Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)/Archive 26

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This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (miscellaneous).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

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Help needed for the stranded

I need quick/immediate translation from German to English for the article de:Böhmisch-Rixdorf. The reason: see m:Chapters meeting 2010/Berlin activities for the stranded#April 20, 2010 - i.e. tomorrow, it would be nice to make some print copies for them so that they do not have to listen to me only :-). If somebody translate it: please inform me on the German Wikipedia - de:User:-jkb-. Thanks, -jkb- (talk) 13:53, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

to OrangeDog: thanks, I think I will make it. Regards, -jkb- (talk) 18:42, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

{{userpage}} change

Just a quick note I thought I would drop regarding Template talk:Userpage. There's an ongoing discussion about a possible change to this widely-used template. I encourage anyone to get involved in the discussion. --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 19:40, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

International Business Entry Modes

Could somebody take a look at International Business Entry Modes? Entirely written by several editors who have no other edits, this looks like some sort of textbook, I'm not sure it's an encyclopedia article, and the capitalizing of the title is certainly wrong, if nothing else. Woogee (talk) 21:39, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

• See also The four dimensions of distance, Transnational management strategies and Organizational configuration which have the same characteristics, related subject areas, and appeared at about the same time. Could be a college project but IMHO they're OR-ish. andy (talk) 07:44, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Télécoms sans frontières

Sorry because my english is bad, but I didn't find the Village pump destined to non-english speakers. I work on fr.wikipedia, and I saw there was a copyright violation in the french article, from the website (here in french and here in english). I think there's the same problem in the english article. Thanks you, Kvardek du (talk) 12:58, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

I removed the copyvio. Thanks for the report. Svick (talk) 15:06, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

"Antonin Scalia" article defaced.

Paragraph three line one of the "Antonin Scalia" article reads in part, "Scalia was appointed by Reagan to the role of Supreme dumbass". I presume this has been hacked, but I don't know whom to tell about it...I'm not a registered user, so I can't correct it myself. I am not a Scalia supporter by any means but a factual article shouldn't contain sophomoric graffiti. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.92.140.23 (talk) 16:36, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia works fast; it was fixed eight minutes before you even posted about it. --Golbez (talk) 16:42, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

First Monday

Attention Wikipedia. New article in First Monday journal discusses your featured article process. Please see [1]. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.228.78.160 (talk) 19:31, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

It's interesting, and reflects some basic problems in Wikipedia's process. However, I was concerned with the methodology. In particular, using a sample of 22 articles is problematic, especially when coupled with a single reviewer for each article, and, as I've found with other research, asking someone to rate an article between 1 and 10 doesn't tend to work if there isn't a clear set of criteria to rate them against. In addition, I was more concerned that the piece failed to note changing featured article standards, as all of the articles that rated less than 5 were promoted prior to 2008. This became more significant in the conclusion, when it was noted that a third would fail the featured article criteria, but it wasn't noted whether the standards (as the criteria are fairly loose, and thus open to changing standards of interpretation) they would fail were those available now or those available at the time it was promoted, and whether or not subsequent changes after the articles were promoted may have affected the current state of the work. - Bilby (talk) 03:06, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

But the point is that the average user doesn't really care what our Featured Article criteria are, or how they've changed. They see that it's a "featured article", and they assume it's good. They have no way of knowing that hundreds of changes could have been made since it was given its "featured status", or that it might have been promoted under laxer guidelines. That's of course a failure on the reader's part (to just assume everything here is good, especially if it's in a "featured article"), but we don't exactly make it clear what being a "featured article" means, and that it shouldn't be blindly accepted as THE TRUTH. Buddy431 (talk) 06:51, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

But that's fundamentally how Wikipedia works - everything is open to change. If the question is "does the FA process properly evaluate articles" then the research should focus on the article at the point when it was promoted, and some consideration for changing standards should be included. If the research was "Does featured status mean that the article is always of high quality", which is what I assume the research was looking at, then I'd still rather a larger sample size and better methodology, (noting that this was a good pilot study, whatever happens), but in that case the research has more to say. However, featured article review already acknowledges that articles don't stay at featured quality. But as that's the nature of Wikipedia, there isn't necessarily a fix to that problem. - Bilby (talk) 07:42, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

This could and should be fixed by replacing the banner "A featured article from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia" with "The 26 August 2008 version of this article was a featured article" or words to that effect. Anthony (talk) 09:51, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

The report indicates that FA is a MOS grade, not a content quality grade. Skäpperöd (talk) 14:01, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

It sounds like the author needs to consider the relevance of ex post facto changes. I'll bet that the author's income tax forms for last year won't comply with the rules we'll be using during the next decade: Shall we call the tax man about that "violation" of irrelevant rules? WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:43, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Unsourced lists of people

I added an {{unsourced section}} tag to a section of a college article which listed 13 alumni as "notable alumni", none of which had a source to verify that claim. Another editor came in, added sources for four of the 13, then removed the unsourced tag. When I asked why, they said that since they had added sources to 4 of 13, the section was no longer unsourced, and it was incumbent upon me to add the {{fact}} tag to all of the others. Wonderful. What happens when we get huge lists of people, such as List of Columbia University alumni, or some such, which have no sources (I'm not saying my example has that), if somebody adds one source to one person in the list? Is it now incumbent on somebody else to have to {{fact}} every other single person in the list? Woogee (talk) 05:02, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

I would replace the tag if the majority of alumni remain unsourced. The main points to bear in mind are that even if the alumni have a Wikilink to a biography page, that article will be no good if there is no mention of their school, or an RS proving their attendance at the school and that the alumni on the list should conform to Wikipedia policy on notability - there are tendencies sometimes, to attempt to list all former students, usually by IP users adding themselves.

For an example of an alumni list that covers these problems, see List of Old Malvernians and the permanent tag that is used, and the instructions on the talk page at Talk:List of Old Malvernians#IMPORTANT. Perhaps you can give me a link on my talk page to the list in question.--Kudpung (talk) 05:49, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Simply use {{Refimprovesect}}. Phil Bridger (talk) 09:43, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that's what I do in such cases. — Gavia immer (talk) 14:49, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, I wasn't aware of that tag. Woogee (talk) 17:42, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

The definition of "goods"

Goods is redirected to good (economics) and the article is about goods in economics and accounting. I found that in the legal area, "goods" can be defined in a different way.

For example, in the Sale of Goods Act 1979 s. 61, "goods" includes all personal chattels other than things in action and money, and in Scotland all corporeal moveables except money; and in particular "goods" includes emblements, industrial growing crops, and things attached to or forming part of the land which are agreed to be severed before sale or under the contract of sale; [and includes an undivided share in goods;] (see the original text). Also according to the law of Hong Kong, in the Cap 362 s 2 Interpretation of TRADE DESCRIPTIONS ORDINANCE, "goods" includes vessel and aircraft, things attached to land and growing crops (see the original text). Therefore, some economic goods such as land and residential property are not goods by these definition.

I would like to add these definition to Wikipedia, but I'm afraid that the article good (economics) is not the suitable place as "economics" is used as the disambiguating word for the title. Should I rename it or do something else? --Quest for Truth (talk) 15:26, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Do you have in mind to add just a definition? Maurreen (talk) 14:01, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Of course not! It is only the beginning. I can write more provided that I have time. --Quest for Truth (talk) 18:45, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

(EC)

I've boldly changed Goods to a disambiguation page, linking to Personal property - I noted that 'chattel' also redirects to that one.

Probably, the info you cite is best added and used to improve Personal property, which seems to address the property law side of things.  Chzz  ►  14:02, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Personal property includes money which is not goods in the legal definition. So I don't think it is suitable. Or can we change good (economics) to other disambiguating word? but right now I have no idea on what word to use. --Quest for Truth (talk) 18:45, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

RfC on merging Words to avoid into Words to watch

Wikipedia talk:Words to watch#RFC. There's a proposal to merge several pages as part of a project to streamline the MoS. One part of the proposal is to merge Words to avoid, Avoid peacock terms, Avoid weasel words, and Avoid neologisms into a new page, Words to watch (W2W). Fresh input would be appreciated at the RfC. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 00:46, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

The Times paywall

The Times (and The Sunday Times) web site is being restructured and going behind a paywall in early May. It will be available on free trial till sometime in June, when content will be charged for.[2] It's not clear whether current links will still work, even if paid for. Ty 07:59, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

A similar problem arose with the Miramar website earlier this year. One solution is a template to cite the website that adds in info that a subscription is required, as has been done to the {{cite Miramar}} template. Other sources should be available and should be used where possible, although Times sources should not be removed because of the paywall. Mjroots (talk) 08:08, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, as sources, the material is still valid and verifiable; just some technical problems with altering links. ╟─TreasuryTag►duumvirate─╢ 08:55, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Requiring a subscription makes no difference as to whether a source is reliable, so there shouldn't be a need for any change. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 08:59, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

It seems they are restructuring the site (actually creating a new site, or rather sites - including a separate one for The Sunday Times which is currently on the same site as The Times). I suspect that the old URLs may not work, regardless of payment. Ty 09:26, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Not knowing much about website design, but is it likely that they will be moving articles around based on some sort of algorithym? If so, would they be likely to share that with us, and would we then be able to apply it to the relevant links (with a bot/bots?) GedUK  10:21, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Fortunately, almost all issues of the Times and Sunday Times are available for free at large UK libraries, so the articles can always be found as long as the citations are correct. For those obsessed with on-line convenience, WebCite can be used. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 11:48, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

AFAIK all the Times online pages have been flagged NOARCHIVE for months, so WebCite probably isn't the solution. If the URLs are going to break it is probably best to replace them with unpaywalled sources such as the BBC and the Guardian. - Pointillist (talk) 11:52, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Repeat, having a link is not necessary. Moving all references to a different newspaper is also foolish. What happens if that newspaper doesn't have the same info as the previous? What if that starts using a pay-wall too? When links to content that is freely-available in the real world go dead, it's not a massive problem. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 11:59, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

I am not insisting that having a link is necessary: if a citation uses date, title and author it should be relatively easy to find without a link. However, a lot of references are "bare" URLs, so if the links are being broken because the source site is being restructured (and if WebCite can't be used because of NOARCHIVE) the references will literally cease to exist. In such cases it is not foolish to suggest that, rather than spend time trying to find the relocated material on the paywalled site, editors should instead consider linking to non-paywalled sources such as the BBC (publicly funded) or Guardian (funded by a charitable foundation). - Pointillist (talk) 00:29, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Whatever else we decide to do, it would be a good idea to add quotations of the relevant passages from cited Times articles (i.e. by using the "quote=" parameter of {{cite news}}) for high-priority articles. 86.41.54.80 (talk) 12:03, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't think even that is necessary, nor is it even practical all the time - often a point made will be distributed over an article and it is difficult to find a single quote that fully backs the assertion made. However it is also a complete irrelevance. Convenience links are just that - a convenience to the reader. They are not required and do not affect the legitimacy of the citation. Over-reliance on free online sources is one of the biggest problems here when much better cites are available offline - any time that an authoritative printed or other pay source is replaced by something less authoritative simply because that can be accessed for free online the project is actually damaged. The fact that verifying sources may take a little effort on the part of the reader is not relevant to their quality. Sources must be verifiable but we do not need to spoon-feed readers, and make everything verifiable in a single mouse click. Crispmuncher (talk) 13:42, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Raw links may well be problematic, but if the article info such as author, title and date are included the reference will still be valid. Fences&Windows 14:13, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

It would be useful if a bot could produce a list of "Bare URL" links to the Times or Sunday Times (should be findable by URL) so that these could be flagged up and, with luck, turned into proper references before the Paywall starts. PamD (talk) 18:15, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

The main point is to avoid editors deleting valid material on the basis that the ref is dead, assuming that is the result of the current URL being used. It may be that the current URL will take you to a page asking for payment and then redirect to the equivalent page on the new site(s), but that we do not know at the moment, and I wouldn't like to rely on it.

There are two useful online sources, behind paywalls, but accessible free for many UK library users via their library membership barcode: "The Times digital archive, 1785 -1985" (excluding The Sunday Times) on http://infotrac.galegroup.com; and both The Times and The Sunday Times, 1991 - the present on http://www.newsuk.co.uk. There is a gap not covered by either 1986 - 1990.

Ty 00:20, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

NewsBank, which is available through my local library, covers 1985 to the present day for The Times and The Sunday Times. --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 01:26, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

There are just over 21,000 links on wikipedia to http://www.thetimes.co.uk at the moment.[3] Ty 02:19, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

I have emailed The Times online to ask for some pointers to resolve the above issues. Ty 02:43, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

If you didn't mention it in the first email, it may be useful to highlight the fact that we are directing a significant amount of traffic to their pages; if they ensure that the links stay directed to the right articles, it's potentially a boost to their coffers, with this whole paywall scheme. Just a thought. – Toon 16:23, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I mentioned that, and the fact that, if we are forced to change all the links to print references, that traffic will no longer take place. Ty 00:05, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

I've received an acknowledgement of receipt of my email, and a response is being prepared. Ty 00:57, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia—The Dumbing Down of World Knowledge

American journo Edwin Black has published an article about Wikipedia, The Dumbing Down of World Knowledge. It's a bit long, but folks might be interested to see how some people view the project.  Chzz  ►  13:53, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

I dunno, second paragraph already implying that there's something wrong with needing to verify everything. I never understood why some people think it's such a bad thing that we don't take people at their word that they are supposedly experts. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 14:07, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

And now, getting into the middle where it talks about Wikipedia financed by an adult website reads like a vandalized Wikipedia article. Hmmm. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 15:07, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, the first few (and last few) paragraphs are a turnoff. It is unfortunate that the author's main point is to bash WP.. Still, he raises three issues which I found interesting:

• One comes up when you search the article for "John Doe". The discussion is of Wikipedia's immunity from libel and defamation lawsuits under 230 of the Communications Decency Act. "The current answer, say some legal experts, is not to sue Wikipedia but the posters, who enjoy no legal immunity, not even under Section 230. Since Wikipedia so effectively hides identities, frustrates requests to obtain them, and even outlaws efforts by contributors to “out” such identities, litigants have resorted to suing “John Doe” defendants. With subpoena power, they can go to any third party to track down the culprits. That is exactly what Livingston did. Although that particular suit did not go as far as obtaining a court order requiring Wikipedia to furnish whatever identification exists, the idea has appealed to others. When a British woman and her daughter were allegedly blackmailed by a Wikipedia editor, she sued using the name “G and G,” and last December 2009 successfully secured a subpoena from Justice Tugendhat compelling the tax-exempt Wikimedia Foundation, which owns Wikipedia, to furnish as much of the identity as they possessed."
• The second thing comes up if you search for "pornographic roots". It gives a summary of Larry Sanger's recent FBI tip RE child pornography, which I had never heard of till now.
• The third thing, (search for "History of IBM"): he describes how employees at IBM are whitewashing the role of IBM in the holocaust. This is pretty obviously the reason that he's writing this article, since he is the author of IBM and the Holocaust (which apparently is more than just a screed -- it won an award as "Best Non-Fiction Book of the Year" from the American Society of Journalists and Authors).

Andrew Gradman ^talk/_WP:Hornbook 15:25, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

His claims that he was described as a "Weasel American Jew" seem a bit bizarre. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 16:06, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Take a look at the strewn wreckage from his encounter at History of IBM. I added a thread at the bottom suggesting that they resolve their differences at an article, IBM during World War II. Wonder if that's something you'd support. Andrew Gradman ^talk/_WP:Hornbook 16:22, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Well technically we are/were funded by an adult web portal. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 16:53, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Not since the very, very early days. I don't think Bomis even exists anymore. harej 21:09, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes it does; click the link. Though Tim Shell is the CEO now. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 11:16, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, doesn't seem to exist anymore. I get a "Server not found" message when clicking the "Official address" in the Bomis article. --Saddhiyama (talk) 13:57, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Oh. My proxy filter blocks the address so I assumed there was something (naughty) there. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 11:35, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Problem with text on Special Pages that are limited to Administrators

I noticed that on Special:DeletedContributions, when a non-admin is viewing it, the first line says "The action you have requested is limited to Administrators, researcher." The thing that confuses me is why it says "researcher" at the end of it. Is this a problem, or was it always there? If it isn't supposed to be there, please fix it. Thank you. --Hadger 01:47, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

It's a new user right with a single user.[4] The assignment [5] said "changed rights for User:DarTar from Rollbackers to Rollbackers and researcher ‎ (Needs to view deleted revision metadata for research; approved by WMF staff)". PrimeHunter (talk) 02:20, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Oh. Thanks! I thought they were calling us researchers. Thanks for the answer! --Hadger 04:25, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Creators of articles tagging as speedy delete

While I was NPPing a while ago, I saw some articles that were non-notalbe, and decided to click on them. Before I tapped the mosue though, I saw that the pre-made edit summary (-Created page with...) had a speedy tag plopped down before the text. I checked the history on that article and others, and there was only one edit, which was the creator (not the same one on all of them). Has anyone else seen this, as I think it's weird. Buggie111 (talk) 03:31, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

This usually means the article was a recreation - the article creator has grabbed the last copy of the article text before it got deleted and pasted it back into the same place, and because their copy of the article text had the speedy deletion tag in it, copying and pasting recreates the article with the tag in place. In nearly all cases, this will result in the right thing happening - that is, the article will be deleted again. — Gavia immer (talk) 03:56, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Do people really do that?! No don't answer that... Thanks for the laugh! Made my day! --Jubilee♫clipman 06:54, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Want to search mainspace excluding fiction

As a frequent user (reader) of Wikipedia, I often am searching it for obscure things, whether using the wikipedia search function, or google with '+wikipedia'. A frequent frustration is when the results (both methods) are swamped with results that are articles about fiction. I don't want these. Is there a way to filter out articles about fiction? If not, would it help this desire if all articles about fiction (including fictional universe games) were categorised as "about fiction" or were tagged with a phrase that could be used to exclude it. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:13, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

You could use a minus operator in a Google search to exclude words you don't want (e.g. site:en.wikipedia.org pluto -fictional -fiction) but it is imperfect. --RA (talk) 08:00, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

That seems likely to exclude a lot of what is wanted as articles on non-fictional subjects often have a section detailing their use in fiction. --DanielRigal (talk) 08:20, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Not to mention fictional things that aren't described as being "fictional". The top hit for the search above for example is Pluto (mythology). Like I said: imperfect :-) --RA (talk) 20:36, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Image trouble

I'm not sure if I'm in the right place, but I need help with this image. A while ago, I put a watermark on the image, not knowing that that was a bad thing to do. I'm now trying to fix my mistake, in removing the watermark. I uploaded a version of the image without the watermark, but it was still present in the image preview and in the articles the image is in. I tried again, except I uploaded the oldest version, thinking that this would fix problem. Again, the image preview and the articles the image is in still displayed the newest version, but, when I clicked on the image to view the full resolution, it brought up the version I had just uploaded. I then tried to revert back to the oldest version of the image, but the same thing occurred. Can someone with a better understanding of this problem please help fix it? Thanks, Megan|^talk_contribs 19:24, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Never mind my comment. It must have been a bug. It's now fixed. :) Megan|^talk_contribs 19:30, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, the image previews and instances in articles don't update immediately for some reason. I've run into this too. --Cybercobra (talk) 19:33, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

What should we do about Epistemic closure?

In the wake of this NYT article, an editor has changed the "epistemic disclosure" page so it's no longer a redirect to Deductive closure; now it's a dab page.

I don't think this is appropriate. The NYT article itself states that Mr. Sanchez misused the term. ("Mr. Sanchez said he probably fished “epistemic closure” out of his subconscious from an undergraduate course in philosophy, where it has a technical meaning in the realm of logic.") I don't believe that one NYT article about one guy who misused a word [err, and a few people he inspired to follow suit] is enough for WP to say that he created a new meaning.

Thoughts? 128.59.181.17 (talk) 01:41, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

I actually changed it before that article came out. It is not accurate to call this a misused phrase; it is a newly created homonym with a completely different meaning. Nor is it accurate to call this "just one guy;" the "epistemic closure" meme is extremely pervasive right now across basically the entire political blogosphere, and there have been articles all over the place (although maybe this NYT thing is the first "dead tree" article, as if that should matter.) I don't know whether there needs to be a dab page, but there should at least be a hatnote. EvanHarper (talk) 02:49, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, in a pinch, I will agree that one could fairly call it a newly created a homonym, and I'll take your word for it about its pervasiveness. What we'd need, then, is a stand-alone article for the new meaning (Epistemic closure (politics), Epistemic closure (neologism), Epistemic closure (conservative movement), or somesuch). (Per WP:DABSTYLE, each line on a dab page should only include one wikilink -- and the line currently employs six. Regardless, I agree that a hatnote is better.)

EvanHarper -- can I ask you to create that article? 128.59.181.17 (talk) 05:00, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Is this a neologism? If so, then WP:NEO might apply --Jubilee♫clipman 05:09, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Well currently the page is not an acceptable DAB page as references shouldn't be used in a DAB page, and the title is not supported by references in any of the linked articles. It would also seem that WP:NEO definitely applies. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 17:56, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Even though it's a neologism, I don't see how WP:NEO applies. That section says that you need to cite "reliable secondary sources such as books and papers about the term or concept, not books and papers that use the term"; and the NYT article is exactly that. 160.39.222.133 (talk) 18:58, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

The real question is WP:N. 160.39.222.133 (talk) 18:59, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

WP:NEO always applies to neologisms. You just need to decide how best to handle the term by following the advice in that section of WP:NOTDICT. A fullblown dab page doesn't seem to be the best way to do this; a hat note might be better therefore. BTW, Wiktionary (the best place to handle the term, IMO) does not have wikt:epistemic closure though it does have wikt:deductive closure. Do you follow what I am saying? --Jubilee♫clipman 19:41, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

The operative words of NEO are "frequent" and "wide" use, which the single NYT article and handful of blogs doesn't seem to support. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 22:01, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Hence my implied suggestion to delete the dabpage, create a hatnote, sent it over Wiktionary and forget it for now --Jubilee♫clipman 22:20, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

It seems to be an unusual use of a dab page to point to articles where none of them exist under the dab name, or anything close to it. Gigs (talk) 01:06, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Wikimania 2010

Wikimania 2010, this year's global event devoted to Wikimedia projects around the globe, is accepting submissions for presentations, workshops, panels, and tutorials related to the Wikimedia projects or free content topics in general. The conference will be held from July 9-11, 2010 in Gdansk, Poland. For more information, check the official Call for Participation. Cbrown1023 talk 22:10, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Flagged protection: update for April 22

As requested, here's the weekly Flagged Protection update.

Now recovered from the developer meeting, we have made further progress, and have only a few known issues between us and release.

If you'd like to verify that for yourself, start on our labs site.

To see what we've changed this week, check out the latest list of items completed.

We are very close now; only a few UI issues remain between us and final testing, after which will hopefully come a launch on the English Wikipedia.

We expect to release to labs again next week, and each week thereafter until this goes live on the English Wikipedia.

William Pietri (talk) 05:46, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

William, I wonder if you could give us some vague indication on how large you think the "only a few UI issues" are. What I mean is: should we be thinking of 4 more weekly releases and testing, or should we be thinking of 12 more, or should we be thinking of 50 more? The reason I ask is that there is some support for the notion of seeking an interim measure, in which we use the German version (though with social rules more suitable to our needs and wants here) while waiting for you to finish the version we really want. But that's a lot of rigamarole if it's only 4 weeks more. And it's worth it if it is 50 weeks more. I know it is hard for you to estimate, but the narrower a range you can give us, the easier it will be for us to make valid decisions about our way forward in the meantime.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:46, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Sorry I just saw this, Jimbo. Looking at the history in our tracker, I'd guess 2-4 weeks. 12 would shock me, and 50 is impossible. The main risk I see for it going longer than 4 weeks that people will take a look at it during the final testing and discover new issues, or decide that what we have isn't sufficient and demand major changes. So the more people you can get to test it now, the more likely it is that we'll not have any surprises during final testing. Thanks, William Pietri (talk) 21:21, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Hat notes

Anybody else here loath bloated hatnotes? They are usually fluffy messages about redirects that are probably of no interest to 99% of the page visitors, and distract from the real meat of the article. It feels like having a sack of untidy junk sitting on the porch next to your front door. Sigh.—RJH (talk) 16:36, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes I do, but "bloated" (like all else in wikipedia and life) is in the eye of the beholder. If you think one is useless then remove it - it's not like you need permission from a higher authority. Most times you'll find that nobody bothers to replace it, which is a sure sign that it didn't belong in the first place - if it is replaced, then at least you know that the note was the product of some thought instead of just a flyby tagger. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 16:49, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

That's a bit extreme. If someone is watching Foo (bar) and adds a hatnote for it to Foo when there's no Foo (disambiguation), it seems unreasonable to make them have to watch Foo forever so no one goes removing the correctly-added hatnote. And if the hatnote's for a disambiguation page, it should almost never be removed, barring WP:NAMB. --Cybercobra (talk) 16:56, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

If it's correctly added, somebody will return it, which is a sign that it shouldn't be removed again. Having said that, I'm actually ranting more about sort-of-similarly-named topics that can be put in "See also" links at the bottom, not same-named as specific as the disambiguation you mentioned. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 17:07, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Assuming that someone is watching the page is not a good excuse for doing silly or incorrect things. There is no reason to remove a correct DAB hatnote. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 18:06, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Note that I never mentioned DAB hatnotes; I have no problem with a single, tight DAB hatnote. But multiple hatnotes effectively saying things like "XYZ redirects to here, for the obscure band XYZ see XYZ (obscure band)", clutters up the article header for seemingly little benefit.—RJH (talk) 18:23, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

That is a DisAmBiguation hatnote. If there are multiple hatnotes then you should probably create a separate DAB page instead. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 19:26, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

This issue may be touched on in WP:D#Usage guidelines: "There is no need to add disambiguation links to a page whose name already clearly distinguishes itself from the generic term. For example, Solaris (1972 film) is clearly about one specific movie and not about any of the many other meanings of "Solaris". It is very unlikely that someone arriving there from within Wikipedia would have been looking for any other "Solaris", so it is unnecessary to add a link pointing to the Solaris disambiguation page. However, it would be perfectly appropriate to add a link to Solaris (novel) (but not, say, Solaris (operating system)) to its "See also" section." - DavidWBrooks (talk) 19:36, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

i.e. WP:NAMB; there are a surprising number of noncompliant articles. --Cybercobra (talk) 00:34, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

I understand the utility of hatnotes in general, but it some cases they just become ridiculous. For example, for over two years the first thing that readers saw when they read the article about one of the most personally powerful people in the world was a statement about an obscure band unknown beyond a few fans in Boston. There has to be a better way of doing this. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:47, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

I have removed it, because it leads to a red link! You can definitely take those away without fear of over-reaction. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 11:35, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Please be more careful. The hatnote was removed in January when the band's article was deleted, and your edit reverted to a three-month-old version of the article. My point was that that hatnote was a valid blue link for over two years, but served to trivialise a serious subject. Phil Bridger (talk) 11:53, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Whoops - my apologies. Guess I need to have a second cup of coffee before I delete stuff. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 12:50, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

The hatnote I added to Book of Mormon after stub-sorting the (sourced) musical of the same name was immediately reverted, but after a couple more reverts it has stayed there - and I can imagine it's offensive to some readers, but there's no other way round because a dab page wouldn't be justified here. PamD (talk) 06:59, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Dab pages are fine if there are two or more possibilities. I've created Book of Mormon (disambiguation), and pointed to it with a dab hatnote on Book of Mormon. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 09:36, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Mother currently starts with this block of hatnotes:

{{dablink|Mom, Mommy, Moms, and Mum redirect here. For other uses, see [[Mom (disambiguation)]], [[Mommy (disambiguation)]], [[Moms (disambiguation)]], and [[Mum (disambiguation)]].}}
{{redirect|Motherhood|the 2009 comedy film|Motherhood (film)}}
{{redirect|Mothering|the bimonthly parenting magazine|Mothering (magazine)}}
{{For|other uses|Mother (disambiguation)}}

Should something be done to shorten redirect hatnotes like this? They don't strictly belong on the same disambiguation page for "Mother". How about a "Related terms" section at the end of Mother (disambiguation)? Then a single hatnote on Mother might say:

{{For|other uses of Mother and terms redirecting here|Mother (disambiguation)}}

PrimeHunter (talk) 16:06, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Well technically they do, because if you go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motherhood etc. you end up on that page. Possibly all the dab pages could be linked from Mother (disambiguation), allowing only one or two hatnotes on the page. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 16:58, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Father is almost as bad.—RJH (talk) 22:38, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Other encyclopedic wikis: why do they exist; can I just integrate them?

In the course of researching the House Energy and Commerce Committee, I came across two wikis that contain encyclopedic information that ours lacks: sourcewatch.org, and opencongress.org.

Why do people bother to create other encyclopedic wikis that compete with Wikipedia? The founders of those sites could better accomplish their organization's mission of transparency if they just import their content into wikipedia and shut themselves down.

Until such time as they do, are there any restrictions on Wikipedians porting in the content themselves? The sites use a creative commons & gnu license, respectively. Andrew Gradman ^talk/_WP:Hornbook 14:46, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Some people may not want to "play" in our sandbox because of certain allowances or restrictions we have set up; for example, the opencongress one appears to prevent anon editing (though gaining an account is free). That's their choice, but just like we can borrow their content for WP (as the content licenses allow for that) they can borrow outs. --MASEM (t) 15:01, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

CC-BY-SA content may be imported, GFDL-only may not; see WP:Copyrights#Contributors' rights and obligations. Flatscan (talk) 04:03, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

One reason for the existence of other wikis is that some material can't be on Wikipedia for one reason or another: original research, fringe theories, non-notable topics &c. Another is people's disagreements with the way Wikipedia works. Many recognized scholars have got so frustrated with their attempts to put good information on Wikipedia being messed up by the ignorant or biased, or just plain practical jokers, that they've given up & gone & set up Citizendium, where recognized experts are in charge, though anyone can contribute. Other people have got fed up with WP's endless POV wars & moved to Wikinfo, where each side just writes their own articles, with See also at the top. It also allows OR, FT, non-notable topics &c. Peter jackson (talk) 10:31, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Copyrighted images outside main space

Hi. Is there any tool that lists all fair-use images that are used in templates, user pages, etc? -- Bojan  Talk  14:33, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Flagged protection: update for April 29

As requested, here's the weekly Flagged Protection update.

We continue to work on UI display issues and on getting up a Labs version of the German Wikipedia. We're pretty close to release, and we believe only minor UI issues remain before final testing.

If you'd like to verify that for yourself, start on our labs site.

To see the upcoming and in-progress work, it's listed in our tracker, under Current and Backlog.

We expect to release to labs again next week, and each week thereafter until this goes live on the English Wikipedia.

William Pietri (talk) 21:23, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Which article is correct -- Upper West Side or Morningside Heights?

From Morningside Heights: "Morningside Heights is bounded by the Upper West Side to the south, ... The streets that form its boundaries are 110th Street on the south, ..."

From Upper West Side: "The Upper West Side ... lies above West 59th Street and below West 86th Street".

Knowing the proper answer to this question is essential in formulating a proper craigslist post! Thanks :) 128.59.179.81 (talk) 23:29, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

The Upper West Side certainly extends past 86th Street, so I'd say that the Morningside Heights article is the more correct of the two; the caveat is that NYC doesn't set official boundaries for neighborhoods. Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:52, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Access New York, a fairly comprehensive guide to the city, gives 110th Street as the boundary. Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:53, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Kenneth T. Jackson's Encyclopedia of New York City (Yale Univ. Press) gives 110th Street as the southern boundary of Morningside Heights, but also gives 125th Street as the northern boundary of the Upper West Side. It explicitly states that the Upper West Side encompasses the neighborhood of Morningside Heights, which seems exactly right to me. Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:58, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

I've edited the UWS article to correct the upper boundary; the ref that previously supported 86th Street was a Taxi and Limousine Commission map that is indicative and not precise, it was certainly never meant to set boundaries. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:05, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Possible to hide reference section?

Given the need to reference facts in an article (which I understand and support), the amount of space those references take up in the over-all size of the article can become extensive. As an example, Glee (TV series) has 125 references and it takes up about 1/3 of lenght of the article. Also, the External links and templates gets lost below the screens of references. I am wondering if it is possible to "hide" the references section or move it below the links and templates. Given the homogeny of the section order, at least at the ends of articles, on the pages, I wondered if there was a technical reason for the reference section to appear before the external links? Thanks. --Jordan 1972 (talk) 22:53, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Try adding the following in your skin's .css file (i.e. Special:MyPage/monobook.css):

.references {display: none;}

That suppresses the list of references when {{reflist}} is called. –MuZemike 23:21, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

No technical reason, just longstanding convention: WP:LAYOUT. --Cybercobra (talk) 23:27, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Won't {{collapsetop}}{{reflist}}{{collapsebottom}} work? Never thought about this until now --Jubilee♫clipman 23:55, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes and no: User:Jubileeclipman/Sandbox 2: there is a stray |} there for some odd reason. Any thoughts? --Jubilee♫clipman 00:04, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Aha! You have to put them on top of each other:

{{collapsetop}}

{{reflist}}

{{collapsebottom}}

Works fine then --Jubilee♫clipman 00:07, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

This is exactly what I was looking for... thanks so much. --Jordan 1972 (talk) 00:33, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

This is a perennial request, with discussions scattered in several different places. The main guideline is MOS:SCROLL. There were some specific guidelines at Wikipedia:Accessibility, but they have been softened now that we added rules to uncollapse boxes when printing. Even then, there are a number of technical hurdles. The latest discussion is at Wikipedia:Centralized_discussion/Citation_discussion#Reference_hiding Note that inline cite links will not link into a collapsed box, reducing much of the functionality. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 01:12, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Collapsed and scrolling boxes are still a definite problem for people with repetitive stress injuries, and may be a problem for people using screen readers. If we think that our readers will want to read the refs, then we shouldn't be putting up any barriers.

(Disclosure: I'm in a current dispute over this point, except for article content, at Eating disorders and other pages where User:7mike5000 has been organizing sizeable sections of regular article content into large, colorful, icon-filled, collapsed tables.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:28, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Re this: what happened to {{refbox}}? Or has What pretty much answered that already (i.e. it causes problems for people with RSI and those using screen readers)? --Jubilee♫clipman 22:11, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

User page design

I am trying to look more "professional" since I will be requesting copyright permission to use a photograph. User:Malik Shabazz/Requesting free content says that I should have a good user page to make a good first impression. Therefore, I made some changes to it. Compare my old page with my new page. What do you think; am I on the right track? PleaseStand ^(talk) 00:44, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Very nice.

One suggestion: I think there's a button on your talk page that says "email this user" or something. You might copy that link, and embed it into your user page over the text:

"If you'd like to contact me, click here to leave a message on my talk page or click here to send me an email.

(At the moment I'm logged in as an IP so I can't fetch that url for you myself). 160.39.220.88 (talk) 04:03, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

OK, I have added a line at the top similar to what you describe, but I am concerned that when an unregistered user clicks on the E-mail link, the error message does not adequately explain that an account with a verified e-mail address is required to send an e-mail. PleaseStand ^(talk) 11:22, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Add "myth" to WP:LABEL

That is: Add the term "myth" to the explicit list of terms in WP:LABEL.
Ironically, Village pump itself tends to contrast "myth" with "fact". While Wikipedia should certainly allow the term "myth" when its academic/technical sense is plain (or when quoting a work, of course), the word "myth" should be explicitly listed at WP:LABEL and the policy at WP:WTA#Myth_and_legend should even more explicitly discourage other use of the term "myth". The term's use on Wikipedia has been contentious for years, and there are plenty of less ambiguous, less contentious terms for any particular sense of "myth" to be communicated. See also WT:WTW#Myth, and WP:Village pump (policy)#Clarifying WP:RNPOV (or at its likely archive). --AuthorityTam (talk) 15:19, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Looking through your contribs, it's worth noting that this would affect the debate in whether to use the title Genesis creation narrative vs. Genesis creation myth.

I don't see how the "myth"/"narrative"/"fact" distinction relates to the discussion at WP:LABEL. What WP:LABEL urges people to avoid is words with emotional connotations. (It urges people not to use "Biased labels, particularly when the label is negative"; it gives the example of avoiding words like "cult," "racist," or "perversion", "unless widely used by reliable sources to describe the subject". As another example, it urges substituting "extremist and terrorist" with "Generic words such as militant, insurgent, paramilitary, and partisan" or even "More descriptive terms such as bomber, gunman, hijacker, or kidnapper".)

By contrast, the "myth"/"narrative"/"fact" distinction seem to me to be about whether something actually happened. It would be as though you were asking us to replace all uses of "bomber, gunman, hijacker, kidnapper" with the phrase "alleged bomber, alleged gunman, alleged hijacker, alleged kidnapper". The policy most relevant in that situation seems to me to be WP:V. An alleged hijacker remains an alleged hijacker until a trial verdict says he is a hijacker.

In the case of the Genesis myth, the question would be resolved by the quality of reliable sources you could bring to the table that assert that the event did or didn't happen. 160.39.222.133 (talk) 16:06, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

No, it would be the quality of reliable sources that use the accurate academic term, "myth". OrangeDog (τ • ε) 17:53, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Oops, you are correct. 160.39.222.133 (talk) 18:54, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Still, main point is: see the top of the page at WP:WORDS: "The advice in this guideline should not be applied rigidly. What matters is that articles be consistent with the core content policies—Neutral point of view, No original research, and Verifiability" 160.39.222.133 (talk) 19:04, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

• Disagree. Due to Randy from Boise, we already have too much weight given to the vulgar meaning of the term and not the academic. KillerChihuahua^?!?Advice 13:48, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

People might like to compare what's said about "fundamentalist" at Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/FAQ#Religion. Peter jackson (talk) 09:54, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Spelling Errors?

Has anyone else noticed that "aluminum" is incorrectly and consistently spelled "aluminium." Is Wikipedia British, or is it vandalism?

--Mast3rlinkx (talk) 16:54, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

• See wikt:aluminium, Aluminium#Present-day_spelling, WP:ENGVAR. –xeno^talk 16:56, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

For those who hate to follow links, this is the relevant quote: "The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) adopted aluminium as the standard international name for the element in 1990, but three years later recognized aluminum as an acceptable variant. Hence their periodic table includes both." I admit this comes as a surprise to this USA-ian! - DavidWBrooks (talk) 17:12, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Re. the question, "Is Wikipedia British", see WP:ENGVAR. Wikipedia is international, and attempts to accomodate all variants of the English language. The spelling more familiar in the USA is stated as the third word in the article on Aluminium, which also has a lengthly Etymology section explaining the history of its spelling. There is also, of course, a redirect. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 19:47, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

IUPAC seems to have deliberately tried to compromise between British & Amrican spellings, adopting the former for aluminium & caesium & the latter for sulfur. Peter jackson (talk) 09:38, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Also nice to know that some people equate Britishness with vandalism. Pip pip and whatnot. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 15:35, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Guideline deletion

I'd like to suggest a guideline should be deleted. Where should I list it, as it'll need some community discussion? Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 10:58, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

WP:MfD and announce at WP:VPP. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 13:02, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Deletion is not the way to go with policies or guidelines. Propose it to be changed or demoted, if it is, t will be tagged with {{Historical}} and not be considered a guideline anymore MBelgrano (talk) 14:54, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Depending on the page you're targeting, it might be worth considering whether it is "really" a guideline. We do every now and again discover that someone has WP:BOLDly slapped {{guideline}} tags on pages that the community doesn't much use/hasn't approved/really should be tagged as an essay. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:36, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Admin actions in user contribution lists

Why do administrator actions such as blocking a user and deleting an article not show up in the users contributions? Immunize (talk) 18:30, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

because it would make them pretty useless for finding an admin's contributions. They can be found in the admin's logs.©Geni 19:26, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Racial comment

Moved to Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Humanities#Racial_comment

australian war medal/hat medal found

Moved to the reference desk.

Interwiki links

Am I being silly- or should this be debated. Today I have just watched a slew of articles on my watchlist having another interwiki link added. I use these links- gleaning details from fr: de: es: nl: and other real languages, to cross verify an article. So look at Calvisson, something called war: was added, this appears as Winaray. Then look at Lecques, and we see the exact same template- no attempt even to translate the Infobox, or even to copy the images. So what is Winaray- well, this redirects to Waray-Waray which appears to be a dialect of Cebuano spoken by 3.1 million people, in the Phillipines. Assuming that all 3.1 million folk, are avid Wikipedians bereft of language skills in French, Spanish or Catalan- don't they at least deserve a stub with an infobox. Now the other mystery is Volapuk, a language with 20 speakers- this time the Infobox has been split in two and half appears in the lede. So, what is the point? They just waste screen real-estate, and appear to me to be a bot writers joke. Conversely, to put a interwiki link on the minority language page to the fr: catalan, and es page could be useful. If policy is needed: Links are only made when the page has reached start level, or where 0.1% of the subjects of the page speaks the language. There you are. Discuss.--ClemRutter (talk) 19:55, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

That's a well known problem with some of the small Wikipedias: Enthusiastic users who try to fill them up with mass-produced stubs, often bot-generated. I think the right place to discuss this is somewhere over at Meta, because it takes a cross-wiki admin to put an end to such activities. I will see if I find a good link on Meta for this. Hans Adler 20:04, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

I don't understand the structure of the Meta wiki at all, but by searching I found a page that tells me that, unless things have changed over the last 2 years, there is probably not much we can do: meta:Proposals for closing projects/Closure of Volapük Wikipedia. On the other hand it's quite possible that something has changed and I just can't find the relevant pages. Hans Adler 20:59, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

I disagree that a policy is needed here. For one, if we want the smaller Wikipedias to improve, purposely not linking to them is going to be counterproductive, it will just reduce their visibility. Nothing goes below the interwiki links, so I don't see how any screen real estate is being wasted. Unless you had a really short article with a ton of interwikis that causes the page to scroll when it otherwise wouldn't, there would be nothing other than empty space where the links are. Mr.Z-man 21:42, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

My three year old is now in bed. We had the nightly argument about tidying away her toys- She says that if I want smaller ones to improve, purposely not linking to them by tidying away their toys, is going to be counterproductive, it will just reduce their visibility. She says: 'Nothing goes below the table, so I don't see how any carpet is being wasted.' Śhe says: 'Ybou are being unreasonable to like empty space, and illogical to think that an empty carpet improves your authority as a serious source of information'. OK that was a bit of fun, but I do see a sort of parallel.--ClemRutter (talk) 20:39, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

What's the latest gossip on Webcitation.org?

I recently learned about http://www.webcitation.org, and so I was really glad to see that there have been previous discussions ([6] [7] [8]) about creating a bot that takes WP's external links, feeds them through webcitation.org, and ADDS the the result alongside the external links, as backups. I have two questions, which I'm going to deliver in two sub-threads.

Question 1: What's the status of a webcitation.org bot?

I'm wondering if someone who's been involved in the process of creating a Webcitation.org bot, can give the VPM community an update on the status of this proposal? Could use any help to make it succeed? -user:Agradman, editing (for complicated reasons) as 160.39.221.164 (talk) 06:09, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

It's already happened: User:WebCiteBOT. I think there have been technical issues with WebCite that have been delaying its operation recently though. --Cybercobra (talk) 07:50, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

There is some discussion about requesting a second bot here.—NMajdan•talk 13:22, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Question 2: What are the pros and cons of WikiMedia Foundation creating ... WMcite.org?

I'd also like to start a discussion about the pros and cons of WikiMedia foundation creating its own version of Webcite. I say "pros and cons" because am hoping for a discussion in the spirit of a brainstorming session. If I wanted to get my idea shot down I would have posted it at WP:VPP. :)

I see the main Con being Cost. I don't know what that cost would be. But I am hoping it would be offset by the benefits. Linkrot is a constant problem. But Webcitation.org has been known for experiencing downtime (e.g. RIGHT NOW). Whenever that happens, people starting removing links from articles. It would be valuable if we had control over our backup service.

Of course, a lot of details would have to be worked out (e.g., do we make this resource available to the general public, as Webcitation.org has done?). We can talk about those details, but I just want to ask that we not think of those details as Cons ... we should think of them as details. -user:Agradman, editing (for complicated reasons) as 160.39.221.164 (talk) 06:09, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Legal liability of the Wikimedia Foundation would be a significant possible Con; I doubt they'd want to take such liability on. Would be handy though. --Cybercobra (talk) 07:52, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

I'd like to see this seriously considered. The entire print media industry is under financial pressure, and maintaining online access to old references may not always be a high priority. When one recognizes that the worth of WP requires that these links work for decades, it is inevitable that links will disappear. So far, this is simply a recitation of the need for the webcitation concept, but I am quite concerned about having all our eggs in one basket, especially one that has experienced problems. Over time, the need will grow considerably, and I'd like to see us address it soon.--SPhilbrickT 13:43, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

The big con would be the additional technical overhead. This includes the development cost (unless WebCite is willing to share their code with us to make an exact clone) as well as all the additional storage space needed and technical staff time to keep it running. Presumably any technical problems that WebCite is having, we could have too. It would be rather difficult to not make it available to the general public, as anyone can create an account on Wikipedia for free, the only way to do any sort of meaningful access control would be manually granting access on a per-user basis. Mr.Z-man 14:54, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

I think this proposal is only worth exploring if Wikimedia thinks it can do a better job than WebCite in terms of reliability of the service. I have noticed that WebCite has had some intermittent downtime recently, but it seems to be up and running again. As Z-man points out, presumably any problems that WebCite has been experiencing can be experienced by Wikimedia too. But I also think Sphilbrick has a point: having an alternative service as a backup to WebCite is a good idea. But rather than Wikimedia trying to develop its own service, since it is (presumably) a major user of WebCite, perhaps it would be better to work together with WebCite to help improve its existing service? — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 15:38, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

I'll comment on both questions. In the short term, I think we need a second bot, because I don't think all the problems with webcitebot have been because webcitation.org has been down. Sometimes the bot doesn't run, and becuase it sounds like a big job, it would be good to have two or more people who can work on issues.

webcitebot's operator has exchanged emails with webcitation.org, and it sounds like they're very nice people. I'm not sure what there problems have been, but maybe we could host their service for them, or they would provide their code. I think it would be a great idea if we had our own archiving service. The legal issues would be the same as archive.org and webcitation.org deal with, which I think are pretty similar to our own. While it would be a lot work, it would be worth it. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 18:08, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

All right -- my take-away from the discussion so far is,
(1) Never break one thread into two sub-threads.
(2) If we were to emulate webcitation.org, it would only make sense if those folks were willing to give us their code. Or their business. (Maybe we should ask. Once we get our bot up and running, we would immediately become their #1 consumer by an exponential margin.)
(3) The people at User_talk:WebCiteBOT#User:WebCiteBOT.2FStats seem to be on top of the process of recruiting people with free time and bot-coding-skills, to assist with the bot, or to create a second bot. I CAN'T WAIT!! this bot is so awesome!!!
-user:Agradman editing for today as 128.59.179.246 (talk) 05:03, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm one of the people over at User_talk:WebCiteBOT#User:WebCiteBOT.2FStats, and what we need is someone who spends a lot of time at their puter putting this all together (I'm not very active anymore). If you wanted to be awesome, you could do three things. Put in a bot request for a second bot, pick thaddeusb's brains about what to do, and email webcitation.org and start a dialog about what they need or can give us. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 05:35, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Kama Chinen

Somebody please check out the recent edits of a Wikipedian who claims that Kama Chinen died without providing a source. Georgia guy (talk) 15:00, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

GRG is pretty much the definitive source on these matters, and it lists her as alive. See this. I think the edits were bad. Raul654 (talk) 15:06, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Death now announced on Yahoo. Peter jackson (talk) 10:16, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Dialectic

To find out what Dialectic means, looking it up on Wikipedia is not advisable. May be someone can remove some fog? Talk:Dialectic#Completely_puzzled Joepnl (talk) 21:31, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

I would guess that it means different things to different people. :-) Steve Dufour (talk) 03:20, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia articles often go beyond the scope of encyclopedic articles required by visitors looking for a concise, reasonably short explanation on something they are looking up. This is mainly due to the lack of control on one hand, and the enthusiasm of some Wikipedia editors to show of their knowledge on the other. Such is the case with our article on Dialectic. It does not really mean different things to different people, but it does have slightly different meanings (all within the philosophy of discussion) depending on the context of its use. I agree that the Wikipedia fails to give a clear answer here. While the Wikipeada article seriously needs pruning and cleaning up to make it more intelligible for us mere mortals, it might be hard to achieve this without polemic, and , yes, dialectic! You are most welcome to WP:BOLD and have a try.--Kudpung (talk) 04:51, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Questionable templates

Hello, i have 2 templates that are questionable. {{Mureş County}} (at this article) and this one. Both are in violation with basic naming policy and WP:NAME, WP:PLACE. Also it violates the basic conception of the idea of template, a template has to be short and informative not cramped with alternative names. Both templates are introduces silently and not to mention that in Romania only 6.5% of the population is Hungarian or Szekely so minority names are constantly forced by this user like he tried to do here even if the only official language spoken by the 93%+ of the population is Romanian. Also every other template uses one official language even if more languages are official like in Vojvodina and others. Can i get some advice on this? Thank you.iadrian (talk) 13:04, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Those are the figures for Romania as a whole, but what about Transylvania? I don't know what WP policy is for regions with a different language from the main national one. Peter jackson (talk) 16:31, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Transylvania is just a geographical region (not a political entity) and there are 19.6% of the population Hungarian and Szekely (together). That means that in the region of Transylvania 80.4% of the population speak Romanian. Even so, it should apply the WP:PLACE since we have an autonomous region Vojvodina where we have 5 official languages and it is only Serbian everywhere and the WP:PLACE stands, in Romania we have only Romanian. In Vojvodina only Serbian language is in the templates where Serb represent 65% of the population and it is a political entity, other languages names are present according to the naming policy. In every similar place there is no minority names presented in this way, which also violates the rules i mentioned WP:NAME and WP:PLACE. iadrian (talk) 16:41, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Even if it would be the other way around, 80.4% Hungarian and Szekely on wikipedia we still apply wiki rules , WP:PLACE , the use of the official names too, official for every country, for Romania Romanian.iadrian (talk) 17:17, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Is the rule to use the official name for the place, or the name for the place in the official national language ? They're not necessarily the same. Some states recognize alternative languages on a local basis only. And what about states with more than one official language? Peter jackson (talk) 10:30, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia rules say official names. In this case, in Romania every official name is in Romanian since Romania has only one official language, Romanian. Romania isn`t also a bilingual country (89.5% country population is ethnic Romanian and more than 91% speak Romanian as native speakers). To clarify this i have given the example of Vojvodina that has 5 official languages and it is a political entity (which Transylvania isn`t). In Vojvodina Serbs make up 65% of the total population and in their templates despite the official regional languages the Serbian is the only one that appears. In Transnistria which is even worse, the template uses Romanian names , the names of the most important ethnic group (31.9%) I know that it is not a good comparison since Transylvania is only a geographical region where Romanians make up 80.4% of the population but i used that to show, even by that logic, which has nothing to do with wiki rules (on wikipedia wiki rules are all that matters), this template is wrong.iadrian (talk) 10:52, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Flagged Protection: update for May 6

As requested, here's the weekly Flagged Protection update.

The main news is that the team had a meeting this week with Danese and Erik to discuss rollout plans. Everybody concurs that we're close enough to launch to start a few release-related activities:

1. Starting a discussion with the enwiki community about how they'd like to handle the use of the feature once it's live,
2. Writing the release documentation,
3. Preparing for media interest,
4. Doing a final performance evaluation, and
5. Allocating engineering time to handle the rollout.

This will pull in a variety of people, all of whom we're excited to have involved, including Tim, Jay, Moka, Rob L., Rob H, and even Mike G. a bit. Adam has also offered us to help us solve some cross-browser CSS issues that have been confounding us, for which we are grateful. Keep an eye out for activity relating to these efforts in the coming days and weeks.

The actual release schedule depends on a number of factors, including the results of testing, the speed with which we resolve a couple of remaining UI difficulties, and the extent to which community testing on Labs turns up new issues.

Speaking of which, if you'd like to try out the current software, start on our labs site. Lest you think it has achieved perfection, both User:Tango and Eper turned up interesting issues just this week. Thanks to them and the other testers!

To see what we've changed this week, check out the latest list of items completed.

To see the upcoming work, it's listed in our tracker, under Current and Backlog.

We expect to release to labs again next week, and each week thereafter until this goes live on the English Wikipedia.

William Pietri (talk) 06:08, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

GAR in need of further commentary

Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Eddie_Rabbitt/1 This has been sitting at WP:GAR since March and no one seems to be pushing either way. Can someone please SAY something at it so we can get something going there? Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • ^{(Many otters • One bat • One hammer)} 22:43, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Help with flags

Hello, I am an administrator of the Basque Wikipedia (eu) and we have implemented the flag template system from the English Wikipedia into our wiki. In the country data XXX templates we have added an extra parameter (as you can see for example in eu:txantiloi:Herrialde info Gibraltar). We want that in a template put that extra parameter (called "nongo"). In English would be "Geography of Gibraltar", but in Basque "Gibraltarko geografia" (that -ko means of). I think I haven't explained myself correctly, here an invented example:

By typing {{geography stub|GIB}}

Gibraltarko geografia

--->

[[{{{nongo}}}|{{{alias}}}]] geografia

Can anyone help us? Is it possible to do it?--An13sa (talk) 08:58, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry, could you try explaining this another way? — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 19:22, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Use of images of nature taken in one place to illustrate articles on another locality

I am wary to incur the wrath of regulars on these high-profile articles by removing these nice pics, but IMO we shouldn't use pictures such as this and many (really many) others, taken in a certain place, to illustrate various random locations (such as Iran, Albania, Sweden, Aggtelek National Park, Tâmpa, Braşov, Prokletije, Lura Mountain, Republic of Macedonia, Geography of the Cucuteni–Trypillian culture and so on). In my opinion, the fact that the species of animals and plants in question presumably occur there is not enough to warrant inclusion of such pictures, often taken in other parts of the world. It would be like illustrating the article on Greeks with a picture of Spaniards taken in Spain, as long as they are all humans. Thoughts?

• Is such use of pictures legitimate or not?
• If not, what is the best way to find out how much stuff of this kind we have to take care of?

Colchicum (talk) 15:23, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

I clicked through a handful of these articles, and the uses are acceptable. The species in question has a fairly large, multi-country range, and it would be beyond silly to require that only images of individual lynxes that were physically taken inside the confines of the artificial political borders determined by humans could be used to illustrate the fauna in each country's article. A lynx on one side of a mountain is not different from a lynx of the same species on the other side of the same mountain merely because some human decided to draw a political boundary through the middle of its territory.

The usual rule of thumb is that if the animal (vegetable, mineral, etc) looks like the subject, then it's okay to use it to illustrate the article or section. The point is educational, encyclopedic illustration, not to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that this species has been seen in a given location. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:09, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Well, at the very least it is factually wrong that lynxes are all the same across their range. Different subspecies occur in Iran and Sweden, and I am still not convinced that a single picture can illustrate both. Colchicum (talk) 16:16, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

And I wouldn't expect to find such usage of pictures in a paper encyclopedia. Colchicum (talk) 16:29, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

If even an expert couldn't tell you, with a great degree of certainty, whether a given image is this subspecies or that one, then we don't actually care. This is illustration, not a courtroom or a laboratory: we care what it looks like, not what it is. Particularly if the subspecies differences can only be identified by getting out a microscope or running genetic tests (which is true for a number of insects, e.g., this one), then the images are essentially interchangeable as far as we are concerned.

So the question here is: Will the reader glance at this image of a Eurasian lynx and get some idea of what it is? Will their idea of the animal be materially false, if the animal in the image turns out to be, e.g., the subspecies common to the western end of its range rather than the eastern end? If so, is that potentially false idea really any worse than using an image of a lynx that was born and raised in a zoo, with a vet on call every time it coughed, as an example of a wild animal? If no, then editors are free to use the image.

If you don't like it, then I suggest that you explain your personal views on the talk page of each article, in turn, and see whether other editors freely and voluntarily agree to remove the image. Just because this is permitted in general doesn't mean that editors are required to use a given image in a given situation. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:47, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

I suppose I basically agree with this. Mostly I think it doesn't matter; I expect that in a few cases it is absolutely necessary to illustrate an article with an image of an animal from elsewhere. So much for input from the animal project. —innotata 19:28, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

There's an additional wrinkle - what about captive animals? For instance, I've uploaded several images from my own (rather exotic) pets for illustration, but with a few exceptions, most of these animals cannot be pinned down to particular countries or states. This is even more the case with my numerous skeletal specimens, many of which are former pet trade animals with no locality data. Mokele (talk) 22:03, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

In general I think this is a non-problem. It would certainly be desirable to have in-habitat photos for each part of each taxon's range, and in fact I make a point of uploading local occurrences of widespread plant species, just so Commons will have more geographic representation. A more important issue IMHO is the choice of species to depict - I find it implausible that the lynx is the very most notable member of Macedonia's fauna, for instance; it would be better to have a type that is endemic, or has the highest concentration vs other countries. Stan (talk) 23:12, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Images should be used for fairly specific purposes.

Even if the animal was not photographed in the specific locale of the article, the animal and the local should have a strong relationship. An animal that has a wide range will usually not be an appropriate illustration for any of the countries in that range. Maurreen (talk) 23:50, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

This sounds nice, but would essentially remove all charismatic megafauna. No country in Africa would have an elephant on their page, or a lion, as none of those are endemic. For sufficiently small countries which lack major geological barriers, they're going to be stuck with various innocuous fungi and ants, while neglecting non-endemic species which represent major portions of the biota. Mokele (talk) 00:23, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree that images should normally be selected to highlight differences or unique species, but that should not be the sole requirement. In at least some examples, the "non-endemic" animal is directly named and discussed in these articles, e.g., because of conservation efforts, because of its role as an apex predator in the area, as a national symbol, etc. I doubt that we want to tell editors that they are allowed to discuss the fact that an animal is threatened or endangered, but then prohibit them from including an image of that animal, on the grounds that there aren't enough of them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:45, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

$ Cifrão

Cifrão is a dollar sign with two vertical lines. I would like to change $\mathrm {S} \!\!\!\Vert$ to $ which I believe will work on most (all?) windows and MacOs X systems. I don't know if Linux installations have Garamond. Is this a sensible edit to do? -- SGBailey (talk) 14:43, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

A better solution might be to use an image rather than the latex hack. If you're just relying on a font being installed you should add a caveat that it may not be displayed correctly. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 21:51, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Is it possible (technically speaking) to create a template ...

... whose input is a page name, and whose output is a URL to the most recent version of that page?

So for example, {{lastchange|dog}} would generate http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dog&oldid=360687969, which I got by clicking on "Permanent link" at the dog page.

The idea is that this would work by substitution, so that I could put it at the top of an edit whenever I make a comment on a talk page, so that people centuries hence know what version of teh page I was looking at.

user:Agradman, editing right now as 160.39.221.144 (talk) 06:58, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Here you go: {{freeze}}. It does not make a direct link (that would require a new parser function), but it does make a link to the first item in the page history, which should be sufficient. PleaseStand ^(talk) 17:22, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

• testing: dog (as of now)
• soo coool!!!!! thanks! AConcernedChicken (talk) 19:00, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Don't forget to subst it. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 19:20, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

One more improvement I made to my template: I created an additional template ({{Freeze/link}}), which could potentially allow a bot to replace the timestamp with an {{oldid}}. Does that seem reasonable? PleaseStand ^(talk) 22:26, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I don't understand what {{Freeze/link}} does.  :( Agradman (until the sky stops falling, A Concerned Chicken (talk)) 00:20, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Is it possible (technically speaking) ... [second question] ...

... to have a "New section" button which is pre-populated with some text?

I am thinking that the WikiProject banners (in article talk pages) could have a button that lets you edit a new section at the wikiproject, whose header is pre-populated with

RE: {{subst:freeze|{{FULLPAGENAME}}}}: ....

which renders as

RE: Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)/Archive 26 (as of now): ...

Except that, instead of using {{FULLPAGENAME}}, it uses the name of the page you were coming from.

user:Agradman, editing as AConcernedChicken (talk) 08:11, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

A simple way would be to create a link like this, but I'm not sure how to pre-populate the section heading, as you call it. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 19:19, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Right, I know how to create the "new section" link. I want to pre-populate the, ah, "subject/headline". AConcernedChicken (talk) 19:47, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

&preloadtitle= –xeno^talk 18:47, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I also just stumbled upon {{preload}}, although it's written to work on blank pages, not new sections. AGradman/talk. See Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous) at 19:48 10 May 2010 UTC

Is it possible (technically speaking) ... [third question] ...

... to have a "new section" button which, when you're all done and hit "save", will also edit ANOTHER page, i.e. inserting a simple talkback template indicating that you've put your message on the first page?

I'm thinking this feature should be incorporated into the "new section" button described in the previous post. (All of this is apropos my proposal at VPD.

user:Agradman, editing for the moment as AConcernedChicken (talk) 08:15, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

You really ought ask technical questions at WP:Village pump (technical), if you want the eyes of technically-minded people who can't be arsed with all this miscellany... –xeno^talk 18:52, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Can't handle miscellany at VPM?! :P OK, I'll go to VPT. Andrew Gradman / talk. See Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous) as of 19:41 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Uw-mos4

According to the {{uw-mos4}} template series, it sounds as if you can eventually get blocked for a comma or something. If we enforced that, we would lose some of Wikipedia's most experienced editors, such as at this debate. If I actually used those templates, which I can't imagine using without further explanation, would the guy actually get predictably blocked after the fourth warning as if they were vandalism warnings? Or would everybody just laugh? In the latter case, should we delete the uw-mosx templates so nobody makes the mistake of using them? Art LaPella (talk) 05:56, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

The templates specify "disruptive, inappropriate or hard to read formatting", not mere misplacement of a comma. Given that some editors want to take a more... decorative approach, not to say USA Today-esque notion of formatting, these templates are probably helpful and appropriate on occasion. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:51, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

I read that template as intended for outrageous and deliberate attempts to vandalize Wikipedia. Usually I find there is a consistent pattern of such behavior, with little attempt at constructive editing. Sooner or later such individuals seem to find themselves blocked, but the templates are still helpful for establishing a history.—RJH (talk) 20:13, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Tool Smashing

What is it with these guys who smash every tool they don't understand? Perhaps they don't see that they, personally, have any use for the tool? They pick up the tool by the wrong end, stare at it, bang it on the bench a couple times, and smash it. Why? Why is this tolerated?

I'm sick to death of seeing obnoxious messages on my Talk complaining about tools I built years ago. I've been extremely consistent in documenting what I've built, using yet another tool of my device, {{doctl}}. It's obvious from the deletion nominations that people aren't even reading the docs. They check the inlinks and say, "It's unused." Well, most exotic templates are best substituted; you never will see any inlinks.

A well-stocked workbench or tool cabinet is full of rarely-used tools and tools whose purpose is not immediately clear. Some tools are mere refinements; you could do a job without them but they make the job just a little easier. Some tools are built for a single, immediate purpose and sit idly for years before a similar task arises. Some tools will be heavily employed by only a few users; some will be used by only one.

In a metal, wood, or auto shop, it's a potent argument in favor of throwing out or selling a tool that it takes up too much space and isn't used enough. Space is limited in any physical shop and each tool must justify its consumption of that space. But wiki is not even paper, let alone concrete and steel. This argument holds no water here.

Another argument says, this tool is broken or dangerous. Certainly, if a damaged or badly-built tool cannot be repaired, it must be discarded. I hope nobody reading this fails to see how silly this attitude is, in many cases, here on WP. I don't speak of the many, many "weapon" templates, which should be deleted as soon as assembled. Templates intended for constructive purposes may be flawed but rarely create an actual hazard. Fix them or leave them alone.

During my active editing time I built several tools and have watched most of them fall under the hammer of I don't understand it, therefore I will smash it. I will go so far as to say I don't really care about the senseless destruction itself. You should, if you're an active editor, if you think you have a stake in WP. I'm just irritated that it's brought to my attention. If active editors can't suppress this kind of foolishness, why is it thought that I can? I'd be much happier if the nasty little attack tags were left off my Talk.

Some of the tools I built have become popular; others have not. I don't consider the less-popular tools worthless any more than I consider a wheel cylinder hone worthless, simply because I don't rebuild brakes. I get a lot of use out of a combination screwdriver but I wouldn't grab one on the way out of a burning building.

The only tool I have built here that I have truly regretted is {{divbox}}. This was badly conceived and built without the modern conditional template syntax; it has been transcluded endlessly, all over this project; and it has been used to build a procession of silly tag templates. I built it in hopes of standardizing the little colored boxes and it has only accelerated the explosion. I tinkered awhile with a more sophisticated approach before I realized that I was only contributing to the tag problem. For this, I'm truly sorry.

If there is one tool of mine that desperately needs to be deleted, it's divbox. But is this nominated? No. It's stupid, therefore everyone understands immediately what it does and what it's for. It's Widely Used; therefore It Is Good.

So long as I can still find useful info quickly, I'm going to browse WP. I'm not going to throw myself under the wheels, though. Now let me be, please, and leave the nasty little tags off of my Talk. If you want to let the kids root through the toolbox and smash everything they think isn't pretty, fine. But tell them to leave me out of it.

— Xiong熊talk* 22:39, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

I wonder whether there's something {{Bots}}-like that would at least reduce the automatic delivery of TfD notices. For human-delivered ones, you might consider an WP:Editnotice on your user talk page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:06, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

I believe Twinkle is by far the most common tool for automated XFD nominations, so if it could recognize a flag in {{Bots}}, that should take care of most automated XFD notices. --RL0919 (talk) 02:37, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

I looked over the documentation for Template:Bots, and TfD wasn't mentioned. I didn't know whether either the AfD or IfD opt-out would have the effect of suppressing TfD or MfD notifications. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:05, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

I am assuming that much of this is in response to {{Docpng}}. I have added the {{substituted}} banner, but perhaps even better would be to add {{Docpng/doc}}? Thanks! Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 00:45, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Input requested at an RfC

Talk:Bishop Hill (blog)#Straw poll. Fresh eyes would be appreciated at an RfC to decide whether to merge Bishop Hill (blog), an article about a climate-change-skepticism blog, into a BLP about the man who operates the blog, Andrew Montford, or to merge the BLP into the blog article. Or do neither and keep them as stand-alone articles. Many thanks, SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 04:42, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/BQZip01

I started the RfC Wikipedia:Requests for comment/BQZip01 nearly four weeks ago. In that time, I've seen considerable activity on other RfCs. However, on this RfC there's been virtually no activity. As it stands, there are no outside views by anyone. The other four currently active RfCs have an average of 7 outside views. I'm concerned that the basis of this dispute remains unresolved. I am not looking for yes/no people. I am looking for input, whatever your opinion may be. You are invited to participate in this RfC. Thank you, --Hammersoft (talk) 15:02, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Hammersoft, that RfC/U is long and complicated. User:Cirt has waded through it, but I don't think you're going to get many more responses. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:56, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

I think we need a few eyes on this RfC. One of the involved editors removed someone else's endorsement of the only outside view (which he disagrees with) as "trolling", and an editor now insists that that the endorsement may not be included on the page because the RfC was nominally "closed" without it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:48, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Completely mystified

Could you please explain why the clicks suddenly sky-rocket from nowhere in this article? Any idea what the reason is? Gun Powder Ma (talk) 10:52, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

A TV show called Deadliest Warrior Fences&Windows 20:26, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Nice detective work. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 22:48, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, thx, hats off. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 23:03, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

USPS Priority Tape - What Type? - Can it be bought?

As an Internet dealer, I have become familiar with the U.S.P.S. Priority tape, which now is not available to United States Postal Service customers. The Priority (or Express) packing tape is of the highest quality with best gripping pwer I've discovered. Does anyone happen to know if there is a retail version of this same tape, available for purchase to the public under its own brand name? —Preceding unsigned comment added by DMPrdctns (talk • contribs) 18:13, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Try asking at "Wikipedia:Reference desk". — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 19:12, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

1421: The Year China Discovered the World

FYI, 1421: The Year China Discovered the World (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) has been controversially merged into Gavin Menzies. An RfC has been opened on the issue, see Talk:1421: The Year China Discovered the World

You are invited to participate, as the book itself is a controversial topic, a wide audience of participation would be a good idea.

70.29.208.247 (talk) 03:07, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Betavoltaics

Hi (I don't know if this is the right place for discussing this but) I thing this article is a kind of hoax. Such a thing doesn't exist (yet?) (at the bottom of the (MIT blog) reference article, one reads : the prototype produce 25 ...nanoWatts). (the 'hype' also pollutes the Atomic battery article). (but I am not a nuclear physicist...) -- Xofc (talk) 13:16, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure it's a hoax. In regards to the small amount of power, the MiT article states that 'Betavoltaics aren't very powerful. They don't have nearly enough power to drive a laptop or a cell phone. But their energy density is high: they store a lot of energy in films just micrometers thick and can be made in very small packages. "We're focusing on places where you need a very long life and energy density," says Greene.' This page may need more sources, but it sounds legitimate. Have you tried bringing it up at its talk page or at the atomic battery talk page? —Ost (talk) 18:31, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Center for Civic Education

I don't want to get into an edit war over this, but the first sentence of Center for Civic Education says that it's a "leading" non-profit ... . I added a citation needed tag, which the creator of the article removed without providing a source which proves that it's a leading anything. I restored the citation needed tag, and the article's creator added a link to the Center for Civic Education's own web page, which doesn't say it's a leading anything. What is my next step? Everard Proudfoot (talk) 07:26, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

I've removed the "leading" as it is an intrinsically subjective word. The reader can decide whether the verifiable facts in an article show the subject to be "leading" without being told so in the opening sentence. Phil Bridger (talk) 15:53, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. Everard Proudfoot (talk) 17:48, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Flagged protection: update for May 13

As requested, here's the weekly Flagged Protection update.

As I mentioned last week, we are starting pre-rollout activities while we finish up the last bits of development. Now that the successful launch of the new enwiki UI is out of the way, we will be getting together with Rob H. and the rest of the ops ninjas to discuss release dates.

Also upcoming is a final pass at the terms and text, some more fiddling with cross-browser CSS and JavaScript issues, some work with the community to figure out the remaining details of the community side of the trial (keep an eye on RobLa's activity there), and a call for the nice people at the German Wikipedia to try our shiny new software with their config and make sure we haven't broken anything for them. (Regarding that, if some German speaker reading this would like to help set up the test site, we could use a hand. Contact me via direct email.)

The discussion of rollout means that we think the software is, some minor nits aside, basically ready. Want to be sure? You can test it out on our labs site, and we'll even give you admin rights [1] to do so.

To see what we've changed this week, check out the latest list of items completed.

To see the upcoming work, it's listed in our tracker, under Current and Backlog.

We expect to release to labs again next week, and each week thereafter until this goes live on the English Wikipedia.

Thanks, William Pietri (talk) 05:26, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

[1] You know that you [2] have always wanted admin rights!

[2] Except those of you who already have them. But for you, we have a whole wiki that you can go wild on. You can even have a wheel war if you want and we won't tell a soul.

Is IPA jargon?

To me the IPA notation appears as arcane as, say, the Hausdorff–Young inequality looks to a non-mathematician. If you are lucky, then the IPA notation is linked to an unsourced descriptive page (in 'Wikipedia:' space[!]). (It isn't linked, for example, on the David Hilbert article.) You can then attempt to figure out what each of the IPA symbols means by flipping back and forth between the pages.

Doesn't the IPA notation fall under WP:Jargon? Would it be out of bounds to tag each of the IPA pronunciation entries with a {{clarify}} tag? Thanks.—RJH (talk) 14:42, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

IPA, for all its faults, is not jargon. It is a technical notation in the same category as mathematical notation or musical notation. Removing it from an article may make the article easier to understand but it may also make the article less clear, so yes, it would be out of bounds to tag each of the IPA pronunciation entries with a {{clarify}} tag. -- Derek Ross | Talk 15:21, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Agree with Derek. IPA is a tool for increasing clarity, appears in most traditional dictionaries and encyclopediae, and doesn't really take very long to learn if you're not busy going "arrgh, Wikipedia's forcing me to acquire new knowledge". OrangeDog (τ • ε) 17:47, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

I think the main issue in this context is that IPA is little used in the USA, but widely used outside the USA. Is there any reason not to have both IPA pronunciation and a form that is more clear to Americans? Maurreen (talk) 18:11, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

IPA may not be jargon but it should be linked to a "Description and Usage" page so readers can have some way of deciphering what the symbols mean. Is there a policy to reinforce a "must link" mandate? Padillah (talk) 18:19, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

If a template such as {{Pron-en}} is used to display the IPA transcription, then a link is automatically created to a corresponding help page. (Alternative templates are listed on the template description page of {{Pron-en}}.) Also just thought I'd point out that there is "Wikipedia:Pronunciation respelling key" and the template {{Respell}} that can be used with it, but this should be used together with an IPA transcription and not in place of it (see, for example, "Adrian Grenier"). — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 19:05, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

If you have "a form that is more clear to Americans" you might have to say that's what it is. I've noticed that the spell-out conventions used in America seem different from those used in Britain. Peter jackson (talk) 10:58, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Per wikipedia, jargon is a "a technical terminology unique to a particular subject". IPA is clearly a notation specific to the topic of linguistics and related subjects. To those unfamiliar with it, the notation is jibberish; much like shorthand. If not precisely jargon, it is certainly jargon in spirit.—RJH (talk) 16:53, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Article about "New features"

The article Special:UsabilityInitiativePrefSwitch, which I guess is now linked from all pages, violates the Manual of Style in at least three respects. This is a special article but I see no reason for that to require these violations.

1. The article title should appear or be mentioned in the article: in a normal article it would appear or be paraphrased in the WP:LEAD#Opening paragraph. In this case I think it would make more sense to change the title rather than the contents, i.e. intead of Special:UsabilityInitiativePrefSwitch it should be Special:New features, the way the first heading reads; or perhaps that phrase combined with a date. I was actually surprised to see that that was not its real title when I went to link to it from here.

2. It uses the peacock language "we are excited to share".

3. In violation of WP:MOSNUM#Precise language, it doesn't say when the new features were new. And the page doesn't even have an edit history (why not?), so it's not possible to tell when it was created to announce the features.

Could someone with appropriate authority please attend to these points or explain why it is unreasonable to do so? --70.48.232.24 (talk) 20:47, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

You rightly note it is not an article. And it's not linked from articles, but from the "meta space" at the top. –xeno^talk 20:49, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm afraid we have no control over whatever the "usability" team chose to foist upon us. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 23:08, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Well, is there a way to contact that group? (Original poster, now at a different IP address) --208.76.104.133 (talk) 21:16, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Mental Motion Simulation

I watch alot of rollercoaster videos, but I want to actually feel the motion in them using some form of mental motion simulation, which requires that I trick my brain. So, which perceptive parts of my brain should I trick? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Racecarlock (talk • contribs) 23:24, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

This is a question for the Reference desk. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 11:56, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Place for disputes

The most part of articles about historical topics (biographies, decades-long events, specific events resolved a few days or a single day, etc.) is a summary of the step-by-step events within the topic. But what should be done when a same point is described in different ways by different historians? (for example, whenever the leader of a revolution was initially seeking independentism, small changes in domestic policies, or just personal power). It's clear that, to follow the neutral point of view, this must be done by atributing the views to the reliable authors that hold them, with inline citations and all the stuff. But there are 2 alternatives: the dispute may be described at the point where it took place, or at a later specific section. The problem is that, unless the dispute is general enough as to be about the whole topic (and then a specific section becomes justifiable), describing it at the point where it takes place may distract the reader and lost the focus on the event itself, while a stand-alone section for disputes may seem redundant if they focus on something that has been already explained some sections above. So, which one should be the approach? MBelgrano (talk) 11:55, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Year contest open!

Dear Wikipedians,

Wikimedia Commons is happy to announce that the 2009 Picture of the Year competition has now opened. Any user registered at a Wikimedia wiki since 2009 or before with more than 200 edits before 16 January 2010 (UTC) is welcome to vote.

Over 890 images that have been rated Featured Pictures by the international Wikimedia Commons community in the past year are fighting to impress the highest number of voters. From professional animal and plants shots, over breathtaking panoramas and skylines, restorations of historically relevant images, images portraying world's best architecture, maps, emblems and diagrams created with the most modern technology and impressing human portrays, Commons features pictures for all flavours.

Check your eligibility now and if you're allowed to vote, you may use one of your accounts for the voting. The vote page is located at: Commons:Picture of the Year/2009/Voting.

Two rounds of voting will be held: In the first round, you can vote for as many images as you like. In the final round, when only 20 images are left, you must decide for one image to become the Picture of the Year.

Wikimedia Commons is looking forward for your decision in determinating the ultimate featured picture of 2009.

Thanks, Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Year committee http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Picture_of_the_Year/2009 --The Evil IP address (talk) 17:11, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

How to add a "village pump" to a wiki (MediaWiki format) and other suggestions...

I am going to create a topic-of-interest wiki and would really appreciate anyone's suggestions for how to make it great.

So far, here is my thinking:

• Have a good village pump early on that attracts people to the wiki and excites people to contribute
• Create a bunch of stubs suggesting a format
• Fill in some of the stubs myself (and ask friends to help out initially)

After the core is there, I'll publicize it in forums related to the topic of interest.

Anyone else have other ideas? I'm also working with a godaddy installation of mediawiki. I'd be appreciative if anyone has a good link for how to install extensions or create a village pump. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.135.197.42 (talk) 00:00, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Try Media Wiki. – ukexpat (talk) 23:59, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Tool for finding the first/last version of an article containing a word or phrase

Is there such a tool? It would be helpful for finding the inserting/deleting editor. Anthony (talk) 01:20, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it's called Wikiblame. Not overly intuitive, but it will give you the answer. - Jarry1250 ^{[Humorous? Discuss.]} 10:34, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Accessible from the article history page— External tools: Revision history search. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 11:07, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. Anthony (talk) 13:36, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Jerusalem Post article on Wikipedia

The Jerusalem Post has today (16 May) published an article on Wikipedia's treatment of the Israel-Palestine conflict.[9] Headed "Israeli-Palestinian conflict rages on Wikipedia: Editors fight against anti-Israel ‘mobs'", the article claims that editors on Hebrew Wikipedia have been canvassed to take part in edit wars on English Wikipedia. In the discussion following the article, a correspondent urges "all Zionists" to follow the example of the Runtshit vandal, and to vandalise articles and attack editors described as "teams of anti-Semites, some who serve as senior editors on Wikipedia, including several British communists." RolandR (talk) 18:58, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Interestingly, this morning the article is still there, with comments; but the one noted above recruiting for Runtshit has been removed. RolandR (talk) 07:15, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Not much balance there, reporting based on a single unnamed Wikipedia editor is pretty shoddy journalism. The comments show an anti-Arab and anti-Muslim line, which is sad considering that they themselves are complaining about anti-Jewish discrimination. The "Runtshit" comment is still there. I would imagine some eyes watching the articles named in the J Post article would be good idea in case edit warring ensues. Cross-post this to ANI? Fences&Windows 14:12, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

So it is. When i looked last night, it was comment 13, now it is number 4. I wonder how that happened? There is also a false comment in my name, presumably posted by Runtshit. RolandR (talk) 14:55, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

30 seconds and a laptop

You have a potential-editor's attention, and a laptop.

What 2 pages would you first navigate to, to demonstrate how Wikipedia works? (I'll give my own 2¢ later) -- Quiddity (talk) 18:13, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

I'd do three: WP:Sandbox for editing; Talk:Muhammad for consensus; Cow tipping to show how effin awesome we are. Agradman (while the sky falls, A Concerned Chicken (talk)) 18:42, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Hmmm, I prefer to go to a random page and show how it can be edited (usually adding an interlink is easy and works on almost all pages). The only problem is that often one ends up on a page with an infobox, and its code can scare people. I wish there was a way to hide excessive code, and make it visible only to experienced editors. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 16:55, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

• I'm surprised that this thread is getting so few responses. It's a fun question. I want to take another crack at it!
• Somewhere on your journey, you have to go to the george bush page (or obama page, depending how you swing) as an IP address, and write a whole bunch of vulgar vandalism. Don't worry, folks, no vandal patrollers will be harmed; just be REALLY BRUTAL and it will get cleaned up by a bot. (Do I have that right?)
• User:Piotrus is right that templates can scare people. At the same time, if your question is strictly "to demonstrate how Wikipedia works", you might take the opposite strategy and scare the crap out of them with Template:Medicine_navs.
• Finally, the tour must end, and you should reinforce the sadness of parting with a reminder of mortality. Show them a page in Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Log/2010_May_1. Tell them that this is where they will go if they are bad. AGradman / talk. See Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous) at 04:10, Wednesday 12 May 2010 (UTC)
• PS Criticism_of_Microsoft is a great way to illustrate NPOV, while also very educational. AGradman / talk. See Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous) at 04:21, Wednesday 12 May 2010 (UTC) 04:21, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Re the first suggestion. Bad, bad idea. Do not disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point. Yes, it will get cleaned up, but we shouldn't be encouraging people to vandalize pages. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 17:14, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Strongly agree. Also WP:BEANS. ;) -- Quiddity (talk) 20:09, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

• Currently, I believe that demonstrating 1) the edit box, and 2) the history tab, are the most important essentials to transmit. Most people that ask me "How does Wikipedia really work?" aren't familiar with the idea that we keep all old page revisions, and are visibly relieved when I explain that part. -- Quiddity (talk) 20:09, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
• "Always leave something undone", 2nd of the Wikipedia:Historical archive/Rules to consider, has been in the back of my mind for a while. I try to keep a single unused reference in my memory, so that I can demonstrate how easy it is to cite a sentence (just a plain text ref, following the advice in the 3rd bullet at Wikipedia:Citation needed, to keep it simple). -- Quiddity (talk) 20:09, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

  I've asked at the Helpdesk now, too. We'll see if they come up with anything new. I'll crosslink them to here, later. -- Quiddity (talk) 18:07, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Citations

Should citations be placed before or after a comma? See List_of_cutaneous_conditions#Monocyte-_and_macrophage-related. Should those citations come before or after the comma? Thanks again! ---kilbad (talk) 02:20, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Uh, after? Still iffy myself about the MOS thing but as long as it's consistent throughout. I prefer after, though, much cleaner looking. —fetch·comms 08:54, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

After. –MuZemike 15:39, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Yup, per MOS:PAIC.—RJH (talk) 19:02, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Constructive critisism of my signature

Please, please, please don't segregate because i'm new!!! this is my signature: ~Monk (^Chat _Harrass) 00:46, 19 May 2010 (UTC) tell me what you think!

Personally I prefer plain sigs, but yours looks OK - though it is rather long in the edit box. That said, there are plenty of users with longer and less legible ones, so I wouldn't fret about it too much. DuncanHill (talk) 00:57, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

alright, thanks. ~Monk (^Chat _Harrass) 01:02, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Failing to eat own dog food. What's going wrong?

When explaining wikipedia to people, I prefer to eat our own dog food. I think it's important to show that wikipedia is a usable source of information in this 21st century world.

However, lately, I've been running into trouble. Several concepts I use to explain wikipedia... are either no longer on wikipedia or much reduced.

• Outside Context Problem: (dealing with outside-wiki issues) Merged away
• Flash Crowd : A sufficiently advanced flash crowd is indistinguishable from a Cabal. Wikipedia works by attracting people to the scene of what needs doing via watchlists and notifications. Eviscerated, merge proposed in wrong direction.
• Lie-to-children: Explaining the process of how people learn about things, including how to explain how wikipedia works to people Stripped of references and sources, Tagged
• and even Eat_your_own_dog_food is tagged, and looks set to be eviscerated.

Now some folks here might go WP:OR/WP:RS/WP:V and spin an entire spiel about how some articles don't deserve to be on wikipedia, etc etc, bla bla. Don't bother. I know that entire story by heart, backwards, forwards, upside down, with my eyes closed and both arms tied behind my back. I also understand the full reasoning. I was there when those policies were formed.

However, I'm not buying all of it in this case. Each of these articles clearly has an encyclopedic purpose. They are needed to understand wikipedia itself. Removing these articles is a bizarre form of self denial. It just doesn't wash.

It indicates that (some part) of the community apparently are going through the motions, but they're clearly not entirely convinced that wikipedia actually exists. :-P

So I'm going to stick my neck out and say that our policy went wrong with these articles, somehow. Can we figure out what went wrong and fix it?

--Kim Bruning (talk) 14:10, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

No, because our policies are not wrong in this case, it's simply their correct application doesn't seem to match what you want to do - which in itself isn't a useful or sensible reason to change policy. --Cameron Scott (talk) 15:45, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

What I merely want to do is show that wikipedia is a usable reference work (a modern encyclopedia) in real applications. It just so happens that it currently fails as a reference work for describing online phenomena, such as itself.

This forces me to turn to other reference works, even tv tropes at times! This being akin (in my mind), to Bill Gates using a Mac, Steve Jobs using a PC, or Richard Branson flying Singapore Airlines British Airways. Though, of course, I'm not quite as famous as those people ;-)

If we want to tell people why they should use Wikipedia, that's a pretty clear problem! --Kim Bruning (talk) 16:05, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Singapore Airlines] owns 49% of Virgin Atlantic and the two have Codeshare agreements, so it wouldn't be strange at all for Branson to fly on it. Surely you meant British Airways? Sir Nils (talk) 16:40, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

I pick an example from halfway across the planet, and I *still* manage to mess it up. :-P (oops) --Kim Bruning (talk) 16:43, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

• • There's no policy problem, it's a practice problem. Loosely written and sparsely sourced stubs like those often fall victim to deletionism and mergism. The problem lies in the reluctance of most editors to spend time looking for sources. The creator often writes a microstub off the top of their head or based on one (dubious) source, so they suffer from original research and often a lack of neutrality. The NPPers zealously tag it, and then a tag patroller or random page patroller comes across it and "cleans it up" by removing all the unsourced material, redirecting it, merging it or deleting it (rather than following WP:BEFORE). The solution? Find some sources and expand them - if you can. Fences&Windows 00:30, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

You make the clear, coherent, standard argument. But my point is -and I reiterate for the third time- I'm not quite prepared to buy that argument anymore. In at least one of the examples, decent online sources were stripped from the article, because ... well... they were online sources. (nevermind that removing the reference to a source without removing the corresponding text is not entirely academically honest, but that's a gripe for another day.).

The problem with many novel concepts in use in the world today is that people don't always report on them via traditional channels any more. This means that if wikipedia relies solely on traditional sources, we're as hamstrung as the traditional encyclopedias that came before us, and we will lose relevance as the world evolves past us, just like the traditional encyclopedias that came before us.

The statistics already show that wikipedia's growth is flagging. I'm fairly certain that this inability to use novel sources is part of the problem.

Statistics are a indication that there are issues. Inability to eat ones own dog food is a good indication that there are issues. ( Denial of these facts as they are presented is an indication that there are issues too, by the way. ;-) )

--Kim Bruning (talk) 10:30, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Well that's a standard deletionist tactic. "Oh, there might be sources, but none that meet my exacting standards". It's a WP:IRS battle you're fighting. The average blog by a nobody (such as myself) shouldn't be used as a source, but news blogs, tech blogs, expert blogs - they're fine to use as sources and I regularly do. It's hard to write about modern culture without using them. If people are removing valid sources due to a mistaken belief that sources published using electrons instead of dead trees are unacceptable then they need to be disabused of that notion. Considering the unreliability and bias of much of the traditional media, it is ironic that Wikipedians still value them over online sources. We kept O RLY? and The Game (mind game) (I lost) despite deletionist charges on both, so memes and other internet culture can survive on Wikipedia. I will see if I can find sources on those you mention and see what sources and content was gutted. Deletionists infuriate me and I wish WP:BEFORE was a strict policy, but they do keep us all on our toes by forcing us to provide good sources. Without them, this project would be a lazy mess of "I heard it somewhere" or "I read it on a blog/on a forum". Fences&Windows 15:13, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

OK, my take on those articles. You're not going to like it, I'm sounding an awful lot like a deletionist/mergist:

1. Outside Context Problem was unreferenced and contained no more material than is now in the article Excession#Outside Context Problem. Placing the concept in the context (pun intended) of the book helps the reader. If you want to spin it out again, you'd better expand it using sources, but I don't see that the merge did any harm. I've added the redirect to Category:Organizational theory (justifiable using this reference), and here's a whole chapter discussing the concept:[10] and connecting it to "The Problem of 'Other'."
2. Flash crowd is a microstub. A merge to Slashdot effect might be wise as they are the exact same phenomenon. The first reference itself says that "A flash crowd is a large spike or surge in traffic to a particular Web site... Sometimes unpopular Web sites instantly become extremely popular after being mentioned in a popular news feed, also called the Slashdot effect." It helps our readers if we write about a concept that is known by different names under one title: we're not a dictionary after all. Flash crowd can redirect to Slashdot effect, with the lead saying "also known as Flash crowds", and a hatlink that says "Flash crowd redirects here. For the novella by Larry Niven, see Flash Crowd" - and the section Flash Crowd#Similar References can be removed from Flash Crowd. There's bucket loads of scholarly IT articles that can be used to give Slashdot effect some more grit. If enough sources can be shown to favour "Flash crowd" over "Slashdot effect", the name could even be changed. But two or more articles about essentially the same thing is not useful or desirable.
3. Lie-to-children has never been a decent article. the current article has about as much content as it ever had (two years of editing). You wrote it in the early days when h2g2 was seen as a reasonable starting point for an encyclopedia article (weren't many of the early Wikipedians also h2g2 contributors?), but I'm afraid h2g2 doesn't fall into what I class as "acceptable online sources" (we need WP:RS to have any kind of rigour in this project). The problem with the article is that it rests on a single recent primary reference that uses a common phrase in a subtly new meaning, which makes it very difficult to find decent sources (most hits to "lie to children" or "lying to children" are about Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, sex education or Evolution vs Creationism, in this vein: Great Lies to Tell Small Kids). The external links to WikiWikiWeb are symptomatic of an article in need of help. Instead of being a cute, sardonic, standalone piece the article should be better tied into articles on teaching methods (or, heaven forbid, merged or transwikied to Wiktionary, as it's a glorified dicdef as it stands). You might like Pratchett's turn of phrase (as do I), but raising a wry smile with a catchy phrase is one thing and there being material from which to construct an encyclopedia article is quite another. The phrase is barely used even in blogs, you might even have trouble attesting to its use for Wiktionary! Do we have an article on pedagogical styles and the need to simplify some things for novices, which is what "lie-to-children" is all about? There must have been research done on how to pitch complicated subjects so you don't just overwhelm your students (on searching I've seen references to a "spiral effect" of increasing complexity, I will check further [Edit: e.g. Unicef [11]]). Our article on Pedagogy needs work, as do most of the articles in this area. I've added it to Category:Pedagogy.
4. Eating one's own dog food doesn't ever seem to have been in a better state than it is now. The concept is notable so surely there are some decent references out there to pad it out??

I get the feeling you want to go back to the free-wheeling days when a content dump off the top of your head was a good way to begin an article - but we've moved beyond that. If you want to write an essay on how the outside context problem, flash crowds and "lying to children" relate to Wikipedia, then go ahead and do it! Fences&Windows 18:00, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

A related concept to "lie-to-children" appears to be the "teaching sequence":[12][13][14][15] and there have been whole books written about how to teach science to children, which could inform our article on Science education. To me, these things are more interesting and important to a reader than a snide phrase coined by Terry Pratchett. Fences&Windows 18:53, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

First, insist on WP:BEFORE. If an article has already been deleted or merged, insist that it is restored until WP:BEFORE is completed - it's big obstacle for deletionists.

In the case of Lies to children:

• Use both Pratchett and the academic articles about the "teaching sequence" as sources - popularisers like Pratchett fulfil an important function, and Richard Dawkins has made an Oxford chair out of it.
• Create titles for both Teaching sequence and Lies to children, with one of these rediring to the other.

Then the same for the other articles mentioned here. --Philcha (talk) 23:15, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Re: #3, The two edits after this diff, are where the example was removed. That should probably be restored. -- Quiddity (talk) 21:26, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

(undent)

1. I'll doublecheck OCP at your insistence. I had recalled that more sourcing existed. [The WP community has had to deal with several events that might be considered OCP or close to OCP in its history. Fortunately it survived.]

2. The implied redirect is false. The correct reference would be to Larry Niven's story. [Wikipedia operates by swarming (aka. flash crowd effect) on issues that need dealing with, either through watchlists, or due to recent events. ]

3. I think you may find that Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen were at least somewhat responsible for the concept of Lie To Children. ;-) H2G2 was the original source from which the article was obtained *AFTER* which additional sources and information was added. But removing mention of H2G2 as the starting point of the article is imo not permissible and borders on plagiarism. One might find that H2G2 is not always equally reliable, however, the contents of this particular h2g2 article does or did meet requirements for WP. [Wikipedia policy itself is a sort of Lie-To-Children. At some point, experienced users-> admins are supposed to learn that the actual manner in which wikipedia operates is through the consensus model. Also, when working on scientific articles, people sometimes don't understand that they were taught lies-to-children, and will have a tendency to edit articles incorrectly.]

4. let's hope so. the term has been in use for at least 2-3 decades, afaict. [this term describes the current issue at hand]

Here's the interesting part: I get the feeling you want to go back to the free-wheeling days when a content dump off the top of your head was a good way to begin an article - but we've moved beyond that.

I agree that this is the current orthodoxy on wikipedia. I am also aware why this was considered a good idea at the time. However, (for the fourth time now ;-) ), I am now not sure that this was such a good idea at all. Our current declining growth suggests that perhaps we haven't quite chosen the right path.

My issues in using wikipedia as a reference to explain wikipedia is an indication that -something- isn't quite right somewhere. Perhaps the issue lies not with wikipedia, but with academic/jouranlistic society in general not doing a good job of documenting important things; but I tend to believe that "everyone is crazy but us" is usually indicative of "us" being the crazy ones.

Though, to link another thread: Wikipedia talk:Identifying reliable sources#Reliable sources— some of these babies are ugly, there are problems with some of the sources we've been thinking of as "reliable".

I would like to explore ways in which we can ensure that articles are correct, while having less of the negative side-effects we are experiencing. I think that the wiki-consensus model, in combination with NPOV actually go a long way towards that goal, even without RS, V, NOR. In fact, we know so, since we know that wikipedia operated superlatively without them; the only issue being our reputation for reliability. Having introduced RS, V, NOR; our reputation for reliability apparently hasn't changed all too much, but our growth has faltered.

A wiki acts like ratchet, with pages being created and slowly being improved over time, and not falling back (the traditional Eventualist position). With the current mode of editing and deletion on wikipedia, the ratchet is broken, and articles do fall back or end up deleted. This violates the fundamental assumptions behind why a wiki works, and leads to a decline in growth. Hence the decline we see in the statistics (QED).

So where do we go from here?

--Kim Bruning (talk) 20:25, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Your argument makes sense only if maximizing the proliferation of separate pages is an intrinsically valuable thing, or at least the best measurement of meeting our goal. I've merged pages like Disease and Medical condition. The result is fewer pages, no loss of information, and increased reader understanding. But from your description above, this is somehow a bad thing, because it results in a "decline in growth". WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:55, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree with WhatamIdoing. Outside Context Problem being merged didn't lose anything, it just consolidated the information. So no problem. We would add something if you, I, or someone else used that source I linked to above. Merging Flash crowd to Slashdot effect (or vice versa) won't lose anything, it will consolidate articles on the exact same topic under the same title. So no problem. Your insistence that Flash crowd must be discussed in Flash Crowd is odd, as that article is about the story, not the concept. Sure the name comes from it, but the source of the name is not the be-all-and-end-all of the topic. I've used sources to bash Eating your own dog food into shape, so that's not a problem any more. Of your examples, the only article content I do have a problem with is Lie-to-children, which you're supporting under an WP:ILIKEIT rationale and a vaguewave to WP:CONSENSUS. I accept your point about it being poor for it to be based on h2g2 and then have the h2g2 reference removed, but then basing an article on a single source of dubious reliability is hardly a good approach to writing a reliable encyclopedia, is it? If you were really interested in writing about science education and the issue of how to teach complex topics you'd have shown some interest in my comments on the subject, but I think your interest here is propagating the Lie-to-children meme.

Both Lie-to-children and Eating your own dog food give the lie to the idea of Eventualism. I want to believe in WikiMagic too, but it doesn't work sometimes. When you started L-t-C, I'll bet you fondly imagined this neologism would get more coverage and people would expand it. Nope, didn't happen, it's still not close to being a decent article and has if anything degraded over time. I've looked for sources and I came up blank. EYODF was started in 2004 and it took nearly 6 years and 180 edits until someone (me) attempted to write it properly using sources - the problem all this time has been the average editor's lazy refusal to look things up, instead just dumping in something they heard recently. Most improvements to articles don't come from incremental, eventualist editing, but from a single editor seizing control of an article: "1/10th of 1% of editors contributed nearly half of the value, measured by words read."[16]. The drop-off in contributions was due to the "Seigenhalter incident" and the subsequent lock on IP users creating articles, and I don't see that policy changing anytime soon.

I agree that overzealous deletion is a problem, and that the NPPers need to lighten up and stop killing people's work so quickly (I had Torture Garden (fetish club) speedily deleted from under me when I started it, so I know what it feels like), but I'm not sure these four examples really illustrate the problem well as the content of all of them is still live! Your criterion for success of Wikipedia seems to be number of articles, but carefully merging articles on the same or similar topics is a Good Thing, and deleting redundant articles or totally inappropriate is also welcome. Some articles have been hanging around mainspace untouched and unloved for too long and need putting out of their misery. Are you seriously going to argue against this merge or this proposed merge because they reduce the number of articles? I think a better metric of success is bytes of referenced prose and number of topics covered in adequate depth, regardless of how many articles they are split into.

I want a happy medium between WP:V and WP:BEFORE. You're not going to get rid of WP:V, the concept of sourcing being valuable is an old one, see Rules to consider from 2001: "Cite your sources. When external sources are consulted in the writing or verification of an article, provide a list of references (books and articles as well as web pages). If an article is about a person or organization, list its homepage. Not only is this intellectually honest, but it will help readers to find more information. Do it especially if topic is controversial (like Genocide). If an article has a large number of sources, consider creating a separate /Bibliography subtopic."; "Write stuff that is true; check your facts. Don't write stuff that is false. You should write that P only if it is true that P; contraposing, if it is not true that P, you should not write that P. This might require that you check your alleged facts. (Rule added Sept. 29, 2001.)" and when it was begun in August 2003 it was with the words "This is an attempt to summarise an existing guideline that we've followed for a while but not written down". The concept of verifiability long preceded the writing of WP:V. Of course "reliable sources" can publish the most ridiculous nonsense, but would allowing WP:OR really improve our accuracy? If there's a dispute about an unsourced fact, how else do we resolve the dispute than by reference to what we believe are reliable sources? I think we can use WP:IAR and our common sense to not use individual news articles etc. that we have good reason to believe are factually incorrect.

A constructive measure would be to make WP:BEFORE enforceable and sanctioning people who repeatedly nominate salvageable articles for deletion instead of improving them. Loosening the interpretation of what is notable would also meet your aims, but really I find that the WP:GNG is a good rule of thumb. Fences&Windows 22:11, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

strange userpage of User:Jhex blacklotus - no further edits

User Jhex blacklotus has a strange userpage. As far as I see this content is completely fictional, including some sexual remarks about film producers (see personal life). He has uploaded several private joke images. He has no further edits. For me this text and the images are completely out of scope of wikimedia-projects. I stumbled upon his images in the commons. Plehn (talk) 05:42, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Interestingly, it had been nominated for deletion here, but the decision was keep.--SPhilbrickT 14:25, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

I blanked it for BLP reasons, we have no way to know that the person named in the page was the one who wrote it and it also mentioned other living people. Also, Wikipedia is not a web host: user pages are meant for facilitating collaboration and this user had barely edited. Fences&Windows 14:00, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! I was to lazy to look up the history of the page. Plehn (talk) 14:19, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

I have deleted the userpage, completely outside the scope of the namespace and the encyclopedia. Keegan (talk) 06:47, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Userpage Help

Ok, I'm sort of lost on what you are supposed to write on your userpage. I searched it and there were no real results. I assumed that you are supposed to write about yourself, but i wasn't sure. Can I receive some help? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tetobigbro (talk • contribs) 18:52, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Take a look at other people's userpages (click on the first link in their signature) to get a feel for what info should be put on it. You could also take a gander at WP:Userpage. Killiondude (talk) 19:12, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Ok, so how do you get the stickers and other things on your pages? I've seen people with stickers and I noticed the eight ball on your page. When I try to copy and paste these types of things, they don't work, any help? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tetobigbro (talk • contribs) 19:35, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

For the ball, copy {{WP:8BALL}} , and past it on your page. wiooiw ^(talk) 19:43, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Include the {{}} with the copy. wiooiw ^(talk) 19:44, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Remember, we're not here to make our userpages awesome; we're here to build an encyclopedia. Awesome userpages should be a secondary concern. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 20:03, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I understand this, and I have edited an article already, I was wondering for future reference so that i would not be "In the Dark" on this.Tetobigbro (talk) 20:14, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Confusing Display

I'm relatively new to Wikipedia and I'm having trouble understanding the layout of the site. I usually can understand websites well and I know that it shouldn't be too complicated, but some of this site seems overwhelming. I love this website for informational reasons, so I decided to create a profile. If anyone can offer some assistance, it would be much appreciated. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tetobigbro (talk • contribs) 19:08, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

To start, if you do not like the new vector skin, you can change back to monobook by clicking "Take me back" at the top of the page. wiooiw ^(talk) 19:33, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Ok, I understand this a bit better. I should've just tried it out first.Tetobigbro (talk) 19:40, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Help tagging redirects automatically

Another user has generated a list of untagged derm-related redirects. I wanted to know if someone could help tag these redirect talk pages with

{{WPMED|class=redirect|importance=|dermatology=yes}}

? Perhaps there is an automated way to do this? Thanks in advance for your help! ----kilbad (talk) 00:49, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

A bot could probably do it. Maybe put in a request with one of these bot owners. :-) Killiondude (talk) 21:34, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Flagged protection: update for May 20

As requested, here's the weekly Flagged Protection update.

The quick summary is that we are continuing with pre-rollout activities, including UI polish, text and naming cleanup, and rollout planning.

One important milestone passed is that Tim Starling has looked over the code and done some profiling and given it his blessing from a performance perspective. He and the rest of the ops folks feel like the production gear is also in good shape for rolling this out. However, to prevent unpleasant launch surprises we've put in a configurable limit to the number of pages protected with this. We'll start out at a limit of 2000 and bump it up based on actual production performance.

We believe we are technically ready to try out a labs version of the German config, just to double-check that our recent work will cause them no headaches. However, we need some German-speaker at least hazily familiar with FlaggedRevs to prepare the main page and help us with a call for testers. Any assistance there would be appreciated!

Speaking of assistance, we always welcome people trying out the extension before it goes live. You can do so on our labs site.

To see what we've changed this week, check out the latest of items completed.

To see the upcoming work, it's listed in our tracker, under Current and Backlog.

We expect to release to labs again next week, and each week thereafter until this goes live on the English Wikipedia.

Thanks, William Pietri (talk) 06:13, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Memes become fact

There's a troubling trend I think needs some attention... namely, attempts to use Wikipedia as a vehicle to legitimize questionable information. I direct the community's attention to this post, which I will now transcribe to save you an extra click (emphasis mine):

I don't edit nearly as much as I used to, but we've both been around here a while and dealt in some cases with controversial and political topics. I don't know if this is a new phenomenon, but based on the last two controversies at the Media Matters article, it seems that some editors are very determined to push memes from conservative media into the encyclopedia. The Hillary Clinton/George Soros thing is such an obvious non-issue to the mainstream press. I suppose that in a lot of ways, this isn't really new--there will always be stuff like this going on in one form or another. What troubles me is that these editors then claim that anyone who does not go along with their conservative meme is a liberal and therefore it's just some sort of political squabble. I don't know if this is happening with left-wing memes; if it is, I haven't seen it. My fear is that editors who don't recognize right-wing memes for what they are or editors who buy into the notion that this is just a political battle will end up unintentionally supporting these right-wing memes. For some people here, the notion that in any dispute, both sides should be forced to compromise is a powerful one. That has obvious deleterious effects when one side is just making shit up.

Before chalking anything up to a political tit-for-tat (the easy way out), read the statement again please. The gentleman has a point -- there seems to be a massive influx of conservative talking points into what should be an objective and balanced encyclopedia. Despite what some believe Fair & Balanced means, in the real world if there are 25 sources alleging the same crock of shit is true, and they're all Beck/Hannity/Limbaugh/Coulter sources (with no support from mainstream sources or academia), I don't think an encyclopedia should give equal weight to sources that seem to publish in bad faith or with the sole intent of generating revenue by firing up their base. I also direct the community attention to the first quote here, which states (in part):

While I'd say it's admirable to try to include all viewpoints and reach mass consensus, blindly seeking this end lets a vocal minority bog down reasonable POVs through technicality.

It would be easy to give the standard "it will work itself out in the end" answer, but I've been editing these tedious sorts of articles for well over half a decade and the issue raised here is becoming much more significant -- I've seen plenty of reasonable editors abandon trying to improve the POV target articles -- eventually, it's my concern that eventually the inmates will be running the asylum (pardon the terrible analogy). I'm not bringing up any particular content issue or event, but there are plenty of examples: Cornell is not the real Cornell, Hillary Clinton founded Media Matters, Obama is not a citizen, et cetera ad infinitum. I guess my point here is to try and start a discussion regarding the long-view effects to Wikipedia, their desirability, and the best way(s) to deal with such. Input is encouraged and appreciated -- any takers? //Blaxthos ( t / c ) 16:23, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Could you explain what exactly the actual problem is? We have to deal with a similar situation w.r.t. astrology, creationism and other popular fringe topics. If something is only discussed by the fringers it's not notable and doesn't get an article. If it does get an article we take extra care to make clear it's not a mainstream view. If it doesn't, we mostly keep it out of mainstream articles per WP:UNDUE.

Is the problem that we are using media that are blatant one-sided tools for producing political opinion as establishing notability? Hans Adler 16:55, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

"I don't think an encyclopedia should give equal weight to sources that seem to publish in bad faith or with the sole intent of generating revenue by firing up their base." This from an editor who uses material from Media Matters for America, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, and MSNBC opinion shows as reliable sources for negative information in BLPs of conservatives (see John Gibson (political commentator). At the same time, he says that using newspaper news articles and a book by a Pulitzer Prize-winning NYT journalist as sources are problematic for the liberal organization MMfA's non-BLP article.

He misrepresents even the title of a discussion over at MMfA Talk. It's not "Hillary Clinton founded Media Matters," it's "Assistance in startup by Hillary Clinton & associates." I suppose he longs for the days when the "vocal minority" lefties (mutiple surveys show that the Left represents about 20% of the US) could pretty much run the WP show by themselves.--Drrll (talk) 17:26, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Ignoring Drrll's generalizations and misrepresentations, and in reply to Hans: the difference from other fringes is that there aren't large media organizations with a fiscal incentive to encourage those fringe theories, the ability to generate source material, and the reach necessary to mobilize their ideological warriors daily. In the cases I mentioned above, Rush/Beck/Coulter/Hannity/etc. get more ratings (money) when they stir up their fringe with questionable "facts". Their reach is far greater, and the memes they start end up influencing articles inappropriately. I'm doing my best to avoid individual examples because this discussion should be abstract, and because (as demonstrated) points are often misunderstood, misrepresented, or the subject of burning strawmen. Those of us who spend a lot of time to "take extra care" with regards to WP:UNDUE and WP:FRINGE take a lot of fire from the editors who try and assert those fringe and POV-based views, and as I mentioned earlier I've seen plenty of good, reasonable editors walk away because of having to constantly deal with tendentious editors and POV warriors. Croc's original comment notes that the fringe invariably tries to make it seem like the objections are based on an ideology instead of fact (probably because they assume other editors must also edit with a partisan agenda), and the community writ large just assumes it's partisan bickering and mandates a compromise (which isn't always a good thing -- see Croc's full comment). If those sorts of articles become nothing but a battlefield for those people, most of the reasonable ones will recognize that the battle scars just aren't worth it and walk away, and those articles become a vehicle to give legitimacy to fringe theories and POV influence. Hope this helps. //Blaxthos ( t / c ) 18:37, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

While not going agreeing with everything Drrll says, I have to agree. Blaxthos, your hypocrisy with this topic is amazing. You push MMFA, FAIR, and HP, yet claim that other right wing sources are somehow less significant, noteworthy, and/or accurate. Your argument is filled with fallacies that could just as easily be turned on you and your views.

In the cases I mentioned above, Rush/Beck/Coulter/Hannity/etc. get more ratings (money) when they stir up their fringe with questionable "facts". Couldn't this same argument be pushed for FAIR, HP, and MMFA whose ideological base donations keep them running?

Those of us who spend a lot of time to "take extra care" with regards to WP:UNDUE and WP:FRINGE take a lot of fire from the editors who try and assert those fringe and POV-based views, and as I mentioned earlier I've seen plenty of good, reasonable editors walk away because of having to constantly deal with tendentious editors and POV warriors.

Isn't your goal to push away editors who are part of a vocal minority (translation: those who disagree with you): You'd no doubt agree that editors exist who are editting purely from a desire to push a particular POV? These people have to be marginalized for the sake of wikipedia's NPOV and effecient editting. While I'd say it's admirable to try to include all viewpoints and reach mass consensus, [one who] blindly seeks this end lets a vocal minority bog down reasonable POVs through technicality.

Let me make this clear, I have a bias and so do you. Instead of simply pointing at one, and railing about it taking over wikipedia (which I believe is the source of much derision when it comes from the other side), why not try to come to compromise. I would argue that neither should be used, but you seem to want to have one but not the other. How pathetic. (Sorry if this comes across as a rant but this is truly a case of a pot calling the kettle black) Soxwon (talk) 18:54, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

The notion that Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, which exerts roughly zero influence over politics, especially day-to-day politics, is in league with people with a daily platform (Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck, etc.) is way off base. Further, you suggest that this is merely some sort of left-right political rigamarole, but my entire point is that it's not. I see some editors trying to push right-wing memes that do not resemble the truth into articles, and I really don't see that happening with left-wing memes. Your attempt to cast this as a disagreement over politics is precisely my issue. There isn't any merit to the whole "real Cornell" meme or the "Obama is not a citizen" meme, but if you want to push them into the article, then it's easy to claim that opposition is politically motivated, which opens the door to getting 50% coverage of something that merits no coverage at all. Croctotheface (talk) 19:52, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Hmmm. That's funny because because from the number of times I see outfits such as FAIR used as a source to criticize conservative political figures in Wikipedia I would think that it was a highly influential political force. Badmintonhist (talk)

Examples? Where is FAIR as the only source for something? Croctotheface (talk) 01:25, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Do you mean when it's one of two or more sources that doesn't count?? Badmintonhist (talk) 02:00, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Huh? Just give me examples. What's so hard about that? Croctotheface (talk) 02:58, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Tell ya what. Croc, YOU do a Wikipedia search of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting and see what ya come up with. Badmintonhist (talk)

Very mature. It's not my responsibility to make your case for you. You made an assertion, and now you are abjectly refusing to back it up with evidence. Croctotheface (talk) 21:01, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

What would you know about maturity, Croc? I believe YOU made the original assertion. You said that FAIR "exerts" roughly zero influence over politics. Where's your proof? When I did a Wikipedia search of "Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting" over 100 entries popped up and those, of course, would only be the entries in which the full name of the organization was listed, there may be many others where only "FAIR" is listed. Just yesterday I edited the article on Bill O'Reilly and FAIR, unfairly or not, was a source in that one. So, apparently, in Wikiworld FAIR is a substantial player. Badmintonhist (talk) 05:01, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

When video exists of the quote (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHTydb5js-E at about 2:15), of Secretary Clinton herself talking about "institutions that I helped to start and support like Media Matters and Center for American Progress." (Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2007/10/01/hillary-clinton-told-yearlykos-convention-she-helped-start-media-matt#ixzz0mnyMkVp3) then I would hardly put that issue in with WP:FRINGE things like idiots that believe the President wasn't born in Hawaii (there is a birth announcement in a local paper for him back then). What this "Cornell" argument you attempted to source (please provide real links to support your arguments, not non-sensical ones that a person has to dig for) has to do with anything I have no idea. The examples are not comparable. What you've set up is a strawman argument with the Media Matters issue built into these others when it clearly doesn't belong. Very disingenuous Blax. Rapier (talk) 20:34, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

The replies above only validate my point -- the entirety of the replies above are attempts to personalize the debate and the assumption that my positions are based on a personal political position. My point is that when the profit-motivated meme universe pushes out stuff like the misinterpretation of the "Hillary started Media Matters" quote, or of the "Keith Olbermann didn't attend the real Cornell" fiction, you guys always attack editors who stand up to the bullshit as being ideologically motivated. The quotes I referenced above are to point out that a vocal minority that believes something absurd doesn't mean we always have to include their absurdity (see WP:FRINGE and WP:UNDUE). My concern (and purpose here) is to hopefully start the community towards a path in which we can have balanced and neutral articles without making Wikipedia such an unpleasant place that the reasonable editors simply walk away. //Blaxthos ( t / c ) 20:54, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Blaxthos, seriously, how can you keep a straight keyboard making these statements? Here you are claiming that ideologically motivated editing results in reasonable editors leaving WP, while at the same time pushing the left meme against John Gibson in what is essentially a MMfA attack. If you seriously were interested in WP you would start by not turning articles on conservatives into attack pages. Arzel (talk) 03:59, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Arzel, are you going to comment at all on the content that's being raised here, or are you just here to impugn the motivations of other editors? Croctotheface (talk) 07:54, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

No worries, Croc... Arzel is giving us another example of the behavior I'm talking about -- believing everything must be ideologically motivated (even when policies and reasoning have been provided and 3RR has been violated), and trying to misdirect people to a micro content issue instead of dealing with the larger points rasied. I honestly believe the partisan battlefield is the only way these people can function, which is exactly why I brought this thread here. //Blaxthos ( t / c ) 09:51, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Ooor, we're frustrated by the partisan nature of a certain editor who seems to think that right-wing editors can only have a partisan agenda, rather than being here to help the article. Have you ever considered this? (my guess is not) Soxwon (talk) 14:18, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Evidence doesn't bear that out -- as Croc noted in his original post, the empirical evidence seems to show that it's right wing memes from the Rush/Beck/Hannity universe that is constantly being inserted into Wikipedia, simply opposing the insertion of those memes with equal weight doesn't equate to the level of ideology necessary to propose inclusion in the first place (basically, opposing ideological edits doesn't make one an ideologue on the opposite end of the spectrum). Attempting to insert right-wing memes (the Soros and Hillary obsessions, the Olbermann college fiction, or any of the hundred-other fiascoes that fit this mold) can clearly be traced to certain partisan sources and is clearly and necessarily editing to advocate an agenda; however, opposing those edits and clearly showing the policy-based reasons for exclusion doesn't mean someone is opposing it due to a competing ideology. I'm having trouble succinctly communicating my point here, but I hope this helps. //Blaxthos ( t / c ) 16:41, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

And I can back that up with one concrete example--a few editors have been obsessed with putting information about George Soros into the Media Matters article. It's gotten to the point where there are paragraphs in the reflist quoting descriptions in conservative media about how, while Soros didn't donate directly to MM, he did donate to organization A, which then donated to organization B, which then donated to MM. A completely parallel case, Richard Mellon Scaife, has no such text in articles that he and the Scaife Foundation have donated to. There is no such text in Hoover Institution, or American Enterprise Institute or numerous others. Now, I'm not saying that we should not describe where these organizations get funding. If Scaife or Soros donated, then it's fine to say so, but it's a truly odd step to say that Media Matters received funds from B which received funds from A which received funds from Soros, yet some editors insist on pushing that kind of stuff in the article. Croctotheface (talk) 21:09, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

All of this just serves to illustrate a point I've made a number of times: Wikipedia has no adequate dispute resolution procedure. Peter jackson (talk) 10:14, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Especially when the dispute is with editors who argue in bad faith. Here's a perfect example of what I'm talking about... the comment clearly demonstrates he's here to do ideological battle. What's the solution? //Blaxthos ( t / c ) 20:20, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Actually, it might not actually be that those editors believe they're operating in bad faith. It could be that they've internalized another right-wing meme--perpetual victimhood, wherein anything remotely unflattering to their worldview is perceived as some kind of plot. The "liberal media' is out to get me, etc. If someone begins with that series of assumptions, then it's not surprising that they would be disinclined to hear what other editors say, as they've preemptively discredited any kind of differing viewpoint. Croctotheface (talk) 21:12, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Oh I don't mean to imply they are aware of what they're doing; quite the opposite. Indeed, their beliefs condition them to reject outside viewpoints and to rationalize away things that contradict their worldview. Regardless of the mens rea, our focus should be pragmatic... how does the community recognize and deal with the effects of such? I think it's reasonable to say that editors who engage these areas frequently take a good bit of flack and abuse, and any hope of a sustainable wikipedia model must include some mechanism to deal with these issues without burning out all the reasonable editors. //Blaxthos ( t / c ) 03:09, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree. I can think of 3 possible solutions.

1. Change of culture so that the community descends en masse on disputes, considers them carefully & fairly, reaches a sensible deicision & either enforces it or authorizes somebody else to do so. Not going to happen in the foreseeable future.
2. Set up a body parallel to Arbcom to resolve disputes, but without the Arbcom rules that require a quorum of complainants & give Arbcom the right to ignore a dispute.
3. Abolish IAR & make POV, OR, RS &c so precise/rigid that there can be no question how they apply in any given case. Then let any admin enforce them.

Any others? Peter jackson (talk) 16:49, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Ok, despite the problems that are going on, your idea is terrible. Rigid rules and waiting for admins will lead to back up, even more biased rulings, and endless bureaucracy (after all, if they are so rigid that they can't be question then they must cover EVERY circumstance). In short, no no no no no. Soxwon (talk) 17:03, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Encyclopedia Brittanica has a terrific conflict resolution mechanism: editorial meetings and bosses who say "no". That's a big advantage of a top-down, hierarchical (sp?) system. Wikipeida doesn't want that kind of system, for better or (in this case) worse. There's no way (IMHO) to have wikipedia be otherwise if it remains the encyclopedia that anybody can edit. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 17:31, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, it's quite hard to have quality and consistent content when there is absolutely no editorial oversight or content rule enforcement. I'm worried the principles upon which Wikipedia are founded are no more practical than communism (note: analogy towards feasibility, not a direct comparison to ideology). What we have now is basically a system where ideologues are rewarded for fomenting endless debate based on misstatements, red herrings, and false logic. The community simply must find some middle ground that retains the openness of Wikipedia without allowing POV warriors to turn talk pages into town-hall shouting matches ad infinitum. They're starting to realize that if they argue endlessly and never acknowledge consensus, eventually all the reasonable editors will abandon those articles ("it's not worth the fight"). The current situation is not sustainable if we hope to meet our lofty goals (especially WP:NPOV, WP:UNDUE, WP:FRINGE, and WP:RS). Thank you to Peter Jackson for the list of alternatives. I agree #1 isn't going to happen -- what do we need to do to get a serious, wide-ranging discussion on the other two? //Blaxthos ( t / c ) 21:00, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

David, you have to distinguish between 2 different types of authority who might resolve disputes.

1. Experts, which is what you were referring to in the context of EB. This is the principle of Citizendium & it would obviously be inappropriate to duplicate that here.
2. An elected committee. Is the Wikipedia community incapable of electing a committee of conscientious people to do the job?

Blaxthos, I'm not sure what the best procedure here is. Wikipedia procedures are quite Byzantine. Peter jackson (talk) 10:08, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Well it appears this thread is dying on the vine. I can cite examples in the last few days of continued battlefield-minded, incendiary interactions that have no other purpose than to inflame situations; I can also cite examples of WP:ANI treating incivility and long-term attacks like they're insignificant spats. The end result is necessarily going to be reasonable editors abandoning difficult articles, leaving them to the POV warriors and trolls. How in the hell can one effect systemic change around here? I've been registered for the better part of a decade, and in the last two years or so things have gotten so bad that it's almost not worth the effort. If we don't do something, the situation is going to reach critical mass (if it hasn't already). //Blaxthos ( t / c ) 20:20, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

There might well be a feedback effect. If the number of good editors leaving exceeds the number joining, WP can be expected to deteriorate, which in turn might discourage others. Peter jackson (talk) 15:17, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

According to [17], WP editors have decided this problem should not be fixed. Peter jackson (talk) 10:09, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Disheartening. As a community, are we satisfied with the statu quo ? Sounds to me like virtually everyone recognizes the problem(s), but everyone just kinda shrugs their shoulders ("oh well, good luck!"). I don't think the current situation is immutable; I just don't know how to effect a meaningful attempt to solve this problem. //Blaxthos ( t / c ) 20:29, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Adding Articles

This website is an encyclopedia, correct? I realize that information must be given to make this encyclopedia. I have also realized, however, that some things are not included in this encyclopedia. So I am asking, is it wrong to create articles on people and things that are not famous or "important?" Any feedback would be much appreciated.Tetobigbro (talk) 20:51, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Please read WP:DEFACTO, not all subjects have to be "Famous" to have an article. wiooiw ^(talk) 21:01, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

That would seem to be a rather controversial essay. I know many editors who would disagree with some of its claims. I also note that almost no-one on its talk page has agreed with it. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 21:59, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

So if I were to, just as an example, write an article on myself or others I know, would it be worth the time or would it just be deleted?Tetobigbro (talk) 21:09, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Probably will be deleted under db person. Another link you may want to read in WP:N. If you are interested in creating an article, Wikipedia:Article_wizard is a good start. You may also want to read WP:CSD. wiooiw ^(talk) 21:15, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Just to note that it is recommended to edit a few existing articles before you start your own. wiooiw ^(talk) 21:21, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

The standard is that a person or topic must be notable (which is not the same as "famous") to be included. For more on this, see our WP:Notability guideline. Blueboar (talk) 02:16, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

An editor just included

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Village pump.

a link in the List of sculptors to an article in the German wikipedia. Is this okay? Einar aka Carptrash (talk) 19:45, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

It's not recommended but it's not a big deal. If an article doesn't exist on English Wikipedia but exists on another language it's always better to make it a redlink so editors will know the article needs to be created. -- œ^™ 01:07, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

But the editor added the German WP because the link was was redlinked: "Please only list sculptors in blue, not ones in red" followed by "Now it's blue". Seems a bit off to me. OTOH, the sculptor seems notable to me: he appears to be the guy that made Schubert's memorial if Google translate is to be trusted: [18]. Shouldn't be that hard for some one with a knowledge of German and/or sculptors to create an ENWP article --Jubilee♫clipman 01:36, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Why not put the link to German Wikipedia by the side of the internal redlink? i.e. Redlink (de:Redlink). Fences&Windows 21:39, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Done it. Besides, lists may include redlinks if it is likely that someone could write an article on the topic. Fences&Windows 21:46, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Request for comment on flagged revisions trial

I have created a request for comment on the flagged revisions trial, motivated by an unexpected, unannounced and publicly undiscussed change of configuration removing the reviewer usergroup. Please weigh in there. Cenarium (talk) 12:58, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Fantasy creeping into reality

There is an article about Tree shaping which talks about the real world practice of shaping tree trunks. Some fantasy text and art with references has crept into the article. I have created a new section within the article called Art and literature about Tree shaping. The section could easily have references to shaped trees that appeared in 1940s Mickey Mouse cartoons, Wizard of Oz's apple tree people and Winnie the Pooh's tree houses.

Should this section be created into a new article? What I wanted comments on, is the appropriateness of mixing a real-world practice and fanciful literature within the same article. Blackash have a chat 11:38, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

I think that kind of thing is generally OK to some extent. In a sense it's part of the public image of your field, so it's a bit more relevant than a trivia section. Encapsulating the material in a separate section was a good move, and I guess it can also be moved further down so as not to get undue weight in the article. And obviously this section should not grow without control. The current size seems OK, and three times that would probably still be OK, but it should certainly not take over most of the article. Hans Adler 11:55, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

What will there be next? Star Destroyers under the heading "space"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Denting5 (talk • contribs) 11:58, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Space warfare in fiction. Fences&Windows 14:52, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks I keep it in the article for now and move it down, with the plan to move it all to it's own page later, when I have time to work on it and make it a interesting article. Thanks for Space warfare in fiction it looks like I could use this as a guide. Blackash have a chat 11:01, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Isn't the first step to discuss this with the other editors on the talk page? This discussion was not broached on at all on the discussion page at Tree shaping, though discussions there are exhaustive (8 archives worth) and truly exhausting. I've only caught wind of this through an edit summary re-demoting this material from the History section of the page, on the basis that you've reached consensus here that it should go at the very bottom of the page. I don't see that consensus, and I'm pretty sure that consensus would not have been found on the talk page there either. I'll note it there. The editing environment over there is extremely contentious, due to this editor's influence, on just about every good faith edit from every other editor. The way it's presented here is disingenuous. In this case, the art and literature references were in there as a subheading, in dated order, in the context of a history of the development of the craft, and these sources were in fact highly influential in the blossoming of the craft, more than a bit more than trivia. The editor who broached the question is covered in the article and maintains excessive control over its content, for reasons that have been clearly established at Talk:Tree shaping over a period of years. It is apparently that editor's contention that they developed the craft recently in a vacuum, completely isolated from influences from the outside world, and that they thus created the art. That is what is being enforced, to an extent that is baffling. There is no particular risk of the 3 short references to the occurrence of what is after all, an art, in the arts and literature section, ballooning up uncontrollably. Careful editors are keeping a close eye out for such things but having a hard time making this article any better in the current environment. Demoting the referenced statements, again, is felt as disruptive and not an improvement to the article. There's not a need for a separate article on this and these belong in the History section, sub-headed gracefully. We could sure use a few more eyes over there...anyone interested in tuning in? Duff (talk) 13:36, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Oversight requests moving to OTRS effective today

I am pleased to advise you that, effective immediately, requests for oversight/suppression will be accepted using the OTRS system. Please bear with us as the Oversight team becomes accustomed to this new method of receiving and replying to requests. We will strive to maintain timely service.

If you have found yourself reporting concerns to the oversight mailing list, please take a moment to add the new email address to your list of contacts: oversight-en-wpwikipedia.org

We look forward to continuing to work with the community in protecting the privacy of editors and others.

For the Oversight team,
Risker (talk) 04:25, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Discuss this

Who to alert for Pseudo-scholarship RfC?

We're about to post an RfC. The dispute is over the accuracy of the article's definition of the term. We will tag various "pseudo-" categories but the dispute is about how to contrive the definition. Are there projects or categories with an interest in lexicography, or Wikipedia's policy on how to define terms? Anthony (talk) 07:05, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Assessment drive?

Would this be the correct place to propose a Wiki-wide assessment drive, or should it be at WP:VPP or somewhere else?

Can this post be construed as the aforementioned proposal, or shall I propose a meta-proposal first (perhaps at WP:VPR)? OrangeDog (τ • ε) 11:51, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

It could be taken as a proposal, but I want it to be in the correct place - I'm not entirely sure where that is though. Mjroots (talk) 21:26, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

link exchange

Dear Sir,

My query is, can i give internal link of your website, to in our website.

Regards Alka Dujodwala <redact> —Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.143.10.136 (talk) 09:22, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, links to Wikipedia articles are allowed from external websites. Links from Wikipedia to your website may or may not be made, per WP:EL and WP:ELNO. Mjroots (talk) 12:30, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Flagged protection: update for May 27

As requested, here's the weekly Flagged Protection update.

The loose-end tidying and rollout prep proceeds apace. This week's rollout prep includes preparing for an emergency rollback, something that we don't expect will be necessary but for which we nonetheless need to be ready.

We've been working diligently on the text, which is a key component of the user interface. You can see the enwiki-specific parts of that in our message updates.

As part of that text work, we are also considering changing the name of the English Wikipedia deployment from Flagged Protection to something more easily comprehended by the general public. If you'd like to weigh in on the many options, go to Wikipedia talk:Flagged protection and patrolled revisions/Terminology.

The main thing standing between us and being able to give a release date is some trouble with part of the UI. If you're a HTML & CSS guru, we could use your help.

We also fixed a bug this week. Thanks to Sonia, who found and reported that bug. Want to emulate her? Start here.

To see the upcoming work, it's listed in our tracker, under Current and Backlog.

We expect to release to labs again next week, and each week thereafter until this goes live on the English Wikipedia.

Thanks, William Pietri (talk) 05:32, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Percentage of stub articles

Just out of curiosity, does anybody know what percentage of all the Wikipedia articles have a stub tag? Thank you.—RJH (talk) 18:17, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Assuming all stub templates now use {{Asbox}}, 43.46%. Mr.Z-man 18:48, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, much lower than I expected. Thanks.—RJH (talk) 15:43, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

43%? That's a lot higher than I expected! Then again, the {{stub}} template is frequently kept on articles long after they've arguably ceased to be stubs, so it's probably not as bad as it looks. Robofish (talk) 16:57, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Agreed - I would guess that a third of "stubs" are not really stubs, since nobody bothers to kill the template. I just removed a stub template for that very reason, in fact, so the figure is actually 42.999%. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 17:26, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

In the astronomy wikiproject, the number of stub articles forms 73% of the total. I was expecting similar results for certain other wikiprojects. But it may be that those are just outliers.—RJH (talk) 17:52, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

I took a random sample of 100 articles, and 42 of those had stub tags. That suggests your value is close to accurate. Two of the stub articles were too well developed to warrant a stub tag. (A surprising number of the articles turned out to be disambiguation pages.) Thanks.—RJH (talk) 20:16, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Discussing the deletion (and a more than prompt one, at that) of the article "Specifically human basic need"

I transformed from the "Laszlo Garai" the following paragraph

According to a hypothesis of Garai's, a paradoxical need for a needfree activity is specific for humans and basic for their other needs. The structure of the hypothesized need is isomorphic with that of the work considered as a "specifically human basic activity" and defined as that of arranging in one and the same structure ends and means". The hypothesis is based on the activity theory of Alexei Leontiev.

into a new item "Specifically human basic need". This was in a couple of hours deleted, although it has been referred to a monograph published by the Hangarian Academic Press, a paper entitled "The specifically human basic need" and published by the review of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and an annotated list of the further writing in the topic and published by the above mentioned Academy. Consequently, I claim the immediate redtoration of the article in question. Szalagloria (talk) 19:38, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Please take it to Wikipedia:Deletion review. –MuZemike 22:36, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

new article

I was going to make an article, but I then realized that I didn't know how to set up the main format for making the articles. I know how to get to the point to make it, but I need a guide to the formatting, and I haven't been able to find it yet. Can I receive some help, please?Tetobigbro (talk) 21:14, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

WP:YFA, WP:WBA, and WP:LAYOUT all jump to mind for your specific situation. :-) Killiondude (talk) 22:15, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Access dates for bot filled references

What is the correct accessdate= for a reference being filled by a bot — the original date the citation was added or the day the bot retrieves the page? Say a user placed {{citeweb|url=myurl.com}} on April 1, 2008. Along comes a bot on May 10, 2010 and fills in some info: {{citeweb|url=myurl.com|title=cool page|work=myUrl}}. So should the bot place the current date in? How can it know the contents did no change since? After all, the original author referenced material in 2008. Cheers! —  Hellknowz  ▎talk  16:57, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

My thinking would be that the access date should be when the original editor added the ref, as that is the date when the link was, indeed, accessed. A bot filling in that field because it was omitted is not accessing the link, and shouldn't make it look otherwise.--Fyre2387 ^{(talk • contribs)} 19:16, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Technically, the bot would be accessing the link if it is determining the title, et al. Though I agree with your interpretation of access date in the template, perhaps it needs some clarification in the template documentation to something like "Full date when item was accessed to retrieve the cited information". —Ost (talk) 20:55, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

The access date should always refer to a time when a human followed the link and checked that it did indeed verify what it claimed to. I don't think a bot should be filling it in at all. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 11:49, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Further question: Is it acceptable for a bot to fill in the access date the url was added? So the bot would check revisions, find the addition and mark that date. I assume this is the day the user actually accessed the content. The only possible problem is that the user may expand the article from the same source at a later date; however the editors usually do not update accessdates anyway. —  Hellknowz  ▎talk  20:58, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Confused

Subpages

I'm so lost. I have been trying to make a subpage and I am following the directions as best as I can, but I keep ending up where I started. Can someone tell me how to make a subpage?

Just start editing User:Example/Sandbox, replacing "Example" with your username. - Jarry1250 ^{[Humorous? Discuss.]} 11:57, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Wikiprojects

Also, I was looking up a few articles and following links and noticed that many of them lead back to a Wikiproject. I was going to join a certain one, but I couldn't figure out how they made a certain signature. Instead of it just saying-(talk)-theirs also had a contributions button beside it. How do I make that certain signature?

You can edit your signature in your "My preferences". First, tick the box "Sign my name using the provided wikitext". Now, you can edit the wikitext of your signature directly, though there are guidelines about what you should or should not include at WP:CUSTOMSIG. Mine is (for example) - [[User:Jarry1250|Jarry1250]] ^{[''[[Special:Contributions/Jarry1250|Humorous]]? [[User_talk:Jarry1250|Discuss]].'']}. Consequently, users clicking the "humorous" gets my contributions list. - Jarry1250 ^{[Humorous? Discuss.]} 11:52, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Extreme Help

If there is any way this is possible, is there a place that I can go to just to see every guideline plainly and simply, perhaps in just a list? If someone could show me this it would be much appreciated. Tetobigbro (talk) 23:21, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:List of policies and Wikipedia:List of guidelines. --Yair rand (talk) 02:40, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Blank FfD archives?

About a third of the archive pages listed at Wikipedia:Files for deletion/Log appear to have been blanked. Why? ╟─TreasuryTag►belonger─╢ 11:28, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Does anyone know? ╟─TreasuryTag►belonger─╢ 19:06, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Do you mean the ones with the strike out through them? Doesn't appear to have happened recently. They seem to have been blanked intentionally ending in early 2006. Example. --RA (talk) 19:24, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

That's exactly what I mean. Anyone got a clue why? It just seems a pointless inconvenience! ╟─TreasuryTag►secretariat─╢ 19:25, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

External Editor

Can anyone give me instructions on using the external editor? (mentioned in prefs) ~QwerpQwertus ·_Talk_·_Contribs_· The Wiki Puzzle Piece Award 02:58, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

There may be documentation at MediaWiki. – allen四names 04:48, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Jstor request

Hi, is there anyone with access to Jstor who could retrieve this article?

Graham Petrie (1970) A Rhetorical Topic in "Tristram Shandy", Modern Language Review, 65, 261-66

If so I would get in contact privately, I need it for the article on Tristram Shandy.--Sum (talk) 09:00, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I'll do it, can you send me an email, then I'll have your address :) ╟─TreasuryTag►sheriff─╢ 09:11, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

OK, got it, whenever you're ready! ╟─TreasuryTag►presiding officer─╢ 09:14, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Sent, thank you :) --Sum (talk) 09:16, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

WP:REX is the dedicated page for this in future, not that VPM doesn't work :) - Jarry1250 ^{[Humorous? Discuss.]} 10:06, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Subpages Links to main Userpage

Hey, I was wondering if there was any way to directly link User subpages directly to your userpage so that it would be easier to go straight to them. If anyone can help, thanks. Tetobigbro (talk) 22:12, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Use {{User subpages|Tetobigbro}}... –xeno^talk 22:14, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Result:

User:Tetobigbro · talk

• Tetobigbro/External Sites
• Tetobigbro/Interesting Articles
• Tetobigbro/Navboxes
• Tetobigbro/Novels
• Tetobigbro/Personal Userboxes
• Tetobigbro/Sandbox
• Tetobigbro/UBX
• Tetobigbro/UBX/Can-can
• Tetobigbro/UBX/Evilish
• Tetobigbro/UBX/Help-template
• Tetobigbro/UBX/Pointless Button
• Tetobigbro/WikiProject Userboxes

• Tetobigbro/UBX/Can-can
• Tetobigbro/UBX/Evilish
• Tetobigbro/UBX/Help-template
• Tetobigbro/UBX/Pointless Button
• Tetobigbro/WikiProject Userboxes

Thanks, that helps a lot.Tetobigbro (talk) 22:21, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Policy on names

What is wikipedia take, on article about a word example Edilma? I put it up for 7 day deletion and HJ Mitchell removed tag after on the 8th day with this as the edit summary (decline PROD. We have many articles on names. Take to AfD if desired). So are articles about names deleted or not? I don't want to waste time trying to have it deleted if not the done thing. Blackash have a chat 08:49, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Suggest asking at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Anthroponymy. We do have articles on names (eg Tyler or William (name)), but this particular article has no useful content beyond the 1 sentence, so could potentially be merged somewhere? There are currently no other Edilma's in Wikipedia that could be linked to from here. -- Quiddity (talk) 19:19, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Transwiki it to Wiktionary and replace the article with a soft redirect (if it is verifiable). Fences&Windows 19:05, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Thank you both I look into both on Fri. Blackash have a chat 14:31, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

One year on Wikipedia

Hi, I just realized it is my one year anniversary. Is there some sort of birthday candle or some other icon or badge I can now put on my user page to celebrate this? Yworo (talk) 22:10, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

{{User:Datakid1100/Userboxes/1Y}} or {{User Wikipedian for}}? OrangeDog (τ • ε) 22:46, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Nice. Thanks! Yworo (talk) 23:51, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Lack of market signals

I pointed out at m:Commercialization that for-profit entities benefit from market signals that tell them whether they are doing well. E.g., a private company has financial statements that reflect whether its earnings are going up or down, and its stock price reflects what investors think are the present value of the future cash flows that firm will generate. Wikimedia, on the other hand, doesn't seek to maximize income from operations, and it has no stock price because ownership is not for sale.

So then, what signals can we use to assess whether we're doing a good job? We could look at popularity statistics, e.g. number of page views and number of edits. But the effectiveness of those measures in pointing us in the right direction seems to be undermined by the fact that any downturns are explained away. E.g., management basically tells the media, "We've managed the site so well that now we're victims of our own success, and don't need as many edits and new articles as we did in the past." There might be some truth in that, but only because we've arbitrarily restricted the scope of the site to the point where we really are running short on new notable topics that people want to write about.

I theorize that the project is so big now that individual members of the community have trouble seeing the big picture and assessing how well the overall project is doing and what is best for the overall project. E.g., a person who focuses on new page patrol may see that new pages deemed undesirable are not showing up as frequently, and that when they do show up, they are deleted quickly; and view that as an indicator of success. Is that a sign of overall health of the project, though, or could the project be in the beginning stages of stagnation? It could be a little of both.

So then, how do we judge whether a new initiative (e.g. FlaggedRevs) is good or bad for the project overall? The most visible signs, such as vandalism, may be improved by something, but there may be less visible costs, e.g. hindering of collaboration or discouraging of new users. Debates seem to devolve into speculation most of the time, rather than being based on hard evidence, and what little evidence there is doesn't really take the big picture into consideration, as it only addresses some concerns and not others. Tisane (talk) 12:20, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Deciding what Wikipedia should accept without proof

Just about every piece of news lately says about Pixar films:

• Monsters Inc. 2 is in production
• Newt has been cancelled

If there are many, that almost definitely means that this is right. However, Bovineboy2008 says that Wikipedia is supposed to accept without proof:

• Newt (film) is still in production
• Monsters Inc. 2 is a fake rumor

What decides what Wikipedia is supposed to accept without proof?? Please give a detailed answer, as well as examples about more random things. Georgia guy (talk) 14:31, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia's verifiability policy say we don't have to accept anything without proof. See also WP:FUTURE, which states specifically that future events have to be verifiable. Yworo (talk) 14:34, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

But you should see what I wrote above. Notice what Bovineboy2008 says Wikipedia is supposed to accept without proof. You're saying that there's nothing Wikipedia should accept without proof. Georgia guy (talk) 14:37, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

I've looked that the edits involved with Monsters Inc. 2. You appear to be in the wrong. The film project determines what criteria are required for a separate article, see WP:WF. There must be a reliable report that filming has started. You don't seem to be providing that. Therefore, it is sufficient to mention the planned film as a sequel in the article of the first film and redirect the new title to that article. If you continue reverting, you may run afoul of our three revert rule. Be careful. Yworo (talk)

Under the wrong assumption that Monsters Inc. 2's release date is 2014, I would have agreed with the paragraph you wrote. But it will be released in 2012, and so it has to be official info. Georgia guy (talk) 14:47, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Anyone want to help translate an article?

The Spanish Wikipedia has an extensive discussion of the genre rap metal, which is listed as a GA there. Can anyone who speaks Spanish translate this article and incorporate it into the English version? (Sugar Bear (talk) 00:03, 3 June 2010 (UTC))

I think this request may be better suited at Wikipedia:Translation following typical requests.

I've added {{Expand Spanish}} to the talk page. Fences&Windows 12:54, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Talk: Yue Chinese

Can some people look over this? I think it's being archived at excessive speed, seemingly to hide previous discussions from view. 76.66.193.224 (talk) 05:14, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Coupla things

Hi, I've been on here for a while & don't usually log in- am I able to transfer my edits from my IP address to my user? Also, have noticed a new editor adding information with no references/purely specualtive & personal opinion. Am I able to message him pointing him towards the rules, if so how would I do that? Aurelius2007 (talk) 10:14, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Short answers: No. Yes. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 11:59, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Long answers: This requires a sysadmin with database access to do, and they won't do it because there's no real reason to and because you can't prove those were your edits. What you can do is list those edits (or IP addresses) on your user page if you wish. To the second question, you can leave any message you wish on their talk page, as long as its civil, but we have some standard messages that can save time. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 22:28, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks OrangeDog- now for the second part... how would I link the IP addy on my user page? (",) Sorry, kinda new to all this Aurelius2007 (talk) 09:07, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Like this do you mean: 127.0.0.1. Or you can just do individual diffs: [19]. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 12:19, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Well, linking this IP to my account 86.63.26.124 (talk) 12:35, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Also- just wondering if there's info on writing a user page, where I can include the IP & other info... (",) Aurelius2007 (talk) 12:41, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

WP:User pages. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 11:48, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

HTML comment for trans women

I put an important HTML comment at the start of every Wikipedia article in the list at the Trans woman article, but I got a message I originally didn't see that there was a more complete list at List of transgender people. Anyone able to complete the assignment on putting this HTML comment at the start of all Wikipedia articles about trans women?? (With only those in the list at the Trans woman article, it already was busy work that made me tired; it took 25 minutes.) Georgia guy (talk) 22:12, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Um, that 'rule' doesn't actually seem to be in the WP:MOS. It's proposed at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (identity). The proposed rule (which used to be in the MOS?) is also somewhat more nuanced than your summary. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:29, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Even if it were in the MOS, it doesn't follow that this mass comment tagging is a good idea. — Gavia immer (talk) 22:52, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

It's useful. I'm sure changing the pronouns will be a popular way to vandalize these articles. Georgia guy (talk) 23:08, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

If someone's intent is to vandalise, I don't think a hidden HTML comment is going to stop them. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 11:53, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Now why do Wikipedians write HTML comments in articles?? Georgia guy (talk) 13:05, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

HTML comments don't prevent vandalism, btu may in some cases prevent changes made in good faith based on a misunderstanding of the subject, which may be applicable here. I haven't looked at the specific comment though. Dcoetzee 13:09, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

The hidden comment says, "Per Wikipedia:Manual of style, use she/her to refer to Maddie Blaustein throughout her life." It is unfortunately untrue (the current version of the MOS is silent on this point) and perhaps an oversimplification. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:03, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Uncategorised stubs?

Assume the following situation: An article with some stub tag and with no categories i.e. no [[Category:foo]]. The stub tag generates a non-hidden category. Do we still tag the article as uncategorised? I expect "no" as an answer since the article has been categorised somehow.

Assume now the following situation: An article with the general stub tag and with no categories i.e. no [[Category:foo]]. The stub tag generates a non-hidden category. Do we still tag the article as uncategorised? I expect "yes" as an answer since the article hasn't been categorised at all.

Any other opinions? We would like to implement the following in WP:AWB. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:07, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

You can tag with {{Uncategorized stub}}. Phil Bridger (talk) 13:40, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:52, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Pending Changes (nee Flagged Protection): update for June 3

As requested, here's the weekly Pending Changes update.

The big news is that we have picked a date for releasing the new version of Flagged Revisions and launching the trial of Pending Changes on the English Wikipedia: June 14.

I'd like to stress that this will be a trial. The goal is to learn, which means that things will not be perfect at launch. There are many areas where we hope to verify our current work and see what improvements can be made:

• the technical underpinnings
• the interface and language as experienced by
  • our readers
  • casual editors
  • serious editors
  • reviewers
  • admins
• which articles should be covered
• how best to use Pending Changes

We think we have something that is workable as is, and have notions for possible improvements down the road. To know what improvements are the right ones, we'll need real use and community feedback. We intend to respond speedily to community concerns and lessons learned from actual use. To that end we aim to keep to the same weekly release schedule that we've been using on labs these last few months.

More mundanely, the work completed this week includes ops documentation, the completion of the terminology work, and some interface improvements. We've also had some vigorous testing done by the folks at Calcey, who discovered a few bugs for us.

If you'd like to see the current condition of things, you can try it here.

To see the upcoming work, it's listed in our tracker, under Current and Backlog.

We expect to release to labs again next week, , after which we intend to go live on the English Wikipedia.

Thanks, William Pietri (talk) 06:01, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

• William: may I recommend that before rollout you explicitly declare what has been rolled out. There are too many pages on various intermediate drafts, perhaps the outdated ones must be clearly labelled as historical, and the real one (one and only) be prominently marked as such. East of Borschov (talk) 16:06, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. That's a very reasonable thing to ask for. Could you say more about what you'd like to see in a document like that? Thanks, William Pietri (talk) 19:58, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Research policy and subject recruitment approval (WP:SRAG) trial run

As part of testing/vetting the planned organization for WP:Research and WP:SRAG, proposed research and recruitment guidelines for academics to interact with Wikipedia(ns), we (SRAG) are running a trial on a new study and are inviting participation from the community. See Wikipedia:Subject_Recruitment_Approvals_Group/Requests/Political_Knowledge_Production for a description of the study and discussion about its details. Please don't hesitate to participate. --EpochFail^(talk|work) 15:57, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Adminbot brfa

Hi, this is just a notice that I have opened a brfa for an adminbot to delete images that are available as identical copies on the Wikimedia Commons per WP:CSD#F8 --Chris 10:14, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Proposed Userbox

I recently formed a new userbox, but I don't know what to do now. How do I make it become a userbox like all the others? Regards, Tetobigbro talk 04:06, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Drop it in the appropriate place under WP:UBX. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 20:32, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Pending Changes (nee Flagged Protection): update for June 10

As requested, here's the weekly Pending Changes update.

We proceed boldly toward launch. The main update is that we have pushed the English Wikipedia launch back one day to Tuesday, June 15. That will let us avoid stepping on the WP Academy Israel event, and it means Jimmy Wales will be available to talk to the press, which in turn will yield a better public understanding of Pending Changes.

However, we will still be rolling the new FlaggedRevs code into production on Monday, June 14th (circa 4 pm Pacific, or 23:00 GMT). We hope that this, aside from some minor UI improvements, will pass unnoticed on the project currently using FlaggedRevs. If there are bugs, we look forward to hearing about them via the usual channels, including #wikimedia-tech. Minor bugs will be fixed in place; any major issues will result in a quick rollback to the existing code.

More prosaically, we had a number of bits of work verified complete this week, including a number of little bugs. Our thanks to the German community for their diligent testing of a labs instance of the German configuration.

If you'd like once last chance to see what's coming, try the latest code updates on our labs site.

To see the upcoming work, it's listed in our tracker, under Current and Backlog.

Thanks, William Pietri (talk) 23:58, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

In addition, there are a few remaining issues to settle, such as usage of flagged protection/pending changes, please see Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Flagged revisions trial. We also need to finalize documentation pages among other things, any help would be appreciated. Thanks, Cenarium (talk) 03:28, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

French Wikipedia

Hi, I have sad news from the French Wikipedia. I was blocked indefinite last year and I have recently propose to be unblocked. (I don't speak French very well, but I've tried to request in French). I have only apologized and asked for unblock (in French; I was blocked by user:Nakor). Answer was protecting my talk page on edit=sysop level and blanking it (by one administrator). What I can do now? See fr:User_talk:Aleksa_Lukic. Aleksa Lukic (talk) 12:20, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

This is the English Wikipedia. We have no control over the French Wikipedia, but I suppose getting indef blocked for vandalism might teach you a lesson, no? Fences&Windows 19:44, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

There should be a page on the French Wikipedia that you can use to formally request to be unblocked. However, it really depends on the seriousness of what you did that led to being blocked in the first place. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 20:10, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

I find that this website is reasonable at translation. You could try a translated request, with an English language version underneath in the hope that an English reading French admin will understand your request better. Indefinite shouln#t mean forever, but until the reasons for the block have been addressed. Mjroots2 (talk) 20:16, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Blackhawks Parade in Chicago

Is there an article or section somewhere regarding the parade in Chicago today? My understanding is that the turnout was substantial (~2million). Perhaps someone could help us get images of it off flickr, or somewhere else? Thanks in advance! ---kilbad (talk) 02:41, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

Open Wikimedia discussion

An open Wikimedia discussion (on IRC) is proposed for the coming week; input is requested on the time and agenda. –SJ+ 08:02, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

File:LizzieVanZyl.jpg

I don't see anything in the text at File:LizzieVanZyl.jpg which says that this photo is of Lizzie Van Zyl. It just relates a story about her. Can we reliably claim that this is her? Everard Proudfoot (talk) 22:44, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it's her. I've seen her on this photo before, on the page about the Second Bour War.--Nvlado (talk) 23:11, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Rolling Stone review external links

As of now, it seems the majority of music album articles with external links to Rolling Stone reviews are actually linking to 404 pages. For example, this is supposed to be a review for David Bowie's Low. In a lot of cases, the original reviews may not exist anymore on the RS site. Shouldn't there be some kind of cleanup? Bjones (talk) 03:49, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Pictures

Hey, I was wondering, how do you add pictures to certain things...such as userboxes,infoboxes,etc.Tetobigbro talk 02:12, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

That depends on the particular template (e.g. infobox), many have parameter image or similar that you can use. You should look at the template's documentation, for example if you want to know how add image to {{Infobox book}} look at the page Template:Infobox book.

Or do you want to edit a template, so that it can contain an image? Svick (talk) 02:29, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I was just wondering if there was a...I don't know...a code I guess, that you could insert. For example, I already have found an image, what do I need to type to make it appear?Tetobigbro talk 02:40, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Could you be more specific? What image do you have, and where do you want to put it? Svick (talk) 13:47, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Picture tutorial. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 11:57, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Kaltura.com

File:Tourette example.JPG

http://corp.kaltura.com/ The name of the company and the link are now provided at the end of every video, like for example in the Tourette's syndrome article (I have enabled the wmEmbed gadget). Is this an example of advertising in Wikipedia? Has it been payed for? Is it in accordance with the mission of a neutral, non-profit website which aims to educate? --Eleassar ^{my talk} 17:15, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

could you link to an example of such a video?©Geni 08:51, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

I don't see anything like that in the video. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 13:48, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

I think this is a local ISP issue, or perhaps something related to the video "gadget" that is being used here for displaying the video on the browser. This doesn't appear to be something related to the Wikipedia servers or anything which the Wikimedia Foundation has been involved with.

The example that was suggested above is in reference to OGG Theora files that are used for video clips, such as this file: File:Tourette's tic long medium 192kbps.OGG There are some better sources to find plug-ins to view this content, depending on your browser. --Robert Horning (talk) 13:53, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

I have uploaded a screenshot to illustrate the example. (the name Kaltura links to its homepage). --Eleassar ^{my talk} 21:05, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

That's almost certainly the player you're using, as opposed to anything in the WP framwork. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 22:03, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Kaltura and Wikimedia Foundation have been collaborating since 2008 and this is part of an extension of MediaWiki called MwEmbed. It can be enabled through 'my preferences/gadgets'. Of course that still leaves the question whether these links are appropriate. --Eleassar ^{my talk} 22:29, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

In a word no. We can kinda dissable the gadget through deleting MediaWiki:Gadget-mwEmbed.js and MediaWiki:Gadget-mwEmbed but thats not a very clean way of doing it.©Geni 19:38, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Gadgets-definition appears to be the place to edit with Wikipedia:Gadget/proposals being the place to discuss.©Geni 19:42, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

see https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=23965 .©Geni 22:07, 14 June 2010 (UTC)