Jump to content

Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)/Archive 42

Add links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Village pump (miscellaneous) archive  

This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (miscellaneous).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.

< Older discussions · Archives: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X · 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80

Are they really copyrighted?

  1. File:Leewards.PNG
  2. File:Windward islands flag.png

The images above are described as copyrighted and fair-use materials, but I don't think so. The images are simple combinations of national and regional flags/arms, so I think their statuses must be changed into "public domains."

  1. File:Leewards.PNG is a combination of the Union Jack, the flag of Saint Kitts and Nevis, arms of Anguilla and Montserrat, and the flag of Antigua and Barbuda.
  2. File:Windward islands flag.png is a combination of the flags of Dominica, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Grenada.

How do you think about it? --Wikipean (talk) 15:28, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

I seem to recall that "substantial" change to a PD work can bring the new work under copyright for the new work's creator. Stanford seems to agree and Project Gutenberg has a good explanation. Whether these pictures constitute "substantial change"... eh. Kinda split on that one. They're just some flags arranged in a pattern, but the combined versions are listed as the official flags of some cricket teams. That puts it in the territory of a logo. I'd err on the side of caution and leave them marked Fair Use. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 14:25, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Hi all. While gnoming around at WP:NPP, I noticed that a number of incoming articles about western fine arts paintings included external links to a purely commercial website, wahooart.com. See:

At present, there are... well, I can't count them, but a large number of articles that include an "en.wahooart.com/x..." external link. I'm in the process of removing them all.
Your thoughts? --Shirt58 (talk) 11:51, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Removal seems proper. I deleted several of these links in the last few weeks too; all were the work of the same editor, who seems to have stopped after a warning. Ewulp (talk) 04:42, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
You might let the folks at Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam know. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:44, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Space agency logo recognition test

There's a discussion going on at WikiProject Spaceflight regarding whether logos are recognisable to casual readers. If anyone has time (particularly users with no expertise in this field), please could you have a look at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spaceflight\RTest and see if you can identify any of the logos. Thanks --W. D. Graham 10:51, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Maggie

The Iron Lady M. Thatcher has died aged 87 due to a stroke. --Borvo (talk) 12:05, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Possible discontinuation of WebCite

WebCite is threatening to close down if they don't meet fundraising goals. See their front page for details. Should we start looking for a replacement or... what? --NYKevin 03:24, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

There is a discussion at meta:WebCite trying to determine what to do. 64.40.54.241 (talk) 03:42, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Project to support RfA nominators

A new WikiProject for Admin Nominators has been created, to support all editors interested in acting as nominators for potential administrators via the Requests for Adminship process. The project is an outcome of a successful proposal in round 2 of the recent RfC on reforming RfA. Anyone interested in nominating, whether or not they have any experience, is very welcome to join. Espresso Addict (talk) 18:41, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Help:Redirect TOC

The TOC at Help:Redirect is being confused by the HTML markup used to emulate what a redirect page looks like. I've tried

  • <span class="mw-headline" id=" ">
  • closing the <h1> and <h3> tags
  • __NOTOC__
  • transcluding the <blockquotes>

But nothing fixes it.— CpiralCpiral 01:14, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Closing the header tags correctly [1] is an improvement, but they still cause TOC entries. This is apparently due to a software change at some time since March 24 where they didn't cause TOC entries in Google's cache. It may be required to avoid header tags now. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:09, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
Agreed, but it's not satisfactory. If it's a software issue, then this should move to Technical... — CpiralCpiral 03:17, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Ahhh. John of Reading mentioned {{fake heading}} on the talk page, and it worked. — CpiralCpiral 17:10, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Resolved

my Wiki-pedia suggestions to make it a better place

Here are my recommendations to make Wikipedia a better environment: 1) I think anyone who commits slander, libel or makes false accusations in a deletion discussion should be suspended for 30 days. As I read through comments during the deletion discussions. As I read through other various article entries but what was more shocking was in deletion review. I saw a lot of acidic commentary that was in clear violation of wikiettiquette. However, just calling them on it and reminding them of this policy doesn't see to take affect.

2) In the deletion review, administrators should know the policies: IP address entries do have a say in a deletion discussions.

3) realize that the wiki-environment skews "negative" and because of this, in deletion discussions someone giving two word answers like "Delete - self-promotion" versus someone who writes entire paragraphs to "keep with justified cause" put in more effort should have weighted value.

4) I got a pvt message from an LGBT Wiki-contributor that was rather upsetting. They stated that the environment was too toxic for them to remain and they were part of the review process for LGBT materials. Who do I share this email with? I am finding that what the general wiki-public sites for deletion by a majority might be very significant to a minory group. You are claiming fairness by opening discussion to the LGBT group but that group is hollow if people are leaving it because they are tired of constantly being attacked.


5)You should appoint "wiki-mentors" for new contributors because right now you throw them in with the lions and they get beaten down by rather harsh wording. There should be two mentors assigned for a month to each new contributor to guide them through the maze. Wikipedia contribution is a very overwhelming and arduous task. DesaderalDesaderal (talk) 05:09, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll reply in order.
1) Anybody who commits slander, libel or otherwise violates our Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons policy should be asked politely to stop. If they do not, they should be reported to somewhere like Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard or Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents.
2) IPs should generally not be !voting in discussions, though they are certainly welcome to comment. Comments based in policy can be helpful to the discussion. In general, people closing discussions will normally discount !votes from IPs because of the potential for abuse.
3) The outcomes of deletion discussions—and all disussions—are usually based on our Wikipedia:Consensus policy. Comments based in policy typically have more weight, but things are not always perfect and some discussions are closed improperly. When that happens it should be pointed out with a polite message.
4) There is an issue with many people leaving Wikipedia and it's not always tied to a specific group, although sometimes it is. Several people are working on this issue at Wikipedia:WikiProject Editor Retention and if there is an issue that needs to be addressed, then a comment should be left at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Editor Retention so that people are aware of it.
5) New users do have a difficult time at Wikipedia. It is often helpful to refer them to Wikipedia:Teahouse where they'll find many friendly and helpful people.
Hope this helps and thanks for sharing your thoughts. 64.40.54.100 (talk) 10:49, 13 April 2013 (UTC)
Desaderal, since most of the answers you got above were really the same as I would have said, I won't repeat everything. However, on question #4, I know things can be toxic and difficult around here sometimes — even I've had at least three bouts of "I should quit that f*cking place and get a new hobby" this year alone, and I'm a pretty well-respected and highly active editor who's been around here for a decade and knows almost everything there is to know about how to navigate the toxicity — but if somebody's actually feeling driven away, we need to ensure that they have an opportunity to feel heard. So please direct that person, as urgently as possible, to me (via my talk page), to Wikipedia:WikiProject LGBT studies and/or the Editor Retention Project that was already listed above so that we can listen and discuss their concerns and see if there's anything we can do to help resolve them. Bearcat (talk) 00:55, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

User:96.247.126.38

Excuse me, could someone, who have got rights for blocking, block this user? It has been vandalized Skylanders: Swap Force despite I've been warned It about vandalism and looks like It is not gonna stop that without blocking. --Santtu37 (talk) 05:57, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. You can report these issues at Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism if you'd like to. 64.40.54.100 (talk) 10:01, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

village pump

Is Wikipedia aware that "town pump" or "village pump" is a slang term for a slut? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.66.14.72 (talk) 15:30, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Apparently in Canada.[2] Praemonitus (talk) 03:39, 15 April 2013 (UTC)
Any term is a rude word somewhere. Companies sometimes miss one when they define the names of their products, like Mitsubishi Pajero :) --NaBUru38 (talk) 20:29, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Font Change

The "W" logo that Wikipedia uses when a browser tab is open looks slightly different now than it did about 30 minutes ago. Is it just my browser or did Wikipedia make some changes to their text/font? 24.90.152.15 (talk) 02:35, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Updated Wikipedia favicon. Chris857 (talk) 02:36, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Borrowing Wikipedia's CSS code?

I like the pop-up windows that show up when I click on a bibliographic reference call [n], but I'm not good enough with CSS to duplicate the process. I can get in-line material to show up in this manner, but not things stored neatly at a distance. Is it possible to read your CSS files?Ferren (talk) 08:05, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Request for comment

There is a request for comment how much weight should be given to the Clean Water Act Trial in the BP article. Your input is appreciated. Beagel (talk) 08:17, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

User:AutomaticStrikeout/Are admins interested in a RfB?

I am conducting a survey at the link above to accomplish two things. First, I hope to gather a list of some potential future candidates interested in cratship. Second, I hope to be able to use the results of the survey as solid evidence of how admins view the RfB process and what factors cause the very low amount of activity. Anyone is welcome to comment, but the input of admins is particularly desired. Regards, AutomaticStrikeout (T • C • Sign AAPT) 14:58, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Which articles have the most references?

This question came up in conversation. So, I've made Wikipedia:Articles with the most references, with a few items to start off. Please expand it, and we'll see what patterns, if any, emerge. — Hex (❝?!❞) 17:07, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Some are listed at Wikipedia:Wikipedia records. Rmhermen (talk) 18:04, 18 April 2013 (UTC)
Great, thank you. I've put a link to the new page there. — Hex (❝?!❞) 20:16, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

We would appreciate a couple more reviews about a "Did You Know" nomination for the Twelfth Siege of Gibraltar. Thank you - Nabla (talk) 10:43, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Should a photo gallery be removed? See Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Request_board#List_of_sopranos_in_non-classical_music GeorgeLouis (talk) 17:35, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Most missed articles

The Wikipedia:Most missed articles -- often searched for, nonexistent articles -- has not been updated since a batch run in 2008. The German Wikipedia person, Melancholie (de:Benutzer:Melancholie) who did the batch run has not been active since 2009. Where would be a good place to ask for someone with expertise to do another run? It does not seem to fit the requirements of Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) since it is not a technical issue about Wikipedia. It is not a new proposal, and not a new idea. It is not about help using Wikipedia, and it is not a factual WP:Reference Desk question. I didn't find a WikiProject that looked promising. So I am asking for direction here. --Bejnar (talk) 22:33, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Bot requests? I do not think we should discuss again whether this work is needed, just whether there is someone willing to do it.--Ymblanter (talk) 12:05, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Blog about my WP experiences on WP?

Can I blog & discuss about my WP experieces here at WP? I expect it to be a page at my userspace. -DePiep (talk) 20:46, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

I'd be very careful. WP:NOTBLOG lays out very clearly what is and is not allowed in userspace, however there's a grey area of talking about your WP experience that might be permissible under the collaberation/discussion exemption, but if you get on the wrong side of someone (or develop a WikiEnemy) your pages could be bulk nominated for deletion. Hasteur (talk) 20:57, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
All right. I could have thought of that that myself - so my Q was unclear. I think about a "blog" that is in between a WP-talk and a WP-user-experience. All topic is within WP, just note the sub-talk level. Some Talk is too serious. -DePiep (talk) 21:15, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
There's nothing wrong with talking about Wikipedia on Wikipedia. Some people do it in the form of essays, others as blogs or microblogs (e.g., me). A malicious deletion nomination wouldn't pass muster. — Hex • talk 21:18, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
Clear. Probably I introduced the Q myself by thinkig & saying "blog". Consider  Done. -DePiep (talk) 21:31, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
See User:Newyorkbrad/Newyorkbradblog. If this is the definition of 'blog' then it seems harmless. See User:Hex/Microblog for another example. It is hard to imagine anyone objecting to either of these efforts. EdJohnston (talk) 21:45, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
Thanks #3 too. You three gave me another view (I am a wiki-table experienced one - that is: technically less open to other opinions ;-) ). -DePiep (talk) 22:14, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

People From Categories

Why are people placed into categories at the bottom of pages such as "People from Brooklyn" when they were only born in that location and that's it? For example I myself am "from Brooklyn". I grew up here my entire life and if someone asks me where I'm from I say Brooklyn NY. I was born however in San Diego and moved to Brooklyn when I was a few weeks old. Apparently under Wikipedia's logic I would be a person "from San Diego" even though that makes no sense and I never would tell a person I'm from San Diego.

Another thing I've noticed regarding this issue is a celebrity who grew up say in Texas from 1-25 years old then moves to Brooklyn and has lived there for 2 years. They also get put into the "People from Brooklyn" category even though they're clearly from Texas. Can someone please answer these 2 questions? Thank you very much.

24.193.127.141 (talk) 04:52, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Hi! I totally agree with you: people should be categorized from there hometown, not the town where they were born. It's ok to name the town they were born, but categories should reflect people's feelings. For example, Jeff Gordon is from Indiana, even though he was born in California. Categories should reflect than. Good luck! --NaBUru38 (talk) 15:11, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Can someone please answer my questions regarding this Wikipedia category placement issue? Thanks. 24.193.127.141 (talk) 16:19, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

You mean, like NaBUru38 did an hour before you posted this demand? --Jayron32 17:13, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Naburu38 didn't answer either of my questions. He/she only commented. I'd appreciate if someone who's more knowledgable about Wikipedia policies could help me out..24.193.127.141 (talk) 19:11, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Here are your two questions:
  1. Why are people placed into categories at the bottom of pages such as "People from Brooklyn" when they were only born in that location and that's it?
  2. Another thing I've noticed regarding this issue is a celebrity who grew up say in Texas from 1-25 years old then moves to Brooklyn and has lived there for 2 years. They also get put into the "People from Brooklyn" category even though they're clearly from Texas.
Here are your two answers:
  1. Because we believe this is more helpful to readers than the alternative. When we believe that it is not helpful in a particular situation, then we don't do this.
  2. Because we believe this is more helpful to readers than the alternative. When we believe that it is not helpful in a particular situation, then we don't do this.
WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:33, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

"Because we believe this is more helpful to readers than the alternative" - so what is the alternative then? Notice how you didn't address either of my questions with your vague response.

Also who exactly is "we"? What high-IQ Wikipedia people are deciding that a person should be placed into a "people from" location category when they were solely born there but have nothing to do with that geographic location and were raised somewhere else? 24.193.127.141 (talk) 02:21, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

The primary alternative is listing people who have failed to live their entire lives in the same place in vague categories, such as Category:People or Category:American people. The English Wikipedia has more than one million biographies. Some level of subdivision is necessary if the categories are going to be usable by humans. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:48, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

A lot more discretion could be used however when placing a person into a "people from" category. Many times I have read Wikipedia articles where the location category the person is placed in doesn't match where they were raised or grew up, but does match the particular location the person was born in. 24.193.127.141 (talk) 03:28, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

Note that Category:People from California states "This category includes people notably connected with the state of California." and Category:People from Indiana states "This category is for people who were born in the U.S. State of Indiana, or who have resided in the state during a significant part of their lifetime." For Gordon, I'm sure you could find reliable sources connecting him to both states. Note that the Jeff Gordon article has subcategories of these two categories. GoingBatty (talk) 23:15, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
As I said, I agree with this anonymous user. We should use the "hometown" criteria, not the "related" criteria. --NaBUru38 (talk) 22:03, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

New : add musical notation directly in wiki article via <score>

You can add musical notation through the use <score></score>.

Like this

<score>\relative c' { f d f a d f e d cis a cis e a g f e }</score>

gives

\relative c' { f d f a d f e d cis a cis e a g f e }

See more details : [3] — Preceding unsigned comment added by Xmlizer (talk • contribs) 22:06, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Cool. {{xtag}} updated: {{xtag|score}} gives <score> which links to the extension page. --  Gadget850 (Ed) talk 22:17, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for tips !! Xmlizer (talk) 22:37, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
Do we have a local help page for this? Have the music-related WikiProjects heard about it? An announcement at some of those pages would likely reach the most interested people.

WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:35, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Wiki_markup#Musical_notation; Will try to reach music wikiprojects. Thanks ! Xmlizer (talk) 22:37, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
In analogy to Help:Math I have created a Help:Score page. It still needs to grow.-- KlausFoehl (talk) 12:40, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
  • Example with chords:
Seventh chords: Tertian harmonization of major scale on C (C-Ionian mode)
{ <c e g b> <d f a c'> <e g b d'> <f a c' e'> <g b d' f'> <a c' e' g'> <b d' f' a'> <c' e' g' b'> }
Alas, it does not seem to allow the fretboard-markup commands for creating guitar diagrams.
Kiefer.Wolfowitz 12:22, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Test:

{ \key c \minor \time 3/4 \relative c' { f d f a d f e d cis a cis e aes g-. f-. e-- <c, e g>2 \fermata \bar "||" } }

Cool! BTW, what is the legal situation for small excerpts of contemporary music?--Atlasowa (talk) 12:42, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Looking at Copyright law of the United States#Exclusive rights and Music licensing and Wikipedia:Quotations#Copyrighted material and fair use, i guess we need a little guidance in Help:Score? --Atlasowa (talk) 14:09, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
I see a bar beneath which says play clip but which does nothing when I click on it. Presumably I have to install something for it to work on my browser. But what? Rmhermen (talk) 15:27, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Userboxes article is almost entirely transclusions

I tried to figure out how to use userboxes and went to Wikipedia:Userboxes. The first section there, Wikipedia:Userboxes#Using existing userboxes, begins with

Main page: Wikipedia:Userboxes/Using existing

so I went to look at that page, figuring I'd get more info. But I didn't, because the content is identical.

This is not a new situation, I found. There's just one entry on the talk page, Wikipedia talk:Userboxes/Using existing#Delete?; note the date:

Does this really need to exist? It’s an exact duplicate of WP:UBX#Using existing userboxes, which seems to miss the whole point of splitting it off. —Frungi (talk) 04:31, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

I tried to fix it, but

  1. When I pasted in the Template:Proposed deletion box, I saw that the page has already been proposed for deletion and was rejected.
  2. The mess is a lot bigger than I thought. The section Wikipedia:Userboxes#Using existing userboxes is nothing more than a transclusion of the "main page" Wikipedia:Userboxes/Using existing, so the latter's content would have to copied and pasted* into Wikipedia:Userboxes before blanking or deleting the "main" subpage.
    * Pasted back in? i.e., it might have originally been a section. I didn't check the complete historical record.
  3. In fact, Wikipedia:Userboxes is practically all like that. Almost all the content is transcluded from subpages which it references as "main pages".

I gave up and undid my edits. It's too big a mess, and it's too late in the evening for me. I'm also not prepared to deal with the bureaucratic tangles of trying to propose an article for deletion that's already been PRODded and rejected. But this is really, really bad practice in too many ways, and should be fixed. Thnidu (talk) 02:55, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

I think that at the time, I didn’t realize the main page transcluded it. Makes a lot more sense than duplicating the content like I apparently thought it had. But I support moving the contents into the main page. I think that would have to be done by {{subst:}}ing, and then the subpages should be histmerged into the main. —Frungi (talk) 04:40, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
Actually, I just did it myself. It looks exactly the same, except it has those ugly {{histmerge}} banners (for now) instead of {{main}}’s “Main page: Wikipedia:…” —Frungi (talk) 05:06, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
Seems I misunderstood how histmerge works, and these merges would result in WP:parallel histories. I'm going to give it a bit more to make sure there are no objections to the subst-merge before posting a notice or something about it on the page's Talk. —Frungi (talk) 11:21, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
Thanks! Thnidu (talk) 02:38, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Request for comment on inactive administrators

(Please consider translating this message for the benefit of your fellow Wikimedians. Please also consider translating the proposal.)

Read this message in English / Lleer esti mensaxe n'asturianu / বাংলায় এই বার্তাটি পড়ুন / Llegiu aquest missatge en català / Læs denne besked på dansk / Lies diese Nachricht auf Deutsch / Leś cal mesag' chè in Emiliàn / Leer este mensaje en español / Lue tämä viesti suomeksi / Lire ce message en français / Ler esta mensaxe en galego / हिन्दी / Pročitajte ovu poruku na hrvatskom / Baca pesan ini dalam Bahasa Indonesia / Leggi questo messaggio in italiano / ಈ ಸಂದೇಶವನ್ನು ಕನ್ನಡದಲ್ಲಿ ಓದಿ / Aqra dan il-messaġġ bil-Malti / norsk (bokmål) / Lees dit bericht in het Nederlands / Przeczytaj tę wiadomość po polsku / Citiți acest mesaj în română / Прочитать это сообщение на русском / Farriintaan ku aqri Af-Soomaali / Pročitaj ovu poruku na srpskom (Прочитај ову поруку на српском) / อ่านข้อความนี้ในภาษาไทย / Прочитати це повідомлення українською мовою / Đọc thông báo bằng tiếng Việt / 使用中文阅读本信息。

Hello!

There is a new request for comment on Meta-Wiki concerning the removal of administrative rights from long-term inactive Wikimedians. Generally, this proposal from stewards would apply to wikis without an administrators' review process.

We are also compiling a list of projects with procedures for removing inactive administrators on the talk page of the request for comment. Feel free to add your project(s) to the list if you have a policy on administrator inactivity.

All input is appreciated. The discussion may close as soon as 21 May 2013 (2013-05-21), but this will be extended if needed.

Thanks, Billinghurst (thanks to all the translators!) 04:33, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Distributed via Global message delivery (Wrong page? You can fix it.)

Ancestors vs. descendants Oops sorry!

It seems to me some editors confuse ancestors and descedants, ancestry and descendance: take a look at Magnus_Barefoot#Ancestry which in fact lists descendants of Magnus III. What do you think? (And it seems to me this is not the first time I've seen something like this on WP). Signed: Basemetal (write to me here) 18:03, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

What would you suggest for a section title in that instance? I'm not aware of a word along the lines of "descendantry". Perhaps you would prefer "Descendants"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:48, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
Yes "Descendants" for example. But the point is "Ancestry" is not accurate. And look in that section at the table titled "Ancestors of Magnus III". Those are in fact all descendants of Magnus III. I find it odd that WP, an entity which insists (a bit pedantically) on distinguishing a "a plurality of votes" (the greater share but less than 50 percent) and "a majority of votes" (more than 50 percent) is indifferent when "ancestor" is used for "descendant" and vice versa. (Note regarding "plurality" and "majority": almost everywhere else, including major news organizations such as the BBC, they never use the term "plurality". In both cases "majority" is used and when it is important to stress that we're talking more than 50 percent they would say "absolute majority") Signed: Basemetal (write to me here) 20:13, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
Are you sure they are descendants and not ancestors? From a quick look, I think you read the tree from right to left, earlier generations being to the right. So Olaf III and "Disputed" are his parents...--ukexpat (talk) 20:28, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
Oops. You're right. Olaf III was his father not his son. Sorry. Signed: Basemetal (write to me here) 20:36, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

RfC on Meta

There is currently a Request for Comment on Meta here about links to sister projects, currently accomplished by means of a template at the bottom of each page. Integration with Wikidata is also being discussed there. – Ypnypn (talk) 18:12, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Wiquette assistance

I was going to go to Wikipedia:Wikiquette assistance, but I found out that that page is obsolete. Where should I go instead?? Georgia guy (talk) 15:49, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

if there's actually severe civility issues, then WP:ANI is the place to go. If someone is just being a bit brusque, bordering on slight rudeness, just suck it up and ignore it. Tarc (talk) 16:53, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
In my experience, admins have stopped giving a shit and editors can get away with just about anything. It's more likely that they'll complain about your complaining. We've got a great community here. PraetorianFury (talk) 17:17, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Bengali spoken and written variants

(copied from Talk:Bengali language#Spoken and literary varieties: spellings, articles, sections)

The spellings "Choltibhasha" and "Shadhubhasha" seem to be in more common use in English than the spellings (and pronunciation) "Cholito bhasha" and "Shadhu-bhasha". I've changed them accordingly at the heads of the bullet points in Bengali language#Spoken and literary varieties, mentioning alternate forms in parens. I've also added a redirect page Shadhubhasha → Shadhu-bhasha.

In general, the spellings are chaotic and should be cleaned up. Further, the beginning text of Bengali dialects#Spoken and literary variants is almost identical to that of Bengali language#Spoken and literary varieties (in this article), but diverges a lot after the bullets, and this article's section has far more references. ISTM that the two sections should be merged, and one transcluded into the other. --Thnidu (talk) 17:46, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

help, please. I fear I may have offended someone

Someone just put a warning comment notice on my Talk page that I am engaged in an edit war, reverting without comment.

I am not engaged in an edit war. I have not reverted anything.

I did edit the article for Books LLC to add a note that it was a "controversial" press whose main methodology was copying and binding Wikipedia articles, which is completely true and is even cited in the refences which are already there (which was why I felt little need to add more references, besides which the formatting on that article is so eye-blurring I would be hard pressed to insert a new reference properly).

I am being threatened with being blocked from editing "if I persist."

Please look at my editing history and the history of the Books LLC page.

I believe these charges to be inaccurate, and I am seriously concerned that my good name as a Wikipedia editor is being unjustly threatened.

Artemis-Arethusa (talk) 21:37, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Looks like it was a premature warning on Rklawton's part; usually you'd get that sort of warning after reverting someone, not for making a single edit that got reverted. EVula // talk // ☯ // 22:02, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
There is one more piece of pertinent information. Ten months ago I edited that page into the category "consumer fraud," which thinking about it was probably unjust on technicalities. It was promptly removed from the category anyway, and I thought no more of it.
This warning seems not only premature, but viciously out of proportion. The threat of being blocked from editing after putting in one factual, irrefutable statement seems far too extreme. And, I confess, I wonder if this is an attempt at preemptive intimidation. The article I edited is about a particularly nasty repackager of Wikipedia articles.Artemis-Arethusa (talk) 22:09, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
Life in WP. What else is new? I wouldn't worry about it. Being blocked is not a tragedy. There's life outside of WP too. Signed: Basemetal (write to me here) 00:04, 26 April 2013 (UTC) PS: Who is that Rklawton to make such threats anyway? Is he an admin? (Couldn't tell from his userpage). And if he is, would that be an appropriate use of privileges?
Rklawton is an WP:ADMIN, as you can see at this obscure page. The diff at Books LLC is here. Rklawton appears to have a...novel definition of WP:Edit warring: "You are edit warring on Books LLC (reverting without comment)." This is remarkable because the actual policy has a different definition of edit warring, because Artemis has not reverted anything (the previous edit to the page was well over a month ago and had nothing to do with this), and as for Rklawton's claim that "controversial" is unverifiable, the words used in the already-cited sources include "rip-off", "surprised" and "astonished" customers, the reviews are "littered with complaints", "fake", "stolen", "vanity publishing at its worst", and "Amazon is investigating" among other disparaging comments. I suppose that it's technically true that the already-cited English-language sources don't actually use the word controversial. Perhaps that's because a "controversy" normally requires two sides, and this outfit appears to be uniformly hated.
IMO both Rklawton's reversion and his warning were unjustifiable. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:09, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
Thank you for looking into it, WhatamIdoing. I felt like I was going crazy when I saw the notice. What should I do? This accusation is sitting on my Talk page, and although I have gotten over my initial shock, the falseness and the audacity of it are actively offensive.Artemis-Arethusa (talk) 08:47, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
Per WP:OWNTALK, you may remove it from your user talk page if you want. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:22, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
Thanks. I didn't feel quite comfortable entirely removing it ( and although I've been on WP for eight years I still struggle with a lot of protocols and am not sure how to archive my Talk page), so I changed the heading from "Warning" to "Bogus Warning from someone throwing their weight around".Artemis-Arethusa (talk) 19:13, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
Hmm. I'm sure there's nothing in policy to prevent you from doing what you just did, but I feel that deleting is one thing and modifying is another. Because you've just modified text first inserted into your talk page by someone else. If nothing else, it will be very confusing to anyone trying to follow the sequence of events. Of course anyone really committed to historical research will be able to sort things out by following the history of the page, but why make things harder for the next generations. At least, maybe use of strikethrough (something like "Warning Bogus Warning etc.") would have left things in a less confusing state. Again, there's no guidelines for this that I know of, this is just some common sense observation. Signed: Basemetal (write to me here) 19:38, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
Thank you, Basemetal, for your common sense advice. I have undone my changes and left the notice as it is, with my response to it on my talk page. It feels more honest this way. Artemis-Arethusa (talk) 20:35, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
FYI, below are three options to archive your talk page:
  1. Set up automated archiving on your talk page per User:MiszaBot/Archive HowTo.
  2. Create a page called User talk:Artemis-Arethusa/archive and manually copy posts from User talk:Artemis-Arethusa
  3. Move User talk:Artemis-Arethusa to User talk:Artemis-Arethusa/archive and create a new page called User talk:Artemis-Arethusa
Good luck! GoingBatty (talk) 19:13, 28 April 2013 (UTC)
Shouldn't an assertion such as "controversial" in the lead be properly explained in the article body? At present it is merely inferred, with readers needing to look at the citations in order to understand why. Praemonitus (talk) 15:50, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
Feel free to expand it. At the moment, the whole article is only about ten sentences, which is barely past stub status. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:53, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
Tagged it. Praemonitus (talk) 18:39, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

American novelists vs. American women novelists

The issue of these two Categories is being discussed on the WP:Categorization/Noticeboard at American novelists vs. American women novelists. The matter has received quite a bit of notice recently in the news off-Wiki, with Tweets from Amy Tan & other authors plus columns in the New York Times, The New Stateman, NPR, The Independent, etc. Just Google "Wikipedia American women novelists" and see what you come up with. I think this issue should be discussed by the Wikipedia editorial community at large so have posted this courtesy notice here at the Village pump. The Cat. Noticeboard does seem to be the appropriate forum and there doesn't seem to be any other place within the encyclopedia where the matter has been brought up. Thanks, Shearonink (talk) 19:59, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

I've been informed that this issue and related issues are already being discussed at Category talk:American women novelists and at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion. Please take any discussion to those two forums. Cheers, Shearonink (talk) 22:42, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
Ok, last time for this...the issue's main discussion forum on-Wiki is actually at WP:Categories for discussion/Log/2013 April 24 in the Category:American women novelists section. I just want interested editors to be able to find the main forum for it. Cheers, Shearonink (talk) 02:46, 27 April 2013 (UTC)
My goodness that's a lengthy discussion. Good luck trying to reach consensus. Praemonitus (talk) 17:28, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Disabling web crawlers?

Pardon my ignorance here, but is there a way to send web crawlers a 'disallow' message when they are searching an editor's Wikipedia user space? I don't particularly want search engines posting results from my draft work. Thank you. Praemonitus (talk) 00:41, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

See {{NOINDEX}}. Signed: Basemetal (write to me here) 04:39, 28 April 2013 (UTC)
Thank you! Praemonitus (talk) 14:52, 28 April 2013 (UTC)
Another option is {{Userspace draft}}, which does a NOINDEX and also informs readers that they are looking at a draft. EdJohnston (talk) 03:42, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
Very nice. Thank you. Praemonitus (talk) 23:20, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Page view stats declining from 22 April

The page view stats on Depression (mood) started declining in a very peculiar way on the 15th. [4] Is this happening on other articles? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 13:37, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Some have (Wikipedia, Statistics, Drywall), but most have not (United States, Cantaloupe, Microsoft). I don't have any idea what may be causing this; perhaps WP was blocked in France or something? Perhaps this increase is related.  — TORTOISEWRATH 16:33, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
April 15th is when U.S. income tax returns are due. Or perhaps it's a coincidence? Praemonitus (talk) 01:03, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
April 15th was the peak. I don't think the data is really odd until the 22nd. If other articles are doing the same thing, then I'd assume that there was some change to the algorithm or some problem with collecting the data. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:26, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
Yes. Judging from other articles, whatever happened happened between 19th and 22nd. I might ask at WP:VPT. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 03:41, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

[en] Change to wiki account system and account renaming

Also copied to Wikipedia talk:Changing username but should remain here for visibility.

Some accounts will soon be renamed due to a technical change that the developer team at Wikimedia are making. More details on Meta.

(Distributed via global message delivery 03:30, 30 April 2013 (UTC). Wrong page? Correct it here.)

The default position of the "edit" link in page section headers is going to change soon. The "edit" link will be positioned adjacent to the page header text rather than floating opposite it.

Section edit links will be to the immediate right of section titles, instead of on the far right. If you're an editor of one of the wikis which already implemented this change, nothing will substantially change for you; however, scripts and gadgets depending on the previous implementation of section edit links will have to be adjusted to continue working; however, nothing else should break even if they are not updated in time.

Detailed information and a timeline is available on meta.

Ideas to do this all the way to 2009 at least. It is often difficult to track which of several potential section edit links on the far right is associated with the correct section, and many readers and anonymous or new editors may even be failing to notice section edit links at all, since they read section titles, which are far away from the links.

(Distributed via global message delivery 18:20, 30 April 2013 (UTC). Wrong page? Correct it here.)

Criticism of criticism

The (unused) {{Criticism title}} cleanup template message suggests the use of the word 'Criticism' in an article title is non-neutral. There are a number of articles that use 'Criticism' in their title, including Criticism of religion, Criticism of Islam, Criticism of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Criticism of capitalism, Criticism of Apple Inc., Criticism of government response to Hurricane Katrina, Criticism of Google, and Criticism of the Israeli government. I am unclear whether the template is standard policy or not. WP:POVNAMING suggests renaming "Criticism..." to something like "Society's view of...". What should be the proper approach here? Thanks. Praemonitus (talk) 23:57, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

AFAICT, there are no "Society's view of" articles and two "Societal views of". There are more "Views of" articles, like Views of violence in Judaism. There are probably more "Criticism of" articles than all the others combined, and if the information in them is largely negative ("Criticism of bad stuff"), then I don't think that it's a problem. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:13, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
Thanks. Perhaps then the template should be redirected to {{POV-title}}. Praemonitus (talk) 00:40, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

There's nothing inherently non-neutral about "criticism of xxx" as long as the article is a description of criticism of the subject based on reliable secondary sources that describe such criticism, rather than our article itself consisting of such criticism based on primary sources that criticise the subject. I'm sure that many of our criticism articles don't live up to this ideal. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:46, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps so. But do we need a template to deal with each such case? Wouldn't it be better to consolidate little used templates so that they are easier to manage? (See Category:NPOV disputes for example.) Praemonitus (talk) 01:06, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

There's nothing inherently non-neutral about "criticism of xxx", just as there is no reason you can't stand a knife in its tip. As we, Wikipedia, reflect the sources, and we do not engage in any critical commentary ourselves, I think we should try to title such sections as "[So and so's] criticism of xxx" to emphasize to editors and potential editors alike that the criticism is not from us. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:17, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

RFC/English Wikipedia readership survey 2013

On Jimbo's talk page, User Rd232 said they'd like to put something to our readership. I've got something I'd like to ask them, too, so I've started Wikipedia:Requests for comment/English Wikipedia readership survey 2013. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 17:19, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Citations: how many authors to display?

Recently citation templates like {{cite web}}, {{cite journal}} and {{cite book}} have been rewritten in Lua, and have more options. The number of authors is unlimited (was: 9). While all authors can be entered, we can set |displayauthors=n to limit the number that is shown on the page (all still are available for metadata like COinS). All very good. My question is: what is a good number to show? Is there a rule of thumb? Some publications have 30 to 40 authors (see Ununoctium with this citation: 30 authors), and having them on the page is a bit too much. any suggestions? -DePiep (talk) 13:25, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

  • comment This should be selectable per article, by including |displayauthors={{{displayauthors|}}} in the template. We should also be recording the author full first names, and using |authorformat=vanc to truncate if desired. This allows full population into the COinS metadata. --  Gadget850 talk 13:40, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

Note: the question is valid for all citations, the example is through {{cite doi}} but that is not the essence. As if the author list is entered in the page: what is a reasonable number? (And yesterday your pass through suggestion was applied [5]. It changed because we people at WT:ELEM have not agreed on a rule for the number).
Note 2: the same applies for number of editors (earlier: four). -DePiep (talk) 13:57, 28 April 2013 (UTC)
Actually, Gadget850, it should be |displayauthors={{{displayauthors|n}}}, n being the number I am looking for here.
Off topic, because this is not the tech VP.
Even better, we could write |displayauthors={{{displayauthors|{{template other||n}}}}}, to show the full list in template space. -DePiep (talk) 15:13, 28 April 2013 (UTC)
  • This might be something to broach at the MOS, as this would seem to be a style question. My initial gut feeling is that you should display as many as you think are necessary to find the article should the links go dead, and that this will probably a citation by citation basis. I would imagine no more than 10, no less than 3 would be a good starting point. Obviously, all 30 authors in your specific example are not necessary for that, but since it is a centralized citation using cite doi, whatever method chosen should use Gadget's solution on the template itself, and then the articles using it can define how many they need. http://prc.aps.org in this case uses only one author than et al's the latter, while the http://adsabs.harvard.edu link cites all of them. --Izno (talk) 13:49, 28 April 2013 (UTC)
Often, scientific papers display only one and then goes et al.. Some even use zero. That's fine, helps identify the article (this is done if the doi is not given). The point is conserving space.
We don't need to conserve space, we can even list them all. Can anyone explain why we wouldn't have them all? I don't see difference between 3 and 10 for any practical purposes (only aesthetics, but this is relative).--R8R Gtrs (talk) 15:54, 28 April 2013 (UTC)
I don't think it would necessarily be beneficial to list all 30+ authors of a paper. It would tend to drown out the article title, which is of primary importance. Praemonitus (talk) 00:44, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
Okay, I get it, sounds reasonable, now could you explain why we shouldn't then limit one single author then? Many papers do so easily, and second+ authors don't help identify the article much.--R8R Gtrs (talk) 16:36, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
It depends on the paper. If we're talking about Watson and Crick's Nobel Prize-winning paper about DNA, then I think that naming two would actually help people identify the paper. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:21, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
True, but this is often not the case, what about those papers which have hundreds of authors? Why not display them all, if they number no more than 3, and just the first one if there are 4 authors or more, what could be wrong in that? (I'm not proposing we should do so, but for a more productive discussion it is useful to know why different variants can be good or bad, true for me and many others.)--R8R Gtrs (talk) 20:19, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

Definitely a style issue but it's not clear to me that the most likely candidate for that, MOS:CITE (or so I would have thought), is the right place. A quick scan of that doesn't reveal any clearly stylistic guidance – yeah, it talks about italic titles but that's really under the purview of MOS:TITLE. Much of what passes for style guidance for the CS1 suite of citations is contained in the various template documentation and Help:Citation Style 1. In these documents, it's more an attempt to get editors to use the templates properly, |type= instead of |format=, for example.
In the extant case, when I look at DePiep's citation as it is used in article space, Ununpentium §References for example, it seems much too wall-of-text-like so I would like two things: a determination that some number n of cited authors/editors is sufficient, the others masked by et al. and, a sufficiency having been defined, some way for readers to get the entire list of authors and editors. For this second, if you mouse-over a numbered footnote marker, a reference tooltip shows the citation. I wonder if there could be an option in that tool to ignore |displayauthors=/|displayeditors=. As things are now, the reader has to find the citation in the article source text or, as in the case of DePiep's citation, know to look at the template. This, of course, is probably not the right place to discuss this idea.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:20, 28 April 2013 (UTC)
Most likely MOS:CITE did not bother with it, so far, because the limit was 8+et al.. That was acceptable.
And I think having an option for the reader to get to the full list, in-WP (single-click?, mousehover?, ...) may well be part of this discussion here. Not for the technicality, but for the user experience. For the same reason, an automated rule may be added (like: CS1 displays n+et al. authors (n=fixed), unless an editor added |displayauthors=m. -DePiep (talk) 16:37, 28 April 2013 (UTC)
From the perspective of the hover tool ignroing those parameters, I suspect that would require substantial changes to the existing gadget. --Izno (talk) 00:58, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
MOS:CITE is quite explicit about it: These details of citation style are 100% up to the editors at the article (NB: not "some editors calling themselves a WikiProject"). See WP:CITEVAR. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:52, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
Indeed. People have already learned to be selective after papers like this started turning up:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21517374
The Planck results are another area where we are seeing 100+ authors turn up.©Geni 04:05, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
re editors at the article: Indeed the WP:CITE link says so, but it also says: Improving existing citations by adding missing information is helpful, that would include adding athors. Anyway, the same question stands: what number is to be displayed? Earlier editors did not choose to show 8+et al. names -- it was the limit (without using tricks). Last: the "not some editors ..." quote I could not find not understand. pls explain. -DePiep (talk) 07:47, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
Don't put words in my mouth that I have not spoken. I have not asked for a declaration: First shalt thou insert |displayauthors=, then shalt thou specify three, no more, no less. Three shall be the number of authors thou shalt specify, and the number of the authors displayed shall be three. Four shalt thou not use, neither use thou two, excepting that thou then change to three. Five and more is right out. (An adaptation of Monty Python's Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch apologies to them.)
Guidance, not edict.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:42, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
However many you want. Look at the sources you're using, and make a choice that seems sensible to you. And then don't worry about it too much.
If you want to know what other people do, then I believe that Diberri's tool defaults to four and that at least one of the bot-populated "Cite identifier" templates defaults to eight. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:21, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
Trappist the monk, please specify or clarify whom you are responding to. -DePiep (talk) 20:18, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
I agree that the selection of number of authors is very situation dependent and should be left to the editor(s) of a given article. I have usually used the "show at most two elements" rule for inline citation. E.g., if one author, show one, if two, show two, if three+, show 1 + et al. But that is preference based on my idiosyncratic experiences and domain. Science and medical research seem to have very different norms.
... and I believe Trappist was just making a general response with a Python joke a the end for good measure... but perhaps I'm just looking on the bright side :-/ Wikipositivist (talk) 19:23, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Special:ActiveUsers

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T43078

What happened to Special:ActiveUsers? It seems to have gone defunct, but why? --Theurgist (talk) 12:16, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Apparently it stressed the servers too much - see this VPT archive. -- John of Reading (talk) 13:34, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Double Brackets Edit Summary

When placing double brackets around a word what would be an appropriate or useful edit summary? I searched Wikipedia for an answer but could not find one. All I could find was something about "red links" aka WP:RED but what I'm inquiring about is creating "blue links" when placing brackets around a specific word/words. 24.90.154.201 (talk) 04:19, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Just a plain old "this is what I did" would be fine or "created link". Mlpearc (powwow) 04:23, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
Also "added wikilink" or something like "added wikilink to The Beatles". GoingBatty (talk) 22:29, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

More trouble with smallcaps template

I just removed a use of Template:smallcaps at the beginning of Brumalia because it wasn't giving the desired result.

The first sentence included

[Brvmalia] Error: {{Langx}}: text has italic markup (help)

"V" for capital u in Latin is perfectly reasonable, as they were forms of the same letter. But in modern lowercase it's ridiculous.

The wikicode was

{{langx|la|{{smallcaps|''Brvmalia''}}}}

which should have worked. The template documentation warns to use it sparingly, and that it will not work right in certain circumstances. It looks as if I've found another such. But I don't want to modify the documentation; I'd rather leave that to someone who knows more (than zero!) about how the template works. Further, I haven't tested this problem beyond my own laptop (a MacBook Air running Lion), with Firefox 20.0, Safari 6.0.4, and Chrome 26.0.1410.65. --Thnidu (talk) 02:25, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

{{smallcaps}} alone works fine for me on a Mac running 10.6.8; here's an example:
  • <span class="smallcaps" style="font-variant:small-caps;">Test</span> produces Test
This implies that the issue is with the {{lang}} wrappers. Theopolisme (talk) 02:31, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
{{lang-la}} adds italics to the parameter. Don't call it with italics already in the parameter. {{langx|la|{{smallcaps|Brvmalia}}}} gives Latin: Brvmalia. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:43, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

While editing Nocturnal Neurosis (band) I was quite startled when one of the external links that I clicked on played a loud and harsh screeching sound (one of the artist's songs). We have icons that show up if an EL is a PDF, icons to label foreign language ELs, and other templates that label possibly troublesome aspects of external links. But I didn't find any that notify the reader "Hey, if you visit this external link, that page is going to automatically play some audio". Is there any template like that?-- Atlantima ~✿~ (talk) 15:49, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

I'd be bold and create {{plays audio}} if one doesn't already exist. Theopolisme (talk) 16:02, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
I threw something together. What do you think? ( Page will play audio when loaded)

-- Atlantima ~✿~ (talk) 17:33, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

You might add this to the WP:External links#Rich media section. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:48, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
Added.-- Atlantima ~✿~ (talk) 01:33, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Clinton Park

There are two disambiguation pages for Clinton Park:

There is also something wrong with the entries for the section on the neighborhood park in Clinton Park, Houston.

I would appreciate it if some clever editor would straighten out this situation. There should be only one disambiguation page, and there should be a link to the neighborhood park in Houston. --DThomsen8 (talk) 01:42, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

This appears to already be fixed; the first is a typo and the second is the corrected version, created when someone WP:MOVEd the typo to the proper name. I repointed the link in the second entry, which broke when the dab pages were moved to the title Clinton Park. WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:53, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

mw:Flow

IRC office hours about Flow on 9 May



In #wikimedia-office on 9 May, 1800-1900 UTC, Brandon Harris (senior designer at WMF) will lead a discussion of Flow, an upcoming change in the wiki discussion interface.

Flow involves replacing user talk pages.

He will be showing an interactive prototype so you can try it out, and we want to hear your feedback. Please come! If that time doesn't work, please let us know what times will work.

Please spread the word to your communities! Thanks. Sharihareswara (WMF) (talk) 21:52, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

-- Ypnypn (talk) 23:02, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Terrible userbox image for new page patrollers

Discussing this here, because the template talk page in question hasn't seen any activity since 2006....

The image for {{User wikipedia/NP Patrol}} is terrible.

This user is a new page patroller.

People who do new page patrolling aren't police officers. This grumpy cop (even worse when viewed at full size) making a "HALT!" gesture is not friendly or encouraging, which is how we should be to new editors; even if they've made a new page that isn't very good. How would you feel if, as a new user, totally unfamiliar with Wikipedia culture, you received a message from someone, and went to their user page — only to see this? Can we please, together, find a better image to represent this activity. — Scott • talk 11:21, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

I don't have an issue with the current icon, but if an alternative is needed, perhaps a magnifying glass icon would serve? Or something reminiscent of a detective; perhaps a Sherlock Holmes deerstalker hat? Praemonitus (talk) 23:47, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
Yeah, I never thought about it, but you're right, it does send the wrong message. Like, "Stop trying to make articles! I'll have to write you up for all the errors you make!" I think would be a much better image.-- Atlantima ~✿~ (talk) 15:43, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
Good points. I vaguely recall a discussion about this years ago, but it obviously didn't go anywhere. I'd support a change.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 21:06, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
Interesting fact, the police icon is used on Speedy Deletion Wiki: "is this all you see on wikipedia when you are writing about your favorite band?" Okay, we definitely need a better image. Will look for other alternatives when I get the chance. FallingGravity (talk) 03:19, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
That's all the evidence you need right there. Good suggestion, Atlantima, I'd support that. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 17:10, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
I agree with you that the image is inappropriate and uninviting and ought to be changed. I'd totally support a new image. Almost anything would be better. Jason Quinn (talk) 16:52, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Sample template using the icon embedded above:

This user is a new page patroller.

Praemonitus (talk) 23:20, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Template: Olympic bids

Hey! It must be a problem with {{Infobox Olympic bid}}. As you can see in Medellín bid for the 2018 Summer Youth Olympics, it says XXIII Olympic Winter Games, can someone fix it, please? Sorry if this is not the right place to post this. Thanks, --·×α£đ·es 02:08, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Does anyone reading this happen to speak Tagalog?

If so, please correct this abominable translation that I got off Google in a time of desperate need. Thanks!  — TORTOISEWRATH 03:17, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Survey

Hi, I'm not really sure if this is the right place for this (Or if there is a right place anywhere for it), but I am trying to conduct a brief survey of Wikipedia users for a sociology class. If anyone could take a few minutes to take it, then it would be much appreciated. The Survey is only 8 questions and is confidential. If I shouldn't be posting this here, I'm sorry. Is there another place for general purpose discussion? Thanks.

--Passerby30 (talk) 03:39, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

I took the survey. Let us know how your class assignment turns out! -- Atlantima ~✿~ (talk) 15:45, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

Template (at creating an article)

I typed an impossible word to generate the template text when trying to create another article. Just to show the text where the full stop at the end after the question mark should be deleted. I cannot find the template name (or the automatic text) on my own, so I can't edit the text. So, don't create the article Beletirxkh of course.

This is the jpg of the text (internetlink)

Dartelaar [write me!] 09:39, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

This text comes from Template:No article text. It's a protected page, so I cannot remove the extra full stop myself. -- John of Reading (talk) 09:46, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
Actually, it seems to be MediaWiki:Noarticletext, and requires an admin. I may be wrong, but I believe that it's technically correct according to some authorities, because the question mark is part of the title of a work, not the end of the sentence itself. The sentence works like this: You should read "O Captain! My Captain!" and "Do not go gentle into that good night". If you reverse the order of the works, so that the one ending in an exclamation mark is at the end, it's not strictly necessary to remove the full stop from the end of the sentence: You should read "Do not go gentle into that good night" and "O Captain! My Captain!". WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:24, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

disambiguation

Sorry to post this here, but I'm not computer-literate and have given up on figuring out what all these cute link names mean.

Somebody who knows how to do it should put some kind of disambiguation notice on the "Eastern Congo Initiative" page to distinguish that NGO from the Congo Initiative (http://www.congoinitiative.org/), a similar but unrelated NGO based in Wisconsin and affiliated in some fashion with the Université Chrétien Bilingue du Congo, in Beni, Kivu-Nord, DR Congo. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.155.175.147 (talk) 15:05, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

We would need an article about the other NGO, before we can add a disambiguation hatnote pointing towards it. We don't make red-link hatnote messages. –Quiddity (talk) 20:32, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia's early stock market warning signs

Here's an interesting PhysOrg article about correlations between numbers of Wikipedia article reads and fluctuations in the stock market.

http://phys.org/news/2013-05-wikipedia-early-stock.html

The study suggests that significant profit margins could be produced from the data. The implications for Wikipedia may be concerning. Praemonitus (talk) 00:53, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

How so? If you mean in terms of the Wikimedia Foundation's US non-profit status, this isn't generating revenue for the Foundation and the Foundation isn't themselves causing these fluctuations, so (though I'm not a tax expert) I don't think that should be a problem.  — TORTOISEWRATH 00:59, 11 May 2013 (UTC)
Well, once Wikipedia is being used for market prediction, the possibility exists that the article view statistics could be manipulated for the purposes of adjusting the market. Wikipedia as a source of market research will also provide increased incentive to modify business articles so as to present a favorable (or unfavorable) perspective. Even a brief vandalism, presented at the right time, could influence purchase decisions. These financial incentives do not favor article neutrality. Praemonitus (talk) 14:33, 11 May 2013 (UTC)
And since Wikipedia is vulnerable to such manipulation, anyone using it as a means to predict the market is an idiot. I see no reasons why we should take any special precautions regarding the stupidity of investors. Not that there is anything we can realistically do about it anyway... AndyTheGrump (talk) 14:46, 11 May 2013 (UTC)
Yes there is: a suitable time delay introduced between the collection and the publication of the data would eliminate the usefulness of the statistic to any outside viewers. Praemonitus (talk) 23:46, 11 May 2013 (UTC)
Any potential risk to investors is covered by Wikipedia:General disclaimer#Not professional advice. Of course there is a potential for people to try to manipulate Wikipedia in this sphere for their own ends, just as there is in articles about politics, religion, nationalist disputes etc. I don't see any greater concern raised by that report, which just seems to point out the obvious: that people look for information on the Internet before making financial decisions and that Wikipedia articles appear near the top of many search rankings. Phil Bridger (talk) 15:31, 11 May 2013 (UTC)
"[A]nyone using it as a means to predict the market is an idiot" - hear hear. Theopolisme (talk) 15:49, 11 May 2013 (UTC)
Some of those idiots may be billionaires. I wonder whether the data is granular enough to detect a point of origin and thus potentially determine the independence of the queries? Praemonitus (talk) 17:31, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

Transclusion doesn't comply with copyrights

Once you transclude or substitute something, nothing attributes the content to the original authors as required by cc-by-sa. Everytime we click save, it says that we agree a link is enough attribution, however, transclusion doesn't even do that. We are violating our own copyrights. Ramaksoud2000 (Talk to me) 00:00, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

I cannot speak on the precise legal requirements but when you click the "Edit"/"View source" tab, the bottom of the page has links to all transcluded pages. Substitution works differently. Maybe Wikipedia:Substitution#Usage should mention license requirements or refer to Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia. The latter could also mention substitution as an example of copying. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:05, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
Yes, but that would be like a website having a photo and having to view the source of that website in order to attribute, which isn't a link.. Ramaksoud2000 (Talk to me) 01:30, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
I'm not sure what you mean. "Edit"/"View source" is a link on all Wikipedia pages. The resulting page has links to transcluded pages at the bottom. Those pages have a "View history" link. So you can definitely get there by clicking links, although it's up to three links and hard to find when you don't know the system. For external reusers you usually get at least one more link. Wikipedia:Text of Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License isn't specific about how to give attribution. MediaWiki:Wikimedia-copyrightwarning says: "You agree that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient attribution under the Creative Commons license." Are you suggesting a change of this? The content that is transcluded rarely seems like the type of content where the method of attribution is something people would care much about. And most transclusions which display non-trivial content from another page have a "V" link to the template (usually a navbox) it transcludes from. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:32, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
Here it says that an attribution link must be visible to those who can see the content: Wikipedia:Mirrors_and_forks#License. Also, substituting doesn't even do what you mention. Ramaksoud2000 (Talk to me) 18:07, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
You appreciate that our current mechanism for attributing any edit - the history link - is potentially a link after a link? Ironholds (talk) 05:13, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
I would note that the actual copyright license, as opposed to the ambiguously-official (is it a policy, an essay, what?) guidance on forks, merely requires attribution "reasonable to the medium or means You are utilizing". Ironholds (talk) 05:16, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
The link is there, however, someone looking for attribution wouldn't find it because it is under the "edit" section. Also, substituting does none if this. Ramaksoud2000 (Talk to me) 05:27, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
I had noticed you making a lot of edits like this one recently. I'm not sure that it's truly necessary, but if transclusion is good enough attribution for an image, then I don't really see why transclusion would not be good enough attribution for a template like {{Virus topics}}. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:28, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
That's not transclusion. That's a hyperlink. The template you linked doesn't need attribution because it just states words. However, the template in the edit you linked does because it has enough words that it can be copyrighted. Ramaksoud2000 (Talk to me) 16:35, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
The threshold for copyright is originality not that it does more than "just states words". Lists can be copyrighted. Template Virus topics may be copyrighted. Rmhermen (talk) 21:00, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
I just didn't know how to express it in words. Ramaksoud2000 (Talk to me) 21:30, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
Rmhermen: or to put it another way, most of our templates are unlikely to be copyrighted ;p. Ironholds (talk) 21:38, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
I agree with Rmhermen actually. Ramaksoud2000 (Talk to me) 21:42, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

List of gymnasts needs your help

There is an RfC at List of gymnasts which is not attracting any opinions so far. The discussion is about the future look and feel of this list, and I commend it to you. The list is currently good. It could be better. Your opinion will help that. Fiddle Faddle (talk) 08:51, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Wiki Loves Monuments 2013 in the United Kingdom is ready to go!

For the very first time, the UK community will be competing in the annual Wiki Loves Monuments competition in September. This is a community-led effort, with support from the UK chapter, Wikimedia UK. A number of volunteers have already expressed interest in helping to organize the contest, but there is much to be done and many more volunteers are needed, both now and over the coming few months.

If you would like to contribute towards making our first ever competition the great success we expect it to be, please visit Commons:Commons:Wiki Loves Monuments 2013 in the United Kingdom and leave your name there. Even if you are only able to offer us moral support, or want to take part as photographer in September, please leave your details anyway. You need not be based in the UK to help. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 15:31, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Do we have a place to ask for help with IPA?

Do we have a project or noticeboard where we can ask for help with adding IPA characters? I looked at Help:IPA and Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(pronunciation)#Entering_IPA_characters, and I don't see such a place mentioned. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 03:59, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia/Pronunciation task force perhaps? Or there's always the reference desk or Wiktionary. Though usually the best solution is to add a made-up pronunciation and wait for someone to come along and correct it for you. ;-) --MZMcBride (talk) 20:17, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
A formal IP help page would be a worthwhile consideration. There is a lot of controversy about how words, particularly non English, or non American English place names, for example, are transcribed into the IPA. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:12, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
In a pinch, WP:RDL may be able to help. --Jayron32 01:55, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

French prisoners of war in Engeland

In File:Journal de Bruxelles nr 167 1800 (614, 615).png (colom 1) I read that French prisoners where mistreated in Portchester. I suspect they where held in Portchester castle. Strangely there is talk of a French commissioner being responsible for the mistreatment. Was it usual that the responsibility of the treatment of prisoners was by the country of the prisoners? This seams strange to me.Smiley.toerist (talk) 10:20, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Translation issue? Could it mean commissioner for French prisoners? rather than the commissioner being french. In any case this is something that ahould be asked at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Humanities.Geni (talk) 23:00, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

A new homepage on zh wikipedia

zh:Wikipedia:首页, it's a new homepage. --Qiyue2001 (talk) 09:19, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Pilkipedia

I just came across pilkipedia. I wonder if anyone on the Wiki thinks that there may be copyright implications here. Does Wikipedia have copyright on its presentation style. I think it does. Anyone looking at this site would surely agree that it is a blatant rip-off of the Wikipedia style. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jodosma (talk • contribs) 02:54, 18 May 2013

That wiki uses the same software as Wikipedia, Mediawiki, so it's no surprise that it looks similar. The software is released under a free licence so there is no copyright issue. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:40, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
Yeah. Basically, that monkey at the top-left hand corner is what keeps them in the clear. If it were a globe there, then the WMF legal department would be giving them a good slapping! (Has happened before, and has resulted in sites being taken down.) --Demiurge1000 (talk) 21:35, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Category RfC

I just came across a category that has different issues with many of the articles in it. It may be too much for the photography project to handle. Details are in my new post at Category talk:Photography by genre. We probably don't need to discuss it here but I thought I would add the link so others can provide input or put it on watch lists. I also posted similar at the photography project. If it needs to be linked elsewhere or moved then feel free to do so or discuss a move there.--Canoe1967 (talk) 16:20, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Musical group origin question

This is a general question best illustrated by an example; should music group The Dead Lay Waiting be in

  1. Category:Swindon
  2. Category:People from Swindon
  3. Category:Organisations based in Swindon

It started in the first, I moved it to the second, and it has now been moved to the third. I'm sure musical groups do not count as organisations; but do they count as people...GrahamHardy (talk) 22:46, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

RfC on new library search tool for Wikipedia

We have a new tool, Forward to Libraries, which helps readers find books at their local library related to the articles they are reading. There is an RfC at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Linking subjects to books at your local library (Forward to Libraries) to determine how this tool should be used on Wikipedia. Users that are interested may wish to comment there. 64.40.54.57 (talk) 01:27, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

A good story: Samblanay

In 2007 an editor created a page Samblanay based on material from the 1911 Britannica. The article he used was titled "Samblançay" but that editor, being from Singapore, thought probably that the French "cé cédille" (ç) was some sort of unimportant decoration. Check the first version of the page for more creative spellings, which you can compare with its source the article "Samblançay" in the 1911 Britannica. Ok, mistakes do happen. But for 6 years that page has been around without anyone noticing. I did because I followed today's DYK Gibbet of Montfaucon and one thing led to another. So the completely spurious "Samblanay" form has had time to spread through the Internet. A Google search today returned 1230 hits. I did not check all of them, but all of them that I did check go back to that original 2007 Wikipedia blunder, including stuff on Facebook and in Wikipedia material repackaged and resold by outfits of the kind you are probably familiar with. Another collateral damage of "Wikipedia the encyclopedia that anyone can edit". I wonder how many other good stories like this one are out there. If there are enough we may even write a Wikipedia article about them! Contact Basemetal here 20:23, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Sadly this is complete nonsense, as the form Samblanay appears in 19th century historical books in French for the same title [6]. I suggest Basemetal's touching faith in the consistency of French late medieval spelling is entirely misplaced. Meanwhile he persists in removing this spelling from the article. Johnbod (talk) 21:34, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
I left on my talk page a remark about your examples from those "19th century historical books" (there's only two and for one of them Google got it wrong (the text is actually "Samblancay"). The other example might well be a typo in that "19th century historical book". Incidentally it's the only real example of "Samblanay" besides content repackaged from WP. You've got to admit that for a spelling variant that's not much. But let's ask the creator of the article where he got that spelling before making all sorts of speculations. Contact Basemetal here 21:42, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
Check again - the scans of both books clearly show "Samblanay". They may both be wrong for all I know, but the mistake dates to the 1880s. This nonsense is how internet memes get started. Johnbod (talk) 21:46, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
I checked again. You're right both have in fact "Samblanay". Based on those two books we could include the variant "Samblanay" in the article with the caveat that this spelling is found only in those two sources and might be a typo. But I maintain the originator of this spelling in WP did not introduce it because he checked those two books but because he mistyped something he found in the 1911 Britannica. Contact Basemetal here 21:55, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
In the book from 1733 (Histoire de la Maison Royale de France, 1733, 3e éd., tome 8) it is certainly a typo, since under D "Jacques de Beaune, chevalier, ſeigneur de Samblançay" (also mentioning his famous condemnation to death "Sa fin déplorable eſt écrite par tous les hiſtoriens du temps […] il fut condamné à mort"), there is "1. Guillaume de Beaune, ſeigneur de Samblanay, qui ſuit" (=following) and on the following page "Guillaume de Beaune, ſeigneur de Samblançay". And in the bulletin from 1887 (Bulletin archéologique, historique et artistique de la Société archéologique de Tarn-&-Garonne, vol. 15, 1887, p. 156), judging from the only part we can see "la condamnation de Samblanay", this is most probably about the same Jacques de Beaune, and could be the same typo. So this seems to be a very weak reason to consider Samblanay a valid variant spelling, also considering the fact that in French, Samblançay is approximately pronounced "san-blan-sey" and Samblanay "san-blah-ney", which is quite different.
Moreover the first version of the article is exactly the text from the 1911 Brittanica, except that Samblançay is variously rendered as Samblanay in the entry title, Samblancay, or even Samblanqay. Oliv0 (talk) 08:08, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
The right spelling is Samblançay with ç. This is a family of lords owning the land named fr:Semblançay coming from Semblancorum. The French Wikipedia has an article on its most famous member, fr:Jacques de Beaune. There is long notice about him in Michaud, Biographie universelle ancienne et moderne, Paris, volume 37, pp. 584 et 585. He is also mentionned, e.g. in two letters of Agrippa, cf Joseph Orsier, Henri Cornélis Agrippa : sa vie et son oeuvre d'après sa correspondance : 1486-1535, Paris, 1911, pp. 24, 93, et 97. --Rene1596 (talk) 12:09, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
Nobody is arguing otherwise, but anyone used to French (or English) medieval sources knows that variant spellings abound, and are not always the expected ones. It is unlikely that Samblançay is "coming from Semblancorum" - that is merely the Latinized form of an Old French name, used for official records, though it would be very typical if the oldest mentions are in Latin not French. Anyway this is clearly not an invention of the internet, or Wikipedia, nor frankly "a good story". Johnbod (talk) 14:08, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
Though the frequent mention of the variant Samblanay on the Internet seems to have no other source than the Wikipedia typo or scanning mistake, Semblancorum is indeed not mentioned among the oldest Latin forms in Nègre, Toponymie générale de la France, which concludes that Semblançay = Latin proper name Simplicius + suffix -acum + influence (attraction) of blanc "white". Oliv0 (talk) 15:26, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
I suggested that Johnbod take a look at the history and the early versions of that article. Apparently he's too busy to do that and instead prefers to argue from nonsensical generalities. Anyone who would do that would see that
  • the presence of Samblanay in WP has nothing to do with its presence the 1887 journal and the 1733 book. The creator of the article and of this spelling on WP did not introduce it because he found it in the 1887 journal and/or the 1733 book. It is an entirely independant creation of his when he incorrectly copied content from the 1911 EB.
  • until yesterday, when I corrected it, the title of the article was Samblanay (with a redirect from Samblancay not Samblançay). In other words the correct spelling was not even present on WP. Even if one could argue (which one can't really) that Samblanay was a legitimate historical variant, it would be such an obscure one that one would have to wonder how reasonable it would be that it be chosen as the title of the article in preference to the well-attested forms Samblançay and Semblançay.
  • if you Google Samblanay, most of the hits are from content recycled from the WP blunder and not based on the 1887 and the 1733 works.
Given all that I will let people decide how reasonable it is to say that WP has no responsibility in spreading Samblanay.
I will discuss whether Samblanay can really be reasonably called a historical variant arising from inconsistencies in French spelling some other time but Oliv0 has already given the most important facts regarding that question. One other fact, which he hasn't mentioned, is that the Samblanay form is not present in any other version of the Histoire de la Maison Royale de France... than the 1733 edition (at least as far as I could tell from those editions whose text is partially accessible on the net).
Contact Basemetal here 16:40, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
Whatever, and by the way check "Samblançai" if you are interested - that has tons of book-hits. You can't prove Samblanay was revived as a Wiki-typo, since it might easily have been picked up from the old sources, & even if it was, so what! If a search on a typo gets authentic hits, the editor can't really be blamed. On my google books most of the hits are from old sources, though the top 2 hits are "books" made up of WP stuff. Over & out. Johnbod (talk) 17:20, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Flow

Obvious confusion and lack of good faith on my part. I am dropping it. Also, I admit that my comment regarding Facebook was inappropriate and not based on any actual evidence. Maybe I should try to be more open-minded with regards to some changes and change my attitude towards the work the Foundation is doing. I will take it as a lesson learned for myself.
@Steven Thanks again for your reply, I fully agree with your last few sentences. -- Toshio Yamaguchi 23:13, 21 May 2013 (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.
Moved from Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) § Flow
 – -- Toshio Yamaguchi 22:39, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

From Wikipedia:Flow/FAQ:

Q. "Is this replacing talk pages?"

A. "Yes."

From Flow Portal:

"At first glance, Flow is a next generation discussion system - but that is only one part of it. Flow is actually a rethinking of how we do collaborative work in the projects."

This whole thing worries me. Granted: The current talkpages with complex wiki-markup are very different from many other such systems on the web. However it is also something that I think is a deep-rooted part of Wikipedia culture. Yes, it has it's flaws, but editors in most cases find ways to work around those flaws. I fear that this change will alter the Wikipedia experience completely. I can only hope that the ultimate goal isn't to turn Wikipedia into Facebook. But, well, maybe that's just me and I already got too used to it and imagine an all too dark scenario.... -- Toshio Yamaguchi 22:39, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

I'd suggest also adding your comments to mw:Talk:Flow_Portal. Theopolisme (talk) 22:45, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
 Done. See Discussion about Flow on EN Wikipedia. Thanks for the suggestion. -- Toshio Yamaguchi 22:58, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
Yes. In my opinion, the Foundation is ultimately willing to reshape the entire culture of Wikipedia if it means (sustaining) a net increase of contributors/users. Killiondude (talk) 23:56, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
@Toshio Yamaguchi: This is a bit of a rant, but it's important, so please bear with me. Regarding "I can only hope that the ultimate goal isn't to turn Wikipedia into Facebook." Why on God's green earth would that be the goal? Facebook is a social network optimized to generate advertising revenue and make people who own Facebook stock rich. It's hard to think of a Web community that is more the opposite of that than Wikipedia, a global movement for free knowledge, supported by a charity. People work at the Wikimedia Foundation precisely because they don't want to be a part of a shallow profit-making enterprise like Facebook, and the people who work in engineering and product development (like I do) intimately understand the essential differences between a social network and a collaborative project to build an encyclopedia. In part because many of us are editors too, and also because understanding this is what we're paid to do. Now I know that you feel disconnected from the Foundation like a lot of editors, and perhaps afraid that we're going to ruin something you love and have poured thousands of hours in to. That's not an illegitimate perspective at all, and we find it really hard to communicate what we're doing and why to everyone on the projects. But I hope you could understand that accusing us of wanting to turn Wikipedia in to Facebook is perhaps the most insulting and ridiculous thing you could ever say about people who build software at the Wikimedia Foundation. In short, how about a little good faith? Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 02:17, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for the quick reply. I am actually happy to see your reaction to what I said, which means that I was mistaken and that is good to hear. There definitely has been a lack of good faith towards The Foundation in my comment, for which I apologize. I admit that when a relatively major change is announced, my first reaction is often worrying about the well-being of the project, which might sometimes be a bit exaggerated, since it might be hard to see all the pieces of the puzzle from my perspective. Maybe I should try to be a bit more open-minded to upcoming changes and display a bit more good faith. Anyway, thanks again for clearing up a bit of my confusion. I should do what I can do best here at Wikipedia and let the people at the Foundation do their work. -- Toshio Yamaguchi 10:13, 21 May 2013 (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.

Opinions polls

Hello. We have a discussion on surveys and opinion polls in this article. Any comment will be helpful. Thanks.Farhikht (talk) 11:14, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Infobox orchestra

Please comment on the ongoing replacement of {{Infobox musical artist}} with {{Infobox orchestra}} at Template talk:Infobox orchestra#Use of this infobox. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:27, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

nl:WP

The nl:WP will soon be the second-largest wikipedia. Why? The use bots to create articles about animals. What do you think when you hear that? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.82.13.65 (talk) 13:36, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

We think that such provocative messages left by IP unsigned can only cause extra drama and do not serve any purpose.--Ymblanter (talk) 16:49, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
I wonder if they got their idea from the bots that have created articles on the largest Wikipedia. History of Wikipedia#Hardware and software mentions the first Wikipedia bot, which created articles for US towns. GoingBatty (talk) 03:13, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Help Brazilian Wikipedia

Hey guys how are you doing? While getting involved with Brazilian Wikipedia community, I got access to some very interesting data. According to Wkimedia stats, whereas there are 22 English-speaker-editors per million, there are only 5 Portuguese-speaker-editors. That said, I was thinking of good strategies to improve editors' participation, to increase the number of editors and to convert more readers into editors (only 3% of Wikipedia Portuguese readers are also editors).

I know that Wikipedia in Enlish is a huge community and that you might face or have faced that very same problem. That said, I would very much appreciate if you could share some strategies/projects that have worked in English-speaking countries, in terms of tackling the aforementioned challenges.

I believe that cross-country collaboration among wikipedist has the potential of spreading good solutions! Phelps246 (talk) 06:10, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Editor Retention is the English language project best associated with this problem. Perhaps you could contact some people who are active there. --Jayron32 06:14, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
Dear Jayron, I was reading about it yesterday and it indeed seemeed to be an incredibly initiative. I will most definitely be in touch with people who have been actively participating there to understand what has worked or not. Do you know any other interesting projects: for instance, initiatives that bring Wikipedia community closer to schools and universities, promote Wikipedia and attract new editors through social network (Facebook is the most accessed site in Brazil) and, in general, convert readers into editors (in Brazil only 3% of readers also edit). I do appreciate your help :) Phelps246 (talk) 12:11, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
One thing to note is that the en.wikipedia Editor Retention Project is mainly aimed at helping existing editors not to leave. It is not aimed at recruiting new editors, as such. The problem with the lack of Portugese-speaking editors is more how to recruit new editors, than how to retain existing ones. So it is a different problem.
I don't have proper figures, but I would guess that many of the Portugese speakers in the world are in places like Brazil, where internet access is generally less widespread than in the English-speaking world. Awareness of Wikipedia might be less widespread too!
So focusing on those issues may be more valuable than an editor retention initiative. I do know the UK Chapter has done some work on expanding awareness, but I'm sure other chapters will have too. It's worth having a look at all the different approaches, probably. (Perhaps someone could give links to places to look?)
There are also initiatives for giving out devices capable of accessing (maybe editing?) Wikipedia. Maybe you could request some of these be sent to Portugese-speaking areas that might need them? Or an entire separate grant to support a Wikipedia awareness drive in Portugese-speaking areas? (Perhaps someone could give links to places to look regarding the cheap device plan?) --Demiurge1000 (talk) 22:16, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
What? News flash: Brazilian Internet phenomenon (an IBOPE/NetRatings study that revealed that they overtook the U.S. in terms of time surfing on the internet and, as of 2004, were the people who spent the most time on the internet.) and Internet in Brazil (In 2011 Brazil ranked fifth in the world with nearly 89 million Internet users, 45% of the population.) --Atlasowa (talk) 12:26, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
Hello Phelps, it's a really hard problem. Converting readers into editors is tricky, you get a lot of trash contributions. Better concentrate on the newbies that are coming despite the markup etc. Try to improve editors' participation by making people aware of "easy tasks" on WP, for example a translation project with mentoring. Or ask for photos of monuments in articles Special:Nearby? Some interesting things to read:
Phelps, I have a question about portuguese WP in return: You have activated both Article Feedback Tool 4 (Rate this page/Avaliar esta página - O que é isto?) and pt:Wikipédia:Informe um erro (Report an error feature/Wikibugs/Wikipedia:Kvetch) for readers. Do you think that this could "cannibalize" new editors? Clicking on the article-rating-stars or just leaving a note "to Wikipedia", instead of editing/contributing? This may be easier for readers - but it's not creating new editors? Do you make statistics on those features? Best of luck for your project! --Atlasowa (talk) 21:14, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
Hello Atlasowa! I'm from pt.wiki and I'd like to answer your questions. First, thank you for the links you provided. It's a very interesting reading. I think both pages "Informe um erro" is not engaging people to be bold and fix for themselves. It's curious we ask readers to make an edit to inform us but about an error but don't to ask them to fix it. "Avalie esta página" is a feature that we don't use to anything. We have a discuss some time ago to remove it but it looks like a new feature is comming so we are waiting to change it. Brazilian Catalyst Program hired a data analyst to research some features of pt.wiki with community and I expect to help with this statistics in a near future. OTAVIO1981 (talk) 16:58, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
Hello Otavio, thank you for your answer!
  • Regarding pt:Wikipédia:Informe um erro: I would love to see an evaluation/statistics of this feature. It's activated for all pt.wiki articles, right? How many "Informe um erro" posts do you get, per day? How many are useless vandalism, how many useful and answered/copied to talk pages? How many Wikipedians answer/moderate "Informe um erro"? Do you use bots for archiving posts etc.? How many users consider this feature useful? (RfC, poll?) Maybe another WP has made an evaluation of this feature, or you can collaborate for this with other Wikis ("report an issue"/WikiBugs/Kvetch is used on polish, spanish, russian WP)? Spanish WP discussion, Russian WP reports: "I was for a long time active in Russian Wikipedia, and there the feedback tool page exists for I believe two years, ru:Википедия:Сообщения об ошибках. (Before Russian Wikipedia, it was introduced in Polish Wikipedia, but there I had no experience with it.). The link to the feedback form is found in the Toolbox field. It is a long-standing pain-in-the-ass page, since it creates a considerable backlog and requires a constant attention of several dozens of dedicated editors. I do not have any quantitative statistics, but my impression is that all comments are at least meaningful (possibly the meaningless ones are blocked by a filter, I am not sure) in the sense it is clear what the user actually wants. About 50% (in my estimate) are about typos which are easy to fix; about 10% are bogus (when the user misread smth or wants to add smth which clearly does not belong to the article or is plain wrong) and do not require any reaction, but the remaining 40% or so is addition of some unsourced information which looks credible but may be not credible (especially what concerns the BLP, the press-secretaries usually go the feedback form for whatever reason). The users who leave messages never come back and it does not make any sense to ask them questions. In many cases the dedicated users who work on the page can not handle the feedback, and then eventually it gets archived and goes to the talk page (and dies there). (...) From my experience, it never worked. We even had a number of "regulars" who were willing to point out some inconsistencies in the articles on a regular basis but unwilling to correct them themselves (or actually to edit articles at all). It might be good to find someone who had an experience in Polish and/or Portuguese Wikipedia working on the feedback pages, it might be different doe to the differences in the interface.--Ymblanter (talk) 15:17, 28 October 2011 (UTC)"
  • Regarding Wikipedia:Article Feedback Tool version 4 (Rate this page/Avaliar esta página): You can find excellent analysis on AFT4 at: User:Protonk/Article_Feedback. See also his wikimania 2012 presentation on AFT4 with video (30 min) and slides (File:Measuring_Quality_Content_Wikimania_2012.pdf). Since Protonk has already done this analysis once for en.wiki, maybe he can do the same with AFT4-data from pt.wiki - and then we can have an interesting comparison. My opinion about AFT4: it doesn't produce useful ratings or data. Readers often don't rate the quality of an WP article but rather their like/dislike of the subject, and readers give the same ratings for all (Well Sourced, Neutral, Complete, Readable), and most readers give the maximum 5 stars anyway, and the ratings don't improve when the article improves. So this is rather a waste of time - and it would be really bad, if readers put a lot of thought into rating the article instead of editing the article or proposing improvements on the talk page...
  • Regarding the "new feature", Wikipedia:Article Feedback Tool/Version 5 or AFT5, is pretty much a mix of the Article Feedback Tool version 4 design/JS and Report an error feature/Wikibugs. Just 1 question with a yes/no, "Did you find what you were looking for?” and a comments box. Compared to "Report an error" it is much more visible (big box at the end of the article) and the question is far broader (with comments like "needs a picture" or "give more info!"). The problems are similar (to the russian report an error), it needs many wikipedians to work on the reader feedback, high noise-ratio of useless comments, and it may divert readers from becoming editors ("Share your feedback with the editors"). The good thing is, AFT5 delivers call-to-action: to create an account, to edit the article. The bad thing is, this doesn't work too well, only 0.2% conversion to a unreverted edit from those who initiated the feedback process by clicking yes/no [7]. The final release version of Article Feedback v5 is now activated on the English, French and German Wikipedias, with limited scope/testing. --Atlasowa (talk) 12:26, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

Organizing edit-a-thon in Belgium in June, who helps?

On Saturday 29 June there are European edit-a-thon planned in several countries with the subject World War I. This World War had Belgium as chess board so it would be great and a good idea to organize a an edit-a-thon in Belgium.

What is an edit-a-thon?

An edit-a-thon is a (small) event where people come together and work on articles on a particular topic. Often such edit-a-thon is organized for people relatively new to Wikipedia and held at an organization.

What are the needed ingredients?

  • At least two users from Wikipedia being there (I am prepared to)
  • A short explanation/presentation about Wikipedia (encyclopaedia), the neutral point of view, fee license, no original research, mentioning sources. (is available)
  • Cheatsheets <Help:Cheatsheet> (can be printed or ordered with a chapter)
  • A list of subjects which are missing in a certain language
  • Organization with knowledge/library (preferable) or other location, must have internet connection
    • Organization can also publish a press release to attract interested people and people from that organization

Conclusion: the only work is in finding an organization.

What are possible organizations?

I am not aware of other museums/etc, anyone? Another possibility is a university with a history faculty. Which universities have such?

Questions

  • Who want to contact organizations in Belgium to ask if they are prepared to participate? (We have a Wikimedia e-mail address if you like: wmbe@wikimedia.org.)
  • Who wants to help out on the day itself to help users edit Wikipedia?
    (You only need to know how to edit Wikipedia and know what a neutral point of view is.)
  • Who is willing to help with the rest of the organizing of this edit-a-thon in Belgium? (like creating a list of missing articles about World War I, etc)


For this purpose I have created the page: meta:World War I edit-a-thons/Belgium

Be welcome!

Romaine (talk) 16:20, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Why are so many SVGs written in Segoe UI?

Hi.

Just to ask a question, but why are the text in a lot of SVG images written in Segoe UI font?

Worst regards, Greek Fellows". Visit ma talk page and ma contributions. 13:37, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

  1. Because Segoe "is the default font in Windows Vista and Windows 7".
  2. Questions about factual information are best asked at WP:Reference desk
  3. Signing your question with "Worst regards" seems like an antagonistic attempt at humor. I'd suggest not using that one again. –Quiddity (talk) 20:06, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Advice for Archival/Engagement Interns

Hello! My name is Constance and I am personally committed to increasing visibility and overall accessibility to dance. I feel that this can be achieved primarily by making sure that specific dance artists/organizations have a page and by adding have links to their works.

Since I am new to this site, I've already taken the time to browse through the Help and Tutorial pages. However, I am hoping for additional advice from anyone on how I can be more effective with making this happen. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Harrisco1122 (talk • contribs) 20:01, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi Constance,
First, you may want to drop a note by Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Dance so that you can talk and perhaps work with other editors with similar interests. I'm not an expert on that subject, so I can't give you a lot in the way of specific feedback. For artists and organizations, the main issues that new editors get bitten by generally boil down to three categories. Notability, neutrality, and copyright. If you're not highly familiar with our policies around that, here is a very brief overview: (If you are familiar with these, my apologies!):
For notability, understand WP:BASIC, WP:CREATIVE and WP:CORP and the highly specific ways we use the term "notability", "reliable sources", and so on. For neutrality, if you're not associated with these folks or organizations you plan to write about you'll find it a much easier task. It's very frustrating to put up an article and have it later be deleted! So understanding these may help you avoid that frustration.
For neutrality, if you're not involved with those organizations or artists you'll generally have an easier time doing this than if you are. Mostly, then, it's a matter of looking at the third-party sources you found when you were looking at notability, and keeping a similar focus and detachment.
For copyright, just don't even try and cut/paste, or even closely follow along a source when you're writing. About a third of all incoming articles at Articles for Creation can be slapped with a copyright issue (and speedily deleted) as a result. Again, just frustrating.
Anyway, welcome to the place, drop me a note on my talk page if I can point you at any additional resources. Welcome! --j⚛e deckertalk 20:13, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Proposed change to noticeboards template

Not sure if there is somewhere better to post this other than the template talk page [where no one else has commented]; if so, feel free to point out, and apologies.

I'm proposing a modified version of the template/menu that appears at the top of (most) noticeboards, and of many other pages. The proposed new version is here: Template talk:Noticeboard links/Draft. Comments are welcomed at Template talk:Noticeboard links. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 00:17, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Help required re a disambiguation page

I was editing an article on the Edinburgh International Festival and created a link to the Renaissance poet Sir David Lyndsay. I then noticed that the link was bringing up the David Lyndsay disambiguation page. I then moved the David Lyndsay page I was interested in targeting to David Lyndsay (poet) (to differentiate it) and amended existing redirects. I then discovered that entering 'David Lyndsay' in the Wikipedia general search box was skipping the disambiguation page entirely and leading directly to the David Lyndsay, the poet. This is hardly satisfactory for those seeking other David Lyndsays. I've tried some reverts but they're not working; so I conclude I am doing something wrong, hence clueless. Can anyone advise me on how to resolve this issue? Kim Traynor | Talk 14:35, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

@Kim Traynor: = You could change David Lyndsay to redirect to David Lindsay, but since there are no other David Lyndsays on the disambiguation page, is that necessary? GoingBatty (talk) 00:11, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for that suggestion, but it seems from the Preview that if I do that I still end up on the David Lyndsay (poet) page. Kim Traynor | Talk 00:47, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
Since there is only one David L-Y-ndsay, and all the others are David L-I-ndsays, then why should someone searching for David L-Y-ndsay even want to see all of those David L-I-ndsay pages? It seems to me that this is doing what it ought to do. In fact, the page shouldn't be pre-disambiguated at David Lyndsay (poet); it probably ought to just be at plain David Lyndsay (unless and until a second David L-Y-ndsay turns up). WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:55, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
You will need to make a request at WP:RM for the page to be moved back to David Lyndsay.--ukexpat (talk) 17:56, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

"Email me" action

How can a user remove his "email me" action without loggin in?? Is it possible?? Miss Bono (zootalk) 13:39, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

I don't think so as it is a user preference. ·addshore· talk to me! 13:45, 30 May 2013 (UTC)
How would you explain that a user who set on this option when he created an account and had only log in once, now hasn't that option? Miss Bono (zootalk) 14:02, 30 May 2013 (UTC)
What are the circumstances, exactly? Why would the user not want (or be able) to log in, remove their Special:Preferences-setting for "Enable email from other users", and then log out? –Quiddity (talk) 19:56, 30 May 2013 (UTC)
If they can't login due to a lost password point them toward Special:PasswordReset ·addshore· talk to me! 13:06, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Help wanted: Clearing out thousands of copyvios and ads....

I've got a very long list of several thousand stale AfC drafts marked as "promotional" that I'm sorting through. Some help tagging for deletion them where appropriate would be welcome. All of them are eligible for CSD G13 (stale AfC Draft), but a third-to-a-half are also long-running G12s (that is, blatant copyright violations), and more than half of them are G11's (blatant ads). The vast majority of this material is in fact a problem and really should go.

Similarly, editors scanning through the list for material that should, within policy, be saved from deletion would be helpful. It's a big project, more eyes will produce better results.

If you would like to help, please start by dropping me a note on my talk page. I'm trying to work through the list in a coherent order so as to work constructively with other editors who are looking for items to salvage, and I've also intentionally left a small number of these articles that I've scanned undeleted for possible recovery as well. It will be easier not to step on each other's toes if we work together. Thanks! --j⚛e deckertalk 15:48, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Star and heart logos

At the top of my page there is a star logo and a heart logo. I finally figured out what they are for, but what about newcomers? Why can't we use words instead? Unfamiliar logos are not friendly at all. Same for the mosh of abbreviations. I mean, what does TW, CSD, XFD, etc., mean to the average person? Please comment. GeorgeLouis (talk) 13:35, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

"Click Star-to-watchlist", is indeed a somewhat confusing piece of UI.
It matches Firefox's star-to-bookmark, but even that is somewhat confusing, as the two systems are very different.
Could we perhaps add a software check for "Watchlists with 0 items", and when True, the user gets shown a notification bubble near the star (explaining watchlists in 1 sentence), or something similar? (Perhaps on mouse-over, though that would be less effective). –Quiddity (talk) 20:12, 30 May 2013 (UTC)
Talk to the Editor engagement folks, perhaps? It could use tooltip-ish things like the GettingStarted extension. Theopolisme (talk) 20:37, 30 May 2013 (UTC)
Good idea. I've copied this thread to Wikipedia talk:Editor engagement#Star and heart icons and added a few more lines of comments. –Quiddity (talk) 21:57, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Adding Dance Videos

Hello! My name is Kathleen Dalton and I am a college student studying dance history and education. I would like to add some dance videos and information on new artists to Wikipedia. If anyone has any advice on how to best go about doing this just let me know! Thank you so much! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kathleenelizabethdalton (talk • contribs) 19:00, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi. You might find the thread above, #Advice for Archival/Engagement Interns, contains some helpful advice related to dance, and new articles. Add to that, a suggestion to look over Wikipedia:Creation and usage of media files regarding videos. –Quiddity (talk) 22:03, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Hello

Hello, note that Abdoulaye Sekou Sow has died. Thank you. Scymso (talk) 14:44, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Added to his article, thanks. Chris857 (talk) 16:41, 28 May 2013 (UTC)
I made some further updates to the article. Please note that every article has a talk page where you can suggest updates for the article, such as Talk:Abdoulaye Sékou Sow. GoingBatty (talk) 23:12, 28 May 2013 (UTC)
Hi! You can also contact the Wikiprojects related to the article, for example WikiProject Africa. Have fun! --NaBUru38 (talk) 17:23, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

articles and categories

Which is the article containing the highest numbers of categories? --Marce79 (talk) 15:30, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi, Marce! This page (last updated in January 2013) says that the article is Second Geneva Convention, which has a category for each of the 200 or so countries that singed it. Then there's Josip Broz Tito and Winston Churchill, which has a ridiculous number of categories for awards he got. The song Somebody That I Used to Know has a hundred of "number one singles per country" categories. And World War II has each country involved in it. Have fun! --NaBUru38 (talk) 17:27, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Printing problem

Hi, when I view a Wikipedia page I've noticed that the links are coloured blue. When I print that page the blue becomes black. How do I make the page print with the links in blue as per the page on viewed screen using both Firefox and IE? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Q41019573 (talk • contribs) 03:02, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Would the advice at http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070328212610AADUovW still work? GoingBatty (talk) 04:34, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

CAPTCHAs

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T6845

The White House's use of CAPTCHAs is giving trouble to blind and visually impaired people. Would it be reasonable to assume that Wikipedia's use of CAPTCHAs does the same? CAPTCHAs are intended to prove users are human, therefore blind and visually impaired people are ...? As an aside, in posting this I encounter a CAPTCHA because of the link. For anyone interested it was "grabssian". Luckily I am not sufficiently visually impaired - yet anyway. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.40.100.126 (talk) 01:17, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Hello! I saw that on Reddit a few days ago. This has been logged in Wikimedia's bug files since at least 2006. See bugzilla:4845. mw:CAPTCHA is also relevant. Killiondude (talk) 16:25, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Article on criticism of the modern evolutionary synthesis?

Is there an article on criticism of the modern evolutionary synthesis? — goethean 15:58, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

I found the article Objections to evolution — goethean 15:54, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
There probably should not be an article specifically about criticism of MES, per Wikipedia:Criticism. Normally, you want all significant criticism to be in the main article, not WP:POVFORKed off into a separate one. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:22, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Trademark policy

There is a Trademark practices discussion on Meta at the moment.

The main proposal from the WMF legal team is the creation of a new "community' logo which will have a more liberal licensing arrangements so it can be used for community projects.

I am opposed to this as, for me the jigsaw globe is the wikipedia community logo and that is the logo they should be making easier to use. Creating a new 'community' logo will, I believe, just serve as an excuse to tighten the licensing arrangements for the jigsaw globe logo.

If you have comments please go to the meta page and comment there. filceolaire (talk) 14:49, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Will you mind if I start my own website, maybe at a slightly misspelled domain name and filled with intrusive ads, declare myself to be a part of "the community", and use the jigsaw globe logo prominently on my own website?
If that bothers you, then the jigsaw globe logo needs to be protected as a trademark. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:54, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Notification of a TFA nomination

History of Gibraltar has been nominated for an appearance as Today's Featured Article on 13 July to mark the 300th anniversary of the Treaty of Utrecht. If you have any views, please comment at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests. Thank you. BencherliteTalk 10:26, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Dealing with self-promotion and pseudoscience

I came upon this person whose contributions appear to almost exclusively consist of adding links to his podcast promoting pseudoscience. Can I just remove these links, citing policy on self-promotion or pseudoscience or both? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Variantseven (talk • contribs) 14:40, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Yes. You can also see WP:SPAM and WP:BLACKLIST for other options, and request help at WP:External links/Noticeboard if you run into opposition from the user. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:55, 6 June 2013 (UTC)
Um, User:Atsakiris hasn't edited since 2011. [8] AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:07, 6 June 2013 (UTC)
And that's just one edit. The last bout of consistent editing was 2010. We don't block accounts just because, and blocking an account that has been unused for 2-3 years just isn't something we do. --Jayron32 06:10, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Contradict-other and talk pages

You know how some talk pages have a box that the top that says "This is the talk page for this; if you want to post about that, please use that other talk page"? Well, I came across a pair of talk pages where the instructions partially contradict each other. I was going to tag them with <code>{{contradict-other}}</code>, but it's not designed for that. It says "this article" rather than "this page", and when it tries to link to the talk page corresponding to one of the contradictory pages, it can't construct the link correctly.

I guess this is a rare enough situation that it may not be worth making any changes for, but I thought I'd mention it all the same.

(As to the conflict on the talk pages, I'll just post a regular new section to each of them. Yes, I could just WP:SOFIXIT myself, but I don't think I'm involved enough with the subject matter to do that appropriately.)

--50.100.192.246 (talk) 06:05, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

A word of encouragement and gratitude to the community at large.

. Consider it a barnstar. Kleuske (talk) 15:09, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

I feel rejuvenated! ;) --82.170.113.123 (talk) 11:42, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

I'm an IP editor and cannot view the history of Jeff V. Merkey (WP:Viewdelete). After reading an old (12 March 2008) BBC article, I'm now curious which changes were made by Wales to aforementioned article around March 2008. According to the BBC article, the 'edit history of the page does show changes made by Jimmy Wales and that the page was "protected"' (emphasis mine). Can anyone tell me how Wales changed the article? By the way, not yet mentioned in the Criticism of Wikipedia article is the criticisms that Wikipedia allows featured articles to be about businesses. I don't have an external, reliable source; I was simply reading Talk:Elderly Instruments/Archive 1 and Talk:Scene7. On these Talk pages, aforementioned criticism appears to be voiced primarily by IP and novice editors, but I also read some fairly emotional comments from disappointed Wikipedia veterans. It's probably not noteworthy enough to mention in this Criticism of Wikipedia article. Just something I noticed while reading through these pages that I thought I could mention here. --82.170.113.123 (talk) 14:44, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

The last time that User:Jimbo Wales edited that article was in January of 2007 and removed some speculation that had been put into the article. He made a total of 9 edits out of 619 edits to that page. GB fan 11:56, 8 June 2013 (UTC)
After reading the linked article some more information that may be pertinent. Jimbo Wales did semi-protect the article in October 2006 because of BLP violations. His prior edits included removing some other accusations and copy editing. GB fan 13:52, 8 June 2013 (UTC)
Thanks. --82.170.113.123 (talk) 18:11, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

This is kind of sad, but...

Do we need to edit WP:TALK to /specifically/ say not to create talk pages that only contain WikiProject banners for every Template, Category, and redirect on Wikipedia?

It spams the 'assesment' categories with thousands of 'useless' pages (among other things), they're all 'Empty talk pages for future use' against policy, and they're all G8 deletion candidates....this is pointless and disruptive, but, unfortunately, not /technically/ against a 'rule' I can point to.

The 'consensus' about 'incomplete redirects' seems to be that they should be 'kept' if they actually have old talk, if it's a 'tracked' redirect from a WikiProject, or if the redirect is a 'redirect with possibilites'....just running through the categories and making tens of thousands of talk pages is WP:DUMB. Revent (talk) 21:10, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

  • (1) When discussing the actions of an specific editor, it's good courtesy to let them know. (It increases the likelihood that you'll get the same respect in return). (@Koavf: Hello.) (2) It's also good practice to link to prior threads, where you've already attempted discussion or dispute resolution. Ie. User talk:Koavf#2006 North Korea Flooding talk page redirect. (3) Linking to WP:DUMB is rude, it doesn't help the discussion, and it lowers the tone of respect we should all have for goodfaith edits/editors. Writing it can be cathartic, but Edit that shit out, before pressing "Save page".
  • On-topic: it's useful to demonstrate the actual problem (You've only linked to 3 examples of the cause).
    Please demonstrate how adding Template talk:Dead by Sunrise to Wikipedia:WikiProject Rock music/Assessment 'causes spam'. (I'm not doubting you, I'm just asking you to make your case more clearly)
    I suspect you mean all the broken links in "May 29#Assessed" at Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Rock music articles by quality log, and presumably similar at other wikiprojects, but perhaps you mean something else/more?
  • I do agree that those broken-link log entries look problematic, and whatever is causing it should be examined/fixed.
  • I do agree that adding all those non-articles might annoy someone who uses the logs to look for articles.
  • I don't know if adding category/template/redirect pages into the Assessment system has been discussed at length elsewhere. Please find and link any prior discussions, for our benefit.
Hope that helps. –Quiddity (talk) 21:45, 30 May 2013 (UTC)
  • To be honest, this was more of an attempt to discuss the actual issue than him in particular...there are other editors that do this, Koavf just does it (apparently) the most.
  • The 'problem' is that these talk pages are /all/ G8 speedy deletion candidates, as they have no 'content', and they are being created on a mass, basically automatic basis. Most WikiProjects don't track redirects, for example (it's not part of the 'default' set of classes in {{WikiProjectBannerMeta}}) so creating a talk page just to 'classify' a redirect is pointless.
  • The 'assessment log' is an interesting side point, that I hadn't noticed. My attention was drawn to this by attempting to clean up 'unassessed biography' categories and finding insane numbers of 'incomplete redirects' with no content and nothing but a 'broken' WikiProject banner (WikiProject Biography /specifically/ doesn't track redirects, as the number of 'misspelling' and 'alternative name' redirects is insane). This just makes it more difficult to cleanup these categories (unassessed biographies has over 150,000 articles, and I'd 'estimate' 20-30% are 'incomplete redirects').
  • The 'discussions' about these things in the past aren't really /that/ relevant, unfortunately, as they've related more to the deletion of them.
    Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approval/ListasBot_3 was a (currently inactive) bot approved specifically for the purpose of fixing 'incomplete redirects' in WPBIO articles, for example...Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Empty talk pages of redirects is an example of where the consensus was 'empty talk pages should be redirects'.
  • Trying to manually 'fix' these, and being reverted back to the 'broken' state by someone using automatic editing tools is pointless, and makes attempts to clean up the assessment categories useless. It's a waste of time to have to manually remove 'incomplete redirects' when more are being added indiscriminately at a faster rate.
  • The 'spam' isn't the specific examples, it's the fact of doing it on an such a mass scale for no actual /reason/. Revent (talk) 22:58, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

I even find those template tags extremely annoying on article talk pages. In my time...:)..when it was a blue link, the article was discussed, a red link meant no discussion. Now it's always blue and usually only Wikiproject templates. Garion96 (talk) 23:06, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

  • This list on toolservers is 1000+ "NA-class" biography articles....every one I looked at real quick (20 or so) was a 'incomplete redirect' with nothing on the page but banners. Revent (talk) 23:14, 30 May 2013 (UTC)
  • I've left a note at Template talk:WPBannerMeta, asking for additional input here. –Quiddity (talk) 23:25, 30 May 2013 (UTC)
    • Just a couple quick comments. There are positives and negatives to tagging redirects. One negative is, if the banners are above the redirect, then the redirect doesn't "redirect". So the banners need to be below the redirect. This causes the banners to not display however the redirect is still categorized.
    • A couple of reasons why tagging redirects is a good thing:
      1. For various reasons an article can become a redirect and then go back and forth. This happens a lot with biographies so having it tagged as a redirect, although it may or may not be a redirect at any given time, allows the article/redirect to fall under the appropriate project and hopefully be watched.
      2. Sometimes vandals like to play redirect games so if the redirect is tagged it can be watched and if it is modified, deleted or moved, the project and its members could know.
      3. Many redirects could be articles but aren't yet. This gives the project and its members some idea of potential future articles. Some redirects may never be articles, but many could be.
    • In regards to the question of talk pages being red without talk or blue only because they have a banner. It might be possible to create a script that would change the color of the talk tab to something else like Yellow if it had only a banner and nothing else. Of course there could be archives and subpages with info that the script wouldn't be able to identify but I think its possible. If you think that might be helpful or useful let me know. Kumioko (talk) 00:30, 31 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Question for Revent Do you have any examples of banners which when added to template or category talk pages then places that content in a tracking category for assessment? As a follow-up in the main namespace, what do you recommend we do on the talk pages of redirects for banners which support class=Redirect? I'm very interested in your answers. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 02:13, 31 May 2013 (UTC)
  • There are certainly one benefit to an otherwise-empty talk page (be it a Category talk: Template talk: or any other) bearing a WikiProject banner: it means that the page will be picked up by Article Alerts. See for example Wikipedia:WikiProject Trains/Article alerts#CfD - that category is listed solely because Category talk:Proposed railway stations scheduled to open in 2012 bears {{TrainsWikiProject}} (the fact that the banner has |class=cat is immaterial). Similarly at Wikipedia:WikiProject Doctor Who/Article alerts#TfD, those two templates are listed because their talk pages have {{WikiProject Doctor Who}}; and again, at Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Article alerts#RfD, the redirect's talk page has {{WikiProject U.S. Roads}}, but here, the |class=Redirect is important. There are plenty more examples in Category:Article alert reports via banner subscription. --Redrose64 (talk) 08:25, 31 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Now that we have Lua, it should be possible to make {{WPBannerMeta}} automatically detect whether what is being tagged is a redirect or not. Module:Redirect already does something similar to this, and I suspect that all that would be necessary is a little tweaking to make it work. Also, I agree with Redrose64 about the tags being useful for article alerts. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 10:25, 31 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Specifically, adding {{WikiProject Biography}} with 'class=redirect' (or any other 'incompletely filled out' version) adds the redirect to Category:Biography articles without listas parameter, which also flags it as a 'biography article needing attention' and as 'wikipedia template parameter issues'. These are all heavily backlogged maintenance categories.
  • It also, to be honest, simply makes things confusing, as the 'article' will show in lists as a 'redirect' but the 'talk page' won't, and having 'extra' talk pages for, for example, the 50+ 'variant spellings redirects' of Kim Jong-il is basically pointless. WPBio chose not to track 'redirects' for basically that exact reason....given the number of biographies, the number of 'variant or common misspelling' redirects is mind boggling....giving them all talk pages that will never actually be visited except on accident is literally proposing to create hundreds of thousands of 'useless' incomplete redirects.
  • There is nothing wrong with this being done by a member of a WikiProject that tracks redirects, for that purpose...the 'semi-automatic' creation of them on an indiscriminate basis for for projects that don't track redirects.... what's the point? Revent (talk) 17:21, 31 May 2013 (UTC)
  • It is, as I have pointed out, the creation of thousands of "G8 speedy deletion" candidates that admins (from my general impression) will refuse to delete and instead convert to 'complete redirects' for the sole reason that it is 'cheaper' on the database than deletion (creating fewer db entries). Revent (talk) 17:34, 31 May 2013 (UTC)
First the reason they would be refused is because your understanding of what is a G8 speedy deletion candidate is wrong. Second, fewer DB's is irrelevent because they way the daya is stored space wise is so insignificant its pointless to worry about and third the 2 problems you identified with class redirects for those 2 "issues" can be fixed I beleive with some minor tweaking to the coding of the template to not count redirects in those 2 categories. I need to ask a couple folks, but I think that can be fixed. Kumioko (talk) 17:40, 31 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Plase read the 'submitter comments' on the Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/Empty_talk_pages_of_redirects that I proviously linked, as well as the discussions at Wikipedia_talk:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion/Archive_30#Empty_talk_pages_and_speedy_deletion and Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive151#Empty_talk_pages_and_speedy_deletion...specifically..

    If an article is redirected then the talk page should either be redirected (if there's been previous discussion on the page), or deleted. I'm not sure it matters too much, but either way - there's no need to keep blank talk pages hanging around for redirects. Ryan Postlethwaite 8:04 am, 24 June 2008, Tuesday (4 years, 11 months, 8 days ago) (UTC−5)
    I agree that deletion or redirection is more appropriate than a project tag for a redirect page. –xenocidic (talk) 8:08 am, 24 June 2008, Tuesday (4 years, 11 months, 8 days ago) (UTC−5)
    My reasoning for deletion or redirect is as follows: a project tag on the talk page of a redirect will artifically inflate the number of articles under the project's care. Since these talk pages have virtually no history except for the project tag, they should qualify as a "non-controversial deletion". While a redirect would also be appropriate, I don't think it's particularly necessary. –xenocidic (talk) 8:36 am, 24 June 2008, Tuesday (4 years, 11 months, 8 days ago) (UTC−5)
    Yup, the project tag should be on the target talk page so it doesn't need to be on the redirect. Ryan Postlethwaite 8:11 am, 24 June 2008, Tuesday (4 years, 11 months, 8 days ago) (UTC−5)

Also see... User_talk:Yunshui#G8_speedy_on_that_talk_page... for a 'recent' admin comment (this, and other similar comments seen in the conversations, is the basis for my statement that 'they are G8 speedy candidates, but a redirect is considered 'better').
A major part of my 'point' here is that the 'mass creation' of these has mostly been more recent than the 'discussions' that I'm quoting....and more recent than the inactivation (for 'technical' reasons) of a bot that was approved for the specific purpose of 'fixing' these... see Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approval/ListasBot_3
User:Mikaey/Request_for_Input/ListasBot_3 is particularly illustrative of the 'associated issues'....honestly, I was attempting to avoid an involved rediscussion of the 'deletion' of these when I thought that the 'appropriateness of making them redirects instead of deletion' seemed well-settled.
To me it seems the 'issue' honestly is if, as I originally stated', the editing of 'policy' to make this consensus explicit would be appropriate. Specifically, if a 'bot' is not qualified to assess the appropriateness of 'redirection vs keeping because of old 'content' or use by a particular WikiProject', then the mass creation of such pages in an indiscriminate manner (vague gesture toward the past creation of over 500 'template talk' pages in less than two days with AWB by a particular user, specifically without pointing fingers this time) is obviously inappropriate. Revent (talk) 19:40, 31 May 2013 (UTC)
  • As far as the 'technical issues with WikiProject banners' are concerned, IMO these are a 'side effect' of creating these pages in an 'indiscriminate manner'. Specifically, the 'class=redirect' ONLY exists for a WikiProjects that have defined a 'custom class mask' to create it....it is not part of the 'standard' assessment categories. If you attempt to use 'class=redirect' on a WikiProject banner that does not support it, WPBannerMeta 'correctly' handles the 'usage error' and /displays/ 'NA' as the class. The problem is with editors doing this with 'automatic editing tools', apparently /not/ looking at the preview and noticing the error, and committing 'broken' edits.....in huge numbers. Similarly, paying closer attention would resolve the issue of edits that add the page to 'incorrect' maintenance categories. Revent (talk) 20:08, 31 May 2013 (UTC)
  • If a 'WPBio' talk page on a redirect was appropriate (past discussion, particularly) then it should be "class=NA" and the "listas" should be the same as that on the 'parent' article so that they are listed together.
  • Specifically, IMO at least doing this in this manner is 'bot-like behavior' without having gone through the Bot approval Group oversight that would have noticed such issues. Revent (talk) 20:25, 31 May 2013 (UTC)
  • (sorry, I tend to talk to myself sometimes) …where I would hope it would have (correctly) have been pointed out that the creation of thousands of such 'pages' would merit a community-wide RfC. Revent (talk) 21:08, 31 May 2013 (UTC)
  • To be /really/ specific, refer to WP:MASSCREATION, which I guess is actually the 'applicable' policy for what I was 'bringing up' originally. My 'example of the problem' would be the several thousand 'Category Talk' pages created by User:Koavf (all containing nothing except a single WikiProject Banner) just since the beginning of the year. Additionally, I'll point out that this is the most prolific 'non-bot' editor on Wikipedia, and that he was in the (distant) past blocked more than once by User:Pilotguy for essentially "using AWB as an unapproved bot". See [9] back in 2006. So far this year, he seems to be averaging about 650-750 'new pages' per month...(sigh) Revent (talk) 23:14, 1 June 2013 (UTC)
  • I noticed you deleted one of my very first talk page edits the other day (under a different account of mine). Redirect tags for WikiProjects can be useful for article alerts (when projects have them set up). I'm not sure there's a problem with keeping them around. Killiondude (talk) 23:26, 1 June 2013 (UTC)
    • If I 'redirected' a WikiProject banner that was actually useful, I apologize....honestly, there are hundreds...I try to look at what's actually 'used' by particular projects, but it's easier to remember the list of ones that 'somewhat obviously' do things in something other than the 'normal' way. Please link the specific edit here or on my talk page. Thanks.
    • FWIW, no 'redirect talk page' I have nominated for G8 has ever been deleted (I did it once, was told 'make them redirects', and stopped). I /have/ nomiated under {{db-talk}} a fair number of empty talk pages for 'merged' articles, though. (incidentally, the is a G8 template, but they were deleted as G6).
    • If you're referring to one of the two or three 'years' old one-line comments about things like 'this list should be reformatted') and you had a sentimental attachment to it, I apologize. :) I always 'noted' those cases in the 'summary' when I put up the deletion flag. Revent (talk) 00:42, 2 June 2013 (UTC)
      • I just looked up the history again. You just blanked the talk page, someone else came along and deleted it recently (using G6). I wasn't upset, it was just a "blast from the past" so to speak. :) Killiondude (talk) 01:45, 2 June 2013 (UTC)
  • The premise here is all wrong. This is an empty talk page. These are not. Some WikiProjects use these. Others do not. (WP:DERM, for example, uses them quite intelligently.) You should let each individual WikiProject decide whether to tag such pages. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:34, 6 June 2013 (UTC)
No, the premise is not wrong, you are, in a way making my point....wikiprojects should be deciding and making their talk pages by their criteria for inclusion in the project, not someone running a non-approved bot to create them arbitrarily.... If a project 'wants' a class of articles included that is large, it's pretty easy to 'define it well' and ask at WP:BOTREQ...(points at the ease of recently finding a volunteer for....article title = "List of..." + {{WikiProject Lists}}....AnomieBot does exactly the same thing on request of a WikiProject. It's a bot thing, not a 'unapproved bot making 50 articles a day thing'.... Revent (talk) 05:29, 10 June 2013 (UTC)
Your proposal, and I quote, is "to edit WP:TALK to /specifically/ say not to create talk pages that only contain WikiProject banners for every Template, Category, and redirect on Wikipedia". Notice the complete absence of any reference to bots. Notice that what you propose would actually "/specifically/ say not to create talk pages that only contain" the banner for WikiProject Medicine. Notice the complete absence of any exception like "unless WikiProject Medicine wants it".
We already have a policy that bots must be approved in advance. If you've found a violation of that, then feel free to report it to WP:BAG, and they'll solve the problem for you. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:46, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

User script

I decided to create the user script mentioned above, to change the color of the talk tab link if the talk page seems to have only templates: User:Anomie/talklink. Anomie⚔ 14:01, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, that will be /very/ useful. Revent (talk) 18:54, 1 June 2013 (UTC)
Cool thanks. Kumioko (talk) 01:06, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

How do you think korean behavior in Wikipedia?

At the Report of Van Fleet Mission to Far East, I wrote the cited description[10], however, it has been repeatedly revert by User:Qwyrxian[11][12]. And at the Liancourt Rocks dispute, he is doing same thing[13][14]. Although he has stated some reason to do that, in fact, it is only a pretext for not let me edit. Maybe he is a korean, and he's going to prevent the editing of all disadvantageous to Korea... Both of my editing are cited from Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affaires　[15][16] and it are believed to be well was conformity to the rules of Wikipedia.

And most of Korea relations articles has received such interference by some Koreans. Obviously, it is vandalism of Wikipedia. There're too many korean editors(including administrator) who do not follow the rules, to maintain Wikipedia as good quality and neutral.

Is there anyone who has a good idea?--BlueSkyWhiteSun (talk) 09:21, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Dude, you've got to be kidding me. I used to live in Japan. I'm usually accused of being a Japanese POV-pusher. Just look at the history of Talk: Senkaku Islands. The truth, of course, is that, while I have a personal opinion about Korean-Japanese matters, I do my best to edit neutrally. Which you, I'm afraid, are not doing. Those additions to Report of Van Fleet Mission to Far East violated [{WP:NPOV]]--specifically, WP:UNDUE, because they vastly overemphasized a tiny portion of the Report, with the intent of pushing a POV related to the ownership of some disputed islands. Furthermore, the government of Japan is actually not a good source for claims about what the meaning of that treaty was, as they're clearly not independent. And while the Liancourt Rocks article has a flaw, your fix was entirely unacceptable, because you tried to present the Japanese government's position as if it were fact, instead of it being the, well, opinion of the Japanese government. Now, if you can rephrase that edit to be neutral (so that you clearly show it's only an opinion), then it's possible. Also, before coming to a random noticeboard to complain about me, you should actually try to discuss the matter on the articles' talk pages. And please do not call me a vandal again. Qwyrxian (talk) 12:02, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Conditions of the community

Am I the only one being nice and all? To me, I see self-important, vain, pompous people, including administrators, patronizing everybody, like me, for not doing things right. Whenever I screw up in talk:Thriller (album), I get patronized or berated by some guy, who thinks he can inspire people. At this moment, I have made several friends and seemed to never accomplish having many more. After all hard work non-stop, I wonder if I should be committed to Wikipedia forever. To make matters worse, minor grammar is not a small deal to me. "than" vs. "that"? Whatever happen to good grammar? Also, whenever I make a lot (or too many) rename requests, I get mocked. Whenever I made so-called absurd rationales, I "inspired" people to oppose the proposal. Maybe if I could meet members of Wikipedia in person, I would gain personal connection toward others rather than stick my current perspectives to others based on mere context. If I must stay here, where can I find nice people? --George Ho (talk) 03:27, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

This week's edition of the U.S. public radio show On the Media has some very interesting segments on the general subject of why people behave so badly on the Internet (it's not just Wikipedia). Check it out at http://www.onthemedia.org/2013/may/31/ --Orlady (talk) 03:56, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
*sigh* The segment is left to be desire, but worth listening. Too bad the responders there become the examples of the subject's point. Needless preferences... sheez! --George Ho (talk) 04:58, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
Wikimania is the usual place for meeting people from around the world. If you are in the US, then WP:Wikinic is coming up soon, and there may be one in your area. There are many other Wikipedia:Meetups elsewhere. Online, you might consider helping people at a WikiProject. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:42, 6 June 2013 (UTC)
Nope Wikipedia is full of roboeditors who get a token or something for each edit. And since reverts count everything is just immediately reverted. LOL Just to make a point I was bold and edited WP:IAR you should have seen all the rule references. Then I on purpose broke 3RR lol. Have fun. This is the worst internet experience ever. Crappy interface to edit and crappy people. Jason A. Jensen of USA (talk) 01:11, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

Page views

I noticed that the page views for Refrigerator death are close to 4,000 for today. Since before that, views seem to have ranged in the low double digits, and since I haven't heard about any-thing happening concerning this relatively historic subject and the only edit was simply a de-linking, I am curious if this number isn't in error. Does any-one have any ideas?Kdammers (talk) 11:41, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

Not a clue, it's not even linked from any high traffic pages (or indeed anything other than here and a redirect). I'll bet that putting it here has just raised that figure a fair amount though! (nothing obvious on reddit TIL either, which was my first thought). MChesterMC (talk) 13:04, 13 June 2013 (UTC)
The usual theory is that sudden unexplained page view spikes are caused by software somewhere which keeps requesting a page without user input. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:09, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

What are your thoughts on CwoodGames.jimdo.com? Comments and edits welcome — Preceding unsigned comment added by Techbrewson (talk • contribs) 03:39, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

  1. That's a redlink: there's no article by that name. Is that supposed to be a URL? If you put "http://" (or "https://") in front of it and leave off the brackets, WP will automatically make it a link. If you want to label it, use single brackets and a pipe.
  2. And is that post anything but spam?
Thnidu (talk) 03:45, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Where's the template for "I've mentioned you at [[Page#Section]], please go look there"?

I remember a month or two ago being advised that there was a fairly new template I could use to facilitate discussion, but I can't remember the name and I can't find it. The idea is

  1. User A edits an article or writes on a talk page, etc.
  2. User B adds or changes or comments, and wants to tell User A about it without rehashing the whole thing.
  3. User B puts the template on User A's talk page, with parameters that specify where the discussion is and maybe some more, as well as User B's username. The template produces a banner (or whatever) that says something like "User B has written something at [[location]] and would like you to look at it. You can delete this banner."
  4. User A sees the banner, clicks on the link, sees the edit, comment, whatever. S/he takes whatever action s/he pleases and probably deletes the banner once s/he's done.

Can someone please point me to it? And is there a simple way I've overlooked to find such things, or is there really a problem with proliferation without adequate indexing? TIA.

Thnidu (talk) 03:40, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

The new method is the WP:Notifications "Mentions" feature.
All you have to do is link a username, and leave a 4tilde signature in the same "save".
So User:Thnidu and my signature, will ping you. (You can also use {{replyto}} aka {{ping}}, eg. @Thnidu: to do the same thing without typing "User:") The old method that you mention above, is {{talkback}}. –Quiddity (talk) 03:48, 14 June 2013 (UTC)
(The only place I think they're listed is Wikipedia:Template messages/User talk namespace#Miscellanea.) –Quiddity (talk) 03:55, 14 June 2013 (UTC)
@Quiddity:, thanks! Your answer was very informative, once I figured it out, i.e., looked at the wikicode. I've started a "where the heck are the tools I need here?" page for my own reference; see that to see what I mean, for possible future use in providing such answers.
(eta: I first typed the above as "@Quiddity ..." because that's how I first saw it and remembered it.) --Thnidu (talk) 04:37, 14 June 2013 (UTC)
@Thnidu: Many editors either use their main userpage (or create subpages like you have done), as scratchpads or sandboxes. See my userpage, for example. Most of the items on the left are things I use (or used) regularly. I had so many navboxes, at one point, that I eventually had to move them to a subpage.
Seeing the way an editor utilizes (or neglects) their userpage, can provide fascinating and terrifying insights! –Quiddity (talk) 04:55, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Someone with an account on the Oxford English Dictionary website

In the dottle article is a malformed reference to an entry in the Oxford English Dictionary online version[17]. Could I get someone who has a subscription to that site to take a look at this malformed reference, check it against the dictionary, and repair the reference? -- Frotz(talk) 08:46, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

 Done. Also did some minor copyediting. — SMUconlaw (talk) 09:34, 13 June 2013 (UTC)
I enjoyed beeing made aware of a word I did not know although I know the physical fact well. Since I do have access to oed.com I unfortunately have some objections to the etymology in the article and have posted a comment on the article talk page. --Best regards from Engelharttalk contr 20:14, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Swedish Wikipedia hits a million

Hi! You might be interested to know that now there's yet another Wikipedia version above the million article mark. It happened late last evening (European time). See article Swedish Wikipedia for update and links to sources. More links and talk are available here and here. The best of wishes.--Paracel63 (talk) 12:38, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

And now there's a Wikimedia blog post on the subject. Best of wishes.--Paracel63 (talk) 20:48, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Free Research Accounts from Leading Medical Publisher. Come and Sign up!

The Wikipedia Library gets Wikipedia editors free access to reliable sources that are behind paywalls. I want to alert you to our latest donation.

  • Cochrane Collaboration is an independent medical nonprofit organization that conducts systematic reviews of randomized controlled trials of health-care interventions, which it then publishes in the Cochrane Library.
  • Cochrane has generously agreed to give free, full-access accounts to medical editors. Individual access would otherwise cost between $300 and $800 per account.
  • If you are active as a medical editor, come and sign up :)

Cheers, Ocaasi 21:02, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Cochrane Library Sign-up (correct link)

My apologies for the incorrect link: You can sign up for Cochrane Collaboration accounts at the COCHRANE sign-up page. Cheers, Ocaasi 21:37, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

50 images from the Science Museum collection

Hi

I'm the Wikimedian in Residence for the Natural History Museum and Science Museum in London. The Science Museum have agreed to release 50 of it's images (at a medium resolution) under a Wikimedia compatible license. The 2 websites that the images would be available from are:

I'm hoping this is the start of something larger but could just be a one off so am trying to come up with a most wanted list.

I've started a list of images to release on my talk page, please feel free to add to it, I'd like to get over 50 so if there are any problems we still have a good list.

Mrjohncummings (talk) 12:47, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Real names

As there seems to be a small but growing number of people choosing to use their real names to edit, I've created {{User real name}} to indicate it on your user page if you so wish. — Scott • talk 15:08, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Socrates

How do you expect adding sources etc if you lock up an article?Olmav (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 09:12, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Please leave a message on the article's talk page, and add the {{Request edit}} {{Edit semi-protected}} tag to your message. — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 17:17, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
@Jacklee: - Would {{Edit semi-protected}} be better for User:Olmav to use for Socrates? GoingBatty (talk) 02:22, 21 June 2013 (UTC)
Sorry, yes, {{Edit semi-protected}} is the right tag to use. — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 03:24, 21 June 2013 (UTC)
οκ i ll try to do it -not very easy at my age. THANKS.Olmav (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 07:30, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

Saturday 29 June: edit-a-thon about First World War in Belgium

On Saturday 29 June there are several edit-a-thons organized in several countries in Europe with the subject World War I. This World War had Belgium as chess board so it is great to announce an edit-a-thon in Belgium. This event where new and existing users can write and expand articles is held in Leuven (Louvain). The location is KU Leuven - AGORA Leercentrum and is located at the E. Van Evenstraat 4 on 15 minutes walking from Leuven railway station.

What is an edit-a-thon?

An edit-a-thon is a (small) event where people come together and work on articles on a particular topic. Often such edit-a-thon is organized for people relatively new to Wikipedia and held at an organization.

What are the ingredients?

  • A short explanation/presentation about Wikipedia (encyclopaedia), the principles: a neutral point of view, free licensing, no original research, mentioning available sources.
  • Cheatsheets/antisèche/spiekbriefjes
  • Some literature, you may take it to the event and is very welcome
  • An internet connection is present

How can I sign up?

Signing up is needed at wmbe@wikimedia.org

Be welcome! Romaine (talk) 02:31, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

the Netherlands

At the same time there will be an edit-a-thon in the Netherlands about the same subject, between 12:00 tot 17:00 in Doorn (near the city of Utrecht). More information at wmnl:WOI editathon. Romaine (talk) 20:50, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

For Wikipedians in Moscow: Edward Snowden's airplane to land at SVO Airport at (around) 5:15PM Moscow time

Are there any photographers who take pictures at Sheremetyevo airport? Edward Snowden's plane is landing at Sheremetyevo at 5:15PM Moscow time: http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1267261/snowden-leaves-hong-kong-commercial-flight-moscow - I'm not sure if that would be helpful to articles about Edward Snowden, but anyone thinks so, there's the hint: you can photograph Snowden's airplane as it lands

It's Aeroflot Flight#213 (as stated by the Hong Kong news article) - Aeroflot's website says

  • SU213: Hong Kong - Hong Kong International (HKG-1) Moscow - Sheremetyevo (SVO-F) 10:55 (UTC+08:00) 23.06 Departed

The aircraft should be an Airbus A330-300 as that is the equipment Flight 213 usually uses.

WhisperToMe (talk) 12:34, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

Ads

As I understand it, Wikipedia is supposed to be ad-free. But in the last few days, I get large ads that slide onto close to a half of the content of what I am trying to read or edit on Wikipedia. I assume these are not condoned by Wikipedia, much less coming from it; how-ever, the only site where I get them is Wikipedia (right now, covering the top half of my screen is an ad that starts out "Dermatologist Hate Her." Can any-one clear this up (and away. preferably)? Do I have a worm or is this common to other computers?

When I just clicked on it, it went away only to immediately shortly pop up on the bottom right corner in a smaller version that slid away on its own.Kdammers (talk) 09:48, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

This is definitely something at your end. First check that you are looking at Wikipedia itself and not a mirror site - the url should start "en.wikipedia.org". Failing that, there's some malware advice at WP:RFAQ#ADS or you could try the Computing reference desk. -- John of Reading (talk) 10:52, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
Try to open the "addons" menu of your web broswer, and remove any suspicious program. Good luck! --NaBUru38 (talk) 15:28, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

University

hi!i do have a question regarding how the uk universities admit students.for highlight,i study in tanzania which is in africa,currently i am in my advanced level hoping to finish next year by GODS grace.i would like to join one of the universities in the united kingdom.so will there be any contradictions.or what are the processes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.73.220.26 (talk) 06:58, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

As written above, For general knowledge questions, please use the reference desk. --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 09:11, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

IP editor with admin flag

I do believe that once I read somethre in the en-wiki that an IP editor (unregistered editor) received an admin flag. Now I cannot find it again. Is it true or is it my false memory? --NeoLexx (talk) 16:26, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Never actually happened. Werieth (talk) 16:54, 25 June 2013 (UTC)
Once upon a time, just about everyone had the admin bits. I'm not sure if that included IPs, but you might like to read nostalgia:Wiki Administrators. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:26, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Need some help

This bit of vandalism a year ago blanked a lot of content. It can't be quickly undone due to intervening edits. If someone has time to go unwind this, that would be great. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:22, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

 Done - I went to this pre-vandalism version of the page, clicked the Edit source button, copied the Europe section, went back to the current version of the page, clicked the Edit source button, pasted the Europe section, and fixed the section headers. GoingBatty (talk) 03:12, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

RFC needs outside comment.

See Talk:Sousveillance for an RFC which needs outside comment. Any additional comments would be useful to prevent an edit war and help provide resolution. Thanks. --Jayron32 23:47, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Hello

Please note that Valentin Mandacanu has died on 29 october 2012. Scymso (talk) 06:59, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

For future reference, best to add a comment to the talk page of the specific page that you refer to. But seems the article has been updated already. --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 12:22, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

New graphics from wikiArS

This week and the last ones, several students participating in the wikiArS initiative are publishing their works in Commons. Therefore we've new illustrations, infographies and animations that can be used in Wikipedia articles. We have also graphics useful for Wikispecies and two wikibooks for wikijunior. Look some of them below. And if you have ideas about image gaps in Wikipedia that could be wikiArS assignments next Academic Year, please ask for images. --Dvdgmz (talk) 16:58, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Infographies about Naica Mine by Albertvila1 and Andreu

Scientific illustrations of extinct or in dangerous mammals

Animations by Damek, FedericaBri, C.calvo, Cristobalsanchezruiz, Miguel Ángel Rodríguez Vázquez, Manuarteaga and Danitor1

Spanish writers portaits by Nuria nml and Hakima El Kaddouri

Catalan politicians portraits by Di.Francitorra

  • Josep Laporte i Salas
    Josep Laporte i Salas
  • Frederic Rahola d'Espona
    Frederic Rahola d'Espona
  • Joan Codina i Torres.png
    Joan Codina i Torres.png
  • Jordi Planasdemunt Gubert
    Jordi Planasdemunt Gubert

Tales for Children about Naica Mine in Catalan Wikijunior by Laia Sabán and CarolGC

Wikimedia Shop banners / Editor Flash sale June 26/June 27

This is incredibly late notice and I apologize for that. I put it on the central notice calendar (Meta) earlier but that isn't incredibly helpful for everyone here. For those that don't know I have been running the new Wikimedia Shop for the past year or so as it was slowly brought online and I'm now transitioning away from it to move into the Legal and Community Advocacy department because of needs there. The shop itself, and the Editor Giveaways will be moving into the fundraising team where they have a lot more bandwidth to keep it moving forward and to do the giveaways more consistently (rather then me doing it as I had rare time). That transition is expected to happen around the 1st of July. Sadly I was shanghaied into doing much of the technical setup for the current Wikimedia Elections and other LCA tasks and so some of the pieces of the end of my shop time (like this announcement) got away from me. I apologize profusely for that.

The public side of the shop, which does not make much money yet because we want to keep costs low and we don't advertise much, was always intended to subsidize the Editor Giveaways program. We did a push for Wikipedia Day in January with a flash sale for editors (10% off all products, 24 hours with a logged in banner worldwide) which basically brings it down to close to cost after the shipping subsidy we give (max $15 shipping for most orders up to 5-6 lbs anywhere in the world). This was followed the next day by a logged out (Anonymous) banner, for north americans (where the shipping is easiest) to help fund the giveaways.

Before I officially handed the shop off I wanted to go with one last hurrah:

  • I wanted to leave the fundraising team with a good buffer so that they can do auto pilot a bit (they anticipate still doing the giveaways, and in fact should be able to do them far more then I did because of their resources).
  • I wanted to show the slew of brand new products that we had started preparing before I knew I would be transferring (they are not on the shop yet, they will switch out when the sale starts but include new t-shirts, a t-shirt hoodie, kids shirts and a Citation Needed, Wikipedia Sports Scarf (DAMN RIGHT).

The current plan (which may change a bit) is:

  • Logged in only banner, starting around 05:00 UTC June 26th . World wide, logged in English Wikipedia, Fundraising flagged so that those hiding fundraising banners won't see it. Thin banner (thinner then last time) to be as un obtrusive as possible. 24 hour countdown sale 10% off all products except our Timbuk2 bags (which are sadly $150 and sold at cost and so I can't reduce them any more).
  • Logged out only banner, starting around 05:30 UTC June 27th. North America (possibly a couple other countries to test) English Wikipedia, Fundraising flagged so that those hiding fundraising banners won't see it. Again, as thin a banner as we can get.

I'll be keeping an eye on this section, and am reachable by email. Please let me know if there are 'any' questions. Most of the feedback I got the only other time we tested this (it worked well) was very positive, so I'm hopeful it will go well with lessons learnt about banner size etc. However, if there is one thing I've learnt as a member of the community for 7+ years, I'm always learning more. Jalexander--WMF 07:30, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Dates changed from 20th/21st to 26th/27th given the short notice and the scarf not being fully ready yet :). Jalexander--WMF 19:06, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
  • I like it Anything that keeps the WP:GIVEAWAY program running is a Good Thing TM. I'd like to see more people give each other free Wikipedia goodies more often. Who doesn't like getting free stuff? 64.40.54.196 (talk) 03:48, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
    • I may, or may not, have done this far later then planned given all of the work and trying to finish the election and make sure the scarf was ready. However the logged in banners are now up :). Jalexander--WMF 02:08, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
Thanks, James. I appreciate you and the foundation showing your support for the community. It is much appreciated. 64.40.54.119 (talk) 02:48, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

RFC: punctuation when quoting

Friends, an RFC has been started to settle issues of punctuation around text in quotation marks. Keep WP:LQ as it is, or allow alternatives? Tony (talk) 09:19, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Frank Pick

does Frank Pick Warrant a Front Page ? ......

why do I care ? no historical social cultural or even political significance

Badly need to improve CHOICE of articles on Front Page ... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.179.39.251 (talk) 00:46, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:FAQ/Main_Page#I think that the articles listed on the Main Page are awful and much more important articles should be there instead. Isn't the Main Page biased towards certain topics? What can be done about it? for details. –Quiddity (talk) 21:20, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

HTML comments

I just noticed that there are now 2 ways to edit an article, the "edit source" way uses the familiar theme; the new theme now called "edit" is different. I have a problem with it. If you use the "edit source" option, there's an HTML comment at the top of Christine Jorgensen saying to use she/her to refer to Christine Jorgensen throughout her life. But with the new "edit" way of editing the article, no one will notice this HTML comment. People who prefer to edit with the new "edit" way of editing the article will change pronouns in this article the way they want to. Any thoughts?? Georgia guy (talk) 23:26, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Yup, it's a high-priority feature request. The devs have it on their to-do list (via bugzilla:49603).
For future reference, Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback is the best place to give feedback for the VisualEditor (or to check for existing threads requesting the same feature/bugfix). Hope that helps. –Quiddity (talk) 23:41, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Potnpan123 spamming on a daily basis

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:94.193.68.7&action=history says it all. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.193.68.7 (talk) 11:21, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

It's been dealt with. Please note we have special noticeboards for this kind of thing, including WP:AN/I, and please sign your posts. Thanks. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 23:08, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Must reliable sources dictate WP's choice of wording?

There's a discussion of this at Talk:Sun Myung Moon. Specifically if the lede is based on newspaper stories should it use their wording? Or is it okay to use more "encyclopedic" wording? It would not make a really big difference for this article, but join in the discussion if you like. Steve Dufour (talk) 00:12, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Creating talk pages

Recently I came across an editor who was creating talk pages for redirects, and noting that most of our articles do not have talk pages, questioned the practice, and was directed to a discussion on a user talk page. I would recommend following the advice on the talkpage header template, do not create a talk page just to place this header here. As an editor, it is annoying to click on a talk page only to find that there is nothing there other than the headers. I know that we put project headers on talk pages, but I would recommend not doing that if that is the only content on the talk page. Talk pages should not be used to categorize articles, and certainly not used to categorize redirects. Apteva (talk) 16:31, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Didn't somebody code a script recently, that would change the tab-color if the only content on the talkpage was wikiproject-banners? I'll see if I can find it...
Yes! User:Anomie/talklink from the ever awesome Anomie. Tested. Loved. Talkpages that only have templates on them, have orange Talk tab labels, and talkpages that are redirects have green Talk tab labels (changeable in your css). So good. –Quiddity (talk) 19:08, 6 July 2013 (UTC)
We certainly can not expect 4 million editors to install a fix so that the talk page links are colored for them. A better solution is to stop creating talk pages that have no content. Apteva (talk) 00:56, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
That ship sailed a loooong time ago. There are better things to joust against.
(I vaguely recall mention of an Module or something, being built, which might deal with this type of problem, but I'm not sure how it will be implemented.) –Quiddity (talk) 03:20, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
Didn't we just have this conversation? The rule against creating a talk page solely to place {{talkheader}} on it already exists: see Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines#Creating_talk_pages.
By contrast, creating talk pages for redirects to put content on them, like WikiProject banners with WP:1.0 team assessment ratings, is perfectly acceptable if and only if the WikiProject wants to tag redirects (most of them don't). WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:37, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia work hijacked?

A friend has brought to my attention the following advertisement for a book called Pipil grammar, edited by Jesse Russell and Ronald Cohn (whoever they are), which has a circle on the cover that says "High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles!". It is published by "Bookvika publishing". The book is stated to be available from Barnes & Noble; its announced price is $19.95, it is a paperback, and there is a 3% discount for ordering online, giving a final price of $19.26. There are four lines of "descriptive text" on the page. The text corresponds exactly to the opening lines of the Wikipedia article titled "Pipil grammar". It is a longish article which was substantially written by me single-handed a few years ago and naturally has since been improved through (as far as I know, only occasional) edits by fellow-Wikipedians. I think it is fair to say that in a moral sense I am the author of the work (or main co-author if you like). Now I am aware that Wikipedia is a collective product and editors of articles do not hold a legal copyright in a strict sense. On the other hand, I did not know that writing in Wikipedia gave other individuals the right to publish commercially the free content of the articles one has written with the intention of making it available free of charge to everyone! Is this in order? What is happening here? This seems to raise a number of questions. First of all I'd like to know what Wikipedia's policy is on this and what connection, if any, there is between Wikipedia itself and such commercial enterprises. E.g. is this happening with Wikipedia's knowledge and permission, or is it a rogue action, or is this even Wikipedia's own doing? What is the copyright status of the resulting publication, what rights do the so-called "editors" (the ones named on the cover of the commercial book, I mean) hold, and what (competing?) rights might I have as the actual source of the material? As it happens I am very active in the Pipil language and Pipil grammar, and there is a real possibility that I might want to publish a proper book titled "Pipil grammar" in the foreseeable future containing my own work. Am I now going to have to compete against a compilation of (ultimately) my own writing produced by a third party and also called "Pipil grammar"? Or even be accused of plagiarizing myself?? I'd appreciate anybody's clarifications, advice or comments. Thanks. A R King (talk) 07:38, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with WP policy, but I'm pretty sure this shouldn't be happening. If I write/edit articles for Wikipedia, I'm letting people on WP read it and modify it under the Creative Commons license. But reading it now, it does say that you give permission for them to distribute it. But I'm not sure about commercially... kikichugirl (talk) 07:48, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
See WP:REUSE - X201 (talk) 08:08, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
More info here. GeorgeLouis (talk) 11:44, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
Also, Wikipedia:Buying Wikipedia articles in print or another form. Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:39, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
So, in short, commercial publication is perfectly acceptable, and no, the Wikimedia Foundation had nothing to do with it, and does not benefit from it (except to the extent it helps the spread of knowledge).
Regarding this: there is a real possibility that I might want to publish a proper book titled "Pipil grammar" in the foreseeable future containing my own work. Am I now going to have to compete against a compilation of (ultimately) my own writing produced by a third party and also called "Pipil grammar"? Or even be accused of plagiarizing myself??
The answers are that (a) yes, you will (always) have to compete against what you contribute to Wikipedia; (b) while you can't do much to prevent someone else of accusing you of plagarism, you can point to your edit history to show that you were the person who contributed the information to Wikipedia in the first place; and [bonus answer] (c) you still have the advantage that you can modify the information you added to Wikipedia, and then publish that modified work, without being forced to license it under Creative Commons. But everyone else - if using Wikipedia as a the source for the bulk of their text - must release their modified work under Creative Commons - and thus cannot prevent others from (say) putting it up on the web, thus making to (freely, if they want) available to everyone. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 17:02, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your answers. Not totally reassuring perhaps, but I do understand the viewpoints involved, though some of the imaginable results do still seem a bit ludicrous, but maybe I just need to get my head around it... Being all for freely sharing knowledge myself (which is why I contribute to Wikipedia), I am not averse to this, just wary of being a victim of a genuine rip-off that would damage my bonafide (and non-commercial) interests. --A R King (talk) 17:50, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Just a short comment: maybe you could use the situation to your advantage by mentioning in your work and when advertizing it that you are the creator of and main contributor to Wikipedia's Pipil grammar article. In anticipation of people looking for information on the subject. In a way the article is a showcase of your knowledge. --82.170.113.123 (talk) 14:33, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

2013 CheckUser and Oversight appointments: Call for applications

The Arbitration Committee is seeking to appoint additional users to the CheckUser and Oversight teams. Experienced editors are invited to apply for either or both of the permissions, and current holders of either permission are also invited to apply for the other.

Successful candidates are likely to be regularly available and already familiar with local and global processes, policies, and guidelines especially those concerning CheckUser and Oversight. CheckUser candidates are expected to be technically proficient, and previous experience with OTRS is beneficial for Oversight candidates. Trusted users who frequent IRC are also encouraged to apply for either permission. All candidates must at least 18 years of age; have attained legal majority in their jurisdiction of residence; and be willing to identify to the Wikimedia Foundation prior to receiving permissions.

If you think you may be suitably qualified, please see the appointments page for further information. The application period is scheduled to close 22 July 2013.

For the Arbitration Committee, — ΛΧΣ21 22:03, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Discuss this

when WebCite will be at last saved?

WebCite is going to close. if we would be able to save dead internet links anymore => we have to cancel Wikipedia:Verifiability as completely meanles and stupid! (Idot (talk) 13:29, 8 July 2013 (UTC))

PS http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WebCite give no results yet (Idot (talk) 13:29, 8 July 2013 (UTC))
Gunther Eysenbach (Eysen (talk · contribs)) of WebCite should apply for a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation by following the instructions at meta:Grants:Index and point to the discussion at meta:WebCite as support for the grant. Cheers. 64.40.54.109 (talk) 04:25, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Hello

Please connect the english article of Anton Antonov-Ovseyenko to the russian one. Thank youScymso (talk) 17:47, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Done. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:03, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Extermination of “likely”

Moonraker (talk · contribs) (notified) makes a mass replacement of “likely” with “probably”. I think it is a silly stylistic tweak making texts to sound more scientifically but without actual sense, and shall be stopped and reverted. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 07:14, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

To me, in the UK, was likely written feels like an Americanism. "will likely" is listed as a common misspelling, citing WP:COMMONALITY. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:53, 23 June 2013 (UTC)
And to me in the UK (or anywhere else) it doesn't feel like an Americanism. So what does that prove? And what on earth is "will likely" doing in the misspelling list? -- Derek Ross | Talk 10:07, 23 June 2013 (UTC)
"Likely" is a good English word, in its place, and does not need to be "exterminated", but there is a real split between British and American English and also between formal and informal use. See (for instance) here, where oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com says "In standard British English the adverb likely must be used with a word such as most, more or very: We will most likely see him later. In informal North American English likely is often used on its own: We will likely see him later. ◇ He said that he would likely run for President." Moonraker (talk) 04:27, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

They seem like synonyms to me, so there's no reason to replace them. Likely or probably things must be sourced, remember. --NaBUru38 (talk) 15:30, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Moonraker here. "Likely" in the sense of "probably" (unless preceded by "most", etc.) is grating to my British ear and sounds extremely American. One might argue that we must be careful not to change "likely" to "probably" in articles with an unambiguously American subject, e.g. edits such as this one, but that would contravene WP:COMMONALITY. Ericoides (talk) 05:52, 29 June 2013 (UTC)
  • If Moonraker would agree to look more closely at each instance of the word "likely" and replace it with a variety of terms such as "most likely", "probably", "possibly", "almost certainly" and even no weasel word at all, I would have no problem with his continuing on his crusade. I just feel that some people use likely to mean "as far as we know", so to make the changes Moonraker should read the statements and use careful judgement. Abductive (reasoning) 06:03, 29 June 2013 (UTC)
  • I agree with Abductive above. Wikipedia needs variety. smileguy91talk 23:00, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
  • I remember when the editors of the Oxford English Dictionary declared American English to be the dominant dialect of English. I emphatically don't insist on that; I'd personally prefer a "live and let live" attitude in which no "crusades" against various national English usages are viewed as necessary in Wikipedia. I would definitely take it amiss were someone to edit my prose because it didn't conform to his country's dialect of English. I'd understand if the victims of the "crusade" mentioned above were to take exception to those unnecessary edits. I've striven to limit my edits of other editors' work to clear questions of grammar, fact, sourcing or other WP guidelines. If the crusaders above undertake to enforce Standard English ("English English") on Wikipedia, they've got a long row to hoe. The time to worry about such rarefied stylistic judgments is after we can convince everyone to back a statement with a verifiable published source. loupgarous (talk) 03:45, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
  • I agree with Moonraker and Ericoides. The usage indicated goes beyond mere Americanism and into the realm of the downright folksy/rustic. Even on decidedly American subjects, we wouldn't even consider substituting kinfolk for family, yonder for nearby, or darn tootin for certainly. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 15:36, 3 July 2013 (UTC)
  • I admittedly have an American bias but I have always used "likely" and "probably" interchangeably and have been unaware of this particular usage issue until now. It is somewhat surprising because I have had great exposure to non-native English-speaking internationals and despite grammar being a frequent topic with them, this particular case has never been one of them. This lends me to think that perhaps a difference between the two words is largely a British distinction, and given User:Derek Ross's comment perhaps not even universally British. In fact, I was so surprised to learn of this possible oversight in my grammar that I consulted a couple of my books: Hacker's "A Pocket Style Manual" and Watkins and Dillingham's "Practical English Handbook". Both suggest "likely" may be used interchangeably with "probably" and do not point out any restrictions with "likely" as the Oxford dictionary link above does. (My books are however published in America.) Therefore, it seems to be simply a fact that "likely" and "probably" are, at least in American usage, synonyms and using them as such is perfectly correct grammar. As for WP:COMMONALITY, it is far from clear to me that it supports Moonraker's edits. Admirable interpretations of WP:COMMONALITY could also be given that advise against those edits because they would in effect be "insisting on a single term or a single usage as the only correct option". I think the prudent thing to do before making such subtle changes in mass would be to discuss it and try to gain consensus. As it stands, without consensus and with at most very marginal benefit, I think Moonraker's edits may be more disruptive than helpful. As for Andrew Lenahan's "rustic" argument, I find it to be rather condescending hyperbole. Jason Quinn (talk) 03:48, 9 July 2013 (UTC)
  • I think it is a quirk in an editor's nature, but one that is really harmless, as long as he or she doesn't mess with direct quotes. In fact, I sent him/her a barnstar when he/she made this totally useless but amusing edit in an article I had written. GeorgeLouis (talk) 05:32, 9 July 2013 (UTC)
  • The short case against the "crusade" to delete American English usage of "likely" is that there's no guidance from WP on this point, and the Oxford English Dictionary has held that American English is standard English usage in any case. So editing an American's edits to make them conform to the usage of a minority of English-speakers on Earth is unsupported by WP and the editors of the Oxford English Dictionary. loupgarous (talk) 01:05, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Funding?

There is presently a banner popping up requesting donations. It advises that Wikipedia does not use ads (which is fine) but it also states that Wikipedia does not use/receive and government funding. My question is (if I may ask it here) is; Why Not? If there were any kind of government funds (ie: grants, etc.) that were available, with no strings attached, why would Wikipedia not pursue this means of income? Nobody wants ad banners blinking across the pages, but I know I wouldn't mind a small notation somewhere that read something like "Sponsored in part by the U.S. Dept. of Education", instead of these huge pop-ups asking for money every few months. Anybody? - thewolfchild 00:02, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

There are always strings attached to grants. GB fan 00:14, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
Always? - thewolfchild 16:51, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
And there are plenty of people around the world who who might well be suspicious of the neutrality of articles in an encyclopaedia sponsored by all or any of the governments of the US, Cuba, India, Pakistan… [list continues]. Ian Spackman (talk) 00:18, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
Re: Donation banners: I got one of those, too, whilst I was logged out earlier today. I thought we only did a single fundraising drive in December?
Re: Government funding: It would be exceptionally difficult to decide on criteria, for who we allowed space to in a "sponsored by" banner. I.e. Do we allow all governments (even benevolent dictatorships), and all government depts (even the ministry of peace), this privilege? If the US Dept of Education donated $Xmillion (which they ought to be paying teachers with...), does that make them more noteworthy than the smaller foundation:Benefactors? TL;DR - it's complicated! –Quiddity (talk) 00:27, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
I don't think the Department of Education pays teachers, although maybe they should. I have 5 teachers in my immediate family + 1 librarian. :-) -Steve Dufour (talk) 00:20, 3 July 2013 (UTC)
I can promise you that any article funded by the US Department of Defense would provoke unfavorable publicity to Wikipedia, from the people opposed to DoD's less-selective push-button hits on people in the Afghan/Pakistani highlands. And any identification between the US National Security Agency and WP would be worse. loupgarous (talk) 21:17, 4 July 2013 (UTC)
Who said anything about the "Department of Defense"? - thewolfchild 16:48, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
I did. As an American who is all too aware of the bad publicity connected with my country's controversial actions in certain areas, I was exploring the alternatives to Department of Education grants-in-aid, probably intended to repair the public perception of our defense and intelligence agencies - and their impact on WP. loupgarous (talk) 00:56, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
Lamentably, if grants in aid to the Wikipedia Foundation by (say) the US Department of Education were to become known, Wikipedia would inevitably become a lightning rod for political attacks against the politician or political party identified with the grants. I'm not saying that's right or wrong, but it's certainly not something Wikipedia needs. loupgarous (talk) 03:51, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
Yeah, it would be like PBS. Really we shouldn't object to WP fundraising. You think you should get everything for free? Steve Dufour (talk) 00:16, 3 July 2013 (UTC)
I don't think I should get everything for free, nor do I object to WP fundraising. Unfortunately I suffer from a rare illness which has prevented me making a living in fields for which I am trained, so that my contributions to Wikipedia have had to be in kind (editing articles). I do have professional qualifications in that field, so my "in-kind" contributions have some value to WP. loupgarous (talk) 21:08, 4 July 2013 (UTC)
Yeah, wouldn't be worth the trouble and drama it would cause, and the resulting (perceived) loss of neutrality. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 13:36, 3 July 2013 (UTC)
While political argle-bargle is ubiquitous, WP deals with it pretty well for an Internet activity. Part of the WP editor's duties are suppressing lack of objectivity (perceived, even) on one's own part and deleting actual lack of objectivity from WP articles. If we undertake to delete ANY perceived lack of objectivity from our articles, one of those cheap terabyte hard drives will hold what's left of WP when we're done. But having worked in government, I think the LAST thing we need is to become an arm of it, even to the extent of receiving government-distributed largess. There's no such thing as making ALL the taxpayers happy. loupgarous (talk) 21:08, 4 July 2013 (UTC)
loupgarous, I Guess the "rare illness you suffer from" isn't hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia? Kidding aside, that's quite the verbose post you have left. But, thank you for the reply, none-the-less. - thewolfchild 16:48, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm seeing this in Australia when I log out. It says

It has mixed messages, saying "To protect our independence, we'll never run ads" but then "If Wikipedia is useful to you, take one minute to keep it online and ad-free another year" (emphasis added), and Jimmy says "I could have made it into a for-profit company with advertising banners, but decided to do something different.". Being ad-free is non-negotiable according to the Jimmy mantra; it isnt a year by year decision, right..? (worried look). But what is more annoying is that in many countries Wikipedia is funded by government grants, subsidies, etc. Those government funds don't go towards the servers and the WMF staff, but they do go towards programs and staff in those countries. e.g. just last week in Australia, 'Wikipedia' has just won a government research grant (its more complicated than than: see the bottom of Signpost NaN), and there are quite a few US academics also being funded to research Wikipedia, but in some countries the relationship between the government funding and Wikipedia is much more direct. John Vandenberg (chat) 12:21, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi, guys. :) The Fundraising team has discussed their reasoning here at meta:Fundraising 2013. July is the start of the fiscal year at the WMF, and as they explain there they are experimenting with spreading donations out more throughout the year. Just one banner is being deployed to ~5% of readers. They explain some of their main goals there:

  • We're aiming to reach more readers throughout the year (not just people who visit in the few weeks that we run banners at the end of the year).
  • We can get into the fun part of the fundraiser (A/B testing, finding issues, testing tech improvements live, learning about our readers, etc).
  • Instead of being a mad scramble at the end of the year, we get to ramp up consistently and make improvements year-round.
  • The fundraising team can work & improve with more consistent roles throughout the year.

--Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 01:59, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Thank you 64.40.54.47 (talk) 02:34, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Clear as mud. Thanks for all the replies everybody. - thewolfchild 16:54, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Gun control RFC

There is an RFC that may be of interest to this group at Talk:Gun_control#RFC. Subject of the RFC is "Is the use of gun restriction legislation or other confiscations by totalitarian governments (Nazi, Communist etc) accurately described as "Gun Control". Are such instances appropriate for inclusion in the Gun Control article. (Details at RFC in article)" Gaijin42 (talk) 15:59, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

This RFC could use additional input. Gaijin42 (talk) 02:20, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia likes to screw up.

See for yourself. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BuddyBixby419 (talk • contribs) 11:24, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

You put an additional }} at the end of {{End date|2000|8|1}}. I fixed that for you. Ian.thomson (talk) 15:55, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

OK, thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BuddyBixby419 (talk • contribs) 17:33, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

middle=

Let's say the author is Kimberly Dillon Summers, last=Summers|first=Kimberly; then we just drop Dillon? Since there is no middle=, I think maybe the instructions are lacking in the 'what to do with the middle' department? --82.170.113.123 (talk) 22:25, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

You can enter the name as first = Kimberly Dillon. That's what I usually do. --Jayron32 23:00, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Personal request for someone to clean up David Toussaint

I'm a close friend of his mother and I don't feel comfortable tearing out all the puffery myself for personal political reasons, but every time I see the page, I cringe. - Richfife (talk) 00:06, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

I've removed a bit of peacockery and puff, and done a little MOS copy edit. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 07:26, 13 July 2013 (UTC)
Thanks! - Richfife (talk) 14:40, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

looking for research on new article fates

Hi, can you all direct me to any research on new article fates? Maybe

  • overall percentage deleted by some time point
  • number of PROD, SD, AFD and % outcomes
  • changes before/after AFC submission process was widespread
  • percentage acceptance of AFC submissions to new articles

Thanks in advance and I realize different people may structure the questions differently, so whatever is out there, appreciate it.

TCO (talk) 19:34, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

If memory serves, you'll find that information somewhere in the WP:ACTRIALs pages. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:13, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

I am not finding it. I just see a page for a trial that never ran. (P.s. Don't mean to be all "peel me a grape" but if anyone has the scoop, please ping me. This board is too active to watch.)TCO (talk) 05:11, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

Redirects being overwritten

I am not sure just how prevalent this problem is, but for just one acronym I've already found two cases: [18] [19]. Perhaps an edit filter should be set up to detect these? They represent a regretable loss of information that could go undetected for years (almost four years for my second link). --Njardarlogar (talk) 08:17, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

(just thinking out load) I'm not seeing an easy way (with our current technology) to detect the problematic redirect overwrites without also catching good redirect overwrites, resulting in lots of noise in the edit filter.
For LIJ, there are probably many notable terms[20]([21]?), so you could create a disambig page. John Vandenberg (chat) 12:35, 5 July 2013 (UTC)
Filter 342 tracked redirects that were being converted into articles, but it got disabled for some reason. Nyttend (talk) 02:29, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Infobox Symbols

(I figures I'd ask this here. If there's a better place, I'm sure some helpful editor will let me know)

I have a question regarding the use of symbols as indicators of the increase or decrease of a value or ranking in an infobox. There is widespread contradictory use of these symbols. For example, on some pages;

  • upward is indicated as Increase ({increase}) Green to indicate positive and the symbol acts as an upward pointing arrow. This is to indicate an increased monetary value or a higher ranking on a list.
  • downward is indicated as Decrease ({decrease}) Red to indicate negative and the symbol acts as a downward pointing arrow. This is to indicate a decreased monetary value or a lower ranking on a list.

To me, this seems to be the appropriate way to use these symbols. I have found them used this way on most articles. Examples: Facebook, IBM, ExxonMobil and Chrysler.

However, other pages are using the symbols as follows;

  • upward is indicated as Positive decrease ({DecreasePositive}) Again, green to indicate positive, but the symbol is reversed.
  • downward is indicated as Negative increase ({IncreaseNegative}) Again, red to indicate negative, but the symbol is reversed.

Here it appears that the wider end of the symbol is used to indicate "greater" while the narrow end is used to indicate "lesser", (like an upright version of the mathematical symbols), with the "greater" end indicating an increase in monetary value or a higher ranking on a list, while the "lesser" end indicates a decreased monetary value or a lower ranking on a list. I find this to be a somewhat confusing use for these symbols, (even the templates show the contradictions) and have only found them on fewer articles. Examples: Craigslist, Workopolis, Wikitravel and The Smoking Gun.

Can we determine just what is the proper use of these symbols, then set that as the standard for all WP articles? Thanks, - thewolfchild 04:28, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

I answered this one over at Wikipedia:Help desk. Howicus (talk) 04:33, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

Classic edit summary

From Mind control "(Undoing Revision Is Not Fair In That Secret Information Held By Governments Cannot Be Sourced!)" -BayShrimp (talk) 01:17, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Is the community free to restrict an admin's use of some but not all admin tools?

I've asked for opinions at administrators' noticeboard regarding restricting an admin's use of specific admin tools - as a sanction less dramatic or draconian than de-sysop. There seems to be general agreement that ArbCom can impose limited restrictions on an admin's tool use. We are exploring whether the community (as opposed to ArbCom) may do that and, if so, whether and how the community should do that. (To keep the discussion in one place, please comment there, not here.) --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 07:26, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

I don't see why not, as almost everything here is determined by community consensus. WP:AN is probably the place to actually hold a discussion. After all other users may have restrictions imposed by consensus. Remember that the discussion is likely to be closed by another admin! Graeme Bartlett (talk) 11:33, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Language check

Hi, I'm not English native speaker and I want to write longer articles (expanding the current ones or bringing new articles to Wikipedia). However, I know that my English is with grammar mistakes. Is there any page or category, in which I could mention such a article to be reviewed by native speaker? (I mean only for longer articles, not for short sentences and paragraphs). Thanks a lot --Quar (talk) 10:33, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

You can add the {{copy edit}} tag to attract the attention of people that like to fix this problem. There is also {{copy edit-section}} if it is just one section. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 11:27, 15 July 2013 (UTC)
Thank you for templates! --Quar (talk) 17:50, 15 July 2013 (UTC)
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Village_pump_(miscellaneous)/Archive_42&oldid=1256869144"