Jump to content

Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)/Archive J

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This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (miscellaneous).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

Hello,

I have some trouble understanding copyright laws. For example, is this work of the US Geological Survey [1] under copyright (and what exactly is or isn't under copyright : text, images) ?) ?

Thanks in advance.

If you could answer there : fr:Poppy.

Poppypetty 07:14, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

  • Almost everything published by the U.S. government is public domain. I can't think of anything in the US Geological Survey that would be among the few exceptions. I left a note at fr:Poppy as well. -- Jmabel | Talk 04:20, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
Thanks a lot. Poppypetty 04:45, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Triva question

Not counting categories and orphaned articles, could it be possible to go a random article in Wikipedia and navigate throughout the entire English encyclopedia using only internal links? What if you also used categories? What about other languages? And between languages?

Eje211 21:03, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Not possible because of the "orphaned pages" (see Special:Lonelypages for a (outdated) list). These pages have no inbound link. The "deadend pages" (Special:Deadendpages) could also be a problem. --cesarb 21:24, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Crummy

While researching material for an article, I stumbled upon this page, which appears to have linked directly into wikipedia, to repost it with banner adds in a commercial format.

http://www.dangeruss-industries.com/results/Pipe_organ.html http://www.dangeruss-industries.com/results/Talk:Pipe_organ/refactor.html

--Daniel Lotspeich 05:11, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia at stalemate?

I have been following the english wikipedia for about 2 years now, and during the last 6 months it has been circulating between 700.000 and 760.000 articles?! Come on, what its this?? I was preparing to put a wager on Wikipedia surpassing the million mark in 2006, but seeing the slow progress here, it looks like Mission Impossible! There could be tons of topics that could be writen about such as: Minor cities of USA, Mayors of USA, all the political parties of the World, at least a 100 byte descirption of all 10.000+ hab cities in the World and so on, and so on. --Juve82 10:38, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

There are even easier places to start. For instance, the Smithsonian claims there are about 900,000 living species of insects; anyone want to create InsectRamBot? Kirill Lokshin 17:15, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
Oh come on! English Wikipedia is still growing at an accelerating rate - it is over 50% larger than it was last March. According to Wikipedia:Size of Wikipedia we only hit 500,000 last March 18th. -- Arwel 16:47, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
Many editors spent time rooting out nonsense and editing existing articles. IMO raw number of articles is less important than increasing their quality. However, if someone has resources and time (and mine is diminishing), there is at least one way to increase the amount of relevant articles: Wikipedia:WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles still has lots of work to do - Skysmith

New Game

I made a new game, Six Degrees of Wikipedia, and I was wondering how to add it to the sanbox projects box on the sandbox page. --137.118.224.163 03:00, 12 October 2005 (UTC)


This exact page exists at N degrees of separation. Jaberwocky6669 | ☎ 03:15, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Bah, and here I thought I was being clever. This didn't turn up in a search though, sorry. --137.118.224.163 03:18, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
But hey, you're more than welcome to participate over at N degrees. The thing that makes it stand out is that the rules can be changed and come to with collaboration! I mean this is Wikipedia lol: that's what it's all about. So come on over and try your hand at whatever you can think of doing. Jaberwocky6669 | ☎ 03:42, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Request for m:CheckUser

I realise there's still very little policy on the matter, but with the vandalbot whose autoblocks appear to be hitting AOL proxies, I think we really need some more people with checkuser. I've been bold and posted a request for checkuser on en: at m:Requests_for_permissions#CheckUser_on_en:. Please post comments there. --fvw* 22:53, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

We need either more checkusers or better blocking software or both. Absent an upgrade to MediaWiki (and I'm not aware of an announcement or anything), I'm inclined to think we need to look after ourselves, ourselves. Do I need to get a meta: account to go support/debate there? -Splashtalk 23:12, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
Yeah, or you can be anonymous and endorse the edit by the IP on meta with an edit by Splash on en:, but that's probably more of an effort. Accounts on meta cost only half as much as accounts on En: anyway, so there's really no reason not to get one. Thanks for the support. --fvw* 23:19, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
Since this is currently only in use by the Arbitration Committee, perhaps they should be the ones to decide if anyone else should have it. Please don't start trying to vote on m:Requests for permissions. It's not up to stewards to decide something which is not part of their existing policies, and that is not a voting page. Angela. 23:21, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
Perhaps, if discussion here indicates a reasonable level of support, you should go to a novel use of RfA to demonstrate that support cleanly and in a familiar forum. If support is not forthcoming to any useful level in general discussion, we need proceed no further. How do Stewards interpret the outcomes of permissions debates on local wikis? Are the consensual, majoritarian, something else? It need not necessarily establish a precedent for en: Checkusers, but it might be useful to establish one anyway. -Splashtalk 23:48, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
Different stewards probably interpret the outcomes of permissions debates in different ways depending on what they're used to on their local wiki, but in general, I expect they're looking for consensus, however they might choose to define that. The request certainly shouldn't be made on Meta before there is consensus here though. Angela. 05:32, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
I'm happy to support fvw's request, but this will not sorve the problem. We need this feature to be available 24/7. If every admin can't have it (and I understand why not) then we need a dozen or more active and trusted folk so we can be sure of constant coverage. And we need a method to contact authorised people. Just giving it to fvw will not solve this problem. --Doc (?) 23:59, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
I support this request. More people should have access to it. But I think every lookup should be logged somewhere so we keep a level of openess about it (show a log-line like "date, User:fvw looked up the IP of User:Vandal_on_Weels") and that log should be available for all admins, or maybe even all users, to see. I suppose it could also be further restricted by the lookup only to be available on perm-blocked usernames. Shanes 03:27, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

You'll all have to excuse me for rushing this, but getting this done quickly would be nice. There's a policy proposal at Wikipedia:Quick and dirty Checkuser policy proposal, please comment. --fvw* 14:29, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Edits to deleted pages

If I add {{delete}} to a page, and it gets deleted, will my edit still show up? Or will it look like I've edited fewer pages and done less vandalism-watching than I really have?--TheDoctor10 (talk|email) 17:25, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

PS:Sorry, that actually sounds rather accusing. I don't mean it like that: I'm just interested!--TheDoctor10 (talk|email) 17:25, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
What you describe is what happens, yes. Your edit to place the tag won't show up in your contribs list, either. I think some means of edit counting does include it though: my count the last time WP:1000 was updated was quite a bit higher than WP:KATE, and that would seem like the only reason. Although it could be swallowed up reverts, I suppose. -Splashtalk 17:40, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

How can I stop someone from posting on my talk page?

Recently a bunch of people have been vandalizing Woburn Collegiate Institute. I got the page protected, and now they've started posting on my talk page with stuff about Naruto. Is there any way I can make them stop? I don't think they have been warned for the vandalism so I'm not sure if they can be blocked, but if they could that would be lovely because I'm sick of not being able to edit the article. ♥purplefeltangel (talk) ♥ (contribs) 21:43, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

Complaints about disruptive users are liable to get attention at WP:AN/I. Other than a block, I don't think that there is any way to stop people from posting on your talk page. You could also remove the comments from disruptive users.--Sean Jelly Baby? 21:54, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
Um, unfortunately, I'm not an administrator. ♥purplefeltangel (talk) ♥ (contribs) 22:14, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
Oh, sorry. Anyone can post at WP:AN/I or WP:AN to complain about users or see if a block is in order. As far as I know, that's it. And I'm not an admin, either :).--Sean Jelly Baby? 22:19, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
A temporary protection of your user talk page is possible (and may be requested) - trouble with that, of course, is that no-one else will be able to contact you and you won't be able to edit your talk page either. A 24 hour protection might be enough to discourage them though. Grutness...wha? 00:46, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Need help watching an article

The article Skull and Bones is constantly subjected to vandalism, wacko conspiracy theories, and bad-faith edits. Apparently, I'm the only person watching the article as a recent bit of vandalism remained unreverted for 7 days. I'm tired of policing the article, and would love to take it off my watchlist, but I'm worried the article will go straight to hell. Can other diligent editors please place this page on your watchlists so that I can release it from my charge? Thank you! Kaldari 20:43, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

Sure. Today's been boring anyway.--Sean Jelly Baby? 20:46, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
Just wanted to chime in to say that I doubt I can watch it forever, but I'll do what I can. The current revision looks fine to me, though.--Sean Jelly Baby? 21:04, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
D'oh. I have that on my watch list, but unfortunately I have to ration my time during the week, and other pages that I'm watching get more attention. I'll raise it up my priority list. Noisy | Talk 17:54, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Gigantic Title

I'm not criticizing the encyclopedic quality of this stub, but the length of the title. Show me the guy who is going to type this into the search box.

On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties; and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection

Surely there's a better name for it, or a better place for this info. David Bergan 19:11, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

You don't need to type it into the search box, the search will match partial titles too. And there's always links from other articles, and redirects. --fvw* 19:59, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
Search is a nonissue: my beef with it is that it combines two papers into one and uses a semicolon. Is there any reason why the papers had to be combined? — Ambush Commander(Talk) 21:19, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
Plus it could have been given a more descriptive title like Darwin's papers rather than give the actual publication titles.—Wahoofive (talk) 23:35, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
Presumably the papers were combined because that's how they were originally presented; the links given seem to suggest that Darwin's and Wallace's contributions were read as a single work. Kirill Lokshin 00:15, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
Nonetheless, Ambush Commander's and Wahoofive's points still stand. This should be moved, maybe to the title Wahoofive suggested, or something along those lines. Regards, Redux 02:50, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
Well, it's not just "Darwin's paper"; it's equally Wallace's paper. A more proper name would be Darwin—Wallace paper or Darwin—Wallace evolution paper or Darwin—Wallace 1858 paper or some variation thereof, and I've seen these forms being used on google. I'm not so sure it is too long though, as there really isn't a simple short form of the actual title available.--Pharos 02:59, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
" the search will match partial titles too." Huh? Well, sort of. But uselessly. Try finding either Oneota or osteon by typing in the first five letters!Kdammers 06:34, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
Partially on words, not on letters. --fvw* 06:38, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Man Loses Lifelong Friend Over Wikipedia Discussion, $155

My brother suggested that I post the following discussion here. Basically, this all came about after an incident the evening before when Eric put on the Penn & Teller: Bullshit! Show. I teased him about getting all his news from infotainment shows like The Daily Show, The Al Franken Show, The Colbert Report and the aforementioned. He responded with ‘I read,’ referring to headline news online. I mentioned wikipedia as a source for articles, and he countered with some thing along the lines of ‘Oh, that isn’t worthless internet....’

Thoughts? ~ bryan h.

From: Bryan H. Sent: Tuesday, November 01, 2005 8:51 AM To: Eric W. Subject: Main Page...

This is wikipedia... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

I like reading a more comprhensive encylopedic article vs. a short news spin piece from cnn.com or denverpost.com any day. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Rove

Try searching for something, you would be suprised.

On 11/1/05, Eric W. wrote:

Dude you act like I don't know anything.. You crack me up.. Believe it or not, I am actually a pretty intelligent guy, and I don't believe everything I hear, just point out where I am wrong and then you can slander my sources all day, even in front of my girlfriend.... pricky boy..

From: Bryan H. Sent: Tuesday, November 01, 2005 9:27 AM To: Eric W. Subject: Re: Main Page...

That is the whole reason I sent you the wiki links.. You made fun of it because it is on the internet (like everything else you read while you wack it at work) but the major difference is that the articles are compiled with more than one persons point of view, you can check sources, discussions about contested information are recorded and when the article's contents are questionable their is normally a notice at the top of the page... It beats the fuck outta britannica or the ny times by itself anyday.... So, that is all I was doing, pointing out that I think you were wrong.

On 11/1/05, Eric W. wrote:

Speaking of work, why don't you get back to it 20 hour boy.

-eric

On 11/1/05, Eric W. wrote:

Just fuck you dude.. Your walking a really thin line... You wouldn't like me when I am really fucking pissed.

Don't forget the $850 I needed yesterday.

Here is a novel idea oh brilliant college boy, go get a fucking job.. Getting by on $200 a week doesn't make you brilliant, it makes you lazy. Maybe it works in Arlington, but no here bud.

My 'jerking' ass pulled in $3500 this month, how about you?

I hope you have a nice nap today... Maybe when you wake up you get go read wikipoo.org.

-Eric

On 11/1/05, Bryan H. wrote:

> Your walking a really thin line...

???

> Don't forget the $850 I needed yesterday.

Told you I would have $750 for you today

If you want, I can leave this afternoon.

From: Bryan H. Sent: Tuesday, November 01, 2005 11:40 AM To: Eric W. Subject: Re: and...

Hey, I got my return flight all set up. I'll leave everything out for you since I'll prob be gone by the time you are done with work. Thanks for putting me up while I was here. ~ b

On 11/1/05, Eric W.

Just don't forget the cash you owe me, naturally you don't gotta pay rent for next month, but if you could put the cash out that would be fantastic. Good luck to you.

From: Bryan H. Sent: Tuesday, November 01, 2005 12:57 PM To: Eric W. Subject: Re: and...

Already done. What type of person do you think I am? You think I am going to stiff you on cash?

You know, I regret that you got so pissed at me - for what exactly I am not sure. If you want to explain, that would be great.

Sorry, I do equate my shitty part-time $35 an hour job with fixing computers and working at a coffee shop, etc. just to get by while I send out resume after resume. Yea, it is unfortunate that I did not get a better gig at the month and a half mark like you did. Or did it take you longer while you running around trying to make it happen when you were staying with Suzanna?

Anyway, thanks for letting me have the opportunity to see if Denver would work out for me. I appreciate all your support.

On 11/1/05, Eric W. wrote:


I will be home in a minute.

From: Bryan H. Sent: Tuesday, November 01, 2005 2:13 PM To: Eric W. Subject: Re: and...

The hundred bucks back was not really necessary, thanks. An explanation as to why you think I am such a shitty person that I would stiff you on money or why you have been so pissed at me over the past month would be great.

Sorry, you have had such bad experiences with friends as roommates. If you think I am just like Scott or Jay, here to use you, let me know so I can be a better person. Otherwise, your 'not pissed, come back' statement is just a sick joke. Obviously, you have real despise for me.

On 11/1/05, Eric W. wrote:

B,

No, no despise what so ever for you. I meant it, come back if you are finically sound or have job opportunities appear. You are not a bad person, your, not a bad roommate. Quite the opposite really. You're still my buddy, but I just assume you get your own casa if you decide Denver is for you. It makes good sense to go back now, it's the first of the month, this way you don't get stuck another month up here scrapping by. Until you are ready to bite the bullet and work some bullshit jobs, then Arlington is the place, living with the folks rent free. I don't mean it in a bad way, I did the same thing in 2000. But, while you are finically hurting, then it hurts me too. I just can't afford to 'help' and stuff, shit my privacy is worth $100 a week.

Not sure why I gave the $100 back. I guess I just know what its like to be broke and $100 goes a long way when you are waiting for the next check. It all equalizes out. After all, you are my friend and shit.

Pissed? Yes. At you? No... At our argument early about how stupid I am, and only get my news from dumb shows, in front of my girlfriend? Yep... That pissed me off, a fuck load. But that's not the whole reason. The whole reason was that while you are mooching off your friends, don't challenge them, especially when they just sat down on their couch after not sleeping for 30 hours. All I did was turn on a show, you went on the attack first my friend. But that was just a petty fight; you have your mind made up to go home before I even replied, hell you already bought the ticket. That was your choice, and most likely a good one.

Take care, trust me I would never compare you to Scotty or Jay.. They are 100% slackers, look at their hair.

I have a lot of respect for you man, I always have. Don't let this bleep tarnish our friendship. I still love your lazy ass. Don't think I wont miss you, cause I will.

Have a safe flight man,

-Eric

p.s. and when I 'jerk off' at work, it takes about 5 minutes, so I still have 7 hours and 55 minutes that I work.

From: Bryan H. Sent: Tuesday, November 01, 2005 3:54 PM To: Eric W. Subject: Re: and...


Werd, thank you for the response. Silly thing is, my current bullshit job almost caught me up today; I would have had the last 100 for you by Friday. With my two paychecks this month I would not be 'moochin' off of you at all.

Sorry I borrowed the $155 bucks and smokes. It was obviously the tipping point for you financially. The rent and utilities was supposed to help you in the long run, even though it seems that you still felt you had enough financial stability to go vacation in Vegas (yes it was prearranged) and gamble $700 (yes, it was cash advances, but still pretty ballsy to gamble with. Congratulations on your luck.)

So, we see it differently. I feel I borrowed a measly $155 dollars for a month while I was adjusting, and you feel like I was a mooching financial burden. Anyway, I am leaving because of how upset you are, not because I am broke. Its fucking retarded cuz Murphy's law says that I get interviews this week now that I won't be here. Its what it took you right - A month and a half?

Either way, you need your space not a roommate. Even if I continued to live with you paying whatever in rent and bills, you have to admit, you would still feel like I was a guest in your place.

Thanks for everything, it has been grand. ~b

On 11/1/05, Eric W. wrote:

I guess so.. I am fucking 31 in a month, I am just sit in my ways..

I would still like to see you move here so we can hang out and stuff. I truly enjoy your superior intellect.

If you get an interview, fly your ass back up here. Inspiration man, inspiration.

Let me know that you got there safe and stuff.. sorry for any mis understandings.. I think this is best for both of us, right not at least.

Take care of yourself Mr. H., we will be staying in touch.

-Eric

Biocrawler

To save reformatting, I'll just link to where I originally posted: [2]. Regards, JOHN COLLISON (An Liúdramán) 15:22, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Manhattan Project 2005: New webpage

Spam removed. (If anybody still wants to see it, it's in the history.) Lupo 15:02, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

An unimaginable level of absolute idiocy...

It seems that we have fallen to an unimaginable level of absolute idiocy lately. :( I suppose RickK was right. I've recently witnessed an RFA subject not be promoted simply because several users did not like the fact that he wrote strap-on. This really pisses me off, among many less notable acts of shear stupidity. It's mostly the less notable acts of stupidity, but I'm departing. It really makes me sad to leave though. :( --Phroziac(talk) 23:45, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Oh, and is protection really neccessary on this page? Seems kinda strange to me. --Phroziac(talk) 23:47, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
No!!! Please don't leave. Look, Bushy's RFA pissed me off too. I know things feel tough, but we can do it. We always have. :)--Sean|Black 23:57, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
You really think so? :/ --Phroziac(talk) 00:22, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
Yep. take a break. You deserve it. Things will get better, I promise--Sean|Black 00:33, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
It's protected agianst moves only, I believe. —Morven 00:30, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
An RfA is not forever not-promoted. The nominee can try again in a few weeks. -Splashtalk 00:33, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
Yes, that's what's kept me from a similiar outburst :). Even the nominee in question is rather non-plussed about it, actually.--Sean|Black 00:43, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
Yes. I do find it somewhat alarming that many people round here fear Wikiarmageddon when anything goes wrong. It is reassuring that Wiki is still standing and that everything can be given a second crack of the whip. And a third, and... -Splashtalk 01:38, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
Yup. Most is right with the Wiki world. And if it isn't, you can always change it..:)--Sean|Black 01:45, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Bullets and numbering

Since I can't seem to find the answer to this question *anywhere* I'm asking here as a last resort. How can I make sure numbering continues even when I put a space between two items? Example.

  1. Item 1
  2. Item 2
  3. Item 3
  1. Item 4
  2. Item 5
  3. Item 6

Where Items 4 through 6 should be numbered 4,5 and 6 respectively instead of just restarting from 1. Help! --Steerpike 16:11, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

You may want to read this article from alistapart.com covering the exact list arrangement you are seeking. http://www.alistapart.com/articles/multicolumnlists/

~ bryan h.

W00t, thanks a lot! --Steerpike 20:41, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Photos of a newspaper article

Burlington (UK) - I saw the article referenced in the actualy physical newspaper, and because the newspaper wasn't mine, I photographed the "map" of Burlington. If I wanted to upload this photo of the map (which is excellent quality - everything can be made out) under fair use, would I be breaching copyright? Note that I did take the photo myself, and I could say I just had the newspaper in it by accident:-). Seriously though: what do people think?--TheDoctor10 (talk|email) 18:30, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

  • Generally this is a copyright violation, though I can't speak to this specific instance. The information in the article could possibly be used to draw your own map though. Christopher Parham (talk) 19:33, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
  • I would generally agree with Christopher Parham. Particularly if the figure is just a sketch or diagram, there's no reason why we can't create a free version based on the information in the article. 'Fair use' is only applicable if there's no reasonable way for us to obtain or create a non-copyvio version of the map (among other conditions). TenOfAllTrades(talk) 20:06, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
It's actually quite a complex diagram, that I don't think I have time/patience :-) to recreate. Any other suggestions?--TheDoctor10 (talk|email) 08:24, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Dear Wikipedia,

I am a big fan of yours. Yes I call myself a fan because I am an IT major at the University of the Netherlands Antilles here in Curaçao and I am currently an intern at a ports company here in Curaçao and I am very much in to webdesign and applications programming etc.

My Question to you is: How does Wikipedia go about handling its links(within texts). I know t hat it would probably be incredibly difficult to explain this to me. But I would appreciate it so much if it were possible to get any help on this topic.

SIncerely,

Vernon Chatlein

Internally, each page is represented as wikitext—the code you see when you edit the article. In this representation, links to other wiki pages are indicated by square brackets: [[link]]. Each instance of this pattern is transformed into HTML that looks like this: <a href="/wiki/Link">link</a>. Of course, it's not quite as simple as that—there are a number of ways to create links with different text, etc. However, as far as I know it's all done with fairly straightforward regular expressions. Don't forget that MediaWiki, the software that Wikipedia runs on, is free software; if you want, you can download the source code from http://www.mediawiki.org/ and examine it to your heart's content. Hope this helps. --David Wahler (talk) 21:12, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

San Francisco, California

Hi. I wanted to say this in public, and this is as public as it gets. I've recently visited the city of San Francisco, in California. And what do you know, the song was telling the truth, you do meet some gentle people there! I must have gotten lost some 5 or 6 times, and not once did I have to actually ask for directions, people just offered to help the moment they noticed I didn't know where I was. One lady actually walked me, up a ramp, to a cable car stop that I couln't find. I don't want to sound corny or anything, but I believe I did leave my heart in San Francisco! All thumbs up for the good people of San Francisco — and my special regards to all our users from there! Redux 00:46, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Cossed Ovaries

I just had sugery on monday 10/24/05. I found out after my surgery (which i was going in for a reteen cycst removeal from my left ovary) that my ovaries somehow got crossed, which the doctor told my family that is is common. I don't feel this is common, I have had trouble with my ovaries for years, but hey they say they are still functioning go figure. Now can someone tell me how ovaries get crossed to where your left ovary is on the right side and your right ovary is on the left side and on top of all that parts of my bowel were twisted into that messed. So I would really like to hear from someone who has had this experience or from someone who can answer the question why did this happen to me. I will ask my doctor when i see her for my follow up but am not sure she can give a good answer that I will understand. Help

Thanks

Er.. I don't... WP:NOT... Uh...encyclopedia...--Sean Black | Talk 21:29, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
Also, this question is probably more appropriate for our reference desk.--Sean Black | Talk 23:06, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
I'll echo what Sean Black says about referring this question to the Reference Desk; I'd suggest that the best place would be the science questions section at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Science. Please also bear in mind Wikipedia's general disclaimer and medical disclaimer; we're an encyclopedia, so we're not qualified to give medical advice. Your best source of information should be your physician—and don't let your doctor go until he or she is able to answer your questions to your satisfaction.
Speaking generally and not to your specific condition, the human body regularly makes small deviations from 'typical' normal anatomy. For example, the branching and placement of major blood vessels can vary quite a bit from person to person, usually with no ill effects. These unusual arrangements often come to light during surgery or investigation of other, unrelated conditions, or after death. Transposition of some or even all of the organs within the abdomen and thorax is relatively rare, but certainly not unheard of. Sometimes this results in medical problems, somtimes not; you'll need to speak to your doctor about your specific circumstances. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 23:26, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

A question for CDA

CDA,

I've got a question. I want a good explanation why you did you put Spioler Warning on the DARK SHADOWS page???

Spencer Karter

CDA? Huh? Anyways, the warning is there because there's plot information below it. Some people may not want to know anything about the plot before they watch the programme. Same reason there's a spoiler warning on Hamlet and Time and the Rani, to give two disparate examples.--Sean Black Talk 00:03, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
That would be user:CDA. And the purpose of user talk pages, e.g. user talk:CDA, is precisely to let editors ask each other questions such as this. -- Rick Block (talk) 00:11, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
Oh, thanks Rick. I hope I answered his question, anyways.--Sean Black Talk 00:17, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Cryptogams?

Is the Category:Cryptogams considered to be a useful category here? Fedor 22:04, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Yes, see cryptogams. ~~ N (t/c) 22:08, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
Both category and article have been made by the same user. This same user has also made the category at the Dutch wikipedia. Now there is a discussion about whether this 18th-century term has any usefullness and validity nowadays. Fedor 22:13, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

The term is obsolete, botanically useless and potentially misleading. I've removed the PoV blurb promoting use of the term from the article and have nominated the category for CfD. Wyss 23:07, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

I wonder, is there at all a wikipedia rule against the use of para- or polyphyletic groups as categories? Fedor 08:56, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

"Hair"

Someone fix this article, would ya? I don't care about shrimp-fucking.

New discussions go at the bottom, by the way (but I moved it). Oh, and... Thank you for your suggestion! When you feel an article needs changing, please feel free to make whatever changes you feel are needed. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit any article by simply following the Edit this page link. You don't even need to log in! (Although there are some reasons why you might like to...) The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold. 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 out the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome.--Sean Black Talk 06:01, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

How to get a page restored?

A couple of people deleted a page that i had created about Amelia Milka Sablich. The page was "Flaming Milka"

I researched this woman over a period of fifteen years. There is now a book in print about Milka, which i edited and helped to write. I am not the only historian to write about Milka Sablich.

Milka was nationally famous in 1927. She was variously called Flaming Milka, Flaming Mamie, and Colorado's Rebel Girl. The first two of these nicknames were conferred by newspaper reporters.

There are probably a hundred newspaper articles about Milka, many of them available online through services like Ancestry.com.

A fair number of these are verified through JPG images of the original articles on this webpage about Milka:

The Wikipedia webpage "Flaming Milka", in my view, was neutral POV. If it wasn't that could certainly be fixed. But why delete it? Why discourage contributors to Wikipedia by destroying their work?

I'd like to have this page restored, but i'm not certain how to go about it.

You could list it on WP:VFU. Or, you could ask the admins if they would like to wheel war over it, which may well be a quicker solution. -Splashtalk 22:35, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
The article was deleted through our normal process, which removes articles after several days of debate about their encyclopedic merit. You can see the discussion for the deletion of this article at Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Flaming_Milka. Unfortunately only two people contributed to the debate for this article. I agree with Splash above that you should list the article at WP:VFU, and explain there why the decision to delete was incorrect.-gadfium 08:04, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
This is really a shame. On the basis of two people, making comments not really strong enough to make a delete decision according to the stated criteria, this article got deleted. I haven't seen the article, because the discussion on how to do this is practically unpenetrable (Some of the about-Wik stuff should be deleted and replaced with understandable text!). How-ever, I looked at a few articles about this woman on the Internet (hardly the touchstone of relevance for historical figures), and even just there it seems pretty obvious to me that Wik is the poorer with-out an article on this woman. Kdammers 00:34, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
This article is now restored at Flaming Milka. -- Jmabel | Talk 04:07, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

I wonder what are the topic that have been declared as feature articles in the most language. I've see two topic with seven little stars in the left column.

Other candidates ?

Just curious, fr:Utilisateur:Jmfayard

Neapolitan explosion

There's something a bit fishy about the new Neapolitan Wikipedia jumping to 3,666 articles in just 5 or 6 weeks. Can someone who reads the language check to see if these new articles are really in Neapolitan? - dcljr (talk) 20:48, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

What gives?! I was expecting to see chocolate, vanilla and strawberry ice cream all over the place. ...sorry; I couldn't resist.69.236.40.6 03:35, 11 November 2005 (UTC)GOS 19:32.10.10.2005


Main page

Could someone please put the window "in foreign languages" in the main page? It would be practical for cross-references back and forth between your national pages. Kindly, Lo

Some of the other languages are already there. Were there others you wanted to see? You can discuss what goes in that section of the main page on Template talk:Wikipedialang. —Charles P. (Mirv) 21:55, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
I assume she means the "in other languages" box that usually is at the bottom of the left toolbar (in monobook at least), and is generated by the language links. I assume this isn't on the main page because it would be huge, though. IMO it's not needed. Christopher Parham (talk) 04:12, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
A compromise might be a single link (perhaps at the top of the page a la {{otheruses}}) saying Main page in other languages leading to a link-farm page with links to all the other main pages. Grutness...wha? 00:18, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

ignition module for harley davidson's

does anybody know what the VDO stands for in VDO electronic ignition module? i know it is a company by semens that makes gauges for all automotive and marine applications but i cant find VDO ignition modules anywhere....

For future reference, factual questions go to the reference desk. I'm sure someone there can help you.--Sean|Black 01:55, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Input on new template desired--article page vs. talk, etc.--usage currently undefined

Template:Dates was created within the past few months, and it is not referenced from Wikipedia:Template messages/All, nor any of the sub-pages of Wikipedia:Template messages, so there is no guidance available as to placing it on Article pages versus their Talk pages. IMHO it is far too glaring[3] to be on Article pages, especially for such a minor issue (and more especially as used--as long as the reader can tell within, say 50 years, of when the person was most noted, that seems plenty good enuf to me), so I would think it should be restricted to Talk pages (if used at all).

Current form:

This biographical article needs to include the dates of birth and death of this individual. You can help by adding these.
Please also consider changing this notice to be more specific.

Current uses: [4]

However, since Wikipedia's strength is consensus, I would like other Wikipedian's input. Discussion would probably be better kept at Template talk:Dates, rather than here. 24.17.48.241 19:25, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

It should go on an article page- However, I'm not so sure that it needs to exist at all.--Sean|Black 20:22, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
I'm with Sean - I'm not convinced its needed. If it is used it should be a more eye-friendly colour - the point of this (like stub templates) is to be discreet, so that editors notice it but it doesn't blind readers. Grutness...wha? 01:11, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
Interestingly, I found {{LinkFarm}}, which has the same garish background color. They both seem somewhat useless, but at the very least, they need a make-over.--Sean|Black 01:34, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

SUPREME RESEARCH CHALLENGE

I have been using Wikipedia as a research site for sometime now and I want to express my appreciation to all who contribute.

Here is the subject of the challenge: The United Kingdom of Atlantis.

You read correctly. There is actually a place with this name and, no, it isn't an amusement park. If you do a normal search engine query you will find their own website first. What you see there is astoundingly bizarre. The next category of references you will notice will be international press releases. These will give information regarding activities of the United Kingdom of Atlantis; you will find very few of those. Finally, you may notice referals to sites which may have, shall we say, dubious credibility-- perhaps rightfully so, or perhaps not. That last category of sites are easily written off as extremist fringe radical sites... sometimes those folks are onto something, or part of something, but one would need alot of confirmation to actually put any stock in them. (So much so that one would end up citing the cooberating sources and not the primary.)

The leader of this country, the United Kingdom of Atlantis (UKA), is, or has been, wanted for wire fraud in the US. This has involved the FBI and the Department of Justice as well as the US State Department. He has been divorced in the US. He is part of the ruling family of Dubai and Abu Dhabi. The amazing thing is that if you enter his name, or a known alias, into even a paid research site you get very little beyond his own PR material. At first one may say, "So what? What's the big deal?"

The Big deal is... It's... Well, it's--

You there! No, not you ma'am; that guy. No, not the online post-graduate student working on his thesis. You! The thirty-ish guy sitting in his parent's basement where, apparently, you live-- No; the guy with the pizza boxes and empty gatorade bottles in a pile next to the bed. NO; the one with the dusty bowflex against wall that seems to be doubling as a coat rack. No, not you; I'm talking to the guy with the scantily clad "Seven of Nine" Barbi on his desk; did you sew that tiny little outfit yourself? --nice job; sick hobby, but quality workmanship; yes, you. How can I see you? It doesn't matter. You were born, right? Yes? Good. You graduated from high school? Good job. Ever had a traffic ticket? Yeah? Me too. Ever neglect to pay a bill or default on any debt? Ewww; the bow-flex? I agree, it is a rip-off, but you ordered it and you should pay it off. I'm not even going mention the restraining order which actress Jeri Ryan has undoubtedly filed against you.

What's my point?

My point is this: if I enter the name of a fellow like you --who chooses to live, shall we say, incognito-- into a search engine I'll get more information about you than I can find regarding His Royal Highness, Sheikh Ibrahim V Al Sharif, aka Sheikh Yakub Al Sheik-Ibrahim, aka the King of the UKA. Again, he's been wanted internationally by two or three federal agencies and he's royalty and he's founded his own country, and he's been married and divorced. What's that? No, I do not know if he's a trekki, but judging from the names of the islands off the coast of Australia, where his "kingdom" is located, I can definitely say he's into sci-fi-- but that's not important.

It's as if the internet has been scoured and wiped clean of any sign of the King or the heir apparent, His Royal Highness Crown Prince Yusuf Al Sharif. I have enlisted the help of a journalist, who found nothing and gave up very quickly and then declined to speak about it. I also placed this challenge before some cocky young law students at Boalt Hall, that's the Law School at UC Berkeley. I figured they could find the official DOJ info or past press releases on Sheikh Al Sharif. They were pretty quick to give up and wouldn't talk about it much either. Do you know how hard it is to get cocky, sarcastic American post-adolescents to shut up about anything? I have spoken to people who do research at various Universities who are merely baffled at the scarcity of information available.

Isn't that fishy? Just a little?

The purpose of the enterprise known as "the United Kingdom of Atlantis"? It seems exist to carry on the same type of banking activities which have been abdicated by Switzerland, but are still practiced in a few small island states. It is also an extradition free neutral country.

One of the main priorities of the UKA is to establish its own legitimacy as a sovereign nation. How does one go about doing so? One method is to establish copious numbers of treaties with poorer countries, but only the ones belonging to the UN. What good does that do? A treaty is an agreement betweent two sovereign states. Once a nation recognizes another's sovereignty by entering into a treaty with it, it is difficult to legally "un-recognize" it. (This is one of the reasons native tribes in the US are recognized as having the right to self government and sovereignty; the US tried to use treaties to swindle them out of their land before resorting to simply removing or killing all they could.) In such a case the plan would be to negotiate enough treaties with enough legitimate governments so that the sovereignty of the nation in question will stand up in the courts of UN member nations as well as establishing diplomatic immunity.

Aside from the information given on their own website and that provided above there is more I will disclose. (This is where you may want to write me off, if you haven't already.) Most of you have probably asked yourselves, "If the US is as big and bad as everyone seems to think, couldn't they have already taken this guy down?" This would be a valid point to raise, but it leads me to make the following statements.

One anonymous insider, when asked about the status of the charges against the leader of the UKA, stated that those charges are unsubstantiated. Keep in mind that warrants had been pending at some point. Further, this source pointed out that the UKA deals regularly and legitimately with an agency of the US Government. I found this to be true. In fact, members of this government agency are in steady contact with the UKA and even escort members of various UKA government ministries when they operate in the US on behalf of the UKA. (A number of those ministry members are US citizens who hold titles in UKA.) The UKA also operates in the USA through shell companies, the kind known to business officianados as Nevada LLC's. (A Nevada LLC is not necessarily a shell company.)

One of my sources is a person who was associated with the UKA briefly. This person was working for a firm in the US which had a few problems with physical security; I offered to consult on these matters informally. After some q and a I checked with some former associates. There was a general refusal to speak about matters concerning of the United Kingdom of Atlantis. (It would be fair to ask if there were smirks or laughter when I first made these queries. There was no laughter when I checked back.) The nature of those refusals to comment were such that I was led to believe that delving deeply into the affairs of the UKA wouldn't be prudent.

The advice I gave my friend was to disassociate with that firm as soon as possible. When my friend alluded to the legitimate relationship the UKA was establishing with the US, including regular dealings with one government agency in particular, I named other persons from outside the USA who once had "legitimate" dealings with that same agency. A short list would include: Idi Amin, Manuel Noriega, Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, the former Shah of Iran and various foreign governments and rebel groups in Central and South America. This agency has also been known to raise funds for its own purposes outside legitimate and normal parameters. It has been my impression that if what some suspect is true then both major political parties in the US, or at least certain persons within them, are probably complicit.

Laying aside my own speculation about any goings on or supression of information, I believe that the United Kingdom of Atlantis should be responsibly researched and written about in a credible manner by credible persons. Supression of information leads to unhealthy speculation by the paranoid and fuels the propaganda of the devious.

To me the United Kingdom of Atlantis is like a puzzle piece that doesn't fit anywhere. It doesn't really matter that much, but it irks me.

Uh... This appears to be just another fringe micronation that's attracted conspiracy theorists (or an elaborate hoax).--Sean|Black 06:25, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
Thankyou, Sean. The article on micronations is helpful and entertaining. Maybe my recent acquaintance can declare his parent's basement a sovereign micronation. His major export can be doll clothes :-) ...There is a sub heading in the article on micronations: "Entities Created for Allegedly Fraudulent Purposes" under "Classifications of Micronations" which mentions an enterprise called The Dominion of Melchizidek. This scheme sounds very similar to the one allegedly being undertaken by those involved with the United Kingdom of Atlantis. Some significant differences should also be noted. The Dominion of Melchizidek's founders sought much attention, whereas information about the UKA is supressed. The UKA has substantially more operating capital and its sovereign claim to fourteen islands off the coast of Australia are undisputed. The United States Government has apparently "lost" the warrant against the King of the UKA and the DOJ is reluctant to discuss the indictment. There is a great deal of information about the Dominion of Melchizedek online while there is suprizingly little about the UKA. The thing that struck me as most peculiar is that the Dominion of Melchizidek has a lengthy article devoted to it at Wickepdia while the United Kingdom of Atlantis has not a single mention anywhere in Wikipedia, even though its constitution was signed in August of 2001 --that was a historic year. Differences aside, viewing the similarities is helpful in contextualizing the information I do have... The thing about "conspiracy theorists" is that their analysis is based on incomplete or faulty information, unwillingness to seek or consider new information as it becomes available, and extreme bias. I'm sure the scantness of the information available in regards to the UKA only feeds this type of hysteria while the apparent nature of the supression of that info makes this the SUPREME RESEARCH CHALLENGE. Again, thankyou.

Suggestions

Get rid of that stupid {{spoiler}} thingy. It's too corny!!

Why? What's "corny" about?--Sean|Black 03:59, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
It is actually standard practice in articles or texts in which key plot events are revealed while discussing the movie, book, etc...

I disagree with your reply.

What do you mean, you "disagree"? I'm sorry, but that doesn't really make sense.--Sean|Black 23:39, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

I disagree when you said "It is actually standard practice in articles or texts in which key plot events are revealed while discussing the movie, book, etc." That's why I disagree.

I wasn't the one who said that, but whatever. It is standard practice: the Imdb does it, it's common on message boards, etc.. You haven't given any compelling reason why we should get rid of it.--Sean|Black 03:05, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

re: aol claim settlement

Hi, My name is Denise. I have filed out a form against aol's class action settlement, and made sure it was post marked no later than december 21,2005. I have been in this class action for almost a yr and I have been contacting the agent constantly pertaining to my case and when it will settle, they give me the run around month to month, what I would like to know is,, since the agent that i speak with is the one handling this, he thinks that 3 months of refund is ok, its not, i will say why, when i ordered aol internet service, i was provided a free 30 trial and then if i didnt want to continue the trial i had the option to call before trial ended to cance which i did in a timely manner,, obviously that didnt happen and no one cancelled my trial. How i know this is that on my checking account statement it showed several withdrawal transactions from aol attempting money,,,, money i didnt have, so i got hit with fee's (3)times. I then contacted my bank institution to put out a ach revocation form out that i signed for aol not be able to retrieve and money no more,, well that failed only to find out aol had a different company go into my checking account without my knowledge or consent and retrieve money, now I got hit again with fee's because i had no money in my bank,, besides being in a class action group,, what is the outcome of this? do i have a chance at a big settlement knowing they illegally went into my account without my permission? please let me know. 

mo
Sorry, this is Wikipedia, not AOL. try [5]. Kaldari 22:32, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
You could also try our reference desk, which is for factual questions.--Sean|Black 22:35, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Physical Maps

Can you tell me who would find a Physical map useful. I am guessing that an explorer would use one and perhaps the army. Please help!

a Navigator, Surveyor, Urban_planner, GIS developers, Truck_drivers and the Boy_scouts ~ bryan
Orienteers, Mountaineers, pilots, civil engineers,
Hang-gliders, cycle riders, landscape artists, mountain guiders,
Weather mappers, oil tappers, search and rescue, army sappers,
geologists, vulcanologists, even activist ecologists.
All of these would use such tools to help them on their way -
I hope this answer satisfies, and brightens up your day.
Grutness...wha? 22:37, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

I wonder what are the topic that have been declared as feature articles in the most language. I've see two topic with seven little stars in the left column.

Other candidates ?

Just curious, fr:Utilisateur:Jmfayard

Nonsense article

Hi, I haven't edited much but just came across Tony Luciani. It's very funny but it probably doesn't belong here. I don't know who to ask to have it deleted, so could someone more experienced take a look, please? Thanks. Pintele Yid 03:58, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Mark it for speedy deletion. I've gone ahead and deleted that particular article. ~~ N (t/c) 04:06, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Aha. It's not nonsense, but it isn't appropriate either. An administrator can delete the article because it qualifies under the Criteria for speedy deletion, specifically number 7 (and maybe 6) under "Articles". When you find something like that, you can tag it with {{nn-bio}}. I've already done it for you, and an administrator has deleted it.--Sean|Black 04:10, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
Also, if you come across any articles which don't quite qualify for speedy deletion but don't look like they belong in Wikipedia, you can always post them at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion, where they'll go through a discussion and voting process to see what can be done with them. Grutness...wha? 05:54, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for deleting it, N. Thank you to everyone for the information. Pintele Yid 23:59, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Please accept my deepest apologies

Dear Wikipedia.org, Two days ago I stummbled upon your site while doing some research for AP US History, used the information I found and then constructed it into a paragraph. I did not include a link. I would like to apologies for: (1)not linking you in any way to the work I did, (2)copying sentances, and(3)being foolish not to realize it was plagiarism. Please accept my deepest and sincere apologies.

Sarah Haller

That's okay, Sarah, as long as you cite us in the future. Check out Wikipedia: Citing Wikipedia for more information on how to cite us in a research paper or writing assignment. Deco 04:34, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

I used to make edits for some time before I decided to register. From time to time I like to go back and see how those articles have evolved. Problem is that after such a long time I often do not remember them. I found a convoluted way to find them listed (looking and finding one and then searching for contributions by that IP address). Questions is: is there a way so that I could add those articles to my current user's name "my contributions" page. Any other suggestion on what to do. Thanks. --Anagnorisis 05:45, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't believe so. There used to be a feature (Wikipedia:Changing username), but it is currently inactive. The best thing to do is to put a note on your user-page that says "I used to contribute as Such-and-such", so that everyone can know what you did before you registered.--Sean|Black 05:55, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
Thanks, but I was asking not with the intention of helping myself get an ego boost (letting other people know what I did), but to make it easy for myself to find them back again and again in an easier way. Still, something along what you suggest could work. Thanks. --Anagnorisis 06:09, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Hebrew characters

I propose any article title made up chiefly of Hebrew characters must be taken care of in some special way, but what is it?? Any opinion on what to do?? 66.32.246.23 01:59, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Feel free to drop me a line when you see that. I can quickly check and delete it if it's vandalism, or tag for interwiki. Owen× ☎ 02:02, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Pages needing translation into English -- Jmabel | Talk 07:02, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

No offence Meant

To Whom it may concern,

I appear to be being blamed for something that I am unaware of doing. I have had several threatening messages questioning my integrity. As far as I am aware I have made no contributions nor have I 'vandalised' anything.

I only found Wikipedia, purely by chance in the last 24 hours whilst looking for information for the course I am doing. I found it extremely helpful and would like to thank you.

I have not taken anything from here, nor have I added anything, well not knowingly anyway. If someone could explain what I have done wrong then I will endeavour to ensure I dont repeat the same mistake again.

If I am guilty of anything, then it is ignorance and for that I apologise unreservedly.

Yours sincerely

Linda Langton

From what I can see, you haven't done anything. If you were notified before you registered your account (that is, you were identified by your IP address), then it was probably somebody else who was also using it. If that's the case, don't worry about it! Now that you have registered an account you can start fresh. --Sean Black | Talk 02:01, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
Incidentally, let this upset person be a reminder to everyone to mention the pages involved when writing on an anonymous IP's talk page. For example, I like to start with "Hi! If you're the person who created giant space aliens, I'd just like to remind you...", and so on. Deco 04:40, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

emailing articles

I would like to email articles from Wikipedia to others. How do I do that?

I sent a messae to someone here and received something back that mentioned members? Does one become a member of something here?

Selma Singer email address removed

Hi Selma. To the best of my knowledge, Wikipedia doesn't currently have a feature to email entire articles. However, you could copy and paste the address of the article (shown in your browser's address bar) and send it to someone that way. This has the advantage that they'd be able to see the most up-to-date copy of the article.
You are perfectly welcome to read and edit Wikipedia anonymously, without an account. However, registering an account has numerous benefits—for example, you get a watchlist to keep track of updates to articles you're interested in, and a user page to write a little bit about yourself. Registration is easy, and only takes a couple of seconds; if you want, click on the "create an account" link at the top of the page to get started.
Oh, and by the way: I've removed your email address, as it's not generally a good idea to post it on a public website (you'll tend to get a lot of spam). --David Wahler (talk) 00:20, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
To make sure your recipient gets the same version of the article that you are looking at, click the "Permanent link" under the "toolbox" frame (usually around the top left), and send that URL. Otherwise, they may end up looking at a completely different version, especially with some of the more topical subjects. Owen× ☎ 20:54, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Articles which could do with some new images

Is there any sort of image request project at wikipedia? If there is, I haven't managed to find it yet. Anyway, here are 2 articles which could do with some new images, they've both had comments in their prospective talk pages, but haven't been acted on.

  • Fingernail - No offence to the uploader, but the fingernails pictured showing the anatomy of the nail just aren't nice. Now, I'm not saying we need some perfectly manicured pretty girl's hands, but in my opinion, the image there belongs in the Nail biting article.
  • John Prescott - I've actually nominated this article on the Wikipedia improvement drive but I'll doubt it'll win. The only image we have of him is thumbnail sized.
- Hahnchen 19:51, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
You're looking for {{reqimage}}.--Sean Black | Talk 20:24, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
And don't forget Wikipedia:Requested pictures.--Pharos 20:43, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

A joke or legit?

I just saw this edit of the Steve Jackson article. It says the text was deleted for copyright infringement reasons. It looks like it was edited by someone who is a wiki-novice. It says the text is in violation of some court orders against Wikipedia. I couldn't find any hits for the case cited on the Internt. Is it for real or some joke? <nowiki></nowiki>&mdash; [[User:Frecklefoot|Frecklefoot]] | [[User talk:Frecklefoot|Talk]] 17:04, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Not for real. Now reverted. [[Sam Korn]] 17:10, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Horses and NPOV

I'm new in en.wiki and I don't know is this issue is into the right place. Please move it if it isn't!

The problem is: on en.wiki I saw lots of not NPOV sentencies about horses, since horsemanship has been so far an "art" based on traditions and "magistral experience", much more than on a scientific, cirtical approach. Horsemanship is a moving field by now, and many new points of view are already rather well established to by far from "Original research" - they better are to be considered new, but well documented, alternatives. Some tipics are: Barefoot movement, Barefoot horses, Natural horsemanship, Jaime Jackson, Hiltrud Strasser, Horseshoes, Bitless brides, Natural riding and so on. Some of these topics have a really recent mention on en.wiki.

Is really NPOV a wiki article without a mention of these new, but well established, alternatives?

A peculiar problem is that horse topics are "flaming" ones. I personally suggested to any of my friend do come into Wikipedia after a thorough viev about wiki philosophy and policy about NPOV, but I think better to suggest some "tutorizing" of new wiki users and a NPOV point of view about many current "myths" reported on wiki.

The first step has been done - just the beginning of a long trip.--Alex brollo 09:58, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

I know nothing of this issue, but -on face value- your claims of the well-established nature of the "alternatives" and the mythical status of other claims in the article, sound like pov to me. However, as long as you can support your assertions solidly and do what you can to reach a consensus with other users there is no problem with you changing whatever you percieve as pov. Fedor 10:15, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
Thanks. I'm Italian - as perhaps you could guess from my poor English - and I'll mainly follow presente discussion on this topic on it.wiki. The problem is, horses are really a highly specialized field of interest - current discussion can hardly be appreciated by "non-riders". Nevertheless, a general interest about horses is a matter of fact and the "horse-addict" community is very large.
I don't know anything about your fields of interest, nevertheless I ask you to give a look to Laminitis and its history. It's a severe horse disease, and thousands of horses are euthanized because there is the "horse myth" that "there is no cure". It's simply not true - take a look, for some impressive examples, at Marjorie Smith website, an excellent divulger, and follow "Founder" links This is only an example - any Barefoot movement member has similar experiences.Can wiki ignote at all these alternatives? In my opinion, can't. I hope in a large, polite discussion about.--Alex brollo 11:16, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
I am not interested in getting involved in this discussion. Do your changes, and if these are controversial, you may soon discover someone interested in the topic will challenge you (on the talk page hopefully, and not by reverting). Then try to reach a consensus as best as you can. BTW I myself am Dutch. Nationality does not really matter to wikipedia, as I am spending a lot of time at the Dutch, Danish, and English wikipedia. I could not tell from the way you wrote that you are not a native English speaker, but perhaps you could add -e at the end of a lot of words to indicate a fatte, Italiane accente. ;-) Fedor 22:39, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Engineering ideas: improving underdeveloped nations' lives

I am working on an engineering project with the goal to improve the lifestyle of an underdeveloped nation. Any suggestions on an area of the world, or an area of life that would need improvement is appreciated.

The goal is to be realistic, "self-sustainable" (or managed by natural resources from the area, to avoid importing), simple enough to operate, and not abusive to the culture introduced.

Some ideas so far are improving housing materials to protect from the elements, additional energy suppliers, water purifiers, and more efficient farming tools.

So far I have been researching specific countries, and could use some suggestions on what topics would be useful to look up for this type of information.

Thank you in advance, Engineer

You may want to check out our reference desk, where you can ask factual questions.--Sean|Black 05:54, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

WTFIGO?

Weird things seem to be happening... the happy bounce has gone out of a lot of colourful sig files, I've just fixed a page of green text, and now a table which has worked perfectly since late 2004 has become a mess of gibberish. If someone who knows their html better than me could take a look at List of New Zealand cricketers, I'd be very grateful... WTFIGO? Grutness...wha? 00:09, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#HTML Tidy temporarily disabled. That table is a curious mix of Wikitable code and real HTML - I suggest changing it to be one or the other. Talrias (t | e | c) 00:15, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
Yeah, I found that shortly after I posted here. Thx. Grutness...wha? 00:18, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Template parameter instructions

Should the instructions on how to use a template and definitions of parameters be placed in <noinclude>...</noinclude> tags on the template page rather than the talk page? I'm sure this would make it easier to see the template and its instructions on one tab, and leave the talk page for discussions. Is there any technical reason why this wouldn't be good practice? --Gareth Hughes 23:18, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

It breaks with subst:. --cesarb 23:28, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Ah, so it does! So, would this proposal be reasonable on a template that we wouldn't expect anyone to use subst: with, or is it unreasonable to expect that? --Gareth Hughes 23:35, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Some admin, pls unblock me

I was blocked because of my edits about Yigal Amir, blocking me was an abuse of adminship. User:Haham hanuka

  • I checked the history, and the admin (Jpgordon) acted correctly. Haham hanuka reverted the page six times in 8 hours, despite being warned to stop. The point this user is trying to push is that the assassination of the Israeli Prime Minister was not a murder, as the courts have decided, but a "helpful killing", in Haham hanuka's words. Owen× ☎ 19:17, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Miscellaneous archive

Why is there no general archive? If one wants to reply to a post older than 14 days, should one copy the original text from the history (it would be more convenient if, for instance, each week were stored in a specific page, which would allow to find it with a search engine). Apokrif 23:00, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Feel free to copy the text from the page history and reply to it if neccesary. Steve block talk 23:16, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
The Village Pump pages get so much traffic I think it was decided that it's just not worth trying to save everything, but most talk pages on controversial subjects (i.e., those that most need periodic archiving) have "permanent" archive pages of the type you suggest (example). - dcljr (talk) 06:33, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

movies

I have heard that there are or possible talks for a movie contract. I would love to know, it would be a wonderful accoplishment for her, she is such a wonderful author.

Who, exactly?--Sean|Black 23:50, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Us! Wikipedia's editors have been invited to work on a movie script based on Finnegan's Wake. It's expected to be even more inexplicable than the original. Deadline is next April 1st. Grutness...wha? 10:02, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Villiage Pump Archive message

Discussions older than 7 days (date of last made comment) are moved here. These discussions will be kept archived for 7 more days. During this period the discussion can be moved to a relevant talk page if appropriate. After 7 days the discussion will be permanently removed.

That sounds too corny! I hate it.

Spencer Karter

Uh.. okay? I honestly don't understand what you mean.--Sean|Black 23:50, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

No Holidays on November 13!

Why is there no holidays listed for November 13???????????????????

Accordong to November 13, It's both the feast of Feronia and the memorial feast of Mother Cabrini. On a related note, it's also the day Ol' Dirty Bastard died.--Sean|Black 23:50, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Great Sight

Hello I just wanted to congradulate you on you sight, its great! Your Encyclopedia seems to have more to offer then all the other ones I have visited and best of all its free. One aspect I thought is a great improvement over other encyclopedias that I have visited is your extensive information on Chemistry! Its a great help to me when I need to know the chemical formulas of different compounds! Well keep up the great work.

Thanks! FYI, It's spelled "site".--Sean|Black 23:50, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
I so want to go start a company called websighted... hahahaha

Answers to Your Supreme Challenge

I can give you some of the answers you seek about His UN-Royal Lowness, "Sheikh Ibrahim V Al-Sharif".

1. The United Kingdom of Altantis is a fiction - it doesn't exist. There are no such islands at the latitude and longitude listed.

2. This man is a professioal con artist who has scammed millions from many people. He is the father of 6 of my step-children. I know of what I speak. We helped the IRS and FBI bust him. He fled before charges were filed after his house was searched under a federal search warrant.

3. He is NOT a part of any royal family - he is the bastard child of a Somalian woman who was the mistress of some Saudi philanderer.

4. His primary scam is to con people into putting assets or cash up to enter a "Prime Bank Debenture Trading Program" that is supposed to generate hundreds of percent per annum in profits. The program doesn't exist - he just takes the money and launders it by moving it through numerous international bank accounts. When things get too hot he changes his name and moves on. He actually got a family court judge in Fort Worth Texas to change not only his name, but his date and place of birth! Now there's a skilled con man. The same judge later presided over the child custody battle, which was unbelievably ugly. She and the cort appointed guardian ignored the fact that he had been diagnosed ans an extreme psychopath in a previous child custody battle with on of his many ex's, putting my children in harms way. We eventually won and he was forbidden from ever having contact with my kids again.

5. He supposedly died in UAE in early February 2005, after being poisoned by someone involved in one of his scams - not sure if it was a victim or co-consiprator that got him. He presumably died a slow painful death with his daughter Samantha at his side as his liver failed and he began spitting blood. His son Yusef is alive and well and living in Milwaukee, as is Samantha, where their mother lives. The reason you can't find him, is he goes by his real name, which is not the one on the bogus UKACrown.com website.

6. He may have faked his own death to shake the authorities in the U.S., but from my point of view, it amounts to the same thing - we'll never have to put up with his crap again. My kids cheared when they heard the news of his death.

7. The Justice Department has asked for the body to be exhumed to get a DNA sample. So far no cooperation - rather suspicious.

8. Somebody is still keeping the UKACrown.com website alive, but that could just be a function of his having prepaid for a significant term, or possibly of him still being alive and operating, or one of his co-conspirators continuing his scams using him as the dead scape goat when things go sideways, as they always do with anything he as a role in.

9. He has changed his name and religion many times. He came to the U.S. as Yakub Ibrahim Ali, he soon became Yakub Ibrahim - "Ethiopian Jew" fleeing persecution. He ripped off people in the Jewish community of Milwaukee and Chicago and moved on to becoming a pretend Muslim (clearly the religion he knew something about, but not one he really practiced - honesty being a requirement he did not abide). Then he became Sheikh Yakub Al-Ibrahim and Sheikh Yakub Sheihk Isask Al-Sheikh Ibrahim and finally the latest, Sheikh Ibrahim V Al-Sharif. (There are actually at least 27 aliases we have found - my children fathered by him have three different last names!)

10. He was apparently involved in international terrorism, his "brother" in the Phillippines was the leader of Abu Saif, and this might well be where the majority of the funds he ripped off went. He never pays for ANYTHING himself - this is a guy who would invite you out to dinner at an expensive restaurant, then stiff you for the bill!

There is a book or movie's worth of unbelievable stories I could tell you about this man. I got roped into his web of lies for several months, which is how I met my wife - formerly his, whom he told me was "the baby sitter" and that his children were actually the adopted children of the Shaw of Iran, he was keeping safe from evil forces while trying to reclaim their billions.....

He was perhaps the smartest person I ever met, and probably the most evil too. He could walk into a room of 30 people and tell each and every one of them a different lie about all of the other people in the room, and six months later would have it straight in his head which lie he told to each person about each of the other 30! On the rare occassion that he might trip, he could boldly spin a new lie that would quickly cover his tracks and make the person hearing it feel stupid for having doubted him.

He has at least 16 children that we know of by 7 different mothers, whom he kept mostly in poverty, even though he had millions - definitely not the behavior of a religious man.

Sincerely;

George (I beat the monster and got the treasure) Wilcox

Um, what? User:Zoe|(talk) 04:21, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Help!

Something bad happened. When I click on "Related changes" it always says "Database error". How can you fix this?? Georgia guy 16:00, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Much of the history of Indigenous Australians has not been included.

When attempting to address the history of Australia, it is essential that the history of Indigenous Australians be included. Suggest strongly that "The Protection of Aborigines and Prohibition of the sale of Opium Policy" Qld. plus other state policies be linked to the racism banner.

Thank you for your suggestion. When you believe 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). User:Zoe|(talk) 04:23, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

suggestion for the "Circus Metal" article

Hello, my name is Michael Smith, and I noticed you have an article in the category genres of heavy metal music, which I was very pleased about. You listed examples of bands that play this style of music: Mr Bungle, Vicious Harry Mary, Dog Fashion Disco, etc. However you left out 2 key essential bands in this genre: Nuclear Rabbit and Fast Eddie, especially Nuclear Rabbit. Nuclear Rabbit has been around since 1989 and pioneering their unique form of music longer than many of the bands listed and they are such a pioneering band musically speaking that I even think you should post a separate article about them. Please consider this.

Regards, Michael Smith

Thank you for your suggestion! When you feel an article needs changing, please feel free to make whatever changes you feel are needed. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit any article by simply following the Edit this page link. You don't even need to log in! (Although there are some reasons why you might like to...) The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold. 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 out the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome.--Sean|Black 22:38, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

WHAT IS WIKIPEDIA

WHAT IS WIKIPEDIA???????? i mean how do i contribute?

Welcome! Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia, created and managed by ordinary net-users. It's self-regulating to a large extent - articles grow by being edited by people who know about the subjects they're writing about - new articles are started either as small articles called stubs or as fully fledged articles, and ove time these too grow. As to how to contribute, go to Wikipedia:Community_Portal#Help and click on any of the links below that - they'll provide you with the information you need to get started. Grutness...wha? 22:31, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:A nice cup of tea and a sit down

Originally from Wikinews, I transwikied this page to Wikipedia because it'd be great for Wikipedia. When there are really heated disputes, tell the people to have a nice cup of tea and sit down - where people will then make nice gestures toward each other. —MESSEDROCKER (talk) 21:03, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Heh - a wiki Chill-out room. I like it. But... shouldn't it be "A nice cup of tea and a lie down"? That's the normal way the phrase goes (there's even an album of that title by The Able Tasmans). Grutness...wha? 00:15, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
Um wont the tea go up your nose? Also should we be encouraging recreational drug use? I'm off for an expresso: 1000 redirects created an hour, 3 newbies torn to shreads. MeltBanana 19:28, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
...and a sit down is how my family have always referenced it. Must be two variations. Google will get you similar numbers of hits on either term. Steve block talk 19:34, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
Technically this is a copyright violation, since the original material was not available under the GFDL (Wikinews uses a different license) and you don't give attribution. But I'm sure if you ask the original authors that they wouldn't mind. Or even if you don't. Deco 01:40, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Block proxy IP blocks users also??

I have just been blocked from wiki for 2-3 hours for the first time in my life, the reson is that I live in Singapore which have a forced proxy that does censorship, like blocking bad sites like playboy.com and so on. Now I always edit using my own username, but since I use the same proxy that most other users on singapores biggest ISP I was blocked! Now I wonder should it be like that? shouldent I be able to do edits, while the IP is blocked as long as Im logged in on a user? if I missbehave on my user, then it can also be blocked. I'm not sure how you create new users in wiki, it was to long time since I did, but it should need a email adress for password? right so if the IP is blocked I can not create that many new accounts, and anyway, it could be made so that you can only do edits from a blocked IP if you have a user account that have been created for say at least one week or so. Stefan 16:06, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

see Wikipedia:Blocking policy proposal BL kiss the lizard 23:52, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
Thanks Stefan 10:19, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Watchlist weirdness

My watchlist has just happily reported a new edit to Sarsaparilla. All very well, except I never put it on my watchlist. I've never edited, or even visited the page - in fact I had to look up how to spell it. So... how did it get there? Grutness...wha? 02:09, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

I've also noticed this happen from time to time, and it's always perplexed me. And with the shiny new feature that lets even non-admins see who edited deleted articles, I know it's not because I edited a previous version, which is what I used to assume. See also Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#The Mystery of the Disappearing Watched Page, which seems to be this problem in reverse. —Cryptic (talk) 07:10, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
Is it possible that a page you added to your watchlist was redirected to Sarsaparilla? -- DS1953 talk 22:54, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
No. Grutness...wha? 00:42, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
I some times get pages on my watchlist because I accidentally pressed Alt+W when I was on it. Could that be it? Jon Harald Søby \ no na 17:25, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
I can't speak for Grutness, but not in my case; my browser doesn't support javascript keyboard shortcuts. —Cryptic (talk) 21:22, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
Since I'm a Mac user, I don't even have an alt key, let alone have java shortcuts. Grutness...wha? 00:02, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
Haven't you heard of the new collaborative filtering feature of MediaWiki? It will occasionally place a new article in your watchlist that it thinks you'll be interested in based on past edits! ;-P - dcljr (talk) 06:38, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Is adding many references to the same work okay?

Hi, I'm attempting to initiate a discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Computing#Is_adding_many_references_to_the_same_work_okay.3F about whether some of my recent activities made a positive contribution or whether I should cease and desist. Please drop your comments if you have an interesting in computer science related articles or in general about citing reference works in many articles. Thanks. Deco 03:09, 19 November 2005 (UTC)


I'm inactive

This is a note to inform Wikipedians at large that due to the reaction towards my efforts to maintain scholarly sourcing methodologies within the articles I edit, I will be inactive until further notice. Interested readers may see the RfAr that has been filed against me at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration. Wyss 22:30, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Question About Images

I have a few thousand images on my hard drive that I have been using to replace some of the images on Wikipedia. Q: If an image is listed as copyrighted, would a non-copyrighted image always be better? Should I use more discretion when replacing images?--Ewok Slayer 21:31, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

It may depend on what you mean by "copyrighted". Images not following Wikipedia's image guidelines should be removed anyways. Simply replacing images with other images that are "more free" without regard to the relative quality of the images is not a good idea. But if you have an image that is higher quality or conveys the message better, that would be fine. —Mike 23:22, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Is it possible to be more world inclusive?

Today's featured article (Katamari Damacy) is so culturally/geographically specific as to be both meaningless and insulting to Wikipedia's global community of users. We Australians cannot get the video game because Namco never released it here. It's a safe bet to assume that the game is not widely available in many other countries for the same reason. That it was chosen to be today's featured article reflects more of someone's personal predjudice than any desire to be universally inclusive of some "truth". It was so apartheid, I was amazed no filter person said, "Wait a minute, this might not mean anything or have any importance outside our narrow circle of interest and friends".

If information about the game's release date and release locations is incomplete or inaccurate, then certainly you should edit the article to reflect this. However, objecting to it being a feature article simply because its subject is not available or of interest to everybody in the world is misguided in my opinion; every subject of an article is going to be inapplicable or uninteresting to some segment of the world's population. On the other hand, sometimes people outside the area of accessibility of the original thing actually like Wikipedia giving it coverage so they can find out more about it; I, for one, have sometimes read with interest articles giving details about British television shows which I had no way of watching myself. Certainly, articles about anything that's location-specific should be careful to note what area it applies to, and not assume that all possible readers already know this; and there should be an effort to broaden the scope of articles to include location-specific information about places other than the heavily-covered locations in North America and Western Europe. Articles about entertainment items (movies, music, games, etc.) should attempt to note the differences in release dates, etc., for different regions. But beyond this, I don't know what you expect to be done. *Dan T.* 18:55, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
As Dan T mentioned, it was chosen because it was a well-written, thorough article, not because of someone's personal prejudice and not because of universal truths. If there is an article you'd like to see featured on the main page, please help get it to featured status. — Knowledge Seeker দ 19:03, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Cultural inclusiveness has little or no relevance as far as feattured article is concerned. If it did, mostfeatured articles would never get to the front page, because they are specific to individual countries or regions - as indeed are most of Wikipedia's articles. As to being North America and Western European centred, part of that is simply because of the concentration of English speakers with computer access in those two regions. However, this month alone there have been a Polish composer, a South Korean city and a New Zealand architect. We're also due before the end of the month to have a Belarusian anthem, a Brazilian poet and a race of people from the area now known as Uzbekistan. Hardly Anglo/US-centric. As Knowledge seeker said, if you want to see a particular article on the fromnt page, get it up to speed and propose it for featured article status. Grutness...wha? 00:38, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

I concur. Furthermore, I also want to point out that Katamari Damacy is widely known among PlayStation gamers throughout English-speaking North America as well as in its original market, Japan. That's broad enough for notability as far as most WP users are concerned.
Very few cultural, historical, political, economic or social things are universally known worldwide. If we were to limit featured articles to such things (perhaps Kylie Minogue or Cher?), we would have practically nothing to feature on the front page. --Coolcaesar 05:53, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Offensive Images

I'm a bit lost as to where to discuss this. When loading the article on Circumcision and seeing a picture of the phallus, i was suprised to find that it wasn't someone's pornographical edit. In fact, a discussion had emerged elsewhere, and images of anatomical value are indeed well within policy.

I am wondering, if there is a way to turn off images in wikipedia prefernces (as opposed to on each computer i browse with), because most places i would be using a computer would find such a picture offensive, and i'd likely be reprimanded in some way.

Or, if some images could be flagged as offensive or otherwise, and have that turned off in preferences. (preceding unsigned comment by Chacham (talk • contribs) )

I have tried tagging them using {{offensive}} but the community deemed it as POV. So the next step, which I have yet to do, is to tag or categorise all images as body parts, penis, vagina, pictures of religious leaders (offensive to Islam), etc. -- Zondor 21:07, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
Is there a flagging system? Tagging things like "anatomy", "religous", "death" and the like might be a good idea, but these things must have comparable options to turn them off in preferences. -- Chacham 18:42 Nov 11 2005 (UTC)
Blocking images from upload.wikimedia.org will do the job. In Firefox this can be done by right-clicking on an image; I don't know how to do it in IE. ~~ N (t/c) 00:16, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Wikipedia is not censored for the protection of minors. Wikipedia may contain material that some people find offensive, and that includes images. Efforts by some users to add warning labels to 'inappropriate' images have been strongly rejected by the community, as it is inherently POV to determine whether an image is offensive (as opposed to, for instance, artistic nudity, or biological anatomy). Radiant_>|< 00:08, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
Ah, ok, thanx for explaining. I was unaware of this policy. I had an incorrect idea of what Wikipedia was. -- Chacham 19:54 Nov 13 2005 (UTC)
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. User:Zoe|(talk) 04:24, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
There is no Right To Not Be Offended. Liberum veto is a tyranny to real life. --StanZegel (talk) 02:55, 18 November 2005 (UTC)


Corrupted Article on Jesus?

I just finished reading the article on Jesus. It seems very well written, except for the third paragraph, which is only one sentence long, and which is suspisciously inconsistent with the ademically-oriented nature of the rest of the article.

Specifically, the line is, "They also agree that Jesus obviously went to Hell due to the fact that he had sex with hoes. For example, that Mary wench."

Surely, this is not part of the author's text! This is a very offensive statement -- to say the least!

Can someone clarify this? Thank you for your assistance.

What you saw was vandalism, which seems to have already been reverted. --cesarb 23:52, 15 November 2005 (UTC)


OVERABUNDANT TRIVIA ---

I get the impression that Wikipedia is gradually being submerged into an esoteric sea of trivia relating to rock-bands, computer-games, sci-fi and the like. Could there not be arranged a means whereby there were either two Wikipedias or that one might up-front set up a filter to avoid not exactly objectionable material, but simply material not worth (in the viewer's opinion) the trouble to delete -- let alone read -- from his screen ?

If you feel that there are overly trivial facts in an article, click the "Edit this page" link at the top of the page and remove them. I don't agree with you, though- Most articles, especially pop culture topics, are just fine, That's not to say that there aren't overly trivial facts in some articles, however.--Sean|Black 23:39, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
To this point, does anyone know of any stats about the number of articles that are pop culture related (including articles about video games, current TV shows, current recording artists, etc.) vs. articles about more serious topics (history, geography, science, etc. - the things most people might expect to find in a more traditional encyclopedia)? I'm not sure it's an issue (see Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia), but if it is becoming dominated by pop culture articles (say 80% or more) it might be worth thinking about splitting off a wikipop (or, maybe, the "serious stuff" gets split off into wikireference). It is sort of jarring to have articles about Britney Spears' songs (e.g. ...Baby One More Time (song)) in the same article space with Riemann hypothesis. -- Rick Block (talk) 01:22, 20 November 2005 (UTC)
I doubt that it's over 80%, but I've always thought that when we go to print, we have the serious encyclopedia for those who want to read about nuclear physics and Shakespeare, and the geeky encyclopedia, for those who want to read about, say, Galvatron and Fire vampires.--Sean|Black 02:46, 20 November 2005 (UTC)
I don't understand why there's any argument at all over Britney Spears v. Shakespeare. Those that want to read about Britney can do so. Those that want to read about Shakespeare can do so. No one is forced to read the articles that don't interest them, so where's the problem? Even if WP were 80% pop culture, and assuming the "serious" articles kept being written, just don't access the pop stuff. The reader has free choice - Adrian Pingstone 08:58, 20 November 2005 (UTC)
Oh, I recognize that, and though I tend to stick with the "fire vampires" crowd :), I don't really think there's a problem. When we go to print, the primary purpose is to educate- that is, on history, science, politics, etc. But thers is a place for, say, Time and the Rani.--Sean|Black 09:12, 20 November 2005 (UTC)
I would hope we don't exclude articles on pop culture entirely from a print edition, although I would not expect us to include ...Baby One More Time (song), I would expect it to include Britney Spears, as an informative bio of a popular figure. Steve block talk 14:53, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
I agree that the tidal wave of pop culture dreck is annoying. But as noted above, enh. Don't read it if you don't like. On the other hand, I just spent time on cleamup for Dragon Fist Assault! If Goku Can't Do It, Who Can?, which article consisted of several paragraphs of someone (probably a 13-year-old boy) describing the film "First the monster attacks and XYZ is down! But he gets up and shoots Super Power Balls at the monster!" etc. But is was requested for cleanup so I did it. One problem is that the adoslescent pop-culture stuff, besides being ephemera, are usually horribly written. So you have the question of spending effort cleaning them up, or leaving lots and lots of sub-WP articles lying about. It IS anying. But not fatal. Herostratus


LND article titles

For LND dis-ambiguation pages, I always tried to propose this rule:

For dis-ambiguation pages for a letter from A to Z followed by a number from 1 to 99, the page is to be at the unhyphenated form (A1) with the unhyphenated form (A-1) a re-direct, not the other way around. I proposed a few pages that ignore the rule to be moved to follow the rule, but the voters disagreed. What is the consensus as of this moment for how LND dis-ambiguation pages are to be?? Georgia guy 17:31, 19 November 2005 (UTC)


hopeless article -- what to do about it?

I already started to improve the article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_alternative%2C_speculative_and_disputed_theories , when it dawnwed on me that in fact (IMO) such an article doesn't belong in Wikipedia at all. This was nicely illustrated by a comment of another editor: "Plasma cosmology is indeed a disputed theory and not popular among physicists, but it's indecent to have it listed on a page that includes the Flat earth theory. Oh well. If that's what the mob decides. "

Some parts will no doubt be reusable for appropriate articles, but I think that the article itself should be fed to the sharks. How to go about it? There seem to be too many arguments against it to choose a single one! It's a bad topic in itself (a kind of junk yard for everything impopular), very much mainstream POV by definition (de facto a blacklist of everything non-mainstream!), and even, apparently, NOR violation (and I doubt that many respectable reports exist on such a POV topic). Harald88 22:53, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

check out WP:AFD which has all about how to nom articles for deletion BL kiss the lizard 23:07, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
Thanks - I'll read the instructions Harald88 16:33, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

new way of archiving or posting

I live off-grid, and have exrememly limited amounts of electricity available, access to a library, income to spend on books, access to the intenet, or a scanner. That led me to an alternative means of having books to read when I need them. Most people today, including myself, have better access to a digital camera. I simply take pictures of the pages of a book, then store the images until such time as I need to read the book or am ready to convert the pages into text. This can be done manually or by software. The software for doing this that is available for free over the internet is useless, but there are much better kinds available. Even the best OCR software has to be checked manually, so the only differences in using thiis technique are the speed of getting the book into a digital format of some type and the ease with which it may be done by more people. I propose a serious discussion of adding this technique to the means already being used in the Gutenberg Project, the Wikipedia, and other online or digital libraries.

Digital Rights Management

Hi there,

Would it be possible to add Sofwtrap (www.softwrap.com) to the list of DRM companies available.

Many thanks

Richard Wienburg

Someone has vandalized the article on Thomas Jefferson. Please fix.

A Series of Unfortunate Events

Hi! I love your site and I was just wondering if you knew if "A Series of Unfortunate Events" is a true story, I remember hearing somewhere they were and it makes sense, I think Beatrice is the mother of the baudelaires, anyway I was really wondering, coz i say that to all my friends, and alot of them don't believe me :(, but in some books Lemony says things as if it was real, like he said he went to the place and asked if they knew things and he said he didn't know where the baudelairs were now...so yeah anyway thanks for ur time :) -Me

  • Sorry, it's made up. The books are always filed under "fiction", and Lemony Snicket is actually just Daniel Handler's pen name. Some authors do use that kind of narrative to enhance the realistic feel of their writing; Michael Crichton, for example, in some of his books, thanks his characters along with his wife. Deltabeignet 05:32, 24 November 2005 (UTC)


six wikipedia conjectures

I came up with these conjectures about wikipedia recently. I posted them just now on my blog -- link directly to article.

Conjecture 1. That the distance between any two wikipedia pages, randomly chosen, as measured by wikilinks, is on average 6.
Conjecture 2. That wikipedia is sufficiently formal and complete that you could build a useful general purpose AI knowledge base using it.
Conjecture 3. That wikipedia has low information entropy.
Conjecture 4. That the development of a wikipedia article over time occurs in a manner consistent to the biological evolution of a species.
Conjecture 5. That the relationship between the amount of material in wikipedia and the number of article views is exponential.
Conjecture 6. That wikipedia is, on average, factually accurate.

There's a bit more material at my blog post. Sbwoodside 04:28, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Are you saying that Wikipedia could eventually... come alive? And start editing US? Herostratus
As untested conjectures, these are virtually worthless. What you neet is to develop some good tests for them. I'd tend to a more sceptical view myself, but I'm open to being convinced. Filiocht | The kettle's on 08:31, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
Their value is only inasmuch as they inspire useful tests. Probably the easiest to test would be #1 .. just download the database and make some simple software, it's been done before (e.g. with IMDB/Kevin Bacon). #2 might be tested by people who are working on entries for the Loebner prize. #3 I'm not so sure about, since some of the maths of information entropy are beyond me, but testing the entropy of texts has certainly been done, and the same with hypertexts over the links. #4 you'd have to develop a model dealing with mutation, speciation, punctuated equilibrium, etc. #6 would also be easy to test, has been done, but would require a lot of work and a suitable random sample method. Sbwoodside 03:01, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Six_degrees_of_Wikipedia has been out for a while now. Regarding the other claims: they could be quite useful ... someday. Right now we have neither the software nor the hardware to do it, and as good as it might be, the 'pedia isn't quite robust enough for that kind of application. Give it a while.the1physicist 05:13, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Image Status warning in article

I was just reading this article, and the image that's illustrating this section caught my eye. Well, not the image itself, but the fact that there's a warning to the fact that the image's status is currently unverified (which would mean deletion later on) attached to the caption of the image in the very article. Are we doing that now? That just looks like very poor form to me. The image itself may be tagged, and notes about it could be added to the article's talk page, but to add a note about it in the article (and in red, to make it yet more conspicuous) is like...washing our dirty laundy in public. The article itself should not be a place to make notes or post warnings about an image's status. Has there been, or is there, a discussion that decided on doing this?? Regards, Redux 21:57, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

I'd be equally happy if we did this on the talk page, but something like this needs to happen. Not a lot of people watchlist images. We lost over 40 perfectly valid maps related to Catalonia because no one concerned knew about the problem until they were deleted. I'm sure that kind of thing has been repeated a hundred times over. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:23, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
I see your point. But what if we were to add a header to the article (much like our Disambiguation notes), letting readers know that the images X and Y, currently in use in this article, do not have a verified copyright status at this point and will be deleted [etc., etc.]. You may comment [etc.]. It seems that it would be more...elegant, for lack of a better word, than to attach red notes to the images in the middle of the articles. Plus, headers are commonly used on Wikipedia to inform visitors of problems and events (such as the automatic headers letting people know that the image servers were being switched, just now, or the headers we have when there's a donation drive or elections to our boards, etc.). At the most, we could attach a [discreet] icon of some sort to the image's caption, as a reminder that that image is the one (or one of the) mentioned in the header, possibly linking to the appropriate venue to comment on the image's status. It's an idea... Regards, Redux 12:47, 23 November 2005 (UTC)


User:Jorje29 has made almost 500 edits since his first edit on October 25 and, as far as I can tell, all of the edits consist of simply adding external links to http://www.hoopsstats.com hoopsstats.com to articles on NBA teams and players. I have no idea whether he is a fanatic fantasy basketball player or a shill for the website. The links are to specific sub-pages in each case that I checked, and the external pages do contain statistics directly relevant to the article to which they are appended. In a few cases, other editors have already removed the links, but in most cases the links continue. Any thoughts? -- DS1953 06:30, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

All links to hoopsstats.com must be eliminated. His unpopular site barely registers an Alexa rating (below 1 million currently). He is trying to bring visitors to his trafficless site. Lotsofissues 07:44, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
Thank you for finding this. The admins in the chat room took care of the mess. 500 edits! We need a revert bot. Lotsofissues 08:35, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
Thank you. -- DS1953 14:59, 25 November 2005 (UTC)


Question

What person was responsible for creating the Entertainers who died in their X0s (for example "Entertainers who died in their 30s")?

Spencer Karter

A quick glance at the page history shows who created that category. Actually, a quick glance at the page history shows User: Who created that category. It looks, though, as though it may have been a rename from an earlier, deleted category, and you'd need to search through the long and twisty history of Wikipedia:Categories for deletion to find out what it was before that. Grutness...wha? 13:16, 26 November 2005 (UTC)


Historic day for Wikipedia

"This allows students and faculty to use the network in countless innovative ways, from Wikipedia-ing flowers while exploring the arboretum..." Columbia Spectator

The first use of Wikipedia as a verb in a print publication.

Lotsofissues 10:06, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Damn it. Verbing weirds language. (Thank you Bill Watterson for that gem!) TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:48, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
Look on the bright side. Maybe we can eventually make language a complete impediment to understanding (same source, pinned to the desk beside my computer). Grutness...wha? 23:52, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
And languaging weirds verbing. -- Jmabel | Talk 08:25, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Originators of Wikipedia jargon

Credit the parents of these terms/practices/customs:

  • NPOV
  • stub
  • vandal
  • RC patrol
  • village pump
  • bureaucrat
  • vanity
  • sock puppet
  • collaborations
  • boldening the first appearance of the topic

(I notice we are lacking in community customs)

Lotsofissues 10:14, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

There's also the terms:

  • wikify
  • WikiProject
  • Portal
  • listify
  • barnstar
  • userfy
  • speedying
  • -cruft

There are one or two obvious ones - I've noticed several people using the term "Geogre's Law" on AFD now (i.e., any biographical article where the name is not correctly capitalised is likely to be deletable), but perhaps we need a glossary in Wikispace where first instances of the more notable ones can be listed. Grutness...wha? 10:27, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

You mean like the Wikipedia:Glossary? :-) (It even mentions Geogre's Law!) No word origins given for most, alas. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 15:31, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
aha! :) thanks - didn't know about that. I've added a couple of missing ones, too. Grutness...wha? 00:00, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Not sure where to ask Namespace Q...

I asked this Q at Talk:Wikipedia but I'm not sure if that was the correct forum. Curious1i 07:14, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

I've replied there. -- Rick Block (talk) 16:37, 27 November 2005 (UTC)


Scrollbox template

Please take a look at the (ugly?) {{Scrollbox}}, and the discussion on the talk page - it's a template that generates a scrollable window area, whether that's of use in any way. violet/riga (t) 23:43, 28 November 2005 (UTC)


Reporting content rip-offs

I know there's a policy for this, but I'm stupid today and I can't seem to find it. What do we do when a site has been copying material from Wikipedia without citing GNU or wikipedia? --Woggly 08:28, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Take a look at Wikipedia:Mirrors#Non-compliance process (or just read the whole thing). --Deathphoenix 00:08, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
thanks.

Township tables

I uploaded all U.S. county subdivision data to Image:Township tables.pdf. This PDF file includes the source code used to create the township tables for each county in Kansas. If you would like to create similar tables for any of the other states, feel free to download the file and copy at will. If you have any questions about it, let me know. —Mike 20:21, 30 November 2005 (UTC)


A question for Wknight94

Wknight94,

Why did you create the "Entertainers who died in their X0s" category??? I want a good explanation why you did it???

Spencer Karter

Ask him on User talk:Wknight94.--Sean|Black 23:53, 1 December 2005 (UTC)


random question

what is the most viewed article

Finding this out is very database-intensive, so we don't keep track of it day-to-day. However, as of our last look in September, 2004, the top ten were:
  1. 2300415 Main Page
  2. 114869 Hurricane Ivan (2004)
  3. 71186 Current events
  4. 40924 Goatse
  5. 30458 Goatse.cx
  6. 29222 OS-tan
  7. 28247 Sexual slang
  8. 26149 Decapitation
  9. 25843 Hurricane Ivan
  10. 25084 United States
Wow, that's over a year old. --Golbez 18:54, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
There's a list from June 2005 at User:Dcoetzee/List of Wikipedia articles with at least 1000 hits. -- Rick Block (talk) 20:05, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Development suggestions

Cross posting to VPT, VPM and VPN.

Hi there, I'm a MediaWiki developer who amongst other things made the Cite tool and the license selector on the upload page. Since I can't figure out anything to do development wise right now I thought I'd invite people to make suggestions, big or small, for things to work on on my talk page. Note that your idea has a greater likelyhood of being implemented if it isn't taxing on our already overloaded databases. Suggestions might be proposals for new features, improvements of existing ones, fixing of filed bugs or anything else that comes to mind. —Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 07:55, 3 December 2005 (UTC)


Mediawiki changes?

What's with the recent change to the login interface(e.g. creation of MediaWiki:nologin, MediaWiki:Nologinlink and related software changes)? It has no benefit. I appreciated the simplicity and efficiency of the old version. Superm401 | Talk 21:12, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

"Image server got some trouble. This is under investigation"

Not sure if this is the right place to post this, but this message, appearing at the top center of every single Wikipedia page, really ought to at least be written in standard English. I suggest something like "The image server is experiencing some trouble. This is under investigation." --Lukobe 22:54, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

On further reflection, this may actually not be the right place to post this. I think I will try in the Help section instead, considering that I am unsure where questions like this belong... --Lukobe 23:02, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
Wow, never mind! The wording's already been fixed. Now that was fast. --Lukobe 23:03, 3 December 2005 (UTC)


Football (soccer) team userboxes

I have started to put the soccer team userboxes onto their own template pages, to enable automatic insertion into categories. I have added a category (Category:Wikipedians who support soccer teams) and want to create subcategories for each team which has a userbox listed under Wikipedia:List of soccer userboxes. I have created four templates and subcategories so far:

I was just wondering if it was possible for assistance in finishing this task I have somehow set myself, as doing this is quite long and tedious for just one person to do. Leave a comment on my talk page if there are any questions. Andrew 23:51, 4 December 2005 (UTC)


Population clocks

About a month ago I commented on Talk:List of countries by population suggesting that we should stop using population clocks for population figures. I haven't had any replies and the issue goes much wider than that page, so I thought I'd repeat my arguments here for consideration:

  • Population clocks are constantly updating. We could conceivably be editing the page every few seconds to keep track of them.
  • Population clocks are inaccurate. Typically a population clock is nothing more than a linear interpolation between an estimate and a projection. Statistics organisations provide them as a gimmick, rather than a serious statistical measure. In contrast, published periodic estimates are likely to be the product of good quality statistical analysis.
  • Population clocks are unverifiable. One of the hopes for Wikipedia is that our articles can be fact-checked by other Wikipedia users and become an authoritative source. Published periodic estimates can be cited and checked even after they become historic.

I'm curious to know what other people think.

Ben Arnold 23:38, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

I think it's totally okay to provide a predicted population figure, but to protect against this rapid changing, it should be paired with a year indicating the time it was intended to predict, and the talk page should explain how it was predicted. This is somewhat original research, but many of our pages contain simple derivations of data. If recent census figures are available, those are more appropriate, even if they're a few years old, since they're more reliable and verifiable (again, specified in combination with the year). Deco 02:03, 6 December 2005 (UTC)


RDX explosiveness

I would like to know how much damage can make RDX. For example 10 gram.

Thank you.

Try Wikipedia:Reference desk. Deco 02:03, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Wickpedia run by Government trolls?

I tried to correct a statement of fact for the listing for September 11th 2001, a mere few seconds later an "editor" told me to keep my conspiracy theories out of the post. What is posted is an outrageous "conspiracy theory" that has been factually refuted.

Who is really running Wickpedia and what is the agenda. Are postings meant to be factually correct or politically useful?

Is it Wikipedia or Wickedpedia? None dare call it conspiracy! Nandesuka 05:25, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
The Founder and the cabal strive for total accuracy. All articles are neutral, but some are more neutral than others. Dissent will not be tolerated. The government has been informed. You will be obliterated. :)--Sean|Black 05:32, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
Obliterated? I thought we were just trying to assimilate them... Ten of Twelve (is that the time?) 02:12, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Are you referring to this series of edits: [6] [7] [8] [9] [10]? Sorry, but simply replacing the word "attack" with "massacre" does not a theory make. – ClockworkSoul 12:47, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Restarting the AMA

Something needs to be done with the AMA, it's a good idea that's basically been abandoned. So, since I was too Bold in regards to WP:AUTO, consider this an intention of boldness to come. I think at this point the AMA can be officially considered "dead", and it's only a matter how to clean the slate and start over again. I'll send it to WP:MFD in a few days if there's no initiative towards renewing things here. karmafist 03:26, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

You may want to talk to Kim Bruning (talk · contribs) before doing that, he's currently acting as an advocate for Ed Poor in the ArbCom case concerning him, and has expressed an interest in getting it kickstarted again.--Sean|Black 03:43, 7 December 2005 (UTC)


Question about time zone on wikipedia

Just wondering what time zone wikipedia uses, doesn't matter, but it's Dec 7 on my computer clock and it's showing the 8th for timestamp.--Dakota t e 00:40, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

We use UTC (Coordinated Universal Time). There's a table of differences from other timezones in that article.-Splashtalk 00:42, 8 December 2005 (UTC)


I'm upset about this warning you created!!

I'm very upset when I see this stupid-freaking-dumb-dimwitted error.

Page creation limited From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Jump to: navigation, search Wikipedia has temporarily restricted the ability for unregistered users to create new pages. You may list the content you wish to have created.

What gives you right to do this? WTH!, THAT'S UNFAIR, THAT'S UNFAIR!!!!!!

Well, Jimbo did pretty much invent Wikipedia - that gives him the right. In any case, the media was putting on a lot of pressure for "something to be done". Something has been done, and quickly. Regardless of whether it achieves anything, it's taken a lot of the heat off wikipedia. Things will settle down sooner or later. Stevage 10:02, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Spencer Karter

Many Wikipedians agree with your sentiments and appreciate you voicing them. This change was recently made on a temporary basis in response to an article about Wikipedia in the New York Times. In the meantime, you might as well register - it's quick and easy and has a number of handy benefits. Deco 01:58, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Spencer, I agree with you 1000%. This is a horrendous idea, especially since it was done without discussion. User:Zoe|(talk) 04:04, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Anons banned from creating articles. See [11] WAS 4.250 05:10, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Incidentally, I (sort of) predicted a change in Wikipedia's openness to anonymous editing almost exactly a year ago, although the trigger I thought of was an internet worm. See Meta:Worst cases. ‣ᓛᖁ♀ᑐ 07:16, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

I think we all should calm down. I think this is a bad idea, but it's just an experiment. If it's not recieved well, or it doesn't appear to work, then it won't continue. It's not the end of the Wiki-world (even if the change is permanent).--Sean|Black 07:22, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Yeah, this could be a lot worse. I don't think this change is going to accomplish much aside from upsetting some people; someone else has already mentioned throwaway accounts. This is close to deception on Jimbo's part: the outside world is going to think "only trusted users will be allowed to contribute", when of course Jimbo's "anonymous" only means "editors identified only by IP address" (who are less anonymous than registered users). ‣ᓛᖁ♀ᑐ 08:01, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
And what are the end results of this experiment? When will it be declared a successful or a failure? Or is it just a fiat change of policy with no discussion? User:Zoe|(talk) 03:21, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
I'm not sure when it's going to end, but I think that Jimbo (or whoever's making this decision) can tell what the general community reaction has been when they decide whether the change is to be permanent or not.--Sean|Black 03:26, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
"Only trusted users being allowed to contribute" is a misinterpretation I worry about, along with "600 volunteers revert all of the vandalism on the site" (something that was on the CNN interview, if I recall correctly). Part of the current problem with the media coverage is people aren't exactly distorting the numbers and facts, but they're misinterpreting them. People will take this as Wikipedia closing their doors, and this is something that is NOT a good thing. Mo0[talk] 22:23, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
If the intention was to reduce the number of delete-worthy new articles, it's failed comprehensively. The afd list is just as long, only it's all coming from first-time editors. In other words, people are creating new accounts just so as to create stupid articles. This experiment may well have scuppered the well-advanced idea re: Wikipedia:Blocking policy proposal - in which case it was extraordinarily ill-advised and has done far more harm than good. Grutness...wha? 09:26, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
We are getting a lot of bad media attention right now. Thus much of the junk created is likely from people who first heard about Wikipedia from the bad press and thought it would be neat to make a mess of the place. --mav 19:01, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Agreed, partially. A lot of the crappy articles being created probably ARE a result of people just coming in and going "hey, let's add to the problem to prove USA Today's point!" but at the same time, a lot of what we're seeing is still what we were seeing for months before all of this started. Mo0[talk] 22:23, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
My personal view on all this is, like most others here, that this won't work and won't last. This ignores one of the main tenets of a open-registration website: if you require registration for a feature, people will register just to abuse it. I don't see the new page crap going down at all. Mo0[talk] 22:23, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

I am not sure where to ask this...I would like to submit a text to be edited but not sure wiki is the right system to meet my needs. I was encouraged when I saw xbox-linux wiki site. That still is not exacly what I was thinking though...I want to have control over a site for editing a specific text. I would like community member of my proposed site to be able to edit it but I want it to be done with a wiki site that I sell advertising for. What wiki format could help me do this?

Please help, thanks, jeremy

Wikipedia uses MediaWiki. See Comparison of wiki software. ‣ᓛᖁ♀ᑐ 14:36, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

How do you do things?

Just a question from a newcomer, do you generally edit articles which interest you, or do you find articles, learn about them, and then edit them? Do you apply your knowledge to Wikipedia or does Wikipedia teach you? TG312274 20:32, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

I think most people start out by editing articles which interest them. Once they become hooked on Wikipedia, they move on to a broader range of articles. For example, some people may participate in the Collaboration of the Week, others may work on requested articles or Template:Opentask. Category:Wikipedia maintenance is another good place to look for work to do. Just browse through these and see if something appeals to you.-gadfium 23:21, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
There are many styles for writing- some like to fix lots of minor errors, others like me prefer to add serious content. I find it frustrating to find uninformative stubs that have remained that way through a dozen edits. The approach I use:
  • I contribute in my area of expertise (chemistry) almost exclusively. I find articles written by people who only half-know a topic to be a nuisance. My work is coordinated through a WikiProject, in my case mainly WP:Chem, so my work complements that of others. (Look for our acetic acid FA on the front page very soon!)
  • Sometimes I choose to write an article from scratch on something where there is not an article but there should be. Sometimes I take an existing article, usually on a really important topic (like sulfuric acid), and I try to take it to the "next level" of quality.
  • I think writing articles should mainly be fun, so I mainly do things that are both significant and interesting to me. However I also try to "do my bit" helping out on articles that are less interesting to me, if I know that (a) they are bad articles on important topics and (b) I have the skill to improve them.
  • I focus on a particular area within my field, for example phosphorus chemistry. I got together all the books I had on that area, I got another 1 or 2 out the library, then I wrote five full-length articles on five different phosphorus halides.
  • I prefer to work offline, that way I tend to add large amounts of content, instead of wasting a long time fixing minor typos and the like.
  • A maxim of mine - "An A-class article is worth a thousand stubs." Walkerma 17:11, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
  • a maxim of mine. a thousand stubs can end up being turned into a thousand a-class articles! BL kiss the lizard 23:01, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

When I first started here, I did minor stuff, just fixing typos I think. I was terrified of doing something wrong, I pretty much memorized the Manual of Style. Then I got into speedway articles, since I live in a town with one, and added a lot of info to those, starting many. Then I got hooked on Washington Metro articles, since I <3 it. Then I came across U.S. Congressional Delegations from North Carolina, fell in love with the tables, and made 49 more articles in the same fashion. Then I noticed that some countries were lacking maps of their provinces, so I started making those. Then the 2004 hurricane season started, and living in North Carolina, I took an interest in it, and stuck with it for the 2005 season. So... I've kind of flowed from assignment to assignment. I really need to get back to my congress work, the hurricane season is over and I tire of maps at the moment. --Golbez 20:29, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Golbez, great to see someone go from one topic to an entirely different one, even though they're completely random and different. I'm finding the WP:TIE stuff involving at the moment, although there's never enough time. But it's great to research and improve an article such as the Generation of '98. TG312274 20:31, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

As did others, when I first started here, I mainly edited articles in my field of interest, which was television/reality shows. Eventually I noticed there wasn't much room to grow for myself in there, and so I moved on. As of right now, I do a lot of RC patrolling, and I participate in WP:AfD quite frequently now, also. It's all naturally evolved from what I've been looking at on the website. I invite you to try RC patrolling at least once while you edit here. It's like a video game, you have to zap the vandals as fast as you can! Mo0[talk] 22:16, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

At fist I read stuff about hobbies and interests of mine, then as my interest grew I started reading articles on things I'd heard about either in the news and such. At my job I have times where nothing is happening so I'll sit down and read articles here whether it be something off the main page or just a random name or event that I think of. It's a stream of consciousness kind of thing. I'm not all that intelligent about any one thing so I just do housekeeping mostly, fixing spelling, markups, etc. Dismas|(talk) 22:23, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Spelling

Is there a template that nicely reminds editors not to change certain English spellings such as example colour to color or vice versa. Thanks.--Dakota t e 00:24, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, I say it depends on the article. To me, there are certain articles that it makes sense to use Commonwealth spelling; these articles are articles that would be unlikely to have existed if only Americans edited Wikipedia. In contrast, articles that would be unlikely to have existed if Americans were not allowed to edit Wikipedia should use American spelling. Articles that belong to neither of these 2 special categories might depend on who is more likely to edit it. Now, suppose there is an article that has one section about the United States and another about a different English speaking country. What would be a good rule for that article?? Georgia guy 00:36, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

  • Yes, I agree with you. Several times I've seen editors change spellings. It's the ips mostly that I have seen do it. It does not seem quite right to edit an article just to change it's spelling from Commonwealth to American or the other way around because neither are wrong and I believe it is Wikipedia policy not to do so. Do you know the link to where that information would be? Thank you for the reply.--Dakota t e 01:39, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
The advice in those situations is to stick with whatever the original contributor used. For guidelines on this, see WP:MOS#National varieties of English. For templates to warn users who make these kind of edits, see Template:Lang2 up to Template:Lang5 (no, I don't know where Lang(1) is!) pfctdayelise 04:51, 9 December 2005 (UTC)


Viewing pages

I don't know if my question is for this section, but i"ll ask. I can't see some special characters in any article Is it my browser's fault or I have to install something additional (eg fonts)?

You need fonts. Google for them, they're (usually) easy to find. The articles on the languages and/or alphabets/syllabaries used for the languages may have links to freely available fonts as well. --Golbez 18:13, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Place for gossiping about wikipedians behaviour?

Is there a place to make observations about the behaviour of other editors *in general*? For example, I have noticed two annoying habits: People who find a relevant section in an interesting article and just whack a random fact they know about the topic on the end of the biggest paragraph, usually starting with "additionally". I once saw a paragraph with 4 "additionally"s in it! The other annoyance is lists: As soon as people see a list, they feel obliged to make it one item longer. This is worst with lists of examples. What starts out with "Similar to other pop stars of the era, such as David Bowie or Madonna" soon becomes "Similar to other pop stars of the era, such as David Bowie, Madonna, Michael Jackson, Kiss, Boy George, Tiny Tim..." etc etc etc.

So where can one go to vent and appreciate other people's similar vents? :) Stevage 10:00, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

I got the same problem in Thai wikipedia too, anyone know how-to?--manop 21:01, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
If you have a livejournal, you could vent on [wikipedians]. Or... your user page? I dunno. pfctdayelise 04:53, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Rollback?

Does anyone know how to stop godmode-light's revert from destroying – and turning it into &ndash; ect? I ask this because I am an avid vandalism reverter, and this patch seems great, but I have been told by users (after I have reverted rather a few pages!) that it destroyes special symbols.

Thanks! Ian13 20:02, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Okay, it seems someone has already addressed this problem here, where it seems another user managed to detect the bug and fix it, as well as fix up an issue with usernames with spaces in. Sorry for any inconvienence. Ian13 20:31, 9 December 2005 (UTC)


Is there a glitch in the system today

I just removed this Hussein Mohammed Aidid — son and successor of Somali warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid from the list of US marines. (he's a somalian offfical never in the US marines) and when I hit the save button the entry was still there and no record of my edit. Tried twice with the same result. The same thing happened when I reverted a vandalism earlier (another editor has already done that one.)--Dakota t e 20:06, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Have you checked back today and seen if the record of your edit is there? I encountered this problem yesterday, and my edit would show up about 5 minutes later. I'm attributing it to massive spoonfuls of lag, but that may not be the case. Mo0[talk] 15:42, 8 December 2005 (UTC)


Yes, I checked back. It's happened several times. Yesterday while I was finishing an article it happened and today while reverting a vandalism. Was able to finish both in a few minutes wait time. Massive spoonfuls of lag is most likely.--Dakota t e 17:51, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Didn't know where else to put this

I just wanted to put my point of view across in the hope that Daniel Brandt (the "sleuth" who allegedly tracked down the author of the Seigenthaler submission that made the small time news - http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002677060_wiki11.html) reads this. I just thought I would write in to suggest to you that you are not some renegade wiki-hero, but in reality all you've put a working class man through an undue amount of stress and tension, culminating in the loss of his job. The scale of your response was ill considered, considering the man's comments were still contentious regarding its liability (his simply published something which had apparently previously been alledged). You valued your own kicks over this mans life, enjoying the sleuth aspect so much that you even went as far as to call his company, email his company, and one would imagine you let the press know of the business as they called as well. This attention made the man feel "remorseful and scared of what might happen to him" and yet, in the end, the man lost his job. And *you* are the one responsible. If you can muster the objectivity, allow yourself to put yourself through his situation. You blew it, mister. That's my opinion and I hope you read it. My point is, you are a victim of the same crime you wanted to uncover -- you allowed the internet to remove any *empathy*, and acted selfishly for your own kicks. I think that's weak. (note, I'm a frequent visitor to wikipedia but not registered) 210.10.170.43 10:03, 11 December 2005 (UTC)


Star Wars and linked pages canon?

There seems to be a lot of weird and wonderful facts, particularly concerning characters, that is taken from the literature (of varying quality) that forms the expanded universe of this series. as an example of this. Aspects of Star Trek and its expanded universe are divided by its fan base into canonical and non-canonical. A most obvious reason for attenpting to do this is to eliminate contradictions that may occur, as well as trying to identify what works may be worthy as a source alongside the movies and what many view as chaff. Is there a similar thing for Star Wars and if not should we not follow the example of its official sites that clearly distinguish between the original work and what others have built around it? The article on Yoda seems to do this after a fashion already, but other articles do not such as Ki-Adi-Mundi. Dainamo 10:30, 12 December 2005 (UTC)


User:mickmouse

In recent press coverage, as part of the Seigenthaler brouhaha, a Times column piece by Rosemary Righter claimed to have created a new user mickmouse. However there is currently no such user existent. Was this user name ever deleted, or did it ever really exist? (If the name did not not ever exist, the claim is false.) --Ancheta Wis 04:53, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

I had a look at the article, and I've searched Wikinews, Wiktionary and Meta for that username to no avail. I suggest it's her piece that's lacking "accountability, authority, scholarly credentials, accuracy and scrupulousness". Enochlau 05:44, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
I tried to create a login with that username, and I was told that it was allready registered. algumacoisaqq 13:27, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
Indeed actually. [12]. She didn't make any edits though. Enochlau 13:32, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Help with crap

So like, my winter break is coming up. How can I make the Wikipedia suck less during that time (Preceding comment unsigned, but was by User:Rampart)

If you are looking for things to do, hop over to Wikipedia:Community Portal for a long list of To Do items you can pick and choose from. DreamGuy 06:37, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
You mention your "winter break", so I assume you are involved in academia. How are you at tracking down sources, adding footnotes and references, etc.? There is always a lot of this to be done; see especially WP:FAR. -- Jmabel | Talk 23:22, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Anon contributions

Since I'm an idiot, a lot of my edits deal with things such as changing "US" to "U.S.", putting movie, television, and book titles in italics, and linking names of prominent people to their articles. What I'm specifically wondering about today is why people don't put titles in italics. It's usually anon contributors that don't do this but not just them. I don't understand why if they're going to go through the trouble of adding info, why they don't put the title in italics when there's usually a number of other points in the same article, the same paragraph even, where titles are italicized. I know, it's a minor thing, but does anyone have a theory on this? Though I guess I shouldn't really complain or anything since this gives me something to do around here... Dismas|(talk) 21:40, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

  • My theory is that most people have not studied Wikipedia's Manual of Style or any other style guide. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 16:08, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Also, the guidelines aren't *that* simple. Sometimes it's italics, sometimes it's quotes. From memory, music albums are italics, individual songs are quotes. It can be quite confusing, especially when dealing with self-titled albums, or albums named after their principal track. Well, that's my excuse anyway. Stevage 14:13, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Using or italics versus quotes is something people easily mess up. I do it myself on a regular basis. Then again there's people who don't use formatting at all, either because they're lazy, or because they don't know how to with wikicode. - Mgm|(talk) 13:05, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

self-righteous, dictatorial, arrogant "administrators"

I am relatively new to Wiki. There is a lot I do not know about it.

I have modified several articles, always with the intent to improve them. In one instance, I added what I considered to be appropriate humour.

There are no doubt many responsible, mature, right-minded administrators.

However, I take issue that several of my edits were reversed because some administrator did not take a personal liking to my edits.

I don't know if it is already Wiki policy or part of their guidelines, but I think there should be a Code of some sort for administrators that they do not destroy other people's contributions on a personal whim. Each person should be able to contribute without the censorship of a self-righteous, dictatorial, arrogant administrator (or any other person.)

Andrew

Andrew, without links to the articles in question your comments are pointless because no one can see if they agree with you or not. Incidentally, humour is generally not allowed (we're writing an encyclopedia, remember) so there's nothing odd about reverting that - Adrian Pingstone 21:24, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
Hi Andrew. You can sign your messages by putting four tilde symbols (~~~~) at the end of your message. When you save the page they get replaced by your username and the date and time. I've noticed that as Wikipedia matures people are getting more picky about what can and can't be included in a page. This can be offputting especially for new users. You'll probably find that the more obscure articles are generally a good place to start because people will be less particular there and more receptive to any help at all. Ben Arnold 22:38, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
Andrew, I don't know which other edits you may be referring to, but I checked the edit to Zebra earlier today from the IP address that you left the message here, and it appears to have been reverted not by an administrator but by another user just like you and me. Contributions to a wiki can be added or deleted by anyone. You thought the humor was appropriate and another user did not. That is what a wiki is all about. -- DS1953 23:01, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
Hi Andrew. Although administrators, as longtime Wikipedians, often have strong opinions, as long as they don't use their administrative powers to infringe on your editing rights and they don't attack you personally, it's really an honest disagreement. Just bring it up to the talk page and seek a consensus - Wikipedia is all about compromise. Deco 02:06, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
I think very few editors here, admin or not, would consider the Zebra edit encyclopedic. From a distance, a way to tell the difference between genders is that the male is white with black stripes and the female is black with white stripes. (humor) Tearlach 03:48, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

The guidelines for adminship clearly state that admins do not have greater editorial rights than others. Admins have, almost to a man, forgotten this, and show an extreme lack of humility on being reminded of it. 216.237.179.238 20:47, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

I suspect "Andrew" here doesn't know the difference between an administrator and an editor. His edits were probably just reverted by normal editors in the normal course of their activities. Stevage 10:22, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
  • We're writing an encyclopedia, so we're looking for factual material and jokes just don't belong in articles. From personal experience, I can tell, though, that a lot of users can appreciate humorous comments within the Wikipedia namespace. It even got me an award. - Mgm|(talk) 13:00, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Welding expert

I'm hoping to recruit a welding expert to work on a few articles. I have a little experience, but I'm unfamilar with precise terminology, like what types of welding "oxy-fuel" includes. The oxy-fuel welding and cutting, oxyacetylene and blowtorch articles are the ones that need work. The first article's definition of a blowtorch is incorrect and it includes some types of welding that may not be oxy-fuel, the second article is a how-to guide and the third has two sentences on blowtorches that don't really explain what they are. -- Kjkolb 14:36, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

You might have better lucky searching Google, AIM profiles, or even offline (phone book, whatever, could tell them it's for a school report ;). I bet there are some fine books on welding. Good luck! Deco 02:40, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Dubious claims in articles

I've discovered quite a few dubious, but accurate statements that have been removed from articles. Before removing such claims in articles, it would be nice if editors performed a Google search or did some other research to see if they can verify them. The burden of proof is on those who added the claims and they should use sources, but a little effort can prevent accurate information from being lost. -- Kjkolb 02:53, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Editors who remove stuff can also ask questions in the article's talk page or in the original author's talk page, so that accurate satements can be restored quickly. Apokrif 11:33, 13 December 2005 (UTC)


Category:Airports in Gibraltar

Do we really need this category when there is only one airport in Gibraltar? -- SGBailey 23:53, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

If you feel it's unnecessay, list it at Wikipedia:Categories for deletion.--Sean|Black 23:56, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
But it will probably be kept: things like this, which give a parallel structure for many places around the world, tend to be considered OK, even if some categories are pretty empty. After all, where else would you classify that one airport? Category:Airports in Spain? I think not. -- Jmabel | Talk 00:14, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
in Category:Spain and Category:Airports ? Apokrif 11:34, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
if anyone starts moving Gibraltar articles into Category:Spain, it might be worth running a book on the length of time it takes before the moves are reverted! :) Grutness...wha? 11:38, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
Sorry, I meant Category:United Kingdom Category:Gibraltar. Apokrif 11:46, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Image missing

Image:Fg235 1.gif was a very important part of the optic chiasm page. Why was it deleted? Thank you. Ancheta Wis 00:05, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

From the logs, it was deleted under WP:CSD#I4 (Unknown source/copyright). I would assume, after a little search, that the image in question comes from this page, and reading their copyright notice, they only allow non-commercial use only, so it still would have been deleted (under WP:CSD#I3). - Lee (talk) 00:42, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
There is a picture of the base of the brain from Andreas Vesalius' De Humani Corporis Fabrica (1543) which would not have copyright problems, and still shows the optic chiasm, but perhaps it would be difficult to get the image from his book. Might we use this one? --Ancheta Wis 09:29, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
Page 418 by any chance? It might need a bit of cleaning up first, though. - Lee (talk) 11:58, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
I see now that you beat me to it by a good hour a half. Never mind. Although, you might want to put those images on commons instead, since they're public domain. - Lee (talk) 17:17, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
As the person who did the deletion, I just want to thank everyone for being so kind and helpful in finding the source, and reuploading the image (as it turns out, in this case, we can use it). Sorry that it had to go to this extent before the source could be found, but I'm glad it worked out in the end. Thanks! JesseW, the juggling janitor 21:59, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Book with 13 000 words

Okay, imagine a book with over 13000 words in 48 pages. What would the target market of it be? Ignore the topic, the actual size of the words, etc, just the fact its 13000+ words about one narrow topic. -- user:zanimum

It could be anything at all. Children, mathematicians, writers, circus trapezists, politicians, African Americans. Many people write short books for any number of purposes. What is the point of this bizarre question? Deco 23:29, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
I presume it has to to with Wikijunior--Shanel 02:00, 14 December 2005 (UTC)


Plagiarism, citable sources, and all that

OK, I have a dilemma here. For Maradona (scam), after a Google search for some appropriate references, I cited Expat Focus Avoiding common scams when travelling, but their wording looked awfully familiar, so I looked back at what I wrote 3-1/2 years ago on my own web site and, in fact, they plagiarized me! (See my Bucharest Practicalities.) Weirdly, by Wikipedia's usual citation standards, they are probably "more citable" than I am but they took this from me, pretty much verbatim, violating my copyright! Would it be appropriate to cite my own article, instead of their rip-off of it? -- Jmabel | Talk 09:01, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Cite them, if they're a reputable source. Meanwhile, sue the crap out of them :) Stevage 09:56, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
Cited them, and politely asked them to acknowledge me as their source; they say they will. -- Jmabel | Talk 23:17, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
And now they have. -- Jmabel | Talk 00:15, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Abbreviations vs. Names

Does Wikipedia have a general rule on whether to use abbreviations or names?? Look at Talk:NBC and Talk:Public Broadcasting Service. On each talk page there is an archived requested move to switch from one form to the other and there was no consensus. This means there must be no general rule. What's the problem?? Please try to decide what the general rule on what the best way to title an article if the choices are between a full name and an abbreviation. Georgia guy 01:23, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

The general rules are at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (acronyms). The dispute in these cases is almost certainly regarding the words the term you are naming is almost exclusively known only by its acronyms and is widely known and used in that form. -- Rick Block (talk) 01:38, 15 December 2005 (UTC)


Wikipedia tagline

People are invited to comment at MediaWiki talk:Tagline about what they would prefer for the tagline for Wikipedia. The tagline shows on Wikipedia pages in small writing below the article title. Until now, the tagline has been "From Wikipedia, the free encyclopeda.", but people have in the past week changed it to "From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit". - Mark 01:26, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Online at 20,000 feet

Hi everybody. I am just sitting in the airplane in an intercontinental flight and are trying out the wireless LAN for the first time. Not sure if this is the first edit on Wikipedia out of a commercial airplane, but I am thrilled nevertheless. (On a side note, however, the background noise makes a vide conference difficult, though ;). -- Chris 73 | Talk 15:41, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

I have my suspicions that some people have boldly already gone this way, (when a featured article creator tells you "take lufthansa, they have internet connectivity in-flight", I'd say those suspicions might have grounds :-)) Nevertheless, it's kinda fun. Don't forget to take lots of pictures! Kim Bruning 16:06, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
ha ha, pls. see WP:WHT. It has questions like - Are you on Lufthansa flight 411D which just added wireless access to the internet during flight? (25); Are you eating your meal on said flight while taking this test or writteing an article? (50) and

Did you choose this flight over another because of the access to Wikipedia? (100 plus a point for every $10 more you paid for this flight than the one you would have taken). You should probably take the test ;) --Gurubrahma 07:56, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

I guess I really should take the test. I did eat my meal while doing wikipedia, although it was not LH411D :))) -- Chris 73 | Talk 06:13, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Questioning Adminship

For people who hadn't quite noticed yet, this is the wake-up call. The role of admins has changed around august this year.

Adminship used to be a licence to access the more complex editing tools, once the community trusted you. The corresponding stratagem is to make everyone an admin, and everyone who gets admin access rights retains them for as long as they like.

Currently adminship is seen as maintenance and enforcement, like an executive branch or a higher "rank" in the community. Admins must follow procedures set by relative newcomers perfectly, and basically cary out the policies set by those people.

Since the latter evolution was unplanned and undiscussed, there is no real insight into whether this development is beneficial or desirable. If or if it isn't a good thing, where do we take things from here?

I'd love to hear people's opinions on this, either here or at my user talk page, if you feel that this page would get too cluttered.

Kim Bruning 18:04, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

What in particular do you think happened "around August this year?" I've only been here a couple of years but I haven't noticed any abrupt change of the sort you suggest. And some editing tools, e.g. deletion, have been regulated by procedures for the entire time I've been here. Dpbsmith (talk) 18:07, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
Analysing that sentence, I'd say, "the role of admins changed" is what happened "around August this year". The change was not abrupt. It's more like that around august (it's a rough estimate) was the crossover point where the new line of thought really became noticable. Kim Bruning 18:48, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
Dpbsmith, Kim is refering to the seemingly de facto standards that seems to have developed here. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 19:47, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

One recurring issue is some editors who are --FILL IN THE BLANK-- (RC patrollers, AfD participants, vandal blockers, policy wonks) saying that if you are not going to --FILL IN THE BLANK-- (patrol RC, close AfDs, block vandals, comment on policy), then you should not "be an admin". The fact that you are a long term editor and only want access to the tools to use them occasionally in your work on building an encyclopedia seems to be increasingly belittled in RFA discussions. The focus on letting trusted editors have access to the tools seems to have shifted to a focus on whether, once annointed, the person will fill the role of administrator. -- DS1953 20:10, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

And you think that's a new development? I had that discussion already back in July 2004! Lupo 20:34, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
The more things change .... -- DS1953 20:42, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
I wouldn't say that the standards have changed. I think that the problem is certain people don't understand the role of an administrator, and will oppose on the grounds that they don't do the "seek and destroy vandals" thing. That's unfortunate, but's an issue with those people, not with the RfA process. Take a look at my RfA, for instance- I only do RC patrol when I have nothing else to do, and haven't done it in several weeks. I accepted on the basis that I was going to keep adding good content to the encyclopedia, not just get rid of bad content, and nobody said that I wouldn't use the tools enough.--Sean|Black 22:00, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
I agree that the problem is that certain people don't understand the role of an administrator, or at least they don't agree with my view, which is the same thing :-) However, I do think it is a problem with the RFA process. See this RfA where, at the time I voted and added my comments the vote was 9/6/0 and earlier had been as bad as 3/6/0. I had never come across User:Awolf002 before but clearly this was a travesty in progress, in my opinion. In the end, this one worked out OK. Unfortunately, I have seen others that did not and cost the encyclopedia a very good editor. I don't have a solution, but I do think it is a problem with the process and not just the people. I am not suggesting that there needs to be a wholesale change in the process, just a recognition that the defects in the process can lead to the loss of valuable editors when we let the process run amok. We need to explore how to improve the process to avoid the lynchings. -- DS1953 22:25, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
I think that the problem lies in both candidates and voters who don't understand what adminship means- it's "no big deal"- but far too often those relative newcomers with 500 edits get their enthusiasm beaten out of them becuase of the stressful process (even I started to get stressed out, and I got nothing but very kind comments from the community. I don't think that there is a solution to that aspect of the process, however). Basically, RfA is like the rest of Wikipedia- far from perfect, but basically doing fine.--Sean|Black 22:34, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
I'm doing maintenance, so I'm interested in where the bad bits are. I'm not currently interested in Requests for Adminship though. Do you have any insights into the changing roles for admins? Kim Bruning 00:12, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
In my humble opinion, admins should pretty much do the same thing they'd normally do, but using their powers to aid them. An RC patroller should use their powers of deletion and quick rollback for greater cleanup. A person who edits controversial or high-profile articles should use their powers of protection to control vandalism and edit wars (and possibly their clout for the more famous admins). A vandal hunter would rely on quick rollback, deletion, and blocking. A moderator might use protection and editing of protected pages to assist in resolving conflicts. Others clean up Whatever for Deletion backlogs. Finally, there are the admins who watch the admins themselves, undeleting or unprotecting unjustly deleted or protected pages, unblocking users who were not warned or who use dynamic IP blocks, warning admins, and notifying the community in extreme cases. Admittedly the powers have a strong tilt towards vandalism control, but there are many possible roles for an admin, just as there are many possible roles for any contributor. Deco 07:26, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

more junk

Maybe it's just my imagination, but it seems that since wikipedia has made the national news a few days ago I've been seeing a lot more vandalism, vanity, and other junk when doing RC patrol. It could also just be my imagination (one person's perceptions are not exactly a scientific sample). Have other people noticed this? --Bachrach44 23:14, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes it happens whenever Wikipedia gets a mention on the telly. Just grin, bear it and get on with it! Saying that though the publicity generates more genuine and helpful users than you realise, you just don't notice them as much as you do the vandalism. -- Francs2000 23:17, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
Yeah, I haven't noticed any of those "helpful users" yet ;) Kaldari 23:42, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
I came back to do some cleanup, since the news (I felt sorry for the WP :) --Zeizmic 00:31, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
Which nation? Ben Arnold 01:44, 16 December 2005 (UTC)


IEEE International Workshop on Business Transformation

Just seen Business Agility -- is this a new wikiproject or something? Ojw 22:57, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Interesting. Maybe they're planning a sort of WikiRaid. ‣ᓛᖁ♀ᑐ 00:43, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

What do they want?

Alright. Wikipedia is evil. Wikipedia is inaccurate. Wikipedia is the spawn of satan. Fine, whatever. What do they want us to do about it? Every article I have read slams us for being fataly and tragicaly flawed, but offers no solution. Do they want us to shutdown and go away? Then the inaccuracies will live forever on the mirrors and a large amount of good content will die (not to mention a whole bunch of #1 google hits and FAs). Do they want us to reform? Then maybe they shouldn't be so vitriolic. Most articles say 'yeah lots of articles are good but there is too much uncertainty'. I'd like to know Brandt's and other critics' opinion on this question. Broken S 22:38, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

I believe most of the world thinks "editable by anyone" and "reliable source of information" are inherently contradictory, and would like Wikipedia to institute some sort of editing oversight (and likely not immediately publish anything any damn fool adds). Giving up control to the masses is a very foreign concept to most people,and it likely threatens their world-view as well. Unless it can be shown to work, with compelling data, IMO these folks will almost certainly continue to whine and complain. -- Rick Block (talk) 05:31, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
And, most importantly, they will continue to be right. Apokrif 11:31, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
though it has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate, it [has advantages over more established encyclopedias] . Mr. Adams was prophetic, indeed. Grutness...wha? 12:02, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

This might also help to put things in a bit of perspective: [13]. Grutness...wha? 00:24, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Can't log in can anyone help

Logged out a couple of hours ago and can't log back in. Keeps giving me the "You must have cookies enabled message". Can anyone help please? Thank you.--71.28.253.196 06:34, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

In your Browser, using Firefox as my example, use Tools->Cookies->Check the box: Allow Sites To Set Cookies, then click OK --Ancheta Wis 09:32, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
Google's help page on Third Party Software Errors might help if you have any sort of security software that's blocking cookies. Angela. 12:28, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Sometimes I have that problem and think it is actually related to cookies. My cache clears automatically every 12 hours and that causes log out here. I've found that if I go to the main page and click on a few articles then I can log in or you can even hit random page a few times and that works.That sets cookies which are needed to login. I could be wrong but it is worth a try.--71.28.247.46 06:34, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

The question to which the community and Jimbo can't give a decisive answer

The press has only recently begun to report the policing procedures of Wikipedia. But from every press account the number of editor-sheriffs and editor-contributers vary. Jimbo himself is quoted with a different number every time. As a challenge why don't we figure out: 1) How many edits and what kind of participation makes a sheriff? 2) How many sheriffs are there? Lotsofissues 19:24, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

This shouldn't be so hard. (Although I've never seen a reference to sheriffs before.) This says that, in October 2005, there were 4573 Wikipedians across all languages who made more than 100 edits in the month, of which editors 1854 were from enwiki. In the same month, there were 28258 editors in all language who made more than 5 edits, of which editors 14434 were from enwiki. Special:Statistics reveals that there are presently 737 accounts with sysop rights on enwiki, a fact confirmed by Special:Listusers. -Splashtalk 19:35, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
Who are the ppl that just edit ~100 times a month? Do they do any policing? Would you consider them the upholders of order? Lotsofissues 20:01, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
This is impossible to answer objectively. Many users perform a variety of actions including policy discussion, contributing to articles, fixing images, policing changes, and voting in deletion debates. It's impossible to say which edits constitute "policing" as opposed to "fact-checking" or "correction"; even if each edit were individually reviewed some would be ambiguous. I think the best answer to this question is simply that we have at least many hundreds of users who review changes on many different levels, and our average vandalism reversion time (which I think I've seen statistics for) attests to that. Deco 20:41, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
FWIW, i do 100 or more edits a month and am not an admin but i do some policing. more importantly the candidates for admin at rfa are people who arent sysops but who do policing. if no 'non sheriffs' did that one did that there wouldnt be any candidates for rfa. so yes a lot of them uphold the wiki too. BL kiss the lizard 23:19, 16 December 2005 (UTC)


Where is 1.0?

Wikipedia needs stable, well researched, vandalism and propaganda free versions of pages, and we need them now. What are people doing to forward 1.0 and what can *I* do to help? TastemyHouse Breathe, Breathe in the air 12:00, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team appears to be the start of something. Doesn't looke very active however. Banana04131 01:03, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Murder or Assasination

Please take a look at Category:Murder victims. It has many subcategories, some are titled as Assasinated... and some as Murdered... What's the difference between the two words? CG 21:04, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

See Assassination and Murder. I believe assassination is a subset of murder, the primary determining factor being the victim is important. — Ambush Commander(Talk) 21:18, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
I think you can add slightly to that difference. In an assassination, the victim is well-known and that fame is a contributing factor to them being killed. That is, they were killed because of their fame, rather than for other reasons. Peter Tosh was killed during a bungled burglary of his home, so despite being famous, this wasn't an assassination. John Lennon, on the other hand, was killed because he was famous, so calling that an assassination makes more sense. Grutness...wha? 23:44, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
I don't think John Lennon really counts. Assasination normally means someone killed for political reasons.--Pharos 07:46, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
I agree. I think that assassination should be restricted to important people killed for political reasons. Preferably, they should have a government position, political party position, be a political candidate or have considerable influence. -- Kjkolb 08:47, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
"Assassination" definitely carries a connotation of either political motive or political prominence of the victim. They weigh roughly equally. John Hinckley, Jr. probably was not sane enough to be described as politically motivated in his attempt to kill Ronald Reagan, but it is almost always referred to as an assassination attempt. Dennis Sweeney, who killed former congressman and Americans for Democratic Action head Allard Lowenstein, was probably roughly equally crazy, but this is usually not called an assassination; on the other hand, if Lowenstein had been shot for political reasons, the term would certainly have been used. - Jmabel | Talk 07:47, 19 December 2005 (UTC)


Where celebs live

Should Wikipedia post information about where (in what locality) certain celebrities live? Is it information that is already out there, thus allowing us to publish information that is already public domain, or do we have a responsibility to keep people's private lives private? The question has recently been raised with regard to the list of celebs in the Buckinghamshire article. I would be interested in your response. -- Francs2000 21:25, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

  • Posting the town where they live seems fine, as long as it is verifiable. This is hardly an invasion of someone's privacy if the information already appears elsewhere. Actual addresses are another question, though. Christopher Parham (talk) 03:27, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
  • For one thing, they could move tomorrow. Halcatalyst 03:48, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
    • The reason that I asked Francs (my friendly local admin) this question is that the towns cited are not much more than villages - with only two streets, you don't need much of an address. My concern is that the information might be coming first from someone who lives there and thus entering the public domain through Wikipedia. Yes, they could move tomorrow - but it would be a pity it were because their 'cover' had been blown on Wiki and their retinue of stalkers have found them again and are trying to break in. --Concrete Cowboy 00:09, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
In the latter case it fails the verifiability test. If it's published elsewhere, then we're not revealing anything. If it's not, we shouldn't include it regardless of any other considerations. —Wahoofive (talk) 06:34, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
I would not be overly specific when giving the location, even if it is listed at other places because putting it on Wikipedia would greatly increase its dissemination in many cases. I would give the city they live in if it isn't really small. If the town is tiny, I would be less specific. You could say that they live in the eastern portion of the county, to the north of the nearest major city or something like that. If the region has a name, like the Central Coast of California, or the High Desert in Mojave, you could give that instead. -- Kjkolb 07:12, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Random question about watchlists

What does a capital N mean in an edit in watchlists? (Dunno if I posted this in the right place.) Zafiroblue05 07:10, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

New- When a page is created. Shows up the same way in Special:Recentchanges.--Sean|Black 07:16, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
Yes. Sometimes it is a re-creation of a deleted page (I watchlist hoax articles that I delete, for example); sometimes a new talk page for a watched article. Antandrus (talk) 07:17, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
Thanks! (for the answer and the quickness in its coming :) Zafiroblue05 07:58, 18 December 2005 (UTC)


9/11 watchlist

Recently, an increasing number of people are attempting to use Wikipedia's articles about the September 11, 2001 attacks as a platform for wild theories. In response to the activity of these editors, I created a watchlist so we can keep track of these attempts. Please visit User:Rhobite/9/11 watchlist. You can use the "recent changes" link to view recent edits to the articles listed. Feel free to add any other relevant articles. Rhobite 23:17, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

The Preponderance of Homosexual Insinuation

I've now been using Wikipedia regularly (approx. two searches a day maybe) and I cannot help but point out that the 'Encyclopedia' is hopelessly infatuated with homosexuality. It's a regular occurance to find a reference to 'gay' or 'homosexual' in many of these articles...all with (hopefully) scholarly aspirations. I've contemplated posting and/or emailing this message before, but finally, just now, after looking up Strom Thurmond, I've decided to act. The FIRST piece of trivia in this article is that a gay sociologist who has (presumably) written some book on something or other (I imagine this makes him a viable source of evidence) claims that Thurmond solicited him for sex. This is outrageous. At least precurse it with a 'supposedly!' I guess I don't have the energy or patience to make this case more clear...but I'm sure that it is a phenomenon others (including admins)have noticed. And I'm not a bigot, nor unsympathetic to homosexuality, it's just that this quality of Wikipedia is downright irksome. At first I found it peculiarly humorous, but now it's annoying, and frankly, hardly academic. Whether you espouse 'gay rights movements' or not, it is not appropriate nor productive to litter Wikipedia with what I believe to be largely unsubstantiated, and most importantly, IRRELEVANT information as to historical figures potential, possible and postulated forays into homosexuality. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.195.202.177 (talk • contribs) 16:25, 17 December 2005

Do you have any other examples of articles? I'd also note that in the Strom Thurmond article, the claim is sourced (by a book, written by the solicited person), so it's not really unsubstantiatted. Maybe it would be better to say that so and so claims that Thurmond solicited him, and whether or not Thurmond denies the claim. I don't know who either of the people mentioned are. Talrias (t | e | c) 16:28, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
I don't see any obvious problem in the Strom Thurmond article. You put the word FIRST in capital letters, but in fact it is relegated to a section labelled "trivia." It is the first in that section, but the order of the items in that section appears to be roughly (though not strictly) chronological. Dpbsmith (talk) 19:15, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
I hate Strom Thurmond and have no problem with homosexuality, but I don't think it is appropriate for the article, either. Isn't it possible that he was joking? Were they acquaintances or friends and did Thurmond know he was gay? I don't have the source, so I don't know what the context was. Making homosexual claims (not necessarily false) about public figures, especially ones that oppose homosexuality, has been used as a tactic by homosexual activists. Is the source credible? Do Laud Humphreys or the authors of the biography have a history of false claims? Is there any evidence, or is it just based on Humphreys' word? The book was published after both of them died so Thurmond was unable to deny the claim and Humphreys could not be questioned about it. Publishing the book sixteen years after Humphreys died, but only one year after Thurmond died also seems suspicious. -- Kjkolb 00:21, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

The War on Prose

A short rant:

There is a phenomenon on Wikipedia that I have come to think of as The War on Prose. NPOV does not have to mean consistently bland. A recent skirmish in this war can be seen at this edit at Marguerite-Élie Guadet. "He bitterly attacked the ministers of Louis XVI" was perfectly accurate. Why, why, why does it have to be diluted down to "He strongly opposed the ministers of Louis XVI"? Is this really the preferred style? -- Jmabel | Talk 23:29, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

A short commiseration:
I would just like to agree that this is one of the tragic but unavoidable flaws in collaborative editing. Anything approaching distinctiveness or personality in an article's text is removed by blue pencils who don't get it or find it does not scan on first read. Factualness is the best we can hope for here. MeltBanana 02:00, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
Why? Talk:Alan Dershowitz might be enlightening. —Charles P. (Mirv) 02:44, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
Reminds me of Talk:Richard_Feynman#Wording. Enochlau 04:04, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Jmabel | Talk, I agree with you completely. Neutral point of view does not mean no point of view. Intelligent synthesis and interpretation should be perfectly acceptable as long as the reader can trace the source of the facts backing up the interpretation. Dpbsmith (talk) 19:21, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Null edit bot

Is there any place as a null edit bot? A place where you can dump a list of article names or a category and get them al given a null edit. A rather non-human required process. I came across this problem with Template:New Hampshire which had been added to Category:New Hampshire making it a mess. If I could just dump them in the null edit in tray and slope off without any more work it would be groovy. Yours lazily MeltBanana 03:38, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, see Using the python wikipediabot and Touch.py. Talrias (t | e | c) 03:58, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
I believe the request is for a continually running bot that services a generally accessible input task list. user:AllyUnion runs a number of such bots, but I don't know if there is one that does this specific task. user:Beland and several others (manually) run bots that can do this. -- Rick Block (talk) 17:26, 20 December 2005 (UTC)


"he:השאלה האחרונה"

Just Curious as what the wikitext tag ((he:השאלה האחרונה)) (replacing the parenthesis with square brackets ) does. I had seen it on The Last Question article and it does not seem to serve a purpose. Can someone enlighten me?

-- KaiAdin 10:55, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

It's a link to the equivalent article on the hebrew wikipedia. You should see the link below the "what links here" etc box on the left of your screen when you view that page. Leithp (talk) 11:00, 20 December 2005 (UTC)


Executive offiers of student bodies

Recently, I removed some lists of non-notable people that I considered to be trivia from articles on United Kingdom Students' Unions , and apparently some folk object to this. Does anyone want to drop in to Talk:Students Union (though it should probably be in Wikipedia: space rather than article space) to talk some sense into them? :-) Chris talk back 04:24, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

#wikipedia-en-vandalism IRC

When I click on #wikipedia-en-vandalism I get a pop-up box that says "IRC is not a registered protocal". Is the IRC service down or do I need to make some modification to my computer? I have made quite a few attempts with no success. If any user can help it would most appreciated.Thanks.--Dakota ? e 01:10, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

You need an IRC client for your computer. I use X-Chat on both Windows and Linux systems, but there are very many others. Many are free. If you're a Firefox/Mozilla user, ChatZilla may be your easiest solution.-gadfium 01:53, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Village_pump_(miscellaneous)/Archive_J&oldid=1145854958"