User talk:Toadspike/Archive 3

This is an archive of past discussions with User:Toadspike. 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.

Hello, Toadspike,

In a current discussion on ANI today, you state that "all the uninvolved admins are too scared to follow policy" and "At this point we, the community, just have to admit that no uninvolved admin has the guts to block this longtime editor for personal attacks."

Given your low opinion of our current admin crew, I'd like to encourage you to launch an RfA or participate in the next cycle of administrator elections. I'm sure you are not "too scared" to do so and that you have "the guts" to go for administrator status. Then you can make a change in our administrator corps through your personal bravery which we could use more of. I sincerely hope you consider taking the next step and seek becoming an admin. Go for it! Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 06:03, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

You should probably put Wikipedia:Administrator elections/2025 on your Watchlist as the specifics of the next election get settled upon. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 06:07, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

Hey Liz, I appreciate the vote of confidence. I'm putting it off till September for personal reasons (despite my recent burst of activity here, I have to focus on Real Life™ for two months and will then be traveling for a month).

I've already got that page watchlisted, even though I'm not planning to run myself, because I am one of the many people trying to move the AELECT process forward (e.g. here). I'm hoping we get as many qualified candidates this time as we did last time. Toadspike [Talk] 10:34, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

Hey Toadspike, the Developing Countries WikiContest will be returning for a second year, and sign-ups are now open! The contest will run from 1 July to 30 September, and the objective remains the same: improve as many articles relating to developing countries as you can to help fight systemic bias on Wikipedia.

In other news, we have a new face on the coordinator team this year: last year's sixth-place finisher, Arconning (talk · contribs)! The coordinators would like to extend a sincere thanks to Ixtal (talk · contribs), who is leaving the team, without whom the contest would not exist. After feedback from contestants last year, the scoring rules are undergoing some modifications; the new rules and a summary of the changes made will be posted to the contest talk page shortly.

If you have any questions, please leave a message on the contest talk page or contact one of the coordinators: Arconning (talk · contribs), sawyer777 (talk · contribs), or TechnoSquirrel69 (talk · contribs). (To unsubscribe from these updates, remove yourself from this list.) Sent via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 09:33, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

Hey @Toadspike,

I see you are overall an expert on Chinese related topics.

Currently, there is a discussion on Talk:SWAT#Sources and changes where another editor has tried to claim multiple Chinese sources(including, funnily enough, websites of local public security bureaus) are unreliable. May I ask if you could maybe help clear things up for the user, as he seems to be a new editor and not familiar with policies(while doing borderline Wikilawyering). Thehistorianisaac (talk) 11:49, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

Please be careful to avoid canvassing. Parts of this message, such as "borderline Wikilawyering", are not neutral and you seem to be pinging me because of my previous views on these sources, which could be seen as vote-stacking. I may take a look later, but I am somewhat busy this week, so I can't be certain I will comment on this rather lengthy discussion. Toadspike [Talk] 14:46, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

Oops sorry, will use a more neutral tone to avoid canvassing; I don't really seek to vote stack, but the user apparently doesn't want to listen to me, and I think you are more a expert in this area. Thehistorianisaac (talk) 14:49, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

Hello Toadspike,

Could you close the Randy Cooper article? I think that keeping it open for over 3 weeks is an unnecessary embarrassment for the subject. Also, my experience with AFD's is that hardcore deletionists are the personalities most attracted to old AFD's. Thank you. I appreciate your help. Orlando Davis (talk) 22:10, 22 June 2025 (UTC)

@Orlando Davis Asking one person in particular to close a discussion, especially in a message referring to "hardcore deletionists", can be considered an inappropriate form of canvassing. I am sure that this will be closed soon, but if you are really worried, the appropriate places to ask for a close are WT:AFD and WP:CR. In any case, I am fairly busy and confined to a mobile device today, so I am unlikely to do any closing of discussions in the next ten hours or so. Toadspike [Talk] 06:50, 23 June 2025 (UTC)

If an article has been open too long, it's perfectly within Wiki policy to ask and administrator to close it. Wikipedia frowns on embarrassing subjects. It's not canvassing, it's just me venting about a flaw in Wikipedia. Troll types are more attracted to forums. There have been studies on the matter. I could canvass if I really wanted to. I don't. I understand your point of view. Thank you for your patience. Orlando Davis (talk) 12:39, 23 June 2025 (UTC)

Hello, I want to publish my page --AshrafSalamin (talk) 01:17, 24 June 2025 (UTC)

@AshrafSalamin The content currently at User:AshrafSalamin is unsuitable for the encyclopedia as it is promotional and cites no sources. Please see WP:42 for a brief explanation of our notability requirements. It is also very difficult to write an article about yourself, as our articles must be written from a neutral point of view; WP:AUTO explains this issue and others. Toadspike [Talk] 05:51, 24 June 2025 (UTC)

Hi! Thanks for participating in the Articles for Creation June Backlog Drive! We've done amazing work so far, dropping the backlog by more than 2000 drafts already. We have around 2300 drafts outstanding, and we need your help to get that down to zero in 5 days. We can do this, but we need all hands on deck to make this happen. A list of the pending drafts can be found at WP:AFCSORT, where you can select submissions in your area of interest. Thank you so much for your work so far, and happy reviewing! – DreamRimmer ■ 01:35, 25 June 2025 (UTC)

Hi Toadspike,

I hope you are doing well. While I was preparing to ask WikiMentor01 about the recent decline of my article Draft:Ronkay_Arslan – I noticed your note on the page and saw that you have considerable experience reviewing drafts. I thought it best to come straight to you for advice.

Over the past few weeks I have:

•Replaced all primary or self-published references with independent national and international coverage of Ronkay Arslan.

•Added inline citations for every factual statement.

•Edited the prose to ensure a neutral, encyclopaedic tone and correct English usage.

Despite this, the draft was declined for insufficient notability. Could you point me to the passages or sources that still fall short of Wikipedia’s standard? I have invested a great deal of time refining the article and would value any specific guidance you can offer before I resubmit.

Thank you for the work you do to keep the encyclopedia reliable, and for any direction you can provide.

Best regards, Vikiloger (talk) 06:02, 26 June 2025 (UTC)

(talk page watcher) Hi @Vikiloger! I've taken a look at your draft's sources. As a piece of advice, you don't usually need that many sources to prove notability – three sources are usually enough, but what matters is the quality of these sources. You would want them to be independent, reliable, and talk in-depth about Arslan. That's also the reason why a "Media coverage" section isn't ideal – if the sources are in-depth, they will provide material that can be used to write about him, instead of just mentioning their existence.

[1] is a primary, self-published source, so doesn't count for notability. [2], [3] don't mention Arslan. [4], [5], [6] only mention him when listing the cast members, so not significant coverage. [7], [8], [9] actually don't list him in the cast, so don't verify the information, let alone providing significant coverage.

[10], [11], [12] also don't list him as one of the jurors. [13] is a link to watch the show, so not an independent source. [14] relies on what Arslan says about his own company, and reads a lot like a press release. [15], [16], [17] also read like advertisements, and might be paid articles, especially since I can't find any byline. [18] only mentions him in cast listings alongside many other actors, still no significant coverage. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 08:03, 26 June 2025 (UTC)

How is this a redirect consensus? As a non admin you don't have the ability to delete. LibStar (talk) 10:55, 28 June 2025 (UTC)

@LibStar A valid alternative to deletion was presented, to redirect to an article where the subject is mentioned. This is certainly a valid redirect; as the article content was not problematic (e.g. BLP vio, copyright infringement, hoax), deleting before redirecting is unnecessary (WP:NOTBURO, in addition to moral principles such as not unnecessarily hiding page history). As the ATD was presented in the last !vote, it's not possible to assess the views of other participants on it. Here the closer has two choices: relist and ping everyone, or perform a bartender close and pick the most sensible option. I have gone with the latter, again in the spirit of NOTBURO.

If you still disagree with my reasoning, you are welcome to challenge the close at MRV. Toadspike [Talk] 11:44, 28 June 2025 (UTC)

An editor has asked for a deletion review of Vittorio Mancini (wrestler). Because you closed the deletion discussion for this page, speedily deleted it, or otherwise were interested in the page, you might want to participate in the deletion review. LibStar (talk) 00:48, 30 June 2025 (UTC)

This is awarded to Toadspike for accumulating more than 15 points during the June 2025 AfC backlog drive. Your dedication and sustained efforts in reducing the backlog and contributions to Wikipedia's content review process are sincerely appreciated. Thank you for your participation! ~/Bunnypranav:<ping> 13:33, 8 July 2025 (UTC)

lol, I was hoping to do a little better, but real life got in the way...hey, at least I got an interesting article out of it. Toadspike [Talk] 13:36, 8 July 2025 (UTC)

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hi my username is 789e but im einstinium_99_252 not a user dont get confused --turtle (talk) 20:06, 15 July 2025 (UTC)

Hi Toadspike

I noticed you are a part of the Chinese Military History task force.

I am doing research on October 9th 1911 in Hankou during the the Battle of Yangxia. Some Chinese rebels were going to bomb the Russian concession there, but were caught and ran away. When they realized they were caught they started the 1911 Revolution. But this first battle was the Battle of Yangxia. The Russians, Americans, Japanese, British, Austro-Hungarians, Italians, French, and Germans all supported each other in defending the concessions. Mainly the rebels seemed to fight the Qing dynasty forces though.

It seems to me almost a mini Boxer Rebellion as far as the allies were concerned.

I want to know about European, Russian, and especially American involvement in the battle. I have a book that in 2 pages briefly goes over the battle and the foreign involvement in it, but not in much details.

I am wondering if you know of any books or articles that go over the international involvement in this battle. Also if you know of any good books on the War Lord period of China I would appreciate that too.

Thanks (:

~~~~ Historyguy1138 (talk) 15:59, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

@Historyguy1138 This is a really fascinating story. Could you tell me which book you have that mentions it? If it cites sources, e.g. in the footnotes, those might provide more information.

Chinese Wikipedia seems to mention this incident in a section here [19], but it doesn't cite any sources, which is unfortunate.

My default starting point for Chinese history is the Cambridge History of China, which we have access to via the Wikipedia Library (under Cambridge University Press). This event would probably be in Volume 10. If it mentions this incident, it should also cite sources that go into more detail.

Searching JSTOR is always a good idea. It seems a large number of books have been written on the Xinhai Revolution; you could try checking those as well. I am fairly familiar with this period of Chinese history as a reader, but I don't edit much on it, so I'm not as knowledgeable on the sourcing as perhaps some others might be. Asking at WT:China may get a better response. Toadspike [Talk] 16:49, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

"This is a really fascinating story." I think so too.

"Could you tell me which book you have that mentions it? If it cites sources, e.g. in the footnotes, those might provide more information."

Yes I can. In the Yangtze Patrol: The U.S. Navy in China https://www.amazon.com/Yangtze-Patrol-China-Bluejacket-Books/dp/1557508836, by General Kemp Tolley. He gives us a few pages of the incident on pages 65-69.

Tolley is a good author, but I wish he was better at being more specific in his citations instead of just a blank bibliography.

Also the 1911 revolution article gives a Chinese for the bombing here: 1911 Revolution#Wuchang Uprising:

It reads:

"Revolutionaries intent on overthrowing the Qing dynasty had built bombs, and on 9 October, one of them accidentally exploded.$$$$$ Footnote here $$$$$$ Sun ad no direct part in the uprising and was traveling in the United States to recruit more support from Overseas Chinese. The Qing Viceroy of Huguang, Rui Cheng (瑞澂), tried to track down and arrest the revolutionaries. The squad leader Xiong Bingkun (熊秉坤) and others decided not to delay the uprising any longer and launched the revolt on 10 October 1911, at 7:00 p.m. The revolt was a success; the entire city of Wuchang had been captured by the revolutionaries on the morning of 11 October. That evening, they established a tactical headquarters and announced the establishment of the "Military Government of Hubei of Republic of China". The conference chose Li Yuanhong as the governor of the temporary government. Qing officers like the bannermen Duanfang and Zhao Erfeng were killed by the revolutionary forces.

Revolutionaries killed a German arms dealer in Hankou as he was delivering arms to the Qing. Revolutionaries killed 2 Germans and wounded 2 other Germans at the battle of Hanyang, including a former colonel."

The footnotes source is "王恆偉. [2005] (2006) 中國歷史講堂 No. 6 民國. 中華書局. ISBN 9-6288-8529-4. pp. 3–7." Historyguy1138 (talk) 17:11, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

Unfortunately I'm not able to access 中國歷史講堂 卷6 民國 or find out much about its author (aiming to assess its reliability). I can try doing some searching later, but I'm currently a bit busy. I'll let you know if I find anything. Toadspike [Talk] 17:23, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

Please do I would surely appreciate it, but please do so at your own pace. Own and if it would interest you, I wrote this article. About the 1 time the USA, British, and Taiping rebels teamed up to fight the Qing dynasty. (: Battle of Muddy Flat Historyguy1138 (talk) 17:32, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

Woah, also fascinating! Thank you for writing it and sharing it with me :) Toadspike [Talk] 17:34, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

I'm please you like it. It was fun to make. I might have a related research related question for you about it later. But I will leave you with the Battle of Yangxia for now, when and if you get around to it.

Thank you, and by the way in the future I would love to hear more about your work on Wikipedia and, no doubt trouble you for some book recommendations. (: Historyguy1138 (talk) 18:21, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

Hello Toadspike! I found your name on a list of users at Wikipedia:Translators available, and your userpage says you're able to do translations. I recently came across a German source for a draft I'm working on, and I ran it through a quick Google Translate (I am not familiar with how well machine translation works German to English, I know it varies a lot by language but I needed a spotcheck for usability).

I was hoping if you had a moment, you could verify the veracity of the translation for these two quotes, or provide a correction if the translations do not match the source (both from Wissen in der Fantastik ISBN 9783658177898).

Zugleich wird durch die spezielle katalogische Erfassung dieses Wissen neu geordnet, den Büchern ein neuer Platz im ‚Kosmos des Wissens‘ zugewiesen; der neue – utilitaristische – Ordnungszustand entspricht dem „Zeitgeist“ seiner „Epoche“. → At the same time, this knowledge is reorganized through the special cataloguing, assigning books a new place in the "cosmos of knowledge"; the new—utilitarian—state of order corresponds to the "zeitgeist" of its "era."

– in diesem Akt wird die gängige Bibliotheksmetapher von der Bibliothek als Zeughaus aufgegriffen (vgl. Schmidt 1999, S. 175–180). In dieser Auseinandersetzung werden die Wissensressourcen der Bibliothek materialisiert; Wissen wird in Form der Waffe direkt in eine Möglichkeit der Machtausübung übersetzt. → – in this act, the common library metaphor of the library as an armory is taken up (cf. Schmidt 1999, pp. 175–180). In this confrontation, the library's knowledge resources are materialized; knowledge, in the form of the weapon, is directly translated into a possibility for exercising power.

This is not a time sensitive request, and if you're unable to help, I completely understand. I apologize for coming to you directly, but I couldn't find any centralized place to make this kind of request, so my apologies as well if this is not the right way to go about it. Thank you for your time! NovaHyperion (talk) 04:47, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

@NovaHyperion Hello and thank you for coming to me! Checking these translations is not a problem at all. They both look good to me; although I might've phrased things slightly differently here or there, they are entirely correct. I might've reworded "special cataloguing" to "special catalogical collection" ("collection" is being used as a verb here); I'd also remove the "an" before "armory" for a more direct and powerful phrasing to match the German.

Two notes:

1. In "vgl. Schmidt 1999", "vgl." is short for "vergleich", which means "compare". "cf." also means "compare", so this translation is accurate, but as our article on it points out, "cf." is often used simply to mean "see". In this translation it is used literally to mean "compare".

2. "Auseinandersetzung", translated here as "confrontation", can also have a positive meaning: When a student sits down to learn something and "confronts" the learning material, the learning process can also be described using this word ("sich mit dem Lernstoff auseinandersetzen"). I am not sure if that sense is being used here, since I don't have much context, but it is possible that this word is not being used to indicate destructive conflict here.

I hope this helps. This was a rather fun request; I hope I receive more like it! Toadspike [Talk] 07:38, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

@Toadspike Yes, that helps greatly! It is exactly what I was looking for, thank you so much. I apologize for the lack of context, I didn't want to copy too much text so I tried to limit it to the exact quotes I anticipated needing without extraneous words (the explanatory text surrounding these quotes describes events from a novel, so I was able to verify that myself).

The confrontation being referenced here is absolutely a destructive one, but that is exactly the sort of nuance I wanted to make sure I wasn't missing. I will admit, I considered cutting the vgl. bit since it has no direct bearing on anything, but I left it in on the off-chance it was worthy of comment. Glad I left it in, that's a great fact to have on hand.

I'm glad you found the request fun, thanks again for your help! Hope you have a pleasant day :) NovaHyperion (talk) 22:11, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

Hello Sir, today I made a wikipedia page on my village. It is showing in the user page. Can you please tell me if it is in public view or not. Thank you --The Indian Update (talk) 19:19, 22 July 2025 (UTC)

It is visible to me, but others will only be able to find it if they have a direct link. The easiest way to make it visible in web search results is to submit it for review by Articles for Creation, which you have already done at Draft:Putimari. The draft was correctly declined by @Utopes because the sources do not show that this village exists. If you replace the sources with better ones, such as a direct link to the census results, the draft is more likely to be accepted.

Additionally, it seems to me that this draft was written by AI – did you use generative AI or an LLM to write it? Toadspike [Talk] 20:42, 22 July 2025 (UTC)

Please reconsider. The majority were in favor of adding "interim". We are not in a position that allows us to interpret what the editors intended. Hauskasic (talk) 14:57, 26 July 2025 (UTC)

It was a very slim majority, and one that presented no reliable sources to back up its claims, instead arguing primarily in terms of personal preference. It will take a significantly stronger argument than "the majority were in favor" to change my mind here; if you have not already, I encourage you to take a look at WP:Polling is not a substitute for discussion. Toadspike [Talk] 15:02, 26 July 2025 (UTC)

Do you get to decide that? In all discussions, this has been the norm. Neutral sources like Reuters and others use "interim president." [20], [21], [22], [23] Hauskasic (talk) 15:04, 26 July 2025 (UTC) (refactored to put links before signature; original comment broke the reply feature)

It would have been much more helpful if you had added those links in your comment at the RfC instead of saying "According to many sources". However, it's not in dispute that many sources use "interim president", while many others simply say "president" (including, at one point, the ABC article you've linked). What was not clear is which term is preferred by sources. There was no analysis of that question in the RfC; some users like Gommeh took the nominator's words at face value (though the nominator avoided taking a side), while others, like you, simply asserted that there are sources (which, again, isn't in dispute) rather than explaining why the sources on one side are better/more numerous than those on the other side.

You may follow the next step at WP:CLOSECHALLENGE by taking this to WP:AN if you wish. I will be honest and say that I am not entirely confident my close would be upheld, but I do stand by it. The discussion was a mess and in my view insufficient to establish consensus in favor of a change to the article. Toadspike [Talk] 15:25, 26 July 2025 (UTC)

On 27 July 2025, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Kamla Jaan, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that Kamla Jaan, a hijra and mayor, was removed from office because the electoral rolls listed her as male? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Kamla Jaan. You are welcome to check how many pageviews the nominated article or articles got while on the front page (here's how, Kamla Jaan), and the hook may be added to the statistics page after its run on the Main Page has completed. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 00:03, 27 July 2025 (UTC)

Hello Toadspike, I recently joined Wikipedia and you were assigned as my mentor. I would like to submit an Article for Creation and would kindly request if you might have a look at my Sandbox and offer your input first? Please be advised I am disclosing upfront that I have authored this draft biography page about myself and my career as an artist. I am here to advance Wikipedia's aims of building a neutral, well-sourced free encyclopedia and welcome your suggestions, comments and edits. Thank you. GuerroArtist (talk) 05:34, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

@GuerroArtist Hello! Thank you for being so forthcoming about the fact that you are writing about yourself. I have taken a look at the article, especially its sources. In my view, the sources are enough to demonstrate that you meet the general notability guideline, which means an article on you is unlikely to get deleted. This source [24] was especially impressive, as it is a lengthy, in-depth review of your work.

To ensure a smooth ride through the Articles for Creation process, you'll want to make sure that everything (or nearly everything) is backed up by a source. I notice that the first paragraph under "Scott Parsons Studio" doesn't cite any sources, and neither does the "Selected Realized Projects" section.

You'll also want to watch out for promotional wording – Wikipedia articles should be written from a neutral point of view. Unless you can attribute it directly to a source, wording like "some of the most vital art journals in America" should be removed. There are many other examples of this in your draft, which will need some revision before it's ready to be published. It is also generally better to specify which awards were won, rather than just saying "award-winning".

I hope this helps. I can't make any guarantees, but I think you have a good shot at getting your draft published. Toadspike [Talk] 10:27, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

Thanks Toadspike for taking the time to review this, that means a lot, and for bit of encouragement! I will digest your excellent advice, work on getting “neutral” throughout, and use citations to source practically everything in the draft. GuerroArtist (talk) 19:49, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

Did you merge List of U.S. states and territories by median wage and mean wage when you closed this AfD? It looks like the TalkPage was not merged. Since I have not yet closed a discussion, I wasn't sure who was responsible for taking care of that. Rublamb (talk) 22:53, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

@Rublamb Sorry, somehow I missed your question. No, I did not perform the merge; I very rarely do when closing AfDs, and I believe most other closers are similar. You can merge or redirect the Talk page as you see fit, no need to ask my permission. Toadspike [Talk] 10:01, 6 August 2025 (UTC)

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Hauskasic (talk) 23:29, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

@Toadspike I see there's a conflict over voting to delete the Princess Changde article, kind of like SongRuyi is saying we're heavily biased against China here, for example, the sentence I find it difficult to defend articles related to China because English Wikipedia tends to be dominated by Western viewpoints, some of which hold anti-China biases. This makes defending Chinese topics quite challenging. (It's not on the main discussion page, but on another member's talk page) Min968 (talk) 17:24, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

@Min968 I was going to reply there again shortly, but I am unsure if it will change anything. They do not seem to understand that sources written by the Ming and Qing governments can be seen as primary and thus unusable for notability. Another editor pointed out issues with their writing on the article talk page, which is exactly what I was getting at when I asked for secondary sources. Without secondary sources, we cannot judge the impact of this person's life, especially not with phrasing like "This event resulted in a rare and famous scene in Ming dynasty history".

I resent the accusation that we're all ignorant or biased. I believe my actions on-wiki clearly contradict these accusations, and yours certainly do, as anyone who glances at your userpage can see. If they keep this up, we're headed for the noticeboards, but I would like to avoid that if I can. Toadspike [Talk] 17:32, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

@Toadspike This is a noteworthy issue and I will follow up on it. I also hope we won't need to bring this matter to the noticeboards.Min968 (talk) 17:38, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

@Toadspike, @Min968 - Sorry for butting into this thread, and a second sorry Toadspike because I already pinged you from Princess Changde's talk page about this! Anyway, I would be very grateful for more opinions on Talk:Princess Changde § Religious endowments - failed verification? where basically I can't find the Ming Shi source quote at all! I am quite unwilling to believe that a fellow editor would make up something like this, and wonder if there's a chance I have been looking in the wrong place for the original text. Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 15:47, 4 August 2025 (UTC)

No need to apologize; if you're right, this is fairly serious. I'll take a look. Toadspike [Talk] 16:04, 4 August 2025 (UTC)

We're a month into the 2025 Developing Countries WikiContest, with stiff competition at the top of the leaderboard already! Our current top five contestants are:

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5. BeanieFan11 (submissions) – 168 points from a few GAs, a few DYKs, and a few ITNs on athletes from a variety of countries.

Looking for ways to climb up the leaderboard yourself? Help out your fellow participants by answering a few review requests, particularly the older entries. Several more nominations needing attention are listed at eligible reviews, and highlighed entries receive a 1.5× multiplier!

On behalf of the coordinators, we'd like to thank all the participants for helping to combat systemic bias on Wikipedia! If you have any questions, please leave a message on the contest talk page or ask one of the coordinators: Arconning (talk · contribs), sawyer777 (talk · contribs), or TechnoSquirrel69 (talk · contribs). (To unsubscribe from these updates, remove yourself from this list.) Sent via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 03:36, 4 August 2025 (UTC)

Hello, i made a publication about Sergey Khrabrykh,it was declined the first time, and now im re-making it but this time adding more links and more information, its been several weeks, but the article has not been published still, could you tell me how to further improve and refine it --Dimitry565 (talk) 01:11, 7 August 2025 (UTC)

@Dimitry565 The review backlog is very long – it is normal for a submission to wait many weeks before being reviewed. I notice that your draft still has several paragraphs of text without references. Since it is about a living person, our policy on biographies of living persons applies, and it requires that contentious material about living persons be attributed to an inline citation (footnote). Adding citations to cover all of the information in the article would greatly increase the chances of your draft being accepted. Toadspike [Talk] 21:12, 8 August 2025 (UTC)

Hello Mentor, my name is Andrew. I wanted to ask a question about editing. When I select the topic Medicine & Health, it says no topics are available. Yes, my friend who is also an editor sent me a screenshot where it says 480 articles found. Have I done something wrong? I am a newbie!

Also --Dr Andrew McGregor at Park Orthodontics (talk) 09:32, 8 August 2025 (UTC)

@Dr Andrew McGregor at Park Orthodontics Hello Dr Andrew McGregor, and welcome to Wikipedia! I'm not sure where you're trying to select the topic Medicine & Health, but WikiProject Medicine may have some pointers. That page has a table near the bottom which links to a tool that sorts medicine articles by quality – for example, this [25] is a list of all the medical articles that are stubs, which are very short articles that could usually do with some expanding.

One piece of advice: We're a little particular about sourcing on Wikipedia. There's a long guideline, WP:MEDRS, on choosing the best sources for biomedical information, but the idea is basically that we prefer citing review articles or books (secondary sources), rather than individual research papers presenting novel results (primary sources). Toadspike [Talk] 12:35, 8 August 2025 (UTC)

Ah, I see – on the Homepage, it seems you have to select one or more regions to get article suggestions. I suggest selecting all regions. Toadspike [Talk] 12:37, 8 August 2025 (UTC)

Hello again. How do I turn on or use Machine suggestions under easy tasks (add links between articles)? I don't seem to have this yet, but I have seen it in action, and it's very good. --Dr Andrew McGregor at Park Orthodontics (talk) 09:34, 8 August 2025 (UTC)

Hello --Siyamhossainllc (talk) 15:38, 8 August 2025 (UTC)

@Siyamhossainllc Hello! Welcome to Wikipedia! Is there anything I can help you with? Toadspike [Talk] 21:08, 8 August 2025 (UTC)

Your feedback is requested at Talk:Western Sahara on a "All RFCs" request for comment. Thank you for helping out!
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(trialing replacing Yapperbot) SodiumBot (botop|talk) 13:39, 12 August 2025 (UTC)

On 13 August 2025, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Uterine hypoplasia, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that the withdrawn medication diethylstilbestrol caused uterine hypoplasia? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Uterine hypoplasia. You are welcome to check how many pageviews the nominated article or articles got while on the front page (here's how, Uterine hypoplasia), and the hook may be added to the statistics page after its run on the Main Page has completed. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

 — Amakuru (talk) 00:02, 13 August 2025 (UTC)

On 16 August 2025, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article The Wandering Village, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that a community vote allowed players of the "wholesome" city-building game The Wandering Village to feed their villagers to a giant beast? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/The Wandering Village. You are welcome to check how many pageviews the nominated article or articles got while on the front page (here's how, The Wandering Village), and the hook may be added to the statistics page after its run on the Main Page has completed. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

 — Amakuru (talk) 00:02, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

Hello, Toadspike. This is a bot-delivered message letting you know that Draft:Syed Ahmed Hadi, a page you created, has not been edited in at least five months. Drafts that have not been edited for six months may be deleted, so if you wish to retain the page, please edit it again or request that it be moved to your userspace.

If the page has already been deleted, you can request it be undeleted so you can continue working on it.

Thank you for your submission to Wikipedia. FireflyBot (talk) 04:06, 23 August 2025 (UTC)

September 2025 Backlog Drive | New pages patrol
On 1 September 2025, a one-month backlog drive for New Page Patrol will begin. Barnstars will be awarded based on the number of articles patrolled. Barnstars will also be granted for re-reviewing articles previously reviewed by other patrollers during the drive. Each review will earn 1 point. Interested in taking part? Sign up here.
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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:32, 23 August 2025 (UTC)

Hi Toadspike. Your request for clarification has been closed and is archived at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment/Archive 133 § Clarification request: Indian military history with a consensus of participating arbitrators to endorse Tamzin's explanation. ~ Jenson (SilverLocust 💬) 03:40, 24 August 2025 (UTC)

The fourth round of the 2025 WikiCup ended on 29 August. The penultimate round saw three contestants score more than 800 points:

• BeanieFan11 (submissions) with 1,175 round points, mainly from sports-related articles, including 17 good articles, 27 did you know articles, and 9 in the news articles
• Arconning (submissions) with 1,090 round points, mainly from articles about athletes and politicians, including a featured article on Philippines at the 1924 Summer Olympics, 9 good articles, 28 did you know articles, and a wide assortment of featured and good article reviews
• AirshipJungleman29 (submissions) with 854 round points, mostly from a high-scoring featured article on the Indian leader Rani of Jhansi and two good articles, in addition to 13 featured and good article reviews

Everyone who competed in Round 4 will advance to Round 5 unless they have withdrawn. This table shows all competitors who have received tournament points so far, while the full scores for Round 4 can be seen here. During this round, contestants have claimed 9 featured articles, 12 featured lists, 98 good articles, 9 good topic articles, more than 150 reviews, nearly 100 did you know articles, and 18 in the news articles.

In advance of the fifth and final round, the judges would like to thank every contestant for their hard work. As a reminder, any content promoted after 29 August but before the start of Round 5 can be claimed in Round 5. In addition, note that Round 5 will end on 31 October at 23:59 UTC. Awards at the end of Round 5 will be distributed based on who has the most tournament points over all five rounds, and special awards will be distributed based on high performance in particular areas of content creation (e.g., most featured articles in a single round).

Invitations for collaborative writing efforts or any other discussion of potentially interesting work is always welcome on the WikiCup talk page. Remember, if two or more WikiCup competitors have done significant work on an article, all can claim points. If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed. If you want to help out with the WikiCup, feel free to review one of the nominations listed on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed. Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges – Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs), Epicgenius (talk · contribs), Frostly (talk · contribs), Guerillero (talk · contribs) and Lee Vilenski (talk · contribs) – are reachable on their talk pages. Good luck!

If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:48, 30 August 2025 (UTC)