Wikipedia:Teahouse/Questions/Archive 399

How do I send a Message to other editors
Hello I would like to send a message to another editor specifically (as opposed to a general article issue) -- do I click their USERID and then click "Talk"? Then what do I do?

Ridge wiki (talk) 22:08, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Hi Ridge wiki, and welcome to the Teahouse. Yes, you go to a user talk page (e.g. yours is User talk:Ridge wiki and mine is User talk:Cordless Larry and then click the "new section" button at top. That will open the editing window and you can type you message to post. Note that user talk pages are publically viewable, so it's not a private message to the user concerned. Cordless Larry (talk) 22:19, 9 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Thanks, that's easy Ridge wiki (talk) 22:23, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
 * No problem, Ridge wiki. Just a further tip: unless the other user includes a link to your user page in their reply (called a "ping"), you won't get a notification that they've replied, so it's a good idea to either check their talk page every now and then, or add it to your watch list. Cordless Larry (talk) 22:28, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Greetings Ridge wiki (talk) and Thanks for the question and the answer. FYI, I have excerpted parts of above & created a new Tip-Of-The-Day proposal on this topic. It's located here. Regards, JoeHebda (talk) 19:10, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

class=wikitable without borders
produces

I want the colors and everything, just not the borders, so this won't do: &mdash; Cp i r al  Cpiral  19:47, 10 October 2015 (UTC)


 * rather than place loads of wiki markup here can I point you at Help:Table which explains how to colour text and cell background. Nthep (talk) 20:18, 10 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Greetings Cpiral and - Thanks for the Table question and the answer. FYI, after reading, I updated at Tip-Of-The-Day the tip on this topic. It's located at "Tip of the day, June 27 - Pretty tables" and now includes a list of additional resources. Regards, JoeHebda (talk) 01:41, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

Page Making
How do you make a new page? Rtewqq (talk) 20:15, 10 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Hello, and welcome to the Teahouse!
 * If you want to make an encyclopedia page about a topic that meets the requirements for a stand alone article, then you can use the article WP:WIZARD. If you want to make a page that tells a little bit about you and your editing of Wikipedia, then just click here and start writing! -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  20:46, 10 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Welcome to the Teahouse, . You can find lots of useful information about how to write an article at Your first article. Cullen328  Let's discuss it  01:53, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

How do I find the edits that user X did on page Y?
Such a simple thing but I can't figure it out, or find it in the help files. Thank you. deisenbe (talk) 02:13, 11 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Hello Deisenbe. I presume you are looking for something more specific than clicking the History tab on the top of the article? -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  02:23, 11 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Yes I am. The History tab can have hundreds, even (I think) thousands of entries. For major articles it is impractical to go through the History to find out what a particular user did. It's also impractical, in most cases, to go through one user's contributions. I can't believe that with all the tools that have been created, there is no way to simply query this. deisenbe (talk) 03:52, 11 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Hi . There used to be a tool on article history pages that would find all the edits a given user had made. The link to it, "Edits by user", is still there at the top of the history next to "Revision history search". But it no longer connects to a tool. StarryGrandma (talk) 05:55, 11 October 2015 (UTC)


 * , an editor [//wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:%CE%A3 wrote] to the tool-maintainer about the tool disconnect on the ninth. Looks like it only lasted two years. ... Checkingfax  ( Talk )  06:14, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

Notability being questioned
Hi guys,

I recently created a page Abe Burns and his notability is being questioned. I actually know him personally and he is one of the most powerful people in tech investing - he essentially runs all Ashton Kutcher's investing and was on Billboard Magazine's "30 Under 30"... I'm just wondering how I can make that box disappear if anyone has any tips??

Thanks so much! L — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jellybean2786 (talk • contribs) 17:37, 9 October 2015


 * "L" is meaningless as a signature here. Please sign your talk page posts with four tildes:  ~ . That will display your username and the timestamp. (I looked at the article's history to find your username.) --Thnidu (talk) 15:48, 10 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Hi Jellybean2786, and welcome to the Teahouse. The notability guideline can be summarised as follows: Articles generally require significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the topic. You also mention that you know Abe Burns personally, so you should also be made aware of the guideline set out at Conflict of interest. You need to declare any personal interest you have in the Abe Burns article, and it may be best to ask other editors to supervise your edits by posting suggested changes to the article's talk page and adding the template, rather than making them directly. Cordless Larry (talk) 16:03, 10 October 2015 (UTC)
 * ·, at this point the only source you have in the article that is reliable enough to use to show notability is Billboard, and the particular article cited does not have anywhere near enough detail to show notability for your subject. Even the less than reliable sources you've cited do not discuss him in detail; indeed, most are mere mentions of his name. To reinforce what was said above: qualification for an article here has nothing to do with what a person has done or anyone's perception of the person's importance. Instead, it is based entirely on whether multiple reliable sources have written about the subject in detail. John from Idegon (talk) 06:45, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

Exact number of page watchers less than 30.
In page information, if page watchers are less than 30, can anyone view the exact number of page watchers; as 5 page watchers, 7 page watchers?

And if my userpage is watched by 50 people, can i find out who has kept my userpage on their watchlist? 38.95.108.250 (talk) 05:36, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Hi, welcome to the Teahouse. Per Help:Watchlist, watchlists are private, so neither you nor anyone else on Wikipedia can see exactly who is watching your user page. I don't think you can find the exact number if it's less than thirty either. Best, Mz7 (talk) 05:48, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Administrators can see the exact number below 30. The access to the information is limited so vandals don't know which pages have very few watchers. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:40, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
 * By the way, administrators can also see a list of pages with no watchers at Special:UnwatchedPages. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:43, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Huh, today I learned something. Thanks PrimeHunter for the follow-up! Face-smile.svg Mz7 (talk) 16:44, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

tool to make internal links?
Is there a tool that will scan my article for words and terms that are already in Wikipedia in other articles, and will change my article to use links to those other Wikipedia articles?

Or must I look up every word in my article to see if there is another Wikipedia article for that word? Dcj3616 (talk) 14:32, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Hello
 * Internal linking is done manually because we do not link every term, only those where letting the reader get additional information is most appropriate .-- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  15:06, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree with TheRedPenOfDoom that we wouldn't want a tool that linked every word there was an article for, although that doesn't necessarily rule out a tool that identifies and suggests possible links. I don't know whether such a thing exists though. Cordless Larry (talk) 15:19, 11 October 2015 (UTC)


 * , VisualEditor (VE) does a pretty nifty job of lighting up potential deadlinks in red on the fly. It can give you a false-positive until you click away but if so you just go right back and quickly unlink it. If it's blue, let it be, but if it's red, make it dead. Do you use VisualEditor? WYSIWYG editing is its forte'. One flaw with doing wikilinks by hand or with VE is you can end up linking to a disambiguation page instead of a direct article. But there is a roaming Bot that sniffs articles and alerts you on your Talk page to DAB issues and suggests fixes with a DabSolver. Cheers! ... Checkingfax  ( Talk )  17:58, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Often a redlink is a very useful construct, and it is not at all true that as a general rule one should "if it's red, make it dead". A redlink is a good way of suggesting that there should be an article about a given topic, even though there isn't one now. Contrawise, many terms u7sed would be blue links but are not very relevant to the article beign edited, and so should not be linked. DES (talk) 18:14, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
 * , welcome to the Teahouse and I hope this is the place where you will get a satisfactory answer to your question. If not, come on back and continue the dialogue. I use a tool that will look for the name of my article in other articles and allow me to make a link from the other article to mine. This prevents the creation of what is called 'orphan' articles. Orphans are articles not linked to other articles. I am not sure that is quite what you were looking for but click here for the url that will get you to this tool. What I do to find if there is an article that I can link to from my article is this; I use the preview edit window and put the    around the terms. The preview will show if there is an article with the name you want to link to. If the article exists, the wikilink will appear blue, if the article does not exist, the wikilink will be red. Best Regards and thank you for making the encyclopedia even better with your edits.
 *  Bfpage &#124;leave a message 20:22, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
 * The guest is Dcj3616 here, Bfpage, rather than Checkingfax. Cordless Larry (talk) 20:38, 11 October 2015 (UTC)


 * , I was trying to be cute and Johnnie Cochran my answer to the OP. Your point about the value of redlinks is spot-on. The OP only wants a bluelinker tool. As far as overwikilinking, VE still makes you highlight a word/phrase and click on a link button (or the other way around) before it will provide the colored link (blue or red). It might be cool if VE had a button to "highlight all words/phrases with article links" that could be toggled on/off, but for now it is still a mostly manual process. Cheers!... Checkingfax  ( Talk )  20:13, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

"People also searched for" page: LAVAR MUNROE
page: LAVAR MUNROE

HOW DO I ACESSS "People also searched for" feature for this page? 17:56, 11 October 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Artlover550 (talk • contribs)


 * Hi, welcome to the Teahouse! To my knowledge, Wikipedia does not keep publicly viewable records of what readers search for. As a result, there is no function to see which pages readers searched for in addition to Lavar Munroe. To provide a few alternatives, Wikipedia has an extensive categorization system that categorizes pages dealing with similar topics. Categories for each article can be found at the very bottom of the page; click a category to view similar articles that fall under that category. Also, in the left sidebar under "Tools", you can find a link that says "What links here", which will give you a list of articles that have internal links to the selected article. I hope this helps. Best, Mz7 (talk) 18:15, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Hello, . I think Mz7 is correct. At least I have never heard of such a feature, and when I looked in plausible places such as Page information, I found no mention or indication of such a feature. Perhaps you are confusing us with the results of a search of Google or some other search engine? DES (talk) 18:21, 11 October 2015 (UTC)


 * , not a home run but yesterday I found an official page that lists the top few hundred searches for pages that do NOT yet exist (mostly for BLPs or music, but a few not like MILF Hunter). The listings are all redlinked ready to be created. Some of these non pages are sought out up to 3000 times per day (each!). I did not bookmark the page. Cheers! ... Checkingfax <font color="DarkGray"> ( Talk )  19:17, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Would that be Special:WantedPages? On smaller wikis this feature can be a very important part of building a wiki. DES (talk) 19:20, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

, very similar but it was a tabulation of hits on Wikipedia for pages that do not exist with the top hit getter at the top of the list. It read something like this:
 * Here are pages that are searched for on Wikipedia but do not exist. They are listed in order by page hits per day:

<ul> <li>Maria Irma Sanchez-Salvatore (3304) <li>Marvin Poots (3233) <li>The Cornsnake's Greatest Hits (3101) <li>MILF Hunter (2964) </ul> Cheers! <font color="DarkOrange">... <font color="DarkOrange">Checkingfax <font color="DarkGray"> ( Talk )  20:34, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Maybe you saw User:West.andrew.g/Popular redlinks. It's based on page views and not searches. I don't know a "People also searched for" feature in Wikipedia.
 * I guess you are referring to text in a box to the right of a Google search. Google's Knowledge Graph uses a wide variety of sources. There may be a text paragraph ending with "Wikipedia" to indicate that particular text was copied from Wikipedia. An image and other text before or after the Wikipedia excerpt is added by Google and may be completely unrelated to Wikipedia. We have no control over which Google searches are shown on Google pages. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:47, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

creating an article
how do i create an article page? Brummbar88 (talk) 01:19, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

You create an article by going to Your first article, reading all the directions, and following them. All articles must meet the Wikipedia guidelines for inclusion: they must be sourced with reliable third-party sources, be about a notable subject, be neutral in tone, and be comprehensible. There are other requirements, but these are the main ones that have to be met. Also, you can't write an article about a subject you are involved in, see Conflict of interest. (Meaning if you work for a company, you can't write an article about that company, among other things.) I am not trying to discourage you from creating an article, but if you write one and it doesn't meet guidelines, it will probably get deleted, which will be discouraging. I hope your article is a needed one, and you can go ahead with it. Add: if you mean create your own userpage rather than an encyclopedia article, all you have to do is click on your name's red link and go to it. Wikipedia is pretty loose with userpage requirements, as long you're not using it to display obscene content, social network, or put down others. See Userpage for a full explanation of what you can and can't have. White Arabian mare ( Neigh ) 01:30, 11 October 2015 (UTC)White Arabian mare


 * Fire Fiesta! (talk) 21:58, 11 October 2015 (UTC)My last page taken down due to "Speedy Deletion". Would this page NOT get deleted if I posted it?Fire Fiesta! (talk) 21:58, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

This is the list of the Skylanders Series episodes. The series started on June 24, 2014 and is still airing new episodes. As of September 19, 2015, 23 episodes have been published.

==Series overview==

Episode list
===Season 1 (Trap Team)===

Season 2 (Superchargers)
On June 19, 2015, Fire Fiesta renewed the Skylanders Series for a second season. On October 16, 2015, new episodes of the series began airing.

Fire Fiesta! (talk) 21:58, 11 October 2015 (UTC)


 * , Please don't post entire proposed articles here, post them in a sand box or on a draft: page and link to them here.


 * I don't see this as fitting any of the speedy deletion criteria but it might be nominated for an AfD. DES (talk) 00:02, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

how?
hi im new how do i get templates and effects stuff on my user page and how do you edit pages whatare all the rules on here thanks Kaiwen0115 (talk) 03:16, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Hello Kaiwen0115, and welcome to the Teahouse! To design your user page, I recommend heading to our User page design center. The fundamental principles which nearly every rule on Wikipedia are based upon are summarized in our five pillars. There are actually many "rules" on Wikipedia, all of which can be read at List of policies and guidelines, but Wikipedia encourages you to be bold and actually ignore all rules. As long as you keep the five pillars in mind, and contribute with the goal of building an encyclopedia, you don't have to read all the rules to edit. As you gain experience here and learn the ropes, the policies and guidelines will start to make more sense. If you ever get stuck, feel free to come over to the Teahouse and we'll be glad to help. Best of luck, Mz7 (talk) 03:36, 12 October 2015 (UTC)


 * By the way, if you want a fun tutorial on how to edit and some of our basic principles, check out The Wikipedia Adventure. For a more formal, informational tutorial to editing, see Tutorial. —Mz7 (talk) 03:44, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

Notability concerns despite third party sources. Should I userfy?
Hi, while I am an avid user of wikipedia I have recently decided to turn contributor. I spent some time researching and working on a article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambi_M.G._Parameswaran. Said person is an author, an expert in advertising and marketing, and has contributed several articles to leading newspapers. I have tried to rewrite whatever information I got from multiple sources (apparently i havent done a good job) and have also included third party links under 'external links'. However, this article is being reviewed for deletion for notability issues. :( What am i doing wrong? Also should I userfy? Am not sure on how to move the article to drafts. Please help. Bulletninja (talk) 04:03, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
 * What I recommend doing before making any article is to gather only professionally published, mainstream journalistic or academic sources that are specifically about the subject but not affiliated with the subject, and write a draft only summarizes the information in those sources. Then, if that draft survives as an article, it can be expanded using other sources (though they still need to be reliable in some way).
 * Wordpress, like blogspot or any other self-published site, fails our reliable sourcing guidelines. Search results on websites also usually fail our standards.  Press releases and media statements do not establish notability, and can really only be used for material that the article clearly indicates is only a claim by the subject.
 * You may want to userfy the article for now, so long as you continue to work on it. We're pretty tolerant of stuff that will definitely end up in article space someday, but user pages cannot be used to host articles that would otherwise fail in articlespace.  Ian.thomson (talk) 04:29, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

Created an article using my account, unable to view
How do I view an article written via my account? It's not showing up anywhere.

111.119.198.218 (talk) 06:26, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Hi IP editor, and welcome to the Teahouse. If you click on the "Contributions" link in the top-right of the screen, you will see a list of all of the edits you have made. However, maybe the problem is that you aren't logged in - hence why you comment here is assigned to your IP address rather than a username. Cordless Larry (talk) 06:42, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

Why did material I added get deleted?
Hi,

I added some information on the history of the town of Lake Forest, IL to its page and it was all deleted and described as "pov." What do I need to satisfy these requirements? All of the information was sourced from local newspapers and history books. JPTimbaud93 (talk) 06:50, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Welcome to the Teahouse, . Your edits were reverted by a very experienced editor, . His edit summary indicated that he thought your edits were advancing a non-neutral point of view. My quick glance led me to think that maybe you were trying to emphasize the negative. Wikipedia articles should be written from the neutral point of view. He recommended discussing the matter on the article's talk page, and I agree. There has been no discussion there for nine years. <b style="color:#070">Cullen</b><sup style="color:#707">328  Let's discuss it  07:27, 12 October 2015 (UTC)


 * JPTimbaud93, I thought your addition was very interesting and added a useful perspective. But it was sourced wholly to newspapers, something that can be all right for purely factual nuts-and-bolts material, but not so much for analysis. Newspapers do have a point of view, it's what they do, they're not supposed to be encyclopedias. Moreover, you put together different things from different sources into an argument of your own: that's what we call original research — it sounds like something positive, but here it's not, check out the link please. What you need IMO is a more academic source, plus you need to put the argument not in "Wikipedia's voice", but more in terms of "X calls it" or "according to X". If you can do this, I don't really think you need to take it to the talkpage. It can't hurt, certainly, but the fact that nobody's posted there since 2006 strongly suggests it's not widely watched and that you'd get little if any response. Good luck, I hope you won't be discouraged. Bishonen &#124; talk 07:49, 12 October 2015 (UTC).

contacting a wiki editor
I want to reply to SwisterTwister who contacted me about my entry but can't see where to enter my query on his talk page. Can someone help? Writerondesign (talk) 13:52, 12 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Use the 'start a discussion' button on mobile view, or 'new section' at the top of the page on desktop, write your message, and click save. Be sure to sign your name with four tildes: ~ . Hope that helped.  White Arabian mare  ( Neigh ) 13:59, 12 October 2015 (UTC)White Arabian mare

formatting links and references on Francis Cauffman
This is what I wanted to contact Swister Twister about but anyone can reply if you would like to help. I am eager to get the entry up but can't quite get the coding on this right. Links are dead ends. Writerondesign (talk) 14:00, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Hello . In these two edits I fixed one of your citations. Take a look at what I did, and at Referencing for Beginners, and see if you can understand how to fix the others. Note that the name of the publication should normally be in |work=, not |title=, and that if the name of the publisher is basically the same as the name of the work, |publisher= should be omitted (for example when work=The New York Times, there is no need to specify publisher=The New York Times Company). The publication date should be in |date=, not in the title. DES (talk) 15:52, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

Creating a new article in my sandbox
Hi guys, I am new at this (only done 1 article so far) and have popped all my information into my sandbox but can't work out how to put in a contents box and also a heading/title for my article. Can you help me please? Lemon Gelato (talk) 01:28, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Hi Lemon Gelato and welcome to the Teahouse. The table of contents box is automatically generated during the creation of articles with multiple headings. Please see Help:Whitespace. The title of your new article will be chosen by you when you MOVE the article from your user space to an Article. Thanks for contributing! Samf4u (talk) 02:17, 12 October 2015 (UTC)


 * A table of contents is automatically generated only when a page has more than four section headings. User:Lemon Gelato/sandbox currently only has three. It is possible to force a table of contents to appear even if there are less than four section headers by adding the code  at the location you want the table of contents to appear. Best, Mz7 (talk) 03:14, 12 October 2015 (UTC)


 * , while is technically correct about moving the article, I would urge you not to do so. If you were to move the article to mainspace as it stands, it would almost certainly be deleted (I suspect you already know this, as you have put editorial comments in it, but I wanted to be sure). When you think it is ready, I strongly suggest that rather than moving it yourself, you request a review by inserting {{subst:submit}} at the top. If a reviewer accepts the article, they will move it into mainspace with a suitable title. --ColinFine (talk) 19:29, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

Formatting company logos
Hi!

I've created a company wikipedia page (for Prizeo) and there is a small square box icon to the bottom right of the logo. I'm not sure why this is there, but would love to remove it if possible (as I haven't seen it on any other company pages). If someone could let me know how to remove it I'd be very grateful :) thanks!

Jellybean2786 (talk) 19:25, 12 October 2015 (UTC)


 * in this edit.--ukexpat (talk) 19:37, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

An issue with the Wikipedia entry for "Japanese rock garden"
In the introduction to this entry, it says: "The Japanese rock garden...often called a zen garden..." Although it is true that they are often called zen gardens, from my internet research, it seems the term "zen garden" first appeared in print in 1935. The opinion is that of a noted Dutch horticultural writer and the source is an article in a horticultural journal. I would like to add a footnote pointing this out. My question is 1) is this a legitimate edit? and 2) how would I source the information? Thank you. H Hector Sinclair H Hector Sinclair (talk) 19:32, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Welcome to the Teahouse, . There is already a section in Japanese rock garden called "Landscape painting and the Zen garden critique" that discusses the English language naming controversy in a fair amount of detail. Perhaps your horticultural journal reference can be used to improve that section. "Zen garden" is a common English language alternative name but it seems that it is misleading since Zen philosophy did not actually influence the development of such gardens. Accordingly, I do not think that the term "Zen garden" should be used in the article, except for the brief mention in the lead, and also in the section devoted to the naming controversy. That is just my opinion based on a quick reading of the article. Any disagreements should be discussed on the article's talk page. As for formatting a reference, please see Referencing for beginners. <b style="color:#070">Cullen</b><sup style="color:#707">328  Let's discuss it  19:49, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

Which images are OK to use for biographies?
Hi,

I've created a few biographies in the past couple days, all of them being about footballers. However, I am not sure which images I can use for them. If anyone knows how to find images for people that are acceptable for use, please let me know. Thanks. Ashkaan232 (talk) 17:15, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Helllo,, and welcome to the Teahouse. Normally, for living people, only freely licensed images (CC-BY-3.0, 4.0, or compatible) are acceptable. This usually means an image that you (or someone you know personally) has taken and is willing to release the full rights to, or an image that the subject (or someone connected with the subject) owns and is willing to release fully. Please understand that such a release means that anyone in the world can use the image for any purpose, including commercially for profit, and can create modified versions of the image, and will not need to pay royalties or fees of any sort to the image creator or copyright holder, but only needs to acknowledge the creator or copyright holder. Most commercial entities will not relase images under these terms, although some will. See Donating copyrighted materials for more details. Note that it is unlikely that an image found on the web will have a sufficient free license, and if there is no license or copyright statement, it must be assumed that the image is licensed and not freely released, that is it may not be used. This is a matter that Wikipedia is quite strict about. DES (talk) 17:36, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
 * On another matter,, any editor writing biographies of athletes should be familiar with our notability guidelines related to sports, which is found at Notability (sports). There is a shortcut to the section about association football (soccer) at WP:NFOOTY. For American and Canadian football, the shortcut is WP:GRIDIRON. <b style="color:#070">Cullen</b><sup style="color:#707">328  Let's discuss it  20:07, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

Can one use "reputable," well-respected websites be used as sources (Mayo Clinic, Harvard, etc)?
I am very new to Wikipedia and I am as green as they come. Especially when it comes to sourcing/references. Can "reputable," "well-respected" websites (such as the Mayo Clinic, Harvard, United States government)be used as references for a Wikipedia article? Thank you for your time.Argentina 20:38, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
 * The answer is "mostly yes" though it sometimes depends on the specifics. For instance, although certain parts of http://harvard.edu are wiki-reliable, other parts are student-homepages (and not wiki-reliable per WP:BLOGS).  Most government agencies are considered wiki-reliable per WP:RS, but just because something is listed on a governmental website, does not necessarily count towards wiki-notability (see WP:42 and WP:N), for example, there are lists of all the corporations which have filed for incorporation in the great state of Delaware, but such a URL isn't wiki-notable even though it is probably truthful.  Court-case-documents are also a tricky area, best avoided by wikipedia, see WP:PRIMARY.  There are some exceptions to information provided by the Mayo Clinic website, too, see WP:MEDRS.  If you are worried about some specific source and some specific factoid, you can always leave a request about your question at WP:RSN, which specializes in that sort of thing, or here at the WP:TEAHOUSE page if you prefer.  Does this help?  Most "wiki-laws" have exceptions here on wikipedia.  75.108.94.227 (talk) 21:03, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

Is the reference sufficient?
Hello, I'm new to the editing world of wikipedia. I just wrote a new article on a social worker and have provided a reference. Will it be sufficient enough? Some one please help me. This is the article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baburao_Kulkarni Athreyassiddharth (talk) 09:07, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Hello Athreyassiddharth, and welcome to the Teahouse. There are really two questions here. The first is whether the one reference cited at the end of the article is enough to prevent it being deleted under the rule that says that all biographies of living people must cite at least one reliable source. The second is whether the subject meets Wikipedia's notability guidelines. Put simply, these require that there is significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the topic. The source you've cited isn't indpendent of the subject, so it doesn't help meet the notability requirements, although it might be considered enough to satisfy the requirement for at least one source to be cited (if the consensus is that it's a reliable source). What you really need to do is find multiple reliable sources that help demonstrate that the subject of the article meets the notability guidelines. These might include newspaper or online news articles about Kulkarni, or coverage in books or scholarly journal articles. See Identifying reliable sources for guidance on this. Cordless Larry (talk) 09:23, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Welcome to the Teahouse, . The profile of the founder, on the website of an organization that this person founded, is not an independent source and therefore does not help establish notability in any way. What we need is evidence of significant coverage of this person in reliable, independent sources. Specifically, sources that have nothing to do with this person or the people or groups he is affiliated with. This is a fairly long article that makes all sorts of remarkable claims and assertions, without providing any references at all to back those claims. A core Wikipedia content policy is verifiability. References help readers verify that claims in articles are accurate. A specific example in this article is that this person "formulated a medicine often called as 'Mantroushadi' which completely cures Asthma." Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and medical claims must be rigorously sourced on Wikipedia. The only type of source we could accept for a claim that this substance "completely cures Asthma" would be an established and respected peer-reviewed medical journal read by physicians worldwide who treat asthma patients. Please see WP:MEDRS for complete details.


 * Your first challenge is to show convincingly that this person is notable. Then, the article must be completely rewritten to eliminate all promotional claims and "puffery". The style must be in accordance with the neutral point of view. Every substantive claim or assertion must be referenced to a reliable source, and these sources must be independent, except for mundane and uncontroversial biographical details. <b style="color:#070">Cullen</b><sup style="color:#707">328   Let's discuss it  09:58, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I have removed the most obviously problematic medical claims from the article, but there are still issues to be resolved here. Cordless Larry (talk) 11:08, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I have removed some of the more extreme puffery and opinion that could not be supported as factual by any source, and added a number of cn tags on statements that particularly need citations. But all the above comments on what is needed remain, and the first need is for independent reliable sources. Without these, the page will inevitably be deleted by one route or another, by WP:AFD if not by WP:BLPROD. DES (talk) 12:29, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
 * , may I offer some advice? I suggest that you ask one of the kind Teahouse hosts to move that page into Draft space (i.e., to Draft:Baburao Kulkarni). That would give you unlimited time both to work on it and to learn a little more about editing here. If it stays in article space I fear it will soon be deleted. Regards, Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 23:25, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

Please Review This Page
Hi - Would somebody be willing to peer review this entry: User:Cmc8709/sandbox? Looking for feedback as I am very new new to submitting content on Wikipedia. Thank you!

Cmc8709 (talk) 23:06, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Hello, and welcome to the Teahouse. On a quick review, it looks fairly good. Your third citation doesn't support the statement for which it is cited. All citations need metadata, such as the publication cited, the date of publication, and the author (when available). See referencing for beginners for more detail. The draft could have more about the history of this development, if sources exist to write that. The globest.com article is basically an interview. As such it is considered WP:PRIMARY and does not help with notability; some additional independent reliable sources might help with that. DES (talk) 00:10, 13 October 2015 (UTC)
 * The last line containing links to two developers makes the article seem promotional which could be a problem. Be sure to declare if you have a COI (see WP:COI. Regards, Ariconte (talk) 02:22, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

counts
does the edit i do on my sandbox count to my edits and does anyone care thanks Kaiwen0115 (talk) 00:13, 13 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Hello, and welcome to the Teahouse. Yes, such an edit counts. Pretty much every time you click "Save" on this site counts. Whether anyone cares is harder. Some people do look at contribution totals to judge the experience level of an editor. There are a few places where a specificed minimum number of edits is required, and a few others whre it is strongly suggested. But for most purposes, it doesn't matter much. See Service awards for one not too serious way of indicating one's overall edit count. DES (talk) 00:26, 13 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Hi Kaiwen0115 - As you have only 8 edits to date, if you are asking about becoming WP:AUTOCONFIRMED the sandbox edits - and your post here - all count towards the 10 edits required. - Arjayay (talk) 09:06, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

how to put someone profile in wiki so people can serach wiki and find releavnt info
Hello, how do I add a person profile on the wiki, just like if I search for instance zhang lei, it shows several persons with this name. How can I do that if I wish to have these info in wiki?

Thx! Tom180.154.28.55 (talk) 13:26, 13 October 2015 (UTC) We are an encyclopedia, which has articles about well-known people, who have already had books, magazine articles, etc. written about them. - Arjayay (talk) 14:06, 13 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Hi Tom, and welcome to the Teahouse. First of all, I recommend that you create an account. You can do so at Special:UserLogin/signup. You'll find instructions on how to create an article at Your first article. When you're ready to do so, I recommend using Article wizard. If you have any further or more specific questions, please feel free to ask them here. Cordless Larry (talk) 13:39, 13 October 2015 (UTC)
 * But please understand we do not have any "profiles" on Wikipedia; you do not post your own "profile" here, as you would on a social media site.

Why require secondary sources for plot elements of works of fiction?
Many articles about works of fiction -- I'm thinking at the moment of Lois McMaster Bujold's Captain Vorpatril's Alliance and the recurring major character Ivan Vorpatril, but I've seen it quite often -- are tagged as needing additional citations for verification of plot issues.

I find this strange. What more verification is needed than the book itself? Yes, it's a primary source. But unlike primary sources for just about anything else, the book is not a description of the subject of the article, it itself is the subject of the article. A person's own web page certainly cannot be trusted to give truthful descriptions of events in the person's life; but the text of a work of fiction is not a description of an event that occurred in the real world, it is the event.

The opening of Captain Vorpatril's Alliance --
 * Ivan's door buzzer sounded at close to Komarran midnight...
 * "Oh God. Byerly Vorrutyer. Go away." ...
 * Byerly slipped inside.

is an indisputable fact in the plot of the book, accurately summarized in the article as:
 * Captain Ivan Vorpatril reluctantly lets Imperial Security agent Byerly Vorrutyer ... into his flat late one night.

By definition, no secondary source could possibly be more reliable and objective than the event (i.e., the text) itself, so why is there a demand for secondary sources?

Of course there's always a chance that the editor has misinterpreted the text, or misreported its content, or combined elements to create a synthesis that goes beyond the text, just as can happen with secondary sources for events, things, and people in the real world. But we already have policies about those actions, and they should suffice for such actions about works of fiction. The net result of requiring secondary sources for fiction is to raise the bar of notability. A new book by an established and notable author, even one not yet published, is ipso facto notable (e.g., Bujold's Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen), but reviews and adequate plot summaries may not be available for some time after publication. A new book by a less famous but still notable author may take much longer. The book itself should suffice. Why don't we treat it that way? Please me to discuss. --Thnidu (talk) 20:37, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Hello User:Thnidu, the short answer to your question is that article-content should satisfy WP:NOTEWORTHY, which is to say, that some secondary source ought to have taken note of the most worthy bits. In the case of a book, the review written in a wiki-reliable publication by an independent journalistic reviewer is a secondary source.  Usually the reviewer will give some of the plot... but almost always, not ALL of the plot.  Just the WP:NOTEWORTHY bits are covered, and thus, wikipedia should (generally speaking) stick to those bits.  Sometimes that means leaving out large portions of the plot -- the parts that reviewers didn't bother to explicitly review.  Sometimes an entire character will be "missing" from the wikipedia article, that summarizes the book in question... because if no WP:RS saw fit to spill ink about that specific character, then probably wikipedia also should not.  See also WP:UNDUE weight.  p.s. Of course in practice, these things are very laxly enforced, especially in book/film/music/etc articles in my experience.  Like the speed limit, most articles break the rules about explicit sourcing for every factoid in every sentence.  75.108.94.227 (talk) 20:42, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
 * , There is a long-standing consensus that when reporting factual details of the plot of a work of fiction, without analysis, the work itself is the only needed source. Once in a while a cite to the chapter or even page of the work may be desirable, but there is no need at all to cite a secondary source, and any tag requesting such a citation may be removed. To give an example, in an article about Dickens's A Christmas Carol if the plot section says "Near the start of the story, Scrooge is visited by the Ghost of Marley, his dead partner" there is no need for a secondary source. However, if there is any sort of analysis, such as "Marley's ghostly visit starts the theme of redemption from worldliness." THEN a secondary source is indeed needed. DES (talk) 22:17, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Welcome to the Teahouse, . We have a section about writing plot summaries in the Manual of style guideline regarding writing about fictional works. The shortcut is MOS:PLOT (corrected) and the paragraph most relevant to your question follows:
 * "The plot summary for a work, on a page about that work, does not need to be sourced with in-line citations, as it is generally assumed that the work itself is the primary source for the plot summary. However, editors are encouraged to add sourcing if possible. If a plot summary includes a direct quote from the work, this must be cited using inline citations per WP:QUOTE. Sometimes a work will be summarized by secondary sources, which can be used for sourcing. Otherwise, using brief quotation citations from the primary work can be helpful to source key or complex plot points."
 * Citations for plot summaries are not required in general, but they are advisable in well developed articles, and required for quotations and for interpretative analysis, as correctly pointed out above. In my opinion, there is a danger when an editor, especially an inexperienced one, writes a plot summary entirely on their own. They may overemphasize some aspects of the plot to the detriment of other elements, and may obsess about certain trivial details as opposed to the major plot points. Published reviews of literary works almost always include some aspects of a plot summary. Citing the plot summaries written by professional literary critics and book reviewers allows an editor to write the summary in the common way that content is produced throughout this encyclopedia - by summarizing what reliable sources have written about the topic, without engaging in original research. In my opinion, that is the best approach. <b style="color:#070">Cullen</b><sup style="color:#707">328   Let's discuss it  00:01, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

Thank you very much, This makes very good sense to me. And thank you too, for trying to answer, even though your effort did not recognize the distinction between fiction and other subjects that lies at the heart of the matter.

Cullen328, I can't find that paragraph on WP:MOS, or indeed any occurrence of the string "plot". Are you sure it's not on some related page? --Thnidu (talk) 02:21, 13 October 2015 (UTC)
 * -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  02:47, 13 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I made an error with the shortcut,, which I have corrected above. MOS:PLOT is another shortcut that works, which I intended to type but somehow got distracted. I apologize. <b style="color:#070">Cullen</b><sup style="color:#707">328  Let's discuss it  02:51, 13 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Ping User:Thnidu, it is true that I don't recognize there is any distinction between articles about fictional novels, and articles about other subjects. :-)     WP:NOTEWORTHY is the correct approach to article-content, in all cases, whether the section is a plot summary or something else.  (Perhaps Cullen328 phrases it more pleasingly than myself, when they spoke of the dangers of unsourced-plot-summaries.)  Along the same lines, just because the novel is 14th in a series of books by a bluelinked author, does not mean that novel passes WP:42.  Fundamentally, the problem with using the text of the novel itself, as the only source for the article-content, is that you tend to end up with an article exactly like the Captain Vorpatril's Alliance one currently does... 99% plot-summary, and almost no mention of wiki-reliable sources.  I've done a bit of searching, and left what I found at Talk:Captain Vorpatril's Alliance, but it was pretty slim pickings.  75.108.94.227 (talk) 07:46, 13 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the clarifications, as well as the work on sources re Captain Vorpatril's Alliance.
 * Thanks.
 * It happens to us all. --Thnidu (talk) 14:08, 13 October 2015 (UTC)