Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)/Archive L

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Village pump (miscellaneous) archive  

This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (miscellaneous).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

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Problems with the server I think

When I click on 'Save Page' button, it does strange, I get this message that saids

Preview

Sorry! We could not process your edit due to a loss of session data. Please try again. If it still doesn't work, try logging out and logging back in.

WTH is that, I hate that freaking message, It's too CCCCCCCOOOOORRRNNNYYY! I'm sorry I have to say it. Please get rid of this dumb-stupid-crude-freakin-unexpected message!

Spencer Karter

The server has periodic problems, but not all the time. I'm sorry if you feel the message is "corny," but it helps people who wouldn't know what to do otherwise. I think it's gonna stay, dude. :) Mike H. That's hot 08:30, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

I disagree when you said the words "I'm sorry".

Spencer Karter

At this point, I don't care whether you disagree or not. I was trying to answer your question and be nice to you, but you've been difficult with me ever since I first tried to contact you about other edits. Just forget it, dude. Mike H. That's hot 01:09, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

What would be the reason to discard session data if not intention, divine intervention or poor design? --81.173.173.166 08:41, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

PS.: Where are my session data? (Fasten)

Maybe we should add 'Have a nice day!' to the end! --24.4.113.236 19:31, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

It is a little corny, and technically Spencer's right - saying sorry in those circumstances isn't entirely accurate, since that implies that some human agency saw what was happening. A better message would probably simply say "We apologise for not being able to process your..." (which doesn't imply human intervention) and also explaining that re-saving will usually fix the problem. Grutness...wha? 00:48, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Computers should always apologise: [1] [2], full text for free: [3] -- Tim Starling 07:10, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps I should re-phrase my comment :). It's wrong to say "Sorry!", because that indicates a feeling of regret at becoming aware of something happening. We feel sorry. Since we don't actually know when this error message is going to appear, and don't get told when someone experiences this problem, we don't actually feel any specific sorrow for the event. An apology, however, is warranted, since, through no fault of the editor, his or her work has failed to be saved, due to an error at Wikipedia's end of proceedings. We don't need to "feel apologetic". As such, "We (i.e., those who are responsible for the technlogy that runs Wikipedia) apologise for this situation" makes perfect sense. Grutness...wha? 23:20, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Aren't we analyzing this just a bit too much? I was trying to be nice to him. Mike H. That's hot 01:08, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Um... I wasn't talking about your "sorry" - I was taking about the original idea that Wikipedia saying "Sorry!" in the message that appears when there's an edit glitch is corny. Grutness...wha? 01:35, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

The computer should apologise, not the people responsible for the technology that runs Wikipedia. Read the links I posted. Akgun et al found that 25% of the people receiving apologies from computers found said apologies awkward. Spencer is obviously in that 25%. He should learn to put up with it for the sake of the majority, since both studies I linked to and the previous literature on the subject are firmly in favour of the practice. It's not a question of the definition of apology, it's a question of whether computers should act like humans. As Akgun et al says: "The common point of these studies, even if there are such differences, is that the use of humanized messages in computerized environments has positive effects on users of the interface." -- Tim Starling 11:27, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

i think you missed grutnesses point. the computer should apologise, but it isnt sorry. the apology should be there but is worded wrong. BL Lacertae - kiss the lizard 21:47, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

No, the computer is sorry, very sorry. That's how computers apologise, by saying sorry. I'm not missing Grutness's point, you're just not bothering to read the article I linked to. One of the sample messages used in the paper was "Sorry, your answer is not correct. Please try again." -- Tim Starling 01:10, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

i read it. but the word "sorry" from the computer in that pissed me off in the same way it does when the wiki computer says sorry. it looks wrong every time. computers arent sorry. BL Lacertae - kiss the lizard 22:06, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Above the law?

I thought some people might be interested in Jimbo's wheel war and his subsequent comment about it. ‣ᓛᖁᑐ 03:28, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

If we are to create a free source of information for all people, we must first make sure that the source is protected, both from outside forces who wish to pervert it and from forces from within who wish to have control over it.

— User:Karmafist/manifesto

I'm pretty sure Jimbo is the law on Wikipedia. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 07:48, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

That's the problem, from my perspective. Freddie deBoer 06:25, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Feel free to make a fork, then, since "Jimbo is the law" is pretty much non-negotiable. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 06:38, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't think this is an appropriate forum for this, so I won't go into it all. I guess you just have to ask yourself, what happens when the benevolent dictator stops being benevolent? Autocracy is great until the autocrats do things you don't like. Freddie deBoer 07:13, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

We cross that bridge when we come to it. Why are you fellows so intent on running a non-profit encyclopedia-writing project like a national government (where it is difficult to either leave or fork) instead of a non-profit organisation like the Red Cross or an encyclopedia publishing company like Britannica? Johnleemk | Talk 13:33, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

All that I want is a system set up so that people who have legitimate problems with admin's decisions have a chance to express their problems, without ultimate decision making resting with those self same admins. Freddie deBoer 16:43, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

(shifting indent back) You already have that system -- it's called WP:AN, WP:VP, IRC, the mailing list, Jimbo's email, the arbcom's email, and just about any other medium of communication on Wikipedia. And unless you can provide examples of those "same admins" making the final call on their own guilt, I'll just say: I haven't stopped beating my wife yet. Johnleemk | Talk 16:59, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm a little disturbed by the fact that a pretty innocuous comment has been responded to with such anger. Never mind. Freddie deBoer 05:37, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm a little disturbed that people nowadays find tongue in cheek to be synonymous with anger. Johnleemk | Talk 13:15, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia Statistics

Hello everyone, I was just wondering why Wikipedia Statistics hasn't been updated since December 10th? With such an important milestone surely only hours away, I was rather curious!

--James 19:37, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Which page are you talking about? (Not Wikipedia:Statistics; definitely not Special:Statistics.) Could you link to it? - dcljr (talk) 21:24, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

He's referring to this page, I guess. _R_ 21:43, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, Rorro is correct.--James 22:20, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Ah. Wikipedia:Multilingual statistics has more current information. - dcljr (talk) 23:07, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

{{exists}}

I have made an modification of {{tif}}. This should be able to work on any page.

{{exists|Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)|then=[[Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)]] exists|else=nothing here to see}} gives: {{exists|Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)|then=[[Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)]] exists|else=nothing here to see}} _→AzaToth 00:19, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Maybe I'm missing something, but isn't it quicker to just type '''Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)''' exists ? Grutness...wha? 00:51, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

It's good for templates that might point to redlinks otherwise. Ashibaka tock 21:14, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Copyright absurdity

File:028fi.jpg

Clearly not an image with copyright problems

I can't see where to take this issue, so I'm bringing it up here. If anyone can suggest a more appropriate place, either in en: or commons:, let me know where to take it. Image:028fi.jpg (on Commons) was recently tagged for lack of authorship information, etc. It is an obviously contemporaneous portrait of Ferdinand and Isabel of Spain, who reigned 500 years ago. Therefore, regardless of what individual painted it, which may or may not be known, it is clearly public domain. Yet it was removed from Pope Alexander VI as an unsourced image and, I suppose, is in danger of being deleted outright. This strikes me as ridiculous. Clearly there is no copyright problem here: there is no such thing as a copyrighted 500-year-old work. This is carrying the letter of our rules on provenance to the point of absurdity. Is there something we can do to prevent the deletion of such an image? And is there something we can do to avoid having to fight about this sort of silliness in the future? - Jmabel | Talk 18:24, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

That was OrphanBot again. Rmhermen 18:41, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

So what do we do to follow it up? Where are we supposed to go when OrphanBot does absurd stuff like this? - Jmabel | Talk 19:49, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

You are supposed to go to the image description page, to add a source for the picture. Eugene van der Pijll 20:44, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

My point is, I have absolutely no idea what the specific source is, only that it is about 500 years old and therefore clearly public domain. In those circumstances, the fact that the artist's name is unknown should be irrelevant. - Jmabel | Talk 01:21, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

It is, but we need to know where the image comes from even if we don't know who painted it at the time. - Mgm|^(talk) 11:18, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Actually, despite your remark, it doesn't appear to be Orphanbot. Have a look at the history. This is actual users fighting over this. -- Jmabel | Talk 19:53, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

User:OrphanBot removed it from the Pope Alexander VI article in the diff[4]. Rmhermen 20:01, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Strange article

Have administrators had a look at Hobart Freeman? It does not seem to be an objective report. Is Wikipedia a suitable place to put articles justifying a religious group? 金 (Kim) 07:56, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Very strange. It's so POV I don't even know where to begin fixing it, but it might be notable enough that we can't get rid of it. No matter what happens, judging from the talk page, it's an edit war waiting to happen. Kafziel 08:01, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I've never seen an article that randomly switches POV back and forth like that before. Also, the explanation about the dead baby rumors and the part about the congregation's ill health are particularly odd. -- Kjkolb 09:14, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I really think some admins need to weigh in on this; in addition to being an article worshipping this guy, it's also used as an attack page on other religions, calling them "heresy" and "ungodly". Kafziel 16:28, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I gave NPOVing the old college try. Since none of the claims are sourced its hard to figure out what's what and I didn't care enough to track down resources. BTW, this article didn't require any administrator's attention. Remember, admins are not endowed with any special editorial privledges and this article did not require the use of the administrative tools. Normal editors can just jump right in!  :) --best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 01:47, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Oh, I know I didn't need an admin—I'm always jumping in the middle of arguments I don't understand with Third Opinion—I just meant that maybe a good wikilawyer might have more of an idea where to go with this. I predict it's going to take more than copy editing to keep this article from going off the deep end, but we shall see. Kafziel 18:54, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Birthday Committee

I have recently started the Wikipedia Happy Birthday Association, or the "Birthday Committee," which wishes people happy birthday using the listing found on the MetaWiki. I'm having trouble getting other people to join. Would anybody care to join by adding their name to the list found in the article here at Wikipedia:Birthday Committee and notifying me that you have joined? JaredW! 12:14, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

IRC channel/server

Is there a semi-official wikipedia IRC channel and/or server? 'Net 19:12, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:IRC. I personally recommend #wikipedia. Johnleemk | Talk 19:13, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

again a list deleted : vanity fair’s 50 greatest films of all time

i saw User:Michael Snow deleted the above mentioned list (+ a lot of others!) on feb. 16:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=delete&user=&page=Vanity+Fair%E2%80%99s+50+greatest+films+of+all+time

even if in the comments there was Girolamo Savonarola's and mine:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Copyright_problems/2006_February_7&oldid=38891442 A list in and of itself is not considered a copyvio. See Wikipedia:Public domain, section Uncreative Works. We have plenty of other "Greatest Films" lists here, such as the many AFI ones. Girolamo Savonarola 10:38, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

the arguments for me:

• i do not think there was any copyvio
• the vanity article was like 9 pages long and i took from it only the list (which means like 1/2 page!), i did not take any comment from the article
• the vanity article (dated sept. 2005) will never be published again
• the goal of vanity fair publishing such an article is: people and medias have to talk about us! "we want the list published, we want it as a reference"

so i do not see any copyvio problem, as for the majority of the ones which has been deleted, and i think this is an exagerated interpretation of it... what is the policy today? kernitou talk 09:17, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

the text can be seen: User:Kernitou/Vanity Fair’s 50 greatest films of all time

Read WP:PD#Uncreative works closely. A list of "greatest" (or "worst") things is inherently subjective and the compilation consitutes a creative act—maybe unless Vanity Fair had polled its readers and presented the list as the result of that poll. However, since they didn't explain the criterions, one must assume that it was their own creation. It's a thin line to walk on: "white page" phone books are not copyrighted, but "yellow page" phone books may be as the selection and arrangement done for the yellow pages may already be considered creative enough to warrant a copyright. Thus I think Michael was right and this list was a copyvio. (BTW, note that the amount doesn't matter. And for invoking "fair use" as a quote, I would say that the quote must not outweigh the rest of the article, as it did in this case.) Lupo 10:43, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

BTW, I also think your personal subpage is a copyvio... Lupo 10:46, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

One million users...

Looks like we just hit one million registered users... still a few thousand articles to go until that hits the million mark. *Dan T.* 02:03, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

That's amazing. Just yesterday, the number of articles exceeded the number of users. What do you suppose has caused the sudden surge in registration? --Mr. Billion 03:17, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

By the way, the millionth user was Romulus32, who hasn't made any edits yet. --Mr. Billion 03:29, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

One millionth registered user doesn't really mean much, lots of people has more than 50 accounts. Robust Physique 05:22, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Porcelain

I've been doing some work on the Porcelain article, which includes a fair amount on Chinese porcelain. What I'd like to do now is to hack out the Chinese porcelain section and post it as a new article Chinese porcelain. Most of the words in the existing Porcelain article seem to be mine, but I don't want to tread on too many toes here. I've asked for opinions on the Talk:Porcelain page, but have received no comments yet. How should I proceed? All comments would be appreciated. Regards, Nick.--Nick 16:44, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Be bold. Any mistakes can always be undone. People don't own articles, so it's not really treading on anyone's toes. Johnleemk | Talk 16:53, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Just cut and paste the whole thing to a new article and write a brief summary of the subject to leave behind in the main porcelain article, with a note to direct readers to the Chinese porcelain article. Kafziel 17:01, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the help Guys, this is what I'll do if no one objects before tomorrow. Regards, Nick. Nick 11:34, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

"On Wheels"

I want to know if there is any rule about titling articles that are about things with on Wheels in their name to clarify that the titles are serious and not titles made by Willy's page moves. Georgia guy 00:32, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

If the content starts with something like "'''"Goats on Wheels!"''' is a popular [[gameshow]] in south-western [[Alabama]]...", then you're probably okay - anyone looking at the page will see that it is, in fact, not just Goat shifted around a bit. Shimgray | talk | 00:45, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, about a quarter of an hour ago (as you can see by studying my contributions) I saw a page that had a title that I wanted clarified. Do you have any better way to clarify that it is not one of Willy's page moves?? Georgia guy 00:47, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Is there a reason we need to? Is the average reader going to have any idea who Willy on Wheels is or what he does? Or is s/he rather going to wonder why Bits on Wheels should have (serious title) appended to its title? Someone who knows who Willy is and what he does ought to know enought to check the history, check Bits and Bit, and realize that there's nothing wrong with the page. (If the link to the software's homepage didn't give it away in the first place—one external reference, which the article ought to have anyway, is clarification enough.) —Charles P._(Mirv) 00:57, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, how aware are most Wikipedians of Willy on Wheels?? Are there plenty of Wikipedians who don't know about Willy's page moves?? Georgia guy 00:59, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I would wager that there are plenty of regular editors who are only vaguely aware of Willy on Wheels, if at all. If one doesn't do a lot of RC patrolling or hang around the high-chatter community pages, it's easy to stay unaware of these things. And even regular editors make up only a miniscule fraction of the umpteen bazillion hits Wikipedia gets every day, anyway. —Charles P._(Mirv) 01:04, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Besides, if we start adding '(serious title)' to denote a real article title, won't WoW just start moving Goat to Goats on Wheels (serious title)? TenOfAllTrades(talk) 01:18, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

I say just leave a note on the talk page. To include anything in the article or title would violate Wikipedia:Avoid self-reference (just think about how much sense it would make in print!) Deco 02:00, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

special characters ... musical sharps and flats ... # b

There are many musical articles here where I can not view a # (sharp) or b (flat); I see a rectangular box. I use Win 98 with the latest version of IE. The same 'problem' exists for me when I view the same pages from a library computer. These computers use Windows XP and are brand new. I've set my own computer to ... View \ Encoding \ Unicode (UTF-8) and still do not see # and b in many articles.

One such article where I only view rectangles in place of # or b is the Stradella bass system section of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accordion

I welcome any suggestions, solutions or work arounds. Thanks, Dave Horne Davehorne 12:21, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

IE does not support these HTML entities. I strongly suggest these articles find a way to avoid using these symbols for this reason. Deco 19:02, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I installed the latest version of Mozilla Firefox and instead of seeing rectangles, I now see question marks. I welcome any suggestions. Feel free to contact me personally. davehorne@home.nl Davehorne 00:25, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Could it be that your computer does not have a font installed which supports these Unicode characters? Accordian is using basic HTML decimal coding (e.g. ♭), so even IE should handle it. Unicode and HTML suggests "you may need to install one or more large multilingual fonts, like Code2000" to get some things to display. -R. S. Shaw 08:54, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

I installed Code2000, code2001, and code2002 ... same problem. The code2000 (the largest file of the three) caused IE to crash. It could have been the combination of having all three in my Fonts dir, but I deleted them just the same. I'm back to where I started. I should also add that the new computers at my local library (Windows XP) also have the same viewing problem I have. I am open to all suggestions. Feel free to contact me privately. Thanks! Davehorne 17:44, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Most-linked article?

Is there any way to find out which .en article links to the most non-English Wikipedia articles? (In the "in other languages" toolbox on the left-hand side, I mean). I've found several articles that link to nearly 100 other articles, but there must be articles that exist in more languages than that. What about the article Wikipedia? That probably exists in nearly every language's incarnation of Wikipedia, but it's not the most-linked article I've seen.

Can anybody find an article with more other-language links than India?

(Comparing the number of other-language links in different articles is sort of fun. The Beatles aren't more popular than Jesus, but they are about as popular as God.) --Mr. Billion 10:19, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Wow, India has more links than USA! -- Chris 73 | Talk 11:10, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I was surprised, too! 127, last I looked. The only thing I can guess is it's because of the large number of polyglots in India. Though that might not be the real explanation. --Mr. Billion 17:07, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Echo chamber for an attack site

It seems to me that the article Lilian Cristina Aya Ramirez—which gets the bulk of its content from [5] on Reconoselos.com—turns Wikipedia into an echo chamber for an attack site. I have raised the issue there, but it is not exactly a heavily watched article. At the moment I've slapped an {{NPOV}} tag on it, but the general pattern concerns me: the mere fact that accusations are made against a relatively minor figure in the Venezuelan government does not seem to me like a reason to reprint those accusations without comment and with only a single source; reproducing their weasely citation ("According to the Venezuelan police archives", "Seemingly") and uncited claims ("there were official 'inverventions'") does not seem to me to do anyone any favors. - Jmabel | Talk 01:29, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't think this issue requires everybody's attention. If there's a copyright problem with material taken from that source, there's Wikipedia:Copyright problems. Otherwise, try looking for a relevant Wikiproject or more popular related articles. Deco 08:02, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

a copyright question...

Is it appropriate that I add to an article (i.e., Mens High Hurdles) a link to a compendium of statistics about the subject of that article (i.e., Mens High Hurdle Statistics) when the compendium is copyrighted and has advertising? R124c41 21:12, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't see anything wrong with that. Advertising is okay; we couldn't link to almost any news source if it wasn't. Links to sites whose purpose is selling something is usually not okay, but banner ads are fine. As for the copyright, you're not actually copying and pasting the info, right? As long as you just link to it as a reference, there's no copyright problem there. Kafziel 05:39, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Ok. Thanks. Yes, I am only linking to the copyrighted material -- not inserting it. R124c41 21:12, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

should these categories and lists remain?

Category:White rappers, Category:Female rappers, List of white rappers, List of female rappers. Why should we be categorizing rappers by race and gender, when they are in the minority?--Urthogie 14:55, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

A lot of people interested in rap find white and female rappers interesting because most rappers are not. These seem like legitimate lists/categories to me. Deco 19:39, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I think the list is a good idea for that, but the categories seem excessive.--Urthogie 19:59, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

No more so than Category:Female singers or Category:Women by occupation. Seems appropriate to me. Rmhermen 20:01, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

"Tonight"

Check it out -- the article List of sets of unrelated songs with identical titles lists TEN different songs called "Tonight", not one of which is the song from West Side Story (the best-known one)! Wiwaxia 07:04, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Er, then add it? Doesn't sound like a problem that needs wide community attention. Deco 19:01, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Mozilla.org calls us "incredible"

On two of the Firefox pages on mozilla.org, Wikipedia is described as "The incredible free encyclopedia." [6] [7] I see what concept they're trying to convey, but I don't feel that "incredible" is quite the right word to use to describe a project for which credibility is a major focus. I emailed webmaster@mozilla.org a few weeks ago to ask that the word be changed, but I've gotten no response. Anybody here affiliated with mozilla.org, could you flag the right person about this? - Brian Kendig 18:23, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't think they mean "incredible" as opposed to "credible", and I doubt anyone will interpret it that way. I wouldn't fret about it. Deco 10:49, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Who's fretting? I'm just sticking up for the English language. As I said, I know what they mean, it just bugs me they're using the wrong word for it. :) - Brian Kendig 15:31, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Mozilla is a great organisation - but they are not known for endorsing websites. Most sites think the Wikipedia is a great resource - but not always credible. I don't this was meant formally. I could contact Asa or somebody like that to make a change to remove the POV altogether. ComputerJoe 20:57, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Our featured article of the day has legal problems

Triumph of the Will has a gallery of fair use pictures. There was a notice at the bottom of the article before it was featured on the main page asking readers to view Image talk:1936NurembergRally.jpg and the article talk for a discussion of the various images' copyrights, which appeared to imply the article's images are PD -- a rather poor excuse for not just tagging them as such and uploading them to Commons, which is for galleries (Wikipedia is not for galleries of images). However, the article talk only stated:

Now from what I gathered from discussing both with Riefenstahl and with producer at Synapse Films (they released Triumph of the Will on DVD in the early 2000's) copyright status can and has been avoided in various "versions" of the film (on DVD or VHS or in screening rights). These are versions that may have been held, like the one in the Library of Congress that Synapse utilized as 'public domain' or may have been edited slightly to avoid (is that the right word ?) infringement on Transit (or Riefenstahl for that matter). I have no idea how accurate these claims are but it may help explain why you have so many differing opinions on this matter of who, if anyone, holds the film rights.

The image talk page however, had the input of someone from the German Wikipedia, who stated:

In deWP we tag PD only images older than 100 years. The reason is the fact that nearly all pictures are to be evaluated as photo work and so a protection of 70 years pma is given.

Template talk:PD-Germany, which was cited by the discussion as evidence that the image was PD, has a notice at the bottom stating that the template was TfDed due to terribly inappropriate wording, and this was only rectified by altering the template's text. Furthermore, Image:1936NurembergRally.jpg is not even used in Triumph of the Will. From this, I believe we should assume the images are not PD, as there are very stringent laws pertaining to public domain images, especially in Germany. (There was a discussion on IRC earlier about whether the images are PD -- a British statute was cited, which stated that all German works imported into Britain between 1939 and 1951 were in the public domain, but the film was first released in Germany in 1935. Furthermore, as Wikipedia is hosted in the United States and the Wikimedia Foundation is based in Florida, I believe only United States law applies to it.)

Surprisingly, this troubling issue of fair use/weak claims of public domain, was not addressed by the FAC which passed this article. When it was first suggested for the main page, I brought this issue up. The article was nevertheless slated for the main page. Indignant, I complained in more detail on the TFA talk, and on the article talk. Now today, lo and behold, the article is on the main page, with my complaint having been totally ignored! Since apparently people think this can be just brushed aside nonchalantly because, y'know, them Nazis ain't ever gonna' sue nobody for using their pictures, I've made this excruciatingly detailed and long comment, and I will cross-post it to wherever I feel relevant. See also Wikipedia:Fair_use_review#Images. Yes, I know, some will scream m:Avoid copyright paranoia. However, we have insisted on removing fair use images from people's talk pages, even though there is a zero chance of being sued for their use (really, will the US Democratic Party sue us for using their logo in a userbox?), so why should we brush this off when an article supposed to be our best work and appearing on our gateway to the world so blatantly violates the provisions of fair use and/or the definition of a public domain image? Johnleemk | Talk 15:09, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

The fact the the German Wikipedia only tags as PD images older than 100 years. ("The reason is the fact that nearly all pictures are to be evaluated as photo work and so a protection of 70 years pma is given.") is irrelevant to the procedure on the English Wikipedia and German law is not followed here only American copyright law. We really need the opinion of a copyright lawyer here as there are varied claims throughout En Wikipedia and Wikicommons about Nazi copyrights ranging from all PD, older than 50 years, older than 70 years, copyrighted if published after 1935, etc. Rmhermen 15:49, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Bandwith costs

Are advertisements inevitable seeing as how WP is growing in popularity? Is there some other plan to pay for these costs? I don't think fundraisers will be enough. Forgive me if this the wrong place to put this in. Gflores ^Talk 02:37, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

This has been brought up many times. At this point most people believe we are sustainable by donations alone. Deco 06:18, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes we will eventually have to succumb to ads. 132.239.90.209 07:19, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Bandwidth costs are a surprisingly small part of total costs. New hardware costs far more. I see no reason why we can't rely on donations permanently. I just worry that Jimbo isn't really focused on the site but marginal ideas like distributing hard copies in Africa and I don't trust him not to override consensus to raise funds for that sort of thing. CalJW 18:53, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia is far, far past this point already. The site has frequent outages and slowdowns; it looks like an amateur effort -- which is just what it is. The MediaWiki code, while it's been improved, still looks and feels as if people wrote it in their spare time -- which they did. Bandwidth itself isn't the main issue; but the complex technical problem of serving millions of dynamic pages can only be solved with the application of money.

You've really got hold of the wrong end of the stick there. The outages etc have been far less of a problem in the last 3 months than at any time since I discovered the site about 2 years ago, suggesting that we are actually overcoming these problems with the current level of funding. Osomec 00:02, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

This project gets more popular all the time and nobody seems willing to face facts. There is no business plan, is there? The entire revenue model consists of waiting until system breakdowns become intolerable, then holding out a tin cup. Alexa says this is now the 23rd most popular site on the web. CNN is #26; Craigslist is #32 -- and even that stronghold of hippie free-beer-dom charges for Help Wanteds.

I guess as long as we don't care if people laugh at us, we can just go on as we are. John Reid 07:10, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

It's always easier to point out faults than it is to join an fix things. We need more of the latter and less of the former. There are plenty of things you can help with on planning for additional revenue streams and running the foundation more smoothly. Have a look around m:Main_Page and some of the links from m:Wikimedia Foundation organigram for how to help. Also keep in mind it's actually been run phenomenally well considering the phenomenal growth in traffic that has occured. - Taxman ^Talk 04:48, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree that for something without a clear business model, it works very well. I don't think there's anything I can do to sway the big guys on the subject, either. The policy is beg quarterly and that's it. Hey, this is just my 2¢. John Reid 05:29, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Actually that's not true, there's tons of work to be done and for the most part the only reason things aren't being done better is because someone that knows how hasn't stepped up and volunteered to do it. Now of course you'd have to be able to work collaboratively to a solution people can agree on. Coming in pointing out faults generally won't get you too far though because everyone knows what is wrong. - Taxman ^Talk 12:43, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

My suggestion is unobtrusive, Google-style, subject-specific ads in a box below the current coyright box that appears at the end of every article. These ads would provide a steady, dependable revenue stream while not destroying the appearance of articles. Would some wikipedians object? Sure, just as some object to Google's ads. But Google still gets a lot of traffic, and my guess is that Wikipedia would survive, also. What I don't want is the obtrusive advertising we've already seen on Wikipedia: those begging messages that appeared at the top of every article. This is the kind of advertising that mars the appearance of the encyclopedia and really irritates me. Casey Abell 14:20, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I must say I find it kind of strange that someone would find a very mild level of begging to be worse than selling out. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 22:52, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

A very mild level of begging? For several weeks the green bar graph appeared at the top of every page of the encyclopedia, along with the begging message. It's hard to see how the ad could have been any more obtrusive and annoying. And if selling much less obtrusive ads amounts to selling out in some people's opinion, so be it. The project can use the money. Casey Abell 16:13, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

One little box on the main page. -- Banana04131 00:21, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Something along the lines of a one-line Google ad at the bottom of each page would suit me fine; my only objection might be that I'd hate to see us dependent on them alone. I'd be open to somewhat more visible begging, too; only continuously. I'd like to see a real product created that can be sold for cash. I strongly support any solution to the revenue issue that does not disrupt the project.

Running ads is not "selling out". Selling out is when you take money to alter editorial content. When we allow corporations to pay to have their desired versions of pages protected, then we have sold out. If we simply market our product then we are only doing good business. Giving it away absolutely free -- not just free beer, but beer given away freely without so much as a suggestion that you might want to toss a dollar into the bucket -- is not "integrity"; it is business foolishness.

I don't agree that the problem is that I'm not willing to share the workload. I think it's much more true that the overwhelming sentiment among Wikipedians is that any attempt to build a revenue stream is somehow evil. I think this attitude is nonsensical, especially coming from people who pay nothing to participate; but there it is and I can't think of any effective way to oppose it. Can you? John Reid (sorry; forgot to sign)

Fallen into the Twilight Zone

There appears to be an individual article for every single episode of the original telvision series The Twilight Zone. These articles are largely without any content except for a brief synopsis and a few production notes. Is this wise?

I'm taking this to the Pump because I suspect there may be other series treated in like fashion. Is there a distinct article for every episode of Green Acres and Three's Company? If so, is this wise?

For me, it's a stretch to mention some television series at all; but I wouldn't throw them out. It's going pretty far in my book to list a synopsis of every single episode; but if all such were in a single article I suppose I wouldn't object. But I see no value in endless multiplication of pages. We have over a million pages; how many of them are this sort of trivium?

I strongly disagree. I've looked at a few of the episode articles you talk about, they are reasonably long, are not stubs and are not largely without content. They simply contain the necessary content so I can see no objection whatever to their existence. I see no relevance in your million page comment and I don't know why you call this stuff trivium, to me it's simply information. To someone somewhere the material will be useful and interesting, that person happens not to be you! I believe the whole of WP is only maybe a few hundred gigabytes so space is no problem - Adrian Pingstone 10:13, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

I have a proposal - that we move episode guides to Wikibooks. In fact, I should write up a bona fide proposal for this. Note that notable episodes would still be here, but not every single one. I'm not singling out the Twilight Zone here (I've barely looked at the articles), it's just a thought I've had. WikiBooks could be a very nice environment to create episode and fact guides for TV shows. --Golbez 10:20, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Speaking as a reformed exclusionist, what's wrong with these articles? What harm do they do? I know the answer, because I used to give it myself: existence of piffle (all those stupid Pokemon articles!!!) reduces the value of all wikipedia by making it look foolish, casting doubt on serious articles. That might have been legitimate a year or two ago, but wikipedia's reputation is now a free-ranging beast in the wild, and the opinion of people stumbling across something they regard as trivia will not affect it. We should improve piffle if we like, or ignore it if we like, but don't try to kill it. - DavidWBrooks 14:43, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

I think it's more than just making the rest of Wikipedia look foolish. This stuff spreads without end. I wish most of these fan entries (do I dare call it fancruft) could move out to a purpose-specific wiki ala Memory Alpha. I don't expect anyone is going to start a Memory Saved by the Bell, but a shared fanwiki open to comics, TV, movies, etc. would be good. Ewlyahoocom 18:33, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

• Important: A recently concluded discussion on this topic can be found on Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Television episodes. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 20:21, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

To summarize that discussion: Go for it, but do it well. - DavidWBrooks 20:28, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Old Wikipedians

Excellent stuff from the young Wikipedians. Who is the oldest Wikipedian? --Bduke 11:43, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Probably me. I visited a relative on her 96th birthday a few days ago, and she was reminiscing about how she knew me when she was a little girl. :-( -gadfium 03:06, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Ouch... --TonyM ^{ｷﾀ━( °∀° )━ｯ!!} 15:32, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Young Wikipedians

Who is the youngest Wikipedian we have? The the youngest admin, the youngest bureaucrat the youngest user, it would be interesting to know all of this--M Johnson (talk • contribs) 04:58, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

The youngest admin I remember was User:LittleDan who was about 15. Rmhermen 05:08, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that Ilyanep is younger. —Kirill Lokshin 08:06, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Ilyanep is the youngest admin and bureaucrat I can think of. Johnleemk | Talk 15:09, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

The youngest consistent user I have come accross is a young man named Aidan, who asks generally very intelligent questions on the reference desk. He always signs as Aidan, age 8. Though I don't think he has an account. I'm guessing younger have edited, but that's the youngest I've come across much. - Taxman ^Talk 18:42, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

User:Aleksei is 10 years old, and is able to edit with an acccount only by virtue of Wikipedia requiring no personal information to register. Also, User:SushiGeek a/k/a User:WikiFanatic became an admin when he was 12. Ashibaka tock 04:35, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I think that's about right. Fifteen is certainly not the youngest, and I'm certain there must be quite a bit of users at least my age, and then we count into all the people who don't have accounts that have edited Wikipedia, and Wikipedia is also used in many schools, so... a five-year-old could have edited something for all we know. Amina 01:22, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

At 17, I am the youngest Arbitrator, though you didn't ask that... Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 09:43, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Template messages/Media namespace

Wikipedia:Template messages/Media namespace is on second relist now, please comment so that can be any consensus, see Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Template messages/Media namespace _→AzaToth 23:27, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Hi

I'm new here! As you can see, i am interested in oh so many subjects but I have been especially interested in the Norman conquest of Ireland and the origins of the Cambrian Normans so i propose an article again. I just read an article on modern Lords of Ireland in the Telegraph and it was factually incorrect! Newsgirl 11:50, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

• As you probably know, and as you have just seen, Wikipedia is a work in progress. If you see something that needs to be improved, we encourage you to be bold and correct it yourself! Just be sure, of course, to cite your sources. – ClockworkSoul 15:56, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

See our articles on Norman Ireland, Anglo-Norman and a couple paragraphs in History of Ireland for what we have already on this subject. It has less than a sentence mention in the article Norman conquest of England. Rmhermen 16:17, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

If you're interested in editing these articles then you may want to join Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history. Regards, Durova 23:17, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

History animation

What does a history animation tool do? CG 19:19, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

It makes an animation of each change to the article, which is sometimes interesting as a way to see the morphing of articles. An oldie but a goodie is the one on Heavy metal umlaut with a voiceover added to explain Wikipedia. - BanyanTree 17:49, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Uf! That means the tool uploads all the history of an article? Doesn't it take a lot of time? CG 20:30, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Non-Latin characters

Would someone kindly advise on what fonts to acquire (and where to acquire) in order to properly view Chinese and Japanese characters?

If you're using Windows and MS Office, the Japanese fonts are here and by searching the site you can find other languages. The Singing Badger 16:48, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Appropriate articles for 1 April, 2006

I've been wracking my brains for a good place to ask, and I figure this is the best place to do so. I'm trying to find a good article that's already an FA that hasn't already been listed on the Main Page to list on there on 1 April, 2006. I had hoped to bring an unusual article up to FA status, but I think that since the FA process takes a while, that would be unlikely. A better solution would be to list an already-FA article on the Main Page.

So my question is, what do you think are appropriate articles that are already FA, but haven't been listed on the Main Page yet? These articles should be unusual. One suggestion I saw on Wikipedia talk:Tomorrow's featured article suggests that Read my lips: no new taxes might be a good article. Any other suggestions? Thanks, --Deathphoenix ʕ 19:08, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

have you looked thru Wikipedia:Unusual articles? BL Lacertae - kiss the lizard 00:36, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I have. In fact, that's where I identified the unusual articles that are already featured articles given as examples in Wikipedia:April Fool's Main Page#Featured article. Here, it appears that spoo hasn't been listed in the Main Page yet, but there is some resistance to listing it on April Fools as can be seen in this thread. --Deathphoenix ʕ 15:49, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Yahoo! Buzz Index

I don't know if this has been noted elsewhere, but I recently noticed that Yahoo! has a chart of the most popular searches that is updated 5 times a week and Wikipedia is currently one of the more popular items (#7). The FAQs explain their method (e.g. filtering).--GregRM 15:32, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but Bettie Page is number 6 and American Idol gets the top slot... Durova 00:14, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Hey Jimbo, you should be paid for these poses

pic Apple should be paying you.

Lotsofissues 03:18, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

New Articles for Review

I have created two new articles: representative assembly and Delaval. They are embryonic. I propose to add to them in due course. Tell me what you think.

AWhiteC 00:36, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

they look good to me. dont worry about asking for reviews tho - people watch the newly created article list, and youll probably find people starting to edit and improve any articles very soon after theyre made. BL Lacertae - kiss the lizard 23:50, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

So far, so good. Keep editing. Smiles, Durova 01:22, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Title of Articles

The title of each article includes "- Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia". This is too long. It could be shortened to just "- Wikipedia". —Masatran 06:56, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

I actually disagree. First off, I hadn't even noticed that until you brought it up, and second, I think it emphasizes Wikipedia's greatest attribute, the fact that anyone can edit. btw, everyone check out Portal:Rock and Roll, or better yet, help out! We need a lot more contributorsOsbus 01:53, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Although it may be annoying when you go through so many articles, it is great for first-timers coming in through Google. It should stay, IMO. ~Linuxerist L / T 07:56, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Screenshot?

What program do I use for screenshots?--Tdxiang 陈 鼎 翔 (Talk) Chat with Tdxiang on IRC! 04:14, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

That depends on what operating system you run. On Microsoft Windows, press "PrtSc" to get a snapshot of the screen, which can then be Pasted into Microsoft Paint or any other graphics program and saved as an image from there. Pressing "Alt-PrtSc" will give you a snapshot of only the currently active window instead of the whole screen. On Linux, there are several programs available but most will depend on which Window manager you use. GIMP is usually available and it has an option to capture the screen or a selection. GIMP can also be downloaded for Windows.-gadfium 04:51, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

KSnapshot is what I normally use on Linux, though I typically use GNOME. It is very easy to use, and allows you to select regions or windows. The GIMP is nice, though kind of bulky to open just to take a small screenshot. ~Linuxerist L / T 07:58, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Unusual page

Not a list, as discussed above but Mars photos is an odd sort of gallery. Should this exist? Or maybe exist only on Wikicommons? Rmhermen 21:21, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

You're right, that is not an encyclopedic article. John Reid 01:42, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

It is not needed on commons, as there is a version there. It is definitely not needed here. ~Linuxerist L / T 15:58, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

I have listed it for deletion: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mars photos. Rmhermen 16:04, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Portal:Test

I just came across Portal:Test, and its original location Portal:Topic. Are these still needed for anything, or are they left over from when portals where introduced? --W(t) 15:42, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Astronomical catalogue

A few weeks ago while disambiguating some links, I ran across and a set of pages each one about a ring of saturn (A Ring, B Ring, D Ring, etc.) I merged them, but little did I know that I had stumbled into an astronomical catalog: List of geological features on Mercury, List of craters on Mercury, List of periodic comets, List of non-periodic comets, List of craters on Mars, List of features on Phobos and Deimos, List of geological features on 433 Eros, List of geological features on 243 Ida and Dactyl, Meanings of asteroid names (1-500), List of asteroids named after places, and on and on it goes (for some more see Category:Surface feature nomenclature of solar system bodies but I don't know if there's a "top level" page). As lists maybe they aren't so bad -- but what really distubs me is all the redlinks on each page which suggests that more pages are coming "to fill it out". This all seems to me to run afoul of Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not#Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. What do you all think? Ewlyahoocom 14:58, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

I can't speak for all the pages you mention, but I am responsible for creating the ones about geological features on moons and asteroids. Each is designed to list the named geological features on the relevant body, and provide a link to the person, place or mythological figure that it is named after. Personally, it is the latter that I am interested in, so I haven't bothered creating articles for each feature. However, some planetary geologists have begun this work - see, in particular List of geological features on Enceladus, which some users have used to create admirably detailed and useful articles for every named feature on this fascinating and extremely unusual moon. Furthermore, check out the work done by another user: List of craters on the Moon and his detailed, scholarly, referenced articles on each crater, e.g. Aristarchus (crater).

Is all of this, pointless, uninteresting information? Only if you're bored by astronomy and planetary geology. If you're actually interested in the subject, it's extremely useful and valuable. You seem to be operating from the perspective 'I personally find this unimportant, therefore it must go.' Am I right? If so, may I request deletion of the pages on Desperate Housewives? Thanks. The Singing Badger 16:21, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

But why can't the information on those lists be included in the articles about their respective moons, asteroids, or planets? What else is there to say about Mercury, for instance, if not describing its features? There's not a lot of information on its history, local customs, religions, or GDP. ;)

Gee, why not have every continent and species and feature of the planet Earth included on the Earth page! You're so provincial and it makes me glad to be of Martian heritage. Why even have an "Earth" page when "Harmless" is more than enough? Heptapod 05:19, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Maybe it would be better to make one big list of namesakes, listing everyone who has an astronomical feature named after him or her. Kafziel 16:34, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Bad idea - there are tens of thousands of these features, far to many for one list which is why we have topical lists to collect them into. If you want to know what we cann find to talk about in the Mercury article, take a look: Mercury (planet). I think there is plenty there. And we even have an entire article on the Geology of Mercury already. Rmhermen 16:48, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

That was kind of a rhetorical question. My point is that because there are tens of thousands of things in space named after people, they can't all be notable enough for inclusion here. Every guy who ever discovered a rock has named it after himself; some of the people on the lists are not particularly notable for anything except that they have something named after them, and the something that's named after them is only notable because it's named after somebody. The people who are actually notable have their own articles and don't need a list of craters on Mercury for their articles to be found. I agree with Ewlyahoocom that this pushes the boundaries of "indiscriminate information". Kafziel 17:39, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

...may I request deletion of the pages on "Desperate Housewives"? Of course you can. I haven't looked at the pages you mention; for sure I'd support a merge if we have more than a couple of 'em. I'd request a merger of these astronomical pages, but my experience with Rings of Saturn suggests it'd be a huge amount of work. May I ask: were these pages added by hand? or uploaded with automated tools? Ewlyahoocom 17:34, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

I expect we have a article for each episode, seems to be the way of things. As for merging the astronomy stuff - many of the separate lists are each longer the suggested maximum, not to mention the content of each article on each item in the list. I doubt you will gain much support for such massive merged articles. Rmhermen 17:53, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, we do. See List of Desperate Housewives episodes. Rmhermen 17:57, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

So the best way to provide this info is to break the entries out into hundreds of thousands of pages like these: ...322 Phaeo... 329 Svea... 521 Brixia... 977 Philippa... 987 Wallia...; ...56P/Slaughter-Burnham... 88P/Howell... 98P/Takamizawa... 119P/Parker-Hartley... 152P/Helin-Lawrence... 159P/LONEOS...? (I must say, I'm a lot less enthusased about having one million articles now that I know 200,000+ of them are about "snowballs and rocks" -- no offense intended!) Ewlyahoocom 18:21, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Those articles are hardly a thrilling read, but in each one the table on the right gives lots of information about the body concerned. Yes, it would be nice if that information could be given in one huge table on one page covering all asteroids and comets; however, there's too much data for such a table to fit on the screen; it would be too wide. So what we need is a list of asteroids or comets that provides links to longer articles giving more detailed information. Which is what we have. Rejoice. The Singing Badger 18:37, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

There are not 200,000 articles on individual asteroids. There are some thousands, probably less than 10,000. Most of the asteroids on the lists are not linked, much less written about. That is one of the main uses of lists - to collect all items, even ones which don't have or won't have articles. Rmhermen 19:37, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

...it would be nice if that information could be given in one huge table on one page... No, it would be nice if that information could be contained in a database where it'd be searchable and sortable and infinitely more useful and manageable. This is what you've done: taken a database; spread it out into umpteen thousand pages; converted it to wikitext, expanding its space requirements 5 or 10 fold, not counting change history; and stored back in a database, only in a much less useful way. I'll ask again: how many articles are we talking about here? What are the "top level" pages to this project? And finally, how hard would it be to move to Wikisource? Ewlyahoocom 08:38, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, there are times when a full-on list can be more efficient, especially when one is browsing rather than searching for a specific object. But anyway, to answer your questions, there is no unified 'project' as such, but the pages List of asteroids and Geological features of the Solar System are 'top level' pages. You can count the articles yourself ;). If they were shifted to Wikisource the wikilinks in the articles would presumably need to be changed, although I expect it could be done in an automated way. I must stress here that I'm not responsible for creating or managing the asteroid lists, so I'd recommend getting in touch with their main users to bring them into this discussion. The Singing Badger 14:15, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Do we have any idea of how many pages we're even talking about? The set of pages List of asteroids/1–1000 ... List of asteroids/119001–120000 alone makes me a little nervous (complete(?) list at List of asteroids). Ewlyahoocom 17:31, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Kafziel, you've got it the wrong way round. The list of craters on Mercury is not intended to help people find articles on famous people. It is intended to help people find out who the craters on Mercury are named are and then find out about them. The solution you have offered - "make one big list of namesakes, listing everyone who has an astronomical feature named after him or her" would not be any help in this regard. The Singing Badger 17:56, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Also your quoted style guide undermines your argument. See "indiscriminate information": "Wikipedia also includes reference tables and tabular information for quick reference." Rmhermen 17:59, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

The Singing Badger said that his interest in the list is not the features themselves, but the people they're named after. The "list of all the people things are named after" wasn't an actual suggestion, it was to illustrate how insane it would be to try to list all that stuff. Earth is a planet, too. Perhaps we should also have a list of every feature on the Earth that is named after a person?

And I don't see how the style guide undermines my argument; this is certainly an example of loosely associated topics—they have nothing to do with each other except that they are on the same planet. Kafziel 18:05, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

My explanation of my personal reason for creating the tables has nothing to do with the purpose for which they are most useful (finding out what a geological feature is named after). On your second point, there are very few named features on other planets and moons, so such lists are perfectly do-able (and indeed, have all been done). Furthermore, your protest that they are "loosely associated topics—they have nothing to do with each other except that they are on the same planet" is bizarre - planetary geology is precisely the study of features that are on the same planet!! The Singing Badger 18:17, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Clearly, from the sheer number of tremendously long list pages related to the topic, there are not "very few" named features on other planets and moons (or numbered, if you prefer, but a number is still a name). There are thousands and thousands of them. Astrogeology is not the study of what features are named after which people, which that list is. And the Astrgeology page doesn't attempt to list every one. It doesn't even attempt to list all the other pages that do attempt to list every one. You're comparing apples and oranges. Kafziel 18:29, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

I meant few in comparison to Earth: in other words, a manageable number. There are thousands of cities in Iowa, but that doesn't mean we can't or shouldn't use Wikipedia to compile useful directories of them. If you think there should be more content in the lists, be my guest, start adding some. I see these pages as a starting point: as evidence that there such pages can ultimately produce great work, I encourage you again to consult the superb List of craters on the Moon and the articles it links to, to see the amount of work that people interested in this subject are prepared to do, and how pages like these can be a basis for the creation of an excellent resource. The Singing Badger 22:32, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Rmhermen, are you saying that you consider wading through the approx. 120 pages starting with List of asteroids/1–1000 is somehow a "quick" reference? Ewlyahoocom 18:11, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Ewlyahoocom, the study of asteroids is an ever-growing discipline in modern astronomy. You seem to assume that asteroids are just a bunch of identical bits of rock; a quick scan of minor planet will dissuade you of that notion. Each presents its own fascinating puzzles. Yes, at the moment we have a list of red links. But asteroids are arranged by number and anyone wishing to methodically check through a selection of asteroid articles may need these lists in order to do so. It might seem preferable to simply delete from the lists any asteroid that doesn't have an article yet, leaving only those that do. However, the problem is that if anyone creates an article but doesn't add the asteroid to the list, someone using the list wouldn't know it was there. At the moment, the blue links stand out from the red links in a rather helpful way. And I really don't think this takes up too much Wikipedia space, I'm sure there's a lot more on Pokemon, a subject far less important than astronomy. :) The Singing Badger 18:21, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Should these lists get a problem here, don't forget they could readily go on Wikisource, which exists to house data of this kind. Its easy enough to make links to and from WP as required. Apwoolrich 18:54, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Wikisource might not want it. A parenthetical note has recently been added to Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not#Wikipedia is not a mirror or a repository of links, images, or media files and now reads in part Complete copies of primary sources (but not mathematical tables, astronomical tables, or source code) should go into Wikisource. I'm seeking clarification, it may only be talking about ephemerides (tables of the precalculated positions of the Sun, Moon, etc.) Ewlyahoocom 05:08, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Wikisource last fall agreed to allow scientific and mathematical reference material. Basically, we take tables of information, tables of numbers, constants, etc. If this stuff is deleted from Wikipedia, it will be taken by Wikisource.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 15:51, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

I have just corrected the wrong information about Wikisource in Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not#Wikipedia is not a mirror or a repository of links, images, or media files Apwoolrich 16:28, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

For what it's worth, my take on the asteroid list is that, for the moment at least, only a few hundred of these are probably of particular astronomical interest beyond their orbital elements and some basic classification data. But, personally, I'd consider notable any asteroid that is in the low triple digits; had a published paper; been visited or mapped in detail; is a likely Earth-crosser or has a low delta-V, or has some notable geologic or orbital aspect. :) — RJH 16:12, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

P.S. The problem I find with red links is that if you go in and remove them, somebody else will come along and put them back. I'm not sure what you do about that. — RJH 17:21, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Move to wikisource?

So I ask the main editors: are you willing to move these pages/have these pages moved to Wikisource? (I had wrongly assumed that The Singing Badger was the project leader. I've since invited the 2 or 3 other editors that seem to have had a hand in creating these lists and pages but if I've missed anyone please invite them to this discussion.) Ewlyahoocom 08:06, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Object — Please clarify what you mean by "these pages"? Do you specifically mean all of the asteroid pages? In that case yes I would object quite strongly. But if you just mean those asteroid pages that contain only emphemeris data and have no possibility of being expanded into an article the near future, then I'd be a little more neutral. My complaint then would be that you might lose the tie-ins to the asteroid explorers. — RJH 22:58, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

I personally would have no objection provided that (a) usability will not be impaired (i.e. that wikilinks between Wikipedia and Wikisource and vice versa will be simple and direct) and (b) since there is no 'project' or 'project leader', this should not be done suddenly; plenty of notice should be given on the talk pages of the lists involved, requesting interested parties to discuss the matter here.

Also, Ewlyahoocom, could you put together an exact list (!) of the pages (or at least the top-level pages) that you wish to put on Wikisource, so that we know precisely what we're talking about. Some may be more suited than others.

By the way, I apologise if my tone was rather rude in the discussion above; I thought you were advocating deletion of the pages, rather than relocation. The Singing Badger 15:39, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

What exactly are the pages you want to move? Lists? Looking at Wikisource:What_Wikisource_includes I see this exclusion:

Wikisource, in its effort to collect source texts, often has to deal with the issue of lists. As almost any list is not itself a source text, Wikisource policy is to remove any list from its database, the reason being that lists are user-compiled and heretofore unpublished works.

That does not sound like those would be welcome there. If you propose entries like 152P/Helin-Lawrence as going to Wikisource, I do not see how that would fly either, since they would only accept a source like a database, I think. Are you sure you are not actually proposing to delete these articles? Awolf002 14:10, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

NASA or somebody must have these lists as well. It's not just an arbitrary listing. If that's the case, then the official list is not "user-compiled" and Wikisource is the place for it. Kafziel 14:36, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Although I think putting all this data into any wiki is a bit misguided (a purpose built system linking an astronomical database and a wiki would be much more appropriate), a lot of work seems to have gone into the compilation of these pages and I can respect that. The above comments by Apwoolrich and Zhaladshar (users far more familiar with Wikisource than I) have indicated that Wikisource would accept them.

As for a list of which pages should be moved, I'm currently working on one, or rather the heuristics to create a list (start with the set of pages that transclude some certain templates, then eliminate those which could be encyclopedic). I suspect, however, that any list I can create will be criticised for being both too inclusive (e.g. differing opinions on what is encyclopedic) and too exclusive (i.e. the relocated project may be considered by some to be "incomplete"). Ewlyahoocom 15:26, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

I still oppose moving these types of pages at all. Rmhermen 23:04, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

I strongly object to the move to Wikisource. Although I have not created or even worked on any of the asteroid articles, I do work on similarly "obscure" (whatever that means) articles. Is Wikipedia really being harmed in some way by having information about mountains on the Moon? This is all factual, verifiable, information that is, as mentioned above, arguably of more importance (especially in the long run) than actors, obscure movies, or types of robots in a comic book series (not that I am advocating the removal of those...well, maybe the robots). (I admit that I am shifting attention here) We have articles for mountains, and even minor hills, on the Earth. Numerous slippery slope arguments could be given that might suggest in particularly pessimistic cases that no article is safe from removal.

There is really no central repository that even could contain as much information on astronomical objects as Wikipedia: not NASA, not SIMBAD, and not even Wikisource. NASA does not even have a comprehensive database of minor planets (AFAIK). SIMBAD and Wikisource, although they could have information about large numbers of these objects, do not have narrative information about history, observation, research, etc. Furthermore, Wikipedia can properly explain data disagreements and include sources and links (which are absent in a surprisingly high number of online compilations). Ideally, I think every article would contain information that cannot simply be put in a database (except in a sort of "notes" field) (this is a good place for a counterargument—this is an unobtainable goal).

This information does not ordinarily have some of the problems that other articles do. Many articles on astronomical objects are almost inherently NPOV by virtue of being the subject of scientific analysis. Sources are conveniently searched (if one knows where they are), as many papers and databases are available online for no charge. Finishing with a cliché (in this sort of discussion at least), Wikipedia is not paper. Ardric47 18:12, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

"although they could have information about large numbers of these objects, do not have narrative information about history, observation, research, etc."

That's our point. Neither do 99.99% of the items on these lists. An article that has some content is one thing. A list of red links (links that no one has any real hope of ever creating quality articles for) is another thing completely.

Another thing - are you saying that no one has records of asteroids as comprehensive as the ones on wikipedia? If that's the case (which seems like one of the most absurd things I've ever heard), then what are the sources for these lists? Are editors just making these numbers up? Where are they getting them from? Wherever they're getting them from, those are the media that should be on wikisource. Kafziel 18:27, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

I do not think that is the situation at all. I think most editors do provide you with the source of the data as is required. What I read (and agree with) is that there is no single source where you can find the general info on an asteroid or comet or crater (etc) and background info on the eponym or the discoverer(s). That seems a unique strength of WP we should not throw away. Awolf002 19:41, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't think anybody is advocating throwing it away. We're suggesting putting the source materials (however many there may be) on wikisource. That will maintain a central point from which to draw the information. As meaningful articles are created, they can return to wikipedia one by one. Kafziel 19:48, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

I think that is a terrible precedent and an unworkable idea. Articles cannot be developed on Wikisource and then moved back here. If you are looking for something to trim - for whatever your reasons may be- why not start with Pokemon, TV episodes, minor literary characters, etc. Wikipedia does not discourage lists anyway and so far it seems that your argument would apply to any list or almanac type material. Rmhermen 21:39, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Right, just to clarify, I meant what Awolf002 is saying. Regarding the lists of links that are mostly red, what constitutes a quality article? Ardric47 00:06, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia doesn't discourage list which have red lists but does discourage linking items in lists which should not have articles. Notice how the lists of asteroids do not link names where too little information is known to write an appropriate article. I, myself, had to ask why some names were in italics and that is the answer I received. Rmhermen 23:04, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Troubleshooting with Wikipedia

Lately, when I enter Wikipedia pages logged-in, it just happens that I get a message about some problem that allows the page to open slowly, asking me whether I would like to abort. Any way, besides logging off, that can keep this from happening in the future?? 66.32.191.204 21:16, 20 March 2006 (UTC) (Note that this is User:Georgia guy not logged in for convenience when it comes to this.)

Formal/informal articles

Has anyone else noticed that our articles about formal are about mathematics and computer science, when the average user is probably going to be looking for formal/informal speech/behaviour/dress/etc. in the etiquette sense? The formal article sums this up in two sentences hidden in the "Other examples" section: "Formal occasions such as a formal dinner party or high tea might require one to wear formal attire such as an evening gown or tuxedo. An example is Formal Hall." and "As an adjective, formal means being in accord with established forms (this links to the article on form - nothing to do with established forms) or the antonym of informal (redirects to computer science article) (or casual)." In fact, the casual and formal wear articles are the only two I could find referring to the common etiquette usage of 'formal' at all! Nothing on formal speech or behaviour or anything! Any ideas? +Hexagon1 (talk) 13:20, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I turned it into a proper disambiguation page, but it needs some cleanup if you'd like to do that. Each topic where the word is used needs to make the topic clear and link to our articles about it. We should list every important use of the topic, and in the disambiguation page itself, not focus on one meaning over the others. Informal as a redirect to formal grammar is a terrible idea in my opinion, but I didn't search around for a better one. One could argue it should just be a disambig of it's own or a redirect to formal. Have a look at Wikipedia:Disambiguation for ideas on how to improve that one and ways of finding appropriate topics in general. - Taxman ^Talk 16:36, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

External Links

What is the policy about adding external links to an article? I have read that an externally-linked site should have minimal advertising and a minimal profit-oriented presentation. Basically I would like to add some links from Wikipedia to some of my website pages1728 . For example, the Wikipedia article about polygons is very thorough but wouldn't it be good to include a link to a polygon calculator? I was just wondering because I have dozens of calulators at my website and was wondering what your policy would be if I linked Wikipedia to some of these. (My website has been online for 7 years and has never had 1 advertisement and never has requested contributions). Thank you. --Wolf1728 22:54, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

The dominant criteria should be the amount of useful information in the linked site. There are a few hardliners who want Wikipedia to cut itself off any connection with the real world and its advertising, but they can safely be ignored. There are already vast numbers of links to sites with advertising. However, you should exercise caution in linking to sites with which you have a personal connection. Only add them if you can genuinely say that they offer strictly relevant material that no other link in the relevant article offers. Choalbaton 01:17, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

One editor tried an excellent approach at a page where I edit: they posted a link to the talk page, disclosed their connection to the firm, and asked other editors to evaluate whether it was appropriate. Durova 14:41, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

That's a good policy, just don't overdo that either. Repeatedly arguing about it is just disruptive. If your links are considered good, someone will add them. The general policy is at WP:EL. - Taxman ^Talk 16:38, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Suspicious Orwellian "Missing Information"

Hey there. I'm really new to the network and I love this site. I've been reading a lot recently about changes in the world. I'm planning on moving to a 3rd world country and some things have been of concern to me.. Namely, what conflicts are nearby, should I be worried about diseases, etc...

During my research I started looking into this new Bird Flu Epidemic, wondering if anywhere is safer then the rest.. I saw on your global map that North America is clean of any incidents... Not so. When I was living near Princeton BC, there was a big debate over the millions of chickens they were transporting there to be incinerated..

Perhaps my web searching skills are limited but it took me a long time to find this article and when I did find it, it was on an site based in the Netherlands... Anyone have any input to share with me about this? I find it baffling that such a huge amount of birds being slaughtered could be so hard to find in the local governments database... Am I krazy?

• Article from http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:HGadC44RrC8J:www.nieuwsgrazer.nl/forum/read.php%3Ff%3D1%26i%3D18771%26t%3D18202+similkameen+bird+incinerator&hl=ja&gl=ca&ct=clnk&cd=1

Canada: Protesters block landfill entrance as shipping of avian flu carcasses begins; Plans to burn carcasses at the Similko Mine incinerators are being opposed by nearby Princeton's town council with support from the Okanagan Similkameen Regional Distri Auteur: ton (---.speed.planet.nl) Datum: 15-04-04 00:28

... "There's a little bit of anxiety from people that do that work that we may be introducing an unknown epidemic in the Interior needlessly," he said. ...

++++++++++++++++ canada news

Protesters block landfill entrance as shipping of avian flu carcasses begins

CACHE CREEK, B.C. (CP) - British Columbia's agriculture minister tried to calm residents worried the disposal of avian flu-infected chicken carcasses could spread the disease, but about 100 of them protested by blocking a highway. "This is an emergency situation across the province and it requires a provincewide response like we saw with the forest fires last summer," John van Dongen said at a news conference Tuesday.

Earlier in the day, protesters opposed to the dumping of poultry carcasses at the landfill at the Interior community of Cache Creek blockaded the road into the facility, staring down RCMP in the process.

Van Dongen said no birds have been shipped to Interior landfills or incinerators and transports will not begin until strict protocols are finalized.

He said he hoped those protocols would be established later Tuesday but that any affected communities would receive 24 hours notice of chicken carcasses being shipped.

The minister appealed for assistance from British Colmbians in dealing with the crisis.

"We are not trying to shift our problems somewhere else," van Dongen said.

"I am a farmer myself. I don't want avian influenza in the Interior nor do I want a bunch of rotting carcasses lying in the Fraser Valley because of internal squabbling in British Columbia."

About 19 million birds will be culled in the Fraser Valley, just east of Vancouver, in an effort to wipe out the form of avian influenza that has infected 25 farms.

The birds are to be disposed at landfills in Cache Creek and Chilliwack, in the Fraser Valley, and at incinerators in Princeton in the southern Interior and Burnaby, a Vancouver suburb.

Cache Creek Mayor John Ranta and others in his community are concerned trucking the dead poultry into the Interior raises the possibility the virus will be exported to their region.

Ranta took part in the morning protest and returned for a rally Tuesday afternoon.

He said the community's landfill is not equipped to deal with hazardous and special waste.

He said the provincial government's plan to use the site to dispose of 300 tonnes of carcasses infected with avian flu is a violation of agreements to use the site for household waste.

"We agreed to take household waste," Ranta said. "The province cannot trample the rights of the people.

"It's not just local people that are (angry)," he said. "I've had calls from around the province saying 'Stick to your guns, don't let the province ram this down your throat.' "

Health and agriculture officials have already blamed human traffic for transporting the virus between farms.

Ranta has demanded a meeting with Premier Gordon Campbell to find a solution to the issue.

The area around Cache Creek is dotted with cattle ranges but Ranta said exotic birds such as pheasants and ostriches are raised commercially in the area.

"There's a little bit of anxiety from people that do that work that we may be introducing an unknown epidemic in the Interior needlessly," he said.

"It's seems like a ludicrous prospect to transport diseased chickens around the province," he said. "(Authorities) should not risk, sort of, the cross-contamination of the province."

The protesters believe the carcasses are a problem for B.C.'s Lower Mainland and should be disposed of there.

RCMP Sgt. Jerry Fiddick said the mood at the protest was peaceful.

"They're just not willing to move," the commander of the five-man detachment said. "We're not calling in anyone extra at this point."

RCMP officials from the nearby Kamloops district detachment are monitoring the situation, however.

The entrance to the landfill is on the Trans-Canada Highway, which the police intend to keep open.

At least one truck was prevented from entering the landfill, even though it was not carrying dead birds.

The demonstration was organized by Chief Mike Retasket of the Bonaparte Indian band.

In addition to disposing of birds in Cache Creek, others are being put in the Chilliwack landfill 160 kilometres east of Vancouver. Others will be incinerated at two locations, one in Burnaby and the other near Princeton, B.C.

Plans to burn carcasses at the Similko Mine incinerators are being opposed by nearby Princeton's town council with support from the Okanagan Similkameen Regional District.

It's not the incinerating that worries Mayor Keith Olsen.

Rather, it's the area's high rate of motor vehicle accidents around the area's bridges that worries him. He fears a crash involving carcass trucks could spill infected birds into creeks that feed into the Similkameen River.

"If it got into the Similkameen River, it goes all the way down through the Similkameen Valley, down across the line and eventually into the Columbia (River)," Olsen said.

"It could have real bad repercussions if there was an accident."

Van Dongen said experts will be holding town hall meetings in the affected communities to assure people and to answer their questions.

Chilliwack Mayor Clint Hames has received some calls of concern, but he said he's satisfied there is no health threat to humans or animals.

"We want to be part of the solution. Farming is our bread and butter here," Hames said.

"The long-term risks are non-existent. These birds, once they get composted, are going to cook up real fast and that eliminates the virus."

Van Dongen said authorities held a test burn at the Burnaby incinerator and will hold a second one before working out a timeline for when the chickens will be incinerated. ++++++++++++++++ Bron: MyTelus, April 13, 2004 http://www.mytelus.com/news/article.do?pageID=canada_home&articleID=1584144

First this is not a debate forum. Second this was two years ago and is it a different bird flu, not the somewhat deadly to humans Asian bird flu. Rmhermen 14:48, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

The name of Padangpanjang

Change town name: Padang Panjang (separated) became "Padangpanjang" (not separated)

Dear en.wikipedia op/sysop, I am contributor from id.wikipedia, Indonesia citizen, Padangpanjang is my hometown... and new to en.wikipedia.

Padangpanjang is one small city in west sumatra province, Minangkabau, Indonesia. The written of Padangpanjang as "Padang Panjang" ( written separated) as in en.wikipedia do is wrong.Actually Padangpanjang city originally named and written as "Padangpanjang" (not separated).You can see [Indonesian Wikipedia] about Padangpanjang for further recomendations in Padangpanjang naming system.

Can you help me change this fault to the right one it should be?

Then help please move the content of article about "Padang Panjang" into "Padangpanjang" (should be written not separated).

Thanks...Hendry Allen 05:24, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

This appears to be disputed see Talk:Padang Panjang. Rmhermen 15:31, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Red question marks

All the red links have turned black (though they're still active links) and are followed by a red question mark in my browser. What's going on here? Is this a new "feature"? How come no one told me? Do I get to vote on whether I like it or not? Denni ☯ 01:27, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Check your preferences, there's an option to switch your view between that, and the normal method. Then force a reload of the page (shift-ctrl-f5 works for me) to make sure the proper CSS is loaded. Sometimes the style sheet hiccups. --Golbez 07:08, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Feeback wanted on the browsebar

Categories · Glossaries · Lists · Overviews · Portals · Questions · Reference · Site news · A-Z Index

Arts | Biography | Culture | Geography | History | Mathematics | Philosophy | Science | Society | Technology

The above is the browsebar, which nowadays shows up in a lot of places on Wikipedia. See discussion about it at Template talk:Browsebar#Is this bar useful?. Thanks. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 22:59, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia's longest article?

Good day,

Does anyone know what is Wikipedia's longest article?

I have been asking myself this question for a long time know, and I was wondering if anyone knew the answer.

Thanks a lot,

Guimauve2

As a rule, articles shouldn't exceed a limit. Longer articles are broken into pages. 132.239.90.150 18:26, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

World War I and World War II could be up there, at 86kb a and 83kb, respectively. Kafziel 18:57, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

You can find out the answer here: here. The Singing Badger 19:27, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

The page is a little out of date but, aside from lists, tables, and wikisource candidates, Frizzell County Championship Division One in 2005 (and its counterpart, Division Two) are the longest. Still a lot of sections and tables there, though. As far as articles consisting mostly of prose, Plame affair is among the longest, but it's disputed and very unstable. At 138,000kb, it looks like Race is the longest quality article (it's featured). Kafziel 19:51, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

It might be List of townships in Minnesota in terms of visible text, or List of Statutory Instruments of the United Kingdom, 1996 if Wikitext is included, because of the numerous external links. There is a page Special:Longpages, but it's possible that that list is significantly outdated. Ardric47 08:32, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

I just noticed that the "here" above was a link to Long pages. Ardric47 08:33, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

change the panama canal article

Change the panama canal article please. It has some unfortunate and misintreprented lines that shames this article. You will know what I mean when you pass the "toll" section as well as the "current issue" section of this article.

Could you be more specific? And please consider changing it yourself. Rmhermen 17:16, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject Sicily

I would like to announce the start of the WikiProject Sicily, to fill in the many gaps that currently exist on the political structures, geography, culture and history of Sicily and related biographies of Sicilians. Please come to the above project page to register your interest. There is still a fair bit to translate from Italian and Sicilian - it's only early days yet. For starters, most of the Sicilian municipalities (comuni or cumuna) need to be done. Otherwise I would appreciate any input from anyone who knows anything about setting up project pages. Thanking you in anticipation. Grazzî assai e salutamu! ρ¡ρρµ δ→θ∑ - (waarom? jus'b'coz!) 10:01, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Commons accounts

Earlier tonight I created an account on the Commons to upload a couple images that are in the public domain. I don't forsee ever really checking the Commons account very often at all since I just used it for those two images. Is this a common thing? Are there many English Wikipedians who have virtually dormant accounts at the Commons? Just curious... Dismas|^(talk) 06:20, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

I would say that the vast, vast majority of commons accounts are ghosts. Not mine. :) --Golbez 07:06, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

I see. Thanks! Dismas|^(talk) 19:56, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

I believe the devs are working on a single login feature that will make Wikimedia accounts global throughout its webspace, which should improve on this.  Denelson83  10:06, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

ISBN hoaxes

On Wikipedia:ISBN I see:

ISBN and Amazon.com registration have been abused in attempted hoaxes on Wikipedia in the past.

When?! I've never heard about this. Ashibaka tock 15:43, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Request for review

-edit- when I first posted this request I was unaware of WP:PR, thanks to Gadfium I know now. hence previous request has been moved to WP:PR#9/11 conspiracy theories for sake of coherence. Please go there if you wanna participate in this review. All comments and addition to improve the overall quality of 9/11 conspiracy theories are still welcome. Izwalito 07:08, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Such requests should be put at Peer review.-gadfium 04:40, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

thanks for advice, on my way... Izwalito 06:50, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Commons material

Is anyone trying to clear up the back log on the material that has been moved over to Commons? For example, at the moment there are 7,425 items tagged {{NowCommons}} and further 1,242 that are tagged {{NowCommonsThis}}. Any admin suffering from moderate/severe editcountitis could easily bolster their edit count by clearing this up. --Lendu 17:02, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Deleting images does not increase your edit count :P I've done a few, but the problem is it's a lot of work sometimes. Also I've never been quite sure what to do with images that are not identical, a lot of images marked "now commons" actualy point to slightly different images, such as a different image of the same object, or a higher resolution version of the same and so on, and sometimes the comons version was copied from a different language Wikipedia and so on. I'm not always sure how to go about it considering the GFDL requirements for preserving history and what not. Basicaly I have given priority to dealing with untagged images and blatantly mistagged images and such. I think the general attitude about the "now commons" images is that we are waiting for the one click "move to commons" button and global login to be implemented :P Although I guess that won't help with the old images that are already on commons... --Sherool (talk) 16:01, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

"Britannica Stands By"

What an apt title would that be for anyone wishing to cover the recent corporate response by Britannica to Nature's study. This phrase - "We stand by our editorial decision" etc. - is used dozens of times in response to reviewer's criticisms. Just imagine that, the Britannica monolith helplessly "standing by" as more agile competitors overcome it :)

Seriously, it's very instructive reading. It's interesting how closed, defensive, and corporateish they choose to look - and apparently they're proud of that. Their only goal was obviously to stave off as much criticism as possible, to strike back, to triumph. All of their energy went into discrediting Wikipedia, the Nature, and the reviewers. (They even chose not to call Wikipedia an encyclopedia - no, it's just a "database." What a pathetic bite.)

They indicate errors in the reviewers' criticisms. That's fine, but hey, if the reviewers did wrongly accuse Britannica of non-existent errors, isn't it likely that they did the same to Wikipedia? Or were the reviewers biased against Britannica? Fortunately, Britannica does not claim _that_. But it does present a healthy dose of double standards - like referring to similar criticisms as "fundamental shortcomings" in Wikipedia and "editorial decisions" in Britannica.

I think it's enough to compare the responses of the two encyclopedias to the same event to see who owns the future.

See also Wikipedia:Village_pump_(news)#Encyclopaedia_Britannica_responds_to_Nature_study where this is also being discussed. There is now a response from Nature. http://www.nature.com/press_releases/Britannica_response.pdf --Salix alba (talk) 00:35, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, I guess it was smarter to examine Nature's findings and fix those that were truly wrong than blindly take every one of Nature's suggestions. The Psycho

Yes, it's a poor response that doesn't work in their favour. Britannica's stance should have been to highlight those areas where the Encyclopedia Britannica has a natural advantage and exploit them. The failure to do this indicates ineptness in their management, something that even Robert McHenry has criticised them for. Alan Pascoe 11:56, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Friendly templates

Per WP:BITE, I'd like to get to a position where we have a collection of "friendly" templates for use in user Talk space in relation to deletion and other housekeeping actions. I have nn-userfy for userfied autobiographies and user-nnband for non-notable bands speedied under A7, I am sure there's an AfD friendly notice somewhere around, and there is obvious scope for more, many of which may indeed already exist. It would be good to collect them at WP:UTM as a class. What do other people think? Just zis Guy you know? 14:30, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

I am very much in favor of this. I proposed a something similar for the Cleanup tags (discussion here) a few days ago. I can say from personal experience that many new users are turned off by the immediate and negatively-toned criticism of their work, or worse, having their non-notable material deleted. Thia is an excellent idea. --TeaDrinker 00:10, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

One million people in the world survey

This survey is conducted amongst Wpians. One million people in the world did contribute to one million articles in the English WP. I should like to collect more precise facts about that event that took place around Feb. 2006.

The survey is launched simultaneously in Reference Desk/Misc and Village Pump/Misc.Please only give an answer here ; results, if of any help, can become a [ [Wikipedia:million survey] ] entry.

Reference deskers should only be allowed to guess and Village pumpers should try to give accurate numbers. Then we’ll mix results.

1) How many words did each user write in WP (main) ?

2) How many are left by user after refactoring, &c. ?

3) In which countries are located those users ?

4) What kind of curve depicts the distribution of contributions per user ?

5) How many hits reach the most accessed pages in WP (our statistics are as old as 2004) ?

6) What are the fact numbers and comparisons that could be exploited in paper, broadcast or web media to promote WP (like "The population of Fiji, or Estonia, or one quarter of Toronto ... contributed ..." or "This project compares only to the Pyramids for the number of people involved.")

Thank you for your answers. --DLL 20:23, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

It's an utterly meaningless survey, since we don't have anything close to a million people contributing (just a million accounts, and I would guess that 80% are blocked sockpuppets of one vandal or another). Kirill Lokshin 20:26, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Simplification is not my goal. A panel of article histories may be analysed and help better understanding of the true making of WP. See also WP:RD/M. --DLL 20:49, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

User Wikipedia Entries

if you go to my userpage, you will notice a link to a subpage for what my wikipedia entry would look like if I had one. I would encourage others to do the same. My userpage has a section for you to add links to these. However, please make it a subpage, and make it look like a genuine wikipedia entry (not like an Uncyclopedia entry.) Smartyshoe 12:46, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't recommend doing that, it encourages stalking. :) Ashibaka tock 16:25, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Ah, what joy to delve into a 13-year-old's mind who has no qualms about posting info about his grandmother online... Osbus 17:40, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Most interwikis

Anybody know which article has the most interwiki links? India has the most that I could find. Tuf-Kat 23:35, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Wow India has 146, yet Wikipedia only has 119. -- Zanimum 17:20, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I think there's a lot of small wikis in Indian languages, so India-related topics probably have a relatively high number of interwikis. Tuf-Kat 00:42, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Bonnyrigg Vandalism

Hi...

Not sure if this is the right place but wondering if an admin could look at this.

Bonnyrigg article keeps getting vandalised by someone with IP 88.108.64.209

Have changed back a few times to no avail.

Can someone temporary block/warn them/whatever gets done.

Many thanks

Im not an admin so I cant handle it, but it looks like it may have stopped for a while - if it happens again WP:VIP is the place to go. BL Lacertae - kiss the lizard 00:38, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

"End Notes" style of links reduces readability

As per this message left for Jimbo, I am deeply troubled by the "end notes" style of links in certain articles. I am convinced that this style of external links is degrading the quality of the wiki. See Rationale to impeach George W. Bush and Killian documents for example pages with this problem. Merecat 08:29, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree the extra step to get to an external link is a bit annoying, especially if attempting to access multiple references. I don't agree they're difficult to find. [18] should go to endnote 18 at the top of your browser. If it doesn't because it's near the end of the endnotes, you can still easily find note 18 that you clicked on. I also think they're good for if a link disappears, it's easier to find a copy if you have the title etc. information than just a URL.

I'd love a reference style that gave you the option of going directly to the link (if online) or to the endnote with the reference info, but I don't know if that's possible or if it could be made to be attractive and unobtrusive within the text. 65.33.156.96 14:59, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Odd request

I've added mention of the alleged sex assault controversy to the Duke University page. While I spent a while writing it up, I don't really want to have to monitor it much further (I'm busy and not an American so the issue only holds limited interest to me). But I was shocked to discover the issue wasn't mentioned at all in the article before I added it. Is anyone willing to take over and update as necessary? Hopefully other wikipedians will do so without me asking but having seen it not mentioned at all until now, I'm somewhat disillusioned and I'm a bit afraid it will just dissappear Nil Einne 21:18, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

J[ay] Alexander

I don't believe the subject of the Jay Alexander article actually goes by "Jay". According to the IMDb and the credits of America's Next Top Model, he goes by "J." Can anyone show me I'm wrong? If not, I'm going to move the article to J. Alexander. - dcljr (talk) 19:03, 3 April 2006 (UTC) Note: I don't even know if his full first name really is Jay, as opposed to, say, John or something else. - dcljr (talk) 22:38, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

planetmath

Hi,

I contibute for wikipedia fr and I ask myself if i can translate a proof of planetmath.org into french and put in in wikipedia.

Thanks all for any answer. Utilisateur:Oxyde

Yes. See Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/PlanetMath Exchange for more details. --Salix alba (talk) 16:10, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Bono- a vandal?

First, sorry if I'm posting this in the wrong place. This seems quite interesting. Check out this link it seems to suggest that Bono may be a wikipedia vandal! (Gasp!) Amusing, eh!

While it's possible there are several flaws in this suggestion. 1) Des Moines Register hardly sounds like the most reliable source. 2) I don't know whether the Make Poverty History campaign can really be called a group but even if it can, there is no evidence to suggest Bono actually approved or is even aware of these tactics if they are ongoing. Also although partisan editing of article is generally frowned upon it's hardly vandalism (see the discussion of what vandalism is and isn't). If they are solely adding additional accurate information their actions although still probably frowned upon (as they run the risk of ruining NPOV) aren't as bad as the actions of some politicians who have removed or hidden existing accurate information Nil Einne 21:10, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

The Des Moines Register is a fine daily newspaper, one of the best statewide papers in any small U.S. state. It's a good source of information - certainly better than a lot of sources we use here! - DavidWBrooks 22:17, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

See Talk:Jim Nussle which seems to suggest there is some truth in the claim. --Salix alba (talk) 16:22, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Where's Accolade?

Help! Someone's killed the Accolade article that I wrote over a year ago! Now it redirects to embrace, of all places. It was an article on the game company. It was longish and full of details. Now it's gone and looking at the page's history, my original versions (and all the other edits by other Wikipedia editors) are gone! What happened to it?

This happened to another article I wrote on Trip Hawkins years ago. Someone vandalised the page and an admin deleted it. It was restored a few days later, but I have no idea how long the Accolade article's been gone (Google cache of the article). Can someone help me find out what happened? TIA — Frecklefoot | Talk 15:06, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Its now at Accolade (firm) which seems a sensibe name Accolade (company) might be better. I'd make Accolade redirect to Accolade (disambiguation). --Salix alba (talk) 15:33, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

I was unable to find any policy/guideline about it, but I think that Accolade should be a disambiguation page instead of redirecting to Accolade (disambiguation). Is there any advantage to doing it that way? -- Kjkolb 03:05, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree. I don't know anything about the video game company, but I certainly wouldn't expect to go to Embrace if I typed accolade into the search box. ISTR that "XXX (disambiguation)" is mainly used if there's one specific primary topic that the main name can refer to (f'rinstance, we don't use "San Francisco" as a dab page because 99.9% of people saying "San Francisco" will mean the Californian city). In the case of accolade, I doubt that 99.9% of people would be looking for the information at Embrace (in fact, I'd say more will be looking for Award). So having Accolade as the name for the disambiguation page makes quite a bit of sense. Grutness...wha? 04:21, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Sean Black moved Accolade (disambiguation) to Accolade. -- Kjkolb 10:31, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

I would suggest you ask this question at the policy village pump page or perhaps the help since you will probably get more responses. Having said that, I disagree with the current consensus. (disambig) is and should used for disambiguation pages when there is one clear article that should have the primary title. In this case, as all other mentions of accolade are extremely minor issues, really things that are dictionary questions rather then encylopedic ones. You are fairly unlikely to visit accolade to find out about the meaning of the word since it's a question for a dictionary. As such, I feel accolade should be for the game company with a link to the disambig page Nil Einne 21:26, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree. About 99.9% of the "What link here" items are for the game company. For right now, the game company is at Accolade (company) (though they were a publisher too). I'd like to sort this out before I change all the "what links here" to that. — Frecklefoot | Talk 14:58, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

backlog on Wikipedia:Copyright problems

The backlog on Wikipedia:Copyright problems has grown over one month now. _→AzaToth 03:37, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Institutions

Wikipedia serves as all Wiki Projects' highest form of governemnt; I don't think that's right. I think that Wikimedia should be where Help, Reference Desk, Proposals, Policy, etc. should be located. Also, Beer Parlour & Tea Room should be deleted, etc. & if there are any other institutions like as mentioned in this comment, then they should be deleted to. User pages should also be consolidated into 1 central location, namely Wikimedia, or a separate place, but these are draft ideas, but the general idea, would organize Wikimedia & save resources. Taking the point of saving resources, Accounts should be allowed to be deleted.

Please leave one if you'd like more clarification on this issue. You could also contact me <redact> [since they haven't instituted the option to delete your account, made their own licence, or the GNU licence hasn't changed yet, I haven't signed up].

thanks

24.70.95.203 14:23, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

See http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page Martin 13:11, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. I went to the link, & I noticed that all Wikimedia Projects including Wikimedia is sorely disorganized;, still, the above issue has not been addressed;: on the link, nowhere was there Refernce Desk, Compliants, Help Desk, etc.. Also, Wikitionary has no links in any part of its entirety which would lead to Refernce Desk, Compliants, Help Desk, etc.. Coudn't there be a project or devlopers clean this mess up?!?!

Please leave one if you'd like more clarification on this issue. You could also contact me <redact> [since they haven't instituted the option to delete your account, made their own licence, or the GNU licence hasn't changed yet, I haven't signed up].

thanks

24.70.95.203 14:23, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Your premise is simply incorrect, Wikipedia has no power or jurisdiction over the other projects. They are all self-contained. Wikimedia is not a project, it is the umbrella organization. Wikimedia is the only organization with power and jurisdiction over the others. And yes, Meta (which is a wiki about wikimedia) is quite disorganized, and they are working on that. --Golbez 18:43, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply.

Your right wikipedia has no power of jurisdiction over the other projects, & I'm glad for it; if that wasn't the case, we'd have a bigger problem on our hands. Excactly, if Wikimedia is the Umbrella organization, then it should have Help Desk, not Wikipedia; in the current state, only Wikipedia has Help Desk, & this is just an example, as you can see with Refence Desk, etc.., which correlates to the fact that Wikipedia acts as the Umbrella organization, in some areas, & I hope that this gets brought up & I hope this changes.

And I'm a bit puzzled by what you mean by Meta.

By the way, you forgot to sign-_-'

Please leave one if you'd like more clarification on this issue. You could also contact me <redact> [since they haven't instituted the option to delete your account, made their own licence, or the GNU licence hasn't changed yet, I haven't signed up].

thanks

24.70.95.203 16:03, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Meta is meta.wikimedia.org. As for why Meta doesn't have a help desk, I don't know, ask them. Wikipedia can't force Meta to have a help desk, we have no authority there. --Golbez 18:43, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia's help desk is for help on Wikipedia - by which I presume that you mean the English Wikipedia. The other projects have their own help desks to help on their own project. It would not be useful to have people asking questions in a multitude of languages about software, policy, quotations, definitions, encyclopedia articles all in the same place. There are dozens of projects all under the Wikimedia banner. Rmhermen 19:28, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

This page [8] list the discussion pages of the various projects including Wikimedia:Babel which may be what you are looking for. And Wiktionary certainly has it owns discussion page - it is at Wiktionary:Beer parlour (I was wondering what your reference to that above was about.) Rmhermen 19:32, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Oh, I was to lazy to summarize the conversation.

Please leave one if you'd like more clarification on this issue. You could also contact me <redact> [since they haven't instituted the option to delete your account, made their own licence, or the GNU licence hasn't changed yet, I haven't signed up].

thanks

24.70.95.203 20:56, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

One week in London..

Hello english wikipedians, a question with no relation with the Wiki (:

I'm going to London in one month (and maybe this summer) with two friends. We're looking for an apartment (for one week or a little bit more), does it exist some systems where rents a room or an apartment for a so short time in England?

If you know websites talking about this it were cool to give it to me (: Excuse my english, thank you in advance ^^ Tvpm 12:40, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

You might want to check out WikiTravel:London... (WikiTravel is not affiliated with Wikimedia, though they use our software and we're generally friendly.) --Brion 21:21, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Just put "London apartments" into Google. I've personally rented this one and liked it. --John Nagle 05:28, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Mathematical Muddle

I have frequently had an unpleasant experience when looking up mathematical terms in Wpedia. I go to the article I want and, reading the definition of the term, I encounter another term I don't understand. If there is a link connected to the term I open a new tab to find the definition of the second term. In reading the second definition I find the need to look up a third, then a forth, fifth, sixth. I am soon swamped by "hanging" definitions. But, not infrequently, a term is used without any attempt to define it. Do mathematicians write these articles only to communicate with other mathematicians? Surely an encyclopedia is meant to educate people about things they don't already know. Too Old 21:35, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes this is a problem, part of this reflects the deep interconection of mathematics itself, you could probably trace any entry in the whole of mathematics articles to a set. Yes, much of the mathematics articles are at a high level, partly caused by the breath of the subject there are about 14,223 mathematics articles and only a few people contributing. It may also reflect the diference between an encylopedia and a text book, a text book will walk you through a subject in a step by step manner introducing new ideas as you go along, with a wikipedia article you are diving into the middle of a subject.

It might be worth mentioning this on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics which is where the mathematics editors talk. --Salix alba (talk) 22:30, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Ok, reposted on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics. Much thanks, Salix alba. Too Old 00:22, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Chaos = Order: WUSTL physicists make baffling discovery

I felt this article could have some amusing tangential parallels to Wikipedia. [9] - RoyBoy ⁸⁰⁰ 06:23, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Football player, articles being consistent

I've started moving football player articles, that were titled, for example: Joe Roth (football) to Joe Roth (football player). I've been thinking that they should be consistent throughout with regards to their titles. So I'm just wondering if anyone could offer some advice on if it would be a bad idea to move football players whose articles are titled, for example: Jim Miller (quarterback) to Jim Miller (football player). KnowledgeOfSelf 16:35, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Although I have little knowledge of sport topics, to me this sounds like a logical step to take. --JoanneB 16:38, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Except do you mean football or football? No need to add to the ambiguity. Rmhermen 17:15, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

American football of course, I do not follow soccer, but I'm sure they do not have "quarterbacks". Anyhow, what would be your suggestion? KnowledgeOfSelf 18:25, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Beside the above mentioned forms I also found: Chris Brown (pro football player), Mark Clayton (2000s wide receiver), Brad Johnson (American football player), Michael Lewis (NFL receiver), John Lynch (NFL), Jimmy Smith (American Football player), Ben Watson (NFL Player). Clearly we need a standard here. I suppose (American football player) is the least ambiguous and yet most general of the choices so far. Rmhermen 23:44, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

I found soccer players disambiguated with (football), (footballer) and (soccer) - oddly the last was for an Irish national team member. Rmhermen 23:48, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

In an Irish context, (soccer) may be appropriate to distinguish from a player of (Gaelic football). -- Arwel (talk) 15:07, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

I think (American football player) would be a good choice, though I'd still prefer just (football player). KnowledgeOfSelf 00:37, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

I think (American football player) is far better than (football player), since almost everywhere in the world calls what Americans call soccer "football". only America and possibly Canada(?) calls American football "football". and one or two countries call other things football. in Australia AFL is called football and in NZ rugby is called "football". Footballs too confusing a name. BL Lacertae - kiss the lizard 00:42, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

I see no problem with calling them all "football player," where that is sufficient to disambiguate. Remember that the point of this is only to disambiguate; the actual explanation of what sport we are talking about should be in the article. Christopher Parham (talk) 09:31, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Clearly if the problem ever arises when there are two football players of the same name but in different sports, it might make sense to further disambiguate for these enteries. However I do support the idea of consistency. Nil Einne 21:12, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

So does anyone have a clear objection to (football player)? As Rmhermen pointed out, when he showed the quantity of different article titles for American football players, there are way too many. KnowledgeOfSelf 22:11, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

As that appears to be a "no", I'll take the initiative and continue. Thanks everyone for commenting. KnowledgeOfSelf 00:01, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. I just moved a British football (i.e. soccer) player to ".. (football player)" to disambiguate him from an Elvis impersonator. (Note to people entering entire team rosters: disambiguation is part of your job. Don't make a mess for others to clean up, please.) --John Nagle 18:51, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

A link in the "Goldie Hawn" article is incorrect

The link to her movie "Swing Shift" takes the view to another movie--an unrelated short by the same name.

Fixed. Thanks.--Dakota ~ ° 21:15, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Full stops in help pop-up messages

There are following messages in pop-ups of buttons at the top of a page of every article:

• Article: View the content page [alt-c]
• Discussion: Discussion about the content page [alt-t]
• Edit this page: You can edit this page. Please use the preview button before saving. [alt-e]
• History: Past versions of this page. [alt-h]
• Move: Move this page [alt-m]
• Watch: Add this page to your watchlist [alt-w]

As you can see, popups of buttons for edit and history has full stops, the rest of - hasn't got. I think it should be standardised. Visor 11:14, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

These are edited in Mediawiki:Monobook.js. I don't know what they should be changed to. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 11:27, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Longest article

What's the longest serious article in Wikipedia?

Elmer Clark 23:53, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Special:Longpages says Comparison of layout engines (DOM). BL Lacertae - kiss the lizard 00:01, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

But that's because it consists mainly of tables, which take up a lor of memory relative to what you actually see. Choalbaton 19:02, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

In recent history, Skull and Bones grew to a reported 307 kb by the time of this edit a month ago, after which it was finally split. That'd be around 42 pages printed, accoridng to my browser. -Will Beback 11:31, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Parkinson Factor

Please comment on the proposal Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Parkinson Factor. `'mikka (t) 19:03, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Unofficial Wikipedia forums

Viewable at wikipediaforums.proboards106.com note: This is not a substitute for the villiage pump. The forums are mainly for discussing things about wikipedia that do ntot fit in to the villiage pump (such as user wiki articles, like the one I created here) and just life in general. Now, the villiage pump is mainly for technical issues and help issues, this will be for everything else. Is there any way to either link to it or incorperate it into this website? NOTE: if you type www before the URL it won't load.

WikiProject Reference Investigation

There's a new WikiProject involving investigating sources people may use for articles, such as EB. Take a look at it: Wikipedia:WikiProject Reference Investigation. 204.8.195.187 13:41, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Extra Space

I noticed that in wikihtml, when we edit, formating has extra space, for example, when we edit a comment, there's a space between the $Subject/headline:$ & the content of the message. Another example is $== Extra Space ==$ is also the same as $==Extra Space==$. Does this make comments larging in size as bytewise? Even if not, it could create confusion. So I guess Mediawiki needs to be tweaked/the devlopers\the codes needs a little editing?

Please leave one if you'd like more clarification on this issue. You could also contact me <redact> [since they haven't instituted the option to delete your account, made their own licence, or the GNU licence hasn't changed yet, I haven't signed up].

thanks

24.70.95.203 20:57, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

I hope you do realize that you already have an account(at least, in all the ways that you seem to object to) by making the above edit.

When you made the edit above, you(the person) did accept that the content above would be licensed by them under the GFDL. Having an account does not change your relationship to the GFDL at all. You are just as bound by it without an account as you are with one.

Anyone can review all the contribtions you have made: Special:Contributions/24.70.95.203(although you may have made some under other IP addresses, this is true of people with accounts also; they may have made other edits from different accounts, or IP addresses also) - not making an account makes it easier, not harder, for people to track you.

Do you have other concerns about making an account? If so, I'd be curious to hear them. JesseW, the juggling janitor 03:45, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Articles that should not be marked for wikification

I'd like to request that editors refrain from adding {{wikify}} tags to certain articles. ([[10]] is not equivalent to cleanup). 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica articles articles are particularly troublesome. Some of the articles are fine and don't need to be updated or don't need extensive updating. Other articles are out of date, but brief enough (a medium-sized paragraph, or at most, two) so that wikification is not a big deal if the material is eventually deleted. However, some of the articles are very long and out of date (one article that I worked on was about 30 pages long in Microsoft Word, single-spaced). Such articles should not be wikified in their current state because the out of date material will eventually be deleted or rewritten. It can easily take an hour or longer to wikify and do non-content cleanup (formatting, spelling, punctuation, missing text), especially if there are a lot of OCR errors. I suppose you could just add links, but most of us like to do more than a half-assed job (I use three-quarters ass, minimum). Instead of tagging for wikification, I suggest adding an update or rewrite tag instead. There is a tag specifically for these articles, {{1911POV}}, but I disagree with its use because it is inaccurate. Except for some spectacularly racist articles, most 1911 EB articles have a fairly neutral point of view.

There are other articles that should not be tagged for wikification, as well. They include out of date articles from other sources, articles that need rewriting, articles needing extensive cleanup and articles to be merged. These articles are likely to have substantial amounts of text that is rewritten, rearranged and/or deleted (rearrangement is a problem because only the first instance of a term should be linked in most cases). I'll explain further about articles to be merged so that it is clear why they are included. First, they often have redundant text that will be deleted. Also, the text that is added to the other article is often rearranged, leading to the wrong instance of a term being linked. Finally, articles to be merged are likely to have the same terms, so redundant links may also be created if the articles are wikified.

As for articles nominated for one of the three deletion methods, I guess it's a matter of opinion. If the tags are not removed, or are added during or after a nomination, a substantial amount of articles in Category:Articles that need to be wikified will be nominated for deletion. It's quite annoying when you click on five articles in a row and find them all nominated for deletion (speedy, prod or AfD). This annoyance is worse now that we sort the articles by the month they were tagged because there are a lot of editors working on the same articles. When we get down to the last articles, most and eventually all of them are tagged for deletion if the tags are not removed because the other ones have been wikified or marked as copyright violations. Each editor will waste time clicking through the articles trying to find the few not nominated for deletion (when the site is running slow, this can take a long time). Another downside is that a user may wikify an article that ends up being deleted anyway. However, if the article is not deleted, it will need to be retagged if no one has cleaned it up to avoid deletion. Removing and readding the tag is not very difficult and there is now a robot that tags completely unlinked articles, so I favor removing the tag, especially when the article is very likely to be deleted.

I don't want to seem unappreciative of those who add wikify tags because I'm not. However, if they were more selectively added, I think it would help a lot. Thanks, Kjkolb 04:36, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

One thing to do is to put a note on the discussion page for the wikify template. Another is to modify the template to say "please do not use this template if _ see _" where first _ is conditions not to use it and second _ the discussion page for the template. JoshuaZ 05:07, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Random Post

I just wanted to come in and say that it's fun reading the old mailing list archives from 2003. Aside from me being embarassed right now at how naive I was as a 12 year old, it's fun to see people saying things like "I hope we can move to Wikipedia:Requests for adminship...and remove the mailing list method" or "I would like Wikipedia to come up on a google search of The Beatles, but we're probably a long way away from that". Whoo — Ilyanep (Talk) 18:48, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

By the way ,when did shortcuts (like WP:VP) start appearing? — Ilyanep (Talk) 18:49, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

You might want to start a blog instead =p __earth ^(Talk) 19:01, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Hehe, I have one. I just wanted to post at least one random thought here :P — Ilyanep (Talk) 19:50, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

They've been there for a long time. :p Johnleemk | Talk 19:03, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Well yeah, but I just randomly saw them one day and I don't remember when and thought "they won't last". — Ilyanep (Talk) 19:50, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Kenelm Cox

I have owned for about twenty years a curious brass object resembling a wind chime consisting of the word suncycle in vertical formation and it reads both front to back. I believe this to be a concrete poetry multiple by Kenelm Cox 1968 and certain it was displayed in an exhibition entitled Multiples at the Ikon Gallery,Birminghm UK.

There is I think similar in Southampton City Art Gallery, Southampton UK.

Does anyone know more about Kenelm Cox?

Wikipedia has no article on Kenelm Cox (yet). You might ask on the talk page for Concrete poetry (the article exists but has no talk page yet, so you'd be creating the talk page). Google turned up this. -- Rick Block (talk) 02:42, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

thankz to wikipedia

you guys r soooo, extremely great! these sisters of WIKI are Awesome! KEEP UP the superb work! im sooo amazed and impressed by all of your hard work @.@~

best wishes to all of you, kat

In the age of criticising Wikipedia, a compliment is always great to hear! Especially such an enthusiastic one! As one of the many editors, thank you. —THIS IS MESSEDOCKER (TALK) 00:58, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks from me too. Esp. after seeing my teacher vandalize Wikipedia and not even bother rv'ing it. --Osbus 00:57, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Join us, and together we shall rule the galaxy as father and son. Er, I mean, as Wikipedians! __earth ^(Talk)

What is with anon's inserting and reverting nonsense?

I've seen this quite a bit over the days. An anon will revert nonsense...that they put in. For exampleWhat is it? Siblings fighting over a computer? Kids in a computer lab? Any speculations on this behavior? --Mmx1 21:24, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

I suspect that much of it falls under the heading of "They can't really be serious about that 'anyone can edit' stuff. I mean, there's no way that they'd let me put something silly in their encyclopedia. *click* Oh. Dang. I better fix that."

Some of the rest is probably "Seriously, they do let anyone edit. No, they don't screen it. See, look. *click* Now I'm gonna fix it. Neat, huh?"

We're a novel concept still for a lot of people. 'A free encyclopedia that anyone can edit' sometimes has to be seen to be believed. I imagine that most of the self-reverting anons can be explained in this way. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 21:38, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

another possibility. a nonsense edit and quick revert = 2 edits. do that enuf times and youve got a backhistory of a few dozen edits. with editing quantity becoming a prominent guide to wiki activity it gives vandals "cred". BL Lacertae - kiss the lizard 23:56, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

I actually once experience this in class: a person added a little comment in the references section of an article. I saw the notice added, and decided to go on Wikipedia and revert it. It could simply be a matter of two people sharing an IP address. —THIS IS MESSEDOCKER (TALK) 01:01, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

• All computers in schools have the same IP. If I see a friend or someone vandalizing, I'd revert it, but it would appear that the same person rv'd it. Btw, even me, a tried and true Wikipedian, am guilty of this. Before I registered, I experimented w/ Wikipedia at school. After I realized, that yeah, it's true that anyone can edit, I immediately took it out. --Osbus 00:51, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

The Guardian Hates Us

Actually they don't — they write about us all the time, and most of it is very fair and (reasonably) informative. But today's Technology section has a story — linked from the front page of the website — written by Andrew Orlowski, and featuring quotes from Robert McHenry, Encyclopædia Britannica, Daniel Brandt, and some (apparently new) site called WikiTruth. It's like all our nemesii have come together for one final push to destroy us. Man the barricades!

Of course, once you cut past Orlowski's "journalism", the article makes some valid points about Wikipedia's accuracy, reliability, and deterioration of quality, but frankly any Wikipedian of long standing knows about these issues, and knows they're nothing new. What's more interesting is the comment from Will Davies of IPPR, who makes the point that people in this "information age" try and mask their lack of understanding of issues by surrounding themselves with more and more data. For that purpose, Wikipedia is very useful as a massive collection of data — not without boundaries, but more like an almanac of one-liners and bulletpoints, rather than an encyclopedia along Britannica lines. Hell, one of our policies effectively works to discourage creative writing, making it so much harder to get the kind of analysis that some of our topics need.

The solution to this seems to be one of perception. Surely there is a place in this world for a big dumping ground of facts, provided that everyone understands that that is (one of the things) Wikipedia does. Case in point — only yesterday a friend of mine said he just found out anyone could edit Wikipedia. He'd thought it was "a proper encyclopedia". I know this is a radical suggestion, but perhaps we should stop using that word, if that's what is causing confusion and getting certain people's backs up. Then, when people browse the site and come across a lengthy article, they will be pleasantly surprised. "Wow, I didn't realise Wikipedia had things like this in it — I thought it was just a collection of lists." Wikipedia — the free dumping ground for all knowledge that anyone can edit — got quite a ring to it, don't you think? — sjorford (talk) 11:06, 13 April 2006 (UTC) Disclaimer: this is not meant to be taken entirely seriously...

I'm not worried about the criticism. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and according to Alexa it is getting more than a hundred and fifty times as many pageviews as EB now. Wikipedia as a whole is not deteriorating. Comments based on a sample of one article are just meaningless mendacity. What we are hearing from EB may well prove to be its death throws - and what a mean spiteful patient it is turning out to be. CalJW 01:20, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

I think that is a very strange article. Isn't The Guardian supposed to be a reputable paper? How can anyone take seriously an article that prominently refers to Wikitruth, a site that refers to Jimbo's "mind rays" (among other things)? Ardric47 04:14, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

• Why the hell should we even care? It's like the 1920's all over again. Introduce something the least bit out of the ordinary, and you've got people left and right screaming their heads off. --Osbus 00:53, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Turkey portal

I have re-designed and completed the Turkey portal, I'm looking for your comments. --Teemeah 16:30, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

It's good, but it's kind of scary. Reduce the size of some of the images and it'll be fine. --Osbus 00:55, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

So much dreck, so little time

I know, a basic principle is "anyone can create an article". But over half of incoming articles are deletable as advertising, nonsense, attacks, or vandalism. Dealing with this dreck takes up considerable effort, and some of it slips through. Does anyone collect statistics on how users improve? How many users have a first article that has to be deleted and then go on to write something useful to Wikipedia? That would be worth knowing. --John Nagle 18:47, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't know of any statistics, but some people say that their contributions have improved over time, usually by learning how to create a good article or learning what topics are inappropriate. However, I don't think that many people who post pure spam articles go on to become valuable contributors. -- Kjkolb 10:48, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I thought you had to register now in order to create an article. -- Beland 02:55, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, you do. I just registered to write my first article (*yay*). It's sad that such a good project has it's imbeciles. -- jonathanswift 09:12, 9 April 2006 (EST)

It's helping, too. The number of totally bogus articles is down somewhat. Also, now you always have a back channel to talk to any article creator. One big problem with anons is that you can't communicate with them. --John Nagle 05:31, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm one of those people...before I had an account, I created an article promoting my band. Of course, it immediately got deleted, much to my chagrin, but now everything's cool. --Osbus 13:42, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Screwball high school student messes with Wikipedia then writes about it for Knight Ridder papers

link

Your verdict is correct but we hate you!

Lotsofissues 22:09, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

All vandalism seems to have been reverted.

Someone should write a letter to the editor; such an investigation seems to be contrary to jouralistic ethics. It would be a bit like a reporter repeatedly reporting a false crime, to test police response times. Moreover, it is an uncontrolled experiment with no appearant purpose: the results of the test have little bearing on the conclusion. Of course there are errors (intentionally introduced or otherwise) in Wikipedia. There are errors in all sources. The question of the reliability of a source is not based on whether it is perfect, it is only comparitive to other sources (Wikipedia v. newspapers would be interesting). The conclusion seems to be that fact checking is an important part of research--something which is true even absent malicious introduction of errors. It was an unnecessary and probably unethical experiment. --TeaDrinker 21:39, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, someone should write. Is there an official forum for this sort of thing? Ardric47 04:12, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

This is a judgement upon the face we present the world. We must strive to be professional at all times; to present an image of reliability and a serious work ethic. So-called "outsiders" screwing around is linkable to "insiders" treating the project as a private sandbox. John Reid 04:28, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand what you are saying, but the reporter's actions were still unethical. Ardric47 03:55, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't agree with her actions either, that bitch, but at least she proved that Wikipedia is somewhat reliable. --Osbus 13:39, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Jimbo lacks spine in his public statements

This is how a Wall Street Journal front page article on the Britannica v. Wikipedia dispute concluded: Mr. Wales says he was "pleased" with Nature's study, but adds, "It's hardly true we're as good as Britannica." He says he was glad Nature chose to compare science-related themes "because on history and the social sciences, we're much weaker." In other areas -- including computer science and the history of "Star Trek," he says, Wikipedia is "way better."

As Britannica moves to discredit Wikipedia, Jimbo steps aside and agrees.

Can you please point out Britannica's motives first?--or give someone else the spokesperson responsibility.

Lotsofissues 00:19, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

• Alternately, it could be that he does, in fact, know that we're weak on the social sciences. We know this. Britannica is a major, well-funded, well-respected work with a century and a half of authorial clout. They are, frankly, better than us in many respects. Why pretend this isn't the case? Why make a fight out of something that doesn't have to be one? Shimgray | talk | 00:25, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

• A few thoughts. For one, it's possible that the WSJ rearranged the the order of Jimbo's comments. You'll note that it isn't one contiguous quote, but statements broken up with paraphrasing. Perhaps more important, I'd be happy with Jimbo's remarks even if the WSJ had presented them precisely as spoken. We're not as good as Britannica in a number of important areas. We're getting better, but we're not there yet. Having a leader who is willing to speak up and say so publicly is a Good Thing. It gives him – and by extension, Wikipedia – an aura of credibility. I'd much rather be represented by Jimbo's NPOV than by some cheerleading PR flack. Nature already said we were as good as Britannica; we don't need to get swelled heads about it. Having a spokeperson deliver a humble and balanced evaluation of our strengths and weaknesses makes us look smart and reasonable—and it makes Britannica's sniping look petty and vengeful. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 01:12, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

• Bonus: Linky to editorial.

In almost all interviews, it's alright to be humble and sincere. But not when we are defending ourselves against Britannica management, who do not seek a balanced evaluation. They want to make us radioactive. Jimbo shouldn't have conceded the momentum to them. He should have stood by our science articles. Britannica does not look vengeful; they look correct because Jimbo gave the most diminutive answer possible. Lotsofissues

It's not possible for Jimbo to concede momentum to Brittanica, as Britannica has none. They are in a holding action and both we and they know it. Anyone reading the editorial linked above has to be thinking THIS is the type of errors they are contesting - whether the town in Italy that Pythagoras lived in should be referred to by its the historical or modern name? When I look at an encyclopedia entry on Pythagoras, that is the last thing I'm interested in. We lose nothing by biding our time - do you know of any editor who is going to leave because Jimbo is going softly-softly? - and could lose a lot of credibility if we take a "I challenge you to find an article that is better in Britannica than Wikipedia!"-stand. As far as I'm concerned, the spate is between Britannica and Nature, and all we have to do is refer people to the Nature response, with perhaps a reference to our own speedy response to address the issues pointed out. Regards, BanyanTree 14:58, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

I'll agree with what Banyan had to say; letting EB and Nature duke it out keeps the muck from getting on us. An analysis of the editorial, done by paragraph.

• (para 1 - 5): Background and media coverage of Nature study. EB gets crushed.
• (6): EB's media response.
• (7): Nature's reply to EB.
• (8 - 9): EB's struggle for relevance, the end of door-to-door sales.
• (10 - 12): EB's massive response to Nature's study.
• (13): Nature comment - EB hasn't responded to more than half of the criticisms; both encyclopedias have made some corrections.
• (14 - 15): EB insists that some of the changes weren't the result of the Nature study. (Sure.)
• (16): Nature refuses to give EB confidential survey data.
• (17): EB takes cheap shot at Wikipedia "I have no problem with there being a Wikipedia, and people wanting to use it...as long as people don't think it is in and of itself serious scholarship."
• (18 - 19): Jimbo describes 'accountability' versus 'gatekeeper' models of encyclopedia building; discusses wiki process and massive growth.
• (20): Seigenthaler controversy mentioned, editorial notes we have changed our policies to address problem.
• (21): Paragraph Lotsofissues doesn't like. I'll note that we get the last words: Wikipedia is "way better."

The bulk of the article is discussing how the Nature study took EB apart, EB's panicked damage control by nitpicking and full-page ads, and Nature's continued support for their study and methods. Less than a quarter of the article (the last five paragraphs) really deal with Wikipedia directly, and Jimbo gets three of those paragraphs. EB has to buy ads; we're getting free space in WSJ editorials. If we don't turn into cocky dicks, we can't lose.

Jimbo (correctly) ceded the high ground to EB on history and the social sciences. Aside from a few excellent feature articles, our coverage there is weak. But, we get to be the leader in science and technology. We're the world of tomorrow—Nature says so. The social sciences will gradually fill in. Frankly, we come up smelling of roses in the editorial. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:02, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

More imporantly, who cares? There's room for both user-created and expert-created encyclopedias in the world. We're not in a zero-sum competition - that's old-school, top-down, hierarchical thinking. Wikipedia is beyond that ... er, right? - DavidWBrooks 15:47, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Maybe Jimbo Wales should've said "It's hardly true we're as good as Britannica...yet..." whilst raising an eyebrow and giving an evil grin. Maniacal laugh purely optional. ---- Bobak 20:43, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Let watch the cheap shots. WP:personal attack. --Masssiveego 01:27, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

I fail to see any "cheap shots" in the entry you responded to. — Stevie is the man! ^{Talk | Work} 00:55, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm also confused. What would be the WP:NPA issue here? JoshuaZ 22:45, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

I Think Jack Thompson Is Back

Special:Contributions/172.169.58.156 --Maxamegalon2000 03:05, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Dear Lord, it stresses me that a man of law is acting in such a destructive matter. Instead of complaining in a civilized matter (we have tons of areas to complain), he is vandalizing articles. This concerns me. What do we have to do to convince him that we care? I mean, we even Office-protected his article, and watched over the article like a felon to make sure that it stays to be a good boy. Jack Thompson, please don't look at this the wrong way: we care much more than usual about your article, because you care as well. We allow for constructive criticism, however, adding your comments to your articles is not acceptable (would you look up President Bush in World Book and find his comments there?). If you insist certain facts are false, bring it up on Talk:Jack Thompson, however expect some criticisms in the format of "But we used a credible source!" Trust us, while there are some users that may insist on criticising you in your article, our policy maintains that all facts need sources and that all articles need to be unbiased. We care, Mr. Thompson. —THIS IS MESSEDOCKER (TALK) 00:55, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Looking for a template

Specifically, some kind of template to wrapper an external link with text that would encourage future editors to shamelessly rape and pillage it for more information. In other words, I have found a source where we can get information for the article, but I don't have the time or inclination to actually expand the article now. But I want some future person to do that, rather than just leave the link there as further reading. Does such a thing exist?

not that I know of, but you could try adding both the external link and an {{expand}} - chances are someone would get the hint. Grutness...wha? 02:22, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Where do I announce this:

Where do I announce to all of Wikipedia the existence of Wikipedia:Paranormal Watchers w/o being accused of "spamming", advertising ? This is NOT either of these. This is a Wikipedia Organization that is for and about Wikipedians who have had paranormal experiences, investigate these matters. Martial Law 02:47, 12 April 2006 (UTC) :)

• Looking at that page, it looks more like it should be a WikiProject because your goal is to improve articles pertaining to a certain subject (in this case paranormal topics). Therefore, you should read the directions on WP:PJ, including how to set up and advertise a WikiProject. Of course, I would also recommend that if you do convert this into a Wikiproject, that you rename it to the standard "Wikipedia:WikiProject projectname" title. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 04:44, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

It was set up by other Wikipedians, incl. yours truely. Been trying to announce its existence w/o "spamming", violating other protocol. Martial Law 07:30, 12 April 2006 (UTC) :)

Suggestion: Removal of the "Search" box caption.

The textbox in the side-frame has the word "Search" above it, despite defaulting to being a 'go to' box and search being only its secondary function. Given that there's a button that says 'search' directly beneath the box (and encapsulated within the same box) the caption seems misleading and redundant. Can it be removed? Irrevenant 00:46, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

I assume it can be removed if there's consensus. I don't know who can alter the left-size nav templates. Admins? I think Featured Articles and Current Events were recently added, and the font decreased recently.

As for my opinion, I believe the caption is to make it equivalent to the design of the other 2 boxes: navigation and toolbox. While I understand it may seem redudant, there's actually an idea to make it slightly more visible in the future in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Usability/Main Page. And it's arguably not misleading: It functions as a search when what you type isn't the title of an article. It then searches in whatever namespaces you selected in "my preferences" -> search tab. TransUtopian 16:53, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

I assume that the original poster is using the default Wikipedia skin, with no modifications. If you know CSS (or have a friend who knows it), you can customize the skin & change the label to the "Search" box to whatever you'd like: "Go to", "Potatoes" or "Gimme an Answer". If you don't, look around at the different pages on Wikipedia & you might find someone who will help you make the change. -- llywrch 23:02, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Family Trees?

Not sure if this is the right place to ask, as I am but a timid n00b. (If someone could point me in the right direction that would be marvellous.) Is there a standard for genealogical trees to be included in articles on families, genealogies and dynasties? I've noticed a dearth of them and I think they would be really helpful for quite a few articles (yay diagrams!). Does anyone know where I could get more information on Wikipedia policies/designs for this? Thanks! Tamarkot 01:21, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

As far as I know, we don't have a built-in tool for generating genealogical trees. In articles where such trees appear, they've been generated by individual editors – with access to the appropriate software – and inserted as images. I'd be thrilled if such a tool were created; in addition to making it easier to add such trees, it would also allow us to enforce some sort of house style. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 17:29, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia:Family trees, which is based on an earlier discussion in the Village pump. Eugene van der Pijll 17:55, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! That's exactly what I was looking for. Tamarkot 20:05, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Biting the newbies, or why there's a fundamental problem with new users

It's well-recognized that most new user articles aren't very good, and most have to be fixed or deleted. This is an inherent result of the way Wikipedia is set up. It looks like a blog; anyone can create a new article, which gets them a blank text box to fill in.

Constructing a Wikipedia article is a complex task, requiring knowledge of about ten pages worth of Wikipedia policies, the formatting syntax, at least a few of the templates, and the ability to write to Wikipedia's house style. Yet all we give new users is an empty box. So, of course, the new users don't get it right.

Then the RC patrollers dump on them. Some of the new users get annoyed, and we have to go through the whole AfD process. The whole system is almost designed to bite new users and to be labor intensive.

I've suggested a form-based system for new articles in common categories (bands, movies, albums, TV, etc.), so that new uses would get the format and basic info correct on the first try. Anyone else have a better idea? Something like Microsoft's Clippy, maybe? ("You seem to be writing an article about a Pokemon. Would you like assistance"). --John Nagle 16:38, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

You may be the one person in the world that doesn't find Clippy so annoying as to be the 2nd coming of the AntiChrist. But seriously, I think virtually all online communities with an established group of users (even when that group is as incredibly large as Wikipedia) has a problem with integrating n00bs (heck, you could draw comparisons to real-world immigration issues). However, I think your idea of easy-to-find/grab, easy-to-fill-out basic for new users would be a good idea. Especially if the form is designed so that a new person can fill out the basics without too much trouble (they usually peter out after roughly a paragraph's worth of writing total), then is also perfect for later expansion by either other users or the same user once they've got their feet wet. The more I think about this idea (especially since I've done a decent amount of new article patrol), the more I like it. I admit I'm newer to the in-politics of Wikipedia, how does one go about getting this sort of idea put into place? If you need help, let me know. -- Bobak 17:01, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

I have a vague memory of attempts in the past to create blank article forms or templates for certain classes of articles; I think I remember them being oriented towards biographies. While there might be some use to them, they never really caught on. I suspect that most editors very rapidly discovered that article topics very seldom 'fit' the templates, and trying to cram them into a preexisting structure resulted in stilted articles that needed rewriting anyway.

I agree that new editors who jump into article creation often have trouble with formatting, but I'm not sure that a template-based approach is required. When new page patrollers come across a badly-formatted article, they can fix it or apply the {{wikify}} or {{cleanup}} templates which link to appropriate guidelines and instructions. The deletion of articles by new editors is seldom due to formatting problems—it comes about because new editors create articles on topics that just aren't appropriate for Wikipedia. If anything, I suspect that we want to avoid encouraging new articles about bands by editors who are very new to Wikipedia.

I hope that most RC and Newpages patrollers aren't biting newbies about formatting. The correct response to a badly-formatted article by a new editor is a {{welcome}} notice, which links to the Manual of Style. Where this is not happening, the problem is one of education for our patrollers, rather than one of untrained newbies. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 17:26, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

I first heard about Wikipedia in 2003 (or perhaps 2002?—the main page still had the "nostalgia" design). If I remember correctly, one of the reasons that I didn't initially participate was the abundance of scary-looking "rulebooks". Here is Help:Starting a new page as I saw it before I was a regular contributor. I think I at least looked at all the linked pages—and there were many. Currently, there seem to be even more guidelines mentioned, especially with the sidebar!

That being said, I do not believe that these rules are bad. New editors should just be eased into them. How to do that effectively, though, is the question. Most people probably don't do nearly as much preparation as I did, but could there still be a better way to summarize the policies and procedures? Ardric47 02:51, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Photo of Maggie Smith on her page

It purports to be of her from "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie."

I've seen the movie three times, the latest, 20 minutes ago.

The photo is of her but not, I believe, from that film. The dress is all wrong for the part; I don't remember it from the movie; and she appears slightly older in the photo than she does in the film.

I read all the prompts as to how to alert someone regarding this and found none of them fit this situation--so I went the misc. route.

Tnx for the info. The best place to post such comment is on the talk page of the relative article, which in that case would be Talk:Maggie Smith and/or Talk:The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. You may also want to comment on the talk page of the respective image, but they have low visibility.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 16:19, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

you might also get a response if you asked this question at WP:RD/M - theres bound to be a boffin there who can help :) BL Lacertae - kiss the lizard 05:24, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Bogus articles used for scamming?

I just trawled through a set of articles on humanitarian aid organisations that do not seem to exist in reality. Though there is a webpage for the organisation, its purpose is murky. It came to my mind that 419 scammers might use Wikipedia to make their organisations look real/good. I am still not sure that this is the case in this particular event, but it will probably happen if it hasn't already. Wikipedia could get entagled in legalities following an event like that. rxnd ( t | € | c ) 23:37, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

If you don't think it exists, why not nominate it on AfD and see what the community consensus is?--TBC☆^{O M G!} 20:12, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Agreed; start an AfD on every one of them as unverified and unverifiable. None of those organizations seem to have any existence other than a web page. (One did get mentioned in a press release, but that may have been achieved by similar trolling.) Nobody has touched those articles since an anon entered them last November. --John Nagle 22:23, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

complements

I'm a college student in New York and would just like to say that wikipedia.org is an amazing encyclopedia. It has an enormous amount of interesting facts on a plethora of topics. I've learned so many intriguing facts and used this encyclopedia for many school projects. Keep up the good work! thanks.

Thank you! I'm sure I'm not alone in thinking that it's always nice to get compliments about Wikipedia - and I'm glad you found it useful and interesting! Grutness...wha? 01:08, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Anyone else have this problem?

I have a real problem with people who don't like what kind of edit I've made, and then instead of asking me about it or just giving me the benefit of the doubt, they'll leave me a message and beat me over the head with policy and their personal ideas about "consensus." Why can't these people just be honest and state their views instead of being patronizing? I'm not a child, and I'm not new here. A similar problem is shown by those people who quote WP:AGF or Wikipedia:Civility when someone (not just me) is being honest. What the hell is up with all these appeals to authority? I'm not looking to solve any particular dispute, I'm just wondering why people can't just say what's on their minds without immediately quoting policy and some imagined consensus as a way of putting pressure on others. Brian G. Crawford 00:51, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Just about every single use of WP:AGF I have seen has been unfounded or insulting. It is intimidation. The same applies to a lot of other invocations of policy. Golfcam 01:26, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Why? Because they are probably like that in real life (life outside of Wikipedia, that is) Also, some may think that they can't go wrong with a Wikipedia policy by their side. And yes, it is a bit frustrating but we deal. --Osbus 01:42, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

From the original poster's talk page: Brian, of the last 50 edits you have made, at least 49 have been either nominations for AfD, or in some way connected to deleting articles. Given that type of activity, one has to expect some unhappiness.

Personally, I agree with the "deletionist" position, and would happily push almost all the fancruft and bandcruft out of Wikipedia. But I realize that many others don't agree. So I confine my band deletions to the guys with one self-published CD and who have played three towns in upstate New York, or worse. I keep pushing to get articles on video game items and characters merged into the main article. But I'm not on a crusade to purge all the fan junk. That's futile, until we have some better place to put it. I'd like to see a more database oriented system for the portions of Wikipedia that essentially replicate IMDB and CDDB, and move all the list-type movie, actor, band, and album data out to that, but that's a long term goal. --John Nagle 03:14, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Oh, I understand why people get upset at deletionists, even if we do perform a necessary function. I just hate getting policy thrown at me when I know very well I haven't violated any. I've seen this done to plenty of others too. Brian G. Crawford 17:18, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

I assume that you are partially referring to the obscure giant robot deletions. You are trying to delete rather juvenile articles, and are getting predictably juvenile responses from many of the fans of the show. What did you expect? That's the reason I use this account instead of my real account for such edits - when I fight against crackpots, I get crackpottish responses. This is always an issue when trying to change questionable articles that have loyal editors. Chances are, these editors don't care much about policy, or giving honest answers, and will do whatever they can to keep you from changing the articles. In this case, they can't justify their stance with WP:N and WP:V, the important policies here, so instead just accuse you of trolling, or make up some policy about having to either have all fancruft or no fancruft.

That said, there is also some valid criticism in there. You should have entered these as one AfD instead of three - as it is now, I need to check three pages.User:Rappapa, despite being quite uncivil and making inappropriate WP namespace edits to justify his vote, has now seemingly taken my advice and started to reference the articles, which does make it somewhat harder to justify deletion.

Good luck in your endeavours, and don't mind these types of editors too much. It is very difficult to avoid them. --Philosophus 16:23, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

An error in Britannica

Britannica had an article on Frank Woolley, a great English cricketer, who lived the last few years of his life in Canada. The Britannica article on him called him a 'Canadian cricketer' which is as bad an error as, for instance, if the long retired Argentinian footballer Diego Maradona is called a 'Japanese footballer' by an encyclopaedia in its introduction because he became a citizen of Japan in 2006.

It's worse. At least Japan competes in top level football. Canada doesn't play Test cricket. 62.31.55.223 04:07, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

I made this longstanding error the subject a question in Wikipedia:WikiProject_Cricket/Quiz#Q165. Within two days, Britannica fixed it [11] . It is interesting that this obscure page is in the range of their radar ! Tintin (talk) 05:03, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

EB is awash with errors. Only yesterday I read the article about my home town and it describes a plant that I watched be imploded with my own eyes when I was at middle school as one of the main current employers - and I'm in my thirties now. I'm not going to say which town it is as I don't want to help Britannica to improve its product and the error doesn't really matter to anyone except locals. The idea that EB is completely reliable publication, which they sold to the world for financial gain for decades, is a fraud. I think it's on about the same level as the BBC, and the BBC is much less reliable than the New York Times (and you should always double check anything you read in the New York Times before you rely on it). 62.31.55.223 04:02, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Are you aware of this? JackofOz 13:35, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Admin Ethics on Foreign Language Wikis

The policy of granting an admin status to a user who has been around long enough does not work so smoothly on foreign language wikis (notably relatively younger wikis with fewer users and articles). My concerns is current situation at Georgian site ka:ვიკიპედია. Most of the earlier admins are no longer available and only one active, relatively novice admin remains. There are a few other regular users who actively contributing on a weekly basis. Since Georgian version uses its own alphabet reaching an agreement on a proper spelling of a foreign name is almost always problematic (if there is someone around). But recently our omnipotent admin with unlimited rights started taking liberty on assuming what's wrong and right, deleting redirect pages without fist posting any comments on the discussion page. Requesting a reason have almost always resulted in an offensive exchange. It begins to resemble a soviet dictatorship, we recently got rid of... The problem is there is no back up to challenge the authority of this admin. Is there any way to request other non-active admins to return and check the status of affairs at least on a weekly basis or assign a new additional admin from active users/moderators? Any comments would be appreciated. Alsandro 00:16, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Does this wiki have the equivalent of WP:RFA? If not, see the appropriate stand-in section at m:Requests for permissions. Garrett^Talk 00:21, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

There is no equivalent of WP:RFA at /KA (Georgian)/ and, besides, I don't know who would I name, there are very few experienced users on that mirror who would be eligible and have enough time to contribute regularly. I am speaking out of frustration, there is no one to warn the current admin when she overtakes the limit and I'm starting to loose temper. I don't really want to be an admin, just need peace of mind and competent people to deal with. Alsandro 17:13, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Article About Onesself?

Is there a policy related to authoring an article about onesself? IOW, I want to write a short biography (in third person)of myself. Is this within policy/rules? If so, downsides? Thanks, Carey Fisher

There is a policy and it is that you shouldn't write an article about yourself. It's quite acceptable to suggest an article be written and to suggest changes, but let another editor actually write it. David | Talk 13:23, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Wow - that was fast. Thank you for the pointers!!! Carey Fisher --72.152.212.158 13:28, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Also, if you create an account, you will automatically be supplied with a User Page, where it's perfectly appropriate to write a brief bio of yourself. It's not the same as an article, but if you plan to contribute to the Wikipedia, you might enjoy making some information about yourself available to the community. It's completely optional, however. Lee Bailey 15:37, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

The Carry Fisher? The coke-snorting/jabba-the-hutt-slave-girl Carry Fisher? I think we've already got an article on you around here someplace! Welcome to WikiPedia! Ewlyahoocom 20:47, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Are you Carrie Fisher? --Osbus 22:39, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

LOL, of course she would spell her name wrong! How mindbogglingly brilliant. -- Bobak 01:35, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Redirects out of Wikipedia to Wikireason

Apparently, someone has placed at least one redirect in Wikipedia to make Wikireason look like like a namespace for it, e.g., [[wikireason:Distributed unconsciousness|Distributed unconsciousness]]. User:H0riz0n placed this in the "See also" section of Spirituality to make it look like a Wikipedia artilce. This user has another redirect, [[wikireason:The Natural Taoist]] on his user page. At Wikireason, they state, "Wikireason is not affiliated with Wikipedia or the Wikimedia Foundation." Wikireason:Welcome. I'm sure this is a violation of a Wikipolicy somewhere. 4.224.138.208 17:19, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

p.s. I know Wikireason is listed on the Wikimedia Interwiki map. I just think making a non-Wikipedia article look like it is part of this encyclopedia is blatant misrepresentation. 4.225.107.208 19:14, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Picasso painting in the public domain?

I'm not sure this is the right place for this question, please tell me if not. Image:Picasso with cloak.jpg, a painting by Pablo Picasso dated 1901 has been tagged {{PD-art-US}}. However, it hasn't been first published in the US AFAIK, so I wonder if the tag is correct. My guess is that this is a copyright violation. Thanks. --Cruccone 13:23, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Uh, I am not aware of any country where something published in 1901 is not in the public domain. Besides, the US tends to have stronger laws (in terms of copyright duration) than any other Western country. -- Bobak 16:40, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Please note that painting a painting is not publishing it! The painting was created in 1901; that doesn't mean it was published that year. Publishing occurs when copies of the work are made available to the general public (such as a reproduction of the painting in a book or in an exhibition catalog). Showing the painting at an exhibition does not constitute publication. See WP:PD#Artworks for more. The image is {{PD-art-US}} only if you can show that it was published before 1923. If so, the tag is correct even if that publication occurred outside of the U.S. Again, see WP:PD. If it was published 1923 or later, the work is still copyrighted (in the U.S. and elsewhere). Lupo 17:41, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Quoting from WP:PD#Artworks: "Works of authors who died less than 70 years ago are in general not in the public domain. Exceptions are U.S. artworks for which a publication prior to 1923 is proven. The proof is mandatory; uploaders making a "public domain" claim on (a reproduction of) an artwork where the author died less than 70 years ago are required to prove with verifiable details that the work is indeed a U.S. work and was first published before 1923 in the U.S.". This specifically says that it has to be a U.S. artwork (and this painting is not); my understanding is that the tag is incorrect, unless the first publication happened in the US before 1923. --Cruccone 15:56, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

WP:PD#Artworks is wrong on several points including that. Publication in the U.S. or outside before 1923 makes it public domain in the U.S. That statement in that section about searching the back of a painting for a copyright symbol is just bizarre - at the of a long explanation that the painting itself is not the copyrighted item. Rmhermen 17:01, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

Can you back up your claims that it was wrong? And can you explain what exactly you believe to be wrong, and why? Lupo 07:28, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

First any work published anywhere in the world before 1923 is in the public domain in the U.S. - this is not restricted to U.S. works as the section says. Also as the section points out that it is not the date of creation of the work which is important for copyright but the publication of derivative material, it is ridiculous to make statements about searching the back of the painting for a copyright tag - what is required is evidence of the date of publication of the images of the painting, according to the early part of that section. Not to mention that the section implies that everything published after 1922 is still copyrighted when, in fact, most works are out-of-copyright due to non-compliance with the registration requirements necessary until recently. Rmhermen 16:48, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Oh, but "most works [published after 1922] are out-of-copyright due to non-compliance with the registration requirements necessary until recently" may be true only for U.S. works (and needs proof: one basically needs to ask the U.S. Copyright Office, which costs money). The copyright on post-1923 foreign works whose copyright had lapsed due to non-compliance with U.S. formalities was retroactively and automatically restored by the URAA; see 17 USC 104A. Even more, there are even a few foreign pre-1923 works that appear to be copyrighted; an example—admittedly not a painting—seems to be the Eiko Woche from 1914 to 1918; a German newsreel (see Federal Register / Vol. 63, No. 74 / Friday, April 17, 1998, p. 19362). Therefore, that section is cautiously restricted to U.S. works. Your previous point that it was "ridiculous to make statements about searching the back of the painting for a copyright tag" is your personal opinion. I refer you to Fishman, S.: The Public Domain: How to Find Copyright-Free Writings, Music, Art & More; ISBN 1-4133-0015-4, where the "© notice on the back" bit comes from. Again: your opinion in honor, but can you back up your claims? Lupo 17:13, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, post-1922 works needs proof; however, that is not how the section is written. As to the pre-1923 works on that site, I think they must be banking on the 9th District ruling[12] which Wikipedia ignores - as it isn't based in the 9th District and that ruling has not received other support. While it may be convenient if someone added a tag to the back of a painting about when images of the painting where first published, it hardly seems likely nor resonable when one can search for the images themselves. Having such a notice is in no way necessary for copyright protection or expiration of such protection. This reads like more copyright paranoia. Rmhermen 18:09, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Using material from other wikis

Many wikis, in particular the more speciazed ones, have copied information from Wikipedia which, assuming the licensing is compatible, is a Good Thing. Are there policies covering the reverse situation -- i.e., copying a good article from another (compatible) wiki to Wikipedia?

In particular, the article for Metropolia on the OrthodoxWiki is a nice and accurate disambiguation page. The current article for Metropolia in Wikipedia is a redirect to Metropolite, which is itself a redirect to Metropolitan -- which isn't quite right. I'd like to copy the OrthodoxWiki version over to here. Is this acceptable? If so, how should credit be properly noted? Anyway, thanks. ArglebargleIV 19:58, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Add a References section then link to the version of the original article that you copied over, with a comment like, "The original version of this article was derived from ..." User:Zoe|^(talk) 22:35, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Would we need to also copy the edit history from the source wiki, to ensure we meet GFDL attribution requirements, in the event the source Wiki deletes the article (or in the extreme case, the source wiki goes out of business)? --Rob 08:42, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

In this situation, I usually copy the edit history from the source and paste it to the top of the talk page. I don't think it really belongs in the article, and it's technically impossible to add it to the actual history, so this seems to work well. Deco 07:47, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Whats up with that wiki?

[13] talks about some person named kyle in canda requesting 5$ by check to mail stuff... WTF is that about?

If this is a scam (I believe it is), it should be removed and page should be protected.

--Cat out 10:46, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Category:Judaist websites

Shouldn't this be "Jewinsh" websites? I have never heard the term "Judaist" before. Dave 18:47, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia's treasury

Does anyone know where I can find information on WikipediA's treasury? Or its financial statements, its annual/monthly spendings, income etc? Pseudoanonymous 01:20, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

This is probably what you're looking for. Wikipedia doesn't have any money [it's a website]. Wikimedia is the organization with the money that runs the show. BrokenSegue 02:06, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, I was thinking about donating, but I wasn't about to do so without knowing where the money is going or how it is spent. I also wanted the budget for my proposal, which is to put ads on Wikipedia and all the sites under wikimedia; if the majority don't mind. With the budget I can suggest what the ads are going to pay for. Pseudoanonymous 19:24, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Heh. Good luck with that. Kafziel 19:48, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

is there a bot that looks for copyrights violation?

I was wondering if this wikipedia has a bot that does that... does it? --Extremophile 00:28, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

I don't know of one and my suspicion is there isn't one (I think it would be fairly difficult to implement with any degree of accuracy). -- Rick Block (talk) 01:08, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

For photos there's more than enough, in fact I think they're borderline problematic. As for text, that's another story. Most of the time they're easy to guess because they either are formatted weird (as an obvious cut-n-paste job) or sounds like their POV adverts. -- Bobak 01:32, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

The problem is how to design such a bot. First of all it would need a whitelist of all mirrors (otherwise it would faithfully mark our own articles!), which makes keeping the mirror list up to date even more important. Second of all it would need to be able to take random quotes and find similar sources. I'm not saying it can't be done, I just think a human would have a higher degree of success (and a lower chance of reporting good contributions). Garrett^Talk 02:12, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, hardly a bot could recognize whether someone quoting a huge part of a wikipedia´s article was a copyright infringement or just someone quoting... I didn´t think of that... also, a bot would search only for online material of irrestricted access, and perhaps some copies are done from manually copying books... seems that we better still look for copyright infringements on wikipedia like it was done in the time of our grandpas... but I just thought of something that, at least to my limited knowledge on bots, seems that could work... rather than a whitelist... it could search from a blacklist of possible sources of copyrighted material... and nowe I´m highly suspicious that it´s not viable... this black list could include even printed books, if someone could create a bot that manages to search within google books database... --Extremophile 04:56, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Actually, it's probably quite do-able. See TurnItIn. It might even be possible to cut a deal with them, since they search and archive Wikipedia. --John Nagle 18:24, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Here's how I'd do it. Scan all new pages. Copy the first 30 words or so and google search them (first 30 words shouldn't be a quote). If it gets a hit add it to a list of suspected copyvios. Also add all long pages with a small amount of wiki-syntax to the list. Shouldn't be too hard. Adding in the mirrors makes it harder though. You'd need a whitelist. Most long pages without syntax are copyvios though, so you might not need to use google to make accurate calls. Still a lot of work though, maybe TurnItIn.com would like to donate their services... BrokenSegue 02:03, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Reference material on Wikisource

I apologize if this is not the right place to post this, but I could find no better place. I am writing this message to inform the Wikipedia community of a decision recently made by Wikisource to exclude reference material. This includes all cryptographic, mathematical, scientific, and source code material. On the multilingual Wikisource the deletion has already begun, and on the English Wikisource, the deletion will begin shortly. I am not active here, so I do not know what pages here link to the articles on Wikisource, but I am alerting the community that the links will have to be changed.

If anyone wants to save the information on Wikisource, notify me, and I'll undelete the pages so that the information can be copied to a different place. I apologize for throwing this on you (I had hoped we would slowly delete the pages so as to avoid a lot of frustration in trying to find and correct links), but the deletion on the English sub-domain will hopefully proceed more slowly. I can most easily be reached on my English Wikisource talk page, but I will be checking my multi-lingual Wikisource talk page as well.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 19:24, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Copied to what different place? Ardric47 00:26, 3 May 2006 (UTC)