Wikipedia:Suggestion box (resolved)

This is the archive of resolved complaints from Wikipedia:General complaints. See Wikipedia:General complaints (unresolved) for entries that were archived without resolution.

List of archive sub-pages

• /group1 (first 50 sections moved to the "Resolved" page)
• /group2 (second 50 sections moved to the "Resolved" page)
• /group3 (sections 101 to 150 moved to the "Resolved" page)

Resolved items not yet archived

U.S. Supreme Court Nominees

Not a complaint, just a content suggestion. The article on possible Bush Supreme Court nominees is very good. I suggest adding another name to the "short list": United States Circuit Judge Richard Allen Griffin of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Before his confirmation to the federal bench in June 2005, Judge Griffin served on the Michigan Court of Appeals for about 17 years.

This could be added to the article yourself (edit this page tab). This page does not concern content of articles. --moxon 18:00, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

viewing revisions

Hi,

I believe that, other than the author's comments, there is no way to view the actual changes that are made from one version to the next. Some way of automatically viewing this would be very useful.

Thanks,

Aldo

www.agcsystems.com

If you go to the history tab for the page, you can select any two radio buttons next to edits and then press the "Compare selected versions" button near the top of the page. I thought you needed javascript enabled for this to work, but I just tried disabling javascript (in Konqueror) and it still worked. Just tried it in Lynx (a text-mode browser) and it works there too.-gadfium 02:43, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

I could find no link for reporting data errors.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaghetti_squash

All other web sites say to microwave the squash for 10 to 15 minutes. http://www.fabulousfoods.com/features/featuring/spagsquash.html http://www.wholehealthmd.com/refshelf/foods_view/1,1523,222,00.html http://www.kraftfoods.com/recipes/SaladsSideDishes/VegetablesSideDishes/CheesySpaghettiSquash.html

Yours says "When microwaving" "two hours and ten minutes."

If somebody microwaved for 2 hours 10 mintutes it would cause a fire.

I could find no link for reporting data errors.

Yours,

Bob

This could be fixed yourself (at the article tab on "edit this pag"), or check the articles "discussion / history" tabs for detail.

Islam vandalised

I use Wikipedia as a general source for stuff and when I was looking up "Jahiliyya" today there was a very offensive statement about Muslims being Satan at the top of the article. I went to "edit this page" to get rid of it but I was unable to figure out how. If someone else knows could they possibly fix it b/c it's very unnessary and ugly.

This was vandalism to the template about Islamic topics. It was fixed five minutes after the vandalism occurred.-gadfium 02:37, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Suggestion to Improve Wikipedia

I don't know if this has been suggested, but it would be useful if you could comment on articles and say what could be added to make the article better

• You can! Click on the "discussion" tab at the top of the article, and then "edit this page", add your comments to the bottom, and click on "Save page" at the bottom of the page. Even better, you could add things to the article yourself by editing the article. You can leave a message on my talk page if you have any questions. Ground Zero | t 21:24, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Hostile message waiting, first time I came to Wikipedia

Something isn't right here. I just accessed Wikipedia for the first time (ever), and two things immediately that were obviously wrong.

I saw a notice that said "You have new messages." Curious, I clicked on it and saw:

(1) A message that "This IP address, 207.200.116.200, is registered to America Online (AOL)." VERY CURIOUS, since I'm not on AOL -- I'm using Internet Explorer on Charter Cable (ISP), and found the Wikipedia article on a Google search for "Henry Hub."

(2) Another message to me that "You have recently vandalized a Wikipedia article...." How did I do that? I've never even viewed anything on Wikipedia before...!!

I'd heard a number of good things about Wikipedia. Apparently, what I've heard was wrong. What a freaking mess.

If anyone can provide an explanation why I received this hostile/idiotic reception on my first attempt to view a Wikipedia article, I'd appreciate your explanation.

Michael D. Jenkins, CPA [email protected]

• That IP address is registered to an AOL proxy server, which you might be going through to access the internet. Check the proxy server settings on your web browser. And don't take the vandalism message personally - it just means the previous person to use that IP address vandalised some articles, not you, but there is no other way to communicate with them. Please consider registering an account, and sticking around for just a bit longer :) --inksT 05:34, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

I do use AOL and I found this disconcerting the first few times it happened to me until I read the main page carefully and figured out why. You need to remember that if you are not signed in under a User Name, Wikipedia sees "you" as the IP address of either your computer, or the proxy server that you happen to be accessing the Internet through. If it is a proxy server, "you" inherit the sins of whoever has used that proxy server before you. As inks says, do not take it personally, because they are not talking to "you", and you can avoid the messages by getting and using an account name. 6SJ7 15:08, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Confusion caused by the word "through"

I don't want to sound pedantic, or anti-american here, but there are millions of people outside america who speak english, and to whom the word "through" in place of the word "to", eg. numbers 16 through 25, is incredibly confusing. Just a thought in terms of article writing..

Why is it confusing? You mean "through" is not used that way in other countries? Or that it means something else? And how would anyone in the U.S. know that? I do not fully know or understand many of the ways that English words are used differently in countries outside the U.S., and I suspect most of the people outside the U.S. do not fully know or understand many of the usages we have here, either. 6SJ7 19:36, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree it's an odd and rarely used phrase (to my ears anyway)- and is probably especially difficult for people with English as a second language. Diversity is something you have to live with in Wikipedia. --Commander Keane 09:07, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Diversity is indeed something you have to live with, and it is a good thing, but I thought (from something I read on Wikipedia) that we are all supposed to write in the "flavor" (or flavour!?) of English that we are familiar with and that something should not be edited simply because "that is how we say things here." I can tell you that I have puzzled over several British-isms in Wikipedia, and even when the meaning is clear I often think "Gee, that's an odd way of saying this..." before realizing (realising!?) that for the person who wrote it, it's not odd at all, because that's how it's done where they are. As for "through," as I suggested before, I never know that was a confusing usage to people outside the U.S. The problem is that if you say "items seven to twelve" some people in the U.S. aren't always completely clear on whether you are including item twelve, though they should be. I think that is why this usage of "through" has developed as it has. In some circumstances, some people would instead say "up to and including item twelve," and to be really reduntant, some would say "up THROUGH and including item twelve." But not outside the U.S., I suppose. 6SJ7 16:01, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Well this is all fair enough I suppose. Maybe it would be easier if the word through or to was just replaced with the symbol " - "

As you and Keane say, we're all supposed to write in the flavor of English that we're comfortable with, and consequentially I guess we're all supposed to get used to reading different flavors of English. There's no fix for this, it's just an attribute of reading Wikipedia. Tempshill 21:17, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Timeline of Low Temperature technology.

Why is it that James Morrison and Thomas Mort are not included in the timeline? THeir use of technology was new,revolutionary and practical in this field and are included in other references in Wikipedia.

Be bold in updating pages and add them as appropriate, please. Tempshill 21:20, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Post-Colonial Featured Articles

I understand that the English wiki portal will naturally be more apt to feature articles from British and American history, but it seems that there have been so many featured articles as of late that cater to the hegemonic ideology of historicity and historical importance. Let's see some more featured articles from world culture!

"The hegemonic ideology of historicity and historical importance?" Wow. As a resident of one of those overbearing big-English-speaking countries you mention, I might take offense, if I understood what you were saying.  :) 6SJ7 15:51, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Accusations of systemic bias are frequent here, for reasons you already understand. The way to feature more articles from "world culture" is to polish some of them into excellent articles. One ongoing effort to do this is at Wikipedia:Collaboration of the week, where in the weekly voting there is an effort to try and focus attention on areas of human knowledge that are poorly served on Wikipedia at present. Tempshill 21:23, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

2nd time this has happened:

Got TOTALLY blocked out - twice. Also heard that this site is experiencing some technical problems. Tried to access this site ALL DAY today. Thought my terminal had crashed, server had a glitch,etc. Had to go through a sister site to get back on this site. The first time this happened, was just after I was welcomed to be a Wikipedian. Had a "Borg"-like designation then, had it terminated to avoid its use by anyone trying to be, what someone told me, be a sockpuppet.

This is the 2nd time this has happened.

In both incidents, I went online to access this site, only it 'timed out', or will NOT come online, except when, as stated, went to it via a sister site.

Did this site get assaulted by a virus, Trojan horse ? Two nights ago, I had heard that there is a really nast bug that will turn a computer into a hi-tech paperweight, unless a NEW hard drive, etc. is installed to replace that destroyed by this bug. Can't confirm, nor deny this.Martial Law 08:00, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

I hope I had not inconvienced anyone. If so, I apologise for this. I've never had this happen to me twice in so short a time period. Hope this was'nt caused by a bug.Martial Law

The thing with Wikipedia is that it is one of the most popular pages on the internet (it ranks around 30 I think) but it is also run as a non-profit. Where all the other companies have huge amounts of cash to purchase servers for, wikipedia has to do with donations. So that means, from time to time, it will be slow or even down. Hard fact of Wikipedia-life. gkhan 12:49, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

m:Wikimedia servers will be of interest to you. And here is a wiki called OpenFacts where, when Wikipedia is slow or down, people edit the page to mention this, so you can see whether it's just you or not. There aren't any computer viruses that destroy hard disks. Tempshill 21:29, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

There are however computer viruses that seriously mess up data on hard disks. I would trust that the powers that be in Wiki admindom have some serious malware protection kept continuously up-to-date. AlMac|^(talk) 19:56, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Rajput

Although I understand that you are trying to mediate the situation on the Rajput article, but talking academically, it has gone to the flames.

I followed the discussion for some time, but I saw how one side was just arguing while one side was trying to cite evidence. Although, Shivraj was not the most elegant or articulate of debaters, however neither were the other boys, they never cited any references, not one.

In a South Asian Studies environment, the sentence “Rajputs are followers of all four major religions of the sub-continent Hinduism, Islam, Christianity and Sikhism.” This statement would never hold up since there is a lack of understanding what is a Jati, Caste and Varna system is.

I did my thesis on Rajputs for graduate studies at the University of Toronto, under the fmaous Harvard Professor for Indian and Hindu Studies, Dr. Joseph T. O’Connell, whom I am still in touch with today. However I als did my thesis on the Rajputs because I happen to be one. When I showed this discussion page to some of my colleagues who happen to be Paksitani and Muslim, they ridiculed it since even they clearly stated the Islam does not recognise Hindu castes. I don’t take offence to it, since it makes sense, these are two distint cultures.

It brings to mind the article : The Origins of Our Caste System in Vedic Times - Brahmins By Sudheer Birodkar:

“Caste is an institution which is truely Hindu (Indian) in character. So much so that even the Concise Oxford Dictionary defines it as, Hindu hereditary class, with members socially equal, united in religion, and usually following same trades, having no social intercourse with persons of other castes. The word caste itself is derived from the Portuguese word 'Casta' which means pure or chaste. In the Indian lexion we refer to caste by the words 'Varna' meaning colour and 'Jati' which is derived from the root syllable 'Ja' which means 'to be born'. But why does the caste system that prevails mainly among the Hindus, also exists in a subconscious manner amongst Muslims in India (Pakistan and Bangla Desh) as also among the Christians and Sikhs in India?”…….. http://www.hindubooks.org/sudheer_birodkar/hindu_history/castevedic.html

Also: Islam And Caste Inequality Among Indian Muslims By Yoginder Sikand countercurrents.org 15 February, 200 http://www.countercurrents.org/sikand150204.htm

The claims and arguments presented in the discussion by the other side were not only weak, but at many times insulting. Also, never were references cited, no academic works etc. Honestly, this definition would not hold against any criticism in an academic environment or debate. I am simply being honest.

The Caste system was such that if a Rajput did something that was dishonourable, he could loose his status and become a Jat (Dhillon, B.S. (1994), `History and Study of the Jats', Beta Publishers Inc., Ottawa, Canada, I also happen to know this author while doing research at the University of Toronto for Indian studies). Thus Jats are defined into two terms, Asal Jats and non-Asal Jats. Non-asal Jats may be descended from Rajputs who lost their Jati. If a Rajput converted, he was considered an outcaste. References of Kings losing their Jati or Caste can even be seen in the Srimad Bhagvatam an example of this being during the story of Vishwamitra where Vishwamitra elevated himself to Brahm-Rishi from being a Raj-Rishi, also a certain king had become a Chandal due to a curse and therefore an outcaste, Vishwamitra preformed sacrifices to allow him to still enter heaven. Anyways, that is a bit off topic but a good example.

This group also made erroneous claims about Rajput history, even to the point that Wikipedia is the only source in the world that claims Jodhabai being a Janjua Rajput, when the rest of the world and history books all state that she was a princess of Jaipur, sister of Man Singh, and married to Akbar. The rulers of Jaipur trace their ancestry from Kush the son of Ram and are the head of the clan known as Kachawas. You can also see the references by the family themselves: http://www.royalfamilyjaipur.com/j_rul.htm or for a referemce to who Jodhabai was you can even see it here http://www.4to40.com/discoverindia/places/index.asp?article=discoverindia_places_jaipur

I find it incredible that the ones who yell the loudest get there way on Wikipedia. This article has only shown that and also that the claims for Encyclopedia standard and academic standard are not enforced and simply are lip service. I am honestly concerned. If this had been a site which was completely in control of the Pakistanis, then I could understand. However, if this site was in control of Arab or Iranian Muslims or a Secular Western Academic authors, then I would expect for some level of honesty and respect to another person’s culture.

The argument began because Muslims were not being recognized as Rajputs. Everyone knows that there are Muslims that may be descended from Rajputs since it took place in History, however to claim to be one and be descended from one are two different things. Being a Rajput requires religious obligations and rites demanded by Hinduism.

The Phulkian states of the Sikh aristocracy also claim Rajput ancestry and in doing so have built numerous Hindu temples which can be seen today, not just in Punjab but extending all the way into Jahri Pani, Tehri Garhwal. However, even if the academic world recognizes who I am and my links with the Sikh families in question (since we are talking about blood ties and family) the other side simply would try to use the Sikhs as an example without any consideration in understanding the dynamics, history or culture of the Sikhs. They obviously never read the Pakistani publication,

"The Real Ranjit Singh" by a Pakistani historian, Syed Fakeer Waheeduddin, the great grandson of Fakeer Azizuddin, Maharaja's Foreign Minister.

Neither have they read “A matter of Honour; An Account of the [British] Indian Army, Its officer and Men” by Philip Mason isbn:0333-41837-9

“Armies of the Raj” by Byron Farwell ISBN 0-393-30802-2

Even during recruitment, the British looked at the Muslim Rajputs as an inferior breed since they were seen as not having the same stock or fighting spirit as the Hindu or Sikh Rajputs. These are not my words, its in “A Matter of Honour…”isbn:0333418369

Although I understand that Shivraj became a bit too passionate during the argument, he made more sense than the others who argued against him. They were simply playing a very political and dirty game, it is sad they could not have been brought into a formal debate at a University.

And yet, simply screaming and being insulting while making erroneous claims like a couple of teenagers, they got their way and the Rajput article has been brought to the depths of being nothing more than a politically geared article at the expense of Academic freedom, integrity and knowledge.

I write to you because I know you will understand, however, I don’t expect anything good will come out from this article.

Thank you for taking the time to read about my concern. Gorkhali 09:59, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Edit wars between experts and non-experts is a perennial topic on Wikipedia, as you can imagine; see Wikipedia:Replies to common objections, which notes the problem but offers no solution. Since this is a wiki, and we're all reasoning adults, what is supposed to happen is that all parties in dispute argue on the talk page and come to a solution that accurately portrays the subject of the article to the (general) satisfaction of all involved. This of course is trivially spoken but will be very hard won if it can be won. If people argue in bad faith, cite no references, etc., then one is supposed to apply for mediation, where disinterested admins can help resolve the dispute. In this way, editors who cite references are supposed to gain an upper hand over troublesome editors who cite no references and are merely persistent. Of course this whole process is tiring, and then once a new editor happens upon the article and starts an edit war again, the process must be repeated. This type of strife has burned out seasoned, valuable Wikipedia editors. There isn't a long-term solution, unfortunately, since this is a wiki; there is no mechanism for a hierarchy of experts, and as Larry Sanger has opined, this has produced an "anti-elitism, or lack of respect for expertise." (This statement is controversial, of course.) I'd advise you to be persistent and keep citing those references. Best of luck on the mediation process, and if the mediation process fails then feedback on it should be given as well. Tempshill 21:42, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

logo

My question regards your logo. What is the function of your logo, if you site is predominantly functional by nature? Your image suggests timelessness and neutrality, so how does this image fit in? Do you really need a logo at all?

People are encouraged to edit the text, so why not the graphics as well?

There was a contest about 2 years ago, and the logo you see now is the result. Hey, if you don't like it, you should have stumbled on the site earlier and voted.  :-\ It's better than the old one. See Wikipedia:Wikipedia logos for the history, or the short-list of the logos you could have voted on is here. Tempshill 21:50, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Sale stats

I am just curious at how you got to Garth Brooks sales. There is no way he sold 200,000 million cd's. He is certified at just over 100 million in the States but has sold not much at all outside the States. If you check the facts, Shania has sold twice as much as him outside the States. Shania is very known worldwide in mainstream and Garth is not. He had some tour success but didn't really sell that much outside the States. I would appreciate if you show Shania more respect, she should be way higher on your list of top selling artists. Spice girls? like come on, Shania has sold way more than them. I just don't see that much actual facts being shown on this site, just fabricated sales that don't exist.

YOu can email me at [email protected]

• I am not sure what you are talking about. The article does not claim anyway near 200,000 million (which is 200 BILLION). If it did when you saw it, and you disagree, press the "Edit this page" thing at the top of the page, and change it. Happy editting! Batmanand 21:46, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

violent, graphic, or pornographic images

while I appreciate the principle behind Wiki's business that the community is responsible for the information's accuracy, I object to the violent, graphic, or pornographic photographs that are being posted in the pages. I have searched the entire site and cannot find a concensus or rule about posting images that may disturb different people from different backgrounds. I urge Wiki to estblish internal rules so that this website remains credible to its' users. A regulatory board should be set up to act as a neutral dispute resolver, as in real life, a court system. The board should review pages that have the most controversial pages or topics to put an end to the disputes. If this continues, I don't see how a few radicals will cease displaying photographs that are offensive to others. If you want this business to stay afloat, you should learn a little from the people at Britanica or other encyclopedias. I wish you good luck!

• You might be looking for WP:NOT#Wikipedia_is_not_censored_for_the_protection_of_minors, which seems to be close to what you are objecting about. Also, some pages do warn about potentially offensive content.--inks^T 03:31, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
• Also, Wikipedia is not a business. FreplySpang (talk) 16:07, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
• Wiki is international, and it would appear that among the cultures and people of the world there is a great spectrum of what is acceptable, objectionable, or no big deal. Look at religions for example. There is an interpretation that bans music and poetry. There are different views on the equality of genders. Is it legitimate to talk about problems in various computer products? May governments be criticized? AlMac|^(talk) 19:49, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
• We are faced with a certain fact. Some groups of Wikipedia users feel strongly that such images should be included, while others feel equally strongly that they should not. The views of many, or most, fall somewhere in the middle. Thus unless one (or both) of the groups of those with a strong opinion on this matter are to be kicked off Wikipedia—which is not probable—and either one side, the other, or neither, will be satisfied. A fact of life...--Dpr 02:24, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

printing

Do you have a printer friendly button or a way to print the pages with out having all the colors and such? I want to print one out for my dad.

We do, look for the "Printable version" link in the sidebar. That'll take you to a page with basically the bare bones of an article, in printable form. It does provide colours, but you can set your printer to print in greyscale. gkhan 01:21, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Taken information from our site.

Hi,

I am Sucharita and owner of www.clicksaltlake.info , I have seen that in your "Salt Lake City (Bidhan Nagar), Kolkata" the "History" text is just a copy paste from our site and you din't seek any permission for the same from us. We don't have any problem in that but we can expect after the text you should mention that ...source from clicksaltlake.info

You people have done a great job with the total concept of the site, for your help in this topic in Map section you can link "www.clicksaltlake.info/slmap.html . This is the first interactive map for Salt Lake City. Also you will find a detail doctors list in our site apart from all the catagories which will be very helpful for the people.

We want to help you to make this site more useful for the people. Let us know if you need any help from us.

Regards,

Sucharita

Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously. We do need, however, some informatuion to confirm this. The exact page on wikipedia where the copyrighted information is used, adn the exact URL of the page it is taeken from, or clear instructions on hpw to get to that page. I looked at your site and could not find the copied infgo, but the site seems large and I may hve gone to the wrong page. You can leave a msg with the detailes on my talk page, or read our copyright problems page for a list of places to report copyuright problems. DES ^(talk) 16:55, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

The url is http://www.clicksaltlake.info/slhistory.html I'll put up a copyvio gkhan 17:00, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Criteria for speedy deletion

Sorry to complain here, but I'm totally new to Wilkipedia (found it today! Seems a brilliant idea!) and I can't see how to do this otherwise...

I'm a journalist and proof-reader among other things, so I tend to notice errors. Please could the singular of 'criteria' be used wherever it applies on the 'Criteria for speedy deletion' page? The word should read 'criterion' wherever it is not meant in the plural.

Thanks.

Fincham 12:25, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikipedia! The best place to discuss that would be Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion, which is the talk page associated with the Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion page. --cesarb 18:57, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

don't subvert page layout

not everyone has the eagle eyes of a twenty year old. When I try to enlarge the page to read more comfortably, the font doesn't enlarge, the columns just get narrower. This type of webpage design needs to go the way of the dodo. Refer to: Top Ten Web Design Mistakes of 2005http://www.useit.com/alertbox/designmistakes.html

It works fine for me, both in Internet Explorer and Firefox. The way I do it is that I press Ctrl and scroll the mousewheel to change text size. What browser are you using? gkhan 22:36, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Or, if you don't have a scroll wheel press Cntrl and +.--Commander Keane 06:03, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Search Returns Fatal Error (Tech Question)

When I ran this search: ("human+evolution+homo+sapiens") I got this: ("Fatal error: Call to a member function on a non-object in /usr/local/apache/common-local/php-1.5/extensions/LuceneSearch.php on line 402"). The search for just ("evolution") returns a normal result page. All this suggests to a problem handling empty recordsets from the search engine. The page I was looking for was: ("http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Evolution"). Regards, R> (rxn/at/xs4all.nl)

Yeah, that can happen. Our servers are way overworked, so sometimes there will be errors. The best tip I can give you is to try again. Also, if search is down, try using google restricted to wikipedia. Run this google search for your query "human evolution homo sapiens site:en.wikipedia.org" and it will work. I don't think that wikipedias search engine makes any sort of distinction for "+"es, your search returns no results, which is clearly ridiculus :D gkhan 22:45, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Actually, I was wrong about the cause. See this mail to the wikitech mailinglist for details [1] gkhan 23:02, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Stupid.

I find quite a few of the people on Wikipedia really cold and unhuman. This was written on my talk page.

Please don't put your opinion or original research into articles. This is regarding the comment about Mario's original colors and current colors. Saying that most people don't notice the difference is an opinion unless you provide some hard reference of a professional study on it. That aside, the point itself is relatively minor and is more trivia than encyclopedic content. CryptoDerk 23:44, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

%this is me% -raises an eyebrow- Is this what you do all day? Remonstrating people on what you yourself brand 'trivia'?

I advise you to look at WP:NPA. Continued violation of official Wikipedia policy will result in blocking. CryptoDerk 00:24, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

This stuff really hurts my feelings. I am 13, have Asperger Syndrome and ADHD. As far as I can tell I had done nothing wrong [2] Funny how all these little deals add up, isn't it?

I also noticed how a 'trivial' edit, by definition harmless, was picked up upon quicker than major vandalism. By me. Nice prioritising, guys [3]. That beauty lasted TWO FREAKING HOURS AND TWENTY-SIX MINUTES. Jesus. Ajsh 01:48, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Hi. Your contributions certainly look like they were intended well; however, CryptoDerk is correct that Wikipedia is not the place for your own personal opinions -- see Wikipedia:No original research. Although I think he may have overreacted a bit by threatening blocking, I also think that the act of leaving messages like "Er... do you have a life?" on his talk page is more than a little inflammatory. Also, regarding your edit to Shigeru Miyamoto: please don't disrupt Wikipedia to make a point.

I hope you understand that we hold you no ill will, and that we look forward to your continued participation in Wikipedia. I'm honestly sorry you seem to have a bad first day here. If everybody can just tone down the hostility, I'm sure we can all get along just fine. --David Wahler (talk) 01:30, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

The worst part of it is, this isn't my first day. I'm getting a really negative picture of the Wiki community as a whole here. Ajsh 01:48, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Also, why is my page link broken? Ajsh 01:51, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

If you're having other problems, feel free to discuss them. I just hope you aren't going to judge the whole of Wikipedia according to your personal disagreement with one user. I apologize for my mistaken assumption, but it's hard to reliably find out how long a user's been around if they haven't been signing in.

As for your user page: since you just created your account about 10 minutes ago, it looks like you haven't created one yet. You can go ahead and create it; feel free to put anything you want (within reason) about yourself, your interests, etc. --David Wahler (talk) 02:04, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

The page cannot be found, apparently. Ajsh 02:05, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Just to make sure we're on the same page, are you referring to the red Ajsh link? If so, that page doesn't exist until you create it. It's yours to use as you please -- for more information on the general guidelines for user pages and some examples of what other people use theirs for, see Wikipedia:User page. --David Wahler (talk) 02:12, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, but it literally has the white screen and the 'This page cannot be found' text. Ajsh 02:14, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Hmm. If you're not getting the text box to edit the page, that sounds like a bug. Would you like me to try creating the page for you, and you can see if that fixes the problem? --David Wahler (talk) 02:15, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Okay then, whatever. Ajsh 02:16, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm really impressed David; you must be either an angel, or a hardboiled complaint desk veteran. I don't think I could react to "I'm 13 and have Asperger, and you all suck" posts with a straight face :) 18:37, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

authors and such

It would help if wikipedia gave more information on how to cite its articles such as the authors name.

See Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia.-gadfium 05:04, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

I can't make a new page!

When I try, it says 'the page cannot be displayed'. To be honest, I was going to make a List of fictional moles. I can only think of three, and one I'm not really sure it counts. Maybe it better be List of fictional moles and other borrowing mammals. AAAAAADDDR 11:22, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

If you read your comments above, you will notice both titles are red (or have a red question mark). Click the title of the page you want to create, and you will see a message that "Wikipedia does not yet have a page called List of fictional moles". Any text you enter in the box below will form the new page when you click the Save button.

You could take a look at List of fictional rabbits to give you some ideas for page layouts, section headings, etc. Don't worry if you can only think of three fictional moles - others will soon add more if there are any.

-=# Amos E Wolfe ^talk #=- 15:50, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

I know all that, see your talk page. I would make the page if it didn't actually come up with a 404. And now when I try and click on 'my talk' at the top of the screen, it runs away and hides under the Wikipedia logo.

I keep forgetting to sign. Kid Apathy 19:03, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

I understand there is currently a bug so that some users with particular versions of Internet Exporer are gettign 404's (page does not exist errors) instead of the "Create a New Page" screeen. Other versions of IE don't seem to have this problem, nor do other browsers. i hope a fix will be made soon, but I have no info on when it will be made. if you have access to an alternate browser (neetscape, firefox, or whatever) try using that. You might also try upgrading your copy of IE if it is not the latest version. DES ^(talk) 19:06, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

I think it might be the newest version... But my personal link bar ups and hides under the Wikipedia logo when I try and click it... I would be able to click it then except the two most important links are hidden. Kid Apathy 19:09, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

David Hasselhoff

At the end of the first paragraph under heading "Singing Career" are some obscene words. Would appreciate if these could be removed immediately.

Thank you.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.225.206.23 (talk • contribs)

This was an act of "vandalism" and has already been removed. Don't forget that Wikipedia is the Encyclopedia that anyone can edit, including you. Just click the "edit this page" tab at the top of any page. Don't forget to sign your posts on talk pages - you can do this by typing three tildes, or four to include the date (~~~~).

-=# Amos E Wolfe ^talk #=- 15:45, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Missing Fetishes

You have not added these fetishes: "Strangulation", "Hiccups, "Necks". I have found sites and groups that have information and data on those. I actually came here to seek infromation on those topics, but couldnt find them. Any updates posted here about it would be apreciated. Thank you

Thank you for your suggestion! When you feel an article needs changing, please feel free to make whatever changes you feel are needed. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit any article by simply following the Edit this page link. You don't even need to log in! (Although there are some reasons why you might like to...) The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use out the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. If you have sources on these subjects, please create the articels, citing those soruces. No doubt soemone else will expand or correct your work if you do so. DES ^(talk) 14:38, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Spelling error in title

Dear technical guru

in the article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Willemoe there is a spelling error. "Willemoes" has an "s" at the end, as it is correctly listed in the article.

For independent confirmation you could visit: http://www.navalhistory.dk/English/TheOfficers/VW/Willemoes_Peter.htm

Thanks for a great product

Claus

Unfortunately, it appears that this article is a copyright violation from the source you give. The violation has been reported.-gadfium 07:39, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Creating an Article

On the list of Scottish clans, I came to the one I am descended from, Clan MacNab. I have already changed it by translating its Latin motto to English. However, I'd like to create an article about the clan using some information I have on our clan's history. How do I create a whole new article for Wikipedia?

Take a look at Help:Starting a new page. Good luck, --Commander Keane 03:15, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

David Horowitz

Why isn't David Horowitz on your list of Jews. Can't you find a catagory to stick him in?

He has been a positive influence in my political views.

R.T. Lyle

I don't think we have a general list of Jews. If we do, arguably we shouldn't. Could you give the exact name of the list article you refer to, or bette yet a link? Note that if you find a list which ommits an entry you think should be there, you may always simply edit the list and add the missing entry. DES ^(talk) 16:43, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Reply Category:Jewish Americans

Category:Jewish Americans From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Jump to: navigation, search Americans of ethnic Jewish descent.

Lists of Jewish Americans ####(THIS LOOKS LIKE A LIST TO ME)RTL A Jewish American actors B David Brin Articles in category "Jewish Americans"

You are correct, several of these are lists, I wasn't aware of them. Feel free to add David Horowitz or any other properly included person to the proper list. If you want help in editing a list article, drop me a not eon my talk page. Please sign comments on discussion pages like this with four tildas (like this ~~~~). Thank you. DES ^(talk) 18:12, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

(As follows)

Unless I'm missing something, your site leaves much to be desired in "user friendliness".

My feeling is that, in what may be a "penny wise and pound foolish" attempt to cut costs, you rely too heavily on FAQ's that don't always coincide with other answers that inquirers may be seeking.

In their conscientious and well-meaning attempts to make your site easy to use, the designers obviously didn't realize that the difficulty of navigating such an highly structured and rigid format can, quite to the contrary, be a big turn-off.

Perry L. Hamburg [email protected]

I isn't so much a question of "cutting costs" pretty much all content, including the FAQs and help pages, are written entirely by volunteeers. Sometimes they are not as well coordinated as they could or should be. If you care to point out specific examples, someone might fix them. Or you can edit such pages yourself, at any time. DES ^(talk) 18:06, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

You can always ask a question at Wikipedia:Ask a question and you will (hopefully) get a human response. You don't have to rely on the FAQ's.--Commander Keane 16:48, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

FORUM for WIKIPEDIA

I think it will be great if wikipedia adds a forum for discussion about different topics for users and call like something like wikiforum or something. Like a debating/discussion forum for news or technical science related stuff, history whatever.

Every article has a talk page, which can kind of fill that function to some degree. You might also want to check out the Wikipedia:Portals where you'll meet people interested in some of the broader subject areas. Beyond that, pages such as this act as forums about the Wikipedia itself. Have a look at Wikipedia:Community_Portal. --bodnotbod 11:52, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

works cited

hello. I'm a student that uses your free resources all the time, for many essays that i do. i was wanting to make a suggestion. I am required (and i understand why) that i need to show where i got my data from, since it isn't mine, and i don't want to be accused of plagiarism. I was wondering if you could provide a MLA format work cited for all your articles. It would help site the work easier, and encourage people to do so as well. It would also bring traffic to your site. thanks.

keith alpena, michigan

we do. See Wikipedia:Citing wikipedia for details. Or do you mean that works we cite should always be cited in MLA format? All wikipedia articles should cite their sources (see WP:CITE, but no one format is required, and many people in various fields use foramts other than MLA. DES ^(talk) 01:35, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Incorrect information about the Supreme Court of New York

The following excerpt is from a search on the New York court system:

"The Court of Appeals is New York's highest appellate court, created in 1847. It consists of seven judges—one chief judge and six associate judges—who are now appointed by the governor to 14-year terms, having formerly been elected.

In New York, unlike most other states of the U.S., the court designated as the "Supreme Court" is the trial court rather than the highest court of the state; this nomenclature sometimes leads to confusion."

The part that concerns me is:

"unlike most other states of the U.S., the court designated as the "Supreme Court" is the trial court rather than the highest court of the state;"

While it is true that the court designated as the "Supreme Court" is not the highest court in the State of New York, it is an appellate court NOT a trial court. Please update your information to correct this error so that it will not be misleading to people.

Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.73.182.86 (talk • contribs)

Thank you for your suggestion! When you feel an article needs changing, please feel free to make whatever changes you feel are needed. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit any article by simply following the Edit this page link. You don't even need to log in! (Although there are some reasons why you might like to...) The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use out the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. Evil Monkey∴Hello 03:25, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Layman's Terms, Please

I have a minor complaint in that the definition for grammatical particle is steeped in technical jargon and is difficult to understand without a background in linguistics. To further complicate the matter, while trying to understand it by context, almost all of the related words and their articles are also written at a higher level of understanding. While the technical prowess of the authors is certainly impressive, it does little to help me, a layman, understand it. Were I able to understand the definitions provided, I probably wouldn't have needed to look the term up in the first place. One last note, to know a complex subject thoroughly is admirable, but the ability to introduce a complex subject in a way that a simple person can understand it is, to many, the highest form of understanding. (Unsiged article by 12.202.7.249 04:20, 26 October 2005)

I wouldn't actually agree in this case, and the talk page actually has comments saying that it is not academic enough. That talk page is probably where you should have raised this issue.

The examples seem to make it reasonably clear and one can follow the links for the technical terms, although I could guess them.

If the article really were pitched at too techical a level, one could add a {{technical}} cleanup template to the article, which will add a message like:

This article may be too technical for most readers to understand. Please expand it to make it accessible to non-experts, without removing the technical details.

Note that this doesn't ask for the article to be dumbed down, only for it to be made usable by non-technical users. It may still be necessary to maintain the technical language in places, to be adequately precise wiithout being too verbose. The template will get removed if people disagree or when they think they have fixed it.

--David Woolley 19:08, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Your unfair accusation of "Vandalism"

I am at computer IP 66.9.172.95. I have received two separate messages from Wikipedia staffers, accusing me of "vandalism" for inserting random word spaces into Wikipedia articles.

I am not committing any malicious or vandalous act. There is some sort of glitch in the software, which is inserting word spaces into your files when I access them.

I suspect that the glitch is at **YOUR** end, NOT at my end. I frequently post text to IMDb.com, and to several blogs and message boards. Every week, thousands of words of ASCII text upload from my computer to various web sites with no problem, and with no "extra" space bands.

This problem is occurring ONLY in Wikipedia files.

Please investigate this as a tech problem, NOT as a wilful act of vandalism, and please be more careful before making accusations in future.

Thank you.

• The same page also says: This is the discussion page for an anonymous user who has not created an account yet or is not signed in. We therefore have to use their numerical IP address to identify them. Such an IP address can be shared by several users. If you are an anonymous user and feel that irrelevant comments have been directed at you, please create an account or log in to avoid future confusion with other anonymous users. We also recommend creating an account if you do not want anyone to see your IP address. Is it possible you are sharing the computer or the machine with another indivudual who's vandalizing Wikipedia? As far as I remember you cannot suggest changes to IMDB unless you're logged in. - Mgm|^(talk) 08:31, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

It is also possible that other computers are assigned the same IP address as yours from time to time. Depending on your setup, this is not uncommon. When users don't log in, we can only identify them by their IP addresses, but an IP does not always uniquely identify a computer, much less a person. DES ^(talk) 00:17, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

And by the way, there are effectively no "Wikipedia staffers". All editors, including the people who sent those messages, are volunteers just like yourself. DES ^(talk) 00:19, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

a good idea....

Whenever I read an article, which is not an altogether infrequent occurence, I find myself thinking "dang, I wish i could look at all of the interesting links there are, but I know that if i click on all of them I lose my train of thought from jumping around too much. How could i remedy this ever so heartbreaking situation". So i decide to write an email to you fine Wikipedians telling you this: wouldn't it be cool if there was some sort of way you could keep track of all the interesting links you wanted to visit at a later point, like if you could drag the blue underlined word to a special box over on the side by the search bar, and it would keep track of them all. Just an idea, but keep up the great work. To the people who run this thing, I commend you with all my heart, you're my heroes.

You might explore what options are in your browser. I find the HISTORY useful in mine, if I sign off then back on ... then I cannot use the back button.

I am watching a lot of pages of interest to me ... you can put the watch on, go exploring, then your watch list has connections to what you thought you might be interested in exploring more, and can always take stuff off the watch list. My watch list is now 150 places and counting. AlMac|^(talk) 07:37, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

If you are using any modern browser, right click on each link of interest to you and "Open link in new tab". Internet Explorer is one of the few browsers which doesn't currently support such a feature, and it will support it in version 7.-gadfium 07:59, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

IE supports "Open this link in a new window" which has pretty much the same effect, and even has soem advantages, IMO. DES ^(talk) 00:21, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

I usually have a text editor open where I copy the URLs to interesting looking pages. The good thing about this is that it doesn't limit me to just one site, and I can make notes of context or mark if some link seems particularly interesting. It is also independent of the browser and not sensitive to browser crashes. It is a very plain and "low-tech" solution, but it works well.

Reading documents - no links thank you

I propose that links could be switched on/off with a button. First I might read the text as is and then show the links (blue) and jump anywhere. My sessions tend to be extensive and sometimes lost in Wikispace... :)

Erkki

You can view the "printable version" (in the toolbox at the left on the default skin). That does not show the links, for obvious reasons. DES ^(talk) 17:28, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Web pages are editable

Hi, I dont know if you are aware, but the following page is fully editable. Im guessing this is not intentional:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnson_Beharry

Regards,

Andy Spark

The following page has some strange text. I'm not set up to edit, or I'd change it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eskimos

Thank you for your suggestion! When you feel an article needs changing, please feel free to make whatever changes you feel are needed. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit any article by simply following the Edit this page link. You don't even need to log in! (Although there are some reasons why you might like to...) The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use out the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. That is why the above page, and almost everyu page on wikipedia, including this page, is fully editable, quite intentionally. DES ^(talk) 15:35, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

If what you saw was repated irrelevant insertions of "I'm a Cop", that was vandalism. It was reverted within 10 minutes, but you may have seen it during that time. Thanks for bringing it to our attention. Feel free to simply revert any such vandalism in future yourself. Anyone can, even without logging in. DES ^(talk) 15:44, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Hitler Childhood heading offensively racist

I was a little taken aback, to say the least when, upon doing some reading on Adolf Hitler, and using Wikipedia (as I often do for information) I came upon this title heading for his childhood: Childhood, already a savior from the Jewbag scums of society. I think this needs to be removed and the title Childhood should suffice. It is rascist and obviously offensive to many of the Wikipedia readers. It is not possible to remove this title heading through EDIT..I tried. It does not appear there. I hope I do not run into this too often on this site. Thank-you.

What you were seeing was vandalism: a racist had decided to vandalise the page by adding offensive text. The reason it did not appear when you selected to edit the page was that a more responsible user had already deleted it by the time you clicked "edit".

Unfortunately, we have not found a way of preventing people from vandalising pages while preserving the important philosophy that everyone should be able to edit things; we try to combat this by ensuring that vandalism is removed quickly, as happened in this case. I'm sorry you happened to view the page in the brief period of time when it was visible, and I hope the unfortunate experience you've had won't put you off using our site. — Haeleth Talk 19:48, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

First Professional Doctorate Not Listed

The N.D. or N.M.D. (Doctorate of Naturaopthic Medicine) is not listed among your first-professional degrees. These are doctorates earned from four-year, regionally accredited medical schools by those who practice naturopathic medicine in the fourteen states that now license these physicians. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.110.204.171 (talk • contribs)

Thank you for your suggestion! When you feel an article needs changing, please feel free to make whatever changes you feel are needed. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit any article by simply following the Edit this page link. You don't even need to log in! (Although there are some reasons why you might like to...) The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use out the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. Evil Monkey∴Hello 00:13, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

inappropriate language at this url

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_civil_service, under the topic: further reading. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.208.236.223 (talk • contribs)

Thanks for pointing out the vandalism. I've reverted and removed it. Evil Monkey∴Hello 00:12, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

What you saw was vandalism -- another user has already fixed the problem. Thanks for calling attention to it. If you see such a thing again, you can simply edit the page to remove it, or revert the changes to the last clean version. DES ^(talk) 00:13, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

foul language within articles

The article on Djembe contains foul language, obviously placed by some moronic, immature, teenage punk. You should check all entries and edits prior to posting.

Vandalism is always going to be apart of something that anyone can edit. Checking every edit would defeat the purpose of being a wiki. You can help remove it by reverting it to an earlier version. Evil Monkey∴Hello 01:33, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

I have reverted the vandalism. Evil Monkey∴Hello 01:35, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

James Hutton

Under James Hutton, you have a link to a Britannica site that lists his history but instead you direct it to some creationist site. As a geology professor, not only am I offended by this, but I am sure James Hutton would also take umbrage. Why don't we pay respects to the founder of geology and change this. Other than that, I love your site. I use it all the time.

I've changed the link to 1911encyclopedia.org.-gadfium 02:17, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

error

In the Youngstown Sheet and Tube article, there is without question some untrue information lower in the article. I am doing a project and wouldn't normally know, but it says the Supreme Court decision killed "350,00,0000,000.000,000 million people within hours" and that people had to feed off of "solid snake" to live. Clearly, this cannot possibly be accurate.

Thought you'd like to know

You have encountered some vandalism to the article. I've reverted the edit. Evil Monkey∴Hello 05:00, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

PLEASE PUT SOMETHING ON THIS.....

Hi!!! ok, so i'm from ireland, im a forth year student in Mount Sackville secondary school makeing me 16...... i am doing an Irish project on Irish legends.... i usually use Wikipedia for any projects i have, so i came on to it to get some Info.... *BUT YOU HAVE NO INFORMATION ON IRISH LEGENDS* ok, im sorry to complain, but my teacher said i could if i wanted to because it is hard enough trying to find information out information, so when you don't have anything, it's really annoying!!!!! could you please put some info on Tír na nÓg The Salmon of Knowledge The Children of Lir and all the other cool irish legends cause they are great!!!!!

Sorry to complain, i never usually do, but *I NEED HELP WITH MY PROJECT* !!!!!!!

Love Lou-Ali xx

Try looking at Category:Irish_mythology. There are 9 subcategories and 55 articles on Irish mythology. I did a quick search on Tir na nOg and the article came right up (you dont have to use special characters). Hope this helps. User:FeanorStar7

• A quick trip to your local library might yield more detailed results. - Mgm|^(talk) 23:23, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Hahaha, Mount Sackville... i didn't know ye had projects out there, thought it was all make-up lessons and the like! hehe no i just kid... im a St Andrews boy myself, so tis all good! ANYway, to cut things short, if you go to the Irish mythology page, you should be able to find everything you need from there... the diff cycles etc etc etc. Hope that's all good... User:NaLaochra 02:27, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

James May Entry

Hello

I have noticed that several members keep editing the entry for James May, and replacing Perodua Kelisa with Suzuki Swift.

There are press releases from Perodua with James's positive comments on the vehicle. The praise for the Suzuki Swift was merely a light hearted moment for entertainment on the 26th of December 2004 episode of Top Gear.

Is there any way of ensuring that the correct vehicle remains on James's entry?

Lynese Webmistress - www.james-may.co.uk

My goodness, I didn't even know James has his own website! I see the entry's currently referring the Kelisa, but as recent answers to other complaints have said, this is a wiki and anyone can edit it. The only thing to do is monitor the article and change it back when the vandal strikes - they do get fed up eventually when this keeps happening to them; the reference to the Perodua annual report and their website does look a little suspiciously like spamvertising, which may cause someone to delete that whole part of the article, though. -- Arwel (talk) 17:47, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

web design suggestion: Favicons are useful, sometimes.

When I read this site I tend to open many "tabs" in Firefox. After a while I get so many that the titles disappear. If I read many different sites there will be different favicons and no problem keeping track of which is which, but Wikipedia pages only show up as a default "document" icon (i.e. no favicon at all).

Since there are so many links to other interesting pages (this site is much too addictive! :-) ) there tend to be many identical icons, so even if there was a favicon for the site it would still be confusing. My idea is to have a little "frame" in common for all of them (e.g. a puzzle piece, or just a coloured one-pixel frame), and to place the first letter of the title word in the icon.

Wikipedia actually does have a favicon; it's the letter W. For whatever reason, it doesn't work sometimes. I've noticed this too, but there's nothing you can do except wait for it to magically come back. ♥♥purplefeltangel♥♥ 21:45, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

David Bernardi, North Bay author.

Greetings, Wikipedia Folk. I noticed that the page on me is being considered for deletion, because Google does not bring up my name. So, if I put up a website that had my name in it with my info, would that make me worthy to be on the site? I also noticed that Matthew James Donnelly was taken down, an up and coming composer and musician, and friend of mine. I must say that I am disappointed with wikipedia, especially when individuals earnestly post information intended to further the knowledge on an encyclopedic website. Thank you. Dave —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.235.185.65 (talk • contribs) 18:18 EDT, 27 October 2005

In general, we desire some indication that a person really exists, and is in some way noteworthy or notable, to retain an article about that person on wikipedia. See WP:BIO for some often used rules of thumb on biographical articles. See WP:MUSIC for some often cited criteria on including bands and musicians. We can not include an article on every person on earth, and even if we could, that would eb "an indiscriminate collection of facts" rather than an encyclopedia. see What wikipedia is not. There is considerable dispute on where to draw the line between inclusion and exclusion. A person or topic does not need to be referenced on google to be included, but most modern topics and people that re both real and noteworthy are so refernced, so teh lack of any google hits is often taken as a read flag. When we do need are verifiable citations of information that establish a reasonm why a perosn (or a topic) is a proper subject of an encyclopedic article. There is also soemthing of a prejudice agaisnt articles that it is suspected that people ahve written about themselves, (often called "vanity articles" or that fans, freinds, or students may have writen about another person (often called "tribute articles") because often such articles do not adhere to the neutral point of view, and because often they exagerate the importance or signifgance of the subject. If an articel about you (or anyone else) has been nominatd for deletion, the best method is to add facts to teh articel that clearly show the person's importance or signifigance, along with citations of sources from which those facts can be verified, and to point out those facts in the deletion discussion. If you would like to discuss this further, feel free to put a msg on my talk page DES ^(talk) 15:53, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Demographics

I enjoy reading about the demographics of cities around the country and my state - Texas. As a severely disabled person of five decades, I note that you do not include Census Bureau data regarding disabled persons and their age groups in your city demographic summaries. I would like to see this information put in future offerings.

I'm glad you appreciate Wikipedia. Most of our U.S. census data comes automatically from the U.S. census. If the data you want is missing, then I would guess it isn't in the database we have access to. If you have access to it, then you could add it yourself. You might like to address your question to User talk:Rambot. Bovlb 03:38:05, 2005-08-26 (UTC)

Validity

I question the validity of the information that is provided on this website because anyone can change what is written. People can easily change dates and statistics (information that is hard to distinguish if it's right or wrong) by using the edit button below each section. That would be unfortunate for the reader, who is being misguided by this new information. I suggest that you should get rid of that feature or you should have some kind of authority (meaning a panel of people with knowledge) to review those changes before they are presented to the public. I strongly suggest this because i do not feel safe using your information.

Shazia Ghafur

The heart and sole of Wikipedia is that anyone can edit. I agree that the sneaky vandalism you speak of occurs, but generally it gets fixed and the articles are of good quality. Maybe take a look at Wikipedia:Replies to common objections for further discussion.--Commander Keane 16:16, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Lack of USA identifiers on over 10,000 articles

Most articles about places, persons and things from the USA do not have any identifiers in their titles, or first three lines of the articles, as to the fact that these things are in a specific country. It also occurs in categories and stubs.

There are a lot more countries and people on the planet.vcxlor 14:46, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

If you find some specific examples list them here and we will take care of them.--Commander Keane 16:03, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

I think someone put a bad link into your White House page - swearing

I clicked on this link from your White House page: http://kvaleberg.com/extensions/mapsources/index.php?params=38.89734_N_-77.03742_E_type:landmark_region:US

. . .to get an aerial map of the WHite House, and what I get is a Wikipedia page that says F**K YOU. (I added the "*")

Just thought you should know.

Peter Sharkey

It appears the page was vandalised for just under three hours on the 29th. It has been fixed. Evil Monkey∴Hello 21:49, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Search technology used- too many false drops

I came to Wikipedia via a URL which listed Jewish Scientists and Philosophers by name, in various fields. Clicking on a specific name always resulted in etirely too many (10 pages plus) drops, which used surname or first name only.

If you used the GOOGLE approach, the search should focus only on the combination; eg. Ri=onald Breslow should never bring up Ronald Regan.

Pity. The site is quite good when one gets a GOOGLed URL. signed: [email protected].

Google spent millions, if not billions, of dollars developing their search technology and receive large amounts of advertising revenue. The best thing is to let Google do what it is good at by simply adding site:en.wikipedia.org to your Google queries.

--David Woolley 22:07, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Further to this, the Wikipedia search function is so useless that I wonder if it would be better just to remove it and have Wikipedia search automatically use Google search.

Dambusters Page

I came on line to find out the sites of the dams , where exactly are they in Germany and your site like all the others does not appear to believe in maps to associate the dams to surrounding towns. Needs sorting

The page does appear to identify the lakes involved, which ought to be enough to find them on a modern map.

However, the people who created the page are unlikely to be reading this page, but ought to be reading the talk page for the article, so that is where you would be best placing the request to add this information.

If you find out by other means, you should, of course, edit the page yourself.

As a start, I found a copy of the original planning map for the Eder dam on the RAF museum web site, which gives the latitude and longtitude. Unfortunately I had a browser crash whilst doing the previous reply, so I've lost the details of the links and the coordinates.

--David Woolley 23:29, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

very, very inappropriate picture under "marmalade"!!!!!!

It appears that what happened is that someone vandalised the {{otheruses}} template that was used on the page. The vandalism was reverted within two minutes of it occurring and you were just unlucky to look at the page during this brief time. Evil Monkey∴Hello 21:39, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Slam Hog

After dutifully adding new highly important cultural slang phenomena, a beautiful phrase "slam hog", my entry was deleted without explanation. I believe slam hog will be at least as culturally relevant as "donkey punch", a phrase that is prominently a part of wikipedia currently.

• Slam hog was deleted because firstly Wikipedia is not a dictionary and secondly all the content was "The new word for 'ho.". Wikipedia only includes things that have already been described by other reliable sources. It may well become culturally relevant at some point, but Wikipedia is not meant for promotion of words, so it's best to wait until it actually is significant. - Mgm|^(talk) 23:44, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

The Rosa Parks Story

As I understand it, Ms. Parks received the Medal of Freedom for her courageous act of refusing her seat to a white man on a bus. Let me just inform you for a moment on a couple of issues:

l. Somewhere across the nation are children who are bullied everyday for their lunch money. If they were brought up to stand up and defend their rights, some of them did so by telling that bully "no" the next time he wanted their lunch money. That little boy or girl might have been beaten profusely because of that courageous "no", but they stood their ground. No President was there to award these children the Medal of Freedom.

2. Somewhere out there, there are thousands of women and children living in domestic violence homes and environments. On one day, the Mother and Wife takes a beating because she stood up and said "no" to her husband on something she didn't want to do. She grabbed the kids and she went off on her own to start anew. Her husband found her and shot her dead. This was her award for having been brave and courageous and for standing up for what she believed in. She's dead because she said "no" for her and her kids...and there's no one in that family who accepted the Medal of Freedom for what she did.

3. A black bully and gang member hopped on a subway one day and approached a woman and said..."get outta my seat". She muttered quietly--"no, get your own". The gang member took a knife and stabbed her and she fell to the floor. He got his seat, didn't he? And she bled to death because of her extremely courageous efforts to stand up for herself and be brave. No President was around to award her family the Medal of Freedom for her bravery and courage.

4. Stories just like these occur all the time overseas in the military and here around the United States in everyday life. But there are never any awards waiting for people when they do something good and something right. We've all learned that when we have bad things happen to us, it's a matter of life and sooner or later, we have to move on.

The Rosa Parks award of the Medal of Freedom had no criteria like the above stories. Rosa Parks refused to give a white man her seat on a bus. And for this, she received a Presidential award. I think it's sad when we overlook the rest of our population and what they've endured in their lifetimes. I think it's obvious that the honor of lying in state would have been nice for every American soldier who died in Iraq or Vietnam. Rosa Parks refused to give her seat to a white man and for that she's lying in State in the Capitol Rotunda. That's very unfair to the rest of our population and very biased. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 152.163.100.203 (talk • contribs)

Thanks you for your comments. However as it says at the top of the page:

"This is a page for discussing problems you may have with the way Wikipedia is designed or suggestions on how to improve this Wikipedia. It is not intended for reporting errors regarding content."

If you think the issues you have brough up should be discussed in the Wikipedia article on Rosa Parks, I suggest you post a comment on its talk page. Evil Monkey∴Hello 23:22, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Compliment

This is a simple comment, not a complaint. I just felt that I should let you know how much of a help this Encyclopedia has been for me. Throughout all my projects, this has been the greatest source for educated, unbiased material. I love you. >_<

• Thanks! - Mgm|^(talk) 23:45, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Icon for external links appearing in internal links

I'm using Opera 9 build 8031 running on Windows XP SP2; this has never occurred for previous versions of Opera. It does not happen with my other browsers (IE and Firefox) and it has nothing to do with my user CSS because it occurs even when I'm not signed in.

Basically, the icon for external links is appearing beside all links (even pictures) in an article. This gets irritating especially if there are many links side-by-side, as can be seen in the Compact-TOC template:

Thanks in advance for any help. ωhkoh [Т] 03:10, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Your not the only Opera user having bother (check here)- but there is a solution! Go to your monobook: User:Whkoh/monobook.css (assuming you use this skin) and add (literally cut and paste) this:

/* Nuke external link icon on internal links */ #bodyContent a[href^="http://en.wikipedia.org"] { background: none !important; padding-right: 0; }

If you want help with this I happy to help, but I can't edit your monobook - for security reasons.--Commander Keane 08:50, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

New Labour

Whilst reading about the different changes in the labour government it says in capital letters that 'BLAIR IS A DICKHEAD' people have their own views on the man i take the same opinion that whoever wrote the article did but feel it is completely out of context and i will sue them in court . HAVE A NICE DAY !!

SMEE (preceding unsigned article by 84.67.68.59 2005-10-30 11:16:38 UTC)

This was vandalism by a user connected from 80.225.4.138. It was made at 11:45 UTC on 2005-10-27 and reverted at 04:14 UTC on 2005-10-28. If you have seen it today on the Labour Party (UK) article it is because you are seeing a cached copy.

That IP address resolves to 80-225-4-138.dynamic.dial.as9105.com, so it is probably shared by many users.

Even if it were still present, although I am not a lawyer, my understanding is that you should attempt other rememdies before suing, and the easiest remedy would have been to revert it yourself. This always assumes that you could sue anyway.

--David Woolley 11:01, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Writing in American

I do not know where your company is located BUT, if you are going to offer your services in our Country, the United States of America, WE DO NOT speak ENGLISH here, WE SPEAK American-English and we or should I say I, do not like to have to TRANSLATE your articles or information into American from your FOREIGN language that you produce your information in.

Beyond foreign misinterpretation of OUR Weights and Measures Standards, WE DO NOT USE nor accept that horrible miserable Metrics system that you use in foreign countries, a lot of people like to think that they are using the proper system BUT, WE USE AMERICAN WEIGHTS AND MEASURES and we would like to see things written that way when they are presented in the U.S.A.

When in Germany, use German, When in England, use English, and so on and so forth. Please have the courtesy to present items in a language that WE UNDERSTAND.

Thank you for reading, William G. Mundy (preceding unsigned article by 205.134.200.25 2005-10-30 18:16:49 (UTC))

Thank you for bringing that circumstance to our attention. We had not, unfortunately, realised that such a situation pertained to your country, the "United States of America". In rectification thereof, our company shall henceforth cease providing its services there. The non-expired portions of pre-existing contacts shall, of course, be honoured in full, but please consider all outstanding invoices for encyclopaedia articles served to citizens of that country cancelled forthwith. Sincerely, Helmut von Wikipedia, proprietor. (preceding unsigned spoof reply by 201.137.84.108 2005-10-30 18:44:20 (UTC))

Company tends to imply a for profit organisation. The Wikipedia Foundation is a US based not-for-profit corporation.

Articles are contributed by people from all around the world and the general policy is to reflect the English language variations of the area to which the article is most relevant. However, I doubt that anyone will get many thanks for converting from British to American English, even though the article isn't specifically Britain related, if the article was consistent in usage before the change (I did notice one article where someone changed metre to meter, which has a different meaning in British English.

As to metric units, American science and engineering have been using them for many years, for example integrated circuit pins have been on 2.54mm grids for more than 30 years in US published datasheets.

--David Woolley 18:38, 30 October 2005 (UTC)