Wikipedia:Teahouse/Questions/Archive 283

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Editing a biography

Hi,

I have a question around editing a biography and adding information that has been previously published in a Newspaper or magazine blog and where available sources are outdated.

What is the best way to provide a citation or edit information so that it is correctly reflected? Can one link to a company website? Sophie31.221.118.196 (talk) 14:22, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Greetings Sophie (31.221.118.196), welcome to the teahouse. There are some specific policies regarding biographies of living people. Here is an article you should probably look at: Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons In the editor there are templates you can use to add references to newspapers and magazines. Click on the "Cite" link and then select the appropriate Template from the drop down menu right below it. There are some times when it is is possible to use a company web site as a reference. For example, for technical articles sites like IBM.com have a lot of information that are things like tech reports and white papers. But in general if you are writing an article about company Foo or about the CEO or other exec at company Foo using Foo.com to justify what you say is not a good idea. Wikipedia:references are supposed to be neutral and company web sites are often promotional. One more point: note that I said "use as a reference" above rather than "link to". Keep in mind that all links in an article can only go to other Wikipedia articles. If you want to link to (as opposed to use as a reference) a company web site that goes in the external links section of the article. There are very significant restrictions on what can go into external links. Again no promotional material and it needs to be something that adds significant value beyond (but directly relevant to) what's in the article. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 20:14, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Additional Citations for Verification

I’m writing to get some specific feedback back on two pages I recently uploaded to Wikipedia.

They are biographical in nature and for some reason doesn’t seem to adhere to the guidelines of Wikipedia even though I’ve provided several sources and citations and have written them both in an objective tone.

Is there any way to receive specific feedback as to what exactly is still needed to ensure both pages stay up? Here are links to both pages in question:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zainab_Balogun

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eku_Edewor

To note: I modeled both pages after another one I uploaded last year and it has never been flagged; but the others have. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicole_Gibbons

Please advise!

Best Abigail 174.44.205.58 (talk) 17:17, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Welcome to the Teahouse. I assume that you are Hcsayen, the editor who started these three articles. Please remember to log in when editing. It seems that you specialize in writing biographies of ambitious, attractive young women building careers in entertainment. There is nothing at all wrong with that, and your articles have certain strengths. However, this is a field where many editors will have concerns about promotionalism, and whether or not these people are truly notable. I see that a fourth article of yours survived an Articles for Deletion debate about a year ago. My advice to you is to use the most solid independent, reliable sources, avoid use of blogs and social media sites, and keep use of self published material to an absolute minimum. Keep looking for new and better sources as your biography subjects' careers advance, and add them as references. Just because one article didn't get tagged and others did is of no real significance. Maybe no one noticed the first. As far as "ensuring" that your pages stay up, there are no 100% guarantees. The stronger your sources and the evidence of notability, the less likely that an article will be deleted. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 20:01, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Actually, only one of them was tagged with {{BLP sources}} - the other one was created with it: [1] - presumably due to their copy-pasting to form the frame for the article. G S Palmer (talk • contribs) 21:53, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Is my proposed article notable?

Hello,

Utter Wiki newbie here; my company has developed a unique business model. It isn't a product we sell, its a new way of looking at business to the benefit of all stakeholders. We work within this model. I would like to create a Wiki page describing the model. There are some pages on Wiki that I can reference, but they are all very substantially different.

Appropriately notable?

Many thanks!

Paul 90.200.91.49 (talk) 12:23, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Dear Paul: Welcome to Wikipedia - which is, however, not a place to present new ideas. An encyclopedia is a summary of what has been previously written in independent published sources about a topic. Unless your business model has been the subject of quite a few news reports, magazine articles, book chapters, etc., written by people not connected with your company, it would not be considered "notable". —Anne Delong (talk) 12:49, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

(e.c) Hi Paul. Regardless of whether your company is notable you should not write an article on it as among other reasons, you have a flagrant conflict of interest in doing so. See also Wikipedia:Autobiography. You would almost surely write it with a positive bias and might not like what happens when people who are unbiased try to make is a balanced treatment and would have no control or special say over that. That having been said, from what little you said in your post it sounds like the business is not notable and an article would be deleted. The issue is not citing other Wikipedia (not "wiki") pages – we don't reference other Wikipedia pages as that would be circular and wikis are not reliable sources – we cite third party reliable sources that are entirely independent of the topic being written about. These would be media like newspaper articles by reporters (not press releases), published books (not vanity-published) and so on, and not blogs, forums, Facebook, LinkedIn, companies' own websites, or random websites without a reputation for fact checking and accuracy. It doesn't sound like these are likely to exist for your company because the words you chose implied to me that the company and/or the business model was new. It also sounds like you might like to include original research which is not allowed. If insufficient reliable and independent sources exist to evidence notability and provide verifiability of text to be included, Wikipedia should not have an article on a topic. Best regards--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 13:06, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

You may say "unique business model" and "a new way of looking at business to the benefit of all stakeholders" but that doesn't make it true for our purposes unless those independent reliable sources Fuhghettaboutit mentions agree with the statement and say the same thing or something similar. Others have to agree you really did something important.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 22:32, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Create a new page

I Forgot how to create a new page within my accountJanvermont (talk) 15:12, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

@Janvermont: hello and welcome to The Teahouse. Let's say you want to create an article about Dr. Emilio Bombay, just to use an example of a user page I created but haven't felt confident enough to submit as an article. You see that the link is red, meaning there is no such article. What you can do is click on User:Janvermont/Dr. Emilio Bombay (though you would change the name to what you want to write about).— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 22:28, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

And there is another way: Draft:Dr. Emilio Bombay. Although the way I did it above includes lots of good advice in the space where you edit.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 22:55, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

User to Auto Confirmed Account

Hey, I want to know that How My User Account Will Get Permanent, Because When Ever I Click on Upload File In The Left Column Of My Wiki Page, It show me Upload File Wizard And When Use to Click That Wizard To Upload File, It Irritates me By Showing The Text That"You Can't Upload Files Because You Account Hasn't Yet Confirmed And To Make It Confirmed Please Make 10 Edits And 4 Days Since Your Account Was Made " , And I've Dont 12 Edits and 4 Days Have Passed but My Account Hasn't Confirmed.

if Anybody Knows Solution For My Problem ,So Please Help Me Out . Please It's My Humble Request To All Of The Members, Please Help Me. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Saimkhan994 (talk • contribs) 10:29, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Hi Saimkhan994. You are already an autoconfirmed user. Should you face any difficulty please let us know. SAMI ^talk 11:47, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

cant load the image onto the page please help!

i have uploaded a picture for the page i edited but due to some reason it does show in the infobox. please guide me through this procedure so i can complete it Akshay Rohra (talk) 07:59, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Hi Akshay Rohra welcome to the Teahouse, I saw that you've already fix the problem with this edit. But I do think it belongs in the infobox if it's a logo.--Chamith (talk) 10:05, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

thanks for the warm welcome could you guide me hot to put the picture into the infobox so as to bring out a better version of the document Thanks for the reply! Akshay Rohra (talk) 08:57, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

I have moved the article to Steelex Precisions to comply with Wikipedia's naming conventions for companies. I have also moved the logo to the infobox, removed the persondata template and the cats that are applicable only to biographies. I also have doubts as to notability so I have tagged the article accordingly.--ukexpat (talk) 19:22, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

How to clarify a foreign term as a title.

On the English-language page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoleto#Frazioni The section Frazioni is unclear to those unfamiliar with the term since it is culturally and linguistically Italian. There is a page that describes what this means and that's basically suburbs or small satellite villages surrounding an Italian city. How could I make this easier on the reader? Should I explain that in that section, or make the title a link to the article that explains it?Cantbeatpie (talk) 19:33, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

That section is an unsourced abomination IMHO. Any help you can give it would be welcomed. What exactly is the purpose of that section in the article? Is this a list of suburbs? One thing you could do is write something like: Various suburbs of the city of Spoleto (called Frazione include: .......... that would be my suggestion, assuming that long list is accurate. Are there any sources for that info? Ping me on my talk page if you need more help. Caio! -- — Keithbob • Talk • 20:24, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

I am guessing the original author had a familiarity with the Italian language or Italian culture not typical or most English-speaking Wikipedia readers. In order to preserve the information, I am going to go with your suggestion. I think it's a good compromise. Perhaps I could tag the list as needing sources too. Thanks for your help!

Cantbeatpie (talk) 20:33, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Can I delete?

If I come across a statement that is not referenced, and I am not able to find one either, can I delete it? Mbcap (talk) 19:39, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

In general, if the article talk page is active, I would ask on the article talk page. If the talk page is not active, it is all right to delete unsourced information, especially if the article is a biography of a living person. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:42, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

You could be bold and delete the content if you have taken the time to check verifiability and found no reliable source. The burden of evidence rests on those that add or return content and is satisfied with providing a reliable source formatted as an inline citation next to the content. In many ways Robert is right, but also not entirely correct (which should not be taken as an insult as McClenon is an extremely well versed editor on all of our guidelines and policies) as we do allow bold editing and we try not to require discussion first. Now, if you see in the history that the content has been deleted and returned several times and still has no reference, I would add a note to the talk page, letting editors know what you are doing and why. Even if the article has no activity on the talk page or has had no edits made in the last few years, a bold edit may alert someone on their watch page who might still object. Discussion after an objection is important but if no headway is made....a bold edit kick starts the BRD process.--Mark Miller (talk) 22:51, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Mark Miller, For what it's worth I'm more in agreement with Robert McClenon before I delete something I almost always leave a comment on the talk page first. Also, while I of course agree it's perfectly in line with policies to just be bold and delete I always try to do otherwise if I can. So if it's not documented but seems correct find a reference. If it seems wrong try to fix it. As a last (but still perfectly acceptable at times) resort just delete it. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 23:16, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the comment. While I cannot state that you are wrong for doing what you feel is best for your editing, it is not our policy to require discussion first. Editing even controversial articles does not require permission from other editors as to what content to add or remove. If a deletion is reverted that is an objection and a discussion can begin at that time.--Mark Miller (talk) 23:28, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

I also follow the simple, informal guideline stated concisely by Robert McClenon.-- — Keithbob • Talk • 20:33, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

How long can an article be? and can an English version be shorter than original Spanish?

(I tried to send this earlier today, but I am not sure that it went out) > I need advice. I have been working on an event which was important in > Spanish history but remains little-known elsewhere: the rebellion of the > Moors against Christian rule in the > kingdom of Granada in 1559-62, which ended in their expulsion and marked > the last stage of the Reconquista. > These events are known mainly through the work of a contemporary author, > Marmol de Carvajal - Wikipedia has a short and unsatisfactory article about > him, in English and Spanish. > However, a very thorough doctoral thesis has recently been published by the > University of Granada, and I am in touch with its author, Dr Castillo > Fernandez, suggesting to him that he should put it on Wikipedia. I have now > received from him not one but three articles, one on Marmol and one on each > of his main works, that on the rebellion and another on Africa - also a > historically important document. Each of these draft articles runs to 4-5 > typed pages. > I see that Dr. Castillo has carefully followed Wikipedia presentation. > I offered to prepare an English translation, perhaps also a French one. But > I think that very few non-Spaniards will want this much detail. > My inclination is to suggest that he submit his Spanish texts to Wikipedia > ES, as it stands - they are well-written, make many interesting points, and > are very clear about there sources (his own thesis is in fact much the most > important). > I could prepare a much shorter English version, perhaps putting all three > texts into one, and concentrating on those features which are most likely > to interest non-Spaniards. > It would then be sensible to indicate in a preliminary note that those who > want to know more can find it in the Spanish edition. > Would this procedure be acceptable? > I have an account and have made other contributions, but relatively small > ones. 91.179.213.49 (talk) 14:12, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Greetings 91.179.213.49 welcome to the teahouse. If I'm understanding you, you have a PhD dissertation that you want to help get published on Wikipedia. If that is what you are asking then I'm afraid the answer is that Wikipedia is not the appropriate place to publish that. A PhD dissertation is considered wp:original research Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and is meant for things that have already been published in good wp:references If you or the author want to use the information from the thesis to improve the existing article you can do that. For example, the thesis itself probably has facts which are referenced in refereed journals and conferences. Such papers are excellent sources. You can use that info to add to or modify existing articles on the historical topic. Hope that makes sense, please reply back if you need more explanation or if you think I misunderstood your question. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 18:25, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

One last thing. I realized I didn't answer the question in the title of your question. There is really no required length for a Wikipedia article and absolutely articles in different languages can in fact almost certainly will often have different lengths. The length for any article is like everything else on Wikipedia determined by consensus by the editors working on the article. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 18:28, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Another thing to add -- the English article doesn't necessarily need to be shorter than the Spanish article. Some English-speaking readers may well be very interested in this event. If you have the energy, I'd encourage you to prepare an English article along the same lines as the Spanish article. One consideration to keep in mind, however, is that readers from different backgrounds may need different information to understand the article well. From WP:TRANSLATE, "For example, a typical reader of English needs no explanation of The Wizard of Oz, but has no idea who Zwarte Piet might be. By contrast, for a typical reader of Dutch, it might be the other way around." Calliopejen1 (talk) 21:09, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Also, please see Wikipedia:Donating copyrighted materials for the procedure for donated copyrighted materials (like Castillo's article(s)) to Wikipedia. This procedure is mandatory if you are incorporating Castillo's work into Wikipedia, including through translation. Calliopejen1 (talk) 21:13, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Recent Changes

Is there a policy on patrolling recent changes or reverting vandalism? If so, can you link it here? Thanks. Hailey Girges (talk) 21:14, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

@Hailey Girges: hello and welcome to The Teahouse. Wikipedia:Recent changes patrol and Wikipedia:Vandalism have the basics.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 22:57, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Here is some helpful information about vandalism.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 21:23, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Can't find the article in search

Hi,

I have created my first wiki post on a website called Slenky.

But the page doesn't come up when I search for it on wikipedia. It's finished but is there something that I'm supposed to do so that it is officially published?

How or when will the page go live?

Thanks Annikaallen (talk) 07:50, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Hi, Annikaallen. I don't know if this is a troll message, but can you give me the link? You said "Slenky" as a website but it was redirected to List of experiments from Lilo & Stitch, so I am not sure what you are talking about. DEW. Adrenaline (Nahnah4) 09:32, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

From your contributions, you only ask this question here and the Help desk. You have never edited an article with that name. I suspect this is a troll question, and you should stop with this unacceptable demeanour. It may be deleted, but your user page is deleted because of "Unambiguous advertising or promotion", I guess your website was deleted with the same reason. Please check, but you have not received a message on a speedy deletion, so I guess this is a hoax information, Annikaallen. Please use the Teahouse or Help Desk if you really have problems and not posing about hoax information that is misleading, or you will be blocked from editing. Thanks, DEW. Adrenaline (Nahnah4) 09:36, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Annikallen, I've some bad news for you. You did create a draft article on your user page - User:Annikaallen - but it has been deleted as promotional and an advertistment. Having had a look at the deleted text I can understand why it was deleted and it was a combination of the lack of references in the article, the way is was written could be a lot more neutral in tone (example - the section on Working with brands says "Slenky is an incredible brand" - unless you can refernece that, it isn't) and that you had placed it on your user page which made it look lile you were using Wikipedia for advertising. That's the bad news, the good news is that a quick google search suggests that there are probably enough independent, reliable sources available to establish the notability of the website. So if you start again from scratch in your sandbox and include references there might be enough to go on.

What I am not sure about is if you are involved with the company. If you are then you need to read the policy on conflict of interest and avoid creating an article about an organisation you are involved in. Nthep (talk) 09:48, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

I'm sorry, Annikaallen, for the previous message. I'm sorry as I could not view deleted pages and I thought it was a troll. I'm sorry. Anyway, the guy at the help desk had the same reaction as me, and I am sorry. DEW. Adrenaline (Nahnah4) 10:13, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Your page could have been deleted...E-e-bayer lover (talk) 22:05, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Question about few things?

I have a few questions and hope someone can help. 1. Can people see my Sandbox? 2. Can people see my email address? (If yes then can I hide it) 3. Can people see what contributions I have made? (If yes how do I see other people's contributions?)

Thanks Mbcap (talk) 18:01, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

1) Yes, all pages are visible to everybody (except deleted pages, you can request deletion with {{db-u1}}). Your sandbox contains {{User sandbox}} which tells external search engines like Google to to not index it, but the page is not private. 2) No, your email address is private. Editors can only mail you via Special:EmailUser/Mbcap without seeing your email address, but if you use the same feature to mail other editors then they will see your email address. 3) Yes, all contributions are visible to everybody, for example by clicking "User contributions" in the left pane of a user page or talk page. See more at Help:User contributions. In certain cases you can request that an edit is hidden. See more at Wikipedia:Revision deletion. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:26, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

@Mbcap: an individual editor's contributions can be found via Special:Contributions: for instance, mine are at Special:Contributions/G S Palmer, and PrimeHunter's are at Special:Contributions/PrimeHunter. G S Palmer (talk • contribs) 19:30, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Your sandbox cannot be seen by anyone else, except yourself. I am not sure about the email address part. Also..others can see your contributions. Thanks, E-e-bayer lover (talk) 22:08, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

About subarticles

Hi. Not long ago I created the page World Cultural Council 28th Award Ceremony. The page was deleted because it was not a notable content by itself. I understood my lesson, and I want to do this right. I have been pondering on a solution, and I'd like advice to make sure it is appropriate and accepted before I try to recreate the page again.

The article was created because the documentation of each of the ceremonies could be added to the article World Cultural Council, and then that page may become too large, or too hard to read. Later on, I found there is a resource called subarticles, which I think would be sufficient for recreating the page without violating the Notability restriction. I did a small example on one existing page World Cultural Council 31st Award Ceremony.

Does this sound acceptable so that I can recreate World Cultural Council 28th Award Ceremony?

Thanks in advance.

Healing Mandala (talk) 19:56, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

The logic is good but I'm not sure it rolls out in practice. The rule of thumb for article size is 10,000 words and the World Cultural Council article is not, IMHO, too large and doesn't need a subpage. You may want to read: WP:AVOIDSPLIT for more info. Thanks for helping at WP!! Cheers! -- — Keithbob • Talk • 20:30, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Greetings Healing Mandala welcome to the teahouse. In addition to the good info that Keithbob gave above I wanted to clarify one thing that I think you might be a bit confused about: wikipedia:notability has nothing to do with the size of the article. Notability means that a topic has or has not received enough attention in good wikipedia:sources to merit an article. So regarding the award ceremony the first question isn't how big the overview article is the question is are there enough mentions of that specific awards ceremony to merit discussion? If the answer to that first question is yes then the second issue of whether to create a new article or add to an existing one comes up. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 22:22, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Excellent point!

-- — Keithbob • Talk • 22:42, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

When can I delete uncited sentence?

Hello, its Mbcap again and I wanted to ask about a sentence in an article that is not cited. If I put the 'citation needed' tag in the article and also tell people about it in the talk page, how long can I wait before I can delete the uncited sentence if no one responds in the talk page. I hope this makes sense, if not please let me know. Mbcap (talk) 21:08, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Hello Mbcap, some of this was answered in your previous question on the same subject a bit further down this page, but I would say that it depends on the article. I have seen 'citation needed' sitting in the same place for years (there are always dates on them). If I have put such a template somewhere and posted on the talk page I usually let it stay there one or two months before doing anything, just to be very sure (if it's not a biography of a living person). Sometimes you have to be patient, there is no deadline on the Wikipedia. Best, w.carter-Talk 22:36, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

@Mbcap: It is good practice to wait, as suggested above, if there are not good reasons to delete the content immediately. Some of those are if the unsourced or poorly sourced content appears to be contentious material, and is about a living person (or in some cases, a recently deceased person). This is true whether the contentious material is "negative, positive, neutral, or just questionable". Of course, copyright violations should be removed immediately (and never tagged with needing a citation). As I said, a judicious waiting period is good practice, but the policy in question, the subsection of verifiability known by the shortcut WP:BURDEN, does allow removal immediately, and places the burden on anyone seeking to return the content to cite a reliable source when they do so, using an inline citation, that verifies the returned material. Best regards--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 22:57, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

The extended device for quotation in Wikipedia

Friends,

I'm writing some article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Sterndmitri/sandbox), and some more experienced user helps me. This article contains a quotation. This quotation is a translation from Old Russian. I think it would be suitable to cite the original text in Old Russian there.

In Russian Wikipedia I've seen several times the further technical device: a quote is cited in a frame like mine one (see here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Sterndmitri/sandbox), but it has some button "to show the original text (<language>)" which performs the corresponding fuction. An example of this function is Russian Wikipedia: about Ludwig II (the second quoting box). I haven't found some examples in English Wikipedia to copypaste the necessary piece of code in my article.

Copuldn't you please copypaste some analoguous English example which contains the necessary piece of code right here — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sterndmitri (talk • contribs)

@Sterndmitri:: I think you are looking for this Template:Quote_box under "Collapsing Text" Avono (talk) 13:45, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Avono, what the doctor ordered. Thank you! --Sterndmitri (talk) 09:19, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

I need help understanding a message I received

The following message was emailed to me.

This article, Janice Lourie, has recently been created via the Articles for creation process. The reviewer is in the process of closing the request, and this tag should be removed soon.

I don't understand what closing the request means.

I produced the subpage to organize info. It is not an article ,but was a part of an AFC in progress, just a part. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Janvermont (talk • contribs) 23:28, 12 December 2014

Hi, 'closing the request' means that it will be deleted. Non-articles can go through AfC too. However, I do not know who you are, as your signature is not in here. Thanks, DEW. Adrenaline (Nahnah4) 08:46, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

@Janvermont: Hi there and welcome to the Teahouse! Don't worry, the message does not mean that the Janice Lourie article is going to be deleted. It has been moved to the main article space and it looks like Swpb is dealing with it. Philg88 ^♦talk 10:18, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Archive 281 of the Teahouse has formatting problems

Whilst looking to see if anyone had responded to my post, I see it's all the way over in Archive 281 now (it was barely halfway down the main page earlier today), and along with over half of the questions on the archive, has gotten swept into a "misuse of this forum" box, presumably by accident. I have no idea how to fix this apparent formatting error, but I'm sure someone here does. :)

Aside from that formatting issue, my question has already been archived without receiving a response. Non-response is the reason I came to the Teahouse in the first place. :) I wrote my question, received a request for more info, and then spent a long time providing that info. Then - *poof* - it got archived. I know we're not supposed to repost the same question again and we're not supposed to edit the archives, so...what *am* I supposed to do? :) Thanks for your help. Shinyang-i (talk) 04:44, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Welcome to Teahouse! I reviewed the whole entire archive page and found that a user attempted to collapse a discussion which was unrelated to editing Wikipedia. The user Keithbob inserted {{collapsetop}} and {{collapsebottom}} into the question (see Special:Diff/637037057/637036213), it seems that a user has shifted the template into a different area of the page. I have fixed the issue. Towards the archiving part, content is archived to prevent a page having too much content, this is to ensure viewing/browsing of this page is easy for all of us. Volunteers/hosts are determined to answer questions on this page, however there are times where questions may not be answered for reasons such as needing more information, it is unclear and etc. I have seen that you've added information to your question and it was responded! However, I've seen that the question wasn't resolved. You may ask LS1979 or await another host to assist you, from reading the question; all content on Wikipedia must be written in a neutral point-of-view and be backed up by reliable sources, any content that are biased or unsourced content maybe challenged or removed. ///EuroCarGT 05:34, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for your response, and glad someone knew how to fix the formatting mistake! However, I still am unsure what I'm supposed to do. I asked a question, provided the requested info (took a long time, too), got no immediate response, so now I am just out of luck? Is that it? I don't get an answer? This is a little irritating, no offense. I'm trying to make Wikipedia better in good faith, fix up or eliminate some of the overly-fannish material that has no place here, but I'm not a veteran editor and I need advice on doing so. :( Shinyang-i (talk) 05:44, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Oops, looks like you added to your response just as I was typing out my own response. The issue is not as simple as unsourced info, notability in the normal sense, or NPOV. There are many reasons tons of articles can be written about something by "reliable sources" other than genuine notability. So, it's complicated and that's why I need help. And there are really some inappropriate articles that shouldn't exist, but I don't know the process for getting them axed. But to return to your response, it's not possible for anyone to respond to my inquiry, is there? Its presence on an archive page prevents that, right? Shinyang-i (talk) 06:00, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Hello Shinyang-i. I regret that a technical problem caused your question to be prematurely archived. Please feel to copy/paste it as a fresh question, if my answer is not fully responsive. In general, we define a notable topic as one which has received significant coverage in more than one independent, reliable source. That is our accepted yardstick though we do have a variety of subject specific notability guidelines. I think most editors have a certain type of article that irritates them. I, for example, will never spend time improving articles about Yu-Gi-Oh! trading cards. I have zero interest, but that scene is notable. It is often best for each editor to work on articles they care about and consider worthy. That's satisfying.

But we do have many bad, non-compliant articles that need to be pruned away. Many are promotional pieces about claimed up-and-coming musicians, artists, executives, athletes, entrepreneurs, and so on. Plus promotional business profiles, miracle cures, perpetual motion machine, and stunning breakthroughs in visionary science. Lots of garbage to be bagged up and wheeled to the curb. The process is described at WP:Deletion policy. Basically, we have three processes, speedy deletion, proposed deletion and Articles for Deletion debates. The first process is for overt copyright violations, deranged ravings, vicious personal attacks, "chimpanzee typing", and the like. The second process is for coherent attempts that pretty much everyone would agree do not make the grade. The third, Articles for Deletion, is for borderline cases, with an open one week debate. Many of those debates are fascinating and can help editors develop a deeper understanding of notability, consensus, community norms and how to engage in effective debates here. The shortcut is WP:AFDT, where you can read, and participate in today's debates. I encourage all editors to check it out. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 08:32, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Hi @Shinyang-i: - I'm sorry I didn't get back to your question; I had some real life issues to get sorted out and I didn't know what to suggest. I have no experience of that particular area; I've done a lot of new-page patrolling and cleaned up some promotional articles as well as marking others for deletion. There are indeed a lot of articles that don't fit the criterion, but you as much as anyone else here have the power to judge where something is notable and where it is not.

With the help of AFD, do you think you could manage to clean up/prune those articles on your own? You are authorised to go in and work on them, like anyone else is, so you're invited to fix things you think are broken. LS1979 (talk) 11:24, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Is it ok to copy and paste Wikipedia articles into one another?

Just wondering. Can I copy the same paragraphs and put them into a different article (also, copying the refs etc, as long as it fits there? Also, what about image captions? Is it "unethical" to use the same image caption for the same image in different articles?

I know that the answer to this question is in some wikipedia help page, but all those pages are too long and I don't intend to read them. PM ME URANUS (talk) 21:38, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Hi PM ME URANUS. You can do so as long as you're crediting them in your edit summary. SAMI ^talk 22:02, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

P.S. Regarding your second question, you can use the same caption for the same image in different articles provided it deems apt. You can use edit summary to link the source (article) from where you copied. SAMI ^talk 22:11, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

No. It is not OK. E-e-bayer lover (talk) 22:02, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

I hope I am being helpful.... The answer is at WP:CWW --- you do yourself a disservice if you refuse to read the help pages.... Regards, Ariconte (talk) 22:04, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

That's what I was looking for. Thank you PM ME URANUS (talk) 11:45, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

@PM ME URANUS: Please note the subsection of the page cited immediately above that is known by the shortcut WP:PATT. In short, Samee is correct that you must credit the original page in your edit summary, but the method is specific. The edit summary must contain a link to the page that is copied from. A good edit summary you might emulate is: This edit includes content from [[article name]]; see that article's history for attribution. Best regards--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 22:44, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

All articles in Wikipedia have a CC BY-SA license. It means that you can copypaste from one article to another some sentences, if it improves the following article. I think it is okay. --Ochilov (talk) 17:29, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Request for deleted page

Could you please give me the information from the deleted page BN 1470? I know I did not make it on this account, but Galaxy-15, the account that created the page, was my old account from what I remember. I don't know/remember what is in the page so I just want to see it. I contacted the user who deleted the page, but the user had left Wikipedia. Put page information here:

Thanks. ApparatumLover (talk) 18:19, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

@ApparatumLover: Thanks for your questions, and welcome back. For future reference, you can make requests at Requests for Undeletion when a page is speedily deleted and you want to use existing content to build an article. But being an admin, I can check this over myself. Having looked at BN 1470, there really isn't anything encyclopedic here. It's very short, there are no sources, and as the speedy deletion rationale noted, it is difficult to make sense of. If you are trying to make BN 1470 into an article, you'd be better off starting from scratch. I, JethroBT ^{drop me a line} 06:32, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

I don't want the article un-deleted, I just want the article's content. I remember making an article that got deleted 1 day after creation. I think that BN 1470 was the article, but I can't find out unless I see the page content. So can you please paste all the article content below?

Thanks. ApparatumLover (talk) 16:37, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

It was created in 2010 by User:Galaxy-15, which I believe was one of your prior accounts - so yes, it was an article that you created. Yunshui ^雲 _水 16:54, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Plus, I know that the article was patent nonsense, but was it a bunch of random characters (like "nfvkml;kvnjivpw;omklnpwj") or did it have English words (like "BN 1470 is a wierd guy in ZookaZooka")? ApparatumLover (talk) 00:44, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Can someone review my article?

Hi: I just finished a biography and submitted the article for review. It is my first article. I wonder if I can find an experienced contributor to review the article. It appears that I can continue to edit the article while I am waiting for the review?

Thanks Dxchow (talk) 00:41, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Hello Dxchow. And welcome to the teahouse! If you want to have your article reviewed. Can you give me a link to it? You can create wikilinks by typing [[(the name of the page you want to link to)]]. And again, welcome to the Teahouse! Lor^Chat 00:57, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

@Dxchow: Sorry, I forgot all about this one! All now fixed up and moved to main article space. Cheers, Philg88 ^♦talk 08:14, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Hi Philip: I did not know you were a reviewer! Thanks so much for all your help. You have really helped me to make progress every time I felt a little stuck. At some point may be you can teach me how to upload a picture. Thanks so much! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dxchow (talk • contribs) 00:57, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Page dedicated to breakthroughs in the field of academics

Wikipedia defines the first Encyclopédie as, "a comprehensive scope of topics, discussed in depth and organized in an accessible, systematic method". if my understanding is correct i believe that the first encyclopedias were constructed of the different works of philosophers in France who met together and discussed topics. Wikipedia explains their encyclopedia as one written by mankind- why not let it be the case! what if there was an article in which members could post article of their own and of others and collaborate with other members to create a page of sciences, philosophies, and academics? Bad or Inappropriate work and/or incorrect work could be removed or edited by other viewers and writers. It would create a modern day version of the renaissance salons.R.Szenia (talk) 03:05, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Welcome to the Teahouse, R.Szenia. Here at Wikipedia, we have accepted notability guidelines, and as a matter of policy, do not publish original research. We are summarizers of knowledge, not innovators. That does not mean your idea lacks merit. MediaWiki, the software package that supports Wikipedia, is freely available for use by anyone. You could create a website, called "Wikisalon" for the sake of discussion, and implement your idea that way. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 03:53, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Basic questions about creating an article

Hi, I am trying to learn how to create an article on Wikipedia. I created a draft and saved it and logged out. Now I logged back in. How do I upload an image file?

Hi, and Welcome to teahouse. Please, put your signature in discussions, using four tildes (~~~~). To upload pictures please read this first. After reading, if you have any questions, you can ask me on my talkpage. Best regards, --Ochilov (talk) 04:48, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Notability of educational institutions

Hello Teahouse! The more I edit Wikipedia, the more I understand why the guidelines have been written by the community in the way they are. There is one specific approach, though, that it's not clear to me: some sort of "benevolence" towards educational institutions.

The first signal of this (alleged) benevolence is that educational organizations are excluded from speedy deletion criteria A7. Why? I have read this related discussion but it doesn't exactly explain why the exception was born, who supported it and which rationales were provided to motivate it.

The second signal of this (alleged) benevolence is that I've observed more than one editor citing WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES (which is not a guideline as the very clear WP:NSCHOOL is) in "keep" rationales of AfD discussions as if a statistics of what has happened in the past to the articles about other schools could tell something about the notability of the specific educational organization discussed in the AfD thread.

The aspect that I find more troubling is that the (alleged) benevolence is applied both to public organizations and to private profit-making organizations that have decided to invest in the educational field. The consequence of this approach is that, for example, an article about a private organization opened three months ago and completely lacking the notability required by WP:ORG can see a "notability" maintenance template removed just because the organization is a high school and that usually articles about high schools are kept. I have observed this behavior and rationale and, to me, it doesn't make sense at all.

As you can see, I'm quite confused about the whole handling of articles about educational organizations. Could you please tell me if my perception is wrong or if schools are actually treated in a different way? ► LowLevel ^(talk) 01:05, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Hi LowLevel, welcome to the Teahouse. You're not wrong, high schools and equivalent seem to have a special "get out of jail" free card when it comes to notability. There are long, long, long discussions about it here (check the archives). Jimmy Wales also had a hand in this, early in the history of Wikipedia. See this --NeilN ^{talk to me} 06:03, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Welcome to the Teahouse, LowLevel73. What you describe is a working consensus, rather than policy or guideline. In general, in the past, articles about verifiably accredited, degree awarding educational institutions have been kept. A search that verifies that minimum standard almost always uncovers sufficient sourcing. The working consensus is also based on a general agreement about the important role that high schools and colleges play in their local communities and in shaping the lives of their notable alumni. This working consensus can be thought of as part of an informal "grand bargain" that results in the deletion or redirection of most articles about primary schools, except for a handful of historic or architectural significance. This unofficial but widely accepted precedent allows more rapid sorting of such articles, rather than engaging in hundreds of long, drawn-out debates each week, reinventing the wheel each time.

However, any editor is free to attempt to make a convincing argument that a given accredited, degree awarding school is so small, obscure and ignored that its article should be deleted. Past history shows that this is a tough sell, but consensus can change. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 08:51, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Hello NeilN, thanks for the confirmation and for the links to the archived discussions. I have already started to read them and I hope to get enough information to form a personal opinion about this topic. ► LowLevel ^(talk) 16:06, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Hi Cullen³²⁸, thanks for the clear explanation. I understand the motivations that support a "by default" preservation of articles about educational institutions; this approach saves community resources and it makes sense from a productivity point of view. What I understand less is the logic "since these articles are usually kept, then there is no point in adding a notability maintenance template to an article about an educational organization".

Actually, I'm not even sure that the "usually" is based on actual recent data. Here follows a (quick and rough) statistics of the outcomes of all the educational-related AfD discussions occurred in 2014 about articles that included in their title the word "school" or "college" or "university":

Outcome	Count
Redirect	131
Keep	93
Delete	69
Merge	26
Speedy keep	14
No consensus	12
Speedy delete	6
Delete and redirect	3
Withdrawn	3
Snow keep	2

On a total of 359 discussions, all the kinds of "keep" outcomes amount to 109 (30%) discussions. All the non-keep outcomes amount to 250 (70%). In my opinion, these numbers tell us that articles about educational organizations that show no sign of notability need to be discussed just like any other kind of article, because the "keep" outcome is not so common as the community is led to believe reading old statistics (WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES). An additional observation is that a part of that 30% of "keep" outcomes has not been reached because the discussed organization was notable as per WP:ORG but simply because it was an high school. My question to you is: is it possible that we are witnessing a catch-22 phenomenon, in which the "default keep" approach just reinforces an habit that is not actually supported by recent data/evidence? ► LowLevel ^(talk) 16:06, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

@LowLevel73: Did you also analyse the data down by e.g. primary, secondary, tertiary, diploma mill categories? The high level of redirects and deletes might account for different kinds of schools, not all of which are actually accredited institutions. LS1979 (talk) 16:27, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Lstanley1979 makes an excellent point. The common result regarding primary schools and middle schools is to redirect them to a school district article or "Education in X" section of a city article. Deletion of articles about unaccredited "colleges" and training institutes that do not award degrees is also common. There is no presumption of notability just because the word "college" appears in the title. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 16:53, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

LS1979, Cullen³²⁸: I fully agree that dividing the outcomes by school category is necessary to get a correct and clear scenario of what actually happens in AfD discussions and I can do that if there is enough interest by other editors to study the whole phenomenon and obtaining updated statistics. It will require time, so I would like to understand if an interest about acquiring this data actually exists, before starting the analysis. Also, I would like to ask you all in which section of Wikipedia you suggest this study to be published and discussed. ► LowLevel ^(talk) 17:16, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

I would be interested in that study, LowLevel73, and suggest Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Common outcomes as a good place to share it. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 18:29, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, Cullen³²⁸! After acquiring all the information that I need (I would like to read the most important archived discussions about this topic) and organizing my thoughts, I'll start acquiring AfD data to produce the statistics to publish at Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Common outcomes. Cheers! ► LowLevel ^(talk) 23:47, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

@LowLevel73: While I'm thinking about this: also bear in mind that there might also be uncontroversial speedy deletion of promotional articles going on as well. Those might be covered by the above table, but given how many speedy deletions are performed every day on blatant spam articles, those might also affect the numbers. Good luck with your project. LS1979 (talk) 10:36, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Categories in mobile version

Hello. How can I find what categories a page belongs to while browsing on my phone? I can only see them in desktop view. Thank you. Transmittorsubstans (talk) 17:00, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Welcome to the Teahouse, Transmittorsubstans. I do most of my editing on an Android smart phone. I bring up the desktop site on my phone, and can view and edit the full article content including categories with no major problems. There is an option to switch to desktop on the bottom of every mobile page view. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 19:22, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

I see the screen full on my phone... E-e-bayer lover (talk) 22:04, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

I had a similar question, even though I know the work around. I can understand the wide tables of the Template:Navbox are not very pleasant on a mobile phone. But the mobile view does show a "read in another language", why hide the related pages in the same category? Jo Pol (talk) 13:33, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

How to work with an uncooperative editor

Greetings. For the first time, since I've begun editing, I've encountered an editor whom I feel is not working collaboratively. Specifically, the editor is inserting language that I feel is very not NPOV and is replacing the current source listed with one that I feel is less neutral for the topic of the article. What is the proper steps to take with such an editor? How might those steps differ when dealing with an IP address compared to dealing with a registered user? For reference the article in question is https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Portal:Current_events/2014_December_10&action=history . Thank you for your help. Rustandbone (talk) 22:54, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

In general, I would advise you to try to discuss on the article talk page, and, if that does not work, read dispute resolution and use one of the various dispute resolution procedures. Unfortunately, what I see is multiple IP addresses from different blocks that are engaging in personal attacks in edit summaries. My advice under the circumstances would be to request semi-protection of the page at requests for page protection due to the attacks from the unregistered editors. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:12, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Done - Requested semi-protection of page. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:16, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for your help, Robert McClenon. Rustandbone (talk) 00:09, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, I had to deal with editors who had totally different ideas than mine and were insistent. Even though I provided references for my editions, he kept saying the information was wrong. He said he had a postdoc in astrophysics and he was editing based on his "knowledge". Tetra quark (talk) 15:02, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Sections not appearing when I save page

I've just made several big edits on the Loropeni page to remove material copied from other websites, and I am now trying to add some references of my own. I'm trying to put the reflist under "Notes," and I'm trying to add an "Additional References" section. However, when I hit "save page" those edits don't appear on the main article page. I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong, can anybody help? Thank you! Ninafundisha (talk) 16:25, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Welcome to the Teahouse, Ninafundisha. The final reference tag in the body of the article was lacking a final slash, which is an essential part of the syntax. An unfortunate side effect of this coding error is that it suppresses display of what follows. I added a single "/" in the right place and that solved the problem. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 16:40, 14 December 2014 (UTC)