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File:Village pump yellow.png

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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), placed in the Wikipedia:Village pump archive (if it is of general interest), or deleted (if it has no long-term value).

See the archive for older moved discussion links. For the most recent moved discussion, see Wikipedia:Village pump archive#December 2003 moved discussion.

Requests for help and comments

  1. See User:Daniel Quinlan/redirects if you want to help out with fixing thousands of broken links prepared by Brion and Daniel.
  2. See Wikipedia talk:Interlanguage links for Hashar's information on using RobBot to add interlanguage links.
  3. Aoineko has set up an international Egyptology project for all Wikipedias. If you would like to join it, see m:Egyptopedia.
  4. Kingturtle would like to remind biography writers that the first paragraph of a biographical entry should always mention birth and death years, nationality, and brief descriptions of three or four of that person's most important accomplishments. If the person is still alive, the first sentence should say what that person is. See Wikipedia:Manual of Style (biographies).
  5. Muriel Victoria would like you to vote at the pages linked to from Wikipedia:Refreshing brilliant prose on which articles should stay at Wikipedia:Brilliant prose.
  6. mav invites you to discuss expanding the focus of the Sep11Wiki at meta:Wikimorial
  7. Jiang requests comments at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countries
  8. Adam suggests every American Wikipedian visits List of Members of the U.S. House of Representatives and contributes a short biography of their local Congress-person (see also public domain congressional biographical directory)
  9. Dysprosia requests comments on the new login text
  10. Viajero asks for your help in expanding the Guidelines for controversial articles




Flash

well unlike all other encyclopedia why wikipedia is not having sammm flash movies explaining any small topic like any bird or circuit woring etc. i would love to work on this.

Well, read the Macromedia Flash#Disadvantages to see why not. SVG might be a better alternative, but doesn't seem to be broadly supported yet.

(Hopefully) simple request

Can we have a "Watch this page"/"Stop watching" link in the sidebar when viewing a Revision History page, please? --Zero 11:27, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Please request features at sourceforge.

Where do searches go?

This is probably a simple data error, but I don't yet know how to fix it myself: When I enter "ct scan" in Wikipedia's mini-search bar I end up on "Ultrasound scan" (a related but different subject). There is a much more relevant page available, computed_axial_tomography. Searching for "CT scan" takes me there. Is it possible for a mere site-visitor to change where a search will take me? --195.22.85.154 14:43, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Weird, when I enter "CT scan" (CT in caps) I get redirected to Computed axial tomography from CT scan, in lower case I get the same result as you do &mdash even though there is no ct scan. Strange. Anyway, you can also press on "search" instead of "go" and you can do a proper search for the words you entered. --snoyes 15:32, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Heh, it happens because of #redirect. Ultrasound scan which redirects to Medical ultrasonography contains both "CT" (as the ending of #REDIRECT) and "scan". So, that's what it finds :) Maybe stuff like #redirect should be excluded from searches? Zocky 15:40, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Search rubric

There's something funny with the rubric: it seems to be repeating the hint on where to find help. Phil 12:26, Dec 10, 2003 (UTC)

Adding an email/Changing a password

How does one go about adding an email to an account without one? My old account doesn't have an email address, and I forgot the password years ago.

Help!

You probably need to convince one of the developers that you are the same person. I would imagine that that would be a difficult thing, so the only solution is to probably open a new account. Someone correct me if I am wrong on this. Dori | Talk 17:20, Dec 9, 2003 (UTC)

How long do messages to anon editors talk-pages last?

How many minutes/hours/days/weeks do the messages I leave to a talk-page of an anonymous IP-address, last? If someone leaves a talk-page message to that anon editor after me, does the counter start from scratch? Curious minds want to know. -- Cimon Avaro on a pogostick 03:31, Dec 10, 2003 (UTC)

I don't think there's any hard and fast sort of rule as to when to remove previous messages, but they stay there until someone removes them... Dysprosia 03:33, 10

Current events or Breaking news?

Its not a proposal, only an idea of mine. Like I said its not a proposal, I dont neccesarily think the name SHOULD be changed , but Ive been thinking for a very long time that what we do at the current events page is essentially breaking the news.

What do you all think? Shall the page name be changed?

--Antonio Phenomenom Martin

Disagree. The stuff stays for a month. It's hardly breaking news by the end of the month. RickK 04:27, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

All our stuff is second-handed! Some are so seconded that we're basically the last news-oid website to talk about. And many important stuff are not included. It is not breaking anybody. --Menchi (Talk)â 04:33, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Poetry

I don't know how many poets are around but you've been doing a lot of good work in this area... how about starting a Wikipedia:WikiProject Poetry to bring it altogether? Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 11:53, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)

How? What's involved? Bmills 13:14, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Well, fool that I am, I've made an attempt to start this. Now I really need help. A one-person Wikiproject is not going to get very far. Bmills 14:16, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Is there any objection to this proposed WikiProject Poetry boilerplate text or to the suggested placing of it?

Please consider adding the following boilerplate text at the end of your articles and the top of their Talk page.

This article is part of WikiProject Poetry. Please read the guidelines set out there before editing the page.

In general, I'd prefer these notices to go on the talk page, not as boilerplate. They're a bit too "meta" to be inline info in the article text. --Delirium 09:33, Dec 12, 2003 (UTC)

Remove from watchlist coding thing

Why is it that when you click Stop watching, you are offered a link to return to Main Page when you've almost certainly come from your watchlist and want to go back there? Bmills 16:30, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)




2Pac conspiracy fans

Dear Tupac fans and historians, I have heard a long list of reasons supporting the claim that Tupac is still alive. I don't know enough about the history to know which claims have plausability, and which are simply made up. If you can help me learn more about the conspiracy theories, please visit User:Kingturtle/2Pac. I hope eventually to create a lecture for my History class on this topic...to help teach about checking facts and evidence. But I need to become more of an expert in the topic myself. Thanks in advance, Kingturtle 04:15, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

nothing-changed edits

What's going on with this edit [1]? There's nothing under the before-and-after boxes. But it was marked as an edit in the history (it was the last edit, by the anon). I've seen weird nothing-changed edits before, always by Anons. I'm always afraid it's vandalism. --Menchi (Talk)â 04:17, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I think the diff doesn't show when spaces are added or deleted. RickK 04:35, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Spaces do show up, but on a green background, so you can't actually see them [2]. I'm not sure what is done to make the dif have no green background but I've seen it quite a lot. Angela. 14:28, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Don't those green spaces only show up when you're deleting a line? If you're deleting or adding spaces within a line, you don't see any difference. RickK 16:21, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)
This can occur if two people wikipedia:revert to the same version, or after page histories are merged, and in various other ways. Martin 20:22, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Annoying new edit behavior

The code seems to have changed sometime in the last day or so: when you look at an edit preview, your cursor is automatically moved into the edit box. I hate this! Especially when the page is long enough that it scrolls and you can't even see the beginning. Can we please make this an option in Preferences? Thanks, Tualha 04:47, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I hate that too. Angela. 04:50, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)
I thought it was just me and my browser. Please, put it back the way it was! –Hjr 05:08, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)
What was the prior behavior? Dori | Talk 05:21, Dec 11, 2003 (UTC)
This behavior was added for the edit page in January 2003. After several re-readings of the above comment, I see the complaint is related to the "preview" display specifically. A recent fix which removed a JavaScript error message upon trying to edit a locked page (either a protected page or the database locked) would have altered it to also perform the selection on preview, where in the previous behavior it did not do so.
In at least some browsers this will scroll down below the preview to show the edit box if 'show preview before edit box' is selected. This is indeed rather annoying since the preview is now hard to see; I'll fix it. --Brion 05:46, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Fix applied. --Brion 05:56, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Thanks! Bevo 11:01, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Tualha says thanks too - Tualha 14:10, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)
And so do I. Bmills 14:12, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Me too :) Angela.

Writing on the wall for Wikipedia:Votes for deletion?

Okay, I'll bite. I am of course refering to the quiet appearance of a new function called "dead end pages" (disabled though) on Special pages.

Now, does this mean that:

  1. We are a mere community decision away from burying WP:VFD for good?
  2. It is a mere place holder for a function not yet implemented?
  3. Functionality intended to be included in the MediaWiki package, but not intended to be used on Wikipedia?
  4. A practical joke, like the logo on French Wikipedia?
  5. Something totally unrelated to a deletion management redisign?
  6. What?

-- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen 08:58, Dec 11, 2003 (UTC)

What's a "dead end page"? Where's the link? Dysprosia 09:00, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Don't worry, VfD is safe for now. I'm not sure exactly what Special:Deadendpages is meant to do -- the code just has this rather odd SQL query:
SELECT cur_title FROM cur LEFT JOIN links ON cur_title = l_from WHERE l_from IS NULL AND cur_namespace = 0 ORDER BY cur_title LIMIT {$offset}, {$limit}
Perhaps it is intended to find pages with no links in them. -- Tim Starling 09:07, Dec 11, 2003 (UTC)
See [3]. --Brion 11:07, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)


SUBST vs MSG

Discussion moved to Wikipedia talk:MediaWiki custom messages

The wikilink rendering seems to have been changed so wikilinks to (for example) #References sections has broken e.g. see Schizophrenia or delusional misidentification syndrome.

Is this a permanent feature and if so should I fix the referencing on such pages or should I wait until a wikicode fix does the job ?

Thanks - Vaughan 14:31, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I'm hoping it's not permanent. It has been reported to the mailing list. [4]. Angela. 14:49, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Take a look at Wikipedia talk:MediaWiki custom messages and List of science fiction authors. On both of these articles as they're appearing to me, the Compact TOCs are appearing in <nowiki> format. Does anyone have any idea what's going on? Phil 16:26, Dec 11, 2003 (UTC)

I think it's only section headers, see also m:MediaWiki feature requests and bug reports Dori | Talk 16:34, Dec 11, 2003 (UTC)
It's probably temporary. See the 'Link rendering' section above. Angela. 16:35, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Fixed. --Brion 18:51, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Anonymous edits

[[5]]: Another good illustration why m:Anonymous users should not be allowed to edit articles. Adam 14:38, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

  • At least this way we can see the IP. Anjouli 14:58, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)
  • [6], and others from the same anon in the same page: Counter-example - Muriel Victoria 15:17, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)
  • Given what goes on at Wikipedia:Conflicts between users, I don't think that anonymity is the main problem. There will always people who want to use articles as a platform for their political or moral views, and if they can't do it as anon, they'll just log in. Personally, I've had lots of really good anon edits to articles I've started and a couple of bad ones. Bmills 15:24, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)


Umm, that's a broken link (to meta). I could point you to equally horrendous edit histories caused by logged in users - however, I'm not sure what I would prove by doing so. Martin

It's not a broken link. It's a page which has yet to be created. It was originally a link to the main Wikipedia namespace. I changed it to a meta link to prevent someone actually making that in the wrong namespace. It's a shame Meta links can't show up red or blue like internal ones do. Angela. 21:13, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Of course registered users make horrendous edits and behave badly in other ways. But at least you can argue with them. I find it really insulting when articles are anonymously messed around with, and I'm sure it terminally discourages contributors less thick-skinned than me. Of course if you ban anonymous edits some vandals will just acquire transient IDs to vandalise and leave, so I would also make it harder to register, by requiring an email address and imposing (say) a 12-hour waiting period. See my suggestions for improving WP in this respect at my user-page. Adam 00:20, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Um...Maybe a change in tactics is required. When we notice an anonymous vandal, simply make a note of it and come back an hour (or more) later to fix the page. My guess is that many vandals "get off" on causing people to jump on the changes. Just ignore them (of course, track their damage) and they'll go away. -Anthropos 00:52, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)
That's my feeling too. I think that in general we react too quickly, in this situation and many others. But it's a chicken-and-egg situation, in that the current tools (especially "Recent changes") encourage this way of working. Until we change the tools we can't expect the way of working to change; Until we change our way of working there's no incentive to change the tools. Andrewa 12:26, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)
I'm totally against blocking all pages for anonymous edits, but I think that pages where there is a long history of anonymous vandalism should be blocked for anonymous users. For example, the George W. Bush article could be served by only allowing user edits. The talk page can be left open, so that people who don't want to login can request an edit there...

Speedy deletion

As a relative WP newbie, I was a bit surprised to find that Wikipedia:Deletion_policy does not have a "Candidates for speedy deletion" category for "creative fiction", i.e. deliberate and demonstrable inaccuracy.

I'm refering to articles like Bonnie, which appears to be a deliberate attempt to misinform, by a known vandal.

Right now if I posted an article called "Paris, Capital of Germany", the policy requires it wait five days for a vote, while people confirm that Paris is not the capital of Germany. In practice, I'm sure someone would ignore the policy and delete it.

I can see that such a category may be open to abuse - particularly for esoteric subjects not easily researched online.

Any thoughts? Anjouli 14:50, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

In the light of the activity yesterday around this and related articles that fell into the "creative fiction" category (see Wikipedia:Votes for deletion, I agree that this should be added to the list of reasons for speedy deletion on Wikipedia:Deletion guidelines for administrators. Bmills 14:59, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)
I think it's dangerous to assume sysops can make the judgement about whether something is purely fictional or not. In many cases it is obvious, but there are also times where it isn't and real content might be deleted. However, instant deletion of such pages could already be justified under the "no meaningful content" or "pure vandalism" criteria if someone did want to delete it. Angela. 15:10, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Agreed. What is or isn't fiction is not always obvious. Secretlondon 15:13, Dec 11, 2003 (UTC)
If the author could be asked to provide verifiable references and failed, maybe the full 5 days could be shortened? Bmills 15:17, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Even five days isn't a lot of time to find verifiable references: some people only login every weekend, for example. Not every contributor is an addict. Martin 19:37, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)
In such cases, it is appropriate to blank the article when adding the boilerplate deletion notice to it. Then, there is no possibility that the article contents may be misconstrued by a casual visitor and yet the history is available to facilitate deletion discussions. Louis Kyu Won Ryu
Better, add a wikipedia:accuracy dispute. Martin 19:37, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Yes, much useful comment. I did not actually mean things that could not easily be verified. I meant things that could immediately be shown to be false. I take the point that "no meaningful content" could cover disinformation as well as no information. Probably that's the best way to go, with Martin's suggestion for borderline cases. Anjouli 14:22, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)

duplicate article?

Why is there one article for cannabis and one for hemp? - it is about the same plant. Maybe the THC related things should go to THC and the rest be merged under cannabis or hemp?

wikipedia:duplicate articles

Louis's reaction to mav's outing of 142.177 on the mailing list

Backstory

In reaction to this post [7], Louis Kyu Won Ryu created an article about Craig Hubley, which was removed from the article namespace. It can be seen here.

My purpose

It has recently come to my attention that the reason this article was created was to foster discussion about mav's outing of Craig Hubley. Instead, most of the discussion concerned the disposition of the article here in Wikipedia. The purpose of this post is to help Louis foster discussion on this topic at m:Outing User:Louis_Kyu_Won_Ryu/Outing. Thanks, Cyan 16:45, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Is there supposed to be something at m:Outing? Because as of now, there isn't. --Menchi (Talk)â 18:12, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)
I had based this post on [8], but it presently reads like this. That might help explain things... -- Cyan 20:09, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Pedantry dispute

In view of the increasing numbers of edit wars over increasingly irrelevant tweaks to articles, could someone write wikipedia:pedantry dispute? Martin 20:17, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Will that really help? Daniel Quinlan 20:19, Dec 11, 2003 (UTC)
I can't see it hurting. We have them already. So acknowledging it may bring some light rather than heat on the general subject, without focusing on a particular instance. -- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen 23:25, Dec 11, 2003 (UTC)
I sympathise with the idea, but isn't labelling something pedantry essentially POV and inflammatory itself? DJ Clayworth 18:58, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Not to mention subject to hair-splitting over the definition of "pedantry"... Onebyone 22:20, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)

142.177.etc

Hardbanned user 142.177.xxx.xxx paid us a little visit recently (contribs). I have scoured his contributions from our fair Wikipedia, but if anyone liked them, feel free to reinstate them. New articles he created can be found at User:Cyan/kidnapped. -- Cyan 21:16, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

better stylesheet/css

I love wikipedia, but I think that the body text of articles can get a little hard to read with all the links.

Wouldn't it be a good idea to change the stylesheet a little to make the links integrate better with the text.

Not to the point where the links can't be told from text, but just enough to not make the disturb the reading.

Once users grasp the idea of wikipedia they should assume that most terms are links and a small effect when you move the mouse over a link could confirm that.

/Lasse

Not as the default stylesheet, please. I think there are two issues. One is making too many unrelated words into links. I think that definitely happens in some articles where every third word is linked (or worse). The second is that it might be worth having another style sheet that is more subtle about links. Daniel Quinlan 23:40, Dec 11, 2003 (UTC)
If you are using mozilla you can use custom styles in wikipedia by adding something like this to your userContent.css file:
    body[onload='setup("quickbar")'] <element> {
        <styles>
        ...
    }
    ...
This is a workaround because there is currently no way to make site-specific style sheets. So I took advantage of the fact that wikipedia is the only site I know of that has the onload property of its body element set to 'onload='setup("quickbar")'.
—Noldoaran (Talk) 00:07, Dec 12, 2003 (UTC)

Someone help?

I don't even know where to put this. A well-meaning (I am assuming) newcomer anonymously posted a lot of new pages in the last hour that are copyrighted...somewhere over a dozen. This is taking me forever to track down and fix...will someone help me? Just go to Special:Newpages and check anything from 217.77.109.222. I've tried to communicate with them, and have hopes that they are about to stop. Any help is appreciated. Jwrosenzweig 23:54, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Things are getting more confusing. While some of the posts were from copyrighted sources, others were from a site (www.nobel-winners.com) that claims to release under the GNUFDL. But! It turns out that the nobel-winners site in fact contains (at least in part) copyrighted material it is using from elsewhere, and I can't find anything that says they've gotten permission (see [9] vs. [10] for something they took from Britannica that I assume the EB didn't authorize). What do we do when sites appear to be offering copyrighted material under the GNUFDL? I am truly confused: can anyone provide advice/clarity? Jwrosenzweig 00:23, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Most of those articles seem to consist of one to two sentences. It is so small that calling them "copyright infringements" is worrying unneccessary. BL 00:56, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)
I am not a lawyer, but when the whole of a short article is copied or many such articles are copied, it is perhaps worth worrying about. See the article on fair use. Daniel Quinlan 02:35, Dec 12, 2003 (UTC)

page access stats

The stats function from Special pages still includes statistics about pages accessed. I suspect this is not functional. Most of the newly created Wikipedias have all the statistics related to accessed pages glued to zero, and even the english wikipedia has fallen from somewhere over 50 views per edit to around 30 views per edit. I question whether views of pages are relevant anyhow, now that there are numerous other sites offering Read-Only access to Wikipedia content, and we don't track how many folks access those. Could we edit the Statistics entry on MediaWiki to reflect the increasing irrelevance of the stat (that is remove it entirely)? -- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen 00:59, Dec 12, 2003 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Sitestatstext --Brion 01:04, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Heh, after freshly editing scores and scores and scores of MediaWiki-namespace files on the Finnish Wikipedia, I know full well where it is. The question is whether we should edit it. -- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen 01:18, Dec 12, 2003 (UTC)
Will future generations forgive us if we get it wrong? (gasp) Yes, please do. :) --Brion 01:28, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Suggestion from a newbie

I think my perspective as a newcomer might actually help here. The way I found wikipedia was googling "campaign finance reform". When I saw the article on campaign finance reform, I realized it didn't have much information; then I realized that it could be edited. I might never have become a wikipedian if that article had been more complete; instead, I would have just read what I needed and left. In order to capture more of these people who stumble onto wikipedia articles, we could add the following standard text to the top of all articles: This article is not done. To help finish it, visit Wikipedia:About. I think this might help get more users, who might otherwise never realize they can edit. Meelar 20:07, Dec 11, 2003

Your suggestion that we be clearer that any visitor can edit an article is a good one, although I don't agree with your proposed text. There are many of us (but by no means all) who thing there's no such thing as a "finished" article (indeed, that's the biggest difference between wikipedia and, say, h2g2). I'd say that presenting new visitors with a flashy Hey Kids! Find out how YOU can improve this article, right now! bubble would be a great idea. -- Finlay McWalter 01:30, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)


The suggestion is really an important one for us to discuss. In hindsight, I realize I came to wikipedia (via google searches) many times before recognizing what wikipedia was. It really wasn't until the 20th time (or so) that it hit me that I'd seen the interface many times before, and I started to investigate. It would be really nice to have some sort of text to alert new users that they are encountering an interactive encyclopedia. Maybe it could be designed that only non-logged-in-IP-address viewers would see the message. Kingturtle 05:27, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)
I don't like the idea. We should keep each article looking as complete as possible, with room for expansion. Even if we miss important information, making the rest of the article look complete will make the Wikipedia be much more usable. Anyway, for stubs, we have stubnotes - they let the user know that they can add to the stub. Dysprosia 07:48, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)


Figuring out you can edit a WP article perhaps has some slight function as an entry test to keep out undesirables. Meelar worked it out and seems to be the sort of person we want. "YOU CAN EDIT THIS PAGE" is practically an open invitation to any moronic vandal who sees it. Anjouli 14:14, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Thank you for your suggestion and welcome to Wikipedia! This idea is interesting, but I think it needn't be implemented. There is already an Edit this page link. I don't think we need much editing from users who have visited Wikipedia only once or twice. What we need is readers and experienced writers. It is better to let editing to readers who bookmarked Wikipedia, visited it many times and are familiar with its structure, format, philosophy and look'n'feel. It should be noted that many newcomers may also vandalize some page. Best wishes, Optim 20:30, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Some pages don't display properly in the Opera browser

It seems like some pages on wikipedia don't display correctly when the user's using opera. I tried with IE, and there's no problem. It happened to me with the sandbox and with the Village pump page... It would be good to fix this.

Probably the Arabic links; see down at the bottom of m:Talk:Main Page. This is either an Opera bug or a Windows bug or an Opera-Windows bug interaction. What versions of Opera and Windows are you using, exactly? I've been unable to reproduce it with Opera 7.23 on Windows XP. --Brion 01:28, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Links: Auto-generation?

Moved to Wikipedia talk:Make only links relevant to the context

Is there a log of "rename-events"?

(i posted this question on Wikipedia talk:How to rename (move) a page, but I don't know if anyone really frequents there)

Question: When a users renames (moves) an article, that change is not listed under the article's page history. How then are we to know who renamed (moved) the article and when it occurred? Is there a log (something akin to Wikipedia:Deletion log) that I don't know about? Kingturtle 05:14, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)

The user automatically creates a redirect at the place from where the article was moved. Like this: [11]. --Jiang | Talk 05:20, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)
However, if the page is moved back to its previous name for some reason, the history of the original move is erased. —Minesweeper 08:04, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)
It would be especially helpful to have a log of all renames. An edit war of sorts could break out between two admins in regards to a name of an article. Name changes could go back and forth, and it would be very difficult to follow. Kingturtle 03:04, 13 Dec 2003 (UTC)
I agree. A move log would be a good thing. KingTurtle: why don't you post this on the requested features at sourceforge. —Noldoaran (Talk) 06:13, Dec 14, 2003 (UTC)
I agree too, but I have an idea that might be more useful than one central move log: what about a "move history" for every page, just like there's a "page history"? This way, the "move history" would be transferred along with the article's contents and editing history whenever it is renamed. As a result, the log of rename events for a particular article would be stored in one place. If it were in one central log, I fear that it would become long, spread-out, and unwieldy in keeping track of a move-war, for example. Although, maybe a centralized move log could complement an individualized move history for each article. I'll post this to SourceForge unless someone has a better idea. —Minesweeper 10:58, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Header protocol

I'm seeing a lot of pages where the Header hierarchy starts with a second-level Header (===). MediaWiki apparently has no trouble with this and just ignores the "hidden" level for the purpose of numbering the Sections; they start at 1. and continue. However if someone appends a further Section (say External Links) at the top level (==), this appears as another 1. Section which is confusing. Assuming that this is not the ideal state of affairs, is this explicitly stated somewhere? I have searched but have been unable to locate anything appropriate. If this is incorrect, is there an easy way to seek & destroycorrect or do we just keep an eye out? Phil 12:16, Dec 12, 2003 (UTC)

The Wikipedia:Manual of Style requests of you to start all headers at == and to work down from there. I go through now and correct mucked up headers when I see them - it looks rather ugly having === headers throughout and having == headers sporadically interspersed at the end, or whatever. Dysprosia 12:32, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)
However, this can be usefull in a WikiProject, with the stuff at the begining (parent projects, sibling projects, list of contributers, etc.) on the "===" set of headings, and the template on "==", which then starts numbering at one again.Gentgeen 14:07, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)
What, and form a Wikipedia Manual of Style brigade? :) Sounds cool, but I thought WikiProjects were dedicated to information, and not just formatting? Dysprosia 23:02, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Slooooow

So, what was the technical problem last night, and presumably now too, since things are working but very slow? Tualha 14:44, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Last night we had the database server fall over, choke, and die with a fishbone stuck in its throat. (Or the equivalent; it really shouldn't have died under the test load it was given.) It's been rebooted and the DB's memory usage adjusted in the hope that this will help.
I can't speak to the specific slowdown you're referring to, but we have had intermittent problems with the web servers which we haven't yet gotten to the bottom of. --Brion 03:53, 13 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Thanks. Tualha 05:35, 13 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Pronounciation

I need help pronouncing words. Can you please help? Thank you Dan Brosamle

The Wiktionary Tea room might be a better place to ask. Angela. 22:42, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)

How can I see the source of protected pages?

I know I shouldn't be able to edit the protected pages, but is there a way I can see their source? Roozbeh

Yes, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title= PAGE_NAME&action=edit. Angela

Does the software allow links to a subheading (or other specific part) of a wiki page? I know this is possible with HTML, but haven't found any instructions for how to do it here.

Thalia/Karen 05:38, Dec 13, 2003 (UTC)

Hi Karen, yes you can do this using the standard HTML method. Use the URL for the page as normal, add a hash (#), and then the full name of the section replacing any spaces with underscores. For example Wikipedia:Village_pump#Can_you_link_to_a_subheading? Chris Jefferies 08:25, 13 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Note that it's generally considered a bad idea to jump from a different article into the middle of another. Within the same article, it's generally considered okay. Daniel Quinlan 08:30, Dec 13, 2003 (UTC)
Daniel, I do want to jump from one article into the middle of another, but I think it makes sense in this case. There's already a link to the top of the second article a bit earlier in the one I'm working on; I want to add a second link to a specific subheading that doesn't appear on the first screen of the (linked-to) article. When I'm finished working on it, I'm going to ask for reviews, since this my first substantial writing job here. So if someone thinks it's a bad idea.. :-) Thalia/Karen 19:14, Dec 13, 2003 (UTC)
You don't need to replace spaces with underscores. Wikipedia:Village pump#Can you link to a subheading? works just as well.—Eloquence 13:12, Dec 13, 2003 (UTC)
Thanks for your help, folks. Thalia/Karen 19:14, Dec 13, 2003 (UTC)

Interlinking images

Is there any consensus (or has any discussion taken place) regarding inter-language linking of images that are taken from one language wikipedia and uploaded to another? --snoyes 17:46, 13 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean. Like this? --Brion 01:16, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Yip, that's what I meant. I just don't see it done all that much, I suppose it would be a good idea to make a habit of linking them though. --snoyes 01:23, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Well, you really should if you took it from another language. Acknowledgement/attribution of the source would be ideal. On an unrelated matter, it's fun to see how the labels get changed around (as in the case of that map). But I guess if it's Anthere's eyes -- that's little point to interlinking extensively (beside the source lang), because people aren't gonna change her eye colours or anything. So they are just clones. --Menchi (Talk)â 02:49, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)
I was asking because I transferred a whole bunch of maps from the french wikipedia (eg. Image:Carte Localisation Région France Alsace.png). As you can see, I'm too lazy to change the file names. Anyhow, thanks for the answers. --snoyes 03:02, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)
That is model attribution. I personally don't think "Credit(s): fr:Utilisateur:Rinaldum" is necessary (although certainly not bad), because you can just click on ther interlink and find out immediately. Maybe GNU requires it, but I don't know (I almost never did that!). I guess it'd be helpful if French WP got sucked in le black hôle one day and we're left with no functional interlink. --Menchi (Talk)â 03:10, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Did you enjoy that fantastique process of download-wait-upload-wait-describe-link? m:WikiImages.org is some Wikipedians' ideas that you may find interesting, or boring. --Menchi (Talk)â 03:14, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Hey, at least I get an easy boost to my number of edits. OK, ok it is not actually worth it ;-) &mdash I've always been an advocate for a centralised image database (and a centralised inter-language links database aswell). As someone on a mailinglist mentioned recently: Wikipedia is a codocracy (or was it "codeocracy"). I can't really code, and I don't feel like badgering the developers. --snoyes 03:23, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)

WikiPDA

I remember about six months ago reading about the ability to import a static, image-free version of Wikipedia into a PDA. Can someone refresh my memory? Kingturtle 20:58, 13 Dec 2003 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:TomeRaider database. There's also a Wikipedia for a smartphone. See de:Wikipedia:Für Mobipocket if you can read German. Angela. 21:57, 13 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Document Based Questions (DBQ)

I'm thinking of writing a HOWTO for Document Based Queries (DBQ) here. I'm particularly running into problems writing DBQ's for an AP history class. The HOWTO would be at HowTo write a DBQ.

Maybe this should be put into wikibooks, but I think it would be too hard to find. - Pingveno 22:20, 13 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Correction: Document Based Question (DBQ) - Pingveno 23:26, 13 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I would say write an introductory material here about what a DBQ is, where it's used, etc., and link to the full howto which you write at wikibooks. Dori | Talk 23:44, Dec 13, 2003 (UTC)
But where would I write the How To? I haven't found a good, obvious spot at [[12]] - Pingveno 00:01, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)
You might get an answer quicker if you ask at the Wikibooks Staff Lounge rather than here. Angela. 00:07, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Rt. Hon.

Articles on Canadian prime ministers and governors (e.g. Paul Martin, Jr.) start with "The Right Honorable so-and-so is the this-and-that of Canada". I think that sounds weird - like starting an article for every monarch with "His/Her majesty so-and-so was the king of this-and-that". Any thoughts? Zocky 05:36, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Oh, yeah, you're the guy who removed the address from Adrienne Clarkson. Is there a reason why you did not remove the address from Queen Elizabeth II? --Menchi (Talk)â 05:40, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)

So, should Charlemagne start with "His majesty, Charlemagne was..."?
How about starting Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor with "His majesty Francis the First, by the grace of God Emperor of Austria; King of Jerusalem, Hungary, Bohemia, Dalmatia, Croatia, Slavonia, Galicia, and Lodomiria; Archduke of Austria; Duke of Lorraine, Salzburg, Würzburg, Franconia, Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola ; Grand Duke of Cracow; Prince of Transylvania; Margrave of Moravia; Duke of Sandomir, Masovia, Lublin, Upper and Lower Silesia, Auschwitz and Zator, Teschen, and Friule; Prince of Berchtesgaden and Mergentheim; Princely Count of Habsburg, Gorizia, and Gradisca and of the Tyrol; and Margrave of Upper and Lower Lusatia and Istria was..."?
How about "His imperial majesty, Napoleon I Bokassa"?
"Her majesty", "Right Honourable" etc. are not even titles, they are forms of address, and are not part of the person's name. Zocky 05:52, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)
For reasons of NPOV (and also standard encyclopedic naming), "The Right Honorable" doesn't belong in the article as a form of address. It does belong in Prime Minister of Canada as a bit of information about the position and the forms of address generally applied in different situations, etc. Daniel Quinlan 05:55, Dec 14, 2003 (UTC)

I went ahead and made a bunch of edits. Incidentally, I also edited the few British Monarch articles that had a similar honorific only used in formal address (that are not titles). Daniel Quinlan 08:15, Dec 14, 2003 (UTC)

I notice two styles of section demarcation in Wikipedia articles. The first being the one used in this article ==xxx== and the other that uses ===xxx=== as in Joel and Ethan Coen. Is there supposed to be a standard one to use in every article, or is the choice a matter of what pleases the last person editting the article? - Bevo 15:49, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)


The Wikipedia:Manual of Style says
Start with "==" (that's two equal signs). If the resulting font looks too big (as many people feel), that's an issue for the Wikipedia-wide stylesheet, not individual articles.
so the Joel and Ethan Coen is not in compliance with this. Angela. 15:53, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Well, it wasn't, but it is now :) --Camembert
Sorry, Camembert, did you say the headers are in compliance now? Some of the middle headers are still treble ===XXX=== ones and seem oversized, if I am not mistaken. --Dieter Simon 23:15, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)
I also think the ==xxx== creates text in a font size that is alarmingly large. The ===xxx=== font size does seem more appropriate. I'll look over at Wikipedia:Manual of Style and see what the thoughts are in terms of style. I'm wondering if a smaller font size can be associated with ==xx==? - Bevo 16:09, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)
It's not just a matter of font. Each section is supposed to start at ==. If External links is used with ===, that means that it's part of another section (unless it's the only section there, or everything else is also at that level and below). The font size in an unfortunate, side-effect when there isn't much text in the article, but it is not noticeable otherwise. I assume it is for the font size reason that sections do not begin with = instead of ==. Dori | Talk 16:21, Dec 14, 2003 (UTC)
It's not font size, which can be fixed with a style sheet anyway. The reason you're not supposed to use = to mark up section headings is that that's what the article title is marked with; sections within the article should thus be marked with ==, the next level down. —Paul A 05:43, 15 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Is there anything I can do to get the font size employed for top-level headings to display in a smaller size? There is mention above to the "Wikipedia-wide stylesheet". Is that something I can define or modify? - Bevo 20:18, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Hi, I recommend checking your web browser to see whether you can change the font size that you view, to display in some smaller size. Most ordinary (graphical) browsers have such an option in their menus. It's a handy feature for several occasions; sooner or later you're bound to surf into pages with 'too large' or 'too small' fonts here and there on the web. --Wernher 02:54, 15 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Thanks, but it's not a matter of what font sizes are actually displayed, but more a matter of what font sizes are used for one aspect of the article, for example, the article's title, relative to the size of the article's section headings. Right now, I don't see too much difference in the font size used by both of these. I wish there were more contrast (by making the top-level section headings display in a smaller font). - Bevo 03:10, 15 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Rollback Edit summary

Rollback (see Wikipedia:Administrators#Reverting) currently gives a edit summary that shows up in the history as: reverted to last edit by .... Unfortunantly, this gives no indicatation as to why a edit was removed and makes no indication that a edit was reverted by an automated program. I think that one of two things should be done:

  1. Make in blindingly clear that this is an automated process. The Message could be something like: reverted to last edit by GoodUser as part of an automated rollback of all of BadUser's edits.
  2. Require rollbacks to have some kind of reason. reverted to last edit by GoodUser. Baduser has randomly deleted text in multiple articles.

This would make it clear to someone who is looking at the edit to try and figure out why on earth an edit has been reverted. It also gives a user some idea as to why their edits are being reverted (especially in cases of mistaken identity). Jrincayc 16:45, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Yes, that might be a good feature (similar to what's done with deletion). Currently, I think it's done this way as a timesaver feature (one click reverting). Whenever I revert something that is not obvious I usually leave a note on the article's discussion page. Note also, if someone deletes part of an article without mentioning why, (s)he may also be reverted without comment. That's why it's always a good idea to put something in the Summary. Dori | Talk 16:49, Dec 14, 2003 (UTC)
The point of the rollback button is that it makes defending against vandalism very quick and very easy. This benefit would be destroyed if you had to type in an edit summary explaining what you were doing. Angela. 16:57, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Perhaps a small set of radio buttons could be added, to help annotate that process. These would append the appropriate reason to the edit summary. Options might include "vandalism", "banned user", "see talk", producing edit summaries like "reverted to last edit by Hamish (vandalism)" -- Finlay McWalter 17:12, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)
It would still be nice to have the option of adding an edit summary. This would be especially useful when reverting edits by a banned user; it would be very easy to write one edit summary, copy it, and then quickly paste into into the summary box with each revert. Non-obvious vandalism doesn't need to be reverted as fast and needs more annotation. --mav 18:05, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Just give a place to put a summary, and if the person doing the rollback does not feel like giving a summary, than give a more detailed message like: reverted to last edit by GoodUser as part of an automated rollback of all of BadUser's edits so that it is clear that the revert is part of a rollback and not an individually checked edit. Jrincayc 20:54, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Excellent idea, Jrincayc! This makes such a lot sense, gets my support anyway. Chris Jefferies 23:18, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)
The software doesn't automatically know if the revert is part of series of them or not though. Angela.
I think it would be best to have a summary box on the user contributions page, and then use JavaScript to extract it and append it to the rollback URL on each click. -- Tim Starling 23:34, Dec 14, 2003 (UTC)
Would that work if there was more than one person doing the rollbacks though? Angela. 23:45, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Yes, why wouldn't it? They wouldn't necessarily use the same edit summaries, of course. -- Tim Starling 00:08, Dec 15, 2003 (UTC)
This would be broken under Lynx (which I think would just ignore it, but that should be tested). Pakaran 00:36, 15 Dec 2003 (UTC)
This is how the simple version could be done. I think that to implement just the automatic message would just take changing the message line in Language.php to something like:
"revertpage" => "Reverted to last edit by $1 as part of an automated rollback of all of $2's edits",
and the line that uses this in rollback() in Articles.php to:
$newcomment = wfMsg( "revertpage", $s->old_user_text, $ut );
Adding a user specified message will be more complicated. Jrincayc 00:48, 15 Dec 2003 (UTC)
  1. The one-click sysop rollback exists for the sole purpose of speeding reverts of mass vandalism, which should be obvious to anyone looking at what the edit did.
  2. This is one click per page. There is no such thing as an "automated rollback of all of X's edits".
  3. If you want to put a detailed summary/reason, you can always do so with history/edit/save. --Brion 00:20, 15 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Does this mean that the revert button cannot/should not be used for isolated instances of vandalism, but only mass vandalism? -- BCorr ¤ Брайен 00:56, 15 Dec 2003 (UTC)
I hope that people are not saying it can not be used for this. It is also used to mass revert edits by banned users, which seems to be what has started this issue. Do these count as vandalism? Is it obvious enough that the revert is being made because the user is banned? I'm thinking particularly of Michael's edits, which may appear on the surface to be fine, but are very often auto-reverted. Angela. 01:01, 15 Dec 2003 (UTC)
No I think Jrincayc has misunderstood their purpose. Revert is just an easy, one-click way to revert. It is used for auto-reverting, or for reverting single contributions. I use it all the time for one-time vandalisms. If the vandal does one bad edit, followed by one good edit, I don't revert them both. Dori | Talk 01:04, Dec 15, 2003 (UTC)

I think the way it should work is that the process should be a two-step one. For this to be easier though, I think the revert should be next to a page history and there should be a diff link next to a user's contributions (see meta:MediaWiki_feature_requests_and_bug_reports#Reverting). 1) click on revert link next to a diff (either in page history, or next to contribution) 2) a new page with a text box appears that has some automatic text, and you can add your own reason, or just click OK (sort of like the delete option). Dori | Talk 01:08, Dec 15, 2003 (UTC)

I don't think you quite understand the purpose of this. This is meant to help against instances where there might be ten, twenty, fifty, junk edits that need to be reverted. Firing off a bunch of one-click reverts and then checking the results is easy. Making them require two clicks each makes the process a lot slower and more difficult. --Brion 01:27, 15 Dec 2003 (UTC)
It's just a matter of implementing it, because you could just as easily make it so that there are a bunch of checkboxes, you select all the ones you want to revert, the revert reason is the same for all of them (maybe even a select all edits still on top). You still go trhough two pages, but you have reverted more than two edits for only one extra confirm click. Dori | Talk 02:19, Dec 15, 2003 (UTC)
I just see the effect as a non-sysop user and today I saw a revert that had no visible cause and no visible reason, so I made the incorrect assumtion that the reverter was being a dink by reverting a perfectly good edit. If there was some way to make a better comment, I would have realized that the revert was part of a larger rollback of all the user's changes, which would have saved some heated words. The message as is does not give a clue as to why the edit has been reverted, which is bad (Don't bite the newcomers ...). Jrincayc 01:22, 15 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Should one create articles that are of little use to the general public?

I'm as newcomer as possible, and I was wondering whether one should consider the relevancy of an article before posting it, or post it, assuming that if it is of little relevance few articles will link to it, and no harm will be done. For instance, I could write an article about my high school, but I very much doubt whether this will be of interest to anybody. Should I do this, so as to broaden the scope of Wikipedia, or should I dedicate my time to things of greater use and importance, such as juggling bananas?

--81.218.180.201 23:36, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)Itai

The debate about high schools is an old and ongoing debate, I think...you can create other sorts of articles that may not be of everyday general interest (I would say a lot of the history articles I have created fit that description), but it may not be a good idea to start out with your high school. Adam Bishop 23:40, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)
See Wikipedia talk:Deletion policy/schools. Angela.


I'm a newbie here myself. So far, I've found that if I try looking up any article on a topic on which I have any significant degree of knowledge, I instantly find things that I think should be added, things that I think are not quite right, things that I think can be phrased better... so I suggest that's where you start.

If you look through an existing article, often you'll find links that display in red—for example, this one: Raymond Loewy. This means either that there is no article at all on the great industrial designer Raymond Loewy, or that I've misspelled his name.

When an existing article already links to an article that doesn't exist, that's a reasonable excuse for creating the missing article.

In your case, you mention juggling bananas. As you can see, there is an article about juggling and an article about bananas. Both look good as far as they go, but it seems to me that there might be more to write about. What do you think?

In other words, before creating a questionable article, why don't you see whether there is some contribution you could make that would be just as much fun to do and more likely valuable to users of Wikipedia?

Oh, one more thought—I grew up in Scarsdale so I know a little about the town. Well, almost every town in the U. S. has a Wikipedia article based on census data. I'll bet your town is there. And I'll bet you know something about it that isn't in the article. In my case, I added a snapshot of one of the stranger-looking buildings in Scarsdale and some notes on famous people who lived there. I don't know if anyone really cares—but I'll bet that there are at least as many people interested in knowing that Gish Jen lived in Scarsdale as in knowing that 32.8% of its inhabitants are under the age of 18 Dpbsmith 01:38, 15 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Indeed, I have been doing the same for towns on Oahu where I live. I would suggest beinging your new material to the top, and have "Demographics" as one of the last subtitles. Census data are there not because of intense interest in the numbers. - Marshman 01:53, 15 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Actually, I strongly disagree. There is a WikiProject and a guide for these articles at WikiProject Cities, with the suggested template given farther down the page here. It actually is a good convention to be consistent about. I (like many people) first found Wikipedia through these articles, and it's one of the things that people tend to expect consistency in. It's fine to add more info, but it would not be good for them to have the information arranged in completely different orders. -- BCorr ¤ Брайен 02:42, 15 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I have just edited Biometric word list#External link to reflect the fact that the link is to a 2 megabyte PDF. I think there should be some sort of guideline that external links to slow-loading pages should contain a warning such as this, and PDFs in particular as many people will prefer to download them rather than view them online. This one in particular doesn't give my web client (IE5.0) any idea of the file size.

Any other thoughts? Is there such a guideline already and I've missed it? If not, where should it go?

What should the criteria be? I think 2 megs is at least enough to warrant a warning, in fact my feeling is that about 200k and up should ideally have some sort of warning, as a rough guide. I also think it's going to be a very rough one, it's no particular hassle IMO if people deviate by a factor of two in either direction.

Should we even have this sort of link to a PDF? Many users wouldn't be sophisticated enough to decide to download it rather than view it online. So should we give them some extra help, eg an explicit download link? Andrewa 06:03, 15 Dec 2003 (UTC)

As a matter of courtesy I always insert a little "(pdf)" marker to the end of pdf links. This should suggest the link may be rather large. Dysprosia 07:06, 15 Dec 2003 (UTC)
I do similar notice as Dysprosia above. I hate PDF. Just waiting for Adobe program to load takes like 10 seconds, then another 10 seconds for file to load (in Win98). So I say (PDF) with a wikilink, and those who needs download link of the program and click on PDF to find out (and learn more about it from our article!). --Menchi (Talk)â 07:13, 15 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Why is it Sir for some ?

Way back in June I requested that the title Sir be included in the underlining for Sir T.B. I started a new page to differentiate between other obscure Thomas Browne's but was jumped upon for altering it. I presumed this to be some egalitarian protocol to equalise all in the hall of fame. I now notice that a user named Smallweed has helpfully begun a page on a Sir James Edward Smith all underscored for clicking onto. Why is it Sir for some , but not for others? Or are arbitary editoral decisions made at the wiki? Norwikian 08:31, 15 Dec 2003 (UTC)

As I understand it, the general policy is not to use "Sir" (or other similar titles) for any articles. As such, I think the Sir James Edward Smith article should probably be changed (and indeed, someone has already redirected it to James Edward Smith. The reason that "Sir" is avoided, I believe, is that the title generally is held by people only during a certain part of their life. As far as I know, most people who hold the title gain it during their life, rather than holding it from birth (but I could be wrong). Also, people who are "Sir" may later go on to be something higher (Lord, for example). Since titles can change, while names generally don't, it's better to stick with names. Or at least, that's my understanding - I wasn't involved. :-) -- Vardion 10:30, 15 Dec 2003 (UTC)
You're right that arbitrary editorial decisions are made on Wikipedia, though. Any consistency is arrived at through consensus and/or through people making things consistent by pulling articles into line. Individuals contributors are inevitably going to make decisions that aren't consistent. Onebyone 11:16, 15 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Brilliant prose needs YOU

Wikipedia:Brilliant prose is sadly neglected and needs your brilliant opinion!

Cheers all, Muriel Victoria 12:43, 15 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Just as an indicator of what needs doing:

Wikipedia:Brilliant prose candidates corrently has

  • 7 candidates with objections that need to be resolved
  • 22 nominations that need to be contested or moved to Wikipedia:Brilliant prose when appropriate.
  • 14 self-nominated articles, most of which lack a seconder.


and

Have a couple of hundred articles for you to vote on.

Vote Early - Vote Often! Bmills 13:04, 15 Dec 2003 (UTC)

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