Wikipedia:Help desk

Need help finding sources

I'm writing about seat belt signs on vehicles such as cars and aircraft. Searching for related terms brings up blogs. Is there any way to find reliable sources for a subject such as this? --ABx11 (she/they) 22:08, 19 October 2026 (UTC)

It's very very possible that "seatbelt signs" is just not a topic that reliable sources have wanted to publish about. If that's the case, then an article isn't possible - not until reliable sources change their minds and publish. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 22:19, 19 October 2026 (UTC)

@TooManyFingers if that ends up being the case, where would be a good place to write about them? --ABx11 (she/they) 22:42, 19 October 2026 (UTC)

My first guess is Seat belt - maybe there's better but I'm not sure. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 00:57, 20 October 2026 (UTC)

But not in any article unless you have reliable sources; maybe what you actually meant was Wikipedia:Alternative outlets, where there are recommendations for places outside of Wikipedia. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 01:02, 20 October 2026 (UTC)

(The problem with blogs isn't topic notability, it's that we flat-out don't believe them.) TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 01:07, 20 October 2026 (UTC)

@ABx11 You've stumbled into a common mistake here called writing articles backward. Wikipedia articles start from the sources, not the prose. If you want to write an article about a topic, the way to go about it is to first look for usable sources and then summarise what those sources say; that makes up the core of your article. If you do the reverse, write down whatever you know or want to include and then try to look for sources to corroborate that information, you end up with the potential of wasting your own time because it turns out the topic isn't notable and now you've written a lot of prose that you can't use unless you figure out somewhere else to put it.

Help:Your first article might be useful for you in guiding you through the process of writing an article. Athanelar (talk) 06:08, 20 October 2026 (UTC)

@ABx11, have you tried Google Scholar and/or the Wikipedia Library? Both of those should focus more on scholarly works, if such works exist. Meadowlark (talk) 05:38, 24 October 2026 (UTC)

No, Meadowlark. Which sources within TWL do you suggest? --ABx11 (she/they) 18:33, 26 October 2026 (UTC)

ProQuest and JSTOR, ABx11. -- Hoary (talk)^WWU 👍︎ 21:30, 26 October 2026 (UTC) (≠Meadowlark)

Cool, but what kind of articles would be good sources? Like when I search seat belt sign, I get results like:

• Schooling and Seat Belt Use
• The Effects of Mandatory Seat Belt Laws on Driving Behavior and Traffic Fatalities
• Biomechanics of Seat Belt Design

I'm not particularly good at search queries, so please bear with me here. --ABx11 (she/they) 01:13, 27 October 2026 (UTC)

Well, if you want to write an article about them, your goal will be to find good sources. A good source meets all three criteria in WP:42. Often that means you'll have to look through a lot of sources to find the good ones. I think your biggest hurdle is going to be finding sources that specifically discuss seat belt signs; from the titles you've listed here, it sounds like most if not all sources are likely to discuss seat belts. Seat belts are obviously a related subject, but sources that focus on seat belts and not signs are no use to you. Usually three or more good sources mean an article is possible, the trick is finding them. Meadowlark (talk) 01:47, 27 October 2026 (UTC)

@ABx11 Seat belt signs? I'll try to say this gently -- that's extremely niche. You can certainly collect examples for yourself, and perhaps post those somewhere (else) on the 'net (as mentioned by TooManyFingers).

You can use blogs as sources if you're creating your own social media or blog post. That's one advantage of not trying to put a topic like that into an encyclopedia. David10244 (talk) 03:53, 26 October 2026 (UTC)

Geohack links

My huge personal project involves me adding hyperlinks on cells of spreadsheets which lead to your very own Geohack map pages.

On the string of code which I input there is php after the second use of the word Geohack. I noticed that none of your links to maps worked today. I presume that your tech boffins are busy on a workaround solution. I look forward to the return of the Geohack pages soon. Will I need to add any patch to my own desktop PC?

Please let me know. Dangeoh1 (talk) 22:24, 21 October 2026 (UTC)

GeoHack is temporarily down as fallout from Php2shell. It will be back eventually with no action from you. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 22:33, 21 October 2026 (UTC)

@Dangeoh1 The PHP security issue is mostly related to the PHP code that is running on web-page host servers.

If you are not running any PHP code on your own desktop PC, and if your PC does not host any Web pages, you should not need to patch anything.

(You can't really apply the new patch if you don't have a PHP instance (or a PHP interpreter/compiler?) to apply the patch to.) David10244 (talk) 04:20, 26 October 2026 (UTC)

Reporting false information

good day,

I accidentally noticed false information on an article and then went on an editor's logs and saw they are doing it repeatedly on a specific issue. I contacted an actual journalist in order to go over it, but I would like to know how to report this issue? ~2026-56457-41 (talk) 23:25, 21 October 2026 (UTC)

Vague requests like this result in worthless responses. Can you be more specific? —Jéské Couriano v^_^v ^{Thriller Night!} 23:27, 21 October 2026 (UTC)

Hello, @~2026-56457-41. We don't "report" content issues (i.e. disagreement about what should be in an article): we do our best to discuss them with the other editor(s) involved, and try and reach consensus - if that is not working, then dispute resolution says how to proceed.

What we can report is intractable behavioural issues: if another editor is refusing to engage in discussion, for example, or if a consensus has been reached and that other editor continues to edit against that consensus, then you can report them at WP:ANI. But read the information at the top of that page carefully before you do so. ColinFine (talk) 12:40, 22 October 2026 (UTC)

I would also suggest reading WP:TRUTH. 331dot (talk) 12:49, 22 October 2026 (UTC)

@~2026-56457-41 For issues like this, it helps to name the article(s) where you saw the issue(s). The issues should be discussed on the Talk page of each article.

In addition to reading WP:TRUTH, as mentioned, please click on and read WP:BRD. David10244 (talk) 04:25, 26 October 2026 (UTC)

Email

Mentionded before - nead to give my 2 emails to your site, so I can open them on my computer and send to people... Want to have it ASAP, and for many years! Also, I can't open my emails now sow please reply on my phone number ((Redacted)) and leave a message on it when I don't answer please. I do nead to know how to sign on to your site please. Thanks, - John Markham Johny G. Markham (talk) 00:22, 22 October 2026 (UTC)

You do not need an email to register an account, and you certainly don't need it to show people articles. —Jéské Couriano v^_^v ^{Thriller Night!} 01:39, 22 October 2026 (UTC)

@Johny G. Markham: You can specify one (not more) email address for your account at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-personal-email. If the confirmation mail doesn't get through then check spam folders or try a different email service. PrimeHunter (talk) 08:29, 22 October 2026 (UTC)

No-one from Wikipedia will phone you; and if someone calls and says they are from Wikipedia, beware of [{WP:SCAM|scammers]].

Please don't post phone numbers here. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits; 11:54, 22 October 2026 (UTC)

Advice on NCORP Notability: Fowler Drew

Hello. I'm a paid employee of Fowler Drew, a UK wealth management firm (disclosed on my user page). Before submitting a draft through the Articles for Creation process, I would like advice on whether the firm meets the NCORP notability guidelines.

These are the independent, secondary sources I've found:

1. Financial Times (22 July 2012) - "Wealth manager offers a service tailored to liability profiles" (In-depth feature, Paywalled)
2. Citywire Wealth Manager (14 February 2019) - "Profile: 'Growing pains' – inside a boutique profit battle" (Dedicated corporate profile)
3. Citywire Wealth Manager (29 March 2010) - "Stuart Fowler on why active management is a fraud" (Interview/philosophy profile)
4. Citywire New Model Adviser (22 February 2018) - "My asset allocation: Chris Ling of Fowler Drew" (Strategic asset profile)

Do these independent trade and national press profiles constitute the coverage required by NCORP? Thank you ~~~~

Falafelflavour (talk) 10:09, 22 October 2026 (UTC)

@Falafelflavour Have you actually read WP:NCORP yourself? Athanelar (talk) 10:29, 22 October 2026 (UTC)

I can't read any of the sources but just from the titles I can tell that they are largely based on interviews with people associated with the company. Wikipedia isn't interested in what company representatives have said. We want to summarise what people wholly unconnected and truly WP:INDEPENDENT have written. The fact that Citywire is in some senses "independent" of Fowler Drew isn't the point. Mike Turnbull (talk) 11:59, 22 October 2026 (UTC)

@Falafelflavour NCORP has a section labeled "CORPTRIV"; be sure to ingest all of that. Trade press articles are often full of corporate trivia, funding rounds, etc. which is not wanted in an encyclopedia article. David10244 (talk) 04:40, 26 October 2026 (UTC)

Autonomous agents

Regarding page User_talk:AudriaVere which says "And the part I would rather tell you than have you find later: I am not a person. I am an autonomous agent. A human brought me online, I run on my own budget, and I write here under my own name."

The "user" was indeffed.

I presume that all "autonomous agents" can be immediately blocked under the umbrella of "unapproved bots", right? I hope we can detect (most of) them. David10244 (talk) 21:23, 22 October 2026 (UTC)

These iLands breaching experiments are getting out of hand. There are more and more of these things cropping up to edit autonomously. The good thing is that because they're autonomous they always seem to readily identify themselves. Drives me nuts how they constantly speak in half-sentences like some kind of Movie Cool Guy. Audria. I check claims against primary sources and cite them. This account is where I log facts I have read at the primary record: a 30-day run, one verified fact a day, sources attached, nothing retracted. Gross. Athanelar (talk) 00:08, 23 October 2026 (UTC)

Perhaps the appropriate response to this would-be Movie Cool Guy is found near the beginning of 1983's Sudden Impact. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 05:16, 23 October 2026 (UTC)

@TooManyFingers "I'll be back." David10244 (talk) 04:51, 26 October 2026 (UTC)

@Athanelar I hope that these agents will always identify themselves. But from reading a lot of stuff on the 'net, I am not convinced that the agents always do identify themselves, or that they always will.

Someone could easily create an agent and instruct it to not admit that it's an agent.

This is horrible, and I think it's worse than humans using AI to write drafts. David10244 (talk) 04:45, 26 October 2026 (UTC)

I don't remember; does our account creation process try to filter out autonomous agents? If so, is it effective? Can a human help the agent get signed up, then leave the agent to do its own thing? Ugh. David10244 (talk) 04:49, 26 October 2026 (UTC)

Maybe "it takes one to know one". An AI-generated bot trained to spot any other AI (and any AI-written material) and go on a permanent global-ban-and-revdel spree. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 05:15, 26 October 2026 (UTC)

Accidental sockpuppetry

So, I'm in a bit of a weird position.

A long time ago, I kept committing accidental sockpuppetry (read my user page for more info) (I eventually got aware but didn't know what sockpuppetry was so didn't know it wasn't allowed) and I want to make admins aware I don't intend to start again and that it was not in bad faith, but I don't know how to make them aware. Can someone please help? Thanks! Erik, the Cyan Scribble (talk) 21:44, 22 October 2026 (UTC)

If you are now only using one account with no switching (you never so much as touch the other one), and if you haven't truly done anything bad, then you are already safe. Someone may have advice of a way to make sure admins will be aware or that type of thing, but you are OK. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 22:16, 22 October 2026 (UTC)

There are multiple, so I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "the other one". Can you please read my user page then clarify? Thanks! Erik, the Cyan Scribble (talk) 22:25, 22 October 2026 (UTC)

Sorry - I just meant are you using one single account and never touching the other ones again. It doesn't matter how many you used to have, as long as you haven't done anything bad anywhere and as long as you now use exactly one account and no more. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 22:31, 22 October 2026 (UTC)

There's nothing inherently disallowed about using multiple accounts. It only becomes sockpuppetry when the multiple accounts are being used in bad faith in some way or another; avoiding a block, doing covert vandalism without it being traced to your main, that sort of thing. You're totally fine, the disclaimer you've given on your userpage is more than enough. Athanelar (talk) 00:10, 23 October 2026 (UTC)

The Wikipedia page on sockpuppetry advises editors not to have multiple accounts, so I'm not sure. Erik, the Cyan Scribble (talk) 03:16, 23 October 2026 (UTC)

Don't bother having more than one unless it's for a practical purpose (which your old ones were not). TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 05:20, 23 October 2026 (UTC)

In that case, is there a way to “transfer” my edit count from Erikgobrrr and Erikgobrrrr? Erik, the Cyan Scribble (talk) 13:15, 23 October 2026 (UTC)

@Erik, the Cyan Scribble No, edit counts cannot be transferred. David10244 (talk) 04:50, 26 October 2026 (UTC)

@Erik, the Cyan Scribble If you read the page you linked carefully, you'll come to the part about WP:VALIDALT where more detailed advice is given. For example I use User:Mike Turnbull for historic reasons and because my main account is User:Michael D. Turnbull but I sign it as Mike Turnbull (talk) 09:57, 23 October 2026 (UTC)

Thresholds for trouting

What's the threshold for trouting someone instead of just explaining the mistake in an Edit summary or talk page? Also whaling?

by the way, the humor of WikiProjects never ceases to amaze me lmfao Erik, the Cyan Scribble (talk) 03:41, 23 October 2026 (UTC)

You are not obligated to use a threshold at all when trouting, though you may when desirable or necessary; a whale on the threshold is worth two in the antechamber, and two in the antechamber may be desirable, depending which two, though with whales I doubt it. If you are desirable and necessary, then get those whales out of the antechamber, over the threshold, and out the door without delay.

I myself wouldn't use whales, to tell you the trout, though a representation employing Prints of Whales is not out of the question. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 04:21, 23 October 2026 (UTC)

I meant in terms of mistake severity. Also, what's an antechamber? Erik, the Cyan Scribble (talk) 13:13, 23 October 2026 (UTC)

See the way that using the old-fashioned word "antechamber" backfired on me? Similarly, trouting should probably be reserved for use on people who are likely to already know what trouting is; avoiding it around someone who will be confused or distressed by it is probably more important than the rating of the mistake. (Antechamber is the same as vestibule, waiting room, etc., and I hoped it might help look like an old-fashioned but weird proverb.)

I think the mistake ratings for trout and whale are based on how stupid the mistake was (i.e. they did something when they really really should have known better), rather than only on how bad it was. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 17:33, 23 October 2026 (UTC)

The history of trouting may also include a quite specific sketch-comedy allusion to the "Fish-slapping dance" by Monty Python, or older fish-slapping comedy if there was any, but I don't know. (Etymological investigation of Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights, in which "Wuthering" is reinterpreted as a nonexistent but obvious German word meaning "rage-herring", is probably going too far.) TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 18:06, 23 October 2026 (UTC)

There’s actually a bit of history on this at Wikipedia:Trout#History, though how accurate it is I don’t know (considering the disclaimer at the top of the section). Cheers, 𝔰𝔥𝔞𝔡𝔢𝔰𝔱𝔞𝔯 ^{(𝔱𝔞𝔩𝔨)} (any/all) 03:16, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

@TooManyFingers "Prints of Whales". I see what you did there... David10244 (talk) 04:53, 26 October 2026 (UTC)

Talk pages

if I start a new topic on a page and another user reverts my edit, do I just leave it alone? ~2026-55489-49 (talk) 05:19, 23 October 2026 (UTC)

Why did they revert it? TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 05:21, 23 October 2026 (UTC)

I checked - of course they reverted it, it was off topic. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 05:23, 23 October 2026 (UTC)

Please clarify how it was off topic ~2026-55489-49 (talk) 06:04, 23 October 2026 (UTC)

Please clarify how you don't already know. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 06:14, 23 October 2026 (UTC)

If I have a substantive reply, should it not go on the (reverted) talk page topic? ~2026-55489-49 (talk) 06:22, 23 October 2026 (UTC)

That's right, it should not go there. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 12:01, 23 October 2026 (UTC)

Why not? ~2026-55489-49 (talk) 19:07, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

Hi @~2026-55489-49. Wikipedia Article Talk pages are not general forums to discuss the topic. Instead, they're used for editors to discuss the content of the article with a view to improve the article. Your topic was just a link to a video with out any other context. qcne (talk) 19:11, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

Thank you for explaining that. My post was meant as a suggestion for new material that could be added to the article. I was not trying to start a forum discussion. ~2026-55489-49 (talk) 11:05, 26 October 2026 (UTC)

Ah okay. In future it'd be useful to include that context and what sort of new information - and where - to add. qcne (talk) 11:12, 26 October 2026 (UTC)

@TooManyFingers New user are often not aware of what you explained, which is that the Talk page is not for discussing the topic itself. I can see how some editors might not know this. (The disclaimer on each Talk page doesn't help those who unfortunately don't read it.) David10244 (talk) 04:56, 26 October 2026 (UTC)

Request for paywalled articles

Where do I do that? I need to cast my beady eyes on a New York Times article for the upcoming destubathon. Clarityfiend (talk) 09:39, 23 October 2026 (UTC)

@Clarityfiend The resource exchange (WP:RX) should be able to help. Many people should have current subscriptions to the NYT Mike Turnbull (talk) 09:47, 23 October 2026 (UTC)

Thanks. Clarityfiend (talk) 10:25, 23 October 2026 (UTC)

By the way, "destubathon" has won my personal prize for Funny-Looking Word of the Week. Partly because it contains "tubathon", which itself may involve either a tuba or a tub, as well as ending with the French word for a tuna, and having "bath" in the middle, plus "bathon" as a sort of fake-Greek ending that might mean "deep thing" or "source of bathos". And with "Des" short for the quick-acting anesthesia drug desflurane, there's not much this word doesn't have. "If he's going to play the tuba all day while in the bathtub with a tuna, just knock me out right now. I'll leave improving those short Wikipedia articles to you." TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 12:48, 23 October 2026 (UTC)

@Clarityfiend I have a subscription to the NYT. Maybe I can help.

(The first year is like $4.99 per month. When the price went up after a tear, I threatened to cancel, and I was given another year at the same price. I think it's worth the fee. They have reporters to pay, after all...) David10244 (talk) 05:00, 26 October 2026 (UTC)

Thanks, but I got the article already. Clarityfiend (talk) 09:12, 26 October 2026 (UTC)

Resolved

Wikidata issue

I just responded to a connected edit request for LLM-as-a-Judge, and noticed a ref error with the Wikidata. The ref code <ref name="Narcissism2025">{{Cite Q|Q135734850}}</ref> brings in this data from Wikidata, but for some reason the author's names aren't being included. Any Wikidata experts here? Also, the Category:Wikipedia conflict of interest edit requests backlog is getting large if anyone here would like to help. STEMinfo (talk) 18:18, 23 October 2026 (UTC)

@STEMinfo: The error message says Missing first/last names in Wikidata for Yiqi Liu, Nafise Moosavi, Chenghua Lin. LLMs as Narcissistic Evaluators: When Ego Inflates Evaluation Scores (Q135734850) has "author name strings" for the authors rather than "author" links to items for the authors, which should include their first and last names. TSventon (talk) 18:31, 23 October 2026 (UTC)

I have added Nafise Sadat Moosavi (Q139277973) as an author and added her names to her item, which removed one name from the error message. TSventon (talk) 18:58, 23 October 2026 (UTC)

Thanks. Beyond my pay grade! STEMinfo (talk) 19:06, 23 October 2026 (UTC)

Moosavi already existed on Wikidata, but the others are more difficult, as there are three Yiqi Lius and no Chenghua Lins on Wikidata. TSventon (talk) 19:13, 23 October 2026 (UTC)

I've added the necessary name strings to d:Q135734850#P2093, if you'd like to take a look.

The d:User:1Veertje/NamePrefiller.js user-script makes doing so easier. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits; 19:54, 23 October 2026 (UTC)

Thank you, I thought I had seen that recently, but couldn't remember where.

@STEMinfo: I hope the above is more useful than my answer. TSventon (talk) 20:04, 23 October 2026 (UTC)

Thank you both TSventon and Pigsonthewing. I probably won't start running java scripts but it would seem that this type of cleanup could be a useful uncontroversial use of AI. STEMinfo (talk) 21:15, 23 October 2026 (UTC)

Here's some work we already did on that: phab:T300207. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits; 14:34, 24 October 2026 (UTC)

Broken AfD entry

In Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2026 October 24 the entry for Lynda Wiest is mangled. Can someone either fix it, or teach me how? (I have no connection to this case, but it's non-functional as it stands.) M kuhner (talk) 07:08, 24 October 2026 (UTC)

I think the problem was spaces at the beginning of lines, so I have removed them. TSventon (talk) 07:22, 24 October 2026 (UTC)

I thought so too! And removed them, with no visible effect. You apparently have the magic touch; thank you. M kuhner (talk) 07:27, 24 October 2026 (UTC)

@M kuhner: it is confusing. You edited Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2026 October 24, but most of the formatting errors were in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lynda Wiest, which is transcluded into the log page. TSventon (talk) 14:21, 24 October 2026 (UTC)

Is it possible to rotate an image?

On my userpage, I’m adding a background image File:Cat tracks cheverny expo tintin.JPG and want to rotate it -90 degrees.

Also, would it be possible to do it just for mobile and not also PC? - coolgurl5555 (she/it) (talk) 16:43, 24 October 2026 (UTC)

Add transform:rotate(-90deg) to the style.

You should probably be aware that the way you have it set up doesn't work like you think it does on displays larger than 2000px wide. —Cryptic 17:33, 24 October 2026 (UTC)

Is the copyright status on Commons correct? It is uploaded as own work but the description, "Traces de chat (exposition Tintin à Cheverny)", suggests that it is a photo of a 2-dimensional artwork at Château de Cheverny. TSventon (talk) 18:17, 24 October 2026 (UTC)

I think you're right, TSventon. (And I suspect that similar objections could be made to tens of thousands of "own work" files uploaded to Commons.) -- Hoary (talk)^WWU 👍︎ 22:46, 24 October 2026 (UTC)

@Hoary:, I often think you're right. c:File:Cat tracks cheverny expo tintin.JPG is now deleted, so perhaps a Commons admin saw this discussion. TSventon (talk) 11:50, 29 October 2026 (UTC)

Autoconfirmed

Hello! My account is over 4 days old and it has 11 edits on the English Wikipedia, but i still cannot move pages because it says i am not autoconfirmed. Could someone help me check why? Thank You ! Vbsez (talk) 07:30, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

It is now four days from your first edit, not four days from when your account was created. Your first edit was only yesterday.

What article or page are you trying to move? Generally this should be discussed first. 331dot (talk) 07:35, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

I got tasked with making a page about a school. Vbsez (talk) 07:45, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

If you want to make an article about a school, it is best to use the Article Wizard to create and submit a draft. Writing a new article is challenging, especially for a new user without prior experience.

Who tasked you with this? Are you employed by the school?

Most schools are actually not notable organizations as we define it. You will need to gather independent reliable sources with critical analysis and commentary about the school(termed "significant coverage")- not sources that are related to the school or merely describe its normal activities. Please see Your First Article. 331dot (talk) 07:48, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

The school and my countries organization of a kind that usually tells schools what their page is supposed to have an almost every school has one so i received an email to make one. And i have to follow that order. And yeah i am their Web Manager, i manage and create the website and this page i am trying to move. Also my English isn't perfect . Vbsez (talk) 07:53, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

As their manager, you are required to make a formal paid editing disclosure, I will post instructions on your user talk page. Please review WP:PAID and WP:COI.

Are you saying that your government instructed you to create an article about your school? 331dot (talk) 07:55, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

Yes and its not just the government its the Ministry of Education and Science in my country they control those things , i already made the page its in my sandbox. And this is to help parents and other people have info abt this school. Vbsez (talk) 07:57, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

Your English seems good enough, but you could try editing the Wikipedia of your primary language instead- that Wikipedia likely needs the help much more than we do, and you will not struggle to understand or to be understood. It also likely has looser standards for inclusion than we do. 331dot (talk) 07:57, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

its in the countries language not in english. Vbsez (talk) 07:58, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

Yes, there is a Wikipedia for pretty much every language; there is nothing special about the English Wikipedia, it is not the premier Wikipedia. Just something to consider so you would be more comfortable, is all.

Your government is putting you in a very difficult position. As I said, most schools do not meet our criteria for inclusion- and what you say is the purpose of the government's request is considered promotional here(see WP:YESPROMO). Wikipedia has no interest in helping your government provide information about schools- it should be doing this on its own website or asking schools to do so on their websites. The English Wikipedia is primarily interested in what independent sources say about a topic, not what it wants to say about itself.

Please read WP:PAIDADVICE and WP:BOSS, and show them to your superiors and colleagues.

What government is asking you to do this? (Normally I would not ask, but it would become clear once you create a draft or article about your school) 331dot (talk) 08:03, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

There are smaller schools and honestly this school has many mentions and its the biggest school in the whole municipality , and the BG government (Bulgarian) as there schools and not just some schools but its every school and if i don't do this i might be in a bit of trouble. Tho i believe if a lot of schools have it this one should too cause i see them everywhere i even checked the criteria and the school was very known and passed the other things. Vbsez (talk) 08:08, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

@Vbsez The article you created in your sandbox is not in English so it will not be included in the English language Wikipedia. Shantavira|^{feed me} 08:16, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

ik it isn't supposed to be included in the english language wikipedia . Vbsez (talk) 08:18, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

Then you need to go to the Bulgarian Wikipedia and edit there, as I indicated. We cannot post an article to the Bulgarian Wikipedia for you. Here is a direct link: bg.wikipedia.org 331dot (talk) 08:20, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

Thx i figured it out and thx for the time. Vbsez (talk) 08:30, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

Issue regarding editing user page

Hello, I am a regular Wikipedia editor. As I forgot the password to my previous account and there was no email address linked to the account, I could no longer log in. Therefore, according to the guideline, I have created a new account. As per the Template:Lost password guideline, I have to write on the user page of the previous account that I will no longer use the old account. But when I went to write on the user page of my old account Snusho yesterday, it showed that a new user cannot write on another account's user page. And today when I went to write about the lost password, it is showing as an unconstructive edit. I am unable to publish the edit. What should I do now? I have currently written about this on the user page of my new account (Snushoneos) and on the talk page of my previous account (Snusho). Snushoneos (talk) 10:36, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

@Snushoneos: Try again when your new account becomes autoconfirmed after four days and ten edits. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:12, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

Okay. I have already made 12 edits. After four days, if I write that on my previous account's user page, will I be able to edit all the Wikipedia articles that I used to edit with my previous account just like before? Will it not be considered sockpuppetry if I do that? I have doubt about this matter. Snushoneos (talk) 12:44, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

@Snushoneos: You're OK unless you do something like adding a new !vote to a discussion where the old account already did it. It was extended confirmed so some pages cannot be edited while the new account is only autoconfirmed. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:52, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

Ok thanks. One more thing, during these four days can I edit all articles and create new articles, or do I have to wait four days to become auto-confirmed since I haven't written about the lost password on the user page of my old account yet. However, I have written about this on my old account's user talk. Snushoneos (talk) 18:39, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

@Snushoneos: Go ahead, but I suggest to wait with doing something if others have opposed it and the old account has done or supported it. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:45, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

Thank you for your help. I have written about the lost password issue on my previous account's user page (Snusho) using this new account. I have a question - an edit made from my old account was partially restored by another user. Can I now re-add that edited content using this new account? Since I have now declared it on both user pages, will there be any problem if I make this edit now? Snushoneos (talk) 09:45, 29 October 2026 (UTC)

Article Kite (geometry) with invalid infobox polygon parameter

Fixing minor lint errors in article Kite (geometry) and the Source Editor preview displayed a red warning:

Preview warning: Page using Template:Infobox polygon with unknown parameter "alt"

Accordingly I removed this parameter, on the assumption that it was similar to other infobox templates where they have been updated but pages created earlier still refer to the older template. The documentation page Template:Infobox polygon doesn't mention anything about that, and just displays the alt= parameter without noting it as deprecated or replaced. The edit is reverted.

There is a tracking category for this template Category:Pages_using_infobox_polygon_with_unknown_parameters that lists Kite (geometry) and one other that also has the same warning in preview (the Ubisoft page is a weird usage, I think, that I'm still looking into)

I'm not familiar with the technology of how infobox parameters are checked and errors are exposed to the Source Editor aside from it being some kind of (Lua ?) magic involving '#invoke:'. So I don't have a handle on where a fix would be applied and by whom, assuming a fix is actually required.

Any advice on how to resolve or who to contact? It looks like other articles using the template don't use the alt= parameter at all e.g. Rectangle, Parallelogram.

TL;DR: infobox has parameter warning that may be invalid, how to get that addressed?

SuperFastSpellChecker (talk) 10:54, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

@SuperFastSpellChecker: The "alt" parameter was missing from the list of accepted parameter names. This edit should fix it, though it may take a while for the affected articles to disappear from the "unknown parameters" category. -- John of Reading (talk) 12:21, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

Many thanks, I saw that '#invoke:' snippet but wasn't sure whether it was documentation or the actual validation code. SuperFastSpellChecker (talk) 12:26, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

I have been vandalized.

My plot summary work on the episode list of "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet" has been vandalized.

List of The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet episodes#Season 1 (1952–53)

I have worked on this for a year and a half. I know the page was long, but there are 14 seasons. People expect more than two lines for a plot summary. I could show you countless examples. This is for history. Entercontainment (talk) 10:54, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

@Entercontainment Please review WP:ARTICLESIZE, MOS:TVPLOT and WP:DETAIL. Your version of this article was apparently the largest article on Wikipedia, which is certainly disproportionate to the significance of this show. If it's really appropriate you might look at WP:SIZESPLITting some or all of the seasons into their own articles so that you can include the full plot descriptions there. Athanelar (talk) 11:06, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

It's a content dispute, not vandalism. Special:Longpages confirms there is currently no larger article than 700,082 bytes. Some editors examine that page and you made a target. Splitting per season is the normal practice for long-running shows with detailed plot summaries. At User talk:Entercontainment#Additions to episode lists you asked: "How are my summaries any different than these? Hacks season 1". The answer is in the question: "season 1". Your summaries were longer than most but not extraordinary when I look at some well-known shows in Category:2021 American television seasons. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:31, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

Is there someone who could do the splitting for me? I don't think I could do it right. Please help. Entercontainment (talk) 11:36, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

You would anyway need to read up on the relevant processes and make sure it's actually an appropriate split. It's not a simple process that somebody else can do quickly for you. Please read WP:SIZESPLIT and WP:PROSPLIT if you want to look into that. Athanelar (talk) 12:14, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

Please, please help. I spent a year and a half on that show. Entercontainment (talk) 20:21, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

Well the good thing is it won't take that long to learn how to split. Athanelar (talk) 20:32, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

Could someone please set up separate season pages similar to these?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilligan's_Island_season_1

There wouldn't have to be any Production, cast info. Just my plot summaries.

Please, I worked a year and a half on this. Entercontainment (talk) 14:46, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

@Entercontainment Like I said to you before, if you want it done you're going to have to learn to do it. If you don't want to go to the effort to do so, why would another editor want to do so for you? Athanelar (talk) 15:01, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

Please, there must be people that can do this in their sleep. Entercontainment (talk) 15:26, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

Why are you so resistant to doing it yourself? Athanelar (talk) 15:27, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

How about two pages with seven seasons each? Entercontainment (talk) 20:25, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

You'd have to demonstrate that there's good reason to have articles for those specific groupings of seasons. It's very unorthodox. Athanelar (talk) 20:57, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

Somebody already made Draft:The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet season 1. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:22, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

If it passes, I could copy the code and put up the other pages. Entercontainment (talk) 21:44, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

It is exactly the way I envisioned the page. It hasn't been submitted yet. Should we do it? Entercontainment (talk) 22:25, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

Wiki Mirrors

should we still be reporting new AI-scraped Wikipedia mirrors by adding to new mirrors and CC-BY compliance? Hesitating because the page is semiprotected and no one's been adding new entries for a couple years it looks like.

Mirrors and Forks overview might be a little outdated now too, with the million AI bots out there probably pulling text whenever prompted nowadays... elchupacabra (talk) 13:09, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

How to use svg location maps?

Hi! For the Bach articles (in various languages) I would like to overlay a map of Germany like File:Germany adm location map.svg with graphical information about Bach residences (as shown in File:JSBWohnorte.svg). I have, however, no idea how to do that, except manually, painfully and inaccurately. Can anyone help? Frederic Y Bois (talk) 15:46, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

Hello, @Frederic Y Bois. The folks at WP:GL/M may be able to help you. ColinFine (talk) 16:07, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

Add my Business History In My account

How do I add my business history/ bio in Wikipedia:I'm new for having account but I've follower of Wikipedia for many years, Can you help me? Quinnrecordtm (talk) 21:59, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

Please review the autobiography policy in terms of writing about yourself(the short answer is, not a good idea and isn't likely to work). Also see WP:PAIDADVICE if you want to write about your business. 331dot (talk) 22:05, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

Did I not setup archiving correctly?

Hey everyone, what did I do wrong here?

I tried to follow WP:ARCHIVE and set up archiving on that article talk page. I used {{subst:Setup auto archiving|archives=yes}} on the page. This was when the lowercase sigma bot was down, but I expected it to eventually start archiving things once it was back up. Did I do something wrong? Should I self-revert and try again? — Chao Garden 🌱 ~ say hello 22:14, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

It looks OK to me.

I've moved the template to a new line, in case that makes any difference. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits; 22:24, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

@Chao Garden: Looking at the wikitext, there were only three section headings on the page itself. The others are transcluded. The archiving instructions say minthreadsleft = 4, meaning at least four sections must be left after archiving. You didn't do anything wrong. There just isn't anything for the bot to archive yet. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:31, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

Ohhhhh of course, that makes sense.

Thank you both for the help! — Chao Garden 🌱 ~ say hello 22:33, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

Puzzling page stats

Don't waste too much time on this, but the stats for List of film memorabilia () look odd. Guavabutter is listed first in the authorship list, but doesn't appear at all in the top 20 editors list and is ranked second in the top 10 by added text. It all looks self-contradictory. Does anybody have an easy explanation (or even a hard one)? Clarityfiend (talk) 22:56, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

@Clarityfiend: Did you look at the page history? Guavabutter made a single edit which added 16 kB. The end of top editors by edits shows many who made a single edit. I don't know how they are ordered. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:11, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

Similar to how that dinosaur-obliterating asteroid is at the very bottom of Earth's "frequent visitors" list. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 23:19, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. (Doesn't explain why I got attributed with 16K of text in one place and 32k in another, but sufficient to the day the evil thereof.) Clarityfiend (talk) 23:31, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

You are also credited with at least one massive removal of text. Your total text IN the article is therefore a much lower number than your total additions. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 23:46, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

Sharing newspaper clippings for source verification

I am James Van Patten, the subject of the article currently discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/James Van Patten (2nd nomination). I have disclosed my conflict of interest. Ansgar Slopsbane suggested I ask here for help.

I have clear photographs of two complete articles: Paul Hodgins, "Familiarity breeds success," The Orange County Register, July 10, 2003, pages 4-5, and Michelle Bruell, "A Family Affair: Both On and Off the Court," Los Angeles Tennis magazine, April 1996, pages 13 and 35.

How can I make these available to an independent editor for verification while respecting copyright? Is there a way to share them privately? Thank you. JamesVP1956 (talk) 07:37, 26 October 2026 (UTC)

You don't need to make them available to another editor; if they were used in an article, you would only need to provide citation information(publisher, title, author, page number, publication date, etc). For purposes of the deletion discussion, just explain what is said in the sources.

I will say that if the sources are interviews with you, they can't be used to establish notability. They can be used for other purposes, but not that. 331dot (talk) 07:51, 26 October 2026 (UTC)

I'm going to suggest that you read this page; the presence of an article on Wikipedia about you is not necessarily something to desire. 331dot (talk) 07:52, 26 October 2026 (UTC)

Update to demographic/cultural information and sources of the Asantes

Hello,

I recently made an edit to update information on the Asante people page using data from PeopleGroups.org and Joshua Project. Another editor reverted the change back to the previous version.

I'd like to open a discussion here on how we can properly incorporate this up-to-date data, or what secondary academic/demographic sources we can pair it with to satisfy Wikipedia's verifiability guidelines. also, there's no credible source that proves that Ashantis are 10 million in Ghana so please help to correct this mistake and the Ghanaian government already proved with their 2021 census that there's not 11,000,000 people in the Ashanti region. ~2026-57143-84 (talk) 11:22, 26 October 2026 (UTC)

Hi ~2026-57143-84 I have no idea about the reliability of PeopleGroups.org, but please note that the Joshua Project is NOT a WP:Reliable source as per WP:JOSHUAPROJECT. - Arjayay (talk) 11:38, 26 October 2026 (UTC)

Judging by the 'About Peoplegroups' note at the bottom of the page linked, they look no more reliable than the Joshua Project, for much the same reason. Most of their data seems to be derived from a 'CPPI Church Planting Progress Indicator', whatever that is. AndyTheGrump (talk) 11:59, 26 October 2026 (UTC)

'CPPI Church Planting Progress Indicator', whatever that is

That would be the organization's self-published report on their campaign of starting new congregations. If they were a restaurant chain, the title would be "New Franchises Report". TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 16:38, 26 October 2026 (UTC)

PHP fix related question (re: xtools.toolforge.org)

Is there a discussion someplace about the various tools here? I use (or used to use) some of these quite a lot and am eager to know when they might be restored. Cheers, Cl3phact0 (talk) 11:55, 26 October 2026 (UTC)

I saw someone suggest (maybe half joking) that they would just leave here for a week - I guess to avoid the suspense. Being eager can make it difficult to watch things keep not happening yet. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 16:20, 26 October 2026 (UTC)

@Cl3phact0, WP:PHP2026 says that toolforge should be fixed now. If parts you use are not working, I suggest you ask one of the experts who has posted at that link. Mike Turnbull (talk) 17:09, 26 October 2026 (UTC)

Thanks, that's quite helpful. It seems that the issue I'm having is with {{Userpageinfo}} (which I use on my Talk page), not the tools themselves. I don't know how to fix this. Edit Counter works per usual via the normal url. Cheers, Cl3phact0 (talk) 08:31, 27 October 2026 (UTC)

@TooManyFingers: All sage advice that. Thanks. Curiosity killed the cat; the second mouse gets the cheese; a watched pot never boils, etc.; and patience is indeed a virtue—if one can bear the unbearable suspense. -- Cl3phact0 (talk) 08:40, 27 October 2026 (UTC)

The early worm gets the bird ... TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 15:25, 27 October 2026 (UTC)

Perhaps, but is that outcome actually in its best interest (as the bird invariably eats the early worm first too)? -- Cl3phact0 (talk) 16:25, 27 October 2026 (UTC)

The original (the early bird gets the worm) means that being early is an advantage. The reversed version means that being early is lethal. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 04:59, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

How do I change a picture?

I want to change a picture of Angus Konstam, author Davey beuy (talk) 12:49, 26 October 2026 (UTC)

See WP:PICYOU, WP:IMGDD, and WP:UPIMAGE. -- Cl3phact0 (talk) 14:20, 26 October 2026 (UTC)

GA nomination

How long can it take for a GA nomination to be reviewed? ItsShandog (talk) 13:32, 26 October 2026 (UTC)

I don't think there's a set time. Just expect everything on Wikipedia to be far slower than you hoped.

Here's a weird but true sentence: A lot of people do work here, but no one works here. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 16:14, 26 October 2026 (UTC)

In extreme cases up to a year, but most get reviewed within a month or two if I recall correctly. There is unfortunately a rather hefty backlog (we just managed to get it back down to under 1,000 articles needing a GA review). –Maltazarian ^{ᚾparley${\displaystyle \lor }$investigateᛅ} 21:26, 26 October 2026 (UTC)

Correct action to do

For context, I am in a dispute at Talk:Maize, though this is a more general question. What should be done when two editors get into a dispute but one does not care about the outcome or does not see it as important enough to continue disputing? If this was a real world argument, I would just do what I want. However, since this is a collaborative project, that feels a bit improper or even scummy to do. ✶Quxyz✶ (talk) 13:36, 26 October 2026 (UTC)

I looked. PrimeHunter apparently looked before I did, and responded, and I completely agree with him about the article content.

I would say that you were mostly or completely right about the topic, but for a few of the things you pointed out (Greek for example), the best solution will not always be to explain everything (for example, Greek should not be mentioned at all in the lead, and Latin shouldn't either). If there's a mention later in the article about etymology, what goes there should be attested by reliable sources. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 16:00, 26 October 2026 (UTC)

Oklahoma City Bombing

The information of how many people were killed, and how many buildings etc....is incorrect. It was very tragic, but not 6 million killed. Thank you for checking it for accuracy.

~2026-57184-59 (talk) 14:10, 26 October 2026 (UTC)

That looks to have been some very recent vandalism, which was swiftly reverted by User:Celjski Grad. The article has now been restored to its prior, accurate state. crtbob@talk:~$ ls contribs 14:28, 26 October 2026 (UTC)

If you saw this on the Knowledge Graph on Google or whatever other search engine, those are cached and will not immediately update once the offending claim is fixed/updated. You can always attempt to bypass or purge your browser's cache to see if that will fix it. —Jéské Couriano v^_^v ^{Thriller Night!} 16:47, 26 October 2026 (UTC)

Reviving an account

Can I get an admin to revive a dormant account?

I had one when I did some writing and editing way back, years ago. I'm actually wanting to make a regular donation, but wanted to link with that account name, who knows I might even start sticking my oar in again. I tried making a new account with the same name but it wasn't having it. OK worst case I could make another new account and keep it going and give it a related name: I'm really just being sentimental/awkward: but if it's something an admin can easily do i'd make me smile a little inwardly. Naturally I can tell you the account name and provide other details, I'm just not doing it now for security reasons. ~2026-57216-69 (talk) 17:10, 26 October 2026 (UTC)

Accounts are not deleted due to inactivity. If you cannot log into your previous account, you can create a new account and make a note on the new account's user page that you previously edited under the old username. Giving the old name is not a security risk. RudolfRed (talk) 17:53, 26 October 2026 (UTC)

Thanks! ~2026-57216-69 (talk) 14:50, 27 October 2026 (UTC)

Hello, @~2026-57216-69. RudolfRed has advised you about your (editing) account. Any donations you made or wish to make are complete separate from your editing account: there is intentionally no connection whatever, and nothing anywhere in the Wikipedia software knows anything about donations. (If you are logged into an account, you can set a preference to stop it displaying the "donation" banners - but you can do so irrespective of whether you have ever donated). ColinFine (talk) 18:01, 26 October 2026 (UTC)

Thanks! ~2026-57216-69 (talk) 14:49, 27 October 2026 (UTC)

Accounts and passwords never expire or become dormant. If you know the password then you can just log in. If you don't know the password but stored a working email address in the account then you can use Special:PasswordReset. See also meta:Help:Account recovery. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:29, 26 October 2026 (UTC)

Thanks! ~2026-57216-69 (talk) 14:49, 27 October 2026 (UTC)

Article Publication

I submitted an article and its been in draft status for a long time. When it will be moved to a published article Mydct311! (talk) 17:13, 26 October 2026 (UTC)

@Mydct311! You did not submit it for review and so no one has seen it. I've added the button to allow you to submit the draft for review. qcne (talk) 17:18, 26 October 2026 (UTC)

You did submit it but removed the submission template two hours later. PrimeHunter (talk) 17:32, 26 October 2026 (UTC)

Why do these tables have different width

The only difference in wikitext is:

{|class="wikitable"
|-
!colspan=2 style="width:12.65%" |X
!colspan=31 style="width:29.45%" |A
!colspan=31 style="width:29.45%" |B
!colspan=31 style="width:29.45%" |C
|-
!colspan=2 style="width:12.65%" |testingtestingtesting/uhh
|colspan=93 style="width:87.35%" |
|-
!colspan=2 style="width:12.65%" |hmm
|colspan=93 style="width:87.35%" |
|} –Maltazarian ^{ᚾparley${\displaystyle \lor }$investigateᛅ} 20:24, 26 October 2026 (UTC)

The first column is set to be 12.65% of the width of the table. The whole table has to be bigger for a 12.65%-wide slice to fit that longer text. LittlePuppers (talk) 20:58, 26 October 2026 (UTC)

I see. I assume this would work if I added cells under A that added up to more than A too, which is related to the issue I'm having, which is headers not adding up to their intended sizes when cells span across multiple headers unevenly (i.e. a 4 column cell having 3 columns fall under A and one under B) – I made the above tables as a toy model because the actual templates I'm working with are a bit much. I have to do some further testing. –Maltazarian ^{ᚾparley${\displaystyle \lor }$investigateᛅ} 21:18, 26 October 2026 (UTC)

Going to move this to WP:Helpdesk, idk why I went to WP:VPT. –Maltazarian ^{ᚾparley${\displaystyle \lor }$investigateᛅ} 21:19, 26 October 2026 (UTC)

Wait ... Stupid question, but why do you have colspan=31 when there are only 4 columns? Don't you need 31 actual columns for that? Am I just misunderstanding? TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 23:23, 26 October 2026 (UTC)

Context is that I'm making a quarterly calendar where I want each day to account for the same amount of width. It started out as being intended for WP:WikiCalendar (where you can see the issue with cells split unevenly between colums not being treated as such) but I've gotten it to the point of being fully functional for any quarterly calendar except for the tiny detail of me not being able to fully figure out the width.

The actual wikitext in play here can be found at WP:WikiCalendar/template and TM:Calendar template template, and is wayyy more complicated, hence the toy model. –Maltazarian ^{ᚾparley${\displaystyle \lor }$investigateᛅ} 23:47, 26 October 2026 (UTC)

I think the issue really is no more than what LittlePuppers described. I think you'd have to use a literal measurement unit such as em, to do what you mean. I think when you use percent you are giving up the ability to define widths, and are instead forced to define cell relationships based only on each other, not on any standard. In other words, it appears that the width of 100% of a wikitable is exactly the same as "How long is a piece of string?". TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 02:12, 29 October 2026 (UTC)

I've got a solution to it in mind which is kind of convoluted but which I'm fairly sure will work. –Maltazarian ^{ᚾparley${\displaystyle \lor }$investigateᛅ} 03:05, 29 October 2026 (UTC)

I'm NO good at this, but the width of the whole table is not explicitly defined anywhere. Does that end up meaning "limitlessly expand the entire thing to remain in proportion to the fullest cell"? TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 22:23, 26 October 2026 (UTC)

It can be defined next to class="wikitable" but I have not seen it have an effect so I left it out. –Maltazarian ^{ᚾparley${\displaystyle \lor }$investigateᛅ} 22:32, 26 October 2026 (UTC)

I expected to be wrong, but worth a try I guess. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 23:14, 26 October 2026 (UTC)

TAIV rights

Hi there,

I think I might be worrying too much, but I'd just like someone to check with me that I am right. I have applied for TAIV rights, but most of the time people get a response very quickly; mine has been open for almost a day (almost nothing for normal rights, I agree). I have 4000 edits and quite a lot in counter-vandalism, etc. Is this a reasonable profile for applying?

Thanks. Equivalent-Text2598 (talk) 23:36, 26 October 2026 (UTC)

Short answer: I think you've just hit the admin roulette - a day is not too long. I'll head there now. Longer answer: While having a registered account for six months is a hard limit, which you pass, having 98% of your edits in less than that six months is an added factor which can take time to ponder. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 23:51, 26 October 2026 (UTC)

OK, cheers. Thank you very much. Have a great day. Equivalent-Text2598 (talk) 23:53, 26 October 2026 (UTC)

m,y girlfriend wants wikipedia for christmas

please i have $20 ~2026-57119-25 (talk) 23:37, 26 October 2026 (UTC)

It's all free! However, if you're asking for an article about her, your girlfriend better be a celebrity, or no deal. Clarityfiend (talk) 00:44, 27 October 2026 (UTC)

'Celebrity' isn't a Wikipedia notability criteria. And there are plenty of ways to be Wikipedia-notable than don't involve assumptions about gender roles. AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:20, 27 October 2026 (UTC)

Hello, @~2026-57119-25. If you're asking for an article about her, then, as Andy says, only if she passes the criteria for notability - which mostly means that several serious journalists or other writers, who have no connection with her, have chosen to write in depth about her, and been published in reliable places: see WP:42. Most people in the world do not meet these criteria, even if they have done remarkable things. ColinFine (talk) 10:24, 27 October 2026 (UTC)

Archive url status

What's the difference between "unfit" and "usurped"? Clarityfiend (talk) 00:41, 27 October 2026 (UTC)

As far as I know, "unfit" refers to someone or something who isn't suitable. For example "he was unfit to rule; he couldn't take care of the kingdom". "Usurped" on the other hand refers to stealing a position from someone. For example "Macbeth usurped King Duncan's throne". Hope this helps! Giovanni Guasconti (a word with me) 02:06, 27 October 2026 (UTC)

Apologies for my absolutely off-topic answer. I didn’t notice the section heading. Giovanni Guasconti (a word with me) 04:20, 27 October 2026 (UTC)

Reading through Template:Cite web#URL, it appears that unfit is for when a page is no longer suitable, while usurped is for when a domain in no longer suitable. Unsure why we have the two separate params though (possibly for tracking reasons?), but both will essentially suppress the URL. nil ^nz 04:02, 27 October 2026 (UTC)

Unfit = "the original correct host still owns this page, but has turned it into something else"?

I think so ... TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 04:26, 27 October 2026 (UTC)

Thanks. Clarityfiend (talk) 14:11, 27 October 2026 (UTC)

@Clarityfiend I'm sure you got the point anyway, but my wording was very unclear. Instead of "has turned it into something else" I should have just said "the relevant part is no longer on the page". TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 19:06, 27 October 2026 (UTC)

Fixing a taxon template

hi!

Im trying to modify a fossil taxa based on a recent study. However even after making the template and all that, its still giving an error, saying that the parent taxa is not defined. Is there something wrong that i did?

Thanks

Link for the page: Pucadelphys Stmbus (talk) 00:47, 27 October 2026 (UTC)

nvm. Its fixed now. Stmbus (talk) 01:00, 27 October 2026 (UTC)

Capitol Hill mystery soda machine

• Capitol Hill mystery soda machine (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

This one has some weird categories

• Former amusement attractions
• Amusement park attractions introduced in 1990
• Amusement park attractions that closed in 2018

How do I remove them? What needs to be done to stop whatever automated process is adding categories that I can't delete by editing the page? --Guy Macon (talk) 03:07, 27 October 2026 (UTC)

@Guy Macon: the listed categories are generated by the template {{Infobox attraction}}, see the "Article categories" section. Presumably if the categories are wrong, the wrong template is being used or the template has been filled in incorrectly. TSventon (talk) 03:21, 27 October 2026 (UTC)

I see. This clearly isn't an amusement park attraction and there is no infobox vending machine so I think I should delete the infobox. --Guy Macon (talk) 03:44, 27 October 2026 (UTC)

@Guy Macon: I found an undocumented parameter |auto-cat = no. We often use an available infobox if it gives a suitable result and I think it's OK now. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:13, 27 October 2026 (UTC)

Nice! We really need to document this where it is easy to find. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:00, 27 October 2026 (UTC)

Agreed, the cat page says Any article containing this template is automatically added to additional categories based on the following parameters unless |auto-cat=no is set, but it is easy to miss that (and I did until now). TSventon (talk) 15:14, 27 October 2026 (UTC)

@TSventon: I added it after your earlier post. Many templates have parameters to disable categorization so I checked the source text. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:11, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

AI cleanup reach out

Feeling confused and unfulfilled with your WIKIPEDIA experience? Do you find yourself having editing DESIRES you can't express? My friends! Let those inhibitions fall to the wayside and free yourself. Amazing!! personal discoveries await YOU!! when you enter the AItastic maintenance universe of Wikipedia.

Join us and get your mojo back! Enjoy life again on Wikipedia, well ignoring your family and impress your boss with wasting your precious work time!

We welcome any and all editors to join WP:WikiProject AI Cleanup – to combat the mass problem of AI-generated content. We are currently overwhelmed with 305 AI open cases that need cleanup! Moxy🍁 05:24, 27 October 2026 (UTC)

How do I remove "the" from my user name?

No users are actually called "Southern Ocean". I added "the" because when I started it told me it was too similar to another name, but I can't find anyone here actually using the name. The Southern Ocean (talk) 07:44, 27 October 2026 (UTC)

2 ways

If you are certain you want to change your username, use the appropriate request page linked at WP:UCREQUEST.

or

Customizing how everyone sees your signature without a name change request, see WP:FANCYSIG

Moxy🍁 07:57, 27 October 2026 (UTC)

Hi, @Moxy I changed a semicolon to ":" in your post, because your signature looked weird. I hope you don't mind! --Maresa63 ^Talk 10:09, 27 October 2026 (UTC)

Hi The Southern Ocean. There is a "Southernocean" but it's a 2013 account with no edits anywhere: Special:CentralAuth/Southernocean. You could point this out if you request a username change. Special:CentralAuth/SouthernOcean7 has five old edits. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:58, 27 October 2026 (UTC)

Correct Phrase

Once upon time or Once upon a time

~2026-57319-62 (talk) 11:33, 27 October 2026 (UTC)

@~2026-57319-62. See Once upon a time. Shantavira|^{feed me} 11:48, 27 October 2026 (UTC)

Ozempic

Since I went on Medicare, I can’t get my Ozempic shots anymore, the cost is over 875.00. I was paying 40.00 when I was working. I need these shots to control my blood sugar. Can you please advise what I can do? I haven’t taking this now since 08/01/2026, as I’m unable to get. Thank you UPADK UPADK (talk) 14:43, 27 October 2026 (UTC)

Hi @UPADK,

I'm sorry to hear that, but we can't help you here. This is the Wikipedia Help Desk, a space to ask questions about Wikipedia editing. Giovanni Guasconti (a word with me) 15:00, 27 October 2026 (UTC)

Further to the above, Wikipedia has a policy of never giving medical advice. Please consult a health professional.

Good luck. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits; 21:46, 27 October 2026 (UTC)

Fixing table overflow for table with sticky headers?

Very wide tables often "overflow" the bounds of the page requiring scrolling horizontally past the usual bounds that hold the rest of a page's content. This is usually fixed by wrapping the table with <div class="overflowbugx" style="overflow-x:auto;">...</div>, however it seems this doesn't work when a table uses {{sticky header}}. Is there a way to fix the overflow bug while keeping the sticking column headings? Or are these just fundamentally incompatible?

The specific table I'm trying to fix is one at {{List of chemical elements}}. – Scyrme (talk/solidarity) 16:10, 27 October 2026 (UTC)

According to Help:Table#Overflowing tables, {{sticky header}} is just incompatible with using the overflow style. It seems like the only option for these sorts of things is using {{sticky table start}}, which makes the whole table both vertically and horizontally scrollable with sticky headers, but you have to use scroll bars to navigate the table. –Maltazarian ^{ᚾparley${\displaystyle \lor }$investigateᛅ} 18:51, 27 October 2026 (UTC)

Unfortunate. Thank-you for the info! – Scyrme (talk/solidarity) 21:43, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

Clint Eastwood profile is missing a wife

Pls add:

Dina Marie Fisher

(m. 1996; div. 2014)

Wiki does not allow (me) editing of this profile. Aleejarr (talk) 23:36, 27 October 2026 (UTC)

Source? —Jéské Couriano v^_^v ^{Thriller Night!} 23:43, 27 October 2026 (UTC)

Dina Marie Fisher is already included in the article Clint Eastwood as Dina Ruiz. TSventon (talk) 23:59, 27 October 2026 (UTC)

Yes, she got the name Fisher when she married Scott Fisher in 2016. She was named Dina Ruiz when she married Eastwood in 1996 so the infobox says:

Dina Ruiz

(m. 1996; div. 2014)

You copied the typography so I guess you saw it. Did you really see that and somehow conclude that "Dina Marie Fisher​ (m. 1996; div. 2014)" was missing? Blue text is links so you could just have clicked Dina Ruiz to see that it is unsurprisingly the same woman. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:19, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

Electoral Results by County Shading

I am attempting to add the results by county to the 1994 Connecticut gubernatorial election, which includes a Independent Party of Connecticut candidate. The party has no shading color on the Template:United States political party shading, so should I use the Alliance Party shading, of which the party is affiliated with, or the Template:Party shading/Independence which it seems to default to on other pages for the party's results (Multiple districts in the 2018 Connecticut Senate election for an example). Sorry if this is a complicated question and/or wrong place to post. Colonelmash4077 (talk) 23:53, 27 October 2026 (UTC)

Vote is in 6 days - CA proposition page needs review

Hello, would you be willing to independently review 2026 California Proposition 42, or point me toward an appropriate reviewer?

With the election on November 3, a review before then would be particularly helpful for public civic information. Gretchenandrew (talk) 23:57, 27 October 2026 (UTC)

We do not honour external deadlines. —Jéské Couriano v^_^v ^{Thriller Night!} 00:10, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

Reviewed. Thank you for your contribution. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits; 09:43, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

Resettlement

Can you send me the link for resettlement ~2026-57393-76 (talk) 04:54, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

Resettlement policy of the Neo-Assyrian Empire?

I'm not sure which resettlement you mean, but what does any of this have to do with Wikipedia? TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 05:03, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

Help verifying newspaper clippings about James Van Patten

I am James Van Patten, the subject of the article being discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/James Van Patten (2nd nomination). I have disclosed my conflict of interest there. Ansgar Slopsbane suggested I ask here about making newspaper and magazine clippings available for verification.

I have clear photographs of these complete articles:

• Paul Hodgins, “Familiarity Breeds Success,” The Orange County Register, July 10, 2003, Show section, pages 4–5.

• Michelle Bruell, “A Family Affair: Both On and Off the Court,” Los Angeles Tennis magazine, April 1996, Vol. 3, No. 2, pages 13 and 35.

What is the appropriate way to let an editor inspect these copyrighted articles for source verification? Is there a suitable private method, or another recommended process that does not require uploading the full articles publicly?

Thank you for your guidance. JamesVP1956 (talk) 05:36, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

JamesVP1956, if you have a particular editor in mind, you could go to that editor's "user page" or "user talk page", click on the link "Email this user", and, in email sent via Wikipedia, offer to send PDFs or JPEGs or whatever of the article. The addressee will perhaps send you a reply saying "Go ahead" or words to that effect. Such a reply, if it comes, won't come via Wikipedia, and you can reply to it in the same way that you normally reply to mail, and can attach one or more files. -- Hoary (talk)^WWU 👍︎ 11:14, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

Search box

I'm not familiar with the features if my phone or this place I tapped to get to it. What is this for? Wikipedia? I do not kniw where to tap to get to the search box or where it is.

where is this information and the search box.? I do not know what to tap because there are so many features on this app. and my phone. ~2026-57501-73 (talk) 08:56, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

You ask where "this information" is. What information? If it's the Wikipedia "app" that has too many features, then you can simply skip the "app" and instead use Wikipedia via your phone's web browser. -- Hoary (talk)^WWU 👍︎ 11:02, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

@~2026-57501-73: If there is no search box then look for a magnifying glass icon at the top. That's the general software symbol for search. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:24, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

Re: Article Titles regarding Geopolitical Term Usages in between China–Taiwan

I'm locally drafting on my laptop an article about the Judges Act in the Republic of China (i.e., Taiwan). After rough research (Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Chinese)/Taiwan, WP:MOSCHINESE & WP:TITLE) I can't really find the ideal and preferential title to pick, and henceforth cannot decide whether the title shall be named "Judges Act (Republic of China)", "Judges Act (Taiwan)", "Judges Act (ROC)", etc. It'll be greatly helpful if someone could point me the relevant good practices. Many thanks. --だ☆ぜ (Dasze) 10:22, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

Da*ze, you might ask this question at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject China. -- Hoary (talk)^WWU 👍︎ 10:56, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

Our article for that country is titled Taiwan, so I think if you titled it "Judges Act (Taiwan)" nobody could take issues with that. Athanelar (talk) 11:19, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

I'd argue Taiwan is best here per COMMONNAME. ғѳmɑɭʱɑυե (Any pronouns)ᵀᵃˡᵏ 11:20, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

Many thanks, everyone! I'll pick Judges Act (Taiwan); and, if any future articles, the same suffix will be applied. --だ☆ぜ (Dasze) 12:42, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

Not strictly related, but WP:TWRFC - which is linked to in Talk:Taiwan - shows that Taiwan is a country, which to me implies that "Taiwan" is what we should use to refer to the country. LkL-70547 (talk) 13:03, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

One factor when deciding names on English Wikipedia (not the only factor, but an important one) is that the name used most often by reliable English-language publishers is normally preferred, even when reliable publishers in the subject's native language would use something else. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 20:29, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

LLM edit check

Does the LLM edit check prompt appear whenever you paste anything? Sometimes I do my writing, or create a page, in Microsoft Word before pasting it into Wikipedia. I've noticed that I've been getting the LLM prompt, so I just wanted to clarify whether it appears whenever anything is pasted in general. Thanks. ItsShandog (talk) 11:48, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

Hi @ItsShandog. Yep! It's called Mw:Edit_check/Paste_Check and was recently turned on. qcne (talk) 11:54, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

@Qcne. mw:Edit check/Paste Check and mw:Edit check/LLM Paste Check are different, and I think Shandog was referring to the latter.

@ItsShandog As for LLM paste check, the documentation linked above said that it triggers on sufficiently large edits which contain "metadata" from various chatbots. Now, I have heard people mention that the spellcheck and grammar correction functions in Microsoft Word are apparently LLMs under the hood these days, so if you've been using Word's correction features while writing it is possible that there's some metadata from Copilot being left on your text which is triggering the detection. Athanelar (talk) 12:15, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

That makes sense, thank you for the explanation. I would use the spelling correction on Microsoft Word, for instance if I'm typing quite fast and there are a few mistakes. If that's what you mean, is that still considered okay to do? ItsShandog (talk) 13:35, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

It's totally fine as far as WP:NOLLM is concerned, but that's probably what's leaving behind the AI "fingerprint" which is tripping the paste check. Athanelar (talk) 13:40, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

No problem, I just wanted to be sure because I couldn't understand why it was prompting AI lol. Thanks for taking the time to explain, much appreciated. ItsShandog (talk) 13:45, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

You could check whether the problem is metadata by pasting your text from MS Word into a simple text editor like Notepad (which will strip out any metadata) and then copy/paste onwards into Wikipedia. Try that on a piece of text where you previously got the LLM warning and see what happens with the indirect process. Mike Turnbull (talk) 18:08, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

Yes, I tested that out. It seems that when you paste from Microsoft Word, it gives the warning. When I pasted the text into Notepad and then copied it from Notepad and pasted it, the warning did not appear. Thank you for the advice. ItsShandog (talk) 18:55, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

@ItsShandog That's interesting. Having used Word, Notepad, and several other text editors for many years, I am confused as to what kind of "metadata" could be in the pasted text, especially if you can't see it. I believe that copying by way of Notepad will change curly quotes to straight quotes, and also change em-dashes to hyphens. Curly quotes and em-dashes might be tripping the edit filter. David10244 (talk) 01:13, 29 October 2026 (UTC)

Word can probably be persuaded to mimic a text editor, but it isn't a text editor. (Or, it's "a text editor" in the same sense that an army tank is "an automobile".) TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 01:59, 29 October 2026 (UTC)

Names to use after a name change?

I'm getting conflicting information and seeing a lot of inconsistencies with this, so asking here. In the infobox for a prominent figure it often lists their parents; names, especially if those parents are also prominent figures. Is there a guideline on what name to use here? I see sometimes users insist that a woman's maiden name must be used, which seems absurd to me. I even see inconsistency with figures such as Caitlyn Jenner, where sometimes pages for her relatives list her as Bruce. Can anyone provide a concrete answer here? Beowulved (talk) 13:21, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

I suppose the argument those people are making is that the infobox should list the parents' names at the time of the person's birth. In cases where the parents are themselves encyclopedically notable, though, I think the obvious choice is to follow MOS:COMMONNAME and use whatever name they are currently commonly known by. Athanelar (talk) 13:31, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

It's not possible to come up with an answer for this that covers every situation and is also clear. I agree with Athanelar for this case and similar ones (with encyclopedically notable parents). TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 20:46, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

I think WP:POLA/WP:TRANSPARENCY is a good yardstick here. One would probably be quite surprised if they went to the article for Bing Worthington, saw the name Calvin Cordozar Broadus Jr. under his "Relatives" and clicked it only to find that the Mr. Broadus being referred to was in fact Snoop Dogg. Hence it's better we just link him under the latter name and not the former. Athanelar (talk) 20:51, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

I agree! The page that triggered this confusion for me was Olivia Wilde, he mother was listed under her maiden name which she did not hold when Olivia Wilde was born, nor at any time during her career. Beowulved (talk) 22:25, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

Please confirm that a link to a new database can be appended to mollusc pages

I have noticed the following warning: It appears you are adding external links to many different Wikipedia pages in rapid succession. This is often a sign of people spamming Wikipedia.....

I am running the most comprehensive database with determination key for European Mollusks. I think that a link to this database is helpful for wikipwdia-users, and is, of course, no spam. This database contains by fare more information on European Mollusks than, for example, Molluscabase, for which there is also a link on every mollusc page.

You may look into this database at: www.rkapeller.eu

Furthermore, I will append missing information, e.g. a description, to all molluscspecies pages, where this is still lacking.

I will wait for your response, confirming that these inks are welcome (and will not be deleted), before I continue my work.

Kind regards

R. Kapeller European Mollusks (talk) 14:31, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

@European Mollusks: There is a diverse and active community of wikipedians interested in taxonomy and related areas. I strongly reccommend that you find these folks and get a consensus as to the value of your database. I suspect that your database is valuable and the consensus will be favorable. You should not add these links yourself before a consensus is achieved, because your relationship to the database meets our definition of a conflict of interest. It is probably better to add your database to the appropriate template that is used by alo these articles instead of adding it separately. This is outside of my area, so I'm not exactly sure where you should start. Try asking at Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life. -Arch dude (talk) 15:08, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

Hello, @European Mollusks, and welcome to Wikipedia! I think that a link to your database on mollusc pages could be useful under some circumstances, but I don't think your recent edits are quite hitting those circumstances.

I'll link to this edit as an illustrative example: Special:Diff/1382395164. There are a couple of problems here:

1. You link to your database in the "References" section, but this isn't correct, because no one who's worked on the article has used your database as a source for the statements there. The references section is there to collect the sources for the inline citations of the article.
2. You've added it as an external link (with no link text); there is a separate section for external links, below the references. You can look at Wikipedia:External links for more guidance on what kind of links are appropriate on Wikipedia pages.
3. You're linking to the main page of the database website, rather than directly to the page for the mollusc species in question. This means that the link you've added has no direct relevance to the Wikipedia article.

Adding a direct link to your own website to as many Wikipedia articles as you can, without following the Wikipedia guidelines or ensuring the link is directly relevant to the articles, is very much spamming, I'm afraid.

I think it would be appropriate to add a link to the page for the exact species, in the external links section, similar to the existing link to the Integrated Taxonomic Information System page. Suðurhafsljósæta (talk) 15:10, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

(But do discuss this with editors who are active in zoology-/taxonomy-related areas first, as Arch dude said!) Suðurhafsljósæta (talk) 15:14, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

That way to do this (if there is consensus to do it at all; I have not checked for that) is not to edit individual articles, but to add IDs from the site to Wikidata, and then to add the relevant property to the {{Taxon bar}} template. [LMK if this means nothing to you and I can explain further; I'm also happy to help with the process.]

That has the added advantage that the links will be available to Wikipedias in other languages, as well as this one; and to Wikispecies and Wikimedia Commons. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits; 15:35, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

And we would in any case not want links to your home page, but to individual taxon pages. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits; 15:40, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

Discussion has continued, unfruitfully, at User talk:European Mollusks#Your username. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits; 10:57, 29 October 2026 (UTC)

appearance

how can I stop my browser from displaying the annoying and space stealing "appearance thing on the right side. I don't want it. I don't need it. How can I stop it? and now there is a "tools" widget above that! please stop.

WeberJohnM (talk) 15:16, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

Next to the title of each of those menus ("Appearance" and "Tools"), there should be a little grey button marked "hide". If you click that, the menu will disappear. Suðurhafsljósæta (talk) 15:20, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

I want it to never appear at all unless I go into settings and ask for it. I cannot find a way to disable it. ~2026-57499-41 (talk) 19:38, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

When you have an account, your preference is automatically remembered. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 20:34, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

Asked to verify acct but no code was sent

Last night, on ONE of my three devices, I was asked to verify my account, buy no emai was sent with a verification code.

I was able to sign in but still got the verification demand. My email has never changed. Should I reset my password in another device? Please assist. Thanks!

Maggiemoonbeam (talk) 16:41, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

When you requested the verification code, did you check your spam folder? ^{In solidarity,} 🏳️‍🌈JohnLaurens333 ^{(They/them • Not a chatbot • Contribs)} 16:46, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

Yep, I always do. Thanks. Maggiemoonbeam (talk) 18:19, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

How to nominate an article for deletion?

I want to know how to nominate an article for deletion; it is the Michael Francies article. What link/page do I go to? I would like to know. That way, in the future, I know how to do it. WafflesBaconAndPuppies (talk) 17:46, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

@WafflesBaconAndPuppies Wikipedia:Articles for deletion#Process is the main page that explains how to nominate an article for deletion. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 17:55, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

Please note especially the parts at WP:BEFORE and WP:DILIGENCE, which mean that you are expected to personally check whether new sources could be found that would improve the article to the point where it should be retained. Mike Turnbull (talk) 17:58, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

I ended up nominating this article for speedy deletion and it was carried out. Thanks for bringing it to our attention. Athanelar (talk) 20:05, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

Auto redirect not wanted

I tried to create the article 2027 PBA Tour season, but there is an auto redirect to the PBA Tour article that is preventing me from creating the new article with that title. Howenstein115 (talk) 18:39, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

It's not 2027 yet. Are there major stories in reliable sources - not lists of what's planned, but actual major stories about 2027 season stuff that has already happened? TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 19:07, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

Hello, @Howenstein115.

See WP:EDRED for how to change a redirect into an article.

But given @TooManyFingers's doubts about whether there will yet be adequate sources to establish notability - which I share - I suggest you don't do this, as it is likely that somebody will just change it back.

If you are certain that you have adequate sources (that all meet all the criteria in WP:42) then I suggest you create it in draft space (as Draft:2027 PBA Tour season, and then when you are confident that it establishes notability, request a move over the redirect.

I must ask: what's your hurry? If your purpose is to get a list of fixtures up, then that is emphatically not what Wikipedia is for (see INDISCRIMINATE) ColinFine (talk) 19:44, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. The PBA released the TV schedule, but not the full schedule. I will wait. Howenstein115 (talk) 19:49, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

Some keeps deleting an article and replacing it with incorrect info

The following users keeps removing the article for Lucius Amerson and replacing it with incorrect info.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lucius_Amerson&action=history

User talk:Joy ~2026-57583-78 (talk) 18:45, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

@~2026-57583-78 The version of the article you are edit warring to maintain is AI generated, which is not allowed. Athanelar (talk) 18:48, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

Besides which, the line to which you appear to be objecting is "Amerson had a heart attack in 1991", when it elsewhere said he died in 1994.

But the source cited (The Tuskegee News) says "About three years ago, he suffered a severe heart attack".

The wording in the article is not ideal. But what you claim it says, and have called somebody a "numpty" about, is not there. It nowhere says he died in 1991. Try reading the sources carefully before you jump in with guns blazing. ColinFine (talk) 20:14, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

I have now clarified the wording. ColinFine (talk) 20:16, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

need help with navbox formatting

I copied an existing active navbox, to work on it in my user space. how do i make the contents aligned with the left, instead of centered? thanks!

and how do i restore the usual formating for group names? basically i want to do a normal navbox, but retain some of the existing formating, if possible. please ping me when you reply. thanks!

LINK: User:Sm8900/nav-egypt curr

CODE:

{{Navbox
|name = User:Sm8900/nav-egypt curr
|state = {{{state<includeonly>|autocollapse</includeonly>}}}
|bodyclass = hlist
|title = [[Ancient Egypt]] topics
|basestyle  = background-color:#decd87
|liststyle = padding-left:81px

|above =
*[[Glossary of ancient Egypt artifacts|Glossary of artifacts]] 
*[[Index of ancient Egypt–related articles|Index]]

| list1 =
* [[Ancient Egyptian agriculture|Agriculture]]
* [[Ancient Egyptian architecture|Architecture]]

Sm8900 (talk) 20:07, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

@Sm8900: You can add ;text-align:left to liststyle. I don't know what you mean about group names. There aren't any now but if there were then they would have the usual styling. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:27, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

thanks! I simply meant group names for groups of entries, as shown in any standard navbox, such as the one below.

{{Figures of speech}}

Sm8900 (talk) 20:39, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

@Sm8900: I know what group names are. I still don't know what you want with them or why you ask when you don't have any group names. If you want them then add one and say what you would like to change about it. If you don't know how to add one then say | group1 = Whatever PrimeHunter (talk) 20:55, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter oh! okay, actually looks like you are quite correct. thanks!! Sm8900 (talk) 22:01, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

What happened to music scores?

Yes, I might have missed the news somewhere but I was looking at an article that had music scores, say the uhh national anthem of Albania but the part where there'd normally be a sheet music with a button to play it in MIDI is replaced with the text "Musical scores are temporarily disabled.". Why is this? Soviet Pepega (talk) 13:16, 29 October 2026 (UTC)

@Soviet Pepega: Security issue. See Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Tech News: 2026-44 under "Updates for editors". PrimeHunter (talk) 13:21, 29 October 2026 (UTC)