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[[da:Wikipedia:Landsbybr%F8nden]]

Template:Communitypage

Moved discussion

Questions and answers, after a period 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/February 2004 archive 1

Requests for help and comments

  1. Sennheiser has created a WikiProject Space and he would like to invite Astronomy and Space Exploration enthusiasts to join his new project.
  2. TUF-KAT has created Wikipedia talk:Infobox for all taxobox/infobox discussion to be centralized
  3. Belizian is willing to take photos of plants and animals in the jungle for wikipedia, he requests your help in identifying species at Plants and animals of Belize
  4. For those who enjoy writing and editing: Wikipedia:Articles requested for over two years, Wikipedia:RC patrol
  5. The Wikipedia:Office of Members' Advocates is an intra-Wikipedia voluntary association looking for new members interested in helping members to understand and effectively participate in the dispute resolution process.
  6. If you voted to remove an article to Wikipedia:Featured article candidates but have not raised a formal objection to it, please do so now. Bmills
  7. Wikipedians are encouraged to make use of this public domain site, see Wikipedia talk:Porting Vectorsite articles
  8. Multilingual? Or need a foreign-language wikipedia article translated into English? Check out the newly created Wikipedia:Translation
  9. Rholton (aka Anthropos) suggests that every Wikipedian take the time each day to find a home for one of the many orphaned articles.
  10. Wikipedia:WikiProject Ethnic Groups has gone live, seeks more participants.

help (write to any sailor)

--> Wikipedia:Village pump/February 2004 archive 1

Most Wanted Articles

--> Wikipedia talk:Most Wanted Articles

Can't Get My Password Back (fixed)

There was an email backlog, now fixed. --> Wikipedia:Village pump/February 2004 archive 1

100k "images"

--> Wikipedia:Village pump/February 2004 archive 1

some helpful advice about vandals

--> Wikipedia talk:Dealing with vandalism

Heads up, Virus on mailinglist!!?

--> Wikipedia:Village pump/February 2004 archive 1

Page without content: wiki/Internet_slang

--> Wikipedia:Village pump/February 2004 archive 1

The "deadly Wikipedia virus"

--> Wikipedia talk:Confessed Wikipediholics

Wikipedia and Google

I was checking how my article Sangharakshita rated on Google today and found something interesting. Most of the licenced users of Wikipedia's text rate better than Wikipedia itself.

--> Wikipedia:Village pump/February 2004 archive 1

Need help on Dior (fixed)

--> Talk:Dior

Download entire section?

I was wondering is it possible to download the whole mathematics section?

See: Wikipedia:Database download. (you will download other sections but its all in a nice package) --Sennheiser! 17:27, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Soldiers on the Plains of Abraham

--> Wikipedia:Reference desk

Have I been squidded?

(fixed)

-->m:Cache bugs

Printed Dictionary

--> Wikipedia:Reference desk

Translation

Multilingual? Or need a foreign-language wikipedia article translated into English? Check out the newly created Wikipedia:Translation

--> Wikipedia talk:Translation

Messed up characters

--> User talk:Raul654

Heads up on "Ethnic Groups"

For anyone who may care, because I know this was a controversial project when we first launched a month ago, we now have an attempted template for writing about ethnic groups, nations (in the sense of peoples, not states), tribes, etc. It's further discussed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Ethnic Groups, which also points to 5 examples of applying the template. Some of the articles that we've tried reworking this way were not so great to begin with, and of course applying a template doesn't solve all of their problems, but I, for one, think it is an improvement in every case. Comments eagerly solicited; my current plan is to until 15 Feb 04 for comments, then (barring unforeseen serious objections) supersede the 5 articles currently in the wikipedia (nothing significant is dropped, just added), and take the notice off of the template that warns that it is "only a draft." -- Jmabel 02:27, 10 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Captions for fair use book covers?

--> Wikipedia talk:Copyrights

Advice and opinion needed on place naming conventions

I'd be grateful for advice on an issue regarding place naming conventions in Kosovo (i.e. whether we follow international practice or one or the other practices of the rival national communities, which present POV problems). I've posted an appeal for advice on Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (places)#Disputed place names - advice needed about a week ago but haven't had any responses yet. If anyone could offer some assistance, it would be much appreciated. -- ChrisO 10:49, 10 Feb 2004 (UTC)

--> Wikipedia talk:Copyrights

Liquid crystal sheet

--> Wikipedia:Reference desk

Fix required: Talk page moved to article page

I erroneously moved Talk:World War II atrocities to World War II atrocities in Poland. Sorry for screwing up.

The folloiwng should be undone by an admin: Talk:World War II atrocities must be restored, and World War II atrocities in Poland/Talk:World War II atrocities in Poland deleted.

BTW, could it be a good idea to forbid such kind of page move? Mikkalai 21:17, 10 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Compare versions ("&" breaks it)

--> Wikipedia talk:Page history

Need help with image restore

--> Wikipedia:Village pump/February 2004 archive 1

I'd love to vandalize a page

Ever felt like vandalising a page, adding joke content etc?

--> Wikipedia talk:Bad jokes and other deleted nonsense

I added replies to the replies. See that page. Laudaka 07:12, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC) (Paul/laudaka)

Not sure what to do

--> Talk:Oxford Revelation Rock-Gospel Choir

Vandalbot

We had a vandalbot attack today on meta. No big deal, just a couple of minutes worth of cleanup. But I wanted to make sure people know what to do when this happens. So I created a meta page on the subject, m:Vandalbot. -- Tim Starling 00:12, Feb 11, 2004 (UTC)

Is there a reason why links to Media:Nosuchmedium don't appear red? See User:TUF-KAT/Samples of music from the United States -- not all of those clips have been uploaded yet, and I have no way of knowing whether or not the links are working. I've had to change a few in between when I made the list and the clips got uploaded (the program I used to convert from mp3 to ogg and select a clip couldn't handle accents in titles, for example), but I may have missed some and have no way to tell without clicking on each link. Tuf-Kat 05:23, Feb 11, 2004 (UTC)

Map of Wikipedia?

Does anybody know of an attempt to "map" the Wikipedia similar to say:

http://research.lumeta.com/ches/map/

the Internet mapping project?

Hmmm, what I thought you meant was a map of Wikipedia as a navigational tool. Some libraries are doing this as a way to help people find information quickly and easily and as an alternative to the traditional catalogue search. As Wikipedia grows and expands, this could be a very useful tool. Anyone know anything about this? Exploding Boy 08:58, Feb 11, 2004 (UTC)

Random Observations

Are stub messages useful?

--> Wikipedia talk:Perfect stub article

Wikimedia's first press release Fundraising paragraph

m:Wikimedia's first press release was written mostly in August of 2003, before $30,000 dollars were raised for new hardware. Suggestions for bringing iti up to date before it is released are solicited.

--> m:Talk:Wikimedia's first press release

Wikipedia is simply the best!

--> Wikipedia talk:WikiLove in time for Valentines day.  :)

History of ALCO POWER

made the change --denny vrandečić 21:50, Feb 11, 2004 (UTC)

images from awesome university website

--> Wikipedia talk:Copyrights

Ordinal vs Cardinal

Some of the number pages (like five hundred) have "ordinal" and "cardinal" confused. Please fix this. Ordinal means 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.; cardinal means one, two, three (how many), etc. --Juuitchan

You are allowed to fix it yourself, you know? --Phil 11:35, Feb 12, 2004 (UTC)

Lumpenproletariat, lumpen proletariat or lumpen-proletariat?

Don't know if Lumpenproletariat should be moved to lumpen ploletariat Lumpen proletariat. Need help from whatever that language is (German?). Discuss at Talk:Lumpenproletariat please. --Maio 22:22, Feb 11, 2004 (UTC)

Lumpenproletariat has now been fixed, and yes it is correct (one Word) --Dieter Simon 23:37, 12 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Most edited articles?

Where do you find a list of the most edited articles in the wiki? Tried Specialpages and didn't see anything that yelled "most edited" at me.... :) alerante 23:01, 11 Feb 2004 (UTC)

There's a Wikipedia:Most-edited talk pages. If that's possible, you could probably bug one of the developers into making an articlespace version. Tuf-Kat 03:29, Feb 12, 2004 (UTC)
That'll work for me. The developers don't need to be bugged. :) alerante 22:02, 12 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Is pumpie a possible problem? Sennheiser ponders this perplexity

He keeps creating articles with basically no content. I don't know if I want to add him to Conflicts between users(im afraid of hurting his fealings), but this little bugger is getting on my nerves. It seems as if he is a 6-8 year old with an overactive imagination (the kind of child who gets pummelled in the school yard). I don't know if he understands how to login. (he usually edits as 67.60.27.122. He also keeps asking to be an admin, and has this misconecption that he will become one soon as long as he keeps pestering others and promises to create "en.wiktionary.org" and bots that translate things. He seems to be a problem at wiktionary(i don't contribute there so I cant say). Pumpie also keeps creating articles about HMS's which have basically no content. He has repeatedly been asked to include a stub message, but he seems unable to grasp the simple concept. Look at the article HMS Hermione, for an example of the kind of articles he creates. (this was created today and he wasn't even logged in) (notice it says "HMS Amazon" instead of Hermione). As I said, I am weary about adding him to the conflict page, but I don't know what else to do. --Ed Senft! 23:22, 11 Feb 2004 (UTC)

He does that on the Latin wikipedia as well. I can't expect people to communicate in English there, of course, but when I've tried he doesn't seem to understand what he's doing at all. Adam Bishop 04:09, 12 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I note the image at HMS Hermione has no provinence. Doubt he took it himself, but no documentation as to source is provided, which could be worrisome - Marshman 05:37, 12 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I added that image. It was taken around 1910 I believe. --Ed Senft! 12:40, 12 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Dashes

--> Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (biographies)Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style

DNS problem

Umm, I tried to load the main page via my usual link, and got this: "If you've gotten here, you're either having DNS trouble or you've followed some sort of invalid link.

Please see wikimedia.org for links to Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects.

Note that the address for www.wikipedia.org should be 130.94.122.199. This server is 130.94.122.197. If you thought you were coming to www.wikipedia.org, you're in the wrong place!"

Is this really my fault?" Surely www.wikipedia.org should get me to wikipedia!!! Graham 10:14, 12 Feb 2004 (UTC)

It's not just you, I get the same message. Just change www to en2 (en2.wikipedia.org) and you can probably get in.
Adrian Pingstone 10:56, 12 Feb 2004 (UTC)
en.wikipedia.org works OK as well.
Adrian Pingstone 11:02, 12 Feb 2004 (UTC)

rice field price

--> Wikipedia:Reference desk

Is wiki a good P2P application?

Discussion continues at Wikipedia talk:MediaWiki future directions

Wikipedia:Featured pictures candidates

Who is supposed to move approved candidates from Wikipedia:Featured pictures candidates into Wikipedia:Featured pictures ? Bevo 17:12, 12 Feb 2004 (UTC)

If you follow the instructions on that page, I believe the answer is "anyone". :-) Be bold! Jwrosenzweig 19:38, 12 Feb 2004 (UTC)

--> Wikipedia talk:Copyrights

--> Wikipedia talk:Copyrights

Use of Citations

Over at Operation Downfall, I added a section on casualities. It draws very heavily from a couple passages in John Skates' Invasion of Japan. If this were an academic paper, I'd most definitely cite it. What is the wiki policy on citations? →Raul654 19:01, Feb 12, 2004 (UTC)

Cite it under a References section I would say. Dori | Talk 19:33, Feb 12, 2004 (UTC)
I concur. More people should cite their references, it would make this all much more useful. Jmabel 01:06, 13 Feb 2004 (UTC)


See "Cite your sources" in the style guide. Steven G. Johnson

Extremely Silly Question

--> User talk:Jengod

Geography sites question

- - I rememember seeing something when I first came on board about the geographical site names being first done by robot, using some(?) almanac.

Discussion continues at User talk:Ram-Man

Anthony and Wik

After an edit war between Anthony DiPierro and Wik over VfD, that page was protected. Apparently recognising the inconvenience of an edit war on VfD, or the protection of this extremely heavily edited page, they both made comments suggesting the acceptability of a temporary mutual ban. Wik said in an edit summary:

ban Anthony, or, if you can't tell a serious contributor from a troll, ban both of us, but this can't continue

And Anthony said on IRC:

<anthony> as long as he gets banned as long as i do i'm fine with it
...
<anthony> i didn't volunteer to be banned
<AdamBishop> but you said you'd be happy as long as Wik was banned with you, and Wik asked to be banned
<anthony> wik asked to be banned?
<anthony> well, if that's true, let's do it

So I did it, and unprotected VfD. -- Tim Starling 02:38, Feb 13, 2004 (UTC)

So you admitted that you indeed can't tell a serious contributor from a troll. --Wik 17:09, Feb 14, 2004 (UTC)
That explains why my watchlist isn't filled with (rv) for once. Jor 19:26, 13 Feb 2004 (UTC)
So that's why it's so quiet tonight ;) →Raul654 02:46, Feb 13, 2004 (UTC)
So both Wik and Anthony are banned? :D --Ed Senft!
Just to be fair, while Wik can be (very, very) hard to work with sometimes, I think he is a very good contributor. If he were to reform and be more cooperative, I would have support making him an admin. →Raul654 03:33, Feb 13, 2004 (UTC)
PLEASE tell me you're joking. He requested admin status on Requests for adminship and was roundly voted down. RickK 05:00, 13 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I'm not joking. If he were cut down the number of edit wars and used the discussion pages in a rational manner, I think he could be a good admin. You can't deny his experience. →Raul654 05:04, Feb 13, 2004 (UTC)
If hell freezes over it'd be a nice place to stay. While I am grateful for all the spelling and grammar fixes Wik did to my sometimes broken writings before, his annoying behaviour once someone disagrees with him is not acceptable, and I doubt it'd ever change. However a determined editor like Wik with a lot more social competence would make a great admin, and I guess that's what Raul meant. andy 10:38, 13 Feb 2004 (UTC)
He's got the experience, and every so often he makes some very nice corrections, but that is overshadowed by the other edits he makes, IMO. I'd oppose him as an admin just because of all the edit wars he gets into. Metasquares 19:19, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I have not had many experiences with Wik, but most of his contributions seem to have the caption of (rv). --Ed Senft! 13:12, 13 Feb 2004 (UTC)
This sort of nonsense is the reason why I signed up for the Office of Members Advocates. "I'm ok with being banned as long as he's banned too?" I used to make that sort of argument when I was 7. Let's work towards a solution that doesn't involve people getting banned. Metasquares 19:19, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Actually if the admins had the guts to make the bans permanent I think you would have seen quite an improvement in Wikipedia. I guess you were a smart 7 year old. A solution which doesn't involve wik getting banned is not going to happen. Anthony DiPierro 21:46, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Math formulae question

Help needed with formatting math formulae.

Discussion continues at m:Talk:MediaWiki User's Guide: Editing mathematical formulae

Most unlikely edit war?

I'm curious: Has anybody else encountered a real, mean-spirited, you-revert-me-so-I-revert-you edit war over a less likely topic than Curse of the Bambino? DavidWBrooks 15:38, 13 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Reminiscing continues at Wikipedia talk:Edit war

When will the images return?

As we all know:
"Images uploaded between January 24 and January 28 are currently not available due to a hardware problem with one of the web servers. We should have the files recovered sooner or later, but feel free to re-upload anything you uploaded in that period to restore it immediately."
When will this problem be over? -- user:zanimum

Afaik the server's hd is pretty broken, but should be physically accessible soon (Jason plans to get the old servers today). Attempts to recover the data should be much easier with physical access. -- Gabriel Wicke 23:58, 13 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Edit and Revert wars getting out of hand

I propose that a new policy be implemented to deal with the short-term impact of edit and revert wars. The protecting pages does not seem to work as the conflict soon spreads to other pages, and we can't be protecting all the pages. I am almost inclined to support a policy whereby sysops are allowed to temp-ban participants until the Mediation/Arbitration committees are done reviewing the issue....

Discussion continues at Wikipedia talk:Edit war

Questions

I wanted information about a pediatric nurse. I 'm going to a health career school but I'm not sure what a pediatric nurse does I want to do something that has to do with taking care of infants and toddlers in the hospitol's Could you please send me information on what type of nurse that it?

Well, that might be kinda hard since you didn't provide any kind of address. —Frecklefoot 20:33, 13 Feb 2004 (UTC)
What's the address needed for since any answers can be put here! But the person should have said which country the info is needed for.
Adrian Pingstone 22:51, 13 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Chances that person will actually stop back to check the response: 0.00001%. →Raul654 23:11, Feb 13, 2004 (UTC)
If they do come back, I'd recommend checking out www.napnap.org or the FAQ at www.pediatricnursing.com MK 21:27, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Full-text search

Will the Wikipedia full-text search feature be re-enabled, now that the new servers are being installed? Google is amazing, but it's not as good as the full-text search feature was. Dpbsmith 23:15, 13 Feb 2004 (UTC)

  • Please re-enable the Google option; I personally found it much more useful and accurate than the current search feature. For example, searching for "Courtney" does not even turn up pages like Courtney Love that have that word in the title, whereas Google turns up that and other promising links. Steven G. Johnson 17:25, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I think it currently is enabled. The best of both worlds would be to have full text on and a link to google. Dori | Talk 17:28, Feb 14, 2004 (UTC)

Project Gutenberg vs. Wikibooks

What is the relation between PG & WB (and other e-text projects)? (mutual copying, referncing, cooperation, etc.) BTW, it would be useful for the latter list to mention something about "access rules" for each listed digital library: using, copying, licensing. Mikkalai 23:37, 13 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Wikisource:Wikisource and Project Gutenberg has some details on potential collaboration. Angela. 00:50, Feb 14, 2004 (UTC)
A lot of PG generated material is already in Wikipedia, especially a lot of articles imported from the 1911 encyclopedia. Although it's not a formal policy it's become fairly common for articles about authors/books to link to the PG version if on exists. --Imran 23:55, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Banning Plautus satire

Since policy decisions are all amok right now, I'd like clarification - I'm not sure if this is the place to talk about this though. User:Plautus satire needs to be banned. In the ~10 hours he's been here, he's made 3 good edits (his first 3), lots of bad ones, lots of reverts, started 3 edit wars, and gotten 3 out of the 4 pages he's "contributed" to protected. I would do it myself, but I'm involved in the conflicts. →Raul654 23:46, Feb 13, 2004 (UTC)

He has trolled with the same Columbia disaster subject on many other message boards, blanked his talk page rather than respond to concerns, removed other peoples' comments from Talk:Albert Einstein and is the same person as User:24.79.3.230 who contributed this little gem in January. I was going to block him myself but he stopped editing. If he starts up again I will consider blocking him. silsor 00:13, Feb 14, 2004 (UTC)
He's baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack. But confining himself to talk pages for now, it seems. -- ChrisO 01:56, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)
He's got nowhere else to go. All the pages he trolls have been protected. →Raul654 01:57, Feb 14, 2004 (UTC)
Hehe. That definately is something. --Ed Senft! 00:16, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)
His edits on the Columbia article seem to be related to a fringe (can I say kooky?) theory doing the rounds that the shuttle was shot down by a lightning bolt or laser beam - the culprits are variously said to be the US Air Force, aliens or whoever might be using "scalar weapons", whatever those might be. I'd guess that he's either a troll or a kook. -- ChrisO 01:42, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Scaler weapons are weapons that have measurable magnitude but no direction. Velocity is a vector quantity because it has speed and direction. mass is a scaler quantity because it only has magnitude. --Ed Senft! 01:46, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)
This sort of thing is why I gave up maths years ago. :-) -- ChrisO 01:56, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Blocked. silsor 03:36, Feb 15, 2004 (UTC)

References not in english

Sorry the newbie question. I understand that i should cite my sources if i write long sections about complex topics. But what if these sources are in German, not English? Of course i tend to read books in my native language if i can get decent ones on a topic, and not all of them are availiable as english translations. Cite anyway? With a warning that it's not in english? Lady Tenar 00:32, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Cite 'em, Danno. And, yes, if the title doesn't make it obvious, it would be polite to indicate that it is not in English. And welcome. -- Jmabel 00:45, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Viewing source of old article revisions

The article Abbey appears to have been cut off mid-sentence. I tracked this back to the 06:34, 31 Oct 2002 version (the previous version is all right). Ideally, I would have been able to view the source (including wiki formatting) of the 31.12.2002 version and copy it to the most recent revision. Is this possible? If not, I'll just copy the article as is, and reapply the formatting on my on. -Itai 01:13, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Yes there is. Click on the date/time of the revision you want to retrieve. Then at the bottom, click edit this. That'll give you the wikicode→Raul654 01:16, Feb 14, 2004 (UTC)
No, not really. Clicking Edit this page gives me the wikicode of the current (lacking) article, not of the historical (complete) article. Thanks anyway. -Itai 03:07, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)
What you have to do is first click on Page history, then click on one of the links with with the date (i.e. something like 21:07, Feb 13, 2004). After you click on one of those links, you'll see "(Revision as of 19:13, Feb 13, 2004)" at the top of the page. Then click on Edit this page and you'll see "WARNING: You are editing an out-of-date revision of this page. If you save it, any changes made since this revision will be lost." at the top and the text as on any normal edit. If you save this version, you are effectively reverting to that revision. Dori | Talk 03:13, Feb 14, 2004 (UTC)
Right you are. Thank you. I've been clicking on the last and cur buttons all along. I've now fixed the article. -Itai 10:37, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Well done! Now have a think... how could the documentation have been more helpful to you? Is there a change that you can make to one of our various help pages that would make them more easily understood by people wanting to revert for the first time? You're now in a good position to do this, while old hands tend to just say hey, it's obvious. If this isn't your thing, no worries, but worth a thought IMO. Andrewa 19:29, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Actually, it is obvious, speaking with the wisdom of hindsight. I was merely pressing the wrong button. Repeatedly. Mercifully, it wasn't the little red one that makes the world blow up. Not much of trial and error with that one. Seriously, however, you're absolutely right and I'll be sure to give it a thought. -Itai 21:59, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Bibliographic Citations

--> Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style

The Sep 11 Terrorist pages

Misinformation and rumors about the September 11, 2001 attacks seems to be protected. Who did it and why? Arno 07:07, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)

From Wikipedia:Protection log: 15:02, 12 Feb 2004 Ed Poor protected Misinformation and rumors about the September 11, 2001 attacks →Raul654 07:14, Feb 14, 2004 (UTC)

Turkeys and keels

I looked at Carinatae which still claims that the turkey has no carina. The last edit was on 8 Sep 2002 when I asked about it on the talk page. No one's answered. Does anyone know some examples of non-ratite birds which really have no carina? -phma 16:17, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)

A question

I was just wondering, is there any way to make large black bolded text, like is seen on page sub-divisions without using the ==Bolded Text== thing. And I dont mean like This I mean really big G-Man 16:24, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Using wiki code? Don't think you can. That code creates a header-two, which carries actual semantic meaning. Large black bolded text on its own is meaningless. Why do you want to anyway? Jor 16:41, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I'm sure I've seen it used somewhere else, (might be wrong) and I was just wondering how it was done G-Man 16:54, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Try

using CSS

maybe… (<p style="font-size: 120%; font-weight: bold;">) Just don't use a <h2> just to get "big text". Jor 17:07, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Does using plain HTML, like this, (<font size=+1><b>this</b></font>) give what you want, or does that count as an H2? I'm not sure whether it's easier or harder than CSS, but it might be better for older browsers. I don't really know much about it. -- Vardion 02:15, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)
<h1 align=center>It Cannot be Done</h1>
Apologies to whoever added the above, but it broke the section edit links for the rest of the page, so I've surrounded it in <pre> tags. Which just goes to show the dangers of using semantic markup just to create visual effects. - IMSoP 18:06, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Thai wikipedia

Is there something wrong with the Thai language wikipedia I cannot reach it. Somchai ;

You might want to tell that to Silsor. --Ed Senft! 03:37, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)

[Note: I suspect that the above comment was added to the wrong section due to rogue code further up the page breaking the section edit links. It was also added to the next section down. - IMSoP 18:10, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)]

Wik

I seem to be the subject of attacks by User:wik. He seems to be under the misconception that I am another Wikipedian and he vandalises my user page. I was under the impression that wik was under a ban, so I readded user:Jiang's link to the ban page of wik. I can usually stay away from these sort of detrimental activities on Wikipedia, but I seem to have been targetted. I think that this issue needs to be resolved immediately. user:Muriel Gottrop said two wrongs don't make a right in the edit summary on my userpage, but I wasn't aware that I did anything wrong. Thanks! --Ed Senft! 17:19, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Hi Alex. How's your brother? --Wik 17:21, Feb 14, 2004 (UTC)
Wik is a vandal, clear and simple. While he may make some real contributions, most of his edits are reverts, and he loves starting editing wars. Jor 17:32, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)
The Wik Study
Just to test Darkelf's theory, I did a quick rundown of Wik's edit history. Starting on Feb 12 (prior to his 24 ban), I counted the changes he made to articles (not talk or wikipedia: pages) between Feb 11 and Feb 12. I put them into 3 catagories: vandalism, reverts, and "useful". I counted 0 vandalisms, 20 reverts, and 48 useful contributions. So I think it's unfair to say that the majority of his edits are reverts. →Raul654 17:55, Feb 14, 2004 (UTC)
Several of his "contributions" are removing added info and adding back his own edit, in essence a cloaked revert. Note also that some of those are marked a Minor Edits, in an effort to hide his vandalism. This statement based on checking each of his last 50 edits by page history comparing. Jor 17:59, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)
All(when I looked) of his article edits since he has gotten back have been reverts. Why is he allowed to continue editing? --Ed Senft! 17:56, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I have to disagree with Raul here. I spent a bit of time today looking at every article that appeared in Wik's then-current User Contributions page. Just 50 items and far fewer pages, but that meant I could look at all of them in enough detail to see what each change meant. What they meant: Edit wars and edit wars, sometimes Poland vs Germany—I admit to a bias here: this nonsense annoys the bejabbers out of me—sometimes utter trivialities. Never, it appears, does he use the Talk pages to discuss any changes except in response to someone who has properly used Talk to make a rebuttal to one of this changes. And his positive changes? Copy editing. Good copy editing, often enough; but where are any substantive contributions? I didn't see them. Certainly nothing to balance the nonsense; nothing that would make a difference if he softly and suddenly vanished away; and I haven't even mentioned his wasting our time by tracking everything Anthony does to revert it. Phaugh. Dandrake 02:01, Feb 17, 2004 (UTC)
Another thing I just noticed is Wik seems to be removing other user's comments from various wikipedia utilities such as Wikipedia:RFPP. [1]. He is not only removing the comments, but getting into edit wars with the users whose comments he removes. --Ed Senft! 18:42, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Don't edit other people's user pages, simple as that. - snoyes 01:14, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)
You might want to tell that to Silsor. --Ed Senft! 03:38, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I redirected the user page of a sock puppet to the person's best-known account. silsor 03:39, Feb 15, 2004 (UTC)

Could someone delete Gujarat to move Gujarat State, India there. Also, Yellow Pig Day still needs to be deleted. --Wik 19:24, Feb 14, 2004 (UTC)

The consensus was to keep YPD. Anthony DiPierro 21:47, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Which part of "This was already deleted 21:41, Oct 30, 2003 Angela deleted "Yellow Pig Day" (listed on vfd for 5 days; all real votes to delete)" don't you understand? --Wik 21:48, Feb 14, 2004 (UTC)
That we now know that it is a verified day not confined to a single location. You appear to be ignoring the recent VfD vote, which was to keep it. Jamesday 03:31, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

"Located in..."

Not really sure whether this is the place to ask but: Would it possible to set the wikibot (or whatever it is) to change "located in" to "in" where that phrase this occurs in geographical articles? If something is "in" X county etc, it has to be located there and the "located" is completely redundant. Jacquerie27 22:18, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Having just "in" would be more concise, but I don't really think the extra word "located" hurts anything, especially since it would involve thousands of bot edits to remove them all. -- Wapcaplet 22:25, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)


Squids / Caching

The new server configuration with caches doesn't seem to work well with my Netscape 7.x browser -- I get the actual version of pages like Village Pump only if I explicitly de-cache reload them (Shift-Reload), not with a normal clicking on a link or on the reload button. That's not nice behavior and can lead to misunderstandings (e.g. seemingly missing answers or edits). -- till we *) 23:53, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Yes, I've been sitting here wondering why the Pump was so quiet for the same reason (I [too] use Mozilla, so could be software specific). Is there a header being sent wrong or something? - IMSoP 01:55, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I'm using Netscape 7.02 and having no problems. Elf 02:01, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I dual-boot linux and XP. I noticed that entries on Village pump which I can see in linux (Konqueror or Galeon) do not always show up in either IE or mozilla on XP, though I can go to an edit screen and see them there. (IMSoP notes that this comment was added by WormRunner 02:08, 15 Feb 2004)
Hmm, is Galeon Mozilla-based? (Follows own link to check, but finds nought but an stub) I suppose it might have different caching code. Just thinking that it doesn't seem very likely this would vary by OS, rather than by browser, is all. Would probably vary based on whether you were logged in though. And I've just remembered I'm behind a local squid of some sort, too [remembers somebody pointing out recently how many proxies lie between the average website and the average surfer] Ah! Too many variables! - IMSoP 02:26, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Can people please check if this problem is still current? It would help a huge amount if people experiencing the problem are able to diagnose it more clearly, including checking whether their DNS points to the 130.x or 207.x addresses and what cache headers they receive in the HTTP responses. I haven't been able to reproduce such problems so far. --Brion 03:14, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Actually, I haven't noticed it lately - perhaps it was just a settling down issue with the new servers. I didn't get round to looking into what the headers were because I couldn't (be bothered to) find a way of checking the response details for a logged-in request (sending a dummy GET on the command line would prove nothing, as there would be no cookies). - IMSoP 03:22, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I'm getting the problem right now this moment. Had it continually for several days on 2 machines, but that doesn't count for much since they use the same ISP & essentially same browser (Mozilla versions, this being 1.2.1 and other a newer version). Sorry, can't run the requested diagnostic data just now. Dandrake 07:55, Feb 16, 2004 (UTC)

We're sending headers that tell both other caches and browsers to check back for updates on every request. Cache administrators of downstream caches can however configure their caches to ignore some of these headers (especially Vary and Cache-Control) in order to get a higher 'hit ratio'. This violates the http standard, so it should be a reason to complain to your cache administrator, if you know who it is. The other reason i could think of would be a browser that's explicitly configured to check for updates only once per session. With Mozilla, you can check this (iirc) at Edit - Preferences - Advanced - Cache settings. -- Gabriel Wicke 18:06, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)


Thanks for the info. What about the choice called "When the page is out of date"? I'd guess that that means it should request status for the page and compare against the date of what's in the cache; so it ought to work right in this context? Anyway, it's what my setting is and has been. Dandrake 18:24, Feb 16, 2004 (UTC)

What's the policy regarding "see also" or "related topics" links in articles? Some of them have literally dozens of links, some that seem only marginally related. For example, the article Homosexuality includes no less than 84 links to "related articles," including to frottage, oral sex and mutual masturbation, and that's in addition to the external links. Exploding Boy 00:29, Feb 15, 2004 (UTC)

Leave them. Ideally, they should go in the article. If they aren't, they should be. But better in th see-also section than not having them at all. →Raul654 03:01, Feb 15, 2004 (UTC)
See wikipedia: Lists (embedded lists)

Yes, but "related topics" surely should mean... related topics? How is frottage related to homosexuality, other than being a sexual technique also used by homosexuals? Ditto for oral sex and mutual masturbation. If nothing else it suggests homosexuality is only or primarily about sex. Surely a link to list of sex-related topics would suffice? But why have links to sexual desire, sexual attraction, sex, sexual intercourse, frottage, tribadism, oral sex, mutual masturbation, anal sex AND safer sex all for one article on homosexuality? Ditto for hustler, rent boy, molly house,consensual crime, perversion (??), and then to top it all off, list of gay-related topics ?

Compare the 80+ links on Homosexuality to the 31 links on [[Heterosexuality, several of which are actually about gay-related topics (eg: Reparative therapy and ex-gay)

Exploding Boy 03:10, Feb 15, 2004 (UTC)

Well, some of those absolutely belong in such an article (rent boy, for instance). Others probably don't. →Raul654 03:13, Feb 15, 2004 (UTC)

I'm not trying to be argumentative (really, I'm not) (deep breath), I'm just trying to understand the rationale because to be honest I'm having a problem with a certain editor and I'd like to figure out if my impressions are wrong or if I'm simply ignorant of policy, but would you mind telling me why rent boy, which links to the article prostitution, a quick scan of which reveals no reference to "rent boys" (though I may have missed it), has anything to do with homosexuality?
ETA: Surely the test would be "could these links be intergrated into the article text?"? Exploding Boy 03:19, Feb 15, 2004 (UTC)
Well, if you don't know want a rent boy is, allow me to enlighten you. A rent boy is a young, male, homosexual prostitute. The term is chiefly british, and originated in the 19th century. IIRC, the term can refer to either (a) the fact that they rent themselves out, or (b) after selling their servies, they use the money to pay their rent. It probably deserves an article on its own. Regardless, a link from the homosexuality article would seem in order. →Raul654 03:25, Feb 15, 2004 (UTC)

I know what a rent boy is, just not why it should be linked from homosexuality. After all, a prostitute, regardless of the gender of his or her clients, may or may not be homosexual; surely a link from "sexuality" would be better? Exploding Boy 03:33, Feb 15, 2004 (UTC)

And heterosexuality seems to get on quite nicely without a link to crack-whore.... -- Outerlimits 03:35, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)
and with no references to oral or anal sex, frottage or, for that matter, prostitution.Exploding Boy

I'm curious - what do people here think the homosexuality and hetrosexuality articles should about? →Raul654 03:41, Feb 15, 2004 (UTC)

Why? There is a glut of links on the homosexuality page, and not all of them are "related" or justified. A single link to list of sexology topics would cover a huge swath of them, and list of gay-related topics would cover more. I fail to see how a specific link to frottage is necessary or appropriate on the homosexuality article. Exploding Boy 03:51, Feb 15, 2004 (UTC)
I agree - you have a point - there are 'related articles' there that need to go, but (personally) I wouldn't cast as wide a net as you did in your first post here. Regardless, some of those should come out. Your litmus test "could this be included in the article" is a good one, I think. →Raul654 03:58, Feb 15, 2004 (UTC)

Ok, well thanks for your replies. I'll bring this up (with some trepidation) on the talk: homosexuality page. Exploding Boy 03:59, Feb 15, 2004 (UTC)

You are perfectly free to delete links which you think are irrelevant without getting anyone's permssion. I do it all the time. Adam 04:42, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)


GFDL requirements for a so-called "Title Page"?

Martin has pointed out that material licenced under the GNU FDL requires a statement on the "Title Page", raising issues on how to present content imported from Nupedia.

continued at Wikipedia talk:Nupedia and Wikipedia

FOLDOC license

spawned from above thread: The FOLDOC articles are more of a challenge [with regards GFDL], though. Martin 21:42, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Yikes, I hadn't realised that the FOLDOC import is technically under the FDL. Maybe we could contact Denis Howe again, and ask for an even more relaxed licence? - IMSoP 22:19, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)
We'd probably just need to explain the situation to him - if he's fine with what we're doing (and I guess he is), then that's great. Martin 22:32, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Em dashes

Sorry, but wasn't there just a discussion about standard formatting for dashes? I've spent 10 minutes searching for it and can't find the discussion or any text in style-guide-related topics about them. Where'd it goooooo? Elf 02:46, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Yip, it was the "Dashes" section above that's now a pointer to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (biographies). A slightly obscure place for the move, really, since the conversation drifted onto far wider topics than just biographies. I can't be bothered with finding somewhere better at the mo, though - IMSoP 02:55, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Thanks. I suggest up to the top level Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style since there is a section in that page (though incomplete) titled "Punctuation" and there's really only one paragraph in the whole discussion on bios. (I'd move it myself but I'm skeered to try.) Elf 03:27, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I put it there because it's the biography section of the manual of style which advocates using ascii dashes in between pairs of dates. But, move it by all means if you want, just remember to update the link/pointer on this page so it points to the correct place. fabiform | talk 08:16, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)
OK, I moved it to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style although I left copy of parts dealing specifically with biographies there. Elf 21:19, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)

http://newshound.de.siu.edu/pulse/discuss/msgReader$19

I am trying to add this link to Hank Williams III and it doesn't want to work right. It makes my tooth hurt when it links to a Ja Rule article ;( Sam Spade 12:59, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Try escaping out the dollar sign, thus: http://newshound.de.siu.edu/pulse/discuss/msgReader%2419 --No-One Jones 13:12, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Thank you for your brilliance :D Sam Spade 13:21, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Hmm, isn't that a bit worrying? It would seem like the escaping code in mediaWiki isn't working inside URLs, and thus the PHP engine is trying to interpret "19" as a variable. No harm in this case, but potentially... -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 13:33, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)
No, it's treating the dollar sign in the same way it treats space or comma. It's not a security risk. -- Tim Starling 13:41, Feb 15, 2004 (UTC)
Pfew. Thanks Tim. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 15:17, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)

New pages and the watchlist

Is it possible to add New pages to a watchlist? Bevo 16:51, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I don't think so. You can't watch special pages. Even if you could - newpages gets updated 2-10 times a minute. It would always be at the top of your list. →Raul654 16:59, Feb 15, 2004 (UTC)
How convenient that would be! <grin> Bevo 17:02, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Well, you could put New pages on your watchlist, but it doesn't get changed very often! ;-) In fact, it's a very well-hidden redirect, since Special: pages don't seem to get the "Redirected from..." text. Is that a bug or a feature? - IMSoP 17:27, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)


Thumbnail size

This was posted on the talk page, but I think it was intended for here - IMSoP 17:36, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Timwi and I are having a discussion on the best thumbnail size for pictures. We cannot agree so please put your opinions here. The discussion so far is at User talk:Timwi. To help your thoughts I have put one pic on Wing to 180px wide and one to 250px wide.

My argument is that 250px is best, as a compromise, so that clicking on a larger version (if any) would be rarely necessary and page loading time would still be reasonable. (I used to say 300px but, for some reason I don?t understand, that does look too large with the new image code).

Timwi?s argument is for a roughly 180px thumb. He says that you can see just as much detail on that size as on a 250px one and that 250px looks bad on a 640 by 480 screen because it occupies half the screen width.
(Timwi, if I haven?t put your argument properly please add to it here).
Your opinions, please.
Adrian Pingstone 17:30, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)

What would be interesting is a page of statistics showing the breakdown of the different screen resolutions browsers use to access the site: are most people using 640x480 or 1600x1200? Is there a page like that anywhere? And what would resolve a lot of this thumbnail angst is a command in the image markup to allow pics to occupy a specified percentage of the screen width (eg, "width=33%"). Is that feasible? –Hajor 17:47, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)
The problem with having it as a percentage (even if that were possible, which I'm not sure of) is that everyone would have to download it at full size, and let their browser scale it down, because there'd be no way for the server to know what size thumbnail to generate. So we'd lose the advantage of thumbnails for slow connections and overworked wiki-servers. - IMSoP 17:58, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC) [who nearly added this to the wrong topic - what's with the section edit links?] [Edit: I've fixed them now.]

I've been putting a lot of images up lately, so I think I can speak with some authority on the situation. And the answer is - it depends. My advice is to use the preview button to see what looks best. I usually go between 200 and 300, but there are sometimes where you have to go with something different. University of Delaware, for instance, was a tricky one. →Raul654 18:00, Feb 15, 2004 (UTC)

I agree that it depends; try a few different sizes and see what works best (the extended image syntax lets you define a thumbnail size within the image markup, so it's trivial to try alternate sizes). As for statistics on what size screens people are using, that's tricky to measure; those with large screens (like me) may tend to browse in a small window that is effectively only 600-800 pixels wide or smaller. PDAs and cell phones are becoming a popular web-access method too, and their screens are often tiny, so I'd say when in doubt, use a smaller thumbnail. -- Wapcaplet 18:14, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I'm not so sure - you can very much make thumbnails that are too small. For instance, the latest incarnation of Mozilla Firefox has an absolutely tiny one, that just looks silly if you ask me. If the image becomes so small you can't really see any of the detail, what's the point of having the thumbnail there at all? And while cell phones do indeed have tiny screens, they are unlikely to deal with the page in anything like the same way anyway - for all I know, they'll completely miss out inline images - so I don't think we can really expect to cater for them at the same time as "traditional" browsers. - IMSoP 18:29, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Idealy the thumbnail should be just big enough to show the detail, so people on dial-up don't *have* to click on the thumbnail but still get the benefit of seeing whatever the picture is supposed to illustrate clearly. A "standard width" would not be useful because, for a start, it makes a big difference if the picture is landscape or portrait (longer width or length). fabiform | talk 18:33, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)
250px seems a good compromise, but why not have a "text-only" button in the preferences for really slow users^wbrowsers? Yes, I know, browsers can do this at their own -- but a global switch that allows to see pages text-only withouth nasty "empty" pics would be helpful sometimes. -- till we *) 18:39, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)
The question of "what screen resolutions are used by Wikipedia users" is relevant. I can say from past personal experience that a person with a 640x480 pixel screen is going to experience enormous frustration and annoyance browsing most presumably-professionally-designed commercial websites, and 800x600 isn't much better. On the other hand, a 1024x768 screen works just fine; it's very rare that I have any urge to use a higher resolution. Also, most laptops manufactured in the past four years or so have 1024x768 or better. The Mac 6400 I bought circa 1994 had built-in video that went at least to 1024x768, I believe higher, and the CRT I bought, which was the bottom-of-the-line as of 1994, could display 1024x768 and maybe higher, but did not look good at anything about 800x600. Finally, most video cards for the past, um, decade go to 1024x768, so someone with a 640x480 screen need only substitute a new CRT.
In other words, I think it's reasonable to design and preview for 1024x768 for the following reasons: a) I isn't going to prevent many people from using Wikipedia; b) I think it is a very mainstream setting these days; c) people with smaller screens are going to experience minor annoyances everywhere, not just on Wikipedia.
A much more serious question is download time on dialup, and I think this, rather than visual appearance, should govern decisions on thumbnail size. I think the percentage of Wikipedia users on dialup is far, far higher than the percentage of Wikipedia users with screens of resolution lower than 1024x768.
I'm quite prepared to be told I'm utterly wrong about this. Dpbsmith 20:24, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Designing for 1024x768, with in-article illustrations of between ¼ and 1/3 of screen width, would give us thumbnails in the 250 to 350 px range. That's the kind of range I try to aim at. I don't know whether Dpbsmith is utterly wrong or not, but I hope he isn't. –Hajor 17:21, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Do we have a policy on including eternal links which lead to paid subscription news services such as The Times? Fore example Current_events the Feb 16th story on the break-up of the BBC. Personally, I think that it's okay to link to news sites which require a free login, such as the New York Times, but that paid subscription links are best left out (or annotated as paid so that users don't waste time/bandwidth trying to acces them). dramatic 19:27, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Spend the extra 60 seconds and google for something free to link to. This should work 99.999% of the time. →Raul654 19:38, Feb 15, 2004 (UTC)


"the Feb 16th story on the break-up of the BBC" - Wow! Do you get to see future news? Is there an option somewhere in preferences for that? [Sorry, couldn't resist]
You're just jealous because some of us are on UTC+13 :-)
On a more sensible note, the Times link didn't require any kind of registration out of me, but in general you're probably right. Like with links to PDFs, links that require registration (whether paid or not) should probably have warnings. Slashdot conventionally puts "(free registration required)" or somesuch [although they sometimes parody themselves and put "(jumping through hoops required)", etc] but it's not obvious how that could be fitted in to the footnote-style auto-numbered links. - IMSoP 19:47, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC) [via edit conflict]

I use http://news.google.com/ to search for news articles to link to in the Current Events pages. All of their entries are non-subscription services, and so far I haven't had a problem finding a news article which covers the event I'm trying to include. RickK 21:24, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)

We should also not give references to books or journal articles as they are cost money up front too. Let's just stick to sites supported by advertising (which we pay for in non-up-front ways) or the BBC (which I pay for out of taxes), cos they don't cost money up front. More seriously, the right thing to do from a scholastic perspective is to give the best references, wherever they may be. (Note that in theory our articles should be sufficently good that references are not needed by Joe Reader, only by more serious researchers) Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 22:12, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Except that in most cases, the references are fungible - no particular pay site is going to be significantly better than another. That is why I strongly object to linking to the NY times, because after 3 months, the links becoming pay-only. →Raul654 22:16, Feb 15, 2004 (UTC)
In the particular example cited, the Sunday Times is the best reference - it was the newspaper that got hold of the leaked report. All other reports are reporting the existence of the Sunday Times report, from what I've seen. Thus the it would be best to link directly to the Sunday Times. If identical information is available to all news sources (because the information has come from pa/reuters release or a press release) then sure link to the "best" (i.e. free/stable/readable) site - but wouldn't this lead to a bias to linking to the BBC - it has stable URLs and no ads, where as the other major news sources are almost unreadable due to ads and pop-ups.
I think the best policy is not to not use them, but to label them. To answer your point about other kinds of reference, it is fairly obvious that a book is a paid-for resource (except when you use a library, of course), and journal articles all have the same general access arrangements (as one another). Online resources, however, have all sorts of different access requirements, and it is nice to be warned before following a reference whether it is particularly restrictive. And, as Raul says, where several references are only differentiable by their accessibility, we might as well as cite the most accessible (e.g. the one with no subscription requirements) - IMSoP 22:29, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Yes, I'd agree with labelling whenever it is non-obvious. All other things being equal, accessibility should become a factor in chosing an ext. link, but other things aren't equal as often as the impression this thread gives. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 11:46, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I don't really see what's wrong with linking to a pay-only NY Times link. It'd be okay to link to "not even online at all" sources, like, say, the NY Times paper version, or a book, or a journal. I do agree that we should prefer online and free sources if they are just as good, and just as reputable. We shouldn't link to some random local paper nobody's ever heard of as our authoritative source just because it's free. Doubly so because our content may eventually be used in a non-internet setting, in which case being able to look up the NY Times article at your local library's archives is a lot better than having a useless reference to some obscure paper. --Delirium 12:00, Feb 16, 2004 (UTC)

The Han character on the logo means 'ancestor'. It is very distracting. We should change it to something more appropriate. -- Kaihsu 20:37, 2004 Feb 15 (UTC)

This needs to be directed to Nohat, who has the keys to unraveling the 3D mystery. What would you suggest as the replacement? -戴&#30505sv 21:05, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)
For example, 知, for 'knowledge' -- Kaihsu 22:41, 2004 Feb 15 (UTC)

At the time, Nohat admitted that he couldn't read Chinese character, so he chose one randomly, hoping it wouldn't be something unpleasant. --Menchi 01:04, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I'm just being curious here but why is "ancestor" bad to have? Dysprosia
I'm pretty sure every chracter on the logo represents the Wikipedia in some way. To pick an obvious example (to English speakers) the Roman Character is W, the first letter in Wikipedia -- UserGoogol 02:19, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)
That's only partially true. As I'm not an omniglot, only the Japanese, Latin, and Cyrillic were selected to represent "Wikipedia". The rest were picked more for an eye of what would fit and look nice, with total obliviousness to the possible interpretation. If the Chinese character I selected had meant something really bad like "death" or "poison" then I'm sure someone would have complained during the logo creation process. I'm mildly pleased to learn that the character I selected means "ancestor"; I think it has a certain charm to it.
If you really want to see it changed, I would suggest creating a page on meta to collect ideas of which characters should be included, and if there is consensus I will make a new version of the logo. However, I'm willing to bet that most Wikipedians are not yet fully recovered from the Great Logo Affair of 2003, so I wouldn't recommend embarking on a major logo-modification campaign. You'd likely stir up much more trouble than you thought you were bargaining for. I'm hesitant to make small changes to the logo, as there are lots of variations that I'd rather not keep re-making for each minor change. The current batch took two whole days. --Nohat 03:47, 2004 Feb 17 (UTC)

Layout of page footers

There's a dispute going on about how to format the footers that we are currently adding to pages such as those of countries. The dispute is between these two formats:

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=MediaWiki:East_Asia&oldid=2406134
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=MediaWiki:East_Asia&oldid=2406149

Where would a vote on a matter like this preferably take place? Thanks -- Timwi 22:49, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)


You could create a Wikiproject for geographic entries. (BTW, I much prefer the first: (a)it stands out so much better from all the rest of the standard generic wiki links (b)it looks more professional (c) takes up less spage but (d)like all tables it adds a level of complexity for accessibility, so be sure it has a SUMMARY attribute, like summary="Navigation to other countries" ) Elf 17:05, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Damage to Cleanup

I have reverted Cleanup about 5 hours worth, maybe a dozen edits. Those who can read the history will understand why. I have to go off-line for about 6 hours, starting now. Only one person should take over from me in restoring the lost edits; and no one with any doubt as to whether they understand the process should try. Sys-op status (even tho i lack it) would be a good criterion.

(Leave a note here if you're going to undertake it. Also check with User:MyRedDice to be sure he hasn't started, or gotten someone else onto it. And probably modify my *two* copies of modified "in use" boiler plate, to mention your name and help ensure only one person working on the repair.)

It *can* be left until i can finish it if necessary, but the sooner the better, IMO. --Jerzy 23:43, 2004 Feb 15 (UTC)

I'll take over. Onebyone 00:09, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Finished, as far as I can see I've restored the lost changes. I'm about to remove the warnings from the page itself. Onebyone 00:20, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Gradually rewriting an article

There's an article (namely Scheme (mathematics), but that's unimportant) that I'd like to rewrite from scratch because I think I can do a better job than the present version. However, producing the new version is likely to take me a number of days, perhaps weeks. Is there some way to keep both versions easily accessible, so that people can view the old version (or choose to view the new one) while the new one is still work in progress?

I was thinking of creating the new version under a different name (something like "Scheme (mathematics) (rewrite)"), linking the new version near the top of the old version during the transition period, and, when the new version is finished, renaming both the old and new versions. Is this an acceptable policy? If not, how should I proceed?

I think this question should be mentioned somewhere in the FAQs (even if it's not actually frequently asked...), because I'm sure I'm not the only one to think "I can do better than this article", but not dare to undertake a major rewrite because having to do it all in a single edit is too hard. Any thoughts?

--Gro-Tsen 01:05, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)

What will happen if when both versions are available is that each will get edits from all of us (not just from you on the new version). That may not be what you want to happen. I'd advise to finish the new one, and then perhaps "evolve" the existing article to the new one (or else risk a quick reversion if the new one somehow lacks the material content of the older version). Or, if someone reverts it, then consider a gradual conversion. But I really don't think you'd be happy with two articles coexisting. Good luck! Bevo 01:18, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)
The other problem will be that the renaming won't be as simple as you may think. My advice is to take a copy offline, noting exactly the timestamp on the version you have, and putting a comment into the talk page to say that a refactor is in progress to discourage major edits (which it will do, since most people are not interested in wasting their time... I said discourage, not prevent, and I said most, not all - bitter experience). Say what date you expect to complete it and update the comment if you're not finished by then. Then work on this copy offline. When you've finished, come back to the article, and check the history to see what has changed since you took your copy. See whether any of these changes need to be reflected in your new version, and make whatever changes to it are needed. Then paste your new version over the top of the old. It may be reverted, but it probably won't be if you've done a good job (I said probably). Cross that bridge when you come to it! This preserves the history and avoids renaming. Andrewa 02:01, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)
One of the problems with writing everything offline is that I can't check, as I write it, how the article will appear when formatted (and since there could be a number of TeX formulae, this would be most useful). Also, it means that I can't conveniently ask some friends to help me with the refactoring. So how about using the associated talk page to write the new version while it is still work in progress and, when it seems completed (and after checking that it contains all the info of the latest version of the page), copy-paste it to the article page itself. Does that sound like an acceptable use of the talk page? --Gro-Tsen 02:49, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Re testing appearance: remember that when editing a page there is a "Preview" button and a "Cancel" link. So, even if you have no intention of actually posting your work, it's possible to write your edits "live" in an edit page, previewing appearance repeatedly, then Select All in the text box, Paste into a text editor where you're keeping your work in progress, and Cancel. If you accidentally press Save instead, revert the page. I don't know that this is a good approach, but it is an approach. Dpbsmith 03:07, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)
The following was originally written before the above appeared, so may seem a little oddly worded, but it actually answers your question:
One tip that hasn't been touched on yet is that you can create sub-pages under your user-page, such as User:Gro-Tsen/sandbox or User:Gro-Tsen/Scheme (in fact, you can do it with talk-pages, too, so something like Talk:Scheme (mathematics)/temp would be valid if you preferred). Even if you don't tell people where you're doing it (for the reasons suggested by others above), it will allow you to test out the formatting, links and so on, and give you somewhere to keep track of your work-in-progress. Oh, and have you come across MediaWiki:inuse, which is designed for shorter rewrites, but I imagine you could steal the formatting for a comment on the talk page. - IMSoP 02:55, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I thought what they did at baseball worked quite well. There was a comment on the article to say it was undergoing a major rewrite at Talk:Baseball/temp/article and to please edit that with anything you wanted to add to the article. When the rewriting got far enough along, it was encorparated into baseball. That way it was a communal rewrite (and you could see how all the wiki links worked etc), and also allowed random people (like me) to find the new article and add edits to the correct place. fabiform | talk 09:20, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)
The rewrite worked well, but I think it was not an optimal solution. One problem is that some users edited the original anyway (not a big problem, these changes were ported to the rewrite page). The other is that the history of that page is now split between the temp and the original page, as the rewrite was eventually moved by cut-and-paste. There is a way to merge the page histories, but I didn't do it for fear of totally messing up the page history. Kosebamse 10:10, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)

You may call it [Scheme (mathematics)/Yourname] and if you are really sure you have talent put notice about this on [Scheme (mathematics)], something like This article is being rewritten [here]. Then after you wrote the new version wait a bit and if nobody objects on Talk page rename it (so the history will be new). You may consider renaming before your article is finally done but then you should link to the old version.

There can be no automatic policy because there is no automatic way to decide whether you write better or not. As for me, I like your rewrite of 'Types of schemes' and I would appreciate your further work. There is still a lot of other articles to be written better: Coherent sheaf, Motive (mathematics); see more at Alexandre Grothendieck. ilya 20:31, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)

conflicting statements of fact

The article Aegyptus says: "In Greek mythology, Aegyptus, or Aigýptos ("supine goat") was the king of Egypt (which took its name from him)"

But the article List of country name etymologies says: "Egypt: "temple of the soul of Ptah"

Encyclopaedias should not give flatly contradictory statements about matters of fact. Does anyone care to arbitrate this question? Adam 01:44, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I don't see it as contradictory. The once source says that that's the case according to Greek mythology, that doesn't mean it's necessarily true. RickK 04:47, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Agreed. What's contradictory about it? -- Wapcaplet 22:38, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)

where to find a book

-->Wikipedia:Reference desk

Experimental Main Page

I'm playing with a new Main Page layout at Main Page/Test. I would like to invite feedback on the talk page. Please do not make any major changes to this experimental layout without prior discussion.

The idea is to split away the community stuff from the encyclopedia content (to a separate Wikipedia:Main Page, to be created), and to have more information about the dynamically changed links (to make the Main Page more exciting and fun to read).

Note that I have only tested this in Moz so far so if anything looks broken in another browser, it probably is.—Eloquence 05:51, Feb 16, 2004 (UTC)

IP blocking also blocks logged in users?

IIRC it was once said that when an IP is blocked a registered user using the same IP can still log in. However this weekend I got an email that someone was locked out due to a previous IP block of a vandal - sadly I didn't check my email then so I could not unblock him quickly. Anonymous IP blocking shouldn't affect logged in users - as if a vandal uses a username that one can be blocked as well. So, do I remember that function wrongly, or did it change its working in the meantime? If my memory fails, then take this as a feature request :-) andy

It does. I have the personal experience of being blocked as logged in Menchi because some Anon-vandals (or my split personalities) share the same IP as I do. Three times today. --Menchi 10:21, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)
IMO, there really should be a way for established users like yourself to edit while logged-in even though the IP address you are editing from is blocked. That would prevent vandals from circumventing a block just be creating a log-in... --mav 10:58, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)
That's exactly what I meant - a login to an already existing user account should be possible from a blocked IP, however creating a new account shouldn't be possible, as that'd be a way to avoid the block. andy 11:15, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I actually think all user accounts, including newly-created ones, should work. A ban of an anon. user should only ban that IP as an anon. user, not any accounts from the same IP. Now if one of the accounts is banned, then an IP-ban that auto-bans accounts sharing the same IP is okay, as currently implemented (subject perhaps to some exceptions for known-good accounts). --Delirium 12:04, Feb 16, 2004 (UTC)

Edit Window Size

Since I've started using Wikipedia, I've had a problem with my edit window in that it changes its dimensions so that I can't see the right-hand edge with the scroll bar. If I only make an erasure, this doesn't happen, and the entire window remains visible onscreen. There are about 16 characters off the screen that I can't see, editting is a little tricky. I've adjusted my browser font size but that didn't have any effect. I use both Win2K and WinXP, and it occurs in both. Is this normal? --TimothyPilgrim 17:52, Feb 16, 2004 (UTC)

Seems to be normal in IE. Check your Wiki user preferences and turn off "Edit box has full width." That fixed it for me. (So does using Netscape on a Mac, WITH full width turned on ;-) .) Elf 17:56, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)
That did it! Although, now it's like 20 characters short of the right edge of the screen, but it makes it much easier to edit. Thanks for the quick tip! --TimothyPilgrim 18:01, Feb 16, 2004 (UTC)
I just changed the box width in the preferences from 80 to 95. That widened it up some. --TimothyPilgrim 18:04, Feb 16, 2004 (UTC)
I think I had a similar problem when I tried using the edit toolbar on mozilla. If you are using that, try disabling it, and see if that makes a difference. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 17:58, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Thanks, I've got it now (see above). --TimothyPilgrim 18:01, Feb 16, 2004 (UTC)

Remove all sysops

Debate on whether to deprecate the term "sysop" in favor of "administrator" moved to Wikipedia_talk:Administrators#Remove_all_sysops... Fuzheado 02:48, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Dashes redux

I have added a section to Wikipedia:Manual of Style on when to use em and en dashes and what markup to use. I believe that this reflects correct typography. Previous discussion didn't appear to completely resolve the discussion, so I attempted to wrap it up with this entry. Please comment on its talk page rather than here.

Likewise I left only the discussion on dashes in bio dates in Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (biographies) and I'm almost certain that that didn't end up with resolution because it diverged into talk about ems and ens in general. Would be nice to continue relevant (bio) discussion there and then adjust its meta page to reflect what we want people to do. Elf 21:57, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Very good Elf. Correct typography is what should be the goal here. It is amazing to me that there are those who would edit without such knowledge, but would then be abhored at the sight of a mispelled word. The two errors are the same - Marshman 00:56, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Admin participates in Edit war and protects page

The page History of Palestine has been subjected to an edit war. I added material from Benny Morris's book Israel's Border Wars 1949-1956. Zero0000 deleted the material. An edit war ensued. I called upon Zero000 to join us in discussion at the [2] rather than continue the edit war. Instead, Zero0000, contacted Viajero. Viajero, editted the page, deleted, Benny Morris's statements and then protected the page. SO, the question is is it wikipedia policy to participates in Edit war and protects page

Please note that Zero0000 and Viajero have been tag-team deleting/reverting material as one can see from this quote from Zero0000 user page

your turn to revert OneVoice! -- Viajero 20:18, 10 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Stevertigo cautioned both of these two wikipedians: Zero0000 and Viajero regarding the tag-team deletions/reversions.

So what is the policy regarding these issues? OneVoice 23:42, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Editing a page and then protecting it is an abuse of admin powers, as is editing a page that is already protected. →Raul654 23:46, Feb 16, 2004 (UTC)

Wikimedia IPs

Why I cannot directly access Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects by IP? Ric 23:54, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Why do you want/need to? (In other words, I've no idea, but somebody has asked about this before, I believe.) - IMSoP 00:05, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)


Hi. My ISP's DNS Server has difficulty proccessing requests and is usually down. All my bookmarks store IP addresses and not domain names for this reason, but in Wikipedia I get some strange white pages when I attempt to access the server directly (i.e. bypassing the DNS service). Ric 00:12, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)
We've got about 150 distinct wikis, identified by hostname. We don't have 150 distinct IP addresses in our subnet, so can't assign 150 separate IP addresses. You'll find this with a lot of sites, so it's not just us!
You really should switch ISPs if they can't keep DNS running; every internet service depends on it. If that's not an option for you, you might try editing your hosts file to hardcode lookups for sites you like and hoping they don't change. (This will vary by platform, so google up appropriate directions for your system.) --Brion 03:21, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Rollback failure

I tried to rollback American Federation of Labor to a previous version, but no matter how many times I clicked the rollback link, the change never showed up on the history. I then went to the version in the history prior to the vandalism and tried to save that, and even put a comment saying what I was doing. It LOOKED as if my edit took, but the history still showed that nothing happened, and my comment and change never showed up on Recent Changes. I had to go into the version prior to the vandalism, actually make an edit to the page (not just save it without an edit), then save THAT, before I finally got the page back in place. RickK 00:08, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

This might because after that anon was done there was no net change to the article. silsor 00:41, Feb 17, 2004 (UTC)

New barnstar image

I replaced File:Barnstar.gif with , an updated and better-looking one. If it's not transparent it's because your web browser is broken and not standards compliant. silsor 00:39, Feb 17, 2004 (UTC)

Looks A LOT better. Not sure "broken" is the right word, but I catch your drift. Why not just replace the ugly one with this one, bad browsers beware. Given the purpose, the lack of transparency is not really a problem - Marshman 01:01, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)
It is not transparent on MSIE. So here we go again. 90%-95% of internet users use MSIE. Can we postpone standards fetishism till at least half of these people have changed their habits, in other words indefinitely? Erik Zachte 04:28, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Works fine on MSIE for Mac. ;)
8-bit transparent PNGs work fine in MSIE for Windows, though you don't get the smooth edges. It's a simple matter to fix in the Gimp if anyone cares to do it. --Brion 05:03, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

General philosophy/Not Invented Here?

Having just used the argument on VfD that, if a film exists in IMDB [1], it's legit and therefore subject to Wiki having an article about it (specifically in reference to porn entries but I see that someon else used the same argument in reference to an obscure individual), I do wonder, philosophically, whether Wiki really intends to reinvent every encyclopedic database that already exists--such as IMDB, which has been around for quite a long time and is quite exhaustive in its film-related data. Thoughts? Has this already been discussed somewhere? Elf 02:53, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Well, my immediate reaction is that "everything" has already been done - there are, after all, already encyclopedias, and even internet-accessible ones. But different sources of information will have different "slants" on that information - in other words, we should cover things covered by, say, IMDb, because they'll be covering them in an IMDb-y way, and we'll be covering them in a Wikipedian way. All just my opinion, of course... - IMSoP 03:05, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)
It's all been done (a-woo-hoo-hoo). Information about nearly every article in wikipedia can be found on the web. The value in wikipedia is surely not the content per se, but the organisation and collation of that content into a single, searchable, easily navigatable collection. ShaneKing 03:22, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I used to think that too. However Wikipedia contains a lot of material taken from "dead-tree" published works by the authors, which was not previously on the web (although once it's there via Wikipedia it tends to quickly propagate). - Hephæstos|§ 03:25, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

IMDb is only as good as what its users put on it. Although that may be said about Wikipedia, there really isn't any reason why our information isn't different from theirs. RickK 03:08, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Ouch! "...really isn't...reason why...isn't different..." Too many negatives! It may be because it's late, but I have no idea what that actually means. - IMSoP 03:14, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)
LOL. I think what I meant was that even though we may have information on the same movies, etc., our work could and probably would be different from theirs.  :) RickK 03:27, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)
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