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This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (miscellaneous).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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Edit other's posts when they misspell your username?

Since WP:TALK is a guideline instead of a policy, I thought I'd come here about this, but won't object to having this moved to the policy pump if an admin decides its more appropriate there.

I know that I'm not the only editor whose name is misspelled by other editors (which doesn't really make sense, since it's printed right in front of you and only needs to be copy-pasted, but anyway...). I cannot remember off the top of my head any instance where I corrected this, in part because it would open the door to some wikilawyer arguing that I shouldn't alter other people's posts. Might it be appropriate to include a line in WP:TPO to the effect of:

  • Correcting your own username: You are allowed to correct misspellings of your name, provided you assume good faith in doing so, and do not react if the misspelling was intentional. Other editors should assume good faith in this as well, and neither misspeller nor corrector should use this as an opportunity to bait the other editor.

If the last line doesn't seem necessary, I have come across (granted, long-since blocked) editors who, after demonstrating that they knew full well how my (or others') name is spelled, switched to consistently misspelling it once they were warned about WP:NPA. Likewise, I've seen some (granted, long-since blocked) editors who reacted to clearly accidental misspellings by slapping people with gloves and drawing rapiers. Possible shortcuts could be WP:MYNAME or WP:CYOU.

I suppose there should be something to the effect of "be prepared to find out they meant someone with a similar username." ANy ideas about any of this? Ian.thomson (talk) 01:43, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

You can always edit another user's comments, it is preferable to ABFing - as a user with "Daedelus" in his name did when I typo'd his name, he took it as some kind of death threat! Very few editors object to simple typo fixing, they need to re-assess their priorities, to be brutal. By the same token if someone does mis-spell your name deliberately, they damage their own credibility, not yours, it should really be "water off a duck's back" - if it's getting your goat (to bring the farmyard in again) then for your own sake you probably need to chill. Remember the best way to deal with trollish behaviour is to ignore it. Rich Farmbrough, 14:43, 13 February 2012 (UTC).
I'd avoid editing other peoples comments as far as possible but your own name is something I don't think will cause trouble. I wouldn't in general fix their typos or anything like that unless it was very important for understanding and I'd put a note in about it below. Some people get very uptight over any editing of their text. Dmcq (talk) 15:59, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
Yes, I understand that it should be fine to correct one's own name for clarity, and that people shouldn't sweat it, but I've also seen people who overreact to such things who could point out that WP:TALK does not currently support fixing one's own name. That's what I'm asking: should WP:TALK include something to support fixing one's own name? Ian.thomson (talk) 01:46, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
Unless the lack of such wording is known to be causing a problem, my !vote would be no; guidelines shouldn't be made longer unless there's a compelling reason. If the misspelling is a simple typo, I'd be inclined to ignore it unless it causes confusion (e.g., the misspelling is similar to a different editor's username). Even then, I'd probably ask the editor who misspelled it to make the fix rather than doing it myself. Even a parenthetical, small-text correction would be preferable, I think, to changing what someone else typed on a talk page. Having said that, I don't suppose that reasonable people would object to someone fixing his or her own username. Rivertorch (talk) 06:30, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Status of a merger proposal

On 1 December 2011, while trying to research a classical CD issued on the "Koch" label, I ran across two separate articles dealing with Koch:

Confused as to the distinction, I left a nearly identical message on the talkpages for both articles,

asking "What is the difference between E1 Music and Entertainment One? Why are there two separate articles that don't even acknowledge each other? E1 Music doesn't even have a disambiguation at E1." Neither of these posts has yet been addressed by any editor.

Eventually on 21 December I posted a merger proposal tag at the top of each article, suggesting that E1 Music be merged into Entertainment One, since the latter appeared to be the more-developed article. In the meantime no substantive edits have been made to E1 Music, while several have been to Entertainment One. And most recently (as of this post), an IP with a red talkpage has deleted the merger proposal tag from Entertainment One.

I'm in no position to edit either article, since I have no information to provide. I don't want to revert the deletion of the tag, but have no way to contact this anonymous editor. What's really needed here is someone who understands the content of the two articles, and is able to make an informed decision as to whether merger - or at least some acknowledgement of the distinction - would be appropriate. Thanks for any help. Milkunderwood (talk) 03:49, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Is this question even posted at the right forum? Should I be at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Entertainment instead? Milkunderwood (talk) 03:56, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
Someone at the Ref Desk might be willing to help with the informed decision. Feel free to restore the removed tag; you apparently have followed procedure in placing it, and it's up to the IP editor to contribute to the discussion you've opened on the talk page, not simply remove it without explaining why. If they remove it again, you might leave a polite query on their user talk page and see if they respond. Rivertorch (talk) 04:34, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
Thanks. (I thought I had already posted my thank-you a while back, but now realize I had left the page w/o saving. I have taken your advice on posting at the Ref Desk.) Milkunderwood (talk) 06:02, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
Entertainment One is the holding company, E1 Music is the record label subsidiary. Where a holding company's only purpose is (or effectively is) to hold a single trading company, we often make the holding companies name a redirect to the trading company. In this case the holding company holds a bunch of trading companies, and both articles deserve independent existence. Rich Farmbrough, 14:53, 13 February 2012 (UTC).

Wikipedia vs. ACTA

--Иван (talk) 08:16, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Just a question: Are those images created for wikipedia, or are they used by anonymous? I am not so much concerned about copyright, but just wondering, in view of the relevance of the inclusion on Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement… L.tak (talk) 10:56, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
I've created this images especially for Wikipedia, they are not used by Anonymous, at least because there are similar images with their logo:

--Иван (talk) 12:13, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Ah, I was looking wrongly and didn't realize they were different. Now I see there is a wikipedia version (noActaWcolor.jpg) an non-wikipedia version (NoActaColor.jpg). I understand you made the wikipedia version, but dit you also make the non-wikipedia version, or is that one used on the anonymous website? Rgds! L.tak (talk) 13:49, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Publicity photos

Although the WP:Publicity photos page is inactive and only retained for historical reference, several current policy articles link to it. It seems that the pages that link to it (and probably their content) should be changed, but I do not have the time to do this. Is there a specific project that takes care of this sort of thing that I could request addresses links to the Publicity photos page? Thank you. —Zach425 talk/contribs 09:12, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

What sort of place is Wikipedia?

I have just started editing and have not been impressed. I have now been banned for being someone I am not.

Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Mackemfixer

What sort of place is this? Argcontrib (talk) 12:07, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Sometimes a very chaotic confused place. Rich Farmbrough, 14:45, 13 February 2012 (UTC).
That banning did seem to go through without good enough checks. I've nominated a few people for that but been fairly careful to note some unusual things that stand out in the pattern of editing. Dmcq (talk) 16:07, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Uk Law

I looked up the Insolvency Act 1986 (English Law) and note that you refer to United Kingdom Law. You rightly note elsewhere that the UK comprises 3 distinct legal systems; England & Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. It is therefore quite wrong to refer to UK Law especially if UK is deemed to be a synonym for English. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.127.19.120 (talk) 15:20, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

The article Insolvency Act 1986 states that this particular act applies throughout England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. -- John of Reading (talk) 16:15, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Pebbles Flintstone

On The Flintsones, when it came time to name Pebbles, Pepsodent, one of the shows sponsors held a contest where viewers could send in their entries. Pebbles won.

Wondered why this wasn't in the Wiki info on Pebbles? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.221.50.86 (talk) 22:14, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Probably because the authors didn't know about it. If you can find any proof online, go ahead and add that info yourself. StuRat (talk) 22:30, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
(Cough.) Yes, and while you're at it, you might find a better source for Bamm-Bamm's name. (Just for future reference, the article's talk page is usually the best place to pose this sort of question because people familiar with the topic are watching those pages.) Rivertorch (talk) 06:20, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

"Hear Again Live Again" Could anybody explain, please?

Hi everybody,

sorry if this question seems dumb but I couldn't find any answer on WP (using Village Pump search all and others), and I'm stuck with it needing to understand some serious WP help text matter that seems to build on it. Please correct me if I missed something.

My question is, just what does "Hear Again Live Again" mean in a WP or MediaWiki context? In Help:Import it says:

upload import: import a file in a special XML format produced by exporting pages from another wiki; Hear Again Live Again appears;
(emphasis added)

Should this read "Hear Again Live Again applies", after all, where HALA is some principle that applies and should be followed? What am I missing?

Sorry if this should happen to be a language thing - I'm not a native speaker and I may have missed a lot until now. So...

I'll be most happy and grateful for any help.

Thanks a lot in advance,

87.175.42.38 (talk) 23:46, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

It reads like very long standing nonsense to me :(. I hope it's not... ---Tagishsimon (talk) 00:12, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
It was a template messed up by a newbie in January: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template%3AMsg&action=history. Fences&Windows 01:35, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Callista Gingrich - 3rd wife vs married in lead

We have a fairly evenly poised poll at Talk:Callista_Gingrich#.22Third_wife.22, all less partisan folks welcome to participate. It'd be good to have as many comments here as possible. Casliber (talk · contribs) 19:48, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Audit Subcommittee appointments (2012): Invitation to comment on candidates

The Arbitration Committee is seeking to appoint at least three non-arbitrator members to the Audit Subcommittee, and is now seeking comments from the community regarding the candidates who have volunteered for this role.

Interested parties are invited to review the appointments page containing the nomination statements supplied by the candidates and their answers to a few standard questions. Community members may also pose additional questions and submit comments about the candidates on the individual nomination subpages or privately via email to arbcom-en-b@lists.wikimedia.org.

Following the consultation phase, the committee will take into account the answers provided by the candidates to the questions and the comments offered by the community (both publicly and privately) along with any other relevant factors before making a final decision regarding appointments.

The consultation phase is scheduled to end 23:59, 19 February 2012 (UTC), and the appointments are scheduled to be announced by 29 February 2012.

For the Arbitration Committee, –xenotalk 04:00, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Discuss this

Just in case someone is interested :) MIT is releasing, for fee, a lot of course material online - they call it "Open Courseware". Anyway, I just saw this course on Copyright Law - covering things like media and fair use. I figured it might be handy to some editors if they wanted to find out more! Link Enjoy. --Errant (chat!) 10:36, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

You wanted to say "for free", instead of "for fee", right? CasteloBrancomsg 18:38, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

This is what i am looking for, so is free again, site here.

University research project on categories seeks interviewees

Hey. I am a Wikipedian in Seattle who is a campus ambassador. I writing to ask for volunteers to be interviewed by researchers who are studying Wikipedia's categorization system.

A class at the University of Washington is conducting one-hour text chat interviews with Wikipedians who want to talk about Wikipedia's categorization system. The goal of the project is to get enough information to draft a proposal that information scientists spend time participating in developing Wikipedia's taxonomy system. The research results will be returned to interviewees and everyone else, and they are expecting to publish a paper based on the results of this project.

If you have ever used Wikipedia's category system in any way and are willing to schedule an interview with this group, then please put your name on this list. The followup will be that they will email you to schedule a time when you could meet them for a text chat.

Thanks for your attention. Blue Rasberry (talk) 17:49, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Problems in the Spanish Wikipedia

We have problems in the spanish wikipedia. There is a blog in spanish that explains very good this problem but no good understood for the no spanish speakers and also because is in the blacklist. But now, there is another version with only 5 articles translated to english: untanglingtheweb-es.blogspot.com That is for everyone to want know what exactly happenend in the es-wiki. Thanks! PS: The tranlation is not 100% correct. Sorry for the mistakes. Thor8 (talk) 23:07, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

We too, in en.wiki, have stormy tea-cups. I trust it'll all blow over. I doubt there's much any of us can do here. You need to hash out es problems on the es.wiki. --Tagishsimon (talk) 23:13, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
No, I only intend make publicity for this blog. The people in all the wikipedias must it know. In the es-wiki the problem is very big, like the portuguese. Here there is sure problems but in our wikipedia there is a cancer! Read it and pass it please! 79.147.3.14 (talk) 00:11, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
I still didn't get the problem after reading the blog. You need to lay it out for outsiders if you want this to have any effect beyond shrugging, and even then we're in no position to intervene in the Spanish Wikipedia. Fences&Windows 00:13, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
I have to admit to some curiosity, but also have to reiterate that there is nothing that can be done from en.wp. If there are serious, legitimate problems, you'll have to go to the foundation for assistance. Resolute 00:19, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Is Wikipedia also a thesaurus?

I saw the article Uncredited background singer in the Aticles for Deletion section and after viewing the page I'm scratching my head asking "What's wrong with this picture? Why is this even being discussed?" I viewed the About Wikipedia page and saw no reference to Wikipedia being a thesaurus, just "encyclopedia." Is there somewhere else it is put forth? Am I misguided? I can't fathom an article of this nature as being encyclopedic. What direction can I take to come up to speed on what Wikipedia is if the About Wikipedia page is incomplete? Ken Tholke (talk) 15:51, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

"Wikipedia is not a dictionary" is a famous quote, and sometimes Wiktionary is mentioned afterward. But Wikipedia has no sister project that is a thesaurus the last time I checked. Georgia guy (talk) 16:14, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
Thank you! It's a relief to hear someone else confirm what I thought. Ken Tholke (talk) 16:30, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
@ Georgia guy: See Wikisaurus. Rivertorch (talk) 22:45, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
In my experience people argue about what should not be in WP, see WP:NOT, rather than looking to a list of what should be included. I do not see what in the topic or content of Uncredited background singer is at all thesaurus-like and I do not think it would be appropriate in Wikisaurus. I would not be surprised to see AfD arguments that the article should be deleted because WP is not a directory but I would not agree with such arguments in this case. Thincat (talk) 10:51, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Essays

When creating essays in our namespace, is it OK to host them about non-Wikipedia related content?

[[File:Wink.jpg]] (talk) 02:17, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

No. I guess "our namespace" refers to your userspace such as User:Walex03/What Wikipedia Is, but if it isn't about Wikipedia then it isn't OK anywhere at wikipedia.org. See Wikipedia:User pages#What may I not have in my user pages? and WP:NOTWEBHOST. Userspace pages can be nominated at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:39, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Alright thanks.

Walex & 03. A Life together. (talk) 00:30, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Template protected - additional new interwiki

The template Template:Infobox UK place is protected against vandalism so I can not add a new interwiki. Could you please add the french interwiki fr:Modèle:Infobox Ville du Royaume-Uni. Thanks. Skiff (talk) 12:25, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Please add interwiki links to the template's documentation page, which is not protected. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:39, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Please help WP:HELP (example: WP:SPEEDY)

See ...#(I am over 30k) How to use a speedy template?, I started (must say, I like my own section title). The big question is: good & serious AGF editors there did not get to an answer, while there is no HELP for an editor like me except go to VP/x. -DePiep (talk) 00:00, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

You could have gone to Wikipedia:Help desk or used {{help me}}. I am curious why you you did not understand the instructions at Wikipedia:SPEEDY#Criteria, could you clarify which part of them was unclear to you? Yoenit (talk) 15:08, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Use of living.oneindia.in for references seems questionable

I am seeing lots of links to living.oneindia.in that seem less than authoritative as references, to me they seem like opinion pieces by authors of unknown authority. The site itself seems to be a whole set of redirects to other components within oneindia.in offshots, and to me we should be challenging the use of these links as not befitting Wikipedia:Citing sources and Wikipedia:External links. — billinghurst sDrewth 05:07, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Modern Language Association has instructions on citing a source. If a web, providing a URL is optional yet beneficial; prior versions required a URL for a website or webpage. Unfortunately, everybody believes that separation of a title and URL is not acceptable per Frasier Crane, Sam Malone, and Sam and Diane. Why is a separation of URL and title not acceptable. Printable versions separate them; why can't web versions? --George Ho (talk) 00:46, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

I wouldn't call such a separation "unacceptable"; I just can't think of a reason you'd ever want to do it. I think having the title be a link works much better and doesn't waste space on the URL. URLs are listed separately in printed bibliographies so you can actually type them in to your browser. If the link is already there and clickable on your screen, why would you want to read the URL separately? Ntsimp (talk) 04:36, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
Because... that's how MLA formats work in print, and printable versions of Wikipedia articles separate them. Another thing: sometimes, a user can turn off the status bar of the browser, and a user won't be able to know what URLs the sources are without status bars. Even "copy shortcut" won't help this case, as sometimes a user doesn't copy-and-paste URLs. --George Ho (talk) 05:25, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
Frasier Crane isn't using MLA, it uses Citation Style 1. When viewing the page, CS1 templates render the URL to the title to create a link; when printing, the URL is printed. Per WP:CITEVAR, you need to discuss style changes. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 16:51, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
Would WP:Village pump (proposal) be fine? If not, where else? --George Ho (talk) 18:52, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
No, you need to discuss changes in citation style on the article talk page. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 09:40, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
MLA style was designed for print and makes little sense for a website. They don't need to see the URL - the rest of the reference describes what it links to. That said, it would be nice if references automatically formatted the URL separately in print versions of articles. Dcoetzee 21:55, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
Print versions automatically separate URLs from titles. This is also discussed in WP:Village pump (proposal). --George Ho (talk) 22:26, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Introducing Gayle Karen Young

Hi everyone,
I'm trying something new. For some of our most community facing staff, I'd going to try "introducing" them to the Wikimedia communities on local sites like Village Pump. This is just a trial to see if it does any good, but my hope is that it will give you an opportunity to interact directly with new staff and ask them any questions you might have. I'm starting with Gayle Karen Young. Gayle is the new Chief Talent and Culture Officer for the Wikimedia Foundation. She writes a little about herself on her user page, but I've clipped a section below.

Professionally, I'm an organizational psychologist. This means I work with organizations, teams, and individuals to support effective processes, execute to strategy, develop leaders, and engage employees...

 ...Two key professional pieces that bear relevance in my personal life are that I am board chair of an innovative global women's human rights organization called Spark. My work in the human rights of women and girls is near and dear to my heart and Spark also has a commitment to developing leaders and allies. We leverage a networked approach because the complexity of global issues needs networked solutions. I also facilitate for the Women in Management program at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, which is another way that my commitment to supporting women in leadership roles emerges.

Gayle expands on her initial thoughts quite a bit in another page, which I've copied onto her talk page. I think you'll get a good feel for her if you read that.

I'm a huge fan of Gayle's, and I think you will be too. May I encourage you to drop her a note on her talk page and ask her any questions or just welcome her? And please let me know if you care to have introductions of this sort done in the future. I'd greatly appreciate the feedback. Thanks! Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 21:42, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

You've either got to laugh or cry. What does "execute to strategy" mean? Has the WMF now taken upon itself to redefine the English language? Malleus Fatuorum 22:04, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
I'd thought that this sort of corporate bollocks-speak became unfashionable in the 1990s. Clearly I was wrong. Why has someone who can't write been given in a position in the WMF, a project supposedly to write an encyclopedia? Malleus Fatuorum 22:07, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
Hmmm, yes. 'Do things' perhaps? Welcome to Wikipedia, Ms Young, where every word you write will be scrutinised, argued over, and nit-picked endlessly. We're a friendly bunch - or at least, some of us are... ;-) AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:11, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
There's no such thing as an "organizational psychologist", that's just floppy talk. Malleus Fatuorum 22:23, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
Really? You should perhaps let the University of Exeter know - they seem to be offering a MSc in the subject: [1]. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:28, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
...and come to that, we have an article on it: Industrial and organizational psychology. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:31, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
Yes, welcome to Wikipedia, Ms Young, where most folks are much grumpier than Andy ever were. Sgramnatically, —MistyMorn (talk) 22:49, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
(edit conflict) The confusion of psychology, psychiatry, and sociology is a common one, so not surprising that a university would attempt to profit from it. Malleus Fatuorum 22:51, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
Well I doubt Ms Young has too many confusions on that one, and I guess she's well versed on psychosocial factors too. One needs to be around here... —MistyMorn (talk) 00:07, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
How'd that go again? Didn't ArbCom say something remarkably like "5) Malleus Fatuorum (talk · contribs) is admonished for repeatedly personalizing disputes and engaging in uncivil conduct, personal attacks, and disruptive conduct." just a couple of days ago? Perhaps someone should inquire with ArbCom whether these sorts of mean-spirited and wholly superfluous comments are the sort of thing that they had in mind, and whether they have a preferred notion of how to respond to their continued appearance. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:29, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
  • Welcome to the community, Gayle :). Philippe's endorsement is good enough for me. Ironholds (talk) 23:14, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
  • Adding my welcome! I promise we're mostly nice people once you get past the prickles :) (Oh, and you'll eventually either get used to or be assimilated by the insanity, but I'm sure they informed you of that risk when you took the job...) sonia♫ 01:35, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
Thank you for the warm welcomes! :) I'm pretty used to a range of behaviors of online communities - and my range of employment includes the mental ward at a public hospital in San Francisco so I've seen a lot of "interesting"! I'm really pleased to be at WMF. I'm thinking a lot about what we're doing and how to care for the employees of the Foundation so the Foundation can focus on supporting the movement and the community. Philippe's been a wonderful guide for me and I've already interacted with so many thoughtful people. Feedback and opinions are invited, especially as I'm deep in learning mode - which feels a bit like I imagine drinking from a fire hose would. It was really lovely to pop online and see all these welcome messages. Thanks again! Gyoung (talk) 21:32, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Song content and structure

I think it would be nice if articles about popular songs would not just talk about stuff like sales and artists' strife but actually talk about the songs themselves. I realize the content of many or most pop songs is vapid or minute, but can't we give a "plot" or "message" summary. In any case, at least the musical aspect could and should be discussed by those who can [e.g., 4 4 time, strong beat, syncopation, kind of harmony]. 202.179.16.71 (talk) 04:01, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

finding reliable sources for such info is surprisingly tricky.Genisock2 (talk) 04:41, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
When looking at articles on musical concepts, I am often pleasantly surprised about the number of links to specific examples. For example, D♭ tuning tells us it is used in Chuck (album) (but no source is given!). So, a "what links here" from the "song" article can help. Unfortunately, there are so many "what links here"s to Chuck (album) that it is difficult to make headway. Why not suggest something at Wikipedia:WikiProject Music? Thincat (talk) 14:20, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
I agree. I have added brief lyric summaries to a number of songs. Where the meaning is evident from reading the lyrics, no third party source is required (the primary source suffices - if there's an official artist website with lyrics you can add a ref to that). This is analogous to our practice of adding plot summaries to articles on movies and films. Feel free to do so yourself. Likewise, if the structure is obvious just from listening to the song (say, "verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus") there's no need for a third party source for that information, you can simply state it. Some articles do a great job of doing deep analysis on the content and structure of pop songs, like Hollaback Girl. Dcoetzee 21:30, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
Resolved
 – WMF is on the issue, nothing else for the community to do at this point. - TexasAndroid (talk) 15:47, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

A trademark of a logo filed this past December, serial number 85504189, might infringe on Wikipedia's trademarks @ serial numbers 77482839, 77529070, and 77978442.

Infringement is based on whether a mark is confusingly similar. I had immediately mistaken the logo for Wikipedia's at first glance. You can look at the logos from those serial numbers at uspto.gov under trademarks. Boozerker (talk) 16:20, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

File:Wikipedia lookalike 85504189.jpg
This is the other logo — Preceding unsigned comment added by Boozerker (talk • contribs) 16:47, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
Here are the links:
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.: 77482839, 77529070, 77978442
The Crossroad Publishing Company, Inc.: 85504189. PrimeHunter (talk) 17:00, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
I've emailed the Foundation's legal team pointing them to this page. --Tango (talk) 22:22, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
Thank you so much Boozerker for finding this problem, PrimeHunter for getting particulars, and Tango for bringing it to our attention. The legal team is looking into the matter now. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 21:08, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia Research

Hello Wikipedians,

I apologize in advance if this is not the proper place in which to post this; if it would be better posted elsewhere, please let me know.

My name is Audrey and I'm a student at UC Santa Barbara, conducting a senior honors thesis on the motivations to contribute to Wikipedia. I'm looking for willing Wikipedians to take an online survey that will provide me with the data for my project. This survey is one-time commitment that should not take more than 30 minutes.

I don't know how to best distribute this survey to interested participants. Any suggestions?

Please feel free to email me: audrey.abeyta@gmail.com

Thank you so much!

Audrey — Preceding unsigned comment added by 169.231.116.192 (talk) 01:37, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

For suspicious Wikipedians, Audrey is at UCSB:[2][3]. Audrey, you should see Wikipedia:Research, Category:Wikipedia resources for researchers and Wikipedia:WikiProject Research. Fences&Windows 02:24, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Arbitration Committee 3

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Arbitration Committee 3

I should have posted here in the first place, but I didn't think of it. I did put a link originally on AN though. Anyways, there is an ongoing Request for Comment regarding the Arbitration Committee and how to deal with good-editing sockpuppets. The original intention of the RfC was on something a bit different, but this is where the discussion has turned to. Please read the full page, especially the bottom sections, and please comment and discuss, we could use more input. SilverserenC 23:07, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Data mining to automatically rate editor abilities

Is there some way that a script or bot can mine the huge amounts of data that we create as editors in order to rate our editing abilities? Variables such as longevity of edits, longevity of blocks of text that remains, reversion of page moves, number of new pages created, talk vs article namespace etc can all be used as part of such a measure. Edit summaries can sometimes be used for an automated tool since bots apply a standard bit of text in it. It would be an interesting research project for academia. I have tried to get an editor review but it did not get much discussion and it will be more subjective. I want to usae it as a means of reviewing my performance. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 23:49, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

There's WikiTrust, though I don't know if it can be used for this exact purpose. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 00:59, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
That is more for the consensus of an article with the community rather than that of an editor keeping within the consensus. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 01:35, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
I'm not sure that any of those would necessarily be a useful metric since they each depend on other factors besides editing skill. This seems like it would be a difficult thing to assess, in a similar way to how judging coding skill is difficult. To me the best way to learn how well I edit is to try and take an article all the way through the PR/GA/FAC processes. Getting multiple peer reviews gives a lot of useful feedback. Regards, RJH (talk) 23:24, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
Editing ability is rather subjective unless one defines what editing ability is. If editing ability is defined as "Being able to get through Wikipedia's assessment process successfully", then you'd probably be looking at a narrow pool of contributors interested in Article creation, DYK, GA, A class, FA, FL, and FP. What is the person's success at pushing through those nominations? How many edits had to be made to the content from the time an article was nominated to when the article passed? (But even that can have problems. Some articles will pass through GA before DYK, despite the lower barrier for requirements. DYK also has the issue of some things do not get reviewed in a month and thus drop off the page just because no one has bothered to review them.) Total number of edits not reverted might be useful but that doesn't say anything about the quality of the contribution undone. It could suggest ability to find areas to edit that are unwatched and relatively conflict free. Another consideration for editing ability might be how many articles did an individual created that were nominated for AfD or PROD deletion, how many survived that, etc. I think you'd need a basket of methodologies to get this data and then weight it. --LauraHale (talk) 23:33, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Please clarify...

This is going nowhere. Fences&Windows 21:02, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I was reverting vandalism at Tomboy and I got a message saying:

If you are undoing an edit that is not vandalism, explain the reason in the edit summary. Do not use the default message only.

Anyone able to change this sentence so that I'll know how to interpret "not vandalism"?? Georgia guy (talk) 17:41, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

If you don't know what vandalism is, you shouldn't be reverting it. If you do know what it is, then you know what it is not. → ROUX ₪ 17:47, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
According to MediaWiki:Undo-success, you should have seen a blue link, vandalism. -- John of Reading (talk) 17:52, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
I know what vandalism is. Vandalism is a bad edit by definition; although I was warned a few times on my talk page that sometimes edits are not vandalism even if they're bad. Georgia guy (talk) 17:53, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
The link to WP:VAND, specifically the section saying "What is not vandalism", says that an edit is not vandalism if it is perceived by the editor as a good edit even if it's perceived by good Wikipedians as a bad edit. Is this right?? Georgia guy (talk) 17:57, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Clearly you do not actually know what Vandalism is, and you should therefore not be reverting it unless and until you do. In a nutshell, vandalism is intentional disruption of a page via either insertion of nonsense or material unrelated to the subject or factually inaccurate (e.g. changing someone's birthday) data, or removal without cause (e.g. blanking a section). → ROUX ₪ 18:00, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
I mostly do; and usually if an edit isn't vandalism but I have to revert it, I explain in my edit summary. I'm just curious as to what this "not vandalism" phrase is doing. (A better description than the one I already gave is that an edit is not vandalism if it was not intended to be vandalism by its editors. Is this better?? Georgia guy (talk) 18:23, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
Of course that's not better; how on earth would we ever establish the veracity of such claims? And 'mostly do' doesn't seem to be accurate here, based on what you are saying. Please stop reverting until you actually understand what vandalism is and is not. → ROUX ₪ 18:29, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
What do I not know whether it is vandalism?? Based on how I understand it; this means I need to improve it some. I know that vandalism must be a bad edit, but that the converse (which is that all bad edits are vandalism) is not true. I'm trying to get some experience with this converse being false, so I would like a 10-problem quiz; in each problem I would like for you to name an edit and for me to reveal whether it is vandalism. Georgia guy (talk) 18:37, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
It's blindingly obvious that while you may have loaded WP:VAND in your browser, you haven't actually read the page. Go read the whole thing. Every single question you are asking is answered there in detail. → ROUX ₪ 18:49, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
Well, why couldn't you just say "Don't refer to edits as vandalism" rather than "Don't revert"?? I revert any edit that I see that appears bad. I always make sure I know why it is bad. So the best solution might be "always explain the meaning of your revert in the edit summary" if I'm the one who's reverting it (or more generally someone who doesn't know whether to call an edit vandalism.) (And I read the appropriate section; namely section 7, which is "What is not vandalism". Georgia guy (talk) 18:52, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
I read that section (that's the section of WP:VAND relevant to this discussion.) Some of its sub-sections I understand well; others I don't. I understand 7.2 and 7.4 well, and if I revert an edit that's not vandalism according to those sections, I simply explain. But 7.5 is surprising. I'm extra-surprised about what section 7.5 says is not vandalism. 7.3 is tough. 7.6 is also surprising. 7.7 is the section I really need the most work with especially when it comes to pronouns to use with transsexuals. But now I know how 7.7 works and if I revert an edit that's not vandalism according to 7.7 I'll explain just as I would with 7.2 and 7.4. Georgia guy (talk) 19:03, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
It appears that people have been telling you that since 2006 [[4]] -- The Red Pen of Doom 18:57, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
Oh, I got that statement. It's actually a matter of terminology. One of the most difficult Wikipedia-related things for me to learn is that "vandalism" doesn't mean "just any bad edit". Georgia guy (talk) 19:03, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
I haven't yet brought up 7.8, which is another section I'm working on especially on talk pages. Georgia guy (talk) 19:06, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
Oh for God's sake. Six years and you still don't understand? I'm done here. → ROUX ₪ 19:07, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
Hold it! I found a better page. Wikipedia:Avoid the word "vandal". I'll try it instead. It should help. But the most important question here is: How common are Wikipedians who bring up the word "vandalism" inappropriately?? (I don't want to see myself as the sole Wikipedian who does so.) Georgia guy (talk) 19:17, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
After six years, I suggest that any Wikipedian who doesn't understand what vandalism is and isn't should go read this page and re-evaluate whether they have the skillset necessary to edit. → ROUX ₪ 19:19, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
I have gone there and it sent me via a link (inside the intermediate level of competence) to the "five pillars". Ever since I've edited Wikipedia I've followed the blue, green, yellow, and red ones fine. The orange pillar must be the one that this relates to. I'm very sorry to use the word "vandalism" too much. Georgia guy (talk) 19:29, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
For clarification, the WP:COMPETENCE took me via a link at the top to a useful "Levels of competence", and then via another link to the "Five pillars". How do you rate me with all 5 of these pillars?? Georgia guy (talk) 19:32, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Oh, and one more thing to know: (Before reading this, please read all of this section from the start, and please leave it up to someone other than me and Roux to make a good response.) Comparing myself with Roux; I've been blocked only once in my entire 7-year period of being a registered Wikipedian, and this was in 2005. Roux has been blocked and unblocked (unblocked means unblocked whether by choice or by block expiration) many times, all since 2008. Georgia guy (talk) 20:00, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

You are requesting a response, but I don't see a question. — Bility (talk) 20:19, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
The question is: is Roux a good Wikipedian?? Georgia guy (talk) 20:24, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
Yeah, he's great. — Bility (talk) 20:26, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
Past behavior is not necessarily indicitive of current performance. Although sometimes it may be. -- The Red Pen of Doom 20:29, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
Studying this whole section of the village pump, how do you rate Roux's posts?? Georgia guy (talk) 20:32, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
They are correct is what they are. It seems you are not capable of actually reading the things people are pointing you at; I pointed you at WP:COMPETENCE and suggested you read the whole page. Instead, you decided to blather on about some nonsense related to WP:5P. This rather starkly illustrates exactly how you have spent six years here without understanding what vandalism is/n't: you're uninterested in actually reading the things which people tell you to read because they will answer your questions. → ROUX ₪ 20:40, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
No, I mean someone other than Roux, how logical is Roux being here?? (Please let only Wikipedians other than Roux answer this question.) Georgia guy (talk) 20:42, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
When I look at this whole section, I see WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. -- The Red Pen of Doom 20:44, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
(edit conflict)I will answer whatever questions I fucking well feel like, thank you. You might wish to read this (we both know you won't actually read it; instead you'll click on some other random link and then complain that your question isn't being answered, but at least I'm providing you with the tools you need to answer your questions). → ROUX ₪ 20:49, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
  • It is worth noting here that we are most likely being very subtly trolled. The OP originally claimed that he had reverted some vandalism and got a message which seemed incomprehensible or at least not very useful. It's fascinating to note, then, that the edit removing the vandalism (here) was a whole two minutes before the VP post... announcing that people should "see Village pump for something to know." At best, this entire section is disinegnuous; Georgia guy obviously has an agenda here. One wonders what it is. → ROUX ₪ 20:40, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Georgia guy, I suggest you just drop this whole thing with Roux. Your original question seems to have been answered or you've at least been directed to some pages for further reading. If you have problems with Roux's treatment of you during this thread, there are other more appropriate venues, like WP:WQA. — Bility (talk) 20:45, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

I think it is time for a cup of tea and for all parties to walk away. There is nothing more to be constructively resolved here. -- The Red Pen of Doom 20:48, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Audit Subcommittee appointments (2012)

Effective 1 March 2012, Avraham (talk · contribs), Ponyo (talk · contribs), and Salvio giuliano (talk · contribs) are appointed as community representatives to the Audit Subcommittee. The period of appointment will be 1 March 2012 to 28 February 2013. MBisanz (talk · contribs) is designated as an alternate member of the subcommittee and will become a full member should one of the appointees resign their role during the term. The Arbitration Committee thanks all of the candidates, as well as the many members of the community who participated in the appointment process for these roles.

The Arbitration Committee also extends its thanks to Keegan (talk · contribs) who is expected to remain in office until 31 March 2012.

Support motion
AGK, Casliber, Courcelles, Elen of the Roads, Hersfold, Jclemens, Kirill Lokshin, PhilKnight, Risker, Roger Davies, Xeno.
Not voting
David Fuchs, Newyorkbrad, SilkTork, SirFozzie.

For the Arbitration Committee, –xenotalk 17:55, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Discuss this

Work with Wikimedia

Hi folks,
I just want to call your attention to a series of job postings from the WMF. You'll find a few interesting jobs posted there right now - (on all levels: from entry level internships to senior staff) - and these reflect the Foundation's focus on attempting to hire from the community. Some of them specifically call out that Wikimedia experience is a serious plus, but others - like the newest posting for a junior counsel, which requires that the candidate be a Wikimedian. So, if you know anyone who might be qualified for these jobs, please let them know that we are really interested in hearing from them! (Selfishly, since it's in my department, I'm really looking very seriously for candidates for the counsel position... but I would love to see candidates for ANY of these positions.) Thanks! Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 19:12, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Currently posted:

Global Development:

Administration:

Community:

Legal and Community Advocacy:

Technology:

The sandbox heading

Please listen carefully:

I've known for at least 5 years that there are kinds of edits that should not be made in the sandbox:

  1. Removing the heading
  2. Editing above the heading
  3. Placing offensive stuff such as "fuck you" anywhere

Now, I want to know if there's any opinion about duplicating the heading, so that the heading will appear twice, like this:

{{Sandbox heading}} {{Sandbox heading}} Georgia guy (talk) 22:32, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Putting aside that the sandbox uses {{Please leave this line alone (sandbox heading)}}, not {{Sandbox heading}}, how will this help? — Bility (talk) 23:38, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
You should be familiar with re-directs in the template namespace to understand. Georgia guy (talk) 23:40, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
Yes, I understand how redirects work, I'm asking how duplicating the template will help resolve the issues you've listed. — Bility (talk) 23:43, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
Well, I know it won't solve the issue; what I want to know is whether it should be added to the kinds of edits you shouldn't make in the sandbox. Georgia guy (talk) 23:45, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
Oh I see, you mean at Wikipedia:Misuse of the sandbox? I don't think it's terribly important (it is a sandbox after all), but it wouldn't hurt. Maybe just a note in the "Removal of the header" section. — Bility (talk) 23:53, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
Does it really matter? We don't need to instruction creep the sandbox. Chris857 (talk) 23:56, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Could anyone have an eye on Jim101?

He repeatedly claim that I must "buy a brain" and always tries to assume me to be a troll. I think he may be suffer from elitism. --222.35.185.149 (talk) 18:35, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

It sounds like there is a notable controversy. The Chinese source you provided looks to me like a reliable source by Wikipedia standards even if it does spew a load of propaganda. What I believe in this case should be done is for the news item to be summarized but 'According to Chinese news sources...' or something like that put at the beginning. It isn't right for something like that to just be removed on the basis that it it is all propaganda because all news is controlled by the state. What should be done also is show the evidence from otehr sources that the claim that the US decided to just go in and bomb some cotton factory at random is a load of rubbish. Propaganda at the start of a war is important. Dmcq (talk) 13:15, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
No, it is not notable. The only sources that carries this information are government sanctioned news agencies, while no scholars with Chinese archive access ever even bothered to discuss the topic, so presenting the claim in equal weight (and in the infobox no less) constitutes as WP:FRINGE. Furthermore, the book Zhang, Hong (2002), The Making of Urban Chinese Images of the United States, 1945-1953, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, ISBN 0313310017 goes into detail the amount of efforts the Chinese government used to manufacture hate against Americans before decided to join the Korean War, so this constitutes as WP:REDFLAG. Then, the IP used the Chinese equivalent of Why We Fight as sources to support his edit, so this is against WP:RS. Finally, the IP didn't even bother to translate his source from Chinese to English to show the credibility of his source, so this is just plain deception. Let's not devolve this into the moon is made out of cheese non-sense shall we? Jim101 (talk) 18:50, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
As for my stance on propaganda, propaganda as notable opinion is an unfortunately daily reality. But in this case, the IP tries to present propaganda as fact, which is utterly unacceptable. Jim101 (talk) 19:06, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Who writes Wikipedia

User:Polentario just mentioned Aaron Swartz's 2006 essay, Who Writes Wikipedia on Jimbo's talk page. In it, Swarz contradicts Jimbo's opinion at the time that the encyclopedia is written by “a community … a dedicated group of a few hundred volunteers” where “I know all of them and they all know each other”. Jimbo based this on the fact that "the most active 2%, which is 1400 people, have done 73.4% of all the edits,” and assumed that the remaining 25% of edits were from “people who [are] contributing … a minor change of a fact or a minor spelling fix … or something like that.”

Swartz analysed a few articles to see who contributed the most letters that survived in the articles, and drew an opposite conclusion:

When you put it all together, the story become clear: an outsider makes one edit to add a chunk of information, then insiders make several edits tweaking and reformatting it. In addition, insiders rack up thousands of edits doing things like changing the name of a category across the entire site — the kind of thing only insiders deeply care about. As a result, insiders account for the vast majority of the edits. But it’s the outsiders who provide nearly all of the content.

Swarz's conclusion rings true to me, but his sample was tiny. Has a more rigorous analysis of the question "Who writes Wikipedia" been done in the intervening six years? --Anthonyhcole (talk) 02:03, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

I think the Wikimedia Foundation has more recent data, not sure where it is though. Beeblebrox (talk) 03:14, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
Thanks. If I get no joy here, I'll ask someone there. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 06:50, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
If you track words by who added them, you still end up with a tiny fraction writing the majority of important content. A study published in GROUP 2007 called Creating, Destroying and Restoring Value in Wikipedia(PDF) used a metric called "Persistent Word Views" as a measure of value that an editor contributed to an article (based on non-trivial words contributed and the number of times they are viewed). They found that 1/10th of 1% of editors contribute nearly 50% of the value in Wikipedia. --EpochFail(talk|work) 01:09, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
I'll lay good odds on it resembling a Pareto distribution. Yes there are a small number who do much of the heavy lifting. But credit should still go to the little guy. Almost every day on my watch list I see some anonymous editor with no prior history making a quite sensible improvement. Those contributions add up over time. Regards, RJH (talk) 01:35, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
I believe the real truth is somewhere in the middle. Some established/frequent contributors are highly effective content contributors, while others focus on maintenance, policy, and style. And occasional contributors contribute in both these areas as well (they make many small fixes as well as add content). Dcoetzee 09:03, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Accolades ??

Why use the unfamiliar term Accolades on films? (se Avatar) Why don't use good old english term Awards.--Ezzex (talk) 17:35, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

The place to discuss that is at the article's talk page. Since you asked here, however, I'll point out that the word "accolade" entered the English language around 500 years ago, which certainly makes it old (though not necessarily good). Its meaning is broader than that of "award". Rivertorch (talk) 21:12, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
I've noticed this too, and found it somewhat amusing that we don't just call the section "Awards," as that's usually what's in it, with other "accolades" being entered under sections entitled "Reception." dci | TALK 05:04, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
... and then there is Honors/ Honours :-) Ottawahitech (talk) 16:37, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

using template infobox company

I am trying to include the owner of the company in the infobox, but cannot get it to display. See: Entrust. What am I doing wrong? Thanks in advance. Ottawahitech (talk) 15:22, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Fixed - unlike page titles, the case of the first letter of a parameter name must match the template definition. -- John of Reading (talk) 17:35, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Question, Where should I start?

I am a new kid on the block, and trying to improve Wikipedia. Where do I start, how do I find articles to edit. Can somebody tell me please, about day in the life of an average wikipedian? Editor0000001 (talk) 00:09, 5 March 2012 (UTC)editor0000001

Welcome! I don't think there is really such a thing as an average Wikipedian. Everyone contributes in whatever way they want to. You could pick a subject that nobody has written about and write an article from scratch (just be careful that it is sufficiently notable - make sure it has been the subject of several independent publications or it might get deleted). You could pick one of the many stubs (very short articles) and expand it. You could have a go at tackling one of the backlogs of tasks that have been flagged up as needing doing but haven't been done yet. There are so many different ways you can contribute - find something you think you might enjoy doing and give it a go! Remember, one of our fundamental principles is Be Bold! - don't worry about doing things wrong, just give it a go and trust that someone else will come along later and fix it if what you do isn't quite perfect. --Tango (talk) 00:15, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your help. Editor0000001 (talk) 01:05, 5 March 2012 (UTC)editor0000001

Roger Vercel

I noticed that many passages of this article, like "Dinan extinguished it in 1957." make no sense at all. It looks to me like it has been machine-translated and nobody seems to have noticed although it has been edited many times since its creation. Président (talk) 11:27, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Survey invitation

The Wikimedia Foundation would like to invite you to take part in a brief survey.

With this survey, the Foundation hopes to figure out which resources Wikimedians want and need (some may require funding), and how to prioritize them. Not all Foundation programs will be on here (core operations are specifically excluded) – just resources that individual contributors or Wikimedia-affiliated organizations such as chapters might ask for.

The goal here is to identify what YOU (or groups, such as chapters or clubs) might be interested in, ranking the options by preference. We have not included on this list things like “keep the servers running”, because they’re not a responsibility of individual contributors or volunteer organizations. This survey is intended to tell us what funding priorities contributors agree and disagree on.

To read more about the survey, and to take part, please visit the survey page. You may select the language in which to take the survey with the pull-down menu at the top.

This invitation is being sent only to those projects where the survey has been translated in full or in majority into your language. It is, however, open to any contributor from any project. Please feel free to share the link with other Wikimedians and to invite their participation.

If you have any questions for me, please address them to my talk page, since I won’t be able to keep an eye at every point where I place the notice.

Thank you! - Stephen LaPorte (WMF) 22:29, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

DOI cleanup

I've (well technically Redrose64, since I'm not an admin) added some parsing on various Digital Object Identifiers used in citation templates, such as {{doi}}, {{cite journal}} and {{cite doi}}, amongst others. All doi should start with '10.Foobar/Barfoo', but there are rather common mistakes of copy-pasting stuff from websites, meaning that very often, you get stuff like

Category:Pages with DOI errors is populating very rapidly, so it seems we need some AWBites to get on the task. Most errors are of the following two types.

  • doi:(space?)10.Foobar instead of 10.Foobar
  • 0.Foobar instead of 10.Foobar

So they should be fixed with these simple regexes (untested)

Many thanks to those who help. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 20:57, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Medal templates as a pseudo-infobox

How should we deal with instances of the medal templates, used as a pseudo-infobox? Your comments would be welcome at Template talk:MedalTop#Name, redux. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:37, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Did we start having google ads in Wikipedia? Why?--188.4.233.216 (talk) 12:47, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

We did not. Why do you ask? --Tagishsimon (talk) 12:53, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
I use Google Chrome and now in all but the main pages, there is a Google Ad. What can I do?--188.4.233.216 (talk) 12:57, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
Use another browser, or perhaps take your question to Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing where someone might have a clue about what's going on in your Chrome. --Tagishsimon (talk) 13:00, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
I tried explorer too. I'll ask at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing.--188.4.233.216 (talk) 13:07, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
Sounds like Adware. I recommend running a tool like Ad-Aware to scan your system. Dcoetzee 09:01, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Article on David de Gea apparently missing from Google

No matter how I search for it, I can't get the entry on David de Gea to be returned as a result on Google. Normally our entries for football players are among the very top results. Is it possible to fix this? I've looked through the page's code but can't see anything on there which might prevent it from being indexed. NotFromUtrecht (talk) 15:51, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Very odd. https://www.google.com/search?q=David+de+Gea+site:en.wikipedia.org suggests it's just not in their index. --Tagishsimon (talk) 15:58, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
It seems to be working now, but curiously now I can't get the page for Gilbert & George (two British artists) to be returned. Originally I thought that the de Gea article might have been removed from Google because there were BLP issues with it, or something like that, but the fact that it's appearing again would probably suggest some sort of technical issue at Google, which is not really a concern of ours. NotFromUtrecht (talk) 09:55, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Wikimania 2012 call for participation banners

FYI. We will be running banners [5] for the Wikimania 2012 call for participation, March 8 - 18. Initially, these will be for logged in and anon users, but we maybe switch it to logged-in only in a few days (depending how it goes).

I hope the banners aren't too large and if there are any problems, let me know and we'll see what we can do.

And for anyone interested, the CFP deadline is March 18 and can be done here: wm2012:Submissions. --Aude (talk) 16:33, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

interessting user-sub-pages

Is there any bigger colletion of interessting user-sub-pages? - 78.51.47.78 (talk) 12:16, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

When does an actor, singer, musician, artist become notable to be listed here?

At what point does one qualify to be listed here as being a notable artist, musician, singer or actor? I see several people from my state listed here as notable. Who submits them to Wikipedia? When will I be listed? Thank you, Eddie Napolillo. Actor from RI. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rifilmmaker (talk • contribs) 09:48, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

See WP:Notability. The short answer is a person is sufficiently notable for WP when sufficient information about the person to write an article (not just a few passing mentions) has been published by reliable sources (this excludes user edited sites such as IMDb, Youtube, Facebook, blogs, etc.) Roger (talk) 13:18, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
A more specific set of rules for biographies can be found here: wp:bio, musicians here: WP:NMG, and actors here: WP:NF, I think... Ottawahitech (talk) 15:45, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
In my view, the decision about who/what is considered notable is highly subjective. When articles are proposed for deletion at Wikipedia, their fate depends on who started the article (well respected wikipedian or newbie/unknown), how well they are written (and what is included to pass the wiki-benchmarks), what citations can be located at the time of deletion proposal, who happens to see and participate in the deletion process, and more.... Ottawahitech (talk) 15:34, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
Yes, the deletion process is imperfect and quite subjective. Occasionally it will appear to reach a completely bone-headed consensus. But I do think it is necessary. How would you go about improving it without further bogging things down? Regards, RJH (talk) 01:27, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
  • Good question! and one that I cannot answer in one sentence. However I would like to add that the current mechanism does not work in my opinion and is way too time comsuming for everyone invloved. Ottawahitech (talk) 16:13, 11 March 2012 (UTC)
I agree AfD can be a big time sink. There are a few approaches that can optimize the time spent there; mostly that comes with experience I think. I practice a lot of self-filtering and usually end up just focusing on a small fraction of the total daily list. Still, it does take up time that could be better spent improving articles. One of the persistent problems is poorly formulated or inapplicable reasoning by the nominators. Another is the lengthy arguments made in an attempt to sway the closing action. Regards, RJH (talk) 23:39, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Templates for Displaying Military Ribbons/Medals as Worn?

Are there any templates for displaying a user's military ribbons and medals as worn on his uniform? If not, how can I do it? User:Gadget850 said that he uses the template "Quote box" to place ribbons into. Is that good, or is there a better way? Thank you. Allen (talk) 01:13, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

The folks at WP:MILHIST will know more than I do about these things, but my general rule of thumb is that when it comes to templates, following Gadget's lead is a good choice. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:23, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
Yup, I'd get ye to MILHIST. I recall, but cannot find, discussion on whether or not it is appropriate to post such displays of ribbons. --Tagishsimon (talk) 19:26, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
There's currently a RfC on whether displaying medal ribbons is a good idea at: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history#RfC: The use of medal ribbon pictograms in articles. All editors are very welcome to comment, even (perhaps especially!) if you have no experience with writing biographies of military people. Nick-D (talk) 00:36, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
Allen/Morriswa's interest is apparently his own userspace at User:Morriswa/My userboxes#Military Ribbons I've Earned. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:59, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
Thanks; I missed the bit about 'a user's' in his post! Still, all editors are welcome to comment on the RfC ;) Nick-D (talk) 01:38, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
Yes, my interest is on my subpage. I am trying to display my military ribbons as they are on my uniform. There are only 2 issues: 1. I want to add the Operational Distinguishing Device to the Coast Guard's Meritorious Unit Commendation ribbon. 2. I need to verify what is the 4th award of the Navy's Sea Service Deployment Ribbon. Is it 4 bronze stars or 1 silver star? Also, is it service or award stars? Any other help you can provide will be appreciated. Allen (talk) 01:54, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
I'm not sure how relevant it is to your purposes, but a good example of the way in which these are displayed in articles is at Thomas Blamey#Legacy (click on the 'show' option). There isn't a template to display medals (the example here - which is in an article likely to pass a FA candidacy in the next few weeks - uses fairly clunky code in lieu of anything simpler), though I imagine that lots of editors would appreciate the development of one. Nick-D (talk) 10:35, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Terms of Use will be updated

There was a note posted over at Meta by the Wikimedia Foundation's general counsel that says the revised meta:Terms of use have been unanimously approved by the Board of Trustees. (See meta:Resolution:Terms of use.)

There will be some delay before the change is announced and becomes effective. (Hopelessly cynical editors may want to re-read WP:You don't own Wikipedia to prepare for the usual whingeing about changes made by the WMF to the WMF's websites.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:21, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the wiki-alert, WhatamIdoing. Just wondering if anyone can tell us in three sentences or less, what it is all about? Thanks in advance, 14:37, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
It's really hard to sum up a legal document in three sentences or less. :) But there's a "human readable" summary, created by community request, which comes close. Reproducing it here (see meta:Terms of use-Summary for attribution) with a few modifications for form:
Part of our mission is to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content and either publish it under a free license or dedicate it to the public domain and to disseminate this content effectively and globally, free of charge. You are free to read and print our articles and other media free of charge; share and reuse our articles and other media under free and open licenses; and contribute to and edit our various sites or projects. You do so under the following conditions: (a) responsibility - you take responsibility for your edits (since we only host your content); (b) civility - you support a civil environment and do not harass other users; (c) lawful behavior — you do not violate copyright or other laws; (d) no harm - you do not harm our technology infrastructure; and (e) terms of use and policies — You adhere to the below Terms of Use and to the applicable community policies when you visit our sites or participate in our communities. You understand that you generally must license your contributions and edits to our sites or Projects under a free and open license (unless your contribution is in the public domain) and that the content of articles and other projects is for informational purposes only and does not constitute professional advice.
The Summary as written is visible there, above the full document. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 19:31, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
It's a pretty basic agreement, and I think I can do it in three sentences:
  • Wikipedia has GFDL and CC-BY-SA licenses.
  • You agree to be a cooperative, well-behaved sort of user (or get blocked).
  • You've hereby been warned that there are various laws, and that "but it was on the Internet, not in the real world!" has not been accepted as a valid defense by any court of law.
That's pretty much it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:54, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Replacing one reference with another

In most cases when another reference in support of material included in an article is found, another reference is simply added. However, on rare occassions I see someone actually replacing one reference with another. Is there an official policy? Thanks in advance, Ottawahitech (talk) 14:29, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

I've occasionally replaced a weak, transitional or poorly sourced tertiary source with a solid and reliable secondary source. I've also replaced sources that have become inaccessible with ones that have more staying power and/or can be freely accessed. It depends on the references and the circumstances. Regards, RJH (talk) 22:49, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
The reference I saw replaced was one from USA Today. It was replaced with one from the BBC. Both are good sources, I believe? Ottawahitech (talk) 16:30, 11 March 2012 (UTC)
I would think so. You could always ask the editor. Regards, RJH (talk) 23:16, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

What is "canvassing"?

What is "canvassing" and why is it frowned upon? Thanks in advance, Ottawahitech (talk) 01:51, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Canvassing. AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:55, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Contacting Jimmy Wales?

"Although you can contact founder Jimmy Wales, he is not responsible for individual articles or the daily operations." Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Contact_us

I've looked for a great while now without finding any way of actually contacting him. --Yellowpigeon (talk) 20:12, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Posting at User talk:Jimbo Wales should work, at least I think so. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 20:22, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Alternatively, if the matter was confidential, you could send him an email by clicking on the link in the "Toolbox" section in the menu to the left hand side of his Talk Page. Hope that answers your question, —MistyMorn (talk) 20:27, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
Sorry... I don't see any e-mail link in the "Toolbox" section on that page. I don't understand what you mean.--Yellowpigeon (talk) 20:35, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
You may have to expand the toolbox menu by clicking on the little arrowhead beside "Toolbox". You also have to be logged in to your registered account (as I presume you are). Hope this helps, —MistyMorn (talk) 20:46, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
Alternatively, try this link: http://en.wikipedia[dot]org/wiki/Special:EmailUser/Jimbo_W@les (just replace [dot] and @ with . and a, ie "Wales"). —MistyMorn (talk) 20:55, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
No need to obscure the link. Use: Special:EmailUser/Jimbo_Wales. Dcoetzee 09:27, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
The reason this user does not see an "email this user" link is that they have not provided an email address in their preferences (Special:EmailUser requires the sender to have provided an email address). See User:Jimbo Wales for how to contact Jimmy. Johnuniq (talk) 09:35, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
Thank you - now I know... Should have left the reply to somebody better informed than I am. —MistyMorn (talk) 22:35, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
Also see MediaWiki Bugzilla: Users cannot discover reason "E-mail this user" link is missing. Please vote it up if you want it fixed - it's very easy to fix, but rated low-priority. Dcoetzee 09:48, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Notifying other editors of a category deletion discussion

I looked at Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Business to see how to do this but I can only find a mechanism for informng wikipedians of AFD discussions, not a discussion for categories. I would appreciate any help. Thanks in advance [I read Wikipedia:Canvassing and I hope this will not be considered "canvassing" (thanks AndyTheGrump).] Ottawahitech (talk) 00:08, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Historic house names

Is there a standard or style for historic house names which include the name of the owner? Should it be Doe, John House or John Doe House? I think it should be the latter, but I have encountered both, and have been looking at one changed from the latter to the former. So, is there a standard? If not, should I propose one? --DThomsen8 (talk) 13:18, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

John Doe House, just like the article is Bill Clinton, not "Clinton, Bill". But I don't know whether that's actually written down anywhere. WP:Article titles would be the place to address it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:07, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Document management and wikies

I was recently asked to redige lot of documents for my company ad it is planned to use a wiki model to do it. So I'm here to ask if someone can suggest good books to read to improve my skill.

thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rovix (talk • contribs) 14:21, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

redige? And do you want advice on setting up a wiki, or using one when it is set up? --Tagishsimon (talk) 14:24, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
Sorry, what i wanted to say was write. The wiki will be set up by others and i'll write pages in it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rovix (talk • contribs) 14:32, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
try some of these [6]

I recently performed an analysis of the ~10,000 level 4 Wikipedia:Vital articles under 9,000 bytes which are not disambiguation pages and not rated B-Class or better on their talk page: Please have a look at the resulting table and plot. I suggest that vital articles with many views per byte may be the most time-effective to work on. Npmay (talk) 21:52, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

That's interesting data. Thanks for making this available. Regards, RJH (talk) 23:15, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
What does "time-effective" mean? And why should anyone care? Malleus Fatuorum 04:46, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
It's like cost-effective for volunteers. This is similar to going after the most popular stubs, which at present is computationally difficult for the reasons explained at WP:BOTREQ#Help keep Wikipedia:Short popular vital articles current?. Npmay (talk) 06:48, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Really interesting table! Who would have guessed there would be that many readers desperately looking for information on topics like Paprika. OttawaAC (talk) 02:57, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Almost all backlogged categories now prioritized by importance

The number of "What links here" incoming backlinks an article has is a useful proxy for how many pageviews it gets, which currently takes far too long to query.

As you can see on WP:BACKLOG and {{Backlog status}} that it includes, User:Dispenser's awesome new toolserver script is now serving up links of almost all the backlog categories sorted by their articles' number of inward "What links here" backlinks, which is a useful measure of importance. Simply click on any of the linked numbers to see the prioritized list!

If you have questions or concerns, please ask me because I helped a very small amount and promised I would try to filter the easy bug reports. Thanks! Npmay (talk) 08:00, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Engagement on wikipedia

Hey, just putting a feeler out on engagement on wikipedia, i am on here for a university module, studying the psychology of internet behaviour. For one of the assessment criteria, it is engagement and interacting with other users, i have tried pretty much every community portal going but cant get an answer from anyone! Has anyone else had this problem? is there anything i can do differently to provoke engagement via wikipedia about my chosen topic which is on Leo Burnett. Thanks! -- JackMayhew (talk) 12:05, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

While on the wiki, people here are very focused on editing and other improvements but not socializing. I believe this is because when people get in to a conflict, tempers run high, and often editors are accused of wrongdoing if they have been making smalltalk or even just socializing. (There is actually an anti-social policy! WP:NOTSOCIAL) That is why, I believe that the IRC channel #wikipedia-en connect is not supposed to be logged. I'm pretty sure you want that. Npmay (talk) 19:07, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
Second that. In fact there's yet another policy statement about it at WP:NOTAFORUM which you might looking at which is another section in that 'anti-social' policy. The interactions are mainly about discussions or conflicts about articles. I can't see there being much conflict on you chosen subject though except if you use some really rubbish source to back up something you say and it doesn't seems to be a hotbed of discussion about improvement. And personally I'd have to say overall I'm against the forming of social links of friends on Wikipedia as friends means enemies and lack of a dispassionate point of view. All too easily people form groups and gang up against others, transparency and openness is the guard against that. For instance WP:CANVASS has injunctions to stop editors bringing a whole load of people into a discussion to back them up. Unfortunately friendship and collaboration has to be treated with just a little suspicion as it can all too easily turn into something quite nasty. Anyway hope you have a little for your psychology now ;-) Dmcq (talk) 01:02, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
I disagree with this in the strongest terms. Some of the most effective collaborations on Wikipedia are between friends, and some of the most valuable tasks I've done here I did because I did just because a friend asked me to. And good Wikipedians know that policy comes first. This is why I've always supported the proliferation of social bonds on Wikipedia and even users specializing entirely in social support. But I'm getting a bit off-topic. :-) Dcoetzee 05:14, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
WP:WikiProjects is about as close to socialising as it ever gets on WP, but even then the objective is the creation, improvement and maintenance of the content of WP. I do not personally know any other WP editors and I have no desire to ever meet any IRL. In fact I believe such personal contact would be counterproductive. We are here to "interact" with content, not each other. Contributors who involve their egos in what they do here tend to "crash and burn", sometimes quite spectacularly. Our policies and processes are ruthlessly results focussed and impersonal, anyone who would get upset to see their work ripped to shreds by total strangers isn't going to be a long term Wikipedian. I get my psycological reward in knowing that I am contributing to a cause I believe in. The details of what happens to the bytes I add to the database is of little consequence as long as I know the nett result of my involvement in the project is an improved "product".Roger (talk) 09:22, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
I hesitate to suggest this, but you could try the Wikipedia:Reference desk. It is generally more socially active and less constrained by Wikipedia policies. Regards, RJH (talk) 15:49, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
I don't think that JackMayhew is looking for a way to socialize. I think he's looking for a way to interact with other editors, as he puts it, "about my chosen topic which is on Leo Burnett". That's "collaboration" and "listening to feedback from other editors" and all sorts of Good Things™.
Ah yes, because "engagement and interacting with other users" clearly isn't about socializing. However, I still submit that the reference desk is a useful way to start interactions regarding a topic. Regards, RJH (talk) 18:02, 18 March 2012 (UTC)
Jack, all of the WikiProjects (=groups of editors that like working together, usually focused on a subject area) that have tagged that article seem to be semi-active. You might try leaving a note at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Business or at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Television (because of Mad Men) and see whether that produces a reply from someone who might be interested in this notable advertising executive. I suggest including a sentence to describe who Burnett is, because most people won't recognize his name. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:40, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Consumer Reports is looking to hire a Wikipedian

Consumer Reports is looking to hire a Wikipedian in Residence, starting in April, and going for three months.

  • Is a registered Wikipedia contributor in good standing.
  • Is able to commit to the hours required for the duration of the project.
  • Is an excellent verbal and written communicator, and has a proven ability to present information and provide support in a professional environment.
  • Is passionate about providing high quality, useful information to a broad mainstream audience.
  • Has a background in the sciences, ideally relating to health.

I'd love to apply, but I'm just holding back from the short notice (less then a month) and short length (only lasts until summer). So, I'm pasting it in here in case there are other interested Wikipedians who'd like to apply. Banaticus (talk) 21:03, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

And for anyone interested: The position is on-site in Yonkers, New York. --Golbez (talk) 22:31, 17 March 2012 (UTC)
And pays $4000 a month, which sounds good, until you consider the cost per month of living in a hotel near NYC. I suspect this makes it a bad deal for anyone not local. StuRat (talk) 01:13, 18 March 2012 (UTC)
Indeed, and they're asking for a rare combination of skills. If they get no takers initially, they should change the specs and ask to hire someone anywhere who can work with their staff (and WPians) via Skype vid and gdocs live, etc. I'm ideally placed to do that, but I'm not interested, coz I'm whacked out from my normal RL demands and really need a break. No post at WikiProject Medicine? Tony (talk) 03:15, 18 March 2012 (UTC)
Was announced here March 16th http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:MED#Announcement Would be good if this brought in a new active Wikipedian to the project.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 08:58, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

North Korean party propaganda as WP's voice?

Colleagues, some North Korean–related articles have been peppered with statements that resemble the simple-minded pap on Soviet-era government posters. I stumbled on this practice through gnoming for date-format harmonisations.

Here are just two examples:

  • Korean Central Television: "the people achieved great success in the spirit of self-reliance and hard work ... The Korea Television Broadcasting Station for Education and Culture give various information needed in people’s practical life. These information programs help workers to raise their knowledge levels of science, technology and culture and cultivate their sprits of national identity and patriotism." [I suspect this is a straight copy from the station's Korean-language website. Some of the worst bits I've removed.]
  • June 15th North–South Joint Declaration: "In accordance with the noble will of the entire people who yearn for the peaceful reunification of the nation, ..." [The rest of the article is pretty factual, and this "noble will of the people" thing was probably taken from the preamble, but there are no quotation marks, and it looks like en.WP's voice. We need to be more careful or we'll look very silly. No sign of whether the "text" of the declaration is a straight translation by an independent party (like a WPian), or is an official English-language version ... and there are no quotation marks!!]

I think an audit is required of the North Korean articles to ensure that proper encyclopedic tone is substituted. There's also quite a way to go on verifications. I've alerted the Korean WikiProject at their talk page. Tony (talk) 03:06, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

The first was by an anonymous editor from IP address 180.241.48.163, which is in Indonesia. I'm not sure the second is a problem because it is clearly a direct quote. Regards, RJH (talk) 17:54, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Annotated images at Wikimedia Commons

When posting images to Commons for use on Wikipedia pages, I make use of the annotation feature. However, the message on the Commons file (This image is annotated: View the annotations at Commons) appears well below the image and can only be found if a reader scrolls down sufficiently; which many may not do. Do other users agree that it would make much more sense if the message appeared immediately below the image and before the licencing and other info? Kim Traynor 01:50, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Can you give us an example? WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:08, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
Take a look at the maps on the Battle of Pinkie page, the Edinburgh University page, the Parliament of Scotland page. These are just a few examples of images I have annotated. It's unlikely anyone will get the benefit, as the annotation message needs to be more prominent to be easily spotted. I think when one has the Commons file up, the message should appear either before or immediately after the description, rather than in its present position. Kim Traynor 12:44, 21 March 2012 (UTC)
So when I go to commons:File:St. Giles and Parliament House c.1647.JPG, I see the yellow boxes and labels. But in Parliament of Scotland, or if I click through to the English Wikipedia's image page, I get nothing. I don't see any messages in the article about the existence of the annotations. The note appears only on the image page (underneath the licensing section). I think we need something in the article itself. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:18, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

Preview Wipe-out

I just spent about 15~20 min. editing. Then, so I wouldn't put up a mistake, I hit "Preview." That gave me a notice that the URL was too long [Huh? I did include a URL in the text. I don't recall that it was longer than usual.]. When I tried to go back, all that I had written was gone. Does any-one have a clue? Kdammers (talk) 12:19, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

I don't know a message about URL too long. I just made a preview test with a made up URL with 3000 charaters. That gave no problems. It's your browser which determines whether the content is in the edit box when you go back. It's always there for me in Firefox. In case of problems I often copy large edits to a text editor or just to the clipboard with Ctrl+A (mark all) followed by Ctrl+C (copy). Then it can be inserted with Ctrl+V. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:04, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates in need of reviews

March is proving a very active month for the project; however, we're a little short on reviews right now. Please take a look at the criteria and help us review our backlog. Thank you. Papa Lima Whiskey 2 (talk) 15:31, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

Slow...

Is it just me or does Wikipedia seem to be really slow today? It takes forever just to load a page. Maybe there's a hangup with the back-end system? Regards, RJH (talk) 22:46, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

Sometimes there is a server lag in the scripts being sent by Wikipedia's modem to your computer's modem which results in a delay in pages being shown. Often, clicking the 'Refresh' button will fix the problem. Regards, Whenaxis (contribs) DR goes to Wikimania! 00:45, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
Yes I did try the refresh, but had limited success. Thanks. Regards, RJH (talk) 01:07, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
Hmm. If you want, I can show a more technical side to fix the problem, or do you just wanna cope with the lag? :) Whenaxis (contribs) DR goes to Wikimania! 01:23, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
It seems to be working fine now. Not sure what happened, but things have cleared up. Thanks. Regards, RJH (talk) 01:32, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
Yes, it is sometimes slow for lots of people. See VPT. Johnuniq (talk) 01:38, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

Question regarding re-directs

I have been told that articles that are re-directed maintain their history. Is this always so?

For example I found an old version of Copernic Inc. which according to its history was started in 2005, but as Mamma.com. However, when I look at the history of Mamma.com I see it was started in 2007?

What am I missing? Thanks in advanceOttawahitech (talk) 00:37, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

The page history is moved to the new title. The old title only shows the move. See Help:Page history#Moved and deleted pages. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:47, 21 March 2012 (UTC)
It's easier if you think of it as a rename and a new page creation (the redirect). Which is what it is. Rich Farmbrough, 18:05, 25 March 2012 (UTC).

Paleobotany

Hello, could anyone to work on this article? Biodiversity of New Caledonia. It is very important in Paleobotany and evolution. 85.251.99.49 (talk) 07:58, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

Help settle the Calton Hill dispute

If you are or have been a resident of Edinburgh, Scotland and are familiar with the Calton Hill, you might like to contribute to a current editorial dispute on its Discussion page. Your views would be greatly appreciated to help resolve a stand-off. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kim Traynor (talk • contribs)

Resolved
as of 2012 January Whenaxis (contribs) DR goes to Wikimania! 23:01, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

New template to mark retracted publications

A new template as been created recently to mark retracted publications. See {{retracted}} for details.

Also, the associated Category:Articles citing retracted publications needs to be reviewed. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 17:21, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Misuse of admin tool?

An incident of where an admin may have misused their tools in a dispute they were involved in is being discussed at WP:AN. Feedback is welcome. Discussion is here. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 00:24, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

tube stations in London

I notice that the articles about metro station in London that are not connected to national rail station have al the word "tube" in the title. A lot of these stations are not used by the "tube" metro trains but are on subsurface lines, with a broad square load profile. The use of the word "tube" is inprecise and confuses. It is the same as calling al high speed trains "bullet" trains. Much better to eliminate the word or replace it with "metro".Smiley.toerist (talk) 23:02, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

I started the discussion in High Street Kensington tube station discussion page.Smiley.toerist (talk) 23:03, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
Can this Wikipedia:Naming conventions (UK stations) be changed? Or is it set in stone? If the rule is ridiculous it should be changed. Smiley.toerist (talk) 08:26, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
Indeed. If. If, on the other hand, the common name for London Underground is the tube, then all is well. --Tagishsimon (talk) 09:02, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
Replace the Tube with a Metro? Now that looks like a transatlantic flight of fancy... —MistyMorn (talk) 10:22, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
Or, worse, French. --Tagishsimon (talk) 10:24, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
Or maybe it's some sort of a Tulip revolution: total football on the tube? Sounds interesting... —MistyMorn (talk) 10:55, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
I'd suggest, as a Londoner, that stations on the London Underground system tend to more commonly be referred to generically as 'underground stations' rather than 'tube stations' - though given the location of some, well above street level (e.g. Putney Bridge to pick an example at random - though come to think of it, not only is it not underground, it isn't in Putney either...), this is something of a misnomer). But whatever they are called, they aren't 'metro' stations. Personally, I think there is more chance of persuading the citizens of the U.S. to rename their misleadingly-labelled gridiron game as 'hand-egg' than there is of persuading the London populus to use the term 'metro' for the stations. In any case, it isn't Wikipedia's job to reform language, labels, or anything else in the outside world. AndyTheGrump (talk) 14:44, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

not a factual fact

to whom it may concern i am a pot head like many others and i do value 420 but with the artical 420 (cannabis culture)they talk about the origins of 420 and what they say is not the truth 420 started way back long ago when that would be quiting time from work and they would relax by drinking tea and smoking cigarettes later on ppl started to smoke pot then too and that how it got started then they made a day out of it to celebrate 420 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Redbunny666 (talk • contribs) 19:51, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Cool story bro. --Golbez (talk) 19:52, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
Looks like your punctuation has gone to pot though. Regards, RJH (talk) 00:45, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:HighBeam - advertising by stealth?

Hi all,
So, some selected editors get a free HighBeam Research account for a year. (And I am one of those who have applied.)

HighBeam is not like JSTOR or other online references that you can access from your local library. It is a for-profit enterprise.

Come April 2013, readers and editors will be looking for content added via HighBeam. Which will be behind this commercial enterprise's pay-wall.

Most won't sign up. But some might.

Thoughts? --Shirt58 (talk) 13:22, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

It seems to me we should invest in things that have high WP:V. Some of the things stored by HBR seem to be materials that may be available at least in national libraries, so that would be a good thing. Some materials, however, won't be. Furthermore, we may end up in a situation where if they end this provision (which I'm sure they've granted themeslves the right to do), we'd have difficulty countering challenges of existing material, i.e. editor Anne inserts material based on source accessible through HBR and cites the source, editor Anne then leaves the project, editor Bob sees material and disputes it, editor Carly then finds herself in a position to remove the disputed material as no one close to Carly can confirm what the source actually said. So ultimately Anne's effort goes wasted. Alternatively, Dennis of the Article Excavation Crew might see no other solution than to pay for a subscription, possibly via the Foundation, to rescue the material. So I'm sure it's well-intentioned with a bit of hindthought. Papa Lima Whiskey 2 (talk) 13:39, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
There has never been a requirement that sources used in Wikipedia be either free (gratis or libre) or online. WP:V doesn't mean that every single editor should be able to verify every single source's contents without leaving their couch. Should HighBeam decide to retire this arrangement with Wikipedia's editors, the original sources will still exist, and will remain available to editors who are willing to visit university or city libraries and archives (or who, in many cases, continue to enjoy online access through their schools or employers).
PLW2's hypothetical case could apply to nearly any news story more than a few years old; it's one of the problems that so badly slants Wikipedia's coverage towards the recentist perspective. Increasing the availability and accessibility of some of these harder-to-reach sources (even temporarily) will hopefully improve the breadth and depth (and decrease somewhat the skew) of our coverage. There is also the flip side of PLW2's example, which I don't think we should rush to discount—in the near-term, it will make it dramatically easier to verify the contents of many of these sources which are already cited in our articles. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:31, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
So far, HighBeam has offered 1000 free 1 year accounts, and about 225 have signed up. HighBeam has expressed interest in keeping the account process going after the initial run; they really like the idea of collaborating with Wikipedia and realize the benefit for them. Although there's no guarantee, I don't believe they intend to end this after a 1-time go. Frankly, it's just too good for them in terms of visibility and links to their sources. In the 'expectations for use' I tried to guide the requirements so that we can avoid the kinds of Verifiability traps you mentioned. For one, bare links to Highbeam are never ok; original citation information must always be provided. That means that an editor can seek out the information on their own, either through a library, database, alternate research service, or most likely, through a newspaper's paywalled archive. I believe the benefit from of research in being able to access to more and older sources outweighs the risk of it being difficult to verify them in the future, which we have avenues to mitigate. To my knowledge, HighBeam doesn't exclusively host content, which means that it should be available elsewhere as well (I will ask them about this). Also, HighBeam, at least for now, offers free 7 day trials with a credit card. That means that verification could still be done, albeit with some hoops to jump through. I hope this answers some of your questions. I appreciate the thoughtfulness behind them. Ocaasi t | c 11:19, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
I don't really understand. We have many, many references to paid works – books for example. If the author with the book leaves the project, then that's pretty much the same situation as when HIghBeam ends. I don't see that it's a problem. If we're really worried that the editor in question is mistaken (or deliberately so) about the referencing involved, we can replace or remove, as with books and other materials. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 14:14, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
As TenOfAllTrades and Grandiose point out, there is no policy outlawing the use of paywalled references on Wikipedia (although of course, a freely accessible reference has a huge practical advantage over a paywalled one with the same information and reliability - because vastly more readers will be able to check it - and therefore increases the reliability of Wikipedia in the long run). As for the concern that references might be only accessible through HighBeam, the "Expectations for use" at Wikipedia:HighBeam/Applications say that "Editors should always provide original citation information, in addition to linking a HighBeam article" (for a discussion of the second part, which actually seems to raise a more pertinent advertising concern, see User_talk:Ocaasi#HighBeam_.282.29). Regards, HaeB (talk) 15:21, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
Yes perhaps that will incentivise JSTOR to offer 1000 free subscriptions... Rich Farmbrough, 18:03, 25 March 2012 (UTC).
I'm not done seeking out these 'partnerships' :) JSTOR is high on my list. Ocaasi t | c 11:19, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
Until the class action lawsuit against Highbeam has been settled I think it would be unwise to get too chummy.[7] Considering too, they didn't approach the Wikimedia Foundation directly (which may have risked awkward question being asked upfront) but choose instead to approach an editor (to gain grass-root support?) it dose seem like a PR exercise. Advertising by stealth? Lets wait and see who we’re getting into bed with. --Aspro (talk) 18:22, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
Interesting link, but it seems that Ocaasi approached them, not vice versa. Regards, HaeB (talk) 09:37, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
Aspro, we discussed that is just a class action allegation. No judge ruled anything. Moreover, it says very clearly at the top of the free trial page that the account must be canceled before 7 days to avoid being charged. That source is fair cause for awareness, but we'd never base anything off of it as a primrary, biased, source, and we should be similarly circumspect about doing so as pertains to these matters. Ocaasi t | c 11:19, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
So, as you admit, one has to read through it to discover what they mean by Free. Is that not proof they are not compiling with the guide to good practice – which is something very easy to comply with. So why over all these years and complaints, haven't they compiled? Case proven me Lord don't you think? --Aspro (talk) 21:31, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
Since when is complying with non-binding guides to good practice a requirement of WP:V? How does that impact the reliability of their materials? It doesn't matter who we get legally permissible things from, as long as we acquire them legally and have reason to believe they possessed them legally to give to us. MBisanz talk 21:45, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
The OP is asking the question : is it an attempt to advertising by stealth? You are making the same mistake of trying to introduce another Non sequitur (logic) – which is an attempt to misdirect away from the question... --Aspro (talk) 22:29, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
So it's stealth advertising and HighBeam beat GoogleScholar and ProQuest to us and therefore in five years, a slightly smaller percentage of our articles will link to sources behind their paywall. We get the same verifiable content and it's Google and ProQuest's loss that they didn't think of it first. MBisanz talk 23:36, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
Again, the OP's question was: Is-this-advertising-by-stelth. There is a small army if WP volunteers that are manning Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spam. If you have never worked in Sale, Marketing and Public Relations, then it might not ring bells with you. To me it sounds like some are saying: “See! the Greeks are not so bad after all. Open the city gates and let their Trojan Horse in.” Wanting to get their hands on the 'prize' over-ruled their common sense. Had they left it out side, in the blazing Mediterranean sun, for a 'just' a few days – don't you think Homer's account would have been drastically different? Can this lesson not learned by modern man?--Aspro (talk) 16:27, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Editors should be able to easily make suggestions for articles.

Why is it so difficult to suggest new articles? Registered editors -- unlike people not logged in -- do not get a link to "request [a new article]" when they look for one that doesn't exist. I think this option should be re-added, along with the prompt to make a new article. Also, I think many registered editors currently search pretty much in vain for the place to make the suggestions, since they have to hit on the word "request" rather than also being able to use the word "suggest" or "suggestion." Kdammers (talk) 05:08, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Do you mean like the Wikipedia:Requested articles pages? I can understand that it might be a little difficult to find, but it is available about half way down under the sprawling Wikipedia:Community portal page. Regards, RJH (talk) 15:27, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
Yes. Why can't that link and the suggestion come right up with other stuff such as 'do you want to right an article?'when one enters a not-existing title?Kdammers (talk) 12:03, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

How to handle potential problem user

In reverting some vandalism I've come across a user page that gives me some concern.

On the user page, the user claims to have plenty of experience editing Wikipedia, but that other accounts he/she has had were shut down due to a "lack of respect". In addition to several cases of egregious vandalism, the user has had an article nominated for deletion and been dinged for a copyright violation.

This doesn't seem to be a case of WP:CLEANSTART because the abandonment of the previous account(s) was apparently not voluntary. Could he/she be classified as a sockpuppet master? I'm assuming good faith but it seems that this person is here to be disruptive or, at the very least, has no interest in working with their fellow Wikipedians and simply wants to follow his/her own agenda.

So, should I bring this to the attention of Administrators? Which Noticeboard? Or should I just keep an eye on the user to see if more problems come up? I'd appreciate some advice from Wikipedians with more experience than me. —Al E. (talk) 16:04, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

  • Ongoing egregious vandalism (provided the term isn't being misused) is cause for a warning at least - but no Admin is required for this.
  • There is no requirement to "work with" - the user will however need to make compromises or end up being called for edit warring and the like. So there's no real worry, you would think, leaving matters to take care of themselves.
  • If you are concerned that there is abusive socking going on, then WP:ANI might be a good place to leave a note, although it's not really Admin specific. If you are aware if the previous accounts, you can request a WP:CHECKUSER.
  • If the user has been warned about vandalism and continues, then WP:ANI or WP:AIV are the way to go.
Short version, good faith reporting rarely attracts boomerangs. But not reporting until you are sure can be a good move too. Rich Farmbrough, 19:04, 28 March 2012 (UTC).
Thanks, Rich. That's more-or-less what I thought. I'll just keep an eye out for further issues. —Al E. (talk) 19:29, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Article renaming

I've noticed two articles that are badly named, and may need moving: Isaac Asimov's Robot Series and Isaac Asimov's Galactic Empire series. The former's "Series" should be all lower-case, and both have the "Isaac Asimov's" prefix that is unnecessary and (as far as I know) unprecedented (disambig terms should be in brackets if needed).

I've proposed that they both be renamed in line with their more successful related series, the Foundation series, and raised it here and a few other places (their talk pages and projects), but was wondering if there's somewhere I can post it so that more people will join the discussion, and allow consensus to gather? If you know where's best please let me know, and if you've got an opinion please give your opinion there. Thanks! --xensyriaT 23:27, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

What determines an article's prominence in the searchbar?

Does an article's popularity determine its prominence on the searchbar? I've always wondered about this. It seems strange to me that Robert Christgau would show up on the searchbar before Robert F. Kennedy, Robert E. Lee, or Robin Hood. Trektosaturday (talk) 17:23, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Alphabetical order? ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 01:17, 21 March 2012 (UTC)
No. Nor order of creation date. --Tagishsimon (talk) 01:20, 21 March 2012 (UTC)
According to User:Rainman, the prominence on the searchbar "is derived based on link statistics, however, the links needs to be in the article, and not generated by wikitext magic." --Yair rand (talk) 01:43, 21 March 2012 (UTC)
And there are indeed thousands of incoming links to Robert Christgau (but no Jarry1250's counter showing). Rich Farmbrough, 17:59, 25 March 2012 (UTC).
Thanks! Trektosaturday (talk) 20:52, 30 March 2012 (UTC)
I noticed that, when I was starting to work in the "May Revolution" article, when I typed "May R" the first result was "May Robson" and second "May Revolution" (so I would either type an "e" or scroll down from there). And one day, without me doing anything at all about it, "May Revolution" became the first term. Cambalachero (talk) 21:31, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Protection of DYK queues

Just drawing people's attention to Talk:Main Page#Protection of DYK queues. Rcsprinter (whisper) 17:00, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Anyone speak Malaysian? Bot sent me something I can't read

I got this email from a bot. I have no idea why I got this email. I don't read this language. I could just mark it as spam, but that doesn't seem like the best solution.

Since the bot gives no way to reply to it I apparently can't stop it from sending me more messages like this.

Click show to see post

from: MediaWiki Mail wiki@wikimedia.org

sender-time: Sent at 12:02 AM (UTC). Current time there: 1:35 AM. ✆

reply-to: reply@not.possible

date: Fri, Mar 30, 2012 at 12:02 AM

subject: വിക്കിപീഡിയ സംരംഭത്തിലെ ഉപയോക്താവിന്റെ സംവാദം:DMahalko എന്ന താൾ VsBot മാറ്റിയിരിക്കുന്നു

mailed-by: wikimedia.org


പ്രിയ DMahalko,


വിക്കിപീഡിയ സംരംഭത്തിലെ ഉപയോക്താവിന്റെ സംവാദം: DMahalko എന്ന താൾ 30 മാർച്ച് 2012 - ൽ VsBot എന്ന ഉപയോക്താവ് മാറ്റിയിരിക്കുന്നു, ഇപ്പോഴുള്ള പതിപ്പിനായി http://ml.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%B4%89%E0%B4%AA%E0%B4%AF%E0%B5%8B%E0%B4%95%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%A4%E0%B4%BE%E0%B4%B5%E0%B4%BF%E0%B4%A8%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%B1%E0%B5%86_%E0%B4%B8%E0%B4%82%E0%B4%B5%E0%B4%BE%E0%B4%A6%E0%B4%82:DMahalko കാണുക.

താങ്കളുടെ അവസാന സന്ദർശനത്തിനു ശേഷമുണ്ടായ മാറ്റങ്ങൾ കാണുവാൻ http://ml.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=%E0%B4%89%E0%B4%AA%E0%B4%AF%E0%B5%8B%E0%B4%95%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%A4%E0%B4%BE%E0%B4%B5%E0%B4%BF%E0%B4%A8%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%B1%E0%B5%86_%E0%B4%B8%E0%B4%82%E0%B4%B5%E0%B4%BE%E0%B4%A6%E0%B4%82:DMahalko&diff=0&oldid=1218872 സന്ദർശിക്കുക.

തിരുത്തിയയാൾ നൽകിയ സംഗ്രഹം: സംഗമോൽസവത്തിലേക്ക് സ്വാഗതം

തിരുത്തിയയാളെ ബന്ധപ്പെടുക: മെയിൽ: http://ml.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%B4%AA%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%B0%E0%B4%A4%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%AF%E0%B5%87%E0%B4%95%E0%B4%82:%E0%B4%89%E0%B4%AA%E0%B4%AF%E0%B5%8B%E0%B4%95%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%A4%E0%B5%83%E0%B4%87%E0%B4%AE%E0%B5%86%E0%B4%AF%E0%B4%BF%E0%B5%BD/VsBot വിക്കി: http://ml.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%B4%89%E0%B4%AA%E0%B4%AF%E0%B5%8B%E0%B4%95%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%A4%E0%B4%BE%E0%B4%B5%E0%B5%8D:VsBot

താങ്കൾ ഈ താൾ സന്ദർശിക്കുന്നില്ലങ്കിൽ മറ്റ് അറിയിപ്പുകൾ ഒന്നുമുണ്ടാകുന്നതല്ല. ശ്രദ്ധിക്കുന്ന താളുകളുടെ പട്ടിക സന്ദർശിച്ചും ഉൾപ്പെട്ട താളുകളിലെ അറിയിപ്പ് മുദ്രകൾ താങ്കൾക്ക് പുനഃക്രമീകരിക്കാവുന്നതാണ്. താങ്കളുടെ വിക്കിപീഡിയ സുഹൃദ് അറിയിപ്പ് സജ്ജീകരണം

- ഇമെയിൽ അറിയിപ്പ് സജ്ജീകരണങ്ങളിൽ മാറ്റംവരുത്താൻ, സന്ദർശിക്കുക http://ml.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%B4%AA%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%B0%E0%B4%A4%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%AF%E0%B5%87%E0%B4%95%E0%B4%82:%E0%B4%95%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%B0%E0%B4%AE%E0%B5%80%E0%B4%95%E0%B4%B0%E0%B4%A3%E0%B4%99%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%99%E0%B5%BE

ശ്രദ്ധിക്കുന്ന പട്ടികയിലെ ക്രമീകരണങ്ങളിൽ മാറ്റം വരുത്താൻ, സന്ദർശിക്കുക http://ml.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%B4%AA%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%B0%E0%B4%A4%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%AF%E0%B5%87%E0%B4%95%E0%B4%82:%E0%B4%B6%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%B0%E0%B4%A6%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%A7%E0%B4%BF%E0%B4%95%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%95%E0%B5%81%E0%B4%A8%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%A8%E0%B4%B5%E0%B4%AF%E0%B5%81%E0%B4%9F%E0%B5%86%E0%B4%AA%E0%B4%9F%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%9F%E0%B4%BF%E0%B4%95%E0%B4%A4%E0%B4%BF%E0%B4%B0%E0%B5%81%E0%B4%A4%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%A4%E0%B5%81%E0%B4%95

താൾ താങ്കൾ ശ്രദ്ധിക്കുന്നവയുടെ പട്ടികയിൽ നിന്ന് നീക്കംചെയ്യാൻ, സന്ദർശിക്കുക http://ml.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=%E0%B4%89%E0%B4%AA%E0%B4%AF%E0%B5%8B%E0%B4%95%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%A4%E0%B4%BE%E0%B4%B5%E0%B4%BF%E0%B4%A8%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%B1%E0%B5%86_%E0%B4%B8%E0%B4%82%E0%B4%B5%E0%B4%BE%E0%B4%A6%E0%B4%82:DMahalko&action=unwatch

അഭിപ്രായം അറിയിക്കാനും മറ്റു സഹായങ്ങൾക്കും: http://ml.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%B4%B8%E0%B4%B9%E0%B4%BE%E0%B4%AF%E0%B4%82:%E0%B4%89%E0%B4%B3%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%B3%E0%B4%9F%E0%B4%95%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%95%E0%B4%82

DMahalko (talk) 14:05, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

I also received it without knowing the language. It's about the Annual Conference of Malayalam Wikimedians. See an English version at ml:വിക്കിപീഡിയ:വിക്കിസംഗമോത്സവം - 2012/സ്വാഗതം/en. It's apparently posted to all user talk pages at the Malayalam Wikipedia (a language in India). If you have an account there with the default "E-mail me when my user talk page is changed" at http://ml.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Preferences?uselang=en then you get a mail. Your account is automatically registered at a language if you view any page there while you are logged in. http://ml.wikipedia.org/wiki/പ്രത്യേകം:രേഖ/DMahalko?uselang=en indicates you did that 30 January 2010. You cannot remove your account but you can disable "E-mail me when my user talk page is changed". PrimeHunter (talk) 14:50, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Merger RfC

You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Mojang. - Hello, I'm trying to get a few articles merged and I opened a request of comment on the matter. There have been no replies yet, so I was hoping someone could give it a look. Thanks in advance, Nathan2055talk 19:07, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

New Wikmiedia/Wikipedia Shop now open for community launch

The Wikimedia Foundation has just opened a store to sell merchandise to community volunteers and the general public. The goal is to help reward it's volunteers and spread the Wikimedia and project brands around the world. To that effect we want to build a wide reaching store that is able to provide good value and fast shipping around the world with the help of a world wide distribution system. The revenues from the store will support the Wikimedia Foundation and the chapters with most of it, especially at the beginning, going to subsidize merchandise and/or shipping for more expensive locales and eventually to help provide free or subsidized merchandise to world wide volunteers as a reward and thank you for their service. This store is going to completely replace the old CafePress shop that is being shut down.

We have a lot more merchandise already in the works and are looking to constantly bring in (and eventually retire) more options but decided we were ready to publicly release it to the community to give them first crack and get feedback on every aspect (everything from the shop, to the products to the packaging if you order something). There is a full FAQ and feedback/design request page on the Meta-Wiki Wikimedia Merchandise page but you can also go there from here:

  • The shop is located at shop.wikimedia.org (as well as shop.wikipedia.org and the other project names).
  • At least for the next 2 weeks we have a community launch discount of 10% if you type in CLAUNCH (or Wikimedia Community Launch) in the discount code box at checkout
  • There is a $10 maximum shipping fee for most orders worldwide. We've limited it to about 5lbs of merchandise which covers most orders (up to a couple sweatshirts, shirts and some pins or something). For bigger orders if shipping becomes a problem we'll help out with that. We're looking to find ways to keep this shipping cost for good.
  • Please give feedback! The best place is on the Meta-Wiki talk page but you can also leave comments here or email them to merchandise@wikimedia.org or Email user.
  • We're looking at ways to do a good permanent discount for community members.

Jalexander--WMF 21:20, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Cool, although the shirts at Cafe Press are way funnier! Kidding. I like it. Thanks. RJH (talk) 18:00, 18 March 2012 (UTC)
Heh, they were realllly bad quality though :( lol.. I downloaded all of the data from the cafepress store so we may reuse some of those ;). More Design ideas! though. We plan on expanding this quite a bit actually starting very quickly (I already have a bunch of stuff ordered). Jalexander--WMF 01:00, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
shop.wikipedia.org uses an invalid security certificate.
The certificate is only valid for the following names:
  • .wikimedia.org , wikimedia.org
(Error code: ssl_error_bad_cert_domain) Josh Parris 22:10, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
shop.wikimedia.org uses an invalid security certificate.
The certificate is only valid for the following names:
  • .myshopify.com , myshopify.com
(Error code: ssl_error_bad_cert_domain) Did you guys... uh... test... this? Josh Parris 22:12, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
Yes we tested it and yes we know :). This is on the Meta FAQ at the moment. Sadly it's a limitation of the software and infrastructure that we're working with them to fix (sadly not as easy to do as I would like). There should not be any links to https content and so most people (and I assume you) are getting these issues because they are using the https everywhere extension which assumes that all *.wikimedia.org sites have an https version (and this doesn't). HttpsEverywhere has already committed a change that will exempt the shop.wikimedia.org address from the extension and so will stop the warnings for people during their next release. I'm hopeful that we'll have the issue fixed and I can have them before that (and I can have them revert the change) but I wanted to be sure. The checkout pages do in fact have correctly matching certificates and so don't have this problem.
I'll be following up with shopify, again, on this Monday by phone as well Jalexander--WMF 06:54, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
Not using any extension, just came here via https Josh Parris 23:03, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
Ahhh we're passing it too... I'll check with ops to see if we can do anything about that for now too... I've tried hard to avoid protorel links for that reason ;) Jalexander--WMF 00:57, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
Still a problem. Josh Parris 00:34, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Verification of reliability

The article on Jayne Mansfield has the following content.

First marriage

In May 10, 1950, a pregnant 17-year old Jayne married 22-year old Paul Mansfield at Fort Worth, Texas.[1][2][3][4][5] One biographer, Raymond Strait, wrote that she married Paul publicly in May 6, had an earlier "secret" marriage in January 28, and her first child was conceived after the secret marriage.[6] Some sources cite Paul as the father of the child, [1][2] while others cite it to be a result of date rape.[4][7] The marriage certificate of Jayne and Paul lists their date of marriage as May 6, 1950.[8]

Can someone verify the following part of it?

The marriage certificate of Jayne and Paul lists their date of marriage as May 6, 1950.[8]

I don't have access to the certificate and have no clue of its credibility. Aditya(talk • contribs) 05:20, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ a b Jocelyn Faris, Jayne Mansfield: a bio-bibliography, page 3, ABC-CLIO, 1994, ISBN 0313285446
  2. ^ a b Martha Saxton, Jayne Mansfield and the American fifties, page 29,Houghton Mifflin, 1975, ISBN 0395202892
  3. ^ James Robert Parish, The Hollywood Book of Breakups, page XX, John Wiley & Sons, 2006, ISBN 9780471752684
  4. ^ a b May Mann, Jayne Mansfield: a biography, pages 10-12, Drake Publishers, 1973, ISBN 0877494150
  5. ^ Tom Pendergast, "St. James encyclopedia of popular culture" (Volume 3), page 260, St. James Press, 2000, ISBN 9781558624030
  6. ^ Strait, Raymond (1992). Here They Are Jayne Mansfield. SPI Books. p. 304. ISBN 1561711462. "Paul and Jayne were married on January 28, 1950 in Fort Worth, Texas. ... In view of their January marriage, the wedding was arranged for May 10, 1950."
  7. ^ Jessica Hope Jordan, The Sex Goddess in American Film, 1930-1965, page 221, Cambria Press, 2009, ISBN 9781604976632
  8. ^ a b "Jayne Mansfield (Vera Jayne Peers) Marriage Certificate". Archives.com. Houston: Texas State Department of Health Services. 1950. ARCHIVES.COM| Archives.com. Retrieved March 9, 2012. (subscription required)
Check Wikipedia:WikiProject Resource Exchange to see if anyone has a subscription. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 19:21, 28 March 2012 (UTC)
I did. Without success of course. Wikipedia is degenerating fast as a community. Much more interest in bullying and harassing each other than actual collaboration. Too bad. Aditya(talk • contribs) 13:17, 31 March 2012 (UTC)
I've always found the Resource Request excellent for journal articles. I'm not sure about books, but I can't see that you've made a request there. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 14:12, 31 March 2012 (UTC)
I'm trying that now. Aditya(talk • contribs) 03:27, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

DNS query for "wikipedia" redirects to CenturyLink search which highlights alot.com claiming to be "wikipedia.org" - illegal?

When a friend typed "wikipedia" in the address bar of the Safari browser, he should have been told that that DNS address is invalid - i.e. the NXDOMAIN response. See DNS_hijacking. Instead, he got this web page: centurylink search result. It is not only full of advertising, but the first hit says it is for "wikipedia.org", but instead misdirects the user to www.alot.com's page http://dm.alot.com/app/wikipedia/es-us?camp_id=4203

This strikes me as far worse than garden-variety DNS hijacking. It seems to clearly be a misuse of Wikipedia's trademark: see our Trademark Policy.

Has this topic come up before, and has anyone complained to CenturyLink or ALot.com ( see their Alexa ranking and reviews: [8]) ★NealMcB★ (talk) 04:39, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Unclear category

I came across a pair of categories that are well populated but the actual purpose of the categories is both unclear and ambiguous. I tried looking for an appropriate problem template to post but I couldn't find anything suitable at WP:TEMP. In a case like this, is there an appropriate template I could use that asks for an explanation of the category purpose? Thank you. Regards, RJH (talk) 15:19, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

To which categories do you refer? Chris857 (talk) 14:21, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
I've taken them to CfD, but I was hoping to address this in general rather than getting specific. Regards, RJH (talk) 22:31, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
Why won't a message on the talk page work? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:40, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
There are few people watching category pages or reading the talk pages. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:22, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Another WP "money machine"?

Looks like we have more Internet noise when looking for references, thanks to a publisher called "Crypt Publishing" which publishes books of c. 100 pages for around £30. I am presuming the book consists of the WP page and some ancillary matter (history, linked articles, boilerplate etc).

Any confirmation? And do we have a place we list these publishers?

Rich Farmbrough, 18:24, 28 March 2012 (UTC).

I started Wikipedia:Republishers. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 19:17, 28 March 2012 (UTC)
Is there an advantage to having this separate from Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks? I note that some of the listings from the former have been copied over (and need attribution :D) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 22:11, 30 March 2012 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Potentially unreliable sources#Wikipedia mirrors, which lists several of these book publishers. Fences&Windows 22:05, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
"Crypt Publishing" is just VDM under another name, see VDM Publishing#Multiplication of imprint names. Fences&Windows 22:08, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Instant-runoff voting in RfCs

Hello everyone, I am currently mediating a discussion at MedCab about the verifiability policy. The plan is to create four drafts of the lead section of the policy and submit them to an RfC so that the community can choose which one should be used on the policy page. We are still in the process of creating the drafts, but the idea has been expressed that it may be useful to use a form of instant-runoff voting in the RfC. That is, each member of the community voting in the RfC would rank each draft in order of preference. Now this wouldn't be used as the only way of determining what should end up on the policy page - we would likely include other questions in the RfC, such as what editors think of a particular phrase, or on the more general principles behind the policy. We would also expect administrators to take the strength of the arguments being used into account. The instant-runoff portion would be used as another tool in the toolbox for the closing administrator(s) to help them in their final judgement.

Now, what I have come here to ask is: would using instant-runoff voting in an RfC, with the caveats outlined above, be acceptable? I am well aware that Wikipedia is not a democracy and that polling is not a substitute for discussion, but would it be a good idea to use this kind of vote as one more way to assist in what may be a difficult decision? I would be very interested to hear everyone's thoughts. — Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 18:24, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

  • I'm participating in that mediation, and came here by way of a note that Mr. Strad left there. I'm undecided on the issue, but I can identify some pluses and minuses. As noted, it would be important in any case to structure any such RfC in a manner that emphasizes discussion over simple voting; that can be accomplished with instant-runoff, but it needs to be made clear. Not everyone who will respond to the RfC will feel like their opinions are captured by a numerical ranking; some may support one proposal and completely oppose all of the others, whereas others may feel that two proposals are equally attractive. With a multiple choice offering, it's probably useful to get some sort of sense of how respondents rank the choices. But, in the end, I think there is no substitute for asking one or more trusted, uninvolved users to evaluate consensus. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:48, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
Why not give people the option of listing proposals in order of preference, or expressing support for one proposal only? Some state elections in Australia are done this way -- it's called optional preferential voting. The way this is done in Australia, you don't have the option of saying two candidates are "equally attractive", but here in WP, maybe that can be an option as well? Kalidasa 777 (talk) 20:32, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
Endorse: If it's going to help the dispute be resolved and therefore, helping Wikipedia, by all means ignore those rules. Regards, Whenaxis (contribs) DR goes to Wikimania! 22:48, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

I don't see anything policy-wise that prevents it, and yes people should have the option of "only choice." They should also be encouraged/required to state the reasons for their choice(s) (which is easily done by the instructions to 'vote and state why'). There should, in addition, be subsections after each question/option, for discussion of that question/option and a General Discussion section at the end. A similar thing is is occurring at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Muhammad images. Alanscottwalker (talk) 09:06, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

  • Thinking about this some more, it occurs to me that it would be useful to visualize how such an RfC would be formatted on the page, and how the results would be compiled. Would there be a single area of the RfC page, with a list of numerical preferences by each respondent (difficult to read), or multiple response areas, with a place after each option for respondents to state their rankings (easier to read, but resulting in a very complicated page structure)? Would one or more editors compile the results (potentially a lot of work), or would it be done by software (simple, but could get in the way of discussion)? --Tryptofish (talk) 20:53, 31 March 2012 (UTC)
    I was thinking that the most obvious way would be to have a subsection for each possible ranking of each draft. For example, under the draft one section we could have subsections "support draft 1 as 1st preference", "support draft 1 as 2nd preference", "support draft 1 as 3rd preference", and "support draft one as 4th preference". I was toying with the idea of also creating special sections for editors who would support a draft, but only if the wording was changed slightly. This would double the number of subsections though, so I think it's probably best just to instruct editors to vote "support as x preference", but to note that they would like to see the wording changed slightly. We could make two different counts if we wanted - one that counts the votes which would like to see the wording changed, and one which ignores those votes. The closing admin could use both of these counts to aid in their decision, and also take into account the strength of the individual arguments made. — Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 08:34, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
    As you can see from a question that another participant just posted to you at the mediation talk page (ah, there's nothing like testing an hypothesis!), some respondents in such an RfC are going to object to being asked to rank everything numerically. How would the system you describe deal with users who flat-out oppose a particular draft? It's not at all the same thing as supporting it as a fourth choice. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:29, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
    I suppose there's no reason we can't add "oppose" sections for each of the drafts as well. We won't be able to use these sections with the instant runoff system (an "oppose" vote would be the same as not voting for that draft at all), but we could use an "oppose" section with a more traditional analysis. We could just add together the votes in the sections "support draft 1 as 1st preference", "support draft 1 as 2nd preference", etc., and hey presto! We have traditional "support" and "oppose" sections.

    Actually, thinking about it, it would be possible to use an "oppose" section with instant runoff. If we assume that any draft that is actively opposed is ranked last, then we can use a random number generator to place any unranked drafts in a random order. Doing it this way may sound a bit like cheating, but it is actually fairer to the voter to rank every choice, if only to ensure that the last choice really does come last. With a sufficient number of participants and a sufficient degree of randomness, any errors will be negligible. Does anyone want to work out the numbers?

    Having said this, there might not be so much point going into fine details like this if we are going to give any significant weight to the strength of arguments made in the discussion. That will probably tip the scales quite a bit more than the difference between ranking something as fourth place and not ranking it at all. I'm personally in favour of the "more the merrier" approach - analyse the data in as many ways as possible, look at the strength of the arguments, and let the closing admin make the final call. — Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 19:01, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

    OK, you can see what I mean. For me, the critical issues are (1) no algorithm (including that random number generator) can substitute for determining consensus from the strength of the arguments, and (2) respondents have to be able to say what they think, not what we "want" them to think for the purposes of compilation. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:33, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

I think this would be okay. Basically, it comes down to this:

  1. Something has to be first on the WP:V policy page.
  2. I despair of ever finding a "something" that will be acceptable (much less enthusiastically supported) by everyone.
  3. Whatever is first ought to be the thing that is least objectionable to the community.

So I think that a ranked-choice !voting system, with some attention given to the arguments (but not necessarily emotions) put forward in each case, is acceptable. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:55, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Dennis Bergkamp

I see that you have submitted to Dennis Bergkamp score only 87 goals for Arsenal. That is correct only for Premier League. He also score 14 goals in FA Cup, 8 goals in Liga Cup and 11 goals in Euro Cups playing for Arsenal. That means he score 120 goals in 423 games for Arsenal.

This is the official link that confirms the numbers listed above : http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/dream-team-we-reveal-the-first-striker... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.86.222.83 (talk) 12:29, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Hello. As it states clearly at the bottom of the infobox, "Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only". He scored 87 goals for Arsenal in the Premier League, hence. – Lemonade51 (talk) 10:14, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Decadebox Template Bug

Millennium
3rd millennium
Centuries
Decades
Years
Categories


Hi folks,

Here's the decadebox template set to the 2000s, to the right.




The link to the 2000s in the Decadebox template (direct link here) does not work. It currently points towards article: "2000–2009." This is a broken redirect to the previous decade, the 1990s. It ought to redirect to "2000s (decade)."

All the other links point towards their appropriate decades; e.g. "1970s" points towards article 1970s.

I tried looking at the code for the templatebox to edit and amend, but unfortunately I'm not overly clued-up on Wiki-code. How can we amend this so that the link points towards the correct page?

(Of course, the obvious solution would be to edit the "2000–2009" page to redirect, but surely there's a neater way to do it without having to resort to redirect pages?)

Thanks.

80.254.147.244 (talk) 10:43, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

The redirect page 2000–2009 was edited strangely earlier today. I have undone that edit so that it again points to 2000s (decade). -- John of Reading (talk) 11:27, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Article Straight pride

Hi, for a few weeks there has been a requested merge to add the article to Gay pride. It's been attracting trolls and votes with no policies to back them up in an effort to just disrupt and vote. I would like to request assistance in some way to keep peace and spell out Wikipedia's stance on voting instead of using a policy-laden argument. Thanks Jenova20 16:18, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

AfD aren't votes. The closing admin is supposed to weigh the strength of the arguments. If 20 people vote keep and one votes delete and that one person is the one with the best argument, the admin should delete. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 17:20, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
Very helpful, thank you for that confirmation.
Can i ask your current opinion from browsing over the talk page. I am not asking involvement in any kind of WP:Canvassing way but just an educated opinion.
Thanks again Jenova20 18:17, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
Ignore me completely, it's been nominated for AFD.
Thanks for the help, i appreciate it Jenova20 18:31, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
"should" ignore the comments that are not based on policy, but in actuality that rarely ever happens. they are closed on snout counts. -- The Red Pen of Doom 22:11, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

The Rush Hour Series Page

Hi, I'm a new editor to Wikipedia. In a way, it took me long enough to sign up because I've browsing hundreds of articles from this site for almost a decade now but almost never edited even though I feel I can write at a proficient level.

Anyways, can someone with more experience help me with the Rush_Hour_(film_series) article and place some labels/warnings on the article about citations being needed and writing style because it looks like it needs almost a total re-write. Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Imsosirius (talk • contribs) 20:35, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

I've removed some content that was duplicated with the pages on the individual films, and added templates. If anyone else wants to go further, feel free to make changes. --Colapeninsula (talk) 14:04, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia Social Research

Wikipedians,

I am studying sociology at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia and I am doing research on Wikipedia as a place that enables "participatory culture". As part of this research I would like to get input from Wikipedians who spend a significant amount of time contributing to articles. The questions will be related to the motivations for collaborating/contributing to Wikipedia.

If anyone would like to help with this research please briefly answer the following questions by posting on my talk page.

1. What motivates you the most to contribute to Wikipedia, a free encyclopedia where you are not rewarded financially for your labor?

2. Why do you think it is important to be neutral when contributing to articles?


Thanks in advance to anyone who participates!!


BruceGMU (talk) 20:45, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Bots that notify human editors

I'm working on a bot that repairs link rot. Sometimes an archived copy is found on The Wayback Machine or WebCite, and the bot can fix the dead link automatically.

But other times, the bot cannot find a good replacement link. In these cases, I think the bot should notify a human user and ask for help with that article. One choice would be the user who first added that link, since that user probably knows about the article and probably knows about the reference.

Although there is consensus that link rot must be repaired, I don't know how the community feels about this kind of bot-to-human contact. There is a risk that some people would be annoyed by these notifications.

The heart of the issue is: do the potential benefits justify the risk of annoyance?

Blevintron (talk) 15:03, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

I wouldn't be bothered at all if I received such a notification. --Jayron32 15:20, 1 April 2012 (UTC)
This sounds like a good idea to me. Will it "roam" the entire English Wikipedia, or will it just "roam" pages of a certain topic or two? Allen (talk) 17:44, 1 April 2012 (UTC)
There was another bot that went around looking for deadlinks and used the WayBack machine if possible. Sometimes the person who added the link won't be around Wikipedia anymore. Perhaps a check to see if the user edited in the last x days and iff not then the bot could leave a note on the article's talk page? More people probably have a chance to see that. Just an idea. Killiondude (talk) 00:40, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
I think this is a good idea, and I like Killion's suggestion about only pinging recent editors (perhaps in the last six months or so). I'll add that there's probably not much point to trying to contact unregistered/IP editors. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:01, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
Because the thousands of talk page notices that Wildbot added weren't repeatedly called to be wipe out after the bot died. They only survive because I run a weekly query to determine what gets removed. Plus talk page notices don't get much attention because 1) no active/interested watchers 2) information is usually outdated 3) banner blindness. — Dispenser 03:18, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
I won't send to IP users, or users who haven't contributed in a few months. Blevintron (talk) 00:41, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
User:DPL bot (ran by User:JaGa) notifies editors when they've added a disambiguation link. It works rather well, possibly because it links to a very easy to use repair tool. — Dispenser 03:18, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
Yes, I envy DPL bot ;). Another big factor of DPL bot's success is that it catches editors within a short time frame of their edits; it's still on the editor's mind... Link rot is a slow process, and links die long after an editor has added them. Blevintron (talk) 00:31, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

Threatened with Wikipedia Review

How seriously should I take a threat that someone is going to "sick" Wikipedia Review on me?

This threat came in an e-mail, along with threats that I was going to have to pay punitive damages once this other individual's lawyers finished suing me.

The individual who sent this threatening e-mail used the "e-mail user" feature to send a similar threatening e-mail to another contributor. They were recently indefinitely blocked at another WMF project for abusing the "e-mail user" feature.

Anyhow, for someone not really all that familiar with Wikipedia Review, how serious is this kind of threat? Is it usual for regular participants at Wikipedia Review to all suddenly descend on an ordinary contributor here, just because someone posts that they have a grudge? If I am not mistaken some of the most dedicated participants there will play detective and "out" the real world identities of participants here. How often does that happen? Does that kind of scrutiny usually only descended on active administrators who took some kind of bold stand?

How serious a breach of our own rules has a threat of being offered as a target of scrutiny been considered by administrators here?

So, what is all the fuss about? Over on another WMF project a contributor there asked for, or at least it seemed to me they asked for, extraordinary consideration of a request -- based on their status as a "former administrator". I took the time to look into where they had been an administrator -- it turned out they had been an administrator here. I thought it was pretty surprising that they asked for that special consideration, as their record as an administrator here didn't seem to be one to be proud of. On the contrary: (1) they were de-sys-opped; (2) not long after they acted up sufficiently that they had a 6 month block imposed on them; (3) they evaded that block, through sockpuppetry; (4) ran for, and was entrusted with administrator authority, using one of the new personas they established through sockpuppety.

In a subsequent message in the discussion on the other wiki, they made the additional claim that they had been an administrator for "many years". What the record showed was that the total time the two sockpuppets we knew had been entrusted with administrator authority added up to about fourteen months -- not "many years". This comment triggered a concern for me that this individual may have been entrusted with administrator authority under other sockpuppet persona, that have yet to be detected. And I initiated a thread on an administrator forum to voice that concern. I acknowledged they could have exagerrated, and exagerration is the explanation they offered.

In the threatening e-mail they complained about me opening that thread.

FWIW, I don't think I have written anything that would merit a law-suit, and I don't think I lapsed from any of our policies.

The e-mail they sent me was not sent via the "e-mail user" feature here. I had used the "e-mail user" to send them a heads-up over a confidential matter. OTRS ticket #2012032610014141 has an explanation as to why confidentiality was in order. Geo Swan (talk) 17:49, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

You seem to be spreading drama crosswiki. Also, please be concise. Killiondude (talk) 17:57, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
The threat was triggered by activity on en.wp, so I thought it was appropriate to raise here. The sockpuppetmaster in question established their sockpuppets here. So here is where I am most likely to experience clandestine or overt retaliation. Geo Swan (talk) 18:51, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
Wikipedia does not give legal advice. If you're worried about getting sued, consult a lawyer. --Colapeninsula (talk) 14:14, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
Also either outright say the name or don't dangle the breadcrumbs in front of any reader who can piece together the statements you used and that have been used previously to figure out what editor you're referring to. Hasteur (talk) 14:43, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
You could forward the email to info-en@wikimedia.org in order to get it logged in confidence. It may be better to have an OTRS volunteer able to look at the details and provide some advice on what to do next, if anything. With regard to outing, yes these off-wiki forums get their jollies by outing any Wikimedians they have a fetish for. If you think it is puffery then ignore it. With regard to a legal threat, see WP:NLT, this does cover misuse of the email system to make such threats and your copy of the email counts as sufficient evidence for action to be taken on-wiki, if appropriate. If the threats start looking criminal, such as specific death threats, then do not hesitate to contact emergency@wikimedia.org. --Fæ (talk) 16:42, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Speaking as someone familiar with the Commons events that triggered this and as someone familiar with Wikipedia Review, I think you can safely ignore this. I do not believe you did anything that remotely approaches grounds for a lawsuit (and the user involved lives in a different country than you, making a purely frivolous lawsuit impractical). Wikipedia Review is (or was) a forum made up of all kinds of contributors from "banned users" to current Wikipedia admins. It is not a monolithic entity and contributors there likely have no interest in furthering this particular person's dispute with you. Also, it has recently undergone a radical upheaval and the vast majority of former contributors have left or been banned. If you continue to be concerned, I would suggest following Fæ's advice. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 17:03, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

The fact that you were contacted through the "email user" indicates that the person threatening you does not know your real identity or address, all he or she has is whatever you have revealed on WP. I seriously doubt there is any jurisdiction on earth that allows lawsuits against an unknown or unidentified person. Unless you've posted your name and address on WP, you can quite safely ignore it. Roger (talk) 17:54, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
Unfortunately as Geo Swan was the one initiating contact, this person has their email with its headers and probably a traceable IP address. An email I sent to another Wikipedian through Wikipedia in 2010 was used in 2012 to maliciously track down my home contact details which that person then sadistically published on Wikipedia Review only 20 minutes after I had received a nasty threat of blackmail on Wikimedia Commons from an anonymous account. The threat is real enough to cause concern and these people remain free to openly stalk victims on Wikipedia even when reported to Oversight, Arbcom or even Jimbo. Thanks Fæ (talk) 18:24, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
Did you start and RfC or request that the Arbitration Committee start a case? If not, you should do so. Otherwise, perhaps it would be wise to stop drawing connections between unconnected actions and throwing around words like "stalk". Delicious carbuncle (talk) 19:46, 5 April 2012 (UTC)
I was involved in this case and I interpret this threat as a pure idle threat, made in anger. In the end, they got what they wanted. So if you ignore them, they will go away. They're not going to be so vindictive as to seek revenge on those who expressed concerns about their request. Dcoetzee 08:03, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

What good are Outlines?

We have a long list of topical outlines under Category:Outlines. However, what is unclear to me is what good they are doing. Are any readers actually accessing these lists and using them? They just appear to be loosely organized groups of article links. Are they just there to satisfy those seeking random knowledge? Do they just satisfy a need for some people to build lists? I'm having trouble imagining a scenario where I would actually want to go to an outline page to find out something, when I can just do a search instead. Regards, RJH (talk) 19:17, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

To answer all your questions: they are no good at all. They are completely useless wastes of time, yet another one of Thetranshumanist's quixotic little projects that are utterly and completely resistant to any criticism. The last time (or the time before that, or the time before that maybe) that this came up, TT and his crew had a merry little time saying that outlines couldn't be deleted en masse, there needed to be some sort of RfC--and then at the RfC, if memory serves, claimed that problematic outlines needed to be sent to AfD one by one. Clever. The entire project is a waste of fucking time, completely forbidden by policy (e.g.), and its proponents are impervious to anything like logic. → ROUX ₪ 20:34, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
Okay. I know they bear some resemblance to an alternative (library classification) navigation scheme that was in place for Wikipedia, but I have no idea how to find those now. The current outlines certainly don't seem to rate a high importance on the WikiProjects. If anything they draw away resources from more compelling articles. Regards, RJH (talk) 21:15, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
I wonder if they are any help on a big topic like...ummm...actually I have no idea. I had been meaning to look at a few one day as I recalled the kerfuffle about them...but never got round to it. Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:18, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
The NavBoxes seem to do a much better job of outlining information and making it available in appropriate locations. Shrug. Regards, RJH (talk) 23:09, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
I guess the thing to do would be look at the ones that look the most redundant/duplicative and propose a merge..just picking a subject at random (chess) we have Outline of chess, Glossary of chess and Index of chess articles....hmmm, so is it worth considering some folding-in there...I haven't looked in detail yet, but maybe if the index was more structured then that'd be the outline, or if the latter was more inclusive..and less of a glossary...or ummmmmmmmmmm.Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:02, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
The glossaries are at least somewhat useful for terms that perhaps don't need a full article, but are more than a dictionary definition. I tracked down the alternate navigation list to here: {{Contents pages (footer box)}}. From there, the Library of Congress Classification page includes some links to outline articles. Still not sure it's beneficial though. Oh well. Regards, RJH (talk) 03:26, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
A lot of people have been asking that same question for a few years now. They stick around because trying to get rid of them turns into a huge fight that simply wears people out. Resolute 01:49, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
I can relate. That whole AfD process can get pretty frustrating, and I've been on both sides of those debates. Regards, RJH (talk) 03:26, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
Yes. Almost always if someone thinks something is a good idea, for instance these outlines, it is very hard to remove it. That seems to be kind of the nature of the WP project itself. If it were up to me I'd rather remove a lot of articles on single TV episodes and that kind of stuff, than these outlines which don't do any harm or make us look stupid. BigJim707 (talk) 04:59, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
Some of the best outlines I've been very impressed by, such as Outline of anarchism. Organising a bunch of short lists in a hierarchical structure and pairing them with illustrations and explanations gives a great overall impression of topics to learn about in the area. I supported them in the RfC and I think they can contribute in a substantial way that articles and lists can't. And I haven't worked on outlines myself, so I wouldn't characterise this as an "us vs. the outline editors" thing. Dcoetzee 06:13, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
Yes that's better, but I think it should go even further. For example, it includes a list of notable anarchists but doesn't state why they are notable. The articles should look more like a traditional Outline (summary). More detail with shorter lists would go much further than long sprawling lists of jargon. Regards, RJH (talk) 15:48, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

This one's driving me crazy. Can any wiki-sleuth tell me where this link comes from? Cheers. - TB (talk) 08:56, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

Fixed – a typo turned {{Goal}} into {{Goa}} (not sure where that's meant to be used). Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 09:06, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
You, Sir, are a toff and a gentleman. Ta muchly. - TB (talk) 13:31, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

Script to prevent editing while logged out

Some of occasionally accidentally edit while logged out, exposing our IP address when we didn't mean to. I've published a simple script that prevents this on all WMF sites (if you click on Edit, it pops up a notice informing you you are not logged in and does not allow you to continue). Requires the Greasemonkey add-on on Firefox, works with Chrome out-of-the-box. Dcoetzee 11:31, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Nice! Thank you. I hope you'll also post this in a more permanent location. 76.23.245.128 (talk) 16:10, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
This is a permanent location - scripts are never removed from this site. If you think there's a place where it could get better publicity though, feel free to help spread it! Dcoetzee 08:00, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
I'll try WP:LOGGEDOUT. Jojalozzo 20:11, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
Oh I get what you're saying now. Thanks for adding it there! Dcoetzee 17:18, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Text allignment on Wikipedia

Sorry if this is misplaced. I was just wondering why Wikipedia doesn't (or can't) utilize justified text in all of its articles, as is a standard practice on many other websites, and practically universal in the world of print. It's just a thought, and not one of much substantial value, but I just wonder if it's been brought up before as a way of at least improving the appearance of the site overall.

Thanks Evanh2008 (talk) (contribs) 07:47, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

Preferences → Appearance → Justify paragraphs ---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 09:03, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
Ah, thank you! I should have checked there. Still seems like it wouldn't hurt to make it standard for all the readers, though. Anyway, I'm off to other places. Cheers! Evanh2008 (talk) (contribs) 09:25, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
A problem with justified text is in situations where there are images and tables along the borders. In combination with lengthy words, this can create distractingly long space gaps. Regards, RJH (talk) 15:43, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
True. Full justification is considered harder to read. Apparently this is even more of a problem for people with vision problems. In print, there are all manner of tweaks to hyphenation, word spacing, and even kerning to make it look good and keep it readable. On the web, we're stuck with low resolution and the sloppy way our browsers render text. (Incidentally, ragged right has become way more common in printed materials over the past decade or so—probably due to the nefarious influence of the web!) Rivertorch (talk) 07:44, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
Ideally, I suppose, the Wikipedia page rendering engine(?) would insert soft hyphenation at appropriate points (although I'm not sure that any browsers properly implement soft hyphenation yet). CSS version 3 was supposed to be coming out with hyphenation dictionaries, so maybe that could solve the problem? Regards, RJH (talk) 14:59, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
Dunno. I'm not a fan of any auto-hyphenation. Even my favorite desktop publishing program back in the day, Quark Xpress, couldn't be counted on to get it right. For a finished work, hyphenation should be done as part of the copyediting process, but with documents like WP articles that are subject to continual revision . . . well, it's probably safer not to hyphenate at all. Rivertorch (talk) 19:17, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
Yes, you're likely right. Maybe it can be a user option. Regards, RJH (talk) 00:01, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Decade articles need fixing

In every article about decades (probably every, I had not checked all but that seems to be the case), events from the first year is immediately followed by the third year events, for example in 1000s (decade) year 1000 is followed by year 1002. Since I can't fix this problem myself, a ask everyone who can to correct it, because this is a very serious issue. --Dj777cool (talk) 12:57, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Fixed with this edit, I hope. -- John of Reading (talk) 15:30, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

4 Millionth Page

Just curious, but as we approach this milestone, was anyone thinking of having a party to celebrate? :-) SmokeyTheCat 15:33, 23 March 2012 (UTC) And, should there not be some small prize for the creator of the 4th million page? (Assuming it's notable of course.) SmokeyTheCat 15:35, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Nope. Regards, RJH (talk) 19:07, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
Chances are the page will be deleted and a new one will take its place! And SmokeyTheCat you yourself can award something if you want to the creator of the 4 millionth page, perhaps a plate of biscuits. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 23:08, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
I think we should party all the way form the 4 millionth to 5 millionth articles. Then get focussed. Serious business. Rich Farmbrough, 18:01, 25 March 2012 (UTC).

Next year we are coming up on the 10th anniversary of the creation of the WP:FAC page: June 24, 2003.[9][10] That might be worth a little horn tooting and retrospective commentary. Milestone celebrations are good for building community. Regards, RJH (talk) 16:10, 28 March 2012 (UTC)


I think we should have a wikiview of sorts where we show a preview of past great pages to celebrate the milestone of the 4 millionth page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Infogiant2789 (talk • contribs) 21:49, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 81#4 million article party 64.40.57.130 (talk) 21:15, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

We celebrated the one millionth as a significant milestone with the article linked to the main page, massive media coverage, and I think a global notice as well, the two millionth article was celebrated but not as much, I don't even remember what we did with the third, the fourth I don't even see much of an achievement considering all the junk pages we have. Secret account 22:02, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

The third had some hoopla. I remember a prediction contest. I'm surprised we are this close with nothing planned.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 16:41, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
Three-millionth topic pool --SPhilbrick(Talk) 16:43, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
Plus there is a pool to guess the date, now closed Four-million pool (but the 5 million date pool is still open). There's a 5 miilionth topic pool, but no 4 millionth.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 16:48, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Searching for a title (and for the right place where to ask the question)

Hello, I am a French wiki user interested in the English wiki ; given those sources (The Economist , WSJ-1 , WSJ2 , NYT , FT , Fukuyama and Inside Job) there seems to be the case for an article related on "economist and the conflict of interests". What would be a relevant title in English? In French I created the article Indépendance des économistes financiers but "independence of economists" does not sound right to me. Anyway am I in the right village pump to ask this? Thank you for your help. Wiki yours. Xavxav (talk) 13:23, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

There is mention at Conflict of interest#Finance Industry and economists. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:48, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
Yes, I know (I wrote this section) but I was actually rather thinking of a dedicated article. Wiki yours. Xavxav (talk) 13:55, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
There has been a conflict of interest for many, many years. An excellent source for the history is the book, "The Corruption of Economics" by Mason Gaffney et al. -- Derek Ross | Talk 16:14, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
Don't worry too much about the title; the page can easily be moved to a new title later. --Colapeninsula (talk) 15:19, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
Thank you all for the comments. Wiki yours. Xavxav (talk) 13:05, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Heads up about a test

Hi everyone, I just wanted to give a quick notice that we're sending a few test emails to lapsed editors today: one is people who haven't edited for a year, the other is people who've taken a 3 month wikibreak. The "we" in this equation is the new experiments team at the Wikimedia Foundation. We haven't officially started yet, but this is a small, lower priority experiment that we're doing now because it's easy and is a good way for us test drive our methods.

This shouldn't impact anyone who still reads the Village Pump of course, but I wanted to give a courtesy notice. We heavily filtered these email lists to exclude bots, obvious alternate accounts (such as for AWB), and any banned or blocked editors. The end groups are together only 281 people, so we're unlikely to see a big influx of returning editors. We actually don't really know whether people will even read emails asking them to return, so we're just focusing on finding out the basics at this point.

If you want to read all the details about our rationale for doing this and our methodology, that's on Meta at Research:Necromancy.

Thanks, Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 21:21, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

The or not in the article name/title

Not sure if this is the correct place to ask, but if not, please move it to the correct place.

The question is regarding the article The Troll Hunter‎ and the use of «The» at the beginning. The article is currently move protected because of warring, but the question (as far as I am concerned) still remains as the warring (slowly) is leaking into the article itself.

thumb|right|Initial international release Originally this film was released to an international audience as «The Troll Hunter», which is a direct translation of the Norwegian title «Trolljegeren» where the «...en» is the definite article which is added at the end in Norwegian.

thumb|right|Latest release, DVD/BlueRay cover The other editor, that so far has not really been willing to discuss the matter beyond stating he is correct and you [we] are wrong and it's nothing to discuss, moved and updated the article first to «TrollHunter» then to «Troll Hunter» x 2. His argument is that the film is now named only «TrollHunter»/«Troll Hunter». This is currently what the (newest) covers of the DVD/BlueRay say.

However, in my opinion that is only evidence for what one distributor chose to call the film on the cover. By going to the web pages of the distributors, IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes, etc, it varies a lot, even on the same page, what the film is called (with or without a leading «The», and sometimes with or without spaces). I can live with the article without a leading «The», but I really would like some more convincing argument than «He's right, I'm wrong», because as one blogger says: «I really dig TROLLHUNTER, or TROLL HUNTER, or THE TROLL HUNTER, or whatever the preferred translation of TROLLJEGEREN is this week.»

tl;dr So my question is, is there a guideline or something for what a (film) article should be called when the sources itself vary a lot, and one poster/cover of the film says one thing, and another poster/cover of the film says another thing? I could not find anything useful in WP:THE for this. -Laniala (talk) 13:57, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

By my reading, WP:THE indicates that the article should follow the official title of the English translation, regardless of the original. (e.g., the wikipedia article is The Scream even though "Original Norwegian without article (Skrik).")
If there is disagreement between official sources about the actual title, then you have a problem. Rotton Tomatoes and IMBD are useless, that's not official - the cover of the DVD and the official site are your best bet. If they disagree, then I'd just leave the article in its current form and spend your mental energy on more important topics (as long as all the variations redirect to the article). - DavidWBrooks (talk) 14:23, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
Well, yes, that is the problem. The posters/covers differ, and the web sites belonging to the distributors does not always agree in the text written on the one same page. For example in the first trailers said "The Troll Hunter" on one line. However in the most recent trailers, it says "Troll Hunter" split on two lines, but in the text directly above/below the trailer it sometimes says "[...] The Troll Hunter [...]". So it can perhaps look like someone in the marketing department wanted to spice up the poster/cover and removed "The" at the same time.
However, compared to Scream/The Scream - Skrik/Skriket, in this case I actually think there would be a difference between «Troll Hunter» and «The Troll Hunter» as the former would be a(ny) (troll) hunter in general, and the latter would imply the main person in the film, The (Troll) Hunter himself, which the film is actually circulating around.
Anyway, all alternative titles redirect to the current article. The article was fine for one and a half year until one editor insistently wants "The" removed from the page name (the move warring) and any occurrence in article text itself (edit warring), and is not even listening to what we (two others) have had to say so far. So was hoping for some input and if there perhaps would be a policy or guideline or some such regarding film titles where the title changes depending on what you use as (dubious) source... -Laniala (talk) 15:25, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
Is there not some source that could be deemed "most official"? Someone owns this thing, what do they call it when they send out letters or press releases? When they deposited it at the US Copyright Office, what name did they use? Is it the same name as at the UK, Canada, Australia, etc. offices? Franamax (talk) 07:30, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
If you bring it up at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Film, I'm sure they can help you with that information. Regards, RJH (talk) 14:52, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

Library usage alphabetises titles without "The." Some languages seem to want an article before every noun, and any translation of such a title would always have "The" or "A" in front - but that does not help any user who is typing into a search box much at all. "The Scream" is an unusual case - but, in general, we serve users better by not using "the" at the start of articles. Pretend we are a library. And use as many redirects as you wish. Collect (talk) 13:21, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

I wouldn't think that alphabetizing titles without the leading "article" is the same as dropping a leading "article" from the title of a page. It does make sense to sort lists of topics as libraries do, but we should still follow the consensus at WP:THE. Regards, RJH (talk) 16:17, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

一个问题(Chinese)

请问Liberty Head nickel中的这个插图是Liberty Head nickel吗? DGideasChinese 23:36, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Can you say it in English? I don't know Chinese and Google translate isn't helping much. Chris857 (talk) 23:42, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
The answer is probably going to be "see Liberty Head nickel#1913. I think this is probably meant for the ref desk.--Shirt58 (talk) 23:45, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
This picture is a coins of Liberty Head nickel?

sorry,I can't say it very well DGideasChinese 02:08, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Hopefully you can understand this. File:Franklin_MacVeagh_medal.jpeg is a medal showing the US Treasury Secretary who worked to end the Liberty Head nickel. Its the only coin-like image in the article that is not the Liberty Head nickel. Hope that helps. Chris857 (talk) 16:43, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Most successful wikihoax?

What should we have at glucojasinogen? Answers preferably in this DRV rather than here. — RHaworth (talk · contribs) 18:19, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

User rights

How do I check my user rights? Aditya(talk • contribs) 06:33, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Here. - David Biddulph (talk) 06:42, 15 April 2012 (UTC)
Special:Preferences also shows your current status at "Member of groups". Wikipedia:User access levels says more about the rights of each group. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:32, 15 April 2012 (UTC)
Thanks. :-D Aditya(talk • contribs) 12:09, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Kelurahan, Desa and Kecamatan pages of Indonesia

Can I create the Kelurahan (administrative village), desa (village) and kecamatan (subdistricts) page? How about the reliable source? Can I copy from Indonesian Wikipedia? Mbak Dede (talk) 01:56, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Oh dear, in other places like (a) your own talk page (b) at a range of stubs you have started which I have tried to WP:PROD, and WP:AFD, and the (c) Indonesian Project here on WP:en - I have argued that there are problems with creating such stubs.
It is better to only create stubs when you have WP:RS 'FIRST (jelas- yang pertama) - not to create stubs with no sources, and sticking the message you need reliable sources - I have some real difficulty in understanding why you have a need to create village articles just because they exist on WP:id.

WP:en encourages editors to have WP:RS to justify stubs - however at the PROD and FD level, when you create your empty stubs - you are being protected by editors who feel the poorly created stubs have validity to exist on a misunderstanding of what 'notability' might be in the Indonesian context.

WP:en should generally never have items copied from WP:id - the standard of most WP:id stubs is that they have (a) little or no text in the body of the stub (b) usually no WP:RS (c) usually quite different sense of 'notability' compared to what is accepted here on WP:en.
You should be discouraged from creating empty stubs - the Indonesian project already has a large number and more than the very few active editors are interested in fixing- see http://toolserver.org/~enwp10/bin/list2.fcgi?run=yes&projecta=Indonesia
If you look carefully there already most kecamatan of Indonesia are already there in lists within regency names - you must look more carefully in what already is summarised in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subdivisions_of_Indonesia - specially section 5 - to start creating stubs at the lowest level the precedent is for thousands of empty stubs with no WP:RS..
If you cannot find on your own work any WP:RS for a stub you are creating - my advice would be dont create it! SatuSuro 08:22, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Region-based vs. Topic-based stubs

I was just looking at an article on the new page list, United Socialist Party (San Marino), and it is categorized under Category:San Marino stubs. I was thinking that a more appropriate stub category would be Category:European socialist party stubs, but there doesn't seem to be any clear explanation of when to use stub categories that that are based on region, and when to stick to topic-based stubs. I was wondering if there is an obscure policy concerning this, or if a WP:WSS could explain.--Yutsi Talk/ Contributions 14:35, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

User:PamD is a real whizz with stubs.--Harkey (talk) 14:44, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
It's ok to have a stub in multiple categories, as long as it doesn't get silly. This may increase the chances of it being improved. --Colapeninsula (talk) 10:35, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
Mmm, I'm curious how we define a silly number of categories? More than 20? (Mike Cameron, Alfred Hitchcock, Jesus Christ) 30? (Bing Crosby, Joseph Stalin) 40? (Isaac Newton, Adolf Hitler) 60? (Albert Einstein) Hmm... On that note, I wonder if there is a way to determine the information entropy of a particular set of categories? Perhaps something derived from their minimum separation on the category tree? Regards, RJH (talk) 01:14, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Opinions Needed: Why Do People Contribute to Wikipedia?

Hello all,

I am an undergraduate student at the University of California, Santa Barbara, conducting a senior honors thesis on users' motivations to contribute to Wikipedia. A more detailed description of the project can be read here: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Motivations_to_Contribute_to_Wikipedia

My project's success is dependent on the valuable responses of Wikipedia contributors, which I am collecting through an online questionnaire. This brief questionnaire is completely anonymous and should take about 5 minutes to complete. If any of you are willing to complete this questionnaire, it can be accessed here: https://us1.us.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_8ixU9RkozemzC4s. Once my thesis is complete, I will submit a link to the paper for any interested Wikipedians.

Please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns.

Thank you in advance for your help!

Anabeyta (talk) 22:38, 17 April 2012 (UTC)anabeyta

I suggest you promise to submit a link to your paper here when you complete it. Also the questionnaire does not work correctly in that the radio buttons allow multiple selections for single selection questions. Please let me know when you have it working. Good luck. Jojalozzo 23:01, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Line charts now available

It may be of interest that we now have a {{Line chart}} template that does what it says on the tin: 

{{Line chart
| color_background = white
| width = 500
| height = 350
| padding_left = 40
| padding_right = 15
| padding_top = 10
| padding_bottom = 20
| number_of_series = 2
| number_of_x-values = 10 
| label_x1 = Ep. 1 | label_x2 = Ep. 2 | label_x3 = Ep. 3 | label_x4 = Ep. 4 | label_x5 = Ep. 5
| label_x6 = Ep. 6 | label_x7 = Ep. 7 | label_x8 = Ep. 8 | label_x9 = Ep. 9 | label_x10 = Ep. 10
| y_max = 5000
| scale = yes
| points = yes
| color_series_1 = blue
| thickness_series1 = 1
| color_series_2 = red
| thickness_series2 = 1
| S01V01 = 2220 | S01V02 = 2200 | S01V03 = 2440 | S01V04 = 2450 | S01V05 = 2580 | S01V06 = 2440 | S01V07 = 2400 | S01V08 = 2720 | S01V09 = 2660 | S01V10 = 3040
| S02V01 = 3860 | S02V02 = 3800 | S02V03 = 3800
}}

Kudos for the programming goes to Argamea whose Modèle:Graphique polygonal is now available on the English language Wikipedia.  Sandstein  23:00, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for listing it at Wikipedia:Graphs and charts. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:29, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
Looks decent. A few features I'd like to see: the ability to control the size and shape of the data points, some means to turn on anti-aliasing of the connecting lines, and maybe some day a logarithmic scale capability. Thanks. Regards, RJH (talk) 21:54, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Anyone want a really easy DYK-type article?

Pebble E-Paper Watch - I started a stub before I realized how very much material is out there, appearing just over the last few days. I don't have time to do anything decent; my brain is breaking just thinking about it. If someone wants to jump on it, just search Google News for Pebble and Kickstarter. The most money Kickstarter has ever raised, and it just got started. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 20:56, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Help

Please help develop the article about Aleksandr Porokhovshchikov Scymso (talk) 16:34, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

No merge?

In reviewing a new article, I found that Psychic determinism and Psychic Determinism are almost, if not exactly the same article. Psychic determinism is marked for merge from Psychic Determinism, but it seems to me that one of these articles could be deleted without any loss of information. However, I know almost nothing about the subject, and if this is a central topic for psychoanalysis, I would not expect it to only now have become a brand new article.

In any case, I need help from wiser editors, or just more expert editors on the subject of psychoanalysis, than I am. --DThomsen8 (talk) 21:38, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Not making any comment on the article content, but Psychic Determinism was identical minus "see also" and categories to Psychic determinism. I have nominated the previous for speedy deletion. As for the article itself, that is not my area, but it could use with more references. Chris857 (talk) 00:01, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Account creation

Are there any disadvantages to creating an account? I've not thought of any, but would welcome your thoughts, please, as at account creation we mention just the advantages.--Harkey (talk) 12:50, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

It doesn't seem that there's any disadvantage to account creation. The primary reason that someone wouldn't create an account would be that they have no interest in editing Wikipedia.--Yutsi Talk/ Contributions 14:37, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
Thanks, I'm asking because I'm working up to making a suggestion that offers more advantages to account holders, but would not want to exclude anyone because account creation was disadvantageous for some other reason. Can anyone think of any at all?--Harkey (talk) 14:52, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
Well the need to take five seconds to log in? ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 15:42, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
One more username/password combination to remember? WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:55, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
Yes, you can't block people from posting obnoxious messages to your talk page. Regards, RJH (talk) 15:59, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
Accountability, for those whose edits may veer into less-than-constructive territory. Any significant legitimate disadvantages? No. Rivertorch (talk) 16:03, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
That is a legitimate disadvantage because you have to spend time dealing with the obnoxious individual's messages. An anonymous account usually does not – they just boot to a new IP address. For some people there is also a potential risk of cyberstalking. Regards, RJH (talk) 19:14, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
It's less anonymous than using a non-static IP address (one that can't be used to locate you without your ISP's help).
There are also disadvantages with specific account names: they may give away personal information (e.g. your real name), or create a bad impression that stops you being taken seriously, or suggest that your edits are biased and POV. And some people have trouble choosing user names. --Colapeninsula (talk) 10:33, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
I really appreciate all you replies, thanks.--Harkey (talk) 19:17, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
IP editors get some AGF that new accounts don't. When an IP shows clue but no malice, it's assumed to have experience from other dynamic IPs. If a logged in editor's first edit is a civil RfA oppose, with diffs and policy acronyms, someone will ask "Whose sock are you?", a checkuser will be done and come back  Inconclusive and he'll be indeffed. That's the main reason why I was afraid to make an account - I had too much experience, both as an IP editor here and on other projects, to fake being a new user and didn't think I'd last long. Kilopi (talk) 01:13, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
Do IP editors get the "you have new messages on your talk page" notice? --Guy Macon (talk) 12:01, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

File:ESC 2012 Map.svg

I was wondering, what are the areas in a different shade of green singled out in Sweden, the Netherlands and Russia? (And am I missing something or is this image now not displaying the current 14 March version?) Simply south...... going on editing sprees for just 6 years (as of 28/03/2006) 13:22, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

They're lakes. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 13:27, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
You're right it's currently displaying an old version. I tried commons:Help:Purge and http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/thumb.php?f=ESC_2012_Map.svg&w=500 displays the current version but it doesn't update http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8c/ESC_2012_Map.svg/500px-ESC_2012_Map.svg.png which is used by image code with 500px. It shows the right version if 500px is changed to 499px or 501px. commons:Help:Purge ends with "When there is a foolproof method for updating thumbnails or forcing them to re-render, rest assured, we will let you know." PrimeHunter (talk) 11:05, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Possible non free image

Hi, maybe this image, File:Vicous promo (crop).jpg is not free, it comes from here, and at the bottom of the page it has a copyright sign. The image was uploaded with a {{PD-Pre1978}} license on this wikipedia, and now it has a template about transfer it to Commons. Please help me to add a correct license, or how do I know if the image was released without a copyright sign prior to 1978?, or maybe the image must be deleted, or tell me if I should transfer it to Commons. Thanks. --UAwiki (talk) 20:59, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

That website confirms it was released in 1977 as a promotion picture. It was pretty common back then to release such images without a copyright notice, and if you look at the full image no notice can be seen. Theoretically it could have been printed on the back of the card, but lacking an image from that side I think we can assume good faith that this image is indeed free. Yoenit (talk) 23:35, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
OK, thank you, I'll move the image to Commons. --UAwiki (talk) 17:59, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Invisible possible vandalism

This edit was tagged as possible vandalism on my watchlist. Obviously it wasn't, and since I can't see any difference at all I'm guessing that a space was added. I'm curious as to why it would get tagged, though. The IP who made it has made no other edits. Anyone know what might have triggered the filter? Rivertorch (talk) 04:01, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

I am not sure why it was tagged as possible vandalism but the edit added an extra space between was and born in "John Augustus Sutter was born Johann August Sutter". GB fan 04:37, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
It was tagged because of repeated vandalism attempts by that IP.[11] That makes it likely that a new edit will also be vandalism even if it isn't identified. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:30, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
Thanks! I forgot I could check those logs. And thanks, GB; I've removed the space. (I wish those things were easier to see in diffs. The only sure method I know for finding those kinds of changes is a bit cumbersome for everyday use). Rivertorch (talk) 18:05, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
You should be able to see the space in the diff now. A new diff style was deployed after your post. And at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets you can enable wikEdDiff which also shows the space. wikEdDiff is an old feature and not the same as the new diff style. They disagree on whether the new space was added before or after the old space. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:36, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
Heh. Glad they finally rolled this out, but I really have to squint. If the blue were any lighter, it would be white. Maybe I'll try the gadget. Rivertorch (talk) 23:20, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Merge proposal

Hi. There is a proposal to merge Wikipedia:Republishers into Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks. Please feel free to add any opinions to Wikipedia talk:Republishers#Merger proposal. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:42, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Tom Vanden Brook#Wikipedia entry

Tom Vanden Brook#Wikipedia entry says:

"According to USA Today, a new user to Wikipedia created a page on Vanden Brook on February 8, 2012. The entry alleged that Vanden Brook "'gained worldwide notoriety' for his 'misreporting' of the 2006 Sago Mine disaster in West Virginia." Wikipedia editors removed the page and banned the user."

This log entry indicates that the deletion occurred on the same day.

Question one: Would it by WP:OR to change the above to "Wikipedia editors removed the page on the same day and banned the user"? If the suggested change is allowed, do I just cite the log entry?

Question two: Assuming that the above is allowable, could I instead write "Wikipedia editors removed the page within X minutes and banned the user"? If so, what do I cite to establish the number of minutes? --Guy Macon (talk) 11:53, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Am I asking in the right place? --Guy Macon (talk) 11:54, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
Asking on WP:Help desk may get you a better answer since it has more readers. An external link to a news report or similar source discussing the Wikipedia edit would definitely be better than a diff or an internal Wikipedia source. --Colapeninsula (talk) 14:59, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
Thanks! See Wikipedia:Help desk#Tom Vanden Brook#Wikipedia entry. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:06, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Community Action Against CISPA

I think that the Wikipedia community needs to rally here and try to get the word out about CISPA, the latest incarnation of SOPA. For information of CISPA, if you haven't heard, try here for starters, or check its Wikipedia page. The bill is expected to pass this week and there's been little to no media coverage of it. Wikipedia was instrumental in blocking SOPA, and this bill is just as potentially detrimental to Wikipedia itself as well as its community members and users. I think that Wikipedia needs to feature a story about the bill on the front page at the very least, if not do another black out.

Let's get on this. Donconnery (talk) 21:25, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Two thoughts:
  • Calling for another blackout confirms the fears of the people who opposed the first one, that it would simply be the first of many, the thin end of the wedge, etc.
  • If you want CISPA on the front page, then you need to turn it into a WP:Featured article or get it included WP:In the news. I'm sure that the community would welcome you taking on either of those tasks. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:10, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

New colors for displaying diffs

I noticed recently the colors used for displaying diffs have changed. For one, changed text is no longer red, it's just bold, black and highlighted in a light yellow-ish color. The new colors are very low contrast and hard to read for me. Is there somewhere this change has been discussed already? Sorry if this is the wrong place to bring it up. - Josh (talk | contribs) 20:25, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

I'd like to second the above. The old yellow/green, black/red set-up was much easier to glean information from at a glance. I haven't done a lot since the change, but I suspect it's going to slow me down at least a little while RC-patrolling. Regardless, I'll cope, but I did prefer it the old way. Evanh2008 (talk) (contribs) 20:30, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
It's being discussed at length at WP:VPT. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 20:32, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
(Further to that, appropriate sections are "Diffs", "New "diff" view is horrible and illegible" and possibly "Change notifcations to editors". Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 20:37, 24 April 2012 (UTC))
Actually I kind of like the new look because it makes the revisions more apparent. I can see how some may have difficulty with the color scheme, but it works fine for me. Regards,RJH (talk) 15:07, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Gratitude

Just want to post my deep gratitude that Wikipedia exists. Many thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.213.25.199 (talk) 12:45, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Afd's for Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Chittaranjan High School and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Chittaranjan English Medium high school

Although both Afd's have attracted a fair level of voting, I believe their is a lot of misunderstanding by the voter's about some basic concepts of Wikipedia and I would like to get this clarrified for the sake of future editing (and avoid what might look like distruptive editing by way of too many AfD's)

  • Inherrent notability of schools - Although WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES clearly states that Schools are frequently nominated for deletion. The current notability guideline for schools and other education institutions is Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies) (WP:ORG), a lot of voters are getting back with votes about User:Bearian/Standards#Notability_of_High_Schools_at_WP:AfD and vague arguments about legitimate high schools etc. The conclusion of this archived discussion is that the clash between Wikipedia:Run-of-the-mill and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Common outcomes needs to be resolved. However, Run of the mill clearly states that something or someone that is "run-of-the-mill" is probably not notable. while common outcomes for schools states that schools are being deleted when zero independent sources can be found. So my conclusion for this paragraph is that if this school (both articles are about the same school) cannot be verified by independent articles then it should be deleted. Any reasons to believe otherwise?
  • WP:BIAS - This is an often abused principle that the region does not recieve adequate internet coverage or that this is not an English speaking school etc. I have given examples of schools that are in similar regions and are covered on the internet for their achievements. Some may not know this but India has an english news channel called NDTV and several english dailes such as The Times of India, The Hindu, The Indian Express and Deccan Chronicle. All of them cover national and local events. All of them have a good web presense. If you go the sports page of any one of them you will find the achievements of school and college teams mentioned. During the final exams, the toppers and their schools are mentioned. This apart from events and other achievements which might get covered on an infrequent basis. Most of the time the biographies of important people also mention their schooling. The point I am trying to make is that American Schools, German Schools, Egyptian Schools and all other schools in the world can be notable for a given set of reasons, or otherwise fail to be notable. Internet coverage or the use of English is not one of them.

Please understand that according to WP:NOT#FANSITE if we keep these articles because the editors feel that the schools has had an everlasting impact on the culture of the place etc. When such claims are made without any independant verifiable sources - that demonstrate the validity of such claims, we end up making Wikipedia a fansite for particular schools. Don't get me wrong but there are a large number of sites dedicated for this. Try batchmates, classmates, fanpages on facebook. These sites are their for a reason and would do a much better job in popularising your school. If you really want to make a big impact why not start a website in its name with everything you want to say about the school? Try hpage, webs.com - they are all free.
Although I can understand the catch-em young mentality to get more editors on board to Wikipedia, some schools and professors] have already banned the use of Wikipedia for academic purposes because of its lack of reliability. Hence, such a Laissez-faire attitude towards the requirements of notability for schools might end up robbing the very benefit from the students that Wikipedia intends to provide.
Hence, lets take the issue of notability of schools a bit more seriously. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikishagnik (talk • contribs)

Dating to allow archiving. Fences&Windows 20:22, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
I'm not sure what you're trying to achieve here, absent a miracle. In pretty much every school notability discussion I've read over the years, there has been no consensus. There's a camp that think they're inherently notable. A camp that does not. And there are people who want to see proof - verifiability - by way of references, and those who don't. You very clearly come from a particular point of view on this issue; perhaps not the best starting point for the discussion you seek to mount. Your "misunderstanding by the voter's about some basic concepts of Wikipedia" is another persons your misunderstanding, if you get my drift. --Tagishsimon (talk) 20:30, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Terms of Use update

As you may be aware, Wikimedia has updated its Terms of Use. This updated version will become effective on May 25, 2012, and can be reviewed here. To find out more, please visit wmf:New Terms of use/en. Thanks. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 23:37, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Please visit meta:Talk:Terms_of_use and join the discussions. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 12:15, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Any ideas?

I am trying to cut down on the massive list of Jayne Mansfield's work on the article. The best way to that would be to move the material to a new page following the articles/lists in Category:Filmographies. But, what should remain in the main article? Any ideas? Aditya(talk • contribs) 11:34, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

You could move the sections "film appearances" and "television work" to a new article Jayne Mansfield filmography, and put a link in the main article using Template:Main. It seems common to have TV shows in a filmography. The discography is quite short and could remain. In my opinion, there's no need to leave a "selected filmography" on the main article, as the article already should discuss her important films. Be bold. --Colapeninsula (talk) 14:50, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
Thanks. Aditya(talk • contribs) 12:49, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

When will English Wikipedia reach the four-million-article milestone?

When will English Wikipedia reach the four-million-article milestone? Since now English Wikipedia has more than 3,932,000 articles, it is expected that soon English Wikipedia will reach this milestone. But when will English Wikipedia reach it? A month or two months later? Or sooner or later? And what will be the four-millionth article of English Wikipedia? Which field will it belong to? Let's discuss it!--RekishiEJ (talk) 03:00, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Oooooh that is a good question to ponder over. Hmmm let me think. A sport one I'm guessing. Wesley☀Mouse 03:50, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
I hope a computer software or website one will be the four-millionth article of English Wikipedia. There are still many notable software or websites lacking independent English Wikipedia articles.--RekishiEJ (talk) 06:17, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
Or a disambiguation page.  :-) — Dispenser 13:23, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Four-million pool, now closed.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 14:03, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
More importantly for us binary types, when will Wikipedia reach 222 (4,194,304) articles? The Gompertz growth model is predicting March 25, 2015, assuming I did the math correctly. We shall see... Regards, RJH (talk) 18:08, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
I think by 2015, we'll be at 5 million articles, if not 6. SilverserenC 01:31, 28 April 2012 (UTC)
That would require an article creation rate of 32,000–65,000 per month. The current rate is around 26,000 and trending downward. But I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. Regards, RJH (talk) 04:25, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

App for Windows 8?

Are there any plans to have an app where Wikipedians can edit from in Windows 8? If there is, I would certainly support it. Pizza1016 (talk) 15:23, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Why not just use IE10 or any of the other browsers? However, I can see value in creating a Metro app for reading Wikipedia. A Live Tile showing In The News or On This Day would be pretty cool. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 15:27, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
I would check out mw:Mobile/Windows 8 Metro for early designs for Windoes 8 integration. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 19:00, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Page view stats

I've noticed that page views listed at stats.grok.se seem to report separately for multi-word article titles with spaces versus underscores, e.g. "Article title" versus "Article_title". Seems to make counting page views a little more complicated than they would seem. Can anyone elucidate? ENeville (talk) 01:03, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Still listening, if anyone can help. Main concern: how do I get an accurate count of page views? ENeville (talk) 22:17, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
I get the same when I enter "Article title" and "Article_title" at http://stats.grok.se/. 5 times in the last 30 days: 1 on April 9, 1 on April 15, 1 on April 20, and 2 on April 23. Do you see different counts? Or did you make up a false example without testing it? I also got the same counts when I tested a few existing pages. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:47, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
Sry, I meant "Article title" as a concept (should have used italics?). The case I ran across was "Catching_Fire_(2009_novel)" (linked from discussion here). The discussion quoted 1.3 million views, but I only got (as I recall) ~800k when I looked. So I removed the underscores and got ~600k. I thought this was a normal I didn't know about. But now I'm getting different numbers (700k for both), and often "internal server error", perhaps because of the cusp fo the new month. Who knows with buggy things. I'll look for more data. Thanks. ENeville (talk) 23:21, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
"multi-word article titles" was the general description. "e.g." means "for the sake of example" and should have been an actual example when you used that term after the general description. Some people confuse "e.g." and "i.e." See wiktionary:e.g. and wiktionary:i.e. http://stats.grok.se/en/latest60/Catching_Fire_%282009_novel%29 shows far more views in late March than late April. The quoted 1.3 million views was for the last 30 days on 21 April. It's much lower for the last 30 days now on 30 April. I don't see any signs of a difference between space and underscore. I suspect all your different counts were made on different days. By the way, the reason for the many views in late March was the premiere of The Hunger Games (film), a filmatization of a book where Catching Fire (2009 novel) is the sequel. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:53, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
Fair enough re "i.e.". I thought I had run into something unintuitive to me but well known to (some?) others, so I was a bit expeditious in my query. As I look at it more, I think what happened was probably that I was unwittingly thrown off by navigating in from the link, and then was inadvertently comparing stats 30-days-back-from-April-27 with those from April as a whole. Ah, well. Thanks for your consideration.  :-) ENeville (talk) 00:57, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Template:very long

Template:Very long (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

This template has been discussed, especially in User talk:George Ho/Mentorship discussions#Template:very long. I proposed for "deletion", but my mentor convinced me to discuss it. As you see, sometimes "very long" is confused with (mentioned or not) Template:restructure, Template:overly detailed, and Template:cleanup (proposal to mandate "reason" is discussed). I'm still analyzing the transclusion of this template. So far, I have removed this template from 100 pages, and I bet I can remove a hundred more. --George Ho (talk) 15:20, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

My message cut from Template talk:very long:

This template is becoming more abused and misused. Also, it is vague and problematic, as it may encourage bad editing. The "either split into sub-articles or subsections" thing is good for Template:very long section. However, even if there are suggestions to either split up long page, skim down long page, or restructure long page into subsections, this template is not very good to use, as there are already {{split}}, {{plot}}, {{restructure}}, and {{overly detailed}}. Also, this template is transcluded down from 400 time to 300 times.

--George Ho (talk) 19:41, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Article size

Must I propose turning this guideline into an essay? Seriously, with guidelines of how to verify notability of a topic, write a great article, reach of conclusion to whether split or keep content, be concise on plot abstracts, and more, must we follow this guideline for the sake of messy articles about non-notable subtopics of a topic? --George Ho (talk) 19:36, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes, you must discuss and gain consensus to deescalate a guideline to an essay - but this would not be the place to do it. Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) is the place to "discuss proposed policies and guidelines and changes to existing policies and guidelines." For what its worth, if you propose any such thing, I am likely to oppose demotion. This is a good place to look for and find content on how long articles should be and why. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 18:49, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
Recently, History of Social Security in the United States was split from Social Security (United States). ...Well, both may be notable, yet that leaves History section a need of expansion. Currently, one portion of Cat is proposed to be split from "Cat". Nevertheless, look at Education in Singapore, Primary School Leaving Examination, and Secondary education in Singapore; I don't know what to say about them except they are not that great. --George Ho (talk) 19:49, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
When articles are split like the SS one, the section it was split off should provide a very concise overview of the topic that was split off, repeating details and sources as necessary to make the main page still reasonably comprehensive. Having only just glanced at how it is split, for the SS article, stating when it was established, and that it has gone through many changes over the years, is sufficient for the main SS page, along with the given link. --MASEM (t) 19:56, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
Must this guideline mention notability concerns and size quality (not size quantity)? --George Ho (talk) 03:25, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
Article size is closely tied in with Summary Style, and from a few years back, notability. There are bad spinouts, but not all spinouts are bad, and thus SIZE provides useful and necessary advice. --MASEM (t) 18:53, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia mobile a/b testing?

About once a week, the mobile site seems to change slightly. The most recent makes it look like a wikia article. Are these permanent changes or a/b testing? EcheletteLopper (talk) 02:12, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

The changes made today have been in beta since March. They're not a temporary test, but they're the foundation for the next phase of the mobile navigation redesign. See mw:Mobile to keep up to date with our mobile efforts.--Eloquence* 05:33, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

App for Windows 8?

Are there any plans to have an app where Wikipedians can edit from in Windows 8? If there is, I would certainly support it. Pizza1016 (talk) 15:23, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Why not just use IE10 or any of the other browsers? However, I can see value in creating a Metro app for reading Wikipedia. A Live Tile showing In The News or On This Day would be pretty cool. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 15:27, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
I would check out mw:Mobile/Windows 8 Metro for early designs for Windoes 8 integration. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 19:00, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Page view stats

I've noticed that page views listed at stats.grok.se seem to report separately for multi-word article titles with spaces versus underscores, e.g. "Article title" versus "Article_title". Seems to make counting page views a little more complicated than they would seem. Can anyone elucidate? ENeville (talk) 01:03, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Still listening, if anyone can help. Main concern: how do I get an accurate count of page views? ENeville (talk) 22:17, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
I get the same when I enter "Article title" and "Article_title" at http://stats.grok.se/. 5 times in the last 30 days: 1 on April 9, 1 on April 15, 1 on April 20, and 2 on April 23. Do you see different counts? Or did you make up a false example without testing it? I also got the same counts when I tested a few existing pages. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:47, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
Sry, I meant "Article title" as a concept (should have used italics?). The case I ran across was "Catching_Fire_(2009_novel)" (linked from discussion here). The discussion quoted 1.3 million views, but I only got (as I recall) ~800k when I looked. So I removed the underscores and got ~600k. I thought this was a normal I didn't know about. But now I'm getting different numbers (700k for both), and often "internal server error", perhaps because of the cusp fo the new month. Who knows with buggy things. I'll look for more data. Thanks. ENeville (talk) 23:21, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
"multi-word article titles" was the general description. "e.g." means "for the sake of example" and should have been an actual example when you used that term after the general description. Some people confuse "e.g." and "i.e." See wiktionary:e.g. and wiktionary:i.e. http://stats.grok.se/en/latest60/Catching_Fire_%282009_novel%29 shows far more views in late March than late April. The quoted 1.3 million views was for the last 30 days on 21 April. It's much lower for the last 30 days now on 30 April. I don't see any signs of a difference between space and underscore. I suspect all your different counts were made on different days. By the way, the reason for the many views in late March was the premiere of The Hunger Games (film), a filmatization of a book where Catching Fire (2009 novel) is the sequel. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:53, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
Fair enough re "i.e.". I thought I had run into something unintuitive to me but well known to (some?) others, so I was a bit expeditious in my query. As I look at it more, I think what happened was probably that I was unwittingly thrown off by navigating in from the link, and then was inadvertently comparing stats 30-days-back-from-April-27 with those from April as a whole. Ah, well. Thanks for your consideration.  :-) ENeville (talk) 00:57, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

App for Windows 8?

Are there any plans to have an app where Wikipedians can edit from in Windows 8? If there is, I would certainly support it. Pizza1016 (talk) 15:23, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Why not just use IE10 or any of the other browsers? However, I can see value in creating a Metro app for reading Wikipedia. A Live Tile showing In The News or On This Day would be pretty cool. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 15:27, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
I would check out mw:Mobile/Windows 8 Metro for early designs for Windoes 8 integration. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 19:00, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

App for Windows 8?

Are there any plans to have an app where Wikipedians can edit from in Windows 8? If there is, I would certainly support it. Pizza1016 (talk) 15:23, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Why not just use IE10 or any of the other browsers? However, I can see value in creating a Metro app for reading Wikipedia. A Live Tile showing In The News or On This Day would be pretty cool. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 15:27, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
I would check out mw:Mobile/Windows 8 Metro for early designs for Windoes 8 integration. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 19:00, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

App for Windows 8?

Are there any plans to have an app where Wikipedians can edit from in Windows 8? If there is, I would certainly support it. Pizza1016 (talk) 15:23, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Why not just use IE10 or any of the other browsers? However, I can see value in creating a Metro app for reading Wikipedia. A Live Tile showing In The News or On This Day would be pretty cool. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 15:27, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
I would check out mw:Mobile/Windows 8 Metro for early designs for Windoes 8 integration. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 19:00, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
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