Wikipedia:Help desk

Welcome—ask questions about how to use or edit Wikipedia! (Am I in the right place?)

• For other types of questions, use the search box, see the reference desk or Help:Contents. If you have comments about a specific article, use that article's talk page.
• Do not provide your email address or any other contact information. Answers will be provided on this page only.
• If your question is about a Wikipedia article, draft article, or other page on Wikipedia, tell us what it is!
• Check back on this page to see if your question has been answered.
• For real-time help, use our IRC help channel, #wikipedia-en-help.
• New editors may prefer the Teahouse, a help area for beginners (but please don't ask in both places).

Ask a question

February 12

Article assessed as NA-class

I'm not sure what happened here, but the article I just wrote Sylvia E. Mathis has a NA assessment on it when I look at it in xtools.wmcloud.org It's definitely an article.. not sure what went wrong? Can someone please help me? Its never happened before.. Nayyn (talk) 00:25, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

WP:Content assessment is a different process from the review process that some articles go through before being created. I wouldn't worry about it. Even assessed articles sometimes show up as unassessed on xtools. For example, Dera Sach Khand shows up as unassessed [1] even though it's a GA. Perception312 (talk) 01:15, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Nayyn, it was showing as unknown because no one had rated it. I have now rated it start, so the rating should show up in due course. TSventon (talk) 01:40, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Hi, thank you so much for the help. Normally they are listed as "unassessed" so I was unsure if I had done something wrong with it having been listed as NA-class. Thanks again. Nayyn (talk) 07:42, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Reporting a possible copyvio to bgwiki

Hello. I am engaged in trying to find sources for Ivan Atanassov Petrov, and I suspect a copyvio on the equivalent page on Bulgarian Wikipedia bg:Иван Петров (невролог) from one of their sources. I have no idea how to report it though, so would be grateful for any suggestions. Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 12:01, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Hello, @SunloungerFrog. Neither Copyright violations, this Help desk, nor the Teahouse appear to be linked to pages on bgwiki, so I'm not sure what to suggest. bg:Уикипедия:Разговори seems to be a place where people are posting questions, so perhaps you could try there. (I've no idea how they will react to a question in English, but you could try). ColinFine (talk) 13:54, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Article not displaying correctly

I am encountering a display problem with Cult of personality

Please scroll down to the sub-section about India, and then scroll down to the picture gallery. Unless it is just a fault with my browser, or my screen (FYI I'm using a PC with a full widescreen monitor), the pictures extend beyond the left-hand side of the screen. This cannot be right. WendlingCrusader (talk) 13:46, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

I confirm that I see the same, on Firefox on my PC. ColinFine (talk) 13:59, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

It's a problem with using the {{multiple image}} template trying to set a fixed image width of 1500 px but I'm not experienced enough to work out how to fix that. Mike Turnbull (talk) 14:45, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Thanks to both of you. It was very useful to have confirmation that it wasn't just me, and together with your very helpful clue that an image width of 1500px was (part of) the problem, I piled in with what little knowledge I have on this subject - on the basis I couldn't make it much worse!

By trial and error, I have fixed the image width at 950px, and then created a second row of images because five-into-one didn't work, particularly with the lengthy captions. Then I simply removed the stray fish-eye distorted image, which was tending to fall into the Adolf Hitler section anyway.

Please take a look, and see if it is a bit too WP:BOLD (in every sense, LOL)

p.s. Shouldn't India come before Italy, in alphabetical terms? But I've done enough damage already, so I'm outta here.

WendlingCrusader (talk) 18:17, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

I take it all back - I have made it worse!!

On a full screen width, it now looks great.

But if you shrink your window, the entire block of images drops down into the Germany section, with the aforementioned Mr H. The question now is; WHY DOES IT DO THAT?

p.s. did I mention the countries are not in alphabetical order?

WendlingCrusader (talk) 18:27, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

What is this page?

• User talk:Bbb23/

This page was created by PennyDreadful33 in 2015. It looks to me like a page in my userspace, although it is not listed as one of my subpages. Apparently, unbeknownst to me, pages prefixed by "User talk:Bbb23" are not considered subpages; for example, the many archive pages are not listed. That would explain why I've never noticed it as I occasionally look at the list of my subpages. Nonetheless, I have no idea why it was created, but in my view it shouldn't have been created. Can I delete it per WP:U1? It says that "Talk" pages cannot be deleted with this criterion, but other users should not be able to create pages in my userspace, should they? The only reason I know it exists is because Trackinfo edited it today and pinged me. That user is responding to a thread on my Talk page that has since archived. Apparently, they copied over the thread to this page and responded. No idea how they found it, nor why they did it that way rather than opening a new thread on my Talk page and linking to the archived conversation. They talk about the archiving, but I don't think they did what they thought. Now I think about it, maybe PennyDreadful133 was doing something similar back in 2015? Thanks for any help understanding this.--Bbb23 (talk) 14:33, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Hello, Bbb23, I suggest that you move the page from your user talk space to your user space, explaining that you didn't create it. At that point, you can do whatever you want with it. Cullen328 (talk) 19:22, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

I think this is effectively the talk page of a nonexistent user called Bbb23/. In any case, it's a page with the URL of a folder (or at least, that's the URL the wikilink points to). But it's also the folder which the archives should be in, so I'd want to be sure what deleting will do before going ahead. (Not that I've any inside knowledge of any of this, just a suspicious mind about software and strange bugs.) Musiconeologist (talk) 19:57, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Musiconeologist user names can't use "/" per WP:NONLATIN. The page looks like a mistake to me, it seems unlikely that its creator wanted to leave a message that would only be noticed years later. TSventon (talk) 20:04, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Exactly, but there's a red link to the impossible user. I'm wondering how the page was able to be created in the first place unless there's a bug somewhere. (Or was.) Musiconeologist (talk) 20:15, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

I can't create User talk:TSventon/ now, so it looks like the bug or loophole has been fixed or closed. TSventon (talk) 21:57, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Bbb23 it appears to me that Trackinfo truncated User talk:Bbb23/Archive 64 to get to your talk page, but got to User talk:Bbb23/ instead. It is possible that the page was first created in the same way. TSventon (talk) 22:11, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

• Thanks everyone. I just deleted it per WP:G6 - seemed simplest.--Bbb23 (talk) 22:47, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Attempts to change article case against WP:MOSTM, WP:LOWERCASE, etc.

Furia Esports is a Brazilian esports team. Recently, their CEO made it a "mission" to change all mentions of "FURIA Esports" to "FURIA", including on Wikipedia, despite the fact that WP:MOSTM, WP:LOWERCASE, etc. all say the page should be at "Furia Esports" (possibly "Furia" - I don't have enough knowledge about this particular team). I've reverted it once but I suspect I'll end up 3RR-ing myself against all the SPIs, so was hoping to know if there was a better solution. x42bn6 Talk Mess 18:38, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Hello x42bn6. Your very first step is to discuss the matter with the editors who have made the changes, both on the article talk page and on their own talk pages if they persist. Cullen328 (talk) 19:47, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Move from old email to new email

Hi there,

Last year April 2024 I lost a phone and as a result lost access to my Gmail account. I have since opened a new Gmail account.

I'm hereby enquiring about the possibility of updating my new email account to associate with my Wikipedia account. If anyone can help my details follow:

1.) USERNAME =ZS Khumalo

2.) OLD EMAIL =(Redacted)

3.) NEW EMAIL =(Redacted)

Thanks, I will wait for reply. Regards, ZS Khumalo South Africa ZS Khumalo (talk) 19:08, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

You can change the Email associated with your account at Preferences-> User Profile-> Email options.

An email isn't required, though it's adviseable, so that you can recover your account if you lose the password. ColinFine (talk) 19:19, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

I think you should also delete your email information from your question, so you're not making it publicly available to everyone who visits this page. Musiconeologist (talk) 19:34, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

To editor ZS Khumalo: I also recommend you set up recovery options for your Google Account for the future. And that you use a password manager to save login information. You can use it to save your Wikipedia account info as well. --Slowking Man (talk) 07:43, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

Topics not being archived

In Talk:The dress, there are many topics and messages that were written years ago, and some by IP addresses that had no reply, but none of them were archived by any bots. Meanwhile, in Talk:Russian Invasion of Ukraine, even around 30 days of no replies will automatically archive the topic. Why aren't these topics in Talk:The dress being archived? Rc2barrington (talk) 20:40, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

It looks to me like the page has never been set up to be archived. Hence, no archiving. DonIago (talk) 20:44, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Oh I wasn’t aware a page had to be set up for archiving for a bot to do it. Are there any rules for setting up archives?

Rc2barrington (talk) 01:08, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

@Rc2barrington: As far as I know there's not much in the way of hard and fast rules, though a general principle for many things is "no need to bother if it's not necessary". That page is getting pretty long, and it looks like someone has set it for bot archiving now. --Slowking Man (talk) 05:11, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

February 13

Poor editing standards and a disinclination to deal with to factually incorrect edits.

Hi, The article on our village page in Wikipedia has been edited by someone who has no knowledge of the village and who has introduced incorrect information and has chosen not to correct errors when these are pointed out to him. Although he has made some improvement, he has generally speaking left the page in a much worse state than before.

The issue here is not the edits on the one particular article It is the fact that he is a prolific editor (21,000) and if the standard of editing on this one article is representative, then he is a menace and he ought to be held to higher standards. From a conversation on his (user talk) page, it is clear that he has edited many articles on villages in Kent.

For context here are JUST SOME of the errors that he has made on the Eccles Kent Wikipedia article.

The church hall which is the location of the village playschool has been relocated from Bull Lane to Cork Street. The editor stated that the original entry was unclear. His misedit is inexcusable. A simple query on Google or a look at Google maps would immediately reveal the correct location of the pre-school (and that it has a different location from the pop-in centre on Cork Street). The editor has not chosen to revert to the original entry nor to correct the error even though he has been made aware of it. It is clear from this and other misunderstandings that the editor has took it upon himself to edit the village page without even bothering to view it on Google maps.

Because he hasn't bothered to look at a map, the editor has confounded Kits Coty vineyard and Kits Coty and changed the paragraph title from one to the other. (Some context here, Kits Coty vineyard is one of the most prestigious in the UK and to enhance the branding it has adopted the name of a nearby monument rather the name of the immediately adjacent village.) The editor has edited 'Countless Stones' to 'stones' even though a direct link is provided to the Wikipedia article "Little Kit's Coty House, also known as Lower Kit's Coty House and the Countless Stones".

The section in the village article 'Notable People' provides the names of two people each with direct links to their Wikipedia entries but the editor has inserted that citations are needed. It is difficult to judge whether the editor's work really is that slipshod or whether he doesn't understand how Wikipedia links work. Either way he seems to lack the necessary qualifications to be an editor.

Or course someone could further rework the article to clear up the editor's mess. Many people have had the experience at their place of work where something they have produced has been subsequently edited by someone else who lacks the competence. Often the originator will be asked to make the original item good again and in the workplace there is often no choice but 'to suck it up'. People who are working as volunteers on Wikipedia in their own time have the right to expect better consideration.

Just to emphasise though that this one article is not the issue, it is that numerous other articles are likely to have been despoiled by similarly shoddy editing (and other articles are likely to receive a similar fate in future unless steps are taken). EcclesMan (talk) 00:47, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

EcclesMan, the article Eccles is not protected and you have just as much authority and right to edit it as the editor you are berating. The other editor has addressed your concerns in some detail and invited you to improve the article, which you are welcome to do based on summarizing and citing what reliable, published sources say about Eccles. Assume good faith is a behavioral guideline that you should read and follow. Blaming others for shortcomings in an article that you are perfectly free to improve is not a winning strategy. This is a collaborative project, not a field of battle. Cullen328 (talk) 01:27, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

I think the image at Wikipedia:Be bold is very relevant here. Instead of asking other editors to fix issues you clearly care enough to outline specific problems with, you should be bold and fix them yourselves. I do see, however, you appear to be unfamiliar with the guidelines of verifiability. See WP:V for the full text, but things on Wikipedia generally need citations. Of course, they can be added without citations, but a volunteer might come along and either challenge it or place a lovely tag next to it. Generally, for the locations of some things, you can link to a primary source as it's an uncontroversial self description. As for notable people, take a second and find a reliable secondary source claiming that they hail from that specific area.

The editor in question @Ed1964 is a long-time editor in good standing among the community, and going off of the similarly long thread you've opened at that user's talk page, I can tell that you might not know how harsh or otherwise aggressive your accusations are, especially given the edits done by the aforementioned user appear to be standard cleanup edits. Scrutinizing someone's edits enough to go to their talk page to criticize them is generally considered uncivil and in this case is bordering on being a personal attack. I advise you take a second to read a few of the policies listed here as well, specifically Wikipedia:Civility and Wikipedia:Be bold. These will keep you from potential sanctions or further scrutiny.

If this editor's work is truly awful to the point at which you need to get a second pair of higher-level eyes on it, you can go to the Administrator's Noticeboard for Interventions. Note, however, the concept of WP:BOOMERANG - you will be put under scrutiny yourself, and it's not a place where you can just ask someone to be banned by convincing administrators. In my opinion, they've done nothing to warrant this being escalated any further.

In conclusion, I think you really should drop any accusation of wrongdoing before you find yourself under the eyre of a sanctioning body. There's nothing wrong with apologizing, there's nothing wrong with assuming good faith from here, and there's nothing wrong with dropping the matter entirely, barring anything you've already done. Note, however, you are getting closer to the end of your rope, so I advise that you be careful and more apprehensive in general when letting accusations fly in the future. Departure– (talk) 02:07, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

@EcclesMan: - you should raise any concerns at talk:Eccles, Kent, or better still at WT:KENT, where more eyes will see it. I echo Departure-'s comments above. We prefer collaboration on Wikipedia. The vast majority of editors do edit in good faith. Unless there is strong evidence to the contrary, we assume that to be the case. Mjroots (talk) 16:25, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

Please note also @EcclesMan, that "hav[ing] no knowledge of the village" is emphatically not a bar to contributing to the article. On the contrary, people familiar with the village may be tempted to insert information from their personal experience. Unless they can find this information in a published reliable source, it will be original research, and not acceptable. ColinFine (talk) 17:59, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

Translation tool is broken

Hey, I don't really know where to report this or who to tell but I'm currently trying to translate a page using the translation tool but clicking on a section shows a message with the error "Automatic translation failed" and when I look at the network logs, the request to https://cxserver.wikimedia.org/v2/translate/de/en/ fails with "Authorization header is missing".

Is this an issue on my side or is this a bug? Laura240406 (talk) 18:26, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

Mention current year when writing "blah blah is the largest blah blah"?

If an article is saying that entity XYZ is the largest/smallest/richest ... should the article mention the current year. I see a few approaches:

1. "The XYZ organization is the largest charity in Italy."
2. "The XYZ organization is the largest charity in Italy, as of 2025."
3. "In 2025, the XYZ organization was the largest charity in Italy." [when article written in 2025]
4. ... etc ...

I looked in the MOS for guidance, but could not find it. Obviously choice 1 above is cleanest, but for the vast majority of statements like that, they will become incorrect within a few years. Choices 2 and 3 will never become inaccurate, but are wordy. So my question is: does WP have a guideline covering this dilemma? Noleander (talk) 18:42, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

Hello, Noleander. Please read Template:As of. That is a tool that addresses the issue that you raise. Cullen328 (talk) 19:02, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

@Cullen328 - Dude, you're a rock star. Noleander (talk) 20:07, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

"Kosovan..." vs "Kosovar..."

While both Kosovan and Kosovar are accepted demonyms for Kosovo, Kosovar is more commonly used by far (google trends, reddit). I've noticed that all Kosova(r/n) election pages used "Kosovan" however Kosovar seems like it would be a better fit. Is there any reason in particular why these pages use "Kosovan" instead of "Kosovar" and would it make sense to change them? User:Chorchapu (talk|edits|commons|wiktionary|simple english) 20:45, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

@Chorchapu The latest discussion about this topic that I managed to find is this one from February 2016, which resulted in using "Kosovan" instead of "Kosovar". Tutwakhamoe (talk) 19:40, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

I've read the discussion and found a few critical points I think are made on rather weak foundations:

Comment. At the end of the day, I am OK with either "Kosovar" or "Kosovan" to describe the nationality. Consistency within the tree is important to me. I did not oppose the speedy renames made by BrownHairedGirl in this case, but I did make observations that (1) "Kosovan" is becoming more commonly used in sources that I read, and (2) "Kosovar" has the potential to be more ambiguous than "Kosovan", since "Kosovar" typically refers to people from Kosovo who are ethnic Albanians. OTOH, as I stated six years ago, "a person from Serbia might suggest that 'Kosovan' is not neutral, because it presupposes the existence of a nationality that is separate from that of being a citizen of Serbia. I suspect whether one supports 'Kosovar' or 'Kosovan' can have a lot to do with how one views the unilateral declaration of independence of Kosovo." In short, I can see benefits and drawbacks for both, but would be happy to support either if applied consistently. What's changed for me w.r.t. this topic in the past six years?—nothing really, except that I think "Kosovan" has become more commonly used (or at least I have begun to encounter it more and more even if not increasing in popularity). And I suppose Serbia has softened ever so slightly on the Kosovo independence issue, and it has become a bit more of a fait accompli to most the rest of the world. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 02:12, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

Comment - I support "Kosovan" over "Kosovar" as more neutral, sticking to English language, as less ambiguous. As it was stated already, both version can be found within or out of wikipedia. I don't think that "Kosovan" gives more "independence" regarding Kosovo-Serbia relations given the current situation and development. A native English speaker can tell which term applies best linguistically - I will distance myself here. As Good Ol’factory mentions, use of "Kosovan" is increasing lately and as per common sense it should be reflected in wikipedia. I am not sure how the term "Kosovar" was originally brought, but as an Albanian I can verify that Kosovar is the term used in Albanian and it means "from Kosovo", automatically implying "Albanian from Kosovo" (instead, an ethnic Serbian would be just Serbian no matter where he/she is from). Therefore the use of "Kosovar" is, at least partly, ambiguous. --Mondiad (talk) 02:49, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

Good Ol'factory did not cite where they got this information from, and in fact the data from Google Trends would imply that, in fact, usage of "Kosovar" was increasing at the time of the discussion instead (source). A Kosovo Girl Travels article from 2018 says, "I asked people on two Facebook groups – Kosovo Girl Travels and Kosopass (both travel-related) to share their perspective on this. My question was to understand how other people feel and how they respond when asked where are they from. The majority of them responded Albanian from Kosovo, followed by Kosovar. Kosovan and Kosovo Albanian were the other options mentioned by people who responded." (source) While I'm aware this isn't by any means a particularly reliable source, it does mention another option: "Albanians from Kosovo". I repeated the Google Trends search with "Albanians from Kosovo" and "Albanian from Kosovo", but it doesn't seem that "Albanian(s) from Kosovo" is searched for nearly as much as "Kosovar" or "Kosovan" (source). It also points out that "Kosovar" is used far more often than "Kosovan" in the context of her survey. I also did another Google Trends search on "Kosovar" vs. "Kosovan" vs. "Albanian(s) from Kosovo" in Kosovo itself, and it came out resoundingly in favour of Kosovar (source).

That's cute, but Wikipedia should not be used as a reference for itself. The terms have separate definitions in the OED:

"Kosovan: A. adj. Of or relating to Kosovo or Kosovans. B. n. A native or inhabitant of Kosovo; a person of Kosovan descent.";

"Kosovar: A. n. A native or inhabitant of Kosovo; a person of Kosovar descent. Often used to refer specifically to an inhabitant of Kosovo of Albanian ethnicity. B. adj. Of or relating to Kosovo or Kosovars. Often used to refer specifically to an inhabitant of Kosovo of Albanian ethnicity."

Note what is included in the second set of definitions that is not in the first. I have never seen "Kosovan" used to refer to the group that is of Albanian ethnicity. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 23:37, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I can't access OED definitions, as they're locked behind a paywall. I did, however, do a Google search (which supposedly takes its definitions from Oxford Languages), and the definitions for "Kosovar" and "Kosovan" are exactly the same, "relating to or characteristic of the autonomous region of Kosovo in the Balkans" for the adjective and "a native or inhabitant of the autonomous region of Kosovo in the Balkans" for the noun (source) (source).

Question If I understand things correctly, Kosovan appears to be a bit more neutral and a bit more in line with current usage, but is still not entirely problem-free. So is this a case where we should avoid these demonyms, and adopt the format "People from Kosovo" as was done with Category:People from Northern Ireland back in January 2009?

That solution generated some heated opposition at the time, but in the 7 years since then it has been stable and AFAICS uncontroversial. Not for the first time, I am wondering why en.wp persists in using demonyms in any category names. Commons doesn't use them and de.wp doesn't use them. A significant number of the demonyms raise issues of neutrality, and many of them create ambiguity. I think that the Commons solution of "People from X"/"Fooers from X" would avoid a lot of headaches. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 03:40, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

I personally strongly dislike both "People from [country]" and "[country] people" as they both use nouns as adjectives, which, while technically grammatically correct, just feels wrong.

Several users mentioned that "Kosovar" refers predominantly to Albanians in Kosovo, while "Kosovan" refers more generally to inhabitants of Kosovo. While this is true in Albanian, in English the two demonyms have come to mean the exact same thing (source). In fact, the Collins dictionary entry for "Kosovan" redirects directly to "Kosovar" (source). OED says that "Kosovar" is a borrowing from Albanian and partly Italian, however I am unable to access a longer explanation as it is paywalled (source). This blog post from Kosovo 2.0 (not a very reliable source but the only one I could find) tells that, "as supported by Kuteli’s poem, the term “Kosovar” has existed from at least the mid-20th century. It was a term used to denote a regional origin, that through the years gained a direct association with the Albanians of Kosovo. Today, Kosovar is the official term to describe citizens of our country, the Republic of Kosovo. People of Albanian, Serb, Gorani, Roma, Turkish, Bosniak, Ashkali and Egyptian ethnicity can be Kosovars. It now also exists as a civic nationality referring to individuals who come from the Republic of Kosovo, regardless of ethnic identity"(source). This source says that, while "Kosovar" tends to refer to Albanians in Kosovo, "Kosovar" is changing to now become more inclusive of all people from Kosovo.

The Constitution of Kosovo uses the word "Kosovarë", which is more similar to Kosovar than it is to Kosovan (source).

The bits of OED that aren't paywalled list "Kosovar" being used 10 times more often than "Kosovan", with 0.2 occurrences per million and 0.02 per million respectively (source) (source).

It appears that a minor edit war has been going on on the article "Kosovan" surrounding whether it should redirect to "Kosovo" or "Kosovars" (source). Currently it redirects to "Kosovars", and perhaps it's saying something that the Wikipedia article on people from Kosovo is "Kosovars"?

Yes, it took me almost two hours to research and write this.

User:Chorchapu (talk|edits|commons|wiktionary|simple english) 01:22, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

That 2016 discussion received too little participation compared to its weight. Personally I would agree that another discussion should be held to decide on this matter with perhaps a stronger consensus. The discussion could be held in the talk page for Kosovo, Kosovar or WP:KOS, and might requires an RfC. Unfortunately I've never initiated a RfC before, so I can't exactly give much advice about it. Tutwakhamoe (talk) 02:58, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

I agree that the 2016 discussion was too small for the impact it had, and that a new discussion should be held. The question is, where to hold it? The problem is, holding on an article talk page will likely result in smaller participation. I'm of the opinion that holding it on WP:KOS would be fine, but if anyone else can think of a better place feel free to let me know. User:Chorchapu (talk|edits|commons|wiktionary|simple english) 03:01, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

Where is the Wikipedia "app" that exports a Wikipedia page to a pdf

I haven't exported a Wikipedia page to a pdf in quite a while. So when I looked where the "Export" link (in the list of stuff on the left side of the articles' page) the last time I used it, it wasn't there. Where can I find it?

Also I need help with a fundamental issue that maybe obvious to many but, to me it is not at all apparent. I am not prolific editor, I occasionally edit articles and such, so I am not a "superuser" editor. As I am not editing Wikipedia everyday do not keep up (are not aware) when things are changed, relocated, etc. I had to do a bit of searching around just to find the Help Desk link. To be honest, I often view Wikipedia environment where editing and such occurs is somewhat of a monolith that is almost impenetrable. Often when I want to find out something I don't have anyway of doing an intelligent search. The general search function at the top of every page is quite fundamental which makes finding a specific text chain often fails to provide results that I seek. It is very frustrating. Is there somewhere in Wikipedia where there is a sort of overall site map (maybe a Wikipedia Page) that would provide "justful" links? Any advise about finding resources would be appreciated. Osomite 🐻 (hablemos) 20:51, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

@Osomite: In the current default skin Vector 2022, "Download as PDF" is in a drop-down menu on "Tools" at the top right. The search box only searches articles by default. Most behind-the-scenes stuff for editors is in the Wikipedia namespace which can be searched by placing wp: at front of a search. Search result pages and Special:Search also have a "Search in" box for choosing where to search. There is a massive index at Wikipedia:Editor's index to Wikipedia. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:38, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

@Osomite: Help:Contents is a good page to bookmark. (A link to it is also available under "Help" in Wikipedia's sidebar—see Help:Navigation.) And you're always welcome to ask for help here or at the Teahouse, or place {{helpme}} your question goes here on your talk page and someone will come by to assist. You're welcome to hit me up on my talk page as well anytime. --Slowking Man (talk) 07:38, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

Can I add pictures from NASA research paper to Wiki commons?

This document: https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20205008515/downloads/Venus_cities-AIAA-ASCEND-smaller.pdf It says: "This presentation is a work of the U.S. Government and is not subject to copyright protection in the United States." And I read that NASA does not have copyright to its photoes until stated otherwise. Ras al Ghoul (talk) 22:20, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

Hello, Ras al Ghoul, NASA says NASA content – images, audio, video, and media files used in the rendition of 3-dimensional models, such as texture maps and polygon data in any format – generally are not subject to copyright in the United States. The guidance goes on to say NASA occasionally uses copyright-protected material of third parties with permission on its website. Those images will be marked identified as copyright protected with the name of the copyright holder. NASA’s use does not convey any rights to others to use the same material. Those wishing to use copyright protected material of third parties must contact the copyright holder directly. So, generally, NASA content is in the public domain and can therefore be uploaded to Wikimedia Commons, but occasionally it isn't. The full policy can be found at NASA Images and Media Usage Guidelines. Cullen328 (talk) 09:56, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

Understood. Thanks a lot! Ras al Ghoul (talk) 16:03, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

Notifying a friend in good faith: canvassing?

Would it be considered canvassing to notify a friend who I know has a certain opinion to join a discussion, even though I have no intent of "using" that friend to sway consensus? To be clear, I haven't actually done anything yet /home/gracen/ (they/them) 22:56, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

Hello, Gracen. Wikipedia: Canvassing says The audience must not be selected on the basis of their opinions. You mention the friend's "certain opinion". If you inform that friend because of that opinion and would not have contacted them if they held a contrary opinion, then that would be canvassing. Cullen328 (talk) 10:04, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

February 14

Photo caption of Arthur Lee in the band Love is incorrect.

I need to revisit this incorrect photo caption of where Arthur Lee appears in the group photo of the band Love (and also the Arthur Lee wiki page). The photo caption incorrectly states he is the one at the top of the photo, when he's actually the one at the leftmost position in the photo. @Cullen328 uses some kind of strange logic saying another member of the band is bi-racial, not of fully African American descent, and therefore the photo caption does not need correcting. I'm scratching my head on that logic ;) Anyway, how do we get the photo caption to correctly identify Arthur Lee in the photo? Packzap (talk) 00:45, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

Link to previous Helpdesk discussion is Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2024 October 10#Photo citation corrected by me, then changed back to incorrect caption by someone afterwards for Love (band). TSventon (talk) 01:05, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

Packzap, I agreed with you in that discussion. Why are you calling my reasoning strange? Cullen328 (talk) 01:16, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

@Packzap: It was me who disagreed with you. I examined both this and other images carefully then and now, and stand by my reasoning. Did you look at my image search https://www.gettyimages.dk/photos/arthur-lee-johnny-echols? How can you look at the actual photos of the band together and claim one is so much darker than the other that their complexion alone can distinguish them in a probable photo montage which might have used different light conditions and processing? Their non-complexity features also look to me like the promotional image is probably right. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:31, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

Re-ordering sections within an article

Hello! I'm new and interested in contributing to some science articles within my field of expertise. If I feel that an article could use some re-ordering of sections to improve logical flow, is there a straightforward way to do this? If I copy/paste, will the reference numbering work itself out or do I need to fix that manually?

Also, if I intend to re-order and also do some expansion in some sections, is it best practice to publish these as separate edits? I'm not very familiar with the etiquette for making larger edits!

Thank you in advance! AbsoluteMess (talk) 01:38, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

Reference numbering is fully automated; feel free to edit.

I would advise you to divide those actions, so that they may be examined separately by editors monitoring those articles. Overly-drastic edits may be misunderstood or misinterpreted as mischievous in nature. --Orange Mike | Talk 01:56, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Hello, AbsoluteMess. If the references are formatted properly, then the MediaWiki software will automatically take care of the reference numbering as you move things around. I suggest that you move the sections one at a time, checking your work as you go. One massive edit makes it more difficult for other editors to review your work. Cullen328 (talk) 02:01, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

@AbsoluteMess My experience is that it's best to make each edit as self-contained as possible and make the edit summary as clear as possible—not just for the benefit of other editors, but also for your own if you come back to the article a few months later and want to understand what you were doing, or if you have second thoughts about an edit and want to change it. It just makes it easier for yourself and everyone else. (Also it's sometimes possible to revert an earlier edit while keeping later ones, if they involve different material, so you don't have to lose the intervening work.)

Basically you want to be able to see from the diff of each edit exactly what the changes were, and that's far easier with self-contained incremental ones: move a paragraph, expand a paragraph, make a spelling consistent throughout, etc. One clearly defined, easily checked thing at a time would be my ideal. Musiconeologist (talk) 02:42, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

How do articles become available as a newcomer task?

Is it with page templates (for example, orphan, copyedit, underlinked), or something else? NameStuffs (talk) 07:29, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

@NameStuffs Yes, you guessed correctly that the newcomer homepage relies on existing templates in articles to make suggestions. For example, my homepage currently suggests that Jonathan Quarmby needs more wikilinks. If you look a the article, it includes the relevant template but IMO already has plenty links, so in this case I'd be inclined to remove the template rather than add any more! Incidentally, if you like to do work based on in-article templates, there is an excellent tool at to WikiProject Cleanup Listings, where you can focus on topics that interest you. . Mike Turnbull (talk) 11:33, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

Ok thanks NameStuffs (talk) 19:49, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

Where do I post this?

I have an idea for how some depreciated sources can be used(in specific contexts), where do I post this? Some of the discussion pages have overlapping duties so i have no idea where to find a place to post this. Thehistorianisaac (talk) 14:06, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

Hello, @Thehistorianisaac. As usual, it is hard to give a good answer to questions on the helpdesk which are not specific. Depending on the kind of sources and context, you might try WT:RS, or WT:V, or WP:VPR ColinFine (talk) 16:41, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

Thanks! Thehistorianisaac (talk) 16:43, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

Does anyone speak/write Portuguese?

Article Lepicoleaceae is currently being edited by two new users and they are rewriting it in Portuguese. I've left messages but I don't know what else to do? I could request page protection if nobody can help. Many thanks, Knitsey (talk) 22:44, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

The new users, Gabriela Lemes Barbosa and Eloisa Checo, have made extensive improvements to the article. But they also changed it to being entirely in Portuguese. Their work has, properly, been reverted to the short English version, three times now. I hope someone can address them politely in Portuguese, thanking them for their efforts, and suggesting that they instead contribute to pt:Wikipedia. Maybe, once they've done so, someone knowing both languages can use their work to update the en:WP version of Lepicoleaceae. Maproom (talk) 23:03, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

@Maproom, thanks. I didn't want to keep adding tp notifications as it would be pointless if they don't speak English. A translation of their version sounds like a good idea if it improves the article. Knitsey (talk) 23:10, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

Perhaps the Portuguese Wikipedia equivalent article should be considered? 2601AC47 (talk·contribs·my rights) Isn't a IP anon 23:26, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

Spottiswood

If you type "Spottiswood" into Wikipedia search, you get to an article on an unincorporated community in California, which was for a short period ending in 1895 known by that name. I feel it wouuld be more helpful to have it redirect to Spottiswoode. But I'm British, and maybe biassed. I would try to discuss it on the talk page page of the redirect, but I suspect such pages are rarely visited. I'll welcome your opinions. Maproom (talk) 23:23, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

@Maproom: As a West Coaster I concur, so I went ahead and did it myself. General guideline for something that's No Big Deal is WP:BRD: if you think it's a good idea, go ahead and do it. If someone disagrees, they can bring it up, and possibly undo it, and then you can discuss the matter and seek others' input if warranted.

For things like redirects and page moves a good way to judge how "disruptive" a change might be is to look at what other pages link to it using WhatLinksHere, and what sort of pages; in this case the answer is effectively nothing. --Slowking Man (talk) 07:01, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

February 15

Numerical counterpart to sortname?

... to handle things like ~2966. Clarityfiend (talk) 00:40, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

@Clarityfiend: You could use {{Sort and display}}, or add data-sort-value manually. See Help:Sortable tables#Specifying a sort key for a cell. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:54, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

Template:Sortname#See also -> Template:Number table sorting -> {{nts|2966|prefix=~}} -> ~2,966. format=no if you don't like the comma. —Cryptic 00:57, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

Family tree template?

Is there a family tree template? If not, how can one be simulated? The article for ancient Irish queen Gormlaith ingen Flann mac Conaing has what purports to be a family tree, but the layout is incomprehensible to me (on my mobile). A bit iffy (talk) 09:34, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

@A bit iffy I can't find a general family tree template, but there are many for specific families listed at Category:Family tree templates. You could take a look at one of these and base yours off it. Ultraodan (talk) 09:39, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

@A bit iffy See also Help:Family trees the tree in Gormlaith ingen Flann mac Conaing is "hand-drawn" using horizontal underscores and vertical pipes/bars. - Arjayay (talk) 09:43, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

OP here, thanks all. Had occurred to me I should look for other articles where there might be a family tree, and I found one for Queen Victoria. But still, it looks horrendously difficult to build. So I'll try to fix that hand-crafted attempt somehow, preferably using one if those tools. A bit iffy (talk) 09:48, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

@A bit iffy By looking through some of those then opening one for editing I managed to find {{tree chart}} which does actually draw boxes and connecting lines, but it looks pretty laborious to use. (But also, Its See also section seems a potentially good starting point for other methods.) Musiconeologist (talk) 14:06, 15 February 2025 (UTC)