Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2015 October 31

= October 31 =

Referencing errors on Polianthes tuberosa
Reference help requested.

The URL works, so I'm not sure what I need to fix. http://www.staradvertiser.com/features/20110509_Tuberose_has_abundance_of_dazzling_fragrance.html?id=121483403 is the URL to get to the article I was citing. thanks.

Thanks, Libsys (talk) 04:51, 31 October 2015 (UTC)


 * The problem wasn't with the reference you added. The error message related to something already in the article, included in the "External links" but unnecessarily given ref tags.  The fact that the word "help" in the error message was in blue indicated that it was a wikilink, in this case to Help:CS1 errors.  The problem is that the url omitted the   part.  I've corrected the url and removed the extraneous ref tags, in . --David Biddulph (talk) 05:42, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

Article being considered for deletion
I created a page and this is the error showing up

This article is being considered for deletion in accordance with Wikipedia's deletion policy. Please share your thoughts on the matter at this article's entry on the Articles for deletion page. Feel free to edit the article, but the article must not be blanked, and this notice must not be removed, until the discussion is closed. For more information, particularly on merging or moving the article during the discussion, read the guide to deletion.

Also it mentioned that there was no references.

I want to keep this page active.

Please help — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chirayu81 (talk • contribs) 09:58, 31 October 2015 (UTC)
 * For a Wikipedia article to exist about this performer, the article needs to show that other people, not connected with him, have already found it worthwhile to publish material about him. Wikipedia calls this "notability". The article currently has no evidence of any independent coverage at all. There's more at Notability and a handy summary at WP:42. -- John of Reading (talk) 11:22, 31 October 2015 (UTC)
 * For a Wikipedia article to exist about this performer, the article needs to show that other people, not connected with him, have already found it worthwhile to publish material about him. Wikipedia calls this "notability". The article currently has no evidence of any independent coverage at all. There's more at Notability and a handy summary at WP:42. -- John of Reading (talk) 11:22, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

Help:Cite errors/Cite error ref no input Emma Minnie Boyd page
I can't seem to find the empty reference in the article Emma Minnie Boyd to correct the wikimark up - thanks I have tried looking through in the editing panel but can't see the empty  in the text only the two that I have inserted  / can someone else locate it please and delete it, sorry

Bebe Jumeau (talk) 10:05, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

thank you - it seems to be fixed now - but the John Witherow help request has been wrongly stuck into mine - when it should be anew entry so that article can be fixed — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bebe Jumeau (talk • contribs) 10:38, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

done now thanks Bebe Jumeau (talk) 10:39, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

John Witherow
Hi Wikipedia,

I have been editing the John Witherow page and it still says that it needs further citations to make it verified - it has more citations than the previous edits so why is it saying this?? Please help!!

Theo — Preceding unsigned comment added by TheoDaviesLewis (talk • contribs) 10:28, 31 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Already being dealt with at WP:BLPN. GiantSnowman 10:33, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

Re:. Awards
Dear Editors,

I would like to ask you a question: how can I technically give a Barnstar to a Wikipedian, who helped me with several issues? I can't find the tool to upload the image from gallery of Awards to the particular editors page. Can someone advise me on how to do it. Thank you. Chris Oxford. Chris Oxford (talk) 12:19, 31 October 2015 (UTC)


 * There's no uploading to do. You just copy one of the barnstar templates and paste it on their talk page. See Barnstars. Dismas |(talk) 13:11, 31 October 2015 (UTC)
 * or you can click '💙' symbol to send barnstar. - Supdiop ( T 🔹 C ) 16:10, 31 October 2015 (UTC)
 * '💙' is a heart symbol but many browsers cannot display it. Click the tab with a red heart when you are on the user's talk page. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:30, 31 October 2015 (UTC)
 * User pages have a "wikilove" tab that connects to many of the standard barnstars or allows you to easily craft your own . -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  20:00, 31 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Not that I'm big on sending barnstars, and such, personally, I have heard that such a button or tab exists, but I've never seen it. I don't see an obvious gadget or whatnot to enable it, either.  Rwessel (talk) 20:25, 31 October 2015 (UTC)
 * It's a tab with a heart icon in the default skin Vector. In other skins it says "wikilove". It's only displayed in the userspace of others. It's enabled by default but can be disabled at "Enable showing appreciation for other users with the WikiLove tab" at Special:Preferences. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:37, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

How to add additions to existing page
I wish to add a new heading in the Pull-Tab page for a new item that is now patented in commercial use.

I have used Wiki forever but never edited or supplied new information.

Not sure I really understand how to. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lakesnake (talk • contribs) 15:51, 31 October 2015 (UTC)


 * For a new section heading, just put ==New heading== on a new line. Dismas |(talk) 16:12, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

Assessment: 'Start' class vs. 'C' class?
I need some help. I'm having trouble figuring out the assessment distinction between 'Start' class and 'C' class, esp. for BLP's/Biographies, as I find the Assessment scale about as clear as mud on this. (By contrast, I usually never have any trouble differentiating between 'Stub' class and 'Start' class...) Let me pick out a couple of random examples: Hannah Tointon and India de Beaufort – are these still 'Start' class, or are they 'C' class? If they're not quite at 'C' class, what exactly are they missing that leaves them short of a 'C' rating? Thanks in advance. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 17:38, 31 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I would appreciate some guidance on this matter also. Although the guideline states that assessment is usually done by WikiProjects, an assessment is also provided by an accepting reviewer at Articles for Creation.  I don't know when I should grade an article that I accept as Start-class or C-class.  (It is rare to see a Stub-class article that warrants acceptance, although I am sure that it occasionally happens.  What is very common is an article whose submitter probably thinks that it is Start-class or C-class, but it reads like an advertisement or is otherwise unencylopedic.)  Robert McClenon (talk) 18:07, 31 October 2015 (UTC)
 * If I were accepting either article as it currently is, I would give it C-class. However, as IJBall points out, the criteria are obscure.  Robert McClenon (talk) 18:11, 31 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Not that this helps, but early in my editing career, an experienced editor suggested (I paraphrase) that the meaningful distinctions are between FA, GA, Stub/start and everything else. After years of editing I've never found any value in distinguishing further. Is there some value I'm missing?-- S Philbrick (Talk)  18:30, 31 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes – the distinction between "Start" and C/B matters because getting past "Start" implies that it's not just some "dinky" article anymore but is an article of at least some substance. Thus, I think the distinction between "Start" and C/B is important, and I really want to get better at figuring out when an article has graduated from "Start" to at least "C". But, as I said above, I find Assessment scale pretty hopeless on this score... If some specific criteria can be established, then it might be worth creating an article at WP:Start class, in the same way the one at WP:Stub is actually helpful in distinguishing between "Stub" and "Start" class articles. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 18:40, 31 October 2015 (UTC)
 * matters to who? in what context? to ease a wikipedia editor's ego? -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  18:45, 31 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm not here to have a conversation about the objective usefulness of assessment. I am simply interested in criteria others use to assess "Start" vs. "C" class. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 19:27, 31 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't know how a question about what criteria to use to assess "Start" vs. "C" can be distinguished from the objective usefulness of assessment. I recently accepted a draft article assessing it at "Start" and was asked by the author why I hadn't assessed it at "C".  Their concern was whether the "Start" assessment made the article likely to be deleted.  I have never seen the assessment class of an article discussed in an AFD discussion.  I don't have any fixed criteria for assessing articles at AFC because I don't consider the criteria to be meaningful, at least not at AFC.  Maybe some WikiProjects have clearer criteria.  Robert McClenon (talk) 20:16, 31 October 2015 (UTC)
 * My feeling is that if an article passes a normal AfC review, it is probably at least a C. Having said that, I agree that the difference isn't of major importance, and I agree that the rating (which, below A or GA, is at best one editor's unchecked opinion) is never used at AfD, nor have I ever seen it cited as a PROD reason. Checking a developing article against the B-class criteria can be a useful self-assessment excersize for the editor working on an article, but I would never advise anyone to worry much about whether something is or is not rated 'C". The most objective standard for C is "Cites at least one reliable source" and I've never seen a draft pass AfC review unless it had multiple sources cited inline. The overall summary of C is "Useful to a casual reader, but would not provide a complete picture for even a moderately detailed study." and again I hope any draft that passes AfC would satisfy this. Another standard I use for C vs Start is "A C class article should survive an AfD as it stands, a Start might need improvement during the AfD process." That one isn't on the official list, however. DES (talk) 21:26, 31 October 2015 (UTC)
 * OK, that's good, and definitely helps. In thinking about this today, I'm sort of coming up with the following basic idea:
 * Stub – "bare content": basically, enough to get you pretty clearly past WP:A7. (And, FTR, stubs definitely get passed though AfC, but I don't think there's anything wrong with that...)
 * Start – "basic content": gives you the most basic outline about the subject, but nothing more.
 * "C" – "decent or moderate depth of coverage": in other words, more than just basic content. ("B" would be more like "good depth of coverage").
 * The level of sourcing comes in to play here too (Stubs usually (though not always) have only 1 or 2 refs; Start articles usually have more like half a dozen refs; C articles will probably have more like a dozen (or more) refs). But I think this gives me a better footing going forward... And I think agree with Robert McClenon – my two earlier examples are probably "C class" articles, esp. Hannah Tointon. Anyway, thanks for the discussion on this! --IJBall (contribs • talk) 23:56, 31 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Stubs are, and must be, accepted at AFC. The acceptance threshold is; "likely to survive an AFD", no more and no less. Article class has never been a valid deletion argument. Excessive declines at AFC for reasons that will not get an article deleted are a major contributor to the recurring backlogs at AFC. As soon as an AFC submission meets the minimum standards it must be accepted, regardless of its length. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 07:23, 1 November 2015 (UTC)
 * While some unreferenced stubs might survive an AfD, and many are unlikely ever to be nominated for an AfD, I would be surprised to learn of an AfC reviewer that accepted an article, of any length without multiple inline citations to reliable sources. Many, perhaps most, stubs in mainspace don't have that. DES (talk) 16:15, 1 November 2015 (UTC)
 * An unreferenced submission of any length, not only stub-length, should never be accepted. An acceptable stub will be properly referenced as all articles must comply with WP:V and WP:N, those are the most fundamental minimum criteria. That being said, very very few acceptable stubs ever actuallly get submitted to AFC review. Most stub-length submissions are obvious junk or unreferenced. By the time a good faith submitter gets the referencing right their draft is usually far longer than a stub. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 07:16, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes,, exactly. That is why, in practice, it is rare in my experience for a properly accepted AfC submission not to be Class C or better. While many stubs in mainspace are unreferenced. In the process of making sure that notability is established, the class c criteria, such as they are, are generally fulfilled. DES (talk) 14:58, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Slow to enter edit mode
Today, Wikipedia is being slow to enter edit mose ~5 minutes. Has this been caused by an update to Wikipedia SW? Op47 (talk) 18:50, 31 October 2015 (UTC)
 * It works normally for me and I haven't seen other reports. Maybe it's your Internet connection or computer. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:29, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

Is there a process for summarily stripping an article of GA status if the review was bad?
Hello. The article Pssst was recently promoted to GA. I was in the process of creating new DYK hooks for it (the original hook was struck down by ) and I noticed that there were serious sourcing issues - mainly that the author was attributing to sources things that those sources did not actually say.

The re-assessment process looks like it takes quite a bit of time. I don't think that this article should remain a GA while it is either fixed or the re-assessment process is run. Is there any way to summarily de-list the article in light of this issue?

Pinging the author,, and the reviewer,.

The Squirrel Conspiracy (talk) 23:23, 31 October 2015 (UTC)
 * No, an article must always go through GAR if there is a chance for it to be delisted. What errors have you seen? The early 1980s video game articles always closely follow the sources more than anything. JAG  UAR   00:08, 1 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I have replied to you here. As it looks like we're going to run into 3RR, I will give you a chance to respond before making any further edits. The Squirrel Conspiracy (talk) 00:31, 1 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Articles don't get " summarily stripp[ed]" of GA status just because one person doesn't like them or the review. As stated above, you're only option to have the article delisted is putting it through WP:GAR, and the appropriate thing to do would be to discuss any perceived issues on the articles talk page in a polite manner before taking it there anyway. I'll join in a discussion on the article's talk page; I won't reply here again. Freikorp (talk) 06:59, 1 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I have opened a GA reassessment at Talk:Pssst/GA2. The Squirrel Conspiracy (talk) 15:45, 1 November 2015 (UTC)