally reflect the relative weight given in coverage of them in reliable sources. So, if winning an award comprises half or more of the coverage of the person, it should probably be included, and perhaps even discussed in a good deal of depth. However, if an award is exceedingly minor, it should probably be covered briefly, or not at all if it is not covered in the sources, and doesn't contribute to an encyclopedic understanding for the reader (see also WP:TRIVIA).
• Finally, neither awards nor other things like a writer's publication history should be presented in a way that appears to overtly promote the subject, either through the length of the coverage in the article, or the tone of that coverage.

Like many things, it can be a very subjective editorial decision. At the end of the day, follow the sources, and use those sources in a way that is informative to the reader. As long as were doing that it usually works out fine, even if it isn't totally uniform across all articles. TimothyJosephWood 20:36, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

• This person has been deleting content and incorrectly citing policies and guidelines, such as WP:TRIVIA as a justification. It is extremely unhelpful to offer the advice that WP:TRIVIA is in any way relevant to this question of whether or not to include awards or any other content. The problem is, editors don't read these magic talismans of alphabet soup policies they throw around. It got so bad that at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Trivia sections, they had to add a whole section called "What this guideline is not". It says "This guideline does not suggest the inclusion or exclusion of any information; it only gives style recommendations. Issues of inclusion are addressed by content policies." Yet still it goes unread.

  All of the answers to the question here are found at WP:CONPOL. And if you get tired of reading boring rules, go read some Featured Articles. They provide exactly the kinds of examples we should imitate. Featured Article biographies are filled with mention of awards the subject has received, and they prefer to cite the WP:PRIMARY source for them.

  Since the agenda here is deletion, I suggest a careful reading of WP:CONPOL, and then come back and ask questions about which parts you don't understand. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dennis Bratland (talk • contribs) 00:06, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Well, if editors won't read policy they're linked to, then linking them to policy isn't the core problem. TimothyJosephWood 00:13, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Just to be specific, I am deleting the mention of a womens media center award in the article in question, which is only cited by the press release of the award ceremony, and a amateur youtube video shot of the award ceremony. I looked for references to her and the award outside of it and find nothing. So not only do I find the inclusion of it to be trivial, using a quote from the subject in the article from her speech at the award ceremony seems to be inappropriate for an encyclopedia. -Xcuref1endx (talk) 00:32, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

"Seems to be inappropriate" and calling it "trivial" is another way of saying WP:JUSTDONTLIKEIT. Nothing in WP:CONPOL supports your behavior. If this were negative or controversial information, then the WP:BLP policy would err on the side of caution and exclude it. The quote is there because it illustrates who the article subject is, their manner of speaking, and their agenda. People read Lindy West, or any encyclopedia article, to find basic information about the subject. The Women's Media Center is notable enough to have a Wikipedia article, which is sufficient reason to consider an award from them significant.

You have grounds for further discussion, which you have not attempted to do at all, but no grounds for this aggressive, sloppy deletion, and edit warring.

Timothy, your statement "However, if an award is exceedingly minor, it should probably be covered briefly, or not at all if it is not covered in the sources, and doesn't contribute to an encyclopedic understanding for the reader (see also WP:TRIVIA)." is false. Sorry, but WP:TRIVIA isn't relevant, especially to your "not at all if it is not covered in the sources" assertion. WP:UNDUE is relevant. At best, you could argue for devoting less space to this award, but there has been no justification for removing all mention of it. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 00:40, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

It looks an awful lot like the two of you have a good ole fashioned content dispute, which is part of the editorial subjectivity I mentioned in my first reply, and is a reason to start the steps in the dispute resolution process, of which the Teahouse isn't one. TimothyJosephWood 00:51, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

I'm only asking you to stop mentioning WP:TRIVIA when someone asks a question about whether or not to delete content. Would you, please? The relevant policies are at content policy. The MOS Trivia guideline is style advice. --Dennis Bratland (talk)

@Dennis Bratland and Timothyjosephwood: Xcuref1endx wrote

Just to be specific, I am deleting the mention of a womens media center award in the article in question, which is only cited by the press release of the award ceremony, and a amateur youtube video shot of the award ceremony. I looked for references to her and the award outside of it and find nothing. So not only do I find the inclusion of it to be trivial, using a quote from the subject in the article from her speech at the award ceremony seems to be inappropriate for an encyclopedia.

Any way you slice it, that means that the subject's receipt of this womens media center award is non-notable and should not be included in the article. Xcuref1endx has done exactly the right thing with regard to it and certainly should not be reproached for so doing so. --Thnidu (talk) 02:47, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Non-notable? Non-notable??? Are you putting me on?

Notability has no bearing on article content. Or, as Wikipedia:Notability says, "Notability guidelines do not apply to content within an article". It has an entire section, right at the top, entitled "Notability guidelines do not apply to content within an article". Independent sources are a requirement to have an article on a subject. Independent sources are not a requirement for every fact within an article. This is such a common mistake that they put this section right at the top of WP:Notability. It has a whole paragraph spelling this out, and tells you to go to -- wait for it -- Content policies to address these questions.

I mentioned various Featured Articles, say Gary Cooper or Bradley Cooper, you name it, that list awards such as Oscars. There are no independent sources cited for the Coopers' Oscars, only the Academy Awards itself.

Even if that were not the case, Xcuref1endx is not being totally honest with you, and nobody here has bothered to look for themselves. In fact, this little award that is being made such a huge issue, was "notable" [sic] enough to be mentioned by the BBC, Metro News Canada, Jezebel, and The Seattle Times. Even if non-primary sources were a requirement to mention a person got an award, that requirement has easily been met. You could almost, but not quite, justify writing a complete, separate article about Lindy West's Social Media Award.

I would expect most editors have better things to do than worry about whether a bio of a NYT columnist mentions they once got an award presented by Jane Fonda, but if any editor does want to take up the issue, I think you have a responsibility to read the Wikipedia policies and guidelines, and to google it. See WP:Competence is required.

Xcuref1endx's behavior is borderline disruptive and certainly a failure of due diligence, and I could say the same of those who have tried ot outdo him in misquoting policy. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 03:05, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Lol about the being dishonest. More than half the sites Dennis Bratland mention only include a photo of her at the award ceremony and not actually include anything on the award in the article. So...theres that for dishonesty. Either way, I created a RFC in the talk page, so we can take this out of the teahouse. -Xcuref1endx (talk) 03:39, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Dennis Bratland is quite correct. I often see "Notability" listed as a reason to include or omit particular content from an articel. This is simply wrong. Notability is a reason to have or not have an article. Some content helps demonstrate notability. But once a topic has been determined to be notable, any relevant sourced content can be included, unless it fails WP:UNDUE or some other 'content policy, such as WP:TABLOID. Now it is true that long lists of relatively minor awards may fail UNDUE, particularly when there are major awards in the list. If a person has won the Nobel Prize, we need not list that person's 10th-grade (secondary school) 3rd-place finish in a science fair. If a journalist has won a Pulitzer, an award for work on his or her college newspaper may not be worth including. And if the list of awards overwhelms the article, it should probably be trimmed. But the situation discussed above soes not seem to be of this sort. DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 03:42, 3 August 2017 (UTC) @Dennis Bratland: DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 03:44, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

@DESiegel: (I'm replying to you because Dennis Bratland seems to have forgotten WP:CIV.) Yup, I goofed on the relevance of WP: notability. But Xcuref1endx searched for refs for that award and found only two:

I am deleting the mention of a womens media center award in the article in question, which is only cited by the press release of the award ceremony, and a amateur youtube video shot of the award ceremony. I looked for references to her and the award outside of it and find nothing.

The first is primary and the second is unreliable. — I had something like this reply, minus the first sentence, written up a number of hours ago, but my smartphone overheated, my browser crashed, and I lost the text. --Thnidu (talk) 06:10, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Ther is now an RfC on the article talk page, Thnidu. IMO that is now the place to discuss the specific case, and I wqill respond there. DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 14:57, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

@DESiegel: I'm sorry, I really shouldn't edit while half-asleep. --Thnidu (talk) 17:16, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Writing in a neutral tone

Dear editors/experienced writers of the Teahouse,

I wrote my first article for Wikipedia about the Indian artist Brodha V: Brodha V however it has been rejected twice now. I am trying to make improvements to it but I feel stuck. I was told that the article is not written in a neutral tone and I'm not sure how to state the artist's accomplishments in a more impersonal tone than I already have. I have reviewed the new writer's tutorial as well as other published pages on artists and based my draft on them. If any of you can give me some feedback or edit my draft to bring it to a more acceptable state, I would really appreciate it!

Thanks in advance. Nramesh (talk) 23:31, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

Hello, Nramesh, and welcome to the Teahouse! I'm sorry that you're having difficulty with creating an article. I took a look at Brodha V and, while the opening sections seem to be okay, I found some issues later in the article. For example:

• Later that year, he released one of his most popular singles called "Aathma Raama" which received rave reviews.

Instead of simply calling it "one of his most popular singles", cite a source for the track's sales; also, replace "rave" with the more neutral "positive" — and be sure to cite at least two of those positive reviews!

• He then released the song "After Party" in 2013, which was a fun party track that infused Carnatic elements into it.

The phrase "a fun party track" should not be in an encyclopedia, except maybe if a very reliable source can be cited using that exact phrase to refer to the song. But I think a better rewrite would simply omit that description and focus on the infusion of Carnatic elements, which sounds interesting... if you can find a reliable source for it.

• Recognizing him for his talent, Sony Music India signed him on in 2013, under whom he released his hit single "Aigiri Nandini".

The opening clause of this sentence serves no other purpose than to laud the article's subject. I would cut it and begin from "Sony Music India".

I hope this is enough to point you in the right direction for removing promotional tone from the rest of the article. Good luck! —GrammarFascist _contribs^talk 00:15, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

@Nramesh: GrammarFascist wrote "be sure to cite at least two of those positive reviews!" That doesn't mean you have to quote them, either in the article or in the reference (quote parameter), but you must use them as references for the single's (Aathma Raama) popularity, and they must be reliable sources. --Thnidu (talk) 02:36, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

However, when writing about artists and other creative professionals (musicians, authors, photographers, etc), or about works of art (in the broad sense) if reviews are to be cited at all, I think the best practice is to have a "Critical response" section (or some similar name) and to both cite and directly quote several reviews: at least 3-4, if there are that many from reliable sources. If there are negative reviews from reliable sources, they should also be cited and quoted: in due proportion. DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 03:18, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Not sure of conflict of interest

I have edited the article of The Winston School in the past. I attend this school, and as it is only a school of a couple hundred students, I am not sure if I have violated Wikipedia:COI. However, this subject is not well-known enough to be thoroughly buffed up by fellow Wikipedians without having an inside source. I do not intend to let my experience influence my edits, but I want to make sure that I am following all policies as much as possible. Highresheadphones (talk) 00:55, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Welcome to the Teahouse. Inside sources (if unpublished) are of no use to Wikipedia. What are needed are published reliable sources independent of the subject. Proposed changes can be outlined on the article talk page, supported by references to such published sources. --David Biddulph (talk) 01:12, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

@Highresheadphones and David Biddulph: See Wikipedia:Schools # Notability and Wikipedia:Notability (high schools). The latter says

In addition to the general notability guideline, Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies) (WP:ORG) and Wikipedia:Notability (geographic features) (WP:NGEO) also apply to school articles.

--Thnidu (talk) 02:27, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Commas

Clarification: when dealing with words in quotation marks, why do Wikipedia editors place the comma after the mark? They do it in this manner:

It's called a "babish baby", didn't you know?

. . .with the comma on the outside of the quoted phrase. As far as I understand, from school and such, the comma must be put on the inside of the marks, in this manner:

It's called a "babish baby," didn't you know?

The question I have is whether this is a stylistic guideline strictly to Wikipedia, or a device used in other styles (say, AP, for example).

Nito² ~

01:33, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Welcome to the Teahouse. the relevant section of the Wikipedia:Manual of Style is at MOS:LQ. --David Biddulph (talk) 01:37, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

There may be regional variations in what is taught in school, so please read the link above before changing any style to what you were taught, and please retain Wikipedia's style. Dbfirs 12:24, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

I was accustomed to placing commas inside closing quotation marks (and had taught that style to my journalism students for 17 years) because it's the journalistic way to punctuate. I gradually adjusted, however, although I have to remind myself from time to time. I also taught my students that a writer has to adjust to the style guidelines of each publication. Eddie Blick (talk) 00:12, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

doubled header template

Bfilipa9 joined about 30 minutes ago, and when I looked had only made one edit, improperly inserting themself into August 29#Births. The change was immediately reverted by EricEnfermero.

Their user page User: Bfilipa9 has not yet been created. The standard template message at that location is doubled:

No user page for Bfilipa9
This page should be created and edited by Bfilipa9
Create a page called User:Bfilipa9

No user page for Bfilipa9
This page should be created and edited by Bfilipa9
Create a page called User:Bfilipa9

This is in the mobile view on my smartphone,

Samsung S-6 Verizon SM-G920V

Android version 7.0

Nougat Baseband v. G920VVRS4DQE1 kernel version 3.10.61

--Thnidu (talk) 02:18, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Interesting. From my laptop, the standard message looks different ("Wikipedia does not have a user page with this exact name...") and is not doubled. Note that I would have left a note on the user talk page but apparently I got distracted. EricEnfermero (Talk) 02:32, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

@EricEnfermero: Indeed! Now I see that, too. --Thnidu (talk) 06:17, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

I'd expand a section but I don't want to get into copyright issues

Hello (again)!

1. I created an entry about Georg Herold. He is a German artist. I could expand/improve the "Exhibition" section but doing so I'm worried about possible copyright-infringing issues. I could use a table but most certainly some parts of it would be almost identical with the cited bio source (Can't rename galleries, museums et cetera). Or should I better remove that section?

2. Should I place the {{New unreviewed article}} or should I keep the current one ({{Userspace draft}})?

3. The same applies to Won Ju Lim. Is there any special tag I should place or should I leave it as it is?

Thank you! Robertgombos (talk) 04:22, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

• Robertgombos, what sort of information do you want to add? There's no copyright on facts so if you want to include, for instance, the name of the gallery, the dates and the name of the exhibition, that would be fine. You'd only get into copyvio territory if you quoted chunks of text from the exhibition's catalogue or something else that was published by the gallery. Incidentally, exhibitions at major galleries are more notable in Wikipedia terms. This isn't the place for a huge list of everywhere the artist has ever exhibited anything. As for the tags, I see you now have the 'new unreviewed article' template, which seems OK. You certainly don't want the 'userspace draft' template because the article isn't in Userspace now, it's in Article space. Neiltonks (talk) 08:50, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Thanks Neiltonks, I understand now. Will improve that section and cite every exhibition using the gallery's bio file. Robertgombos (talk) 08:54, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Wikilink possible?

I´d like to wikilink to a specific episode in an article like Saturday Night Live (season 41), can it be done? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:03, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Yes – see template:Anchor. Maproom (talk) 08:09, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) One way to do it is to add an {{anchor}} or {{visible anchor}} to your target spot in the target article. It doesn't look like the individual episodes in the tables have automatic anchors, like section headers do. Don't get carried away with this technique, though. — jmcgnh^{(talk) (contribs)} 08:20, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

That looks more complicated than I´d hoped, but thanks. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:55, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

@Gråbergs Gråa Sång: The used {{Episode list/sublist}} does make anchors for each episode, e.g. Saturday Night Live (season 41)#ep790. A way to search for anchors (anywhere and not just Wikipedia) is to view the html source with your browser and look for code like id="...", e.g. id="ep790". If you suspect a specific place has an anchor then you may also be able to see it by right-clicking the place and selecting something browser-dependant like "Inspect Element" in Firefox. PrimeHunter (talk) 09:25, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Interesting. I looked at the HTML source and did not find the anchors. That's because I was looking for <a> tags and didn't realize that id attributes within <th> elements would serve the same purpose. You have to know what to look for. And I learn something new every day. — jmcgnh^{(talk) (contribs)} 09:35, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

And that was the simple solution I wanted. Thanks again! Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 11:34, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Uploading Information in Wikipedia- The correct way

Hello Sir, Hope you are in good health and spirits. I am a first time uploader to Wikipedia. Recently, I tried to upload some of my research to Wikipedia, but couldn't do so, since it couldn't be saved in the correct format as we normally see a Wikipedia page when we open a page to search something. A person named Dammitkevin tried to repeatedly warn me that I am trying to add some promotional material, which was definitely not the case. I was trying to upload my research, which was not getting uploaded in the correct format, hence I was changing it repeatedly, and also getting simultaneous repeated warnings by Dammitkevin. I look forward for your kind help in this regard, and do certainly look forward to hear from you.

Regards, Drvineetvk (talk) 08:40, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

@Drvineetvk: Hello. Wikipedia is not for uploading one's personal original research. Wikipedia is not interested in what an article subject states about itself or its own conclusions, but what other, third parties say about it. It would be a conflict of interest for you to directly write about your own research. 331dot (talk) 09:23, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Hello Drvineetvk and welcome to the Teahouse.

I'm afraid that your first attempts at editing Wikipedia have been under a mistaken impression of how Wikipedia works. User:Dammitkevin has been doing exactly what most experienced WP editors would do: revert edits that do not conform to Wikipeidia's policies and guidelines. In particular, it appears you may be at risk of violating our conflict of interest policy by trying to add a reference to your own work to that article.

What you are allowed to do, under these circumstances, is make an edit request on the talk page of the article in question, explaining the new content you would like to see added. Independent editors may choose to add your content or discuss with you what can or won't be added. — jmcgnh^{(talk) (contribs)} 09:28, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Please note that Wikipedia is definitely not "an open forum" as you described it on a talk page. Wikipedia is the encyclopaedia that anyone can edit (with the emphasis on encyclopaedia). If you are looking for an open forum where you can publish WP:Original research, then you will need to look elsewhere. Wikipedia publishes only what has already been reported in WP:Reliable sources. Sorry to disappoint. Dbfirs 12:17, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Can you approve the United States Energy Association page?

It's not popping up in Google Search for some reason. Doctorstrange617 (talk) 14:40, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

New articles are blocked from Google's indexing web crawlers until either 90 days after creation, or after review by the New Pages Patrol, whichever comes sooner. Since this article was only created on 31 July, 3 days ago, it will have to wait for one or the other.

Please bear in mind that the NPP reviewing, like everything else on Wikipedia, is done entirely by (too few) unpaid volunteers, so they'll get to it if and when they can: I myself know of no way to request an expedited review, although there may be one, beyond this discussion itself prompting someone to review the article (which I myself lack the expertise to do).

[For others' convenience, I have wikilinked the page in your post's title.] {The poster formerly known as 87,81.230.955} 90.202.208.125 (talk) 18:45, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

My Re-Submitted Article Has Been Waiting Almost 4 Weeks...

I resubmitted my article for review almost 4 weeks ago, when I initially resubmitted, the wait time was approximately a week (ish if I remember correctly) the wait time is not 3 weeks plus, is my article a priority? I understand that the site is run by very helpful volunteers who very kindly take the time to review articles, but it is becoming somewhat frustrating not being able to do anything to speed up the process. I am also reluctant to keep editing incase I edit it too much and it gets rejected again. Any advice? EleanorLC (talk) 15:23, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

An article I submitted took nearly three and a half weeks to be approved. I understand the anxiety involved in waiting for a final decision, but I'd say to just continue to be patient. If you're making edits to the article that add to its WP:Notability or to clean up copyedit/contents, it can only help the cause. Best of luck. - NsTaGaTr ^(Talk) 15:29, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

@EleanorLC: I'll take a look at your submission. Alex Shih^Talk 15:48, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

@EleanorLC: Reviews are done by volunteers, when and if they have time to do it. Sometimes that means things take some time, but it will eventually happen. 331dot (talk) 19:10, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

How to fix broken link in beta feature description in preferences?

In my preferences under the "beta" tab there is a feature called "New filters for edit review". In the description for this question there is a link to ORES. When visiting this page I am told that the page has moved and that the page linking to it should be updated or that an admin should be notified. My problem is that I'm not sure how to do either these things, I don't know where I could edit this description and I don't know how to notify an admin. I have found this page, which is about this beta feature, but doesn't contain the text used in the preferences. And I have found this page, which contains the text used in the preferences, but I am not sure how to edit it. Does anyone here know how we can get this fixed? Thanks in advance! Jchmrt (talk) 20:59, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Hi Jchmrt, welcome to the Teahouse. It displays an imported message at MediaWiki:Eri-rcfilters-beta-description-ores. Administrators could create a local version here but a central fix is better so I have reported it at mw:Talk:ORES#flow-topic-tvk9b22720efm00i. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:41, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Hey PrimeHunter, thanks for the quick response and solution! Jchmrt (talk) 21:51, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Photo copyright

We (US publishers of John Grisham's books) have acquired promotional use rights to a new photo of Grisham which I have uploaded to Grisham's Wikipedia page. I don't know which rights tag to use or how to add it. Thanks, John Pitts Johnpitts57 (talk) 21:14, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Hey Johnpitts57. Unfortunately, limited usage rights, like you seem to have acquired, are not consistent with the requirement of Wikipedia. If they would like to license it in a way that it would be free to use for anyone for any purpose, they may do so by following the instructions at WP:CONSENT. If not, then the photo will need to be removed and deleted. There... is a long complicated explanation for why this is the case, but that's the short and sweet of it. TimothyJosephWood 21:27, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

I have removed the image from the article. Per above, unless this image is released into the public domain, or under a suitably-free copyright license, which seems unlikely here, it cannot be used in the article and must be deleted. We do not allow apparent copyright violations to remain live. This image cannot be used under a claim of fair use under Wikipedia's non-free content policy. First, non-free images of living persons in general cannot be used at all (as they are considered "replaceable" and thus fail WP:NFCC#1), and for the same reason, no image of any stripe can ever be used under a claim of fair use if there is a suitable free image that serves a similar encyclopedic use (even if the free image is not as good) and a free image exists and was already in use in the article. Best regards--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 22:10, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Ah. Thanks Fuhghettaboutit. I see they added it to the article, not just "uploaded" it. TimothyJosephWood 22:39, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Making an Article

I have been looking everywhere for information about a book series called Floors. All I have found are half baked summaries on the book and even the author Patrick Carman doesn't have a good full website. I looked everywhere. I wondering if I could write an article about the series. Have a summary of the premise of the whole series, a premise of the three books, a summary in depth of the books, a section about each of the characters, and a part about all the floors of the Whippet Hotel with a description.

Also how do I know this sends? How will you contact me? Your way to editing is really complicated. I have read about 12 articles on how to create an article! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nilda Florence (talk • contribs) 21:55, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Nilda Florence, it can be very complicated writing an article on Wikipedia. I understand what you are going through. As for the series, as long as you have a few good, substantial reliable sources, that'll be a good start. Looking through Newspaper subscriptions and databases, I can see a lot of reviews that you may not have access to. If you start the article and need more sources, feel free to contact me. If you post on my talk page, I will see it. Otherwise, you can ping an editor by using this template:{{u|EDITOR'sNAMEhere}} and replace the Editor's Name Here with the handle of the editor you want to ping. I hope this helps! Megalibrarygirl (talk) 22:33, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Hello, Nilda Florence and welcome to the Teahouse. Your message did send, which you can see by looking at the Teahouse page after you saved it.

The most important requirement about creating an article is that the topic must be Notable. Wikipedia uses this term in a rather specialized way. To Wikipedia, a topic is notable if several Independent published Relible sources have written about it in some detail. Unless this has happened, any article would be deleted fairly quickly.

Secondly, did you write those summaries, or are they from the author or the publisehr. Wikipedia cannot accept text (or images) from elsewhere unless they have been released under a free license, see the section above this one.

Making an artilce from an empty start is a hard task here, and I do not advise new editors to start that way, but rather by editing several existing articles first, to get a sense of how things work around here. DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 22:40, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

HOF

How can you add the "| HOF = #" section for the new Pro football hall of fame. such as Warner, Jones, Davis, etc. it seems that the number links are completely random. Can you help?Vinnylospo (talk) 23:38, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Help me look into my Draft

Hi everyone ... some weeks back I created a page for a new cryptocurrency coin but it was flagged as an editor that thinks it sounded promotional, I've since then created a draft and have done extensive editing and removal of content that may seem to sound promotional from the original content, I think it is all fixed now and good to go live now but I will appreciate if I get people to look into it and tell me what else you all think should be done to make it better.

• Here is the draft link Draft:BitConnect Coin, Check the Page History to see the several edits I've made to the draft. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Midlandcraft (talk • contribs) 23:47, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Welcome to the Teahouse, Midlandcraft. Your draft is nowhere near ready for acceptance into the encyclopedia. A Wikipedia article summarizes what reliable, independent sources say about the topic. I looked at your first seven sources, and found blogs, press releases and promotional posts to various open platforms by people who cannot write coherent English prose. None of those references is acceptable. Unless you can provide much better sources, this topic simply isn't notable and simply does not belong in this encyclopedia. Read and study Your first article and follow its recommendations. Your references are also poorly formatted as bare URLs but that is a minor problem compared to the fundamentally poor quality of the seven sources I read. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 05:03, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Draft:BitConnect Coin seems to be about the same subject as BitConnect, but much worse written. If it is in fact about a different cryptocurrency, it will need to explain the difference. Maproom (talk) 07:34, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Thank you Cullen328, Thank you very much for your commemnt, I've been through your talkpage and I must say I'm impressed. Now that you've pointed out that some of the links are not fit as sources to the page, which I will try my best to remove those I think isn't fit enough but I will also appreciate it if you can, with your massive experience on this platform remove sources that you think does not fit in. I'm quite sure it's not all the sources that are bad some are from highly reputed websites but I believe you are in a better shoe to make the judgement of which source is right or wrong... Apart from the sources, I hope the tone of the content complies with wikipedia rule of article creation, I'm a Computer Science student and not too good literary though I've worked extensively on the content to make it sound as neutral as possible and even had it proofread by my roommate, an English Language student here on campus, but if you think otherwise please let me know how I can improve and make it better. Hope to hear from you soon. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Midlandcraft (talk • contribs) 16:11, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Disambiguation

I request expert advice on Disambiguation and Redirects. I took on as a mission of mercy fixing a page from ten years ago. The title of the page is First Alert. You know ...the somke detectors. There is another company First Alert Professional Security Systems which I simply want to redirect to Honeywell. Now my question: where would I give the user a choice to choose betwixt the two? I have one para about First Alert Professional Security Systems. Rhadow (talk) 00:48, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Hi Rhadow. Some pages/sections to read that will inform this post: Wikipedia:Disambiguation, and especially its subsections at WP:PTOPIC and WP:TWODABS; Wikipedia:Article titles, and especially its subsections at WP:NATURALDIS; Wikipedia:Hatnote and Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Disambiguation pages.

First, the article on First Alert should be on one subject alone, and unless the subjects are actually related, all mention of the security service that was added on April 15, 2017 should be removed from the body of the article. I think the context of your question already indicates you understand this well (that that problem in the current article partially motivates your question). I'm just trying to be complete.

The issue this raises though is that there is no separate article on the security service and we generally only disambiguate against existing articles. If the security service content piggy-backed into the smoke detector company article was proper content—a well sourced write-up that could stand on its own—I would say go ahead and split the content that was recently added to a new page, and then engage in a disambiguation scheme for that now existing article. But this content is not worth that treatment. Only if you are willing and motivated to create at least a decent stub with some sources should a new page be created. Another possibility would be to add some content about the security company to the article on Honeywell, and then all disambiguation can be targeted to the section of that article containing it.

Another issue is that, while the security company's name may often be shortened to just "First Alert", it already has a different, full name, that provides natural disambiguation, i.e., "First Alert Professional Security Systems", so there does not seem to be a need to engage in full disambiguation even if both articles were to exist; all that would be needed is a hatnote, placed at the top of the First Alert article, e.g., {{for|the security services company|First Alert Professional Security Systems}}. In sum, unless a separate article is created, or the Honeywell article specifically treats this topic, remove the misplaced content and just redirect (and in that event, a suitable red link for the security company can be placed in strategic places to invite creation, but only if it appears notable enough to warrant an article); if a separate page is created, or the Honeywell article treats this topic, place the hatnote and redirect. (In either case, I suggest leaving a detailed edit summary.)

Under the premise that a disambiguation scheme is warranted (which, per above, I'm rather dubious about) there are two essential paths.

1) Assuming there are only two topics involved, it depends on if one of them is the primary topic—that is, if one of the topics is significantly more likely than the other to be what people looking for when searching for the title "First Alert". This is checked by looking at the preponderance of each topic's mention, by the title at issue, in reliable, English language sources (e.g. run a Google Books search like this and look at the results, possibly adding other exclusions from the search to winnow false-positives). If there is a primary topic, say the smoke alarm company, then that stays at the base name, "First Alert", and the other article would be at the naturally disambiguated full name or, possibly, if almost always called "First Alert", given a parenthetical disambiguator, like First Alert (security company) and a hatnote added to the First Alert article in a form, for example, like:

{{this|the manufacturer of smoke alarms and other safety devices|the security company|First Alert (security company)}}

which would format as:

This article is about the manufacturer of smoke alarms and other safety devices. For the security company, see First Alert (security company).

2) However, if there is no primary topic, then the base page "First Alert" should be turned into a disambiguation page that lists both titles, after moving First Alert to say, First Alert (safety device company). Since this post is already gigantic, I'll just add one more possibility.

3) If the security device company was the primary topic, but there were multiple other existing articles for a DAB page to list and provide navigation to, then the smoke alarm company would still be at the base name but a disambiguation page would be created at the title First Alert (disambiguation), and the hatnote added to it would then be instead {{Other uses}}.

Best regards--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 15:15, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Hello Fuhghettaboutit -- Your explanation was super. Just what the doctor called for. I did it. It works. Many thanks. Rhadow (talk) 17:21, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

can i copy the whole paragraph on news article but i will put reference

can i copy the whole paragraph on news article but i will put referenceRearm21 (talk) 04:55, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Welcome to the Teahouse, Rearm21. When you write for Wikipedia, you must write primarily in your own words, accurately summarizing the references you provide. You can use brief quotations but these quotations must be clearly indicated by use of quotation marks or block quote formatting, and properly referenced. Quoted material should be a small percentage of the content you write. It would be very rare that you should quote a whole paragraph from a news story. I recommend that you summarize instead. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 05:13, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

I have a question as to whether I am allowed to create a certain page.

I noticed that the Gamergate controversy article features almost no information about the GamerGate movement's goals, ideology, and history from reputable, uninvolved sources. However, addition of such information, reading the talk page, does not appear to be a goal. Is it allowable for me to create GamerGate (Socio-political movement) as a storage space for such information, until such a time when it can be merged with the main article? Thanks!

Edit: Oh wow, I had no idea that this topic was so controversial. Yeah, I'm definetely not experienced enough to tackle this.--Rainythunderstorm (talk) 08:43, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Rainythunderstorm (talk) 07:40, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Hi Rainythunderstorm. That is a mire into which I would not advise a relatively new editor to jump. You should have a good read of the Gamergate Arbitration case and the sanctions imposed there before even thinking about setting forth on such a project. Give that the parent article is also under 30/500 protection, I would recommend at least waiting until you have the 30 days tenure and 500 minimum edit count that you would need to even edit that article before starting a spinoff. On the whole, I would say it's a very bad idea. Yunshui ^雲_水 08:06, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Rainythunderstorm. I will give you my personal opinion as a highly active editor here for eight years. My opinion is that trying to create such an article is a bad idea. In general, we should only have one article on a given topic unless that article grows so large that offshoots are justified. Please read Wikipedia:Content forking for the guideline. If reliable, independent sources discuss Gamergate's "goals, ideology, and history", then I recommend that you bring those sources to the article's talk page, along with proposed language summarizing those reliable sources. Please be aware that this topic has been highly controversial for several years, and that any proposed edits will be subjected to a high level of scrutiny and must obtain consensus in order to be added to the encyclopedia. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 08:12, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Hello Rainythunderstorm and welcome to the Teahouse.

This is a sufficiently hypothetical question that I don't think we can give you a definitive answer. In general, you can start a sandbox or other userspace page without much interference from other editors, assuming you follow the rules for userspace content (for instance, no copyright violations). Once you have something you think is worth proposing for addition to the encyclopedia as either a standalone article or as an adddition to an existing article, you can ask for a review, either through the articles for creation process or on the talk page of the article you wish to augment.

That being said, you obviously already recognize that this topic is considered extremely contentious, so you're going to have to walk a very fine line to create material that will be generally accepted. Finding suitable "uninvolved" sources would be a pretty difficult task. Doing this as a new editor seems like it would be a near-impossible project. — jmcgnh^{(talk) (contribs)} 08:15, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

• I think the main reason we don't have such information, Rainythunderstorm, is that the Gamergate "movment" is no such thing, it is a loose collection of individuals who object to certain things, but not all for the same reasons, and they set of things that is objected to varies from person to person, albeit with significnt overlap. There is no public leader who can spak on behalf of the "movement", and there have been no meetings where the movement members have agreed on any goals or ideology. Indeed they don't seem to agree on who is or is not a "member". Thus independent, reliable sources are very few and far between. Add to that the tendency of sources to become passionately involved with one side or another of this issue, and writing such an article (or article section) to Wikipedia standards would be a daunting task indeed. I wouldn't care to try it. DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 15:03, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Blocking page view

Has Wikipedia any method by which some of its articles can be blocked from navigation for a specific user or a user can block certain pages from his vision? Sinner (talk) 10:11, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

I don't know about your first question(though I doubt it, as any user can read any article) but if a user does not want to see certain pages, they shouldn't visit them. 331dot (talk) 10:27, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Does it mean wikipedia has no method to block certain articles from certain user's vision and a user can not manually block certain articles from his vision? Sinner (talk) 11:29, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Why would Wikipedia want to do that? It is the encyclopaedia that anyone can read and that anyone can edit (constructively if the edit is to remain). There is no censorship here (see WP:NOTCENSORED), or with any encyclopaedia that I've looked at in any library. If you don't want to look at certain articles, then don't download them. Dbfirs 11:41, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not censored itself, not for every user. Any file on wikipedia is not censored, but if you do not want to see some pictures, you can hide them. I am asking a similar question. Blocking articles is just like blocking pictures (and this option exists). Therefore, I am in doubt that wikipedia can have an option to hide articles just like hiding pictures. Sinner (talk) 12:06, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

You could achieve the effect using Content-control software. I'm not sure whether it is possible using CSS. Perhaps an expert on the Computing Desk would be able to answer? Dbfirs 12:30, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Theodore! should consider it. Sinner (talk) 12:51, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

As has been stated, it is unnecessary to "block articles". If you don't want to see an article, don't visit it. No one forces users to visit content they don't want to see. 331dot (talk) 13:30, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

@331dot, this answer is not satisfactory. No one forces anyone to see pictures that someone does not want to see, then why wikipedia has developed an option to hide images (and I remember you introduced hiding images to me). Articles can be offensive for users like pictures can be. How it can be that we are allowed to hide offensive pictures but not offensive articles? Sinner (talk) 13:43, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Images can be associated with articles loosely, in that they have a connection to the article, but not always a strong one. If you don't want to see an article on Kate Beckinsale, then just don't go to the article, or click on the link. It's a really simple process, that you, a living, breathing human being, have control over. - NsTaGaTr ^(Talk) 13:52, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

And, users might want to read about a subject but not see its associated images because those images might offend them. If someone does not want to read about a subject because it offends them, then they shouldn't go to its page. 331dot (talk) 14:00, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

@NsTaGaTr: That's an ambiguous position which had nothing to do with this discussion. The person, Sinner, asked a legitimate question. Addressed to User: 331dot. Think about this objectively. For example, if you tell me "don't turn this corner if you do not want to see what's on the other side." You assume that the person had already been aware of what's on that side. To be fair, we do not have precognition of what will be on that other side of the corner. To tell someone just not to explore, because there are things there that the person might not want to see, is tantamount to to telling that person to stick their head in the sand and never look up at anything. They might actually see something they might not like! Very unfair. Let's give Sinner a break and try to find a constructive answer to a legitimate question. Please. B'H.
MichaelAngelo7777 (talk) 14:11, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Not at all 2422889236x. My only intent is to say "if you don't want to see an article on "Subject X", don't click or open the article on "Subject X". That I know of, WP doesn't force editors/viewers to consume any specific article. (*Random article would be the only wildcard, of course*). If you can't willingly filter your own actions and come to your own conclusions, then that speaks to a completely different matter. As far as Sinner addressing a question to 331dot; he asked the question and was given an answer, which he decided wasn't fitting his request. I can't think of any other way to say "no, there's no easy way to do what you're asking for". Avoiding an article is a much easier process than avoiding images that might be associated with an article. - NsTaGaTr ^(Talk) 14:21, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

@NsTaGaTr: I beg to differ. Your solution is ambiguous in the absence of some kind of precognatory powers on the part of the user. We must assume that users who want to use Wikipedia and are prudent to avoid content which they may find objectionable are unable to determine what is objectionable without prior examination. Another example. You have two plates of spaghetti. One is covered with spaghetti sauce, the other is covered with red paint. Both plates look the same, but obviously will taste different. If we serve someone a plate of spaghetti covered in red paint - then are we going to blame the person who we're serving the spaghetti to, for not finding red paint palatable? Are you going to tell the person, "well you should not have tasted it in the first place?" That is cruel and wrong. Likewise to expect someone to know what's on a Wikipedia page before that page has been viewed, as to whether or not the person will find objectionable content? Isn't this what you're expecting? It looks to me like this is what you're doing. Instead, why not explore constructive options. Let's determine the limitations that Sinner seeks. I'm only assuming here, but just guessing, I have the impression that Sinner is seeking a family-safe/child-safe/safe-for-workplace version of Wikipedia. Is this so complex, that the only alternative you can come up with is - you shouldn't be visiting here in the first place? I can't believe that Sinner is the first person to raise this issue. This has got to have been discussed many times by other users and editors. What is so terrible about simply determining the criteria that Sinner is interested in, instead of critically saying that the question's not valid and that Sinner should just pre-emptively avoid pages in Wikipedia when there is no way for Sinner to know what to avoid in the first place? Excuse my verbosity. B'H.
MichaelAngelo7777 (talk) 19:05, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I feel like your representation here is different than the question originally asked. The original question was "Has Wikipedia any method by which some of its articles can be blocked from navigation for a specific user or a user can block certain pages from his vision?". To me, this says "There are certain pages that I don't want to see, how can I stop from seeing them?". PrimeHunter, below, offered a very simple solution to this - list out specific pages that you don't want to see. There is no way to intuitively know what specific people do/do not want to view, so it is completely on them to filter their results, whether that be by not visiting those specific articles, or by using the example below. Your argument of spaghetti with sauce vs red paint is completely nullified, as that would be the equivalent of clicking on an article named Marinara sauce, but instead, WP sends you to an article on red paint. That isn't the premise of the initial question brought forward, in my opinion. Anyone browsing WP can find something in any article that they disagree with or find objectionable, but that is different from finding the entire topic objectionable, which is what I see as the driver behind the original question. Either way, two solutions have now been proposed, and it's up to the individual to decide which road to take. Happy editing - NsTaGaTr ^(Talk) 19:27, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

NsTaGaTr, not visiting the page is not a permanent solution. We can save us from seeing an offensive picture by not visiting it but we have an option to block it, similarly we can save us from seeing an offensive article by not visiting it but we should be given an option to block offensive articles. I know Cullen328 will say,Nazim Hussain Pak! Do not visit the page but it will not be a solution. Sinner (talk) 14:42, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

I hear what you're saying, and I know what you're going for, but sadly it's the only /current/ solution that I can think of. It might not be the best solution to the problem, but there aren't many forks in this road currently. - NsTaGaTr ^(Talk) 14:46, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Nazim Hussain Pak I'm sorry you find this answer unsatisfactory but that's all I have to offer. 331dot (talk) 14:54, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Nazim Hussain Pak The sort of blocking you are considering has a pre-requisite: either A) the person who does not want to see certain pages knows, in advance, that they do not want to see those pages, or B) the pages are somehow tagged for the type of their content and the blocking decision is based on those tags. For instance, you could probably jigger something up using javascript that would suppress display of pages that appear in a list you've specified or that contain any of a number of category tags. It would be sort of like an adblocker. I was about to say that I personally disagree with this approach to using the internet, but then realized that would be hypocritical: I do use adblockers. — jmcgnh^{(talk) (contribs)} 17:13, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Place this in your CSS to hide Brand, Vorarlberg (random example) when you are logged in:

.page-Brand_Vorarlberg {display: none;}

I don't know the precise rules for how pagenames with special characters are encoded there, apart from replacing spaces with underscores. I used my browser to view the html source of Brand, Vorarlberg and found: <body class="... page-Brand_Vorarlberg ... (note the comma is omitted). You may have to do the same for some page names. The entire page goes blank including the menus. I haven't heard this request before and will not work on a simpler or better solution. PrimeHunter (talk) 17:18, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Number of articles someone wants to block depends upon the user. For example, if I find that I should not read only 1% of wikipedia but this 1% will be more than 5400 articles.

1. NsTaGaTr, Avoiding articles by just not visiting the page is a useless idea and avoiding titles will not help everywhere. For example I do not want to read the page Kate Beckinsale, and I read a phrase in article Len Wiseman ,'He divorced his wife in 2016.' who knows who was wife of Len Wiseman? To discover who was his wife, I shall click on his wife and it will lead me to Kate Beckinsale which I do not want to read.
   1. Even I choose I shall not visit 1% wikipedia but who can remember names of 5400 articles? It is impossible!
2. PrimeHunter, your solution works but not to needed extent. CSS pages do not have section and subsection options so it is impossible for me to insert names of 5400 articles in my CSS page.

I have a precise and relevant solution for this problem in my mind. Even it is difficult and will need large community discussions but if it is once implemented, it will prove to be best to solve page blocking problem. Sinner (talk) 03:51, 5 August 2017 (UTC)

Notable television transmission

Are television coverage i.e. Shows, programs and plays notable enough to have articles in encyclopedia? Sinner (talk) 10:21, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Many television programs have Wikipedia articles (NBC Nightly News, The Big Bang Theory) 331dot (talk) 10:28, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

What about cartoon programs? Are they notable to have articles in encyclopedia? Sinner (talk) 11:32, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Have you read WP:Notability (media)? --David Biddulph (talk) 11:36, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

David Biddulph, it is really helping. Sinner (talk) 12:10, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

How to make reference

How do I make a proper reference for an Article — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sukasounds (talk • contribs) 10:29, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Welcome to the Teahouse. You'll find advice at Help:Referencing for beginners. --David Biddulph (talk) 10:31, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

How do I make this gallery work horizontally?

What I'm referencing is: this section of the article. I'm trying to add these five photos of high schools and make them into one horizontal row. Is there any way to have all five pictures in a row without having any huge awkward space underneath the pictures? MrWooHoo (T • C) 14:23, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Taking out the {{div col}} templates would do it, I think. Yunshui ^雲_水 14:25, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

That did it! Thanks a ton. MrWooHoo (T • C) 14:40, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Should I edit?

Re: the Wikipedia page on George A. Schastey, cabinet maker, 1839-1894. He is said to have designed a home for William Graham in Reno. This can't be correct. William Graham was born about 1889 so I can't see him commissioning a house at the age of five. Also, the William Graham house was built in 1928 in a style of that era. I did find other George A. Schasteys, one of whom was an architect, but as he was born around 1896 I don't see how he could have been the elder Schastey's son, but perhaps a relative. As the homes of "the big four" were much earlier, who knows, this Schastey might have designed them but definitely not the Graham house in Reno.204.115.218.136 (talk) 16:31, 4 August 2017 (UTC) Hello (talk) -- Sure, you should edit if you have a source. Otherwise tag it with citation needed or verficationfailed if an existing reference does not support the assertion. Rhadow (talk) 17:11, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

IP editor and Rhadow, there were two George A. Schasteys, father and son. The son was born in 1869, not 1896, and lived until 1933. The son designed the house in Reno, and UC Berkeley holds some of his archives. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 19:56, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Hello all -- The question was "Should I edit?" The answer is yes. As to architecture and history ... you are talking to the wrong person. Cheers. Rhadow (talk) 20:20, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Making another page

How do you male another page on your project? — Preceding unsigned comment added by AmirA12. (talk • contribs) 18:30, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Welcome to the Teahouse, AmirA12.. Begin by reading Your first article, and feel free to ask a more specific question at any time. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 18:42, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Hi AmirA12.. You can delete the material on your user page now that it is incorporated into the article. Your main user page is not really the place to develop a new article, but you may use a subpage such as user:AmirA12./new article, or use draft space (Draft:new article) so that you (and others if you wish) can work on the new material without risk of it being deleted (though abandoned projects and copyright infringements can still be deleted, even in draft or user space). Dbfirs 22:40, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

How do I make a new page?

How do I make a new page on Wikipedia? I recently noticed that some famous persons do not have profiles on Wikipedia. Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mmsonata3013 (talk • contribs) 18:55, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Welcome to the Teahouse, Mmsonata3013. You can get started by reading Your first article, paying close attention to the sections on notability, reliable sources, and writing about yourself or anyone you know personally. If someone is truly famous, they probably already have an article here — don't forget to check that you're spelling the person's name correctly. Finally, if you find you have any more questions, please feel free to come back here to the Teahouse for help! —GrammarFascist _contribs^talk 20:18, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

How can I delete my account?

I want delete my account please guide me because I no longer use wikipedia further! Alireza Badali 19:19, 4 August 2017 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alireza Badali (talk • contribs)

Hi Alireza Badali, sorry to see you leave, see WP:Courtesy vanishing for guidance on how to "inactivate" your account. For legal copyright reasons it cannot be deleted. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 20:32, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Welcome back to the Teahouse, Alireza Badali! As it says on the Username policy page:

It is not possible to delete user accounts, as all contributions must be assigned to some identifier; either a username or an IP address. Editors seeking privacy per WP:Courtesy vanishing / right to vanish can usually have their accounts renamed and their user pages (and in exceptional cases user talk pages) deleted.

I understand your frustration at discovering that the draft you have been working on cannot become a Wikipedia article (though concepts in it might be able to be written about here after the subject is published and written about elsewhere). I hope that you will choose to stay and contribute to Wikipedia in other ways, though; your expertise in mathematics would be very helpful in maintaining articles we already have, and possibly in writing new articles about mathematics subjects that have already been written about in reliable sources but not yet here. Either way, the Teahouse is here for you if you have any further questions. —GrammarFascist _contribs^talk 20:40, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

References

Articles for deletion

The instructions at articles for deletion state that discussions should remain open for a minimum of 7 days. There is provision for a 'snowball close' where a debate is overwhelmingly heading in a direction. But in the case of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hanson's Local Buses (2nd nomination) there were only 5 votes, 3 to redirect, 2 to delete, so not overwelming.

The editor who closed after only 3 days was also the nominating editor, does this constitute a conflict of interest? I would have thought it best to allow the process to run its natural course, rather than have someone come along later and declare the result null and void because procedure was not followed correctly? Finchfrog (talk) 20:14, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Hi Finchfrog have you discussed the matter with the editor who did the close? That is the first step to resolving the problem. If you have discussed it but failed to reach agreement then you can take it up with Deletion review for wider discussion. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 20:28, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

 Done - Reopened and relisted. –Davey2010^Talk 20:50, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Asbox Questions

I'm creating some new stub categories using the {{Asbox}} template - can anyone explain to me how the tempsort variable works? Furicorn (talk) 20:41, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Removing notability template message

Hello! I've been working on improving an article, Illyria. Before I starting making improvements, the article had a message at the top that stated it needs additional citations for verification. Since then, I've added 9 references and I think I've really helped the article - I'm working on getting a picture added as well so it will look even better (I sent in a request here a few days ago)! However, I was wondering when it would be okay to remove the template. I only became a Wikipedia user a few days ago, so I didn't want to just remove it on my own if I'm not supposed to or if the article isn't ready. Thanks so much! Paracosms^talk 21:00, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

done. Regards, Ariconte (talk) 21:21, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Thanks so much, @Ariconte! Just so I know for the future, about many references should be added before that can be removed? Paracosms^talk 21:23, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Paracosms, At least two refs are generally required to prove notability, but the more the better if they are good quality. See Wikipedia:References. It really depends to some extent on the subject of the article and the nature of the reference (like how long it is). If some uninvolved party writes an entire book on a topic, that would count strongly toward notability and likely be a great source as well. White Arabian Filly ^Neigh 21:36, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Okay, that makes sense! Thanks! Paracosms^talk 21:42, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

<--I tried to make donations but failed-->(41.138.78.50 (talk) 01:25, 5 August 2017 (UTC))

<--Why one earth is it now so difficult to make donations? Do i have to make a trip to the bank to do so? is disapoInting to fail making donations here even by e walleting.! please fix this or give feedback on my talk page-->(41.138.78.50 (talk) 01:25, 5 August 2017 (UTC))

Infobox maps

I'm wondering what the consensus is regarding adding push-pin maps into articles about geographical features. I know it's possible, the pushpin map parameters are in the {{Infobox body of water}} for example and there are other ways to insert maps. I wanted to stick one in the "Lake Cachuma" infobox but i'm not even seeing it on pages like "Salton Sea" or "Lake Tahoe" so i'm wondering if they have been left out on purpose? I've thought about asking at WP:Lakes but it's seems pretty quiet there. I suppose i'm also after an answer in general about when a push-pin map is warranted for an article. Thanks Cesdeva (talk) 02:35, 5 August 2017 (UTC)

h

help meOmkardewangan (talk) 03:28, 5 August 2017 (UTC)

Moving a page

Hello again!

I've searched for information, however, I couldn't find much info on the topic.

As a new page reviewer I often find new and old articles, that are in the mainspace. Many of those article contain no references at all and many other are outsourced and contain 2-3 phrase article; article being referenced only by primary sources and social media sources. After applying the appropriate fix tags these articles remain in the Pending for Review space. And can stay there for years (any unreviewed article, older than 90 days, automatically gets the noindex,nofollow tag removed so it will appear in search engine results.). Today I was tempted to move a page which looked more like a draft, checked and the subject had plenty of coverage. How to proceed in these cases? May I move such pages in the draft space for incubation? Or that is something that only movers can do? Thanks. Robert G. (talk) 04:01, 5 August 2017 (UTC)

Want to know which pages to visit to discuss videogame standardization

Hello,

I'm new and currently focused on updating the page: List of graphic adventure games. I don't have much time for producing individual articles at this time, but I would like to use whatever opportunities I have to update for that specific page. That said, I have some questions about how to make it better, although I would prefer to address them to a group focused on the subject. They pertain to whether the following suggestions are appropriate:

1. Change all occurrences of "Microsoft Windows" to "Windows", to avoid redundancy. 2. Change all occurrences of "MacOS" to "OS X", or vice versa. 3. For games released episodically, just note the release of the first episode, then add, in the comments, how many episodes were made and when the last one was released. 4. Remove survival horror games, such as Amnesia and The Void, because they seem discordant with the more conventional puzzle experiences that the other games feature. 5. To include Warcraft Adventures on the date that it was leaked, rather than the date that this canceled product was intended for release.

Michaeluj (talk) 04:51, 5 August 2017 (UTC)

Leader_title5/leader_name5 error

Hello, I was trying to edit a page named Kerala, but then I saw some content in the Infobox template and the error was unknown parameters named leader_title5 and leader_name5. Can anyone help me to solve this error. Thanks - Smokin'Bears (talk • contribs) 06:20, 5 August 2017 (UTC)

<--someone burgled on to my account -->(41.138.78.18 (talk) 07:03, 5 August 2017 (UTC))

<--some one claiming to be finnish from finland continues to block my edits citing nonsense/gibberish destroying every other effort we can make to be part of this foudation is deminished/perished;-->(41.138.78.18 (talk) 07:03, 5 August 2017 (UTC))