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For general problems with Wikipedia not pertaining to any single article, see Wikipedia:General complaints [[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.

Offices Held by politicians

Do any guidelines exist for the content of tables showing the offices held by politicians? (See the bottom of the Tony Blair entry for an example.) It appears that periods spent as members of bodies such as Parliament aren't included, but I think it would be a good idea to do so. Betelgeuse 15:33, 14 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

My first instinct was to agree with you, but after thinking about it, at least in the US, congressional districts change often enough that it's difficult to ascribe a real continuity to all of them. Similarly, Senate seats are arranged as junior and senior, but which seat is which will change periodically. So at least in US politics, I'm not sure how the linear nature of these boxes would work. I don't know, in Britain, how variable districts and their representation are, so I don't know if this problem exports to other countries. Snowspinner 16:29, 14 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
It'd be awkward to include such tables on all politicians, even without reapportionment or redistricting - very few politicians stay in the same office for very long, and including a table for each office held would make their articles bulky. - jredmond 16:44, 14 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Tricky. UK parliamentary boundaries are reviewed about every 10 years, and if the changes are too drastic a sitting MP may jump ship and look for a more winnable seat elsewhere (I'm reminded of one Conservative MP who looked for a better seat in 1997 and failed to win it, while what was left of his original seat remained Conservative...). Also MPs may lose their seat at one election, and be elected somewhere totally different at a later election (see Gwyneth Dunwoody or Tony Benn for example). -- Arwel 16:45, 14 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Sir George Young is an example of an MP who moved constituencies because of boundary adjustments. For his entry I would add 'MP for Ealing Acton 1974 - 1997' and 'MP for North West Hampshire 1997 - present'. I don't think the two extra rows would add to much bulk to the article (most politicians entries are little more than stubs anyway), and I think it's the type of information a reference work like wikipedia should include. Betelgeuse 16:56, 14 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know about UK politicians, but it would be a huge mess trying to figure it out for U.S. representatives except for perhaps the last few decades. For early politicians, documentation is not always readily available about which district a representative was from (and even if available, may be misleading because the district boundaries change frequently). So even if we could figure it out, I'm not sure it would be that helpful since the actual districts change dramatically over time. For example, when Michigan first became a state, the entire state was one congressional district. Now the state is divided into 16 districts. I believe it had more districts in the past. Further, there are MANY U.S. politicians who have held multiple offices: representative, senator, governor, Presidential cabinet (sometimes different positions in the cabinet). In short, it *might* be feasible to do this for U.S. Senate seats, but I don't see any point to attempting it for House seats. older≠wiser 17:47, 14 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect warriors

From time to time here comes a guy and starts "fixing rediects". A recent example is massive change of Trans-Siberian railroad into Transsiberian railway.

It is one thing to fix redirects from, e.g., common misspellings. It is totally meaningless IMO thing to replace a perfectly valid and almost as common name, like in the example above. In some particular case I fixed some time ago, the article author intentionally used an archaic term, only to be "fixed" by some overzealous wikipeditor.

Guys, please be reasonable. Think about other useful things you can do, like Wikipedia:New pages patrol. Mikkalai 18:25, 14 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

There seems to be a 'redirects are evil' mindset among some people here. Not sure where exactly that came from ... possibly from the 'linking to disambiguation pages is evil' idea.
IMO, one should rarely change the linked-from text, that's what the pipe-link is for. But really, is there any reason why a pipe-link is BETTER than a redirect? It's just two ways of handling the same thing: linking from a string of text to a page whose title is not the same. One method keeps it all in the linked-from page, another uses a secondary redirect page, but I don't really see a reason why to change it.
It's possibly a squid/database load issue ... using the redirect takes two hits; piping the redirect at the point it is anchored takes a single hit. As others have said, though, there's never any reason to change the anchor text to deal with the reirect issue. --Tagishsimon
They are actually both one request (we don't use http redirects, instead the 'redirected' content is served at the requested url). But: Because we currently don't have a good way to find out which pages redirect to a certain page (for purging), so they aren't cached as a result. This will very likely change with 1.4 where the redirect will re-use the cached content of the 'real' page. -- Gabriel Wicke 08:13, 17 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
As Mikkalai says, if the linked-from text is actually inaccurate and it's a context where that matters, then it should be changed ... —Morven 02:46, 16 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
As the person who did the redirects to Trans-Siberian railway, let me explain my reasoning. It was based on what happens when you move a page, and you get the following warning: "Links to the old page title will not be changed; be sure to check for double-redirects (using "What links here") after the move. You are responsible for making sure that links continue to point where they are supposed to go." As far as I'm concerned, an article that points to "Trans-Siberian Railroad" when the actual article is at "Trans-Siberian railway" is not pointing where it is supposed to go. I understood that the point of redirects was to deal with people looking things up from outside Wikipedia, rather than badly-formatted wikilinks. However, I concede that in most if not all of those articles I should probably have piped the redirect rather than changing the text. Some articles are formatted in British English (railway); some are in American English (railroad); the important thing is consistency within the article. I will give myself a slap on the wrist and a task to check that all the pages linking to Trans-Siberian railway are still consistent. --ALargeElk 08:48, 17 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion lets me undestand "the root of the evil". All this redirect/piping thing is simply a techie mindset: you are trying to "help" computer to do the job (of readdresing), whil it should be exactly vice versa: computers are here to help us write articles (and read articles). Using pipes and fixing redirects is IMO like writing pieces of code in assembly language where the compiler is dumb and cannot optimize. It ought to be done sometimes, but if you have to do it almost everywhere, this should be the hint that either the overall design is wrong or atavistic instincts come creeping. I know that "real programmers" write in FORTRAN, but... Mikkalai 15:46, 17 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]


Demographics of US towns

I note that in the demographics of us towns like Hialeah, Florida, all ethnic groups except white are wikified. Does this strike folks as odd? What should this one link to? Thanks, Mark Richards 21:28, 14 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

It should link to Race (US Census). User:Rambot didn't finish his job and vanished for some reason. The link to Asia is inapproprate. We need to know about the ethnic group, not the continent from which their ancestors originated. --Jiang 22:50, 14 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
There is a WikiProject on ethnic groups. It's been a bit quiet lately. If anyone is interested in investing some effort into it, that would be great. This does come with one warning though: this is an area that ineveitably must be handled with some sensitivity, a matter that is discussed in that project page and its related pages. -- Jmabel 23:55, 14 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Appropriate URL

This is kind of amusing: the URL that Wikipedia generated for Image:Us-pa.gif (the Pennsylvanian flag) is "/upload/7/76/Us-pa.gif". Marnanel 04:07, May 15, 2004 (UTC)

-->Continued at Image talk:Us-pa.gif

Looking for Wikipedia pages

I'm looking for the page that directs the "Did You Know?" section on the front page. Who decides what we see there?

I also want to know if there's a New pages patrol, just like the RC patrol.

Anyone with info please contact me hear or at my talk page. MGM 10:20, May 15, 2004 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Did you know is shown in the main page, and Wikipedia:Recent additions is the history thereof. The rules are in the corresponding talk page MediaWiki talk:Did you know. Wikipedia:New pages patrol is for the new pages patrol, but it's rather quiet over there. -- Chris 73 | Talk 02:01, 16 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]


"See also" vs "Related topics", and Category Project

The Wikipedia Guide to Layout recommends that "Related topics" be a heading for a collection of internal links to related topics. Custom and practice in the Wikipedia appears to be to use "See also". Should the recommendation be changed? Please discuss at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style.

Verbs

I think there should be some naming conventions for verbs (Wikipedia:Naming conventions (verbs) - tentative).

There is a convention about using the most common words (Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names)) which could apply to verbs in some cases; ie killing redirects to murder.

It seems to be common practice to use the present participle; ie. jumping rather than jump or jumped.

Any comments? Bensaccount 01:20, 16 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

I advocate really useless and counter-intutive verb forms as the standard. i.e. Will have been jumping. Though if people insist on a reasonable standard, present participle. Snowspinner 04:30, 16 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

emdashes

Moved to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Dashes#emdashes

Linking to family trees

As an example, the article Julio-Claudian family tree has a single image with the entire family tree. I'm wondering if it's possible to create a family tree that appears similar but has a feature linking the individual names in the tree to the articles about those people. Does the software exist to do this? MK 06:22, 16 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

What should be done about POV external links? Are these escaping the normal Wikipedia NPOV process? Should they be removed? Please discuss at Wikipedia talk:External links#External links epidemic.

In praise of annotating lists of links—and anything else

In reference to the above problem of external links not being described (and consequently hiding POV), let me add that I feel that in general, Wikipedia has too many lists of links and anything else that just list items without any descriptions. Most of could be enormously improved by adding short notes to list items. (The note should be short enough so that the list remains on a single line without wrapping when the window is a normal size. This preserves the vertical compactness of the list and keeps the list items positioned for easy visual overview).

Editors seem to be reluctant to do this, I'm not sure why.

Perhaps what happens is that someone starts a list that contains no comments, and subsequent editors are reluctant to be the first to disturb the pristine columnnar appearance of the list by adding the first comment? Or is it a "foolish consistency" fear that it is somehow wrong to annotate one item unless you can annotate all of them?

When listing Moog synthesizer users, how much better to have

(as is the case in the actual article) than

Dpbsmith 11:13, 16 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

That's better, certainly, but good old fashioned sentences would be better yet. Strawman:
I've taken to doing this on disambigs, e.g. Stirling (disambiguation) -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 22:41, 16 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know. There's a case to be made for conciseness as well. I think we should seek a happy medium. I agree that "Mike Farrell" or "Doug Fieger" is too little, but I think information about particular albums, songs, or collaborators should be found in the linked article not the link itself. MK 04:47, 17 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

gold sovereign

Question moved to Wikipedia:Reference Desk. Meelar 17:52, 16 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Quantum optics

Quantum optics is a very lively field of current physics research. But so far we only have articles on its more application-related neighbouring field, laser science. I've done a start by writing the article quantum optics, but there's much to do: MOTs, optical tweezers, PDC, and the like should be covered as well. Any fellow physicists out there willing to help? Or other people knowing about it? (Sanders muc)

References

Is Wikipedia poor at citing its sources? Please discuss at Wikipedia talk:Cite your sources#References.

Note that, due to perennial confusion, I've moved this article to Wikipedia:Cite sources: while explaining how you came by information has some value, it is far more important to search for authoritative references that help the reader check veracity and learn more. ...even if you didn't (shame on you) consult any sources at all when initially writing an article. —Steven G. Johnson 03:13, May 18, 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia trophy room

Wikipedia recently won two awards (Webby Awards and Prix Ars Electronica), and I am sure there are more to come in the future :-) Do we have a place to list the awards, sort of a Wikipedia:Trophy room? I was thinking about making a page, but wasn’t sure if something similar already exists. -- Chris 73 | Talk 04:14, 17 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

A formal one can be found at Wikipedia#Awards_and_nominations.
Perhaps the current silly awards for longest article title etc at m:awards could be overwritten with a page about our awards. See m:Talk:Awards Angela. 20:09, May 17, 2004 (UTC)

Watchlist trauma

My watchlist now won't update, and instead says - 'this is a saved version of your watchlist'. Any ideas why? Thanks! Mark Richards 15:42, 17 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, a developer has enabled cached watchlists to improve performance (which had crawled to a halt pretty much). Dori | Talk 16:27, May 17, 2004 (UTC)

So when do I get the real one, and when the caches one? Thanks, Mark Richards 17:56, 17 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Normally when this is the case, you get one update per hour. -- Jao 18:15, 17 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! Mark Richards 19:55, 17 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

It would be much better simply to reduce the 12-hour default, which as I said on earlier occasions is a total waste. A one-hour default would probably be sufficient to improve performance and would be less "traumatic" than this almost entire disabling of watchlists. --Wik 20:25, May 17, 2004 (UTC)

An extra option "since I last checked my watchlist" alongside 1,2,6,12 hours could possibly maybe reduce more overhead than it creates... depending how things are implemented. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 21:26, 17 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Can You Give us the E-mail address of National Congress.

Dear Sir, Can you give use the E-mail address or the Contact address of National Congress, actualy we want to give congratulation to Congress President Mrs. Sonia Gandhi, Please sir, help us in this matter, please give reply us on [email protected], [email protected], [email protected].

With warm regards,

M/s. Access Point, Puri, Orissa India

The party's website appears to be http://www.indiannationalcongress.org/ -- it has a "contact" option on the front page which opens a form to email [email protected] though of course we don't know if these would get forwarded to Mrs Gandhi.
Alternatively you can write to the INC at 24, Akbar Road, New Delhi 110011, or telephone 91-11-23019080 or fax to 91-11-23017047. -- Arwel 19:20, 17 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]


Vandalism in Chinese Wikipedia

Chinese WP is suffering mass attack from several IPs, continuously creating nonsense pages like "Shizhao再麻煩你砍一下吧44daf22d99161b01a4148a8c3cffedc4". Can the developers ban the feature of creating new pages in Chinese WP for a while? --Samuel 18:11, 17 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Hello,

the chinese Wiki is experincing massiv vandalism with a bot and a proxy again. Please help.--Philopp 18:13, 17 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Please ban the IP addresses rang from 210.139.252.1 to 210.139.252.255. --Samuel 18:17, 17 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Any sysop on zh can ban a range. See m:range blocks. Is the problem that you need more sysops temporarily? Angela. 19:48, May 17, 2004 (UTC)

Speedy Deleting things on VfD

I've noticed in the past few days some things that were on Votes for Deletion simply getting speedily deleted. While I agree that many of these items should have been listed on speedy deletion instead of VfD, I feel that, once something is on VfD, it is poor form to terminate the debate. If it's truly a bad article, it'll go away within a week anyway - no need to hasten the process and leave a bad taste in people's mouths when a debate is effectively cut off. Snowspinner 19:09, 17 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

This has come up before. See Deletion before all votes are complete. Angela. 19:38, May 17, 2004 (UTC)
I think you misunderstand what I'm taking issue with - my issue is that articles that were listed on VfD are getting deleted before five days of debate has elapsed - not the VfD discussions themselves. Once something is listed, the decision should wait five days. Snowspinner 20:14, 17 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
No, it's the same issue. Just because someone wrongly lists something on VfD does not mean it has to stay there five days. Newcomers can not be expected to understand the full deletion policy or the CSD, so will often list things that have no chance of being deleted, or things that should have gone to wikipedia:speedy deletions. Removing them from VfD because they are candidates from speedy deletion is no more an issue than clearing up any other mistake a newcomer makes. Angela. 22:13, May 17, 2004 (UTC)
If the deletion were to be total, that would be one thing, but many of these are being left to hang around on VfD even after the page is deleted. (I wonder if people are using {{msg:delete}} on the pages instead of {{subst:vfd}} and admins who delete aren't realizing they're on VfD?) Snowspinner 00:45, 18 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Are you saying I should have waited 5 days to delete the bad copy/paste move at The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Physical Sciences? What would that have accomplished? -- Cyrius|&#9998 20:26, May 17, 2004 (UTC)
It would have allowed the full five days of debate? That said, there's been a rash of this in the past few days, so don't take it as any comment on you - I'd just rather have doing this be against the rules so we don't start having cases that are questionable. Snowspinner 20:37, 17 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
My $.02 -- if something qualifies for speedy deletion, then out it should go, no matter if it was mistakenly listed on VfD. older≠wiser 21:45, 17 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
While I agree that many of the pages that get listed on VfD could be speedily deleted (And I never understand why people go through the lengthier process of listing on VfD when they could use the far faster speedy delete), I think that once the question is raised, cutting it off just leaves a... bad taste in my mouth. Snowspinner 00:45, 18 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
I think that if a page meets one of the 13 criteria set out on Wikipedia:Candidates for speedy deletion, it is fair game for speedy deletion. Even if it has been listed on VfD, and people are voting on it. Of course it should also be removed from the VfD page rather than leaving a pointless discussion and a broken link. But I don't see why a page that deserves speedy deletion should get a 5 day stay of execution just because someone listed it inappropriately on VfD. --Stormie 01:40, May 18, 2004 (UTC)
Let's not pretend that all of these cases would have generated meaningful discussions. That said, I won't argue against a simple, consistent, and easy to enforce rule against it, in order to avoid questionable cases. -- Cyrius|&#9998 21:59, May 17, 2004 (UTC)
I performed one of these. Ordinarily I wouldn't, but the article contained personal information on some kid. I would say that most times it should be against policy UNLESS it could potentially harm someone to have it up for 5 days. Meelar 23:05, 17 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that in the case of clear and present danger, speedy deletions should be enacted - that or we should have a more broad legal troubles page akin to the copyvio page where the article content could be deleted and a warning could be put in its place. But I can't see that coming into much use, so probably speedy deletion regardless of where it's listed is the best thing int hese limited cases. Snowspinner 00:18, 18 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Press release: Wikipedia wins 8th Annual Webby Award for Best Community

I think we should have a press release to announce our Webby Award success. I've started one at Wikipedia:Press releases/May 2004. Please add to it. Other sites such as Google and the BBC have made press releases when they have won in the past, so I feel it's important we do too. We haven't had one for over three months, and the last one received little attention in the outside world. Perhaps this one will have more of an effect. Angela. 17:03, May 12, 2004 (UTC)

Good idea. I don't feel in the mood to write PR copy right now (I actually have in the past), but I left some things I could see adding on the talk page. Niteowlneils 01:46, 13 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

This has been five days now. Should it be sent? Or is there not enough interest to bring it up to a sendable standard? Angela. 19:35, May 17, 2004 (UTC)

I look at it and find myself at a loss -- how to describe community practices? And I think all the work we went to last time sending out PRs only to get virtually zero response makes it harder to get pepped up. :-) What work needs to be done to get it in shape -- does it need all the expansion it currently indicates, or will it be fine with simply some quotes from Jimmy and a little expansion in key areas? Jwrosenzweig 19:42, 17 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Part of this is that the idea is that the Webby should be a publicity boost to us in itself. With the weight that the award has.
I think the normal wikipedia editing practise is very poorly suited to editing a press release. We wan't to make it express a pointed crisp viewpoint; ours. And we want it to be a stylistically uniform polished text. Not a work in progress, nor NPOV.
Having a clear person whose responsibility it is to deal with public relations in general, would be a very good idea. I can envision the Board of Trustees appointing a Public Relations Officer pretty soon after they start their work.
Also, personally I think our press releases should be about us, not about what others think of us, but that is a personal leaning. -- Cimon 16:50, May 18, 2004 (UTC)

Cannes Festival!

Know someone who was, or still is, at Cannes? Are you surfing WP from an internet cafe in Cannes at this very moment? Help us get a good GFDL or public domain photo from the festival to use on Wikipedia! It would be nice to feature an image of this year's festival in the Cannes article, in the news on the main page, and on the Press Corps page. +sj+ 22:01, 2004 May 17 (UTC)

Kennt jemand jemanden, der in Cannes war oder immernoch ist? Surfst du die Wikipedia in diesem Moment aus einem Internet Café in Cannes an? Hilf uns bitte, indem du ein gutes GFDL oder Public Domain Foto vom Festival machst, damit wir es für die Wikipedia benutzen können! Es wäre schön, dieses Jahr ein Foto im Artikel Cannes, in den News / Nachrichten der Hauptseite und auf der Press Corps Seite zu haben. Fire 22:12, 17 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Banjo-Kazooie rhymes

I recently started adding to the Banjo-Kazooie article. I dont' have a copy of the game but thought it would be wise to ask here if anyone who does could fire it up and write down some of the funnier rhymes Grunthilda utters during gameplay. Also of course if anyone remembers something from the game which i forgot that would be great, thought it would be nice to ask this in village pump instead of pages needing attention since this is really a request very few are able to fill.. and the more eyes... --Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 02:22, 2004 May 18 (UTC)

Suggestions from Kapil Yedidi

(Moved by Starx from MediaWiki:VfD-Kapil_Yedidi)

Also, 1 more thing. I would just reccomend a link from an article to a contributions page, where you see the contributions for that article. I understand it is not all about 1 person doing the encyclopedia, and more about everyone creating it, but a contributions page would be awesome!

1 last thing. Are there any ranks in the Wikipedia? Like if you help out a lot, would you be recognized and be a VIP in the members room or something?

Whe you serach for your member name in the encyclopedia, you need to types in usr first. Why not ignore the fact whether the USR is there or not?

I promise this is my LAST suggestion. Why not a lounge chat area for members where you can talk about the articles, improve grammar, and other things?

See Wikipedia:Chat and Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits. Dori | Talk 04:47, May 18, 2004 (UTC)

Just a few suggestions by Kapil Yedidi!

Wikipedia:Requested pictures...

...needs your help. We need photos of braided hair, felt, flyswatter, Palette knife, polyester, rayon, sickle, magnifying glass, Alquerque, Gomoku, Auditorium Building, Chicago, Benjamin Franklin Bridge, Chainsaw, roundabout, Baseball bat and glove, Blue Grotto, brassiere, panties, undergarment, all kinds of Cats, Hats, Instruments, and computers (VAIO), and much more. If you have any of the above pictures, or if you have the item, please take a photo and go to Wikipedia:Requested pictures! (all clothing requests are person-optional) -- Chris 73 | Talk 04:42, 18 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

"all clothing requests are person-optional"
Is the converse also true? For people pics, is clothing optional? →Raul654 04:45, May 18, 2004 (UTC)
If so, I'd like to submit a list of requests. MK 07:25, 18 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Name

I have trued to find out what the name Amanda or Mandy is in korean, i hope you can help me as this is to with the Martial art WTF Taetwondo that i study.

Thanks, Mandy.

Why not 아만다? — Monedula 17:18, 18 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Google results: Mirrors vs Wikipedia

I'm sure this must have cropped up before, but I can't find it; can anyone point me to a relevant discussion? Anyway, I did a search on Google today for Lucifer cipher, and in the top 10 results were no less than 7 mirrored copies of the Lucifer (cipher) page, but not the Wikipedia article itself, which surfaces at position 70. This seems to happen a lot for various articles, and is somewhat annoying (especially since the mirrored pages are out of date and advert-laden). Anything Wikipedia can do? Feel free to point me to the previous discussions... — Matt 13:42, 18 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Many people are PO'ed about this, and I have no idea how it could be fixed (short of someone at google taking some action). If those pages were respecting the GFDL to the letter, they would link to the exact Wikipedia article, which should raise the pagerank of the Wikipedia article, and eventually bring it to the top, but this does not seem to be happening. Dori | Talk 14:06, May 18, 2004 (UTC)
[From one of the PO'd peeps]. This is a relatively recent problem (roughly since thefreedictionary.com came along) but must be costing us traffic, and is a long term threat to the continued growth of the GFDL corpus. What is odd is that, despite at least some of the mirrors linking to WP and thus making it probably the most linked to version of the page, WP comes so low. Are the other sites so good at search exchange optimization/google-breaking? Has WP somehow fallen foul of a negative points score due to being seen as a link farm somehow? Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 15:42, 18 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
They have as many links as we do (as a mirror), but it's just that they were up when wikipedia wasn't and google spidered them first. Dori | Talk 16:22, May 18, 2004 (UTC)

Interwiki

Currently interwiki links follow the principle "each language makes links to each language".  As the number of languages increases, this system becomes more and more difficult to manage.  Very soon we will have hundreds of interlanguage links on some pages.  Perhaps we should have a "central repository" of all interwiki links, with only one "other languages" link at normal pages?  Or perhaps it will be user-defined — either to have a lot of interlanguage links, or only one "other languages" link, or some chosen languages linked directly, and others via "other languages" link. — Monedula 14:08, 18 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Yes that would be sensible as every time a new language (new_lang) adds an article, it has to go and find every other language (other_lang) that has that article, add the new_lang interwiki to each other_lang, and get all other_lang interwiki links and add them to new_lang.... There is a bot that does this, but it's not used everywhere, and it doesn't work unless there is an interwiki link in the articles to begin with. Dori | Talk 14:17, May 18, 2004 (UTC)

Intuition article, factual error dispute

Intuition

Item: Intuition Discuss on: Talk:Intuition & User_talk:Heidimo#Intuition

Remark: I have a factual error dispute but the other person is unwilling to explain what she thinks is wrong with my way of reasoning. I guess what needs to be done is to sort out the philosophical meaning of the word from the informal meaning. I am studying this seemingly simple subject in another encyclopedia but it has not helped much until now. Thanks in advance Andries 18:31, 18 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia for crosswords

Hey, I just found a new use for Wikipedia. I was wrestling with today's crossword puzzle. Usually the weekday ones are fine, but today--lots of facts that I just didn't know. I used it to find the following in just a couple of minutes:

But--I couldn't find "dashboard of an English car"!?
Elf | Talk 18:56, 18 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

How many letters? Marnanel 19:02, May 18, 2004 (UTC)
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