This is an archive of past discussions with User:Tollens. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
Hi SofieJones! It seems you might be asking about writing an autobiography – if this is the case, please be aware that doing so is strongly discouraged as described in Wikipedia:Autobiography. If you're not planning on writing about yourself, I'm more than happy to assist: Help:Your first article provides a good summary of the information you should know before you start writing, and provides a button (near the bottom) which will take you to the Article Wizard to help you create your draft page.
The biggest things to take away from that help page are the parts about the notability (though the name is misleading, it doesn't have anything to do with the typical sense of the word) and verifiability policies. These two policies both deal with sourcing requirements of an article before it can be published – reviewers are looking to make sure that everything in the article is supported by citations to reliable sources (original research isn't permitted), and that at least 3 of those sources are also independent of the subject and discuss the topic in depth. The best piece of advice I can offer is to find the sources you will use before you write anything at all – often, new contributors write the article first and look for sources afterwards, which is much harder to do.
If you have any questions about any of this, or you need assistance with any part of the process, please do ask and I'll do my best to help! Tollens (talk) 08:43, 27 February 2024 (UTC)
Latest comment: 8 months ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Hi, I had started an article but I'm not seeing it in my account. Can you give me some suggestions on how to start a page and get it published? --Mckenziehill11 (talk) 15:40, 27 February 2024 (UTC)
Hi Mckenziehill11! The draft article still appears to exist, see Draft:Dave Rose (assuming that is what you're referring to). Addressing the concerns listed at the top of that article is the best way to get that article published – I talked a bit about this in my answer to your previous question, which is available here. Finding suitable references is an extremely important part of writing a Wikipedia article, and should usually be done before you even start writing: because the content of an article needs to be supported by reliable sources, it is far easier to write the article based on the content of the references you find than it is to try to find references which fit what you have already written. Wikipedia is intended to simply compile what other sources have already said, so unfortunately can't accept content based only on what you personally know. Tollens (talk) 21:57, 27 February 2024 (UTC)
Feedback request: Maths, science, and technology request for comment
Latest comment: 8 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Latest comment: 8 months ago4 comments2 people in discussion
So I recently started editing and I heard about this. I was wondering how it works and how I could get them. (Though, they were really a few easy edits, so...) Shishilan (talk) 23:00, 27 February 2024 (UTC)
Hi Shishilan! The thanks system is for thanking another editor for a particular edit – on history pages (like the one for this page), there's a link that says (thank) next to every entry, and on diffs of other editors' changes (like this one), there's a similar link after the timestamp at the top right. Anyone logged in can thank anyone else for any edit, and the editor thanked will get a notification saying that they were thanked by that editor. They aren't intended as something you look to 'get', or to show off to others – think of them quite literally as other users just saying thanks! I've sent you one for asking this question, so that you can see what it does. Tollens (talk) 23:38, 27 February 2024 (UTC)
You can click the link next to the edit you're trying to thank someone for in the page history or next to the timestamp in the diff as described above. Here's an example picture of where the link will be, if you're looking at the page history. Tollens (talk) 01:32, 28 February 2024 (UTC)
Gottfried Johannes Müller (10 April 1914 – 26 September 2009)
Latest comment: 8 months ago5 comments2 people in discussion
I saw that you recently contributed to or worked on the Gottfried Müller disambiguation page.
I ghaev another article which could be added to that Gottfried Müller disambiguation page.
Hi MaynardClark! I don't have any particular interest in the article, unfortunately – my contribution to the disambiguation page was just maintenance as it appeared in a list it shouldn't have at the time. Tollens (talk) 09:11, 28 February 2024 (UTC)
OK. I was merely hoping to get the article accepted. Currently it is under review. I would like to move it our of my own draft space into the article space because of his contributions. Third party discussions of him are scant (other than my interested parties who are enthusiastic). I am not organizationally connected to any interested related to Müller. His legacy, however, interests me.MaynardClark (talk) 15:11, 28 February 2024 (UTC)
Hi EarnestMoe! Depending on how well the references in the article are already covered, you might want to start in a different way: if the references that are already there have significant amounts of content missing from the article you might want to start by adding that, but if they have already been used effectively, starting by looking for references (before you write any content) is almost certainly going to be much easier. Sometimes there simply isn't much written about the person, and in these cases there unfortunately isn't much that can be done (though in most cases academics which meet Wikipedia's inclusion criteria do have a fair amount written about them). You might want to look through Wikipedia's articles about other academics so that you have a sort of 'template' to work from; you can find all of them at Category:Academics. Some of these will be stubs or poorly-written articles, of course, but I'm sure you can figure out which are good to try to copy the style of. If you are having trouble finding references or good articles to use as a guide, please do ask for more help! Tollens (talk) 21:20, 4 March 2024 (UTC)
Hi Gatthak Wech! You should be able to click the "Edit" button near the top right of (almost) any article, and it will bring up a window where you can change the article. If you're adding new information, an important thing to keep in mind is that all content should be supported by citations to reliable sources, and can't be based only on your own personal knowledge because readers of the article would not be able to verify that the article is accurate. You can use the "Cite" button in the editing window to add a reference.
Don't worry too much about making mistakes – they're always easy to fix, and others are happy to assist as well. If you need further help, please do ask! Tollens (talk) 21:29, 4 March 2024 (UTC)
Looking for some help with an article draft
Latest comment: 8 months ago8 comments2 people in discussion
I've been working on an article draft, and I went to submit it for review (was a bold request, wasn't expecting to get super far anyways, was hoping to get at least a little feedback). To no surprise, it was rejected, quoting a "lack of inline citations." The reviewer didn't really leave helpful feedback besides pretty general comments, so I wanted to ask someone more experienced to skim through it and give me some pointers. Thanks in advance! vghfr, harbinger of chaos17:43, 5 March 2024 (UTC)
Hi again, vghfr! It looks like the main concern is that the article does not demonstrate notability rather than a lack of inline citations. Honestly, missing a couple inline citations is very rarely a reason for a decline – they are usually easy to add in where needed.
Looking through the references listed in the article, I can only see two (and one is iffy) that are simultaneously reliable, independent of the subject, and having significant coverage of the topic, those being refs 2 and 3. I would suggest that ref 2 is a little borderline, considering how much of it is just quotation (which is non-independent). Ref 3 is exactly what you should be looking for, though. Generally, reviewers are looking for at least 3 sources which meet those criteria. I know these can be tough to find, but they are really important – reliable, independent sources are the foundation of any article. Searching Google for "master boot record" band and going under the "News" section, though, it appears there are probably more of these sources that you could incorporate, though I haven't looked at any of them with any sort of rigor.
If you need further help finding sources which meet this requirement, or want to run one past someone else if you aren't sure, feel free to ask. Tollens (talk) 08:54, 6 March 2024 (UTC)
@Vghfr: You can certainly use ref 2 – I'm not trying to say it isn't a good source. The only issue is that it relies pretty heavily on quotations, so its contribution to establishing notability is a little questionable. Personally, I'd accept that it does, but others might disagree with me. You can certainly use it as a reference in the article. Tollens (talk) 23:42, 6 March 2024 (UTC)
@PlaneCrashKing1264: Whatever you're interested in! I can't really provide good advice about what articles will interest you, but you might be able to find something by looking for a WikiProject on a topic you're interested in, or by looking through categories you are interested in (you might be able to find good ones by looking at the bottom of articles you've worked on in the past).
You don't necessarily need to 'write about' anything at all – the Task Center has some other things you might be interested in working on – often, doing maintenance tasks doesn't require much writing, if you'd prefer. Tollens (talk) 23:39, 6 March 2024 (UTC)
Hi BigCosmoStar! I've mostly done maintenance and technical work, such as in anti-vandalism and developing this dark theme, more than I have done content creation – I have actually created zero articles which did not exist before, but I've cleaned up several and helped expand a few. Tollens (talk) 01:39, 9 March 2024 (UTC)
Quick question about dealing with advertisement
Latest comment: 8 months ago4 comments2 people in discussion
I've been looking through new user pages lately (with intent to welcome new users) and whenever I come across advertisements or accounts that are clearly on behalf of a commercial entity (which happens way more often than I'd think it would), I tag it for CSD. I haven't had anyone tell me I'm doing it wrong yet, but I just wanted to double (and triple) check that this is the appropriate way to handle these issues. Thanks! vghfr (✉ Talk) (✏ Contribs) 14:12, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
@Vghfr: That's indeed correct! It doesn't look like you have a CSD log set up, so I can't see if there were any tags of yours that were declined, but it sounds like you understand. One other thing to think about – if the account has made promotional edits and the username matches the company name/product/whatever else it's promoting, you can report the account at WP:UAA (with no warnings required). Tollens (talk) 17:11, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
Dark mode colour contrast issues rendered on iOS devices
Latest comment: 8 months ago3 comments2 people in discussion
Hello, just a quick feedback, the dark mode template does not work well with vector 2010/2022 when viewed on an iOS device. Specifically the captions of image thumbnails - the text is almost the same colour as the background which is not possible to read. would you be able to make e.g. the text brighter?
here is a screenshot but I guess you also need to see the screenshot from an iOS/ipadOS device to replicate the problem: https://ibb.co/tM6xhDN original page Epidemiology of obesity
Latest comment: 8 months ago2 comments1 person in discussion
Hi Tollens!
I made an anonymous addition to "Sail" yesterday, under "Material", adding a reference to Viking wool sails, but I don't see it today. Can you explain what happened?
How can we create an article on Riya or Roopesh Rajkumar?
Latest comment: 7 months ago2 comments2 people in discussion
I don’t know a whole lot of them but I had gotten an Amber Alert about this when it happened and the way the murder happened. The fact that dumb people called 911 to complain about the Amber Alert waking them up afterwards made me think this is notable enough to have an article. 142.113.207.182 (talk) 15:21, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
WP:NEVENT is the guideline on notability criteria for events, including homicides – the main thing to keep in mind is the requirement either for very widespread coverage of the event (geographically speaking), or lasting coverage of the event over time. I don't know anything at all about this event so I'm not able to very easily tell you one way or the other, but if you believe the event meets NEVENT feel free to submit a draft article for review. Tollens (talk) 20:20, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
Latest comment: 7 months ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Hi!
I want to add a large table to a page, where all of the details come from the same website, which is already used as a citation on the same page. What's the best way to mark that it is cited? --GracefulEase (talk) 23:32, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
@GracefulEase: You might want to include a caption for the table and then include the citation at the end of that caption. Alternatively, if the table has a sentence right before it that explains what the table is, you could include it there instead. Tollens (talk) 00:02, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
Feedback request: Maths, science, and technology request for comment
Latest comment: 8 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion
@Shamere31: I'm not certain of what you mean – do you mean like at the very top of the article Albert Einstein, for example? If so, you can put the image in an infobox, for a person this would typically be {{Infobox person}} or a more specific one listed at Wikipedia:List of infoboxes § Person. I see that your username is the same as the name of the person it looks like you want to write about – if you are trying to write about yourself, please be aware that doing so is strongly discouraged. Wikipedia is not a platform for advertising or promotion: if you meet Wikipedia's inclusion criteria, someone else will probably make an article about you eventually. For more information please see Wikipedia:Autobiography. Tollens (talk) 22:29, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
The Toolforge Grid Engine services have been shut down after the final migration process from Grid Engine to Kubernetes. (T313405)
Arbitration
An arbitration case has been opened to look into "the intersection of managing conflict of interest editing with the harassment (outing) policy".
Miscellaneous
Editors are invited to sign up for The Core Contest, an initiative running from April 15 to May 31, which aims to improve vital and other core articles on Wikipedia.
Guideline and policy news
Technical news
Miscellaneous
Administrator changes
Arbitration