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For general problems with Wikipedia not pertaining to any single article, see Wikipedia:General complaints [[da:Wikipedia:Landsbybr%F8nden]]

Summarised sections

This is a list of discussions that have been summarised and moved to an appropriate place. This list gets deleted occasionally to make room for newer entries.

I think that adding links to the corresponding page on http://nutritiondata.com to food-related articles might be a good idea. Do other Wikipedians agree, and does anyone know of a nutrition site which might be better? Eurleif 00:41, Apr 29, 2004 (UTC)

Yes, adding links looks useful, I started linking food and nutrition to the homepage.--Patrick 10:53, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)

New feature

You can now paste an IP address into the search box and click "go", and it will take you to the contributions page. -- Tim Starling 03:26, Apr 29, 2004 (UTC)

Cool.. but there's a bug :o) It doesn't take care of articles which have the name of an IP address. For e.g., 127.0.0.1 is the name of an article, but giving it in the "Go" button doesn't take it to the article. Jay 12:28, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Oh diddums. You won't be able to access the only two articles in the entire database which are named after IP addresses: 127.0.0.1 and 155.69.5.236 with the go button! I guess I'd better disable it, I wouldn't want you having to type the URL. -- Tim Starling 14:17, Apr 29, 2004 (UTC)
Why not check if the page exists before going to the contri list? Just moving the if block down right before the "No match" should do the trick.--Eloquence* 15:34, Apr 29, 2004 (UTC)
Make that one article. I orphaned 155.69.5.236 and deleted it. UninvitedCompany 16:05, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Zero: 127.0.0.1 is a redirect. - Woodrow XXIIIII, Emperor of the United States, Minister of Ministry 19:49, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)
The bug's still there. Will Eloquence's solution help ? Jay 12:36, 2 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Does it matter now that it doesn't apply to any articles? Angela. 20:41, May 2, 2004 (UTC)
Yes, because it applies to a redirect, and possibly to future articles. anthony (see warning)

image upload problems

I tried to upload some images but kept getting 'This image cannot be displayed because it has errors'. I think others may have the same problem. Is this a software/system bug? -- Kaihsu 12:53, 2004 Apr 29 (UTC)

Which images do you refer to? The last two you uploaded (Image:StopIqaluit Copyright1999KaihsuTai.jpg and Image:RichardHarries20040428 CopyrightKaihsuTai.jpg) display fine here. Maybe you should clear your cache? andy 12:59, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Seems to be working now. Image:BeachBarahona2001 CopyrightKaihsuTai.jpg -- Kaihsu 13:14, 2004 Apr 29 (UTC)

Reg. Privacy

Could anyone please tell me how Wikipedia handles privacy issues? For example, keeping passwords and keeping the watchlists. Is it readable by any others? TIA --Rrjanbiah 14:27, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Well, there is the draft privacy policy, but as far as passwords go, no other users can access your password. No other users can see your watchlist either. AAMOF, there was a discussion about implementing a feature that would allow users see others' watchlists not too long ago and it was overwhelmingly voted down. You can see all the edits that any user has made, however. As far as what guys working on the server-end can see, I don't know. They probably can see your watchlists, but your password is most likely encrypted. —Frecklefoot 16:42, Apr 29, 2004 (UTC)


Developers have access to the hash of the passwords, but not the passwords themselves. They could also see your watchlist if they wanted, and details such as when you logged in etc. Sysops used to have the ability to read watchlists a while ago, but I believe this was removed, and is certainly not possible now that special:asksql has been disabled. Also, contrary to popular misconception, only developers can access your IP, not admins, stewards or anyone else. Angela. 17:42, Apr 29, 2004 (UTC)
Oh, Thanks a lot for the explanation. BTW, it would have been much better if the IP itself is hashed and stored. --Rrjanbiah 05:13, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)
(Speaking as a computer engineer) - no, that would actually be very bad. If the hash of your IP address were displayed, it would be trivial for someone to come along, hash the 4294967296 possible IP addresses, and figure out which one is yours. Poof, there goes the privacy of your IP address. →Raul654 05:22, Apr 30, 2004 (UTC)
If I understand right, Angela says developers can view the IP of the *registered* users. So, if the IP is *really* necessary for some login modules or country detection, it can be better md5/sha hashed and stored. But, YMMV --Rrjanbiah 09:20, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)
There is no special recording of users' IP addresses. To check, one has to look up the web server logs (which are discarded periodically) to match up their actions with something they're known to have done (ie, editing a page, which records the user name, page name, and date in the wiki, where the timestamp and page name can be compared against the log, which contains only IP addresses and not user names). --Brion 10:31, 3 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Oh...that is cool. Thanks a lot:-) --Rrjanbiah 12:12, 3 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Why did Wikipedia call it the "so-called great train wreck of Nashville"

Why would you call it the "so-called" great train wreck in Nashville, Tn on July 9,1918. 101 people died . Many were soldiers returning from WWI and over have of the victims were African Americans going to work in the Dupont plant.This was very gruesome and tragic event. The newspaper says that wagon loads of body parts were taken to the morge. One witness said that the young mother sitting next to him was decapitaited and her arm was shoved "into her baby." I don't know what Wikipedia ment by the "so-called" great train wreck, but it sounds like a terrible wreck to me. The 1998 article reads "worst train wreck in US history." I am obviously offended by your statement . You should change that before a survivor or relative of someone who was killed reads it.i understand that ignorance was probaly the reason for this offensive blunder. So you are forgiven, but you need to change the statement.

You may want to edit the reference in the Nashville, Tennessee article and write a short article about the event. -- User:Docu
It sounds like you are right and the article needs to be improved. Sometimes people go overboard when striving hard to write from a neutral point of view. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 22:26, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)
"Sometimes people go overboard when striving hard to write from a neutral point of view."
I agree with this, but i'd like to get some feedback about a specific instance. A memorial built in 1918 commemorates a massacre of women and children. One year ago the two statues that make up the monument were smashed. I wrote that they had been desecrated, but are being repaired. Someone changed desecrated to "damaged".
This "neutral" language fails to convey that the damage was human-inflicted, and obviously intentional.
My question is, how "neutral" do we want to be? --User:Richard Myers (talk)
I agree that goes a bit overboard, but have to admit that "desecrated" is a very emotive word, and has (for me at least) almost religious connotations (as in "desecrating a grave"). To convey "human-inflicted, and obviously intentional" damage, I'd probably go for "vandalised"; more neutral in the sense that it conveys the facts (assuming it has the same connotations to other readers as it does for me, of course...) - unlike "damaged" - but doesn't go further than the facts - as "desecrated" arguably does. Just an opinion, of course. - IMSoP 18:35, 2 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]


Latin name redirects

The first time I looked at the Deletion log, I noticed people deleting latin name articles that redirected to the organism's common English name article. Why would they do that? Does Wikipedia is not paper not apply to redirs? Also, wouldn't the latin names have more currency in non-Eng nations, so the redirs would be quite helpful? Also, some articles, like List of freshwater aquarium fish species specifically use the latin name redirs. Niteowlneils 19:20, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)

In general, such redirects should not just be deleted without going through redirects for deletion, if at all. Perhaps you should ask the sysop who was deleting them if there was any reason for it, and if not list the pages on Wikipedia:votes for undeletion. Angela. 19:32, Apr 29, 2004 (UTC)
Would you quote some samples, if you list them I can restore them (I can't see them in the log). I haven't seen any on Wikipedia:Redirects for deletion lately. Maybe you want to create a special message to be added to these redirects, to better identify and trace them, e.g. MediaWiki:R_for_scientific_names (see msg in Wikipedia:Redirect#How_to_make_a_redirect ) -- User:Docu
I don't mind helping with the 'leg work' of restoring them, I mostly wanted to double-check whether there was some policy that said they were undesirable (I checked several naming convention pages, and project pages related to the animals in question, but found nothing pro or con RE redirs). I take it from your response that they are considered desirable. A couple are Hapalochlaena maculosa and Hapalochlaena lunulata. While researching this, I noticed one other category of redir deletions that I am curious about. Is there some policy that (assuming there is no other valid topic for the title) names of users can't be used as redirs to their user page? (EG Dgrant) Perhaps these questions should be addressed at Wikipedia:Redirect#What_do_we_use_redirects_for I'm not sure I understand what exactly you mean with your tracing page suggestion? Niteowlneils 20:21, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Both of those two were deleted by User:UtherSRG, and the comments suggest it's something to do with double redirects. I don't understand, but Uther generally is a level head, so if you ask him he might have a more enlightening explanation :) -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 20:25, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I undeleted Hapalochlaena maculosa. It's now a redirect to Blue-ringed Octopus, to add the new {{msg:R_from_scientific_name}} it would need to redirect to Greater Blue-ringed Octopus though. -- User:Docu
I've looked through the deletion log (which has around 10 days of stuff) and while I'm sure I could have missed a few, there certainly doesn't seem to be someone making a policy of doing it wholesale. Yes, the latin redirects should exist (even if they aren't currently referenced). -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 20:19, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Since I just found this discussion (I don't frequent VP) and no one has asked, I'll comment anyway. Some of the time I spend on WP I troll RC for interesting things. At some point the two links in question came to my attention. I saw they needed some work, added a taxobox to the article, etc. When I ofund the article, it looked like this. The scientific name links were only used from the article itself to redir back to itself. Seeing this as needless, and removing the links from the article, I then deleted the redirs. Now that I've started Wikipedia:WikiProject Cephalopods, I actually prefer having the sci name links, so thanks for undeleting them! I like {{msg:R_from_scientific_name}} very much, and I'll keep it in mind. - UtherSRG 17:17, 4 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Special:blockip

I promise I'll learn how to report and look up bugs to the system after tonight, but this is one that requires fairly immediate attention and I don't know how to sort it. User:192.195.64.72 is on a personal crusade to blank various pages he doesn't like. I have tried blocking them following appropriate warning, went through the appropriate system, and they are carrying on using the same IP regardless. Is there a problem with the blockip tool? -- Graham  :) | Talk 01:25, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)

It's a known bug. Sometimes you need to do it twice before it works. I believe it's been fixed in 1.3. By the way, bugs can be reported at SourceForge or discussed on m:bugs. Angela. 04:00, Apr 30, 2004 (UTC)
What's the estimated roll-out date for 1.3? →Raul654 04:27, Apr 30, 2004 (UTC)
Sometime in May, probably; we're still finishing things up. However if there's a specific bug here I'd much rather fix it in 1.2 immediately! --Brion 10:33, 3 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome msg suggestion

This may sound weird, but I don't leave 'welcome' messages, and don't want to start now. But, doing some RC patrol I stumbled on a series of contribs from a new user, and I hope that someone from the Welcoming Committee will leave the user a welcome. It's User:Lynnea9. About a dozen new articles on valid topics within about 40 minutes indicates enthusiasm that should be encouraged. But the user could use the benefit of pointers to some of the Style, etc. pages, as the contribs tend to be unformated and barely stubs. I've been working on cleaning up the entries, but I would like her to get a welcome (from someone other than me). Niteowlneils 05:42, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Yes, it does sound weird. There's no reason you can't send a welcoming message, and it both helps the newbies feel like they belong and subtly tells the worrying ones that folks do notice what they do. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 13:44, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I got a welcome earlier and it made me smile. They're good. --bodnotbod 20:30, May 1, 2004 (UTC)

Hacker clans

I came across Hacker clans on RC patrol, but I don't know the material well enough to know if it is legit or vanity. I don't want to post it to VfD if it is legit. Anyone? SWAdair | Talk 08:50, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)

the first part of the article looks legit, but I personally haven't heard of any of the "known clans" (though that' doesn't mean much) it is a little strange that the article fails to mention the "Legion Of Doom" or "cult of the dead cow" since these are the most famous. theresa knott 16:25, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)

The wiki will be locked starting in a few minutes?!?

Why, and for how long? Niteowlneils 17:41, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I have no idea how long it will be for but they're setting up some new hardware (yay) today: Hardware status. fabiform | talk 17:48, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Cool. Thanks for the link. It seems to imply any outage will be brief. That's good news. Niteowlneils 18:28, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Awesome source for public-domain woodcuttings & line drawings

I just dug out an old book (The Clip Art Book, 1980; Amazon link. You have to scan in the illustrations, but there are over 5000 pictures of all kinds of things. There are line drawings of probably famous people (not labeled), tons of pages of old tools (many of which I cant' identify), lots of pictures of a wide variety of horse-drawn carriages & all other kinds of older transportation, people doing all knds of things, plants & food, anatomical sketches, architecture, sports, costume & clothing, weapons & hearldry & armour, animals... jeez I could be here for the rest of my life scanning them in. Get it and start scanning! See what I've uploaded for European dueling sword and Tonsure. Elf | Talk 18:06, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)

There seem to be more than one book of public-domain images...it would be great if people could get them all online. See also, for example, the appropriately named Scan This Book by Mendenhall (2500 images). —Steven G. Johnson 19:59, Apr 30, 2004 (UTC)
It *would* be wonderful; two problems: This particular book is nearly 400 pages, and it'll be rare to find someone with that much time; also, the *page layout* is copyrighted, so in theory we cannot scan in an entire page but must do it an image at a time. ("The selection of illustrations and their layout is the copyright of the publishers, so that one page or more may not be photocopie or reproduced without first contacting the publishers." It's possible that someone could contact the publishers, explain wikipedia, & get permission. Elf | Talk 20:05, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Important distinction being made here. It seems that the images are not individually copyrighted, but the book is. Have a good think about this. It means we can't do what you suggest and scan the whole thing in. What we can do is to use scans of individual images, in appropriate articles. That's what it all means.
And this makes sense. While this particular book may now be out of print, the publishers and the artists they employ still need to eat, and producing whatever clip art books are currently in print is how they do this. To use their work to provide an online alternative is an attractive idea to us, but it's neither fair nor legal. Andrewa 20:59, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Current events

April just disappeared a couple hours early of UTC, and the page seems way to empty! Where is the link to the previous month. It's been a few months since I have been at the wikipedia, but didn't we used to keep the last months news up there for at least a day before?! Also, the history is gone, did someone delete it and over write it? { MB | マイカル } 21:55, Apr 30, 2004 (UTC)

  1. Don't panic!
  2. The current events page is moved each month to become the historical page for that month - so the page recently known as Current events, history and all, is now at April 2004. The current Current events page is essentially a brand new one, which will eventually become May 2004.
  3. Moving it ahead of 00:00 UTC was probably carelessness on the part of the user in question (Kaihsu by the looks) - although it is endlessly arguable which timezone should be followed, since some parts of the world will remain in April for several hours yet.
  4. As for what to do around the time of transition, so that the page is not simply blank, there was some discussion (now archived) about this very issue a few weeks ago. There are various complications involved, and I don't think any real conclusion was reached.
Hope that clears things up! - IMSoP 22:51, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)

If you have a newspaper from today..

.. head over to Talk:Abu Ghraib and let us know how coverage in your paper was of the Abu Ghraib prison incident. We'd like to add some empirical data to the article about a disparity (or not) between US and European media coverage.--Eloquence* 01:19, May 1, 2004 (UTC)

See talk:Abu Ghraib for a discussion of this project. Meelar 01:19, 1 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Fundraising through Increased Book Linking

I'm very new to this so forgive me this is a yawn inducingly old idea.

I've noted the way books are to be cited, and the page which clicking an ISBN number takes you to.

I also note that this provides a source of funding as some click-thrus will give Wikipedia money for any sales made on referral.

For the uninitiated, you can see an example here.

What I was wondering is, would there be any value in having a Book Citation Drive to push up the number of book sales that Wikipedia earns commission on?

Of course, we would want to make sure additions are relevant - you can see the 3 I've added to the Dad's Army article at Further Reading

I figured if you had a splash on the front page and some other reminders strategically placed, it might cause an increase in citations and funds.

If you wanted to be gung-ho about it, Wikipedia could be a lot more aggressive in funneling click-thrus to those retailers Wikipedia can get money from - but I suspect that's against the spirit of Wikipedia. --bodnotbod 01:45, May 1, 2004 (UTC)

Well, shortly after the amazon partner link was added as an experiment Jimbo declared the experiment as being over as the income generated was quite small - and probably also because some wikipedians issued bad feelings about working together with amazon, as the patent policy of amazon is somewhat controversial. However that link wasn't removed even after the experiment was declared over, so maybe Jimbo should check again if it gained any significant income since.
But even if there were no affiliation programs used, adding books in a "resources" or "further reading" section makes perfect sense, as well as adding the ISBN for books which are listed already but lack that number. I myself do that regularily, but I limit myself to books I have read, so I can recommend that book to a topic. Searching through amazon to find a book related to the topic of an article just to add book title is not a good idea IMHO. andy 19:58, 1 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
But Price Owl has a note saying it pays commission too. How about encouraging that? I agree books should be added on genuine merit (which means adding ones you've actually read, preferably). --bodnotbod 02:14, May 4, 2004 (UTC)
Don't forget about pages that are actually legitimately about books, like Cerebus the Aardvark---there's only one edition of the phonebooks; I added links to all the ones I could find. It's not only good for Wikipedia, it's actually helpful to me to have those links there. Grendelkhan 15:02, 2004 May 6 (UTC)
How can I take this idea further? I think it's swamped here. I need the ear of someone who can take this up. It is FUNDING! we're talking about. Surely everybody should have an interest in that. --bodnotbod 23:46, May 6, 2004 (UTC)

Should we report vandalism that we fix?

I have reverted a case of minor vandalism. I mentioned revert in the editing explanation. Should i do anything further to report the vandal (an IP address), or does someone (or some process) examine reverts to track such incidents?

Richard Myers

Yes. It gives the rest of us a heads up to keep an eye on the vandal's other actions. RickK 04:40, 1 May 2004 (UTC) [reply]
OK. Report it here? Or...?
(Answering my own question)
I was already familiar with this page: Wikipedia:Dealing_with_vandalism
I have found two additional pages which are helpful: Wikipedia:Dealing_with_vandalism and Wikipedia:Vandalism_in_progress
thanks, richard myers
In response to the original question, I would urge caution - an isolated case of minor vandalism may not be true vandalism at all, merely a newbie test, and labelling the user a vandal is likely to be counter-productive (see also Wikipedia:Clueless newbies for an alternative label that may be more suitable). What's more, even if made in bad faith, the best reaction to such edits is simply to revert them. If, on further investigation, you find that the user has made many such "bad faith" edits, then it is worth adding a notice on Vandalism in progress; alerting the community to a user who has made one or two bad edits is a waste of both your time and those who follow it up. - IMSoP 19:25, 1 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. I was unable to find any other damage reported initiated from this IP address, so i have decided to let it pass, pending further information. --richard myers

are rubber/plastic bullets still in use in northern ireland?

Moved to (and answered at) Wikipedia:Reference desk#Plastic bullets in NI

New hardware

The thing is that this is not a discussion, but I have read above someone was setting up some new hardware and (as I feel it is faster I think it has been already set up) I wanted to say many thanks and a big cheers to whomever did it.

If the above is incorrect, please remove. Pfortuny 10:08, 1 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, the servers were down yesterday and there was an OpenFacts screen that mentioned new servers were being put in. Is there a page where we can see details of what's changed? As a newbie I'm curious about the hardware set up and funding situation (healthy/unhealthy?). --bodnotbod 18:04, May 1, 2004 (UTC)
See meta:Wikimedia servers and meta:Wikimedia#Financial situation, repectively. - IMSoP 19:12, 1 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Aha! Here's the dop on the new gear Wikipedia:Hardware status. --bodnotbod 20:53, May 1, 2004 (UTC)

<span> and language tagging

Wikipedia does not allow the HTML tag <span>. Why?

Very often we insert some non-English words in English texts. It is desirable to always mark them as belogning to a particular language.

The best way to do it is to write like this: <span lang="xx">some foreign text</span>.

But the <span> tag is not available. Of course, one may write instead like this: <font lang="xx">some foreign text</font>, but it is not so nice (because we do not want to change font, but only to change language).

So it is necessary eigther to allow the tag <span>, or to invent some Wikipedia-specific way of language tagging (which will translate into <span></span>). — Monedula 11:05, 1 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

See the Wikipedia-l thread on the mailing list for last month's discussion on it. There were a couple of related posts on Wikitech-l as well [1][2]. Angela. 12:41, May 1, 2004 (UTC)

Perhaps we should have some pseudo-tag for language marking? Something like

<lang xx>some foreign text</lang>, which will translate into <span lang="xx">some foreign text</span>?

I use <i lang="xx"> for this. Of course it's not so good if you don't want italics, but often when you insert text from one language into a running stream of another language italics are conventional anyway. Marnanel 22:19, May 2, 2004 (UTC)


Encouraging A Global Perspective

I'd appreciate some thoughts on this please. My interest and, cough, expertise lies with comedy. And, since I'm British, British comedy.

I've been working on a couple of broad articles, notably sitcom and television comedy.

The thing is they are grotesquely skewed to UK/US information. And I, for one - though I would never have thought about it without Wikipedia - am now curious about sitcoms and TV comedy from around the globe. What the hell's it like? I ask myself. And Wikipedia's articles, currently, cannot help me.

So. How can I attract the non-English speaking globe to our English Language comedy pages?

I've added the articles to Wikipedia:Pages needing attention, but I have this nagging sense that all the best potential contributors are over on their own language versions.

Is there a separate page for this kind of request? Something like 'Pages Needing Global Perspective', perhaps?

--bodnotbod 21:17, May 1, 2004 (UTC)

I know of no such page, but it might be a useful idea. I remember coming upon bureaucracy and discovering that it was entirely a British perspective. Anyway, there is a page for coordinating translations (Wikipedia:Translation into English) that you can use if you know there's material in another language's Wikipedia that could be moved over. Isomorphic 22:08, 1 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately my foreign language skills are, for these purposes, zero. I stopped studying languages at 14. And I started age 12. My teachers told me I'd regret it if I didn't continue with a language. Damn them.
But it strikes me that this must have been debated before.
One solution that occurs to me is simply to add an invitation to articles that are more likely to attract foreign contributors, ie articles about individual countries or things that are iconic about them. I may try that, but any other thoughts, or tips, gratefully received.
--bodnotbod 22:15, May 1, 2004 (UTC)
Using pages on the English Wikipedia isn't an ideal way to attract the attention of editors of other language Wikipedias. Ideally meta should be used for this, but currently it is slightly overlooked, so you may find setting up a page there doesn't help any more than one here would. However, one of the aims of meta is to facilitate cross-project work like this and the recent call for help with the m:Articles on fr with no interwiki link to en seemed to work well, so it might be worth creating a "Pages Needing Global Perspective" page there to see if does work. Angela. 11:55, May 2, 2004 (UTC)
Hmmmm. OK. that sounds a bit intimidating at the moment. I've peeked at metawiki(?) but noticed I appear to need a separate log on. Unsurprisingly after working ten hour shifts for 4 days I am beginning to get a headache as it is ;o) I'll think about it again when I've got my wikiholism under control and have stepped outside, seen some daylight... --bodnotbod 20:35, May 2, 2004 (UTC)
The EPOV (English/Empire Point of View) is a huge can of worms. See Wikipedia:POV for the English community view of its own systemic bias. This is not as critical as it could be, which is normal, since no one who speaks English as a first language will really be fully aware of EPOV. Translators in particular would be much more aware of it. See also the history of Wikipedia:EPOV for good ideas about things to add.
Also, see major discussions on Meta-Wikipedia such as m:linguistic democracy in a multilingual project - and, see debates around economics, ethics, politics, philosophy, psychiatry as conducted in other languages. It is often remarkable how different they are. JRR Trollkien (see warning) 21:56, 2 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the links, I read the POV ones and scanned the others (I hate statistics articles). Yes, that strikes me as a very significant problem. I'm going to try and make sure I put most of my stuff (I tend to add/edit comedy articles) under a British... subheader and hope that seeing a nationality as a subhead will inspire others to add their nation too. I think that would work well on most of the pages where this issue has caused me concern. Also, if the articles become lengthy it is then easier to give each nation it's own page. I will, from time to time, try and recruit people if I spot they're from somewhere useful. I've already sent out some invitations.
But on the larger, more thorny issues (political, historical, controversial)... all I can say is Yikes! And, you know, I never say Yikes!. It's beneath me. And unbecoming of a well educated Brit... --bodnotbod 22:17, May 2, 2004 (UTC)

Case Sensitivity

This seems to apply when going for some articles but not on others. I don't know what the rules are but, more to the point, shouldn't case sensitivity be totally disabled for this search function?Dainamo 21:56, 1 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Titles are case sensitive, and the first letter is automatically capitalised. See Wikipedia:How to edit a page#Links, URLs, images and Wikipedia:Canonicalization. -- Tim Starling 05:49, May 3, 2004 (UTC)

Medals for Suez Canal Zone Veterans

moved to Wikipedia:Reference desk#Medals for Suez Canal Zone Veterans by IMSoP 18:41, 2 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

White buttons.

Has anyone noticed the changes to forms?

--Saint-Paddy 21:52, 2 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Um, do you mean on the edit screen and so forth? In which case, they look the same as ever to me; what do they look like to you? - IMSoP 22:48, 2 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
You probably tinkered with your own computer's Appearance lately. Maybe a change from XP Traditional them to Modern. --Menchi 09:51, 3 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Could also be an Opera or Mozilla skin, or an IE-addin. Anárion 11:02, 3 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

They look fine now. Hmmm. Are my eyes playing tricks on me? Am I paranoid or something? Nah. It's just browser I bet. I don't where it came from though weird. It just seems that Go and Search had white backgrounds instead of grey and the search and summary forms had a glossy white look to them, or kinda like something like Mac-form field. Never mind. It's too hard to explain.

Deleting Redirect pages

What's the policy on this? Someone has created the page Ohosaka to redirect to Osaka. This just seems like a complete waste of space to me. Can I just delete it? The same applies to several pages using the romanization Õsaka -- Japanese romanization systems do not use that O with the tilde thing over it. Exploding Boy 23:27, May 2, 2004 (UTC)

It should listed at Wikipedia:Redirects for deletion.--Jiang 23:28, 2 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
If the redirect is meaningful, there is no problem as Wikipedia is not paper. Dori | Talk 23:30, May 2, 2004 (UTC)
Slow down, Exploding Boy! I like to search Wikipedia by typing in last names or alternate spellings into the search box, and it always frustrates the hell of me when I have to try several times to guess what particular name or spelling is actually used by Wikipedia. (Just today, I ended up writing a stub when Einsatzgruppe turned up nothing, even on the Google search, only to have it pointed out to me that it is under the plural, Einsatzgruppen, where Wikipedia catalogues particular horror. Users less familiar with Wikipedia than I might just assume that Wikipedia is far less comprehensive than it really is, and go away disappointed when "obvious" searches fail. More redirects make a better wikipedia. orthogonal 05:42, 5 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Syntax highlighting mark up for programs?

I'm kinda newbie here. I'd thought that there will be some kind of mark up for syntax highlighting of programs like <program lang="PHP">..code here..</program> But, I couldn't find anything such. So, I have experimented few syntax highlighting with PHP's highlight_file() in few articles: PHP programming language#Code_Examples, Hello world program#Perl, and C programming language#Hello,_World!_in_C As Wiki is fast, I strongly believe this might be already discussed. Could someone please direct me to such thing? TIA. --Rrjanbiah 12:21, 3 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

I've always thought syntax highlighting ugly. Others though may have good reasons to do so, though. It does make the code snippets difficult to edit, though... Dysprosia 13:16, 3 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Wiki's own syntax highlighter something like <program lang="PHP">..code here..</program> may be helpful incase someone feels it is hard to edit the code. Is there any such projects going in Wiki anyway? --Rrjanbiah 13:21, 3 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
An additional problem with manually colouring syntax, like you have, is that it won't take into account properties of skins, a user's preferences, possible future non-Web versions, etc, etc. Which brings me to suggest that somebody (you?) could write an extension, à la <math> et al to do exactly what you say. This could then include abilities to vary based on skin/preference/display modality (or whatever it's called) in the same way as the other extensions - there's probably a description of the new modular extension architecture somewhere on meta:, or will be soon.
Now, having said all that, I'm not sure whether I think highlighted code is better or worse, for such short bursts as we're likely to have here. It would probably be useful on wikibooks: though, where there are likely to be whole program listings... - IMSoP 16:02, 3 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, thanks for your comments. I can contribute to that. My idea is something like <program lang="php" highlight="yes">..code..</program>. And also, skinning as in PHP's enhanced help manual (one with copy to clipboard JS stuffs, etc) But, I thought that similar discussions might have done in Wiki and that's why asked. And, I can't promise about my contribution at this moment as I'm busy now. --Rrjanbiah 10:35, 8 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Please see Talk:Hello_world_program#Color-coding_of_hello_world_programs and allow people to discuss such drastic edits in the future by taking them up on the appropriate talk pages. --Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 00:32, 2004 May 6 (UTC)
Yes, I do care about Wiki. As stated in my edit summary, I was experimenting that and was planned to revert after few days (after getting some feedbacks). But, never thought that you would revert it immediately. --Rrjanbiah 10:35, 8 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Mixing ltr and rtl

Recently I came across a strange problem with rtl (right to left) direction fonts. For example, please look at Google#Other_national_Googles and see the India (at 16 position). It is messed up with the rtl text. Is there any solution for this? TIA --Rrjanbiah 12:35, 3 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately that problem cannot easily be solved, as it is not a real list, but inline text with LTR and RTL. Since the Wiki blocks the <span> tag, none of the workarounds I know of work either. Anárion 12:42, 3 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
See Wikipedia:Span tags poll. Nohat 02:53, 2004 May 4 (UTC)

centre steer

What's with the "mystery" here? -- user:zanimum

Whether one exists or not. Dysprosia 13:17, 3 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
So this is a mechanical Nessie? Do they have blurry black and white photos of center steer walking at the edge of the forest? Do the Cree pass down legends of the mystical centre steer, and how it saved the first woman, who fell from the sky? -- user:zanimum
Seems perfectly self-explanatory to me: was such a vehicle ever made, or is it just an urban legend? (That link's probably better than myth; I think I'll change it) - IMSoP 16:09, 3 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Annoying contributor

Amandag6 is a newbie, and on his talk page, I put this message User talk:Amandag6, welcoming him, and asking him to review other Wikipedia articles, to see the style we write encyclopedia articles in. However, he keeps creating orphan stubs by the dozen, in a definition format. What to do? -- user:zanimum

By the dozen, is misleading. There's about 5 stubs and a couple of those might make articles. I suggest waiting to see if he ignores you and carries on at the same rate, in which case maybe he needs some more advice. Too early to start getting heavy, surely? --bodnotbod 19:58, May 3, 2004 (UTC)
I agree entirely with bodnotbod, and have put a slightly fuller welcome message on her talk page (I'm willing to bet that's "Amanda G. #6"). Just to let you know, there is a page for listing "clueless newbies", so if it were more than half a dozen such edits, that's the place you could go for advice (theoretically, I don't know how well-watched that page is...)
Out of interest, why did you feel the need to create an (essentially) empty user page for the user in question? Seems to me it's up to them to do that, and it's quite a good way of spotting new users if their username comes up red (and if their talk page comes up red, you can be sure no-one's welcomed them yet...)
Oh, and please do not bite the newcomers; most everyone was new once! :-D - IMSoP 21:01, 3 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, you've inadvertently solved a mystery for me there: I wondered how red usernames could exist. I thought it was people who had created an account, done something (probably negative/harmful) and then closed the account. If that sounds like a baffling line of reasoning, you should note this is my first week, and I'm clueless ;o) But I suppose I thought a user page would exist automatically rather than requiring an initial click. --bodnotbod 02:11, May 4, 2004 (UTC)

Use of quoted passages, especially in entertainment bios.

Thought I'd sound people out on this. A number of my contributions are likely to be biographies of British entertainers. I'm pretty sure that in a paper encyclopedia there would be very little or no quoted passages from the artist themselves giving colour to biographical detail but, as we know, Wiki is not paper (see, in particular, ==no size limits==).

I am particularly interested in comedy performers and I feel that having something from them that contributes to the life story and indicates their sense of humour is a good thing and makes for more interesting reading. However, I can see that traditionalists might baulk at this.

The bio style guide isn't helpful on this point.

I would not be excessive in this regard but I'm trying to guage whether there is an almost complete intolerance to quoted passages (as very distinct from notable quotes, without surrounding context) used in bios.

Opinions?

--bodnotbod 20:19, May 3, 2004 (UTC)

  • Personally, I think it would make the articles more interesting. But it's largely a matter of taste, and I'd have to judge based on how it was implemented. Just be bold, and the rest will work itself out. Yours, Meelar 20:36, 3 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
  • Well, that's what I want to hear ;o) I have a tendency to ask questions first and then be bold later... if that makes sense. I'm wary of upsetting people in my first week. --bodnotbod 01:45, May 4, 2004 (UTC)

Locked wiki.

The locked wiki warning isn't appearing on all the pages, I'm currently surfing the the Tom Clancy article and I'm clicking on some of the links and the warning is appearing and on others it's not. I think there might be a problem, I don't know, but of course I don't I'm not a sysop or the server admin. --24.128.142.43 21:32, 3 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

That message itself is out of date. The reason you're seeing it sometimes is that anonymous users see cached pages. If you create an account (pick a username and password) you will see the most up-to-date versions of pages automatically. The wiki was locked down for hardware upgrades, which are now completed.  :) fabiform | talk 21:49, 3 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm. Yes, I was absent-minded a bit when I typed that, I thought I logged in when I wasn't. Hehe. Oops, oh well. Hopefully, its gone now. --Saint-Paddy 00:29, 5 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

King of Wikipedia!

This is just a funny article I wrote when I saw the link on EntmootsOfTrolls user page. Don't ask me why I made it, I was bored and needed something to do and so I created that. Of course, It's just parody of the "real" articles of "REAL" monarchs. Anyways if you want to access it go to Wikipedia:King of Wikipedia, Also, I don't If it goes into votes for deletion, It's not THAT unless there are some people who acutally worship Jimbo and kiss the ground he walks on.

This is already listed on VfD, and so far there seems strong support for deletion. Andrewa 14:03, 4 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Acutally, Angela wants me to move it to the MetaWiki. --Saint-Paddy 00:29, 5 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Bah, let meta write its own jokes. There's a special "April fools' day" section in Wikipedia:Bad jokes and other deleted nonsense , which seems to be the perfect place for this (well, I thought it was fairly funny). -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 00:38, 5 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Sock puppets

If a particular username is known to be a sock puppet and has been established as a sock puppet by Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration, is it acceptable to put some sort of message on the sock puppet's user page that links to the usual name of the user so that people know that the username is a known sock puppet?

For example, suppose someone normally edits under the name "AAA". And for the purposes of a dispute, that user created the sock puppets "BBB" and "CCC". The dispute was taken to arbitration, where the committee concluded that "BBB" and "CCC" were indeed sock puppets of "AAA". In that case, can someone, say, on the arbitration committee, edit those user pages, putting a message on "User:BBB" and "User:CCC" along the lines of:


:''This user is a [[Wikipedia:Sock puppet|sock puppet]] of [[User:AAA]], as established by [[Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/AAA]].''

The reason I'm asking for this is that otherwise when combing through the page histories of certain pages, it can be unclear who had been involved in editing it. --Lowellian 00:35, May 4, 2004 (UTC)

It's definitely helpful. Otherwise, except for those involved with insane passion in pursuing that case, us "outsiders" will never figure it out. It may be obvious to the committee, but not to most other people who's whose puppet. --Menchi 00:54, 4 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
It might be better to just redirect one user page to the other one, unless the user themself has written that notice on the page. 1Angela 00:56, 4 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
What if they're innocent? Will the redirected user be effectively locked out of their account/talk page? Love the term sock puppet BTW ;o) --bodnotbod 01:27, May 4, 2004 (UTC)
No, they can simply edit the page to remove the redirect. Angela. 02:02, May 4, 2004 (UTC)
Presumably, if the arbitration committee found the page to be a sock puppet, then it probably is and they're not innocent. --Lowellian 01:22, May 5, 2004 (UTC)

Kosovo and Metohia

I have started an RfC and a vote on Talk:Kosovo and Metohia#Vote on the name on the naming issue. Please give your comments and vote there. Thanks, Dori | Talk 03:14, May 4, 2004 (UTC)

Note: if you can't find the vote on the talk page, check the history and revert to the last edit with the votes if necessary. They have been removed from the vote list twice so far. -- Chris 73 | Talk 08:23, 4 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
I have removed the vote because there is no naming issue. The article is named in correspondence with Wikipedia:Naming conventions. Nikola 08:33, 4 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Nikola, please do not remove other peoples comments from the Village pump. I just reinserted my comment above. -- Chris 73 | Talk 08:37, 4 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I thought that your comment about me is no longer needed as I have just said the same thing as you myself. If you think that it is, no problem with me. Nikola 08:41, 4 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Wikitravel

As a contributor to both Wikipedia and Wikitravel, what is involved in getting Wikitravel mapped in Wikipedia's Interwiki system? I link a lot of Wikitravel articles to the Wikipedia article. I would like to link in the reverse direction. Is there a policy for this? What would the format be? Something like wikitravel:article name ? --Nzpcmad 07:51, 4 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Unless I'm mistaken, isn't wikitravel not a wikimedia project, and not GFDL (it's attribution-sharealike, if memory serves). So the issue of how/whether to implement interwikis between the two is a political, not technical, one. I don't know if there's a formal policy on this, but it's noteworthy that no such extra-org interwikis currently exist. The best venue for this discussion is the wikimedia mailing list. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 11:07, 4 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Not true actually, e.g. [[meatball:UseRealNames]] works. A wikitravel shorthand seems reasonable, though there is nothing to stop editors using longhand links right now.
Indeed, we have a quite extensive set of InterWiki links - as mentioned on InterWiki, according to which page ours is based on that provided by UseMod (but I'm not sure that's up to date). I fairly often use links to MeatBall:, especially on meta: - I also note that Google:some search terms works, but the character escaping makes it fairly useless for anything other than single words - I fiddled, and the best I came up with was Google:some,search,terms,and-a-phrase which is about as ugly as copying and pasting the full URL :-( You can do Dictionary:word and Foldoc:foo as well.
But I'm wandering away from the point here - I'm not actually sure how and where the "InterMap" is defined on MediaWiki, so I guess we need to ask a developer to add WikiTravel: to it and/or tell us how. In fact, I don't even know of anywhere that lists the InterWiki prefixes currently available... - IMSoP 18:42, 4 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Interwiki links are defined in a special table. It is very easy to add new ones (though it might be hard to add same ones on all Wikipedias). I guess that anyone with SQL access can see which interlinks exist. Nikola 23:02, 4 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

I was talking to Sunir about this recently. Our interwiki map was just copied from the interwiki map at meatball. That map is not intended to be a common interwiki map for all wikis, it's intended to be a shortcut to sites which are often mentioned on Meatball. So what we need to do is to make our own map. I've made a start, at meta:Interwiki map. -- Tim Starling 09:58, May 6, 2004 (UTC)

OK, I tried this. This link WikiTravel:Wanaka still points to Wikipedia not to Wikitravel? What did I do wrong? --Nzpcmad 22:06, 6 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
You didn't do anything wrong - what Tim did wrong (no offense) was to simultaneously imply that that list was current and request edits to it. Since we don't have a MeatBall:FileReplacement-style system for automagically updating it, this is not the case. I added WikiTravel at the bottom of the list, but that doesn't mean anyone's put it into the actual database table.
I was thinking, though, that perhaps a Special: page could be made that presented this information, and allowed it to be edited (by sysops, or even just stewards). Similarly for the interlanguage links, which need updating every now and then. Not a priority, I know, but one of those things that shouldn't really require hacking the database directly every time. It's a bit more than could be done with a MediaWiki: page, I gather, but it could have a similar editing interface (can Special pages have attached discussion? I don't think they can). [And yes, I know: put it on SourceForge, and preferably do it yourself; once I've finished my degree, I may well do both :)] - IMSoP 23:42, 6 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]


Edit summary: Forcing the issue through blocking blank entries.

Don't know if this has been discussed before. A number of people seem to find it frustrating when people don't provide an edit summary. I do.

How about when someone clicks "save changes" and hasn't filled in a summary they get a "You have not provided an edit summary!" alert, and are left on the edit screen with the blank space staring at them expectantly?

--bodnotbod 09:39, May 4, 2004 (UTC)

Then people will enter " " or "fhouash;piuh;iuh", just to get their edit in? Dysprosia 09:52, 4 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
One prior discussion (at least) did not accept that proposed solution as it was too annoying for those occasions when it was appropiate to not put a summary (e.g. many minor edits) and too easy to circumvent e.g. write "xxx" instead of blanking when you can't be bothered to write one. Sorry. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 09:52, 4 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
OK. The random letter thing did occur to me. If it's already been proposed and rejected, that's good enough for me. --bodnotbod 10:45, May 4, 2004 (UTC)
What about just giving the user a warning at the top of the resulting page ("You didn't fill in the edit summary field when you made your last edit. In the future, please fill the edit summary field with a description of the edit that you made.")? Paullusmagnus 13:50, 7 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
A gentle reminder could at least some of those who are simply ignorant, but not THAT lazy. --Menchi 21:02, 7 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

minus signs in math

When I use a single greek letter in math, as in "mit <math>\beta</math> multipliziert", I get a minus sign after it in the output:
"mit multipliziert"
Is this a known bug? Am I doing something wrong? Fpahl 09:42, 4 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Use the HTML entity, regardless. & beta; (without the space) produces β Dysprosia 09:51, 4 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

If you leave a space after the beta it shows no minus - <math>\beta </math>. andy 10:16, 4 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Front Page Observation

Today's main page has Did you know... links to Broadmoor Hospital and mental institution. The first is now peppered with redlinks (as a result of it's front page appearance, one imagines) - the nature of which will not be understood by a first time visitor ("Yikes! How have I hacked the site? I just pressed a link.").

The second, to my mind, is a pretty shoddy article in that it is riddled with implied and explicit criticism of the subject from start to finish: criticism, which, whilst valid, really needs to be explored as a discussion of the subject later in the article rather than entangled throughout.

Whilst I know something of the subject, it isn't really enough I'd feel happy tackling it. I've listed it on pages needing attention.

My point is: a little care in what is put on the front page may be called for? I would hate to think of people being made sour on such a fantastic project by ill chosen main page links. --bodnotbod 11:45, May 4, 2004 (UTC)

The reason this occurs is that it was decided that the "Did you know" content on any given day has to be new content. New content tends to appear on new pages, which tend to be more red than old ones. Your point seems to be valid though - see also MediaWiki_talk:Did you know and its archive. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 12:14, 4 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Ive gotta disagree with you here Bod. Having "perfect" articles only on the main page leads a false impression of what wikipedia is all about. Having articles that need some work will encorage newbies to do that work. When I first pressed a red link and got to an edit box I didn't think "("Yikes! How have I hacked the site?" I thought "jesus I've never seen anything like this before, then set about creating my first article". I personally don't want newbies afraid to edit because they feel they cannot come up to the exacting standards of a perfect article.theresa knott 12:16, 4 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
I almost added something here about Cap Arcona, which is referenced from the front page and had (until I fixed it) some lousy and confusing English in it (I'm still not sure I've captured the author's intent). I disagree with Theresa here - while we want to encourage contributors, we also want to encourage readers. An encyclopedia which is only used by the people who write it is a pretty pathetic object. We want people to come here because they get solid, factual, useful information. If I had come here and found that most of the articles were confusing or badly written I would not have bothered to start contributing - it was the high quality ones that made me want to contribute.
Incidentally, no insult to whoever wrote Cap Arcona, you did a good job (especially if English is not your first language). DJ Clayworth 14:29, 4 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

If you don't like the articles featured in DYK, then do this:

  • Keep an eye on Special:Newpages
  • When you see a potentially interesting article, edit it to meet your high standards
  • Then add one interesting fact from that article to MediaWiki:Did you know.

This way, everyone benefits. This was my intent when I invented DYK -- getting people to keep an eye on newly created articles. Brushing the bad ones under the carpet won't do us any good.--Eloquence* 00:46, May 5, 2004 (UTC)

You guys aren't gonna like this, but the first time I clicked a red link, I thought "Yikes! How have I hacked the site?" than backed away from anything Wikipedia-related for a few months. --SMWhat 04:39, 5 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Linked to from today's front page is User:Eloquence/Favorite Wikipedia quotes which has, as the first quote: ""ATTENTION WIKIPEDIA, THERE IS A MAJOR BUG ON YOUR SITE ALLOWING ME TO DO THIS (WRITE ON YOUR ARTICLES). I HAVE DONE NO DAMAGE BUT AM TRYING TO ALERT YOU BEFORE SOMEONE DOES"
Cant... stop... laughing! But really, who would actually think that Wiki is actually a bug? I'm gonna get the giggles out now. KirbyMeister 18:10, 8 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Anyone from Brookline, Massachusetts?

Could you phone James Schwartz on (617) 566-4262 and ask him to email me at dunc_harriscoughhotmail.com (with cough replaced by 'at) re: George R. Price please? I don't fancy a trans-Atlantic phone call. If he doesn't know who Price is, you've got the wrong number! Duncharris 12:53, May 4, 2004 (UTC)

Can this be wise? --bodnotbod 15:24, May 4, 2004 (UTC)

Well my idea was that I was trying to contact George R. Price's family to see if I could get a photo of him, a bit of original research. James Schwartz has written the definitive biography of Price. Unfortunately, googling for George Price turns up no resources, [3], George R. Price George R. Price does little better, George Price ESS gets a few, George Price equation gets a few more conceptual topics. Read the article and Schwartz's biography; he was a fascinating gentleman. Duncharris 16:19, May 4, 2004 (UTC)

Quick note: There is a link to a pdf version of the biography in the main article. Duncharris 16:25, May 4, 2004 (UTC)

No, I'm from Lynn. I do know a girl from there though. However, I not sure she knows him.

I'll probably send something snail mail then ;) Duncharris 10:27, May 5, 2004 (UTC)

New York, New York

Theres a discussion and poll going on at Talk:New York, New York that needs a wider view of the wikipedia community. the discussion is about moving New York, New York to New York City, New York (city) or some other name. Come give your opinion and take part in the poll (near bottom of page). Theon 13:31, May 4, 2004 (UTC)

May 8's the last day to vote, according to Talk:New York, New York. –Hajor 23:08, 8 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Karl Koch (botanist)

Help! Or maybe it's just my browser. The Kentucky coffeetree article has a citation link to Karl Koch (botanist), but the link is stuck on "edit" even though the article exists. I've gone to the Karl Koch article and resaved it, but it hasn't helped (and, of course, I've reloaded the coffeetree article several times). Anybody know what's going on? jaknouse 14:59, 4 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

I just tried my usual fix for this and edited the Kentucky coffeetree article by adding an empty line. That seems to have fixed it. Lupo 15:06, 4 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a wiki travel guide?

A LonelyWiki guide perhaps? Where can I find it? If not, how do I start it? Thanks! Mark Richards 17:09, 4 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed there is - you need Wikitravel. It's newish, so a lot of material needed to be added. I'm sure they'd welcome your contributions. --ALargeElk 17:12, 4 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! See you there! Mark Richards 18:05, 4 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Its license does not look compatible with Wikipedia's GFDL. Since the GFDL is not identical to the "attribution-share alike" license (although their goals are similar), one cannot copy info from wikitravel to wikipedia. That's disappointing. - Kevin Saff 18:58, 4 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Evan Prodromou, the instigator of Wikitravel and a major contributor to the MediaWiki code, thought a lot about this issue before going with the creative commons licence. The reasons are explained at http://wikitravel.org/en/article/Wikitravel:Why_Wikitravel_isn%27t_GFDL. While incompatibilities remain between the two licences it is worth considering releasing your own contributions under both licences where possible... I am going to do that now. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 20:05, 4 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the link. Dual-licensing seems like a good option for now. Kevin Saff 20:17, 4 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
How about starting our own on wikibooks? someon want to take the leap? --Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 00:47, 2004 May 6 (UTC)

Einsatzgruppe

I think it's a major oversight that we don't have a page on Einsatzgruppe. I've added a stub. Please help me to fill out.

Thanks. orthogonal 19:33, 4 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

The page is at Einsatzgruppen. Proteus (Talk) 19:42, 4 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
My bad, but that page didn't cme up on Googling Wikipedia for Einsatzgruppe. Better cross-referncing is needed. orthogonal 19:46, 4 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
On a somewhat arcane technicality, would Einsatzgruppe be the better location, since it's the singular, in keeping with general policy (even though it's not English)? But yes, this demonstrates the usefulness of creating redirects from obvious alternatives, doesn't it. - IMSoP 20:26, 4 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]


I think it should definately be moved Dmn 23:25, 5 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Anyone a wiz with Wikimarkup tables?

Could you do a family tree based on

with the addition of children, see http://www.aboutdarwin.com/darwin/Children.html ; some were quite important in their own right.). That way we can also replace the image with links! It can be put into:

which is at MediaWiki:Darwin

and also add a photo to the blue box would be nice.

I don't think either wikimarkup or the underlying html table markup is powerfull enough to adequately capture the layout of the family tree graphic (well, it is, but in a horrible unportable scary way). We did have some work underway for family-tree markup, but I think that a) it isn't implemented yet, and b) it would only produce a graphic (now, at least) anyway. One day in the future (several years, I fear) we can replace stuff like this with a SVG graphic, which would allow nice things like stylesheets, searching, and hotlinks within the image. In the meantime, some poor person has to haul out a regular image editor (of one kind or another) and author another PNG. You could ask User:Cutler to produce another version of the graphic (and while you're at it, ask Cutler to upload a zip of the original image-editor file from which they made the PNG, so that others can change the graphic more easily). -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 00:47, 5 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
I like those box things with the links. Where would a newbie go to learn about those? Just knowing what the term for them is would be a start ;o) --bodnotbod 02:05, May 5, 2004 (UTC)
They're added by using a custom msg tag (edit the darwin page to see an example of use). More info, and list, at Wikipedia:MediaWiki custom messages. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 02:11, 5 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I've got a subject area I'm keen on and there seems to be no overarching project or combined effort at work on it yet. But I'm waiting to make sure Wiki is something I continue with or whether it's something I have to give up as yet another destructive addiction to add to my list... --bodnotbod 01:18, May 6, 2004 (UTC)

Would it be possible then to do an image map? Duncharris 10:25, May 5, 2004 (UTC)

There's currently no support in wikimarkup for image maps. Image maps don't really work very well for a number of circumstances, particularly accessibility-browsers and the arrow-key based browsers one finds on cellphones and PDAs. In the absence of a decent stylesheet-aware graphics format (like the aforementioned SVG) I think we should stick with functional-if-dull tables, like the one above. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 13:09, 5 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Great that you are aware of browser and impaired user limitations, but that should not be used to discourage a useful item like browser image mapping, provided the table or similar is retained for non-graphic browsers and the like. I'd say go ahead and add the image map data, just *don't* depend upon your reader being able to use that function.Daeron 07:47, 7 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

You could do it as an ordinary table,(with small images for the lines) but it would be a monster. I'll have a go if anyone wants me too. theresa knott 18:59, 6 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

You could do it with broken lines rather than graphics, | for vertical lines and — for horizontal. An example of a dramatically simpler table (lattice) using these lines may be found at Pitch space under "Riemann's Tonnetz" the second table. Hyacinth 23:52, 7 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
As a self-test I started an example on my userpage. Hyacinth 00:10, 8 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

MediaWiki:States

I'm concerned about people adding "Largest Cities" to the state MediaWiki boxes. I don't argue with adding the cities, but some are, I think, going overboard. For instance, for MediaWiki:Ohio I only added the very largest cities. However, MediaWiki:Maine has more cities listed than counties! We need to find some reasonable standardization on this. jaknouse 22:25, 4 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

I was going to say >500,000, but I see that doesn't work for some states. Maybe limit to top 10, at most? Even a state as big as CA only has 20 listed, and probably half don't really need to be listed. Niteowlneils 23:05, 4 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Community Punishment Order

Can I serve my Community Punishment Order by editing Wikipedia? Troll Silent, Troll Deep 22:38, 4 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

What's that? Dysprosia 05:44, 5 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Isn't there a type of punishment that a judge can give so that instead of prison, a convicted person can give community service to a registerest charity? Could he mean this? I can't find any articles on it, perhaps we need on... Mark Richards 18:43, 5 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
In the US, it's typically just called "community service" or (if the context is unclear) "court-ordered community service." -- Jmabel 01:47, 6 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps he's been ordered by Troll High Command to punish our community. -- Tim Starling 02:47, May 6, 2004 (UTC)
You'd need to ask the authorities who imposed or administer the order. It would be an excellent idea if they agree to it. But don't get your hopes up. Ask. Andrewa 19:59, 6 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

table formatting

Can anyone help with the formatting problem being discussed at Talk:Panamanian election, 2004? Adam 01:10, 5 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

This had already been fixed by the time I clicked through. (To force an empty cell to render properly, put a &nbsp; - non-breaking space - in it). fabiform | talk 01:29, 5 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

WikiProject Cat breeds

WikiProject Cat breeds - New project; need participants

A project in the same style as Wikipedia:WikiProject Dog breeds but with the specifics for cat breeds. There needs to be a table template made and pictures located etc. Incentive: There are a bunch of requests for cat breed pages at Wikipedia:requested articles/Mathematical and Natural Sciences. Bensaccount 01:58, 5 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

I'm vaguely confused (not unusual); you didn't give a link for the project and I couldn't find it by searching. Did you mean that the whole project needs creation? If so, you can do it using the project template link at WikiProject. BTW--there's a juicy link there "Wikipedia:WikiProject/Guidelines" that says you can go there to learn how to create your own project, but there's actually no such destination! Anyone remember what happened to it? Or did it just never get born? Elf | Talk 03:49, 5 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
- The whole project needs creation. I created the page @ Wikipedia:WikiProject cat breeds. It needs to be adapted to cats. Specifically, does anyone know what organizations define cat breeds and how? Bensaccount 17:02, 5 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Only one I could find is http://www.cfainc.org/history.html Niteowlneils 19:52, 7 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting statistical analysis

There was some discussion over at Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship about the number of admins we have (initaited by yours truly, for better or for worse), so I did some statistical analysis. The final result is this excel document. I figured the results might be of interest to some people, so I thought I'd share them here. Comments are welcome. →Raul654 06:55, May 5, 2004 (UTC)

Interesting. However when I open it in OpenOffice only one of the charts has captions. What are the others? DJ Clayworth 16:36, 5 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
So the number of admins in relation to the number of articles has increased. But in proportion to contributors has stayed about level. I use OpenOffice too: Um, what charts!? I can only see a table. --bodnotbod 20:02, May 5, 2004 (UTC)

Lindi and Malindi

Moved to Wikipedia:Reference desk#Lindi and Malindi by IMSoP 10:21, 5 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Awards

Do we need a Wikipedia:Awards article, maybe linked from announcements like the one actually on the main page? -- till we *) 09:36, 5 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

The Wikipedia article now a sections for awards. Angela. 18:35, May 5, 2004 (UTC)

David Bates - A real can of worms

Picking the missing article David Bates from the most wanted articles list to write, I've found something a bit odd. There appear to be no fewer than 8 different notable David Bates's mentioned in other Wikipedia articles and one or two non-notables. And not a single page existed for any of them.

Would anyone care to help me unravel this please ? - TB

Good luck! I used Ask Jeeves "Who is David Bates" and found Sir David Bates, the physicist and peace activist, after whom an award was named. And David Bates the poet (1809-1870). David Bates the artist, exhibited in at least one museum of modern art. And a ton more David Bates, noteworthy & not. Elf | Talk 14:51, 5 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
There are also 4 listed here at IMDB - note that page lists some people NOT called David Bates - you only need peek at the top 4 entries. --bodnotbod 20:11, May 5, 2004 (UTC)
Thanks guys. These David Bates's are worse than tribbles, I have now collected enough notable instances to form a football team. TB 20:59, 5 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Ouch, and I thought I was doing it tough with the 4 people I had to unravel for my James Craig disambiguation! Well, I thought there were 5 at one time, but it turned out that 2 of them were the same person. --Stormie 00:17, May 6, 2004 (UTC)
Hey, I thought it would be easy to disambiguate John Taylor.... 27 separate individuals, and months later I'm still working on de-redding it all.  :) Catherine - talk 04:42, 6 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
A noble goal! I have filled in a stub on the Welsh rugby player John Taylor to assist your efforts.. --Stormie 06:25, May 6, 2004 (UTC)

Wikiproject Evolutionary biology

Wikipedia:WikiProject_Evolutionary_biology

Announcement, we've set this up. Anyone interested? Duncharris 11:30, May 5, 2004 (UTC)

Somewhere in Wikipedia is a page about sites that link to Wikipedia but it seems I cannot find it - Nilmerg 11:45, 5 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Do you mean Wikipedia:Friends of Wikipedia? andy 13:21, 5 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. Thanks. -Nilmerg 13:30, 5 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Idea: featured stub article

I just had an idea for the main page. It seems like the articles on the main page get a lot of attention. Why not have a 'featured stub article' of the day, like the regular featured article, and hope that it gets a little attention by being in the spotlight? That might help get more info into those stub articles.

This has probably been suggested before. Thank you guys for working so hard on this project! I use it all the time.

Sound like a cute idea to me. The only problem I can forsee would be how to choose the featured stub. It's hard enough judging articles by their content, even harder trying to pick good articles by their potential content... --Woggly 14:49, 5 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Guess what, Wikipedia:Article of the week is just in the final steps before a first article is featured for expansion. And you still have one day time to vote for your favourite candidate for the first round. andy 15:48, 5 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Awesome! I've been waiting for this for a while. Grendelkhan 13:59, 2004 May 6 (UTC)

User:Irune Berdún

Seems to be an enthusiastic and sincere, even if minimalistic, contributor, and could use a welcome and guidance (I have only been here a short time, and am not ready to do welcomes). Niteowlneils 19:46, 5 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

I was delighted to discover a while back that there is a page of standard greetings that you can just copy and paste one from and thereby be helpful--and look knowledgeable without in fact being! Elf | Talk 21:39, 5 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

English vs American

Heya.

Just curious whether the 'English' language wikipedia is in fact in English or American. I find myself forever 'correcting' Americanisms, and I'm not sure if I'm just creating work for more knowledgable editors. So, clarification would be handy =)

--Si

Standing rule alas appears to be to allow Americanisms when they are already there, in essence to keep the language the article was started in. If an article is started using proper English keep using that, but if it is written in US English use that. Some people get annoyed if you correct their spelling :-/ Anárion 20:24, 5 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
British or American English are equally welcome, we try to be consistant within each article though, so don't go around changing one to the other, there's no need. :) fabiform | talk 20:21, 5 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Rejoice in Diversity. Fan ye not the flames of holy war. –Hajor 20:23, 5 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
My personal policy:
  1. Do not edit a page simply to "correct" the spelling in either direction.
  2. If the subject is related to the US, US English is preferred (EG World Trade Center).
  3. If the subject is related to part of the UK/Commonwealth, British English is preferred. Same with most European topics, as they probably mostly see British English (EG British_Labour_Party).
  4. If the subject is neutral (EG science, etc.), the original contributor's usage should be followed.
  5. The usage should be consistent throughout the article. Niteowlneils 21:55, 5 May 2004 (UTC) (writing from the US, FWIW)[reply]

Ahem. proper English, American British English, American English. Let's not use inflammatory terminology if we can avoid it, thanks. Nohat 20:34, 2004 May 5 (UTC)

Oh, hey, yeah, or we'll start talking about them thar Britishisms that alas keep a-creepin' in! ;-) (Hajor's "Rejoice in Diversity" links to the actual policy, if you didn't already look.) Elf | Talk 21:43, 5 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Wise words above from User:Niteowlneils. I've occasionally wondered whether it'd be worth the effort to tag articles, by means of a remmed-out comment on the first line, indicating: "This article follows the canons of UK / US / Indian / Canadian / NZ / Belizean / etc. English" -- with links to Wikipedia:Canons of UK English, etc. UK subjects would get tagged UK, US subjects would get tagged US, etc., and all the others would get tagged according to whether the article history first records "color" or "colour" (or, indeed, Taoiseach, Billabong, or Lakh). It might save some squabbling, perhaps even an unfortunate 'alas' or two. –Hajor 22:13, 5 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

But if the "tag" is commented out, then it's only visible when the page is in Edit mode or when viewing differences. Links wouldn't show then. Better to gently point newcomers to Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Usage and spelling, IMHO, and try to keep holy wars to a minimum. - jredmond 22:46, 5 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Hajor, I preferred your response last time this came up (so much, that I saved it!):
The use of different styles of English here isn't really a problem, so long as everyone – on both sides of the Atlantic and both sides of the Irish Sea, on the soft underbelly of Asia, and right round down under – learns to rejoice in diversity and respect the different ways of saying, and punctuating, the same thing. [Hajor, 2004-03-29T19:22UTC]
- IMSoP 17:56, 6 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Please note the upshot of all this. 'Correcting' American or British spellings is not welcome in either direction except under specific circumstances, see Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Usage and spelling. In fact have a read of the whole thing while you're there, and perhaps we need to update the Wikipedia:tutorial to make the policy a little more upfront. Andrewa 19:22, 6 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

I've added the issue to the "Keep in mind" page of the tutorial. Since people seemed to second my summary, I have included it, along with a link to the longer version on the Manual of Style page mentioned above. Niteowlneils 19:06, 7 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

The New Pages Patrol is woefully understaffed...

...meanwhile, rogue pages are robbing old ladies and drinking cider on the street corners.

I found, and considered signing up to, Wikipedia:New pages patrol. I think the time slot idea is great - it might help me structure my day, instead of spending 14 hours on here ;o)

But I don't fancy signing up as member #2 much. How can I get admins to sit up and take a 15 minute slot? Or was this idea abandoned? Superceded? --bodnotbod 00:03, May 6, 2004 (UTC)


status of Saturday Night Live

-> Wikipedia:Copyright problems

MediaWiki Msg - how to run in-line

Can anyone suggest how to get multiple small message boxes to display next to each other? For example I was looking at New Zealand and at the bottom it has two large messages, followed by one small 'mgs:New Zealand' ; I though it might be good to have the message 'msg:Australasia' next to it.

But the Wikipedia engine does not seem to allow it as far as I can see; can any assist with wisdom on this?Daeron 06:15, 6 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

I would prefer a policy to limit ourself to a maximum of two such navigation boxes - the inflation of these boxes makes the articles look ugly. Do we really need a navigational box for the member states of every international organization? For countries IMHO the only navigational box which really makes sense is the geographical location one. New Zealand with three such boxes is barely acceptable, but did anyone look at Romania recently? At least the last two ones are really too much - and besides who ever heard of that Latin Union? andy 08:23, 6 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Seems like someone agreed with me about the idiocy, now its back down to two :-) andy 16:28, 6 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
I don't agree with this idea of limiting ourselves to two MSG includes at the bottom of country pages. Some countries, such as Switzerland, are not involved in many international organisations, while others, such as Slovenia, are. It would be stupid and uninformative to remove these includes. And, I don't what you mean by the fact that they look ugly - they're at the end of the page and they actually look quite nice. "Seems like someone agreed with me about the idiocy" - what is idiotic in saying that, Romania, for example, is a member of NATO, what is idiotic in saying that Hungary is a member of the OECD? These are important international organisations, constantly mentioned in the media and in world affairs, which need to be highlighted. Of course, I don't agree on putting includes for two types of organisations: those that include more than, say, 50 countries (such as the UN, with nearly 200), and those which are totally unimportant (such as the Western European Union, etc.). But, the Francophonie is not unimportant, and neither is the Latin Union. Just because you haven't heard of it does not mean it's unimportant. And if you're going to pick on Romania and remove it's additional "redundant" includes, then please go along to every country and do the same. Some countries, like Mozambique have a message that links to the Community of Portuguese Language Countries. Others, like Slovenia, link to the Francophonie even though they are associate members. These should all stay, and so should Romania's includes to the Latin Union and Francophonie? Why? Because it highlights Romania's culture and this is important in encyclopedia. By simply looking at the includes, we can see that: Romania is politically part of the EU candidates, it is politically/militarily part of the NATO group, and culturally it is part of the Latin Union, sharing a similar culture, history and linguistic origin. Geographically, it is part of Europe, hense the Europe include. Therefore, we can see that all of these includes deal with a certain aspect of Romania and should be kept. Also, again, I'm not talking just about Romania, but also about the other countries which have these includes. Awaiting a response, Rronline 00:01, 8 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
The point is not that I we should skip to mention the memberships in organzitations - a list of all international organizations (well, all the CIA thought important enough) is usually at the Politics of Country article, and that would be the natural place to make a more beautiful list. What I object is the inflation of navigational bars - how much likely anyone will use the Latin Union bar to go to any other article? If someone is interested in that organization, the article Latin Union contains the list of members, it only needs to be linked somewhere in the Romania article. Otherwise - how about a navigation list of countries crossed by the Danube. One with the countries bordering the Black Sea. Or the member states of Intelsat? And the same applies to other countries of course - we should limit ourself to the two most important navigational bars, onefor the geographic neighborhood, one maybe one for the most important international organization for that country. There are countries where the membership in the Commonwealth is relevant, while for other members of that one it isn't. andy 14:30, 8 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Would love to hear what you think of {{msg:Indonesia}}, couldn't a person just go to the article Indonesia instead.
Looks to me like the information in {{msg:EU_countries_and_candidates}} could be combined into {{msg:Europe}}. The majority of articles where either is used have obvious reasons to use both; even for the European countries that are not EU members or candidates, the fact that they are not would constitute relevant information. -- Jmabel 18:55, 6 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
You can use a table, but if anyone asks, it didn't come from me. -- Tim Starling 10:27, May 6, 2004 (UTC)
Doh! O.K. I know not your name, but you are a very clever masked person.;-)Daeron

Wikiquote

Is it my computer, or is wikiquote behaving very strangely? All I get is a wide variety of error messages and display problems. Tuf-Kat 07:42, May 6, 2004 (UTC)

Looks alright to me. -- Tim Starling 10:14, May 6, 2004 (UTC)

Thought I'd alert people to the fact that language links to tokipona.wikipedia.org's content don't work... In Wikipedia, [[tokipona:lipu sona Wikipesija]] was placed, and it doesn't work. Can someone change the software to allow for lanugage codes greater than two letters, or should the Tokipona language Wikipedia's address itself be changed to a non-occupied language code? -- user:zanimum

Links to Simple English pages work (http://simple.wikipedia.org/). Maybe someone needs to add an interwiki code. [ alerante | “” 20:34, 6 May 2004 (UTC) ][reply]

foo Day

I think for greater community spirit we should hold certain theme days, or days where people concentrate on certain subjects that need attention, for example we could have 'fix stub day' or a day where we would all fix stubs, ( of course participation would be voluntary. There could be a page where people would nominate what days to hold and what subjects to consentrate on, it could be anything, like gathering information about a tricky subject or cleaning up some pages.

Sorry in advance if this has been brought up before. --Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 16:02, 2004 May 6 (UTC)

I think it's a great idea. Perhaps have a signup page such as Wikipedia:Flying squad or Wikipedia:Gala days which would list supporters and keep a calender of such days, past and future. Those interested could then watch the page, and discuss ideas for new Gala Days on its talk page.
One severe caution, we would want to make sure that there were clear guidelines as to exactly what was to be done, and have plenty of review of these by some old hands. Done in this way, newbies participating would learn a lot. But without this preparation, there's the prospect of many hands all at once creating the same sorts of problems for admins and developers to sort out... Aaaargh!!!! It's enough to make you want to bang your head against your monitor to see which breaks first. Andrewa 20:26, 6 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Probably worth mentioning Wikipedia:Article of the week here. --bodnotbod 12:05, May 7, 2004 (UTC)

The Assault of the Machine Translators

Does anyone know what is going on with all the articles being added related to Machine Translation? E.g., Online Dictionaries and Translators, History of translation technology, Basic features and terminology, Ancient wisdom for the modern world, The great library of Alexandria, Translators throught history, History of machine translation by W.John Hutchins, History of translation and on and on.

Most appear to be copy and pasted from somewhere, quite likely a copyvio, and others are simply unencyclopedic substubs. The following users have contributed, though there may be others as well. User:212.8.80.248, User:Iratxe gonzalez, User:Irune Berdún. Some blithely recreate articles that have been speedily deleted and others overwrite the copyvio notices. If this is a class of some sort, is there any way to contact the instructor? older≠wiser 19:10, 6 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

at least one (the "throught" one) links to a copyrighted article on http://www.completetranslation.com/ -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 19:19, 6 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
It looks like there has been some discussion of this already at MediaWiki:VfD-Translation articles. older≠wiser 19:31, 6 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

I'm a bit concerned at the contents of MediaWiki:Noncommercial, which reads at present

This image is not licenced under the GFDL. It is under a non-commercial-use only licence. Copyrights.

and is linked to by a number of image pages and also possibly used on others by means of the subst: syntax.

This seems to me to directly violate both Image_use_policy#Copyright_(images) and Wikipedia:Copyrights#Contributors'_rights_and_obligations. I'd suggest we either update the policy pages or add the following text to MediaWiki:Noncommercial:

Unless a GFDL compatible license is granted, the image will shortly be removed.

And, of course, do it. But that's a bit drastic. I'd like other comments. Have I missed something here? Andrewa 19:54, 6 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Some things to think about:
non-commercial-only images are arguably (and argued by Jimbo) GFDL-compatible under the "aggregation" section.
non-commercial-only images are preferable to fair use images, as they are more free than fair use images, and we allow fair use images where absolutely necessary. Martin 21:26, 6 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Definitely stuff to think about! Thank you.
Where does Jimbo argue this?
I wonder why the policy pages don't say this. Or do they and I've misread them? Or is it just a matter of updating them? Or is there still something I'm missing? Andrewa 01:24, 7 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
No more comments? I was never going to move unilaterally on this, even before Martin's comments. If nobody else is interested, or if everyone else feels his comments have answered my concerns (I don't, obviously), then this will lapse. Andrewa 19:18, 8 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

which message do blocked users see?

I'm curious: when more than one sysop blocks a user, does the user see the message from the first blocking sysop or the last blocking sysop? To answer this question, I ask that a sysop block this account. I'll also block it, and then I'll check which message appears on the "You are blocked from editing" screen. Thanks, Cyan, a.k.a Socku Puppetto 21:05, 6 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

done, for two hours, with message "known vandal "Cyan", back again. sigh" -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 21:34, 6 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Heh heh. Turns out it's the first sysop's message which is seen. Later blocks do not override the message. -- Cyan 21:46, 6 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
But what happens when the first (shorter) block expires? Whose message prevails then? -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 21:51, 6 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Also - I'm sure you have, but have you checked that this is not a browser cache issue? Mark Richards 21:53, 6 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
The fact that duplicate blocks are allowed is a flaw. The behaviour is counter-intuitive. The block that is used is whichever one MySQL returns first -- probably the one which was inserted first. When a short block expires, longer blocks of the same user are deleted. I think it would be better if attempting to create a duplicate block gave an error. -- Tim Starling 01:07, May 7, 2004 (UTC)
It'd be more useful for changing bad blocked messages if they overwrote the older block. Martin 23:55, 9 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

HTML to wikitext converter

There are a few out there, including Magnus Manske's C++ version and David Wheeler's version in C, but I decided to create my own HTML to wikitext converter anyway. It differs from others in that:

  1. it's got a web-based interface (http://diberri.dyndns.org/html2wiki.html)
  2. it's in object-oriented Perl, as HTML::WikiConverter
  3. it shouldn't break on considerably broken HTML code (though I don't know the exact threshold for other converters)
  4. it has some nice image-handling DWIMmery (read more at the URL above)

When I get a chance, I'll upload the Perl module to CPAN, but for now I figured I'd share the tool with the WP community. Please comment on my talk page. --Diberri | Talk

Combining one of these converters with Epoz could be a good start for WYSIWYG editing (See meta:WYSIWYG editor). -- Gabriel Wicke 01:01, 8 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Marina

Where does marina Oswald Porter live now? Does she have a email?

Writing about programming languages

I think that there's something fundamentally wrong with the way that we write about programming languages. Most articles on programming languages discuss the most popular compiler/interpreter for the language, but the language is a seperate topic to the language.

For example, C Sharp programming language talks about how "C# does not compile to binary code which can be executed directly by the target computer", but that's just how some implementations of the language work. It has nothing to do with the language itself. It would be possible to make implement a C# compiler that compiles to binary code. The article is about the language, not compilers.

Java programming language says that Java code can be compiled once and then run anywhere. But this is talking about Sun and IBM's Java compilers. It isn't true for gjc, for example, which compiles to native code.

QBasic programming language says "Microsoft stopped shipping QBasic with later versions of Windows". How does Microsoft ship a programming language (as the article is clearly about from the title), an abstract concept? Whoever wrote this is talking about a single implementation of the language.

What can we do about this?

CGS 23:58, 6 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Bah, I just wrote a great long response to this, and then my browser crashed! It boiled down to:
  • C# is a Microsoft language, so Microsoft's implementation deserves most attention - just mention that other implementations are feasible that break this rule.
  • similarly, Java was designed with portable execution in mind, so it makes sense to discuss this mode of operation before any of the others - which can be seen as extensions to the original concept
  • as for QBasic, the article has the wrong name, is all - there is no "QBasic programming language", it is an interpretter for the same dialect of BASIC as QuickBASIC (which could also compile it), which in turn is one of hundreds of mutually incompatible BASIC dialects that have sprung up over the years, but can't really be considered languages in their own right.
    • I suggest moving it (what's with this "foo programming language" convention anyway? Isn't it breaking a wider convention on obvious naming, except where necessary for disambiguation? What else is ever going to live at Smalltalk other than the content of Smalltalk programming language?)
    • It (QBasic) should be removed from MediaWiki:List of programming languages, too: you wouldn't put gcc in there, after all.
So, essentially, the necessary changes are kind of more minor than you make out, although I see your point about the mindset and whatever. Humph, now this is almost as long as my first version - this time I'd better not crash my browser while previewing it, cos I need to get to bed. Happy editing! - IMSoP 00:57, 7 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with CGS's observations, but also agree with IMSoP that priority should be given to the design intentions and popular implementations of a language. Some of it could be resolved by more precise language in the articles; instead of "C# does not compile to binary code...", use "Microsoft's C# compiler does not generate machine-level object code..." or something similar. Anyhow, it definitely needs some attention. I'll try to pitch in. -- Wapcaplet 04:27, 7 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe a visit to Wikipedia:WikiProject Programming Languages would be in order? --Phil | Talk 08:24, May 7, 2004 (UTC)

Who were the romans and what were their effects on modern life?

->Wikipedia:Reference desk

A very cool WP: namespace page.

Wikipedia:Categories of pages needing attention is lovely and concise. That is all. +sj+

Is there a policy about listing these? Someone edited The Carpenters by adding a second fan site to the list of external links. The Carpenters Webring includes 19 sites, and I'm sure plenty of bands, movie stars, etc. have many more than that. Listing all and listing none both seem like bad ideas. I suspect that, in many cases, the selection of sites to list is based on the site owners having shown up and added their own sites, which doesn't seem like much of a policy. JamesMLane 06:42, 7 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

  • Instead of a fan site itself, I'd link to their Links page and note it as a 'list of fan sites' (I would check a couple of such links pages for the best looking one first).Daeron 07:32, 7 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

That's a very good idea. I'll keep it in mind if I'm creating an article or adding the first fan site (although even then I might sometimes get lazy and settle for linking to a good site that I happened to know about, even if further research might uncover another that was slightly better). But what would you do in editing an article that had one or more fan sites already listed? or if, as in the case that prompted my question, someone adds a fan site link to an existing article? Ruthlessly excising all such additions seems draconian. Allowing them all to remain will clutter the external links and reward the most assiduous self-promoters. In this instance, I did nothing except to add "fan site" after the link. JamesMLane 11:43, 7 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

  • It's a potential nightmare. For entertainers one solution might be to look the name up at BBC NEWS and see the right hand panel which will show you which external link they favour. I guess other fan sites that appear, if they seem weak, should be looked at for vanity as many article entries are on Wikipedia:Votes for deletion. --bodnotbod 12:18, May 7, 2004 (UTC)


Shearwaters - wales - Lleyn Peninsula

Hello,

My name is Alan Gray and I live in Llanbedrog, which is in the Lleyn Peninsula area of North Wales. Myself, my wife and a number of friends, as part of our retirement lifestyle have invested in a luxury power catamaran charter boat to provide opportunities for visitors to our fantastically beautiful area to see the wildlife that lives here. Our reward is watching our vistors enthuse about what they see. Their contribution (administered by the local Tourist Board), go towards the running costs of our boat.

One of the most fantastic sights we see, is the thousands of Manx Shearwaters either rafting or wheeling around above our boat on our journey to Bardsey Island.You will of course know that Bardsey is the home to 20,000 breeding Manx Shearwaters.

In our efforts to promote our business (along with the well-being of Bottle-Nosed Dolphins, Grey Seals and Manx Shearwaters), we wondered if it would be possible to feature us on your magnificent website.

Our website is www.shearwater.info (which is the name of our boat), but our URL, which I understand is much more important is: http://www.llynmarinecharters.supanet.com

Anyway, even if you can't feature us, thanks for what you do and we wish you every success for the future.

Many thanks

Alan

Hi, Alan. I'm glad you like Wikipedia. I took a look at your website and it was just up my street as I am a mad keen dolphin and whale watcher. I've bookmarked your site as a possible the next time I go to Wales. As far as a permanent "advert" for your site here, I'm not sure we can help you I'm afraid. We only link to external websites if they provide in depth material on encyclopedia subjects that we don't have ourselves. Your website is more commercial and I don't think it would be a suitable external link for an article (except possibly Lleyn peninsula).
Note that our content is free for you copy if you wish to knock up a pamphlet or anything about the wildlife in your area to give to passengers. Hope that helps. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 22:39, 7 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]


Considering Naming Conventions

How and by whom are the "Conventions under consideration" (Wikipedia:Naming conventions#Conventions under consideration) under consideration? When and how are they adopted or abandonded? Hyacinth 21:39, 7 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think there is a policy on how draft policy becomes policy. Normally someone knocks up a page, with an "is a draft" notice. It gets knocked about a bit for a few days on the talk page and then becomes stable. Shortly afterwards people start refering to it as policy, and the "draft" warning gets quietly dropped. So its a natural organic evolution usually. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 22:43, 7 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. Still I have a question: Specifically, this isn't a page (article), but simply sections (headers) of a page, and there are many "Naming Conventions Under Consideration" which are definitely not under consideration, making it a total misnomer in those cases. Is there a precedent for how long something goes without comment before it is assumed to be unapposed? To provide context, I am specifically thinking of Wikipedia:Naming Conventions#Album titles, Wikipedia:Naming Conventions#Pieces of music, and Wikipedia:Naming Conventions#Identity. Hyacinth 23:38, 7 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
I assume it's a sort of thing like Postel's tradition naming Internet standards RFC (Request for Comment). The actual decision-making process at Wikipedia is vague, to say the least, so there's really no point at which it can ever be said that anything is in any state other than "under consideration." I assume that, Wikipedia being Wikipedia, you could always delete the phrase "Under Consideration" and see whether anyone reverts it. Since it's not likely that changing the phrase would have any noticeable effect on how actual editors actually give names to actual pages, it doesn't actually matter much. Dpbsmith 21:25, 8 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Seems like a pretty good assessment. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 15:28, 9 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Protocol for Alternate Definitions

I am putting together a page for Marie-Louise von Franz and have found that some tangential topics do not exist. To this end, I would like to create them. As an example, there is an analytical psychology term amplification. There is an extant page for this term, however it is only a generalised definition. What is the protocol for adding a specific alternate definition?

2. Amplification: Expansion of dream content through personal associations and comparison of dream images with images from mythology, religion, and so on, which resemble the dream content. This concept can also be applied to myths and faerie tales.

Would something like this be appropriate?

this is discussed in more detail (on policy, technology, and practice) than you could ever want in Wikipedia:Disambiguation -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 22:36, 7 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
It's one approach. Another might be for an article which defines terms used in analytical psychology (to avoid multiple small articles which have little chance of being expanded): you might include individuation, anima, animus, ego (in its use in analytical psychology as opposed to psychoanalysis), self, collective unconscious, complex, archetype, etc... though most of these seem to already have their own (short) articles - they might perhaps be constructively grouped together in one article, with redirects to it from each of the terms. - Nunh-huh 22:42, 7 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

WikiProject Historical States

Come and help out at Wikipedia:WikiProject Historical States! We're still trying to get a template developed.--Jiang 00:46, 8 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Who was Karl Josef Weinmair(1906-1944)?

=>Wikipedia:Reference desk

Interwiki

Whatever happened to the interwiki page-move system? --Smack 19:49, 8 May 2004 (UTC) 195.5/19[reply]

Are you thinking of meta:transwiki? As far as I know, no full solution to inter-wiki moves has yet been produced - or do you mean "wasn't there supposed to be one by now?"?. I believe the finishing touches are being put to a Special:Import to go with Special:Export, but I'm not sure of the details (GetWiki includes such a feature, but under an incompatible licence, so it has to be reimplemented from scratch in the original MediaWiki software). Does that help any, or have I just confused you further? - IMSoP 21:01, 8 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

"$" in http address

One of the URLs at Gift economy#External links includes a "$" as a character. Looks like the wiki can't cope with this. Is there a workaround? If not, is there a preferred way to deal with this in the article? It looks to me like a very worthwhile link, and I don't want to lose it. -- Jmabel 23:15, 8 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

I replaced the "$" with "%24" (the hexadecimal equivalent of it's ASCII representation). Seems to have worked. - Lee (talk) 23:42, 8 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Nice. Is there somewhere I should have been able to find this workaround, since it is obviously specific to the wiki and not generic to HTML? -- Jmabel

Wikipedia:Tutorial (External links) ;). - Lee (talk) 00:02, 9 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

User:24.232.198.99

Maybe I'm just suffering a brain-freeze, but I can't figure out what to do with this IP[4] that's uploading a bunch of lyric articles to only moderately noted songs. I don't want to bite the newbie by simply listing them on VfD, but as far as I know, these articles aren't really appropriate. Niteowlneils 00:08, 9 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

You delete them (put msg:delete on them) as lyrics are usually copyrighted, and they're not encyclopedic anyway in most cases. Dori | Talk 00:18, May 9, 2004 (UTC)
Actually, some people may argue that at least one of these should be listed on VFD to set a precedent. Dori | Talk 00:26, May 9, 2004 (UTC)

Nexuscience — A new mirror?

There is a mirror of Wikipedia at www.nexuscience.com. It doesn't appear on Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks, and I'm not sure what the procedure is for dealing with these. At a first glance there seems to be some issues with compliance. For instance, there is no list of main authors, or link back to the Wikipedia article (just to the main page).

The existance of this site came to my attention on new pages patrol when an article about the site was created: Nexuscience.

-Rholton 01:07, 9 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Isn't the article Nexuscience a classic example of WikiSpam. I don't see any encyclopedic value, it is just an advertisement on where to buy Wikipedia on CD. Of course they are free to do so, but they don't need to promote it here. ... [five minutes later] ... Seems like it is already listed on VfD, yet only the deletion warning boilerplate wasn't added into the article. andy 10:38, 9 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Deleting that poxy little article should not be a priority. Instead I would like to see some contact between WP and nexuscience guaranteeing WP a proportion of the income (nexu have a moral but not legal duty to do this) generated. We currently have some leverage over them; they are way in breach of the GFDL - no link to original article, no history of authors, the usual stuff.
P.S. If anyone wants WP on CD, I think I can undercut $30! Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 11:06, 9 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, there is a link back to the Wikipedia article - it's just rather unhelpfully disguised as the title of the page. It also uses somewhat bizarre (presumably v. outdated) links of the form http://www.wikipedia.org/?title=article_name - works, but weird. It also seems to be very inconsistent - they've indexed pages they haven't grabbed and some of the grabs are very out of date; they even have different forms of their own header and footer depending on the age of the grab (compare [5] [6] [7]) What's more every single article has a "contents" link which points at a non-existent page. I can't imagine anyone being foolish enough to pay $30, with no information whatsoever ("Questions? Email Us" - yeah, right, cos that's how all websites give out information :-/), for a CD copy of a hideously broken website; but then, this is the Internet, I suppose... - IMSoP 13:11, 9 May 2004 (UTC) [hmm, if you set up a broken mirror, do you get 7 years bad WikiLuck or something?][reply]

Loughall Martyrs

See Loughall Martyrs

1. The name of this article may be POV; but what is a better one? 2. Although this is a sensitive subject, I think the article generally is pretty NPOV. 3. Where do we go for advice on POV disputes? Duncharris 10:56, May 9, 2004 (UTC)

I have renamed the article to a hopefully less POV name. -- The Anome 13:23, 9 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

The names of diseases: policy?

There is a wide gap between lay terms and doctors' jargon when it comes to the naming of diseases and medical procedures. Several doctors on Wikipedia (see WikiProject Clinical medicine) feel that articles should be named by their scientific names, rather than the lay terminology (myocardial infarction instead of heart attack).

Arguments:

  • Many of these terms appear to denote something that they're not (heartburn does not affect the heart, nor has it anything to do with burning);
  • Some terms are imprecise: heart attack does not specify the nature of the attack (infarction) nor does it mention the fact that the heart muscle (myocardium) is affected;
  • Some terms are bound by geographical constraints; diseases have different names in different communities and countries;
  • People might actually learn something about medical terminology, especially if the redirects are in place and the page explains that myocardium is heart muscle and that infarction means dying tissue due to lack of blood.

See also Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions#Medicine, where I've raised this point and received a deafening silence.
JFW | T@lk 15:50, 9 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Why not name it to the scientific name and have a redirect of the lay name? RickK 22:40, 9 May 2004 (UTC) [reply]

Yes, RickK seems to have the best solution there. The trouble with using medical terminology alone is that it will render the articles invisible to anyone but doctors. The person suffering from the condition who may come here for information won't find them. --bodnotbod 23:00, May 9, 2004 (UTC)
I suggest that you'll need to preemptively create redirects to the common names for diseases, otherwise well-intentioned users will inevitably come along and create new articles using the common names. No biggie and it happens all the time here, but just thought I'd mention it. You might even want to create some sort of cross-referencing index page to help keep track of things (also helpful to use the Related Changes function to see updates made to the articles on the list). older≠wiser 23:52, 9 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

note: new blueblox

There's a new bluebox at MediaWiki:US currency and coinage. It's my first one, so I'm probably missing a lot of style thing. If folks would like to fix it up and make it better, I'd appreciate it. Also, the pages it appears in---I didn't know whether to put it at the top or the bottom, so I generally picked the bottom. Is this policy? Grendelkhan 16:43, 2004 May 9 (UTC)

Looks nice. The bottom of the page is the normal location for blue boxes like this. -- Arwel 22:42, 9 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Unrelated contents

What should we do, if we see the contents of a page are unrelated to the subject? For example, in the farsi section, the page under "philosophy" is just christian propaganda. Should it be moved to "Christianity"? "Propaganda"? deleted?

You have a number of options, though you've made my task harder by not naming the article. I've been to farsi and there's no philosophy section so you must mean some other article.

Anyyway:

The first option is the most admired. --bodnotbod 22:45, May 9, 2004 (UTC)

Neutral point of view (NPOV)

Neutral point of view (NPOV) is the official, non-negotiable law established by Jimbo Wales. I think it is a crucial Wikipidia policy, but I don't see much attention being paid to it. Are my search skills poor? Are there reams and reams of discussion, but I haven't found them? I support the policy, I think it is an excellent policy, and I think it needs more exposure. I don't think it is a policy that is intuitive. One has to study and learn it. Have most Wikipidians done that? I think not. Worse, I am afraid people don't even agree on what it means, and many think it means to do exactly what it really is prohibiting. Therefore, to help generate some interest in wider publicity, as well as agreement on what the NPOV policy is, I have written a short story (moved the page and fixed the link --Jiang 23:03, 9 May 2004 (UTC)) that hopefully will generate some talk. I invite all people who edit on Wikipidea to read it. I hope you find it entertaining as well. ChessPlayer 22:33, 9 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Many Wikipedians have heard of it, but many Wikipedians are humans and can fail to adhere to NPOV at times. It's up to you to either discuss what you feel is POV on the talk pages (where all the discussion usually goes), or you could try to change it yourself if the issues are not explosively controversial. Dysprosia 22:52, 9 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Your story is in the article namespace. Can someone move it to the users subpages? I don't know how that's done, and I'm assuming that the user doesn't either. --bodnotbod 22:57, May 9, 2004 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:How to move a page. --Jiang 23:03, 9 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for moving it. I didn't understand what the colon did or that I had created the page in the wrong namespace. I thought it was in my user space.ChessPlayer 23:13, 9 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
The story shows a grasp of the essentials of NPOV, but as your travails at Talk:FOX News and Talk:Jesus over the last few days have surely proved, it can get a lot more subtle and complex than that in the real world. Thank goodness only a tiny fraction of articles have these in depth problems. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 00:15, 10 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Actual disputes can be more complex, there is no doubt; also, they can be mired in bias and partisanship based on specific issues. I think it best to not link to real world disputes here, as that may drag partisanship into the discussion on this page of NPOV. ChessPlayer 00:44, 10 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Overzealous brand documentation?

Is it just me, or are we seeing a lot of overzealous documentation of the specifics of commercial products—the verbatim copying of ingredients lists, labels, the detailed listing of all the products in a specific product line, and so forth? My perception is that this material is not being contributed by people trying to promote the product, but just by people who, for whatever reason, just like to do it. Fans of the products, I think. I don't want to single out Sharpie other than as an example of the sort of thing I mean. Is it really valuable to note that it is available in Fine, Extra Fine, Ultra Fine, Super, Twin, Super Twin, Chisel, Metallic, Grip, Industrial, and Professional tips, and in Yellow, Black, Blue, Green, Orange, Red, Brown, Purple, Turquoise, Lime, Aqua, Berry, Olive, Marigold, Navy, Plum, Burgundy, and Silver ink? I won't remove valid information just because I personally happen to think it's silly, but... is this getting out of hand and, if so, do we need to draw a line, and if so, where? Dpbsmith 23:38, 9 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

I think people do this not only because they like the product but because they want to contribute an article with "encyclopedia-like" details, but can't think of something to write about. And I have cut out most of this ridiculous Sharpie details. DavidWBrooks 00:39, 10 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
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