Wikipedia:Teahouse

 Courtesy link: Draft:Jim Carroll (futurist)

Hi folks, I'm an author.I've written 43 books - 34 of them in the 1990s that have sold over 1 million copies, all about the Internet; one was #1 in two major national newspapers in Canada. I have literally hundreds of press clippings related tom the books that came from my publisher's clipping service (Prentice Hall) that relate to the stories of the books, and which feature information on everything I was doing and saying the media through the 90s. From there, I segued into that into a new role from 2001 on, and I've spoken at hundreds of conferences all over the world, including some very high profile events. There have been TV interviews, magazine interviews, conference brochures, and all kinds of information online about these events, my observations on the world, interviews ... again, I have hundreds of items. I've hosted multiple national radio shows. I've been an expert witness in various litigations where the court record identifies me and my role within the case documents that are available online. I worked hard to create an article, and noted my conflict of interest in my ID. My first subvmission was declined and I have just reworked it to bring it down to bare minimums. I guess I am wondering - I am trying to go about this in a way that provides proof-of-work, but how can this be done when so much has disappeared into link-rot and is often only available with what I have. I can link much of it to a Proquest ID or a copy I've uploaded to the Internet archive, but I've been warned this could result in a copyright strike. I'm trying to work within the process, but am still very confused about the process. (There was an article with respect to my background up to 2015, but it was taken down for being too vague, link rot, promotional, etc) ~2026-15414-15 (talk) 13:21, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

A lot of people come here and say the same thing. But as an author, you'll know you often have to meet the style for a particular publication. I've marked up your draft to show you what needs changing to achieve an encyclopedic tone and to remove puffery and promotional material. But you'll also need to convert your table of publications to a bullet pointed list, suggest Chicago ADA style biblio references with your names first etc. However, I didn't even look for SIG COV which is the only way the draft will qualify for a Wikipedia article. Refer WP:42. I'm happy to look after you've made the changes I suggest. It'll be a bit stilted so you can introduce wording to make it flow (but avoid superlatives). MmeMaigret (talk) 13:42, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

You are allowed to create your own article on Wikipedia, and you have successfully declared your CoI in the header. As editor MmmeMaigret has already done, this article has uncited statements such as "known for his early work on the Canadian internet". The article also contains a lot of signs of LLM writing, such as the repeated lists of publications that the author has been named in. We expressly forbid LLMs to write entire articles on Wikipedia.

Don't let this discourage you, though! Sometimes we all make mistakes and what's important is that you learn from them. It's okay, we're not mad. If you can shape up your draft it is likely it would be accepted. Ethan (Emholt1)  :) (talk) 13:57, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

Hello, @~2026-15414-15.

One of the things that makes it so difficult to successfully write an autobiography in Wikipedia is this:

Wikipedia has little interest in what the subject of an article says or wants to say about themselves, or what their associates say about them. Wikipedia is almost exclusively interested in what people who have no connection with the subject, and who have not been prompted or fed information on behalf of the subject, have chosen to publish about the subject in reliable sources. If enough material is cited from independent sources to establish notability, a limited amount of uncontroversial factual information may be added from non-independent sources.

So the question is, which of your sources meet all the requirements in golden rule? That is, they are reliably published, produced with no involvement whatever from you or your associates, and contain significant coverage of you, not just of your work? ColinFine (talk) 14:04, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

hi folks . thanks dor the insight. i have a substantial number of articles that would meet the significant coverage issue, including cover story magazine articles that were done on me. I'll spend some time accumulating a list of these some of which were referenced in my original draft and will post them here with a question as to how I can invest frame these in the draft and not run up against issues. There's also a national CBC TV interview with Peter Mansbridge, the host of the national news, that goes for an hour that is available in the CBC historical archives, as well as other references like that. Perhaps if I can provide a list here some of you might be able to provide me guidance on how to work from here I qualified for an 01 Visa dash person extra extraordinary ability with USCIS how much of this material was also included in that Visa application process. So I have lots of SIG I just don't know how to position it. Dibblethorpe (talk) 14:21, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

@Dibblethorpe: So, the problem I foresee you running into is the question of what constitutes a reliable source, especially as it relates to notability. First of all, please note that "notability" is a Wikipedia term of art--it's not just "fame" or "known to the public". The basic notability guideline for people, following the general notability guideline, says that "people are presumed notable if they have received significant coverage in multiple published secondary sources that are reliable, intellectually independent of each other, and independent of the subject." It further says that Primary sources may be used to support content in an article, but they do not contribute toward proving the notability of a subject. This is the subtlety in writing an autobiographical article that many new users miss. Interviews, in particular, are primary sources, since they're the subject talking about themself, and so don't contribute towards Wikipedia notability. Similarly, a "where are they now"-type article from a subject's alma mater, for example, is not independent of the subject and cannot be used to demonstrate notability. Please keep these in mind while evaluating notability. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 14:34, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

I've got multiple things like this:

https://archive.org/details/profit-magazine-1995-jim-carroll

https://archive.org/details/carroll-archive-2002_link_colourcopy-lr

https://archive.org/details/carroll-archive-2006businessedge

https://archive.org/details/carroll-archive-2002feb_budapest_cover_colour

https://archive.org/details/carroll-archive-2003may_camag_meet_the_experts

https://archive.org/details/carroll-archive-1997_vanc_sun_networks

https://archive.org/details/carroll-archive-1999feb_tocomputes_cover

https://archive.org/details/pga-of-america-jim-carroll-keynote/page/n3/mode/2up — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dibblethorpe (talk • contribs) 16:13, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

Even a great little cover story from 1989 (I almost got fired for this one)

https://archive.org/details/oa-magazine-1989-jim-carroll

There are literally hundreds more. Independent sources, reliable publications, local and national newspapers, magazines.

There's this interview with the CBC Natiional's Peter Mansbridge:

https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/video/1.3592701

Then I have literally hundreds of third party conference brochures where I'm the opening or closing keynote; some pretty high profile events. Relevant? Useless? Heck, I did an event with Jimmy Wales in St. Andrews in 2011....

So I guess my real question is - how do I package all this into a form that is acceptable to a Wikipedia article. I would love guidance as I continue to dig into this.

And I guess a key question - the draft won't disappear, correct? I have time to work with this?

I'm entirely open to working within the guidance offered here. ~2026-15414-15 (talk) 15:42, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

Drafts are only deleted after 6 months of inactivity, unless they are candidates for WP:Speedy deletion, which is unlikely in your case. I suggest you don't try to include "literally hundreds" of citations but submit the draft for review after creating it with just a handful of really good sources. See WP:BACKWARDS for the pitfalls of not doing it that way. Mike Turnbull (talk) 16:57, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

The Profit Magazine, Business Edge, and Office Automation articles seem to be your three best sources. MmeMaigret (talk) 21:11, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

Thank you for the guidance. ~2026-15414-15 (talk) 14:47, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

I've resubmitted the draft. I did a complete rewrite to try to address the comments here. I have worked to provide Proquest, EBSO, Google Books or other direct reference items with the links to make it easy for reviewers to locate and verify. I appreciate additional comments. Dibblethorpe (talk) 12:48, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

Did you actually read WP:Golden Rule as suggested? If you had, you wouldn't be mentioning interviews.

Also, explain why, exactly, do you want an article about yourself on Wikipedia? Is it vanity? Pride? Publicity? Search engine optimization? None of those are valid reasons for an article to exist here.

If you are truly notable, someone will eventually come along and write about you. Whether that happens next week or 10 years from now or after you're long gone, shouldn't matter to you in the slightest. ~Anachronist (who / me) (talk) 05:15, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

I agree--- recognize that the vast majority of published authors, even prolific authors, never receive a Wikipedia page. Pages are created when people are talking /about/ you, for example if your works were highly controversial, relevant to a world event, major sources for a separate Wikipedia article on some (non-niche) academic theory or discipline, etc. It's not clear exactly what you're hoping to achieve by creating an autobiographical article, when (not to sound too cruel) no one else has yet felt a need to do so. If you're trying to "get your name out there / build a brand", "offer further resources for your readers," etc., none of those aims are the purpose of Wikipedia, and all would be better served by a personal website or a section of your publisher's, where you can post any and as much content as you like. ~2026-17944-57 (talk) 22:55, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

A small little piece of advice. Think hard about weather you actually want an article about yourself. Remember, you will not be the only person to edit it and others may not be as kind in the information they add to the article. For example, if at any point you have done anything questionable that you would prefer not to be made public and it got published in something that's categorized as reliable, there is a very large chance that the information could be added and there would be nothing you could do. Even more so Wikipedia article often get grabbed by search engines for top results and auto generated summaries so if unwanted information is added then very one who so much as googles your name will see it. So triple check that you want to make that article about yourself. Have a wonderful day - Pyrrhic victor (talk) 14:46, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

And I just realized I pretty much just copied what WP:FAMOUS says but worse. Read that it'll make more sense than my incoherent ramblings. Pyrrhic victor (talk) 14:49, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

there's not much in my life that would cause me concern. I have been sober since 7/26/2016, bu I actually wear that as a badge of pride, not shame. I think that's about the only skeleton out there. Dibblethorpe (talk) 22:02, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

I would like him to answer my question above. It wasn't rhetorical. ~Anachronist (who / me) (talk) 14:50, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

It's pretty simple. There's the 'other' Jim Carroll (poet ; I have all his albums, met him once), and I get a lot of contact from people looking for me and come across him via Wikipedia (he died in 2011; he wrote the iconic punk song, "People Who Died) ... it's been a ball of confusion. Every Sept 11, the date of his death, contact picks up again. Heck, MTV linked to my website the day he died, and crashed it. I get email from people who have kicked heroin (he was a recovered junkie) wondering what to do; I still get other messages directed at him. So if it's anything, it's to put some clarity to clear up the confusion; and to resurrect t the article that was here previously (and deleted). That confusion did not exist at that time. I hope that helps. With that said, the information provided clearly shows notability (with the interviews stripped away) Dibblethorpe (talk) 22:01, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

And with all that said, should it actually matter, if it passes the notability test, and the conflict of interest has been made clear? Still trying to figure out the process, culture, respect the rules, etc. Dibblethorpe (talk) 22:05, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

Hi Dibblethorpe The things you've mentioned above about others mixing you up with a different Jim Carroll won't nececessarily stop just because a Wikipedia article is written about you. In fact, it could possibly spillover into Wikipedia with others trying to mistakenly add content about the the other Carroll to such an article. Wikipedia tends to be more reactive than proactive in the sense that messes tend to be cleaned up after they happen (sometimes quite some time after they happen) than prevented before they happen. In principle, the subjects of articles don't WP:OWN the article or its content; in other words, the articles aren't "their articles" per se, and you won't have any real editorial control over the article's content. There are processes in place to help the subjects of articles when they have concerns, but for the most part they will be expected not to directly edit it at all. You mentioned above that there previously existed a Wikipedia article written about you. Is Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jim Carroll (author) what you're referring to? If you are, then that article was previously deleted per a consensus established via WP:AFD because of a lack of Wikipedia notability, which means it's going to be quite hard (not impossible but pretty hard) for another article about you to be created without a major change in the assessment of your Wikipedia notability. I can't see the article that was deleted but a Wikipedia administrator can. Anachronist and Writ Keeper, both who commented above, are administrators, and either of them might be willing to do a rough comparison of your draft and the deleted one and see whether (in at least their opinion) there's any point in pursuing this. You could also ask the administrator who deleted the previous article, their name is Ritchie333, to take a look. You're not expressly prohibitted from trying to get a draft approved via WP:AFC, but you're not going to have much luck doing so if it's pretty much just a re-creation of what was deleted before. If, by chance, the assessment of your Wikipedia notability has changed dramatically since 2018 when the previous article was deleted, creating a new article might not even be necessary; it might be possible for the other one to be restored (even as a draft) and updated accordingly. Of course, if Jim Carroll (author) has nothing at all to do with you but is about yet another Jim Carroll, it would be a big help if you remembered the name of the previous article written about you. -- Marchjuly (talk) 22:54, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

That is the previously existing article (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jim Carroll (author)), but it is not "just a re-creation of what was deleted before" that you noted. I have meticulously sourced details including Proquest references of independent 3rd party sources, from established newspapers and magazines, etc. I believe the previous article, which was created quite some time ago, did have deficiencies related to proof of notability, and eventually was stripped down to such a degree that, as you see in the deletion comments, did not meet the notability standards (it was judged promotional). In that vein, I have worked to try and provide sufficient information, and I guess am throwing this draft at the Wikipedia process so that they might judge the notability. I declared my conflict of interest in doing so, and so am working to be above board. Thank you for your comments. Dibblethorpe (talk) 23:10, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

For what it is worth, a 2014 version of the original article is here:

https://web.archive.org/web/20141102010202/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Carroll_(author) Dibblethorpe (talk) 23:18, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

At least that deleted one was written by humans. The current version is clearly not. ~Anachronist (who / me) (talk) 02:53, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

I don't know how I can convince you otherwise. After the initial rejection, I read the posts above - particularly by MmeMaigret on what constituted notable content and reliable sources. I read up on what you provided with respect to interviews as not being acceptable. I browsed through the guidance that others offered up. I figured out how to get into Ebsco and Proqueset databases in order to get citations for the articles she identified, and a few others that seemed to fit the 'independent source' category. I had to enlist my daughter in law who has a research based EBSCO account to grab a few other citations I could not reach. I spent time reading about the idea of 'encylopedic' to-the-fact writing and tried to put it together in that vein - simple, to the point fact with verifiable references. I've tried to make it easy for a Wikipedia editor to use those Proquest cites and other links to easily determine the issue of notability.

I go to this comment from Ethan above: "Don't let this discourage you, though! Sometimes we all make mistakes and what's important is that you learn from them. It's okay, we're not mad". I've spent the time to try to learn; I've got some time in my life to work on this type of project because teh current war has rather decimated the industry in which I work. I'm trying to do things as Wikipedia suggests they should be done.

I've written the current draft to be as neutral and encyclopedic as possible,, and checked and double checked my citations. I've stripped it down to take out the stuff you suggested don't fit notability ("Golden Rule"), so I don't know what else I can do. Dibblethorpe (talk) 10:28, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

What's interesting is that the item just below this post here - "How to avoid AI-written style?" has the fellow in the same type of situation.

He notes:

However, reviewers mentioned that the draft reads too much like AI-generated text.

Could someone advise what typically causes this impression and how such drafts should be rewritten to better match encyclopedic tone?

Any feedback before the next review would be greatly appreciated.

---

I guess Id' like to ask the same question - how can I rewrite this again so it isn't flagged as AI?

I appreciate that Wikipedia editors are fighting a complex issue of trying to battle the AI slop.

Please let me know how I might rewrite it again. Dibblethorpe (talk) 10:36, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

I've been reading Wikipedia:AI detection is not a content policy#Don't waste editors' time and I guess maybe I am caught in the trap of being flagged for AI by an AI detector? In any event, that article suggests that the draft is not running afoul of three key polices - It's not unencyclopedic; it does violates WP:NOT and I've tried to write in a a neutral point of view (NPOV). It also seems to suggest a focus on verifiability. The interesting thing is I ran it through an AI checker and it was flagged. It also suggests I remove the Proquest cites as a way of getting around that. But I'm leaving those in just to help with the process of verifiability.

I guess it goes to this point in that article: "But what happens when an editor uses an AI detector on a passage, the detector flags it as highly likely to be AI-generated, yet the text is perfectly neutral, accurately summarizes duly cited reliable sources, and contains no plagiarism?

It then answers that:"If you cannot actually name a policy-based issue with the content itself, wanting its removal or revision merely because an algorithm claims it is AI-generated is a misuse of editor time. It is not productive to rewrite an article that is already in an encyclopedic tone, and accurately describes reliable sources without plagiarizing them, just to ensure the phrasing is no longer flagged by Pangram. Chasing a "0% AI" score on external tools is not a valid editorial goal; building a well-sourced, neutral encyclopedia is.

I can share with you the actual Proquest and EBSCO files I downloaded which are all linked in there.

That article also suggests above that I should not rush off to try to de-AI what is a suspected AI article (!), and that in these circumstances, it's best to rely on the verifiability of what is presented.

So I'd ask you to look at that. All the links are there. I've worked hard to try to fit in within the definition of notability by providing a sufficient, not too extensive set of independent references that span over more than 35 years (going back to the Office Automation article of 1989) to the present day (Pivot Magazine, 2025)

I don't know what else to do. Dibblethorpe (talk) 11:45, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

I marked up your article. You left it marked up for a week and didn't indicate that you had taken on board my feedback. After a week, I removed the mark up and accept the changes. Honestly, if you had added you're 3 extra sources, you probably would have gotten accepted. I have no idea why you then added all that additional info on the 18th. But if you get declined, it's because you're not taking on board feedback. MmeMaigret (talk) 12:19, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

@Dibblethorpe: I've been following this discussion and it seems like you're having a rough time here, I'm sorry for that. First of all, I want to let you know that scammers tend to lurk here on the Teahouse, and if you have a public email address it's likely that you will hear from someone promising that they can get this article published for a fee. They are lying and just want your money, we're volunteers and any help you receive will be free.

That being said, if you really want to see an article about yourself on Wikipedia, I think I might be able to throw something together. It would be much shorter -- a few paragraphs at most, likely losing much of the detail. After it's published, you would no longer be able to edit it directly and would have to make suggestions on the talk page. If you're comfortable with that let me know and I'll give it a shot. MediaKyle (talk) 12:05, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

@MediaKyle (talk This is the version he should have submitted with his 3 SIG COV. MmeMaigret (talk) 12:23, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

You're right, that version is much better. It might be best to restore that revision and go from there, but ideally the article would be rewritten in my opinion. I don't think this has anything to do with notability, the draft is more-or-less just hitting the LLM firewall, and the fact that most of the sources are offline isn't helping (even though it's not really supposed to matter) ... MediaKyle (talk) 12:57, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

Hi Kyle, sent you an email. What I tried to do in the revised draft is make sure that every single link is live, not stale, verifiable, with Proquest references so that they could hit the original article that way as well.

And so for that one referenced by MmeMaigrant - an example of a stale link is the first one, but the actual verifiable link I worked into my redraft is here: Powell, Chris. "The Accidental Oracle." Pivot Magazine (CPA Canada), Spring 2025. ---> goes to https://archive.org/details/pivot-magazine-spring-2025-jim-carroll

Similarly, for that article, Wilson, Peter. "Canadian Internet Guru, Eh?" Vancouver Sun, May 1997. has a dead link. But in my revised draft, it points to https://archive.org/details/vancouver-sun-may-1997-jim-carroll for the actual article.

I've also included Proquest where possible, i.e. "National Bestsellers". Toronto Star. June 4, 1994. p. L11. ProQuest 1355165078 – via ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Toronto Star.

I can go off and find additional ProQuest document IDs as might be necessary.

I could work with whomever to help fix whichever dead links might be there and provide actual links and Proquest/EBSCO links. I use to have a Factiva account which sourced a lot of this stuff as well and could resurrect that.

I guess I'm eager to see if there might be a way through this complexity. Interesting process! Dibblethorpe (talk) 13:18, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

The revised draft I put up has actual links to those '3 SIG COV's' you mention - I can resummarize those here if need be. Thanks for hanging in with me. I'm learning lots! Dibblethorpe (talk) 13:20, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

@Dibblethorpe I do not know how to say this anymore clearly. You should have inserted the sources as inline citations and nothing else. With your additional content, you re-introduced all of the issues that I removed. The reason why we advise people not to write about themselves is because you're attached to material that you think sounds good but is puffery/promotional/sounds like a resume. MmeMaigret (talk) 13:32, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

I will take @MediaKyle up on his offer (above) to have a go at it, I'm clearly out of my depth here. Perhaps you could work with him to help out. I appreciate your effort and honesty. And ya, I'm probably a little too close to the topic. (-; Dibblethorpe (talk) 13:37, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

@MediaKyle -> "I think I might be able to throw something together. It would be much shorter -- a few paragraphs at most, likely losing much of the detail. After it's published, you would no longer be able to edit it directly and would have to make suggestions on the talk page. If you're comfortable with that let me know and I'll give it a shot." All in, if you can still help. Again, I can help you with the links or citations or whatever. Dibblethorpe (talk) 13:39, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

Sounds good. I'm a bit back-and-forth from my computer today but I'll see what I can do tonight or tomorrow. I received your email but haven't had a chance to go over the sources you sent just yet, I'll leave a message on your talk page prior to publishing so you can read it over. Cheers, MediaKyle (talk) 16:29, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

should I or do I do something to withdraw the draft from the submission process? Is there some code I take out or put in? Dibblethorpe (talk) 17:52, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

I removed the submission template saying it's waiting for review. The last decline banner has a "resubmit" button at the bottom for when you are ready to resubmit it. ~Anachronist (who / me) (talk) 18:42, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

thank you. Dibblethorpe (talk) 18:51, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

@Dibblethorpe I've resubmitted it for review. Please don't edit it. MmeMaigret (talk) 00:46, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

Thank you! I won't dare touch it. It's not Carroll Consulting. It's J.A. Carroll Consulting, the totally boring name I grabbed for my company way back in 1990. Dibblethorpe (talk) 13:04, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

I fixed it. The cited source also says J.A. ~Anachronist (who / me) (talk) 16:02, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

Hello, I submitted my article Draft:Sumit Saha through Articles for Creation several weeks ago and it is still awaiting review.

Could someone please guide me if there is anything I should improve, or take a look if possible?

Thank you.

IamSumitSaha (talk) 23:02, 14 March 2026 (UTC)

You submitted your draft (Draft:Sumit Saha) a bit over 2 weeks ago. There is currently an 8 week backlog, which is shown on the pending review template. Please wait for a reviewer to get to your draft. Mikeycdiamond (talk) 23:13, 14 March 2026 (UTC)

First thing that comes to mind from the first sentence is WP:ENTREPRENEUR.

Why, exactly, do you want an article about yourself on Wikipedia? Is it for vanity? Publicity? Search engine optimization? None of those reasons are valid. ~Anachronist (who / me) (talk) 05:24, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

Thank you for the guidance.

My intention is not vanity, publicity, or SEO. I understand Wikipedia's policies regarding conflict of interest and promotional content.

I created the draft because there has been independent media coverage about my work and contributions in the technology and developer education space in Bangladesh. My goal was to document those publicly reported facts in a neutral encyclopedic format.

If the article currently does not meet Wikipedia's notability or sourcing standards, I would really appreciate any suggestions on how it could be improved.

Thank you for your time. IamSumitSaha (talk) 15:20, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

Why do you want to write an article about yourself? Why does it matter to you? If you are truly notable, someone will eventually write an article about you. Whether that happens a week from now, in 5 years, or long after you are no longer on this earth, shouldn't matter to you in the least.

If you want to document reports about you, you can always do so on your official website. That's actually the best place for an autobiography. Why on Wikipedia?

About improvements: If the awards you mention are notable, do they have their own articles? If so, link them. If they are not notable awards, then you aren't helping yourself by mentioning them, because doing so comes across as publicity puffery, and using Wikipedia for publicity purposes is prohibited. ~Anachronist (who / me) (talk) 15:58, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

Thank you. I understand the concern about autobiography and conflict of interest. My intention is not vanity, publicity, or SEO.

I created the draft because there has been independent media coverage of my work in technology and developer education, and I tried to summarize that coverage in a neutral encyclopedic way. I understand that writing about oneself is discouraged, and I'm happy for independent editors to review, trim, or rewrite the draft as they see fit.

On the sourcing point, the draft currently includes independent coverage from outlets such as The Daily Star, Prothom Alo, and The Daily Ittefaq. If those sources are still not sufficient to establish notability, I would genuinely appreciate guidance on whether the issue is source quality, the amount of significant coverage about me personally, or the way the draft is currently framed.

I'm not trying to use Wikipedia for promotion. I'm trying to understand whether the topic can meet Wikipedia's biography standards, and if not, I'm willing to leave that judgment to independent editors. Thank you for your time. IamSumitSaha (talk) 16:31, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

@IamSumitSaha I looked at your Draft:Sumit Saha and the very first reference says I spoke with Sumit.... This tells me that the source is not independent of you as it is based on an interview. To illustrate notability as defined by Wikipedia you need about three sources which meet our golden rules of being simultaneously independent, reliable and with significant coverage. Most people who try to write autobiographies fail because they don't realise there is a tendency to write backwards: see the links I have provided for details. Mike Turnbull (talk) 17:11, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for your valuable insights. Really appreciated. IamSumitSaha (talk) 17:40, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

@IamSumitSaha You spoke with yourself? David10244 (talk) 05:51, 18 March 2026 (UTC)

@David10244 No, Shafiqul Islam spoke to him, as that first citation makes clear. Mike Turnbull (talk) 18:22, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

@Michael D. Turnbull Right, I misunderstood. David10244 (talk) 07:22, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

The current EN article "Phytochrome" is almost useless, so I have written a completely new one to replace it (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Photochrom/sandbox#%22Phytochrome%22). However, although I have a good understanding of the field, this is my first attempt at writing a Wikipeia article, so I would like an experienced person to take a look and suggest appropriate changes. Thanks for any help! Best Jon, aka Photochrom Photochrom (talk) 23:12, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

When I click on that link to your completely new version, Photochrom, I arrive at just a single paragraph saying that you "have written a completely new version". But I don't see any version, old or new. -- Hoary (talk) 23:23, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

 Courtesy link: User:Photochrom/sandbox – NJD-DE (talk) 23:30, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

o, sorry - I thought you'd be able to switch to and from the article and its talk section. the article itself is at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Photochrom/sandbox - at least when I view it....Photochrom (talk) 23:44, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

Nice work so far.

Formatting issues: get rid of the citations in headings, add a "References" section at the bottom and put a {{references}} tag there.

Content issues: There's a lot of editorializing in the "Historical apsects" section. Try to remove things sounding like subjective opinion ("Perhaps the most...", "had of course continued", and so on), and try for more brevity in the wall-of-text paragraphs.

You may want to propose your new version at Talk:Phytochrome. ~Anachronist (who / me) (talk) 05:05, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

Certainly an ambitious draft! It makes a welcome change from -- but no, I mustn't offend other editors (a group certainly including myself). In this minor edit, I corrected date formatting, as the format you'd used brings syntax errors; there remain a number of analogous corrections to be made. We avoid attaching references to headings, subheadings, subsubheadings, etc; instead usually attaching the reference to the end of the paragraph(s) that it supports. Beyond that, I don't want to comment, primarily because of my profound ignorance of the subject and of background matters. I hope that other editors here, better educated than I am, take a look and add comments and suggestions. -- Hoary (talk) 02:27, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

@Photochrom One of the problems with a wholescale re-write like you propose is that you are not crediting the work of > 100 editors who have contributed to that article, many of whom will not agree it is currently "almost useless". Incremental changes are almost always better than re-writes. Your expert views are welcome but may overwhelm Wikipedia's target audience with over-detailed and jargon-laden writing. (I could give examples from your sandbox but that's better done elsewhere.) Full disclosure: I have made one edit to Phytochrome, on 27 January this year, its latest update. Mike Turnbull (talk) 11:27, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

Sorry Mike, but I thought the idea of Wikipedia was to present humanity with useful, informative, current, reliable information. The current "Phytochrome" article fails this miserably except in a few places. I can't help it if well-meaning people have made contributions that are unimportant and/or confusing and/or, out-of-date and/or simply wrong! Please bear with me while I explain the situation in some detail.

- The first figure shows a crystal structure of a (mutant!) fragment of PaBphP, a "bathy"-type bacteriophytochrome (that is, one of the very unusual phytochromes that whose dark state in Pfr, not Pr as in almost all other phytochromes). In the meantime, near-complete structures even of plant phytochromes are known! In any case, it's clear that this is NOT an appropriate introductory illustration for a Wikipedia article! How many normal people have any idea about 3D protein structures?!

- In the second paragraph: phytochromes DO NOT regulate chlorophyll biosynthesis. The limiting factors are the protochlorophyllide reductases.

- The "Structure" section is confused, failing to describe the domains in bacterial and plant phytochromes accurately. It does not reference the PaBphP illustration (see above). It also says blandly "the PAS domain serves as a signal sensor and the GAF domain is responsible for binding to cGMP" - both statements are wrong or at the very least misrepresent the consensus opinion in the field.

- As phytochrome is a photoreceptor, its light absorption properties are centrally important. So what do we see in the second figure? An exceedingly bad sketch of two overlaid absorption spectra by someone and credited to "Devlin 1969" without any reference given! Furthermore, one of the curves is labelled "Pfr" (well, actually "P_FR - which would be ok if the typography were to be correct), but unfortunately it isn't a Pfr spectrum (I can explain why if you like, but you can believe me!).

- In the third figure, a paper from 1968 is cited and used to illustrate the chromophore and its behaviour during photoconversion from Pr to "P_IR". It's completely wrong!

- The section "Isoforms and states" is ok, but (understandably!) it references neither of the two relevant [sic] figures.

- There follows a long, long section "Phytochromes' effect on phototropism" describing a trivial and largely irrelevant piece of physiological work published in 1977. Please note that there are THOUSANDS of papers at this level in the phytochrome field and that there is NO justification for including this one in particular.

- The next section "Phytochrome effect on root growth" has the same problem, except that in this case, nothing is cited at all.

- The "Biochemistry" section seems to have been written by one of the experts in the bilin biosynthesis field and is, in that respect, ok. It goes on to discuss gene regulation, though - and hardly does justice to the that exceedingly important aspect of phytochrome biology (I think the author would agree!)

- The "Discovery" section is ok as far as it goes, but it fails to credit some very important studies that contributed hugely to the "discovery" of phytochrome (and were the reason that Borthwick's group started to work on it). The Kehoe & Grossman section places emphasis on their 1996 Science paper describing the RcaE gene - but it was not shown to be a photoreceptor until Hirose et al. (2013) corrected the sequence - and anyhow, it's a CBCR, not a canonical phytochrome. The section then goes on to describe the 3D structures known, but only up to 2014 - this field is boiling!

- The final "Genetic engineering" section is ok, although perhaps a little naïve.

- Various reputable studies are referenced, but I would argue that the list gives a poor representation of the broad field and certainly misses several VERY important papers. For example, no one would question the central role of Peter Quail's lab in phytochrome research from 1980 - 2020, yet the only paper of his in the list is the artificial phy-PIF expression system for yeast.

I apologise for the length of the above text, but how else can I make the enormity of the problem clear?! I hope you can now see a bit more exactly why I wrote my article from scratch. Incidentally, I had begun with the intention of (extensively) editing the current text, but soon realised that it would be pointless and almost impossible.

Now, by describing the huge problem with the current "Phytochrome" article, I am not implying that my new version is perfect. I asked the community for input here exactly because it needs editing. I generally write primary research papers and reviews, neither of which follows the Wikipedia style. There a probably some technical terms that need (better) explanation - that's hard for me to judge. Also, whereas on the one hand, I might have missed a few topics, on the other, the "History" section is very long (maybe an initial summary would be helpful for users who only want a brief overview).

Ok, time for bed!

Best, jon Photochrom (talk) 23:29, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

OK, I'll offer some additional advice, although you haven't followed the earlier advice I gave above.

The community's preference is to make incremental changes, but if the article needs a wholesale rewrite, you can propose that too on the talk page. You made a case that there is enough wrong with the original that a wholesale replacement may be justified.

Remember, articles need to be written for a layman to understand, as much as possible, although this is understandably not possible for some subject areas such as higher mathematics. The lead section of the original article is understandable. On the other hand, your lead section quickly dives deep into jargon-filled descriptions that are opaque to a general reader.

The lead section should not introduce any information that isn't in the body text. Think of the lead section as an abstract. It should summarize the main points of the body text. Neither version does a good job of this.

Also, you're changing the variety of English. On Wikipedia, the guideline is to preserve English spelling being used, and not replace it with another English variety. The original article uses US spelling, your replacement uses British. Perhaps Oxford spelling would be a happy medium (it's still British). ~Anachronist (who / me) (talk) 04:05, 18 March 2026 (UTC)

Please, please do it bit-wise, and discuss with other editors on the talk page. I've looked at your version as well as the original. You clearly have a lot of factual information to add, but I think your expertise makes it hard for you to see how your writing appears to a non-expert. Parts of it assume knowledge beyond what should be assumed in a tertiary sources such as an encyclopedia. There is a difference between writing a review article for a journal, and writing a wikipedia article that must make sense to a vaguely-biologically-aware member of the public. Your changes will be much, much better if you allow other editors to collaborate with you on this. You have the potential to improve the article substantially, but be careful about throwing out the pre-existing article completely - it has some good aspects too. Elemimele (talk) 12:02, 18 March 2026 (UTC)

Hi Elemimele,

I'm fine with suggestions as to improving the accessibility of my text, but I am NOT going to edit the current version (if that's what you mean by doing it "bit-wise").

(1) I had tried to explain that the great majority of the current text is useless, and the same is true for most of the illustrations. It's obvious for anyone who knows the field. I could suggest a few colleagues who could provide their opinions.

(2) What aspects of the current version do you think are good? If you could be more specific, I'd be happy to comment on them.

(3) In my criticisms of the current version, I noted a couple of sections that are ok, but it would hardly be worthwhile to somehow "fit them in" when everything else has to be written from scratch. It would be much, much better if the people who wrote the "ok" sections were to comment on the new version. My initial request here was for people to help to improve my version of the "Phytochrome" article (see also my reply to Anachronist), so I'd be delighted if editors of the current version ("other editors"?) were to collaborate in this way.

best, jon Photochrom (talk) 23:17, 18 March 2026 (UTC)

Hi Anachronist,

My request was that people make suggestions as to how to improve my "Phytochrome" article, so thanks for your earlier suggestions - which I will of course implement once a few other, more fundamental "issues" are clarified.

Up to now in this discussion I have outlined why the current article is useless except in a couple of sections and should therefore be deleted and (hopefully!) replaced.

My lead section was intended to say what phytochromes are; that is, to define the term. The current version does a rather poor job of this, even if you find it understandable. It appears to me to have been written on the fly and without much deliberation. If my version has too many "opaque" terms, those can be replaced by more generalised text. I can also generate an abstract, if that's what you want. Note that the current lead section does not represent an abstract by any stretch of the imagination!

It really makes no difference to me what English "variety" is used.

best, jon Photochrom (talk) 22:01, 18 March 2026 (UTC)

Hello Hoary,

Thanks for your suggestions - of course I will follow them, but in the meantime a bigger "issue" has appeared, namely whether an article can be replaced at all. I have added the discussion to Talk:Phytochrome as suggested....

Cheers

jon aka Photochrom (talk) 22:02, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

An article can be replaced if there is a community consensus to replace it. It's rare for this to happen but I've seen it happen. It's a bit more common to replace major sections of an existing article. It looks like you identified problematic sections on the talk page, which is good. I took the liberty of formatting your comments for readability.

Typically an article has one or more editors responsible for most of the content, but that isn't the case here. The article history shows incremental additions by various editors, from the article's start as a short 500 byte article in 2004, growing slowly over the years, contributed by anonymous IP addresses and other confirmed accounts that are now stale. The largest contribution was a 11 kilobyte doubling in size by Audriusa, who hasn't edited in 7 months. That's the editor who expanded some sections you identified as problematic. ~Anachronist (who / me) (talk) 22:21, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

@Anachronist

Thanks for getting into all this!

What would be the next step? I could try to contact @Audriusa....

cheers Photochrom (talk) 19:54, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

The next step is to participate in the conversation you started on the talk page, and try to come to a consensus, which is likely going to result in an article that is different from the original version and different from your version. Right now the conversation seems to be about the outline structure. Audriusa has returned to comment and make some revisions to the article. ~Anachronist (who / me) (talk) 20:53, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

I significantly shortened the tropism section, addressing the claim it was too long (even if not wrong). I suggest that much could be included into new article. It is not a single article, multiple publications can be easily sourced. Audriusa (talk) 18:41, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

An experienced wikipedian created a username subpage for me to work on an article I had drafted in text file offline per the recommendation of other wikipedians. I am making major changes to the article because I am condensing it significantly, among other things. But, because I wrote the entire article, it seems inappropriate to label any of the changes "major", yet the wiki definition when publishing to save any change requires it. I didn't use my sandbox because this article is to turn an existing few sentence stub article into a full article, and there was some concern about maintaining the history of that stub article even though it is only a few sentences with a redirect link. So far, I haven't gotten a message from an administrator about my characterization of the changes but all of them are going to show up eventually when the draft is moved from my userpage subpage to the namespace of the subject. Any suggestions about what is essentially a lot of worthless history and continuing drafting this way? Thanks. Emanresu0 (talk) 20:16, 18 March 2026 (UTC)

Hi @Emanresu0 and welcome to the Teahouse. Do not label the changes you are making as "minor". See Help:minor edit. There is a very specific meaning in Wikipedia rather than the usual meaning of not a major change: Any edit that alters the meaning of an article, even slightly, is not minor. That means any addition to an article is not minor. Leave the "minor" tag for correcting typos, etc. StarryGrandma (talk) 20:44, 18 March 2026 (UTC)

@Emanresu0 I think you may be overthinking this. A minor edit is a typo that you fix or a source that you add the author's name to. Of your 82 edits, I only see about 11 that might count as minor edits where you've changed 1-20 characters. If in doubt, don't mark them minor. MmeMaigret (talk) 12:50, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

you understood that I wrote the entire article and I made all the changes because the article is still a draft? Of course i saw the definitions, but they seem meaningless in this situation. Apparently, the only way to avoid all the meaningless history is to draft offline and then post to a user page or sandbox when ready for comments before moving to the article namespace. Thx Emanresu0 (talk) 19:14, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

@Emanresu0 It doesn't matter in this case; there's nothing wrong with not marking your edits as "minor". David10244 (talk) 07:27, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Whew! Your reply is a meaningful response to my question. Thank you. I could not figure out why I had not gotten a message from an administrator about labelling my edits as minor based on the definitions alone creating a violation. Logic made me question the applicability of the definitions for major and minor edits when drafting an entire article from scratch, with all the work and edits mine alone.

I plan to finish this draft soon and then ask the Teahouse for comments and include a link to the userpage. Thereafter, I will need help moving the article to the article namespace so the stub article becomes a full article. If you can help me with that, I would greatly appreciate it.

Also, I have done everything to comply with the copyright requirements for images of the architecture relevant to this article. They are still inaccessible even though the wiki commons process was completed by the copyright owner unltimately. Therefore, I've deleted references in the text to those images so that this article can be posted without them. But, it would be a great improvement to this article about architecture to include the images at some point. If you can help me with the images, that would be much appreciated. Emanresu0 (talk) 19:49, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Glossary has an entry for move.

Emanresu0, may I assume you are talking about your user subpage, User:Emanresu0/C.W. Kim Expansion/Condensed? There is already an existing article about the topic, C.W. Kim, and Wikipedia understands the word move in a very particular sense, which means 'renaming your page', and if that is what you meant, please do not attempt to move your page to the current article title. (You probably won't be able to anyway, as you are still new.) If you meant, move the *content* of your user page *into* the existing article, that is permitted. In that case, you could have dispensed with your user subpage entirely and simply edited the existing article directly, step by step, just as you have been doing on your subpage. But given where you are now, if you mean to move content into the existing article, you already have permissions to do that, and you won't have to ask for anybody's help to do it. Mathglot (talk) 05:39, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

Thank you for another very helpful reply. You correctly surmised that I want to "add" all of my draft to the existing namespace stub article on C.W. Kim. I was originally told to use a subpage to make all of my changes, so I did. I thought I needed to have an administrator add my draft to an existing article. I also want to be sure adding such a large amount of text and references does not get reverted because someone thinks I used LLM or feels the tone is too promotional (not neutral enough). Do you know if there is a way for the "right" person to add my draft to the existing article when I am finished with the draft? Emanresu0 (talk) 16:04, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

Emanresu0, Tl;dr: you are the right person if anyone is (i.e., not someone else), but doing so is not the best approach, in my opinion. Here's why.

There is a practical aspect here that may make it possible for you to do what you wish (i.e., merge your entire subpage into the article) perhaps without objection, that in the general case might cause some strife and result in frustration on your part, but that might work in this particular situation by accident of circumstance. Let me explain.

The Wikipedia Glossary has an entry for watcher.

Because there are few watchers of this page, and it is neither contententious, nor, frankly, a page that is of wide public interest (about 4 page views/day), it may be that you can merge your content into the article without objection, on the theory that no one is watching/no one cares. That doesn't mean it is the best strategy or a good idea; it just means you might get away with cutting corners and taking an inadvisable approach *in this case*. (No guarantees, though.)

However, I would strongly advise against this in the general case, and recommend you not try it again. At the C.W. Kim article, I see that you tried it once before with a 32kb addition last month which was reverted for cause by NicheSports. What I would do if I were you, is one (or more) of three things:

• ask NicheSports directly if they wouldn't mind having a quick look at your user subpage, User:Emanresu0/C.W. Kim Expansion/Condensed, and give their opinion about whether it is now ready to be merged/copied into the live article;
• write a message on the Talk page, Talk:C.W. Kim, asking for review of your Draft (it might not be seen by many, but see WP:APPNOTE);
• submit your draft to WP:Afc for review by a team of specially trained editors, and wait for a response. This likely will take some time, but in the meantime, you could work on other things.

If I were you, I would probably go with #3, and I have added an Afc draft submission header to your subpage for your convenience, should you wish to use it. Hope this helps. Mathglot (talk) 18:38, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

Pinged here. I likely do not have time to perform an adequate review of the proposed expansion so I agree with Mathglot's suggestion. I want to note that after discussion with Emanresu0 I no longer believe that the non-neutral language in the original article expansion was caused by LLM involvement. Emanresu0 and I subsequently had a good conversation at User Talk:Emanresu0 § Suggestions for edits to C.W. Kim about how to improve the article and I tried to help them as best as I could. Wishing the best for a positive experience at AfC. NicheSports (talk) 19:00, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

Please Can I Save Images In Wikimedia Commons ~2026-17311-16 (talk) 12:04, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

@~2026-17311-16, hello! Yes, you can. Deltaspace⁴² (talk • contribs) 12:08, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

@Deltaspace42, @GoatLordServant Your unequivocal answers of "Yes" are very misleading. As ColinFine says, only images that are freely licensed, or in the public domain (which does not mean "publically available") can be uploaded to Commons. And the question was vague. Images saved in Commons should be put there only if they are intended for a Wikipedia article; it's not a general image host. I couldn't really tell why the OP was asking. David10244 (talk) 07:39, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

To 'save' means to download or use images. The prompt that shows up for most is 'Save Image' when you want to download something, after all. The answer to that question is yes, David10244. I even made note of attribution being required in some cases. If OP was asking if the latter, be it uploading images, Colin had that one. Viva la horde, ~ GoatLordServant^(Talk) 11:05, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Hello, the answer is yes, you can, and you can use many of the files on Commons for various reasons if you follow their attribution guidelines. Viva la horde, ~ GoatLordServant^(Talk) 12:09, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

Hello, @~2026-17311-16.

I'm not sure whether you need an account to upload to Commons or not - you used not to need to, but I think things may have changed.

The other point is that Commons only accepts images that are freely licensed. This is a complicated subject, but if you created the image yourself (and it is not based on or taken from somebody else's image) you probably can upload it; but if it's a random image you found on the internet, or in a recent book or magazine, you probably can't. See Image use policy. ColinFine (talk) 14:07, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

Hi, i've just written an article about Wemmbu, a minecraft pvp-er and protagonist, and i was wondering what some good tags are for it. The reason im asking is because this is my first article i've ever written myself without help from friends, here's the link by the way: Draft:Wemmbu

--~~~ ~2026-17540-72 (talk) 12:40, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

@~2026-17540-72 Hello, and welcome to Wikipedia. By "tags", do you mean "Categories"? They're a way for us to sort and categorize articles, and you can read about adding categories at Wikipedia:FAQ/Categorization. Cheers! LS8 (talk) 13:06, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

Note that you would typically add article categories after the draft is accepted. OutsideNormality (talk) 16:24, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

Ok, thanks, i will read about it ~2026-17540-72 (talk) 08:29, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Hi! I would like to build a page on services for people on the move in Europe, based on already existing documentation. Would someone be up to team up with me? I think it would be nice to be at least 2-3 people. Thanks! Peter.hood (talk) 13:22, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

Hello, it sounds like you want to promote a service; please see WP:YESPROMO. 331dot (talk) 13:25, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

thanks, i reply below Peter.hood (talk) 15:09, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

Hello, @Peter.hood, and welcome to the Teahouse.

Your use of the phrase "build a page for" suggests that, like many people, you have not fully understood what Wikipedia is.

Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia; the primary activity here is not "building a page" (whatever that may mean), but writing a neutral, well-referenced encyclopaedia article about - and the "about" should be something that has been written about in reliable, independent sources. What would be the subject of your proposed article, and where has there been independent in-depth publication about that specific subject?

Please also see WP:NOTHOWTO. ColinFine (talk) 14:13, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

hi, thanks for your replies. So, just to understand better whether a similar page would make sense or not in the scope of wikipedia:

- i am not linked to any service that this page would include

- i was thinking at something like this page: https://w2eu.info/en/countries/italy/contacts

but as you might see, the services linked there are a bit cahotic, for sure not comprehensive, and don't offer edits possibilities by different users.

i do wonder whether creating a list of associations/groups that provide certain forms of support might fall within the scope of a wikipedia article, what do you think? this could be factual and referenced, without being promotional Peter.hood (talk) 15:09, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

Hello again, @Peter.hood.

No, that still comes within one of the sections of what Wikipedia is not.

Even stand alone lists need to be lists of something which has been discussed as a subject in multiple reliable sources, separately from the particular examples in the list. ColinFine (talk) 15:34, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

i see, there might still be an argument for the topic "services to refugees and people on the move" as I am pretty sure we could easily find several independent sources that identify this topic as relevant (for example, how difficult it is to find relevant services, thus the need for a list). but if you have the feeling of the contrary i wouldn't push for a similar page Peter.hood (talk) 18:14, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

If there are indeed sources discussing that topic, @Peter.hood, then an article about the topic might be possible. It would be a summary of what those sources had said about the topic. If some of them mentioned particular resources, then what they said about them might feature. But a list of actual resources would not be appropriate in any way. ColinFine (talk) 19:58, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

@Peter.hood Lists like that will quickly become out of date. Would you, for example, promise to update it evey week for the next 20 years? That's why things like that are a bad idea for any encyclopedia. Using a Web search engine is a much better idea for anyone who wants info like that, even though search engine results can sometimes be out of date. David10244 (talk) 07:44, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

I am editing Second Chandy ministry and removed a lot of sentences that were just routine news. One sentence is using this reference "43 cochlear implant surgeries performed" and there are few other similar references. It only lists a news service and no reporter name. Are such references allowed? Is there a place where I can check which reference is allowed and which is not allowed? NicoR8 (talk) 15:53, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

Hello @NicoR8

I'm a new-ish editor/contributor. I saw your question after posting my own here too.

I don't have an "authoritative" answer for you, but this is my perspective:

=="Are such references allowed? Is there a place where I can check which reference is allowed and which is not allowed?"

My experience so far is that, judging whether a given source is accurate and reliable is a skillset of its own, which must be manually exercised each time.

While there are some guidelines and heuristics in WP:RELIABILITY, each individual case of validating a claim with its source, in my experience, demands manual effort and mental energy and the human ability to distinguish or discern, to make a clear judgement of whether it is a high-quality (or at least adequate) source.

==About the specific reference you mentioned:

I see it's from The New Indian Express.

Interestingly, The Indian Express (without "New") is a reliable "perennial resource" listed in WP:RSPS (see: WP:INDIANEXP).

I suppose the two have a shared history, but I don't know enough about the difference between The Indian Express & The New Indian Express to say anything more.

Good luck & happy editing,
NANDtrocity (talk) 17:18, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

The difference seems to be geographic, one is published in northern India, the other in Southern India, but both have the same roots. ~Anachronist (who / me) (talk) 18:46, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

Hi @Anachronist and @NANDtrocity. Thank you so much for helping me. The sentence where the reference is used is: More Cochlear implant surgeries were performed during the period.

This newspaper news for this has no byline so that made me wonder if such reference use is valid. And I am not able to find this news in any other newspaper. Also could you help me if that news meets rules defined in WP:EVENTCRITERIA? NicoR8 (talk) 21:12, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

Indian news sources are notorious for publishing for pay, or regurgitating press releases. As far as I know, Indian Express has a good reputation, but I wouldn't be surprised if they engaged in the same shenanigans as other Indian newspapers.

However, the source may be good. The singer Yesudas is mentioned in the context of cochlear implant surgeries in a The Hindu although I cannot read the whole article. ~Anachronist (who / me) (talk) 22:28, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

Hi, is there a way to remove this from popping up in your watchlist? TylerBurden (talk) 08:41, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

Try playing around with Special:EditWatchlist. Pietrus1 (talk) 18:07, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

@Pietrus1 Tried and failed it seems it only allows me to remove articles, not these types of logs, I appreciate your help nonetheless. TylerBurden (talk) 13:02, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

I hope someone else will reply because I do not have further suggestions. Pietrus1 (talk) 22:14, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

Hello, My wikipedia has a banner which I would like to find out how to remove. The banner says -

This article may have been created or edited in return for undisclosed payments, a violation of Wikipedia's terms of use. It may require cleanup to comply with Wikipedia's content policies, particularly neutral point of view. See our advice if the article is about you and read our scam warning in case someone asks for money to edit this article. (March 2026).

I am looking for someone to help me. ~2026-17637-18 (talk) 01:17, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

Which article is it? 🏳️‍🌈JohnLaurens333 (Ping me!) 01:20, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

And, who edited that article in your behalf? ~Anachronist (who / me) (talk) 01:33, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

17637,

To be clear, you are referring to a maintenance template at the top of an article about yourself?

I would advise you against removing it yourself. Instead, if you have any insight into the matter, you should bring it to other editor's attention at the article's talk page. The best you can do aside from that is wait for uninvolved editors to clean up the article.

Also, do heed the part that says "See our advice if the article is about you and read our scam warning in case someone asks for money to edit this article.". If you paid someone asking for money to have the article created, then you've paid money to a scammer. MEN KISSING (she/they) T - C - Email me! 07:22, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Hi guys, I’ve been working on an article lately, as seen in:

Draft:Mobile Guardian

I previously used too much AI to generate the entire article for me, and it therefore get rejected, so I changed almost everything in the article, and added some new information that I found myself. Please note that I did still use AI but only to turn the sources I found myself into Wikipedia compatible citations. I tried my best to match the correct tone of Wikipedia. I submitted it already, but I wanted to get some quick feedback before it gets reviewed. I especially want to know whether this topic is notable enough or not, so that I know whether I should even keep working on this draft.

Before anybody asks, I believe that the Top 3 sources for notability in this article are:

• The Straits Times
• CNA
• TechCrunch

Thanks for your feedback, and if you didn’t leave any, thanks for doing nothing! 𝕲𝖎𝖑𝖊𝖘𝖊𝖑𝖎𝖌™ :) 13:33, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

Hi @Gileselig, and welcome to the Teahouse!

I looked over your article and it seems pretty good to me. This may be a hot take, but I think it's generally less problematic to use LLMs (AI) to help with the creation of an article, as long as a human (you!) reviews the output carefully to avoid use of an unencyclopedic tone or hallucinations, as well as avoiding the risk of copyright violations.

I haven't written a full article for mainspace yet, but I can understand that writing the citations can be tedious, and thus a good monitored use of an LLM.

To address your question about notability, the significant coverage on the cyberattack on the platform in 2024 from reliable, independent sources as outlined in Wikipedia:Notability would, in my view, justify the creation of this article.

Happy editing! Paolo Roland Self (talk) 14:39, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

When you write enough content for Wikipedia, writing citations becomes second nature, it's easy.

The proper way to use AI is to work like a Supreme Court judge, who has assistants to search case histories and write legal briefs, but in the end the judge writes the opinion, not the assistants. In the same way, you can use an AI to find and summarize sources (you must check what it gives you because AIs can also synthesize information that isn't in the sources), but in the end you write the article, not the AI.

The only article I've written using AI is Star of Pure Land. The first thing I did is ask the AI for sources, and it found a bunch. I went through them all with the AI, telling it that certain sources are unreliable, and asked it about others that seemed to be identical. The AI eventually admitted that there were only two sources that were independent of the topic, reliable, gave significant coverage, and not re-publishing of some other source. I wrote the body of the article based on that, and wrote the lead when it was done. Then I asked the AI to suggest what to add using a primary source, and it suggested replacing a paragraph with better details about the gem from that source.

In the end I had a short article with two WP:Golden Rule sources and one primary source. Two good sources are the absolute minimum one should have. There are probably more sources now, but at the time those were the ones available because it was a recent event.

Basically, I used the AI as an assistant or collaborator, but not as an author. This was almost as much work as me writing the article from scratch, but the AI made finding sources more efficient, and its suggestions were useful. ~Anachronist (who / me) (talk) 15:19, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

Good to know, thanks for replying 𝕲𝖎𝖑𝖊𝖘𝖊𝖑𝖎𝖌™ :) 05:12, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback! It’s good to know that at least 1 other person believes that my subject has notability that is significant enough to justify a Wikipedia article for it. 𝕲𝖎𝖑𝖊𝖘𝖊𝖑𝖎𝖌™ :) 04:59, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Glad to help! Paolo Roland Self (talk) 17:31, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Most of the notability of the app seems to come from discussion of the cyberattack; so why so much WP:CORPTRIV fluff? You've got a line in the History section which says According to a press release, in August 2020 Mobile Guardian announced a $1 million COVID-19 software grant. This was intended to support K‑12 schools in implementing mobile device management and distance learning during the pandemic. Who cares? I mean that not in a passive-aggressive insulting way, but in a literal way: Wikipedia has little interest in what the subject of an article says or wants to say about themselves, or what their associates say about them. Wikipedia is almost exclusively interested in what people who have no connection with the subject, and who have not been prompted or fed information on behalf of the subject, have chosen to publish about the subject in reliable sources. If enough material is cited from independent sources to establish notability, a limited amount of uncontroversial factual information may be added from non-independent sources. There's pretty much no reason to include anything the company's own press releases say about them, certainly not something as mundane (and borderline promotional) as them giving a software grant to schools 6 years ago.

In the 'operations' section, you begin with Mobile Guardian has tools that help parents manage... again, this article should not be promoting the company's services to us in any way. Language like This helps administrators to enforce security policies. belongs on the company's website, where they're trying to sell this product to school administrators. If you're going to include information about the app's functionality; that's all we need to know about, the functionality. You don't need to tell us how this would benefit a school administration.

It's generally faux pas to use other articles as an example of what to do, but look at Google Drive#Features for example. At no point does it say something like "Google Drive's cloud functionality helps to increase workplace productivity." It just tells us what it does, not why it does it. Athanelar (talk) 15:21, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

Hi, I apologise for doing that, I think I was just kind of paraphrasing the promotional info directly from the source. That is my bad, other than all of that unnecessary primary stuff issue, is there any other issue with notability, tone in any other places, any other particular issues with the “Security Incidents” segment? Also thanks for reviewing it, I will try to improve on it 𝕲𝖎𝖑𝖊𝖘𝖊𝖑𝖎𝖌™ :) 23:47, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

I made some changes with regards to the problems you addressed. If someone could check out the article now, that’ll be great! 𝕲𝖎𝖑𝖊𝖘𝖊𝖑𝖎𝖌™ :) 05:02, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Hi again,

I think you've properly adressed the issues brought up here. Good work! Paolo Roland Self (talk) 14:35, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Thanks! 𝕲𝖎𝖑𝖊𝖘𝖊𝖑𝖎𝖌™ :) 08:17, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

Hello, @Gileselig, and welcome to the Teahouse.

A look at WP:RSP will tell you that CNA is "a generally reliable source", that Straits Times is generally reliable but with some concerns, and that TechCrunch requires "careful consideration".

But this shows that just mentioning the name of the publication does not tell you whether or not a citation is useful. There's also the consideration of independence, and significant coverage. The most reliable sources in the world sometimes print articles based on press releases (CORPTRIV items are almost of necessity based on press releases), and these are completely worthless for establishing notability.

So if you are going to list your "top three sources" (as editors are often encouraged to do) they need to be three specific cited articles, each of which meets all the criteria in WP:42. ColinFine (talk) 15:50, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for replying!

I see, the reason why I did so, is because I use multiple sources from Straits Times and CNA, so I’m not too sure which one to link. You can check out the article yourself and see for yourself. 𝕲𝖎𝖑𝖊𝖘𝖊𝖑𝖎𝖌™ :) 05:02, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

This is what I believe are the Top 3 sources (Without duplicate websites) (Also I found some new sources, but they are mostly from the same websites, except for Bernama)

1. https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/mobile-guardian-hacking-singapore-cybersecurity-moe-secondary-schools-ipad-4536331
2. https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/moe-to-remove-mobile-guardian-app-from-all-students-devices-after-cybersecurity-breach
3. https://bernama.com/en/news.php?id=2325735 There are some other independent, reliable sources that I use, I feel like these are the most important ones.

𝕲𝖎𝖑𝖊𝖘𝖊𝖑𝖎𝖌™ :) 08:23, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

Those are good sources for establishing notability for the security breach incident, because that's what the coverage is about. I am not seeing that they establish Mobile Guardian as a notable company that merits an article in its own right. ~Anachronist (who / me) (talk) 13:06, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

So what do you propose? Should I continue writing the article? 𝕲𝖎𝖑𝖊𝖘𝖊𝖑𝖎𝖌™ :) 13:10, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

You could recast it to be about the breach. I've done that before. I once wrote a draft about an author of a bestselling book, and a reviewer told me it would be better to write about the book because that's what the sources covered, and he was right. If the company is known primarily for one event, then it's more likely the event is notable. ~Anachronist (who / me) (talk) 14:47, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

Alright sure, I’ll try doing that. Do you think I should make it solely about the Aug 2024 incident, or also include all the other relatively minor incidents (which still got some coverage by secondary sources)? Also what should I rename the article’s title to? 𝕲𝖎𝖑𝖊𝖘𝖊𝖑𝖎𝖌™ :) 01:01, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

Getting "some coverage" isn't the same as "significant coverage". You could call it "Mobile Guardian security breach" or something similar. However, you could mention those other incidents in a short subsection. ~Anachronist (who / me) (talk) 03:51, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

Alright, thank you very much for replying! :)))))))) 𝕲𝖎𝖑𝖊𝖘𝖊𝖑𝖎𝖌™ :) 03:55, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

Hi guys, I have just made some major changes to my draft to completely shift the focus of the draft from the company Mobile Guardian, to the cyberattack. However, I am not really finished yet, and I believe more still has to be done. If anyone can provide any feedback or suggestions on what I can do from this point onwards, that would be great. Pls don’t expect it to be good since this is my first article, and therefore my first time doing this kind of thing. Thanks again everyone! 𝕲𝖎𝖑𝖊𝖘𝖊𝖑𝖎𝖌™ :) 13:15, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

Also btw, it is still very much in a state of WIP, I believe that there is a need to summarise the “Previous incidents” section, as it is too long for an article which is not focused on them. Also, if anyone would like to suggest some new names for my sections and sub-sections pls don’t hesitate to tell me, ok thx bye 𝕲𝖎𝖑𝖊𝖘𝖊𝖑𝖎𝖌™ :) 14:09, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

idk how Bencefo (talk) 20:09, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

@Bencefo: See Help:Comment. Bazza 7 (talk) 20:19, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

Thank you Bencefo (talk) 21:15, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

Like this: " ". MEN KISSING (she/they) T - C - Email me! 06:48, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

I'm working on an article for the game Rebuild 3: Gangs of Deadsville in my sandbox, and I wanted to ask if the sources I have are sufficient to establish notability. I'm also concerned I'm a little too reliant on primary sources for certain details. It's very much a work in progress, but I wanted to be sure it's notable enough to justify an article before I continue: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Oddbard/sandbox Oddbard (talk) 22:15, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

The rule of thumb is to find three sources which meet the golden rule. For games and books and that sort of thing, this usually means reviews. Avoid dev interviews and that sort of thing. Athanelar (talk) 11:04, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Good to know, I have more than three reviews as sources. Oddbard (talk) 11:32, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Hi! I've made more than 10 edits and my accounts is older than 4 days, but I do not yet have the ability to publish articles myself without approval. My most recent one Draft:Chiropterotriton ceronorum is under review currently. I remember not having to do this on my previous account. Is there some other reason my articles have to go through the approval process first? Thanks. TheBananachicken (talk) 22:26, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

@TheBananachicken: You apparently created this account at 23:14 on 18 March, so it should be autoconfirmed at 23:14 today (i.e., in about 40 minutes). Deor (talk) 22:37, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

"Hi! I am a new editor and I recently created the article Kaneri Thikana. I have added historical citations and categories. Could an experienced editor or New Page Reviewer please take a look and 'patrol' the page? I would like to have the 'noindex' tag removed so it can begin appearing in Google search results. Thank you!" KPSC0001 (talk) 03:44, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Hello, @KPSC0001, and welcome to the Teahouse.

There is usually a backlog of articles waiting for WP:NPP. Why do you think the reviewers should get to the article you have written before all the others that are waiting? ColinFine (talk) 10:55, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Good morning,

I can't figure out why I'm supposedly marked as being a 'Wikipedian who likes Better Call Saul' on my user page or why i'm listed on that categories' page

I've looked at the edit logs and I just can't figure out why or how I can remove it

I'd really appreciate if someone could please take a look for me ?

thank you, tiredkitty (talk) 05:41, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

I'm having the same problem with Wikipedians interested in health, I think it might be connected to userboxes? Purplelighter (talk) 05:46, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Thank you for letting me know so quickly although unfortunately I can find any commonalities between users in that category.

Do you have any other ideas to what could be causing it ? tiredkitty (talk) 05:54, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

update, apologies, I've figured it out, it seems like the creator of User:FishandChipper/Spooky Ghost has made an error

I've fixed it for him tiredkitty (talk) 06:05, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Purplelighter, in your case it appears {{User responsible cannabis}} is causing the category. I attempted to make it nocat, but it appears the documentation isn't accurate. 45dogs (they/them) (talk page) (contributions) 06:20, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

according to Category suppression, the below should work

you could try replacing the line with {{Suppress categories|{{user responsible cannabis}}}} tiredkitty (talk) 06:36, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Thank you very much @TiredKitty and @45dogs! <3 Purplelighter (talk) 07:53, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Unfortunately the code suppressing the category just places the userbox again, lol. I don't mind the category in the long run--thanks for doing your best to help me! Purplelighter (talk) 07:57, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

it was my pleasure and likewise tiredkitty (talk) 18:34, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Thank you @45dogs for fixing my user page! I owe you one! <3 Purplelighter (talk) 22:10, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

How peculiar, most likely explanation is that the userbox's creator copied and pasted the source text from the Better Call Saul template they had previously made, and forgot to change the part that adds that user category.

I see you went ahead and fixed it, though; good work! MEN KISSING (she/they) T - C - Email me! 06:35, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

thank you ^^ tiredkitty (talk) 06:36, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Hello!

I created an article for a Canadian comedy club, Little Mountain Gallery, that is notable for its not-for-profit status and long standing in the community.

It is rated start-class, and I'd really like to improve it. Could you please help me find specific changes to be made? Purplelighter (talk) 05:43, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Generally find more sources about its notable performances, or any unique 'traditions' associated with the club? Oh and see WP:42 LS8 (talk) 06:34, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Hi! Thank you for this. Graham Clark (comedian) performs annual 24-hour-long comedy shows at LMG to benefit the community, would that be a good place to start?

Tagging @Hoary as well :) Purplelighter (talk) 07:50, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

I think that's nice actually ^^ LS8 (talk) 11:43, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

An admittedly fast skim-read showed me no commentary by journalists or the like. "[N]ot-for-profit status and long standing" (above), yes; but is LMG notable for its comedy (according to journalists and the like, writing in reliable sources)? If so, in what way? -- Hoary (talk) 07:41, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Hi! Thanks for your feedback. Can I ask, how much quotation is appropriate? I've been so shy of plagiarism, but the space has been celebrated for its space in the community as well as shamed for its lack of permits Purplelighter (talk) 07:52, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Summarizing published commentary by others (not by Clark or LMG) on Clark's annual shows would seem promising, Purplelighter. Don't quote when you can just as effectively condense and summarize; but quote particularly pithy comments. -- Hoary (talk) 07:59, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Hi @Hoary, I added a section, lightly tweaked from the section on Clark's page about his 24-hour shows (I wrote that section too, I hope that's okay), what do you think? Purplelighter (talk) 08:20, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Also, I realized this is not the first time you've helped me, thank you very much for your contributions! Purplelighter (talk) 08:47, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Purplelighter, the article says very little of how the event went. Did Clark manage to continue to be funny? What were his main subjects/obsessions across the 24 hours? Aside from "bathroom breaks", etc, about how many in the audience stayed for the whole 24 hours? Summarize what sources (not Clark) have said about this. -- Hoary (talk) 11:41, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Hello, uhm... ...i have a rookie thing to ask😅 How do i remove one part of a ref list instead of deleting the whole thing?? ~2026-17540-72 (talk) 09:03, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

The reflist merely lists all the references which have been defined (inside <ref></ref> tags) in the article body. If you want to remove a ref from the list, you have to remove it from where it has been defined in the article. Athanelar (talk) 09:52, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

You have to delete the citation entirely. Versions111 (talk • contribs) 14:06, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Dang it, ok, thanks for the help atleast! I appreciate it ~2026-17540-72 (talk) 08:39, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

Also, the reason why is because i didn't know you could use wikipedia as a reference. But i will have to restart the page/article which also took me about 2 months to make, what a waste of my lifetime. Anyway, is there any way that i can find a way to edit the reflist template? If not, how do i make one? ~2026-17540-72 (talk) 08:48, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

Courtesy link Draft:Freedom and Innovation Party, please note you CANNOT use Wikipedia as a reference. Theroadislong (talk) 08:57, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

Wikipedia can’t be used, because it is user-generated. See WP:UGC. Versions111 (talk • contribs) 10:32, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

Hi, can a news video be a reference while editing a wiki content. Please guide, thanks. Ajith Amala Ajithamala (talk) 09:50, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Depends what you're using it for and who published it. Athanelar (talk) 09:58, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Hello, @Ajithamala, and welcome to the Teahouse

The particular platform or medium of a source is mostly irrelevant: what matters is who published it, and whether they have a reputation for editorial control and fact-checking.

So if a reputable newspaper posts a video on their own website, or their own official YouTube channel, that is just as good as a print article. But a random person putting up a video on YouTube is no more useful than a random person writing a blog, or distributing handbills in the street.

See reliable sources for more imformation. ColinFine (talk) 11:22, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Hi! I’m looking for feedback on improving this company article to better meet WP:NCORP and avoid promotional tone: Taxfix. Could someone suggest which parts need stronger independent secondary sources or restructuring? Thank you. Sarwe (talk) 10:00, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Well, have you read NCORP? What part needs clarification? Athanelar (talk) 10:08, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Incidentally, I just tried to move this article to Draft:Taxfix so that you could submit it for review, but I see you already had a draft of this article there which you abandoned to publish directly to mainspace. I'm not currently convinced this company is notable, so please stand by and don't edit the page for a bit while I shift them around to put your up-to-date version in draftspace. Athanelar (talk) 10:14, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

@Sarwe I have moved these pages around, I will send you some information on your talk page shortly. Athanelar (talk) 10:16, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Hi @Athanelar, thanks for looking into this.

Yes, I’ve read WP:NCORP. My main question is what kind of independent secondary coverage would be considered “significant” in this case, and which parts of the current sourcing you think fall short.

Understood on moving the page to draftspace — I’ll pause edits while you shift things around. Thanks, and I’ll watch for your note on my talk page. Sarwe (talk) 08:07, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

Hello, @Sarwe, and welcome to the Teahouse.

Most companies in the world, like most people in the world, do not meet Wikipedia's criteria for notability, and trying to write a Wikipedia article about them is a waste of everybody's time.

A Wikipedia article should be a neutral summary of what the majority of people who are wholly unconnected with the subject have independently chosen to publish about the subject in reliable publications, (see Golden rule) and not much else. What you know (or anybody else knows) about the subject is not relevant except where it can be verified from a reliable published source.

So unless you can find several sources about the company that meet all the criteria in WP:42, you should give up and do something else. And note that routine reporting of routine company activies is almost always from press releases, and so not independent and of no value towards establishing notability. ColinFine (talk) 11:25, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Hi @ColinFine, thanks for the candid guidance.

Understood on the “golden rule” and that routine/press-release coverage doesn’t help. I’ll review WP:42 again and reassess whether there is sufficient independent, reliable, in-depth coverage to meet NCORP. If I can’t identify several qualifying sources with significant coverage, I’ll stop pursuing a standalone article. Sarwe (talk) 08:09, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

I was thinking about articles that are both technical and whose titles don't make its technical nature immediately apparent. Consider, for example, Replay system describes a design technique in computer architecture, and Depersonalization a mental phenomenon in psychology. A reader might click into the article and get confused by the jargons.

I think it'd be helpful to address the reader which continent of science they've landed on, e.g.,

In [field of study], ... for lede

Concept in [field of study] about... for shortdesc

And may be complementary to the good old {{distinguish}} banner. I personally favour the lede option for it provides the opportunity to wikilink the fields of study, so a confused reader can click on for some lay person-comprehensible text.

Should I put this in WikiProject Cleanup? 海盐沙冰 _{/ aka irisChronomia / Talk} 12:01, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

See template Template:Technical. LS8 (talk) 13:41, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Thanks. The template gets the jobs done fabulously. 海盐沙冰 _{/ aka irisChronomia / Talk} 18:55, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Hello! So sorry if this has been covered already - I was trying to create a draft to translate an article which already existed in German/French/Czech and wasn't sure if the same sources used there (English) would be enough to establish notability/meet criteria for inclusion, or if I've misunderstood? Tsukicho (talk) 13:26, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

All sources can be used from other articles on different language wikipedias as long as they sources are accurate, reliable and secondary. The Grenadian Historian (Aka. Mwen Sé Kéyòl Translator-a) (talk) 13:32, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

@Tsukicho Some Wikipedias have less stringent requirements for sourcing. Yes, @KeyolTranslater is right, but depending on the article, those sources might not be enough to support an article in the English Wikipedia. Or, they might be enough. David10244 (talk) 14:23, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Hi, I've been working on improving the article on Turkish television dramas, which is in very bad shape despite my improvements to it over the past few weeks. A lot of it is full of unencyclopedic language, original research, and excessive detail. Some of the uncited portions I personally know to be true (even if written very sloppily) but haven't gone around to finding citations for yet. I'd like some assistance with organizing the article's contents to better fit an encyclopedia as a new editor. I have deliberately not deleted a lot of its badly written parts in the hope that at least the subject matter discussed in those sections may be relevant somewhere in the article.

Also, can I have some feedback on the sorts of edits I've been making there? Thanks! Wreaderick (talk) 14:01, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

In responding to a request on VRT, which pointed out that sources have retracted a birthdate for a subject on the Bulgarian Wikipedia, I removed the birthdate from the article text but for the life of me I cannot figure out how to edit the damn infobox.

Here on the English Wikipedia, the infobox template just shows up in the source editor. But on the article https://bg.wikipedia.org/wiki/Играта_(рапър) I cannot access the infobox. I can click on the infobox in the visual editor (which I never use here) but I don't see the birthdate field to remove.

This is presumably the same Wiki software that the English Wikipedia runs on. What's going on? ~Anachronist (who / me) (talk) 15:29, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Hello, @Anachronist. I guess that the bg infobox takes its data from Wikidata, d:Q61139728. ColinFine (talk) 15:53, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Ah, thanks. That's interesting. I didn't know infoboxes could do that. I removed the birthdate from Wikidata and the infobox in the article updated accordingly. ~Anachronist (who / me) (talk) 16:10, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

my user page is not detailed, how to add tags? ieatsandasasnack (talk) 15:34, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

If you mean categories, adding userboxes adds some automatically (see my user page for some examples). 🏳️‍🌈JohnLaurens333 (Ping me!) 15:41, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

thx, i was wondering what those were called. ieatsandasasnack (talk) 17:18, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

nvm it just shows the links ieatsandasasnack (talk) 17:39, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

It doesn't work for all userboxes, just some. For instance, my userbox {{User en-N}} adds the category "User en-N", but my snarky grammar userboxes don't do the same. 🏳️‍🌈JohnLaurens333 (Ping me!) 18:19, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

@Oreofatdan: Userboxes are a form of templates and you use VisualEditor which has its own way to do things instead of writing code. See Help:VisualEditor#Editing templates, or switch to the source editor (see Help:VisualEditor#Opening VisualEditor for that). JohnLaurens333 meant that only some userboxes add categories like Category:User en-N, but I don't think your question was about categories. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:35, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Lately, I’ve been having a hard time figuring out kung paano mag-add ng categories sa articles. If anyone knows how to do it, can you please sabihin mo? ThatEquatorialGuineaEditor (talk) 15:38, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Hello, @ThatEquatorialGuineaEditor, and welcome to the Teahouse.

You will get better results if you ask in English, rather than in a mixture. But I guess you're asking how to insert articles in categories.

The answer is that you edit the article (not the category) and insert statement (usually at the end of the article) that looks like

[[Category:name of category]] ColinFine (talk) 16:00, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm used to speaking a mix of Tagalog and English.

Anyways, thanks. I'll do that. ThatEquatorialGuineaEditor (talk) 16:52, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

See WP:PAGECAT ColinFine (talk) 16:01, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

@ThatEquatorialGuineaEditor

There are 3 (popular) ways:

1) WP:Hotcat script, install it, then scroll to the bottom to add categories from there

2) As ColinFine discussed, basically add a wikilink to the category on the bottom of the page

3) If you're in Visual Editor desktop, press on the 3 lines on the top right corner, then 'Categories' LS8 (talk) 16:02, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

I created a pseudomonad (category theory) and it passed the AfC. I noticed that the pseudomonad (category theory) is not included in the Wiktionary's entry for the wikt:pseudomonad. I don't understand the formatting of Wiktionary's articles. It seems that simply reusing the short description from a Wikipedia's article won't work.--SilverMatsu (talk) 15:51, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Hello, @Silvermatsu. You would need to add a second entire "etymology" section, with its appropriate subsections, to wikt:pseudomonad. I suggest asking at wikt:WT:Information desk. ColinFine (talk) 16:04, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Wiktionary usually helps readers connect to the main article through something like "Wikipedia has an article on:" template. I lowkey forgot what its name is, but you can look at plenty of wiktionary articles that has this template, e.g. the page on the word 'cat' LS8 (talk) 16:04, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Thank you for teaching me. I'll ask the Information desk about how to use the template, among other things.--SilverMatsu (talk) 16:20, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Silvermatsu, even if it did work, using the short description from a Wikipedia article in Wiktionary would be a bad idea, as the short description is not a definition. Mathglot (talk) 04:37, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

In reviewing the RFC list, I’ve noticed that several open discussions focus on allegations or other controversial commentary, some of a sexual nature and others not (for example, Bassnectar, Susan Abulhawa, James Fishback, and Stella O'Malley). I’ve commented on most of them, but I have some concerns regarding WP:BLP.

It seems to be common practice to use RFCs when dealing with potentially controversial additions to a BLP. Acknowledged. In some cases, it also appears appropriate to include notable allegations or accusations, provided they are supported by reliable sources and presented neutrally. Also acknowledged. That said, many of these RFCs have relatively limited participation, and in some cases I may be one of the few uninvolved editors commenting. Is that typical?

I want to make sure I’m contributing constructively and bringing a neutral perspective to these discussions without causing unintended harm. I’ve read the relevant policies, but I’m aware that their application in practice can differ. Are there other norms or best practices I should be aware of? Coffeeurbanite (talk) 16:47, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Striking my question as I continue to familiarize myself with the norms during active discussions here. Thank you. Coffeeurbanite (talk) 16:11, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

Hello, could I get an answer to my question here Wikipedia talk:Talk page guidelines#Question March 22 2026, where I asked:

Is it okay to remove "External links modified" notices by bots, as I did here for example? I don't believe these are worth archiving. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 19:17, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

I should clarify that I'm asking if these can be deleted rather than archived. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 19:30, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

These are deletable. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 19:43, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Resolved

I have submitted Draft:Denis W. Delaney for review. The subject is a notable Massachusetts government official whose First Circuit court case Delaney v. United States, 199 F.2d 107 (1st Cir. 1952) has been cited in federal courts for over 70 years including in 2022 in United States v. Bannon. He held federal appointments by two presidents, received coverage in Time magazine and Harper's Magazine, and is documented in 26 independent sources spanning 1918 to 2022. I have responded to reviewer feedback and addressed all concerns raised. Could an experienced editor please review this draft? Draft:Denis W. Delaney ThiaucourtRoad (talk) 19:53, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

I've added the information to allow you to submit it for a review. 331dot (talk) 19:55, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Thank you very much for your help. The draft is now submitted for review. I appreciate your assistance. ThiaucourtRoad (talk) 20:04, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Hi there! I am looking for some guidance on my draft for [[Draft:Jim Licaretz]].

An editor previously raised concerns regarding copyright and formatting about two weeks ago. Since then, I have:

1. Cleaned up the prose to ensure it is original and follows NPOV guidelines.
2. Successfully completed the VRTS/OTRS process for the images used in the article.
3. Replied to the editor on my talk page, but haven't heard back yet.

Could a host or experienced editor take a quick look to see if the "hold" or copyright concerns are now resolved? I'd love to know if it's ready for the mainspace or if there are specific sections that still need work. Thank you! -- ~~~~

Dr. Andrea Bruce (talk) 20:44, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Hello, @Dr. Andrea Bruce and welcome to the Teahouse.

I have added a header so that you can submit Draft:Jim Licaretz for review whenever you think it is ready. (I'm not sure why you previously removed such a header).

I am puzzled why you put the wikilink to the draft within "nowiki" tags, so that it doesn't function as a link.

Note that presence or absence of images is not relevant to whether a draft gets accepted into mainspace. ColinFine (talk) 22:39, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

There is a book about a classical composer that I need to use as a source. It is edited by a pair of people; each of its component chapters are essays by different authors. How do I adapt the cite book template for this and how do I cite from it using harv/sfn? Thank you all. —CurryTime7-24 (talk) 22:44, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

In the "Examples" section of Template:Cite book, look for "Citing a chapter in a book with different authors for different chapters and an editor". You have two editors, but just use |editor-last2= and |editor-first2= for the second one. Place that template in the references section, and use harv/sfn normally in the body of the article, with the essay author's name. If you're going to be citing more than one essay from the book, you'll need to add a separate entry to the references list for each one. Deor (talk) 22:53, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Forgot to ping @CurryTime7-24:. Deor (talk) 23:08, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Thank you! —CurryTime7-24 (talk) 02:59, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

CurryTime7-24, you do not need completely separate {{cite book}} entries in the references list for each one, that would duplicate a lot of information unnecessarily. You can have just one main {{cite book}}, and then have one {{citec}}/{{harvc}} for each chapter you need to cite at least once, and then you can refer to them via {{sfn}} as many times as you need to. As an example, look at author 'Daileader' in the Works cited section of List of French historians for to do this, and then look at the wikicode to see how the {{sfn}}s link to the chapters, which link to the book.

The template doc could be better, and because it is a bit more complex than a typical citation, I wrote up an explanation of it; maybe it would be useful to you; see User:Mathglot/sandbox/Templates/Ui-citec (just the top half; ignore everything in the green box). I hope this helps, and if you have suggestions for how to improve it, please let me know. Mathglot (talk) 03:20, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

How can i create valid articles that won't go for deletion? OKWE DARIOUS (talk) 23:23, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

The first step is to choose an appropriate topic. If you don't have an appropriate topic, everything else is a waste of time and effort.

What do you want to write about? DS (talk) 23:39, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Hello, @OKWE DARIOUS, and welcome to the Teahouse.

A Wikipedia article should be a neutral summary of what the majority of people who are wholly unconnected with the subject have independently chosen to publish about the subject in reliable publications, (see Golden rule) and not much else. What you know (or anybody else knows) about the subject is not relevant except where it can be verified from a reliable published source.

Thus, the first step in succesfully writing an article is to locate several sources each of which is reliably published, contains significant coverage of the subject of your proposed article, and is wholly independent of that subject (not written, published, edited, or based on the words of, that subject or anybody associated with that subject). See WP:42 for more about this.

If you cannot find several articles that meet these criteria, then it is not a suitable subject for Wikipedia.

If you can, then set aside anything that you know about the subject from any other source, and write a neutral summary of what those independent sources say. ColinFine (talk) 23:51, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Hi, and welcome to the Wikipedia Teahouse, the first and most crucial step of article creation is to find a suitable topic that Wikipedia editors haven’t previously made an article on, or are currently drafting an article on, that has at least 2-3 sources that fully fulfill the Wikipedia:The answer to life, the universe, and everything criteria. This ensures that the topic has sufficient notability to warrant its own article. If it doesn’t do so, the article has essentially no chance to get accepted in review regardless of how well made it is. 𝕲𝖎𝖑𝖊𝖘𝖊𝖑𝖎𝖌™ :) 14:20, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

i am deleting my account, i feel i have had a negative impact on user's lives and wikipedia as a whole oreofatdan (talk) 23:48, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

I looked through your contributions and couldn't find anything to suggest that, we'd love if you stayed as an editor! However, if you'd like to permanently leave, you can complete the WP:VANISH process. MolecularPilot _Talk 23:51, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

@Oreofatdan - first, you're not a burden, and any constructive contributions, no matter how small, improve the encyclopedia. For one, I don't think you're harming this place, and adding links helps readers of the page to navigate and understand easily.

To answer your question, accounts can't be deleted, but they can be vanished through a request, which means that the account's username is changed to something random and it is locked, meaning no one can log into it. HurricaneZeta^C 23:53, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

I don't know if it's possible or not, but what if like someone made an userbox that just says "this person is using a temp account" or along the sorts. Is it even possible to make userboxes, like at all? ~2026-51002-1 (talk) 00:01, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

See WP:CREATEUSERBOX 🍅 fx (talk) 00:31, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

51002,

Well, it'd be possible for the userbox to be created, but usually userboxes are placed on your own user page, and AFAIK TAs generally do not have user pages and aren't able to make them. I might be mistaken, and I couldn't find anything explicitly saying TAs never have user pages, but I've never seen a user page for a TA. MEN KISSING (she/they) T - C - Email me! 00:50, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

TAs can have user pages, it's just a bit pointless since a TA can only be active for up to 90 days. Athanelar (talk) 11:12, 24 March 2026 (UTC)