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This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (miscellaneous).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

I'am in hurry, so I post here, sorry if is not the right place. the article 1Work is pure spam, uploaded by the same users on different wikis including fr.wiki and it.wiki. Please note that the author on it.wiki has been blocked multiple times for use of sockpuppets and for edit wars. Please check it out. If I am wrong and this follows your policies, sorry for wasting your time --Jollyroger 19:00, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

It needs some serious scrubbing and needs all references to the French 'pedia removed. Yes, in it's current form it's a blatant ad. If the product it gushes over is legit and popular (i.e. more people than the developers use it), it deserves an article. But in it's current state, it barely passes as English. — Frecklefoot | Talk 19:16, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
Thanks pals. I think that could be a good idea to build some kind of "alert net" between wikis for this kind of spam. Most spammers know enough english to come here from other wikis, so you are the most exposed. Today I saw that Manlio D'Agostino, in AFD on it.wiki (curriculum of a good economist, but largely not enciclopedic for our standards), is on en.wiki too. You have different guidelines, so you may find it a good article, but at least check it out. --Jollyroger 20:27, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Defend Wikipedia

On Tuesday, July 25, there was an interview on National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" Unfortunately, I didn't get all the details but it was apparently about virtual art galleries. One person who was interviewed made a remark. I cannot quote it, but it was to the effect that this individual did not consider Wikipedia a valid source of information. Its true that Wikipedia can be abused. Such is democracy. However, as a former professional librarian, and someone with a degree in art history, I find Wikipedia to be an absolute jewell of information. The articles I have read which are in my field of expertise have always been not only accurate but extremely in depth. Someone should send a letter in defense to NPR to be read on their reader's commentary which they feature regularly. Perhaps, I will look into this. Your comments?

Over the last few months, I've finally gotten to the point where I really don't care what people I talk to think of Wikipedia's factuality. When someone complains that there could be incorrect information, I tell them they should get an account and fix it. It's not the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica. My parents are having an especially hard time accepting that. As much as I hate to use the term, it's a "paradigm shift", and until a majority of people are comfortable believing in the idea of the open source, we're always going to have the losing argument. --nathanbeach 16:04, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
But the winning site. Wikipedia's Alexa rank is 17, and Britannica's is four thousand and something. 62.31.55.223 00:22, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
I like to view wikipedia as a work in progress. So what if it is the subject of criticism? It's a long term project that's gradually but steadily getting better, at least on average. — RJH (talk) 16:27, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Wiki is not defendable the way it works currently. I don’t consider it a valid source of information either! See my comment “Has Wiki become a platform for anti-Iranian propagandas?“ below. Wiki is only a good starting point to find other resources but I would not quote anything directly from Wiki, that would be a big mistake. Kiumars 15:29, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Google and dates of birth

Perhaps this was already mentioned here, but trying to fill in a date of birth, I came across this feature on Google. Interesting, except that the link they give is broken. -Splash - tk 20:49, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

HELP!

HELP! Someone created so many nonsensical re-directs to Wikipedia:Million pool that mean absolutely NOTHING. Please delete these re-directs. Georgia guy 19:46, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Are you referring to pages like Wikipedia:Nonilliоn pool? I don't see them serving any useful purpose, that is true. We are a long way off from a nonillion articles. --TeaDrinker 20:34, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
I binned the lot of them, and, discovering they were the editor's only edits, stopped him from making any more. -Splash - tk 21:34, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

?

OH ho! TEeheeeee --The Prophet Wizard of the Crayon Cake 00:11, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

#1 Contributor

Hello!

I am seeking information on the wikipediest who has contributed the most (or A LOT) to Wikipedia. I work for FLAUNT magazine and am thinking of possibly writing a piece on this person. If you think you have contributed a significant amount of information to Wikipedia please respond to this post.

THANK YOU!
FLAUNT — Preceding unsigned comment added by Flaunt (talk • contribs)

See Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits; it's out of date, but still interesting. I think User:SimonP is the guy you want.... — Catherine\talk 03:05, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
Hm, looks like someone else had the same idea: The Globe and Mail published "Prolific Canadian is king of Wikipedia" about SimonP! — Catherine\talk 20:29, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Deletion processes

I'm constantly amazed by how prickly people get over the deletion process. (C.f. WP:AfD and WP:PROD.) No other part of wikipedia seems to generate so much contention and so many hateful messages. There's an interesting psychology at work in that whole area. I also wonder how representative the deletion processes are of Wikipedia as a whole?

It would seem to me that areas such as AfD is attractive to those who have the most stringent criteria about Wikipedia, rather than those of a typical editor. I.e. those who have the most to gain by proposing and pursuing deletions. This in turn draws in people (like me) who become perturbed when they see a page they've worked hard on suddenly be up for extinction by the same people who so obviously enjoy the process. I find it most distasteful at times. — RJH (talk) 22:42, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Attention!

I am now allowing anyone to edit my userpage. I don't care if it's vandalism, constructive userpage making, or just babbling nonsense. This is all an effort to support anyone-can-edit-ism, which seems to be lacking on many user pages. While you're there, you might be interested in the proposed organization I have been conceptualizing.

Although I'd really like to see something constructive come out allowing anyone to edit my userpage, I'm totally indifferent about nonsense as well. Have fun! and remember, Wikipedia is the encyclopedia anyone can edit~ --The Prophet Wizard of the Crayon Cake 20:28, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Your proposed organization made my brain cry from confusion. Well done! Tony Fox (speak) 20:50, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
If you were confused, you might be a prime candidate for assimilation into my organization. --The Prophet Wizard of the Crayon Cake 00:10, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
I know. It's always the weak-minded they go for.... Tony Fox (speak) 05:07, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Split Infinitive Fun Time

Split infinitives bug me. There is no specific policy on splitting infinitives in the Wiki manual of style. I usually just correct them when I see them, but I just came across what I think is a special case / exception. I found the following sentence in the Dissociative identity disorder article:

"At least two of these personalities are considered to routinely take control of the individual's behavior [...]"

I think it would be more confusing to word it "considered routinely to take control" -- that makes it ambiguous whether "routinely" is describing "considered" or "to take control". What do you think? Is this a acceptable reason for splitting an infinitive? --Nathan Beach 17:01, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Generally speaking, if splitting an infinitive adds clarity, go ahead and do it. No one's taking points off for grammar here. In this particular example, the entire sentence is pretty bad - I would consider rewording it to something like this:
To qualify as a dissociative identity disorder, at least two personalities must routinely take control of the individual's behavior, and there must be a loss of memory that goes beyond normal forgetfulness.
Deco 18:03, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the suggestion -- I integrated your change into the article. I'll try to give the whole thing a spin later this afternoon. I should first, um, actually get some work done today for the people who pay me. Cheers to you. NathanBeach 18:10, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
Besides, if memory serves, the Modern Language Association decided a couple of years back that split inifinitives are OK in certain circumstances. Gotta look that one up. (Note dangling preposition...) --Graham 07:41, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

evergreen forest article

the stubbiest article ever. someone please fix it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.76.146.141 (talk • contribs)

You could try listing it at Wikipedia:Requests_for_expansion. --Aquillion 16:52, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict

I'd appreciate it if someone could keep an eye on this page. It is turning into an ugly edit war. The page is currently under semi-protection and I've left notes on several people's talk page that I won't hesitate to ask for full protection if they don't stop it. Davidpdx 13:11, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

The Village pump

why is the picture on the village pump pages of what appears to be a well or a pool rather than em.. a village pump?

--Charlesknight 16:22, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

See the image at Wikipedia:Village pump. Rmhermen 00:18, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

To compare or to contrast ?

Not sure if this is the place for my query but does anyone else have a problem with the "compare selected versions" in the history tab? This valuable tool does not compare selected version, it contrasts them. I'm thinking back to all the angst my high school english teachers went through when they asked students to compare and/or contrast. Thoughts? Thanks, Hu Gadarn 15:32, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

68.40.190.58's vandalism

User:68.40.190.58 has vandalized PBS idents 6 times within the past few days. I want to know if anyone can find out who this person is. Georgia guy 23:25, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Considering he's been blocked before for the same reason, I think a longer block will probably be warranted. Drop a note at Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism. Deco 00:04, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Article under... development?

I made this article: IPSS. I didn't know if there is any other IPSS — it seems to be a lot of acronyms in English language. That's the reason the article's content is:

IPSS is an acronym for International Packet Switched Service

Can someone add more IPSS or redirect the article, if there aren't more IPSS?

—Nethac DIU, would never stop to talk here—
11:48, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

According to this google search [1], the only other IPSS mentioned in Wikipedia is a clinical scoring system discussed in Myelodysplastic syndrome. At least for now, I think it would be fine to make IPSS redirect to International Packet Switched Service. -- Rick Block (talk) 14:09, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
Done. Sandstein 12:45, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Naming a new article

Hi, facing various difficulties while trying to find the accurate name, I added a synthetis there & invite people to come help me deal with that. Topic is same use of the term in various contexts ; I guess a disambig page would end the process initiated. --Lilliputian 13:48, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

A simple observation.

I was bored... and was doing a simple Special:Random surf (what i do when i am bored), and realized that a lot of things that it goes to are rather insignificant. This leads me to believe that there are a vast amount of articles on Wikipedia that really don't need to be there. If you don't think so, try it for yourself, and when your on a page that's one sentance about a Chech Person accused of rape, ask yourself "do we really need this".

I have experienced the same thing wit Random surfing. But that's the great thing about Wikipedia--it has TONS more articles than a regular paper 'pedia. Do you know who Dr. Bombay is? Do you know what a video game developer is? Wikipedia does! But if you come across articles that are pretty insignificant, just nominate it for deletion. That process has been in place for years and its for exactly what you point out--weeding out trash. — Frecklefoot | Talk 15:59, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
Yes. Exactly. For remaining pages, the process of wiki shall make them more useful. --Bhadani 16:49, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
With Special:Random I'm always a little disappointed when it lands on a wheels-off town in the middle of nowhere USA containing only demographic data, which happens about 1/3 of the time. Some people went to a lot of effort in adding all that data, but I can't tell if it's more annoying than useful. It will be incredible someday when someone from each of these wheels-off towns has added some real information, maybe even a picture gallery and history (this is coming from someone who already fleshed out the article for his own wheels-off town in the middle of nowhere USA). --nathanbeach 15:59, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
No "people" went to a lot of effort adding it - see User:Rambot. It shouldn't come up 1/3 of the time - they constitute no more than about 5% of the total articles now. They were a much bigger issue when they were first created. Deco 18:04, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
Speaking of Special:Random, I assume it chooses with even probability among every single non-redirect in article space, even orphans and dead-enders. Is that true? I haven't actually been able to find a description of Special:Random anywhere. --Allen 18:26, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
By default, yes. However, it's possible to add extra restrictions using the $wgExtraRandompageSQL config option; I don't know if Wikipedia uses it. The authoritative reference — if you can read PHP — is here. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 18:49, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Question re: edit counting

Could I please ask why the user edit count data is no longer updated on Interiot's edit counter? I need to get a copy of my total edit count to date, so that I can put myself forward for RfA again. I cannot get the monobook java to work, which is interiot's counter mk. 2, so if anyone can help, I would appreciate it. You can post here, or leave me a message on my Talk page. Thanks. Thor Malmjursson 17:10, 19 July 2006 (UTC) Thor's pet yack / Talk

The toolserver, which hosts Interiot's tool, is no longer updating. You can try Voice of All's tool if you want. Ask me on my talk page if you want me to get your edit statistics for you. —Mets501 (talk) 21:41, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

I just copied this from Interiot/Tool2; hope it helps.

Username Tmalmjursson
Total edits 847
Distinct pages edited 291
Average edits/page 2.911
First edit 2004-09-08 21:33:21
(main) 299
Talk 49
User 137
User talk 173
Image 11
Template 22
Category 30
Wikipedia 122
Wikipedia talk 4

--Doc Tropics Message in a bottle 22:30, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Band is/was vs. are/were

Is/was or are/were; which one is correct? The popular usage seems to be are/were; even The Beatles article uses are/were. But I seem to think that is/was is really correct when referring to the group, not the individual members. Invitatious (talk) 02:22, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I believe both are acceptable; personal preference, meaning of the sentence, and local dialect all play a role. In American English, I believe that for collective terms that sound plural, such as "The Beatles", the plural form would almost always be used. It sounds awkward to me to say "The Beatles has just arrived in New York." For singular-sounding names, such as "U2", the singular tends to be used; to me, "U2 is playing in Chicago tonight" is superior to "U2 are playing in Chicago tonight", though I believe both are acceptable and I believe the latter is preferred in Britain (though I may be wrong). Finally, as with other collective nounds, if you are using the term in a way that implies the actions of the individual members, you're probably better off using the plural form. To be honest, though, I'd probably reword the sentence to say "The members of U2 do..." if I intended such a sense. Does that make sense? Let me know if you want actual guidelines cited; I can probably scrounge up something. — Knowledge Seeker দ 02:37, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
See Differences between American and British English#Singular and plural for nouns, which specifically mentions these cases. "Proper nouns which are plural in form take a plural verb in both AmE and BrE" is the relevant section. Ziggurat 02:41, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
Wow. Sometimes I'm so smart, it scares me. — Knowledge Seeker দ 02:49, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
If the band's name is a group in the first place, then the verb should be plural: "The Beatles or The Rolling Stones are...", whereas "The Fall or The Wedding Present is..." --nathanbeach 21:26, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

company/personal loss/profit

This applies to many company and businessman articles, so I'm mentioning it here, for a central discussion.

We have {{profit}} (Increase) and {{loss}} (Decrease). Based on the template names and self-description, I would expect it to be used next to the net profit number, in place of a "+" or "-". Based on what they look like, however, they indicate a rising or decling value, which is what they're often used for.

For instance Warren Buffett has a Decrease next to his "Net Worth". Obviously, his net worth is extremely positive. So, this symbol, here, presumably means it's declined since the last reporting period. Admittedly nobody would think Buffet has negative net assets, but there could in theory be people who do, and in such cases this would be ambiguous.

But for Sun Microsystems's net "income". Decrease107.0: should be read as "Net income is -107.0" or "Net loss 107.0", not as declining value.

I also generally dislike the idea of using graphics, when text will serve the purpose adequately, and more clearly.

Aside from being unclear, I think it's a mistake to include transient details, like whether something is going up, or down over a single reporting period. In the long run, that's meaningless. We should be giving limited financial numbers only for the purpose of establishing generally how big/successful something/someone is (e.g. showing they're a billion dollar company versus a million dollar company).

Sorry, if this is the wrong place to post this, but I wasn't sure where to put it. --Rob 16:00, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree that these are inappropriate because of how transient and ambiguous they can be. The best place to raise this is probably at Template talk:Infobox Company, as that's the template that uses those templates. Alternatively, you could raise the issue with User:Trisreed, who seems to be the person responsible for making the templates. Ziggurat 02:46, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
I agree that these arrows should not be used. They are of very little use, but they attract much attention because of the colour. Calsicol 00:20, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

constantine did he give power to jesus

whether its true or not no one knows but the only thing that matters is how did the pagans and the christians merged up .whether is it the fear of constantine for tha outgrout of cristianity or the fear of paganism of being wiped out ......................even the are stories or findings no one is clear .,,that constantine gave all the god like power to jesus.......he only made him look like a god as according to the novel written by dan brown,,,but is it true ,,,what are the issues related to mary magdaline

huh? -- Chris 73 | Talk 12:15, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
The Da Vinci Code is fiction. Deco 15:43, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Gotta admit that "outgrout" is a good word though. And yeah - it's fiction. Everyone knows that the Messiah was really a lion called Aslan. Grutness...wha? 22:47, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Important QUestion

Are you allowed to add video game cheats to the website? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Himanyo (talk • contribs)

User:Himanyo, you should usually sign by inserting four tildes, like so: ~~~~, instead of trying to link your username (you actually linked to the article, but no big deal). As to the game cheats, the answer is no, as wikipedia is not a game guide. See User:[[WP:NOT#Wikipedia_is_not_an_indiscriminate_collection_of_information, #8 (instruction manuals). Cheers!--Kchase T 06:59, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Liberalism

There is a current discussion going on at Talk:Liberalism#PLEASE VOTE: Should the Liberalism article be a disambiguation page? (clumsy title, not of my making), which basically comes down to whether the concept of "liberalism" has enough unity to merit an article. I happen to think it does, but the matter is clearly controversial. I think it would be useful to have people who know something about the topic but haven't actually been working on the article involved in the discussion, so I am posting here, as a venue that presumably will reach numerous experienced Wikipedians who do not come in with their minds already made up one way or the other. - Jmabel | Talk 16:34, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I'll probably repost this on Request for comments (as well as editing this comment to make that a link) when I have more time. But I basically agree with you; I have no particular bias towards the liberialism subject/article than you, but it sounds like it should be it's own article (as part of a series on politics or something) on the surface. Will investigate further later. Xaxafrad 01:40, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

31 hours?

Why is that the 'block user' page, among the obvious default times for blocking a user (15 minutes, 3 hours, a day, a week, a month, etc), one of the options is "31 hours"? What's the significance? --Sam Blanning(talk) 11:13, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I think this explains it. If such a thing can be explained...--Pharos 12:00, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
So was Drini the one who added it to the list of default block lengths? Or did someone else like it? --Sam Blanning(talk) 10:03, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Can I throw a meme out there?

As far as categorizing articles goes, shouldn't every new article come with a stub template already in the edit box? I know changing the default text setting for a VB control box is easy enough, how hard is it to write wikicode? Every subsequent edit can have the template appended (at the top, bottom, wherever) if somebody deletes it. If not stub, then book-stub, or movie-stub or any template of the category stub. Once no longer a stub, the appending code can enforce a category inclusion, starting with a general category (there's only 6, or 7, or 9) and then letting natural editorial evolution take it's course. And on talk pages, automatically put a talkheader template (why not?). Does this sound like a good idea? I mean, if it's really a good idea, somebody else would've thought of it by now, so there's probably a good reason why this idea wouldn't work that I haven't thought of yet, right? Xaxafrad 02:08, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

You assume that every article is a stub on its first edit. I have sometimes seen authors single-handedly and miraculously produce complete articles in one edit. Deco 03:53, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
Most people, including me, will work on an article in userspace, or even offline (e.g. in Notepad), and only move it to articlespace when it reaches a certain level of "completeness".

Do you (or others) leave them uncategorized? Xaxafrad 14:29, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Am I just re-inventing the wheel? I'm kind of naive that way, I think. Xaxafrad 01:37, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

How come question marks are showing up after red links and exclamation marks showing up after stub links? --  Denelson 83  18:22, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

You have modified your link style in your preferences. Change it back. Deco 23:22, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
I didn't modify it. That's the thing. Anyway, it's resolved itself. --  Denelson 83  09:22, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

One of the many reasons I love Wikipedia

What other reference work has a category for Fictional Chickens? Incredible! Spalding 21:52, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Category:fictional chickens - agreed! Wikipedia truely is a god among men. You made me smile :) - Jak (talk) 12:36, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
And with a listing of 28 Fictional Chickens we have a better selection than KFC :) --Doc Tropics Message in a bottle 14:21, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia: the Inherently Funny Website. SAMAS 00:59, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
Ref inherently funny word. Deco 17:38, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Wow, thanks Deco - I never would have seen that article. It borders a little on original research but I like it. I took the opportunity to add sniglets. Spalding 13:05, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

How do you browse Wikipedia?

I often browse Wikipedia just for fun and to help improve it with a tweak here and there, but I have gotten tired of browsing via watchlist, I'm not as far advanced a Wikiholic to browse recent changes. The Main Page is nice, but what other methods do people use? Random page is a little too random for me. Categories show promise. Spalding 15:11, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

It depends what you like doing. If you want to focus on formatting issues, Category:Articles that need to be wikified is a good place to go. If not, there's all kinds of pages needing different sorts of attention in Category:Wikipedia cleanup categories. Angela . 15:23, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, Angela. But as usual, an answer breeds another question. In looking at cleanup categories, for instance, there is an underpopulated category American agnostics. A good source is List of agnostics, but what is the current thinking on lists versus categories? Maintain both? Seems like a lot of opportunity for conflicting information and high maintenance. Spalding 19:32, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
Yes, both are generally maintained since they serve slightly different purposes. Angela . 04:30, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
Or jump around via categories, or "related changes". - Jmabel | Talk 16:28, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I just discovered the portals and I will try them, since they look pretty good. Spalding 11:53, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

My browser's bookmark to Wikipedia goes straight to Special:Random, whether I'm looking up something specific or just eventually heading to the Main Page. It's a good way to start the day! Nathan Beach 16:46, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

what kind of bread is this?

When I was but a little girl, my godmother, who was also a nun, would send me greeting cards made of a thin, brittle unlevened bread. I could literally eat the card after admiring it. My mother was a Lithuanian Catholic; this is relevant because my Polish boyfriend says that it is an old Polish tradition, the bread having a name close to epotec in sound...Help! I need more info on this....

Is this like opłatek? Rmhermen 17:07, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Hypocrisy

This is not trolling, it is questioning.

Wikipedia claims to just be "just a charitable organization trying to do something nice for the world". Then, everyone who makes edits you disagree with is labeled a childish troll or an evil vandal.

In response, you are not just a charitable organization trying to do something nice for the world. You are a group of obsessive megalomaniacs who get some wierd kick out of persecuting people who disagree with or question you. You get on my nerves and those of a lot of other people. You take yourselves too seriously and you quash dissent like Stalinist Russia. The people you call "vandals" are "cool". They question your bizarre status quo. You block them as coldly and efficiently as Mao would and dismiss them as children. But, they aren't and some of part of you must know that. Unless of course you've finally become as cold as the SS or Gestapo agents rounding up Jews to slaughter. I suppose in your view, these "vandals" are a threat to your perfect world aren't they?

Reading through your user pages, it seems that many of you consider yourselves radicals, anarchists, or at least resistors of illegitimate authority. Face it: You're not. You are part of the establishment that you profess yourself to be opposed to. If you won't blindly follow Bush or Blair; If you think you wouldn't have followed Hitler, then why the hell do you follow a washed up American entrepeneur that you've affectionately labeled "Jimbo"? If you wouldn't have supported the SS, why the hell do you go along with autocratic administrators? If you really aren't just desperately seeking to preserve your little world at any cost, why will you delete this content and block me as soon as I hit save?If you aren't just blindly following, then why do you scream the equivalent of "Zieg Hiel Jimbo" every day?

In my opinion, it's because talk is cheap. It's very to say "Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under" while blindly embracing the government of Wikipedia. But you don't have to. This is your encyclopedia, this is our encyclopedia. It doesn't belong to Jimbo Wales. We wrote it. Administrators? They wrote a little but it's the average joes that make the wikipedia world go round. Why then should we submit to their tyranny? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Garth Williams (talk • contribs)

Hmm. Looks like someone is a bit upset about having their vandalism reverted. And yes, it is trolling. Oops, looks like I fed the trolls. -- Chuq 23:09, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
Insofar as I can tell that edit was not vandalism. It was invisible except when the page is edited.
There are plenty of admins here (myself included) willing to entertain virtually any idea about anything. If you've been unfairly blocked please provide specifics (URLs of edits would be great). There are now over 1000 admins. We don't have secret meetings, secret handshakes, or anything of the sort. There really is no wikipedia:cabal. If you have a reasonable point of view, it can be represented here. If your point of view is so outrageous that no reasonable person will support you, then you need to go elsewhere. We're writing an encyclopedia here, not running a free-speech, fuck the establishment website. -- Rick Block (talk) 02:55, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
Thank you for the surprisingly lucid response. Sadly, though, there is a cabal. Look what happened to this poor chap. First he undertook substantial rewrites of numerous sub-par quality articles that, IMHO, improved them. See his work on Nasser his result versus what it look like before. Next, he worked on Degas his rewrite which has remained essentially unchanged in 3 months versus what it looked like before. After many valuable contributions he got involved in policy discussions, included the heated CVU debate. He then called for the removal of an administrator, Drini, and was indefinitely blocked as an "attack troll" merely for questioning authority. Garth Williams 21:02, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
In that case, checkuser confirmed that the user was in fact a sockpuppet of a banned user. JoshuaZ 21:10, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
My brother, who is a computer science professor at Virginia Tech, assures me that there is no possible way that such a system could be foolproof and I agree. Of course, I am not familiar with the finer details of the processes inner workings (as I do not have checkuser rights), but even if you could establish that two users are editing from the same IP address (which is a stretch given that IPs change frequently), there is no guarantee that those two people are even using the same computer or even in the same location. Certainly, there is no guarantee that those two users are the same person. Further, the block was imposed before any allegations of sockpuppetry. Certainly then, at least some sort of investigation should have occurred. Instead the cabal just swept things under the rug. Garth Williams
I'm not too familiar with the inner workings of checkuser either, but from what I've heard, it works mostly based on editing patterns; IP addresses aren't the primary harbinger of sockpuppetry there. —Scott5114↗ 15:04, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Garth, I would suggest that your response should be to code and host an online encyclopedia under which you have sole editorial control. Coolhaus 03:09, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

We really don't need to listen to a person who spends their freetime vandalizing Fuck. Great level of maturity you've got there... Also, isn't checkuser based on similar IP combined with similar edit patterns? --tjstrf 17:42, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Remember, the most clever flamebait avoids blatant comparisons to Hitler (ref Godwin's Law) in favour of asserting opinions on issues that you know to be divisive in the community, such as userboxes, anonymous page creation, censoring of pornographic content, and so on. You'll never provoke discussion with such a disappointing, easy-to-ignore rant. Deco 01:01, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Disappearing page

I just clicked on solar radius and discovered it doesn't exist (in my browser anyhow) despite being blue-linked. I can't see how anybody would delete a page of this sort. Marskell 16:51, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

I've reported this as bugzilla:7401. If anyone runs into another instance of this problem, please don't fix it by adding "?action=purge" to the URL so the developers have an example to look at. -- Rick Block (talk) 17:34, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Hiding user subpages from Google

Lots of people use a subpage of their user page as a sandbox. Probably very few of these sandboxes are intended for, or suitable for, being searched by Google. However, Google does bring them up in results. Should we/can we hide user subpages from Internet search engines? Kla'quot 06:07, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

As our own search engine isn't all that great, I find it quite useful to be able to use Google to search userspace. Kusma (討論) 07:29, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
Searching main user pages is great. We create user pages because we want others to read them. It's the searching of subpages that I think is questionable. A good proportion of user subpages are not intended for others to read. I agree BTW that Wikipedia's main search engine isn't great. Kla'quot 07:32, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Phrases as Articles in Wikipedia?

Is there a policy on whether they can be the subject of articles?? Only if notable? Yes, I will try to RTFM or WP:WIN, but it is so darn big it's hard to find things (another subject, I suppose).

The ones I have in mind are ones like "in the weeds" (currently residing rather unsatisfactorily in Diner lingo), or ""he doesn't have his oars in the water". My gut feel is that as much as I would like to know the origins and trivia about these, it may junk up Wikipedia too much, and I am even a strong inclusionist. So do I find a more specialized reference for them, or Wiktionary, or is Wikipedia supposed to be totally inclusionist? I think this may be parallel to Wikiquote. Now that I think about it, there's probably a WikiAphorism or WikiPhrase project already underway as we speak :) Spalding 16:06, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Question

If another Wiki uses a GFDL picture in an article, does that make the entire article now subject to the GFDL? JoshuaZ 22:28, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Communism is a major political movement that has gained both fanatic supporters and rabid detractors, held sway in some form over much of the World's population at some time, has roots going back hundreds of years, and comes in dozens of "flavors" and shades from National Socialism black through every conceivable red, to labor unions and the WPA, straight through to PTA pale pink. In some ways it was the 20th Century's dominant response to the paradox of capitalism; it is fair to say that no human life today is entirely untouched by this concept. Practically every contemporary ideology at least nods to some small shred of Communism; forever gone is the pure Social Darwinism of the early 19th Century.
Communism has uncounted related pages and subtopics; I doubt that the topic is underdiscussed. Yet this article manages to come in at a mere 39 Kb.
T is Too big. John Reid 01:16, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Why are we now redirecting to http://tools.wikimedia.de/~magnus instead of the previous one (i forgot the url) but it had better links and all the links worked. --MarsRover 07:13, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism

Dear Sir or Madam:

I want to report that the article on John Dalton (English chemist and physicist) has been vandalized. Could one of your regular editors clean it up, please? I don't have the time or the know-how to do it myself.

Thank you, Simon

I think it was already fixed by bots. --MarsRover 00:41, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Debatus

I hope nobody considers this advertising for Debatus.com that I'm asking questions about it here. Debatus is a wiki for argumentation and debate that myself and a team of Georgetown students began. We've been trying to spread the idea outside of Wikipedia as well as in Wikipedia (bad idea - and we've stopped). Generally, though, we believe that the content and structure of the debates are complimentary to existing controversial articles on Wikipedia, and want to make Wikipedians aware of the tool that Debatus is. This is not shameless advertising as many administrators have suspected; it is an honest outreach to the Wikipedia community from a related and complimentary wiki. Any suggestions?Loudsirens 00:38, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Boyd's Bears

I was trying to find an article about Boyd's Bears, but I couldn't find anything. I was looking because I know nothing. I didn't know where else to go about it, and since I don't know anything about the topic, I was hoping that if anyone did, these users or user could collaborate and create the article.

--myselfalso 15:41, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

I did a little bit of research. Take a look at Boyds Bears (no apostraphe). ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 19:18, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
Awesome! Thanks! --myselfalso 02:47, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Heiress Records

Hi!

I found this article: Heiress Records. It's seems that the Paris Hilton music company. But based on information found on her website (and on my CD) it should be Paris Hilton Record. Cause I dont't know the procedure for en wikipedia, I prefer let you decide. In fr.wikipedia, I use [[:fr:Paris Hilton Record]]

thank you

Bestter Discussion 14:21, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Are you sure it should be Paris Hilton Record? Everything on Google refers to the company as Heiress Records. That's also what it says on the albums themselves. ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 14:37, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
Well... On my CD, i see nothing (except Warner Bros blablabla). It do not contain reference to heiress record or paris hilton record. (I buy it at Wal-Mart in Montreal...) Have you visit www.parishiltonrecord.com ? This is the reason why the company is now called ParisHiltonRecord. Bestter Discussion 15:09, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Empty page

I don't know if it's just me, but I'm not seeing anything (anything at all) on the page List of environment topics on one page. Is this true for anyone else? - dcljr (talk) 17:42, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

How odd. I see what you mean by anything at all. I was expecting page blanking, but this doesn't even have the sidebar or, well, anything at all. Not even a "This page cannot be displayed" message. How strange. ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 18:17, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
Normal for me. Problems probably have to do with the page being ridiculously long. Piet | Talk 19:02, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
How long is it? I have no problem seeing the two (at the moment) longest articles, List of Brazil-related topics and Names of European cities in different languages (both over 250K, but well below some huge page lengths I've seen in the past). - dcljr (talk) 11:14, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
I also see nothing at all, perhaps this is related to the section #Disappearing page above. Someone should probably report it on bugzilla, pehaps as part of bugzilla:7401 although I can't tell from the descriptions if these are related. Cool3 20:07, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

For the record, I was originally using IE 5.0 on Windows 2000 Pro (at work), now I'm using Firefox 1.5 on Gentoo Linux (at home) with same results. Using wget on the command line returned a zero-length file, as well. There's definitely something wrong on the server end. FWIW, here's some output from wget: 

Resolving en.wikipedia.org... 66.230.200.100
Connecting to en.wikipedia.org|66.230.200.100|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response...
  HTTP/1.0 200 OK
  Date: Sat, 30 Sep 2006 11:00:36 GMT
  Server: Apache
  X-Powered-By: PHP/5.1.2
  Content-Type: text/html
  X-Cache: MISS from sq19.wikimedia.org
  X-Cache-Lookup: MISS from sq19.wikimedia.org:80
  Via: 1.0 sq19.wikimedia.org:80 (squid/2.6.STABLE4)
  Connection: close
Length: unspecified [text/html]

I'd prefer it if someone more familiar with Bugzilla took care of any necessary bug report... - dcljr (talk) 11:14, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

I've added this issue to the thread associated with bugzilla:7401. -- Rick Block (talk) 15:42, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

User:Ligulem/work/templates using hiddenStructure

Liguem just made a check in the database, and found over 250 templates still using hiddenstructure, please feel free to help fixing it. →AzaToth 12:57, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

You can search for it if... oops

Moved to MediaWiki talk:Nocreatetext. 19:42, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

You can search for it if... oops

Moved to MediaWiki talk:Nocreatetext. 19:42, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

PD-old pics of machining tools

My father has a book, William H. Van Dervoort's Machine Shop Tools and Shop Practice, which is now in the public domain in the US and maybe also where I live. It contains 673 engravings of various machining tools and equipment. Although the designs of some of them are still current, most are obsolete, usually because of the invention of compact electric motors (most use leather belt drives) or the discovery of silicon carbide.

What I am wondering is whether these drawings might be useful for Wikipedia or one of its sister projects. Would the obsolete images be useful as historical artifacts? Are there specific tools or pieces of equipment for which we're missing drawings of either historical or unchanged designs? (It'd probably take me months to upload them all during the school year.)

All the drawings are black-and-white, and they're shaded in different ways. (A few aren't shaded at all.) Some have gray backgrounds or shadows, but most don't. A few have labels; most of the labels are letters that are explained in the text (meaning the unchanged image could be used on other language Wikipedias). NeonMerlin 00:43, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

I would expect this to be an underdeveloped area of Wikipedia. Try looking up the machines and seeing if they have illustrations. Some may be so out-dated as to not have links in the current templates (like at the bottom of the machining article.) A few at a time is better than no pictures at all. If they are public domain, you may want to upload them to Commons and not to here. Rmhermen 00:58, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
for the time being uploading them to commons would probably be useful.Geni 08:40, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Using content from Wikipedia

I have an idea for a (hopefully profitable) website, and I'd like to use content from Wikipedia for it. About half of the content from the website will be from Wikipedia. Of course I will mention Wikipedia as a source and I will donate some of my profits to Wikimedia, but is it okay to have other content on one webpage, besides the Wikipedia-content, that is not GFDL-licensed? The GFDL is not very clear on that, and people on the Dutch Wikipedia couldn't answer this question. Anyone who knows this or a better place to ask this? Thanks in advance! Yorian 12:20, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Shouldn't be a problem, as long as it's clear which content is GFDL, and what isn't. Wikipedia, for example, has some copyrighted content (such as the wikipedia logo that appears on every page). The important thing to remember is that the contribution histories of the pages you mirror need to also be brought over... if it's a wiki, you can just use an import tool like Special:Import. If it's not a wiki, you'll need to make sure the information is easily available. --SB_Johnny|talk|books 12:42, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
I am not a lawyer. If you want legal advice then download a copy of the GFDL and get your lawyer to look at it. Note that it does impose some conditions on using our content. Mixing Wikipedia content and non-GFDL content on the same page is likely to be a problem. Why don't you just license your content under the GFDL? After all the whole point of the GFDL is that you pay for using our content by letting us use your content.
I think he was asking if the entire site has to be GFDL...--SB_Johnny|talk|books 14:19, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
I was asking both: does the whole site have to be GFDL, and if no (I think that's the correct answer): is it bad that GFDL-content is placed on an individual webpage that also contains non-GFDL content? :) The reason that I don't want to license all the content of my website GFDL is that I don't want to have mirrors like there are now of Wikipedia. And about that lawyer: I'm a poor 17-year old student ;) Yorian 15:42, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
It's probably a good idea not to have copyrighted material on the same page if you don't know what you're doing (and you'd need to talk to a lawyer to be sure). If you create a page that uses a modified version of content that was created under the GFDL, you would be in breach of copyright. However, you can "wrap" GFDL content within the frames of copyrighted content, as long as you make it clear. If you're very serious about this, you might want to bring it up on [foundation-l], where you'll get your anwsers straight from the horse's mouth.
(BTW, it's truly admirable that you've asked first, rather than after the fact... I wish you luck!) --SB_Johnny|talk|books 15:59, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
I'm an admin on the dutch Wikipedia, so I think it's very important to do this right :) I'll ask on the foundation mailing list, thanks! :) Yorian 16:26, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

We need a Mediawiki programmer...

I edit a site called MemoryArchive. It was originally proposed as a Wikimedia project, wasn't a good fit, and we (some members of the WP community) decided to start and run it independently. It's growing rapidly. We are ready to open non-English language versions of the site, and have editors ready to go, but we need programming help. Is there a nice programmer out there who might give us a hand? -MarshallPoe 23:28, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

User name

Good evening folks,

I was googling a French profanity ("Mon vier", litt. "my dick") used as an interjection in Marseille, for I wanted to check its spelling—it is seldom written. I was quite surprised by the first hit: User:Mon Vier. Coincidence? Marseillan independentist making propaganda? Or a side-effect of the "Friday night contribution syndrome" (see alcoholism and drug addiction for more details)?

Cheers.

Lachaume 19:04, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

He seems to be a good editor...--SB_Johnny|talk|books 14:38, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia content being used without permission

I 'assume' that as the following page isnt showing a wikipedia credit the content from the article on Antigua has been lifted without permission. I just thought I should bring this up but it wasnt easy trying to find out where to do so.

http://www.funtripguides.com/antigua/

Adam777 00:11, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

What to do about such sites is listed at Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks. -- Rick Block (talk) 00:31, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Desperate help needed at the Black people article! Please get involved!!

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Village pump This article is an absolute mess. It provides no coherent well sourced definition of a Black person and just rambles on and on about various people who were labled Black in different times, places, and languages, and tries to merge them all together as a coherent ethnic group. It would be like trying to merge Native Americans and people from India into a coherent article called Indian people. It makes no sense. We had requested mediation and the mediator said we should use the census as our source. Here's what the U.S. census says:

A Black is “ a person having origins in any of the Black racial groups of Africa. It includes people who indicate their race as "Black, African Am., or Negro,"or provide written entries such as African American, Afro American, Kenyan, Nigerian, or Haitian.”

Black Africa is a synonym of sub-Saharan Africa and all of the non-African groups mentioned (i.e. African-Americans, Haitains) are descendents of the recent African diasporas. And yet we still have editors insisting that South Asians be given equal weight in the article and be considered Black. These people provide no cited definitions or census classifications to defend their assertions, instead they cherry pick from different sources in different countries for examples of South Asians being labeled Black, often in different languages. But by the same logic, I could argue that the Black Irish are Black. The point is the people editing that article need to be forced to adheare to a coherent sourced authoritative definition of a Black person, or the entire article should just be deleted as POV and unencyclopedic.

Dictionary.com[[2]], the free dictionary online[[3]]., the U.S. census[[4]], and the British census[[5]] all emphasize the idea that Blacks are of African origin-in fact it is against the law for a dark-skinned person of South Asian or Australian origin to claim to be black in the census. An article by the BBC makes a clear distinction between Blacks and the dark skinned people of South Asian ancestry[[6]]. This article about race in biomedicines says “The entities we call ‘racial groups’ essentially represent individuals united by a common descent — a huge extended family, as evolutionary biologists like to say. Blacks, for example, are a racial group defined by their possessing some degree of recent African ancestry (recent because, after all, everyone of us is out of Africa, the origin of Homo sapiens)."[[7]]. I really need help getting the editors of that article to stick to a coherent definition, instead of just pushing their own POV. Editingoprah 06:16, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

You're probably not going to get a "coherent well sourced definition of a Black person" that editors agree upon. That's a political issue. --John Nagle 19:01, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:1 featured article per quarter

I just moved the above to Wiki space. The idea is an informal list of people to bring articles to featured standard and a timeline to do so. I thought of talking it proposals but then decided to just add it and see how it flies. It's a fairly straightforward idea, and signees are much hoped for. Marskell 15:02, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

definition of integrity

i need someone to help describe in a deepthy way the meaning of "Integrity"

please e-mail all ideas to (e-mail address redacted).

i figure since this is a bulliten board on an Encyclopedia someone has a decent view of the meaning.

See Integrity, or failing that, post at the Reference desk. —Scott5114↗ 14:25, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Size of the T article

This article has been getting so big faster and faster within the past few days; it is now 92KB. I would like to think of a good way to split certain sections, but I'm sure that Macaw 54 will revert me. Anyone have a good idea?? Georgia guy 13:54, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Have you discussed it with him? Have you discussed in on the article's Talk page and attempted to gain consensus for your proposals? User:Zoe|(talk) 01:52, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I've discussed it a few times and he just doesn't accept it. He thinks it's okay (not just theoretically possible, but okay) to make articles as big as you like. Posting info on the talk page also doesn't do any help. Georgia guy 15:12, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I've wondered a few times just how accurate is that size value really? It seems as if it is including the size of the images as well. I've never had a problem editing an article of any size. But as for this particular issue, have you tried the Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal? I'm not sure how effective it is, but it beats an annoying edit war. — RJH (talk) 21:59, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
Amazing how much information you can squeeze out of a simple T. --さくら木 17:23, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
I've done more than just boggle at the current article size. I've read a good bit of it and left a comment on talk. Some of the content is okay and some is just cruft. Macaw 54 (talk · contribs) is undaunted and continues to bloat the article. WP:NOT an indiscriminate collection of information and this has gone more than far enough.
Will someone step in with a big stick before this article becomes totally useless? John Reid 17:48, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
T is a very-common sound inside and outside of English. In our language, it is also a common letter because it is used to form two sounds: th and t. T also has a long history. The fact that it's big is irrelevant, as it deserves a big entry. I've partitioned it into large, distinct sections with subsections, so it seems easy to navigate to me.--Macaw 54 23:31, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
Ugh. Way too long: it took a while to load for me, and that's even with a cable modem! Maybe T (abbreviation) could be sliced off for a start? (sorry about the boldface... I couldn't resist!) --SB_Johnny|talk|books 00:09, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
One way we could cut the size would be to simplify the coding for the table under "Frequency." I made it in MS Excel and pasted it into MS FrontPage. But, the latter's coding is very wordy. If someone could rephrase the HTML (not necessarily in wikiformat), then we would save about 20 kb.--Macaw 54 18:48, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
Just for fun, I replaced the table code with a simple wikitable. The page shrunk from 123K to 101K. It's still too long though -- slicing it into related articles seems like a good idea to me. -- ArglebargleIV 19:29, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. Another thing that I can do is replace the <span style="font-variant:small-caps;text-transform:lowercase">b.c</span>s with B.C.s. That will save more space. I used small capitals because they look better, but the tag is kind of wordy.--Macaw 54 19:34, 25 September 2006 (UTC) P.S. Although I appreciate the work on the table, isn't there a way to make it look more like the old version?
There certainly is a way to get it to look more like the old version -- but I don't think that would be a good idea, actually. It was occupying a lot of visual space on the page for a fairly simple set of data. BTW, this discussion really should continue at the the talk page. -- ArglebargleIV 19:40, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
Then, just move it to the talk page when archiving old sections of the village pump; lots of sections get saved this way I think. Georgia guy 19:42, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
I really can't help but admire the sheer amount of detail involved on that page. It's mesmerising, to a fashion. Lankiveil 06:41, 3 October 2006 (UTC).

Clem Cola Company?

I collect old bottles and recently came into possesion of 3 Clems Cola Company bottles. Malvern, Arkansas is printed on the bottle (embossed). I live in Hot Springs myself, so I am curious about the history of the company, and it's years of operation. Any info will be welcome and appreciated! Thanks!

Andrea Hot Springs, Arkansas

An interesting web site which can assist in dating bottles can be found at http://www.blm.gov/historic_bottles/dating.htm which has helped me date some which I own. --Gvandermeulen 23:52, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Gary Paulsen Biog

I believe the statement "He is the author of more than 200 books but none are worth reading" on the Gary Paulsen biography page ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Paulsen ) should probably be investigated. I'm not a Wikipedia contributor, and I have just been somewhat confused by the procedure for reporting this kind of thing. Hope I'm not committing some kind of faux pas by posting this here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Isokoira (talk • contribs)

First off, Welcome to Wikipedia! The best thing to do when you come across that sort of nonsense is to remove it. Anyone can do this, you don't even have to register an account. Looking at the article now, it seems that that has already been removed.
Because anyone can edit Wikipedia without even registering an account, Wikipedia does get the occasional bit of vandalism. Most of it is caught and removed right away, and that particular article appears to be experiencing quite a bit of vandalism lately. You probably just caught it at a bad time. Articles about authors that children are required to read in school (Like Mr. Paulsen) seem to get more vandalism than other articles.
I've left a little welcome message on your talk page, it has some helpful links telling you how you can begin editing. I hope you stick around and help us! ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 20:33, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedians-cum-Celebrities!

I am unsure of whether this question in which I am asking right now in here has been similarly questioned/queried before by anyone else. Whatever it is, perhaps I am quite certain that this sort of question has not been given any answers by anybody yet except until now.

Just out of interest and curiosity: Are there any Wikipedians which could be found out there (either he/she has left Wikipedia or currently still active) who was once happen to be or/and is presently a Super-Star or a Celebrity (like for instance: movie stars, actors, actresses, artistes, divas, singers, rock stars, musicians, politicians, television show hosts, supermodels, major-league athletes, etc.) in Show Business and of any kind related from the entertainment and media industry anywhere around the world? --onWheeZierPLot 21:02, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

You might want to have a look at Category:Notable Wikipedians which lists Wikipedians who are notable enough to have their own article. Tra (Talk) 21:28, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

{{dist}}

Don't really know where to post this, but I just wanted to let people know that I've created {{dist}}, which makes distance unit conversions super-easy. —Mets501 (talk) 16:34, 8 October 2006 (UTC)


49 mi (79 km)

That just might end up being one of the best templates I've seen on Wikipedia!! You might want to add it to Wikipedia:Template messages so people can find it. ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 19:02, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Anon from Gundagai

I have removed comments I did not post here --Golden Wattle talk 10:33, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

I have removed comments I did not post here --Golden Wattle talk 10:33, 10 October 2006 (UTC) ...and to add to that, the anon has been made aware of the RfC at every opportunity, in block messages and at their many talk pages. We're just being played for fools whilst they sit back and joke at the disruption caused. -- Longhair\talk 11:06, 8 October 2006 (UTC) I have not called anyone names or endorsed any name calling. Personal attacks and assumptions of bad faith are taking place on both sides here. I have read every one of the talk pages and block logs listed for this IP at the RfC and have not seen an invitation to the RfC at any of them. The IP did respond immediately at RfC when I recommended it and that response got reverted via popups. Popups were also used to delete this IP's posts to the article talk page and to the Village Pump. Another uninvolved editor who responded to the Village Pump appeal even complained that posts to their user talk page got deleted. Many of those popup deletions do meet Wikipedia's definition of vandalism. To my eyes that looks like a backdoor attempt at a community ban. I certainly would have preferred if the other editors had tried to open formal mediation. Unless I've missed something, I haven't seen a Wikiquette alert, a third opinion request, or an article request for comment. If my reading is correct, an arbitration request was made instead and got turned down as premature. If the waters hadn't been muddied here I'd suggest a community topic ban through WP:DE, but this is the most aggressive overuse of popups I've ever seen. The standard solution to unsigned talk page comments is to flag the comments as unsigned, not to delete them. That gagging may well have provoked statements of frustration. This person has trouble expressing himself or herself perhaps because English is a second language or because of some disability, and I think those circumstances require me to assume good faith. A further reason I extend good faith to this editor is that ABC News certainly satisfies WP:RS while the arguments other editors have given for deleting that citation violate WP:V. Please lead by example when encouraging others to respect site policies: tone down the popups to standard levels so that they revert only obvious problems such as obscenities and breaching experiments and let the IP know on the article talk pages. Go ahead and open that request for mediation - the worst that could happen is that they refuse to join. Perhaps the community will decide to ban this user and if that happens then wholesale reversion would be appropriate, but not until then. Respectfully, Durova 15:14, 8 October 2006 (UTC)""

Disclosure of Personal Details of a contributor by Artkos/Thatcher

copied from Thatchers talk page, with details removed and replaced by 'X':

"" Blocking the anon from XXXXXXXX

I have removed comments I did not post here --Golden Wattle talk 10:33, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, XXXXX has the 203.54.0.0/16 range (65,000 addresses) but lately she has only used 203.54.186.0/24 and 203.54.9.0/24, each of which range includes only 256 addresses. My guess is that only certain ranges are available to certain telephone exchanges or neighborhoods. If she comes back tonight on the 186.0/24 range, I'll block it too. I'm using the anon only blocking feature so the only users to be affected should be people in her local area who want to edit as anon IPs. (I should have enabled account creation, too, since the only thing we want to block is her anonymous editing.) There aren't any current autoblocks, and there shouldn't be any using the anon only feature, but if you see any you should release them. At this point the only long term solution is an arbitration that would confirm your decision to revert on sight. Thatcher131 22:03, 9 October 2006 (UTC)"

Are u guys now messing up southern Oz's access to the Internet as well as mine? Isnt that denial of service? Maybe you should have got a job on the Sydney Road Construction then you could have done some lane closures there if you like to block peopel off from access. I thought you must have lifted the block as I accessed it earlier not expecting it to be unblocked (but your behaviour has been so erratic that anything was possible), so if I should not have posted what I did till 6am tomorrow, dont fret too much as it would have been posted anyway. Dont you people think you are getting a bit carried away with yourselves? Are you children? I am starting to think that you may be as it seems you are playing something like a computer game with the target needing to be nuked and nil else will do.

If you are children then wik needs to note that in log on names or something. I do not usually log on to sites that children play on as too many weirdos also around them.

Re my ip, the server adjusts. Sometimes it runs through one server, then adjusts to another, then to another. It all depends on what other traffic XXXXXXX are carrying such as defence, media and private commercial, line loads and where there is space to put the cyber stuff. I do not live in a little town re my ip but on a major node. Thus, my ip range would be pretty wide as it goes all over the place. My log on varies as I dial in to other servers for other stuff so probably swap carriers here and there to do that. Hope that helps. Dont deny service to other XXXXXXX users just because you want to have a go at me as that is pretty crook.

ALSO, are you allowed to disclose personal details of people who contribute to wik such as their ISP and IP numbers as you have here. I dont post your IP numbers etc and I think that is contrary to wik policy, isnt it?

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Gundagai%2C_New_South_Wales"

Note privacy policy means your IP address becomes public when publishing on wikipedia without a username. The anon has been advidsed of this in the past when it was sugested she get a user name. Note also she is currently breaching a block for personal attacks.--Golden Wattle talk 10:33, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Outside view by NuclearUmpf

I fell into this debate through a post that was made on AN/I that was reverted, which I felt was odd. I went to the page on Gundagai and left a question for those involved to answer, noone but the anon answered and did so on my talk page. The users in the dispute with him then reverted my talk page, before I even got to read the response. Before I jumped in I looked at the history of the article and noticed the anon tried to add a story about a aboriginee named Yarri that saved some people during a flood in which he was later assaulted. I hit google for the story and found only one source from ABC, one that seems to be debated.

My experience with everyone involved so far. I think the anon may be an expert in the field or have a greater knowledge then those he is arguing with over what happened or at least the claims of the Aboriginal people there, however he has not provided sufficient sources to back up those claims, these need to be provided or the information cannot be cited, I want to point out that he has provided 3 sources for the kicking yarri story, not all from ABC. He has made attempts to reach a middle ground as what he wanted to add before kicking yarri was different, kicknig yarri was the middle ground effort, also reverted.

My experience with some of the users he is disputing with is that they are not AGF in accusing him of cycling his IP, accusing him of vandalism and worst of all blanket reverting him when he attempts to file complaints on AN/I and other Wikipedia places for filing such complaints, also on talk pages such as mine. Blanket reverting should not be allowed and led to some information that was easily googled being removed from Coolac Pass, the information about it and Gundagai being known for the dog imagery, Dog on the Tuckerbox to be exact. This information was removed in the blanket revert to remove the Coolac Massacre claims that I was unable to find information of. I tried to reason with some of the disputee's however there seems to be a misguided understanding that its ok to revert everythnig this user attempts to contribute to Wikipedia through reverts instead of actually attempt to verify themselves or offer a middle ground.

In closing all parties should have been a little more understanding of eachother, I refuse to put the blame on the anon solely as its obvious that the continuous reverting of everything they do escalated the tension and situation. Including the filing of this RfC and reverting of the anon's attempts to defend themselves here. You cannot have dispute resolution by yourself and RfC is not a punishment.

Users who endorse this summary:

--NuclearZer0 19:33, 9 October 2006 (UTC)"

[edit] Thanks nuclear Its not so much for me I have been 'fighting' this 'fight'. I hate bullying and there is so much goes on here that I have concerns for anyone else who might be a target for it. The place runs like a cult in some areas with anyone who wont kowtow to the ruling dominants, totally zeroed in on. Its bad.

That the ones doing the stuff you have noted them doing, seem to get away with it, by reverting, deleting etc, is a real concern. I am currently blocked for 24 hrs due to some fresh antics from the Gundagai discussion page. I fell for it not wondering why the bait was put there, rather than it being discussed here or on the page of the 'good samaritan' who popped up to assist me. I am not here often and wont be at all soon so dont know the run of the place or the underlying antics so easy to set up. I also switch off when that sort of stuff begins so a prob there. For me to find this Rfc page I had to hunt a bit as its removed from the other link I had to it. I repeat, this isnt so much as about me but about that it is happening, is being done and got away with, and would be happening to others who dare post stuff on wik but decline being sucked in to the other stuff. TY again.

Editors Who Are Vandals, and Thugs and Ferals

Have a look at what some 'editors' do on the Gundagai page. They post content with no cites, plagarise stuff, remove others posts then remove evidence of those posts from 'history' to cover up their own ineptitude and bully tactics. (Very brave to hide the evidence of their garbage isnt it. No medals for them.)

All in all, this feral gang that is doing this stuff are giving wik a very very bad name. Its not just that though. They are totally hopeless re some of the stuff they do post so the pages end up reading like something from a lower junior school project board. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.54.9.95 (talk • contribs)

The anon who posted the above is the subject of an RfC. See Wikipedia:Requests for comment/203.54.*.*. -- Longhair\talk 11:06, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
An Rfc. Sounds important. Whatever it is I do not want to know though I guess longhair gets its jollies off sprouting about them. Longhairs post is a prime example of what this topic is about. Its what gives wik a terrible name and its this style of garbage discredits anything to do with it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.54.186.120 (talk • contribs)
That's an attempt to resolve the dispute. See Wikipedia:Requests for comment. It's more likely you'd work things out by participating there than by raising the matter here. Durova 04:29, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Durova, raising the matter here wont hurt u.

The above anon has shown no interest whatsoever in resolving "the dispute". They're only here to be a pain in the arse at every article they edit, and being handed frequent blocks for doing so. -- Longhair\talk 04:40, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
Actually, since you're a party to the dispute, Longhair, it looks inappropriate that you issued any blocks against this user. Proper admin procedure is to seek some other admin to do that. I also find it disturbing that you repeatedly reverted this IP's posts to the article talk page. I see that other editors from that page reverted the IP's posts to the RFC through popups. This IP's posts to this board have also been reverted repeatedly by other paties to the dispute. Whatever the issue is, that is no way to go about resolving it. So I withdraw my earlier advice: I now agree that the IP did well to raise the topic here. I'd like to know what the dispute is about. Superficially this appears meritorious: accusations of plagiarism should be investigated or replied to, not deleted. The source the IP cites does look reliable. Please reply to my talk page. And since another Wikipedian complained that discussion of this matter was blanked from their talk page, I'll state in advance that I'll report any reversion of my user talk page as vandalism. Durova 13:15, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
I'm not a party to this "content dispute" at all. I *am* the outside admin here and responded to a request from User:Golden Wattle (then AYArktos} to review the anon's edits, months ago. This rubbish has been going on forever since. When the anon steps out of line and breaches policy, I block them. This anon has received more warnings than I care to remember. They simply dial back up when blocked and begin ranting and raving under another ip, evading the original block, so they're blocked again. That's the extent of my involvement. I don't edit the articles concerned in any major way. My enforcing of policy and blocking of the anon is why I'm also copping the crap as well. -- Longhair\talk 12:53, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
If I mistakenly called you a party to the dispute then I apologize. There's a distinctly non-neutral tone to your posts. Wouldn't neutral administration include defending properly sourced material and cautioning others against misuse of popups? Wouldn't it include more moderate expressions of doubt about an editor's good faith? I agree it would be better if this editor created a user account and better if this person signed their posts, but this case doesn't appear to be a clear black and white. If this matter really is as serious as you characterize it, then a formal topic ban per WP:DE would be an option - yet what concerns me is that this editor has at least tried to source an edit properly and did try to participate in RfC when I suggested it. I don't know of many articles involved, but the problem I did notice didn't seem that extensive and there weren't many efforts to bring this person on board. To the IP: I suggest you get a mentor through Wikipedia:Mentorship. A formal Wikipedia:Requests for mediation might help iron this out. Best wishes all, Durova 05:03, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

The above content by Longhair was put here after the below ** comment by me.

Longhair seems to suggest I post on wik a lot. I have hardly ever been here. This is another reason I do not want to reg as I am too busy to be playing here daily or even weekly.

The RfC concerning you and your particular style of editing at many ips sure says otherwise. This is my last reply to you here, or anywhere for that matter. Constant lies, continual failing to sign your posts, evading blocks. I give up and would rather be off doing something more constructive. -- Longhair\talk 00:26, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

You would be no good as a detective then longhair. Off u go. You let yourself lose objectivity and became personally involved which was not yr role as alternate admin, so best u get out of it. Things will probably settle down remarkably if u buzz of and if Robert Myers learns to be a bit more circumspect and not throw crumpets when he is corrected on some stuff he posts. Artkos would be better to learn some humility and by remembering wik isnt about Artkos or any one editor, but about wiks content and its quality.

I'll go find jimbo in the vp ether and bend his ear re this circus.

Stuff started off fine with artkos/golden wattle till I objected to very incorrect stuff posted on wik. It then reached a situation where the multiple cited records I have re multiple aussie topics, were wanted, but ego then got involved really badly. Whatever, gundagai is not artkos' or any other editors home town so i think I might know when they put rubbish up. It seems many editors here do not know what correct and verifiable content is, or even how to cite something. Then there are others here with their amazing tools that they use to wield power over other posters with. I am not sure they realise how amazingly boring they and their juvenile power trips are. They are also incompetent ignoramuses. That all wrecks wik and makes the reasonable people here, also look pretty crook.

    • Longhair continues, giving more examples of the aggro that it uses wik to spread. The dispute is the loutish, thuggish, bullying and vandalising behaviour of some wik eds who go on like they do as part of their gang dynamics, attacking other posters. Those sort of antics cannot be "resolved" as to do so would require whoever these gangs are currently having a go at on wik, to join their gang.

Believe it or not, some decent people choose not to join in with online liasons such as that.

Meanwhile, the abberant behaviour of some eds, continues on wik, giving it a terrible bad name.

Spotted Towhee

I need a pointer for a good article on spotted towhee bird (Pipilo maculatus)

See Spotted Towhee Tra (Talk) 01:52, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Systematic & Organized Vandalism

Take a look at Julius Caesar. During that short 1 hour, about 15 vandalisms occurred from 3~4 users. y cant all u peepul bee moor like thoo5e lus3r5 They continue to vandalize, and challenge patrollers into revert wars. Something must be done against incidents such as these. I've noticed that many vandalisms have some type of systematic quality to them, as if they were organized among friends from schools. (Wikimachine 00:46, 26 October 2006 (UTC))

If it's just anon IPs vandalising, the article could be semi-protected (I think this has already been discussed on the talk page). Looking through the different IPs vandalising, I've noticed that they are located all over the world (USA, Australia, UK, Netherlands) so if they were talking amongst themselves, it's probably not because they're in the same classroom. Having said that, the edits made around 18:00 UTC (that's 03:00 in South Korea) were made during school time in the USA, and one of the USA IPs vandalising 207.235.196.2 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) has previously said on Talk:Main page that they are 'just chilllin up in this class' so its probably someone messing around in a lesson. Tra (Talk) 01:19, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
I've semi-protected the page. Durova 03:05, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Thanks a lot! I wish I could semi-protect. (Wikimachine 03:20, 26 October 2006 (UTC))
You've made over 3000 edits and participate in some good wikiprojects. You'd probably get that ability if you asked for it. Regards, Durova 13:16, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

How to see every article?

Hi, I'm new here but I just signed on the account because my sister(she is the crazybookie, not me) wants to read every article on wikipedia --Crazybookie 06:44, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

It's not humanly possible. A web-crawling script can barely keep up with the new pages anymore. In the time it took me to write this statement, there were another 14 articles written. (Several of them on Croation geography) --tjstrf Now on editor review! 06:49, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Special:allpages and do a few a day? Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 12:41, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Your head (or whoever's head happened to be trying to read Wikipedia in its entirety) would explode. Dont try it, youll go insane and start randomly quoting things from places in Afghanistan or something. --The Corsair. 09:39, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia seems to be much like Unseen University. Enter the Library, if you dare... --Jollyroger 14:07, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Template talk:Europe#This and similar templates' names

More voices, please, in this dicussion that currently only has three!  Thanks, David Kernow (talk) 23:11, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Drizz't do'Urden Entry has been vandalized

The subject pretty much says it all. I'm not registered on Wiki, so I can't do anything, but maybe one of you could — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.56.211.142 (talk • contribs)

I reverted Drizzt Do'Urden to its previous version. (You should have been able to do that I think.) That user has vandalized the page three times today, so an Admin might want to look into some sort of blocking. —Wrathchild (talk) 19:35, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

admin

how exactly do you become an admin, and are there any other ranks available?

You have to pass a confirmation at Requests for Adminship. And there are some other ranks, but they just possess certain job-specific abilities beyond normal admins, like Wikipedia:Checkusers, who can test to see if different accounts are run by the same IP. The highest attainable rank is God-king, but there can only be one of those at any given time. --tjstrf Now on editor review! 16:52, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia on TV

I saw a commercial for Cisco that used a screenshot of Wikipedia on a laptop for a few seconds. Pretty cool.--G1076 06:22, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

morsels

what are morsels i need to know in about 7 minutes. ok

Why not look it up in Wikipedia or Wiktionary, or ask at the Reference desk? --J.L.W.S. The Special One 09:42, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
"Morsels" are a kind of edible bivalve (like clams or oysters) that fasten themselves tightly in place with an "abyssal thread." I. M. Pei is a famous source of "PEI morsels." A famous folk song tells of an Irishwoman who used to sell "cockroaches and morsels alive, alive-O" from a wheelbarrow. "Morsel" can also mean an ordinary human being who will die eventually (as opposed to a god or goddess who will live forever).
Isn't that a "mortal"? *Dan T.* 19:16, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
I'd call it an extended joke. Durova 01:29, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Information concerning tax leins

I am a layman in terms of how tax liens work; I am interested in finding out if I can purchase property through a tax lien that has ben taken by a county. I was told by some outside sources, that if the property in question had a lien put on it that the property was no longer by right the original owners. Is this so? I am very confused about how this whole process works and would love some insight into how the process works. I have found numerous properties that are sitting in a county lien and if I pay off the lien does it revert to the original owner, or can i get the property from the county? PLEASE HELP ME Im not at all familiar with how this works- if anyone can help I'd sincerely appreciate it- Martina — Preceding unsigned comment added by Martina1974 (talk • contribs) 14:42, 21 October 2006

First: Sign your comments with four tilde characters like this: ~~~~
Second: This isn't the right place for your questions. You might try seeing if the Tax lien article answers your question, and if not, you might ask on the Talk:Tax lien page, but only if your question is relevant to contributing to an article. Other than that, I suggest looking for a web forum in which you can talk about it. Wikipedia isn't a forum; it's a place to create encyclopedia articles. =Axlq 00:56, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
reference desk answers questions though. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 03:04, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Cross-pollenation with ODP?

I'm not even sure where to go with this.

One of the seeming mantras of Wikipedia:External links and WP:SPAM is "Wikipedia is not a web directory" and that such links should be sent to a site that wants them, such as the Open Directory Project.

Someone suggested perhaps a template to request links be moved out to ODP might be useful (see: Wikipedia talk:External links/workshop#Wikipedia is not a web directory). There are a number of Wikipedians who contribute to the Open Directory Project who might be able to help out.

I mentioned this on the internal editor forums, and one of the ODP Administrators responded, in part:

If the Wikipedians would follow this suggestion, then, you're right, it would be very important to have a project whose participants do the ODP-side coordinating and support. Which might very well mean not only editing and creating cat[egories], but planning and setting up workflows or tools to collect the links or the suggestions for new categories at Wikipedia, channel them over into ODP and process them. It would be complete waste of volunteer energy if the Wikipedians delete good links that are already sorted and maybe even described en masse, while we´ve to track down the same links to add good resources to ODP!

She then goes on to anoint me as the point-man to "negotiate with the Wikipedians".

So, okay, where do I go from here? Does this need to go to the Admins? Higher? Can it be run as a WikiProject?

—Wrathchild (talk) 18:06, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm cofused as to just what, exactly, the Wikipedians would be doing with this. I take it that ODP's purpose is to attempt to list and categorize websites, and that the two projects could interact in situations where a Wikipedia article is overburdned with links. Such links are (hopefully) related in some way to the article's subject, therefore the links could be deleted from the Wikipedia article, copied to ODP, and replaced with a link to the appropriate category on ODP. Meanwhile, ODP would find in Wikipedia a wonderful source of pre-categorized links that would make their job much easier. Ok, so... where do we (those of us who have never heard of ODP before) come in? What is there for us to do that we aren't already doing (deleting extraneous external links in articles)? I'm not sure what needs to be "negotiated". ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 18:25, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
I'm not entirely sure myself. Yes, ODP's purpose is to build the most comprehensive human-edited directory and give it away. [8] I see two problems: Articles here often attract external links that aren't wanted here. They may very well be wanted by ODP, but unless the person who removes them submits them to the ODP suggestion pool, they're effectively just gone. I'd like to be able to capture those. How? I'm not sure.
The other problem I see is that there are a lot of articles here that would benefit from a link to the relevant ODP category (to siphon off the linkspam and, I hope, provide a categorized topical links) and a lot of ODP categories that would benefit from a link to a Wikipedia article.
I'm just not sure how to proceed. Should I start a WikiProject? Do any "higher ups" need to be involved? If a bunch of ODP editors start systematically adding links to ODP categories (and adding Wikipedia articles to ODP) while adhering to the guidelines of both projects, will that ruffle some feathers? Maybe I'm just looking to find out what my next step should be. —Wrathchild (talk) 16:05, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
A WikiProject sounds like a good idea. Maybe also adding a comment to WP:EL to the effect that unwanted external links should be removed to ODP and replaced with a link to ODP and to contact your wikiproject for assistance. ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 16:15, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
An effort to tighten up WP:EL is already underway. See: [[9]] —Wrathchild (talk) 16:35, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Forbes using Wikipedia without attribution

Forbes: "The company began in 1997 as a spin-off of Enron's pipeline operations, and now employs many former Enron employees, including former whistleblower Jordan Mintz."

Wikipeidia: "The company began in 1997 as a spinoff of some assets of Enron, and now employs many former Enron employees, including former Enron whistleblower Jordan Mintz."

With the exception of the bolded, the text is identical. As you can see in the history, Wikipedia's text predates the article by about a month. At the very least this is hilarious. Is there any chance that this violates the GFDL? savidan(talk) (e@) 03:29, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Quoting of that small a portion isn't likely to be considered beyond fair use: they didn't even use a full sentence. It'd get you in trouble for plagarism in a college class, but it's not going to win in court. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 04:15, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
Why do you see the speck in your neighbor's eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? There is a page on the web that lists dozens of Wikipedia articles that were, in whole or in part, plagiarized from previously-existing sources. The plagiarized content is highlighted, and the previous source is linked. Unfortunately, this site is on Wikipedia's spam blacklist, so I cannot tell you where to find it. 68.93.140.47 17:50, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
If it's plagiarism feel free to remove it or list it as a copyright violation. I've done that numerous times myself. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 10:15, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Bias

There seems to be an anti-Christian bias in multiple locations of Wikipedia (and Meta). It pains me to see defamation of God.

May we take it easy on making statements that may cause religious offense? At least poke fun at paganism, atheism, and the like if these hurtful jokes (and NPOV disputes) continue to exist. --Gray PorpoisePhocoenidae, not Delphinidae 23:13, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

May we realize that Wikipedia is not censored? User:Zoe|(talk) 02:03, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
I do not want to trivialize your feelings, but these seem very mild to me. They have jokes of this level on The Simpsons. Also, not every mention of "god" necessarily means the god of the Christians. Only the first and third quotations specifically mention something about Christianity, and there are a lot of other religions out there. -- Kjkolb 05:31, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
I'm willing to wager many of the people writing these jokes are themselves Christians. It's humour. Many common types of humour offend some people, and some (like dead baby jokes) offend many people. Deco 06:56, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Dude don't get so upset. God does have a sense of humour.A7X 900 23:20, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Just try to roll with it. Just try to remember it's all in the sense of humour.--Lord of Illusions 17:55, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Except for the last example. The NPOV warning on God is there for a reason (I assume, not having read that article), and is probably not meant to be humour. Can you be more specific why you are offended by that? If it's because you think that that article should be described from a theistic/Christian POV only, that would be in violation of the NPOV policy. If you think the article is NPOV already, you may want to argue that on Talk:God. If you think the text of the NPOV notice is offensive, you can propose a better text on Talk:God as well. Eugène van der Pijll 14:50, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Oh man I miss spelled sence....A7X 900 20:54, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Linking to Wiktionary

Is it possible to link a word in a Wikipedia article to the corresponding word in Wiktionary (assuming, of course, it does exist there). (The idea is to allow the reader to make a quick check on an unusual word.) If this is possible, what is the exact syntax of the expression to be used? Honti 12:55, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

The linking shortcut should be d:like this. It doesn't seem to be working for some reason... the others work

--Rayc 15:14, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Look up archive o in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Giant section edit buttons

Please put the section edit buttons at the right-hand edge again, and in regular type - not bold. It's not like people are shy about editing! --Wtshymanski 16:51, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Problems with the usage of sub-categories of Category:Biota by country

I am trying to get a discussion going on the Flora of <region>/Fauna of <region>/Biota of <region> categories.

Please see Category talk:Biota by country, and add talk there GameKeeper 14:13, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

failed home delivery?

does anyone know of a supermarket/grocer that operated a traditional bricks and mortar store but during the dot.com period launch a home delivery service that subsequently failed? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.158.169.201 (talk • contribs) .

You'd better try Wikipedia's Reference Desk. They specialize in knowledge questions, and will try to answer any question in the universe. Garion96 (talk) 22:40, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
Publix tried --plange 04:20, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Paper

I am doing a paper for my English 1301 Class, and I have to have an interview. What a better place than to go to the source. So plese if you could help me out answer the questions below.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.185.81.231 (talk • contribs)

This person also posted this (along with their questions) at Wikipedia:Village pump (assistance)#Please fill out the questions about Wikipedia to help me on my College paper about Wikipedia. ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 19:45, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

a wikipedia song!

This ditty [10], consisting of somebody singing the word "wikipedia" over and over and over, above an amateurish keyboard arrangement, was submitted to Salon.com as part of a song search. It is ... well ... not as awful as it could be. - DavidWBrooks 16:12, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Close though.... :) Garion96 (talk) 16:27, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

"Mistaken Identity"

I reverted a big addition of copyright-violating material by User:ExplorerCDT a few months ago, (though I had to go back a year and a half to track down the version that predated his introduction of violating material), but he wasn't around at the time (no edits in months) so I didn't bother leaving him a message. Just recently I noticed that he had returned and left a note on his talk page about the trouble that it causes to clean up additions of copyrighted material [11]. He removed the note without response, claiming in his edit summary that it was a mistaken identity [12]. I've asked him a couple[13][14] times for further explanation of how such a thing is possible, but each time he has reverted my comments off his talk page without response[15][16] beyond claiming that it's mistaken identity.

This seems like pretty egregious behavior to me and not a proper response at all, but maybe I'm not seeing something. Is it even possible to have mistaken identity on wikipedia? Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 13:53, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

I've responded on talk. Durova 15:35, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Etiquette for Non-Wikipedia Projects

I am a co-founder of ValueWiki.com. Our project goal is to someday cover all 50,000 U.S. stocks and funds with NPOV research. This is a big task so naturally I want to get the word out to as many Wikipedians as I can. But I don't know how. I like my internet Karma and don't want to become a link-spammer! Are there appropriate forums for letting wiki-people know about non-Wikipedia projects?

I did list ValueWiki on http://www.wikiindex.org and http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Sites_using_MediaWiki/en, but haven't exactly been hit with a deluge of response. I imagine there must be plenty of investment-minded Wikipedians who would be interested in this project. Is there an appropriate way to reach out to wiki-literate people and spread the word without joining the dark side of link-spammers and link-baiters? I have been scratching my head for weeks on this. Thanks to all for advice Jonathan Stokes 08:38, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Any response at all would be appreciated...  :) Jonathan Stokes 18:07, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

You might want to read this. It's probably best to avoid using Wikipedia to promote your site. Try other websites that accept link exchanges etc. If your site does become large and well known, other people would probably link to it. Tra (Talk) 19:03, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Request for audio pronunciation?

Is there such a page? If there isn't one, would there be any objections to creating it?

lots of issues | leave me a message 00:25, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Rokushakubo or Bo-Staff

Does anybody know how to make a telescopic bo staff (metal, aluminum preferably) that telescopes from 1 ft. to 6ft, with it coming out from the center? It can be tapered like most regular bo staffs ut not hat drastic like those toy lightsabers, those look fake. It also needs to be strong enough to be used just like any other bo and not break. Is this possible? If so please tell me how or where I can buy one.


Signed, Batterup91111

No clue, however you could try asking at the Wikipedia:Reference desk, or possibly Wikipedia:WikiProject martial arts if you wished to speak to editors specifically knowledgable in the subject and the reference desk did not provide a usable answer. --tjstrf 18:26, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
I tried to talk at WikiProject martial arts, but when I click on the discussion link at the top of the page all I see is just the martial arts project page. Help would be nice.

Signed, Batterup91111

maritime navegation.

looking for a site related to maritime navigation information. any help in my quest will deeply appreciated..

eureka

Try asking at the WP:Reference Desk. ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 18:47, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Linkspammer trying to negotiate in good faith - how to proceed?

I and others have been reverting the gettingtogradschool.com linkspam from these articles: Master of Business Administration, Business schools, Graduate Management Admission Test, Juris doctor, Law degree, and Law School Admission Test. All were spammed by the same user or sockpuppets. I reverted them all, added warnings to User talk:75.28.143.183, who acknowledged the warnings and stopped spamming... for a while.

Confirmed sockpuppets User:Jbanderson949 and User:MikeWill949, and suspected sockpuppet User:Bspear, all added the same link to various articles, and all those accounts seemed to be created for that purpose. They haven't made edits since my last mass of reversions.

Now he's engaging in conversation from a different IP address (User:71.107.251.124), trying to negotiate a way to include his site in the article. I outed him as the operator of the web site, and he admitted it on the GMAT talk page. At least this time he's now making actual contributions to the article, unlike before.

He wants to modify his site so that it would be acceptable to include a link to it. I'm not sure what to say. It seems like a gray area: on one hand, his site is a potentially useful reference and he's willing to make it more so; on the other hand, many other sites are also useful references and allowing one may invite a flood. I have to admit, his site may have relevance to the LSAT and GMAT articles among all the ones he spammed.

I don't really want to be the only other party in this conversation, and I don't want to start a reversion war. How to proceed? Should I bother starting a RFC on a talk page that few people seem to look at? Can somebody weigh in on the GMAT talk page? I'm still a relatively new user here, and I suspect this reforming linkspammer is even newer. Thanks for any advice. =Axlq 19:51, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

His site doesn't seem to be anything more than a shell designed to sell his product (study materials for the tests). Other than the links to his product, he has a (short) list of tutoring companies ripped from Google, a list of essays pulled from Answers.com, etc. He's essentially a marketer who just put a (very good looking) website to sell his product and is now trying to promote his site as something that it's not. In my opinion. Banaticus 20:06, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Hello all! This is Mike Williams (the one who kept spamming), please allow me to explain! I came across wikipedia and discovered ANYONE could edit the text, not understanding the necessary process and the method behind what should be posted, I instantly began posting my site everywhere (thinking it was okay). I was mind boggled when I came the next day only to find one of my four postings gone, so naturally I added it back in, thinking some other guy took it down. About a week later, I started noticing the warning letters and researched wikipedia more and now understand... since then I have been adding content to the site and stopped spamming! The tutor directory is not a google rip-off, it is unique, people have contacted me requesting they be added. I do sell 1 book that happens to be the most popular book for GMAT and don't even make enough form it to run the site. Like I said before, I am willing to change the site to have it complement wikipedia, any suggestions you have I will be more than happy to take into account. Everyone says there are a million sites just like www.gettingtogradschool.com out there... truth is, there is not; most sites are designed to sell their service or their book, I only offer it to help people! I am a recent GMAT test taker and in the interview process now, I know how hard it is to find valuable info (all in one site) that is why I created the site. Please don't look at the site like a spam site designed to sell, (honestly, I will stop selling the book if you want) I am here to provide info and help people; that is why I believe the site should be allowed! Thanks for listening to me run on with my explanation! If you have any questions feel free to email me info@gettingtogradschool.com! 75.31.68.219 15:08, 7 October 2006 (UTC)(my real IP address)

Oppose. I don't know about the rest of you, but I have always felt that if a site is to be linked to from wikipedia, it should be suggested by someone other than the owner (or employee) of the site in question. Doesn't this fall under the same rule as "don't write about your own company or the company you work for - if your company is well known, someone will write an article on it." This type of behavior is treading dangerously close to spam. Or maybe it is simply "Treet". or something. i think. Awhit003 08:52, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
Oppose. At the top of the article creation page it says "Promotional articles about yourself, your friends, your company or products; or articles created as part of a marketing or promotional campaign, may be deleted in accordance with our deletion policies." The issue is whether the link is self-promotion, not whether it is financially-successful self-promotion. It is linkspam whether or not a site directly sells anything, if the apparent purpose of the link is to promote the site. Any site that has four "Ads by Goooooogle" at the top of the home page, above the page title, certainly looks spammy to me.
Mike Williams, please re-read the section of the spam policy called How not to be a spammer if you want to know how to make contributions Wikipedians will appreciate.
I've looked to see what "content" has been added to your site; I was going to suggest adding links directly to pages on your site that a) have obviously encyclopedic content, that b) is specifically relevant to the article to which they are added, and c) have a large quantity of encyclopedic information and relatively little advertising.... but I couldn't find anything. I clicked on "GMAT Study Material," for example, and was instantly confronted with an item for sale and an "Add to Cart" button. Dpbsmith (talk) 10:19, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

I know I know... I said before, I will not sell anything if that is what you wish! The only producuts I sell is the number one book GMAT book test takers love (which I make $2 from each sale) and a booklet that replicates what GMAT test takers will see on test day (no one else offers this booklet, otherwise I would not be selling it). My number one goal is to be an informational site, if you want me to take down the google ads (which barly pay for the hosting) I will! I will do what it takes to stay on track and follow what this site is designed for... to help others! Please let me know what I need to add or remove to stay a link on the GMAT page. I am not here to sell or SPAM; I willing to work with you guys and will take your feedback and fix anything I need to! The site is not here to make money, just break even would be nice!! Thanks! 75.31.68.219 10:56, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Abstain (because I started this conversation here). Mike Williams, why are you so hot to have Wikipedia link to your site if all you want to do is provide helpful information and you're willing to cut out all commercial content? You can do that in the article itself! If you really want to be helpful, then add helpful content.If your motivation for setting up your site is as altruistic as you say, and you're so anxious to have the article link to your content, then why bother running your site? Put your content in the article. Because of your burning desire to have a link to your site, I suspect your motivation isn't what you're portraying it to be. The point here is, the link is self-promotion; it doesn't matter whether it's commercial or not. =Axlq 15:23, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

The reason is beacuse I want to be the one behind a creation that helps people get where they need to be. I have no problem posting the information directly into the articles itself, I just feel the website has so much more. I have work very hard developing a directory of private tutors (which I DO NOT charge them) and stats about GMAT and MBA's, I have all kinds of tips (which I am having someone from a top MBA program rewrite to be more accurate). I just want to run a website that gets a lot of hits in turn making me feel like I am really helping people. The reason behind my "burning desire" is that I get a fair amount of traffic from wikipedia and just LOVE the fact people are coming to a webpage I build and I am helping them. 75.31.68.219 19:05, 8 October 2006 (UTC)


Proposal: Axlq allows the link to be in the external links section and if that causes a "flood of links" or other people trying to add their links as well I will remove the link! Also if anyone complains about it or has any negitive comments about the site, I will also remove it! I think that is fair and as long as the viewers like it and it is not cause others to think it is okay to provide links causing a flood. What do you say? Also, if you guys (and gals) want, I will add the content from my page directly into the article where I can. There are a lot of pages and info that would not fit in anywhere on the article, but I will add the revelent info. (I am having the text edited and rewritten, so when that is done I will post). Thanks!! 75.31.68.219 15:34, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

No. Your link is appropriate nowhere in this encyclopedia (neither would be most of your content as far as I can tell, as Wikipedia is not a how-to guide). No amount of bargaining will change this. Femto 17:37, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Who are you and where did you come from? I suggest you look at the site first, it is not a "how-to" it is an informational site. The site does not explain "how-to" do anything, it simply provides information regarding the subject on hand GMAT. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 75.31.68.219 (talk • contribs) .

I'm Femto and I'm from Europe. And like Dpbsmith above I looked at the site and found nothing that would be appropriate to link to under Wikipedia's encyclopedic standards. That some websites "provide useful information" is not a reason to link to them from the articles. Femto 20:44, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
Stays.
Just let the link stay and lets see what happens. I just looked at it and there is only one small section that sells stuff and it only sells 2 items. The site has useful content and does not pose a threat I see.

137.151.174.128 19:21, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

I didn't take the time to read this section, nor did I go to the link, but I believe that whether a link should stay or go should depend on the amount of ads/selling, the value of the material to the WP article, and what other links are available with the same or similar info that would work better. Leon7 20:35, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
I looked over the site and added it to the article. The site looks nice, it gives info and seems to be in complement. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.164.198.18 (talk • contribs) 09:05, 2006-10-16.
Link Belongs.

I find it rather funny how much discussion is here regarding this site, and if it should be here or not. Bottom line, the site is well designed and has useful information. I agree with above, it belongs in the external links. 137.151.174.128 22:46, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Selective archiving of discussion page

I came across a Wikipedia discussion page stating that September 2006 to October 2006 comments have been archived. But the current page appears to have retained some topics (sections) for which the most recent comments pre-date other sections (topics) that have been archived. Can the archiving process be applied selectively to individual sections/topics being discussed? Wwhitlam 11:42, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I often archive the German noticeboard talk page selectively if older topics contain unanswered questions or suggestions or a list of useful links that should be retained. As long as this is not done with the intent to hide things, but in good faith in order to keep the talk page usable and to unclutter it of old and stale discussion, I don't see a problem with it. Kusma (討論) 11:46, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Living People Patrol

So, there was all of this sound and fury last month setting up Wikipedia:Living People Patrol, but it seems moribund. In the last 10 days, I've brought two new issues to Wikipedia talk:Living People Patrol; no one else has brought any, nor has anyone responded to mine.

Has the action on this gone elsewhere? If so, would someone please let me know on my user talk page? - Jmabel | Talk 00:50, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Wash uffitze drive me to firenze?

What does "Wash uffitze drive me to firenze" mean?

Doesn't mean much, but "Firenze" is the Italian name of the city we know as Florence. - Jmabel | Talk 00:52, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Image:Night_view_of_Taipei_City.jpg

Hi. Not knowing where I should put this issue in Village pump, so I write it here. As you can see in the file history, the image is been moved to commons as GFDL image. If I remember it correctly, it's been tagged as GFDL image by the original uploader in en.wp before it's been uploaded to commons. However, I've been contacted by the original creator (Jerome Chen) of the image saying that the image now exists on commons is violating his copyright requirements because:

  1. It's been tagged as GFDL image.
  2. His name and e-mail address are been removed from the image.
  3. The image is been cropped.

His copyright requirements are as follows:

  1. His name and his e-mail address must not be removed from the image.
  2. Any redistributions or derived works from the image must get the permission from him.
  3. He does not wish to release the image in GFDL, which means he wishes to keep the copyright.

He said the original uploader of the image in en.wp did get his permission to upload the image because he thinks it's good to let people know Taipei through his image in Wikipedia. However the original uploader had tagged a wrong license and he does not wish the image to be released in GFDL. And after the image is been moved to commons, the image is been cropped and his name/e-mail is been removed from the image.

From his claims, I think his requirement for the image does not qualify the license requirement in commons, so I have nominated the image for deletion in commons. But now there is a question: should I upload the image back to en.wp? Does the requirement from the image creator qualify the license requirement of en.wp? If it's OK to upload the original image back, which license tag should I use?

And, the image is been used with some articles on en.wp already. Should we just remove the links to the image if the image cannot be kept on en.wp? Any other steps we should take for this situation?

Please advice, thanks. And please move this issue to where it should be if you think its not proper to discuss here.--H.T. Chien / 眼鏡虎 (Discuss|Contributions) 15:30, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

I can't answer all your questions, but I would guess that if you upload the original image back you upload it under a fair use tag. If the image is not kept on en.wp then, yes, remove the links. ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 14:16, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Admin inappropraitely reverting on Hume and Hovell Expedition discussion page

Can someone discourage the above. This admin is just making up excuses to revert content and very very very very very certainly has shown no indication of good faith the last several days.

Can admins who just want to go around doing this stuff have their tools confiscated as they seem to want to use them to demonstate they can use them rather than for any valid reason.

I reverted back my own comment which you had deleted. Sarah Ewart (Talk) 11:10, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
For anyone reading, this user is the subject of Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Gundagai editor and the subsequent RfArb. Sarah Ewart (Talk) 11:17, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
You may not delete comments from other editors on discussion pages. User:Zoe|(talk) 21:11, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

I noticed just now that the "edit" link appears above the section title--which appears rather ugly--instead of to the right. Did someone recently change the software code? Peter O. (Talk) 00:17, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

I realize that I apparently have to add ".editsection{float:right;margin-left:5px;}" to the CSS file since that style no longer appears in the HTML source, but still... Peter O. (Talk) 00:21, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Change in behavior of search page

I noticed that (today apparently) the behavior of the search page changed for results that returned zero hits. The change is that now, the links to the search engines with the same search terms consist only of hyperlinks. Formerly, the behavior was to return a text box that pointed to Google, and another text box that pointed to Yahoo.

I actually preferred the former behavior, because it included a radio button that allowed you to restrict the context to only wikipedia (instead of the entire web). The new behavior defaults to the entire web.

I know its easy to do the former behavior individually by hand, but is there a way to accomodate the former behavior directly from the search page, like it used to be? Dreftymac 20:07, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

UPDATE Apparently I was incorrect, there was no change, just a different page. One page (the oen with the input boxes) reads: There was a problem with your search. This is probably temporary; try again ... ; The other page reads No results found. For help on searching within Wikipedia, please see Wikipedia:Searching. ... so apparently, the first page represents what happens when there is an internal server error or something else affecting wikipedia. Dreftymac 20:25, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

fun fact

searching "according to wikipedia" on google news returns 171 articles :) most of them from reputable sources (and who knows how many more without the exact syntax 'according to wikipedia' but the same meaning exist) --fs 23:44, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Titles Of All Articles

Aren't the first letter of every word in a title supposed to be capitalized? So why aren't the first letters of all the words in Wikipedia articles capitalized? That would mean the section headings too. And then there's the template that says, i.e.: iPod, the first letter of the article is specifically supposed to be uncapitalized. It teaches the reader how to write iPod, but then none of the articles have a lineatthetop to say [something like] how you're supposed to capitalize the word, when you should, when you shouldn't, i.e.: if it is the first word of a sentence of in a title, or if it compounded into a name, and never in all other circumstances. What's the deal?198.166.59.152 08:15, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Please do not multipost. Only solicit replies in one location to avoid fragmentation of discussion. Post any further replies to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Titles Of All Articles. Deco 22:16, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia Signpost on the front page?

I would like to propose that {{Signpost-subscription|right}} be added to {{WikipediaOther}} so that we see the following on the front page:

Other areas of Wikipedia

The Signpost
12 December 2024
  • Help desk — Ask questions about using Wikipedia.
  • Reference desk — Serving as virtual librarians, Wikipedia volunteers tackle your questions on a wide range of subjects.
  • Village pump — For discussions about Wikipedia itself, including areas for technical issues and policies.
  • Community portal — Bulletin board, projects, resources and activities covering a wide range of Wikipedia areas.
  • Site news — Announcements, updates, articles and press releases on Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation.


A more prominent display of Wikipedia Signpost will only serve to highlight the fact that Wikipedia has a vibrant and active community to outsiders on their first visits. i.e. The Signpost box is much more dynamic than a static Wikipedia:Community Portal link --  Netsnipe  ►  13:21, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

My personal opinion is that perhaps a link might work if consensus is that it should be added. I don't think the box is main-page material, particularly given the tongue-in-cheek way articles can be written. Ral315 (talk) 07:54, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Anon from Gundagai

I have removed comments I did not post here --Golden Wattle talk 10:36, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

I have removed comments I did not post here --Golden Wattle talk 10:36, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

...and to add to that, the anon has been made aware of the RfC at every opportunity, in block messages and at their many talk pages. We're just being played for fools whilst they sit back and joke at the disruption caused. -- Longhair\talk 11:06, 8 October 2006 (UTC) I have not called anyone names or endorsed any name calling. Personal attacks and assumptions of bad faith are taking place on both sides here. I have read every one of the talk pages and block logs listed for this IP at the RfC and have not seen an invitation to the RfC at any of them. The IP did respond immediately at RfC when I recommended it and that response got reverted via popups. Popups were also used to delete this IP's posts to the article talk page and to the Village Pump. Another uninvolved editor who responded to the Village Pump appeal even complained that posts to their user talk page got deleted. Many of those popup deletions do meet Wikipedia's definition of vandalism. To my eyes that looks like a backdoor attempt at a community ban. I certainly would have preferred if the other editors had tried to open formal mediation. Unless I've missed something, I haven't seen a Wikiquette alert, a third opinion request, or an article request for comment. If my reading is correct, an arbitration request was made instead and got turned down as premature. If the waters hadn't been muddied here I'd suggest a community topic ban through WP:DE, but this is the most aggressive overuse of popups I've ever seen. The standard solution to unsigned talk page comments is to flag the comments as unsigned, not to delete them. That gagging may well have provoked statements of frustration. This person has trouble expressing himself or herself perhaps because English is a second language or because of some disability, and I think those circumstances require me to assume good faith. A further reason I extend good faith to this editor is that ABC News certainly satisfies WP:RS while the arguments other editors have given for deleting that citation violate WP:V. Please lead by example when encouraging others to respect site policies: tone down the popups to standard levels so that they revert only obvious problems such as obscenities and breaching experiments and let the IP know on the article talk pages. Go ahead and open that request for mediation - the worst that could happen is that they refuse to join. Perhaps the community will decide to ban this user and if that happens then wholesale reversion would be appropriate, but not until then. Respectfully, Durova 15:14, 8 October 2006 (UTC)"

Erm...why has my comment from my own user talk page been reposted here twice? Durova 06:14, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Trying to spread another Wiki - Debatus.com

The Debatus debate wiki team is searching for bigger and better ways to spread the Debatus idea. Obviously, we want to reveal this idea to existing wiki users. Yet, we are not totally aware of how to do this. We have not found Meatball wiki to be particularly helpful yet. Any other advise? 20:39, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

"How can I find bigger and better ways to advertise my new wiki site? I know! I'll put it right near the top at the village pump at wikipedia, under the premise that I'm looking for help!" Don't spam wikipedia: it's not your billboard. -Monk of the highest order 01:14, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Age profiling

Are there any statistics for what the median age of the average wikipedian contributor is? Or related results? Or guess-estimated results? Or general results/opinion/guesses about the average age of a wikipedian contributor/reader/anon-contributor? TIA. -- -- mowgli 20:28, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

In what subject area? The age of the editors in a given area of Wikipedia will obviously vary based on who is interested in that subject. --tjstrf Now on editor review! 20:39, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Age profiling - a good idea indeed! I do not think we have any such data. We should try a sample survey to begin with as complete data may not be possible. --Bhadani 02:36, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
Category:Wikipedians by year of birth and its subcategories might be useful, although it will only show wikipedians who have chosen to put the relevent category on their user page. Tra (Talk) 02:55, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
I've had a look through the above category and out of 444 users, the mean age of a Wikipedian is 23 and the median age is 21. Of course, you will need to bear in mind that this only looks at the people who are aware of these categories and are willing to include themselves in them. Tra (Talk) 03:43, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
23? Then I'm wiser than the average Wikipedian by a factor of 2. I wonder what profile the average admin has. I've seen admins as young as 18. =Axlq 22:09, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
Using the same data, I can see that admins have a mean age of 20 and a median age of 19. Bear in mind, however, that this is very unreliable because only 21 admins have added themselves to these categories. Tra (Talk) 22:33, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
Well, I just helped bump the admin age up, as I just put Category:Wikipedians born in 1967 on my page... --plange 22:39, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
Adding in your age brings the mean to 21 and the median to 19.5, showing how easily one person can affect the results with so little data. Tra (Talk) 23:57, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

I have just put myself in Category:Wikipedians born in 1939 and then discovered that I am the only entry for all the categories of the 1930s. Does that make me the oldest Wikipedian? I do not think so. We need more data. --Bduke 23:05, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

The problem is that not everyone will be willing to give their age, maybe for privacy reasons. There might be some editors who put their age on their user page, but this will be hard to analyse because it will involve manually reading through each person's user page. Looking through a category is much easier, but not everyone will have added themself to it. Tra (Talk) 23:57, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
Plus its not exactly encouraged that under 13s should give their age I guess. Judging from the content and quality of writing an awful lot of this encyclopedia is written by pretentious 13 year olds.

Creating an intermedary local nonprofit charitable org.?

Is it possible for a person who cares enough about their fellow beings to inquire at this time if there is any other people out there who have some recommendations and/or useful feedback which will expedite the process???... I have an abundance of mental focus and ability and, i daresay, a fair degree of intelligence, spiritual E, and even ingenium. At 43 I have seen my share of poverty and strife and endured my share of hardships... This is no dire soliloqouy meant to elicit a tear, but rather to attune the respondent(be there some) to the fact that i have overcome much and have alway studied long and hard in and out of school.

Being primarily of Mahayanic Buddhist persuasion and now a practising Taoist Tai Chi student, I have come a place where i feel that serving those who are in need of assisstance in this City (Winnipeg, CANADA),is one of ways i can express my compassion...

My thinking is that i may in time be able , as i have no capital, and as yet, no means of producing same, i might establish a service based on obvious need..... it could be charitable non profit, or it might simply be non profit, which i define a service which covers costs of minimal materials and is proportional to the income of the client....

The disabled, homeless, social assisstance, street, community health org., MIGHT want service to some of the following:

  1. library
  2. governmental
  3. literacy
  4. housing
  5. job search
  6. computer skills
  7. financial
  8. drug addiction referral

These are just off the cuff... If anyone has any ideas on how i might streamline the proceedure(s) govmntl. or otherwize please contact me... i could use all the assisstance with this as i am trying to overcome one final hurdle myself: (partial physical disability)

Kornukopea1 20:40, 3 November 2006 (UTC)]

You obviously mean well, but this post really belongs on a forum or blog, not Wikipedia. Sorry. --Doc Tropics Message in a bottle 22:24, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

68.40.190.58's vandalism

Please note that this user has been blocked so many times but returns quickly after they expire. I want to know what we're waiting for before this user can be blocked indefinitely. I'm getting tired of waiting for this vandal to come back. Any suggestions?? Georgia guy 17:10, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Page deleted for unknown reason

I'm not sure where to post this, so if it's wrong please tell me. The Nowhere-Else and Beyond Wikipedia page seems to keep disappearing! How can I find out why it was deleted? There seems to be absolutely no sign of it anywhere anymore and I'm getting a bit frustrated... Garth of NEaB 13:13, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

If you're looking for Nowhere-Else and Beyond, its deletion log is here. Please contact the deleting admin for specifics. Thanks. -- JLaTondre 13:25, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
For what it's worth I see no citation of a criterion for speedy deletion here. We can't just delete things that seem non-notable on sight. Please exercise discretion. Deco 11:41, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
It was moved to the user space at User:NEaB/Nowhere-Else and Beyond and then the redirect that was created by the page move was deleted. RJFJR 16:37, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Corpses of the executed nazis convicted in Nuremberg

I didn't know where to put this as this "problem" is not about one particular image or article, but almost all articles about the nazi officials executed in Nuremberg. What I don't like is that these articles, in addition to a more or less detailed description of the execution and a normal image of the person in question, also contain an image (photo) of the corpse [of the executed], taken right after the execution. Now I fully understand that Wikipedia is not censored for minors, but I really don't see the benefit of having graphic (sometimes a bit gruesome, eg. I cannot decide if this one is bleeding or what happened to his eyes) images displayed in these articles. Analysing this from the viewpoint of an average reader: I think most of the readers clicking @ the name of Wilhelm Frick (and others) look for information about the role they played in the development [and genocides, etc.] of the Third Reich, general info about these people's backgrounds and about the circumstances leading to their executions and only a minority of them find details of the execution itself really interesting. On the other hand, some of these readers may be offended by these images as there are no warnings above them and they are displayed "inline" @ the very first page of these short articles. I think a person looking for images like the one linked above would rather look for them in "more specialized" articles about the topic, like Execution by hanging or in this case an article on The execution of the Nuremberg convicts.

What I propose: I think the people uploading these images should either create a new page about the executions themselves and move these images there (and link this article from the articles of the executed) or replace these images with a link to these images with a warning that makes it clear to everyone that they point to the images of the executed and that some people may find these images "shocking" and it is not particularly recommended for younger children to look at them before going to sleep. :D --Adolar von Csobánka (Talk) 22:41, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

or we could just point out that thier fair use claims suck.Geni 01:26, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
Well, perhaps this can be another way to tackle the problem, but unfortunately I can't really present any reasonable argument against their fair use claim. This legal entity ("fair use provisions") is not applicable to images in the country where I live and I don't know which uses might (or might not) qualify as "fair use". --Adolar von Csobánka (Talk) 18:15, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

You have raised some very interesting points. There is certainly some merit to idea of moving those images to pages that are more spefically appropriate to that content. It seems like an extremely reasonable suggestion, especially since nothing is being removed, just arranged somewhat differently. However, the use of Linkimage would also seem to be supported in the case of such graphic images. Linkimage has been a successful compromise in many other articles and would entail less effort than creating new pages and moving the images. --Doc Tropics Message in a bottle 08:02, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Thinking the whole problem over once again, if no one would help me doing it the specialized page on the topic could only work as a long term solution as I won't have enuff time to do it in the next few weeks [and partly also because currently I lack the knowledge to do it "properly" :-D]. Swaping the [[Image:]] links to {{Linkimage}} templates is a lot easier, but do you think that I can do it without thousands of editors complaining and calling me a "f****ing censor"? (Looking at the previous TFD of the template scared me a little.) --Adolar von Csobánka (Talk) 14:57, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

pictures of dead people/gore isn't going to hurt anyone(maybe make them sick, but oh well). if the people know there is going to be dead people/gore in the page, and they don't want to see it, they won't go to it. end of story. But this is just my opinion.--Kar_the_Everburning 14:48, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

I can't say I understand what you are willing to say. Do you mean that someone clicking at Wilhelm Frick's name would already expect to see his corpse displayed inline in the article? Or do you endorse the "Linkimage" solution and speak in favour of that? --Adolar von Csobánka (Talk) 14:57, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Pictures speak a thousand words. Reading that someone was executed has little or no emotional content to the casual reader. But seeing an image of the condemned person's corpse presents the fact of their execution with such power that one could hardly fail to understand the reality of what has transpired, and that I think is of very real value, especially concerning a subject now 50 years in the past, which to some is like ancient history. I'm not suggesting that, for example, the pages dealing with the Nazi death camps be loaded with hundreds of gruesome images, because that would be to lower the Wiki to the level of a tabloid. But some gruesome images must be on those pages because there is no other way to convey the horror of what occured in those camps. The subject of the article under discussion, Wilhelm Frick, was convicted of crimes against humanity and that I think is of sufficient gravity to outweigh any concerns about the sensitivities of casual readers. Also, I have to say that on my monitor, at least, the picture of the deceased (in-line with the article) is rather small and hardly as shocking as things I've frequently seen in movie ads on TV. Cryptonymius 17:40, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

After reviewing some (but not all) of the articles and images mentioned here, it seems that they are indeed "appropriate" to their articles. However, death, like sex, is a topic that many people are sensitive about. Linkimages are routinely used in sex-related articles to place graphic images where they are available to anyone who clicks the link, but they won't be shocking and disturbing to sensitive readers. This would seem to be a good compromise. --Doc Tropics Message in a bottle 19:21, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

On The Hunt

I am desperately searching for where I can purchase a spice combination named Mei Yen. Tried all types of searches to no avail. Any Chef's here that can help? Thanks. Mareface

Try the Reference Desk. —Mets501 (talk) 04:07, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
Enter "Mei Yen" (in quotes) in your Google search bar and you'll get 14,000+ hits. Happy hunting :) --Doc Tropics Message in a bottle 04:11, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

One-off characters in TV shows

One Wikipedia page I watch (Lazytown) has an "others" section for certain characters. I'm not sure this section is necessary. Should TV shows have a section dedicated to non-recurring characters where those characters only influence the plot of one show, are not notable guest stars, and do nothing to change the overall plot of the show? Kat, Queen of Typos 23:20, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

It doesn't seem necessary or even desireable to detail one-off characters who had no impact. Just look at the mathematics of it:
A = all the TV series ever produced
B = one-off characters per episode
A x B = a massive headache

--Doc Tropics Message in a bottle 07:02, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Ads on Wikipedia

Category:Wikipedians who think that the Wikimedia Foundation should use advertising

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Jeffrey O. Gustafson (talk • contribs) - User:Zoe|(talk) 20:39, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
You trying to destroy Wikipedia? User:Zoe|(talk) 20:39, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
No worries Zoe, this category will be so small you need a microscope to see it. --Doc Tropics Message in a bottle 20:41, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

He's not trying to destroy Wikipedia, he's trying to help it. ...Just in an incredibly misguided fashion that would destroy Wikipedia if implemented. --tjstrf Now on editor review! 20:52, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Ads are for squares. Well if wiki does get ads, i hope they don't get those annoying smiley face things.--Kar_the_Everburning 14:53, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Yeah yeah. See WP:PEREN#Advertising. Deco 11:43, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Dealing with large group of partisan editors

There's been a content dispute on Wikipedia that has been rather frustrating, and I was seeking some advice. I'm not going to mention the specific dispute, because I don't want to openly accuse other editors of acting in bad faith. The longstanding dispute revolves around the article on a very controversial organization. In my opinion, the page has numerous problems of NPOV and balance.

One of the criticisms of the organization is that its members tend to exhibit exteremly excessive zeal in promoting that organization. There are a number of editors (6+) that seem to have a very distinct pattern of editing the article in ways that promote the organization, regularly removing criticism of the organization. The group of editors seem to be single-purpose accounts, and edit mostly pages related to that organization. The group of editors exhibit _extreme_ knowledge about the organization, etc. It seems like a reasonable conclusion that I'm dealing with a group of members of the organization who have come to wikipedia to promote their organizations.

In people who find problems with the current page are a very different group. Every few months, someone shows up at the page and discusses problems with it. Their edits are quickly reverted by the entrenched group, their complaints rebutted, and ultimately, the concerned editors, not particularly interested in the topic in the first place, move on to other pages. As a result, the page stays in its current condition, and the entrenched faction of editors grow more confident in the correctness of their own point of view.

Since my involvement with the page, I've had little luck resolving the situation. I did a rewrite of the page, but I've had no luck getting those changes instituted. It was discussed ad nauseam-- whatever point I say, there are always ten reasons why I'm wrong. I did an RFC, and we got exactly one new comment-- not nearly enough to change anything. I did mediation, but the mediator, for whatever reason, didn't seem to see it my way. Perhaps he was just a little more dedicated to finding peace than to fixing the problems. Or perhaps five voices against one made it an easy choice about who was likely right. Or perhaps the other editors, so knowledgable about their own organization, simply out-talked me. Or perhaps _I_ am wrong on this. At the end of the process, the page is essentially in the same condition, the people who opposed me feel vindicated by the results. I meanwhile find myself in the position of still feelings my concerns are very valid, but being completely unsure of what to do about it?

As I said, one potential answer is that maybe _I_ am the problem-- maybe I am the partisan one, and I just can't see it, and the page has no problems. I tend to be a little skeptical of this, because I had no strong feeling about the organization prior to stumbling upon the page and trying to fix it. But in this case, I don't need to do anything but move on to other things.

But suppose I _am_ right. The page does have problems, the other editors are trying to promote their organization. How do you solve this sort of a problem. Mediation seems more geared to resolving disputes among good-faith editors, rather than protecting content from promotion by editors. The editors that are promooting their organizations aren't doing so in way that is so blantantly inappropriate that I could do a user conduct RFC. And Arbcom cases seem to be only about conduct issues or very well-defined content issues. So what do you do in a case like this?

--Sockpuppetforquestions 10:58, 31 October 2006 (UTC)


Your concerns seem valid. I would suggest making another post, either here or at Village pump (assistance). State your concerns in neutral language, provide a link to the page, and ask other editors to review the situation. Alternatively, if you contact me privately with the info, I'll look into it myself. If a group of editors is owning an article to maintain POV the only way to handle it outside the official process is to bring in a group of neutral editors who can work together to override the POV and balance the article. Good luck. --Doc Tropics Message in a bottle 17:44, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Likewise, I'd have a look. Contact me through my user talk or, if you prefer, by e-mail. Durova 01:29, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

you spelled problems problemsm o.o good job. so i fixed it.--Kar_the_Everburning 14:51, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Samurai or Shamans?

Now here comes another question for you "which were better Samurai or Shamans?". Now please answer truthfully because i need a good opinion(or for laughs). If you want more questions you cam contact me by e-mail or talk.Gogoboi662 11:43, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Is an apple better than an orange? — RJH (talk) 16:29, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm.... Shamans have a giant stick(staff), which if I were a shaman, would beat people silly with it :P And Samurai have katana/dai-katanas, and a wicked looking helmet called a kabuto(see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabuto) So, im gonna have to go with a Samurai on this one, Gogo.--Kar_the_Everburning 15:14, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. — RJH (talk) 17:07, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Samurai, because swords > magic just like swords > guns. --tjstrf Now on editor review! 17:36, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Shamans u guys r all uber n00bs —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Laelius1031 (talk • contribs) .

how to write essay

regarding the logistical operation in offshore platform by supply vessel and hwo to safe mony and time — Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.163.84.1 (talk • contribs) 16:24, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Tool for inline section editing

I hope I'm posting in the right place. I've written a javascript tool that modifies the small edit links that appear at the right of each section header to open the edit form for the section inline (without going to a separate page). The "Show preview" and "Show changes" buttons also work exactly as they would normally. After clicking "edit", the link changes to a cancel button. Clicking "Save page" has the normal result - the entire page reloads with the changes. To try it out, add this to your monobook.js: 

 inc("User:Supadawg/secedit.js");
 inc("User:Supadawg/util.js");
 
 function inc(path) {
   var lt = String.fromCharCode (60);
   var gt = String.fromCharCode(62);
   document.writeln(lt+'script type="text/javascript" src="/w/index.php?title='+path+'&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript&dontcountme=s"'+gt+lt+'/script'+gt);
 }

Leaving out the inc() function if you have it already, of course. It's tested and working on Firefox 1.5, and not working on Internet Explorer 6.0, and only on the English Wikipedia. If you can read javascript, I've tried to comment the code enough to make it understandable, but it's still a little messy. If anyone could give me some feedback, I'd be very grateful. Supadawg (talk ·  contribs) 01:46, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

U.S. Collaboration of the Week

Hello, I am Iuio, a maintainer of the U.S. Collaboration of the Week, a collaboration which seeks to improve the quality of U.S. related articles. We are currently looking for interested users to join us as the collaboration is in danger of becoming inactive, a fate which has sadly befallen many other collaborations in the past. Feel free to join us if you wish to contribute to something which can potentially end up on the Main Page as a featured article (as a few articles treated by this collaboration have been featured articles). (Iuio 07:41, 31 October 2006 (UTC))

Perclose Sutures...

Can anyone give me a bit of help on finding out what "PERCLOSE devices" are made of ? I have an allergy to nickel... .had renal surgery .. no "stents" due to being made of surgical steel,, ,the surgeon said it had nickel in it .I have reacted strongly on nickle when allergy tested,,, He wasn' too comfortable doing it, as I have a nasty latex allergy too. I had to instist he did it, or find another drs. He closed up my feromal artery with "permanant staples" ,he was very cautious & hesitant to answer when I asked what he used... as he had been thinking all the edema was from anxiety.. .when it was from the kidneys arteries closing up. A few more days & they would've failed he said in the O.R., to the intern & nurses. They keep you half awake.

Since that time... I have been reacting intensely to my severe allergies.. even minor ones cause a much stronger reaction. only thing that helps is staying on 100 mgs. of Benadryl a day.. . never was like this before the surgery. I need proof to show the dr. 

as he doesn't know much about

allergic reactions.. If it is a nickel alloy,,, I need to get it replaced with something. I want to be able to live without being so doped up... tired of being sick & tired... exhausted from meds & ER visits,,, all the high doses of Predisone & Benadryl.


thanks for any help anyone can give me... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sweetmameeyes (talk • contribs)

Just go ask what it's made of. If it is nickel, get it replaced by somthing you're not allergic to. If you can't find out what it's made of, do some research. And just in case, ask for any files about your allergy test, if you don't have them already.
and also, I've fixed all your spelling mistakes. I hope I've been of some use to you.  --Kar_the_Everburning 15:10, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Admin abuse

Would someone please advise me on my talk page how I might start the de-admin. process regarding Sarah Ewart? Where is that page? Methodology 22:21, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

If you are having problems with any any editor, please see the advice at Wikipedia:Resolving disputes. Tra (Talk) 23:02, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

A wiki for song lyrics

I don't know if this has been discussed before, but is there a wiki for song lyrics? How would one start a wiki exclusively for song lyrics? Lyrics websites can sometimes be inaccurate. It would be good if there was one authorative site where everybody can go without having to click on annoying pop-ups. One where accuracy, self correction and ease of navigation were more important than making money.

See here. Tra (Talk) 14:50, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

tracking a fact in "split infinitive"

Hi, all. A man I "cyber-know" named Richard Maurer posted in alt.usage.english a link to an 1834 article admonishing against the split infinitive. This is earlier than any date I've seen in books and Web sites on usage that give the history of the prescription against split infinitives. I'm mentioning this not only because I'm happy this find is in Wikipedia, but also in case anyone wants to track Wikipedia's influence. It might be interesting to see how long it takes for the date to show up in other references and whether any of them credit Wikipedia (or Richard). (Of course it doesn't prove anything if they don't—what one person can find, another can too.)

Then again, it might not be interesting to see that. I'm just posting this in case anyone's doing such a study. —JerryFriedman 20:32, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia: the final frontier...to boldly split hairs where no hairs have been split before. Thank you for posting that and putting a smile on my face. Cheers, Durova 01:47, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Image:Bdoglogo.jpg

Hi ! This image seems to have a wrong licence. It can't be a US Federal Governement's work, because it refer to something such a lobby. Could anybody put the right licence (I don't know well what kind of licence is good : Fair Use, maybe ?). Thanks, and sorry for my bad english :) The gorilla 11:20, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Evoting documentary producer weighs in on AfD

There have been a whole slew of AfD nominations lately of articles mentioning 'evoting' irregularities and concerns. Some here have branded any documentation of the issue as 'Conspiracy Theories'. Here is one AfD where the documentary producer of the work nominated, Votergate, chimed in with his own thoughts.

Votergate Producers Thoughts

Interesting reading. - F.A.A.F.A. 08:53, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Its defiantly somethnig I would like others to get involved with as well, not the AfD but the discussion. The producer argues that all documentaries on notable subjects are important enough to be included on Wikipedia. Its an interesting arguement, that deserves some more attention. --NuclearZer0 12:38, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

G.O.A.T

I have an idea for a Special Wikipedia event. The project spens a while trying to guage who is the Greatest User Of All Time

Here's how it would work

  • You would take in nominations for a set period of time (no self noms)
  • Only registered users can vote or be nomed (so i'm out)
  • Once the time period runs out you vote for who is the greatest

Whaddayou think 218.101.117.226 00:38, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

This sounds like a bit of a popularity contest. How would it help build an encyclopedia? Tra (Talk) 01:00, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
User:Jimbo Wales. Contest over. --tjstrf Now on editor review! 01:04, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
Maybe it could work as part of some sort of anniversary celebration, or something. Jimbo probably would win, but I reckon it would be a good way to recognise great users, RickK (talk · contribs) ect.
†he Bread 03:28, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
To the contrary, as much as we all respect Jimbo for his vision, a number of his Decrees (or those to whom he delegated his authority) have been received poorly, such as adding subjective criteria for speedy deletion, disabling anonymous article creation, and deleting Bryan Peppers for a year. Would Jimbo win a popularity contest? Hard to say. Deco 02:03, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
I actually think it would be a good idea, prehaps do it in someone's userspace instead of out in the open, the only way to know who's the best is to vote
†he Bread 02:34, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Paintings by Walter Slezak

O have a painting that I believe was done by Walyer Slezak. Where can I find more of his paintings & compare signatures. Thanks Judy Birchett

Please try the Reference Desk. -- Satori Son 05:54, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Condolences on talk page

Talk:Gerald_Levert now has six messages, all of which are expressions of sympathy or the like on the death of Gerald Levert (an American R&B singer who died today at age 40 of a heart attack). This doesn't strike me as an appropriate use of an article talk page, well-intentioned though those editors may be. Should I delete these messages? | Mr. Darcy talk 05:38, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

    • While I see your point and what you are sayinig, it is, after all, a talk page. There was some talk in the same lines about a page dedicated to someone on the talk page. I don't remember how it ended but I don't think anything was done. I mean, yeah this is a serious (though characters like me try to show the lighter side of it) encyclopedic piece of art but any way we put it a talk page is a talk page, and well, people use it to....talk. I really respect and value your job patrolling our pages. Thanks and God bless you!

Antonio Cuming 2u Martin

Model T pictured in Wikipedia's automotive history section is BADLY misidentified.

First let me clarify that I am using a friend’s computer but I usually must use the library's computer for any internet use. However I do have an email address so anyone who wishes to challenge my accuracy is welcome to so do. However, bear in mind that it may take a week or two before I can reply because I have no home internet and I do not live on this thing.
So let me introduce myself. I am <e-mail redacted for spam protection>. I am a self-taught amateur automotive historian and would not venture to correct anything this public and this BODLY as well unless I was 100% sure of my facts.
So here is to what I am referring; the beige model T pictured under "automotive history" is a 1925, 1926, or 1927 model T YET captioned as "the brass-era model T." YES, the model T was introduced and produced throughout the brass era. As such, THAT PICTURE is highly misleading because that particular model T AND the majority of the 15 million model T's produced, including MOST of the BLACK-ONLY model T's were produced AFTER the END of the brass-era. Of all the model T enthusiast I have ever heard of, they NEVER refer to a BLACK-ONLY model T as a BRASS-ERA. Furthermore and just to thoroughly crystallize the point at hand, model T’s were available in colors BOTH at their beginning, BRASS-ERA years, AND ALSO at least from 1925 through their discontinuance (due to the availability of the then new Duco high-speed painting-process). I am not completely sure, but colors may have also been available in 1924.
What I am POSITIVE of is that the model T PICTURED is NOT a 1908 through 1913 which are the REAL BRASS-ERA model T's. The BRASS-ERA model T's have hoods and radiators which are VERY angular and look a little like the Rolls Royce's of that period. Furthermore, they have fenders that stick straight-out similar to the first Jeeps and DO-NOT curve down. Please do not just take my word for it. Look at that picture again and notice the SILVER RADITOR as opposed to a brass colored one. I believe you will notice that the radiator in the picture is chrome. ;>) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.165.101.255 (talk • contribs)
You're right; that's a 1927 car and the Brass Era as described in the article ended in 1914. I have removed the image from that article. In the future you are more than welcome to remove or correct such inaccuracies yourself should you find them. Just remember to leave an "edit summary" (it's the little box between the main edit window and the save page button) to explain what you are doing and why. ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 15:36, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

redundancy?

i didn't expect this Ohio 2nd congressional district election, 2006, and this Ohio 13th congressional district election, 2006, to still say "will take place on November 7th, 2006" (at the time of writing), but even if they were updated, don't you think wikipedia is getting a bit bloated with sub-sub-sections? try not to think of it in terms of how something "works" now, think of the maintainability of such articles in a few years in case they are forgotten and in case popularity of wikipedia doesn't grow. i'm not saying it should get as "general" as it gets, but i think some restrain should be in order. better not through strict regulation, more through agreement in way of operation. --87.194.72.129 07:09, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

A deep question that has been debated since I started on wikipedia three years ago - and was being debated for the two years it was operating before that! I used to be err on the side of deletion, now I err on the side of inclusion - leave it in; even if it gets outdated or never finished, what's the real harm? Has your usage of wikipedia been harmed by all those %$#@ Pokemon articles or badly written fancruft on flash-in-the-pan bands? Then it won't be harmed by hundreds of single-election articles that may not be as complete as we'd like. In fact, what would be the harm is even greater hair-splitting - say, Ward 11, Ohio 2nd congressional district election, 2006? - DavidWBrooks 16:35, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
i'd prefer keeping that simply deleting, but what i'm saying is maybe more 'balance' on it is needed. e.g. it's not nice having a short encyclopaedia but it's not nice having one filled with stubs either --87.194.72.129 07:55, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

history of france

Hi! I wanted to know what should we deduct from history of france. Thanks a lot

Try discussing this at Talk:History of France Tra (Talk) 18:47, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
Please don't. That's not what article Talk pages are for. Take it to the Reference Desk. User:Zoe|(talk) 03:40, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
It depends what you mean by 'deduct'. If you mean 'deduct' as in 'remove from the article' then the talk page would be the best place to discuss it. If you mean it as in 'deduce' then the reference desk would probably be the best place to go. Tra (Talk) 03:54, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Do you know the joke that fits this punchline?

Sorry if I'm doing this the wrong way. If I am in error here, please feel free and let me know and/or delete this message.

A friend of mine and I were talking a couple of months ago about (what we thought to be, but apparently is not) a very well known joke. But although neither one of us could come up with the joke itself, we certainly remembered the punch line.

We have both absolutely SCOURED the internet, picked the brains of the funniest people we know, and even tried creating our own versions to see if it would jog our memory.

I absolutely need to know if anyone out there actually knows the whole joke that belongs with this punch line:

"Rectum, damn near killed 'em!"

How does this one sound...
Teacher: "Little Johnny, what have you been doing?"
Johnny: "Me and Jimmy were sticking firecrackers up frog's arses!"
Teacher: "Rectum, Johnny, rectum".
Johnny: "Rectum, damn near killed 'em!"
Oh and this should probably go on the Reference desk! -- Chuq 22:03, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
More precisely, it should've been posted at the Miscellaneous reference desk. —EdGl 01:18, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

bad jokes

What happened to the bad jokes and other deleted nonsense page/s? I can't find it anywhere. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.6.80.241 (talk • contribs)

It's at Wikipedia:Bad Jokes and Other Deleted Nonsense Tra (Talk) 18:44, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Growth Slowing

Did anybody else see on the Announcements page that the monthly new article count is way down? Is is possible that we've run out of new things to write about? (I feel that this is actually a good thing. The existing articles will get longer, more detailed, and, in theory, of a higher quality.) Any different opinions? Just curious. Steveo2 20:16, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, I always wondered what the record will be. Here is a question. How many Wikipedia article titles are possible?? To calculate the answer to the question, take the number of unicode characters, and call this number U. The number is U + (U*(U-1)) + (U*(U-1*(U-2))) + (U*(U-1*(U-2*(U-3))))... with the last term being the product of all the integers from U down to U-255. Although this is a big number, it's still finite. Anyone know what it is?? Georgia guy 20:48, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
Oh, I messed up. I made the mistake of thinking that characters cannot duplicate. So, the answer is U + U^2 + U^3 + U^4... with the last term being U^255. Georgia guy 20:49, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
Well, obviously it depends on what value U has; I don’t know what that might be. Estimating 100,000 for U, U256 would be 101280 We’re not there yet. — Knowledge Seeker দ 22:28, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
According to the Unicode site, this is how many characters are currently assigned:
Graphic        96,248
Format         134
Control        65
Private Use    137,468
Surrogate      2,048
Noncharacter   66
Reserved       878,083
The "graphic" ones (96,248) would be the ones that are currently suitable for use within article titles, though in theory the 137,468 "private use" ones could be assigned meanings that might be specific to Wikimedia projects, and the 878,083 reserved ones might have standard meanings in the future. *Dan T.* 12:59, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
This is, of course, silly. We're never going to write articles at titles resembling random and meaningless combinations of characters, which constitute well over 99% of these combinations. I think it's an interesting question why the new article count has dropped, but I doubt it's because we're out of things to write about - there are still many underdeveloped areas much in need of expansion, and many new subjects appearing everyday in the world worthy of articles. Deco 23:31, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
This of course has already been done see The Library of Babel. --Salix alba (talk) 18:09, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
One possible explanation for the growth slowdown is the expansion of the speedy deletion criteria. Oldelpaso 17:30, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
No, it's because we've caught up with all the Simpsons references. And Pokemon characters. Once we're finished with every human being who ever appeared on a Dr. Who episode, the new-article count will plummet into single digits. - DavidWBrooks

design

is it just me, or do == headings look different than before? and the main page headers are centered and only as big as the text... design change? i don't like it. 80.41.217.63 14:51, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

I think that's been fixed now. Clear your cache to see the old design. Tra (Talk) 15:52, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
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