Wikipedia talk:Help desk

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To help centralize discussions and keep related topics together, the talk pages for templates related to the help desk redirect here.

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Template talk:HD

FAQ: How-to guide for those answering questions

This page was nominated for merging with Wikipedia:Teahouse on 19 June 2023. The result of the discussion (permanent link) was Withdrawn.

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Syllables

Please, change 'WICK-ee' to 'WI-k_e_i' ('WI-ki'). An article's Wiki. --5.43.76.5 (talk); 00.45, 2025-09-29 (UTC)

Edit link offset?

I've just gone to correct my own very minor typo in an answer I gave earlier today, and discovered that the [edit] link to that query (Honda Sparta?) sent me to another query two sections below; I then found that clicking on the [edit] link of the query two sections above took me to the query I wanted.

I haven't a clue what's going on, but something seems amiss. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.193.153.108 (talk) 13:44, 14 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This can happen if a new section is added, or an old one archived, between you adding the page and selecting the "edit" link. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:40, 14 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If you check the edit link you'll find out it contains the section number, not a title/header. So when you step back in your browser's history while somebody already edited the page, you retrieve an out-of-date version of the page from the browser's cache with links fitting that old version. If you then click such link, Wikipedia server serves you the current version, so the link hits another section which now happens to be at the position indicated by the link. --CiaPan (talk) 19:04, 14 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I wasn't using my browser's history (I'd left Wikipedia entirely, and came back some time later to (amongst other things) see if any one had added to the thread and then noticed the typo), but I suppose caching could have been involved. I'd just never ever seen this phenomenon before in over 20 years of regularly editing. Thanks both for responding. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.193.153.108 (talk) 23:01, 15 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"Wikipedia:Helpdes" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Wikipedia:Helpdes has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2025 October 24 § Wikipedia:Helpdes until a consensus is reached. consarn _{(talck) (contirbuton s)} 17:44, 24 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"User talk:ArticlesForCreationBot/Shutdown" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect User talk:ArticlesForCreationBot/Shutdown has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2025 October 24 § User talk:ArticlesForCreationBot/Shutdown until a consensus is reached. consarn _{(talck) (contirbuton s)} 17:49, 24 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

'Wikipedians looking for help' inside an #if: autoconfirmed: should it be?

There are no Wikipedians looking for help. ()

Currently the paragraph about There are currently N user(s) asking for help via the {{Help me}} template, and the category tree are both inside an #ifeq conditional testing {{PROTECTIONLEVEL}} showing category data to newbies only, and I don't think they should be. If anything, it should be the other way round, and shown *only* to EC or better, and will likely only confuse new users. I only noticed this after coming here to place {{Wikipedians looking for help}} on the page, and saw that similar code was already here, but with the #if coded backwards, imho. Mathglot (talk) 00:42, 2 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Dropped the message from autoconfirmed-only view on the main page, and replaced it by adding {{Wikipedians looking for help}} to the header instead. As before, it is conditional, so that the message only appears when there is something in the category, but when present it is visible to all. Could suppress it for non-EC users if desired, but I don't see the point. Mathglot (talk) 22:12, 2 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. FaviFake (talk) 16:01, 3 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]