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[[da:Wikipedia:Landsbybr%F8nden]]

Summarised sections

This is a list of discussions that have been summarised and moved to an appropriate place. This list gets deleted occasionally to make room for newer entries.

Userspace policy?

In reading the discussion about User:I am sexy and her (mis(s))use of Wikipedia, I found someone there writing "Sometimes you create a rule by breaking it." I don't think we need a constitution, and I don't think we should create to much rules before we need them, but maybe we should discuss about a policy for userspace usage. Are there things we don't allow/we encourage on userspace, and if so, which ones? -- till we *) 09:23, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:User page and its talk, and consider joining in the discussion there. Andrewa 11:43, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Also see the discussion at Wikipedia:Possible abuse of User namespace. Mkweise 11:58, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Ah, thanks. Do we have Wikipedia:User page in our standard newbie welcome message? -- till we *) 12:03, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I'm not sure that there is such a message, is there? There are several suggested texts, as used by several different people, I forget where these are now. But I'll certainly include it, and I'd recommend others do too. Andrewa 14:06, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)
There's one at Wikipedia:Standard user greeting. Angela. 14:21, Apr 9, 2004 (UTC)
Hmmm, yes, that's the page I was thinking of, thank you. And I think it's good that there's no standard, to keep it personal. If we wanted to send the same greeting to everyone, we could easily do that, but it's not the same. Andrewa 23:12, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I would like to have a policy on how to sort interlanguage links. It's obviously a good idea to sort them alphabetically, but on some pages they are sorted by the language code and on some by the language name. This is very notable in the case of Finnish language ("suomi"), which is placed somewhere before French language ("français") by the code but right before Swedish language ("svenska") by the name. I think sorting by the language name is more logical to the reader as the language name is the only thing shown, but there is no written policy. -- Lakefall 18:51, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

There is no fixed policy yet - but a poll is running for some time already at Wikipedia:Language order poll. Currently the sorting by local language name is leading the poll. andy 19:14, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Tutorial

The welcoming committee has put together a tutorial for new users, so that people won't have to RTFM when they first get here. It's now ready to go live. Comments, corrections, or edits to the tutorial are welcome. If you want to add anything, just remember that we're trying to keep it short and easilly usable. Isomorphic 21:06, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

It looks awesome! I'm learning quite a bit from it myself. Recommended for old hands too, for
  • filling in gaps in your knowledge
  • understanding better what's going on
  • links to reference pages which you may have read but can never remember exactly where
  • fun
  • and of course you may be able to improve it...
...but I urge caution in editing it, it's pretty polished already IMO. Comments on talk pages might be a better idea, and let the team that wrote it consider these suggestions. And well done to the team! Andrewa 23:34, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Well there's a bit of a blunder on page 4External links (renamed) about external links. [http://www.google.com] displays as [1] not http://www.google.com (I'll leave it to the team to fix, though). Aside from that, it's pretty good :). - Lee (talk) 23:45, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Noticed that at about the same time you did. Corrected now. Thanks! Isomorphic 00:06, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I translated it as de:Wikipedia:Tutorial (not page 7, because to search for the right links is a work of aeons). -- till we *) 01:54, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)

The welcoming committee and its/theirs helpers is/are to be praised for its/theirs (as you like it) work! Pfortuny 09:29, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Novel Synopses

General comment here: is it really necessary for article writers to detail every event in the entire plot? (See my edits to Dune.) I think it not only makes the article too long and unwieldy, it also opens the door to more errors, inconsistencies, etc. A synopsis is just that — a brief summary to lay out the essential theme, plot, idea of the book, so that a reader has some notion what it's about. Not what happens at every turn. Wiki articles shouldn't be book reports. OK, off my soapbox now. User:Alcarillo

I try to lead through it without putting in every detail. If a scene is not essential to the plot, then out it goes, but all of the major events should be outlined. - Woodrow, Emperor of the United States 23:04, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)
For an egregious abuse of synopsis see The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. --Dante Alighieri | Talk 23:16, Apr 9, 2004 (UTC)


The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was no more egregious than the one I chopped for Dune (novel) -- at least the WWoO was fairly well written (can't vouch for the accuracy not having read the book). -- User:Alcarillo
Not every event as to reading the Wp synopsis instead of the book/movie, but I think it should give an extensive idea of all of the themes, issues, and characters' stories in the work. But of course there is reason not to have it blow out of control... Dysprosia 10:05, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I dunno. The Dune (novel) entry left me wanting more. It's been many years since I read it and it didn't refresh my memory at all about what happens later in the book among the Fremen. -- Decumanus | Talk 14:08, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Given that some (series of) novels have whole sets of pages devoted to them (see dozens of articles on Tolkien's Middleearth), I don't think we need to worry about excessive detail on a single page. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 15:11, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Kyiv vs. Kiev

We could use some more voices in the discussion currently at talk:Kiev. It's been argued that "Kiev" is appropriate because it returns more google hits, but that (Soviet-imposed) spelling is offensive to many Ukrainians. The Government of Ukraine has formally requested that their capitol be spelled "Kyiv" in English; a request that has been honored by the UN and the US State Department. While google hit counts are useful in many cases, I don't feel that we should allow them to enslave us when other important factors are involved. There is precedent for correctness overruling hit count, e.g. with Gdansk/Danzig and Mumbai/Bombay. Please chime in at talk:Kiev so we can reach a consensus one way or the other and get the article unprotected. Mkweise 17:28, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)

This issue seems to come up a lot. The "official" name is different than what everyone else calls it. Consider Mumbia vs Bombay , Kiev vs Kyiv, Makkah vs Mecca. I think we need to be consistent, and I think we need an official policy on this. →Raul654 17:36, Apr 10, 2004 (UTC)

A general policy will be more complicated than you might at first think. Consider for example Burma versus Myanmar, where there is significant doubt that the government edict is supported by the people. Wikipedia currently sides with the military government and the UN, and against the US government, the more common English usage and (probably) the people of the country. I don't think that's too strong a statement, and while obviously this decision is POV either way we need to jump one way or the other. Andrewa 19:27, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)
For the record (and in case this comes up again), we already have a rule on the books for this - "Generally, article naming should give priority to what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature." (Wikipedia:Naming conventions). →Raul654 19:31, Apr 10, 2004 (UTC)
Well, that settles it, simply, clearly and unambiguously, in favor of Burma, Kiev, and Mecca. Danzig/Gdansk (keeping consistently to alphabetical order) is an interesting one: it's not so much figuring out what the average reader will recognize as making sure that the reader will realize that they're the same place. This is due, of course, to Lech Walesa and associates, who made Gdansk real to people all over the world who had neither known the history of the place nor very much cared. The moral: as Scoop Nisker used to say, if you don't like what's in the news, go make some of your own. Dandrake 00:37, Apr 13, 2004 (UTC)
It certainly will come up again. For the present, I think 'Kiev' is overploweringly more recognizable, and I'd never even heard of 'Kyiv' until reading this section. But as long as we have redirects and have sufficient explanation in articles that use the names, we ought to be able to go by our own policy and not be too far afield. ;Bear 20:40, 2004 Apr 11 (UTC)

Agreed with keeping Kiev. Many, if not places are different in English to their local name (think Munich vs Munchen). However, Myanmar is the accepted name for Burma now in the same way that Sri Lanka replaced Ceylon, and most up to date English reference materials seem to refer to Myanmar rather than Burma. Dainamo 11:18, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)


Redirects from Article to Wikipedia namespace

Is it appropriate to create redirects from the article namespace to the Wikipedia namespace? For example, I was looking for Wikipedia:Article series just now, so I typed "Article series" into the go/search box, and found an empty page. Since one of the purposes of redirects is to make it easier to find thing, I was about to create a redirect to the Wikipedia namespace page, but then realized that this might be good practice. What should I do? — Adam Conover † 04:53, Apr 11, 2004 (UTC)

There are many, many, many existing redirects to the Wikipedia namespace. Case in point, Village pump redirects to Wikipedia:Village pump. Hell, Redirect redirects to Wikipedia:Redirect. Just don't create redirects to another wiki. -- Cyrius|&#9998 06:08, Apr 11, 2004 (UTC)
Thanks! Done and done. — Adam Conover † 06:11, Apr 11, 2004 (UTC)
There are many such redirects for historical reasons (originally we didn't have namespaces). But we shouldn't create more without good reason. Everytime we make explicit reference to Wikipedia within the article namespace we make things more difficult for re-users of our content. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 09:30, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)


Disambigging question

If an article says something like "in the film version of The Wizard of Oz", should the link be disambigged to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz or The Wizard of Oz (1939 movie)? The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is technically what the article is talking about, but most users would probably want The Wizard of Oz (1939 movie). Eurleif 01:17, Apr 12, 2004 (UTC)

  • Or leave it as it is and let readers choose which article they prefer to pursue... Formerly the article about the book was on The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and all links to The Wizard of Oz lead to the movie article. Seeing as the title of the book has also been shortened in most editions since 1913, and that several wiki links seemed to be referring to the book but sending to the movie page, I thought it necessary to disambig. I may not have done this in the optimal way, though right now I can't think of a better way to disambiguate. --Woggly 13:02, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)


Working through Special:Ancientpages

Special:Ancientpages is a list of the oldest articles on Wikipedia, that is, the ones which have been edited the longest time ago. In my experience almost all of these articles could use some loving attention. To approach this more systematically, I have added a box to the Wikipedia:Community Portal where the oldest article at any given time can be featured until it has been touched up at least a little bit. This can happen within days or within minutes - it's up to you. Hopefully this will also give people an incentive to visit the CP more often.--Eloquence* 12:33, Apr 12, 2004 (UTC)

Redirection messages

I think we should add optional custom redirection messages. So, for example, instead of just seeing "Redirected from Dallas" you would see "Dallas, Texas is commonly referred to as Dallas. For other uses see Dallas (disambiguation)." In fact, I've gone ahead and written the code to do so. You can test it out at http://www.mcfly.org/wik/Dallas . It's only 9 lines of code. Here's the diff (I've since added a few additions on McFly, such as italicizing the message, and automatically adding in the &redirect=no to the circular link, but looking at this diff should give you the idea). anthony (see warning)

I disagree. I often make redirects for common spelling errors or alternative spellings. This may make things very confusing. For example, saying that "NATO is commonly referred to as Nato" makes little sense to me. Also, in this example there are multiple redirects (i.e. North Atlantic Treaty Organisation). Are you Anthony DiPierro? (forgot to sign)-- chris_73 00:03, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)
The message can be changed depending on the situation. For nato, the standard (redirected from Nato) might be appropriate. For mispelling, you might want to use "Misspelling is commonly misspelled mispelling." Perhaps I didn't explain myself clearly enough. The idea is that you can put any message in there, by simply editing the redirect. The default is the standard. See http://www.mcfly.org/wik/nato http://www.mcfly.org/wik/North_Atlantic_Treaty_Organisation http://www.mcfly.org/wik/North_Atlantic_Treaty_Organization and http://www.mcfly.org/wik/mispelling . anthony (see warning) 01:28, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Very interesting, but at the moment it would appear to be that the link to the redirect has to be the first word after "#REDIRECT". This could make for some odd grammar. Best, if possible (I've never really dealt with the Wikipedia code), to have the costume redirect message a line below the "#REDIRECT [[something]]". I gather (from Wikipedia:Redirect, obviously) that at the moment one can freely enter an explanation for the redirect at this point - never seen by the user but seen by the wiki editor - but have rarely seen this used in practice (a selection of examples for the use of this can be found at [2]). Other than that, this is an interesting idea, that can greatly contribute to the encyclopedia. Or it could make things a lot more complicated. It should be given a chance, though. (Especially as reverting to the previous version shouldn't be too complicated.) -- Itai 03:03, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Changing the order would be possible, and I thought about this, but it would no longer be backward compatible, at least not with the trivial implementation. I'll try to think about some way to do this. Maybe with some additional syntax, but that would make things somewhat unnecessarily complicated. Looking below, this could probably be done using a pipe. anthony (see warning) 10:07, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I agree. I like it. Something similar to this has been discussed many times, but I like this implementation than the idea as it has previously been discussed. I think the original idea was to change the syntax so one can use #mispelling or #alternative or #deprecated instead of #redirect, thus changing the end message appropriately. Anthony's system allows for more flexibility and is probably easier to use. Tuf-Kat 03:51, Apr 13, 2004 (UTC)
If the message can be adjusted flexible according to the needs, then I have no problem with it (although it is not a high priority for me). For example a syntax like Redirect[[NATO|Redirected from incorrect capitalization '''[[Nato]]''']] may be useful. Note: The comments after the redirect mentioned by Itai do not show on the target page. -- chris_73 08:00, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Hmm, with some tweaks, this might work. I'll try it later today. anthony (see warning) 10:07, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)

OK, I tried "/^#redirect.*(\\[\\[($m[1])(\\|(.+))?\\]\\])(.+)$/i" and a few other minor tweaks, and now you can rephrase it the other way around if you want, using a pipe like "#Redirect [[NATO|Redirected]] from incorrect capitalization [[Nato]]". Should still be backward compatible. http://www.mcfly.org/wik/nato Comments? anthony (see warning) 10:22, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I think this idea opens many possibilities, as I generally think redirs and disambigs are very ugly. Suppose we put an article that is today naturally at an un-paranthesed spot, like Ireland at Ireland (country) instead. This will allow us to put any disambig in the Redir message from Ireland -> Ireland (country), and articles linking to Ireland can link directly, and the user does not have to see the disambiguation. ✏ Sverdrup 10:17, 17 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Yes, I think that is another possibility, but there would have to be some way to make the part in parentheses not display. Never displaying that part would probably be a problem, since I assume some things actually have parentheses in their names. Only displaying it when linked directly would discourage people from linking to the disambiguated page, which is what we want. Maybe a __SupressDisambig__ similar to the __NoTOC__ message would work? anthony (see warning) 15:37, 17 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Probably we have to develop something quite a bit more complicated than your proposal (but this is the trial of the idea, making it possible, gj), but I hope it will be easy to use. We'll need a way to on a redir page, (lets pick Enigma, a real example this time) put a disambig message there that will be shown instead of the current redir message. I propose putting text like
This article relates to the Enigma machine in cryptography. For other uses of Enigma, see Enigma (disambiguation).
Below the #redir instruction in Engima, and when the redirect is made, it will display much like it does now (on Enigma machine), with (redirected from Enigma or something in small where the redir message is now. When directly linked to Enigma machine, nothing will show. When a normal (non-disambig) redir is made, the standard redir message will simply show. (I propose to enclose it in < small> or something. I hope this idea is caught by the right people. ✏ Sverdrup 20:07, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)


How to transwiki?

I seem to be doing something wrong moving pages to wiktionary, because when I complete a move to transwiki:Wiktionary, it just stays there as though there were nothing "special" about that move target. What am I doing wrong? Mkweise 02:32, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

It should be Transwiki:page title, not Transwiki:wiktionary. Also, it should be on the wiktionary: site, not on Wikipedia. Have you read m:transwiki or was it unclear even after seeing that? Once moving it to wiktionary (via cut and paste until 1.3 is released), you should log it at transwiki and wiktionary:transwiki. Angela. 07:32, Apr 15, 2004 (UTC)
Yes, I had read m:transwiki but assumed that was outdated info since it said transfers must be done manually but I had ready elsewhere that a seamless transwiki system was in place. I guess it's easiest to just wait for v1.3; after all, dicdef articles in Wikipedia don't really hurt anyone. Mkweise 17:52, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)

'Poetic license' for images?

Is there any kind of policy on the relevance of images used on articles? For example, on the page Volterra-Lotka equations, also known as the predator-prey equations, I would like to add a picture of a predator and a prey in action (assuming I can find one). The article is not strictly about predator and prey interactions, but it is the most common interpretation of the equations' dynamics. Is this kind of visual intepretation OK? Similarly for the page on excitable media, a picture of, say, a Mexican wave (an example of an excitable medium) would spruce it up a little. I think that such images could make mathematical articles less dry, and more welcoming than simply a bunch of equations for someone not already interested in the topic. Any thoughts? Chopchopwhitey 08:12, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

No policy, this is still an area where you can simply use your own judgement. I personally don't think that adding a picture of a lion chasing a springbok would add much to that particular article... but if you tihnk otherwise... prove me wrong. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 08:16, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I don't know. I think it may detract a little from an appearance of professionalism. Perhaps if they're done right and tastefully, they could work well. One must identify what our readership is - whether they're users who are expecting a reference source, or users coming to the wp in order to learn more, in order to move a bit forward on the matter, perhaps... Dysprosia 08:20, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Sorry, but I think it's a definite no. A picture of a pair of animals doesn't fit an article on maths, not even to lighten up the page. Apart from a curve or surface or graph or a mathematicians photo, I don't see how maths articles could be illustrated.
Adrian Pingstone 13:11, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Not even a conch shell or the Parthenon in Golden ratio? - jredmond 14:30, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Or a fern in fractal, a pinecone in spiral, a hanging chain in catenary, a stop-motion photograph of a thrown ball in parabola, a turbulent stream in chaos? -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 15:10, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Yes, those are along the lines of what I was thinking. Personally, even as a big fan of maths myself, it is not always particularly inspiring to see a page solely full of equations. A link to something in the natural world can often pique one's interest a little more. But, I can understand, maybe this is not under the remit of an encyclopaedia. Chopchopwhitey 15:57, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Seems to me the most appropriate "illustration" would be an example of a graph of the populations of a real predator-prey system that approximately fits the model. I seem to recall that there's a textbook example that involves, um, the lynx and the snowshoe hare? Given such a graph, I don't think it would be unreasonable to tart it up a little bit with small, iconic pictures of a lynx and a snowshoe hare.
In encyclopedia articles, as in computer user interfaces, I do think that pictures should be visual explanations of concepts, not just puns (or the mechanical conversion of a word into a picture). A random picture of a particular predator and prey does not illustrate the concept that the article discusses. Dpbsmith 16:16, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)
P. S. See http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange1/current/lectures/predation/predation.html for the data I had in mind—including a photo of a lynx chasing a snowshoe hare! Dpbsmith 16:21, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I think there's definitely room for illustrative improvement on math articles, as long as the illustrations help to explain the topic or are directly related to the subject somehow. The Volterra-Lotka equations don't really describe how a fox gets its paws on a rabbit; it's about the populations in general, and should be illustrated with examples that help to explain that concept. The fractal, spiral, and Golden ratio examples above are much more appropriate---they are real-world occurrences of abstract math concepts. Perhaps the prey-predator equations would benefit from comparison with a chart or graph of real-world prey-predator populations? "Here's what the equations predict, and here's some empirical observation." That'd help give the reader a grasp on why the equations are significant. -- Wapcaplet 16:23, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Interesting debate. I recently picked up a history book I had as achild with virutally every illustration being made in this way. Although I now understand and appreciate the metaphor or pun used in each case, I found them off putting as a child. Even The way that adults picture the world and asscoiate words is very diverse and I think that all reference sources should be more literal than latereal. Dainamo 11:26, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Thanks for the comments. I would agree now that the best use of pictures on Wikipedia is when they directly illustrate a concept in the article. Chopchopwhitey 10:25, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Abagnale move

This is not exactly vandalism so I am bit at the loss where to include this: inexperienced anon user: 213.170.47.89 transferred text from Frank Abagnale to Frank William Abagnale Jr. with a cut-and-paste method, meaning that the edit history was severed and exist now only in the former page, which he turned to redirect. Since I cannot delete pages or anything, maybe somebody could do something to it. Sorry for intruding on the Pump. - Skysmith 12:23, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

As Frank William Abagnale Jr. had no edit history aside from the cut-and-paste, I just reverted the changes on Frank Abagnale and made Jr. a redirect to the original. If it's ever decided to do a proper move, then the Jr. page will need to be deleted. -- Cyrius|&#9998 12:48, Apr 14, 2004 (UTC)

Active MediaWiki bug?

I am presently experiencing what i take to be a bug in the interaction between the MediaWiki msg facility and the database. I'd be glad to either work around it, or assist a developer in collecting evidence. --Jerzy(t) 19:28, 2004 Apr 14 (UTC)

Specifically, the preview of my edit of penology, to which i am adding

{{msg:crime}}

seems to reflect the initial version (1st edit) of MediaWiki:Crime rather than the changes that others (and i today) have made to MediaWiki:Crime. Could the Preview-rendering code have an error in its use of the DB for MediaWiki references?

(On reflection, my obvious workaround is to go ahead and save the edit (and let someone else worry about it, or not). Instead, i am keeping the edit window open. --Jerzy(t) 19:43, 2004 Apr 14 (UTC)

When I try the same it works fine, it might just a case of Wikipedia:Clear your cache. andy 19:55, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

FWIW, it is not fully repeatable for me either: opening a 2nd edit of the same article and making the same change as the same user, it works as i would have hoped. Keeping this window open as well.

I don't take the cache explanation seriously, as i don't believe i have seen the msg before, and that version is a month old; i've cleared my cache, i believe more than once since then. --Jerzy(t) 19:59, 2004 Apr 14 (UTC)

In fact, would a cache problem not have to be the result of my having done the same edit before? I am not talking about looking at a page representing the MediaWiki page, but looking at the Preview the server sent me when i added the msg to the page i am editing. I surely have never edited it before! The server thinks the obsolete version of the MediaWiki msg applies to my eidt! --Jerzy(t) 20:04, 2004 Apr 14 (UTC)

(Full disclosure: on one hand, i've never checked the "all files" box described at the cache-clearing meta-article, and on the other, i think would make a difference only if my "Items to synchronize" window said something other than "There are no offline items to synchronize". But in any case, IMO this has to be a server-side problem, for the reason already stated.) --Jerzy(t) 20:20, 2004 Apr 14 (UTC)

If you're logged in nothing is cached on the server side. A memcached problem is my (vague) guess. -- Gabriel Wicke 22:01, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Reread. Caching on the client side cannot explain the phenomenon, for multiple reasons. I did not suggest caching problem at all. I suggested a bug (timing window?) in the way the Preview-rendering code interrogates the data base re msg calls, or in the database itself. --Jerzy(t) 23:51, 2004 Apr 14 (UTC)

Per new info, there are known MW bugs (slated for correction) that are similar enough to be likely explantations. --Jerzy(t) 06:56, 2004 Apr 15 (UTC)

Referencing Disinfopedia

THe article at Michael Johns is copied from the Disinfopedia article at http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Michael_Johns. If they are GFDL, how do we reference that fact? RickK 03:41, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Just like we do with Wikinfo articles, see Jay Lovestone as an example.--Eloquence* 04:00, Apr 15, 2004 (UTC)

WikiTrans access

Likely an old question, but I would like to be able to seamlessly link content from Wikipedia to Wikibooks/ Wiktionary/ Wikever. Is there a simple technique, or do I have to http code them. Also, are there easy links to the other Wiki pages, and if so, where are they located? Thanks, anyone. Denni 03:54, 2004 Apr 15 (UTC)

I can't find a page explaining these, though there was a tip of the day related to interwiki links. Wikibooks and Wiktionary can be linked to via shortcuts like [[wikibooks:page title]] and [[wiktionary:page title]]. There isn't a shortcut for wikisource yet. Angela. 07:40, Apr 15, 2004 (UTC)
How about Wikiquotes?कुक्कुरोवाच
No, there doesn't seem to be one for Wikiquote yet either. Angela. 13:57, Apr 16, 2004 (UTC)

I'm adding information about authors' library classifications to their pages, from the LCC, and from the Dewey where I can find it. I'm looking for some advice as to formatting and possible automation. Is there any way to make a custom little bit so that I can type 


Funky!Syntax![LCC PS 3515.E288 Dewey 813.54]


(which isn't even any kind of syntax; I'm just looking for a way to get parameterized boilerplate) and have it show up as


The fictional works of Robert A. Heinlein are classified under Library of Congress PS3515.E288, or under Dewey 813.54.


To be honest, I'm not even sure what the best way of doing this is. (I'm just looking to classify fiction right now, so authors published in multiple areas shouldn't be a problem.) Maybe copy/pasting the relevant text is better. But what's the best text to use? Suggestions?


I'm planning on doing this for a long list of authors; I'd like to not have to go back and fix them after the fact.


Also, I'm putting this at the top of the "Bibliography" section for now; I don't think it deserves its own section. Thoughts?


Grendelkhan 17:36, 2004 Apr 15 (UTC)

Excellent! MediaWiki 1.3 [3] will apparently support this, via key-value pairs in templates. Hopefully that's why they're going to be offline for a bit... Grendelkhan 16:09, 2004 Apr 18 (UTC)


KKK

is there a way to get the interwikilinks of http://eo.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ku_Kluks_Klano to work? the 'ux' becomes automatically some sort of special 'u'. -Listener 13:05, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)

PS: as workaround i made a redirect from Ku Kl.
Ŭ, U with breve. In Esperanto, there are 6 letters with special accent marks over them. Since few people can type these letters and they're hard for printers to get and the letter X is not used in the language, they are often represented as cx, gx, ux, sx, hx, and jx. If you had looked over eo:Kiel redakti paĝon, the solution would have become apparent. - Woodrow the 23², Emperor of the United States 23:32, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)
For all curious: that is, writting xx instead of x, so the link would be "ku kluxx klan". -- till we *) 00:55, 17 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Ah, thank you for that. I didn't know quite how to word it, so I just assumed that even those not familiar with the tongue (Eye for written?) could figure out what it meant. - Woodrow the 23², Emperor of the United States 01:27, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)

How long do Wikipedians last?

I was looking at Wikipedia:List_of_Wikipedians_in_order_of_arrival and it seems many of the earliest contributors, based on the last update of their user page, have stopped (or heavily reduced) their contributions.

Do Wikipedians 'burn-out'? What is the churn-rate? How long does an average contributor stay active and how much do they add? 81.101.165.185 22:29, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Yes, Wikipedians do indeed burn out. The rate varies from person to person. Some people tend to get in a lot of conflicts, and burn out very quickly. Others fly under the radar and never really accumulate any wikistress. Personally, I avoid burnout by picking a few tasks I find rewarding and staying out of fights (my only big blow up was with User:Plautus satire, who was banned by the arbitration committee). I can't quantify it, but I can say that one long-time contributors can add *A LOT* to the project in the time he is here. →Raul654 22:41, Apr 16, 2004 (UTC)
I just try to find topics I myself like or am interested in, mainly boxing and aviation topics. That way I keep it interesting for me without burning out.

Antonio Attention Getter Martin

Units of measurement

Why not use metric units of measurement ( the international norm) rather than the idiosyncratic system still in use in the USA? I find it very time consuming converting inches , degrees fahrenheit and so on. Martin Pierard Melbourne Australia

I agree that metric should be included in every mention of measurement. There's a number of us Americans who are including both American and metric units in our work. It's a simple thing to use my calculator and convert everything. For example, see Ohio public lands. jaknouse 06:31, 17 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Well, we want people to understand the articles we write, so for the time being we're going to have to use both systems since there are people who have no knowledge (or instinctive understanding) of metric, and others who have no understanding of imperial. Wikipedia is supposed to reflect usage, not try to force change. Personally, I find http://www.onlineconversion.com very handy. fabiform | talk 17:25, 17 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Google is pretty handy for it. See here for an example. →Raul654 17:28, Apr 17, 2004 (UTC)
This is not seen as an issue where it is possible or desirable to enforce uniformity. People in the United States, reading articles about things in the United States, written by editors living in the United States feel that it is natural and comfortable to use U. S. customary units. International unit conversions should always be provided in such cases, but (cough) a lot of us forget to do it. This is definitely an area where, if you do calculate the conversion yourself, you would be doing everyone a favor by adding the conversion to the article. It should be an addition, though; to remove a U. S. Customary unit from a page on a U. S. topic would be perceived as annoying and an assertion of a non-neutral point of view.
(Speaking for myself, I'd add what should be added should be "translations" rather than "conversions," meaning that in an article that is not scientific or technical in nature in general it should be translated to the most culturally equivalent unit. That is, "pounds" used as a unit of weight should be converted to "kilograms," not "newtons;" "acres" to "hectares," not km2. That is my expression of my personal point of view and others may well disagree).
Another minor issue is that such a translation should try not to suggest a higher decree of precision, i.e. "Dr. Atkins weighed 18 stones at death" should become "18 stones (over 110 kg)," not "18 stones (114.3 kg)". Dpbsmith 11:58, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Well, I for one think that everything you say there is extremely sound, and we should adopt it as policy. I also think that what you call a minor point can be generalised into a very important one: don't try to be accurate where accuracy isn't known. Often, measurements are given to the nearest "round number", and are intended as a ball-park figure only; so "18 stone" might as well be labelled "(110 kg)", even though this is not technically the same quantity. Obviously, this requires a bit of judgement on the part of the editor, to determine the accuracy originally intended - "6 feet", can be considered a round number in that it is the height of a fairly tall human male...
I'm thinking also that this applies equally to currency conversions, where statements like "5 million Altairian Dollars" crop up frequently, and might be "translated" to US Dollars via a highly fluctuating exchange rate. In such cases, precise conversions would be doubly inaccurate, since they would imply that both the original figure and the exchange rate had that level of precision. - IMSoP 12:18, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)

PNGcompress

Hi,

I see ofter users who upload a big PNG while it can be a less big PNG because a lot of programs actually write too big PNGs. So: much programs don't compress their PNGs good. Because I want to make tools to compress PNGs (without any quality loss i mean) available for anyone, i made a website ( http://wilinckx.homelinux.org/pngcompress/ ) where you can compress PNGs to get a more little PNG. I hope it's usefull for when you want to upload a PNG but thinks it's a bit too big :) Ow btw, it's running on a 7years old computer here, so be patient when loading a page. If you try compressing something, try with a little file first (a 100x100 pix file is already 2.5 minutes calculation time). PS: i hope this is the right place to say this, if not: feel feel free to move it. Wilinckx 09:32, 17 Apr 2004 (UTC)

or if people would like to use their own cpu cycles instead of draining yours, they can download pngcrush from http://pmt.sourceforge.net/pngcrush/ - it's quite fast: Took about 10 seconds to do a directory of 50 thumbnail images on a 1.4GHz PC.
Optipng is generally better than pngcrush and usually significantly faster. Windows users can use pngout after optipng to further improve the results but pngout is only available for Windows and is comparatively slow. Note that one online document for pngout says that what is often the most important tuning parameter (the block size) is unimportant. I use optipng followed by pngout with about 20 variations of filter and block size and select the smallest pngout result. Jamesday 19:21, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Where's Wikisophia?

What happened to WikiSophia? I was using it to generate PNG versions of PPCHTeX diagrams, and now the site's down and doesn't want to come back up. Does anybody know where I can at least get a copy of Wikitex so that I don't have to do these by hand? Grendelkhan 16:47, 2004 Apr 17 (UTC)


Seems to have been dead for a while... I miss it also. Dysprosia 09:47, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I asked on meta; the response by Eloquence[4] says that the developer disappeared. The punk. Grendelkhan 23:58, 2004 Apr 18 (UTC)
I too would like to see it (I only found out about it after it went down)... in the mean time I hacked together a way to do it on my linux machine, see my user page. Rkundalini 09:14, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Perhaps it is stupid to ask this question here, but I don't know any better place. If the answer to my question is positive, it would then have HUGE influence with material related to Serbia and Montenegro.

Article 6 of the Copyright law of Serbia and Montenegro states that:

It is not considered an authored work:
2) official material of state organs and organs which have public function

To me, this is similar to Title 17, Section 105 in the U.S. copyright law, which says that government has no copyright protection which is why we are able to use all those nice pictures from NASA etc.

Now, my question is: is an official web page "official material" in this context? For example, official site of Belgrade is at http://www.beograd.org.yu/english/index.htm. Now, the page says 'copyright: City of Belgrade' but it is unimportant if it cannot be copyrighted by law.

If noone could come up with an answer, I will surely try to research this further. Suppose that answer is positive. What would be accepted as authoritative enough confirmation by Wikimedia foundation?

(Full law in Serbian could be found at, for example, [5].)

Nikola 02:45, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I'm a newbie, but it strikes me that if there is a doubt, it is better to be safe than sorry. In other words, better to ask for permission even if the permission is not strictly needed, than to use images without permission and get in trouble later. You might want to check out the following example of a letter that was sent by a Wikipedian to a British government authority as an extra security. --Woggly 05:47, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Problem is that there is a vast amount of material that could be used, and large possibility of getting negative answers even when they should be positive (even people working in aforementioned organs might not know about this). Nikola 07:23, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)

GFDL Images Used in Software/Web Apps

I came across Image:BlankMap-World.png while looking for a decent "free" world map for a web project I have in mind. Seeing that the license for this image is the GFDL, I was hoping someone would explain how I comply if I use the image in software.

My thought was to use this map and change the colors of various countries based on data in my database. Then I would output the colored map on my website.

How does the GFDL apply to this situation? Do I just need to make the modified maps downloadable (they will be since they'll be images linked by the HTML)? Or does the software have to use the GPL or something? (I may very well use the GPL for my software anyway, but I want to understand the implications before I bother using the image).

Thanks! --Boone 03:09, Apr 18, 2004 (UTC)

It means you can modify them anyway you like, using the tools you like, but if you release it in a way at all, it has to be released under the GFDL (ie. on your website you would have to say underneath "These maps are derived from maps available from Wikipedia (link) and are available under the GFDL..." Hope that helps. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 18:47, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Hello from a musician in Lisboa

Hello

I am a Norwegian man from Karmoy a island on the west coast of norway,that is doing poetry and music. Now I live in Lisboa Portugal , maybe my work is something for the users of Wikipedia and the young ones !?

All the best from

Ove Jan Olsen

OJO Mobile Phone : 00 351 967439034


Poetry and Lyrics :

Stranded In The Danger Zone

Website : http://www.geocities.com/athens/ithaca/2636/


Music : OJO Elektronic 2004 27 Songs To Download

Website : http://www.freewebs.com/ojoelektronic/

If you can help with examples of already notable works of music, great, but keep in mind Wikipedia is not a vehicle for advertising or self promotion. Thanks. Dysprosia 22:49, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Nomination for the Mediation Committee

Dannyhas been nominated for the Wikipedia:Mediation Committee. Please add your vote there. -- sannse (talk) 11:58, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)


Language names

There is a problem with language names at Wikipedia in other languages. "Slovenčina - Slovenščina" are two diferent languages with almost the same lokal name. So I suggest a change to "Slovenčina (Slovak) - Slovenščina (Slovene)". I'm a newcomer, can anybody help? duxborutguy 15:30, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Mediawiki codes in foreign languages

I was looking at the Zh wiki all messages page, and was wondering if it would make better sense to let them use pinyin (ie the common roman alphabet transcription) for msg:names - same for ar, he, etc. Sorry if this message is misplaced, but the meta link up there doesnt go to a specific page for comment. -Meerkat

Zulu / colors

This is a relatively small matter, but it seems to lead to a larger policy question. Avala has changed the colors in the table at Zulu to something which I find very gaudy and which has no relation to the Wikipedia:Infobox agreed upon at Wikipedia:WikiProject Ethnic Groups. (You might want a look at the history and talk page of Zulu.) I certainly don't want an edit war over graphical presentation -- I have far better things to do with my time -- but if someone wants to redesign an Infobox, shouldn't they take it up in the appropriate project, not change individual articles to match their taste? Does anyone have any suggestions for how I should proceed (or, for that matter how Avala should proceed)? -- Jmabel 18:27, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)

And now I see that Avala has gone and changed the version on Wikipedia:Infobox, completely ignoring the WikiProject. This seems to me to be just plain out of line. -- Jmabel 18:32, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Looks like other people have now reverted in both places, so the specific question is (I hope) resolved, but the broader question remains, and I am going to state it as a separate question in the immediately following section.

Infoboxes

If someone wants to redesign an Infobox, shouldn't they take it up in the appropriate WikiProject, not change individual articles (or Wikipedia:Infobox) to match their taste? Or do we actually not have a policy on this? -- Jmabel 00:15, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)

My understanding is that once agreed upon (and Wikiproject:Ethnic groups appears to have been agreed upon), WikiProject pages are policy and changes should be discussed there first. Tuf-Kat 03:52, Apr 20, 2004 (UTC)

Redirecting Interwikied articles

I am unclear what the policy or common practice is. The case I ran into is corpo. I briefly considered putting it on VfD, since I don't see how it can become more than a dic def. Then I thot I'd just redir it to student corporations, but when I hit Edit, I saw it is linked from two other languages. If it can be cleaned up summarily, I think that would be better than putting on VfD, I'm just not sure how to do it. Niteowlneils 00:42, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Page duplications

I've seen this happen several times today: someone will make a small edit to a page, and somehow the entire article will end up doubled or tripled. (Check the histories of, for example, RFA, Quickpolls, and Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.) Is there a software glitch somewhere, or is it just a world-wide outbreak of boneheadedness? —No-One Jones 02:19, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Obligatory - " "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." -- Albert Einstein" →Raul654 02:48, Apr 20, 2004 (UTC)
This happened to me at Wikipedia:Requested articles/music, and I'm quite sure I didn't make a mistake. I was moving links around and thus editing several sections at once. It would have been quite difficult to accidentally cut and paste from several edit pages, in order, into a whole nother window. Tuf-Kat 03:54, Apr 20, 2004 (UTC)
It happened over at VfD recently. That was a mess to sort out, since it went uncorrected for a few days. -- Cyrius|&#9998 04:46, Apr 20, 2004 (UTC)

Will somebody please block the vandal at 129.93.211.55 ? --Juu

"The Free Dictionary"

This site: http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/ seems to be picking up all Wikipedia non-stub articles and offering the material without attribution as a free online encyclopedia. Obviously, this is not a copyvio, but I'm curious about the relationship (if any) with Wikipedia. Is Farlex, the site proprietor, just opportunistically using Wikipedians' work to pump up a site and sell banner ads? JamesMLane 04:10, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Not a copyvio my eye - they are *not* allowed to copy our material unless they are granted permission to. The GFDL provides them that permission, provided they abide by the terms. If they don't provide attribution, then they are not abiding by the terms, they have no license, and they are violating our copyright. →Raul654 04:12, Apr 20, 2004 (UTC)
On further searching, at the bottom of every page: This article was derived fully or in part from an article on Wikipedia.org - the free encyclopedia created and edited by online user community. The text was not checked or edited by anyone on our staff. Although the vast majority of the wikipedia encyclopedia articles provide accurate and timely information please do not assume the accuracy of any particular article. This article is distributed under the terms of GNU Free Documentation License.. They are abiding by the terms, so somone please add it to our list of mirrors. →Raul654 04:14, Apr 20, 2004 (UTC)


That site is a cool presentation of Wikipedia content. If you hover on a link, then a small window of text opens up and exposes the first part of the linked article for preview (you click the link to get at the rest of the linked article). - Bevo 04:40, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)


And if you double-click on a word, it looks it up in a dictionary. -- Cyrius|&#9998 05:07, Apr 20, 2004 (UTC)


They've done this properly including attribution and a full link back from each article to its Wikipedia counterpart. I don't see any problem with their implementation. It's nicely done.-- Derek Ross 04:56, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)


As usual with the forks and mirrors though, they make the GFDL text as inconspicious and small as possible but make their own (c) much more prominent... even though they have no copyright over the actual text, just the layout. I don't think there has been one fork who has entered into the spirit of a free encyclopedia... merely just tried to make some profit by dumping our database and paying as little lip service to the licence as they can get away with. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 06:23, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)


OK, sorry, I missed the attribution on first glance, for the reason Pete points out. The Farlex people certainly don't go out of their way to make it clear that they didn't do the work. Under each article they put a table with some "What links here" links, although they don't call it that; then comes the "Encyclopedia Browser" chart, which has the ten preceding and ten following topics in alphabetical order (admittedly a useful feature); then a "Full Dictionary Browser" that repeats those twenty links and supplements them with twenty more links to dictionary definitions in that alphabetical range. All of this takes up about half my screen. Then, under these tables, all the way down at the bottom, in what looks to be about 7-point type, they put the attribution notice that →Raul654 found.


Even if you find that notice, you'll read only that the article was "derived fully or in part from Wikipedia." Their copyright notice says that they "use multiple sources of data." All this is pretty disingenuous, given that the few articles I've checked were essentially copied verbatim. The only change I've noticed was the deletion of links to nonexistent articles. The proprietors (or, I suppose, their bots) even pick up stuff that's on VfD (e.g., Christopher Zarba). Interestingly, however, they omitted at least one non-stub -- namely, the article on the subject "Wikipedia."


Their own copyright notice also states: "The site contains copyrighted material, trademarks, and other proprietary information. You may use the content of up to 10 articles from the site without an express permission from the publisher provided a clear reference to the source of information is given. If the information is placed on a web site, a link to the source or home page is required." Only then does it mention that "[s]ome articles" are GNUFDL. I suspect a more accurate statement would be that the "Dictionary" portion of the site is copyrighted but the content of the "Encyclopedia" portion is entirely GNUFDL.


Their whole process of grabbing our database is probably automated. If I turn these comments into a Wikipedia article about Farlex, emphasizing the facts that show what a bunch of sleazeballs they are, do you think it will appear verbatim on their site?  :) JamesMLane 06:43, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)

If the TheFreeDictionary link comes up before the Wikipedia link in a Google search, tell Google via thei [email protected] address. I reported that a spammy version of Kolmogorov's zero-one law appeared above the real Wikipedia version in the results, explaining that the Wikipedia version of any such article is the authoritative one. About two weeks later, I got a mail back from them, stating that it had been fixed. Sure enough, the search I'd done ("kolmogorov zero-one") now showed the Wikipedia link above the TheFreeDictionary link. Of course, now it's gone back the other way; I suppose TFD has some kind of attempt going on to exploit Google's algorithm or somesuch.

If you plan on doing this, make sure you include the exact text of your search, so the Google folks can do their job more easily. If enough folks do this, we'll take eyeballs away from TFD and bring them here, where they might even contribute. Grendelkhan 08:30, 2004 Apr 20 (UTC)

South African elections

If there are any South African Wikipedians who are interested in politics, could they get in touch with me? I have been searching in vain for detailed results of the South African elections and need some advice. Adam 04:27, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Problem with blocking

I made a range block of 64.107.0.0/22 in response to the Star Trek vandalism on 16th April for a period of 7 days. Today (April 20th) I find user 64.107.1.81 merrily editing Leonard McCoy again. Is something wrong with blocking, or did I get the block wrong? (PS I've blocked the same user for 90 days this time). DJ Clayworth 17:26, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)

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