User talk:Polymath Want To Be

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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, please see our help pages, and if you can't find what you are looking for there, please feel free to ask me on my talk page or place {{Help me}} on this page and someone will drop by to help. Again, welcome! Moneytrees🏝️(Talk) 17:59, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for the information and links. I'm still unsure where and how to sign my name with the four tildes. On the edit I made today, should I have gone onto the article's Talk Page, discussed the edit, and signed with four tildes? Thanks for your help. Polymath Want To Be (talk) 20:36, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

Hi Polymath; No, you don't need to discuss most changes you make to articles on talk pages, as long it isn't obviously controversial or if someone asks you about it. I see you were having some difficulties with table formatting while editing the STEM list article; Help:Table has a guide on how to properly format them. I always messed up tables and formatting when starting out too; if you want to test something outside of an article, you can work on it in your sandbox (User:Polymath Want To Be/sandbox), where you can basically test out whatever without worrying about broken formatting. Let me know if you have any other questions, and happy editing! Moneytrees🏝️(Talk) 18:43, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

Great! I was sure there was a help page. I just didn't know where to look. I look forward to making more edits and additions in the future. Cheers! Polymath Want To Be (talk) 20:45, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

Hi Moneytrees. I have added many entries to the topic: List of African-American women in medicine. Many of my additions include the reference to African American Firsts in Science & Technology by Raymond B. Webster. I don't know how to create a reference link that you can add additional references to listing simply the page number. As a result, the topic has several footnote errors I need to correct. I need help to learn how to do this. Can you point me in the right direction? Polymath Want To Be (talk) 15:58, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

It looks like you've figured it out now with sfn? Good work! Moneytrees🏝️(Talk) 20:39, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

I figured out that editor Wham2001 added the Raymond B. Webster book as a source. Unknowingly, I added another reference of the book, which caused many sfn errors. I corrected that addition, and the errors disappeared. So in the future, for example, in the topic: List of African-American U.S. state firsts, I've created many references to the Raymond B. Webster book. For this (and similar topics) should I (1) Create a Source section, (2) add the book to the Source section, and (3) somehow update the individual references to link to that source? Polymath Want To Be (talk) 20:50, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

Oh, I see what you're talking about there. I think Help:References and page numbers can help you out a bit in terms of what you decide to do on which articles. The citation style you're using on that article might include a lot of duplicate information, but I don't think there's anything necessarily wrong with it; variation in citation styles is expected. Unfortunately, I think you'll have to convert the refs manually; there might be a script to help convert the references to sfn though, I'll see if that exists. I hope that answers your question! Moneytrees🏝️(Talk) 21:11, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

Thank you! I'm continuing to learn, and I'll be more cognizant of how to format references in the future. Polymath Want To Be (talk) 21:41, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

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Mirrors

Thanks for contributing to the article Timeline of African-American firsts. However, one of Wikipedia's core policies is that material must be verifiable and attributed to reliable sources. You have recently used citations which copied, or mirrored, material from Wikipedia. This leads to a circular reference and is not acceptable. Most mirrors are clearly labeled as such, but some are in violation of our license and do not provide the correct attribution. Please help by adding alternate sources to the article you edited! If you need any help or clarification, you can look at Help:Contents/Editing Wikipedia or ask at Wikipedia:New contributors' help page, or just ask me. Thank you. Sam Kuru (talk) 12:40, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

Please specific the contribution(s) in which I used a circular source(s), and I will endeavor to find and use a better and verifiable source. Thank you for this information. I want to help make Wikipedia a better reference. Polymath Want To Be (talk) 13:09, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

I researched and found a contemporary source (from 1918) to confirm the information about Dr. Mary Louise Brown. I reinstalled the entry and added the primary source as a reference. Please advise if additional action is needed. Thank you. Polymath Polymath Want To Be (talk) 23:30, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

LLM disclosure

Hello there. Have you been using an LLM for your edits here on Wikipedia recently? If so, could you WP:LLMDISCLOSE:

• What tool(s) you are using, and which versions.
• What prompts, features, etc that you are using.
• What review, if any, you are doing of the LLM generated output text.

Thank you, --Gurkubondinn (talk) 17:15, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

Hi! I have not used LLM or other tools for my edits, but I will check it out. Thanks! Polymath Want To Be (talk) 18:22, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

Could you explain why several references that you have added to Timeline of African-American firsts have URLs with utm_source=chatgpt.com parameters? How did you find these references, and why did you choose to use them? What verification did you do on these sources? --Gurkubondinn (talk) 22:20, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

AINB notice

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:WikiProject AI Cleanup/Noticeboard regarding an AI cleanup investigation which may be related to you. The thread is Possible LLM usage by User:Polymath Want To Be. --Gurkubondinn (talk) 22:21, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

Hi. I didn't understand your question earlier. I had never heard of LLM before your message to me. As far as AI is concerned, I only discovered ChatGPT a couple of weeks ago, and I didn't know it was related to the LLM you had mentioned. Over the past couple of weeks, when I've struggled to find an appropriate reference, in a couple of cases I've used ChatGPT. I didn't know using ChatGPT was a problem. I guess I won't use it to find references in the future. I just saw it as a potential tool in the toolbox. Thanks for letting me know.Polymath Want To Be (talk) 00:47, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

I mean you can use it to find references, if that helps you (though I would rather suggest using a search engine, for example DuckDuckGo often finds things that Google doesn't turn up), but you should not use it to generate <ref> tags for you, at least not without thoroughly verifying the output yourself. But at the point, it's probably quicker to just write the <ref> yourself anyway.

Since you do seem to care a lot about sourcing in general (thank you for the reference gnoming btw), you might as well write them out yourself with care. If you let ChatGPT write them for you, it tends to hallucinate and add non-existing things to the reference. That seems to have happened in Diff/1323485306, where it's added an author seemingly out of nowhere, I can't find the name anywhere in that source.

Unrelated to this, and since I'm assuming that you are in the US, I would encourage you to add |archive-url= parameters to your refs whenever feasible. I wasn't able to open the source that you cited in that edit, American sites tend to sometimes just outright block all traffic from European countries. --Gurkubondinn (talk) 10:37, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for your advice. My goal is to help make Wikipedia an accurate reference resource. I'm unsure what you mean by "reference gnoming". Can you explain? I'll review the Diff/1323484306 and update as necessary. And I won't allow ChatGPT to write references. You are correct that I'm located in the US. I'm particularly concerned with the lack of available documentation about the contributions made by African Americans, and I'm concentrating on making Wikipedia a great resource in that area. What do you mean by adding |archive-url= parameters to refs? I'm fairly new to Wikipedia, and I want to learn how to be a better editor. Thanks again. Polymath Want To Be (talk) 13:30, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

I'm reviewing the reference in Diff/1323484306, and I'm not seeing your concern. Here's the reference link without ChatGPT: Natasha Trethewey: African-American woman named 19th US Poet Laureate - TheGrio It shows the author as By Alexisgarrettstodghill. When I clicked the link associated with the name, I get a list of articles written by the author. I assumed that the author has run his first, middle, and last names together. I parsed them for the citation: Alexis Garrett Stodghill. Your thoughts? Polymath Want To Be (talk) 13:44, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

I'm unable to open that link, because I just get a message from Cloudflare that "Sorry, you have been blocked". So I have looked it up on The Wayback Machine instead, where the latest copy is from April 2015. According to your reference, the author is supposed to be Alexis Garrett Stodghill, but their name does not appear anywhere on the archived copy of that page that I am looking at. Since the page hasn't been archived since 2015, and it's been 10 years since then, it very well might have changed. I don't have a lot of time right now, so I can dig deeper later today or tomorrow, but in the meantime I've started a new archival of this page in The Wayback Machine. --Gurkubondinn (talk) 14:12, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

But yes, I agree with you. If that's what the page says (today), then that makes sense to me. I've saved a new archived of the page from today to The Wayback Machine now, and that looks more in line what what you say. The name links to a list of posts by this author, but it's hard to know for certain if that's someone's actual name or just an odd online handle that they use. But this seems like a reasonable assumption to me at least. --Gurkubondinn (talk) 14:18, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

A WP:GNOME in their natural habitat

Oh, it was definitely immediately obvious to me that you genuinely want to make Wikipedia better, and I really appreciate you putting in the and effort in documenting contributions from African Americans, which is almost certainly an underrepresented area on enwiki.

By "reference gnoming" I mean for example this edit: Diff/1325577687. I've seen you add missing references or otherwise improve existing references. It's also something that I do myself, so I wanted to mention it :)

If you use |archive-url= parameters on your references, you can link to a copy of the source on f.ex. The Wayback Machine. As an example, I expanded your citation on the List of African-American U.S. state firsts article for Paulette Sullivan Moore being admitted to the bar, and now the reference includes both links to the original (new dead) url and the archived copy that you added to the reference. The |url-status= parameter controls which URL is the "main" one linked. You can read more about how this works on the documentation for the {{Cite web}} template. Most/almost all other {{cite}} templates, including the {{Cite journal}} template, are based on that one, so these parameters work the same across all of them. --Gurkubondinn (talk) 14:05, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

Hi! I have reviewed the four questionable citations you flagged in the article: List of African-American U.S. state firsts. I removed one of the entries where I couldn't find a reliable citation. I changed one citation and modified the entry for consistency. I replaced the other two citations with those I have more confidence in. Thanks again for helping me improve my editing skills.

P.S. Just curious: Are you located in the U.S.? Hope you're enjoying the holiday season. Polymath Want To Be (talk) 00:01, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

Hi again. Just read your Wikipedia page. I couldn't help but notice you're bookmarks include a number of submarine incidents. As a veteran nuclear submariner (1977 - 1981), those interest me too.

The page: List of African-American U.S. state firsts - Wikipedia has a new alert: "This article may incorporate text from a large language model. (December 2025)" I searched the page and found no evidence of a reference or other information coming from AI. The items you noted have been corrected. Can I (or can you) remove this alert? If not, what needs to happen to clear the concern?

Thanks!

Polymath Want To Be (talk) 00:52, 11 December 2025 (UTC)

The page: List of African-American U.S. state firsts - Wikipedia has a new alert: "This article may incorporate text from a large language model. (December 2025)" [..] Can I (or can you) remove this alert? If not, what needs to happen to clear the concern?

Looks like it was me that added that note, and I have no objections if you want to remove it. To remove it, just delete the {{AI-generated}} template at the top of the page.

My reasoning for adding it was the reference with utm_source=chatgpt.com in Diff/1325530563. When someone adds a reference with that parameter, it (almost certainly) means that they got it from ChatGPT, and that can make the rest of the edit suspect if you don't know anything about the editor. But after talking to you, I do not believe that you are blindly using output from ChatGPT. At any rate, I have no objections to youremoving the tag.

I read your Wikipedia page. I couldn't help but notice you're bookmarks include a number of submarine incidents. As a veteran nuclear submariner (1977 - 1981), those interest me too.

I find a lot of Cold War stuff interesting, as you may have noticed, but also more modern things like the UK Trident program. Submarines have always fascinated me in a way, but (un?)fortunately you can't just buy a submarine ticket so I've never actually been onboard one. I got to go onboard Týr once ~19 years ago, and that's probably the closest I'll come to a submarine (or any kind of navy vessel). I don't even know what really ask you other than a very generic "what was it like?", but I'm actually quite curious.

I replaced the other two citations with those I have more confidence in. Thanks again for helping me improve my editing skills.

Thanks for doing that, it's good work. FYI, if you see any {{AI-retrieved source}} templates, but you have verified that the source is legit and you have confidence in them, you can set |checked=yes to indicate that you've read it. The tag will then be hidden and not visible in the text. You can also just remove the tag alltogether if that feels more appropriate to you, just use your judgement and do what makes the most sense to you.

P.S. Just curious: Are you located in the U.S.?

Nope -- I'm in Germany. :) But I'm from somewhere else, the coast guard ship might clue you in, and since I'm guessed you were in the US Navy, I've been at NASKEF a handful of times while it still existed. --Gurkubondinn (talk) 21:42, 11 December 2025 (UTC)

I served on the (USS Pollack (SSN-603) - Wikipedia). I was initially assigned as Sonar Officer. After a year, I was moved to become the Electrical and Interior Communication division officer. After passing the Nuclear Engineer exam, the Captain assigned me as the Main Propulsion Assistant (MPA) for my remaining time onboard.

I found that a German movie provides the best description of life on board and the comradery of the crew. I highly recommend that you watch Das Boot to learn about life on the boat. (The director's cut if possible.) I understand there is a longer version shown in Germany, which I have not seen, but probably would be excellent.

I'm grateful that I never fired at, or was fired upon, during my time in the Navy.

Condensing 3.5 years into one sentence: Submarine life is hours of boredom punctuated by moments of terror.

I'm glad I did it, but I missed the sun and the outdoors, and I chose not to make submarines my career.

Feel free to ask any question, and I'll attempt to answer to the best of my ability.

Cheers! Polymath Want To Be (talk) 22:03, 11 December 2025 (UTC)

A book you might want to read about submarines and the Cold War: Blind Man's Bluff: The Untold Story of American Submarine Espionage - Wikipedia. I found it to be a fascinating read. For years I knew about these special boats, and I knew a couple of officers assigned on them. They never gave me a hint about what they did, and after reading the book, I understood why. Polymath Want To Be (talk) 21:14, 12 December 2025 (UTC)

References