Wikipedia talk:Reference desk

To ask a question, use the relevant section of the Reference desk

This page is for discussion of the Reference desk in general.
Please don't post comments here that don't relate to the Reference desk. Other material may be moved.
The guidelines for the Reference desk are at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Guidelines.
For help using Wikipedia, please see Wikipedia:Help desk.

Archives

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20
21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30
31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40
41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50
51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60
61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70
71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80
81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90
91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100
101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110
111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120
121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130
131, 132, 133

RD Guidelines

1
2
3
4
5

This page has archives. Sections older than 7 days may be automatically archived by when more than 4 sections are present.

Survival length of bacteria

How long does bacteria last for? Cultures conservation (darkness, warmth, moisture) in maybe sugar and lemon remedies. Avyanna.Owam (talk) 10:54, 19 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You should probably ask this on the Science desk. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:29, 20 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Such a question belongs on Wikipedia:Reference Desk/Science. Few people follow this page. —Tamfang (talk) 05:16, 20 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

^[1]

Regarding this (in my opinion gravely biased, and therefore 100% unreliable) newspaper article (I'm referring to the article, the newspaper is authoritative), I quote here a user's reply within this post: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/financial-times_everything-i-an-italian-thought-i-knew-activity-7045303339403608064-HB23; "The professor is just a sensationalist who made up a catchy title for his podcast just to publish on an international paper. He’s vastly (and rightfully) ignored in Italy.
Of course the modern versions of Italian traditional food are “only” 70 years old, but the basis of the recipes date centuries ago and the evolution is a direct consequence of 1) progress 2) wealth and aboundance 3) growing affordability of sophisticated food by the masses.
Let me give you an example: green olives from Ascoli Piceno are famous from the Roman times (as we can tell from mentions from Cato, Marziale and many other classic Roman writers). Around 1600 people started stuffing them with herbs (onions, carrots, leek…cheap stuffing). Around 1800 the stuffing started including mixed meat (pork, beef, veal and some cheese and nutmeg): the leftovers from rich families’ banquets.
In 1875 the production bacame industrial (Mariano Mazzocchi production, who also started the first marketing of the product).
Around the late 1950s, with the progressive growth in wealth of Italy, the recipe started making its way into households and morphed even further, including parmisan.
Nowadays you can find them fish stuffed or even a full vegan version." JacktheBrown (talk) 07:44, 30 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What's your question? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:22, 1 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Baseball Bugs: is this reference reliable? JacktheBrown (talk) 14:28, 1 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

No, a random response to an online post can't be cited as a reliable source. Deor (talk) 14:54, 1 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Deor: I refer to the newspaper article. JacktheBrown (talk) 14:57, 1 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It's behind a paywall, so I can't review it specifically, but it sounds like an opinion piece and you're already said you feel it to be unreliable. Is it already in use in an article anywhere? Its suitability for WP is going to come down to what statement you're trying to support. Matt Deres (talk) 15:48, 2 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ Giusti, Marianna (23 March 2023). "Everything I, an Italian, thought I knew about Italian food is wrong". Financial Times.

Unreadable in dark mode

Unfortunately I have no solutions to offer, but Wikipedia:Reference desk is nearly unreadable in the new dark mode - the very light grey text in the white boxes just vanishes. Thought I'd at least note it here in case anyone knows of a fix. 57.140.16.8 (talk) 15:00, 22 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It all looks normal to me. Where is this "dark mode" option you're talking about? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:10, 23 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

See Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)/Archive_214#Dark_mode_for_logged-in_users_on_desktop_coming_this_week! @Baseball Bugs 97.113.14.140 (talk) 03:47, 23 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like that's where complaints about this thing should be taken. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:58, 23 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I have no complaints about the tool; seems to be working as intended, but this page isn't set up to render usefully using it. But hey ho. 97.113.14.140 (talk) 12:13, 23 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think you should take this question to the Village Pump. Either that, or don't user Dark Mode. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:03, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Good advice. I tried it once. I didn't like it. (Sex, that is. I also didn't like being reasonable, or the new Wikipedia dark mode.) -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:08, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you Jdlrobson and Izno! Looks great now. 57.140.16.8 (talk) 13:29, 6 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Great! 🐸 Jdlrobson (talk) 08:26, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Humanities and header hatnote

Last week, Mod creator decided to add a hatnote to the humanities desk, and then PrimeHunter decided to remove it a few days later. Here's the content:

Neither adding nor removing was discussed, and lack of discussion was one reason given for its removal. So, let's start a discussion...is this header a good idea? I'm leaning toward "no", thanks to the reasons given for removal, but I can understand the reasoning for adding. Nyttend (talk) 22:55, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Agree with the removal, there is no reason to have that at the top of the page. --Viennese Waltz 14:15, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

No; the template is way further down the ladder. While pageviews are not infalliable, the comparison – on a logarithmic scale, you'll note – is pretty damning. If someone is looking for WP:Reference desk/header they probably know how to find it. Cremastra (talk) 19:24, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Bots

Do the bots really edit pages or something else because I saw from the citation bot literally remove and replace the same information with the same words Avyanna.Owam (talk) 11:45, 7 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Where did you see that? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:19, 9 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Fake Desi media content querant

Looks like the Californian troll who pretends to be a poorly comprehending fan of Indian subcontinent media, with poor English, has now got themself an account. (If I was sufficiently motivated, I'd link the thread several months back where they crowed in perfect English about successfully fooling us.) Should something be done about this? {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.211.243 (talk) 07:51, 22 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure I follow. The last couple of times they've posted on Ents from an IP address, it's geolocated to India. --Viennese Waltz 09:05, 22 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

[grandi-1] Giusti, Marianna (23 March 2023). "Everything I, an Italian, thought I knew about Italian food is wrong". Financial Times.

[1]