Wikipedia talk:Help desk/Archive 11

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Question About Addition to Edit Message

When some pages, including the Help Desk, are edited, a special message appears. With the Help Desk, it reminds users not to enter sensitive data such as passwords. On the Help Desk talk page (this page), it says not to ask questions about navigating Wikipedia, because those can be asked at the Help Desk itself.

Frequently, at least once a week, someone asks to have a page locked in the approved version. Within the past week, those including a company that conducts penny auctions, who presumably wanted to prevent a Criticisms section from being added, and the publicist for a singer who wanted to lock in a very promotional version. Would it be worth including additional guidelines for editing the Help Desk to ask not to request to lock pages in the approved version? Robert McClenon (talk) 19:44, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

I'd say not. Firstly because this is relatively rare, and the more material you have in the message, the less likely it is to be read - it needs to cover the most frequent problems, rather than trying to cover them all. Secondly though, I think that a proper reply to such questions is often a good idea - sometimes people are asking for 'page locking' because of legitimate concerns, even if they misunderstand how we deal with such issues. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:11, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

Okay. Sometimes when someone is asking for page locking they are asking what to do about vandalism, in which case they are really asking for semi-protection, which is often the right answer for vandalized pages. In 2005 a contentious editor asked to have certain pages locked in the approved version that stated a conspiracy theory about the Catholic Church and the Holocaust. The solution in that case was that the contentious editor was eventually banned by the ArbCom, not so much for the request to lock the pages, but for personal attacks. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:20, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Andy. --SPhilbrick(Talk) 21:10, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

Facebook Issue

There have recently been a lot of complaints to the Help Desk about Facebook, with a particular emphasis on pictures of babies. Can someone explain why so many people seem to think that Wikipedia has something to do with pictures of babies on Facebook? I can vaguely understand about material that is copied from Wikipedia to Facebook. If the material that was in Wikipedia is incorrect, or is in copyright violation, or violates the rules about biographies of living persons, then of course we have to fix it, regardless of whether it was seen in Wikipedia or on Facebook. However, I am just puzzled about complaints about pictures of babies. Is there some new defect in Facebook that causes it to cause information to be tagged as coming from Wikipedia? Robert McClenon (talk) 21:10, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

This page explains the complaints, though not the connection with Wikipedia. I have also see such a Facebook page with a picture of a baby taken from Wikipedia, and duly credited. Maybe some Facebook users are seeing a page of baby pictures, some of their friends' babies and some attributed to Wikipedia, and assuming that Wikipedia is responsible for them all. Maproom (talk) 21:56, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

The suggestion has been made that somebody with the Wikimedia Foundation needs to talk to somebody with Facebook and persuade them to review the things that Facebook users are attributing to Wikipedia. Not everything that Facebook users are attributing to Wikipedia is in any way due to what Facebook is doing; some misconceptions are due simply to stupidity. However, something needs to be reviewed. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:13, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

The Wikipedia response is due to the viral warning being sent around. The viral warning is using a Wikipedia picture of a baby, claiming that it is a stolen photo (without specifically mentioning Wikipedia) This is leading some Facebook users to click on the photo, realize it is from Wikipedia, and incorrectly believe that Wikipedia is somehow connected to all of this. I'm not sure how much these users understand our explainantions. If you read the comments at the end of the article Maproom posted, you will see a lot of people simply do not undertand or refuse to listen to the explanation - just focusing on the idea that "my baby's photos are being stolen" and "the police should lay charges".

I think most of these users would realize their photos are not being stolen if they logged off Facebook and looked at the page again. I know this should be Facebook's problem, and not Wikipedia's problem, but given the number of people incorrectly believing Wikipedia is behind this somehow, perhaps we should be a bit proactive? A template response might help... Singularity42 (talk) 11:52, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

The explanation on the Help Desk is that a Facebook page can look different to different users, so that some people see pictures of their own babies and think that the pictures have gone public. That is weird, but it is entirely a Facebook problem. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:20, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

It may be "Facebook's problem" but it's our reputation that is taking a beating. With all the negative publicity that "feature" on FB has received I'm actually quite surprised they (FB) have not shut it down yet. Jimbo Wales should have a little chat with Mark Zuckerberg. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 16:30, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

I've posted to Jimbo Wales' talke page. The "feature" would be referred to in computer jargon as a misfeature, by the way. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:16, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Indeed. FB's community page feature names a page, populates it with text from a related Wikipedia article (duly credited) and its main image if there is one, and then identifies any photos uploaded by the reader or their FB friends that are tagged or associated with related words and shows them to that reader. If your sister uploaded a pic of her new baby last year, with "new baby" or "newborn" anywhere in the file, folder name or accompanying text, then you see it displayed on the "Newborns" community page if you visit. Cue assumptions a) that the image is actually on the FB page (it's not); (b) that everyone who visits the page will see it too (they won't); and (c) that Wikipedia is to blame, because its name is on the page in the credits so it obviously "endorses" it (it isn't; it doesn't). It would be great if Jimbo Wales could have a quiet word in the right ear over there, but I wouldn't hold your breath. - Karenjc 21:32, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

WP:DENY and removal of several questions

In the interest of not providing the reward to a often blocked long-term abuser and serial sockpuppeteer, I have deleted several questions from the help desk, several of which have been answered in good faith by others who perhaps were unaware of the identity of the question asker. (including a few answered by myself who was unaware at the time). Please raise any objections and/or discuss below. I think we should, as a matter of practice, remove questions from this person when their identity has been confirmed. Their behavior is pretty obvious, and SPI usually picks them up within minutes of reporting, but sometimes when questions are removed, especially when answered in good faith, people may object. That's why I left my rationale here, and I am open to critique or discussion on the issue. --Jayron32 19:41, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

I believe I know the troll you are referring to, but some links to some background (ANI etc) might be useful for others. Яehevkor ✉ 19:45, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

At the risk of leaving a memorial to them, I will (not without reservations) link to Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Technoquat which has confirmed behavioral and checkuser evidence on all of the usernames whose questions have been recently removed. --Jayron32 19:47, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

And there's this (took a lot of digging to find it). — The Potato Hose 19:58, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. I hadn't realised the extent of the problem. Яehevkor ✉ 20:01, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Yup - fairly obvious in most cases. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:11, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

No problem. The questions were pretty obvious and most were dealt with appropriately: provide ref, minimise engagement, move on, nothing to see. But best practice to remove if cause can be shown. - Karenjc 09:33, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Template:HD/ip

The link to the Poor Man's Checkuser doesn't appear to be working; was it working recently, or has it been gone for a while? If the latter, it should be removed from this template. Nyttend (talk) 01:38, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

COI submissions page similar to AfC

I was up until about 3 a.m. whipping up an AfC-like submission page for COIs to request corrections, contest unsourced material and (after reading some disclosures) offer content for consideration. It comes to mind that I've seen posts several years old where editors have pondered why this doesn't already exist and it seems like a no-brainer.

It needs some coding work before the forms would actually "work" but I would be interested in (a) anyone who can help code the forms and (b) any thoughts generally. I imagine this could make things much easier for handling all of the Help Desk inquiries from COIs, who you could just point to the wizard. CorporateM (Talk) 16:34, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Start Snuggle

Wiki-mentors, I made you a tool. IRC discussion Wed. July 17th @ 1600 UTC

Snuggle users and the Teahouse are co-hosting an IRC office hours session (Wed. July 17th @ 1600 UTC - #wikimedia-office ^connect) to discuss the state of new editor support in Wikipedia and introduce you to WP:Snuggle, a web-based tool designed to make finding good-faith newcomers who need help fast and easy. Give it a try by pointing your browser to http://snuggle.grouplens.org.

See the agenda for more info. --EpochFail (talk), Technical 13 (talk), TheOriginalSoni (talk) 17:07, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

New buttons might be confusing

I can't recall what the layout of the top of the Help Desk was previously, but today there is a row of icons across the top of the page "About", "Welcome", "Help Menu", etc. One of these button-looking things is "Ask". I took that to be the button to click to ask a new help desk question, but it is not. There is a link further down the page to ask a new help desk question. I think it would be more clear if the top button was more verbose than just "Ask", since the entire purpose of the Help Desk to is ask an answer questions it seems odd to me that that button doesn't take you to ask a question. RudolfRed (talk) 19:29, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

For a suggestion, I think the top of the Help Desk should look like the top of the reference desk pages, for example WP:RDM, where it spells out simply how to ask a good question and as a clear button for "Ask a new question". RudolfRed (talk) 20:11, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

How to tackle a conflict of interest?

A new user with the very unsubtle name NEC Australia has just edited the article Ultranet, in good faith but with obvious commercial intent. I'm not au fait enough with our templates and stuff to know how to formally but politely tell this user they need to change their approach.

Can someone with greater knowledge in this area please either sort this out, or point me at how I can best do it? (Don't make it complicated for me. I don't have time to learn new stuff right now.) HiLo48 (talk) 08:17, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Hi, this question should be on the Help Desk itself, rather than here (the talk page). Thanks!  drewmunn  talk  08:39, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Can I use this picture or not, I'm a little confused?

I want to use this photo in particular and was wondering if its okay to use can anybody help me and confirm?

http://www.dhm.de/lemo/objekte/pict/625_2/index.html

It is taken from http://www.dhm.de/lemo/html/nazi/innenpolitik/rassenpolitik/

It is also used on this website http://wizard.webquests.ch/schulens.html?page=10346 and links to ^, is it okay to use this picture??--Andrew Dorsons (talk) 18:30, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

From the top of this page:

"This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Help desk page.",

and from the big orange edit warning which appears:

"Please do not ask questions about navigating Wikipedia on this page. This talk page is where the help desk itself is discussed. To reach the help desk, click here."

- David Biddulph (talk) 18:40, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Please delete this, my apology.--Andrew Dorsons (talk) 18:46, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Come and join The Wikipedia Library

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Introduce yourself  :-)

-Hope to see you there, Ocaasi ^{t | c} 14:59, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

archiving issue

In case anybody's wondering, yes, the Reference Desk archiving bot (scsbot) has started having trouble logging in, and hasn't been able to complete any archiving for the past few days. I'm not quite sure what the problem is yet, but I'm working on it... —Steve Summit (talk) 02:06, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

Might it be connected with WP:VPT#Secure site only?, where at least one other bot is mentioned? - David Biddulph (talk) 02:42, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

It's got something to do with that, yes. Secure transfer (https:) was enabled several weeks ago, and the bot could handle it, at first... but then a day or two ago, something else seemed to change. —Steve Summit (talk) 02:54, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

I've archived three days to get the page below 100K. -- John of Reading (talk) 06:44, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, John. The bot is now fixed; normal archiving resumes tonight. —Steve Summit (talk) 19:22, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

Yes, that's worked. Thanks! -- John of Reading (talk) 07:13, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

Daily section headers

For the last few days, the section header for each day has not appeared automatically. I have been adding them myself. My uninformed guess is that the change to https has confused the bot that is meant to do it. Maproom (talk) 06:42, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

Yes, the bot was offline for a few days (and yes, it was https repercussions), but it's fixed now. Thanks for taking care of the date headers. —Steve Summit (talk) 22:30, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

Wikimedia Foundation

If people have questions that relate to the WMF, WP:WMF could be a great place to direct newcomers. It's new, feel free to edit it as well. Biosthmors (talk) 19:46, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

Hatting

I have just hatted part of a question in this edit, collapsing a copy email sent by the OP to WMF regarding an ongoing dispute over content and some AfDs of articles in which he has a COI. I couldn't see a question that we could answer, other than directing him to ANI if he feels the situation adds up to wikihounding, and it felt like a breach of WP:CANVASS as it stood. But feel free to unhat if you disagree, or remove altogether if you think that's more appropriate. - Karenjc (talk) 11:19, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

It wasn't clear to me what he was trying to say anyway. The post looked like a rant to me. I think that either leaving it hatted or removing it is more appropriate than unhatting it. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:49, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

The IP is now forum-shopping. He is now ranting at WP:ANI]. The admins there also don't understand. Any action taken to minimize the exposure to the ranting was probably desirable. I think that there is a language competency issue among other things. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:49, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

Off the watchlist

Hi everyone,

I've been watching this page for a few weeks to make sure that problems with VisualEditor were getting reported. It looks like 99% of what you're dealing with is completely unrelated. So I'm going to take this page off my watchlist for now. If you run into problems, then please feel free to come get me or to redirect people to WP:VisualEditor/Feedback. (BTW, there will be an update to VisualEditor starting in about half an hour or so, but it looks like it should be a pretty uneventful change.) Thanks, Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:48, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

You're not seeing new complaints because nobody's using that lump of canine excreta anymore. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 16:27, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Redaction

I have just redacted part of a question in this edit. I found some evidence online to suggest that this might not be completely random trolling, but nothing to confirm that the person the OP claims to be is in a relationship with the subject of the disputed article. That being so, I believe it's a BLP issue to make direct claims about his attitude to his alleged partner's online extreme porn career. -Karenjc (talk) 04:54, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

I believe you are right to be cautious. We have no evidence about who the complainant really is, or her true motivation. Maproom (talk) 07:28, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks - I thought the same myself. The series of edits which attempted to change the article, in particular one of the two account names involved, also raised questions with me. Removing the unsourced statement about his wife seems fair enough, however. - Karenjc (talk) 10:36, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

new physicians in a cardiology group

The question posted here in error, and the accompanying astray template, have been moved to the Help Desk archives for the appropriate day and can be found at Wikipedia:Help_desk/Archives/2013_November_10#new_physicians_in_a_cardiology_group. -Karenjc (talk) 08:32, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Request an account process needs help

Hello everyone, I'm Callanecc, an administrator on account creation interface. Recently, our project has had an increased backlog in getting accounts for new users. Our numbers are currently over 250 people waiting for accounts on the English Wikipedia. If you could even spare a moment to do a few requests a day to help us clear this backlog, that would go a long way to encouraging new editors to participate with an account. If this interests you and you're willing to help, and you match the following description, then please do apply! Ideal users are:

• Identified to the Wikimedia Foundation or are willing and able to identify
• In good standing with no recent blocks or other sanctions
• Understand and are able to apply the username policy
• Have worked with new contributors
• Keep personal information confidential
• Please see the full list of requirements for more information

We have a very friendly team to help you get started, we also have a private IRC channel where you can ask questions or get help with difficult account requests. If you have any questions for us or about the process, feel free to ask at the talkpage. If you can help out, we would greatly appreciate it. For the ACC team,

I'd be happy to help and will go about getting identified etc now. FYI you accidentally linked to WikiProject Indonesia instead of WP:IDENT ;) Samwalton9 (talk) 08:07, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

Line break (too long line)

Should I correct it? It's too long and it's easy to find/see. http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Wikipedia:Help_desk#restore_deleted_article --78.156.109.166 (talk) 19:11, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

Yes, it's not good to have a horizontal scrollbar. I've put some line breaks in. -- John of Reading (talk) 20:26, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

Help Please

how do i reply to reasponses from discussions? Mudak568 (talk) 02:51, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

You can click the "edit" link at section headings. See more at Help:Using talk pages. PrimeHunter (talk) 03:10, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

You appear to be using a mobile device so you may see a pencil icon instead. PrimeHunter (talk) 03:13, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

Dropboxes

I see that some users have drop boxes on thier user page. like the boxes you click on in discushions to see topics. How do you get dropboxes on your user page? (Mudak568 (talk) 10:54, 1 January 2014 (UTC)) Mudak568 (talk) 10:54, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

Questions about Wikipedia belong at Wikipedia:Help desk. Click Edit on a page to see how it did something. Some use {{Hidden begin}} but it's not the only method. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:29, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

you may also find a better response at WP:VPT, or the answer already in the archives there, or by clicking "edit page" of one of the pages that has the formatting to see the underlying coding. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 13:27, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

Help desk edit notice

I don't know if anyone actually read the Help desk's edit notice but it seems to me one of the major issues we have with questions is people posing them in the hypothetical – not telling us the specifics of the situation that brought them here nor linking to it. We necessarily answer many questions with, in effect, "here's some general advice but if you told us what this was about...", or we have to ferret out the specifics from the general question posed by looking at contributions or doing searches from clues in the quetion. We also constantly have people not linking, even when they do provide specifics. So I was thinking we might address both of these in the edit notice (and hope it has some effect). I'm posting some proposed language below for consideration.

• If possible, please be specific in your question rather than general and make use of Wikilinks if applicable.

--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 19:58, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

I've asked about this before and agree that it would be very helpful if OPs weren't so cryptic. I don't understand why they don't tell us what article they're talking about most of the time. I can only think of two reasons why they would avoid being specific and neither of them seem to crop up that often. Either A) they've done something wrong and are somehow ashamed or thought they'd be yelled at or B) they're trying to keep something private, akin to 'outing' another editor in some fashion. Dismas|^(talk) 20:08, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I agree that it would be good to do more to encourage posters to specify what article they refer to in their questions. But asking them to use a Wikilink is going too far. Many of them won't know what a Wikilink is; and if they manage to look it up, will think "this is all too complicated, I wanted help with the stuff I don't understand, but instead I'm expected to understand more new stuff which isn't even relevant. I think I'll just give up." In a newbie question at the Help Desk, an ordinary http-style link is fine. Maproom (talk) 20:24, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Well said, and I agree. I don't mind an http link since I'm usually going to open their link in a new tab anyway just to keep the question viewable in the original tab in case I need to refer back to it. Dismas|^(talk) 20:30, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Okay, so instead of "Wikilink" and linking that, how about just "link" (unlinked):

• If possible, please be specific in your question rather than general and link to any page or article your question involves.

Dismas, I think you're right about why at least for many.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 20:43, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

I think a lot of them assuem we know what page they mean by some sort of magic. DES ^(talk) 20:45, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

I think that 'magic' is the fact that they were reading a page and then clicked on the help link. So because they went from A to B then we should know that as well. Not realizing that they could have come to the HD from anywhere. Also, many customer service forms these days will autofill with whatever page you came from. Dismas|^(talk) 20:48, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

how about:

• If possible, please be specific in your question rather than general and link to any page or article your question involves, or at least tell us the title of the page.

I agree we shouldn't ask for a wikilink. It may deter posters and a url or exact title is fine. I already added this to the editnotice in 2011 [1]: "Please give the exact title or URL of any page you want help with." I doubt the suggestion will have an effect which outweighs that even fewer posters will probably read the editnotice if it becomes longer. By far the best way to be specific is usually doing what we already ask, so we can see the situation for ourselves. If people think they can explain "the specifics" without linking or giving the page title then their explanation will often have good faith mistakes and omit critical information.

Another option to deal with the endless vague posts: The regular helpers make a "pact" to not post speculative answers. We simply ask for the page and don't spend time on hypotheticals. If somebody else has given a hypothetical answer and my guess about the situation is different then it's hard to resist posting my own hypothetical. I know many posters never answer if they are asked which page it is about, but a significant part of those probably don't read the replies at all. And if they don't bother spending a minute naming the page when asked, should we really spend far longer discussing hypotheticals which may be irrelevant? I think few posters are deliberately trying to hide the page. They are just really poor at judging what is relevant and stating the issue accurately. Many of them are new and may not realize how big Wikipedia is and how many features, guidelines, page types and so on we have. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:56, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

The tweaked language is fine ("at least" gets the point across well that we really really do want those specifics). I don't think the pact idea would work in practice and anyway I think enough do get benefit from our guessing at what they might mean or our presentation of general advice where specifics cannot be deduced that it's worth the effort to continue.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 21:42, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Adding to a watchlist

I am new here. i wrote a question in help desk just before........cant find it but it is still there..somewhere. The question is about my watchlist. i click on the stars it says added to watchlist. i go to watchlist it say you have nothing on your watch list...but I DOOO!!!!!!! how do you fix this?! (Mr N Ivanov (talk) 11:14, 6 January 2014 (UTC)) Mr N Ivanov (talk) 11:14, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

I answered your question and it is on the Help Desk right here. This is the talk page for the Help Desk and is not the place for questions. If you had followed the link that I put on your talk page, that would have taken you to your question as well. I hope this sorts things out for you. If not, feel free to put another question on the Help Desk or on my talk page and I'll try to help you again. Dismas|^(talk) 11:37, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Referencing errors on <article name>

Regarding this reply by Dismas (talk · contribs) - sections titled "Referencing errors on <article name>" are pre-formatted from the "Ask for help" links posted by ReferenceBot (talk · contribs) (example here). The bot owner is aware that a link would be useful, but this isn't possible given the current API. We'll just have to add the link when answering the question. -- John of Reading (talk) 08:17, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

So that's what the Referencebot link was all about! Thanks. I just thought it was similar to when editors will sometimes put the Help Me template into their questions. Dismas|^(talk) 10:27, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

I have posted to User talk:A930913#Links in headings that it's OK at the help desk. PrimeHunter (talk) 17:15, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Daily section headers

The process that adds a new dated section header once a day has broken again. I've been doing it manually for the last few days. Maproom (talk) 08:35, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

...and the page has grown to 180K. The bot owner, Scs (talk · contribs) is sometimes away at weekends. I'll do some manual archiving if it hasn't happened by tomorrow. -- John of Reading (talk) 11:50, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

I was away but am back. Apologies for the, um, congestion. Catch-up archiving pass running now. —Steve Summit (talk) 04:07, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Another archive question

This is what it says on the Help desk archive pages: "The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current Help Desk pages." Are we really encouraging editors to add to archived pages? Example --NeilN ^{talk to me} 22:20, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Sounds stupid to me! CTF83! 00:32, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Steve Summit, any thoughts? --NeilN ^{talk to me} 14:57, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

That comment may not be helpful, but it is true. Maybe it could be changed to "The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, it is unlikely that anyone will read them. Please ask new questions on one of the current Help Desk pages." Maproom (talk) 15:55, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

The same question came up at the Reference Desks. Adding additional answers to archived questions used to be encouraged (and still is), but a big part of that was the fact that archived questions appeared (via transclusion) on the main page for a few more days, so there didn't seem to be a reason not to try to edit them, and the additional answers might still be visible.

(In fact, the archive page language used here is very similar to that used there, probably because the archiving templates used here started out as copies of the ones used there, since the archiving scheme was all a direct copy.)

I'm inclined to think that, now that there's no more transclusion, editing of archives should probably be discouraged (as indeed it is elsewhere on Wikipedia), but this is just my opinion, not a foregone conclusion. —Steve Summit (talk) 17:14, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I agree. It confuses the hell out of regular editors who have "don't touch the archives!" ingrained into them. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 04:29, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Having an answer placed when the question is in the archive is not a bad idea- In theory, if someone came to the Help desk and actually searched the archives to see if their question had already been answered before posting it (hahahahahahahahahahahaha) they would find that new answer and not need to post. but the chances of a question getting a good answer after archiving and then being the target of a question later by someone who searches the archives first... well .... that is an improbably series of events that are each improbable.-- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 03:38, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

speaking of archiving...

Recently at the reference desks, we decided to abandon the longstanding practice of transcluding a few days' worth of archived content back onto the "main" pages. (See these two talk page threads [1] [2] if interested.) Would the help desk like to do the same? Currently the bot archives here after 2 days to keep 2-3 days of real content, and transcludes 1 additional day. We could change this to 3-4 days of real content and 0 days transcluded, or 2-3 and 0, or leave it the same. (Or anything else you like, for that matter.) I have no preference; it's basically as easy to configure the bot one way as another. —Steve Summit (talk) 04:31, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

If it matters for anything, I've never cared for the transclusion. Even for an experienced editor such as myself, it threw me off the first time I ended up on a transcluded page. And I had to do a double take a few times since then to make sure my comment went where I wanted. Dismas|^(talk) 06:45, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

I agree, the transclusion is confusing and unnecessary. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 06:52, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

I agree; I suggest 3-4 days of real content. The February daily archive pages are 20 - 40K each, so this shouldn't overload anyone. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:23, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

I agree, the transclusion was confusing. I had noticed that something weird happened if I tried to contribute to the threads near the top of the page; now I know why! Maproom (talk) 09:05, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

archiving changes imminent

Okay, in a day or two I'll switch the bot to archive the Help desk after 3 days, with 0 days transcluded. Any objections or further comments, speak up soon! —Steve Summit (talk) 04:19, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

is the archiver on strike? it looks like there are more than three days up. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 03:26, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

@TheRedPenOfDoom: The archiving bot is set off manually by Scs (talk · contribs), who is often away at weekends. I'll wade in later today if necessary. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:24, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

This time, the issue is technical, not personal -- see here and here. Until/unless this problem is resolved, I think I'm going to have to get in the habit of kicking off the archiving in the morning (as I did just now) instead of the evening. —Steve Summit (talk) 10:11, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

strange edit

Can someone research this edit? It restored some previously-archived content, which I can fix, but it also deleted some content, and I don't have time just now to review the history to see if that ever got properly restored, or remains lost. Thanks. —Steve Summit (talk) 03:57, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Fixed, I think. The deleted parts of the "Saving edits in draft form" thread were restored yesterday, and I've just restored the "Colon cancer" thread. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:04, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Individual Engagement Grant for Reimagining Wikipedia Mentorship

Hey help desk editors. I wanted to bring your attention to a proposal under review. A small team of us are interested in implementing a new system of mentorship that is simplified and focused on what new editors want to learn, but still incorporates the 1-on-1 relationships from the adopt-a-user programs. At this stage, your feedback and comments would be much appreciated, particularly as you work with new editors on a regular basis, and we want to make our proposal fit the community's needs. Please read over our proposal here. If you have comments or questions, please let us know either on the grant talk page or here, and if you support the proposal, please feel free to provide your endorsement at the bottom. Thanks, I, JethroBT ^{drop me a line} 19:12, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Limits to redaction of information?

Someone from G(irls)20 Summit recently posted to the Help Desk requesting that 'their' wikipedia page be changed. After the standard responses including WP:OWN, a user went in an deleted the information for the email that was included in the request. Given that this email was for position at the organization, that seems not to fit the definition of "Personal Information". Should the rules on redaction be loosened so that email addresses and phone numbers to businesses/organizations no longer fit the requirements for redaction? I feel sort of silly seeing redactions of media.relations@exxonmobil.com (or similar)Naraht (talk) 21:20, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

I for one agree with that. Redaction is for people who do not understand the consequences of what they are doing by posting their contact details. Redacting an organization's e-mail that is freely available out there on the web is a bit silly. To take an extreme case, would we redact someone who tells us that the emergency services telephone number is 911? Oops, I've said it, perhaps someone will redact me? SpinningSpark 23:10, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Consider yourself redacted! ;) 911 is not the emergency number in every country, for example in my homeland (Australia) it is 000. Melbourne3163 (talk) 23:20, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

I know, I'm in England where it's 999 (the European standard 112 also works) but I figured 911 is the most widely known. Should have known someone would pick me up on that. SpinningSpark 23:35, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Great example!Naraht (talk) 00:04, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

Archiving

@John of Reading:. I just restored the "Reflinks" thread from the archive. The discussion is still live. In fact, a user had explicitly pinged me with a question just a few hours ago. I was very confused at first that I could not find the thread. Why do we archive this page manually? There are plenty of bots to do that. SpinningSpark 08:05, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

@Spinningspark and Scs: I archived manually because the usual bot, Scsbot (talk · contribs) doesn't seem to be running. It is coded to archive a day at a time regardless of how active the threads are. I'm not sure how many days the bot keeps on the live page, but I archived enough to get it back down to around 100 kilobytes. -- John of Reading (talk) 08:32, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Did I do the right thing in restoring then? SpinningSpark 08:35, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

I suggest you move the thread down to today's section so that the bot doesn't get confused when it fires up again. -- John of Reading (talk) 08:59, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

I (the botherd) was called away on a business trip without warning last week and didn't have quite enough (time, energy, network bandwidth) from abroad to keep up with the archiving. My apologies. The bot is running now and should be caught up just in time for...

my next business trip next week. I'll give it my best shot and I hope to have better luck, but if you see things backing up, feel free to take appropriate measures.

(John, thanks again for your assistance last week. As ever, no good deed goes unpunished, so you may be called upon next week, too...)

—Steve Summit (talk) 04:10, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

minor archiving glitch

As mentioned above, I'm traveling, and I've discovered that the travel laptop I'm carrying is missing one of the archiving scripts, the one that's responsible for creating a talk page redirect for every archive page. There's no good way for me to fix this, so the effect is that there's going to be about a week's worth of archive pages that don't have talk page links. If anyone feels that these links are important enough to create them by hand, feel free. --Steve Summit (talk) 16:33, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Hmm, I've never noticed those. If anyone thinks they are important, post here and I will create talk page redirects for the daily archives that I've created from time to time. -- John of Reading (talk) 16:49, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Unhelpful Post

An IP posted a general complaint that was not helpful and did not ask a question about using Wikipedia. I removed the unhelpful post. Was that appropriate, or should it have been left standing? I know that we leave posts standing that get the "astray" template or where the original poster is sent to the Reference Desk. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:59, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Robert, the only thing you did wrong was that "housekeeping" discussions of things like that should take place on the talk page. I have moved your post here. If users can't ask a meaningful question politely then it is fine to remove the post. SpinningSpark 18:54, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

There wasn't a question at all. If you view the history, you will see that it was a short rant. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:56, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, I wasn't clear. I had seen it and I agree with your removal. SpinningSpark 19:09, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Notifying Another Editor

If an issue involving another editor is posted to a noticeboard, such as WP:ANI or WP:ANEW, there are requirements to notify the other editor. Occasionally a question here has to do involves a particular editor's content or conduct. Am I correct that, although there is no explicit requirement to notify the other editor, it is nonetheless a courtesy to notify them that a matter is being discussed at the Help Desk? Robert McClenon (talk) 19:08, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

I used to think that people ought to do that but when I have challenged users in the past for not doing so there has been opposition. I think the difference is that at ANI etc the user being reported is liable to be facing sanctions. Here there is no such threat and users often want to get advice in a peaceful atmosphere were they are free of harrasment from a combative opponent. If it goes to an admin site then is the time to notify. This page is not dispute resolution either and its not our job to arbitrate being warring editors. SpinningSpark 19:16, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Thank you. However, this site does resemble the noticeboards in one respect, and that is that occasionally an editor rants, and an admin on this site looks at the conduct, and the OP is hit by the incoming boomerang. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:15, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

True, but that can happen on any page. SpinningSpark 21:19, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Side suggestion

I didn't want to completely derail the rest of this conversation but have a somewhat relevant observation/comment. I will often go through and leave talkback messages on user talk pages of those who have asked questions when I see that their talk page link is red. If a user is asking a question and they're new enough to still have a red link talk page, then they may not know how to get back to the Help Desk.

Secondly, I'll also leave a link to the user if I'm asking for clarification on something that I'm trying to teach a new editor. By linking them to the conversation, we can both learn from the responses instead of me being told and then relaying what I've just learned. Dismas|^(talk) 20:31, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

The new floating navbox in the header

It covers pieces of the sidebar and in general is kind of distracting for me. Was there discussion or consensus for it? Regardless of that, is there a way to hide the navbox (i.e. with personal css or js) without hiding the rest of this template? - Purplewowies (talk) 03:14, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

I've added an id to the code on the header page so you can now reference it individually. Putting the following code in your css page should get rid of it.

/* Hide helpdesk navbox */
div#hd-pageNavBox {display: none;}

SpinningSpark 11:05, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

• Thanks Spinningspark for adding an id to it so people can hide it completely. I first added one to the AFC/HD, and people seemed to like it. Based on that, I thought it would be helpful here as well. I have also considered making it collapsible, if that is a feature that people want. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 15:06, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

I added the code to my css (and it originally worked like a dream; thanks Spinningspark!), but it appears to have stopped working. I do think the collapsibility is a good feature, even though I'm the kind who gets distracted by anything in a fixed position like that in many instances.. - Purplewowies (talk) 20:47, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

• That is likely because I changed the id and added a class. If you just don't want it to show on the help desk here (it's also on all the village pumps and the AfC specific help desk), then you need to change the above code Spinningspark gave you to:

 /* Hide VP & HD navboxs */
.pageNavBox {
    display: none !important;
}

You can also hide it on just one page by changing it to:

/* Hide navbox on [[WP:VPT]] */
#VPT-pageNavBox {
    display: none !important;
}

or...

/* Hide navbox on [[WP:HD]] */
#HD-pageNavBox {
    display: none !important;
}

Where the abbreviation for the page(s) you want to hide it on will be sandwiched between a hash (#) and -pageNavBox. You can also change it's behavior to always start as collapsed by adding the following code to your skin specific JavaScript page:

/* collapse navbox on [[WP:HD]] */
$('#HD-pageNavBox').removeClass('mw-uncollapsed').addClass('mw-collapsible-collapsed');

Again using the same scheme as above for page names of which ones you want collapsed by default. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 21:29, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Yes, thanks! I'd tried to look at the template code, but I'm bad with css and js most of the time, and I couldn't see anything out of place to make it stop working. I've used the hide VP and HD code, and it works! Thanks again! - Purplewowies (talk) 16:14, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

https://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Order_of_Civil_Merit_of_Laos

Hi, please help me to correct the reference list as now it does give error: Cite error: The named reference Buyers was invoked but never defined (see the help page). Thank you AEERLGE (talk) 10:32, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

 Done but as it says in big letters at the top of this editing page, this is not the help desk. Arjayay (talk) 10:43, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict)(This question should have been asked on the Help Desk itself. This is the talk page of the Help Desk, and is intended for discussing the Help Desk itself, not for asking questions about editing Wikipedia.)

When you created the Order of Civil Merit of Laos page, you included the line

|type=Order of Merit<ref name=Buyers></ref>

which attempts to use a reference named "Buyers" when no such reference has been defined. If you know what you intended when you added this line, then you are in a better position than me to fix it. If you just copied it from another article, then I suggest that you delete the <ref name=Buyers></ref>; this will remove the error message. Maproom (talk) 10:45, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Edit conflicts

The Edit conflict page says if you have a conflict (a) go back to the previous page to find your edit and copy it or (b) - sorry have to go back and see what it says --P123ct1 (talk) 20:04, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

FYI For the helpdesk regulars

We have taken the time to make a parent page on how and where to contribute...with video tutorials, examples, advice and linking all the major help pages. This is located at Wikipedia:Contributing to Wikipedia - feel free to direct users to the page. - Moxy (talk) 20:08, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

Wrong Forum Question

If a report is filed at the WP:Help Desk that should have been filed at a noticeboard, and the filing party is advised to take it to a noticeboard, should the report here be left standing and archived or hatted, deleted, or is that optional (either deleting or archiving or hatting permitted)? Robert McClenon (talk) 22:26, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Header archive search

Why does the archive search box search for "prefix=Help" instead of "prefix=Help desk"? Possibly it is not a bad idea to search the help pages as well, but that then means the box has a misleading title. SpinningSpark 16:26, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

How is it possible to restore a locked article after a vandalic act withoout any consensus or reliable sources ?

Thanks.151.40.120.34 (talk) 17:34, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

How is it possible for us to know which article you are referring to? AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:37, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

Based on the OP's history, the article is probably Russia. Post a request to the article talk page, Talk: Russia. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:50, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

If this relates to the discussion on Talk:Russia it is a content dispute, and nothing to do with vandalism. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:51, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

I agree that there is a content dispute, and no vandalism. At the same time, the discussion is getting a little heated, and needs to be calmed down. Referring to vandalism, when there is no vandalism, is a personal attack. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:00, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

The previous IP, who is now User:Gladio4772, should take the issue to dispute resolution. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:07, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

I'm trying to help facilitate the discussions this IP keeps raising, though more often than not, I end up blocking them for personal attacks or making generally disruptive comments. (Any time someone disagrees with them, he's far to quick to call good faith opposition "lies", "propaganda", or "editor x being pro/anti country y", when there's no reason to jump to that conclusion.) It doesn't help that the IP has a rough grasp on English, as he has interpreted both "oxymoron" and "dead wrong" as some sort of "personal attack" rather than their typical, non-offensive meanings. Anyways, as far as I can tell, its a relatively minor statistical fact that is being argued about, I don't really believe anything major like DR is needed. Just for the IP to assume good faith and calm down. I'm trying to get people to explain both sides of it (the IP is unable or unwilling to), once I know both sides, I can help them work out a resolution. Sergecross73 msg me 19:18, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

This is Gladio4772's history here[2] and ip as 151.40.13.125 for disruptive ip hoping on these same discussions, speaking against Russia in all ip’s I found below have been using. All the same editor, all ip addresses are from Florence Italy. I am reporting his comments as all the same wording slamming disruptive edits against Russia since 2013 that this is not effective when users like this are disruptive and are doing the opposite. See the links of the contributes starting July 8, 2014‎ - 151.40.120.34 July 19, 2014[3] 151.40.123.202 July 19, 2014[4], 151.40.117.74 July 17, 2014[5], 151.40.13.161[6] , July 7, 2014 151.40.45.125[7], March 17, 2014 - 151.40.95.82[8], April 2013 - Bocca Trabaria[9], March 2014 - 151.40.24.9 http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Special:Contributions/151.40.24.9], March 2014 -151.40.7.192[10], Sept 23, 2013 - 151.40.18.30[11], Sept 15, 2013 - 151.40.55.125[12], March 18, 2014 - 151.40.35.236[13], March 18, 2014 - 151.40.9.149[14], March 17, 2014 - 151.40.72.141[15], March 16, 2014 - 151.40.14.179[16], March 16, 2014 - 151.40.83.17[17], March 15, 2014 - 151.40.69.199[18], March 15, 2014 - 151.40.34.218[19], March 15, 2014 - 151.40.120.19[20], Feb 4, 2014 - 151.40.63.30[21], Feb 4, 2014- 151.40.16.167[22], Dec 28, 2013 - 151.40.107.93[23], Dec 27, 2013 - 151.40.27.25[24], Dec 27, 2013 - 151.40.64.77[25], Dec 25, 2013 - 151.40.54.32[26], Dec 23, 2013 - 151.40.41.170[27], Dec 22, 2013 - 151.40.9.139[28], Sept 8, 2013 - 151.40.102.200[29], August 14, 2013 - 151.40.125.50[30], May 10, 2013 – Mediolanum[31], Oct 22, 2013 - Glc72[32], May 21, 2013 - 151.40.11.180[33], May 14, 2013 -151.40.59.151[34], May 14, 2013 - 151.40.60.108[35], May 11, 2013 - Bocca_Trabaria[36]

Gladio4772's is acting under mil-table ip's pushing Russia on it's GDP and claiming Russia is not a superpower and etc. All the ip's above are all the same push of this content. Needs to be reviewed what damages Gladio4772's is doing if editors don't spot this editers actions.--198.23.81.141 (talk) 20:25, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Why are you raising this here? It has nothing to do with the functioning of the help desk page, which is what this talk page is supposed to be for. If you want to report user conduct take it to an appropriate administration noticeboard. SpinningSpark 23:43, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Responses at the Help Desk

An IP user has posted to the Help Desk a sensible and uncontroversial suggestion for an edit, and now received three responses. They were, in brief "you can make it yourself", "here's how", and (mine) "thanks, done it". I appreciate that my fellow editors are keen to recruit a potential new editor. But I think they are going about it the wrong way. If I made that suggestion, and was told to implement it myself, I would think "Well, I tried. They're an unfriendly lot here. I won't make that mistake again". Whereas if I was told that my suggestion had been implemented, I would feel motivated to contribute more. Maproom (talk) 07:12, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

There are different kinds of help. The first was encouragement, the second instruction and the third service. When your powers combine, you're the Help Desk. Good work! InedibleHulk (talk) 07:21, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Don't agree. "Give someone a fish... Teach someone to fish..." Encouraging someone to make a straightforward edit themselves, and offering guidance in how to go about it, is the way new editors will be led to "contribute more", using the Wiki the way it's intended to be used: Noyster (talk), 08:53, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

But he wasn't asking for a fish. He was giving something useful, and was told "not good enough, we want you to do more". I, at least, would find that off-putting, not encouraging. Maproom (talk) 09:18, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

I tend to agree with Noyster, even down to the terminology. As long as you're friendly about it ("why not have a go at making the change yourself; here's how you can do it", as opposed to, "Jeez, why don't you just do it yourself and stop bugging us") I think we actively need to encourage more editors to get stuck in and make these changes, instead of being afraid to do so themselves. Yunshui ^雲_水 09:56, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

My relply was "you can make the edit yourself". There is a world of difference between that and "you must make the edit yourself". This does not preclude the OP leaving the suggestion on the page, or for another editor making the change for them. I disagree that this is off-putting. New editors, despite the evidence of unceasing vandalistic attacks, often lack the confidence to make their first edit, wondering if they are permitted to do so, and just need a bit of encouragement. My first edits on Wikipedia were made after a great deal of trepidation and only after a lot of preamble on the article talk pages. My experience coaching a number of editors in real life tells me this experience is far from unique. It is often accompanied by an inflated idea of the competence of the average Wikipedia editor and uncertainty of their own competence to swim in that pond. At the end of the day, the primary purpose of the help desk is to give advice. It is not its purpose to provide an editing manpower service, although feel free to oblige if you want to. There is no compulsion on anyone to go sort out problems in articles and no one here should be expecting that of others. SpinningSpark 13:37, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

I'm stunned nobody asked the ip if there was anything else they needed assistance in!!! You guys really need training... :) Seriously speaking, I found each reply to the ip's query perfectly acceptable. Keep up the good work manning the desk. Wifione ^Message 17:20, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Entries without Headings

During the last twelve hours or so (overnight in Washington), there were multiple questions posted without headings, presumably by just entering the text after the previous question. First, does anyone know of a technical reason, or was that just a random annoyance/occurrence? Second, is the proper procedure then to insert headings based on the best inference as to how the posters wanted the questions organized? That is what I did. Is there a different "best practice"? Third, one of the questions wanted a translation? Should they be advised to try the Reference Desk? Robert McClenon (talk) 13:39, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

It happens all the time. The reason is that the "ask a new question" link at the top of the page opens a "new section" link but does not oblige the questioner to fill out the section heading box. A new section without a heading is just the same as following on from the last section. We could probably arrange for a default heading to be automatically inserted via a template but then we would just get endless "Write a short description of your question here" sections, or whatever the default chosen was. That would sometimes also result in duplicate headings which are problematic for incoming links. It is fine to add a heading on behalf of the user. If you can't figure out what the question was about, or don't want to state the user's question because it is offensive etc, just use an arbitrary place filler like "New question" or some such.

Translation questions, if about translating Wikipedia articles from one language version to another, should be directed to Wikipedia:Translation. If the user wants a translation of something to help with an article they can be pointed to an appropriate Wikiproject for that language or to a category of users (eg Category:French Wikipedians). The language Babel boxes often automatically put user's into a category so it is sometimes worth looking at those if you can't find the right category. For translation into English a native English speaker able to speak French is better than a native French speaker able to speak English. Thus, the Babel box categories are a better bet than the nationality categories. Also, personally, I have found I often get a better response approaching editors individually for these kind of questions than going through the Wikiproject. Questions not related to creating or improving Wikipedia articles should be directed to Wikipedia:Reference desk/Language. The RD is really intended for knowledge questions not connected with improving articles, but they may still be of some help with this. SpinningSpark 11:42, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

archiving hiatus

I've been called away suddenly on a trip that will leave me without internet access for a week, so I won't be able to run scsbot to archive the help desk. If things get unweildy someone may have to do a bit of by-hand archiving. Sorry for the inconvenience. —Steve Summit (talk) 03:19, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

No problem. I'll try to do enough archiving to keep the page below 100Kb. -- John of Reading (talk) 04:05, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Have you considered getting your bot on to WMLabs? SpinningSpark 09:42, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Commonly used templates

Is there a list of commonly used templates for the questions here? I saw a homework template (from WP:HW) used a couple of days ago. I wonder if there is some list someone has compiled? Kingsindian (talk) 15:45, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

{{Help desk templates}} and {{HD}} list most of them. -- John of Reading (talk) 16:00, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Automatically generated reference lists

Now added to {{HD}}:

Result	Code
Automatically generated reference lists are a feature that automatically creates a reference list at the bottom of any page that has <ref> tags without reference list markup. On talk pages you can add {{reflist-talk}} at the end of a discussion to properly place the reference list. For more issues see the Automatically generated reference lists help page.	{{subst:HD/agrl}}

--  Gadget850 ^talk 15:25, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

getting the attention of philosophy of science editors.

I want to revise an article in ways to make it relevant to several other philosophy of science articles, but when I got to that group page I am warned that few people read it. Where else can I attract the attention of editors interested in philosophy of science? — Preceding unsigned comment added by TBR-qed (talk • contribs) 19:29, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Hi, you're on the wrong page (see the big notice at the top of this page). I don't think you'll get much helpful response here. You might try the Help desk page, which you can access by clicking the "Project page" tab near the top-left of this page. ‑‑Mandruss (talk) 06:06, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

User Conduct

Occasionally there is a post to the Help Desk that involves what is actually a conduct issue. That is, an editor asks what to do about another editor who is behaving in a problematic fashion. In the most recent case, I notified the unregistered editor on the IP address's talk page. That is required when posting to noticeboards. Am I correct that that is a reasonable courtesy when advice is requested here concerning what turns out to be a conduct issue? Robert McClenon (talk) 21:23, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Robert McClenon, I'm surprised this has gone without response. My take is that doing that invites the notified party to come and respond here, only worsening the misuse of this space. ‑‑Mandruss (talk) 06:18, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Signature sans username

What should be done when a Help desk post is signed but the signature does not include the username? E.g. this actual example from user Edfranks:

Edward Carr Franks, PhD 19:51, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

‑‑Mandruss (talk) 20:07, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

He needs to be reminded of the requirements of WP:SIGLINK; I've already done that. --David Biddulph (talk) 02:07, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

Threat in edit

What can be done about this, apart from just reverting? HiLo48 (talk) 02:41, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

This is kind of a weird place to ask this, HiLo, but I've blocked the editor indef, and his edits have been reverted by several people. Let an admin know if they come back with another account. --Floquenbeam (talk) 02:56, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

Weird place? So here does one ask this? I searched in vain for appropriate things like WP:THREAT, but all I found was platitudinous statements of the bleeding obvious telling me that threats are a bad thing. Nothing to tell me what to actually do about it. HiLo48 (talk) 03:31, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

If you'd asked at the Entertainment Reference Desk, I'd tell you to get the president on the horn. Or go straight-up Liam Neeson on that guy and his henchmen. Seriously though, he doesn't know your family. Certain topics just attract a certain type of commenter. I've been "threatened" like that on YouTube several times over the years, and they've never even found my phone number, let alone my entire family. Somewhere between vengeance and nothing is the Australian Federal Police, if you feel like it. InedibleHulk (talk) 05:09, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

I truly thought we had a policy about acting on people who made threats, no matter how idiotic. HiLo48 (talk) 06:01, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

"weird place" may just refer to this being the talk page for the help desk, rather than the help desk itself. -- John of Reading (talk) 06:31, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

I just noticed this was the talk page, after wondering why somebody seemingly deleted the question from the Help Desk without a trace. Now that I see, yeah, a bit of a weird place. InedibleHulk (talk) 00:20, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

See WP:VIOLENCE for some information on dealing with threats of bodily harm. All the best, Taketa (talk) 07:58, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

The user was blocked just after that edit. --  Gadget850 ^talk 16:43, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Date section headers

The Help Desk is designed to have a top-level section header for each date, and the navigation tool's link to "Today's posts" does not work if today's section header does not exist. Sometimes, as today, I find that it does not exist, and I add it myself. I am wondering why this is necessary. Three hypotheses:

1. There is no automated process to add these headers. They are all added by human editors.
2. They are added by an automated process, but sometimes it breaks.
3. They are added reliably by an automated process. But sometimes an editor accidentally removes one.

It doesn't really matter, I am just curious. Maproom (talk) 08:08, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Survey says, #2. Here is Scsbot adding October 20. History shows no attempt to add October 21. Somebody call Scsbot and wake it up. ‑‑Mandruss (t) 08:18, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Scsbot is run manually by Scs (talk · contribs). If he is away/ill/busy then other editors will need to add the daily headings, and when the page gets too large I sometimes step in to help with the archiving. -- John of Reading (talk) 08:38, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Do talk page guidelines apply to the Help Desk?

Since this question is being asked about the Reference Desk, I will also ask it about the Help Desk. Do talk page guidelines apply to the Help Desk, such as the restrictions on refactoring or editing of posts after there has been a reply? I don't expect that a poster is likely to try to edit their post to the Help Desk after it has been replied to, but I didn't expect that a poster was likely to try to edit their theories on the Reference Desk after receiving negative responses. I understand that disruptive posts may be either hatted or deleted; that isn't the question, although reasonable editors can disagree on what are disruptive posts. I understand that no one should alter or refactor another editor's posts. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:21, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

The help desk is for anyone with a question about using or editing Wikipedia, whether or not they know the talk page guidelines. So if I saw that a question had been edited extensively after it had been replied to, I might add a comment asking them not to, pointing them to the guidelines, but I wouldn't try to enforce the guidelines.

For myself, I apply the talk page guidelines less strictly at the help desk than at regular talk pages. Questions are often asked by editors with little knowledge of wiki markup, and need to be tidied up a bit to be made readable. And very occasionally I'll fix a syntax error or a broken shortcut in another helper's reply, as I regard the help desk as a service offered by all the regular helpers acting as a team. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:08, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

That's a very good answer. Thanks! I was not happy once when I saw someone delete a TALK-page comment from someone else. -- Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 19:09, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Medieval help desk

Just in case there is anyone here who hasn't seen this. It's clearly applicable to this page.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQHX-SjgQvQ ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 23:21, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Hehe --Fauzan^{✆ talk}_{✉ mail} 11:19, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

The YouTube (2min45sec) is great! Thanks for pointing it out. After it plays, there are other 'Help Desk' humor short videos to view. -- Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 19:16, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Article deleted???

Assume good faith should always be applied at the Help Desk. The regular participants in Help Desk should refrain from being "cops" — there too many naive editors who come for help and then get "punished" for not knowing better. If this continues it may result in editors staying away from the Help Desk and going underground. Just my $.02 Ottawahitech (talk) 16:28, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

I have read, and contributed to, the Article deleted??? thread. I see nothing there that looks like an assumption of bad faith. But I do welcome more attention being drawn to the thread. Maproom (talk) 17:00, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

Poster followup replies

A large number of Help desk sections consist of the initial question, our reply, end. In many of those cases our reply asked for more information. I wonder how many times the OP is new to WP and simply doesn't know how to edit the section. If you don't know where to look for it, that little [edit] could be easy to miss. Even if the user saw it, they might be reluctant to click it if they weren't sure what it does. I wonder if a sentence about this should be added to the box on the Ask a question page. It's obvious that many posters aren't reading the words already there, but this might help some of them. Or, if technically possible, the [edit] could be replaced with a larger [click here to add to this discussion]. ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 09:55, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

Good thought, We need to make the Help Desk more user friendly.--Skr15081997 (talk) 10:17, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

Fauzan, wise (wo)man that (s)he is, took this to VPP. Response so far has been underwhelming. ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 01:18, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Now I admit it oversteps the three formatting rules but I couldn't resist. --Fauzan^{✆ talk}_{✉ mail} 10:11, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

• This is a fragmented discussion on WP:VPR, but I don't oppose the idea and would happily adapt the script used for the Teahouse to be more generic to work on more pages. Since this would be an on-by-default gadget, there should be a community wide consensus to allow for expansion of use of that script. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 00:10, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

The VPP thread died on the vine. I would oppose converting Help desk to the full Teahouse interface, due in part to its most-recent-first setup which is opposite to all other talk spaces that I'm aware of. I just wanted a clearer cue as to how to add to a discussion here, as described above. A much smaller and far less controversial change. ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 11:40, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

Company logos

Lately I've seen a couple regular helpers at this help desk get information wrong about what to do with company logos, so I'd like to straighten out a couple misconceptions.

1. Copyright does not need to be released. The image almost always will not be licensed under a so-called "free" license and it doesn't need to be. But that doesn't stop us from using it. For example, just check the articles for many companies or organizations such as Xerox, Southern Illinois University, or Kenmore. All three articles have the company logo right at the top. The logos are being used here under something called WP:FAIRUSE. Fair use, while pretty strict about how we can use logos, does allow us to use the logo in the article for that company or product.
2. Logos, for the most part, cannot be uploaded to Commons. Commons only allows "free" images and most logos, due to their copyright, do not fall into that category.
3. That said, there are some logos on Commons such as those for Samsung, Apple, Inc., the New York Times, and Coca-Cola due to them being very old, just text, or just some text with simple geometric shapes.

There are other details that are of importance in some cases and I'm not trying to cover everything here. So, please have a look at WP:FAIRUSE and any other guidelines/policies that are related. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dismas (talk • contribs)

Bah! I was concentrating on getting the content and links correct and forgot to sign. Dismas|^(talk) 22:25, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

There is also information at Wikipedia:Logos. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:10, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for that! Dismas|^(talk) 22:25, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Broken link

At the bottom of the Wikipedia:Help desk there is a navigation box with four links (Top of page, Table of Contents, Today's posts, Bottom of page). But, the link to the Top of the page does not work (at least for me). Vanjagenije (talk) 10:15, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't see this, and if it existed it wasn't you who removed it. But Wikipedia:Help_desk#footer (#footer on the page) for "skip to bottom" works for me, and the same idea with #top would also work for me if it existed. I recall that only # has the same effect in all browsers, but was never an official standard, maybe HTML5 or WhatWG "living standard" changed this, please check. –Be..anyone (talk) 11:21, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

This is the little box that floats at the bottom of the left sidebar? The "Top of page" link there is working for me, provided the box is clear of the sidebar's links to tools and languages. -- John of Reading (talk) 12:21, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Fixed.[37] It used the anchor #mw-head which is only defined in the default Vector skin. I have changed it to #top which is in all skins. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:43, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter:: Thanks! I'm not using the Vector skin, so that was the problem. Vanjagenije (talk) 15:18, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Oh, the floating thingy, I asked about that here some days ago, forgot it, and later killed it with AdBlock. HTML5 was an excuse to reinvent popups. :-( –Be..anyone (talk) 18:45, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

WP:THREAD edits

I feel the need to explain my WP:THREAD edits, despite the fact that they are supported by WP:TPO. It's natural to respond negatively to having your stuff corrected, especially if it happens repeatedly.

I don't feel I'm being anal here. It really does improve readabililty to format threads correctly. Otherwise you have to spend time and mental energy figuring out who's being replied to. Somewhat less important, it looks cleaner and more organized. Further, this is the Help desk, which has a higher concentration of newer users than most talk spaces. It seems beneficial to set a good example for these newer users. I suspect it registers with some of them, even if only subliminally.

I'm limiting these edits to three one formatting rules:

• One blank line between speakers.
• No blank line between consecutive comments by the same speaker.
• Indent one more level than the comment you're replying to.

When it's not clear from context who is being replied to, I leave it alone. I also don't worry about threads that have had no activity for a day or two, as they're not being read much anyway.

I hope I'm not ruffling too many feathers or making a nuisance of myself. ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 08:29, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

If you do that to my contributions, I probably won't notice: I have the delusion that I always format my own contributions correctly anyway. And if I somehow do find out that you have reformatted my contributions, I will think "great, a kind person has tidied up my mess". Those who might notice and react badly will be new contributors, who probably don't read this talk page anyway.

Anyway, please keep up the good work! Maproom (talk) 07:42, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

Ditto for me too. In fact I do it too...--ukexpat (talk) 02:07, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Rescued from archive (how do you prevent archive of a single thread?). ―Mandruss ☎ 06:11, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

@Mandruss: For that, see {{DNAU}} - but I think all the help desk regulars have seen this thread by now, so I see no harm in letting it be archived. These new posts will keep the thread here for another 45 days. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:13, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

@John of Reading: Thanks. You may be right, but (1) help desk regulars are not a static group, and (2) even a non-regular may want to know why their comment was modified. The benefit of keeping it may be small, but the cost of keeping it is smaller. I'm adding a long-term DNAU which I will remove when I tire of this (I'm certain I will, eventually). ―Mandruss ☎ 22:01, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

@Mandruss: Please don't add blank lines, either between the items of a bulleted list, or between items indented with colons. This causes accessibility issues, by terminating a list and starting a new one; see WP:INDENTGAP. --Redrose64 (talk) 12:37, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Ack. I didn't get the memo. Corrected. Thanks. ―Mandruss ☎ 13:06, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

@Redrose64: Where was the discussion on that change? Should I remove such blank lines when I'm already editing a thread for indentation? Should I remove them from a thread that doesn't need changes to indentation? (I'm speaking only of Help desk, of course) ―Mandruss ☎ 13:20, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

The principles of WP:LISTGAP and the related WP:INDENTGAP have been on the linked page for as long as I recall - five years or so? They will have been put together by people affected by (or at least with a strong knowledge of) accessibility issues, such as Graham87 (talk · contribs), RexxS (talk · contribs), Pigsonthewing (talk · contribs). As regards the discussion on these guidelines, there have been many, over a long period: some were at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Accessibility, but not all - the Village Pumps (IIRC these included misc, policy, and technical), user talk pages, even article talk pages. Personally I remove blank lines between pairs of list items as here or here, but normally only when adding a new post of my own. I avoid changing the indent level on the same edit as a blank line removal, because the resulting diff is more difficult to follow. See for example this edit - which is what brought me here - where it is difficult to tell what changes were made to my post of 22:55, 22 January 2015, or to Nyttend's post of 23:29, 22 January 2015.

I don't see why help desk should be any different from any other discussion as regards indenting. Since there's a high proportion of new users, it's a good place to lead by example when it comes to good practice. --Redrose64 (talk) 13:56, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

@Redrose64: - I mentioned Help desk because I only do these cleanups at Help desk. I didn't want to give the impression that I was asking about what I should do in talk spaces in general. I understand the concept of doing cleanup only when adding a new post of your own, but this is a special case. By its nature it involves cleanup to any thread, whether I posted there or not, and that seems to have been well received. I'm asking where I should draw the line on blank line removal in the context of the cleanup work described in this thread. Since it's going to hurt readability for many of us (there's no disputing that the blank lines provided a helpful visual separation, especially when the indent level did not change), it's important to establish exactly the parameters for removing them as part of this cleanup. ―Mandruss ☎ 14:20, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Visual separation of posts made by different people is achieved by increasing the indentation by one level each time, see WP:THREAD. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:39, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

@Redrose64: Please see the second box at WP:THREAD. ―Mandruss ☎ 17:29, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Looks like I'm not going to get an answer from Rose on this, so I'll refrain from both adding and removing blank lines unless someone advises otherwise. ―Mandruss ☎ 18:45, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Content disputes at help desk

Re: Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2015 January 29#Units

I think it's a mistake to respond to questions about content disputes by discussing content with the OP. That only reinforces the behavior, encouraging people to run to help desk with every content dispute. We should explain to the OP the correct way to deal with the disagreement and send them on their way. In this case, we also failed to explain the concept of "disruptive", which was part of the OP's question. ―Mandruss ☎ 04:57, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Well, I partly agree and partly disagree. This is where we discuss how to edit Wikipedia, and that should, in my opinion, include discussing both how to deal with content disputes and advising unpleasant editors as to why their comments at the Help Desk were not helpful. I would appreciate the comments of other Help Desk editors about any recent discussions, whether about units, about white people, or anything else. Robert McClenon (talk) 03:33, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Signatures in Titles

Does anyone know why the last two questions had signatures in the title lines? It just seems odd. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:46, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Two new threads have been started since then without the sig. I also tested the "Click here to ask a new question" method. I'm calling it a freak coincidence. ―Mandruss ☎ 01:47, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Many new users have signed the section heading at the help desk. Two in a row just sounds like a non-freak coincidence to me. Template:Editnotices/Page/Wikipedia:Help desk says: "Finally, please 'sign' any statement you post here by placing ~~~~ at the end of your post." If you start a new section then there are two fields and if you don't know anything about signatures then signing the wrong one is not that odd. There are also users who write the whole post in the headline field. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:16, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

In the latter case, writing the whole post in the headline, the Help Desk regulars usually move the body of the post. In both of the non-freak coincidence cases, it wasn't important to remove the signature from the title, and the body of the post was signed also. I agree that odd but non-freak is an explanation. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:19, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

I think I have an explanation. When I comment somewhere where I haven't done so before, I tend to cut and paste the previous comment for formatting and then change the names, content etc., mimicking whatever the last person did as far as formatting goes. I am guessing that is what happened here. I wish I was better at writing clear user instructions, but I fear that spending too much time figuring out and doing what computers want has ruined me for that. :) --Guy Macon (talk) 02:42, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Copying a rendered signature wouldn't produce a new signature, and it usually happens when the edit summary shows the New section feature was used, so the edit window wouldn't have a place to copy from. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:48, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Future of the help desk

We have now had Wikipedia:Teahouse for three years. It is quite active and in my opinion (take it or leave it) it does a much better job at serving as a Wikipedia help desk than this current page. (That's not a criticism of the volunteers who run this page, of course. I mean in terms of how the page is set up.) From the perspective of developing workflows to help new editors get acclimated to Wikipedia, I think it's confusing to say you can either go to the Help Desk or the Teahouse and get two totally different experiences for what's supposed to be the same purpose (getting help). It's unnecessary duplication that makes Wikipedia confusing for no good reason. Given this, what should be the future of the help desk? Do we shut it down and merge operations into the Teahouse? Do we make this page into something different, more specialized? Thoughts and comments are welcome. Harej (talk) 04:15, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

I think that the Help Desk does a better job than the Teahouse at answering non-newbie questions. I also oppose merging the Help Desk into the Teahouse because the Teahouse, with its top-posting, is wrong, and can give newbie editors the idea that top-posting is correct. I would suggest that, instead, the Teahouse be merged into the Help Desk. That is my opinion. Robert McClenon (talk) 04:22, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

In my humblest of opinions, it does not help a new user to present them with a talk space experience that is greatly different from any they will ever see anywhere else at Wikipedia (being upside-down is only part of it). Actually I've had similar thoughts, that the duplication doesn't make much sense for multiple reasons, but I was thinking about the future of Teahouse instead. If Flow ever arrives, and it is implemented in these spaces, this will become moot as the interface will be the same.

I wasn't here when Teahouse was born, but I assume it is younger than the Help Desk, and it was created because Help Desk had gained a reputation as an unfriendly place for new users. That would be the only reason to create it that I can think of. In my still-humble opinion, the folks here are friendly and helpful enough with new users and things have improved in that area. ―Mandruss ☎ 04:30, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

The Teahouse is younger. To the best of my knowledge (and I have read research literature on the Teahouse), the Teahouse was not created in response to the Help Desk specifically but in response to a more general concern with how Wikipedia treated newcomers. Harej (talk) 05:35, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Actually it has been awhile since I visited Teahouse. On second thought, I guess they do go out of their way to be friendly there, more so than here; we're helpful, polite, and respectful, but fairly businesslike. You don't see any "Hi! Welcome to the Help Desk!". That's a matter of personality, not the venue, and there would be nothing to prevent those friendly people from being just as friendly at the Help Desk. It might even be contagious. ―Mandruss ☎ 09:29, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

I hope that both will be retained. They serve different purposes: the Teahouse welcomes and helps new editors, while the Help Desk handles difficult questions. It is the interests of everyone (new editors; experienced editors with questions; those good at welcoming new editors; those with answers to difficult questions) if there is some degree of self-sorting by those needing help. Admittedly this self-sorting is not perfect, and questions like "how can I create an article about ...?" are often asked on the Help Desk; but that is no reason to merge the two. Maproom (talk) 11:25, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

This is off topic I suppose but I've never understood why anyone would think "I need help with something. I'm going to look for something to do with tea." Dismas|^(talk) 11:48, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Keep both. I'm active at both and they each have their strengths. The Teahouse may be friendlier to newcomers but I think experienced users often get more useful answers at the help desk, and the answers are often easier to write because you can just give links where the Teahouse expects you to summarize the relevant parts. The Teahouse friendliness also becomes too much for me at times, like Wikipedia:Teahouse/Questions#I got a message about spamming, please help :/ where three posters before me wouldn't say that the user actually was spamming. Somebody even removed the spam warning. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:17, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Keep both. I don't see, how the strengths of both approaches (Help Desk: short, "business-like" answers, quick smaller fixes and links to further info. Teahouse: Detailed, slightly more welcoming for the complete newbie editor, often offering more background and context) could be "merged" and preserved. Someone with a single, quick question is usually better served at the Help Desk; someone completely lost and/or inexperienced is often better off at the Teahouse (imo). GermanJoe (talk) 15:38, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Arguments to keep both are compelling. They also suggest that intro information for new users should mention Teahouse but NOT help desk. By the time a new user learned that help desk exists, they might be in need of the kind of help that help desk specializes in. ―Mandruss ☎ 15:43, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Look at the question I asked at Wikipedia:Help desk#Guidelines for the use of Template:Archive top and Template:Archive bottom. I doubt that I would have gotten a good answer to such a technical/policy question at the teahouse.

A: It is lost because you read the answer before reading the question.

Q: You mention lost context. How is context lost?

A: We read from top to bottom, left to right.

Q: How so?

A: It messes up the order in which people normally read text.

Q: Why is that such a bad thing?

A: The lost context.

Q: What makes top-posted replies harder to read than bottom-posted?

--Guy Macon (talk) 16:07, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Having already said that the Help Desk should not be merged into the Teahouse, I will agree with a few statements. First, the Teahouse experience, as noted, is unlike that of Wikipedia talk pages, because the hosts go out of their way to be friendly. That isn't bad, but the new editors may then go to article talk pages and discover that NO ONE is like the Teahouse hosts. Most editors are businesslike on talk pages, and some are tendentious, and talk pages look upside down because the Teahouse is upside down. New editors will sooner or later encounter regular Wikipedia editors and a few flamers and trolls, but TH sets them up to be let down. This doesn't mean get rid of it, but it does mean that it is an anomaly, and we shouldn't model anything on it. I also agree that the Teahouse hosts were too indirect in the specific case of the editor who was inserting spam links, and he or she really just needed to be told, "Wikipedia doesn't work that way." So, I will restate the point that merging the Help Desk into the Teahouse is a sort of silly optimistic concept one would expect at the Teahouse. (After enough cups of tea, the caffeine makes one too perky.) Robert McClenon (talk) 16:14, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

The forced "friendliness" of the Teahouse gets on my nerves sometimes. Any newbie who really needs that level of cutesy syrupiness obviously doesn't have the emotional/intellectual maturity to survive for long as a WP editor anyway. When I do answer at the Teahouse I get a feeling I need to be extra careful not to step on any of the pink flowers or cute fluffy bunnies that infest the place. The difference between WP and the Teahouse is like the difference between an international tv news network studio and the set of Barney the purple dinosaur. I also do not like it's contrarian top posting, I have never seen a proper convincing argument why it is necessary for it to be different from the rest of the entire site. I also find quite often that Teahouse answerers are not technically as competent and correct as the Help desk answerers. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 20:43, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

I think I just realized why I haven't visited Teahouse in awhile. Thanks. ―Mandruss ☎ 21:22, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

I think it's clear that many new editors have benefited from the more welcoming and lenient atmosphere at the Teahouse. Some of them have since become productive Wikipedians. Given that it has proven to be beneficial, it being different from the rest of Wikipedia--in format or in atmosphere--isn't a very strong argument for shutting it down, as the differences may very well be the reasons for its success. wctaiwan (talk) 02:02, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

And Guy Macon has a point, even though the Teahouse is only upside-down in the overall flow, not in individual threads (unlike Usernet top-posting, common and deprecated). Robert McClenon (talk) 16:14, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Oppose any merger because of the two different atmospheres as noted above. And the editor who gave an "only warning" to the newbie in the case mentioned above should be trouted. Yes, the links were to his blog but new good-faith editors should be pointed to guidelines to see if they'll change their behavior before getting an only warning. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 21:31, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Thank you everyone for your feedback. Do note that I didn't consider merging the two to be the only option; I simply raised it as one of multiple options. Given the clearly different use cases of the two, what can we do to more wisely direct traffic according to need? (As for the problems with Teahouse, that should be saved for WT:Teahouse.) Harej (talk) 01:55, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Maybe we can look out for people asking questions politely, and show them the door. InedibleHulk (talk) 02:15, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

@InedibleHulk: That's a bit harsh, is it not? "Showing them the door", I mean. We could be a bit kinder if we were to redirect them. Tharthandorf Aquanashi (talk) 03:20, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

It was a bit of wordplay. Only harsh when you look at one way. If we could "open the door" for them, that'd be rhetorically nicer, but we can't do that, for technical reasons. Best we can do is show it to them, with good intentions. Don't boot them. Kickstart them. InedibleHulk (talk) 03:30, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Ah, I see. Clever. Tharthandorf Aquanashi (talk) 03:46, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

what can we do to more wisely direct traffic according to need? Only what I said above; not sure you saw that. Identify all the places where new users are given introductory guidance, remove Help Desk links, add Teahouse links where appropriate. For example, Template:Welcomeg currently links to Help Desk but not to Teahouse!. It also contains a link, Where to ask questions or make comments (why the redundancy?), and that page contains links to both Teahouse and Help Desk, but Help Desk is described as "the main place to ask a question". As a new user I might well be inclined to choose the main place to ask a question. So you could include the phrase "Recommended for newer users" in the Teahouse description, and "Not recommended for newer users" for Help Desk. ―Mandruss ☎ 07:44, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Belated ping for Harej. ―Mandruss ☎ 07:54, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Echoing others, Keep both; two different forums, serving somewhat different purposes and having different cultures. If I had to choose one, though, I'd get rid of the Teahouse in a second and keep the helpdesk. Though I post there often, I have many problems with the Teahouse (in addition to the abomination of top posting), which I'll keep to myself as beyond this thread.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 04:25, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Last time I looked, I was among the most active Teahouse hosts. I will agree that initial responses to the spammer the other day were too permissive, but I was firm and unambiguous when I looked at the situation. After acknowledging that, I find the notion that the Teahouse atmosphere is syrupy and full of flowers and bunnies to be hyperbolic. Yes, we encourage a friendly greeting, but I find little logic in the notion that because editors may encounter rudeness elsewhere, that we ought to be brusque in communicating with them from the get go. I have encountered internet rudeness countless times for decades and I have consistently tried to be polite the vast majority of the time. I find myself embroiled in far fewer disputes than my colleagues who approach things in another fashion. I have no strong opinion on the top post/bottom post issue, and defer to consensus. In conclusion, for those of you who dislike the Teahouse atmosphere, format or graphics, please continue working to improve the encyclopedia in other venues. If, on the other hand, you think the Teahouse adds value to this project, please stop by and help out as often as you wish. Thank you. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 04:50, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

It seems that this talk of "fluffy bunnies" has caused the Teahouse hosts to toughen up their attitudes. Yesterday someone asked what seemed to me a sensible question there, and got three unhelpful responses. I felt compelled to answer it myself, despite my being rubbish at the fluffy bunny business :-) Maproom (talk) 21:40, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Have you seen all the attention seeking questions at Special:Contributions/Frogger48? That would cause a reaction at any other active page but the Teahouse gives the fluffy bunny treatment. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:02, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Cullen328 has finally stepped in at Wikipedia:Teahouse/Questions#Pedophile are not rapists, after an amazingly fluffy "nice to see you again on the Teahouse" from another host. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:36, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter: I had no idea what that user was up to. At the time of replying I didn't even see his comment at Wikipedia talk:Child protection. I was just upholding Teahouse standards by welcoming him that way. I better stay away from Child protection topics for a while. I honestly wasn't aware what he was trying to mean. I thought he had a confusion between those two words.--Chamith (talk) 12:53, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

OK. You have some Teahouse posts in the time the user has been active but maybe you haven't read the many other posts. I think the Teahouse posts alone should have caused a reaction some time ago. I'm an active Teahouse contributor myself but haven't officially signed up as host and sometimes refrain from posting after getting this reaction to [38]. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:16, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

I did see other posts of the user, but I didn't bother to read them as they were already answered. While looking into his contributions I noticed that he only made couple of article edits recently. Though it seems like he had time to ask irrelevant questions on the Teahouse. I believe that this user's is not here to build an encyclopedia.--Chamith (talk) 13:34, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

Are your ears burning?

Are your ears burning? Because someone is talking about you. See Wikipedia talk:Reference desk#Perhaps you are approaching this the wrong way. :) --Guy Macon (talk) 22:05, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Can we also have skip to table of contents?

Currently there is only a Skip to bottom displayed at the top of the page. Can we also have a Skip to TOC? Thanks in advance, Ottawahitech (talk) 03:18, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Maybe it's something I have set in my preferences that provides it for me but I already have a little toolbox in the lower right of my browser window that provides that option. Plus a couple more. In all, it has "Top of page, TOC, Today's posts, and Bottom of page". Dismas|^(talk) 03:43, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Reference Desks, again

Two weeks ago a mention was made of controversy at the Reference Desks, and that the Help Desk does a better and more businesslike job of answering questions, including dealing with trolls and flamers, than the Reference Desks. A Request for Comments is in progress at the Reference Desk talk page. Your attention is welcome. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:01, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Convenience link to the RfC. It seeks outside opinions on whether the guidelines for the Reference Desks should be decided by local consensus. I can't get my head round this combination of recursion and contradiction. Maproom (talk) 09:51, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

"Also" in the header

In WP:HD#New Article, Sandbox the OP explained having posted their question at both here and the Teahouse by having seen "New users: While this is a good place to ask questions, you may also ask your questions at the Teahouse, an area specifically for new users to get help with editing, article creation, and general Wikipedia use, in a friendly environment." in the header. I would like to change "also" to "alternatively" in the template. Comments? --ColinFine (talk) 21:30, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Agreed. - David Biddulph (talk) 21:46, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Or, "you may prefer the Teahouse..."? ―Mandruss ☎ 22:21, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

I tweaked it to read: new users may prefer to ask their questions at...--ukexpat (talk) 12:33, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

RfC about Referencing tutorial

Pls see Help talk:Referencing for beginners#RfC: What method first -- Moxy (talk) 15:46, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Motorbike problem

<<long post removed>>

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:304:1005:76B9:C70:716F:7513:13FF (talk) 04:58, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

This question is misplaced. I suggest you try the Science reference desk. -- John of Reading (talk) 06:36, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Should be interesting, motorcycle mechanics from a science perspective. I'd suggest looking into better sites for this kind of question. ―Mandruss ☎ 06:56, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

@Mandruss: The science ref desk claims to covers engineering, but you are right, of course. -- John of Reading (talk) 08:15, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

BLPs

I see that very often, as soon as an issue is posted to the Help Desk about a biography of a living person, the BLP gets cleaned up quickly. While the biographies of living persons noticeboard is a recommended place to discuss issues about BLPs, the Help Desk turns out also to be a good place to raise issues about BLPs. Thank you to the editors who watch the Help Desk in order to maintain the accuracy and verifiability of BLPs. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:40, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

Irrelvant Posting of French Flags

https://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Humanities#The_Rape_of_Nanking <- Is anybody else seeing this? It doesn't come up when I edit (to answer the question). KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (もしもし！) 09:23, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

 Fixed with a {{reflist-talk}} in an earlier section. ―Mandruss ☎ 09:37, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

Hatting

I see that an off-topic question was hatted by User:AndyTheGrump. While I agree that the question was irrelevant, I would submit that experience at the Reference Desk indicates that ignoring the question or saying that we won't respond to the question is better than hatting it, which may even result in a Streisand effect. Your opinion may be different, but I would not like to see hatting of questions, even off-topic questions, become a practice here. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:18, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

Considering the readership of the Help Desk, I think a Streisand effect most unlikely here. And as a contributor, I want to be able to find questions which I can usefully answer: this is not helped by having to read past swathes of out-of-place content. I don't think actual questions should be hatted; but the irrelevant material that sometimes follows them, and the entire draft articles or other stuff that is sometimes posted in place of a question, should be. Maproom (talk) 06:57, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

Notice of IRC proposal

There is a proposal related to Wikipedia's live help at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#IRC help channel disclaimer. PHANTOMTECH (talk) 16:46, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

archiving delay

Due to a series of circumstances both too complicated and too banal to explain, archiving and date header addition by scsbot is down for a day or two. I can probably get it working again by tomorrow night, but if the hiatus lasts much longer than that I'll let y'all know. —Steve Summit (talk) 02:22, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

I'll keep it below 100 kilobytes. -- John of Reading (talk) 06:00, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Good to see Scsbot back to work. Thank you.  SchreiberBike | ⌨  02:04, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Is it allowed to post again in the wp:hd ?

I posted this expired question "Is he a primary source?" and in my opinion I have not received a reply . Is it allowed to post again in the wp:hd ?

You can ask PBS on his talk page to get an answer to your question about the policy. --IRISZOOM (talk) 11:32, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Request an account process needs help

Hello all. I'm DocTree, a member of the English Wikipedia Account Creation Team (ACC). As of April 2015 our project has a persistent backlog in creating accounts for new users. Over 100 people are waiting up to a week for an account on the English Wikipedia. If you can spare some time to do a few requests a day, you can help us clear the current backlog and then keep the wait for an account to a day or less.

ACC helps people who are unable to self-create a user account. Some may be sight impaired, others are collateral damage caused by blocks of shared IPs. We use the Account Creation Interface, usually just called the Tool, to screen out attempts to create inappropriate accounts. If this interests you and you're willing to help, and you match the following description, then please do apply per the procedure at Registering. Ideal candidates:

• Are Identified to the Wikimedia Foundation
• Are experienced, knowledgeable and in good standing with no recent blocks
• Know and are able to apply the username policy
• Have worked with new contributors
• Have a good record of civil behavior even while in a dispute

The full list of requirements is here.

We have a very friendly team to help you get started and we have an IRC channel. If you have any questions for us or about the process, feel free to ask at the talkpage. If you can help, we would greatly appreciate it. For the ACC Team, DocTree (ʞlɐʇ·ʇuoɔ) WER 15:14, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

@Doctree: I see you've also posted in a couple of other venues. One additional place would be WP:VPM. Fairly high visibility, and it wouldn't be out of place there. I don't think I'm your guy, but good luck. ―Mandruss ☎ 15:23, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

Top Photo

Don't you have any photos that make her look better than a witch? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.163.90.217 (talk) 22:16, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for your note. I can't tell which photo you are thinking of. Could you tell us the name of the article?  SchreiberBike | ⌨  22:30, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Proposal to add global JavaScript

There is an ongoing discussion that watchers of this page may be interested in on Proposal to add global JavaScript and add an extra step for new users to get live IRC help. — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 19:42, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Henry Grossman

Moved to WP: Help Desk. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:10, 30 April 2015 (UTC) 2604:2000:F8E8:C500:CC60:23BA:BE9C:BF70 (talk) 17:46, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

Invitation to comment on VP proposal: Establish WT:MoS as the official site for style Q&A on Wikipedia

The role of the Help Desk has come up in a proposal at the Village Pump that WT:MoS be established as Wikipedia's official page for style Q&A. This would involve actively guiding editors with style questions to WT:MoS and away from other pages. Participation is welcome, especially from help desk editors who address style questions or who can tell us how often style questions come up. Darkfrog24 (talk) 21:39, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

The proposal at VPP doesn't have an RFC tag for the bot. Is there a reason why it isn't tagged? Robert McClenon (talk) 21:44, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the tipoff. Since it's a proposal and not a request for comment, I thought the mechanics were different. Darkfrog24 (talk) 22:11, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

Request an account process needs help

Hello everyone, I'm John F. Lewis, an administrator on Wikipedia's account creation interface. Recently, our project has had an increased backlog in getting accounts for new users. Our numbers are currently over 400 people waiting for accounts on the English Wikipedia. If you could even spare a moment to do a few requests a day to help us clear this backlog, that would go a long way to encouraging new editors to participate with an account. If this interests you and you're willing to help, and you match the following description, then please do apply! Ideal users are:

• Identified to the Wikimedia Foundation or are willing and able to identify,
• In good standing with no recent blocks or other sanctions,
• Understand and are able to apply the username policy,
• Have worked with new contributors,
• Please see the full list of requirements for more information.

We have a very friendly team to help you get started, we also have a private IRC channel where you can ask questions or get help with difficult account requests. If you have any questions for us or about the process, feel free to ask at the talk page. If you can help out, we would greatly appreciate it. For the ACC team, John F. Lewis (talk) 18:05, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

Help desk or Help Desk?

Maybe a nit not worth talking about; maybe not. Some of us write "Help Desk" because it seems more natural, and, in fact, the title bar in the big blue box says "Wikipedia Help Desk". Others write "Help desk" because that's the page title. I think it's worth resolving the discrepancy, as minor as it may seem to some.

Wikipedia:Article titles#Article title format says, "Use lowercase, except for proper names", which explains the current title. However, I think Help Desk should be treated as a proper name, and the page should be moved to Wikipedia:Help Desk.

Wikipedia:Reference desk and its subpages have the same problem, but I'm invoking WP:OTHER. ―Mandruss ☎ 10:16, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

Another nitpick; it's not an article so article title rules do not apply. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 11:02, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

WP:BIKESHED. Doesn't matter. --Jayron32 11:14, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

It doesn't matter, let's spend the time making useful contributions to Wikipedia rather than arguing about this. FWIW, I think Help desk is better. Joseph2302 (talk) 11:18, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

Reference to BIKESHED is dismissive and inherently disrespectful, but I appear to be outnumbered. Worth a try and thanks for the comments. ―Mandruss ☎ 11:22, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

Is the Help Desk also good for questions about WP policies?

Subject is it — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.223.186.189 (talk) 03:19, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

The help desk is for "questions about how to use or edit Wikipedia" - which can clearly include specific questions regarding policy, as it pertains to specific issues. However, it is not a forum for general discussions about policy, which generally should go in Wikipedia:Village pump (policy). AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:40, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Removal of Question from Help Desk Because Asked and Answered

Is it permitted to remove a question from the Help Desk because the question has been answered? Most editors who ask a question leave the question standing and let the bot archive it. Occasionally the editor who asks a question then removes it after it has been answered, thinking that this is useful or simplifies maintenance. My own thinking is that removing the question prevents the possibility that someone else might offer more or different advice. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:10, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

I restored a question that had been removed and cautioned the editor, who has in turn rebuked me, so my question is to the other Help Desk regular editors. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:10, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

I am not asking about the removal of troll questions, which is differently controversial (but provokes more controversy at the Reference Desk than here). Robert McClenon (talk) 21:10, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

I agree that removing an answered question is unhelpful, as then it doesn't get archived, and users with similar questions can't find it by using the archive search (though I'm not sure how much use that gets anyway). However, using the level 2 deletion warning template on the userpage of a person who was acting in good faith seems a little bitey. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 21:19, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Okay. If this happens again, I will use a Level 1 with an explanation. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:41, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

May be a blip in questions about VisualEditor

Hi everyone,

Just a quick note to make sure you all heard about User:EpochFail's upcoming A/B test for newly registered users. The idea is to see whether offering VisualEditor to them changes their chance of becoming productive editors (more on the project page at Meta). They had some problems with the logging software a little while ago, so this test is actually going to start with a pre-test on 21 May 2015 (probably starting at 15:00 UTC, but the time may change) to find out whether the fixes actually fixed the problem. Assuming that everything's working, they'll do the proper one-week study at a later date.

If the Help Desk gets questions about VisualEditor, then it mostly works like Google Docs or Microsoft Word; mw:Help:VisualEditor/User guide might be useful. If you haven't used it for a while, then you might consider going to Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-betafeatures and opting in. It's much faster and more stable than it used to be, and the automatic ref-filling mw:Citoid system is pretty awesome for some of our most commonly cited sources. If you see problems during this test, please let me know! {{Ping}} me, leave a note on my talk page, post bugs at WP:VEF, whatever works for you. Nominally, my role in this test is to find new problems in VisualEditor, but I want to know about any kind of problem at all that you think is unusual or might be related. Thanks, Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 06:34, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

The one-week "real" test is supposed to have just started. I hear that last weeks' test of the testing software exposed a pair of bugs in the logging systems, but that they weren't serious. As always, if you see weirdness or can't answer a question, feel free to talk to me directly. Thanks for your help. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 03:45, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

It looks like I forgot to tell you that the results from this study were posted last week; sorry about that. You can read the results at m:Research:VisualEditor's effect on newly registered editors/May 2015 study. The WP:TLDR is that everything is approximately equal, except that users of VisualEditor are slightly less likely to be reverted. One of the interesting things we learned: a lot of editors who had access to both VisualEditor and the wikitext editor played around a bit with each, and then chose the one that they wanted to use to make their edit.

There's also a related proposal at the Village Pump to give new users both editors, and let them choose which one to use. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:58, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

Co-op officially open, looking for mentors

Hey Help Desk participants. Back in March-April 2015, a small team of us ran a pilot for a mentorship space for newer editors called the the Co-op. The work for the space was funded by an IEG grant from the WMF. After some analysis and tweaks to the space post-pilot, we are officially open this week, and we're looking for additional mentors. Our final report is still being reviewed by the WMF, but it is more or less done, and you are welcome to check it out. Here are some of our more prominent findings:

1. Editors who engaged with a mentor remained active longer, edited more articles, and made substantially more edits overall than editors who were not mentored.
2. Editors waited far less time for a mentor thanks to our matching system. Getting matched with an editor took less than five minutes, thanks to the use of HostBot. Waiting times for a mentor to actually contact an editor took less than a day, but was as low as an hour or two.
3. A minority of experienced editors sought out mentorship despite not receiving an invitation during our pilot. These editors may have gotten the most out of mentorship, as they interacted more frequently with their mentor and in more complex topics compared to newer editors.

Based on our results, the Co-op seems to have a lot of benefits for newer editors. But our mentorship space will not work if we lack mentors. If you enjoy helping new editors here at the Help Desk, mentoring is probably right up your alley. While mentoring does require some time and effort, our findings from the Co-op suggest that such effort has a beneficial impact on newer editors, and even on experienced ones. If you're interested in becoming a mentor, please consider joining us. Thanks, I, JethroBT ^{drop me a line} 21:05, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia-en-help (IRC) needs you!

Hi all helpers. If you enjoy helping new users, consider coming over to the IRC help channel #wikipedia-en-help (#wikipedia-en-help ^connect) to help new users in a live chat! We're in need of more helpers, particularly in the region of midnight to midday UTC, as many users are coming in to the channel to look for help and not getting it because no one is around. If you think you'd be interested you can just connect using that link (you may also want to join #wikipedia-en-helpers ^connect), and if you want to stick around with an identifier for you as a helper, apply for a cloak :) Thanks, Sam Walton (talk) 11:13, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

Samwalton9, I am put off by the confusing technicalities involved in setting up and using IRC. --Fauzan^{✆ talk}_{✉ mail} 12:28, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

@Fauzan: I can sympathise, I don't think we should be using IRC for this, but unfortunately it's the best available option right now. Would it help if I made a "becoming a live help helper" guide regarding how to set up an IRC client and register for a cloak etc.? Sam Walton (talk) 12:44, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

Sure! A better help guide is needed. --Fauzan^{✆ talk}_{✉ mail} 14:28, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

I'll put something together :) Sam Walton (talk) 16:31, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

@Fauzan: I've put together an IRC set up guide at User:Samwalton9/Live help guide. I think between that, Wikipedia:IRC/wikipedia-en-help, and Wikipedia:IRC it should make sense now. Let me know if not though. Sam Walton (talk) 17:20, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

We're still really in need of more helpers, I'd say there are less than 5 to 10 active helpers, and there's usually no one helping between roughly midnight and midday UTC leaving loads of users without help. Sam Walton (talk) 16:57, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

VisualEditor update

Two things that may affect you all here:

• All new accounts have access to both VisualEditor and the wikitext editor now. With brand-new accounts, you can assume that about a third of them are using VisualEditor (and likely have no idea what the software is called, because there is no name for the software visible to them).
• James F. has started a discussion at WP:VPPR about offering VisualEditor to more accounts. This proposal would (for example) retroactively opt-in editors who were missed during the last couple of months (e.g., 75% of the editors who created an account during the week of the gradual deployment process when only 25% of new accounts were being opted in, etc.) and dead accounts. If you have opinions on the best way to handle these accounts, then please join the conversation. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:28, 8 September 2015 (UTC)