Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)/Archive D

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This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (miscellaneous).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

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www.wikipedia.com no longer redirects to en-two.iwiki.icu

I don't like this. As Anglo-centric as it may be, en-two.iwiki.icu is still the dominant Wikipedia and the one the vast majority of people would most likely want. Any reason on why the switch was made? --Etaonish 03:47, Jan 10, 2005 (UTC)

I like this. For those people who want the English one, they get to click one more time. For those of us who might want to see the international scope of Wikipedia, they get it up front. Internationalism at work, in a good way. --jpgordon ∇∆∇∆ 04:55, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
It's fine. There are some good explanations for why this was done on the mailing lists. Deep links to articles on www still link to the en version, so that's not a concern right now. My only issue is I think the current layout on www.wikipedia.org doesn't live up to its high visibility spot. It needs a great redesign, and I'm confident that this will happen soon. It's also taking forever to load - since it's a static page, shouldn't it load instantly? Rhobite 05:09, Jan 10, 2005 (UTC)
Why not use redirection based on language headers (before the hyphen) in the user agent? That way an English user (with [en] or the fictional [en-us] in the UA string) will end up at en, and a German user (with [de] or something like [de-at]) will end up at de. Can't be that hard to do. User:Anárion/sig 07:58, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
- That is a very interesting idea, and it deserves consideration. You should bring it up on meta, if you haven't already. It sounds like a good idea, but there are probably some counter-arguments to it. Rhobite 08:12, Jan 10, 2005 (UTC)
- OK, I found the thread where this was discussed. According to Jimbo Wales, "The problem with redirecting based on these is that it's completely annoying for various reasons". [1] Now that I think about it, there are many valid reasons why someone would accept their native language (e.g. Catalan) but prefer to use a larger Wikipedia (e.g. Spanish). Oh well, sounded like a good idea. Rhobite 08:30, Jan 10, 2005 (UTC)
  - That's a very valid point. Perhaps this automatic redirection could be combined with a cookie, so that in your example the Catalan user will have the choice not to be redirected to ca.wikipedia.org, but to es.wikipedia.org instead. User:Anárion/sig 09:10, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    - Another idea is to display to user all languages from his Accept header. In this example, user with ca, es and en will see something like
      Catala, Espanol, English
      
      Deutsch, Nihongo, ...
    - and if there is only one header, then redirect. This will also please User:Etaonish, who started this discussion, since he probably has only en language. ilya 18:22, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
      - I agree. For me (and surely many others), it is easier to type www.wikipedia.com (w-i-k-i-p-e-d-i-a+CTRL+enter) vs typing en-two.iwiki.icu. At the same time, it's obvious Wikipedia is really very international, so I support the cookie idea.--Etaonish 23:16, Jan 11, 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia a reliable source?

I was just wondering how reliable this website is. If anyone can edit it, isn't it possible that a lot of the info may possibly be incorrect? I'm asking because it's a very quick and informative site, but I just want to make sure whether the things I am reading are reliable. January 9, 2005 Sarah

See Wikipedia:Replies_to_common_objections. -- Arwel 16:01, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Ah. Well. That's a very good question. And you should be asking it, not just about Wikipedia, but about any reference source you use. How do you know the World Almanac is reliable? A AAA road map? The American Heritage Dictionary? (If you look up a few words at random in a couple of different dictionaries and compare the etymologies, you will often find significant differences).

Do you think The New York Times is more reliable than The National Inquirer? Why? They are both newspapers. "They" wouldn't publish it if weren't true. Or would they?

It all comes down to a complicated web of trust.

- You can trust a source because people you trust, such as teachers, cite them as authorities.
- You can trust a source because it, in turn, cites its sources, so you know that you or anyone else could check the facts if you wanted to. For example, Wentworth and Flexner's slang dictionary says "marble orchard" can mean "cemetery." They then go on to give a quotation from James M. Cain's novel, Mildred Pierce, in which a character says "You'll get your names in this marble orchard soon enough." I have a copy of Mildred Pierce, as it happens. So I could check it, I'm not going to bother, because I trust them enough to think that they wouldn't publish a phony quotation, especially not one that's easy to check. Marble orchard" may or may not mean cemetary, but at least I know that Wentworth and Flexner didn't just make it up. Furthermore, I trust the source: I know James M. Cain as a realistic novelist who was careful in his use of dialog.
- On rare occasions, you may actually check a fact personally. By the way, this is almost always a fascinating exercise.

If it's just quick general background, use a reference source. If it's anything that's actually important to you, you always need to dig deeper and go to primary sources.

Yes, Wikipedia is a little different. But it's not that different. I always approach it a little bit skeptically, but on topics I know something about, it seems to be pretty good. The articles are sometimes uneven, unbalanced, or not professionally written, but there is surprisingly little outright misinformation.

Pranks, jokes, and silly edits get spotted and removed, often within a few hours. No, don't try it yourself just to see whether it's true. Here, let me take a look in Recent changes. Yeah, here's a typical one. On January 5th, an anonymous user, i.e. someone who didn't create an account but just clicked "edit this page," added a sentence in Lake Forest, California reading "Nick Vartanian lives here and tears s--t up around town." It seems as if this was there until January 9th. The funny thing is, you can read literally hundreds of pages of Wikipedia without finding anything like this. Similarly, a lot of hoaxes and jokes are spotted. Of course, it's fair to ask, how many are there that Wikipedian do not spot? And how much sloppy misinformation is in here because someone uncritically stuck in something that they had heard or thought was true without checking it out?

The best answer I can give is that Wikipedia is far more reliable than I would ever have imagined. I think the reasons for this is that although it is easy to fool around with Wikipedia, it is not very rewarding. Basically, nerdy, bookish types get a lot more enjoyment out of contributing valid material to Wikipedia do than vandals do by inserting "[Name of someone at school] is gay" into the middle of an article and discovering that it's already gone a day later.

Another answer I'd give is that in my opinion, if you want information on a topic that's likely to be in Wikipedia, the information you get from a Wikipedia article is consistently better than the information you get from a Google search on the same topic. Better organized, more even, and more accurate. If I were researching something, I'd check Wikipedia first, Google the web second, and if it were anything important to me I'd drive 1/2 mile to our town library where they have the print copies of many excellent reference works that are not available for free on the Web.

Long answer to a short question... Dpbsmith (talk) 16:35, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia:Researching with Wikipedia. -- Jmabel | Talk 23:23, Jan 9, 2005 (UTC)

I think Dpbsmith's answer has a lot of ideology in it. I've seen this same ideology in religious extremeists (Christianity has to ask itself: Are we following a vapourware promise because Jesus' return never happened, even though the scriptures imply it would happen around the time of the Roman destruction of the Jewish temple), with open source advocates (Certain software development, such as ease of use and games, works much better under a proprietary model--that said, I'm posting this using Firefox), and with Wikipedia advocates (there is a certain myth here that any article's inaccuracies will magically disapear when an expert looks at a given article. This doesn't take in to account that kooks can invest more energy reverting an article to their version than an expert, and that people will spend a lot more effort getting in to edit wars over controversial articles while many non-controversial articles get neglected). Indeed, the Wikipedia article on sexual intercourse had an urban legend posted as fact for a long time. Samboy 00:14, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

OK, more info on that urban legend. It was added in this edit and removed in my edit. I've heard stories of other pages having inaccuracies in them for a long time. Samboy 00:22, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I think that Dpbsmith has answered the question quite well. There may be "ideology" in it but I don't see it. Perhaps I'm blinded by my own "ideology" ;-) I'd be curious to know exactly which parts of his answer you take issue with? As for your example concerning sexual intercourse, yes some articles, as Dpbsmith points out above, have and will continue to have errors in them. Why is this surprising or significant? Paul August ☎ 23:02, Jan 11, 2005 (UTC)

Arbcom results not well-publicized

The voting outcome doesn't seem to be on Community Portal, Pump, or Announcements, and was on Goings on for just one week. Seems like it could be better publicized. Niteowlneils 23:29, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The cabal is secretive and does not wish to publicize just who the cabal is. --Golbez 14:42, Dec 29, 2004 (UTC)

Silence! --Alterego 05:47, Dec 31, 2004 (UTC)

I second Niteowlneils's comment. Some people tried to get the ad for the elections on the main page but our request was dismissed. Perhaps if we had been listened to then more people would have been involved by voting. Only 520 people voted and there's about 200,000 or more registered user/editors. WikiUser 18:43, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I tried to vote but noticed that I couldn't, because I am waiting since October 10th for edit attribution after a name change (I did not have enough edits with my new user name). That's one missing vote of those 200,000 :) — mark ✎ 00:11, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Advertising on Wikipedia

User:4 Wikipedia advertising is wanting to put some ads on Wikipedia and I want to make sure I know what to do with it. Any comments?? Georgia guy 19:55, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Advertising isn't going to happen. The last time advertising was even mentioned, Enciclopedia Libre forked [2]. -- Cyrius|✎ 23:44, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Song Lyrics?

Hi all, I was wondering what kind of issues are involved in the posting of song lyrics. I suspect most would be copyrighted, but there are a ton of (poor and frustrating) websites that are simply a compendium of song lyrics (and ads). I don't suppose it's fair use? I know I would love to have a reliable, easy place to find song lyrics, but I'm not sure if this (or wikisource, more likely) is the place. Thanks, Timbo ( t a l k ) 06:58, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Except for things like national anthems, or the occasional important song old enough that its lyrics are out of coyright (e.g. Vicar of Bray), this is not -- repeat not -- the place. All you will do is waste people's time going through the process to get them deleted. -- Jmabel | Talk 07:11, Jan 15, 2005 (UTC)

That and of course Wikipedia is not a mere collection of source material. Evil Monkey → Talk 07:17, Jan 15, 2005 (UTC)

Well yeah, but Wikisource is. Roger that, though, no lyrics! Timbo ( t a l k ) 07:18, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Lyrics. National anthems yes, everything else no. -- Curps 07:22, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Category sorting

I've been trying to figure out the way we should sort categories that list people's names. If there's already a discussion or policy on this, I have not found it. Generally, we seem to sort by last name -- the surname in English. However, there are cases where the word to sort on is not obvious (to me, at least):

Non-English names that have the surname first (e.g. Chinese). The articles are not always titled consistently (with respect to name order), and it may not always be clear which is the surname.
Names of the form "xxxx of yyyy", such as Wladislaus III of Poland. I've seen cases where it was left as is, where it was sorted on "Poland", and where it's been sorted on "III" (yes!).
I'm sure there are others...

Any suggestions? Rholton 22:28, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Wladislaus III of Poland goes under W — since he's royalty, he's a special case.
Wasim Akram (A Pakistani name writtenn surname givenname), likewise goes under W.
Robbie Williams also goes under W because that's his surname. Dunc|☺ 21:12, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Others take on a case-by-case basis. e.g. Even though Kylie Minogue is known as Kylie, she should still be listed under M.Dunc|☺ 21:12, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Slow speeds - my official resignation notice

It is with mixed feelings that I resign as an editor of Wikipedia. I will outline my full reasons on my user page in a few minutes, but briefly it is because of the outrageously slow speeds. I spent half an hour trying to get this page to load. I gave up on news ticker. It may not be constantly slow, but on the many occasions it is it's worse than slow: it grinds to a halt. It doesn't respond to commands, it freezes...and that brings me to another point. It keeps freezing my computer. Many pages, including metasyntactic variable, respiration and Alice and Bob just prevent the computer from doing anything. Also, the behaviour of the admins is appauling. Cyrius is rude. Theresa knott harasses me. Gazpacho won't discuss anything, whether I ask him to or not. I am effectively bullied by DrZoidberg over the sandbox, so why should I stay and help other people who are rude to me, bully me, harass me, ignore me...? So, I quit. I'm leaving. I'll continue to respond to messages left on my talkpage for 1 week after today (that brings up to next Monday), but won't check back here. So if you want to discuss this, use my talkpage. This message was left at 17:19, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC) and the time now is 20:17.--Gabriel (internal ID number: 118170)

At the moment I'm finding general browsing OK, but submission very slow with numerous database errors. I'll persevere. violet/riga (t) 17:32, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Things are running very slowly lately, but I'm assuming that they're the result of occasionally Slashdotting and the world-wide populatity of the 2004 Tsunami page. Things seems to have settled down a bit, and hopefully they will continue to do so. As for computers crashing, that has nothing to do with Wikipedia. – Clockwork Soul 17:56, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I can understand Gabriel very well. I'm fed up myself. Considering the fact that Wikipedia Day is approaching, things are bound to get worse (if that's possible) rather than better over the next few days. Whoever I introduced to Wikipedia over the past two and a half years was fascinated by the concept and the many many contributors but appalled by the technical performance. Complaints used to be fended off with requests to donate money. Well, people have donated money, but nothing much has changed. With a simple page needing several minutes to load, routine work like checking on newly created pages is absolutely out of the question. It would be sad to see anyone leave but, as I said before, I can understand them. <KF> 18:18, Jan 10, 2005 (UTC)

I agree that the horrible performance is frustrating, but I'm probably too addicted to quit (unless it gets even worse). It's also very disappointing that $50k was raised, and (presumably) spent, and the performance is worse, if anything. Also, for what it's worth, according to Alexa, traffic is only about 10% over traffic at the end of November (December had an understandable dip). Niteowlneils 22:36, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

What are you talking about? Alexa rank has gone from around 200 in November to 130 today. Traffic doubling times have generally been 8-16 weeks. 68.237.137.57 07:03, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Comment It may be superstition on my part, but I have the distinct impression that saving edits is both faster and more reliable if one edits and saves entire pages rather than a section of a page. That is, the problem is much worse for section editing than it is for whole-page editing. Dpbsmith (talk) 23:09, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
- I've noticed the same thing, so I don't think there's superstitious reinforcement involved in that at all. Grutness|^hello? 03:50, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Huh. I hadn't noticed, but theoretically is seems quite possible, if not likely. FWIW, it's actually much faster tonight than it was this morning--dunno if they fixed or optimized something, or if this is just a low-traffic time o' day (I assume most Brits and Aussies, etc. are asleep, and most people in the eastern 3/4's of the US and Canada are watching TV or sleeping). Niteowlneils 03:55, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Brits asleep, yes. Aussies? It was 3.55pm in Sydney when you wrote that (and 4.55 here in NZ) Grutness|^hello?

04:41, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Aussies do not, as far as I know, take siestas, which is a shame because I think its rather a good idea.-gadfium 04:47, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

OK, so my wild guess was way off--shoulda said the down-unders were 'at work'. Speed's still good this morning, tho' still many db errors such as:

 A database query syntax error has occurred. This may indicate a bug
 in the software. The last attempted database query was:

   SELECT cur_id,cur_namespace,cur_title FROM `cur`,`links` WHERE
 cur_id=l_to AND l_from=1386723 FOR UPDATE

from within function "LinkCache::preFill". MySQL returned error "1213: Deadlock found when trying to get lock; Try restarting transaction (10.0.0.1)". Niteowlneils 18:44, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I have to say that I've been very discouraged lately buy the sloooooooooow wiki response as well. Perhaps we need to have another fund drive. Whatever it takes this needs to be fixed. As to section edits, I always do section edits because I assumed it would be faster. Maybe I should rethink that. Paul August ☎ 22:34, Jan 11, 2005 (UTC)

Apparently it's a technical problem, a disk got full, since then things have been bad, and they need to shut down all editing for a day to fix the problem properly. I think things are a little faster now because they have switched main servers as a temporary fix. Jayjg | (Talk) 23:00, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Not true. There was a disk full, but it's not causing deadlock errors. -- Cyrius|✎ 23:41, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The full disk problem is an irrelevant issue and was solved quite easily by changing the master database server some time ago. It has nothing to do with the current issues which are not caused by disk capacity. Kate.

According to Tim Starling, the reason for the slowness starting 10 days ago was that "Ariel ran out of disk space and suda was made the master DB server. We'll probably have to switch the site into read-only mode for a day or so to fix this. Before we do that, we want to finish compressing the database, which will probably take another few days. In case you're wondering, the root cause of this problem was a lack of available development and system administration expertise, coupled with a poorly timed developer conference." Jayjg | (Talk) 00:02, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Comment You said "Also, the behaviour of the admins is appauling." I share your concern over this matter. In fact I believe the misuse of admin powers to be the greatest threat to Wikipedia. Sadly it is apparent that Wikipedia is now attracting a breed of person who is less interested in editing articles (for better or worse) than reverting and deleting and otherwise exercising what bureaucratic might they be able to muster to throw their weight around. We have such a person about to be elected as an admin [3] It does not help Wikipedia if people leave as a result of being brow beaten by power crazed admins, it is more important to stay and force change. Please reconsider. - Robert the Bruce 02:22, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I've been trying to edit two articles for the past 40 minutes and cannot save them yet ("The wikimedia web server didn't return any response to your request"). Now I can't close the window because I'd lose the edits. But this edit has gone through without any problems. Basically I've spent an hour trying to make two edits - fantastic. violet/riga (t) 17:31, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The site would be a lot faster if everyone would just stop using it. STOP IT! STOP IT! YOU'RE HURTING THE SERVERS! CAN'T YOU HEAR THEM SCREAMING? But seriously, a large part of our problems are due to lack of development and system administration expertise. We could also compensate for this by buying lots more hardware, or at least fixing the piles of broken hardware we're collecting. Like Niteowlneils says, traffic hasn't changed very much in the last two months, but our hardware configuration constantly changes as old hardware (under warranty) breaks and new hardware is installed to replace it, and our software configuration changes as we attempt to take better advantage of what we have with innovative new solutions.

What we developers have acheived is certainly not perfect, but at least we've managed to keep the site operational for most of the time, which is an achievement I think we should be proud of considering the adverse conditions under which we operate. I discovered over Christmas that I could work 40 hours per week on Wikipedia system administration, and I wouldn't be able to keep up with the demand that is placed on me, then on top of that there's MediaWiki development. If people want to leave because of the slow speed, that's fine by me, it makes my job that little bit easier. -- Tim Starling 06:34, Jan 14, 2005 (UTC)

Country names in titles

There's a discussion on standardization of country names in titles (at least for categories) on Wikipedia:Categories for deletion which may be of interest. -- Beland 02:14, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Tsunami Aid: A C

I was wondering if anyone else is watching the Tsunami Aid concert and would contribute to the article since we've been providing so much coverage of the tsunami. ;) --Saint-Paddy 02:31, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Defining "political party" on lists of such

Should every List of political parties in X article begin with a definition of "political party"? User:Wilfried Derksen seems to think so, and has added the following section to the top of many such lists (e.g. Norway, Spain, and Mexico):

A political party is a political organization subscribing to a certain ideology or formed around very special issues with the aim to participate in power, usually by participating in elections.

See political party for a more comprehensive discussion.

I find this to be an unnecessary repetition of information, and also somewhat disorienting (I was confused when I first saw one of these articles - I thought I accindently arrived at the political party article instead of the list I was looking for). I believe that a link to political party in the title would suffice (as is currently in Thailand).

What do other people think? -- uriber 18:51, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I think it's unnecessary: the term is in common enough use that a link should suffice. -- Jmabel | Talk 19:31, Jan 11, 2005 (UTC)

Thank you, Uriber, for putting this question at this page. Yes, I think it is useful to start a article on political parties in a country with a short definition of a party in general. It can help users and I do not consider it a unnecessary repetition of information. Why it is disorienting I do not know, since the title of the article is clear.

Gangulf 19:32, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Jmabel, I don't think it is necessary. But if it remains there, then I don't think that "political party" should be bolded. That tends to imply, to me at least, that this is the "political party" article. That's probably part of the reason that it is "disorienting" Paul August ☎ 22:16, Jan 11, 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Jmabel as well; it's needless repetition. Jayjg | (Talk) 03:14, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I think if there was only one list, say List of political parties, than adding the definition would be a good idea, since it will greatly reduce amount of arguing on adding list items. But when there are many lists this is redundant. ilya 11:06, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Help!

Help! This is the Georgia guy, presenting very bad news:

Tonight, while I edit Wikipedia, while I am in Wikipedia, without doing anything, something causes me to log out. Can anyone do whatever is available to keep this from happening?? Georgia guy 02:37, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

This has happened to me a few times. It doesn't seem to happen that frequently, no more than once a month on average. When it happens I just log back in, no big deal. Thue | talk 12:04, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

If you are finding yourself totally unable to stay logged in, here are some things you might try (in general, on any site):

Clear your cache (delete your Temporary Internet Files if you have Internet Explorer)—a really full cache can cause some odd effects.
Delete your Wikipedia cookie. (So you can start fresh with a new one.)
Make sure the date on your system isn't totally incorrect. (My Wikipedia cookie does seem to have an expiration date. If my computer thought it was 2040, that might be problematic.) -Aranel ("Sarah") 01:22, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The Grid and Electronic Economies of Scale

I read the following on wikitech: Why is the site so slow?

Re: More servers, separate pipes [info]keturner 2005-01-14 00:11 (link) Yes, but LJ is a profit-making company and can afford hardware :) While the WMF continues to make money only from donations, we're unlikely to ever have enough money to run the site properly. It's probably time to start looking at grants/hardware donations ASAP - I keep hearing about these but nothing seems to materialise.

I was wondering if Wiki's could/would be able to utilize Grid software and resources to defray the costs and improve the performance during peak demand. Also with technology and bandwidth prices continuing to drop as speeds increase; won't that mean in a few years it will cost less to do more, making Wikipedia perform reliably with its current budget sooner rather than later. Or is it safe to assume that Wikipedia will continue to expand/experiment as it has; pushing its capabilities as they improve for the near term?

BTW I tried to put the quote in a box by starting it with a space, it didn't wrap... so I bolded instead. - RoyBoy [∞] 07:13, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Fixed it for you. Good question BTW ;-) --Phil | Talk 09:08, Jan 14, 2005 (UTC)

IMHO, Wikipedia will always require lots of money for hardware. Text is easy, but we have multi-megabyte pictures, and some day we will probably have video. Perhaps we should consider banner advertising. Something tasteful like Google AdSense at the very bottom below the GNU licence link. See https://www.google.com/adsense/adformats for an example. pstudier 02:49, 2005 Jan 15 (UTC)

Interesting idea, makes me think that perhaps since Google and Wiki share a bit in common from a philosophical POV; if there has been any contact or consideration of partnering with Google to make use of their server capacity. Although of course there is no such thing as a free lunch; but ads might be a necessary evil. - RoyBoy [∞] 17:14, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

We are currently in negotiation with Google about using some of their servers to host squid cached requests. This should be able to divert a great deal of anonymous reads from the Wikimedia servers. At first Google wanted us to host Google Ads, but Jimmy and the other board member have told them that this is not an option since it would fork the project. --mav 23:12, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

ornithology note

The five golden rings listed in the 12 Days of Christmas carol are not jewelry. They are ring-necked pheasants, phasianus colchicus-- which is why tghey are included in a list of birds. Please get this cleared up beforre the next carolling sseaason.

A source for this pheasant would be useful to see; certainly 99.99% (plus) of people understand it to refer to jewelery. --Vamp:Willow 23:29, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I decided to look around and see what I could find on the 'net:

"The Twelve Days of Christmas" is what most people take it to be: a secular song that celebrates the Christmas season with imagery of gifts and dancing and music. Some misinterpretations have crept into the English version over the years, though. For example, the fourth day's gift is four "colly birds," not four "calling birds." (The word "colly" literally means "black as coal," and thus "colly birds" would be blackbirds.) The "five golden rings" refers not to five pieces of jewelry, but to five ring-necked birds (such as pheasants). When these errors are corrected, the pattern of the first seven gifts' all being types of birds is re-established.[4] —Mike 02:05, Jan 19, 2005 (UTC)

Πώς μπορώ να ξεκινήσω νέο άρθρο; / How can I begin a new article?

Δε βρίσκω το λίνκ στη κεντρική σελίδα. Στις άλλες γλώσσες, όπως στην Αγγλική, το λίνκ για δημιουργία νέου άρθρου είναι στην κεντρική σελίδα. Στην Ελληνική Βικιπαιδεία δε το βρίσκω πουθενά.

Πως μπορώ να ξεκινήσω νέο άρθρο;

Δεν θα έπρεπε να είναι τόσο δύσκολο.

Babelfish-assisted translation of above anonymous comment:

How I can begin a new article? I do not find a link on the main page. In the other languages, as in English, a link for creation of a new article is on the main page. In the Greek Wikipedia, I can't find it anywhere. So how can I begin a new article? It it unexpectedly difficult.

You may want to look at Wikipedia:Tutorial and Wikipedia:Your first article for information on how to create new articles. Mgm|^(talk) 13:00, Jan 22, 2005 (UTC)

In the English version of Wikipedia if you type a non-existent article name into the search engine and click "go" instead of "search" it tells you the article doesn't exist and offers you the option of starting an article with that name. This feature might also appear in the Greek Wikipedia. MK2 20:34, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)
- A quick test seems to indicate the Greek Wikipedia doesn't have this feature. But if I'm understanding the translation correctly, it appears the search feature is asking people for a fee. MK2 20:44, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The easiest and most encouraged way to create a new article on any wiki is to create a link to it in one or more existing articles, and then follow that link. This helps avoid the creation of "orphan" pages, which nothing else links to, and which can easily be forgotten and overlooked. If you really really can't think of anything that should link to the new article, then add one at the "sandbox" (el:Wikipedia:Αμμοδοχείο), or your "user page" (sorry, I don't know what the Greek equivalent for that help page is). - IMSoP 23:15, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Mediation committee

The MC is currently without a chair. User:Jwrosenzweig offered to step into the breach. See also the WikiEN-l mailing list and in particular Wikipedia:Mediation Committee#Candidate_for_being_chair.

Please comment. (Original posted by SweetLittleFluffyThing 12:26, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC), refactored to make it clear that JWR was not trying to power grab !:) by me Pcb21| Pete 16:13, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

In addition to that, it seems like a good idea to get a few of the current candidates to beef up the Committees numbers. If you have any objections to me doing that over the next day or two please comment at Wikipedia_talk:Mediation Committee. Pcb21| Pete 16:13, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Formal Greeting

Hello My name is Zoe Batham and I joined the Smalltalk community a few years back with the Open University. I have been learning the basics and interacting on entertainment boards. I still have much to learn as I am more familiar with the grammer and sytnax of C++.

This comes at Wikipedia:New user log. utcursch 12:19, Jan 22, 2005 (UTC)

How could a non-registered user object?

Why people hurt by Wikipedia content, cannot object without registration? I know there is a Content disclaimer but still some articles I found recently spread on Internet contain insulting facts of the kind "home-made science". The particular item I found in a foreign-language forum is http://www.fact-index.com/l/li/list_of_country_name_etymologies.html Unfortunatelly, ethimology is very risky to home-made suggestions and here is one more question from me: who checks the facts on Wikipedia? As you can see from the link above the quotators /and what a name they got!/ do not give links to the Content Disclaimer! %/

All articles have talk pages, where questions or comments can be asked. You will need to go to the actual article at the Wikipedia: List of country name etymologies. Any page can also be edited by non-logged in users, although there are many benefits to registering. Facts can be—and are—checked by all editors. Again, the talk page of the article is the logical place to question statements in the article. User:Anárion/sig 10:20, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Thank You. Just to clear - shouldn't Wikipedia quotators mention the Content disclaimer too?

We have very limited control over what someone who reuses our content does or does not say, as long as they follow GFDL. Your issue should be with them, not with Wikipedia, just like if a site quotes a politician out of context, your issue is with the site, not the politician. -- Jmabel | Talk 02:26, Jan 22, 2005 (UTC)

Well, I agree. Unfortunatelly, could not find any feedback link on "fact"-index.com and wondered if they are a Wikipedia "child" - see - they are not. So my issue is with them but they'll not know. :-/

Back

Hey guys, I'm back, in case you haven't noticed. I've recently been doing just 'grunt work' -- that is reverting vandalism and stuff, because I found a life now (lol). I see wikipedia has changed in a few months. Cool. — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 01:31, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Edit war over www.wikipedia.org

The fact that www.wikipedia.org no longer redirects to en-two.iwiki.icu was mentioned above, but nobody pointed out that everyone can now edit it at m:www.wikipedia.org portal. It's a very visible page and so I hope it will be carefully checked and reviewed. The debate over what should be there has degenerated into a rather silly argument/edit war between Eloquence and Node ue. Now Eloquence says he's giving up for a week. I don't really trust Node's graphic design skills, so I'm hoping a few other people will get involved. Any takers? -- Tim Starling 07:38, Jan 14, 2005 (UTC)

Wow, I can't believe no one is working on this. That page gets SOOO much traffic... I threw something together - it sucks - it's just templates taken from the main page. English is the lingua franca nowadays, and if someone speaks another language their eyes are going to be drawn towards that text. Probably, we should have, written out in that language, every language we have...but anyway, wikipedia.org is really ugly right now. If ten people take a stab at this page it will be looking good. m:Www.wikipedia.org_portal/test --Alterego 19:31, Jan 22, 2005 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Another proposal for www.wikipedia.org portal. Noisy | Talk 23:00, Jan 22, 2005 (UTC)

Knowingly created duplicate article

An article has beeen created at Alexander George Thynne, 7th Marquess of Bath. The creator noted, both in the text of the article and in the edit summary, that he already has a biography! Susvolans (pigs can fly) 17:57, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I just redirected it. If the creator wants to write about the guy, he should do so on the existing page instead of inexplicably creating a new page that says it should be merged. -- Cyrius|✎ 18:51, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I have raised it on Wikipedia:Requested moves. Noisy | Talk 19:09, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)

Racism against Tsunami victims

A radio station in New York, specifically HOT97, played a very offensive song against Tsunami victims. You can read it about it here:

A full disclosure of the lyrics can be found on this forum post (warning, very offensive content):

http://www.clubzen.com/forum/forum_thread.php?id=2164

-- AllyUnion (talk) 10:31, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

We should get them to GFDL the lyrics and put them on Wikisource. --SPUI 11:07, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Don't feed the trolls. -- Cyrius|✎ 14:45, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

A radio station in New York, specifically HOT97, played a very offensive song against Tsunami victims

... and ???? 204.87.171.4 19:47, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

This is unpleasant, but why is it a wikipedia issue?? ~66.24.253.185

"Its ZIP Code is 44444, and so it celebrates April 4 as Zip day"?

From Newton Falls, Ohio. Can someone from near there confirm this? Because all google gets is Wikipedia mirrors. Niteowlneils 17:31, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Sounds like a hoax, or at the very least unverifiable. This should probably go on the reference desk or peer review though. --fvw * 01:59, 2005 Jan 24 (UTC)

For what little it's worth, a friend of mine who's lived in Cleveland for the past dozen years was aware of the place, but not the holiday. —Korath (Talk) 03:36, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia mentioned in article of large-circulation magazine

Hi. I'm pleased to divulge that Wikipedia has (finally) been the object of a story in Veja, the largest and most prestigious weekly magazine in Brazil (over 1 million subscribers) and one of the 5 largest in the world in terms of numbers of copies printed (every week). Not everything was great though. We took heavy criticism: the reporter inserted a wrong information in our article on the Brazilian president, to test how fast the mistake would be corrected by the community. It wasn't! The reporter himself changed it back to the original version two days later (check the page history  edit by anon user, IP address 200.196.241.1 on the 17th and the 19th of this month). That led the story to question the credibility of our encyclopedia. If people would be interested, I can provide a full translation into English (I would do it myself) and post it on Wikipedia, but I'm not sure as to where I could post it (maybe I could create a subpage in my user page, or maybe I could do it in the Sandbox, since it's temporary anyways?). I am however considering a letter of criticism to the magazine, since I found the story to have been somewhat superficial, given the reporter's ignorance of the particularities of our community. Personally, I think the story could have been much better if they had contacted a user (maybe even a Brazilian one) to assist them. They didn't even care to take a statement from Jimbo! I hope this is of some interest. Regards, Redux 17:45, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Interesting. For the benefit of those of us who read Portuguese, is the article on line anywhere? Also, if you do write them back, you might mention Wikipedia:Researching with Wikipedia, which I believe is our best discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of Wikipedia as a research tool. -- Jmabel | Talk 21:32, Jan 23, 2005 (UTC)

The article is online at the magazine's website, but they restrict the contents to subscribers. Since I am one, I do have access to the electronic version of the story. If you'd like to read it, as an option, I could copy and paste it in your talk page. From there, you can copy it to some other file you prefer or just read it and delete it. I would need your ok on this before though, since it would be a relatively long text being "crammed" in your talk page. Or, if there's a broader interest, I could post the original Portuguese version together with my translation (remembering this would, of course, be a temporary post, subject to posterior deletion). Regards, Redux 01:47, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

You could also cite it on Wikipedia:Press coverage (although without a link due to the subscription only limit). The 2004 archive was sorted by language, so maybe you can start a portugese section for this years page. -- Chris 73 Talk 01:57, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)

Uups, already is listed. "Unsigned article (January 23, 2005) "Written by whoever wants to". Revista VEJA. [01], [23], 2005." Sorry. -- Chris 73 Talk 01:58, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)

TradeWars 2002 - article improvement

Hello, Any TradeWars 2002 buffs who would like to help with the article? It is in need of more/better screenshots, and some of the content, which is spread over several articles, could also be consolidated. — Nathanlarson32767 (Talk) 14:47, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Encylopedic? Presidential trivia lists (listed on List of U.S. Presidents by longevity of life, and probably others

Is this level of trivia coverage really suitable for Wikipedia? Niteowlneils 01:13, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Fascinating material, totally encyclopaedic, and the sort of info that WP contributors enjoy compiling (in my humble opinion, of course) - Adrian Pingstone 08:43, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

horrible title, though (English-wise). "longevity of life"? sounds like someone wanted to sound a bit too encyclopedic. dab (ᛏ) 18:09, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Can't say that I like all of them very much, but there's not really a particularly good reason to delete it. violet/riga (t) 18:52, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Well - I wrote the article to fill a need - there was a great big nasty old red link on the page for the President of the United States ; so there must be someone who was requesting it. -- Zaphod Beeblebrox 22:13, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

This is the kind of info encyclopediæ should have. How else could arguments on the longest living president be settled? 12:31, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The list at the end needs to be deleted and all the articles placed in Category:United States Presidential trivia or some such. Proteus (Talk) 12:45, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

m:Wiki is not paper. If we can get them, sure! And then meta-lists cross-referencing these 200+ * 10+ lists. What exactly is the problem? The mere knowledge that they're there? The fear that this makes us look unprofessional? The fear that we're violating the Charter of Wikipedia? It can't be problems with NPOV or accuracy. Is this level of trivia "really suitable" for Wikipedia? Well, can you give me arguments as to how it definitely isn't, or is it just your personal opinion? In that case, it was certainly other people's opinion that these lists were suitable, as evidenced by their contributions. And speaking from a reader POV, I can easily see uses for these lists, so what's wrong? A case of "what Wikipedia shouldn't be"?
Um. Here endeth my little inclusionist rant. :-) JRM 12:26, 2005 Jan 25 (UTC)

Old Britannica article problem

Sorry for posting here instead of using the article's talk page, but I guess I'd have to wait some months to get a reply there.

The article Ababde, taken from the 1875 Britannica, doesn't look correct or NPOV to me. How to proceed? I don't know about the subject myself, and simply adding a number of pastel sheded boxes wouldn't help that much. VfD?

Pjacobi 01:27, 2005 Jan 28 (UTC)

POV. VfD ASAP. Nohat 01:40, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Removed dubious comments, some rewrite, remainder is still a valid article. -- Chris 73 Talk 01:56, Jan 28, 2005 (UTC)

Nohat, note that POV is listed at problems that don't require deletion. :) That policy suggests listing such articles on Wikipedia:Pages needing attention. (Just for future reference :D). --Sketchee 21:45, Jan 31, 2005 (UTC)

After some more searching, I assume it should be redirected to Ababda, that article based on the 1911 Britannica looks better. And "Ababda" gets hits on http://scholar.google.com in contrast to "Ababde". --Pjacobi 02:15, 2005 Jan 28 (UTC)

Damn, I missed that one. Redirected. -- Chris 73 Talk 03:07, Jan 28, 2005 (UTC)

NL wikipedia at 50.000 articles

The Dutch language wikipedia reached the 50.000th article. There is champagne in our village pump http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:De_kroeg#50.000e_-_Champagne and on the discussion page of the author of the 50.000th article http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overleg_gebruiker:Ben-NL Flyingbird 23:43, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Shouldn't this go on Wikipedia:Village pump (news)? Mgm|^(talk) 12:50, Jan 28, 2005 (UTC)

algonkin info needed

Moved to the Reference desk. JRM 18:40, 2005 Jan 27 (UTC)

Wikitex

Holy flurking schnitt.

I know this properly belongs at Meta, but here it's likely to get more eyeballs, and I want to propagate this as far and wide as possible. This is blatant advertising, and I'm not ashamed of it. Go to [5] and look at all the incredibly neat stuff they've got there. I'm salivating at the mouth right here, I kid you not.

If there's not something there you wish you had on Wikipedia, you must truly be a text-only editor.

Update: it is on Meta. See m:Talk:MediaWiki roadmap#When will PPCHTeX etc be included?. There is some understandable developer anxiety. I still feel you need to know about it here, too. JRM 01:49, 2005 Jan 27 (UTC)

Wiki-ethics: Editing a page in self-interest

I'm at a point in my career where I have to do take some drastic measures, or risk being kicked out of my program. One of the measures I decided I need to take is to inform my two supervisors that I suffer from social anxiety. I figured I'd write them an e-mail (easiest for me) and include a link to an article on the web about the condition. But many articles on the web don't present it quite how I would want it presented, e.g. they talk about fears of public speaking, which might confuse people who know I'm an excellent public speaker.

So my thought was to edit the Wikipedia article to describe social anxiety accurately and not in a way that would confuse people who know me, and send them a link to that. But that seems somehow wrong. On the one hand, I've researched the disorder pretty thoroughly and know quite a bit about it, and had planned to improve the article anyway. On the other hand, Wikipedia is not my personal site, to be used to further my own career, and its possible that, at least in the time between me sending the link to my supervisors and being pretty sure they've read it, I'd get a tad protective of some elements of the article.

I was just wondering if there's any feeling out there on this. I know the policies on not writing autobiographies or advertising cover some aspects of editing in self-interest, but this is a little different.

Thanks. moink 00:10, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Of course it's different, and you're worrying in the wrong direction. Wikipedia can only benefit from your edits — if they're POV or inaccurate, they will get sorted out; if you're overprotective, then, my friend, you will get sorted out. (We promise we'll be gentle. :-) Such are the ways of Wikipedia. What, do you think I restrict myself to editing articles I do not hold a personal interest in? If everyone did that, our encyclopedia would grow very slowly indeed — if at all. Go ahead and make those edits. Don't worry about damaging us.
No, the question is whether you can benefit from those edits. If you are worried your edits may not be appropriate for the article, should you be sending people links to it as if it were a good representation of a neutral encyclopedia? At the very least should you feel obligated to mention you've contributed to the article, unless others have already modified it in such a way that it can again truly be called a collaborative effort.
That's my take on things. JRM 00:43, 2005 Jan 27 (UTC)

I'd say just (1) make sure your citations are good and clear, (2) don't edit out any well-cited material just because it happens to be inconvenient to you, and (3) don't add material for which you don't have proper citations. Oh, and (4), as anywhere else, expect to be edited mercilessly, and if that's not something you are willing to put up with on a topic near and dear to you, then you shouldn't be working on that topic. And, of course, don't conceal being a contributor to the material when you are presenting it at work. -- Jmabel | Talk 00:59, Jan 27, 2005 (UTC)

I looked at the article, and while short, it's actually quite good, and useful to me. I made a couple minor edits but nothing major. Nevertheless, thanks for your advice. moink 04:01, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Image copyright in the London Natural History Museum

I noted that the article on the Japanese spider crab is a stub. I know that the London Natural History Museum has a splendid stuffed crab on display, and I thought to go and photograph it for the article. I wrote to the museum and eventually got this reply:

"Our copyright agreement covers both photos taken in opening hours or after-hours. Images taken in the museum are specifically for personal use only. If you wanted to sell or otherwise distribute images taken in or of the museum you would have to sign a copyright form and pay a fee based on the museum licensing you to sell or distribute the images in an agreed way. I would not permit images to be released under 'copyleft'."

Which rules out one of the world's great collections for wikipedia. That seems a poor show, given that they state

"We are the UK's national museum of nature, and a centre of scientific excellence in taxonomy and biodiversity. We maintain and develop the collections and use them to promote discovery, understanding, responsible use and enjoyment of the natural world." - Emrys2 16:10, 26 Jan 2005

IANAL, but I would doubt that there are many objects in the Natural History Museum that are covered by UK copyright law. Many museums and art galleries disallow the taking of photographs without a permit (with paintings there is a copyright problem). The British Museum appears to be comfortable with people taking photographs, but I didn't explicitly explore any licensing questions. -- Solipsist 20:57, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Its also a reproduction fees problem. Pretty well all libraries and archives will not allow internet use of images, even when they are out of copyright. Apwoolrich 22:01, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Surely reproduction fees would apply to images made available by the museum (from their web site for example - and in that case the photographs would probably be copyright too). However I wouldn't have thought they would apply to photographs taken by users visiting the museum. -- Solipsist 23:07, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Could Wikipedia get in trouble for having an out-of-copyright image from one of those archives, or would the sole weak link be the person that obtains and uploads it not following some sort of implied contract (or real contract if you actually have to sign one to make a copy/take a photo)? --SPUI 22:16, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Under (most interpretations of) US law reproduction fees and restrictions on out-of-copyright works are strictly a matter of contract law. There is case law to state that if an artwork is out of copyright, an accurate photograph of it does not establish a new copyright. Thus, copyright law is out of the equation. Implicit contracts are on very shaky legal ground, no matter what an owner might tell you. If you didn't have to indicate your agreement to a contract in order to view the copy, you're not bound by one. Click-through agreements are shakier than written contracts, of course, and if there are any technical ways to see the image without agreeing to the click-through, they are especially hard to enforce.

The other impediment to trying to enforce restrictions on out-of-copyright works with contract law alone is that those contract obligations do not default to being passed along to other people who might get their hands on the work. In other words, if your friend downloads something that required a click-through license but leaves it on his disk and you find that file, you are not breaking any contract. (HE might be; many contracts specify that agreement means you agree not to share the work with others).

Thus, in actuality, if you upload an out of copyright image to Wikipedia, no matter where you got it from, only YOU might be breaking any laws. Wikipedia itself, and other re-users, are in the clear.

This situation may differ in other legal jurisdictions, of course. —Morven 23:26, Jan 26, 2005 (UTC)

In the UK, the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act (1988) states: " 23. The copyright in a work is infringed by a person who, without the licence of the copyright owner— ... (d) distributes otherwise than in the course of a business to such an extent as to affect prejudicially the owner of the copyright, an article which is, and which he knows or has reason to believe is, an infringing copy of the work." So wikipedia itself would be infringing copyright if I took a photo in the museum and released it under GFDL. Emrys2 15:15, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia and lies

I have come across the following reasoning several times while editing here and would like to inquire as to how widespread it is. "A Wikipedia article, in theory, doesn't care about about truth. Its purpose is only to report what the various factions report as the truth." Bensaccount 20:04, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

There is only 1 truth and that's what Wikipedia articles are about. The articles may describe different interpretations of the truth by different groups though. — J3ff 01:59, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

At the risk of getting into a philosophical discussion, exactly the same thing can be said about almost all forms of reportage. History, for example, is the past as reported by historians, none of whom can possibly hope to be entirely unbiased. No encyclopaedia is totally unbiased. Even dictionaries can be biased - the reason American English is different to that in the rest of the English-speaking world is largely due to Webster's biases. Where Wikipedia has a distinct advantage over other encyclopaedias is that there are thousands of editors, each of whom can amend articles that are biased by others. You can stick an NPOV template on an Encyclopaedia Britannica, but no-one will come along and amend it! Grutness|^hello?

04:06, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

This is more of an epistemological question than a methodological one. The methodological effect is that only what is uncontroversial among experts should be in the narrative voice of the article. Anything that is disputed among experts should be clearly attributed to who says it. It is not our job to take sides in disagreements between experts. The biggest difficulty that arises from this is the question of who is a credible source. We do not have clear consensus on that throughout Wikipedia, but in most subject-matter areas we seem to have enough of a consensus to write articles accordingly. Every so often it breaks down, and those are some of the more bitter arguments we get. -- Jmabel | Talk 19:39, Jan 26, 2005 (UTC)

I think the point of the statement might be to distinguish between truth and verifiability. Maurreen 06:24, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not about truth; it is about verifiability, as Jimbo has said. We're not in a position to investigate the status of each claim we make. We can report that the tsunami caused massive devastation but we can't send aircraft to the area to check. All we can do is find good sources, howsoever defined (reputable, authoritative, credible, reliable, recognized; and peer-reviewed if it's a scholarly subject), and then paraphrase and quote them accurately, saying where we got the information from. That's why I believe Wikipedia:Cite sources and Wikipedia:Verifiability are our most important guidelines (and should be policy in my view) because they're the guardians of the two core polices — Wikipedia:NPOV and Wikipedia:No original research — and together these four standards create a philosophy that is pretty well impregnable. SlimVirgin 06:51, Jan 27, 2005 (UTC)

I intend to broaden the wikipedia:verifiability with some falsifiability concepts, see wikipedia talk:verifiability, I added a new comment there yesterday. Let's say this is about introducing "falsifiability light" in wikipedia, not the heavy philosophical concept - just the parts that are useful in clarifying "degrees of verifiability" & in clarifying where this can be helpful in enhancing (scientific) reliability of wikipedia, but keeping clear of the "truth" issue, as well as of the "no original research" issue. Well, not all that easy to write, I suppose. Anybody sharing ideas would be welcome of course! Please share them on Wikipedia_talk:Verifiability#Falsifiability.3F (too), I don't come all that often on this here page in Village Pump --Francis Schonken 14:42, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Hi Schonken, I have a concern about raising the issue of falsifiability, which I've posted about at Wikipedia talk:Verifiability. I'm only familar with it from philosophy, but I'm looking forward to learning about falsifiability-light. ;-) SlimVirgin 20:36, Jan 27, 2005 (UTC)

Newsgroup FAQ

I want to create a FAQ for the Usenet group git.talk.cars. Questions answered would include "What are recommended car repair shops near Georgia Tech?" , "What are the recommended car washes near Georgia Tech" , and more. I really like the Wiki-type open editing, but I am not sure if something like that is appropriate in this or other Wikimedia projects. Thoughts? SCEhardt 01:54, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not lists "Lists of Frequently Asked Questions" explicitly as something Wikipedia is not. -- Cyrius|✎ 04:02, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Wikibooks might work for it. --SPUI 06:25, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the input! Thinking about this further, I'm not sure that it would even work in Wikibooks since that would probably not allow for opinionated reviews. Right now it is looking like [http://www.wikicities.com Wikicities] might be a good fit. SCEhardt 14:56, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

featured articles

does anyone know what user has created the most featured articles? if you know can you post it on my talk page. --Larsie 21:26, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

If its not User:Lord Emsworth, who has 44, I'd be surprised. Pcb21| Pete 22:33, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I beleive Pete is correct here. →Raul654 06:28, Feb 1, 2005 (UTC)

Monolith

When looking for information about Uluru I discovered an error in the definition for monolith. It states, "...and solid metamorphic rock, such as granite." Granite is not a metamorphic rock. It is an igneous rock. I thought that you would like to know. Thank you.

[above posted by 67.76.104.59 at 00:01, 31 Jan 2005. Wikilinkage added by MD]

Thanks for pointing that out. I fixed it. But the cool thing about Wikipedia is that you could have fixed it yourself! Maybe next time :) — mark ✎ 10:40, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Maoism in eastern philosophy?

I will be glad to read some contributions about this issue: do anyone find reasonable and NPOV the inclusion of Maoism in the article eastern philosophy? See my post in the discussion page here. Thank you! Bai Shengzhi 21:13, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Copyright: Company claims that a picture is violating their licence rights

The image commons:Image:Barlach Magdeburger Ehrenmal.jpg shows a sculpture by Barlach from 1929. The picture was taken by me, after purchasing a photo permit at the Cathedral of Magdeburg where the sculpture is on public display. An anonymous user on the commons listed the image for deletion, claiming that the "Ernst Barlach Lizenzverwaltung Company claims that this picture is violating their licence rights on Barlach's works". (see also: commons:Commons:Deletion requests). The company's homepage is here (english), stating that All kinds of use and exploitation are strictly subject to our permission and licence charge and are to be marked with © Ernst Barlach Lizenzverwaltung Ratzeburg.. I am not that familiar with copyright law, but I thought that a photo of a copyrighted object can be taken and published legally. Otherwise pretty much all modern art, architecture, or objects would be copyrighted. I am also not sure about the ownership of the sculpture, i.e. if it belongs to the company. I am also not sure how these requests are based on german law, or if german law applies here at all. Any comments are very welcome -- Chris 73 Talk 01:30, Jan 21, 2005 (UTC)

What are the terms of your photo permit? —Mike 04:14, Jan 21, 2005 (UTC)

I don't remember. I paid 2 euro for a small slip of paper, which I have thrown out long ago. This was advertised at the entrance of the church, and also priced so that tourists can take pics. -- Chris 73 Talk 05:07, Jan 21, 2005 (UTC)

Whether German copyright law applies, I do not know, but I suspect that this may well be the case, given that the image was (a) taken in Germany, (b) the creator of the sculpture was a German, and (c) the photographer, too. (?) If the sculpture had been standing outside, there'd be no question at all: §59 of the German Urheberrecht explicitly allows taking pictures from public squares and roads and publishing these images. However, since the sculpture is inside the cathedral, this doesn't apply. It appears that with your photo permit you just got a license to take the picture for personal use, but did not get a license for general public redistribution of the picture—such redistribution apparently is only allowed for non-profit use and maybe for use (as a quote or illustrative example) for the purposes of criticism or research §51(1). See also this pretty good discussion (in German). For better info, I'd try asking on this mailing list of German lawyers, they have many discussions regarding copyright concerning photographs in their archives. (By the way, Ernst Barlach, the creator of the sculpture, died on Oct 24, 1938. Hence on January 1, 2009, the copyright on his works expires §64, and from then on, one can indeed use this photo for any purpose. The photo itself is a Lichtbildwerk (cf. Template_talk:PD-Germany) and copyrighted until 70 years after the death of the photographer, too.) Final note: the same problem may also exist for de:Bild:Güstrow Barlachs-Mutter-Erde.jpg: this garden is not a public square or road but private property... :-( Lupo 09:34, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Thanks a million for the excellent links and infos! I will try to contact the Church again to see if the permit included commercial use, and also who owns the Barlach sculpture. If not, thn we'll have to move the pics from the commons to Wikipedia, where I think the use may be feasible again, as non-commercial or fair use. -- Chris 73 Talk 09:14, Jan 22, 2005 (UTC)

As a follow-up comment, I don't know the details of German copyright law, but from what I can tell, UK copyright law doesn't cover sculptures, whilst recent US copyright law cover's both sculptures and buildings, with exceptions for what can be seen from public spaces. -- Solipsist 19:59, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Read the Wikipedia:Copyright FAQ - James and I wrote it to avoid these questions. In the US: Statues can be copyrighted, and pictures of them are derivative works (pictures of 2D works with "slavish efforts" made to ensure accuracy are copies and *not* derivative works). In this case, if the statue is not in the public domain, a picture of it would be a derivative works and therefore could not be distributed without consent of the copyright holder. →Raul654 21:03, Jan 22, 2005 (UTC)

I have reached the secretary of the church in magdeburg by phone, and she thinks the sculpture is the property of the church. The person in charge who knows more about it, however, is right now on holiday and will be back on February 2nd. I will call again at that time. -- Chris 73 Talk 09:32, Jan 25, 2005 (UTC)

Unfortunately the copyright isn't usually transfered with the ownership of item, so that may not help. I'm not able to follow the German texts that User:Lupo helpfully linked. Is it clear that 3D objects are covered by German copyright law? -- Solipsist 20:43, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Yes, absolutely, and 100% clear: §2(1), item #4. Lupo 14:00, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Oh well ... I'll move it back to the english wiki, and add a fairuse tag. Alternatively, I also have a photo from further away, showing the whole memorial site, not just the sculpture, which I could add to the english wiki. -- Chris 73 Talk 02:56, Jan 28, 2005 (UTC)

Moved to the english wiki, added fairuse -- Chris 73 Talk 03:20, Jan 29, 2005 (UTC)

An anecdote

Only loosely related to the above, but in order to show that also "outdoor" photographs of "buildings" can be copyright-infringing in (some) droit d'auteur countries.

The case is famous, it concerns the EU parliament building in Brussels: presently the architect of the building, advocating "droit d'auteur", prohibits any use of images of that building (photographs, logos based on it,...), e.g. by the EU administration on their letterheads.

This led to court proceedings, which until now have been won by the architect. And EU officials complaining themselves for having been insufficiently cauteous at time when they drew up the contract with the architect.

Nobody that hasn't been there really knows what the building looks like. Television (in Belgium at least), resorts to an areal photograph of a large part of Brussels, where the building is more or less visible in a corner. Sometimes interviews with EU politicians are taken so close to the mirror-glass facades of the building, that it could appear as any other modern building.

For explanation of "droit d'auteur", see e.g. Intellectual rights and Moral rights.

--Francis Schonken 14:16, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The mending apparatus

I propose we thank the mending apparatus for the speedy recovery.--Jirate 04:00, 2005 Feb 23 (UTC)

You mean Kate? --Alterego 05:17, Feb 23, 2005 (UTC)

Thank you Kate. Will the February 22 page now show "Kate day" as well? - Estel (talk) 08:44, Feb 23, 2005 (UTC)

No, that would be Brion. -Kate.

Your real?--Jirate 21:13, 2005 Feb 23 (UTC)

I was try for a litwit. http://www.plexus.org/forster/index.html --Jirate 21:13, 2005 Feb 23 (UTC)

Funding of the Khmer rouge

I was just reading the page about the khmer rouge and it only mentions funding from china whilst this is true I believe it is mis leading. The khmer rouge where funded and trained by both the Americans and the british. This was carried out in secret at bases in malaysia .The training at first was acrried by unifromed members of the Special air sevice and the amreican special forces . Later this was carried out by non uniformed members of the SAS. When it became politicaly unaccepatable for the british to be seen to be doing this. The primary objective was revenge against Hanoi and the Han sen government. This was also enhanced by the disarming of the han sen government and the continued arming and training of the Khomer rouge and there allies. America also using the Un secuirty council blocked aid to the Han sen government as a means of punishment of both Cambodians and the regime in Hanoi. They also sought to muddy the waters by insisting that the vietnmaese where also involved in genocide. Which is just blatantly not true.

Have you brought this up on Talk:Khmer Rouge? Have you edited the article on the Khmer Rouge so that it mentions these facts? (With citations, of course.) These would be the best ways to bring this to the attention of interested editors. —Charles P. ^(Mirv) 02:11, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Gould System Labs 32/27 32/77 32/97 FPS Array processors

I worked at a Geophysical firm that used Gould Systems, with FPS array processors. I am looking for any information on these old systems. I believe that the def of the system was a Gould 32/77. It ran Goulds OS plus an app called SPM77R a performance moniter app. We had two FPS1000 array processors hung on it as well. I am looking for any info that anyone has about these systems.

HConaway@bak.rr.com

Boheme Magazine: linkspam?

We've been getting an awful lot of new links for www.boheme-magazine.net, Bohème Magazine. It's not bad stuff, but it isn't necessarily great, either. As far as I can tell, they all come from User:193.253.26.91, and appear to be that IP address's only significant contributions. I'm not sure whether to revert it or not. This at least borders on linkspam. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:33, Feb 20, 2005 (UTC)

It might be a good idea to have a rule against any mass adding of links without prior consensus. - SimonP 19:34, Feb 20, 2005 (UTC)

Reexistance

I posted a draft of an article on Talk:death I'd like to see published at some point, but as it stands... it would appear to be original research. Just looking for further feedback. - Roy Boy ⁸⁰⁰ 01:44, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

New collaboration of the week

Wikipedia:Article improvement drive will pick two general nonstub articles each week to improve. Come join us! Maurreen 01:40, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Disorganized fund-raising--Why make WP look so stupid?

So how did we end up jumping the gun by announcing a new fundraising drive without updating the main fundraising sub-page? I personally am embarrased to be associated with an organization that so overlooks such details--makes us look really stupid. And why would anyone want to contribute if we can't be bothered to make a current case as to why? Niteowlneils 19:38, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

....did you fix the page? --Alterego 22:16, Feb 18, 2005 (UTC)

How on earth would I know what the Wikipedia Foundation's future hardware/spending plans are? Niteowlneils 05:21, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

See Wikimedia:Wikimedia needs your help and Wikimedia:Budget/2005 for 'making the case'. The Hardware capacity growth page is hardly the main fund raising sub page but leaving that link was an oversight (now corrected). I asked the developers for a specific need/want/wish list but since they are unpaid volunteers just like me and since they already have many other things to do, they didn't have time. They did give ranges; need $55,000 and wants/wishes being an additional $15,000 to $40,000 for hardware. This was consistent with my own analysis so we budgeted for that. BTW, 'embarrassed' has two s's. :) --mav 11:01, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

OK, so the page no longer links to the outdated 'Hardware capacity growth planning' page. It still doesn't seem to link to the more current pages you cite. I spend 8-10 hours per day working on Wikipedia, so I obviously support its growth, but I think 10 minutes to justify a fund-raising drive isn't too much to ask. My BAC at the time I left that message was at least .30, if not >.40, so, yeah, my spelling wasn't perfect (it's actually higher at the moment--I'm just being more careful). I just think WP should make a clear case as to why it needs money--speeds at the moment seem quite fast, at least when the developers aren't experimenting with changes to the live site. Niteowlneils 13:59, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

"It still doesn't seem to link to the more current pages you cite." Look right under the progress bar - there you will see 'Fund drive note'. That takes you to the fund drive letter which says that traffic to the Wikimedia servers is doubling every four months. There is also explanation under the 'How your donation will help' section. Look at the top of every single page in this wiki - there you will find direct links to the fund drive note (which itself links to the current budget). All these documents I've mentioned took many hours to create with work contributed by about a dozen different people (not counting the many translations so far). A single person can't just spend '10 minutes' on something and expect that to have any application to reality. The reason things seem fast atm is because we just installed a few new servers - more of course will be needed. And I'm sure this will all be much clearer when you are not drunk. :) --mav 20:54, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Wait a minute. Your description implies the majority of the requested funds are for something other than hardware and bandwidth. Remind me again why Wikipedia needs to spend money for things other than hardware and bandwidth? Niteowlneils 17:41, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Read Wikimedia:Budget/2005. Over 85% of the budget goes toward things like hardware, colocation fees (bandwidth, electricity, rackspace rental, and some limited service), and critical software changes. Another 7.3% goes to pay our only two employees - who, btw, are primarily tasked with making sure the servers keep running. That leaves less than 8% of the budget to actually run the foundation (whose stated goal - at the top of the fundraising page - is a bit more expansive than just supporting Wikipedia and her sister projects). --mav 20:54, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Why >$500 for domain registration? I pay $7.95 per domain/yr for my>40 domains--Wikipidea has more than 50 domain names? Niteowlneils 22:24, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Also, the 'many times' growth seem bogus--according to WP stats, en: growth has nearly leveled off-[6]--it's a good cause--don't dilute it with misinformation and false statistics. And yes, I am currently well over .40. Niteowlneils 22:44, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I don't think it is correct that en: has nearly levelled in terms of numbers of visitors. We had two big bumps in traffic, one in October and one at the start of this year, both I think due to more prominence of WP (and less of its mirrors) on Google. See for example this graph at Alexa. The stats pages are not particularly informative in terms of number of page views. Pcb21| Pete 22:54, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

That is remarkably short-sighted of you Niteowlneils (again, I blame your inebriated state and hope you are more 'with it' when you are not drunk :). The Wikimedia Foundation does not just support the English version of Wikipedia - it supports them all. See the total page request stats for wikipedia.org (all languages) (sadly, they haven't been updated for some time due to the fact we need a separate stats box now). As the anon below rightly states, we go through regular cycles of traffic growth that do not follow steady linear increases.

The foundation also supports several other projects that are each massively multilingual and growing fast (whose stats are not included in the above link I gave). All these projects have their own domain names whose registration needs to be maintained plus we also purchase many national domain names (such as wikipedia.xx) and redirect those to the corresponding xx.wikipedia.org wiki. So $500 may in fact be an underestimate. --mav 00:28, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

'All languages' chart[7] shows less than 150% growth in most categories Aug-Dec 2004. DB size doubled only from May 2003 to Dec 2004--over a year and a half. The Alexa chart shows total traffic has only increased ~10% since the first of the year, and stayed in basically the same range from Oct 04 thru most of Dec 04, and the one-year chart shows a virtual flat-line from Mar 04 to near the end of Sept 04--about six months of no lasting or significant increase in traffic. The "total page request stats for wikipedia.org (all languages)" chart you linked shows virtually steady traffic ~12-13M from June 04-Oct-04. None of that supports "traffic to the Wikimedia servers is doubling every four months" statements. I like Wikipedia, otherwise I wouldn't have spent more than half my waking hours over the last year contributing to it--I've also given up over $10,000 of income contributing to Wikipedia when I could have been working--I just want to see statements about it that are supported by the available data. And while Wiktionary and and Wikibooks have seen spikes this month, their traffic is still a tiny fraction of wikipedia.org. I didn't realize you were treasurer--big thanks for that, and for all that people contribute their time and energy to Wikipedia. Niteowlneils 01:37, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The only category that counts is traffic. See this Alexa graph on page views. Notice the exponential growth curve we have had since the middle of of 2004? And again, see what the anon wrote below on how we increase traffic (hint: steady growth punctuated by sudden increases once the site gets faster for a while). --mav 03:10, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

One more thing:

             PR/day    PR/month        % change over
            (x1000)    (x1000)         prev quarter
2002
Jul 2002       90      2.79E+03	
Aug 2002       99      3.07E+03	
Sep 2002       180     5.40E+03	
Q3 2002                1.13E+04       -na-

Oct 2002       180     5.58E+03	
Nov 2002       229     6.87E+03	
Dec 2002       233     7.22E+03	
Q4 2002                1.97E+04       74.73%

2003
Jan 2003       179     5.55E+03	
Feb 2003       200     5.60E+03	
Mar 2003       284     8.80E+03	
Q1 2003                2.00E+04       1.42%

Apr 2003       401     1.20E+04				
May 2003       391     1.21E+04				
Jun 2003       399     1.20E+04				
Q2 2003                3.61E+04       81.03%	

Jul 2003       426     1.32E+04			
Aug 2003       623     1.93E+04		
Sep 2003       1200    3.60E+04		
Q3 2003                6.85E+04       89.69%	

Oct 2003       1200    3.72E+04		
Nov 2003       1600    4.80E+04		
Dec 2003       1600*   4.96E+04		
Q4 2003                1.35E+05       96.73%	

2004
Jan 2004       1600*   4.96E+04		
Feb 2004       5700    1.65E+05		
Mar 2004       5100    1.58E+05		
Q1 2004                3.73E+05       176.71%	

Apr 2004       4400    1.32E+05		
May 2004       4900    1.52E+05		
Jun 2004       12100   3.63E+05		
Q2 2004                6.47E+05       73.43%	

Jul 2004       12800   3.97E+05				
Aug 2004       11900   3.69E+05		
Sep 2004       10900   3.27E+05		
Q3 2004                1.09E+06       68.91%	

PR = Page requests 
* Data hole that was filled by assuming no growth from last data point

Sadly, data for the last quarter of 2004 are missing (as I explained above). But this table clearly shows exponential growth. It also shows that saying that our traffic doubles every four months is, if anything, an understatement (only one quarter since we have been collecting these stats has seen flat growth). Niteowlneils - As much as I've enjoyed our little chat, I will have to leave things at that since I have a fund drive to run. --mav 03:10, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Indeed, that's the normal pattern of traffic growth;

hardware, software or configuration improves significantly, and a great burst of increased traffic occurs due to pent-up demand
the system then does not improve significantly in capacity whilst demand continues to steadily increase, leading to slow-downs and intermittent down-time as the admins struggle to cope
rinse and repeat

Looking at the two-year Alexa graphs, you can see this cycle repeated several times. -- Anon.

I can say in all soberity I think mav has done a really good job so far in his capacity as volunteer treasurer. Mav was one of the guys who might have felt a little despondent when pipped to the post by the ladies at the Foundation board elections, but if so has never let it show. Wikipedians should salute him for doing all this budget and fundraising work and still churning out featured articles on those National Parks etc. Pcb21| Pete 23:04, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the vote of confidence. :) --mav 00:28, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The immenseness of Wikepedia

One interest of mine has always been the question: How are you supposed to know all the laws that apply to you when there are thousands of them?

In Wikipedia terms, this means how are you supposed to follow all the conventions, when the manual of style is so gosh-darn huge? To me the easiest way is to look at an example. I have no idea how to use templates, so they may be the answer.

I think progressive disclosure would help a lot in this area, where maybe there is a synopsis of the really important points of the Manual of Style that is not burdened with arcane things that will be used only by advanced users. The bottom line for me is how do you tell what article conforms to the style guide? A few examples of ideal articles of different sizes would help me the most. And it may be here and I just can't find it. Spalding 15:04, Feb 12, 2005 (UTC)

Most people only read the MoS if they have a specific query. The wiki process produces the desired result anyhow. Most users start off by correcting a spelling mistake or something like that, and are unaware of the MoS. Newbie's edits that don't conform to the MoS are edited to conform with convention by more experienced users. The newbies learn from reading other's work and a coherent framework builds up that is documented in the MoS in case of arguments. m:instruction creep is bad. Dunc|☺ 15:21, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I agree the Wikipedia documentation is daunting. I have been involved in three projects (only two are complete) to address this. First was the tutorial, which covers the most salient editing and behavior guidelines for new editors. More recently I added an "annotated" article (with input from other editors concerned with helping newcomers), which seems to most directly address your request (I have added links to it from several places--if you can tell me where you were looking and didn't find it, I'll consider adding links there). Finally, I started a follow up to the tutorial, which I envision covering article titling and other ways to help Wikipedia; the draft as it is today can be seen at User:Niteowlneils/Guide outline. Niteowlneils 18:12, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

PS A scan of some of the featured articles would probably reveal some of the key tone and formatting style points. Also, any suggestions as to what the Guide could cover that the tutorial does not are more than welcome. Niteowlneils 18:21, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I agree that this is a problem. Basic instructions such as how to format, etc. are not too bad, but some of the other stuff is worse. I went looking for policy on style for representing numbers, and couldn't find it. It was there, but someone had to point me to it. I also went looking for procedures on dealing with problem editors. There was so much stuff, including multiple "read this article first" links, that it was all I could do to figure out just what applied in my case and what didn't. One specific problem was the Wikipedia:Requests for mediation page that links to three other articles including Wikipedia:Mediation, which itself has links that look like they should be read first. One of the links there was to Wikipedia:Mediation committee, which seemed to be necessary if you wanted to request a particular mediator, for example, but although it did list the mediators, this page turned out to be largely a discussion by the mediators about the workings of the mediation committee! Philip J. Rayment 23:07, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Seems like one thing that might help in cases like this would be making Wikipedia:Topical index easier to find--any suggestions of where to add links to it based on where you looked for either of those topics? Niteowlneils 05:30, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Abso-bloody-lutely: I'm an admin, I've been involved almost 18 months, and I didn't know that page existed. Why on earth doesn't the Community Portal link to this? -- Jmabel | Talk 06:21, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)

It does now. :-) —Charles P. ^(Mirv) 07:24, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Interesting solution--I couldn't figure out what heading to put it under--didn't occur to me to put it under no heading. FWIW, I only found it by doing a 'what links here' on a more specific Wikipedia documentation page. Niteowlneils 13:13, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

A most valuable resource and knowing about it when I started nearly a year ago would have saved a lot of hassle in finding my way round. Do new editors get directed to this when they register their log-on names? Some weeks ago I posted on the Pump the idea that it would be worth having a PDF file with salient tutorials covering the basics of how Wikipedie works and the core tutorials. This could be a kind of 'beginners info kit' that one can read at leisure. Fighing ones way round the links to get as the info is daunting even for experienced editors. Especially when one does not know that a resource like this one does not even exist. Think about it guys, please Apwoolrich 08:52, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Turns out, it was already linked from the last page of the Tutorial. I have added links to/from Wikipedia:Policies_and_guidelines#Other_essays_and_discussions_about_Wikipedia and Template:Welcome. Between Tutorial, Welcome, and Community Portal, that seems pretty complete, but I am still open to suggestions of other places to link to it. BTW, I agree with you guys 110%--finding clear documentation on Wikipedia has been one of my most frustrating challenges in the one year (minus 6 days) that I've been here. That's why I've been active in projects like the tutorial that try to address this. I am not a big fan of PDF files, but I did buy the full Acrobat for other reasons--I guess if that would really be used, I could try to build one. Niteowlneils 13:29, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Also, in 'Neil's perfect world', it would also be annotated with what, exactly, type of info could be found on each page. There also might be a more ideal title for it, although I haven't thot of it yet. We've gone far astry from User:Spalding's original question, but I think it is mostly answered by the annotated article and the FA page, at least for now. Niteowlneils 13:47, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Hey, great discussion! Thanks, everyone. It was all worthwhile since it triggered getting that Topical Index on the Community Portal. It is just what the doctor ordered. I did go back and reread the tutorial, and I also like the annotated article. The original question I had that sparked all this was just what is the convention for plurals in article names, and it actually wasn't buried too deeply in the MoS; it was just one or two links down. The part about instruction creep is especially interesting. You can see the same thing in regular articles as Wikipedia articles grow and grow, that organization and judicious linking is very important. Spalding 00:11, Feb 23, 2005 (UTC)

The Template:Welcome is excellent. Does that get sent automatically to everyone who signs up and creates an logon handle? I can see it might be difficult for people who don't and remain anonymous. When I began last summer, I just started, and worked it out as best I could, but noted that sometimes people were welcomed individually by people like Angela, but it did not happen to me, alas. Apwoolrich 15:54, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Not automatically. Some of the Welcoming Committee members use it, some use their own versions. But I figure some is better than none. And yes, some new registrants get missed--since I don't really know how the WC IDs new registrants, I don't really know why some get missed. Niteowlneils 18:48, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

A way to get a list of all the "pages" you have created?

I found this comment on Wikipedia talk:Talk page and I had the exact same question (having kept my own list at User:Hyacinth/List of articles created by me) Hyacinth 18:09, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC):

Is there a way to get a list of all the "pages" you have created (which does not include edits), without searching through and picking out all of them your personal contributions page? Secfan 15:03, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Not that I know of, but if there is, I'd love to know about it--I'm pretty sure my list is missing some. Niteowlneils 19:38, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Rfc on Wave-particle duality

Hello,

I need some advice about how to handle a situation.

The facts : I created a new section in the Wave-particle duality, and this section was cleared by a user. I then copied the section in the talk page, wrote an invitation to discussion on the user talk page and a request for comment. I just placed a {{Disputeabout}} tag.

After more than a week, I have no news from the user (his last contribution was made 3 days before I wrote him so hemay not have read the invitation).

Question : if nobody writes any objection, how long should I wait until I restore the section (this to avoid an edition war) ?

Thanks

Cdang|write me 10:09, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

You have waited long enough. Usually, when I do this sort of thing I say something like "If no one has replied within 72 hours, I will proceed." You might get reverted again, but that's life. You would certainly not be misbehaving. -- Jmabel | Talk 19:14, Feb 16, 2005 (UTC)

All right, let's go and see... thanks -- Cdang|write me 10:21, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

several articles need fixing.

A sizeable amount of the articles on the wikipedia online encyclopedia have unacceptable grammatacal errors. These include:

-Inexplicable word arrangements. -Sentence Fragmants. -Simply Bad Writing.

If you want proof, check out the articles on the German generals of WWII and the Rwandan Genocide series.

I suspect that some of the articles have been copied and pasted from non-english sites into translator programs. This will result in very odd sentence structure, because translator programs are very ineffective. Closer monitoring of the quality of the inserted articles should occure. One bad article does nothing to hurt the encyclopedia. But having many draggs down the prestige and reputation of the encyclopedia.

Other than that, great job.

Ah, nothing like being criticized (albeit, mildly) by someone who writes "grammatacal...Fragmants...occure". Yes, someone may have used translator programs (or the author may merely been a non-native speaker of English); this doesn't necessarily indicate copyright violations, because they may well have been translating from a foreign language Wikipedia.

BTW, the use of translator programs is strongly discouraged (see WP:TIE). And if you see an article that is poorly written, beyond what you can clean up yourself, you can stick a {{cleanup}} tag on it, preferably supplemented by a note on its talk page about the nature of the problem. -- Jmabel | Talk 03:14, Feb 16, 2005 (UTC)

Actually, I believe that the anon writer (signing would be good) does make an interesting point, and it wasn't about copyright violation  although he brushed on that when saying "copying and pasting texts". Indeed there are articles with very poor writing grammar-wise, I've seen articles with topics pertaining to the Portuguese-speaking world (especially Brazil and Portugal) with just terrible English. We really should create mechanisms to minimize this. For instance, we could create a "copy edit committee", and a template tag for those who are aware of their limitations when writing in English. Sure this would be useless with anon users and even newbies, but this kind of diligence should be expected of more experienced registered users. It's not that they shouldn't contribute, on the contrary; and we need not be Shakespearean, but neither can we have sentences like this one that I once saw (something like this) on an article about a province disputed by Portugal and Spain: "the land is Portugal and Spain must out". Let's not even consider the NPOV issue now, for even if the sentence was neutral, it would just be really, really bad writing. I remember seeing the page history, and the user who wrote it was clearly Portuguese, and had been here for a while. It would have been reasonable due diligence for him to request copy editing of his work, so that the problems wouldn't have stayed online for two months (it was more or less that). We really should come up with some method to expedite the finding and correcting of poorly written articles, because it does scratch our reputation as an encyclopedia to have silly and obvious grammar mistakes in the articles. Regards, Redux 04:24, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The recently created Wikipedia:Contributing to articles outside your native language may be relevant. And you may have something you want to add to it: for example, more of a procedural approach to this. -- Jmabel | Talk 04:46, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)

I don't think we need a special committee just to clean up the English in articles. Regular users, exercizing due diligence, will clean them up when they come across it. I think the list of articles needing cleanup would become so big, that any users would see the list too daunting to even tackle.

I think the original poster just wasn't aware of the wiki nature of the 'pedia and didn't realize that almost every article is a "work in progress." I think s/he thought we expected every article to be polished. While that is desirable, of course, numerous articles are gonna suck until someone gets around to fixing them. Personally, I don't see a problem to solve, just a person to educate. :-) — Frecklefoot | Talk 16:52, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)

Specifics, specifics, specifics. I have very good English skills, but I need pointers to specific articles to cleanup--WP en: has nearly 500,000 ariticles--I can't check all of them. Niteowlneils 18:31, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Just to shed some light on the initial comment on the Rwandan Genocide series. The core article was written in en but PZFUN has very kindly begun translating the much more comprehensive series subpages from over at fr. The subpages are variously in need of a copyedit, more content, further translation, etc. I have placed attention markers on the page, but if anyone is feeling up for a good copyedit... — Banyan Tree 06:45, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Wikkipedia at Google

A search for "Wikkipedia" (sic) at Google (com or co.uk) shows the first result as regexp and Phylogeny as a branch off of that [8]. Seems a little odd to me - any explanations as to why? violet/riga (t) 21:22, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

A website linking to that page contained the mispelling. Although google returns no results when you search for inbound links to those pages, they exist. Google can be quite behind on their available link index. --Alterego 02:00, Feb 16, 2005 (UTC)

A New Wiki Award. How to proceed?

Hi. I was considering introducing a new wiki award (like the Barnstar). I have already selected an image (I didn't make it myself, it's a picture of an existing medal of honor). But is there any special "procedure" to create such an "award", or do I just upload the image and establish it as an award? Our special article on Wiki awards said nothing about any procedure, which led me to believe that there's none. Regards, Redux 00:58, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

lol. they are very informal...just stick it on someone's page. --Alterego 01:08, Feb 15, 2005 (UTC)

You could always run it by Wikipedia talk:Barnstars on Wikipedia - the folks who read that might say yay or nay about it. Certainly any new award should be listed on the Barnstars page, too. But other than that, yeah, just go for it. Grutness|^hello?

01:31, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Good idea. I will put it up for discussion there before I implement it. But I might as well ask something else here too: how important is it that the image that "represents" the award be created by a Wikipedian? I mean, all the images for the existing awards seem to have been originally created by a Wikipedian or adapted from another image (another award) created by a Wikipedian. Mine is a pic from an existing award (I have not uploaded it yet). Regards, Redux 02:00, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

As long as it doesn't pose copyright problems to wikipedia, I have no problem with it. Mgm|^(talk) 09:54, Feb 15, 2005 (UTC)

(Discussion on this proposed award is currently in full swing over at Wikipedia talk:Barnstars on Wikipedia. Grutness|^hello? )

"First cap"

Maybe I'm just cranky today, but I wish people adding articles about footballers would keep in mind that a substantial percentage of the world's English-speaking population has no clue as to what "cap" means in that context, and use terminology more widely known (or link to someplace that sheds some light on it). Googling for the term doesn't help, nor does trying m-w.com. The only reason that, as of today, I have some clue as to its meaning is that it is in my British English A to Zed. However, that indicates that it has multiple meanings, so less ambiguous terminology would also seem to be indicated. Niteowlneils 00:09, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I just added First cap only to find Cap (football).--Jirate 02:00, 2005 Feb 15 (UTC)

Mucho gracias. Your article is consistent with my BE-A-Z, in that it can refer to the first performance at a number of levels, while Cap (football) implies it is only given on the national level. Any ideas whether the distinction is in formal usage, past usage, common usage, or what? The articles here I've seen (that I remember) seem to use it as 'first international meet' meaning. Niteowlneils 18:45, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

It is used a lot [9] [10][11][12][13]. The FA actually still does give caps, they are often in the colours.--Jirate 01:57, 2005 Feb 16 (UTC)

VEJA article on Wikipedia made available

Hi. I've created a temporary page (will list it for deletion after a while) with a translation (and the original text) of the article on Wikipedia published on the Brazilian weekly magazine VEJA. I had posted a comment here at the time when the issue came out, and some people demonstrated interest in reading the story, so here it is. Regards, Redux 18:27, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Statistic page

Why the statistics page haven't been updated for months? Please! Gubbubu 21:50, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

See above. — mark ✎ 22:24, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Where does the Book reference Template put its information

When I format my Book information thus, I see only an ordinary entry. But surely this is going into some formatted table or page somewhere. I would like to use the format, and see where this page of information is going. Ancheta Wis 20:02, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC) Also, is this the recommended format for Wikipedia book entries.

. ISBN 0521370957. {{cite book}}: Missing or empty |title= (help); Unknown parameter |Author= ignored (|author= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Publisher= ignored (|publisher= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Title= ignored (|title= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Year= ignored (|year= suggested) (help)

Never mind. I see that the Manual of Style does not currently explicitly state that this format is a data feed anywhere and that the tags which I had hoped would feed into a database go only into a formatted string.

{{Book reference|Author=[[Paul Horowitz|Horowitz, Paul]] & Hill, Winfield|Title=The Art of Electronics|Publisher=Cambridge University Press|Year=1989|ID=ISBN 0521370957}} merely instantiates a string using Template:Book reference {{{Author}}} ({{{Year}}}). {{{Title}}}. {{{Publisher}}}. {{{ID}}}

Answers.com

Have u notice that when u searching something in Google, and u click on the definition button u get a copy of the article in Wikipedia. --Haham hanuka 09:01, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Google has switched their definition link from Dictionary.com to Answers.com, which uses Wikipedia as one of many data feeds, as explained in our article on Answers.com. So if Answers.com considers the Wikipedia data feed the most pertinent answer page, that is what shows up in Google. This may be one reason that Google wants to help out Wikipedia with more resources (read servers (and maybe $$$)). Ancheta Wis 21:22, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Aircraft (disambiguation)

What is the purpose of the page Aircraft (disambiguation)? Aliter 20:48, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Er - disambiguation? But it is a bit difficult to see what Airplane! and Jefferson Airplane are doing there... According to its creator, too many things were piling up on aircraft ([14]). -- ALoan (Talk) 21:07, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Hmm - compare airplane... one should redirect to the other, I guess. -- ALoan (Talk) 21:10, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Airplane and Aeroplane just seem to muddle the issue further. Or is there something I'm missing here? Aliter 22:12, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Aircraft (disambiguation) seems to think it is "Airplane (disambiguation)". -- Cyrius|✎ 22:22, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

In what is sure to piss off somebody, I moved various stuff around. Aeroplane is now a redirect to Fixed-wing aircraft, which is the actual article about the subject. Aircraft (disambiguation) got moved to Airplane (disambiguation), and then merged and redirected to Airplane. Airplane is now a disambiguation page about the various things named "airplane", and links to Fixed-wing aircraft as the primary definition. I also removed the disambiguation link from aircraft as it made no sense to disambiguate "airplane" there. Fixed-wing aircraft's intro now says that it's about aero/airplanes like it should. -- Cyrius|✎ 22:45, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Now it makes sense. Thanks. Aliter 10:39, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I noticed this was a muddle the other day and intended to clean it up "some time". Thanks. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 10:50, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Adding Bibliography

I am new to the Wikipedia. I tinkered with an article (sharia) and wanted to add bibliography, but there is none listed. Do I just go to the end and write "Bibliography" and then start slugging stuff to it, or do I cite within the edited paragraph (previous writer had some websites cited, for instance). Feel free to reply here or to kazawakaza@mac.com

Wikipedia:Cite your sources - a separate section entitled "References" is best, but inline references are also fine. -- ALoan (Talk) 21:07, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Also note that there's a significant difference between references and a bibliography. References exist to show where the info came from. A bibliography is a list of books written by the person the article is about. Mgm|^(talk) 12:16, Feb 12, 2005 (UTC)

Shadowfactory 10:14, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

This user has been signing some articles Shadowfactory 10:14, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC), I'm assuming for PR reasons. The ones I have removed are from articles about Triumph Cars, notable Triumph Spitfire.--Jirate 13:27, 2005 Feb 11 (UTC)

--- sorry to edit this like this, im a newb and i cant work out how to mail anyone. This is the only way i can put a message where someone might see it.

I cant change my password, ive forgotten it. How do I reset my password without knowing it? Sorry about being a n00b........

Lincspoacher

'My talk' and 'User-name' page - distinction?

1) Please advise the purpose or usage of my 'User-name' page

2) Ditto for 'my talk'

No doubt there is an explanation of these somewhere in the Wikipedia monolith. Please advise where.

Thanks in advance

Duncan France

On your userpage, you get to write about yourself. It is your face to the world. Your talkpage is where people leave you messages and you respond to them. You drop other people notes on their talkpages.

—— Ŭalabio 06:26, 2005 Feb 10 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:User page :) --Sketchee 07:11, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)

photo of Ho Chi Minh dead

A photo of Ho Chi Minh in his mausoleum has been put as the leading picture in the article. I feel that it is inappropriate to have such a photo as the first picture at the top of the article. Looking at the article history, there has been disagreement of whether or not this placement of the photo is appropriate. Participate in the discussion at Talk:Ho_Chi_Minh#photography of Ho Chi Minh — J3ff 01:25, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Are you sure this is a stub?

I'm a long-time reader, first-time registered user, and I wasn't sure where to post this, so I just pushed Misc.. Anyway, I would like to question the stub status of the Official (American Football) article. It has a stub tag (whoever managed to crop that football so well, good job!) but it seems a lot more detailed than most stubs. It is really a stub, or is this a tag that should have been deleted? I know I can edit it, but I want to make sure I'm getting the call right (pun intended) before I change anything. Whaddya think, guys?

Are you talking about American football? That article doesn't have a stub tag. Maybe you were looking at something else? Rhobite 00:44, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)

Pretty sure he means what he said: Official (American football). It does look pretty large for a stub. In any case, to answer the question, it doesn't look much like a stub to me, but the decision of what is and what isn't a stub is fairly arbitrary (see User talk:Grutness#Myth_Stubs for my thoughts on this subject). Sometimes, too, people will expand an article and forget to remove the stub motice (especially if it is incorrectly placed at the top of the article, like this time). I've removed the stub notice from here. Oh, and you might want to sign your comments in future! :) Grutness|^hello?

01:04, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

User:Hardworkingeditor and a flurry of jserv.org ext. links

Can someone else check into Special:Contributions/Hardworkingeditor? It looks like a spam bot. The links that it inserts point to EB1911 articles embellished with advertisements, so it looks suspicious to say the least. Sorry if this is old news...

(please copy answers intended for me to my talk page, I don't watch VP) --Joy [shallot] 23:40, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Baleeted. CryptoDerk 23:47, Feb 9, 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia Statistics - no update since Jan 1

Hi,

Does anyone know why the Wikipedia Statistics site hasn't been updated since Jan 1?

Thanks, nyenyec ☎ 16:08, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I just got an email from Erich Zachte:

> Hi Hyenyec, I'm anxious to produce new stats.
> 
> They are normally run as part of the database dump procedure.
> There was no dump for > 30 days.
> I check daily and there is one today.
> http://download.wikimedia.org/
> 
> Now I will have to update the stats scripts because the database compression
> scheme has changed, not sure how long that will take, MediaWiki uses PHP,
> the stats scripts are in Perl, so I'll have to figure this out myself.
> 
> Cheers, Erik

nyenyec ☎ 20:57, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Printing an article

Where are the directions for printing an article located? I searched through a couple dozen help, howto, etc. pages but found nothing. Rmhermen 15:57, Feb 9, 2005 (UTC)

I usually just use the browser's Print button, Ctrl-P (Cmd-P for Macs), or File->Print. Niteowlneils 20:05, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Also, don't worry about the sidebar - when you use the browser's Print function, it uses a "print-ready" version of the page automagically. --Golbez 20:08, Feb 9, 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/État québécois

If someone would help out our screwup, that would be appreciated. We tried to follow the instructions to put a page on the Vote for Deletion but screwd up and have no idea what to do. Thanks to whoever can come to our rescue. JillandJack 18:01, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Moved from the main Village pump (miscellaneous) space. Looks like you completed all the steps except signing the VfD. I added your name to the VfD. --Death phoenix 18:40, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Introduction page discussion

After a couple attempts to redirect Welcome, newcomers to Wikipedia:Introduction, I think it's time to discuss our various introductory pages. There is a need for consensus on whether we need all of them, and if so what purpose each serves and what it should contain. Please contribute to discussion at Wikipedia talk:Welcoming committee. Isomorphic 18:55, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Rename Petition to reschedule cannabis?

Should it be renamed cannabis rescheduling? Does anyone have any other ideas? 205.217.105.2 16:23, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Sneaky

I had occasion to search the Wikipedia to find anywhere that watchtower.org might have crept in, and found a link from the flamingo article. Somewhat puzzled, I followed the link and learned that "Observing this lovely creature in the wild delights our sense of sight and sound. But more than that, it heightens our appreciation and love for its wonderful Creator, Jehovah God." Just thought I'd share that with you. Shantavira 18:22, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I've replaced the link in question. Theresa Knott (The snott rake) 20:27, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Edit summary text for reverting edits

I was wondering if there is anything wrong with using an edit summary that looks like the admin rollback feature? When I revert vandalism, I copy & paste text to the edit summary before editing it, so it looks something like this (with links to the contributions page of the VandalUser):

Reverted edits by VandalUser to latest version by GoodUser.

I based this off other revert texts I've seen, but browsing around, I saw that this is actually the resultant text from the admin rollback feature, and might lead one to think that I am impersonating an admin. I used this text because I thought it looked professional and contained a sufficient amount of information for a vandalism revert. On the other hand, I wouldn't want people to either think I'm an admin or that I'm impersonating an admin. Should I stop using the above text, and instead stick with a simple "rv vandalism to latest version by GoodUser"? Just looking for opinions regarding this matter. --Death phoenix 05:57, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I don't see any problems with it. The rollback function is only there to make life for admins a bit easier, but the end effect is the same. I occasionally roll back by hand, but I am a bit more lazy and just type rv or a very brief message. -- Chris 73 Talk 06:58, Feb 6, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for your response. I'll just carry on the way I've been doing it, then, though I wonder why I don't just type rv vandalism. --Death phoenix 07:51, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Chris 73. There's no harm in rolling back with such a message, but it's more work to form the message. Often, it makes sense to give a message explaining why you rollback, for example because the user has made harmful edits in the past, and therefore you don't trust this edit.-gadfium 08:52, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Hmmm... that's true. There's no reason why I should create extra work for myself. --Death phoenix 14:10, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Don't see any problems either. You're just taking the time to write an edit summary. Mgm|^(talk) 09:32, Feb 7, 2005 (UTC)

There has been at least one admin candidate who was rejected because he "purposely made an edit summary look like he was an admin using the rollback button"[15]. 205.217.105.2 17:48, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

That was actually the article I was looking at that made me ask this question (I didn't want to remind everyone of it, though). In that particular RfA case, however, the candidate didn't get rejected simply because of that one reason. One commentator chose to point that out as a reason to reject him, but (especially after reading the other oppose comments), I highly doubt that was the reason he got rejected. --Death phoenix 18:37, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

That oppose vote was probably more based upon his later edit here, in which he responded to a question about that revert history by claiming to be an admin. --DropDeadGorgias (talk) 19:13, Feb 7, 2005 (UTC)

I don't think he was claiming to be an admin. He was saying "I choose to be an admin," i.e., he's decided to be an admin (in other words, he's decided to run for adminship.) As the Wikipedia:Impersonation policy notes, all users should be given the benefit of the doubt in reference to suspected admin impersonation. 205.217.105.2 19:23, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Err, judging from the history, you just created that page today [16]... Impersonating an admin is a blockable offense, particularly because the impersonated party can confirm whether or not they mistakenly edited from an anonymous IP address. In either case, to answer the original poster's question, replicating the admin rollback text is fine. Cheers, DropDeadGorgias (talk) 19:32, Feb 7, 2005 (UTC)

Not only did 205.217.105.2 create the page before citing it he also impersonated a number of admins (See his history, he has signed as 172, Hadal, RickK [17][18][19]) Theresa Knott (The snott rake) 20:42, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Your point being? Thc420 04:22, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The point being, every time you impersonate an admin, or anyone else, you will be blocked. Do it once, 24 hours. Do it twice, 48 hours. Etc., etc., etc.. Rick K 05:35, Feb 8, 2005 (UTC)

I never did like sysops who just feel like they're all big because they can idly threaten users from behind a computer screen in some mildewy basement. If, on the other hand, we ever were to meet in a dark alley.. Thc420 08:43, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Please don't make threats.-gadfium 08:45, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Copyvio? Original Research? Wikify?

I ran into Plant hormone theory I and Plant hormone theory II, and I can't decide what to do with them. Both are lifted verbatim from here. I couldn't find a copyright tag on the website. Comments made by the author on his site make me believe that information is more "original research" than established botany, and might make the articles candidates for VfD. I don't have enough botany background to evaluate the information with any authority. Any ideas? Joyous 00:33, Feb 6, 2005 (UTC)

Just put them on VfD as Original Research and possible copyvios. Evil Monkey∴Hello 00:44, Feb 6, 2005 (UTC)

It is usually less fuss to use WP:CP than WP:VFD so I suggest going that route, since both seem possible. Remember to remove the links from Template:Plant hormones if it is not appropriate to have the articles even if rewritten. Thue | talk 14:22, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Gmail invites

[snipped 50 G-mail invites by Ævar that are already taken - Marcika 05:17, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)]

--Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 22:22, 2005 Feb 5 (UTC)

User:Ludraman/gmail was created to avoid having these on the VP. JOHN COLLISON (An Liúdr amán) 14:42, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Political vs. Traditional correctness

(Moved to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style) Georgia guy 14:32, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Very Displeased

This site is terrible! I cannot find anything I am looking for, and am being accused of editing pages, which I have not! This whole site is so stupid, how do I now if what someone writes is true? I cant go putting a wrong fact on my report now can I?

This comment was by User:Armygirlzrock, whose only other edit was to User:Pavel Vozenilek (note, not the User_talk page, which might account for upsetting somebody). See Wikipedia:Replies to common objections. As for finding something, try putting it in the search box on the left and clicking "search". -- Arwel 15:16, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Also see Wikipedia:researching with Wikipedia. -- Jmabel | Talk 19:17, Feb 5, 2005 (UTC)

Probably shared an IP with someone with stuff on the user talk, then registered to post here. --SPUI (talk) 20:35, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Help needed with setting up texvc in Mediawiki

I'm sorry if this question is inappropriate here. But I'm desperately trying to get some help to set up my Mediawiki so that I can enter the mathematical equations is TeX. I posted in meta wiki but it has a very small audience. So I thought I would try here. Here is my problem.

I got the texvc precompiled binary from sourceforge and added in the math directory. And I changed the value of $wgUseTex in LocalSettings.php to true. But that is not helping. After reading the very inadequate help file I found that I had to install teTex, dvips, and convert in the PATH: Could anyone tell me how to do this? Thanks a lot.

If you run your own web server this should be a simple matter of installing the packages. They're all standard open source programs and are available in the standard package systems on most if not all Linux and BSD flavors; see the documentation for your OS for package installation details. For another OS you should check the usual free software archives as you would for other such packages. If you don't run your own web server you will have to contact your system administrator and request that they install these packages. --Brion 21:59, Feb 5, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for answering my question. I'll request my system adminisrator to install them on the server. -- Praveen

Wikicalendar

I'm not really sure if Wikicalendar: 2005 and Wikicalendar belong on Wikipedia. Two editors have put in a lot of good faith effort but the articles are not encyclopedic, at least in their present forms. I guess the idea is to have a, uh, wiki calendar. Unfortunately the article Wikicalendar: 2005 is self-referential, mentions "reload your web browser", and needs to be renamed, among other issues. And Wikicalendar probably needs to be deleted unless this turns into a notable project outside of Wikipedia, like Wikinews. But I don't want to bite the newbies. Thoughts? Rhobite 06:02, Feb 5, 2005 (UTC)

Stub sorting

moved from WP:AN.

At this point in time, I believe that stub sorting has become a monster. Some people have created several stubs which are completely useless and aren't used. In addition, deleting them on TFD has been become slightly difficult to say, and many people seem to have different thoughts on what stubs to keep and what stubs to get rid of. I created a WikiProject in hopes to control the monster, but I am uncertain whether it's really taming it. I'm not really certain what to do at this point. -- AllyUnion (talk) 00:39, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I agree there is a problem (after seeing this). Stub notices affect a lot of articles. Perhaps some kind of poll on new stubs (yeah I know voteing is bad but some kind of order really is required).Geni 01:42, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

A disscussion on the varius clean up templates and the like has just started on the wikiEN-I mailing listGeni 02:10, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

First, mailing list discussions don't really count. (I mean, they're a valid way of generating ideas, but most of the community doesn't follow the mailing list and so it's not a great way of getting a community consensus.)

The request was for ideasGeni 05:15, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Second, I'm not sure that I understand what you see the problem as being. If useless stubs are created, they should be nominated for deletion. The vast majority of the existing stub categories are being used. (The problem is that most people aren't aware that they are supposed to sort stubs, so they just throw everything in under "stub". Despite this, many of the stub categories contain hundreds of articles.) There has been discussion lately about whether ot not it is appropriate to place more than one stub tag on an article. Perhaps it would make sense to do a new poll and mention it at Wikipedia:Goings-on so that people know it's happening.

It's easier to address specific concerns. If there's a stub template that shouldn't exist, nominate it for deletion and post a note at the project so that people who care can be aware of what's going on.

There are still way too many stubs in the parent category. There are several stub sub-categories that are way too big to be useful (see Category:People stubs, for example). I'm not sure why having specific stub categories is necessarily a problem. Special-interest categories attract work by special-interest contributors. As far as I can tell, the extra categories are not threatening to take over all available storage or processing space. Categories, like redirects, are fairly "cheap", aren't they? Stubs, currently, are much better-organized than the category system in general. (It takes a certain minimum level of wiki-know-how to create a template, which cuts down on abuses.) -Aranel ("Sarah") 04:41, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I heartily endorse any effort be made toward closing down Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting. It is nothing more than busy-work for everyone. Start from scratch by creating Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub improvement, with assistance toward helping editors quickly improve articles beyond stub level, even in ares they are not familiar. Stubs should all be marked with only a simple text message and not categorized. Each separate WikiProject should create a page where requests for cleanup and expansion can be placed, for articles appropriate to the WikiProject area. -- Netoholic @ 05:45, 2005 Feb 5 (UTC)

Netoholic's a lot more undiplomatic than I would be, but I mostly agree with him. It's certainly conceivable that someone would page through Category:Science fiction stubs looking for articles he feels competent enough to expand, but the real solution is the ability to do boolean queries on categorization, in this case Category:Science fiction and Category:Stub. It's easy to ask for new software features, though, and hard to get them done. Although I'll continue to sort stubs I find on random page patrol, since I can't think of a better workaround offhand, it's a poor solution. —Korath (Talk) 14:59, Feb 5, 2005 (UTC)

I agree that it would be tremendously useful to be able to view the intersection of two categories. (Thank you for acknowledging the difficulty instead of just throwing out the idea s if it were the fault of categorizers that it doesn't exist. Yes, please, pretty-please, let's figure out how to get this implemented as a feature. How much additional load on the servers are we talking about?) What if, for every stub type, we worked to create list of resources for expansion? (It could go on the template talk page, on the category page, on a subpage, or on a completely different page.) In many cases, it would not be difficult to come up with a few easy resources for online information. The categorization would make it easier to organize this information and make it readily available to editors. -Aranel ("Sarah") 01:47, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Stub categories in general don't bother me, though I've never believed that either tagging stubs or categorizing them does much of anything to motivate people to actually expand them, which is the real need. But there's definitely one useless and meaningless stub category that needs to go, which is "substubs". --Michael Snow 08:54, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Ah, relatives.

I showed my great-aunt Wikipedia for the first time. Her response?

So, what, it's an online trivia database? --Desplesda 05:14, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

fleshing out my entry on Wikipedia

Not sure if I'm filling this out right, but here goes: I'm Chris Hondros, a war photojournalist, and was surprised to get an email from a friend that I've been given a mention in this fine reference work. Must be hitting the big time. Anyway, the entry is pretty good though there are a couple of minor errors and adds that I could suggest; I understand from your site that anyone can edit it but I don't think I could manage it myself, since I'm a little technically challenged. Anyway, if one of your editors would like to contact me you can do so at hondros@aol.com. Thanks!

Chris Hondros www.christopherhondros.com

If you'd just like to make suggestions, go to Talk:Chris Hondros and leave them there. It may take a while for someone interested to get around to updating the article though. -- Cyrius|✎ 23:49, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Excuse my cheek, but would you like to contribute a photograph to illustrate the article? I think either a photograph of yourself, or a photo that you're proud of, would be acceptable. You would need to permit this photo to be used more widely than just on Wikipedia, but you could certainly reserve rights to it and ask for credit to yourself to appear with the photo. If you're willing, others can explain the copyright issues.-gadfium 03:15, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Um, I kinda doubt the original poster will see these comments. After all, he asked to be contacted via email. :-S — Frecklefoot | Talk 15:15, Feb 4, 2005 (UTC)

Then he can just wonder why nobody's talking to him. -- Cyrius|✎ 15:30, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Incredibly enough, I did stumble upon this discussion, and I left my suggestions at Talk:Chris Hondros. I'd be happy to send someone representative sample of my work as well, or links are available online. Thanks --CH

Jose Riveras

I changed the name of my article to Jose Rivera (Playwright) because I found through my son there is another Jose Rivera, who happens to be the WBA boxing interim world welterweight champion.

Thanks. User:Marine 69-71

Hi. Nice to see you again. I changed Jose Rivera in a disambiguity page, as there are (at least) three Jose Rivera's on Wikipedia. I also added the links back from the three biographies. Hope this is OK, and happy editing -- Chris 73 Talk 04:37, Feb 3, 2005 (UTC)

Message from BartBenjamin

This message was left on my user talk page by BartBenjamin. Could someone contact him about contributing to the wikimedia foundation? Cheers. -- Francs2000 | Talk [[]] 23:48, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Graham,

Thank you for welcoming me to Wikopedia. I have already become a registered contributor and have made a few such contributions to the Wikopedia encyclopedia. In so doing, I've come to realize that you do, in fact, have a severe bandwidth shortage that limits Wikopedia's value as an online reference. Except in the middle of the night, pages take anywhere from 30 seconds to 2 minutes to appear, which often makes browsing or any serious research a frustrating endeavor. To that end, I have a few suggestions that perhaps you could pass along to the "powers that be," as follows:

-- REQUIRE ALL CONTRIBUTORS TO REGISTER. I don't think it would be asking too much to limit contributions to persons who register. With this change, people could browse the listings without registering but could not make edits. Requiring registration would also cut down on the instances of vandalism, since such fraudulent changes would be easier to trace if you had more information about the contributor than merely their IP address.

-- I'd be willing to contribute money to the Wikipedia Foundation if I knew more about its plans to solve the current bandwidth shortage. Is a solution close at hand? If not, I don't envision Wikopedia being able to keep pace with its growing popularity. If money is a serious problem, perhaps you need to charge a small "contributor's fee" to support these much-needed upgrades. If you have as many contributors as I suspect, then asking each to contribute $5 or $10 per year may not be too much to ask. However, I believe that Wikipedia should always remain free to browsers who don't wish to edit its contents.

Thanks for letting me express my ideas. I think Wikipedia has a tremendous potential if these issues can somehow be addressed. I am very pleased that I stumbled upon this online resource, and I look forward to making additional contributions in the future.

Bart Benjamin

bart22benjamin@yahoo.com

GMAILFRENZY

Howdy, everyone; I've got about *50* Gmail invites lying around... anyone want one??? Just drop me an email or talk page message... BLANKFAZE | (что??) 21:40, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Oh, come on! That kinda ruins the nice feeling about being in an invitation-only email service. Sgt. Grunty 18:19, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Do you really need that feeling of elitism? Haha =X — J3ff 04:46, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I think that 'nice feeling' became non-viable a month or two ago when the price of an invite on Ebay averaged less than a dollar. Now you can get fifty of them for about five bucks or so Jordan Langelier

Proposed policy

Hello. I've been drafting a proposed policy Wikipedia:Images unsuitable for inline display. Input, ideas would be welcomed. See that page for more information and discussion. —Cantus…☎ 11:04, Feb 2, 2005 (UTC)

And, if you believe there is no such thing, check out Wikipedia:Descriptive image tagging. --Carnildo 08:45, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Personally, I prefer the second policy to the first. Being able to select which images one would like would make Wikipedia much more accessible to schools, libraries, etc. I love Wikipedia, but I'm afraid to use it in front of my kids. I never know what image someone may have added to an article! :O — Frecklefoot | Talk 15:12, Feb 4, 2005 (UTC)

Gallery of Left Field Edits

Every now and again, a user takes an article in a direction you just weren't expecting. After you get over the knee-jerk reaction of 'Is this vandalism', you are just left thinking 'hugh what?!*?'. So perhaps we need BJAODN's second cousin twice removed, the Gallery of Left Field Edits. To get the ball rolling here is an edit I just wasn't expecting;

Clothing - edit by User:69.138.177.63

-- Solipsist 21:40, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Your edit diff was a comparison against current so it changed when Ambi reverted. I fixed it. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 02:45, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Oddly enough, that edit struck a chord with me. Do we have an article on the absurd things people do with their pets (as opposed to the obscene things they do, for which I expect there's plenty :-)? --Phil | Talk 08:41, Feb 2, 2005 (UTC)

MSN Encarta free to searchers

MSN's Encarta encyclopedia is now free for two hours to those who click an appropriate link on their search engine. [20]. --Alterego 06:19, Feb 1, 2005 (UTC)

Hmph! I'm not terribly impressed. Their article on my home town (Ruthin) only has 66 words, which wouldn't even get to the end of the opening paragraph of our article, which is 15-20 times bigger :) Their article on Manchester is pretty small too, and doesn't note the merger of two of its biggest universities last year, which we noted the day it happened.... -- Arwel 02:30, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC) P.S. Ye Gods! It doesn't even mention Wayne Rooney...!

Hey, all that means is now some high falootin' magazine will quote an Encarta or Britannica employee saying "Some little town in Wales has a larger article than African art!" ;) --Golbez 22:58, Feb 7, 2005 (UTC)

Animated GIF images on articles

Hi. An anon user has loaded animated GIF images in our articles on tennis players Roger Federer and Pete Sampras (and maybe others that I'm unaware of). That's causing a difficulty to load the pages: I have a cable connection and the articles are taking a little too long to load (usually, I can already see the text, but the page is still loading on account of the animations). I can only imagine how it is for anyone with a dial-up connection. A while back, I removed the images from Federer's article, but the same anon user reverted back, claiming that the images were within Wikipedia's images policy, since they were not too big (in terms of bytes). That may be so, but these tennis animations are making the articles too heavy to load (unlike a similar animation illustrating the spread pattern of the Tsunamis in Asia, which is at our article on the Asian disaster). Not to mention that they seem rather unnecessary to illustrate any point about how Sampras used to play or how Federer does. Can anyone confirm that the articles are indeed taking too long to load (or is it just my browser?)? And if so, how does that stand with our images policy? Regards, Redux 18:38, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

One data point: Because all Wikipedia pages open pretty slowly, these pages didn't seem particularly slow on my fast connection.

From a policy point of view I think the word on animated GIFs has always been "allow, but use sparingly".

From my personal point of view, the animations look good and do add something to the article. (An animation tells a thousand words, that sort of thing). However at the same time they are kind of distraction. Ideally the GIFs would come with some sort of "play" button so that the GIFs only appear on demand. It would fairly easily to rig something like this up using templates (put text in one article, which is included in two articles, one which includes the GIFs, the other which doesn't, the "stop/play button" toggles between these two versions.) Pcb21| Pete 20:53, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, I think very sparingly is the answer. I loved the tsunami animation we had in the indian ocean quake article, but that was a rare case where animated data really worked. Also, big animations are definitely a no-no. Reduce them to fewer frames and link to the big animation (just like the indian ocean quake tsunami one). --fvw * 20:57, 2005 Jan 31 (UTC)

I think that you should only use animated GIF if absolutely necessary, and if so, very, very small (in length). Like having animated pictures of tennis players is nice, but not really necessary unless its about their certain technique, which it might be helpful to see in motion.Sgt. Grunty 18:13, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Animated images distract the reader from the article. I wish there was a way to start and stop them (when viewing the page). I agree that in some cases they are valuable. Duk 06:09, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Fiction about Wikipedia

I am currently writing a short story about WP. Is there anyone else out there who is interested in that sort of thing? Are there other examples of fiction about all things wiki? It could eventually become an article on metawiki. We could also start writing a collaborative wikistory. Any takers?

Floflei6 06:37, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I'll add in the erotic components. --SPUI 07:09, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I suspect the collaborative idea is not good. I think the story idea itself is good. Many possibilities come to mind. One I like (but I'm not going to write one) would be a mystery.

NOTE NOTE NOTE following is an idea for an utterly fictional story

An edit war with a real casualty as someone mentally unbalanced becomes goaded beyond belief.

It initially appears to police to be an inexplicable random killing. But the hero-detective gets a clue that happens to mention the victim's Wikipedia username, Googles for it, and discovers the victims Wikipedia user page and Wikipedia. Great opportunity here to describe Wikipedia from a newbie's point of view and do subtle promotion. Detective soon discovers that beneath its calm, serious, levelheaded exterior, Wikipedia seethes with cliques, cabals, disputes, arguments, contentions, factions, edit wars, blocks, and bans. As is usual in detective stories, the victim is someone extremely obnoxious, probably a POV-warrior for a grotesquely unpopular POV, and there are literally dozens of Wikipedians who have crossed swords with him in disputes. Each with their own colorful background (e.g. pictures of BDSM paraphernalia on their user pages).

Several have actually been driven to the point of using language so intemperate as to be interpretable as a death threat. Several of them use sockpuppets, have multiple Wikipedian identities, and of course use ISP services that dynamically assign different ISP addresses. Furthermore, half-a-dozen live within fifty miles or so of the victim and all of them, including the victim, were present at face-to-face Wikimeetup. The detective needs to unscramble the threads of clues, motives, and identities. Please, nothing so obvious as a username that's an anagram of the user's real name! (I still can't forgive Dan Brown's utterly transparent anagrams in The Da Vinci Code).

Naturally it turns out that the killer's beef was not the victim's grotesquely unpopular point of view, but some utterly trivial bit of minutia. Dpbsmith (talk) 14:43, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Should involve at least one Nihilartikel and at least one article where versions in different languages contradict one another. -- Jmabel | Talk 18:19, Jan 30, 2005 (UTC)

The modus operandi could be a certain poem in Chinese which is known to have caused at least two people to die when they have heard it, and understood it, and died from the power of suggestion. (This is something I read about decades ago.) A vicious user invites innocents to create translations in various languages, which cause the editors to expire as they read the poem and complete their transcription of it into their favorite edition. No one can figure out why until the edit history and related changes are used to trace when the deaths are occurring. The edits propagate through various backups and mirror sites. The clue which breaks the case is the banning of a certain user, and which temporarily breaks the pace of the deaths. But when blogging about it on a rogue web site, the evil user brags about timing of two deaths which were noticed by a user who has been missing his friends, and who knows when they stopped editing. The hero user asks a developer to add a feature to trace IP addresses for all contributors to the translations. The developer creates cookies which the evil user cannot resist, and which become resident on the evil user's machine. The developer uses one of the cookies to trigger an explosion on the evil user's machine, which incapacitates the evil user, who is now incapable of editing due to loss of the use of his hands.

This downward spiral in the morality of each user who becomes enmeshed by the edits is stopped by an emergency appeal to users on Chinese wikipedia, who find someone who can write the antidote poem, which must accompany each instance of the killer poem in order to stop the deaths. The pace of edits keeps increasing on each encyclopedia as the blogosphere catches hold of the story, the killer article, and the antidote poem. (Maybe I should ask the name of the Chinese poem on the Reference Desk to get the ball rolling.) Ancheta Wis 03:02, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Issue in article: impending edit war

Hi. I guess I’ll need some help to avert an edit war on this one. In the article at hand, there are some peak heights given in meters for a National Park in Brazil. The numbers came from the official Brazilian government body in charge of those kinds of information in the country. Now, apparently this user has decided that those numbers are actually approximations, and thus the conversion to feet should also be approximated. I had originally given the exact conversion, since I thought that, as an encyclopedia, we should give the precise information, not what one user or another might think is a “suitable number” to appear on the article. Still, I was prepared to accept Nygaard’s round up, but since he adjusted 4,921 to 5,000, instead of going for 4,920, which is a round enough number, and closer to the original, I made such alteration. But he took exception to it, reverted the numbers back with a long explanation about how the official numbers (and I emphasize that) are not actually correct and thus his roundup would be accurate. He than closed it up suggesting that I should go back to the math books and learn how to calculate. The rudeness notwithstanding, isn’t it our obligation to go with official numbers in those situations (no original research) ? If I just go back and change the numbers again, this will almost certainly turn into an edit war. It is my impression that this user has a certain notion of being infallible in terms of geographical calculations (pardon me if that sounds a bit rude). And shouldn’t we stick to a precise conversion from meters into feet (although this point isn’t the main reason of the potential conflict)? Can I get some help on this one? Regards, Redux 13:36, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Redux, maybe you should just look at de:Serra dos Órgãos, they give the heights of some of these mountains. I must say I agree with Gene, and his numbers are fine. Lupo 13:49, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

If there is serious concern that the official numbers are quoted to a precision that exaggerates their accuracy (a.k.a. "wrong") than such should definitely be stated in the article: "The peaks are officially listed at abcd.efg m in height (hijkl.mno ft) but independent measurements list them at approximately pq00 m (rs000 ft)". "No original research" means we don't want to be the first place someone publishes what their gps unit read when they climbed the peak, it doesn't mean that you're not allowed to synthesize from multiple sources. --Sharkford 14:43, 2005 Jan 27 (UTC)

Let's take one step at a time: Lupo, I'm not saying that the numbers aren't acceptable (in fact, I actually believe that Nygaard's technical point should go into the article, as I've stated in one of my comments in the talk page), just that it may not be ideal to plainly replace what was there. Part of this answer goes in the second part: Sharkford, the issue there does involve original research, since Nygaard calculated the numbers himself (mine was a direct calculation from meters into feet, expressing the exact same value in two different scales - it was done mainly so that people from the US would know exactly how high 2.5 thousand meters (v.g.) is, I didn't make any inovative calculations). Finally, the situation has now escalated passed the technical details. Nygaard has been extremely rude in every one of his comments, and since he has posted responses to every one of my comments within minutes, I assume he added the article to his watch list just so he could inforce his view of what should be in the article. The only reason why this hasn't already turned into an edit war is because I've not sunked to his level. In my last comment (actually I've just posted a new one, so one-before-last) I even proposed a half way, not only did he ignore it but also he repeated that I should go study math before I edit the article. I don't know if this user has a history of altercations in the website, but it's been extremely difficult to keep it civil with him, he's just interested in seeing his idea prevail. Regards, Redux 16:16, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Edit war has started

Impossible to talk with that guy. He's now "warning" me that I'm "wasting his time". As a matter of principle, I will not have a bully trash-talk his way through this. Technical details are no longer the issue, this guy doen't know the first thing about how to behave in a democratic environment, or about courtesy, for that matter. So I, a declared pacifist, will now engage in an edit war, something I swore I'd never do, especially for a reason as silly as this one. I really don't get it: he got worked up over 1 foot in the measurement (and this after defending that 20 ft are insignificant in a correct measurement). He's just posted another abusive comment (where his "warning" is), I won't bother to answer it, since it would only generate more abuse. I never added an article where I had made minor changes to my watch list just so I could make sure the coma I changed stayed where I put it, and I've told people that they were wrong without resorting to name calling. If someone can offer mediation to this, it would be great, I'm not in the least interested in an edit war, but I've given up reasoning with him, I won't even read any other abusive comment that he posts in any talk page, unless he starts showing the same courtesy that I at least tried to show him. To the rest of the community, I'm sorry about this, it's completely not what Wikipedia is about, and it is as regretable as it is unnecessary. Regards, Redux 17:19, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

User:Gene Nygaard has also been going through spaceflight articles taking off significant digits saying that the level of accuracy down to a ounce for the mass of spacecraft was not possible. I have decided not to do anything about this as there figures on find on the internet for these masses vary widely but he seems to think that it is impossible to measure anything accurately. Evil Monkey → Talk 00:56, Jan 28, 2005 (UTC)

Yeap, this guy has accuracy issues. A quick visit to his talk page and you can easily find that Denni called him on his attitude. Result: Nygaard called him a "wimp". By his welcome message, I see this guy has been here only since December 11, which makes him sort of a newbie, but he has not yet graspped the concept of working here in Wikipedia. Just earlier, he offered to "let me" keep the official information I mentioned earlier if I proved to him that the Brazilian government was right. That's a troublemaker with a capital "T" if I ever saw one. Regards, Redux 02:17, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Does it strike anybody as odd that somebody who has to have everything just right would spell "whimp" wrong? 69.104.185.14 17:43, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC) (Sorry if my sig doesn't work but I don't really understand this forum thing. If it doesn't work this post is by Sgt. Grunty)

Indeed. But then again troublemakers are more about causing problems then about actually contributing to the project. During the fuss the originated this post, I made a minor alteration in the changes that he had just made in the article in question. He was so anxious to just revert it back and preach about how he's right that he called my edit "false precision", without realizing that he was in essence attacking his own work (probably didn't even read it, just reverted when he saw that someone had dared touch his work). Redux 17:43, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Numerical prefix articles

Please read very slowly and carefully:

What is it with people here lately telling others what speed and attention level to use when reading their contributions? Just recently, somebody else above put Note: Please read this carefully and thoroughly, as this is important. at the top of her comments. I guess nobody trusts others to judge the importance of comments on their own? Dtobias 15:53, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The articles on numerical prefixes have for nearly a year needed to be taken care of. I've always wondered if there was any way any of them could become greater than a stub. None of them ever could so easily. Now one of them is on Vfd with some info regarding Wiktionary with a probable consensus to delete. I want to make sure I know what will most likely happen. Perhaps a re-direct to the corresponding number article (e.g. 2 (number)) should work. (See also the category talk of Numerical prefixes and Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Duo.) Georgia guy 15:35, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Dtobias, first off, I'm a guy contrary to the pronoun you used to talk about me. Now, what does that comment I wrote above mean?? It simply means I feel somewhat afraid someone might want to rush through the info, take it however they would want to, and simply decide what to say in response while in the middle of reading, as opposed to towards the end. Georgia guy 16:00, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

No, the pronoun referred to the other writer, several sections above in this page, who included the cited text... that writer claimed to be Hilary Duff, so "she" is appropriate as a pronoun (though, since we don't actually know who anybody really is over here, "she" could easily turn out actually to be a "he"). Perhaps you didn't read my comments slowly and carefully enough? Dtobias 16:11, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I have to say, when someone on WP tells me, "Please read very slowly and carefully" it has the opposite effect; it says, in effect, "Please treat the following as if it were written by a condescending person; it's probably not worth your attention at all." -- Jmabel | Talk 05:57, Mar 20, 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia witchhunts

I see longtime administrator User:172 was driven off of Wikipedia, just like longtime admin User:Secretlondon was (before Jimbo Wales personally badgered her off), not to mention who knows how many common users. I remember arguing with 172 that Wikipedia had a political bias, especially among the admiistrators, which might not carry over to articles on quantum mechanics, but which would eventually lead to anyone who was not within that group to be driven off of Wikipedia. He didn't believe me and learned things the long and hard way. I think admins leaving will be less of a problem henceforth (although I can foresee one or two who they might yet drive off) since henceforth only people of the User:Ed Poor type (or people who only edit articles on say, quantum mechanics) will become admins, 172 and Secretlondon would have never become admins nowaday. The sad thing I find is that they had the misfortune of comign first to Wikipedia and not Demopedia or Anarchopedia or dKospedia and have been driven off of wiki encyclopedias for good. That the responses to this will mostly say things like 172 was way out there will only show how Wikipedia has become a sort of wiki encyclopedia for the Free Republic crowd - from there point of view, I suppose he is. I spend most of my time editing other wikis now, who don't pretend to be "fair and balanced" while they're the absolute worst - I'd respect more a wiki that admits the bias of a cabal of admins up front. I see my primary task as trying to rescue users who had the misfortune of winding up here, and trying to direct them elsewhere. Give it some more time and I'm sure even the science articles will be attacked - tobacco will be healthy, global warming will be called a myth, and evolution will be a lie by Satan who buried fossils to trick us. Ruy Lopez 17:12, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Oh, the irony of that last sentence. Seen the featured article today? Rhobite 17:32, Mar 18, 2005 (UTC)

Hm. Wanna bet this is our old friend, the banned User Xed, returning? Remember his first posting, which accused Jimbo of a "witchhunt" against Secretlondon? Rick K 00:35, Mar 19, 2005 (UTC)

I don't know, but the correct procedure is of course to ask, which I will do. Rad Racer 02:41, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I know, the answer is no. El_C 06:30, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Ruy's name has been around some time (probably pre-dating Xed) and the evidence really doesn't support your hypothesis. Unless you come up with some more evidence, I suggest you apologize for assuming bad faith. Pcb21| Pete 09:03, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Well, I think what happens with some sysops who specialize in policing vandals and trolls, is that after awhile, they start suspecting everyone of being an offender. It's the same thing that happens with a lot of police officers. That's not to say some users don't need policing, but I think it is important to assume good faith, and especially with new users, remember Hanlon's Razor. I've seen a few users blocked for messing up their edits. Going off topic, I've noticed that some of the sysops who get a lot of vandalism on their pages, and users personally targetting them, holding grudges against them, complaining to Jimbo, etc. are those who post overly harsh messages that tempt users to retaliate. I would just respond to most vandals with the { test } sequence of messages, before saying something like "These diffs show that your IP address was used to blank the x page three times. While I don't enjoy blocking anyone from contributing to Wikipedia, under policy y, I have to put a 24-hour block on your IP address if it continues to be used to make these kind of edits. Please leave a message on my talk page if there is anything I can help you with." ...Or whatever. The point is, being nice might shame some vandals into going away. Rad Racer 12:19, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

If my memory from his arbcom case is correct (IIRC, during the Shorne et al case, he was reprimanded by the arbcom for revert warring without giving any reasons) Ruy Lopez has been around quite a while. →Raul654 09:09, Mar 19, 2005 (UTC)

Oh yes it is unfortunate that some of the school of thought that might be very loosely termed Anti-Americanism have uncivil ways of interacting with patriotic Americans, but that don't mean they are all the same person. There are just the odd 100m people in "Old Europe". :-). Pcb21| Pete 10:13, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

As to secretlondon - I liked her. She was a good contributor, but her rabid anti-americanism is what ultimately led her to leave (of her own violtion, I might add). →Raul654 08:01, Mar 19, 2005 (UTC)

Ruy Lopez is entitled to express his opinion. He is not a vandal, nor is he a troll. I will stake my editorial reputation on that claim. El_C 01:19, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

About RickK, me, and user blocking

Note: Please read this carefully and thoroughly, as this is important.

RickK, one of the admins, blocked my former accounts "User:Hil Duff" and "User:Hil Duff star". He didn't give any reason why and totally ignored my comments on my talk page just because he thinks my user name would be something like imposting or vandalizing. I wanted to discuss things over with him, but he just deleted my account immediately without reason. I just want to be a happy Wikipedian here.

I AM NOT A VANDAL, and I won't be Hilary Duff, just Cool Cat886. I won't tell anybody that I am famous or a pop star. I just want to contribute in peace here, and YOU CAN BLOCK ME ONLY IF YOU SEE ME VANDALIZING OR ACTUALLY DOING SOMETHING BAD, BECAUSE I DIDN'T. Would you support me and be my good friend, or should I just get blocked for eternity because I didn't do anything? Cool Cat886 07:20, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

He should talk to you, least of all because he may be mistaken. It's probable that you refer to the pop star, but there are at least three additional meanings of the word duff:

Duff beer from the Simpsons TV show duff, as in skilly and duff, a tasty or not-so-tasty meal, depending on the cook duff, as in fake, deke or nutmeg - "Tactical nuclear artillery on the battlefield, this is no duff, I say again, this is no duff!" usually used only by the Canadian military

Duff can also mean "rear end", as in "Get off your duff and do some work!" Dtobias

And "hil" could mean any number of things. In short, just because my name is Ublaz doesn't mean I'm stealing it from the book by Brian Jacques. Maybe username UberLazer was taken.

But this is moot because she's already admitted it. Why hasn't this been addressed? --Esseye 08:55, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Claiming to be a famous person is an unacceptable use of a User name. The disingenuous comments that you made when you blanked the Hillary Duff page, claiming you didn't know what you were doing, was vandalism. That's why your first ID was blocked. When you created another ID with a smiliar name, you were blocked again. Don't vandalize, don't pretend to be somebody else, and there will be no problem. Rick K 09:02, Mar 18, 2005 (UTC)

If you really are a celebrity, how do you prove it against people claiming you to be an impersonator? Alleged online celebrities (real and fake) are a frequent issue in any online site where people can post under usernames. Dtobias 12:45, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Also, I doubt a real celebrity would want to harm her public image be performing such negative acts. --Death phoenix 13:25, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Look in any tabloid, or CourtTV, or the Jay Leno monologue, to see that the adverse effect on public image doesn't always stop celebrities from doing things that are perceived negatively. Anyway, none of the stuff this alleged "Hilary" has done here is inconsistent with what somebody might do entirely by accident when blundering around here unfamiliar with the way it works; there's no definite act of intentional vandalism. Dtobias 15:39, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

If a celebrity wants to edit here under their real name, they could put a note on their official site or blog, or e-mail an admin. I'm sure a genuine celebrity would be happy to take this small step in order to protect against impersonators. Rhobite 15:55, Mar 18, 2005 (UTC)

IIRC, a previous user claiming to be Hilary was given a chance by having someone (anyone) from her official domain name email one of the Wikipedia folks to confirm that Hilary is, in fact, on Wikipedia. No such email came. Now, it would be great if bonafide celebrities contributed here, and I have no doubt that at least a few do. I also believe that they have the right to privacy. However, if they go around announcing that they are such-and-such a celebrity, they should be able to prove it. So the best thing for a celebrity sick and tired of having to prove their identities is... never announce it! People won't bug you if they don't know who you are. --Death phoenix 16:29, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

According to somebody's comment at some point, the other "Hilary" supposedly did eventually cause some sort of confirmation that she was real to be posted to her own hilaryduff.com site, but in a section of it accessible only to paying customers of that site, of which I'm not one so I have no way of verifying that this confirmation actually exists. Dtobias 19:19, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Is that notable enough?

Hi. I just came across this article. Well, not really an "article" as we would like it, but the bottom line is that it's about a participant of that tv reality show American Idol. I have no idea whether it's the current edition or an older one. Not being from the U.S., I have no idea if any participant of that show, for the mere reason of having been (or being) there, would be notable enough (in the U.S., at least) to merit his/her own article. Maybe it's enough just mentioning them on the American Idol main article. Should this be VfD? Thoughts? Regards, Redux 02:58, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The idol contestants that get put on vfd usually get redirected back to American Idol. If they were in the top twelve and win or go on to have a music career they seem to get expanded--nixie 03:08, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Well, for those that actually become something more than a once-participant, I can see it. But generally speaking, creating an article for every single participant may be exaggerated. I was looking into it, and as it turns out almost every participant already has his/her own article. Some are one-sentence stubs. If it's the case of having articles about the participants, wouldn't it be better to have one article for each season, and in each article concentrate the bios of all the people that took part in it? For those who may deserve a main article of their own, we could just include a link to said article. In my humble opinion, it justs sounds excessive having an independent article for each participant, especially since there are some contestants that don't seem to merit it. Regards, Redux 03:16, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The WikiWiki structure allows for articles to be split and merged freely. There's nothing to stop people creating an article on every contestant in such a contest, so long as it is understood that such articles might be merged together if they are not—individually—sufficiently significant. It should likewise be understood that the merged article might be subject to splitting if a particular contestant becomes sufficiently significant in their own right. My personal belief is that the important job is getting the information into Wikipedia in the first place: it can then be shuffled around and tidied up at relative leisure. HTH HAND --Phil | Talk 09:44, Mar 18, 2005 (UTC)

Link to Wikipedia on CNN

Link to Wikipedia on CNN in article titled "Web pioneer: Design hampers mobile Internet"

-Bijee 23:56, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Half million pool

Well, given the ~300 article/day growth rate, it looks as though llywrch or MHardwick are the only contenders with a chance of winning. Right now there are 6,927,248 articles. Rad Racer 13:42, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Doesn't it stand to reason that the 500,000th article will probably be some stub, since that's how most articles start out? I should've waited before posting the 3 S's, that would've been awesome to see in the press release: In Wikipedia's latest milestone, "The 3 S's" was the half-millionth article to be posted.... Rad Racer 15:43, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

There was a flood of new articles, about thirty in the space of two minutes. Obviously lots of people were trying to time it. David Brooks 20:57, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

So - has anyone announced anywhere what the 500,000th article was? By my monitoring it happened between 20:53Z and 20:55Z. David Brooks 21:24, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

All we know for sure is that it happened at 20:54:46 UTC --Alterego 02:08, Mar 18, 2005 (UTC)

Just thought I'd let everyone know that I've made arrangements to donate the prize for winning the pool to the Wikimedia Foundation. (And I hope everyone can contribute at least this amount in the next fundraising campaign.) -- llywrch 21:37, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

There was a prize? -- Cyrius|✎ 02:02, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

/me raises an eyebrow at Cyrius

but seriously, the foundation could use half a million --Alterego 05:39, Mar 18, 2005 (UTC)

GJ, everyone! -- Rhobite 21:40, Mar 17, 2005 (UTC)

Darrell Haines USMC

Attempting to locate one Darrell Haines who served in the United States Marine Corps. Assigned to 1st Radio Company Kanoehe Base, Kanoehe Hawaii. Also served Pleiku, SVietNam 1962/1963. Please contact the following: Gordon Hagan e-mail anitahagan@charter.net or Dennis Fouts, e-mail, sinner2937@charter.net.

Gordon Hagan USMC 1960/1964

This place is the second most useful thing I find after email on the internet. Thanks for everyone who is working for this thing, it is a great invention.

Glad you like the place. The USMC maintains a list of websites that might help you get in touch with former members at http://www.usmc.mil/marinelink/ind.nsf/locator . Hope that is some help. Pcb21| Pete 21:06, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

German translation backlog

I just wanted to mention that we have an enormous backlog of requests for translation of articles from German. There is a lot of really great work going on in the German Wikipedia, and nearly half of the translation requests we get are for translation from German. There simply aren't enough people working on this to keep up; if you know both German and English, your help would be greatly appreciated. This also might be a great area for a university-level class assignment. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:41, Mar 14, 2005 (UTC)

Looksmart.com external links: useful or spam?

I'm noticing quite a few articles that have an external link to a Looksmart.com directory category. See this Google search. Many of those links have been added by anon IPs. I'm not quite sure what to make of it. Is Looksmart a genuine and useful resource, or should it be considered link spam? Thanks. --Plek 21:57, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

'Tis spam, methinks. Ringuu 22:47, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Agreed. Links to search engines are spam. We should only link to reference works. I propose we make a list of the IP addresses, and note which ones have been cleaned up. I'll start by adding some. -- Netoholic @ 20:02, 2005 Mar 12 (UTC)

These same anon users have also inserted links to http://AllAfrica.com . Spam also? -- Netoholic @ 20:26, 2005 Mar 12 (UTC)

No, AllAfrica.com is one of the few really useful sources of information on current events in Africa. They do eventually archive their content into a pay-service, but it's nearly impossible to find some of their articles otherwise. Definitely do not remove links to them, especially "most recent articles" on "X country" links. - Banyan Tree 19:37, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

LooksSmart/DMOZ/Yahoo spam insertions

12.74.28.198 (talk · contribs)
~~12.73.248.148 (talk · contribs)~~ - Israeli people articles -- Netoholic @ 20:02, 2005 Mar 12 (UTC)
12.73.247.110 (talk · contribs)
12.74.28.56 (talk · contribs) - country articles
~~12.73.243.252 (talk · contribs)~~ - country articles -- Netoholic @ 20:37, 2005 Mar 12 (UTC)
12.74.28.105 (talk · contribs) - UK politics articles --Plek 20:48, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)
12.73.243.137 (talk · contribs) - updating the above links --Plek 20:48, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)
12.73.221.223 (talk · contribs) - Rafik Hariri article --Plek 20:48, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)
12.73.247.61 (talk · contribs) - Lebanese politicians and 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake articles --Plek 20:48, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Readings for courses

This course on "Distributed Computing Applications and Infrastructure" uses a large number of Wikipedia pages for its background reading. Just thought it was cool. — Matt Crypto 16:15, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)