Wikipedia talk:Teahouse

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Teahouse history

Teahouse was featured in a WikiProject Report in the Signpost on 14 May 2012. Teahouse was featured in a WikiProject Report in the Signpost on 27 February 2022. This Wikipedia:Teahouse has been mentioned by multiple media organizations: Yermi Brenner (24 June 2013). "Taking On Wikipedia's Bias". Medium. Archived from the original on 28 July 2013. Retrieved 28 July 2013. Dobusch von Leonhard (2 August 2013). "Wikipedia: Grenzenlose Exklusion?". Netzpolitik. Archived from the original on 8 August 2013. Retrieved 8 August 2013. Deanna Zandt (26 April 2013). "Yes, Wikipedia Is Sexist -- That's Why It Needs You". Forbes. Retrieved 24 October 2013. Tori Bosch (13 July 2012). "How Kate Middleton's Wedding Gown Demonstrates Wikipedia's Woman Problem". Slate. Retrieved 24 October 2013. Jim Giles (17 April 2013). "Free for All? Lifting the Lid on a Wikipedia Crisis". New Scientist. Retrieved 2 April 2014. Purnima Sriram (17 November 2015). "Hyderabad Boy's Chai Pe Charcha with Wikipedia". The New Indian Express. Retrieved 20 May 2016. Chris Wilson (15 January 2016). "Why Wikipedia Is in Trouble". TIME. Retrieved 28 November 2016.

Assistance for new editors

This section is pinned and will not be automatically archived.

The Teahouse is frequently semi-protected, meaning the Teahouse pages cannot be edited by unregistered users (users with IP addresses), as well as accounts that are not confirmed or autoconfirmed (accounts that are at least 4 days old with at least 10 edits on English Wikipedia).

However, you can still get direct assistance on your talk page. Use this link to ask for help; a volunteer will reply to you there shortly. Alternatively, you can contact an experienced editor by visiting your homepage and clicking "Ask your mentor a question about editing".

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Archive header is wrong

For the archives of Wikipedia talk:Teahouse it says "This is an archive of past discussions on Wikipedia:Teahouse. But it should say Wikipedia talk:Teahouse.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 16:34, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Good spot — I see that issue in the {{aan}} header at e.g. Wikipedia talk:Teahouse/Archive 27. Notified Template talk:Archive. Cheers, Sdkb ^talk 04:48, 15 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think what happened was I was trying to go back to the main talk page (this one, until the question is archived) and it wasn't the right one.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 17:20, 15 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Copied my reply from the template's talk page, "@Sdkb & Vchimpanzee, in the issue raised above, it would be fairly straightforward to change the text to "This is an archive of past discussions about Wikipedia:Teahouse." but it would be more complicated to get "This is an archive of past discussions on Wikipedia talk:Teahouse." There was a change done in the past to link from talk page archive banners to the article page. This works pretty well for articles, but quirks have come up outside of article space. I believe Andy came up with the idea, so I'll ping him for his thoughts, Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 05:09, 10 September 2025 (UTC)" 09:44, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The proposed change can now be previewed with {{archive/sandbox}}. The prepositions are handled by Module:Archive/config. The change I described above was made in this edit to Module:Archive and discussed here. Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 10:02, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Archiving

Are resolved questions getting immediately archived now? If so what's the thinking behind that? Mightn't it be helpful to mark a question as resolved but leave it up to get archived naturally, so that editors have a chance to ruminate on the the responses? -- D'n'B-📞 -- 18:46, 23 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

(a month and a half later) Linking tangential discussion at Wikipedia talk:Teahouse/Archive 27#Manually archived. Rotideypoc41352 (talk · contribs) 22:43, 8 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion at Wikipedia talk:Growth Team features § "Add a link" experiment and next steps

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Growth Team features § "Add a link" experiment and next steps. Sdkb-WMF (talk) 17:54, 28 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Featured hosts listing removal

Courtesy ping: Jtmorgan

hi! this is to notify that i have formally retired from hosting for the meantime due to abysmal teahouse activity. as i was one of the hosts listed on Featured Hosts, i have decided to also remove myself from the listing at /24, replaced by Cullen for now as a placeholder.

happy editing! 💜  melecie  talk - 18:14, 30 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your service, Melecie. Great as he is, we probably shouldn't have Cullen328 listed twice. We could either move everyone after 24 up a place, or perhaps Pigsonthewing, who seems to have been particularly active responding to queries of late, would be interested in being added there? Cordless Larry (talk) 21:44, 30 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Don't make me blush, Cordless Larry. Cullen328 (talk) 03:43, 31 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you; yes. What do you need from me? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:38, 31 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If you sign up as a host via Wikipedia:Teahouse/Host start, I'll add you to the list of featured hosts. Cordless Larry (talk) 07:31, 1 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Just a reminder to add yourself to the list of hosts if you want to be added to the featured list, Andy. Cordless Larry (talk) 09:34, 27 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Done. It had slipped my mind; thanks for the reminder. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:27, 27 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! I've now updated the featured hosts listing and we're back to just the one Cullen328. Cordless Larry (talk) 12:10, 27 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Unanswered question

User:Hypercyclone 2's question hasn't been answered in 2 days --TheOneAndOnlyInkpen (talk) 04:13, 20 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't fully understand the question but I've posted an initial response. Thanks for flagging this. Cordless Larry (talk) 07:06, 20 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Question for Wikipedia:

Can we actually ask questions here? As in a request for a new site? I never have time. Yes, I am saying this at 3 am... Aidenwhelanmorrissey (talk) 02:00, 8 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Aidenwhelanmorrissey: Here you can ask questions about editing Wikipedia. If it is about a new website unrelated to Wikipedia, then not here. WP:RD is for more general questions. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 03:38, 8 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ill-formatted question

At the top of the page someone added the text "Why is there no Wikipedia page for Jacob Barnett in English?" Does anyone know who added this? I was going to reformat it as an actual topic so that person could get their question answered, but I looked through the page history and can't find who added it. 🏳️‍🌈JohnLaurens333 (need something? Ping me!) 16:27, 8 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Signed, titled, and moved to § Why doesn't this page exist. Thanks for spotting it. Mathglot (talk) 16:56, 8 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If the Teahouse didn't exist, where would we request it?

Not on this page, obviously, because this talk page wouldn't exist either.

It must have been discussed when the Teahouse first began.

Someone wanted to do this on Greek Wikipedia, so I was curious where this person might have gone there.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 21:52, 9 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Not a direct answer: the earliest Signpost mention I could find was Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2012-03-05/News and notes#Teahouse project. Rotideypoc41352 (talk · contribs) 18:44, 10 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'd imagine nowadays it would be proposed on a central noticeboard like the Village Pump Idea Lab, or the closest that could be found. Obviously I wasn't around then, but it looks like the Teahouse was born out of ideas that came out of an old project called Esperanza and some WMF research that began by focusing on the editor gender gap. Interesting stuff (or maybe only to me, I don't know). Perfect4th (talk) 19:11, 10 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think as a Wikipedia grows it will naturally form the newbie help infrastructure it requires. From my hazy recollection...

First there was Wikipedia:Bootcamp. It also had an IRC channel #wikipedia-bootcamp; live chat can be an excellent way to communicate with a newcomer. At some stage that became #wikipedia-en-help. Jimbo Wales popped in the help channel one day and asked why is it so hard for (maybe theoretically) for his partner to ask for help on Wikipedia and someone created {{helpme}} for talk page assistance.

Bootcamp became WP:New contributors' help page. Esperanza was around during all of this but I don't recall it having a newcomer focus.

The Teahouse became a thing, and now there is Mentorship as part of the Growth Team features.

I am not sure what phase Greek Wikipedia is up to. Someone can be bold there, but don't be surprised if things evolve. Traffic will dictate help infrastructure for individual projects. I imagine a singular Help desk is more than enough for smaller Wikipedias. Commander Keane (talk) 21:40, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Wow.

I'm just surprised how much goes into making people get good and reliable answers.

Even in the Teahouse, where quick answers are expected, sources are still found in replies. Xboxfan38 (talk) 19:46, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The more detail given in an answer, the less likely they'll return to ask for clarification of that question later on. :) —Jéské Couriano v^_^v ^{threads critiques} 19:48, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Teahouse

What's up with this page? Why is it sooo long, and isn't it supposed to auto-archive after 3 days? I am seeing some 6 day old posts. Is it a bot problem? --pro-anti-air _{ping me for template replies} 01:25, 16 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This page is configured to archive sections older than two weeks if there are more than 14 sections present. At the moment, there aren't enough sections meeting that criteria to trigger the bot. SnowyRiver28 (talk) 08:46, 17 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Temporary accounts

Hey, some time ago I posted a message about deploying temporary accounts here on English WP. The rollout is scheduled for October 7th, and right after it you may be getting questions. Just to be clear, temporary accounts are what will replace* IP addresses as user identifiers (*this is a simplification, and I "well actually" myself and others reminding that well, there are important differences). Anyhoo, precisely because of these differences, people may be expressing confusion all over the place, incl. Teahouse. So, you're most welcome to chime in on VPWMF. Thanks! SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 00:01, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion at Wikipedia talk:Citing sources § WMF seeking feedback on Reference Check

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Citing sources § WMF seeking feedback on Reference Check. Sdkb-WMF ^talk 18:06, 25 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Certainly problems when historians are not aloud based on religion as sources but a book written in 1980 in used as a source for historical facts as far back as BC or 1000 ad for example I see this all the time. 2001:56B:3C60:1EE7:19F7:E40E:BB75:C705 (talk) 18:22, 25 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) § Top / Bottom arrows overlapping links

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) § Top / Bottom arrows overlapping links. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 20:54, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]