Wikipedia:Help desk

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The help desk is frequently semi-protected, meaning the help desk pages cannot be edited by unregistered users (IP addresses), as well as accounts that are not confirmed or autoconfirmed (accounts that are at least 4 days old with at least 10 edits on English Wikipedia).

However, you can still get direct assistance on your talk page. ; a volunteer will visit you there shortly!

There are currently 3 user(s) asking for help via the {{Help me}} template:

Is this article (Political aspects of Islam) too long?

197,941 bytes. Have been trying to improve it and adding to it. But now .... --Louis P. Boog (talk) 01:06, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

My personal impression only: it's long, well-written, and has a lot of interesting content. But it lacks an overall "theme". For instance, why does it have an image from the Sanaa manuscript, which is not mentioned in the text? My impression is that editors with something interesting (and balanced, and referenced) to say about Islam have added it without considering whether it's really a "political aspect". Maproom (talk) 07:22, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

Its part of the questioning of the traditional narrative of Islamic history. Very interesting subject, but like you say, what does it have to do with politics and Islam. (I didn't put it there but obviously haven't deleted it.) --Louis P. Boog (talk) 19:32, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

@Louis P. Boog: you could have a look at Wikipedia:Article size#Size guideline and use the Wikipedia:Prosesize gadget. The article is over 10,000 words, so according to the guideline it Probably should be divided or trimmed, though the scope of a topic can sometimes justify the added reading material. Also, the size does not include several block quotes, which should possibly be replaced replaced with summaries of their content. TSventon (talk) 11:18, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

@TSventon: thanks. I'll check these. -Louis P. Boog (talk) 13:23, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

Graph showing a user's past activity

I used to be able to find a graph showing my past activity on Wikipedia (I think on en:Wikipedia, but it would have been much the same across all Wikipedia projects). It was colourful, showing mainspace edits, talkpage edits, and a few other things in different colours. It went back for more than ten years. It was I think weekly or monthly. If it wasn't actually provided by Wikipedia, it was linked to from here.

And now I can't find it. Can anyone help? Maproom (talk) 22:07, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

@Maproom First, go to your ordinary contributions page. Scroll to the very bottom. There, there's a tiny link (just after User rights) that says Edit statistics. Click that, then scroll down to the colourful bit.
Edit: Here is where you should end up. Musiconeologist • talk • contribs 22:18, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

That's it! Thank you. Maproom (talk) 22:56, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

The only reason I knew is that I spent ages trying to find it myself a few weeks ago! It's pretty well hidden, if you ask me. Musiconeologist • talk • contribs 00:37, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

You can find these pages more easily if you enable the gadget "XTools: dynamically show statistics about a page's history under the page heading" in your Special:Preferences at the bottom of the Appearance section. There you'll see at the top of every page some statistics and links. -- Reconrabbit 14:42, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

Are video games, movies, TV shows citation themselves?

I looked at Hulk Hogan. Both Filmography and Video games tables do not use citations. Looking for the guideline about video games/movies/TV shows do not need to be sourced and they are citation themselves; e.g. linking to their WP article is enough. Thanks. --Mann Mann (talk) 03:00, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

Unless they went uncredited or took an (unfamiliar) Alan Smithee credit, sources are not needed for appearances in video games, TV shows, or movies as the credits themselves would verify it, making it uncontroversial and pointless to cite the work. If they did Alan Smithee or go uncredited, you will need a source. —Jéské Couriano v^_^v ^{threads critiques} 05:32, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

Make the Lists Collapsed

Hello, can someone please make the lists in this template collapsed? Each list should be collapsed by default. Then the user can click on a + icon or "Show" to see the full list. For example like this template. -Artanisen (talk) 05:53, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

I took the liberty to apply the necessary tweaks for collapsed lists directly to your page. Use diff in the version history to see the changes. Hope this helps. Erukx (talk) 11:41, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

This is good, thanks Erukx. Artanisen (talk) 13:45, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

Citation error

In the article False humility, reference number 4 shows an error. I tried but could not fix the error. Please help. Arbabi second (talk) 10:53, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

اربابی دوم Wikipedia checks ISBN numbers and flagged the ISBN in reference 4 as invalid. I have fixed the error by taking the ISBN from the Hachette website. TSventon (talk) 11:04, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

@TSventon The source problem has been resolved. Thank you for your help. Arbabi second (talk) 11:11, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

Articles for deletion process

Hello, I am wondering where would be a good venue to have an open discussion on the suitability of the current AfD process. An editor has recently posted 52 AfDs on a tight subject, posting these in around an hour. [I actually think they have a point and many of them don't and likely won't ever meet the criteria for standalone articles, but that's neither here nor there, IMHO; a flawed system that chances upon the right result sometimes is still a flawed system.]

Considering the new article approvers do such a great job filtering out the bulk of pages that have zero notability at the point of creation it seems to me that the facility to delete pages that have existed for 20~ years needs to be a little more involved. Just being able to drop a quick template in with minor alterations and move onto the next nomination in 60-90 seconds seems like a very easy trigger to pull, one that can cause a much larger amount of work for anyone researching the article, and for closing admins who have to evaluate sources and come up with a decision. It seems very lopsided in favour of making it easy to delete and hard to save articles, especially as a flood of nominations like that result in voter fatigue.

Deletion is an extreme action for many pages, it feels like if someone wants an article actually scrapped outright they should be willing to put more than a minute into stating so. Is there not some sort of mechanism that could be used to make starting an AfD a little more involved? Even if it's just a series of checkboxes say "This article requires deletion as it has no suitable content to be merged to another page", "I have checked GNews for sources", "I have checked GBooks for sources", "I have checked the references already in the article"... Just something that puts a bit more onus on the nominator to do a little bit more of the legwork.

Again, if this is the wrong place for such a discussion I apologise, and would be grateful if someone could point me towards the right place. BoomboxTestarossa (talk) 15:03, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Articles for Deletion for AfD in particular would be the best bet, though I will point out WP:BEFORE to you since that seems to address the crux of your complaint. —Jéské Couriano v^_^v ^{threads critiques} 15:13, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

Thank you! I didn't realise there was a talk page actually on there, not a shining moment for me. Ta =) BoomboxTestarossa (talk) 15:15, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

Uploading British Blind Sport logo for article infobox

I'd like to upload the British Blind Sport logo so it can be added to the British Blind Sport article's infobox, but I'm unsure if I need to upload it here or commons. The logo is on their website which can be found here. [1] KaraLG84 (talk) 20:58, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

Hello, @KaraLG84. The website says "© British Blind Sport 2025", so unless you can find a statement that the logo is licensed differently, you must assume that it is copyright, and so it may not be uploaded to Commons. It is probably appropriate to upload it to Wikipedia as non-free content and use it in that article - see WP:LOGOS for more information.

However, this is like painting the windows on a house which is about to fall down. Logos - and infoboxes - are not essential parts of an article: citations to reliable sources are. ColinFine (talk) 21:12, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

@KaraLG84 I uploaded it and added it to the article, hope you don't mind. Possibly this would be accepted on Commons, see "Licensing" at File:Enhanced Games logo.jpg for an example, but I'd ask there first. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:01, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

That's no problem. Thanks a lot for doing that. KaraLG84 (talk) 08:30, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

Original research in graphics

If I make a graphic that uses sources that are inside of an article and perhaps also cite them inside of the media description itself, does that count as original research for the compilation of data not done in other sources? I'm specifically talking about map images and graphs, charts, etc. I'm guessing the answer is "no" but I want a better source than my own analysis for this. Departure– (talk) 13:46, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

As long as you cite your sources I don't think that counts as original research, but I'm not an expert on this sort of thing. User:Chorchapu (talk|edits|commons|wiktionary|simple english) 17:33, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

Hello, @Departure–. It seems to me that if you're presenting information from a single source in a new way, that's fine, but if you're collecting information from more than one source, that would be synthesis. ColinFine (talk) 21:32, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

I think if you gave a specific example it would help. The synthesis policy says you can't state or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources. If you combined population data in a chart from an 1880-1927 source and a different 1928-2024 source I am not sure that would imply a conclusion. Or a map with 1980s shipping routes and 2010s shipping routes. You should cite your sources regardless. Commander Keane (talk) 11:58, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

I'm specifically thinking of making a map of cities within the Chicago metropolitan area and neighborhoods of Chicago that have been struck by a tornado (Draft:Tornadoes in Chicago). Such media doesn't exist currently anywhere but can be sourced to official records in the body of the article which is what I was planning on doing. Departure– (talk) 12:32, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

@Departure–: I am rather liberal with these things, so I don't see a huge problem. If it gets rejected from the article, it can still live on Wikimedia Commons. If you are just showing the F4s and F5 clearly labelled it may better than dotting a map with every occurrence recorded. I am not sure if you have exact coordinates of stikes or you are going to shade neighbourhoods. It may get into the realm of original research if you are making too many decisions for the viewer, so a second opinion would be good if you are going to lose a lot of time doing it. Windy city hey? Who knew. Commander Keane (talk) 07:32, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

Touchdown points, termination coordinates, and places explicitly sourced in the article, that's what I plan. Making the map itself might be a bit harder. Departure– (talk) 12:28, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

@Departure–, I always include the sources for data similar to that of your context in the image file itself -- often in a box below. That way, the sources are unambiguously external and secondary (i.e. I'm just gathering them together in a visual form, fully citing them). They won't be amended or deleted in error by others, and I don't need to divert the reader's attention in the body text by writing narrative intended only to hang the citation footnotes on. See here, for example, used in this article. Cheers, Simon – SCHolar44 🇦🇺 💬 at 12:49, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

@SCHolar44 Your example is contrary to the manual of style for images, which says that textual information should always be transmitted as text, rather than in an image. True text can be easily searched, selected, copied, and manipulated by readers...: see MOS:TEXTASIMAGES. Mike Turnbull (talk) 13:04, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

How to temp vanish

i can’t take much more and i want to hide because this person is harassing me and writing weird stories about me. I don’t know what to do. I’m sad anxious angry. I need to vanish for a bit as they will find a way to harass me more and link to my profile in more articles i am losing my mind i am barred from taking this to an/I I’ve been told to leave it be. I have no defense much here. I don’t feel safe I’m disgusted and miserable •Cyberwolf•. talk? 18:01, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

Just log out, or close the tab you have WP in. Or register a new account. You can start a new account for privacy reasons. There's no prohibition on making a new account as long as you're not using it to evade sanctions or scrutiny. GMG^talk 18:17, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

ok •Cyberwolf•. talk? 18:32, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

More information: Wikipedia:Clean start

Unless you are under actual policy-based scrutiny you're under no obligation to keep using your current account to edit, especially in a case like this. Departure– (talk) 18:33, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

But i have a block on my account? It says I can’t clean start cuz i have sanctions •Cyberwolf•. talk? 18:34, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

To my knowledge you're just locked out of ANI for three months - any clean start must reflect this. Anyway, from my understanding, the harassment you're facing is just petty trolling. The user is already banned so Wikipedia is already doing their thing, now just on the hunt for sockpuppets. Your talk page is protected so you won't get notified there. At Special:Preferences, you can turn off notifications at Special:Preferences, perhaps change your signature to ask anyone who needs to get through to you to see your talk page.

From there, don't feed the trolls. Don't acknowledge them any more than you would a spider in your house; if you see it, you kill it (or, in this case, report it to SPI if one exists), clean up any damage they've done, and go on with your day. Either way, there's nothing stopping you from just taking a WikiBreak for an unspecified amount of time and coming back when the heat dies down.

I've been harassed before, and not feeding their trolling by giving them attention is a very useful tool in getting them to stop. Departure– (talk) 19:05, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

Yeah… •Cyberwolf•. talk? 19:06, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

Also, don't linger on any specific things someone says about you like this. They're just words coming out of an account recognized by Wikipedia's higher-ups as a disruptive editor. Letting disruptors disrupt is... well, not in Wikipedia's best interests. Any form of acknowledgement beyond a simple revert if you see it is feeding the troll, so don't go out of your way to find any instances of trolling. Disruption from an SPI is usually dealt with by the community within minutes, meaning it might as well not be happening at all from your point of view, as long as you don't go out of your way to find it, especially given your talk page protection. Departure– (talk) 19:11, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

Well I certainly wouldn't recommend using an alternate account to circumvent active sanctions. But in all honestly, you should sod off from ANI anyway. Forgetting that ANI exists is probably the best advice on the whole project. GMG^talk 19:12, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

Ani

Don't forget Ani which still exists - sort of...
Latest summer blockbuster: Predator 9: ANI vs ARBCOM MinorProphet (talk) 16:43, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

A Wikibreak can be most enjoyable. I'm sure you have other interests: forgetting that WP even exists is probably the best advice on the whole project. :) MinorProphet (talk) 17:57, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

Photo

I know less than nothing about copyright law. Are we allowed to use (a low quality version of(?)) an image from https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp54756/michael-arabian for the article Michael Arabian? Polygnotus (talk) 09:37, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

There's no information about previous publication of this photograph, but we are told that it's the work of somebody who died in 1959. And we can assume that it was taken in Britain by somebody who was British. If we don't know for sure of any previous publication, then we have to assume that there was no previous publication. A skim-read of c:Commons:Copyright rules by territory/United Kingdom suggests to me that this photograph won't enter the public domain till 2030. If this is right (and you can peruse that Commons page as easily as I can), then it can't be uploaded to Commons. As for a "fair use" claim, please see Wikipedia:Non-free use rationale guideline; ask here if anything in that page is not clear. -- Hoary (talk) 10:39, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Hm, that sucks because I like his smug expression. Thank you! Polygnotus (talk) 11:08, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

@Polygnotus As Michael Arabian is long dead, then a fair-use image of him can be added locally and used to illustrate our article. See WP:NONFREE, especially WP:NFCI item 10. Make sure you include all the necessary justification when you upload the image. Mike Turnbull (talk) 14:07, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

... and make sure you have the correct person. The only images of him I can find are the ones at the National Portrait Gallery, already linked at the foot of the article. Mike Turnbull (talk) 14:16, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Help for Norwegian topic

Hi all, I have a query about the Order of St. Olav which was awarded to the polar explorer Tryggve Gran in 1915, which he apparently returned in 1925, possibly concerning Svalbard and the Svalbard Act of that year. I'm not sure that the Ref Desks would be the best place to ask. Not being hugely familiar with the language, I wondered whether Norwegian WP might be able to help: where should I direct my question? Best wishes to all as usual on the Help Desk for your tireless efforts, >MinorProphet (talk) 16:55, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

MinorProphet, I suggest trying the reference desk as that operates every day. I looked for the main contributor to no:Tryggve Gran and found no:Bruker:Hermann Gran, i.e. User:Hermann Gran, so you could ask him. His user page says that he is Tryggve Gran's son. He last edited in April. TSventon (talk) 17:11, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

Wow, so swift. Thank you very much, I'll investigate further. MinorProphet (talk) 17:30, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

There is also a no equivalent of WP:RD, no:Wikipedia:Orakelet, if you wanted a third option. TSventon (talk) 17:38, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

How to apply CSS styling for dark mode users only?

I am writing Wikipedia scripts, and I’m struggling to find a clean, simple way to apply specific CSS rules only for users viewing the page in dark mode—whether as a result of their Wikipedia appearance preference being explicitly set to "Dark", or because their OS is in dark mode while their appearance preference is set to "Automatic".

The only working "solution" I’ve managed to implement so far is this:

@media screen and (prefers-color-scheme: dark) {
    html.skin-theme-clientpref-os {
        /* Styles defined here will apply only to dark mode users. */
    }
}

html.skin-theme-clientpref-night {
    /* Styles defined here will also apply only to dark mode users. */
    /* These must be EXACTLY the same styles as above, leading to messy duplication! */
}

As you can see, this is not a practical solution, as it forces me to duplicate every single dark-mode-only CSS rule for two distinct scenarios:

1. The user’s OS is set to dark mode, and their Wikipedia appearance preference is set to "Automatic";
2. The user’s Wikipedia appearance preference is explicitly set to "Dark".

Since the same CSS rules should apply in both cases, manually duplicating them across separate selectors is highly inefficient, especially given the large number of dark-mode-only rules.

I couldn’t find a simple solution, such as a common "dark-mode" class that applies to the <html> or <body> element for all dark mode users (and only for them).

Any help would be greatly appreciated! :) Guycn2 (talk) 17:22, 16 April 2025 (UTC)