Wikipedia:Teahouse/Questions/Archive 1302

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Archiving your own Talk Page

What is the easiest way to archive one's own Talk Page? Is it the Quick and easy method, Manual archiving (User talk:YourUsername/Archive 1), or? Thanks. Maineartists (talk) 18:10, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

@Maineartists: I believe most editors would say that automatic archival by bot (usually through User:Lowercase sigmabot III) is the most pain-free method of archiving. I personally do a manual archive twice a year as I don't get a lot of frequent additions to my talk page to begin with. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 19:33, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

@Maineartists, I just set up bot auto archiving myself. You can check User:Lowercase sigmabot III/Archive HowTo for instructions. Giovanni Guasconti (a word with me) 19:36, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

I can set the bot code up for you, if you wish. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:33, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

Hey! Wow! Thanks, everyone! All of this is extremely helpful and simple directive responses! Andy Mabbett, thank you! I would love that if you could / would! I really appreciate it! Maineartists (talk) 00:23, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

Done; a bot should sweep up within the next 24 hours or so, and then regularly. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:43, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

Thank you, Andy Mabbett! That is awesome! I really appreciate your help on this one! Cheers, Maineartists (talk) 14:25, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

Link to the member article in the group article

My article about a member of j-pop group was recently accepted to the English Wikipedia. Articles about him exist in Japanese and Indonesian Wikipedia. How to add English language to the list?

K (&TEAM)

Mirenathecat (talk) 18:21, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

@Mirenathecat You wrote K (&TEAM). Who is the TEAM? TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 18:51, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

His group is called &TEAM. Mirenathecat (talk) 19:13, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

Oh! I get it. K (&Team) is him, not you. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 19:29, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

You add the article to the relevant Wikidata entry. In practice, I think if you go to either one of the existing articles (Japanese/Indonesian) and go to the language selection menu, there should be an option to add another article. -- Maddy from Celeste (WAVEDASH) 19:30, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

See also Help:Interlanguage_links. -- Maddy from Celeste (WAVEDASH) 19:32, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

Thanks a lot! ~~~~ Mirenathecat (talk) 14:16, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

I've added it to Q116226143 on Wikidata. @Mirenathecat, I can see that you've translated the article from Japanese, which is allowed, but you should always provide attribution to the original page. I've added a template to the talk page attributing the article, you may use this as an example for future translations. See also WP:TFOLWP. Fortek67 (talk) 19:53, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

Yes, I see. Thank you! ~~~~ Mirenathecat (talk) 14:17, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

I translated the article from Japanese manually, and checked all the links, doing my best to find English language references, added some facts, some more links, changed some sentences. ~~~~ Mirenathecat (talk) 15:02, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

My edit was removed because I didn't add a source

Today I decided to add the birthday of a musician on the articles about his date and year of birth. I didn't provide a source because I saw a lot of other submissions not being sourced on those articles, so I thought it was fine if I didn't source my edit either. A few minutes later, I received a message saying my edits were rejected because I didn't submit a source. I read everything it said and I understand why they keep the rules that way, but if that's the case, why weren't all the other unsourced submissions also rejected?

(I did find a non-Wikipedia source in the meantime and I'm going to add his birthday again with that source I'm just curious why nothing else was rejected) LostmindRH (talk) 13:05, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

In short, because nobody happened to revert those. There is no systematic review which would approve or reject new edits to Wikipedia. Your edit was likely seen by someone watching recent edits, but this too is an informal system and given the volume of edits, there is no guarantee that each edit will be checked by someone. And even if, the person checking might just be looking for obvious vandalism, might overlook the problems with the edit, and so on. -- Maddy from Celeste (WAVEDASH) 13:41, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

See also this: Wikipedia:OTHERCONTENT. To a first approximation: over the years, the requirements in English Wikipedia for information to be cited have become stronger. Many articles started a long time ago still retain old, unsourced content, but today's requirements for new content are stricter. Hope that helps. Feline Hymnic (talk) 15:22, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

Too many images?

I removed a bunch of images from Illegitimacy in fiction, because it was genuinely difficult to read the article. This has been a problem for decades now (see the talk page), but my edit was undone and the pictures were added again the next day. Is there a limit as to how many pictures can appear before the content of an article? ExtantRotations (talk) 01:54, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

Hi ExtantRotations. I guess you have a narrow screen which gives a poor layout for that article. You probably see the images centered without text around them. Wider screens display them to the right with text to the left. That looks OK on my desktop screen. I have made an edit which I think improves the situation a little on narrow screens by splitting the images into the corresponding sections. It's still a poor layout but there are fewer images in each group and they are closer to the text about the portrayed people. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:40, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter Thank you! I should have stated that I am on mobile, which displays all the images in full size. They have to be scrolled past to reach the text. ExtantRotations (talk) 11:21, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

I think this is a form of content dispute, and one or more of the suggestions at WP:Dispute resolution may help you. There is some guidance at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Images but a lot of it is "Not too many" rather than a hard rule.

Also worth noting that if the person reverting you has a wide screen, the article may look fine to them, even when it is truly terrible for you. Knowing this can sometimes help avoid futile arguments. M kuhner (talk) 02:43, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

My own response when hearing the question "Too many images?" and the title "Illegitimacy in fiction" is that these are fictional characters whose appearance is more or less unknown in any case, the article is not about their appearance, and therefore I would expect no more than two or three images in the entire article, and that more would not be serving any purpose, let alone an encyclopedic one.

But I haven't read the article, and maybe if I did I would see exactly why they did it, and even agree. I don't know. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 02:50, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

As @M kuhner said, the guideline at MOS:IMAGEREL recommends quality over quantity. When I looked over the article myself, I definitely think some images should be trimmed. Aside from layout issues, they're not all relevant (@TooManyFingers, they are photos of most of the authors of the fiction referencing illegitimity). Giovanni Guasconti (a word with me) 03:57, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

... to which my knee-jerk reaction (maybe just "jerk") is that those are all off topic. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 04:05, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

I didn't want to be too radical myself, but I have to say I agree! Giovanni Guasconti (a word with me) 04:35, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

+1. They fail MOS:IMAGEREL. By having so many about only a few sections, it presents a visual bias towards those topics. By having so many in each of several consecutive sections, it creates an increasingly bad image-stacking layout problem that even gets worse on wider screens, an effect contrary to the MOS:SECTIONLOC intent. DMacks (talk) 16:12, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

(From my own point of view, the concept of "illegitimate" children is a historic curiosity rather than a functioning idea, and I prefer not to dignify the concept by giving it a softer noun form. Way back when, they did mean to say "isn't a valid child", "shouldn't exist", and all the terrible stuff implied by the ordinary noun "illegitimacy". My modern equivalent term is "child". And now it's me who's off topic.) TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 05:22, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

I disagree with your historical interpretations. Historically, marriage was considered a cornerstone of ordered society not least because it strengthened the likelihood that children would be properly cared for, and children not born to parents married to each other potentially threatened that order. Being "illegitimate" usually meant not having a legal right to inherit from the father (if known): this was not necessarily a stigma on the "illegitimate" persons themselves, and often fathers could and did choose to support, and give or leave property or goods to such individuals (a well-known supposed case in point being one Yeshua ha-Notsri).

It is as well not to confuse modern sensibilities with the different social norms of the past. William of Normandy was in his time widely known as "William the Bastard" because his parents were not formally married. Although this posed him some legal problems, he nevertheless inherited his father's Dukedom, and went on to conquer England and become King William I. As far as I am aware, his 'illegitimacy' was not considered socially demeaning by anyone (although if they did, they would have been well advised to keep quiet about it). {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2026-41275-62 (talk) 11:06, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

Request an account page too lengthy

Wikipedia:Request an account this page is too lengthy imo, is anyone interested in shortening it? It's way too much detail for an average person that just like... wants to make an account. grapesurgeon (talk) 04:16, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

It's not for an average person making an account though - is it? Isn't it for when normal creation of an account has failed? TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 04:51, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

They need that entire sidebar about the username policy? Most people pick usernames that are fine; it's usually exceptions where they pick a wrong username. I'm of the opinion that they should be told about the username policy in an even more brief fashion, and if they happen to trip up, an admin should inform them in more detail that they broke the username policy. grapesurgeon (talk) 07:04, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

Hi @Grapesurgeon,

I don't think the page is too lengthy, to be honest. It's technically detailed enough to describe a serious process, and doesn't wander into unrelated topics. What's more, as @TooManyFingers said, the average person trying to create an account will start with Special:CreateAccount anyways.

If you can be more precise on your suggested changes, perhaps that'll change my opinion.

See also: similar discussion on article Talk page

Giovanni Guasconti (a word with me) 05:02, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

See my reply above. Some further detail; when you press "find my password" or "change my account name" at a commercial website, that's a pretty unusual process, right? Not for the average person. Do you receive literally thousands of words in technical documentation in reply first? Do you receive a TOS-level page about username policy? You don't, because 1. who would read that and 2. it's not relevant to most people. You're presented options to do what you need, and if there's an issue you get informed of that.

Also, respectfully I think Wikipedians tend to have a pretty distorted view about how much instruction is helpful/necessary to users. Look at like, any of our policy/guideline/tool pages. We have a serious problem with being verbose and outsiders notice and (imo often rightfully) mock us for it. grapesurgeon (talk) 07:04, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

@Grapesurgeon

I beg to differ, because "find my Password" or "Change Username" aren't the cases to land on "Request an account". BTW when one creates an account on any other commercial website, there are very "wordy" Terms of Use, Disclaimers, etc. to read. Nobody wants to read them either, but there they are.

So, as the others above me, I don't think there is any reason to shorten "Request an account". Maresa63 ^Talk 10:50, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

Terms of use and disclaimers etc exist but their usage is significantly streamlined. We don't provide any streamlining.

Also, I'm a bit shocked that you and others can read the prose there and think that it's concise enough and also think that every detail there is completely necessary for anyone using this to know. A chunk of stuff there does not apply to most people who just need an account created to get around the IP block. Again, if they encounter a problem, why can they just not be informed of it?

I'm repeating myself, but Wikipedians have a severe misalignment with normal people in sensing how verbose something is. IMO defending the wall of text there is really not a normal reaction. grapesurgeon (talk) 14:09, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

I think on the websites you're using for comparison, no comparable function actually exists.

The level we're at here is comparable to, for example, an imaginary screen at Amazon called Create Account/What if I don't have a valid card to pay from? Can I just mail you a check? TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 18:00, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

COI tag review after prior disclosure — next steps?

I'm the subject of an article Joshua Chiang with a declared COI (disclosed 2 April 2026). A COI tag was added 29 June, after my disclosure. I've filed a Request edit — is there anything else I should do to get this reviewed? Joshua Chiang (artist) (talk) 05:20, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

It's exactly right for the article to be tagged this way. If you really need to get that tag removed, you'll need to quit touching the article and wait until other people have deleted all your material and replaced it with their own version. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 05:30, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

This is because the tag doesn't mean "be suspicious, he's sneaky". The tag means "be suspicious, he wrote some of this" - which is true. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 05:55, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

(Note that this means the tag will likely stay up for years. If a group of editors soon starts changing the article to get rid of the tag, you'll immediately be suspected of sending them. So just sit back and let everything stay as it is.) TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 06:13, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

I've removed the tag, because the requirements for adding it:

if you place this tag, you should promptly start a discussion on the article's talk page to explain what is non-neutral about the article. If you do not start a discussion, any editor will be justified in removing the tag without warning.

were not met. (Note that it's "explain what is non-neutral about the article", not "say that a COI exists".) Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:47, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

@Joshua Chiang (artist) @Pigsonthewing Sorry my answer was wrong. I try to make sense of this material to remember it, and that obviously failed. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 17:50, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

Wikipedia is very big; none of us can remember all of its intricacies. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:32, 8 August 2026 (UTC)