Help desk
< December 22	<< Nov \| December \| Jan >>	December 24 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Help Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current Help Desk pages.

December 23

Why is it possible to edit one's own and other people's posts in the talk pages?

Why is it possible to edit one's own and even other people's posts in the talk pages? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Arctic Gazelle (talk • contribs) 04:22, 23 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Arctic Gazelle: You shouldn't, except for the cases outlined at Wikipedia:Talk_page_guidelines#Editing_others'_comments RudolfRed (talk) 04:39, 23 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Arctic Gazelle: It is technically possible because adding software to prohibit it is hard. Instead, we have guidelines and consensus to tell you not to do it. If you break these rules, we will eventually block you. Because the edit history exists and is publicly available, such edits cannot hide the original. -Arch dude (talk) 05:30, 23 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia uses the same software to write articles and talk pages, and you are supposed to edit what others have written in articles. That's the idea of a wiki. There have been attempts to make separate software features for discussions but they haven't been satisfactory and aren't used at the English Wikipedia. PrimeHunter (talk) 08:10, 23 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting question and response. Is it technically possible to protect a talk page or a section of a talk page without protecting the main article? Looking from another angle - it would in principle be possible to write a bot that responds to a template (say, "preserve") which would revert any changes made; however, I doubt such a bot would be sanctioned and if it were, the use cases allowed would be limited, such as preservation of archived discussions or discussions related to completed AfDs. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 16:50, 24 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The talk page is stored as just a big block of text. The software does not keep track of which part of text is whose comment. It would technically be possible to rewrite the software so it could do this, but it would be such a huge effort it's not worth the benefit. JIP | Talk 21:48, 24 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Ceyockey: Talk pages and articles are protected independently of eachother. It's rare to protect article talk pages. It's not possible with the current software to only protect a section of a page. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:00, 24 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I'm thinking it might be useful to protect sub-pages in talk page archives, then. Maybe this could be incorporated into the current archive bots? --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 23:32, 24 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Certification Officer

Hello there I work in the office of the CO. I would like to update the CO wiki page, however I don't quite understand how to do the hyperlinks etc

Kind regards Shanta Halai — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.53.126.68 (talk) 09:07, 23 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

We do not have "wiki pages", we have Wikipedia articles. If you work in the field you wish to edit about, please review conflict of interest, paid editing, and how to make formal edit requests. 331dot (talk) 09:09, 23 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Help! With citations.

I can't seem to cite or add sources and it's like it wants me to add in html. Can someone help me figure out what's wrong? I've had a look at preferences and everything, can't find a solution. Spongecob Flairpants (talk) 09:45, 23 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Spongecob Flairpants, are you using the visual editor or source editor? It sounds like you're using the latter but are used to the former; you can go into your preferences. Under the Editing tab, uncheck "Temporarily disable the visual editor while it is in beta". —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 🎄Happy Holidays!⛄ 10:15, 23 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you I will give that whirl! Spongecob Flairpants (talk) 15:34, 23 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

List of Christmas Charts and Number 1 for UK

The data and sales of Christmas UK Charts Singles and Albums is reached before christmas day, a day to 6 days before the 25th December (Due to calendar of radio broadcast),so the Christmas week gain will never include the Christmas charts, it very misleading due to week ending deal (like the US) for the following dates of falling that week, as it looks like that was the sales in that week, but it will always be out! so i will always believe in the following weeks charts as that was the brought songs and streamed over the festive period, than the pre-christmas or run up to christmas data sales. Charts never has a day off not even on the big day its clocking all day every day. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Routea380i (talk • contribs) 14:27, 23 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Routea380i. Is this about the Wikipedia article List of Christmas hit singles in the United Kingdom? If it is, and you are making a suggestion for improving it, the article's talk page is the best place to discuss it. Otherwise, I am not clear what you are wanting. --ColinFine (talk) 14:36, 23 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure where i can go for that or how i find article's talk page, but i do think really, the wiki pages should be informing a extra piece of info, that the sales are taking before christmas day then during christmas week, it got away with it very silly by this Week ending, for years it got away as branded as Christmas Charts when it not even hit the first day sales of christmas. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Routea380i (talk • contribs) 17:56, 23 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Why can't I upload a picture to an existing page?

Hi, I'm trying to upload a picture of Tom Hanna, politician/state assemblyman for Rochester, NY in the 70s, but the filters say 'no'. Why is this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wheelideas (talk • contribs) 15:01, 23 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You appear to have succeeded now, Wheelideas. --ColinFine (talk) 15:23, 23 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Interlanguage Good Article Problem

Recently I started a poll in the Chinese Wikipedia, to make the corresponding article of Adventure Time - 探險活寶 - to be listed as an Good Article. However, in the English article, the link to the Chinese article doesn't show the sign of GA, unlike the Korean one. What's up with it? I wonder why the link hasn't updated yet. - George6VI (talk) 15:15, 23 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, George6VI. As far as I can tell, badges like this have to be assigned manually in Wikidata (d:Help:Sitelinks#Badges does not say anything about setting them.) If you pick "Edit links" that will take you to the Wikidata item, specifically to the table of Wikipedia entries. If you pick "Edit" on that, I believe it will let you pick the "badge" next to the zh entry, and choose "Good Article". --ColinFine (talk) 15:33, 23 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Request a new page (e.g. Philosophy of Einstein)

Hello, As a "beginner" with Wikipedia i will try to be brief. There should be an entry on the left to request a new page, and then providing your various considerations on how next to proceed. The suggestion to request a new page in the search engine sends the reader to larger possibilities; creating, editing etc. I'd appreciate if you could send the request for a "philosophy of Einstein" page to the appropriate que. Note currently, the term "Einsteinian pantheism" is searchable and present in Wikipedia.

best wishes,

100.34.53.48 (talk) 16:44, 23 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Articles may be requested at Requested Articles. 331dot (talk) 16:47, 23 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

They may indeed. But requests there are likely to be ignored, unless they include evidence that the subject is notable enough to warrant an article, in the form of several references to reliable independent sources that discuss the subject. Maproom (talk) 21:49, 23 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Luke Hemmings edit.

Well, if people haven't heard, Michael Clifford and Luke Hemmings are getting married in early January 2021, and they keep revoking my edit of saying that they are. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Julestaken (talk • contribs) 16:59, 23 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Julestaken: do you have a reliable source for that? Also, please don't replace the entire "Personal life" section. It can simply be added to. Victor Schmidt (talk) 17:14, 23 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Search Engine Blocked

Hello Help Desk team,

I think the page should apply with index instead of noindex tag. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatil

Please check it again. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ataul55 (talk • contribs) 17:07, 23 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Ataul55: I could not find any evidence of the page being noindexed from our side, Google yust hasn't come along to index the page ;-) Please be patient, the page will show up in google's search results eventually. Victor Schmidt (talk) 17:13, 23 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The page contains this tag, is it okay? <meta name="robots" content="noindex,nofollow"/> — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ataul55 (talk • contribs) 17:42, 23 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Ataul55: See WP:NOINDEX. Articles that have not been patrolled are given this tag. It will be removed when the article is patrolled or after 90 days. This is one measure we use to keep companies from attempting to use this encyclopedia for advertising or promotion. -Arch dude (talk) 18:00, 23 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Why does wikipedia accept citation less edits at first place?

See the banner on the top of this section. Why does wikipedia accept citation less edits at first place? Rizosome (talk) 17:44, 23 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Rizosome:The editing software is just a text editor. It cannot make semantic evaluations, so it cannot distinguish an edit that adds external information (and therefore probably needs a citation) from an edit that simply improves grammar or layout. We leave semantic evaluation to other editors in a fairly random and chaotic way. This has worked fairly well for the last 19 years. -Arch dude (talk) 17:55, 23 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Afraid that an edit war may be inevitable

There are three articles that I largely modified, and they are: House of Yi, Yi Seok and Andrew Lee. And Theoneyihistorian reverted them back:

House of Yi Comparison: [1]
Yi Seok Comparison: [2]
Andrew Lee Comparison: [3]

And then they accused me for "vandalism" "rewriting history and disclaiming sources" (as seen in the talk page). In my opinion, the revisions that is currently live are against WP:OR, as Theoneyihistorian insists to call Yi Seok emperor/king; my original revision should be the more neutral one. How am I going to do if my revision keeps getting reverted, maybe soon later or far later? And really, I see no sign of possibilities that Theoneyihistorian may have consensus to these edits of mine. - George6VI (talk) 18:39, 23 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@George6VI: An edit war will only happen if you let it happen, so don't keep adding material that someone else has deleted. It is normal for changes to get reverted if someone disagrees. It is part of the processes known as WP:BRD (bold, revert, discuss). You are now at step (D) -- discuss it. Follow the guidance at WP:DR to resolve the dispute and get consensus. RudolfRed (talk) 18:45, 23 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@George6VI: You can also solicit feedback from other uninvolved editors using the Wikipedia:Requests for comment process. TimTempleton ^(talk) ^(cont) 18:50, 23 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@George6VI: But please start with an attempt to discuss, not with an RFC. You should assume good faith (WP:AGF), even (or especially) if you do not think the other editor will do so. It's a lot easier to reach an eventual consensus, without (or especially with) third-party input if the discussion starts and remains civil. -Arch dude (talk) 18:59, 23 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I've no idea which of you is right. But Theoneyihistorian's accusations of vandalism are clearly unjustified. Maproom (talk) 21:59, 23 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Creating a page.

How do I create a Wikipedia page? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mizzkro51 (talk • contribs) 20:49, 23 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Mizzkro51, creating a Wikipedia article is one of the hardest things to do on here. You're going to want to get acquainted with how articles are structured and what go in them. See Your first article and I suggest go through the Articles for creation process if you're committed to it. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 🎄Happy Holidays!⛄ 20:55, 23 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

How to undo multiple edits?

Hello readers. I was wondering if it was possible to undo multiple edits at once on a page. I want to undo all of the edits I have made to Leptocephalus (genus), because I assumed it was still a valid genus and made my edits reflecting such. Reversing all of them one by one would be a pain. If possible, I would like this version to become the current version. Thank you for all your help, --Vaporwaveboyfriend (talk) 22:51, 23 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Vaporwaveboyfriend, if you use WP:TWINKLE or WP:REDWARN you can use their restore version feature to restore an arbitrary revision. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 🎄Happy Holidays!⛄ 23:11, 23 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Tenryuu Thank you so much!! Twinkle fixed it perfectly. Much appreciated :)

Hi Vaporwaveboyfriend. Nothing wrong with using the special tools Tenryuu refers to, but there are no special tools required; all you need to do this is to know how to to do a manual revert:

Go to the page history;
Click on the revision you wish to revert to, e.g., 23:14, December 23, 2020‎ Vaporwaveboyfriend;
Click edit this page at the top; and
Save the page (click Publish changes).

Best regards--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 23:25, 23 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Problem with map making

I'm currently trying to create a vector map depicting the county results of the 2008 Democratic Party presidential primaries (similar to this one) for Wikipedia. However, I ran into a problem that I need help with (preferably by a user with experience in the field). Is there any place on Wikipedia I can find advice at? Thanks in advance. --Kroisaurus (talk) 23:01, 23 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Kroisaurus: See the "Map workshop" tab at Wikipedia:Graphics Lab. For images at Commons you can also use commons:Commons:Graphic Lab. PrimeHunter (talk) 07:51, 24 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@PrimeHunter: Thank you very much! Kroisaurus (talk) 12:42, 24 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]