Jump to content

Wikipedia:Village pump archive 2004-09-26

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Dori (talk | contribs) at 16:00, 11 December 2003 (moving SUBST vs MSG discussion). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

[[da:Wikipedia:Landsbybr%F8nden]]


Post a question now if you don't want to wait for the whole page to be loaded. But consider skimming to see if your question was already asked. Also, do not push the "save page" button multiple times when posting this way! The server is overloaded but it will usually respond eventually and add your question to the page multiple times!

Related pages: Mailing lists - IRC - IM a Wikipedian - Talk pages - Wikipedia talk:Software updates

File:Village pump yellow.png

Welcome, newcomers and baffled oldtimers! This is where Wikipedians raise and try to answer Wikipedia-related questions and concerns regarding technical issues, policies, and operation in our community. However:

  • To raise a bug report, or suggest a feature, see bug reports.
  • To request peer review of an article you've written, see Wikipedia:Peer review
  • For remarks and questions on the contents of an article, use the "Discuss this page" link at that article to arrive at the corresponding Talk page.
  • If you have other questions about anything else in the Universe or life, try Reference desk.
  • For information on the server status, see Wikipedia:Servers and Wikipedia talk:Servers.

To facilitate ease of browsing and replying, please:

  1. Place your questions at the bottom of the list
  2. Title the question (by typing == title ==)
    • If you use the edit link above, just enter a subject.
  3. Sign your name and date (by typing --~~~~)

See also: Wikipedia:FAQ, Wikipedia:Help, Wikipedia:Please do not bite the newcomers

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), placed in the Wikipedia:Village pump archive (if it is of general interest), or deleted (if it has no long-term value).

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

Requests for help and comments

  1. See User:Daniel Quinlan/redirects if you want to help out with fixing thousands of broken links prepared by Brion and Daniel.
  2. See Wikipedia talk:Interlanguage links for Hashar's information on using RobBot to add interlanguage links.
  3. See Talk:Historical anniversaries/Example for mav's idea to add table to day page articles
  4. snoyes requests that people who are not logged in and adding inter-language links please put "de:", "fr:" etc. in their edit summaries.
  5. Aoineko has set up an international Egyptology project for all Wikipedias. If you would like to join it, see m:Egyptopedia.
  6. Kingturtle would like to remind biography writers that the first paragraph of a biographical entry should always mention birth and death years, nationality, and brief descriptions of three or for of that person's most important accomplishments. If the person is still alive, the first sentence should say what that person is. See Wikipedia:Manual of Style (biographies).
  7. Muriel Victoria would like you to vote at the pages linked to from Wikipedia:Refreshing brilliant prose on which articles should stay at Wikipedia:Brilliant prose.


How-to to Wikibooks?

I think that that page should be deleted, and all of the articles that it links to should be integrated into Wikibooks. I got a vote of consent on talk:How-to, but I want a little more discussion before I undertake such a significant change.-Smack

Are you proposing one or more "How-to" books for Wikibooks using as starters these articles at Wikipedia? If so, sounds like a good idea. How-to articles consolidated into one or more texts would probably be more suitable as a Wikibooks project IMHO - 24.94.82.245 02:59, 2 Dec 2003 (UTC)- Marshman 03:18, 2 Dec 2003 (UTC)
I have no doubt that that is a good idea. What I meant (sorry I wasn't clear the first time) is that the Wikipedia articles (or sections of articles, as the case may be) should be deleted. -Smack 07:15, 2 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Would it be possible to leave the how-to pages but replace the contents of each one with a link (maybe even a redirect ?) to the relevant part of Wikibooks ? Articles that link to the how-to pages would then not be left with broken links. -- Gandalf61 10:10, Dec 2, 2003 (UTC)
That's a sensible idea. Is it possible to create redirects like this ? Smack might I suggest you start with the cookery pages, as It is clear where you could put them in wikibooks. Drop me a line on my talk page when you are ready to start and I'll give you a hand. theresa knott 11:07, 2 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Yes, it is possible to make interwiki redirects. Unfortunately, such a redirect seems to omit the familar Redirected from line. User:Smack/interwiki redirect test -Smack 02:18, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)
It is possible, but a lot of people see it as a bad thing, because of the difficulty in editing the redirect and the confusion that being at another site may cause. See m:Redirected user pages considered harmful. Angela 02:23, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Point taken. So would it be wise to delete the how-to content altogether? -Smack 04:00, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)
If you just delete, you lose the edit history. Therfore, before deleteing you need to work out a list of authors for each article, and post their names in the edit summary of the page when you move it to wikibooks. ie {moved from wikipedia -authors are , name, name , name .....} So that we comply with the copyleft licence. Does this make sense ? theresa knott 11:13, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)
The most sensible thing would be to transfer the page with the complete editing history intact, wouldn't it? Note that Special:Export was specifically designed for this sort of thing, though the requisite import facility isn't done just yet. --Brion 12:01, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Cancelling user account

is it possible to cancel my account? i.e. i no longer wishes my handle (p0lyglut) to show up in wikipedia in articles i edited or anywhere. Thanks. 

Xah P0lyglut 04:27, 2003 Dec 2 (UTC)
I hope you're not leaving us! If you just want to change your username, see Wikipedia:Changing username Dysprosia 04:29, 2 Dec 2003 (UTC)


September 11 memorial

In following some semi-conversations on Votes for Deletion, it appears that a de-facto policy is to move articles about individual (non-famous) 9-11 victims to http://sep11.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tributes_to_individuals. Perhaps we need a local page to collect links to articles that need to be so moved. Any comments? -Anthropos 23:34, 5 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Related discussion about expanding the focus of the Sep11Wiki is at meta:Wikimorial. --mav 09:40, 6 Dec 2003 (UTC)

What are messages?

What are messages (such as {{SUBST:vfd}})? What do they do? How do they work?

Noldoaran 21:56, Dec 6, 2003 (UTC)

They are explained at m:Meta-Wikimedia:MediaWiki namespace. Angela. 22:16, 6 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Thanks Angela, I saw that page before, but i couldn't find it when I looked again.
Noldoaran (Talk), 04:38, Dec 7, 2003 (UTC)

Comments needed at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countries

User:Karukera has proposed to add "head of government" and "head of state" labels to the country template. Personally, I find this ugly, but does someone else want to comment? (Samples available) --Jiang|(Talk) 22:35, 6 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Comments added to that page. Basically the template needs to be flexible for the moment IMO until the shape of the data becomes clear. Andrewa 09:09, 7 Dec 2003 (UTC)

signatures

Is there a quick n' easy way to add a signature with username, and possibly date/time, etc? I see other people do it... :*( leigh

Yep, see Wikipedia:Sign. Good thing you asked. --Menchi 05:34, 7 Dec 2003 (UTC)


Request for permanent ban

The IP User:65.110.6.34 has a history of repeated vandalism. Apparently, it's the address of the free anonymous IP www.proxyweb.net. Can a developer permanantly ban this IP? See Vandalism_in_progress#65.110.6.34. Anyone using this IP would be doing so voluntarily. --Jiang | Talk 21:36, 7 Dec 2003 (UTC)



Too slow

Can some developer please set the watchlist default back to 1 hour? --Wik 18:21, Dec 8, 2003 (UTC)

I think it should be set in user preferences. Noldoaran (Talk)[[.]] 18:23, Dec 8, 2003 (UTC)
1 hour is way to short, I myself would prefer 1 week - especially as I have a rather short watchlist with 1 hour I would miss all edits. As there are different ways to use the watchlist a user setting would be best. But for the time being I can accept the current setting as a compromise between both. andy 22:27, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)
If I've just woken up, I would like it to be set to 6 hours. If I've just got home from work, 9 hours, and the rest of the time 1 hour please. :) Angela. 22:55, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)
A day or two is a nice median. Daniel Quinlan 00:07, Dec 9, 2003 (UTC)
Anyone who needs a long watchlist can get it with one click. But why force it on those who don't need it? There are probably many power users who easily click on the Watchlist 50 times a day. And they just need a longer list one or two times, as Angela said. Sending them the long list the other 49 times is a pure waste and slows everything down. --Wik 00:21, Dec 9, 2003 (UTC)
I found a good solution was to bookmark the "one day" watchlist, but use the one-hour watchlist whilst editing. Martin 00:45, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Congressional biographies

If every American Wikipedian visited List of Members of the U.S. House of Representatives and contributed a short biography of their local Congress-person, we would have a complete set of Congressional articles in no time! Adam 01:30, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

The Congressional biographical directory is in public domain (for anyone interested). --Jiang | Talk
But what do you do about the problem that (at least in my district) the representative is about as interesting as a congealed bowl of porridge? :-) Even his misdeeds are boring. Stan 07:09, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Write a boring article. You won't be penalized for doing so. --Jiang | Talk
Except that it maybe won't make the Brilliant Prose list. But then, how many do... -- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen 06:18, Dec 10, 2003 (UTC)

I might add that many of the Senators' biographies are mere stubs and could use some work as well. Adam 08:20, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Wiki Farm for mediaWiki

I am trying to set up a special purpose wiki where only members of a special interest group can edit. I really like the MediaWiki that Wikipedia uses, and Wikipedia is an excellent example to show people how a Wiki works. Does anyone know of a Wiki farm that uses MediaWiki? I mean a host that runs MediaWiki that will allow me to set up my own Wiki, probably for a fee. pstudier 17:31, 2003 Dec 9 (UTC)

I don't know what a wiki farm is, but have a look at these sites Wikipedia:Sites using MediaWiki and see if you find what you're looking for. Also check out meta:MediaWiki. Dori | Talk 17:51, Dec 9, 2003 (UTC)
I'm not aware of any wiki farms using MediaWiki. Maybe you should try asking Jimbo Wales to set one up on our servers. -- Tim Starling 23:54, Dec 9, 2003 (UTC)

A proposal on categorization

This is a little idea of mine that I have written up. Please read and comment. Zocky 03:44, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

That's a very good idea. The only problem with it is that it has already been suggested, discussed, developed and implemented, and now only awaits some sort of decision on whether or not it should be released on the general public. Except it uses [[Category:xxx]], not [[cat:xxx]]. -- Tim Starling 03:47, Dec 9, 2003 (UTC)
Really? Well, it being the sensible solution, it's no wonder. I tried looking for it, but couldn't find anything of worth (and I did try suggesting something like this on meta quite some time ago). Please provide links. Zocky
It was mainly discussed on the mailing lists wikipedia-l and wikitech-l. See Eloquence's proposal from wikitech-l in February 2003 and Magnus Manske's completion note in July. -- Tim Starling 04:05, Dec 9, 2003 (UTC)
Heh, the same thing :) Is there anything in my text that's new, or should I just trash the whole thing? Zocky 04:13, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)
I finally found where I tried proposing it first! It was on sourceforge: [[1]], back in January, but it didn't get any comments until last week :) Turns out many people suggested it. Must mean it's a good idea. Zocky 04:29, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)
So what's holding up a trial? That's the only way we'll see whether it works, ie (a) sits comfortably on existing culture and (b) achieves something. Andrewa 06:39, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

citation

How could I cite Wikipedia as a source in a research paper? (MLA format!)

Check out the Columbia guide to online style. It gives examples of MLA style for online resources. Also see Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia. --MIRV 07:12, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

well unlike all other encyclopedia why wikipedia is not having sammm flash movies explaining any small topic like any bird or circuit woring etc. i would love to work on this.

(Hopefully) simple request

Can we have a "Watch this page"/"Stop watching" link in the sidebar when viewing a Revision History page, please? --Zero 11:27, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Please request features at wikipedia:bug reports.

Where do searches go?

This is probably a simple data error, but I don't yet know how to fix it myself: When I enter "ct scan" in Wikipedia's mini-search bar I end up on "Ultrasound scan" (a related but different subject). There is a much more relevant page available, computed_axial_tomography. Searching for "CT scan" takes me there. Is it possible for a mere site-visitor to change where a search will take me? --195.22.85.154 14:43, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Weird, when I enter "CT scan" (CT in caps) I get redirected to Computed axial tomography from CT scan, in lower case I get the same result as you do &mdash even though there is no ct scan. Strange. Anyway, you can also press on "search" instead of "go" and you can do a proper search for the words you entered. --snoyes 15:32, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Heh, it happens because of #redirect. Ultrasound scan which redirects to Medical ultrasonography contains both "CT" (as the ending of #REDIRECT) and "scan". So, that's what it finds :) Maybe stuff like #redirect should be excluded from searches? Zocky 15:40, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Search works!

Not much to discuss, but this certainly is good news, search is up again! -- Sverdrup 15:41, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Did they re-enable it because of the new server? —Noldoaran (Talk) 18:43, Dec 9, 2003 (UTC)

Yip. --snoyes 18:54, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Yea! —Noldoaran (Talk) 03:44, Dec 10, 2003 (UTC)
There's something funny with the rubric: it seems to be repeating the hint on where to find help. Phil 12:26, Dec 10, 2003 (UTC)

Adding an email/Changing a password

How does one go about adding an email to an account without one? My old account doesn't have an email address, and I forgot the password years ago.

Help!

You probably need to convince one of the developers that you are the same person. I would imagine that that would be a difficult thing, so the only solution is to probably open a new account. Someone correct me if I am wrong on this. Dori | Talk 17:20, Dec 9, 2003 (UTC)

Spell checking a Wikipedia article

What are good techniques that allow quick spell checking of a Wikipedia article? Bevo 19:19, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Unfortunately, for now, the only way that I know of is to use an external spell-checker. You can do this by pasting the displayed text into a word processor such as Microsoft Word or OpenOffice.org and using their spell-checking capabilities, or using some command line program such as aspell or ispell. Dori | Talk 19:44, Dec 9, 2003 (UTC)
Using a Mac, with Safari. The spell checker is available to any editable text, including the text box for editing WP articles. Even as you type. I do wish they would make this panel support Undo though - maybe next version ;-) GRAHAMUK 23:27, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)
I hadn't actually noticed that before; that's kind of neat! Unfortunately it doesn't automatically detect the language, so I have to manually switch dictionaries on en/fr/etc. And it doesn't have an Esperanto dictionary built-in, I'll have to try and track one down... :D --Brion 00:34, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)

RFC MediaWiki talk:Loginprompt

I propose to change the login text for here - I always thought the current login prompt was too unintuitive. Since this is rather a largish change, I'm sending out a request for comments at MediaWiki talk:Loginprompt. Do let me know what you think, suggest something new, if you're interested :) Dysprosia 23:49, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

How long do messages to anon editors talk-pages last?

How many minutes/hours/days/weeks do the messages I leave to a talk-page of an anonymous IP-address, last? If someone leaves a talk-page message to that anon editor after me, does the counter start from scratch? Curious minds want to know. -- Cimon Avaro on a pogostick 03:31, Dec 10, 2003 (UTC)

I don't think there's any hard and fast sort of rule as to when to remove previous messages, but they stay there until someone removes them... Dysprosia 03:33, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Can't login -- what cookies do I need to enable ?

I was unable to login successfully until I allowed cookies from both en.wikipedia.org and en2.wikipedia.org (thank you for the information Dysprosia).

Referrers

Wikipedia:Referrers is interesting but quite old - it hasn't been updated since September 2002. I think it would be worthwhile to have an updated version.

Tualha 06:44, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Prevalence of pages about places

I wonder why it is that the majority of times I use "Random page" I get a page about a locality, and an American locality at that. Is there some special programming designed to give such results, or is this just an amazing coincidence?

Cheers JackofOz 07:44, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)

We just have a lot of them. See User:Rambot. --Brion 07:51, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)

It's because Wikipedia is full of junk. See my The Wikipedia Quality Survey Adam 08:26, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Don't blame JackofOz for the terrible title of this section; mea culpa. JackofOz, you should see a link near the top of the page called "Post a question now" - it creates a new section header. Tualha 13:56, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)

It's because a lot of stuff was robotically imported from US Census data. There are complaints about this from time to time, which are generally answered by people who note that their first introduction to Wikipedia was searching for their home town or birthplace on Google, which often turns up one of these very common Wikipedia articles. Tempshill 01:49, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I don't see a problem with it myself. Yes, on average, pages are less edited, less "personal", than they were before Rambot did its stuff, and the article count can be considered inflated. But the other articles are no less useful or worthwhile. We just have a whole lot of other information, which is very useful itself, and as Tempshill pointed out, bring in plenty of new people. Tualha 04:40, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

So could there be a way to make "random page" produce more interesting results - e.g. maybe it would only select a page above a certain size, so the page is likely to be more "interesting" than a short page. But then I guess it would not be "random page" anymore ! Gandalf61 07:31, Dec 11, 2003 (UTC)

Current events or Breaking news?

Its not a proposal, only an idea of mine. Like I said its not a proposal, I dont neccesarily think the name SHOULD be changed , but Ive been thinking for a very long time that what we do at the current events page is essentially breaking the news.

What do you all think? Shall the page name be changed?

--Antonio Phenomenom Martin

Disagree. The stuff stays for a month. It's hardly breaking news by the end of the month. RickK 04:27, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

All our stuff is second-handed! Some are so seconded that we're basically the last news-oid website to talk about. And many important stuff are not included. It is not breaking anybody. --Menchi (Talk)â 04:33, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

That's precisely what I did do, and the section title appeared later, as if by magic. JackofOz 22:37, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)

List of women poets

I created this list yesterday and it already has over 60 names on it. About half of the listed poets do not have articles yet. I think that, in a modest way, this list and the associated articles could be a real ornament to Wikipedia, being particularly useful to people doing Women's studies and the like, so I'm inviting everyone to a) check it out and add your favourite female poet, if she's not there already and b) add an article! Bmills 10:57, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Poetry

I don't know how many poets are around but you've been doing a lot of good work in this area... how about starting a Wikipedia:WikiProject Poetry to bring it altogether? Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 11:53, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)

How? What's involved? Bmills 13:14, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Well, fool that I am, I've made an attempt to start this. Now I really need help. A one-person Wikiproject is not going to get very far. Bmills 14:16, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Is there any objection to this proposed WikiProject Poetry boilerplate text or to the suggested placing of it?

Please consider adding the following boilerplate text at the end of your articles and the top of their Talk page.

This article is part of WikiProject Poetry. Please read the guidelines set out there before editing the page.

Wikipedia/Guidelines for controversial articles

Hi all, I just started meta-page Wikipedia:Guidelines for controversial articles to help resolve problems with Israeli-Palestinian topics and it might be useful for other areas as well. Please take a look and help expand it. -- Viajero 15:24, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I moved it to the Wikipedia namespace. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 15:31, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)
One more thing, can someone add something on ways to resolve disputes over placenames? Thanks. -- Viajero 15:32, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)
I'd work on this request. I looked about for a proper place to put it and came up somewhat empty. I suppose under the "Style" or "Edit" pages maybe? - Marshman 23:27, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC) OK, I started a "Style" page for Proper names at Wikipedia:Proper_names. I'll work on it for awhile - fair bit of ground to cover - and others can, of course add ideas as they see fit - Marshman


Remove from watchlist coding thing

Why is it that when you click Stop watching, you are offered a link to return to Main Page when you've almost certainly come from your watchlist and want to go back there? Bmills 16:30, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Talk Pages - Backward link request

Is there any chance of adding a backward link from a talk page to the page it is talking about? It's a little annoying to have to step back four or five pages to return to the page after an edit (or more if you've been browsing the talk history, for example!).

I would suggest making the second part of the heading (after Talk:) into a link back to the main page.

HappyDog 17:27, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)

By 'main page' I of course meant the article the Talk page refers to. HappyDog 17:28, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand your question completely, but there is a link to the article page from that article's talk page: 1. down the bottom "View article", and in the sidepanel "This page">"View article". --snoyes 17:33, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)
There already is on the links to the left (i.e. for a Talk: there is a View article, for a User talk, there is a View user page; for a Wikipedia talk: there is a View meta page, etc.). Is that good enough? (through conflict edit) Dori | Talk 17:36, Dec 10, 2003 (UTC)

I see it now - it's not very clear, and importantly there is no equivalent link at the top of the page. I feel it would be a little more intuitive to make the second part of the page header (after Talk:) into a link back as well. Seriously, I double checked before writing this that there wasn't anything I'd missed, and I still didn't spot it! HappyDog 17:39, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Actually, can be hard to find quickly, even knowing where it is... Might be better if the link on the left was < View article instead of just [[MediaWiki:Articlepage|Template:Articlepage]]. (And also < View meta page instead of just [[MediaWiki:Wikipediapage|Template:Wikipediapage]].) Κσυπ Cyp   20:17, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)

What do people (that means you) prefer, this:

Edit this page
Post a comment
Stop watching
Move this page
< View article
Page history
What links here
Related changes

or how it already is?:

Edit this page
Post a comment
Stop watching
Move this page
View article
Page history
What links here
Related changes Κσυπ Cyp   20:17, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)


We're is this list? I can't find it? HappyDog 20:56, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)


OK - I've been playing around with my settings, and I now have the nav bar you describe. I'm not sure what caused it to appear, as I changed several settings at the same time.

The nav bar makes things a bit better, and easier to navigate. If the bar is there, my original request for a top-of-page link is no longer a necessity. However I still think it's desirable. It's the natural place for a backward link (it's the first place I looked), and given the wiki-philosophy of massively linking pages (e.g. every single date!) this does seem like a bit of an oversight, and an easy one to rectify. This is particularly true for people who haven't discovered how to turn on the menu (or don't even know that they can!). HappyDog 21:04, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I've played with Cyp's suggestion, sysops can edit the links in the Wikipedia:MediaWiki namespace.—Eloquence
Why are you making the lt a HMTL &lt; rather than a "real" lt, 0x3c? Just idly curious. -- Pakaran 01:50, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Just to avoid any possible display issues, should we add a > near to it. I tend to always escape < and > for that reason (see, that would have become an invisible tag if Wikipedia didn't use a tag whitelist for regular editing.—Eloquence 01:53, Dec 11, 2003 (UTC)
What "Skin" (under "preferences") are we talking about? I'm not sure they all have the same menu bar. Anjouli 15:04, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

welcome committee

Hey folks. Recently a new user showed up, created a "vanity page," and spent a while fussing over whether it was going to be deleted. I talked with him a bit, and got the impression that he was doing that because he didn't really know what else to do. He was willing to contribute but didn't know where.

After that experience, it occurred to me that it would useful to create a group of Wikipedians dedicated to guiding newcomers. I know that there are a number of people who make a point of posting welcome messages to new users' talk pages, but I'm talking about more than that. I mean making a project dedicated to discussion of how to better welcome newcomers and get them started working where they'll be the most help. This project would have a page somewhere (Maybe a WikiProject page or a page on meta) and a defined, if informal, membership. The ultimate goal would be to welcome newcomers, find out their interests, connect them to WikiProjects if appropriate, introduce them to veteran WikiPedians with similar interests, and maybe guide them in their early editing.

I believe this approach would be better than the current system of hoping newcomers will read guidelines, waiting for them to ask questions, and correcting their work when they screw up.

A more proactive approach would have several benefits:

  • It would help get newcomers contributing faster and better, thus adding more good material to WikiPedia
  • It would save time that people currently spend fixing work of newcomers who don't know what's going on.
  • It would immerse new users in WikiPedia faster, and thus hopefully encourage a greater percentage of new users to stay.

Comments? Isomorphic 20:10, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)

You know, we're usually pretty good about someone posting a "welcome to wikipedia" boilerplates, and whomever does so seems to be the newbie's first "wikifriend". I do try to do this, but I seem to be beaten 99% of the time either by Angela or Theresa_knott (lending support to my theory that they're both highly advanced, super-efficient, perlscripts). I'm beginning to think of amending my own boilerplate to be a bit clearer about autobiographies, as I think a lot of the supposed "vanity" pages are just people not knowing the difference between the main namespace and the User one. -- Finlay McWalter 20:19, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Great idea. Not sure how it would be implemented, except perhaps by having a newbie click on a selection of areas of interest that would then alert an editor with similar interests (that has volunteered to be in the position) who can serve as a "guide" in the beginning, possibly passing off to other subcommittee members. I note there are some such groups already at MetaWiki - Marshman 23:24, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)
    • Well, one implementation I'd imagined was having a page somewhere with a coded feature that showed all new accounts that have been created in, say, the last week (excluding anonymous IPs.) Also, where are such groups on meta? I haven't spent much time there. Could someone link? Isomorphic 00:12, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)
It might be worth anyone interested in setting up such a scheme to look at the way it works on h2g2 (technically another collaborative encyclopedia project, but also a fairly wide-ranging community). There, they(we) have a group of volunteers, known as ACEs, whose primary job is exactly this kind of encouragement/welcome. Obviously, the circumstances are very different, but the scheme is now fairly mature, so it may be interesting to investigate the tools and procedures that have been put in place. See the h2g2 ACEs page for details. - IMSoP 01:03, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

We could create a MediaWiki custom text (see Wikipedia:MediaWiki namespace) where people can fill in "tasks of the day" in newbiew-friendly language. Then all people who post welcome messages could add {{subst:totd}} to their boilerplace text to include the message. To avoid improper content, the page should be protected.—Eloquence

I like what I read about the H2G2 model. Anyway, I'd like to continue this discussion but suspect that Village Pump isn't the place. Is there a page somewhere on Meta? I really don't know anything much about Meta, as I'm still new here myself. Isomorphic 09:33, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

How about starting one at Wikipedia:Welcoming committee if it's going to be specific to the English Wikipedia or meta:Welcoming committee if it applies more widely? Angela. 14:28, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Maybe we should write a welcome page (Wikipedia:Welcome to Wikipedia?). It would merge some of the information from the top of the main page, Wikipedia:About, Wikipedia:Utilites, as well as other useful stuff - basics on etiquette, discussion, NPOV, everything needed for a newbie to find their way around. All written in newbie friendly language, style and formatting, and not longer than a screen of text, plus judiciously chosen and nicely formatted bunch of links to further reading. Make it nice and useful enough that people keep coming back to it.

Then post a link to this on the main page, on the anonymous edit page and on the login prompt pages (as well as under "You are now logged in...") Zocky 14:07, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

You do know Welcome, newcomers, right?—Eloquence
No, I didn't. I've always assumed that "Welcome, newcomers" under "Writing articles" was a crash course in wikitax. I see that it's only linked to from the main page. How about making it more prominent - bold the link or put it on the top of the main page, into "Wikipedia is...", as well as to other places mentioned above. Zocky 15:19, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Counties of England

There seem to be at least two groups of people, those who think 'county' means the current, administrative entity, and those who think it means a traditional or historical entitiy.

In itself this isn't a problem, but Wikipedia needs to have a policy on which county a particular place is in. Maybe such a policy has already been debated and agreed; if so I'd be grateful if someone could point me to it. There's no discussion about the article Counties of England, though the article itself mentions that the different meanings exist.

It's a problem because someone has gone through the article on St Neots and moved it from the current, administrative county of Cambridgeshire to the historical county of Huntingdonshire, which will confuse the reader. For now I've returned the article to its original form. And this is happening on a wide scale, articles on towns and villages are being modified wholesale.

Is there any guidance on this sort of thing, other than to kick off the talk page, debate the topic and see if we can come to a consensus view? Advice anyone? Chris Jefferies 10th December 2003

Common sense should prevail. The St Neots article should say it is in Cambridgeshire, but was formerly in Huntingdonshire, because the article is about the village both in the past and the present. An article about Junipero Serra should say he lived in Alta Mexico not the US state of California. The Romans invaded Gaul, not France, but Tabo M'Beki is the president of the Republic of South Africa, not of the Cape Colony. I can't for the life of me understand why this seems be be contentious in so many places (cf the enteral Danzig debate...). There can be few places that haven't been parts of many countries, or have had many names. -- Finlay McWalter 00:19, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Ah, yes. I've been trying to keep out of that mess apart from protecting Warwickshire overnight in one of the early outbreaks of the edit wars. It appears to me that the traditionalists, if I can name them that, are only one or two people, but they're very determined in their point of view! It'e even worse with the Welsh counties where the old names have mostly been reused to cover areas with little territorial commonality with the pre-1974 counties. My view is that all the county articles are currently untrustworthy, but for practical purposes the current administrative counties are the ones that an encyclopaedia ought to be concentrating on, with just a note on the former history such as e.g. "Stoke-on-Trent is now a unitary authority but was formerly in Staffordshire". In my view the only current relevance of the old traditional counties is to determine which cricket club covers the area! -- Arwel 00:27, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Thanks Finlay, and Arwel, I appreciate your input. I'm afraid the person who altered St Neots has changed it back again. I don't particularly want to have a 'change war' (how childish, what a waste of time) and I'm trying to discuss it on his/her Talk page. There's also been an exchange of views on the Godmanchester Talk page and I can't say I'm encouraged. Chris Jefferies 11th December 2003
Clearly Finlay stated it perfectly. The current, on the ground, designations are the proper ones, but reference to historical standings are important contributions to the articles. I'm preparing a "Style" page for Proper names at Wikipedia:Proper_names and will use Finlay's sage advice there as well. - Marshman 01:09, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)
The encyclopedia should definitely concentrate on the current administrative divisions of the United Kingdom (and everywhere else) -- not to the exclusion of historical data, but certainly with much greater prominence. Granted, the UK has been IMO way too obsessed with messing with administrative boundaries in the last 30 years or so (it's crazy that somewhere like the United States has it all MUCH more settled) but we must document what is not push what we wish was. --Morven 01:15, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)


Quite. I can't remember if Chigley is in Trumptonshire, or Trumpton is in the Chigley unitary authority :) -- Finlay McWalter 01:29, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)
"The current, on the ground, designations are the proper ones". Well, I wasn't being quite as sweeping as that, for the encyclopedia as a whole. I really mean that the context of the article determines the correct usage of placenames, languages, social groups, etc. This article should mention both counties, as its scope spans the period where each prevailed. If Alfred the Great had done something interesting there, it would be perfectly reasonable to mention it was in Mercia, or Wessex, or whatever. Equally, if an article were about a battle in the english civil war, the prevailing county at that time should be the dominant one in the article's text. -- Finlay McWalter 01:29, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Yes, I understood what you were saying. That first sentence was really intended for the discussion of the counties situation, and the point next made by Morven. - Marshman 01:59, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

OK guys, thanks for all your comments. I think there's a great deal of common sense in what you say, especially about the historical county relevant to the article being the correct one to use in each case.

So what are we going to do about User:80.255 who is throwing his weight around, agressively changing dozens of articles without consideration for either other editors or indeed (and more importantly) for the poor readers. He is damaging the Wikipedia and will also damage its reputation with readers if he's allowed to continue.

I don't mind having a dialogue with him, but if (as I suspect) he proves resistant to both reason and the majority view, what then? If that happens, maybe we should consider having his IP address blocked, though it would probably have only a temporary effect. Chris Jefferies 11th December 2003

The "80.255 vs everyone else" battle has been going on for some time (the particular battleground for my tussle was Kent). 80.255 has a particular view point, and argues for it in a consistent and eloquent manner. This is rather different from childish vandalism and I wouldn't support banning him at this time (despite having gone through the same sense of frustration as you, Chris). It is time however to formulate a policy on the specific issue of county names. If this policy can be rolled into a more general policy of historic place names then so much the better. Once this policy is in place, if 80.255's sense of how Things Should Be is so strong that he flauts the policy (in addition to common sense and the majority view) over several articles and over a reasonable period of time, then we may have to say "sorry 80.255, but this just isn't the community project for you". Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 09:22, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)
I believe we should have a wide and open debate with the aim of formulating the policy on current and historic place names mentioned by Pete above. And I think we should begin sooner rather than later to minimise the damage to Wikipedia.
I know there are correct procedures for doing this, but I'm going to need help from someone wiser and more experienced in the world of Wikipedia. What's the first step? Where should the discussion take place? Chris Jefferies 11th December 2003

2Pac conspiracy fans

Dear Tupac fans and historians, I have heard a long list of reasons supporting the claim that Tupac is still alive. I don't know enough about the history to know which claims have plausability, and which are simply made up. If you can help me learn more about the conspiracy theories, please visit User:Kingturtle/2Pac. I hope eventually to create a lecture for my History class on this topic...to help teach about checking facts and evidence. But I need to become more of an expert in the topic myself. Thanks in advance, Kingturtle 04:15, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

nothing-changed edits

What's going on with this edit [2]? There's nothing under the before-and-after boxes. But it was marked as an edit in the history (it was the last edit, by the anon). I've seen weird nothing-changed edits before, always by Anons. I'm always afraid it's vandalism. --Menchi (Talk)â 04:17, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I think the diff doesn't show when spaces are added or deleted. RickK 04:35, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Spaces do show up, but on a green background, so you can't actually see them [3]. I'm not sure what is done to make the dif have no green background but I've seen it quite a lot. Angela. 14:28, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Annoying new edit behavior

The code seems to have changed sometime in the last day or so: when you look at an edit preview, your cursor is automatically moved into the edit box. I hate this! Especially when the page is long enough that it scrolls and you can't even see the beginning. Can we please make this an option in Preferences? Thanks, Tualha 04:47, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I hate that too. Angela. 04:50, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)
I thought it was just me and my browser. Please, put it back the way it was! –Hjr 05:08, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)
What was the prior behavior? Dori | Talk 05:21, Dec 11, 2003 (UTC)
This behavior was added for the edit page in January 2003. After several re-readings of the above comment, I see the complaint is related to the "preview" display specifically. A recent fix which removed a JavaScript error message upon trying to edit a locked page (either a protected page or the database locked) would have altered it to also perform the selection on preview, where in the previous behavior it did not do so.
In at least some browsers this will scroll down below the preview to show the edit box if 'show preview before edit box' is selected. This is indeed rather annoying since the preview is now hard to see; I'll fix it. --Brion 05:46, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Fix applied. --Brion 05:56, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Thanks! Bevo 11:01, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Tualha says thanks too - Tualha 14:10, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)
And so do I. Bmills 14:12, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Me too :) Angela.

Writing on the wall for Wikipedia:Votes for deletion?

Okay, I'll bite. I am of course refering to the quiet appearance of a new function called "dead end pages" (disabled though) on Special pages.

Now, does this mean that:

  1. We are a mere community decision away from burying WP:VFD for good?
  2. It is a mere place holder for a function not yet implemented?
  3. Functionality intended to be included in the MediaWiki package, but not intended to be used on Wikipedia?
  4. A practical joke, like the logo on French Wikipedia?
  5. Something totally unrelated to a deletion management redisign?
  6. What?

-- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen 08:58, Dec 11, 2003 (UTC)

What's a "dead end page"? Where's the link? Dysprosia 09:00, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Don't worry, VfD is safe for now. I'm not sure exactly what Special:Deadendpages is meant to do -- the code just has this rather odd SQL query:
SELECT cur_title FROM cur LEFT JOIN links ON cur_title = l_from WHERE l_from IS NULL AND cur_namespace = 0 ORDER BY cur_title LIMIT {$offset}, {$limit}
Perhaps it is intended to find pages with no links in them. -- Tim Starling 09:07, Dec 11, 2003 (UTC)
See [4]. --Brion 11:07, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Deleted stuff

Deleted pages are archived. Are these archived pages ever removed from the database? If so, how often? --Jiang | Talk 10:05, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

So far just once, when we moved to the new database server the archives weren't copied over. Since the archive table doesn't (yet) store the date of deletion, it's hard to automatically throw away things that were deleted a long time ago and not contested, as distinct from pages that haven't been edited in a long time and were recently deleted. --Brion 11:07, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

SUBST vs MSG

Discussion moved to Wikipedia talk:MediaWiki custom messages#SUBST vs MSG

The wikilink rendering seems to have been changed so wikilinks to (for example) #References sections has broken e.g. see Schizophrenia or delusional misidentification syndrome.

Is this a permanent feature and if so should I fix the referencing on such pages or should I wait until a wikicode fix does the job ?

Thanks - Vaughan 14:31, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I'm hoping it's not permanent. It has been reported to the mailing list. [5]. Angela. 14:49, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Anonymous edits

[[6]]: Another good illustration why m:Anonymous users should not be allowed to edit articles. Adam 14:38, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

  • At least this way we can see the IP. Anjouli 14:58, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)
  • [7], and others from the same anon in the same page: Counter-example - Muriel Victoria 15:17, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)
  • Given what goes on at Wikipedia:Conflicts between users, I don't think that anonymity is the main problem. There will always people who want to use articles as a platform for their political or moral views, and if they can't do it as anon, they'll just log in. Personally, I've had lots of really good anon edits to articles I've started and a couple of bad ones. Bmills 15:24, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Speedy deletion

As a relative WP newbie, I was a bit surprised to find that Wikipedia:Deletion_policy does not have a "Candidates for speedy deletion" category for "creative fiction", i.e. deliberate and demonstrable inaccuracy.

I'm refering to articles like Bonnie, which appears to be a deliberate attempt to misinform, by a known vandal.

Right now if I posted an article called "Paris, Capital of Germany", the policy requires it wait five days for a vote, while people confirm that Paris is not the capital of Germany. In practice, I'm sure someone would ignore the policy and delete it.

I can see that such a category may be open to abuse - particularly for esoteric subjects not easily researched online.

Any thoughts? Anjouli 14:50, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

In the light of the activity yesterday around this and related articles that fell into the "creative fiction" category (see Wikipedia:Votes for deletion, I agree that this should be added to the list of reasons for speedy deletion on Wikipedia:Deletion guidelines for administrators. Bmills 14:59, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)
I think it's dangerous to assume sysops can make the judgement about whether something is purely fictional or not. In many cases it is obvious, but there are also times where it isn't and real content might be deleted. However, instant deletion of such pages could already be justified under the "no meaningful content" or "pure vandalism" criteria if someone did want to delete it. Angela. 15:10, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Agreed. What is or isn't fiction is not always obvious. Secretlondon 15:13, Dec 11, 2003 (UTC)
If the author could be asked to provide verifiable references and failed, maybe the full 5 days could be shortened? Bmills 15:17, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Village_pump_archive_2004-09-26&oldid=1932069"