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This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (miscellaneous).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

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Statistics on anonymous vandalism

I had to do a data collection for a statistics class, so I chose to do it on anonymous vandalism on Wikipedia. I found that 38% (+/- 13.5%) of anonymous edits were considered vandalism by WP:VAN. The confidence interval is 95%. The sampling was done at 19:15 (UTC) on May 4th (a Thursday). The rate of vandalism may change depending on the time of day and day of week, but I didn't need to do that much work for the class project. The sample was the first 50 edits that appeared on the recent changes page (logged-in users hiden). 19 of them were considered vandalism. There were a few edits where my own judgment as to what vandalism is may have influenced the results, but I think the definition, overall, was fairly easy to interpret. On a non-scientific note, I also counted the number of vandalisms that were link spam and the number of vandalisms that were reverted within 20-50 minutes. 5 of the 19 vandalisms were link spam (26.3%), and 11 of the 19 vandalisms were reverted within 20-50 minutes (57.9%). The later statistics did not have a great enough sample size to mean much, but they are still interesting. I know it is a fairly simple study, but I thought some people would be interested, and I had to do it anyway. Does anyone know if there have been other similar studies? I think the amount of vandalism we have to deal with here is quite outrageous. I think further studies on time dependency of vandalism and the rate of vandalism for logged-in users would be interesting. --Basar 20:44, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Do you include edits by clueless newbies in vandalism, or just malicious edits? --Philosophus T 23:19, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
I didn't include newbie edits, but that is where some of my judgment comes in. There were actually only a couple of edits that were borderline. One was somebody writing about themself; it is sort of hard to tell if the person was trying to be funny and clever or if the person really just didn't know what Wikipedia's policies are regarding notability. --Basar 00:15, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
Very interesting, thanks for doing this. I'm not convinced the sample size is large enough but presumably it is correct within an order of magnitude or so. JoshuaZ 23:47, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
Well, according to the statistics equations, we can be 95% certain that the real average would be between 24.5% and 51.5% (38% +/-13.5%). I know it sort of seems ify, but that's how it turns out. --Basar 00:15, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
That's a pretty large margin of error. &#0149;Jim62sch&#0149; 00:49, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
As I said, it should be accurate within an order of magnitude. JoshuaZ 00:53, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
Well, an order of magnitude would be between 3.8% and 380%. --Basar 01:03, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
Sounds about right). Joking aside, I'm curious as to how you calculated the time margin of error. Also, I think that relying on a sample on a specific day at a specific time is problematic. I suspect that the most frequent vandalism occurs during US East coast daylight hours, especially during school hours. The most obvious form of time dependent vandalism is that from school IPs and it is frequent. Furthermore, most of those seem to be US schools, especially on the East Coast. JoshuaZ 01:10, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
The equation is p+/-z*[p*(1-p)/n]^1/2. P is the sample average, n is the sample size, and z is from a table which is equal to 1.96 for a 95% confidence interval. The sample size, however, has to satisfy this equation in order for it to be valid: n*p*(1-p)>=10. The 10 is only 10 for 95% confidence intervals. The value is like 40 for 99% ones. It just makes sure the sample size is big enough for the distribution of sample means to be normal. The original equation gives us the actual interval. --Basar 01:19, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

On a related note, a month or two ago I had a discussion on the main page where I demonstrated that 100% of anonymous edits to that day's "Article of the Day" were vandalism, whether malicious or experimental (I do not discriminate between the two). For all the rhetoric about how it's bad to protect the featured article because valuable contributions can be made by new editors, there was not one bit of supporting evidence for that theory in the entire 24 hour period. I'm pretty confident in saying that similar results would be found on almost every day since then. Kafziel 14:43, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

When Noah's Ark was a featured article, I had a similar experience where every anon edit was either vandalism or extreme POV pushing. However, when Yom Kippur War was featured, some small changes from anons were positive. One shouldn't find it suprising that the fraction of vandalism edits to the featured articles is much higher than to random articles, since they are the easiest to access. I do, however, strongly disagree with your classification of test edits as vandalism. Indeed, for the ability to make test edits along it makes sense to let anons edit the featured articles (trying to sheperd articles on the main page is exhausting, but its only for a day). JoshuaZ 14:57, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
The way I see it, if someone doesn't even know how to use a search bar to navigate Wikipedia and find an article they know something about, they certainly shouldn't be editing anything. Good editors learn the ropes before they go charging in. I never vandalized a page, not even on my first edit, and I'm sure most other good editors are the same way. There's no need whatsoever to go into the middle of an article and type "Does this work?" and then save it. That's childish and it's vandalism.
Besides which, for an article to become the article of the day, it has to be a featured article. It has already been combed through by experienced editors with exacting standards, and the likelihood of a completely inexperienced user showing up who just happens to know something nobody else knew about the article that just happens to be the article of the day is so miniscule as to be irrelevant. Besides that, there are lots of other articles linked to from the main page, in the news section, in the "Did you know" section, etc. If someone is so easily turned off to Wikipedia that finding one locked article makes them leave forever, then it's probably not too great a loss. On the other hand, I myself know quite a few people who have a bad impression of Wikipedia because of the amount of vandalism immediately visible straight from the main page. We're hurting our reputation a lot more by leaving them unlocked. As you said, it's just for one day. If the change is really so important and the editor really has potential, he can come back the next day to put it in.
Anyway, it's not really an issue, because my "study" also found that no matter how much statistical evidence you produce, and despite the fact that there is no evidence of a vital edit made by an anon to the article of the day, people absolutely will not be convinced. :) Kafziel 15:32, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
When Kakapo was the featured article (less than a month ago), it got very many anon edits (and some from newly created accounts), most of them vandalism, but a few were useful fixes to wording or wikilinks, and one from, I suspect, someone with inside knowledge of the kakapo breeding program [1]. A single anon edit like this one makes up for a lot of anon vandalism, in my opinion.-gadfium 21:36, 5 May 2006 (UTC)


Next fundraising drive?

When will it be held? Ingoolemo talk 01:00, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

I asked a month ago and was told it was soon. Sumahoy 02:17, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
A new one? Oldwikisource: still has the notice from the previous fundraising drive. I mean, there's no green bar showing the amount of funds, but there's fine print "Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales's personal appeal for donations" on the top right corner. – b_jonas 15:16, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Need a map of universities of US

Hello, I'm a new reader of wikipedia with poor English; could you someone tell me in which article can I find a map of the universities (or at least the most famous ones) of US, with the states' boundaries? Thanks very much.--162.105.248.71 12:09, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

From what I understand, you want maps that have the exact locations of the best American universities. Here is what I would suggest:
  1. Go onto the following page of US News & World Reports that lists the top universities in the United States(LINK TO LIST IS HERE) (these are considered the prime measure of large universities in the US). About the first 50 or so are considered the finest in the US. There is also a separate ranking for liberal arts colleges, these are generally smaller but some are also very well respected, that list is here.
  2. You will notice that you can click on each name on those lists, once you've clicked on the name you will see the school's address. Copy the addresses.
  3. Go to a mapping website, either Yahoo Maps or Mapquest and enter the information you found on the US News website in step 2.
The process may not be the fastest, but it will answer your questions. If you have any further questions, don't hesitate to contact me on my talk page (just click the discussion tab on my userpage). -- Bobak 15:10, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
This got me curious. Turns out the U.S. has 4,168 colleges and universities with 15,927,987 students.[2] Rather a lot to put on one map, though. Rmhermen 16:19, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
That's what I was thinking. Stick a pin in a map of the US at random and chances are you're within a few miles of a college. A map of all the colleges would just look like a stipple sketch of the US itself. Kafziel 16:26, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
Exactly, and frankly, a lot of them aren't worth the time of someone looking from what appears to be outside of the country. The US News lists have their flaws, but they're certainly good at picking what universities and colleges are generally considered prestigious. If the question-asker wants to cross check, they can also look at the list provided by the Times of London (which people have transcribed here, although the list is a little short and is biased towards research universities). -- Bobak 16:46, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm the user asked for help from 162.105.248.71(an IP from P.R.China). It seems that a map easy to see the location of all the colleges and universites is not so easy to get. Mmmm... 4,168 colleges and universities, my god!... maybe my friends and I would try to draw a map of the most famous ones in our(and maybe other Chinese students') opinion, if the time allowed. Just for our own need, and hope it would be useful for more people. Thank you all very much, especially to Bobak for the link of usnews :) --Neverland 13:46, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Neverland, I left you one more comment on your new talk page, essentially this, if you can get it where you are, is probably exactly what you're looking for (although it maps a lot of places you probably won't care about --good to cross check with US News or similar ranking). -- Bobak 15:15, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks again. I'll ask my friend in US to have a look about the books; then decide to by or not, or find what I can get from them. What a pity they are not free and not open.--Neverland 14:34, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

you have new messages (last change) : what does it mean?

Hello. I am a registered user of wikipedia. However i dont log in everytime i refer wikipedia [wich is like everyday for everything!]. When i opened an article a few minutes back - i found this - from the page on "The OC" . Is this message meant for me? I have not come across this before and i am sorry i have not taken the time to read all your FAQs and policies. I did not make changes in wikipedia that promote anything i am connected with except pasting a link to the research institute i work at for the article on microfinance - and thats only because it will help people who are researching microfinance/credit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:220.226.40.76&redirect=no User talk:220.226.40.76 From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search Please do not add commercial links (or links to your own private websites) to Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not a vehicle for advertising or a mere collection of external links. You are, however, encouraged to add content instead of links to the encyclopedia as we drive for print or DVD publication; see the welcome page to learn more. Thanks. -- Solipsist 02:24, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

I log in via a wireless connection [a G-Tran Reliance India card]. I think my IP address setting is such that it assigns an address automatically and incase it does. I love referring all wiki websites -- sometimes just for fun facts and info -- and would never misuse it. Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Krishnanlakshmi (talk • contribs)

From your description of activities it looks like, yes, that message was meant for you. Linking to commercial websites is considered spam; if there is non-advertising information on those sites, it would be better for you to add content to the articles rather than links. See Wikipedia:Spam#How not to be a spammer for more information. Kafziel 16:04, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Hi thanks for the response. I just wanted to say that the posting i cited was done in 2005 - so why was this message posted recently? Also the user talk message for me does not cite the article to which the supposed commercial link was added - i would honestly like to know if i have violated any rules so that it does not happen in the future [especially if its something else other than the link i cited]. After the posting of website link in 2005 [i sure dont remember editing the microfinance/credit page after that] and the latest one being - edited contents of article on Bengal Tigers quoting findings/observations from an NGC programme and a book [because that was the reference]. If the following is indeed the violation: what should i do now? Remove the link from the microfinance article? btw its not a commercial organisation [neither are there clickable ads on that website]. The Centre is a part of a larger financial management and research institute - all they [and i admit i belong to this "they"] do is research on microfinance and development & i can honestly say that people will find the website useful - be it for doing research on their own or getting expert information on microcredit(finance) and impact evaluations in India. I cannot make it a part of the contents. Under "General Information" - where i added the link - there are other such websites i refer to in my line of work including CGAP and Microfinance Gateway for research documents and technical articles. So it fits in there.

Just to add to this post: my current IP address is 220.226.18.141 (checked online). The one quoted in the message is different? Lakshmi Krishnan

The message can only refer to the addition of external links to some articles on painters, all of which go to painting galleries on famous-paintings.org, all done by 220.226.40.76 on March 14, 2006. Since Reliance assigns the IP address automatically, you may get the same address as a different user in the past, and therefore the message intended for one user may show up for another user – but only if they are not logged in. It definitely has nothing to do with the links you added. I hope this clears everything up. (By the way, I see no problems with these edits either. They refer to non-commercial sites, and for obvious reasons such as copyright – and thinking of the overloaded servers – this could not have been done by "adding content".) LambiamTalk 01:37, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Database Access

In the month of April, Thomson gale allowed free access to all their databases to celebrate national library week, or something like that. I used the Times Digital Archive (1 2) with brilliant success. I researched my favourite topic of the formation of rugby league. I found many articles of significant value, not only to those who appreciate rugby league but union die hards too.

Has wikipedia ever considered organising something with organisations, such as Thomson and gale who have a massive array of information on many topics, to allow access to wikipedia members? I'd be interested in something like that! POds 12:14, 6 May 2006 (UTC)


Peerio

What is Wikipedia's view regarding the Peerio "serverless technology" design. Will it be the future's pathway to less hops and less reliance on super nodes delivering better QOS


Changed the standard skin?

Within the past couple weeks, I came to wikipedia and it looked compeletely different. I've switched to Cologne Blue as being the closest to what the default style used to be, but I'd really really like the old style back. Can anyone help with that?

Skyring

I'm confused. Is User:AULDBITCH LOVES YOU a sock puppet of Skyring or not? The User:AULDBITCH LOVES YOU user page says that he is, but JTDirl says on Skyring's talk page that it is acceptted that he is not. Unless that's just JT's opinion? Arno 04:56, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Template:Prioryofsion

This is a succession box about alleged heads of a fictitious society (recently publicized again by Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code). It is included in numerous articles about real persons, such as Isaac Newton, Victor Hugo, and lots of others. I find it outright stupid and utterly unprofessional to mix fictitious stuff with content about real things or persons. I have removed these boxes once already, but someone seems to believe they were needed. My suggestion for a better way of doing this would be to just use a list of such alleged heads (exists already at Priory of Sion) and to not use a succession box. What do you think? Lupo 18:45, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree, let's not give this more weight than it is due. The list in the article should be fine. Rmhermen 18:47, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
The priory is one of the most discredited conspiracy theories in existence, furthermore the claimed list here isn't even universal among people who claim that the priory did exist during that time period. They should all be removed, and someone should consider TfDing the template. If there are no further objections, I will go through removing the template. JoshuaZ 22:04, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
This is such a fringe theory that it certainly does not warrant a prominent succession template. Yes, a small note on the bottom of these articles (in the 'Alternative theories' section or something) would be appropriate, but that's about it.--Pharos 05:46, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
I TfDed it. Johnleemk | Talk 06:03, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

An error in Chinese interface for the user's preference

After change the interface language to Chinese, I saw an error may be maked in this page. i think the word "点子邮件" in the pink box should be "电子邮件" in simplified Chinese and "電子郵件" in traditional Chinese.

Fair use art tags

The fair use tag for works of art states that the image is fair use for critical commentary on the work in question, the artistic genre or technique of the work of art or the school to which the artist belongs. Dose this mean that a work of art can not apply as fair use in an article about the artist himself? I find it strange that an image could be fair use for the genre it belongs to but not the artist who created it.

Also, could more than one image be used in an article about the artist provided that they are all famous or relevant examples? Justin Foote 17:07, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

If the artist's article discusses the image(s) in question, it is a valid case of fair use. (The discussion should be significant; at least a paragraph or more, so we can have a less than dubious fair use claim.) Johnleemk | Talk 06:04, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Iambic Wikipedia

For a college assignment, I was given the following task: write ten lines of iambic pentameter, with some sort of rhyming pattern, on a topic of your choice. Here's my result (I know it's not very good: it's not even perfect I.P.!).

Imagine an encyclopedia,
Which anybody in the world could use.
Now imagine Wikipedia.
Updated daily, in-line with the news.
The updates are all done by volunteers,
In fact you could do some yourself!
Then the work is-checked over by your peers,
And no-one ever increases their wealth.
The excellently easy interface,
Makes Wikipedia a knowledge base.

So isn't that nice! Just thought it was worth mentioning!--Keycard (talk) 17:46, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Ha ha, kick ass! Represent! Kafziel 18:01, 9 May 2006 (UTC)


Tables?

I've noticed that a few types of articles have specific tables associated with them--some communes, comic/manga/anime/cartoon characters, etc. I was just wondering where/how I could make a new table like this; I've been cleaning up articles, and a few are chemicals which could really use a table of characteristics (atomic weight, generic name, pH, boiling point, and so on). Does such a table exist already or what? (Of the form {{Category|Categoryname=Name}} Thanks! Tamarkot 23:27, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Please visit Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemicals, there are several such tables. -- Rick Block (talk) 23:35, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
Thank you! Tamarkot 03:16, 11 May 2006 (UTC)


Yolo Bypass

Is anyone familiar with Yolo Bypass (and any other important bypasses in Calfornia)? I've created a lot of articles on California rivers and I'm having trouble deciding how rivers should be classified and what their terminuses are, currently and historically. I've gotten conflicting information about Yolo Bypass. Some say it is completely artificial, while others say that it is natural but modified. I'm particularly interested whether Cache Creek and Putah Creek would flow into the Sacramento River if Yolo Bypass had not been built/modified and if the Sacramento Deep Water Ship Channel had not been dredged, in Putah Creek's Case. -- Kjkolb 02:47, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

You may want to try a crosspost to the talk pages of Wikipedia:WikiProject California and Wikipedia:WikiProject Rivers. I was going to suggest the authors of the relevant articles, but I see you are the relevant author... - BanyanTree 02:32, 12 May 2006 (UTC)


does any1...

does ne1 no of an online cult i could join?

You've already found one! We call ours Wikipedia. Jimbo Wales is our god-king. Most of our rituals involve collecting, categorizing, and sharing the sum of human knowledge. We're always ready to welcome newcomers. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 02:43, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
Yes, you can join Community Justice, not exactly a cult but worthwhile. --Osbus 20:56, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

70s hype

The 1970s section and mention of the 1970s in other sections is causing adverse comment - http://70struth.blogspot.com/2006/04/wikipedia-inaccurate-1970s-section.html - please can contributors contain their enthusiasm for the 1970s and ensure that all references to the decade are justified?

Frankly, to me that whole site looks suspicious. They seem to be out to prove that the 1970s didn't matter and see us as some kind of pro-1970s freaks (can anyone really be that excited about a decade?). A good way to deal with this issue would be to instead list specific events that undeniably occurred in the 1970s, perhaps as part of these movements, rather than broad movements that lasted over long periods. Deco 09:44, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm... I think the 70s section is disproportionately large compared to other decades, that's why I gave the link to the "Why I Don't Love The 1970s" blog originally (just before I joined Wikipedia). The odd thing is, people are now waxing lyrical about the 1970s in a similar way to the enthusiasm for the 50s and 60s we experienced in the 70s and 80s. Trouble is, there seemed to be a consensus of opinion that the 50s and 60s were worth the enthusuasm, but there are many who disagree that the 70s are comparable.

I note that the blogger is an Englishwoman - I'm English, too, and believe me the amount of 70s "hype" we've had over here is very wearing! I agree with Deco that the 1970s section should be presented as undeniable 1970s occurring facts, and perhaps linked more to the adjacent decades where appropriate. Time is a constant stream. Decades are only human-made measurements of time.Andy Eng

I feel offended

Hello. Today I was reading your fukking marvellous Wikipedia, when somebody called Yamla left a message. I felt offended because he said I was writing nonsense, I wasn't at all.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.93.196.236 (talk • contribs)

That happens sometimes when you are editing from an IP address instead of a unique user name. If you want to avoid confusion in the future, register an account and use it whenever you edit. If you choose not to do that, understand that the confusion is likely to continue, so please do not respond to warnings with hostility and profanity. Kafziel 15:22, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
Yes, get an account...many benefits to having one. --Osbus 23:26, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Since your using an IP adress it's possible that someone else using the same computer was adding nonsense. If you get an account you'll be distinguished from other users, even those using the same IP adress. Deathawk 04:15, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Let this also be a reminder to editors: whenever placing a warning on an anonymous editor's IP page, always qualify it with "if you are the editor who did X"... Deco 09:36, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

promenade in culture

Does some proposals of little promenades in large english-speaking culture exist in Wikipedia? I mean some "experts" of Wikipedia's content suggest (as "Did you know..." does but in a less anednotic way) a journey in general culture for non english-speaking people? I imagine a tour with a thematic sense: we know find interesting suggestions but scaterred in the "Featured articles" sections in the very numerous portals. Has someone an idea or does that already exist? Moonray 08:19, 13 May 2006 (UTC)


Marriage

Hey this is a question i just thought of now. COuld someone please tell me what the point of marriage is? I mean how does life majorly differ if u were single? I mean u still hav sex, u can live together, and u still treat eachother the same way. if anyone has any answer to my question please respond

Germy


Redir from Canadian postal abbreviations?

I don't follow the village pump enough to know if this has been proposed before, but it would be helpful to make something like {{Redir_from_US_postal_ab}} for Canadian postal codes, and nations with postal abbreviations (I don't know of any others)... it'd more than likely take someone with a bot to do it, and is more than slightly tedious, so I'm just going to propose it here and see if it flies. -- Jjjsixsix (t)/(c) @ 00:40, 17 May 2006 (UTC)


Rant

As I say, this is a rant. It may not be coherant or anything of the sort, I doubt it'll achieve anything, but it's something I **need** to get off my chest, to the point that I was on my way home and turned around and came back to the place I had been using (since my home internet connection's borked) to post it.

Any action other than a simple edit in WP, once done, is almost impossible to reverse within process unless you can class it as "simple vandalism" or muster a hundred established Wikipedians to take your side. Were I to go through, I'd find umpteen examples I've personally encountered alone (Hell, I've **used** this fact on occasion, being honest), but the one that triggers this is what happened at Shikari.

Back in November last year, User:Fastifex made this edit to the page that was there at the time. You'll note not just the bare fact, but the way it was implemented, over several lines, including a horizontal line and with the note that "the present article is limited to fiction". I incorporated the note into the body, then he reverted and posted this reply to my talk page including the line that he was "actually quite accomodating to arrange the disambiguating link the way [he] now restore[d]". I left this note on his talk page and incorportate. He didn't reply, but instead waited two months - at a time when I had become throughouly stressed out with WP and taken a WikiBreak over an unrelated matter (I don't know if he knew this or just thought I wouldn't notice anyway, it being two months since the last communique) and moved the page to Shikari Lonestar (which isn't the character's name, although I admit I'd messed up by mentioning it as if it was at the time - that came of not going back to the original comics since I wasn't making a full page at the time), inserting his Hindi dicdef as the only other (and first) item on the "disambiguation" page

Now, the move wasn't "simple vandalism", though against policy (including but not limited to WP:D). He simply did what amounted to a WP:IAR thing (tho he didn't call it that - note that the current IAR page is not the way the page stood then) and ramrodded through what he wanted to do. As I say, I was on WikiBreak at the time and didn't notice this until months later when an anon added a non-notable band to the page, with a link to the band's website, and this got flagged on my Watchlist. And basically, I was (and am) stuck - there is no other page called Shikari, let alone a notable one. The disambig page doesn't even have a redlink on it. There's a dicdef (with a link to a redirect) and the nn band entry. Having had recent experience of a move request and consulting User:Steve block, who agreed with me on the likely result, I made an AFD which fell as "no consensus" - not entirely unexpected; as I had already said, AFDs rarely achieve anything. And so Fastifex gets his way. Yay consensus. - SoM is currently on enforced WikiBreak due to a malfunctioning internet connection. He doesn't know if he's coming back when it gets fixed. 20:22, 16 May 2006 (UTC)


Spam on your wiki

International pen friends Please note that it is a spam added by an Italian user, domain registrar of the website www.ipf***europe.com (remove ***. not giving him google hits). On the site, you are asked to pay to Andrea d'Ambra, the name of the italian spammer that added this voice on all wikis. AdA, aka "Skugnizzo" is being voted for a ban for spam and vandalism on it.wiki. I am not removing this, 'cause I am occasional contributor and it might look like vandalism. --Jollyroger 17:46, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

what is -Travail en perruque- in english ?

Goog morning. I wrote a page in wikipédia in french about "travail en perruque" [[3]]. I am looking for a page in en:Wikipedia, about the same subject. I did not find it. I thougth it was "homes", or "government job", but there is nothing talking about personal jobs made by workers during their official labor, with tool machines of their boss, or material and commodities of the company.

Perhaps it is because there is no equivalent in english linguage, or just because people speaking in english dont use to work for themselves, even a little bit, during official job time ? Or because I speak so poor english... Please, answer me, on my talk page, if you understand my question. --Barbetorte 10:40, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Templates in userspace

Is is acceptable/possible to create templates for my own personal use on my user/talk page? For instance, I can create a page underneath my talk page, User_talk:Booyabazooka/Archive... can one do the same thing with a template? ~ Booyabazooka 03:33, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes. The syntax to include a user space template is {{user:Booyabazooka/template}} (the same syntax could be used for a user talk template as well). -- Rick Block (talk) 03:55, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Ocassionally (in fact, rather frequently), I come across broken "anchor" headings, by which I mean the links using the # character to link to a section within an article. Invariably the link is broken because the section has been renamed, and it can be easily repaired. Usually though, I only discover this by clicking on a link. This "broken" aspect is not apparant when looking at the link. My question is whether there is a way to detect such broken "anchor" links, and whether there is a project to repair them? Carcharoth 23:33, 19 May 2006 (UTC)


New cleanup category

A new category, Category:Articles containing how-to sections, a sub-category of Wikipedia:cleanup. The purpose of the category is to keep track of articles that make extensive use of instructions in violation of the official policy, WP:NOT, so that those articles may be edited for style and content.

Should this category be placed somewhere else, too, so that editors could find it and use it? For this category to work, at least some people need to know that they may include how-to articles in this category, and at least some people need to know that they can find how-to articles from this category and edit them.

How should I proceed with this issue? Santtus 14:16, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

I would suggest creating a template with which to tag such articles. This would put a nice big sign at the top saying "this article needs editing to remove "how-to" bits" (but put more gracefully). The template should also include the category tag so the category populates by use of the warning template. The point about using a template like that is that it will grab the attention of editors, and things will start to happen...
As for category - where you've put it is fine. Many of the categories there are only in that parent category, so don't worry too much about putting it elsewhere. I did find a possible suitable category at Category:Wikipedia proportion and emphasis, but that seems to be more philosophy than clean-up categories. Carcharoth 23:46, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
PS. I changed the link style for your link to the category. Use a leading colon ":" as seen here [[:Category:CATEGORY NAME]] to link to a category without adding this page to the category. Carcharoth 23:48, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Userpages

I understand that user pages are also part of wikipedia as believed by several users including Mindspillage. Under the circustances, is there any particular reaosn to tolerate use of user pages to position links leading to commercial sites, and so on. In one case, I found to my utter amazement that the user page has a neat announcemnet which is not in order. --Bhadani 07:57, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Proposal to limit who can edit policies

Following banned user Zephram Stark's attempt to rewrite WP:SOCK using two sockpuppet accounts, there is a proposal to limit the editing of policy pages either to admins, or to editors with six months editing experience and 1,000 edits to articles. Please vote and comment at Wikipedia:Editing policy pages. SlimVirgin (talk) 19:10, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Perhpas we require something like that for other types of edits too - to protect the credibility of wikipedia, and reduce the burden on wikipedians as a whole to watch and protect the contents of the articles. --Bhadani 05:50, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Yahoo Groups

I was thinking of making a group in yahoo related to wikipedia. Do you think it is ok or not. Thanks John R G 22:41, 18 May 2006 (UTC)


Inequality between large and small languages / what's up with all the front pages?

Metawiki is a graveyard - could somebody please give their opinion on the matter here? Mithridates 16:38, 20 May 2006 (UTC)


Name Change

There is ongoing debate about a name change at Wikipedia:Community Justice. There is a need for outside views, and input would be appreciated! Info can be found on the project's talk page. --Osbus 14:52, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

What to do?

I am at a loss to do anything:

Kindly guide me "properly" in the matter. Regards. --Bhadani 14:29, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

I've just removed it from his user page. enochlau (talk) 17:12, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Where is the community on here?

I don't understand wikipedia's concept of the "wiki community". There doesn't seem to be a congregation point where people discuss topics of interest, except where there's issues of contention and argument in article talk pages.

Is there a Wikipedia user community web-board hidden away somewhere, where we can talk about subjects of interest in a more positive, friendly, and direct manner? This "village pump (misc)" doesn't really seem to provide what I'm talking about.

DMahalko 02:18, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

If you mean a community where people can discuss subjects aside from the aim of writing the encyclopedia, there's no formal place for it. This is mainly because Wikipedia is not itself supposed to act as a discussion board, as there are plenty of those around. As the policy above states, "Wikipedia is first and foremost an online encyclopedia and, as a means to that end, an online community. Please avoid the temptation to use Wikipedia for other purposes, or to treat it as something it is not." That's not to say that people don't do that, it's just that it's not a compulsory part of the Wikipedia experience and by some is considered an unnecessary use of limited server resources. All the 'community' in the sense you describe it is therefore informal, and best described as of the 'beer after work' variety (m:The Wikipedia Community has a great description of this). Regards, Ziggurat 02:44, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps the closest place we have to a forum where topics of interest are discussed, and perhaps the closest thing we have to an actual meeting point for the "community", is at #wikipedia. Although be warned, the conversation is often off-topic. For a channel more focussed on the project itself, go to #wikipedia-en. Rje 14:44, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

If youve got a particular area of interest you want to discuss and deal with, then look for a wikiproject related to it. thats where a lot of the "community" is. BL Lacertae - kiss the lizard 23:32, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

The project is now too big to have a single central discussion point. Instead it is decentralized. That doesn't make it any less of a community. The community is all the various articles and places where people interact including here. - Taxman Talk 23:42, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

The IRC channels have been mentioned; another good place for Wikipedia discussion is the mailing lists SubSeven 01:43, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Kindly clear my doubt

Hello friends, after being here for more than a year serious doubts have begun nagging me. I just want a plain and clear answer to my doubts. Are we building The Free Encyclopedia from a global perspective, which is destined to become The Best Encyclopedia? Or, Are we (for the time being) concentrating in building the Project with more emphasize on topics and matters relating to the English-speaking countries; and the European world? I know that I shall not be decorated with choice terms including being “foolish” and unable to comprehend wikipedia’s policies, “racist”, “nationalist”, “pro-Asian” or “pro-African” for sharing my doubts with my fellow wikipedians. I understand that in its formative years, way back in 1768 and several decades thereafter Encyclopedia Britannica had perhaps a pre-dominant coverage of only those matters to which the Great Britain had got exposed to – this was normal during those times. However, in the present digital age, in case, we restrict our coverage (as indicated above), intentionally and intuitively (including on account of infatuation and cultural divide), we shall be failing in our duty to build the sum total of human knowledge. I believe that we are here to build the Wikipedia, The Best Encyclopedia, from a global perspective. Kindly clear my doubts. Thanks and regards. --Bhadani 09:10, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, we are trying to build an encyclopedia from a global perspective. We recognise that we are not doing this as well as we'd like, because most of our contributors on the English Wikipedia are from English-speaking countries. See Countering systemic bias for one of the projects attempting to counter this problem.-gadfium 09:21, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
I had read Countering systemic bias long back, and I understood the issues. Every one knows that most of our contributors on the English Wikipedia are from English-speaking countries", and this applies to other versions: most of the contributors to Tamil wikipedia shall be from Tamilnadu and so on. The language should not be am inhibiting and limiting factor, as most of the researches pertaining to non-English speaking countries/non-European world had been done/continue to be done by people from Europe and America. I am perturbed with certain unusual tendencies. For example, the tendency to keep a one-line stub relating to a village with less than 100 persons as a distinct page, and the exceptional zeal shown by us to redirect a similar stub to the district/ province to which that village may a part of. Such tendencies are not in the best long term interest of our Project. "Killing" certain stubs in this style is really sad. I am also perturbed to find that the Free Encyclopedia is yet to become truly global. However, we all must continue to strive to give the Free Encyclopedia a comprehensive global character to ensure its emergence as the Best Encyclopedia. --Bhadani 10:04, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
All we have to do, to get a global perspective, is to learn to read other languages. It's right there waiting for us in other wikis; why should we expect other people to do the work of translating it into our language of convenience? - DavidWBrooks 12:07, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
There are some of us who, when we see it, try to correct bias as we can. We try to expand articles that have global topics but have only local information. It's not easy but it's happening. Don't desert WP if you have a global perspective, we need more editors like yourself. --Monotonehell 12:45, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
I never intended to desert - I simply wanted to get my doubts cleared. Thanks for the "commendation" though I donot deserve the same. We all are here to buld Better than the Best. --Bhadani 12:59, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Too close for coincidence?

I happened upon the website of the Arizona Daily Wildcat, and was surprized by the favicon that site uses. Looks awfully familiar, but I can't quite remember where I've seen it before...

-Rholton 03:04, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
I didn't see any favicon in that site when I checked it out (in the Mozilla SeaMonkey browser) just now. *Dan T.* 11:46, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
Sorry. I assumed it would be easy for anyone to see. I'm using Firefox 1.5.0.3. The favicon (what shows up in front of the address in the address box, or on the tab) is almost identical to the Wikipedia favicon. Here's the favicon.ico from the Arizona Daily Wildcat: [4]. Here's Wikipedia's: [5]. See a resemblance? -Rholton 19:14, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
They're both "W"s, in common modern serif fonts. They're not the same font. I don't see what the issue is; I doubt very much the font belongs to Wikipedia in first place. I don't see what the issue is. Fnarf999 19:50, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
Apparently SeaMonkey only loads favicons when they're explicitly linked with LINK tags (which is more "friendly" on webmasters and in better conformance with Web standards and recommendations), while Firefox emulates the (rather silly and wasteful) Microsoft behavior of looking for the given filename in all sites whether it exists or not. *Dan T.* 19:53, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

--Bhadani 12:56, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Bashing

Why we find a tendency to resort to bashing of wikipedians from poorer countries like India? Constructive criticism is fine, but criticism to make a point is certainly ridiculous. Why we allow Hindu-bashing if one has a user name of weapon of a Hindu God? --Bhadani 16:15, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

All the criticism of you I've observed (or done myself) is purely in response to your actions, not on the account of what country you live in or what race, nationality, or religion you are. *Dan T.* 17:42, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
I've never seen any of the described behavior - can you provide any examples? --Bachrach44 18:52, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
Bhadani is referring to this vote. But this voter is a problem editor as a glance at his other votes at Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship or the discussions at Wikipedia talk:Notice board for India-related topics would show. Tintin (talk) 01:32, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
No use Tintin, perhaps some persons have an interest to see that wikipedia does not emerge as the truly global encyclopedia - Industrial Sabotage of Wikipedia. --Bhadani 05:47, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
Why *Dan T.*? Why are you so touchy? And, how did you surmize that I was talking in my context? --Bhadani 05:57, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
What bashing? I haven't seen any. Johnleemk | Talk 12:54, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
In case, you have not seen so far, you are fortunate! --Bhadani 13:03, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
Which isn't addressing my question. The only thing even close to such bashing was the citizens of one poorer country (People's Republic of China) claiming Nichalp's opinion ought to be disregarded because his Indian nationality precluded him from being neutral about the PROC article. As someone from a developing country, I've never been bashed on Wikipedia before for this. I get more derogatory and patronising comments about my age than my origins. Johnleemk | Talk 13:15, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
People from all countries get plenty of criticism. That's just the way things are here. Calsicol 18:21, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

I thank you for sharing your experience with me - Now, I understand the matter with a better perspective. --Bhadani 15:34, 21 May 2006 (UTC)


Once again

Once again, I found something unusual, and the following edits by me may clarify the position:

I am really feeling sad. I felt it my duty to bring the factual and legal position to the kind attention of our wiki-community. I am feeling more purturbed after reading these news. I was aware of denial of access to wikipedia in China as I had read a message on my talk page sometime back, as also an indication to this effect in User Page. I am afraid that if our Project gets blocked in India also due to the fault of one of us, most of humanity shall be deprive of the Free Encyclopedia. Thanks and regards. --Bhadani 17:33, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Kindly check this also: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents&diff=53174005&oldid=53172304 --Bhadani 17:36, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
I find the idea that Wikipedia could be blocked in India in the same way that it is blocked in China ridiculous. India is a democracy. China is a Communist dictatorship. (See also my response to Bhadani at WP:ANI.) --Sam Blanning(talk) 18:00, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
Agreed, India won't block us. BrokenSegue 18:20, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
While India is definitely a democracy, there have been blocks on sites like Yahoo! Groups in the past because of perceived secessionist activities. -- Sundar \talk \contribs 11:54, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
Anyway, I don't see what gave Bhadani the right to attempt to enforce (his perception of) Indian law on other Wikipedians (who may or may not be citizens or residents of India). Is he an agent of the Indian government? *Dan T.* 19:57, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
Please be kind to a respected user assuming good faith. -- Sundar \talk \contribs 11:54, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
My dear Dtobias, please try to understand the isssue in its totality. It was not my perception, it is the factual position of law as it obtains in India, and similar law may be in force in several other countries regarding secessionist activities. I was acting in the larger interest of wikipedia and the wikipedians. I may also add that I have no authority to enforce the law as it obtains in India and I am also not an agent of the Government of India. I was talking of a situation which may adversely affect the goodwill and the creadibility of wikipedia and the wikipedians as a group. In case, the user concerned is so sure of his edit (under reference) on the user page, and if he is an Indian, he is welcome to openly accept his assertion in any other medium, like a sticker to this effect in his passport. In case, he is so sure of his stand, he may write a letter to this effect to any newspapaers in India, and watch the legal consequences. If he is not willing to do so, it would be a clear case of an edit made with bad faith. It is very simple: he chose wikipedia to publish his agenda as we offer a free editable medium. While writing all these, I am reminded of these words of Essjay "Everytime you click "save this page," be completely convinced that what you are saving will make Wikipedia a better, more friendly, and more sucessful project, and if what you've typed won't do that, don't click save". I am sure that adding a user box of the type under reference was a simple misutilization of the facility provided by wikipedia. I am sure that if wikipedians continue to tolerate such misutilization of our facilities, we shall get a bad name. A lot of our time has already been wasted in this, and so unless I am asked specifically to comment more (please, by way of a message on my (talk page), I shall not further comment on the issue. Regards. --Bhadani 11:47, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
How exactly, may I ask, does spreading fear of hypothetical government reprisals and attempting to induce people to self-censorship (or even going so far as to edit the content of others' user pages to remove the statements you disagree with, if they don't submit), topped with legal threats, make Wikipedia a better, more friendly and more successful project? -- Captain Disdain 03:58, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
Please also see: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents&diff=prev&oldid=53302809 Regards. --Bhadani 12:15, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

I have to agree with *Dan T.* here. The messages Bhadani posted were unfounded legal threats. By the way, Bhadani, saying a legal threat is not a legal threat doesn't make it so, and I would support sanctions against you for that. Also, even though you didn't act on this, it is highly inappropriate to make changes to another's userpage without his/her consent simply because you don't like a userbox. Kafziel 13:06, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Please try to understand the issue in its totality, and please do not threaten me in this blatant style. In case you desire to santion me, I would feel helpless. --Bhadani 13:21, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
I did take to time to look at the whole issue. To me, the only one in the wrong is you. You threatened legal action against Anwar, whether direct or indirect. Just because you then said, "This is not a legal threat," doesn't make it so. I notice others have told you the same thing elsewhere, and they are right.
What I said was not a threat. Anwar is on his way to requesting comment or arbitration, and I would support him in that. You can see from my talk page and edit history that I have never had any previous conversations with him and have no reason to be prejudiced against you; you are wrong, plain and simple, and making legal threats as you did is expressly forbidden. Kafziel 13:37, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
Anwar is free to initiate any measure he deems fit - it is his right to do so, and you are also free to have your opinion. I know that you are not prejudiced against me, but your assesement is based on your interpretation of the position. I was trying to help him out of a situation, and if he does not understand the same I am helpless. The decision of the community shall be acceptable to me. BTW, I am sure you may have also seen this: [14], though it is out of context here. --Bhadani 17:46, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
If it's out of context, why did you post it unless it was to make an ad hominem attack on him? I'm not interested in his past or yours. I'm only interested in this issue. His past mistakes do not give you carte blanche to bully him.
One brief note to him might have been helping, provided you did so without saying that if he didn't comply with you he could be imprisoned. But harassing him by leaving messages over and over (and stating your intention to censor his user page) crosses the line. Kafziel 17:59, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
I do accept that I may have “crossed lines” in my zeal to deal with the issue. I should have been more circumspect. Anyway, now it is a fait accompli, and it can not be reversed. I can draw lessons from the incidence based on the clarifications made by you, others, as also on self-retrospection. --Bhadani 13:06, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
You mean like the melodramatic stuff you posted (then removed) to your user talk page comparing the fact that your actions are being criticized on Wikipedia (and might possibly result in some sort of sanction against you if formal action is pursued) to the Holocaust? See Godwin's Law. Personally, I don't think you have the proper temperament to be an administrator. *Dan T.* 13:17, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
Is it so? I may add that you are entitled to your opinion about my temperament. --Bhadani 15:42, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

"Voting" images

Regarding: Image:Symbol_support_vote.svg, Image:Symbol_unsupport_vote.png, Image:Symbol_oppose_vote.svg, Image:Symbol_neutral_vote.svg, Image:Symbol_keep_vote.svg, Image:Symbol_delete_vote.svg, Image:Symbol_comment.png, Image:Symbol_comment_vote.png, Image:Symbol_comment_vote.svg, Image:Symbol_question.png ...they're attractive, but what purpose do they serve and why weren't they deleted along with the template they were part of?: See Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion/Log/Deleted/June_2005#Template:Support_and_Template:Object_and_Template:Oppose and the deletion log for the template [15] Шизомби 22:14, 22 May 2006 (UTC)


Collaborators Wanted for Tintin articles.

On my User page [User:Sauvik.Biswas] you can find the list of articles that are related to Tintin. Most of these (except few main articles like Tintin itself) are poorly written/organised. If you wish to be a part of the project, please feel free to contact me on my talk page. [Click Here to leave me a message.]

A small to-do list and a format has to be chalked out before starting off with editing the pages. I have already prepared a Template and used it to show chronology on the right hand side of each Tintin Book. --54UV1K 12:01, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

I'll drop in once in a while even though Wikipedia discourages people from writing about themselves. Tintin (talk) 12:06, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
I took the liberty of correcting the link that Sauvik posted here. Regards, -Ambuj Saxena (talk) 14:11, 24 May 2006 (UTC)


#wikipedia cannot send to channel

Please help me: This message appears when I try to send messages in #wikipedia

This user Kick me out from MIRC #wikipedia. He is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alkivar User:Alkivar.

This is an agression, because i am from Latin America, He expulse me like an alien.

Please do something, he violeted my rights,

Help me please.


Augusto maguina 05:05, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

How do you know that this user is being rascist? --Osbus 23:29, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Office apps

Why are the Microsoft Office applications such as Excel at pages like Microsoft Office Excel, not Microsoft Excel? The most recent version is labelled Microsoft Excel. If the next one changes the name to MS Office Excel, well that's great, but A) It's not out yet, making the name incorrect, much like changing the Montenegro page to say it is independent is premature, B) I was under the impression we keep articles at the most common name, (eg. Czech Republic (not Czechia), East Timor (not Timor-Leste), and Vietnam (not Viet Nam)). Can anyone shed any light on why the articles are where they are? +Hexagon1 (t) 06:53, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

I'd agree with you, I believe the official name does not contain the word "Office", but on the other hand this hardly seems like a global issue - I would just bring it up on some of the directly relevant talk pages. Deco 08:23, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
Well, I didn't feel like writing on all the pages, then monitoring them all for responses, and I also wanted some outsider opinions on this, too. But, I'll try to contact the user who moved the pages. +Hexagon1 (t) 10:13, 27 May 2006 (UTC)


Complicated Image Request

I love the colored maps I find when searching different nations and states on Wikipedia I was interested to know if anyone can create or find a way to bring the State of Alaska and the Territory of Yukon together on one map. Kind of a supranational map for topics relating to North America's first-order administrative units. Any help I could receive on the matter would be nice or any with experience using the maping software found on the many places on Wikipedia 209.193.56.228 01:07, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Maybe you could ask at Wikipedia:WikiProject Maps/Requested and orphan maps? Ziggurat 01:22, 26 May 2006 (UTC)


Need suggestion for places to link to orphan article Steven M. Newman

I found this while working on the orphan article list. Steven M. Newman is a journalist who walked around the world in 1983 and wrote 2 books about it. The only place that links to him is the list of people named Newman. Anyone have a better suggestion? Thatcher131 01:01, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

His home town, his school (if it has an article), his college (which probably will have an article). Bhoeble 13:49, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
If you can find exact dates for the beginning/end of his journal, you could link to it from those dates. Cool3 15:15, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

The link-law could be a new detected law of nature, based on long term observations and calculations from the norwegian wikipedian Friman. It says: 

Each red link a wikipedian makes blue, in average will result in two new red links.

The law may result in severe frustrations for contributors, and can induce link-phobias and wiki-myalgia. --Friman 22:22, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

That's interesting. --Osbus 22:24, 29 May 2006 (UTC)


Wikipedia Accuracy

I'm relatively new to Wikipedia and I hope I'm posting this to the appropriate location. If not, I apologize. I looked for a discussion thread on this at wiki and elsewhere without success. Perhaps it's out there someplace, but I haven't found it.

A couple of weeks ago, I heard a Kim komando radio segment calling Wikipedia a “bad idea” and a "silly idea." [16]

I beg to differ.

I have discovered that Wikipedia articles are more complete and satisfactory on a variety of topics, here than any other place on the web. A quick spot check today confirmed it: not only does Wikipedia have more complete articles, but it also has articles that you can't find anywhere else (at least at the free encyclopedia sites).

It's probably true that ALL of the info at Wikipedia has not been verified, but can anyone say that any encyclopedia's data has been verified 100%? True, I wouldn't want to use Wiki data in a scholarly article without verifying the information first. But I would say that the vast majority of the contents can be trusted, especially if the topic is non-controversial.

It isn't very often that I contribute money to an online site, but I feel strongly enough about Wikipedia that I made a donation during the last fund-raising drive. I plan on coming back often, and when I do, I want it to still be here. --Leon7 20:17, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your supportive words, Leon. We appreciate any contribution of money or effort to the project. Although at its inception even I might have been suspicious, I think the explosive growth of the Wikipedia community and readership has demonstrated a clear need for the particular function that it fulfills. You might direct cynics to our Wikipedia:Replies to common objections page, and also point out that there are a number of proposals under discussion for dealing with some of the issues of reliability and fragility that Wikipedia deals with now on a somewhat ad hoc basis (an example is Wikipedia:Stable versions). Deco 00:12, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
Kim Komando is a dumbass, allegedly. -Username132 (talk) 17:41, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
Anyone who calls Wikipedia a "silly idea" is a dumbass. --Osbus 15:06, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
While I agree Wikipedia is a valuable resource, I've noted in the last six months or so that it increasingly is deteriorating into a chaotic anarchy. Some glaring problems are:
1) An increasingly complex and ludicrous bureaucracy with byzantine and arcane procedures that make the most inefficient DMV seem well organized and streamlined by comparison. (Witness all the wasted time spent worrying about "user boxes" while content quality is subordinated and thus ignored.)
2) Increasingly rude and strident administrators who seem only interested in making the bureaucracy more complex (to ensure their place in some petty kingdom) and making snide remarks to casual users and often confused newcomers (confused, partly, because they must wend their way through the byzantine bureaucracy).
3) A system which is very hostile to newcomers and also professionals who may wish to contribute valuable skills and knowledge.
4) A focus entirely on minor "geek skills" in promoting clearly immature, underaged, and irresponsible people to administrators, thus encyclopedia content, quality, and professional vetting are all but ignored. Someone with a Nobel Prize in physics who contributes to Wikipedia can be trumped by a 15-year-old "administrator" who spends all day on the system, doesn't actually know the system procedures, but will be backed by equally immature administrators who need to curry favor in order to build a power base for their own petty reasons.
5) An absurdly cliquey administrative cabal, where ludicrous toadying is rewarded in order to curry favor for oneself, which results in open hostility to non-administrators and severe subordination of encyclopedic quality.
So unless you spend your entire waking hours on Wikipedia, you are relegated to a second-class status and treated shabbily. In academia and industry, editing boards and advisory panels are staffed by those most qualified because of their professional skills. At Wikipedia, the system is largely run by unruly teenagers and asocial college students who spend far too much time in front of their computers and don't understand the basics of human interaction and haven't a clue about professionalism or common courtesy.Jeff Fenstermacher 22:00, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
You know, call me anti-wikipedia, but I agree with you on such counts. But that's why you and me are here, isn't it? That's why countless have signed up to improve this happy little place called Wikipedia. --Osbus 22:06, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
I don't know about you, but I haven't had the same experience with admins being aggressive and immature. Many of the most rational voices to be raised in a conflict that I've seen have been admins, and there really is no cabal - not to say there aren't exceptions. On the other hand, I'm inclined to agree that too much time is wasted on things that don't matter, and that the bureaucracy grows ever more complex. My hope is that some of the most taxing functions of the bureaucracy will increasingly be replaced by software features. This is also why Wikipedia:Ignore all rules is so important: if you expect someone to know all the rules, you're going to be let down. In a system this complex, ignorance is an excuse. Deco 23:18, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Dutch Wikipedia over 200.000  !

Hello everyone,

The Dutch Wikipedia reached on the 24th of May 2006, with this article the number of 200.000 articles. Congratulations Dutch-Wiki. --Algont 09:42, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Hooray, Dutch Wikipedia! May all the world so benefit from freely pooling their knowledge. Perhaps this explains why the Dutch are so much smarter than Klingons. Deco 00:14, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
Please tell me someone didn't actually make a Klingon wikipedia.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 00:58, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
They did, it's real. The process for starting a new Wikipedia was once so lightweight that no one really questioned the idea. It had numerous articles but ground to a halt for lack of Klingon-fluent contributors and limitations of the vocabulary. Word is it'll be merged into some Wikicity. Deco 08:11, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

First Wikipedia admin?

I read over the History of Wikipedia page and some related ones today. Afterwards, I began to wonder if anyone knows who the first adminstrator selected by the community was (I assume that Jimbo or some such person was the first, but I'd like to know who the first editor to become an admin was.) Does any one know? Cool3 21:53, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

The first admins were nominated and promoted via the mailing list without a vote, so there's unlikely to be information on it here. You could try searching the old mailing lists if you have sufficient Google-fu. Ziggurat 22:46, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the tip. Cool3 19:38, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
I have looked through the early mailing list archives, and it only goes so far. The process started out very informally and not all promotions are to be found there. If anyone has some good historical data on all this, please visit here and provide whatever information you have. NoSeptember talk 19:54, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the information! Cool3 20:48, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure Angela was one of the first, or at least one of the first who is still active. Deco 00:16, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
Angela arrived in January 2003 and became an admin in June 2003 when there were about 80 admins, which makes her election to the board in mid-2004 all the more impressive :-). See the link in my comment above for a list of the truly early admins. NoSeptember talk 09:03, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Administrators -check the Sep 20, 2002 entry for the first list of admins, then try to track which of the couple dozen there were first. Rmhermen 00:35, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

I did just that. Here are the results, where the dates are date/time of first edit and marks indicate whether they continue to be active:

RoseParks, Timshell, and WojPob first edited in January 2001, with RoseParks, a Nupedian like Jimbo, coming earliest (her first edit, an article creation in the old-fashioned Nupedia naming style). AstroNomer first edited in February 2001. Andre Engels, Jimbo Wales, Lee Daniel Crocker, and Stephen Gilbert first edited in March 2001. I'd give the award for earliest still-acive admin to Stephen Gilbert. I'm pleasantly surprised to see that many of our original admins remain with us today. Thank you to them all for your years of service. Deco 12:45, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Please note that, due to software changes, not all early edits still exist. These are therefore not accurate for first edits. Jimbo certainly did not "first" edit in March - see Wikipedia:Wikipedia's oldest articles. Many of the early editors came in from Nupedia - which was another of Jimbo's projects. Rmhermen 01:59, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
You're right, of course. It's unfortunate that this data was lost, although I admire Brian's ability to retain what he did despite massive database schema overhauls. It seems nobody knows who made the first edit, but I'm willing to believe the legend that it was a test edit by Jimbo or Brion. Deco 08:13, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

About small community articles

I am not quite sure where to put this, but I have been thinking of possible guidelines to expand articles about smaller communities like towns and villages. If there is already something similar somewhere, I haven't found it. My ideas are here and I think they need further suggestions. - Skysmith 11:59, 23 May 2006 (UTC)


207.250.22.5 appears to love to create senseless links in Wikipedia. Any questions on how common this is?? Georgia guy 20:07, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

That user is clearly a vandal. I'm surprised the block log is so short. 80.175.134.141 21:06, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
I've just taken a look at the user contributions. It seems to me that since May 18th, this IP has been this user's static IP address. I think this user is taking advantage of the fact that anonymous users are not normally blocked for very long, because it is assumed that the IP is has been assigned dynamically. 80.175.134.141 21:16, 30 May 2006 (UTC)


Thank You

I just got done with a very intence history corse, and i would not have been sucessful without this site. I want to thank anyone who has contributed, you always had the most though information I was looking for.

That's nice...thanks --Osbus 21:03, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Divisions of Wikipedia

Wikipedia is more than an encyclopedia, and it's experiencing growing pains because of that. It's also not always the right tool for the job. Maybe we need to divide up the problem. Suppose Wikipedia were divided into "Divisions", with somewhat different rules for it.

  • Wikipedia Atlas - place-related information, tied to a map system
All those articles like "State Route 83" go in there, and they're findable from a map.
  • Wikipedia Popular Culture
  • Wikipedia Music - a database organized like CDDB. Structured and automatically cross-linked, so you can easily go from artist to discography to song to other artists. If you can buy the music, it gets in.
  • Wikipedia Movies - a database organized like IMDB.
  • Wikipedia Books - as above, for books
  • Wikipedia Games - a game database.
  • Wikipedia Businesses - company information; the Fortune 1000, plus any other company someone wants to put in.
  • Wikipedia Products - stuff you can buy.
  • Wikipedia People - all the articles about individual people, like "Who's Who" and "Who Was Who".
  • Wikipedia News - current events.
  • Wikipedia General Knowledge - general knowledge not in the above categories. Info should pass "100 year test".

The intent is that the inclusion standards for popular culture are relatively low - if you can buy the thing, it gets in. The inclusion standards for People remain where they are now, and the inclusion standards for General Knowledge tighten up. This will make life easier for the fan base (fewer "my band is notable" arguments), while lowering the noise level for those working on general knowledge.

Technically, Music, Movies, Books, Games, and Businesses need a real database, and Atlas needs a map system; they're not just text-based wikis. Entering data into those systems would be form-oriented, where users fill out web forms to get the data into the right slots. (A neat trick would be to develop programs that can take the existing articles on, say, music albums, find the key info, and put the article into the database.)

The first big step would be to get the database for Music and Movies working, then start moving articles over.

Comments?

--John Nagle 17:16, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

I don't necessarily see the need for moving articles wholesale into such separate projects, but some of the things you listed would make sense as an organization or indexing system for accessing Wikipedia content on certain topics; it would be useful if somebody (either as an official Wikimedia project or as an outside effort) created things like a clickable map linking to geographical Wikipedia articles, a database of books/movies/albums searchable by various criteria and linking to the appropriate WP articles on the albums/artists/actors/etc., a historical and biographical chronology chart, etc. *Dan T.* 17:28, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
Real life things, people and events are rarely all one thing: is Arnold Schwarzenegger supposed to be Movies, People or News and, if you do parse the various aspects into three different divisions so they don't overlap, how are the resulting three articles better than a single one reconciling all of them? It seems to me that organizing user initiatives, rather than articles, by subject is a better way to go about it, so WikiProject Music already has standards for articles under its ambit. On a sidenote, there is a Wikipedia layer for Google Earth here with links to 30,000 articles that have coordinates. - BanyanTree 18:54, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
The fact the Wikipedia is a single source which covers a vast range of subjects is one of its greatest merits, so any subdivisions would be bad news. I don't want to have to know which Wiki project to use, I just want to be able to come to one place and find information about anything. Bhoeble 13:47, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

There is already a project to add this kind of database functionality to wikipedia. Semanticwikipedia version 0.4 is already up and running at [[17]]. Once this is working fully you will be able to annotate links between pages to help computers understand the information there. On the page for a CD a search engine will be able to tell which bit of text is the publisher, which is the musician, which is song title and will be able to search for the info you need. The plan (as I understand it) is to start by automatically converting information in infoboxes. I think this means we can help to make wikipedia semantic web ready by making sure all CDs, books, places, etc. have infoboxes. Later on as the links within articles are tagged it should be possible to automatically generate the infoboxes from the articles tagged links (or maybe not. I'm not an expert in these things.) Filceolaire 12:48, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

How do you write a bibliography for Wikipedia?

I need to write a bibliography and used Wikipedia for a number of things. Who should I put for the author of the site?

Look up "Citing Wikipedia": WP has a page for it. -Tracker 01:31, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

If you go to the toolbox links on the left of the screen on an article page there's one called 'Cite this article' that will give you a bibliographic reference in numerous citation styles (APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, etc.). Ziggurat 02:15, 31 May 2006 (UTC)


Wierd

It suddenly started working as soon as I clicked save changes

RfA publicity

Currently RfA is dominated by people with no particular connections to a candidate that merely vote in a lot of RfAs. To change this, I have begun a campaign to publicize all new RfAs. Any one who wants to help should see user:ShortJason/Publicity. Please join in this effort to improve the proccess. Thanks! ShortJason 19:35, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Guilty as charged. Most of the RfAs involve pages with only one editor, though and are at least borderline WP:VSCA. --JChap 01:16, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
ShortJason's talking about WP:RFA, not WP:AFD. -- Rick Block (talk) 13:16, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

My User Page

Custom CSS won't work on my user page, how do you get it to work. I Love Minun 19:35, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

It worked, but now I can't change the CSS I Love Minun 15:16, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Fully justified

Has WP decided to fully justify all of the text? Kilo-Lima|(talk) 12:16, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

There's an option in user preferences to justify text. If your view suddenly changed without you changing your preferences, you may have a partially corrupt copy of your javascript/css files cached. Purging your browser's cache usually fixes this. See Wikipedia:Clear your cache.-gadfium 00:44, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

RC Patrol-Induced Stress

Don't people get stressed out doing recent changes patrol? --Username132 (talk) 17:19, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes. When you look at what's coming in, most new articles really don't add much to Wikipedia. Let's look at the last ten articles created:
  1. 18:44, 26 May 2006 ‎Pick Up the Mic ‎ - film about gay hip-hop.‎
  2. 18:44, 26 May 2006 ‎Balloch, Highland ‎- non-notable residental suburb of Inverness, Scotland, should be merged.‎
  3. 18:44, 26 May 2006 ‎"Miss Asian America Pageant" ‎- beauty contest, weak article ‎
  4. 18:43, 26 May 2006 ‎Sulfates as a climate forcing ‎ -WP:V, WP:OR short, vague ,may be original research, no refs‎
  5. 18:43, 26 May 2006 ‎AeroRepública destinations ‎- WP:NOT Wikipedia is not an airline guide‎
  6. 18:43, 26 May 2006 ‎Rollie ‎(89 bytes) - dictdef, may be neologism
  7. 18:42, 26 May 2006 ‎Red White & Blue Beer ‎- WP:CORP discontinued beer brand from 1930s‎
  8. 18:42, 26 May 2006 ‎William T. Zenor ‎- forgotten US Congressman, circa 1900.
  9. 18:41, 26 May 2006 ‎Henry H. Bingham ‎- forgotten US Congressman, circa 1890.
  10. 18:41, 26 May 2006 ‎Project Bootstrap ‎- WP:FICT Non-notable Simpsons reference
That's what's coming in. And this is a good batch. No personal attacks, no bandspam, no corporate spam, no self-promoting articles. Sometimes it's much worse. Yet six of those ten don't really qualify. Yet if you put "prod" on all of them, the article creator will probably take the "prod" off. Then you have to go through the whole clunky AfD process, waste the time of half a dozen editors, and finally the article will probably be deleted. That's what RC patrol is like. --John Nagle 19:04, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
Most of our best articles started life as a load of old crap. Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 20:04, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
I would have thought dealing with vandals is the most annoying. --Username132 (talk) 23:59, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
Actually most vandals are pretty easy to deal with.I find RC patrol quite easy. POV pushers are the real problem IMO Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 11:37, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
In a similar vein, I don't find vandalism annoying. It's tedious, but easy to fix. Content disputes eat up far more time and effort. Johnleemk | Talk 14:37, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
But what about all the vandalism that slips through and is eroding the hard work of everyone else? --Username132 (talk) 17:39, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
What's more erosive? Finding vandalism and fixing it immediately, or having to go through the dispute resolution process to get around the disruptive habits of a revert warrior? Johnleemk | Talk 07:19, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I find myself going instictively for the redlinked names. Call 'em redshirts because they'll be gone five minutes after posting their ad/vanity page/conspiracy theory. --JChap 23:53, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

College term papers

Wikipedia seems to be known as a place where people can get nonfiction published and college term papers get submitted here. When these are submitted to AfD, they are (rightly) summarily rejected. An editor who submits a term paper is invariably new and not familiar with Wikipedia policy. Some can take the summary rejection of their work quite hard, even where they don't get flamed. My concern: we are driving away talented writers from the project, who might contribute usable encyclopedia articles if they could be persuaded to stick around. We could (and should) contact them to explain what our criteria are for accepting an article. But can we do something more? Maybe we could suggest another place for them to post? I'd be interested in your thoughts. --JChap 02:17, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Typically we invite them to post in on their own personal website, but there are many appropriate forums, just not a Wikimedia project. Everybody takes their first deletion hard but I think if you're civil they'll often give it a second chance. Deco 05:59, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps we should write a guide on how one can turn a paper into an article, and give them some time to adapt it before it is deleted? A text dump of an essay is clearly not acceptable, but with a bit of work a fine encyclopedia article can often be produced. For instance, the now featured Marshall Plan article began life as one of my university papers. - SimonP 00:19, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
Well, the problem is that your average term paper necessarily takes a biased or narrow point of view in order to establish a useful point. Unless the paper is intended to be like an encyclopedia article, it's never easy to edit out bias or generalize a discussion. One approach is to post on a subpage of their user page or the relevant article and invite interested contributors to take and rework pieces of it for use in articles or edit it to make it look more like a Wikipedia article. I think generally as long as you're not slamming something in the article namespace no one's going to clamor for its deletion unless they're just anal retentive (hey, I didn't even mention userboxes!). Deco 13:01, 1 June 2006 (UTC)


Wikipedia and other MediaWiki sites

I have an article in mind I want to transfer to Wikipedia. It's on SourceWatch, a site using MediaWiki and the GNU GFDL. Is it OK if I copy the whole article to Wikipedia? It's on something WP does not have an article for. -Tracker 01:29, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

I'll take a stab at this, since nobody else seems to be. The software used doesn't make any difference, but the GFDL is key and it should approached in the reverse of the advice we give people creating derivative Wikipedia content. Wikipedia:Copyrights#Users' rights and obligations states there are three things that need to be fulfilled to comply with the GFDL: (1) it has to be GFDL licensed, (2) authorship must be acknowledged and (3) you have to provide access to a "transparent copy" of the material. 1 is no problem as there's a notice of the GFDL at the bottom of every page on Wikipedia. For the others, I would attribute it in the edit summary of the paste and, just to be nice, put a notice based on the LOC template at the bottom of the page - "This article contains material from SourceWatch written under the GNU Free Documentation License - [link to original article]" so the original authors can get their credit. - BT 03:32, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

"There is no we"

(Moved to WP:VPP) 81.104.165.184 20:31, 3 June 2006 (UTC)


Teamplate "meals"

In the "meals" template, the word snack goes to a disambiguation page, not the required article. I dont know how to change that. Anyone want to fill me in - leave a note on my talk page. See Lunch for an example of the template. skorpion 08:45, 5 June 2006 (UTC)


Vandalism survey

I have recently conducted a survey to estimate the percentage of vandalism on Wikipedia perpetrated by anonymous users. My conclusion thus far is that anon vandalism accounts for 82.2%-92.2% of all Wikipedia vandalism. However, I would like suggestions and comments so that, perhaps, I can design a better study to estimate vandalism statistics. Cool3 01:32, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Though this may be true, considering that anonymous edits account for a large percentage of edits, the percentage of anonymous edits that are vandalism is probably somewhat less (ref Bayes' theorem). I'd like to see this measured too. Also interesting would be how many are one-time vandals versus repeat (by IP address) and what IP blocks/domains vandals tend to come out of most. Deco 01:35, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
I wonder if there's a difference in the percentage of anon vandals who remove the test4 message from their page vs. logged in vandals, or a difference in the average number of articles vandalized by an anon vandal vs. a logged in vandal? I would think a better percentage of anon vs. logged in vandals might be obtained from the block log (how many IP addresses are blocked over the period of a week vs. how many user names?). And, if you're really looking for percentage of vanalism, from edit summaries for some sample of edits (assuming the rollback summary indicates vandalism, how many rollbacks were of IP edits vs. logged in edits? user:Interiot might be able and willing to run some sort of query like this on the toolserver machine). What you've measured is perhaps related to "percentage of vandals", but it's not obvious to me that what you've measured is related at all to "percentage of vandalism". I'll bet there are a large number of admins who would happily allow continued anonymous vandalism for some way to prevent further vandalism from Willy on Wheels (a logged in vandal).
Furthermore (knowing that where you're going with this is there's a perennial proposal of the form let's ban edits from anonymous users), even if anonymous users are more prone to vandalism the mere fact that an edit is from an anonymous user then provides a very big clue about whether an edit might be vandalism. If we force all users to log in, then the job of determining what edits are vandalism becomes much harder. I truly believe people who are motivated to vandalize will do so whether we make them log in or not, and unless we resort to some actual identification mechanism (which the current login is not) we're not addressing the issue you think we're addressing. -- Rick Block (talk) 02:32, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
I agree - just look at the response to semiprotection and no-anonymous-page-creation. Do we really have less vandalism in semiprotected articles? Do we really have less new articles that are vandalism? I'm asking because I don't know - nobody knows. This kind of seems-like-a-good-idea policy-making with no follow-up investigation is not a productive means of mitigating the issue. Deco 07:18, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
As per Rick Block's claim that I'm going for let's ban anons with my study, I have to disagree. I support the continuation of anonymous editing. I was just trying to find a quick, easy way to estimate how much vandalism is anon vandalism. I'll be the first to admit that it was flawed, but given the resources available to me, it was the best I could do. If Interiot could run some queries, that would certainly be much more accurate and I would be interested to see his results. Cool3 10:53, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
Cool3 - I'm sorry. There is definitely a let's ban anons sentiment about. Including you in this camp was an unwarranted assumption on my part. I've revised the wording of my comment a bit. I think you could do the block log analysis yourself fairly easily (copy/paste the last 10,000 or so blocks into a file, ...). I've found Interiot to be quite responsive, please feel to ask him about analyzing edit summaries. And, BTW, although I'll admit my tone above is somewhat snarky, I do appreciate that you're willing to try to get data about this. -- Rick Block (talk) 13:48, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

In my humble opinion, the community is capable to deal with any sort of vandalism. Simple vandalism by anonymous users are really easy to detect, and easier to deal with. The real problem faced by us, in my assessment, is vandalism of our contents by white-collar vandals, who have penetrated the system and maraud as legitimate editors. Similarly, a number of users think that the user pages personally belong to them, and some of us use the same, which are certainly not in conformity with the spirit of the policies and guidelines of wikipedia. --Bhadani 16:44, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Although I respect your viewpoint, it's my opinion that even the most despicable misuse of a user page (say, a personal porn site) is less severe a crime than disruption of live articles. The articles are the product, what we offer the world. If we published Wikipedia as a book, it wouldn't have talk pages or user pages in it. I'm not saying these pages lack information or that their unprofessionalism doesn't affect how people view the encyclopedia, but it's just not a big deal compared to article quality. Deco 23:24, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I have Interiot to perform a tool server query that should give us all a more accurate figure :-)! Cool3 21:03, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I do agree with Deco. Perhaps, I mis-communicated, and emphasis shifted to the user pages. Yes, we are more concerned about the disruption of contents of the articles, and such disruption are also being done by white-collar vandals, who have penetrated the system and maraud as legitimate editors. We must also try to check such white-collar vandalism. I also thank Cool3 for undertaking the survey. --Bhadani 10:33, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to point out that uninformed and controversial edits are also mostly done by anonymous edits. While not technically vandalism, they are often reverted (or re-edited) because these anonymous editors don't even attempt to read or participate in the discussions on the talk pages. This would tend to drive the statistics for the useless anonymous edits even higher.

I personally favor semi-protection for articles we wish to remain stable, such as widely used templates and perhaps feature articles. This would be better than an outright ban, but I recognize that it is still controversial. Ideogram 19:18, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Too much vandalism

72.137.223.200 has vandalized PBS idents 3 times by putting a wrong date for one of the idents. Anyone know what to do?? Georgia guy 01:39, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

You could try leaving an html comment in the article, like <! please look at the talk page for this article --> and try to engage the user in a discussion on the talk page (ask for a source for the different dates). Another approach is to conspicuously reference a source for the dates you claim are correct and ask for a different source. Accusing them of vandalism is generally not helpful (for all you know, they think the dates they're using are correct and you look like a vandal). -- Rick Block (talk) 02:00, 6 June 2006 (UTC)


Offtopic, offwiki help needed

I realize this is a long shot, but that's why this is in the misc area. The idiot known as Willy on Wheels is currently mounting a vandalism attack on www.wikitravel.org. He's defacing the main page and using the goatse picture liberally. I don't know any admins, but if anyone reads this who does, can you poke them and get them to ban his IP there and lock down the front page? Thanks. Sr.Wombat 00:48, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Wikitravel is pretty small - you might just lock the whole wiki until he goes away. Page move vandalism is very annoying to undo. Deco 00:56, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
I would, but I don't have any admin powers in the sightest, hence, my plea to try and reach someone who does. Sr.Wombat 00:58, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Wiki Computer Programming?

Have there been any attempts to write computer code using a Wiki interface? Ideogram 05:43, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

A wiki isn't suitable for writing computer code because computer languages are so sensitive to trivial errors. This question was partially addressed recently at Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Science#Computer_science_-_Linux.-gadfium 05:56, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
My god there is so much CRAP on that page. Ideogram 06:24, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
See my wiki LiteratePrograms, where we in fact write many small computer programs using a wiki interface. We get around the problem of fragility using software features that allow you to download, compile, and test the code. Most of the articles on there are in a working, correct state. Without additional software support, however, this could not scale to a larger program (in particular, it would be necessary to support references between articles and some kind of branching/labelling). Deco 10:05, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
OOh! Ideally code should take input from the wiki, and put output back on the wiki. That way you can test instantly! Kim Bruning 12:53, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
I display compiler errors live on the wiki for a small set of supported languages, but actually testing the code on the wiki is difficult because it poses a security risk (would you want people executing arbitrary code on your server?) This wouldn't be a problem with a private server, but I'd have to come up with a better solution for this. Deco 17:58, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
Sandbox? I've seen some people even run separate virtual machines per user, though that can get expensive I guess. Kim Bruning 10:06, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, a sandbox is the obvious approach, but setting up an airtight sandbox with chroot, quotas, etc. is difficult, and also the programs on the wiki run in many languages on many platforms, each requiring its own sandbox, some of which can't run on the server at all. VMs could solve the problem, although as you say at a ridiculous overhead. I think for now it's easier to get the contributor to use their own machine. Deco 17:19, 7 June 2006 (UTC)


Help! An edit war that will never end!

For about a week, there has been a big edit war at Talk:Moscow Metro about L1/12. There doesn't appear to be a way it can ever end. Georgia guy 17:19, 8 June 2006 (UTC)


Problems

As I'm with AOL I unfortunately share an ISP address *sigh* and can not edit anything even too add a useful link. How do I prevent this?

Create a user. --69.204.179.124 20:57, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
Its ironic that an anon is saying this... :)--Osbus 21:01, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
Ironic but accurate, points to 69.204.179.124. KillerChihuahua?!? 21:03, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
Speaking of ironic, if you can't edit anything, how can you edit this page? Deco 23:14, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
AOL IPs rotate. Ideally we should block all of them, like on Wiktionary. Ashibaka tock 02:01, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

How to view a list of articles I have created?

my contribution page is limited to only the last 500 edits, and I dont see anyway to know which ones U have created? Procrastinating@talk2me 15:48, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Click "Older 500" to view edits predating the first 500. Deco 20:57, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
Ok,y so I can see 1,000 edits back. yet still there are not all of my edits, and I am still not able too lists of self created articles.--Procrastinating@talk2me 10:24, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
Click "Older 500" as many times as you want to go back as far as you want. You can also edit the URL to go back to a particular time. Deco 07:23, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
There is no good way to see lists of articles you've created. user:Interiot runs a tool (on request) that can produce a report that looks like this. -- Rick Block (talk) 13:36, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
I'm famous. ^^; --Golbez 17:24, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
It's really kind of amusing how you can see my "phases". I started out with a local college, then all the Washington Metro stations, then some state governors, then congressional articles, then provinces, then hurricanes, then back to provinces. And disturbingly little overlap in any of those periods. Gosh, I was busy on July 20. --Golbez 17:26, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Image Quality

Wikipedia seems to contain images of low quality. An example would be the images in Hamster a few of which are out of focus and one of them is foggy. In the image for today's featured picture, the sky is clipped. Wikipedia has other images of low quality. Such images bring down the presentation of wikipedia. Maybe wikipedia needs to have standards for posted images? Reub2000 05:43, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately, because of various copyright laws, in many cases we are forced to rely on our editors to provide images using digital photography rather than using images which are available elsewhere. Considering the sheer range in quality of the equipment used by our editors, combined with their photographic skill, the quality of our images inevitably varies greatly. In many cases we have the unfortunate choice of either using low-quality images or not using images at all, which would probably be even worse for our users in terms of overall presentation. Rje 11:39, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
Maybe the solution is to create a category of articles needing images. Then a skilled photographer could look over this catergory for images he/she should take for wikipedia. Reub2000 19:30, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
There is one already, though I can't remember what it is called just now. Wikipedia has far more illustrations than any other encyclopedia, many of them are very good, and the overall quality is improving fast. I think this is a case of judging Wikipedia against an ideal standard which no other publication has ever attained, which is not uncommon. But if you see really poor images, you can always remove them. CalJW 19:32, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
The category is Category:Wikipedia requested images. - BanyanTree 21:29, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
90% of wikipedia images are explarary. However, about 1% need to be replaced. Just because Wikipedia is already a comprehensive resource with a great deal of images doesn't mean we have to let a few bad images remain. Also standards should be placed on images for featured articles.Reub2000
I say keep images until there's a better one to actually replace it with. You don't get rid of your old computer a month before you've got your new one... --Username132 (talk) 17:23, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
I agree that we should not delete any image until a replacement arrives. No one uploads a bad picture because they just didn't want to bother taking a good one - they're trying their best. Also, some of these issues are dealt with in more detail at Wikimedia Commons. Deco 23:20, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
  • I agree with Deco. I especially find the obsession some people have with picture quality disturbing. There's nothing wrong with striving for perfection, but sometimes I see perfectly acceptable images bashed because they're not perfect. If you can provide a better replacement feel free to do so. - Mgm|(talk) 10:20, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

WP typo domains for sale

[18] - it's good for a laugh!--Keycard (talk) 17:41, 9 June 2006 (UTC)


Dear Friends,

I'm confused. I meant to contribute by adding as external link to "Zen" or "Buddhism" the link to www.bodhidharma. it or in the English version "http:// users.libero.it/seza/indexgb. html" The Flower of Bodhidharma

I noticed that the link was systematically removed. Now, it even seems to be blacklisted.

Please note The Flower of Bodhidharma is a web site of an Italian Monastery associated with UBI (Italian Buddhist Union) and linked with many important Temples around the world.

On the web site are available, not only examples of what zen articles are, but also original teachings of our Master Tae Hye sunim, a Korean Zen Monk ordained in Korea and now resident in Italy.

I wonder if I made any mistake in proposing the link, maybe there was a misunderstanding due to my unexperience? In this case I am awfully sorry!

Thank you for your help.

Sergio (Tae Bi)

What should and shouldn't be added to the external links sections of articles is discussed at Wikipedia:External links. After reading this, if you still feel this link should be added to these articles please discuss it on the articles' talk pages. -- Rick Block (talk) 13:49, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Article renaming discussion for 1907 populations

Hello there! Since 1907 populations really isn't a popular article, I'm asking people to look at the discussion page to give their opinion on the proposed rename. I proposed it instead of going through with it because it's a totally different name and it may cause controversy. Please comment on it! —THIS IS MESSEDOCKER (TALK) 11:19, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

I need to put anti-vandalism block page!

Can you to block the page about Italian singer Pupo at this history: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Enzo_Ghinazzi&oldid=57683252

It is always vandalized!

What you want is semi-protection, that way serious editors can still edit. —THIS IS MESSEDOCKER (TALK) 11:21, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Compare: PNG → ← SVG

--  Denelson83  04:00, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Great work. I find it entertaining to compare the two images at large size:
I think we have a winner. :-) Deco 06:48, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
Don't ignore that the .svg version is 3 times larger than the .png though.  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  01:03, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
You should resave it from Inkscape as Plain SVG, to reduce size.24.137.84.198 03:38, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
The size of the SVG file is irrelevant. The reader doesn't download the SVG file, they download the PNG thumbnail. The thumbnail is about twice as large, but it still fits in one TCP packet either way, so it won't make any difference. Deco 09:23, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Stub image size

Putting the politics and economics stubs together indents the second one. Is this attributable to the size of one of the graphics?

This politics-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
File:Many coins.jpg  This economics or finance-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

RyanEberhart 01:41, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

We've had that problem with some stub icons but not with others. You might want to ask this question over at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Stub sorting - because it's worth finding out which templates cause that problem and fixing them. I think it is a size thing, but I'm not technoboffin enough to know for sure. (BTW, I "substed" those templates to remove the categories). Grutness...wha? 05:33, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
It's the "left" in the image link for the first template (removed below). This causes the image to "float" left, allowing subsequent text (and images) to flow around it. -- Rick Block (talk) 01:47, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
This politics-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
File:Many coins.jpg  This economics or finance-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
Excellent. Thanks for that - I'll try to remember that if I see it happening again! Grutness...wha? 00:00, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
I'm also copying this across to WP:WSS talk. Grutness...wha? 04:45, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Are we there yet?

I don't know whether this is the place for a bit of an impromptu straw poll, so if it isn't please move it to where it is!

Two questions that I'd be interested in hearing people's opinions on:

1) Is it possible to create a single depository of all factual human knowledge? Naturally wikipedia is never going to contain the memories of every human's first date, because that would be unverifiable, vain and probably NPOV. But is it possible that this site will eventually contain every verifiable fact ever discovered by the human race?
2) If your answer to question one is "yes", are we even a measurable percentage of the way there yet?

~~ Happy-melon 07:19, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

To answer #1: Yes, it's called the Internet. To answer #2: No, there's still the dark web and the many libraries of information not yet digitized, or in inaccessible formats. Wikipedia cannot supply the sum of all human knowledge, merely summarize it with good sources. --Golbez 07:30, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
The only way to create a repository of all verifiable knowledge would be if that repository contained all publications. Maybe someday the Internet will, but it sure won't be free. Deco 08:28, 10 June 2006 (UTC)


New WikiProject for Louisville, Kentucky

On June 7, I launched a WikiProject covering Louisville-related articles. If you're a current or former resident or even if you just have an interest in this fine American city, you're very welcome to join. — Stevie is the man! Talk | Work 19:40, 11 June 2006 (UTC)


notability of churches

Is there any guidance on notability of churches? WP:CORP seems inapplicable to me. Churches are only incidentally incorporated, if they are at all.--Kchase02 T 05:21, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

There are 68,574 churches in the US Churches Database. That's a big collection of data, and keeping it current wouldn't happen. We do need a notability criterion. Age? Size? Position in hierarchy (Catholic)? --John Nagle 05:37, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
Do you want to work on a proposal together?--Kchase02 T 05:41, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
(He kindly declined, and I moved the convo to his user talk.)--Kchase02 T 06:11, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

You know you've been at wikipedia too long when ...

I just tried to sign my email with four tildes. Ideogram 19:59, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

You should add this to Wikipedia:Are_ You_a_Wikipediholic_Test. Deco 20:02, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
I thought everyone here did that. I've even sent a couple. KillerChihuahua?!? 20:04, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
It's already there :-). Ideogram 20:06, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
It is very common with me too, though I always realize it before sending. However, if I am emailing some user, I deliberately leave it as such. -Ambuj Saxena (talk) 20:22, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

You know you've really been editing Wikipedia too long when you set up an outgoing mail filter to fix it. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 21:57, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In the norwegian Wikipedia, we have removed the message From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia because some thinks it is to big and unnecessary. What are your thoughts about the case? Should it be removed? How meaningsful is it actually? Sorry for bringing this up, maybe it has been discussed earlier. Have a nice day! NorwegianMarcus 15:44, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

  • God dag! I don't know if you are talking about Norsk bokmål or Norsk nynorsk. I assume that you are talking about nynorsk. I think it is ok to remove the message "Frå Wikipedia - det frie oppslagsverket ". If a lot of people are confused about the main page, you can put it back. But leave the welcome message "Velkommen til Nynorsk Wikipedia" --Starionwolf 21:39, 12 June 2006 (UTC)


Excessive categorization

Today, I stumbled upon Category:0s, and was baffled by what I discovered.

Many of the subcategories included in this category contain very few entries themselves; in fact, some contain one or none.

Why do such categories exist? It turns out that some of these categories are more than two (2) years old. What constructive purpose is served by having empty/lonely categories? --Folajimi 18:48, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

  • I like categories to be consistent because it makes them easier to find. For example if there is a Category:1990s then it makes sense to me that there should be a matching Category:0s. Obviously the later is going to have less entries but if you don't create consistent categories then at some point you move from one category group (e.g. 10 year groups) to another (e.g. 100 year groups) which I think creates confusion. Consistent categories are useful not only for browsing but also to ensure editors don't put articles in non-existent categories. --MarkS (talk) 19:11, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
    • The point about consistency is well taken. However, are there any specific examples which justify the need for empty or single-entry categories? What are the odds that any given century in the first millenia will have as many entries as the nineteenth or twentieth century? --Folajimi 20:27, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
      • I tend to agree. It's a matter of fact that these periods are not as well documented as recent periods, and there are less available sources concerning them. You can find millions of baby boomers who will tell you all about the 1960s in America. Attempting to find information about the 1740s in America is a little bit harder. Finding information about the 510s in America is entirely impossible, because Native Americans had no written language and everything we know about them is inferred from archaeological records and distorted oral tradition. In other words, it makes sense to be inconsistent where this inconsistency reflects an inconsistency in available knowledge. Deco 21:06, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
        • The problem is that categorization of articles is stored in the article and not the category itself. I suspect it was once filled with more entries but that they were removed from it for some reason (good or bad). - Mgm|(talk) 09:58, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Whilst working on the Category:Establishments by year and its sub cats I have created some of the early establishments by years cats. I've also created a hierarchy of cats - eg 1st millennium establishments, 1st century establishments, 0s establishments, 8 establishments. I've only been working on all years for a couple of months and I have never created empty categories, although they might have become empty. I hope (and suspect) that there is room for growth in these early year categories and I think that they deserve more time before saying that over-categorization has occurred. I agree with the points made above, namely,

  1. Useful categories have more than one or two entries
  2. Consistency is important
  3. There will be fewer entries for the 1st century than the 20th century

I'd like to make two further points. First, there are times in western history when not much has been recorded. However as more world-wide information is being added to the English Wikipedia then more information may be available on previously information-scarce times. Secondly, there are people (such as me) who are very interested in understanding world history in its development year-by-year and the year categories are most useful in this regard. Greenshed 14:11, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

  • Although I am unable to predict what the future holds, I am yet to be persuaded that the granularity used for information in the twentieth century necessarily holds for the first dozen centuries. Sure, more historic information is being discovered, but one will be hard pressed to overcome the inconsistency which Deco alluded to. Yes, these categories "..deserve more time before saying that over-categorization has occurred..."; what, pray tell, do you consider a suitable grace period for these entries? --Folajimi 17:51, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
    • It depends on how many articles a category needs for it to viable and on whether it is growing and has capacity for further growth. My feeling is that a final tally of zero articles is worse than useless, one is useless, two is not worth it, three is equivocal, four is just ok, five + is ok, ten + is good. Is there any WP policy or guidance on this? To try and give some answer to your question, if there are only one or two entries, not much change after six months and a good case can be made that there no capacity for further growth then the category probably needs to go, with the entries being promoted into the super-category. In the case of the year categories I would just add one refinement to this. Namely that if lots has happened in the nearby years but nothing in one particular year, that year should stay as decisions should be made for decades (or possibly centuries) of indivdual years. Greenshed 23:32, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Is there something ...

... similar to the German Qualitätssicherung on the English Wikipedia? The Qualitätssicherung is a page where you can post bad articles, no matter if they are too short, POV, un-wikified, need cleanup, may be a copyvio or have another problem - they'll just get better soon because many Wikipedians go to that page very often. I think it'd be a great idea if we had such a page on the English Wikipedia. Sorry if this is the wrong place to post that. TZMT (de:T) 15:28, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Cleaning department. User:Zoe|(talk) 16:33, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
Funny you should mention that; there is still some discussion regarding the proper terminology for this subject matter. Perhaps you could shed some light on the issue? --Folajimi 21:08, 15 June 2006 (UTC)


Userbox cruft

User:Linuxbeak and I just thought up of a way to solve the problem of user pages with too many userboxes. Why not create a script that randomly selects one userbox from a hidden list the user specifies and displays it on his/her userpage. A different userbox would be displayed each time the userpage is reloaded. I'd say this would be a pretty nifty alternative to delegating a mass of userboxes to a subpage. --  Denelson83  00:28, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Cute, but someone unfamiliar with it might think the first box they see is the only box you have, which would be quite odd if it were "this user loves standing on his head". Deco 00:32, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
Well, just add a message saying that the userbox was randomly picked from a list.  Denelson83  00:33, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
To the best of my knowledge, this would require an extensive hack to be added to the site Javascript, which is loaded with every page served. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 04:49, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

pseudo-stubs

Why are there sooo many articles about minor american 'cities'? Its just annoying when im trying to learn something interesting from a random article but more often than not seem to get a stub on a town with a population less than a tower block listing nothing but its co-ords and some rather pathetic data from the last census. wikipedia has guidelines about bad subjects for articles. why arnt these cities included? i just want to see other peoples opinions on these wastes of space :) Neblet 21:56, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

These articles were generated by a bot (in 2004, I think?). At the time they were a much larger percentage of the encyclopedia. The reasoning was that they would form seeds from which more interesting articles about the towns could grow. There are a minority of contributors who believe that these articles should be eliminated, but a lot of them have been expanded. There's just a lot left to go and it's difficult to obtain information on many of them without actually visiting them.
On the other hand, I think we should actually try to get our hands on public domain census data from around the world so we can lose the U.S. bias. Deco 22:19, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
That would be the famous Rambot.  Denelson83  00:32, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
Census data would not typically be public-domain. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 04:47, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
Thats brilliant. i had no idea. I agree with deco then that the US bias should be reduced--Neblet 10:12, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
Deletion of verifiable locations just because you think there are too many of them is not an acceptable solution. If you think there are too many, create some new stubs for other locations in the world. Everyone would rejoice. User:Zoe|(talk) 16:31, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
I think that was exactly what was being proposed, actually. What other countries publish PD census data that we could get our hands on? If it's only on paper I can deal with the mail-order/scan/upload cycle. Deco 17:12, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
Sorry if I misunderstood what was being proposed. My first stop was to Google "canada census" and I got http://www12.statcan.ca/english/census01/products/standard/popdwell/Table-CSD-PS.cfm, which is broken down by province. The entire country is on a CD. I'll try to find more countries. It will be difficult to do it for non-English-speaking countries, though. User:Zoe|(talk) 18:42, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
The Repulbic of Ireland census 2002 is at http://www.cso.ie/census/Census2002Results.htm, it's in pdf format, I haven't looked at the content yet. User:Zoe|(talk) 18:44, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
The UK census appears to be at http://www.statistics.gov.uk/census2001/product_nat_report.asp, although I haven't looked at it in detail. User:Zoe|(talk) 18:47, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
Australian data is at http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@cpp.nsf/cdbygeogtype?openview&restricttocategory=Main%20Areas&Expand=1&. User:Zoe|(talk) 18:49, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
New Zealand census data is at http://www.stats.govt.nz/census/2001-census-statistics/final-counts.htm. User:Zoe|(talk) 18:51, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
South Africa is at http://www.statssa.gov.za/census01/html/C2001publications.asp. User:Zoe|(talk) 18:55, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
Belize only seems to have estimates - http://www.cso.gov.bz/stats_population.html#. User:Zoe|(talk) 19:01, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

List of Weapons in the Resident Evil Outbreak Series

Recently I created this article in hope of adding to the Resident Evil Template, however I could not and my personal request on the site got ignored. Could someone Please add This to the Resident Evil Template and go over the article whilst their at it? --John Z. Delorean 8:05 12 June 2006 (BST)

What do you mean, Resident Evil Template? —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 04:32, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
Yes, by 'the template' I mean the Resident Evil Tewmplate. As A thought it would be best under the miscellaneous part. --John Z. Delorean 7:00 15 June 2006 (BST)
You mean Template:RE series? It's not protected, so you can just add it yourself. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 20:09, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
Hah, Just added it now, Many Thanks Ilmari. --John Z. Delorean 21:35 15 June 2006 (BST)

wikipedia image talk pages for commons images

I noticed that a couple talk pages on wikipedia for images on commons were deleted for being "orphan talk pages" [19], [20]. These should not be deleted as there are many of these pages on wikipedia - when you click 'discussion' on an image that is on commons it takes you the talk page for the image on wikipedia, even though it isnt on wikipedia. --Astrokey44 02:01, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Any discussion on Commons images should be at Commons, not here. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 06:08, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
No this is about the talk pages on wikipedia for the commons images - such as Image:World cup winners.png - a map which is on commons not on wikipedia - but there is a wikipedia talk page for the image: Image talk:World cup winners.png --Astrokey44 15:21, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
Well, yes. That talk page is an orphan. The image does not reside on Wikipedia; discussion about it also doesn't belong here. The discussion should be moved to Commons (I've done that now for your example). —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 04:31, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
Ok thanks for moving it, I know that it doesnt belong there, but people always comment on the image at wikipedia when they see an image. Often anons who dont understand the differences between wikipedia & commons, but plenty of experienced editors too. For images that are on commons that you are looking at from wikipedia (or any wikiproject) the discussion tab takes you to a discussion page on wikipedia, not commons. I am watching several hundred empty map pages at wikipedia because comments people make on the discussion is often useful to improve the image. --Astrokey44 04:50, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Squicky image poll

Having read the extremely long debate on the inclusion of this image (showing an exposed mildly deformed eyeball) on the Main Page, I became curious about what percentage of viewers actually do find the image unpleasant to look at. Obviously, the talk page discussion is completely useless for determining this, since it's a biased and strongly self-selected sample. However, I'd expect the readers of this page should constitute a reasonably representative sample of Wikipedians, if not of readers in general.

Thus, out of pure curiosity, I'd like to set up an informal poll. Please look at the image (using the link above) and indicate below whether you found it unpleasant to look at. Please don't complain about the lack of options; instead, feel free to specify additional details in your comments. Note that I am emphatically not trying to use this poll as an argument for or against display of such images on Wikipedia, or for any other purpose related to Wikipedia policy whatsoever. I'm just curious about how different people react to this image.

Please add any metadiscussion about the poll here, not in the subsections below. Thank you for indulging me. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 15:33, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Disregarding this as a featured article and therefore on the main page, do you think that people going to an article about a disease should expect to see a potentially disturbing image? I think they should, but may not want to. For example, some of the veterinary pages I have created or contributed pictures to (not for the squeamish: ectopia lentis, eye proptosis, iris cyst, and hemangiosarcoma) contain good info but also a rather nasty picture. I have seen this discussion about nudity and sexual imagery (most notoriously autofellatio), but never about medical images. --Joelmills 20:13, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
If you really wish to know, my personal opinion is that, while Wikipedia is not censored for the protection of the squeamish, there are nonetheless good arguments for placing an image behind a link if it causes a non-negligible portion of readers and/or editors to reflexively close the page to avoid seeing it. The problem here is that such reactions are often highly idiosyncratic (and, indeed, in a sufficiently large sample it's probably possible to find someone who is unsettled by any image). There are images on Wikipedia that make me feel physically ill, but I don't find this particular one unpleasant at all. Others obviously disagree. Wikipedia content should not be dictated by the most prudish and squeamish editors, but on the other hand we certainly don't want to drive the prudish and/or squeamish editors away if they can be accommodated without compromising the quality of the encyclopedia. Wikipedia isn't Wikijunior, but it also shouldn't be OgrishWiki. (How's this for fence-sitting?) —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 21:48, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
As someone who cares passionately about serious censorship and its consequencies (eg brave people being tortured to death for speaking out against tyrants), I find this type of blanket treatment of all questions of taste and decency as matters of "censorship", such that the opposing camp is not merely wrong, but by implication evil, to be shallow and offensive. Piccadilly 00:23, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
I'll respond to your comment below here, so as to not mess up the poll. My point was that I didn't think the image was unpleasant at all, just my opinion of course. I certainly do not go out of my way to try to offend squeamish people. However, some people will be offended by very mild things, and it's difficult to take that into account when you're posting an image that is not inherently offensive. Thus my question above. I understand your disagreement with the term censorship, as it has negative connotations. So, how do we best treat these images? --Joelmills 01:15, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

A. Not unpleasant at all

  1. It's just an eye. There are some pictures on Wikipedia I do find nauseating, but for me this isn't one of them. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 15:33, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
  2. It's a good picture of an uncommon condition, and I do not see how anyone but the very squeamish could be disturbed by it. But I'm in the medical profession so probably biased. --Joelmills 20:01, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
    Why do you think it's fine to offend the squeamish? Is being squeamish morally reprehensible, so that squeamish people should be antagonised and excluded? Does it bother you if Wikipedia loses good people this way? Piccadilly 00:20, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
  3. I don't have any problem with it.-gadfium 07:33, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
  4. There is no blood, no mutilation of any kind. I do not detect any intention of being "squicky" here. The picture is perfectly germane to the subject. We probably can't ever feature a medical article without someone's being bothered by it, at least slightly. The inclusion of the picture is not gratuitous, and I don't perceive any intention on the part of the authors of being "squicky." And I don't know of any qualifications for being a featured article that say that (unlike the rest of Wikipedia) it should be "safe for work" or "suitable for children." Wasn't Exploding whale a featured article? Dpbsmith (talk) 09:43, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
  5. Not unpleasant. This image is exactly the kind of thing one would expect from a reputable encyclopedia. A medical encyclopedia would be full of images like these. Of course a line has to be drawn somewhere but this isn't it. Ydam 11:43, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
  6. It's a picture of a human being. I found the exclamations of "Ew, get that horrible freak away from me" far more unpleasant than the picture itself. --Sam Blanning(talk) 14:13, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
  7. Some pictures of medical conditions would certainly bother me if they were on the front page (i.e. gangrene), but this isn't one of them. Hell, today's picture could be seen as more disturbing than the eye picture. I don't think the eye pic is the place to start fighting this battle. -Big Smooth 16:07, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

B. Mildly unpleasant, but not excessively so

  1. I admit, the first time I saw it I was a bit taken aback. But it's a medical condition and I feel like this picture really taught me something. Deco 19:30, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
  2. My reaction was similar to Deco's -- yecch!, but informational, and that's the goal. -- ArglebargleIV 14:17, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
  3. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 19:16, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
  4. Fine for the article, but a bit excessive for the main page --Astrokey44 03:18, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

C. Very unpleasant

  1. This was highly inappropriate for the main page, and has probably lost Wikipedia some many readers and some good potential editors. People who are not squeamish should respect those of us who are. And no, this has nothing to do with what I consider to be "censorship", it's just a matter of common courtesy. 00:18, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
    Thanks, you've made valid points. However, I'd be more interested in hearing why you find the image unpleasant to look at. Let's not start a policy debate here and now, please. (This last is directed to everyone here, not just you personally.) —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 20:24, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
  2. On the grounds of being considerate/courteous, I agree with Piccadilly's sentiment. Such images have more "shock value" than might be appropriate for the main page. A possible question to ask is whether or not Wikipedia acknowleges that some content have more "shock value" than others... Folajimi 16:13, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Come opine on this AfD

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Resonance (MIT). - CrazyRussian talk/contribs/email 18:36, 14 June 2006 (UTC)


technical language

There's some sort of wikiproject or tag for articles that need to be re-written in non-technical language. I wanted to tag Simplified ray tracing as such, but can't find what I'm looking for. Does anyone know what we do with articles written in dense technical language (in this case, mostly equations)?--Kchase02 T 03:33, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

List of Stuyvesant High School people

There are tons of people on this page which do not have links, which to me indicates that they don't have articles. If they don't have articles, they have failed to establish notability, and should not be on this page. I am proposing deletion of all names from the list that are not linked. User:Zoe|(talk) 21:42, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

At a quick look, several of these deserve links and articles (Steven Weintraub, for example, was a reasonably prominent topologist, and Stephan Maran is a very prominent astronomer); several others are at the level where I would think that in terms of writing about a high school it is exactly appropriate to mention them and indicate the institution with whom they were later associated, but where they don't really merit articles of their own. We don't really want to propagate a ton of stubs on minor but not negligible figures; inclusion in lists like this seems a reasonable way to split the difference. - Jmabel | Talk 22:20, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
But a gigantic list of names with no links looks to me like an attempt at making an end run around notability. User:Zoe|(talk) 22:23, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
I removed the "Siblings" and "Returning alumni" sublists as non-notable. The other lists needs to be trimmed, but I wouldn't rush it. Allow a few days to create articles for some of those people. It's interesting to see where Wikipedia coverage is strong and weak; almost all the writers, musicians, and actors, even the minor ones, have articles, but only a few of the mathematicians do. --John Nagle 00:17, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
I would agree with Jmabel, though, that a very different standard exists for persons deserving a place in a high school alumni list and persons deserving a whole encyclopedia article. The question should be: does this person deserve at least passing mention in any full encyclopedic treatment of their area of expertise? If they meet this somewhat minimal but real standard, then I suggest they also deserve to be in an alumni list.--Pharos 00:29, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
Sure, I wasn't planning on doing anything to it for several days. I posted on the article's Talk page, too. User:Zoe|(talk) 00:51, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
(posted after edit conflict) My feeling is that the list should be migrated to 'prominent alumni' and only persons who pass the WP:BIO notability test should be included. One by-product of allowing full alumni lists is that we open the door to essentially including in Wikipedia the name of every person who has ever attended an institution that has an article in Wikipedia, which might equate to a significant % of the population of the industrialized world (I'm feeling some BEANS coming on ...). There are a couple of notations in WP:NOT that bear considering here. User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 00:56, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

As I noted on the talk page before finding out this was being discussed at the Pump, 

I don't think that's a very good idea. Presence on Wikipedia is not a
criterion for notability.  You'd be kicking out these obviously notable
folks, among others:
...
[list omitted for brevity, see the talk page for details]
...
Surely the criteria for notability ought to include Olympic medalists,
Academy Award winners, heads of major educational and research institutions,
etc. There was a time when most of these were red-linked to encourage
the creation of articles, but someone didn't like the "unfinished" look
and removed the links a long time ago.

As WP:BIO points out, the criteria for notability include:

  • The person made a widely recognized contribution that is part of the enduring historical record in their specific field.
- Like the VAX designers, the Colgate University president, the editor of the International Herald Tribune, ...
  • Political figures holding international, national or statewide/provincewide office or members of a national, state or provincial legislature. (For candidates for office, see Wikipedia:Candidates and elections.)
- Like the Secretary of the Air Force, the Deputy Attorney General, the US Congressman ...
...
- Like Bernard Meltzer, in his day.
  • Sportspeople/athletes ... at the highest level in mainly amateur sports, ...
- Like the Olympics.
...

Just because there aren't articles on these folks yet doesn't mean they aren't notable. It just means that Wikipedia isn't finished yet. RossPatterson 02:09, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

This makes no sense. Notability is a requirement for an article. Since when is notability a requirement to be mentioned inside an article? WP:BIO refers to guidelines for people to merit their own article, not for mention in another article. If we change the word "notable" in the article to "prominent" or some other word, would that make things more acceptable? I would not be in favor of reducing the list to meet the Wikipedia Notability guidelines. (If there is Wiki policy that concerns "notability" of items inside articles or lists, please post specific links and quotes. Someone above mentioned some items in WP:NOT. Please be more specific). Simon12 02:46, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

In the past, AfD has deleted such articles as "List of bands from x" because it was an intent to create notability via Wikipedia for bands which did not pass muster via WP:BAND. Why shouldn't "List of people from x" have to meet the WP:BIO criteria? User:Zoe|(talk) 16:21, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
I don't know the specifics of the AfD cases, but I don't think there is any intent here to "create notability" for these people, so I'm not sure your example applies. I would agree with what Jmabel wrote above: "...I would think that in terms of writing about a high school it is exactly appropriate to mention them and indicate the institution with whom they were later associated, but where they don't really merit articles of their own".Simon12 02:10, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
I agree with both Zoe and Simon12 on this point. A list like this could seem to be an attempt to avoid notability criteria, as Zoe says. But I believe Simon12 is right that this is not such an attempt. The list is indeed large (220 or so names), but if you read the history, I think you'll see that it is policed very well, that names don't get added very often, and that most who are added are quickly removed for non-notability. RossPatterson 03:03, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
I mentioned WP:NOT (it was requested I add some detail to this mention). I'm thinking of the sections related to not creating things like 'directories' (item 7 under the "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information" section), 'lists of loosely associated topics' (item 2 under the same section), and 'genealogical listings' (item 6 under the same section). On the flip-side, it is mentioned that "Relatively unimportant people may be mentioned within other articles," but I really believe that applies to articles on a topic rather than simple lists. I also respond to Bduke's note below User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 02:14, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
  • There are people on this list who I am amazed do not have articles. Andrew Streitwieser, Jr. is one. --Bduke 01:48, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
    • A notable person who does not have an article presently could of course be retained in the list as a red-link; one reason red-links (are allowed to) exist is as a notation that the title is associated with a notable concept that has potential for an article. To make a small clarification to my other comments, I don't think the list should be eliminated; I do think that an alumnus list without regard for notability is essentially a 'genealogical listing' ... I conduct genealogy research and alumni lists for schools are very valuable artifacts, but I don't think they belong here as articles under the present article inclusion policies. User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 02:14, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Let's talk turkey. Of the 220 names on the list, 83 are linked to articles, 132 are unlinked, and 5 link to non-existant articles. Of the 132 unlinked, I had no problem finding criteria in WP:BIO that support 34 claims to notability, just trolling through the list by eye for about 10 minutes (see my post at Talk:List of Stuyvesant High School people#Proposal for the details). Not being a mathemetician or a hard scientist, I can't tell what might apply to the folks in those categories (38 Math, 13 Physics, 5 Chemistry, 12 Life Sciences), but the math and physics lists were re-worked very carefully by Hillman, who seems qualified to know (see his explanation of his rewrite last September at Talk:List of Stuyvesant High School people#Reorganization). In Technology (which I do know something about), there are 14 unlinked names, and I'd say there are a few that ought to go, but no more than 3 or 4. After that, we're down in the low numbers - the foregoing account for 82 out of 98 unlinked-and-not-obviously-notable names.

If you accept as I do that Hillman knows his stuff, I really think we're only talking about a dozen or so names that may not be "notable" enough to deserve articles of their own. That's 5 to 10% of the list. Even assuming that a high school alumni list must be limited to people who could deserve articles (which is in dispute above), that's a pretty small problem. RossPatterson 02:49, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Nationality and ethnicity

I'd greatly appreciate if people would look in at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(biographies)#Nationality_and_ethnicity.2C_redux. Basically, at least one editor is systematically removing mention of people's Jewishness from article leads, citing the manual of style. I think this is inappropriate, and is downright absurd in the case of (for example) prominent figures in Yiddish theatre. Would people please comment there instead of here? Thanks. - Jmabel | Talk 20:23, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

For future reference, I suggest that if you have an issue with a user's actions, your first recourse should be to that user's talk page, not the Village Pump. Discussions should in general probably only be started elsewhere if the user doesn't respond in a manner you deem reasonable, and continues with the disputed behavior. (If you would like to clarify the MoS, of course, you could always post there, immediately informing any interested parties—or else just be bold, make the change, and see if it sticks.) —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 06:04, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Talk Pages

User:Go_for_it! had his talk page disabled (I added a note now). Is this allowed? I cannot actually find a policy on it. ~Linuxerist A/C/E/P/S/T/Z 18:12, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

It might not be against policy but it's a very bad idea. I thought at first that he was simply trying to combine his user and talk pages (effectively that was what was happening anyway), but he actually says that he no longer maintains a talk page. I suppose he can do that, but if someone places a message on it, good form (and almost policy) is to leave it there. I think you did the right thing, but if reverts it, I suggest just leaving it - when someone wants to leave him a message they'll probably end up doing it on his user page - but that's his problem. CaptainJ (t | c | e) 23:34, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
No, redirecting his talk page to his user page is not allowed. He has to maintain a talk page for others to communicate with him. User:Zoe|(talk) 21:42, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Wikipedia is a collaborative project and thus you are required to communicate with other editors. Removing it shows you can't work together with others. - Mgm|(talk) 10:12, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
    • Nobody is required to do anything; if someone decides to engage in isolation, that is their prerogative. Attempts to strong arm loners into interacting with others is as reasonable as hitting a hornet's nest with a club. I'm with CaptainJ on this one... --Folajimi 15:54, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
      • If he refuses to discuss his edits, he is in violation of Wikipedia policy (such as Wikipedia:Consensus) and may, if the case becomes extreme, be subject to blocking, particularly if he revert-wars or otherwise violates policy. If no one wants to communicate with him, of course, such as if he only makes typo corrections or something, then that's fine, but ignoring people who have reason to talk to you about substantive issues is not acceptable behavior here. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 05:59, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Orichalcum

Anyone know if this is or was a real metal i know there is a page about it on here but it mentions nothing to whether it actually existed or not

I found a credible entry in an 1875 dictionary by an expert on the metal. The article Orichalcum seems to agree with it; all we really know, is that it was mentioned in writing and we think it was probably just a kind of brass or bronze. Deco 19:30, 13 June 2006 (UTC)


Articles on Foreign Authors

Hallo, all, I'm translating a French article on fr:Louis Pauwels. It has relatively little biographical information, and is pretty much a list of all his works (books, published and unpublished; forewords and afterwords; even appearances in films and documentaries) with descriptions for some of them. I'm in the process of translating the quotes and moving them onto wikiquote.org. I've got two questions:

  1. What's the policy on translating the titles of books? Should I include an English translation of the titles?
  2. I feel a bit awkward about getting rid of most of the list, but feel it is somewhat unnecessary except for his major works. Obviously I'm leaning a bit towards inclusionism, but the length of the article is a bit absurd. Opinions?

Any input is appreciated! The article is slowly being translated at User:Tamarkot/Louis Pauwels, by the way, if anyone'd like to take a look. Thanks again! Tamarkot 02:32, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

  • I don't know what the Wikipedia policy is, but the Encyclopædia Britannica gives titles of foreign works in the native language, along with the date it was published in French or German or whatever, and then gives the title of the English translation of the work in parentheses, along with the date it was published in English. —Bkell (talk) 20:04, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Be bold, and include as much as possible; after all, the content can always be whittled down at a later date. Remember this rule of thumb:
'"Tis better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it." Folajimi 17:56, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

I dunno where else to put this.

Doesn answers.com [21] have permission to copy from Wikipedia? Because it's getting pretty blatant. [22] They don't even edit out terms they don't understand like __TOC__, they just leaves 'em in.

They are listed as being in New York, should be easy to get ahold of, legally speaking: 

Answers Corporation
237 W 35th St.
Suite 1101
New York, NY 10001-1905
US 
646-502-4777 fax: 646-502-4778

Technical Contact:
Hostmaster, Data Return hostmaster@datareturn.com
Data Return, LLC
222 W. Las Colinas Blvd.
Suite 350E
Irving, TX 75039
US
800-767-1514 fax: - - - 000-000-0000

Sorry if to bug ya if answers.com does have some sort of arrangement with wikipedia. -- Markspace 21:39, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia and all of its content is licensed under the GFDL (the GNU Free Documentation License), which means that anybody can reprint and reuse our text as long as they follow the terms of the license. You will find many sites on the web which reprint some or all of our text and images; there's a (probably incomplete) list at Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 21:45, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, they're a problem. Wikipedia:Mirrors_and_forks/Abc#Answers.com. Deco 00:36, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
Notice http://www.answers.com/topic/solving-the-geodesic-equations#copyright. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 04:45, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
Ah-ha, there it is. Ok, I see the copyright notice that gives GFDL credit. Mea-culpa! Markspace 04:29, 16 June 2006 (UTC)


redirects and meta-noindex tags

I do a lot of searching using both Wikipedia's internal search and Google search of Wikipedia's site, and I couldn't help noticing that redirects show up on the internal search and on google. This appears to clutter up both search engines with unwanted duplicates. Surely Wikipedia does not want to spam google or clutter up its own search function. Hasn't anyone already proposed placing <meta name="robots" content="noindex"> tags on redirects or placing them in the wikipedia.org/w/ directory? Why aren't redirects excluded from the internal search? And for that matter why doesn't Wikipedia http redirect? Caveat lector 00:37, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia doesn't http redirect because that could lead to infinite loops, and take up valuable server overload (imagine two articles redirecting to each other). That's why it doesn't follow double redirects. Also it's not a bad idea for redirects to show up on searches, since it would help people find the right article. CaptainJ (t | c | e) 23:22, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
When you type in "european union directive" into Google, it shows two different addresses for the same article. That doesn't help anyone find anything. It's just spamming! -- Caveat lector 02:13, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
We probably could use noindex meta tags on redirects. As far as I know, they don't actually eliminate the pages from Google entirely (no idea about other search engines): as long as some other page links to the redirect, Google still shows the existence of a page by that name, it just doesn't index its content. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 22:03, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
I agree, it's very annoying, but Google still fundamentally operates and PageRanks based on the number of links to an article. If many or most of the links from within or outside of Wikipedia are to a redirect, and that redirect (containing the link to the article) is not indexed, it would dramatically reduce the showing of the actual article in Google's index. Craig R. Nielsen 05:50, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
I think the use of the _noindex_ metatag would be a good idea for redirects. The proportion of pages which a potential reduction in PageRank would affect is, I believe, quite small. Such a dip could be mitigated somewhat by making the _noindex_ metatag an optional parameter ... or applying it in via the redirect templates and not using it on ones such as Template:R with possibilities, for instance. What would have a much more pronounced effect is the use of the _nofollow_ metatag ... which would probably be good to add to dab pages and lists. User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 00:34, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

It appears this isn't the first time this has been proposed: see bugzilla:2798. Also, after further research, I'm no longer so sure if my description of how Google treats the noindex meta tag is correct. I don't know if there is any good solution for this. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 12:00, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Anime episode list templates

A recent dispute have arised over two competing templates for anime episode lists. See: Talk:List_of_Air_episodes#Straw_poll_for_which_episode_table_to_use --Cat out 16:52, 22 June 2006 (UTC)


Nielson Ratings For Encyclopedia

Dear Wikipedia,

Mazel Tov (good luck, congratulations) on a truly great website. Although I am a relative newbe here, I greatly enjoy my visits. What I would like to know is:

How does Wikipedia compare to encyclopedias such as the encyclopedia Brittanica, the Columbia encyclopedia or the World Book encyclopedia?

I am also having trouble finding the Wikipedia mission statement.

Thank you,

Orpheuse

In terms of webhits Wikipedia is in a completely different league from any other online encyclopedia, with over a hundred times as many as Britannica according to Alexa.com. Wikipedia is in the top twenty websites in the world and the others you mentioned are ranked in the thousands or tens of thousands (no separate ranking is available for Encarta). As for quality comparisons, well that's a complex issue....
The closest thing to a "mission statement" is Jimmy Wales's comment that Wikipedia is "an effort to create and distribute a multilingual free encyclopedia of the highest possible quality to every single person on the planet in their own language", which is quoted on Wikipedia:Overview FAQ. See also Wikipedia:Five pillars. 62.31.55.223 19:35, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
This probably isn't what you wanted to know, but: in terms of number of articles, Wikipedia has ten times as many as any other encyclopaedia in English. In terms of quality, my (subjective) impression is that Wikipedia's best articles (see Wikipedia:Featured Articles for some of them) are better than their equivalents in other encyclopaedias. Wikipedia also has many other good articles (which are not systematically identified) that are at least as good as the competition. There are also many other articles that are not very good at all (see Wikipedia:Cleanup and linked pages for some of those, if you have a strong stomach.) Where these have an equivalent in other encyclopaedias they are much better, but many of them are on fringe topics. As a general comparison, as an encyclopaedia Wikipedia is not yet at the level of Encyclopaedia Britannica but comfortably better than, say, Encarta. I have no experience of the other encyclopaedias you mentioned. Hope this helps. --Cherry blossom tree 22:47, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Ladies' man extraordinaire

Out of curiosity, why does a search for "ladies' man extraordinaire" turn up Tom Selleck? Isn't this a bit debatable? Could it redirect to me?

Anonymous999 23:55, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Looks like that redirect's been (understandably) speedily deleted. Grutness...wha? 00:31, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
Yep, I nuked it. It can stay if someone provides a verifiable source supporting the claim that Tom Selleck is frequently described as such to the exclusion of others. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 01:10, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
Heh, good find, Anonymous999. FreplySpang 01:13, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Sound of the day

I've started Wikipedia:Sound of the day as a measure to jumpstart the growth of a sound community on Wikipedia, and to advance the day when Wikipedia:Featured sounds will be possible. Please consider adding the box to your user or talk page and getting involved in the selection of sound recordings. Thanks.--Pharos 13:01, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

You may be interested in Commons:Media of the day. pfctdayelise (translate?) 02:34, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
Thanks; that was in fact one of the inspirations for a Wikipedia "Sound of the day".--Pharos 23:23, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

I looked and looked but couldn't find the project space page and/or email address for copyright holders wishing to give permission for their material to be used on wiki and/or relicensed under copyleft. Can anyone help?--Kchase02 T 08:45, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

There's not a special place where they do this. Usually they just have to send e-mail to a project member saying that they release it under copyleft, then we paste that on the image description page. Deco 18:16, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
Send an e-mail to permissions at wikimedia dot org. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 20:06, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
Just to clarify - it's not sufficient for permission to be given for use of the material on wikipedia for it to be used on wikipedia.

Decategorization of Wikipedians

This Cfd is troubling Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion/Log/2006_June_19#Category:Wikipedians_by_politics_and_all_subcategories

Note this category was kept twice as a result of two earlier Cfd debates. January 4 2006 and December 18 2005

There are plans to attack Category:Wikipedians by religion as well. Are they going to attack Category:Wikipedians by lifestyle, Category:Wikipedians by subculture, and Category:Wikipedians by organization too? I'm not sure how this is going to work. Maybe Category:Wikipedians will be deleted in the end. --Facto 22:43, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

"Attack" is an inappropriate term. Please assume good faith and don't violate WP:NPA. And explain how any of these categories helps us to build an encyclopedia. User:Zoe|(talk) 01:50, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
We've been through this before, and recently (see Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)#Categories_of_administrators_by_country). In my opinion, the Wikipedian categories are important because they assist in community building, which is important to some extent for organizing and encouraging contributors. Deco 01:53, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

think I am right

Does anybody here think that it can be statistically proved that wikipedia is better than google at yielding information? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 89.136.53.51 (talk • contribs) 16:27, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

No. Not unless you come up with an incredibly clever way of defining better. And by the way, new posts go on the bottom, not the top, for future reference. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 19:48, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Sorry for misbehaving, first post here. Was thinking "better" in terms of "information" ("facts" if you want) vs. "data". —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 89.136.53.51 (talk • contribs) 20:17, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Nothing wrong with making mistakes, no problem. But you still haven't defined better well enough to be useful for a statistical proof. Try writing your definition in formal logic, then we can talk about a proof. :) —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 19:52, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

rv vandalism

A user has been removing additions what appear to be good faith but uncited (and possibly NPOV) edits by another user. This is reasonable to me. What is not reasonable is that the user doing the removals has been calling the edits vandalism reverts. I feel that removing them with the comment "rv vandalism" this is a misleading use of revert. Can someone have a look at this and deal with it appropriately, one way or the other? I've fixed a few of these, but I feel like I've turned over a rock and discovered a mass of squirming parasites under it, and I'm not sure if I should clean it up or just put the rock back where I found it. Someone more experienced than me needs to deal with this. -- Steven Fisher 20:38, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

It's fairly common for a person who is upset with an edit to revert it with the comment "revert vandalism" even if it's clearly not vandalism, as a way of attacking the edit. Also, sometimes if someone makes some vandalism edits, an editor will revert all their edits as vandalism. Both of these are bad ideas and often in violation of Wikipedia:Don't bite the newbies, but as long as you've reminded the editor to knock it off I don't think further action is needed regarding the reverts. Deco 21:14, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
Uncertainty over whether I should post a friendly, self-composed message or if there was a standard template for this is why I came here. I have now posted a short, hopefully friendly message. I consider this situation resolved. :) -- Steven Fisher 21:40, 19 June 2006 (UTC)


Iconic Feedback

This seems like the best forum for the feedback that I have in mind.

The Firefox browser has a drop down menu for search engines in the top right corner of their window. When "Wikipedia" is added to this list of search engines, the icon that appears looks more like the "thermal detonator" that Princess Leia used (when she was in disguise claiming the bounty on Chewbacca) than the Wikipedia "puzzle globe" icon. When the puzzle globe icon is miniaturized down to that size, it becomes largely unrecognizable. I recommend that you stick with the "W" for the Firefox search engine icon.

Hope that helps —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 154.20.188.125 (talk • contribs) 06:53, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

First of all, that icon is probably under the control of Mozilla, not us. Second of all, when I tried adding it, I got the W symbol we always use for icons. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 19:48, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Quickseek site

Howdy, I noticed another site which carries Wikipedia content. However, rather than carry the GFDL license, it is labled (C) 2005 QuickSeek.com All rights reserved. Content is unquestionably from Wikipedia, and not the other way around, since everything down to the portals (modified to direct to quickseek's site) is included. The site is Quickseek, which uses ARTICLENAME.quickseek.com as the format. For example, http://newyorkcity.quickseek.com/ is the New York City page. Their terms of use explicitly forbits modification of content. No mention of Wikipedia is made. Is this appropriate/legal? --TeaDrinker 22:47, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Mirrors_and_forks/Pqr#Quickseek.com. Deco 02:07, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
I've just discovered that QuickSeek Encyclopedia is editable. You can edit any page by visiting http://encyclopedia.quickseek.com/index.php/Article_title?action=edit . I think we should vandalize them with compliance notices until they stop ignoring us. Deco 02:27, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
I've now vandalized this page. I'm going to hit a list of some of the other most popular articles. Deco 02:37, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the information, I was unaware of that page. Probably best to avoid vandalizing the pages, if for no other reason that we should try to get them in compliance and it would be a bad idea to burn bridges we haven't even crossed yet. It may be they will alter their copyright notice if someone contacts them, and we wouldn't want to put them off if that were the case. --TeaDrinker 03:03, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I was under the impression that they had already been contacted and were actively ignoring us. Deco 03:24, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
I've posted a notice to User talk:Adminwebimage on their site, which is the account the local administrator used to edit Main Page. Deco 03:31, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
I went to their website and can find neither a link to contact the local administrator, nor any way to edit their pages. User:Zoe|(talk) 21:12, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
I explained how to edit the pages above. You have to use URL editing. The local admin probably never logs in, so not much point in leaving them a message anyway. Deco 21:16, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
Duh, I guess I just skimmed right past that. Thanks, Deco. User:Zoe|(talk) 18:39, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I have noticed that although there is the navigation box there is no way to browse Wikipedia in general from any random page. I think that if we changed the navigation bar to include a link entitled 'Browse' for instance would make Wikipedia much more usable. I also think that linking to a page such as Portal:Browse would be good (from the Browse link of course). LC@RSDATA 19:56, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Have you seen the "Random article" link? User:Zoe|(talk) 21:11, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps you want Category:Fundamental? —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 01:01, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
What I meant was, you just come to Wikipedia, you decide you want to have a better look around (and are not on the Main Page, how do you go about (not knowing the way Wikipedia worked) finding articles? If we had a simple link in the navigation bar which says "Browse" linking to Portal:Browse then people would easily be able to find there way around. LC@RSDATA 06:41, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

respect from Google

I've noticed Google often puts Wikipedia articles at the top of their results. I don't know what algorithm they use to determine this, but in at least two cases (Ideogram and Relational database) the articles are very poor and the extra attention makes me cringe.

Obviously the solution is to improve these articles, but we probably can't do it for every case. Ideogram 18:24, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Not to mention Illegal. *shudders* --Folajimi 14:11, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Google will put Wikipeida up high because lots of other people like Wikipeida and link to this site. However, maybe it would be worth trying to persuade Google to give less weight to articles which are stubs or labelled as needing to be wikified. --MarkS (talk) 19:52, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

This is because their algorithm gives considerable weight to the reputation of the domain, en.wikipedia.org. When I see an article like this, I try to edit it into an acceptable state. You don't always have to add a lot of content to make an article look balanced and professional. I doubt Google will listen to our input on their algorithms, but I think it makes sense to give less weight to the domain on a site whose pages are created by untrusted users. Deco 00:59, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
Part of the way Google calculates rankings is based on incoming links; if a page is linked from a number of high-ranked pages, it gets a high rank. Wikis encourage a large number of internal links. Relational database, therefore, benefits from the strength of everything that links to it. This is in addition to the aforementioned. Aluvus 13:16, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
For obvious reasons, though, Google places a lower weight on internal links than external links, since it's easy for a spammer to throw up a massively crosslinked site. Deco 18:00, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
We can -- and probably should -- fix this problem with a small engine tweak. Simply insert "noindex" meta tags on all stub pages. John Reid 18:47, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
That would be better? I would think that we would want to encourage people to see stub pages, so that they can be improved. —Bkell (talk) 19:52, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
There is no automatic method of distinguishing good articles from bad articles. Occasionally I've seen stubs that provide more info than any other web source. Deco 20:18, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
Of course, they haven't been as nice to Uncyclopedia... Clorox MUN Goatse Virgin ONS (talk/fortune cookie) 01:45, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
Just today as I was googling a term for an edit I found something I had written as the top Google hit for it, which was a little scary and offered up some wiki-doubt. That is a pretty powerful thing for any bozo like me to be able to do. Since I had just read the criticism of Wikipedia at sliced bread last night, I hereby resolve to be very careful and increase my reference citing. I'm still troubled with the circular reference concept between Google and Wikipedia, where after a while it will be impossible to tell when a fact or mistake came from Wikipedia or one of its mirrors or from some other web source. Spalding 11:18, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Wikifun Round 13

Round 13 of the Wikifun Wikihunt has started; everyone is invited to compete! -- Eugène van der Pijll 21:10, 18 June 2006 (UTC)


Wikipedia:Conservative notice board

Note: The "notice board" page has now been deleted, so this discussion is moot. Derex 19:44, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it was deleted out of process. --Facto 19:58, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
Considering what happened last time we tired to delete one of these things in process that is a good thing.Geni 02:54, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Not sure I love this: Wikipedia:Conservative_notice_board. Seems like the same concerns Jimbo raised against userboxes applies here. To me this seems different than, say, Wikiproject mathematics, as it's arguably not a subject area per se but an outlook. It's complete with "action items" and the like. Seems to me like this, or any "X notice board", where X is a political outlook, could be a recipe for an organized POV-pushing disaster. Might be fine, but I thought some community input would be timely before it got established. Thoughts? Derex 07:47, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

But it says, "It should be noted that this is intended to be a noticeboard for all Wikipedians interested in these issues, not a noticeboard solely for the use of conservative Wikipedians.". I suggest a name change. The project Wikipedia:WikiProject Pedophilia Article Watch was once called simply Wikipedia:WikiProject Pedophilia, but this didn't go over so well with folks who believed it was intended to be a community of pedophiliacs determined to push a pro-pedophilia POV. Maybe something more like Wikipedia:Conservatism articles notice board. Deco 07:57, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
Conservatism might be a better name. --Facto 09:03, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
Despite the disclaimer, the founder invited people who had listed themselves somewhere as conservatives. Perhaps it would have been better to post a notice on the Talk pages of conservative articles rather than on the Talk pages of conservatives. Derex 08:18, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
Point of Information. It seems this may not be the first "hot button issue" with its own notice board; see Wikipedia:LGBT notice board. Is this a fair analogy?
Very much so. If the conservative one has been deleted, that should be deleted too. CalJW 06:48, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
Although I am against m:Instruction creep as much as anybody else involved with this project, I think there should be guidelines/policies regarding this matter. (If you know of any other established boards, please add it to Wikipedia:Project notice boards). --Folajimi 10:27, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
Please note, this is not an effort to inject a canard here; I do not have a dog in this fight. --Folajimi 10:30, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
Agreed about a name change (and perhaps a change in focus to articles about conservativism). But it seems that POV pushing, etc., especially in AfD, will still be subject to the usual checks on ballot-stuffing (witness the recent rash of Star Trek AfD's and ballot stuffing issues there). Also, and I won't push this weak argument too far, couldn't this be seen as an extension of the spirit of WP:BIAS?--Kchase02 T 19:25, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

On creating this noticeboard, Facto spammed over fifty editors whom he had identified, from their edits, statements, userboxes, or categories, as having conservative views, with a message that read:

Hello, I noticed that you identify as a conservative Wikipedian. So I would like to invite you to post any conservative issues you might have over at the new project page, Wikipedia:Conservative_notice_board. Thanks.

Thus he revealed that the purpose for which he created the noticeboard was the creation of a biased forum for the purpose of the advancement of partisan political views. --Tony Sidaway 20:29, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Derex already mentioned that Tony. And it was not spam. It was personal invites to editors showing conservative interest. Please assume good faith. --Facto 20:35, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
Explain to us what the difference is between what you did and spam? Also please explain how assuming good faith should be preferred to employment of common sense: you spammed, you were caught, you should know better in the future. HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 20:57, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
Please read Wikipedia:Spam#Internal_spamming before you too accuse me of spam. What I did was cross-post within guidelines. Also, none of the editors I wrote to are complaining about "spam". --Facto 21:10, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

This discussion seems to be getting increasingly unproductive. I'd suggest taking the noticeboard through the usual channels of deletion review and MfD as necessary. I'm not sure if Wikipedia:WikiProject/List of proposed projects is appropriate for a noticeboard, but if something similar exists, you might take it there.--Kchase02 T 21:24, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm still relatively new to WP; can someone please drect me to where I can sppeal this decision? If you could leave me a message, that'd be great, but a response here would also be satisfactory. Thanks, Karwynn 21:27, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
Looking again, it seems to have already been deleted per process at MfD. One may appeal this decision at deletion review, but it might be a good idea to revamp it, taking into account all these objections.--Kchase02 T 21:35, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
Actually that Mfd was out of process as well because the closing admin User:JDoorjam voted for its deletion plus he didn't actually delete the page because User:Cyde deleted the notice board after it had been restored. See the deletion log. --Facto 21:41, 15 June 2006 (UTC)[23]
Right now there is a discussion over at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Wikipedia:Conservative_notice_board about the deletion. A formal appeal is in the works. Thanks for your interest. --Facto 21:36, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Stub image not rendering properly?

The image in Template:Rocket-stub is not showing up for me in either IE or Firefox (it appears as some horizontal vertical lines).

 This rocketry article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.


Is it just me? The image is extremely high res, so maybe it's not rendering properly when it's reduced all the way down to 20 pixels. -Big Smooth 22:13, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, it's probably a problem with the scaling. How about using the rocket image (Image:Shuttle.svg) from the {{PD-USGov-NASA}} template? It looks fine at 20px:
TenOfAllTrades(talk) 22:37, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
Either I'm crazy (always possible), or that one's not showing up for me at all in FF. -Big Smooth 23:17, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
note: works in IE, though. -Big Smooth 00:13, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Wierd - that icon (the one on the template) hasnt been changed for months and its worked fine for me until now (in safari) but its just the two lines now. something screwy going on. BL Lacertae - kiss the lizard 23:39, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

It's a bug. Purging sometimes helps, although it didn't seem to work here. Mention it on WP:VPT. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 06:08, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Purged over at Commons and here again and it seems to work now. -Big Smooth 16:00, 14 June 2006 (UTC)


Categories for renaming

Do we use subst in Cfr?? When I put a template like this on Category:Women I substed, but a few other Cfr's didn't subst. Georgia guy 23:22, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

It appears per the guides that we do not subst. So I fixed the template to a regular Cfr template. Georgia guy 23:41, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
Rule of thumb - use subst if a template
  • is never going to be updated
  • is permanent
  • or leads to a subpage (like Afd)
don't use subst
  • if a template is likely to be edited
  • if it's temporary (like a stub template)
That works 95% of the time. Since a cfr template is temporary (it will be removed upon the completion of a discussion), you don't use subst. Grutness...wha? 05:25, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

What does this mean??

Sometimes, when I enter a Wikipedia page, for a while the links to my user page, talk page, preferences page, watchlist, and contributions page are on the upper right corner, but then they move to the upper left corner after I move the mouse arrow over them. Any way to fix this?? Georgia guy 17:34, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

This happens to me too, sometimes. I am using IE6. I don't know what causes it or how to fix it, however.--GregRM 01:23, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
Same here. Although it only happens with me after I visit the Commons wiki. Garion96 (talk) 02:26, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
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