Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2024 March 23

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March 23

How do I decide when to obey another editor?

Often an editor tells me to do something, or not to do something, but rarely, if ever, does the person tell me why I have to obey the person. The person doesn't show a badge (e.g. of being an admin) of some kind, or tell me tell me how it's the person's job to supervise me, or a particular page.

Is it whoever has more edits has more authority?

Do people who answer help requests on my talk page have more authority than a random editor? Are there ranks below admin who also must be obeyed?

Sometimes an editor will threaten me vaguely by saying "You might get blocked soon if you continue acting like this." How can I evaluate whether the threat/warning has been pulled out of thin air? Polar Apposite (talk) 06:44, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Usually you can just ask for more information. Don't think of it as "obeying", think of it as listening to a wise colleague who helps you. And be grateful for their help. They are not your enemy. Polygnotus (talk) 07:24, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

@Polar Apposite: It seems like you might misunderstand how Wikipedia is intended to work. Wikipedia is fundamentally a collaborative project, so (in theory) nobody has any more say than anybody else about anything. You, and everyone else, are not required to obey any particular people. This is not to say that you can do whatever you like, however – the community may, through consensus, create policies and guidelines outlining what is expected of every editor. Administrators do not create these policies on their own, and they are not the only people who are allowed to enforce the policies: everyone can, and many do, through actions like reverting edits (and the community as a whole can, again through consensus, even use measures such as bans). The community simply trusts administrators to have an excellent understanding of the policies, and so grants them the technical ability to enforce those policies through more potent means such as blocks and page protection. With that (hopefully) explained, I think it will be easier to answer your questions:

• No, nobody has any more authority than anyone else. There are plenty of people with a fairly limited number of edits who really know what they are doing, and likewise there are of course people with a large number of edits who have a poor understanding of policy.
• No and no, and your assumption that anyone has to obey administrators is also somewhat mistaken – you have to obey policies, not editors.
• Such editors will nearly always provide a link to a policy they believe you are violating. If, after reading that page, you agree that you were violating the policy, just stop doing that thing. If you disagree, you should discuss with that editor, and stop doing that thing in the meantime (that goes equally even if they don't mention blocks). There are sometimes really good reasons to ignore rules (not frequently, though) – in this case, again, discuss with the other editor(s), and stop in the meantime.

Tollens (talk) 07:25, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

@Tollens: Reading their talkpage, it may be wise to advise them to listen to everyone who gives them advice. Polygnotus (talk) 07:30, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Of course – I didn't mean to imply otherwise. Tollens (talk) 09:18, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Polar Apposite, you should obey any editor's advice to you when the editor is basing their advice on Policies and guidelines. You should be prepared to defend your edits against criticism based on those same policies and guidelines. Authority on Wikipedia derives from demonstrating understanding and knowledge of and participation in Wikipedia's broadest purposes. New editors with a narrow focus on a specific controversial topic area often have a difficult time on this website. Generalist editors motivated by the overall goal of improving this neutrally written encyclopedia tend to thrive on Wikipedia. Cullen328 (talk) 10:22, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

I'm a generalist editor aren't I? I normally just do copyediting. So why am I getting attacked? Polar Apposite (talk) 17:39, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

@Polar Apposite: You are not getting attacked. People are trying to help you, even it doesn't feel that way. Listen to everyone who gives you advice. read this the rabbit knows whats up. Polygnotus (talk) 20:10, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

First, "listen" is unclear. Do you mean "think about" or "obey"? Second, you are talking in riddles. Polar Apposite (talk) 15:16, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

The former. Wikipedia has no firm rules, only policies that should generally be adhered to and editors attempting to adhere to them and communicate with each other in good faith. Remsense诉 15:22, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

How do you know what Polygnotus meant?Anyway, I *have* thought about the "advice" given to me on Wikipedia, as is very clear if one looks at my user page, where one can see how I carefully quote from and respond to many comments, in an extremely thorough way. If anyone has not been "listening" it is the people I have been responding to, who have tended to either fail to respond at all to my constructive criticism, or responded with a vague remark that does not address any of the many points I have made. Polar Apposite (talk) 15:41, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

How do you know what Polygnotus meant?

Language proficiency.

Extreme care like you describe can have diminishing returns, or even counterproductive results. It reads like you are extremely nervous at all times, frankly. Here's some frank, simple advice: relax. Please. Remsense诉 15:45, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

You wrote, "It reads like you are extremely nervous at all times, frankly." Are you able to be specific? Polar Apposite (talk) 15:52, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

You seem very worried about certain patterns of behavior to a higher degree than others generally would be. Care and diligence are virtues, but it's easy to worry too much about certain things. Remsense诉 15:55, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Missing links?

A recent article about an Indian financial services company, Moneyview, was de-ophaned by creating links from dozens of other articles about Indian financial services companies, such as Atom Technologies, Freecharge and FundsIndia. These are all shown under "What link here" from Moneyview. But when I look at those other articles, I can't find Moneyview mentioned anywhere. Even viewing their source does not find that anywhere. Before I remove the Orphan tag, I would like to confirm that the links are genuine, but I can't even find them. Please put me out of my misery: what am I missing? Gronk Oz (talk) 07:03, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

In at least a couple of the "What links here" pages that I looked at, they are listed because they contain the {{Financial technology in India}} template (sometimes aliased as {{FinTech in India}}), which contains a link to MoneyView. CodeTalker (talk) 07:15, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, @CodeTalker: - that makes perfect sense. And I'm a bit embarrassed that I didn't think of it. Is there a way to see what links there explicitly, rather than indirectly through that template?--Gronk Oz (talk) 10:04, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

There is a checkbox "Hide links" on that page, that may help. I'm not sure what it does: (and Help:What links here doesn't seem to discuss it). it certainly suppresses all those links from the display, but I don't know if it removes genuine ones as well. ColinFine (talk) 10:27, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Gronk Oz a Wikipedia search for Moneyview gets three hits Financial technology in India, Piramal Group and of course Moneyview. TSventon (talk) 10:53, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Good thinking, TSventon, and again I'm a bit embarrassed that I didn't think of it. At least I learned something today!--Gronk Oz (talk) 14:36, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

New wikipedia Article creation

i am new into this and want to create a wikipedia article for one of my friend Dr. Mrs Shailesh Srivastava. Kindly guide me to create the same from start.

Thanks & Regards,

Neelam Dr. Shailesh Srivastava (talk) 10:23, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Hello, and welcome to Wikipedia.

I'm afraid there are quite a number of things I need to tell you before directly answering your question.

First, if you are not Srivastava, you must not use her name as your account name. All accounts are personal. You do not have to use your real name (I do, but many editors do not) but you must not use somebody else's name. Since you have made only this one edit, the simplest thing is to stop using the account and create a new one for yourself.

Secondly, creating a new article is one of the most challenging things for an editor to do. If you were starting to learn engineering, would you make your first project to build a car from scratch? If you took up a musical instrument, would you arrange a public recital as the first thing you did? No, you would practise on less demanding projects while you learnt the craft.
I would very strongly advise you that you will save yourself a great deal of frustration and disappointment if you forget about creating a new article for several months, while you gradually learn about how Wikipedia works (and most particularly about Verifiability, reliable sources, and Neutral point of view) by making improvements to some of our six million existing articles..

Next, creating an article about somebody you are friends with is regarded as editing with a conflict of interest. This is not forbidden, but it does introduce some difficulties, which make the task even harder.

When you get to the point where you think you are ready to try creating this article, you should read your first article as well as the links above. You should start by finding several independent reliable sources which contain significant coverage of her; because if you cannot find such sources, you will know that she does not at present meet Wikipedia's criteria for notability, and there is no point in trying any further to create an article about her. ColinFine (talk) 10:36, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Avoiding an edit war

I've flagged a new article for deletion, mostly based on its lack of notability. The author is very unhappy about this and when I added the notability template, they deleted it. I think it needs to be there to show why this article is under consideration for deletion - another editor has also raised the issue - but I feel like if I revert the edit it will only escalate the problem. They've already reported me to ANI and have been commenting quite persistently.

Any advice how to proceed without entering into an endless back and forth? Orange sticker (talk) 12:40, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Since this is already being discussed at ANI, we don't need to do so here. Edit wars are avoided by not edit warring. AndyTheGrump (talk) 13:28, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Orange sticker there is general advice on dealing with disputes at Wikipedia:Dispute resolution. In this case there are discussions at AfD and ANI that may produce some advice. TSventon (talk) 14:23, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Can't find search box

Can you help me find the Search Box on the Main Page. It was there yesterday. 2604:2000:8FC0:B:25FC:46EC:E511:79E (talk) 14:13, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Click on the magnifying glass near the top right. Polygnotus (talk) 14:25, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

The full box disappears when the window is too narrow, leaving the magnifying glass. That's why it changed from day to day. -Arch dude (talk) 17:39, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Change info when page is blocked

Supernatural says there are 6 companion guides but there are 7 9781781161081 Tawrens (talk) 15:23, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Supernatural is not protected. If you are referring to another article, use its talk page to make an edit request(click for instructions). 331dot (talk) 15:27, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

From your previous edits, I'm guessing that this is about an article about Supernatural (American TV series), which is indeed semi-protected or an article about one of its seasons. As 331dot says, you can make an edit request. Be sure you can cite a reliable source.

(Incidentally - I couldn't work out what article you were talking about, and assumed that "Supernatural" was the name of another editor you are having a discussion with. 331dot guessed which article you meant, and I think they guessed wrong. Only by looking at your previous edits did I guess the article I think you meant. If you want people to help you, why do you make it difficult for them?) ColinFine (talk) 15:32, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

How does a user know they're blocked?

(Sorry, couldn't think where else to ask!)

When a user gets blocked, how do they know – do they get a notification? Does the user interface change somehow, or is there some other visual clue? Or do they just find out when they try to edit (something other than their own talk page) that they can't?

I'm assuming they can still log into their user account normally (and therefore get notifications etc.), even while blocked; or does something change in that respect?

TIA, -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 16:21, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

I am unsure of a full block, but I've ran into a issue with my work IP being blocked as an open proxy before so I can speak from that experience.

When an edit is attempted while on a blocked IP it pops up a message saying that your IP is blocked, who issued the block and why along with the time remaining on block, and how to possibly correct it.

Awshort (talk) 17:00, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

You could request a temporary block, find out, come back and tell us — Usedtobecool ☎️ 17:05, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

As far as I can tell you don't get notified until you try to edit something that you can't because of the block. There's an unresolved feature request saying you should get a notification, and its conventional when someone is blocked for the blocking admin to post it to their talk page. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 17:09, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, all.

Yeah, the talk page message would be quite an obvious clue (!), assuming of course the user isn't on a device affected by the WP:THEYCANTHEARYOU problem.

@Pppery, would you be happy to block me briefly, just so I can see what it's like, as Usedtobecool suggested? (No worries if you'd rather not, though.) -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 17:24, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

@DoubleGrazing: I've blocked you for five minutes. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 17:26, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Thanks @Pppery, appreciated!

I didn't get any notification, and nothing else obviously changed either. I remained logged into my account and could navigate around as normal. When I tried to use Twinkle it looked as if it would let me, although no doubt it would have actually refused to make the page edit. Only when I tried to edit a page (I edit via the source) it gave a very obvious message about being blocked, with a big warning sign on it.

Now I know. That's one thing off my bucket list! :) Thanks again, -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 17:39, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Well, thanks for sharing. — Usedtobecool ☎️ 17:43, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

(edit conflict) One other thing to note: Blocks were in the past subject to WP:THEYCANTHEARYOU issues. At one point the only was to communicate at all with an iOS app user was to create an abuse filter that disallowed all of their edits, and the error message was rendered as plaintext (Special:AbuseFilter/1139). I think all of the major issues with the apps and such have been resolved now and it is possible to communicate reasonably. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 17:45, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the extra info, @Pppery.

Part of the reason for my question was just idle curiosity. But I've also wondered why some users occasionally think they're blocked, when in fact they're not.

Now I'm off to find an 'I've been blocked' merit badge / user box somewhere... -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 17:51, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Seeing Pppery blocked DoubleGrazing pop on my watchlist certainly got my attention! S0091 (talk) 18:03, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, they were discussing a matter, and BAM!! Clearly an involved action! — Usedtobecool ☎️ 18:11, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Should we take this to AN, ANI or AARV? S0091 (talk) 18:16, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

European Convention on Human Rights? -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 18:39, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

In conjunction with the United Nations Human Rights Council. This needs global focus. S0091 (talk) 18:46, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

I don't even bother anymore; the cabal is far too strong. — Usedtobecool ☎️ 18:47, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

And I'm not even in that category, although recent events show I clearly belong there. But it would be more pppery-like to nominate it for deletion (I'm just joking here, in truth it's a perfectly reasonable category as user categories go) * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 18:49, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

(edit conflict)For blocks: Generally you don't, unless you 1) do something the block prevents you from (In which case you'll see a message like MediaWiki:Blockedtext or MediaWiki:Wikimedia-globalblocking-ipblocked), or 2) visit one of several special pages that display blocks, e.g. Special:contributions (only for direct account blocks and non-autoblock ip blocks), Special:BlockList (local blocks only, afaict its search form doesn't find autoblocks unless you enter its #blockid) or Special:CentralAuth (afaict doesn't find autoblocks). On some wiki's, including the english Wikipedia, there is also 3) via a potentially templated (template category) user talkpage notice (only direct, local blocks, not if WP:THEYCANTHEARYOU applies). Note that the talkpage notice is optional, LTA socks in particular usally won't get one.

Blocks will not prevent you from logging in to Wikipedia, unless you attempt to log into a Wikimedia project where you have not local account yet, if your IP adress is blocked with account creation disabled.

For completeness sake, if you account is locked on the other hand, you will learn it either 1) when you attempt to log in (it will display MediaWiki:Centralauth-login-error-locked, currently

This account is globally locked. You will not be able to log in to any Wikimedia wikis. Please contact the stewards if you have any questions.

) or 2) when you visit Special:CentralAuth or meta:Special:Contributions (will claim that the account doesn't exist if its actually supressed).

I personally have been accidentally blocked on other WMF wikis two times. Once I (by coincidence) did not try to edit until another admin noticed the mistaken block and lifted it. The other time I was using AWB on my alt account and triggered an abuse filter that blocked me, which triggered an alert from AWB itself saying the account was blocked and was quite a scary experience (I unblocked the alt account with my main account and continued the AWB run, careful not to trigger than warning again). * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 17:37, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Page does not appear on Wikipedia

Hi! I wrote an entry about 7 months ago, but it does not appear as a Wikipedia entry. Why is this and what can I do to expedite the process? Psanoja (talk) 17:33, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Hi, you only have two edits. One here and one creating your user page User:Psanoja. That is not a Wikipedia article. If you would like to make it such, you should move it to a draft and then nominate it at Articles for Creation. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 17:37, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

You would also need to translate in into English. Theroadislong (talk) 17:39, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

And you would need to add inline citations to Reliable sources covering every single fact stated in the article, or else remove those facts.

You would benefit from studying Help:Your first article and Wikipedia:Writing Wikipedia articles backward, which is what you appear to have done. Good luck! {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 51.241.39.117 (talk) 18:43, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

My user page was deleted.

I asked a question about a wikipedia entry I had submitted for nomination two days ago. My user profile (User:Psanoja was deleted by an editor (orangemike). The draft I was working was deleted too. Can someone please explain why? Psanoja (talk) 21:14, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

Please see #Page does not appear on Wikipedia above. ColinFine (talk) 21:44, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

If Orangemike (an experienced editor) carried out these deletions, I would have expected him to have explained why to you directly: you can however ask him on his Talk page. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 51.241.39.117 (talk) 14:20, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

Help with editing/making an article

Hello, Wikipedians! I recently turned the redirect List of capitals by continent into an article. However, I have only finished Africa, and request help finishing the rest. 8UB3RG1N3 (talk) 18:33, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Why would you need this when you could just sort List of national capitals? Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 19:52, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Interesting thought. Can a redirect be to a specific sort of a sortable list or table? Gah4 (talk) 15:38, 26 March 2024 (UTC)