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Moved discussion

Questions and answers, after a period of time of inactivity, will be moved to other relevant sections of the wikipedia (such as the FAQ pages) or placed in the Wikipedia:Village pump archive if it is of general interest.

See the archive for older moved discussion links.

Time bubble (wrong date in contributions)

Have we hit a time bubble? Look at my contributions, right down at the bottom, with red dwarf. I made that contribution today, but it's listed as June 2002! My account didn't even exist then! CGS 20:22 26 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Renaming a page creates a redirect page from the old title. This page is given the date of the old page. Why? I'm not sure. But that's how it is. --Brion 07:14, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)

A few questions (lists, see also, redirects)

Is there a bug in the software that adds a newline to large lists?

What's the correct format of the "See also"? When is it a good idea to use it? And should it come before or after the "External links" listing?

If you know that some article might be mispelled, is it a good idea to create a new article and redirect it to the correct one pre-emptively?

thanks

Dori 23:27 26 Jul 2003 (UTC)


Don't know about non bug with long lists... About "See also:" I suppose you should use it every time that you haven't figured out a way to include all the relevant links within the text of tha article itself. I would put it before the "External links". As to format, If I thought there were only going to be a few links, I would go for just plain "See also:" and the links following it on the same line. If I thought that there were going to be a huge list of other links that have something to do with it, then I would do:

== See also: ==

  • link
  • another link
  • third link
  • fourth link

...

and so forth.

About making redirects for misspellings, only advise is to use good sense, do if the misspelling is common, and the subject of the article popular. I would tend to create them pretty liberally, but others might disagree. -- Cimon Avaro on a pogo-stick 23:51 26 Jul 2003 (UTC)

If they're only one or two links on the "see also" list, I prefer not making a new subheading:

See also: [[first link]], [[second link]]

--Jiang 23:54 26 Jul 2003 (UTC)

2000 Census

Throughout the articles on US cities and US states reference data are provided from the US Census. This fact is usually indicated by a statement such as 2000 census.... Should this not be 2000 Census (a proper noun) and an article developed for this significant event? Marshman 19:22 27 Jul 2003 (UTC)

If someone wants to make such an article, I can have the rambot do a mass replace to link to the article. For consideration there is already an article on the U.S. Census Bureau which might contain all the information needed (instead of a specific article for the 2000 census). This article is, however, already linked to from the city/state/county articles. -- Ram-Man 02:26 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Presentations on WP

I've seen people mentioning academic studies (conference presentations/ journal papers) of Wikipedia. Is there a page which lists all of them (known to us?)? Tomos 00:26 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I don't know if someone has started a list yet, but here are some starting points: I did an English presentation at the Open Cultures conference in Vienna (which also covered Slashdot and Kuro5hin), and also one on July 1 at the Merz-Akademie (exclusively about Wikipedia). There appears to be no video online for the latter one, even though it was filmed. I also wrote a four-part-series for the German netzine Telepolis about Wikipedia. [1] Lars Aronsson's Operation of a Large Scale, General Purpose Wiki Website may also be of interest.—Eloquence 00:39 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)
I think it'd very informative (to non-Wikipedians) and fun (to Wikipedians) to see a list of formal or semi-formal oral presentations (academic or not) in which Wikipedia is mentioned (hopefully more than a sentence.) --Menchi 02:41 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Thanks! I tentatively created a list of references on my user page so that others can look or add. Tomos 01:41, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

We're back!

Horary! We're back! CGS 13:05 28 Jul 2003 (UTC).

Thanks to Jimbo, or so it is said. While we're on the topic, I vote Eloquence be given root access. -- Tim Starling 13:12 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)
I second that. (don't know what it means, but it sounds a good idea! FearÉIREANN 13:26 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)


Suggest it on the mailing list. The Wikipedia's really got its fast stripes on now everyone thinks we're down. CGS 13:27 28 Jul 2003 (UTC).
That, and eggs in several baskets in other ways too. -- Cimon Avaro on a pogo stick

P.S. this message brought to you via 4 edit conflicts and counting.

License compatibility

The norwegian SSB (Statistisk Sentralbyrå/Statistical Central Bureau) has a license for its data which states (my translation, see this page for the norwegian version):

SSB gives permission to store electronically, print, copy and propagate material from our web site (text, tables and figures). This permission requires reference to the source from whence the data is taken ("source: Statistisk sentralbyrå"). The source citation must be in direct connection to each table and figure used.

My question is, of course, can data from SSB be used in wikipedia articles, while complying with both their license and the GFDL? -lazyr 14:09 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Just because nobody is answering, I'm writing my not-so-educated ideas. (Don't take it as a legal advice, please.)

Say, you can put appropriate attribution with their data, making your edit compliant with both licenses. But GFDL allows others to modify the article. Attribution could be deleted by others. As soon as that happens, the article becomes what SSB doesn't want, but still GFDL compliant.

At the same time, I guess many would think there is a reasonable chance that the attribution would be kept. So, it could pragmatically be okay.

I think this is related to the issue of "fair use" if things like quotes are okay for Wikipedia to have. There has been a big discussion on mailing list (Wikipedia-l) during the last month or so, in case you are not aware of it.

Maybe you want to bring this question to the list, and see what people say? Tomos 09:36, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Date of death convention

What is the convention for listing the day of someone's death, if the time of death would make it ambiguous with respect to UTC? (For example, Bob Hope died at 9:29 pm Pacific time on Sunday, July 27; if I figured it correctly, this would be 4:29 am UTC July 28.) -lee 14:53 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I would say put it in local time. CGS 15:12 28 Jul 2003 (UTC).
I'm guessing the date he died in his time zone should be used. -- Notheruser 15:18 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Move to Wikipedia talk:Database download

Database dumps and mailing list archives

I have some questions regarding downloading the database dumps. On the page it says last dump made July 13. Does that mean what I think it means (i.e. if I download the English and non-English tarballs I only have revisions up to the 13th?). Also, as I understand it, I would only have to download the cur tarballs from here on in (if I saved the old ones), is this correct? I figure having an extra backup of the database can't hurt...especially after last night :). Addendum: should I also download the mailing list archives (from what I gather, they're separate from the dumps)? Geez, another question: is it safe to assume images are not included with the dumps? -- Notheruser 15:42 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Ok, I think I've found most of the answers to my above questions; I'll list them here in case anyone else was curious. The database hadn't been backed up since July 13 at the time, but, currently, it is now updated until August 1. You have to download the cur and old files to completely backup the English Wikipedia (don't forget about otherlanguages.tar for a full backup). The mailing lists are archived offsite, so they seem safe and images are currently not backed up (about 1GB worth of files). -- Notheruser 18:53, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

BerliOS

When Wikipedia was down this morning there was a link to a wiki page on another site. Some of the discussion was quite funny, but I now have no idea where that site is now (and can't use browser history since I was at work at the time). So where was that page? Evercat 17:25 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)

It's berliOS, & the specific page u're looking for is Talk:Wikipedia Status/Archive. --Menchi 17:27 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)

New Imperialism

Please see talk:New Imperialism for discussion of whether New Imperialism (currently protected) should include a link to a temp page. Please reply and vote there rather than here, to avoid duplicating arguments. Thank you for your co-operation. Martin 17:27 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Possible Wikipedia in Nahuatl

I am from Wikipedia in Spanish. I contacted somebody called Citlalin Xochime' from a web Nahuatl-speaking a few days ago and told him about Wikipedia. This is whta he answered me to the suggestion of beginning a wikiversion in Nahuatl (a native American language with more than 1 million speakers):

Niltze! (Hello!) Papalotochtzin (Dear Rabbit Butterfly),
Tlazohkamati (Thank-You) for your email message! I am somewhat familar with the wiki-system and wikipedia sounds like something that stirs my interest. I won't have time to start the Nahuatl wiki-project until September at the earliest. Yet, I may pass along this valuable information to the NAHUAT-LIST :

http://listserv.linguistlist.org/archives/nahuat-l.html

I agree, more Nahuatl speaking people will be attracted to the project, once established. I don't know if you got my email address from my Nahuatl Tlahtolkalli project, but I will surely pass along the information to the people at the Nahuatl Tlahtolkalli as well. My project is located at:
http://www.nahuatl.info/nahuatl.htm
So, once again, I am very interested, and I will pursue this project as time permits. Tlazohkamati for contacting me. (...)
I look forward to sharing Nahuatl with you!
Citlalin Xochime' (from, Nahuatl Citlalxochimeh = star flowers)
Nahuatl Tlahtolkalli
http://www.nahuatl.info/nahuatl.htm

I haven't heard of him/her since but he or other Nahuatl-speaking people may try to contact you. I will not be on Wikipedia for an indetermined period but I mentioned a cople of basics about the system as well as Youssefsan and Brion. I'd really like seeing a Wikiwikinahuatl around! -- Piolinfax 19:17 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)

BerliOS II

Another question about the temporary refuge (berliOS ? or was it BERLIos, anyway...) There was a page called This is not Wikipedia, and it spawned a handful of stubbish new articles, with the idea that they would be ported over into Wikipedia, when and if it could be raised again. Now Wikipedia does not outwardly appear to be in imminent fear of collapsing again (well, for all I know some tech-guy may be desperately holding a finger in the dyke, but then...); what I am querying is what is the preferred modus for transplanting those non-autochtonous wikipedia articles beneath the juicy mulch of wikipedia. Cut and paste? Or is there a way to transfer them wiki to wiki, without losing edit histories? Does it matter? Thank you for your attention. -- Cimon Avaro on a pogo-stick 00:18, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Copy and paste is the only viable option I'm afraid.—Eloquence 01:23, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)


Help with images

I have uploaded Image: Sanya.jpg, but its far too big for the page (Hainan), and I don't have Photoshop or any similar software. Any help trimming it down or reducing it would be much appreciated.

I've also got a lot of other images for Hong Kong and Macau-related pages which I need help with Photoshop. If anyone has the time to assist generally, please contact me - David Stewart 03:04, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)


Nutty sysop queries

I don't know who did it because this can only be seen when the query is finished. But someone started several queries of the form

select count(*) from old

or

select count(*) from old where ...

This is crazy! InnoDB has no rowcount, so it has to go through the entire table to count it -- that can take ages with our multi gigabyte OLD table that stores all revisions. With a WHERE condition on the content it's even worse. Worse, after I manually killed the query the person started it again! Whoever did this should never do an SQL query again because they evidently don't know how to handle this feature properly.

Furthermore, I have disabled SQL queries for the time being because they cause constant slowdowns and I don't want to wonder each time the wiki is slow whether this is caused by yet another out of control query. If you want to run a query, paste it on my talk page, I'll take a look at it and run it if necessary.—Eloquence 03:09, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Tut! Some idiot's ruined it for everyone! CGS 10:24, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC).
Someone mentioned recently having different types of sysop - I can't remember who it was, but perhaps this coud be revisited now, so that those who can be trusted with SQL can read the database. I only ever use the queries that are shown on my user page. Is there a way that these could be okayed, and then I would allowed to run them, or do I have to go via Erik each time? Angela 12:31, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)
In the long run it'd probably be better to have a separate server for analysis that runs a periodically updated copy of the database (maybe nightly). There's a lot of interesting (and potentially expensive) queries that don't really need to be run on the live database, but would be interesting to run on a backup copy (and not everyone has the knowledge or resources to download the dump and set up their own to play around with). For example, Wikipedia:Wikipedians by number of edits is an interesting page, but there's no reason that query would ever need to be run on the live database. --Delirium 19:36, Jul 29, 2003 (UTC)

Discussion of changes

Can a page be set up so the entire community can discuss the new changes? I'm sure different people have different opinions and not everyone likes the new scheme. I have a couple concerns, but is village pump the place to voice them? --Jiang 05:04, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

This is a wiki -- go ahead and create one. Wikipedia talk:Software updates, for example.—Eloquence 05:21, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Okay, I moved everything over there. -- Tim Starling 05:54, Jul 29, 2003 (UTC)

Speed

Is it just me or does Wikipedia seem real fast right now? Has something changed? If so - me like. :) --mav 06:29, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

It could be my link table optimisation, or it could be your imagination. I'm not sure because we never worked out exactly how much time link updates were taking. BTW, you should probably avoid undeleting for a few days. Eloquence has a feeling I might have broken it, and I haven't checked it out yet. -- Tim Starling 07:48, Jul 29, 2003 (UTC)
The new link update code definitely helped (section editing could also have a minor effect), and the two major slowdowns today were from an inconsiderate sysop who ran (really) idiotic queries. No more sysop queries to bog us down are a good thing. I think they should be disabled on all wikis with more than 10K articles -- right now the Germans or the French can still bog us down because their DBs are already quite large. Then we need to optimize the search and the watchlist and we have a decent response time. For the next couple of months ;-) —Eloquence 07:54, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Why can I not see a "Search" button? Tiles 08:15, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Database problems. Systems slowed down dramatically on searches yesterday, so searching had to be disabled until the reason for the slow down has been found. -- JeLuF 08:35, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Why are the "Move this page" (for non sysops) and "Post a comment" functions only present on the left sidebar but not on the bottom? --Jiang 09:27, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Automated Table of Contents

In many Wikipedia pages there are Automated [Table of Contents]. But I can't see, from an editing view of the page, how this is done. Can we please have some instructions somehwere on how to put an Automated Table of Contents into a page. Thanks. RB-Ex-MrPolo 09:52, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)~

This is a new feature under discussion. The TOC only shows up if their are at least three subheadings on the page. --Jiang 10:09, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)
What I don't like about this new feature is the TOC below the first paragraphs of the article. It should be really on top, below the headline. Otherwise it's just chaotic, see Sociology for an example. -- till we *) 10:11, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Please discuss the new changes at Wikipedia talk:Software updates and not here. --Jiang 10:13, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Done that -- till we *)

Decision making

Wikipedia is cool, but as an "user" more like a developer I still would like to have a chance to discuss important changes (like new TOCs). Couldn't there be something like a CfV in the Announcement section? For example, the new TOC could have been announced some weeks ago with something like "It's planned to introduce a new TOC-feature. If you want to discuss or test this feature, change over to metawiki/testwiki/whatever", so that it is possible for mere users to go into discussions about "big" changes without having to read the lists and the metawikipedia all the time? -- till we *) 10:25, Jul 29, 2003 (UTC)

It was announced on the wikitech mailing list, and discussed (a lot) over the past few months, and tested on the test server; however, I can appreciate that keeping up with all the various discussions going on Wikipedia is almost impossible. Perhaps a development log or somesuch?
James F. 10:37, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I know that it was discussed a lot on mailing lists (or at least I suppose that), but what I want is exactly this: a filtered-down announcement for "big" (what ever that may be) changes early enough so that there is time for all of us to decide if we want to join that particular discussion. Big changes would be major new features (as the TOC) or the new logo or a fictional decision to kill the english edition -- and to find these I just don't want to read a technical mailing list which, I suppose, mostly argues about database tuning etc. -- till we *) 12:10, Jul 29, 2003 (UTC)

This was discused on the general mailing list a great deal - only the technical aspects on how to do it were discused on WikiTech-l. It has also been on the test wiki for at least a month. --mav

Okay, okay, okay -- it's not the dark cellar with leopard on the next planet. But why not make wikipedia even more user-participation friendly and inform about things like that in wikipedia proper, i.e. the announcements section, early enough? -- till we *) 12:18, Jul 29, 2003 (UTC)

Nice of you to volunteer for the daunting task of scanning the mailing list for relevant news and summarizing them on the wiki. I was hoping someone would do that.—Eloquence

I'm thinking about it, but wouldn't it be even nicer if someone who already scans the mailing list(s) for his/her personal use would volunteer to summarize big news? -- till we *) 12:26, Jul 29, 2003 (UTC)

Definitely. Feel free to ask the most active mailing list participants to do it. :-) —Eloquence

Edit disappeared

I attempted to edit, but my edit didn't appear on the page. My edit shows on Recent changes, but not on the page history. On Recent changes, the 'diff' links for my missing edit and the next edit have the same 'diff=' number, but different 'oldid=' numbers.

Unfortunately, it's gone. There's a known simultaneous editing bug which still hasn't been fixed..—Eloquence 13:16, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Fortunately, it was still on my clipboard, but I retyped the edit summary, not knowing it was in recent changes... Just wanted to be sure it was a known bug... (Suppose it isn't possible to view the wikipedia source code in C/C++..?) Ксйп Cyp 13:23, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Wikipedia is in PHP, not C or C++, but you can view the source at Wikipedia:Software. CGS 14:16, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC).
I know, I was thinking more along the lines of an option to set the preferred viewing language, like the new option for the preferred date format. (I was saying what I'd prefer, not what is possible, although after thinking about it, it wouldn't surprise me if there actually did exist some PHP/C++ converter, but I'm not sure the result would be very good, especially with being translated twice...) Ксйп Cyp 09:30, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Votes in progress

There should be a page listing all votes - so that people can find them and vote. Pizza Puzzle

See Wikipedia:List of ongoing votes. --Camembert

Cyrillic characters

Does anybody know if there is a way to copy and paste Cyrillic characters? Whenever I try, I just get a row of question marks - is it possible at all? -- Cordyph 18:49, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

It works for me with Mozilla - I did it several times with russian cosmonauts before, see e.g. Vladimir Komarov. Maybe your browser does not convert the russian characters to the Unicode numbers like Б. -- andy 21:23, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Wait a moment, I just activate my Mozilla browser - yes, that works fine. I just tried this in Opera 7, but next time I will activate my Mozilla for correct character conversion - thanks a lot for the hint. (Hephaestos just told me that he has entered all the unicode values directly - appears to be a lot of unnecessary work) -- Cordyph 21:44, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Deleting images

Does anyone know how to delete an uploaded image? --David 19:28, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

You have to be a sysop to delete images. What image do you want deleted and for what reason? -- Notheruser 19:34, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I want to delete Ludo.jpg and Parques.jpg because I regret having put it here. I have a website and I prefer that people download them from there.

I have deleted them. David is a new user who uploaded them yesterday. It only seems fair he is allowed to have them deleted. I have copies if anyone wants to vote for undeletion. Angela 20:32, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

M.Becker's life story

discussion moved to Talk:Daniel C. Boyer

Don't understand Redirect

I tried to make my first redirect page: Michigan Riding and Hiking Trail, and it doesn't seem to work. Can someone tell me what I'm doing wrong? --Funpaul 20:53, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Nothing is wrong, Funpaul, everything works fine. Just click on the above link, it works. -- Cordyph 21:01, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Yes, I see it does now. But it didn't a few minutes ago, I tried a number of times...confused. There isn't a propogation time involved, is there?
This is explained at wikipedia:redirect. It's a feature to confuse newcomers... ;-) Martin

Garbled Text

Laplace transform has the 37-character string "4LIQ9nXtiYFPCSfitVwDw7EYwQlL4GeeQ7qSO", which looks suspiciously like an MD5 string, appearing in several places where it seems there should be something more intelligible. Looking through the edit history, nearly every previous revision of the article is similarly garbled. I can't imagine this has been the case and nobody has noticed for months, leading me to believe something caused both the current version and previous revisions to get garbled recently. Perhaps some problem with the LaTeX rendering? --Delirium 22:40, Jul 29, 2003 (UTC)

It's not actually a MD5 string, it's $unique2, a string used internally to temporarily replace math sections. Quoting it in articles like that will cause weird things to happen, e.g. <math>ha\ ha\ I\ stole\ your\ string</math> -> . Note that the source wikitext is not garbled, it just happens when it's rendered. It's clearly a bug, well spotted. -- Tim Starling 23:11, Jul 29, 2003 (UTC)
The problem is <math> sections inside headings. As a workaround I've removed them from that article for now. -- Tim Starling 23:16, Jul 29, 2003 (UTC)
Math sections should not occur within headings. They can't be properly displayed in the TOC (PNG images are the wrong size, non-transparent etc.)—Eloquence 06:28, Jul 30, 2003 (UTC)
I think it would be better if <math> tags in headings were escaped, rather than producing the confusing output described above. -- Tim Starling 07:31, Jul 30, 2003 (UTC)
Sure, go for it. Leave me a message as soon as it's committed (preferably to stable as well), and it'll go in with the next bunch of minor updates.—Eloquence 07:47, Jul 30, 2003 (UTC)

Odd intentations with the new software

Since the new software has been installed, I see that several (but not all) articles have an odd one-character indentation in the first line. I can't find anything in the text that would cause this. I'm using IE 6.0. RickK 03:21, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)

OK, I looked at the same pages with Netscape 4.7, and I don't see the indentations. RickK 03:47, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)
I don't know the technical details, but it's connected to the right-floating [edit] buttons. (On some pages, you get a similar effect when there's a right-floating image at the beginning of a paragraph.)
—Paul A 04:55, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)
The solution is one or two blank lines between the top and the first paragraph in the wikisource, alternatively between the interlanguage-links and the first paragraph. The blank lines are certainly less disturbing the than the unintended space - as a remedy until it's somehow worked around through a software fix.
-- Ruhrjung 12:48, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Non-recognized countries

Is it just me are both the Chechnya and Somaliland articles neither NPOV nor entirely accurate? Both countries are basically unrecognized and the Somaliland article went so far as to modify the CIA factbook map, making it look like Somaliland was listed in the CIA factbook as a separate country (not that the CIA is the authority on what's a country or not, it just seems like the contributors to these articles are advocating independence rather than presenting facts. Daniel Quinlan 07:07, Jul 30, 2003 (UTC)

I don't see the POV in Somiland - it clearly names it "territory" instead of country, and it states that it declared independence, but did not receive any international recognition of it. And making a map to show the territory is much better then many words to decribe it (OK, except for blind who need the words) - modifying the CIA map is probably the easiest way to create such a map. I guess it's just because you're used to see CIA maps for countries which makes you think it implies it being a country. andy 07:59, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)
"Territory" is the land and waters under the jurisdiction of a government. It's nearly synonymous in that context with "country" or "state".
Wrong-wrong-wrong-wrong-wrong. A territory can be not only the land and waters under the jurisdiction of a government, but can also be a defined (either officially by the government, or more or less loosely by others -- this can be taken to quite a degree of informality) part of the area of jurisdiction of some government (ex. the Kansas-Nebraska Territory of former days). This doesn't imply the soverignty of the "territory" in question; it might be a country, or it might not. --Daniel C. Boyer 17:20, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)
I don't have a problem with altering CIA maps when they are inaccurate, but altering the map to look like every other CIA map subtly implies that a government is recognized at some level. (On reading tha CIA article about Somalia, it does sound like the declaration could someday be recognized, but that's not at issue here.) On re-examining the article, I think some small touch-ups can probably fix it up. List the countries, if any, that recognize it. Note disputed status and recent history better, etc. Daniel Quinlan 08:48, Jul 30, 2003 (UTC)
However the map in the Somalia article is definitely POV - as it shows Somalia without Somaliland. That one need replacement. andy 07:59, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Somaliland is not recognized by a single government. Replacing the Somalia map before Somaliland is recognized anywhere is premature and inaccurate. Daniel Quinlan 08:48, Jul 30, 2003 (UTC)
Maybe the map could be modified in a different way as not to imply Somiland is not part of whichever countries it broke off of. (Maybe using dotted lines would help.) --Jiang 08:03, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Yes, and coloring the rest of Somalia in a different color then the other sorrounding countries would help as well - it would show that the remains of Somalia is on a different status then e.g. Ethopia. I'll try to paint something for the two maps later, unless someone else is faster of course. andy 08:22, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)
That would probably do most of the job. Probably should also be labeled as "region of Somalia claimed by Somaliland" or some such. Daniel Quinlan 08:48, Jul 30, 2003 (UTC)
Done. I created two new maps from the original CIA map, which should visualize the status a bit better. The old JPEG maps (now they are PNG) I placed in Wikipedia:Votes for Deletion. andy 12:38, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Wikipedia in the Media

Just a short note to let you know that I mentioned Wikipedia in a recent article on CMS for the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan. The piece is available here in PDF format. Keep up the good work! --Laszlo 11:59, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Larousse problem back

I keep getting the following.

Host 'larousse.wikipedia.org' is blocked because of many connection errors. Unblock with 'mysqladmin flush-hosts'

It took 40 minutes to get on to wiki recent pages. My watchlist is inaccessible and every second page gets the above message. I am finding wiki at this stage almost unusable. FearÉIREANN 18:12, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Yes, the database needs to be flushed. You would think this is something we could automate? MB 18:54, Jul 30, 2003 (UTC)
Can't you flush through the web SQL interface? I know it's now banned, but was it possible? CGS 20:28, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC).
No and no.—Eloquence 20:40, Jul 30, 2003 (UTC)
This is a wonderful project, but I've been a contributor since July 25 and the system has been down two of the 6 days. Is this typical? Marshman 21:19, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Price of success - number of users/editors keeps outpacing the infrastructure improvements. Somebody improves the internals, it's better for another couple of weeks, then starts bogging down again. I believe there are more technical performance improvement projects that are awaiting hackers. Stan 21:59, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)

It took me 41 attempts to get into this page because of this problem. I have made 19 attempts to edit one talk page. I cannot use by watchlist. I cannot get to my talk page. I cannot edit anyone else's talk page. Sorry the language but I am so frustrated. I have cleared my cache but nothing seems to work. I cannot even guarantee I will be able to save this. If this sort of problem is not sorted out soon people will just give up on wikipedia. FearÉIREANN 22:26, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I'll second that I've been having the same problem, could someone explain why it's happening and whats causing it. I'v noticed the wikipedia seems to have gone haywire since the new Table of content thingies were introduced G-Man 22:39, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)

It is my professional opinion that the main reason for the problems is this article. Things should calm down a little later. Come back in a couple hours. MB 22:48, Jul 30, 2003 (UTC)
Hmm, or maybe not, the site stats don't indicate an increase in traffic. MB 04:21, Jul 31, 2003 (UTC)
  • Why blame the TOC? It's been like this before the TOC thing. Don't blame TOCs or sysop queries to the database or anything else anyone doesn't like. Apologies for the censorship Jtdirl. Angela 23:35, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)
  • Hey, it's back. The errors were happening every single time for me for the past 8 hours or so. -- Jake 03:47, 2003 Jul 31 (UTC)


  • And more than difficulty getting on or staying on. My watch list was wiped out 24.94.86.252 04:12, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)
    • I take that back. System tells me I've logged on successfully, then drops me back to anomymous as soon as I move on from my logged in page -- Marshman 24.94.86.252 04:16, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC). How would I report this problem, or are others also unable to procede after logging on as other than anonymous?

Today's problems have nothing to do with the software updates, which made things faster. They are related to Larousse hitting an internal connection limit on Pliny, which nobody without root access could take care of. Unfortunately, we only have a couple of administrators with root access -- Brion, who is on vacation, and Jimbo, who is a bit slow. Hopefully, we will 1) get more servers and 2) get some full or at least part time employed admin once we can start taking donations (in a couple of weeks or so).—Eloquence 04:33, Jul 31, 2003 (UTC)

The problem, according to the MySQL manual, is some sort of network error. Apparently TCP connections between larousse and pliny are getting broken unexpectedly. I suggest setting max_connect_errors to a very large number, as a workaround -- Tim Starling 08:31, Jul 31, 2003 (UTC)

I'm giving up for now. THis is something I do not understand about the data base. I can see that others are making changes under their loged in names, but I simply get bumbed out as soon as I leave my login page. Even earlierwhen the system was essentially all but crashed, I see Recent Changes progressing. Maybe try again tomorrow. Maybe I'll get an answer or the software will be back to normal. One can only hope. Marshman

You've probably got cookies disabled. -- Tim Starling 08:31, Jul 31, 2003 (UTC)
You are exactly right. I slept on it, awoke and remembered that when the system was "down" yesterday, I tried a different security level for cookies to reduce popups. I forgot this might impact on my performance here. I'm back now Marshman 16:59, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)
  • Not again? Getting this on about a quarter of the pages I go to;

Could not connect to DB on 130.94.122.197 etc Angela 23:50, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC) (This is my 999th edit by the way - you can vote on what the 1000th will be)

Faroese

On the Recent Changes page "faroese" is listed as a requested article...there is a Faroese language article. Is lower-case faroese something different, or is that just a typo? Adam Bishop 21:43, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)

It was a typo, by me. I made it into a redirect. -- Notheruser 23:29, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)


More (and different) search problems

I've figured out where these articles TITLED IN ALL CAPS are coming from; they're the result of a search that comes up empty. People just click "Edit this page" and away they go.

Last time we used Google for an extended period there was a search box on the empty results page that would take the search argument, add "site:wikipedia.org" to it automatically, etc., would it be possible to code that back in? At the very least though that page shouldn't be editable. - Hephaestos 07:08, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I've changed it so that it doesn't end up with all upper case titles. Hope that helps.—Eloquence 11:12, Jul 31, 2003 (UTC)

Request for the word Contents to appear somewhere on the Main Page Community / About the Project section

This may seem a bit esoteric, but, I'll try... The search features are great, but, when trying to work out if Wikipedia can do something (I'm not talking about the encyclopedia content, but the functions of Wikipedia the system), the search may not find what you are looking for. Then you need to try a differnt research approach. You may want to look and see what it can do, a summary, overview, to see if it has something like what you are looking for. (I was looking for a Wish List) It is at this point at which, in books that have one, you turn to the contents page. But where is the contents page for the Wikipedia System documentation ? Actually, there is pretty much a contents page in the Wikipedia:About page. All I'm suggesting is that perhaps we rename that page as the About and Contents Page, or at least on the Main Page the pointer to the Wikipedia:About Page be changed to About and Contents I sure hope people see the point, because it is very hard to explain. RB-Ex-MrPolo 13:59, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I do see the point. Wikipedia:Utilities and Wikipedia:Help should serve as contents, of a sort, but I do feel the documentation area continues to need work. Martin 14:09, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Wrapping text around Images in Wiki?

Is there any way in Wiki editing to wrap text around images as you can in HTML? --Niganit 16:02, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Simple, just copy the code from ANA.
Adrian Pingstone 17:37, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)
So, that's a "no", then?
(The ANA article uses HTML, not wiki markup, to wrap the text around the image.)
—Paul A 02:00, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)
No, it's not a NO because I misunderstood your question and I'm not clever enough to answer your actual question. Can anyone else supply an answer?
Adrian Pingstone 09:07, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)
No, there isn't; you must use HTML for this currently. Ideally there would be some sort of "float right/left" attributed and then the wikitext would generate the appropriate div elements and whatnot, but that's not implemented. See Wikipedia:Image_use_policy#Markup for a list of currently suggested HTML templates to use instead. --Delirium 09:10, Aug 1, 2003 (UTC)
Wow, that would be nice if that text wraparound code could be added to the new TOC boxes... -- Viajero 20:59, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)


Better not, or not in every case. Just envision a TOC box on the left, a country or biology box on the right, and inbetween on a small screen a single-word-per-line wrapped text. -- till we *) 21:06, Aug 1, 2003 (UTC)

Curiosity: software glitch

See Talk:Belladonna lily - Hephaestos 17:45, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Enhance the wikipedia experience

Or, rather dully, I've two ideas someone could implement to spread wikipedia:

(1) A little "ask-wikip" tool/script for linux distributions, that from the unix prompt can be asked for wikipedia definitions and gives them or a no such definition if their is no page. Should be like the go-button, but a bit better in regard to uppercase/lowercase (try first the exact text, if this doesn't work, try it with all uppercase first letters, maybe even play a bit with hyphenation). Could get an X interface too, and some command line options for output (html, printable html to PS, pure ascii/using lynx as filter), and even display the wikipedia page in lynx or some other browser, maybe even including the edit functionality. 

> ask-wikip --ascii-only "Wikipedia:village pump"
[http://...]
Wikipedia Village Pump

This page is for asking questions. ...
 ((gives the actual text of the Village pump))

> ask-wikip ants

Opens lynx browser pointing to the article about "Ant"

(2) Another idea would be a "go" (or better performace given, even "search") button one could include in ones own website (like the amazon partner programme). So I could have a "Look something up at Wikipedia"-text input field + button on my website. This should be fairly easy and maybe does exist already.

What do you think about these ideas? -- till we *) 12:28, Aug 1, 2003 (UTC)

Great idea! Please see the pyWikiAPI. Once it is done I (and others I am sure) will start making programs just like this. So feel free to post your suggestion on the forums there. MB 14:43, Aug 1, 2003 (UTC)
I really like the search text-field/button idea. I know I'd include it on my web site! Another tool to think about would be an add-on toolbar for IE. One that Merriam-Webster supplies (http://www.m-w.com) I find invaluable. It docks at the top of IE. Whenever I need to look up a word or synonym, I just type it in there and *BAM* a small window pops up with the info I need. I'd love a similar tool for Wikipedia. :-) —Frecklefoot 14:53, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)
Brilliant! Something much easier to code than an IE toolbar would be a Sherlock/Mycroft plugin to Mozilla. OTOH, only a few hundred thousand people use Mozilla, but I'm pretty sure that they're rather thickly concentrated on Wikipedia. -Smack 01:00, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)
Well, well, well. It seems that a certain Carey Evans made just such a thing - a year and a half ago. Now, children, go download the plugin. -Smack 01:13, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)
Did a google query, found Carey Evans homepage, but no plugin. And besides, I'd rather have something that could be included in websites, too. :-) -- till we *) 18:28, Aug 2, 2003 (UTC)
To MB: The pyWikiAPI seems to be a bit empty, doesn't it? At least I didn't find any place where I easyly could mention my idea. I see the necessarity for a python (and also PHP) API to access Wikipedia from other sides, but I really can't believe something like that doesn't exist in the moment (could be a simple PHP-variables-in-the-URL-based approach or something with POST/GET-FORMs). -- till we *) 15:12, Aug 1, 2003 (UTC)
It would be very nice if I could do the following:
  1. highlight a word on a web page and right click. (Well, anyone can do it.)
  2. I get an option of "look up in Wikipedia"
  3. Upon selecting the option, a new Window opens with the highlighted word.
I have seen similar one for Google in Japanese. Tomos 11:56, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)
Well, if you use Mozilla, you can install the aforementioned plugin, which is almost as good. And if you don't use Mozilla, you have only yourself to blame. -Smack 18:02, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

More New Imperialism Madness

172 continues to remove the link to New Imperialism (temp) from New Imperialism -- despite his having demanded a vote which then turned out to support the link. Pizza Puzzle

I put the link in after the vote was conclucded. Mav immediately removed it, without explanation. I put it back in again. Then it was gone again... This is lunacy. Pizza Puzzle, feel free to keep on putting it back in if you have the patience. I can't be arsed anymore. CGS 11:11, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC).

Pizza Puzzle

It is obvious that certain users have become convinced that I am another user against which they hold a grudge. I will be changing my account name so that this is no longer a problem for me. Pizza Puzzle

Hold on a second. Two users can't be registered under the same name, right? So there should be only one Pizza Puzzle - the troll. -Smack 01:05, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)
Tell Lir that User:The troll isn't taken.
I think User:Vera Cruz is untaken. (I'm not convinced, but you're helping!) Daniel Quinlan 01:25, Aug 2, 2003 (UTC)
I hope that the new Lir persona isn't interested in jumbled lists pertaining to New Imperialism! 172 12:11, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Style of dash

(move to Manual of style)

Question on Style. I recieved the following comment on a page I edited: (&am; "#151;" is not a valid HTML entity... it should be & "mdash;" or & "#8212;"). I think & "#151;" is perfectly valid for a "printer's em or em dash" Anyone know why it is not? Also, should not the em be separated by spaces from the rest of the text, since it is NOT an ordinary dash, but a device for redirecting rthouyght within a sentence? Anybody know about this? Marshman 04:47, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

In ISO 8859-1 and Unicode, code point 151 is reserved as a control character. It is not an em dash except in Microsoft's proprietary code page extensions, and any program that displays an em-dash for "&#151;" is doing so either erroneously or in deliberate emulation of common bugs in Windows. Relying on buggy behavior is not recommended. :) Please use the standard, either &mdash; or &#8212;. --Brion 05:02, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)
Thanks I will use &mdash; in the future. Coffee-Cup Software HTML Editor inserts "&#151;" for an em-dash and it certainly displays that way on browsers. Why the confusion? 24.94.86.252 05:36, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)me not logged inn Marshman 05:38, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)
please don't! &mdash; looks very ugly in wikisource and some editors may not know what it is. Stick to "--". I know it's ugly, but in future our parser may turn that into mdash automagically. -- Tarquin 12:17, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)
Does hardly look more ugly than L&uoml;beck.
"--" gets really ugly when broken between lines, " - " would be a better advice.
-- Ruhrjung 12:42, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

TOC placement: Topmost or post-intro

Anon 209 has recently been given a number of medical articles, such as Aortic dissection, subheadings. This created TOCs. That's good. But the Anon also move the introductory paragraphs to be under the first section, "Definition". This made the TOCs to be the first things in the articles (unlike, say the Pump here).

But isn't the intros always assumed to be "good definitions"? Should we keep the intro as a preamble or not?
--Menchi 06:40, Aug 2, 2003 (UTC)

Please see also for instance History of Germany, where Wai-Shun Cheung systematically have reached a similar effect.
-- Ruhrjung 07:25, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)


yuck. An article starts with a definition, by definition! reverting/. -- Tarquin 08:38, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Benzone

On Wikipedia:Requested_articles there is a request for Benzone. Is this just a misspelling of Benzene, or is it something different that I simply don't know about?

Or it may be a misspelling of benzine? -- Gutza 09:15, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)
I believe it's genuine: in chemistry you change the suffix of the name to represent different characteristics. For example sorbose - sugar; sorbitol - sugar alcohol, and so on. Dysprosia 09:23, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)
Benzone is apparently a non-standard name for Phenylbutazone -- Tim Starling 13:59, Aug 2, 2003 (UTC)

Vandal Limbo

Please check out my Vandal Limbo proposal at Wikipedia talk:Vandalism in progress (the larger block of text by the end of the article at this moment), and comment on it. I'll move the discussion somewhere else if it sparks some interest, I'd just want to know if you people think it;s a good idea for now. -- Gutza 09:45, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Anchors

I tried using achors with redicects but they dont seem to work properly. I used Kings of England and typed in this for the redirect #REDIRECT [[List of British monarchs#English monarchs]]. When I go to Kings of England page it does not direct me to the section I want, it doees not seem to understand achors. - fonzy

... in the winner of the 2003 Legal Document of the Year. CGS 19:10, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC).

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