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Wikipedia:Village pump archive 2004-09-26

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Moved discussion

See the archive for older moved discussion links.

When I click 'show preview', nothing happens - it just looks exactly the same as when I'm editing. Why is this? Olivia Curtis 22:37 Feb 28, 2003 (UTC).

If you scroll down, you should see a preview of how the page will look underneath the edit box. Enchanter

I'd like to see the warning ("Note: Remember that this is only a preview, and has not yet been saved!") at the bottom of the page, as well as at the top. (I seem to remember that it used to be at the bottom, in fact.) If you're looking at the top of the page, it's obvious that it's a preview, because you can see the word "Preview", and possibly even the edit box itself. If you're looking at the bottom, there is no obvious indication, so you (well, I) might forget. -- Oliver P. 02:57 Mar 1, 2003 (UTC)

Yes... an easy mistake to make. As a further suggestion, the whole preview could have a distinctive background colour (light green, say), to remind you that it is a preview. Enchanter
And it might be helpful to move the "Save page" and "Show preview" buttons a little apart. With the current setup you could accidentally hit the save button instead of preview, stuffing the database unnecessarily.Kosebamse 11:05 Mar 1, 2003 (UTC)

If you prefer you can choose to have the preview appear above the edit box (a better arrangement I think). The tick box is in "preferences". The "not saved" warning was moved when this option became available, but really needs to be at the top and bottom to suit people with both arrangements. Personally, I think the preview above the edit box would be better as the default as well - Olivia is certainly not the first to have missed the preview below the edit box :) -- sannse 14:22 Mar 1, 2003 (UTC)

Thanks everyone! Olivia Curtis 00:09 Mar 2, 2003 (UTC)

Is it possible to move Images the same way as articles? I'm working on the Wikiproject German districts, and there are several maps uploaded in JPG format already which need to be replaced by higher quality PNG ones, thus nearly the same name except the last three letters. Moving the images would be nicer then upload the new map and have the old ones deleted. andy 15:24 Mar 2, 2003 (UTC)

Not at present, no. However I'm not sure I see how this would help in your case, as the new images must be uploaded by the nature of the operation... --Brion 19:32 Mar 2, 2003 (UTC)

Re: Wikipedia:votes for deletion

The third paragraph of the page about a page-to-be-deleted is really confusing to me. I would appreciate if someone could explain what it means, or rewire it. Thanks, 129.79.38.163 19:40 Mar 2, 2003 (UTC)

What's the standard for NPOV in external links? If one spies an External link in an article that appears to be a personal political rant, is it ok just to leave it there? In this case, I'm referring to a link at the bottom of the Epilepsy article. It was written by a fellow Wikipedian, and seems to have only a faint relationship with the subject matter, but I'm not sure what the "rules" are for such material. Dachshund

One should seek NPOV balance in links the same as one seeks NPOV balance in quotations, citations, and attributions: try to include links to a variety of viewpoints and note what kind of treatment each site gives the subject. That doesn't mean you should link to every nutter with a geocities page, of course; information should be relevant, informative, and useful. --Brion

Is there any sane way to link in a a vector source file for a raster image? How soon will SVG support be added ( http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/SVG_image_support ). My attempt is over at http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image%3AMonopoly_pricing.png Problems are:

  1. Giving a link to the page (currently requires viewing source)
  2. Requires confermation that .fig is not a prefered image method... Jrincayc 14:18 Mar 3, 2003 (UTC)
Use a link in the form [[media:filename.ext]] to include a direct link to an uploaded file.
As far as SVG support, it's fairly uncontroversial as far as I know ;) so it'll be added as soon as someone has the combination of the inclination, the ability, and the time to hack it in. At the moment I lack the time, alas; I may get to it later in the month, or I may not. My Wikipedia to-do list is very long. :) If someone else wants to give it a try, they are more than welcome! --Brion 20:34 Mar 3, 2003 (UTC)

Respect. Perhaps the most mis-used word in the english language, respect is very often used when regard or in regard to is meant. It is often also confused with - honor.

Do a search of wikipedia for respect; you'll see what I mean.

At 15:28 Mar 3, 2003 UTC I added "Calimero" to Anthropomorphism, but soon after that a search for "Calimero" failed to give this article, although when I checked the article the new version with this term was there. Is this perhaps due to a database backup at that time, or an indexing of the database or something like that? That in such a case the search feature is applied to a slightly outdated version of the database? - Patrick 22:02 Mar 3, 2003 (UTC)

The search index table is updated with delayed inserts. If there is heavy searching activity, the queued updates will wait a bit for activity to lighten up before being actually added. Since search queries are sometimes rather slow, this cuts down on locking problems where additional searches are blocked until the first one finishes, allowing an update to go through. --Brion 23:24 Mar 3, 2003 (UTC)
Thanks, good to know: my reaction was additional searches and edits to find out what the problem was! I updated Wikipedia:Searching. - Patrick 00:27 Mar 4, 2003 (UTC)

Add an option so one can filter out of the watchlist those pages in which one was the last editor. Susan Mason

That is an excellent idea. I second it if it isn't too hard to implement. --snoyes 23:51 Mar 3, 2003 (UTC)

Lee Harvey Oswald used the ailas "Alek J. Hidell" during his lifetime. I am torn on creating a new article, a redirect from the Hidell ailas to the Oswald article, or talking about it in the Oswald article. Which is best?

- --Hoshie

Write about it in the article. To also create the redirect is not a bad idea, but I don't think it is in any way necessary either - it's not like someone is likely to ever create the Alek J. Hidell link (except for my creation here and now). Andre Engels 23:46 Mar 4, 2003 (UTC)

Any possibilities for Wikipedia housing almanac data? Granted it may be better for Nupedia since we probably don't want just anyone fudging statistical data, but it seems to me there is a great need for this data to be publicly accessible and actually searchable such as on the internet. I do not find there are many resources already existing on-line, or they do not necessarily have the full amount of data as the print versions. - Brettz9 18:22 Mar 5, 2003 (UTC)

I'm not sure just what kind of data you're looking for here, but it sounds like this might be a case for a related side project... You might compare discussion at m:Wikiteer et al. --Brion 19:36 Mar 5, 2003 (UTC)

Well, it seems at another page I was directed to List of reference tables which seems to have the kind of information I had in mind, but I also suggested the main page reflect an entry such as Atlas to ensure those of us searching for that term would find the data we were seeking. - Brettz9 07:07 Mar 6, 2003 (UTC)

Any possibilities of linking directly from the main page to the By Alphabetical Order page? It is slow and may be a drain on the server to run these queries, but it is more efficient having such a page than going manually through all pages starting from the beginning of the AllPages search. - Brettz9 18:22 Mar 5, 2003 (UTC)

An improved alphabetical index version of Allpages is partially implemented, but waiting for installation on improvements. --Brion 19:36 Mar 5, 2003 (UTC)
You mean one different than the By Alphabetical Order page we have started? If so, do you mean it has not been installed/is not accessible at all now or that the improvements have not been installed?
Yes. It seems rather silly to maintain a page of arbitrary and ever-shifting index numbers when the machine can do this itself! See mailing list post. --Brion 17:52 Mar 6, 2003 (UTC)

Are there any plans (or is it already somehow possible) to add customizably-viewed databases (e.g., sorts by different columns on a database within a page), collapsable/expandable outline elements, automatic cross-referencing of data at other pages, etc.? I'm not a programmer, but if there are pages existing on how to do the html code for this (if it can be done in html), I might like to try it out. - Brettz9 18:22 Mar 5, 2003 (UTC)

Not at this time; this seems to be a wide range of proposed things though! ;) If you'd like to make some more concrete proposals about how to go about doing such things, you're welcome to set up some pages on http://meta.wikipedia.org/ and get some feedback. --Brion
great, thanks for the starting point.

I have not been able to find any Wiki sites dedicated to people starting up their own (non-neutral) projects on any and every topic (preferably with by topic lists and the option to hide projects from searches). Is it just too memory-intensive to house such a service? - Brettz9 18:22 Mar 5, 2003 (UTC)

Have you looked at SeedWiki? --Brion 19:36 Mar 5, 2003 (UTC)
That helped my find what I was looking for, but SeedWiki specifically seemed too specialized. <http://www.swiki.net/> seems like what I was looking for (though there were complaints about it not being accessible.

One more question...Is it conceivable that Wikipedia could be programmed to accept anchors to links internal or external to the given page (whether going somewhere else on Wikipedia or not) (or does it somehow already)? - Brettz9 19:09 Mar 5, 2003 (UTC)

For internal links, this is a controversial feature. (See recent discussion on the wikipedia-l mailing list.) For external links, should work fine: http://foobar.bizbax/somepage.html#ananchor --Brion
Thanks, but is there any way you could direct me to a recent archived thread or something? There seems to be a vast amount of discussions to sort through (with no way to search) and I didn't seem to find it during the time I tried searching.
By the way, many thanks for all the helpful suggestions. - Brettz9 06:53 Mar 6, 2003 (UTC)
See this post and immediate followups for the current discussion. --Brion

Should I leave a disambiguation link on list of astronomical topics? Cassini is linked, but it is in reference to the Cassini probe; should I change the link and leave the disambiguation link or just change the link? Thanks. - Notheruser 19:45 Mar 6, 2003 (UTC)

Since that link is immediately followed by links to the people of the same name, it doesn't make a lot of sense to link the disambiguation page which provides those same links. Link the probe directly. --Brion 21:53 Mar 6, 2003 (UTC)
That's what I was leaning towards...thanks for the clarification. -- Notheruser 22:06 Mar 6, 2003 (UTC)

If I check what links here on my user page, I discover that Talk:Richard Wagner archive apparently links to my user page. Which is fine, except it doesn't... Martin

Sure it does:
[1] [2] Not that I believe either source: sounds like standard journalistic hyperbole to me. -Martin
About 3/4 of the way down the page. HTH, Merphant

Let me clarify this: Talk:Richard Wagner archive redirects to Talk:Richard Wagner/Archive 1. Now, Talk:Richard Wagner/Archive 1 links to Martin, so therefore Talk:Richard Wagner/Archive 1 should show up on my "what links here" page (and, AFAIK, it does). However, Talk:Richard Wagner archive is showing up on my "what links here" page, and it definately should not. Is that clearer?

Aha, yes, that's clearer; I didn't notice it was a redirect. Interestingly, Talk:Richard Wagner/Archive 1 does not show up on 'what links here' from your user page, but Talk:Richard Wagner archive does, and is correctly labelled as a redirect page. I don't know why, sorry. -- Merphant 23:41 Mar 6, 2003 (UTC)

On the Eurovision Song Contest page, one entry shows up as text rather than a wikipedia link. In the table (1978), Izhar Cohen has two brackets around it, but fails to render as a link. I tried looking for a cause, but I couldn't find one. Is this a bug with links and tables (or have I overlooked something obvious)?? -- Notheruser 23:10 Mar 6, 2003 (UTC)

I think it was because there was a line break in the middle of the link. I've fixed it. -- Merphant 23:41 Mar 6, 2003 (UTC)
Well, I guess it was something obvious :). -- Notheruser 00:03 Mar 7, 2003 (UTC)

Something that's confusing me -- on the Battle of Coronel article I have a link to HMS Canopus which works fine; however, on the Battle of the Falkland Islands article I have another link to HMS Canopus (since she survived the first one!) but it only appears as a red "edit" link. Anybody got any ideas why? Arwel 02:27 Mar 7, 2003 (UTC)

Both are blue when I go to look at them. If HMS Canopus was only created recently, you may have been getting a cached page or somesuch from a time before the HMS Canopus article existed. Happens to me all the time.
--Paul A 03:04 Mar 7, 2003 (UTC)
No, the Canopus article is several days old now, and I'm still getting the "edit" link from the Falkland Islands battle! Weird... Arwel 13:41 Mar 7, 2003 (UTC)

I'm using Mozilla 1.3b on Mac OS 10.2 with advanced recent changes on. Sometimes when I click on the arrow to make multiple edits list separately, the arrow disappears and a small space is inserted, but the edits are not listed. I have to click reload and click the arrow again. Is it my browser? Tuf-Kat

I'm using Mozilla 1.3b on Windows 2000; I see the same thing if I click the arrow before the page has completely finished loading, but haven't noticed any problems when clicking after it's done. --Brion
Aah... I'm just impatient I guess. Tuf-Kat

Good to see that other sites are linking to us as a reference. Spot the Wikipedia link on the Abacci books site -- Derek Ross

See also top of User talk:Jimbo Wales and user:MyRedDice/Abacci Letter - they do need to say that the content is released under the GFDL... Martin

Folks, when is that hit counter (the item that counts the number of hits that a particular web page gets) coming back? It's been ages. Arno

Though this does not answer your question, I thought that there is one potential disadvantage to the hit counter in that those wishing to "subscribe" to the page (e.g., through Internet Explorer) will be notified that the page has been updated even if the only change to the page has been that the site has been visited again (even including Exploer's own visit!). I wonder if there's some way to resolve that if it is to be brought back. - Brettz9 07:56 Mar 8, 2003 (UTC)
It's unlikely to be coming back. Recording the number of hits to every article in Wikipedia requires a lot of database access, which slows down the site. While the hit counters are nice, keeping the site running smoothly is certainly more important. Enchanter

Incomplete sentence

The last sentence of the second paragraph on the page "Wikipedia:Complete list of language wikis available" is incomplete. --Menchi 08:13 Mar 8, 2003 (UTC)

Why are the H1 and == headlines showing up with a 1 in front? -&#35918&#30505sv

There's an option in preferences for 'auto number headings'. By default this is turned off, but if you have it turned on you will see the numbers. Enchanter 01:51 Mar 9, 2003 (UTC)
Ah. So-o desu. -&#35918&#30505sv

I do not understand how the editing process works here. I have been trying to contribute to the article on Idolatry however my changes are constantly reverted without comment. What can be done to improve the situation? I have tried communication with other users on the talk page, however there are only a handful of users there and most of them have been quite hostile and unwilling to discuss things with me. Susan Mason

This is a good start, Sue.. your admitting not knowing exatly how things are done.. (which is haphazard in most cases) Second, youre admitting that there is a revert war going on (Nice to be aware of if your in one). Third is your acknowleging that communication outside of short wisenheimer comments is required to proceed. And fourth, is your honest appeal to the community. Let silence follow... go do something else... and perhaps even take it to the EN mailinglist... but MOST IMPORTANTLY - allow some time for things to settle! I dislike getting my shit reverted constantly by "some people" but what can you do? Keep your head on! -&#35918&#30505sv

In addition, I tried to remove the POV assertation that Ira Hayes is a "hero", something which he himself denied. I have not been able to engage in significant dialogue with any other user, instead, my change was reverted with the "fact" that Hayes was a hero being submitted as proof that the assertation is somehow NPOV. Susan Mason

Isnt it Drunken Ira Hayes? - Bad joke. SV
lol Susan Mason

Furthermore, I noted that the lists are formed somewhat oddly, not in a format akin to a phonebook. I believe the phonebook company is quite adept at understanding how to make a list of names, however, I have been unable to communicate effectively with any other user in regards to this issue. My suggestions have been shot down merely because, "well, all the other lists are that way, so why change them?" Susan Mason

Your argument is flawed. This isnt a phonebook. You assume that they know better than what we do. You apply phonebook standards to an encyclopedia... this isnt a phonebook. There is a healthy discussion about lists and how to deal with them on the mailing lists... You seem to have a brain problem... the curcuit which allows most people to stop and consider and cooperate is short with you... Lenghten it.. youll feel better. -&#35918&#30505sv
hmmmm-what good is the list if you can't easily search through it for a name? Susan Mason
Hit control (command) f and enter a word your lookin for. Read the EN mail list Brion agrees with your idea of last names first.. others dont... the important thing is, (insert kind expletive here) that you discuss it with other people who have a clue about where it sits. It may go your way, and youll be a hero... or it may not. Such is democracy, this is not a Susanocracy.-&#35918&#30505sv

Right but see Im waiting to hear an actual argument for the current system, its kinda hard to discuss things when the opposition doesn't discuss. Susan Mason

This isn't really the place to discuss this, but if by "current system" you mean listing things in order "Given name Family name" rather than "Family name, Given name", then one good argument for that is that it's much easier to type and edit ([[Ludwig van Beethoven|Beethoven, Ludwig van]] is a real pain to type). Is there a discussion happening about this somewhere? If so, where? --Camembert
Some of the discussion was on this page, I've just moved it to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (lists). Within that discussion Susan gave links to Talk:List of polydactyl people, User Talk:Jtdirl and User Talk:Zoe. the issue has also been mentioned on the mailing list, see this post and this one -- sannse 11:22 Mar 9, 2003 (UTC)
Further note: the polydactyl-page discussion has now also been moved to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (lists), and I can't find anything pertinent on either of the user talk pages.
--Paul A 13:22 Mar 9, 2003 (UTC)

Um, Is there a reason timelines and such pages are being formatted to have most recent events at the top? I'm thinking of the Afghanistan 2003 timeline and Timeline of trends in music (1951-present). Isn't this backwards? Just wondering, Atorpen 18:32 Mar 9, 2003 (UTC)


yup. it's the wrong way round. there's a list-reversing script linked fgrom somewhere on my user page -- Tarquin 19:07 Mar 9, 2003 (UTC)

RK reverted work I had done on Idolatry and left this message

  • Reverting Susan Mason's gross abuse of this article. Stephan, I am willing to work with you, but Susan is making huge amounts of edits screwing this up. She is writing things that just are not true

Implying that he is not even willing to work with me. What am I supposed to do? He refuses to even discuss such things! Susan Mason

How does one make text both bold-faced and italacized? Susan Mason

Use five quot marks '''''like this''''' so it comes out like this. Danny 00:45 Mar 10, 2003 (UTC)
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