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This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (miscellaneous).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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What is the proper response to something like this?

I have a mental disability. I also have been involved in a long running dispute with a user. In a recent comment he made a snide reference to my disability. What do people recommend I do about this? --Ideogram 13:04, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Leave a message for the user in question, asking them not to do this again, or if you feel unable to do this, ask someone you respect and trust to have a word with that user. Carcharoth 13:12, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
This user has requested that I stay away from their talk page. He has a number of friends on Wikipedia who always rush to his defense in any dispute; I have been trying to talk to one of them but his only response was to try to smear my name. There is an admin who is trying to intervene, but these people are giving him hell. Can people really get away with this kind of thing on Wikipedia? --Ideogram 13:33, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
Keeping off each other's talk pages is fine, but you will encounter each other in other places in Wikipedia. If conversations between you two end up like this, it might be best to avoid each other in other places as well. Sorry if this isn't very helpful. Hope something gets sorted out. Carcharoth 13:44, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
These users, all of whom have problems with me, are very active in many policy discussions. If I were to follow your advice, I would be unable to participate in any of those policy discussions. I suppose that would be no great loss to Wikipedia, but it seems quite unfair. --Ideogram 13:49, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Ideogram, I'm sorry to hear that you have a mental disability. I think you very accurately describe it as a long-running dispute. And it seems to include more than just yourself and one other user. I would like to gently point out that your two diff's, related to Geogre, are not in the same conversation, and I don't believe Geogre was responding to you in the 2nd diff.

I'd also respectfully note that your own remarks seem to be a bit snide on occasion. I don't know you but I'm sure you're a very good editor.

Personal remarks, especially referencing handicaps, are completely uncalled for. And, in my experience, those types of remarks are generally the result of a deeper frustration. Treating only the symptom will not make the problem go away. And, leaving, isn't the right answer either. My suggestion is to identify what the frustration is, and see if you can do anything to help eliminate it from your end. And, at the same time, pursue the advice (above) and make it clear that you are offended by the pointed remarks about your disability. Peace in God. Lsi john 14:09, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your kind words. I admit to having a short temper and accept some of the blame. To be honest, I grew up in a family where anything could be said in anger but would be forgiven once the fight was over. I thought I could address the problem by making another attempt to AGF, but I have concluded that the problem cannot be solved. Thanks again for your support. --Ideogram 14:30, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
If you grew up in a family where anything could be said, and then be forgiven, then why not simply forgive him and move forward? note: I am not condoning poor conduct. I am addressing what you said about forgiveness. It seems contradictory to say you grew up with a pattern of forgiving after fights and then to imply (in your post above) that his snide remarks are offensive.
Again, I am not condoning poor conduct, and at the same time, his remarks seem to be rather subtle, because it requires an inside knowledge of your situation to know that is what he meant. Knowing the details now, I'd agree it was in poor taste, and I think you would agree that he could have been much more pointed about it.
I don't agree with your conclusion that the problem can't be solved (unless you are intent on making sure it can't be - and I assume that is not the case). My questions to you are: What resolution would you like? What do you want to happen? What outcome would make you happy?
Lsi john 15:55, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
And, if you can answer it: what do you think your contribution is (if any) to the source of his obvious frustration? Lsi john 15:57, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps its also important to add here, that saying snide things to our families, and being forgiven, is quite a bit different than saying snide things here. Our families love us and, in fairness, are stuck with us. Our fellow editors don't really even know us, let alone love us, and they certainly don't feel stuck with us. So, if we say snide things to them, it is only reasonable to expect snide things to be said in return. And, once we jump into that game, we no longer get to complain about who was more snide.
And I'd like to be clear that I'm not addressing your remarks specifically. I'll let you do that for yourself. I'm addressing your question about "what can you do?". And, my answer is, you can only control your own actions and remarks. You are responsible for yourself. So, refer back up to my previous questions, in the context of your contribution to the situation, and you will have an answer about what you can do. Lsi john 16:06, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
I'm afraid Ideogram stalks me wherever I go, inspite of my nest attempts to ignore him. In the latest encounter with him, he popped up with this edit [1] in a matter with which he was completely uninvolved. One can only ignore so much. Giano 16:13, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
Giano, your information, while relevant and seemingly on-point, is very poorly delivered, which only obfuscates the message and diverts the negative attention back to you. In fact, showing up here, and claiming stalking, is a bit of an oxy-moron. Lsi john 16:51, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Before accusing me of stalking ideogram, check your facts, it was linked from this thread in which I was involved. [2]. Believe me, by choice, I give Ideogram as much space as possible. Giano 19:01, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

"If you grew up in a family where anything could be said, and then be forgiven, then why not simply forgive him and move forward? "Lsi john

I can easily forgive him, but there are two prerequisites: he must be able to admit there is something that needs to be forgiven (i.e. that it is not entirely my fault) and he must be able to forgive me. --Ideogram 17:04, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
I disagree with your reply. True forgiveness does not require anything from the other party. Forgiveness is completely unilateral and does not even require communication with the other party. Lsi john 18:28, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
I suspect you meant your family all apologized and accepted each other's apologies. From that context I understand. However, true forgiveness, does not require an apology.

All right, I forgive him. --Ideogram 19:16, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

"note: I am not condoning poor conduct. I am addressing what you said about forgiveness. It seems contradictory to say you grew up with a pattern of forgiving after fights and then to imply (in your post above) that his snide remarks are offensive. "Lsi john

Actually, I was asking a question about Wikipedia policy, since it seems I get blocked every time I try to say something snide. --Ideogram 17:04, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
There is a very simple solution to that problem. Don't say anything snide. That is something you have 100% control over. Lsi john 18:28, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Don't expect me to be perfect. --Ideogram 18:51, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

"I don't agree with your conclusion that the problem can't be solved (unless you are intent on making sure it can't be - and I assume that is not the case). My questions to you are: What resolution would you like? What do you want to happen? What outcome would make you happy? "Lsi john

I don't know what he wants. He engages in behavior that seems counterproductive. Not just towards me, either. I would like him to stop the counterproductive behavior. The best way to accomplish that would be to understand what he wants and suggest more productive ways to get what he wants. But I can't do that as long as he thinks attacking me is productive. --Ideogram 17:04, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
I didn't ask what he wanted. I didn't mention him at all here. I asked what you want. This is about you, about what you want, and about what you can do to get what you want.
As for him, thinking attacking you is productive, I'd submit that posting here helped support that conclusion (as does your giving up at the bottom). I'm not suggesting that you don't post here, but I am suggesting that you consider your reactions. (perhaps refer back to forgiveness and simply ignore him?) If he gets absolutely flagrant, someone will block him even if you don't respond. Lsi john 18:28, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

"And, if you can answer it: what do you think your contribution is (if any) to the source of his obvious frustration? "Lsi john 15:57, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I think he and his friends display a pattern of viewing anyone who doesn't agree with them as an enemy. I want to understand them, but that doesn't mean I will agree with them. If they require that I agree with them, I cannot comply. --Ideogram 17:04, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
Again here, you are making it about them and what they want and what they require. You can't control them. You have no power over them. You only have power and control over yourself. Step into it and own that power. Stop worrying about them and what they want. What they want is irrelevant. It is the position of helplessness and victim. Own your power and decide what you can do to change the situation. What do you want? How can you react differently? How can you change your edit summaries? How can you stop showing that something bothers you? What can you do to achieve what you want?
Are you seeing my pattern here? Stop worrying about them. There are other admins and editors who will worry about them for you. Start looking about yourself, and your choices and your actions and your contributions to the situation. Lsi john 18:28, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

In the larger context, this is a fight about who gets to do what they want on Wikipedia. If they get what they want, I cannot get what I want. So we fight. Forever. --Ideogram 18:51, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

He can't get what he wants, so he gets frustrated. That frustration boils over into unproductive behavior. I cannot give him what he wants, and I can't make him stop wanting it. Now I have what I want. --Ideogram 19:16, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

"Perhaps its also important to add here, that saying snide things to our families, and being forgiven, is quite a bit different than saying snide things here. Our families love us and, in fairness, are stuck with us. Our fellow editors don't really even know us, let alone love us, and they certainly don't feel stuck with us. So, if we say snide things to them, it is only reasonable to expect snide things to be said in return. And, once we jump into that game, we no longer get to complain about who was more snide. "Lsi john

Believe me, in my family snide words were often said in return. Again, I was mainly asking a question about policy. I have trouble adapting to an environment where saying snide things gets me sanctioned. --Ideogram 17:04, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
I didn't see where you ask a question about policy. What policy are you asking about? I'm unaware of any policy that dictates a response from you. Are you asking where you can officially report it? Do you want him reprimanded? Do you want him blocked? Do you want him gelded? If so, you should say that. If not, then I'm not sure I understand what your original question has to do with policy. Lsi john 18:28, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

It seems to me that I get blocked for violating policy while he does not. Are you asking me not to be bothered by that? --Ideogram 18:51, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

"And I'd like to be clear that I'm not addressing your remarks specifically. I'll let you do that for yourself. I'm addressing your question about "what can you do?". And, my answer is, you can only control your own actions and remarks. You are responsible for yourself. So, refer back up to my previous questions, in the context of your contribution to the situation, and you will have an answer about what you can do. "Lsi john 16:06, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

What I can do is wash my hands of the situation. I am sorry to say it. --Ideogram 17:04, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
Ok. Then you have peacefully surrendered to the situation? You will no longer be affected by his snide comments? You are willing to allow them to continue and you accept them as okay? Is this really a peaceful surrender to something you cannot control, or did you simply decide to be a martyr and give up? Either way, understand that 'giving up' only works once. So choose carefully before you claim to quit. I'm sorry if this seems harsh, but from my perspective, it appears that I care more about this than you do. Peace in God. Lsi john 18:28, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I cannot surrender. --Ideogram 18:41, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

You're the one who said you were washing your hands, I just asked what that meant to you. Lsi john 19:37, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I cannot promise to avoid every page he posts on. Let's take this one step at a time, OK? --Ideogram 19:16, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

You're the one who is suggesting avoiding pages. I'm certainly not. And, as you have pretty much ignored every one of my questions, I'm not going to respond any more. When you are ready to discuss what you can do to help yourself, and what your contribution to the current situation is, I'll be around. Lsi john 19:37, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Spell check abuse

Is it possible that a company, like Google (with "did you mean ___?"), changes the spelling of words in Wikipedia articles to find out what people most likely think a word should be spelled like, because it seems like a good idea and they have so many computers, each with a different IP address, it would seem hard to catch them at it. Jeffrey.Kleykamp 11:26, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

What? --Golbez 22:25, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
I'm saying that a company (like Google) can go through words that are entered frequently but don't have many search results (I'm calling that word "x"), then they go through all possible other spellings that have more search results and find them on a Wikipedia article, then they use one IP address to vandalize the article and then with a different IP address they change it back without the undo button (to make it look like an unprofessional undo), however, when changing it back they misspell the target word (which is a more common variation of "x", e.g. "cheese" has 71,600,000 search results however "chese"("x") has only 217,000 search results) to see if people will consider that variation of "x" to be the correct spelling of "x".
And the reason that I say this is because Google almost always guesses right with the "did you mean ___?" and I know that they might just have good programming (companies with worse programming could be doing this) but I heard that spam people offer "rewards" after typing in the words in a picture box that is originally from an e-mail service to create e-mail addresses to send spam from and this would be the same thing just without any rewards but a lot more people. Do you understand now? Jeffrey.Kleykamp 00:26, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
I'm still not sure I understand. Is it possible? Possibly. It's also possible that I'm a hyperintelligent zebra, but I'm not sure where such baseless accusations get us. So far as I know, not one single article has been vandalized in this fashion. --Golbez 00:32, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
I'm saying that they are careful to make it look like innocent spelling errors, and I'm not accusing Google, I'm simply saying that a company with enough computer power could do this as long as they have a motive like optimizing search spell checking. Jeffrey.Kleykamp 00:45, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
You kind of are - you didn't say "they could be careful", you said "they are careful". And as Emmaneul said, there's far, far cheaper and faster ways to do this. And again, there is zero evidence of this happening, so it still has the same footing as me being a genius hippotigris. --Golbez 02:20, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
Impossible, there are far more effective and intelligent ways to find out "alternate" spellings than this. Emmaneul (Talk) 11:19, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

WTF? --tjstrf talk 01:40, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Complaint

Why is the Vince McMahon article is protected??? Shkarter1985 21:34, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

My guess is that his recent kayfabe "death" keeps getting put into the article. I can therefore imagine that people are saying he is dead, when he obviously isn't - but his wrestling persona is "dead" (but knowing professional wrestling, he's bound to be reincarnated somehow). But unfortunately, people keep doing so and it is quite difficult to keep reverting, so protection is easiest to stop the edit war. x42bn6 Talk Mess 00:04, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with your comment, this is suppose to be the Free Encyclopedia not the Unfree.Shkarter1985 20:45, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I know, and protection is unfortunate. However, there are times when vandals and people introducing BLP problems overwhelm users trying to keep that off the page. Which is where protection comes in. See the protection policy for more information. If you would like to request something to be changed, then the talk page allows for discussion of potential changes. x42bn6 Talk Mess 23:37, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

English Wikipedia visible in China again

like it says... m.e. 03:20, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Any bets on how long that will last? hbdragon88 03:39, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
Well, at least those Wikipedians in China can legally edit Wikipedia without violating WP:NOP for a while. Why is Wikipedia censored in China anyway? It doesn't seem to do much harm, does it?--Kylohk 19:49, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
It includes information censored in China. Atropos 00:18, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
Blocking of Wikipedia in mainland China. I didn't know we had an article on it. hbdragon88 01:39, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Looks like a Chinese search engine company, Baidu has launched its own wiki Baidu Baike. As of now, its got over 700,000 articles, cover 6 times that of Chinese Wikipedia! This censorship really is bad for Chinese Wikipedia, since its quality definitely will lag behind a lot now without 20% of the world's population contributing.--Kylohk 09:11, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and now, the WP:NOP is inconsistent with WM:NOP, the one on Meta being less strict, and showing that they don't want to punish users who used open proxies but have not caused any trouble.--Kylohk 14:08, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

XKCD references Wikipedia

I thought this was pretty hilarious. —Dark•Shikari[T] 15:54, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Ooh, vandalism, please protect. x42bn6 Talk Mess 20:26, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
Yes! That was a hilarious Wikipedia in-joke. Someone should approach him to upload the image to the Wikipedia Commons. ;) His comic has also done spot-on parodies of other web phenomena, such as inane YouTube comments. --IanOsgood 16:37, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
xkcd has mentioned Wikipedia before, like in this comic. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 19:34, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

A bit of irony for the day

The Reference article is sporting an "unreferenced" tag. Videmus Omnia 15:46, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikipedia. --The Raven's Apprentice (PokéNav|Trainer Card) 16:11, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
Similarly, the Manual of Style has been tagged as requiring copy-editing for grammar, style... for at least a month... Joe 17:27, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
Would {{contradict}} be helpful here? --tjstrf talk 17:35, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
Good to see the bad humour in Self-reference has been removed. –Pomte 17:49, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Advertising

It seems to me that people with little experience and with strange formats to their edits are creating large edits to Wikipedia, what I really want to say is that I think that advertisers are editing Wikipedia because of the increase in use from institutions, e.g. [3] has a summary section but no beginning section, and it's linked to Advertising#Optimisation which used to have the {{advert}} tag (that is before I edited it). I don't really know what to do about this, other than creating a anti-ad force that systematically goes through all articles linked to the {{advert}} tag, finds the user that created the bad edits, then warns them, and fixes the article, and finally fixes any articles that got edited by him/her but that's hard work (and Wikipedia is so big that it wouldn't wonder me if that already exists). I thought I might mention it either way. Jeffrey.Kleykamp 00:31, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

I would also like to note that copy testing also mentions Young all the time, just like Advertising#Optimisation used to, and, to me at least, the way that the person uses it as a reference is bad formatting and proof of what I'm saying above (that inexperienced advertisers are editing certain things to make institutions end up thinking that they need their form of advertising, it could even be a scheme to make Wikipedia surfers end up on a particular article). Jeffrey.Kleykamp 00:40, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Freckles.10.6.2005 is the one that made all the edits, he admitted to working for one of the companies that he wrote about [4], not that that's a problem, but if too many people do that then it will probably become one. Jeffrey.Kleykamp 00:50, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Please report that kind of problem (and chip in with the volunteers who address it) at Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/noticeboard. DurovaCharge! 17:09, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

I moved the conversation to Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard#Advertising. Jeffrey.Kleykamp 19:09, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Things that honestly I need to tell

Peace be upon you. How are you guys. Is everything okay? I hope you guys are in good condition. By the way, honestly I need to tell you guys something, can any admins here block my multiple account which is User:Lokey3310 and User:Aeonimitz. I do that because honestly feel like I m a nobody. I would like to say is that I m sorry for my multiple account wrongdoing which is considered a sockpuppet here and for everything. So goodbye and peace. — Imran Al-Sahih 14:55, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

User:Aeonimitz has made a number of contributions with no warnings. It's not clear to me why the account would need to be blocked. — RJH (talk) 22:29, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

BAG Joining

Hey, I have been asked to post a notification of my request to join the Bot Approvals Group on here. It can be found at Wikipedia talk:Bots/Approvals group#Joining. Thanks! Matt/TheFearow (Talk) (Contribs) (Bot) 02:08, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Less Vandalisim?

It may be just me, but over the last few months it seems there is getting to be less and less vandalism. Whenever I filter, there's almost nothing. Is this really a trend or is it something else? Dfrg.msc 05:56, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

  • Not sure. I don't keep a careful eye on the infamous Wdefcon template, but there are a number of factors to consider. First, the bots are getting better at catching the obvious vandalism, so there's less for us to do. Second, it's possble for the quantity of vandalism to stay about the same even as the overall number of edits increases with the increasing number of edits; that may be what's happening. Third, the vandals may be learning how to contaminate the wiki with conflict-of-interest crap that isn't actually vandalism. That's a problem that just won't go away by itself. YechielMan 06:57, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
    • COI and NPOV entries in articles often get detected and reverted by people watching it anyway. However, I don't have problems reverting vandalism before the bot does it.--Kylohk 13:53, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Observation

I am Elaine, and I will be observing this community of "wiki writers" as part of the requirements for an online-based writing course for the Center for Talented Youth, or CTY. I will not disturb this community significantly, but I do want to ensure that this can happen. (I have to have permission, by the way.) So just drop a note here so I can link my teacher to this page to check permission. Thank you, Elaine--03:38, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Please feel free. We all watch each other all the time, so one more watcher won't cause us any trouble. I suggest that you register an account though. That way we can tell that it's really you and not some troublemaker pretending to be you. -- Derek Ross | Talk 04:29, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, I don't think anyone's ever asked us that before, but you have to do some pretty nasty stuff to get on our nerves. :) YechielMan 06:58, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
Okay. Elainew246 21:37, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

WP:CHU backlog

What does one do about the huge backlog at Wikipedia:Changing username? Only interested, I'm not awaiting a change.--Rambutan (talk) 21:01, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Run for Bureaucrat and pass.
...Wait, you wanted options that were actually possible? --tjstrf talk 22:11, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
Haha, you can ask at WP:BN. That'll usually work within a few hours. But I've decided to wait just to see how long it takes. :) YechielMan 07:00, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Apice.Italy-info

I am in the process of finding relatives of my grandparents who came o this country from Italy. From what I have found, they are both from the area of Campania and sailed from Naples in 1905-arriving in New York possibiy on the Citta di New York.(Ship) I would like to go there and meet any one who is left. Their name was Racioppi-they were not married when they came. Her last name was Pastore. Any info at all would be appreciated.

Garbardeen

Um, we're writing an encyclopedia here, not running a detective agency. Wikipedia doesn't have every bit of information that exists in the world! Sorry, The Raven's Apprentice (PokéNav|Trainer Card) 05:42, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Open Call for Editors to Participate in Research Project

Hi

My name is Jim Sutton and I'm undertaking research in the School of Library, Archive, and Information Studies, UCL.

My research involves studying wiki usage, the reasons why individuals use wikis and the benefits/disadvantages of using wikis to manage knowledge.

I was wondering if you would agree to my analysing your contributions to Wikipedia. This will basically involve calculating how many times you've contributed to Wikipedia within the time period of a week.

I was also wondering what your reasons are for using/contributing to Wikipedia. I'd be extremely grateful for any feedback you can provide.

If you agree to my analysing your contributions then please email me with your Wikipedia username and any feedback you have. My email address is james.sutton (at) ucl.ac.uk

I also have a survey online which I'm using as part of my research at:

http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/stqa7937/survey/

My Wikipedia username is Sutton4019 and my research is being carried out jointly with Melissa Terras at UCL. Her email address is m.terras (at) ucl.ac.uk .

If you have any questions please let me know and thank you for your time. Thanks! --Sutton4019 12:39, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Will discuss on talk. --h2g2bob (talk) 18:26, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Portal:Roman Empire

Hello there. I recently created a portal, The Roman Empire Portal. It is still under construction, and I could use volunteers to help build it. Thanks. --Tλε Rαnδom Eδιτor (ταlκ) 20:56, 20 June 2007 (UTC) 

  Rome was not built in a day.  (sorry, couldn't help myself) Fristenskyk 22:54, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Forte, a music encyclopedia

I dunno if I can do this, and if not then just delete this. Like... I just want some help. I dunno.

Well, I've started a music wiki encyclopedia. It's called Forte. I have me and another friend to help me, and we've got things set up. We have about 50 albums and 10 artists, and we NEED to expand.

And that's where Wikipedia comes into play, hopefully people in WP:ALBUM and WP:BAND I'm trying to get friends to help, but I also need people who already know how to edit on a wiki. I can understand if you guys don't want to help, I wouldn't blame you - it is a big job. But I'm begging you guys, to please help me. Most things are set up - the wikifarm it's currently on uses an outdated version on MediaWiki so you can't do everything, but you can do most things - I've just been running into trouble with different template stuff. But other than that, all you really need to do it just add articles. It has an album, song, and band infobox, and i'm going to make the genre infobox and instrument infoboxes soon.

I posted this in the WP:ALBUM talk, but an admin said it was just vandalism that had nothing that Wiki doesn't have except for ads. I'm sorry I can't buy my own servers or understand the code. I kinda find it pretty crappy that wikipedia has a list of places you can host wikis on, but then when somebody goes to one in a goal to start an encyclopedia, they get turned on by the people who run it.

Thanks for any type of help you can give. If not, though, it's ok... -Violask81976 21:30, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

As your wiki is GFDL licensed, you can use Special:Export and download music-related pages from Wikipedia, and Special:Import on your own Wiki to import these pages. This way, you can make a progressive fork of Wikipedia. (If you intend to do this for over 300 pages, please use the database dumps).
Your wiki stands the best chance of success if you make it distinct from Wikipedia in style and content - for example you could allow a non-neutral point of view (ie, make it a form of blog), provide recommendations (like Amazon), or discard the notability guidelines (like MySpace). If it's the same as Wikipedia, people will just post here and join our music wikiprojects instead. --h2g2bob (talk) 18:22, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

The no notability guidelines sounds the best. It's like Wiki merged with encyclopedia mettalum.-Violask81976 16:35, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

The problem

User:Badlydrawnjeff and User:Rama's Arrow have left wikipedia this week. Both featured article contributors. Why? well no one knows for certain why great contributors are leaving wikipedia, apprently on a weekly or atleast monthly basis but few can take a guess.

It is of my personal opinion that the utopia ideology of wikipedia is destroying it. Everything needs to be discussed, no one can curse or show any sign of a negative emotion, long processes to fix simple problems like blocking vandals, extremely long process to get rid of or at least stop opinion pushers, no one/group has the authority to make general decisions based on a "no consensus" discussion, everything can be interpreted if enough people stand by the interpretation and ofcourse "anybody" can edit as if "only a few" can register. Why? In 2001 Wikipedia needed contributors and readership. Today it has plenty of both. Most policies are pretty straigh forward and correct. No policy is pushing personal opinion or bullshit information to be placed here, none of which has any place on wikipedia. You can't really write an encyclopedia in "creative" ways. So why does everything need to discussed and everyone gets leeway as to not hurt their feelings or someone else's. Wikipedia needs to finally stand to its policies and enforce them strongly, so everyone who follows the rules knows that the project is behind them while people who don't agree with something can get the hell out. The policies wikipedia was built on are fine, its time to stop interpretation and finally put your foot down and enforce them. Why is that so hard? Can someone tell me. 99.244.236.210 18:17, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

I can definitely tell you that another editor I know well left for harassment issues, and I stopped using my original ID for the same reason. The polices do need to be enforced in full, and personally I agree we should stop this BS about hurting peoples feelings. If they're not following policy, then that is it... it's not a personal attack, it's fact. The problem of off-wiki harassment for volunteering one's time and being proud to be associated with the project (i.e. making one's true ID known), is not only getting out of hand, but frankly, dangerous. Why would anyone volunteer their time anymore to a project where if they piss the wrong person off by upholding policy, they get harassed, threatened, and stalked? There are a lot of things that need to be worked out, and it's not just the concept of discussing every thing. Rider of the StormAftermath|Thunder 18:24, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Also I want to note how this rant relates to "Village pump (proposals)". I'm tired of adminstrators who are usually great contributors who are given extra tools bombarded with complaints about blocking and so forth. If somone doesn't get the picture after being warned about breaking policy/guideline he needs to be blocked. Why do adminstrators need to justify all their actions with one exception of "vandalism blocking"? No action is "too quick" if someone is a clear disruption. Not every dumbass need to be given the privalage of talking to arbcom. Mediation is not full from 2 rational contributors disagreeing but a normal user and a swarm of idiots who want to push their opinion or how things should be done, ofcourse with few exceptions. Everyone is afraid to block people who aren't clear vandals. We need a policy or change in policy to stop some of the adminstrators having to justify all of their actions to the "mob" (people who do minor contributions but are very vocal). Sure some admin actions are questionable but majority aren't. I'll go as far as to say if 1 or few people question every administrator action without gaining any interest from the wider community, this is blockable disruption. Adminstrators do not need to respond to every "puzzled" user who doesn't understand why something was done and wants to go into a big discussion into why "User:Death to China" was blocked for adding information sourced to "evilchina.com"-example. Opinions? 99.244.236.210 18:48, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

I tend to agree with you, but there are plenty of Wikipedians who do not. For example, Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Armedblowfish and Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/CharlotteWebb are both cases in which the candidate violated Wikipedia:No open proxies. Though they failed, there was a great outrage at those who opposed them. I will try not to start an arguement involving those RfAs, but in both cases, the rules of Wikipedia were violated by those candidates. There are plenty of those out there who are not so rule-enjoying as us. Captain panda 00:15, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Didn't User:ScienceApologist leave in the last few days as well? --tjstrf talk 00:44, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree. Wikipedia has serious problems. Those who write articles are not appreciated, so they leave. You can start a discussion at Wikipedia:Reform. --Kaypoh 00:53, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

On a slightly different note, with regard to harassment issues I've posted at WT:Username policy, proposing some sort of disclaimer on the "create account" screen, suggesting to think first before registering with one's real name. —AldeBaer (c) 14:38, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

While a warning when registering is fine and dandy, it really does not solve the problem and somewhat compounds the ability for editors to work freely and openly on Wikipedia. For example, any photos I would upload would be CC Share-Alike with Attribute. I'm certainly not going to have them attributable to a pseudonym, but my real name. However, this would reveal my identity to anyone searching through my history. Normally, I would not have a problem with this, and would usually make this information readily available, but Wikipedia has seemed to attract many people who are emotionally and psychologically unstable, and gives them a free pass by not only allowing them to either hide behind a dynamic IP, but also a Pseudonym. When people have been Identified as committing off-wiki harassment, the issue is dealt with a light touch, as to 'not piss off the offender'. So a good editor is now not able to contribute content that it would like to remain attributable to them, but those that do break the rules (and frankly, the laws) not only go unpunished but when it is brought to the community, it's handled in a manner that does not support the established editor, instead of dealing with the psychologically unstable anonymous IP/Pseudonym that viciously attacks anyone who disagrees with them. The community has not done well to ensure that harassment is not acceptable, and when cases of harassment are noted, have not done enough to assist the editor-in-good-standing. Wikipedia wants good editors, but does little to support editors when they have issues, and does little to back editors up on their upholding the policies. And when someone gets pissed with an editor for upholding those policies and takes it to the next level, the community says "You're screwed buddy. Have fun with that.". I'm not sure what the community as a whole can do, but, it would be especially helpful if there was more support, and more willingness to side with an established editor. Personally, I think the best way to prevent this level of degradation of the project is, and I know some hate this idea, but stop anonymous editing and require editors to have their true identity on file, but that's just my opinion. Rider of the StormAftermath|Thunder 16:25, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
I would very tentatively endorse the idea to abolish anonymous editing (which would include abolishing IPs first!). But for other reasons enirely (more to cut down on cruft-producers and kooks) and on somewhat different terms (involving for example a commitment scheme stored on a secure Wikia server instead of openly using your real name). I don't think requiring people to register their real name would increase the security, quite to the contrary: Every anonymous reader could then see your real name without even digging for it. Many people -some of them high-profile contributors- prefer to edit anonymously for a variety of reasons, and those would definitely be driven off then, as opposed to stalkers looking for victims. —AldeBaer (c) 18:11, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
To clarify, I did not suggest making the real name public, but merely having it on file with the foundation. Rider of the StormAftermath|Thunder 18:15, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
As I said, that's not something I'd object to. One possible consequence that might meet some resistance would then be what the foundation should do in cases of, for example suspected COI editing? Should they reveal the users identity? If such a user got blocked, everyone would then know they were editing their company's article or, even worse, their own BLP. —AldeBaer (c) 18:26, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
COI would have to be handled as it is now in cases where COI is not blatant. The fact of having to identify oneself to the foundation might deter some cases, other cases they would use non-obvious usernames and work around it. There's no magical fix, but COI is much lighter thing to deal with than having good editors scramble to find legal protection against unstable people worldwide. Rider of the StormAftermath|Thunder 18:32, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
But to that effect, it won't help if everyone used their realname, since you don't even have to register to simply view the contents of WP. Having to identify yourself to the foundation would not help in such cases. —AldeBaer (c) 18:41, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
But, what it would do is set up a method for, lets say User:X starts harassing User:Y, user Y could report this to the authorities who could then subpoena the foundation for the identity of the offending user. This in all may not be a realistic implementation, and there may be a better solution, but the point was is that more needs to be done to curtail harassment issues and to stop this "Play nice" attitude with those that commit such harassment. Rider of the StormAftermath|Thunder 19:05, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

(outdent) I believe on-wiki harassment can rather effectively be dealt with, if you're talking about "wikistalking" etc. (but I agree that abandoning IP editing may work wonders to that effect). However, the far greater problem is cases where stalking and harassment spill over into real life. And, as I said, stalkers need not register / give away their identity at all. —AldeBaer (c) 19:12, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

I haven't heard of many (or any, actually) cases where a user was chosen at random with no prior interaction by a stalker. Most cases I've encountered involve a dispute on-wiki where the editor in good standing was enforcing policy when another editor decides that the best way to end the argument and get "their way" is to take it off wiki. Rider of the StormAftermath|Thunder 19:35, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
But that would certainly lead to witch hunts. —AldeBaer (c) 19:44, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
I unfortunately do not understand your response, since I made no suggestions, only clarified something. Rider of the StormAftermath|Thunder 20:17, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, it was rather a question: Couldn't it also lead to witch hunts if the foundation had all real names? —AldeBaer (c) 20:32, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
Not necessarily. The key there would be the subpoena. In order for me to get someone else's real name, I would either myself go to a judge and provide evidence as to why I would need that information (such as to file a lawsuit), or, a law enforcement agency themselves could request a subpoena. Either way, it's an extensive process that the casual user wouldn't go through, and unless you have good reason for the subpoena, a judge is going to point you to the door and tell you to not let it hit you in the ass on the way out. Rider of the StormAftermath|Thunder 21:14, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

#vandalism-en-wp

Does anyone know about this channel, and how I can be removed from its blacklist? Thanks.--Rambutan (talk) 14:01, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Counter-Vandalism Unit#IRC channels. –Pomte 23:02, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Just a question

Why are you Americans so box-minded? You should write articles about people independently of where they were born or raised. For example I saw a list of Russian Americans. Why don´t you also make a list of Chinese Americans, Japanese Americans, French Americans, French Brazilians, Black Jews, Mexican English and Swiss tennis players? Those kind of lists are totally arbitrary and don´t make much sense. No wonder there´s so much segregation in the US. You could start by getting rid of some of these lists.

The lists are only a collection of links to articles, the articles are already written at the time of creation of the list, i.e. the people aren't written about because of their nationality but they're added to the list because of it, therefore it isn't a real problem. I would also like to say that the lists are useful for example if you wanted to write about a Russian American then you can look at that list to find someone to write about. Jeffrey.Kleykamp 13:26, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
You can think of these multi-criteria categories as Wikipedia's Venn diagrams. Such as German artists or Canadian racecar drivers, to name just two. Adrian M. H. 18:11, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Bear in mind that few individuals who live in the United States can trace a significant portion of their ancestry to any of the land's native peoples. Pride and interest in one's own background doesn't necessarily mean denigration of other heritages. In some professions a given heritage has a significant impact on the individual's work. For example, students of literature may use this type of list to narrow down their seletion for a "compare and contrast" term paper assignment to Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man and Walter Mosley's Devil in a Blue Dress. In other situations, where prejudices traditionally limited or closed a career field to persons of a particular background, these lists can be a starting point for a different type of research. DurovaCharge! 18:34, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Ok thank you for sharing your opinion.

Thanks for the ignorant stereotypes. — RJH (talk) 18:32, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Text of Wikipedia talk pages hidden in HTML of other sites

I promised not to edit in June, but something is puzzling me so much, I'm suspending my wikibreak for a day.

Out of boredom/curiosity, I googled my username. In among the various pages I expected to see were several like this:

[5] [6] [7]

Note that:

  • All appear to be based on the same template;
  • None of them have my username in the visible text;
  • If you view the HTML source code, there are entire threads from Wikipedia talk pages embedded in the code, but hidden from view.

My theories:

  • Boring: This is some lame attempt to trick a search engine into visiting the sites in question. However, since the Wikipedia content has absolutely nothing to do with what the pages are selling, that doesn't make sense to me;
  • Dramatic: I've stumbled on a secret underground Wikirailroad that is smuggling Wikipedia content into China, past clueless censors (until I blabbed about it and ruined everything);
  • Most likely: Some far simpler explanation that I'm too dumb to figure out.

Is it really just a case of search engine gaming? --barneca (talk) 23:00, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

This is search engine gaming, and the reason they use Wikipedia text is because they need text to fill up the page that statistically resembles "real" English text in order to make them look more like a real website. They figure because Wikipedia content is "free", it's less dangerous to use than random English text from other sites. They're also fond of using the contents of public domain novels for the same reason. This is my theory. Dcoetzee 02:58, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
Well at least they're better then spammers then. They seem to use bizzare passages from a large variety of sources and don't usually seem to particularly care about copyright. Of course, given most spam is advertising something illegal (even if the spam itself is not illegal in all countries) I guess this isn't surprising. Why care about the copyright of the text when you're trying to sell pirated software, counterfeit viagra or rip someone off in a Nigerian scam or via phising Nil Einne 05:00, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
Rats, I was hoping for something more interesting. I guess explaining something based on the existence of weasels is always a good first guess. Thanks to both of you for your comments. Now that the stress of not knowing something has gone, I'll resume my wikibreak. --barneca (talk) 11:48, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Notibility Issues

Ok, Im thinking on making a page on a local politician Logan Martinez. Here is the problem he ran for office (39th Ohio House District) three times and lost. Im afriad since he hasnt been in office the page will get deleted if I make one. I read the Info, and Bio rules and I think he might have what it takes. But I just wanted to get and outside view on if the page will be ok if I make it............... This person is listed in the Ohio Green Party and talked about, Talked about in the Dayton Daily News. And is a very well known person throughout the Ohio Green Party. If want to look it up yourself go to google or roadrunner and type in Logan Martinez. Thanks and Please Leave your thoughts!!! MarkDonna 14:18, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Nothing to do with saving disk space. It's fairly obvious that we're not a paper encylopaedia since we have a lot more stuff and cover stuff in a lot more detail than any paper encyclopaedia. Even the most avid deletionist is not trying to reduce us to a paper encylopaedia. However many of us believe that for wikipedia to be useful, we need to have some sort of quality control which includes ensuring that we only have articles which can be written to a minimally acceptable standard and which at least a resonable number of people would be interested in reading about. Amongst other things this minimises spam. Also bear in mind not everyone wants to have a wikipedia article (although most politicians would), especially if the only reason they have an article is because they did something or it was claimed they did something with minor noteability which they would rather forget. As for this the specific question from mark, I concur with Blueboar largely. One of the key things to remember is that you have to establish notability in the article, not tell people they can establish notability by Googling. It is not the readers job to fill in what you've left out Nil Einne 04:58, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
Does anything make him notable other than his unsuccessful runs for office? If so, make sure you establish this aspect of his notability. If not, you may find it nominated for deletion. Also, do your research before writing the article... if your sources are solid and properly cited from the get go, the article has a better chance of surviving. I would suggest drafting it on a user sub-page and only transferring it to main space when fully ready. Blueboar 17:07, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
He doesn't sound very notable to me. Consider expanding the Green Party of Ohio article instead, which sounds like it could probably include some coverage of his campaigns.--Pharos 00:54, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

A bit of irony for the day

The Reference article is sporting an "unreferenced" tag. Videmus Omnia 15:46, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikipedia. --The Raven's Apprentice (PokéNav|Trainer Card) 16:11, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
Similarly, the Manual of Style has been tagged as requiring copy-editing for grammar, style... for at least a month... Joe 17:27, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
Would {{contradict}} be helpful here? --tjstrf talk 17:35, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
Good to see the bad humour in Self-reference has been removed. –Pomte 17:49, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Images on Template:Ph:Edit toolbar

I added the table to Template:Ph:Edit toolbar a month or so ago (appearing on Help:Edit toolbar), but can't find any images. I could save the ones from the toolbar, but I have only limited time on Wikipedia, and can't. Could somebody help here? (P.S. No "requests" page seemed to fit this requers.) This, that and the other [talk] 06:18, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Jimmy Wales

Jimmy Wales only made 3,119 edits and 628 in the mainspace and if you look at the bottom, the most edits (18) in the mainspace were made to the article on Jimmy Wales (COI) compared to the second best of 13 edits to Marc Lemire, see [9], and yet we treat him as a god. Think about it, 'cause I don't have an opinion, Jeffrey.Kleykamp 15:05, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Hey, you're right... we should ban him immediately!--Isotope23 15:20, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
Heh. The word is, I think, editcountitis :). ck lostsword • T • C 15:24, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
Isotope how about we start a discussion on WP:CSN then! Then we can watch as it is put WP:BJAODN! FunPika 17:00, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
I don't think it's possible to accurately measure his contribution to the project as a number of edits. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 19:44, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
Wow, he'd never pass RfA. Which is more a deficiency of RfA than Jimbo. Dcoetzee 20:10, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
Well if he wasn't Jimbo and was just another user, I would probably oppose because of the large lack of activity in many months. Also, I am not joking when I say this. Captain panda 23:21, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
Repent, heretic, before the god-king brings forth his unearthly wrath upon you!
Seriously though, Jimbo's authority doesn't derive from his ability to write stubs or revert vandalism. The philosophical framework of the site, as written in core policies, is his doing. So we collectively agree to give his word extra weight since he was nice enough to start Nupedia/Wikipedia out of his pocket and then give it away for free so we have a neat encyclopedia to play with. He almost never actually uses his authority, which is partially why we give it to him, though people use his name in vain a lot. There's also the commonsense argument that we really do need an appeal of final resort to stop arguments on the policy level that deadlock and would go on interminably, and he's a better choice than all other options I've heard. A lot of his interaction with the community is done off wiki, e.g. via the mailing list, so edit counts aren't really a good measure of how involved he is. - BanyanTree 00:05, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
On another serious note -- since he doesn't regularly participate in the gruntwork of building the encyclopedia I often wonder how much he knows what really goes on around here. As opposed to the party line about a "harmonious editing club." 71.214.249.249 15:25, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
That's the problem with upper management these days - instead of spending time in the trenches, answering phones and waiting on customers, and micro-managing every new initiative to make sure it goes correctly, they "delegate" day-to-day stuff, and only step in when they absolutely have to. Lazy bums. If someone like Jimmy won't take the time to learn to do everything at Wikipedia better than any other editor, including having a higher edit count than anyone else, why should we give his opinion any weight? -- John Broughton (♫♫) 15:58, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
Editcountitis problems here. And, unlike other Upper Management guys, he doesn't murder people for stealing his userpage design. :) Jimbo's someone we trust, not 'coz of his gargantuan edit count, or the position he's attained on Wikipedia... We trust him 'coz he's the one who gave us the Wiki to play around, 'coz his will always be the voice of reason even if irrationality becomes the Wikipedian consensus, 'coz he'll always embody our principles even if we forget them. That's why he's deified-- coz he represents our ideals, whatever we're working for, even if they're unattainable ideals, even for him. Think of what you're saying-- What kind of argument against Jesus is it to say "Hey, I've never seen him attend Mass!" ? --The Raven's Apprentice (PokéNav|Trainer Card) 16:37, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
We're getting goofy after 6 years on the web. I think Jesus would get blocked on sight for a violation of our overzealous username policy. Cool Bluetalk to me 23:09, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
In all seriousness the deification of Jimbo is creepy as hell to me. --P4k 23:11, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
"Make us a king to judge us." --tjstrf talk 01:15, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
In all seriousness the deification of Jimbo is creepy and sacreligious. But he's a good guy who's good at ignoring the rules, so he would probably get supported if he wasn't a founder. bibliomaniac15 BUY NOW! 02:11, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
People who think I am not active in Wikipedia simply don't know what I do. Ask the ArbCom, and the Oversight group, and they will tell you how deeply involved I am in day to day matters. People who think that edit counts are a good measure of activity really don't understand Wikipedia very well. --Jimbo Wales 02:41, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
You should stand for rfa. lots of issues | leave me a message 08:22, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
He doesn't need to, he's got already got more power than any bureaucrat. Cheers, The Raven's Apprentice (PokéNav|Trainer Card) 08:23, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
Well, considering the foundation matters and other management tasks, I wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't have that many edits to the mainspace itself.--Kylohk 11:21, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
As noted by others, if Jimbo himself says "People who think that edit counts are a good measure of activity really don't understand Wikipedia very well." then I would posit that WP:RFA needs some serious overhaul. /Blaxthos 13:16, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
As does the Holy See. But nobody cares for either. --The Raven's Apprentice (PokéNav|Trainer Card) 14:06, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
RfA doesn't need overhaul, it's the people who vote. –Pomte 14:10, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
Neither does the Holy See, it's the Christians. But the Christians don't have a statement from Jesus, which puts them as a disadvantage compared to us. But what do we do? Editcountitis isn't policy, do we maybe put one of those Talk Page tags with this message from Jimbo on top of the RfA page? (Don't forget to put this image on the tag and link Jimbo's name to this page.) --The Raven's Apprentice (PokéNav|Trainer Card) 14:25, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
Maybe Jeffrey Kleykamp just took a different approach at showing us how stupid editcountits is, especially in RfAs. If so, good work! Of course this deification is stupid, but what's even more stupid is measuring a Wikipedians worth (or admin worthiness) by counting his edits per month. A perfect editor, who contributes greatly to 1 article and 4 wikispace discussions or backlogs every evening would never pass an RfA, because he could actually do that in 5 edits per day. Malc82 19:13, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Maybe Jimbo has Legitimate-use sockpuppets, doppelganger accounts, and maybe IP Addresses that he uses to edit with so that he could participate without being revered as "a god". Just a thought. J-stan 00:13, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Wikicity

I'm a member of the Dutch Wikipedia and some friends of me made a new Wikia: Wikistad (or Wikicity in English). I'dd like to invite you to take a look. Most of it is in Dutch, but we also have English helppages and articles.

> Wikicity
DimiTalen 18:37, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Things that honestly I need to tell

Peace be upon you. How are you guys. Is everything okay? I hope you guys are in good condition. By the way, honestly I need to tell you guys something, can any admins here block my multiple account which is User:Lokey3310 and User:Aeonimitz. I do that because honestly feel like I m a nobody. I would like to say is that I m sorry for my multiple account wrongdoing which is considered a sockpuppet here and for everything. So goodbye and peace. — Imran Al-Sahih 14:55, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

User:Aeonimitz has made a number of contributions with no warnings. It's not clear to me why the account would need to be blocked. — RJH (talk) 22:29, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

same day month year

Wondering if there was term for 07/07/07 (July 7, 2007). I know live earth is scheduled for this date but I have been wondering if there is a term for such a date? I was hoping my daughter was born on 05/05/05 (May 5, 2005) but she was late by 2 days. however, i think that now that my 2nd child was born on the same day as my first child may make more of interesting party topic...

Any assistance would be great.

Thanks, greeniusj@gmail.com

Numerology? — RJH (talk) 22:17, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
I was about to call it a "palindromic date"... but that isn't quite right. A palendrome reads the same backwards and forwards... something like 01/11/10 - which, depending on whether you use the US or UK dating system will be be either January 11, 2010 or 1 November, 2010... both systems will agree about a year later - on 11/11/11... and of course all this is moot if you write the year in full. In which case the next palindomic date falls on: 01/02/2010.
Perhaps "sequential date"? 38.105.193.11 18:41, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
Numerical patterns? — RJH (talk) 22:33, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

wiki reveals magic effects

As an avid magician, I have to protest the revelation of these effects. Such effects as King Rising, Balducci, and elevator are revealed here. It is very unhelpful to the magic community. Please help us and protest the exposure of these effects. ThanksBirdy2011

WP:NOT censored. Sorry if it spoils the trick, but I see no valid reason to withhold information about smoke and mirrors just because magicians like keeping them secret. --Nintendorulez talk 23:58, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
See this link, section "Request for removal of methods from magic effects". Dcoetzee 20:53, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

About reactive hypoglycemia -traslating a really important page from english-

Hi, I've seen your Wikipedia has an article about hypoglycemia. In the english and in the italian version of the article, there are some important information about a disease called "reactive hypoglycemia" . Many physicians don't recognize this disease, maybe cause of his unspecific symptoms, and probably there are a lot of case of reactive hypoglycemia still untreated. Although the term "hypoglycemia" entered in the american folk medicine, the existence of reactive hypoglycemia, also called postprandial hypoglycemia, is founded on solid scientific basis;for example:

So, it's important to enhance the knowledge of this disease, and, of course, it would be a good improvement for Wikipedia! I've translated part of the Italian article about reactive hypoglycemia in English;I really hope you can translate the english article in other language through other wikipedias, in order to make people around the world acknow this disease, which some of them can have untreated. It's just a page(this page) , translate it would be quite easy, wouldn't it?

Thank you very much 84.222.152.219 04:14, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

New Proposed WikiMedia Project

I have recently proposed a new WikiMedia Project, WikiThesis. WikiThesis is a place to write essays about any topic you like, in a more or less scholarly format. WikiThesis does not use the Wikipedia rules about neutral point of view and has a modified policy on original research. For example, a WikiThesis article could be titled "The Treaty of Versailles caused World War II". There is a functioning demo of WikiThesis located at http://wikithesis.scribblewiki.com/index.php/Main_Page. Feel free to go there and take a look. If you like, you can start contributing and begin forming a community, or you can just go over to Proposals for new projects and say what you think. Additionally, WikiThesis does accept most college and high school term papers if you have any you'd like to put onto the demo site to jumpstart our growth. Thanks. Cool3 21:18, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Changes newer than X seconds may not show here

What does the given value of X at this statement that I keep seeing when I study contributions depend on?? Georgia guy 15:50, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Server load, I suppose. Adrian M. H. 16:16, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

{{portalwarning}}

After seeing a ton of portals not updated today, I have created a template called {{portalwarning}}. If you place the template on your user page for a portal that interests you, you can get an automatic warning that a monthly portal page doesn't exist. It will warn you if either this month's article or next month's article is missing. Example: 

{{portalwarning|portal=College football|page=Selected article}}
{{portalwarning|portal=College football|page=Selected picture}}

Enjoy! --BigΔT 00:05, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Move format

I would like to enqure why the Special:Whatlinkshere was removed so that you can no longer check for double redirects?

This is the current format.

What happened to the old format and can it be incorporated in the current format? Simply south 20:13, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't know, but when I moved a page yesterday (29th), the link was still displayed. Adrian M. H. 16:18, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
I don't know either, and I have seen the new format. Obviously someone altered the Mediawiki pages, so the place to ask is the administators' noticeboard, since only admins can do that. Shalom Hello 09:24, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
Okay, i'll do so. Simply south 11:06, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Non-English Wikipedias

Are all these just assumed to be notable or what?--P4k 00:59, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't understand the question. — The Storm Surfer 03:07, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
List of Wikipedias. Most of these probably would have been speedily deleted if they weren't about Wikipedia sites; a few of them have been. I'm wondering if they still exist just because nobody's noticed them or if there's some consensus that simply being a Wikipedia makes a site notable or something.--P4k 03:13, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
Consider it somewhat self-referential, like having the late articles on Angela Beesley and Brad Patrick. Yes, being a Wikipedia makes it notable for Wikipedia. --Golbez 03:20, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
Well yeah, Brad Patrick's article was deleted because he isn't notable enough.--P4k 03:24, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
Yes, but after he ceased being associated with Wikipedia. ;) (OK, not entirely, but that certainly applies to Angela) --Golbez 03:32, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
It looks like it was redirected while he was still an employee. Anyway, whatever; I probably shouldn't have started this topic.--P4k 03:41, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
Eh, there's no problem with the topic, and you're probably dead on that these sites, were it not for their association with Wikipedia, probably wouldn't be notable enough for inclusion - but then again, they are articles about Wikipedia sites, so... --Golbez 03:43, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Articles on individual Wikipedia language editions may be of interest. Adrian M. H. 15:18, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
  • I think the non-english Wikipedias are what the thread starter was asking about, whether they're assumed to be notable enough for English WIkipedia articles. AFDs have found swarms of support for the claim that they are, I personally argued against that on at least on occasion. As the above link to one of the many AFDs shows, a few have been speedy deleted for not asserting importance... a lot were pretty much substubs with a few templates. --W.marsh 01:59, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
  • To directly answer the question: no, Wikipedias do not automatically merit inclusion via their affiliation with the project. This would violate some of the principles behind Wikipedia:Avoid self-reference (for example, a derivative version not affiliated with WMF would lack this motivation for emphasizing these topics). They must stand on their own, and there has been much discussion on whether they do. Some of them clearly do, which forces us to treat them on a case-by-case basis. Dcoetzee 02:39, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

IMO, that List of Wikipedias should be in the Wikipedia: namespace. Corvus cornix 22:24, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Sick of Wikipedia

NB: standard message for various users. I feel that I've been persecuted on Wikipedia, and have thus decided to take a long Wikibreak. I do not feel that Wikipedia can ever really succeed when users are picked on for applying policy and admonished from warning vandals. On this point, I agree with User:RickK. There's a full explanation on my userpage, and I'd appreciate any comments anybody has.--Rambutan (talk) 05:52, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes a vacation can be good for the perspective. Good luck. — RJH (talk) 22:58, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
Please don't come here ranting about "how you are being persicuted", when quite clearly you broke the 3RR rule repeatedly, and accuse the blocking admin (who done the right thing) of wikistalking you, grow up, and read up on 3RR. Meateater 10:13, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Anhedonia needs to be added to the schizophrenia page which is locked.

Anhedonia, a negative symptom of schizophrenia, is not listed on the schizophrenia wiki page. This is a serious flaw in the article and reflects a lack of complete research on the topic of schizophrenia. The page needs to be unlocked and available for editing again.

I have been diagnosed with schizophrenia and anhedonia as one of my symptoms and I have read much about schizophrenia so I know what I'm talking about.

Please unlock the schizophrenia webpage.

Make sure you have reliable sources to back anything you add to the article... I would hate for the material you add to be dubbed "Original Research" (ie based on nothing but your personal knowledge) and deleted. After all, while you may know what you are talking about, others have no way to verify this unless you can back up what you say with sound citations. Good luck. Blueboar 14:25, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
That article is not fully protected, but if it was, you would have to place a request at RFP, which is also the place to request protection. Adrian M. H. 16:15, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

wiki reveals magic effects

As an avid magician, I have to protest the revelation of these effects. Such effects as King Rising, Balducci, and elevator are revealed here. It is very unhelpful to the magic community. Please help us and protest the exposure of these effects. ThanksBirdy2011

WP:NOT censored. Sorry if it spoils the trick, but I see no valid reason to withhold information about smoke and mirrors just because magicians like keeping them secret. --Nintendorulez talk 23:58, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
See this link, section "Request for removal of methods from magic effects". Dcoetzee 20:53, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Survey

Hey, this seems like an appropriate place to post, if not then please remove this post, I will not complain.

I am currently doing a study on the RfA process, and I am running a survey at http://wpsurvey.100webspace.net/index.php?sid=1. I am requesting that anyone familiar with the RfA process (especially recent candidates) fills out the survey - I am going to post the results etc on-wiki, and I am using it for various studies regarding the RfA process, and how we vote.

I apologise in advance for the ads - I would have used my dedicated however it has been really slow lately, so I had to resort to free hosting *shiver*.

Thanks! Matt/TheFearow (Talk) (Contribs) (Bot) 11:34, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

It's back online, host got it sorted out. Matt/TheFearow (Talk) (Contribs) (Bot) 04:57, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Local, Regional, National

An issue that has been stirring a little storm in a teacup amongst Wikipedians from the tiny island of Jersey is whether the criteria for notability in microstates are any different to those in major nations.

One faction, not mine, have been creating pages for minor parish and ward functionaries, on the pretext that they equate to regional politicians. For those who like to think with metaphors, it's not the size of the fish, it's the size of the bowl. As the faction include a few ward officials, but no top-level politicians, they get to give themselves namechecks by taking this view.

I, however, hold that in a place too small to have regions, politicians of the apical government are still notable, but local parish and ward officials remain non-notable. that they are the next tier is irrelevant; no regions means no regional politicians, and that's that. Or, if you prefer, a small fish is still a small fish in a small bowl. As my faction have top-level politicians, but no Roads Inspectors, the other party resent this view. A bitter edit war is brewing up over my attempts to deflate their pretension, as an embarrassment to Jersey politics, so it would be nice if we could have some guidance from the wider Wikipedia community over which approach should prevail. Clicking on my contribs list will bring up a nice range of examples to look at.Daverotherham 15:19, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Without looking into this too deeply, I would support your view. It should be more about the size of the fish, not solely the size of the bowl. (Good metaphor, by the way). But one opinion won't carry much weight in this case, so you might want to consider RFC or something. Adrian M. H. 17:44, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
The one article I've seen this at doesn't involve a "bitter" edit war. While I agree with Daverotherham that such areas should not be really labeled "regions", I see nothing wrong with the appelation "national"—Jersey is a nation more than Wales, Scotland, and Catalonia are. The Jade Knight 08:22, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
The criteria for notability must include such things as press coverage and renown in the local community, it is not simple enough to base it on electoral success or otherwise as many elected members of the national government get little to no coverage and thus do not merit their own page on wikipedia. There is no bitter edit war, the only Jersey person trying to get things removed, against the concensus of Jersey resident editors is yourself. On your criteria would such countries as Andorra, Monaco, San Marino or the Vatican City merit coverage of their politics and politicians? They are full nation states and yet are also smaller than say the United Kingdom. You also make the claim that there are no regions, we not only have regions but smaller administrative districts such as vingtaines and even smaller cantons. However a full 'name only' list is being compiled at List_of_politicians_in_Jersey. Also please note that People_from_St_Helier and Saint_Helier both exist as categories on wikipedia so your assertion that it is insignificant is obviously not a concensus opinion. I too worry about the impression you are giving of Jersey to readers around the world by trying to pursue party political games on wikipedia. I beleieve that Wikipedia:Notability_(people) is a good guide basing itself more on press coverage than actually getting elected. RichardColgate 16:39, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

My project has been to stamp out Jersey party political games on Wikipedia. If the Centre Party had not vandalised the JDA entry last year, we would never have looked at theirs and discovered the web of free advertising that should not be here. I hold to the view that there are no regions in Jersey, and I think your idea makes us look Lilliputian.Daverotherham 03:46, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Seven New Wonders of the World

For those who haven't heard about it on, 7th July a foundation unveiled Seven New sites that 100m people consider to be the top candidates for Seven New Wonders of the World [BBC News Report].

The sites named are: The Great Wall of China, Machu Picchu, Statue of Christ Redeemer, The Colosseum, Petra, Chichen Itza and The Taj Mahal.

Some editors have added the details of the named sites on relevent articles but some of the details have been removed by other editors. Either the details should be on all the articles or none at all. If Wikipedia is to be consistant, editors should roughly agree what should or shouldn't be on the articles. Mike33 16:45, 8 July 2007 (UTC)·

See discussion on Talk:New_Seven_Wonders_of_the_World - DavidWBrooks 21:43, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

"Kyoungjong Yang"

I have heard of this guy named Kyoungjong Yang and that he was in 5 armies or something like that and some of the stuff I read even said that they are making a movie about him called "A POW in Normandy",but I can't find any more info on the movie or any of the other soldiers who were with him during all the capturing, so I just wanna know, does anyone have more info on him or the movie, and if so, where can I find it?

And I think that someone, if they get enough information about him that they should make a wikipedia entry about him and/or the movie.

President stickface 01:47, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Why not do some research and write it yourself? Blueboar 17:56, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Non-English Wikipedias

Are all these just assumed to be notable or what?--P4k 00:59, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't understand the question. — The Storm Surfer 03:07, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
List of Wikipedias. Most of these probably would have been speedily deleted if they weren't about Wikipedia sites; a few of them have been. I'm wondering if they still exist just because nobody's noticed them or if there's some consensus that simply being a Wikipedia makes a site notable or something.--P4k 03:13, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
Consider it somewhat self-referential, like having the late articles on Angela Beesley and Brad Patrick. Yes, being a Wikipedia makes it notable for Wikipedia. --Golbez 03:20, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
Well yeah, Brad Patrick's article was deleted because he isn't notable enough.--P4k 03:24, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
Yes, but after he ceased being associated with Wikipedia. ;) (OK, not entirely, but that certainly applies to Angela) --Golbez 03:32, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
It looks like it was redirected while he was still an employee. Anyway, whatever; I probably shouldn't have started this topic.--P4k 03:41, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
Eh, there's no problem with the topic, and you're probably dead on that these sites, were it not for their association with Wikipedia, probably wouldn't be notable enough for inclusion - but then again, they are articles about Wikipedia sites, so... --Golbez 03:43, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Articles on individual Wikipedia language editions may be of interest. Adrian M. H. 15:18, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
  • I think the non-english Wikipedias are what the thread starter was asking about, whether they're assumed to be notable enough for English WIkipedia articles. AFDs have found swarms of support for the claim that they are, I personally argued against that on at least on occasion. As the above link to one of the many AFDs shows, a few have been speedy deleted for not asserting importance... a lot were pretty much substubs with a few templates. --W.marsh 01:59, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
  • To directly answer the question: no, Wikipedias do not automatically merit inclusion via their affiliation with the project. This would violate some of the principles behind Wikipedia:Avoid self-reference (for example, a derivative version not affiliated with WMF would lack this motivation for emphasizing these topics). They must stand on their own, and there has been much discussion on whether they do. Some of them clearly do, which forces us to treat them on a case-by-case basis. Dcoetzee 02:39, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

IMO, that List of Wikipedias should be in the Wikipedia: namespace. Corvus cornix 22:24, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Poor Mick Taylor

I just did some editing on the Mick Taylor page--he the great ex-guitarist of The Rolling Stones. A batch of poor writing, sophomoric, vaguely ill-informed and chock full of uncited sources. I cleaned it up a little, but it's enough to make you realize again the huge problems that Wikipedia, this potentially great source of information, is up against. One wonders if Wikipedia can possibly emerge as a viable source from not only relatively minor transgresssions like this, to say nothing of the really bad and dangerous stuff. Who wields me, wields the world! 15:10, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

In my more contemplative moments, I sometimes wonder the same thing. Adrian M. H. 16:28, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
It probably can't.--P4k 00:29, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism Question ?

When a user deletes vandalism and free use templates from there talk page when they are newly added should the edit be reverted or the templates replaced? Yamaka122 ...☑ 16:16, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

The current consensus is that the removal of the templates is an admission that they have been read, no need to replace them, but you can escalate the templates instead of starting over from scratch with a uw-v1. Corvus cornix 16:20, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
For a registered editor, the current concensus is that they can delete them without archival. On IP addresses I usually restore the templates per the layout and time limitations deliniated at WP:UW because the recent history from an IP is useful and since they're usually at most only semi-static, "ownership" can't be implied. —Elipongo (Talk contribs) 16:27, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Humor

I found this link funny:

Wikipedia joke - the title is the punchline

--Eqdoktor 13:32, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Thank you all Wikipedia team

Greetings,

My name is Sultan and I am Omani. I knew about Wikipedia from about one year and since then it became my main source of information. What I like most that I can feel the honesty and the hard work of Wikipedia team in every subject. Also, whenever I open Wikipedia I ended up far away from the subject I was looking for because as I read I found a blue word then I click on it and in the other page I find also another blue word and so on , It's endless.

Each day I feel that I must thank you all Wikipedia team for the effort and the hard work you give each single day to modify and expand Wikipedia, and all for free. Now, I use Wikipedia for almost everything I want to know more about it, for my projects, my hobbies, my work etc.. .I knows that I will find it whatever I am looking for.

Thank you, Thank you and thank you. Keep up the excellent work because millions of people each day expand there knowledge because of Wikipedia.


Truly yours

Sultan Al-Waily Oman

You're welcome. Useight 17:04, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Cleveland

I don't think Cleveland should redirect to Cleveland, Ohio. Cleveland, England is quite big (estimated population of the former county was over 500,000 in 2000, compared to the City of Cleveland's 478,000).

In a way isn't Cleveland's redirection to the American city an example of systematic bias? Computerjoe's talk 19:57, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

The simple [[Cleveland]] should probably be redirected to Cleveland (disambiguation). Blueboar 20:04, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
Concur... there's enough common ambiguity here for a redirect to Cleveland (disambiguation), which should be refactored a bit to present the two common options very prominently. Also someone should use AWB or similar to go through all the incoming links to Cleveland. Is there some kind of local opposition to this? --W.marsh 01:19, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
Concur with all of you! Computerjoe's talk 07:34, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
Actually, if the main article redirects to the dab, shouldn't the dab be moved to the main article instead (over the redirect)? Confusing Manifestation 06:19, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
Yep. Will someone make it so? :P Computerjoe's talk 20:22, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
The population of cleveland the city may be 450k, but the population of cleveland metro is 2.2 million. Just some food for thought... pw 01:45, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
Some more info for you, check out this link: Largest_urban_areas_of_the_United_States. It's bigger than Las Vegas. pw 01:48, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
Sigh. We had this discussion a long time ago, and nothing has changed since then. It's not a matter of systematic bias; it's simply a matter of linking to a major American metropolitan area instead of an abolished British county. Nearly all of the many links pointing to Cleveland are about the city, a clear indication that the primary topic guideline applies here. I think Tony Sidaway put it best back in 2005 when he said, "There is no excuse for thrusting a disambiguation page at the reader who just wants to read about Cleveland." - EurekaLott 21:09, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
I agree, a little linky in the article is sufficient. Size of population isn't that relevant to notability, so even if the UK cleveland had more peopel (and we've seen why it doesn't) that's not enough for a dab page. BUT Maybe something has happened in the past two years that dramatically affects the UK Cleveland's notability? If editors can show that exciting things are happening in Cleveland (UK) I'm sure that'd convince other editors that a dab page would be useful. Dan Beale 13:49, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
I think it should be redirected to Ohio, because most Wikipedians are American, I suppose, so in that matter it should redirect into the Ohio city, or perhaps for all this case a disabigulation page? WeRollMadDeepYo!

Poor Mick Taylor

I just did some editing on the Mick Taylor page--he the great ex-guitarist of The Rolling Stones. A batch of poor writing, sophomoric, vaguely ill-informed and chock full of uncited sources. I cleaned it up a little, but it's enough to make you realize again the huge problems that Wikipedia, this potentially great source of information, is up against. One wonders if Wikipedia can possibly emerge as a viable source from not only relatively minor transgresssions like this, to say nothing of the really bad and dangerous stuff. Who wields me, wields the world! 15:10, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

In my more contemplative moments, I sometimes wonder the same thing. Adrian M. H. 16:28, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
It probably can't.--P4k 00:29, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Heir to the Wikipedian Throne

GO HERE!!! dont go here. i messed up. Skunkmaster 22:26, 16 July 2007 (UTC) User:Skunkmaster/Heir to the Wikipedian Throne


Skunkmaster 00:28, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Article Rescue Squadron: Combat medics needed

After many hours on the battlefield, I have seen more than my share of wounded articles fall, abandoned, to their final resting place. The Wikipedia:Article Rescue Squadron is my response: a combat medicine team that will rescue those articles unable to rescue themselves. Tlogmer ( talk / contributions ) 23:31, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

WP:ARS ?? That could be the butt of many jokes. Gandalf61 14:53, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Random article selection

Proposed: that the Random Article navigation button be specialized to Random within general topic, e.g. Science & Technology, Religion, Social Affairs, People, or, alternatively the major content topics already used by WP. I happen to love the Random button, but I'm only interested in Science and Technology.

Implementing this would require categorizing articles, or, probably better, just a keyword screen by the existing Random selector. E.g Science and technology keywords: energy, momentum, machine, materials. A keyword screen has the advantage that the keyword list could be updated, thereby involving no software update as time progresses.--GordonPowell 15:35, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

I would propose that Random Page in a category should randomly chose an article in that category. Further, the ability to create a random link (for example, [[Rand:Link text|category|category|et cetera]] or something similar) would be convenient. However, this isn't really where this belongs. Atropos 05:32, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
Problem is you would only hit pages that are properly categorized. — RJH (talk) 15:46, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Template creep

Ahh, another ingenious template. Looks good (referring to "Climate chart template" above). Speaking of which, I'm just posting here to see if anyone has input on my recent Wikipedia:Avoid template creep essay. So far I have received positive feedback and no one has barked at me for it, so I thought it would be good to seek broader input. Right now it's really just a stab in the dark at a vaguely defined problem. Cheers, heqs ·:. 22:21, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Climate chart template

I've played a bit with xhtml and css last night and came up with a template that can do the following for us. More information at {{Climate chart}}. Zocky | picture popups 14:45, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Buenos Aires
Climate chart (explanation)
J
F
M
A
M
J
J
A
S
O
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79
 
 
29
17
 
 
71
 
 
28
17
 
 
109
 
 
26
16
 
 
89
 
 
22
12
 
 
76
 
 
18
8
 
 
61
 
 
14
5
 
 
56
 
 
14
6
 
 
61
 
 
16
6
 
 
79
 
 
18
8
 
 
86
 
 
21
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84
 
 
24
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99
 
 
28
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█ Precipitation totals in mm
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JFMAMJJASOND
 
 
3.1
 
 
84
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2.8
 
 
82
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61
 
 
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72
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3
 
 
64
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57
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2.2
 
 
57
43
 
 
2.4
 
 
61
43
 
 
3.1
 
 
64
46
 
 
3.4
 
 
70
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3.3
 
 
75
55
 
 
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82
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█ Precipitation totals in inches
Mombasa
Climate chart (explanation)
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JFMAMJJASOND
 
 
1
 
 
88
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0.7
 
 
88
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2.5
 
 
88
77
 
 
7.7
 
 
86
75
 
 
13
 
 
82
73
 
 
4.7
 
 
82
73
 
 
3.5
 
 
81
72
 
 
2.5
 
 
81
72
 
 
2.5
 
 
82
72
 
 
3.4
 
 
84
73
 
 
3.8
 
 
84
75
 
 
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86
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Cuzco
Climate chart (explanation)
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109
 
 
21
7
 
 
51
 
 
22
4
 
 
15
 
 
21
2
 
 
5
 
 
21
1
 
 
5
 
 
21
−1
 
 
10
 
 
21
1
 
 
25
 
 
22
4
 
 
66
 
 
22
6
 
 
76
 
 
23
6
 
 
137
 
 
22
7
█ Average max. and min. temperatures in °C
█ Precipitation totals in mm
Imperial conversion
JFMAMJJASOND
 
 
6.4
 
 
68
45
 
 
5.9
 
 
70
45
 
 
4.3
 
 
70
45
 
 
2
 
 
72
39
 
 
0.6
 
 
70
36
 
 
0.2
 
 
70
34
 
 
0.2
 
 
70
30
 
 
0.4
 
 
70
34
 
 
1
 
 
72
39
 
 
2.6
 
 
72
43
 
 
3
 
 
73
43
 
 
5.4
 
 
72
45
█ Average max. and min. temperatures in °F
█ Precipitation totals in inches
Tokyo
Climate chart (explanation)
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74
 
 
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12
2
 
 
135
 
 
17
8
 
 
147
 
 
22
12
 
 
165
 
 
24
17
 
 
142
 
 
28
21
 
 
152
 
 
30
22
 
 
234
 
 
26
19
 
 
208
 
 
21
13
 
 
97
 
 
16
6
 
 
56
 
 
11
1
█ Average max. and min. temperatures in °C
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Imperial conversion
JFMAMJJASOND
 
 
1.9
 
 
46
28
 
 
2.9
 
 
48
30
 
 
4.2
 
 
54
36
 
 
5.3
 
 
63
46
 
 
5.8
 
 
72
54
 
 
6.5
 
 
75
63
 
 
5.6
 
 
82
70
 
 
6
 
 
86
72
 
 
9.2
 
 
79
66
 
 
8.2
 
 
70
55
 
 
3.8
 
 
61
43
 
 
2.2
 
 
52
34
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█ Precipitation totals in inches
Labuan
Climate chart (explanation)
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351
 
 
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318
 
 
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297
 
 
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417
 
 
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JFMAMJJASOND
 
 
4.4
 
 
86
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86
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88
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12
 
 
90
75
 
 
14
 
 
90
75
 
 
14
 
 
88
75
 
 
13
 
 
88
77
 
 
12
 
 
88
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16
 
 
88
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18
 
 
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Tomsk
Climate chart (explanation)
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66
 
 
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66
 
 
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JFMAMJJASOND
 
 
1.1
 
 
0
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0.7
 
 
9
−8
 
 
0.8
 
 
21
1
 
 
0.9
 
 
37
19
 
 
1.6
 
 
54
37
 
 
2.7
 
 
66
48
 
 
2.6
 
 
73
54
 
 
2.6
 
 
68
50
 
 
1.6
 
 
57
39
 
 
2
 
 
37
27
 
 
1.8
 
 
16
7
 
 
1.5
 
 
3
−8
█ Average max. and min. temperatures in °F
█ Precipitation totals in inches
Sweet! Thanks Zocky! Anything that cuts down on unnecessary images, keeps data accessible, AND looks good doing it is awesome in my book. — The Storm Surfer 20:54, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
Definitely very cool, I'd like to see these on many articles. Although I can't figure out how to make this reply go under it. :-/ Dcoetzee 21:33, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. You might want to voice that opinion in its deletion discussion. Zocky | picture popups 00:50, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Spam is coming?

From [10]

Status: Open

Budget: $30-100

Created: 06/25/2007 at 17:01 EDT

Bidding Ends: 07/02/2007 at 17:01 EDT (6 days left)

Project Creator: tobad78

Buyer Rating: (1 reviews)

Description:

I need a permanent article link about for my home automation /security website in wikipedia which can be viewed by searching for keywords in the wikepedia.

Please only bid if you have done that in the past.

Payment

half when done

other half 2 weeks later if article is still up

Job Type: Link Building

SEO Database: (None)

Operating system: (None)

Bid count: 3

Average bid: $ 57

Please see Wikipedia:Bounty board. 68.101.123.219 00:38, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm afraid of Spam. WeRollMadDeepYo!--Pdgator29 17:43, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Based on the contents of your request, it seems to violate Wikipedia policy. See WP:SPAM. Bart133 (t) (c) 00:07, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
I don't think this is a request, it's a heads-up that someone is hunting for a freelancer to spam for them. Might be interesting to keep an eye on. Tony Fox (arf!) review? 18:34, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
The status has since changed to "frozen".--YbborTalk 19:31, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
I think that indicates the bidding window is closed. I suspect I've pinpointed the website in question however (I'd link to it, but that'd defeat the purpose!) and will be watching for an article directing to it eagerly, with my {{db-spam}} tag ready. Tony Fox (arf!) review? 20:33, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Overusing superlatives

There is a tendency to use the word extremely in almost any descriptive phrase. While I think the word itself is perfectly fine, I don't think that every single thing on the planet is either extremely poor or extremely good in doing whatever they do. What happened to milder terms like excellent, satisfactory or just plain good? It makes it hard for the reader to evaluate or grade anything in relation to other similar things if the only adjective used is extreme. When writing articles, consider if whatever it is you're describing CAN actually be considered extreme enough to be described as such. 80.221.26.252 08:51, 18 July 2007 (UTC) Sappi

Overusing superlatives is an extremely bad idea, whereas "excellent" is very cool; and by very cool, I mean totally awesome. Seriously, overemphasis is to be avoided; consider raising this at Wikipedia talk:Manual of style if it hasn't been already. Dcoetzee 09:33, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
The absolute best policy that has ever, or will ever be created relating to this would have to be the amazing WP:PEACOCK. --YbborTalk 14:11, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Re-directing an article without discussion

Look at the history of Inventory items exclusive to Super Mario Bros. 3. TTN says it's okay to re-direct a several-month-old article without any discussion. Anyone have any opinions?? Georgia guy 20:55, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Like most things, it's about consensus. If the redirect is contested, they ought to talk about it and come to a consensus. If it's not and the action is reasonable, you can be bold and do it. Dcoetzee 01:47, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Suggested Environmental Category Addition to Each Country Data Sheet

. .

posted to wikipedia miscellaneous village pump section per advice from wiki admin I was pointed in this general area, but not sure if this is the right place for this...have not used Wikipedia for long...If there's a better place for this suggestion, please indicate.

I'd like to suggest adding the following standard datums to every country's top-page data sheet in Wikipedia.

Adding these would be consistent with increasing environmental awareness of users.


For example, in the right-most column on the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_states page for the United States add these key data (same thing for every other country similarly listed) in Wikipedia:

1) Total Forested Area in the country (as % of total area...like the water datum) 2) Deforestation Rate (number of hectares (or percentage?) destroyed or added annually, may be + or -) Unsure whether this should be parsed as man-caused deforestation v. deforestation due to natural causes.

3) Total "greenhouse" gases emitted annually by the country (kilograms)

4) Total standardized carbon annual output


These might also be considered: I'm not sure how to express these properly, but they would be of value as well...but more difficult to maintain and perhaps more subject to contention.

For both greenhouse gases and carbon output

5) Total X emitted while producing products for export (e.g. how much greenhouse gas was emitted while producing all products that were exported to all other countries that year for consumption by other countries)

5a) Same thing for carbon


6) Total Y emitted equivalent for imported products (e.g. how much carbon was emitted by all other countries to create and transport the products imported into the country for consumption by that country)

6a) Same thing for greenhouse gases

Or, perhaps 5 & 6 could be presented as NET +/- import and export, output or emissions equivalent for each category? Or, as a percentage of totals? Not sure which would be best way to show these. For example, a country might produce 2x10^12 kilograms of CO2 in a year, but 5x10^9 kg of that might have been produced ONLY because it was making or growing something for consumption by another country. Darkmeta 12:12, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

While you're at it, why not add the annual rate of executions, the use of torture, treatment of women and minorities, production of illegal drugs, support/acts of terrorism, past attrocities, average education level, presence/acceptance of slavery, murder rate, prisoner population, tolerance of whaling, obesity level, government control of the press and suppression of religious freedom? Thanks. — RJH (talk) 15:52, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Wow, that was kinda harsh. Chill out. -Violask81976 19:44, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

It wasn't intended to be harsh; just reflective. That level of political data can just as easily be displayed in lists on sub-topic pages. :-) — RJH (talk) 18:37, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

I could see adding those added data as a sub-topic, but I was initially thinking more along the lines of listing properties that affect other countries as well for the top page. One might also consider adding data regarding energy production percentages...something like this: xx% Coal xx% Gaseous (e.g. NOT gasoline or diesel) xx% Gasoline/Diesel xx% Nuclear xx% Wind xx% Hydro-electric (dams, tidal, etc.) xx% Solar (thermal and photovoltaic) xx% other (as needed)

and, maybe even include the annual carbon/greenhouse output data for each category as well: e.g. xx% Gaseous (20x10^8 kg) xx% Wind (1x10^7 kg) (note that even Wind power generation has a carbon/greenhouse component because they do require maintenance, lubrication, etc. NOTHING has a 0 carbon/greenhouse component)

But, I didn't want to flood the top-page with details. Darkmeta Darkmeta 10:36, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

  • Why not do this in reverse and have one page with a detailed list for all countries instead of adding a little section to every country? You could link it from each countries main page if necessary. Would also make it easier to compare data between countries. Lanfear's Bane
I think RJH's point is that there is an almost endless list of "important facts" we can give about nations: An infobox could stretch three screens long and still leave out stuff. As a result, I think they should be limited to the standard basic "encyclopediac" information (area, demographics, major macroeconomic data), and other information collected and presented as necessary elsewhere. - DavidWBrooks 16:37, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

I could see this being put on a seperate page - United States statistical data, or something like that, with a link from United States. Corvus cornix 18:30, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Ya'll might want to check out WikiProject: Chemistry or WikiProject: Elements, they use something like what ya'll are describing to have a single infobox page displayed by all forms of a chemical or element.--scorpion 451 rant 16:42, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

A new advance in vandalism

At the risk of BEANS, I just thought it might be worth pointing out a new behaviour I have observed in vandals recently, such as Special:Contributions/Youugly93u Special:Contributions/TylrKakarot1. What I've noticed happening more and more is that a vandal will make several little vandalous edits to an article in a row, possibly with the last edit looking quite innocuous. Someone looks at the recent changes, or their watchlist, and only sees the last edit, which they either revert or leave, without seeing the earlier vandalism. Interestingly, in the contribs I posted here it looks like two accounts working together to achieve this effect. So really this is to point out that it's getting increasingly important to check the last couple of diffs. I thought here was probably the place to put this. Skittle 21:19, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I have a trick to get around this that I discovered by accident. When someone has several edits in a row, for sheer convinience I compare their last to the last edit that was not by them, so I can see everything they changed at once. I have seen the type of vandalism that is described above using this method, and it makes it much more noticable.--Scorpion451 00:51, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
Um, in my watchlist, I always click the link that shows the diff for the whole day, rather than just the last edit. --Random832 01:24, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
What extension is needed to do that? I don't see it in my watchlist page. Neier 06:35, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
Nor do I. Also, Scorpion, I've noticed a couple of accounts making edits after each other to the same article, so if you only check the edits by one account, you wouldn't see that the other account had also vandalised the article. Skittle 11:37, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
Under the "Watchlist" tab of "my preferences", you can check off "Expand watchlist to show all applicable changes", I think that's what Scorpion451's talking about. Myself I use popups and usually check all the edits since my own last edit. I don't think this is really a new pattern, I've seen this along with vandals leaving innocuous edit summaries many times. —Elipongo (Talk contribs) 13:00, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
Hmmm, maybe they've just drifted into my watchlist. I thought I'd mention it, because a lot of the time I see in the history that someone has reverted only the most recent edit, leaving the other vandalism untouched. Unless someone notices fairly quickly, it can then stay until someone reads the article thoroughly, at which point it is hard to know what the article used to say. Of course, maybe all the people who read the village pump check all the diffs since their own last edit (I do), and the people who are just reverting the last diff are unreachable! Skittle 23:15, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

There seems to be some confusion as to my trick for catching this kind of vandalism. The way I look at the sum total of the changes is through the "history" page. Using the radio buttons to compare the most recient changes to, for example, the page as of my last edit, I can easily get a view of what's been changed since I last looked over the article. This was the original purpose for this, to see what was new on pages I was watching. When I discover this type of vandalism, I am able to tell by going back to the history page who changed what when and fix it, while editing so as to leave or reinstate positive content changes.--Scorpion451 23:46, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

This style of vandalism seems conceived to break the "rollback" button, which only reverts the changes of the most recent user. Always check history. Dcoetzee 00:28, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
Definitely agree; checking the history quite important. Accidentally reverting to a vandalized version is a situation that happens not infrequently. GracenotesT § 07:21, 14 July 2007 (UTC)


Nice topic got one of this case yesterday and didn't undo all the changes :~< Kanibalos 16:47, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Help request

dear reader iam a student and doing my engineering.i want to get specialised in mobile communication,so please help me to start up with.i have no guidance and will be grateful to all your help .iam a third year student— Preceding unsigned comment added by Galaxy4mi (talk • contribs) 05:04, 24 July 2007

I suppose you could start of by reading the Mobile phone article, but I doubt your professors will appreciate you doing much research from an encyclopedia rather than from your textbooks or references from the library. If you need help in terms of your educational path, you should probably speak to a guidance counselor at your school, but I suppose it wouldn't hurt to post a query in the appropriate section of our Reference desk also. Good luck! —Elipongo (Talk contribs) 05:54, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

multi-watchlists

With up to 700 pages in my watchlist, most of which seem to be fairly busy at the moment, it is sometimes easy to miss a changes to a page I am particularly keen to watch. Is it possible (without using sockpuppets) to create different watch lists, or filter/select/sort the contents of my single list? Thanks, Lynbarn 13:10, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes. Special:Recentchangeslinked/User:SpecifiedUsername/OptionalSpecifiedSubpage lists changes to all Wikipedia pages on the User:User:SpecifiedUsername/OptionalSpecifiedSubpage page, for example.
Also, a recent change, as you may be aware, added an "edit raw watchlist" link/option to the standard watchlist page. That allows you to copy/paste (and sort, elsewhere), your watchlist pages to multiple subpages. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 16:03, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

That all...made no sense.... what? -Violask81976 17:50, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

I think he's saying that you can set up a list of articles on a subpage of your user page and use the "Related changes" to find recent changes to that list. —Elipongo (Talk contribs) 19:06, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Say, for example, you were interested in continents of the world. You could make a page called User:Violask81976/Continents and on that page put
*[[Africa]]
*[[Antarctica]]
*[[Asia]]
*[[Australasia]]
*[[Europe]]
*[[North America]]
*[[South America]]
Then, you could go to Special:Recentchangeslinked/User:Violask81976/Continents and you'll get the recent changes to only the pages that you've put down. You can then repeat this making separate pages for each topic and see the recent changes for each one separately. Tra (Talk) 19:11, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:The Zen of Wikipedia

Because I think that it should be linked to more, and have more entries, I'm mentioning Wikipedia:The Zen of Wikipedia here. That is all. Thanks, Luc "Somethingorother" French 14:00, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Random article game

I was rather surprised to only have to click on the random article link 16 times before it brought up an article that I had edited. Admittedly it was only the briefest of edits, but it got me wondering what the odds on that were? The Wannbe Kate tool has me down as editing 6044 unique pages, but I guess that includes more than just mainspace articles. Are all the 1.9 million articles accessible through the the random page generator? I was probably also lucky in that it was a page I had edited recently, and remembered editing. Carcharoth 08:28, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Well that gives you odds of roughly 1/315, not bad when you think about it. Lanfear's Bane
Well, the next time I tried, I gave up at article 105. I guess I should have stuck it out to article 315... There were some interesting finds in that list of 105 though. Carcharoth 10:26, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
It can be very interesting, only thing is I Wiki in work quite a lot and when it brings up a random article on a transexual pornstar it may not reflect too well on me should they decide to examine my browsing history. Lanfear's Bane
Oddly enough, I have never had that happen. In fact, the random articles mostly seem to be better quality and more interesting than the ones I look up, which are mostly about "controversial" topics. Steve Dufour 14:26, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Correct PoAF squadron name writing?

Hi there,
I would like to request your help do clarify a doubt of mine. I've been lately working more on articles related to the Portuguese Air Force here at Wikipedia and have ran intro some trouble when translating correctly the squadron's number format. I took a look around and tried to adopt a format already used in another air force article (i.e. USAF and Royal Air Force) but they ended up seeming incorrect.

Just to show you the problem and the type of formats that I tried I'll post here a brief explanation. In Portuguese the naming used for squadrons - and using an real example - is Esquadra 201 Falcões - Esquadra = Squadron, Falcões = Falcons. Now, I don't have any problems translating Falcões, but I'm in doubt about the right translation for Esquadra 2001. Here are some examples of the translations that I tried so far:

  • 201st Squadron
    This is the format used by the USAF (i.e. 18th Fighter Squadron), and I personally have used this once but it is incorrect, since the PoAF's squadron numbers aren't just "plain numbers", instead they are a set of three algorithms in which the first two indicate the squadron's primary mission and the type of aircraft operated.
  • No. 201 Squadron
    This is the form used by the Royal Air Force and other commonwealth air forces.
  • 201 Squadron
    This naming was already used in some articles by other users and seems correct but there is still another option.
  • Squadron 201
    This one is actually the one used at the official PoAF website in English, but still I'm in doubt about using it.

This is probably something really simple, but I would appreciate any help to clarify this.

Best regards, Get_It 03:23, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

I know nothing about this subject myself, but have you tried the nice folks over at Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Military aviation task force? - BanyanTree 04:09, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
No I haven't, but I'll submit my question to them now. Thank you, Get_It 17:45, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Question

Does anyone know what happened to User:Ivan Kricancic. How can some user simply vanish without a trace like that? --Edin Sijercic 01:01, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Their account was renamed. Tra (Talk) 01:13, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, I believe it was renamed (click Tra's link)--Pdgator29 16:18, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Facebook

Is their an "offical" wikipedian group on facebook? The Placebo Effect 03:34, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Not that I know of - not sure what purpose such a group would serve either. Instead, there's still the IRC channels. - 52 Pickup 07:50, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Village Pump Question

I'm sorry if this is in the wrong Category, but why doesn't Wikipedia get real forums instead of pages for editing to call "forums" I like the Wiki forums where it is like Uncyclopedia and had sections and topics instead of big edit titles. Ya get me? Thoughts? --Pdgator29 03:36, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

They have been worked on, but it's a lot to program and there are many problems to overcome. It's not as easy as it sounds. Matt/TheFearow (Talk) (Contribs) (Bot) 01:43, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

genuine?

is the information provided in the wikipedia genuine..because anyone can edit it and anyone with their own knowledge bring in their own facts which might not be one hundred percent true. i wanted to know if the genuinity of the info is checked? if so, how is it done?

Ideally, yes, the information is "genuine"... editors are not supposed to include facts from their own knowledge (See our policy: Wikipedia:No original research), but instead should repeat facts that are verifiable and stated in reliable third party sources (See our policy: Wikipedia:Verification). Unfortunately, we do not always live up to that ideal. Edits are made from personal knowledge (sometimes accurate and sometimes not), and even from a biased Point Of View (See our policy: Wikipedia:Neutral point of view). It is up to other editors, who are knowledgable about the subject (and the sources) to fact check, add references and correct errors. So... to answer your question: it depends on the article and those working on it. Some articles are very accurate, sourced to reliable third party sources, and thus "genuine"... others are not (yet) at that stage. If you note an error, please correct it. Blueboar 14:45, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
Yeah. Wikipedia has smart admins that can catch Vandals posting invalid info. Why give invalid information anyway? Wikipedia is a community project! --Pdgator29 03:38, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

No, it's not genuine.--P4k 23:52, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

The first thing to look for is line citations. A well written article should have a list of footnotes that specifically back up all major facts. You can also browse the talk page and history files to see how the article developed. The best Wikipedia pages have been designated featured articles or good articles. Otherwise, quality is uneven. Feel welcome to improve a page if you can make it better - anything from fixing spelling to adding reliable sourcing and content. Regards, DurovaCharge! 04:03, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I wasn't too sure where to put this comment so please forgive me if it's in the wrong place.

I like the "In The News" section on the WP Main Page but i find it very annoying that the links in the news article summaries are standard internal Wikipedia links to general articles - and that you can't click the item as a whole and go to a news article that talks about that particular piece of news.

Is there a reason for this ? thanks Hugoscott 09:10, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

For each item there is one bolded link which covers the news item in some detail. See Wikipedia:In the news section on the Main Page for the guidelines.-gadfium 09:38, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

BC or BCE?

Moved to Talk:Japan.

Nano Technology Developing

The new trend of technology that combine physics and chemistry already developed on Indonesia which located at Serpong, Tangerang. That technology is popular known as nanotechnology that can make a new particle characteristic with atomic fusion.

Bot Approvals

We're trialling a change to the Bot Approvals process allowing anyone with bot experience to join the approvals group. There are some details on that page, and discussion can go towards the talk page, WT:BAG.

In related news, there's a change to the technical side of posting bot requests, when you initially post a request to WP:BRFA, rather than transcluding, there's a template that is used, Template:BRFA. --ST47Talk·Desk 14:43, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Ref tags are great, but they make things impossible to read when you edit them.

The <ref> tags are a great improvement over other ways to do citations, and it's very nice how they organize everything themselves. The only problem is that their content, which can include long and complicated {{cite news}} or other tags, has to go right in with the text of the article. This disrupts the flow of the text to someone editing and can, in the worst case, make it nearly impossible to read. Take 2007 New York City steam explosion, for example. There are so many refs in here that at less than half of the first paragraph when editing is made up of article text.

The "name" attribute of the <ref> tag neatly solves this problem if the reference needs to be referred to more than once. But this only works if the ref has been defined earlier in the article. So, my question is, why can't we have a system where all of the references that will be used in the article are defined in one place (some special hidden section) and given names, and then in the article body they can be referred to with simply <ref name="whatever their name is"/>?

So instead having to mingle in with the text of the article all the clutter of:

leaving a crater about 35 feet (10 meters) wide<ref name="nyt1">{{cite news|first=James|last=Barron|title=Steam Blast Jolts Midtown, Killing One|url=http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/19/nyregion/19explode.html|publisher=[[New York Times]] | date=[[2007-07-19]] | accessdate=2007-07-19}}</ref> and 15 feet (4 meters) deep.<ref name="CNN air">{{cite news | first=Amy | last=Sahba | coauthors= Katy Byron | title=Air OK, but asbestos in debris from N.Y. steam pipe blast | date=[[2007-07-19]] | publisher=[[CNN]] | url =http://edition.cnn.com/2007/US/07/19/new.york.explosion/ | accessdate = 2007-07-19 | language = }}</ref>

all the <ref name="nyt1">{{cite news|first=James|last=Barron... stuff would be in its own separate section and all you would have to put with the article body would be:

leaving a crater about 35 feet (10 meters) wide<ref name="nyt1"/> and 15 feet (4 meters) deep.<ref name="CNN air"/>.

Much better, isn't it? I can't see any drawbacks at all to this, but of course there must be some. I assume that would require some software change. Feedback? Reasons this is a bad idea? -- BlastOButter42 See Hear Speak 21:58, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

You could do this currently by just defining and naming all your refs at the top and just referencing them by name lower. I agree it would probably result in a more readable article. pw 22:02, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
Oops I left out the part about a hidden div or something, or maybe in HTML comments? I've never tried either, but it may hide it well enough. Worth a shot I suppose. pw 22:04, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
I tried using HTML comments; you can see the result in my sandbox. It almost worked, but content of the references didn't go through. I also tried doing something slightly more complicated, where the element of the ref tag is outside of the HTML comment tag, but that didn't work either. I'm pretty sure there's no way to do this without a software change. -- BlastOButter42 See Hear Speak 22:20, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
I believe that name idea would work - perhaps it would be a good thing to consider mentioning in the references guideline article? My only concern is that doing this may be confusing to new editors - who can have a hard time already figuring out the syntax of the ref tags. --Tim4christ17 talk 22:07, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Footnotes3 is basically exactly that system implemented with templates. Changes along the lines you suggest have already been suggested, see e.g. Wikipedia:Ref reform, but have just not been implemented. Christopher Parham (talk) 23:00, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

You could do this currently by just defining and naming all your refs at the top and just referencing them by name lower.

This can be difficult to do if you're adding references to text that already exists, and you're still clogging up the text, even if it is at the bottom.--P4k 23:10, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

You can actually put the text of the references in the references/notes section, as long as the <references/> tag (or reflist template, or whatever) is after, not before, the text for all footnotes/references. If the developers were to modify the code so that the <references/> also used text below it, then implementing this proposal would involve a minimal amount of confusion. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 01:08, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
The problem with that is then the reference gets disassociated from the text to which it refers. Imagine you start to edit one of the references, and then want to refer to the article text it is supporting. Instead of the text being there right next to you, it is "up there" somewhere. You probably have to open another tab/window and load the page to click back to the text you are referencing.n Unless I'm misunderstanding something. One system would be to have the refs in a sidebar next to the text while editing, rather than at the bottom. In fact, there are lots of different ways, but with as big a user base as Wikipedia, finding the one that will "catch on" is not easy. Carcharoth 01:22, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Formating the references can make the surrounding text somewhat easier to read. I usually do something like this: 

leaving a crater about 35 feet (10 meters) wide<ref name="nyt1">
{{cite news
 | first=James | last=Barron

 | title=Steam Blast Jolts Midtown, Killing One
 | url=http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/19/nyregion/19explode.html
 | publisher=New York Times | date=2007-07-19
 | accessdate=2007-07-19 }}
</ref> and 15 feet (4 meters) deep.<ref name="CNN air">
{{cite news
 | first=Amy | last=Sahba | coauthors= Katy Byron
 | title=Air OK, but asbestos in debris from N.Y. steam pipe blast
 | date=2007-07-19 | publisher=CNN
 | url=http://edition.cnn.com/2007/US/07/19/new.york.explosion/ 
 | accessdate = 2007-07-19 | language = }}</ref>

This is especially helpful for citations in infoboxes. — RJH (talk) 18:04, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree: en.wiki's <ref> tag and the whole bunch of related templates are *EVIL*. They give a real hard time to people translating en.wiki articles on other languages. I think it's one of the most perverse use of templates in all the wiki-world:
  • Difficult to edit
  • Makes complicated a simple task (to compile a bibliography)
  • Overlinked: modify that and wait a month for the server queue to complete
  • Makes reading the source of a page a real pain, and eventually breaks the paragraph
It's some time i want to say that. --Jollyroger 15:18, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

wiki groups

Hi all, I've been editing for a little while but I'm still very much a newbie. I hope this is the correct place for this question.

I am interested in joining a contributors project that helps assist with standardization of measurement units and the internationalization of English language articles.

Something that I find often in the English Wikipedia is that there is not much consensus on whether to use Imperial or metric units, and often there will be no consistency within the same article, even! I'm interested in learning about Wikipedia policies regarding these issues and how to connect with other contributors who have the same goal. I want to make sure all English language readers can use these articles.

Is there a group I can join to learn about these policies and to contribute to measurement units standardization? Popkultur 00:32, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

There is no WikiProject that I am aware of, but you can reference the Manual of Style on this matter at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Units of measurement. However, it is bad to switch from one system to another and in most cases, it is appropriate to provide both. --Farix (Talk) 00:46, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Merging Assitance

Hey everyone,

Could I please have some assistance merging the content in from Talk:Enfield 8000? A COI user who I and several others have been reverting off the page for several days has finally started posting it on the talk page, but I am not sure how to go about merging it in.

Thanks! Matt/TheFearow (Talk) (Contribs) (Bot) 01:42, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Nevermind, we are still sorting some issues out. But it seems to be going great now :) Matt/TheFearow (Talk) (Contribs) (Bot) 06:43, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
I need some help here, it doesn't seem to be working, and i'm getting tired with it. Could someone else please handle it before I stuff something up? Matt/TheFearow (Talk) (Contribs) (Bot) 01:14, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Help with Movie Title

Can anyone help me find a title to a movie. It is one I watched all the time as a kid. I can't remember the name but it was about a girl who alsway got headaches from bright lights. One day she sees herself on the tv but it isn't her/ It is a girl who looks just like her. She gets currious and goes investigating. She finds out there are many of her they were cloned from a famous scientist from WW11. Her and her brother go and find the secret place where many others of her are kept. That is all I can remember if any one has any idea the name or where I may go find it I would appreciate it very much thanks, Lisa


If you have any idea of what the title is/could be, I suggest you go link Here--Walkball 03:34, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Hello, Lisa. You might have better luck asking this question at the Wikipedia Entertainment Reference desk. Or maybe not; it sounds like you might be describing Anna to the Infinite Power from 1983. I found that article by going through Category:Films to Category:Films by genre to Category:Science fiction films to Category:Science fiction films by genre to Category:Mad scientist films (since that guy sounds like a mad scientist). Luckily the name started with an A and I found it pretty quickly from there. I hope you're still around to get your answer. — The Storm Surfer 11:02, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Sandinistas

The article about sandinistas has a screwy typo in the very first paragraph. It's meant to be a link but the second set of brackets around the words "Junta of National Reconstruction" are curly brackets instead of box ones. I can't seem to fix it. here's the link... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandinistas

Thanks, fixed now.-gadfium 20:00, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Image

Image:Ressurectionstone.jpg In the article for this image, it indicates that the image is taken from the spine of the UK edition of the Harry Potter book. (see this). Yet, the license of the image says that the uploader is the copyright holder of that work. Is there any noticeboard, or discussion area where an inquiry can be made to determine whether the license is correct? I think it seems very unlikely that this person it the copyright holder of the work. GrooveDog (talk) 17:43, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I just blanked out that license for the time being.--SarekOfVulcan 18:35, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I think Media copyright questions can deal with queries such as this. Adrian M. H. 23:37, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Should WikiProject banners look and behave exactly the same?

Siva1979 has been going around proposing changes to various WikiProject banners so that they look and behave the same. So far, he has proposed changes to Template:WikiProject Japan, Template:WP Australia, Template:AfricaProject, and Template:WikiProject Chad. His proposals is that they all look and behave the same as Template:Football, however only the latter WikiProject has actually supported the changes.

Since his proposal affects multiple WikiProject banners and because Siva1979 is pretty insistent that they all look and behave the same way, I decided to bring the topic to the Village Pump for wider, centralized discussion.

You can view previous discussions here, here, here, and here. --Farix (Talk) 13:05, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Most (all?) of the project templates that include a link to the xxx-class categories in the table link to the generic category (e.g. Category:B-Class articles) rather than the topic-specific sub-category. I don't care whether all project banner templates look and act the same, but I think this aspect of their behavior should be fixed. I've created a new version of template:football, see template:football/sandbox that does this. The other behavior under discussion relates to categories and other non-article space talk pages that are tagged with project banners. Whether such pages are categorized, whether they receive an importance rating, and whether there's a link to a category all vary (by project). I think the only feasible mechanism by which consistency could be achieved would be for someone to create a generic template (like template:WikiProject Notice) and convert the existing templates to use this new template. This has the potential of creating a template that might indirectly appear on hundreds of thousands of pages, which I think should be run by the developers before being implemented. Just to be clear, I'll repeat that my opinion is that this degree of commonality is not particularly necessary. -- Rick Block (talk) 14:48, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
I know {{Stargateproject}} has been able to resist changes to its color for quite a while.--YbborTalk 14:54, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
That one really really really bothers me whenever I'm linked to it; I'm glad I don't ever read pages that fall under the Stargate project. Atropos 21:07, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
I don't think having a base WikiProject banner template to help create new WikiProject banners easier is a bad thing, but I also don't think using that using the base template as a meta template is a good idea either. Several WikiProjects have taskforces and the banner will need to be customized to include those taskforces into them as well as custom WikiProject specific parameters (ex. Template:WPBiography). --Farix (Talk) 16:14, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
I now see what you mean that the linkage in the template in Category:Classification templates varies. However, the best solution to your problem is to not link to any category if the category parameter has not been set instead of linking to a generic assessment category. We can still leave it up to each individual WikiProjects to choose whether to include a category link or not. However, the arguments to category should be the same between the wikitable and the td formats. At the moment, they do not (ex. Template:A-Class vs. Template:A-Class td). --Farix (Talk) 16:14, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
If all the templates look the same, it would enhance the outlook of this project. I feel that it would be a good idea to follow the {{Football}} template as most templates look similar to this template. As far as I know, the {{WP Australia}} and the {{WikiProject Japan}} templates DO NOT follow the same structure as the football template. There could be others as well that do not follow the same structure as the football template. If ALL templates are similar, the project would look more professional as well. Thus, I am insisting that these templates follow the same structure as the football template. If this is achieved, there would be a common ground in Wikipedia as well. Any thoughts about this would be welcomed. --Siva1979Talk to me 17:05, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
I honestly don't see the need for WikiProject banners to all look same nor do I agree that it is more professional for them to do so. WikiProjects should be free to determine how their banners look and function so long as the banners support some basic functionality, like nested and small, and are not overly large. --Farix (Talk) 17:11, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
I have to disagree with you here. I honestly feel that the WikiProject banners have to look the same, so as to achieve consistency here. It would make this project look better as well. If we have different looking banners it would look a bit confusing to new editors as well. If ALL the banners look the same, it would be pleasing to the eye as well. --Siva1979Talk to me 17:38, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
I don't see new editor being confused at all. If and when they do become confused, it's because they don't understand the intricate coding of the banners they are trying to modify and not because they don't look or behave the same. I also don't think we should impose a particular format onto WikiProject banners. Doing so will stifle innovation and is also not very Wikipedian. Editors will have disagreements with how a particular project banner will look and function. However, those are issues that should be determined on a project by project bases instead of a Wikipedia-wide bases. The fewer "committees" we have to go through for even minor changes, the better. --Farix (Talk) 17:58, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
I'll also add that if we were worried about Wikipedia's professional image, then we wouldn't have pages like these: Category:Wikipedia humor. However putting them up for deletion would be climbing the Reichstag dressed as Spider-Man. --Farix (Talk) 18:44, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
Wasn't any problem with "irregularities" and potential confusion solved when {{WikiProjectBannerShell}} was implemented? And once it is clear that the banner is for a wikiproject, I don't see how it matters if the project wishes to have their own look and feel for the banner - the banners aren't part of the encyclopedia anyway. I would further note that various projects have different levels of functionality that the project has decided may be useful for the individual project - note the B-Class checkoff list at {{WPMILHIST}}, the to-do list at {{Narnia-WP}}, etc. --Tim4christ17 talk 20:29, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
(unindent) he's not talking about nested, but about how two banners look and are worded differently because they support different features. One of the examples he cited was Category talk:Olympic footballers of Japan. --Farix (Talk) 20:44, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
Hmm, I thought he was saying there was confusion as to the purpose of the banner because of the differences. My point was that the purpose of the template is pointing people to the associated WikiProject - and that much is obvious, especially with the nested feature when there are several banners. Everything else is extra and it should be up to the individual project to decide whether and how to implement the extra features. --Tim4christ17 talk 21:32, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
I don't have much to add to the discussion other than that I agree with The Farix and Tim4Christ17. I don't see any reason why we should be trying to force all project banners to look the same or even behave the same. I'm fine with certain guidelines being in place to make sure they don't get too out of hand, but I see no evidence that project banners are getting out of hand (especially not with the nested shells that have been put in place for articles which fall under a larger number of projects). ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 22:36, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
Well, I guess I have to respect consensus here. I guess, editors have agreed that there is no need for consistency with regards to templates here and changing them would be a waste of my time. I shall close this discussion by stating that I will not change anymore templates to conform to the {{Football}} templates! This was indeed a very good discussion as well! Have a nice day guys! --Siva1979Talk to me 07:21, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
I actually agree with Siva on this. Not necessarily for a matter of standarisation, but in some cases, it may be appropriate to go ahead with having category and template settings or general "non article" tags. I think this could be done by having, much like the "stub=yes" option in {{WP Biography}}, you could have "category=yes"/"template=yes" and by this you would yeild something like this:

{{WP Whatever|template=yes}}

This article falls under the scope of whatever project.
Template It has been determined that this is a template and therefore not assessible on the importance or quality scales.
I think that by doing this, you could also program the template to simply indicate that it's an unassessable article/template/category. I believe I'm reading the proposal correctly, and if I'm not, I'm sorry, but if I am, then that's my suggestion.
--lincalinca 12:06, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
I think you're referring to the class= parameter? as in class=stub, class=GA, class=Template, class=NA, etc? Ah, but the Wikiproject is what determines the ratings for their articles (usually in an "Assessment department") with the exception of GA and FA, which are Wikipedia-wide rankings (and have their own, separate talk page templates). For example, many Wikiprojects consider "b-class" articles to be for articles of lower quality than GA articles. However, the Military History project, for example, has a different standard for their b-class articles that is occasionally stricter than GA. And since the rating system is project-based, it only makes sense that the project would determine whether having a rating system-compatible template would be useful for their purposes. --Tim4christ17 talk 12:20, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
Some project banners can automatically detect if they have been placed on the talk page of a template or category without having to set the class parameter. Both {{WikiProject Japan}} and {{WikiProject Anime and manga}} does this. The only issue with that is that they ignore the class parameter outright. --Farix (Talk) 21:21, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Japanese web site Black and White Images?

I have tried to find more info about these images in japanese webpages from various sources with no avail and hopefully someone here could help me out. I have added link to one of the images like that and would like more info what they stand for and what they are called.

[11]


Kukako 20:19, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Twenty-million pool

I traditionally considered the time for when Wikipedia gets 2M articles the time to create a 20M pool. However, the fact that there are so many votes for Never in the 10M pool makes me feel afraid the 20M pool will end up with so many Never votes. Any suggestions?? Georgia guy 19:31, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Where are these pools located? --Jeremyb 06:23, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
See Category:Wikipedia pools. They were very popular for a while, but seem to have faded from view over the last year.-gadfium 07:28, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
I think it is less relevant now since the time of doubling the number of articles is getting longer and longer. Personally I think we won't even reach 5 million of articles, see commons:User:HenkvD/Articles. The latest prediction is a maximum of about 2.5M. Lets start a pool for 2.5 Million articles. This pool should be closed when 2M articles is reached, wich will be in a few months. HenkvD 12:01, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Article which starts out with a "word to avoid"

The article on Intelligent design opens by saying that its subject is a "claim." Yet "claim" is the first word listed in the WP:Words to avoid. I changed the word "claim" to "concept" which I thought was fair but it was changed right back with a note on how evil Intelligent design is. (I am neutral in the ID controversy since I agree with both it and "Darwinian" evolution 100%; one as a philosophical concept and one as a scientific theory.) Steve Dufour 15:48, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

The discussion of "claim" on WP:Words to avoid "appears" to state that it depends on usage; not that it should be outright avoided. :-) — RJH (talk) 15:54, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
The way it is used in this article seems to carry a negative connotation, which could be avoided with a more neutral word. I think "concept" is good, but someone might suggest something better. Steve Dufour 16:30, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
BTW Racism (whose article is not nearly as negative in tone) is called a "belief or doctrine", although it seems like it could have been called a "claim" with as much justification as calling ID a "claim." Steve Dufour 16:50, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Facebook

Is their an "offical" wikipedian group on facebook? The Placebo Effect 03:34, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Not that I know of - not sure what purpose such a group would serve either. Instead, there's still the IRC channels. - 52 Pickup 07:50, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Naruto Episodes

The naruto epsode pages aren't there, like for example, I'll type the name for episode 205, and it takes me to the List of Naruto episodes, what happened to the pages for the episode.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.130.246.193 (talk • contribs)

Sometimes an editor will decide to consolidate episodic pages into lists, possibly due to their lack of individual notability. E.g. List of Naruto episodes (Seasons 1-2). If you go back to the redirect page and look at the history it should show you what happened. (Although you may have to follow the trail a bit.) For example, Naruto Episode 1 was renamed to Enter: Naruto Uzumaki! (Naruto episode), then to Enter: Naruto Uzumaki!. User Snapper2 apparently then converted it into a redirect to List of Naruto episodes (Seasons 1-2). Here was the content just prior to the redirect: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Enter:_Naruto_Uzumaki%21&oldid=124513662 . — RJH (talk) 22:37, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
To follow up: there was apparently a consensus on the Talk:List of Naruto episodes page to merge the individual episodes into list form. You might follow up with a question there. — RJH (talk) 15:49, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Notability

Is any operating system notable enough for Wikipedia?--79.120.20.96 03:32, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Standard WP:N thresholds apply. There often non-notable Linux flavours up for deletion at AFD, and they normally get deleted, with only a trivial mention elsewhere. What OS are you thinking of? Anything by MS or Apple is obviously going to be notable enough per WP's definition of the term, as are the major Linux distros such as Suse. Adrian M. H. 10:33, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
I mean completely separate OS, not a distribution, but with very little spread and coverage in the media (i.e. I know only one article in a PC-oriented magazine).--79.120.20.217 06:34, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
In that case, the answer would be no. It would obviously fail the need for multiple independent sources. Adrian M. H. 14:41, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

We have at least a hundred OS articles. See List of operating systems. -Arch dude 01:51, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

"Wedding" vs. "Marriage"

Could someone help with explaining the difference between the meanings of these two words at Talk:Scientology weddings? Thanks. Steve Dufour 14:11, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Since you have only two editors involved, you could post a 3O request. It depends if you are writing about the ceremony that marks the beginning of a marriage or the time that follows, which is usually somewhat longer! Adrian M. H. 22:54, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
Hope this helps. Shoessss |  Chat  16:52, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
Dufour's argument is that an article titled "Scientology weddings" has no business talking about Scientology Marriages, which I find to be a jaw-droppingly petty distinction. The article can always be retitled Scientology weddings and marriages or Scientology Matrimony or something to appease him if he really insists on pushing this non-issue. wikipediatrix 17:16, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
I think there should be an article on Scientology marriage and family. The wedding article should be about weddings. Steve Dufour 00:11, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
I'm compelled to agree with Dufour, as article titles should be as precise as possible - but it may be that we don't need an article on Scientology weddings at all, and should merge this into the general discussion of Scientology marriages. Dcoetzee 00:27, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
We definitely don't need two articles. As I said, I have no problem with renaming Scientology weddings to whatever floats Dufour's boat, to include all things matrimonial. wikipediatrix 01:01, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
How about "Scientology and marriage"? (I have no idea how to rename an article.) Steve Dufour 02:06, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
Aren't you the one who said that we have too many articles on Scientology? Atropos 21:27, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
Yes. WP has one Scientology article for every 333 Scientologists in the world. However Scientology and Marriage seems important enough for one more. Maybe 2 or 3 could be removed to make place for it. Steve Dufour 01:17, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I would use "marriage" in the title - a wedding is the beginning of a marriage, so it makes perfect sense to discuss weddings in an article on marriages. The other way round doesn't make as much sense. --Tango 23:48, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I don't know how to rename an article or I would do it. Steve Dufour 01:17, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
I nominated the page for renaming. I'm not sure how that is going to work. I guess I will just have to study up and find out how to make the change myself. Steve Dufour 16:28, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Will this work?

User:Orngjce223/welcome is a page I've just created for welcoming. Any comments? ~user:orngjce223 how am I typing? 19:59, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

You might look at Wikipedia:Welcoming committee/Standard user greeting and Wikipedia:Welcoming committee/Welcome templates. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 15:16, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Contributions

It is often said that the majority of wikipedia contributers are male, and I would like to know how this information was attained? Thanks Vsst 02:32, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

What is know about contributors is discussed at Wikipedia:Wikipedians. As that page says, The diversity of Wikipedians renders it nearly impossible to make many categorical statements about Wikipedians as a whole. Information about many registered Wikipedians is available on their user pages. However, users are not required to create these pages or post information on them, it's optional and can be avoided. So any information about the male-female ratio of contributors here would have to come from sampling, and that of course is subject to a number of problems. (Of course, people are free to draw conclusions based on personal impressions; since you don't cite a source, it's pretty much impossible to figure out the reasons for what whoever is saying this. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 20:21, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

WP under attack by Moonies

This has been going on for a long time. The latest is Jonathan Wells (intelligent design advocate). He is well known for the dishonesty of his writings. Now they are trying to distance themselves from him. This is one of the worst examples of POV and COI I have ever seen on WP. Redddogg 05:07, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Um... where is this attack, can we do anything about it, and does it realy matter? -Amarkov moo! 05:11, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
Yes, if a controversial group can control the information about itself that goes out to the public; I think that does matter. Check out the Jonathan Wells article. Redddogg 05:14, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
Wow! That's shocking! Steve Dufour 12:10, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
What's shocking, oh regular editor of the article in question? Skittle 16:24, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Japan names

Whats with the way japanese end names, you know, ("-san", "-kun", etc) that stuff, wats those words for, I know there not last names, what are they?

We have an article on Japanese titles, but apparently it isn't very good. Short answer: it's sort of like Mister, except there are more of them. If you have questions like this in future, Wikipedia has several Reference desks. — The Storm Surfer 09:24, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
Like Storm Surfer said, they are titles. "San" means the same as "sir" or "madam" (there is no gender in Japanese - not even "he" and "she") The other word you are thinking of is "chan", this would be used after a child's name. I lived in Japan a while. Steve Dufour 12:10, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
They are called honorifics and they denotes the amount of respect or closeness two individuals have towards each other. If you pick up any Del Rey Manga, you will see a page in the very front listing some of the honorifics with a short explanation of what each one means. --Farix (Talk)

The Collective Noun for Wikipedians

The collective noun for a group of Wikipedia editors seems to be "page of wikipedians". I don't think it passes muster. I dug out the dictionary and and noted some age all collective nouns we could apply to ourselves.

  • A shrewdness of wikipedians (the NPOV thing)
  • A histiness of wikipedians (breaking news on Wikipedian)
  • A labour of wikipedians (all that good work on GA and FA articles)
  • An unkindness of wikipedians (socks, vandalism and the "oh no it isn't" brigade)

Any more thoughts? Mike33 - t@lk 10:59, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

A wiki of wikipedians? Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 11:06, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

I like -
  • An edit of Wikipedians.
  • A rabble of Wikipedians.
  • A coven of Wikipedians.
Lanfear's Bane
  • I like an edit or a consensus of Wikipedians best of the ones listed. Perhaps we could be an article of Wikipedians also? There could be a block of vandals or trolls as well. Captain panda 20:49, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
On a side note, in a previous discussion about what a group of Wikipedia admins is called, I thought "bucket of admins" was the clear winner. - BanyanTree 06:11, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
A bridge of trolls? A tribe of vandals? Lanfear's Bane
A declaration of bureaucrats? An upgrade of developers? A drawer of sockpuppets? A potential of anons? For vandals I'd prefer a deletion of vandals, and maybe a rant of trolls? Steve block Talk 16:17, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

A sock of Wikipedians. --Golbez 10:17, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Heres what I came up with-
  • A File of Bureaucrats.
  • A Barrow of Bureaucrats
  • A Tag of Deletionists
  • A Fix of WikiGnomes
  • A Hush of Mediators
  • I really like a "Consensus of Wikipedians", "a block of vandals", "a rant of trolls"--scorpion 451 rant 16:36, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
Great topic for a conversation! How about a (key-)clique of wikipedians? Regards, Lynbarn 18:30, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
a Cabal of Backroom Editors .... Oh yeah ... whoops! ... WP:TINC =] Exit2DOS2000•T•C• 19:22, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
based on yalls ideas, hows this?

(modified spelling to make sure they dont get confusing in conversation)

  • Blok of wikipedians, wikipedians contained in a single block of text such as a discussion or section, or a participants list on a project page or editors in a text block on a particular history page meaning all editors of an article (we are the collective noun blok) this might prevent confusion with the verb "block" in the future.
  • if not, how about Tub, Thread, Discussion, List or Waggle of wikipedians, (abreviated WikiGaggle)
  • Bucket of admins
  • Buckle of beurocrats
  • Bench of mediators, as in 'a court bench', might also allow to distinguish from the 'chair'
  • Consensus or Solid blok of wikipedians in consensus
  • Nonconsensus or Deadblok of wikipedians in deadlock
  • Splitblok for a blok in argument
  • RV or Arvee of wikipedians participating in a particular revert war (ie. BC/BCE RV or anglo/americanRV, angloRV and americanRV for wikipedians from each side)
  • Kroo or Croo of wikivandals, short for WikiKroo, like the "graffiti crews", krooks might be individual members of a kroo. kroozing is the act of moving from article to article, evident on the contributions page.
  • paTroll of trolls, short for a troll patroll, "trolling for goats", "trolling a herd" or maybe Traggle
  • Herd (troll pray), maybe also Stampede an angered or rattled waggle or collection of people in a blok/discussion that has reacted with "herd mentality" to the provocations of a troll, short for goat herd, any number of people playing rolls of victim or "buck" aggressive defender make up the herd.
  • Drawer of sockpuppets belonging to one person, short for sockdrawer
  • Strawer a collection of straw sockpuppets created for the sole purpose of being defeated in argument by an individual
  • Meatdrawer a collection of meatpuppets of an individual, or group offline friends
  • Chest, Strawchest or Meatchest of puppets belonging to multiple owners engaged in the same effort
  • Shop of wikielves and/or wikignomes, short for WikiWorkShop
  • shRoom of wikifairies, short for MushRoom

thoughts?Some thing 01:31, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

  • For my tuppence worth:
As every editor is a different character, we could be a font of wikipedians. Those with sockpuppets being the dipthongs, such as the æ in Encyclopædia for example (Ie., One character but with two tones).
What ever it is: remember to update the article Wikipedia:Wikipedians & List_of_collective_nouns_by_collective_term_A-K--Aspro 09:42, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Image

Image:Ressurectionstone.jpg In the article for this image, it indicates that the image is taken from the spine of the UK edition of the Harry Potter book. (see this). Yet, the license of the image says that the uploader is the copyright holder of that work. Is there any noticeboard, or discussion area where an inquiry can be made to determine whether the license is correct? I think it seems very unlikely that this person it the copyright holder of the work. GrooveDog (talk) 17:43, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I just blanked out that license for the time being.--SarekOfVulcan 18:35, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I think Media copyright questions can deal with queries such as this. Adrian M. H. 23:37, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

how to contact photo owners

We wish to make use of 3 photos in a commercial travel journal we're currently publishing.

They are:

1. Salvador del mundo landmark - el salvador posted by Guanaco152003 on 31/5/2003 2. San Salvador boulevard posted by chriscastillo of the English Wikipedia project on 23/03/2007 3.A shop in Usulután, El Salvador. Photo taken by Ichabod, April 2003.

We can't find contact details for these photographers and wish to confirm with them that it is their work and that the usage is as stated on wiki's pages.

My contact on wikipedia English is Isobel Coates.

With thanks to anybody who is able to assist.

Isobel Coates 09:01, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

The usual way to contact someone on Wikipedia is via their talk page. You can get to the user talk pages of these users using these links: User_talk:Guanaco152003, User_talk:chriscastillo, User_talk:Ichabod. If you then click the + tab at the top of their page, you can make a new section and ask them directly. They will probably reply to you either on their talk page, or on your own talk page. Alternatively, if you and they have both associated email addresses with your accounts, you can use the 'email this user' function in the 'toolbox' to the left of the screen when you are on their user or user talk page. Hope this helps! Skittle 12:34, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it does, very much and thank you. I wrote to all of them, I just could not work out how to get to them from the images!

Naruto 2

Can anyone give me the address to Kiba,Shino,Hinata,Ino, and all those characters page hisory so i can take the info from the page and use it to make a page similar to the page ideal mentioned above.

Before you go and try to "fix it", perhaps you should look at the talk pages first. --Farix (Talk) 22:12, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Naruto

why'd the Naruto charecters, exmaple, hinata, kibe, shino, git placed into list form, it was somewhat easier to find them, and they had ALOT more info when they were in seperate pages. theres hardly any info about the characters compared to how much there was when they had there own pages, I mean,okey list form, thats kool, but why not keep all the info there used to be, you could do it like this.

A page per group like group 10 or group 7.

each group page does this,

page title--> Group 8

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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==Kiba==

===Backgrond===

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===Personality===

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you know, the same as in normal charector's, but, well, like this, i mean why place them in list form, or at least keep all the information.

Possible reasons why the character articles were merged are:
  1. To reduce article clutter and have fewer articles to maintain and watch over.
  2. The articles would be a stubs once the fancruft was removed.
  3. Because individually, the characters wouldn't be able to pass the notability guideline on fiction or the general notability guideline.
--Farix (Talk) 21:59, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

story.

I'm working on a story bassed in the naruto world, at a genin that becmes a missing nin. I'd like ifyou guys could help me out by translating these works into chinese or japanese words 9example: Fire translates into Ho/ Shadow translates into Kage, so Fire shadow is Hokage.)

Words:

  • Spirit
  • Missing
  • Muilti
  • Love
  • Hatred / Hate
  • Way
  • Power
  • Death
  • Dark
  • Life
  • Kill
  • Alone / Lone
  • Always
  • Star
  • Monster
  • All
  • Wish
  • Theif
  • Flash
  • Stop
  • Never
  • Out
  • Internal
  • lite
  • Shade
  • God
  • Lust
  • Greed
  • Gamble
  • Move
  • Broke
  • Trust
  • energy
  • Fight
  • Sweeten
  • Large / Larger
  • Increase
  • End

please paste this list and place the japanese or chinese version next to it. Nikrocorp 04:58, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Try this dictionary: http://www.aa.tufs.ac.jp/~jwb/cgi-bin/wwwjdic.cgi?1C --Apoc2400 06:26, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

New Format

Perhaps it is my browser, I am using Firefox, but the format of the Wikipedia has changed rather dramatically. It is ugly and poorly organized. If this is indeed some format change for the sake of "renewing" the reference work's appearance, it is a very bad one. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.128.171.147 (talk • contribs) 03:44, 8 August 2007 (UTC).

I would have to guess that it is something at your end. The only changes that I can see that have made to format is this change to monobook.css. And all that did was "Remove white border from thumbnails". Evil Monkey - Hello 04:00, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Can an user manipulate an article?

Since user João Felipe C.S started to manipulate the Brazil article, it lost all its credibility. The pictures posted by him do not represent Brazil in anything.

I already argued here that he is trying to sell a false idea that Brazil is a copy of Northern Europe, full of blond girls walking in high-tech cities with the best education system in the world, no violence or poverty.

Well, that is not what Brazil looks like. I think not even Sweden or Norway looks like that.


I ask administrators if João Felipe C.S can manipulate an article. Everytime another user tries to change something in this article, he revertes the user's contribuitions with no justification. All the pictures in this article are non-sense, some are even pathetic. Brazil does not look like that, everybody who has been to Brazil knows that.

Why not replace all these non-sense pictures with others who are really representatives of Brazil?

Where are the pictures of Rio de Janeiro's carnival, beaches, favelas, mixed-race people, etc? They are the ones who make part of the real Brazil.

Please, you people must do something. Opinoso 22:56, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

I checked out the article and saw pictures of people of all races. On the other hand, there were a lot of pictures of landmarks and other "high-class" type sites. So maybe some changes have already been made. Steve Dufour 01:13, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
You say "you people must do something", but "we people" don't need to do anything... rather, if you think there is something wrong with the article, you should do something yourself. If you don't think the pictures on the article are representative of Brazil... locate some that you think are better and add them to the article. Get involved and improve the article, don't just bitch about how you don't like it. Blueboar 17:51, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
Dont't be aggressive. Opinoso is just asking for help. --Apoc2400 06:05, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
Opinoso, I think you should really take this dispute to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Brazil. They're probably more interested in helping you than the people here. --ざくら木 21:02, 3 August 2007 (UTC)


I am trying to do that! But João Felipe C.S revertes what I and other users post here. Can he do that? To me, what he does is vandalism, he must be blocked from Wikipedia. Opinoso 01:49, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

I suggest you read this page. I haven't checked your claims, but that sounds like what you're describing. Atropos 21:43, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Gene Burns, etc.

There used to be an article on San Francisco (KGO) radio show host Gene Burns. But the article is now gone.

Also, apparently there used to be an article on the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra. It was deleted before I actually saw it. I was just wondering why. — Preceding unsigned comment added by JBFrenchhorn (talk • contribs) 18:44, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

That usually happens when the article doesn't use secondary sources, like newspaper stories for instance, rather than just the subject's own website for a source. If you like, start the articles up again. They are certainly notable enough. (I'm a KGO fan too.) Steve Dufour
Gene Burns was deleted for notability. I don't know how notable he is. San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra was deleted for copyright violation. Probably someone just copied text from the official website, and that's not allowed. Feel free to create the articles again. --Apoc2400 06:07, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia interwiki and specialized knowledge test updated

User:Piotrus/Wikipedia interwiki and specialized knowledge test recently mentioned by Jimbo in the NYT interview has been updated (by yours truly). Conclusions: slight improvement in interwiki connectiosn, negligible improvement in specialist topics coverage; we still need about 398,000,000 articles to be truly comprehensive.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  21:43, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Reference Desk - how long do questions remain?

Having just asked a question in the Reference Desk, I was puzzled as to how long the questions are shown before being archived, and where are the archives? There doesn't seem to be anything on the page explaining this, altho it is quite detailed and clear on other aspects of posting questions. Myles325a 00:19, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

On the reference desks, the archives can be found listed with the different desks. Computing, Science ... Miscellaneous, Archives. As for how long things stay, it used to be a week but now it varies from desk to desk because some are very high-traffic. Skittle 19:50, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

THANK YOU

For the record, Del Zamora and I co authored the entry about his life in Wikipedia. It is very like the biography posted on the Searchers2.com film site. As of the date of this note, it has just been released that the film will receive an award at the Venice Film Festival in Italy. Zamora is currently writing an autobiography which will someday be published as a book. We appreciate the great work done by the Wikipedia community and, as a public librarian and former journalist, I refer people to it regularly. Thanks also to Jeffman for the nice final cleanup. THANK YOU ALL! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 76.173.101.243 (talk • contribs).

A lot of it is a copy from his bio on the film's website. Is the person who wrote that bio, or whoever holds the copyright, willing to licenses this text with the GFDL? -- Ned Scott 04:21, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
Also, ask Del if he'd be willing to release a picture of himself under one a free license as well. See also Wikipedia:Copyright FAQ. -- Ned Scott 04:23, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
Certainly. I am sure the answer is yes to both. Let me forward your questions to him and we'll see what we can do. I appreciate your patience since I am new to adding content to Wikipedia. Del is likely to become a 'movie star' into the next year, and I think Wikipedia will enjoy increased hits.Dragonfly213 20:52, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
Del says go ahead on the GDFL, how do we do this? we are still deciding on which headshot to upload. Thanks again.76.173.101.243 23:45, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
Thanks Ned, we have emailed permissions, and really appreciate your help. We'll get to that headshot. Thanks again. 76.173.101.243 19:34, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Naruto

Which Naruto episodes and mangas is Gaara's student, Matsura, in?

You might get better response to this question at the Entertainment Reference Desk. Corvus cornix 22:34, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Archives

Why Wikipedia does archive message and requests? It wastes disk space for the servers and it a privacy issue. Jet (talk) 22:20, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Space is cheap and there shouldn't be a privacy issue. Its very useful to have records of previous conversations that may be relevant later. Atropos 00:29, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
And if it gets close to filling up all the hard disk space, it's the Foundation's responsibility to purchase more hard disks, not our responsibility to conserve disk space. See Wikipedia:Don't worry about performance. Harryboyles 11:24, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Nova Iguaçu Volcano

Hello.

This article Nova Iguaçu Volcano infringe Wikipedia:No original research ?

Thanks advance.--OS2Warp 15:33, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, it explains that there is a dispute, and seems to be very well referenced. However, most of the crucial references are in Portuguese and most of the article seems like it wasn't written by a native English speaker. I don't think it's an OR problem, but it could sure use a copyedit. ←BenB4 15:49, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
Thanks you.--OS2Warp 15:58, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

This article: Vanity gallery (which was apparently already deleted once under suspicious circumstances) is a welter of self-serving edits and no discussion at all (until I put in my 2 cents). People are making changes in what looks suspiciously like the interests of their business rather than a neutral description. Are there suitable Categories or Tags for urging verification, removing text that sounds like advertisements, warning about self-aggrandizing entries, etc.? Compared to this, Vanity press is a model of writing, scholarship, sourcing and honesty. Vanity gallery, which is about a practice just as vilified, keeps getting torn down to almost no information. Is this because the literary world is better at writing than the art world? Artemis-Arethusa 18:05, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Duplex perception

I got the duplex perception article through the "Random article" button. It's one sentence long, and I don't know what the hell it means. Usually I copyedit the articles I get through the random button, but I just can't make head or tail of this. Someone help!! Bump a dump 14:51, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

At least it cites a source, although what it is saying is way over my head. :-) Is there a linguistics project here on WP? If so, maybe they could help. Steve Dufour 15:12, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
So much science writing is jargon. I read an essay that researchers have to do that to keep competitive in grants. Anyway, I added an example. ←BenB4 20:43, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps the article's creator would like to add more. (this is not a criticism – I am sure he is busy on more important work right now, like quality checking real ale). It would be more informative if he could give an example of a sentence and run through 'all' the different inflection of meaning that shifting the stress and pitch can produce in that one sentance. It would by handy indeed, if there is way of showing the rising and sinking pitches over over the words being stressed. Any ideas of how rising and falling tones can be formatted in wikicode? This would (I think) make it easier to understand, what the article is attempting to get over to the reader? Also, Is it known by another and older name? I remember something like this from many, many, years back. --Aspro 21:32, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
A Google search turns up plenty of good sources (and I suspect Google Scholar would have more), but admittedly this is pretty technical stuff. So it's not a bogus topic, but it's also not one that most editors would want to try their hand at.
Both Wikipedia:WikiProject Theoretical Linguistics and Wikipedia:WikiProject Linguistics appear to be inactive. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 23:15, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Will this work?

User:Orngjce223/welcome is a page I've just created for welcoming. Any comments? ~user:orngjce223 how am I typing? 19:59, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

You might look at Wikipedia:Welcoming committee/Standard user greeting and Wikipedia:Welcoming committee/Welcome templates. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 15:16, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Contributions

It is often said that the majority of wikipedia contributers are male, and I would like to know how this information was attained? Thanks Vsst 02:32, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

What is know about contributors is discussed at Wikipedia:Wikipedians. As that page says, The diversity of Wikipedians renders it nearly impossible to make many categorical statements about Wikipedians as a whole. Information about many registered Wikipedians is available on their user pages. However, users are not required to create these pages or post information on them, it's optional and can be avoided. So any information about the male-female ratio of contributors here would have to come from sampling, and that of course is subject to a number of problems. (Of course, people are free to draw conclusions based on personal impressions; since you don't cite a source, it's pretty much impossible to figure out the reasons for what whoever is saying this. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 20:21, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Clavinova problem

Maryteresapaterson 11:00, 12 August 2007 (UTC)maryteresapaterson Hi can anyone tell me why my clavinova bangs (seriously loud) when it is switched on. If so any ideas on how it can be fixed (I have tried vacuuming it) It has been looked at and been told it isn't dangerous but no body seems to know the problem.

You've posted to the wrong page. Please post questions not directly related to editing at Wikipedia:Reference desk. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 13:34, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

"Stay Cool"

This is concerned with work, but I think the ideas might just be helpful here...

"How to Cope with the Jerk at Work"

Thanks. That's good advice. Steve Dufour 19:05, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
Actually, much of the advice in the article is either irrelevant or wrong (for Wikipedia). Other editors here are not the equivalent of peers in a physical office (how does one have a "heart to heart talk" with someone visible only through computer postings?). For example, the best advice for personal attacks at Wikipedia is to ignore them. In real life, other people would think you're a wimp to do so; at Wikipedia, your attacker will be seen by experienced editors as unable to make valid points in a reasonable way, and you'll get bonus points for simply asking that the focus of discuss be on content, not contributors. Here we have standard processes for resolving content disputes; in real life, there often is no such set of processes for anything other than extreme matters (e.g., sexual harassment).-- John Broughton (♫♫) 14:42, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
Well, isn't it better to call out personal attacks with pointers to WP:NPA or WP:CIVIL so the noob knows he's breaking the rules? Strictly ignoring them seems a little odd. ←BenB4 20:32, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
Sure, for new editors, a note on the relevant policies, on their user talk page (not on the article talk page; that's likely to lead to going off-topic), is exactly the right thing to do. Unfortunately, a large percentage of those indulging in personal attacks have already been put on notice, with little effect. (Still, I concede your point - notify, or escalate warnings on the user talk page; ignore personal attacks on the postings on the article talk page.) -- John Broughton (♫♫) 13:35, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
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