Wikipedia:Village pump archive 2004-09-26

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File:Village pump.JPG

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Moved discussion

Questions and answers, after a period of time of inactivity, will be moved to other relevant sections of the wikipedia (such as the FAQ pages) or placed in the Wikipedia:Village pump archive if it is of general interest.

See the archive for older moved discussion links. For the most recent moved discussion, see Wikipedia:Village pump archive#August 2003 moved discussion.

Request for the word Contents to appear somewhere on the Main Page Community / About the Project section

This may seem a bit esoteric, but, I'll try... The search features are great, but, when trying to work out if Wikipedia can do something (I'm not talking about the encyclopedia content, but the functions of Wikipedia the system), the search may not find what you are looking for. Then you need to try a differnt research approach. You may want to look and see what it can do, a summary, overview, to see if it has something like what you are looking for. (I was looking for a Wish List) It is at this point at which, in books that have one, you turn to the contents page. But where is the contents page for the Wikipedia System documentation ? Actually, there is pretty much a contents page in the Wikipedia:About page. All I'm suggesting is that perhaps we rename that page as the About and Contents Page, or at least on the Main Page the pointer to the Wikipedia:About Page be changed to About and Contents I sure hope people see the point, because it is very hard to explain. RB-Ex-MrPolo 13:59, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I do see the point. Wikipedia:Utilities and Wikipedia:Help should serve as contents, of a sort, but I do feel the documentation area continues to need work. Martin 14:09, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Wrapping text around Images in Wiki?

Is there any way in Wiki editing to wrap text around images as you can in HTML? --Niganit 16:02, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Simple, just copy the code from ANA.

Adrian Pingstone 17:37, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)

So, that's a "no", then?
(The ANA article uses HTML, not wiki markup, to wrap the text around the image.)
—Paul A 02:00, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)

No, it's not a NO because I misunderstood your question and I'm not clever enough to answer your actual question. Can anyone else supply an answer?

Adrian Pingstone 09:07, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)

No, there isn't; you must use HTML for this currently. Ideally there would be some sort of "float right/left" attributed and then the wikitext would generate the appropriate div elements and whatnot, but that's not implemented. See Wikipedia:Image_use_policy#Markup for a list of currently suggested HTML templates to use instead. --Delirium 09:10, Aug 1, 2003 (UTC)

Wow, that would be nice if that text wraparound code could be added to the new TOC boxes... -- Viajero 20:59, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Better not, or not in every case. Just envision a TOC box on the left, a country or biology box on the right, and inbetween on a small screen a single-word-per-line wrapped text. -- till we *) 21:06, Aug 1, 2003 (UTC)

Curiosity: software glitch

See Talk:Belladonna lily - Hephaestos 17:45, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Enhance the wikipedia experience

Proposal

Or, rather dully, I've two ideas someone could implement to spread wikipedia:

(1) A little "ask-wikip" tool/script for linux distributions, that from the unix prompt can be asked for wikipedia definitions and gives them or a no such definition if their is no page. Should be like the go-button, but a bit better in regard to uppercase/lowercase (try first the exact text, if this doesn't work, try it with all uppercase first letters, maybe even play a bit with hyphenation). Could get an X interface too, and some command line options for output (html, printable html to PS, pure ascii/using lynx as filter), and even display the wikipedia page in lynx or some other browser, maybe even including the edit functionality.

> ask-wikip --ascii-only "Wikipedia:village pump"
[http://...]
Wikipedia Village Pump

This page is for asking questions. ...
 ((gives the actual text of the Village pump))

> ask-wikip ants

Opens lynx browser pointing to the article about "Ant"

(2) Another idea would be a "go" (or better performace given, even "search") button one could include in ones own website (like the amazon partner programme). So I could have a "Look something up at Wikipedia"-text input field + button on my website. This should be fairly easy and maybe does exist already.

What do you think about these ideas? -- till we *) 12:28, Aug 1, 2003 (UTC)

Great idea! Please see the pyWikiAPI. Once it is done I (and others I am sure) will start making programs just like this. So feel free to post your suggestion on the forums there. MB 14:43, Aug 1, 2003 (UTC)

I really like the search text-field/button idea. I know I'd include it on my web site! Another tool to think about would be an add-on toolbar for IE. One that Merriam-Webster supplies (http://www.m-w.com) I find invaluable. It docks at the top of IE. Whenever I need to look up a word or synonym, I just type it in there and *BAM* a small window pops up with the info I need. I'd love a similar tool for Wikipedia. :-) —Frecklefoot 14:53, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Brilliant! Something much easier to code than an IE toolbar would be a Sherlock/Mycroft plugin to Mozilla. OTOH, only a few hundred thousand people use Mozilla, but I'm pretty sure that they're rather thickly concentrated on Wikipedia. -Smack 01:00, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Well, well, well. It seems that a certain Carey Evans made just such a thing - a year and a half ago. Now, children, go download the plugin. -Smack 01:13, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Did a google query, found Carey Evans homepage, but no plugin. And besides, I'd rather have something that could be included in websites, too. :-) -- till we *) 18:28, Aug 2, 2003 (UTC)

To MB: The pyWikiAPI seems to be a bit empty, doesn't it? At least I didn't find any place where I easyly could mention my idea. I see the necessarity for a python (and also PHP) API to access Wikipedia from other sides, but I really can't believe something like that doesn't exist in the moment (could be a simple PHP-variables-in-the-URL-based approach or something with POST/GET-FORMs). -- till we *) 15:12, Aug 1, 2003 (UTC)

It would be very nice if I could do the following:

highlight a word on a web page and right click. (Well, anyone can do it.)
I get an option of "look up in Wikipedia"
Upon selecting the option, a new Window opens with the highlighted word.

I have seen similar one for Google in Japanese. Tomos 11:56, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Well, if you use Mozilla, you can install the aforementioned plugin, which is almost as good. And if you don't use Mozilla, you have only yourself to blame. -Smack 18:02, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Possible Solution

For the second idea I proposed (to include a Wikipedia search or go bar into custom webpages), I found out that a quick look into the sourcecode of Wikipedia generated pages is enough. There you'll find (with the small addition of http://www.wikipedia.org done by me) all that is needed to include a wikipedia search field on custom homepages:

 <form name='search' class='inline' method=get
 action="http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml">
 <input type=text name="search" size=19 value="">
 <input type=submit name="go" value="Go">
 
 </form>

Is it okay to use this? Is there someone who could create a nice (in the result) sniplet of code out of this that could be included anywhere? -- And shouldn't the search function better be really disabled instead of only be commented out? -- till we *) 15:20, Aug 3, 2003 (UTC)

((oh, and by the way: Why does the go field (neither this nor the one in wikipedia proper not work, but brings up random pages, when the page doesn't exist ("Student union" brought me to Soviet union as well as Christian Social Union in Bavaria, Student test brought up Student nursery)? -- till we *) 15:25, Aug 3, 2003 (UTC)))

More New Imperialism Madness

172 continues to remove the link to New Imperialism (temp) from New Imperialism -- despite his having demanded a vote which then turned out to support the link. Pizza Puzzle

I put the link in after the vote was conclucded. Mav immediately removed it, without explanation. I put it back in again. Then it was gone again... This is lunacy. Pizza Puzzle, feel free to keep on putting it back in if you have the patience. I can't be arsed anymore. CGS 11:11, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC).

Pizza Puzzle

It is obvious that certain users have become convinced that I am another user against which they hold a grudge. I will be changing my account name so that this is no longer a problem for me. Pizza Puzzle

Hold on a second. Two users can't be registered under the same name, right? So there should be only one Pizza Puzzle - the troll. -Smack 01:05, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Tell Lir that User:The troll isn't taken.

I think User:Vera Cruz is untaken. (I'm not convinced, but you're helping!) Daniel Quinlan 01:25, Aug 2, 2003 (UTC)

I hope that the new Lir persona isn't interested in jumbled lists pertaining to New Imperialism! 172 12:11, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Style of dash

Move to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style

Question on Style. I recieved the following comment on a page I edited: (&am; "#151;" is not a valid HTML entity... it should be & "mdash;" or & "#8212;"). I think & "#151;" is perfectly valid for a "printer's em or em dash" Anyone know why it is not? Also, should not the em be separated by spaces from the rest of the text, since it is NOT an ordinary dash, but a device for redirecting rthouyght within a sentence? Anybody know about this? Marshman 04:47, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

In ISO 8859-1 and Unicode, code point 151 is reserved as a control character. It is not an em dash except in Microsoft's proprietary code page extensions, and any program that displays an em-dash for "" is doing so either erroneously or in deliberate emulation of common bugs in Windows. Relying on buggy behavior is not recommended. :) Please use the standard, either — or —. --Brion 05:02, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Thanks I will use — in the future. Coffee-Cup Software HTML Editor inserts "" for an em-dash and it certainly displays that way on browsers. Why the confusion? 24.94.86.252 05:36, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)me not logged inn Marshman 05:38, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

please don't! — looks very ugly in wikisource and some editors may not know what it is. Stick to "--". I know it's ugly, but in future our parser may turn that into mdash automagically. -- Tarquin 12:17, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Does hardly look more ugly than L&uoml;beck.

"--" gets really ugly when broken between lines, " - " would be a better advice.

-- Ruhrjung 12:42, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

TOC placement: Topmost or post-intro

Anon 209 has recently been given a number of medical articles, such as Aortic dissection, subheadings. This created TOCs. That's good. But the Anon also move the introductory paragraphs to be under the first section, "Definition". This made the TOCs to be the first things in the articles (unlike, say the Pump here).

But isn't the intros always assumed to be "good definitions"? Should we keep the intro as a preamble or not?
--Menchi 06:40, Aug 2, 2003 (UTC)

Please see also for instance History of Germany, where Wai-Shun Cheung systematically have reached a similar effect.
-- Ruhrjung 07:25, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

yuck. An article starts with a definition, by definition! reverting/. -- Tarquin 08:38, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

It does mean exactly this until some __TOCHERE__ something or other wiki markup is included in the wiki markup language, which isn't the case yet. -- till we *) 19:34, Aug 2, 2003 (UTC)

Benzone

Move to Talk:Benzone (currently empty)

On Wikipedia:Requested_articles there is a request for Benzone. Is this just a misspelling of Benzene, or is it something different that I simply don't know about?

Or it may be a misspelling of benzine? -- Gutza 09:15, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I believe it's genuine: in chemistry you change the suffix of the name to represent different characteristics. For example sorbose - sugar; sorbitol - sugar alcohol, and so on. Dysprosia 09:23, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Benzone is apparently a non-standard name for Phenylbutazone -- Tim Starling 13:59, Aug 2, 2003 (UTC)

Vandal Limbo

Please check out my Vandal Limbo proposal at Wikipedia talk:Vandalism in progress (the larger block of text by the end of the article at this moment), and comment on it. I'll move the discussion somewhere else if it sparks some interest, I'd just want to know if you people think it;s a good idea for now. -- Gutza 09:45, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Anchors

I tried using achors with redicects but they dont seem to work properly. I used Kings of England and typed in this for the redirect #REDIRECT [[List of British monarchs#English monarchs]]. When I go to Kings of England page it does not direct me to the section I want, it doees not seem to understand achors. - fonzy

No, obviously doesn't redirect understand anchors, and maybe that's for the best. It's far too easy to change a heading without knowing of any references to that particular heading, and it's surely more important to keep that easy than to make it easier to use anchors. ;->

-- Ruhrjung 19:45, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Wikipedia Used as a Legal Source

... in the winner of the 2003 Legal Document of the Year. Apparently some kid got disciplined for a fuck laden outburst at school, and he defended himself all the way to the courts. His lawyers used Wikipedia as part of their defence sources. CGS 19:10, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC).

Location of Table of Contents

See Maya civilization. Should the table of contents really be located so many paragraphs down into the article? Does the location of the table of contents mean that we're going to have to start putting in an ==Introduction== header in every article to force the table of contents to the top? RickK 19:30, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Scroll this page up a bit. CGS 19:33, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC).

#TOC placement: Topmost or post-intro. --Menchi 19:43, Aug 2, 2003 (UTC)

Pruning this article

Move to Wikipedia talk:Village pump

There is a large cache of lines at the top of this article which indicate where previous discussions have been moved. Currently, this article is 55 Kb long, and that makes it difficult for some browsers to edit. Could we move the moved articles section to another article, or to an archive? RickK 19:39, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Pruning the pump (sounds like a euphemism, doesn't it?) is unpopular. I don't know why - it really boosts your number of contributions. The list of items moved can be archived to Wikipedia:Village pump archive, but the latest few should stay. Be bold! CGS 19:46, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC).

Physics main page is empty !

Move to Talk:Physics

Aug 3, 2003 This page looks empty, although, when trying to edit it, there is text in it. Is it a bug ?

Physics is empty? Try refreshing (F5) the page. -- Notheruser 22:54, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Maxwell's equations page is empty too !

Neither page is empty. What browser are you using? -- Notheruser 18:56, 3 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Wikipedia on CNN

KEEP A LOOKOUT: There should be a news story airing CNN International Monday morning, Asia-Pacific time about Wikipedia and the class project that my class just finished. The correspondent is Kristy Lu Stout, and should be a Techwatch feature. Will link to the online version when it appears. - Fuzheado 03:56, 3 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I miss Search!

Oops, just created a duplicate article for film director Costa-Gavras. Using the Go button on Costa-Gavras only returned Costa-Rica, so I started a fresh article. Just I discovered he already exists, as Constantin Costa-Gavras. :-(((

Sigh...

I will have to get used to using Google to check these things... Until Search is restored (soon???)... -- Viajero 10:25, 3 Aug 2003 (UTC)

It's a bummer, but if search was enabled, you could not use the site at all right now.—Eloquence 10:29, Aug 3, 2003 (UTC)

Never mind, I merged Constantin Costa-Gavras into Costa-Gavras. I hope this doesn't seem controversial. He is known primarily by Costa-Gavras; moreover his real name is Constantino Gavras.

-- Viajero 10:56, 3 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Why not try with:
http://www.google.com/custom?domains=wikipedia.org;1911encyclopedia.org&sitesearch=wikipedia.org or something similar in your favorite list?
-- Ruhrjung 14:37, 3 Aug 2003 (UTC)

How to make my computer a Wikipedia copy?

I want to make my computer a Wikipedia platform so that I can browse and work offline, but I don't know much about programming, I tried several times to install the PHP, but failed. (It doesn't work! I did everything accroding to the instrument, but the source file just as what it is in .php, I am using Windows XP English edition + IE 6.0). Could anyone help me how to make that work? So that I can just edit articles offline as I do online in the Wikipedia? Or is there any software offering WYCIWYG platform? Thanks! (please leave messages in my talk page, thank you!). --Samuel 13:23, 3 Aug 2003 (UTC)

There's a Mozilla plugin called Spiderzilla that may be able to do the trick. ([1])

Better yet, http://download.wikipedia.org offers the entire database in two archives and it won't kill the server with thousands of connection requests. -- Notheruser 22:22, 3 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Samuel already knows about database downloads, but is having trouble installing the entire Wikipedia suite, which is required in order to view them. That's hardly surprising. I think meta:WINOR is what you're looking for. Its existence hasn't really been publicised, and I haven't tried it myself, so I don't know if it's any good. But according to the blurb, it does what you want. -- Tim Starling 01:18, Aug 4, 2003 (UTC)

Thank you, but the WINOR link is a dead link, i can't download from there. besides, it took me more than 5 hours to convert the sql files into TomeRaider (en version), but it still didn't finished, i had to just cancel the process. --Samuel 03:37, 4 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Legal liability of distributing First Aid page?

I would like to copy the main part of the First Aid page and distribute in on Palm handhelds (might save a life!). But then I got worried about getting sued. While the stuff seems correct, I'm no medical expert. What are the legal liabilities here? Should I include a disclaimer? How can I word the disclaimer so that it doesn't undermine the credibilty of the content? --Zipdude 01:00, 4 Aug 2003 (UTC)

NPOV for death years in date pages

It's not a massively important thing, but "date" pages (eg. April 1) have a + indicating the year of someone's death. Surely that's Christian and not neutral? :) -- TY. 04:00, 4 Aug 2003 (UTC)

And I thought it was derived from the look in the eyes of dead comic book characters.

 (+) (+)
    o
  _---_

—Eloquence 03:18, Aug 4, 2003 (UTC)

Sillyness aside, it does not represent a Christian cross; the + is a shorthand for a dagger symbol †, but some browsers still can't display daggers so we mostly use the plus sign. --mav 03:28, 4 Aug 2003 (UTC)

It looks confusing either way. It doesn't get its intended meaning across to some people. I've got some Wikipedians asking about that on the Chinese WP. And more confusingly so, its opposite: (- 1943), intended to be birthyear. --Menchi 03:32, Aug 4, 2003 (UTC)