Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2022 November 18

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November 18

Suicide

Does wiipedia allow that you can publicly announce that you are going to kill yourself on your user page?Worthless30 (talk) 00:08, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

User has been blocked as a sock. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 14:08, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

@Worthless30: please see WP:EMERGENCY for resources if you see this on a page or if you yourself need help RudolfRed (talk)

Glitching citations?

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T323343

Hello,

Last night I noticed that every time I make a new edit, every single citation in the article is followed by a citation with a zero in it (^[0]). Some citations are also not superscript like they should be. When I refresh the page, everything goes back to normal. Today I tried editing on my laptop and found it was doing the same thing. Does anyone know what's going on here? Is this a bug or am I doing something that's causing it?

Thanks, PianoUpMyNose (talk) 15:09, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

I also had that when I added a reference to List of Cistercian monasteries a couple of hours ago. I wondered what was going on, but couldn't see any reason, so I left it for later. It's not showing there now. ColinFine (talk) 16:21, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

This seems to be a software bug, for which a patch is already being worked on at T323343. Sam Walton (talk) 16:22, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

Wow, this seems to have been investigated and fixed in one day, between early morning Nov. 18, and 5:00 p.m. Nov 18 (presumably UTC). That's pretty fast. David10244 (talk) 08:45, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

How to start writing a new article?

I would like to contribute a new article but I do not know how. Muzongkodi (talk) 17:01, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

See Help:Your first article. Creating a new article that is likely to be accepted takes a lot of work though, and it is generally advised to get some experience through editing existing articles first. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:06, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

@Muzongkodi: There is only one absolute requirement: the subject of an article must be notable by our definition: see WP:N. Do not put any effort into writing an article until you are sure you understand the requirements to establish notability and you know that your subject meets these requirements. If your subject is not notable, we will delete any article you attempt to write. If your subject is notable we can help you with your article if you follow the steps in WP:YFA, but we delete more than 100 articles every day because the subject is not notable: see WP:AFD. -Arch dude (talk) 05:36, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

Using Nonstandard/Unsupported MediaWiki Skins?

What would be the possibility of using a non-standard MediaWiki skin on a WMF site? Like, one that's installed on MW for Wikipedia (i.e. Cologne Blue) or something of the sorts. It's installed onto MediaWiki, but there aren't any prompts that allow you to use it (in Special:Preferences.)

(I get that it's outdated and hasn't been used for the past umpteen years, but it'd be cool I think.) Explodicator7331 (talk) 18:41, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

@Explodicator7331 I believe it is still possible to select them using a URL like this, although that trick ceases to work if the developers remove it altogether. Victor Schmidt mobil (talk) 19:16, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

Does Wikipedia have an article ...?

Does Wikipedia have an article on the quadruple murder of the college students at the University of Idaho? I have been searching for a few days and can't seem to find any mention at all. Thanks. 32.209.55.38 (talk) 20:08, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

Based on its entry on Portal:Current events we do not. —Jéské Couriano v^_^v ^{a little blue Bori} 22:22, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

Update: 2022 University of Idaho killings. 32.209.55.38 (talk) 00:09, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

Update Logo

Hi! The logo has changed for our school (Archbishop Mitty High School in San Jose). I tried to upload the new logo, but learned this is only possible for administrators and I'm not an administrator. Attached is the error message I received. Any tips for how to move forward? Thank you!

Thanks, Katie Update235 (talk) 23:00, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

Uploading isn't limited to administrators, but rather to autoconfirmed accounts (4 days/10 edits). You're better served emailing info-en[at]wikimedia.org with the image and having them upload it in your behalf, especially if this is the only thing you intend to really do. —Jéské Couriano v^_^v ^{a little blue Bori} 23:04, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

Thank you so much! That's SUPER helpful! Update235 (talk) 23:08, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

Update235, just saying, I do not see an error message attached. Note that using a picture or screenshot on Wikipedia requires that you upload it here or on commons. Sungodtemple (talk) 00:45, 20 November 2022 (UTC)