Wikipedia:Village pump/November 2003 archive 1

Right-justified intros

The first line of an article is right-justified, which can look very strange if the line is short (e.g. Richard Brinsley Sheridan). It can be fixed by putting a blank line above the first line of text, but is there any way the developers can fix it more effectively? -- sannse 10:50, 25 Oct 2003 (UTC)

The first line of an article is right-justified? Sounds like you've got a bit of browser weirdness going on. The first line, like every other line, looks left-justified to me. --Camembert

In that case I'd better say I'm using IE5 (I think I do on the other computer I use too). I've just got someone to have a look using IE6 and it's not a problem for them. This makes it a much more minor problem. Probably not worth wasting time on! -- sannse 13:06, 25 Oct 2003 (UTC)

In a lot, but not all, of articles, I see the first line right-justified, too. I think it's rather unjustified of my browser to right-justify for no reason... Κσυπ Cyp 18:29, 25 Oct 2003 (UTC)

It only happens in articles in which the right-floated [edit] links appear. It's a known bug, which has been independently rediscovered many many times since those [edit] links were added. —Paul A 10:28, 26 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Report it at SourceForge (see wikipedia:bug reports), along with your browser, etc. Martin 18:33, 25 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I have this problem too, IE5.0 on Win98. I first raised it when section edit was introduced and I think they may be related. I looked at SourceForge and couldn't find an open problem record there, but that might well be my not knowing how to look. I'm happy to raise it there myself, please don't delete this from the pump until we do get a SourceForge record raised or identified. Andrewa 23:30, 26 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Please do raise it. Martin 21:25, 2 Nov 2003 (UTC)

As far as I can tell it's just a bug in IE 5.0/win. Upgrade your browser to IE 6 or Mozilla. --Brion 22:36, 2 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Word and article searches

Am I the only one who has trouble doing word and article searches? Often it seems I search a word or phrase, looking for an article, and I come up blank two or three times. But if I persist, sometimes I come up with an article. What's up with that? It's not so urgent when checking for existing articles on, say, Penis-melting Zionist robot combs. But on more common subjects it's a problem. Also, when are we going to have full search capabilities? Paul Klenk 01:45, 26 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Colon in link in definition list

A colon in a link in a definition list doesn't work. Can the software be changed to change the priority so that a : within [[ ]] doesn't start the second half of the definition entry. This is a problem with any of Wikipedia:... or User:...

This is a known bug, but no one cares enough to fix it, as definition lists are used slightly more often than never (though the colon is independently used for indentation, which happens to be implemented as definition-only definition lists). If you care enough to fix it, please be our guest. --Brion 07:34, 26 Oct 2003 (UTC)

In the mean time, some adaptation of URL encoding might be useful: Wikipedia:Village pump —Paul A 01:40, 28 Oct 2003 (UTC)

overlapping articles

I found General Government listed at Articles Needing Attention, so I rewrote it since it's a subject I know something about. Then I found History of Poland -- World War II 1939-1945, which is just a collection of dot-points and could well be deleted. But in fact this is a better heading for an article about Poland during WW2 than is General Government. On the other hand, Poland under German occupation would be better still. My inclination is to create Poland under German occuption, transfer and expand the text from General Government, then list the two existing articles for deletion. Comments? Adam 07:22, 26 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Keep it. General Government were one of the distinct administrative units of Poland the occupied by Germans. Polices used by Germans in GG were different then those on the areas annexed by Nazi Germany or on the areas occupied by Soviets. For example, in General Government public use of Polish language was not forbidden, while it was like this in Posen. In Warsaw public executions were advised policies, while it was not standard inside borders of Germany. GH 07:41, Oct 26, 2003 (UTC)

No need to list them for deletion - just make them redirects. The title may be more consistent with other history pages if it was History of Poland (1939-1945). Angela 07:41, Oct 26, 2003 (UTC)

You should also read How to rename a page, if you haven't already. —Paul A 10:31, 26 Oct 2003 (UTC)

How do I put a French link to my English version and vice versa?

In my "user page" : How do I mention the same page exists in both languages?

Papotine 12:52, 26 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Add [[fr:Utilisateur:Papotine]] (or whatever you login name is in the French wiki) to your English user page. Conversely, [[en:User:Papotine]] to the French one... -- Viajero 13:48, 26 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Muchas gracias, Viajero ! Papotine 14:36, 26 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Why do get logged out?

It seems that I just got logged out while working on a page. I edited a subpage in the user namespace as a logged-in user, but on saving it appeared under an IP number rather than my username. That looks potentially troublesome (after all, it makes a difference whether you edit your pages or someone with an IP number does). I should note that the problem has occurred before (rarely), and that I do not usually have similar problems on the particular computer I am working at. Kosebamse 19:17, 26 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Bug reports should be made at SourceForge. Please see wikipedia:bug reports for instructions on doing this. Angela 19:26, Oct 26, 2003 (UTC)

Done. I seem to remember that similar weirdnesses were discussed here earlier (to do with the en/en2/www thing??) Kosebamse 19:48, 26 Oct 2003 (UTC)

How long had it been since you logged in? How long was it between when you opened the edit page and when you clicked save? Were you using the "remember password across sessions" feature? BTW you can change history, see Wikipedia:Changing attribution for an edit. -- Tim Starling 01:49, Oct 27, 2003 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't remember how long I had been logged in. Time between opening edit and saving could have been ten minutes or so. I don't use the remember passwords feature. And that particular problem has occurred before, but only in the past weeks, so I assume it could have been because of the hardware difficulties or server overload (and wasn't there a similar discussion recently?). Thanks, Kosebamse 05:13, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Can't upload an image

After the screen asking if I want to change the " " in the filename to "_", I get this message:

A database query syntax error has occurred. The last attempted database query was: "INSERT INTO image (img_name,img_size,img_timestamp,img_description,img_user,img_user_text) VALUES ('Keyboard_Layout_German.png',,'20031026192319','Keyboard layout, German, upload attempt #120, made by me', '7586', 'Cyp')" from within function "wfRecordUpload". MySQL returned error "1064: You have an error in your SQL syntax. Check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 20031026192319','Keyboard layout, German, upload attempt #120,".

I don't know anything about SQL, but is the character sequence ', ' appropriate? Κσυπ Cyp 19:28, 26 Oct 2003 (UTC)

You were right about the ",,". The PNG file you uploaded had zero length, and for some reason the file size variable got set to an empty string instead of "0". I'll submit it to the bug tracker. -- Tim Starling 00:02, Oct 27, 2003 (UTC)

Not just 0 length, it turns out, but also didn't even exist... Was trying to upload "Keyboard Layout German.png", when it was called "Keyboard_Layout_German.png" on my computer... Apparently Windows seems to think there is a difference between spaces and underscores, despite that Wikipedia knows there isn't... Managed to upload, at last... Κσυπ Cyp 01:24, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Mother Teresa article

Hi, I've called a vote on Talk:Mother Teresa to clarify once and for all what people think about the current article and what we should do about it. Please express your opinion. lol FearÉIREANN 23:05, 26 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Wikitrivia proposal - not happening

See m:WikiTrivia.

Linux future

-->Wikipedia:Reference desk

Voting policy

I tried looking for a voting policy, but I did not find one, so I propose a draft: Wikipedia:Voting policy draft

I think voting should be standardized and formalized or else any vote should not be binding for anything. I hate that it has to be this formal, but I think it will be more democratic this way and it will lower complaints.

Please edit at will the draft, it was only the first thing that came to my mind. I am not a lawyer, nor do I play one on the Wikipedia :)

The whole idea could also be scapped if enough people think it's crap.

Dori 15:09, Oct 27, 2003 (UTC)

Largest WPs

I know there is a list top 10 largest Wikipedias somewhere but I cant find it. Can someone help me? BL 01:53, 28 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Multilingual statistics#Fastest Growing Wikipedias. --Menchi 05:25, 28 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Wikipedia needs editor

Should articles have an editor? See m:Wikipedia needs editors

There's an alternative proposal that I think might achieve the desired aim while doing no damage at all to our current structure and culture at m:Referees. Of course this ground might have all been covered before, I can't find it yet but the Meta is a big place. Comments welcome. Andrewa 03:02, 30 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Check Wikipedia:Wikipedia approval mechanism -- Cimon Avaro on a pogostick 03:26, Oct 30, 2003 (UTC)

Thank you! Yes, that's exactly what I was looking for. I've listed my proposal on that page, it seems to me to have some advantages over the existing ones but there's also a lot in them that can and should be incorporated. Andrewa 03:29, 31 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Double Voting on Vfd

I've noticed lately that there seems to be gaggle of brand new users who's only real edits seem to be to vote to keep things on Vfd. Earlier it was User:Wartortle and the dozen some of the dozen other names apparently created by User:Tester (see WP:PU). Now there seems to be User:Princess Toadstool, User:Macarenaman and User:Peter Farrell. It seems to me that the last three were created by 1 person with aims of keeping the page Dork, apparently created by User:Mwbassguy. I don't now if all these events are related, but I'm suspicious. Is there any way to check to see if double (or more) voting is occurring on Vfd. Maximus Rex 02:28, 28 Oct 2003 (UTC)"

Hang on, I'll see what I can do -- Tim Starling 02:34, Oct 28, 2003 (UTC)

Logs were checked for roughly the last 14 hours. Princess Toadstool, Macarenaman and David Stapleton were all using the same IP address. During that period, the only edits made from that IP were to VFD. The address is an AOL proxy. -- Tim Starling 02:49, Oct 28, 2003 (UTC)

I just realised David Stapleton wasn't on your list, in fact he's just an ordinary Wikipedian. My word, the interesting things you can discover when you grep logs... -- Tim Starling 02:55, Oct 28, 2003 (UTC)

The David Stapleton thing may have just been a coincidence. The edits are overlapping, and nobody manually logged in at any stage. David Stapleton was using section editing, whereas PT was not. And I have an edit by Antonio Martin using the same proxy, the previous day. Time to publish, I think. User:Tim Starling/Log segment 1 -- Tim Starling 03:18, Oct 28, 2003 (UTC)

User:Panochik is another user created solely for the purpose of voting on VfD. RickK 03:25, 28 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Just to be clear: it is my opinion that neither David Stapleton nor Antonio Martin were responsible for creating these false identities. AOL has many more users than proxies. By chance, David Stapleton and Antonio Martin were using the same proxy as this Princess Toadstool and friends. -- Tim Starling 00:38, Oct 29, 2003 (UTC)

www.WikiImages.org

I would like to contribute 500 Images to Wikipedia. I work in 3 Languages. That means, 1500 Uploads :-(

Could we not create a central images Database for all Wikipedias with just translated titles or so? Please comment on meta:WikiImages.org. Thanks :-) Fantasy 07:39, 28 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Protecting Wikipedia

In some ways, this is a follow-up to the thread on "Wikipedia Needs an Editor." In particular, security was mentioned in passing, but I would like to make that the focus of attention, and to suggest that the Wikicommunity should adopt some measures in an effort to protect what has already been accomplished, and to help ensure that frustrated Wikipedians do not give up in despair.

Some Wikipedians seem to believe that things aren't so bad, so nothing needs to be done. I am not in a position to quantify how bad things are, but there are several indicators that the costs associated with protecting Wikipedia are already quite high. More to the point, the growing size and reputation of Wikipedia will make it an increasingly attractive target for vandals. I don't know if an automated attack been launched yet, but wouldn't it be better to try to avoid it?

What can be done? I am not a security expert, but it seems to me that one of the first steps that could be taken would be in the direction of ensuring that only suitably registered individuals can MODIFY pages created by others.

Security of course is not an absolute, but the history of the Internet yields too many examples of "nice ideas" being overtaken by vandalism in one form or another. The survival of the U.S. system of government can plausibly be attributed to the *pessimism* of the authors of the Constitution.

I think the idea of having the Wikipedia completely open is much more attractive than a semi-closed system to only registered users. (My 2c, in any case) Dysprosia 08:31, 28 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I don't think vandalism is a big problem really, and requiring registration wouldn't solve much (the most persistent and bothersome vandals have no problem registered accounts anyway). The only real worry is that if it's not caught immediately from the recent changes page, some of it slips through and stays in Wikipedia for months, which leads to an overall lowered quality (I found an "president of my ass" or something similar inserted into some politician's article that had been there for about 3 weeks, for example). --Delirium 08:37, Oct 28, 2003 (UTC)

A quick response:

Have you recently checked http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Ipblocklist ?

  The day is not yet done, but six cases of vandalism have already
  been dealt with today (Oct 28), and they all involve (anonymous) IP
  addresses.  Whoever is spending time on this could be spending time
  more wiki-usefully.

Please reflect on Gresham's Law ("Bad currency drives out good.")

  There's a Wikipedia under that name but better yet there is Aristophanes.
  In his play, The Frogs [405BC], he wrote:

The course our city runs is the same towards men and money. 
She has true and worthy sons.
She has fine new gold and ancient silver,
coins untouched with alloys, gold or silver, 
each well minted, tested each and ringing clear.
Yet we never use them!
Others pass from hand to hand,
sorry brass just struck last week and branded with a wretched brand. 
So with men we know for upright, blameless lives and noble names.
These we spurn for men of brass....

See the thread "We've lost another two..." above.

-- 1635, Oct 28, 2003 (EST)

Surprising to people outside Wikipedia and interesting, vandalism has been controlled very well so far. It seems the truth is that there are more wise, sensitive people than more those who are interested in damging things. The more we have vandalist, actually the more and more we have gained good eye-bolws. The trouble most came from well-intention from knowledgeable people--those who care a lot of their topics so that they run into conflicts. -- Taku 22:14, Oct 28, 2003 (UTC)

If Wikipedia became an attractive enough target, a vandal could acquire a bunch of zombie computers (through computer viruses or other means), and then perform a Distributed Vandalism Attack, where each infected IP address would vandalize a few random pages. With thousands and thousands of pages vandalized by thousands and thousands of different IPs, we'd have to roll back the database to before the vandalisms started, and then lock out edits long enough to change Wikimedia to be incompatible with the viruses. And then the vandal would make a new virus that would be compatible with the new Wikimedia, and it would start all over again. -- Khym Chanur 07:45, Oct 29, 2003 (UTC)

That has happened yet, thankfully. The theory is that our servers are so slow that they would give up and die if thousands of people tried to edit them at once. So damage to the DB would be limited. Our response time would hopefully be reasonably short -- about 20 active Wikipedians have the contact details of the developers, one of them would hopefully make the call in short order and we'd lock the DB. If we wanted to improve this system, we could put a global maximum on the edit rate. But if someone really had thousands of compromised systems at their disposal, why on earth would they attack Wikipedia with them? Taking www.whitehouse.gov down is so much more glamorous. -- Tim Starling 08:07, Oct 29, 2003 (UTC)

Wikipedia must stay open to all. The beauty of the content is that it represents the minds of all interested. Quite similar to Lincoln's GETTYSBURG ADDRESS, where he says that America is an experiment, we too are engaging in an experiment to see if wikipedia can long endure as a fully-open site. I work on content, but I also do my part in thwarting vandals. The only thing that drives me away is server-slowness. But I always come back. Kingturtle 07:27, 3 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Classics Pictures

I need a picture with a Roman feel for a project I'm working on. I just need some eye candy to brighten up the text, like one could find on the front of any Latin textbook, but Wikipedia seems to be very short of pictures in the classics articles. Does any body know of *any* pictures of Roman things in classics articles? CGS 09:40, 28 Oct 2003 (UTC).

I've posted a few images of Roman coins. Not sure if any of them would be useful. Maximus Rex 21:20, 28 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Check out Gallery of Pompeii and Herculaneum, too.—Eloquence 00:53, Oct 29, 2003 (UTC)

There are some picture on the chariot racing page (a couple of Greek vases, a Roman mosaic, and the bronze horses from the hippodrome). Adam Bishop 20:29, 29 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Gia Marie Carangi or Gia Carangi?

I dont oppose to the page about Gia carrying any of those two names, but a merger needs to be done. I just saw, on Gia, that Gia Marie Carangi had no page so of course I thought Gia had no page and wrote Gia Marie......merger anyone?? +

- Antonio Gia Wannabe Martin

Done! I kept the title as Gia Marie Carangi as it had more links to it. Angela

List of song titles phrased as questions

This page has been unexplicably blanked without discussion by [[User::Walklib|Walklib]]. I know that some of the Wikitrivia topics are controversial, but this is not the correct procedure. Can a sysop please revert the page to the last useful edit? Thanks. DropDeadGorgias 18:43, 28 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Ok, I reverted it but you don't need to be a sysop to do this. See Wikipedia:How to revert a page to an earlier version. Angela 20:24, Oct 28, 2003 (UTC)

Edits being saved but not shown?

Summary of snipped text: redirect pages were being incorrectly cached such that if the destination page was updated, a visitor to the redirect page would see an older version of it.

Hi, original poster here with some followup. The older version of the page was even showing up on a computer that had never accessed Wikipedia before, so I'm reasonably sure it wasn't a caching problem. I created an account and found that when logged in, the correct version of the page is displayed. When logged out, the old version. To reproduce: use a web browser or computer that has never accessed Wikipedia before and go to the main page. (You could possibly just log out, but this is how I reproduced it.) Search for "platt amendment" and briefly note the content of the page. There should be no text between the bold headings "Full Text" and "Article I." (This is the old version.) Now log with your account and do the same thing. You should see my changes (the new version) which include some text between the two headings mentioned above. Anyone else able to reproduce this? If this should be a bug, who do I report it to? (P.S. KRS added his comment as I was trying to add this... So, is this a feature or a bug?) Eil 17:32, 29 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Okay, I've backed out this change which was intended to reduce database load on cached pages but fails in the case of redirects, whereas the previous behavior was to always load the page text from the database and then throw it away if the is cacheable. Redirect pages should now ignore any old cached copies, though this has some expense in database and rendering load.

This should fix the immediate problem until a better solution is found for dealing with caching redirects. --Brion 00:25, 30 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I've now fixed the problem with the above code, hopefully. :) --Brion 10:59, 31 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Seems to work now, thanks! Eil 22:20, 31 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Establish context!

Just a friendly reminder: establish context!

I notice one of the bigger minor corrections I've been doing lately is contextualizing articles. Many people seem to write from the perspective of someone who is vaguely familiar with the field; but some people might not even know what you're writing about is a piece of computer software, or a concept in mathematics. Example picked mostly at random: Yacc said "Yacc is the standard parser generator on Unix systems.", which to someone who is not aware of the existence of parser generators or Unix systems isn't very helpful in saying what exactly yacc is. Modified version (feel free to reword better): "Yacc is a piece of computer software that serves as the standard parser generator on Unix systems."

The mathematics examples can usually be fixed just by adding "In [[mathematics, ..." to the beginning, or sometimes "In mathematics, particularly group theory, ...". --Delirium 04:37, Oct 29, 2003 (UTC)

I did that a countless times. Actually it is neccesary not be writers' fault. Sometimes writers do not know what he is talking about! For example, I have just added an article Akita Sanesue from an open content website. I know the article needs more context, but I really cannot add more because I don't know who he is honestly. -- Taku 21:47, Oct 29, 2003 (UTC)

American English v British English

I recently edited Privatization to conform to American spelling (not that I entirely agree with it) because the dominant form was American. Another editor reverted one of my edits because it deleted the alternative spelling. Should we be including phrases like Privatization (also known as Privatisation) when we introduce an article with alternative spelling? See also Nationalization. Tiles 06:33, 29 Oct 2003 (UTC)

It's common to use both. One way of saying it some articles use is along the lines of "Privatization (British English: Privatisation) ...", but this (or the reverse) seems to prefer one usage over the other as canonical. I'd prefer "Privatization or privatisation ...", with whichever one the article is titled as coming first. As for which to title it as, I'd prefer just whichever the original author used; moving is just going to cause edit wars. An exception is articles clearly relating to a region, in which case the dominant usage of that region should be used. --Delirium 06:53, Oct 29, 2003 (UTC)

A few days ago, I put down the compromise that seems to be the unofficial policy on Wikipedia:Americocentrism, but it was not really complete. Therefore, I just finished a codification of what I believe is the complete unofficial policy (and made it official, I suppose) on Wikipedia:Manual of Style. Please take a look. (Some people will not be pleased until Wikipedia is wholly American or British in spelling; I am sure they will not be happy with this codification, but it does seem to be the unofficial policy and it has worked well in my experience here. Perhaps someday, a technical solution will be available, but until then, we might as well write it down) Daniel Quinlan 23:45, Oct 29, 2003 (UTC)

Truth Controversy

Article on Truth is currently being kicked around a bit by a couple of users. My view is that one of the articles is of fairly good quality by someone with a philosophical education. The other one is illiterate. But who decides in such cases? User:dbuckner

The normal course of action is to discuss it on the articles talk page. Is there a discussion on it there? —Frecklefoot 16:17, 29 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Be aware as well that some of the recent changes may be from a hard-banned and very intelligent troll, see #Contributions by 142.177.xxx.xxx. Enormous potential here for wasting time. Andrewa 19:18, 31 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Benitez, Duran, Hagler, Hearns and Leonard

Im thinking of writing an article about the important and historical rivalty these 5 boxers maintained among themselves dthrought the decade of the 1980s, with a timeline for each of their fights against each other. The problem is, since no official nickname was ever given by writers, critics, historians, etc. to these fab five of boxing, I have no idea what to call the article..any ideas? Antonio Fab One Martin

Maybe it's not worth an encyclopedia article? Otherwise, I'd suggest going completely generic and write articles like Boxing in the 1980s which could also cover other topics specific to certain decades. Daniel Quinlan 23:47, Oct 29, 2003 (UTC)

revert war (well, a skirmish)

Following Angela's advice (above), I created a new page History of Poland (1939-1945), and redirected the old page General Government to it. An anonymous user called 145.254.117.188 keeps un-redirecting the article, plus making edits to both articles which reflect a Polish nationalist POV and are in bad English. 145 has now taken to accusing me of being anti-Polish at my Talk page as well. I therefore request that General Government be deleted, and a new, empty, General Government be created and redirected to History of Poland (1939-1945), so that 145 can't restore the old text. Adam 03:48, 30 Oct 2003 (UTC)

The problem is that General Government was an administrative unit, so its history is only a part of history of Poland 1939-45. This doesn't make any sense to get rid of General Government. Maybe good distribution of data between pages would do the same. GH

I had problems with the same user. He made very POV (anti-German) changes to certain articles dealing Germany and Poland, which I reverted. I listed him on Problem Users, then they listed me on Problems Users. After removing myself and being relisted on Problems Users, I had User:Angela move the discussion to Talk:Heimatvertriebene (to get my name off Problem Users). The user ("GH" supposedly but never logs in) seems unwilling to make NPOV edits. Maximus Rex 04:00, 30 Oct 2003 (UTC)

The pages you are referring to are still disputed. Information, that you try to protect, are not anti-Polish or pro-Polish, they are simply factuary wrong. Despite the fact, that I know more details about some problems, details given by my are kept deleted.GH

I don't think he knows what NPOV is, he is only here to defend Polish national honour etc. This is a type I am sadly familiar with. Also his English isn't good enough to argue with him. This reinforces my strong view that anonymous users should not be allowed to edit pages. Call me old-fashioned... Adam 04:09, 30 Oct 2003 (UTC)

You already accepted 90% adjustments, I proposed and still made such a biased statements against me personally. If it were up to you, the reader would think that Germany in 1939 annexed only areas up to 1914 border, that Lodz belonged to General Goverrnment and probably, the most important, that Polish history 39-45 is the same as General-Government.

The only problem we have here, is that I know much more details about the interesting questions and I can help you to review your pages, so they contain true informations.

GH

I am not the slightestly inclined to get involved in more warfares around matters of Poland's history. But many contributors, in particular them being cock-sure of their own NPOV-ishness, tend to neglect the involved emotions, it seems. Not the least the degree of disappointment, sadness and anger over how Poland, when formally on the victorious side of World War II, could be so harshly hit in the post-war decades.

Now, you say, the emotions have no place in the encyclopaedic articles, and nobody would argue against that, of course. But the emotions is a driving force which complicates the issue, as you don't have to be much of a nationalist patriot to see belittling of Poland's sufferings in edits which in the rest of the world rather would be seen as pedagogically motivated simplifications. If we don't recognize the emotions behind the edit-war, then we can be pretty sure of the defeated party going increasingly bitter against Wikipedia. And that is exactly what Wikipedia doesn't need.

On the issue at stake, the question of a separate article on the General Government, or not, I think that would be as much appropriate as separate articles on Vichy France and the Free French.
But that's only my personal view, of course.
--Ruhrjung 18:14, 30 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Ban Functions

I'm wondering if there is any handy (or not so handy) source of information how IP and user ban works. Among the questions I have are:

Will we be able to post some message to the user who is banned? (We have an option of using meta, if not. But it is nice to have some means.)
Will the ban simply denies editing? or the banned user cannot even view Wikipedia articles?
Will the IP-banned user be able to create an account and log on? Or when an IP is banned, all users from the IP, including logged-on users, will be banned?

Any pointer will be appreciated. And just to clarify, I am not planning to behave bad and be banned :-p, but I am just looking for info. on be half of Japanese Wikipedians. Thanks for your help. Tomos 04:45, 30 Oct 2003 (UTC)

The answers to these questions, as far as I know, are:

Users who are blocked can still see their own talk pages, so messages to them should be received.
In fact, blocked users can see all of Wikipedia; but they are barred from editing it.
An IP block will block signed-in users trying to edit from that IP. (Occasionally, a user in good standing will be inadvertently blocked because the IP was previously used by a vandal.)

Also:

IP blocks expire automatically after 24 hours.
Blocking a named user also automatically blocks all users who share that IP, so you can't just create a new account to get around a block.
There's a distinction between "banning", which is a specific decision by Jimbo to reject a particular user (and comes in various shades), and "blocking", which is the technological method of implementing a ban. There's a user who frequently edits from the IP range 142.177.xxx.xxx who is banned, but not blocked (and in fact was quite active this past day).

-- Cyan 05:46, 30 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Thanks! That clarifies a lot. Tomos 05:52, 30 Oct 2003 (UTC)

One of you who understands this well should probably update Wikipedia:Bans and blocks, which is currently woefully out of date, and lacks all the information just posted here. --Delirium 10:49, Oct 30, 2003 (UTC)

Okay. It will happen soon. -- Cyan 18:23, 30 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I have made the suggested update. -- Cyan 01:05, 31 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Anonymous users should not be allowed to edit pages

This is a followup to three articles on this page:

"We've lost another two"
"protecting Wikipedia"
"revert war"

The consequences of bias, brutishness, vandalism, and incompetence are detailed in these posts and elsewhere, and yet many of the respondents seem to ignore the costs and perils of the current policy.

Please don't ignore those who have given up in despair!
Please don't forget that there are those who have heard about "revert wars" and decided not to bother in the first place!

Some of the people who may have the most valuable content to offer the project are likely to have little inclination or time to monitor the fate of their contributions let alone engage in interminable combat. Yes, there are some protections, but these all have their own costs.

In summary, I commend to you Adam's principle: anonymous users should not be allowed to edit pages.

I don't understand why everyone equates anonymity with editing when logged out. Here is a guy simply named "Peak", with no user page, telling us all that anonymity should not be allowed. It doesn't make sense.

Nomenclature aside, will raising the barriers to entry by requiring users to spend 20 seconds creating an account prevent all vandalism? Most vandalism (certainly not all) comes from logged out users, but it doesn't follow that requiring account creation will deter those users. It's just as likely to deter the thousands of logged out users who contribute in good faith. -- Tim Starling 08:59, Oct 30, 2003 (UTC)

And strangely enough, Peak's first and only edit is here. My two cents, though: not having to register is vital to Wikipedia's 1) mission and 2) appeal. For no other reason, Wikipedia turns heads when casual visitors see an "Edit this page" link instead of "Register now" button. What we have now is a zero barrier to entry, and raising our shields would severely affect the character of Wikipedia and the appeal. I certainly do feel registered/logged in users should have more privileges (voting for deletion, logos, etc.) but the privilege to edit here should be extended to all. Fuzheado 09:17, 30 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Denying editing for non logged in users is meaningless, unless we also implement checks on who we allow to create an account, and that... Phhhpt. -- Cimon Avaro on a pogostick 09:31, Oct 30, 2003 (UTC)

Sorry, no easy high-tech solutions to all the strife in the world. Wikipedia is just a reflection of real-world issues.

-- Viajero 09:44, 30 Oct 2003 (UTC)

There is a problem. And I think it's important for you who feel associated with wikipedia as it works now not to see in another direction. People who've got tired of wikipedia in its current state, surely will not be there when it has detoriated that much further, that even you realize it's gone too far.

I can't help thinking of dr Martin Niemöller's famous First they came...

--Ruhrjung 13:23, 30 Oct 2003 (UTC)

There is an old saying in science fiction fandom: "Close the doors of fandom, as soon as I get in." It isn't so long from the time that I discovered Wikipedia, that I wouldn't remember doing edits before I created a username. If I had to have signed in before editing, I honestly don't think I would have bothered. -- Cimon Avaro on a pogostick 21:47, Oct 30, 2003 (UTC)

There is no problem, and Wikipedia is not deteriorating. For a site that's wide open to the world, article quality is remarkably high and conflicts are remarkably rare. People who have gotten tired of Wikipedia in its current state are welcome to leave, and we thank them for their contributions. I find Niemöller's quote that deals with Nazi crimes tastelessly out of place. AxelBoldt 15:32, 30 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I think there are things to address, but whether we call them problems or opportunities is a matter of mindset. In particular, there are current suggestions and attempts to improve the reception given to new contributors, the quality of articles generally, and the efficiency of our processes.

I think there's room for progress in all of these, but I also think our approach at this stage should be evolutionary, not radical. A complete change in core policy such as this suggestion is not to be taken lightly. Andrewa 20:05, 30 Oct 2003 (UTC) above

People do not leave over vandalism, they leave over fights and edit wars, sometimes over simply bad edits. I have thought about leaving myself several times, and actually have done it (though getting back in two weeks or so), but none of those was because of an anonymous editor. Let's not try to fight the fire in the backyard by mowing the grass in front. Andre Engels 16:38, 31 Oct 2003 (UTC)

We allow edits from anonymous contributors because we assume good faith, and we know that logins are evil. Martin 21:22, 2 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Let me share a secret with you all. The most effective way to solve a revert-war is to walk away from it. Don't go back to it for a week or two. The world will not implode if what you see as incorrect content sits there for a while. You can always go back in a few weeks and make the changes you see fit. Relax. There are 100s of wonderful people here who love wikipedia as you do. It will all work out in the end. Just learn to walk away from the article and come back much later. Your head will be clear. And the dust will be settled. Kingturtle 07:39, 3 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Measuring Disputes

After a week of observing serious concerns on Village Pump -- "Wikipedia needs an editor", "We've lost another two", "protecting Wikipedia", NPOV disputes, epidemic personal attacks, and the like -- I wanted to find out how well perception stood up to the statistics. What I found was a real surprise. Searching through all articles for Wikipedia:NPOV_dispute warnings, care to guess how many articles came back? With 160,000+ articles in EN, I was thinking hundreds if not thousands were in dispute, but the actual number was 89. (September 20, 2003 database dump, with recent dumps about the same). That's 0.06% of pages being NPOV disputed. Of those 89 articles, 30 are related to Israel-Palestine or Jewish-Muslim issues. See User:Fuzheado/metrics for the actual list.

Granted, not all hotly debated articles have an "NPOV dispute" notice at the top, but with my guess being an order of magnitude (or two) WAY OFF is telling. Even if we are generous and say there are 10 times as many articles that are "hot button" and are not labeled "NPOV dispute" that's still only 0.6% of articles. A very small number of articles are creating headaches and bad blood. It seems to not be an 80-20 rule but a 99-1 rule. Just something to keep in perspective as we propose massive policy changes that may drastically change the face of Wikipedia. Fuzheado 10:09, 30 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Yes, Fuzheado makes a fair point. I have contributed or done major edits on about 120 articles, of which only four or five have led to serious POV or factual disputes: Vergina (with a Greek nationlist), History of Poland (1939-1945) (Polish ditto), Adolf Hitler (highly-opinionated persons of all kinds), Jesus Christ and Mother Teresa (Christians), China and the United Nations (the irrepressible Jiang). I think that rule probably applies across the board - 90 or 95% of all articles are not controversial and are rarely if ever edited by anyone other than their author. Even my rewrite of Maoism hasn't stirred any feathers (and I did try).

But the problem is with the remaining 5%, which deal with big, conceptual, hot-button issues, on which consensus will never be reached: abortion, Zionism, terrorism, Dubya, etc. These articles will go on being editted and counter editted forever. Does that matter? Well if WP ever wants to be taken seriously as an encyclopaedia, eventually it will have to have a respectable, settled text on these issues. No-one is going to use or cite an encyclopaedia where every time they look up a controversial subject they find an ill-written spawling jumble of contradictory statements which changes every five minutes.

Just some thoughts :) Adam 12:45, 30 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Question to Fuzheado: does your query also give some clue as to the number of Users who are creating all the alarums and havoc? Phil 17:35, Oct 30, 2003 (UTC)

Good question. I only only been using the articles database, and have no access to user names. That's something the developers might be able to provide statistics on. Fuzheado 00:29, 31 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Good observations, Fuzheado, and thoughts, Adam. Here's my lateral thinking... the respectability you suggest and the joyful anarchy we currently have are not mutually exclusive. IMO our current software and culture are both almost sufficient to support both similtaneously. I have a suggestion at m:referees which is just one way in which we could try to introduce a form of baselining without disrupting the current culture. Interested in others. Andrewa 20:16, 30 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I think people are confusing two different projects:

1) The current Wikipedia that is being created now. The dynamic project that anyone can edit, and is liable to mischief and bad edits; but in the long run inevitably improves.

2) A 'trusted' wikipedia which has been okayed by referees/reviewers as at least meeting a minimum standard for its pages. This will be a static snapshot of the wikipedia perhaps on a yearly basis. This will requires its own location on the internet, and will take approved pages from the dynamic site. These pages will remain frozen until the next yearly? update from the dynamic site. This site will probably have fewer pages and will be exactly like a traditional encyclopedia.

What we have here is Wikipedia. The 'trusted' wikipedia is a different project, which requires a slightly different approach. As I see it this will evolve naturally out of the desire to create an CD version of Wikipedia or Wikipedia 1.0 for release. The information on this CD whenever it is created could be put on its own site. And then updated with each publication of the CD. It requires its own site so internet users can bookmark and know they are going to get safe information. Wikipedia references the latest page obviously.

Corporate organisations and people who have an issue with our dynamic Wikipedia will use this static snapshot, and only refer to the dynamic Wikipedia if they need the updated info. Indeed some people will only be aware of the static Wikipedia, unaware that any mad and crazy dynamic Wikipedia exists.

Having such a set up would deter vandalism, because they would only be very temporarily defacing what is from one perspective only an unofficial 'test' site. :ChrisG 21:51, 1 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Not for VdF (or Cleanup), but...

Either is a fascinating article. But does it not belong in the Wiktionary? -- Viajero 11:41, 30 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Firstly, any article which puzzles, belongs on Cleanup. Secondly, I personally do not see any reason why we should not have articles on words, and the concepts they embody. They just shouldn't be dictionary-entries (if you see the distinction). Either is not just a mere dictionary entry (though it comes close). If that is all that can be said about "either", maybe even VFD is not totally out of the question, but I certainly do not see that as a pressing matter. The article discusses stuff you wouldn't find in a dictionary, and maybe someone will expand it... -- Cimon Avaro on a pogostick 11:58, Oct 30, 2003 (UTC)

My latest quixotic project is to make pages for at least the most interesting of Wikipedia:Common words, searching for which is not possible. I tried either, and perhaps I failed. Other is coming; it will be better. -- Smerdis of Tlön 13:53, 30 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Interestingly, Google will search for either [1] I thought perhaps it was a stop word. No criticism intended, BTW, by all means, continue... -- Viajero 14:25, 30 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Terri Schiavo article

I can't find an article for Terri Schiavo - is it under another name? -Speaker of Your Mom

I don't think there is one; I tried to find one, too. Go ahead and create one. Paul Klenk 16:23, 30 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Is discussion of LDS temple rites illegal?

[[User:BoNoMoJo deleted discussion of LDS temple rites from Temples_of_the_Church_of_Jesus_Christ_of_Latter-day_Saints, suggesting on the talk page that such discussion was not only immoral but illegal. Further input would be desirable. -- Someone else 18:49, 30 Oct 2003 (UTC)

While not a lawyer, User:BoNoMoJo's arguments lack credibility to me. Quoting directly from copyright material of the church would obviously be illegal if they refuse permission (subject to rights of fair use, of course) - but the bogus 'right to privacy' he invokes is utter nonsense. If the church makes its members sign a contract before revealing its inner secrets, then it would be a possible breach of contract law and trade secrets law, but the fact is that this information has now been revealed by so many as to be public knowledge. The church could go after members for revealing its secrets, but I do not think it now has the right to have this information removed. --Morven 19:32, 30 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Morven is 100% correct. BoNoMoJo's arguments lack credibility and seem legally dubious, to put it mildly. In the absence of a contract of secrecy involving all members of the Church, the 'right to privacy' argument seems spurious and I would go so far as to say bogus. FearÉIREANN 00:05, 31 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I think the cultural issues here may be more important than the legal ones although IANAL (I Am Not A Lawyer) either. If these were the religious secrets of an illiterate tribal society I think we would have qualms about the article. What's the difference? Please note, I don't mean this as a rhetorical question. I'm not saying I think the article should be blanked. I'm saying I don't know, the question is a real one, and I think we should discuss it and perhaps try to work out a policy. Andrewa 00:11, 31 Oct 2003 (UTC)

As far as the legal issues, there are almost certainly none. Even if there were a contract of secrecy involving all members of the Church, it would still be legal for us to publish the information. It would be illegal for them to divulge it to us, but once we have it, since we have not signed any contract, we can publish it (as long as it doesn't fall under trade secret law). A similar situation arises with leaks of classified documents: it is illegal for an official to leak classified information, but once it is leaked, it is not illegal to publish it (and in fact classified information is published by major media outlets all the time, citing "anonymous sources"). --Delirium 01:34, Oct 31, 2003 (UTC)

A fair bit has already been said about this at Talk:Temples of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Why not carry on there? Smokey the Bear says, "Only you can stop forest fires." -- Cyan 01:11, 31 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Good point, and hopefully this discussion will end up there too. There are some more general issues raised here as well, perhaps we need a Wikipedia ethics page. Not sure which wikipedia:namespace is best for it, or the meta, I'm still getting the hang of the namespace and link structure of Wikipedia. Or does it exist already somewhere? If so please someone say where, and let's link to it from wikipedia:Policies and guidelines. Andrewa 18:42, 31 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Contributions by 142.177.xxx.xxx

In the past little while, hard-banned user 142.177.xxx.xxx, aka 24, User:EntmootsOfTrolls has been rather active. Contribs: 142.177.10.33, 142.177.11.23, 142.177.81.243, 142.177.79.242. In particular, the following articles were created by him:

Now, being hard-banned doesn't mean anything unless someone enforces it, so I'm going to step up here. Here's what I'm going to do:

Rather than outright deleting these articles, I'm going kidnap each of these new articles to subpages of my own User page. I ask that if anyone wants to reinstate one of these, please do not move it back, but rather use a cut-n-paste procedure. The idea is that you are permitted to create the article, but 142.177 is not.
I will go through these contributions and revert all of the substantive edits that remain current at this time. (Substantive is my subjective judgment, of course.) Again, feel free to reinstate any of his edits, under your own user name.

-- Cyan 01:51, 31 Oct 2003 (UTC)

They also wrote Cognotechnology (currently listed on Vfd). Maximus Rex 01:59, 31 Oct 2003 (UTC)

That was before he was banned I think. Angela

I have only kidnapped articles created since October 27. Also, there is a question of the attribution required by the GFDL. Since this user is nominally anonymous, I'm not too concerned about it. If necessary, attribution can be made in the edit summary or on the talk page of any reinstated article. -- Cyan 02:06, 31 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I have reverted most of 142.177's other edits. I have also personally reinstated his article on the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States. On another topic, I just want to make clear what the big idea behind all of this brouhaha is:

The hardbanned user who edits out of the 142.177.xxx.xxx IP range must get permission from Jimbo before returning to Wikipedia.

Thanks, and good night. You've been a great audience. -- Cyan 03:01, 31 Oct 2003 (UTC)

He's back as 142.177.74.48. Will revert. Kosebamse 16:55, 31 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Not sure what to do with Personal experience and Ethical paradox, though. And by the way, this seems not the right place for discussing the matter. We have a vandals page and a problem users page, but I can't remember seeing a banned users page (which would be useful anyway for reference - bans are rare, but some banned ones are persistent, and it would help to have their characteristics summarised somewhere). Kosebamse 17:19, 31 Oct 2003 (UTC)

using Wikipedia content

Hello, I know that this question has probably been asked before. But I want to make sure that I have a good grasp on the copyright issues associated with using Wikipedia material. I am thinking of building a site with commercial interests ( in other words I want to sell things ). I would also probably right my own articles about various topics. If I set up links to Wikipedia articles throughout the site where appropriate, would I be violating the copyright? Can I have the Wikipedia material as part of a webpage on my site? And do I have to make all of the material on my website belong to the same licensing structure? I want to do the right thing and I apreciate your patience and help. RW

You can link to Wikipedia articles anywhere without any problems, and we're happy about it. You can use Wikipedia material on your site if you acknowledge Wikipedia as the source, provide a link back to our article, and keep the material under GFDL, including your additions/modifications. If you do that, only the material on your site that can be seen as "derivative works" of our articles has to be under GFDL; you can continue to license your separate materials under any license you want. AxelBoldt 12:15, 1 Nov 2003 (UTC)

question on redirects moved to User talk:Dmbaguley.

Are links to a copyright photograph allowed?

If I do a link to a photo on the internet site www.airliners.net (on which all photos are copyright the photographer) do I have to ask the photographers permission first or say here who took the pic?
Here’s how the link would look on Wikipedia. I declare the picture public domain so no problems if the answer is that I do have to ask.

External Links

Alitalia A321

Thanks, Adrian Pingstone 09:36, 1 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I'm not sure about the legality of it. There have been a number of legal cases about this in different countries, resulting in quite a mess of different decisions. There's also the ethical angle; is it right to do this, legal or not?

You would do better linking to the page that the image is on on that site, not the image itself. Then, they can't claim you were pretending the image was yours or you were hiding its origin.

Overall, I would prefer asking the photographer if the image can be used here in reduced size form, or something like that.

--Morven 10:23, 1 Nov 2003 (UTC)

"you would do better linking to the page that the image is on on that site". Surely that's exactly what I've done? If you click on the link the page containing the image comes up.

Adrian Pingstone 11:26, 1 Nov 2003 (UTC)

There is no problem with what you intend to do, neither ethically nor legally. The site owner will be happy about the increased traffic yielding more ad revenue. AxelBoldt 12:08, 1 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Sorry, Morven, I worded my question carelessly, I meant to ask if linking to a web page carrying a copyright photo was permissible.

Adrian Pingstone 17:06, 1 Nov 2003 (UTC)

There's no problem, really, unless the site owner has problems with deep linking. --seav 17:08, Nov 1, 2003 (UTC)

I agree, linking to an external webpage is not a problem legally. Howeever, it is never a good idea to link to another site for just the graphics. It creates unwanted traffic (traffic that does not represent people visting the website and is therefore not a benefit), increasing the cost for the site owner without benefit. It has the disinct disadvantage of Wikipedia not having any control over whether the picture appears in the article or not, dependent upon what the external site decides to do and how much traffic it can handle. - Marshman 18:22, 1 Nov 2003 (UTC)

In generally linking to external pages is ok. Some sites don't like be linked to inside a frame, but Wikipedia doesn't use frames so that is not an issue. Ultimately if a site doesn't want to be linked to from external sites there are things they can do to stop that happening. The site in your example has a policy about linking to its pages see [2]. -- Popsracer 21:17, 1 Nov 2003 (UTC)

wikipedia deeper

what you think Wikipedia may contain every piece of information on this planet or not? i think it must be deeper and parental control must be included.

No, wikipedia should not contain every piece of information on the planet, a significant proportion of it is reserved for our sister projects: Wiktionary, Wikibooks, etc. See WP:WWIN. Parental controls have been previously suggested. I think most of the discussion was on the mailing lists -- see for example wikien-l in early June 2003. -- Tim Starling

I absolutely oppose parental controls. Are we going to limit what is contained in Wikipedia, or the parts of Wikipedia people are able to access, to what some people think is appropriate for children to see or read? --Daniel C. Boyer 19:00, 1 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Because some Wikipedians insist on chronicling even the most sickening human practices, like Fisting, treating these subjects like they're actually important and legitimate (when in fact they are valueless, and just degrade people), Wikipedia should have a big warning on it that some content is unsuitable for children and encourage parents to control a child's access. Paul Klenk 20:13, 1 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Fisting may be a repulsive concept, but people in consensual adult relationships do it, so obviously Wikipedia has to cover it. Personally I find anti-semitism, homophobia, child sex-abuse, rascism, fascism and many heterosexual sex acts repulsive, but however much they may repulse me, if they exist then an encyclopædia should chronicle them. You may fisting "valueness" and degrading; I may indeed agree with you. But that is expressing a POV, and Wikipedia is all about providing an NPOV, even on things that turn our stomachs (in my case, George W. Bush's rape of the English language, like now announcing that his National Security Advisor's job is to be an 'unstickler', whatever the hell that means!). FearÉIREANN 22:00, 1 Nov 2003 (UTC)

The point is, there should be a parental warning, letting them know that "Wikipedia, having a strict NPOV policy, has decided to use that as an excuse to abandon the idea that even the most basic values of human decency have any place in an encyclopedia. In fact, we have to, have to, have to, include everything. Anything goes, as long as its NPOV. Of course, our strict NPOV policy logically (don't ask us how) dictates that we cannot even categorize any content as adult or unsuitable for children. Therefore, before you let your children freely browse random pages, be aware that they may inadvertantly read articles about fascism or fisting. If you don't know what fascism or fisting is, perhaps you can ask one of your children to read the articles as a homework assignment, and explain the concepts to you." Paul Klenk 06:16, 2 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Would you mind awfully not trolling us? Thanks. Martin 21:14, 2 Nov 2003 (UTC)

. . . having a strict NPOV policy, has decided to use that as an excuse to abandon the idea that even the most basic values of human decency have any place in an encyclopedia . . . I think we can all see Paul Klenk's agenda here. And it certainly isn't encyclopædic, more 'don't offend my opinions'. Some might class them prejudices. FearÉIREANN 21:33, 2 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Hmmmm, I thought that NPOV only applied to within an article, and not to which articles. I thought that including everything-including-the-kitchen-sink was more of a "mission statement" type thing. -- Khym Chanur 09:21, Nov 2, 2003 (UTC)

I've found some more discussion, see Wikipedia:Content disclaimer. Perhaps this thread can be moved to Wikipedia talk:Content disclaimer. -- Tim Starling 01:43, Nov 2, 2003 (UTC)

I don't see a problem with labeling (like RACS), giving a rating to each page, so existing parental controls could work with it (though it might be technically difficult to start adding meta-info to each page). We could also do like then Open Directory Project does: their "Adult" subtree isn't reachable from rest of the directory, unless you enter "Adult terms into a search. So there could be an "adult.en.wikipedia.org". If the database could identify some things as "Adult", it might encourage others to copy and use the database, since they could simply pluck out the parts they don't like (this is a large reason the ODP has an Adult subtree, so people won't be afraid to copy and use their database).

As for things like fascism, we'd need to use a much more complex and flexible labeling system than RACS, since that only covers violence, nudity, sex, and language. (SafeSurf also includes bigotry, and divides "sex" into heterosexual and homosexual) Also, Encyclopædia Britannica includes articles on fascism, the Holocaust, and such, so I wasn't aware that these might be controversial articles to include in an encyclopedia, nor was I aware of the existence of "child friendly" encyclopedias that excluded disturbing subjects. -- Khym Chanur 09:21, Nov 2, 2003 (UTC)

"Fisting" might be offensive to some, but in wikipedia, one can really only read about it if you go looking for it. We don't have Winnie the Pooh redirecting to Fisting. We don't have beaver redirecting to vagina. We don't have toys redirecting to dildoes. Wikipedia is designed to help you find what you're looking for; we don't play tricks. This is an encyclopedia. We provide information. Guess what. Fisting takes place. And our article on fisting is academically written.

I put up a big fight with the shock site article. I wanted more warning to the reader. It isn't perfect now (imho), but it works well enough to warn the reader. And others have agreed to place warnings where appropriate.

Wikipedians take great pride in this encyclopedia. We work very hard at being fair, and being honest, and being comprehensive. We try to remove POV whenever possible. A rating system would be extremely POV.

With that said, we don't have parent controls and we should never have such controls. Parents *are* the control. Parents need to supervise their kids during internet time. And parents should be grateful that this site takes such care in being honest. We do not trick users into seeing things they are not looking for. Kingturtle 07:58, 3 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Consider creating a Wikipedia:Category schemes as a children friendly catalog. Actually, a friend just asked the other day about a good childrens' encyclopedia, so some combination of Simple Wikipedia] and a category scheme might fit the bill. Fuzheado 08:05, 3 Nov 2003 (UTC)

"new messages" message

I can't get rid of the "You have new messages" message. When I go to my page, it goes away, but when I leave it for another page, it's still there, even if there are no new messages since the last time I went to my Talk page. I've tried Refresh, and that doesn't help. RickK 05:36, 2 Nov 2003 (UTC)

That happens to me too. I have to open the page twice before it'll go away. Angela 05:47, Nov 2, 2003 (UTC)

Me too. I had to edit my talk page before it went away. -- Cimon Avaro on a pogostick 06:24, Nov 2, 2003 (UTC)

submitted to Sourceforge

Does this happen only when revisiting pages that you had visited with the 'new messages' flag displayed on them, and they haven't been changed in the meantime? --Brion 07:02, 2 Nov 2003 (UTC)

No, even if I look at my talk page and then open a page I haven't viewed before, the 'you have new messages' is shown on every new page until I open my talk page twice. Angela 07:07, Nov 2, 2003 (UTC)

Worksforme. Message written->read->open new page and no "new message" message Dysprosia 07:09, 2 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Worksforme too, for whatever reason. Haven't had that problem at all. I have had the problem of not being notified when I had new messages once or twice, but I think that was when there were database issues a few weeks ago. --Delirium 07:16, Nov 2, 2003 (UTC)

It's not doing it now. But it was earlier, and yesterday I think. Angela 07:17, Nov 2, 2003 (UTC)

Yes, for me it was truly persistent. I went through a whole slew of pages and purged my cache as I went, before I decided to just edit the talkpage. And editing it removed the message. -- Cimon Avaro on a pogostick 07:22, Nov 2, 2003 (UTC)

To clarify; no, the message did not go away when I opened previously unread pages, and the problem has vanished for me too, that is it no longer obtains. -- Cimon Avaro on a pogostick 07:27, Nov 2, 2003 (UTC)

Haven't quite figured it out yet, but it appears to be intermittent. Angela's ISP seems to have an oddity where some requests are proxied and some aren't, but I don't think this is directly related. --Brion 08:57, 2 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Try ctrl-f5 Lirath Q. Pynnor

Doesn't help. Angela

slowwwwwww tonight

Wikipedia is sooooo slow tonight. i just had to vent for a moment. it is really frustrating. and can get demoralizing sometimes. alas. Kingturtle 11:51, 2 Nov 2003 (UTC)

All night I've been averaging between 20 and 30 seconds per edit. Sigh. Kingturtle 11:55, 2 Nov 2003 (UTC)

We're in the ugly part of the queueing delay curve. We're about to double our hardware, but hopefully that will increase speed by far more than a factor of two. -- Tim Starling 14:30, Nov 2, 2003 (UTC)

When exactly will the new hardware be working? G-Man 19:37, 2 Nov 2003 (UTC)

When it's built and delivered and installed. Unfortunately we're in the dark on this; I only know what Jimbo says when I bug him for more info. Hopefully it should be set up within a week or so, but I'm just making up numbers here with little basis in known facts. --Brion 22:36, 2 Nov 2003 (UTC)