Wikipedia:Suggestion box/Archive 4

Automatic listing in watchlist

Hi,

I was wondering if anybody could enable automatic listing in the watchlist once the user edits an article. It is a real pain if you forget and have to go and look up the same articles by typing in the search box. Thanks, The Updater —This unsigned comment was added by 58.166.75.77 (talk • contribs) .

You will need to create your own account first. Then, go to "my preferences"→"Editing" tab→check "Add pages I edit to my watchlist". Save the preferences. From then on all of the pages you edit will be added to your watchlist.—Ëzhiki (ërinacëus amurënsis) 19:38, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

"mason"

Hi,

Sorry to nitpick; I love Wikipedia!

I would love to see a list of people whose FIRST names are "Mason" in the page that comes up when I search for "mason." It's a complex word, but the list of people named Mason is composed of people whose surname is Mason, despite that at least one famous "Mason _______" is listed under his own page (Mason Malmuth). Any help would be much appreciated!

Thanks,

Mason Astley

Hm, that is an interesting question. We don't have one, but we can make one. this link lists all the articles that begin "Mason...". It produces a lot of false positives (Masonic Lodge and so on) but there's a relatively small number of them so it shouldn't be too difficult to go through them and sort out which ones of them are actually people. Of course that doesn't do anything for all the people called Mason who we don't have articles on. I'm not sure i can help you with that one. --Cherry blossom tree 17:05, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, "Mason" is a very famous first name ;) Masonbarge 15:01, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Saving a Wiki page - the whole wiki page, including the sidebar

  This is not a member speaking. I am a long-time supporter of your website and I want to report that my brother, Mustafa Moiz, has written a completely false article about himself. Can you please delete this article immediately? Please not do disbar us from usage of the prank--he meant no harm. Young lads--can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em.

 How do i save the whole Wiki page (WYSIWYG). Everything that i see! Lets say i browse:
 "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negotiable_instrument"

I want to be able to save that page to my computer exactly as i see it - including the Wiki sidebar and the menu links at the top (project page, discussion, edit this page, history).

The page looks a lot nicer that way. The text is all nicely formatted. I've tried this in Firefox 1.0.7. I've also tried using the MAF plugin and the normal File->Save method and both methods result in the sidebar not being saved. The saved page looks pretty crappy as a result.

I think the problem is because the css files don't load.

@import "/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Common.css&action=raw&ctype=text/css&smaxage=2678400"; @import "/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Monobook.css&action=raw&ctype=text/css&smaxage=2678400"; @import "/w/index.php?title=-&action=raw&gen=css&maxage=2678400";

Any way to get around this?

Woo! Just found a great way!! Use Scrapbook! It's a fantastic Firefox plugin. Still Wiki should fix this all the same!!

Personally, I would just "Print to file" the page, then I would have a Postscript file with all formatting. --Kickstart70·Talk 15:43, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Language Translation

Wikipedia is a great web tool, and I believe as this site keeps growing the need will perhaps arise for a language translator built into he site especially as the Wikipedia realm reaches other countries with different languages as it already has, this will enable a reader in China to translate an English article which has not yet been posted in their native language. (Just a suggestion)

I'm not sure that this is needed. There are a number of free translation websites, which while not accurate enough to use to simply repost content on other Wikipedias, can prove useful in getting the gist of an article in a language in which a user is not confident. I suspect that any language translator created for Wikipedia would struggle to reach even their levels of accuracy, and our small team of developers would prefer to concentrate on improving core aspects of Wikipedia. But, of course, if you have the skills to help, I doubt they'd say no! Warofdreams talk 22:09, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

limitations

This is basically not a complaint, just a pointing a bad side and a possible solution for it.

--Cacumer 07:49, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

I am really worried!!!

respected sir/madam

Its my earnest request to please please solve my problem that I am facing since two or three days.I use Wikipedia usaually to work on any assignment.My teacher assigned me to work on World war 1 and I found out all about it at your wonderful website,I copied it on M.word and was about to print it when the Pc stated giving errors.So I reinstalled the windows and then tried to access the file.The word didnt opened the file.It gave some code converting error.Please please solve my problem or I wont get the marks and lose my 1st rank in class.Hopes you will reply at my address i.e. [ahem] thank you

yourssincerely shaheer ullah

You can find file recovery software which might help. Of course, our article on World War I is still here, so you could start over again, but don't forget to check with other sources as well. Warofdreams talk 22:12, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

• Remember to keep backups of the stuff on your computer and if you ever get any other errors, try resolving the error first instead of relying on a reinstallation of Windows. It takes too much time and deletes a lot of programs, links and documents you had before and is basically not worth it in the long run. - 131.211.210.13 12:55, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Shaheer Ullah, Just print the WWI Article by clicking on file, then select print. Don't use MS Word to print webpages, just print them when you are looking at the webpage. --William sharkey 21:58, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Suggestion

Dear Wikipedia

May I suggest that when a user visits the "Main Page" (the page I imagine most people will have bookmarked) the cursor be placed ready in the "search" box? (Like it does in Google.)

I expect most visits are to look something up via the search box. Mine certainly are. Regards, and thanks for a great service, Charles.

The problem with that is that when people try to look down the page using their keyboard, they can't. You can press Alt and F together if you want to move the cursor to the search bar quickly.--Cherry blossom tree 14:24, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

That's great, thanks: in that case may I suggest that the search box is labeled " search <Alt+F> " ? Charles.

Revision navigation doesn't appear if a page is a redirect

When searching through a page's History, if you choose a revision that is a redirect to another page, e.g. here and here, the revision navigation text, which reads like this:

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Revision as of 08:48, 11 October 2005; view current revision
← Older revision | Newer revision →

...will not appear. Can someone possibly fix this, please? -- RattleMan 01:36, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

This looks like a bug. Or possibly a feature. I'll copy it over to the the Technical section of the Village Pump and see what happens.--Cherry blossom tree 13:55, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

I would like to suggest wikipedia to create a 'one page explanation' for certain big topics, like the latest higgs boson's one page explanation. It would be easier for an alien of that topic to quickly grasp the basic concept easily in just few minutes.

Software problem with Battle of Stalingrad Article

There appears to be a problem with the Batlle of Stalingrad article attmpts to access it result in IE6 crashing out. --Sf 11:24, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

• Rebooted PC problem now gone (was already freshly rebooted anyway - go figure?) --Sf 11:59, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Things change

Things change... trouble is not always for the better. I revisited a page, after a gap of a few weeks, to find that what was previously elegantly informative and accurate, had been meddled with to the point of unrecognisability. I appreciate that this is a very fluid and dynamic site but what a pity that really good collective efforts can be so easily ruined by a kind of pseudo-academic, self-absorbed contributer or contributers. It wasn't a subject I wanted to contribute anything to myself, but it was a subject where I was enjoying learning something not laid out so concisely, precisely or dispassionately anywhere else online. I'm just wondering if there is any way to re-access pages in their former incarnations? If I'd known that the information on the original page was going to be so badly mauled I'd have saved it to my hard drive. Saddening.

Except in a few cases, all old versions of every article are saved. You can get to them by clicking on the "history" tab at the top of the page, then clicking on the date you want. -- SCZenz 02:29, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Also, when you bring up an old version that you think is better than the current version you can revert to it by editing the page. See Wikipedia:Revert for more details.--Cherry blossom tree 11:52, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

If we can look at others' contributions, why can't we look at others' watchlists??

You see, the way you look at others' contribution histories is to click on "my contributions", change your screenname to someone else's on the URL bar, and go right to it. That may be an invasion of privacy, but if that's allowed, why aren't we able to see other users' watchlists?

By the way, how can I get the devs to allow us to view others' watchlists? --Shultz III 00:47, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

It makes life more difficult for vandels and POV pushers if they don't know exactly what I'm watching.Geni 00:58, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

It probably won't make that much of a difference when such users see what articles you edit most frequently... --Shultz III 04:14, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

There is no advantage to being able to see other people's watchlists. Being able to see the contributions is useful - it means that if you see a user vandalise a page you can look at their contributions and see other pages that they have edited to see if they have vandalised other pages that no-one has noticed. It also means that if someone is nominated for adminship (or similar) people can look at their contributions to get a feel for what sort of editor they are before deciding how to vote. Also, when you view another user's User: or User_talk: page there is a link in the toolbox on the left to show that user's contributions.--Cherry blossom tree 11:51, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

And many people tend to have articles in their watchlists they don't edit at all. -- Rune Welsh | ταλκ 19:39, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

In contrast, being able to see someone's watch list enables people to stalk each other, which only has negative consequences. It would also make it easier for vandals to see which articles are not being watched, so they can vandalize those. - 131.211.210.13 12:52, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Today's featured Picture

Hi,

I find that the entry of Today's featured picture (Falkirk Wheel) has been repeated within less than a week. This is unfortunate. Could you please avoid such happenings in future?

CKV

It was a mistake which has now been rectified - someone (or rather everyone) forgot to update the template.--Cherry blossom tree 11:46, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

so yea...

so yea, i know that all random ppl who arent member are sent like all of the block reports, but this one was specific to me and said i wrote this message about this website being evil and stuff. well, i can't exactly remember writing the comment but i think if i did it was because this one article was closed to me originally unless you became a member and i tried to become a member, and it was like, i dont know, a special price. it mighta been a different website. But this is really bugging me, so you know. if you could like. help me solve this issue, that'd be great. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.12.116.134 (talk • contribs) .

I'm really struggling to tell what exactly you're trying to say, so forgive me if I misinterpret it. You seem to be on AOL. AOL users have their IP addresses changed regularly, so messages intended for someone else are often delivered to you when you begin to use an IP address that has previously been used by someone attempting to vandalise Wikipedia. It's unlikely that any of these messages were actually being written with you in mind.

Anyone can see any article at any time but a small number are sometimes semi-protected when experiencing particularly heavy vandalism. This means that anonymous and very new users cannot edit them. See Wikipedia:Semi-protection for more details on this.

Signing up for Wikipedia is free. All you need to provide is a user name and a password. This will mean that you will no longer receive notices intended for other people and (after a few days) you will be able to edit semi-protected pages. Hope this helps. --Cherry blossom tree 11:46, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Why is MarkSweep's user talk page protected?

When I tried to talk to him, I saw a "view source" tab instead of an "edit this page" tab. Apparently, only admins can talk to him now, but I saw what appeared to be non-admins' posts. Any idea why this is the case? --Shultz III 04:10, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

He used semi protection.Geni 04:18, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

That means registered users can still talk there. I'm a registered user too, so why can't I? --Shultz III 04:32, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

It's only users who have been registered for more than four days, which you appear not to have been. --Cherry blossom tree 11:35, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

External link wikisyntax

The previously valid wikisyntax, (see source) English Wikipedia suddenly breaks, why? Will it be fixed? 61.94.149.163 11:07, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

It is now fixed. Thanks for fixing. 61.94.148.55 04:13, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Problems due to shared IP addresses

Many Singaporean users of Wikipedia have the same IP, apparently because their ISP, Starhub (external link), uses dynamic ip addresses. This has caused some problems, for instance, many users (like myself) cannot create an account here at Wikipedia because the maximum number of accounts per IP address is 10. Another problem is that it is very difficult to track down vandals using such IP addresses, since their IP addresses keep changing. Also, when such a vandal is banned, all the other users sharing the same IP are banned as well. This has caused some confusion, as exemplified by this user talk page.

Though I cannot personally do anything about this problem since I am not an administrator and I do not know of any way around this problem, I must agree with you here. Maybe a more experienced Wiki user can help. The problem as arisen for me when using school-owned computers that have a linked IP address. When one person with access to the computer decides to mess around and have the IP banned, it bans it for everyone who wishes to use any of the school computers. Also, due to those same vandals, some acts have been blamed on me and used against me by other editors when arguing for and against deletion/continuation of articles, when in reality I had nothing to do with any sort of vandalism. Flypanam 16:00, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

no appropriate information in this page

Dear Sir,

In this link, they added some junk information.

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

Hamsa (חמסה) is an Israeli musical quintet, perhaps best described as an Israeli Spice Girls. The group was formed in 2001 by music producers Eyal Buchbut and Dror Margalit. The group got a breakthrough in the spring of 2003 with the single Chayav lamoot alai, followed by their debut album Hamsa.

This text is no way concerned with hindu puranas. Either the link is not appropriate or junk text has been introduced. please look into this matter.

The word Hamsa has more than one meaning, unfortunately. One meaning is one of the 18 subsidiary Puranas of Hinduism, another is the name of an Israeli pop group. Our article Hamsa covers the latter. Hindu Puranas are covered in our article Puranas. Some of the major ones have their own articles, but Hamsa currently does not. I will add a link to the top of the Hamsa article noting the existence of the Puranas page, but there is nothing more I can do right now.--Cherry blossom tree 21:26, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

With so many meanings, I believe Hamsa deserves its very own disambiguation page, which I will now go about creating. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 16:56, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

...loss of session data...

Good day,

Recently, I have noticed a significant increase in the system's failure to accept submissions. The message that is returned when submitting articles is repeated below:

Sorry! We could not process your edit due to a loss of session data. Please try again. If it still doesn't work, try logging out and logging back in.

At first, I thought it was a fluke; however, a lot of time is now spent clicking the Save page icon. Approximately a fifth of the time spent editing is now devoted to trying to save the page. Case in point, this page took a few tries to save properly.

Why does this problem occur, and what can be done to resolve it? Folajimi 14:45, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I take it you've tried logging out and back in? It happens to me occasionally but it comes and goes. I presume the technical people are aware of it and working on it. I'm sorry I can't suggest anything else. --Cherry blossom tree 20:28, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Oh, I don't have to worry about that; the system takes the pleasure of kicking me out periodically ;P

At any rate, thanks for replying. Folajimi 20:34, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

links within articles

Why do you have links within your articles that do not connect to other articles? This makes it a lot harder to research a subject thoroughly, since I keep connecting to links that don't go anywhere.

Jennifer Duerden

Links of different types have different appearences that let you know where they go. Links that go to an article should be blue, those that don't should be red, and links outside wikipedia should be light blue with an external link symbol—or at least that's how they are for me, but you can see how they are for you by looking at the links. We have red links because Wikipedia is a work in progress, and we plan to have some of those articles some day. Does that help? -- SCZenz 19:53, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

The links that don't lead to an article are there to allow people who are interested in doing so to create an article on the subject. On other points I endorse User:SCZenz' summary. --Cherry blossom tree 20:20, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

New article not appearing in Search results

I created the article Animalia (book) a few days ago. When, in Wiki, I do a search on the string "Animalia" it does not appear. However, there are hundreds of other articles that appear that have very minor relationships to Animalia (namely, they contain links to another article, the Animalia article.

This is very odd: the article's title contains the string "animalia", yet a search for "animalia" does not return the article!!

Questions:

1) Why does Search for "animalia" not return the Animalia (book) article?

2) Does the search algorithm use some database that is only updated ocassionaly (e.g. weekly)?

3) Is there anything I can add into the Animalia (book) article that will help it appear in the search results? (e.g. a "keywords" field?)

4) If all else fails, who would I contact to suggest that the Search algorithm be improved to return, at the top of its list, articles that contain the search-string in the article's title.

For performance reasons the search runs off a cached copy of the database (that is, not the current one.) This is usually updated every few weeks. If you type "Animalia (book)" and click Go then it will go there now. Someone typing in "Animalia" will get to the Animal page from where there is a link, but I imagine you knew that. There's nothing you can do by way of keywords - when the search is next updated it will search the full text of the article (I think.) Sorry your article isn't showing up yet, but hang in there - it will. For more about searching on Wikipedia see Wikipedia:Searching. --Cherry blossom tree 22:11, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! noleander

Content - On Request For New Article page

Religion as a sub-topic under Recreation and Hobbies?

You need to clean up your Content page.

I've added a religion heading. It seems to have got lost at some point. No big deal. --Cherry blossom tree 16:03, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Sites of Interest

I wondered why the Blumenthal Performing Arts Center and Spirit Square were not included in Sites of Interest for Charlotte NC? Great Site! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.12.116.134 (talk • contribs) .

I doubt it's a conscious editorial decision, ratified by three committees and a public vote, just that whoever wrote the section didn't think to mention them. I've added the ones you've suggested, but if you see another article that's missing information then feel free to hit an edit button and add it. It's fun, I promise. --Cherry blossom tree 23:56, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Today’s Featured Article

After noting the amount of vandalism that occurs in featured article, has any thought been given to locking the article for the day? If someone has real input they could certainly wait a day. Locking would reduce the number of “reverts” Ralph 28Feb06

The theory behind not doing this is explained at User:Raul654/protection. --Cherry blossom tree 16:00, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia search does not find "Hendrik Wade Bode" article

Hi, can you please explain why when I search Wikipedia using the terms Hendrik Wade Bode I don't get a straight hit at the article? Can this be fixed? Thanks. Dr.K. 02:34, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

If you type Hendrik Wade Bode in the search box and click "Go" or press enter, you will go directly to the Hendrik Wade Bode article. If you click "search", however, Wikipedia will search its database for articles containing this text, and that database only gets updated once in a while. This article is rather new, and therefore it does not appear in the search. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 09:56, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Thank you very much. I knew about the "Go" effect, but the "search" was my main concern. Your explanation, however, cleared it up. Take care. Dr.K. 12:06, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

wikipedia in türkçe

turkish definitions are insufficient can't you interpret everything properly so that we can find everything we want? i've looked for kamerun in turkish and also in english but i found that turkish paes are miles away from that of english i want improvement on turkish pages

wikipedia relies on volenteers to write stuff. At present we have far more english speaking volenteers than turkish speaking volenteers.Geni 22:01, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps it will interest you to know that I, for example, am a native hebrew speaker, yet I very rarely seek information in the Hebrew Wikipedia, or contribute to it. This is the exact reason - The English Wikipedia has by far more contributors and information than any other. Many others are similar to me in this respect. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 07:01, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Search box

As a frequent user of the encyclopedia I've come up with a tiny adjustment to the page:

When you've conducted a search or when you've entered a specific wikipedia national site (from http://www.wikipedia.org/) the cursor isn't automatical in the search box. It's a minor nuisance that you have to click on the search box to conduct your next search. However it is a nuisance non the less.

There have been long debates over where to put the cursor and the current consensus is to leave things how they are for now.Geni 12:32, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

hiding of article links

Just a suggestion - there are so many blue links in every article that it can be difficult to read through something without seeing a word in blue and thinking "ooh that looks interesting" and then getting distracted and going off on a tangent and forgetting what you were looking at in the first place. It would be useful to be able to click a link which basically reloads the page but with a new stylesheet which shows article links in black instead of blue/red, so that for purposes of reading they are invisible and unobtrusive. Of course the links would still be active but you wouldn't notice them until you moved your cursor over them and saw the underline. I think this would make it a lot easier to focus your attention on an article and not get distracted unless you wanted to be. thanks! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.195.235.48 (talk • contribs) .

I suppose this could be achieved by adding something like the following to User:YourUsername/monobook.css:

a, a.new
{
color: black;
}

a:hover
{
color: #002bb8;
}

a.new:hover
{
color: #ba0000;
}

BigBlueFish 10:58, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Image Metadata issue

As I was browsing around Wikipedia today, I noticed that image metadata for photographs shot with a Canon camera links to the Canon disambiguation page instead of the Canon Inc. article. Examples of this include [1] and [2]. I'm not very familiar with how this link is acquired. Can only an administrator change it, or can it not be changed at all because the link is made directly from whatever the metadata says without any replacement as to where the link points? --Spring Rubber 01:02, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

What is the "statute of limitation" for afd'd articles?

In other words, how long after an AFD can an article be re-created? Or will the admin who deleted it have to quit Wikipedia first? --Shultz III 02:03, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Deletion policy. You can re-create an article whenever you like, but you should consider why it was originally deleted. If the same reasons apply to the new article, consider why it should not just be deleted like before. BigBlueFish 10:36, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

page layout changed

Wikipedia looks way different now. The logo is gone, and the navigation bars at the top and at the left are gone. All of the navigation are provided as links at the bottom, so it's still functional, and is better in the sense that the articles now span the full width of the window. But it doens't seem likely for this to become the default layout. Is this an alternate mode that I somehow tripped into or what? Wiktionary and Wikisource, etc, are unaffected. Thnaks for any help. Rtdrury 08:26, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Your browser is probably having trouble loading the stylesheet, so none of the layout is being applied to the content. Try hard refreshing with Ctrl+F5 and check that you have MonoBook selected as your Skin in your preferences. BigBlueFish 10:30, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Floating edit links

I was just reading Marseille and noticed that the big column of right-floated images that appear at the top of the page has caused all of the [edit] links for each section to essentially be shunted down to beside the last of the images, all side by side. This must make section-by-section editing of this article impossible! Is there any solution to this either by editing the way the layout is achieved in wikicode or by changing the way the edit links are laid out by the software? BigBlueFish 11:04, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Rank the pages, improve the reliability of Wikipedia

I believe Google does something like this. One of the biggest complaints about Wikipedia is that because anyone can edit it, articles could be rife with errors. I do not find this to be a problem with large, high-traffic articles such as World War II or something along those lines. The risk of bias is far higher, however, with more obscure articles created by one person with an axe to grind that may sit up there for a while before an accuracy-conscious editor looks it over.

I think a ranking system would deal with this problem and warn people of dubious articles while reassuring them of articles that are well-kept and accurate. My personal system is to look at an article's discussion page. If it has even a moderately long one, it's a pretty safe article. Those with short or no discussion pages I am wary of and on the lookout for errors. I don't know if the ranking system should follow this pattern or if users who visit the page could vote on it. Maybe an article should have a low ranking for sheer lack of votes.

What do you all think? Wouldn't an article-ranking system dramatically improve the trustability of Wikipedia as a whole? I can't imagine that it would be that difficult of an improvement. Aplomado 02:08, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

This is a good idea and I think it was already be developed somewhat (but not yet implemented). But I can't find a link explaining it.--Commander Keane 11:21, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Printable Version Not Entirely Printing

I've been noticing when printing out articles that when there is a photo, the text seems to run underneath the image, so the larger the photo, the more information that gets lost behind it. it seems like a programmable fix. can you work on that? huge fan, thanks. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 63.239.47.98 (talk • contribs) .

Someone has inappropriate username, so what do I do?

Look, see? Pi(55)lub-S is an inappropriate username in that it has the occurrence "Pi(55)" on it. I decided to pagemove his username to a more appropriate one ("Payslub-S"), but an admin moved it back. If I'm not allowed to pagemove usernames even when to make it more appropriate, what should I do instead as soon as I discover such names? --Shultz III 14:27, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not censored (including, generally, user names) but in particularly egregious cases, there's a subset at WP:RFC for username issues. — Lomn Talk 14:38, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Also, pagemoving the user pages does not rename the user, and is innapropriate (because the user page should have the same name as the username). --cesarb 15:50, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Language Convertor for Searching Engine

I have thought about one very unusuful function of wekipedia, it occours when choosing one language and trying search with another language after. If one is using Englsih version of wekipedia first, and then searching with other languages in the search bar of English, it is not able to search with new language. So it has to be changed to other language version of wekipedia. However, here there even are not the menue of changing language, and which is very incnvinient. If this problem was solved, Wekipedia would have great system to search and helps more the users. I will be very looking foward to see growing this site.

If I understand correctly, you are looking for a way that, having conducted a search in the English language edition of Wikipedia, you can perform the same search in another language? If so, you are correct that there is no menu to accomplish this. However, if you know the two letter abbreviation for the language you would like to search in (e.g. French is "fr" and Japanese is "ja"), you can replace the "en" at the start of the web address and press enter to search in your target language. Warofdreams talk 03:38, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

E-mail confirmation Notice

My watchlist page has the following notification:

Wikipedia e-mail confirmation has been enabled. To receive Wikipedia e-mail, you must go to Special:Confirmemail, request a code, and follow the link in the e-mail.

I do not plan to receive e-mail, and I do not wish to request a code. Will this message ever go away, or is there a way that I may make it go away? Thanks. --BostonMA 01:33, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

This message appears for all users, regardless of whether they have confirmed their e-mail. According to this, the message will be removed roughly 2 weeks after the time it appeared. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 13:24, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

should dissapear on the 16th.Geni 13:27, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the info. --BostonMA 14:47, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Category creation rejected

Hi, I tried to create a new category: "Engineering organizations" but the system rejected it immediately. It actually never appeared, it didn't even become a candidate for speedy deletion. There is a category "Scientific organizations" but no "Engineering organizations". Why the automatic rejection? Please let me know. Thanks. Dr.K. 02:44, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

How did you try to create the category? According to Wikipedia:Categorization, the way to do it is not to directly create a page with the name "Category:Engineering organizations" (as you may have tried), but rather to just add [[Category:Engineering organizations]] to an article, and then the category will be created. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 13:19, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll try your suggestion. You are also right that I did try to create this category by creating a page with the name "Category:Engineering organizations". The reason was that in my previous attempt I directly created a category with the name Members and associates of the U.S. Academy of Engineering" and it worked. Then I started populating it. But after this first successful attempt, I got failures at creating some new ones using this same direct method. I appreciate your fast reply and thanks again. You are great at helping new members. Dr.K. 18:29, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Hi again. I tried your method and it did not work either. I the article Hendrik Wade Bode I put [[Category:Founding members of the U.S. Academy of Engineering|Bode, Hendrik Wade]]<nowiki> and in the category Members and associates of the U.S. Academy of Engineering I put <nowiki>[[Category:Engineering organizations]] and the links stayed red. They never materialized. (Of course in the actual cases I did not put nowiki in front or after the double square brackets). Please try it yourself and let me know. For the moment I'll remove these categories from the articles as obviously they don't work at this time. Thanks again. Dr.K. 18:47, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Also please see the article: Arthur E. Raymond, the category I created (Founding members of the U.S. Academy of Engineering) is there. You can possibly troubleshoot from there. Thanks again. Dr.K. 19:01, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

It looks like I have misinterpreted what I've read in Wikipedia:Categorization. I haven't created categories before myself, and used that as a reference. But I've got it figured out now: You do need to create the category page, but the reason it didn't work for you is probably that you tried to create it with no text in the page. MediaWiki doesn't accept "blank" edits, where nothing is changed. Similarly, it doesn't accept blank page creates where no text is entered. The text you will want to put in a category is usually just placing it in parent categories. Due to lack of familiarity with the engineering organizations field, I placed Category:Founding members of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering as a subcategory of Category:Members and associates of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering, but if you find a place which is more appropriate you should change it. Another note: I'm not sure that putting a pipeline and the name in the category link actually does anything, but I could be mistaken. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 19:26, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Great! It works. I really appreciate your fast reply. As usual you have been a great advisor. I really enjoy using Wikipedia help with people like you around. I think I can take it from here. Take care. Dr.K. 19:38, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

By the way you also correctly placed the subcategory. Bye for now. Dr.K. 19:41, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

"Washington, D.C. neighborhoods" category - missing major neighborhood!

For the "Washington, D.C. neighborhoods" category, please link the Penn Quarter neighborhood in there also. Thanks!

Jermaine

Done. Remember that you can also do that yourself: Just edit the article Penn Quarter, Washington, D.C. and put the text [[Category:Washington, D.C. neighborhoods]] [[Category:Wikipedia archives]] at the end. This will put it in Category:Washington, D.C. neighborhoods. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 16:53, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the information!

METRIC MEASUREMENTS

Its absurd that measurements are given in the imperial and not metric system, please note that across the world, the metric system is predominantly used. Thus whereas american readers are satsified with feet, inches and miles, people outside the us are not.

daniel

That may be true, but don't forget that the US has a great influence on the rest of the world. In any case, there currently isn't any guideline in Wikipedia (not one that I'm aware of, anyway) that states that you should choose one or the other. Every editor writes with what they think is appropriate. Since this is the English language Wikipedia, many of the editors are from the US, which could explain why there are articles using the imperial system. If you think there should be a policy\guideline stating that all articles should use the metric system, you can propse this at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy). If you'll be able to convince people that is is desirable, such a policy can be added; If not, you will at least get an explanation why such a policy isn't recommended. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 14:50, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

You can also check out Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Measurements for some guidelines that do exist, and Wikipedia:Measurements Debate for some previous discussion of the issue. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 14:59, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Same revision, two different visible contents??

Hi, I recently added a test4 template to an anonymous IP talk page User talk:24.189.163.184. The previous version had the visible text:

This is the discussion page for an anonymous user, identified by the user's numerical IP address. Some IP addresses change periodically, and may be shared by several users. If you are an anonymous user and feel that irrelevant comments have been directed at you, please create an account or log in to avoid future confusion with other anonymous users. If you're concerned with privacy, registering also hides your IP address.

[RIR WHOIS lookup: America Europe Africa Asia-Pacific Latin America/Caribbeans]

If I go to the previous version and click the newer revision link, the above text is visible in what should be the current revision. However, if I click the view current revision link, it is not.

Do other editors see things this way as well? Is there an explanation for this? Did I do something wrong when adding my test4 template? --BostonMA 15:03, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

I see this text in both the links you mentioned. I don't know the specifics of this message, but I think it is auto-generated in a way that isn't related to the text in the page, although I, too, have seen (I think) cases where it didn't appear. I doubt it has anything to do with the template you inserted, so don't worry too much about it. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 15:26, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

I had thought I had thanked you, but reviewing the showed that I had not. Belated thanks. --BostonMA 01:42, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I can't believe it! Feed The Children wasn't made already??

I was a bit dismayed to see that no one made a Feed The Children article already! They've been around since before Wikipedia started, so why couldn't anyone have made it before? You'd think this article would've been made LONG ago, but why wasn't it? :-/ --Shultz III 21:37, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

There are likely hundreds of thousands of subjects that aren't yet covered on Wikipedia. Complaining that an article doesn't yet exist likely won't get you anywhere. However, requesting an article politely (rather than complaining) may encourage someone to begin an article. (^_^) --日本穣 21:56, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

I see you've made the right thing: Beeing bold and creating the article yourself! The reason this article did not exist so far is that everyone who noticed its absence complained about it rather than creating it (or perhaps just ignored it). -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 07:03, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

BTW, if you have an interest in this, it is much better to do some research yourself and expand the article, rather than waiting for someone else to do it. You have no way of telling if anyone is interested in this enough to do it. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 07:07, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Where has the talk page/discussion list gone?

Where has the talk page/discussion list gone? I know it exists because I have ben on it before and used it to join in with some talks. However I cannot find it any more! Does anyone know where it is so I can remember it in future?Aphswarrior 19:20, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand what you are referring to. Can you describe which place was it and what discussions took place there? -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 19:30, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

If I remember correctly it is a list of all of the discussions or disputed articles taking place at the time. It lists the topics by alphabetical order and so I could go over them and click to go to any topics which looked interesting. Looking back now, it may have just been the recently changed ones, as a list of all of them would be a very long article but it did have seperate pages (eg. page 1 had letters a-e etc.). However, I do not understand what you mean by which place was it.--Aphswarrior 20:23, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps Wikipedia:Requests for comment/All? -- Rick Block (talk) 21:13, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Information overload ... not what I NEED to know.

Wikipedia has information about just about everything... just about. What I could not find was how to change my email address if I've forgotten my password.

After changing my ISP, and the period during which my old ISP will forward emails having expired, I found I could not either change my password or enter a new email address to which a new password could be sent. Suggestion: Have a facility whereby, in such circumstances one may enter one's old email address, as evidence of identity, in order to gain access to account details. I think there is little likelihood that anyone other than the 'owner' of an account identity will know this detail; whereas most people in this situation will be able to recall the name of their previous email account.

Still hoping to gain access to my details.

All the best.

Graeme Moyse Alias: GridLok

• No, that would effectively make one's email address into a second password. It might be easy to guess (e.g., username@gmail.com) or posted on their userpage. If you've ever sent Wikipedia e-mail via the "Email this user" link, the recipient knows what email address is associated with your Wikipedia account. If you've used to send email to Wikien-L, well, that's another record. I'm sorry that you're in this fix, but I don't think there's any way to create a way around it that wouldn't compromise existing users. FreplySpang (talk) 02:02, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Typeset

I have only just discovered your site and it looks as though it will be interesting.However,I am completely put off by your horrible typeset which is pretty grim throughout, but in the case of the part-solid type is virtually illegible.Can you do anything? —This unsigned comment is by 82.19.69.200 (talk • contribs) . 17:50, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

The typeset looks fine to me - just a perfectly standard sans serif. Perhaps there's a problem with your browser? Clearing your cache may have some effect. If you sign up for an account you can also choose from a variety of skins that will make the site look different and in some cases change the font. If none of those work, I can't think of anything else.--Cherry blossom tree 22:08, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

if this site can be "edited" how do we know what is truth and what is just made up? Am I missing something? —This unsigned comment is by 141.149.120.18 (talk • contribs) 22:25, March 15, 2006.

See Wikipedia:Replies to common objections. Thanks. Canderson7 ^(talk) 23:02, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

In a nutshell: Anything which isn't true has a high probability to be deleted within a very short time. This gives every piece of information in Wikipedia a very high probability of being true, definitely comparable with any other source you can find. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 18:23, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Design

Guys,

Big W is overboard in amazing things it carries and does. But... My wife has commented, au passant, that she doesn´t like W´s look and she doesn't feel confortable using/like W. I couldn´t get from her what she would like W looked like or worked and she dismissed my bugging with "you like it because you like computers/you´re nerdier than I am." So, as she is likely to do not nothing - she doesn´t care with W anyway - I came up here to bring her comments.

I like W and its look. But, maybe you can think of something to have more appeal/ease of use. Specially ease of use, where she focused her dislike with Big W.

Big cahunas to you all.

Fábio/São Paulo - Brasil

"Random Article" imrovement suggestion

While some may disagree with me, I would like to see the Random Article feature no longer lead to "disambiguation" pages. When I'm bored silly and looking for a random article, I'm looking for some content to read! :)

That may or may not be better, but I think it is also somewhat technically difficult. With some effort it can be done, but the point is that (as far as I'm told) the developers really have their hands full, so they should focus their energies on things which are definitely better. Many suggestions get the response, "so true, but the developers don't have enough time to implement it". Maybe in a few years. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 08:52, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Pictures

Hello,

I am trying to modify a picture that I uploaded to in Timothy Dalton's profile. The picture file name is: Tdalton_007.jpg . Whenenver I finish uploading and complete the part of the copyright, I don't see a link to main page profile (in that case, a link to Timothy Dalton Page). Can you please help?

Regards,

You want to put your picture into the Timothy Dalton article, is this correct? You should include the text [[image:Tdalton_007.jpg]] in that article at the point you would like the picture to appear. See Wikipedia:Extended image syntax if you want to specify the size, caption and so on.--Cherry blossom tree 23:03, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Missing Canadian Male Musicians

I really love your site. It's the 1st place I go to get information. I just wanted to point out that Jeff Healy (Jeff Healy Band) and Tom Cochrane are missing from your list. Hope you can get their info.

Thanks again for the great site.

We have reasonable-ish articles on Jeff Healey and Tom Cochrane. See List of Canadian musicians for others.--Cherry blossom tree 23:00, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

typeface/font

the typeface of Wikipedia is SO hard to read!! —This unsigned comment was added by Betsey67brister (talk • contribs) .

• You could consider changing your broswer's font size. In Firefox, you go to View > Text size > Increase to increase the text size. In Internet Explorer, go to View > Text size > Largest to change the font size of the page. Hope this helps. Kilo-Lima|^(talk) 13:30, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Buy merchandise from Wikipedia

I asked this before and lost the address, where is your store? Why is it so hard to find Wikipedia things to buy? Why isn't it on the front page? Is it a secret? Come on...you told me once, tell me again. Where do I go to but Wikipedia merchandise? jhingle@sbcglobal.net

This is the link you want. If you need it in the future you can find it on the m:Fundraising#Donation_methods Donations link on the sidebar.--Cherry blossom tree 17:41, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Hello Wikipedia.

There is nothing for me to complain about wikipedia. If I am complaining then it means I am complaining about my teacher. I learn many things from wiki. Well what I wanted to convey is, it would be really good if all articles in English were made available in all other language mentioned in "select language" list. So any Non English speaking person can learn much in his own language as I did in English —This unsigned comment was added by Rnarendr (talk • contribs) .

Thanks for your note! It is great when articles are available in as many articles as possible, and Wikipedians are currently working on over 200 editions of Wikipedia. However, none of these are yet half the size of the English edition, so there are many articles only available in English, or in a small number of languages. If you use languages other than English, you can help by writing and improving articles in other editions of Wikipedia, as well as English. Warofdreams talk 03:33, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Anonymous users

Why does it seem like some Wikipedians don't have any respect for anonymous users? Some of them do, but others sometimes don't. Why? For example, a user once told me that if I nominated an article for a peer review, more people will be willing to look at it if I had a username. Why? --71.118.81.169 00:49, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I guess some people are more willing to trust a person that they can attach a name to. If an anonymous user makes good-faith edits, I tend to treat them with the same respect as a person with a username. -- RattleMan 01:17, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Do other people do that as well? And also, it doesn't seem very fair. It's kind of like jumping to conclusions! Why couldn't we all just treat each other the way we would want to be treated? I would! --71.118.81.169 08:13, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

First, if you have a user name, with time there will be people that are familiar with you and your previous work, and if it is good, they are likely (and with good cause) to trust you more than a complete stranger they know nothing about. Second, the fact that people tend to trust a username they don't know more than an IP, has a statistical basis: I don't know the details, but I think it's safe to assume that almost 50% of anon edits are vandalism, and still more are good-faith but misguided (since usually anons are new users). The same percentages for user names are undoubtedly much lower. People have less chance of erring when trusting IPs less than usernames. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 10:18, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, we could still treat each other fairly. If I got a username, I wouldn't care who I was talking to. I would treat them like I treat everybody else. --71.105.12.174 20:06, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

New Main Page Format

Does anyone else think the new main page format looks bad and amatuerish?- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 03:48, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I like it. It's simple, clean, and easy to read. --日本穣 05:08, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

expire link??(cant see page)

Hi tehr i was searching for my caste and finally i found a link on my sub caste ,but i think that page is moved or deleted or expired plz plz plz can u tell me how i can read/see that page,i really/badly want to read/see taht page that page is in jat/jatt caste and sub caste is SIAL

here is that page's link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sial

here is main page's link (from where i found that page link(abve mentioned page)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jat#Famous_Jat_people

• That article doesn't have the information you are looking for. Instead, it has information on the make-up of part of the earth's crust. It looks like we don't have an article on the Sial sub-caste, but you can start one by following the red link. Warofdreams talk 12:31, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

page layout change

The new layout means more space in between lines which makes it harder to read and increases the scroll needed. Is this really a good thing? single spaced text is easier to read than double spaced, or 1 1/5 spaced or whatever and it takes up less screen space. SpookyMulder 13:32, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Misleading Knowledge

Three questions on the same subject As your site is called Encyclopedia do you monitor your site to see that the content is not erroneous? Would you advise a high school student to use Wikipedia at the risk of using erroneous data in his or her papers? Do you have a red flag system to react quickly on erroneous data? Thank you Eric

There are mechanisms that reduce the amount of errors, but they can never give a 100% guarantee. This is true not only for Wikipedia, but for any source of information. Ultimately, the accuracy of the information in Wikipedia is comparable, if not better, than any other source you can find - So it can be used as a useful reference. However, be careful not to rely only on Wikipedia (or any other source) - if you find a piece of information in a single source, it has a good chance of being incorrect. However, if the same fact appears in 3 sources, the chance they will all be wrong is much less. This method of conducting research using several references is good not only for high school, but throughout your academic (or other) career. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 17:54, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

You should never use an encyclopedia – whether Wikipedia or Encyclopedia Britannica – as the sole source of information for a research paper. An encyclopedia is a tertiary source; it represents information that has been collected, summarized, interpreted, and possibly mishandled, mispresented, or biased by one or more authors. All encyclopedias (though not necessarily all articles) contain errors.

An encyclopedia article can be a useful general guide or quick reference on a topic, but to really get to detail, nuance, and solid facts you need to hit primary sources and reputable secondary sources. Conveniently, many of our articles contain footnotes (which identify the source of particular facts in our text) and recommendations for further reading (primary and secondary sources on the topic).

As Meni describes above, you're best to find multiple independent sources for any information. Properly citing your sources through footnoting or endnoting is also a great strategy for 'covering your ass'—it shows that you care about academic honesty, giving credit, and avoiding plagiarism; it shows that you put in some work looking for appropriate sources; and it gives you someone else to blame if your facts turn out to be in error. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 23:21, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

search results

it would be helpful if the search program checked for speeling errors like it does in google. —This unsigned comment was added by 61.246.76.116 (talk • contribs) .

Well, other Wikipedians check it and spell things right. --71.118.77.204 01:38, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia's search facility is not our strongest feature. However, you can use Google to search Wikipedia, please see Wikipedia:Searching#Google. -- Rick Block (talk) 02:19, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

WIKI bar

something liek the google search bar that runs in the menu part of your browser.... that would be really sweet. oh yeah, it has to be for MAC!!!!! —This unsigned comment was added by 24.205.227.183 (talk • contribs) .

You may be looking for something like this if you have Mac OS X. There's also a Firefox plug-in that works in Windows and on Mac OS X versions of Firefox. --日本穣 06:39, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

I didn't vandalize and i dont appreciate being told i did!

I was sent a message saying that i vandalized the Helen Keller Page by Dakotakhann, I think she should have looked at it before she said this. When i went to the page there was nonsense and a disgusting joke about Keller, Roosevelt and Truman, i deleated the joke. i didnt add nonsence and whoever did got away with it. i think She should be more careful of who She accuses of doing something.there has to be a better way of finding out who did what.I tried to contact this administrator but the email link dosent work and her talk page is blocked so you can't message her. —This unsigned comment was added by Tinkerbell630 (talk • contribs) .

I tried to figure out what is the problem, but:

1. Your post here is your first edit with this account, Tinkerbell630. So to figure out what happened, you'll have to tell us what was your IP address with which you made those edits, and to which the warning meassage was sent.
2. There is no user called Dakotakhann, so you'll have to find the exact name of the user who sent you the message.

If you supply these details, I can look further into it. However, be assured that the history page of any article allows anyone to know exactly what every user did - But with anonymous users, identified by their IP address, there can sometimes be some confusion. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 09:44, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

RSS feed for the article of the day!

does anyone feel that there might be an interest in having the "article of the Day" in an RSS feed format? i have a custom home page, and would love to have this present to get my mind off work on a day to day basis.

~Angelo, Ohio

angelo.pappano@gmail.com

• see the various feeds available at Wikipedia:Syndication. ∴ here…♠ 20:27, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Login Errors on Main Page

When I'm logged on and I go to the main page, it asks me to log on when I'm clearly logged on. It only happens on the main page. —This unsigned comment was added by Bubbleboys (talk • contribs) .

It may be that you are viewing a cached version of the main page. If this is the case, you can fix it by holding "ctrl" and pressing "R". Warofdreams talk 15:11, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Sign up problem

Four days ago I signed up, but didn't respond to the confimation email in time. Now when I try again, it says the username is in use. I used a quite unusual username, so I doubt someone has uses it - I suspect my original attempt is still "in the system", even though the confirmation time has long elapsed.

Will my original attempt be erased so I can try again? If so, how long must I wait? If not, this consitutes a bug whereby usernames are "burned" without ever being used. The username should be freed up again when the confirmation email timeout has elapsed.

There is no requirement for a confirmation e-mail to log in - this is only to receive e-mail. You should be able to log in without problems.--Cherry blossom tree 23:26, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Credited for others' edits

I don't know if it's a result of posting the same time as someone else, but recently I was credited as making some severe edits to the Nico Robin page. [3] I know next to nothing about One Piece, but after being directed from another page I corrected a capitalization edit and changed a link. The one at 18:12 shows massive phrase changes, editing of the article and what look like purposeful errors in spelling and word use.

I won't lie and say I'm not freaked out a little, and am changing my password as a result. I'm seriously worried about this. Voice of Treason 03:31, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

This sounds like a bug. I'll leave a message for one of the developers. -- Rick Block (talk) 03:47, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

BTW - do you edit only from an unshared personal computer, or from public computers (like at a library)? -- Rick Block (talk) 03:52, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

I edit from my laptop on home, so no, that wouldn't be it. I'm the only one on it, too. Voice of Treason 04:03, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Most likely you started your edit from an older version view, perhaps an old diff. --Brion 09:17, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Special pages

I have not been able to find any active page(s) on which to discuss Special pages. The closest things have been various Wikipedia talk pages, especially Wikipedia talk:Special pages, but most of the comments that I see there are from other bewildered users. The specific question that I had that led to this "larger issue" was about the frequency of updates to special pages. Since nobody seems to know when a given special page was last updated, I think it would be very helpful to have that information on that special page itself. I am posting here in case there are already-existing people or pages that deal with this, but if this belongs on Wikipedia:Village pump (technical), I'll go there. Ardric47 06:00, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Some of them have talk pages in Wikipedia: space (such as Wikipedia_talk:Special:Shortpages) but others don't. If you want to discuss one of the latter (or if no-one responds at the former) you can probably take it to the Village Pump without too much worry. --Cherry blossom tree 14:57, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Major General Problem with Wikipedia Organization

Table of Contents

Wikipedia is simply insufficiently organized for use by the general public, i.e., as a primary reference work. I think it has grown to the point where it deserves a general Table of Contents. This is badly needed to make Wikipedia useful to a new or occasional user.

I suspect that more contributors and administrators do not comprehend how big a problem this is, because the more involved someone becomes in the project, the more familiar they become with the Byzantine structural framework, and they have fewer and fewer problems negotiating the site. It is just too darn hard to find your way around. Pages such as redirects and disambiguation help, of course, but depending on them for finding topics is myopic.

We need, situated in large print at the top of the Main Page, a link to a general Table of Contents in a hierarchical structure and, secondarily, a link to a comprehensive index. I cannot tell you how badly I think this is needed at this point in the site's development.

There would be a second benefit to a Table of Contents: it would highlight specific organizational shortcomings. Someone trying to work on it would be forced to notice duplicative, multiple, incomplete, and even contradictory articles.

In general, the Main Page devotes too little attention to navigation and pushes content too high. The navigation is appropriate for a website of 20 or 30 pages, but a massive body of information, presented in a number of formats (articles, portals, pages, templates, etc.), should have more intial emphasis on navigation.

You can look at Lumrix search to find fast information on WP. In fact, maybe WP should implement this search as their basic search or offer different search engines so people with different needs find have the search engine they need. 132.204.207.108 19:42, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Volunteer Contributors and Editors

The same problem exists for contributors and editors. I have no problems with Wiki formatting, style rules, etc.; they are what they are. Anyone who wants to participate just needs to learn them. Where changes and experiments are taking place, some complexity is unavoidable.

Learning them, however, is much too complicated by a lack of overall organization in the teaching and internal reference pages. AFAIK, the knowledge and answers to most or all questions exist somewhere on the site. But I'm not sure the more expert editors and administrators appreciate exactly how hard it is to find answers and explanations. The result is to discourage contributors from applying correct formatting and attributing factual sources, or else to waste the time they have allotted to spend on their contribution, trying to figure out some arcane formatting rule instead of supplying content, editing, etc.

I am a believer in Wikipedia's "mission", I suppose you might say. I try to set aside blocks of spare time to help out. But my Lord, do you have any idea how much time a new editor must waste trying to figure out simple matters, such as writing footnotes? What we badly need is a separate Table of Contents with a link to a single page for each topic, for instance, an entry "Footnotes" that links to a clear and comprehensive explanation of footnotes. I suppose the first entry on such a page might be "new users -- we suggest you use this method" and just tell the poor n00b contributor one single footnote style, spelled out in simple language.

BTW, my blessing on whoever wrote the cheat sheet, which I finally stumbled onto.

Special:Allpages is the list of every article. Ultimately there is a limtied amount we can do to help new users do stuff. I've been an admin for over a year and I still don't understand the wiki markup for tables.Geni 10:24, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Auto Template

I don't want to throw out too many ideas in one post, but it would help me to have an automatic template automatically applied to a new page, or alternatively, a big button that would load a basic template, perhaps containing a sample paragraph in a comment tag with every common formatting device as an ostensive "cheat sheet".

Itis been suggested. I'm not sure what happened to the idea last time.Geni 10:25, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Personal Note

I hope this isn't viewed as a complaint, but as a helpful suggestion. I wish I had the knowledge or skills to do some of this myself, in the Wiki spirit, but I don't. Maybe I could at least try to edit some of the less-clear formatting explanation pages to make them easier to follow.

Toolbox:What links here

I want to be able to sort the links by name or by date last pasted - in general - when seeing the What links here link in the toolbox to the left. There are templates such as Template:California State Highway WikiProject that I need to know which articles' (talk pages) haven't used it yet. --Geopgeop 05:57, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Adding an article

Hi, I'm reading about your encyclopedia and also I'm a new user. I know I can edit articles, but what if I want to add an article? What If I want to include something on the pedia that is not there yet? How do we write something into the wikipedia to make it bigger and bigger? Thanks.—This unsigned comment was added by 212.133.22.66 (talk • contribs) .

You will need to create an account (why?) in order to be able to create new articles. Registration is quick and easy, and you actually gain anonymity as your IP address will no longer be visible to the whole world to see. Feel free to contact me if you have further questions.—Ëzhiki (ërinacëus amurënsis) 19:48, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

To add an article, type the name in the "Go" box and enter. If the article doesn't exist, it will give you the option of starting it. Adding to an article is part of the "edit" function.

Rejected submissions due to no change

When reverting vandalism I sometimes have trouble with the edit not "taking." Often this is simply a slow connection, Wiki server, or confused browser (or cache). However, sometimes the rejection is actually due to the fact that the edit would result in no change (the vandal added and then removed part of their edits). This is somewhat confusing. It would be great if the Wiki would present a warning message stating that the edit was rejected, and why. Thanks for a great site! MFago 04:49, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Format for geographical place articles

This is not exactly a complaint, but a question - I notice that many articles about geographical places, buildings or institutions in the USA do not mention which country they are in, or at least not in the first paragraph of the article whereas most articles about places in other countries do. For example, compare Peak District with Redmond, Washington. I appreciate that they often mention the state, and by following the links it will soon become apparent that the place is indeed in the United States. Is there anything in the style guide about this? I couldn't find it but that doesn't mean it's not there! I feel that it would be consistent to mention the country (or countries in the case of features which cross national boundaries) in the first paragraph for any geographical location. But I don't want to embark on a campaign of minor edits to put country names in if this is contrary to the style guide or unnecessary.

Rachel Pearce 15:35, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Lead section sort of implies the country should be mentioned, but this is not explicit amywhere as far as I know. Seems like a good idea to me. -- Rick Block (talk) 05:02, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Unfair Deletions

Some users on this site have been deleting pages excessively and "following" users around to delete any information they might put up. If the person has given evidence, and has a good case, then why do they continue. This has got to stop. These users have obviously nothing better to do(or no other job to get done, say guarding other pages as well) because this really is immature and must stop. I mean, what ever happened to a trust system. (Regardless if the users provided enough proof, you should be able to fairly judge without being superficial and jumping to conclusions.) —This unsigned comment was added by 209.163.118.161 (talk • contribs) .

I don't mean this in a snide way, but have you read Wikipedia:Resolving_disputes? The first step is to talk with the user(s) you might have a disagreement with. Looking at your contributions (Special:Contributions/209.163.118.161), it would appear you haven't done this. Can you try this? -- Rick Block (talk) 05:11, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

chinese pages

For chinese pages, is there a way to always be in traditional? because i always have to click the traditional button

Vandalism?

Lots of people have sent me reports that I have vandalised articles...but I have not edited any articles yet! I am rather worried as I do not wish to have my editing rights removed...what is this? Someone please help.

If I have offended anybody or posted this under a wrong category please forgive me. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.169.41.47 (talk • contribs)

The problem is that you have not yet created a user account. This way, you can only be identified by your IP address - And unfortunately, different people may have the same IP address (and the same person can have different IPs). The warnings you received were meant for other people using the same IP address - and apparently, using it to vandalize articles. The best way to avoid this confusion is to create an account - You can also read about the benefits of creating an account. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 08:14, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

search function is case sensitive

Hi, i've noticed that when doing searches, if i use the wrong case when doing a search it will say that no such article exists, even if the spelling is exactly the same. And usually it will not even list the article with the same spelling but different case under "relavancy". I think this may cause a lot of articles to be created that already exist. Many overcome this by using redirect pages, for example Santa Clause is an article, but Santa clause is not, however it gets redirected to the Santa Clause article. Thats a simple case, but if the lowercase version wasn't redirected, someone would create a new article, believing it didn't exist. When you get into proper names or initials you have more problems, for example SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence), is the main article, but if you type in seti, someone has created a new page for a topic that already existed, because it didn't show up with a search. I'm sure there are hundreds of such examples.

A basic fix would be to have all the different case-spellings come up under "relevant articles" when you do a search. Also if there were a way to alter the search function so that when mispelled words are entered into a search, the results would come back, not with just "no article with that title exists", but with closely spelled words, or most likely relevant articles. Major search engines like Google will come back with, did you mean, and then give you the right spelling.

Another way to solve the problem would be to drop the case sensitivity of the search feature, even if it was nessecary to have articles with different case spellings of the same word, you could have them show up on a disambiguation page, with a case insensitive search.

User talk:Daemion

Are you talking about search or go? Search is always case insensitive (see Wikipedia:Searching). Go is actually case sensitive, but usually appears not to be (see Wikipedia:Go button). Article titles and wikilinks are always case sensitive. If you've created an article that ends up requiring an exact case entry for Go to find it (multiple words with mixed case initial letters in the words, like "Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence"), the usual workaround is to create a redirect from a form the Go rules will match (for example, "Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence"). If Go does not find a match, the default is to treat the request as if Search had been used which should already find different case-spellings. If you have examples where this doesn't work, please let me know. -- Rick Block (talk) 18:07, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Plagiarism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Georg_Faust This article has been copied from the Walter Kaufmann introduction to his translation of Goethe's Faust, Part 1, published by Anchor Books (a division of Random Books) in 1961. I am reading portions of this word for word. Walter Kaufman is a professor at Princeton University. If you have questions or concerns, please email me at bfalcon.cf@gmail.com

I see this all the time. Instead of writing an article, someone simply cuts and pastes something from the web. It's not just Wikipedia, either, it's all over the internet.

We might consider (sigh) yet another kind of cleanup needed, "rewrite so it doesn't blatantly violate copyright laws". Apollo 11:59, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Even if this page says it was created by me, it was just a copyedit to break it out of the Faust article, so that entire entry also needs checking. (See old version of Faust.) Nixdorf 21:45, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

I'll follow up with the original poster offline. As Nixdorf has pointed out, more than one article may be affected. Cheers, -Will Beback 06:50, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

"Lolicon" image; Please bring this to Jimbo's attention.

My inner child is crying at the existence of such an image on this site. People claim it's legal, however, Wikipedia can decide whatever we want. Many people wish to keep it there, but Jimbo will hopefully have other plans.

Remember the old wheel war on the "Template:User pedo" userbox? Jimbo stepped in, said "I'm sorry but just, no. I'm sure there's a CSD rule or three which covers this, but I honestly don't care. Just, no.", and thus by Jimbo's decree, the war came to a close.

For those of you who wonder what this image is, THIS IS NOT SAFE FOR WORK. You have been warned. This links to the image's talk page, for those of you who develop second thoughts. Simply click on the "image" tab, but only if you are safe, and will not be bothered by an Anime illustration of a child's exposed rear end. This image is worse than the old pedo userbox because it actually shows a graphic illustration; the pedo userbox showed nothing more than a description of what the user possibly is. Therefore, if Jimbo wanted to remove that userbox, he'll most certainly want to remove this image.

If the media finds this, as well as this article, also NOT SAFE FOR WORK, they will have one heck of a field day! If you know about the Siegenthaler incident, imagine what this one might entail! I strongly, strongly recommend a removal of that image before the media gets wind of it.

Finally, one last question: If such content is allowed on Wikipedia now, what will Wikipedia have in 25 years??? --Shultz IV 04:37, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not censored. The content is not illegal under the laws of Florida (where the servers that host Wikipedia are located), and so the inclusion or otherwise of an image is determined by a consensus of editors on the talk page of the article concerned. If you have any comments on the article then that is the place to raise them. Be sure first to read the summary of the facts in the blue box - it is the best example of an introduction to controversial topic I have ever seen. Thryduulf 16:43, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Under the "Wikipedia is not censored" clause, even the "Template:User pedo" userbox would've been allowed too had it not been for Jimbo's decree. He thought that was revolting; wait 'til he sees this image! --Shultz IV 20:40, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

The two issues are very different. One is the use of an image in an encylopaedic context, the other a user proclaiming themselves to be something. However this page is not the place for this discussion. As it says at the top of the page "Please leave complaints for specific articles on that article's talk page", your complaint is about an image used in the Lolicon article, so it should be made at talk:Lolicon. You also seem to want to draw Jimbo's attention to the image, the best place to do that is to post a message at user talk:Jimbo Wales. Thryduulf 00:13, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

I mean, why should that image be used when "Lolicon" can use an image that isn't so blatantly disgusting that's still relevant to the article? By the way, Necrophilia doesn't show a guy doing what necrophiliacs want to do! --Shultz IV 01:03, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Btw, I already posted on Jimbo's talk page, as well as the talk page for that image. Thanks though. --Shultz IV 01:04, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Contact for issues on deleting pages

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,

I had a discussion on a delete page topic on the german wikipedia pages. I was not really happy with the way this got handled and did not get a reasonable chance on this topic beeing handled appropriatly. I wish to be given a contact on a contact that has authority for handling these issues directly and with the correct attention.

Thanks a lot -- NovGREEn-C 15:40, 2. Apr 2006 (CEST)

You will need to contact someone at the German Wikipedia - no-one at the English Wikipedia has any authority there (except maybe User:Jimbo Wales, theoretically.) --Cherry blossom tree 23:28, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

search

Search needs to be made better, i.e.: more advanced, i guess mabye with boolean or whatever it's called. I'm not sure if that's how it works, or if boolean is the right type of search needed, but that kinda search which gives you the option to be more specific, & to specifiy, what to search with, inculde, exclude, etc..

thanks

24.70.95.203 07:44, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately all Wikipedia's software has to be written by volunteers. Making a more subtle search function is low down on the list of things for the developers to do.--Cherry blossom tree 23:31, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. What do mean by subtle? Is there anyway I could help the devlopers? Maybe help them develop?

thanks

24.70.95.203 13:23, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

By subtle I mean capable of more than just a simple text search. As far as helping the developers goes, you may want to see this thread on the wikitech-l mailing list. Note you'll have to sign up to the list of you'd like to post to it.

Cherry blossom tree 22:51, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, for the reply

24.70.95.203 18:43, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

How to become an admin.

I'm curious to know, how does one became an admin? Do you have to pay? Is there a certain requirment for how many years you've been a Wikipedia user?

Any responses are appreciated. Thanks. —This unsigned comment was added by MajorTomsCK (talk • contribs) .

Admins are nominated and selected through a consensus process, see Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship. Basic qualifications are 3-6 months editing across a range of namespaces, familiarity with at least most of the processes in place, and a desire to do things admins do (deal with vandals and close *fD discussions being two of the high runners). Oh yeah, and knowing how to sign your talk page posts ;) (with ~~~~). -- Rick Block (talk) 22:54, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Pictures don't appear

For some reason, no graphics will appear in Wikipedia. The computer pauses a long time, then puts an X where the picture should be, on all pages that I have visited, on or about 2006 April 4 3 pm EDT. Is there a technical problem with them?

Changes

When we click on the 'show changes' button, spaces, & returns should be shown as changes; we need to know excatly what has changed, & everything that has changed. If you need ispiration, look @ schorlarly journals-_- Please leave a comment if you'd like more clarification on this issue. You can contact me [email removed] [since they haven't instituted the option to delete your account, made their own licence, or the GNU licence hasn't changed yet, I haven't signed up].

thanks

24.70.95.203 13:45, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Institutions

I think that Wikimedia should be where Help, Reference Desk, Proposals, Policy, etc. should be located. Also, Beer Parlour & Tea Room should be deleted, etc. & if there are any other institutions like as mentioned in this comment, then they should be deleted to. User pages should also be consolidated into 1 central location, namely Wikimedia, or a separate place, but these are draft ideas, but the general idea, would organize Wikimedia & save resources. Taking the point of saving resources, Accounts should be allowed to be deleted. I noticed that all Wikimedia Projects including Wikimedia is sorely disorganized; on http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page, Refernce Desk, Compliants, Help Desk, etc. cannot be found; the main page of Wikimedia ain't linked to those resource institutions; no part of its entirety has Refernce Desk, Compliants, Help Desk, etc., not to mention Wikitionary, & I fear, other Wiki Projects as well. Coudn't there be a project/group of people or devlopers clean this mess up?!?!

Please leave one if you'd like more clarification on this issue. You could also contact me [email removed] [since they haven't instituted the option to delete your account, made their own licence, or the GNU licence hasn't changed yet, I haven't signed up].

thanks

24.70.95.203 14:41, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Extra Space

I noticed that in wikihtml, when we edit, formating has extra space, for example, when we edit a comment, there's a space between the $Subject/headline:$ & the content of the message. Another example is $== Extra Space ==$ is also the same as $==Extra Space==$. Does this make comments larging in size as bytewise? Even if not, it could create confusion. So I guess Mediawiki needs to be tweaked/the devlopers\the codes needs a little editing?

Please leave one if you'd like more clarification on this issue. You could also contact me (Redacted) [since they haven't instituted the option to delete your account, made their own licence, or the GNU licence hasn't changed yet, I haven't signed up].

thanks

24.70.95.203 20:16, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Automatic Edit Summaries

When editors leave blank edit summaries, would it not be possible to create an automatic summary? I know it has the potential to get messy, but I'm thinking of something simple like "AutoSummary: +(first 30 characters added), -(first 30 characters deleted)." This would keep a lot of us from needlessly checking out lots of good edits (especially interwiki stuff), and a lot of vandalism would be easier to spot.

Examples:

A user adds "Poop" to an article, with no edit summary, one is created reading

"AutoSummary: +(Poop), -()"

A user changes a large block of text to "poop", the summary would read

"AutoSummary: +(Poop), -(The dating of the Industrial R...)

Granted, if the change is to a scattering of text ([4], e.g.) things get awkward. One possible answer, though, would be to bail out-- not generate a summary in such cases. Or maybe someone can see another approach? TIA, -- Mwanner | Talk 20:57, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Redlinks on watchlist

Apparently something was just changed about how the complete watchlist (when you click on "display and edit the complete list") is displayed, because several pages that don't have articles (but do have talk pages; talk archives for example) are suddenly no longer listed. However, when they are edited the edits are listed on my watchlist... Does anybody know if there is any way for me to see everything that's on my watchlist, including those redlinks? --Fritz Saalfeld (Talk) 22:04, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Okay, looks like it was fixed. --Fritz Saalfeld (Talk) 10:05, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Institutions

Wikipedia serves as all Wiki Projects' highest form of governemnt; I don't think that's right. I think that Wikimedia should be where Help, Reference Desk, Proposals, Policy, etc. should be located. Also, Beer Parlour & Tea Room should be deleted, etc. & if there are any other institutions like as mentioned in this comment, then they should be deleted to. User pages should also be consolidated into 1 central location, namely Wikimedia, or a separate place, but these are draft ideas, but the general idea, would organize Wikimedia & save resources. Taking the point of saving resources, Accounts should be allowed to be deleted.

Please leave one if you'd like more clarification on this issue. You could also contact me <redact> [since they haven't instituted the option to delete your account, made their own licence, or the GNU licence hasn't changed yet, I haven't signed up].

thanks

24.70.95.203 14:23, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

See http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page Martin 13:11, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. I went to the link, & I noticed that all Wikimedia Projects including Wikimedia is sorely disorganized;, still, the above issue has not been addressed;: on the link, nowhere was there Refernce Desk, Compliants, Help Desk, etc.. Also, Wikitionary has no links in any part of its entirety which would lead to Refernce Desk, Compliants, Help Desk, etc.. Coudn't there be a project or devlopers clean this mess up?!?!

Please leave one if you'd like more clarification on this issue. You could also contact me <redact> [since they haven't instituted the option to delete your account, made their own licence, or the GNU licence hasn't changed yet, I haven't signed up].

thanks

24.70.95.203 14:23, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Your premise is simply incorrect, Wikipedia has no power or jurisdiction over the other projects. They are all self-contained. Wikimedia is not a project, it is the umbrella organization. Wikimedia is the only organization with power and jurisdiction over the others. And yes, Meta (which is a wiki about wikimedia) is quite disorganized, and they are working on that.

Thanks for the reply.

Your right wikipedia has no power of jurisdiction over the other projects, & I'm glad for it; if that wasn't the case, we'd have a bigger problem on our hands. Excactly, if Wikimedia is the Umbrella organization, then it should have Help Desk, not Wikipedia; in the current state, only Wikipedia has Help Desk, & this is just an example, as you can see with Refence Desk, etc.., which correlates to the fact that Wikipedia acts as the Umbrella organization, in some areas, & I hope that this gets brought up & I hope this changes.

And I'm a bit puzzled by what you mean by Meta.

By the way, you forgot to sign-_-'

Please leave one if you'd like more clarification on this issue. You could also contact me <redact> [since they haven't instituted the option to delete your account, made their own licence, or the GNU licence hasn't changed yet, I haven't signed up].

thanks

24.70.95.203 16:03, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Why is it so difficult to find out how to do things?

Yet again I have tried for HALF AN HOUR how to do something. I CANNOT BE BOTHERED NOW. I won't even say what it is I'm looking for because there is NO FFFFFINNNNG POINT!!!!!! --A bit iffy 08:59, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

So, you found yourself at the helpdesk, where those questions can be answered, and didn't even tell us what the problem is? --Kickstart70·Talk 17:16, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

A weird thing!!! Your userpage is more sophisticated than those of most experienced users and still couldn't find your way through this place? Good luck! -- Szvest 17:20, 8 April 2006 (UTC) ^{Wiki me up&#153;}

Well, I for one, can empathize-- I've been here quite a while (7000+ edits) and I'm still not sure where to look for things sometimes, or where best to ask a question, and posting a query that will make sense to someone else can be time consuming. Instruction creep really is a problem here, though I don't have any idea how to rein it in. Is there any kind of map to the instruction/policy pages? -- Mwanner | Talk 17:37, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

You know, a 'List of Wikipedia pages on which you can ask questions', with a short description of what purpose they serve, would be ideal for this. --Kickstart70·Talk 18:05, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that's a good idea, though then the problem becomes where to add links to it. (...later...) I just spent a while wandering around Help:Contents, which I'd never seen before. It got me to Wikipedia:Questions (via Getting started). Maybe it just needs expanding? -- Mwanner | Talk 19:04, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Kickstart70, Szvest, Mwanner for your responses - if you do revisit you'll have noticed I've toned down the title of this section. I've slept on this and here my responses:

1. Kickstart70: Now I think of it, if I had stated here what the specific problem was, it would I suppose have been a misuse of this page which is for complaints like this rather than questions ;)
2. Mwanner: I do agree about the problem of instruction creep - it just makes it difficult to find something, and you can't find out where to ask where to find something. If there is a good map to instruction/policy pages I would like to know where it is. The help system is strangely circular: if you go to Wikipedia:Help you see a lot of stuff there, so you wade through the FAQs pages, then through other pages, which recommend other pages in turn, which point you back to Wikipedia:Help and slowly you lose the will to live. --A bit iffy 09:58, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree the help pages are not that well organized, but generally I find it possible (sometimes resorting to google searches of entire site by adding "site:en.wikipedia.org" to the google search string) to find nearly anything. You (or anyone else) can also personally ask (on their talk page) the user who welcomed you. You (or anyone else) can also personally ask me if you'd like (I respond to a fair number of questions at the Wikipedia:Help desk). Most things are meant to be simple and self-evident, although there are certainly plenty of cases where this isn't true. In any event, I hope you don't leave in frustration. -- Rick Block (talk) 16:18, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

I usually find what I'm looking for, but one of the things that takes me so long is the high number of outdated or "inactive" help and procedure pages. Ardric47 19:16, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

We can host images and (only OGG) audios. Why can't we host videos yet?

I remember Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia 1997 edition, which had videos. State-of-the-art for the time, really. (Does Compton's still make CD encyclopedias today, btw?) On Wikipedia, which is due to release a CD and book edition in October I believe, there are no video files to be seen here. Any idea why that is?

--Shultz IV 15:47, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Videos are allowed - see m:Video policy. It's just that there are fewer of them available under free licences and they are more difficult for people to create (at a guess.) --Cherry blossom tree 19:53, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Problems with Danny Lilithborne

Hi my username is Neptunekh. When in the past I've tried to add links on the SailorMoon pages a user named Danny Lilithborne deletes them. He says fansites aren't allowed on Wikipedia. Thanks!

Fansites are occasionally allowed, but only in exceptional circumstances such as being the main source of information on a topic. Wikipedia cannot link to them indiscriminately otherwise every page would have hundreds of links at the end, which would be of very little value. Read this for more. --Cherry blossom tree 10:24, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Also see Wikipedia:External links Jon513 12:45, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Etiquette ?

I have a disclaimer on my user talk page of what I will keep in regards to comments; and its outline what I will keep and get rid of. Even within that disclaimer I provide a link of where I stand on certain issues so I do not have to deal with the petty arguements and accusations. Is thier a specific rule against this. Do note every comment I receive, I do give a reply but I do not find it necessary to keep all comments for every user. I will like to hear your comments and idea. Sincerely Paul.Paquette

There is no strict policy regarding what you can and can't do with your own talk page - Help:Talk page and Wikipedia:User page are the nearest things, but they aren't binding. People may object, however, especially if you remove negative comments (warnings about vandalism, particularly) because it looks like you're trying to cover them up dishonestly.--Cherry blossom tree 21:27, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

I have a similar disclaimer on my talk page, which states "...Messages will be deleted from once I have read them and they are no longer needed." —EdGl 02:50, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

User Discospinster Keeps Reverting the Unicru entry and uses lies to do so

The user Discospinster keeps reverting entries on unicru, especially mine, to one with less information. He appears to be a plant for unicru.

Please stop Discospinster from reverting with a false reason as well, he claims that it is because of POP UPS. I investigated entries with claims that they were removed because they used pop ups, yet I found no pop ups. I would really appreciate it if you could give me his IP to see if he is based out of portland, or where unicru is located.

He also called my revision a test, he said, "thankyou for your test". What test? I edited it to be updated. So what he is smoking?

You can see his persistant history of abuse at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Unicru&action=history

Sincerely,

Jayden

The appropriate forum for this discussion is the article's talk page, which user:Discospinster has referred you to in the most recent edit summary. Please try to talk this out on the article's talk page. If you can't reach resolution, please see Wikipedia:Resolving disputes. -- Rick Block (talk) 02:02, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Deletion of Ares2.jpg

Who deleted my pic???? It was called File:Ares2.JPG, and there was nothing wrong with it! please get it again, because I sure as hell can't! And dont delete pics I've uploaded again! yes, of course, all of them agree with the damn GNU Free Documentation License! So, dont delete please! - Bagel7 22:19, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Can you give a description of the image, where it was obtained, who owns the copyright to it, etc. so that we can help determine the best way to proceed on this? --Kickstart70-T-C 23:42, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

When the image was deleted, the summary was: "WP:CSD Image #4 - "Images in category "Images with unknown source" or "Images with unknown copyright status" that have been tagged with a template that places them in the category for more than 7 days, regardless of when uploaded."", which is pretty clear cut - you must have forgotten to tag the image. If it is an image that you own the copyright to then you must explicitly release it under the GFDL by adding {{GFDL-self}} to the page (or selecting that option when uploading.) We have no way of knowing the copyright status of any image that is not properly tagged, so they are deleted. If you upload it again and tag it properly there should be no problem. --Cherry blossom tree 23:56, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Me coming from an aol address....

Hiya,

I'm kind of confused....I love using wikipedia every so often. I have noticed the 'You have new messages ' before but not clicked on it..that is until now.... ...There are a load of complaints about vandalism(??!!??) coming from me? I am an aol user, so it says something about lots of people using my portal ( or similar)..I'm afraid I'm not much of a computer-whizz and don't understand this...Anyway, tried to register myself so that it might stop this confusion, but it says 24 people have registered from my - thingy- in the last 24 hrs!!! I just want to say that I would'nt do any 'vandalism', in fact I've never even tried putting in any info or anything, so I'm sorry guys but it aint me!! ;o)

Hello! Sorry to see that you're encountering these inconveniences. It's because you are an AOL user. AOL connects to the Internet in a way that makes it look (to our computers) like you're all the same person. Creating an account is a good idea. Unfortunately, we have to restrict the number of accounts created from each thingy (ok, "IP address") each day, because otherwise some people would create a lot of accounts to make trouble for us. Please try again in a few hours. Again, we're sorry that it's such a pain - basically, AOL, the Internet in general, and Wikipedia in particular don't always connect up smoothly. Thanks for your patience and your cheerful attitude! :-) FreplySpang (talk) 12:31, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Problems with particular members

Im not sure where to go for this but there is currently a Wikipedian member who is consistently removing images from pages (primarily television) and citing the fair use policy. Whether or not he is removing them fairly, I feel that his method of removal without discussing the issue first is something that I feel has led to numerous problems and a number of edit wars. His username is Ed g2s.

Is there anything that can be done? Lummie 03:20, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Stop puting fair use images into articles unless you have a legit fair use rational.Geni 12:57, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

• I'm not, and that doesn't really help. Lummie 02:04, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

If you disagree with their reasoning, try discussing it on the article talk page, or directly with the user. Warofdreams talk 02:09, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Improving the validity of wiki

Hi I am a grad student and TA who has had to discourage students from using wiki in papers since you guys do use peer review nor do you cite sources. I am wondering if people that post could please cite thier sources. It would be a great help to researchers like me.

It is already official policy that all information come from reliable sources, see Wikipedia:Verifiability, and users are strongly encouraged to cite their sources, see Wikipedia:Citing sources. Users are also cautioned about citing Wikipedia as a source, see Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia. You might also be interested in Wikipedia:Researching with Wikipedia. Of course, there are many articles lacking sources, see Category:Articles lacking sources but Wikipedia is a work in progress (and likely always will be). -- Rick Block (talk) 18:33, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Evolution

   First Thank you very much for all the wonderful 

information. May our God and creator bless all of you.

   How can anyone truly believe that any thing ever evolved? Why is there water? Why are you? etc. 
   Get true scientific answers from the Answers in Genesis web site. 

       Sincerely Richard C. Corbett

Ohter than provideing evidence that you don't understnad what evolution is about do you have a complaint?Geni 12:56, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Now in the Book there is Job, 38 : "Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it?

6 Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof;

7 When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

8 Or who shut up the sea with doors, when it brake forth, as if it had issued out of the womb?"

We do not know why there is water. But the Genesis does not tell anything else than "God did it and he liked it".

We want to know everything else about water. How to keep it clean and how to share it between brothers. This is good. --193.56.241.75 12:18, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

hexane

what are the methods to test the purity of hexane in short span of time other than gc.pls help.my email id is [e-mail address removed]

This is not a complaint about Wikipedia. You might receive an answer if you ask this question at the Science reference desk. Warofdreams talk 18:28, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Prison Break

I don't know if this counts as anything regarding vandalism or not (so I put it here), but there is a problem searching for the program "Prison Break". Try typing it and you get an incredibly lewd series of messages about sucking somebody's anatomy.

Yup. Garden variety vandalism, reverted 5 minutes after it occurred. -- Rick Block (talk) 22:43, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Display the last edit in "My Contribution"

Could you add an option in the "my contribution" page which only displays the last edit of a page (much like the watchlist). CG 12:35, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, the last edit ones will have "(top)" after them; isn't that good enough? —EdGl 02:58, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

But when you make a lot of edits in the same page and in several pages, it gets crowded ans hard to see. CG 08:40, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, that's true. —EdGl 14:32, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Extra information in Artist Profile

I have a suggestion. In the music artist profile, I think we should include the Artist's Vocal Range. i.e.- specify whether the person is a Soprano, Baritone, Bass etc. This is fairly important information when it comes to musicians, what say?

Sid.

Reorganizing?

I recently just realized that Help Desk Humanities, Mathematics, Science, Miscellaneous, & Language IS the Reference Desk Humanities, Mathimatics, Science, Miscellaneous, & Language; I was sorely confused by this.

Maybe Wikipedia, at the least,, I don't know,, should be reorganized?

Please, [email-address-removed], THANKS!

24.70.95.203 08:19, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

its way too confusing its needs organizeing or atleast a separte area like regular forums or something and u need to get rid of or change something with when u click on wiki forums or something u want to taken to where they r not some help page explaining it and giving a list of 30 more places like on on navigation put wiki forums or something --— Preceding unsigned comment added by Agentheartlesspain (talk • contribs)

Legend Of Zelda passwords

Could you please put in the passwords to these games? My game restarted and I lost all of my passwords.

You might have better luck getting these passwords at a site like [http:www.gamefaqs.com/ GameFAQs]. WIkipedia doesn't generally have things like level paswords for games. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 22:38, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I hope that's not a feeling of Wikipedia you have; if its info, it should be included. For your question, you might request an article. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, & at the very least it should try to strive to include as much info as possible. All Wikimedia projects should improve, all Wikis for that mattter.

24.70.95.203 03:47, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Actually, not all info is suited to Wikipedia. See Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not. Mo-Al 03:17, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

I didn't read anything there that would invalidate putting passwords for Zelda games on Wiki. As long as the passwords are constant.66.118.233.213 19:55, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

The relevant paragraph is WP:NOT#Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information #4:

"Instruction manuals - while Wikipedia has descriptions of people, places, and things, Wikipedia articles should not include instruction - advice (legal, medical, or otherwise), suggestions, or contain "how-to"s. This includes tutorials, walk-throughs, instruction manuals, video game guides, and recipes."

Passwords for a video game would likely fall under either the walk-through or video game guide criteria above. We would therefore try to avoid including such material wherever possible. Road Wizard 21:53, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia layout?

The creators of this website seem to have taken Wiki's layout. Is this even allowed? http://www.baka-tsuki.net/ Terukiyo 21:37, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes. The software that runs Wikipedia is freely availible for anyone to use in accordance with the GPL--inks^T 22:06, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

deleted.

I am just curious why two times now my non profit organization gets deleted by one of your admins?

The reason why I wanted it listed here like other Religious groups is for the content of its history.

If the Church of Satan, Temple of Set, and other maybe perhaps smaller orgs can have their own listing how about us as well? The page that was deleted was the Church ov Apeiron.

Now of course if we violated one of your terms of policies please let me be aware of which one and maybe this could be corrected in the future.

Thank you for your time.

I only see that it was deleted once, and (at least this time) it was deleted because the text was copied from http://www.coa.altervista.org/coa/coa_revised.htm. Text included in articles in Wikipedia must conform to the GFDL, meaning the text must be originally written for Wikipedia (and when you submit it you agree to license it under the GFDL) or the text must be from a public domain or otherwise "copyright-free" source. Please also refer to Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not#Wikipedia is not a soapbox and Wikipedia:Notability. Even an article you write completely from scratch may be nominated for deletion if the content is viewed to be primarily self-promotion, or the topic is viewed not to be of encyclopedic notability. -- Rick Block (talk) 14:02, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Chemistry Template Boxes, Or Whatever

An entry in the Chemistry Template Boxes, or Whatever, in 'chemical data' says molecular weight; this is incorrect, it should be molecular mass, but I don't know how to change it, so I'm putting this up here, cause I don't know where else to let you guys know.

68.148.165.213 07:18, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I assume you're asking about Template:Drugbox. Perhaps confusingly (chemists are real jokers), molecular weight is what molecular mass is usually called - see molecular mass. -- Rick Block (talk) 14:01, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

The capitalization of the first letter in a cell is wrong, please reprogram everything so this doesn't happen.

Thanks

68.148.165.213 07:31, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Which cell and which letter? If you mean a cell in Template:Drugbox I don't see one that looks wrong to me. -- Rick Block (talk) 14:01, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Compare Selected Versions button gone from top of Page History

Is there any reason that the Compare Selected Versions button was removed from the top of Page History? It's excruciatingly frustrating to have to scroll all the way to the bottom of the history just to check the five most recent edits. -- ChrisB 15:21, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Ahh, much better. Thanks to whoever fixed that. -- ChrisB 15:25, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Hello

Hi people, it is not a complaint of any sort, but I'd like to know where to start when attempting to understand physics. I've got an A-level in it, and I've got a degree in molecular biology but I am keen to learn more about my universe

In terms of Wikipedia, Portal:Physics is probably the best place to start. Beyond that (with a cautionary warning that I don't have any more of an academic background in the subject than you), as you already have a background in science, it might be best to look at books on the specific branches of physics which interest you. For instance, A Brief History of Time is an excellent introductory work on ideas in cosmology. Reading New Scientist gives a good overview of recent developments, in an accessible format. Warofdreams talk 21:39, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Splash page Wikipedia tagline

This is something that bugged me but didn't know who to ask - you have the translations in the splash page for "The Free Encyclopedia". The german translation says "Die freie...", which in context means liberated. Did you mean that for context, or did you mean free as in no cost? If that's the case, it should be "Die gratis Enzyklopädie"...or maybe gratis should be at the end.

Just a point of cutiosity. Thanks!

That's how it's supposed to be: free as in freedom, not as in "free beer". In a way, the German tagline is better because it's not ambiguous. —da Pete (ばか) 10:24, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

• It actually means both, but since each language chooses their own translation of the phrase differences get in, - Mgm|^(talk) 12:42, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

RfA

I had attempted to vote for a very qualified user in the Requests for Adminship. The page was blocked, even though the deadline had not passed. The user had overwhelming support, and I thought maybe they had closed the nomination down. Can somebody shed some light on this situation? Viva La Vie Boheme 21:28, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Which user was it? Can you provide a link to the RfA page? When you say "blocked", do you mean protected, or what? -- SCZenz 21:32, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Main page has obscenity on it

To whom it may concern--

My son and I went onto your site (as we normally do) to do some research. When I opened the main page, todays topic was a Pokemon charactor but there was a picture of a penis being held by a woman's hand. I am embarrassed to say that I reccomend this site regularly to my church friends and my other friends who want to shelter their children and there homes from such images. Please do not allow such images to be available on the main page and only to be available if requested.

Thank you for your immediate attention to this matter.

I'm very sorry about this. It is our general policy to restrict these images to articles in which you would expect to find them, but Wikipedia generates content by allowing members of the public to write it. Unfortunately a minority of people abuse this by making changes such as the one you saw. These changes are normally spotted and changed back very quickly, and we try to prevent them happening on the main page altogether, but the system is imperfect and can sometimes lead to images such as the one you saw appearing, even if only for a brief time. Again, I'm sorry about this and hope that you will continue to find Wikipedia useful. --Cherry blossom tree 20:47, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

It was Template:Pokenum which was used on the main page, I heard it getting vandalized, sorry —Minun ^{Spiderman • Review Me} 13:31, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Justification

Has someone just changed all of English Wikipedia from left justification to full justification? If so, please change it back promptly, because the new way sucks. Badagnani 03:35, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Sometimes this (and similar random formatting errors) can be caused by your browser failing to fully load the Wikipedia CSS. A hard refresh ought to do it (Ctrl-F5 in many browsers). (ESkog)^(Talk) 03:45, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Lockdown, the movie

I recently tried to edit the page on this movie to expand it and when i saved the page the screen was littered with these stupid boxes that took large portions of my text and horizontally stretched it across the page therefore making it psychologically impossibly to read, whats with that and how to I get it to normal format.

I have taken a look at the article Lockdown (film) and fixed the problem. Unfortunately the wiki software interprets a space at the start of a paragraph to mean that you want the text to appear in boxes like the ones you saw. If you are new to Wikipedia, you may wish to read our Getting started page or Editing Wikipedia page. If you need any other help with editing, you can also try our Help desk where a team of volunteers will try to answer your questions. Welcome and happy editing. Road Wizard 22:21, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Tiscali UK

I'd like to put a complaint forward on behalf of all anonymous Tiscali UK users who until yesterday were banned from performing anything other than reading articles. One administrator called Chris 73 performed this action which I felt discriminated against millions of Tiscali customers because of the actions of one user. He's made an apology, but he and some others fail to see what the problem was with this action which is comparable to banning say Verizon in the US.

The reason being was that one user was causing a lot of bother, and in my opinion, rather than to deal with the problem appropriately, some administrators felt it best if they had the easy life by blocking millions of users. I'd hope Wikipedia would take this complaint seriously and have words with this admin to make sure it doesn't happen again, to make clear how severe such an action is, plus to ensure that he realises that as an administrator, its his job to clean up after idiots and if he can't cope then he should resign as administrator and not go banning ISP's willy nilly. There are several annoyed Tiscali users out there now who are personally agrieved and I was shocked to find out that no attempt was made to contact Tiscali's abuse department (They do have one, they are Europe's third largest telecommunications company) before carrying out this ISP ban.

Thanks in advance.

Articles of interest:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard#Wikipedia:Long_term_abuse.2FGeneral_Tojo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Long_term_abuse/General_Tojo

These seem to justify such a ban aswell

14:37, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

I understand that you are annoyed and I agree that this block was a mistake but seeking recriminations won't help. I seems that it has already been made clear to the admin in question that blocking the whole of Tiscali UK was a bad idea and that is where the matter will end. People are not blocked on Wikipedia for mistakes made in good faith. Blocks are reserved for people who have persistently acted maliciously. If the same admin made similar blocks in the future despite being made aware of the negative effects then some action would be taken but unless that occurs then nothign will happen. I should also point out that it is not his job to clean up here - he volunteers to do it.

I'm sorry for the problems you have encountered.--Cherry blossom tree 16:23, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Thats fine with me as long as he realises that making his duties (or anyone's duties for that matter) as a volunteer easier by using the cop-out method of banning Europe's 3rd largest ISP isn't the way to go, he'll have to tackle these matters by deleting, reverting etc. Cheers. 17:51, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Here we go again, 1/4 of Tiscali has now been blocked, what a joke! RobertBFC 22:43, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

So what are you doing to solve the problem? The infomation I have suggests that disscusions with Tiscali ae under way.Geni 22:53, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

What do you want me to do, you lot are the admins, you're supposed to keep going around and banning him, if you can't be bothered to that then why are you an admin. I'm just an aggrieved user, unhappy at these childish actions of keeping the whole class behind because of one user. Do you expect me to go and visit this Tojo or something. RobertBFC 16:34, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure why you would be so aggrieved, since your edits are only about this block. I guess if it weren't for this block, then there wouldn't be anything for you to contribute to Wikipedia! Andrew73 21:13, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Well you could send an email to Tiscali saying that the behaviour of one of thier customers is causeing you problems. Admins do keep going around and banning him. Due to Tiscali's setup that involves blocking the whole of Tiscali.Geni 11:55, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

You're the admins, you contact Tiscali, only wikipedia can complain because its abuse on the wikipedia website. I had to register to get round the block. I'm only an infrequent visitor, however these actions have led me to strongly put my views forward on this by frequently visiting because I feel very strongly about it, the userbase of Tiscali seems to have gone over peoples heads here. When people like profsnow are adding templates to the profiles of those who've complained, including myself, suggesting that I'm a sockpuppet, can you understand why I'm fuming? It's an absolute disgrace. RobertBFC 10:59, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

You are giving Tiscali money. Logicaly they should listen to you. If you don't like the service they provide stop giving them money.Geni 11:16, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Stop trying to find excuses to have a power trip on banning millions of users. The Tiscali service is fine, its this websites inability to provide a decent service and the fact that I'm not allowed to make a valid complaint and in doing so have this sockpuppet tag. It's down to wikipedia and tiscali to sort this tojo out and if the administrators can't be bothered to e-mail them and would rather ban millions because of one person, then yes I feel very justified in voicing strong opinions on this. RobertBFC 11:25, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Dude I've blocked AOL. Blocking Tiscali would be a step down. Yopu have zero article contributions thus I'm not massively concernded about any inconvience you suffer. In not being able to do something you have never done anyway.Geni 11:37, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

You're not even listening, I used to be an anonymous user until all these bans, I managed to register somehow to get past this so I could then make a complaint. It's not just inconvenience to me, but inconvience to millions of Tiscali users. Especially now as IP blocking covers registered users as well. In fact I wouldn't be surprised to see a full ban very soon to shut me up. AOL can sort their problem out by not using caching. Tiscali are not using caching, they give dynamic ip's out like loads of other ISPs. If you want a solution its down to Wikipedia to bring changes in to the permissions for registered and unregistered users. Or someone from wikipedia can get off their backside and put forward a complaint to Tiscali. I've said it before they don't have a shed for an office, they are Europe's third biggest ISP. RobertBFC 11:54, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

I already told you that disscusions with Tiscali are under way.Geni 12:07, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Might be worth someone looking at my user page to see proof that I was accused of being a sockpuppet for no other reason than the user not liking my attitude. Surely that's not right? RobertBFC 21:20, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree that User:Profsnow hasn't exactly displayed a great attitude on your User: page. The sockpuppet tag has been removed and as far as I can see that is the end of the matter. Almost every block issued on Wikipedia has the potential to stop good users making edits. We try to keep these to a minimum but no-one has any right to edit and sometimes trade-offs have to be made. Because Tiscali use dynamic IP addresses and do not give XFF headers (see m:XFF project) it is impossible to block a specific user without also blocking all the others. In almost all cases this means we don't block it at all and just clear up the vandalism after it. It seems that in this case it was felt that the gain from not having to revert extensive vandalism outweighed the loss from anonymous Tiscali users not being able to edit and thus blocking Tiscali for a period improved Wikipedia. As User:Geni said discussions are underway with Tiscali to come to a better solution but until then this decision will have to be made.--Cherry blossom tree 22:34, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply, the most helpful I've had to date. Just a shame that people like profsnow can get away with such things but that's life. RobertBFC 11:10, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Requiring admins to participate in conflict resolution processes

Now that I've taken a break from a bad situation involving an admin, I've come to the conclusion that the largest failure in the resolution process I just went through was the failure to require an admin to participate in a resolution process for a conflict he or she is involved in.

I won't go into the details of the conflict itself, as that would be counterproductive at this point. However, I felt a profound disparity between the respect asked of users for admins and a reciprocal respect from the admins for users. What's been set up is a rather arbitrary class system where the users have to go through many more steps in a resolution process to seek a solution, whereas an admin can avoid the situation for an excessively long time....wearing out the patience and time of otherwise helpful and well-intended editors.

I would recommend a requirement for admins to participate in some resolution processes, and those that are not required for admins to participate in be clearly stated on each of their main pages. --Kickstart70-T-C 22:09, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Spelling mistakes

I (and probably most people) make spelling mistakes when typing in a term in the search bar. Because of these spelling mistakes some users find some articles to be confusing. The list of items shown matching the word search is usually taken literally for the spelling mistake. Would it be possible to implement a dictionary (similar to the one google uses when searching a spelling mistake) by adressing the mistake and offering a correctly spelled version?

Please see Wikipedia:Village pump (perennial proposals)#Better search feature. This has been a requested feature for quite some time, but the current stance seems to be that it can't easily be done without adversely affecting performance. -- Rick Block (talk) 15:46, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

This is not a complaint!!!!

This is not a complaint, just a thought, i'm a big fan of wikipedia, and often just browse looking for new knowledge... I just have a suggestion... i'm a big trivia fan, and when i stumble upon a trivia question that i get wrong i usually look it up in wikipedia so in the future i know it... have you ever thought of integrating a trivia game into wikipedia where you can click on the answer and get all the facts?? i know i'd love it!!!

You guys do a great job!!!

Ted Windsor, SSM, Canada

Sounds like you might be interested in Wikipedia:Department of Fun, in particular the trivia section. -- Rick Block (talk) 02:41, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Same name, different band

Maybe it's somewhere on Wikipedia's policy list and I didn't see it but people who edit or create articles need to be sure that when they use "internal" links (i.e. to Wikipedia) that it's not linked to something that appears to be the same but is not. It seems worst with links to bands and films/TV shows. For instance, I was looking at the entry on Jon Anderson, the lead singer for Yes and it mentioned that he started his career in an obscure band called "The Warriors" in 1962. Somebody had impulsively (to be generous) linked to a Wikipedia entry on a hardcore band by the same name founded in 2002 (40 years later) of the same name. Please folks: at least use the "(disambiguation)" page in these instances. And for God's sake, test your links before you call it a done deal. --—Preceding unsigned comment added by Brianmacian (talk • contribs)

A lot of articles violate copyrighted materials in Encarta

I won't go into specific article names, but just to let the community knows that I do recognizes that a lot of passages found here on Wikipedia are actually a cut and paste from Encarta encyclopedia; its not even a paraphrase since the editor did not even mention that it have used Encarta's materials. I recognized this because I could remember many passages from specific articles in Encarta by heart. Those passages were written by college professors with PhD. degrees and not by some anonymous, unaccountable, wikipedian editors. I have a very strong feeling that if Microsoft were to go through it, a number of lawsuits would come about with the Wikimedia foundation. Please, wikipedian editors, write your own stuff!

It would be helpful if you did go into specific article names; cut and pastes from Encarta are definitely not allowed and when identified will be removed. Warofdreams talk 16:22, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

• Or reworded to get rid of the copying. Yes, please mention specific articles so we can identify the users in question. - Mgm|^(talk) 12:37, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Why Does WIKIPEDIA DOESNT ALLOW VIDEO DOWNLOADS???

Hi Im an Avid user of wikipedia and it helps me a lot on my works and researches at our town. Besides my hectics schedule as an administrative professor at arlington boston, i also work as a partimer in a dance club studio. and because of that i used to search some aricles here in the wikipedia about some dance steps but unfortunately the pictures are not enough for me to follow the correct and graceful dance step. I ask a the author of the said dance search for him to put video instead of pictures in able for me to follow and watch the correct timing of the dance. but then he replied to my e-mail that video uploading is not allowed in wikipedia..sad to say :(

Wikipedia does permit video uploads - see the information at Wikipedia:Media#Video or m:Video policy. They must be in Ogg Theora format and are limited to 20 megabytes. Warofdreams talk 21:47, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

An important suggestion

I suggest making the database of wikipedia (3.7 GB) downloadable so that it can be downloaded and burned into CDs and then distributed to people who don't have a fast internet connection.Just imagine having the biggest encyclopedia in the world on your computer. By the way, I don't mean downloading just a small part of wikipedia, but I mean the whole encyclopedia.

meno25

Do mean something different than Wikipedia:Database download? -- Rick Block (talk) 01:42, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Bayesian Econometrics

Since the 1960's, there has been substantial growth in the number of Bayesian econometric methodological and applied studies, books, papers, organizations, etc. For references, see current texts and books by G. Koop (2003), Bayesian Econometrics, Wiley, T. Lancaster(2004), "An Introduction to Modern Bayesian Econometrics, Blackwell, J. Geweke (2005), Contemporary Bayesian Econometrics and Statistics, Wiley, A. Zellner (1997),Bayesian Analysis in Econometrics and Statistics, Elgar, etc. Also, there is more information about texts, monographs, computer programs, meetings etc., at the websites of the Int. Society for Bayesian Analysis (ISBA), http://www.bayesian.org and of the Am.Stat.Association's Section on Bayesian Statistical Science (SBSS), http://www.amstat.org

  Hope that you find this quickly written note helpful and that you will include these and other references, etc. in your wonderful dictionary.
                      Arnold Zellner (arnold.zellner@chicagogsb.edu)

http://faculty.chicagogsb.edu/arnold.zellner/more/index.htm

Timothy V. Johnson

Something is wrong with this page: Timothy V. Johnson. I would edit its talk page, except that nothing displays except the Wikipedia background graphic. BlongerBros 17:04, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

What is wrong with it? You'll have to be more specific. --Cherry blossom tree 17:53, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Talk pages don't exist until someone adds something to them the first time. You'd be the first on this talk page. -- Rick Block (talk) 18:03, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm, what do you see when you click on this link: Timothy V. Johnson? I get nothing except an empty browser window filled with the Wikipedia background image. There is nothing to click on -- no way to add or edit content -- nothing. BlongerBros 20:05, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

A look at the source code reveals a broken page that ends in the middle of some JavaScript code. It could be a cacheing problem somewhere. Pressing Reload doesn't fix it here. BlongerBros 20:08, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

I see the whole page. Perhaps try Wikipedia:Bypass your cache? -- Rick Block (talk) 20:32, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Ja...thanks...that took care of it. BlongerBros 22:17, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

How to file a complaint against a moderator?

What is the procedure (if there is one) if one would like to file a complaint against a moderator?

This is not about a dispute resolution, but about the general behaviour of a specific administrator.

I'm sure everybody who becomes an administrator has been a decent and productive member of Wikipedia at some point. But what if they go "rogue" (as it often happens with people once they get power)? Who keeps track of their behaviour? What safeguards are there to keep them from abusing their power and position? --Frescard 20:25, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

You weren't very specific but I think your interests would probably be best served by filing a request for comment to gain other opinions on the matter. --Cherry blossom tree 21:10, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

one more film to the list

on your elizabeth shue the actress page she has also acted in the right stuff about astronaugts.

It should be easier to post images.

I think it is rather hard to post images, could someone please simplify this task? The velociraptor 00:55, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Do you have any suggestions as to how the process could be simplified? Warofdreams talk 01:45, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Boneheaded Wikipedian

You'll forgive me if I rant a little on this particular subject. I have ongoing problems with a particular user, who for purposes of anonymity, we'll call The Starman.

This user would essentially fall into the category of "Stubborn-headed Editor" or "Bully", as specified in WP:VAND in the section What vandalism is not. Essentially, he cannot come to agreement with those who are willing to talk to him on talk pages, and he repeatedly make changes opposed by everyone else.

I've tried talking to him. Over and over again. And I'm not the only one! A number of regular contributors have weighed in on a number of subjects, pointing The Starman to various Wikipedia policies and guidelines to try to help him be a better Wikipedian, but it is all to no avail. It got so bad that I had to file a formal request for mediation about a month ago, but so far no action has been taken on that front yet.

The worst part is that this editor is a generally rude and abrasive character. He constantly makes personal attacks against other users, yet he masks it either by claiming ignorance or by applauding himself as a champion of morality and justice. For example, he constantly accuses others of vandalism when it is obvious that they have not committed any infractions. He's also fond of accusing users of being sock puppets, simply because they all are in agreement that he is wrong. He also likes to accuse people of being involved in issues in which they have no involvement (a simple check of user contributions would make this clear). As I said though, he rarely stoops to childish name calling (though he does this, too, sometimes), so most people are willing to let the insults slide, time and time again. Also, he loves to intersperse his insults with statements to try and make himself look better, such as "I am acting in Good Faith" or "please be mature".

I can't claim that this user is a vandal, either. Although he has blanked talk pages before and repeatedly removed dispute tags from articles when there clearly was dispute, these cases could merely be ignorance of Wikipedia policy (though God knows I've pointed him to WP:VAND often enough). Nor has he violated the 3 Revert Rule, though rv'ing pages twice a day is not uncommon.

The main problem is that The Starman believes that only avid supporters of the subject of the pages in question should be allowed to edit these pages. The Starman has a fervent, almost religious, belief that it is his moral obligation to protect the subject of said pages from any outside or potentially negative influence. Also, The Starman seems to think he has ownership of the articles, as he will revert changes to the wording of the article merely because he likes his version best (of course, in the edit summary he always says that it's to provide "accurate and factual" wording).

Does everyone know the statement about a loud minority? That a loud minority can drown out a majority? The Starman is an extremely loud minority, and he manages to make life an absolute pain for any regular contributor to the articles in question.

So, what do I do? Unfortunately, I'm afraid there's nothing really that I can do, except to continue to act in a civilized manner and hope that one day said user will suffer amnesia and stop being such a nuisance.

Sorry, I just had to get this off my chest... But if you have any suggestions, please let me know! - Runch 16:06, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Oh, I forgot to add that another complicating factor in all this is that a number of The Starman's contributions are quite good, but they are interspersed with all the others and his more-than-questionable talk page etiquette. He also generally means well, which makes it all the more difficult. - Runch 16:13, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, if this starman were not attacked and targeted on everything he did, perhaps he would not have to be so curt. I'm well aware of the *proof* the Starman has that these few people doing the improper editing and smearing of several pages had it planed out and in a few cases were egged on to trash the pages. I think that anyone with any clarity would be able to look at the situation and see that this starman has been not only backed into a corner, but attacked, been the focus of a slew of snide and abusive actions...and all simply because he was defending the pages he's working on, cleaning up content, adding pertinent and FACTUAL content. Now these few people deemed it nessary to focus on and remove or alter poorly every little thing he did in making positive changes to said pages. As I look it all over this, it would seem this starman has indeed made good edits and a few people even said so, But then these few “other” people took it as an invitation to edit war. It looks as if this ‘‘‘starman’’’ did have well meaning additions, has also logged into the IRC chat room to ask questions of admins to help clarify situations and for making these GOOD EDITS. I also see that he and the pages he's worked on were the focus of edit warring by these same few people! Even a few of these people openly admitted it.

SO I think that this starman may have reasonable cause for taking a stance! After all the Wikipedia guidelines also specifically state, "be bold". As I've read over the pages of talk and read the fact that this starman was wrongly warned when he was simply defending himself and the other attackers/offenders were not even so much as admonished for their actions also shows the bias on your part Runch...But that is just my humble opinion. And as this starman is not mentioned by name, I can only offer up an unbiased and objective opinion. I for one would think a more ethical and honorable thing to have an open discussion with this starman offering up your concerns and hopes....rather than going about only warning him when he is forced to defend himself after having been ganged up on, and forgoing any mention of offence to the gang...Me...Personally...I think that one would want their honorable and ethical standards to be evident in everything they do....especially on such an open page. I guess that I would be wrong...how sad that... I guess I just find it a rather low thing to do changing someone’s name and whining about him or her to the open public kinda bad form. As I said, were it "me" I would simply approach this starman and open a dialogue to find common ground and a stable platform from which to find understanding from.... but that's just me and my humble opinion... ~shrugs~--Mystar 22:21, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

And apparently the individual is a Wikistalker as well... - Runch 22:41, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

I think you probably want Wikipedia:resolving disputes. --Cherry blossom tree 23:20, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Informal dispute resolution has already been tried with this editor. A formal mediation was also filed but has not yet been looked at despite sitting there for several weeks. Really at this point there is little else to do except pursue a block/ban from an admin or take it to an ArbCom. Most of the affected editors don't want to have to go that route and I think Runch was just looking for some advice in dealing with this problem editor so he didn't have to take it to that level. NeoFreak 00:51, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Thus sayth the instigator and edit war person. I think a quick look at your talk/contribs also gives a clear picture of attack and retalitaory editing. A block/ban woudl be nessary were there cause. But as not only "I" have stated, but others... my eidte were made in Good Faith and are Good edits. That I've been hurrassed for making them by you and WLU is also clear, by my comments and others. :)--Mystar 01:34, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Personally I've found the most useful way of dealing is to ignore everything except the substantive content. I've only been trying it for a little while, but it seems to be working. I'll admit, like a whetstone on a knife, opposition does make the article better. I can't really criticize being a wikistalker either, but I like to think of it as verifying content. WLU 15:12, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Interested in new Wiki

Before I begin, let me just say how useful wikipedia has been in increasing my level of knowledge. I've spent hours reading and reading about who knows what, and I couldn't be happier with wikipedia.

Now, the main thing I wanted to talk to anyone reading this is the idea of the creation for a new type of wiki that for right now I will call wikithoughts. I am a philosopher, and I like to read many books concerning mind philosophy. As such, I have developed many theories which I think are generally new and interesting concerning the nature of the mind, language, memory and so on. I thought to myself about creating a website to share my ideas with the world, but I realized that this would be difficult to do, and would most likely be an ineffective way to share my information. Then it came to my attention that I could create a new article on wikipedia named, "The Mnemonics of Memory", or something similiar (right now I am interested in the correlation between mnemonics and memory) and post my thoughts about the subject.

This I realize would not be fair to wikipedia. Wikipedia is not really a place for these types of thoughts. This is why I am pleading with anyone who has a heart to listen to my idea for a wiki called wikithoughts. Such a place would be very beneficial to the community! It would be a place where anyone could submit their thoughts on subjects, either in essay, letter, article, or some similar form. I am thinking that it would be organized by author.

Think of the benefits of wikithoughts. It adds an additional way or organizing information in a form that would be very easy to be linked into wikipedia or any other wikimedia.

You could pursue your idea by setting up your own wiki, perhaps by using Wikia. Warofdreams talk 02:45, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Or if you want it to be a project of Wikimedia see, m:Help:How to start a new Wikipedia or m:Proposals for new projects. Get an account and you can add some stuff to it. Thanks! Aquafish talk 18:35, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Misc. suggestions

- Enlarge the special-character section at the bottom of "edit" pages by a point or so (suggested for all wiki media).

- Add a dialog box like "You are about to change this page permanently. Do you want to proceed? Yes/Cancel" after the "Save page" button (suggested for all wiki media). May be a nuisance for some users, but would prevent inadvertent changes.

- Program the login and main entry pages so that the cursor automatically goes into the textbox most likely to be filled in first by the user (needed in all wiki media). Tawagoto 02:12, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Titles Of All Articles

Aren't the first letter of every word in a title supposed to be capitalized? So why aren't the first letters of all the words in Wikipedia articles capitalized? That would mean the section headings too. And then there's the template that says, i.e.: iPod, the first letter of the article is specifically supposed to be uncapitalized. It teaches the reader how to write iPod, but then none of the articles have a lineatthetop to say [something like] how you're supposed to capitalize the word, when you should, when you shouldn't, i.e.: if it is the first word of a sentence of in a title, or if it compounded into a name, and never in all other circumstances. What's the deal?198.166.59.152 08:16, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Capitalization of letters in titles is governed by this Wikipedia policy. As for the "iPod" et al., the first letter of the article title is capitalized due to technical restrictions. Hope this helps.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 12:21, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

People

I could not find an article about Jessie LeRoy Brown, the first Black Naval Aviator.

69.235.80.49 16:13, 17 October 2006 (UTC)Lloyd E. Roberts

It looks like nobody's written one yet. Why not write one yourself? Warofdreams talk 01:27, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Please see Jesse Leroy Brown. -- Rick Block (talk) 04:08, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Suggestion

Just a suggestion, i was doing a report a while ago on Iran and could not find a population density map or an average yearly rainfall map. Just hoping you guys would maybe put some of those on here for other people to use. Thanks

                                                  - Sam Bauer, 13, Eagle, Idaho.

3rd World Social Activism

Looking for information/biography on a well known Fijian Activist and Writer but cant find any info anywhere. Can you help me?

Name of person is Summer Kabakoro Fiji Islands

Thank you.

KNCS

For the newcomer

It would be nice if user pages came with prefabricated links to some of the pages behind the pages, such as the Village Pump, the Manual of Style, and pages concerned with the ways and means of contributing to the Wiki. I created an account here only just recently, but I've been delving into the Wiki for some time and had no idea such pages even existed. I know there's a page listing articles in need of copy-editing, because I stumbled over it some days ago, and I just now spent the last hour unsuccessfully trying to find it. (I didn't know the Wiki has a suggestions page until about five minutes ago.) Cryptonymius 19:35, 1 November 2006 (UTC)