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[[da:Wikipedia:Landsbybr%F8nden]]

Summarised sections


"You have new messages."

After I've gone away for the evening and come back to Wikipedia the next day (I have my Favorites set to go to the Main Page), I ge the "You have new messages.", even though I don't have any and had not had that message when I went away. Any way to not have that happen any more? RickK 18:06, Aug 7, 2004 (UTC)

Are you sure that you didn't? Just recently, a user added something to an old subtopic somewhere in the middle of my Talk page. I got the "new messages" notice, but couldn't find the new message by glancing at the page. I thought the notice was bogus, but I called up the page history just to check—and there it was. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 18:23, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I think this is a problem related to cacheing. When I first go to the Main page, it is often a few days old--and apparently the cache also includes the "you have messages" message. I have seen this many times and I've checked history on my talk page just to make sure (now I mostly ignore it unless the message persists after checking my Watchlist or going to some other page). There is a "Main Page cache purge" link near the top of Talk:Main Page which will force a reload of the Main Page. older≠wiser 18:54, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Check your page history. Some anon vandalized your talk page and someone else cleaned it up. That may've been interpreted as new messages. Salasks 19:52, Aug 7, 2004 (UTC)

Nope, there have been no changes to my Talk page since the last time I was there. And why would it only show up on the Main page? Is the Main page cached differently from other pages? RickK 21:37, Aug 7, 2004 (UTC)

This often happened to me, oddly in both Opera and IE. It definately was cache-related, as a CTRL-F5 would bring up a totally different frontpage, sans the 'messages' message. TPK 05:32, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

How about a rename for ...

I am searching for the correct person to address this issue: The infobox on terrorism lists Islamic .. rather than Islamist .., which I believe is a more precise and respectful label. That way it is possible to distinguish the adjective (Islamic) for a religious group from the adjective (Islamist) for a political group with an agenda. My template for this is the distinction between the secular from the secularism articles. That puts the label more in line with the ism article as well. I realize that involves some page moves as well. Ancheta Wis 19:02, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)

It's done. Thanks to all. Ancheta Wis 04:47, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a guide?

As far as I remember "wikipedia is not a guide", so am I right to guess that how-to and everything in it is content "to be cleaned up sometime and expected not to be expanded further"? I specifically ask because I told a guy that he should not create howtos in article space and he pointed me to this specific article and its contents. I believe this is wikibooks content, and not wikipedia's.--grin ✎ 19:33, 2004 Aug 7 (UTC)

This seems to support transwiki'ing how-to's Talk:How to breed Siamese Fighting Fish (despite the fact the article still exists)--besides the nominator, six votes to transwiki/delete, with one neutral vote. Why on earth is How to breed Siamese Fighting Fish still here?
For what it's worth, I think it would be MUCH better if articles transwikied from Wikipedia were NOT deleted, but replaced with interwiki redirs (or possibly interwiki links). It's better for Wikipedia, because there's less chance of the article getting recreated. It's better for Wikibooks (or Wiktionary, or whichever) because it raises the visibility of the sister projects. It's better for the user, because they find the info they're looking for. Niteowlneils 20:02, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Be cautious and tentative when you tell people such things. You're not exactly wrong but it's not that simple, either. I believe that this is controversial, that there has never been consensus on this point, and that there is no official policy. I asked this question on the mailing list a while ago and several Wikipedians confirmed my impression.
In practice, though, articles that consist solely of a cooking recipe tend to get listed on VfD, and what then generally happens is that the recipe ends up being transwikied to Wikibooks. The same thing happens to articles that are very explicitly pure step-by-step directions. (I personally oppose this and regard it as tyranny of the majority, or tyranny of the more persistent, rather than true consensus policy, but there you have it.) If you want to test the waters, it might be interesting to list how-to for deletion and see what happens. Conversely, if someone wants to contribute an article that includes a recipe or a set of directions for something, it is a good idea to present them in a cultural context, proceding from general to specific, with the recipe or directions being presented at the end as a very specific example of whatever is being discussed.
Warning, warning, POV alert. Historically, encyclopedias contained a great deal of how-to-like material. Diderot's work was entitled "Encyclopedia, or a Systematic Dictionary of Science, Arts, and the Trades." The Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th edition contained all sorts of detailed mechanical and circuit diagrams. It did not quite tell you how to build a working transatlantic telegraph, but nearly. Chambers' 1728 work was entitled "Cyclopaedia; or an Universal Dictionary of Art and Sciences, containing an Explication of the Terms and an Account of the Things Signified thereby in the several Arts, Liberal and Mechanical, and the several Sciences, Human and Divine." The very word "encyclopaedia" means "universal course of study," or "textbook of everything." If it's suitable for a textbook, it should be suitable for Wikipedia. That's just my $0.02 and others do disagree. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 20:30, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Thanks for the history, Dpbsmith. I am part of the minority faction that believes guides aren't always out of place in an encyclopedia. I've heard the contrary asserted several times, but never convincingly justified. What determines the nature of what is "encyclopedic", apart from majority opinion? --Fritzlein 00:43, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I understand the general issue is under some debate. However, at the moment I am more concerned about the apparent violation of VfD policy/process in this one specific instance. Unanimous vote to transwiki, and yet a generally respected Wikipedian removes the VfD tag and leaves the article on Wikipedia? Why have VfD if the results areoutcome is based on the whim of individuals. Niteowlneils 19:56, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Also, I am interested in responses to the broader issue, if articles are transwikied for whatever reason, is it not better to leave a redirect to whatever 'sister project' it went to. Niteowlneils 20:26, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)

How to Guides generally belong on Wikibooks, because they are not strictly encyclopedic, wikibooks is a collection of books, documentation, and textbooks written by the equivalent of wikipedians. So that is where how to guides belong. —siroχo 09:30, Aug 8, 2004 (UTC)

The fact that Wikibooks uses information originally placed on Wikipedia isn't a justification for deleting that information from Wikipedia. There's no reason to cannibalize when copying will do. - Nunh-huh 23:10, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)
The only reason I can think of for keeping how-tos (for now) would be to wait until the software can support moving page history across wikis. (Unless this is now possible and I've missed it. I don't work on the other Wikimedia projects so I don't know.) Isomorphic 06:12, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Read this page. When the mouse hovers over a wikilink, the top of the linked definition is brought out in a "tooltip" popup. This is done client-side with Javascript; the generation of the page does not require more database requests.

It works on Mozilla and related browsers, on Opera and on Internet Explorer; it is broken on Konqueror. (Apparently, Konqueror lacks support for some CSS properties.)

Comments on my talk page or here. David.Monniaux 22:00, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Doesn't it need more database requests, though? Either through the server sticking the text in the generated page, or through the client loading something from another page? =/ - Fennec (はさばくのきつね) 02:07, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)
The server does not stick the text in the generated page. The client indeed needs to download the text for the boxes (on-demand), but this is text without decorations or personal options, so it's perfectly cacheable by the Squids. David.Monniaux 07:39, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)
FYI. This seems to require IE 5.5 or later. (I can get the exact 5.0 version # it fails on later today). Niteowlneils 17:35, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Article counts inconsistent

The article count shown on special:Statistics is 7,023,425, but the number on WikiStats for August 5th is 292,000. I really don't think that we added nearly 30,000 articles in 4 days. What's up with this? --mav 07:19, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)

There is some additional discussion on stats problems over on Wikipedia_talk:List_of_Wikipedians_by_number_of_edits. It looks like User:Erik Zachte has found a fix for a stats script, but I couldn't tell you whether it affects this particular discrepancy. -- Solipsist 07:44, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Yes, Erik's fix will fix this. Pcb21| Pete 09:22, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)
The fixed stats script has been run again with correct results (thanks Erik!). Glory in how fast we grew in July! Pcb21| Pete 10:26, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

please block 217.132.176.75 he is deleting this article over and over again

he is deleting the article Avigad Berman for no reason

Which is fully understandable - an article which claims that someone "is living in the basement", "has a virtual girlfriend" is hardly encyclopedic. To me it simply looks like you want to insult this person. andy 15:05, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)

it's a fictional charactor! not a real person!!!

And where does the article state that important fact? (BTW: please sign your statements by adding ~~~~). andy 15:13, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)

According to the Avigad Berman Talk page, the contrib of this article has been banned from Hebrew Wikipedia. Searching "avigad berman" gets two hits, both sites in Hebrew. I'd say, nuke the article, and if it continues to get posted, ban the user from EN, as well. Niteowlneils 17:56, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The article has been listed on wikipedia:votes for deletion Clearly 217.132.176.75 does not need to be blocked. theresa knott 18:55, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Image bug

There must be something strange about the image Image:Monalisa.jpg in Leonardo da Vinci. For some reason whenever I view that page, the Mona Lisa picture never renders and thereafter, IE6 won't render any images until it is restarted -- Solipsist 21:57, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)

This is IE's JPEG-resize bug which crashes its image subsystem. Try a different thumbnail size in the article, or upload an alternate format of the image. Radagast 00:42, Aug 9, 2004 (UTC)
How many people are affected? All IE6 users? (And Solipsist, why not use Firefox, Opera, Mozilla, or some other modern web browser? Firefox is smaller than IE.) --Ardonik 00:52, Aug 9, 2004 (UTC)
Well the original Image:Monalisa.jpg show's up fine, so it may only be the Wiki-thumbed version. I'm reluctant to resize the image in the article since there's a general preference to use |thumb| without a size attribute, which is how it is at the moment.
Why use IE? I used to join in Microsoft bashing, but now I can't be bothered. I'm halfway tempted to give Firefox a try, but probably won't get round to it. Wikipedia:Browsers says 80% of readers use IE, but it doesn't give the versions. -- Solipsist 06:51, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)
It looks like any size value for Wiki-thumbing triggers the IE6 bug. Using [[Image:Monalisa.jpg|frame|Some caption]] avoids the problem, but the image is too large. -- Solipsist 07:02, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Fascinating. So IE is also bemused by the Mona Lisa smile! :o) Zoney 17:09, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The B-Movie Bandit

I've quit this project three times now, twice over this substub-writing idiot. The proxies change but they're all from the Northeast division of SBC. I really want to come back on a limited basis, but I will not put up with this troll. He/she is driving MikeH out of his mind with malformed entries about soap opera stars, little-known TV shows and minor movies. Ditto RickK. I wouldn't be surprised if Jim Regan left over this ninny as well. He left a number of messages on the different proxies. No one has answered them, and no one has ever answered the requests for contact.

Sysops, I am begging you. Please. Just block the range. These entries are useless. - Lucky 6.9 22:26, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)

To be honest, this doesn't seem like the kind of thing that should make you quit - sure it's irritating, and the entries aren't particularly informative, but they're not false or misleading and they should be pretty easy to fix. The worst he is doing is adding a bunch of stubs, I'm not sure why that really endangers Wikipedia so much. Adam Bishop 22:49, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Ok, with further evidence from Custom and Rick, I see that this goes beyond simple creation of sub-stubs; while I would still suggest fixing up the stubs, I would also support a block if that is possible. (Although I'm not sure how block a whole range, or if this needs to be discussed somewhere else...) Adam Bishop 23:22, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Do you suggest other people fix the stubs rather than doing it yourself? The B-Movie Bandit is littering. Dropping short ill-written stubs for other people to fix up should not be acceptable from anyone, unless one believes it acceptable that stub-writers set the agenda for people who are captable of writing full articles. Should others have to clean up after their mess. Or should we just leave the mess, leave article after ill-written article. It often takes more time to check and fix a bad stub than the original writer to create it, especially since the original writer usually has the information or misinformation right at hand while the fixer does not. Such stubs are useless and there are too many of them in Wikipedia outside of what the B-Movie Bandit is providing. And such stubs don't grow into good articles by themseles. There should be a rule against littering in Wikipedia policy. And that includes blank pages with links to them and place holder articles about future events. Jallan 23:43, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Rather than doing it "myself"? No, I have attempted to fix some of them, that's what caused this dispute in the first place. Adam Bishop 23:54, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I've fixed every one I've found on newpages and recent changes patrol, and the {delete} cat. For example, look at how Another World (soap opera) started[4], and look what it became. I just fire up IMDb (actually I always have it in a browser tab), spend 5-10 minutes, and fix them into reasonable stubs. Most recently I added a bit to No Way Out (1987 movie), which Adam had already gotten into decent shape. Niteowlneils 02:50, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)
So what it amounts to, is that the B-Movie bandit is deciding both what you are spending your time on in Wikipedia and what gets into Wikipedia. Is that how priorities should be set? Should actions in Wikipedia be driven by the most ignorant and inconsiderate editors? By picking up after this troll, you are encouraging this troll and encouraging others to emulate this troll. Jallan 13:46, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)
The problem with the B-Movie bandit isn't only the plethora of substubs. It's that he sometimes replaces existing articles with his useless junk. -- Cyrius|✎ 03:06, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Ouch, I hadn't run into that. That IS bad. Niteowlneils 03:13, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Check that, I may have once. About a week ago I found Kane on the Speedy delete cat, and when I checked the history I saw that it had once been a decent, if short, article, so I just reverted it. Is IP 64.12.116.74 in the bandit's range? Niteowlneils 03:28, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Might be, at least geographically. Geektools.com shows it as an AOL proxy out of Manassas, Virginia. The majority of the proxies have been coming out of the Northeast US division of SBC, and they all start with that "64." The subject matter doesn't follow the pattern, unless our little friend was trying to drop something on "All My Children" character "Erica Kane." Believe me, this boob isn't the only reason I left. He was the icing on the cake. After some thought, I am more determined than ever to see a change to policy to deal with this litter in a direct fashion. I too have expanded a number of these ridiculous entries and I'm sick and tired of doing so. He/she never returns to fix the substubs and, as Cyrius pointed out, now has a history of reverting existing articles. - Lucky 6.9 06:07, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Chill out, man. There's no need to take the burden of everything sucky that happens on Wikipedia. You are not personally responsible for this user's mischief. Take it to RfC/RfM/RfAr, and if you're completely fed up, forget about it. Wikipedia won't collapse if you don't deal with this guy's problems. Johnleemk | Talk 14:23, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • John, you're absolutely right. In the scheme of things, this is just a pimple and it took a few days away from this site for me to realize that. Still, it's an annoying pimple. I've brought up this case to everyone short of the White House, or so it seems. We all devote a lot of time and energy to Wikipedia. Real time. Real energy. Every day brings some really wonderful contributions from across the world. The B-Movie Bandit just "shits in our nest," if you'll pardon the scatological metaphor. In, out, done...never to be seen again. This isn't a public restroom, after all.  :^) - Lucky 6.9 18:25, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Check out what this guy did to the Matt Crane article today: [5] RickK 04:44, Aug 10, 2004 (UTC)

  • OK, now that my blood pressure is back to normal, I can't believe that I actually tried reasoning with the B-Movie Bandit earlier today. I hoped beyond hope that I'd hear from this person. Instead, the incredible work that MikeH brings to the table gets reverted not once, but twice. What more do we have to do to make a simple exception to the rules and block this troll once and for all? I've half expected to get some indignant note on my talk page from someone else using one of the proxies. I've never heard anything from anyone. Now we have a known and proven vandal on our hands. A simple range block will solve the problem. Please consider this, gang. - Lucky 6.9 05:35, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)
    • Comment: I left a nice note on talk page User talk:69.0.38.162. Six minutes later, another entry via this same proxy came in for Catherine Hickland, which I've made into a redirect to "One Life To Live" for the time being. No answer. The message flag was totally ignored. - Lucky 6.9 05:54, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)
      • Well, doesn't some of this count as vandalism? Just treat him as you would Michael or the Vandalbot. Delete anything that looks like his stuff and block the addresses. Or is that somehow against the strange and confusing and unfathomable policies that supposedly guide Wikipedia? Jallan 16:40, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)
    • Can I nominate you for adminship? :^P - Lucky 6.9 16:44, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • More fun via 69.0.38.162. A new substub called Charlotte Ross came in after both Niteowlneils and I have left word. Ignored it. Redirected to NYPD Blue. We persist... - Lucky 6.9 18:40, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)
    • Calm down a second. Because the target page contains no mention of Charlotte Ross (potentially for good reason, I don't know), the redirect is inappropriate. Either the article should be deleted because of lack of notability, or it should be left as a harmless (but also fairly useless) stub. Admittedly there is something odd going on with this user, but that doesn't mean we should redirect like that! Pcb21| Pete 18:53, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • I'm perfectly calm. A sysop once suggested redirecting these things as the fastest way of dealing with them. I have to respectfully disagree that these entries are harmless, however. A number of existing articles have de-evolved because of this guy. I do agree with your reversion and wholeheartedly if the actress wasn't mentioned on the target page. The new stub looks fine. Still, why couldn't the original poster have taken the time that we've taken? Also, why don't we get an answer? Frankly, I'm a bit creeped out. :^) - Lucky 6.9 21:30, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)
    • That's the thing that gets me about this guy. He won't ever discuss what he's written and, usually, he just gets years he saw from IMDB and that is it. I just thought he was a petty nuisance until he started reverting other people's articles (most of which were already started and were written to a fair extent by me, so I was peeved even more). He does seem to be reading our comments, as now he is adding who was married to whom. However, you know it's one of his substubs when the verb tense is incorrect. It's always someone "stars" on so and so show, even if the actor hadn't appeared on it for fifteen or twenty years. Mike H 23:11, Aug 10, 2004 (UTC)
      • The case is genuinely odd. From what I have seen and read, his behaviour appears to be:
        • Only ever write an article from scratch.
        • Sometimes he overwrites articles if they pre-exist
        • He never returns to an article (the cases where he has edited the same article twice appear to be new rewrites from scratch - are they subtly different from reverts).
        • Never seems to see user talk messages.
      • Now this could be a weird form of vandalism (particularly the overwrites) but that doesn't feel right; it has more of a clueless newbie feel about it. One far-out suggestion is that he is somehow writing to the Wikipedia database without actually coming to the wikipedia website. This *is* possible, though it would be a new sort of mirror. The mirror site would invite new contributions HTTP POST them to WP in the usual way and then scrape the content. Then the user would never see the talk pages or the "new message" dialogue. Ok, it isn't a particularly likely suggestion, but I am scrabbling around for possibilities.
      • As for resolution, as they are proxies with a large number of users I don't think the data dump is so vile that we can block the whole range. I suggest we ban anon contributions for this range. If users in this range wish to contribute, we explain unfortunately for vandalism reasons they temporarily have to create an account. I can't remember if exactly this solution is implemented already due to past experiences (Wik/Michael?) but it would be good to have around. Pcb21| Pete 23:57, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • You may be on to something. It could be a matter of can't answer instead of won't. I absolutely love the idea of blocking anon entries just within the range. Legit users would gladly sign up to edit, and this guy would be forced to do likewise or go off to play somewhere else. Bravo! A solution has presented itself! - Lucky 6.9 01:47, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)
        • If I'm not mistaken, the Mr. Treason IPs also come from this range. Mike H 00:00, Aug 11, 2004 (UTC)
          • I think you're wrong because nothing similar's listed on the IP list. Furthermore, a whois on 69.0.38.162 and 64.252.168.209 reveals them to belong to SBC. Michael and Mr. Treason use(d) AOL. The 64.12.116.74 address cited by Niteowlneils above is likely one of them and not the Bandit. -- Cyrius|✎ 01:59, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • The theory that those edits happen through a weird mirror sounds interesting, but shouldn't they be rejected as "edit conflicts" then. And if not, and there is no easy way to implement it, that could revive the interest in the "enter the text displayed below" tests for anon edits. -- Pjacobi 10:37, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)
    • It seems that something less exotic might be going on - see the thread about "new messages" flags being in the wrong place for anons towards the bottom of this page. Pcb21| Pete 11:54, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Another thing I noticed that I failed to mention: the person seems to be at this site, because for every red link I'll make in a soap opera article, the person will fill it in. That happened when I accidentally wikilinked Gary Pelzer (text: "gary pelzer") and what has just happened to Lynn Herring. Mike H 17:39, Aug 11, 2004 (UTC)

If it's really that bad, why not report it to the "abuse@" email for the ISP (if you can track down SBC, or whoever it is)? Be sure to incorporate as much information re IP addresses and timing and evidence of the abuse. Noisy 18:22, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

  • Tried that, and I got an automated response asking for the traces and such. Got to get one of the true Gods Of Wikipedia on the case if we're going to go directly to the provider. Thanks for the tip, though. :^) - Lucky 6.9 19:18, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)
    • Oh, jeez. He did it again less than an hour after MikeH and I left word on the latest proxy's talk page. Came back with Vincent Irizarry this time, and I almost knew what I was going to read before I read it. No answer, and I've redirected to All My Children. - Lucky 6.9 19:26, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • The redirect was reverted as a "legitimate stub." If anyone's been following this, one would know that it is far from legitimate. It's litter. Mike H 19:31, Aug 11, 2004 (UTC)
  • How is it not legitimate? Are the facts incorrect? In this case the article should be deleted. If they're correct, it's an acceptable short stub. If you don't want to bother even checking the facts, then a redirect doesn't make sense, as it could be just as wrong (i.e. if you don't want to check if Irizarry really starred on All My Children, you shouldn't redirect it to All My Children either). The unresponsiveness and overwriting of other articles by this user are different matters. Gzornenplatz 19:43, Aug 11, 2004 (UTC)
  • Are you trying to question whether or not I know about the material? Irizarry starred as Dr. David Hayward on All My Children and as Lujack and then Nick McHenry Spaulding on Guiding Light. Just look at my contributions if you haven't already. Mike H 19:47, Aug 11, 2004 (UTC)
  • So the stub was correct. Why redirect it then? People looking up Irizarry will now be redirected to All My Children, where they might learn that Irizarry starred there, but not that he also starred on Guiding Light. You're removing information. Gzornenplatz 20:10, Aug 11, 2004 (UTC)
  • If MikeH has had a chance to fix the Irizarry article, believe me when I say that if anyone can, he can. I've been doing redirects on the advice of other users, including sysops. I rarely revert other subs and/or substubs unless I'm sure that a redirect was intended in the first place. Besides, anyone looking for information on this actor is probably familiar with his work in daytime TV, and a redirect to the show he currently stars in is, IMO, better than the semi-literate stub that would greet a user. Admittedly, a miniscule bit of information is lost in a case like this. Still, I don't think it warrants keeping these things as they are. This discussion is about the antics of a single user whose "contributions" these past several months just happen to fall on the side of the line that says to keep them. - Lucky 6.9 22:05, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Just let me know that the guy's back and what ID he's using, and I'll delete all of his entries and block him from posting for 24 hours. And if people don't like it they can take it up at RfC. RickK 23:58, Aug 11, 2004 (UTC)

  • Got 'em all on a "whois" search engine. They're on your talk page. BTW, we have another clueless anon who has also been avoiding contact. He's dropping unformatted substub plot synopses about "Twilight Zone" episodes like it's his last day on earth. Check the user page: User talk:68.48.167.231. - Lucky 6.9 03:43, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • I REPEAT: (Some/all) Anons cannot see messages directed at them. See the discussion below. Thus it is the site's fault, not the anons fault they can't respond to messages. The stubs have been poor stubs but not vandalism. Get your itchy finger off that trigger. Pcb21| Pete 07:16, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

WP:AOTW: Baghdad and Renaissance are tied at 21 votes. What is the tie-breaker ?

At Wikipedia:Article of the week today, Baghdad and Renaissance are tied at 21 votes. Renaissance has gathered the same amount of votes in a shorter time period, but Baghdad was nominated earlier ...

We need a tie-breaker. Please come and discuss at Wikipedia talk:Article of the week. Thanks.

-- PFHLai 22:34, 2004 Aug 8 (UTC)

Renaissance has beaten Baghdad in extended voting, 26 to 21.
Special thanks to those who have come over to vote. -- PFHLai 08:01, 2004 Aug 9 (UTC)


Also, please come vote on what the tie-breaker policy should be for future ties, and whether "Article of the week" should be renamed. • Benc • 05:50, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I think this footer should have an empty line or two between the article and itself. As of this writing it is too close to the article in my opinion. --Wernher 00:43, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I'd rather that it went underneath the "last updated on" line below the content. Unobtrusive there, you see. --Ardonik 00:56, Aug 9, 2004 (UTC)
Second that, it's an even better solution. I hope the responsible wiki-programmer(s), or someone who knows who he/she(they) is(are), see this. --Wernher 01:13, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)
The thing is horrible. It is far to close to the text. In fact, it looks like it's part of the text itself. And why do I need it on my user talk page? — Chameleon Main/Talk/Images 01:16, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)
The "retrieved from" message was recently added to the HTML, and simultaneously hidden with CSS. However the CSS takes a while to work its way through the caches. If you see the "retrieved from" footer, force a reload with ctrl-R in Mozilla or ctrl-F5 in IE. -- Tim Starling 02:38, Aug 9, 2004 (UTC)
I gather the purpose then is to "brand" the output? Why is it a "live" link rather than text? Or is that just an epiphenomenon that's hard to stamp out? - Nunh-huh 05:05, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Could someone explain in plain English what this footer means and what its purpose is? Adam 08:16, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I too would like to know what this is for. At least I don't have to deal with this anymore thanks to Ctrl+R. Johnleemk | Talk 08:20, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Apart from being to close to the text, that note is extremely ugly on those Wikipedias using non-latin fonts - there it shows links like http://th.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%B8%84%E0%... Even an occasional German umlaut is enough to uglify it, see e.g. Düsseldorf. andy 09:58, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Where is the right place to discuss changes to this feature now that it exists, and where would have been the right place to learn about it while it was still being planned? —AlanBarrett 10:17, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

These days, I would say the IRC channel. Pcb21| Pete 11:17, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I agree this change as implemented is very confusing. Is the intention to force people to link back under the GFDL? anthony (see warning) 11:42, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

It disappeared after my cntrl-R. But, it would be a good idea to add it on the very bottom of all main namespace articles only to prevent mirroring. — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 15:39, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I am not sure how it would prevent mirroring, which we don't want to be prevented anyway, so long as it done in the right way. Pcb21| Pete 16:17, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

What Pete said. This certainly wouldn't prevent mirroring, and unless the text is in the database it wouldn't even hinder mirroring. Besides, we explicitly want to encourage mirroring, that's why we allow our database to be downloaded. If we want to try to force mirrors to link back to us, then we should be putting this text in the database dumps. Otherwise no one is going to use it. anthony (see warning) 17:20, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

This is just for the printable version. It always used to be there but was accidentally dropped when monobook was introduced. It only shows up on the printed version, not on the viewable page (for most browsers). If you can see it, reload the page and it will disappear as it might be accidentally in your cache. Angela. 19:28, Aug 9, 2004 (UTC)

Ah, yes, reloading removes it. See the message from Tim Starling above for a bit of explanation. anthony (see warning) 19:55, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

It took me the better part of a day to realize what you guys were talking about :) -- god bless the old Wikipedia skin and its trouble-free interface. →Raul654 19:58, Aug 9, 2004 (UTC)

Move history?

Did something change internally with the way moves work? If so, this is great, but I can't find any details in the history about who moved a page and when. Is this available somehow? Additionally, is there any chance of adding a field to list a reason for a move? anthony (see warning) 11:42, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Best disambiguation for a television series

Discussion moved to Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (television) -- Netoholic 21:25, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Frames for Wikipedia?

Can someone tell me why one cannot frame Wikipedia pages? Since one cannot add frames (or iframes) selectively via browsers (sigh) and since one cannot add frames at Wikipedia, and since frames (and iframes) could add tremendous usefulness to wiki articles (e.g., viewing discussion pages, (targeted) page histories, diffs, "what links here", or even the edit pages alongside the article pages), I would hope that the source code for Wikipedia might be modified to allow all of its pages to be framed. If copyright is for some reason an issue, I would think that would be the problem of the person who tried hosting the frames. Brettz9 05:48, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I know little about frames. Have you tried using multiple windows, each only part of the screen? Robin Patterson 06:00, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Thanks for answering. Yes, I know that that is possible, but I'd prefer it to be automated for convenience. One could even conceivably program these frames to automatically show up according to one's preferences every time one loaded a new wiki page (e.g., one could opt to show the page history and discussion pages for any Wikipedia page visited). It would be a big hassle to have to do this each time (and even keeping window positions (or saving them, if that is even possible now) wouldn't have the windows automatically load the corresponding meta pages (such as the discussion pages)).
I think the actual problem is related to "bandwidth theft" rather than copyright. Perhaps a techinically-inclined person could tell us exactly how it works. Pcb21| Pete 10:50, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)
In /style/wikibits.js:
if( window.top != window ) window.top.location = window.location;
The reason for this is that people might think Wikipedia is part of another entity who puts us in a frameset. [ alerante | “” 14:22, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC) ]
Can't people download and adapt the Wikipedia content and software anyways? And if they are using it commercially, can't they be held accountable for violating the GPL?
There's nothing in the GFDL to prevent someone from using our content commercially. Yes, people can download it anyway. The reason we try to "deframe" ourselves is mostly to discourage sites from using frames to effectively "steal" our bandwidth. I think we also check the referrer on image GETs too, for the same reason. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 15:51, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Ok, thanks, that was helpful to know. But what about the idea above? Would there be some way the above idea could be implemented within Wikipedia in the future? I guess if the server is already overtaxed, it would not be a good idea to have everybody loading multiple windows at once. But might it be added to some to-do list for when there is infinite bandwidth?  :)

Creating a category

How do I create a new category? --Auximines 14:18, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Just link to it from a page with [[Category:X]] and it'll be automatically created. [ alerante | “” 14:26, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC) ]
Worked a treat. Thanks! --Auximines 14:37, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)
But then it is a good idea to go to the new Category page, and link it to its appropriate parent category(s) by adding a [[Category:ParentOfX]] tag. You might also add a short desciption of what the category is intended to be (and I can see you have done both.) -- Solipsist 16:30, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Categorization for category guidelines. --Ardonik 02:37, Aug 10, 2004 (UTC)

Java applets

Is it possible to upload a Java applet into Wikipedia?

(Un)fortunately no. Johnleemk | Talk 14:42, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)


Terry Nichols article featured in Yahoo! News

This morning Yahoo is featuring our article about Terry Nichols in Yahoo! News, take a look: http://story.news.yahoo.com/fc?cid=34&tmpl=fc&in=US&cat=Oklahoma_City_Bombing

Ruiz 16:51, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Adding it to Wikipedia:Wikipedia as a press source. Thanks for the heads-up! --Ardonik 02:51, Aug 10, 2004 (UTC)

New Users

Is there any way to find new users (to welcome them), without doing a SQL query? (the database seems to be locked at the current moment and I don't feel like downloading it). — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 17:27, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

You can't get a list of them, but Special:Contributions/newbies shows the changes made by the newest users, so you can work out from the page histories listed there who is new. Angela. 19:31, Aug 9, 2004 (UTC)

Invalid image naming

We have an image named Image:ɇŽçƒå ´ã«ã¦ 003.jpg. If we want to make this something meaningful, is this page going to have to be downloaded and then re-uploaded with a different name? RickK 19:50, Aug 9, 2004 (UTC)

Well, the image is, yes. That's how the software works. Or, doesn't. ;-)
James F. (talk) 02:25, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Empty image files, cur/image tables

Hello, I did this for the german WP before, and am now planning to do this for the english WP as well:

I downloaded the database tables cur and image (dump of august 08) and am looking for

  • empty image files (files that have img_size = 0): found 133 entries
  • image table entries without image description pages
  • image description pages without image table entries

I plan to upload these, so that this inconsistencies can be cleared. At de I also looked at each of the image pages to see if an image exists and wrote this information into the list too. Entries without images were deleted shortly after I put them on VfD.

At de I put these lists onto a subpage of my user page (de:Benutzer:SirJective/Bildprobleme) and could do this here as well. But maybe there is a better place for this, and maybe someone already did this.

I welcome any comments on this. --SirJective 20:24, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

See User:SirJective/Image problems. --SirJective 21:56, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Substubs

The issue of whether a substub category is desirable has been debated extensively, without a clear conclusion. Currently we are trying to decide what to do with the substub template, and a survey is being conducted at Template talk:Substub. More input is welcome there. --Michael Snow 21:32, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

How to delete an unused image?

I uploaded Image:Arimaa_Setup.png and then realized a jpg would be smaller than a png, so I uploaded Image:Arimaa_Setup.jpg instead. Now I want to delete the png, because it is taking up space and not linked to by the Arimaa article. How do I delete an unused image? Thanks, --Fritzlein 00:26, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

If the image is an exact copy, I believe you can put it up as a Wikipedia:Candidates for speedy deletion. Or you can use Wikipedia:Images for deletion. Best wishes, [[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 00:27, 2004 Aug 10 (UTC)
Thanks, I put it on Images for deletion. --Fritzlein 00:49, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

VfD acting up

Can anyone figure out why Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion/Societas_Via_Romana refuses to show up on the main VfD page? Niteowlneils 03:27, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Problems with the links table probably. I deleted and undeleted it and it seems ok now. Angela. 03:36, Aug 10, 2004 (UTC)
Great. I figured someone would know of something to try that I wasn't trying. Thanks. Niteowlneils 03:49, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

How do I find out on what pages an image is used? "What links here" gives me no pages for every photo I've tried, and I know they're used on pages (and have been for months). Is something broken and I've missed a discussion? Or is this user error? Elf | Talk 03:08, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Pages that include the image are listed in a section called "File links" at the end of the image description page. For example Image:Village pump clear.png says "The following pages link to this file: * Template:Villagepump * Wikipedia:Village pump". Angela. 03:33, Aug 10, 2004 (UTC)
With the change to 1.3 the link table for images was corrupted, thus all images looked like orphans. Only those articles which were edited since show in the "File links" list. There was talk about a bot updating that table, but apparently it never happened. So if you still know where that image is used just do a trivial edit to that article. andy 09:36, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Actually it wasn't the 1.3 conversion, it was the suda crash. The entire database was restored from a backup, with 2 days of downtime. The archive table (i.e. deleted pages) were also lost at this time. -- Tim Starling 10:37, Aug 10, 2004 (UTC)

Commenting on Special pages

Where should comments and questions about "Special:" pages go, since they don't have their own talk pages? I'm thinking in particular of the page Special:Statistics (which personally I think should be renamed to Special:Site statistics or Special:Wikipedia statistics or something). This came up because some people have asked about the site stats page on Talk:Statistics. I added a link there to the Village pump, but there's gotta be a better place. - dcljr 04:17, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Special pages, belonging to Wikipedia:Special pages.--Patrick 10:50, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Ah. Yes. Thanks. - dcljr 06:32, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

weird happenings

Is anyone else getting a "Retrieved from "(full URL of the page being viewed)"" line at the bottom of all Wikipedia pages? I am and I have no idea why. It's kinda creeping me out. Lachatdelarue 14:15, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

See above: Wikipedia:Village_pump#.22Retrieved_from.22_footer Anárion 14:19, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Contribs by anon

This anon's contribs have been vandalism, but of a weird type. What are those contributions under "Excrement (weird character) (weird character)" etc? [[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 14:49, 2004 Aug 10 (UTC)

The weird characters are the UTF8 remnants of a special unicode character, probably a different kind of blank. The user recreated the same article as Excrement tasting without the weird stuff - but apparently that one was deleted. Yet the japanese article it had as an interwiki (ja:嘗糞) translated with babelfish suggested it might not be a nonsense article, but a valid topic of traditional koreanish medicine. But it was a substub anyway, maybe it is better to wait till someone can elaborate better on that topic. andy 16:16, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

TOC should be called "Contents"

I hope I'm not opening a can of worms or making a Frequently Rejected Suggestion, but I think that when you look at a Table of Contents, you should see just "Contents", not "Table of Contents". After all, you can tell it's a table. I've just checked several books in different fields, and their TOCs are headed simply "Contents" (or some slight variation).

--JerryFriedman 16:32, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Discussion moved to MediaWiki talk:Toc. Please comment there before August 17 if you have any objections to this change being made. Angela. 21:05, Aug 10, 2004 (UTC)

New WikiProject Arcade Games

Just wanted to announce that there is a new WikiProject: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Arcade_Games. Hop on over and add yourself to the Participants if you're interested. :-) — Frecklefoot | Talk 19:19, Aug 10, 2004 (UTC)

Page history link

Is there a way to do an internal link to a specific time in a page's history? For example, an external link would be: [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Wikipedia:Village_pump&oldid=5126141], but how would you do an internal link to that page? (You know, like [[cheese]].) [[User:Mike Storm|Mike∞Storm]] 22:59, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

No, afaik. Dysprosia 04:55, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Category:Air Forces can't be deleted

Category:Air Forces has been superceeded by Category:Air forces, but it still shows up in Special:Categories, somewhere around here even though the category is empty without a description. --ssd 02:28, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Judging from how Special:Categories is implemented, I'd guess it's because the categorylinks table wasn't updated properly. But I'm afraid that probably doesn't help much. You might want to file a bug report and have a real developer take a look. --Diberri | Talk 03:42, Aug 11, 2004 (UTC)
Based mainly on the fact that similar things happen with updating templates, which were implemented in the same rolling release (MediaWiki 1.3?), it may be worth watching for 12-48 hours to see if it eventually does what you expect. IMO, there is something i would ignorantly call "server-side caching" going on. (No, my client-side caching doesn't seem to explain any of this.) I find that delay and/or re-editing a page that calls a changed template can result in seeing the expected change. Similarly with undeletes for merging page histories (but not necessarily related even as to timing, since i had no experience undeleting before 1.3), the undeleted versions often take a while to join the freshly renamed ones, and the "top" and current version may be an old one, even when all are shown, until another edit seems to force them being sorted into chronological order. --Jerzy(t) 18:08, 2004 Aug 11 (UTC)

Compatibility of headings with templates

Having seen at least one case where headings broke VfD soon after we started transcluding sub-pages into VfD, i've made a practice of adding comments reading

<!--For technical reasons, do not add headers to VfD subpages-->

and converting heading to boldface. But i've seen some lately where there seem to be no bad effects (i think bcz the transcluded headings are rendered, but do not effect either the ToC or the numbering of sections for section-edit purposes).

Is it true that there is no longer a reason to avoid headings in VfD subpages that are to be transcluded into VfD's rendering? Or is the situation more subtle than that?
--Jerzy(t) 04:45, 2004 Aug 11 (UTC)


best practice for WikiProject ?

I have started a new article to discuss the best ways to lead a WikiProject. Any comments are more than welcome (please do them directly in the Talk page). Pcarbonn 05:46, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

User:Celindgren

User:Celindgren has been going around adding a certain external link to every Vietnam-related article he/she can find, pushing a certain POV regarding the current Vietnamese government (the link itself is to the website of the "Imperial Nguyen Dynasty Overseas Council & The Vietnamese Constitutional Monarchist League"). Often, the link is actually irrelevant to the article in question (eg Dien Bien Phu, John Paul Vann). User:Celindgren also appears to be the same as User:198.26.120.13, who has made more dubious edits. For example, the repeated deletion of external links which don't match User:Celindgren's point of view, such as in this edit. Also, a POV comment on Flag of Vietnam. Other articles primarily created by User:Celindgren (such as the one about the Vietnamese Constitutional Monarchist League) are definitely POV. Would someone better used to dealing with such matters please have a word with User:Celindgren about Wikipedia's POV policies? I'd do it myself, but I'm not really very familiar with the details of our policy, and have no experience with such things. (I have, however, started to go through the various articles attempting to remove the POV). Thanks. -- Vardion 06:29, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Ok to Use Rumors as Sources in Wikipedia?

On the main page the anniversary of the patenting of the spork is listed, along with an illustration. However, I was dismayed to find this in the article:

"According to a rumor, the spork was invented in the 1940s by the United States Army, which introduced them to occupied Japan. It was hoped that the use of the spork would wean the people there from the use of chopsticks. This pointless hope did not come true; yet the spork that was spurned by the Japanese found a home in the United States of America, where its versatility and disposability were well adapted to the cuisine of the United States."

Am tempted to delete it, but maybe not? Is it really okay to cite a rumor as a source? Seems like there ought to be some factual basis, not just "according to a rumor..." H2O 07:07, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

If its a notable enough rumor (for example the folk etymology of posh is quite famous and has been published in books and such), its probably encyclopedic as a rumor, it should be included and noted as a rumor (hopefully with some reasoning for how it started/spread). Of course if a rumor is fact, it should be given as fact. In this case, there should be some more investigation probably. —siroχo 07:42, Aug 11, 2004 (UTC)
I looked around and everything seems to point back to one guy's comment on a spork newsgroup some years ago. Hardly encyclopedic. Probably another urban legend. I deleted the rumors. If someone wants to verify this with something more than some newsgroup chatter, fine. H2O 07:48, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)
If you are feeling confident about your facts and if you think it is important, then you could debunk the rumor as a rumor on the page itself. "Many web sites indicate that the spork was unsuccessfully introduced in Japan following WWII. However this rumour appears to originate from a single newsgroup posting [here]." Pcb21| Pete 10:06, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I am not confident enough in my "facts" to include a debunking of a "rumour" in an encyclopedia article. That would be like starting another rumour. However, I have enough doubt that I think the rumour should be left out of the article until more evidence is available. Maybe someone knows of a person who lived or served in Japan around that time or has more knowledge of WWII history than I do. They could confirm or deny this rumour. H2O 15:58, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Proper treatment of rumors, which by nature accumulate small mutations, includes IDing any near-truth in them, e.g.:
  1. In "the anniversary of the patenting of the spork", almost certainly distinguishing that from "... of a new design for a spork". ("Prior art" aside, popular culture has a pathetic misunderstanding of the incremental nature of invention and patenting.)
  2. Thinking not in terms of whether sporks were invented for Japan, but of whether there was a specific plan to introduce them there with the intent already stated.
And don't forget to copy this discussion to Talk:Spork.
--Jerzy(t) 17:26, 2004 Aug 11 (UTC)
I think it is fine as long as you can cite a good source describing the rumor (i.e. it is not just a rumor started by a random Wikipedian). e.g. "One rumor, according to the American Dictionary of Slang (1983), is that the "spork" originated as...." —Steven G. Johnson 22:39, Aug 11, 2004 (UTC)

Recent changes mirrorred

If I enlarge the list of Special:Recentchanges the list gets mirrorred about halfway. I checked the source but could not find a rogue RTL character anywhere. Using Opera 7.54 on Windows2000 -- screenshot can be upped on request. Anárion 09:54, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Only visible on showing 250 or 500 changes. Anárion 09:59, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Bogus "you have new messages" flag for anon users? (Please fix this)

related entries elided by User:Finlay McWalter

Several anons are complaining that they're getting "you have new messages", and when they click on the link it takes them to the wrong User Talk page. See User talk:195.93.34.7, for an example. I don't know if this is true or not, but there have been a lot of anon editors complaining on several different Talk pages. RickK 23:48, Aug 10, 2004 (UTC)

IP users are getting directed to the wrong user talk pages (as has been discussed) and I just receved a 'you have new messages' thing when my edit was last in the history (at least sent me to my talk page). There's something up with WP lately...and it's confusing eveyone ?:| — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 05:13, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

This has happened quite a bit. I've created bug # 1007164 anons receive bogus "new messages" indicators for OTHER anon on sourceforge, and added the two confused IPs RickK cited. Can others who know of such occurances amend the bug to add more such confused pairs (as I imagine the developers will want as many cases as possible). -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 10:49, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)
This happened to me once when I used my brother's computer to access Wikipedia. Johnleemk | Talk 13:11, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Historical categories

Are there any recommendations on how to name and organize historical categories? I looked at Wikipedia:Categorization and Wikipedia:WikiProject History but didn't see anything. Category:History itself suggests that different contributors have had different ideas.

I have placed some questions about historical categories at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject History#Categories. Please contribute to that discussion. Gdr 12:03, 2004 Aug 11 (UTC)

If defined work yet?

I was wondering if the "{{{if defined}}}" described at meta:Extended template syntax works? If so, can someone give me some hints as to what was wrong with the "if defined" syntax in this? Much thanks. —siroχo 13:20, Aug 11, 2004 (UTC)

Probably you overread the word "proposed" in that article. While optional things with templates would be quite handy for many things, they could also lead to rather complicated templates, which then aren't much wiki (in the sense of quick to grasp) anymore. But before we get optional parameters in template, I wish the calculated links and images in template would finally work, thing like [[{{name}}]] or [[Image:{{{whatever}}}.jpg|100px|Comment]] don't work yet. andy 14:33, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Unverified images

I was going through some articles and noted that they had unverified images (no info given on image description page). I've added {{unverified}} to them, and removed them from the articles, but is there anything else I should do with them? They appear to be photos from a news service. Best, [[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 15:47, 2004 Aug 11 (UTC)

For now, I think that's all you do. Eventually, images without source information will need to be deleted, but that is waiting at least until we have a new upload form and people are more used to the requirement. --Michael Snow 16:36, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Noncommercial-use only images are not acceptable

A general reminder: Please stop uploading images where permission is granted for non-commercial use only, effective immediately. Under official Wikipedia policy, these images are no longer accepted. [6]. It is anticipated that existing images with the {{noncommercial}} tag will be deleted at some point in the future (possibly after a new upload form is in place), except for images whose use can be justified on other grounds. --Michael Snow 16:36, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

  • At the risk of making a lot of extra work for myself, I would be willing to accept requests for creating GFDL replacements for noncommercial-use illustrations. See my user page for a list of the sort of things I have illustrated. -- Wapcaplet 16:48, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • I guess this means we shouldn't be featuring these images on the front page? [7] anthony (see warning) 16:51, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)
    • Yes. Middle-earth is actually what called my attention to the problem, but by the time I noticed it was already on the front page, and I didn't think the issue warranted taking it down once it had gotten there. We are not yet to the point of removing all of these images from articles and deleting them, but I agree that they should not be used on the front page. I regret that your objection wasn't acted on while featuring this article was still in the planning stages. --Michael Snow 18:19, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

This is a great blow to the ongoing process of illustrating Wikipedia. There are a lot of people out there taking a lot of good photos which understandably they don't want other people making money out of. However they are quite happy, even honoured, to allow use of their images for noble projects like Wikipedia. I have been uploading a few of these non-commercial images recently to illustrate articles on towns. There is absolutely no reason why they should not be used. Downstream reproducers of Wikipedia content should simply not incorporate the images into their content if they intend to put it to commercial use. This can be achieved very easily with the tagging of images with their licensing status. What this policy is doing is allowing downstream commercial users to dictate to us here at the main project what we can and can't include. Can somebody please offer a decent explanation as to why non-commercial images shouldn't be included so that we can all come to an informed consensus on the matter instead of having policy decided by a small clique on the mailing list and announced to the rest of us from on high. If this policy is adopted then we are pointlessly preventing ourselves from using images which their creators are quite happy for us to use. A far greater problem Wikipedians should be devoting their time to is the lack of any licensing information whatsoever on the vast majority of uploaded images. — Trilobite (Talk) 20:55, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

IANAL, but it appears that restrictions on re-distribution directly conflict with the GFDL, our license of choice. - jredmond 21:58, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)
The issue is not the GFDL — the GFDL is chosen because one wants to allow commercial use, not vice versa. —Steven G. Johnson 22:22, Aug 11, 2004 (UTC)
Our text is GFDL - images are not (which is why we have the image pages). →Raul654 22:07, Aug 11, 2004 (UTC)
The trick comes in when we place images on articles, though. Is the image a part of the article? If so, what license applies to the compilation of GFDL text plus non-GFDL images? - jredmond 22:12, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)
But then there is an inconsistency. Mr Wales writes, "For the time being, I think we should rely on fair use, because it's a good thing, but cautiously so." We certainly cannot grant licences for images, but we use them nevertheless. Another problem is that the restriction on non-commercial images can be easily evaded with the fair use doctrine. -- Emsworth 22:18, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)
In the present (US) legal environment, "fair use" is a pretty flimsy crutch to lean on. Besides which, Wikipedians seem to think "fair use" means "we can use any image we like as long as we really really want to." —Steven G. Johnson 22:32, Aug 11, 2004 (UTC)
Jimbo'll have to speak for himself, but I read that sentence to mean "Until we can get new, more libre images, fair use will have to do". This is consistent with the bits on fair-use content in Wikipedia:Copyrights. - jredmond 22:36, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Yes, it's pretty clear what Jimbo means here. He says that non-free content "should be removed from Wikipedia with reasonable haste." Then he says "This decree is only about non-free licenses _as a justification_ for images being on Wikipedia, and does not comment on, nor affect, evolving doctrine on 'fair use'." "For the time being, I think we should rely on fair use, because it's a good thing, but cautiously so." He is saying that we should get rid of content that is used under a non-free license, but that this doesn't apply to free use images. It's an interesting statement, because you could technically say since these images are copyrighted, they can be used under fair use. But IANAL. — マイケル ₪ 00:10, Aug 12, 2004 (UTC)
In addition, the statement at the bottom of each page reads, "All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License" (emphasis added).
Non-commercial-use images are problematic for the same reason that non-commercial-use text is — there is no reason to allow one and not the other. We allow commercial use because we want to allow things like Wikipedia being distributed on CD by CheapBytes for a few dollars, being included with future Linux DVDs as a built-in OS resource, being bundled with every PalmPilot sold... as long as the encyclopedia material itself is never made proprietary. This is the same as the free-software/open-source philosophy (both of which movements require that commercial use be allowed). —Steven G. Johnson 22:22, Aug 11, 2004 (UTC)
From a contributor's standpoint, why not just contribute the image under the GFDL? Although the GFDL does not prohibit "commercial" use per se, it prohibits most uses that people ordinarily think of as "commercial" — for example, usage in a typical magazine or newspaper — because it prohibits proprietary use (all derived works need to be under the GFDL as well). (Indeed, just as companies do with GPL software, you could imagine a professional photographer contributing GFDL images as a promotion, and then selling the right to use a non-GFDL, proprietary license to magazines etc. that want to use the image.) —Steven G. Johnson 22:28, Aug 11, 2004 (UTC)
I think what Trilobite is talking about is images that have been copied from elsewhere under non-commercial use permissions. In that case, you don't have the ability to contribute the image under the GFDL yourself. --Michael Snow 22:31, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I think he was talking about photos taken by individuals...unlike companies, individuals can sometimes be persuaded, and you just need to convince them that the GFDL prohibits most of the uses that they want to prohibit with a noncommercial restriction. —Steven G. Johnson 22:35, Aug 11, 2004 (UTC)
Sure they can be persuaded, and if so, great. But it does take a little more work, and as you note about fair use, some people are just dying to contribute this lovely image they found "right now", without caring about the implications of copyleft. --Michael Snow 22:52, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I meant photos taken by anyone who has nothing to do with Wikipedia, so they can't just say, "I'll make things easier and license my images under the GFDL," as I would (and have done) with my own images I want to put on Wikipedia. There are a lot of people making their very useful photos available for non-commercial use which Wikipedia should be able to take advantage of. — Trilobite (Talk) 23:04, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia is committed to being as free (libre) a project as possible, as part of the open content community that relies on copyleft licenses. This is a core part of our mission. We define ourselves as an open-content encyclopedia on the Main Page. This principle has been policy since the beginning of the project.

There are a lot of people out there writing a lot of good text which understandably they don't want other people making money out of. This text is not allowed on Wikipedia, because it is not open content. There are plenty of people who might let us use their text, or their images, as long as it can only be used on Wikipedia. Because we're a noble project, because they're honoured to have it published, because they want publicity, motives may vary. We can't accept it on those terms, because it's not open content. The policy against non-commercial-use-only images reflects that commitment. --Michael Snow 22:31, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I quite agree with you where text is concerned. However, text which someone wanted to contribute on a non-commercial basis would of course make things very difficult and complex, as text is added to and taken away from, edited mercilessly etc. It would be absurd to have different portions and fragments of text under different licenses, but images are a very different matter. They are discrete entities instead of something that can be mixed up with new contributions until it's impossible to extricate the original. They are also, as Raul654 pointed out, on seperate image pages which are simply referenced to in the Wiki markup. By tagging those images which are not available for commercial use, downstream reproducers, or future commercial applications of Wikipedia such as those which have been mentioned, can remove them automatically. This makes things a little bit more complicated, but is greatly preferable to purging Wikipedia of vast swathes of perfectly good graphical content. Am I the only one who still isn't persuaded that this policy makes sense? — Trilobite (Talk) 23:04, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)
A license to use something only for noncommercial use is not free, and it's inconsistent with our underlying philosophy. The fact that you can separate the images out from text doesn't matter. What we would be doing is flatly saying no, you can't use this content if it's for commercial purposes. In other words, the content is definitely not open, even though we claim that we are.
If you can claim fair use for an image, that has a slightly better shot at working in an open-content world, because commerciality is only one issue considered in fair use analysis. And with fair use, we're not telling people "you can't use this stuff", but we're tagging it so they can separate it if necessary. What we're really telling them is to figure out for yourself if what you're doing is still fair use. --Michael Snow 23:27, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)
The mainstay of our content, which is text, would be very much open and free. Images not available for commercial use would serve as an embellishment on the Wikipedia website itself, as this is not a commercial use. In some other applications of our content, those images would not be available. It's as simple as that. Fair use, as I understand it (and I am by no means an expert), is a phenomenon of US copyright law of dubious international applicability. I have always thought it best avoided as it is often far from clear where the line between fair use and unauthorised copying lies. Non-commercial permission however is clear and unequivocal — we can use it on this website and any other non-commercial application, and we simply blank it out from anything commercial. This is easily achieved by putting all such images into a category. This is the Wiki equivalent of the sort of machine-readable metadata Creative Commons encourages the use of along with their licenses, so that computers can be used to selectively do things with content according to how it's licensed. Technologically this is very simple for Wikipedia and need not contradict the philosophy of the project at all, as long as we remain a text-based encyclopedia with images as non-essential extras. After all, we should already be aiming at this if only for accessibility reasons. I would appreciate some input into this debate from others as I think it's one worth having. — Trilobite (Talk) 23:58, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Noncommercial use is technically legal on Wikipedia itself right now, but would not be if we decided to add advertisements to the site (I'm not suggesting this is planned, but it has been contemplated). But anyway, such images are clearly not open and free, and I don't see why we should stray from our commitment to open content in order to embellish the website.
Fair use is specifically US, but other countries have fair dealing, and for a more international basis, the Berne Convention has fair practice. Determining what's "fair" tends to be case-by-case analysis, and the US may well be the most liberal jurisdiction in that regard, but the principle is internationally available.
Incidentally, if images are "non-essential extras", why exactly is it so important to allow images under noncommercial-use permissions? That philosophy seems to negate all of the arguments raised for including them. --Michael Snow 00:20, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Personally, I'm glad to have non-commercial images go. The goal of Wikipedia is to create a free resource which anybody can easily take material from. Moving to the GFDL will not remove any credit from you – and you aren't losing any money anyway, unless you're rich enough to distribute the picture, etc. What's so wrong about letting a company use your image? As long as they credit you, there's nothing you're losing. As for fair use, I consider images commonly seen (i.e. a particularly famous image of a celebrity), or images distributed publicly (i.e. broadcast on television, published in major publications) to be valid fair use material. Anything else is dubious. So, for example, an image of the cover of the Yesterday single would be fair use, but not a copyrighted image of the Beatles (or anyone else) performing it, unless licensed under the GFDL and/or published in several major publications. Johnleemk | Talk 10:53, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Hurricane Charley

There once was a Hurricane, Charley...
That came from the land of Bob Marley...
chased Jimbo away
that very same day
But the site did not die, not hardly
by User:Jimbo Wales

I just thought I'd share that with everyone who doesn't hang out on #MediaWiki. -- Cyrius|✎ 04:21, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Did BushCountry.org REALLY get this biased information from here?

To find a fair and well-documented biography of John F. Kerry, and discover who this Presidential candidate really is, go to this Wikipedia Encyclopedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Kerry

You will find that:

Kerry came from German-speaking Jews, but the family concealed its background upon migrating to the United States, and raised the Kerry children as Catholics. Kerry professes to be a Catholic but is divorced and pro-abortion, positions from which his Diocese has distanced themselves. Kerry has a family history of flip-flopping and appearing to be something other than he is.

John Kerry's maternal grandfather, James Grant Forbes, was born in then American occupied Shanghai, China, where the Forbes family of China and Boston accumulated a fortune in the opium and China trade.

I really think someone from your organization needs to look into this. Here is a link to the whole article: http://www.bushcountry.org/news/aug_news_pages/n_080204_kerry_facts.htm

Reading your site as I do, I'm sure you realize that people are going to start believing that you are Pro-Bush and not realize what it is you ARE actually about.

I appreciate your time and consideration in this matter.

68.228.144.45 06:59, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC) MetroRetro

(I'm not affiliated with the Wikimedia Foundation, so this might not be an interesting answer for you, nor am I a US citizen, but I'm at least a regular contributor to this encyclopedia.) I'm not sure what is the problem here really. The "flip-flopping" formulation is a conclusion bushcountry.org draw themselves from the information they had read on Wikipedia, I assume, so Wikipedia can't really answer to that part. The other things here are claimed facts (although the statement about Shanghai being American occupied at the time was removed as incorrect on June 10). If you feel that any of these facts might be incorrect, and no evidence is given, demand evidence on Talk:John Kerry. You have the right to it. All this while, you should be aware that the article (John Kerry) is one of the most frequented and edited on Wikipedia, subject to often repeated vandalism, several edit wars (one ongoing, it seems, between User:Rex071404 and User:Neutrality), the occasional protection, and harsh words between many of the involved editors (many words, too – only this month, the talk page has been archived three times already). So there will be statements there from time to time that are incorrect, point-of-view, or conceivable as point-of-view. This is the nature of wikis. These statements generally disappear within minutes or even seconds. This is the nature of good wikis. And of course, such statements disappear even more rapidly if more people join in and monitor articles. (Yeah, that's you.) -- Jao 09:23, Aug 12, 2004 (UTC)

Bold/italics combinations broken?

There seems to have been a software change here today that means that bold text nested within italics no longer seems to work the say it used to - is this by design or should I file a bug report?

Specifically, '''''P'''anzer '''E'''insitzer'' used to give Panzer Einsitzer but now gives Panzer Einsitzer.

We make quite a lot of use of this combination on aircraft pages... --Rlandmann 07:41, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

This is odd, it seems to work sometimes and not for others. If we actually use the Wikitext you wrote (not just forcing bold and italics), see: '''''P'''anzer '''E'''insitzer'' == Panzer Einsitzer. Introduce a space, ie '' '''P'''anzer '''E'''insitzer'' == Panzer Einsitzer

The problem is that the parser won't be able to differentiate ''''' as being <b><i> or <i><b>. The space should force this to happen. Dysprosia 08:40, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

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