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Archive 5←Archive 8Archive 9Archive 10Archive 11Archive 12→Archive 15

Acceptance as an editor

Having submitted a full article and made many contributions over the past year, what do I still have to do to become accepted as an editor? Duncanharrington (talk) 15:15, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

@Duncanharrington: You already are an editor, and have been since the moment that you did this. It was a small change, but it was an edit just the same: you therefore became an editor. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:55, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
@Duncanharrington: Why do you think you are not accepted as an editor? A wild guess: Is it because your username Duncanharrington is red? If that's the case then it only means you haven't created a user page yet. Just click the red link, write anything (not violating Wikipedia:User pages) and save. PrimeHunter (talk) 17:19, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Thank you both. Yes, I didn't appreciate that I had been accepted as my user name was still in red. Simple when you know the answer.Duncanharrington (talk) 15:47, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Fez

Hello, with the help of Orionist and The Haz, i made a special fez just for teahouse guest and hosts, i hope everyone likes it! (Based on one by John Reid) --Yutah Andrei Marzan Ogawa123|UPage|☺★ (talk) 18:41, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

Category:20th-century Canadian poets

I have just finished cleaning up Category:Canadian poets and put them accordingly in Category:20th-century Canadian poets, 19th, 18th and 17th-century Canadian poets. The last two I had to create. What I would like to know is there is a Category for 21st century Canadian poets and it is full of 20th? What is the definition of this Category? Shouldn't it be for people who have only been published in the last 14 years or were born in 2000/2001? I would like to clean this up but don't want to "ps" anyone off LOL Haiku Tea (talk) 19:42, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

@Haiku Tea: Hi Haiku Tea. (That's a very apt name for posting at the Teahouse.) Please note that this page, the one your post is on, is the talk page of the Teahouse – it's for posting about the Teahouse itself. Normally questions like yours are posted to the project page at Wikipedia:Teahouse/Questions. Anyway, Category:21st-century Canadian poets does indeed exist. I'm not sure if people who have published poetry after December 31, 1999 belong there, or if it should only be for those who've done so after after December 31, 2000 (I remember the arguments back in 1999 when some people thought the world would end on December 31, and others derided them for being one year off the doomsday date). However, our article on the 20th century, indicates it's the latter. Best regards---Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 23:12, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Apologies for the wrong page. Thanks for the information Haiku Tea (talk) 00:43, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Non-free image

I noticed that two of the Teahouse hosts are using non-free images for their profile at the Teahouse, is that ok? I know that such images can not be used on user pages, but maybe this is allowed at the Teahouse. Just curious, w.carter-Talk 14:31, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

No, it's not allowed. The rule says nothing about user space: it is "Non-free content is allowed only in articles (not disambiguation pages), and only in article namespace, subject to exemptions". There is no exemption for Teahouse, nor for Wikipedia: space in general. --Redrose64 (talk) 15:46, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
Ok thanks, so Arfæst Ealdwrítere and Ikhtiar H may want to select other pictures. Best, w.carter-Talk 16:07, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
I see that Fuhghettaboutit (talk · contribs) has now dealt with the first of those. --Redrose64 (talk) 19:38, 6 January 2015 (UTC)
I did not know about this post until pinged. I just noticed the Yoda and looked to see if it was free. I will go take care of the other. Just to add to what Redrose said, these are poster childs of invalid use that present blatant copyright problems; there's no possible reasonable exemption I can imagine.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 22:40, 6 January 2015 (UTC)
(Nthep took care of it)--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 22:49, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

@Fuhghettaboutit:@Redrose64: So no-one else here has the User:Anomie/linkclassifier script installed??? It creates a thin double red frame around all non-free images, making them stand out everywhere and easy to check. That is how I saw it when I was visiting the Teahouse. w.carter-Talk 00:26, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

That's interesting Carter. Never came across that script before. I'm going to try it out.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 00:32, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
Well, you're in for an explosion of colors. :) I find it very useful when I edit, to see my own mistakes at once (and those of others when I clean up pages). w.carter-Talk 00:35, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
Jeeze. I don't think I can take it. I would love it if it would just highlight pages up for deletion and fair use. Especially the profusion of green for redirects is too much. Maybe I can import the raw code and select out what I want. In any event, thanks for showing me this.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 01:32, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
@Fuhghettaboutit: There are several options for tweaking and customizing it on the scripts description page. Maybe make everything you don't want to watch a calm ordinary blue. Cheers, w.carter-Talk 10:44, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Photo of certain object in London

Happy New Year Wikipedians, i want to extend the list of Armenian Genocide memorials. According to [1] there is also a memorial in London not for from Hyde Park. It is located on the yard of Saint Sarkis Armenian church, exactly here [2]. Is there any photograph willing to help me with making a photo of it? If so, i kindly ask to make some overview and detailed photos (often at the back or side there is a plaque or inscription) of it and upload it to Commons. I need this detailed photos to add the transcriptions afterwards. Thanks advance, --Aschroet (talk) 08:27, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Hello Aschroet, sorry to say you're in the wrong place! :) This page is only about how the Teahouse should be run, not the Teahouse itself. Not many editors will see this here. Hope you don't mind me moving your question to the right page. w.carter-Talk 09:05, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
Thank you, W.carter. --Aschroet (talk) 10:11, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Where is the old Help Desk?

I don't know where to ask a question like this, but this is a start because I'm sort of in the right place.

I worked my way back to the beginning of the Help Desk archives. People must have had questions like those asked on the Help Desk even before 2004.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 20:47, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

It was before my time but the Village Pump was once a single all-purpose page. I think many languages are still like that. See Wikipedia:Village pump archive. Before that there was apparently a page called Wikipedia chat. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:51, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks to all the Teahouse editors, who have helped me thus far. (formerly philipofJMJ, now, philipofBVM) philipofBVMPhilipofBVM 21:25, 17 January 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by PhilipofBVM (talk • contribs)

Visual editor

I just realised that many of the answers we have given (certainly that I have given) have assumed that the guest is using the source editor. Explaining these things with the visual editor - I don't have the first idea how I copy an infobox from one article to another, or fix a list so that there are no gaps to upset screen-readers.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 19:22, 13 August 2014 (UTC).

@Rich Farmbrough:, Not sure if you are still interested in this but the issue you raise is something I've worried about as well. However, I think as of now the default is still the source editor and that is what most editors are using so it is safe to assume they are. For a while I used to say "if you are using the source editor" or something like that but that was confusing to users as well, it distracted the conversation from solving the problem to "what is the visual editor?" questions. Since you have to explicitly opt in to the visual editor in your preferences I think it is still safe to assume that most new editors are using the source editor which is what I do and I assume they will say "hey it looks different than that" if they aren't. I do worry though once the Visual Editor becomes the default as I think it eventually will. I really have no interest in using it, I LIKE source editing and wikicode but I worry that there will be a generation gap between experienced editors who use the source editor and new editors who use the visual editor. But I don't think we are there yet. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 21:34, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
That's a good point! All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 23:38, 25 January 2015 (UTC).

This is so much fun, as well, as hard work, but, for my purpose, it is essential!

Thanks to all those who have helped me thus far. My hope it to give some 100% accurate information, to some of the pages on Wikipedia, where I feel there is an error. For instance: on the Constantine pages, the information about Saint Constantine's "baptism" is not correct. The fact is, that he was not "baptized" on his death bed, but rather, that he was Baptized during his life by the reigning pope, Pope Sylvester I. I am trying to get this make known on the appropriate pages, to correct the error that he was "baptized" by an Arian heretic, as he lay dying.

I am an older gentleman; now, I feel like a youngster going to night school, to learn all about Wikipedia. Thanks to all concerned.

philipofBVMPhilipofBVM (talk) 06:16, 24 January 2015 (UTC) PhilipofBVM (talk) 06:16, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Hello there, PhilipofBVM. If you feel like a youngster, and also have the wisdom that comes with age, then you can be a great neutral editor here on Wikipedia. Maybe you can help improve our articles about the newly dominant Shiite political factions in Yemen, who have recently carried out a coup d'etat. Then, we have the dispute between the Dalai Lama and his more fundamentalist Buddhist critics. They are following him all over the globe, you know, picketing him at every opportunity. Neutral editors are needed there. And then there are our articles about contemporary worldwide responses to Pope Francis. He's a Jesuit, you know? Can you help with that? When you are done, I have some rabbi biographies that need an awful lot of work. Can you pitch in? Cullen328 Let's discuss it 08:11, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
Jim, I hope to get back with you. Thanks, again. By the way, you will either like me, or not like me, as I am very committed to truth, and hence I cannot tolerate error. For example: you call Francis above "Pope Francis". To be a pope, one must be a male, which he is, and also one must be a True Catholic, which he is not. Hence, the last true Catholic pope was over a thousand years ago. See the study of this found at www.johnthebaptist.us 1 No Popes or Cardinals since 1130 By Richard Joseph Michael Ibranyi at http://www.scribd.com/doc/241005832/No-Popes-or-Cardinals-Since-1130#scribd philipofBVMPhilipofBVM (talk) 19:24, 24 January 2015 (UTC) PhilipofBVM (talk) 19:24, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
PhilipofBVM, this is not the True Catholic Encyclopedia. We summarize what the range of reliable sources say about a topic, and overwhelmingly, they refer to the man as the Pope. You can propound The Truth elsewhere. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 20:37, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Hmm, Wikipedia does discuss whether Constantine I was baptised by Sylvester I. Our page is called Symmachean forgeries, and it says it's based on a nineteenth century German source. It's possible that the page on Symmachean forgeries is, itself, a forgery but when I check other sources (such as the Catholic Encyclopaedia here), I see that the Constitutum Sylvestri is described as "apocryphal". For all I know the Catholic Encyclopaedia might also be wrong, but we as Wikipedians would want to see some evidence that's been analysed by the scholars before we'd be prepared to say that.—S Marshall T/C 22:59, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
Thanks to Mr. Marshall for this fair evaluation: "For all I know the Catholic Encyclopaedia might also be wrong, but..." I hope to soon, present the evidence you are referring to on Wikipedia, for your further evaluation, and publishment. Thanks again. philipofBVMPhilipofBVM (talk) 17:37, 2 February 2015 (UTC) PhilipofBVM (talk) 17:37, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Anyone having trouble with the Q&A gadget?

I received this message from Kingrevenant yesterday. I've since tested the gadget with FireFox (Mac) and it works fine for me. Anyone run Ubuntu and want to give it a test? Cheers, - J-Mo Talk to Me Email Me 17:13, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Hope I'm getting this right: I made a screenshot of the problem. Looks the same in Firefox 35.0.1 as it does in Konqueror 4.13. (Ubuntu 14.04 LTS). --Kingrevenant (talk) 21:27, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
Thanks, Kingrevenant. Huh. Well, that definitely looks funky. It should be aligned with the main content area of the page. Hoping we have at least one other Ubuntu (or any Linux distro) user who can test and report back. Meantime, feel free to ask questions here, or (if you're feeling bold) click the "edit" button on the top of the Q&A page and ask your question in raw markup. - J-Mo Talk to Me Email Me 02:04, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Draft to article process

I have written an article and saved it as a draft. What is the process for it to be approved? Vromano7 (talk) 00:04, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Hi Vromano7, welcome to the Teahouse. I have replied at Wikipedia:Help desk#Upload a draft? where I first saw your question. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:31, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Gregorian calendar vs. Japanese Lunar calendar

Hi, I am wondering if anyone can direct me to an editor/message board concerning the translation of calendar dates. Recently there are edits and re-edits taking place on the Nichiren page. Literature I consulted always state the 16th of February as his date of birth (death 13th of October). I managed to find one source making reference to the Japanese calendar (birth: Jōō 1/2/16, death: Kōan 5/10/13) maybe someone could help to translate these dates in to modern use i.e. Gregorian calendar and also check with Japanese Wikipedia. --Catflap08 (talk) 18:54, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for the invitation, but I will not be staying

My first experience with contributing to wikipedia has been an absolute horror story. I don't wish to dump on the site, its a great site, but the staff needs to do something about page bullies. I was warned by several prior contributors who left and, and in several cases deleted their accounts in frustration, that "the loudest voice always wins" and I am saddened to say that was my experience. Within 25 hours I was threaten, harassed and accused of any possible violation to admins who promptly locked the talk page I was making good faith contributions to. I thought the talking page was for proposing changes, adding good sources information, especially from journals. I requested they reconsidered and the answer I got was to go beg the page bullie for forgiveness or take a walk. So when the page unlocks I fully plan to remove any and all contributions to the site and end my donation support, until such time that this kind of abuse is addressed. Feel free to purge this comment as I am sure will be the case. Erik the Swed (talk) 01:29, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

What could be done to address the issue of first time contributors getting abused by an empowered vocal minority?

- Well, first off make the admin criteria much more stringent and have an actual review process to assess if admins are either part of the abuse cycle or just enablers. I found no appeal process, the site literally seams to be bifurcated into admins with the power to lock and ban and the unwashed masses.
- provide better formatting tools, I think my abuser was first angered (which such an emotional reaction to a text change should be a warning sign) that I improperly formatted a contribution in the talk page.
- accountability, the accusation of being a sockpuppet gets tossed around with such frequency and as such is has both a way to create an immediate bias and be used as a weapon. If you accuse someone of a violation and a neutral third part can not see what grounds you had for the accusation then the accuser should be dinged for attempting to smear their opponent.
- take the Teahouse one step further, let people who care about growing your community mediate first time user disputes. This would be far more productive and give the appearance that the community is actually open to new contributors, rather then the current popularly held belief that it is a insular club.
- finally, stop or protect experts. The most vocal person on my blog against making any contributions is a 3 time PHD holder, professor emeritus, and award winning physicist who was bullied off the site by layman contributers and admins. If wikipedia allowed real life professionals to document their experties in a subject to gain a status that at a minium prevented admin abuse of their contributions then the silent boycott of the site may end.

These are my best recommendations, do with them what you will. Erik the Swed (talk) 01:29, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Hi Erik the Swed, welcome to the Teahouse. Please consider staying and don't leave just because of what may be a big misunderstanding. We usually discuss at Wikipedia:Teahouse/Questions but let's do it here. We want readers of talk pages to be able to see who said what in a discussion. We do this by signing our posts at the end of the post and placing the whole post together after the signature of a previous post. That way readers know that everything between A's signature and B's signature was written by B. The problem with your edits at Talk:Huns was that you inserted content in the middle of other people's posts so it looked like it was them who had said it and not you. How would you feel if somebody inserted something you disagreed with in the middle of your own signed post and made it look like it was you who had said it? Maybe you are used to forums which have clearly separated posts and don't enable people to insert something in eachothers posts. But Wikipedia currently uses the same software for articles and discussions. It's a wiki so you are able and allowed to edit article content written by others. You are also able to edit discussion posts written by others but Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines#Others' comments disallows it, except for certain situations. PrimeHunter (talk) 04:18, 5 February 2015 (UTC)
To the question "How would you feel if somebody inserted something you disagreed with in the middle of your own signed post and made it look like it was you who had said it?" I would say, I would be much more constructive then to revert the post with the comment "removed non productive and misrepresentation of information from talk page". Perhaps saying something like reverted contented inserted at the wrong spot of the discussion. If fact I would have probably been more productive and move the comment down to a new section (which incidentally I did). In fact if you look at this interaction on the talk page, the accusations made were:
-"Removed again, placing misleading information which is not supported by the source is a violation of Wikipedia policies as is refactoring the comments made by other editors"
-"removed, information placed within the comments of another editor, I'd suggest you read Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines....last warning"
-" AGAIN, removed information added to MY comment by another editor which is a VIOLATION of Wikipedia policy, place your sources in your OWN comment"
As you can see this is not productive and when I did see something on my talk page and it was not at all useful, but contained threats about my IP address. Its also worth noting that I moved the offending text when I realized the error, it only made it back in when the page bully (a new term a former contributor and now critic of wikipedia taught me) blindly reverted my corrections. I also by reviewing the Hun page history I noticed there is a distinctive nationalistic bias to remove any information contradicting nation origin myths. Any attempt to bring up to date socially information is almost immediately reverted and an edit war ensues until the contributing side is silenced. This is not a healthy relationship, I am sure you can admit that.
Perhaps what should be kept in mind is that wikipedia has a great deal of arcane social norms that a new person coming in may not know, so the answer should not be 'jump all over them till they leave", perhaps it should be " Hey you seem new here, let me help you out". The limitation of the rendering css of the page should not be a factor in how one approaches problems, it is this pervasive reaction that is driving me away, perhaps people should remember Wheaton's Law.Erik the Swed (talk) 08:19, 5 February 2015 (UTC)
@Erik the Swed: Click the "prev" links at https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Huns&action=history to see what the edit did. All the reverts of your edits removed content you had added inside posts of others. In [3] you said "cleaned up formatting and moved comment below to a new discussion area", but all you did was add a new post. It's time consuming to fix a post which added content in multiple wrong places, and it can be unclear how to fix it if the content needs context to explain it when it's moved to another place. If the post is reverted then you can just do it right yourself but instead you kept editing other peoples posts after repeatedly being told not to. It's allowed to warn users that they are breaking policies and risk having their account or IP address blocked from editing. It's done by many of the standard warnings at Wikipedia:Template messages/User talk namespace. The ban on threats is about other things like legal threats and physical harm. I don't know what you think but nobody implied anything about doing something to your IP address outside Wikipedia. I haven't examined the page history of the article but disputes and attempts to control content are unfortunately common in articles about ethnic disagreements. Edit warring on the talk page is not a good response to that. See Wikipedia:Dispute resolution for other options. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:34, 5 February 2015 (UTC)
Clearly from your post your desire is to point out that this is all my error and to sum it up "suck it up or get out", which for a group that wants to attract new users is highly counter productive. I did point out that I am new to contributing to pages and as such made errors, but I also made a good faith effort to correct them and be congenial to others. The fact that not one word has been raised in criticism against the page bully only reinforces the belief by many of your critics that wiki admins are insular and confrontational.
Your comment on "attempts to control content are unfortunately common in articles about ethnic disagreements" only reenforces the view that the loudest voice wins and its pointless to contribute to the site. Now as I said before I am trying to provide a hopefully constructive dialog on my bad experiences. Fact and science should alway win over myth and personal held biases, its a problem in the scientific community to be sure and one we argue over constantly, but if the a encyclopedia is going to deliberately advocated the omission of well sourced counter arguments... well then what use is it?
Let me ask the blunt question, if I were to try and stick with it and contribute to the Huns page the sum of 20 years worth of collected information, sources and details (of course in the NPOV), will it not just get torn down the first instant I post it and my account get maneuvered into being banned? Can you make that kind or reassurance? Erik the Swed (talk) 19:59, 5 February 2015 (UTC)
@Erik the Swed: Everybody could have handled it better, including me. Nobody is perfect. People can be short-tempered, self-righteous, over-zealous, overbearing, impolite, more busy than careful, etc. I don't know whether others noticed you were new. If named users are criticized then our rules say they should be informed and this discussion could easily take a bad turn. Saying "page bully" when it's possible to figure out who you may have in mind is already problematic. If you keep a cool head, don't react badly to provocations, read policies and guidelines you are pointed to (like Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines and Wikipedia:Edit warring), pay attention to user warnings like those made with Wikipedia:Template messages/User talk namespace, and accept that you win some and lose some (sometimes due to consensus against you when you strongly feel you are right), then you are unlikely to be blocked. I have 34000 edits and never been at risk of being blocked. Note also that most blocks have short duration like 24 hours unless the user has already been blocked multiple times before for the same. But I can give no assurances to you or anyone else that they will get what they want on a given page if others want something else on that page. If they resort to edit warring to get their will then being blocked is a big risk. I don't know enough about the Huns or DNA to judge edits and the page history of Huns. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:06, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Please, check my English!

Hi, guys! I've just finished an article about some monastery, but i am not a native speaker of English. So I want some native speaker of English to skim over it before submitting the article. If this is interesting for somebody to run through my article and to check my English (and, if you want, to make some remarks, to correct and improve it and so on) - please, don't hesitate to do this here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Sterndmitri/sandbox

The only suggestion I have is to retain the most simple (and clear) language to make it understandable for broad range of people. I will be obliged eternally! --Sterndmitri (talk) 18:39, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

It's unfortunate the Teahouse didn't exist back when I was an active editor. By the time three of the three articles I'd worked on - all on LGBT topics -had bee torn to shreds, drive-by adminstrators misused by experienced editors from 'the other side' had blocked me until 'I' won an arbitration and they were pulled (same ones all three articles), I'd had it. Came back two years later and did some minor work, very well sourced, on a fun topic. Not only reverted but was snootily informed that verifiable data stood against my edit. Well, yes, you can always find some fool who publishes something which is in the same league as '2+2=5'. truth won out (and yes, I know, truth doesn't count for anything on Wikipedia), but by the time it was over, I had had it, again.Seriously had to get consensus that '2+2=4' and what a battle it was. I really think there needs to be a change in policy regarding articles in the realm of the natural sciences. I'm thinking about coming back. From what I've seen, for the first time there's at least an awareness in the Wikipedia culture that driving off newbies at the current rate isn't productive. I'll be following these discussion with great interest over the next months. then I'll decide whether it's worth the investment of my time. My first impression is that it's still well-nigh impossible to learn all the rules (and they are rules, not guidelines) and still have a chance at working on anything without someone intentionally being disruptive because that's what the system permits. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.16.99.82 (talk) 07:24, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Intervention needed

There has been disruptive editing on Sophie Hunter's page (see discussion on Talk:Sophie_Hunter#Cites_for_18_February_2015_edits) due to a user insisting of editing when all his/her rational are in violation of ALL Wikipedia:Core content policies. The version of the page is currently fine but please monitor User:Avianax as he/she has been reverting this for the past two days.190.173.127.211 (talk) 05:55, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Greetings!

Hello everyone! I am new to editing on Wikipedia and have a question that I am hoping someone can answer. If a webpage has several references that are dead links, how do I go through and update those reference links? After some research, I found the articles that are being referenced on the webpage with what I am assuming are updated URLs. So again my question is how do I go through and update the URL on the reference link? Does that make sense? Let me know if you need further clarification. The page I am currently working on with this issue is Hannah Atkins. Amcdougal (talk) 17:37, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Hi @Amcdougal: For future reference, note that you're currently on the Teahouse's talk page, which is about discussing the Teahouse itself. Questions on editing Wikipedia go at Wikipedia:Teahouse/Questions. That being said: If a link is dead, and there is an updated URL, you can simply go ahead and replace the URL in the article with the updated one. If one is not available, WP:DEADLINK offers some other options, including using the Wayback Machine to find any archived versions of the page. ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 06:39, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Nominating new user for guidance

New user TheWhistleGag could use some gentle guidance. Loads of good faith, seems intelligent and agreeable, definitely someone with lots of potential that we want to keep around. But they're moving pages and stuff and need some help accomplishing what they want to do in the proper way. A2soup (talk) 21:39, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Specialist in Japanese Politics /History

Is there any board or group of editors when in need for help in terms of Japanese Politics/Nationalism/History – apart from the Wikiproject Japan? Not much seems to go on that project page.--Catflap08 (talk) 11:16, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Leonardo Gagliano

Move that pls somebody to -> Gagliano Neto. This man is unknown as Leonardo Gagliano. Link added to the article. Cheers, 115.69.63.229 (talk) 12:34, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

RfC about Referencing tutorial

Pls see Help talk:Referencing for beginners#RfC: What method first -- Moxy (talk) 15:46, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Ask question button not working properly

@Tafeax reported that they couldn't post a question using the "Ask a question" button. I tried it, and it posted my test question at the bottom of the page. RockMagnetist(talk) 14:56, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

Resolved
. Thanks for the ping. This may have been simply user confusion, seems to have worked for them shortly thereafter, Wikipedia:Teahouse/Questions#Question. - J-Mo Talk to Me Email Me 22:55, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

Just dropping by

Good morning! My name is Ceannlann gorm, and I'm a recent addition to the editor hordes here on Wikipedia. My interests include strategy games & RPGs*, aerospace/spaceflight, robotics, and Military History & Technology. So far I've gotten a great welcome in the 4 days or so that I've been a member (long time lurker/hit & run anon editor before that), thanks very much for that. See ye around! Ceannlann gorm (talk) 11:15, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

(*Though I have been known to play the odd game of Team Fortress/TF2 among other things...)

TWA

The Wikipedia Adventure

Learn to edit Wikipedia in under an hour! Come on a journey full of real skills, tips, helpers, rewards, and support.

Play The Wikipedia Adventure

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Ocaasi (talk • contribs) 19:00, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Glad you're advertizing the wikipedia adventure, but this isn't the right place to do it. the correct place would probably be your profile. Valehd (talk) 18:40, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

Adding a picture to a page

Do you happen to know how to add an image to a page? — Preceding unsigned comment added by OfficialJeffMartin (talk • contribs) 19:30, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Idea

I am not sure but somebody would have already asked it.
Can there something be done to Teahouse so that unanswered questions have some notice (either in bold or a tag on it like {{unanswered}}) for those questions which has not been answered yet?
Sometimes, I see some user's question goes down (under other questions:) and other were actually answered quickly but not his/her
aGastya  ✉ let's have a constructive talk about it (: 15:59, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

Subsequently posted at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 136#Idea and Wikipedia:Bot requests/Archive 63#Unanswered questions, please see WP:MULTI. --Redrose64 (talk) 08:24, 8 April 2015 (UTC)
This could be a HostBot task, but I'm leery of having a bot post on the Teahouse Q&A page very often, because it's high traffic and having the bot post there is likely lead to increased edit conflicts. How about we just put a do not archive template on any thread that hasn't been answered and is in danger of disappearing? - J-Mo Talk to Me Email Me 21:08, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

Use of Answered template

I know this has been discussed before (and if I find the archive link I'll add it) but I recall that current consensus is not to mark questions as answered because despite the wording of {{Answered}} not precluding further answers, the existence of the border and the background colour are a visual deterrent and the intention was not to dissuade anyone from adding to answers.

Happy for the issue to be discussed and reconsidered again as consensus isn't permanent but would like the discussion to happen before the change is made. Nthep (talk) 11:46, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

Yes, that was the rationale last time I saw this issue raised, I believe. Cheers, - J-Mo Talk to Me Email Me 20:34, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

Hello

Hi, I'm fairly new to Wikipedia. How does this place work? Shiny Son (talk) 17:32, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

Notice of IRC proposal

There is a proposal related to Wikipedia's live help at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#IRC help channel disclaimer. PHANTOMTECH (talk) 16:46, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

Interesting! I'll support this proposal (though I think the "RTFM" language is unhelpful and unfriendly) because anything that makes the user experience of Freenode Webchat more newbie-friendly is a good thing. Though I'll say that no one ever uses the Teahouse IRC channel. :( - J-Mo Talk to Me Email Me 16:01, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Teahouse in HuffPo

Nice Teahouse shout-out in this recent HuffPo article! Good work, y'all. - J-Mo Talk to Me Email Me 16:08, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

VisualEditor

Hey, while I'm over here anyway, are you all getting many questions about VisualEditor? I see that User:Ceyockey mentioned it yesterday, but I don't see it mentioned much in the archives (by spelled-out name, anyway). If you run into problems, you can always ping me. The 1,000,000th edit in VisualEditor at en.wp was made last month, but it's kind of low-profile, especially for new users. There are a couple of things you might want to know about:

  • The user guide at mediawiki.org is usually in better shape than the one here. It gets copied back here every now and again, but most of the actual editing work happens there, because it's the central point for all the wikis. I'm hoping to have another go at updating it with lots of new screenshots soon. I would really value your perspective, as editors who understand new editors' actual needs better than anyone else, on what's good or bad about that page. Please feel free to get in touch. Talk page messages over there are great, but {{ping}} me anywhere. (Or just boldly edit, if you don't mind working around the complicated translation markup, but I know it's a huge pain.)
  • mw:Citoid is totally awesome, at least for common URLs and DOIs to popular journals. Just paste in the URL or doi, click the button, and get the fully formatted citation back. (Don't forget to 'Insert' it if you're happy with what it gave you, and then Save the whole page.) Links to Google Books also work, but direct ISBN support hasn't been added yet. Please try it out (you might need to opt in to VisualEditor) and let me know what you think at WP:VEF.
  • There's an upcoming GettingStarted-style experiment for newbies. The link to the draft is here, but I don't know how much might change. If you get more questions about VisualEditor during the last week of April, that's probably why. Ping me whenever you need help. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:27, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

NICE

Has anyone here tried User:EpochFail/NICE (used for an experiment a few years ago)? It seemed to help with editor retention. I'm not sure that it's still working, but I wonder if people here would like to see something like this in use. (Please {{ping}} me; I'm reaching watchlist bankruptcy again.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:21, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

Hey EpochFail, does NICE still work? - J-Mo Talk to Me Email Me 16:03, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
Hey folks! I actually did a substantial amount of work towards releasing a second release of NICE that incorporated a lot of feedback from users. That fizzled when it wasn't clear that there would be a user base and I got interested in other things for my PhD work. If there's substantial interest, I'd like to revive it. I could do some cool things with WP:Snuggle integration now too.  :) --EpochFail (talk • contribs) 16:08, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
EpochFail, I'm interested, and I think that it might be interesting to see if WPMED would go for it. Is it possible to get a 'custom' message, like "If you want a better source here, then try replacing the source rather than leaving the material unsourced"? We've got a bit of a problem with people reverting the addition of peer-reviewed primary sources because they're "not MEDRS". WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:13, 17 April 2015 (UTC)
So I'd need to detect that a reference is being removed in a revert -- or are you imagining that every revert on a medical article would have this message? --EpochFail (talk • contribs) 14:09, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Copy editing

Hello guys!

I have just built up an article. I am not a native speaker of English, and I felt my mind to be almost blown up at the end :D It would be just perfect if someone will make some copy editing. The article contains some translated excerpts from sources, so it is possible to edit them as well, but with care! ;)

The article is here!

Thank you! --Sterndmitri (talk) 00:19, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

submitting articles for publish

Hello I currently have my article in my sandbox how do I make it an official wikipedia post. I am sort of confused too because I thought our sandboxes were private but I had another person go in their and edit my entry and add some things and so now when I search up HolyShip which is the post I am doing it on it comes up on the internet. Please help with what I should do next.


username: justine7estrada — Preceding unsigned comment added by Justine7estrada (talk • contribs) 20:19, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

Proposal to add global JavaScript

There is an ongoing discussion that watchers of this page may be interested in on Proposal to add global JavaScript and add an extra step for new users to get live IRC help. — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 19:42, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Top posting

Everyone in this project is invited to comment on a discussion on Phabricator in ticket T33919 about the ability to top post being added to the MediaWiki software itself. This could resolve some of the issues with new posts being driven to the bottom of the page. — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 01:46, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

Is this to facilitate top posting, or to prevent it? I think that the reliance on top posting is wrong. It leads new editors to think that top-posting is the rule, rather than being a weird exception here. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:10, 11 May 2015 (UTC)
  • That's not really up for debate as @Jtmorgan and Heatherawalls: and the Foundation created this project and said it will be top posting, or at least that is my understanding of that. New posts to this Q&A board should be top posting (and already are if the "Ask a question" script is properly used, it only fails for those without JavaScript that use the "add a new section" link). — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 15:45, 11 May 2015 (UTC)
WMF designed and launched Teahouse, but they don't run it. That said, there is no evidence that using a reverse-chronological approach to discussion threading causes harm to newbies or to Wikipedia. BTW, thanks, T13, for reviving the bug thread! I'm watching it closely and am happy to chime in if needed. Cheers, - J-Mo Talk to Me Email Me 17:01, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

Test on new editors again

I've got an update for you: They've finally scheduled a start date for the A/B test about VisualEditor (test details on Meta). There were some problems with the logging software, so they're going to start with a 24-hour test on 21 May to make sure that everything's working. Then about a week later (if it's all working), then the real test will start on 28 May and run for a week. I plan to check in every few days, but if you've got questions or need help with VisualEditor at any time, please {{ping}} me or leave a note on my user talk page. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 16:54, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

Invitation to comment on VP proposal: Establish WT:MoS as the official site for style Q&A on Wikipedia

There is now a proposal at the Village Pump that WT:MoS be established as Wikipedia's official page for style Q&A. This would involve actively guiding editors with style questions to WT:MoS and away from other pages. Participation is welcome, especially from editors who have experience dealing with style questions or editors seeking help in general.

For the purposes of this discussion, "style" refers to things like spelling, organization, punctuation, capitalization and other types of writing mechanics. Darkfrog24 (talk) 19:20, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

Request an account process needs help

Hello everyone, I'm John F. Lewis, an administrator on Wikipedia's account creation interface. Recently, our project has had an increased backlog in getting accounts for new users. Our numbers are currently over 400 people waiting for accounts on the English Wikipedia. If you could even spare a moment to do a few requests a day to help us clear this backlog, that would go a long way to encouraging new editors to participate with an account. If this interests you and you're willing to help, and you match the following description, then please do apply! Ideal users are:

We have a very friendly team to help you get started, we also have a private IRC channel where you can ask questions or get help with difficult account requests. If you have any questions for us or about the process, feel free to ask at the talk page. If you can help out, we would greatly appreciate it. For the ACC team, John F. Lewis (talk) 18:04, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

A link to the Images needing articles page

Please feel free to comment at Wikipedia talk:Community portal#A link to the Images needing articles page.

Thank you. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 01:34, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Persondata has been officially deprecated

Persondata has been deprecated and the template and input data are subject to removal from all bio articles in the near future. For those editors who took the time to enter accurate data into the persondata templates of biography subjects, you are advised to manually transfer that data to Wikidata before the impending mass deletion occurs in order to preserve such data. Here are two examples of Wikidata for notable baseball players: Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb. If you have any more questions about the persondata removal, Wikidata, etc., please ping me. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 13:15, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Request to join the Teahouse

Hi to anyone who is in charge, I would love to join the Teahouse and would like to know where to go around to apply to join. Many thanks in advance Kandiwell 21:57, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

You can jump right in and post a message at Wikipedia:Teahouse/Questions. If you want you can post your profile at Wikipedia:Teahouse/Guests but it's not necessary. Did you look at Wikipedia:Teahouse before you posted here? (If you have some feedback about how that page looks and if you think it's confusing, then please let us know!) — Jeraphine Gryphon (talk) 08:25, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Minimum requirements for hosts?

I was wondering if there has been any discussion here about having some minimum requirements for editors answering questions here. An example would be that the account had to be at least a month (or 3 months) old or have at least 100 (or 500) edits. I often see editors answering questions here that have less editing experience than the editors who come here asking questions. This would not be a problem if the advice they gave was sound but it is often straight-up wrong! And it is very confusing to the editors who come to the Teahouse to have multiple answers posted which fundamentally disagree (eg, "This is NEVER allowed", "No, it's allowed under these conditions...").
I would estimate for every answer I see posted at the Teahouse, at least 1 out of 10 is simply inaccurate or wrong. It seems like the veteran hosts are extremely tolerant and welcoming toward newcomers but editors who come to the Teahouse should be able to rely on the answers they get and not get answers that contradict each other. I realize that new editors are trying to be helpful but the Teahouse should not be a place to "learn by doing" for brand new users, they should be getting their experience actually editing articles, not handing out advice to content creators facing article deletion or copyright issues. Just my two cents. Liz Read! Talk! 21:05, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

I too have noticed the same thing and I find it very distressing. I just this second saw an answer from a user I've never seen before, telling someone to upload a logo to Commons, a quite incorrect answer. And if you try to engage some of these kids, for lack of a better phrase, they become straight up combative. WE NEED A MINIMUM. Teahouse is going to go down the tubes if we don't. John from Idegon (talk) 06:38, 28 May 2015 (UTC)
I agree that we need a minimum number of edits, perhaps 500, but even more so, competence is required. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 14:49, 28 May 2015 (UTC)
I think the number of edits is not really a helpful indication of competency, I've made 52,837 edits but don't feel that confident about giving correct answers here! Theroadislong (talk) 14:56, 28 May 2015 (UTC)
Unfortunately the only way I can see competence is required being enforced is to require people who answer questions to be hosts and to have some sort of approval process for becoming a host. A minimum number of edits (I would go with 1,000) is a good first step. --NeilN talk to me 15:47, 28 May 2015 (UTC)
We could make a guideline like 1000 edits but choose to only politely point users to the guideline if their answers are problematic. In many cases I think it's new users who come to post a question and follow the answers, but then see other questions and think they know enough to help out. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:00, 28 May 2015 (UTC)
What are we solving for here? A 90% hit rate is pretty good. And if someone gets combative, there are already community processes for addressing that kind of behavior. I don't hang out on the Q&A page much, so I guess I have to ask other old-timers: in your opinion, has the amount of disruption caused by inexperienced hosts increased since 2012? Is it making the Teahouse sucky for participants for other hosts? For guests? - J-Mo Talk to Me Email Me 16:33, 28 May 2015 (UTC)
We're solving for the Dunning–Kruger effect. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 20:09, 28 May 2015 (UTC)
Well, to be specific, what prompted this initial comment was User:CryOceD, a user who after a week as an editor, came to the Teahouse and proceeded to answer just about every single question asked, often with incorrect information and usually very flippantly. He was eventually [not to answer questions here]. But he is far from the only example of this, I have frequently seen new editors who initially come to the Teahouse to ask questions but who return here to answer questions when they have very little actual experience. It only really dawned on me how ridiculous this was when I saw some editors coming to the Teahouse who have had accounts for over a year and had very specific questions but they were answered by editors who might have just been editing for a few weeks or months. I think because the Teahouse is an unusually welcoming and friendly environment (for Wikipedia), there are some new editors who just like to hang out there. Liz Read! Talk! 00:12, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

That's a bit too scholarly for me, but not entirely off-base. I know that we are drifting far far away from the original goals here, and I cannot for the life of me even remember where they were written. Help was intended to be friendly, starting with a greeting and ending with a salutation. We were not to rely on providing links, but explain it in simple terms (maybe with a link afterwords). We were NOT supposed to just fix it for them, which I see a lot of now (reference WK's comment above). Maybe do one so they could see and let them do the rest. Teach a man to fish..... Unfortunately, we have no mechanism to lock bad hosts out other than take them to a drama board or hopefully convince them to stop. At AfC, you cannot review a draft without the script, you cannot get the script without being a signed AfC reviewer and you cannot sign to be one without someone checking your editing history. I wish one of the originators of Teahouse would chime in here. Pinging Missvain, I JethroBT. Perhaps they might have some insight. John from Idegon (talk) 20:30, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Well, I'm one of those :) Probably the only one who's currently active in the project, mostly as bot maintainer. Heatherawalls also keeps tabs on things. Writ Keeper and Cullen328 are founding hosts, and know the original goals of the project as well as anyone. According to the Host expectations, they are:
  • Welcome everyone
  • Be polite and patient
  • Keep it simple
  • Avoid over-linking
  • Leave a talkback notification (this was before Notifications was a thing).
According to the project plan, they are:
  • Improve editor retention among promising new editors, especially those from groups that are currently underrepresented (e.g. women), through pro-active outreach and invitations to engage.
  • Give new users a place where they can easily and comfortably ask questions and receive explanations without fear of being bitten, to make them more confident editors.
  • Model a social approach to new user support, help and socialization into the community distinct from existing 1 on 1 support models (i.e. mentorships, adoption programs, OTRS) and self-support options (i.e. help pages, tutorials).
  • Give new users a place to interact with one another and provide peer support as they learn to do things the Wikipedia way.
  • Provide a space that is specifically designed for new users which is visually appealing, interactive, and communicates a clear sense of purpose. The space will feature warm colors, inviting pictorial and thematic elements, simple mechanisms for communicating, and a warm welcome from real people.

Preventing new users from answering questions runs counter to project goal #4 (peer support), and IMO against Expectation #1 (welcome everyone). - J-Mo Talk to Me Email Me 23:49, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Did this come from the WMF? As it misses a key element: "...receive simple and accurate explanations..." How is getting multiple conflicting explanations helping new editors gain more confidence? --NeilN talk to me 00:21, 4 June 2015 (UTC)
I think that a strong expectation of accuracy is implicit for all who answer, whether formal hosts or not. Let me put it this way: If a new editor answers questions accurately and in line with those expectations, then I have no problem with their participation. But if an editor, whether new or experienced, provides a series of incorrect answers, or lacks English competency, or brings conflict to the Teahouse, then I will ask that editor to stop answering, and expect other experienced hosts to ask the same. As for the talkback template, I now ping the OP, which is quicker, and in my opinion, just as effective. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 02:50, 4 June 2015 (UTC)
NeilN The project goals were developed by the project team, which was two Fellows (basically grantees) and two staff. But WMF doesn't dictate how the Teahouse runs. Getting multiple, conflicting responses isn't helpful--I agree. For me, it's a trade off: do we keep the Teahouse open, and accept that that will probably result in more bad advice; or do we close it up a bit, and accept that that will probably result in more new editors feeling like their contributions aren't as legitimate as those of "real" Wikipedians. I prefer openness as default, like Cullen328. - J-Mo Talk to Me Email Me 20:22, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
J-Mo, I don't agree with your conclusion about restrictions affecting new editors' feelings if the rationale behind the restriction is explained properly. There are already lots of things regular editors (new or otherwise) can't do (e.g., protect pages, look at deleted articles, run the AFC helper script). These limitations don't say, "we value your contributions" less. What might really help matters is implementing a form of pending changes. This would require a Mediawiki software change but if new helpers' posts could be reviewed by hosts or experienced Wikipedians before going live that would cut down on poor answers. Once the new helper gave a few good answers, their posts would not get flagged any more. But I foresee this requiring a not-trivial software change so I don't expect it to happen. Perhaps when Flow is implemented :-) --NeilN talk to me 23:02, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
The best, quickest and most practical solution is a personalized one. If someone gave 20 good answers and then messed up one, correct the error and move on. If another editor flubs answers consistently, it is up to the experienced hosts to go to their talk page and ask them to desist until they gain a better understanding of policies and guidelines. Let's all be more bold in doing so. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 23:30, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

IRC proposal

I just came across Wikipedia talk:IRC/wikipedia-en-help where editors who frequent IRC channels are discussing qualifications to be a "helper". I think the initial proposal is worth considering for the Teahouse although it hasn't won approval yet:

Voiced (+v) channel members provide assistance to those who need help. A user may request to be voiced if they meet the following qualifications:

  1. The user must have at least 250 total edits on Wikimedia projects (check)
  2. The user's Wikimedia account must be at least 3 months old
  3. The user must be in good standing on Wikimedia projects and related IRC channels

Inappropriate conduct, including poor and incorrect answers or incivility, may lead to the removal of voice and the expectation that the user stop trying to help other users. Failure to do so, or further inappropriate conduct, may result in removal from the channel.

Users who are currently blocked and/or banned from English Wikipedia will not be permitted to help or idle in the channel.

Looking over the discussion here, I can see that there are editors who would prefer the suitability of editors to answer questions be decided on a case-by-case basis but since this same issue is being debated elsewhere on Wikipedia, I thought I'd present the IRC proposal as one alternative. Liz Read! Talk! 11:09, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Archiving failure

Just to point out that the daily archiving has not run since 5 June. There are now 92 questions on the current page, some dating back 9 days. Teahouse mandarins may wish to deal: Noyster (talk), 06:31, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

MiszaBot doesn't seem to be doing its job so I archived questions posted June 1-5. There were 110+ questions on the main question page!
But it would be preferable to find an automatic archiving tool that functions well. For one thing, when done manually, you need to reverse the order of the questions from newest>oldest to oldest>newest. Liz Read! Talk! 11:47, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

new editor who may need some teahouse comfort

Hi, I have stumbled across the following new editor (90731fly) who may be feeling a little bruised after having dipped their toes into the maelstorm of Wikipedia. Is there a teahouse editor who is willing to take them under their wing? thanks Coolabahapple (talk) 16:30, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

"Ask a question" button adds questions to the bottom

I've gotten the impression that the "Ask a question" button and associated input mask sometimes (always?) adds the new entry at the bottom of the list rather than the top. It's happened to me twice, and I had to move it to the top manually. Not going to test it out extensively now because I don't want to cause interruptions - but could someone who understands the script in question have a look at the functionality? --Elmidae (talk) 10:01, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

@Elmidae: I just performed a test and it did top post. That doesn't mean it isn't doing it sometimes, when certain conditions are present that I am technically incompetent to even guess at, but at least it answers the question of whether it's "always" doing so. Since you say it happened to you twice recently, it would probably be good if you gave some technical details so that someone who can figure this stuff out could think of what it might be. Is it possible it could be affected by what browser you were using? Something in your post?

Of course, even though we can't tell from a new post whether it was placed manually at the top or using the ask a question button, the very fact that post everywhere else on Wikipedia are bottom posted and users rarely top post by accident means that since recent new sections were top posted probably means the button was used and worked for those.

On the other hand, the last two new sections before my test were bottom posted, though that might just mean they were manually placed or used the new section button (i.e., engaging the attractive nuisance and false teaching this page presents of reversing what is done everywhere else).--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 17:32, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

VisualEditor update

Hi everyone, I just wanted to give you a link to the results of the study I mentioned earlier. The results were posted at m:Research:VisualEditor's effect on newly registered editors/May 2015 study last week. I didn't see anyone asking about VisualEditor at the Teahouse during the test, but I thought I'd post it in case anyone was interested. Basically, the net outcome is the same, except that new editors who have access to VisualEditor are slightly less likely to be reverted.

There's also a related proposal at the Village Pump to give new users both VisualEditor and the wikitext editor, and let them choose which one to use. They'd get exactly the same setup as you get by going to Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-betafeatures and enabling VisualEditor.

By the way, if you haven't tried it out for a while and don't want to bother opting in (although I know a lot of Teahouse folks have it turned on so you can handle the occasional question), then you can have a quick look on a random article (requires Javascript). And, as always, if you get questions about VisualEditor, then feel free to reach out to me. I'm happy to support you. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:11, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

Deprecated cite parameters

When creating the article Jet mill I used Wikipedia citation tool for Google Books to help me get the citations formatted exactly correct. Now I see the page is on Pages containing cite templates with deprecated parameters. Unfortunately, nothing tells me which parameters are deprecated, but I see that the citation tool used the 'coauthor' parameter, which happens to be on the no-no list.

I can guess about which parameters to fix, but I know of no way I can quickly verify that I have corrected all the problems. What can I do to verify that my citations are correct?

How can I get the citation tool fixed?

I will be watching this space. Comfr (talk) 02:35, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

Hi, Comfr. This is a question much better suited to the folks at The Village Pump. This page is for discussion of issues relating to the operation of the Teahouse, and WP:Teahouse/Questions, where I think you intended to ask this, is for new editors to ask questions about editing. This is a technical question, and the folks over at the pump are much better suited to answer it. Thanks! John from Idegon (talk) 03:01, 26 June 2015 (UTC)
Done. Thanks.Comfr (talk) 03:08, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

Hi guys, could someone help me please

I was sent here and hoped I could get some guidence with my first EVER Wikipedia article. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:World_Youth_Organization

Can someone help me please?

Best — Preceding unsigned comment added by Biotiteegg (talk • contribs) 15:41, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

@Biotiteegg: Wikipedia:Teahouse/Questions. — Jeraphine Gryphon (talk) 17:18, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

need help in editing by wikipidea Indian authors/editors

I am writing about various civil servants of India ..who are really helpful to the people ..right now I am writing on "sridhar babu addanki [[4]]", please do help in editing to make the article elegant and in a proper manner ..the article has been deleted once due to poor references .I managed to get proper references now and I am writing in sandbox ..please do edit the article and help me to get it in main stream --swaroop 12:05, 3 July 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sakthi swaroop (talk • contribs)

This page is for discussing the Teahouse, please direct questions about Wikipedia to the Teahouse Q&A forum. Thank you. — Jeraphine Gryphon (talk) 11:13, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

Where can I practice citations?

I hope this done well, I think I went on the citations talk page, but it appears as it may look like the piece or as someone wrote back, saying it was an article, I did not realize that this may have been part of an actual citation article, I was looking to do some practicing on citations, I feel comfortable with putting in the blue letterings for words for the encyclopedia, but I have no idea on how to write the citation for a raised 1 or a raised 2 or so on so it will give credence to a real or more permanent article, I like to kind of know where a line is not to be crossed, so I am able to not disturb the small intrqcies of the encyclopedia, I totally understand where small problems in such things as not having a reference in article can lead to something that is a fallacy or may not be of general consensus, okay so I am going to try and put what is called reference type of thing, I hope this goes well, it is an article from MIT which I am assuming, [1]. Hopefully this is put in correctly, does everything look okay? LostinGod (talk) 23:07, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Massachusetts Institute of technology, "What Does It Mean to Cite?"" MIT Academic Integrity." http://web.MIT.edu/academic integrity citing/what and why.html.
This page is for discussing the Teahouse, please direct questions about Wikipedia to the Teahouse Q&A forum. Thank you. — Jeraphine Gryphon (talk) 11:13, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia-en-help (IRC) needs you!

Hi all helpers. If you enjoy helping new users, consider coming over to the IRC help channel #wikipedia-en-help (#wikipedia-en-help connect) to help new users in a live chat! We're in need of more helpers, particularly in the region of midnight to midday UTC, as many users are coming in to the channel to look for help and not getting it because no one is around. If you think you'd be interested you can just connect using that link (you may also want to join #wikipedia-en-helpers connect), and if you want to stick around with an identifier for you as a helper, apply for a cloak :) Thanks, Sam Walton (talk) 11:15, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

For a start to end guide to setting up an IRC client to join the channel and get helping, see User:Samwalton9/Live help guide. Feel free to contact me if you're having any issues. Sam Walton (talk) 17:21, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

Photo cropping

How do I request photos be cropped? I'd love to use these photos but matting white space is problematic.

Thanks. NotAnOmbudsman (talk) 14:46, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

@NotAnOmbudsman: This page is for discussing the Teahouse, please direct questions about Wikipedia to the Teahouse Q&A forum. Thank you. — Jeraphine Gryphon (talk) 15:33, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

What is photo-cropping? Algeria avemake (talk) 00:35, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

@Algeria avemake: See Cropping (image). PrimeHunter (talk) 00:52, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Helping out

Can I check whether I need to be a registered host to help answer queries posted at the teahouse, or can any editor answer them? Cordless Larry (talk) 17:22, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

I've occasionally wandered in there and given my unsolicited advice, haven't gotten arrested yet. :) It's not a problem if your answers are good and accurate. There have been problems though with newbies or other such types who give advice when they don't know what they're talking about. — Jeraphine Gryphon (talk) 18:53, 21 July 2015 (UTC)
Thanks, Jeraphine Gryphon. I'll give it a go. Cordless Larry (talk) 21:25, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

I

I was blocked in the past for adding goals to Football players wiki pages. Am I allowed to add goals for league matches without fear of some admin blocking me? EdmondCA (talk) 17:23, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

This page is for discussing the Teahouse, please direct questions about Wikipedia to the Teahouse Q&A forum. Thank you. — Jeraphine Gryphon (talk) 17:26, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
and, as it clearly says on your talk page, you weren't blocked for adding goals, you were blocked for sockpuppetry. Maproom (talk) 10:40, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Frequently Asked Questions

Does the Teahouse have a Frequently Asked Question list? If so, should a link to it be available on the Questions page? If not, should there be one? Maybe half of all of the questions that we get have to do with deleted or rejected articles, most often because they are promotional, but also for other reasons, such as being inadequately sourced. While some of the editors who come to the Teahouse won't bother to read an FAQ, some will, and we might not have to repeat the same answers so often. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:56, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

In particular, there is a general FAQ, Wikipedia:FAQ. The Help Desk has a link to it. The Teahouse also should. (I think that it needs expansion of question 3, why was my article deleted, to add the most frequent reasons for deletion, but we should link to it anyway.) Robert McClenon (talk) 18:00, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

The WP:Teahouse page does have a link to the FAQ and other help pages. RudolfRed (talk) 20:05, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
The FAQ link isn't obvious, as I assume that you're referring to the one linked through {{Help navigation}} at the foot of the page; unfortunately that template defaults to |state=collapsed. In this case it may be worth altering the call to include |state=expanded. - David Biddulph (talk) 18:31, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
Hi Robert. When the Teahouse was established, it was intended to purposefully *not* have an FAQ. Every visitor to the Teahouse, usually brand new editors, were meant to receive full answers. There are many many information pages on Wikipedia, we didn't want to add more. Does that make sense? Thanks! heather walls (talk) 05:58, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
It makes a lot of sense to me, Heatherawalls. I oppose "canned" Teahouse answers, and try to personalize every answer I offer. Nice to hear from you. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 06:38, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Look I just want to ask...how to delete a page in Wikipedia ... Which is made by me ? Please tell me !! 

Shikhi720 (talk) 06:44, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Text of the standard Teahouse invitation

Hi folks. Recently, a discussion closed at TfD with consensus to merge {{Teahouse invitation TW}} and {{Teahouse invitation}} together. The former is a rarely used template, while the latter is very common. In the discussion, most editors appeared to prefer the language in the rarely used template over that in the common one. Before I go about implementing the consensus of the TfD, I'd like feedback on what functionality you all would like in the resulting template. We can either keep the text as it appears in {{Teahouse invitation}}, change the text entirely to what is in {{Teahouse invitation TW}}, or add an additional parameter that allows you to choose which of the two you prefer. Such an additional parameter would work like an on/off switch. If you omitted it, you would get one message. If you included it with a value of "yes", you would get a different message. If the on/off switch is preferred, a decision should be made on which of the two messages is the default and which requires the additional parameter. If you need any clarification on the details, let me know, but basically the questions I'm posing are which invitation message is preferred and whether the message that isn't preferred is worth holding onto in some fashion. Thanks! ~ RobTalk 01:15, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

This doesn't seem to have generated any responses. If no-one objects, my plan is to leave the common template as-is and just redirect the other template to it. If anyone cares to add the other message as an optional parameter at a later time, they're welcome to do that. I'll wait another day or two before redirecting. ~ RobTalk 01:03, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
 Done Let me know if anyone cares to have the alternative message incorporated in some way. ~ RobTalk 06:46, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
Sounds good to me. BTW, if you or anyone else is dissatisfied with the language used in the TH invite template ("awesome", etc.), you could adopt the language used in the version of the invite template that HostBot uses. Cheers, Jtmorgan (talk) 17:47, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

VisualEditor update

As announced at the Village Pump, VisualEditor is gradually being offered to newly registered accounts. This week, it affects only 5% of new accounts, so you probably won't notice anything. A few weeks from now, the percentage will probably (if all goes well) be noticeably higher. So this is your occasional reminder that if you get VisualEditor questions and that you don't know how to answer, you can always leave a note on my talk page. Also, please let me know if you run across any problems. Thanks, Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:18, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Thanks For your Feedback — Preceding unsigned comment added by Techzaada (talk • contribs) 08:33, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Quick update: As of today, all newly registered accounts (but not IPs/logged-out editors) will have access to both VisualEditor and the wikitext editor. (If the editor is using a very old browser or has disabled Javascript, then the account will technically be opted in, but it will look exactly the same as being opted-out.)
A lot of people seem to open up a page in both "Edit" and "Edit source" modes, so many of them will be familiar with the difference. I encourage hosts to opt-in if they haven't already and do the same. The main thing for Teahouse hosts to keep in mind is that if you say "just type this <long string of wikitext>", there's about a one-third chance that the editor will be using VisualEditor for that edit, and consequently that your instructions won't work. On the definitely positive side, there are some things that are much easier to do in VisualEditor (such as creating tables), and you can now recommend one editing tool or the other to brand-new accounts for each task, based on what you think will be easiest, without having to explain "First, go to your preferences and opt-in". For accounts that have been around for a while, it's still likely that the person doesn't have access. (50% for the last couple of weeks, 25% for the week or so before that, etc.)
As always, I am very interested in any feedback from Teahouse hosts or new editors about VisualEditor. You can {{ping}} me to any discussion or leave a note at WP:VEF. Thanks, Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:20, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for the update, Whatamidoing (WMF)! Jtmorgan (talk) 18:11, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
There's now also a proposal at VPPR that might interest you. It's driven by a tech/WP:PERF problem, which is that the servers don't like to have a million accounts opted in or out of anything, and VisualEditor is on track to have a million accounts opted in via Beta Features (the most "expensive" way to set a pref) by the end of the year. Since they have to move VisualEditor out of the "expensive" Beta Features system and into regular prefs anyway, they have the opportunity to go back and pick up the new accounts that were "missed" during the gradual deployment. (For example, during the gradual deployment process, when 25% of accounts got access to both VisualEditor and the wikitext editor, then the other 75% of accounts obviously didn't get VisualEditor. This proposal is about opting in the 75% of accounts that missed out on VisualEditor during that week.) Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:56, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Article links

I've noticed when answering questions here during the last couple of weeks that many (perhaps most) of the new editors who post at the Teahouse don't seem aware of how to link to articles. Sometimes they post a URL link, but more often than not, they don't link to or even mention the name of the article being discussed. Is there a way that we could remind editors of how to do this when they post their questions at the Teahouse? It would be a useful learning experience for them, and would also make it easier for those answering questions. Cordless Larry (talk) 14:56, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps an improvement could be made to Template:Editnotices/Page/Wikipedia:Teahouse/Questions? --David Biddulph (talk) 16:22, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
Yes, that would be a good option. Would it also be possible to add something to the box that appears when a user clicks "ask a question". Cordless Larry (talk) 11:32, 15 August 2015 (UTC)
Anyone else? My guess would be that the majority of posts either don't contain a link, or contain an incorrectly formatted one. It might save time spent asking which article posters are referring to or making this kind of edit. Cordless Larry (talk) 22:20, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
It is helpful to us if posters specify which article they are asking about, and even more helpful if they do so by using a correctly formatted link. But using Wikipedia competently involves learning a lot of stuff, and is quite stressful. People ask questions because they are having difficulties with all the stuff they need to learn; and telling them "before you can ask a question, you must go and learn a load more stuff, irrelevant to your actual question" is seriously off-putting. Often, we can figure out what article they mean from their edit history; and there's certainly no need to make them worry about the format of their link. Maproom (talk) 22:36, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
Sure, we definitely don't want to put new editors off from posting here. I reckon that something worded along the lines of "If you have a query about a specific article, you can link to it by..." wouldn't put people off, but maybe it's not a runner. Cordless Larry (talk) 22:42, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

It's not just here. The problem of users so often not telling us what specific situation and page their question concerns (and not linking) has generated more than one conversations at the help desk talk page. See e.g., here. You'll see in that thread that I suggested some language, and User:PrimeHunter tweaked it. Maybe we can use something like that at the top of the Teahouse question submission form. I think placing language there would be a much more direct way of getting this across – more apt to have an effect – than it would in an edit notice. The question submission form currently says "Write out your question in the textbox below." We could add this language right after it:
Write out your question in the textbox below. If possible, please be specific in your question rather than general and link to any page or article your question involves, or at least tell us the title of the page.
Any such change would be made by editing MediaWiki:Gadget-teahouse/content.js.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 17:10, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

Link? What's a link? It's not something to suggest they study before asking their real question. "Please be specific if you can. If it's about an article, name it". If they know how to link, they will also know why it's a good thing; otherwise they can still ask. Jim.henderson (talk) 14:19, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
If no one noticed I added in language quite some time ago.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 14:14, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
Thanks, Fuhghettaboutit. I'm not sure if it's made much difference, but it's worth a try. Cordless Larry (talk) 22:43, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
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