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How is the consensus of a VfD debate determined? I'm particularly curious regarding Talk:Easter Bradford/delete. orthogonal 23:17, 17 Nov 2003 (UTC)
When is a stub no longer a stub? And who can remove the stub note? See Irish literature for an example. I guess everyone but me knows the answers. Bmills 17:11, 17 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Is there some kind of guideline on what to do when, after consensus or at least a majority decision has been reached (delete it, merge it, keep it as a stub for the time being, or whatever) and a particular matter is accordingly dropped, it is revived at a later point by someone who has just discovered Wikipedia or that particular article?
I'm asking this question in the context of the re-emerging AIDS kills fags dead discussion (I don't have to worry about the correct link here, do I?), but there are others I could think of. -- KF 09:35, 17 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I just finished making some little locator maps for the country articles, and someone suggested that I could make the basic unedited world map I used available for other people. This would make it easier for people to modify anything I've made, and might even be useful for something else. As I created the maps myself, there's no problem about usage permission, and so I've put links to them on my user page. I was wondering, however, whether there was anywhere better to put them - people aren't likely to notice them where they are. Whether they'd be of any use to people, I don't know, but I thought that there's no harm in making them available (especially to facilitate correcting what I've already done). Is there somewhere I should put a mention of them? - Vardion 04:37, 17 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I am writing an article on Hackers (short stories) and I was wondering if short stories should each have their own article. There isn't much to say on a short story, but they might deserve their own article nonetheless. Opinions? Dori 17:49, Nov 16, 2003 (UTC)
I would oppose an article on each short story - it would make more sense to cover them all in the same page. Martin 19:38, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)
This fits into the one longish article/lots of shortish articles decision. My personal preference is the former. The "wiki way" is probably the latter. (cf the completely disorganised but totally absorbing wikis such as the MeatballWiki). Pete 12:28, 17 Nov 2003 (UTC)
It seems to me it's been a while since Google updated its Wikipedia index. Is that our fault (i.e., did we accidentally tell its robots to go away in one of our files), or is it their fault, or is it my psychotic delusion? -- Someone else 11:22, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I don't see this as vandalism, so I'm putting it here for want of a better place. A logged-out user changed the article substantially to indicate that immunity to AIDS is a myth - I linked it to Wikipedia:Accuracy Dispute for now, but I'm tempted to just revert. I know nothing about medicine though. -- Pakaran 05:10, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Revert it. It's only one group's opinion, nowhere near a consensus. RickK 05:50, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I've noticed that some users, like Ed Poor and Lir, always sign as something besides their actual user name - how does one set it to do that?
Wikipedia talk:How to revert a page to an earlier version says a lot about why or when to revert a page, but doesn't actually explain the mechanism.
How does one revert a page, other than by copying and pasting the text of the version desired? orthogonal 01:04, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I have a question about the current Google/Wikipedia search engine, or comment. Namely, it seems to produce very inconsistent, incomplete, or paradoxical responses to inquiries. A few examples:
This is what I find most disconcerting about the search engine. Someone will look something up, not get any results, and just assume that it is not present in the wikipedia. They won't know the little tricks about following other search results, going to more "meta-" pages (e.g. in math, going to major mathematical pages and looking around), or typing in URLs directly. This doesn't give a bad impression to newcomers, but it certainly fails to take advantage of everything that IS here. And it's a major inconvenience to people who use the wiki.
I would like to know if I am the only user that this happens to. I only bring it up in the village pump because it has been a common, persistent, recurring problem for me ever since I started (or ever since the Google/wikipedia page came up). It's not just an isolated incident with a few searches. Revolver 15 Nov 2003
I just came across MrsFalafel's Ale, Mustard and Winter Vegetable Pie. I was curious if, at about 50 characters long, it was the longest article title in Wikipedia. Turns out, I made a few that are longer (how embarassing, really):
Well, I'm curious to find out, what is the longest article title? Kingturtle 18:14, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Two long East Asian ones:
-- Menchi 01:54, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I did a database search, and the longest page title is Acetylseryl.. (a redirect to Acetylseryltyrosylserylisol...serine - and still much shorter than the actual 1185-character 'word' that the page actually is about). Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahinthara Ayuthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom Udomratchaniwet Mahasathan Amon Piman Awatan Sathit Sakkathattiya Witsanukam Prasit comes second.
More interestingly perhaps, the longest non-redirect page titles are:
Andre Engels 11:44, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I tried to create acetylseryl.. just now, but instead it recreated the Acetylseryl.. already there, in recent changes showing my edit at MN, but in the article history as M, with no earlier edits... Coincidentally, the length of the article it recreated happens to be 28-1=255 characters long. Κσυπ Cyp 12:07, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I personally don't see the point of having articles with such long names. No one will ever get the title right when they're looking for the subject and they really mess up the formatting of pages. Perhaps the length of a title should be limited (better get a flame-retardant suit on :). Dori 17:53, Nov 16, 2003 (UTC)
Moved discussion to: Logo policy talk page.
Hi, I was wondering how this works with the license.
I want to make recordings of some of the content on Wikipedia, and I want to do it legally. My intention (if possible) is to make Compact Discs containing some of the text in spoken form, together with other text I have produced personally.
It is not my intention to make money out of Wikipedia content, but I am obviously free to charge for that proportion of the CD that is made from my own personal content.
I am very happy to reference the source of the Wikipedia in the manner outlined on the license (I could obviously not hyperlink), and the proposed cost of the CDs isn't going to be a great deal more that of the raw materials.
Can anyone advise on what I should do. Many thanks.
I noticed on a recent edit to World Wide Web by Mav that his summary stated:
yet I encounter this technique of embedded links regularly, like in this short article which has seven (!) such links in the body text:
Is there any kind of concensus about this? -- Viajero 13:39, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I always delete inline links when I encounter them and move them to an External Links section. If they're kept inline, it's hard to tell that they're references to non-Wikipedia sites. Putting them in the External Links section makes that clear. RickK 19:58, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I think what Mav meant is that body text shouldn't be hyperlinked. Wikipedia will covert a link by itself to a footnote format, which is perfectly desirably as footnotes. I suppose the Wikipedia software could be enhanced one day to automatically list these links in a reference section at the bottom of the article. Samw 01:19, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)
What's up with Nupedia? Google has the text: "Unfortunately, Nupedia is unavailable due to some server problems" shown when you search for "nupedia", which means it must have beend own for a while. On Nupedia, the external link says "temporarily offline due to server troubles". According to the page history that change was made on September 26th! There is some talk on Talk:Nupedia but nothing current. I'm inclined to believe that it is truly dead. I mean how can they keep web traffic and editors if the site has been down for almost 2 months? dave 05:59, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I know it's fun editing articles about Macedonia, the Catholic and Mormon churches, and maybe tomorrow we can have some fun arguing over spelling Mother Teresa's name... but, I think it's time to resurrect Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemistry. I only spend about 10% of my time on classic sciences (originally I was a biochemistry/ cell biology major), but I know you real scientists (and I don't mean computer, I'm one of those) are out there.
To start, I've added some information about the hard-to-find Inorganic table information to the project page. Is there a similar Organic table information somewhere? If not, we need to get one created and rationalize the two tables.
Once we get that done, maybe we can prioritize a list of compounds to be fixed up, etc. Daniel Quinlan 04:56, Nov 15, 2003 (UTC)
On the Wikipedia:Perfect stub article, the first suggested guideline is to add a link to your stub from Wikipedia:Find or fix a stub. However, when you get to Wikipedia:Find or fix a stub, there is no place there to do so. Something has to be changed. But I don't know what. Kingturtle 04:46, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Perhaps it's supposed to be a link from your stub to [[Wikipedia:Find or fix a stub.? Adding the stubnote certainly does this Dysprosia 04:48, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)
The rule of three: Do not revert the same page thrice in the same day
Words to wiki by. See Wikipedia talk:How to revert a page to an earlier version. Martin 21:19, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I thought that it might be a good idea to have a special page for each articles titled "Authors" or similar. All it would do is give a simple list of users/IPs that had ever contributed to said article. Firstly it would give contributors the credit that they are due. A similar thing is already being done in "page history", but is not present anymore when an article is moved, for example. Also, the "authors" page would be much simpler than having to wade through "page history". WDYT? -- snoyes 17:09, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Not all articles are the target of vandalism. It seems that most of articles are primaly written by one or a few authors and many other people copyedit it. Givning credits is always a good way to recognize hard-work. The one of wikipedia's harsness is that good works are rather not given good attention while only heated debate receives public attention. This I believe make contributors feel as if they were not valuable or their works were not welcomed. The most of cases is that one or a very few of your works are controversial but the hudernreds of rest are completely welcomed. I mean so I strongly support this idea. -- Taku 23:53, Nov 14, 2003 (UTC)
I don't think it would work out too well. There are many issues with how the authors' works will be cited/listed and in the end it will probably end up something like the history page. This might also attract more trolls and vandals, or simply people who want their name in the list and simply make unnecessary changes. I would think most of us edit on the Wikipedia because it's fun and because it's something that will be useful to others, and not for getting our names in a list. Still, no one wants their work to be credited to someone else and we like to be recognized, but that is what the history page is for (well, among other things :). Some people list their major contributions on their own pages, so that's another outlet. That's my opinion anyway.
Dori 00:02, Nov 16, 2003 (UTC)
I like credit for my work as much as the next person. But I see potential trouble in giving authorship credit for articles. The current relative anonymity minimizes the temptations for egotism to arise. If enacted, some people would be running around doing pointless edits on articles just to get their name listed. Others would be targeting authors they dislike. And all of us would become involved in endless disputes of whether or not someone had contributed enough to get a credit. MK 01:36 (EST) 16 November 2003
Umm, actually I don't think troubles pointed out above would materialize. Simply listing primary authors is not a big deal. You can think it is very similar to a THANKS file in open source programs. I don't see why the same trivial thing in open source doesn't work with wikipedia. You don't have to worry about that people started to make a trivial edit to have their name listed. We probably appoint someone who maintains such a list of contributors. There would be no debate who should be given credit or not. I mean have you ever seen a heated debate regarding a THANKS file? You may claim that the maintainer is not fair enough, then you don't have to stick to him. Go to other places. -- Taku 19:14, Nov 16, 2003 (UTC)
I am not sure that i am in the right place, but I used the word "shyster" and i was referred to "List of ethnic slurs-Wikipedia." ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_slurs. I am not sure how wikipedia works, but i believe the intended word was "shylock." I have checked several dictionaries and none of them list "shyster" as an etnic slur. If anyone can clarify this, please e-mail me at sealadaigh@aol.com.
It isn't an ethnic slur, it's just a slur. I'm pretty sure you found http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=shyster ; that's the normal usage. DJ Clayworth 17:22, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)
It's a slur. Sheister - Jews - Like a shyster lawyer. One who carries on any business, especially legal business, in a mean and dishonest way. [2] reddi
Not according to my dictionary
Main Entry: shy·ster Pronunciation: 'shIs-t&r Function: noun Etymology: probably from German Scheisser, literally, defecator Date: 1844 : one who is professionally unscrupulous especially in the practice of law or politics
-- Maximus Rex 18:14, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)
So in the end, has anyone managed to find any document (even a good secondary one like a respectable dictionary) that supports a derivation of the term as an ethnic slur? Or, for that matter, good documentation of a shift into an ethnic slur? If not, the feeling that it might be an ethnic slur should go in the same class as the supposed association of "handicapped" with begging and (believe it or not) "picnic" as a reference to lynching. Both of these are patently recent inventions; is shyster any different?
Dandrake 08:18, Nov 16, 2003 (UTC)
I've noticed sometimes a page diff will have unnecessarily narrow columns (about 1/4 page wide), while other times the columns are too wide (about 2/3 of the page each, forcing one to scroll). Why does it vary? Is there anything I can do about it?
Tualha 16:14, Nov 14, 2003 (UTC)
The Nov 14, 2003 (Tualha) "last" diff for
Scheme programming language illustrates some other problems with the diff generator. Inserting a blank line after a section header caused synchronization to fail in the "Advantages of Scheme" section. In the "Examples" section, two added lines are not shown in red. It would be nice if corresponding lines were lined up, too.
Tualha 16:28, Nov 14, 2003 (UTC)
Is there some standard page for reporting wiki code bugs, wishlist items, ideas, etc? Tualha 16:29, Nov 14, 2003 (UTC)
Is a summary based on a web page considered a copyvio? An example could be Alternative metal and http://www.bobsmusicindex.com/Alternative-Metal.html . TopCamel 13:41, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)
wikipedia talk:image use policy/copyright
When searching for public domain images, I often find the note: "All images on this page are believed to be public domain." Would you consider such a note as sufficient to include the images in Wikipedia, or should I regard the word "believed" as a warning not to touch these images? Example: [3]. -- Baldhur 08:17, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Whatever you decide to do, say what you did on the wikipedia:image description page. Personally, I would have no real qualms about using such images, provided I made the uncertainties explicit in the image description page, unless I had some reason to doubt that they were in fact public domain. Martin 18:20, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Those will often be Fair use, particularly for the online or print Wikipedia, but you must consider them individually. It's routine for sites to have global copyright notices which don't apply and for sites to use images they don't have rights to. The Google image search is one option if you want to try to track own an image. Always worth remembering that it's preferable (strongly preferable) to use public domain or less restricted images if you can but we are trying to build an excellent encyclopedia, including one using lots of images. If you do use one of those images, please document where you got it from and why you think that it is fair use - such images are very likely to be reported as possible copyright infringements and providing good source information helps a lot. JamesDay 12:17, 17 Nov 2003 (UTC)
moved to Talk:Israeli security barrier
What is that thing at the top of Local Church about? Is it just some rant or legitimate comment? Even if it's comment, shouldn't it be in Talk? -- Menchi 05:52, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I just stumbled upon the Wikipedia:Protection log and I was wondering if there is a list of all the automatically generated logs somewhere. I am asking about this because I couldn't figure out where/if such a log exists in the other language 'pedias (specifially http://sq.wikipedia.org that I translated). I know of Wikipedia:List_of_articles_in_the_Wikipedia_namespace but it does not seem to be complete. thanks, Dori 00:17, Nov 14, 2003 (UTC)
Hi2all,
I'm quite fascinated with Wikipedia, but I thought it would be useful if there is a (easy to use) application using Wikipedia Data to have a easy offline way to search for stuff. I know there is a Palm/PDA Version for this, but I didn't find any PC form of such a program. Is there such a program in development? Is there an interset in programming such a program?? Ska1do 18:59, 13 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Am I right in thinking that you can't REDIRECT to a Header within a page? I'm sure I read this somewhere shortly after discovering Wikipedia but I can't find where I might have seen it. I'm asking because I want to know how difficult it might be to combine several pages into one, one section per, and have each of the old pages REDIRECT to the appropriate header. How mad am I? (Serious answers only please :-) Phil 17:09, Nov 13, 2003 (UTC)
Does anybody know how I can use a generic flash file on pages and load links off the page. Check out Caledon, Ontario to see the textual one, but what I wan't is to make that into a flash movie that can be placed on every page, and then place the 4+ links on each page that flash will load. This will help clean the mess of html code so people can more easily copy and past it and change the names of the north, east, west, south, and city name texts Fizscy46
Is there a policy for Flash content in Wikipedia? I personally think the articles should just contain text and images, but I've never encountered this before. If there isn't a policy, it seems like there should be one. — Frecklefoot 19:21, 13 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I didn't think it was all that difficult to fix those tables, when I made them smaller a couple of days ago (actually, that was Vancouverguy's idea, I just implemented them). You can just copy the whole thing and replace the city names, they are pretty obvious within all the HTML. I'm not sure how that would work with Flash because I don't know how Flash works in the first place, and whether or not the tables are really necessary is another story, I suppose. Adam Bishop 07:09, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I need to change my username on Wikipedia. I need to do it in a way that will change the authorship of my past contributions as well. I can't find a way to do it. Please help.
Move to Wikipedia talk:Make omissions explicit
I ran a few queries on the database about the above notes and I found a few pages (at least with todo, fixme, because there is a lot with in progress that are probably legitimate text). Most of these were not links and the pages had not been worked on for a while. I think this sort of litter is not too productive so I removed them. I don't know if it's mentioned somewhere, but there should probably be a standard way to leave notes so that it can be tracked more easily. For example including something like ''This page is still [[Wikipedia:FIXME|in progress]].'' in the article with the rest of the note inside HTML comments. Or it could be left in the talk page, but the former might be better in my opinion. Of course, some people work on temp pages and don't create the article until they're somewhat done. Opinions?
FIXME and such are common conventions in computer programming but I don't think they work well in wikipedia. First and most importantly, they are distracting. Any article in wikipedia is in progress. You can add FIXME to any article. Some article lacks the birth and death date and some article about an artistic work lacks the social significance of the work. Talk pages or embedded HTML comments are a better solution. -- Taku 21:20, Nov 18, 2003 (UTC)
Sometimes such things are very useful in resolving NPOV and other disputes and suchlike. See, for example, Open Directory Project (at the time of writing). I think a robotic removal of such things would be a mistake, but by all means go through and either fix them or change them into HTML comments or talk page notes as appropriate. Martin 23:52, 18 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Moved to Talk:Main Page
I've created a page at Wikipedia:Probably not famous people which I invite people to inspect, update and talk about. Presently I intend to move these comments to its talk page, along with any others that are added here in the meantime.
I'd prefer it wasn't used for a few days at least, until I do get some feedback about whether to do it at all, and how to do it best.
It was inspired by the discussion surrounding the Easter Bradford article(s). I don't want to enter into the discussion on this particular article, other than to say it raises some issues, see also this external link.
Whatever the status of Easter Bradford, I think the issues raised on Probably not famous people are all ones we need to address somehow.
My intention is that it should be used like the existing stub and NPOV dispute pages. People interested in helping with such problems can use the What links here facility to find affected pages.
Two advantages that I don't spell out on the page, or intend to spell out there:
Likewise, I don't describe why third parties might set up false pages. I think it's best not to. It risks encouraging them.
If this were to be really successful, who knows, we might have people voting to delete their own autobiographies, rather than see themselves listed as 'probably not famous'.
Comments? Andrewa 06:11, 20 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Well, we already have a guideline that people should not write about themselves and that Wikipedia is not to be used for advertizing. I think this is a useful guideline to be used until the 7 day period on VfD. If someone survives VfD, I would assume that the "not famous" banner could be removed 90% of the time. I'd suggest perhaps "not famous or not significant" since we have articles about a whole lot of people who are not famous, but are significant to world events, etc. Daniel Quinlan 06:23, Nov 20, 2003 (UTC)
I am particularly interested in the controversy around
Credit repair as outlined in the messages on User talk:RickK (which may soon move to Talk:Credit repair)
Talk:Credit repair. Particularly,
Can an author donate text to Wikipedia and insist that a copyright notice remain? The page given to editing users does specify the license, but not who the license holder will be. Should it be specified? silsor 01:41, Nov 21, 2003 (UTC)
Making the "Document" include the Talk page would lead to the unfortunate result of requiring anyone who prints out and distributes the article under the rules for "verbatim copying" to also print out the full talk page (and any talk page archives) and distribute it alongside the article itself. This would be bad. Making the Document include all of Wikipedia would have even worse consequences.
We do include attribution text in the article itself for a number of articles, where required under the GFDL. See, for example, the Nupedia and Wikipedia list. The attribution statement requested by Kielsky is roughly equivalent to such notices, and is not unreasonable. Martin 19:19, 21 Nov 2003 (UTC)
An attribution is not unreasonable, but it is not required and it can be removed. Isn't the system for providing attribution from outside Wikipedia is one's listing on the page history? If one is making a contribution to Wikipedia isn't the attribution in the page history? If not, is not everyone who writes something on Wikipedia entitled to add a © date and name at the end of the article? This would seem to clutter things up to a terrible degree. Should each user have the right to go back and make such an addition at the end of the article? The reality is that we are making a collaborative work. If someone dumps their work on Wikipedia from their hard disk, their published book or something else, it does not change the attribution rules. Don't we all contribute our work equally here? Does any one have greater rights than any other contributor? The only time this becomes problematic is if one moves an article from one page to the next, cutting and pasting the text will destroy the page history, and IMO this is a violation of the attribution rules and not respectful of the contributions of others (this also occurs when a page is translated from one language to another, the translator should list the five major contributors in the summary box when translating and the origin language url). Just a suggestion, not a legal opinion. — Alex756 06:38, 22 Nov 2003 (UTC)
How can i delete a previously uploaded file?
How can i delete a previously uploaded file?
What do brown links mean? Protected pages? :O -- Yacht 07:12, 23 Nov 2003 (UTC)
The Wikipedia talk:Problem users page didn't get merged in. I'm not sure how I'd do this, or even if it can be done without sysop privs. Thanks... -- Pakaran 06:14, 23 Nov 2003 (UTC)
OK, I usually sign with an updated 6,840,718 articles in Wikipedia, and growing, growing... field statement. So I always wonder how we could monitor this growth visually. Did anyone think about representing the phenomenal Wikipedian growth as 4-D knowledge landscapes, with hot spots, link density, edit wars, spikes, and all?
Tuesday, 2024-June-25, 05:53 Universal Time, 6,840,718 articles in Wikipedia, and growing, growing...
How can we see visit, reload and other usage stats for any random page?
Tuesday, 2024-June-25, 05:53 Universal Time, 6,840,718 articles in Wikipedia, and growing, growing...
Hello I am just wondering in which situation "a creeking gate hangs long" is used as proverb. Mostafa
When I move a page whose title contains an apostrophe, I get a database error message (A database query syntax error has occurred. The last attempted database query was: "SELECT wl_user FROM watchlist WHERE wl_namespace=0 AND wl_title='Salters'_Company'" from within function "". MySQL returned error "1064: You have an error in your SQL syntax. Check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near '_Company at line 2".)" The move actually takes place, so there's no problem, just a bogus error. RickK 20:42, 22 Nov 2003 (UTC)
See User_talk:SGBailey.
I guess these are swap-related problems: I reverted Wikipedia:Who, Why and it is now blank with no edit history block log is blank also Secretlondon 11:52, Nov 24, 2003 (UTC)
Do we have a guideline on editing other people's remarks in discussion pages?
I'm quite happy if somebody corrects a typo or spelling error, but a complete rework of my remarks - even when done expertly and with no sinister intent - leaves me a bit nervous if it is still tagged with my signature. Anjouli 06:18, 23 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Would you rather your signature just be removed then if there is a need to refactor the page? There is no reason to keep talk pages in their original state. This is not useful for developing the article, which is what the talk page is supposed to be for. Angela 01:45, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)
My suggested guidelines would be that even typos should not be 'corrected', remembering that Wikipedia accepts variant spellings. I'd regard it as a cultural faux pas for someone to change my quite deliberate UK English spellings to American, for example, if it were to be done in something I've signed. If it's really important, leave a message in my talk page so I can fix it. But is it? The bottom line is the articles. I'm only interested in stuff in other pages that leads to more and better articles.
A summary should use indirect speech, or remove the attribution altogether. Either is acceptable. The idea of refactoring is to improve the value of the information, often by making it more concise, using summaries or lists. We do far too little of this in talk pages currently IMO. But, if you change what has been said in any way and leave the signature intact, this is inaccurate. Andrewa 01:26, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Just a quick comment on personal attacks. As keen as we all are to prevent them, is removing them the right path? For instance a racist and unreasonable user could be made to appear a moderate if others carefully edit her/his comments. Scrub the stripes off the tiger and people may think it is a pussy cat. I think we should leave them alone, or at most put a few hashes or stars in grossly offensive text. Anjouli 06:20, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)
See User_talk:SGBailey.
I am interested in further information about the Turtle or Tortoise Constellations, particularly in pre-dynastic Egypt. Is there someone in your group working on this project? Andrew Eddy - andrew.eddy@athenaglobal.com
Is it possible that this page can be shortened? Maybe some of the older sections can be put in a separate archive? It's gotten to over sixty kilobytes, and it's taking quite long to load.
Denelson83 08:42, 25 Nov 2003 (UTC)
moved to Wikipedia_talk:Village pump
Can anyone tell me why I sometimes find myself in overtype mode when editing a page? The problem goes away if I save and then start editing again, but it's a bit annoying. Bmills 12:37, 20 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Moved to Wikipedia talk:Probably not famous people. Andrewa 02:51, 21 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I hate to sound like a politically correct multiculturalist, but I was looking at recent changes, and wondering just what a "245" might be. Of course, it's year 245, but that got me to thinking that not everybody uses the Christian calendar. So at minimum we should make it plain that it's A.D. 245, rather than B.C., a.u. (from the founding of the city of Rome), AH (since Mohammed's hegira), etc.
Which brings up the second issue, A.D. means "anno Domini", "in the year of our Lord", said Lord being Jesus Christ. A more secular, if namby-pamby, alternative is "Common Era", abbreviated "C.E." (and "before Common Era", B.C.E. for dates prior to the nativity of Jesus).
Thoughts? orthogonal 03:37, 20 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I was looking for links to a news event that occurred earlier this month and ran into a snag. Most links like this are listed by month like October 2003. There's also a page, Current Events, with links to the news events of the past week. But when I tried to go to November 2003 I was redirected to Current Events. The effect of this is that I couldn't find links for the dates between November 1-10. Are they located elsewhere? MK 20:13 (EST) 19 November 2003
The diff doesn't see changes that only involve whitespace, as in "events.After" changed to "events. After" orthogonal 19:59, 19 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I'm currently having a problem with Trimagic square article: it contains some embedded math markup that is not rendered correctly (in fact, not rendered at all) despite having no apparent errors. Can anyone help with this? Thanks. -- Schnee 19:40, 19 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I'd like to just stand on this here Village Pump Soapbox quickly: Can anyone who has got a minute to spare (and if you're editing WP, then you do ;-)) just paste some bit from any Wikipedia article into Google. Then check
Wikipedia:Sites that use Wikipedia for content to see whether the search returns any usage that is not already listed on
Wikipedia:Sites that use Wikipedia for content. Quick hint: choose a continuous block of words which seems somewhat unique and enclose it in quotes. Like so (from
Stephen King): "wealth itself: his earliest works (Carrie, The Shining,". Here are some links to improper usage of Wikipedia content that I found in doing a few such searches (Some of them not just improper, but downright criminal):
[7],
[8],
[9],
[10]
Cheers,
snoyes 08:12, 19 Nov 2003 (UTC)
See wikipedia:verbatim copying. Martin 02:39, 20 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Discussion moved to Talk:Dune (novel) -- Marshman 03:24, 19 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I have a confession to make... now and then I count how my contributions I have made to Wikipedia. I used to do this at the click of a button - I ran a Python script that grabbed my user contributions page and then counted the number of relevant lines. However I have just tried to do this and the page returned says "You don't have permission to access /w/wiki.phtml on this server"... however I can access my contributions page perfectly happily in Internet Explorer. Has there been a software change in the last couple of months that has restricted to me only being able to access via IE? Any ideas? THanks. Pete 23:41, 17 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I just noticed this feature on recent changes. Very slick, thanks to whoever implemented this. -- Merphant 13:54, 17 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Below are the last 50 changes in last 7 days. Show last 50 | 100 | 250 | 500 changes in last 1 | 3 | 7 | 14 | 30 days; minor edits Show new changes starting from 20:31, 20 Nov 2003
Are there any guidelines as to how many Google hits a topic needs to pass? I just added a page on Mary Devenport O'Neill who gets 4 hits, two on Wikipedia, but I think she is important enough to merit inclusion. By the way, she died when I was a child, I never met her, and I'm not related to her, but she played an important bit part in the history of 20th century Irish poetry, my main field of interest. Bmills 17:02, 20 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I only asked because the Google test is quoted so often on Wikipedia:Votes for deletion. As a relative newcomer, I'm still feeling my way around these things. Bmills 17:23, 20 Nov 2003 (UTC)
It's only one guideline. It is perhaps most useful (but not limited to this use) for contemporary topics and for evaluating vanity pages. Daniel Quinlan 01:42, Nov 21, 2003 (UTC)
Agreed, Andrewa. My perspective is probably skewed by the fact that I've been making contributions around writers and writing and in almost all cases with those writers' books to hand. I also try to add external links to provide as much verification as possible, but sometimes this is difficult as with Mary Devenport O'Neill. And sometimes the information on the Web is wrong, or slanted. Bmills 12:05, 21 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Hi,
I added a table to that article. It was based on another table (which I link to) but it shouldn't be a copyvio because I just copied the numbers (and to some extent the format). I could have generated my own table, or typed in the values from scratch, in a bit more time. Is my editorial comment at the bottom of the table section appropriate? I guess I have a sense of awe towards the function that's proving quite hard to get rid of, and it shows in the article.
On another note - I mentioned in the talk page that NIST has their own version of the Ackermann function - which seems incompatible with ours, and which does not appear anywhere else on the web. Are they just plain wrong?
Thanks! -- Pakaran 04:46, 25 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Update: I added a lot of content to the article, and I have been informed that there is no copyvio issue. I'd be interested in comments. -- Pakaran 06:47, 25 Nov 2003 (UTC)
The you have new message sign won't go away. Lirath Q. Pynnor
The you have new message sign won't go away. Lirath Q. Pynnor
After I first reported the problem it went away for several weeks, but tonight, it's back again. Nothing seems to work to make it go away. RickK 03:59, 25 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Could somebody look at Simon Crean and tell me why the page seems to be defective? Adam 08:09, 28 Nov 2003 (UTC)
OK it seems to be fixed now. Adam
Hmm. I don't honestly know whether to laugh or lament...
Check out this example of a good thing gone horribly wrong. I'm almost tempted to reccomend it stay as is, so we can all point it and say: "Don't do this; they will only laugh at you." -- Cimon Avaro on a pogostick 08:43, Nov 20, 2003 (UTC)
Most of the ones in "Others" have just a Christian connection to Jesus, not direct Jesus-related, e.g., A Plea for Captain John Brown, Midwest Christian Outreach, Revised Standard Version, Tomb, Torah, Veil, Thirteen, Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America, Theology, Seventh-day Adventist Church, The supernatural in monotheistic religions, and of course, there's Superman (it's actually listed there). -- Menchi 12:01, 20 Nov 2003 (UTC)
For me; what it comes down to is this: a See also listing should not be a comprehensive listing of backlinks. It just isn't useful. There are plenty enough links in the articles themselves, most of the time. -- Cimon Avaro on a pogostick 14:58, Nov 20, 2003 (UTC)
Personally, I think this article looks great. Not perfect, but in the top 5% of our articles. I hope we don't butcher it too badly (a camel is a horse designed by a committee), or waste too much time that would be far better spent in bringing the other 95% up to this standard. Andrewa 20:41, 21 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I was thinking maybe we could do that. Many people who are ficticious, like Tony Montana, Rocky Balboa, Memin, Pedro Navaja, Superman, Barbarella, etc etc are so famous that they are more famous than some real life people. Antonio Low Class *itch Martin
Can image artists sign names on their works when they agreed to let WP use their images? -- Menchi 09:39, 20 Nov 2003 (UTC)
For a month I saw an article containing a [[Category:]]-tag. Is it something implemented or something that is going to be implemented ? (I.e. as a way of categoring articles on wikipedia.) // Rogper 20:04, 20 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Hi ... How does one notify the Wikipedia editors of a spelling error? Your article about Catharine Parr Traill misspells her first name.
The definition of minor edit is "spelling corrections, formatting, and minor rearranging of text." Now look at User:Frecklefoot's revision of 18 June 2003 for the Rebecca Romijn-Stamos entry. How can THAT be a minor edit?! -- RoyV 06:25, 22 Nov 2003
I have recently acquired a sword allegedly from the Han Dynasty period. It was owned by a man named Xiangyu, who took his own life after being invoved in some type of an attempt to overthrow the Emperor Liu Bang. Any info on this character and the role he may have played in history from that era.
I should probably know this, but... What do we do when we stumble on an article which has a borderline copyvio? Meaning that some sentences are copied, others not. Is the whole article going to the copyvio page? I'm tempted. Cheers, Muriel Victoria 09:12, 23 Nov 2003 (UTC)
What do brown links mean? Protected pages? :O -- Yacht 07:12, 23 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Moved to Wikipedia talk:Remove personal attacks
How can I delete a previously uploaded file? Pradeepbansal
How can we see visit, reload and other usage stats for any random page? -- Irismeister
OK, I usually sign with an updated 6,840,718 articles in Wikipedia, and growing, growing... field statement. So I always wonder how we could monitor this growth visually. Did anyone think about representing the phenomenal Wikipedian growth as 4-D knowledge landscapes, with hot spots, link density, edit wars, spikes, and all? -- Irismeister
Who is the target audience for Wikipedia articles?
The answers to this question may resolve a dispute on the software engineering page. One author wants to remove some introduction content, because it is obvious (and it is obvious to professionals). Another wants to include the introductory content because non-software engineers (like high-school students and general public) may not know it very well. Articles could be targeted to experts, general public, or to high-school or college students writing papers on these topics. How should we balance the conflicting needs of different groups?
The SE page starts off with 3 very general and simple paragraphs that (hopefully) anyone can read. The rest of the article delves into complex detail. 204.134.9.1
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Our target audience is encyclopedia readers. Beyond that, I think Andrewa has the right approach. Martin 00:01, 23 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Please don't do it by using a bot. Bots have to be approved before they're unleashed on the Wikipedia. See Wikipedia:Bots. RickK 19:09, 22 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I'm trying to undelete Eckernförde, but I keep undeleted A. What am I doing wrong? RickK 08:26, 22 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I figured out my problem. I clicked on the link from the undelete page and it sent me to the page to undelete, and I changed the address to "Eckernförde", but I didn't GO to that page before trying to undelete. RickK 19:06, 22 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I just found out all 'films in year' are using title like 1982 in film. since i like term 'movie' more, am I allowed to create some redirect pages like 1982 in movie? -- Yacht 02:57, 22 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I just spent a little time moving The Shelter around. The article name was in use as a Twilight Zone episode. On closer examination I found that dozens of Twilight Zone episodes were listed as just their title. Many of them were just common phrases or nouns (The Mirror, The Shelter, A Game of Pool etc.)
The chances that anyone who enters 'Mirror' or 'Shelter' as a search term in Wikipedia expects to find a Twilight Zone episode is tiny. Also, my guess is that there are fifty or so shows on US television with named episodes; that means that a thousand of these articles are potentially being generated every year, ignoring foreign contributions.
It seems to me that this is not helpful to our users. Any thoughts? DJ Clayworth 18:37, 21 Nov 2003 (UTC)
If I'm convinced a page should be deleted, I can post it at VfD. But where do I post a page I just think is questionable? If I do it on that page's Talk page, will it really be seen by enough people? orthogonal 07:45, 21 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I was just adding {{NUMBEROFARTICLES}} to my user page and discovered that we'll probably break the 175000 mark [in the English version] sometime tonight. Congratulations everybody! Current count: 6,840,718. silsor 07:19, Nov 21, 2003 (UTC)
When I just loaded Wikipedia:Village Pump, seeing the post for the first time, it said exactly:
I was just adding {{NUMBEROFARTICLES}} to my user page and discovered that we'll probably break the 175000 mark [in the English version] sometime tonight. Congratulations everybody! Current count: 175001. silsor 07:19, Nov 21, 2003 (UTC) |
Κσυπ Cyp 08:42, 21 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Before we get too carried away, remember that only 60% of these articles are articles in any real sense, and that probably only a quarter of them are of a genuine encyclopaedia standard. See my Wikipedia Quality Survey for a discussion of this. Adam 12:40, 23 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Once again this raises the central question of who an encyclopaedia is for: is it for writers or readers? If it is for writers, then it does not matter if 25% or 50% or 75% of the encyclopaedia is badly written or inaccurate or about reptilian humanoids, because, hey, we are all having fun writing and editing and arguing about each others' articles. If it is for readers, on the other hand, then it does matter, because when readers consult an encyclopaedia, they expect to find accurate and well-written articles about whatever it is they want to know about. The main page of WP says: "Wikipedia is a multilingual project to create a complete and accurate free content encyclopedia." This suggests that one day the encyclopaedia will be complete, and that all its content will be accurate. I don't think the present process will ever reach either of those points. Adam 06:17, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Moved to Talk:Credit repair
Looking at The Powerpuff Girls and then as a test the three most recent UK PMs, I find the lowercase r's in the titles look funny. This isn't happening in subheads or text, even bold text. Capital r's (e.g. Ronald Reagan) are also fine. I don't know if the problem is my iMac, Netscape 7, or some other thing. Is anyone else experiencing this, and what are you using? -- Charles A. L. 16:08, Nov 20, 2003 (UTC)
I have tried now for a while but cannot get permission to use a drawing of the inner workings of the heart. The ones from Gray's Anatomy are not clear enough. An excellent one is at http://www.tmc.edu/thi/anatomy2.html . Any artists here who could produce a similar drawing? AxelBoldt 12:27, 20 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Funny. But I guess this goes to Wikipedia:Bad jokes and other deleted nonsense and replaced with a more encyclopedic text? -- seav 11:23, Nov 23, 2003 (UTC)
Can the people who are not logged in and adding inter-language links please put "de:", "fr:" etc. in their edit summaries. That would save the people who are patrolling Recent Changes for vandalism some time. Thanks, snoyes 20:14, 23 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I guess these are swap-related problems: I reverted Wikipedia:Who, Why and it is now blank with no edit history block log is blank also Secretlondon 11:52, Nov 24, 2003 (UTC)
It strikes me it would be very easy to write a bot that spammed WP with banner ads on multiple pages.
If it has not been done yet, surely it will be in the future.
Do we have a defense other than reverting? (Might be impossible to keep up with a bot.)
If not, perhaps we should think abut it now. Anjouli 14:40, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)
moved to Wikipedia_talk:Votes for deletion
moved to Wikipedia:Peer Review
See User_talk:SGBailey.
Hello all,
I'm
Aoineko from the
French Wikipedia.
I started a new project on
MetaWikipedia named Egyptopedia.
This project goal is to coordinate Egyptology projects of all Wikipedia.
If some of you are interest in, please contact me.
Thanks, Aoineko
Who exactly is this "Dev" guy at Test Wiki? He apparently possesses real sysop power like page-protection and deletion, and he seems territorial: [11] (Tim Sterling's talk page) Judging from his contri-list, he just fools around there practically everyday doing "tests/non-sense". Is this the alter ego/incarnation of some developer? It is sort of freaky when you think about it, seeing how he basically lives here for no purposes other than play like a child. And I don't mean X-File-cool-freaky. I'm curious, no insults intended (I haven't spent much time, but that's my impression). -- Menchi 10:32, 25 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I've done a Wikipedia Quality Assessment. Kokiri 18:32, 25 Nov 2003 (UTC)
How can you figure out who wrote the articles?
Why is Wikipedia's entry on Natacha Rambova filled with so many errors? I am the biographer of Natacha Rambova. Read MADAM VALENTINO: THE MANY LIVES OF NATACHA RAMBOVA (Abbeville Press 1991) if you want the truth. Michael Morris
I don't think redirect Mr. Bush to George W. Bush is a good idea... -- Yacht 02:21, Nov 29, 2003 (UTC)
Why or why not? Has anyone worked on an automated tool to do an import?
Quick reference on server status
Take a look at Special:Contributions/66.157.94.151 some seem legitimate, but some seem suspicious, but I cannot confirm as inaccurate. I reverted the Michael Jackson one which seem an outright troll. This seems to be the biggest danger to the Wikipedia. This kind of vandalism can go unnoticed, because it is not possible to tell at first sight whether something is accurate or not if it is written in a certain manner. Have you guys run across the more sophisticated vandals? Dori 17:25, Nov 20, 2003 (UTC)
I just discovered that officially my first contribution was moving Brutus to Marcus Junius Brutus in Augus 23, 2002. Neat. Problem is that i did it yesterday! Is there something wrong in the kingdom of Wikipedia? Muriel Victoria 10:51, 23 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Time traveling in wiki... Hummm. What are the philosophical repercussions? Michael was a vandal before he was born?... Current events are being posted before they actually happen? The list is endless. Muriel
How can I move my watchlist from one account to another account? -- Yacht 02:58, Nov 24, 2003 (UTC)
Thanks. BTW, how long will the User contributions be kept? can I check out one's contribution 2 years ago? -- Yacht 03:14, Nov 24, 2003 (UTC)
In Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (slogans), (Revision as of 15:26, 16 Aug 2003) The following header (h3) string (emphasis mine) :
replaces the header (h3) string (emphasis mine):
in the previous revision of (Revision as of 16:11, 7 Aug 2003)
In revision as of 15:26, 16 Aug 2003, the same nonsense string also replaces a portion of a comment by Jtdirl.
NEITHER CHANGE IS REFLECTED IN THE VISUAL DIFF.
In the revision as of 16:11, 7 Aug 2003, Jtdirl's comment seems corrupted as well but with a different replacement string (emphasis mine):
The "3iyZiyA7iMwg5rhxP0Dcc9oTnj8qD1jm1Sfv4", in both the header and Jtdirl's comment, persists (is faithfully copied) to the current revision.
orthogonal 05:55, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)
When I go into the lobster article, American lobster shows up as a red link. But when I click on it, the redirect is already in place. Same problem clicking Pakistan Air Force from Islamabad International Airport. I've tried logging out and using a different browser. - Hephaestos 10:06, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Brunswick is a redirect with no history. Why am I not able to move Brunswick, Germany there? - Sandman 10:55, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Should we list the redirect pages which redirect to non-existing page on the VfD? -- Yacht 09:15, Nov 25, 2003 (UTC)
Is this allowed? See: Karkikailash -- Yacht 09:27, Nov 25, 2003 (UTC)
Is it crucial that we keep the edit history of Wikipedia:Sandbox? Because if so, there are 6055 deleted edits under Raqs al sharqi. - Hephaestos 07:57, 26 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I am doing some editing on Good News Translation and American Bible Society. In the past, I have donated to the American Bible Society. Should I declare this fact on the talk pages for each article and/or my user page so that other Wikipedians (and general users) don't get the idea that my edits are biased because I have donated to the ABS? -- hoshie 08:22, 26 Nov 2003 (UTC)
"Accurate photographs of paintings lack expressive content and are automatically in the public domain once the painting's copyright has expired (95 years after initial publication). All other copyright notices can safely be ignored."
Public_domain_image_resources
Am I correct in reading that as meaning that any jpg, gif, etc. of a painting first produced in 1908 or earlier found on the web can be safely appropriated for use here? Or do we need to be more subtle about it? Guidelines? (This is specifically in connection with the discussion at
m:Talk:Egyptopedia. –
Hjr 17:59, 26 Nov 2003 (UTC)
OK, thanks for taking the time to answer. Definite grey area, then; I'll hold back. – Hjr 17:28, 27 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Hmmm... interesting. But it's still not entirely kosher, is it? Let's try a different tack: what's the legal position of scanning in 19th C. art from late-20th C. books (books which have the "No part of this publication may in any way be reproduced... etc., etc." blurb in the front)? Still a grey area? – Hjr 01:51, 28 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Is there a place in wikipedia where dialogs take place involving suggestions for renaming articles that already exist? Kingturtle 20:15, 26 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I just noticed that this image: Image:Closeuppineneedlessm.jpg lists only leaf as where it is presently used, but that is just the last place I placed it. It is still used at spruce and Pinophyta, perhaps elsewhere in Wikipedia. Is this a bug or justy a consequence of the wiki being spread over two servers? - Marshman 23:40, 26 Nov 2003 (UTC)
RickK recently expressed concern that WP may be liable if someone followed a herbal remedy that had been posted and got poisoned.
I went to look at the disclaimer on the main page and was surprised to find that there isn't one - unless you count GNU Free Documentation License via Wikipedia:About
Should we have one? Anjouli 08:36, 27 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I also have a potential conflict of interests I'd like advice on. I was scanning List of English language poets for red links, looking for articles I'd like to write. I found one that has been there for seven months (long before I started wiki'ing) that I'd very mucg like to write and that I think would be worth having. Problem is, the poet in question is a friend of mine. Should I go ahead or leave it for someone else to do? Bmills 09:53, 27 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Thanks. I'll think about it for a day or two and see what I can do that avoids judgements but isn't a stub. Bmills 12:09, 27 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Article now at Tom Raworth. I did not talk with him and kept it very short and factual. I may come back to it again. Thanks for all the advice, and I'd appreciate any suggestions for improvement. Bmills 09:42, 28 Nov 2003 (UTC)
deleted, see wikipedia:bug reports
Why do I occassionally see internal links that are brown and without underline? Kingturtle 23:22, 27 Nov 2003 (UTC)
When reading biographies of individuals, I find that the introduction part is chronologically organized rather than being organized by their importance. A case in point is Eduard Shevardnadze. I would normally expect people to know him as a former President of Georgia first, and then as a former foreign minister of the erstwhile Soviet Union. The article prefers to introduce him in the reverse order. Is it a convention in wikipedia to follow this methodology or is it upto the editors? Left to me, I would change the order, but I find simply too many articles like this, and I thought I would ask first.
I tried to find the answer in Wikipedia biography style guides. But, I found no specific answer. chance 06:22, Nov 28, 2003 (UTC)
The first paragraph of a biographical entry should always mention birth and death years, nationality, and brief descriptions of three or for of that person's most important accomplishments. If the person is still alive, the first sentence should say what that person is (in terms of position, occupation, etc.)
It is getting a bit frustrating seeing biographical articles that don't help the naive reader along.
The most important bits should be in the forefront. As you write, don't assume the reader knows the topic at hand. Kingturtle 19:32, 27 Nov 2003 (UTC)
How can you figure out who wrote the articles?
I added a picture to Hendrick Goltzius, but it's too large in more sense than one. Could someone please turn it into a 35,000 bytes picture? Mrdice 18:58, 2003 Dec 4 (UTC)
I'm trying to find information on the making of this drum, particularly in regard to the skins i.e., the animals they may come from, choosing the proper part of the hide, the curing of the hide, and what possible blemishes are to be avoided in deciding what part of the skin to use? Also, if an improper part IS used, what are the possible effects in sound?
Muggles brings the following response from the WP SQL server:
May be temporary, but it's been doing that for over an hour now, and everything else seems fine. Corrupt record? Anjouli 07:57, 5 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Is it possible to do a 'CVS Blame' on an article? Jahs 17:39, 6 Dec 2003 (UTC)
I happened upon Oswiecim while random-paging around, and tried to move it to the accented [[Oświęcim]]. In the process something blew up, though; the article got moved to [[OÅ›wiÄ™cim]] instead and now when I try going there to move it back Wikipedia thinks the link leads to O instead. I pasted the text of the article to Talk:Oswiecim just in case I've done something horrible and unrecoverable. Has anyone got suggestions on how I can fix this? Bryan 08:00, 28 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Update: The text I copied and pasted has been restored to Oswiecim, but the edit history is still gone so I still want to move the original article back if possible. Bryan 08:03, 28 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Though Wikipedia is a collaborative encyclopaedia, would it be appropriate for researchers in a set of overlapping fields to use it for collating fragmentary information - that is, for *constructing* knowledge rather than for *referencing* knowledge?
My example: I recently discussed setting up a collaborative Wiki for early modern historians to collate information about minor personages in Quattrocento Northern Italy. This kind of information is normally extremely fragmentary, strewn carelessly (by the winds of time) across multiple sources of varying reliability and accessibility - diaries, letters, footnotes, etc. Collaboration would help the community of early modern historians bring together these shards of knowledge into a more complete whole.
However, while this would satisfy some of Wikipedia's objectives and match its collaborative methodology, it would also implicitly contain a content mismatch (typically book references rather than URLs), while also relying on internal completeness to be useful (rather than on summaries plus links).
True, I could easily host it on one of my own (personal) mini-Wikis... but building it directly into Wikipedia would seem to be an inherently better approach. I'm really in two minds about this - what do you think?
Nick Pelling -- Nickpelling 11:55, 28 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Constructing existing knowledge, sure, Wikipedia is collaborative. Just as long as an article looks relatively presentable if someone was to come across it, it should be okay. But constructing new knowledge, probably not, you may want to check Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not. Thanks Dysprosia 12:00, 28 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Thank you all for your feedback - I held back from adding any pages for precisely the kinds of reason given. However, does anyone know of any existing larger-scale Wikis out there which try to act as a genuinely open and collaborative forum for (what one might call) the "social construction of new knowledge"? I take Phil Boswell's point that it might be a good thing to build in a cross-reference to related Wikipedia articles... though where one should begin and the other should end might be hard to judge in practice.
I suppose what I'm talking about is a kind of "Wikipository"... any suggestions? Nick Pelling -- Nickpelling 19:16, 28 Nov 2003 (UTC)~~
This query could be summarized to the FAQ page -- Tarquin 13:22, 5 Dec 2003 (UTC)
This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump. Please do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to revive any of these discussions, either start a new thread or use the talk page associated with that topic.
< Older discussions · Archives: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z, AA, AB, AC, AD, AE, AF, AG, AH, AI, AJ, AK, AL, AM, AN, AO, AP, AQ, AR, AS, AT, AU
How is the consensus of a VfD debate determined? I'm particularly curious regarding Talk:Easter Bradford/delete. orthogonal 23:17, 17 Nov 2003 (UTC)
When is a stub no longer a stub? And who can remove the stub note? See Irish literature for an example. I guess everyone but me knows the answers. Bmills 17:11, 17 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Is there some kind of guideline on what to do when, after consensus or at least a majority decision has been reached (delete it, merge it, keep it as a stub for the time being, or whatever) and a particular matter is accordingly dropped, it is revived at a later point by someone who has just discovered Wikipedia or that particular article?
I'm asking this question in the context of the re-emerging AIDS kills fags dead discussion (I don't have to worry about the correct link here, do I?), but there are others I could think of. -- KF 09:35, 17 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I just finished making some little locator maps for the country articles, and someone suggested that I could make the basic unedited world map I used available for other people. This would make it easier for people to modify anything I've made, and might even be useful for something else. As I created the maps myself, there's no problem about usage permission, and so I've put links to them on my user page. I was wondering, however, whether there was anywhere better to put them - people aren't likely to notice them where they are. Whether they'd be of any use to people, I don't know, but I thought that there's no harm in making them available (especially to facilitate correcting what I've already done). Is there somewhere I should put a mention of them? - Vardion 04:37, 17 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I am writing an article on Hackers (short stories) and I was wondering if short stories should each have their own article. There isn't much to say on a short story, but they might deserve their own article nonetheless. Opinions? Dori 17:49, Nov 16, 2003 (UTC)
I would oppose an article on each short story - it would make more sense to cover them all in the same page. Martin 19:38, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)
This fits into the one longish article/lots of shortish articles decision. My personal preference is the former. The "wiki way" is probably the latter. (cf the completely disorganised but totally absorbing wikis such as the MeatballWiki). Pete 12:28, 17 Nov 2003 (UTC)
It seems to me it's been a while since Google updated its Wikipedia index. Is that our fault (i.e., did we accidentally tell its robots to go away in one of our files), or is it their fault, or is it my psychotic delusion? -- Someone else 11:22, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I don't see this as vandalism, so I'm putting it here for want of a better place. A logged-out user changed the article substantially to indicate that immunity to AIDS is a myth - I linked it to Wikipedia:Accuracy Dispute for now, but I'm tempted to just revert. I know nothing about medicine though. -- Pakaran 05:10, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Revert it. It's only one group's opinion, nowhere near a consensus. RickK 05:50, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I've noticed that some users, like Ed Poor and Lir, always sign as something besides their actual user name - how does one set it to do that?
Wikipedia talk:How to revert a page to an earlier version says a lot about why or when to revert a page, but doesn't actually explain the mechanism.
How does one revert a page, other than by copying and pasting the text of the version desired? orthogonal 01:04, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I have a question about the current Google/Wikipedia search engine, or comment. Namely, it seems to produce very inconsistent, incomplete, or paradoxical responses to inquiries. A few examples:
This is what I find most disconcerting about the search engine. Someone will look something up, not get any results, and just assume that it is not present in the wikipedia. They won't know the little tricks about following other search results, going to more "meta-" pages (e.g. in math, going to major mathematical pages and looking around), or typing in URLs directly. This doesn't give a bad impression to newcomers, but it certainly fails to take advantage of everything that IS here. And it's a major inconvenience to people who use the wiki.
I would like to know if I am the only user that this happens to. I only bring it up in the village pump because it has been a common, persistent, recurring problem for me ever since I started (or ever since the Google/wikipedia page came up). It's not just an isolated incident with a few searches. Revolver 15 Nov 2003
I just came across MrsFalafel's Ale, Mustard and Winter Vegetable Pie. I was curious if, at about 50 characters long, it was the longest article title in Wikipedia. Turns out, I made a few that are longer (how embarassing, really):
Well, I'm curious to find out, what is the longest article title? Kingturtle 18:14, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Two long East Asian ones:
-- Menchi 01:54, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I did a database search, and the longest page title is Acetylseryl.. (a redirect to Acetylseryltyrosylserylisol...serine - and still much shorter than the actual 1185-character 'word' that the page actually is about). Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahinthara Ayuthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom Udomratchaniwet Mahasathan Amon Piman Awatan Sathit Sakkathattiya Witsanukam Prasit comes second.
More interestingly perhaps, the longest non-redirect page titles are:
Andre Engels 11:44, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I tried to create acetylseryl.. just now, but instead it recreated the Acetylseryl.. already there, in recent changes showing my edit at MN, but in the article history as M, with no earlier edits... Coincidentally, the length of the article it recreated happens to be 28-1=255 characters long. Κσυπ Cyp 12:07, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I personally don't see the point of having articles with such long names. No one will ever get the title right when they're looking for the subject and they really mess up the formatting of pages. Perhaps the length of a title should be limited (better get a flame-retardant suit on :). Dori 17:53, Nov 16, 2003 (UTC)
Moved discussion to: Logo policy talk page.
Hi, I was wondering how this works with the license.
I want to make recordings of some of the content on Wikipedia, and I want to do it legally. My intention (if possible) is to make Compact Discs containing some of the text in spoken form, together with other text I have produced personally.
It is not my intention to make money out of Wikipedia content, but I am obviously free to charge for that proportion of the CD that is made from my own personal content.
I am very happy to reference the source of the Wikipedia in the manner outlined on the license (I could obviously not hyperlink), and the proposed cost of the CDs isn't going to be a great deal more that of the raw materials.
Can anyone advise on what I should do. Many thanks.
I noticed on a recent edit to World Wide Web by Mav that his summary stated:
yet I encounter this technique of embedded links regularly, like in this short article which has seven (!) such links in the body text:
Is there any kind of concensus about this? -- Viajero 13:39, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I always delete inline links when I encounter them and move them to an External Links section. If they're kept inline, it's hard to tell that they're references to non-Wikipedia sites. Putting them in the External Links section makes that clear. RickK 19:58, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I think what Mav meant is that body text shouldn't be hyperlinked. Wikipedia will covert a link by itself to a footnote format, which is perfectly desirably as footnotes. I suppose the Wikipedia software could be enhanced one day to automatically list these links in a reference section at the bottom of the article. Samw 01:19, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)
What's up with Nupedia? Google has the text: "Unfortunately, Nupedia is unavailable due to some server problems" shown when you search for "nupedia", which means it must have beend own for a while. On Nupedia, the external link says "temporarily offline due to server troubles". According to the page history that change was made on September 26th! There is some talk on Talk:Nupedia but nothing current. I'm inclined to believe that it is truly dead. I mean how can they keep web traffic and editors if the site has been down for almost 2 months? dave 05:59, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I know it's fun editing articles about Macedonia, the Catholic and Mormon churches, and maybe tomorrow we can have some fun arguing over spelling Mother Teresa's name... but, I think it's time to resurrect Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemistry. I only spend about 10% of my time on classic sciences (originally I was a biochemistry/ cell biology major), but I know you real scientists (and I don't mean computer, I'm one of those) are out there.
To start, I've added some information about the hard-to-find Inorganic table information to the project page. Is there a similar Organic table information somewhere? If not, we need to get one created and rationalize the two tables.
Once we get that done, maybe we can prioritize a list of compounds to be fixed up, etc. Daniel Quinlan 04:56, Nov 15, 2003 (UTC)
On the Wikipedia:Perfect stub article, the first suggested guideline is to add a link to your stub from Wikipedia:Find or fix a stub. However, when you get to Wikipedia:Find or fix a stub, there is no place there to do so. Something has to be changed. But I don't know what. Kingturtle 04:46, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Perhaps it's supposed to be a link from your stub to [[Wikipedia:Find or fix a stub.? Adding the stubnote certainly does this Dysprosia 04:48, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)
The rule of three: Do not revert the same page thrice in the same day
Words to wiki by. See Wikipedia talk:How to revert a page to an earlier version. Martin 21:19, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I thought that it might be a good idea to have a special page for each articles titled "Authors" or similar. All it would do is give a simple list of users/IPs that had ever contributed to said article. Firstly it would give contributors the credit that they are due. A similar thing is already being done in "page history", but is not present anymore when an article is moved, for example. Also, the "authors" page would be much simpler than having to wade through "page history". WDYT? -- snoyes 17:09, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Not all articles are the target of vandalism. It seems that most of articles are primaly written by one or a few authors and many other people copyedit it. Givning credits is always a good way to recognize hard-work. The one of wikipedia's harsness is that good works are rather not given good attention while only heated debate receives public attention. This I believe make contributors feel as if they were not valuable or their works were not welcomed. The most of cases is that one or a very few of your works are controversial but the hudernreds of rest are completely welcomed. I mean so I strongly support this idea. -- Taku 23:53, Nov 14, 2003 (UTC)
I don't think it would work out too well. There are many issues with how the authors' works will be cited/listed and in the end it will probably end up something like the history page. This might also attract more trolls and vandals, or simply people who want their name in the list and simply make unnecessary changes. I would think most of us edit on the Wikipedia because it's fun and because it's something that will be useful to others, and not for getting our names in a list. Still, no one wants their work to be credited to someone else and we like to be recognized, but that is what the history page is for (well, among other things :). Some people list their major contributions on their own pages, so that's another outlet. That's my opinion anyway.
Dori 00:02, Nov 16, 2003 (UTC)
I like credit for my work as much as the next person. But I see potential trouble in giving authorship credit for articles. The current relative anonymity minimizes the temptations for egotism to arise. If enacted, some people would be running around doing pointless edits on articles just to get their name listed. Others would be targeting authors they dislike. And all of us would become involved in endless disputes of whether or not someone had contributed enough to get a credit. MK 01:36 (EST) 16 November 2003
Umm, actually I don't think troubles pointed out above would materialize. Simply listing primary authors is not a big deal. You can think it is very similar to a THANKS file in open source programs. I don't see why the same trivial thing in open source doesn't work with wikipedia. You don't have to worry about that people started to make a trivial edit to have their name listed. We probably appoint someone who maintains such a list of contributors. There would be no debate who should be given credit or not. I mean have you ever seen a heated debate regarding a THANKS file? You may claim that the maintainer is not fair enough, then you don't have to stick to him. Go to other places. -- Taku 19:14, Nov 16, 2003 (UTC)
I am not sure that i am in the right place, but I used the word "shyster" and i was referred to "List of ethnic slurs-Wikipedia." ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_slurs. I am not sure how wikipedia works, but i believe the intended word was "shylock." I have checked several dictionaries and none of them list "shyster" as an etnic slur. If anyone can clarify this, please e-mail me at sealadaigh@aol.com.
It isn't an ethnic slur, it's just a slur. I'm pretty sure you found http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=shyster ; that's the normal usage. DJ Clayworth 17:22, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)
It's a slur. Sheister - Jews - Like a shyster lawyer. One who carries on any business, especially legal business, in a mean and dishonest way. [2] reddi
Not according to my dictionary
Main Entry: shy·ster Pronunciation: 'shIs-t&r Function: noun Etymology: probably from German Scheisser, literally, defecator Date: 1844 : one who is professionally unscrupulous especially in the practice of law or politics
-- Maximus Rex 18:14, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)
So in the end, has anyone managed to find any document (even a good secondary one like a respectable dictionary) that supports a derivation of the term as an ethnic slur? Or, for that matter, good documentation of a shift into an ethnic slur? If not, the feeling that it might be an ethnic slur should go in the same class as the supposed association of "handicapped" with begging and (believe it or not) "picnic" as a reference to lynching. Both of these are patently recent inventions; is shyster any different?
Dandrake 08:18, Nov 16, 2003 (UTC)
I've noticed sometimes a page diff will have unnecessarily narrow columns (about 1/4 page wide), while other times the columns are too wide (about 2/3 of the page each, forcing one to scroll). Why does it vary? Is there anything I can do about it?
Tualha 16:14, Nov 14, 2003 (UTC)
The Nov 14, 2003 (Tualha) "last" diff for
Scheme programming language illustrates some other problems with the diff generator. Inserting a blank line after a section header caused synchronization to fail in the "Advantages of Scheme" section. In the "Examples" section, two added lines are not shown in red. It would be nice if corresponding lines were lined up, too.
Tualha 16:28, Nov 14, 2003 (UTC)
Is there some standard page for reporting wiki code bugs, wishlist items, ideas, etc? Tualha 16:29, Nov 14, 2003 (UTC)
Is a summary based on a web page considered a copyvio? An example could be Alternative metal and http://www.bobsmusicindex.com/Alternative-Metal.html . TopCamel 13:41, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)
wikipedia talk:image use policy/copyright
When searching for public domain images, I often find the note: "All images on this page are believed to be public domain." Would you consider such a note as sufficient to include the images in Wikipedia, or should I regard the word "believed" as a warning not to touch these images? Example: [3]. -- Baldhur 08:17, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Whatever you decide to do, say what you did on the wikipedia:image description page. Personally, I would have no real qualms about using such images, provided I made the uncertainties explicit in the image description page, unless I had some reason to doubt that they were in fact public domain. Martin 18:20, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Those will often be Fair use, particularly for the online or print Wikipedia, but you must consider them individually. It's routine for sites to have global copyright notices which don't apply and for sites to use images they don't have rights to. The Google image search is one option if you want to try to track own an image. Always worth remembering that it's preferable (strongly preferable) to use public domain or less restricted images if you can but we are trying to build an excellent encyclopedia, including one using lots of images. If you do use one of those images, please document where you got it from and why you think that it is fair use - such images are very likely to be reported as possible copyright infringements and providing good source information helps a lot. JamesDay 12:17, 17 Nov 2003 (UTC)
moved to Talk:Israeli security barrier
What is that thing at the top of Local Church about? Is it just some rant or legitimate comment? Even if it's comment, shouldn't it be in Talk? -- Menchi 05:52, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I just stumbled upon the Wikipedia:Protection log and I was wondering if there is a list of all the automatically generated logs somewhere. I am asking about this because I couldn't figure out where/if such a log exists in the other language 'pedias (specifially http://sq.wikipedia.org that I translated). I know of Wikipedia:List_of_articles_in_the_Wikipedia_namespace but it does not seem to be complete. thanks, Dori 00:17, Nov 14, 2003 (UTC)
Hi2all,
I'm quite fascinated with Wikipedia, but I thought it would be useful if there is a (easy to use) application using Wikipedia Data to have a easy offline way to search for stuff. I know there is a Palm/PDA Version for this, but I didn't find any PC form of such a program. Is there such a program in development? Is there an interset in programming such a program?? Ska1do 18:59, 13 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Am I right in thinking that you can't REDIRECT to a Header within a page? I'm sure I read this somewhere shortly after discovering Wikipedia but I can't find where I might have seen it. I'm asking because I want to know how difficult it might be to combine several pages into one, one section per, and have each of the old pages REDIRECT to the appropriate header. How mad am I? (Serious answers only please :-) Phil 17:09, Nov 13, 2003 (UTC)
Does anybody know how I can use a generic flash file on pages and load links off the page. Check out Caledon, Ontario to see the textual one, but what I wan't is to make that into a flash movie that can be placed on every page, and then place the 4+ links on each page that flash will load. This will help clean the mess of html code so people can more easily copy and past it and change the names of the north, east, west, south, and city name texts Fizscy46
Is there a policy for Flash content in Wikipedia? I personally think the articles should just contain text and images, but I've never encountered this before. If there isn't a policy, it seems like there should be one. — Frecklefoot 19:21, 13 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I didn't think it was all that difficult to fix those tables, when I made them smaller a couple of days ago (actually, that was Vancouverguy's idea, I just implemented them). You can just copy the whole thing and replace the city names, they are pretty obvious within all the HTML. I'm not sure how that would work with Flash because I don't know how Flash works in the first place, and whether or not the tables are really necessary is another story, I suppose. Adam Bishop 07:09, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I need to change my username on Wikipedia. I need to do it in a way that will change the authorship of my past contributions as well. I can't find a way to do it. Please help.
Move to Wikipedia talk:Make omissions explicit
I ran a few queries on the database about the above notes and I found a few pages (at least with todo, fixme, because there is a lot with in progress that are probably legitimate text). Most of these were not links and the pages had not been worked on for a while. I think this sort of litter is not too productive so I removed them. I don't know if it's mentioned somewhere, but there should probably be a standard way to leave notes so that it can be tracked more easily. For example including something like ''This page is still [[Wikipedia:FIXME|in progress]].'' in the article with the rest of the note inside HTML comments. Or it could be left in the talk page, but the former might be better in my opinion. Of course, some people work on temp pages and don't create the article until they're somewhat done. Opinions?
FIXME and such are common conventions in computer programming but I don't think they work well in wikipedia. First and most importantly, they are distracting. Any article in wikipedia is in progress. You can add FIXME to any article. Some article lacks the birth and death date and some article about an artistic work lacks the social significance of the work. Talk pages or embedded HTML comments are a better solution. -- Taku 21:20, Nov 18, 2003 (UTC)
Sometimes such things are very useful in resolving NPOV and other disputes and suchlike. See, for example, Open Directory Project (at the time of writing). I think a robotic removal of such things would be a mistake, but by all means go through and either fix them or change them into HTML comments or talk page notes as appropriate. Martin 23:52, 18 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Moved to Talk:Main Page
I've created a page at Wikipedia:Probably not famous people which I invite people to inspect, update and talk about. Presently I intend to move these comments to its talk page, along with any others that are added here in the meantime.
I'd prefer it wasn't used for a few days at least, until I do get some feedback about whether to do it at all, and how to do it best.
It was inspired by the discussion surrounding the Easter Bradford article(s). I don't want to enter into the discussion on this particular article, other than to say it raises some issues, see also this external link.
Whatever the status of Easter Bradford, I think the issues raised on Probably not famous people are all ones we need to address somehow.
My intention is that it should be used like the existing stub and NPOV dispute pages. People interested in helping with such problems can use the What links here facility to find affected pages.
Two advantages that I don't spell out on the page, or intend to spell out there:
Likewise, I don't describe why third parties might set up false pages. I think it's best not to. It risks encouraging them.
If this were to be really successful, who knows, we might have people voting to delete their own autobiographies, rather than see themselves listed as 'probably not famous'.
Comments? Andrewa 06:11, 20 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Well, we already have a guideline that people should not write about themselves and that Wikipedia is not to be used for advertizing. I think this is a useful guideline to be used until the 7 day period on VfD. If someone survives VfD, I would assume that the "not famous" banner could be removed 90% of the time. I'd suggest perhaps "not famous or not significant" since we have articles about a whole lot of people who are not famous, but are significant to world events, etc. Daniel Quinlan 06:23, Nov 20, 2003 (UTC)
I am particularly interested in the controversy around
Credit repair as outlined in the messages on User talk:RickK (which may soon move to Talk:Credit repair)
Talk:Credit repair. Particularly,
Can an author donate text to Wikipedia and insist that a copyright notice remain? The page given to editing users does specify the license, but not who the license holder will be. Should it be specified? silsor 01:41, Nov 21, 2003 (UTC)
Making the "Document" include the Talk page would lead to the unfortunate result of requiring anyone who prints out and distributes the article under the rules for "verbatim copying" to also print out the full talk page (and any talk page archives) and distribute it alongside the article itself. This would be bad. Making the Document include all of Wikipedia would have even worse consequences.
We do include attribution text in the article itself for a number of articles, where required under the GFDL. See, for example, the Nupedia and Wikipedia list. The attribution statement requested by Kielsky is roughly equivalent to such notices, and is not unreasonable. Martin 19:19, 21 Nov 2003 (UTC)
An attribution is not unreasonable, but it is not required and it can be removed. Isn't the system for providing attribution from outside Wikipedia is one's listing on the page history? If one is making a contribution to Wikipedia isn't the attribution in the page history? If not, is not everyone who writes something on Wikipedia entitled to add a © date and name at the end of the article? This would seem to clutter things up to a terrible degree. Should each user have the right to go back and make such an addition at the end of the article? The reality is that we are making a collaborative work. If someone dumps their work on Wikipedia from their hard disk, their published book or something else, it does not change the attribution rules. Don't we all contribute our work equally here? Does any one have greater rights than any other contributor? The only time this becomes problematic is if one moves an article from one page to the next, cutting and pasting the text will destroy the page history, and IMO this is a violation of the attribution rules and not respectful of the contributions of others (this also occurs when a page is translated from one language to another, the translator should list the five major contributors in the summary box when translating and the origin language url). Just a suggestion, not a legal opinion. — Alex756 06:38, 22 Nov 2003 (UTC)
How can i delete a previously uploaded file?
How can i delete a previously uploaded file?
What do brown links mean? Protected pages? :O -- Yacht 07:12, 23 Nov 2003 (UTC)
The Wikipedia talk:Problem users page didn't get merged in. I'm not sure how I'd do this, or even if it can be done without sysop privs. Thanks... -- Pakaran 06:14, 23 Nov 2003 (UTC)
OK, I usually sign with an updated 6,840,718 articles in Wikipedia, and growing, growing... field statement. So I always wonder how we could monitor this growth visually. Did anyone think about representing the phenomenal Wikipedian growth as 4-D knowledge landscapes, with hot spots, link density, edit wars, spikes, and all?
Tuesday, 2024-June-25, 05:53 Universal Time, 6,840,718 articles in Wikipedia, and growing, growing...
How can we see visit, reload and other usage stats for any random page?
Tuesday, 2024-June-25, 05:53 Universal Time, 6,840,718 articles in Wikipedia, and growing, growing...
Hello I am just wondering in which situation "a creeking gate hangs long" is used as proverb. Mostafa
When I move a page whose title contains an apostrophe, I get a database error message (A database query syntax error has occurred. The last attempted database query was: "SELECT wl_user FROM watchlist WHERE wl_namespace=0 AND wl_title='Salters'_Company'" from within function "". MySQL returned error "1064: You have an error in your SQL syntax. Check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near '_Company at line 2".)" The move actually takes place, so there's no problem, just a bogus error. RickK 20:42, 22 Nov 2003 (UTC)
See User_talk:SGBailey.
I guess these are swap-related problems: I reverted Wikipedia:Who, Why and it is now blank with no edit history block log is blank also Secretlondon 11:52, Nov 24, 2003 (UTC)
Do we have a guideline on editing other people's remarks in discussion pages?
I'm quite happy if somebody corrects a typo or spelling error, but a complete rework of my remarks - even when done expertly and with no sinister intent - leaves me a bit nervous if it is still tagged with my signature. Anjouli 06:18, 23 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Would you rather your signature just be removed then if there is a need to refactor the page? There is no reason to keep talk pages in their original state. This is not useful for developing the article, which is what the talk page is supposed to be for. Angela 01:45, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)
My suggested guidelines would be that even typos should not be 'corrected', remembering that Wikipedia accepts variant spellings. I'd regard it as a cultural faux pas for someone to change my quite deliberate UK English spellings to American, for example, if it were to be done in something I've signed. If it's really important, leave a message in my talk page so I can fix it. But is it? The bottom line is the articles. I'm only interested in stuff in other pages that leads to more and better articles.
A summary should use indirect speech, or remove the attribution altogether. Either is acceptable. The idea of refactoring is to improve the value of the information, often by making it more concise, using summaries or lists. We do far too little of this in talk pages currently IMO. But, if you change what has been said in any way and leave the signature intact, this is inaccurate. Andrewa 01:26, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Just a quick comment on personal attacks. As keen as we all are to prevent them, is removing them the right path? For instance a racist and unreasonable user could be made to appear a moderate if others carefully edit her/his comments. Scrub the stripes off the tiger and people may think it is a pussy cat. I think we should leave them alone, or at most put a few hashes or stars in grossly offensive text. Anjouli 06:20, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)
See User_talk:SGBailey.
I am interested in further information about the Turtle or Tortoise Constellations, particularly in pre-dynastic Egypt. Is there someone in your group working on this project? Andrew Eddy - andrew.eddy@athenaglobal.com
Is it possible that this page can be shortened? Maybe some of the older sections can be put in a separate archive? It's gotten to over sixty kilobytes, and it's taking quite long to load.
Denelson83 08:42, 25 Nov 2003 (UTC)
moved to Wikipedia_talk:Village pump
Can anyone tell me why I sometimes find myself in overtype mode when editing a page? The problem goes away if I save and then start editing again, but it's a bit annoying. Bmills 12:37, 20 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Moved to Wikipedia talk:Probably not famous people. Andrewa 02:51, 21 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I hate to sound like a politically correct multiculturalist, but I was looking at recent changes, and wondering just what a "245" might be. Of course, it's year 245, but that got me to thinking that not everybody uses the Christian calendar. So at minimum we should make it plain that it's A.D. 245, rather than B.C., a.u. (from the founding of the city of Rome), AH (since Mohammed's hegira), etc.
Which brings up the second issue, A.D. means "anno Domini", "in the year of our Lord", said Lord being Jesus Christ. A more secular, if namby-pamby, alternative is "Common Era", abbreviated "C.E." (and "before Common Era", B.C.E. for dates prior to the nativity of Jesus).
Thoughts? orthogonal 03:37, 20 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I was looking for links to a news event that occurred earlier this month and ran into a snag. Most links like this are listed by month like October 2003. There's also a page, Current Events, with links to the news events of the past week. But when I tried to go to November 2003 I was redirected to Current Events. The effect of this is that I couldn't find links for the dates between November 1-10. Are they located elsewhere? MK 20:13 (EST) 19 November 2003
The diff doesn't see changes that only involve whitespace, as in "events.After" changed to "events. After" orthogonal 19:59, 19 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I'm currently having a problem with Trimagic square article: it contains some embedded math markup that is not rendered correctly (in fact, not rendered at all) despite having no apparent errors. Can anyone help with this? Thanks. -- Schnee 19:40, 19 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I'd like to just stand on this here Village Pump Soapbox quickly: Can anyone who has got a minute to spare (and if you're editing WP, then you do ;-)) just paste some bit from any Wikipedia article into Google. Then check
Wikipedia:Sites that use Wikipedia for content to see whether the search returns any usage that is not already listed on
Wikipedia:Sites that use Wikipedia for content. Quick hint: choose a continuous block of words which seems somewhat unique and enclose it in quotes. Like so (from
Stephen King): "wealth itself: his earliest works (Carrie, The Shining,". Here are some links to improper usage of Wikipedia content that I found in doing a few such searches (Some of them not just improper, but downright criminal):
[7],
[8],
[9],
[10]
Cheers,
snoyes 08:12, 19 Nov 2003 (UTC)
See wikipedia:verbatim copying. Martin 02:39, 20 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Discussion moved to Talk:Dune (novel) -- Marshman 03:24, 19 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I have a confession to make... now and then I count how my contributions I have made to Wikipedia. I used to do this at the click of a button - I ran a Python script that grabbed my user contributions page and then counted the number of relevant lines. However I have just tried to do this and the page returned says "You don't have permission to access /w/wiki.phtml on this server"... however I can access my contributions page perfectly happily in Internet Explorer. Has there been a software change in the last couple of months that has restricted to me only being able to access via IE? Any ideas? THanks. Pete 23:41, 17 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I just noticed this feature on recent changes. Very slick, thanks to whoever implemented this. -- Merphant 13:54, 17 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Below are the last 50 changes in last 7 days. Show last 50 | 100 | 250 | 500 changes in last 1 | 3 | 7 | 14 | 30 days; minor edits Show new changes starting from 20:31, 20 Nov 2003
Are there any guidelines as to how many Google hits a topic needs to pass? I just added a page on Mary Devenport O'Neill who gets 4 hits, two on Wikipedia, but I think she is important enough to merit inclusion. By the way, she died when I was a child, I never met her, and I'm not related to her, but she played an important bit part in the history of 20th century Irish poetry, my main field of interest. Bmills 17:02, 20 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I only asked because the Google test is quoted so often on Wikipedia:Votes for deletion. As a relative newcomer, I'm still feeling my way around these things. Bmills 17:23, 20 Nov 2003 (UTC)
It's only one guideline. It is perhaps most useful (but not limited to this use) for contemporary topics and for evaluating vanity pages. Daniel Quinlan 01:42, Nov 21, 2003 (UTC)
Agreed, Andrewa. My perspective is probably skewed by the fact that I've been making contributions around writers and writing and in almost all cases with those writers' books to hand. I also try to add external links to provide as much verification as possible, but sometimes this is difficult as with Mary Devenport O'Neill. And sometimes the information on the Web is wrong, or slanted. Bmills 12:05, 21 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Hi,
I added a table to that article. It was based on another table (which I link to) but it shouldn't be a copyvio because I just copied the numbers (and to some extent the format). I could have generated my own table, or typed in the values from scratch, in a bit more time. Is my editorial comment at the bottom of the table section appropriate? I guess I have a sense of awe towards the function that's proving quite hard to get rid of, and it shows in the article.
On another note - I mentioned in the talk page that NIST has their own version of the Ackermann function - which seems incompatible with ours, and which does not appear anywhere else on the web. Are they just plain wrong?
Thanks! -- Pakaran 04:46, 25 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Update: I added a lot of content to the article, and I have been informed that there is no copyvio issue. I'd be interested in comments. -- Pakaran 06:47, 25 Nov 2003 (UTC)
The you have new message sign won't go away. Lirath Q. Pynnor
The you have new message sign won't go away. Lirath Q. Pynnor
After I first reported the problem it went away for several weeks, but tonight, it's back again. Nothing seems to work to make it go away. RickK 03:59, 25 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Could somebody look at Simon Crean and tell me why the page seems to be defective? Adam 08:09, 28 Nov 2003 (UTC)
OK it seems to be fixed now. Adam
Hmm. I don't honestly know whether to laugh or lament...
Check out this example of a good thing gone horribly wrong. I'm almost tempted to reccomend it stay as is, so we can all point it and say: "Don't do this; they will only laugh at you." -- Cimon Avaro on a pogostick 08:43, Nov 20, 2003 (UTC)
Most of the ones in "Others" have just a Christian connection to Jesus, not direct Jesus-related, e.g., A Plea for Captain John Brown, Midwest Christian Outreach, Revised Standard Version, Tomb, Torah, Veil, Thirteen, Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America, Theology, Seventh-day Adventist Church, The supernatural in monotheistic religions, and of course, there's Superman (it's actually listed there). -- Menchi 12:01, 20 Nov 2003 (UTC)
For me; what it comes down to is this: a See also listing should not be a comprehensive listing of backlinks. It just isn't useful. There are plenty enough links in the articles themselves, most of the time. -- Cimon Avaro on a pogostick 14:58, Nov 20, 2003 (UTC)
Personally, I think this article looks great. Not perfect, but in the top 5% of our articles. I hope we don't butcher it too badly (a camel is a horse designed by a committee), or waste too much time that would be far better spent in bringing the other 95% up to this standard. Andrewa 20:41, 21 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I was thinking maybe we could do that. Many people who are ficticious, like Tony Montana, Rocky Balboa, Memin, Pedro Navaja, Superman, Barbarella, etc etc are so famous that they are more famous than some real life people. Antonio Low Class *itch Martin
Can image artists sign names on their works when they agreed to let WP use their images? -- Menchi 09:39, 20 Nov 2003 (UTC)
For a month I saw an article containing a [[Category:]]-tag. Is it something implemented or something that is going to be implemented ? (I.e. as a way of categoring articles on wikipedia.) // Rogper 20:04, 20 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Hi ... How does one notify the Wikipedia editors of a spelling error? Your article about Catharine Parr Traill misspells her first name.
The definition of minor edit is "spelling corrections, formatting, and minor rearranging of text." Now look at User:Frecklefoot's revision of 18 June 2003 for the Rebecca Romijn-Stamos entry. How can THAT be a minor edit?! -- RoyV 06:25, 22 Nov 2003
I have recently acquired a sword allegedly from the Han Dynasty period. It was owned by a man named Xiangyu, who took his own life after being invoved in some type of an attempt to overthrow the Emperor Liu Bang. Any info on this character and the role he may have played in history from that era.
I should probably know this, but... What do we do when we stumble on an article which has a borderline copyvio? Meaning that some sentences are copied, others not. Is the whole article going to the copyvio page? I'm tempted. Cheers, Muriel Victoria 09:12, 23 Nov 2003 (UTC)
What do brown links mean? Protected pages? :O -- Yacht 07:12, 23 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Moved to Wikipedia talk:Remove personal attacks
How can I delete a previously uploaded file? Pradeepbansal
How can we see visit, reload and other usage stats for any random page? -- Irismeister
OK, I usually sign with an updated 6,840,718 articles in Wikipedia, and growing, growing... field statement. So I always wonder how we could monitor this growth visually. Did anyone think about representing the phenomenal Wikipedian growth as 4-D knowledge landscapes, with hot spots, link density, edit wars, spikes, and all? -- Irismeister
Who is the target audience for Wikipedia articles?
The answers to this question may resolve a dispute on the software engineering page. One author wants to remove some introduction content, because it is obvious (and it is obvious to professionals). Another wants to include the introductory content because non-software engineers (like high-school students and general public) may not know it very well. Articles could be targeted to experts, general public, or to high-school or college students writing papers on these topics. How should we balance the conflicting needs of different groups?
The SE page starts off with 3 very general and simple paragraphs that (hopefully) anyone can read. The rest of the article delves into complex detail. 204.134.9.1
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Our target audience is encyclopedia readers. Beyond that, I think Andrewa has the right approach. Martin 00:01, 23 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Please don't do it by using a bot. Bots have to be approved before they're unleashed on the Wikipedia. See Wikipedia:Bots. RickK 19:09, 22 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I'm trying to undelete Eckernförde, but I keep undeleted A. What am I doing wrong? RickK 08:26, 22 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I figured out my problem. I clicked on the link from the undelete page and it sent me to the page to undelete, and I changed the address to "Eckernförde", but I didn't GO to that page before trying to undelete. RickK 19:06, 22 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I just found out all 'films in year' are using title like 1982 in film. since i like term 'movie' more, am I allowed to create some redirect pages like 1982 in movie? -- Yacht 02:57, 22 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I just spent a little time moving The Shelter around. The article name was in use as a Twilight Zone episode. On closer examination I found that dozens of Twilight Zone episodes were listed as just their title. Many of them were just common phrases or nouns (The Mirror, The Shelter, A Game of Pool etc.)
The chances that anyone who enters 'Mirror' or 'Shelter' as a search term in Wikipedia expects to find a Twilight Zone episode is tiny. Also, my guess is that there are fifty or so shows on US television with named episodes; that means that a thousand of these articles are potentially being generated every year, ignoring foreign contributions.
It seems to me that this is not helpful to our users. Any thoughts? DJ Clayworth 18:37, 21 Nov 2003 (UTC)
If I'm convinced a page should be deleted, I can post it at VfD. But where do I post a page I just think is questionable? If I do it on that page's Talk page, will it really be seen by enough people? orthogonal 07:45, 21 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I was just adding {{NUMBEROFARTICLES}} to my user page and discovered that we'll probably break the 175000 mark [in the English version] sometime tonight. Congratulations everybody! Current count: 6,840,718. silsor 07:19, Nov 21, 2003 (UTC)
When I just loaded Wikipedia:Village Pump, seeing the post for the first time, it said exactly:
I was just adding {{NUMBEROFARTICLES}} to my user page and discovered that we'll probably break the 175000 mark [in the English version] sometime tonight. Congratulations everybody! Current count: 175001. silsor 07:19, Nov 21, 2003 (UTC) |
Κσυπ Cyp 08:42, 21 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Before we get too carried away, remember that only 60% of these articles are articles in any real sense, and that probably only a quarter of them are of a genuine encyclopaedia standard. See my Wikipedia Quality Survey for a discussion of this. Adam 12:40, 23 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Once again this raises the central question of who an encyclopaedia is for: is it for writers or readers? If it is for writers, then it does not matter if 25% or 50% or 75% of the encyclopaedia is badly written or inaccurate or about reptilian humanoids, because, hey, we are all having fun writing and editing and arguing about each others' articles. If it is for readers, on the other hand, then it does matter, because when readers consult an encyclopaedia, they expect to find accurate and well-written articles about whatever it is they want to know about. The main page of WP says: "Wikipedia is a multilingual project to create a complete and accurate free content encyclopedia." This suggests that one day the encyclopaedia will be complete, and that all its content will be accurate. I don't think the present process will ever reach either of those points. Adam 06:17, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Moved to Talk:Credit repair
Looking at The Powerpuff Girls and then as a test the three most recent UK PMs, I find the lowercase r's in the titles look funny. This isn't happening in subheads or text, even bold text. Capital r's (e.g. Ronald Reagan) are also fine. I don't know if the problem is my iMac, Netscape 7, or some other thing. Is anyone else experiencing this, and what are you using? -- Charles A. L. 16:08, Nov 20, 2003 (UTC)
I have tried now for a while but cannot get permission to use a drawing of the inner workings of the heart. The ones from Gray's Anatomy are not clear enough. An excellent one is at http://www.tmc.edu/thi/anatomy2.html . Any artists here who could produce a similar drawing? AxelBoldt 12:27, 20 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Funny. But I guess this goes to Wikipedia:Bad jokes and other deleted nonsense and replaced with a more encyclopedic text? -- seav 11:23, Nov 23, 2003 (UTC)
Can the people who are not logged in and adding inter-language links please put "de:", "fr:" etc. in their edit summaries. That would save the people who are patrolling Recent Changes for vandalism some time. Thanks, snoyes 20:14, 23 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I guess these are swap-related problems: I reverted Wikipedia:Who, Why and it is now blank with no edit history block log is blank also Secretlondon 11:52, Nov 24, 2003 (UTC)
It strikes me it would be very easy to write a bot that spammed WP with banner ads on multiple pages.
If it has not been done yet, surely it will be in the future.
Do we have a defense other than reverting? (Might be impossible to keep up with a bot.)
If not, perhaps we should think abut it now. Anjouli 14:40, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)
moved to Wikipedia_talk:Votes for deletion
moved to Wikipedia:Peer Review
See User_talk:SGBailey.
Hello all,
I'm
Aoineko from the
French Wikipedia.
I started a new project on
MetaWikipedia named Egyptopedia.
This project goal is to coordinate Egyptology projects of all Wikipedia.
If some of you are interest in, please contact me.
Thanks, Aoineko
Who exactly is this "Dev" guy at Test Wiki? He apparently possesses real sysop power like page-protection and deletion, and he seems territorial: [11] (Tim Sterling's talk page) Judging from his contri-list, he just fools around there practically everyday doing "tests/non-sense". Is this the alter ego/incarnation of some developer? It is sort of freaky when you think about it, seeing how he basically lives here for no purposes other than play like a child. And I don't mean X-File-cool-freaky. I'm curious, no insults intended (I haven't spent much time, but that's my impression). -- Menchi 10:32, 25 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I've done a Wikipedia Quality Assessment. Kokiri 18:32, 25 Nov 2003 (UTC)
How can you figure out who wrote the articles?
Why is Wikipedia's entry on Natacha Rambova filled with so many errors? I am the biographer of Natacha Rambova. Read MADAM VALENTINO: THE MANY LIVES OF NATACHA RAMBOVA (Abbeville Press 1991) if you want the truth. Michael Morris
I don't think redirect Mr. Bush to George W. Bush is a good idea... -- Yacht 02:21, Nov 29, 2003 (UTC)
Why or why not? Has anyone worked on an automated tool to do an import?
Quick reference on server status
Take a look at Special:Contributions/66.157.94.151 some seem legitimate, but some seem suspicious, but I cannot confirm as inaccurate. I reverted the Michael Jackson one which seem an outright troll. This seems to be the biggest danger to the Wikipedia. This kind of vandalism can go unnoticed, because it is not possible to tell at first sight whether something is accurate or not if it is written in a certain manner. Have you guys run across the more sophisticated vandals? Dori 17:25, Nov 20, 2003 (UTC)
I just discovered that officially my first contribution was moving Brutus to Marcus Junius Brutus in Augus 23, 2002. Neat. Problem is that i did it yesterday! Is there something wrong in the kingdom of Wikipedia? Muriel Victoria 10:51, 23 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Time traveling in wiki... Hummm. What are the philosophical repercussions? Michael was a vandal before he was born?... Current events are being posted before they actually happen? The list is endless. Muriel
How can I move my watchlist from one account to another account? -- Yacht 02:58, Nov 24, 2003 (UTC)
Thanks. BTW, how long will the User contributions be kept? can I check out one's contribution 2 years ago? -- Yacht 03:14, Nov 24, 2003 (UTC)
In Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (slogans), (Revision as of 15:26, 16 Aug 2003) The following header (h3) string (emphasis mine) :
replaces the header (h3) string (emphasis mine):
in the previous revision of (Revision as of 16:11, 7 Aug 2003)
In revision as of 15:26, 16 Aug 2003, the same nonsense string also replaces a portion of a comment by Jtdirl.
NEITHER CHANGE IS REFLECTED IN THE VISUAL DIFF.
In the revision as of 16:11, 7 Aug 2003, Jtdirl's comment seems corrupted as well but with a different replacement string (emphasis mine):
The "3iyZiyA7iMwg5rhxP0Dcc9oTnj8qD1jm1Sfv4", in both the header and Jtdirl's comment, persists (is faithfully copied) to the current revision.
orthogonal 05:55, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)
When I go into the lobster article, American lobster shows up as a red link. But when I click on it, the redirect is already in place. Same problem clicking Pakistan Air Force from Islamabad International Airport. I've tried logging out and using a different browser. - Hephaestos 10:06, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Brunswick is a redirect with no history. Why am I not able to move Brunswick, Germany there? - Sandman 10:55, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Should we list the redirect pages which redirect to non-existing page on the VfD? -- Yacht 09:15, Nov 25, 2003 (UTC)
Is this allowed? See: Karkikailash -- Yacht 09:27, Nov 25, 2003 (UTC)
Is it crucial that we keep the edit history of Wikipedia:Sandbox? Because if so, there are 6055 deleted edits under Raqs al sharqi. - Hephaestos 07:57, 26 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I am doing some editing on Good News Translation and American Bible Society. In the past, I have donated to the American Bible Society. Should I declare this fact on the talk pages for each article and/or my user page so that other Wikipedians (and general users) don't get the idea that my edits are biased because I have donated to the ABS? -- hoshie 08:22, 26 Nov 2003 (UTC)
"Accurate photographs of paintings lack expressive content and are automatically in the public domain once the painting's copyright has expired (95 years after initial publication). All other copyright notices can safely be ignored."
Public_domain_image_resources
Am I correct in reading that as meaning that any jpg, gif, etc. of a painting first produced in 1908 or earlier found on the web can be safely appropriated for use here? Or do we need to be more subtle about it? Guidelines? (This is specifically in connection with the discussion at
m:Talk:Egyptopedia. –
Hjr 17:59, 26 Nov 2003 (UTC)
OK, thanks for taking the time to answer. Definite grey area, then; I'll hold back. – Hjr 17:28, 27 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Hmmm... interesting. But it's still not entirely kosher, is it? Let's try a different tack: what's the legal position of scanning in 19th C. art from late-20th C. books (books which have the "No part of this publication may in any way be reproduced... etc., etc." blurb in the front)? Still a grey area? – Hjr 01:51, 28 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Is there a place in wikipedia where dialogs take place involving suggestions for renaming articles that already exist? Kingturtle 20:15, 26 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I just noticed that this image: Image:Closeuppineneedlessm.jpg lists only leaf as where it is presently used, but that is just the last place I placed it. It is still used at spruce and Pinophyta, perhaps elsewhere in Wikipedia. Is this a bug or justy a consequence of the wiki being spread over two servers? - Marshman 23:40, 26 Nov 2003 (UTC)
RickK recently expressed concern that WP may be liable if someone followed a herbal remedy that had been posted and got poisoned.
I went to look at the disclaimer on the main page and was surprised to find that there isn't one - unless you count GNU Free Documentation License via Wikipedia:About
Should we have one? Anjouli 08:36, 27 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I also have a potential conflict of interests I'd like advice on. I was scanning List of English language poets for red links, looking for articles I'd like to write. I found one that has been there for seven months (long before I started wiki'ing) that I'd very mucg like to write and that I think would be worth having. Problem is, the poet in question is a friend of mine. Should I go ahead or leave it for someone else to do? Bmills 09:53, 27 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Thanks. I'll think about it for a day or two and see what I can do that avoids judgements but isn't a stub. Bmills 12:09, 27 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Article now at Tom Raworth. I did not talk with him and kept it very short and factual. I may come back to it again. Thanks for all the advice, and I'd appreciate any suggestions for improvement. Bmills 09:42, 28 Nov 2003 (UTC)
deleted, see wikipedia:bug reports
Why do I occassionally see internal links that are brown and without underline? Kingturtle 23:22, 27 Nov 2003 (UTC)
When reading biographies of individuals, I find that the introduction part is chronologically organized rather than being organized by their importance. A case in point is Eduard Shevardnadze. I would normally expect people to know him as a former President of Georgia first, and then as a former foreign minister of the erstwhile Soviet Union. The article prefers to introduce him in the reverse order. Is it a convention in wikipedia to follow this methodology or is it upto the editors? Left to me, I would change the order, but I find simply too many articles like this, and I thought I would ask first.
I tried to find the answer in Wikipedia biography style guides. But, I found no specific answer. chance 06:22, Nov 28, 2003 (UTC)
The first paragraph of a biographical entry should always mention birth and death years, nationality, and brief descriptions of three or for of that person's most important accomplishments. If the person is still alive, the first sentence should say what that person is (in terms of position, occupation, etc.)
It is getting a bit frustrating seeing biographical articles that don't help the naive reader along.
The most important bits should be in the forefront. As you write, don't assume the reader knows the topic at hand. Kingturtle 19:32, 27 Nov 2003 (UTC)
How can you figure out who wrote the articles?
I added a picture to Hendrick Goltzius, but it's too large in more sense than one. Could someone please turn it into a 35,000 bytes picture? Mrdice 18:58, 2003 Dec 4 (UTC)
I'm trying to find information on the making of this drum, particularly in regard to the skins i.e., the animals they may come from, choosing the proper part of the hide, the curing of the hide, and what possible blemishes are to be avoided in deciding what part of the skin to use? Also, if an improper part IS used, what are the possible effects in sound?
Muggles brings the following response from the WP SQL server:
May be temporary, but it's been doing that for over an hour now, and everything else seems fine. Corrupt record? Anjouli 07:57, 5 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Is it possible to do a 'CVS Blame' on an article? Jahs 17:39, 6 Dec 2003 (UTC)
I happened upon Oswiecim while random-paging around, and tried to move it to the accented [[Oświęcim]]. In the process something blew up, though; the article got moved to [[OÅ›wiÄ™cim]] instead and now when I try going there to move it back Wikipedia thinks the link leads to O instead. I pasted the text of the article to Talk:Oswiecim just in case I've done something horrible and unrecoverable. Has anyone got suggestions on how I can fix this? Bryan 08:00, 28 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Update: The text I copied and pasted has been restored to Oswiecim, but the edit history is still gone so I still want to move the original article back if possible. Bryan 08:03, 28 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Though Wikipedia is a collaborative encyclopaedia, would it be appropriate for researchers in a set of overlapping fields to use it for collating fragmentary information - that is, for *constructing* knowledge rather than for *referencing* knowledge?
My example: I recently discussed setting up a collaborative Wiki for early modern historians to collate information about minor personages in Quattrocento Northern Italy. This kind of information is normally extremely fragmentary, strewn carelessly (by the winds of time) across multiple sources of varying reliability and accessibility - diaries, letters, footnotes, etc. Collaboration would help the community of early modern historians bring together these shards of knowledge into a more complete whole.
However, while this would satisfy some of Wikipedia's objectives and match its collaborative methodology, it would also implicitly contain a content mismatch (typically book references rather than URLs), while also relying on internal completeness to be useful (rather than on summaries plus links).
True, I could easily host it on one of my own (personal) mini-Wikis... but building it directly into Wikipedia would seem to be an inherently better approach. I'm really in two minds about this - what do you think?
Nick Pelling -- Nickpelling 11:55, 28 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Constructing existing knowledge, sure, Wikipedia is collaborative. Just as long as an article looks relatively presentable if someone was to come across it, it should be okay. But constructing new knowledge, probably not, you may want to check Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not. Thanks Dysprosia 12:00, 28 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Thank you all for your feedback - I held back from adding any pages for precisely the kinds of reason given. However, does anyone know of any existing larger-scale Wikis out there which try to act as a genuinely open and collaborative forum for (what one might call) the "social construction of new knowledge"? I take Phil Boswell's point that it might be a good thing to build in a cross-reference to related Wikipedia articles... though where one should begin and the other should end might be hard to judge in practice.
I suppose what I'm talking about is a kind of "Wikipository"... any suggestions? Nick Pelling -- Nickpelling 19:16, 28 Nov 2003 (UTC)~~
This query could be summarized to the FAQ page -- Tarquin 13:22, 5 Dec 2003 (UTC)