Jump to content

Wikipedia:Village pump archive 2004-09-26

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by JohnOwens (talk | contribs) at 08:00, 21 May 2003 (confusing misspelling; hope you don't mind, Tannin). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

File:Village pump.JPG

Related pages: Mailing lists - IRC - IM a Wikipedian - Talk pages

Welcome, newcomers and baffled oldtimers! If you have a question about Wikipedia and how it works, please place it at the bottom of the list, and someone will attempt to answer it for you. (If you have a question about life, the universe and everything, go to the reference desk instead.)

Before asking a question, check if it's answered by the Wikipedia:FAQ or other pages linked from Wikipedia:Help.

NOTE - questions and answers will not remain on this page indefinitely (otherwise it would very soon become too long to be editable). After a period of time with no further activity, information will be moved to other relevant sections of the wikipedia (such as the FAQ pages) or placed in the Wikipedia:Village pump archive if it is of general interest, or deleted. Please consider dating and titling your discussions so as to facilitate this.

Moved discussion

See the archive for older moved discussion links.


The words infamous is not NPOV. I am considering removing usage of the word in wikipedia, and sometimes replacing it with a more NPOV word (except in cases of fictitious accounts, which I will leave alone).

  • Lucy's infamous football which Charlie Brown has never kicked would stay
  • Some of the most infamous examples [of President for Life] include Idi Amin, Jean-Bédel Bokassa... would instead read Some notable examples [of President for Life] include Idi Amin, Jean-Bédel Bokassa...
  • The ILLIAC IV was one of the most infamous supercomputers ever becomes The ILLIAC IV was a celebrated and noteworthy supercomputer.

It is going to take some thought to get the sentences right, but the word infamous is overused and not NPOV. However, before I even set out on the project, I wanted to get some other opinions. Am I just over reacting? Am I not seeing the value of the word? Can the word be NPOV? Kingturtle 19:46 18 May 2003 (UTC)

then what about other subjective words that can be POV depending on use such as adorable, outstanding. Take Yamamoto Isoroku the intro says he is outstanding general. The trouble is how the word infamous is used not the word itself. -- Taku 20:04 18 May 2003 (UTC)
I agree - infamous means 'famous for a (morally) bad reason', and thus is inherently non-NPOV, in all situations.
James F. 20:05 18 May 2003 (UTC)
Dictionary.com defines infamous as meaning "having an exceedingly bad reputation". I think that's NPOV. CGS 20:15 18 May 2003 (UTC)
I agree with CGS. We may want to avoid "x is bad", but we should be able to say "x is usually considered bad" or "x is infamous", cautiously of course, only in very pronounced cases. - Patrick 01:04 19 May 2003 (UTC)
Infamous is a perfectly good word to use where appropriate. I see absolutely no reason for advocating a kind of Wikipedia NPOV newspeak. (Reminds me of my argument with User:Isis about "unfortunate death") Mintguy 02:11 19 May 2003 (UTC)
I think you're going a bit NPOV crazy here, Kingturtle. If you think about it, "notable" is POV. You may think it's notable, but I may not give a monkey's. If something is infamous to the general public, I think we should say infamous. If something is notable to the general publlic, I think we should say notable. CGS 21:25 19 May 2003 (UTC)

Please see Image talk:Philadelphia.jpg. Is the copyright requirement at http://openphoto.net/doc/html/license.html in concert with the GNU Free Documentation License? - Zoe 01:45 19 May 2003 (UTC)

I've discovered quite an annoying problem recently, concerning edits that include special characters and I'm wondering whether this is known more generally? The examples I've encountered has transcribed characters such as "Å" into "AA" and "ü" into "u:". This is thoroughly annoying, and what's worse it has also broken established links to other articles. At first I suspected merely carelessness by the individual editors, but now I'm more inclined to believe that it's some form of configuration problem on their systems. Examples include:

All these changes broke established links, but the changes has been reverted. Does anyone have more information on this, and has there been any action taken to stifle the effects of this malice? -- Mic 08:12 19 May 2003 (UTC)

Grepping some logs.... Aha! Links (0.97pre3; Linux 2.4.18-6mdk i586) IIRC Links has some problems with editing text with non-ASCII chars, particularly if running in console mode. At least it's trying to convert the characters to an ASCII representation instead of random binary garbage, but it's still a problem. --Brion 08:31 19 May 2003 (UTC)
Coincidentally, this is usually closely related to something I just added a note about on Wikipedia:Special characters. It seems to happen mostly when people copy the text of the page into a word processor kind of application, do something there they can't do in the browser itself, like a search & replace or whatever, then copy & paste that back into the edit window. Often, it seems, even though the browser itself might be able to deal with the special characters, either the WP program or the clipboard itself doesn't, and you end up with "u:" instead of "ü", etc. My own particular rant on the page was about how this can mangle HTML markup, because some programs will automatically "help" by replacing all the quotes with "smart quotes", including in HTML tags, which is where the real damage is done. However, despite its strong connection with certain products related to Bill Gates, I don't think any actual malice is usually intended. ;) -- John Owens 08:34 19 May 2003 (UTC)
In light of Brion's comment added during edit conflict, I'll footnote the above by saying OK, that probably wasn't the case in these particular instances, though. -- John Owens 08:34 19 May 2003 (UTC)

On my work, where I suspect the Windows NT-version run is rather old, due to a policy of not doing unneccessary updates, I have noticed a similar phenomenon. If I, in a www-interface for e-mail similar to the wiki-interface with text-boxes, open a received letter, intending to forward it, then non-danish characters are conversed to their "&something;" equivalents on save. I.e. I don't notice it unless I make a temporary save. It's even more irritating when less usual characters (as English quotation marks or em-dashes) are converted to "&digits;". I suspect I've seen traces of the same behavior here. Is it, beside the more serious problem User:Mic addresses, also a problem if <<Åland>> is converted to <<&Aring;land>>?
-- Ruhrjung 09:01 19 May 2003 (UTC)

I'll step up to the plate here and admit that the guilty party in the cases mentioned by 'mic' is me: 'cimon avaro'. No malice was intended however. The problem seems to have stemmed from not always remembering to set the character-set to ISO 8859-1 (the default is 7 bit ASCII). I twiddled it so that it is set automatically on launch of the program. So far so good, knock on wood. Do let me know if the problem persists with edits I make. -- Cimon Avaro on a pogo stick 06:21 21 May 2003 (UTC)


I'm planning to include one or two tables but, as I'm not very good at that sort of thing, I don't know exactly how to go about it. In particular, I'd need headings not just for the columns (i e at the top of the table) but also on the left-hand side for each row. I had a look at false friend and cover version, but there the left-hand column I'm talking about is missing. Can anybody refer me to instructions on how to do it or a similar table which I could then copy and adapt? Thanks in advance, --KF 12:34 19 May 2003 (UTC)

Is this approximately what you're looking for? (Please delete at least the table once you've seen it, don't want to clutter the Pump up too much.) -- John Owens 12:39 19 May 2003 (UTC)
Have a look at the tables on the country pages (e.g. Australia), the element tables (e.g. Beryllium), and the taxoboxes (e.g. Crow). What exactly do you want to do? -- Tim Starling 12:46 19 May 2003 (UTC)
John and Tim, thanks a lot. I've moved the table to the Sandbox, where I'll experiment a bit. My tables will contain words only, no images, so I think now I know what to do. It's nice to get answers so fast. All the best to both of you, --KF 12:54 19 May 2003 (UTC)

I've noticed that a few times when I am editing a text in the editing Wikipedia browswer window that the page would get saved inadvertently &#8212 probably by hitting the enter key on my numberpad &#8212 though I think it happened otherwise and I haven't figured out why. I was wondering &#8212 why does it default to the save page (that seems to be highlighted when I open an editing page) rather than the Show Preview button? Wouldn't it make sense to highlight the preview button, either for these accidents or to prevent people from uploading minor edits by default when they should be previewing their pages until they get them right? &#8212 Alex756 12:15 20 May 2003 (UTC)

I use enter to submit pages all the time. I've never accidentaly submitted a page by pressing enter. At most this could be a user preference, off by default. -- Tim Starling 00:45 21 May 2003 (UTC)
The only time I have trouble is when I am using my laptop, which has a touch pad. When I get tired, I will mis-navigate my finger on the touch pad in such a way that I tell the computer to go forward to the next page. And POWWIE, I've posted my unfinished edit. It happens to me about three times a week, usually many hours past my appropriate bedtime. Kingturtle 00:51 21 May 2003 (UTC)

Could someone that knows something about quantum mechanics or such take a look at the contributions of User:Stupidmoron? I don't know anything about this subject, but the first change this user made had the comment "some vandalism." As far as I can tell, the information is on valid subjects, but I can't tell if the information is valid. MB

All User:Stupidmoron's contributions were fine (except for an unfortunate spelling error). I don't think "stupidmoron" quite understands the stir his/her edits created. Hopefully we haven't scared this intelligent contributor away. -- Tim Starling 00:45 21 May 2003 (UTC)

Anyone feel like writing Chelsea Flower Show, since it's in the news? -- Tarquin 19:22 20 May 2003 (UTC)

It's not normally my cup of tea, but I have a spare half hour. I'll take it up. Where do I go when I have something decent to submit it for the front page as a "in the news" item? CGS 19:28 20 May 2003 (UTC).
Here: Current events. --Menchi 22:21 20 May 2003 (UTC)


I've written more than a stub (dates, short history, external links... well, have a look), but is this enough for a current events article? CGS 22:23 20 May 2003 (UTC).
The article's got everything I can think of: history, nowadays, awards... But the intro seems so short. But since I never attended a flower show, I'm not sure what should be added. You're now a quasi-expert on this show, maybe you can think of something? --Menchi 23:16 20 May 2003 (UTC)

If there is no limit to how offensive we can get on wikipedia, then there should be no restrictions on offensive user names. Kingturtle 00:24 21 May 2003 (UTC)

Offensive content is found in potentially offensive article. You wouldn't (expect to) find offensive content in an article about, say, yellow. Offensive usernames, however, may be owned by users who edit any page, including yellow; the edit history of yellow thus becomes offensive. However, if an offensively-named user wants to only edit offensive articles, that might be acceptable...or not... --Geoffrey 01:31 21 May 2003 (UTC)
KT is, probably deliberately for rhetorical effect, missing the distinction between facts presented being found offensive by some people, and gratuitously provoking offense with non-informational elements of presentation. The first case is defensible, as it is our mission to be informative and our goal to present facts in a balanced, neutral fashion as much as possible; if some people will take offense no matter what, that is their problem. The second case is not defensible, as being able to sign one's edits as "Throbbing Monster Cock" etc is not in any way related to the mission of an encyclopedia. It adds no content, but subtracts productivity as people fight over it instead of working on articles. If such deliberately provocative users gum up the works, the project is not required to put up with it. Now, someone with such a pseudonym is more than welcome to make derivitive works under the GFDL license -- it's a free encyclopedia after all -- but we don't have to keep them around. --Brion 02:36 21 May 2003 (UTC)
To be honest, I am really working through this distinction in my head. Why is gaping anus allowed in an article, but I can't be User:Gaping Anus? Kingturtle 02:41 21 May 2003 (UTC)
This is exactly the kind of response which has driven some people to oppose the nickname policy. However, as Brion has said, there is a substantial difference between the two. If we allow users named "gaping anus", we gain no valuable information, yet we are likely to lose contributors and readers. Allowing this (or an equivalent phrase) in articles that inform the reader about a certain subject (in this case, goatse.cx), on the other hand, improves our encyclopedia. If, at the end of the day, we can say that Wikipedia has a comprehensive, non-trolling article about the phenomenon that is goatse.cx, I think that is quite an accomplishment. I for one have already learned quite a bit from that article. --Eloquence 03:14 21 May 2003 (UTC)
Out of personal curiosity, what have you learned from the article? Kingturtle 04:23 21 May 2003 (UTC)
I was not aware of the other pictures on the site, because frankly, I immediately closed it when I first visited it and then have only used it to shock others a couple of times (what has been done to you, do unto others at least twice ;). I had no idea there was also an IRC server, and I found the throatse.cx parody amusing. I will gladly explain again to you my main point: Most people do not want to visit goatse.cx. It's a shock site. Still, many people who have visited it may be curious about its further contents and history. We can provide this information without requiring the reader to visit the site. It may not be the most important information in Wikipedia, but hey, we have information about every Disney character out there, so I don't see why we shouldn't have a comprehensive article about a shock site. --Eloquence 04:37 21 May 2003 (UTC)
Ditto on the value of the content - always wondered what the slashdot sniggering was all about, but didn't really want to explore it first, uh, hand... :-) Stan 03:29 21 May 2003 (UTC)

The point Kingturtle is trying to make, I think, is precisely that there is indeed "a distinction between facts presented being found offensive by some people, and gratuitously provoking offense with non-informational elements of presentation". He would agree that "the first case is defensible, as it is our mission to be informative" and he would agree that "the second case is not defensible". However, he is not such a fool as to think that any and every fact presented in an article must be there only for its ostensible purpose, which is to inform and educate. What Kingturtle is saying is that there is a difference between presenting the relevant facts in order to inform and educate on the one hand, and presention of things which happen to be factual under the pretence of "informing and educating", when in truth the clear and only purpose is to shock and/or offend.

Kingturtle brilliantly demonstrated the truth of this by writing what was essentially the same article on a different and non-offensive topic, at Microsoft.com. When we look at that same entry, shorn of it's offensive shock value, we can immediately see that its level of detail and style of presentation is inappropriate. Tannin 07:49 21 May 2003 (UTC)

Goatse.cx is a poorly-structured article in desperate need of rewriting, yes. What that has to do with demanding that warnings be added about "offensive" material, I don't know. --Brion 07:58 21 May 2003 (UTC)
Not much of a point, without a goatse article to complete the comparison, though, is it? Microsoft's raison d'etre (pardon my lack of diacritics) is not its website. Goatse.cx's is. Which of the logical fallacies would this be, now? -- John Owens 07:59 21 May 2003 (UTC)

Move Article & Redirect

Is it true that we cannot move an article if there is an existing redirect by the desired title, even if after we deleted the redirect's content?

If so, so what do we do in this case? Often redirect actually contains a more suitable title. --Menchi 01:37 21 May 2003 (UTC)

List the redirect on Votes for Deletion, and if it's justified someone will come along and delete it for you (taking care to preserve the history) so you can recreate it. Tannin

I have a 1881 book called The Young Folks' Cyclopedia of Persons and Places by John D. Champlin, Jr. It was published by Henry Holt and Company, NY. What is the copyright status of something like this? Would I be able lift portions into wikiarticles, the way we can with 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica? Kingturtle 05:50 21 May 2003 (UTC)

Yup, no problem, see public domain. The question is, do you want to? Young folks' interests have changed a bit in the last 122 years .. --Eloquence 05:58 21 May 2003 (UTC)
Something that old is definitely in the public domain and, legally speaking, material could be included into Wikipedia. (See Wikipedia:Public domain resources.) Keep in mind of course that old material (including the 1911 EB) can be problematic: information is out of date and needs to be cross-checked with more recent sources, strange points of view abound which need NPOVing. If there is useful material though, by all means make use of it. (If it has pictures that could be scanned, those could be useful too on historical subjects.) --Brion 06:05 21 May 2003 (UTC)
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Village_pump_archive_2004-09-26&oldid=945463"