Wikipedia:Suggestion box/Archive 2

This is an archive of Wikipedia:General complaints. Please do not raise new issues here as they are unlikely to be responded to.

The first archive consists of Wikipedia:General complaints (resolved) and Wikipedia:General complaints (unresolved).

Special pages too long

Special pages such as Categories and Uncategorized pages are far, far too long. I had to page through 7,000 numeric Category entries simply to reach the first alphabetic one. They are desperately in need of some indexing mechanism, even if it's just a first-letter index. -- TonyP 17:51, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Interlanguage links

Has there been any discussion here or on Meta to create a common repository of interlanguage links (like en:, de:, fr: and so on)? It seems that the English Wikipedia functions now as such. --Eleassar777 16:48, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Star Destroyers

I have recently made changes to the Star Destroyers article, which was promptly changed back. I know that this is allowed and that debate it good, but the information and facts being used to support the information which I changed is completely false. I have already written a section in the dissuasion area, May 25th 2005A.D., and would now like some kind of moderation to solve this dilemma.

Dutch Low Saxon problem!

Hi, most Dutch people using the Low Saxon Wikipedia, can't understand/or almost not understand the current Low Saxon version because it is in German Low Saxon this is very annoying we can't even read what the main page is about, isn't it a good idea to make a "nds-nl.wikipedia.org" page? (Dutch Low Saxon) and keep the current nds.wikipedia.org for the German Low Saxon? I'm willing to start that translation, understandable for all people living in the Netherlands. - Servien [Dutch user]

• If you're willing to start it, see How to start a new Wikipedia. Deltabeignet 22:03, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Change file name

I would really appreciate some new feature that allows us to rename uploaded files... I guess that's rather elementary...Qwertzy2 4 July 2005 15:35 (UTC)

Search box

Would it be possible to add another search box at the top of the page (perhaps underneath the pull down menu for the special pages)? I find that when I do edits of articles and want to open up another wiki to search for something I always have to go the bottom of the page to get to the box. If a search box is at the top and bottom of the page it would make it easier to search esp. if you went to a page you didn't want. Also, couldn't the go and search buttons be merged into one button? User:FeanorStar7

• I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "another wiki" or why this involves the bottom of the page; I wish I could give you a better answer. The 'search' and 'go' buttons are probably not going to be merged; 'Go' is for people who know exactly what page they want, whereas 'Search' is for people who know what they want, but not the exact title. (Frankly, even if we did want to merge them, with hardware costs being what they are, I doubt we'd be able to pay the software guys to do it.) Deltabeignet 22:19, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Thanks for responding. "Another wiki" means that I will have one tab open in Firefox; and then when I need to serach something I will open another tab and search Wikipedia in that tab; this way I don't have to leave the article I'm editing in the original tab. Hope that makes sense--FeanorStar7 17:41, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Special pages

Sorry for my English; feel free to correct mistakes.

1. The Special:Specialpages page doesn't include:

• User logout
• several special pages which require a page as an argument: Movepage, Undelete, Search, Whatlinkshere, Contributions, Relatedchanges, Emailuser.
• Special:Specialpages. This is a specialpage too! It should be not a link, but as a bold text, like here:

• Log in
• Special pages
• Preferences
• Watchlist

Protected pages are bad - only administrators may edit them. But special pages are even worse: only developers may edit them (of course, exceptions like using templates apply). So I think that the amount of special pages should be reduced to the neccessary minimum. I found a kind of inconsequence:

to edit a page X, I visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X&action=edit, not http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Edit/X.

So editing is not a special page, but a fixed Wiki feature. The same applies to history, purging, deleting (admin only) and (un)watching.

However, to move a page, send an e-mail, search, see pages linking, related changes or user contributions, I have to visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Something/X where Something can be Movepage, Whatlinkshere etc. (I listed those pages above) I would change everything to X&action=something, where Something could be the one of these actions. So:

                                      move
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X&action=whatlinks
                                      contributions

instead of:

                                         move
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specialpage:whatlinks    /X
                                         contributions

The toolbox panel (left area of the screen) contains: Specialpages, Upload, Whatlinks, Linkedchanges, Contributions, Emailuser (when displaying userpage) and printable version. I would put Specialpages and Upload into navigation panel and other things on the top of the page (where buttons like edit, history, move, (un)watch are displayed); this way the toolbox would be removed. It could look like this:

• Main Page
• Community Portal
• Current events
• Special pages

- recent changes - random page - random category - upload

• Contact, Help, Donations etc.

Because I'm not an admin, I don't know whether blocking, reverting, (un)protecting, bureaucrat options (e.g. +bot flag) are special pages or fixed Wiki features. However, I think it would be better when everything would be the same: either Specialpage:Something/X or X&action=something. The second looks better for me.

Of course, it is impossible to make the change instantly because many pages link to the Special:Contributions/... page.

3. There could be a keyboard shortcut list: alt+. userpage, alt+p preview changes etc.

4. It would be even better if somebody made a special browser for Wikipedia (and other Wiki projects). This could allow to customize preferences even more: changing keyboard shortcuts, skins, configuring the navigation menu, option to download pages with history and work offline.

4. The category view could be expanded so that it would be possible to view what's common in two categories: Category:Football + Category:Stubs = [[:Category:Football stubs]. This way the additional stub categories wouldn't be needed.

I hope you'll find these thoughts useful. --Googlpl 21:01, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Feature Request - Flickr 'semi-integration'

I think it would be great if we were able to semi-automate some process whereby links to photos tagged in Flickr could be added to the external links of matching articles. For example London Eye could have a link to Flickr's photos tagged 'londoneye'. Another example, our Westminster Abbey could make use of photos tagged 'westminsterabbey'.

Be assured, I'm not suggesting any embedding of media here, as that would violate copyrights. I'm suggesting a mass linking via some automated process: note that the Flickr URLs are very intuitive and that their tags and our articles both provide the necessary tagname/articlename in the URL itself.

Any thoughts?

I am not technical. Let's assume that automation is impractical. Where would be a good place to moot the idea of a wiki-project where those interested could help with a concerted effort to add such links manually (provided the community feels such links are valuable and not surplus)? The Village Pump?--bodnotbod 14:31, August 10, 2005 (UTC)

I've just tried this in the Template:Template sandbox and It can be done easily. For example, if a template was created with this content:

[http://flickr.com/photos/tags/{{{1}}}/ See photos tagged with "{{{1}}}" at Flickr.com],

the page would call the template in this form:

{{template-name|variable}}.

So in this example:

{{template-name|London}}

would show up in the article as See photos tagged with "London" at Flickr.com. The Flickr tags are resolved by url which does not seem to be case-sensitive. Spaces do not matter. A link to the tag "Westminster Abbey" would show tags "westminsterabbey"

This type of template (which modifies a url) is already used for linking a film to its page at the IMDb:

*{{imdb title|id=0091369|title=Labyrinth}}

shows up as

• Labyrinth at IMDb

A closer look at Template:Imdb title shows us the content:

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt{{{id}}}/ ''{{{title}}}''] at the [[Internet Movie Database]]

On another note, it is possible to use images from http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons/ on Wikipedia (avoid those with "non-commercial" or "no-derivs") under the terms of the Creative Commons licence.

-=# Amos E Wolfe ^talk #=-

Many links to the Hazardous Chemical Database are broken

Many links to the Hazardous Chemical Database is broken. For example, nitric oxide, carbon dioxide, methanol, acetone. I guess the database has been reorganized. I hope somebody will systematically fix this problem, possibly by referring to a different database. R6144 12:52, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

Pronunciation for words

This is more of a suggestion than a complaint. I feel that many entries that show up in Wikipedia should also contain the correct pronunciation for the term being discussed. Especially for proper nouns like names of drugs, or scientific names of organisms, names of people, countries, etc. or any other term that is outside the mainstream of the English Language, since for normal English words, Wiktionary already provides pronunciation. Also, instead of providing pronunciations using phonetic symbols, it might be more helpful to provide recorded utterings of the word.

I AGREE COMPLETELY. The only thing that would make this site more AWESOME than it already is (beside maybe a little speed) is supplied pronunciation of the words. Nowheregirl 18:00, 15 September 2005 (UTC)nowheregirl

Transparent LaTeX output

I've noticed that LaTeX markup does not generate transparent images as output - they all have a white background instead. This, of course, is not much of a problem on the main (article) namespace because the page background is also white, but when for some reason equations need to be put in some other (for example: article talk) namespace, it looks ugly. Check for yourselves:

$\mu \left(\bigsqcup _{n=0}^{\infty }A_{n}\right)=\sum _{n=0}^{\infty }\mu \left(A_{n}\right)$

So I say that the output should have a transparent background. --Fibonacci 04:35, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

Transparent favicon

Could you make the favicon have a transparent background. I think it would look better that way.

Wikipedia on systemic racism

I tried to include the term systemic racism and a Nazi here reffered it to racism, if you check the term racism there are many types which include individual definitions for each one, maybe the problem is that my definition included the gorvernment of Canada for letting it happening as one of the examples of my definition, my references are www.canadaimigrants.com and notcanada.com, sorry to the canucks that feel offended for the term but is part of the shameful history of canada and should be documented, Hitler is included in wikipedia and see no germans trying to delete it, if the position of wikipedia is to be biased please let me know for me to let it know to others.

I want to add to the record that the term Scientific Racism is a term of its own in wikipedia, I think the term Systemic Racism should have a definitiion too due the many unique characteristis it involves.

Suggestion: Disputed Topic flag

IF a topic or its validity are in dispute,why not flag it disputed instead of removing or locking it? It's less volatile than the former alternatives and would give some warning that the information in the article might not be factually correct. [The Mysterious Interloper]

Suggestion: Track Pages Read

I'd like to know how many pages I've read, and the ones that I've read most recently. This would be nice in case I want to go look something back up but forgot where I read it. It would also make people read more to "up their count." What about it? Jburt1 21:47, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

James Lovelock and "his" Gaia theory

Just read yet another article by this old con man. He claims to have discovered the Gaia theory in 1969. Well in fact this idea was first put about by a follower of Rudolf Steiner in 1923. Guenther Wachsmuth first came up with the idea of the earth as a self-regulating living organism and wrote a book about it. It is called.." The Etheric Forces in Cosmos, Earth and Man."

THE ETHERIC FORMATIVE FORCES IN COSMOS, EARTH & MAN Dr. Guenther Wachsmuth, 1932. Essential reading for understanding the nature and workings of energy and matter. Includes: New Theory of Motion; Organic and Inorganic World; Etheric Formative Forces; Breathing Process of the Earth Organism; Circulatory Process of the Earth Organism; Etheric Currents in the Earth Organism; Gravitation and Terrestrial Magnetism; The Sun; The Planets and their Spheres; The Interior of the Earth; Ontogenetic Origin and Disappearance of Substance; New Theory of Light & Color; Tone; The Dissolution of Radioactivity; Shape-Building Forces and Archetypal Forms in Nature; Etheric Formative Forces & the Art of Healing.

1. B0118, 250pp, staples ... $20.95

Perhaps this is where Lovelock got his ideas from. It is time this loveable old phoney was exposed!

                            Des Brittain, London.

I would like to contribute

HI I am sri charan vemuri , from the country INDIA. I am a webdesigner and i'd like to contribute by working with the design is it possible for me to do that please refer to the link below to see my work its just a page created to show my skill set...

[1]

copy the above link and paste it in your browser and you will be able to see the webpage...

my contact address : charanv@gmail.com

                                                    Thanking you
                                                    charan

"Relevancy" is horrible. What's wrong with simply "relevance"?

Hi, I really love the whole Wikipedia thing, but I have a tiny complaint about the search results. Why not use "relevance" instead of "relevancy"? "The percentage of relevance" makes more sense than "the percentage of 'relevancy'". "Relevancy" is such an ugly & pleonastic (non)word! There is no need for "relevancy" when we have the perfectly sufficient "relevance". Thanks!

TENTATIVE IDEAS for making the site less crowded: PLEASE READ

When I came to the website recently I found that it loads s l o w l y.

I am on the robotics website Team Resistance. Go take a look and you will see that the website loads quickly, is eye-catching, and not disconcerting(though wikipedia should retain its white background and black text). Remember that some people still use dialup and old computers; it is best for them to have access to the site as well.

General ideas:

1. Reduce the size of the wikipedia icon. it can be blurry... but not timecomsuming. Same for the curved lines across the top (the image); make it gray, for example.
2. On the front page: Change the blue and pink articles to links with short descriptions of each. For the concept, take a look at a google search result; a link is followed by a few lines of description.
3. On the front page: The search bar should be made more obvious, since it is the most important component of the website; consider removing some of the links in the middle (browse, a-z, culture, geography, history...)
4. On the front page: Consider moving the list of different languages to a separate page and link to it with a small image of the world with blurbs on different sides. Most users will understand that the image means different languages.
5. On the front page: Consider having a list of links across the top of the page rather than down the left (for the concept, go to www.teamresistance.org, which I think sets a wonderful example). The toolbox should be shrunk to a menu item, like file-edit-view... with a dropdown list. The search bar should go across the center of the page, just like the one on google, because it is the most important tool on the website.
6. On the front page: Below the search bar, I think, should be the sister projects frame, and at the bottom should be the yellow frame with license and disclaimer.
7. On the front page: Everything should fit in the screen all at once (remember that some people use computers with low resolution) so as to remove the need for scrolling.
8. On the other pages: There is no need for the "in other languages" frame simply because users would have already chosen their language on the front page.
9. Remember that these ideas are tentative changes, and so you may decide not to do these changes if they conflict with some grander goal.
10. Also remember that changes should be made one step at a time so as not to confuse veteran users.

THANK YOU.

Interesting ideas. Some involve making the main page different to every other page in wikipedia (without the other language links etc), which gets debated now and then. There is discussion going on right now: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Usability/Main_Page. About your website, I use an old computer with dial-up and the site isn't optimsed for a 800x600 resolution, I only see half the robot on the right and need to use scroll :(.--Commander Keane 01:29, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Request for reminder message while editing anonymously

I have my browser set up so that my cookies are automatically get deleted on browser exit. However, I often find myself reading Wikipedia, and then seeing a minor thing that needs tweaked, such as putting double-bracket around a word to make it into a link to the proper page. I forget to tick in "this is a minor edit" box, and also forget to log in via my account to take proper responsibility, which I would like to in all cases. I get so involved in the "trying to make this page look good mindset" and hit preview and save a few times when it's too late, the modification isn't under my user id, but under my ip address. So, a reminder sentece on top as the very first lines, such as "reminder: you are editing anonymously" and "reminder: you haven't ticked the minor edit box but you only modified 5 words" in bold red, or maybe hidable if it's too obstrusive - give an option to the users. At least on the preview page it could be there.

I have also suffered these problems, but I think reminder notices can be restricive. When I was new (and anonymous) a reminder to login probably would have deterred me making the edit. Also, I don't think it's a big deal if you forget to hit the minor edit button occaisionally, the edit summary that you write should explain the edit adequately. --Commander Keane 07:21, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Offensive article: Edited need to be done on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran

This is not a professional article made by Wikipedia . The encyclopedia is not a place for personal ideas. It is a place for facts extracted from professional and valid sources. This article makes Wikipedia to look as a week and unprofessional encyclopedia made by non-qualified people.

Who is Stanislaw Lem?

In the article on Stanislaw Lem, he is in category Roman Catholics. But in project CelebAtheists (it looks like something from WikiCities), he is in category Atheists! Please correct it. http://www.celebatheists.com/w/index.php?title=Stanislaw_Lem

Scrolling navigation

It would be handy if the navigation links and tabs could stay put if scrolling down long articles. --moxon 18:00, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Display

It would be an improvement to have a toggle so that "link" words can be read as black text if so desired. The blue color (or red) of linked words adds an unnecessary "emphasis" to the word when you are simply reading the article, as if the word were underlined or in italics. Allow Wikipedia users to toggle the color feature on and off.

I enjoy Wikipedia, and enjoy contributing to it as well.

Thank you very much

Walter Murch

OSHA

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

Spam external link to useless AdSense OSHA info site

Suggestion for Article Author Accountability

Slashdot.org mentioned the unaccountability of the articles on Wikipedia, having read the concern, and being an avid fan of the Wikipedia project, I posted the following, but realizing it would do more good with you than Slashdot, I've copied it here for you.

My suggestion to clean up wikipedia would be some sort of 'adopt an article' method, where people who could prove their validity for a topic could claim it, and would hence and forever more (excepting in the chance they go inactive for over a few months, or someone better qualified/more involved opts to succeed them) be in charge of editting suggested updates to the article in question. This way we have a qualified, volunteer editor controlling what goes up onto the page for that topic and what does not. It definitely would not be a small thing to take on, being hooked into editting a wikipedia article for the long term, but that also may keep people who aren't as connected as taking something on themselves. Naturally, requiring such a commitment would mean a decrease in the growth of Wikipedia, but it would turn the index into a veritable fact, taking information from the minds of the best available people. An incentive to this would be name recognition, the person who is editor for a topic recieves their name on the page (making them more accountable and less likely to act like an idiot) and a link to their homesite/personal information/company of related employment. This is then good for them in that whenever someone looks up the topic of Plastic Ear Surgery, they see the name of the best Plastic Ear Surgeon, personal advertising, and definitely more accountable sources (plus they have an incentive for being honest and factually correct then) for Wikipedia. As it works now, any person with an internet connection can say anything means anything they want, and when they are wrong it simply gets changed to another idiots opinion, the good is washed away by the slightest of bad, and it takes a great deal of refining to get it back to the good it was previously.

I'm not currently a member, to respond to this please respond to <email removed>

Antonio Inoki

In your article on Antonio Inoki, you mention a Wilhelm Ruska.

Mr. Ruska's first name is WILLEM.

• This is a comment best placed on the article's discussion page, or you can edit it directly yourself. Remember to post the comment with a reference to where you got the correct information.--Aubray1741 15:09, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Pronounciation

It would be helpful if you could include pronounciation for scientific and other unfamilar terms.

But I'm not really complaining. Your site is much appreciated!

Thanks.

Changes to New York & Ottawa Railway entry

Hi,

This isn't a complaint but rather a request. I just looked through the New York & Ottawa Railway entry and corrected what I could, but I screwed up the box that says when it started operating and their headquarters. I don't know what I did after I entered the proper information, but they all ended up in the same place. I hope you can fix it and I apologize for my screw up.

I also would like you to please change the reference link. I am the owner of the New York Central Ottawa Division web site and the link you have has not been in use by me in years. Could you please change it to the following link:

www.ontarioeastern.com/ottawadivision

Thanks and it is great to see an entry on such a railway.

Chris Granger

vashti/otherkin

We came across an article on your site through Google about Otherkin... ... and it is titled Vashti/Otherkin. However, if you put a search for that article within Wikipedia it comes up as no such article.

    Also, how do you contribute an new article on a related subject?

kyela, the silver elves

color of links

Perhaps users of wikipedia could vote on the possiblity of changing the color of links within the encycopedia to a color a little closer to that of the rest of the text? Could we vote on making them a darker color of blue? The difference between linking and non-linking text is a little disruptive for me. Also setting up a way for users to vote on the structure of the encyclopedia might be usefull in the future for other issues. -Thanks, Andrew Hodgson

If you want to change the color of Wikipedia links, you can do it yourself without having to affect anyone else's settings. If you don't already have a Wikipedia account, you'll need to get one and log in. Your account will automatically be assigned a user page, called something like: User:your username here. If you create a new subpage called User:your username here/monobook.css, you can add whatever customized CSS code you want. For example, to make links darker you could use:

a { color: #000044 }
a:visited { color: #440044 }

As for the overall structure of Wikipedia: please bear in mind that Wikipedia is already run almost entirely by volunteers just like yourself, and most decisions are made by ordinary users. For many issues, however, voting doesn't tend to give the best result; most Wikipedians prefer to debate the relative merits of different proposals until a consensus emerges that's acceptable to everyone. --David Wahler (talk) 13:49, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Different icons for Wikipedia and Wiktionary?

I'd like to keep shortcuts for the both Wikis in my Opera browser toolbar (for real fast access), but bumped into a problem: both sites have the exact same icon, capital W on a white background. Now I risk clicking on the wrong button (or a page on my tab for that matter, I constantly have 10+ pages open simultaneously and only see the icons in the cramped space) while powerbrowsing around.

Suggestion: as Wikipedia icon is widely known and the original one, couldn't it be possible to alter the Wiktionary page icon so, that you could tell the difference between it, and Wikipedia itself? Say, perhaps giving Wiktionary's icon a red background instead of white. This would not only help differentiate the two different Wikis from each other (while still staying within the same theme), but would also be a good conduct to follow, should any other Wiki sites needing icons rise some day.

Can we have an indicator for articles with photographs

Hi

Can we have an indicator for articles with photographs in the listing of articles

Regards Jainendra

Route info

Does Category:Regional_Routes_in_Western_Cape_Province and all of its relatec articles belong in here? Shouldn't it be taken to WikiTravel of just deleted? --moxon 16:55, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Suggestion: related aricles boxes

I suggest adding a "related articles" box on the left, allowing authors and editors to generate concise lists of related entries.

For example, the interesting article I read on "Sea level rise" could have a related articles list including "Global Warming", "Climatology", etc.

-Michael

Many articles already have a "See also" section near the end of the article. Garrett Albright 10:46, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

RSS improvement

The RSS feed works well but when selecting a headline the popup box just repeats the headline. In RSS feeds from other sources they use the popup box to give a paragraph giving a little more detail about the article. It helps me to decide whether to read it or not. I find this very helpful.

Article commit (save article) should fail if system has lost user's logged in status

The identity of the user editing an article is critical to GFDL compliance as it is the nearest that Wikipedia gets to complying with the requirement to add a copyright notice. However, especially at the moment, the system keeps forgetting that a user is logged in and accepts the commit under the IP address.

I think that an indication that the user was logged in should be sent back as a hidden form field and any attempt to preview or commit that has that indication set, but for which the server doesn't believe the user is logged in, should be rejected. More generally, a prominent warning should be generated any time that a form is submitted by a logged in user that the system doesn't believe is logged in.

Even if this is not possible, any attempt to set the minor flag or the add to watchlist flag by a user the system doesn't believe to be logged in should be rejected before committing. Currently the minor flag is ignored and the watchlist flag is rejected after the commit (incorrectly implying the commit failed).

--David Woolley17:57, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Separation of Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese in Wikipedia

Since both traditional and simplified Chinese are located on the same subdomain, http://zh.wikipedia.org/, their menus and the corresponding links are exactly the same. For example, a user browsing the traditional Chinese version may want to return to the Main Page, click on the link on the menu, and arrive at the Main Page for the simplified Chinese version. In addition, since there is only one set of menu pages for the two languages, some of the menu pages end up containing both traditional and simplified Chinese. For readers unaccustomed to using both forms, reading these pages can be quite exhausting. In fact, I think this is one of the reasons there are so few Chinese-language articles. Many users who use either forms of Chinese are much more content with sources other than Wikipedia due to the extensive mixed use of these two forms. Many users are hesistant to contribute to Wikipedia because they do not know which language to start writing in. Is there any way traditional and simplified Chinese could be separated into two separate subdomains of wikipedia.org, so that users instructed in reading only simplified Chinese could read through pages written in only the simplified form, and the same for those trained only in traditional Chinese? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 140.112.1.98 (talk • contribs) 21:34 EST, 20 December 2004

If this prevalance of mixed forms is true, it certainly represents a big barrier for some...can the Wikipowers look into this? --Dpr 02:14, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Random article

I enjoy using the "Random Article" feature as a means of stumbling over new interesting topics. However, many of the results are stubs, obscure terms, or obscure geographical places and it often takes 3 or 4 rehits to land a good article. I propose an enhanced "Random Article" search feature be added that attempts to increases the signal to noise ratio. Possibilities for selecting the results of this "Enhanced Random Article" search:

• exclude stubs and pages less than 1000 characters
• exclude the 10% least visited pages
• allow readers to vote/label pages as "interesting" and randomly pick between the top 50%

I'm not proposing that the current "Random Article" feature be replaced, but rather that an enhanced "Random Article" feature be added. Improving this feature could grow the number of people who enjoy random knowledge-diving here at the wikipedia.

• "Random article" is also used to find random articles that need fixing or expanding. Excluding stubs an less visited pages will stop that from happening. - 131.211.210.13 08:19, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

It never ceases to amaze me that people find it so irksome to click a link THREE TIMES that they feel driven to institute change to the system. Ooh! The effort! "Damn, I was going to do some serious editing today, but I was all tired out after the second mouse-click and that landed me on a stub. Shoot! No editing for me today! Dang! The Wikipedia software is its own worse enemy, deterring the likes of me by its insistence on multiple finger movements. I guess there's no telling some people. You can only help people so far." --bodnotbod 12:08, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Bear in mind how slow the servers get at peak times. It's not uncommon for it to take several minutes to reach just one article, with numerous timeouts in between. Repeat three times, and you've wasted a quarter of an hour and got nowhere.

You are, of course, free to argue that the suggestion is pointless, if you happen not to have a problem with the status quo. But disparaging the person who proposed it is rude and inappropriate. — Haeleth Talk 19:39, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

I also crave improved access to random articles. How about a special page with a list of randomly generated links? Please see my proposal at User:Melchoir/Random links proposal. I'm serious about this. Melchoir 00:48, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Internal IP Scheme

It would be best to not reveal your internal IP scheme during a database error. I was clicking through to another page when the MySQL connection timed out during the query. The error displayed your internal IP of the database resource.

racist remark under "zionism"

reads "jewish Ba Stards" at the end of the first paragraph.

I am unable to edit page as this remRK does not appear on the edit page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.57.48.64 (talk • contribs)

Between you reading the vandalism and editing the page it was removed. Evil Monkey∴Hello 21:46, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Paul W Klipsch article

This page has been flagged for possible copywrite violation a few weeks ago. Will the admins please delete this page!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.57.130.116 (talk • contribs) 18:19 EDT, 27 October 2005

This page is listed on Wikipedia:Copyright problems. As you will see if you visit that page, there is a large backlog to be dealt with. All this work is done by unpaid volunteers, and not everyone finds checking copyright infringment claims to be the most desireable chore. In the meantime, the article has been completely replaced by the notice of a possible copyright violation, and will not appear in google searches nor in data dunmps used by mirror sites. DES ^(talk) 16:01, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia complement

Aside from running a little slow at times Wikipedia is by far the best place to find information on the Internet.

My only complaint is there does not seem to be a place here to show:

• praise
• acclaim
• acclamation
• accolade
• applause
• approbation
• commendation
• encomium
• homage
• kudos
• panegyric
• plaudit
• tribute

Thank You Wikipedia for everything that you do...

Maybe if you find a particularly pleasing edit (as it seems you have already) you could drop a note on the editor's talk page. Thanks for the comment here, it's a nice reminder of why we hang around.--Commander Keane 06:25, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

the logo...

Hi, I'm not sure if it's my browser or has anything to do with my computer,But everytime I look up a word the logo is in the way. What I mean by logo is the Wikipedia ball or globe is misplaced on the screen. It looks as if it should be more to the left of the screen instead of in the body of the text. If there is anyway you can fix that, please do because it's an interference.

• It would help to know what OS and browser you are using. - Mgm|^(talk) 23:27, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment Letter

                                                            oct.28,05
WIKEPIDIA
    GREETINGS
I read that Halloween is a holiday  observe
 every oct. 31
with children going to houses asking for
for apples,cake candies
        Trick or Treat
the time of spooky
when witches visits your house
 by the way my birthday falls on oct.30
 Happy Halloween
                  Rodrigo T. Vicente
 butuan city,phillipines
8600

Happy Birthday for tomorrow!--Commander Keane 06:17, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

famous people from Warwickshire

In the section "Famous people from Warwickshire" you should add Nicholas Rodney Drake (great musician). He was born in Burma but he grew up and spent most of his life in Tamwoth-in-Arden. Thanks Andrea Bernardi

• Are you talking about Category:Natives of Warwickshire? Categories can only hold existing articles and we don't have one about him yet (at least not by the name you gave). Everyone is an article, so feel free to start an article about him. - Mgm|^(talk) 23:31, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Some other site shows same info as yours

Hi,

Is the site "psychcentral.com" affiliated/associated to your site? I discovered that they have posted same articles on their page....in similar format, too! See this page: http://psychcentral.com/psypsych/Muscle

Thanks, Sayantani

Many sites copy wikipedia content. They don not need to be "affiliated" with us in any way. That is one of the effects of wikipedia being generally licensed under the GFDL. Such site are supposed to acknowledge wikipedia as their source, but many fial to do so, or do so only in non-obvious ways. See our "forks & Mirrors" page for a list of sites known to use wikipedia content, and discussion of which ones properly follow the reules about doing so. The page you mention includes the words It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Muscle". near the bottom of the page, so it looks like a reasoanbly compliant mirror. DES ^(talk) 15:39, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Editing

I truly think that the text on your website should not be that accessible for any stranger just to change or delete. It does not make your website seem official. I get a lot of information form you guys when ever I have a question but once I found out how anyone can just post up anything they want to I felt as though some of the facts are not true or as clear as they should be. Thank you dc

• See Wikipedia:Replies to common objections. You'd have the same problem with the rest of the net. Any nutcase can make a official-looking webpage and spread misinformation (it happens). At least here the information is continually checked by dedicated people. Always double-check your info, even if the source appears reliable. - Mgm|^(talk) 23:34, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby

When I did a search on I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby his male member came up as his photo. This can not be the right picture can it?

• You probably came across a spot of vandalism the article I. Lewis Libby looks fine now. - Mgm|^(talk) 23:37, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Featured article about bosnian leader has undesirable picture

The above featured article has a very undesirable picture when I clicked on the link.

I fixed it, and the vandal has been temporarily blocked. Antandrus (talk) 21:04, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Page parser error with multiple templates

Example:

Create a template like this:
{{iftrue|{{{chicken}}}|chicken|beef}} {{{3}}} {{iftrue|{{{corn}}}|corn|peas}}

Call it like:
{{example_template|chicken=true|corn=true|with}}

Expected output (because chicken and corn is false:

beef {{{3}}} peas

Actual output:

{{iftrue|{{{chicken}}}|chicken|beef}} {{{3}}} {{iftrue|{{{corn}}}|corn|peas}}

The system puts a closing marker (if the HTML "line" began with a < p > it puts a < / p >, < i > it puts a < / i >, etc...

Then the first space after the first template is interperted as a blank on the next line, which Wikipedia forces as preformatted text. Putting a ~(tilde) in the space causes the preformatting to go away, but not the tilde. --Mcmillen76 00:57, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

I fixed it by removing the newline in Template:Iftrue.--Patrick 10:24, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Crushing_by_elephant

Words are not enought Elephants are killing and i would like to become one of their victims.

De : Gabriel Paul [2] Envoyé : 27 octobre 2005 00:36 Objet : Working Elephant

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

http://www.lanka.com/articles/photos/70-working-elephant.html

With the appropriate authority:

I’m French Canadian obsessed about elephants since many years

Many years ago i saw a movie with a scene of execution by an elephant

Since fifty years I wish to be bury and crushed beneath an elephant’s foot

How could I meet a Mahout who would accept to negotiate the contract?

Yours sincerely!

G. P., Canada

As far as Wikipedia goes, probably the best places to ask this question are at Talk:Crushing by elephant or the Reference desk.--Commander Keane 16:25, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

TRNC Invation or Intervention

As you are aware the main dispute on the said page is about the word "invasion" or "intervention". I admit that both words, when discussed to the point of faces turning blue, are relatively POV. However, the article is about the TRNC and therefore Turkish. It must tilt heavily towards that POV. Would it be advisable for me to enter the page on the Republic of Cyprus and make alterations there from a Turkish POV? A Greek constantly changing the word to invasion can only mean they are trying to provoke a response and must not be allowed to continue. Any one that would want a balanced view on the subject of Cyprus would surely read both articles and make up their own mind Please could you find a way to convey this to the persons responsible and maybe protect the page with the original authors permision.

Best regards Bornagain

I disagree. It is precisely the word intervention that is POV, in the sense of attempting to sugarcoat the events of 1974 so as to favour the Turkish side. If the word invasion is good enough for 2003 Invasion of Iraq, it is good enough here. Whether or not you agree with what happened, it was an invasion.--Theathenae 11:58, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Copyright violation - please confirm receipt

Dear Sir / Madam,

It has come to our attention that several images and some text appears to have been taken from some of our UK based tourist information websites and used on the Wikipedia project. In some cases there does not appear to be any acknowledgement of the material's original source, and/or copyright statements to deter further unauthorised copying.

Looking forward to receiving your response shortly,

Yours faithfully,

Roger W. Poultney B.Sc.(Hons) Ph.D. Internet Promotion Consultant

Eagle Intermedia Publishing Ltd. P.O. Box 583 Bradford West Yorkshire BD1 4YW United Kingdom

Mobile: (UK) 0775 1051586

e-mail: info@eagle.co.uk

website: http://www.eagle.co.uk

(preceding unsinged message was by 212.69.225.141 2005-10-29 13:19:07

Firstly I'm just another user and secondly I'm not a lawyer, but to make a reasonable copyright violation report you need to identify all the offending articles.

Also you should take steps to mitigate the violation by implementing the documented copyright violation procedures, at least by replacing the contents of the relevant articles by a copyright violation template, and preferably by appending the copyright violation claim to the appropriate list of current violations. I.E. you should replace each offending page by {{copyvio|url=http://example.org}}, replacing the example URL by the exact URL of the page that you claim has been infringed, then you should follow the instructions that the page will now display.

If you follow the full procedure, the violation report will be automatically acknowledged because you will have directly addied it to the list of outstanding violations.

It's not clear to me whether you qualify for the fast track process, described in the procedures.

--David Woolley 20:43, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Leo Tolstoy's basis for "Christian beliefs"

Please allow me to thank everyone who is involved in developing, expanding and maintaining Wikipedia; it allows me access to what one friend of mine calls "the Big Conversation". I admit that in this I am, at best, an unqualified listener who lacks the social attributes necessary to seek higher education in a formal setting. I am not flip in this regard; it is to my shame.

I have found it prudent, when I read or comment on any written work, to seek what some may call a considerate or contextual point of view with the understanding that this, or any method of reading texts, has its limitations. In doing so, I often clash with those who appear to be deconstructionist in their own perspective of reading and critical analysis. While some of the basic tenets of deconstruction are useful in transliterating texts from their original context to make them more accessible for an audience from another context, the failure of deconstructionists is that they seem to understand neither the limitations of their process nor the ramifications of taking it too far. (Would it matter to them if they did understand?) In fact, this is the basis, in my opinion, of the worse type of academic hackery that has become the staple of what is surely, by now, millions of master's theses and doctoral disertations. The greatest bastardization occurs in the pursuit of the worst kind of academic politics and, consequently, in politics at large, as well as pervading how people in general view and relate to the self, one another and, ultimately, God. The corruption of which I speak is the basis for what has become the institution of "spin"; it is not a new thing under the sun, and has been manifest among heathens, pagans and so called "churchmen" alike throughout history. In the past it was merely called "deceit".

One of the worst results of this practice occurs in the public political arena. There arise issues, the facts of which are spun so far askew by politicos that the consensus view which synthesizes among the public as a result is even further from the truth, or a prudent reaction to it, than either of the two opposing theses.

This only highlights the difficulty of the task you at Wikipedia have undertaken. Consensus tempered by restraint is one way of deciding a course of action, but outright democracy is a poor way of arriving at the truth. Should truth be subject to mob rule? The graceful manner in which you manage your task at Wikipedia is commendable considering the nature of it.

I have noticed that literal and historic commentaries on many significant persons of faith, faith to which the subjects have often confessed in their own published writings, are often interspersed with comments characterizations and theories dismissing that faith. (I am referring to commentaries in general and not to Wikipedia in specific.) Some such comments may often begin with a statement like, "Had he lived longer he would surely have..." or they are suffixed with something like, "...however later on he did some such thing that surely showed an abdication of his earlier convictions." One should be careful about asserting themselves into the faith of another; the subject should at least be approached with some semblance of reverence.

As to the statement made about the basis of Leo Tolstoy's faith in the article entitled "Leo Tolstoy" under the subheading "Religious and Political Beliefs", the author of the article carefully synopsizes his subject's faith by making accurate references to Tolstoy's own works, "The Kingdom of God is Within You" and "Father Sergius". This is commendable; however, the basis for faith is belief itself. Tolstoy documented how he realized faith in his own "Confession". I only submit this to you because I think that it may be important to note that Tolstoy was, by his own account, someone whose belief in God was characterized as absurd by some yet, by others it would be condemned as an abdication of true faith. Perhaps the first sentence under the sub-heading "Religious and Political Beliefs" could be amended to begin something like: "The basis for Tolstoy's belief in God is best described in his own 'Confession'; his basis practicing this faith, as can succinctly be seen in his work "The Gospel in Brief", was Jesus' Sermon on the Mount..."

In my estimation a truer depiction of Tolstoy's faith should refer to his own "Confession". Please be aware that I am merely submitting this to you with no demand. My style of writing is nowhere near that of the article's author. As it stands, the article is well written and edited. If anyone has actually read this long letter I apologize for being longwinded and commend your steadfastness.

Again, thank you for "Wikipedia" and the rest of the Wiki-library.

I recall reading an excellent exposition of Tolstoy's crisis and subsequent statement of faith in William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience. It was very moving. At any rate, thank you for taking the time to write to us! Antandrus (talk) 05:36, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Transfer to wikicommons feature.

Why not making a 'transfer to wikicommons' feature for images and ogg files? :) Would make it a lot easier to transfer files... - Rythin, too lazy to register.

Citing Wikipedia

Shouldn't we have information for citing Wikipedia as an entire internet site? This would be helpful for researchers who have many, many pages to cite. I just wanted to check to make sure this would be okay before adding this information to Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia. --Think Fast 15:20, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Sindhi

Dear Sir/Madam,

I would like to appreciate the services provided by the Wikipedia. It is a rich source of information. It provides information is almost 40 languages. I would request you to introduce Sindhi language as well besides these many lmanguages. Sindhi is a widely spoken language, and currently there are more than 50 million people speaking it in PAKISTAN, INDIA, SINGAPORE, HONGKONG, SAUDI ARABIA, UAE and many other countries.

Regards,

Ahsan Ahmad URSANI Doctorant INSA Rennes, Rennes Cedex, France

Dear Mr. Ursani: Please see sd:Main Page for the incipient Sindhi language version of Wikipedia. –Hajor 18:54, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Vandalism on Sport coach page

This is what is written on the sport coach page.

Responsibilities In some professional sports operations the head coach also serves as general cock sucker, the team executive responsible for acquiring the rights to players and negotiating their penises,

I know you will want to correct it.

What you saw (on Coach (sport)) was vandalism. This unfortunately happens from time to time, but it is usually fixed promptly. This instance has already been fixed. also you can revert such changes yourself, as can anyone who sees them. DES ^(talk) 00:57, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

I've just fixed it. Cheers -- Svest 01:02, 31 October 2005 (UTC)  ^{Wiki me up&#153;}

User UI editor

We all know how amazing wikipedia is. What makes it amazing, though, is the contributions recieved by everyone. Many people, (including myself), don't contribute for the sole reason of us not knowing how to edit these pages with all the different code and such. I know there are guides and such, but that is asking a lot out of people. You should be handing the opprutinity to help to them, not making them go fetch it, because that is very often a turnoff for people.

My solution to this is making a sort of javascript run editing environment using a very easy to use interface, not a text box with a load of confusing code in it. A project of this size really can afford somthing as vital as this.

Article about Uzbekistan

Hello my Name is John. I just wanted to express my deep dissapointment with wikipedia for publishing false statements about the May 13 events in Uzbekistan. Why would the writer make such uneducated and more importantly unproved comments about the Tragedy that happened in Andijan. I was in that country, I was in Andijan, and I talked to local people. The Uzbek government didn't massacre hundreds of people, it was the terrorists who had gathered them there in the first place, and started shooting them as they started to run away. The death toll was 137, of which most were military servicemen or armed terrorists. This a enclypedia, not a western media that tries to denounce eastern or better yet muslim countries. It is a horrible thing of the arthor to write such lies, and I strongly urge you to try to find out the truth instead of reading some articles from CNN and writing it in Wikipedia for future generations to read. I'm sure that this complaint of mine will not even be considered, or better yet not even read. Of course, who cares about a country called uzbekistan or pakistan or whatever it is called. We are the Hegemon of the world, we don't need to know about worthless countries like Uzbekistan.

We certianly do not want inaccurate articles on wikipedia. If you have beeter sources for the facts than the ones the current artilce is based on, please help us improve the article. You should probably make the same statemetns on the talk page of the article involved. Please be prepared to cite specific, verifiabel, reputable sources, and to insist that others do the same. (Note that "I was there and i saw it" is not a source, unless you have published what you saw soemwhere else, because there is no way for anyone else to verify what you saw, and because of the no original research policy.) DES ^(talk) 16:35, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

The talk page of the article, or the article itself if you have third party material that you can cite, is the best place to followup, but taking a quick look at the article, it would appear that the passage you are objecting to is backed up by a citation, albeit that citation hasn't been done properly. It is the other link to Human Rights Watch report on the May 2005 Andijan massacre. Very few people properly markup citations!

Given that, what you need to do is to find third party published material that matches your understanding of events and then re-write the paragraph to say: according to first citation, account of events, but according to alternative citation, alternative summary of events, attempting not to indicate a preference between them, but relying on the credibility of the source organisation to make your point (don't, of course, choose a poorer source for the opposing view than the one already cited).

--David Woolley 17:07, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Looking a bit further, that citation doesn't support the 748 claim, although it comes up as a false positive for a search including 748. That and the other (news) references that I've looked a so far, do produce estimates rather more than the official figure, though.

You should probably go back to the cited report and read it carefully to identify what it does support - you might even be able to cite parts of it against the current interpretation.

You should also, at least consider, talking to the report writers, especially if you can provide eyewitness, rather than hearsay, information, that conflicts on matters of fact.

However, it is beginning to look like this may have been vandalism, as the earlier versions of the text said nine and the 748 only appeared in this edit, made on 2005-09-30. The change was made from IP address 206.224.83.150 which has only ever been used to edit that one article.

The figure of nine has also been changed since the original version, which said several hundred, which is consistent with the newspaper reports. I don't have time to search the history for the change to nine, although it is after 2005-06-27 and before 2005-08-18.

--David Woolley 19:49, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Looking more carefully at the actual page, the Human Rights Chronology sidebar does have supportable figures and includes the government claims. In my view, the chronology section is more or less valid, although maybe the use of conservative could be considered not to be a neutral point of view. The main history section doesn't agree with the fuller version that it references.

Also, what I think has happened is that someone added the reference to the hostages being a consequence of the killing, then someone replaced the original figure with the number killed before the hostage taking when they should have re-arranged the paragraph to get the correct timeline. Someone, probably with an axe to grind, inserted one of the higher figures, thinking that the nine was much to low, and again not re-arranging the figures.

I've re-arranged the paragraph, although I haven't filled in the missing steps in the time line, noted that the number of dead is disputed, quoted the range for which sources are given and referred to the sidebar that references those sources. You may not be happy with that, but the rules require that all sides of a dispute be reflected.

I do agree that much of the article is anti-government, although at least one anti-American sentence also seems to have been added.

I'd suggest that you add the article to your watchlist, so that you can see if anyone tries to make changes that you think are unsupportable. Uzbekistan history and politics aren't really my area of experise.

--David Woolley 00:02, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Vasyl Krychevsky

Dear Sirs,

This is not precisely a complaint.. I just filled the space for Vasyl Krychevsky. Really Vasyl H. Krychevsky. Then it appeared "possible copyright violation"

I am V.H. Krychevsky´s granddaughter.

I gave the information to the websites from which I transcribed the text. The websites listed are part of the most important.

I am sorry for not being able to study all the procedure to edit the information according to the rules. I included the websites precisely to give them the credits, although most of them received the information from me.

I am also worried because anyone can eventually give false information. Please tell me what to do, if it is asking all the people whom I gave the posted information their permission. I am sorry, but when I visited Wikipedia and saw the space for my grandfather without information, it was obvious to me to fill it.

My name is Oksana Linde de Ochoa, I live in Venezuela, where Vasyl H. Krychevsky died in 1952.

Again, I am concerned about other people possibility to change facts and give non-real information.

Thank you very much, Oksana

Many people copy text from websites that they did not write and that they do not have permission to post to wikipedia. For that reason, whenever a text seems to be a copy from a website, we suspect a copyright violation. If You have the permission of the authors, or if you in fact were the original author of the text, put a note saying so on the talk page of the article in question. If the facts came from you, and/or are public knowledge, but the exact wording was that of the people who put up the web sites you "transcribed the text" from, then you shoule rewrite the facts into your own words before posting them, and cite the websites as sources. (Please also cite any published books or articles or other proper sources). Facts aren't protected by copyright, but the words in which those facts are expressed are.

It is possible that pople will put up false information, but if they fail to cite sources for it, they can and probably will be challanged and the information taken down again. if the real information has good sources cited, this will make any false information more obvious by contrast. Of course, if there is a true dispute over the facts of the interpretation of the facts, wikipedia cannot take one side or the others, but should report neutrally on the various views invoilved, and what support they have.

If you have any questions about this, or want help, feel free to leave a messag on my talk page and i will do what I can. DES ^(talk) 16:24, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Judge Samuel Alito openly gay or not?

I was referencing Wiki's article about Alito earlier this morning and read a paragraph describing the Judge as having "come out while at Princeton". I later referenced the article again to find this paragraph having been omitted. What gives?

Michael Marra

Those two paragraphs were removed by user:BrokenSegue with the comment "remove gay joke". See this edit made at 13:08 UTC.

The information was added in one edit by an anonymous user without comment in this edit at 13:06 - just two minutes earlier. It seems that this was vandalism and that you were unfortunate enough to read the article in the two minutes it was visible. Thryduulf 14:48, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Like Google!

It would be cool if you didn't have to press on the text line when the page is loaded and you want to search for something fast.

Yes, but that might get in the way when you want to use one of the other ways to get to soemthign from the main page. on google, almost everyone is there to use the serch bar. That is not nearly as true here. DES ^(talk) 17:58, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Body Worls (section) The Archer content vandalized?

Can someone with expertise please check out that spot?

wiki-france

I would like to put forth a complaint about the wikipedia page on "France". The main page is one line of racism! The discussion is filled with a load of racist statements.

I always come to this site for my projects and reports, this time I procrastinated a little too far, and it is due in 15 minutes. But when I come to my most trusted source, the page I want is fileld with Racism. I love france, which is why my report on immigration is on france, but how am I supposed to trust Wikipedia when this page is in such a state.

I suggest something be done about this, You seriously can't leave a page of racism up on such a trusted site! I demand that something be done to those that vandalised the page! ~Ash~

There does seem to have been vandalism on the France article, but it was quickly reverted. You can revert vandalism when you see it, too -- the link describes how. The vandalism on France seems to me to have been largely giberish, not racism, so is there some other artilce you were referring to? or was it the main page of the french wikipedia? DES ^(talk) 18:34, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

"beaufort scale"

the Beaufort Scale table is too large to print on a single 8x11 page... needs to be reduced or manually bisected.

Hebrew "baloons"

To Whome it may concern,

When I checked "Halloween" in Hebrew in your Wikipedia, I found that the "baloons" although they show Hebrew characters, they are mirror like and can not be read properly. So, I thought I will let you know so that you can fix it if you like.

Best,

Merav in Los Angeles

More stringent prevention of profanities

Because of vandalism (which, i know, can not currently be prevented) people have been able to place profane words on wikipedia articles. Sometimes, these curses are unchecked, and proceed to be posted for long periods of time (before a responsible user notices and removes it). I think that there should be some kind of safeguard for this: If someone edits or creates a page with any profanities in it (d*ck, sh**, bast***, etc.) a link would recognize the word and pop up, asking him/her to provide an explanation for the word's use before the page is posted. I am not a computer-genius or javascript whiz, but it seems like this would be an easy addition to wikipedia, and it would certainly clean up many aspects of the site.

(Of course, profanities WILL sometimes be justified. For instance, "Cr*p = Cr*p is an American-English slang term used to define fecal matter. It is also a word that..." The profanity-checking-program would send this justification to a wikipedia staff member, who would then verify it.)

Does this seem like a good idea to anyone other than me?

-Justin

There really aren't any "staff members" other than volunteer editors dealing with any content issues. Virtually everything on wikipedia is doen by volunteers. I suppsoe such a function could write to a log that people could watch, as a tool for finding vandalism more quickly, but I am dubious if it would have a sufficint effct to be worth the trouble of coding it. The coders are also unpaid volunteers, you know. DES ^(talk) 18:26, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Ok, it was just a possible idea. Thanks!

default encyclopedia

Is there a way to allow Wikipedia to be the default encyclopedia in Word and Internet Explorer? --Jstroud08 04:49, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

login accounts

I need to create a different account in Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikispecies, and all the other Wikimedia sites, it would make sense to consodilate them and allow one account to login on all of them--Jstroud08 05:03, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

See Bug:57 - Single login for all Wikimedia projects. Thryduulf 12:12, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Too open and way far from facts

While Wikipedia is an excellent conpcent its way too open and the data loses its integrity. Case in point. Israel and Middle East, India and Pakistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

For instance some set of morans have taken it upon themselves to post that "1 to 5 million Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus lost their lives . . ." no where in the recorded histroy of Pakistan, India, or Britain the death toll is as high as 5 million. As matter of back no where in the world the death toll is that high for anything.

I corrected it - but it gets changed back again. Hence it shows that if you leave everything up for changing than it gets misquoted and mistated. For Wikipedia to be of significant importance to the academics.

Similar things can be spotted of check them frequently on issues as:

Palestine Iraq Halucasut Homosexuality OPEC Gulf War 1 and 2

How about having Editor appointed for pages. Editors who have some level of knowledge on the subject matter or atleast have soom roots tied to the subject matter.

Sometimes articles with significant information appears and then gets removed or re-written by someone else with poor content. That is going one step forward and then two steps backwards.

How about a lock option that once the article is published and finalized its locked and all changes are done to beta which at certain date or maybe after n number of changes gets posted.

Just some suggestions.

The heart and soul of Wikipedia is that anyone can edit. Please take a look at Wikipedia:Replies to common objections for further discussion of this principle. DES ^(talk) 18:21, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

you'd best have a look at this

quite funny though

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

I don't see any obvious prblem with that page, what iss the issue, please. DES ^(talk) 18:18, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Samuel Alito

To Whom It May Concern,

I just did a search on Samuel Alito. The last sentence of the first paragraph in the "personal life" section reads "Alito's sister, Rosemary, is regarded as one of New Jersey's top employment lawyers and is married to a Negro."

Is this Wikipedia's idea of accurate information? Not only does it not list this "Negro"'s name or any other pertinent information, but the term Negro is clearly outdated.

I will be forwarding this on to others who, I am sure, will take issue with such a description. Shame on you Wikipedia.

• I'm afraid you don't quite understand the concept of wikiedia, it can be edited by ANYONE. That unfortunately includes vandals, clowns, or just plain idiots, with that said the majority of the users will correct such disturbance as soon as possible, if not remember that you can always do it yourself :)

• If you feel a part of an article is incorrect, you can comment on its discussion page, or you can edit it directly yourself. Please also remember, Wikipedia can be edited by everyone, including vandals. If there is vandalism, it will promptly be removed by the community. You can also reverse vandalism yourself. --Aubray1741 15:20, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Swastika on Samuel Alito page

Why is there a sawtika posted with Alito's name underneath? This is an OUTRAGE!!

Gene Grider Huntington Beach, Ca

That appers to have been vandalism, quickly reverted. This is a very active article at present, with over 250 edits in the last 24 hours. Some of the are celarly by vandals, but particualrly on so actively edited an article, the vandalism is typically reverted quite promptly. if you see vanadalism on any wikipedia articel in future, Wikipedia:revert explains how to revert it. DES ^(talk) 20:19, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Wiki not sensitive to timezones

On the lead page was a blurb on Selected anniversaries November 1:

Unfortunately we are already in Nov 2nd due to the dateline.

So we only ever get anniversaries for yesterday ...... useful

There is a timezone prefernce for display of some (but not all) timestamps, in particualr those on watchlists and user contribution lists. But there is no easy way to have a different main page for people in different timezones. For such purposes wikipedia operates on UTC time. DES ^(talk) 22:01, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

want to report vandalism

hi, the process outlined on your website for reporting vandals is much too complicated. I don't want to spend time figuring out how to do it; I just want to bring it to someone's attention.

here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubonic_plague

end of the "infection/transportation" section near beginning of page. reads: "FUCK YOU MR. HILL!" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.195.169.59 (talk • contribs)

The quickest method of dealing with vandalism is to revert it yourself. Wikipedia:Revert offers instructions. Evil Monkey∴Hello 04:51, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

incorrect and slanderous information

I just did a search on my name Brian Volmer

According to you I am a stock swindler. That is slander. In addition you have my ex wife Lisa Newman as a co stock swindler. Double slander. She has never purchased nor knows anything about Stocks.

The Fact is a got sued by the SEC for Violation 10B. If you read what Violation 10B is has nothing to do with stock swindling.

It would be benificial for both parties Myself and who ever holds the liablity for this Wikipedia Encyclopedia.

Sincerely

Brian Volmer bvolmer483@aol.com —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.95.29.206 (talk • contribs)

The article at Brian Volmer was deleted after on 6 September after an articles for deletion debate (see Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Brian Volmer). The version (which I'm guessing is found here) of the article you are reading was created by an anonymous contributor on 25 June. On 28 August, it was modified to read that you were:

"sued by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and, in the District Court for the Central District of California in 2000, were found liable for touting the stock of Cetacean Industries and Juina Mining Company without disclosing compensation they received from the issuer for doing so".

You may wish to contact sites that are mirroring Wikipedia's content and still have the erroneous versions of the article available. Evil Monkey∴Hello 04:47, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

GREAT JOB!!!

hello to the makers, i'm a high school student in australia, and i found this site exeptionally good for assignments, i used to always stress myself because i could not find any information on the internet. But then, i found wikipedia; which has so far helped me imensely with both of my last two assignments. THANKYOU on behalf of every person, especially me, for providing this BRILLIANT online encyclopedia.

percent of lead on galvanizing coating!!

These sorts of questions belong at the Wikipedia:Reference desk. However, the answer you are most likely to get there is - look at the Galvanization article. Thryduulf 09:58, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

article content

i was browsing through the listed vegetable blurbs/articles you have posted. i was irritated that you did not have information about vegetables that are not grown in the US, but there is too many to list. if you anticipate that readers will help you fill the blank spaces with information, i would highly recommend that you at least, post a picture or pictures of that item, event, person, etc. thank you for your consideration (preceding unsigned article by 69.113.156.173 2005-11-02 11:08:40 (UTC))

Us and them thinking doesn't work with Wikipedia. Everything is added by readers and the choice of what should be included is made by readers (administrators - I'm not one - are just volunteers as well).

Also, posting pictures is generally more work than writing a textual stub article, because one has to find a picture that is copyright compatible, which in many cases means taking the picture yourself.

You don't need to do much to start an article, e.g. you could have started the Carrot article with something like this (although one would hope that you could do better):

The '''carrot''' is a [[root vegetable]], typically orange or white in colour with a woody texture. The edible part of a carrot is a [[taproot]].

{{vegetable-stub}}

[[Category:Root vegetables]] [[Category:Wikipedia archives]]

--David Woolley 13:11, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Punjab

Hello, this article appears to have been tampered with:

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

I don't think this is the right place to report it, but I've already wasted ten minutes looking.

• Correct, this page was valdalised and promptly reverted. Remember, you can reverse valalism you find youself. See Wikipedia: Revert to find out how. --Aubray1741 15:26, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia in print

I read the CNN.com article Wikipedia May Go To Print" (CNN.com 11/2/05), which briefly describes the hopes and goals of the Wikipedia administrators to provide written and multimedia versions of this resource for use beyond the broadband connection. Both as a student and after graduating, I use Wikipedia as a resource and springboard for discussion, as well as a place to find links between different threads of knowledge and thinking. I find, however, that I need to verify information and facts against other references. The site, as I understand it, is not designed to be pure fact-based resource, but rather a collection of what people know - centralizing the knowledge and making it accessible. The site's disclaimer clearly states that there is no peer review of material or guarantee of validity, which I read to mean, no verification that any information posted on the site is absolutely correct. I am curious how Wikipedia can be printed as a scholarly resource without assurance that the infomation is true. Is there a plan to verify any information put into print, or is everything on the entire site regardless of validity going to be printed?

All articles will go through a verification process--IF this print edition is ever produced.

lots of issues | leave me a message 02:40, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

• The idea of large-scale verification has been raised before, but no concrete approach has ever been agreed on. I suggest you check out WP:FACT, the closest thing we've got (along with WP:RCO, which deals with verifiability). This "project" is likely in its infancy, so there's not much to be said. Deltabeignet 06:59, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Pearl Harbor Debate ...

I voted to delete this topic completely because it does not fulfill the spirit of Wikipedia. Errors of fact were pointed to, with multiple citations to correct material.

These have all be redrawn from the discussion - as things "Pearl Harbor" only do.

This tarnishes the free and open flow of information and inhibits the sharing of perspectives and insights - pro and con. On this topic there are no totally accepted and objective experts.

This is not goodness for the Wikipedia community overall.

Regards,

jamaksin

Regional Spelling Variations

If Wikipedia as a whole can accept both American English and British English spelling, why do we have to suffer revision wars for individual articles that have to be all one way or the other? Why not just accept both variants in the same article? Gzuckier 17:39, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

That would look unprofessional. Can you imagine (the admittedly contrived) a sentence that read "The colour of a carrot is orange, while the color of lettuce is green". Evil Monkey∴Hello 20:17, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Profanity showing on Sandbox page footer

it's not a big deal to me. just wanted to alert staff. click on the link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sandbox under the project tab there is a short phrase "Eat _ _ _ _ Snape" on the form footer.

Editing the article.

Why there is Edit option for the articles(or sections)? I found this site is good compared to others. But providing edit feature to public is not a good practice. Please remove this option as this site contains valuable informaion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.147.56.6 (talk • contribs)

The whole objective of Wikipedia is that anyone can edit. You may want to have a read of our welcome page. And vandalising this page (as you did with this edit) is not acceptable behaviour. Evil Monkey∴Hello 21:56, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Respond to Google Answers

I am just curious if you might look into a service similar to Google Answers. You have a volunteer-drive reference section or Reference Desk, but speaking as a Reference Librarian, you could/would get skilled/expert researchers/professionals interested in earing extra coin and get people interested in paying to get assured quality answers; and you could compete head-on with Google. And God knows, you've already got a head start on the content generation portion...

We have a similar "service" going on at the Wikipedia:Reference desk. And it's free to boot! -- Rune Welsh | ταλκ | Esperanza 22:26, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

The person above referd to the reference desk. The actual answer is that wikipedi is not a platform for organizing people to provide commercial services, for reference or anything else. Taht is why why do not have a for-pay version of the reference desk as suggested. DES ^(talk) 23:01, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Biased page

Live in Chicago (Jeff Buckley)

The Article is extremely biased. (preceding unsigned comment by 82.136.233.230 2005-11-02 22:25:07 (UTC))

In that case:

1. Write an explanation of why you think it is biassed, on its talk page; then
2. Insert {{NPOV}} on the first line of the article itself.

Or, simply rewrite it in a neutral tone, quoting both sides of any disputes and quoting sources for all facts.

--David Woolley 22:59, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Intact Dilation and Extraction (ID&E)

My complaint is your obvious liberal bias towards abortion particularly ID&E. First of all, you don't even explain in clear terms what it is - a partial birth abortion. You're afraid to. You know full well the child is literally inches from being born with only the head inside the mother. Then the skull is pierced, the brains sucked out, and the full-term child thrown away like so much garbage. You haven't got the guts to say that - the truth - do you? Instead you refer to it as a "small subsection of IDX cases...used as an illustration and point of protest" and "the procedure has an extremely low rate of usage"

You're not a source of information - you're a source of liberal bilge!! (preceding unsigned article by [[User:65.32.133.153 |]] 2005-11-02 23:49:09 (UTC))

Please see the preceding answer, although, if you follow the edit it yourself option in your current mood, you can expect an edit war.

However, if you mean the Intact dilation and extraction article, in my view that article is quite balanced. If there is another article on the subject (there isn't one under your title), then there will be a need to merge them or remove the duplicate entirely.

Incidentally, if you consider the basic non-commercial nature of Wikipedia, it is maybe not too surprising that it attracts a certain political viewpoint.

Also note that the instructions at the top of this, complaints page, indicate that you should not use it to complain about individual articles.

--User:David Woolley 21:48, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

should check out

I was reading about globalization and under the history part the is a paragraph and at the end it says someone "is gay". you just might want to take it out...the person might be offended, or others might be offended, i don't know. Just thought you should know.

The term "liberalization" came to mean the combination of laissez-faire economic theory with the removal of barriers to the movement of goods. This led to the increasing specialization of nations in exports, and the pressure to end protective tariffs and other barriers to trade. The period of the gold standard and liberalization of the 19th century is often called "The First Era of Globalization". Based on the Pax Britannica and the exchange of goods in currencies pegged to specie, this era grew along with industrialization. The theoretical basis was Ricardo's work on Comparative advantage and Say's Law of General equilibrium. In essence, it was argued that nations would trade effectively, and that any temporary disruptions in supply or demand would correct themselves automatically. The institution of the gold standard came in steps in major industrialized nations between approximately 1850 and 1880, though exactly when various nations were truly on the gold standard is a matter of a great deal of contentious debate.

• If you feel a part of an article is incorrect, you can comment on its discussion page, or you can edit it directly yourself. Please also remember, Wikipedia can be edited by everyone, including vandals. If there is vandalism, it will promptly be removed by the community. You can also reverse vandalism yourself. See Wikipedia: Revert --Aubray1741 15:30, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

One day ahead

Wikipedia is one day ahead of the calendar day. Something should be done to fix the problem. That way users wouldn't get confused. I hope this touches a chord with the people at Wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.225.222.45 (talk • contribs)

Wikipedia operates on UTC, which for means for me that it is actually half a day behind (New Zealand is UTC+12). Wikipedia is an international project with users all over the world. Evil Monkey∴Hello 05:03, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Vandalism

I have never encountered this on Wikipedia before and I am quite offended by it. I was looking at the article on the American Revolution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Revolution) and under 'America after the war' I found this comment...Hoes wanna front with me on my johnson. Would you please look into fixing this. Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.1.140.191 (talk • contribs)

You have encountered some vandalism. This is an unfortunate side effect of having something that anyone can edit. Subsequent to you reading the article it has been removed. Evil Monkey∴Hello 05:03, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

What the hell? I want to know about Adolf Hitler, not a guy having sex with his mother!

Everybody can have their own say; i believe in freedom of speech, but if you're going to talk about having sex with your own mother, could you at least post it under a heading that is related to that? I typed in Adolf Hitler because i wanted to read about Adolf Hitler, NOT your sick mind. Thankyou. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.230.248.19 (talk • contribs)

It appears what you encountered was vandalism to the article. Vandalism is an unfortunate side effect of having a site that anyone can edit. For high-profile articles such instances are usually reverted very quickly. Evil Monkey∴Hello 08:11, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment

Sorry, I didn't know where else to write this to you folks. I just really wanted to thank you very much for the info that you provide. I am currently in paramedic school in Southern California and your user-friendly website has provide me an ample amt of clarification of several topics that the instructors attempt to discuss in class. I greatly appreciate the service & additional info (it really compliments & clarifies much of the pathophysiological processes, drugs & their interactions within the body, & some diseases covered in class). I'm not very proficient in using the computer either & this website is very easy to understand & info is very easily accessible, even to folks like me!

Thank you. lots of issues | leave me a message 02:44, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Freedom with articles

Hello,

I like the way that Wikipedia is designed, the fact that people can post their articles for all to see. A good deal of information in your databases are accurate and useful. However, I have a big problem with idiots abusing this right to post information. They modify legitimate articles to ruin them, and delete important content. Most importantly, they post idiotic articles: check your database for the recently added article: Islam.

I suggest that you have a delay between when a change has been made and when they are posted, so that the changes can be reviewed. More importantly, articles should only be allowed to changed and created by registered people. If you do not agree with this, the best thing you could do is not allow changes to the original article to be made. Hence, when people compain about stupid changes to good article, the original article can be restored.

Thank you.

The History tab gives access to all back versions and the correct way for a non-admin to revert vandalism is to find the last clean back version and do a null edit (adding a suitable edit summary).

--David Woolley 17:18, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Report of Vandalism

TWIMC,

I understand the information on your site is open to editing and that it's nearly impossible to police each entry effectively however, when I sought information on the, "Twins Paradox" recently, I was soreley dissappointed in the lack of security provided on your site...

Rife with profanity and inanity the page regarding the "Twins Paradox" was essentially unreadable. Request your administrator "clean" the page and return it to the legitimate users in a format suitable for learning and discussion. Thanks and keep up the great work.

Cheers HJ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.205.60.86 (talk • contribs)

As you say, Wikipedia allowed anyone to edit. And although we do have administrators, they actually have no authority over other editors beyond enforcing community decided policy. If you encountered vandalism, you could always have a go at reverting it yourself. Evil Monkey∴Hello 18:54, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

I am a portuguese muslim

but why is it that you refer to india and pakistan having muslims but why is it you never mention bangladesh, were they not in fact regarded as east pakistan before their independence in 1971? i have very close friends from all 3 countries and more, india, pakistan and bangladesh but why is bangladesh never recognised? why is it that now that pakistan are in this terrible tragedy yet you all forget the famine, flood and poverty that bangladesh was once ridden with, did any of us give to bangladesh then? its terrible what's happened in pakistan and wouldn't wish this on anyone, but it seems that SOME of us forget that although we all are trying to help pakistan in whatever way we can, next time another nation is in need of help, we should be less critical and prejudiced against other countries that clearly have suffered time and time again. pakistan isn't the only country that has muslims!

82.133.125.73 19:07, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for your suggestion! When you feel an article needs changing, please feel free to make whatever changes you feel are needed. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit any article by simply following the Edit this page link. You don't even need to log in! (Although there are some reasons why you might like to...) The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use out the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. --cesarb 21:12, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Are articles being deleted as fast as they're being created?

I just took a look at the "recent changes" page and found some newly-created articles that are very weirdly-written, esoteric, and useless to the average reader. Is this what Wikipedia prides itself in, to create more than 1,500 new articles a day, most of which are one-paragraph, rambling sentences about esoteric subjects? Do your administrators actively dump as many articles as are created? Respectfully yours, Yoninah 19:29, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Unfortunately, yes, a large amount of these are dumped. You can see the other side of the activity in the deletion log. See also the Criteria for speedy deletion for more information. --cesarb 21:09, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Joseph Allen Wood Deletion

I am new to Wikipedia, and I am awestruck by it's scope and breadth. There is nothing new under the sun, but I found a way to deceive myself for a long while. Wikipedia is a great and noble effort, to document all facets of worldly knowledge, and ambitious as it is--it does not deserve free passes from mistakes.

I am 27 years old, and a struggling student of history, art, and writing. I attempted to create a page that I believe is a worthy and accurate reflection of the truth, with no bias one way or the other.

In the process of trying to properly edit and improve upon my work, several others became what I call nasty--in their intent and execution of first trying to merely help in the editing process, and then--downright abusive of their priveledges over a newcomer.

This concerns a page entitled "Joseph Allen Wood."

I did not see what content was inaccurate, offensive, speculative, non-factual, or not neutral within the article.

I was on the road to trying to solve this when I got "tag-teamed by a few of your community who were rude in their slight comments and in their attempt to simply revert my positive changes and edits, and to ultimately delete my material.

Please read the article, the discussion of deletion record, and the talk of the members and myself.

I made the rookie mistake of taking the bait for vandalism and sockpuppetry, before understanding your poicies here concerning editing others work.

I hope that it is understood that I simply wanted to make an article worthy of wiki's level, and I feel that a few of your elder members treated me unfairly and violated the laws of common decency and aid to a younger, more green newbie.

I am thankful to one member who shines brightly though, and the name I believe is ulayiti. That member I found to be attentive, understanding, and extremely courteous.

Thank you for your time.

Joe Allen Wood

Pennacook Natives

Aquaney

My name is Kunnaway. I'm a pennacook Native American and live in New Hampshire. I have just read what you had on here about the Pennacook indians of the Merrimack Valley. You only had certain things in here right. First of all the Pennacook people were once a Nation of all of New Hampshire, and we are not Abenaki's. We were a big part of New Hampshire history. After the Wassie Major Waldon wiped out our village of woman, children, and old people. Then when our Chief came back from a hunting trip and seen what had happened he went to Cocheko which is now Dover, NH. and wiped out the whole Garrision. Then the Mass. Bay Colonies set more of there armys to wipe us out that is when we were chased into Canada where we joined the Cowassuck Band of Abenaki's on the St.Francis called Odanaka. Now this is just a little of what I know but I don't know where you got your informatin but you need to check it out before putting it down on paper. I also have a Map showing that the Pennacook held all of New Hampshire so you need to put the Pennacook's down as part of the Eastern Woodland Natives.

Kunnaway (Youngbear)

Thank you for your suggestion! When you feel an article needs changing, please feel free to make whatever changes you feel are needed. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit any article by simply following the Edit this page link. You don't even need to log in! (Although there are some reasons why you might like to...) The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use out the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. --cesarb 13:11, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Search box keyboard shortcut: Infuriating!

Wikipedia's usurpation of the ALT-F keyboard shortcut is incredibly irritating.

Some of us actually use the standard interface conventions to navigate, and it is simply terrible form for a web page -- a web page! -- to abscond with standard UI objects. Given that the File menu is one of the near-universal UI objects, taking over its keyboard shortcut is nothing short of arrogance.

ALT-F is particularly useful when using a tabbed browser to close the current tab. (i.e. ALT-F,C) This is far easier to do with the left hand than CTRL-W. My usual practice is to have the mouse in the right hand, using CTRL-click to open new tabs to links of interest, and use ALT-F,C to close any tab on demand. But no, not with Wikipedia!

I beg you ... have some humility, and leave the standard UI alone!

• I entirely and absolutely agree. Wikipedia's hijacking of standard shortcut key combinations is a total pain and should be removed immediately - Matt.

foul language in an article

My class has been researching Marco Polo and printed out your article only to find several added sentences with repeated use of the "F" word. I was appalled. Please look into this.

vandalism of Medal of Honor

The word HONOR has been renamed PANTYHOSE all over the article. Please fix this

Editing and more information

If anyone else can edit the 'Come Together Now' article, that's fine. Perhaps someone can expand the 'When the Saints Go Marching In' article. It would be great if anyone can tell me and other users what the song "One" from 'A Chorus Line' is about. If anything can be done in response, that would be great.

      Thanks for expanding the 'When the Saints Go Marching In' article. Now
      if someone were to explain what the song "One" from 'A Chorus Line' is
      about, I, like many other Wikipedia users, would really appreciate it.
      Plus, anyone can feel free to do some editing to the 'Come Together Now'
      article.

Vandalism in "Cheese" article in featured section

Please note that your featured article on cheese contained a wholly inappropriate bit of juvenile defacement which was neither amusing nor becoming an group that prides itself on encyclopedia writing. Look at the last line in this paragraph.

From the Middle East, basic cheesemaking found its way into Europe, where cooler climates meant less aggressive salting was needed for preservation. With moderate salt and acidity, the cheese became a suitable environment for a variety of beneficial microbes and molds, which are what give aged cheeses their pronounced and interesting flavors. Although cheese is very good tasting, cheese in America actually comes from George Bush's butt.

A cursory look around the article pages did not reveal to me how I could go about editing that out of the story.

This sort of thing, especially in a featured peer-reviewed article, looks very bad for you.

Please don't just try editing it out; you are likely to miss part of the vandalism, which makes it more difficult to correct later. For a feature article, the vandalism is likely to be spotted and fixed quickly, but in general, you should go to the History tab, find the version before the vandalism, making sure that there were no legitimate changes after it, select it, select the edit tab, ignore the warning about an old version, add a suitable edit summary and save it without changing the text.

If there were legitimate changes, you need to use compare versions to either find out what the vandalism was, and remove that, or to find out what the legitimate changes were, and then re-apply them to the un-vandalised version.

See also: Wikipedia:Revert

--David Woolley 13:21, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Canada flag

article---> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada I just looked at this article and I saw what you called the .jpg file for canadas flag... "the flag of assholes" I was disgusted with this please change the file name or atleast make the picture load so you dont look like prejudiced jerks

I just removed some random obscenities from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Gatling added the 1st Nov.

I know that it is a inherent problem in a freely editable resource, but adding a simple filter on obscene words would stop this kind of silly jokes.

Cheers, Michal Korzycki

Proper English

I am wild about your site and think it is every educational for me. I am little puzzled by toady's article about cheese. "cheeses" is not a grammitcally correct word. Cheese is an exception in the English Language and should not take on an "s" in order to be plural. This is also true for other words such as moose and luggage.

Thank you for your time.

• "Cheese" often functions as a non-countable noun (or "mass noun") which doesn't take a plural. However "cheeses" is perfectly good English when you are talking about varieties of cheese (e.g. "English cheeses") or a number of separate blocks of cheese (e.g. "a pile of big round cheeses").

Entry Authorship

As Wikipedia's entries are updated fairly often, I suggest to follow the tradition of many book encoclaepedia, which is to mention the original date of publication of the entry and those of their updates. In case, the text is not authored by Wikipedia themselves, the name and function of the author would also be appropriate.

With best regards Herward Hencke info@certuspersonality.com

All this is required by the GFDL. Wikipedia achieves this by means of the History tab, but in my view it isn't fully GFDL compliant, and full compliance would make pages unwieldy.

--David Woolley 10:09, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Picture on the front page

Some one has hijacked you and placed a picture of a penis - the mouse over of which calls it the Israeli Prime Minister - please attend to right away!

please take down the offensive graphic in the front page article about rabin!

thanks much

WASP

Our group, Resisting Defamation, just reviewed your definition of "WASP" and we were appalled at the approval you show toward this long-time instrumentality of insult and denigration. In fact, almost the entire article reeks of hatred toward Americans of English ancestry.

We have published our own listing of words calculated to disparage and slap Americans of European origins, and you can find it at:

www.ResistingDefamation.org

Click on link for "Slurs."

Bo Sears for Resisting Defamation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.131.232.49 (talk • contribs)

If you have problems with the content of a specific article you should leave a message on the talk page for that article, in this case Talk:WASP. Wikipedia:General complaints is "not intended for reporting errors regarding content" as it says at the top. Evil Monkey∴Hello 21:13, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

misspell

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

Thank you for your suggestion! When you feel an article needs changing, please feel free to make whatever changes you feel are needed. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit any article by simply following the Edit this page link. You don't even need to log in! (Although there are some reasons why you might like to...) The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use out the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. DES ^(talk) 17:16, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Icon in the History of Buffalo New York

Hello - this is not so much a complaint but I just think an oversite. I have just discovered this site and someone may or may not have mentioned this to you before. The History of Buffalo, New York in the Entertainment section makes no mention of the musical genius of Rick James - Buffalo native. Can you update your site to include him?

He put the Buffalo on the map with "SuperFreak, Fire & Desire" with Tina Marie and countless other hits.

Thanks!!

Thank you for your suggestion! When you feel an article needs changing, please feel free to make whatever changes you feel are needed. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit any article by simply following the Edit this page link. You don't even need to log in! (Although there are some reasons why you might like to...) The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use out the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. DES ^(talk) 19:59, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Burlington Zephyr

Please go tio your Burlington Zephyr article and correct the spelling of Zephyr!

Thank you for your suggestion! When you feel an article needs changing, please feel free to make whatever changes you feel are needed. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit any article by simply following the Edit this page link. You don't even need to log in! (Although there are some reasons why you might like to...) The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use out the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. DES ^(talk) 19:57, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Boil type acne

I am have huge boil sized zits/bumps/pimples? under my neck area under my chin that never come to a head. They are under the skin and I get them when I eat avacados I think. Could I be getting them from avacados or my boyfriend's steroid usage? I don't do steroids, but he does a lot and we are intimate.

for factual questions go to the reference desk. But for medical advise it is better to see a doctor. Relying on the advice given on a web site by soemone who has never seen you and may have no medical knowledge at all is not IMO wise. DES ^(talk) 19:56, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Content on John F Kramer, the first prohibition officer in 1920

Wikipedia,

I was using your site for research on a coursework paper for GCSE History and i was unable to find any information on John F Kramer, the first prohibition officer in 1920 during the Prohibition, from beginning and until it ended. I knew who he was and what he did but i wanted more information about him and, unfortunately, i couldn't find anything. I'm not sure where you could find information on him as i need it within the next day or so, please could you get back to me when you have added him to your databases at tommi2k@hotmail.com, i'm not sure if i should have put this on this page but i musttell you in some way, sorry if it isn't the place i should have put it.

Thank you for your time, Thomas (preceding unsigned article by 80.44.153.229 2005-11-04 20:43:40 (UTC))

You seem to assume that there is some permanent staff that creates articles. There isn't. Everything is written by volunteers. To some extent what get written will depend on personal interests, but there will be people who try to get completeness in particular subject areas.

I did a Google search[3] and there isn't really much on Commissioner Kramer, although there is enough from quality sources, e.g. http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/ALLEN/ch10.html to make it likely that an article would pass the notability test, but probably not enough to write more than a stub article.

I think any article is going to have to rely on records that are not online, which will make it expensive to gather the information from verfiable sources, which I suspect you've already discovered.

Rather than use Wikipedia for your research, in this case, could I suggest that you put your research into Wikipedia. Don't be confused about the "no original research" rule. That means that you mustn't make your own deductions, it doesn't stop you from searching for source material.

If you hope to have input from Wikipedia, you could add him to the requested articles list, or you could write your own stub article, as long as you have enough material to write 4 or 5 lines which make it clear why the person is historically important. If others are interested, they will expand the article, and if you create yourself a proper user account, changes will be reported on your watchlist.

--David Woolley 22:11, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

mother

if you look up the webpage for "mother" it has the comment at the begining that, "mothers like having sex"

i do not think it should be there.

You have encountered some vandalism. It has been removed. Evil Monkey∴Hello 05:38, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

cochise

your picture of cochise is wrong. there is no known photo of cochise. your picture is of eskiminzin, chief of the aravaipa apaches.that is a very well known fact. (preceding unsigned article by 136.242.189.105 2005-11-05 10:42:27 (UTC))

The correct place to make such comments is on the article's talk page, and on the Images's.

However I note that there was a previous, similar, dispute about such an image and the previous image[4] was removed pending resolution. There has been no resolution and the current, different, image was added without comment, by Asarelah on [2005-10-05].

The image description page for the previous image did identify the subject as Chatto, and gave proper copyright and partial provenance information. The new image gives no copyright or provenance, therefore should be rejected, although it might reasonably be assumed that it out of copyright. The earlier image is now orphaned, and therefore ought to be removed or re-submitted to Commons. At the very least it ought to be renamed.

There is no Wikipedia entry for Eskiminzin and only two articles reference him, so, from a Wikipedia point of view he is not well known. However, if the fact is well known, you should be able to cite a reference source that confirms that. There is no citation for the current picture, so it is a very low quality source.

You might also want to consider starting the article on Eskiminzin.

If I get time, today, I will tag the new image's lack of copyright status. It's probably better if you tag it as of disputed accuracy. Someone can fix the tag if you get it wrong, but you need to write the talk page entry, as I have no knowledge of who is correct.

--David Woolley 11:41, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

• • Wanted to point out I found the source of the same exact image file at Apache Image Photo Gallery. Other copies of the image (not identical size though) seen here, here, here, and here. Hopefully this helps in your debate. Foofy 20:59, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

kammerlader

on the featured article today on 'kammerlader' a norwegian rifle, there appears to be a picture of a tumescent penis. just thought you ought to know.

ISLAM PAGE

I AM A HUGE FAN OF YOUR SITE.

please visit the Islam page and address the problem there thank you. Lawrence M. Archer

lawmarch12480@yahoo.com

We fix the vandalism almost as fast as it happens; you probably loaded the page right after it was vandalised. Islam is both frequently vandalised, and closely watched, so if this happens again, just wait a couple minutes and load it again. Best wishes, Antandrus (talk) 03:58, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Mary Shelley

Could someone with better expertise determine whether this is fair use of Wikipedia content? [5] Click the link to the Mary Shelley Bio and compare to the Wikipedia article. This appears to be a direct uncredited copying of the Wikipedia article from about six months ago, with the other site claiming copyright for the material. The Wikipedia articles for Percy Shelley, Lord Byron, Claire Clairmont, and Dr. John Polydori also appear on that site with no Wikipedia credit and that site's copyright. Durova 05:43, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

As violations go, it is quite mild. It does have a GFDL licence notice (in the wrong place for the GFDL, but in the same place as used by Wikipedia). However it is written in Wikipedia style, so almost certainly comes from there, but doesn't cite Wikipedia, which, to me, is fairly clearly required by the de facto Wikipedia licence.

In my view, Wikipedia is far from GFDL compliant (discussed further on a Wikipedia:Help_desk archive); making WIkipedia compliant, would, amongst other things, require having full lists of copyright owners before the text of the article, and including the full History and GFDL sections every time.

The other article is also missing the History and GNU Free Documentation Licence sections (which are at least available via links on Wikipedia). Because it doesn't have the History, it doesn't have all the other copyright notices (which are only implicit and in the wrong place in Wikipedia, but in default of cut and paste between articles, or importing GFDL from other sources, are there).

I've provided a link that undoes the abuse of an invalid frameset for hiding the fact that the true web site is an AOL member site and allows the domain name providing company to sell a vanity domain without providing any web space. As you have discovered, it makes linking to individual web resources rather difficult for non-technical users.

--David Woolley 09:22, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Please stop using very rare unicode characters in text when there is a more common equivalent

I often see little squares instead of characters in the text in Wikipedia - and it is very very irritating as it means the text cannot be read.

The reason appears to be that people are using very rare unicode characters that my browser (IE6 in WInMe) does not support, despite my downloading and installing a 14MB unicode font.

People may perhaps be doing this unwittingly by using Word to compose the text.

There is a long discussion about this at this MSVP site-http://www.aumha.net/viewtopic.php?t=9903&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=

The example I mentioned in that thread was that some very obscure unicode character had been used instead of just using "-".

This morning for example on the home page of Wikipedia I saw the name of the polish composer as Witold Lutos"little square"awski. When I copied that text into Wordpad it seems that "%C5%82" had been used instead of just a plain and simple "l". Why????

Please could Wikipedia set style guidlines that ban these very obscure unicode characters where a more common character will do the job just as well? Perhaps some computer program that goes through the text and that replaces these obscure characters with their more common eqivalents is needed.

While this might not be a problem for people using WinXP, for those of us using older computers (and mine is only 2-3 years old) then it is a great problem.

It would also make things difficult for people in the 3rd. world who may be trying to access the internet on old computers.

Thanks.

IE is known to have broken font handling. Basically, it should search all the available fonts if the current preferred font doesn't have the character, but it doesn't do so. The Mozilla family generally do do so.

In the case of maths, properly marked up wiki text should adapt to your user preferences, using, for example, GIF images or giving the, in GFDL terms, transparent form of the equation, if you select the right options in your preferences. The page mentioned on your forum certainly is using images for the formulae in its present version, with the right preferences set.

For Polish names, the correct thing to do is to use the correct spelling. As you haven't copied and linked the original text, it is going to be awkward to be sure which character was used, but it is almost certain that you do have the character and it is IE's poor font handling that is causing you problems.....It's Witold Lutosławski which uses Unicode character U+0142, LATIN SMALL LETTER L WITH STROKE, the only near alternative for which is U+019A, LATIN SMALL LETTER L WITH BAR. U+006C, LATIN SMALL LETTER L, is not an acceptable alternative, according to the Unicode standard.

Note, with a browser that has proper font handling, you shouldn't need a full Unicode font for that.

I'd normally be sympathetic with the broad sense accessibility argument, but if someone had a very low spec system they would be using the text mode browser, Lynx, which understands the character perfectly, and in ASCII approximation mode, displays:

Witold Lutosl/awski

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

(Redirected from [2]Witold Lutoslavski)

Jump to: [3]navigation, [4]search

[5]Witold Lutosl/awski at his home. Courtesy of W. Pniewski

and L. Kowalski [1].

[6]Enlarge

Witold Lutosl/awski at his home. Courtesy of W. Pniewski and

L. Kowalski [7][1].

Witold Lutosl/awski ([8]January 25, [9]1913 - [10]February

If they could afford to run a GUI, then they way to cut costs is to use Linux, where the browsers will handle the fonts properly.

-- David Woolley 14:20, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

To clarify, the letter you are not seeing is not a plain l (L) but "l with a stroke" ł (Ł), which is "a letter of the Polish, Kashubian, Sorbian, Łacinka (Latin Belarusian), and Navajo alphabets." Thryduulf 14:31, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Info> new domain name for ANGE (french band)

Hello,

the official Web site of the Ange group changes his domain name and becomes www.angemusic.com.

Thanks for agreeing to update your site consequently...

Dominique webmaster@angemusic.com

Thank you for your suggestion! When you feel an article needs changing, please feel free to make whatever changes you feel are needed. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit any article by simply following the Edit this page link. You don't even need to log in! (Although there are some reasons why you might like to...) The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use out the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. --cesarb 21:30, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Proximity Search

Hi, I think it would be a great thing to have a 'proximity search' option in WP's engine, as in Google. (Or do we have to content with the "site:en.wikipedia.com" expedient?) Is that possible?

Nivaca 19:20, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

How many thousands of dollars are you going to donate to add the hardware and develop the software needed? Remember that Google is a multibillion dollar company that specialises in search engines. --David Woolley 22:49, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Well, is a proximity search engine so expensive? I really don't think so. Nivaca 20:14, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

disrespect

that fact that any one cxan edit is good but it can get out of hand that wikipedia search of SAINT is clearly dispected and changed due to the anyone can edit policy i am asking that edited pages may not have incorrect, false,disrecpectful and offensive entries. plz change it

thanks

wrong interpretation of the Chinese translation of Jewish people

In your webpage below, there is a huge mistake regarding your interpretation of the Chinese term for Jewish people.

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

"Name The contemporary term for Jews in use among Chinese today is Youtai (Chinese: 犹太人; pinyin: Yóutài Rén) in Mandarin Chinese. This is sometimes thought to be derogatory because of the use of a character containing the animal (dog) radical. "

MY COMMENTS: the Chinese character for DOG is 犬 (pinyin: Quan), not 太(which is the "tai" in the Chinese term for 犹太人(pinyin: Yóutài Rén. 太means peace, gradeur, immense, and absolutely having NOTHING to do with the animal dog). Please verify this with any staff of yours that has basic Chinese character knowledge.

This is not a small typo, as this is may have left readers the wrong impression of Chinese people, which, ironically, are the few people in the world that place high regards on the Jews, for their extraordinary intellectual capacity, their shrewdness in business, and the amount of artists they produced for the world.

So, please make sure you correct this asap.

Thanks,

Hannah Zhang Los Angeles —Preceding unsigned comment added by Clare9643 (talk • contribs)

Thank you for your suggestion! When you feel an article needs changing, please feel free to make whatever changes you feel are needed. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit any article by simply following the Edit this page link. You don't even need to log in! (Although there are some reasons why you might like to...) The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use out the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome.

However, in this case the context of the quote made it clear that the DOG association was due to the presence of the animal radical, and the only character with an animal radical is 犹, which actually doesn't have an animal type meaning.

Unfortunately the article lacks proper citations, a common problem, so it's not possible for me to quickly verify this. If you do correct it, please take the trouble to add a proper citation for the fact. Please note though, that the electronic version of the Concise Oxford Chinese dictionary gives Judaism as the definition of 犹太 and it is also a known word to the Windows input method editor.

--David Woolley 13:49, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

On further examination, there is a citation, it just isn't attached to the point of reference. On a quick scan, that citation doesn't give the specific interpretation of the problem, but it might be worth checking the other references for the article. It is also seems to be a secondary source which has incorrectly assumed that the simplified version is a different word from the traditional form, but I suspect that error isn't in the primary source.

--David Woolley 14:15, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Links to people with the same name

There are some pages where, if you click on a link which is a person's name, you are taken to the entry of a different person with the same name, eg I was looking at the entry "Lancing College", clicked on the name of the headmaster "Richard Biggs" but was taken to an entry for an American comedian called Richard Biggs instead. The same thing has happened for other names as well. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.111.61.226 (talk • contribs) 02:22, November 7, 2005

Be bold. Fix it. Start a article called Richard Biggs (educator). Then put the following text at the top of the existing Richard Biggs article:

:''This article is about an American actor. For the educator of the same name, see [[Richard Biggs (educator)]]''
That is what wikipedia is all about. --Rogerd 07:45, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Isnt it about time this huge page was split up into smaller sections?

I have several times tried to view this page to see if there is any reply to my complaint 317, but despite trying several times and using a download manager I've only been able to view up to complaint 159 and no futher.

Perhaps this page should be split into batches of 100. I do not have the know-how to do this myself.

Thanks.

I am working on archiving the older sections. DES ^(talk) 20:15, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Mariana Trench...which is in error?

On your site you say that the Trench has a maximum depth of 35,795 ft. But later in the article, "In an unprecedented dive, the U.S. Navy bathyscaphe Trieste reached the bottom at 1:06 pm on January 23, 1960 with U.S. Navy Lt. Don Walsh and Jacques Piccard. Iron shot was used for ballast, with gasoline for buoyancy. The onboard systems indicated a depth of 37,800 ft (11,521 m), but this was later revised to 35,813 ft (10,916 m)" I wasn't a math major..but if the Trieste went to 35,813...that would seem to be deeper than 35,795. So which figure is in error?

This would be better mentioned at Talk:Mariana trench. That is the best way to handle any posible error or problem in a specific article: mention it on that article's talk page. DES ^(talk) 18:03, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

psychiatry

In defining psychiatry care, Psychiatric Nurse Practitioners were listed as the only nurses to provide psychiatric care & prescribe medication. This is an error. Another type of APN that can also provide psychiatric care (including prescribing medication) is the psychiatric & mental health Clinical Nurse Specialist.

Lori Lewis, APN Psychiatric Clinical Nurse Specialist <email removed> —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.112.144.190 (talk • contribs)

Thank you for your suggestion! When you feel an article needs changing, please feel free to make whatever changes you feel are needed. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit any article by simply following the Edit this page link. You don't even need to log in! (Although there are some reasons why you might like to...) The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use out the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. If for some reason you don't feel comfortable editing an article directly, then makre a commetn or suggestion on the talk page of the articel invvolved. Get to this by clicking the "Discussion" tab at the top of the page where the artilce is displayed. Every articel has its own talk page. DES ^(talk) 20:08, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Please also bear in mind that Wikipedia is not an American Encyclopedia, it is a world encyclopedia. The various classes and responsiblities of staff will vary from country to country. If you are referring to the Psychiatry article, the original introduction does seem to have been written with a US bias. -- David Woolley 22:39, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Need font advice, plus where has complaint 317 gone?

I see that my complaint number 317 about people using very rare unicode fonts where more common equivalents exist has disapeared without explaination, plus many other peoples complaints also as if the very long list had just been truncated.

Although I have now seen this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:General_complaints_%28resolved%29#Undefined_Math_symbols about maths symbol fonts, I would like to ask:

Can Wikipedia please give advice about what unicode fonts to install and where to get them from?

I cannot be the only person who is sick of seeing Wikipedia pages peppered with little squares instead of readable characters.

An MVP has said that he does not know of any font that covers all the unicode character set, yet Wikipedia seems to expect viwers to have one.

So, please can Wikipedia take steps to resolve the problem by either recommending a public-domain unicode font that covers all the unicode characters, or making style guildlines that restrict the range of unicode characters that writers can use.

I have recently downloaded and installed the 14MB Arial Unicode MS font, but I still get the little squares.

Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.7.160.238 (talk • contribs)

The Arial Unicode MS font doesnt work real well, try installing the open source Code 2000 and Code 2001 fonts available at http://home.att.net/~jameskass/  ALKIVAR™ 22:47, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

The article is still there, but has been renumbered as a result of archiving older articles to reduce the size.

Your main problem is using IE. A secondary problem may be the use of Windows 98 (WinME is really Win98). The Polish l with stroke character is in all the core fonts on Windows XP. I haven't bothered rebooting into my Windows 98 to see whether it is in the latest core font versions, but I suspect that it is and it is only that IE isn't prepared to use characters not on your current Latin code page. For more exotic languages you will generally need fonts specifically for them. It is possihble that Win98 will never handle Indic languages properly.

Note that a four year old version of Mozilla running on an equally old version of Linux gets the character right and so does a five year old version of the text only browser, Lynx. The latter approximates the character with l/ if told to use ASCII output.

Also, please get yourself an account. You are using a dynamic IP address. I tried to copy the thread to the user page for that address after your earlier posting today, but you have obviously moved again.

--David Woolley 22:29, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

I am working on archiving many of the older sections of this page. the section numbers are dynamic -- If section 1 is deleted or archived, section 2 becomes section 1, etc. DES ^(talk) 22:37, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

I'd suggest User:David Woolley to be a bit less patronizing when answering a complaint. Also remember that no one is required to get wikipedia account if they don't want to.

That said, I remind the anon user, who I assume uses Internet Explorer, to manually select the Unicode character encoding. Unfortunately you'll have to do this every time you visit a new page since, to the best of my knowledge, Internet Explorer does not recognize automatically Unicode-encoded webpages very well. Also, don't forget to move the Unicode font you downloaded to the "Font" directory in Windows in order to get it installed.

Now, if you get tired of manual switching you could install a browser with proper Unicode handling, such as Firefox or Opera. User:Alkivar's suggestion is also worth a try.

Hope this helps. -- Rune Welsh | ταλκ | Esperanza 23:21, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

IE doesn't have any problem identifying it as Unicode as the Wikipedia pages are standards conforming in this respect and explicitly specify the character set (as UTF-8). It gets this right even on Windows 98. I very much doubt that there will be anything to change in the character set selection.

It does not, however, obey the CSS rules for selecting characters properly, as I explained in the original reply. The exact rules are unclear and involve a mixture of the explicit selections from the document and the fonts specified for various classes of charactors in the fonts configuration dialogue. On Windows 98, which is not natively Unicode, I think it may also take account of the 8 bit code page.

I'm sorry for getting a bit annoyed, but I spent a lot of time on the original reply and in trying to contact the user using their IP address user page, when they said that their browser wouldn't display the whole of this page. From the original question, they are using IE6 on Windows ME.

--David Woolley 00:24, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Senator Robert Byrd biography

Was just wondering, was there a particular reason his complete quote was seemingly sanitized. On Fox News Sunday with Tony Snow, he said, "There are white niggers. I've seen a lot of white niggers in my time; I'm going to use that word...We just need to work together to make our country a better country, and I'd just as soon quit talking about it so much."

The page with the entire quote is cached http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:UB3ExCUdVssJ:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Byrd+robert+byrd+white+niggers&hl=en but a casual browser to his bio doesn't reflect his words in their entirety.

Thank you for your time and I look forward to your response, Bob Parks <email removed>

You might do better to mention this on Talk:Robert Byrd that is the page to discuss what should and should not be in the Robert Byrd article, and how it should be formatted. DES ^(talk) 23:33, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

also, questions on this page are normally responded to on this page, so three is no reason to leave your email (no one will esmail you in response anyway) and leeavign it on this very public page can invite lots of spam. DES ^(talk) 23:35, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Raymond Leo Burke Archbishop of St. Louis,Missouri

The Diocese of La Crosse website should be added as an link to the article about Archbishop Burke.In fact it could be part of an article about the Diocese of La Crosse.Aquinas High School, La Crosse,Wisconsin has a website under Aquinas Schools and that should be linked to the Archbishop Burke article since Archbishop Burke taught religion at Aquinas High School and the new addition was named after him. Finally to provide some balance,an alternative newspaper of St Louis Missouri THE RIVERFRONT TIMES had some not very favorable articles about Archbishop Burke;this should be included in the article also. Thank you-Richard Dungar-La Crosse,Wisconsin- —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.230.211.67 (talk • contribs) 06:57 EST, 5 October 2005

You should raise this kind of issue on the talk page of the article involved, in this case on Talk:Raymond Leo Burke. DES ^(talk) 00:33, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

NPOV tags

Hi, I see that some administrators and/or editors put up NPOV tags, merely because some claims have been made in the article. It must be noted that not all claims are false. May I suggest therefore that anyone who wants to put up these tags MUST:

• state which statements are not neutral; and
• substantiate why they think these statements are not neutral.

As it is, it is too easy to put up an NPOV tag, merely because it sounds not neutral. I certainly hope that administrators and editors will be more responsible in tagging. Seems to me like they enjoy tagging so much, because each tag counts as one edit (seems like a lot of guys out there are playing the number game), while the poor guy who takes the trouble to write (unless he merely cuts and pastes from another website) suffers discouragements.

While I do agree that writers must provide their sources to substantiate the statements that have been made.... when this is not done, the correct tag should be the "unreferenced" tag. By insisting that anyone who puts up an NPOV tag has to substantiate his action, this will indirectly forced him to use the more correct tag, which is the "unreferenced" tag, except only when the sources quoted by the writers are themselves not neutral. — PM Poon 16:46, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

I believe it is already policy that an explanation must be added on the article's talk page. However, NPOV isn't about the truth (whether the objective truth or that from verifiable citations). It's about how the article is presented, e.g.: making statements rather than reporting sources; emotive language; disparaging sources; omitting opposing sources; other sorts of economy with the truth.

There is some good explanation on Wikipedia:Help desk at the moment.

I will add more when I have time, if it is not covered by others.

Note that, it is my impression that many more articles than are tagged NPOV are in whole or in part POV.

--David Woolley 10:32, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

nuclear envelope

when i click-on "nuclear envelope" wikipedia sends me a media-file, instead of opening the "nuclear envelope" page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.8.237.48 (talk • contribs) 18:10 EDT, 15 September 2005

Nuclear envelope seems to work just fine. Where where you when this happened? DES ^(talk) 00:37, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

TCU notable alumni

Texas Christian University notable alumnus Sammy Baugh is listed as Heisman Trophy final canadite. Does this mean he is the last member of a religious sect that worships Canada, or just that you need a proofreader?

64.216.46.165 06:24, 8 November 2005 (UTC)Marvin Mauldin

Pretty obviously a spelling error. Wikipedia content is all supplied by volunteers. Thank you for your suggestion! When you feel an article needs changing, please feel free to make whatever changes you feel are needed. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit any article by simply following the Edit this page link. You don't even need to log in! (Although there are some reasons why you might like to...) The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use out the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. DES ^(talk) 13:31, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

To Wikipedia Administration - OFFICIAL COMPLAINT

I am very shocked that your user by the name "PANINI" acts so recklessely and intentionally engages in public abuse. Yesterday, I had a courtesy not to edit the article written about Republika Srpska ( History and many facts were just plain lies, one sided and terrible false ) but instead I have written a post that came up for some reason as several posts in your disscusion page. I have noticed immediately that Panini altered all my posts and inserted uncalled insults towards me, accusations about my identity, an arguments that are irrelevant to the topic of disscusion, not to mention making my post looking totally different by including his hate material.

I went back to read other posts and I have noticed that "Panini" insults people who disagree with him throughout this page calling them names and assuming their nationalities with no facts, then dismissing their disscusion points based on his assumption and creating chaos here. I have thought this is the free encyclopedia where public abuse by registered users is prohibited.

I have signed my post with time stamp and my IP address, and I see no reason or any use of having these type of attacks on me. Mainly because I have no idea who people here who do post on regular bases are, and I see no reason for PANINI to attack me personally on any bases not to mention on the basis of my identity or my signature.

QUOTE:( And yes World know the truth, so mister "anonymous user", I do not see what you want to achieve with this since it is quite obvious that you are nlt so anonymous, but you are actually Dado or Emir or their friend, so stop these games. And I really do not know who is desperate here. Only desperate man could play a role of anonymous user, while we all know who he really is. PANONIAN 10:46, 7 November 2005 (UTC))

Therefore, I ask the Administration of Wikipedia respectfully, to remove PANINI from Wikipedia for promoting hate and prejudices against anyone who post for the common good and reputation of this site. I do wonder how do you allow someone who intentionally attack people so fanatically, to remain on the Wikipedia, and I truly hope that will change.

I do not want to have any discussions with "Panini" on this matter, therefore I am asking respectfully no to alter, delete, add, insert or change this letter because it is officially addresed to Administration of Wikipedia. If my previous post was a burden I do not mind to delete it completely until this issue is resolved. Thanks! --209.86.99.80 17:22, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

There is a wikipedia policy No Personal Attacks against making personal attacks on other wikipedia users. However, violation of it does not generally warrent a complete blockage from wikipedia under our Blocking policy. I will look into the matter furhter -- this page is not really the place to discuss such issues. You might want to look into request for comment and other forms of dispute resolution. You can leave further messages about this on my user page, if you like. You might also look into contacting the Mediation Cabal. DES ^(talk) 13:36, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

---

To anonymous user: Would you like to show where I insulted you and included hate material? I only made assumtion about your identity and I still believe that your are not anonymous user, but one of the registered users involved in the discussion on the RS talk page: Talk:Republika Srpska. I have right to make assumption about your true identity because it is a very strange coincidence that you appeared exactly now when I tried to clean Bosniak nationalistic POV from the Republika Srpska article. Also, why you call me PANINI? What or who is a PANINI? My nickname is PANONIAN, which derive from the name of the Pannonian plain where I live. Also, since you accuse me that I insult people personally or that I insulting people because of their nationality, can you show where I done this? No, you cant, do you? But I can show that you deleted my posts from the RS talk page:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Republika_Srpska&action=history

As you can see, one of the administrators also warned you not to do this. PANONIAN 16:18, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

---

chlorpromazine

I have just spent all night reading reports online, regarding, in general, psychiatry. Upon reading about the horrors of Nazi Germany and similar practices in the U. S. and Canada in the decades following the end of WWII, I am a little surprised when I decided to follow up my findings on researching the drug Chlorpromazine, to find on this site (Wikipedia), where I have come for information for some time, that there is no mention at all of Heinz Lehmann, who used it to torture living human beings, and at times children, forced to remain prisoners in mental institutions. On one site, he is .."credited with transforming Canadian and American psychiatric care, particularly in hospitals and mental institutions. " Which is ABSURD, and on other sites, he is painted as a villian who had no consciousness at all, no idea of humanity or ethics to perform experiments on human beings, and no medical license - ! And his drug of choice for experiments was Chlorpromazine. I'm a little surprised to see no mention at all about how horrifying this particular drug was in it's earliest, experimental days, how it destroyed lives. To be neutral, I'm sure, is the hard part for a large website such as this. However, it is a scientific fact that there is no "treatment" or cure for so-called mental illnesses; drugs such as Chlorpromazine are very harmful to the human brain, and they only supress "undesired" behavior - yes, you can do a little research and find this to be true. It would be advised, if not to please myself and others against psychiatry, to perhaps...alter your input/information on Chlorpromazine, and other psychiatric "medications", from labeling them as "treatments" to something a little more appropraite. I would guess that most of the U. S. is not too aware on the adverse affects of psychiatric drugs, the addictive and harmful properties, and the absolute fact that NO psychiatric drug - NONE - actually TREAT and/or CURE *ANY* mental / emotional disorder. I believe that as a site such as this! People use for information, the information you display should be factual and informative. That...goes without saying.

Thank you so much for your time! ~Chrissi Burk <email removed>

Information on this site certianly should be factual. If you have relaible sources for facts that one of our articles ommits, please feel free to edit that article to correct the errors or add the missing information. Please cite your sources when making such changes -- "everybody knows" or "it is easy to verify" really are not good enough. I am no ewxpert on the subject, but i belive that the value of drugs in the treatment of mntal illness, and the effectiveness of other treatmets is a matter of dispute among experts in the field, and among other people with opnions on the subject. If that is so, wikipedi ahould not present one side of a dispute as unquestioned fact, but rather should indicate that there are differnign opnions, who holds them, and what evidence each side cites in support of its view. These matters are better discussed on the talk page of the articel or articels involved. DES ^(talk) 13:47, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

High School Kids Screwing Up Your Site

Sirs,

As a general rule your collection of information is getting edited by 15 - 18 year olds who think it is funny to add things like "cheese comes from George Bush's butt" and changing the population of a city to include a racial slam against another person. You may soon have to deal with liable and slander accusations and other problems. This WILL get out of hand.

I understand the idea of an open source resource - but you MUST filter the incoming information in a timely manner. Unfortunately I would have to suggest a delay on all edits, and have a HUMAN editor review the entries and green flag them.

Wikipedia WAS a good resource, but as a school technology director I am afraid I am going to have to put it on my block list for fear of the content it might bring into my school.

The problem of vandalism is always with us. When you see it, you can revert to an unvandalized version. Most vandalism seems to be reverted or otherwise corrected fairly promptly.

The solution you suggest has been proposed before, in several forms. See Wikipedia:Village pump (perennial proposals)#Abolish anonymous users for considerable discussion. You might also want to read Wikipedia:Replies to common objections. The current consensus here is that the value of open editing is greater than the costs. This policy, like all policies here, is subject to discussion and change, but it is the considered result of signicant past discussion, and is not likely to be changed any time soon, in my view. I am sorry if your school choses not to use wikipedia, but students must eventually learn to deal with information from various sources, to asses its reliability and not simply accept anything "in print" as gospel, and to deal with the occasional offensive comments that many people make, I think you do your students no favor in trying to shelter them over-much from the reral world. DES ^(talk) 14:01, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

complaint about a historic issue

complaint about a historic issue i have to say that when i read about my country Republic of Macedonia on this site i feel awful and disgusting. You with your pro -Greek creation of our history tell only lies to the world.READ MORE —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dimo snaga (talk • contribs) 08:53, 8 November 2005

Have you looked at the entry for Take That recently?

Somehow I doubt it. you appear to have a vandal.

Best wishes

al

define kyriarchal please

I am looking for a definition to the word : "kyriarchal" I think I have a general idea what it means but I having trouble finding a dictionary that includes this word. I find it slightly appaling that it is so hard to find a definition to this word. This word signifies, to me, an advancement in thinking and a higher lever of evolution, and i would really like to know what it means precisely. Therefore, I sincerely hope that you will help me and find a definition that's intelligent and correct. Thanks peace lisa grant <email removed>

I suggest asking this question at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Language which is our page for all questions about language usage and word meanings. DES ^(talk) 16:24, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

GEOGRAPHY

YOU MAY WANT TO CHECK OUT THE GEOGRAPHY PAGE. I WAS RESEARCHING SOMETHING FOR MY SON AND LUCKILY HE WAS NOT HERE WHEN I ENTERED YOUR WEBSITE. IF YOU CLICK ON GEOGRAPHY THE PICTURE THAT APPEARS IS DEFINATELY NOT A PICTURE OF THE MAP THAT IS SUPPOSE TO BE THERE

You probably encountered a case of vandalism. It seems to have been fixed promptly. You can fix such problems yourself by reverting to the last good version, as expalained on the revert page. DES ^(talk) 22:29, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Dagorhir

To whom it may concern:

My name is Sean Richey. I am a member of a group called the Dagorhir Battle Game Association. This group was established over 26 years ago, and and our membership has exploded internationally to include some 65 Chapters worldwide.

In 2001, we had to take legal action to prevent a hostile takeover. This included hiring legal counsel, trademarking our name, and passing out cease and desist orders to the offending parties. Having frustrated their attempt, these people instead created a competing organization, Belegarth.

The last paragraph of the Wikipedia Dagorhir listing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagorhir) was obviously written by one of these people:

In 2001, due to serious disagreements between the leaders of the Aratari and many of the other chapters, Dagorhir suffered a serious split. Many realms, fed up with the arrogance and disrespect shown towards them by the leaders of the Aratari, split from Dagorhir and founded a very similar group, known as Belegarth.

It's offensive and misleading. This is trolling. Worse, it's an abuse of Wikipedia's open forum intended specifically to damage our organization's reputation and success, while boosting their own at Dagorhir's expense.

I know that Wikipedia is a respectable and reputable organization. What must we do to prevent this from happening?

Please advise.

Sincerest regards, Sean Richey

I suggest that you discuss this matter on Talk:Dagorhir, keeping in mind our neutral point of view policy and the personal attack policy, and well as our policy that all content must be verifible. You could simply edit the article directly, but it would probably be better to discuss the amtter on the talk page first. DES ^(talk) 22:33, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Add a "Send to" or "Email to" option

Congratulations for your great project/wonderfull Encyclopedia.

One thing that I think is missed could be helpfull 4 all users is to include an option to "print" (printer friendly)or/and even e-mail the results (content) after the search to someone with a simple "email to" option.

Once again GREAT JOB! Thx U

J.Martin Canary Islands,Spain

If you print the article is automaticaly switched over to a print version.Geni 00:52, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Incorrect information in an article

I'd like to begin by saying I'm very impressed with this site. It is usually accurate to the letter. However, while browsing one time for nothing in particular, I stumbled across your "mothman" article. At the bottom of this article, you stated that an episode of X-Files entitled "Detour" was said to contain references to mothmen. Being and avid fan, I tracked the episode and watched it, failing to recall such an event. I would just like to inform you that, while the quote placed at the bottom of your article rings a bell to me, it is certainly not found in that particular episode. I just wanted to let you know that so that you may continue to build upon and retain the credibility and accuracy so many respect this site for. If you are interested in visiting the article, it can be found at this URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mothman It is the last paragraph under the section entitled "game." Thank you.

Syzygy193 21:50, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for your suggestion! When you feel an article needs changing, please feel free to make whatever changes you feel are needed. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit any article by simply following the Edit this page link. You don't even need to log in! (Although there are some reasons why you might like to...) The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use out the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. However, if you are not comfy actually editign the article, or aren't sure exactly what change to make, that please place a note on the articel's talk page, in this case Talk:Mothman. DES ^(talk) 22:21, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Is there a standard way to report/ask to merge duplicate pages?

I've just found:

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

and

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

These pages are duplicated, but I don't know what to do about it. Should I add a link at the bottom of each referring people to the other one?

It would be better to have the pages merged, but I don't know if it is possible for me to do that?

Rachel

They are not duplicates. Uml redirects to Unified Modeling Language. (UML is a disambiguation page, and arguably Uml should redirect to that, but no merge is needed as the two are just alternative names for the same page. For real merges, see Wikipedia:Merging and moving pages. -- David Woolley 22:18, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

The usual way to handle this is to place a merge template on each article. The basic one is {{merge}}. There is a compelte list and usage instructions at Template talk:Merge. You can also report duplicates at Wikipedia:Duplicate articles. DES ^(talk) 22:11, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

You can also jsut do the merge yourself, by changing one article into a redirect to the other, after copyuing any content that is unique to teh article you are merging from. Full isntructions are at Wikipedia:Duplicate articles. DES ^(talk) 22:16, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

PUBLIC EDITING PROBLEM

This happens to be one of the best sites on the web in terms of information. Almost any information that I need can be found here and in detail. However, I have noticed several people deleting or changing reliable information in an article to something random, wrong, or even racial. The result is that this site is becoming more and more unrealiable. This is becoming a problem and something should be done about it. One idea is that the people who sign up for this site should have an uneditable and reliable source to study from, while the public version remains changable. Another idea is that a human could personally read the edits on the pages and stop misleading or vandalistic information from being put on pages. Whatever the change is, something needs to be fixed so that this site can become the reliable reference it deserves to be.

The solution you suggest has been proposed before, in several forms. See Wikipedia:Village pump (perennial proposals)#Abolish anonymous users for considerable discussion. You might also want to read Wikipedia:Replies to common objections. The current consensus here is that the value of open editing is greater than the costs. This policy, like all policies here, is subject to discussion and change, but it is the considered result of signicant past discussion, and is not likely to be changed any time soon, in my view. DES ^(talk) 22:19, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Topeka West High School

I think you should add a page for Topeka West High school, since there is one for Topeka High.

Thanks.

Dear Sir,

I was looking at the Wisden criketer of the year listed in alphabetical order. I suggest following improvement for the page:

1. First a short history of Wisden awards and requrim of Wisden cricketer.

2. The alphabetical list should also indicate yera of the award.

3. A supplementry list year wise starting from the latest.

The above changes will add domani knowledge to your portal

Thanks

V.K.Agarwal

Error in School Entries

In your entry for the Hopkins School in New Haven, CT, as well as the entry for Phillips Academy at Andover in which you reference the Hopkins School, there are errors. The entry lists Hopkins in its own article as the "oldest continually operating school in North America," and in the Phillips article as "the oldest private school(in the United States)." Hopkins was founded in 1660, well after The Roxbury Latin School (West Roxbury, MA) was founded in 1645. Even on your entry for Roxbury Latin you acknowledge their claim at being "the oldest school in continuous existence in North America." Please correct this incorrect information and give Roxbury Latin its proper due. Thank you.

Thank you for your suggestion! When you feel an article needs changing, please feel free to make whatever changes you feel are needed. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit any article by simply following the Edit this page link. You don't even need to log in! (Although there are some reasons why you might like to...) The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use out the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. --cesarb 03:25, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Incomplete patriotic song list

It's been quite some time since I checked out these three American patriotic songs; "For The Dear Old Flag, I Die", "There's a Star Spangled Banner Waving Somewhere", and "This is My Country". Apparently, no one has written more information on those songs. It would be really wonderful if that were done. That way, the list of patriotic songs would be more complete. I hope I've touched another chord with other users.

Iraq War article

I was hoping to find a chronology of U.S. involvement in the Iraq War, for example, when did the Senate pass the resolution supporting the war, when was the original security council vote, etc. The article on the Iraq War isnt exactly leaving any doubt where the bias lies. I'm not looking for the 9,000th liberal op-ed piece on the war in Iraq, but an objective chronology. Give us the facts, let your readers decide.

Richard Kelly

As noted in the instructions at the top of this page, the correct place for such comments is on the talk page of the article itself, however...

There is no distinction between readers and contributors in Wikipedia.

If you believe an article is biased, you can write an explanation of why you believe so onto its talk page, then insert {{NPOV}} before the start of the article. Better still, you could fix the problem directly, as long as you retain both points of view. There are similar processes for articles which make claims that are not supported by references (a very common problem).

If you think there should be a chronology section, you can start such a section, and append {{Sectsub}} to it, to encourage people to complete it.

--David Woolley 16:12, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Dildos, adding content to article about

I own WoodPeckers Roost, a small company which makes, to our knowledge, the only handcrafted wooden dildos on the market. I came across Wikipedia serendipitously (of course!). I'd like to offer you pictures of my products, not as advertisement -- no strings or links attached -- but out of gratitude that you all are treating this subject seriously and because it seems that a picture of an historically correct dildo might be more appropriate than a modern latex one.

I would also like to link to you from my Editorial page, if you don't mind (I know I can do that anyway, but wanted to ask first).

Hope you will respond. Take care,

Jilda Coleman

You are encouraged to upload pictures; you can do so from Special:Upload. (Note that you'll need to release the pictures under GFDL for them to be used; just select GFDL on the pull-down licensing menu when you upload the image.) You can then put the image into the dildo article (see Wikipedia:Images for how to do this) or just put a note on Talk:Dildo informing the people who edit that article that a new picture's available that they could use.

You're welcome to link to Wikipedia, or any page on Wikipedia, from anywhere you want. Of course, as you're already aware, Wikipedia can't advertize your site. -- SCZenz 01:47, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Advertising

Be great if you had sponsored links at top. Sundance Supply would be a customer.

that is against wikipedia policy. DES ^(talk) 23:02, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Rating system for pages

Would be nice to see a quick rating system, a-la-NetFlix for the pages on WikiPedia. Would permit folks who are not subject matter experts to rate the quality of information and would allow the experts to spot the weaker pages that need updates/refreshs.

the softwear to do this has been created. The problem is that there is a worry that turning it on will overload the servers. AgainGeni 10:06, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

More Pictures Please

The encyclopedia articles should feature more illustrations, photographs, diagrams, maybe even sound/video clips etc. than are currently present.

I understand the issue of copyright protection but isn't there a way to gather more illustrations and other media for the articles from a GNU organization in corperation with wikipedia.

The pictures would be a great asset in helping to explain the information thus greatly assisting readers in understanding the articles. The pictures should also be centred or left aligned as well as being right aligned as they currently are.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by User:208.163.53.37 (talk • contribs)

-- Good Idea!!! --

—Preceding unsigned comment added by User:158.96.167.170 (talk • contribs)

I also would like more pictures on Wikipedia, so do what I do - make them, or in some cases, find suitable pictures made by others.

If you have a camera, take photographs. Learn to use drawing software and create diagrams or maps.

Alternatively, you can search the Internet for images. Most images are copyrighted and cannot be used on Wikpedia, but for example, Flickr has a Creative Commons section. Any image with the Attribution or Attribution ShareAlike licence can be copied to Wikipedia, if you comply with that licence. In this case you would give credit to the creator by linking to his/her profile at Flickr, and linking to the orginal file's source (all done in image description page).

It is also possible to use screenshots from films or TV programs under "fair use" guidelines, but free images are always preferred. Another possibility is to contact the copyright owner of an image to request permission.

See [6] for the images I have contributed, or otherwise worked on, (adding the correct tags, for example) - some drawn, some photographed, and a few from other sources. The ones that are my own work usually have my username in the filename.

See Also: Wikipedia:Images, Wikipedia:Image use policy for more on this subject.

-=# Amos E Wolfe ^talk #=- 17:39, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Zvi Mazel entry - request for correction

Dear Sirs,

Referring to the following entry =\Zvi Mazel, please note that I have not, and never had, any connection whatsoever with the Kristi Brud association and request that the text be amended accordingly. Regards, Zvi Mazel (remove email to avoid spam) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Jump to: navigation, search Zvi Mazel, (born 1939) was an Israeli diplomat. He was the Israeli ambassador to Sweden. He had previously served at the Israeli embassies in Antananarivo, Madagascar, Paris and Cairo. He was also the Israeli ambassador to both Romania and Egypt, before becoming ambassador to Sweden in 2002.

He made news a few times. Once, when he stated that the Swedish Archbishop KG Hammar "probably is an anti semite", and when he stated that Swedish foreign minister Anna Lindh's critique of Israel's human rights violations could not be tolerated. Internationally, he is probably best known for vandalizing the artwork Snow White and The Madness of Truth in January 2004. The artwork was part of the exhibition Making Differences. Israel Prime Minister Ariel Sharon later thanked Mazel and announced his support for Mazel's actions [1].

A few days after the attack Zvi Mazel again made an attack and claimed that "Sweden is one of the most severe Anti-Semitic places" and "There are daily agitations in Swedish media to kill Jews" [2] something that came as a total surprise to most people, but after Aftonbladet found out about Zvi Mazel's connections with the odd Christian sect "Kristi brud" (Bride of Christ) [3] Helle Klein wrote a column questioning where Zvi Mazel got his ideas about the situation for Jews in Sweden from [4]. It may be that Zvi Mazel simply trusted the wrong source. Then again, it may be that he had an opportunity to experience things first hand in Sweden.In a TV interview on February 22, 2004 Zvi Mazel called former foreign minister Sten Andersson and Sweden's UN ambassador Pierre Schori "professional anti-Israelis". [5]

Zvi Mazel retired when he turned 65 on March 4, 2004.

Sir, the allegations you mention have been removed recently from the article as uncited. The links claiming to cite them were dead, so if someone posts a current reputable source substantiating some of the material it might be restored—but of course that won't be possible if it isn't true. Thank you for bringing this to our attention. Incidentally, you could have simply linked to the article by typing [[Zvi Mazel]] rather than copying and pasting the whole thing. -- SCZenz 00:47, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Wayne Gretzky bio - probably vandalized ??

Hi,

at the following link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayne_Gretzky#NHL_Records

while I was looking for hockey info, and just browsing and reading about Wayne Gretzky, there was a line that said that he was "licking pussy", with some references that some might understand, but that I didn't.

It probably needs to be fixed somehow.

It was removed by someone watching the page less than an hour after the vandalism, as you can see here: [7]. -- SCZenz 01:33, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

You could also have fixed it yourself. See Wikipedia:Revert. -- SCZenz 01:34, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Why bother encouraging contributions?

People coming to wp are repeatedly encouraged to contribute something. When I take up the offer, I get a {db-empty} after I save 1 paragraph. So there is someone watching while I compose a simple article?

I get the message - "participate, but don't contribute". Please put your policies for deletion somewhere near the main page, _before_ you waste any of your visitors' time.

If you said what article you'd been working on, we could explain why it might have been deleted. But here are some generalities:

1. Yes, there are people watching new articles. See Wikipedia:RC Patrol. However, they should not be deleting a legitimate article written in good faith that you're obviously working on. If somebody does do that, send them a note explaining that you're working and ask them to undelete it and or/remove the notice.
2. There are links from the main page to the Wikipedia FAQ, which starts to explain what kind of articles we have here. -- SCZenz 01:41, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
3. For speedy deletion policies in particular, which are rather complex and thus not directly linked from the main page, see Wikipedia:Speedy deletion.
4. If you think you might have trouble with quick deletions, consider writing enough of the article that it obviously has content, and adding a {{stub}} marker to it, before you save it.

Hope that helps. If you do want to know the particular trouble your article had, just let us know which one it was. -- SCZenz 01:41, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

If you are actively working on an article, and saving it in an unfinished state as a safty measure, add {{inuse}} to the top to indacte that you are actively workign on it. it is considered impolite to leave this in place if you are not in fact actively editing the articel, or for more than an hour or two in any case. Even three or four relevant sentances, plus some indication of the context, ought to be enough to avoid {{db-empty}}, if soemone is adding this tag improperly we would like to know. As User:SCZenz wrote above, give us the titles of articles where this happened, and we can check the history or deletion logs and see if someone made an error, and if so advise that person how to do better. DES ^(talk) 17:03, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Note also that the text that appers when you start to edit a new article includes a warning about speedy deletion, and a link to Wikipedia:Speedy deletions. DES ^(talk) 17:05, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Improper use of terms Spain and Spanish

The kingdom of Spain was first create by the treaty of Utrecht in 1713. Even after that treaty, it was necessary the french army (Commanded by the duke of Berwick) to submit the Catalan nation to the letter of this treaty converting them in spaniards by the force. Before this date (1713) the powerfull nation in the iberic peninsula was "Castilla". In the name of Castilla, or the Queen of Castilla, Cristopher Columbus take place in America. It was Castilla which expends the american gold in the nederlands paying the its troops. It is real that in Castilla in the 16th and 17th centurys some times spoke about the "Spains", in plural, to refer the different nations of the peninsula but when they refer to themselfs allways the name was Castilla. I really think that when we speak about the nation that first conquered America, tryed to control the Flamish lands, sent a navy to attack England ( the felicisima Armada), etc. we always, in any case, must say Castilla insted of Spain. This is my oppinion and I hope it may be usefull for your encyclopedia. With my best regards J. Rech

Icon for external link that spans two lines

The icon is not shown properly when the link text changes a line.

Needs to be fixed.

user: Micke5000 10 November, 2005

Suggestion - toolbar search box

Major information portals like Google and Yahoo! have toolbars that can be installed onto WinXP.

I have a Wikipedia link on my toolbar, but I'd prefer a Wikipedia search box, so I could type a search term and immediately go to that page in Wikipedia.

Such a function exists for firefox. I don't know about IE.

inaccurate reference

Your reference to our site http://images.library.pitt.edu/c/chartres is listed on your Chartres Cathedral page under External Links in the following terms: "Large Photo collection partially claiming copyright for PD items". Would you kindly review the copyright statments on our site and emend the wording of your link accordingly. Thank you for your attention, Yours sincerely, M.Alison Stones, Ph.D. F.S.A., Professor Department of History of Art and Architecture University of Pittsburgh 104 Frick Fine Arts Building Pittsburgh, PA 15260 (email removed to avoid spam)

Dr. Stones, as far as I can tell (after looking around) you're referring to the two drawings. The image pages themselves (obtained by clicking on the image) already state that they are public domain. The statement found on your page by clicking on copyright info next to individual images states that non-photographs are in public domain, so we agree. Thus the only thing that needs to be fixed, as far as I can tell, is the description of your webpage in the link; this confusion probably arose from the fact that your front-page copyright statement doesn't mention some of the images being public domain. Anyway, I will rewrite the description of your site as you request now. Let us know if you have further questions. -- SCZenz 20:26, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

List of Chinese People

Some juvenile delinquent from the university of Chicago made very offensive edits to that list. Please deal with that person/department accordingly.

Separately, how did the entry "names listed by pubic hair length" survive for such a long time on that list? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.45.156.32 (talk • contribs)

I think the IP you suggested banning isn't the culprit, if you read the history carefully. Anyway, you did the right thing by fixing the vandalism. Presumably, such things last a long while on that list because nobody logged on who had it on their watchlist. If you like, you can make an account and watch articles that are important; see Wikipedia:Watchlist. -- SCZenz 00:39, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Harry Potter vandalism

Someone has corrupted and hilariously vandalised the Harry Potter character page.

Audio Samples

To whom it may concern,

Greetings! I would like to be direct to the point. PLS PUT BACK THE AUDIO sample of Mariah Carey singing against the Keyboard and all the other songs with it in that page (Mariah Carey: Charmbracelet tour in Paris). The only reason I keep on opening your website is because of the audio samples of the singers. Now that you have removed that particular Audio sample and the 25 second note of Vanessa Amorosi, I do not have a reason anymore to open your website. Please if possible, put the whole song and not just the part. Please, I really want to listen most especially to Mariah's PAris Chrmbracelet tour everytime I surf the net. Please also try to make the other audio samples of other singers more accessible. I can not open the audio samples of Christina Aguleria, Rachelle Ferrell, Jessica Simpson etc. You've got different application for those audio samples that I can not undersatnd how to operate. Pls just make it like real one or other easier applications. I hope to get a response regarding these matters and hopefully that response is bringing back the removed AUDIO SAMPLES. Thanks and God Bless. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.213.181.140 (talk • contribs)

I've looked around a bit, and it would appear that many of those audio samples had no copyright tags, which very likely means that Wikipedia didn't have the legal right to use them. Without those rights, there's nothing we can do to bring them back. We're an encyclopedia, not a music repository—if you would like another reason to visit our site, you can always read some articles. -- SCZenz 16:34, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Feedback

this is an extremely convenient and useful website.Thank You Wikipedia —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.197.97.19 (talk • contribs)

Watchlist sub-folders

wikifolks, someone may have already suggested this and i may even be missing it if it exists but what about within a person's watchlist having folders-for instance,if i have a number of jazz musician pages on my watchlist,i could put them all together in a folder. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Moderncommunities (talk • contribs)

This has been suggested before. I think it might be a good idea, but it would require a siognificant softtware chnge, and the developers are also volunteers. What you cna do is create such a list, organized into sections, on a sub-page of your user page, or a series of sub-pages, one per folder, and use the "related changes" feature. This is not ideal, but it gives you most of the fiunctionality that a folder-equiped watchlist would. If you want more detail on how to do this, leave a msg on my talk poage and i'll elaborate. DES ^(talk) 16:54, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Affiliation Program

I have a website that sells oil painting reproductions. After visiting your website, I feel that we would compliment each other greatly. We have an affiliation program that pays 10% commission on all sales. I hope that you will consider this opportunity and will hear from you soon.

<removed link>

Thank you, Jillian Beaury <removed email>

As a matter of policy, wikipedia does not participate in affiliation programs of any kind, although this has been suggested on several occasions. our commitment to the Neutral stance prevents our taking actions that would seem to endorse one merchant over another. This policy, like all polices, is of course open to discussion and possible change. I would sugged you rasise the matter at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy). In the mean time I ahve removed your websiter and email address, as positing commercial web links that do not add significant value to articels is generally discouraged. See also WP:SPAM#How not to be a spammer. DES ^(talk) 18:56, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

this is about the armenian instrument duduk

It says it ressambles the "ney". That is completely wrong, but only with one letter. The instrument it ressambles is called "mey", the "ney" is totally different.

Thank you

Sunniva Hovde, Trondheim. Norway. Musicologist

Thank you for your suggestion! When you feel an article needs changing, please feel free to make whatever changes you feel are needed. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit any article by simply following the Edit this page link. You don't even need to log in! (Although there are some reasons why you might like to...) The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use out the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. DES ^(talk) 22:51, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Oops

On your entry for 'Nationalism', there's a rather rude word on the second to last line of the introductory paragraph.

Actually, keep it in. It provided quite-a-giggle!

I believe it's already been fixed. You could even have fixed it yourself by clicking the edit link. -- SCZenz 23:21, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

"information" with a christian slant

Lately everytime I use Wikipedia I get some religiously slanted page of misinformation. I realise there is a culture war going on, but facts should stay facts....and i mean the OLD definition of the word "fact". Maybe christians have a right to tell history as THEY see it, but the result can hardly be called an "encyclopedia", nor can you trust what you read in it. It would be nice if axioms or "accepted fact" were on TOP and I didnt have to dig through opinion to find them.

If you see an article that doesn't have a neutral point of view, that is a violation of Wikipedia policy. You can put a note on the talk page (click the discussion tab, then edit), and put an {{npov}} tag on the front page as well. If you want to tell us specific articles you think are problems, let us know—we're more than happy to help. -- SCZenz 01:18, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Kings, Canterbury

Dear Sirs,

Much of what you write about The King's School, Canterbury is factually wrong. For example there is no rule banning pupils of the oppposite sex from being within a 2 metre radius of one another. I suggest you get your facts right, and adjust your article accordingly.

Richard Herbert

As explained at the top of this page you should complain about content on the talk page of the article itself, where the people who edited the article are likely to see it. If something is provably wrong, you should correct it yourself, citing your sources. If it is obvious nonsense, or vandalism, you may correct with only an edit summary comment to back the change. In the latter case, if it was introduced on the most recent edit, you should use the revert procedure, to avod missing parts or introducing new typos. In this case, if there is a copy of the school rules online, a citation for those would be a good way of challenging hte claim.

It is important to understand that there is no central editorial staff.

In this case, the phrase in question seems to have been there for some time, in a section that a number of people have edited, so a number of people don't seem to have questioned it.

No references appear to have been cited for the article, but this is a common problem.

--David Woolley 16:37, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Thank You!

I just want to say THANK YOU for this free encyclopedia. I am a university student and I use this site very very often for my homework and for further explenations. It is very userfriendly and very knowledgable.

Once again, Thank you.

Bab is capitalized but not Jesus

Why are the masculine references to the Bab captitalized in some paragraphs but this is not done for Jesus Christ. For example:

Bábi/Bahá'í Account Here is an account which is in line with the common Bahá'í view and paraphrased from "Release the Sun", by William Sears, a Hand of the Cause of God:

The firing squad was made up of 750 Armenian soldiers, split into three rows and was under the command of Sam Khan. Sam Khan had become increasingly affected by his Prisoner and spoke with him privately telling Him that he was a Christian and had no ill-will against Him. Sam Khan said "If Your Cause be the Cause of Truth, then enable me to free myself from the obligation to shed your blood." The Báb replied, "Follow your instructions; and if your intention be sincere, the Almighty is surely able to relieve you of your perplexity." The Báb and a young companion were suspended from a nail by ropes for execution by a firing squad of three ranks of 250 rifles each; a total of 750 rifles. Sam Khan, unable to avoid his duty, gave the order to fire. When the smoke cleared, the crowd of 10,000 persons was amazed to find the Báb's companion standing, alive and unhurt, the ropes severed by the bullets. The Báb was nowhere to be seen. He was found, back in His cell, finishing His business with His secretary. The Báb then said to the guard, "I have finished My conversation. You may now proceed to fulfill your duty." The guard, remembering the rebuke he had received earlier, resigned his post, shaken to the core and cut himself off from the enemies of the Báb. Sam Khan, likewise removed himself and his regiment from this duty declaring, "I refuse ever again to associate myself and my regiment with any act which involves the least injury to the Báb." A colonel of the bodyguard then volunteered to carry out the execution. The Báb was again taken to the execution ground and suspended as before, and a new regiment brought in. Again the rifles fired. This time the bodies of the Báb and His companion were shattered by the blast. The bodies were thrown at the edge of a moat outside the city and guarded so that none of His followers could claim His remains. Two days after the execution His followers were able to recover the bodies, hid them in a specially made wooden case, and kept them in a place of safety.[1]

Jesus, also known as Jesus of Nazareth or Jesus Christ, is the central figure of Christianity, most of the followers of which worship him as the Messiah, son of God, and God incarnate. In Islam, he is regarded as an important prophet.

The main source concerning the life and teachings of Jesus are the four canonical gospels from the New Testament, which depict Jesus as (among other things) a Galilean rabbi, healer, and performer of other miracles, who was often at odds with Jewish religious authorities, and was crucified outside of Jerusalem during the rule of the Roman prefect Pontius Pilate. To what degree the gospels are reliable as historical documents is disputed, and all other known sources, of which there are few, provide only limited, second-hand information. Nevertheless, the majority of scholars agree that Jesus did, at least, exist[1].However, the chronology of Jesus' life is uncertain, as the gospels mainly describe the events immediately prior to his crucifixion and no exact dates are known. The Anno Domini system of reckoning years was originally based on setting year 1 as the first full year of Jesus' life. However, based on the mention of Herod the Great in the gospel of Matthew, more-recent estimates place Jesus' birth as early as 8 BC/BCE, and as late as 4 BC/BCE. Based on the years of Pilate's rule, Jesus' death is now estimated to have taken place between 26 AD/CE and 36 AD/CE.

Beyond the historical information accepted by most secular scholars, the gospels make various additional claims about Jesus, for instance that he was the messiah prophesied in the Old Testament (or Hebrew Bible); that he was God, and the "son of God"; that his mother Mary was a virgin; and that after his crucifixion he rose from the dead, then ascended into heaven. Numerous miracles and other supernatural events are attested.

Thank you Dr Edward Ciaccio <email address removed - see instructions at top of page>

brisbane

hello,

i hope that´s the right adress (don´t understand english good enough to be sure)...

at the "brisbane"- site (?) you have a list of people from bribane; well: i think you forgot russell, david and stephen page from "bangarra dance theatre" (though russell´s dead, sadly), don´t you think?

with friendly regards

m.s.

It's not the right place, that would have been Talk:Brisbane.

The reason they are not there is that you haven't put them there yet. However, before doing so you need to be sure that they are famous enough to be mentioned in Wikipedia. Currently Russell Page and Stephen Page have no entries and the only David Page is completely different. Bangarra itself is competing for being the shortest article and given that it has stayed at just seven real words for over 5 months would probably get deleted if anyone bothered to nominate it.

Rather than worry about the Page's, you should be adding enough to the Bangarra article to ensure that it is clear why they are important enough to continue to have an entry. You need to find checkable facts, like audience figures, foreign tours to major concert halls, etc., and add references to the source of that information.

Bangarra does seem to pass the Google test, though, so it ought to be possible to flesh out the article.

If you are worried about your English, write the article anyway, and add {{copyedit}} at the start. If your English is very weak, it may be better to treat it as a translated article.

--David Woolley 21:23, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

soo line 1960

to whom it may concern,

there was a coment in the encyclopedia saying that the soo line had been made a merger of three different roads in 1960 which to my knowledge is not true, the soo line acquierd the duluth south shore and atlantic in 1950 after a purchase of a derived company that had filed for bankruptcy in the 1940s as for the wisconsin central or lake states division it was acquierd earlier than the 1920s, this information was past down to me from my father and his and so forth, we have had a great deal to do with the company since it was founded in 1883 in minneapolis, our family had startings with the company in north dakota as the soo line or tri state land co.then being offerd a job that my great grand father was offerd had moved us to mcgrath,mn after completeing the track east to glenwood mn. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 152.163.100.203 (talk • contribs)

Thank you for your suggestion. When you feel an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the Edit this page link at the top. The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes — they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons why you might want to). . Thryduulf 00:01, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

intelligent design - bias article

The article for "intelligent design" seems too bias. Instead of giving facts it in giving personal opinions. I am not the only one who feels this way. In the "Intelligent design" discussion other users have made the same complaint. This article should have some type of label notifying visitors of the article still needs further editing until it is complete. I think it is inappropriate to allow visitors to think the article is factual.

If you think an article does not meet the standards of NPOV Wikipedia strives for, then you can place a {{NPOV}} tag on the article, be sure to explain why on the discussion page. If most of an article is good, but one or two sections are bad then you can use the {{POV-section}} tag instead on the relevant sections. If neither of these epxress what you feel is wrong, see Wikipedia:Template messages/Cleanup and Wikipedia:Template messages/Disputes for one that does. Thryduulf 00:00, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Of course there is the problem of what the facts are. SeeWP:NPOVGeni 23:57, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Complaints about swearing?

As I browse this page, I notice that a significant amount of the complaints are involved with vandalism. This is certainly understandable; if you see 'KYLE IS A MOTHERFUCKER' repeatedly pasted into a random article, you certainly want to complain. However, the sheer amount of these complaints are suffocating the amount of valid ones; I suppose this complaint itself is one of those, a meta-complaint of sorts. Would there be any way to put a little snippet on the edit page itself?

Islamic Battle fought during Ramadan

How come you are listing the terrorist attacks of El Quada under this category with glorious battles fought by prophet Mohamed peace be upon him and other glorious days of Islam ..????

(The above is a reference to List of Islamic battles fought during Ramadan, I think →Raul654 00:35, 13 November 2005 (UTC))

Holocaust Denial article vandalized

I added one single line to the article entitled, "Holocaust Denial":

"The only history in the western world currently enforced by law is that of "The Holocaust".

My factual statement as been repeatedly vandalized by a Josh Gordon, who sent me a message telling me to stop posting this factual information, and threatened to block my ip address from wikipeadia.org

Please revoke administrator status for this Josh Gordon. Threats are unacceptable in an open forum, and vandalism of factual material should be taken seriously.

This matter should be discussed on the talk page of the artic;e in question. You should cite a source for your "fact". If that does not resolve the question, please follow our dispute resolution procedures. DES ^(talk) 16:19, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Wiki crashes IE 6

I've noticed for the last couple weeks that wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org) has and will crash Internet Explorer 6. I've had this problem at work and at home, both using Windows XP. I do not have the issue with Firefox on the same machines. Any wiki page I go to will load, but as soon as I try to leave the page either to another website, another link on the wiki page, or a blank url, IE6 will crash. I just thought I'd let you know.

I use IE 6 at work, and have never had this problem. Try emptying your cache (and consider upping its size) -- I've had IE crash problems when the cache reaches its maximum. Just a guess. Antandrus (talk) 03:33, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

odd

It seems anyone is able to edit your website by clicking on the edit button.

You might want to have a look at this.

that is deliberate. This is a wikiGeni 05:22, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

That is why Wikipedia is such a successful encyclopedia. Anybody can contribute to articles, by improving the quality or adding more content. It is possible to even create your own articles. Feel free to add information yourself. Why not get a Username and help us out. The only setback really is Vandalism. DaGizza ^{Chat (c)} 05:29, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Vandalism is not a setback. It is a feature.Geni 05:34, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Pornographic images in Wikipedia results

I was informed that Wikipedia includes actual photos of penises and vaginas on the appropriate results, and that infuriated me. Please understand all you are doing is giving teenagers free pornography. Please remove those as it is very distasteful. Sketched diagrams will suffice for accuracy of knowledge. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.174.159.164 (talk • contribs)

I don't think Wikipedia is a teenager's first choice when looking for free pornography. —jiy (talk) 08:28, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Google would be a far more efficient method. See, you can learn things on Wikipedia. On a more serious note, please see WP:NOT for a listing of What Wikipedia Is Not. That includes "Wikipedia is not censored for the protection of minors." FCYTravis 08:36, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

And since when a photo of a penis and/or the photo of a vagina is pornography?? One cant study anatomy whitout being called a pervert?LtDoc 12:57, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

In any case it is our established policy that Wikipedia is not censored for the protection of minors. There have been several debates on this point, and i think it most unlikely that this policy will change, although you or anyone is free to propose a change. DES ^(talk) 16:01, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Diderot

Searching for "Diderot" I was informed that no page existed. However using a link from the page "Alembert" I discovered that there is a page "Denis Diderot". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.226.50.10 (talk • contribs)

There's been a redirect[8] since August 2002. Are you sure you are using a current version and typed it properly? (It seems there is no Alembert article, though! Did you mean D'Alembert, another redirect?)

Why did you ask here in spite of the large print warning at the top of the page? (An answer may help improve the warning.) --David Woolley 09:23, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Syntax Colouring!

Could wiki implement some sort of syntax colouring mechanism for it's code snippets on programming pages? either that or make some sort of recommendation for authors to colour their code for readabilities sake? it really makes the code awfully easier to read. Thanks.

Please undo font change — Site very difficult to read

Somebody changed the font/typeface for the entire site to what I believe is Impact, making it very difficult to read. This is suitable for titles in large point sizes, but not for general text. Please put the site back up in its original font. Thank you.

— Eye-Strain Sufferer

uh, the font hasn't changed. Broken S 20:25, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Alt+F conflicts with Windows

I thought I was going crazy. When I tried to open the Windows Explorer "File" menu using Alt+F, I kept getting jumped to the top of the page instead. I finally realized that Wikipedia was taking me to its Search field! The underlined "F" in "File" signifies that you can use Alt+F to open the File menu. Can't you use a key combination that isn't already spoken for? Wikipedia is the only web page I have used in all these years that pre-empts this basic operation of Windows, which I use routinely to open extra windows. danwWiki 00:29, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Others have made the same complaint. See Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Browser shortcuts. I agree. DES ^(talk) 15:57, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

A suggestion about pictures

It would be nice if there were more pictures on Wikipedia & a possible legend with links. P.S. Thanks 4 making Wikipedia great. You guys do an outstanding job.

• You're right, more pictures would be great. The difficulty in some cases is finding freely available pictures to illustrates articles. If you have any useful pictures you have taken yourself, you can upload them and add them. Warofdreams talk 22:57, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Remake articles, don't "recreate" them

I just want to invite everyone to review the meaning of "Recreation" in a dictionary. Recreation is an activity engaged in for relaxation and amusement. To recreate is to engage in something relaxing or amusing.

Creating an article previously deleted is far from amusing. Use remake or remade instead. Instead of

• Wikipedia:Image recreation requests
• Recreate it using your preferred imaging tool, be it Microsoft Paint or AutoCAD. (Cited from WP:IRR above.)
• Keep deleted, but allow recreation. (Cited from Wikipedia:Deletion review.)
• The article was recreated.

write

• Wikipedia:Image remake requests
• Remake it using your preferred imaging tool, be it Microsoft Paint or AutoCAD.
• Keep deleted, but allow remake.
• A vandal remade the entry. (Use the active voice.)

The new fancy word re-create, which has become popular, is slightly better, but re-creation is still obscure.

Reviving articles that were speedily deleted is suspicious as it is — let's not make a fun game out of it.

-- Perfecto  03:13, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

re-create is at least 20 years old (and probably a lot older). Allen, R.E. (1984), "The Oxford Dictionary of Current English", Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-281919-4 (this is a small paperback dictionary, not a big, academic one) --David Woolley 17:43, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

A 20-year-old word is still new. Our article for re-creation is about re-enactments of crime scenes, so a hyphen turns frolic into felony. -- Perfecto  15:02, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

• Language changes. This is an obvious formation from re+create. Indseed I suspect that re-creation will soon be spelled simply recreation, and we will have another word (like "polish"/"Polish" or "dessert") with multiple meanings and peonouncations at the same spelling. That is a feature of English, not a bug in it, IMO. DES ^(talk) 17:01, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

CONTENT REFERENCES

I applaud the idea and effort of all those involved in the Wikipedia project, however I have noticed that there are MANY mistakes within MANY sections (if not ALL as far as I can see) - but there are no references to the sources of information. I think it would be a good idea if you ONLY allowed information to be published that contained reference sources. Otherwise Wikipedia will remain a misleading, second rate information source that interests only those who are not serious about FACTS. 211.28.247.20 (talk · contribs)

It is actually a policy that sources be cited. However it is difficult to enforce because:

• Even if the presence of a References section were enforced, you cannot, mechanically, enforce that it contains the true and complete references, or that it will be maintained as new information is added (there is a risk that enforcement may result in the use of a token reference);
• There are often cases where facts are so well known to experts in the area that they have lost track of where they learnt them (and their source may have been print only and long out of print, or college lectures);
• Sometimes, with lists, the list of references would be as long as, or longer than actual list;
• For lists of grammatical words, it may become very difficult to avoid copyright violations if one doesn't decide on the word before finding a reference, although, arguably, one should still be able to cite that retrospective reference.

The big problem is that most people are not used to seeing sources cited, and may get most of their day to day information from newspapers and popular magazines, which never do this.

When you find articles without references, you can add {{Unreferenced}} to them, although there seems some confusion about how to do that. It's also less clear what to do when the list of references is clearly incomplete. If you think that the article may be valid, but parts may not have been taken from other sources, you can add {{OriginalResearch}} to the start of the article. Where facts are wrong, and you can cite a reference, you should simply correct them and add the reference. For other problems, there are various flags that you can add, although you generally need to explain your reasons on the article's discussion page.

--David Woolley 13:33, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Cluttering the article with rude comments is certainly not the way to proceed[9]. Please remember that until serious professionals help out with medical and scientific articles, their content is likely to be limited and possibly erroneous. JFW | T@lk 19:28, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia integration with Microsoft Word

I think it would be great if I could add Wikipedia to the Research Options Services in Microsoft Word, so that we could get definitions without having to switch over to a web browser. Right now all I get when I try to add Wikipedia as a service is "No services were added because the service provider did not provide any valid information."

Is anybody working on this??

Ability to Edit / Change your Web pages

Dear Web Administrator,

I am new to your web site & have been using it to do research for an assignment for tafe. I discovered the Edit this page button & went in & did a small change to see what would happen. To my amazemaent I could actually edit the content on your web page.

My question to you is ....

Isn't this dangerous? I mean to let just anyone fool about with your pages. There are some destructive types out there who could completely break or corrupt your pages. It leave's me a bit untrusting of some of the content as some of it may not be entirely correct.

Yours Sincerely

Senna Australia

See Wikipedia:Replies to common objections#Letting arbitrary Internet users edit any article at will is absurd. --cesarb 14:31, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Charles Manson

Your biography of Mr. Manson states that he attended Walnut Hills High School in Cincinnati. As a result, this statement is being picked up a fact all across the internet whenever Mr. Manson's background is discussed.

There is no other citation to that statement other than Wikipedia. Where did you find this information? Since Walnut Hills is and was an academically exclusive school in Cincinnati, and since his sole "residential" parent, was a transient prostitute, who often left her son with other neighbors in an extremely lower class part of town, and since we know that Mansion went to jail at 13, it is highly unlikely that he was accepted into, and/or attended Walnut Hills High, which is well away from the neighborhood in which he lived, and which had/has a very exclusive admission policy.

More likely he went to Woodward High, which is in the Over the Rhine neighborhood where Manson lived before his first jail term. However, knowing that Manson liked to believe that he was highly intelligent, it is possible that Manson bragged of being accepted into Walnut Hills to some people. But I am afraid his attendance at Walnut Hills is now an urban myth which has reached the status of a "fact" as a result of your article. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.210.11.211 (talk • contribs) 10:52, 14 November 2005 (UTC-5)

Thank you for your suggestion! When you feel an article needs changing, please feel free to make whatever changes you feel are needed. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit any article by simply following the Edit this page link. You don't even need to log in! (Although there are some reasons why you might like to...) The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use out the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. Or you might want to discuss the matter on Talk:Charles Manson, which is the proper place for discussin what should or should not be in that article. DES ^(talk) 16:24, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

PanAm history content............Please check out immediatly!

At the very end of the general history of PanAm, before "PanAm: The Resurection", it states: "George Bush is the anti-Christ". Could this have been an oversight at Wikipedia? Right now at this very moment, as your featured aticle of the day, 14 November 2005. this is quite visible. It's up to you guys to correct this or not. I'm sure there are some people who would agree & diagree with this statement, though. However, it probably has nothing to do with the article itself. FYI —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.58.41.11 (talk • contribs) 12:48, 14 November 2005 (UTC-5)

What you saw was vandalism. It was rapidly corrected. If you see such again you can revert it yourself. DES ^(talk) 18:17, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Add new language

Hello All_ Why you don't add Arabic Language to the wikipedia as one of the other languages (other than english) , there are at least 300 000 000 people speak arabic and there are thousands of people can add Arabic articles to wikipedia

thanks

• We already have an Arabic language edition - take a look! Warofdreams talk 22:52, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Backround information

okay so i'm doing an essay, and i've found some of your information quite useful, i've used information about Quebec history so i was wondering if you could send me the folling or things related: who the author is (of that material) where the site is stationed, of from the year the site was made and possibly some other information for a bibliography... thanks a lot Lock

• You can find this information by clicking on the "history" tab at the top of the article. See also Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia for general information. Warofdreams talk 22:53, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

a little fact you may want to add

wikipedia is an excellent site. in depth with so much general information all the way to the center of the source. I finally came across something that you MAY want to add. On the MELLOTRON article you did not mention the progressive death metal band Opeth. Porcupine Tree was mentioned but no Opeth even though they are extremely closely related or something like that! Being a big Opeth fan...that dissapoints me.

you can add it yourself, or anything come to that. Click the "edit this page" tab at the top of the page. See: Wikipedia:Introduction.

-=# Amos E Wolfe ^talk #=- 02:44, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

United States General Article

Someone has edited the definition for the United States and has stated "it is a gay country with a faggot President...so on" Please fix this when you can.

it's already fixed Broken S

Silvio Berlusconi article

You should seriously consider making a note on the Silvio Berlusconi page warning readers of its possible bias and its writers possible agenda in doing so. I read the article and found it seriously onesided and extremly bias.

In what way is it biased? Why don't you leave a note on the article's talk page giving examples of what you believe to be biased, along with an example of a less-biased wording, and then someone can either fix the article or you can do it yourself. Thanks, Antandrus (talk) 04:07, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Patriarchy VS Matriarchy

In Wikipedia's definition of Patriarchy it states "...They argue that it is necessary and desirable to get away from this model in order to achieve gender equality, creating a matriarchal society." This implies that a Matriarchal society would be that of gender equality, which would have no gender in power. However in the definition of a Matriarchal society it expresses that of a female gender in power. "Matriarchy is an theoretical or imaginary form of government in which community power is conceived as lying with the women or mothers of a community." As these definitions contradict each other I decided to inform you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.50.16.113 (talk • contribs)

This would probably be best discussed on Talk:Patriarchy, which is the palce for disccsuing with other editors what should go into or be changed in the Patriarchy article. DES ^(talk) 20:19, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Mohammed Ali's Children

Mohammed Ali did not have any children by his first wife sonji Roi. Ebony magazine, and also Roi's obit. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.12.116.203 (talk • contribs)

Thank you for your suggestion. When you feel an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the Edit this page link at the top. The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes — they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons why you might want to). -- SCZenz 17:37, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Pornographic picture

There is a pornographic picture instead of a portrait on the "Bill Clinton" page. My neice wanted to visit the page to get biographical info and we were confronted with this instead. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.72.64.58 (talk • contribs)

What you saw was vanndalism. It was reverted in less than two mainutes. If you see such a thing again you can revert it yourself. If you see other erroes on wikipedia you can also edit the page to fix them. Thank you. DES ^(talk) 20:17, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

cambride hijacks my access to Wickipedia

When I used both the address line and Google to get to the main page of Wickipedia, I kept getting "www.cambride.com" I would appreciate if wickipedia would prevent Cambride from interfering with access to Wickipedia.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.240.124.27 (talk • contribs) 18:07, 15 November 2005 (UTC-5)

Could you be a little more explicit about exactly what you did? wikipedia has no control over what addresses google links to. DES ^(talk) 23:10, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Nothing we can do except publicize the correct spelling of our domain name. http://www.wickipedia.com does in fact redirect to cambride.org, and I suspect a lot of other misspelled domain names do too. Since the original poster eventually got to this page, I assume s/he worked out that this site is Wikipedia. FreplySpang (talk) 23:53, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

un-redirect

When I go to a page and get redirected, the URL displayed by the browser is the old (pre-redirect) URL, at least in IE. On the page displayed, it will say, "Redirected from ..." I would suggest a link next to this that is a self-link; that is, clicking it will give the page without the redirect message, with the correct URL in the address bar. Currently, I am at the article on Cetacean intelligence, but the URL displayed is .../wiki/Dolphin_intelligence, and I have the redirect message. If I were to click this link that I suggest, I would get the Cetacean intelligence article, no redirect message, and .../wiki/Cetacean_intelligence. Benandorsqueaks 01:53, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Just click on the "article" tab (the one next to the "discussion" tab). --cesarb 02:00, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, I figured that out. Thanks, though. Benandorsqueaks 22:41, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

What?

In reply to your 'message':

Yor website said that anyone can alter it. Anyone. An yet I help tidy up a page or two that I think lack the correct detail and tou dismiss it as 'nonsense', and tell me to clear off. Why? What did I do? am I to understand that you consider all comics and graphic novels as 'nosense', beneath your high-and-mighty selves?

Pleas explain.

yours,

050962.0509.stu —preceding comment by 212.219.57.77 (talk • contribs) 11:00, 16 November 2005

From what I can see, many of your edits are still there. I haven't had time to go through them all, however. If there's a specific edit that was reverted, you should remember again that anyone can edit Wikipedia, which means some other specific person (and not Wikipedia as a whole) did the reverting. You could look at the history of the page, and figure out who it was, and leave a message on their user_talk page asking why your text was removed. If you'd like more help here, please include which edits you're concerned about. -- SCZenz 15:26, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

In fact, you can see right on your own talk page the names of the users who warned you. (Those were generic vandalism/nonsense warning, by the way.) Leave messages on their talk pages if you want to know what they were concerned about.

The problem may be your writing style, which doesn't read much like the content of an encyclopedia. See Wikipedia:Guide to writing better articles. The problem is not writing about well-known graphic novels; we have lots of material on those. -- SCZenz 15:31, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

In this edit you changed http://www.orlyowls.com/ into http://www.orlyowl.com/, which for those not reading the page, is a different web site about the same subject, which is mentioned on the next line of the page. The respective entries have orlyowls.com and orlyowl.com as their displayed text, but you didn't change that (they really shouldn't have had any and should have let the actual URL show through).

To me, that is, at best a failure to read the page and Wiki source before editing and, otherwise, subtle vandalism, i.e. vandalism that isn't obvious to readers. Someone made the latter assumption and gave you a second stage vandalism warning; a first stage warning is only really appropriate for someone who seems to be trying their first edit. --David Woolley 16:51, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Whig History

As an Englishman I was slightly irritated by the reference to Isaac Newton and Whig History in the articles relating to thermodynamics. It is true that throughout history civilisations have assumed an egocentric view of the world which possibly reached a peak in ancient China where westerners were regarded with such disdain that the Chinese preferred to isolate themsleves completely from any possibility of 'contamination'. The British, too, have been guilty although I still believe that, despite the exploitation and ruthlessness so often a feature of the history of the Empire, it was still the greatest force for good the world has ever known. Isaac Newton's comment that 'our business is with the causes of sensible effects' perhaps has wider relevance than even he had realised. Most importantly, it might interest many Americans to be made aware of the fact that, in the perception of most non-Americans, the USA behaves as if it has a divine right to police the world and demonstrates a dangerous level of arrogance. Within 20 years China will probably overtake the USA as an economic and military power followed by India around ten years later so that attention to this deficiency in the nation's attitudes is important and urgent. It could be argued that the world, too, needs a matronly figure to oversee its progress and that the USA is the only nation with the power to do the job. The danger of this, of course, is that there will be no one to oversee the USA.

Woah.... When we created a general complaints page, we didn't mean this general. I regret to inform you that Wikipedia has no authority over the government of the United States, or indeed any other government.

If you feel something in the conservation of energy article is inappropriate, and it can be argued that the use of the term "whig history" is (since it's described in its article as perjorative), then you can either leave a note on Talk:Conservation of energy or simply edit the term to something more appropriate. -- SCZenz 15:14, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Wiki MD

It would be nice to have a strictly medical version of Wikipedia. A place where only doctors could add information, pictures, symptoms, and research. For the general population, they could have a place to easily search by symptoms. This could easily become a much better tool than WebMD.

Winsford

I have done a search on Winsford. I have noticed that winsford.gov.uk is listed as a link. There is no mention of either winsford.net or winsford-forum.net. The first is a much better and more comprehensive site and the second is a forum for discussing all things Winsford. Is it possible to add these links?

Geoff Robbins <email address deleted - see instructions at top of page> —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.34.231.233 (talk • contribs)

Thank you for your suggestion! When you feel an article needs changing, please feel free to make whatever changes you feel are needed. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit any article by simply following the Edit this page link. You don't even need to log in! (Although there are some reasons why you might like to...) The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use out the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. -- SCZenz 22:08, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Judith Miller entry

Are you aware that there is an indecent slur about Judith Miller on the text of the Wikipedia page on her?(alleging that she is a "big-type dyke and loves eating pussy.") —Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.192.45.59 (talk • contribs)

That was vandalism, and it was corrected less than an hour as you can see here: [10]. -- SCZenz 22:51, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Beslan School Massacre

Your article on the Beslan School Massacre made no mention of the fact that those responsible for the deaths of the hostages were mostly Muslims who made no bones about the fact that their actions were part of a larger jihad.

Your deletion of this relevant information is inexcusable. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.115.174.138 (talk • contribs)

Read about Wikipedia's neutral point of view, then read over Talk:Beslan school massacre. If you still think that the information is relevant and consistent with Wikipedia policy, you can leave a note on that talk page suggesting the change, or put it in yourself using appropriately neutral language. -- SCZenz 21:51, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia has NOT lost its Mind

The page
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Gottfried_Mind&action=edit
states:

Editing Talk:Gottfried Mind

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Jump to: navigation, search

We don't have an article called "Gottfried Mind"

which is not so,
there is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gottfried_Mind
which is quite long, after stating:

This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality.

which is very true.

---

John Canu —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.155.169.36 (talk • contribs)

Yes, there is an article at Gottfried Mind. The page that doesn't exist is its talk page Talk:Gottfried Mind. Evil Monkey - Hello 20:36, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Boris Becker

I am very upset at the remark made in the personal section of the Boris Becker page. It is written that his ex-wife was a whore. I was a good friend of hers and believe me she was no whore. I suggest that you read over your information and correct it! I'm not sure if Boris or Barbara have seen this page but I will be sure to e-mail it to them. I have printed it out so I have it on paper. I will no longer come to this site. I am very saddened. I wonder what other incorrect information you have written on this page about the two of them, I got so angry just at reading what I had.

That was vandalism added less than two days ago; because Wikipedia is a wiki, we are often targets of vandalism. Most vandalism is caught within minutes (an IBM study found that the average vandalism was reverted within five minutes). I have now reverted the vandalism. My deepest apologies at taking so long for the vandalism to be fixed and for any inconvenience it may have caused you. Please be assured that hundreds of volunteers sort through all the changes everyday to find vandalism like this. In the future you may wish to revert the vandalism yourself. Thanks for bringing this page to our attention! Flcelloguy (A note?) 21:45, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Question...

Why is there an article on the historocity of Jesus, but not an article on the historocity of Gautama Bhudha?

Wikipedia is a collaborative endeavor. We have the article on the historocity of Jesus simply because someone decided to write it. We don't have a similar article about Gautama Bhudha because no one has chosen to write it yet. If you'd like to start the article, feel free to do so. Joyous | Talk 23:23, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Your site has a tendency towards biases.

A lot of the articles (i.e. George W. Bush, Jesus Christ) have been written with a slant, and we all know that such a bias hinders many from getting to the truth, which, until i encountered wikipedia, was the reason for any encyclopedia. If you must contain any information on these topics, do so without such a liberal, or any other, slant.

Avoiding bias is enshrined in Wikipedia's core policy. See Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. It's not always perfect, but articles about popular topics like George W. or Jesus are going to have had a lot of work put into doing a good job with it. -- SCZenz 23:28, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

If you think a particular section in a particular article is biased, you can leave a note about it on the appropriate talk page. For example, for George W. Bush, the talk page would be Talk:George W. Bush. (You can get there by clicking on the "discussion" tab, then add a new comment using the "+" tab or "edit" tab.) -- SCZenz 23:32, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

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

Folks,

The material in the following post is offensive, actionable and not at all constructive.

It was originally posted by someone using Stash Nastos as an alias. Stash works with me and did not give permission to use his name this way. He does not have an account at Wikipedia.

I have University Technology services tracing the IP numbers ( originating at McMaster University).

The picture is held under copywrite by McMaster University and permission to post has not been obtained.

May I ask that you delete the page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delsworth_Harnish)?

Thanks for your help

Del Harnish Assistant Dean, Faculty of Health Sciences Academic Director, Center for Leadership in Learning McMaster University 905 525 9140 x22815

Thank you for bringing this to our attention. I have marked it for speedy deletion as an attack page. -- SCZenz 23:30, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

and I deleted it. Broken S 23:31, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Why should we bother?

It's great that Wikipedia encourages us to edit the articles and expand them. I think it's awesome that we should come to this encyclopedia and read articles that are the collaboration of information from people all over the world. Wikipedia is the first place I come when I begin doing any research. However, something tends to bother me. I input some information on a site that was missing...taking advantage of the fact that we can put in correct, accurate information when it is not in the article, assuming that is what Wikipedia was created for. So of course you can see why I might have been a bit confused when I came back to check the page a few weeks later and what I had written was gone. ? So why should we bother editing it if either other people or Wikipedia (I'm not sure which) can just go in and delete our work? Is there anything we can do to stop this or at least limit it? Thanks.

-Aggrivated Editor

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.200.116.195 (talk • contribs) 01:18, 17 November 2005

Well, if your material seems to have been removed for no reason, you could look at the history and go to the user_talk page of whoever removed it, and ask them why. Or just go to the talk page for the article (click the "discussion" tab, then edit) and ask about the material being removed. If you got no responses, you could re-add it. If you have some specific material that was removed that you'd like to point us to, we can take a look and tell you more.

Letting anyone edit Wikipedia makes vandalism, including the removal of material, a fact of life. There is nothing much to be done, except that you can click the "watch" tab and add an article to your watchlist (see Wikipedia:Watchlist), then check it to see if it's been changed and fix it if it has. Of course, many other editors are already doing this, and most vandalism is already caught quite quickly.

Letting anyone edit Wikipedia also makes merciless editing by other authors a fact of life. If anyone thinks an article is improved by changing/deleting material from another editor, they can do it. This process tends to make articles better in the long run, but it does make a lot of work for everyone.

There's no way around any of this, that I know of. -- SCZenz 01:27, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

slow

hi, i really like wikipedia but could u make it faster please? why do the pages load so slow?

Probably server load. See that "donations" link in the sidebar ... ? :-) It's slower than usual tonight. Antandrus (talk) 03:34, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Christianity

I was doing research on Christianity and in the second heading 'Early' something somebody inserted some words that do not need to be there. (Fu***** ni*****). I think this needs to be taken out asap. Thank you.

Thanks for pointing that out. It was vandalism, and although I can't find which page it was, I can assure you that it was almost certainly corrected very quickly (vandalism is reverted within minutes in the Christianity article itself). You could also have fixed it yourself, by clicking the "edit" tab and deleting the text. -- SCZenz 06:34, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Editing it yourself is a good idea for honest mistakes and can even be so for dealing with people who really believe what they wrote but what they wrote is far outside the normal consensus (if in doubt, present both points of view). However, I think it is better to encourage people to use the proper revert procedure for real vandalism. The danger is that the vandalism may have an obvious and a subtle part, removing the obvious part may mean that it takes a long time to find and correct the subtle part. The skills (using the history tab and comparing versions) to identify all the changes are no more than those to do a revert. --David Woolley 13:48, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

British Army, APTC

Under APTC, it lists famous former members. Dame Kelly Holmes was never a member of the APTC, although she was a regimental PTI. She did apply and was successful, but she never started her training as it takes 30 weeks and this would have conflicted with her athletic training. Therefore she never did transfer to the APTC. After her application, she returned to her parent unit and was posted to the Army Youth Development Team as a Sergeant, before leaving for a full time career in athletics.

Thank you for your suggestion! When you feel an article needs changing, please feel free to make whatever changes you feel are needed. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit any article by simply following the Edit this page link. You don't even need to log in! (Although there are some reasons why you might like to...) The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use out the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. -- SCZenz 02:39, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Improvement of the site

Hi all

I was wondering, could you place a "Send to a friend" button for every article?

I believe that would be very useful. I also apologize if there is one, but I haven't seen it. If there is one, make it more visible ;)

Greetings to developing team and also to www society for contributing in this excellent project called Wikipedia.

Strelac, Serbia and Montenegro.

Which Web browser do you use? If you use Mozilla Firefox you can right click on a page or hyperlink and select Send link.... This opens your default e-mail client, starts a new message with the URL of that page. All you need to do is fill in the address of the person you wish to send it to, and add the rest of your message.

<Link removed, see history>

-=# Amos E Wolfe ^talk #=- 12:53, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

I suspect the real reasons for "send to a friend" links on commercial web sites are advertising and market research. Those are the typical reasons when they duplicate browser funcionality. (The other reason for some such features is to discourage you from leaving their web site.) Incidentally, IE has this capability as well (File | Send | Link by email... in IE6). --David Woolley 14:14, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Yacht

This is a not a complaint; it is a suggestion. The very essence of a yacht is that it sails. Your Home page for 'yacht' has three photos of vessels, not one of which is under sail. For the benefit of your young or non-english speaking researchers, I suggest a photo of a yacht actually sailing would be an improvement of your encyclopedia. Cheers, Peter.

Thank you for your suggestion! When you feel an article needs changing, please feel free to make whatever changes you feel are needed. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit any article by simply following the Edit this page link. You don't even need to log in! (Although there are some reasons why you might like to...) The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use out the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome.

Also take a look at Special:Upload for how to upload a new image, and Wikipedia:Images for how to put one in the article. -- SCZenz 02:38, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

As it says up the top of this page "For content errors click on "edit this page" or "discussion" at that particular article". So I've pasted your comment to Talk:Yacht, hopefully someone will see it there and act on it. It is a good suggestion.--Commander Keane 10:58, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Ted Kennedy

I was readng the info on T. Kennedy I found this; On July 18, 1969, After a party at Chappaquiddick on Martha's Vineyard Ted Kennedy drove away with Mary Jo Kopechne as a passenger in his 1967 Oldsmobile Delmont 88.

I think that should be a Belmont 88 .

Thank you for your suggestion! When you feel an article needs changing, please feel free to make whatever changes you feel are needed. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit any article by simply following the Edit this page link. You don't even need to log in! (Although there are some reasons why you might like to...) The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use out the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. Canderson7 02:28, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Search engine for the Community Portal

I think it would be useful for users to have a search engine for the Community Portal beside the current one. Dy yol 00:30, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

November 17th!!!

The Anniversary section of the main page is one day in the future relative to US time. Is this intentional?

Wikipedia uses Coordinated Universal Time, which means that midnight (and the main page update) arrives in the late afternoon or early evening in the U.S. -- SCZenz

September 11

Someone needs to lookat the september 11 attacks and read it. it refers to "sand Niggers" and makes a comment on how it was a good thing that only Americans were killed in the attacks. That is disgusting information and i wish it to be fixed

That was vandalism, and as you can see [here] it was fixed in less than half an hour. -- SCZenz 03:51, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

add this word

heres a couple of words that you guys dont have and i think u should add them because i know a lot of people who use them and been using them for years

dodi - a slang word for strong marijuana or (chronic)

Indo - marijuana (just listen to any rap cd)

budussy - it means that someones smells

      its a variation of three words, B for butt 
      D for dick, and Ussy for pussy -"you smell
      like a budussy" like a butt , a dick and a pussy

im not just playing around a lot of people use these words and they have for many many years--just any pearson who knows gangster slang---!!

thank you..

I think you might want Wiktionary, or maybe Urban Dictionary. We don't do dictionary definitions at Wikipedia. -- SCZenz 04:29, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

tupac amaru shakur?

in your article on tupac it says tupac was not the name he was given when he was born i think you should put his real name in there for clearence... his real name is (Lesane Parish Crooks) you can research it if you want

peace out!!!

Thank you for your suggestion! When you feel an article needs changing, please feel free to make whatever changes you feel are needed. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit any article by simply following the Edit this page link. You don't even need to log in! (Although there are some reasons why you might like to...) The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use out the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. -- SCZenz 04:26, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Salvador Dali article really must have link to DaliLand.com ... thank you

Salvador Dali article really must have link to DaliLand.com ... thank you

Thank you for your suggestion. When you feel an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the Edit this page link at the top. The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes — they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons why you might want to). . Thryduulf 11:17, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

However, for this case... DaliLand.com looks like a commercial website. It could be useful if it had images of his paintings that weren't available elsewhere, but in fact we already have some very nice galleries linked from the Salvador Dali article. See also WP:SPAM. -- SCZenz 11:19, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Medicine for cure

Medicine for curing Uric acid problem

The article at Uric acid doesn't give any medical advice for this problem, but that's for one of two reasons. First, if you have a medical problem, you should search for the name of the medical problem (like Gout or something similar) rather than the cause. Second, Wikipedia is not a physician. If you have a serious medical condition that requires medication, you need to visit a doctor or ask your pharmacist for advice. Searching for remedies on the internet isn't recommended. Good luck! ➨ ❝REDVERS❞ 20:58, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Pictures?

As a first-time visitor, I was psyched to the upcoming experience. My first search was for Furthur. After following 20 or more links from there, I was surprised to NOT find any of the links leading to pictures of the subject(s). Why not pictures? Thanks.

69.169.141.220 04:33, 19 November 2005 (UTC) BB

• We have lots of ppictures, you happened to get unlucky and find an article without any. If you have any good free pictures of the subject please do submit them. Broken S 04:48, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Deleting Links.

Dear sir,

Is it wrong to paste about sample chapters under the various subjects .

Please do let me know your objections to it.

My intent was not to spam but the way i went about it might have given you the impression that i am spamming.

I am sorry if i have done something very objectionable and will not do it in the future.

Please do let me know as to how i can help you in the future.

Thanking you,

Email-mohanr@packtpub.com

It is wonderful to finally hear from you! The links you have repeatedly added to packtpub books are considered innappropriate, in most cases, as spam. Further information can be found under wikipedia's external links policy. I hope that you choose to continue your contributions to wikipedia. Feel free to visit my talk page to ask any further questions.

If you have not already, please take a look at the discussion directed toward the three IP addresses I believe you have used to edit pages.

• User_talk:202.138.112.252
• User_talk:203.122.53.88
• User_talk:217.207.125.60

Will also send link to this response via email. Best, ∴ here…♠ 07:27, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

As a response to your case, I inquired further at the External links talk page on November 9th. Please do check other's responses and feel free to add your own. ∴ here…♠ 07:35, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Redirection of OO to OOP

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object_orientation should not redirect to OOP.

As long as it does, contributors will not be able to define OO.

OOP distinguishes from OO by making claims on inheritance as the core differtiator:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object_orientation "Such object-based systems are usually not regarded as object-oriented, because inheritance (viewing delegation as a form of inheritance) is typically identified as the core feature of OOP."

Any editor can remove the redirect. If someone feels they need to write an article on object orientation, which is not object oriented programming, they should remove the redirect at that time (ensuring that cross links exist in both directions). (Removing a redirect can be quite time consuming if any articles use it, as they need to be individually examined to see if they are using the redirected meaning or the more specific, new, one.)

--David Woolley 22:20, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

The page on Henry Morgenthau, Sr. seems unfair

In the page on Henry Morgenthau, under the Controversy part, it said that Morgenthau shows a "dislike or animosity" of Turks. I respect the person's rights to say this, but the other side of the controversy should be stated too. For someone who dedicated much of his life to trying to stop a genocide, I don't think it is fair to imply that he was racist. I also think that it was the site itself that said this, not quoting someone's view. By expressing this view only, whoever wrote this is not making the site neutral, which it should be. I really feel that his plight to save an innocent group of persecuted people is undermined by discussing people's views about how he may have tried to save the Armenians as a political move. If you are going to pick one thing to say about a book by a man who was trying to stop the torture, rapes and murder of men, women, and children, 1.5 million of whom died, I think it should be leaning in the other direction; it doesn't make any sense to claim he is prejudiced; someone who wrote such a powerful piece, can't be. Even if he did sound angry at certain Turks it is justified. If a black woman's(or man's) great grandparents were slaves, a grandparent was lynched, and her parents could not recieve an equal education, she may not help but feeling some resent towards white people. If a Jew these days, has a grandparent who survived the Holocaust, and tells this child stories of her relatives who died in the Holocaust, he/she may be a bit frightened by Germans. However, this is nothing-completely trivial compared to what the people's race in my examples suffered. In the page I was discussing, it is as if you are showing how wrong the black and Jew in my examples are, which is unfair without explaining the true crimes against humanity-if anything, the latter alone should be included in an arguement. SO BOTTOM LINE, PAY ATTENTION NOW IF YOU HAVEN'T SO FAR...even if his book did show a bit of dislike for Turks, that is not the important part of the book. I hope made the conncection clear..I do not accuse whoever wrote this of being racist, or ignorant, and did not mean to offend anyone in any way. I also may have misinterpreted the page, if I did, post something. Anyhow, I hope you will take changing the last part of the site into consideration. OH YEAH, i didn't really EDIT the page like i think i was supposed to, oops..well i guess that this is a comment.

Hey, guys. I live by Wikipedia, night and day, but performance is slow sometimes. Maybe a little good ol' fashioned capitalism would help pay for some new equipment. Don't blindly follow the open-source concept to the grave. Keep up the good work - but work out the speed issues. It's been months and I still wait 5 to 6 seconds after clicking a link sometimes.

Thanks.

Thanks for your comments. It's difficult to know what to do about them... but if you have knowledge of the subject, it's best for everyone if you edit the article to make it clearer/conform to our neutrality policy. In fact, we encourage and request that people do that! As for the performance of our servers, yes, you're right, we're a bit slow. But then we're one of the most popular sites on the whole internet. And we don't reject capitalism, we just work to a different model. But if you are in favour the capitalist model (and even if you're not), you can visit http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fundraising and donate or even, in the true spirit of capitalism, buy a t-shirt, coaster or mug and give something back to the internet. After all, the Wikipedia makes the internet suck less! ➨ ❝REDVERS❞ 20:48, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Alain Leroy Locke

Why is there no Wikipedia page on the first African American to win a Rhodes scholarship? Alain Locke (1886-1954) graduated from Harvard University in 1907 and attended Oxford University from 1907-1910. He taught at Howard University, Harvard University, and the University of Berlin (Germany) to name a few. He is credited with being one of the greatest influences upon the Harlem Renaissance.

Ollie Ross, Houston, Texas

perhaps I'm mistaken, but did you mean Alain LeRoy Locke? We already have an article him. Broken S 15:00, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

(after edit conflict)

This is also accessible from Alain Locke. Arguably it should be accessible form Alain Leroy Locke, but I don't know enough about the name to know whether this should be done by redirecting from the Leroy version, or by renaming to the Leroy version (which would generate a redirect from the LeRoy version. Anyone can add a redirect; you have to have used (edited?) for some time before you can do a move. Adding a redirect won't compromise a subsequent move.

--David Woolley 15:10, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Watchlist showing multiple edits to one page

Hi, AFAICT this feature doesn't exist and I don't know why - it'd be so useful. Similar to how Special:Recentchanges looks when you have preferences > "Enhanced recent changes" enabled, I want to be able to see from my watchlist if more than one edit has been made to a page since I last checked my watchlist.

e.g.

 01:10 Skateboard (2 changes; Page history) [205.188.116.201 (2×)]
 01:10 Ultimate (sport) (diff; hist) . . 80.178.147.192 (Talk) (→Refereeing)

At the moment I keep falsely assuming that the edit I can 'see' is the only one that has been made, and it is tiresome to have to check every page's page history to be sure.

Another way of listing it would be to simply list each edit to any page, rather than just listing any page that had been edited. eg. the list might look like

Skateboard ...
Ultimate (sport) ...
Skateboard ...

and then I'd clearly be able to see what each edit was about (well, if they used an edit summary).

Thanks a lot. This is the #1 thing I'd like to see implemented. I don't know how people with many more pages on their watchlist than I manage to cope!

• While you can't change your watchlist to behave like this, if you have enhanced recent changes selected, "Related changes" behaves in this way. So, you can set up a User: subpage with links to the articles you would like to watch and then click related changes to achieve the display which you are after. Warofdreams talk 22:31, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

--pfctdayelise 15:35, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

what happen?

To whom the complaints go out to. I love using Wikipedia for all my sources of information, but as the last week, there are some changes that I do not understand. I sometimes goto the Marvel charcter list for Marvel comics. It gives a list of all the characters from A-Z. The past week the site will not let you click on any of the characters starting with A-C, but you can click on D-Z. I was wondering why this has happen and if it could be fixed? Could who ever reads this let me know what is going on? Thank you, A Wikipedia user.

It would appear that somebody removed the A, B, and C subheadings, as well as some wikilinks. I have restored them. -- SCZenz 19:10, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

HI! My name is Guillaume and I am a french student in economics. I have just discovered your concept of a free encyclopedia, it is marvellous ,genius and wonderfull. I hope to you a very long life, and know that when I will have a job, I am going to make don

Just curious about the languages...

Hello there.I believe you're making a good job.You just have to keep a balance between the wikipedia languages,especially if we all bear in mind that there are languages far richer than english. My only complaint about the wikipedia is that it doesn't include the Hellenic language (or Greek as it is widely but falsely known). And this complaint is not because i happen to come from this particular country.It is just because it is the base of all European languages.Don't you agree? Thanks a lot for your time Dimitris, Athens, Hellas

http://el.wikipedia.org/ --David Woolley 23:04, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

harnesses

I'm not sure why a dildo harness with "how to" instructions and "best practices" is in here with pornographic pictures depicting usage. My kids will not be using this as a sight. I'm disappointed because Wikipedia has so many useful things to offer. Maybe I can do a topic on Methadone, show readers how to get on the goverment programs and the best way to add "benzos" to the mix to properly speedball it. C'mon, if its just going to be a site to promote products or a life style, might as well call it Wickedpedia. Terms such as "cock" and "double penetration" are not words that belong in anything constructive unless we're talking about an alternative name for rosters.

Bottom line is, surely this violates a rule. If it doesn't, I'll start promoting my beliefs and let the baptists down south know its open season for witnessing.

It does not violate any of Wikipedia's policies. You can read more about Wikipedia's policy on censorship here and here. —HorsePunchKid→龜 2005-10-21 00:46:00Z

Armenian Genocide

If the Armenian Genocide can be disputed on the website, then the Jewish Holocaust can be disputed as well. I will make note of this website and its bias against Armenians to all the Armenian-American organizations. Have a great day.

uh, we do have an article about disputing the Holocaust --> Holocaust denial. Broken S 02:07, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Actually, Holocaust denial is about people who dispute the holocaust; it doesn't dispute it. And Armenian genocide is quite clear that that genocide happened too—the only thing the dispute tag means is that some editor thinks something in the article is not presented in a neutral point of view. I'd hardly call that a bias against anyone. -- SCZenz 02:12, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Slow Search function

I am a frequent Wikipedia user and contributor.

I continue to find Wikipedia's "Search" function really very slow, as compared with other websites I use.

I know that efforts are ongoing to upgrade Wikipedia's performance; I believe that increasing the speed of "Search" should be a top priority. Please route this message to whoever prioritizes the upgrade projects, so that it can be counted alongside other such requests. Thanks for your attention! - 21 November 2005

indeed, it's a problem. If it really bothers why don't you try using google's mechanism http://www.google.com/search?q=site:en.wikipedia.org (which restricts for the domain). Alternatively, you could donate some money :). Broken S 03:25, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

• • Broken, thanks for your attention. Would you happen to know where I can find further discussion of this ongoing speed problem at Wikipedia? Thanks again

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

I try to search "expanding universe" and I get "Dark Energy".

that's on purpose. The rational and discussion of this is at Talk:Accelerating universe. The two articles were overlapping a lot. Broken S 04:09, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

That is because of a redirect. However, I don't think that this redirect was correct, and have changed it to point to our article on the Big Bang, though that probably isn't quite right. Evil Monkey - Hello 04:16, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

With compliments

I would simply like to thank the staff of wikipedia for putting together a really amazing website. It has helped me greatly in all projects I have researched. I find it complete and accurate.

A regular Wikipedia user.

Thank you very much. However, you should know that Wikipedia does not really have any "Staff". All content contributiosn, and very nearly all formmating and code creation, is done by unpaind volunteers not unlike yourself. Please do contribute. DES ^(talk) 17:08, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Letter to the Editor, (Wikipedia Article), GED

November 19, 2005

Re: Letter to the Editor, (Wikipedia Article), GED

Dear Editor: We are writing to share our comments on an article that appears on your online Website about the GED Test. in this article is a section titled “ Criticism of the GED”. Our comments are in regards to this section.

First, the section mentions that some employers see the test, as being a lower degree than an actual high school diploma because the test is easier than it should be. We understand that some employers have their concerns about the test. However, some of us took the test in the early 1990s before the 2002 revision and found it to be difficult to the pass.

Secondly, the section mentions that there are too many basic operations on the mathematics portion of the test and not enough advanced algebra questions. We understand that some professions in our society use algebra. However, consider that not every test candidate is seeking a career that employs the use of algebra; algebra is not a required subject to take in some high school programs, so it shouldn’t be emphasized on the test like is currently.

Lastly, the section mentions that the test was revised in 2002 by the GED Testing Service in Washington D.C. to make it more difficult to pass. We understand that the testing service is trying to appease its critics, with most of its critics being that of higher social and economic groups than those actually taking the test. However, the testing service must not just appease its critics, it must also appease the ones preparing to take the test as well. The testing services own statistics: http://www.acenet.edu/AM/Template.cfm? Section=GEDTS&Template=/CM/ContentsDis… shows a decline in the number of candidates who tested, completed, and passed the test from 2001 to 2003; one theory for this decline maybe that potential candidates became dissatisfied with the 2002 revised version of test and complained that is was too difficult.

Since the 1940s, the test has been a great way for an individual to finish their high school education in an expedited way. But the test seems to be more and more becoming an entrance exam for collage and not an exam to finish one’s high school education. The Testing Service must reconsider the direction it wants to take its test in, without such reconsideration the service risks losing the very individuals they’re trying to help and attracting competition to compete with their test.

Thank you for reading our comments on this subject.

Sincerely, Concerned Group of American Citizens

There is no "editor" of wikipedia, any user can edit, adn any user who contributes is considered an editor. The comments would be more effective if made on Talk:GED, where people working on that articel would be likely to see them. That said, wikipedia does not exizt to promote particualr points of view -- see our neutral point of view policy. If people have made criticicisms of the GED then wikipedia should report those criticisms. it would be better of the criticisms were attributed to specific critics, rather than the very generic "some" now used in the article. DES ^(talk) 21:34, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

i copied it to the GED talk page. Broken S 00:28, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Queensland Group for Animal Rights

<deleted: political statement and link spam with no apparent Wikipedia relevance>

Default Page redirect

I have included encyclopedia in our site but when user clicks on link it goes by default to this URL:- http://dev.belgique.com/encyclopedia/index.php/Accueil I want to change this to :- http://dev.belgique.com/encyclopedia/index.php/Belgique

How do I do that?

• It looks like you are linking to a mirror of the French language edition of Wikipedia. You can link to the original article at http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgique
• Warofdreams talk 13:42, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

name error

Please correct my name in yout List of Brazilian Jews. It is GHIVELDER instead of Guivelder

changed Broken S

Chemistry Standard

there is a symbol used in inorganic chemistry, known as "the standard". it symbolises standard temperature and pressure (very important), and i feel wikipedia should definatly provide it for article use. it looks somewhere between this Ø and theta θ and is always displayed in superscript, like a degree sign: E°. anyone agree this sould be included? i guess it is a little specific, but hey, thats what encyclopeadias are for! mastodon 23:01, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

If you can provide references for this, you should add the information, and references to Standard conditions for temperature and pressure, yourself.

The characters that can be used in Wikipedia are an almost complete subset of ISO 10646. which is basically the same as Unicode. In practice, this is restricted by what is typically available in the fonts supplied with browsers or the GUIs on which they run. I cannot find the specific character you mention in Unicode, and a Google search doesn't give any clues. It may well be a non-technical character used as a superscript, rather than a special character in its own right. Can you provide the URL of a document that uses the character? Are you sure it isn't a degree symbol, as that is often used in physics for the initial or reference value of something.

If you are using Windows XP, you should be able to select any usable character using the charmap utility, so it is not strictly necessary to have it in the list that appears on an edit page. That may apply to other operating systems, and if the character can be identified on an HTML page, not as an image, you can cut and paste from there.

--David Woolley 00:14, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

here, at the bottom, in the equations, although it is drawn into the document. it is not a degree sign, and there is no mention of it on the standard conditions for temperature and pressure article. when coupled with a capital E it is referred to as "E standard" and is a measure of chemical reactivity between two electrochemical cells (E stands for electrode potential, and is concerned with voltages). I am not an expert, however, and am going on very patchy A-level knowledge. mastodon 00:53, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

The symbol exists and is provided, although very often it is substituted with a degree sign even in writing. See the end of the enthalpy article for an example of use. And to be pedantic, it is used in more often in Physical Chemistry than in Inorganic. -- Rune Welsh | ταλκ | Esperanza 12:04, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

This reply goes beyond the state of the art for Windows fonts!

That usage uses a trick to get the character displayed (^<s>o</s>, i.e. a struckout superscript "o"). I've had another skim of the Unicode standard book and still failed to find it. However, searching for a graphic when you don't know its name is difficult to do reliably. From the book, I couldn't find a horizontal stroke through modifier, but I think I've found one from charmap, so ^○̶ might work (<sup style="font-family: Lucida Sans Unicode, sans-serif">&#x25cb;&#x0336;</sup>. You can possibly see the problem here, that we are into sufficiently exotic features that I have to force the font on IE, because IE doesn't handle fonts according to the full CSS rules. Also note that there are two characters here, a base character and a modifier.

There seems almost enough evidence for it to be included in the STP article, although I would be more comfortable with a proper citation, rather than an example. Wikipedia articles cannot be used as source references for other articles (the original references should be copied over).

However, it looks as though this one may have slipped through the cracks in Unicode. My guess is that the character may have been rejected because it was proposed as diameter (⌀ - which is unknown to Windows, but looks like ○̷) and may have been erroneously rejected as a variant of that character.

I suspect your first step may have to be to propose the character to the Unicode consortium, then wait for font support.

For the moment, the only way it could properly be supported in Wikipedia is with the maths feature, as that can generate graphics of difficult characters, although it probably doesn't know this one!

--David Woolley 13:39, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

List of Malaysian newspapers

I was looking up some information about Malaysia on Wikipedia today, and found that there's an inconsistency in the link which should direct viewers to the article about the Edge newspaper. I am an editor at this newspaper and the link seems to direct users to an article on the guitarist from U2.

I know this section is not meant to be for errors in articles but I had no idea how to correct the error or where exactly to report it.

Here's the link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Malaysian_newspapers

Thank you,

Nesa Sivagnanam The Edge Communications Sdn Bhd Kuala Lumpur Malaysia

Thank you for your suggestion. When you feel an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the Edit this page link at the top. The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes — they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons why you might want to). . I've fixed the link in the list; you might like to write an article on The Edge (newspaper). Warofdreams talk 01:41, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Note, though, that writing articles about yourself is normally discouraged because it is difficult to be neutral; you will be expected to show unusually high standards of neutrality and verifiability. --David Woolley 10:37, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Wiki Toolbar

Please consider making a Wiki Toolbar that integrates in IE or Firefox. Thank you  :]

• I'm not sure exactly what you're asking for, but there is definitely a Firefox add-on for a Wikipedia search in the search engine box. Frankly, funding being what it is, I have to doubt that kind of thing will come from our software people, though if you donate enough, we'll consider;) (Oh, and by the way, try not to use "wiki" and "wikipedia" interchangeably; Wikipedia is a wiki, but most wikis are not Wikipedia.) Deltabeignet 06:09, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

there is a firfox toolbar for editing wikipedia (ok any mediawiki setup).Geni 13:54, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

The Firefox extension that makes a toolbar for editors is located here and is quite useful.

You can also add Wikipedia to the built-in Firefox searchbar by look at the bottom of this page.

Also, to blow my own trumpet, if you edit regularly, some useful templates can be copied-and-pasted from a Firefox sidebar by following the instructions on my cheap and nasty Wikibar idea page.

Hope these links help! ➨ ❝REDVERS❞ 17:08, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Ballona Creek

I have taken time and edit and add to the section about Ballona Creek and only one section was added after hitting the save buttion. What's up? I have no problem adding info if it is really going to be saved.

tom@mediapage.com

All saved changes are available in an article's history. That article's history is here. When did you make these edits? It seems that the last time you edited the article (based upon your IP) was May and the change was fairly minor. It is possibe that someone has removed or changed some of the content you added. Also, please consider creating an account because it makes talking and tracking edits easier. Broken S 03:56, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Structure of the "list of Jewish Americans" doesn't seem to have room for labor/trade union activists/leaders. I'd like to add a few ...

Query from Arieh Lebowitz (email removed)

The structure of the "list of Jewish Americans" doesn't seem to have room for labor/trade union activists/leaders. I'd like to add a few, such as

Stuart Appelbaum, Morton Bahr, Dorothy Jacobs Bellanca , Irving Brown, Fannia Cohn , David Dubinsky , Sandra Feldman, Murray Findlay , Michael Gold , Samuel Gompers, Victor Gotbaum, Bessie Abramowitz Hillman, Sidney Hillman, Morris Hillquit, Clara Lemlich, Meyer London, Theresa Serber Malkiel, Jay Mazur, Lenore Miller, Isidore Nagler, Pauline Newman, Rose Pesotta , Max Pine, Joseph Potofsky, Bruce Raynor, Rose Schneiderman, Albert Shanker, Clara Lemlich Shavelson, Jack Sheinkman, Sol Stetin, Benjamin Stolberg, Louis Waldman, Jerry Wurf, Baruch Charney Vladeck, Max Zaritsky, Charles Zimmerman ...

See the site -- here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Jewish_Americans#Other

Contents [hide] 1 Academics 1.1 Philosophers 1.2 Social and Political Scientists 1.3 Linguists 1.4 Psychologists 1.5 Economists 1.6 Historians 1.7 Physicists 1.8 Chemists 1.9 Biologists and physicians 1.10 Mathematicians 1.11 Computer scientists 1.12 Engineers 1.13 Inventors 2 Business 2.1 Finance 2.2 Retail and rental 2.3 Toys 2.4 Confectionery 2.5 Electronics 2.6 Software and Internet 2.7 Media 2.8 Publishing 2.9 Advertising 2.10 Models & Beauties 3 Artists 3.1 Visual artists 3.2 Architects 3.3 Photographers 3.4 Fashion designers 3.5 Cartoonists, animators, and comics writers 3.6 Authors 3.7 Poets 3.8 Playwrights 3.9 Journalists 3.10 Solo musicians 3.11 Band musicians 3.12 Jazz musicans 3.13 Classical 3.14 Classical composers 4 Entertainment 4.1 Producers etc. 4.2 Songwriters 4.3 Musicals writers 4.4 Film composers 4.5 Film directors 4.6 Film Actors/Personalities 4.7 Television Actors/Actresses 4.8 TV and radio presenters 4.9 Producers and creators 4.10 Comedians 4.11 Theatre 4.12 Magicians 4.13 Dance 5 Politics 5.1 Presidential candidates 5.2 Cabinet members and senior administration officials 5.3 Senators 5.4 Representatives 5.5 Ambassadors 5.6 Governors 5.7 Mayors 5.8 Economists 6 Legal System 6.1 Supreme Court 6.2 Legal Advocates 7 Military 8 Activists 8.1 Social leaders 8.2 Community leaders and activists 8.3 Political and civil rights activists 8.4 Anti-racism 8.5 Feminism and gay rights 8.6 Health and environment 9 Sports 9.1 Baseball 9.2 Basketball 9.3 Boxing 9.4 Chess 9.5 Football 9.6 Golf 9.7 Hockey 9.8 Mind sports 9.9 Miscellaneous Sports 9.10 Motor sports 9.11 Poker 9.12 Power sports 9.13 Skating 9.14 Soccer 9.15 Swimming 9.16 Tennis and racquet sports 9.17 Track and Field 10 Controversial 10.1 Criminals 10.2 Other

Thank you for your suggestion! When you feel an article needs changing, please feel free to make whatever changes you feel are needed. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit any article by simply following the Edit this page link. You don't even need to log in! (Although there are some reasons why you might like to...) The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use out the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. -- SCZenz 16:35, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Deleting Informative Articles

Why was the article on Matthew Lesko deleted?

I read it yesterday and it is gone today.

-Carl

• Nope. It's still there. Click the blue link in your question. Ground Zero | t 14:34, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

The Tempest (play)

Please look at this page. I can't edit the filthy vulgar language someone has put into the text. Maybe someone with more computer knowledge can remedy it.

Another reader of the article removed the vandalism to the article not long after is was done. Sorry you saw it in the space between the two events. Of course, you can easily correct or clean up and Wikipedia article like this - if you click the edit this page link at the top of the article, you can delete abusive vandalism. Go on! It's fun! ➨ ❝REDVERS❞ 16:59, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

I suspect he already tried this. When you edit a page, you get the latest version. If you just access a page, for performance reasons, you may get an out of date version.

Also the correct tab to hit for vandalism is History. You can then see whether it has already been fixed and, by using compare versions, you can find out exactly what has been changed. If the vandalism was the last change, you can select the the preceding version and do a null edit (but please add something to the edit summary) to completely eliminate the vandalism from the working copy.

The problem with just editing out the obvious vandalism is that you may miss something, which may not get found for a long time. --David Woolley--18:45, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Toolbar item

It would be great if you had an installable (drag and drop) toolbar item (search field) to search Wikipedia straight from our browser without going to the homepage.

thanks,

Dileep Rao

The Firefox extension that makes a toolbar for editors is located here and is quite useful.

You can also add Wikipedia to the built-in Firefox searchbar by look at the bottom of this page.

Also, to blow my own trumpet, if you edit regularly, some useful templates can be copied-and-pasted from a Firefox sidebar by following the instructions on my cheap and nasty Wikibar idea page.

Hope these links help!

We don't offer downloads of these things here because our bandwidth is (huge but) limited and it's better to let third party developers come up these type of extensions (and host them themselves!). If you still use the old-fashioned and insecure Microsoft Internet Explorer, a search of Google might locate things that will help with that poor-quality browser. ➨ ❝REDVERS❞ 20:19, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

You could just save this:

      <title>Search Wikipedia</title>
      <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8">
      <form action="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search">
      <input type=text size=40 name=search>
      <input type=submit name=go value=Go><input type=submit name=fulltext value="Search">
      </form>

to a local files, soemthing like wikisearch.html, and add it to your favourites. (This is technically invalid becase meta elements require a version later than HTML2.0, and therefore a DOCTYPE.

--David Woolley 23:32, 23 November 2005 (UTC) corrected 23:38, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Entry for Charles Dickens

Please inspect.

This entry has been abused.

Sorry about that. One of our great regular editors, Solipsist spotted the vandalism and reverted it immediately. I'm sorry you saw the article in the short gap between the two events. If you spot vandalism or any other problem with any Wikipedia article, you can always correct them yourself - just click the edit this page link at the top of the page, remove the problem, write in the Edit summary what you've done and click Save page. It's easy and fun! Plus you'll make hundreds of thousands of readers happy by doing that one small, 5-second, job. Beware, it's addictive! I hope you continue to enjoy our articles and get involved - we need you and your knowledge! Thanks again. ➨ ❝REDVERS❞ 20:34, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Targeting For Deletion Flawed

I've found it almost impossible to be able to debate or justify a legit article/page. For example... I created a page today and within an hour... the page was listed for deletion. I looked over the discussion page... and noticed a few people has listed my page as a hoax. To try and justify that it is legit... the only direction I was given was to go to the articles's main page and discuss my points in the "talk" section. Well... when I went there... I found that there was no more "talk" page to my article - hence I couldn't write any comments.

So my two grips is in the way it seems so easy for people to call something a "hoax" and set a page up for deletion so incredibly fast. And then for someone to rebute those claims during those discussion seems impossible to do once a page has been targeted for deletion (especially just one hour after creating it).

I understand there needs to be checks and balances. And I'm sure there are quite a bit of false articles/pages that are created daily. But calling something a "hoax" when it's not... and then being targeted for deletion... without being able to jusify the page... is incredibly frustrating. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Makodap (talk • contribs)

Thanks for your contribution. The blank page you got when you went to the article's talk page was one that said "this article doesn't have a talk page... edit here to create one". Which is what you should have done. Also, it's not the responsibility of the Wikipedia community to prove that each edit or artciel is correct: it's the job of the writer to cite sources and prove what they've written is right. If you couldn't do that, or didn't, then the article was rightly deleted. The notice on the page about the pending delete would have told you exactly what to do to stop it. If you didn't read it, or read it and didn't understand it, or read it and couldn't do what it asked, then you can't blame the community for deleting the article.

In future, if you're creating an article, cite your sources and follow the instructions on the tag if you can't. Then your article may survive. If it doesn't, then come back to this page and someone will explain in detail if you leave a link to the defunct article. Hope this helps. ➨ ❝REDVERS❞ 22:56, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Just for others reference, the article in question appears to be Imaginarius. Evil Monkey - Hello 01:15, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Recommendation for Improving the process of Article Edits

THE COMPLAINT: "...very close to what i was about to add to this thread - Wikipedia should employ a scale/flag system - articles should be fed through peer review, or compared to accepted standards, or even independently checked for accuracy. I'm not suggesting ALL articles be subjected to these, nor that each of these tests be applied to any given article. Any given article should be subjected to the appropriate test (and I have no doubt that a very large percentage will be free of such review). Once an article has been flagged as 'reviewed', changes can be suggested, and until the change is reviewed, it can show up as 'pending review'. The downside to this is that it will require all kinds of money and a substantial load of staff (a lot of review etc can actually be handed off to outside resources. The important bit being that the review is done by at least 5 acknowledged experts in the field), whose job it is to coordinate review.[/QUOTE]

THE RESPONSE: That's an outstanding idea. I'm not sure if it would require such staffing, though. I'm sure there's a better way to do it using the Wiki members themselves. Perhaps a more appropriate venue would involve a change in Wiki's software to allow people to rate different versions of the articles.

THE PROPOSAL:

1. Allow people to register with fields of expertise, including major ones (Physics) and minor ones (optics).

2. When an article under their field of expertise has been edited, it will appear in a special page in Wiki that's visible after one has logged in. Call it an Edits Pending Review page, and it would list all the articles and a brief description of the article that have been recently edited.

3. Clicking on any given article would bring up side-by-side comparisons of the current version and the edited version. The member registered with that field of expertise would be allowed to vote (sliding scale, 1-5) as to the viability of the new article over the old.

4. Once an article is being edited, all further edits would be locked to prevent edit wars.

5. The article and it's edit would remain locked until enough people have voted to statistically affirm or deny the new edit. Obviously there would be a comment page, and people could change their votes. The "statistically significant" number of votes would depend on how many people are registered as an expert in that field, but it would also reflect how many of those people have actively voted on articles within an appropriately recent amount of time.

6. This way, all articles with edits would be approved or disapproved within a fairly short period of time (say, three days to a week). It would indeed slow down the editing cycle, but with a substantially higher degree of quality.

And that's a good thing!

links missing

Hi,

I spot more and more invalid links (misname) to pages which have since been deserved an article under another name. Typical example is "Colonel John Jacob Astor IV" in page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooke_Astor which in fact is available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Jacob_Astor_IV (and was expected in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonel_John_Jacob_Astor_IV).

Couldn't it be possible to have a search engine brwosing page for these missing links, propose some possible article match so that an editor would just have to click "OK", to make the appropriate change in a quick and easy way ?

[if such a feature exists well, forget about my query]

Cheers,

virtualcall

First, it may help you to learn that, in general, the names of people do not include their titles, at least not first. Second, if you find a page where you were expecting an article, but doesn't have that article, then you can create a redirect to it (see Wikipedia:Redirect). For example, at Colonel John Jacob Astor IV, you'd click the edit tab, write

#REDIRECT [[John Jacob Astor IV]]

and click save. Oh, if I search (on the lefthand toolbar) for "Colonel John Jacob Astor IV," the article you're looking for is at the top of the list. Hope that helps. -- SCZenz 20:29, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Inappropriate content

The following is the opening paragraph on the Thanksgiving page. "This country was founded as a white homeland. There were no black ghettos or Asian towns. The Jew run mass media is trying to destroy the white race. You can't say the word Christmas without being sued by Jewish lawyers at the ACLU. THANKS FOR GIVING CALIFORNIA BACK TO THE MEXICANS. THE PILGRIMS ARE ROLLING IN THEIR GRAVES. MANIFEST DESTINY HAS BECOME BRATZ DOLLZ AND GANGSTA RAP! REVOLUTION!" This was my first visit to your web site. After looking around a bit I assume that this type of entry is not in keeping with your policies. Not sure who or where to report such things to so sending it this way. Very interesting site.

It's already been removed (that kind of junk usually doesn't last longer than a minute or two). Thanks for pointing it out. Antandrus (talk) 19:32, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

You're missing something...

On the almost famous listing you're missing one of the albums for one of the Lad Zeppelin songs.You're missing 'That's the way' from the Led Zeppelin III album.I just wanted to let you know.I only figured this out when I went looking for this particular song and had no idea what it was.I looked through many lyrics to find it.

Thank you for your suggestion! When you feel an article needs changing, please feel free to make whatever changes you feel are needed. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit any article by simply following the Edit this page link. You don't even need to log in! (Although there are some reasons why you might like to...) The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use out the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. -- SCZenz 21:48, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Picture

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorgon%27s_Head_Lodge

The picture that is associated with the Gorgon's Head Lodge is inaccurate. This is NOT the actualy Gorgon Head's lodge. Thought you should know.

• Thank you for your suggestion. When you feel an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the Edit this page link at the top. The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes — they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons why you might want to). Deltabeignet 22:22, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Adding Info

How does one create a new wikipedia page as far as people or events are concerned? There are numbers of famous people who have gone unmentioned or without information; how do wikipedia users submit info for a new profile?

-Jean Andrews

Take a look at Help:Starting a new page. -- SCZenz 22:19, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Minor vs Major

i am fed up of having to tick the minor edit box. i only really do it so i can flick through when i have added something major to wikipedia, which, unfortunatly, is difficult and has been spoiled by me forgetting to tick the box now and agin. i would like to stress that i dont care when i've made minor edits, i only care about the major ones. im sure many users will agree. also, the general public seem to ignore the box completly, so browsing their edits is nigh on impossible. i propose: change the 'minor edit' box to a 'major edit' box. please will someone with the immense power it will take to change the programming of wikipedia respond? thank you muchly. (fwi: i put this as i minor edit, althought it could be the start of something major) mastodon 22:37, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Most people tick "minor edit" only for small grammar changes and stuff like that. "Minor" is supposed to indicate "barely worth looking at" to other editors, not to be contrasted with "world-shaking". -- SCZenz 22:48, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

It looks like you have underestimated your own strength. There is already an option to automatically select minor. Go to "my preferences" > "Eiditing" > "Mark all edits minor by default". --Commander Keane 03:48, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Please reconnect Wikipedia Help

The Help link has been changed to the Wikimedia help pages, which can only contain generic informtion. That leaves me with no way of locating policy documents, lists of templates, etc., from first principles. (I was actually trying to see if a template for a couple of functions (marking Pinyin, to allow font overrides for broken browsers, like IE, and one for the STP symbol) already existed. I'm not convinced that there is a reliable way of doing that, but there used to be a list of many general purpose templates only a couple of clicks away from the Help click. --David Woolley 14:25, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Help:Contents looks fine to me. I suspect you may have looked at the page while it was vandalized. Cheers, Bovlb 17:28, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

It looks OK now, It's just possible that I picked the one window I had open on Meta:. It wasn't vandalism of the Help page, as there is no sufficiently recent edit history and the page I had was Help:Help on wikimedia. Any change would have had to have been made to the pattern for the left side menu. I had rememebered a notice about a new formal help page, so I assumed that change had happened.--David Woolley 18:24, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Populations of Municipalities in Limburg, Netherlands

The Population Centers are listed, but not the population figures. How about including the population numbers along with the names of the Population Center's names ? You see, I came to this part of Wikipedia to do just that, to find out what the population of Kerkrade is, but, it is not there.

The great state of Texas

what role did farming and animal raising in the state's history and its economic role help today?

For a factual question like this, you should try the Reference desk. Be warned, however, that this question sounds like homework and might not get answered as such.--Commander Keane 19:44, 28 November 2005 (UTC)