Jump to content

Wikipedia:Teahouse/Questions/Archive 878

Add links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Archive 875Archive 876Archive 877Archive 878Archive 879Archive 880→Archive 885

Changes not reflected in the Wikipedia Page.

Hello I made some changes in my organization page (Cambridge School Srinivaspuri) on 17 dec 2018 from my id deepanshi.82, however on the next day the changes were not reflected on the page. I am new to Wikipedia and I am confused why this is happening. Regards Deepanshi — Preceding unsigned comment added by Deepanshi.82 (talk • contribs) 06:42, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

Hello Deepanshi.82. Your edits were undone by Mean as custard because they appeared promotional. Please do not edit the article if you are associated with the school. It is against our conflict of interest policy. – Joe (talk) 07:05, 18 December 2018 (UTC)
Hello, Deepanshi.82. "Your organization's page" is actually an article in an encyclopedia which anyone may edit with appropriate sourcing. You do not own it. Wikipedia is not for profit, which is why we don't "make pages" for the highest bidder. We try to amass as much notable information on a subject, from reliable sources, as we possibly can. You and your organization play no role here, unfortunately.--Quisqualis (talk) 07:35, 18 December 2018 (UTC)
Instead of adding promotional material, you could find WP:Reliable sources for the basic facts. At present, the article has no references at all. Dbfirs 08:50, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

Another Speedy Deletion

"criteria for speedy deletion as an article about a club, society or group that does not credibly indicate the importance or significance of the subject. See CSD A7."

I'm creating pages regarding healthcare in the state of Oregon. IHN is one of 16 organizations that the state government has allowed to be formed (~2012) for the locoregional coordination of healthcare and is used by 50,000 people across three counties in Oregon.

I am failing to see how this does not meet criterion for a wikipedia page based on "importance."

For the second time tonight. Can someone help review or advise. It seems like there are more people trying to deconstruct than build wikipedia pages. I'm open to suggestions on how to make my page better. This is a little frustrating to newbies trying to build something.

InterCommunity Health Network

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InterCommunity_Health_Network

Thanks. Help or advice appreciated. Helios688 (talk) 07:51, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

I'm afraid I would tend to agree with the editor who tagged the article. I can't see that either one of the references you have added mentions the IHN anywhere. Another page you just created, Coordinated Care Organization is a copyright violation since the text there is taken straight from the website you use as a reference, so that will unfortunately also have to be tagged for deletion. It might be a good idea if you started creating articles as drafts instead - that won't prevent copyright violations being tagged, but drafts are gnerally not deleted for lack of shown importance or sourcing, and that will give you time to work on the text until it does show the importance and notability of the organisation. Regards, --bonadea contributions talk 08:09, 18 December 2018 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Hi Helios688 - and welcome to the Teahouse. First, you're articles were tagged with an A7 notice. This tag is for several categories of subjects, all of which do not indicate the subject is important. This does not mean that the subject is not important, or even notable. Simply that the article does not indicate how the subject is important. Both times when your articles where tagged, editors thought that your articles did not show how the subject was important. In the first instance, Samaritan Health Services, the article was little more than a malformed infobox. As you developed the article, another editor removed the A7 tag, as it was no longer appropriate. The second time (InterCommunity Health Network) the article is little more than a blurb. I don't want to speak for another editor, so I'll ping HitroMilanese - and perhaps they can tell you their rationale for tagging it as A7. A way to avoid this in the future is not to develop articles in the mainspace. Rather create them in draftspace, flesh them out, then move them to the mainspace (or ask a more experienced editor to move them, if you don't have the move capability yet). Another alternative can be to go through the AfC (Articles for Creation) process, see WP:AFC. Second, A7 is only about whether an article even mentions why a subject is important. Even if a subject has some importance, that is a lower level of scrutiny than notability. Please see WP:GNG to see what Wikipedia considers notable. You might also want to take a look at WP:YFA, regarding writing your first article. Third, your third article is a copyvio. It's been moved to draftspace so you develop it, but you need to re-word in your own verbiage. Please see WP:COPYVIO. Hope this helps. Onel5969 TT me 08:29, 18 December 2018 (UTC)


Appreciate the quick response. 1. the link on the IHN page was to get to a document. I cleaned that up by changing the link to a HTML page on the same government site that references IHN and the other 15 CCOs. 2. I thought it would be okay to reference text in quotation marks on the CCO page I created. Sorry about that. I have deleted the quote and used my own words - there should no longer be a copyright issue with that page.

I will work on using the sandbox for future pages. As I worked on each page I realized that even though these important organizations have been around for years, no one has created wikipedia pages on any of them. I'll be more careful.

Can you review them again to see if they're still problematic? Helios688 (talk) 08:31, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

Welcome to the Teahouse, Helios688. Your article is lacking references to significant coverage in independent, reliable sources. Wikipedia exists to summarize such sources and they are the solid gold that must be used to build Wikipedia articles. Your article purports to have two references but both are to the same Oregon state agency. Your first reference link does not mention this agency, at least as far as I can see. The second link includes a routine directory listing for this agency, which includes the type of information that someone might have found in the Yellow Pages in the past. Wikipedia is not a directory. It is an encyclopedia. The article states that this agency is involved in providing health services to just 55,000 people in three counties of Oregon. Speaking frankly, that is not a very impressive claim of notability, especially since the article states that the actual health care is provided by Samaritan Health Services instead. It appears that the topic of the article is a minor intermediary or broker agency created by some state law unique to Oregon. Unless you can provide much better references, there is no evidence that this agency is notable.
As for your supposition that there are "more people trying to deconstruct than build wikipedia pages", if that was true, then we would not have 5,769,265 articles on Wikipedia, the majority of which are halfway decent encyclopedia articles. What we actually have are more people who are trying to maintain the quality of the encyclopedia by checking that new articles comply with our policies and guidelines. Without these people, the encyclopedia would soon have 100,000,000 articles, and the vast majority of them would be advertisements, lies, conspiracy theories, get rich schemes, slander and disinformation operations. The world's #5 website would then rapidly lose its credibility and collapse. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 08:36, 18 December 2018 (UTC)


Cullen, No offence was meant. I love the feedback here. It helps me learn when the conversation is as above. Just remember that those of us who are trying to build but are not quite expert like many of you, it can be frustrating when you make mistakes and are threatened with immediate page removal. Thanks again Helios688 (talk) 08:42, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

The solution is simple, Helios688. Before you move an article to the main space of the encyclopedia, double check be sure that it complies with our policies and guidelines. That's my method, and none of my roughly 100 articles has ever been deleted. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 08:56, 18 December 2018 (UTC)


Noted. Thanks.

Helios688 (talk) 08:58, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

Hi there, the main reason for my nominating this article was "no credible claim of significance" , see WP:CCS. That is why I suggested you on your talk page to create articles through WP:AFC process. An admin has declined speedy for very unclear reasons though, so it doesn't matter anymore. Regards Hitro talk 09:21, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

Lead paragraph

In this edit I think I correctly interpreted MOS:LEADSENTENCE. I don't think the statistics about the size of the market belong in the lead section. My edit was reverted by a new editor. Before I revert and leave an explanation on the talk page, I just want to check that I am on safe ground. Comments? Curb Safe Charmer (talk) 09:35, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

@Curb Safe Charmer: Notwithstanding the fact that the article MealEnders has just been dominated for a deletion discussion, I completely agree with you. The lead should summarise only the notable topic, not wander off into background contextual statements on the slimming industry as the other editor has done, nor should it introduce ambiguity as has also happened (did this one product genuinely achieve[d] $168.95 billion in sales worldwide in 2016)? The original lead statement seems sufficient to me, and more succinct. In my view, you would be quite right to remove these additions and insert them elsewhere in the article, if required. I would have done this for you, but it's better for editors to feel confident in make the edits themselves. The article reads very much as a promotional page, despite one of the editors removing from their talk page a response to indicate that they did not have any WP:PAID or WP:COI involvement with this product. Hope this helps, Nick Moyes (talk) 10:05, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

How to edit the reference list of an article?

When I try to add an item to the reference list of an article, I just see "

", but not the content. How can I add then a reference?

  • The reflist is compiled autoimatically from citations within the body of the article enclosed in <ref>...</ref> tags, but before you do that please note that citing your own work is a conflict of interest, so you should actually propose the change on the article's Talk page and let someone else make the edit if they consider it valid. Guy (Help!) 11:00, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

How do I request a rollback for a certain article?

Can I do it here? The article Akan people infobox is broken due to anonymous editors tampering. NinuKinuski (talk) 11:32, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

I've done it for you, but you could have done it yourself, from the history, by comparing the current version with the last good version, then clicking "Undo". There was one unreferenced sentence that got reverted. If the anon editor can find a citation then we can put that back. Dbfirs 11:59, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

Need help creating an article

Hi everyone. I was wondering if someone could offer some help in how to create an article, since this will be my first time. Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:100D:B146:4D1F:CCF1:FBF:3262:4B96 (talk) 13:49, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

Advice is at WP:Your first article. --David Biddulph (talk) 14:00, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

Why "watch this page" isn't the default behavior when editing?

Let's say I edit a wikipedia page. A few month later, somebody modifies my version (not using "undo", just overwriting what I've done). By default, there will be no alert about this, if I'm correct. I find it quite peculiar. IMHO the basic setting should be to alert you, that's it to have the checkbox "Watch this page" checked by default each time you edit a page. You can still manually check this but for most users I guess they forget to check this (I've almost forgotten on this page myself...).Linuxo (talk) 06:48, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

  • @Linuxo: In your preferences there's a "Watchlist" tab where you can select the option "Add pages and files I edit to my watchlist". Regards, --bonadea contributions talk 06:54, 18 December 2018 (UTC)
    Very useful, thanks! (A bit buried in the settings also...) Linuxo (talk) 07:25, 18 December 2018 (UTC)
  • And just to explain why it's not the default: regular editors will end up editing thousands and thousands of pages. If they were all added to their watchlist automatically, it would quickly become unusable. – Joe (talk) 07:03, 18 December 2018 (UTC)
    They could disable it (as bonadea have noted, we could do the reverse). My idea was especially to encourage "unregular editors" to be more regular editor. I guess people editing page would like to know how it goes for their modifications. Linuxo (talk) 07:25, 18 December 2018 (UTC)
    Joe Roe, I currently have 13,133 pages on my watchlist after nearly ten years of editing, and it is by no means "unusable". Most of those pages, such as five year old AfD debates for example, are almost never edited. I can rapidly scan dozens of entries on my watchlist, ignoring the majority that are highly likely to be productive edits, and taking a closer look at those that display one or more indicators of possibly disruptive editing. My watchlist is both usable and very useful. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 07:34, 18 December 2018 (UTC)
    @Cullen328: I have a similar number and agree. But if I'd had that preference ticked, I think I would be closer to a hundred thousand by now. – Joe (talk) 11:31, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

And I watch 20 (even though I have edited hundreds) and that is enough for me. David notMD (talk) 14:37, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

Best way to handle a business industry page that is slanted to one company

This question is about the PEMS page, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_emissions_measurement_system. While there are a handful of companies in the PEMS industry, the PEMS page reflects the products, services, and opinions of only one company. I work for one of those other companies. After having read through the help sections, it is clear this article violates two of the five pillars: "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia" and "Wikipedia is written from a neutral point of view". I also read the help section on conflict of interest which states that I am strongly discouraged from editing the article myself. My questions is...what is the best way to flag or object to this article's content so that it gets fixed and is edited back to a neutral point of view?

Thanks! AlonsoWindmill (talk) 14:41, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

@AlonzoWindmill: Hello and welcome to the Teahouse. I've posted some information on your user talk page that you will need to review regarding paid editing. It also mentions how you can make edit requests on article talk pages when you have a conflict of interest. 331dot (talk) 15:02, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

Continued donation requests

I have contributed financially to Wikipedia but I am still being continually interrupted by Wikipedia to donate. It’s a pain in the neck and frustrates me greatly to the point where I’m contemplating severely limiting my use of the platform, at the very least. Stop it! Please... I can pay no more... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 103.217.167.90 (talk) 07:11, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

Go to your Preferences, click Gadgets, and then turn on "Suppress display of fundraiser banners." Outofmario (talk) 15:16, 18 December 2018 (UTC)
I sympathise with posters like 103. As a registered and experienced editor, I've been able to figure out how to switch off the nagging appeals; and I find it unreasonable that new users receive so many of them. I've noticed that complaints like the above have become much more frequent in the last month or two. No-one here at Wikipedia is responsible for the appeals, it's the Wikimedia Foundation that inflicts them on us. Can anyone advise on where complaints can be effectively directed? Maproom (talk) 07:52, 15 December 2018 (UTC)
@Maproom: It usually seems to be Whatamidoing (WMF) who acts as the Wikimedia Foundation's ambassador to English Wikipedia; you could try asking her who's responsible. As someone who reads Wikipedia a lot while logged out, I can testify that the adverts this year are far more intrusive and obnoxious than they've ever been before. ‑ Iridescent 07:57, 15 December 2018 (UTC)
@Iridescent:, @Maproom: - to the extent that it has become a meme. Stormy clouds (talk) 14:41, 15 December 2018 (UTC)
@Maproom: how did you switch off the nagging appeals? Airbornemihir (talk) 01:56, 18 December 2018 (UTC)
Airbornemihir, by following random links and clicking here and there until I hit upon something that worked. It's not where I would expect, Preferences / Notifications. I'm reluctant to search any more in case I accidentally switch them on again. Maproom (talk) 08:18, 18 December 2018 (UTC)
@Maproom: Thanks, anyway. Airbornemihir (talk) 08:31, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

Inquiry about a page

Hi there. First of all, thank you so much for inviting me to the tea house. So, my question is how many days does it take to get a page actually approved? Please, tell me if there is any issue on this particular page to be verified, thanks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Rajiul_Huda_Dipto/sandbox — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rajiul Huda Dipto (talk • contribs) 17:12, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

Rajiul Huda Dipto, I see two serious issues. One is that it's an autobiography. Writing an autobiography is strongly discouraged here. The other, even more serious, issue is that it cites no references. If you're still determined to try to get an autobiography accepted, you'll need to read notability and Help:Referencing for beginners and then cite some reliable independent sources. Maproom (talk) 18:12, 18 December 2018 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Hi Rajiul Huda Dipto Welcome to Tea house. The backlog for a draft page to be reviewed at the moment is 4-5 weeks. Pls visit WP:Your First Article and referencing for beginners to familiar yourself on how to write an article and provide inline citation in Wikipedia. Secondly, pls remove all the external links and only provide one or two external links - pls see WP:ELMIN. Also pls visit WP:CREATIVE for notability requirements. You could also go to Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/Help desk to seek assistance on AfC matter. Thank you. CASSIOPEIA(talk) 18:16, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

Account creation date mismatch

Hello folks. My first edit as a registered user shows as 26 January 2007, yet my Global account information page says I registered on 27 December 2008 - nearly two years later. My contribution history shows I didn't make any edits at all on that day. Can anyone shed some light please? Captainllama (talk) 18:18, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

I registered on en.wiki in January 2006 but my CentralAuth record says 2011. I don't think this is an issue unique to you. General Ization Talk 18:22, 18 December 2018 (UTC)
Hey, Captainllama. The discrepancy is the distinction between your local and your global account; your enwiki account was registered on 12 July 2006, as can be seen in the local enwiki user creation log. However, your global account is different. The concept of a single unified login across all Wikimedia sites was released in May 2008, and your local account was converted into a global SUL account in December. That's why the dates are different. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 18:25, 18 December 2018 (UTC)
Wow, I'm even older than I thought! - thanks for your help Writ Keeper Captainllama (talk) 18:30, 18 December 2018 (UTC)


Practical questions about publishing

Hello fellow Tea-House-rs,

Okay, I have read pretty much the whole feed on new contributors and I'm still kind of lost. I signed-up on Wikipedia about a week ago, and have completed all the suggested training (Wikipedia adventure), sandbox creation, Article Wizard, and even the beta Translation functionality. I still don't know how to write an article and get it published. I tried translating a simple article of a politician from my country and I get the message that I'm not authorized to do translations. Then I tried to create the article from scratch but it's on Draft mode and I don't know how to change it to talk mode or to take the next steps to make it ready for review. Is there a practical guide that instead of teaching us how to bold and italicize text would give us a step-by-step guide on how to effectively go from the account creation to the article publication? I believe I have not found this so far and I'm sure many of you were in the same situation when you were youngsters :)

I appreciate any time spent in answering one or more of my probably basic questions.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Barcerrano (talk • contribs) 05:27, December 19, 2018 (UTC)

hi Barcerrano Welcome to Tea house. Thank you for interested in editing in Wikipedia. see below and hope it may help
  1. Read WP:Your First Article an referencing for beginner to familiar yourself on how to write an article and provide inline citations.
  2. Use Article Wizard and follow the instructions to create an article. Since you article is on the draft space, when you think the draft is ready to submit for review, just add the code {{subst:submit}} to the top of the draft.
  3. To bold - pls see MOS:BOLD and to italicize - pls see MOS:ITALIC
Pop back here if you need further assistance. Cheers. CASSIOPEIA(talk) 19:11, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

New Editor

How can i create my own profile — Preceding unsigned comment added by Steveselva7 (talk • contribs) 16:40, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

Hello and welcome to the Teahouse. Please understand that Wikipedia does not have "profiles", it has articles about subjects shown to be notable with significant coverage in independent reliable sources. You do have a user page that is for introducing yourself to the Wikipedia community in the context of your Wikipedia use, but it is not a social media type profile. 331dot (talk) 16:55, 18 December 2018 (UTC)
Greetings new user. Just to add to what 331dot said, if by "profile" you mean an article about yourself in the encyclopedia then you shouldn't write such an article. There are various rules about wp:conflict of interest but rule number one is that you shouldn't write about yourself, it's just taken as a given that none of us can be objective about ourselves. For an article about you to be created you need to have done things that are documented in reliable sources such as major newspapers, books, etc. Even then it's up to others who know your work to write the article. But if by profile you mean create a user page that is easy to do and if you are going to edit, it's really the first thing you should do so people can leave messages for you, can collaborate with you, etc. If you look at the top right corner of any Wikipedia page you will see a bunch of links related to your account (if you have one and are logged in) or to login or create an account if you aren't logged in. There should be a link in the upper right corner for this page that says "Create account". Click on that and just provide a user ID and an email and you are on your way. Then you can also create your user page. But note that page is not a general page like a page for you on Facebook or a blog, but rather it describes your Wikipedia interests, what kind of pages you like to edit, what wikipedia groups you belong to, etc. For example, here is my user page: User:MadScientistX11. My page is pretty basic but some people put a lot of effort into their pages, which is fine as long as the effort is about your Wikipedia editing and not your general interests or promoting yourself. Once you have an account you also get a talk page where people can leave you messages. For example, here is my talk page: User_talk:MadScientistX11. Also, once you have an account you can automatically sign all your posts so people can notify you when they reply to something you said, there is a little squigle widget in the editor (between the Italics widget and the link widget) that automatically adds your signature which I'm going to use at the end of this comment: --MadScientistX11 (talk) 19:36, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

Thank you

Hi,I'm very happy to work with you guys.Thanks for inviting me here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rshd019 (talk • contribs)

So far, every edit you have made has been reversed. Wikipedia does not accept external links embedded in the articles. Warnings are on your Talk page. If you need help understanding the problem, ask specific questions here. David notMD (talk) 20:10, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

Why is my draft not checked yet?

Hello. I am LPS and MLP Fan. I created a draft for a page, which you can find here. I have been waiting for a few months now, and so far, no one checked my draft. Why hasn’t it been checked yet? If it gets checked and approved, I would appreciate it if someone let me know on my talk page. Thanks LPS and MLP Fan (talk) 21:05, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

@LPS and MLP Fan:, welcome to the Teahouse. The draft you created on 4 November was never submitted for review. You do that by adding the code {{subst:submit}} to the page. Before doing so, however, you should try to find some more sources that would show that the book is notable according to Wikipedia's definition of notability. At the moment there is only one independent source, a review of the book. The other source is the author's own website, which is not independent. Regards, --bonadea contributions talk 21:10, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

Seeking Validation?

Hi there, I’m feeling a bit self-conscious and about the edits I posted (it’s my very first time). I’ve observed how harsh some editors can be when responding to others, and I was wondering if there were a way to request gentle criticism regarding my edits; considering I’m new, I feel rather vulnerable about receiving feedback. That might be an unreasonable request, but it took a lot of courage for me to even write this right now, so I’ve been attempting to tell myself that the fact that I am at least trying is worth something. “https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sadie_Hawkins_dance&oldid=868475289” The article has been edited since then but I guess I’m wondering if I could get some perspectives on whether or not my edits were on the right track and made sense to begin with, and honestly if it’s okay that I’m asking this at all. Thank you! I hope y’all are having a lovely day/night. MsKG (talk) 20:43, 18 December 2018 (UTC)MsKG

@MsKG:, welcome to the Teahouse! I'm glad you decided to come here. Your edits to Sadie Hawkins dance look fine to me - what you did was to add tags where you found that there were no sources or that the tone was a bit off for an encyclopedia article. But more importantly, you also opened a discussion on the article's talk page about the issues you found. I completely agree with your assessment of those expressions, by the way, and I think you could be bold and edit the phrasing yourself. If anybody should disagree and revert your edits you should then discuss further on the talk page. Hope this helps! --bonadea contributions talk 21:19, 18 December 2018 (UTC)
(oh, and I had no idea the Sadie Hawkins dance was an actual thing - I thought it was something the Buffy the Vampire Slayer creators had invented for that one episode. :D Editing Wikipedia is always educational!) --bonadea contributions talk 21:22, 18 December 2018 (UTC)
At the article I created a proper ref for you to insert into the article where you want to. And yes, be bold. No one disagreed with you opinion that the article is not NPOV. David notMD (talk) 21:35, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

Shimer College

Please help us (the alums of Shimer College) communicate that the unique Shimer Great Books curriculum & pedagogy is still available to new students. I have attempted to change some of the verbs in the Wiki entry to the present tense but my changes were rejected for lack of references to existing sources. Please note internal inconsistencies within the Wiki entry. The entry IS up-to-date in acknowledgement of the current association with North Central College in Naperville, IL. To quote the current entry: "In 2016, Shimer announced an agreement to be acquired by North Central College "with the intention of a completed acquisition on or around March 1, 2017."[16] The agreement came to fruition on June 1, 2017 when Shimer's faculty and curriculum were subsumed into North Central as a department known as the Shimer Great Books School of North Central College." copied from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shimer_College

The name has changed, as has the geographical location. I do not know the proper way to edit the entry. Nor do I have any source materials. This is my personal knowledge from serving on the Board of the Shimer Alumni Committee.

This is an urgent matter because the recruitment of students has been negatively impacted by the initial impression that Shimer is no longer available. I cannot count how many college counselors have insisted that "Shimer is closed" on the basis of hasty Internet searches. The use of the past tense in the first sentence of the Wikipedia entry has a detrimental effect on the continued existence of the program.

Please help.

Thank you. Mary Warner


P.S. I appreciate the complexities of the name change to "The Shimer Great Books School at North Central College" but I would imagine there are precedents for handling this type of institutional evolution that do not create the impression of death.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Know4Free (talk • contribs) 21:18, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

Welcome to the Teahouse Mary. First, I'm sorry this has been difficult, one of the values I think just about all Wikipedia editors share is that we value knowledge and learning. The main issue here is that any information in Wikipedia needs to be sourced. And just having someone say it's true, even when it clearly is as in this case, doesn't count as a reliable source. Do you have any press releases or even better articles in local papers that talk about the changes? That's what we need to do is to find some reference that counts as a wp:reliable source. I'll take a look at the page and do an Internet search and see if I can find anything, if you know of any sources please let me know and I can make the change for you. It might be worth your while to look at the article on wp:reliable source so you can better understand what does and doesn't count as a good Wikipedia source. Note: it can be a paper that is only in print, we don't have to have a link to something online. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 22:31, 18 December 2018 (UTC)
Mary, I found 3 sources that I think are all worthwhile. One is an article in the Chicago Tribune, one from the Sun Times, and one from the Reader. The first two just talk about the acquisition as something in process but the Reader article confirms that it has actually happened: Tribune Article, Sun Times Article Reader Article. If you want to make the changes go ahead but if you want me to let me know, I can do it. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 22:43, 18 December 2018 (UTC)
I just went and made some changes myself. I changed the tense in the intro section and added two of the references. I see that someone else (are you Know4Free?) made some similar changes and they got reverted by another editor. I think with these references I found the matter should be settled unless there is something I'm missing. But before I change any more of the article, I'm going to put something on the talk page and give the other editor a chance to weigh in. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 23:49, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

publishing an article

how i can publish an article in the wikipedia. i want instruction step by step in point form — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rrgsbandaraa (talk • contribs) 00:14, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

Hi Rrgsbandaraa - and welcome to the Teahouse. Usually it's a wise step to not start out creating an article, but rather contributing small edits to existing articles until you learn the ins and outs of WP. But the best source regarding your first article is WP:YFA. Good luck. Onel5969 TT me 00:54, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

Newb question.

I just joined up as a "helper" in this project. First let me comment on what a great addition this help room to the WP project, and I am very happy to be available to help as I can. Second, I added a photo to my "membership card" here, and I can't get rid of the parameter text in the photo box. Resizing was no problem. I copied the photo from a place where I had entered it before with no problems. Maybe something about the TeaHouse infobox I'm missing? Cheers! Hamster Sandwich (talk) 23:57, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

@Hamster Sandwich: I'm happy that you've joined us hosts and that you like the Teahouse. As for your second problem, I've fixed it now. Although the coding layout you used, as I'm sure you know, would be correct for putting an image in a normal article, for this particular template you should only put the bare file name without the File: prefix or metadata. This is because the template automatically puts the rest; the prefix, the alignment, and the size (even though you were able to change the size somehow); the only modifiable part left for you to fill in is the actual image name. It's certainly an understandable mistake. The only thing is I had to remove the caption from the image, as AFAIK, you can't support an image caption parameter in the Teahouse host template. Cheers, --SkyGazer 512 Oh no, what did I do this time? 00:55, 19 December 2018 (UTC)
TY very much for your easy to follow explanation. I did not know for certain about editing in the template box, but somehow surmised it might be the problem. Thanks again! Hamster Sandwich (talk) 01:22, 19 December 2018 (UTC)
No problem, glad I could help. Again, it's an understandable mistake; templates can be confusing to deal with sometimes.--SkyGazer 512 Oh no, what did I do this time? 01:28, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

Had article rejected declined

I need help in drafting my submission. Can you assist me? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ljmamis27 (talk • contribs) 22:53, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

Hello Ljmamis27; I'll try to explain the reasoning behind your draft's decline.
So, here's the deal. The main reason why the previous decliner declined it is because there is too much material not supported by an inline citation. Especially because this article is a biography of a living person, all material must be supported by a source inline. In particular, the Early life and career section does not have a source. Did you get this information from something you found offline or online? Or is it original research? If it's original research, you should remove the information, as original research is not allowed on Wikipedia; all material must be supported by a reliable source, especially for living people.
If you found it somewhere reliable, then put a citation linking to the source after the material the source is being used to support. It is preferred to format it in a {{cite web}} or {{cite book}} template, but it's easier to just add <ref>[URL LINK HERE]</ref> as a citation instead; if you would like to use that method instead it's fine as other editors will likely come along and fill in the ref soon enough. For example, if you found an online source that supports the sentence Castro was born on October 27, 1982 in the village of Fina Sisu, Saipan to Luis Tenorio Castro (1951 - 1999) and Margarita Quitugua Deleon Guerrero (1951 - 2015) you have in the article, you would add the coding – <ref>[URL of online source]</ref> – after the sentence, of course replacing [URL of online source] with, well, the URL of the online source you found.
Remember that you should do this for all unsourced material, not just the Early life and career section; for example, much of the Politicla Career section is unsourced. This may seem quite complicated, but once you get used to it, it's actually quite easy. This page contains a lot of useful information about how to cite inline. I hope this helps and if you have any more questions, don't hesitate to ask! One thing I will say; your draft seems to meet the notability guidelines, which is something that is rarely achieved for users who submit their articles via AfC, so great job on that - really, the main concern right now is the "no inline citations" thing. Cheers and good luck with your draft.--SkyGazer 512 Oh no, what did I do this time? 01:10, 19 December 2018 (UTC)
User:Ljmamis27 - In my opinion, and I reviewed and declined your draft, Draft:Luis John Castro, the subject is clearly notable for one reason. He satisfies political notability guidelines because he was elected to a territorial legislature. However, I did not find a reliable source to that effect, and sources in biographies of living persons should be in the form of in-line citations, also known as footnotes. I declined the draft, requesting that you provide a footnote. You then submitted it again, without providing a footnote, and I declined it again. I did not find the rest of his career to be notable in itself, and did not see a case for general notability. He is politically notable, but you have to provide a footnote to say so. That is the issue. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:57, 19 December 2018 (UTC)
By the way, I am puzzled, in that it seems that there were two copies of the draft on this person, and I declined one copy, but the other copy was initially accepted by User:Legacypac, but since then seems to have first been draftified and then has disappeared. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:57, 19 December 2018 (UTC)
By the way, I have changed the title of this thread for two reasons. First, and this is a diddle, the article was declined and not rejected. Second, the title of the thread duplicates that of an earlier thread in this forum, and that causes the software to confuse them. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:03, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

Creating a page/article for a not-for-profit community group.

Dear Teahouse

I'm a bit unsure as to whether i can create a page for our community group.
1. I only want to create a page with links etc, more like a website, with timeline and so on.
2. I don't want to have to learn coding to do this, as I've got a job already.
3. Can I write it up in word and then drop it into the page/edit section?
4 HELP!!

Cheers everyone.

  1. mediahub — Preceding unsigned comment added by Adelaide Barmies (talk • contribs) 05:50, 19 December 2018 (UTC)
@Adelaide Barmies: When written as above, the answer is generally... no. Wikipedia does not keep any pages created for anyone. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, so it keeps articles written about people, organizations, facts, places etc. And the basic criterion for creating such article is WP:Notability. Wikipedia is not a repository of links or means of promotion. It is to publish verifiable information form reliable sources about notable subjects. See the link I gave before for a general guidelines for notability, and WP:ORG for specific notability guidelines for organizations. --CiaPan (talk) 07:27, 19 December 2018 (UTC)
@Adelaide Barmies: Once you gather enough facts to make more than a one-liner for your subject, and you find reliable sources for reference, I suggest you visit Wikipedia:Your first article for a tutorial of creating articles. Please be warned, however, that creating a proper article from scratch is one of hardest tasks on Wikipedia, so don't be disappointed if your work is not accepted as soon as you expect. The new users are generally advised to engage in expanding and polishing existing articles first, to gather enough knowledge of writing style and technical background.
Additionally, I'm under the impression you came here just to promote your group. Of course I may well be wrong – but if I'm not, please familiarize with (and follow) requirements of our policy of Wikipedia:Conflict of interest. I understand the group you mention is not a company and you're not hired by it, so the policy of Wikipedia:Paid-contribution disclosure does not apply to you – but it's worth reading, too, just to be on the safe side in the future.
I hope I didn't overwhelm you with all the notes above. I call all those rules for you to learn and consider in advance if your desired article fits rules of Wikipedia. I also hope they will help you find a 'safe' and easiest possible way to achive what you need. Best regards - and happy editing! :) --CiaPan (talk) 07:47, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

Where is the log of why domains were blacklisted?

Hi. I wanted to cite the art gallery spruethmagers.com but it is on the global spam blacklist. Where do I find the reason it was added to the blacklist please? Is the reason public or do I have to enquire at MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist#Discussion? Thanks -Lopifalko (talk) 08:14, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

@Lopifalko: You can check the history, most editors when placing a site leave an edit summary to explain their change and if they don't, you at least know who to ask. Use WikiBlame to find the revision easily without having to go through hundreds of entries. Regards SoWhy 08:39, 19 December 2018 (UTC)
@Lopifalko:, additionally there is also the blacklist log once you know the approximate date of blacklisting. The log often points to related discussions (although it has significant gaps, especially in older logs). But checking both ressources - page history and logs - , you should be able to research the background for most additions. GermanJoe (talk) 08:49, 19 December 2018 (UTC)
I should have known to look at the history. But WikiBlame is new to me and very useful, and I have found the information I am looking for in the blacklist log. Thank you both. -Lopifalko (talk) 09:11, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

How do I change the title of a wikipedia article

For this wiki article here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Messina_(open-source_advocate)

I want to remove the "open source advocate" and replace it with "Hashtag Inventor" or "Inventor of the Hashtag" because the latter is more appropriate for Chris Messina. How do I do this? It seems to be uneditable currently. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Editoroftheinterwebz (talk • contribs) 10:50, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

@Editoroftheinterwebz: You probably shouldn't, see Wikipedia:Article titles#Disambiguation. Inventing something specific is not a defining characteristic of Mr. Messina. Calling the article "Chis Messina (Inventor of the Hashtag)" would be like having an article called "Chris Matthews (Host of Hardball with Chris Matthews)". Generally speaking, you can use the procedure described at Wikipedia:Requested moves to request a move to a different title. Regards SoWhy 11:46, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

Question

How can i create a own page in wikipedia — Preceding unsigned comment added by Steveselva7 (talk • contribs) 11:14, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

@Steveselva7: Hi there and welcome. You cannot create your own page because nobody owns articles on Wikipedia. You can edit and create articles though and if you want to know more about that, I suggest you take a look at the Wikipedia adventure, a specifically designed tutorial for new users. Regards SoWhy 11:50, 19 December 2018 (UTC)
Hi @Steveselva7: You got some answers here here when you asked a similar question yesterday, and those might also be helpful. Best, --bonadea contributions talk 12:04, 19 December 2018 (UTC)
Archived.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 18:48, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

Article rejected

Please help me and guide which things should I add in my article or kept in mind or the changes etc. so it can add in the article space, I really want to publish my artist profile so my fan can know more about me

Please Help!

Thanks! Best regards Pranay S. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MUNEofficial (talk • contribs) 13:44, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

Hello MUNEofficial and welcome to the Teahouse! Unfortunately, Wikipedia is not the place to publish one's artist profile so that fans can know about you per this page; a good place to do this would be social media or your website. We are an encyclopedia which writes about topics which have already received significant coverage in multiple reliable, independent, sources. If I were you, I wouldn't pursue this topic but rather contribute to other articles; there's a lot that can be done on Wikipedia! With all this being said, if you still want to pursue this, you must provide reliable sources written by someone not affiliated with the subject which provide significant coverage of this rapper in the article; and all material must be supported by a source so that it can be easily verified. If no reliable, independent sources which significantly cover MUNE exist, then I'm afraid to say that the topic is not suitable for Wikipedia and that if it were to be an article it would be deleted. Don't get discouraged by this; creating a new article is one of the hardest things to do on Wikipedia. Again, I would strongly suggest you try to improve Wikipedia in other ways and not try to get a page about yourself published; the general rule is that if you're notable, someone independent will end up creating an article about you some time or another. I hope this helps and let me know if you have any more questions! Cheers, --SkyGazer 512 Oh no, what did I do this time? 14:09, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

regarding edit

Hello Tea House, Good Afternoon

Sir i request you kindly don't delete my edit on Maghfoor Ahmad Ajazi page regarding Noorun Nisa because this added information is hundred percent fact. If you get any complain against this edit then you remove my edit. This is your right.

I hope that you will consider my request for encouragement of new guy as like me.

Thanking you in advance.

Best Regards,

Masroor Chaudhary — Preceding unsigned comment added by Masroor Chaudhary (talk • contribs) 10:04, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

You had a reply at your earlier question at #Regarding Maghfoor Ahmad Ijazi above, and at your even earlier question at #Maghfoor Ahmad Ajazi further above, also on your user talk page at User talk:Masroor Chaudhary. --David Biddulph (talk) 10:09, 19 December 2018 (UTC)
You have added a sentence to the article Maghfoor Ahmad Ajazi seven times and it has been deleted seven times. No one is disputing that it is probably true, but unless you can provide a published source stating this fact, it cannot become part of the article. Your persistence will result in you being blocked. David notMD (talk) 14:42, 19 December 2018 (UTC)
Archived.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 18:58, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

Creating a Company Wiki Page

Hey folks,

I want to put up a simple Company Information Wiki page for my company. It was declined due to lack of reliable sources. Do I need to cite some reliable sources? Would that be things like CrunchBase, AP Press Releases, etc?

-Charlie — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cocchino75 (talk • contribs) 16:11, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

Hello and welcome to the Teahouse. Please understand that Wikipedia is not for merely providing information. This is an encyclopedia that is only interested in what uninvolved third parties write about an article subject. The sources you mention would not be acceptable. If you just want to tell the world about your company, you should use your own website or social media. 331dot (talk) 16:20, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

Why is Wikipedia bad

why is Wikipedia bad???? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bhunguchuku (talk • contribs) 15:01, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

Tell us why you think Wikipedia is bad, Bhunguchuku, and we might be able to answer you. --ColinFine (talk) 15:52, 19 December 2018 (UTC)
OP appears to have been a sockpuppet of a disgruntled paid editor. Ian.thomson (talk) 16:56, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

How do you upload a page

How do you upload a page on Wikipedia? please help me Sibulele Jr sonkosi Talk== ==19 December 18:56— Preceding unsigned comment added by Sibulele_Jr_sonkosi (talk • contribs)

Hi Sibulele_Jr_sonkosi, and welcome to the Teahouse. If this is about Draft:Sibulele sonkosi then you don't upload it until you have established WP:Notability. You need to find independent WP:Reliable sources in which the subject has been written about in detail, then you need to summarise, in your own words, what these sources say. Sorry to disappoint you, but Wikipedia does not have an article on everyone. Perhaps in the future your subject will be written about in newspapers, then can Wikipedia have an article. Dbfirs 17:37, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

Making changes to a page someone created about me

Hi! Many years ago a college student reached out and asked to create a Wikipedia page about me for a class assignment, pegged to a book I'd published in 2009. The resulting page was filled with a lot of unsourced, incorrect information and yesterday I went in and made some corrections (mostly deleting a lot of unsourced parts and adding sources where needed). I understand that this is a COI and am hoping to get some help from an existing editor so it doesn't revert back to the old version. Any help or advice is greatly appreciated, thank you! Here is the URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_Lyon — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jklyon74 (talk • contribs)

why my vpn is not allowed to create account?

I had to change my location on VPN about 20 times to create an account why most of the ip's are blocked? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Eatcha (talk • contribs) 17:26, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

Because you're using one of the VPNs used by one of the long-term abuse cases we have to deal with. That's not to say you're neceessarily one of them, popular VPNs would by the definition of "popular" be used by lots of different people. Ian.thomson (talk) 17:30, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

can you suggest a VPN that is not blocked on Wikipedia. Eatcha (talk) 17:42, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

If I did, they'd start using that one next. Ian.thomson (talk) 18:06, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

Luci Murphy

How can the keywiki https://www.keywiki.org/Luci_Murphy be united with the wikipedia page? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luci_Murphy — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.200.239.179 (talk) 17:54, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

It can't, they are completely unrelated to us. "Wiki" is just a software. KeyWiki's goals appear to be completely unrelated to Wikipedia's as well: KeyWiki is a political site, we're an encyclopedia. Ian.thomson (talk) 18:09, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

Removing request for expert attention

Hello. I would like to remove the request for expert attention here, since I've given it my attention. How do I do that? Sincerely, BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 18:38, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

@BeenAroundAWhile: If you're satisfied that the article has received all the expert attention that it needs, you can simply delete the {{expert needed}} template at the top of the article. Deor (talk) 18:47, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

Changing wikipedia article TITLE and reference LINKS.

The 1966 film Blow-up by director Antonioni is incorrectly referenced [as Blowup, minus the hyphen] all over the wikipedia article. I have tried to change some of these but failed miserably. Cannot figure out how to do it. I truly wish that I could spend the time required to learn how to do these edits, but I am in the middle of so many personal problems right now that I cannot spare that sort of time investment. Loge Reborn (talk) 00:38, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for your comment here User:Loge Reborn, I'm sure I read that article in the past and never noticed what might be an error there. Here's what I just found out:
  • IMDB lists the film as "Blow-Up." [1]
  • WP article for the soundtrack album Blow-Up (soundtrack) conforms to IMDB entry. Here is the Allmusic link from that article. [2] The album cover shot shows the title in ALL CAPS, but the entry is recorded as "Blow-Up" there as well. It appears to be a copy of the movie's poster, but I can't be certain of that at this point.
I think you might have a good point @Loge Reborn. I'll go visit the talk page and see if there has been any discussion about this by other editors which may have already reached a consensus on the issue. That's always an important step when you want to make a big change to an article. Cheers! Hamster Sandwich (talk) 01:41, 19 December 2018 (UTC)
See extensive discussion on this issue on the talk page. TimTempleton (talk) (cont) 02:25, 19 December 2018 (UTC)
I should add to @timtempleton's comment that the talk page discussion there is pretty "mouldy" at 11 years, 7 years and 4 years gone by. The greatest volume of discussion was at the 11 year old mark and a 4 year old "Request for Page Move" that was closed as "No Consensus."
I think, based on the citations I have found, and the citations provided in the single comment by the editor in 2012 (Siskel & Ebert, et. al), might support another look at the page move criteria for this article. It may be that the evidence needs to be presented in a clearer and more concise way. Hamster Sandwich (talk) 03:10, 19 December 2018 (UTC)
Discussion moved to new discussion on talk page. TimTempleton (talk) (cont) 08:02, 19 December 2018 (UTC)
  • I would like to ask: As I am new to this part of the project, is this a proper forum for this kind of "extended" discussion? My talk page? Loge Reborn's? The article page? Any comments would be useful to me. Thanks! Hamster Sandwich (talk) 04:35, 19 December 2018 (UTC)
Since the article is presently called Blowup, discussion of the specifics should be at Talk:Blowup. However, for anyone not knowing how to approach the matter, the Teahouse is just fine to start with. Now, as it happens it is not at all straightforward what this article title should be. The spellings of those responsible for the movie were all over the place and the muddle has continued. Before discussing changing an article title it is important to bear in mind the general policy Wikipedia:Article titles and if you want to enquire about the policy, or want to change it, go to Wikipedia talk:Article titles. If you decide a change of title is desirable Wikipedia:Requested moves is the place to go if the matter cannot be resolved at Talk:Blowup or if the opinions of people experienced in article titles are to be sought. As he has said, Tim Templeton has already copied the preceding discussion to Talk:Blowup#Film name discussion moved from Teahouse page. Thincat (talk) 18:58, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

Teahouse welcome messages sent to Bots

Moved to Wikipedia talk:Teahouse
 – - much more relevant to a recent posting on the technical adminstration of this forum. Nick Moyes (talk) 21:10, 19 December 2018 (UTC)
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Teahouse/Questions/Archive_878&oldid=887448722"