Wikipedia talk:Help desk/Archive 14

Editnotices on mobile
Hi Help desk folks. Recently, as per a passed RfC, EditNoticesOnMobile is being rolled out to mobile users in a phased manner. Currently, it is available by default only for Extended confirmed users & Administrators, and will be expanded to all other users if everything goes right. If you find someone reporting a technical issue with the tool, please consider directing the issue to Village pump (technical) or Wikipedia talk:EditNoticesOnMobile. Thank you! &#8212;CX Zoom[he/him] (let's talk • {C•X}) 06:51, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

Archiving may be interrupted
scsbot hit a brick wall tonight and is no longer able to add date headers to the Help desk, or archive it. Something seems to have changed on the Mediawiki side, exposing a new, unsuspected incompatibility in the way scsbot mechanically edits Wikipedia pages.

I'm not sure how long it will take me to track this down and fix it. In the meantime, archiving will be interrupted, and people will probably have to add date headers by hand.

See also Wikipedia talk:Reference desk.

If anyone knows of any specific Mediawiki change that might have been rolled out in the last 24 hours, please let me know! Thanks. —scs (talk) 00:22, 19 August 2022 (UTC)


 * I manually inserted the date header. I might try archiving it, but I'm not sure how it works. weeklyd3  ( block &#124; talk &#124; contributions) 00:24, 19 August 2022 (UTC)
 * @Scs: Also, it might be a change that happened yesterday. weeklyd3  ( block &#124; talk &#124; contributions) 00:25, 19 August 2022 (UTC)


 * Yup, just spotted that announcement myself. It's got to be related, although I don't yet see anything in the release notes that might be relevant. —scs (talk) 00:27, 19 August 2022 (UTC)
 * I also figured out how to archive it and I archived August 15. weeklyd3  ( block &#124; talk &#124; contributions) 00:35, 19 August 2022 (UTC)


 * The issue is resolved; see Wikipedia talk:Reference desk for details if curious. —scs (talk) 02:28, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

Profile pictures for federal judges not showing when I hover my mouse over their names
Weeklyd3 (talk) 02:02, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

Apple store and play store
Hello 203.96.243.185 (talk) 10:43, 31 August 2022 (UTC)


 * hi! —Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 10:49, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

Manually archive post
Can someone either manually archive or remove the WP:HD thread currently at the top of the HD. My guess is that Scsbot missed it for some reason when archiving the September 24 thread and this is why it's currently floating at the top of the HD. -- Marchjuly (talk) 10:32, 28 September 2022 (UTC)


 * @Marchjuly: done. lettherebedarklight, 晚安, おやすみ, ping me when replying 10:42, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

Upcoming WMF fundraising campaign
Hello everyone,

My name is Julia and I am the Community Relations person at the WMF Advancement Department which includes the fundraising team. As you might be aware the WMF will be launching the English Wikipedia banner fundraising campaign in late November and it will run until the end of December.

During last years' campaign, I noticed that you had a lot of people coming to this space with questions, suggestions, and complaints about the campaign. I am trying to help to decrease this kind of traffic this year. I prepared a draft Template for you to use. This is a draft so please do add aspects you would like to see in it. Using this template is a suggestion to hopefully make your life here easier in case you get an influx of enquiries during the campaign. I hope it will be useful and if you would like me to make any changes to it, please do let me know.

You could also add an extra line to the header and the Are you in the right place page, reading (suggestion):

If you have any questions, concerns, or complaints around the banner fundraising campaign (visible on Wikipedia between the 29th of November and the 31st of December), please email donate(@)wikimedia.org

Generally speaking, you can ping me with anything fundraising related and I will come and help!

Best,

JBrungs (WMF) (talk) 06:21, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

Virtual meeting this Friday
Hello,

The Editing team is hosting a public meeting this Friday, December 16th to talk about the needs of new editors. You are all invited. They want to present some ideas they have about encouraging the addition of inline citations, and they want to hear what you think will help newcomers make productive contributions.

When: Friday, 16 December 2022 at 16:00–17:30 UTC

Video conference link: https://meet.google.com/krq-tonw-quz

This meeting will be in English. There is some information on wiki at Editing team/Community Conversations  You don't need to sign up in advance, but you can sign up on that page if you want to.

If you aren't able to attend, but you have some information or advice for the team, you can also leave a public note for the Editing team at mw:Talk:Editing team/Community Conversations. (Also, if you want to find out about future events, I suggest putting that page on your watchlist. I think the next meeting will be on 20 January 2023 in Zoom (software), with a French interpreter.)

I hope to see some of you there. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:27, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

Gina Gogean's reference from Sports Reference to Olympedia
I want to explain about the reference for the Former Gymnast from Romania Gina Gogean. In 2020, Sports Reference has closed the Olympic Site, and open a new site is Olympedia. And I have is this. Can you help me out how to solve a problem. I'm sorry. It will be a transfer. Thank you. 100.2.114.167 (talk) 01:33, 30 December 2022 (UTC)


 * IP editor, this is the help desk's talk page, used to discuss the operation of the help desk and related issues, not the help desk itself. 199.208.172.35 (talk) 15:29, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

Changing Username
How to change your username GeorgeKil (talk) 16:43, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Either Special:GlobalRenameRequest or WP:CHUS. 331dot (talk) 16:46, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

Vector 2022 questions
Is there some blanket message that we can display to maybe address at least some of the flood of questions we are getting about it? 331dot (talk) 19:23, 18 January 2023 (UTC)


 * A template like the HD/donations one would be very helpful. Just a basic "The default desktop skin has changed. Account holders can change back in prefs. IPs are outta luck. Complain about it at (link)." It'll probably continue to come in useful over the next few weeks/months. 199.208.172.35 (talk) 19:56, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
 * @331dot: I whipped up HD/wikilayout. Any thoughts? — Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 23:19, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
 * You're more talented than I. :) I think that's pretty good. 331dot (talk) 00:47, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Brilliant. I see it's already getting used. Hopefully the flood of "??!" will abate in the next few days. 199.208.172.35 (talk) 14:44, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

Vector 2022 reader feedback
See Village pump (technical) as to where to direct feedback. S0091 (talk) 23:17, 18 January 2023 (UTC)


 * In short, it is Wikipedia talk:Vector 2022. Trizek (WMF) (talk) 15:19, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

Can we add Vector message to the Help Desk header?
Over at the Teahouse, someone added this message to the block at the top of the page: If you are here to ask about the change to Wikipedia's appearance and how to change back, you can find more information at Vector 2022

I think it would be good to have a similar message at the Help Desk. What do others think? I don't know how to make that addition myself. RudolfRed (talk) 19:27, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
 * @RudolfRed: I've gone ahead and added something; hopefully it's enough. You can change it over at WP:Help desk/header. — Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 19:37, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
 * The message at the top reads: If you have a question or concern about the new Vector 2022 skin that is enabled by default, please go to this talk page. Thoughts about future directions for the skin's deployment can be submitted at this Request for Comments.
 * What's a "skin"? What is "Vector"? Where can I comment on the new look? Without wanting to seem ungrateful, that's of no use to most people who want to comment or complain about the new look.
 * Perhaps: If you have a question or concern about the new look for Wikipedia, please go to this page. If you want to make suggestions about whether this new look should continue, you can add them to this Request for Comments. Bazza (talk) 09:54, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

Looking for mentors
Howdy hello folks! Would you like to help out with editor retention? Like working at places like the Teahouse? You should become a mentor! Just go to Special:EnrollAsMentor. Its pretty easy: you get auto-assigned editors who can ask questions on your talk page. I'm a mentor, and I get a few questions a month from my mentees. Its nice because the newbie editors get a more personalized touch and have help built into their interface. More details about the program can be found at Growth Team features. Editor retention is one of the best things we can do to improve Wikipedia; your help makes a difference! CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 18:28, 8 February 2023 (UTC)
 * To sign up, I have to write an "introduction message". How can I see what other volunteers have written? Maproom (talk) 21:34, 8 February 2023 (UTC)
 * @Maproom They're on Special:ManageMentors. If you look at my Talk Page and its archives, you'll see the sorts of questions that get asked. Mike Turnbull (talk) 21:38, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

DENY and help desk posts
Way too often I see a user post something that is intentionally inflammatory and meant to evoke a specific response from people (such as this). I know we should assume good faith, however if a post is obviously inflammatory and is obviously meant to get a specific response (Such as claiming an article does not contain the "truth" or whatever) we should just delete it and move on rather than respond to them and engage with the troll. ― Blaze WolfTalkBlaze Wolf#6545 03:35, 21 February 2023 (UTC)


 * I'm not convinced that such comments should be deleted out of hand. I think they should be calmly and succinctly responded to, and then quietly dropped. I can readily believe that such a commenter is a troll merely stirring up drama for the lulz; I can also readily believe that such a commenter is making a good-faith attempt to correct Wikipedia. In the latter case it would be unfortunate to delete their comment instead of redirecting their good-faith energy to a more productive use.But it's surely unnecessary for editors to unproductively pile on further comments when the first reply alone was beyond sufficient. Let one or two people reply helpfully, then let the matter rest. Shells-shells (talk) 08:09, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I am almost sure that specific case is not a troll. We get religious nutcases of all stripes once in a blue moon (maybe more often at the WP:TH?), and it’s always dead serious., I suggest you modify your closure rationale (with something like "unproductive discussion" rather than "attention-seeking inflammatory post") - though if you don’t I will obviously not edit war over it.
 * I mostly agree with Shells-shells except that we should not try redirecting their good-faith energy to a more productive use. I think that someone who leaves such a comment cannot contribute productively to Wikipedia in the short term (in the long term, people change). The probability they come back to edit Wikipedia for anything else than arguments or vandalism (again, in the short term) is less than 1%. However, it is still polite to reply to a good-faith if misguided question, and to put on a good show for the rest of the page dwellers. Tigraan Click here for my talk page ("private" contact) 09:41, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I don't think comments like those should be dismissed automatically, and I've seen people of all kinds on here who write as if they're trolling but are being genuine. Besides, if someone is actually trolling, the best thing to do is not feed them and let it remain unanswered and automatically archived. — Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 16:30, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I agree that is the optimal response, but in order to arrive at it literally everyone who edits the help desk has to be on the same page and not take the bait. So, in practice a quick "this isn't a help desk matter" reply and hatting of the thread is probably more effective. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:17, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

English Wikipedia will be read-only for about an hour on 1 March
See this post at VPM. The test starts at 14:00 UTC and will last up to an hour. Some confused folks might ask about it here afterwards. 199.208.172.35 (talk) 23:22, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Open meeting for RecentChanges patrollers
Editing is hosting a meeting about their new Edit check extension for the visual editor this Friday and hopes to learn a bit more about RecentChanges and watchlist patrolling. They're trying to find a balance prompting editors to add citations often enough to be useful, but not so often that it's annoying.

If you are interested in this project, please see Editing team/Community Conversations and plan to join the meeting (17:00 UCT/9:00 a.m. California). Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:00, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

Bot linking here
As an FYI, Qwerfjkl (bot) 18 has recently been approved. This task notifies users if they have made a referencing error, with a link such as this one, leading users to post questions on the Help Desk. — Qwerfjkl  talk  16:44, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

I apologize for the misunderstanding
I thought that the possibility of publishing content on wikipedia was discontinued, I apologize KodBake (talk) 14:04, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

Merger proposal
I propose that WP:Help Desk be merged into WP:Teahouse. First, Help Desk and Teahouse practically achieves the same goal, that being a venue to gain help with "using and editing Wikipedia. I get that Help desk is intended for experienced editors and Teahouse is for newbies, but it is never explicitly stated on any of the banners these help forums have. I believe this division is unnecessary. Volunteers resources are split into two different venues and it may confuse new editors. However, I see that we may need a separate venue just because of the plain volume of the questions being asked in Teahouse. I am leaving this up for community consideration. Carpimaps talk to me! 00:22, 19 June 2023 (UTC)


 * Idea Lab discussion for reference Carpimaps talk to me! 00:24, 19 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Support They are almost exactly the same venue we could split the help desk into different categories like what we do with the Reference Desk Qwv (talk) 00:32, 19 June 2023 (UTC)
 * In essence we have two different categories now. 331dot (talk) 00:36, 19 June 2023 (UTC)


 * Hello. It would have been nice if you had asked us here and at tbe Teahouse(not at the VP) what we thought of this idea before you made a formal proposal. As you've been told, the missions and audiences of the two pages are different. To be frank(for which I apologize), it doesn't even seem like you are too invested in your own idea. I oppose this proposal, and my gentle suggestion is that you withdraw it. 331dot (talk) 00:33, 19 June 2023 (UTC)
 * There is already one support !vote, so I will be leaving this up for a little bit longer. I will withdraw when I see that the consensus is not favorable to the proposal. Carpimaps talk to me! 00:58, 19 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Okay, although the support is basically asking for what we have now. 331dot (talk) 01:11, 19 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Oppose. When I answer questions on the Help Desk, I use the standard WP shortcuts that any regular user should know as I expect that to be the audience here. Over at the Teahouse I will assume that the person asking questions is completely unfamiliar with how the encyclopedia works, and as such would describe things in much more detail. Different target audiences. — Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 01:41, 19 June 2023 (UTC)


 * Oppose. Both do serve different purposes, Help Desk is for the more experienced Wikipedians & accordingly has a more straight to the point style. The Teahouse is more for newer people to Wikipedia & aims for a gentle welcoming style with greetings. Teahouse even sends out welcome messages for new participants inviting them to stop by. Help Desk does currently advise that new users might feel better served at the Teahouse "If you are a new editor, you might prefer to ask your question at the Teahouse..." at the top of the page. So two different tasks being catered to with distinct styles for doing so. I feel the loss by merging of the distinct Teahouse community that dedicate time to helping would have nothing but an adverse affect. All the different help pages on Wikipedia have a certain amount of overlap in the questions being asked but I don't see any benefit in merging any of them to make one enormous help page, that just sounds like something that would be overwhelming to those seeking help & those trying to help alike. One monster help page would most likely end up being split for convenience, into what we already have now. ;) LooksGreatInATurtleNeck (talk) 01:51, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

Feedback requested at proposal to drop 'your first article' link from welcome templates
The Welcoming committee&mdash;among other things&mdash;maintains a set of a set of welcome templates aimed at new users. Many of these templates include a list of helpful links. A proposal to drop the link to Help:Your first article from welcome templates has been opened; your feedback would be welcome at WT:Welcoming committee/Welcome templates. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 18:43, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Sad news
Hello, I am very sorry to report that Eagleash has passed away. Since the help desk was one of his most edited pages, I thought I should write a notice about it here. Graham 87 12:52, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

Politics portal
The Queen is dead. Long live the King!

The Politics portal is way out of date I’ve not come across the portals before and don’t see much point to them, but if they are needed, they should be maintained. Rob Napier (talk) 22:21, 13 August 2023 (UTC)


 * Portals were invented many years ago when Wikipedia was more about making new pages than maintaining old ones. Like most WP innovations, they were mildly controversial at the time. More recently there are people who nose around the various topical WikiProjects, identifying ones that are dead and rotting and deserving of a decent burial, and perhaps someone would like to do the same for Portals. Jim.henderson (talk) 23:20, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
 * You're too late. Someone tried in 2019. It ended in a lot of acrimony and eventually them getting desysopped by ArbCom. Since then nobody's done anything. * Pppery * it has begun... 23:31, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

Improve CAPTCHA instructions?
I on 19 August, and today, have responded to people who were evidently entering CAPTCHA answers and then clicking the 'Refresh' symbol rather than 'Publish changes'. I have answered similar queries on the Help desk and Teahouse several times before.

Although it's somewhat 'Internet 101', this problem seems to be not infrequent. (How many more users experience it but do not ask for assistance?) I wonder if more explicit instructions should be added? What do others think, what would be the best wording, and where would the best place be to suggest it? (I do not have the coding chops to attempt such a thing.) {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 51.198.140.169 (talk) 13:20, 22 August 2023 (UTC)


 * 51, thanks for the ping. I admit I only even understood the question I fielded today based on your helpful response to a similar question a few days ago. I don't have a proposal here, and made the same mistake myself on a different website just last week. Just wanted to credit you with both the answers. I don't even know what the UI looks like. "Circle arrow" was just a guess. On the website that fooled me (easy enough; it's in my username), the refresh action was called from a button labeled "Verify". Folly Mox (talk) 13:35, 22 August 2023 (UTC)
 * I suspect there's an additional problem here. I've noticed that many folks asking such questions are editing from mobile (Mobile edit, Mobile web edit tags). It may be something confusing about that interface specifically (or perhaps there's a bug). 199.208.172.35 (talk) 16:47, 22 August 2023 (UTC)
 * I've encountered this problem from my desktop (Windows 11, Chrome). My impression is that it's a poorly designed interface. If you get a captcha right, it doesn't acknowledge it, it just offers you another captcha, as if it thought you were doing them for fun. The answer is to ignore the new captcha and get on with what you were trying to do, which it'll now allow. Maproom (talk) 19:55, 22 August 2023 (UTC)
 * I've never noticed this, because I only see a CAPTCHA challenge when I click 'Publish changes' after adding one or more off-Wiki links. I enter my answer, scroll down to the 'Publish changes' button (placing the CAPTCHA box offscreen) and when I click the edit is (nearly always) successful and I'm no longer in the editing window. (If it's relevant, I use a Windows 11 PC and Firefox.) {The poster formerly known as 87.81,.230.195} 51.198.140.169 (talk) 04:41, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

Having a page
On a US politician:


 * He doesn't have a page, neither does Trump, Biden or Musk. Wikipedia has articles about them. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:30, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

(Copied from the Help Desk.) This fiction that "A has X" somehow entails "A possesses X" started by amusing me but with frequent repetition in project pages such as this has become most tiresome.

I have a beef with otherwise intelligent people who affect to take it seriously; but I possess no beef. Today I have a cold; but I possess no cold. I have a number of things to do by tomorrow; but I don't possess those "things". I have an appetite for obscure blaxploitation movies; but I don't possess this appetite. Et cetera. Want a source? The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (pp. 111–113) calls this "stative have" and points out that possession is merely one notion that it can express. (Ditto for the genitive: "my beef", "my cold", "my things to do", "my appetite".)

Not convinced? I quote David M. Shribman (who has a Wikipedia article), "A half-century after its bracing debut, sitcom ‘All in the Family’ speaks to today’s conflicts" (Boston Globe, 9 Jan '21): "Today each of the principal characters in the show has a Wikipedia page, as if they were real people, because in a sense they were. O'Connor died in 2001 and Stapleton in 2013" (my emphasis). The Boston Globe is perfectly capable of producing clear, idiomatic English, and even if Shribman (Pulitzer prize, position at McGill) and his copyeditor somehow have the strange delusion that people possess their articles, they surely can't believe that corpses do as well.

Of course, biographees' assertions of rights over their articles can be a real problem and should be opposed; but fiction about lexical semantics won't help at all. -- Hoary (talk) 08:56, 28 July 2023 (UTC)


 * I think it's more about psychology than semantics - trying to get someone from the "This article belongs to them" mindset into the "This article is about them" mindset. Basically the same reason that folks emphasize articles over pages (or worse, profiles). How effective this tactic is, I dunno. 199.208.172.35 (talk) 16:33, 28 July 2023 (UTC)


 * I dunno either, IP. Psychology, eh? If I were trying to get an draft about my arguably non-notable company promoted to article, or to have the article about it freed from (to me) irksome templates, then I, as a speaker of English as a first language, would find it normal to write of "my company's article" or similar, no more believing or suggesting that it belonged to my company than I'd believe or suggest that "Adolf Hitler's Wikipedia article" belonged to Adolf Hitler. (Tip for the uneducated or sleepy: Nothing belongs to Adolf Hitler. He's dead.) Being subjected to a sermonlet depending on a ludicrous misunderstanding of HAVE would do nothing to set me right, let alone to impress me with the integrity of Wikipedia; rather, it would make me wonder whether the preacher (A) took me for an idiot, or (B) was an idiot. -- Hoary (talk) 00:18, 29 July 2023 (UTC)
 * But,, many users are not speakers of English as a first language; or are, but are not oriented to such nuances or employ the same interpretations as we more intellectually based editors (if I may put it like that), particularly if they are coming from a context of corporate activity and promotion. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 51.198.140.169 (talk) 22:28, 23 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Let me quote real-world English (from this in the Irish Times): (My emphases .) So Whelan says that he, Whelan, has a WP page (aka article), but in the same context he disclaims any control over this, his own entry (aka article) -- and there's no contradiction. (He doesn't add, and the writer doesn't wonder why he doesn't add, "Oh dear, I suppose that I don't have a Wikipedia article after all", or similar.) The Irish Times extract provides humdrum examples of how the verb have and the genitive (the "'s" part of "Whelan's") are standardly used in English. It's not the kind of thing that needs to be pointed out to newcomers here: they already know it. (This doesn't mean that they have the metalinguistic knowledge needed to express it coherently. Such metalinguistic knowledge is rarely needed even by the most articulate users of English.) It strikes me that it does need to be pointed out to a certain bossy kind of person who stalks WP:HD, WP:TH and perhaps other pages, repeatedly chiding newcomers with fiction about the English language. Of course plenty of newcomers here (especially those from, as you aptly put it, "a context of corporate activity and promotion") are deluded about who should/does control the content of WP articles, and they should be put right. But putting them right requires no ridiculous misdescription of elementary English grammar. -- Hoary (talk) 23:10, 23 August 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm amused to notice that what I earlier referred to as a matter of lexical semantics I now refer to as a matter of elementary English grammar. Well, it's at the intersection of the two. Perhaps "metalinguistic knowledge" is obscure. If so, consider the uses of nouns and verbs in the English-as-a-first-language of five-year-olds. The children may on rare occasion treat a noun as a verb or vice versa, but usually they'll treat nouns as nouns and verbs as verbs. However, their lack of metalinguistic knowledge means that they're most unlikely to be able to describe the difference. NB I'm not suggesting here that experienced editors try to be accurate when informing newcomers of the meanings of "have an article" or "his article", merely that they cut out the myth-based sermonizing and instead concentrate on actual signs of attempts at promotion and/or "ownership". -- Hoary (talk) 01:58, 24 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Being a little late to the party, still I'd like to add a suggestion. May be, instead of detailed explanations on grammar rules and semantic ambiguities, a simple comparison would be enough? I mean an explanation by example, like: 'the verb to have in "Mr Prime Minister has his page in Wikipedia" means precisely the same as in "Mount Everest has its page in Wikipedia"'. The rule is people are objects, not subjects of Wikipedia articles, same as geographical features, historical processes or mathematical theories. --CiaPan (talk) 07:36, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
 * , is excellent, and admirably concise. But the notion that people, geographical features or whatever  quite baffles me. "[T he book's subject is 19th century whaling]" sounds idiomatic to me (and lacks any undesirable connotation); "the book's/chapter's/article's object is 19th century whaling" would sound bizarre. I hadn't been aware that the word object was used in this way (though unfortunately I don't now have access to the OED: my limited vocabulary may be at fault). -- Hoary (talk) 09:25, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Object—if I may (subject you to my interjection, that is). The subject of this article is "sentence diagrams", a once common (though apparently now archaic) technique of imparting such arcana. Perhaps the article itself needs a bit of a tidy-up, but the bare-bones basics of the subject are covered well enough right there at the tips of our fingers—no heavy, cumbersome tomes to unpack. (See also: Parse tree) Cl3phact0 (talk) 11:31, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

Placement of Entries under "Recent Deaths" and "In The News"
A few weeks ago, I found it offensive and in extremely poor taste to list the name of a racehorse along with the names of the deceased human beings under the heading, "Recent Deaths."

Today, a famous tree, with the notation "Felled" next to its name, was similarly listed with the names of notable people who had recently died.

In the future, please consider placing the names of animals and plants under the heading, "In The News," rather than under "Recent Deaths."

I know that we are living in strange times where currently a great deal of thought is given as to the political correctness of addressing men and women according to the gender(s) that they perceive themselves to be, or how they feel on a given day, or which pronouns they want used in connection with themselves, such as: "he," "she," "they," or "it," etc. But even in 2023, while I'm sure there are a just a few folks who will disagree, I think only a very small percentage of your readers (none that fall in the "animal/vegetable" category) would equate the death of a person with that of a horse or a tree that needed to be cut down. The heading, "In The News," already exists in Wikipedia, and it is the correct heading for these events.

Trust me, going forward, if you make this change, the horses and trees won't be upset about it.

Thank you for giving this suggestion consideration. 72.199.98.199 (talk) 01:44, 30 September 2023 (UTC)
 * A small clarification, just for accuracy. The Sycamore Gap Tree did not 'need to be cut down' – this was an act of vandalism (some might call it aboricide) and two people so far (as far as I'm aware) have already been arrested for it.
 * Personally, I am entirely comfortable with listing the deaths of prominent but non-human living beings under 'Recent Deaths', but in the case of the tree this was not entirely accurate because, according to Brian Blessed, at any rate, the stump is not dead and will re-sprout, though in pollarded bushy form rather than the internationally famous single trunked specimen it previously was. The racehorse Point Given, however, remains dead. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.212.130.182 (talk) 23:56, 2 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Currently under debate at In the news/Candidates (for the specific instance of this tree) and Wikipedia talk:In the news (for the general case). Your comments would be better placed, and welcome, in either or both of those places. —Cryptic 01:54, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

Where I must click when I want to publish my article
what must I do Mtati ovuyonke (talk) 18:32, 12 October 2023 (UTC)


 * You have not written a text that qualifies as an article. If you write an article that summarizes what independent reliable sources say about a topic, you may use the article wizard to create and submit it.  Be advised that writing a new article is extremely challenging. Please use the new user tutorial and read Your First Article. 331dot (talk) 18:38, 12 October 2023 (UTC)
 * In case you are thinking of using Wikipedia to tell the world about yourself, see WP:NOTFB. Bazza (talk) 19:16, 12 October 2023 (UTC)
 * @Mtati ovuyonke: Also, the purpose of this page is to talk ABOUT the Help desk. To ask questions in the future, please post on Help desk.  Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 19:21, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

Link to discussion about comments disappearing shortly after they are posted here
I wanted to respond to an editor's comment, but the whole discussion disappeared less than three hours after it was posted, when it was archived by scsbot. I started this discussion at the archive bot maintainer's talk page, in case you would like to lurk or to add your thoughts. Mathglot (talk) 04:20, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Proposal to change archiving at Help Desk to stale + &lt;interval>
I propose that we change archiving at Help desk so that a discussion may only be archived after it has gone stale for whatever period is generally agreed upon. ( Three days? to be discussed separately ) The current behavior is that Scsbot archives discussion N days after the day they began, not N days (or hours/whatever) after the last comment in a discussion. The upshot of this is that lively discussions may be suddenly archived in the middle of ongoing discussion; this is disruptive. (Technical note: the current behavior may be related to use of level-one headings at Help desk. I will raise a separate discussion at Lowercase sigmabot III to see if it would work in this environment.) Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 18:21, 9 January 2024 (UTC)


 * @Mathglot: Agreed. Could we just copy the archiving from the WP:Teahouse? GoingBatty (talk) 19:03, 9 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I don't believe so, or at least, not yet, due to the level-one heading technical issue I raised above. But that is under discussion here, and I hope that will lead to a resolution of this issue. Mathglot (talk) 19:53, 9 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Actually, now that I think about it, why not? The Level one calendar headings that are there now are only there for the convenience of scsbot processing, and other than that, we don't need them. Article talk pages don't have them, WP:Tea house doesn't have them, WP:ANI and other noticeboards don't have them, and if we switch to Lowercase sigmabot, we won't need them here, either. So now I'm thinking: yeah, we could just copy the archiving from the WP:Teahouse. And we should. Mathglot (talk) 08:59, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
 * For the record, as scsbot's botherd, I would have no objection to a change to a different bot and strategy. Just let me know what you decide, and I'll turn scsbot off (or adjust its parameters) accordingly. —scs (talk) 05:02, 10 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks, . Don't turn it off (yet) but stay tuned. If you have ideas for the other discussion, by all means jump in! Thanks again. Mathglot (talk) 06:26, 10 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I'm here from Help talk:Archiving a talk page. Note that Σ's last edit was in June 2022. Their bot is a clone of an older archiving bot so it's even less likely to get new features than usual. I'm not a help/reference desk regular but I'd just leave things as they are. Graham87 (talk) 13:26, 10 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Hi, Graham87, sorry for not responding earlier. Although Σ's last edit was a while ago, there was something on their page about following email, so I emailed and got a response within hours. Although in my latest conception of how to do this (basically GoingBatty's idea of 19:03, 9 January above) we won't need any modifications; we can just do it exactly as they do it at the WP:Tea house. That means we won't have level-one calendar day headers on the page anymore, but we never really needed them in the first place; they are only there for the benefit of scsbot. Once we switch to Lowercase sigmabot, they won't be needed anymore, and the bot will just do its thing, just as it does at the Tea house, archiving discussions when they get stale. Mathglot (talk) 09:07, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
 * K, sounds fine to me. Graham87 (talk) 11:16, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Slight correction: Those level-one date headers predate scsbot. Although it inserts (and sometimes deletes) them, it ignores them for the purposes of its archiving decisions. I assume they were originally intended for the benefit of humans.  (Which is not to say we'd need to keep them.) —scs (talk) 13:12, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Oh, that's a surprise! Thanks for that correction. Mathglot (talk) 18:15, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Agreed. In fact, i think 3 days is not enough (at least 2 1 weeks required in my opinion). And, i even think it'll be better if the bot archives questions only if they are covered under some sort of "this discussion is closed" template. RuzDD (talk) 03:18, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
 * @RuzDD: Who would decide when a discussion is closed? The original poster?  How would we train them to do so, and what template would you suggest? GoingBatty (talk) 03:57, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Preferably the original poster, but i think everyone can decide it if that's obvious. For example; if the asked user says "okay, i did it and it worked, thanks", that discussion is closed if there's not another thing discussing. I suggest using  templates. RuzDD (talk) 04:07, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
 * RuzDD, I don't think that works, here; it puts an extra burden on people to do that, and if they don't, over time, all the stale, unclosed discussions will occupy more and more of the page, with only a few active discussions at the bottom. Or worse, people responding to six-month old questions at the top. Much better just to have auto-archiving based on staleness; i.e., archive when the most recent message in the discussion is X days old. Then it happens automatically, with no human intervention. Mathglot (talk) 04:28, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes, okay. I think x=7 for most discussions, x=infinite for topics, and x=1 for marked as solved discussions will be a good choice. RuzDD (talk) 05:08, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Maybe, but unless you're volunteering to write a new bot, we don't have one that does that. On the other hand, we do have a bot (more than one) that will archive discussions that are staler than X days, and if we switch to that bot, it will start happening automatically. Mathglot (talk) 05:37, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

Oppose. Lively discussions often do not belong on the help desk in the first place. They generally belong either on the talk page of an article or on the talk page of a policy page. If we do occasionally need to keep a discussion, I would strongly prefer the default to be "archive". Preventing the archiving should be an active decision. -Arch dude (talk) 04:27, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I admit to not understanding this. It would be great to know at the time a user posts a question whether it will turn out to be a lively discussion or dead on arrival, but I don't know how you figure that out in advance. Not sure I understand the rest of it: are you offering an alternate proposal of "don't archive anything automatically, unless someone specifically tags it for archiving"? Mathglot (talk) 05:41, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

Support the original proposal. Three days seems about right; two weeks seems much too long. I oppose "x=1 for marked as solved discussions"; if someone gives a wrong answer and someone marks it as closed, the thread should still stay around to give others a chance to look at it. I don't understand the "oppose" above - this is a discussion about archiving, not about regulating what questions and responses are acceptable. Maproom (talk) 08:29, 30 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Actually yes, 2 weeks may be too long. But, if someone asks to help desk about not well known topic, ongoing issue may be last longer than 3 days not touched. I think a week or five days will be a compromise between archival of ongoing discussions and ultra long desks. RuzDD (talk) 20:54, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Your interest and enthusiasm are admirable, but there's a reason I keep saying "X days" above: namely, this proposal is about deciding on an archiving system, and *not* about how long an interval is appropriate, which is irrelevant here. The more you discuss something off-topic like how long it should be, the more the discussion becomes derailed or diluted and it becomes harder to pick out the comments about the actual proposal. When this one is done (pass or fail; doesn't matter), I encourage you to raise a discussion about how long it should be, if you wish to. But this proposal isn't about that. I apologize for even mentioning an interval in a parenthetical comment in my opening statement; that was kind of a throwaway, but I can see how that could have encouraged that kind of response. I've redacted it, to make it clearer. Mathglot (talk) 02:05, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I understood, thanks. RuzDD (talk) 02:35, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Archiving for the next few weeks
Unrelated to the previous thread, scsbot, the current Help Desk archiving bot, is going solo for the next two weeks while I'm traveling. If it should make a mistake, someone here will have to notice and fix it, as I won't be watching over its shoulder as I normally do. Further information over on the Ref Desk talk page. —scs (talk) 22:35, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Help
How do I request two articles to be merged Maestrofin (talk) 06:50, 29 February 2024 (UTC)


 * This is not the Help Desk, but the talk page for the Help Desk, where its operation is discussed. Please post on the main Help Desk. 331dot (talk) 11:19, 29 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Ok Maestrofin (talk) 01:01, 1 March 2024 (UTC)