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This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (miscellaneous).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

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New essay: Involvement

After seeing a few incidents where the input of "uninvolved" editors or admins was requested, as well as cases where someone involved in an on-wiki dispute was referred to as having a "conflict of interest" with regards to it, I wrote an essay on the concept of "involvement". I welcome feedback on it. Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) —Preceding comment was added at 02:56, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Strang user talk page

There is this amazing user talk page - User talk:Mr sylhet - which is a redirect page of User talk:Adnan azim. Unfortunately, no one has registered as User:Mr Sylhet, yet. What to do? Aditya(talk • contribs) 18:01, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

User:Adnan azim moved his User and Talk pages. That's probably not a good thing. Corvus cornixtalk 21:21, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
Then it's possible to create a user page without actually registering that username! Wow! But, I'd guess that it's not encouraged. Apparently the user wants to have a new username, and there are procedures to that. Can someone help the user to the right process? Aditya(talk • contribs) 10:54, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
Doesn't seem so. Aditya(talk • contribs) 02:56, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Lists in Wikipedia

Hi! Roughly how many lists are there in English Wikipedia? Or alternatively what percentage of English Wikipedia articles is represented by lists? Thank you ! Tavilis (talk) 16:16, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Somewhat less than 3 million.—RJH (talk) 21:24, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
That's not a particularly helpful answer. A better one is that that certainly less than 5 percent of articles are lists; that would mean there are less than 100,000 lists, given there are a little more than 2 million articles. You can get a better idea simply by using the "Random article" link on the left; click that 100 or 200 times (think of it as a science experiment) and see how many "list of" articles you get. My guess is you'll see perhaps one or two "list" articles per 100 random links. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 21:50, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
True. I suppose it was a little cynical.—RJH (talk) 17:03, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Oldest Articles

I know that every day, Wikipedia tells us what its newest additions are but i thought it miught be interesting to know what the very first articles to be made were - no matter how good the article was - just the first ones that someone clicked the "Save Page" button for.

Amd i dont HAVE to have an answer!! i just thought it might be interesting to find it out.

Thanks!!--Coin945 (talk) 13:51, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps you are looking for Wikipedia:Wikipedia's oldest articles or Oldest articles? older ≠ wiser 14:10, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
The latter reveals pages that according to a more-than-a-year-old cache, were last edited between December 2004 and April 2005. When will it be re-done so a new version of that page comes?? Georgia guy (talk) 15:44, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
You might also be interested in a 2001 snapshot of the English Wikipedia.-gadfium 19:42, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks!--Coin945 (talk) 08:15, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

E-mail to Wikipedians

How does one send e-mail directly to Wikipedians? In puzzlement, GeorgeLouis (talk) 07:33, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

They have to have enabled email (within their preferences), and you have to have a confirmed email address. If both of these are true, then when you click "E-mail this user" (a link on the left, when you're at a user page), you'll see a form that you can fill in and dispatch an email. See Wikipedia:Emailing users for details. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 16:13, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

MAIN PAGE OF WIKIPEDIA-IMPORTANT

Resolved

Um...the link to The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion on the main page (feature article) has an extremely innapproprite image!!! Please delete it so young children (and others) cannot be scared!!!

Looks like it's fixed. :-) - Philippe | Talk 02:36, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
Thanks to the great defender *bragging gestures.* --EoL talk 02:49, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Categories

I've had a query run to get a list equivalent to Special:Wantedcategories but not limited to the first 1000; I'm working on getting it nicely formatted and sorted and then I will put it on a page in my userspace if anyone would like to help out to work with these. —Random832 15:13, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

User:Random832/WantedCats. Have at it if you want to do some really boring work. If a category in the list is deleted (has a deletion log) and should be restored (generally C1 deletions) and you are not an admin, list it at User:Random832/WantedCats/Undel. —Random832 15:37, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Anon from US

Hi, I'm Darkbirds fom hungary. Check this IP, please: 208.20.123.28. He is wrote to huwiki:

Will kill everyone in my school then myself. Because you guys don't speak English I can tell you. So haha to you fucktarts..watch the news and see what happens. 208.20.123.28 (vita) 2008. március 5., 16:19 (CET) ([1],[2])

I see on enwiki this page: [3], the anon from Charles H. McCann Technical High School. Mybe just a joke, but many "school-massacres" in the news. Sorry for my very bad english. Darkbirds (talk) 15:44, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Dealt with at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Anon_from_US_-_warning —αlεx•mullεr 16:29, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

User sandbox notice?

Where is the template I can place on a user page to encourage a user to use the sandbox for testing? Hangfromthefloor 20:22, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Template:uw-test1 The number can be increased (up to 4) if the editor repeatedly tests in article space. Also, remember to substitute the template! A full list of warnings (for test edits, vandalism, page blanking, spamming) is available at Wikipedia:Template messages/User talk namespace. Happy editing! Puchiko (Talk-email) 21:53, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Political questions

Hello, I have created this essay on political questions, such as notability. I hope we can work harder at defining certain rules and guidelines more precisely, in ways that will provide useful guidance for edits and deletion debates while avoiding the type of harmful instruction creep that hampers flexibility in undesirable ways. For instance, WP:WEB, WP:CORP, etc. were useful expansions of WP:N and can probably be enhanced still further. Obuibo Mbstpo (talk) 05:06, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Copying contents in deleted article

Can I see or copy contents of deleted article? If I can, I want to copy contents of List of historical figures in Civilization IV(I know this is deleted at Dec 2007) in my computer.--Mintz0223 (talk) 01:03, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Interesting question: If a libelous article is deleted, does it still exist and is it still libelous? (Well, of course it is still libelous, if it existed — but does it still exist?) Sincerely, GeorgeLouis (talk) 08:19, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia cited in medical literature

I found this sort of amusing, not quite sure if I should be happy or sad. Wikipedia was cited in a peer-reviewed, published article on mucopolysaccharidosis enzyme-replacement therapy. The citation is

El Dib RP, Pastores GM. Laronidase for treating mucopolysaccharidosis type I. Genet Mol Res . 2007 Sep 30; 6 ( 3 ): 667-74 . Review. PMID 18050087

Sedmic 19:48, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Don't know why this would make you sad. Peer reviewed articles are no slouch when it comes to making sure that the references are appropriate. (Actually, I just checked the article and I'm not sure why the cited Wikipedia in that way--they already had a primary source) superlusertc 2008 March 04, 01:00 (UTC)
The "facts" taken from the Wikipedia page are unreferenced. That makes it pretty hard to verify for accuracy. Further, this article was probably not well reviewed. The correct way to cite the fact would have been other medical literature, NOT unsourced potentially unreliable Wikipedia entries. I'm pretty disappointed in the journal that allowed this to slip through. Sedmic 22:44, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

average page

how long should the average length of an article be? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Parisftoast (talk • contribs) 06:49, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

As long as it needs to be, but no longer. Seriously, you might suggest an average *minimum* page length based on the fact that notable subjects should be able to get a couple paragraphs, but we cannot reasonably suggest an average length for articles, since some need to be very long. superlusertc 2008 March 06, 20:00 (UTC)
Some rules of thumb can be found at WP:SIZE. Puchiko (Talk-email) 21:48, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
Oh, yeah. When you're talking about readable prose, that is a good guideline (and one that I really wasn't aware of). superlusertc 2008 March 06, 22:51 (UTC)

I think that we need a a good featured article in the genre of food. All I have seen as featured articles are historical people, historical events, and video games. Or and movies. What about the Food? I like looking at the delicious food that would make my mouth melt and burn. I hate sweets and yet I love looking at cake. SO beautiful and yet so deadly. To much sugar. I think we need a well written food category article.71.142.210.56 (talk) 07:45, 6 March 2008 (UTC)Cardinal Raven

We have several featured food articles, such as Black pepper, Butter, Cheese, Medieval cuisine, and Paleolithic-style diet.
I think that if you want Food to become featured, you should work hard on it until it meets the Wikipedia:Featured article criteria. Puchiko (Talk-email) 20:43, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Another reason to implement {{CURRENTUSER}} magic word: Facebook-style status updates!

I would like to implement Facebook-style status updates which will display to other users, e.g., "Obuibo Mbstpo is trying his hand at origami" but when you are the user logged in, visiting your own page, it will provide a link saying, "What are you doing right now?" which, when clicked, will allow you to edit the pertinent subpage which transcludes to your main userpage. But alas, CURRENTUSER is not yet implemented. Why, oh why, has this not been done? Just because of caching concerns? Are we going to let Facebook and Uncyclopedia get ahead of us in status update efficiency? This is not just a technical issue; this goes straight to the heart of maintaining our reputation as bleeding-edge innovators. Obuibo Mbstpo (talk) 20:01, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Special:Mypage/subpage and we aren't competing with Facebook. Mr.Z-man 23:38, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
We have a reputation as bleeding-edge innovators? Wow; I never knew. GracenotesT § 02:06, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
But if you'd like to donate some more database servers so we don't have to rely on caching as much, we might be able to use it. Mr.Z-man 02:30, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Out of the "Wikicloset"?

Hello. 'Rhinoracer' here. I am seriously contemplating giving my real-life name on my userpage, after nearly two years of anonymity.

I can conceive of many arguments for and against such a move, but I would be most interested in your advice before I take this step-- I particularly would appreciate the input of fellow Wikipedians who have "come clean"; what, if any, were the consequences?

Thank you, mes chers collègues! Rhinoracer (talk) 19:11, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, I've always used my real name as my signature, and recently changed my username to my actual name (and i really give my name freely all over the internet), and though I'm not the most prolific editor, nor the most controversial, I've had no problems with it at all. The only thing that would prevent me from suggesting that you do is if you are in any way a public person (a business owner, politician, etc, etc) --Evan ¤ Seeds 20:35, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
I believe in privacy, and more important, not using credentials of any kind on Wikipedia. (see Essjay for examples of how that was abused). While personal experience in a subject can be helpful, it's too easy to use it in a poor manner, and I'd rather folks not do that. Thus I'd recommend against it. But then, I even regret using the same username in more than one place. Of course, I also hate forgetting to log in. Oh well. FrozenPurpleCube (talk) 20:44, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
I have been using my name here for 2 or 3 years, and on Usenet for almost 20 10 years. I've never had any problems in my "real life'; well someone did write a WP article about me, but it was speedy deleted. :-) Steve Dufour (talk) 09:06, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
Yup, use of a real name is okay, provided that you are careful not to provide so many associated details on Wikipedia or elsewhere, that you make identity theft, stalking, or harassment easy. -- Derek Ross | Talk 22:15, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
I encourage the use of real names, which I believe improves the credibility of Wikipedia, and have always done so myself, both here at Wikipedia and elsewhere on the Net. (My user name is my initials, and full name is on my User page.) In addition to the credibility factor, it has helped a number of old friends, former co-workers, and classmates re-connect with me. Cheers, MCB (talk) 08:12, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Remember, once you put it out there, it is essentially impossible to take back. If you have a 9 to 5 job and want to advance, I would discourage it. If you are in a more liberal profession, it is less of a concern. Your userpage says you are a teacher, so you would have to avoid any type of controversial editing that could be used against you by a vengeful parent or student or co-worker. Some users use an alternate account, one with their real name, and one that remains anonymous. Regards. --Old Hoss (talk) 15:48, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
Note the cases of Gator1 and Katefan0 (The Signpost story), both admins who were forced to leave after users they had angered began harassing or threatening to harasss their real life employers and family. I'm sure there are others. I don't see the benefit of using a real name to increase credibility if you can't also identity your real self, if you see what I mean. I recommend against self-identification of any form, if your current or future professional or personal status may make it inconvenient, and in particular if you become an admin at some point, which basically guarantees that you will royally tick off some people who take it personally. - BanyanTree 16:27, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Real name alone isn't always enough to allow for identification. I reveal my real name on my user page knowing full well that I share it with a dozen other in Boston and almost a hundred across Massachusetts. So if your name is John Smith, go wild. Burzmali (talk) 13:28, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
It's really up to the individual. I personally have very few people who know my real identity, and I like to keep it that way. If you have any concerns of off-wiki problems, or junk/harassment occurring, then don't reveal it. Jmlk17 10:00, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Bizarre Wikipedia mirror

In the course of looking for sources for an article that was up on AfD, I came across what is surely the strangest Wikipedia mirror that I've ever seen: http://www.aarongershfieldnewyork.com/. It appears to be a mostly-complete copy of the English Wikipedia, but has apparently been machine-processed to garble the letters of most words with more than 5 or 6 characters (the first character is left intact). The front page is nominally a personal page about New York trivia, but the actual content of the site is the dyslexic Wikipedia mirror. Does anyone know anything about this site or mirror or what or who is behind it? --MCB (talk) 07:11, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

It's baffling indeed, and funny in a way! ReluctantPhilosopher (talk) 14:03, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
I don't get it. There are no ads on the pages - I thought they might be trying to steal search engine traffic (misspelled queries) but no point in that. Maybe they're attempting to evade searches for the content for some reason. Or maybe it's an experiment out to prove a point about reading jumbled letters. Hell if I know. Dcoetzee 00:15, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
It's truly odd. The garbling seems to be deterministic, on [4] it always jumbles up words like "Brisbane" the same way. Very strange. Lankiveil (speak to me) 02:27, 2 March 2008 (UTC).
My theory is that it's part of a study in how people recognise patterns when reading. I've seen before that if you scramble all the letters of each word, but leave the first a last in place, about 55% of people can still read it comfortably.(heh, [citation needed])--jwandersTalk 06:09, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
Very poetic moment, clicking on an arbitrary link produced a page with the following template: "This list may require cnealup to meet Widikepia's quality standards." Yes, yes it does... -- RoninBK T C 22:59, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Ethical issue

On Talk:Freedom of Information Act (United States) someone implied to me that if I saw a bad article on WP it would be wrong not to nominate it for deletion. What do you think about that? (I'm only being semi-serious here. :-) ) Steve Dufour (talk) 05:44, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, it's a sliding scale thing. If the badness consists a single mispelling in an article which finally explains the meaning of life so clearly that anyone can understand, it's only a really, really, really, tiny bit wrong not to nominate. On the other hand, in an article without a single comprehensible sentence in it, on a topic of such slight significance that it makes Pokemon character articles look heavyweight, it's head-shakingly wrong not to nominate.
Since it's always ethically wrong to nominate an article for deletion (on the basis that you are wasting the effort that someone put into creating the article if nothing else), you have to balance the wrong of nominating against the wrong of not nominating in order to choose the lesser of the two evils. That's why you'll probably just fix the spelling of the first article but nominate the second. -- Derek Ross | Talk 06:42, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
Or, you can tag it to be fixed/make a project out of it, if the article topic is worthy. You delete non encyclopedia-worthy topics, and fix bad articles. -Violask81976 20:25, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. I kind of get that point. By a "bad article" I really should have said one about a non-notable subject, not just badly written. Steve Dufour (talk) 05:29, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
it would be wrong not to nominate it for deletion - I think it's best if we don't let other people tell us what our priorities should be. What is wrong, in my opinion, is for an editor to work on something he/she doesn't enjoy because somehow he/she feels that is "necessary". That only leads to less and less things done at Wikipedia (who finds extra time to do things that aren't enjoyable?).
My list of "must do" stuff (thing's I've decided are priorities) is much more limited: Attack articles hurt people; they should be dealt with promptly. Privacy violations hurt people; ditto. BLP violations, ditto. Vandalism hurts readers; revert that. And I think that's pretty much it (I don't have a formal list, so I'm probably missing something). Whatever else I do (and obviously there is a huge amount of choice) will be things that I enjoy (at some level) doing; whatever's left is just going to have to be done by other folks.
In short, I suggest that you don't fight the good fight to delete "non-notable" articles if you think that your time is better spent elsewhere, taking into account how you feel about what you're doing and accomplishing. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 01:43, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Template:Autonomous provinces of Serbia

Can somebody update this template? TXS--Kimdime69 (talk) 14:37, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

It's not protected against editing; why don't you do it yourself? Or if you're not sure how, post a note on the talk/discussion page. Or at least spell out (here) what changes you'd like to see; not all editors are current on everything going on in the world. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 01:31, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Current no. of Wikipedia articles

I would like to know the statistics (English Wikipedia articles that exist as of now, number of articles that are move protected, semi-protected and protected for various reasons, etc.). Thank you and good evening from where I'm at. -iaNLOPEZ1115 · TaLKBaCK · Vandalize it 13:51, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Take a look at Special:Statistics -- RoninBK T C 23:24, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Locomotive pulling capacity

Hi. I don't know if this is the place for general questions, but i can't find answers elsewhere. Everything here looks to me like some complex blueprints, and i'm not an architect ! What i whan to know is how to pursue my goul, which is to know who's the locomotive with the greatest pulling capability. In order to know that i must know in the first place, what parameter to look for ! Now, in the article for 'tractive effort' in wiki it's said very clearly : "It is normally understood to be the actual force on the locomotive's drawbar or rear coupler.", but in the 'External links' of the same article - 'A simple guide to train physics' it's said again very clearly : "Tractive Effort (TE) is the name for the force applied to the rail by the wheel of the train to cause movement.". Also in other seemingly respected sites it is said undoubtly : The torque on the driving axle creates a force between the tyres and the road which is used to propel the vehicle. This gross force is termed the tractive effort and the net force, that is, gross force minus rolling resistance is the drawbar pull.. Some sources mix both - Tractive Effort(or whatever the term they'll use) and Drawbar Pull, it's like they're the same. Maybe the case, but i gotta be sure ! Perhaps the companies making the locomotives, do their job, then measure the pulling power at the drawbar, and simply call it 'Tractive Effort' to spare themselves the headaches of yet another parameter put in some article or a book for people like me, a !? Or they measure it at the wheels, and of course if they whant specific information about the real pulling capability, for their oun use, they know how things stand, right ! Can someone please clear out this madness for me !? Tractive Effort, Drawbar Pull, or something else. Unless, as i said, they measure the pulling capability of a locomotive at the same, correct spot - at the drawbar / rear coupler, and let everybody use whatever designation they like, giving the fact that the difrances between the wheels and drawbar measuring are small. Nonetheless they do exist and i whant to know what to look for. As if it's not difficult enough with the different combinations of the pulling capability - Max. Tr. Eff., Cont. Tr. Eff. and so on, resulting in different characteristics of that how well a loco do its job in terms of pulling the heavy train, and pulling it good and hard. At least to know the correct parameter showing the highest pulling power that a loco can exert. Please send me an answer about that or point me the correct place where i can learn abou it, at my E-mail : maus192tons@yahoo.com , because i'm not gonna be able to even find again this place ! Thank you.

In the net they don't say a thing about the Drawbar Pull of the locomotives at the specifications' tables, but if the Tractive Effort is the thing i need, this is the far i got (for the conventional locos) : the Canadian Pacific SD90MAC-H II with its Maximum Tractive Effort of 912 kN (205,000 lbs). I can't be sure, but if some of you have better info, please fill me in ! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.91.242.146 (talk) 15:55, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Questions unrelated to editing Wikipedia can (and should) be asked at the reference desk. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 01:28, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

How many images are there in Wikipedia?

Does anyone know? Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.182.77.130 (talk) 17:00, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Per Special:Statistics, Wikipedia has over 750,000 media files - the vast majority of which are images. But a lot of articles now get images via a link to Wikimedia Commons, which has over 2.5 million files (again, the vast majority of which are images). -- John Broughton (♫♫) 01:26, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

vulva article-pedophilic pic?

[edit] age of female in vulva picture Hi This vulva does not look much like the vulvas I have seen 'face to vulva' or like the vulvas I have seen in pics. I suspect that at the time that pic was taken the female was legally a child. Dannygjk (talk) 07:50, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Which picture? There's two, and both look fine to me. --Golbez (talk) 18:28, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

the pic in which the vulva looks NOT mature —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dannygjk (talk • contribs) 18:38, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Apparently I have to bring that pic to the attention of everyone I can think of. Don't worry, whoever submitted it, it won't survive much review. If I have to, I'll show it to one of my cousins who is a nurse. From there it might go to OB-GYN's. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dannygjk (talk • contribs) 18:42, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

OK then. Um. So which picture? --Golbez (talk) 18:52, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

I just checked, it's still there. btw, there are more than two(2) pics/illustrations/paintings. Are you baiting me? I WILL bring this issue to the attention of more people. Dannygjk (talk) 19:03, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Wow...way to over react. You do realize that when it's shaved it looks like that, right? Just throwing that out there. -Violask81976 20:45, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Hi Viola. It has nothing to do with whether there is hair. Even my high school gf looked much more mature than that pic and she was only in her mid-teens. I have never seen a vulva that looked anything like that 'face to vulva' or in any pics I have seen, shaved or not. Dannygjk (talk) 02:20, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

You also understand that different women are going to look different in that area? There's no "one way" that a vulva, or any other body part for that matter, looks at a given age. Lankiveil (speak to me) 06:27, 2 March 2008 (UTC).
Educational resource - the closest you'll get to a non-porn genital imagery site on this I think, to check your views against wider imagery: 1001vaginas.com . Image seems well within plausible norms for adulthood. You may want to ask on the reference desk if you have other related queries, too. FT2 (Talk | email) 04:29, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Also, even pictures of nude children can be OK as long as the picture is not sexual in nature. If you can have a picture that includes a vulva, I don't see why the close-up would necessarily be forbidden. See also Depictions_of_nudity#Children. There was a notable court case on the matter. I forget the name of it, but it opened the door for posting nude photos of children on the internet. Another example might be http://vls.law.vill.edu/LOCATOR/3d/Oct2000/005124.txt . Obuibo Mbstpo (talk) 19:23, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Filler Text

The Getbackers article of Shido Fuyuki says Filler Text when clicking on it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shido_Fuyuki Its strange. Cause I remember the last time I looked up Shido his article was there, but it isn't there anymore.71.142.240.203 (talk) 05:24, 8 March 2008 (UTC)Cardinal Raven

Yeah, looks like somebody added a #REDIRECT directive at the top of the page. I've reverted that change, and the page is restored. Nkocharh (talk) 08:21, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Editors should know this to avoid confusion, and I suspect a lot of miscommunication has been caused by it. Three months ago (Dec. 11), the WP:BLP1E link was changed from a section of WP:BLP to WP:BIO. Editors who refer to the policy should know this. Details are at Wikipedia talk:Notability (people)#Shortcut WP:BLP1E should not link here as well as a proposal about what to do to lessen the confusion. Noroton (talk) 00:20, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

This image - Image:M a haque.jpg - discussed on the Talk:Muhammad Abdul Haque is an image that clearly stand in violation of Wikipedia copyright policies. Apparently User:NAHID, who tries so desperately to get any and every non-free image I upload (example: here) has decided to ignore the violation. Since I don't have as much proficiency in tagging, I am bringing it here. Also noticeable are the following images that appear on the Sylhet article, each carrying improper copyright tags and clear copyright infringement:

Take a look, someone. I don't know where to go from here. Aditya(talk • contribs) 17:14, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

So, what's the reigning policy? For now it looks like - "you can have as many non-free images beyond the narrow usage definition as long you tag it as public domain or something and as long no one cares." Good policy, that. Aditya(talk • contribs) 09:06, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
If you see a violation of policy, fix it. If an editor reverts the change, point out the error. If the problem continues, see Wikipedia:Dispute resolution. If you can't get other editors to support you, you're probably wrong. And remember that you can always get personalized advice at WP:EA. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 01:47, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
Fix it? How? So far the only direction I have is extremely general - ask the uploader to do something about it. If that doesn't work, haul the case to Editor Assistance. For an unfinished non-free use rational we have a hundred processes. Surely there are more specific processes for a wrong (or even falsified) copyright tag. And, I am really sorry if I was wrong to assume that non-free images carrying wrong copyright tags are unacceptable. If other editors (including a troll who can hide his tracks nicely) think they are acceptable, I guess, I should shut up and forget. Aditya(talk • contribs) 07:19, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Definite Article?

I have recently taken notice of a singular phenomenon occuring here on Wikipedia. For it appears that a number of articles have utterly neglected to insert a definite article in its appropriate place. Is this some sort of new 'Wikipedia dialect'? Or is this merely an error caused by dint of a meagre translator? One example, ' Rurik remained in power until his death in 879. His successors (the Rurik Dynasty), however, moved the capital to Kiev and founded the state of Kievan Rus, which persisted until 1240, the time of [the?] Mongol invasion.' I believe that I have seen this error some seven or eight times over the course of the past week and wish to discover the reason behind it. Thank you for any response. -- 4.159.77.219 (talk) 02:41, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

This is probably just a simple mistake. It's a common tendency to read over mistakes after having read the article a number of times. Nothing to worry about, this happens everywhere, from government reports to newspapers to online encyclopedias. If you come across such an error, feel free to fix it. AecisBrievenbus 02:53, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
Polish, Russian and other Slavic languages have different grammatical rules for the definite article when compared to English. Hence English articles edited by speakers of these languages may be missing the definite article where English speakers would always use it. That's the normal reason why it's missing. No big deal. It's always easily fixed. -- Derek Ross | Talk 14:15, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Zedla

Resolved
 – Discussion closed by Bureaucrat Warofdreams as successful. AGK (contact) 22:27, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Just a notice that this RfA is currently running in the Bureaucrats' discretionary zone and closes in a few hours. It would be good if more of the community would participate, to help make consensus clear, as currently fewer than 50 editors have participated. --Dweller (talk) 11:50, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

An early mystery

Just for fun, i thought i would try and find an earlier edit than UuU. I have come accross a new mystery though. Who or what was User:dhcp-22-95.lclark.edu? At first glance, it appears as if it is made up and not registered. I however did not just pluck this from thin air. Why it is not registered is a mystery. It does however exist as a user, according to here. Simply south (talk) 13:51, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Quite a few of the 2001 edits are messed up. This happened during the changeover from the original WP wiki software to the mark II and mark III versions. For another example take a look at the Doctor Who article. The history shows me as the earliest author (which I'm not) but if you go back through diffs you'll see that my Nov 2001 edit links back to an earlier edit from Sept 2002! -- Derek Ross | Talk 14:24, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
I've also noticed this (a while back and this was explained then) with the history of the Main Page. Simply south (talk) 14:51, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Incorrect vandalism repair

Not infrequently I come across cases where chunks of articles have been lost due to incorrect vandalism repair. Typically what happens is that someone replaces a whole paragraph or section with some juvenile nonsense, and the next person deletes that nonsense but fails to restore the earlier text. I fairly regularly come across instances that occurred months ago and have never been spotted. I usually only notice because it's an article I once worked on, and I remember what was in it. It seems there is a good chance that in some articles, especially the less frequently visited ones, such errors will never be spotted and will persist indefinitely. I wonder if there is any way to reduce the chance of this happening? 04:07, 7 March 2008 (UTC)~

Whenever I see a case where someone's messed up reverting vandalism I leave a note on their talk page; hopefully if enough people can be educated, this will cease to be a problem. —Random832 15:18, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
User:Shalom/Drafts and archives/The vandals are winning! Shalom (Hello • Peace) 04:55, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

The Bugzilla home page should be updated

I wasn't really sure where to put this, but here goes. Just a small thing: the Bugzilla home page contains Image:Bug.png, which has been superceded by Image:Computer bug.svg - could the page be updated to use the new image? It Is Me Here (talk) 19:03, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Post a bug at bugzilla itself. MER-C 07:06, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

OK, somewhere on someone's userpage, I saw a Wikipedia's logo, only it was bouncing up and down. I tried searching for it, but couldn't find it. Does anyone know where it is? DiligentTerrier and friends 23:27, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

I have seen that also, and I find it very ugly and a terrible nuisance; I just wish I could turn it off when I come across it. Sincerely, GeorgeLouis (talk) 00:43, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
Image:Bouncywikilogo.gif. -- ReyBrujo (talk) 01:54, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
Thanks! DiligentTerrier and friends 12:19, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

So much duplication in the wikipedia.

Man, so many articles have duplicate info. Like where a regular encolopedia would just say "[See article blah]", wikipedia will actually have one or two paragraphs specifically on blah. Look at Nuclear reactor/Nuclear Power/Nuclear fission articles for instsance holly shit am I stoned!!!!!!!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.231.179.83 (talk • contribs)

Thank you for your suggestion. When you feel an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the Edit this page link at the top. The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes — they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons why you might want to). -- ReyBrujo (talk) 01:50, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
Some of this is due to making each article be complete, so an article on nuclear reactor is likely to summarize what is needed for a sustained nuclear fission reaction before explaining which parts of a reactor are needed in order to provide each of those requirements. The flow of the article might make such duplication less obvious in a perfect article, but an article which has been edited piecemeal is more likely to acquire rough points which need polishing. Read over the whole article and see what needs to be copyedited. -- SEWilco (talk) 02:59, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
See also Wikipedia:Editing Under the Influence. Obuibo Mbstpo (talk) 11:58, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Zero-sum BLP

I've written this (rather short) essay about BLP; basically we need to be fair to all living persons, not just the ones we have articles about or the ones who put in complaints to OTRS. —Random832 14:45, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Spelling error in Hans Scholl Article on Wikipedia

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

"He showed no fear of dieing for a great cause." That should be 'dying.' It's the last sentence in the paragraph before the one sentence long paragraph (or more simply put, the second sentence from the bottom).

Can someone correct this, please?

Anyone can edit... why not fix it yourself? Blueboar (talk) 15:04, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Seen any flowers lately?

As springtime comes to the Northern Hemisphere, a lot of Wikipedians will notice flowers blooming in the gardens, lawns, and wild places in their regions. If you're wondering what these plants are (and whether there's a good article about them yet), you might be able to find them on the Wikiversity Bloom Clock using either local or global keys.

Whether or not you know plants, Wikiversity does need your help in telling us what flowers are blooming where, and when. To begin logging plants in bloom, all you need to do is tell us where in the world you are, and then it's as simple as typing *~~~~ on a log page. The more regions we get data from the better, and the more people logging from any particular region the better as well.

The Bloom Clock is Wikiversity's first, oldest, and most well-developed research effort, and has collected data for hundreds of flowering plants, including some of the most common garden plants and weeds. Participating an excellent way to become more aware of your environment, as well as being a way to show the world that the Wikimedia community can be a valuable component in the academic world (the data we collect here can be of great use to agriculturists, horticulturists, ecologists, among others). If you're the first from your region, 10 plants during one month gets the prize: one of the veteran users will start a key for your region, so that your neighbors will be able to find an easy answer to "what's that plant?" too. --SB_Johnny | talk 16:13, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Georgia articles

By studying the discussion at Talk:Georgia, I see that there appears to be a lot of evidence that Georgia (country) will be moved to Georgia, which means that people are trying so hard now compared to in 2004. Any Wikipedian able to put at their user name space User:(user name)/Wikipedia in 2004 and 2008 that talks about how Wikipedia has changed that makes Wikipedians try so hard in 2008 to want Georgia (country) at Georgia?? Georgia guy (talk) 17:27, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Films coordinator elections

The WikiProject Films coordinator selection process is starting. We are aiming to elect five coordinators to serve for the next six months; if you are interested in running, please sign up here by March 28! Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 10:19, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Poet laureates

Forgive me if I have come to the wrong place for an answer for my question. I was unable to find another avenue for my inquiry. I was on the page for poet laureates and wanted to know if a singer/songwriter is eligible for the appointment of poet laureate in the United States Congress? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Theresaduplessis (talk • contribs) 19:47, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Today's featured article

Today's featured article on Stormbot is very educational - and a bit terrifying. It got me to wondering, that since wikipedia placed a negative article about it in a highly exposed location, would they be tempted to overload wikipedia's servers, as they have targeted others in the past? Would it be possible?

Just wondering. If this isn't posted in the right place, please move it. :-) ScaldingHotSoup (talk) 13:17, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Or they might be please to get all the attention. :-) Borock (talk) 14:36, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

General discussion happening weekly on Talk:List of Virtual Console games (North America)

Several editors continue to add a section each week announcing which games are coming out on Monday. The sources they use aren't reliable sources for the article. They know this, but contiune the sections anyway. I've told them to take it to their talk pages several times, but they refuse. I personally feel an admin needs to stop this. Due to their announcing of games coming out, several IP editors usually add the games to the article (which then gets reverted). If the announcing wouldn't happen, then this problem wouldn't be happening. In my view, this clearly violates the talk header... as it's just general discussion of the subject, and not a way to improve it. RobJ1981 (talk) 19:37, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, if Nintendo owns the console, can't Nintendo be the one who improves the subject?? We Wikipedians cannot control or improve Nintendo. Georgia guy (talk) 20:41, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
Yes, but Nintendo cannot control what Wikipedia says about them. See WP:COI -- RoninBK T C 06:31, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Reference desk and WP:NOT

I've been pretty active on Wikipedia for a couple years. I've never taken advantage of the Wikipedia:Reference desk before, mostly because I figure if I'm going to ask fellow volunteers to spend their time working on my questions, there'd better be a darn good reason for it.

Yesterday I posted my first question at the Humanities reference desk, hoping for a little assistance in getting an article over the final hump to FA. My question has gone ignored, which is not in itself a problem.

But what irks me is that the discussions generating the most interest are open-ended chats, like "Who is the greatest king of England" and "What is political correctness."

I feel that maintaining a forum like this, without any pushback on open-ended discussion unrelated to actual research, gives newcomers exploring it a very inaccurate and poor first impression of Wikipedia. I'm not sure what to do about it, or where to discuss it. But it bugs me. -Pete (talk) 20:27, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

You might want to bring this up at Wikipedia talk:Reference desk. Algebraist 18:35, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

I had a problem with the Reference Desk too. It seems too often a forum for trolling. And when I have a legitimate question, like the one about whether I could catch anything from having my girlfriend perform oral sex on me when she had a bad strep throat, I got censored. Average White Dork (talk) 05:07, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

That would fall under medical advice which we do not give on the Ref desk. БοņёŠɓɤĭĠ₳₯є 05:26, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

"Reference bot"

There was a discussion in Aug-Sep of last year (here) about making a bot that would change, e.g. 

<ref>http://www.easy-ubuntu-linux.com/ubuntu-african-word.html</ref>

into 

<ref>{{cite web
|url=http://www.easy-ubuntu-linux.com/ubuntu-african-word.html
|title=Ubuntu's African Roots
|accessdate=2007-06-06}}</ref>

It looks like someone wrote a script to find pages to fix, but no bot was ever written.

Does anyone know of something like this? e.g. a bot actually exists, or people are working on one?

Thanks! WalterGR (talk | contributions) 19:39, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

User:DumZiBoT basically does this.P4k (talk) 07:30, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

<Something> is about the size of a quarter

I have come across a number of instances of such descriptions in a wide variety of articles. The one that comes to mind right now is in an article about nuclear reactors where the fuel rods are described as being about as thick as the diameter of a dime. I hate descriptions like that. I am not American, I have never seen a quarter or a dime, I don't even know what a dime is! As units of measurement such items are useless and they should be banned from Wikipedia. (Somebody please tell me the size of a quarter - preferably in mm.) Roger (talk) 07:35, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

24.26 mm in diameter. From the Wikipedia article, quarter. If you want to nitpick, you should just reference dime in the article. --AllyUnion (talk) 08:22, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
I don't think this is the right advice. Use of similes is encouraged when teaching 'Creative writing' to primary school children, but it is poor style for an encyclopedic article. When I refer to a distance as being 30 miles from Birmingham, I don't then wikilink miles to miles but provide a conversion to SI units: 30 miles (48 km), by using the {{convert|30|mi|km}} .
There is also an issue with the size quoted, as it is not invariant. In quarter, it states "Early quarters(before 1828) were slightly larger in diameter and thinner than the current coin.", which again makes it a very bad unit of length for a high precision industry.
The advice to authors is to a avoid cultural specific constructs, and use precise measurements where possible. Anyone can edit an article and they should be encouraged (IMHO) to remove these similes when they find them.
ClemRutter (talk) 09:58, 18 March 2008 (UTC)


Thanks for that, but what about my main point that arbitrary objects should not be used as units of measurement in Wikipedia? The phrase "about the size of a quarter" could be replaceded with "about an inch" or "approximately 25mm" either of which would leave nobody puzzled. I realise that it is quite hard to do, but American editors should please try to keep in mind that there are billions of people in the world who don't know things that are common knowlege to them. I think it is quite unreasonable to force someone who is reading an article about e.g. nuclear reactors to jump over to an article about US coinage just so that he can understand the size of a fuel rod. Roger (talk) 09:39, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
It is an inappropriate unit of measurement, but there's really no way to prevent people from using it. The best solution is to fix it if you come across it. Mr.Z-man 15:43, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
See Template:NoCoins for its use in images - this also gives a list of common coin sizes. —Random832 17:33, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

category for commons administrators

I have created Category:Wikipedian Wikimedia Commons administrators to list users here who are admins on commons. I think this is useful to have for cases where someone needs to contact a commons admin directly. —Random832 17:32, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Hello Wikipedia

My name is Carlos Suárez Llosa, I have 52 years of age, I am a Peruvian deaf and dumb person, in South America, only I speak Spanish, I am employed at the Official Diary The Peruvian and now I am 36 years old working and I am strengthening of learning this pretty language and have approached the Wkipedia as the first user and now as editor, to help in what could. An embrace to all users and librarians. --sir [[User:Csuarezllosa|Carlos Suárez Llosa]] (talk) 03:11, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Hi there Carlos! If you need any help, just go to my talk page (found at User talk:ReyBrujo) and add a new message just like you did here. I am from Argentina, and will be able to assist you in either Spanish or English. Good luck, and enjoy your time here! -- ReyBrujo (talk) 04:10, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
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