This is an archive of past discussions on Wikipedia:Teahouse. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
So far, identified socks are Musclemanintensity, Exercisemanweighttraining, Weightlifterexerciseman, Truckmanbeginner, Freshmantruck, Freshmangrandcaravan. Based on that pattern, I guess we're due another two iPod-themed usernames! Cordless Larry (talk) 07:09, 27 September 2015 (UTC)
In my opinion, any further repetitive posts of an "obsessive-complulsive" type (layperson's term, not a psychiatric diagnosis), should be removed from the Teahouse without comment. Cullen328Let's discuss it07:13, 27 September 2015 (UTC)
I would agree with that. Of course, if the intention is to waste our time, then the sock may simply come up with new questions to pose, but it's worth a try. Cordless Larry (talk) 07:19, 27 September 2015 (UTC)
...that said, we should be careful not to jump to conclusions with questions about revision deletion, given that it may need to be employed in sensitive circumstances. The questions asked by the sock have been very general, though, so hopefully we can spot a genuine question. Cordless Larry (talk) 08:13, 27 September 2015 (UTC)
First, thanks to Cordless for running with this. Second, I don't see any conflict in removing questions about revdel or oversight. Our target audience, new users, are going to ask how to make something disappear. They wouldn't know to ask about revdel or oversight, much less both. John from Idegon (talk) 16:49, 27 September 2015 (UTC)
I have to say, I object to such question removal. While it seems clear that these various usernames are in fact the same person, njeither anything posted here nor at the SPI actually shows any of them acting improperly, as by trying to influence a discussion by appearing to be multiple people. It is not a blockable violation of policy to use multiple accounts (albeit it is frowned on), only to use them abusivly or improperly. The repeated questions at the Teahouse or Help desk are at worst a nuisance. Now it may be that this person has actually done something blockable at some point, and I have failed to notice. But I don't actually see any valid reason for the blocks in the first place, which makes the "block evasion" rather a circular accusation. DES(talk)06:41, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
DES, I disagree. When you have the same user using different names, repeatedly asking the same rather unusual question, it is disruptive. Except for scale, it does not differ all that much from a denial of service attack on a website by a hacker. Using multiple accounts to disrupt Wikipedia is most assuredly socking. John from Idegon (talk) 07:07, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
But scale is the only thing that makes a DOS attack an attack at all. That is rather like saying, "except for scale, a BB-gun is no different from a 16-inch naval gun". I fail to see any significant disruption here. If it is thought that simply asking the same question (or small set of questions) multiple times is disruptive enough to block, ANI would be the proper venue to get consensus for such a block. DES(talk)07:16, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
DES, can I ask what you would suggest we should do instead? Would you continue to answer the questions as if they are genuine and we haven't seen them before? Cordless Larry (talk) 07:22, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
Cordless Larry, No, I would respond very briefly that the question has already been answered, or perhaps hat the question with a note to that effect. That should take no more time than editing to remove the question. I also wouldn't have blocked without more evidence of actual disruption than i have seen, but I'm not going to unblock under these circumstances. DES(talk)07:27, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for your reply, DES. I respect your opinion even if I disagree with your assessment of what counts as disruptive. I won't be deleting any comments myself and am happy to continue posting brief replies pointing to previous answers, and will leave it up to others to decide whether deletion is appropriate. My main concern is that editors don't waste time writing extensive answers, that could be better spent answering genuine questions. Cordless Larry (talk) 07:31, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
ANI would have been the correct venue if it were one account doing this. However, the case revolves around sock puppetry, which is a more deceptive form of disruption as it splits a user's contribution history to avoid detection. If I had filed the SPI, I would have included this evidence: On August 17, Freshmangrandcaravan (talk·contribs) asks the Teahouse several questions about revision deletion, [1][2][3] and they're legitimate queries, so we give them our due time and attention in our responses, as we should. But then, a few days after that constructive thread, a different user, Freshmantruck (talk·contribs), asks essentially the same question [4], and we warn them not to use multiple accounts. Then, approximately 1 month later, on September 22, Truckmanbeginner (talk·contribs) asks the same question about RevDel again. Truckmanbeginner also asks a similar question about the Michael Cole biography that Freshmangrandcaravan asked a month earlier. Then, on September 26, Exercisemanweighttraining (talk·contribs) asks a RevDel/OS question, and a few hours later, Musclemanintensity (talk·contribs) also asks a RevDel/OS question.
None of these accounts have contributions beyond the Teahouse, and they have been confirmed by CheckUser evidence to be the same person. I would certainly agree that the disruption to the project isn't as great as, say, an editor who uses multiple accounts to sway a consensus. But I do not agree that it isn't disruptive at all. The editor was warned against using multiple accounts, and was referred multiple times to previous answers, yet continued to ask the same ones, wasting the time of our volunteers. Taking into consideration all of this, along with the lack of truly constructive edits beyond these repetitive questions, I see an editor not here to build an encyclopedia, and thus solid grounds for blocking. (Also noting for the record that because it is a CheckUser block, appeals for unblocking should be made only to ArbCom.) Mz7 (talk) 01:54, 29 September 2015 (UTC)
Sort of a question about the Teahouse
Hi! I have a question, but first a little explanation:
I'm going to the Wikipedia conference in a week and my topic is on conflict of interest editors. I know that there are some who are gung-ho spammerific and want things in a certain promotional way, but I've seen some other editors come through and they seem to really want to learn. I started thinking about what we could do for COI editors, but I realized that one of the first things that needed to be done was to see what new editors have as far as resources go and what they see upon signup.
I was wondering: do you guys have a list of resources that new users can access? By this I mean, do we have a list that would show the various training programs (WP:TRAINING, WP:ADVENTURE), mentorship programs (we have the main one and usually one that's being tested, like WP:CO-OP), basic editing guidelines and so on? I've not seen any around, but I'm sure that various users might have something similar in their userspace - do we have anything official?
Also another question you may be able to answer: do you know if there is a bot that automatically welcomes users as soon as they sign up with a page? I know that there is a notification, but I'm looking for something that would specifically post something like Template:Welcome. From what I've seen it's usually done by people and not bots, so not everyone is automatically getting directed to guidelines and training upon signup.
If you guys can suggest anything that could be helpful as a potential solution at helping conflict of interest editors, I'm all ears. I know that there's AfC, but not every new editor knows that it exists. Creating a new page in the mainspace will have a template at the top of the page that directs them to WP:YFA, but I'm worried that they may overlook it in the clamor to make an article. Upon signing up with a test account for the lecture I was directed to just edit and didn't get an overview of guidelines at all, so this could be problematic with COI users who want to edit an article that is already in the mainspace, meaning that they'll never see the YFA guidelines.
So yeah, just sort of brainstorming at this point in time. I figure that asking for a fresh perspective could help and since you guys deal very heavily with new users, some of which have a COI, I wanted to see if there's anything you guys think could be good to include or if there's already pre-existing resources out there. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)16:40, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
Hi Tokyogirl79. This for this, and good luck at the conference. I agree that there are COI editors who end up making useful contributions, and I think the Teahouse has been a good place for them to learn how to do this and how to act as is appropriate given their COIs. As far as I know, there is no bot that welcomes new users (or if there is, it certainly doesn't welcome a large proportion). I currently favour Template:W-graphical as a welcome message, which includes quite a lot of links to resources that a new editor might find helpful, if not the ones that you mention. Cordless Larry (talk) 07:16, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
Hi Tokyogirl79. Apologies for long post. Using a bot to send welcome messages is actually a topic listed at Wikipedia:Perennial proposals. The general consensus among community members is that new editors should always be greeted by humans, and the message should be personalized to their contributions so far (which is probably why we have a wide array of templates to choose from). Additionally, it would be difficult to prevent a bot from welcoming vandals, and we wouldn't want to thank them for their contributions.
With regards to an official list of resources for new users, I think the closest thing to what you're looking for is Help:Directory. While it's comprehensive, it might be too comprehensive; one of the methods of the Teahouse is to avoid over-linking, and that's what Help:Directory sort of does. I think the directory would be more useful for an experienced editor to find resources to link for newer editors, rather than as the target of a link itself.
With regards to COI editing, finding the best way to educate COI editors before they edit is interesting to me. Current practice is to identify potential COI editors after they edit and inform them of our expectations (such as with {{uw-coi}} or {{welcome-COI}}). The way Wikipedia is set up—"the encyclopedia anyone can edit"—makes it a bit difficult to educate COI editors before they edit, especially since we advocate WP:BOLD and WP:IAR editing. Whenever a potential COI shows up in the Teahouse, I personally find it helpful to explain the three core content policies (WP:V, WP:NPOV, WP:NOR). Not just linking to them, but explaining what they are and why we have each. Once we established those, the COI guideline becomes easier to explain and for them to understand. Here is a Teahouse response regarding COI I made back in August.
Thanks guys! I know that one of the things I've been mulling over in my head would be to add an extra step or field for people to fill out when they sign up. They'd be able to say if they'd potentially be editing with a COI, non-COI edits (ie, never on something they're affiliated with), or if they are students or professors. I know that this could scare people off a little, but this might be useful since the site could then take them to a specific page. Rather than edit a live page directly (as the current setup sends people directly to an article needing improvement) it could send students to the University WP or COI editors to the COI guidelines. I did make an account to test out the process and I noticed that new users are just sent directly to a page and told to edit - they're not really directed to any information about guidelines on editing or notability. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)04:16, 3 October 2015 (UTC)
Why is the TOC on the right? I had to look for a bit before I found it. It should really be in the usual place - on the left - especially, since the Teahouse is designed to cater to users who are still getting used to how things are normally done around here and don't need another - purely superfluous - complication. – PhilosopherLet us reason together.21:02, 14 October 2015 (UTC)
There was a discussion about this in the early days and I seem to recall that the reason for the right hand side was that it could be customised to scroll rather than have to display the full list of questions which can get very long if the standard left TOC is used. Nthep (talk) 22:05, 14 October 2015 (UTC)
TOC scrolling usually works fine on my Android HTC One smart phone. If things are getting buggy, sometimes scrolling freezes. A shutdown/restart makes things sweet again. Cullen328Let's discuss it06:18, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
The Teahouse is intended for the use of new editors. Arranging it with the new questions at the top and the ToC at the right seems perverse. We ought to be making life easier for new editors, not trying to confuse them. Maproom (talk) 10:30, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
Hello, i am User:Luis Santos24. It has come to my attention that The Teahouse might be in need of an upgrade. Currently, the format is okay, but some things overlap each other, including text. This could be confusing to some editors who are either new to Wikipedia or The Teahouse itself. My statement/suggestion, is, we should perhaps change the format of The Teahouse so that it could look better and not overlap things.
When I view the Teahouse (using Chrome, on Windows) I see no overlapping, of text or anything else. Can you be more specific about what overlapping you are seeing? Maproom (talk) 16:57, 1 November 2015 (UTC)
Hi,Newbies!Thank you for creating a account.Let's get started.You can be a experienced editor if you edit some page or create a Wikipedia Page.BUT NO SAYING BADWORDS!Ok?So you can be a Host like me.Feel free?Enjoy it. RicGloria1 (talk) 07:53, 19 October 2015 (UTC)
RicGloria1 and Supdiop, this page is a place to discuss the operation of the Teahouse itself. I doubt that many new editors view or read comments posted here. Were your comments supposed to be directed at a particular editor or group of editors? Cordless Larry (talk) 19:27, 20 October 2015 (UTC)
Hi! I'm trying to host an editathon in NOLA and am new in the area. In New York it was easy to find administrators and wikimedians to join and help us. Any advice on finding people to help? It will be November 17--Heathart (talk) 18:11, 28 October 2015 (UTC)
It is easy for the image of a host at the top of the page to deceive a visitor into thinking that that is the one on duty. Could it be clarified that that is not the case? I do not know how to attempt it. SovalValtos (talk) 21:29, 20 November 2015 (UTC)
As demonstrated here. I thought we were back to the invite signing issue here, until I saw that the host mentioned wasn't the one signed on the template placed on the user's talk page. Cordless Larry (talk) 21:41, 20 November 2015 (UTC)
Every now and then The Teahouse and Help Desk get questions about how Google search results display information. If there is a mistake, we are advised to send feedback. Does this work? If a search for WSAT still gives the result that WSAT is "adult standards, oldies", even if the excerpt from Wikipedia also shown says "oldies", we can assume that it does not. I have sent them this information numerous times and it does not get corrected.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 20:15, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
@Vchimpanzee: Always a problem. You leave some message with a gigantic corporation that you hope will get in front of the eyes of someone who will really look and take the time to correct it, but there is no way to know if that will ever happen. Maybe you're just dropping a penny down a well with 100,000 others with no one at all actually doing anything with it (or maybe one employee slogging away at a task that requires 200 to actually scale to address the issue). I tried a whole bunch of searches like Google ignores feedback and positive opposites but did not find a great deal. That search finds one responsive complaint but it's just one person's anecdotal opinion.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 15:48, 20 December 2015 (UTC)
The post is about the feedback mechanism described in {{HD/GKG}}. I don't know whether there is a human reviewer. Considering how Google works, I find it more likely that it's determined automatically by an algorithm they often tweak and deliberately keep secret. Maybe it helps if many people with different IP addresses mark the same field wrong. I don't see mention of "adult standards" in the Google search WSAT. @Vchimpanzee: Did you see it in the Wikipedia excerpt or in another field in the Google Knowledge Graph (the box to the right)? If it was in the Wikipedia excerpt then it just means they haven't updated after you removed it from Wikipedia in [6]. Our feedback advice is not about that situation. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:13, 20 December 2015 (UTC)
PrimeHunter they updated the Wikipedia excerpt. But the people asking for help want the error fixed regardless of where the error came from. People giving advice say that the part where the error is has nothing to do with Wikipedia but explain how to tell Google what needs fixing. In my case, the wrong information, wherever it came from, is not getting fixed.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 19:18, 20 December 2015 (UTC)
I never tell people to use feedback if it's the Wikipedia excerpt which needs an update, and I don't recall seeing others do it. You both say "they updated the Wikipedia excerpt", and in present tense "is not getting fixed". Do you see the problem currently? If so, exactly where do you see it? PrimeHunter (talk) 19:27, 20 December 2015 (UTC)
WSAT is a radio station broadcasting an oldies format. Licensed to Salisbury, North Carolina, USA. The station is currently owned by William Marc Graham, through licensee 2B Productions, LLC Sports ... Wikipedia
Sister stations: WSTP
Affiliations: Cumulus Media Networks
City of license: Salisbury
Among the normal search results to the left I see this:
I had to figure out how to do a Google search at home but someone posted a Google search result here so I just subtituted WSAT. To the right of the search results I see:
WSAT
Radio Station
WSAT is a radio station broadcasting an oldies format. Licensed to Salisbury, North Carolina, USA. The station is currently owned by William Marc Graham, through licensee 2B Productions, LLC Sports ... Wikipedia
First, this isn't the Teahouse but the Teahouse talk page, and so is the wrong place to ask your question. However, if your objective is to get your article accepted as a POV fork when there is already an article, the answer is that it isn't worth trying. Try working with the other editors. I realize that they may not be very nice to you because you were not very nice to them. However, working collaborative rather than fragmentarily is how Wikipedia works. Robert McClenon (talk) 07:43, 1 January 2016 (UTC)
Asking question
Hello, I can't submit my questions to the teahouse because despite signing the ask question link is still dead.The questions I want to ask are is it true there are 25million pages on wiki including all languages?and is an autobiography a reliable source?Thanks84.92.84.254 (talk) 14:08, 29 November 2015 (UTC)
Let me try to answer the two questions posted above:
"Is it true that there are 25 million wiki pages, including all languages?" The answer is yes: actually, according to Wikipedia article, there are more than 37 million wiki articles. Currently, there are 280 active Wikipedias, and their detailed stats can be seen here.
Sir, I would like to inquire whether I can insert a content about a company, as separate Wikipedia page or not. I have seen that there are various company pages. So, I would like to insert a institute page of mine too. My institute deals with the latest discoveries in the technology, based on Artificial Intelligence and Artificial Neural Network.
Kindly, guide me. I have a website: http://www.aimstechnology.com. I want to display the information of website on Wikipedia so that I can be globally recognized by the people and they can access information related new discoveries. I will also keep contributing content to Wikipedia.
I look forward to hear from you soon. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Stenawilsom (talk • contribs) 16:54, 11 January 2016 (UTC)
Hi everyone I need help. I want to delete my account😢 But I don't know how! Please tell me how. I just can't edit anything. Please explain to me how. Thx 😕 Crableg lover (talk) 00:31, 13 January 2016 (UTC)
Im not sure what to do anymore. But essentially. I'm trying to push my way into this culture of Wikipedia, and every time it just hits me in the face. I'm not getting it. And it's to the point of tears just trying to make it work.
Hello, Can an experienced editor at Teahouse lend me a hand please? I'm new on wikipedia and started writing an article about a well-known musician from Florida. Draft:J Pimp
Need help to remove a website from the blacklist of Wikipedia.
Respected and honored Sir,
I have a request to help in removing a domain "currencyliquidator.com" from the blacklist of the Wikipedia. I have a content from this website that I need to add on the Iranian Rial page template. While I was attempting to insert the current currency rates from the website and referring the website, I received a message that this website is in the blacklist of wikipedia and a suggestion was also given to remove this website from the local and global blacklist. I have requested there too, but there wasn't any reply.
I request you sir to remove the domain from the Wikipedia blacklist. I will be delighted to hear from you.
There is a strong reason behind asking you to for the removal of the domain from the blacklist: The websites mention in the template are not at all showing the current currency exchange rate, but I found that the website currencyliquidator has an updated values of the currency rate and it keep on updating from time to time.
Respected Cordless Larry, I am delighted to hear from you. As I have mentioned already that I had visited the other pages and raised the same query but I didn't got any reply till now. So I thought you can help me in it. Kindly, allow the website to add the correct information in the article, else I think the article will contain wrong information which is not good.
This question, well answered by Cullen328, Maproom, and ColinFine, is interesting. From experiences here and at WP:AFC, I often get the impression that new many new editors assume that creating new articles is the primary (or even only) way to contribute to Wikipedia. In a way it makes sense, the concept of tweaking and changing other people's work is less intuitive than writing a new page and slotting it into encyclopaedia. Even if they realise this, a new editor is likely to be cautious about contributing, and may well consider writing something entirely new to be less "intruding" than changing the work of a stranger.
I reckon we lose a lot of potential editors because their first experience of Wikipedia is the difficult and complicated process of creating a new article. I don't really have a solution (and I know I'm not the first person to think the above), but thought that maybe a discussion here might throw up a few good ideas. --LukeSurltc12:53, 12 January 2016 (UTC)
I agree completely, LukeSurl. I am more and more often advising new editors to start by getting experience editing elsewhere before they try creating an article - and, as I said to someone yesterday, improving existing articles adds to our quality more than writing new ones unless the new ones are very good.
I don't know what the answer is. WP:YFA does recommend "practice first", but I'd like to see it say in large friendly letters something like "Don't even try this until you've edited several other articles" - but perhaps in a more friendly way. But a lot of new editors don't see YFA, or at least, not until they've asked for help and been referred to it. It used to be the case (maybe still is) that only autoconfirmed users can create an article in article space: I wonder if it might be a good idea to extend that to Draft space, and have the message say something about getting experience editing elsewhere first. --ColinFine (talk) 14:00, 12 January 2016 (UTC)
New users, whether or not autoconfirmed, may create pages in almost any namespace, including article space and draft space. I see no reason to create an additional distinction between new users and autoconfirmed users. (The real reason for restricting new users from editing semi-protected pages is presumably to prevent sockpuppetry by throw-away accounts.) It is my understanding that the original purpose of Articles for Creation was to enable unregistered editors to create draft articles for review, and that it has evolved to be primarily a process for inexperienced editors but is still also a process for unregistered editors. I see no reason to restrict the ability of unregistered editors to create drafts, let alone to restrict new editors. (I can see arguments for restricting the ability of unregistered editors to edit at all, but that is, in my opinion, a mistake that was made at the very beginning of Wikipedia that is unlikely to be corrected.) Robert McClenon (talk) 01:28, 13 January 2016 (UTC)
I fully agree, LukeSurl. Your point about new editors perceiving edits to "someone else's" article as intrusive is a good one, which had not occurred to me. And the experience of trying to create an article is made worse for them by the way new articles are often treated. For a competent and well-meaning new editor, it can go like this:
She writes a draft, and submits it.
A reviewer points out that it is written in promotional language. (He also has doubts about notability, but can't be sure, and so says nothing about that.)
She corrects the promotional writing, and resubmits.
A reviewer points out that references are all done wrong, and give guidance on how to do them. (He also has doubts about notability, likewise.)
She corrects the referencing, and resubmits.
A reviewer points out that references do not establish notability.
She thinks "what a lot of hoops I have to jump through to get this accepted!", and starts to learn about notability. She doesn't fully understand what is required from her, and asks for help.
She is told that the subject appears not to be notable. She has been wasting her time all along. She gives up on her plan to contribute to Wikipedia.
I can't claim to be blameless here. I have contributed to all steps of the disillusionment process. It is very sad that enthusiastic new editors, and the more experienced editors who try to help them, all acting with good will, so often bring about such an unfortunate outcome.
The root of the problem is the very common belief that the way to contribute is to create an article. I have observed it in face-to-face training, as well as at my keyboard. I wonder if the slogan at the top of the Main Page "Welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit" is partly to blame; but "... the free encyclopedia that anyone can improve" sounds stupid. I don't know what could be done about it, apart from preventing editors from creating articles until they have enough experience. Maproom (talk) 14:15, 12 January 2016 (UTC)
I agree with User:Maproom about the multiple declines being very discouraging. I will point out that this is an argument in favor of a proposal that I have made (and that no one has disagreed with, to the best of my knowledge), that the decline template should permit the reviewer to select multiple decline reasons. The scenario that Maproom lists is not uncommon, and one reason is that, with the decline template only providing one primary reason, reviewers do not always mention other concerns or issues. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:14, 13 January 2016 (UTC)
The multiple declines are inevitable. When an completely inexperienced editor creates a new article, it is going to have a lot of things wrong with it. But what is particularly unfortunate is that the things that can be fixed (promotional language, poor formatting, wrong referencing style, spelling, grammar) get drawn to the creator's attention first, before the lack of notability which is not the creator's fault and probably can't be fixed. Maproom (talk) 13:00, 13 January 2016 (UTC)
It is true that sometimes multiple declines are inevitable. It would happen less often if reviewers were able to specify multiple decline reasons at once. Also, reviewers should be encouraged to identify notability concerns in the first decline. To identify obvious concerns before notability concerns makes the reviewer's job "easy", but it is hard on the inexperienced editor. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:11, 13 January 2016 (UTC)
It might help to know more about what motivates people to edit Wikipedia. I joined Wikipedia because I saw that the coverage of my field of expertise was poor, so my editing choices were determined by the gaps I saw (improving some articles, creating others). But a lot of Wikipedians seem to start with a generalized wish to contribute something to Wikipedia. Why is that? RockMagnetist(talk)16:41, 12 January 2016 (UTC)
Part of this, too, is the open and volunteer nature of Wikipedia. If we were a corporation hiring people to edit an internally produced encyclopedia, we'd develop training processes, and be able to say something like "We're not going to let you create new pages until you've edited some existing ones first, and you've read through these important policy documents". Trying to implement anything like the previous sentence would pretty much destroy the whole "encyclopedia that anyone can edit" thing. (If you ever want to propose something that doesn't get adopted, try proposing those sorts of requirements!) If I were mentoring a new editor (and I don't know that I'm the best choice for that) I'd recommend that they did something like that anyway (as advice, not as a wiki-wide policy!). Go read a couple basic policy documents, then find articles to edit and improve. You get the experience of dealing with our processes without the likelihood of investing a lot of time and effort into something that's going nowhere. Wabbott9Tell me about it....21:14, 21 January 2016 (UTC)
The comment was made somewhere in the past few days that a limitation on the AFCH script is that it posts the relatively unfriendly decline template to the editor's talk page, but, if any comments were also added, they are posted only to the draft article. Why can't the comments, which are sometimes clearer than the unfriendly decline, also be copied directly to the talk page? That seems straightforward. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:01, 23 January 2016 (UTC)
Not sure why someone asked me... I guess they are confused as to what was placed on there page today...Did you guys want to spam the Tip of the day... on your {{Welcome-t}}?? -- Moxy (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 17:27, 19 November 2015 (UTC)
Need help I notice in my city of easley under notable people a former world heavy weight kick boxing champ who is born and raised and still reside in his home town of easley sc was not mentioned I created a page and it's up for deletion soon as I added it what did I do wrong? Please help Taadawl (talk) 07:53, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
It's long been a problem that users post questions at the bottom of the Teahouse questions page rather than the top, but this seems to be happening with almost every post in the past day or so. Have I missed something, or is this just bad luck? Cordless Larry (talk) 16:07, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
I don't know, except that maybe they understand Wikipedia and the Teahouse is wrong. (Probably just bad luck, but the Teahouse is wrong, and its oddity with top-posting can confuse new users, who may top-post to other pages as a result.) Robert McClenon (talk) 18:32, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
The script appears not to be working correctly. I used the Submit a Question interface to post a request to advise a new editor, and it went to the bottom. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:42, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
Probably. The Ask My Question button is missing, and I have to use the Save button, which bottom-posts. It happened again. Please ask the programmer to see whether he accidentally introduced a bug. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:21, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
Greetings Cordless Larry and Robert McClenon – In the MonoBook skin, the Ask a question was positioned on top of Play WP Adventure game line, so I moved it up and to the left of that line. Also, I changed it to a Clickable button, so I do not see how that could be a problem. After these changes, I did switch skin over to Vector & it still looks ok.
If you agree, I could Undo & see if it solves the bottom-posting issue. If it does, there must be some "Tricky-WikiCode" in that template - something that I totally don't understand how or why. Regards, JoeHebda(talk) 20:00, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
I have some questions about the gadget which adds the "Join this discussion" link to all sections. I'm working on a RfC draft for the Pump, proposing to activate this gadget at all talk pages. I think it's a simple change that would make life easier for all newcomers.
Do you think this is a good idea? Has it been already discussed with the wider community - and if so, has it been rejected in the past? Also, what is the history of this gadget, and would it be easy to reuse it by default at all talk pages? Diego (talk) 10:19, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
Started as a userscript created by Equazcion, merged into the Teahouse gadget by Writ Keeper in November 2012. I don't know of any previous proposals to incorporate this functionality into all talkpages. I suspect doing so might lead to performance issues (inserting extra Javascript into every pageload is costly). I'm not well versed enough in those things to know how feasible it is. But if there's enough interest, it might be a project that the Wikimedia Community Tech team or a MediaWiki Extension developer could take on. J-Mo22:00, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
I don't think it's been proposed before. It's not a bad idea, but like JMo says, there is a non-negligible performance impact (at least for people with older or mobile devices/browsers), and there's likely to be a lot of opposition on those grounds. An extension dev would probably be a better way of doing it. Writ Keeper⚇♔22:30, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for your replies. I'm sure that, if the community agrees that this function is a nice thing to have, it could be better integrated with mediawiki to make it more performant. Diego (talk) 14:05, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
Adopting minimum requirements to be a host – host criteria
Hello all. The genesis of this thread is Wikipedia talk:Teahouse/Host lounge#Inappropriate hosts (the user that prompted that is now blocked). I've brought this here as this seems a wider project discussion page than that of the host lounge talk page.
This is by no means the first time similar issues have presented. There may be others, but see, for example:
you might also note that the most recent recent host self-designation is from a user with 148 edits (though they have answered no Teahouse questions as yet).
The question is: shall we adopt a set of minimum criteria? In response to the discussion I linked in the opening sentence of this thread, I drafted a proposed set of criteria. My question here is not shall we adopt these exact criteria – that draft is totally open to criticism and change.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 16:24, 28 February 2016 (UTC)
To get on the list of host...we just need to have a request host page...where people say "I" would like to host...the other hosts simply look at some history to see if they have the experiences to be a "host" over someone who just replies to questions. -- Moxy (talk) 18:04, 28 February 2016 (UTC)
There's an editor I just unblocked who could use a Teahouse invitation. I can't see anyway to get this done unless I should do it myself, although I don't have time to be a host. It's User:Nevets20. Thanks. Doug Wellertalk11:19, 29 February 2016 (UTC)
It seems like this user wanted to discuss making a Wikipedia article for a business. By the records at Special:Contributions/CBSmith24, they posted to the Teahouse and to their userpage, and were blocked for this. I think they came to the Teahouse for a lighter touch.
Would someone here comment on having their post deleted? I am not sure what to tell a user who seems to regret their experience at TeaHouse. Can anyone confirm that everything here happened in the way that it was supposed to happen? Blue Rasberry (talk)20:24, 3 March 2016 (UTC)
He was soft blocked for promo username, unblocked when he changed his name. Exactly what was supposed to happen. Curious as to how you can assume good faith here. Certainly appears to be a user who refuses to comply with our COI and paid exiting policies and is attempting to hide his trail. The blanking of the archive is telling. John from Idegon (talk) 21:03, 3 March 2016 (UTC)
One of your active responders, User Happysquirrel, has just been awarded the Editor of the Week. A few "pats on the back" from her fellow Teahousers would be great. Editor Retention happens one editor at a time. Buster Seven Talk16:46, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
I have added a link to the Teahouse to the message at the top of that page. I doubt that people posing questions there are actually reading the warnings, but it might make a small difference. Cordless Larry (talk) 08:02, 3 March 2016 (UTC)
Hello this may sound really obvious but how do I upload a new article ? I have been trying to find a button for it but I just can't find one. Rianna&gemma (talk) 23:02, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
Several posts on WP:Teahouse/Questions seem to have had their formatting scrambled, most obviously in the signatures: HTML control characters (principally <) have been replaced by their HTML entity coding (< etc). In the signatures it leaves unsightly <span> and <sup> tags lying about, but in the body it usually means that <nowiki> tags have been disabled, with unfortunate consequences. I posted a correction to one, and fixed another before I realised it was apparently endemic. I don't know if it's something with just this page, or more general. There's nothing on VPT about it. --ColinFine (talk) 12:09, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
I've asked the editor whether he knows how that happened. He did something similar in an edit to his own user talk page, so I wonder whether he had some strange settings. --David Biddulph (talk) 13:19, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
That link should obviously be removed from wherever it's hiding in the headers. The sensible thing to use is the archive search box. --David Biddulph (talk) 04:50, 13 March 2016 (UTC)
Hello colleagues. I replaced a photo (in danger of deletion) in my first article with a tiff version for which I got permission. However, the new version has the author's name on it which I could not read. I have managed to decipher Maull & Co. There is a Henry Maull on Wiki and his article gives the dates for Maull & Co as 1873-78. So the image is no longer by an unknown author and the date is slightly out. How do I change the new information? The editing I tried did not seem to work. Thank you. --Po Kadzieli (talk) 21:22, 3 April 2016 (UTC)
Hello, I created my first article about a distribution company in Africa and was recommended for speedy deletion based on article 7 could someone advise what I need to do to correct this please? Motion Picture Report (talk) 15:52, 5 April 2016 (UTC)
I learn so easily editing some page here... I love The Story of Us So i decided to have a list of episodes there.. Thank u for having me here ❤️😀 Jacob Udiong (talk) 02:10, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
Reminder to notify guests of answers
Just a reminder to notify editors when their questions have been answered, either by pinging them as part of the answer (and remembering to sign so that they get a notification) or by using Wikipedia:Teahouse/Teahouse talkback. I've noticed a few hosts failing to do this recently. While it is reasonable to expect editors posing questions to monitor the Teahouse for replies, many of our guests are new to Wikipedia and might not understand how discussion pages work. They might also not expect to receive multiple answers to questions, so once a day or two has passed, it is all the more important to notify them of additional posts. Thanks, and keep up the good work. Cordless Larry (talk) 21:00, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
Single edit tab
I've just posted information about an upcoming change for editors who have the visual editor enabled – which includes nearly all newly registered editors. The information is at Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)/Archive 52#Single edit tab. If you currently have two edit tabs (Edit/Edit source), then this will give you the options of having only one Edit button, if you prefer that.
This change is likely to happen in mid-to-late April, and it may result in a few editors coming to this page to ask what happened to their second edit tab/how to find the other editing environment. Please read that information, and share it with other editors. Thank you, Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:38, 31 March 2016 (UTC)
When I tried to follow the instructions in this page, I had a tiny problem because, for a minute or two, I couldn't understand where I was supposed to fill out the information. I imagine other users might have the same problem. A clarification that the information is meant to be written in the text area at the bottom of the page might be useful.
Elendaíl (talk) 20:05, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
Sohanpandey, Cordless Larry. They're meant to be used like Barnstars. Anyone can give them to anyone else. You don't have to 'unlock' any secret achievements (or answer any defined number of questions) to receive one ;) They don't get used that often these days... but we can change that. I just badged ya BOTH! J-Mo23:26, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
Many apologies for accidentally adding two highly inappropriate categories to this page _ this was not vandalism, I was trying to ask a question about how add new entries to categories. Please forgive, I still have not learnt how to enter new questions here, if I did try.Vorbee (talk) 19:18, 22 April 2016 (UTC)
No need to apologise, Vorbee, but thanks for your message here. If you want to link to a category rather than placing a page in it, you can insert a colon immediately in front of the word "Category", such as this: [[:Category:Category name]]. Cordless Larry (talk) 19:39, 22 April 2016 (UTC)
MassiveLizard - You left a message on my talk page regarding issues and concerns with this editor. I'd like offer my continued assistance to you there, and I kindly ask that (for now) we keep the discussion there. I'll be more than happy to go over your concerns and answer any questions you have on my talk page. Let's continue the discussion and go from there :-) ~Oshwah~(talk)(contribs)10:46, 1 May 2016 (UTC)
Can you create your own Wikipedia page, not just the user talk page, or can you only edit and contribute to the Wikipedia community? Freshies203 (talk) 00:11, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
I would like to end Wikipedia in Japanese that Chinese wrote. they wrote about Japanese history. it's strange? you suggest that I edit Wikipedia in Japanese? I forgive huge data. Yuriko Tanabe (talk) 08:06, 6 May 2016 (UTC)
Yeah, I've got my finger over the button already. I'm just curious what her reply (if any) will be to my response on my talk page. If that possibly gets her interested in straightening out, I'll just keep watching, but otherwise... Ian.thomson (talk) 09:51, 6 May 2016 (UTC)
This edit request to Wikipedia:Teahouse has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.
Hello Teahouse Team!
I was advised to check if you could help with an editing issue that I'm facing. I submitted an edit request here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Kempinski , but it's not being picked up by any editor. We receive a lot of complaints about the wrong property list and I would be very grateful if you could assist us with the edit.
Some students of mine had trouble asking a question here. Why? Well, there's the requirement of "sign your request with ~~~~. Which is fine, but it will not accept the signature in the new, empty line (email style). It requires it to follow a sentence (wiki style). But new editors don't know what's wrong. Either the code should be more forgiving or the instructions need to be more clear. --Hanyangprofessor2 (talk) 04:23, 26 May 2016 (UTC)
I never knew that a signature here couldn't be on a new empty line. Testing:
Hmmm. Ok, I tried to replicate the error myself and I couldn't. But I am pretty sure what I saw in class was the the draft for Questions#Article_advice question, but with the 4 tildes in a separate line. The button was inactive until I moved them to the end of the prior sentence. *shrug* Not sure what was wrong... --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here10:26, 26 May 2016 (UTC)
I guess this is about the blue "Ask a question" button at top of Wikipedia:Teahouse/Questions. For me in Firefox, the "Ask my question" button becomes clickable as soon as ~~~~ is written anywhere in the box (not the summary field above the box). In some situations a tilde character is not displayed until something else is pressed. Make sure there are four displayed tildes. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:42, 26 May 2016 (UTC)
Update: I had changed my directory structure in the source repo, which broke the HostBot cron jobs. I've fixed things and also done a manual run the invite and recent questions update scripts for today; it's working now! Thanks again Cordless Larry and PrimeHunter. Cheers, J-Mo19:37, 31 May 2016 (UTC)
There are obvious actions of some editors forming a team. They act like a gang and impose only references they accept. Being a gang it is difficult to act against them. They erase any text creating the impression of majority.
This kind of actions show that a gang of editors may disturb and construct false data. It looks like a politics of some nationalists. Administrators say they do not want to interfere.
False data and biased data made Wikipedia an unreliable source — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.166.134.68 (talk) 05:22, 1 June 2016 (UTC)
It has recently become apparent to me that the Teahouse is generally for new editors. This is not apparent from the heading which states Welcome to the Teahouse! A friendly place to learn about editing Wikipedia. Note there is no mention of "new editors". I suggest that the wording be changed to something like - Welcome to the Teahouse! A friendly place for new editors to learn about editing Wikipedia. DrChrissy(talk)16:13, 1 June 2016 (UTC)
Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. Sir Joseph(talk)19:29, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
TOC
Wouldn't it be better to have a fully visible TOC, rather than one where only 1/4 of the thread titles are visible at a time? The odd scrolling TOC makes it less likely for anyone to see or reply to a question, and makes it less likely that querants will find, see, or reply to any answers they receive. Can't something like a right-hand TOC be used instead of this awkward set-up? Softlavender (talk) 12:31, 27 June 2016 (UTC)
The trouble with that is, that due to the number of questions on the page the TOC is very long - often as long as the content. Therefore you always have reduced width. The scrolling TOC is a compromise between readability and functionality. Nthep (talk) 13:16, 27 June 2016 (UTC)
Right now, on my monitor the text of the page is roughly 15 feet long, and the full TOC would be about 16 inches long. So I'm not seeing how that could possibly be true these days. Plus with a right-floated TOC, it wouldn't disrupt readability. Softlavender (talk) 13:28, 27 June 2016 (UTC)
Hi, Can someone please review the page wipekart and tell me whats wrong on that? fitindia has nominated it for speeding deletion
the page i created wipekart is kept for speedy deletion, the page is only about the info of the company and its key peoples which is very important for a internet user to know before they are engaged with any relations with them. please re-review this once again. I have found a bunch of pages on wiki which is similar to this one than why only this page is kept deletion. Request you to re-review the content. thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by 1.186.38.19 (talk) 17:36, 2 July 2016 (UTC)
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