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Ways of determining article size

From what I can gather, from both alternative and normal methods, the average Wikipedia article is around 340 words in length and 2.25kb in size. Since I am committed to the quality of the articles I create and modify over the long term, I am aiming for a personal goal of at least three times the average. ie around 1100 words and about 7Kb of readable text.

So far, the only method of finding out this information is to place the article name in the search box and press "search". That has given me the kb size of the article - but I am wondering how much of that size is text and how much are images. Lately, whenever I have tried to find the size of an article I get Wikipedia search is disabled for performance reasons. You can search via Google or Yahoo! in the meantime. which is really quite annoying. Since Google haven't yet discovered the pages I have updated, any Google search ends up with no article.

Is it possible to create a special webpage (not a Wiki) where you can type in the Wikipedia article location (eg: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Electoral_College), and then get the following statistics:

Total size of article (in kb)
Total size of text (in kb)
Total size of readable text (in kb)
Total size of all images in article (in kb)
Readable Word Count (excluding headings etc as per definitions of article count - alternative)
Amount of internal links
Amount of external links

As well as up-to-date information on the page which shows what the average Wikipedia article is like in comparison to the article, plus additional information on the language version. (eg Average Wikipedia article size is 2078 bytes, compared to English language article size of 2315 bytes)

I realise that quantity is not always the best indicator - however I have no doubt about my own personal skills in writing over 1000 words of decent quality prose.

I don't know a great deal about programming and web pages - but I am assuming that the actual software that is required for this sort of activity can be embedded into the actual webpage itself. This means that when the person hits "go", all the processing power to work out the information is done by his own PC rather than the Wiki CPUs.

This sort of thing would really help me to create nice big articles. I am of the opinion that Wikipedia is excellent in quantity but is growing in quality. This sort of thing should help us all make better articles. What do you think?

One Salient Oversight 23:45, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)

You say you're not a programmer, so this might not help you too much, but are you aware that the entire Wikipedia database can be downloaded and that individual pages can be exported? anthony (see warning) 13:46, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

However, Special:Export returns raw Wiki code, which must be parsed somehow. Downloading every image to determine their sizes is awkward, and downloading the entire database is either impractical or infeasible. --[[User:Eequor|η

υωρ]] 14:18, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I've posted this to MediaZilla as feature request 547. --[[User:Eequor|ηυωρ]] 14:35, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

1 mil! Break out the champaigne!

Nuff said. — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 00:47, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Caw! I beat you to it, mate. Better luck at two million (at this rate, that'll be around Saturday or so.) --Ardonik.talk()^* 07:30, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)

Wow! Hey... if we got rid of WP:VFD, we could probably hit 3 mil by, oh, let's say 7 pm. ;-) func(talk) 15:28, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

WikiProject namespace

Discussion is now live on whether or not to establish a separate WikiProject namespace! Let your opinions be known at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject! Let the Spirit of Consensus-Based Decision Making move you to form a few coherent thoughts! Doing so will make you popular, and more attractive to one or more sexes! Act now! Tuf-Kat 07:23, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)

Literary Expert ?

List of years in literature shows two dates, 1838 and 1828, for publication of The Birds of America by John James Audubon. I can't find the proper date. Maybe someone here knows. Thanks. JillandJack 13:36, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The problem is there is no single date. The first (Havell) edition was published in sets of 5 followed by a four volume complete betewwn 1826 and 1838. Hope this helps. Filiocht 14:14, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Oddly named Wikipedia mirrors

http://www.perfectsushi.com/ - seems to have nothing to do with sushi
- Apparently this is the former domain of http://www.wikisearch.net/. --[[User:Eequor|ηυωρ]] 14:06, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Shawn Mikula

For those who care, Shawn Mikula has posted babelfished stubs to non-english wikipedias (de, es, fr, it).

Added a note on de:. andy 16:26, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

As I recall, Jimbo Wales has said harassment of Shawn Mikula must stop. I suggest you talk with him. --[[User:Eequor|ηυωρ]] 04:53, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Article Titles

There's obviously a great deal of emphasis placed on ensuring similar articles follow a template; wickifying. However, what about article titles? This seems to be a problem widespread across Wikipedia, usually on lists of... articles, for example, the following all exist for the National Park articles:

List of National Parks in country
List of National Parks of country
National Parks of country
Country's National Parks

The same is true for football teams, rivers, and many more. This means for that many people assume a page doesnt exist because nothing appears when they type in the title that is used on other similar articles.

At the very least we should be activly encouraging users to insert redirects, but should be looking to wickify article titles.

Sorry to go on! rant over :P Grunners 14:17, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia:WikiProject Rivers, Wikipedia:WikiProject Protected Areas. Rmhermen 16:58, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

CD-ROM version of Wikipedia

I will not donate money to the Wikipedia project because I am waiting for the CD-ROM version of the database. I will almost certainly buy it. Stop begging for money. Wikipedia has a great product (database) that many people will gladly buy. Failure to pounce on this opportunity is one of the shortfalls of Wikipedia and open source projects in general: a horde of talented people will sooner spend hours arguying about some minutae on some dusty old article before doing something practical that will ensure a long-term source of funding for Wikipedia. Get to it. EDGE 15:21, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)

Actually plans are afoot to produce a cd rom. There are also discussions about a printed version. The foundation can't stop begging for money. It needs it! You don't have to donate any money if you don't want to though, although many people do. Theresa Knott (taketh no rest) 19:45, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Interesting. You say we have a great product, and you then order us to abandon the very principles that have produced it.

The GFDL greatly limits our ability to make a lot of money out of the CD-ROM, as you seem to suppose we could. I hope you do buy a copy, I hope many will. But we will buy it partly as a donation, that is to say, we'll buy it from the Wikimedia Foundation rather than a third party (who is equally entitled to produce one under the GFDL) because we want to support Wikipedia and copyleft.

That raises a good point. I think we are both assuming here that there will be a first-world edition of the CD-ROM. I don't know whether that has even been discussed (Wikipedia is a big place). I think that there should be, but my suggestion is that the only difference should be the price, and that if first-world users decide to buy a third-world edition, there's no point in trying to stop them. Buying the first-world edition would be a moral decision, or if you like a thinly disguised donation.

I encourage you to remain radical. Lateral thinking is precious, and I think you are good at it. But I recommend you also respect those of us who are a little more conservative. We have a valid filtering role. We should challenge and inspire each other. Somewhere in between is a direction that is both idealistic and workable, which I will call good.

One of Wikipedia's principles has been to encourage Wikilove. Some of our regular contributors have yet to get the idea, and that's fine, respect for another person is a decision, not a contract. I encourage you to turn your idealism and lateral thinking to this sometime. What characterises good discussion? Some stress is good. Is some conflict good? Andrewa 18:06, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The idea of a CD-ROM version, with the attendant problem of what to include in such a static "snapshot" of the Wikipedia content, is discussed at User:Jimbo Wales/Pushing To 1.0. JamesMLane 12:32, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The foundation can't stop begging for money. It needs it! There are lots of ways to make money which don't involve begging. Selling CD-ROMs is one. Putting up text ads is a better one. If that text ad at the top of the page begging us to donate were a google text ad we'd already have the $50,000 we "need". anthony (see warning) 20:50, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

There's nothing in the GFDL which states Wikipedia can't make money. Wikipedia is only required to include the full text of the GFDL and the entire article histories on the CDs. The Wikimedia Foundation may charge whatever it likes. The Wikimedia Foundation is limited only by its non-profit status, which means any surplus it receives may only be used to support Wikipedia's growth or distribution.

The Wikimedia Foundation has no particular reason to charge any specific price for a CD version of Wikipedia, nor much reason to use a single price for the same content. I would expect the price to initially only cover the cost of producing and distributing CDs, but this may be reduced in time. If Wikipedia receives enough donations, it may be possible to provide CDs at no charge.

"Overpriced" CDs should probably be offered along with the "cost of production" CDs. For example, Wikimedia might additionally offer CD sets priced at $10, $25, $50, $100, $250, or $500. Since the zero net value CD sets exist, these "prices" are clearly donations. --[[User:Eequor|ηυωρ]] 01:07, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Image upload problem

I'm have a spot of bother uploading a revised version of a Jpeg image. I'm trying to upload it onto the same name as the original file. I get the file overwrite warning, but when I proceed anyway with the 'Save File' button, I get the error message

The file you uploaded seems to be empty. This might be due to a typo in the file name. Please check whether you really want to upload this file.

Is there a problem today, or am I doing something wrong? -- Solipsist 16:33, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Must be a problem of some sort. I now see that if I force a refresh, the file has actually changed to the new image, despite the error message. However the 'File History' section remains unchanged. -- Solipsist 16:52, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I've had that exact problem a time or two. Still no clue why. Radagast 23:15, Sep 25, 2004 (UTC)

Systemic bias in Wikipedia

Wikipedia's own page on Wikipedia states that "Wikipedia is committed to making its articles as unbiased as possible." However, there is still no mechanism for removing the systemic bias present in Wikipedia. I'm talking about the bias caused mainly by Wikipedia's demographic make-up (mainly North American computer literate types). Pages such as Wikipedia:Collaboration_of_the_week, Wikipedia:Requested articles etc don't specifically attack the problem, and often serve to perpetuate it. An example of this problem is that even after 1 million articles have been written, the article on the Congo Civil War, possibly the largest war since World War 2 (and which resulted in over 3 million deaths), have much less information than articles such as Babylon 5, Languages_of_Middle-earth, Slackware etc which appear to fit into the Wikipedia demographic. I suggest a section on the Wikipedia:Community_Portal page to deal with this issue.--Xed 18:57, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

There's a very easy fix for this: Get more people involved who aren't North Americans. I hereby assign you to the job. - DavidWBrooks 18:51, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The above response sadly demonstrates the self-satisfied attitude of many Wikipedians to this problem--Xed 18:57, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Is your "someone else should fix it" attitude an improvement? Regardless, an imbalance in article quantity is not a "bias". --P3d0 03:35, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

Replies_to_common_objections#Systemic_bias. While insufficient content in an area is always an issue, an imbalance of contributors isn't necessarily one. Derrick Coetzee 19:07, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

As mentioned above, I guess the only way to stop this is expanding the Wikipedia user base with more people from different backgrounds. If it bothers you, I'd suggest you specialize in promoting wikipedia to as much people as you can to solve the problem. MGM 19:14, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)

I'm not Superman. I can only do so much. With 1 million articles, this problem needs to be addressed in a more organized way.--Xed 19:30, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Such as? Theresa Knott (taketh no rest) 19:37, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

As I said I suggest a section on the Wikipedia:Community_Portal page to deal with this. The section would list articles which, if created/edited/expanded would counter-act the systemic bias.--Xed 19:46, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

When the Encyclopaedia Britannica, or the World Book, were written, what order did they go in? Did they start with World War II, or did they start alphabetically, perhaps with aardvark? Did they start with countries, or with people? The fact is, Wikipedia is, and will always be, a work in progress. If you want more coverage of the Congo Civil War, by all means, add it, and try to get others to help you. But the fact there is more information on Babylon 5 than the Congo Civil War does not mean there's a bias. If a writer of Britannica got writer's block while drafting the World War II article, should they not let others proceed with articles on other, less important subjects? It may just mean we haven't gotten around to it.

Furthermore, if there IS such a bias (and I will agree with you, en: is mostly computer literate English-speaking North Americans and Britons), ... there's really not much we can do about that, is there. You say, "do something." I say, "like what?" --Golbez 19:41, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)

As I said I suggest a section on the Wikipedia:Community_Portal page to deal with this. The section would list articles which, if created/edited/expanded would counter-act the systemic bias.--Xed 19:46, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

What can we do? All I can think of is (1) Spread knowledge of Wikipedia as far as we can, in the hope of attracting as diverse an editor pool as we can; (2) make some effort at identifying areas of poor coverage, to guide editors who might be looking for something to research. —Morven 19:47, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)

So quit bitching and do something about it already. Make the list of articles that you think would help counteract the systemic bias; start it at User:Xed/Anti-Systemic-bias list and see if you can get consensus for including it on the community portal. Then go work on the articles yourself. —No-One Jones ^(m) 19:57, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Smugness about this problem, and its size, seems to be common among some people. If there's over 1 million articles I can hardly do it all myself. Furthermore, it's not up to me to make this list. Which is why I suggest a section on the Wikipedia:Community_Portal page to deal with this. The section would list articles which, if created/edited/expanded would counter-act the systemic bias.--Xed 20:05, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

You may not be able to do it all yourself but you can at least make a start. If you aren't willing to put forth even that minimal effort then I suggest you quit your whinging. —No-One Jones ^(m) 20:52, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

You are starting to sound like a troll, Xed. If you want to help, it is up to you to create this list. If you only want to interfere with what other people are working on, go somewhere else. Awolf002 20:28, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

A troll is someone who wants to improve Wikipedia?--Xed 21:09, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

"You are starting to sound like a troll, Xed" - BWAHAHAHA! Rick K 21:02, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)

Morven's idea is interesting - has there been any serious attempt to map the areas that have the least coverage? Mark Richards 20:31, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Xed, the part of Wikipedia you wan't to be more important, is growing. But it won't outgrow the Slackware+Babylon 5 part for some time, I guess. But IMHO, there is no conflict between these parts. Anyway, you can't transform a good contributor on Slackware into a good contributor on Congo Civil War, most of the time. But the growth of Wikipedia will give more public visibility, which will result in new contributors. Think of the North American computer literate types as the first wave of contributors with more waves rolling in. Perhaps the most important point in making this concept work, is to ensure that Wikipedia is a friendly environment for new contributors. Pjacobi 20:32, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The response here isn't too friendly. See No-one's comment above.--Xed 21:09, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The response would be a lot friendlier if you'd quit whinging, quit trying to pick fights, and get to work on the problem. Obviously. —No-One Jones ^(m) 00:26, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The bias discussed here is present in the range of existing articles, not in the text of any one article. An important distinction, imho. In the latter case, an active effort would be required to remove the bias from the text. As it is, we can just wait for WP to outgrow the bias. And if there is a decent article on the war in the Congo, it is not degraded by any number of geeky articles that may exist beside it. Yes, we are a long way from WP 1.0. But as long as nobody claims that WP is a valid replacement for the Britannica yet, this is a non-issue. dab 20:46, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The 'geeky articles' will continue to grow, so I don't see how 'serious' articles have a chance to catch up without any organized effort--Xed 21:09, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Maybe it would help to add a new template stating something in this direction: "This article needs attention, for a encyclopedia of Wikipedia's size and stature it is highly undeveloped, considering the relative importance of the subject". This allows easy categorization, and allows people interested in filling the gaps in Wikipedia knowledge, that are caused by WP demographics to be, to find these articles easily. -- Solitude 20:59, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)

That is a possibility.--Xed 21:09, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Ugh, NO! Rick K 21:02, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)

Also, while en: is the largest wikipedia, it is not the only one. IIRC, it makes up only 1/3 of the articles on Wikipedia. es:, de: and jp: are all much more likely to have articles on Spanish/Latin American, German and Japanese interests, just as en: is more likely to have articles on Anglo-Australian interests. These will outgrow with time, but we only have a million articles. ;) --Golbez 21:05, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)

I'm something of a newbie, but wouldn't the Congo Civil War article (for example) be appropriate for Wikipedia:Requests_for_expansion? Jpgordon 21:10, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

For a few articles which you most care about expanding, why not nominate them for Collaboration of the Week, at WP:COTW?-gadfium 22:22, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

If you can find, say, half a dozen others who want to work with you on this, you could start a project group. They don't all have to be on subject matter areas. Xed, there isn't a someone else who needs to start this, you have to decide what is important and start building, or find a group of people who want to work with you on it. It's unlikely that you will get consensus to go straight to the Community Portal without demonstrating some smaller-scale success first, and it may turn out that Community Portal is irrelevant (but do start making nominations for Wikipedia:Collaboration_of_the_week: in my experience, a cluster of related articles tend to get written. -- Jmabel 23:19, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)

I cannot help but feel that the premise of Xed's argument is a little shaky. A pejoritive accusation of systematic bias is at best a value judgement. What underpins it? Why is a war in the Congo worth more wiki-inches than Babylon 5? Who decides these things, and who is able to make apple versus orang-utan comparisons? Whereas I tend to share what I assume is Xed's opinion, that it would be more worthy to read about or even write about the Congolese civil war than Bablylon 5, I note that we already have a number of Wikipedia:Requested articles pages which go some way to address/answer Xed's call for action; and also have Wikipedia:List of encyclopedia topics. In what way do these differ from Xed's section on the Wikipedia:Community_Portal suggestion? Beyond that, his/her argument seems to be a good example of the best driving out the good. --Tagishsimon

'Why is a war in the Congo worth more wiki-inches than Babylon 5?' - because the Congo Civil War resulted in 3 million deaths and is possibly the largest war since WW2. Surely it can't be difficult to see why it needs more coverage. Look how much coverage 9/11 has on Wikipedia, and that was only 3 thousand deaths. The Wikipedia:Requested articles page does not deal specifically with the issue of systemic bias.--Xed 00:15, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

You should also complain to EB then. Their article on it is even shorter than ours. -- Wapcaplet 02:08, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

If it is "not difficult to see", then why are you unable to explain why it is more important? If you are unable to explain why, then perhaps it is just a value judgement on your part. Waving the magnitude of the death toll does not amount to an argument. --Tagishsimon

I have explained. Your arguments would only make sense coming from a robot or a lawyer--Xed 00:58, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

There I must beg to differ: you have not explained. You have articulated a value judgement with no explanation whatsoever, and you do not eecognise your judgement for what it is. Your premise is indeed flawed, and I submit that any resolution based on a flawed premise will itself be flawed. Neither have you explained by what mechanism will be determined the actions that must be taken to correct the supposed systematic bias. All in all, much heat but not very much light. --Tagishsimon

It should be exceedingly obvious that a war affecting the lives of millions of real people and having a profound impact on the politics of several nations is far more important than a television program which cannot reasonably be said to have significantly affected the lives of anyone. See abstraction, problem of universals, phenomenology, abstract structure, and reification. --[[User:Eequor|η

υωρ]] 01:08, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Doubtless it should be but it isn't. It depends upon your frame of reference, and of necessity is a value judgement. That is the way of these things; all else is little more than hysteria. But you made a slightly better stab at it than did Xed. --Tagishsimon

01010110100100110111010100011 beep beep. Would you regard the Holocaust article more or less important than Babylon 5? Or would that be a value judgement?--Xed 01:24, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

It seems to me that you consider the comparitive quality of, say, Holocaust and Babylon 5 to be an issue. I think this is the sticking point in this disagreement.

In other words, you say "It's a disgrace that we have an excellent article on X but a bad one on Y." But why does the quality of article X matter? It's like you feel it's an insult to "worthy topics" to have so many good articles on "trivial topics". —Morven 01:30, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

The quality of X certainly doesn't matter. Your straw man is getting taller and taller--Xed 01:51, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

If I'm an editor who knows more about Babylon 5 than the Holocaust, should I be encouraged to contribute to the article that I know, or the one that is deemed more important? (To forestall any baseless accusations right away, I am not trying to diminish the significance of the Holocaust. But this question is important to me, and I'd like to read your answer.) --Ardonik.talk()^* 01:40, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

I'm not talking about what you know, or indeed edit. Edit what you want. I'm talking about the character of Wikipedia, and how people who WANT to counter-act the systemic bias can be given more oppurtunities to do so - hence a list on the Community Portal page.--Xed 01:55, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

It should be noted that most of the above discussion only strengthens Xed's position. From the crude sample here, it would appear that most Wikipedians hold a blind faith in the infallibility of community editing, minds closed to any suggestion otherwise. The community does have a systemic bias, supported by sheeplike herd behavior when anything appears that threatens the status quo. Musk oxen may be more apt: Wikipedian protectionism is generally predictably odious, mindlessly guarding of its central beliefs, and too stubborn and dense to usefully argue with. At least sheep are polite. --[[User:Eequor|ηυωρ]] 00:19, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Community editing isn't infallible, but it is all we have. You'll note that some people are A) acknowledging that the problem exists and B) making suggestions on how to fix it. You could too, instead of flinging insults. —No-One Jones ^(m) 00:26, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

It's not blind faith, for most of us. Community editing has its problems, but it also has its strengths. Most of us consider the latter to very much outweigh the former. Suggestions of how to mitigate the weaknesses are always appreciated, at least by me. —Morven 00:51, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

Note: User 'Neutrality' vandalised this page, before it was fixed by User Eequor.--Xed 00:29, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Stop lying. [[User:Neutrality|Neutrality (talk)]] 00:41, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

Check the history. [1]--Xed 00:51, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Xed, I don't think that's vandalism. I think you're trolling, too. --Ardonik.talk()^* 01:21, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

Xed, there are two possible routes to choose when you notice something wrong with Wikipedia. They are:

Say "Wikipedia's broken. You guys should fix it."
Say "Wikipedia's broken. Here's my proposal for fixing it. Anyone want to help?"

Oddly enough, option 2 is appreciated much more than option 1. If a problem is not important enough for you to wish to be part of the solution to it, of course everyone will conclude you're whining -- or just intent on arguing. —Morven 01:02, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

That's why I chose option 2, suggesting a section on the Community Portal page, which of course I would be willing to help with.--Xed 01:14, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Why not knock together a page inside the Wikipedia namespace, as a few people have suggested, and let people see what they think of the idea, then? —Morven 01:23, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

Right, hang on, let me summarise this discussion so far:

Xed "There is systemic bias in Wikipedia (and nobody appears to mind)"
Everyone else (with varying amounts of civility): "What is your proposed remedy / action?"
Xed "We could have a list of articles that need creating or expanding for this reason"
(Nearly) everyone else: "Can we have a demonstration?"
Repeat

More like:

1. Xed "There is systemic bias in Wikipedia, here is my suggestion - put a section on the Community portal page"
2. Others - we agree.
3. Wikiclique - do it yourself and stop being lazy.
4. User:Neutrality - 3 million dead is funny, I will vandalise the page
5. Wikiclique - You are a troll
6. Tagishsimon - beep beep I am a robot.
7. Wikiclique - But you haven't made a suggestion
8. and repeat

--Xed 01:36, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Xed, grow the hell up and stop calling us names like "wikiclique." I don't think you even want to be taken seriously. --Ardonik.talk()^* 02:18, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

Stop lying. I never "vandalized this page," nor did I say 3 million dead is funny. [[User:Neutrality|Neutrality (talk)]] 02:47, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

So, instead of trading insults, let's look at the deatils and feasibility of this suggestion:

what would be the criteria for listing?
how would it differ from other "to-do" type lists, such as Cleanup, Requests for expansion, Requested articles, and the List of encyclopedia topics that someone mentioned?
- relatedly, how can we ensure that each of these pages retains its usefulness as others spring up with overlapping roles; or have we got too many and need to rethink how we organise them?
do existing pages address the issue of systemic bias simply through "the community process"?
- if not, why not, and is there a way we can change this? (e.g. some kind of rules for Requested articles that tend towards correcting rather than increasing the "lean"?)

Discuss. - IMSoP 01:25, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC) [Typed simultaneous to Morven's comment above; perhaps these questions could form the basis of such a page.]

There's an option 2a, and that is "Wikipedia could be improved, and there are several ways of doing it. Here's the one I'll work on".

I can't see any prospect of eliminating systemic bias from Wikipedia, but I can see several ways of trying to reduce it.

The one that is most likely to succeed IMO is simple Wikiquette. We are I hope all aware of the policy of not biting newbies, and also the more general policy of not biting anybody.

Sticking to these policies will reduce systemic bias by broadening our contributor base. Or, to put it another way, every time we condone violations we are increasing the bias, because the presence of rudeness, aggro and even rhetoric in our discussion pages is a far greater obstacle to the participation of minority-view editors than to others. Andrewa 01:49, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

This is the one long-term solution to the problem that will work. Committing a group of interested people to go and help is laudable, but in the long term, expanding the contributor base will have a far more powerful effect. Tempshill 17:23, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Surely the Congo War is an extreme case. By the argument of deaths alone, articles on Starvation, Old age, Heart Disease should be far far longer and more detailed than everything else. Surely importance is something decided by the reader - in the end, wikipedia has a target audience, and the expansion of articles is almost directly based on the level of interest this audience has for the various subjects. If no one searches wikipedia for the Congo War (possibly because despite the death toll, the war has very little global impact, unlike 9/11, and because little information is available for it from base sources), then harsh as it may be, it is not important to the average reader. So, your ire is misdirected. I wouldn't call it bias. Rather, its reflecting western culture.

On the contrary, the Congo War has had massive global impact nine different countries ahve been involved. Just because they don't happen to be in your part of the globe shows your own bias. Secondly, I didn't make the argument by deaths alone. Thirdly, a subjet shouldn't be avoided simply because it is a difficult one to comprehend or far away--Xed 02:18, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

So basically, what you are really proposing is to deploy WP as a tool to change the minds of the populace, to open their eyes. To become much less an encyclopedia, but more a source of investigative journalism. The argument then is whether wikipedia can, and should fulfill that aim.

Again, someone is putting words into my mouth. I'm talking about the character of Wikipedia, and how people who WANT to counter-act the systemic bias can be given more oppurtunities to do so.--Xed 02:18, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

So do something already. Every second you spend picking fights here is one second less for counteracting the systemic bias of Wikipedia—and yet you continue trolling rather than making a single constructive edit. —No-One Jones ^(m) 02:24, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

This is disappointing. Did you even read the comments by IMSoP and Andrewa? No biting. --[[User:Eequor|η

υωρ]]

(I hence wouldn't term it 'removing systematic bias', since bias is pretty vague and subjective. Its more coverage of events outside the public awareness. If this is to work at all, we need to construct a highly visible way of showcasing such content.)--Fangz 02:04, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Comments like Xed's come along from time to time, but the underlying message I always get is "you should stop working on you want to work on, and work on what I want you to work on instead, because I think it's more important". Browbeating people with charges of "systemic bias" or whatever is just a technique to try to make us feel guilty, but you know what? This is a hobby, not a job, and no one is going to push me into doing anything that I don't want to do. Stan 02:27, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Good for you. No one is pushing you to do anything. You have misread what I have said. Again and again I have said - edit what you want. DON'T STOP WORKING ON WHAT YOU WANT TO. I'm talking about people who WANT to counter-act the systemic bias and how they can be given more oppurtunities to do so.--Xed 02:35, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Raul's law of Wikipedia #3 - "You cannot motivate people on a large scale to write about something they don't want to write about". →Raul654 02:42, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

Well Xed, there's already nothing to stop random people from working energetically to "counter-act the systemic bias" that they perceive. Ergo, I conclude that you're wanting people to do something different than what they're doing now. If you don't want anybody to do anything different, then what's the point of telling us that we're not working on the right subjects? It doesn't make any sense. Stan 04:34, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Community_Portal is not locked. Xed can go there and start eliminating bias, as he has suggested here seven times without bothering to do so. Does he expect ... what? acclaim for his suggestion? Actions speak louder, you know, than those other things. Ortolan88 02:54, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I'm going to bed. If anyone is willing to help me produce a beta version of section I sketched out above, please sign your name below. For Popperian reasons, I would prefer to have people critical of the idea as well as supporters.--Xed 03:15, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I would like to point out that Xed is referring to "systemic bias" and a lot of you are responding as if he had referred to "systematic bias". The latter basically just means thoroughgoing bias. That's not what he is saying. Although he's not being terribly articulate about the matter, and I think he is being unnecessarily abrasive, "systemic bias" means that there are structural issues in Wikipedia that tend strongly towards certain topics getting much better coverage than others. I think that is clearly true. I also think there is a lot of reason for us, if we are trying to produce a quality work, to consider seriously what biases are built into the system and which of these can be addressed. I'm not sure if Xed's approach here is constructive, but I am sure he is describing a real problem.

Examples of systemic bias:

Because so many Wikipedians do their research on line, topics not already well covered on the Internet tend to be under-covered in Wikipedia.
Because so many English-language Wikipedians live in a very small number of countries, topics pertaining strongly to those countries are disproportionately covered.
Because so many Wikipedians are interested in technology, technological topics are disproportionately well covered. Ditto science fiction. Ditto libertarianism. Conversely, and presumably for parallel reasons, there is very little on (as Xed points out) contemporary events in Africa or (as I'd point out) even on African-American history or Native American history: most of our articles on Native Americans are written from an anthropoligist's point of view, whereas our articles on (for example) punk rock or grunge rock or the science fiction fandom are consistently written with insider's knowledge.

This list is, at best, illustrative. I do think we would do well to look at the systematic biases in the Wikipedia. I think some of them can be covered by adding to the efforts at translation from other languages. Others really would require recruitment to correct, and that recruitment may depend in part on a positive community decision that the recruitment is importans, accompanied by a long, hard look at what aspects of our internal culture are not seen as welcoming by certain groups. Wikipedia is disproportionately white and male, and I don't think that is good. There are probably other similar issues that don't leap out at me as readily.

Systemic biases are not easily addressed. One of the biggest factors here is a (generally commendable) tendency to write about what one already knows about. Frankly, it's a lot easier for me to write a decent encyclopedia article on a subject where, in examining sources (or looking at other people's edits), I can look at some of them and just go "this person doesn't know his/her stuff, useless." For example, I simply don't have the knowledge to know whom to believe when two well-read Slavs are arguing over the history of Carpathian Ruthenia, but I have plenty of ability to judge whether someone is talking sense about Jorge Luis Borges. Therefore, I am a lot more likely to focus on writing about the latter. And would you really want me writing extensively about the former? In other words, some of this can only be adddressed either by recruitment and/or a serious self-educational undertaking by some of our participants.

So, Xed, sign me on to participate somewhat in your project, probably more in terms of helping strategize this than in further stretching myself as to which topics I write about.

Any other takers? Because I, for one, won't do this with less than five people involved. -- Jmabel 05:37, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

It's something that I personally recognise as a problem and something that I'd be willing, within my personal limitations, to work on and help with.

Note that, in my opinion, every time you go to an off-line source for Wikipedia articles you are helping with Wikipedia's systemic bias -- at least, the bias to write about only the stuff the Web already has information on. Every time you refer to a book, magazine, journal, or whatever, you are adding a dash of another viewpoint to the online store of knowledge. I think we should all try a little to stretch ourselves beyond our comfort zones of what we already know; and that doesn't mean one can't have fun. Find some topic you wish you knew about, go to the library or somewhere and research it, and write what you learned. Even if it's not perfect, it's better than we had. —Morven 05:59, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

I think some of the things Jmabel talking about are already happening - for instance, as WP gets more complete in certain areas, there is simply no online source to raid for additional material. Most of my content additions these days are from books, and I see a bunch of other people doing the same. (A visit to a university library really makes clear just how much is not on the net anywhere.) Likewise, we see that now that every imaginable Tolkien-related topic has an article :-), interest drops off and the action moves elsewhere. I think the most important thing to do is recruitment - everybody should try their hand at WPing, but only a subset will enjoy it enough to keep at it. Stan 06:12, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I'm in. The more I think about it, the more enthousiastic I become about it. One is easily tempted to write only about topics that you're already familiar with, as long as your contributing, thats marvelous. But I think a section for discussion and categorising articles that really need work for Wikipedia to be taken seriously would motivate people to expand their horizon and learn about those topics, I think it could work, but giving it a proper place with current categories like cleanup, attention, expand, collaboration article, etc. could be a challenge. -- Solitude 07:48, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

Me too. How it would differ from existing pages like cleanup, attention, expand, collaboration article, etc. is that those pages exemplify the bias to some degree or another. As I read it, this proposal entails looking at all the things an encyclopaedia needs that nothing here is addressing. @Thinking outside the Wikibox', so to speak. Filiocht 09:14, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I have to say I'm not particularly enthused about writing stuff which is likely to engender responses along the lines of "what do you know about XYZ, you don't even live there" which I have seen elsewhere in Wikipedia. I tend to dabble in areas where I do have knowledge, and ask impertinent questions where I don't (in the hope of obtaining a pertinent answer, obviously :-) --Phil | Talk 11:01, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

Count me in. I have just had this discussion brought to my attention, read through it all, and was a little taken aback by the way Xed, who I genuinely believe to have good intentions for Wikipedia, was immediately denounced as a troll. The fact is that Wikipedia is massively biased towards certain countries and certain subcultures, and while some of us are able to see that and realise that we are a part of it (I know far more about what goes on in Birmingham than what goes on in Kinshasa), there seem to be a worrying number of people who are blind to Wikipedia's bias and are unwilling to do anything about it. I agree though with much of what's been said here, specifically that in the long term only recruitment will solve our problems. Personally I don't mind that we have lengthy articles on obscure Tolkein and Star Trek characters, but I do mind that we have next to nothing on the Congo Civil War. We can only cure Wikipedia of its systemic bias if people appreciate the problem. Why the hell does www.wikipedia.org redirect to en.wikipedia.org as if English takes precedence over all other languages? Why the hell is the article on Georgia located at Georgia (country) so as to avoid confusion with an administrative subdivision of the USA? I could go on but I'll spare you the moralising. I hope we can all see that Wikipedia is undoubtedly biased — embarrassingly so — and we should be doing our best to make it as international and as neutral as possible. Please don't be complacent about this wonderful thing we are creating for the world. It is currently full of flaws. — Trilobite (Talk) 12:09, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

If you care to take a look at Georgia there are at least 10 articles which a user might expect to find under that name: it therefore makes sense for the disambiguation page to live there and the different pages to be distinguished with suffices of appropriate type. I would be a lot more impressed with the arguments being presented if one single complainer said anything like "hey, I know an awful lot about the Congo Civil War, I'll write it up", rather than expecting everybody else to go away and find out about it. If one is so damn interested in a subject, one is behoven to write an article on it oneself. --Phil | Talk 14:33, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

(note: reinserted comment in order to reply to it--Xed 14:05, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC))(1. Georgia is not an administrative subdivision of the U.S. 2. When multiple articles with significant numbers of hits (i.e., 75%/25%) have the same name, it makes sense to have a dab page, though it would also make sense to put the country at "Georgia" and have a link to the state at the top. 3. But there's no compelling reason to change the status quo. Wikipedia articles aren't an honor, they're a means of disseminating information. 4. The horse is dead. Please stop beating it.) --dreish 13:35, 2004 Sep 22 (UTC)

Jiang's comments on Talk:Georgia are hilarious. What strange company you keep.--Xed 14:05, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

This is the perfect illustraton, Xed, of why people are having a problem with you. If you disagree with what someone said, respond to their argument. Instead, you have a tendency to ridicule or otherwise not address the issue. Here, you're casting aspersions on Driesh's arguments based not on their own merit, but rather on who else agrees with them. Yes, Jiang said some pretty outlandish things on that page (though I suspect they were not said with a straight face), but that fact doesn't alter the truth/falsehood of the argument, does it? —Morven 15:45, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

I'm not sure there was an argument to respond to, which is probably Dreish originally deleted his post. Hope to see you on CROSSBOW. Love, Xed 16:08, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I also wanted to congratulate Xed on making a stand. One area where systemic bias is particularly worrying are borderline inclusion debates. Borderline techie/geeky topics are routinely kept as there is sufficient critical mass saying keep, whereas borderline articles in other areas get deleted. This systematic problem is not easy to resolve by just saying "so fix it then". It would require forcing people to think more deeply before editing vfd - a near impossible task. Pcb21| Pete 12:22, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Perhaps we can see a new law emerge here: 'The quantity of systemic bias in a system is directly proportional to the amount of bile raised in denying its existence.' Filiocht 13:27, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I wouldn't object to the creation of Wikipedia:Articles that can do with a non-OECD perspective. There are a lot out there such as publicly funded medicine, primary education, newspaper, and history of Africa. - SimonP 16:05, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

A few thoughts...

Actually eliminating systemic bias in Wikipedia is impossible. There will always be considerable systemic bias in any compendium.
Attempting to alleviate such bias is a meritorious task.
Broadening the demographic involved in editing Wikipedia is an ideal approach.
Actually achieving such a broadening is extremely difficult; it requires some sort of affirmative action program -- perhaps ambassadors to online or off-line systems with different demographics might be helpful.
Determing which articles (or which absent articles) reflect a system bias in itself carries a systemic bias.
Words are critical. As mentioned above, at least some of the argumentation in this discussion stems from the confusion between "systemic" and "systematic"; the latter implies deliberate or negligent action or inaction, while the former is a general statement of the shortcomings of the system per se. This reminds me of heated discussions in another venue (The Well, where I was a conference host for many years) where a fellow with a particular hobby horse would every couple of years come out with a strong declaration of opposition to "bastardy", one meaning of which -- the meaning intended by the author -- is "begetting of illegitimate children"; but most readers reacted strongly to his proposals, conflating "bastardy" with "bastardry", "being an illegitimate child". One little letter. Now, the author knew full well such a confusion would ensue, and he was a bit of a troll at heart (as well as being CEO of Network Solutions), so presented the argument with language that he knew would cause excessive annoyance. I don't think Xed was deliberately trying to agitate with his choice of words, but it worked. I guess the message is "pay careful attention to the words being used" for the reader, and "pay attention to how people might incorrectly perceive your words" for the writer.
Some people are just too good at annoying other people. I'm reminded of the old Fidonet rule: "Don't be excessively annoying. Don't be too easily annoyed."

--Jpgordon 18:41, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

A few thoughts from a very new visitor to wikipedia.

I agree that there will always be some bias in this or any other encyclopedia.
This is a self-organising system: as it grows it will become more and more difficult to shift it in any particular direction. It'll go where it goes.
Having said that, as a frequent visitor to Africa I think there's a lot to be said for taking steps to increase coverage from that continent - and from developing/emerging nations in general.
I like the idea of on-line and off-line ambassadors - is there anything like this now?
I suggest approaching people like librarians at the major universities in each 'under represented' country and that they be asked to recruit undegrads (or anyone else who can find the time) to help augment the coverage for their country.
other government organisations - like tourism authorities - could also be approached but may be more biased.
I'm happy to try to get the ball running in Tanzania - a country I visit from time to time.
I'd also be happy to attempt to write an outline, and informal job description for the 'ambassador' role - generally speaking their job would be to raise the profile of Wiki in their country and to encourage people to contribute. (I'd add that I'm from the UK, am not a 'techie' and have only just heard about the wikipedia - likewise most of the colleagues, relatives and friends I've just told about it!)
Comments anyone?

Jerry cornelius 11:54, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

As a sidelight on this, I found the following on User:Jimbo Wales/Pushing To 1.0:

Britannica exists to support a particular canon, that being, the British and now American concept of "what history is." It is, for instance, light on the History of India, China, Africa, Latin America and figures of those cultures - one way Wikipedia can differentiate itself is to say that it is less Anglo-centric than Britannica. Build up an audience in developing nations who can really benefit from having a neutral encyclopedia — like in China where Wikipedia.org is banned, but they won't be able to keep all the CD-ROMs out. It may thus make sense to *focus on Chinese figures and history* deliberately. How can they keep out the only encyclopedia that does their history justice?

Filiocht 12:42, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

As a relatively new contributor to Wikipedia, I soon noticed the systemic bias referred to by Xed and more eloquently described and explained by Jmabel. Although you certainly could argue that such a bias will be more or less unavoidable in an English language Internet-based open project, that's not really a valid argument for not discussing what could possibly be done about it. I fully agree with Jmabel that this is something that ought to be adressed in order to improve the scope and usefulness of Wikipedia. However, as many have already pointed out, this cannot and should not be solved by forcing people to contribute in areas they have no interest in contributing to. There are a number of constructive proposals that could be made, and although none of these might come anywhere close to being the complete remedy for this problem, they will most likely all be beneficial to a larger or smaller extent. In the following list, I'll try to summarise the proposals that I've been able to distinguish in the discussion above, adding my thoughts on them.

A section on the Wikipedia:Community_Portal page that deals with the issue, as proposed by Xed. Closely related to this idea are other suggestions proposing different types of lists of suitable articles for expansion, such as the creation of Wikipedia:Articles that can do with a non-OECD perspective, as proposed by SimonP.
Using the existing Wikipedia:Collaboration_of_the_week, Requests for expansion and Wikipedia:Requested articles, adding suitable articles for expansion to these pages, possibly including a comment on the "encyclopedia that Slashdot built" problem. To some extent this is already happening, which is something I find uplifting. This strategy might be used as an alternative to 1. in order to avoid partially overlapping pages, or together with 1. as a complement. I think I'd actually prefer the former, considering the number of "to do" pages already existing.
Intensifying the efforts to translate articles from other Wikipedias, as proposed by Jmabel. I think that in order to actually increase the number of translations made, something concrete must be done to encourage and facilitate the process, opening participation to people lacking the courage or language skills to complete this task on their own. One approach could be forming "translation teams" consisting of one person with fluency in the foreign language in question and a reasonable but not necessarily perfect grasp of English, and one person with fluency in English, working together on the translation of an article.
Trying to widen the contributor base by reaching out to people representing Wikipedia minorities, encouraging them to contribute. Jerry cornelius' idea, to approach university staff in under-represented countries is one way of doing this. I think this is an excellent proposal. This kind of outreach could be extended to under-represented groups in general, for instance by asking for a mention of Wikipedia, or even some free ad space, on community and organisational web sites and paper publications catering to such groups.
Forming a group of Wikipedians working with some or all of these tasks. I think this is a good idea, and I would be willing to participate.

There must surely be possible to come up with other strategies, and I'd like to encourage further creative thinking on this subject. Alarm 17:40, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

(moved from policy section)

What's there to deal with. Fanboys write long and detailed articles; we deal with that all the time on VfD. The Congo Civil War is very important, so the solution is to work on expanding it. Or do you suggest that we enforce caps on the size of articles according to their relative importance? --Ardonik.talk()^* 19:15, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)

No, as I said I suggest a section on the Wikipedia:Community_Portal page to deal with this. The section would list articles which, if created/edited/expanded would counter-act the systemic bias.--Xed 19:25, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Who decides? :ChrisG 19:36, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Like what? Sure, Congo Civil War, but any other ideas? And what about the non-North American bias that would start to show? At what point should we begin refocusing on stuff we know more about? --Golbez 19:42, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)

This is a very valid concern. Please note, however, that we can't (and shouldn't) twist editors' arms to force them to write about topics that don't particularly interest them. Certain subjects will always get more interested editors than others. For the time being, this is a fact of life. The long-term, general solution is to expand our userbase until we have experts (or at least interested amateurs) in all revelant fields and topics.

Also: there are several mechanisms in place to address this problem now. Formally, Wikipedia:List of encyclopedia topics and (to a lesser extent) Wikipedia:Requested articles are the primary mechanisms to fill holes. Informally, User:Mark Richards periodically posts The "Encyclopedia that Slashdot Built" Awards to the Village Pump as a method of constructive criticism to help solve blatant imbalances. I'd suggest talking to him if you want to make the process more formal. Also, Wikipedia:Collaboration of the week attempts to expand an article per week. The vast majority of COTW articles have been globally relevant. • Benc • 02:39, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I have no connection to the Congo Civil War, I don't know anything about the Congo Civil War, and I don't even know where to find information about the Congo Civil War. I suspect this is true of many or even most people. Don't berate us for not writing about a topic they don't know anything about. -- Cyrius|✎ 03:29, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

"geeky" articles are not competing with "serious" articles. because the encyclopedia is not published on paper. I still think the notion of this kind of bias is misguided. Every article should be taken at face value, without going to check if someone may have written a longer article about Babylon 5 somewhere. WP should try to attract people of other fields of expertise, but it's certainly not a solution to make people write about subjects they know nothing about. dab 11:25, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

May require multiple projects

It's become pretty clear to me that, despite some confluence, Xed and I have very different visions of the nature of the systemic bias. I'm taking the liberty of copying the key exchange:

An excellent map of media bias can be seem here, courtesy of Ethan Zuckerman. He has also written an essay which deals with many relevant issues. --Xed 02:04, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I suggest countries not on the Bottom 100 lists below should be ignored when choosing CROSSBOW subjects: (Xed, though unsigned; his list can be seen at [2]. It's interesting.)

Do I understand the previous comment to mean that you feel this project should not be looking at neglected aspects of women's history, African-American history, etc.? -- Jmabel 03:21, Sep 24, 2004 (UTC)

Women exist in the countries below. And they certainly are very neglected aspects of women's history. And American history seems well within the bias zone. For focus, the crossbow should aim at the bulls-eye. --Xed 04:08, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

OK, since you are doing this in your personal pages rather than as a WikiProject, I guess you get to call the shots. Sounds like you will not be focused on areas where I have expertise, either in the subject matter or in whom we might recruit. I'll just duck out of this. Best of luck. -- Jmabel 18:40, Sep 24, 2004 (UTC)

I do strongly encourage people who have expertise or interest in, for example, Central Africa and Central Asia to work with Xed on this. Meanwhile, if anyone is interested in starting a WikiProject on African-American topics, or addressing the under-coverage of women's history in the Western world, plese get hold of me, I'd love to participate and might even have ideas about recruiting people. -- Jmabel 19:17, Sep 24, 2004 (UTC)

A notice board might be a good way to do this. Rmhermen 01:23, Sep 30, 2004 (UTC)

I'd like to applaud Xed for starting and Jmabel and others for sustaining a thorough discussion on a topic I've brought up many times in the past without much success, for ex. here: Template_talk:In_the_news#Americocentrism. Wikipedia is indeed overwhelmingly biased in several areas and, what is equally bad or worse, overwhelmingly reluctant to examine the issue or work against it - witness all the knee-jerk "couldn't care less" or "don't blame me" or "fix it yourself" or "that's obvious" reactions, most of which are variations on a predictable theme; I personally concluded that it was pointless trying to prod the average Wikipedian into a little curiosity about the world or areas outside their specialities, and tried to continue making the occasional edit, but the issue can't be ignored as one keeps coming up against this 'wall' even in obscure articles. Someone pops in and decides they know what's best. They make a ridiculous edit. Edit is reverted. Revert war begins. Long explanations ensue and nothing much happens because the issue is reduced to a personal confrontation everyone loses interest in - I think the more knowledgeable Wikipedians are engaged in this crap most of their time here, which is pretty sad for them and pretty lousy for Wikipedia. So my question now is not about the bias itself, but: why is it so hard to implement a few simple decisions, even detailed templates where no brainstorming is required, to curtail obvious problems in Wikipedia? -- Simonides 23:20, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)

ndash and mdash

I think it's around here somewhere but I can't find it.. is there a guide to usage of &ndash and &mdash entities? When should each of these be used as opposed to a hyphen? Double-hyphen? Thanks. Rhobite 19:10, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dashes) — David Remahl 19:32, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Quick reference, in addition to the link above: endash between dates for date ranges (unspaced; i.e. no space between the dates and the dash), emdash for open ranges (i.e. "2002—). I never use dashes in the text of an article, so that's as far as I can help. :) --Golbez 19:43, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC) (and yes, i use two hyphens for my signature. :P)

I thought we were supposed to refrain from using &ndash and &mdash in articles as they made articles harder to edit? I got yelled at a while back from using them and was told to stick to using the ugly double dashes. The yeller said there is some s/w feature that will convert all --'s to — someday. I haven't seen this feature yet, but I've been using double dashes since to avoid getting yelled at again. :-S —

I'll yell at you if you use hyphens as dashes. Some people get too caught up in the wiki thing, forgetting it is purely a means to an end. Chameleon 20:17, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Frecklefoot | Talk 20:03, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)

That might have been me. :/ I used to swear by the --, but then I learned that – looks better. And if and when this vaporware ever appears, we can then change all the endashes back to regular dashes. But til then, endashes are prettier. :) --Golbez 20:10, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks, everyone. Rhobite 20:23, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)

Copyright and Commercial usage

I am having a frustrating time explaining why commercial rights are important for material used in Wikipedia and licensed under the GFDL. Two weeks ago I started a discussion with a user who was copying copyrighted text into Wikipedia relying on a non-commercial-use-only license. After a discussion we agreed that the text would have to be rewritten. But last week the user was again copying non-commercial-use-only material (images this time) into Wikipedia. I brought up the issue again but the user still does not see why the non-commercial use license is a problem (the user blanked the original discussion [3] on the talk page). Any thoughts or good explanations on the subject would be appreciated either here or in the discussion. Al guy 20:41, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)

"Because it's illegal" wasn't a good enough explanation, eh? — Gwalla | Talk 21:31, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The response in both discussions I had with this user is that since this user is not doing anything commercial and Wikipedia is non-profit, the non-commercial license is sufficient. The added complication is that this user is a sysop. Al guy 22:02, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)

Jimbo is keen for wikipedia to reach the third world. He hopes that publishers will eventually produce book versions of the wikimedia projects. Now since Wikipedia is free, they will not have exclusive rights. So competition between rivals should bring the cost down to barely above the actual cost of printing. This is good becasue many people are very poor and do not have the access to knowledge that we all take for granted. Non commercial licences are not free. Therefore they are damaging to the long term goals of wikimedia. Theresa Knott (taketh no rest) 22:08, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Not to mention that all text in the Wikipedia is and must be GFDL, and the submitter did not have the right to relicense the material he had a license to use non-commercialy, under GFDL. — David Remahl 22:16, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Talk page with no history except nonsense

Talk:Wombat contains nonsense as its only contribution. With nothing to revert to, what is the best action? dramatic 20:42, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Blank it. Mark Richards 20:45, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Speedy deletion. [x] done. andy 20:46, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Either of these will work, of course, although blanking it can be done by anyone, does not need an extra step, and does not make that high pitched screeaaching noise that those whose ears are atuned to the spirtual way of the wiki hate to hear ;) Mark Richards 20:50, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The "new, improved" Votes for deletion page

See also: Wikipedia talk:Votes for deletion#New process for easier listing and editing.

What the hell is going on on the VfD page? Without discussion, SOMEBODY has changed the page to change the way it's to be edited, and now I can't add new entries. Is this a not-so-subtle way of sabotaging VfD? Rick K 22:13, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)

No. Theresa Knott (taketh no rest) 22:29, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

While I certainly don't think it's sabotage, if you make a major change to how an important project page works, you should (a) tell people and (b) document it. —Morven 22:44, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)

Evidently someone's removing the "add to this discussion" links? I can't tell who it is from the history, but whoever you are, it's disrupting things, so a revert of your VfD mods would be appreciated. Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Maintenance is a better proposal for managing the size of VfD. --Ardonik.talk()^* 22:49, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)

Okay, now I understand the system (basically, the "add to this discussion" links are being replaced with section edit links), but I don't see what makes it better than the old way of doing things. The same number of templates are still being expanded, and the change isn't going to reduce the size of the VfD page down noticeably.
I guess I'm not opposed to it, but I don't understand what benefits we're supposed to reap by following it. --Ardonik.talk()^* 22:55, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)

Well, from my understanding, the new procedure places a link to the article on the subpage automatically, so that's one benefit. - RedWordSmith 23:28, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Section edit links now work on sections in transcluded pages ({{these things}}). This allows us to just use the regular section editing feature (the [edit] links attached to each section header) in order to edit the individual VfD subsections -- the [edit] link automatically "knows" that it has to load the content from the transcluded page.

This has various benefits:

the VfD page no longer has to use a nonstandard format to achieve the desired effect
adding pages is easier - no need to create the "Add to this discussion" link on your own
the [edit] link goes directly to the edit view for the desired subpage
the actual VfD wikisource gets a lot cleaner and easier to refactor
you can enable right-click editing in your preference (then you just have to right-click a section title to edit that section)
you get auto-summaries (which is useful here, because the auto-summary will include a link to the page that is supposed to be deleted, so that you can directly jump to it from RecentChanges)
you can edit individual subsections.

Not all the old-style entries have been switched to the new format yet, so please help in doing that.--Eloquence *

I should add:

no more need for the "you are about to edit the main VfD page" comment.

— Gwalla | Talk 04:00, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Lol, Rick made almost exactly the same {comment,paranoid rant about sabotage} the last time VfD structure was improved. Pcb21| Pete 08:39, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

There's nothing wrong with being paranoid. Are you accusing me of being paranoid?! Curse you and the rest of your co-conspirators!

Seriously, RickK is just making sure that VfD is, in fact, being improved rather than vandalized. He's looking out to make sure the whole thing runs as smoothly as possible, so please avoid calling anyone's concerns a "paranoid rant". I'm sure you meant no offense, but remember WikiLove, and all that. :-) • Benc • 21:34, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Since the change, my browser (Safari) loads the last-viewed cached page of VFD, rather than the current one. Is anyone else experiencing this? Joyous 23:55, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

I've experienced it using MSIE and Firefox, both before and after the change. It's a caching issue... see Wikipedia:Clear your cache. • Benc • 00:23, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Licensing

Is there a way to find out which licenses an image on the internet has been released under? I would also like to know if using an image that has been licensed to me by permission inhibits the rights of others to use the article it is linked to as a free document? Thanks. Justin Foote 23:02, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Though question. About licensed to you: This depends on the exact type of license. Often this is licensed only for a certain use, i.e. only your personal website. Ask the original owner again. About pictures on the internet: This is usually tough to find out. Most pages have a copyright notice somewhere. However, an absence does not mean no copyright. You basically have to search the page for a statement. If there is none, then assume it is copyrighted. Government sites often say Information presented on this website, unless otherwise indicated , is considered in the public domain. It may be distributed or copied as is permitted by the law. or similar in their disclaimer/privacy statement, then you can use it unless there is a special notice. Old 2D images or scans/photos thereof may have expired copyrights. See also Wikipedia:Finding images tutorial, Category:Wikipedia:Copyright -- Chris 73 Talk 06:11, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia is addictive. I should have gone to sleep 3 hours ago.

I must wake up early tomorrow morning. This is a bad omen.

Welcome to the club, son. →Raul654 05:25, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

Oh my gosh , seek help before it s too late..!!
1.We admitted we were powerless over ~~alcohol~~ wikipedia -- that our lives had become unmanageable.
2.Came to believe that a Power greater ...... :)--Jondel 06:12, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Well, just do an all nighter, no problem. I do it all the ti.... zzzzzzzzzz -- Chris 73 Talk 06:13, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

Geee, another one who didn't read Wikipedia:Wikipediholic early enough. The next meeting of the Wikipediholic Anonymous is next Monday :-) andy 08:09, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

... I'm still here. No point in going to sleep now; I must wake up in 2 hours. EDGE 08:11, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

Here in Tokyo, I'm going home. (Yes I've been ~~drinking~~ editing wikipedia at work.-- Help I can't stop --)I have a badminton game. I wish I could attend the Wikiholics Anonymous meeting but its a bit far and probably expensive (coming from Tokyo) . Need to read that 12 step program for wikipediolics.(finally a program for us!)--Jondel 08:43, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

has it occurred to anyone else that, while reading an online newspaper, when I come across a typo or a badly written bit, I instinctively want to reach for the "edit" link, before realising I can't? I spent far oo much time here, recently... dab 12:25, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Yeah, that happens to me too. I think sites like this one and some other forums I visit spoil me, now I am confused when I cannot change a (paper) magazine for everyone to see, or even provide feedback. I firmly believe that this is a new paradigm, for once using that word in a meaningful way. The Internet allows people to collaborate and interact in a two-way medium, instead of the traditional one-way of television and print publications. That is its greatest strength and one of its weaknesses, witness the rise of trolls, spam, and flamebait. Anyway, I am happy to be a part of the community and contribute in ways impossible even ten years ago. John Gaughan 16:18, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I've definitely had moments of slight frustration when I've noticed unfortunate typos (one in an AP article, no less!) and was unable to make the necessary corrections. Wikipedia has spoiled me rotten though I'm not complaining. Spatch 16:55, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

How do you find the time to read articles elsewhere? Think of all the Wikipedia edits you could have made with that time you just wasted! :-) —Mike 05:12, Sep 29, 2004 (UTC)

I once dreamed about editing an article. My dream was the screen. It scared the hell out of me, and I went on a brief wikivacation shortly afterwards. — Gwalla | Talk 17:52, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Categorization

Is there any reason against making and using a template like the one created at Template:Cat? It's convenient for me anyway, but I don't know if there will be any unforeseen problems. - [[User:Cohesion|cohesion ☎]] 09:04, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

One problem (Bug 31) is that you cannot provide sorting that way. I am not sure if the other problem still exists as several template bugs were fixed last weekend - but earlier any change on the category in the template only led to update the article in the category after the article was editing again next time. If it's just to save typing egory, I don't think the obfuscation is worth the saving of 4 keyboard hits (5 letters less, but you have to type one | for the template). Yet categories are used in templates, especially the navigational ones, thus all articles having the navigational box are member of the category. andy 09:23, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Ok, thanks for the fast reply, won't be using it based on those reasons. - [[User:Cohesion|cohesion ☎]] 09:42, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

Proper book list?

At baseball, there is a list of books at the end. I want to move this list to its own page. What page should I use? Baseball bibliography? Baseball books? List of baseball books? Something else? --Locarno 14:12, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

If you are talking about the "references" section, better leave it where it is. Wikipedia:Cite_your_sources suggests that you give details about sources of information, and the references section is there for that purpose. Kosebamse 15:22, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Category creation

In keeping with the category creation for other notable families, I inserted "Category:The Delanos". However, I have no idea how to create the file. Could someone who knows what to do, create this. Thanks. JillandJack 17:32, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The category is just as much there as any other red link. It's only red because you haven't added any text to it, or included it in any other categories. --Golbez 17:39, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

Point system idea

Seeing the number of proposals begin thrown around to combat vandalism and such, I'll just throw in something I wrote a couple of days ago concerning contributors giving ratings to other users. See User:Alerante/Point system. Discussion should go to the talk page. [ alerante | “” 18:07, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC) ]

Moving FDMA to Frequency division multiple access

I noticed that Frequency division multiple access redirects to Frequency-division multiplexing; I do not think they are the same thing. As mentioned in the article anyway (And from my understanding), I believe that Frequency division multiple access is an example of Frequency-division multiplexing. The real definition of Frequency division multiple access is available at FDMA.

I know I could redirect Frequency division multiple access to FDMA, but judging by CDMA and TDMA (The other technologies in the same class as FDMA), the full title is the original name of the article, and the abberviation is a redirect; so for the sake of consistency, I believe FDMA should be moved to Frequency division multiple access, and it should redirect to it.

Can someone with the power to do so change that? Thanks! --Khalid 21:49, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

Done. Mostly for the sake of consistency. zoney ♣ talk 00:04, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Project Gutenberg Template

Would it make sense to provide a template for Project Gutenberg books, so as to provide a common means of linking in the public domain digital literature from that source? (So as to make it easy to identify, as well as globally modify the links as needed.) Or perhaps a meta-template for digital literature sources that includes Project Gutenberg? Thanks. RJH

Do you need a template or just a special word like is done with ISBN's? Rmhermen 23:02, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

You want a template for making a single external link? Why? Seems a bit unnecessary, and wouldn't work very well anyway because you'd have to go to their site to figure out what to link to in the first place. -- Cyrius|✎ 06:31, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Maybe you mean something like Template:imdb name and Template:imdb title which provide a method of standardising the format of links to the IMDb. If links to PG can be formulated in a dependable way, this woud likely be a good idea. --Phil | Talk 10:48, Sep 23, 2004 (UTC)

Yes something like that would be good for starters. I'm not sure if you can convert the book #ID into a URL, as is used in Gutenberg. But if Gutenberg revised their URL scheme in the future, I think it would make a mass transition easier. That way we can reliably include a Gutenberg link on all pages for the appropriate books. Thanks! — RJH 19:51, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Special:Unusedimages

I've just finished scanning through titles and descriptions of almost 19,000 unused images at Wikipedia, working forward from 20 July 2002 to date, and I found dozens and dozens of fine to excellent images without obvious copyright issues, which I was able to identify, with the aid of some Googling (set at "Images" sometimes), and work into entries. Other Wikipedians with other interests and expertise would find more unused images suited to other entries. But how often is this huge file refreshed? Wetman 04:39, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

At the last server crash the link table to images was lost, thus all images became "unused". All articles edited since then will get the images "used" again. And just last weekend a bug with images in templates was fixed, earlier images only used via a template parameter were "unused" as well. So probably a lot of those images are used somewhere already, it's only difficult to find as google seem to have left out indexing of many articles. andy 11:44, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I'm wondering how worried we have to be about server crashes wiping more than just a link table? -- Solitude 13:46, Sep 23, 2004 (UTC)

It wasn't a server crash that caused all images to be unused, it was the upgrade to 1.3.

Hmm. I did notice that some images, when I went to the most obvious entry, were in fact being used, but I attributed this to the section not having been recently refreshed. Many images did prove to be unused, though. Often an image can be reused effectively in an entry that is secondary to its original purpose. See Romanticism for a nice example. Wetman 19:57, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I also thought it was the 1.3 update, but Tim Starling corrected me last time I told it that way :-) But it's a moot point, we just need to remember that currently the Unused Image list has lots of false positives. But yes, there are probably many images not used now, maybe superceeded by a new image, maybe removed accidentally, maybe uploaded but failed to include it into an article. Or it's thumbnails not used anymore since MediaWiki can resize images by itself now. If you want to weed the list you'll have a lot of work to do - but someone must do it someday anyway. BTW: If you find good pictures which are clearly OK by copyright, but don't have any article in which they can be included, you can also upload them to Commons]. andy 08:07, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

"It should be noted..."

Do phrases like "It should be noted that..." or "An interesting note is..." have a place in encyclopedia articles? I see them all over the place. Taco Deposit | Talk-o Deposit 17:41, Sep 23, 2004 (UTC)

This reminds me of Wikipedia:Avoid peacock terms. If "it should be noted that...something", or "something" is an "interesting note" then that's why it's been included in an encyclopedia, and the reader doesn't need to have this fact spelled out. — Trilobite (Talk)

I kill them on sight, with the comment "POV phrase removed". -- Jmabel 17:53, Sep 23, 2004 (UTC)

Agreed. I try to reword these wherever I see them. The same goes for any "As you can see..." or "We now have..." -- Wapcaplet 19:20, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I would also suggest only cautious use of the phrase "of course", and a virtual ban on the obscene adverb "obviously". — Jeff Q 04:10, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

When a good writer inserts "clearly," it serves as a marker to the reader, to look again at what might in fact not have been perfectly obvious at the first skim, but at second look is an utterly logical and natural consequence. Don't remove expressions simply because you don't like them. A good general rule: Avoid unnecessary interference. Wetman 06:22, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I agree 100%. There are situations where a "clearly", "of course", or even "obviously" is completely appropriate. If you put yourself in the position of a reader, you can probably make an intelligent decision as to whether the phrase is aiding readability as opposed to simply wasting space or imposing POV unnecessarily. This should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, not "solved" with simple knee-jerking. --Chinasaur 22:45, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I find that, in practice, "It should be noted, however..." is often the introduction to unsourced POV material. -- Jmabel 06:49, Sep 24, 2004 (UTC)

In which case, the problem is not the phrase, it's what follows. Remove POV material, but none of these phrases is POV in itself. Filiocht 07:55, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I disagree (and agree with the other comments here). Saying that something is "interesting", "clear" or "obvious" is very POV in many cases. —Rory ☺ 18:01, Sep 24, 2004 (UTC)

Thank goodness this is not just me! I find these phrases pretty irritating, and they rarely add informational content. "It is important to remember that.." is another pet peeve. To express this type of information, it's much better to present facts that clearly indicate the importance or interest; it's just bad form to push your own evaluation of interesting on the reader, or to tell him what he ought to think. — Matt 08:06, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Possible?

Is it possible to see all User talk: pages that haven't been edited for over 6 months? Specifically anon IP's? I want to do a little janitorial work there... — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 23:56, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

If you have the cur table you could use a query like SELECT cur_title FROM cur WHERE cur_namespace = 3 AND cur_timestamp < 20040323000000 . You could also add cur_title LIKE '%.%.%.%' to filter out most non-IPs. Goplat 01:14, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Thanks...but I bet SQL queries are currently blocked on the live database (and I'm sure as heck not downloading 1.6 GB of sheer database power). — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 03:17, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Or at least, it doesn't work for me (see This page at the bottom). — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 03:22, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The live db is blocked to SQL analysis at present, or was the last time I looked. This actually makes trawling for vandalism quite difficult; time was when you could pick up trends of vandalism from studying the db. NOw there is no smart method rather than constant vigilance :( Sjc 04:17, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Download a dump and perform local SQL queries on it. It's not up-to-date, but you don't really think all vandalism from the last dump has already been erased, do you? Derrick Coetzee 06:00, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Lists of terms related to color psychology

There has been a growing collection of articles containing common color associations, related to color psychology. Input concerning the proper course of these articles is welcomed at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/List of terms associated with the color.... --[[User:Eequor|ηυωρ]] 00:21, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Best format for succession tables

Ahh, the things one obsesses himself with. Anyway, here's a few things I want community approval on:

In the successor tables (best example: Bill Clinton), should it say "Succeeded by" or "Followed by"?
- How about Next and Previous? --Phil | Talk 08:19, Sep 24, 2004 (UTC)
Looking at Slick Willy's article again, should the multi-term offices be split into a single line for each office, or be combined like they are in Clinton's page? It can seem to give some offices that someone held multiple times more weight than a more major office (as easily seen in Clinton's case).
Should such things be in chronological order, or in order of office importance? Both have advantages... with more than two or so offices, I'd say stick with chronological, but then you run into some being chrono and some being importance (Like, again, Clinton's - it's in order of importance.) And if you stick with importance, you run into the problem of figuring out just which offices are more important than others.

I'd like some opinions on this before I proceed further with these. Thanks! --Golbez 01:05, Sep 24, 2004 (UTC)

I suggest using Template:Sequence for succession tables. Some lists like the Roman Emperors have their own versions. It's a shame the Wikipedia does not support <link> tags... <link rel="next">/<link rel="prev"> would be great here! {Ανάριον } 08:33, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Except that has no mechanism for multi-office people. It will end up just crowding the bottom of pages of people who had multiple offices (or, just ignore it altogether for those). I'd have appreciated more discussion on this topic before people started switching the presidents to it. I'll look at the template code and see if I can play with it. Also, while useful, question #3 above remains unanswered. I don't understand how link would work, either. :) --Golbez 18:19, Sep 24, 2004 (UTC)

Donation

I seriously would make a donation to Wikipedia, it is such a good project -- but I am only 13 :(. — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 03:26, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I assume your problem is that you are not able to make a credit card payment. You could either pursuade someone with a credit card to pay for you, or possibly pay via money order, wikimedia foundation probably accept them. Or, you could get a debit card, since you don't have to be over 18 to get one. Darksun 10:01, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I would assume the problem is that, you know, he's 13! No job, should be saving up for college, and all that. Ilyanep: stay in school, don't do drugs, and don't worry about Wikipedia's finances. (What the... Ilyanep is only 13???). Today happens to be my payday. I will contribute for both of us, (um... symbolically, still the same amount of money I was going to use in the first place ;-) ). func(talk) 14:03, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Bah. When I was 13 I was working 26 hours a day down the mines, and paying the owner to work there! :P But money isn't the only way to contribute to wikipedia, it's no good if wikipedia has money and noone to contribute articles :) Darksun 20:33, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Only 13!?! How do you get all your homework done? You seem to be a very active participant! In any case, it can be argued with a bit of truth that donating time is more (at least, just as) important than donating money. -Vina 23:35, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

If Wikipedia had been around when I was 13, I would probably have vandalized it, (sad but true). I am convinced that most of the nefarious and infamous vandals around here are no older than about 16, (I consider it a near certainty that Mr. Treason is in high school). func(talk) 23:50, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

What is a debit card and is it true you don't need a bank account to get one? How? Where? When? The bad thing is I'm in Ireland so nearly all online services aren't available to me :'(. To those who are suprised at llanep being 13, there are many good editors (some sysops or higher) who haven't hit their mid teens. I'm 14, and to the best of my knowledge, Mike Storm's only 12 or 13 and the same with ugen64. Plus some other's that I can't remember. JOHN COLLISON | (Ludraman) 13:34, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC) (PS, I was thinking of donating with my parents credit card :-)

PPS - Vina was wondering how llyanep gets his homework done. With me - I don't! I hope he cares more about his studies than I do because now I'm at the stage where all my study is wikipedia!

Well, you could do a lot worse, believe me! Ideally you would do your homework, learn from it, and when appropriate, contribute to WP what you've just learnt :) -- Solitude 12:43, Sep 30, 2004 (UTC)

Ilyanep, Ludraman, Mike Storm...? Amazing. The Web didn't pop up until I was a few years out of high school. You kids just make me feel very old, (I'm only 32!). ;-) A debit card is directly linked to a bank account. Unlike a credit card, where you are essentially getting an instant loan, a debit card transaction immediate takes funds out of your bank account. It is essentially the same as an ATM card, but can be used at places other than ATM machines. func(talk) 15:12, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Edits I've Made... How many?

I have seen people post that they have x edits, and their nth edit was y.

I would like to figure out how many edits I have without setting the thing to a large number (or small number) and trying to get to the last page, figure out the offset (which isnt too incredibly difficult), then figure out if i'm supposed to start on 200 or 201 when i count, and count up and know it's either one or two things. I've looked in statistics and other possible places and I have no real idea, whatsoever. I did actually try the method once but wasn't sure if I was starting count on edit xx0 or xx1. --TIB (talk) 04:07, Sep 24, 2004 (UTC)

As you say, use your contributions page, then hit (next 50), and edit the URL with a likely number in the "offset" part until you find the end. I make your edit count just over 440. If you're in the top 1000 contributors, you can get a recent count from List of Wikipedians by number of edits. You'll need more than 690 edits before you get on this list, and that number is rising all the time.-gadfium 04:24, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Perhaps this is obvious, but considering how often people want to know this, it'd be great if it were more easily available. That said, our tendancy to judge contributors by their edit count is a bad idea — a contributor that writes 100 articles from scratch and uses preview might have only 100 edits but have made a stronger contribution than many of us. Perhaps we should be supplied a whole list of statistics judging the total value of our contributions. This would be especially useful in Wikipedia: Requests for adminship. Derrick Coetzee 04:33, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

A developer or anyone with sql access can run a query to find your edit count on request. There is no feature to automatically do this in the current MediaWiki and I don't think there will be due to database strain. There is, however, the csv, a raw-data list of all users' edits from all wikis. See here for instructions on how to interpret the csv. It's updated weekly. Ðåñηÿßôý | Talk 05:27, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I would think such a feature would be relatively easy to implement if the user's edit count is stored (redundantly) in the user table, incremented whenever the user makes an edit. Then again, I haven't really looked at the code in much detail. And redundancy is generally bad within a single database copy. And we don't need to encourage edit counting. • Benc • 06:11, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The exact edit count _can_ be returned very quickly using a SQL query. User:Kate has created a script on the server, which developers can use to get at the edit count very quickly. You should ask her about it.. — David Remahl 15:44, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

On a tangential note, edit counting is generally a bad thing. No one (ideally) should judge you by your number of edits, so don't worry about what and when your nth edit was unless you're simply curious. :-) • Benc • 06:06, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Apparently the data for all users is available <a href="http://www.wikipedia.org/wikistats/csv/StatisticsUsers.csv">here</a>. anthony (see warning) 11:19, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

It's worth noting that the total, according to the server, may occasionally decrease, so it makes little sense to say "my nth edit was y". n changes mainly due to articles being deleted. --[[User:Eequor|ηυωρ]] 01:53, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Formatting, particularly verse, drama, etc.

It is somewhat difficult to get material such as verse or drama quotations formatted pleasantly, particularly when there is a pattern of indenting to preserve. There seems to be no Wiki-markup intended for this purpose. I've had the best luck inserting appropriate numbers of HTML nbsp's at the start of lines, or, for evenly indented material, preceeding each line with a single wiki-colon.

But I find that my well-meaning efforts only survive for a month or so before some editor changes it, typically either by invoking an HTML "pre" tag, or by replacing my leading HTML nbsp's with ordinary spaces.

Thus,

BATTERED SOUL: I'm a pacifist.

GOD: A what?

BATTERED SOUL: A pacifist. I believe in Jesus and peace.

GOD: So you are a Christian?

BATTERED SOUL: O, no. I really do believe in peace.

becomes

:BATTERED SOUL: I'm a pacifist.
:GOD: A what?
:BATTERED SOUL: A pacifist. I believe in Jesus and peace.
:GOD: So you are a Christian?
:BATTERED SOUL: O, no. I really do believe in peace.

and

  He reads but he cannot speak Spanish,
    He cannot abide ginger-beer;
  Ere the days of his pilgrimage vanish,
    How pleasant to know Mr. Lear!

becomes

He reads but he cannot speak Spanish,
  He cannot abide ginger-beer;
Ere the days of his pilgrimage vanish,
  How pleasant to know Mr. Lear!

In my browsers (IE and Safari for Mac OS X) the former look reasonably OK, while the latter are displayed in a not-very-readable monospaced font within a distracting tinted box.

Why do editors make these changes?

Some people prefer the look of not-very-readable monospaced text within a distracting tinted box?
In some browsers, the latter actually look better than the former?
Some people feel that the use of any HTML entities is an indication of newbie or un-Wiki-professionalism and should be changed to something more Wiki-idiomatic on general appearance?
Some other excellent reason that I don't understand?

[[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 15:29, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Pre blocks look extremely awful here: monospaced fonts, a tinted box, no wrapping, etc.. I don't see why they would use it. On the other hand, nbsps are not intended for spacing either: can't that be done with two levels of colons? You could of course put in a HTML comment like . {Ανάριον } 15:55, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I suppose the variation in editor preference when it comes to formatting these stems from a lack of any reliable, semantically correct markup for creating such indentation. The use of leading colons for indentation, as is ubiquitious on talk pages, is currently the best way of achieving the right appearance, but is in my opinion about the worst way in terms of semantic meaning, since it is converted to a (nested) definition list (dl) with no terms (dt) - a totally wrong semantic approach in almost all situations where it's currently used. One can imagine an ideal world in which XML allows us to create a "poetry" element, displayed as blocks of text with just the right indentation, but we don't yet live in that world. The use of concurrent   entities works, but is ugly; I can understand why many editors would use the pre syntax, since it leads to prettier code (but often to uglier articles). The issue has been briefly mentioned on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject_Poetry, I brought it up a long time ago on m:Talk:Wikipedia accessibility, and several others have no doubt raised concerns about it. Maybe the best we can do for now is agree upon which is the lesser of evils, and try to standardize on it. -- Wapcaplet 16:21, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I'm with you, Dpbsmith, I think using <pre> for verse looks terrible. I think the reason most people change your formatting is reason #3. They think they're simplifying it (which they are, in a somewhat less-than-helpful way). What we really need is a standard <verse> wiki markup tag that would work like <pre> without the fugly formatting. Feature request, then, I guess. • Benc • 17:59, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I actually don't like anything but monospaced fonts on computer screens... but I know I'm in the minority there, (doesn't it bother you people that 'w' is like, fifty times wider than 'i'? ;-) ). However, the box around the monospaced text is really annoying. I don't understand it's purpose. For the purposes of showing programing syntax, the fact that it's indented and in a different font should be more than enough to visually offset code from regular text. func(talk) 20:27, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I really like the border-and-box surrounding pre text. Most of the time it's used for showing code samples or similar things, and it seems like a perfect way to separate that from the rest of the text. It's almost like a little miniature blackboard, where the WikiProfessor writes out examples. Only when used for arbitrary indentation or text alignment does it look strange to me. I guess if you don't like it, you could disable it with your user stylesheet (and by the same token, if it's ever disabled by default, I can turn it back on in my stylesheet, cuz I think it's cool). -- Wapcaplet 01:06, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I generally use <blockquote><blockquote> for the beginning of a section of verse and, of course, </blockquote></blockquote> for the end of it. But each line must then end with a <br> or <br\>. This is a kludge, pending some better Wiki or XML markup, but I think it a reasonable one. A more complicated approach would be a three-column table with one row centered horizontally in the article with invisible borders, with only a fixed number of no-break spaces approxminating a double indent in the two outside cells and with all the lines of text in the central cell. The Wikipedia use of colons for indenting is flawed for article use as it indents on the left side only, not on both sides. Jallan 18: 47, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Unnecessary designation of place names

Example: Estes Park, Colorado Why do articles like this have to be suffixed with the State in the title? Insofar as I am aware, there are no other Estes Parks in the world, so is such designation necessary? It is especially unhelpful when trying to link via "Go". If there are more than one of a place, if there is an obviously well known one it can take the title and others can have a place designation (such as Paris and Paris, Texas) and if there is no consensus a disambiguation page would solve this. Dainamo 18:54, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I'm confused; Estes Park is a redirect to Estes Park, Colorado. What's the problem? I'm sure that when Rambot made the page, it didn't know that there was likely no other Estes Park, but it doesn't seem that big an issue. --Golbez 19:17, Sep 24, 2004 (UTC)

It was a conscious decision that all US and Candian cities would be city, state or city, province. That's US standard naming. Rick K 19:47, Sep 24, 2004 (UTC)

User:Danny was kind enough to put the redirect in recently, and thus this example is solved, but the issue isn't confined to this example. When originally looking for Estes Park, I thought there wasn't and article. Ok searching solved that, but I think that we should be consitent in naming conventions and most place names that have no other namesake seem to do this. I must admit though, I didn't realise it was created by a Rambot, but surely such pages should be changed for the sake of convention in title names rather than making Redirects? It's not a problem I'm going to devote myself to if others don't agree, it's just my desire for logical uniformity in a single reference source. Dainamo 19:49, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

It's a matter of context. In the cases of locations, it has been decided that the context is contained in the article. Redirects should be made from the noncontextualized version to the contextualized, and not all those have been done yet. It's just the way it is here. It's also for uniformity; 99.5% of American cities are in the form "city, state". It would be jarring to have a large portion of those without the state, while others did. Using context in the title is not always for disambiguation, but sometimes for uniformity, as it is in this case. --Golbez 19:53, Sep 24, 2004 (UTC)

(via edit conflict) Same reason we have San Francisco, California or Chicago, Illinois. Not the greatest examples, since there are other meanings for each of those, but really, I agree with Golbez - it's not a big issue. Any search for or link to Estes Park will go to Estes Park, Colorado. As RickK points out, it's consistent with our other US city article names. -- Wapcaplet 19:51, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I acknowledge that North American convention does this, but this does not happen in other Encyclopedias where "Los Angeles" would be listed without California on the end and if wiki decides to be different in adopting the practice, fair enough, nut it should then apply to other place names such as London, England; Rome, Italy etc. but I think this is as unnecessary as applying the convention to US and Canadian places where not needed. Dainamo 19:59, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia isn't other encyclopedias. And I agree - Certain large cities in the USA and Canada should probably be at non-contextualized names. Worth a vote on each city page individually. (i.e. Chicago and LA and SF might be worthy, but others might disagree on Dallas or Denver) But either way... that doesn't include Estes Park. And it's not a *huge* issue, though I really need to move Osaka, Osaka when I get the chance. :-P --Golbez 21:52, Sep 24, 2004 (UTC)

Dallas is the famous metropolis in Scotland, Boston is of course in Lincolnshire, England, as is New York, while Denver is in Norfolk. -- Arwel 23:27, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

And London is in Ontario and Paris is in Wisconsin ... twice. Your point? ;) --Golbez 23:54, Sep 24, 2004 (UTC)

Part of the reason we adopted this (beside the fact that it is standard usage) is to prevent having to argue which city is most important on hundreds or thousands of pages. Instead we nd up arguing over and over again why we adopted the procedure. Rmhermen 00:06, Sep 25, 2004 (UTC)

Except some cities (London, Paris) ARE being declared more important than London, Ontario and Paris, Wisconsin. And yeah, ain't it fun? :) --Golbez 00:18, Sep 25, 2004 (UTC)

Golbez, I repect anyone's point of view but saying "wikipedia isn't other encyclopedias" is a non argument. Wikipedia's content has always strove to "encyclopedic" (if that can be a word!) and if we are to make things easy for using this grand bod y of work a place name should either:

take us to the only article by that name
take us to a diambiguation page; or
take us to the most obviously used one (and incidentally I would include both Dallas and Denver in this!) where a disamibiguation is also seen - example Birmingham is a page that allready does this Dainamo 00:30, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

This has also been discussed at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (city names). See in particular "American cities inconsistent with every other country". Angela . 04:30, Sep 25, 2004 (UTC)

Indeed. Nothing was ever resolved, however. There seemed to be somewhat of a majority in favor of revising the naming standards to some extent, but nothing was ever done about it, except moving the article on New York City to New York City (eventually). john k 04:37, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Maybe "Estes Park, Colorado, United States of America" would be safer. There was a recent debate on the :fr Wikipedia about how to distinguish the two tiny villages of "Châtillon (Jura)" (in the French department of Jura) and "Châtillon (Jura)" (in the Swiss canton of Jura) :-) --French Tourist 09:52, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

One example of the city,state system running into problems is Kansas City (the main one of course) being split across Kansas City, Kansas and Kansas City, Missouri. While it might be a bistate city politically, it is a clumsy way of writing what should be a merged article on the same place. I note also many of the points that are made in favour of consistency on the previous discussion pointed out by Angela above as well as the naming conventions of other encyclopedias. While we seek to change any such conventions where they both improve and are applied consistently, I do not see either of these criteria being met in the city,state method where diambiguation is not required. The Rambot usefully created the articles but, a with all things wiki, there is no reason why we cannot seek to edit the results if a consensus on this can be reached. Dainamo 10:25, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The city, state convention saves editors familiar with it a lot of time, and conserves Wikipedia bandwidth, because, for example, if I am writing about an author born in Topeka, Kansas, I can link Topeka, Kansas, knowing I am linking directly to the article I want, instead of having to check the target article to see if someone has deemed it notable enuf to be at Topeka. Niteowlneils 03:00, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)

However, in that case, there should always be SOMETHING at Topeka. Whether a city page, a redirect, or a disambig -- there should be something. —Morven 05:32, Sep 26, 2004 (UTC)

I agree 100%. I've created several redirs and disambs in those cases myself--sometimes ones that I just happened to discover were missing, and sometimes I've just entered city names out of one of my US road maps to specifically check for missing entries. Niteowlneils 03:23, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Image versions

I have recently created a map Image:Melbourne map.png and then done some requested additions. Eventually there were five versions uploaded. Whenever I accessed it, an older version was displayed. I tried clearing my internet cache but I think the problem is in Wikipedia. Help! What is happening here? In the article I changed the reference from 250px to 251px and we got the correnct map but I am still getting the wrong map when I go to the page.--CloudSurfer 19:15, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

It might be the Wikipedia cache. The easiest way to purge it is to visit the page history and change action=history to action=purge and hit 'go' (or your browser's equivalent). I have a script on my user page that adds a 'purge cache' button to the toolbar along with history, move, watch etc. —Rory ☺ 20:31, Sep 24, 2004 (UTC)

I deleted the two redundant revisions of the map. -- Cyrius|✎ 00:26, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for that. Please feel free to delete all but the latest version with my username. Rory, sadly the purge didn't fix the problem. The correct version is displayed on the Melbourne page and I got that by changing the display pixels from 250 to 251. Prior to that it was accessing some stored version at 250 pixels. Whether it was stored on my computer or Wikipedia's I don't know. The problem remains with the Image:Melbourne map.png page in that I keep seeing the original version on my computer. If you see the same version as is displayed on the Melbourne page then I guess it is my computer where the problem is. Whichever way, this is a problem that needs to be fixed as it means that people are not necessarily getting the latest version of the graphic. --CloudSurfer 01:44, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Whoops! After saving the above I then pressed the refresh button on my browser and - bingo - I now have the correct version displaying. Thanks Rory!! --CloudSurfer 01:49, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

On internet explorer, did you try reload while pressing the CTRL key? This often helps -- Chris 73 Talk 03:13, Sep 25, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for all your help. As stated, the problem is resolved by purging and refreshing. --CloudSurfer 03:35, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Google Group

I have started a google group for wikipedia members -- Wikipedia Members. When you go to the link, sign in with your gmail/google account (if you have one) and you can join if you like... — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 19:15, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Are you aware of our mailing lists?--Eloquence *

Si, mi senor. — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 03:49, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Poker biographies

I've been working on biographies of notable poker players, such as those who have won the World Series of Poker main event and those in the Poker Hall of Fame. See Category:Poker players and User:CryptoDerk/poker if you're interested in helping out. If you think there are some notable players who don't have articles, feel free to add them or add them to the list on the subpage of my user page. If you think some of those players are non-notable, let me know too. CryptoDerk 20:50, Sep 25, 2004 (UTC)

quick photoshop job

Can I have the British Rail logo at http://www.brb.gov.uk/ specifically http://www.brb.gov.uk/images/br_logo.gif with a blue background rather than a red one and without the shadow please? Dunc_Harris|☺ 21:11, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Done. See Image:British Rail logo.png. Ðåñηÿßôý | Talk 02:18, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Can we manipulate trademarks before we upload them? ✏ Sverdrup 15:11, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Never mind manipulation, can we post trademarks at all? The trademark owner have strong opinions about exact colour, format and context, and it's copyrighted. You're probably safe posting a photo—that you took yourself in a public place—that includes the logo. I would expect grabbing a logo from a website, never mind the photoshop job, is almost certain to cause trouble. Sharkford 15:41, 2004 Sep 28 (UTC)

I believe logos are considered fair use, when they are not modified. And that's key - I don't think the image is supposed to be modified at all. Don't we have a copyright template for this, ((logo)) or something? --Golbez 15:52, Sep 28, 2004 (UTC)

I'm not sure where you're getting this idea that fair use precludes modifications for publication. In this case, the British Rail logo has a red background on some official uses and a blue one on others, so if done correctly it's the official colors anyway. —Morven 16:09, Sep 28, 2004 (UTC)

I got it from the page on logos. I'm not just talking out of my ass here. Wikipedia:Logos states, "Reasonable diligence should be taken to ensure that the logo is accurate and has a high-quality appearance. Common sense says that a logo displayed prominently on the corporation's own website should be OK to use, because it represents that company's wishes about how the logo is presented on computer screens at typical screen resolutions. Avoid resizing a logo—try to find one that is a suitable size. Do not use a resized logo if it doesn't look good." I always took this to mean, don't alter in any way. --Golbez 21:44, Sep 28, 2004 (UTC)

Not to be pedantic, but a trademark cannot be copyrighted. The two are very different. Intrigue 20:54, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Sure, trade mark protection is different from copyright, but why can't a logo that is registered as a trade mark also be protected (as a graphical work) by copyright? Copyright only protects against copying, whereas registering the trade mark will also protect against someone using marks that are identical or similar and used for identical or similar goods, but which are not copies of the original. (All written from my understanding of a UK perspective - no doubt the US is different, and an intellectual property lawyer will correct me :) -- ALoan (Talk) 10:55, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

On signs at stations they have it red, but BR went through a corporate blue period in the 1970s and 1980s (e.g. [4]). BR no longer exists. Copyright is held by the British Railways Board, who seem to have no problem with it being reproduced, e.g. for transfers for models) Dunc_Harris|☺ 09:58, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Template:Googletest

Template:Googletest is a template which implements the "popular usage" Google test. For example, Template:Googletest ({{googletest|Wikipedia|TheFreeDictionary}}) compares the popularities of Wikipedia and TheFreeDictionary as seen by Google. Template:Googletest ({{googletest|ain-t|am-not}}) compares the usage of ain't and am not. The template currently links to http://www.googlefight.com/ to perform the test; if a more professional site is known, please suggest improvements. Comments are welcomed at Wikipedia:Templates for deletion#September 23. --[[User:Eequor|ηυωρ]] 22:20, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Dead Link on Help:Editing

In This section there is a dead link to MediaWiki User's Guide: Using tables. --Spundun 02:27, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The link should have been m:MediaWiki User's Guide: Using tables, which is now a redirect to m:Help:Table. Patrick has already fixed the link. Angela . 07:53, Sep 26, 2004 (UTC)

Request for comments on bot proposal

I would like to draw attention to my bot proposal at Wikipedia_talk:Bots#Darbot_registration. The bot's purpose is to change articles so that they conform to the guidelines set forth at Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Scientific_style. I was informed that, despite the fact that this bot will be changing articles so that they conform to the Manual of Style, a bot still needs community consensus to run.

Darrien 10:53, 2004 Sep 26 (UTC)

Links to online Bible verses

Is there a standard regarding this? Is it ever done on Wikipedia? Jayjg 23:22, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Makes sense to me. The only advice I have is, look for an online Bible that you think will be around in a decade or two. I don't know which one that might be, although if there's an official Catholic Bible website, my money is on them. 8^) Fwiw, Wile E. Heresiarch 03:02, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

And for the King James Version of the Bible (i.e. without the Apocrypha), you can use Old Testament and New Testament and even the Bible Dictionary. They don't change their URLs every couple of minutes like Microsoft, so the URLs you provide should be reliable for years to come. :-) — Frecklefoot | Talk 16:27, Sep 27, 2004 (UTC)

A small, perhaps irrelevant note; the King James Version originally came with the Apocrypha, and most subsequent editions of it for the next three centuries kept them. Even today a number of editions of the King James Bible include the Apocrypha. Jayjg 16:36, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Should we standardise on a 'free' bible? Ie one that is not encumbered with copyrights? Intrigue 21:16, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

That would be quite fitting with the philosophy of the project...while most of the older translations are public domain, they're also written in an old-fashioned English style. There is the World English Bible (World English Bible?), which is a free Bible translation into modern English.

Having said that, my feelings are that we should link to a site with an array of translations, if any, to offer the reader the widest possible choice (otherwise we really will ignite a holy war). Maybe a search on Bible Gateway, or to do something like we do with ISBN numbers, e.g., ISBN 0596001886. — Matt 09:20, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I don't think we have to have a "standard Bible" for Wikipedia. Just link to one that doesn't require $$$ or have pop-ups: simple as that. — Frecklefoot | Talk 15:08, Sep 28, 2004 (UTC)

People, there is Wikisource, an official Wikimedia project. You can find the King James Version at wikisource:Bible, English, King James, for example.--Eloquence *

Request for Comment

The below is copied from Wikipedia talk:Bots. I request comments by editors and sysops at User talk:Orthogonal/Snowspinner Time-line by those reading [[User:Orthogonal/Snowspinner Time-line. -- orthogonal 00:50, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

This is, like almost everything orthogonal has said in recent memory, a bald-faced lie. Snowspinner 00:26, Sep 27, 2004 (UTC)

I wish you had not written that, Snowspinner, as it rather requires me to be explicit. at the risk of embarrassing you, here's where you agreed that my "bald-faced lie" was in fact a an accurate summary of your actions:

Snowspinner wrote: "My view is simple and accurately summarized by orthogonal. I believe that policy exists that is not written, and that the mere failure of a policy to gather community consent (As opposed to actively gathering community rejection) does not mean that it is not policy." (from Snowspinner's comment at [5])

"I should specify - I agree that I blocked Robert for a reason that is not explicitly allowed under policy, and that I did so knowingly." (from Snowspinner's comment at[6])

Details of Snowspinner's edit warring can be found here: [7].

Evidence of his removal of votes can be found here: [8]. Please note that Snowspinner removed opposition votes as being "too late", but did not remove supporting votes which were even later.

That Snowspinner apparently forgets that he did these things, within the last month (as I won't suggest he remembers them and is lying about them), further argues that he is incompetent to run a bot -- or to make any other important decisions for Wikipedia.

Persons wishing to examine Snowspinner's record more closely are invited to see User:Orthogonal/Snowspinner Time-line and its discussion page at User talk:Orthogonal/Snowspinner Time-line. -- orthogonal 00:50, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Doesn't this belong on RFC? I see no reason why this matter is being aired on the (I presume much more widely read) Village Pump except to make a bigger deal of it. -- Jmabel 02:58, Sep 27, 2004 (UTC)

Techically, it doesn't fit the RfC format, as I lack a second certifier. As a practical matter, since the allegation is of pervasive sysop abuse, I'd like to see it aired as widely as possible, as sysop abuse affects all users and the Wikipedia in general; RfC seems to be read primarily by sysops. -- orthogonal 03:02, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC) And by a small minority of sysops at that. -- orthogonal 15:42, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Adjacent suburb tables

You may or may not have seen any of the adjacent suburb tables floating around in the suburb articls of Melbourne (List of Melbourne suburbs Example Example). We over at the WikiProject Melbourne have been fiddling with the concept for a while, (and made a right mess of things - there are god knows how many versions in all the articles, but that's not the point). We've never questioned the usefullness of the compass-direction linking of suburbs, but we are obviously biased (having created the idea). My question is:

Are they useful?

Have a look at the examples and tell me if you think they are a useful navigational tool, or just eye candy, or not even that. (before we replace them all - again...)

T.P.K. 03:17, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

We use the same sort of thing for Canadian towns as well, so they are useful to some people I guess :) (However I know there were people who were opposed to using them there, I don't know if you got that for the Australian ones.) Adam Bishop 20:41, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Yes we did, but it seems like they'll survive. T.P.K. 16:12, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

September 11, 2001 attacks

Someone moved this page (again) without discussion, leaving numerous double redirects. I would tried to return it but fear losing the edit histories. The undiscussed issue is whether it should be September 11, 2000, attacks or September 11, 2001 attacks. Rmhermen 17:18, Sep 27, 2004 (UTC)

Why would anyone want to call it "September 11, 2000, attacks"? It happened in 2001. Did you mean "September 11, 2001, attacks"? — Frecklefoot | Talk 18:31, Sep 27, 2004 (UTC)

Yes, of course, but I wonder why anyone would call it September 11, 2001, attacks. Rmhermen 22:03, Sep 27, 2004 (UTC)

It is interesting that the word "attacks" is attached to the article's title. The event is infamous for being most commonly referred to by only its date of occurance. In the U.S. especially, most people, including the national newscasters, often just say "9/11", ("nine, eleven"). Of course, this obviously wouldn't work in the U.K., where the typical day/month order is different. func(talk) 14:04, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The day had a lot of other things going on that day. 9/11 and everything else redirect to the attacks article; the article is about the attacks, not the day. --Golbez 14:28, Sep 29, 2004 (UTC)

I bet there were a lot of other "attacks" on that day, too. Maybe we should call it September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City, USA and on the Pentagon in Washington DC and on an aircraft which crashed in Pennsylvania, the state which is located in the United States of America, Earth? anthony (see warning) 18:45, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Someone forgot to make that a redirect?! ;-) Jwrosenzweig 20:28, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Even though day/month and not month/day is standard in the UK, "9/11" is universally understood and often used on news broadcasts. In fact "11/9" is never used to refer to the events of that day. Just thought I'd mention it... -- Avaragado 20:27, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

In answer to Rmhermen's question: I'm guessing that it's because some people feel that the commas in dates set the year into a subordinate clause, and need to be paired: "The events of Jan 1, 2000, caused etc etc." I use it like this but I wouldn't alter existing text, certainly not an article title. But, since it's come up, I'd vote for "Attacks of September 11, 2001". The existing title, with or without the comma, has too much similarity to "Mars Attacks!" in my mind... Sharkford 21:01, 2004 Sep 29 (UTC)

While I probably wouldn't use "The events of Jan 1, 2000, caused...", I, at least, understand it. I don't understand "The September 11, 2001, attacks...". Would you write "The USS Cole, bombing..." instead of the bombing of the USS Cole..."? Or does this only apply to dates? Rmhermen 23:14, Sep 29, 2004 (UTC)

I confess that I do not see why your second sentance would be less idiomatic than the first. "The Sept 11, 2001, attacks have resulted in ...". "2001" qualifies "Sept 11" and so is set apart by matched commas as a subordinate phrase. I do this with place names, too: The London, England, skyline is dominated by...". In fact, in the headline, omitting the second comma leads me to read it as a verb, as if nonsensically the year 2001 attacks us on Sept 11.

As I say, I commonly see dates (and place names) written with only one comma and so I understand that many folks do not see the year (or country etc) as a subordinate phrase. I do not propose to engage the argument, much less settle it; I hope only to clarify the terms.

But I'm only guessing that this is at the heart of the page moves. I would propose to avoid the issue altogether by naming the article "Attacks of September 11, 2001", which I think has a much more encyclopedic feel to it. Sharkford 15:39, 2004 Sep 30 (UTC)

That usage is completely unknown to me. Can anyone point out which style guides follow it? Rmhermen 15:59, Sep 30, 2004 (UTC)

A quick google search turns up: ["When the date falls at the beginning or in the middle of the sentence, add another comma after the year to separate it from the rest of the sentence."] [October 31, 1517, is one of...] [When a date that includes commas does not fall at the end of a sentence, place the comma after the date] [Write a comma after the year and the day when they are in the sentence. ["July 4, 1776, is regarded as..." (and "Never use only one comma between a subject and its verb.") and others. A single-comma style is advocated at Omit second commas from dates and place descriptions". Like the "last comma in a list" it may be regional. Sharkford 18:26, 2004 Sep 30 (UTC)

Were it not for the immediately recognisable subject, the phrase "September 11, 2001 attacks" actually could mean "September 11, 2001" as an entity attacked something. Attacks of September 11, 2001 is more proper. zoney ♣ talk 18:36, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Just call the page September 11, 2001. If people want to create a page about other events which happened on the date, we can put a disambig link at the top. anthony (see warning) 18:42, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Better places for this topic

I think better places for this discussion are either the article's talk page (if it's just about the title) or the style guide (if it's a more general issue). Maurreen 01:25, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Kicking this legal threat upstairs

In the article Tony Robbins, there is/was the following text:

"Controversial issues regarding Tony Robbins:

In 2001 Robbins was divorced from his wife Becky. This disturbed some who had read his books (one of which is dedicated to her) and listened to his cassette programs, since both liberally dispense advice on how to have a happy marriage relationship. Robbins has, however, advocated that if one is truly unable to be happy in a marriage, one ought to improve it - possibly by leaving.

Dreamlife.com, a company founded by Tony Robbins failed and went bankrupt. This obviously shocked some who depended on Robbins for business and investment advice."

I am not the author of this text; it is part of the earliest version given on the article's history page, dated May 29, 2003 with author Jpb1968; I do not know if that was its creation date, or if it goes back further still. The last sentence of the marriage topic was added more recently, again not by me.

This text was block-deleted by an anon on Sept. 22 and I reverted it back in. It was anon-block-deleted again this morning, Sept. 27, and I reverted it again. It was then immediately deleted again, this time by a new user, User:RRIESQ, who called it false and defamatory, and put this on my talk page:

"Mr. Gary D:

You are requested to contact the Law Office of Lavely & Singer PC (310-556-3051 x247) with regard to defamatory content on wikipedia that you repeatedly have restored, and therefore posted, after deletion by our office on behalf of our clients. If you do not respond, formal action shall be required. Thank you. Lavely & Singer P.C."

I suspect this may be part of the the new-found attention WP has gained from the AP article about it that was posted on Yahoo. I have verified that Lavely & Singer is really a law firm in Century City, a toney section of Los Angeles, with about seventeeen lawyers. I know WP is very sensitive about legal threats, so I'm kicking this upstairs for whatever you want to do with it. --Gary D 22:15, Sep 27, 2004 (UTC)

cc:Jimbo Wales' user page

Jimbo is aware of this. He's just been talking to the lawyer on the phone. Angela . 22:52, Sep 27, 2004 (UTC)

You are requested to contact the law office; they are requested to state why they blank sections of a page next time. Their move. --Golbez 05:10, Sep 28, 2004 (UTC)

Article split

What shuld be done with a page that should be split? Prosimian has grown to be more about Strepsirrhini. I'd like to split the article in two. Should I cut-and-paste the majority of the text to Strepsirrhini, even though that detaches the majority of the text from its history? Should I move the page itself and then cut-and-paste the smaller amount? - UtherSRG 07:05, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Your first option sounds most reasonable. Just include the name of the page you are moving from/to in your edit summary. —Mike 03:16, Oct 4, 2004 (UTC)

Help with user 12.151.135.2 and Boston opera company edits

User 12.151.135.2 has since Sep 27th, made several (in my view) Inappropriate edits to Grammy Award for Best Classical Performance, Operatic or Choral, Boston Lyric Opera, Opera Boston, Opera Company of Boston. I've reverted changes to Grammy Award for Best Classical Performance, Operatic or Choral (because the content added didn't pertain to the article) and to Boston Lyric Opera (because of POV). The edits to Opera Boston and Opera Company of Boston are more problematic, I think they contain useful (but probably POV) content, so I don't want to simply revert them, but I'm not competent to edit them. Can someone help out with these two articles? As for user 12.151.135.2, I don't think he or she is a vandal, just someone unfamiliar with Wikipedia standards and practices who could probably do with some friendly advice. Paul August 15:50, Sep 28, 2004 (UTC)

Ok now 12.151.135.2's edits are beginning to look more like vandalism. I've reverted Boston Lyric Opera twice and that user has again removed all content about the opera company. Paul August 21:45, Sep 28, 2004 (UTC)

I've just used-up my third revert on Boston Lyric Opera. Should I refer this to Wikipedia:Vandalism in Progress? Paul August 21:58, Sep 28, 2004 (UTC)

Absolutely! There's no big need to sit and wait. If you see it happening, report it. - UtherSRG 03:10, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Vexatious and political use of VFD

While the deletion reform movement is still in stalemate, I'm more than a little worried about the increasingly political use of VFD to make political points and escalate edit wars. Does anyone have any bright ideas on stopping this? Mark Richards 17:42, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Good question. Practice wikilove. Attempt to follow existing policies even if they seem wrong, they often make more sense than you think. Relax. Enjoy all your editing including VfD, and take a Wikibreak anytime this gets too hard. Find some uncontroversial subject with a reasonable amount of work needed and return to it regularly. Intentionally visit controversial areas whenever you feel strong enough to help. Never take responsibility for anything you can't control. Pray for those who don't seem capable of any of the preceding if prayer is your thing.

Nothing will stop abuse of VfD, but these measures will IMO stop long-term escallation of it.

You'll notice I don't say anything above about fixing rules or procedures. IMO the worst rules will work with goodwill, and the best will fail without it. And as I said before, the rules aren't as bad as some think (although personally I would still like to make some improvements...!). Andrewa 21:05, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I'm relatively new here, and have spent some time working on fairly obscure topics. I couldn't find anything in the guidelines about how notable something has to be, and am honestly pretty disheartened. I know that my Stephen Bishop (cave explorer) page will get less than 400 Google hits, and feel pretty sure that someone is going to try to list it for deletion sooner or later. I thought that part of the joy of this site was being able to really dig deep into articles that hardly anyone would ever see, so that, if only one person is ever interested in who this person was, the information is there. I'm seriously thinking about stopping contributing because of the immense amount of energy that some people seem to be putting into tearing things down that, yes, are not mainstream, but are of interest to some. Intrigue 21:24, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I can't see why that article would be deleted; it's notable, it's very well written, and I've learned something from it thanks to you mentioning it. This is why I enjoy hitting Random sometimes, just to see all the unknown things already on Wikipedia. And it's now on my watchlist, so if anyone wants to delete it, they'll have to go through me. :) --Golbez 21:50, Sep 29, 2004 (UTC)

An obscure topic is not necessarily uncontroversial, as you have discovered. Work on obscure topics by all means, but my strong advice is still to find something uncontroversial to work on as well. People who work only on controversial articles don't often stay.

Reducing this sort of frustration was the whole reason for establishing the what's in, what's out page. There has also been a more recent attempt to establish a precedents page, which is a similar idea IMO. Sadly (to me) nobody has yet thought enough of either of them to include them in the VfD front matter, but it may still happen. The beauty of Wikipedia policies is that there are so many to choose from (;-> so WIWO was established to try to indicate actual practice not policy.

Anyway, a look at WIWO might give you some ideas for new articles that others think are in and which would interest you. Andrewa 01:45, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Take a look at what actually happens on VfD. Most of the articles that get listed get deleted, and most of them are deleted because they are very poor articles. I think the general disagreement between what might be called the "inclusionist" and "deletionist" factions is that inclusionists argue that keeping such articles does very little harm, and that they are seeds which others will expand into good articles; on the other hand, deleting them results in "biting the newbies." Deletionists judge differently. I would be astonished to see Stephen Bishop (cave explorer) listed for deletion, and stunned if it were actually delete as a result. It is not typical of the kind of page that lands on VfD. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 20:19, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I too would be astonished if an excellent article like Stephen Bishop (cave explorer) were ever nominated for VfD. For a minor historical personage, 400 Google hits is far, far more than sufficient. For many historical personages Google hits are not relevant at all. People know this. Generally the arguments on notability on VfD are about articles on people still living or on current events, not on the figures and events of the past (except when the article seems to be a hoax or there is some very strong POV involved or when it seems to be only genealogical vanity). There's a great difference between something being little-known but quite suitable for an encyclopedia article and something being non-notable or unencyclopedic. Jallan 21:27, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Split infinitive

...is currently today's featured article on the main page; also listed on featured article candidates and featured article removal candidates (see the talk page). Go figure (boldly, where no man/one has gone before).

(PS - this page is now 248k long, somewhat in excess of the 32k guideline - presumably some of it could be archived?) -- ALoan (Talk) 22:02, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Friends of Robert

Could someone who is not involved with circumcision and related articles please review recent contributions by Friends of Robert? In my opinion some of his comments to Theresa Knott and Acegikmo1 cross the line of what is acceptable behavior at Wikipedia. -- DanBlackham 06:51, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

My only involvement in this dispute was to involve theresa's views on Robert's RFC, and from what I can see here, there seems to be enough to warrant an RFC for further investigation. Hopefully this can be resolved amicably, as Friends of Robert seems to be slightly more cordial, but as obstinate as Robert, sadly. Johnleemk | Talk 13:14, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I'm 99% certain that friends of Robert is Robert Brookes. He slipped up almost from the word go, by using the same phrasing etc and he has continued to make the same slips as time has gone on.User:Jwrosenzweig is trying to talk to him on his talk page. Let's hope that he is sucsessful. Theresa Knott (The torn steak) 17:52, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Given his most recent comment to me, while I am continuing to attempt dialogue, I would not call myself optimistic that progress will be made. If Friends of Robert changes the way he chooses to talk to and about other editors, there is more hope: we shall see. Jwrosenzweig 22:52, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I have given up. I don't know if anyone was waiting to see what progress I coudl make, but if you were, I'd move on to whatever plan is next. Thanks, Jwrosenzweig 23:29, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Please note that he is now using the username Robert the Bruce Theresa Knott (The torn steak) 05:16, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I've asked him if he is willing to go to mediation. Let's hope he agrees. Theresa Knott (The torn steak) 08:33, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Watchlist problems

My watchlist has just reverted to the version from 6:55:15 (last change shown). Anyone else having problems out there? Filiocht 12:26, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I am seeing a similar "blanking" of my watchlist. - UtherSRG 13:49, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Seems fine now. - UtherSRG 14:38, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

My watchlist is not being updated at all since 02:05:27.--Etaonish 14:41, Sep 29, 2004 (UTC)

Mine is coming and going, always reverting back to 6:55:15 when not up to date. Filiocht 14:45, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Another thing I noticed is that it says "In the time period selected below, users have made all edits to articles". Strange. [[User:Norm|Nor^{m]] 14:48, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)}

Yes - I'm having trouble with my watchlist too! If I select "last 12 hours" it sort of works. If it's set to 1 day, it loses the Sept 30 changes. What's going on? Krupo 17:45, Sep 30, 2004 (UTC)

- The Simpsons article is also having problems with its history - unable to do a revert. Krupo 17:50, Sep 30, 2004 (UTC)

Announcing the creation of the U.S. Southern Wikipedians' notice board

A few of us have gotten together and made a our notice board to coordinate efforts and inform each other. If you're interested, just sign up at Wikipedia:U.S. Southern Wikipedians' notice board. Y'll come join us, ya hear? [[User:Neutrality|Neutrality (talk)]] 22:00, Sep 29, 2004 (UTC)

Is there a page listing the various notice boards? How many are there? I see Irish, Australian and Malaysian. Rmhermen 23:22, Sep 29, 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia:List of Wikipedian notice boards. Mike H 05:55, Sep 30, 2004 (UTC)

The Thai notice board was forgotten there - but it was created just 2 days ago anyway :-) andy 07:58, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Do you have to eat grits and have a double-barrelled christian name to join? ;)Dainamo 00:56, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

2001 invasion of Afghanistan

I tried asking this August 8 at Talk:Global protests against war on Iraq so I'm trying here: Is there any article similar to Global protests against war on Iraq with respect to protests against the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan? MathKnight and I have covered some of this ground in Post-September 11 anti-war movement, but that might not be the best place for some of this. -- Jmabel 00:51, Sep 30, 2004 (UTC)

There was less protest, so there's probably no separate page. National entities which were able to sell reactors to Iraq and whose leaders were able to profit from the "Oil for Food" money laundering scam protested less about Afghanistan, as there was no money to be made there. Things might have been different if the U.N. had started an "Opium for Food" program. - Émpire

Help request

I'm working on a page which explains the western land claims surrended by the original Thirteen Colonies in the early years of the American republic. As I've researched, it's become clear to me that there would be no better way to do this than to have a map. Is there anyone out there who knows how to do this, has software which is helpful, digs cartography or knows where I can find a public domain version of this material? I've found several examples on the web. My vomit draft of the page--did I mention it was a vomit draft?--is at User:Jengod/State_cessions. Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks.

User:Decumanus is reputed [9] to be a map whizz. Could ask him/her. --Tagishsimon

Cleanup

Cleanup is seriously full. (See Wikipedia:Cleanup/Leftovers) This is not a problem that has been building up for very long, it is a problem with the concept of cleanup. There are too many improperly formatted articles submitted to cleanup for the amount of people working on it. I don't have a solution that would be acceptable to many people, but that list is overwhelming. - [[User:Cohesion|cohesion ☎]] 09:14, Sep 30, 2004 (UTC)

Perhaps a category structure similar to the one now in use for stubs would help? Andrewa 22:15, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Has it helped for stubs? anthony (see warning) 23:00, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

In reply to Anthony, it's a bit early to call, it's a long term strategy. And it will be difficult to call anyway. We only have one Wikipedia, so we can't say what would have happened had we followed some other route. I admit I've made little personal use of the stub categories as of yet, but IMO this is the sort of direction in which we need to be headed. Wikipedia's growth shows no sign of levelling off. This is one strategy for dealing with that growth. Andrewa 00:24, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Duplicate date on Anniversary section of Main Page

The Main Page says "Recent days: September 29 – September 28 – September 28" at the bottom of the "Selected anniversaries" section. PhilHibbs 12:36, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I've changed it to "Recent days: September 29 – September 28 – September 27". 66.167.235.209 15:23, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Notifications of planned down time

Wikipedia was virtually unuseable from Tuesday evening (Pacific time) through most of Wednesday; if it even responded to my SAVE attempts (and didn't give me an error message), it took at least 5 minutes before the save took effect. When I brought this up on the English language mailing list, Anthere said that there was planned maintenance going on. If people are planning on doing maintenance which is going to majorly impact the useability of Wikipedia, could they please let us know in advance? Thanks. Rick K 18:50, Sep 30, 2004 (UTC)

Deletion precedent?

Quick announcement--should major-party candidates for national government (e.g. U.S. Congress, British Parliament, Japanese Diet, etc.) be article subjects, assuming they're not expected to win and aren't notable for other reasons? Weigh in at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Adam Smith (KY politician). [[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 21:38, Sep 30, 2004 (UTC)

Seems like this was only listed on VFD because it was a copyright violation. It should have been listed on Wikipedia:Possible copyright infringements, and the rewrite should have been put on a temp page. anthony (see warning)
Actually, I'm the one who listed it. When I did, it contained nothing but a campaign piece (probably cut and pasted from the candidate's own site), which was clearly not encyclopedic. I wouldn't have listed it in its current form. --Jpgordon 01:02, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)
- We have Wikipedia:Cleanup for situations like this. Read the deletion policy. anthony (see warning) 03:00, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Query?

Has the way links appear changed recently? i.e. weren't all links underlined? If this is the case a.) can i change it back on my screen and b.) where can i protest the change? I suffer from colour-blindness and find it very difficult to see the red links amongst the black text. [[User:Dmn|Dmn / Դմն ]] 23:54, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Looks like links are underlined for me right now. Which css are you using? anthony (see warning) 00:03, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

If you go to your preferences page (in the monobook skin, it's the link titled "preferences" at the top of the screen), and click on the "Misc. settings" tab, you should be able to check a box to underline links. Though how the box was unchecked in the first place, I wouldn't know. Anthony may be right that this is a css problem, if you've altered your monobook.css page at all. Also, I seem to recall that, under the classic skin (I think), there was a user setting that prevented stubs from being underlined, but that may be my poor memory. Jwrosenzweig 00:24, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I didn't alter the settings or the monobook.css. However the links have just changed back to their old form by themselves. Nevermind. Thanks for you help[[User:Dmn|Dmn / Դմն ]] 01:03, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I have my box unchecked and I'm still getting underlined links. It never did this until a few minutes ago. I even tried to clear my cache, but it didn't help. Is someone working on the css or system? I tried switching skins and it looks like this problem only happens with the MonoBook skin. —Mike 04:25, Oct 1, 2004 (UTC)

This has happened to me a couple of times. I found that switching my preferences to not underline links, then switching back and forcing a refresh fixing the problem. [[User:Aranel|Aranel ("Sarah")]] 18:08, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Stealing from Wikipedia?

This site seems to be stealing articles directly from Wikipedia and not giving any credit. Is that allowed?

It seems to have most of the articles, and they must update every so often.

So is that legal? Stealing information from a website, without giving them any credit? 69.68.63.96 01:06, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

They indicate that the articles are from Wikipedia on http://www.all-science-fair-projects.com/copyright.html The GFDL, under which Wikipedia is distributed, permits reproducing Wikipedia content under its terms. Nohat 01:39, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Ah, didn't see that page. Thanks for pointing it out. Actually, the page seems very obvious right now. Sorry for not looking into things and jumping to conclusions. 69.68.63.96 02:42, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

No worries. You're not the first to have made that mistake. It ought to be in the FAQ. Nohat 06:04, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC) See also Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks Nohat 06:07, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Heh! I'm amused that looking at their page for British English they've replaced the link to Cockney with [[Censored page]]! I wonder why that could be... (though they're quite happy with "Cockney" in the text without a link). -- Arwel 17:02, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Religion

Although Meta contains List of Wikipedians by religion, little is said of religions specific to Wikipedia. I've written a brief article about the role of religion in the Wikipedian community, which can be found at Religion and Wikipedia. --[[User:Eequor|ηυωρ]] 07:19, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Uh, Ninjas? -- Solitude 06:49, Oct 3, 2004 (UTC)

Soylent Green conumdrum

Wikipedia's article on Soylent Green primarily discusses the 1963 film. However the most common use of the term 'Soylent Green' today is in reference to the fictional product which is the main reveal at the end of the film. As such the lead paragraph of the article should mention both the film and the product, but I can't think of a way to do that without violating the spoiler warning. -- Solipsist 18:32, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Like, don't you want to discuss this on the article's talk page? — Frecklefoot | Talk 19:15, Oct 1, 2004 (UTC)

Possibly, but the problem isn't article specific. Its more about the spoiler tag and self reference. -- Solipsist 21:08, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Stick the spoiler tag at the very top. Or come to think of it, before the spoiler you can say just what you said here: "the most common use of the term 'Soylent Green' today is in reference to the fictional product which is the main reveal at the end of the film." -- Jmabel 22:01, Oct 1, 2004 (UTC)

Doh! You're right. Sometimes just phrasing a question carefully can show the answer. -- Solipsist 16:25, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Year articles

At Talk:1, there are a few Wikipedians who think that a better choice for articles 50 and less is for the number articles to be titled the number alone 20 and the year articles to be titled something like 20 A.D., as opposed to 20 (number) and 20. Does anyone have any comments?? (Please note that this is for 1 to 50 only, not 51 and above, which is where years should have no suffix and numbers should have the (number) suffix as agreed by everyone.) 66.245.114.60 20:28, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I think 20 A.D., etc. should redirect, but an awful lot of articles are already in existence and a lot of editors are already in the habit of doing it the way it is. If someone wants to change rather than just add, it's going to mean a commitment to go through existing articles (maybe bot-assisted) and make a lot of changes. -- Jmabel 22:05, Oct 1, 2004 (UTC)

20 A.D., 20 AD, 20 C.E. and 20 CE should all redirect. There was an idea to have cross references to other date systems - did anything ever happen there? The Recycling Troll 23:23, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I don't think redirects are needed, after all, there's not much links to the examples you provided. zoney ♣ talk 23:39, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

It wouldn't because of redirects, but so that people searching would be redirected, rather than getting the impression that the article does not exist. I think that 20AD is probably a more common way of saying year 20 than simply 20, it seems reasonable to redirect common ways of writing the dates. The Recycling Troll 17:25, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)

"Unmistakable message from God"

Didn't seem right to post this on images for deletion but I couldn't think of where else it could be mentioned. Image:GODvsBUSH.gif seems to be too pro-God, too anti-Bush and way too POV to have a place on here. It's not linked to by any articles in the main namespace as far as I am aware, though some people seem to have linked to from their user/talk pages.

May I suggest BJAODN? -- Graham ☺ | Talk 15:41, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Makes you think though... Mark Richards 17:20, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Might be funnier if it were true. However... --jpgordon 23:50, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Interesting. Agree it's not in any way related to building an encyclopedia! But Wikipedia:Images for deletion reads This page is only for listing images which are duplicates or otherwise unneeded. For cases of (possible) fair use, see Wikipedia:Fair use. For copyright infringements, use Wikipedia:Copyright problems. For licensing issues that are not copyright infringements, use Wikipedia:Possibly unfree images so there doesn't seem any way of dealing with this. And is there really any need to? Is it doing any harm? As long as anyone wants to use it on their user page and no article uses it, I say leave it alone.

If you really want to delete it, I guess you need to orphan it, which means negotiating with the user (I only see one now) who has linked to it. Once it's orphaned it can then be listed as an image for deletion. Andrewa 00:04, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia taboos?

Why is certain information taboo on Wikipedia? Shouldn't Wikipedia strive to be as complete as possible? I am specifically referring to things like the name of Kobe Bryant's accuser and the details of secret ceremonies. Taco Deposit | Talk-o Deposit 00:23, Oct 3, 2004 (UTC)

In such cases as this, it's not that we can't find out, especially in the former case. Maybe it's to avoid unnecessary propagation of such information on other forks of Wikipedia? [[User:Poccil|Peter O. (Talk)]] 06:07, Oct 3, 2004 (UTC)

The talk pages make it clear what issues are/were involved. There was even a vote with regard to the sports guy thing. Individual editors who care about those particular artices make decisions regarding them. If you have a problem with them, you should participate on the talk pages, and if you feel you aren't getting any where then you can recommend the page be sent to Peer Review, Clean Up, Requests for Comment, etc. I don't see the issues of these three articles you've brought up as being related. func(talk) 10:01, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)

VP section colouring

Being bold, but hopefully not going too far, I've colouring the header section of this (misc) section of the VP. With the sections combined (as I tend to view it) it makes it difficult to scroll down and spot the change of section. With colours for each section (perhaps even colour-coded slightly) I reckon it looks a bit better. Sorry if anyone doesn't like it - it should be easy enough to change back. If it is liked it could then be done for the other sections. violet/riga (t) 09:41, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Incidentally, the village pump menu template doesn't seem to show, though it didn't before. Is this a limit to the number of inclusions or a mistake in the code somewhere? violet/riga (t) 09:46, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The first thing you said. MediaWiki allows the same template to be transcluded at most five times. (See: m:Help:Template#Multiple inclusion of the same template in a page.) HTH, • Benc • 10:43, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Looks fine. Incidentally, this is one comment perhaps appropriate for the Wikipedia talk:Village pump page. I still think we'd get a much more managable no./distribution of comments if we scrapped the miscellaneous section and added one or two more clearly defined headings. zoney ♣ talk 23:53, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Text alignment: left-aligned or fully justified

I have just noticed that paragraphs in articles are fully justified rather than merely left-aligned ('ragged right'). I don't know if this is a recent change to the Wikipedia general style or if I did not notice it before. Does anybody else think it is not as good as left aligned?

As it is part of the preferences everyone can set it the way he wants. However I earlier also had a aligned article, and after doing a Shift-Reload it showed ragged-right as it should according to my preferences. Might be that caching does not remember if it saved a aligned or a non-aligned version. andy 13:33, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Ah. Good clue. I tinkered with a few things and rebooted. I now see that it is gone back to ragged right. I don't know what the problem was but it is fixed now. That was before I found the preference setting for 'Justify paragraphs. It is unchecked, as it should be. If it happens again, I will look there first. Thanks.

FAC protected?

Looks like User:Raul654 has locked the wp:fac page. There's an {inuse} tag put at the top but that was hours ago and there's no mention of why it's still locked down. Any pending changes/problems I'm not aware of or did he just forget to unprotect it? violet/riga (t) 12:59, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Fixed by User:Lord Emsworth. violet/riga (t) 13:26, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Clusty search engine for Wikipedia

I saw a blurb about a new search engine on Slashdot. It included an encyclopaedia search, and I immediately suspected that they were reusing Wikipedia material. They were, but not like most other reusers. Instead, they have simply indexed the database in a clever way, and provide a very smart search that clusters search results in categories. Try for example: a search for "cat". It identifies categories such as "cartoon", "breed", "team/league" etc. The actual search result items are links directly to the master Wikipedia server, so there are no issues with their database being out of date. — David Remahl 14:17, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Cool! Mark Richards 15:14, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Nautical wikilinks

I was trying to edit Nautical, but find that clicking on it goes automatically to Wiktionary. How do I edit this page to add content? Thanks, Mark Richards 15:49, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Go to the edit page for any other article, and replace the title in the URL with the redirect you want to edit. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Nautical&action=edit Goplat 18:00, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I've turned it into a "soft redirect". It now just links to Wiktionary rather than going to it. [[User:Norm|Norm]] 20:23, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Sanity check

Before I make a faux pas on VfD, are things like SNES Screenshot Gallery and Sega Master System Screenshot Gallery generally considered encyclopedic enuf to be included? Niteowlneils 04:22, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

"Somewhat of a..."

I have always learned that constructions like "somewhat of a bore" are incorrect - in this case, "something of a bore" or "somewhat boring" would be correct. See for instance "Common Errors in English". I haven't found any sources supporting the "somewhat of a..." form, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it might be correct in the UK. Any comments? In the U.S. at least, "somewhat of a..." is often used but is considered incorrect.
Reuben 08:26, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Considered incorrect by who? And why should be listen to them? I would avoid these constructions not because they're wrong, but because they're a little bit informal, colloquial, and awkward. Also, they're a little too wishy-washy. But wrong? I think not. Nohat 08:43, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Could use help please!!!

Hi. My family and i have just relocated to spain where i am looking to set up a business retailing seafood to majour supermarket chains. If anyone knows of anywhere that i can find a list of adresses for any supermarkets headquarters in spain please contact me at buffyfan4ever@hotmail.com (sorry, this is my da<ughters address as i have yet to have my home computer connected to the internet) thanx