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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Ahoerstemeier (talk | contribs) at 21:24, 3 January 2004 (And a cup is half a pint). 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 or make a comment 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! Even if the server temporarily slows down it will almost always respond eventually and repeatedly pressing "save" will then post the question to the page as many times as you pressed "save"!

Please note image uploading is temporarily disabled while we're in server limbo because it's harder to move the images around in sync, since they're separate from the database. Should be back up sooner or later; sorry for the inconvenience. --Brion 00:06, 1 Jan 2004 (UTC)

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 facilitate ease of browsing and replying, please:

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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#January 2004 moved discussion.

Requests for help and comments

  1. Daniel's redirect project still needs your help with fixing thousands of broken links
  2. Muriel Victoria and Bmills urge you to vote at Wikipedia:Refreshing brilliant prose
  3. mav invites you to discuss expanding the focus of the Sep11Wiki at meta:Wikimorial
  4. Jiang requests comments at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countries
  5. Adam suggests every American Wikipedian visits List of Members of the U.S. House of Representatives and contributes a short biography of their local Congress-person (see also public domain congressional biographical directory)
  6. Dysprosia requests comments on the new login text
  7. Viajero asks for your help in expanding the Guidelines for controversial articles
  8. moink wants help with the Wikipedia:WikiProject Fluid dynamics.
  9. Gentgeen has started Wikipedia:WikiProject Games.
  10. Use {{msg:inuse}} to avoid edit conflicts. See MediaWiki talk:Inuse
  11. Eloquence requests feedback and comments on the changes to the Wikipedia:NPOV tutorial
  12. Jmabel wants help with the Wikipedia:WikiProject Ethnic Groups (see especially the talk page).

Image markup

Can markup be used to create an image that is smaller in size than the one that has been uploaded? (Am formatting Diving_insects.)--azwaldo 18:03, 31 Dec 2003 (UTC)


Not yet. greenmountainboy (talk) 18:04, 31 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Reckon I'll shrink my originals and upload new image files, how can the old images be removed from the server?azwaldo
I re-formatted Diving_insects so that the pictures stay on the right hand side without resorting to <br><br><br><br><br><br>. It looks pretty good now, and I don't think the pictures need any shrinking. --snoyes 23:57, 31 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Re: image deletion: Wikipedia:Images for deletion, or write a short note on a sysop's (that you see to be active ATM) talk page. --snoyes 00:00, 1 Jan 2004 (UTC)
If you just want to change the size, just upload them as new versions of the same files. No deletion is necessary. Check first that no other pages are using these images, this is shown at the bottom of the image description page. Andrewa 10:24, 1 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Amount of duplication

I have a Wikipedia-philosophy question. I'm trying to figure out how much duplication there should be between articles. Do we expect people to read the most important links in a page, or should the crucial elements be repeated? As a specific example, I was trying to write Aerodynamics and put a lot of stuff in there about basic assumptions, classes of problems etc., then realized that much of that should go in Fluid mechanics. So I rewrote fluid mechanics to contain that kind of information. But now much of what's in aerodynamics is a duplication of fluid mechanics. Aerodynamics could now simply read "Aerodynamics is fluid mechanics applied to gases" and with the links, that's almost enough information. But aerodynamics is much too important a topic to have a supershort article. Thoughts? moink 18:31, 31 Dec 2003 (UTC)

My thoughts, since I notice the same issue, is to provide a quick background on the issue and then link to a more thorough discussion elsewhere. Wikipedia articles do not need to be long to be influential or important. Keep em short and sweet, but packed with info and link to other Wikipedia pages with more information. No need to duplicate repetitive info. -Visorstuff 18:43, 31 Dec 2003 (UTC)
There shouldn't be significant overlap, and the division between the two articles should be made along pragmatic lines (for some value of "pragmatic"). So in this case fluid dynamics is the theory, aerodynamics its application. I figure the theory should be in fluid dynamics (lift, drag, bernoulli, reaction) and the aerodynamic specific stuff (wing shapes/angles/sizes/profiles/sweeps, stability Vs agility, deltawings, canards, tridekkers, flying wings, BBW, etc.) should be in aerodynamics. If something is borderline, it doesn't really matter which article it's in (ideally it shouldn't be in both) as both articles are interlinked, and its unlikely that someone who really cares about either won't read its counterpart too). -- Finlay McWalter 19:01, 31 Dec 2003 (UTC)
That would be a good solution if they were divided like that, unfortunately aerodynamics and hydrodynamics are also theoretical disciplines, while aeronautics and hydraulics are their practical analogs. moink 03:01, 1 Jan 2004 (UTC)
IMO, A small to moderate amount of overlap between articles is just fine. I really don't expect most people to really do significant cross-referencing when reading articles. It helps that all of the essential information to understand a topic is in the article itself. If duplication is really unwarranted, then explicitly say in the article that there is more in-depth information in the other article. E.g., "The theoretical foundation of aerodynamics lies in fluid mechanics, an important branch of physics. See the article on fluid mechanics to learn more." --seav 02:26, Jan 1, 2004 (UTC)
I see nothing wrong with a certain amount of duplication, particularly if it is a short but essential fact that would otherwise have to be found buried in a huge cross-linked article. Just imagine yourself as the reader and use common sense about what would be convenient to you. Anjouli 09:53, 2 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Wish I knew where to ask this question

Are all 142.177.?.? IPs hard-banned? I believe the user has returned....none of his actions so far have been detrimental that I can tell, but if I am supposed to block him I will do so. Can someone who knows more about the history of this let me know? Jwrosenzweig 22:54, 31 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I think the individual you are talking about (142.177.19.200) is different from the 142.177.etc that is hard banned. It is seems 142.177.19.200 is ip142177019200.mpoweredpc.net while EoT (such as 142.177.82.204) is hlfx32-204.ns.sympatico.ca . I seem to remember that Tim blocked the entire range of sympatico halifax IPs that EoT was posting from, although I could be mistaken. Maximus Rex 23:29, 31 Dec 2003 (UTC)
The currently blocked range is 142.177.71.0 to 142.177.114.0, which should be roughly the same as the Halifax section of Sympatico. I determined this range by trial-and-error, repeatedly calling the unix "host" command to find the edges. There are lots of innocent people using 142.177 IP addresses, please don't vilify them unnecessarily. -- Tim Starling 12:41, Jan 1, 2004 (UTC)
Thanks much for the information! It would be nice if this was easily available, though. When I saw the IP, it reminded me of the banned user....when I tried to find info about him, the only thing I discovered was his "user page", User:142.177.etc. That name, as you can see, vilifies anyone in the 142.177 range unecessarily....if I'm being chastised at all by Tim (and I can't tell if I am), all I can say is that Wikipedia needs to have a much easier way of describing for us who is banned and what the terms of their ban are. :) Based on that user page, all I could conclude was that anyone in that IP range should be considered a suspect. The last time I tried to talk to an anon in the 142.177 range, I was immediately chastised by other Wikipedians for trying to talk to a user who'd been hard-banned. I really don't intend to make anyone upset, so it would be nice if everyone agreed what I can and cannot do about 142.177 IPs, and about banned users in general. Thanks. :) Jwrosenzweig 17:18, 2 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Request for feedback on Wikitex syntax

As some of you know, Wikipedia (through its underlying MediaWiki software) already supports embedding mathematical formulas, currently using the <math> syntax. Peter Danenberg is working on a complete redesign of the code to allow for much more flexibility, so that additional backends can be supported. His new scheme, called Wikitex, will not only allow embedding mathematical formulas , but also music notation (using GNU LilyPond) with auto-generated MIDI files, chemical formulas, TIPA phonetic symbols, chessboards, polytonic Greek, attribute-value matrices and parsetrees. This is very much droolworthy and there's probably more to come.

However, there is still an open question as to which "wrapper syntax" to use for the new scheme. Some (including myself) favor a simple syntax like <math>..</math>,<music>,<greek>,<chem>,<tipa> etc. Peter currently favors a more complex syntax: <rend class="math">...</rend>, <rend class="music">...</rend> etc.

If you prefer the simpler syntax, now is a good time to make your voice heard on the discussion page. It will likely be difficult to change once we have adopted a particular syntax.—Eloquence 02:38, Jan 1, 2004 (UTC)

I would be against using HTML-type tags entirely. Something like "{{math\n" to topen and end the block on a "\n\n". Could I also request that all this type of content be rendered inside classed DIVs, eg DIV class="math" and so on -- Tarquin 14:26, 1 Jan 2004 (UTC)


When to roll up or tear off discussion pages

I'm working on a page that has a lengthy history, and the associated discussion page is pretty long. The main problem is that it's hard to see the new comments, and the old, now-irrelevant stuff is cluttering it up. Is there an established policy about erasing old discussion comments?

For example there are comments that say things like "Hey, you need to work on this some more", followed by, "OK, I worked on it". I'm inclined to erase that stuff, and without making a backup or archive page, since all the original comments are saved in the page history anyway. Wile E. Heresiarch 16:28, 1 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Go for it. See Talk:Anti-Semitism for an example of a talk page that has a lot of archived talk. --snoyes 16:34, 1 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Specific question on how to become an administrator

Hi! This is taken from the Request for adminship page:

"After a 7 day period for comments, if there is general agreement that someone who requests adminship should be given it, then a developer will make it so and record that fact at Wikipedia:Recently created admins. "

My question is: what exactly does "general agreement" mean? Can you become an administrator by only having one person that has reviewed your work and that was positive about it? (--130.236.224.35)

General agreement means that everyone who responds (more or less) agrees that you should become an admin. Specific questions/criticisms must be addressed before the request/nomination can proceed. If you do make a request there, you can be assured that you will get more than one response. --Raul654 18:52, 1 Jan 2004 (UTC)
What are these questions/criticisms?
People will post them after a request/nomination is made. They vary on a case by case basis. The most common criticism is that someone will want to become an admin after being here only a short time. They're generally told to keep contributing for a few months, and reapply later. --Raul654 21:39, 1 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Ok, but theoretically it is then possible to become an administrator by just having one positive comment, or am I wrong?
Theoretically, many things are possible. ;-) --snoyes 00:02, 2 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Taraful Haiducilor

For the article on the Romanian Gypsy musical ensemble Taraful Haiducilor: there is apparently a book (in Romanian) Hopa, tropa, Europa (Hop and trot around Europe) by Speranţa Rădulescu, about the group's first European tour. I don't imagine I'm going to track that down from Seattle. If anyone has a copy of the book and would like to contribute relevant material to the article, (or if anyone knows where I might get a copy) that would be greatly appreciated. -- Jmabel 20:29, 1 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Wikidoodad

I have a little device on my desktop called GuruNet TopicBar. It's really quite a good idea, it lets you right click on any word in any document (web browser, word processing...), or you can click on its icon in the system tray (near your clock), or a little arrow docked on the side of your screen, and search for encyclopedia articles or dictionary definitions, relating to a chosen word.

It's a wonderful concept, except after the first two months or so, you have to be a paid member of their service to get the full article on anything. And the resources are stubby, most articles quite honestly pale in comparison to Wikipedia's. Still, it's gathered lots of good press, and the endorsement of Donald Sutherland, who claims to be an active user.

Would it be possible for us to create a similar tool, available for download off Wikipedia. It would search all of the Wikimedia family: Wikipedia, Wikitonary, Wikiquote, Wikisource and Wikibooks. If we ever endorsed it, Wikitravel could be another member, September 11th Memorial Wiki would also be in the search results, just not promoted. Also, users could set it to search other language Wikipedias, if so desired.

Like GuruNet, results would be delivered in a little program; alternatively, we could make it more like Google Toolbar. The device, in which ever form, would be targeted entirely towards a viewing audience; those wanting to edit would be directed towards the actual webpage.

I really think there would be a market for this. If we don't do it, someone else surely will; already there's a research device using Wikipedia in its searching plug-in. [1] It would take the developers away from other important projects, however, I'd be willing to scout out software developers on other Wikis.

- user:zanimum

The primary difference between GuruNet and Wikimedia is that GuruNet pay their programmers. It sounds like a great idea. Now, like so many other great ideas, someone just has to code it. -- Tim Starling 02:11, Jan 2, 2004 (UTC)

Ethnicity vs. nation-state

Working on topics related to Eastern Europe, I have found it inconvenient that, for ethnicities/nationalities that have a nation-state associated with them, we always have an article about the nation-state and never, it seems, about the ethnicity. This is not a problem a single person can even begin to address -- I can tell that just by looking at some of the conflicts that have arisen about related issues such as German vs. Polish place names -- so I thought I would raise it here.

For example, the article Ethnic German (one of the few articles about an ehtnic group) is just a disambiguation page. When referring in the List of political parties in Romania to Forul Democrat al Germanilor din România, the political party of ethnic Germans in Romania, a link to Ethnic German is what is I would presume is called for. However, someone recently (and probably appropriately) changed that to link to Germany instead. Why? Presumably because Germany has a real article and Ethnic German does not.

Nonetheless, I would argue that these two concepts are separate enough to merit separate articles (and the same for ethnic Hungarians, Romanians, Poles, you name it). We would never conflate Jews and Israel. We would never conflate Celts and, say, Eire.

I admit that I have something of an axe to grind here: I am not a fan of ethnic nationalism. I feel that Wikipedia's current organization of this material constitutes an implicit endorsement of an ethnic nationalist point of view.

I am not sure if this page is the best forum for this discussion, but it seems to be at least the place to open it. If someone wants to suggest a better forum, I'm totally open to moving this.

-- Jmabel 02:07, 2 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Good point. WormRunner 02:42, 2 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Maybe you want to start a project so you can first collect ethnicities and then write article on them? Kokiri 11:05, 2 Jan 2004 (UTC)
A fine idea. I'll start Wikipedia:WikiProject Ethnic Groups Jmabel 22:41, 2 Jan 2004 (UTC)
I've started Wikipedia:WikiProject Ethnic Groups, but I really need collaborators to make anything meaningful happen here. This is not a one-person job. Consider this a solicitation! Join me! The meta article itself is still kind of a stub, but I've written quite a bit on the talk page, which I hope will trigger further ideas on how to approach this. Anyway, further discussion of this might as well move to that talk page. Thank you WormRunner and Kokiri. -- Jmabel 00:41, 3 Jan 2004 (UTC)

b0rked redirection...

Hi,

I think I've managed to b0rk the redirect from Northern Territory University to Charles Darwin University -- I think I managed this by deleting the redirect from CDU to NTU, then doing a "move" from NTU to CDU, when I should have left CDU alone initially, from what I can tell.

First question: did I really muck it up?

In short, could I have it fixed?

Cheers, Jonathan.

--Jonathan Ah Kit 03:40, 2 Jan 2004 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, Charles Darwin University is currently redirecting to Northern Territory University with no problems. It seems to me, though, that it should be the other way around. —Paul A 04:49, 2 Jan 2004 (UTC)

SpellBott

What's this SpellBott that's running? Is there any way to protect words that are already correct, but might be candidates for alteration? Something like <nospellfix>misspellling</nospellfix>? Anjouli 05:23, 2 Jan 2004 (UTC)

It's just a user. Check the userpage. Kokiri 11:02, 2 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Ahh! Thanks. That wasn't on the user page the first time I looked. But she/he's very fast. Suspiciously so, for someone doing it manually. Not that I see any problem if corrections are accurate. Anjouli 05:42, 3 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Two questions...

Hi!

I love this site/project! And, to help I would like to create two sites using Wikipedia data, and I want to make them RIGHT in the first place (vs. just making them and leaving out anything important). I have been reading as much as possible... but to be 100% honest, the licence isn't all that clear so I thought I would describe the two projects and see if I can get some quick feedback on what I would need to do to be a "good wikipedia content user".

Project 1 BrainyEncyclopedia Use the entire HTML content in a full mirror of Wikipedia from the content at: http://www.tommasoconforti.com/wiki/

This is perfect and easy for me since it's just plain HTML, I am not a programmer. Now, the big question is this data in the format that would be in 100% compliance with the licence as is? It contains a link to the GNUFDL on every page and a link to "Edit this page" on every page (that is hard-coded back to Wikipedia). From looking at the non-compliant sites - these seem to be the major problems that people seem to create when using your content. I don't want to make that mistake (I'd rather make new mistakes!).

I would have a nice little statement about the copyright of the data on the site and how it's GNUFDL (the only things that wouldn't be would be our site name/logo). I would also be adding headers/footers/navigation for the site.

Project 2 BrainyBiography Use only the Biographies on the site and reorganize them to be an easy to navigate biography site. The articles would not change - just the navigation. In addition most links that were not biography-related would be taken out.

This site would keep the link to edit the page and to the GNUFDL licence as well.

So... after all that: are these projects OK? Is this what you intend people to do with the content? Is there anything else that is necessary on my part? It seems so simple... but a good portion of the sites that use this content seem to be screwing up their usage in some way.

Thanks for the help,

Jeff

(Obligatory IANAL, but I slept at a holiday in this morning)
The GNUFDL is a pretty open license. Your obligations are here.
If you create a derivative version by changing or adding content, this entails the following:
  • your materials in turn have to be licensed under GFDL,
  • you must acknowledge the authorship of the article (section 4B), and
  • you must provide access to the "transparent copy" of the material (section 4J). (The "transparent copy" of a Wikipedia article is its wiki text.)
--Raul654 05:43, 2 Jan 2004 (UTC)
I would like to add that you don't actually need the edit link. I don't know how you plan to get the html, but there is a database dump available at [2]. You say that you are not a programmer (which you don't need to be, but it helps to know your way around), but it is not easy to make the dump work. I just wanted you to know just in case. Good luck and let us know how it works out. Dori | Talk 06:56, Jan 2, 2004 (UTC)
(Once again, IANAL]...) So just to clarify - if you don't modify the material, you haven't created a derivative work, and therefore you have no obligations at all. If you do modify the material, then you just have to do those three things I listed above. Happy hunting :) --Raul654 10:08, 2 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Hello, I'm the author of the html dump you are using. The hard-coded "edit" link is there because the archive was meant as an experimental static dump, with links to get back to the main site. I could remove it, or better change it to a "see live article" that links to the live Wikipedia article in non-editing mode. Now that I think about it, the name "wikipedia" is not mentioned anywhere in the page! so it's better if I update that too. It will take time, not because of the script modification (which is trivial), but because I'm quite bandwidth-starved and uploading the gigabyte or so of the English wiki is a long task :) Alfio 14:32, 2 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Jeff, aside from technical questions -- why not start organizing biographies right now here, as User:Jeff/Biographies? Let's do it together! ilya 23:06, 2 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Thanks!

I just wanted to say THANKS to Raul654, Dori, Alfio and ilya for the quick responses to my question titled "Two questions..."

I'm going to get cracking and get the new sites up this month. I'll post again when they are finished before going live. I may be able to work with the database files... if I can import them into FileMaker. I actually manage about 500,000 pages of content right now in custom FileMaker databases that I designed - so don't make fun!

Have a Happy New Year!

Jeff

The database dump comes as a big series of SQL insert statements; FileMaker Pro doesn't speak SQL natively, though perhaps you could rig up something with JDBC or ODBC (or a 3rd-party plugin) that would work. You'd probably have better luck just installing MySQL though, if nothing else as an intermediate stage. --Brion 06:14, 3 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Redirection

Many writers and reviewers are redirecting poorly to false articles - e.g if you are looking for "graphics" then you will be redirected to computer graphics. Engineering graphics and computer graphics are different topics and I don't understand [why this is so]. If anyone writes a short intro to start such an article, you will find those articles deleted immediately and redirected to other releavant artilces. There is no need for redirection. You can keep that space blank. I dont know why the heck [you] guys are doing it. This will definitely distract users from using wikipedia, and those writers who want to show their articles on wikipedia are doing this redirecting thing. Also, some of people from here are actually behaving like they are moderators or something like that. Also deletion of articles is very burning issue here. Why are articles deleted if they are not copyrighted? Could [it] be due to gramatical mistakes? If [you] guys from here are deleting articles constantly due to grammatical mistakes and lableing the article as stub then this is very poor thing. Wikipedia is just born project and not taken seriously, and as this project is in [an] immature state then this very serious matter. Well I think if there are any moderators here should take this thing seriously because if this continues then many people will sign up here to delete articles and label it a stub. Well this will be fun for these guys, and wikipedia will be destroyed in few days as this project took 2 years to reach this position it will be deleted in 2 weeks. As nupedia is down otherwise there is no need for this question. Also I will immediately move to nupedia if it starts, and tell others to do the same because when nupedia was there I hadn't found such issue. It's up to you whether to take this seriously or not but let me tell you that this is not good. (--61.1.112.99)

If anyone writes a short intro to start such an article, you will find those articles deleted immediately and redirected to other releavant artilces. Nonsense. I dont know why the heck [you] guys are doing it. This plainly isn't the only thing you don't the heck know. If [you] guys from here are deleting articles constantly due to grammatical mistakes and lableing the article as stub then this is very poor thing.. We aren't. And deletion and stubbification are entirly different things. this very serious matter no, it isn't. wikipedia will be destroyed in few days bollocks. I will immediately move to nupedia if it starts goodbye. -- Finlay McWalter 14:06, 2 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Although I suspect that post might be a troll (hence, the need for extensive copyediting just to understand it), I'd like to try to respond to each of the points you make in kind.
  1. Where redirection is concerned, for the most part, we'd rather set up wikipedia with all the proper links, and then split hairs (computer graphics vs engineering graphics) later, if need be. If you have a particular grudge against a particular redirect, please feel free to fix it.
  2. Articles are deleted in one of two ways. Either it is a candidate for speedy deletion, or it goes through the Wikipedia:Votes for deletion page where it is voted upon for no fewer than five days. The short articles you refer to (which we call "stubs") are kept unless there is a very good reason not to. Generally, the only reasons we will delete an article is if it is (a) a copyright violation, or (b) non-encylopedic. (vandalism, of course, falls into the latter catagory)
  3. Stub warnings - when someone writes an article he does not feel is quite detailed enough, he can put a warning there. It simply means that the article could be longer. This does not, in any way, destroy wikipedia. It simply lets others know where efforts should be concentrated.
  4. Yes, there are moderators here - around 160 or so. In order to make wikipedia function, there has to be some seperation of privileges, to seperate vandals from legitimate contributors. As a rule, moderation is done with a very light touch.
  5. As a simple look at Wikipedia:Modelling Wikipedia's growth will tell you, Wikipedia is growing by leaps and bounds. There seems to be no evidence of the destruction you imply.

--Raul654 14:10, 2 Jan 2004 (UTC)

61.1.112.99 wrote: If anyone writes a short intro to start such an article, you will find those articles deleted immediately and redirected to other releavant artilces.
Finlay McWalter wrote: Nonsense.
Actually, this has happened several times to articles I've started (when both logged in and with a random IP). Homology modelling would be one example, off the top of my head. (Not that it really matters, but as a new contributor I did find it very disconcerting.) Stewart Adcock 01:39, 3 Jan 2004 (UTC)]
Redirects do not have to be redirects forever. They are often a temporary solution until a real article is written at that place. If someone enters a sub-stub and that is redirected, there is nothing stopping someone editing the redirect and replacing it with a non-sub-stub. Angela. 07:29, 3 Jan 2004 (UTC)

EM and italics

Throughout the Wikipedia there are quite a few articles which have a statement like 'Alternate names are in italics', referring to text marked up with two apostrophes. This does not add an <i> (italics) tag, but rather adds an <em> (emphasis) tag.

All nice and well, but http://en.wikipedia.org/style/wikistandard.css does not contain any rule for EM, so EM is styled according to browser preferences — which does not have to be italics. Surely it'd be best if the rule

em {font-style: italic;}

were added to the CSS file? — Jor 21:58, Jan 2, 2004 (UTC)


It's an idea. I'll add it to the stuff on meta about stylesheets. -- Tarquin 18:11, 3 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Please Let me know asap

Sir/Madam, Is Lord Rama, Hindu god and avatara of vishnu, is of mobite tribe. If he is can you send me web site link or scriptures name. I really appreciate you.

Thank you

For whatever it's worth, this question, which is almost certainly on the wrong page (maybe Reference Desk) came from an IP address (171.75.87.219) that has no other history, so it's probably a randomly assigned IP address. If you've got an answer for this person, go for it, but I doubt he/she will ever see it. Jmabel 00:47, 3 Jan 2004 (UTC)

why so Sloooooowwwwww

Why does everything seem to be so slow tonight (although it seems to have improved) Has something crashed?. I was under the impression that the technical problems had been fixed by the new fancy database (obviously not) G-Man 00:54, 3 Jan 2004 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Servers. --mav
Or OpenFacts:Wikipedia Status. Angela.

Sub Stub?

I'm encountering the term 'sub stub' on various pages in WP, but Wikipedia:Find or fix a stub or the Wikipedia:Glossary do not mention the term. In what way is a sub stub unlike a stub, and if this is an official term, shouldn't it be added somewhere? Jor 03:26, Jan 3, 2004 (UTC)

It is used to mean an article which is currently too short even to deserve the name stub. This often refers to a simple definition ("An airplane is a type of winged flying vehicle") or a biography consisting only of the subject's nationality and occupation ("Douglas Adams was a British author who's dead now"). Onebyone 03:59, 3 Jan 2004 (UTC)
I have incorporate Onebyone's useful reply to Wikipedia:Find or fix a stub as requested by Jor. --Menchi (Talk)â 04:12, 3 Jan 2004 (UTC)
A stub is a short article. A sub stub is not even an article. Sub stubs are often deleted instantly, but they also often undeleted by those disputing the worthlessness of them, so there is not agreed-upon definition of what a deletable sub stub is. Angela. 07:40, 3 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Financial information

Do we really want detailed financial information on companies? International Paper. --snoyes 04:55, 3 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Net sales and net loss is far from detailed. --mav

Disclaimer notice

I like the way the Disclaimer notice is now presented to users. However, it is much too small. I never would have seen it myself if I hadn't heard someone else talk about it. There may have been a discussion that I neglected to notice about this issue. Maybe a Disclaimer link could also be placed on the left-hand toolbar, under Contact us and above Donations. Just a thought. Kingturtle 08:53, 3 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Thank you! :) I removed the small tag - it was kinda ugly next to the larger 'last edited' text anyway. Instead of under "Contact us" I think it would be best to have it next to it like so Contact us/Disclaimers. --mav 09:01, 3 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Would Contact us/Disclaimers fit? Would it look bulky? Kingturtle 19:56, 3 Jan 2004 (UTC)

UPDATED LISTING

in your movie studios webpage you have our company, American mutoscope and Biograph Co. in historical movie companies. we are also an active movie company. please list our link in the active studios area.

www.biographcompany.com

Thanks,

This is a Wiki, you could if you liked do it yourself. Perhaps you could say a few words here about just what is happening, what Biograph is today, and what it is doing or plans to do? The Biograph website appears to be under construction. Since the historical great silent movie company is generally thought to have stopped making films in 1916, I suspect there is not a great deal of continuity between it and the present company. The Biograph Girl died in 1938... Dpbsmith 15:41, 3 Jan 2004 (UTC) P. S. Apparently the current company is in the process of restoring an early silent movie called "In Old California," but the press release that says they have acquired "nearly 2000 acres of lunar real estate and plans to use it as the first lunar lot" and produce movies there sounds, um... dare I say it... like some kind of Hollywood publicity stunt? True, there is no problem with cloudy days, and the moon should be out of reach of the long arm of the patents trust...

Feature Request

I'm no longer on the ML's and was wondering where on W a feature request should be posted?

The request is for a flag which may be set on a page which will switch the TOC display to a horizontal display with items unnumbered and separated by pipes |. This would be a far better rendering for lists with many sections, e.g. List_of_aviation,_aerospace_and_aeronautical_terms or just about any alphabetically grouped list. dramatic 17:29, 3 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Feature requests should be made at SourceForge [3]. Kosebamse 18:25, 3 Jan 2004 (UTC)


Danish recipe calling for "250 g" of flour....What is "g"?

Hello, In a Danish recipe for "Breakfast Horn Bread" the amount of flour required is "250 g". To what does the "g" refer? It cannot be grams because this would equal only a half cup of flour or so, whereas most bread recipes call for 5 or 6 cups of flour. Thanks for your help. Steve

grams WormRunner 17:51, 3 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Just conducted an experiment in my kitchen - 250 grams of wheat flour equals 450 millilitres. I don't know what size your cups are, but that's around a US pint. Kosebamse 17:56, 3 Jan 2004 (UTC)
One uses weight measurements in order to avoid the innaccuracies like 'about'. Elde 19:52, 3 Jan 2004 (UTC)
According to cup one pint would be two cups, so a bit closer to the 5 cups expected than the originally estimated half cup. andy 21:24, 3 Jan 2004 (UTC)

firehouse

does firehouse have a web site?


Requests

Mediawiki feature request moved to http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_feature_request_and_bug_report_discussion Green Mountain 19:37, 3 Jan 2004 (UTC)

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