Wikipedia talk:Reference desk

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Archives

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RD Guidelines

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This page has archives. Sections older than 7 days may be automatically archived by when more than 4 sections are present.

Bots

Do the bots really edit pages or something else because I saw from the citation bot literally remove and replace the same information with the same words Avyanna.Owam (talk) 11:45, 7 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Where did you see that? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:19, 9 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Fake Desi media content querant

Looks like the Californian troll who pretends to be a poorly comprehending fan of Indian subcontinent media, with poor English, has now got themself an account. (If I was sufficiently motivated, I'd link the thread several months back where they crowed in perfect English about successfully fooling us.) Should something be done about this? {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.211.243 (talk) 07:51, 22 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure I follow. The last couple of times they've posted on Ents from an IP address, it's geolocated to India. --Viennese Waltz 09:05, 22 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The issue has been sorted, the account has been indefinitely blocked. --Viennese Waltz 13:24, 22 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Similar questions formerly came from (inland) California. —Tamfang (talk) 03:26, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion topic hatted.

I've closed up this post on the Ent desk by Félix An that solicited ideas for video topics. The RefDesk is not here to act as an idea lab for users. Frankly, we're also not here to help drive traffic to a YouTube channel. Matt Deres (talk) 16:37, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Reply to old discussion

I wanted to reply to conversation here Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Humanities/2023_March_11#Kure_eponym here, is that ok? I found a name on an old map and wanted to mention it. A75 (talk) 22:03, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It is ok for you to add a reply to an archived conversation. It is unlikely that anyone will see it. You can always bring a new question to an appropriate Ref. desk. Philvoids (talk) 16:45, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In olden times, the content of the Desks was transcluded from the daily archives, which meant that those of us who automatically Watch every page that we edit would see such late additions. Why was that changed? —Tamfang (talk) 04:13, 27 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Tamfang: See Wikipedia talk:Reference desk/Archive 105#transcluded archives can be confusing. —scs (talk) 22:40, 31 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

well then It Would Be Nice If the current desk had a convenient link to the last day of archives. —Tamfang (talk) 22:33, 2 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Here was the new question I did at the help Desk, it worked out well. Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Humanities#What_is_the_origin_of_the_name_Curé_and_Ouro_for_Kure_Atoll?_Was_there_an_island_west_of_Kure?. Thanks A75 (talk) 17:03, 31 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Obligatory?

Some source titles contain errors (e.g. wrong apostrophes), is it permissible to correct them or is it obligatory to leave them unchanged? JacktheBrown (talk) 16:15, 27 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there. This space is for discussing the reference desk, where volunteers attempt to answer user questions about the real world in the manner that a library reference desk would. From your question, it appears that you're asking about citing references within Wikipedia, the policy of which can be found here. Questions about how to use Wikipedia are typically better-placed on the help desk, which is here. However, your question is a little unclear; can you give a specific example? Broadly, remember that the whole point of citations is to facilitate verifiability. If the change you make will make it easier for others to find/link/understand/read the citation, you're probably okay to do so. If the change you make doesn't do that and is merely cosmetic, it may be better to focus efforts elsewhere. Matt Deres (talk) 20:41, 27 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Archives question

The question above got me thinking: have the archives always said, "While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on..."? I could have sworn that they used to tell people not to answer questions in the archives. I investigated a bit, but didn't get far: I think the boilerplate at the top is transcluded from some kind of "archive header", but I can't figure out where it resides to check history. I don't have strong feelings about it either way, but I would bet any additions to the archives get pretty well zero views and are thus of limited (but not zero) value. Matt Deres (talk) 21:21, 3 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Matt Deres: I'm nowhere near certain, but my impression is we've always gently-to-medium-strongly discouraged replying to archived questions, but not outright forbade it.

(Once upon a time, when some "archived" questions were transcluded back onto the main RD pages, it was totally acceptable to answer those.)

I, too, remember seeing a notice somewhere that strongly-discouraged-to-forbade answering archived questions, but I can't remember if I saw that here on the RD's, or on some other WP talk page(s). —scs (talk) 14:25, 4 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Does this help? The same editor, Road Wizard, made similar changes to the archives of the other desks in August 2006. Unfortunately that editor is no longer active. The diff mentions Template:Reference desk navigation which may be relevant, but that template was deleted in 2010. --Viennese Waltz 15:10, 4 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Well spotted; I would not have thought that wording was as old as 2006. The first line there "" implies that it's been taken from a reference desk navigation template, but nothing relevant pops up when I search for it. For that matter, if you start typing "Template: Reference " into our search field, it greys out once you enter the "d" for "desk". Matt Deres (talk) 16:20, 4 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Did you miss the second part of my post? I said that there used to be a "template: reference desk navigation" but it's been deleted. --Viennese Waltz 16:25, 4 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I guess I did. My searches somehow brought me to Template:Reference desk navigational (with the -al" suffix), which never existed and so gave me no deletion note. So, I confused myself. Template:Reference desk navigation does have a deletion note, referencing this discussion as you said. Matt Deres (talk) 18:31, 4 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]