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This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (miscellaneous). Please do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to revive any of these discussions, either start a new thread or use the talk page associated with that topic.

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"Unencyclopedic" is now a word

It's official; rather subtle Wikipedia jargon is now entering the mainstream press. I think it's significant that this jargon is referring to an idea, not a technology, and that its source is not attributed. I'll note that the weirdness of seeing "unencyclopedic" in The New York Times was quite striking to me, even before I noticed that Wikipedia is mentioned in the next paragraph (confirming IMO the source of the writer's train of thought). [1]--Pharos (talk) 05:12, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

There is a website called "Unencyclopedia." It looks just like Wikipedia. The only thing that is different is that "Unencyclopedia" has an open chat. --~I LOVE TOAST~ (talk) 01:33, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I love the sound of "the age of Wikipedia". So, imperial. So, 21-century. Wikipedia to rule the world! -- Taku (talk) 04:37, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Not even slightly porn (sorry)

Does anyone know what to do when I feel a discussion was inaccurately closed? The discussion is Wikipedia:Featured list removal candidates/List of vegetable oils, which was closed as Keep, but as no-one moved to keep it, the result should actually be No-consensus. At the time I was on a geography-enforced Wikibreak, and was unable to complete the discussion. I would change it myself, as I think the error is clear, but I've never seen it done so I'm wary. And to clarify, yes, I am being anal-retentive. At the time, I even created the section Wikipedia:Lists#Organization as a reference point. ~ JohnnyMrNinja 07:04, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

I'd go up to the closer whom appears to be User:Circeus, but it was from a long time ago, perhaps WP:CCC. x42bn6 Talk Mess 15:42, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Wiki

If someone started a boycott against the Wikimedia foundation, I would start a counter-boycott. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.255.150.26 (talk) 00:33, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Good for you! CWii(Talk|Contribs) 02:48, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Right of way

does any one know the answer to my accident? if i was driving, and have the right of way but i hit a car at an uncontrolled intersection in a parking lot, when i say hit i mean t bone, who is at fault? is it me because i hit them on the front door? or is it them for not yielding to the right of way —Preceding unsigned comment added by Briana01010 (talk • contribs) 04:04, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

IP address

Is it possible for someone to have the same IP address as mine? I mean, when I looked at my contributions it said that I made contributions to the Top gear article. I never have. Also, how do I see all my contributions? I know I've made more than three (of which, two aren't even mine).

P.S I am the only one who uses my computer. 203.206.9.192 (talk) 10:31, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

This will depend on how your ISP assigns IP addresses. Some give you one more-or-less permanently, some (like mine) give a new address whenever you reconnect to the internet, while some (like AOL) have a system which means every edit comes from a different IP address. There's no good way to access all edits from your computer, though they are (probably) all from the IP range 203.206.0.0-203.206.255.255. If you want to do this, you should create an account. Algebraist 10:50, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! 203.206.9.192 (talk) 10:55, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

What's going on with the birds??

Is it just me or has anyone else noticed that birds do not move out of the way when you are driving along until the last minute? They almost seem oblivious until you are right next to them, almost running them over!

I have a theory that it's something to do with mobile phones affecting their radar, but one of my colleagues thinks that it's bird gang culture, daring each other!!! What do you think???

--Whitesheba (talk) 11:01, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

This is nothing to do with Wikipedia. You might want to try the miscellaneous reference desk. Algebraist 11:09, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Admins...they walk among us!

You want to know what I love about Wikipedia?
The fact that administrators work side-by-side with non-admins, taking the same responsibilities and more that other Wikipedians have. It goes to show how very kind and good Wikipedia, Wikipedian policy and Wikipedians in general are! Thank you for not having overinflated egos, admins! It really makes me feel good! BobAmnertiopsisChitChat Me! 21:44, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Discussion Page

is it true that User:TimShell once proposed discussion pages for articles? Did he do this in nupedia already? Is there a source for this information (e.g. list-archive) -- 78.53.183.47 (talk) 00:05, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

"perhaps there should be a standard discussion page" (Shell), "I think people should feel free to edit main articles, such as the controversial GeorgeWBush article, but also add to corresponding discussion pages--linked from the bottom of the page. That's what I did for GeorgeWBush; I made BushTalk and moved the discussion there." (Sanger) [2] -- 78.53.183.47 (talk) 08:54, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
In the early software, we used to add at the bottom of the page a link to, for example, GeorgeWBush/Talk to create a subpage for discussion. Worked ok but sometimes people trying to avoid an argument would go in and add a second link to say GeorgeWBush/Discussion and start a second discussion page. Later the Talk namespace was added which automatically created one (and only one) talk page. Rmhermen (talk) 00:49, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Wikipeda Icon

If you have tabs, or look in the left hand side of your address bar, you will see an icon similer to that of Continental Airlines. Continental may sue, but if they don't, the icon is still confusing to many people, and should be changed. TravelCRAZED (talk) 03:34, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

That is nothing like Continental's logo. Our logo is just a little "W". Are you sure you have the right tab open? Soxred93 (u t) 04:18, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
It's nothing like Continental's logo. Our image that resides there is a W in a Times font. Continental's image is a sphere covered with a white grid on a blue background. They're not even remotely the same. Celarnor Talk to me 04:28, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I think there was an error with my computer. TravelCRAZED (talk) 00:06, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Get Well Soon template?

There are A HUGE amount of templates for various things...is there anyone that knows of a "Get Well Soon" template? Thanks! Letter 7 (talk) 15:42, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Some mentoring on the extent of editor responsibilities would be helpful

Here, JohnnyMrNinja writes that "it is not an editor's duty to clean up and add references to things that the original contributers could not be bothered to do." This is the exact opposite of my idea - and, I believe - the general idea - of how we work. What matters is the outcome and facts are judged by their merits instead of the presentation of those merits. Neither are people required to conform to the walls of text that are our conventions and referencing practices right away - in fact, it is (was?) a principle that you're allowed to screw up, other editors can give you a hand. Otherwise, any significant change in standards would require us to nuke a third of the encyclopedia.

He hasn't actually done anything wrong, so a polite conversation with him by someone who, unlike myself, can do that, ought to be a good thing. --Kizor 17:00, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

It's not about presentation, its about proving that you aren't making stuff up. To quote myself from the referenced AfD, "If an editor feels a piece of information is valid and useful, then it is their responsibility to defend it by properly sourcing it, and asserting it's notability, at the time it is added. If it is not OR, that means the original contributor had a source. Not bothering to list the source creates double-work for someone else, who then has to find a source, and then list it. If it is OR (or just made-up), the other person is looking for a source that doesn't exist. I've had things deleted for this reason, and it sucks, but it wasn't anybody's fault but mine."
But, yes, I will have a talk with me... a hard talk across the face! ~ JohnnyMrNinja 21:33, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Question

Can someone hep me with my article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banya:_The_Explosive_Delivery_Man? Is this the right place to ask this question? X27 (talk) 17:26, 20 May 2008 (UTC)X27

Template:POV-check

I suggest changing the orange color of the stripe on the left side of the POV-check template to yellow, to reflect the idea that a {{POV-check}} is less severe than a {{NPOV}} dispute. As I understand it, you nominate an article for {{POV-check}} if you think that it may have a non-neutral point of view. An article gets tagged with {{NPOV}} if it is the subject of a serious dispute, possibly involving multiple editors, as reflected on its talk page. 69.140.152.55 (talk) 11:53, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

The colour isn't intended to indicate severity. According to WP:Ambox, the orange strip is used for all article content-related boxes. Algebraist 13:11, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
If you wanted to seperate out articles by severity; you might want to start by working with teh categories. Right now both templates go into "NPOV disputes" even though the "POV -check" isn't neccesarily a dispute. Really the NPOV categories need systematic review overall.--BirgitteSB 15:43, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Why...

Okay, not that I really want to ask burning questions about Avril Lavigne, but how come you aren't answering questions about her in the Reference Desk. My friend told me you guys weren't anymore and I just thought it was weird and oddly specific... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.160.222.253 (talk) 22:18, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm not a Reference Desker, but I'm pretty sure that isn't true. Most likely, some questions about her just aren't being answered for lack of relevant expertise among the people who staff the Reference Desk. Dcoetzee 22:39, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
When a whole slew of one-liner questions on the same topic are asked in quick succession by the same poster, then Ref Desk people tend not to put to much thought or effort into the answers of any one of the individual questions. It's a pretty normal reaction, when you consider that the ref desk is staffed entirely by volunteers. APL (talk) 01:51, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

What is % of English only vs. non Eglish articles

A quick question about Wikipedia's multilingual content...

Is there a way to determine:

  • What percentage of the English (EN) of the 2,375,000+ have no other translations?
  • How many of articles in the non-English Wikipedias have no English (EN) version?
  • What percentage of all Wikipedia articles are written in English (EN) first, then translated to other languages?
  • And conversely, what percentage of all articles are written in non-English languages first, then translated to other languages?

    • Are stats like these kept? And if so, where? Thanks -R —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ricks99 (talk • contribs) 19:29, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

    There are some statistics on the number of articles in the various different language Wikipedias at m:List of Wikipedias, but I don't think that's what you're after. Working this sort of stuff out would probably involve downloading a database dump or every single Wikipedia language edition and then processing them all, which would be difficult. Hut 8.5 20:24, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

    This data, while potentially very interesting, is not readily available here. It would require lots..and lots...of work, and with very trusty translation programs. I'd love to see such a report, but am in doubt of its attainability. -Violask81976 22:01, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

    we should be able to do a count by simply the presence of interwiki links, without concerning ourselves about the ones that do have equivalent articles but not links, and other gaps and errors. That should be much simpler? DGG (talk) 00:24, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

    Secure tunneling in deletion log?

    I am pretty positive that "Secure tunneling" used to be an article. I cannot locate it in the deletion log. Why is this/might this be? Changed to redirect then deleted? If you would reply on my talk page, I would be quite grateful. --Emesee (talk) 06:02, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

    (copied to user talk) If it was changed to a redirect and then deleted, it would still be in the deletion log. The obvious explanation is that you haven't got the page name exactly right. Unfortunately it's difficult to find deleted articles without the exact name. Did you ever edit the article? If so, an admin could look at your deleted contributions. Algebraist 11:39, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
    You can see a list of all pages that start with "secure" here - were you thinking of Secure Socket Tunneling Protocol? I wrote a program a while ago to search the titles of deleted pages but its raw data is a few months out of date. You haven't got any deleted edits to any pages with remotely similar titles. Hut 8.5 19:14, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

    Attention native speakers of English!

    Hi. I've recently come across a number of uses of the phrase "Topics on X" (where X is a region, place, etc) such as "Topics on the United Kingdom" and "Topics on the European Union". Any other native English speakers find that an odd turn of phrase? Sardanaphalus (talk) 17:47, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

    Thanks for your response. Anyone else? Or is there a better place to guage any consensus about this? Sardanaphalus (talk) 04:39, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
    My grammar is a little rusty, but I think the phrasing is awkward because topic is fairly synonymous with subject, meaning the EU is the topic. "Topics related to the European Union" is fine, but "Topics on a topic" doesn't work". JohnnyMrNinja 04:56, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
    I'd go for "European Union topics" myself. DuncanHill (talk) 12:16, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
    "On" is a preposition; a word that relates its object (a noun or pronoun) to another word in the sentence. Hence, you cannot have a topic "on" something unless it is literally physically sitting on top of it. The only place you'll see it is in bad English (which is everywhere, I know). Fleetflame 03:41, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

    How about this: "The committee already discussed the topic on May 3." -- Taku (talk) 04:33, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

    Initially I found the construct stilted, and I felt that Topics about Place is better English. However the discussion above seems to be based on feeling rather than fact. A standard English Grammar is Thompson and Martinet OUP 1960, ISBN 0 19 431323 9. To this I will refer. On can be a preposition or adverb.(para 90) Other words in this group are: in, up, down, off, near, through, along, across, over, under, round.
    Examples. They carried on(adverb)He rang on the bell.(adverb) He dined on mince and slices of quince... (adverb)(Lear) He fell on the floor (Preposition of travel) It lived on the floor (Preposition of place). We went on Thursday(Preposition of time). The question is whether in modern current English, the word Topics can govern on- and though I don't use that form, I can't find any prescription against doing so. And taking a parallel, we would use Articles on Place with no hesitation. ClemRutter (talk) 15:18, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
    • There may be no prescription against using "topics on" or "topics in" -- meanwhile, however, the responses thus far suggest it's a phrasing not commonly used. I guess the structure of language may be based on discernable rules, but not necessarily its use. Sardanaphalus (talk) 16:05, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
    In the phrase that Sardanaphalus used originally, the word "on" is used as a preposition, not an adverb. Therefore, it is only correct if the topic is literally sitting on something. Perhaps you could use "the topic of X" correctly. That preposition works, because it's not a prep. of place. Fleetflame 01:12, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

    Using A Wikipedia Font Elsewhere

    Is there a way I can download wikipedia's Greek font so that I don't have to cut and paste each individual letter? I have other Greek fonts for MS Word, but I would prefer wikipedia's because it works with just about any program. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.85.177.46 (talk) 20:50, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

    The Greek fonts you have are probably like the old "Symbol" font - when you type "a", you get an alpha; but you only see an alpha, actually it's just an "a" in a fancy font. Wikipedia uses Greek characters from Unicode, so an alpha is an alpha, whatever font you use to display it. I believe what you're looking for is installing a Greek keyboard layout, which would allow you to type Greek characters like Greek do on their computers. As this isn't really Wikipedia specific, you should ask how to do that at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing. --Dapete会話 09:57, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

    A "Gallery Viewer"?

    I was just viewing the article Maryland, and liked most of the pictures in the Gallery in the middle of the page. I thought that it'd be a lot more convenient to have a Gallery Viewer- where you could click one gallery image and then have arrows that would lead you through the others- instead of clicking on an image and then reloading the article and clicking a new one. It doesn't seem like it'd be too hard to create either, but I'm not sure. Anybody agree/disagree? --Alegoo92 (talk) 16:21, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

    It would be posible yes but would require changes to how mediawiki handles images (most people get the effect you want by opening the images in new tabs). At the present time I don't think we have anyone interested in writeing the relivant code.Geni 16:36, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

    an obviously plagiarized article

    The entry on Southdale Mall has been plagiarized (like so many other Wikipedia entries) from an article published by Malcolm Gladwell. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Timtherhetor (talk • contribs) 21:21, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

    Can you provide us links to the articles you claim are plagiarized, as well as to the sources of the alleged copyright? Tony Fox (arf!) 21:39, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

    Request help from Internet Explorer user

    Could someone who uses IE7 please check out Template:Ribbon devices/testcases#Examples and tell me if the "live" and "sandbox" versions are the same or different? The result I am looking for in the "sandbox" version is five rows of ribbons with, from top to bottom, 2-1-3-3-3 ribbons. Please comment on User talk:Flamurai or Template talk:Ribbon devices. Thanks. – flamurai (t) 00:30, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

    The 'live' versions are different in FF and IE (7.0.5730.11), but the 'sandbox' version (different from both 'live' versions) is the same in each, 2-1-3-3-3. Algebraist 01:10, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

    Wikimedia Blog

    The Wikimedia foundation blog, is located at the blog site.

    Information about this blog can be located at Meta.


    The blog is currently encouraging suggested post drafts from the contributors on here at Wikimedia. Please check out the drafting instructions at m:Wikimedia_Blog#Drafting_a_post

    Send in your material!

    An example of a post that could be drafted is the new SUL / Unified login system. Perhaps a contributor knowledgeable in that area could write something up.  :)

    Very Best! NonvocalScream (talk) 02:11, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

    Questionnaire on translating for Wikimania 2008

    Hello, everyone. :)

    You don't know me (I'm most active on fr:wp), so I apologize for intruding a bit on your wiki. But I do need your help!

    I will be giving a talk at Wikimania 2008 in Alexandria on translation in Wikimedia projects (along with User:Aphaia), and to that end I need some statistics upon which to base my work. I have prepared a questionnaire in several languages, including English, and am looking for some kind souls who would take 5 minutes of their time to answer it. ;) It is very short and the questions aren't hard to answer. I aim to get at least 100 answers, and have gotten around 35 so far. Please help if you can.

    Please reply in whichever language you feel most comfortable with. I'm not looking for just the most active translators, either, so if you translate very little I'd still be grateful for your participation. Please don't hesitate to share these links with anyone you think would be interested!

    Thank you,
    Arria Belli | parlami 15:06, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

    Wikimedia Commons announces launch of new Valued images project

    The official VI seal

    The project goes live for nominations on 1 June, 2008 at 0:00 UTC

    This Commons Valued images project sets out to identify and encourage users' efforts in providing valuable images of high diversity and usability, and to build up a resource for editors from other Wikimedia projects seeking such images for use online. The project also provides recognition to contributors who have made an effort to contribute images of difficult subjects which are very hard or impossible to obtain in featured picture or quality image technical quality. The project will run alongside the existing Commons Featured pictures and Quality images projects.

    Please visit Valued images candidates to nominate an image, or to help review the nominations. Anyone with an account on Commons is welcome to nominate images, and also to take part in the open review process. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 22:02, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

    "Gonna Fly Now" has false info

    This article lists Gonna Fly Now as the theme song for Rocky. This is not true. Each movie has a different song played during the title sequence, which I think should be considered the "theme song". The song played is not Gonna Fly Now, it is a similar song called "Fanfare for Rocky" on the Rocky soundtrack. I could be wrong, just wanted to get this out here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.29.65.87 (talk) 00:14, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

    Note that the one reference on that article is to a page called "Gonna Fly Now (Theme from Rocky)", so I think you have a hard argument to make. You are welcome to find a reference proving your point and either introduce it to Talk:Gonna Fly Now or simply edit the article yourself. - BanyanTree 04:32, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

    Wikipedia background image(the book thing)

    What is the licensing information? thanks. Rahk E✘[[ my disscussions | Who Is ]] 21:55, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

    You mean the background behind the logo and all of the frames? That's not part of Wikipedia, that's part of MediaWiki, which is released under the GPL. Celarnor Talk to me 23:46, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

    Comparative politics articles

    This morning a group of new users posted a series of new comparative politics articles. My guess is that they are part of a school project. For the most part they are fairly good, though they unquestionably need some style and formatting revisions. They are pretty bulky articles, and it would be could if some users could give them some care and attention. The ones I've found are:

    - SimonP (talk) 18:08, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

    Are this kind of things really encyclopedic? They would also appear to have NPOV issues.Geni 01:25, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
    The American British one blithely assumes that there is only one legal system throughout the UK too. In actuality there are three: a common law system for England and Wales; a second common law system for Northern Ireland; and a hybrid civil/common law system for Scotland. That error alone would suggest that these articles need checking. -- Derek Ross | Talk 04:19, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
    For one thing, an encyclopedic article shouldn't have the conclusion section; that's just not the style. They might be better put in Wikibooks, I would say. I can easily imagine a textbook comparing various governments in the world. -- Taku (talk) 08:27, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

    straw poll

    When you think of Washington State (with a capital S), do you mean:

    Washington State University, or
    the State of Washington, or
    either one?

    (Please sign *~~~~ in the appropriate section, and add any comments you deem useful.)

    69.140.152.55 (talk) 05:10, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

    Note that this is an inappropriate forum for this discussion. There is an ongoing discussion at Talk:Washington State. There is already a note pointing people to that discussion at Talk:Washington State University, though another at Talk:Washington is probably merited. In any case, please have this discussion somewhere localized to the users who frequent the relevant pages. - BanyanTree 04:26, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

    Can't vote for Wikimedia Board of Trustees election

    I've got no idea where to put this but I'll post it here.

    You are not qualified to vote in this election. You need to have made at least 600 contributions before 00:00, 1 March 2008, and have made at least 50 contributions between 00:00, 1 January 2008 and 00:00, 29 May 2008.

    Why can't I vote? I've made over 5000 edits since being here. So I don't count? Bidgee (talk) 17:09, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

    I don't know... According to the quote, you should be fine, as you made well over 50 edits since January and a lot more than 600 edits before March. Perhaps it only likes edits in a certain namespace? Rahk E✘[[ my disscussions | Who Is ]] 23:39, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
    You didn't go to the vote page from some other wikimedia project using unified login, did you? I just did that (from simple.wikipedia) and it only counts edits in the project you come from. Algebraist 13:50, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
    As far as I can tell, Bidgee does meet the criteria. Try again, making sure that you come from en.wikipedia, not from another project, and that you are logged in. If that fails, it might be a bug. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 15:39, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

    Earnest question

    Does anyone know what the political biases are of the Trustees Board members at Wikimedia. For that matter, is there any real power granted to the Wikimedia user who wins the board election? Can they shape policy at all?

    I just want to be clear on how important that office really is, and if it can effect things like, whose views are accepted as "consensus". Tcaudilllg (talk) 02:52, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

    In the context of acting as a point of contact with external agencies such as the tax authorities, the courts, the media, etc., the Board of Trustees are important. In the context of the internal operation of the encyclopedia, they choose not to be. Hence things like whose views are accepted as "consensus" have been decided by anyone who has been interested in discussing that sort of thing. Check the Wikipedia mailing list archives and meta.wikipedia.org for past essays and discussions on this and many other matter of Wikipedia governance (including the creation of the Board). While the Board probably has the legal authority to decide such a matter as who is eligible to form consensus, its past behaviour suggests (to me at any rate) that it would only do such a thing under duress from external agencies. The only things that the Board mandates (as a result of agreement among those editors who were involved in the early days prior to the Board's formation) are core policies such as that "Wikipedia is an Encyclopedia and not various other things", the Neutral Point Of View, etc. -- the Five Pillars basically. Since the Board raises funds, pays for the servers, etc. it seems not unreasonable that it should set Wikipedia's high-level goals. If anything it seems quite surprising that it should leave so much of the detail to be defined by the General Public (or that segment of it which wants to volunteer for Wikipedia anyway).
    So to specifically answer your questions. Some people may know the political biases but I don't. I would hope that they belong to the Encyclopedia Party though. They have as much power as any other Board member and rather more than the average editor. They can attempt to shape policy via discussion with other editors (as we all can) or impose it via a Board fiat (which they have only done to maintain Wikipedia's core values or to protect the encyclopedia from legal issues). -- Derek Ross | Talk 15:41, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

    So and so is a fictional character

    Why do so many articles on television characters begin with the line, "so and so is a fictional character in so and so series"? Why fictional? Shouldn't that be obvious from context? An encyclopedia would never refer to a real person as a "character". Indeed, "so and so is a fictional character" is actively misleading in many cases. It makes it sound like a character is fictional within that show's universe, like Itchy and Scratchy in The Simpsons.

    I see similar patterns in articles on comic book characters. Look at the first line at Captain Marvel (DC Comics): "Captain Marvel is a fictional comic book superhero..." As opposed to a real comic book superhero?

    I've started a discussion about this here. It would be great if people could stop by. Awbizkomeydownstar (talk) 08:13, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

    This was discussed and agreed on some time ago. It may be obvious to you that David Copperfield is a fictional character (or that he is not a fictional character) but that does not mean that it is obvious to someone who has never heard of him. Particularly when it comes to minor characters from minor novels, experience proved that it was necessary to establish context for fictional characters to prevent confusion. Hence the standard wording that WP now uses for them. -- Derek Ross | Talk 19:56, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
    Is there a link to a past discussion? Awbizkomeydownstar (talk) 23:26, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
    You want a link to a discussion that took place five or six years ago ? That could be tricky. -- Derek Ross | Talk 03:11, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
    Take a look at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (writing about fiction). I'm sure plenty of discussion has happened on the talk page and its archives. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 18:35, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
    The lead for Doctor Doom is probably better written: "Doctor Doom is a fictional character that appears in the comic books published by Marvel Comics." --—— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 20:59, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

    New MOS for TV

    The television community currently has an MOS guideline under proposal, and would appreciate all comments at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Television/Style guidelines#MOS proposal in order to have the best possible guide for television related articles.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 12:04, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

    How much info on embarassing associates should be in a presidential candidate's biography?

    Some editors here think that when a U.S. presidential candidate is embarrassed by someone associated with that candidate, no information about it should be mentioned in the WP biography article, even if the campaign (and therefore the person who is the subject of the article) was affected. Others think WP should only mention that this person was controversial and leave a link in the article to the WP article on that controversial associate. Still others (including me), think we should briefly explain just why that person was controversial in the candidate's life, which can be done in a phrase or at most a sentence or two. Examples:

    Whatever we do, we should have equal treatment, so anyone interested in NPOV-, WP:BLP-compliant articles should look at and participate in the discussion at Talk:Barack Obama#Attempt to build consensus on the details. We've started the discussion on how much to say about former Weather Underground leader Bill Ayers in the Barack Obama article, but this will likely affect many other articles. Noroton (talk) 15:26, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

    Please don't respond here! Please respond at the Talk:Barack Obama#Attempt to build consensus on the details where your comments will actually affect the consensus!!! Noroton (talk) 17:53, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
    I agree that edits should be evenhanded and come from a NPOV, but to me the most important issues should be notability (within the context of that article) and verifiablity of the information in question. No doubt the people listed above should be included in the respective articles, but they shouldn't take up a majority of the article (and some of them are more notable than others within the context of each person - i.e. Wright > Rezko within the Obama artice). My $0.02. - Masonpatriot (talk) 15:56, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

    Date parameter for split templates

    It has been suggested that I get a consensus on my proposal to add a date parameter to the split templates. I feel that the change is minor and therefore consensus does not need to be sought. There is a discussion at Wikipedia:Requested templates#Date parameter for split templates. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 22:40, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

    Cleanup listings for WikiProjects

    About 16% of all Wikipedia articles are flagged for cleanup of some sort, although this number varies largely by subject area. Any help in cleaning these massive backlogs is appreciated.

    In order to help editors in finding articles of interest that need cleanup, I started to offer per-WikiProject and per-workgroup listings of flagged articles across all maintenance categories. See User:B. Wolterding/Cleanup listings for more information. The system has stabilized somewhat, and user feedback was quite positive, so I would invite more WikiProjects to join (i.e. to request listings).

    By the way, the Urgent Maintenance Award of the Month is shared by the articles Legality of cannabis and Meme, each of which had 16 (sixteen) cleanup categories assigned as of May 24. --B. Wolterding (talk) 12:11, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

    Problems with wiktionary transwiki

    CopyToWiktionaryBot has not been functioning for some time. The category includes articles tagged for transfer from at least as far back as May 10, here. (There may be older; I only looked at a couple.) I wrote to the bot's operator, User:Connel MacKenzie, about it on May 24th and got a prompt reply, but it wasn't really encouraging that the bot would be up and running again any time soon as there is evidently an issue with "false positives" in Special:Import. (Note: I am technologically pretty clueless. I am reporting it, but I don't know what he meant by it. :)) He suggested that an admin may be found on Wiktionary in the event of an emergency transfer; I don't know that there are any emergencies in this list, but am concerned that they are stacking up; currently there are 52 pages in the category. I asked two days ago at AN to see if there were any administrators here who might also be admins there, who could help clear this up, but got no takers. Anybody here have any idea how we can handle this "in house"? If not, I may wander over to find some AN noticeboard on Wiktionary and ask for ideas there. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 16:48, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

    Six Degrees of Wikipedia?

    Do you reckon it's possible to get from any Wikipedia article to any other Wikipedia article just by clicking the hyperlinks in the text in less than six moves? Savager (talk) 18:28, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

    It is not. You can't get to a page with no incoming links, for example, such as Al 'Uyaynah up till a minute ago. But see Wikipedia:Six degrees of Wikipedia. Algebraist 18:52, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
    I tried a dozen or more combinations of two articles in Wikipedia:Six degrees of Wikipedia, getting as obscure as I could, and every single one took exactly four "jumps" between articles - no more, no less. Is this reflective of some deep truth about reality?!?! - DavidWBrooks (talk) 18:59, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
    Yes. You have taken the first step towards complete omniscience. Celarnor Talk to me 19:53, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
    here is the answer GameKeeper (talk) 07:39, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
    From that website: "If you follow the best route in all cases, it takes an average of 4.573 clicks to get from any Wikipedia article to any other." (most likely referring to articles in the "big component") Dcoetzee 22:22, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
    Except our Kevin Bacon is Billie Jean King. Phlegm Rooster (talk) 22:36, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

    Alexa traffic rankings for Wikipedia

    Any reason for Wikipedia jumping in traffic in the last 2 weeks: [3]? Samw (talk) 22:05, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

    According to a Signpost article from May 2nd, it's a result of Alexa expanding their dataset in mid-April. - BanyanTree 07:06, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
    Thanks! So the growth is only showing up now? The Alexa stats are even better than the Signpost article! Samw (talk) 03:07, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

    How do I delete a disambiguation page?

    I want to delete this page -> Wacol and link it straight to the Wacol, Queensland page 203.206.10.229 (talk) 15:39, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

    If you're sure that that meets the requirements for disambiguation pages (here) i.e., that this particular Wacol is going to be the one wanted by most readers, then you should move (using the "move" tab) the content of Wacol to Wacol (disambiguation), and then edit the redirect that should be made on Wacol to point to Wacol, Queensland. You should finally add {{otherusesof|Wacol}} to the top of the Wacol, Queensland page so that the disambiguation page doesn't get lost. --tiny plastic Grey Knight ⊖ 16:19, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

    Double Spaced?

    Maybe Wikipedia as a whole should be either 1.5 our double spaced to make reading easier. There should also be a button to increase or decrease the size of the font on each page. What do you guys think? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.178.240.81 (talk) 01:58, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

    Most browsers can change the text size for you. Ctrl+ and Ctrl- work in FireFox and IE. Algebraist 11:18, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
    Consider registering an account - then you can edit your monobook.css (mine is at User:Alex.muller/monobook.css) to add:
    p { line-height: 200%; }
    or something similar. Alex Muller 09:53, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

    Divorce

    Its true the men after a Divorce in USA need to support fincellt the women?Wolfmann (talk) 19:53, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

    No. This question should be on the reference desk, but in general a court will establish whether or not one person will pay alimony or child support to the other after divorce. It is not uncommon for the woman to end up being the one paying one or both of these. Dcoetzee 20:44, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
    Just as an aside to passing readers, here is the reference desk referred to above. --tiny plastic Grey Knight ⊖ 09:11, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

    Apple mention of Wikipedia

    Dunno where stuff like this gets posted, but Apple just posted something about connecting directly to Wikipedia via its various programs.[4] EVula // talk // ☯ // 18:13, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

    The signpost might be interested. Hut 8.5 08:04, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

    Firefox 3

    I think the article on the browser needs attention over this soon to be released version. -- Cat chi? 11:42, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

    Unique Visitors Per Month / Unique Editors per Month?

    I'm trying to figure out who Contribution percentage for Wikipedia. I'm wondering how many unique visitors Wikipedia gets each month? And of those how many are actually edit something? Is there a good place where I can start looking for this information? Kayur (talk)

    It doesn't sound like this is quite what you are looking for but Wikipedia article traffic statistics might be a decent place to start from. It at least shows that this kind of thing is technically possible and the raw data is linked to from that page. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 16:53, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

    WMF election e-mail ... spam?

    I got an e-mail from the "board-elections-2008" list through the Wikipedia e-mail feature letting me know I'm eligible to vote in the elections on this account. I assume many other users did as well.

    I'm going to take the perhaps controversial stance that this type of e-mailing should be discouraged. I have a confirmed e-mail and the e-mail feature turned on to facilitate communication with other users. This sort of administrative e-mailing, I feel, is a slippery slope -- I don't really want my inbox to start collecting messages from the WMF, because those messages aren't really to me, and thus are, in my opinion, more or less spam.

    Maybe I'm making a mountain out of a molehill here, since it is only one e-mail, but I'm generally of the opinion that, if it can happen once, it can happen a thousand times. Can I get some indication from others as to whether they feel that this sort of administrative use of the e-mail feature is appropriate?

    Cheers - Revolving Bugbear 16:16, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

    Well, board elections don't happen every day, at least. I can see your point of view, though, that you don't want things to get any bigger; it seems like at the least there should be an option to not receive such mailings (the default setting of this option I shall not opine on!) Luckily I doubt anyone will suggest mailing out every change to watchlisted articles or anything really insane (although a digest of that might be a nice optional feature... hm) --tiny plastic Grey Knight ⊖ 16:24, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
    [5] JohnnyMrNinja 17:28, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
    I've only ever gotten stuff for this board election. That's one a year. Don't worry about filling your mailbox's storage capacity. -Violask81976 20:56, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
    It's a one-time-a-year thing; I don't have a problem with that. You're more likely to get more email abuse from vandals than from the Foundation. EVula // talk // ☯ // 21:48, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
    It's probably reasonable to allow users to opt out of such messages, but generally I don't think this has been a large problem. – Luna Santin (talk) 00:05, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
    One email from an organisation you have a prior relationship with is not spam. If it becomes lots of emails, then you can reasonably complain, but I think that is very unlikely. --Tango (talk) 00:23, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
    It says right in the email that you can add yourself to the "no-mail list." Fleetflame 01:26, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
    Which is at m:Wikimedia nomail list (the same as User:JohnnyMrNinja's unlabelled link above). --tiny plastic Grey Knight ⊖ 12:05, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
    The "email feature" was not used. Rather, the elections committee was provided with a list of email addresses for eligable voters. We then removed all duplicates (to prevent users getting 2+ emails), and sent out the emails in a way which did not reveal the email addresses of other users. The lists will not be used for anything else, so as Violask81976 points out, one email a year (which wasn't even sent if you had already voted) letting you know you were eligable to vote in a project you were active on (you have to had made 50 edits in the last six months, so it's presumed you have some recent interest) does not seem in the slightest, unreasonable. There is no way this could be considered to be inappropriate spamming, or else the developers wouldn't have given us a list of emails in the first place. Daniel (talk) 13:43, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
    All sounds reasonable. In this day and age we are just all getting a little bit paranoid about spam! :-) (me too!) ---tiny plastic Grey Knight ⊖ 14:18, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

    Signpost

    Where can I sign up to help on the Signpost? Thanks. SwirlBoy39 14:28, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

    Drop a note to Ral315, the current editor-in-chief, and I'm sure he'll be able to point you in the right direction. Cheers! Tony Fox (arf!) 16:03, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
    On the other hand the dynamics of organizing a rival publication could prove fascinating (if your application is rejected of course... best of luck). — CharlotteWebb 16:44, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

    Input wanted for generic collapsible table template

    Your comments wanted on this proposed template:


    Go here for some usage examples. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 01:41, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

    You might want to look at {{hidden}}. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 02:08, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

    Oh no, it's another puzzle-globe thread

    Hello all; I've been trying to find Unicode codepoints for all the characters on the Wikipedia puzzle-globe; I think I've managed most of them, but there are still one or two mysterious ones, namely the two to the left of the Hebrew resh (which is U+05E8). You can check my table of research on m:Talk:Errors in the Wikipedia logo for reference. Any thoughts? --tiny plastic Grey Knight ⊖ 12:29, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

    I guess it'd be better to have this on Wikipedia:Reference desk/Language#Mystery character, please view this Village Pump post as just an announcement. :-) --tiny plastic Grey Knight ⊖ 12:46, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

    Century start and end date

    I'm trying to figure out which of these sates should be accepted. As you can see from this diff the dates of the start and the end of a Century can be disputed. Which of these version should it actually be? I found / got told about Millennium#Debate_over_millennium_celebrations which brings me to think that it should be 1901 to 2000 but I am still not sure. ·Add§hore· Talk/Cont 19:26, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

    I don't think there is a Wikipedia wide determination on this... I personally tend to take a middle (and inconsistent) road... centuries start in '01 (no year 0), but Millennia start in '00 (due to the odometer effect). Others will disagree. Just go with what you think makes sense. Blueboar (talk) 17:56, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
    Thanks for your input. ·Add§hore· Talk/Cont 18:55, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

    re social policy in jordan

    --coolpolitealex (talk) 21:01, 10 June 2008 (UTC)hi can anyone let me know ,does Jordan have social security system

    You might want to try the WP:REFDESK for this one. Soxred 93 01:49, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

    Three questions

    1. Is there a policy or guideline that explicitly discourages sexist or racist language?

    2. For disambiguation pages, should similar sounding names be included? eg. On the Wacol disambiguation page it has an entry that points to the Waco article. Because I was thinking about deleting the Wacol disambiguation page because most people who are looking for Wacol are looking for the suburb in Brisbane, not for any of the other entries listed.

    3. How do I search for an article when I don't know the title? e.g. I was trying to find an article that listed wars by the number of casualties involved. I knew that it was in wiki, but didn't know the exact title. The search didn't really return the results that I wanted (compared to something like google). It seems to me that the search box looks for words in the article title rather than keywords within the article itself; is that right?

    ExitLeft (talk) 08:16, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

    To answer the third question, type the first few words in the search box, in this case "List of wars by" and pause. The suggestion "List of wars by death toll" pops up (at least, it does on Firefox 3, but I think this is a recently-added Wikipedia search feature), and that's a redirect to the article you want, List of wars and disasters by death toll.-gadfium 08:33, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
    For the first question, see Wikipedia:Gender-neutral language. There's a discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Archive_92#Proposal for guidelines on gender-neutral language.-gadfium 08:39, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
    For the second question: As discussed in the earlier thread on this subject, you want to move the disambiguation page, not delete it. The "Waco" entries are listed in a "See also" section on that page, not in the main disambiguation list, just in case someone ends up at "Wacol" while looking for "Waco", which isn't altogether implausible; they could probably survive happily at the new location (Wacol (disambiguation)) once you move the page there. --tiny plastic Grey Knight ⊖ 09:22, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
    OK thanks. It was actually me that asked about moving the Wacol disambiguation earlier, so I'll work on moving the page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.206.6.179 (talk) 09:45, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

    Wikipedia pages aggressively edited to remain advertisements

    There are two pages I have edited which appear to have people maintaining the pages to keep them supportive of commercial enterprises.

    The courier company City Link has a page at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initial_City_Link

    This company has caused much controversy with poor customer service. I added content saying that there had been reports of poor service by City Link, and giving four references to online review sites with hundreds of reviews of their service. This was deleted. At the time I sort of accepted the justification for the deletion of the content being that it wasn't properly referenced. Though, I wonder what sort of reference is required to support a comment that there have been many reports of poor service by City Link other than reports of poor service. I looked for any articles in published magazines, e.g. consumer magazines, evaluating their service, but couldn't find any. So I left that one.

    Professional newspaper stories are probably valid sources, if you can find any.—RJH (talk) 21:26, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

    The website "House Price Crash" has a page. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_Price_Crash Someone other than myself added a section listing similar websites, giving a number of web forums where property is discussed. These were deleted, with the reason given for the deletion being simply "Spam". I believe that listing similar websites is valid content for a wikipedia page about a website, and believe that the deletion of the content was because House Price Crash is a commercial website, and is trying to avoid references to its competition, including not-for-profit sites such as the Money Saving Expert page. I believe that the deletion of the new content is for commercial reasons, and that this is improper use of Wikipedia. Any comments? If the material is deleted again, what should I do? Ross-c (talk) 18:07, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

    Wikipedia:External_links#Links_normally_to_be_avoided #10 lists discussion forums among the external links to avoid. So in this case the deletion may be appropriate.—RJH (talk) 21:26, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

    "article bombs"

    I found an article on code bombs, and why they're a bad thing. Originally, collaborative editing was only used for code (computer programs). Then it drifted over to English with the invention of the wiki. Learning from mistakes made in other collaborative editing environments can be very enlightening.

    "Programmer Insecurity".

    Don't we see editors on wikipedia sometimes work the same way?

    --Kim Bruning (talk) 12:17, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

    So, applying that advice to a wiki-context, it works out better to make lots of small changes than monolithic rewrites; and if you really need a big rewrite, then you should try to do it in stages (say a section at a time). Does that make sense? It seems reasonable. --tiny plastic Grey Knight ⊖ 12:31, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
    Or, you can start a discussion on the article's talk page and as a group, do a rewrite on a separate page, then make the switchover. For best results, get an administrator to merge the article histories so they don't get lost. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 14:08, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
    Well in that case, you have a team making an article bomb, rather than a single person. There was an example in the article about a team that did something similar to that. Basically they ended up having to throw away their code. --Kim Bruning (talk) 14:46, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
    For new pages or pages that have less than 3 active editors within the past three months, I prefer a "shock and awe" approach to editing. Otherwise, people will start copyediting before the actual new information is complete. Also, I like having one large rewrite in order to avoid edit conflicts. Its hard to avoid such if you are editing the Wiki on the edit screen. Kim edit conflicted me just now, for instance. Ottava Rima (talk) 15:07, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
    Yes, I know. But is that really the best way to go? --Kim Bruning (talk) 15:26, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
    New pages and things that need serious work, yes. FAs, GAs, etc, no. Ottava Rima (talk) 15:31, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
    So you think wikis differ from code, then? --Kim Bruning (talk) 17:18, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
    I also think black is different from loud. No apples and oranges, but two completely different things all together. :P Ottava Rima (talk) 18:57, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
    Even for code, "throwaway" is not always a bad idea. Sometimes an article (or a program) needs a complete rewrite because of fundamental structural flaws caused by incremental development in directions which were not foreseen when the initial design was formulated. Rewriting articles (or throwing away code) should be seen as a normal part of development. -- Derek Ross | Talk 23:06, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
    Even full length article dumps are probably not quite the equiverlent of 5000 lines of code. While there are benifits to working in fairly small chuncks from the collaboration POV there are downsides from the getting things done POV.Geni 15:45, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

    Village Pump

    village pump?

    English is not my mother tongue, and I have always wondered what "village pump" really means? I know that village is a small town, but then. Would someone care to explain and make me less ignorant? thank you! Herve661 (talk) 22:57, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

    I think it is sort of a triple entendre. Literally the village pump is where the villagers, not having indoor plumbing, go to get their water for laundry or cooking or whatever. They also stop and talk to each other and ask stupid questions as they would if they were in an office standing around a water cooler. Also see wikt:pump#Verb: to gain information from (a person) by persistent questioning. — CharlotteWebb 23:07, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
    And in the old days, no one had indoor plumbing. -- Derek Ross | Talk 23:09, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
    I never said anything about the "old days". A lot of villages on this earth don't have indoor plumbing right now. — CharlotteWebb 23:13, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
    And a lot of them do. But in the old days none of them did. -- Derek Ross | Talk 23:19, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
    (Well no shit) speaking in the present tense to explain a metaphor does not mean I am ignorant of the "old days". — CharlotteWebb 23:31, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
    <????>, I never thought you were. Why would I ? You were talking about the present. I agreed with and amplified your comment by implying that it was even more true in the past. Where's the harm in that ? -- Derek Ross | Talk 05:44, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
    Guys, I think you are in WikiWikiWeb:ViolentAgreement here. :-) --tiny plastic Grey Knight ⊖ 15:39, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

    WP:RD/H semi-protected

    Someone just semi-protected the Humanities Reference Desk. Even if there is more vandalism going on than usual, the reference desks have plenty of IP-address question and answer contributors, and I do not think it is desirable to shut them out. --207.176.159.90 (talk) 00:57, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

    That's expired now (two hours only), and the best place for the discussion is probably here. Algebraist 10:08, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

    Undesired information on my watchlist

    As of today I have started getting:

    • Protection log
    • Deletion log
    • Move log

    on my watchlist display.

    I did not ask for this information, it is not on my list of watched files either, so I can do nothing to eliminate it. So what needs to be done? P0M (talk) 01:32, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

    These are in your watched pages. Next to the linked "Protection log" there will be an arrow/triangle. Click on this and it will display the pages that have been protected/deleted/moved and you can remove those pages from your watchlist. Though it seems unlikely that these will be repeatedly protected/moved/deleted so removing them from your watchlist probably won't help much. - BanyanTree 08:04, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
    bugzilla:14552 is related to this. — CharlotteWebb 14:11, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

    Cartoon/comic/pop culture preservation project?

    I hope this is the right place to post my concern. It seems to me that more and more, there are rumblings about the removal of information that is not considered 'notable' by some, but is still highly appreciated by others. Would it be a very terrible suggestion for some of us (who know how to) to create another wiki site where any information considered not notable here but still precious by others can be preserved? If fair warning is given about the immanent removal of some pages, this might prevent considerable friction around Wikipedia. Art is life and life is an art. (talk) 23:09, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

    There are many wikis on Wikia and non-Wikimedia projects for specific subject areas, such as a particular television series or video game. Dcoetzee 00:45, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
    But how many of them are dedicated to saving material that might otherwise be wiped off the 'net entirely?
    Anybody can make a website; you might try WikiWikiWeb:WikiFarms or centralwikia: if you want to set something up reasonably quickly. I know Comixpedia handles a lot of comic-related stuff, that probably doesn't cover everything you're talking about though. If you can set up a MediaWiki wiki like the ones at Wikia, then you should be able to suggest importing or transwikiing(that can be done in this case, right?) the articles in question at AfD. This is already done in some specialised cases; I think I've seen a few AfDs using "Transwiki to Wookieepedia" for some Star Wars-related articles. You might like to look at somewhere like everything2 if you're wanting to just write a few articles on things, but as I understand it your personal concern is saving articles written by others in Wikipedia that have been deemed unsuitable. Is that right? --tiny plastic Grey Knight ⊖ 14:10, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

    Recreation center for seniors

    --72.139.193.4 (talk) 13:52, 17 June 2008 (UTC)maeern@hotmail .com~If we can afford to spend millions o a new city hall,a new court house and a new ball field,why can't we spend a million on a new senior recreation center when the majority of the people are seniors. If they deducted only 1$ a month from every seniors check and put it towards a few decent centers no one would complain,and we wouldn't miss it because we are in dire need of a good one! Ernie Roberts cornerbrook.

    I'm afraid this isn't a discussion forum. Please try another website, thanks! --tiny plastic Grey Knight ⊖ 13:54, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

    WP:LOCE up for MFD

    I don't know whether this is the apppropriate place for this, but I have nominate the LOCE project for closure by MFD'ing it. The discussion is here. All comments are welcome. Thanks, D.M.N. (talk) 18:23, 17 June 2008 (UTC)


    Wikiversity School of Medicine

    Would anyone like to participate in the development of the Wikiversity School of Medicine? Please join our discussion regarding the content of our first curriculum. All opinions are welcome. 90.207.182.246 (talk) 23:07, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

    abt real madrid and 202.134.12.11

    in real madrid page somebody vandalized its current player's list with some imaginary names. i did not have much time to correct them. so i deleted the wrong information and make the list empty. i did not have any bad intention.

    i did not know about jazmin; thanks boss -- now i know her ;). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.134.12.11 (talk) 06:03, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

    Does TIBCO supports JSR 3 standards ?

    Does TIBCO supports JSR 3 standards ? If some one know information on this please send a mail to [email protected] Thanks, Vamsi. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 15.219.201.69 (talk) 13:02, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

    "We": a serious fiction article plague!!!

    Many articles about episode in a fiction TV series, movie, books, video games, etc. often use the word "We" or "Us" in an unencyclopediac context. Take the following (constructed) example:

    Plot Summary Bobby goes to camp. At the camp, a girl walks out of the tent. We do not see who she is. Later, Bobby fishes. He does not inform us what fish he caught. The girl comes out and attacks Bobby. Then we are left with a cliffhanger, until the next episode.

    See? We should all correct this Third-person-plural problem as soon as possible. I will also put this in the "proposed guidelines" section. Tutthoth-Ankhre (talk) 02:44, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

    As I said in the other one, see "we", fix "we". Just be WP:BOLD. It's already in the MoS. — Trust not the Penguin (T | C) 03:27, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

    Watchlist alerts

    There are two watchlist notifications I get that are related to my location. "Bay area Wikipedians may be interested in the wikimedia-sf mailing list." "The next San Francisco meetup is Sunday June 28th."

    How do they know that I live in the San Francisco Bay area? It's not mentioned anywhere on my userpage. – FISDOF9 23:09, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

    Spyware. It's probably determined from your IP address. Ever wandered onto a site with banner ads promising (hot singles/cheap meds/replica watches/job openings/whatever) in <YOURCITY>, <YOURSTATE>, well that's how they do it. — CharlotteWebb 23:21, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
    Well, not really 'spyware', per se, just geolocation based on your IP address. (Your IP address is sent every time you request a web page, so that the remote server can send the web page back to your computer.) TenOfAllTrades(talk) 23:27, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
    Hang on, though. What mechanism exactly is posting these watchlist notifications? If it's "spyware" (which I agree it's akin to), it's running on Wikimedia's servers. But no one on Wikipedia is supposed to have access to registered users' IP addresses except WP:CHECKUSERs, and that power is supposed to be used only for only strictly delimited tasks. I wouldn't have thought meetup announcements were one of them. Something seems wrong here. —Steve Summit (talk) 15:28, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
    No human being does have acess to in this case. A bit of javascript on the wikipedia servers does.Geni 15:34, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
    Do you mean the little message that pops up at the top of Special:Watchlist? Those are inserted directly by the software, so no person is having access to your IP data for that purpose. It's not being used for any purpose other than to inform you, I don't think it's unreasonable. There might be an opt-out list somewhere if you're concerned, but the software is always going to know your IP address. It has to, otherwise it couldn't serve up page views to you. --tiny plastic Grey Knight ⊖ 15:36, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
    I'm not the one complaining; I've never been bothered by these. But:
    People don't like being tracked without their knowledge. Whether it's by a human or a computer doesn't necessarily make any difference. Whether it's based on information which needed to be known anyway for some other purpose (e.g. an IP address needed to route packets) doesn't necessarily make any difference.
    Notifying someone based on their membership in, say, Category:Wikipedians in the San Francisco Bay Area that there's a meetup coming up would be a fine idea. But doing so based on IP address seems completely unnecessary. It strikes me as something someone did because they could, not because it was a good idea or there was a crying need for it. —Steve Summit (talk) 16:47, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
    Probably is completely unnecessary, but it is only a security risk if I mention having having received the regional site-notice, or if I forget to black it out when sending you a screen-shot of my watchlist, etc. as these things would reveal that my location is "close enough to S.F. to possibly be interested in a bay area meet-up" (which could mean "anywhere in northern California" or "Calistoga or nearer" — one would have to check the source code to determine the precision or vagueness of my blunder). — CharlotteWebb 14:30, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
    I think the SF Meetup folks use Category:Wikipedians in San Francisco, California etc. and the spyware talk above is just kidding around. — Athaenara ✉ 04:38, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
    No, the spyware talk is completely serious, to the extent that I'm certain that automatic notices of regional significance are based on IP information rather than whether some user-page is part of some category. — CharlotteWebb 14:30, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
    "Spyware is computer software that is installed surreptitiously on a personal computer to intercept or take partial control over the user's interaction with the computer, without the user's informed consent." APL (talk) 13:37, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
    If you don't like your IP being tracked by computer it may be time to stop useing the internet since that this kinda fundimental to how it works.
    ...you're worried about being geolocated (vaguely) based on your IP address, which is information that you send freely to the wikimedia servers? Celarnor Talk to me 03:44, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
    The OP is not in Category:Wikipedians in San Francisco, California (or any other geolocation category) so the mailing is definitely not based on category. SpinningSpark 15:33, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

    Signatures

    I think that users should make their signatures in the form of a template to reduce clutter on talk pages. For example, this is what my signature looks like currently: {{SUBST:User:Wyatt915/Sig}}. But if I didn't use a template, it would look like this:

    <font face="Mistral" color="green" size="4">[[User:wyatt915|Wyatt]]</font><font face="Mistral" color="blue" size="2">[[User talk:wyatt915|915]]</font><font face="Wingdings" color="orange" size="4">[[User:Wyatt915/Guestbook|?]]</font>.

    Doesn't the latter look so confusing and clumsy compared to the first? If you like my idea, or don't know how to make templates, contact me at my talkpage. Thanks for your consideration!

    Wyatt915? 03:47, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

    If you're speaking of merely creating a template and substing it everywhere, all that is is a redundant step. If you're taking about actually using the template instead of substing it, Wikipedia:SIGNATURE#Transclusion of templates explains why that would be bad. — Trust not the Penguin (T | C) 03:50, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
    Since typing {{SUBST:User:Wyatt915/Sig}} is harder than typing ~~~~, I'm guessing what you really want to know is how to configure the latter to produce customised output. :-) On User profile (first tab) at Special:Preferences, there is a box in which you can paste the relevant wikicode that will be used for your ~~~~ output. You'll want to tick the Raw signature checkbox too. --tiny plastic Grey Knight ⊖ 07:39, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
    Or you could just leave your signature as plain text, because who needs a colored/fancy/cool-font signature, anyway? - DavidWBrooks (talk) 22:59, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

    C-Class

    I assess many articles for WikiProject Devon and I've just noticed a new "C-Class" category appear on the assessment categories. I've never heard of C-Class and I can't find any information about it (all the categories are empty). Can anyone point me in the right direction? bsrboy (talk) 14:55, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

    Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment. It's very new and not quite ready to be used yet. Hut 8.5 15:49, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
    I've already used it for several articles. bsrboy (talk) 15:50, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

    Cleanup

    About 16% of all Wikipedia articles are currently flagged for cleanup (including both cleanup banners and inline markers).

    Are you looking for an article to clean up? Here are some that are particularly in need of it.

    Do you want a cleanup to-do list for your WikiProject? See here for instructions how to obtain one.

    --B. Wolterding (talk) 09:26, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

    Wikipedia:Advice for parents - whaddya reckon?

    I've previously mentioned this on the policy village pump, because I was interested in how a page like this might gain some sort of formal community recognition - thoughts on that one are most welcome, but in the interim I'd also like to solicit as much feedback as possible on the page, which is intended to do exactly what it says on the tin... be a page offering advice to parents about engaging with wikipedia. I've recently dropped a link to it from the 'About Wikipedia' page, and as such would welcome as many eyes on its maintenance as possible! cheers, Privatemusings (talk) 05:37, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

    Well if it has participants, it looks like a Wikiproject to me, ie. a project for informing parents of how to let their children safely use WP. MBisanz talk 05:40, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
    Wikiproject sounds like quite a good idea - but I haven't really got any aims at the mo broader than this one page - I'll have a sniff around looking at what starting one might involve. I think this could be quite an important page in due course, with formal education's relationship to Wikipedia maturing beyond the informal - thanks for the idea, MB! cheers, Privatemusings (talk) 05:57, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

    blame it on Wikipedia

    Government schools in Scotland have been crummy for donkey's years, but the bureaucrats blame it on Wikipedia. Gwen Gale (talk) 01:54, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

    Oy vey. Nobody thinking "gee, maybe it's our educational system that needs some help?" Tony Fox (arf!) 02:16, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
    Cool! I've always wanted to take part in destroying an entire generation, I'm just happy to be part of the team :) Remember, "children are our future - unless we stop them now". Franamax (talk) 06:29, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
    I like children, but I couldn't eat a whole one. --tiny plastic Grey Knight ⊖ 14:58, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
    They are crunchy and go good with catsup, and they make great leftovers. —Preceding unsigned comment added by The Real Cthulhu (talk • contribs) Time has no meaning to me

    Starwars kid

    Discussion is on-going whether or not his name should be included in the article. Comments are welcome here: Talk:Star_Wars_kid#Name_inclusion 189.104.36.78 (talk) 21:24, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

    Date autoformatting is optional

    I'd like to remind users that for some time now, the autoformatting of dates has not been required.

    There are four advantages in not linking dates:

    1. Inconsistent raw formatting within an article is obvious to editors and thus less likely to escape our attention. (The autoformatting mechanism conceals the inconsistencies from us, the very people who are most likely to enforce consistency, but the raw formats are displayed in bright blue to almost all readers, who are not registered and logged in. The rules for the choice of format in an article are in MOSNUM, here); they are easily summarised as (a) be consistent within an article; (b) take account of national ties to a topic; and (c) retain the existing format unless there's a good reason not to.
    2. There are fewer bright-blue splotches in the text, which makes it slightly easier to read and improves its appearance.
    3. The following issues concerning the dysfunctional aspects of the autoformatting mechanism do not arise:
      • piped links to date elements ([[20 June|20]], [[20 June]] [[1997 in South African sport|1997]]) (several forms of piped links break the date formatting function);
      • links to date ranges in the same calendar month e.g. December 13–17 or the night of 30/31 May – the autoformatting mechanism will damage such dates (30/May 31);
      • links to date elements on disambiguation pages;
      • links to date elements in article and section headings; and
      • links to date elements in quotations (unless the original text was wikilinked).
    4. As a minor advantage, edit windows are slightly easier to read and edit.

    It may be that WikiMedia might be persuaded to invest resources in revamping the mechanism to avoid or mitigate these problems, but this is unlikely to occur in the short to medium terms. TONY (talk) 13:57, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

    I'm curious to know whether anybody actually uses the auto-linked dates that appear in the reference section? Is there somebody who needs to know who was born, or who died, on the same date that some esoteric book or journal article was published? That has always seemed an odd feature to me, and the only logical purpose seems to be for the date formatting. Perhaps there could be an alternative approach that doesn't require linking, such as a new XML tag?—RJH (talk) 16:26, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

    gael horse trainer

    years ago i took a video at colac horse show of a girl called gael on a big red horse called piccadilly. It is a great film of a winning jumping round. The rider had blonde hair and huge blue eyes. She may have come from geelong or the peninsular. We do not have her last name and would love to give her the film. Can anyone help us. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.163.175.21 (talk) 11:34, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

    If you know the date, who knows. :-) --Kim Bruning (talk) 14:46, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

    Do we capture references to Wikipedia in Academic Books?

    Last year I and a couple of other editors brought the Wonderbra article up to a featured article. Two of the key sources were a couple of books by Henry Mintzberg. Just this year, his new book revisits the Wonderbra story and he cites the Wikipedia article as source of information. Is this useful/helpful for Wikipedia? Mattnad (talk) 16:40, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

    I think it could be of use and interest. We do have Wikipedia:Wikipedia in academic studies, but that is not the same thing. I am unaware if we currently have any place to note works which refer to the Wikipedia in this way. DuncanHill (talk) 16:51, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
    After some hunting, I think I found an appropriate spot here Wikipedia:Wikipedia_as_an_academic_source#Published_2007 Mattnad (talk) 17:33, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
    Thanks - for both asking and answering a very good question! DuncanHill (talk) 17:35, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

    Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Arbitration Committee

    Posting a link here per a suggestion at the page. The page discusses ArbCom's mandate and processes. DurovaCharge! 18:26, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

    Perhaps a message could be added at the top of watchlists like the one for the RFA questionare. 5:15 02:57, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

    Requesting assistance for a presentation on wikis and Wikipedia

    I'll be doing a presentation at a conference about free contant, it'll be about wikis, Wikipedia and free content wiki-like systems in general at a conference aimed at a general audience.

    I'm looking for some presentations that have gone before me, ones that discuss any of:

    • How wikis work
    • How they deal with common problems, like vandalism
    • A review of the size of Wikimedia projects, and some other neat statistics
    • Something that shows the typical editing process?
    • Potential future developments like more geotagging integration
    • Something else?

    If this isn't the right forum to ask for this please redirect me somewhere else. --Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 14:05, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

    Ask John Broughton (talk · contribs), he wrote the book Wikipedia - The Missing Manual. MBisanz talk 14:24, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
    This place seems like as good a spot to ask as any, considering your various questions. :-) You might like to look at WikiWikiWeb:WhyWikiWorks for the first point, it's the original resource for that question! (well, technically you asked WikiWikiWeb:HowWikiWorks, but I interpreted your meaning to be the first.) Some other pages of interest: Wikipedia:How to edit a page, Wikipedia:Statistics, http://stats.wikimedia.org and http://stats.grok.se, Category:Wikipedia proposals. --tiny plastic Grey Knight ⊖ 14:56, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
    Another good resource is Wikipedia:Replies to common objections, which in the process of replying explains much of our mechanics. Dcoetzee 18:55, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
    And you might take a look at the editor's index; it gives a sense of the complexity of Wikipedia - the underlying software, community norms and rules, tools and bots that have been created to make human editing easier, or not necessary at all, etc. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 21:07, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

    Conservapedia violating what we call BLP, NOR, AGF, NPOV (and coming off worse for wear)

    Wonder why we have certain best practices regarding living persons, prohibiting original research, encouraging people to assume good faith and requiring us to maintain a neutral point of view?

    Well, take a look where Conservapedia manages to bungle all that up, and look REALLY bad in the process.

    Conservapedia: Lenski dialog (talk)

    I'm experiencing some measure of schadenfreude here, sad to say. (also, I'm noticing how many things we're actually getting right for a change. Breath of fresh air, that. :-)

    --Kim Bruning (talk) 14:24, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

    Someone seems to be acting like a prescriptivist!!! (notice the third exclamation point for extra emphasis) :) Ottava Rima (talk) 14:28, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
    I demand an immediate retraction of that horrendous slander! ;-) --Kim Bruning (talk) 14:29, 25 June 2008 (UTC) note how I carefully refer to such documents as "best practices"
    Slander is a prescriptivist term! Also, I think Conservapedia has only one "rule" - WP:IAR. Ottava Rima (talk) 14:31, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
    Oh! They're violating that too. Their actions do not improve the Conservapedia. (see also: what ignore all rules means)
    And very well on the "slander" thing: "I kindly request that you bring your statements in line with reality, good sir?" ;-) ;-) ;-) --Kim Bruning (talk) 14:34, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
    I think a NPOV would suggest that maybe their actions do improve their encyclopedia. :) Ottava Rima (talk) 14:38, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
    Well, by not being neutral to start off with, they're already precluding the ability to assume good faith later. If (when) thy are then shown to have acted in bad faith, that's when the animal waste hits the rotating cooling wind chill producing implement. --Kim Bruning (talk) 14:43, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
    Fans don't cool, unless you count wind chill. — CharlotteWebb 14:59, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
    Fixed! ;-P --Kim Bruning (talk) 17:04, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
    Perhaps that they attract people like you who assume bad faith to the beginning and hunt down these poor Wikis in order to trash them as being biased? :P Ottava Rima (talk) 15:00, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
    Nah. I encountered a link from reddit to conservapedia. I was trying to figure out what the root causes were for getting linked. :-P --Kim Bruning (talk) 16:34, 25 June 2008 (UTC) (reddit link)
    Too much free time. Maybe there needs to be an essay called "Mind your own business"? :P Ottava Rima (talk) 17:23, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
    If it's about looking at how and why wikis work (or fail), then I do consider it my business, thanks. :-) --Kim Bruning (talk) 17:37, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
    I was pretty sure that the only requirement to having your own "Wiki" was having GFDL. So, I think your job has a few holes. :P Ottava Rima (talk) 18:04, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
    <snicker> Actually, wiki's do not require GFDL. :-P --Kim Bruning (talk) 18:07, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
    Well, there we have it! :P Ottava Rima (talk) 18:24, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
    And conversely, GFDL can be (and was originally) applied to non-wiki software documentation, including documentation that is not publically available at all. Dcoetzee 18:53, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

    Their encyclopedia doesn't really get off the starting blocks, does it? I pity the child who uses it to research a school project on trees. Apparently Americans don't consume soybeans; someone needs to look at the small print on their grocery items. Itsmejudith (talk) 10:54, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

    Do be nice. Can you explain why the conservapedia soybean article is the way it is? My first intuition would be that it's still just a stub, and will improve over time. :-) --Kim Bruning (talk) 11:27, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
    If it was WP I might lend a hand to improve it, but they don't want me as a volunteer. (Not American.) Itsmejudith (talk) 11:47, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
    I didn't see "you must be American" under requirements? I'll look again. --Kim Bruning (talk) 14:41, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

    One of the Lenski letters, as published on Conservapedia, has "[Ed.: citation omitted due to spam filter]". I wonder what BADSITE they won't link to? *Dan T.* (talk) 11:57, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

    [6]. --Kim Bruning (talk) 14:41, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
    Very interesting... they suppressed a link to RationalWiki, suppressed attempts at discussing why they suppressed the link (in which, because they refused to even explain what they had banned links to, people were making ridiculous speculation about the professor allegedly linking to pornography or shock sites), and apparently even banned one or more users for engaging in this discussion. It really makes Conservapedia come off as censorious idiots who can't tolerate self-criticism. And this explains why I was so vigorous in opposing the BADSITES concept around here last year, because I care about Wikipedia and don't want it to be a laughingstock of the sort Conservapedia is making itself. *Dan T.* (talk) 23:44, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

    LargeCategoryTOC as in German wikipedia?

    I am not sure if this is a technical or policy matter. I just posted a query on Wikipedia talk:Categorization#LargeCategoryTOC as in German wikipedia? but having just seen the related sole unanswered question in Category talk:Men, I decided to bring it here. Other editors may have noticed the German system before, and it would seem to work for any large category, and even avoid the need to depopulate categories at all (for those categories that are useful kept fully populated). Another example would be to compare the German de:Kategorie:US-Amerikaner against our w:Category:American people. I just cannot help feeling the German system is better and requires less work depopulating (or no work at all?). I looked first for "TOC" and then "Large" in a few Talk pages (not many I admit) before asking here. -84user (talk) 03:00, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

    You'll need to click on "Ausklappen" in the German TOC to see what he's talking about. Kaldari (talk) 16:37, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
    Well, I gave him an explanation, as I see it. Some of you may disagree. <g> // FrankB 04:15, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
    Thanks for the explanation. I agree with the answer: there is no technical reason why we do not have such a category scheme, but there is a social barrier (unwritten policy if you like) that looks unfixable. I might be wrong. -84user (talk) 04:44, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

    Good Article Bump Up

    Recently, I found an article that I really liked, so I nominated it for GA status. However, it has been a while not, it is still sitting in the "GA Nominee" status. Since I have not really edited the article, I was wondering if it would be OK for me to review it according to the GA criteria. NuclearWarfare (talk) 02:54, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

    I don't see that article listed on the Wikipedia:Good article nominations page. That may explain the wait. See step #3 under "How to nominate an article" on the nominations page.—RJH (talk) 17:23, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
    Doh. Thanks a lot :)NuclearWarfare (talk) 16:33, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

    Parent project adoption needed

    By my rough figuring, if you're part of one project or another "claiming one of these categories as yours, Political organizations, Organizational studies and human resource management, Organized events, Social events, Human communication, Clubs and societies, Community organizing, Legislatures, Meetings, Parliamentary procedure and Political communication then be advised the lowly and despised Committee article needs your wikiproject to adopt it. I boldly merged in a few unpromising stubs and overhauled it's general segmentation in doing so today, so now it at least looks and reads like something worthy of the name "article page". Nonetheless, more TLC is in order, and then there's those nagging other committees that could use some collective thinking and perhaps brainstorming to deal with. As I wrote in the talk, I simply don't know enough about international governmental practices to more than credibly fake handling the parliamentary and standing committees listed; didn't use too much in the way of smoke and mirrors, but this kind of topic is well outside my area of expertise... so help! Happy summer to all // FrankB 04:15, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

    I'll take a look at it, see if I can contribute. BTW it is the middle of winter here! Yup that right folks, there are Wikipedia users in the Southern Hemisphere too! Roger (talk) 12:43, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

    Request for BAG membership

    Per the bot policy, I am making this post to inform the community of my request for BAG membership. Please feel free to ask any questions/comment there. RichardΩ612 Ɣ ɸ 16:08, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

    Calgary Stampede Page Needs Serious Overhaul

    Hi

    I just wanted to mention that the page on the Calgary Stampede (at least the history section) is not correct at all according to their home page. Since I have no idea what I am doing and its popularity at the moment, I would really prefer not to touch it. I just thought I would bring it up.

    Thank you

    Canadianprairiewriter (talk) 20:45, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

    Could you be more specific about which information you believe is incorrect? — CharlotteWebb 11:36, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

    There's been an upsurge in nominations of late, but the number of reviewers remains low. Could anyone interested please head over to WP:FSC and review a few? Thanks! =) Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 23:13, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

    can't catch vandalism quick?

    Resolved

    hi, just make three vandalism, but have not been noticed. wonder how many more are out there? [7] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.184.255.111 (talk) 01:31, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

    Deletion

    Resolved
     – all deleted following three bundled afd discussions, linked below

    Can you please start a deletion request for me? I do not know how to do this, since I am coming from the French Wikipedia.

    The articles I would like you to deal with are:

    The reason why I think those articles should be deleted is that these places contain no more than two or three families each. The articles have been created using a source with enormous errors that gives millions of inhabitants to Réunion whereas it does not even have one.

    I am an admin on the French Wikipedia and the one maintaining the Mascarene Portal. Born on the island, I have lived for many years on Réunion until recently. You can trust me when I say that the above articles deal with places that are not even known by the local population, and that a redirect is more than sufficient. Thierry Caro (talk) 13:33, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

    True enough, most of these do look like old place names or estate sites (likely from an old map or outdated census record). If you put a {{subst:prod|notability/does not exist}} tag at the top of each of these articles it is likely that most or all will be deleted in 5 days. Gwen Gale (talk) 05:44, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
    done in the spirit of entente! - merci, thierry - Privatemusings (talk) 06:08, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
    Thanks. Thierry Caro (talk) 17:52, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

    (undent) Now at AfD. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 21:12, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

    All are deleted following closure of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Le Coeur Saignant, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Commune Ango, and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Girofle. Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 21:08, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

    trawlers nets

    does anyone know what the diablo shapped net at the front of a fishing boat are called and for what purpose —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bimbopat (talk • contribs) 18:50, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

    You want Wikipedia:Reference desk. Hut 8.5 06:43, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

    Is there any study showing the cultural impact of Wikipedia?

    Does anyone know if there is any news article or study that tried to evaluate the benefit that people get from Wikipedia's existence? At this very moment, Wikipedia is no. 7 on alexa.com's top sites. So it should have some significance in people's life. Is wikipedia useful? If yes, how useful? I know its not easy to measure this but there should be ways to make an aproximative evaluation. From my point of view, wikipedia is very important part of the "informational infrastructure" that we all see it growing this days and we all take benefit from, but I would like to know if other people think the same way. Thanks Ark25 (talk) 08:07, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

    A rough guide to usefulness can be estimated by using the Alexa rank. At the moment we can say that Wikipedia is useful and moreover we can estimate that it is probably the 7th most useful website in the world. -- Derek Ross | Talk 13:37, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

    You are right. However, my point is: if wikipedia is a consistent part of the "informational structure" of this world then the conclusion comes just naturally: We are pumping a lot of money to build the traditional infrastructure (roads, railroads, schools, hospitals and all others) - by paying taxes. So we should use the money for building the informational infrastructure also. How? we don't need to make donations to wikipedia, we just have to explain to our politicians and make them understand that a part of our money (colected by taxes) should go that way. Is wikipedia worth a chunk of 1% or 10% of the informational structure today? then 1% or 10% of the yearly budget for improving the informational infrastructure should go for improving wikipedia directly or indirectly. When I say indirectly I am thinking about making a national / international database of newspapers articles (from a selected - lets say 100 best and most credible newspapers today). A database publicly accessible, that keeps the news in the same format, implements a great search engine and browsing features, that keeps the URL's of the articles forever without changing them. That kind of thing would help Wikipedia a lot (its my opinion). Because the wikipedia citations will stay valid forever, so that will greatly improve the wikipedia articles verifiability Wikipedia:Verifiability#Reliable_sources. I am just sick of making citations in the wikipedia articles I'm creating/editing and after a while to see that the newspaper deleted the article or moved it to another URL. (I am editor on wikipedia:ro Utilizator:Ark). I make citations mostly from online newspapers, so after a few years how can anyone verify if what I have written is correct or not, if the source disappeared?

    Maybe there are other ways to help wikipedia indirectly but at this moment a database of newspapers articles is the only thing i have in my mind.

    And by the way, I think wikipedia should make yearly something like "top 20 of the most reliable and verifiable sources". The same way S&P, Moody's and Fitch Ratings are doing ratings for pointing the most reliable investment targets for the use of investor, a core of wikipedians should make something like that: a top of preferred sources for recommending to the other wikipedians to use as citation source. Sorry for my bad englisch. Does anyone think the same way as I do? Or does anyone think my idea is good? I might be crazy but I don't know. I would be happy to get some feedback Ark25 (talk) 01:01, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

    Got to be careful what you ask for sometimes. He who pays the piper calls the tune, as they say, and if any government were to contribute a share of its tax revenue, it would expect to get its money's worth. For examples where Governments contribute to the "informational structure" of the world, you should study how Canada funds the CBC and how the UK funds the BBC. Check their articles for information. The two countries use rather different funding methods (share of general taxation for Canada, fee for all television receiver owners in the UK) neither of which is perfect. However the bad part (from Wikipedia's point of view anyway) is that both governments have occasionally used their ability to set the budgets for these nominally independent organisations in order to get them to toe the party line. Doubtless they (or their fellow governments) would do the same to WP if any of them contributed enough to gain them significant leverage. -- Derek Ross | Talk 23:41, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
    Thanks for the answer. I am happy that I'm not ignored in the first place :). You mean if government will give money to Wikipedia, they will ask for some things. Well, I think that depending on their inteligence they can ask for things that will make wikipedia's life harder OR things that will help wikipedia to develop faster and better. However I think it would be good to have a talk between wikipedia and government to see if they can have a good cooperation. Well anyways at this point I have not much idea how the government can help directly and what can they ask from wikipedia. But I'm very convinced that a national database with newspapers that can be accessed forever would be a very good thing and not only for wikipedia. Wouldn't it be wonderfull, if you can access newspapers articles, allways with the same URL, and if you can access a database with all the major newspapers' articles and such? I must confess I am getting sick of making citations from online newspapers in the wikipedia articles and after a while ... they are gone. Some newspapers simply delete their articles after a while. I really wish to have the option that once I make a reference, it will be valid forever (no broken links). That will make wikipedia articles more easyer to verify and therefore more credible. I hope I am not the only one Ark25 (talk) 09:01, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
    Ark25 wrote: wish to have the option that once I make a reference, it will be valid forever
    I hear you. WebCite is one way to do this. Although, like anything on the web there is no guarantee that it too will not disappear, or like Internet Archive, that it will not be forced to remove the cached page later. At the least, by including the original newsmedia report, it allows us to find alternative sources, or even a hardcopy source. But your point is valid, I have been finding several citations that are dead after a year or so, and if, say, a robot.txt file blocked Internet Archive and the citations have no titles or extra information it is impossible to find an alternative. -84user (talk) 11:26, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

    limits?

    I wanted to write more but the "Save page" and "Show preview" don't work. I have to delete words then I can submit. Is there any word limit? Ark25 (talk) 09:12, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

    Nope, there's essentially no limit to the amount of content you can add or remove to a page. It may have been a problem with your internet connection or the Wikipedia servers...if the problem persists, feel free to post again. —Pie4all88 (talk) 21:41, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

    WTF?

    I went to Will Smith, (logged out) and saw this. I logged in and it was gone. I logged out and it was still there. Is it a virus? It is not in the wiki code, and is not possible as far as my knowledge, with the logging in and out. What is this? —Coastergeekperson04's talk@Jul/09/08 18:42

    Sounds like a caching problem. Logged-out users access a different cache, which presumably still contained the vandalism. This should self-repair quite quickly; if not, a purge should work, though it may require a null edit. Algebraist 19:06, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
    Then what edit WAS the vandalism? I couldn't find it. —Coastergeekperson04's talk@Jul/10/08 03:21

    This retard probably just did this on MSpaint... —Preceding unsigned comment added by ZeroSync678 (talk • contribs) 03:35, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

    A template was vandalised, not the Will Smith page, which is why you couldn't find it in the history. The issue has been discussed and resolved at AN/I. Gwinva (talk) 04:52, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

    Minor Watchlist Annoyance, Proposal

    At present, my watchlist page tells me:

    You have 13 pages on your watchlist (excluding talk pages).

    The link points to a help page with information about using the watchlist, while, in order to actually list the pages that I'm watching, I have to click the smaller and harder to find link at the top of the page. This is counterintuitive enough that I have finally decided to complain about it. When I see a link that says just "watchlist", I expect to be taken to the list of pages that I'm watching – i.e. the actual "watchlist" – rather than a help page about watchlists. The design is also illogical in that the page that most people need to read only once or a few times is linked to with greater prominence than those that users are more likely to use on a regular basis. It's a minor complaint, yes, but I can't count how many times I still click on the wrong link trying to see my list of watched pages.

    Since suddenly changing the functionality of the link while leaving everything else the same is a bad idea for obvious reasons, I propose a small change like the following:

    You have 13 pages on your watchlist (excluding talk pages) [more information].

    The exact wording is not as important as the principle that the purpose of the link is now absolutely clear, and users looking for the list of watched pages – the actual "watchlist" – know to look elsewhere. I would also like to see the utility links (display watched changes, view and edit watchlist, edit raw watchlist) given greater prominence, perhaps relocated immediately above or below the links to show/hide bot, self, and minor edits.

    I know that even a small change like this would take considerable time and effort to implement because of the use in so many wiki projects in so many languages, but I would still like to see it discussed. This shortcoming has facilitated the same annoying mistake so many times that I felt I just had to complain about it somewhere. —Latischolartalkcontributions 04:09, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

    Good ideas, but if you want discussion, it looks like you should post at WP:VPPR instead. And I suggest (a) shortening your post (less elaboration will result in more editors reading the posting) and (b) proposing that the top three links be left where they are, but made much more prominent (larger font size, at minimum), plus the change in the link for the word "watchlist".

    Hi everyone, I was going to post here to see if anyone was interested in having a template for your userpage organizing all the useful links on Wikipedia, but I decided to just go ahead and make it. So I'd like to announce that Template:UsefulLinks will output a long but detailed and carefully organized list of links that are useful to the editors here. I put a note on Template talk:UsefulLinks that explains the different sections present, so you can refer there for more information. I made this because Wikipedia is a huge place, and I haven't seen anything else comprehensive enough that is focused mainly on the editor. I've been using the table of links on my userpage for a few weeks now, and I have to say that I've found it very useful. If nothing else, it gives me a good deal of ideas of things to do when I log on. I can see it being especially useful to new Wikipedians who are interested in contributing to the administrative portion of Wikipedia, but don't have a good feel of which pages they can keep an eye on to help out. Anyways, I thought I would post here to draw some attention to it and because I am interested in feedback, since I may have missed a couple of links. I hope you all find it useful, and encourage you to add it to your userpage or something. Cheers! —Pie4all88 (talk) 05:28, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

    List of sustainability topics

    Looking for more eyes and opinions on a snag I ran into. User talk:Luna Santin#Merging pages and User talk:Granitethighs#your lists have relevant background, but I'll offer a summary here, as well. Granitethighs (talk · contribs) has started work on numerous lists, including List of sustainability topics (A), List of sustainability topics (B), List of sustainability topics (C), and so on until we reach List of sustainability topics (Z).

    Yamakiri (talk · contribs) nominated several (all?) of these for speedy deletion, and suggested a merge to List of sustainability topics, which seemed to me to be the way to go; I hadn't ever seen that sort of alphabetical breakdown, previously, and suggested a topical breakdown might be more useful.

    Granitethighs has pointed out List of basic geography topics, which includes both a summary list and multiple pages by alphabetical breakdown. Some discussion regarding the appropriate/desired course of action might be useful; as Granitethighs said himself, "It would seem that either that page of recommendations should be replaced or reworded or that deletion of similar approach to sustainability be reconsidered. Surely you must see the inconsistency..."

    So, any feedback would be appreciated. – Luna Santin (talk) 11:26, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

    Maybe you don't remember the "List of people by name" series (R.I.P.) which were divided according to the first two or three letters. — CharlotteWebb 11:31, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
    Nominating all for speedy would be an overkill. Just merge them. OhanaUnitedTalk page 03:18, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
    OhonaUnited, I did merge them all, now they're just redirects. That's why I'm saying speedy each redirect. No-one's going to type List of Sustainability Topics (Q). Yamakiri TC § 07-7-2008 • 20:09:58
    Yamakiri, the problem with that is that the merging you were doing, followed by deleting the separate pages, doesn't preserve the GFDL record of Granitethighs contributions. Anyone looking at that article later will think that you created it (and maybe blame you as well). When you do merging, please link in the edit summary to the article you are merging from, like Luna Santin did here. Carcharoth (talk) 12:31, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
    Your post on my talk pages leads me to think you don't understand what I was doing. I was trying to clean up his edits, and I CSD tagged the articles after pasting the contents into the one main article. You see, I was not CSD tagging the redirects (Though they should be CSD tagged). Yamakiri TC § 07-11-2008 • 16:34:26
    I do understand what you were doing. You were merging stuff into one article (correct); you were not saying in the edit summary where the merged text was coming from (wrong), you were leaving the CSD tags on the redirects (wrong), and the end result was that Granitethighs edits could have been deleted (wrong), leaving you as the apparent author of the text at the merged list (wrong). I've pointed you to an example of how to correctly merge with attribution. You still continue to say "they [the redirects] should be CSD tagged". This is wrong. It is a common mistake made by people who haven't yet fully figured out how the GFDL and page histories and merging works, and how attribution for merged text is often preserved in page histories. Please, as I asked, read WP:MERGE, and in particular: Wikipedia:MERGE#Full-content paste merger. Carcharoth (talk) 16:53, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

    I am also in favour of lists of this type that are only one page rather than 26. One page that is not overly long is easier to use than 26 such pages. I would also like to see the lists at Lists of environmental topics merged into one page. Some of the content can be culled even though I have already reduced the number of links on the pages. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Alan Liefting (talk • contribs)

    See also Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of sustainability topics (0-9). Carcharoth (talk) 12:58, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

    Annoying Categories Trend

    I don't know where to put this,, as it may be a policy or it may be a technical thing, but lately I've noticed something in the Categories section, subcategories now have a small pair of brackets next to them displaying the number of subcategories within that category. the problem here is that most search engines such as yahoo or google use these too, only for a slightly different purpose. In a search engine when you see a pair of brackets that signifies that there are going to be that number of pages in that category. Since more people are more likely to visit a search engine moreso than wikipedia I say we change this format in accordance. Deathawk (talk) 05:20, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

    Agree. -Colfer2 (talk) 10:25, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
    I agree to the extent that it would be helpful to provide both pieces of information. — CharlotteWebb 13:30, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

    NYC -- real estate advertiser

    An anonymous contributor is repeatedly posting real estate advertising from the New York Post in the external links section of legitimate articles about Manhattan neighborhoods. I reverted what I thought was vandalism last week ... and the same familiar pattern has re-appeared today.

    This is beyond my ability to handle. It becomes tedious to revert each edit from nine distinct articles. See, e.g.,

    Is there a reasonable way to address this recurring vandalism? At a minimum, what about putting a temporary lock on these articles so that only legitimate editors can made additions or changes?

    A similar ploy may be affecting articles about neighborhoods in other NYC boroughs? I only stumbled into this problem because a couple of the above happened to be on my watchlist ....

    Curiosity caused me to check a bit further; and yes, there is a similarly current real estate sales/rental link added to articles about Brooklyn's Park Slope and DUMBO neighborhoods and to Forest Hills in Queens.

    To me, whatever is going on here seems qualitatively different from neighborhood profiles which are published from time to time in the New York Times or in magazines like New York (magazine). In my view, this whatever-it-is doesn't enhance the quality of Wikipedia. Am I mistaken to construe this as mere advertising rather than as plausibly unhelpful data? --Tenmei (talk) 18:08, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

    There appear to be no messages posted at User talk:206.15.108.216. The user may not even be aware that what they are doing is against policy. Perhaps you could try using the approach at Wikipedia:Template messages/User talk namespace first?—RJH (talk) 18:45, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

    I did a whois on the IP. It's owned by News Corporation who own the New York post. Definitely spam. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 18:52, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

    See here if anyone feels like helping remove them. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 19:05, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

    Also see User:Callieleone's contributions Theresa Knott | The otter sank 19:10, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

    All done for now. I've removed around 40 links, deleted an advert page and left a note on Callieleone's userpage. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 19:42, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
    Maybe This will be a productive gambit? I posted an invitation for comment at Wikipedia talk:Policies and guidelines#Corporate vandalism. Perhaps this will turn out to be a good step in a constructive direction ...? --Tenmei (talk) 21:07, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
    Good catch. Thanks. Alcarillo (talk) 21:49, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
    Report the situation to Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam, they'll know what to do to keep it from continuing.--Father Goose (talk) 05:14, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
    I did follow through at Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam --Tenmei (talk) 18:01, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
    I've added \bnypost\.com\/realestate\/neighborhoods\b to XLinkBot's revert list. There doesn't seem to be anything of encyclopedic value there, but since I haven't had time to see how many of these URLs still exist on the project, XLinkBot is preferred over blacklisting. --Versageek 19:46, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

    Falun Gong

    Please see WP:AN#Falun Gong for a discussion relating to Falun Gong articles. Moreschi (talk) (debate) 12:55, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

    A suggestion

    I have an idea...

    Would there be people interested in recipes from around the world that could be organised via country/lifestyle (eg: vegetarian). It could be called Wikipes or something like that! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.155.132.162 (talk) 19:51, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

    You mean like this? Celarnor Talk to me 04:43, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

    Or this? Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 05:09, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

    Citation needed - North Irish Horse

    Hello,

    I am able to provide verification that the NIH was part of the four Tank Brigades listed. This can be found in the regiment's War Diaries located in the Document section of my website (which is on the page) www.northirishhorse.net

    Having just signed up today I was able to make a couple of minor corrections OK, but I am at a loss how to provide the citation.

    Looking forward to hearing from you,

    Gerry Chester —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gerry Chester (talk • contribs) 01:08, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

    Do you perhaps mean you don't know how to add a citation to the article? If so, you might try Wikipedia:Citing sources. Otherwise, if you can't find a suitable citation, you might try a good library or possibly do some searching under Google Books or Google Scholar.—RJH (talk) 22:31, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

    Spongebob sequels

    Hi. Please see here as I find the information anons are inserting dubious. Thanks. ~AH1(TCU) 14:08, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

    Wiki Admins - What is your story?

    I'm researching online communities and how they develop. Wikipedia being one of the cornerstones for this, I was just wondering if anyone can enlighten me on how the Wikipedia admins first got interested in the site and their positions? How did the admin role first develop and evolve over time? --Tishadejmanee (talk) 16:19, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

    Neither of those are exactly short questions and the second isn't that well documented.Geni 13:30, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
    Have you read Wikipedia? I think your question could get a useful response on that article's Talk page.Roger (talk) 13:42, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

    Where is the best place to sing our praises?

    I contribute to the Reference Desks from time to time. A few months ago I posted an obscure question, and several Wikipedians collaborated over a period of weeks to research the answer. This required consulting shelves of library books, advanced Google searching, map reading abilities, and a fair degree of lateral thinking and creativity. Some of the sources went back 100 years. In the end, we got there. I am really impressed by the power of Wikipedia to come up with the goods, and told all the contributors so, with barnstars to thank them.

    My question here is: What is the best place within Wikipedia to flag up this fantastic collaborative effort? I think it deserves to be known to a wider audience, just how diligent, persistent, and downright clever Wikipedians can be, especially those on the RefDesks. (To save clicking through, I’ll say here that my original question concerned a mysterious island known only as Nuni, mentioned in a biography of American writer John Howard Griffin, author of Black Like Me. The Ref Desk found the island.) BrainyBabe (talk) 00:01, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

    As far as I know, there is no such place (except possibly this page). I suppose you could post a notice at Wikipedia:Community Portal#CBB, though that's not exactly what notices are normally used for. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 01:04, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
    Wikipedia:A nice cup of tea and a sit down, which has always struck me as particularly wiki in spirit, might be relevant, though it's primary purpose is to stop people before they climb the Reichstag. - BanyanTree 23:28, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

    perfect person or perfect man concept

    Ok, this might look like a (very) silly question, but: Is there any article about the concept of "perfect man" or something close? Like about the concept or even examples of people that had close to absolute arrogance and thought they are superior comparing the others from any point of view? I think the best article I found until now is Schizophrenia, but that's still too far and I need something like 42 - the perfect number, with "man" instead of "number", wich would be better for my parody needs. thanks Ark25 (talk) 09:11, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

    You might look at Narcissism, Hubris, or Megalomania for starters. They link to various similar concepts. --tiny plastic Grey Knight ⊖ 09:25, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
    Would it not be better to pose this question at the Reference desk? Zain Ebrahim (talk) 09:37, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
    Oh, yeah, what he said. :-) Wikipedia:Reference desk/Language should be the right one, if you have similar future questions. --tiny plastic Grey Knight ⊖ 12:50, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

    Medals per country/nation, medals per citizen

    There is a discussions on "country", "nation" and "region" at Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/2000 Summer Olympics medal count. Plus there is a debate about the importance of country size in medals achieved. Your comments are welcome on this and any other issue of the article. Lightmouse (talk) 08:37, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

    Help with a disruptive editor

    I'm requesting assistance with User:Sbuxlover4 on repeated disruptive edits to SouthPark Mall (Charlotte, North Carolina), but more importantly for inappropriate behavior towards other editors (namely me). I already know about Request comment on users but I'm the only other editor involved so far so at very least I'd appreciate somebody else chiming in on the subject so it can go further if needed.

    The basic overview can be found on the editor's talk page and on the article's talk page. For the shorter version...
    1) Removing properly cited facts and replacing with alternate unsourced claim.
    2) Then trying to cite a source than made no mention of the claim.
    3) Then trying to cite a source that used the same wikipedia article as its source.
    4) I politely explained the situation to Sbuxlover4 in private on their talk page.
    5) My private explanation was ignored so I addressed the issue politely on the article's talk page too.
    6) Sbuxlover4 has three times deleted half of the entire article. I admit this seems to be by accident due to bad editing. I explained how to preview (or at least checking what you did before leaving) and provided links to how to use ref tags, but again and again I was ignored.
    7) Now it's getting to be personal attacks with him falsely accusing me of vandalism - twice - and on the article's public talk page rather than making such accusations in private on either my talk page or replying to my existing comments on his own talk page.
    8) And after all this, today he edited the article AGAIN without citing a source. The changed facts may or may not be correct but we'll never know without sources.

    He ignores all warnings, and now he's just flaming others (me) in public. Please help. I'm tired of dealing with this ____. Fife Club (talk) 02:43, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

    You might want to ask someone at WP:EA directly, if you don't get any help via your posting here. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 16:21, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

    page Hacked Honda_CBR1100XX

    Resolved

    Sorry, I'm not English, but I see a problem on this page, and I can't revert... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_CBR1100XX " VANDALIZED BY HITLER" Gimli 82.224.101.200 (talk) 22:25, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

    Template vandalism. Reverted. [8] x42bn6 Talk Mess 22:49, 20 July 2008 (UTC)


    National Emblem of the People's Republic of China

    There has been a bit of an edit war on this page about a picture of the emblem. See the page history. See also my talk page, and Avala's talk page for the opinions involved. Does anyone know enough about Heraldry to wade in? Or about 2D depictions of 3D images? I would post to the Heraldry portal but it looks mighty quiet there.Theresa Knott | The otter sank 23:35, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

    "Missing word" tag

    Just a general note: there is now a tag you can use when you find a sentence that has been rendered nonsensical by the absence of a word, but you're not sure what word that is. You can now place {{missing word}} in the place of the missing word to make sure the error is quickly noticed and rectified by someone who knows enough about the subject to understand what is missing. For example:

    The sense of this article is {{missing word}} by a missing word that I'm not sure of.
    Khosrau II was the twenty-second King of the {{missing word}} from 590 to 628.

    I ripped off most of this from the {{clarifyme}} template and the corresponding essay page, so thanks to the authors of those. Mr. IP (talk) 01:29, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

    The TRUE 2,000,000th article?

    What was the true 2,000,000th article? I doubt it was El Hormiguero, because the article counts weren't as closely tracked as when the 1,000,000th article came around. I also read that someone made a mistake in the programming of the tracker they were using. Was anyone able to find out the true 2,000,000th article? --Let Us Update Special:Ancientpages. 18:53, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

    STILL no answer? If this isn't the right place for this question anyway, what is? Thanks, --Let Us Update Special:Ancientpages. 02:23, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

    Officially, it was the 2,000,000th article: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Reaches_2_Million_Articles . If you think there's some error in the counting methodology, I'm not sure who you should speak to. You could always wait until #3,000,000 and ask your question again then.--Father Goose (talk) 05:51, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
    Determining the actual 2 millionth article created is actually rather pointless - it's only used for marketing purposes. In fact, I think there's been at least one milestone in the past where the milestone article was "adjusted" to a more respectable article created at about the same time. Dcoetzee 01:50, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

    Zodiac

    I have just gone onto Economy of the United Kingdom and an infobox blocks about half the page displaying the words:

    "This is the Zodiac speaking. Since you are doing nothing about me, I want you to put little Zodiac boxes everywhere to show that you recognize my reign. It's your choice, if you don't maybe I will just work extra hard and spread my message accross other wikis and websites, hopping from one to another.

    [snip]

    I cannot find where this text has been placed, as it doesn't seem to be within the article itself. -- Blake01 11:50, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

    It was in an unprotected template and has already been repaired. --Golbez (talk) 12:18, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
    See Wikipedia:High-risk templates for a bit of background on this problem. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 16:20, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
    Cheers for the info. -- Blake01 10:04, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
    There's a discussion on which approach to use to stop the fool in his tracks at the "proposals" village pump. Several different methods have been proposed, let's pick one and get rid of his nonsense! :-) --tiny plastic Grey Knight ⊖ 10:17, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

    Sujupedia (Sujupedia)

    Why was this article removed? -- MISA☆ Amane 12:14, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

    It was deleted under speedy criteria A7; it was a website which did not assert importance. Being a two-week old wiki with "100+ articles" is not quite sufficient to have a Wikipedia article. --Golbez (talk) 12:19, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
    I've posted a link to our conflict of interest guideline at User talk:Sujupedia. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 16:18, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
    If a scale of Sujupedia becomes almost equal with Korean Uncyclopedia (1,500+ articles[9]),... May I change Sujupedia into an official article? -- MISA☆ Amane 06:13, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
    That's a question that can only be considered when it happens; don't consider it a goal to meet, in other words, if we say "yes" that doesn't mean load it with 1500 articles. That won't work. --Golbez (talk) 06:17, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
    Article counts mean nothing. Independent, reliable sources discussing the website do, whether it has one or ten million articles. Please read WP:WEB. Dcoetzee 06:20, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
    In what I found now, There was a similar precedent for the Bulbapedia. (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bulbapedia) -- MISA☆ Amane 06:51, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
    Regarding precedent, please see WP:OTHERSTUFF. 68.48.107.77 (talk) 13:01, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
    Actually, the "Articles for deletion" debate linked there closed as "delete", so I think he's saying he sees the point now. :-) --tiny plastic Grey Knight ⊖ 13:11, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

    WikiProject notification bot

    There is currently a proposal for a bot that would notify WikiProjects when their articles have entered certain workflows, e.g. when they are nominated for deletion or for Good article reassessment.

    I wonder how many WikiProjects would be interested in such a bot. If you are interested, please leave your comments at the bot request page. Thanks, --B. Wolterding (talk) 18:28, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

    Super Junior and Sujupedia

    What is a excluded reason of Sujupedia by a Super Junior article? -- MISA☆ Amane 05:28, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

    Coverage in third-party reliable sources. Celarnor Talk to me 05:30, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

    Britannica Online using image from WP

    Cawdor Castle

    My wife was ego Googling her name and discovered that the Britannica Online is using a photo she took of Cawdor Castle in Scotland to illustrate Britannica's article on Cawdor. There's no problem, of course, because we had uploaded the image to Wikimedia Commons under a creative commons license to illustrate the WP article on Cawdor Castle. It's just that after the sniping between WP and Britannica, the irony struck us as funny.

    This sort of thing may be old news. Have others noticed Britannica using images from WP (or, for that matter, text)?

    --JohnPomeranz (talk) 18:25, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

    Britannica aren't complying with the licenses (both require licensing information, as well as attribution), but what can you expect from those guys? Algebraist 18:32, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
    I think that if you click on the image on EB it gives you license information[10] But my browser has trouble with the site, so I'm not certain. — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:49, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
    All I see is author attribution. Algebraist 18:52, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
    Same, all I see is author attribution. Someone should throw them an email and show them the error of their ways. Celarnor Talk to me 19:02, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
    I see what you both mean. I thought I saw the license once, but when I load it again I don't see any actual license info. Care to email them to ask? — Carl (CBM · talk) 19:03, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
    Email sent requesting license information on that image and pointing out that I can't find it. Celarnor Talk to me 19:12, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

    For what it's worth, when I clicked on the bottom image, I found a link to this page. Gwen Gale (talk) 19:08, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

    How odd, the link I gave above doesn't work and when I went back to duplicate my steps, I couldn't find the link to the GFDL boilerplate license I saw earlier. Moreover, from what CBM says, it was the wrong license anyway. Gwen Gale (talk) 19:16, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

    While I appreciate the matter of law and principle involved, I hope that tweaking them on their failure to fully comply with any of the licenses won't result in them taking down the image. We like the shot, and we're happy that they're using it. --JohnPomeranz (talk) 19:19, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

    Gwen's link now works, and the license is linked from the image page. All seems in order, apart from the 'statement that the License applies to the Document', which is heavily implied. Algebraist 22:16, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
    Yeah, I just got this back from them a few hours ago:
    Thank you very much for your message regarding the image accompanying our article on Cawdor.
    As we are transitioning to re-design of our website, there are some technical issues temporarily affecting the display of the licensing. We are aware of this problem and are currently working to fix it.
    Thank you, too, for bringing to our attention that the incorrect license is being used for this image; we will handle this as soon as possible. Celarnor Talk to me 22:24, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
    What's wrong with the license? They're using GFDL 1.2, the original is dual-license GFDL/CC-by-sa. Algebraist 22:26, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
    Nothing, the original image was dual-licensed, so they're fine doing that; I think it was just some kind of biolerplate response. Celarnor Talk to me 23:23, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

    Wikipedia supports McCain for United States President?

    This seems to be true. I can think of no other reason to make The Power of Nightmares a featured article. Nothing could do more to make progressives and other critics of Bush policy look more like idiots. (No offense meant to real idiots, they are doing the best they can.) Northwestgnome (talk) 01:23, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

    For the record, I'm not supporting McCain (or any republican candidates for the matter). -- Taku (talk) 02:31, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
    We feature articles that are well-written and describe their subject neutrally and comprehensively with good sources. The article should not itself profess an opinion about the work, and talks extensively about both positive and negative opinions about it. As for why the article is so developed in the first place, we probably just have a lot of contributors interested in it. Dcoetzee 02:53, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
    I think that the average person reading this article would think its purpose is to promote the views of the documentary, views that are so far out in left field (if you'll pardon the expression) as to make both Wikipedia and reasonable progressive people look stupid. Northwestgnome (talk) 05:17, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
    BTW I don't object to the article so much as WP's making it a featured article. I would prefer if there was a policy that articles chosen as featured shouldn't be about "controversial" topics. Northwestgnome (talk) 05:25, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
    But then who gets to declare a topic "controversial"? Labelling something "controversial" is by its very nature a subjective act that violates the NPOV rule. Roger (talk) 10:43, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
    I would declare a WP article controversial if a reasonable person reading it would get the impression that its purpose is to influence opinion (extra points for influencing the outcome of an upcoming election), rather giving information to its readers. Northwestgnome (talk) 00:51, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
    And I don't intend to support any candidate for the American elections, since I pretty much don't care. :-) I see The Power of Nightmares was promoted to Featured Article status in September 2007; if you feel it is no longer FA-quality material, you could nominate it for Wikipedia:Featured article review. I don't think merely "being about a controversial subject" is itself a good reason to lose FA status; if the article manages to pull it off in a neutral manner then that's great! But of course much care should be taken. --tiny plastic Grey Knight ⊖ 10:46, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
    If the article meets the criteria of a Featured Article, then it should be a featured article, regardless of the subject. But your demands that the article should be demoted because you don't like the subject is pathetic. --Farix (Talk) 14:29, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
    I wonder if the person who declared the documentary's views to be "so far out in left field" has actually seen it. (Not that I have.) I wouldn't make up my mind based on a short description of what the film is about. But the general premise about comparing "Muslim peril" (if I can coin a phrase) to radical politics in the USA seems credible to me. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 23:30, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

    Wikipedia:Admin coaching

    One of the co-coordinators of Admin Coaching has semi-retired and removed himself from the position. I've said before I feel uncomfortable being the only coordinator. Would anyone else with some experience in the field be interested in helping out? MBisanz talk 16:24, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

    Fair use on PD images?

    Maybe I'm wrong, but Category:User-created public domain images is littered with pictures of art that do not seem in any way User-created or public domain. I'm not at all clear on copyright issues with photos of sculptures, but it seems that public domain image should never need a Fair Use disclaimer (see Image:'Arch Falls', bronze sculpture by Bryan Hunt, 1981, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.JPG). Seems to me like a whole mess of copyvio, or did I miss something? ~ JohnnyMrNinja 05:39, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

    Likely there are some users out there who don't realize that photos of sculptures are (usually) derivative works of the sculpture. See Commons:Freedom of panorama for exceptions. No PD work should ever be marked for fair use - this is completely pointless. Dcoetzee 06:38, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
    Forgive me if I'm confused, but wouldn't a derivative work of a copyrighted item never be in the literal "public domain" until the copyright expired? ~ JohnnyMrNinja 00:37, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
    Maybe what the user is trying to do is release their creative contribution into the public domain, so that the only copyright at issue is that of the sculptor. Usually when I come across things like this, I leave the nonfree template in its big expanded form and merely link to the other template, with a sentence like, "The photographer releases his or her creative contributions to this image into the public domain ({{PD-self}})." Calliopejen1 (talk) 17:10, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

    asking the help of Wikipedians?

    Hello Everyone! My name is Sylvain, I am currently writing my dissertation on the organisation of Wikipedia for my master of political philosophy at the University of Sussex. I got a little problem: I am a french native and my English is still not so perfect for a dissertation, therefore I need it to be checked. My fellows are also currently in their work so I cannot really bother them for that.. Then I had this idea of publishing my work-in-progress dissertation on Wikimedia (or wikibooks?) in order to get the help of some people to check my grammar an stuffs. Therefore two questions: 1. Is there any program that could translate a Word-file into the wiki language? 2. Do you think there could be any people willing to help me for that? I'm waiting for your views and advices! :) Yours, --Karibou 18:46, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

    If you save the file as an HTML document, you can then upload it here, which will then convert the HTML into wiki markup (it is an implementation of HTML::WikiConverter from Perl). However, Wikipedia is not a publisher of Original Research; I'm not sure how wikibooks handles things like that because I don't do anything over there, but I don't know how kindly they treat original research over there. Celarnor Talk to me 07:03, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
    Wikiversity maybe? Mr.Z-man 13:33, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

    Thanks for the advices! I'll ask the question to wikibooks and wikiversity! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Karibou (talk • contribs) 14:46, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

    On what basis do administrators get "medals"?

    this might be considered a sensitive question? -- I notice on administrator pages that several of them lead off with a long list of achievements/recognition primarily of blocking spam/etc.

    I've moderated a usenet newgroup for 16 years now on volunteer basis and I understand killing spammers but I wonder what precisely is the criteria is for administrators to get these medals? Is it how many people they have blacklisted? Traffic cops with speedtraps? I was re-editing a page for the 4th and re-adding some links that had been deleted and replaced by a vendor and then suddenly I was blacklisted only to learn the rules had changed and now adding links was considered improper.

    No warning or anything. just a swift blacklist. I've moderated the newsgroup for an industry for 16 years and started an association and now I am labeled a spammer?

    No response from the administrator despite repeated communication attempts. I show my name and contact; the administrator shows a cryptic username.

    In the usenet world we privately replied back and said "can't do that, do it again and I'll blank you out". Here you cannot get a reply and the administrator may have masters in English but has little in-depth subject comprehension.

    No room for civility here or are editors looking for next level recognition?

    Meanwhile an authority and genuine resource gets publicly labeled a spammer. That's defamation of character with no recourse.

    Maybe that way in China or McCarthy-ville but not here? I had hoped not...98.245.77.4 (talk) 03:38, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

    I meant to login and record name. Ckeefner (talk) 03:51, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

    • When you mention "medals," I think you may be referring to barnstars. These are informal awards that may be awarded by anyone to anyone else for pretty much anything. The giving and receiving of barnstars isn't limited to administrators, and there isn't a tight criteria for awarding them. Joyous! | Talk 04:54, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
    Register and get a username - then we might start taking you seriously. A small point of law - How does one defame an anonymous person? There are no "authorities" on WP. If you claim to be one without backing up your claim with proof (Reputable published sources that state that you are an authority) we are just going to laugh at you. Roger (talk) 07:33, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
    IMHO it shouldnt matter if you have a username or not - it changes nothing about your personality and shouldn't become a factor when forming options of editors, and it especially shoouldn't detract from your ability to take them seriously. - Blake01 09:10, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
    I advise you take your specific issue to one of our conflict resolution channels; most likely there is a misunderstanding afoot. Barnstars are informal community-building exercises, not a reward for meeting a quantitative bar. Dcoetzee 09:04, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
    I'm unable to figure out exactly what you were "blacklisted" for, or if such a thing even occurred on your ID. Your user contributions do not show you editing any articles or posting on (admin) user pages, just article talk page edits. I don't believe there have been any significant changes to the rules about spam links, but perhaps there is a misunderstanding of the rules on someone's part. And without being able to see edits, I can't say who might have misunderstood. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 00:47, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
    I presume this is about User talk:Craigkeefner and is related to WP:COI and WP:EL.--Boson (talk) 06:29, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
    See WP:AN/I#Indefinite block of Craigkeefner. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 16:26, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

    BAG membership nomination

    Per the bot policy, I am making this post to inform the community of a request for BAG membership. Please feel free to ask any questions/comment there. SQLQuery me! 03:14, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

    For source searches on the web

    http://www.cuil.com, pronounced cool, went wholly online today. Started by former Google engineer Anna Patterson, indexes way over 100 billion web pages, perhaps three times as many as Google.[11] Gwen Gale (talk) 12:00, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

    Has a bit of work to do. I did a search on Sam Wyly, and while the Wikipedia article showed up (twice), the links were http://graviruem.ru-scanner-download.a013.com/wiki/Sam_Wyly and http://uiboss.com/wiki/Sam_Wyly. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 15:56, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
    I got lots of news articles and some category groupings.[12] Gwen Gale (talk) 16:04, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

    Problem with Modern Skin

    All, Recently i found a problem with the Skin Modern.When i change the skin to Modern and accessing some pages which is having infoboxes it is not rendering correctly. Article is coming after the infobox. Is it the problem with particular skin?--Anoopan (talk) 17:55, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

    It's a bug; it has been reported. [13] And yes, it's very annoying. -- Eugène van der Pijll (talk) 18:06, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

    What happened to the English wikipedia download link? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.87.96.235 (talk) 18:39, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

    Could you be more specific? Where was this link that it now is not? -- John Broughton (♫♫) 00:41, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

    Adopt a Typo

    Hello! I've started a collaborative effort to rid Wikipedia of as many typos as possible. If any one is interested please visit or provide feedback. We need volunteers to help out in making Wikipedia a better place. Thanks! DxNate 19:53, 27 Nov 2024 User-Talk-Contribs

    That was pretty funny, I must say. Celarnor Talk to me 21:26, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
    I'll help out whenever I spot one. Northwestgnome (talk) 00:28, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
    Spot on:-) Annette46 (talk) 08:19, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

    Wikipedia:WikiProject Brahmoism

    (discussion moved from Wikipedia talk:Village pump)

    We now have a Wikiproject started and operated by sock puppets – Wikipedia:WikiProject Brahmoism. There is an invitation to join this project which reads as follows:

    ==Project Brahmo==
    Perhaps all the Brahmo vandals and other species of puppets should sit and discuss these things. To help out, start from here: WP:Brahmo, Make Love not War. Project brahmo (talk) 11:33, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

    This ad is on Talk:Keshub Chunder Sen page. User:Ronosen was blocked indefinitely – Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Ronosen. The blocked user is a heretic propagandist without the support of even a single Wikipedian till date. His own organisation Brahmo Samaj or any branch of it does not allow him a free hand to express his views (that are deemed original research in Wikipedia). As a result he has been vandalising Wikipedia pages pushing his POVs and throwing out those of others.

    All persons involved are possible new sock puppets.

    For more information on Ronosen, please see Wikipedia talk:Noticeboard for India-related topics#Rono Sen

    An open project by sock puppets ia making Wikipedia ludicrous On the Brahmoism projeect page he is seeking discussions amongst sock puppets of his own on such subjects as follows:

    Current Brahmoism controversies:

    • Who founded the Brahmo Samaj?
    • Who founded the Brahmo religion ?
    • Are Keshab'ites Brahmos ?

    My questions are: 1. Is Wikipedia a right platform for such debates? 2. Can one blocked vandal, carry on his propaganda war in such a manner? 3. Is Wikipedia powerless against such high technology on slaught by a blocked vandal? - Brahmachari (talk) 14:02, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

    Is Brahmoism a real and notable thing (regardless of whether you consider them heretics or not)? If so, then a Wikiproject to improve related articles — not to promote the religion itself, which is never the goal — seems appropriate. As to whether these particular users should be in the Wikiproject, or working on the encyclopaedia itself, I do not know. What are your opinions on the separate issues? Your comment is a little blurred on the distinction above, as I read it. As to your question #3, Wikipedia is not powerless against any vandal; nor is any wiki, providing it has enough people willing to undo a piece of vandalism. --tiny plastic Grey Knight ⊖ 14:17, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
    I see a claim that Brahmoism is one of 9 legally recognised religions in India; if so, that would seem sufficient to make them notable enough for a WikiProject to exist. If, for example, a user has previously been blocked for edit-warring over Brahmoism-related articles and now wishes to engage in discussion with people regarding what should go in, that will probably look well for him on an unblock request. He shouldn't try to dodge around his block in order to do so, obviously. Finally, WikiProjects are for anyone interested in improving the relevant articles; this does not mean that you have to agree or be aligned with the topic itself. For instance, members of Wikipedia:WikiProject Australia do not need to be living in Australia, or have ever done so, they just need to be willing and able to make contributions to Australia-related articles. If you have useful material to contribute to Brahmoism-related articles, maybe you could join a Brahmoism WikiProject yourself? --tiny plastic Grey Knight ⊖ 14:24, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
    The 3 controversies on WP:Brahmo which trouble User:Brahmachari also trouble many other Brahmo editors. Is it not better that they are discussed in a WikiProject rather than on the talk pages of vandalised articles. As we have seen at Keshub Chaunder Sen all the Brahmo factions (there are at least 5) are sufficiently armed with RS citations in favour of their own POV. Also, whoever did the RFCU and blocked User:Ronosen as a SPA with "his" 15 accounts was sloppy, only 12 of them were SPAs (or a mix of SPA and multiple accounts) (with 3 innocent bystanders also blocked) which were maintained by 2 Brahmo factions in the ratio of 10:2. They were probably blocked for using zombie IPs associated with Ronosen rather than for Sockpuppetry. Finally, "I" was never "Ronosen" but with the other faction. If User:Brahmachari is so concerned that the WP:Brahmo collaborators are SPAs, let him file a formal request.Reformedbrahmovandal (talk) 17:52, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

    Moving discussion to where it will get more opinions. --tiny plastic Grey Knight ⊖ 07:55, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

    Etiquette: User:Brahmachari might consider joining WP:Brahmo and also reconsider his usage of phrases like "heretic propagandist" which are considered abusive in some cultures.Annette46 (talk) 08:24, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

    Community input wanted

    re: Talk:American_and_British_English_spelling_differences#Proportional_fonts && American_and_British_English_spelling_differences

    I got (ahem) dropped into this page by a semi-stealth link and as I hadn't seen it in 18-24 months or so, began to read. (The stealth link was marginally 'alright' in context... the article title is an -or vs. -our case.) The upshot is reading it with proportional fonts, I believe the much improved article has got a structural problem... all the discussions of this suffix versus that suffix really looked poor to my tired ole eyes... and some were downright mystical looking. You know, I really had to work at figuring out what I was seeing... it certainly wasn't conducive to smooth and easy reading, though I own I was actually enjoying the current presentation. So I took the time to opine on that on the talk.

    The issue is how to keep the style fairies happy and perhaps put the whole or parts of the article into monospace (font) so those suffix cases don't cause anyone else eyestrain. Seems like a good thing for the community at large to brainstorm about... or maybe you all will conclude I just need new glasses or something! (Probably do! <g>) Cheers // FrankB 05:40, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

    Can you please place what you wrote in context? thanks Annette46 (talk) 08:27, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
    Basically he has trouble reading some of the example words on that page and would like them in a monospaced font. I don't agree with putting the entire article into monospace; if you are having that much trouble then please ask for advice on how to configure your browser to always display in monospace. --tiny plastic Grey Knight ⊖ 16:58, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

    Suicide isn't painless?

    Apparently we're one of the web's best purveyors of information for people to off themselves. Or at least that's what World Net Daily would have people believe. They've got an [http://wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=70358 article up today] stating something along those lines. Might be worth folks keeping an eye on related articles for a while. (Oh, and the second most popular option in their poll on this topic is that "Wikipedia is completely immoral and evil." My parents will be so proud.) Tony Fox (arf!) 15:54, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

    Odd; per WP:NOT, Wikipedia isn't a how-to website. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 16:50, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
    We also ruin hockey players' careers. Sceptre (talk) 16:55, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
    I like how they attempt to cause moral panic by lumping us in with "satanic" websites. Because we (as good Christian Americans) all know Satanism is inherently immoral. Dcoetzee 17:19, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

    Guys, it occurs to me that sitting around commenting on how terrible it is to criticise Wikipedia brings us down to their level; revert, block, ignore time? :-) --tiny plastic Grey Knight ⊖ 17:32, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

    My intent wasn't to comment on the criticism - I was more providing the link for a chuckle, which is about all World Nut Daily is usually good for... Tony Fox (arf!) 18:00, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
    You should add this information to Criticism of Wikipedia. Ruslik (talk) 18:32, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
    The question is though: has that information been properly cited? ;-) RJH (talk) 21:23, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

    Preliminary Announcement: Wolfe's WikiWeek

    Instead of a regular holiday this year, it's my plan to buy a 7-day All Line Rover ticket and travel around Great Britain by train. Why am I telling you this? Well, I'll be taking a digital camera with me and I intend to take as many photographs as possible that can be used on Wikipedia (due to my interests these may be largely railway- and transport-related). I'm going to try and get what I can from Category:UK rail transport articles needing images, and I'm also inviting requests and suggestions.

    -=# Amos E Wolfe talk #=- 19:29, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
    Great idea! Well done that man! -- Derek Ross | Talk 20:10, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

    Why am I leaving Wikipedia?

    Take a good look at my user page! I believe it documents that fact that I have been a long time contributor of good articles related to my many years of engineering experience.

    So why have I decided to leave Wikipedia? Because I have grown weary of the revisions made by unexperienced people who think they know a subject when they really don't know it. I am also weary of people who make revisions because they "know better than anyone else". In particular, the actions of one young postgrad student who calls himself Headbomb with whom it is impossible to reason because of his firm belief that he is infallible ... and that he and only he "knows better than anyone else". His attitude has finally been the last straw in making my decision to leave Wikipedia. I am simply tired of trying to reason with the likes of Headbomb.

    Goodbye to all the friends I did make here in the past two and a half years or so.

    mbeychok (talk) 07:00, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

    If you let "fools and bairns" affect you this much, it seems like your actual problem is that you care far too much about what happens to your contributions. Don't bring your ego with you when you edit WP. Roger (talk) 11:04, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
    I'm sorry, but it appears to me (after reading your statement) that a collaborative writing environment probably isn't the best fit for you. Hate to see you go, but you'll be happier elsewhere. EVula // talk // ☯ // 14:36, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
    Hang about, these responses are all too easy, caring about the truth is an essential quality when editing technical articles which are far more objective, and cannot be solved by a beauty contest, or clouding the issue with talk about ego. With my scientist's hat on I would state that collaboration is deeply embedded in the engineering approach. Each offers their expertise and doesn't exceed it- a good engineer knows their limitations. This contrasts with the collaboration of the 'Conscript Army' where the task is done by all ignoring the individuals 'abilities'. I think that we need to address the "fools and bairns" question now it has been raised, rather than denigrate the gentleman who has raised it.ClemRutter (talk) 21:53, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
    Here we have a problem, that is being ignored, and WP is suffering
    Actually, wikipedia works like every engineering/scientific team ever assembled. Some people think other people in the team are idiots, some people in the team *are* idiots, some people leave the team because they're frustrated, some people stay and muddle through, everybody is frustrated at times, everybody is happy at times, and the final result is less than perfect but better than it was. Engineers don't always think of cool terms like "fools and bairns," though. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 22:31, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
    Apologies to the user who started this thread for the tangent but, for everyone whose curiosity was piqued by the "fools and bairns" comment, it apparently comes from the Scottish proverb "Fools and bairns should never see half-done work", which might be better than "The Free Encylopedia" as a site tagline. - BanyanTree 03:18, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
    Identifying another user by name, as the reason for your leaving, seems like a grudge. There are ways for dealing with a specific user, or a specific controversy. If the whole problem is that two (and only two) people are arguing over some changes, I would think the various possible remedies have not been explored. This has all the earmarks of a rash decision. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 23:36, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
    I agree, too much Wikipedia work is maintenance. If it were all vandalism, that would be one thing. But it is POV warriors making small changes to articles that present a real practical difficulty for the project. Many articles have a limited or no audience of active editors, so battling these efforts to make Wikipedia worse can be quite a bother. I know all the steps, but it is not my favorite thing to do. And that is just to maintain the status quo.
    The 3RR rule against related anonymous I.P.'s should probably be suspended. And maybe some weight should given to precedence in a long-standing, well-developed article. Entropy should be a policy concern. -Colfer2 (talk) 00:07, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
    What makes people who registered an account so special that they can get the benefit of having the right to discuss their contributions with those who rant them removed, and people who registered an account not? Celarnor Talk to me 04:34, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
    That's a good point. Maybe related anon. I.P.'s should count as one for purposes of 3RR though. -Colfer2 (talk) 03:30, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
    How do you know when people are "related"? This can be a difficult thing to find out. :-) --tiny plastic Grey Knight ⊖ 11:05, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
    I am leaving as well. I've made my final suggestions in my category. The admin do not recognize or understand the dynamics or context and it is too easy for revisionist to succeed. I am heading back to usenet and the web in general. I meant to gin and record name. Ckeefner (talk) 03:53, 27 July 2008 (UTC) 98.245.77.4 (talk) 03:47, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
    The original query may translate to "Does Wikipedia have space for specialist editors who edit on a few articles as Domain Experts, versus long established generalist editors who know it all?". Annette46 (talk) 08:34, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

    I'm a little disappointed about the comments on this page. mbeychok was a great asset to the Wikipedia community. He brought a lot of experience and completed the first (and probably only) survey of Wikipedia engineers. There doesn't seem to be any real acknowledgment of the difficulties that can be encountered when editing. Some people are more fixed on pushing their viewpoint in an article than improving it at all and unless you want to have endless edit wars with these people, you are in a very difficult position. Some of the messages in this thread seem to be of the attitude, "that's your problem not ours." But Wikipedians who make contributions to the community like mbeychok are invaluable and we need to be doing everything we can to keep them. I hope you will return one day mbeychok but, if not, good luck with your future endeavors. Cedars (talk) 00:06, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

    • I concur with Cedars. Regardless of the merits of what Mbeychok was upset about, we *all* get tired and fed up on Wikipedia, and at times want to leave. I think when people express such dissatisfaction, it's far more civil (and polite) to wish the person wouldn't go, or feel the need to go, and just not address the issue they use to vent. Sometimes people just need to blow steam off, and storming off the project or committing Wikicide is a good way to do it. I obviously know. But I would hope all of you, should you find yourself as frustrated as Mbeychok, that you will be treated more ceremoniously than you all treated him. It's always a shame to lose an editor. Especially on a challenging topic. Telling them to not let the door hit them in the ass on the way out confirms and compounds their upset. I think we should all be better than that. --David Shankbone 00:16, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

    Help write last chapter of The Wikipedia Story

    Cross posting here, from the mailing lists.

    The Wikipedia Story wiki invites Wikimedia community members to help write the "next chapter" for Wikipedia. The result will appear in the hardback book "The Wikipedia Story: How a bunch of nobodies created the world's greatest encyclopedia" a nonfiction work which will be released in January 2009 by Hyperion in the US.

    I am inviting the community to collaboratively write the last chapter as a demonstration of the community's editing capabilities. Details can be found here:

    You are welcome to contact me directly on wiki or by email if you have any questions. See you on the wiki! -- Fuzheado | Talk 22:08, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

    Interesting. Will Hyperion be paying a proportion of their sales revenue to the Wikipedia Foundation in return for this work by Wikipedia volunteers ? -- Derek Ross | Talk 01:01, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
    Wasn't there a project like this one time before? I thought I had stumbled into an archive by accident for a minute there! --tiny plastic Grey Knight ⊖ 08:34, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

    Graphing calculator problems

    I am getting a domain error when I attempt to compute something involving e^(i*x), e being the base of the natural logarithm, i being the square root of negative one, and x being a real-valued expression, on my TI 89 titanium, even though some of the calculator's settings require it to compute things of this form. What should I do? 128.12.42.36 (talk) 03:33, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

    Restate your question at the relevant subforum of Wikipedia:Reference desk. This page is for Wikipedia-related topics. Thanks, BanyanTree 07:47, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

    Article on WP in Egyptian newspaper

    [14] - Steve Dufour (talk) 17:31, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

    More input requested

    Discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Large amount of Rangeblocks by Raul654 has stalled without resolution. The issue is whether its appropriate to use rangeblocks for ~six months to deal with long-term disruption.--chaser - t 23:05, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

    New arrangement on Wikipedia start-page ???

    As I don't know of any better place to ask this question, I simply do it here: I've noticed that the arrangement of the links to the ten biggest Wikipedias on the project's entry page has been altered. Why? And on what logic is the new placing based on?!! It's neither based on the size of the different languages anymore, not is it arranged alphabetically... --Gliese876 (talk) 12:27, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

    The www.wikipedia.org page is handled way above the paygrade of English Wikipedia at Meta, specifically at meta:Www.wikipedia.org template. According to the history of that page, it was changed as a result of discussion at meta:Top Ten Wikipedias/poll, where reordering according to site traffic received the most support. - BanyanTree 13:01, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
    Thanks a lot for you swift response. Kind of surprising to see that the Polish, Spanish and French Wikis have more traffic than the German one, despite having much less articles... --Gliese876 (talk) 13:15, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
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