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A lot of problem articles seem to be works in progress. Someone had an idea, got started, left things just barely started or incomplete, and you can't tell whether the project is still alive.
A related problem, which I think we may see more of, are pages started as school projects (see above, and also see Nurse assistant skills, which is currently the result of my efforts to fix grammar and language in an article of this type).
In such cases, Wikipedians are reluctant to delete the articles if a) the topic is worthy and b) the content that is there is considered to be better than nothing.
Still, it seems to me that it might be useful to have messages that are variants on the stub message. One might say something like "This page is a work in progress. You can help Wikipedia by adding to it." And it also might be useful to have a message that says something like "This page does not meet Wikipedia quality standards. You can help Wikipedia by improving it." In both cases, the message should be dated and should be handled as a sort of postpone vote for deletion. If someone notices that the page with such a notice is bad and hasn't been improved in months, that would be a prima facie case for deletion.
Thoughts? Dpbsmith 13:28, 21 Jan 2004 (UTC)
migration of the apaches? --> Wikipedia:Reference Desk
There's a school project on cosmetics going on. See Mascara, Nail diseases, Manicure (existed already before), Pedicure, Eyebrows, Eyebrow makeovers, and maybe others. All are on Cleanup, the last one also on VfD. See also the page history of Manicure, where the author comments "Begining a page for a grade, do not edit"... I have the strong feeling that the other authors belong to the same class. Most of these articles are in a pretty bad shape, and anyway, others have edited some of them. I'll grant that some of these may yet become real articles, but somehow I doubt it. What to do with these? Lupo 13:00, 21 Jan 2004 (UTC)
See User:Craigbutz for a list of them. There are more than cosmetics articles. My concerns are that we correct and improve the English and they get marked on our corrections, some have been redirected (what mark to they get then?) and some are how-tos. The premise may not understand the wiki concept - people don't own articles here, they are collaborative efforts. Secretlondon 14:17, Jan 21, 2004 (UTC)
I have taken the liberty to write on his talk page and to email him. Hopefully he'll show up and can provide some reassurances and perhaps we can all gain some enlightenment. - UtherSRG 15:39, 21 Jan 2004 (UTC) ⊙
Thank you all for your interest in this experiment. Please do not about students being graded on work they didn't do. I will be looking at page histories, user contribution lists, as well as narrative response papers in assessing. I would think that wikipedians would understand that writing has value beyond the finished product, and have faith that people can be given credit for participating in collaboration.
One of the biggest frustrations of writing teachers is finding assignments to give where the writing actually matters. I work with vocational high school students who are learning a wealth of specialized knowledge worth sharing. Some of them, obviously, struggle with writing. They are the ones who need their writing to matter the most, or they won't take it seriously.
I do now see a number of aspects of the assignment that should be reworked, which I could not have foreseen without letting students giving it a shot. I opted not to have them work up drafts in MS-Word because it would have been a nightmare to explain why formatting doesn't tranfer. Even with a demo and basic guide, many are confused by the mark-up.
In the future, I may have to save this project for more proficient writers. I do like the idea of temporary pages. Is there a protocol for doing that? Would it work to create links to obscurely named articles, then change the titles to their real names when completed? Other ideas? - Craigbutz 00:33, 22 Jan 2004 (UTC)
How about letting the google search be directly from the main page? Instead of the frustration of entering a search and then having to accept a google search (which b.t.w. gives completely acceptable answers) -- anon
I've always wistfully looked to the day when Wikipedia would be able to take established encyclopedias head-on. Just now, I looked up Encarta, and found that their biggest edition has less than 70,000 articles! In two years, we've created more than 2 and a half times the number of articles in Microsoft's encyclopedia. Well done, Wikipedians! -- Lunkwill
Who said "I am going to Heaven because I have seen Hell" while fighting a war and in which war.
Can anyone spot what I've done incorrectly on the John Hanson (disambiguation) page. The links to minor Hansons show up as missing articles. When I click on one (e.g. the John Hanson (musician) ) the pedia gives back an edit page with the existing article. The reverse seems OK, in that the [[John Hanson (musician)]] list of what links here shows the disabiguation page. I've built several of these disambig pages but never encountered this problem before. Thanks, Lou I 18:27, 21 Jan 2004 (UTC)
p.s. I previously posted this on Wikipedia talk:Arbitrators, and I am also posting it on Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines, and maybe the mailing list. Jack 02:28, 23 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Obviously i'm confused, bcz i'm convinced i've found some sort of anamoly in the system. I believe the only action i took was using "Move this page" to reverse what i thot (and would still think, but for the inexplicable situation i now see) was another editor's "Move this page" action.
In a line, neither List of people by name: Mas-Maz nor List of people by name: Mas now includes the history
Yesterday there was an "article", List of people by name: Mas-Maz or Mas-Maz (hereinafter, "the original"; not a conventional article, but a page in the article name-space that was (and i think again is; this note is more urgent than checking) a leaf in the tree whose root is List of people by name). The following extract from about 16:33, 2004 Jan 21 reflects an effort by another editor to turn that leaf into 4 new leaves, to replace the original (i.e. collectively list the people who were listed in the original), each new leaf having the same ancestor as the original:
My judgement was that
(I think i like the other editor's concept, but it needs to be checked, repaired, and evaluated, at leisure, rather than as done, on the copy that is in use.)
I am mystified by the two earliest entries, which appear to me to imply the need for a deletion of List of people by name: Mas if the two entries above them really reflect (a single?) "Move this page" action.
I am more mystified by the fact that my "Move this page" of Mas (back) to Mas-Maz, which i understand to have succeeded bcz of Mas-Maz being a history-less link, lacks any history but the other editor's move. (Yes, i understand why it doesn't reflect both moves, tho i heartily disapprove of that design decision.)
(While not definitive, this helps bolster my illusion of having a dim grasp of what's going on: related stuff that's obviously a place to look.)
I am loath to do anything toward rehabilitation of the data structure and names without resolving the history problem, tho of course users will before too long track mud all over it anyway.
Help!
TIA -- Jerzy 20:08, 2004 Jan 21 (UTC) I said (emphasis added), just above the tabular extract above
But i shouldn't have needed to check: my plan after my "move this page" was to revert to my own last edit, which would have hidden the main (and probably all) links thru the tree to the new leaves; if the history had been intact as i expected, i'd have had the old version to revert to, and i forgot that having nothing to revert to was what led to this appeal. [shrug] -- Jerzy 20:37, 2004 Jan 21 (UTC)
How should we be marking births and deaths on the anniversary pages? (eg January 21) people born on this day who are now dead have their year of death marks as († YYYY), (+ YYYY) or (d. YYYY) (each page seems to be different). For people who have died on this day, births are often not marked, or they use the convention (* YYYY), (+ YYYY), (b. YYYY) or (YYYY - YYYY). I had been changing all the death symbols to the dagger (†) as I thought it was a good symbol of death (stab, stab) and * for births, but another user pointed out that both † and + could be seen as Christian symbols and there was a policy to avoid them. I can't find any policy on this in the manual of style. Fabiform 20:21, 21 Jan 2004 (UTC)
The issue at hand is on pages like January 21 (as indicated) where there is a ==Births== section. In that section, if the person born then has since passed on, it's common to list the year of their death. In what manner should this indication be given. Of the above options, (d. YYYY) is my preference. - UtherSRG 20:55, 21 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Today we have this entry for example- Births
Changing this to (d. 1789) is one thing, but this would look odd IMO-
Fabiform 20:58, 21 Jan 2004 (UTC)
moved to Wikipedia talk:Policies and guidelines Jack 04:35, 23 Jan 2004 (UTC)
The English Wikipedia seems to be the only one still up. Does anybody know what is going on? Andres 06:45, 24 Jan 2004 (UTC)
I've found a beautiful photo online that would be perfect for an article I've been working on while wikipedia's been down. Is there a standard letter I could adapt when I email to ask the copyright holder if they would be willing to release a smaller version of the picture under the GNU License? Cheers, Fabiform 19:07, 24 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Thanks for the offer. Yes, it does seem like merely knowing your subject and being able to write about it isn't quite good enough around here, but I don't want to cause trouble with my edits.
Why? They say the same thing, only the way I said it is far more clear. Merging will merely produce confusion.
There are *not* several versions of Lucy tuning. If there were, I would have said so. What does exist are numerous versions of meantone tuning, of which this is one.
There's a thought--move it to the talk page, and explain the problem you find with it. Should this be done with matter (and it is out there) which is plainly erroneous?
If you know something about the subject, you should know enough about it to be able to increase the length of the article rather than decrease it.
I could. I didn't know the idea was to pad articles as much as possible.
Instead of removing some content now with the intention of adding more later, just delay deleting until you have time to add.
WHere did you get the idea I removed content?
Consider it a courtesy to our weird culture. If you must delete content, you should mention it in the talk page and in the edit summary.
What "content" did I remove, pray tell?
The changes to the article did add information, but also removed information which this user thought was unnecessary.
I removed misinformation, and explained what the tuning is in a way which seems to me clearer. I also added the single most important piece of information about the topic, which must be included in any article if it is to make sense, namely, that it is a meantone tuning. What actual information is now gone?
I tested the waters in my first attempt at editing a Wikipedia article by choosing something I thought would be uncontroversial--Lucy tuning. But immediately, it seems, someone changed it back, and then someone else reversed the descision. Is this common? What in the world is going on here?
Please don't do any merging unless you understand the topic. I'm a professional mathematician and an expert on musical tuning theory, so some degree of presumption of innocence may be appropriate, and to me at least (and I've mentioned this to the tuning list, where the tuning mavens gather, and it has met with approval there) it seems this article, while not on a topic of much significance, has been greatly improved by my edit. I'm afraid I've done some more work, and even added an article; but after all I think the point is to improve the Wikipedia. On the tuning list, it was suggested I take a hard line and tell people please do not change things back unless you first come there, where the experts forgather, and discuss why; but I'm afraid I am just finding out how the system works. But there is a place to find what the expert consensus is on matter related to tuning theory.
Actually, it doesn't say that--it says don't delete useful text. I don't think I did that, but I'm afraid I did some deleting elsewhere. Is the intention to leave the pages bloated and soggy with side issues best addessed in separate articles which already exist?
Thanks. Nothing was suggested about registering a user name. Is it considered acceptable simply to register my own name?
I thought the point was that someone who did know about the subject--in this case, that would be me--could remove factual errors add/or add important information. Does everything need to be justified in detail? Who is going to check it? What does one do about bad writing? If I think an article needs major surgery (and I'm afraid some clearly do) should I put the matter to the talk board for that article, and if I do, will anyone read and reply?
I could give a summary, but I am wondering if more is implicitly being asked here.
Gene Ward Smith
Hello Wikipedia: Do you have any listing for Anthony Kennedy Shriver, Founder & Chairman of Best Buddies International (www.bestbuddies.org), son of Sargent and Eunice Kennedy Shriver? Best Buddies International is a prominent internatonal nonprofit organization that establishes one-to-one friendships between student volunteers and persons with intellectual disabilities.
Did the tallest candidate always win the presidential race? Can you e-mail a list and the match-ups in order of year. I am usding this information for a college class.
thank you ray ruddles UTHRILLME007@YAHOO.COM
Sir, I want to know whether there is any difference between Dynamo and a generator. I learned that dynamo can be termed for both ac and dc generators, then can we call analternator also a dynamo.
In Tamil Wikipedia, the normal wikipedia formats ([[image:file.jpg]] or
) to include images seems not working. Could anyone Help in this. See
http://ta.wikipedia.org/wiki/தà¯à®ªà®¾à®¯à¯ I just included the URL there.
213.42.2.14 19:08, 27 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Are you cancelling this program? If not, can you tell me why you had no programs for 1 1/2 months, then come back with one new program, and now on 1/25 you put on a rerun, and today when I checked the internet, you post no programming for the show for at least 2 weeks. What is going on? Why so sporatic, broken up? What happened to a new program every week? Lesson 101, how to frustrate the general public, do what you're doing. It's not worth watching if you don't produce something weekly. I suppose you know that, so are you trying to sabotage your own program? I have to say, I like it when you show the program, but man, this is really frustrating and not worth my time. I can't imagine I'm the only one that feels that way.
While updating the Interstate 15 article, I came across an interesting situation. The article contains a link to Inland Empire and Inland Empire (California). Both articles contain information about the region near Los Angeles, California, but I don't know enough about the area to merge the articles myself. Also, there's the question of which would be the most appropriate title -- with or without the state name. Is the "Inland Empire" near Portland, Oregon sufficiently well-known to warrant its own entry? If not, I'd think the simpler Inland Empire would be the best place for the article.
I'm not planning to make this change myself, as my hands are full with the List of United States Highways. I'm hoping a Californian will jump into the breach! -- Robertb-dc 23:09, 22 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Hi. Many of you probably know about the Tipping Point idea popularized by Malcolm Gladwell, and if you don't, you should--it rocks. Anyway, I was wondering, does anybody have any predictions about when Wikipedia will tip? Or if it already has? I posit that the tipping and the 2,000,000 articles (English? all languages? I dunno) will happen at about the same time. jengod 00:28, Jan 23, 2004 (UTC)
Gladwell's Tipping Point is (IIRC) at the number 150 -- "the maximum number of individuals with whom anyone can have a genuinely social relationship". Some related stats: [4]. I'm not sure how well Gladwell's work is applicable to Wikipedia, where there are highly varied levels of participation. Martin 01:34, 25 Jan 2004 (UTC)
I'm not sure if this is the right place to report it, but I couldn't find anywhere else. Doesn't seem like a bug that's relevant to sourceforge, more of a server issue. Anyway, I was trying to find the wikimedia homepage, and I typed http://www.wikimedia.org/ into the address bar. I got the following response:
As you can see, the link mentioned points right back to the error page itself! A bit of a search turned up www.wikimediafoundation.org as the correct one to use. Can the link be fixed please? HappyDog 02:00, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Fixed, thanks for the notice. -- Brion 07:15, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Related pages: Mailing lists - IRC - IM a Wikipedian - Talk pages - Wikipedia talk:Software updates - Village pump archive
Welcome, newcomers and baffled oldtimers! This is where Wikipedians raise and try to answer Wikipedia-related questions and concerns regarding technical issues, policies, and operation in our community. However:
To facilitate ease of browsing and replying, please:
See also: Wikipedia:FAQ, Wikipedia:Help, Wikipedia:Please do not bite the newcomers
For old discussion, see:
archive
I'm kinda new here but I have an idea. An author could write an article on a subject such as Computational complexity theory that could take an hour to read. Some people might want an article that long. Some people would rather spend 10 minutes reading the article, others might want to spend 5 minutes and some would only want to spend less than two minutes. I propose we create a system where articles would have different versions with different lengths. One could choose what version they want based on their needs, and we could even have a setting in the prefrences page where users choose what their default size would be. I realize that this might cause problems with minor edits (applying them to each version), and such, but I think we should give it a try. We could only use this system on articles that might need it. I think we might have 2 or 3 versions at most for each article. Tell me what you think. Thanks, and happy editing!. Sennheiser
How do you think about adding an abstract on some articles? Optim 01:14, 22 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Attention clean-up crew: This thread should be moved to Wikipedia talk:News style. -- mav 12:51, 24 Jan 2004 (UTC)
If I have a scanned film picture that I give to wikipedia, what have I given to free domain then?
Same for a digital picture. I give a cropped and resized version, do I still have copyright of the original or not?
Stefan 02:49, Jan 22, 2004 (UTC)
I notice that in the most recent clearing of this page, the discussion of the proposed Javascript edit toolbar has been archived. Am I alone in feeling that this discussion was very much still 'alive', and should therefore be carried on somewhere else if there is no room here? If I am, feel free to remove this comment. - IMSoP 15:19, 22 Jan 2004 (UTC)
thank you wiki.. i love you! ce.
Help I cant see international fonts? --> Wikipedia:Reference Desk
The featured article on the V1 flying bomb is great, but I was a little miffed to see no copyright or source details in the image description page of the photo. IMO this is a real slap in the face for those of us who are putting a lot of work into providing properly GPL-ed images for Wikipedia.
I think the featured articles should be examples of what we want, and I don't think this one currently qualifies on these grounds. Sorry! Andrewa 00:02, 22 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Cf Wikipedia:possible copyright infringements. Best thing, I find, is to talk to the uploader - most are happy to add the info. If not... well then it's trickier. Martin 01:38, 25 Jan 2004 (UTC)
I received a request to permit access to my computer while on Wikipedia. As I did not know it I refused the request -- it was from "mega something.." and sheer habit made me deny acess automatically and miss the full bit -- is it your computer?
thank you
Ray Stirling
Can I create one? I'm linking it to Japanese_language
No one's answered... I guess I will. If I'm not allowed to, tell me asap by User_talk:KevinJr42.
I don't understand what you mean. Do you mean within the Wikipedia namespace? RickK 03:01, 23 Jan 2004 (UTC)
How do you comment on other people's suff or leave them a message on their page? I would really like to be able to do this but can't figure it out. Katie Salyer User # 4.8.161.217
Has Web-Dictionary.org been added to Wikipedia:Sites that use Wikipedia for content, or is it one of the few "undiscovered" ones? It seems to be trying to be compliant, except that its GNU FDL link is broken... If it's not listed, can someone add it for me? At 72Kb, that page is a bit of a pain to edit. -- Minesweeper 08:55, 23 Jan 2004 (UTC)
What is wrong with my Watchlist? It looks like this:
My watchlist (for user "Adam Carr")
<wlsaved>
24 Jan 2004
Adam 14:05, 24 Jan 2004 (UTC)
yes there is a saved version of the watchlist, but it doesn't update. Adam 14:52, 24 Jan 2004 (UTC)
I wasn't sure where to place this comment. Regardless, I would like to immensely thank you for allowing internet users like myself to access this wealth of information for free. One simply doesn't know the scarcity of free educational information anywhere anymore. Furthermore, your content is tacit, to-the-point, and readily understandable. I, and many others, greatly appreciate your hard work in making "wikipedia."
The Wilfredo G. Santa article is currently flagged as listed on Wikipedia:Inclusion dispute but not actually listed. It has previously been listed on VfD.
In view of the latest comment on Talk:Wilfredo G. Santa by Ruiz, I've little doubt myself that the article should be deleted. But I'm not sure how, or whether, to proceed.
Can I have some advice from older, wiser hands? Andrewa 16:08, 24 Jan 2004 (UTC)
I think consensus has developed on Talk:Wilfredo G. Santa to delete the article. Another sysop should proceed with deletion and keep the talk page archived for future reference. -- Jia ng 00:23, 26 Jan 2004 (UTC)
How does one create an "other languages" link at the bottom of an article? In other words if I translate an article I've written?
I just wanted to wish everyone a happy Magnus Manske Day (January 25).
Just how obscure does a topic have to become before it's deemed unworthy of being written up on Wikipedia? I mean, obviously no one needs an article on my cat, but what about things like small schools, small towns, obscure books, songs, and things of that nature? Exploding Boy 14:01, Jan 25, 2004 (UTC)
Is it absolutely necessary to disable "What links here"? This effectively puts a moratorium on all deletions and moves. Is it only off during peak hours; I think it's been off all day now. -- Jia ng 06:09, 26 Jan 2004 (UTC)
The following pages need to be orphaned once the function is enabled:
Is there a place for good jokes? I like, from samovar, "this compares with the Japanese tea ceremony, but only superficially." Unless I wrote it, in which case never mind. -- Charles A. L. 22:08, Jan 26, 2004 (UTC)
you are probably annoyed to have to read this because I'm sure they're are many people who need help, but, well, that's really too bad. I just want to say that this site is awesome. I've been in a class for a quarter now and hardly learned anything. This site taught me what I needed to know for my final project. Without this I would be in trouble. With this site I am leaving my class with an A (hopefully) and with KNOWLEDGE! Thanks everybody!!!!
Is it possible when adding a link to an external site to make it open in a new browser box instead of having to completely leave the wikipedia site?
Steve nova
Web pages are not supposed to dictate how the user navigates - just provide the links and let the user and their agent worry about how pages are displayed and navigated. CGS 20:25, 27 Jan 2004 (UTC).
In Tamil Wikipedia, the normal wikipedia formats to include images seems not working. Could anyone Help in this. See http://ta.wikipedia.org/wiki/துபாய் I just included the URL there. Mayooranathan 19:22, 27 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Hello sir
this is RAM MOHAN RAO ADDURI from INDIA. i want to do a MSC in an international university. i also took the TOEFL EXAM through CBT TEST. in that i got 190 score. I am a MECHANICAL ENGINEERING student so please send me all the details.
I have a condition if it is proved fermat's last theorem will disprove.
contact me at vaka@kerala.cc
I'm posting this here since I can't post to the board itself.
Is anyone else having a problem where they can't post or reply to the Wikimedia bulletin board???
It seems that the two buttons under the text box where you would type your message (which, as I recall, said PREVIEW and SUBMIT) are blank and small and don't seem to do anything except hang the website OR to return you to the posting page with a new blank text box.
Any chance this is a MyDoom issue?
I'm registered on the English site but also would like to edit pages in another language (Hungarian). To get the benefits of registration, do I need to register separately?
(Yes, yes, RTFM but found no answer anywhere...)
-- jtg 10:24, Jan 29, 2004 (UTC)
Didn't the introductory text in the sandbox used to be protected, or is my memory playing up? By the way, I just tried out the new thumbnail feature on Stirling, what a great tool. I no longer need to upload a seperate thumbnail for each large image I have, and the automatic captioning thing works wonderfully. Fabiform 06:04, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)
I am looking for somebody who was on the ski rescue team for the 1960 Winter Olympics. Does anybody know where I can hopefully contact somebody from this team.
Thanks so much
Hello. I am a Canadian who will soon be living and teaching in Gwangju for a year. I was wondering if there are any English-speaking Christian churches in Gwangju that I could attend. Is there any way for me to find out? Any help would be appreciated. If you know of any info, please email me at chiquita2pam@yahoo.com
Thanks.
i have already finished my whole manga but where can i go to publish or edit it?
I am writing a paper about Sweden's Deaf school and would like to know what kind of budget and/or resources are devoted to their education? Any input would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you,
Ginger
Moved to User talk:Gene Ward Smith
Moved to meta:Tipping Point in hopes of refactoring into an interesting page. -- Brion 07:33, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)
moved to Talk:Inland Empire (California)
Can someone else confirm that there's a problem with the images that I recently uploaded? They were working fine previously, but now they seem to be semi-missing. Examples include images on CDROM, LPDA, and telephone. -- Dante Alighieri 21:50, 28 Jan 2004 (UTC)
I can see the CD but cannot see the Belinda Stronach image. Sennheiser 22:44, 28 Jan 2004 (UTC)
The images from MER-B seem to be missing from the server. Sennheiser 22:47, 28 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Uploaded images from en are current on ursula up through January 24, but newer updates are still on pliny and can't be copied off due to the disk errors. If we can't coax it into cooperating remotely, Jason should be able to reset things when he goes in on Friday and copy them off then. Brion Vibber.
I Know! I've written to Angela about this and she didn't understand, so I'm asking that anyone who has the expertise switch the Database from a PC based Server to a Power Macintosh G5 Based server (I've read the MySQL article!) ask permission to do so and to send a message to everyone about the switch. thataway, you'll get the following advantages:
1. No need for a firewall
2. UNIX based strength in the OS
3. Can be left on with no damage
4. No more connectivity issues
5. Gigabit Ethernet
and the best feature of all:
6. No Viruses!
What do you think? Jack Zhang 12:12 Jan 28 2004 (UTC)
Is there any way I can link to an image on the German 'pedia?
I want to include http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bild:Suetterlin.png in Sütterlin, but I can't figure out how to do it. [[de:Bild:Suetterlin.png]] or [[Image:de:Suetterlin.png]] and related tricks won't work. Jo r 17:14, 28 Jan 2004 (UTC)
When was it decided to have article titles like Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson instead of what he is usually known as? This sseems to go against the established guidelines I know of -- Tarquin 14:47, 28 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Hi, We are a new Independent Record Label and wonder if we can be added to your list of indie labels? If so here are our details:
IRL: ShanelsWorldRecords http://www.shanelsworld.com 'We are a new independent Record Label specialising in commercial hip-hop and urabn music'. CONTACT: info@shanelsworld.com
Thanks for your time whether or not you could submit it.
SWR
I failed to find any instructions about putting materials to wikisources. Any advice? Mikkalai 23:08, 27 Jan 2004 (UTC)
There is a list of articles in need of formatting, wikilinking, and other forms of editing at Wikipedia:Cleanup#leftovers. If you have more, please add them to the top of the Wikipedia:Cleanup page. Onebyone 23:06, 27 Jan 2004 (UTC)
I'd like to start an article on cloudy, the photoionisation modeling code that is used in many, many physics simulations - see [7] for more. I've been trying to find where to create the link - any ideas - so far the only idea is Model, but there must be something better. Tompagenet 17:26, 27 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Does it bother anyone that when you follow the link YahooNews:Wikipedia on the main page, the #1 item is: " The Eight Biggest Tech Flops Ever"? :) - Fennec 02:54, 27 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Eeek! It sounds like we've been bombed. That's a known weakness with Yahoo's algorithm. Andrewa 05:53, 27 Jan 2004 (UTC)
What does one do if an edit war seems to be developing? I added comments to the talk page for Lucy tuning, but people reverted to a crackpot form of that article anyway without doing me the courtesy of explaining why. I wrote this there:
I've restored the non-crackpot version again, and moved the kook version to Wikinfo, which does not believe in NPOV. If you don't believe that is a kook version, you should either discuss that here or go to tuning@groups.yahoo.com and present your case to the experts.
This seems to me to be the least someone might do who thinks they know better--stand up and be counted, and have the courage to take the matter up with the experts. - Posted by User:Gene Ward Smith 02:34, 27 Jan 2004 (UTC) (sig added by Anthropos 14:10, 27 Jan 2004 (UTC)
In my opinion someone editing a page on his own at least very controversial theories, which is what I think is happening, is a total violation of NPOV and an utter abandonment of any intellectual standards or notion of peer review.
Standing up for what you believe is right is only to be admired, especially if you can provide rational reasoning and/or documentation for why you are right.
I wrote something in the talk page, which Mr. LucyTuning did not do. I presented a case, he has indulged in what amounts to vandalism. I proposed we take the matter up with the experts, and told where they can be found. What, exactly, do you want out of me--the intellectual timidity born of ignorance?
But, in my opinion, using descriptions such as "crackpot" is nothing to be admired. - Anthropos 06:27, 27 Jan 2004 (UTC)
You are not required to admire my language. However, I am not required to admire the abandonment of any standard of rationality. Is allowing the Wikipedia to become a dumping ground for crank theories really what people want? If so, I have no interest in the project. However, that is not what we are told is the case. Are there going to be some standards of evidence and reason here, or not? Are people going to be allowed to toot their own horn and promote their own goofy ideas, not accepted by their peers, or should that sort of thing be the provence of Wikinfo? In other words, people, are you serious? - Posted by User:Gene Ward Smith 08:32, 27 Jan 2004 (UTC) (sig added by Anthropos 14:10, 27 Jan 2004 (UTC))
Gene Ward Smith 20:10, 27 Jan 2004 (UTC)
This Yahoo News story links to us - someone want to put it where it belongs? - 戴眩sv
Is there a standard page where the current state of the Test Wikipedia is kept up to date? Since the database was wiped, all the instructions for the new experimental rendering features (chess, music and sundry other stuff) seem to have vanished. Also helpful would be documentation for the editing toolbar. I have tried searching but all I can find is the Wikipedia:Sites using MediaWiki page which really says almost nothing. -- Phil 12:07, Jan 26, 2004 (UTC)
I've seen multiple references to Éire where it would seem that linking to Republic of Ireland would be the significantly better option (IMHO as a dumb American). See The Simpsons#TV Channels that air The Simpsons, for instance. I was just wondering if I'm lacking some insight that makes Éire the better choice than Republic of Ireland. Is this some nationalistic thing? Oh well, not a whole lot that can be mucked with at the moment anyway since What links here is currently disabled anyway. — Mulad 08:04, 26 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Could someone sort out Franz Cardinal König? Some idiot insists on putting "Cardinal" in the title. Now the two articles each redirect to the other. Adam 16:33, 25 Jan 2004 (UTC)
<KF> 17:03, 25 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Check Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(names_and_titles)#Clerical_names -- User:Docu
See my note (with apology) at Franz Cardinal König. I did ask here what the policy was, and was told that article titles should not include personal titles of any kind. Why are Cardinals exempt from this rule? Adam 02:01, 26 Jan 2004 (UTC)
That policy was formulated by JTDirl in this edit [10] about nine months ago, and from what I can see on the talk page, it has been uncontroversial... <ominous mood> until now </ominous mood>. -- Cyan 02:29, 26 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Well I have to say I disagree with it, so now it is controversial. Why do Cardinals deserve titles while Archbishops, Bishops, Ayatollahs, Grand Muftis, Grand Rabbis, Moderators, Patriarchs, Doctors, Professors, Knights and Dames do not? Why is Bernard Law entitled to be Bernard Cardinal Law while Rowan Williams gets no title? This appears just to be privileging Catholicism over other religions. What is the justification for this? Adam 02:58, 26 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Why do Popes, Princes, and Princesses get titles while Kings and Queens do not? -- Jia ng 03:00, 26 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Because they change their names - Karol Wojtyla became John Paul II. "Cardinal" is just a title, like Dr or Professor or Rabbi. Please answer my question and don't raise side issues. Adam 03:33, 26 Jan 2004 (UTC)
My view is all biographical articles should use the person's name, unadorned by any title, unless the title has completely replaced the name, as with Popes and the Dalai Lama, for example. Peers as we know have their titles appended to their names, but the peerage is a uniquely complex institution. I see no reason why Cardinals should have a mere title added to their commonly used and well-known personal names, when no other equivalent religious or secular titles are so privileged. Adam 04:14, 26 Jan 2004 (UTC)
My view is that I don't care a whit which name gets the article, as long as both are present and one redirects to the other. -- Jmabel 04:21, 26 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Adam: Linguistic custom. Since at least a few centuries back. Also, commonality. Who would remember John Cardinal O'Connor if you didn't mention he was a Cardinal, for example? The common usage is to do write it like that. - 172.148.55.189 04:27, 26 Jan 2004 (UTC)
"Linguistic custom" and "common usage" would dictate that everyone gets all their titles in their article titles: Sir John Smith, Dr. John Smith, Rabbi John Smith, Emeritus Professor Dame Margaret Smith. If that is to be the convention, fine, but so far it isn't. The convention is no titles. I ask again, why are Cardinals a special case? Adam 04:50, 26 Jan 2004 (UTC)
The issue is not what policies other encyclopaedias have, but what issue Wikipedia has. Its policy appears to be no titles except for Cardinals. Unless someone can give me a convincing explanation for why Cardinals should be an exception to the rule, I will start to move some of the articles listed above. That should flush out the Cardinal-lovers. Adam 09:47, 27 Jan 2004 (UTC)
See Wikipedia talk:Conflict resolution for a possible way to better handle user and article disputes. -- mav 19:03, 24 Jan 2004 (PST)
There has been a lot of talk on WikiEN-l about the need for citations in articles. I tend to agree with that. But our current system of wiki refs only
encourage the creation of footnote-like references to external websites (which is less than ideal).
I have put together a proposal that, if enacted, would create a more wordprocessor-like footnote system that could be used for all types of footnotes (web, ISBN, journal articles, and written out dead tree citations).
See and respond on:
-- mav 01:42, 25 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Anyone heard about that ? http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/04/01/23/182255.shtml?tid=103&tid=123&tid=99
Dear editors My compliments for the Wikipêdia initiative. I already added a lot of links to my pages! The homepage is www.1world2travel.com It is a one-man-site (I really am the only one working on it) promoting countries for tourism and culture. The site is private and non-commercial and started two years ago when I studied the net, learning how to produce a website. You will find most of your links on my country-portals, the 'starttips'. You will find them immediately by going to www.toerisme.starttips.com and then search the continents. These pages started in Dutch but I'm extending them and translating them into English. An example I just finished South Africa (www.zuidafrika.starttips.com) giving a mass of information. China will be next. Some European and African countries underwent these changes already. Maybe you can use my site? Put some links to your pages? I don't think you will find many other sites offering the same volume of information to their visitors. Kind regards Walter Vaerewijck Menegemlei 15 2100 Antwerp +32/475/386-486 wvaerewyck@pandora.be 1w2t@pandora.be
PS - Personal info: I'm a retired journalist. Still active in touristic trade magazines and a tourmanager for the Flemish TO 'VTB'.
I don't know if this is a software glitch or what, but I just saved a page and rather than updating it, it blanked it. mydogategodshat 05:34, 29 Jan 2004 (UTC)
I've noticed that the committees of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate don't have articles. Can they be located somewhere else? I ask so I don't do a lot of duplicate work rewriting them for nothing. Also, if I do write them, what should the titles be? Thanks, Meelar 05:12, 29 Jan 2004 (UTC)
As a student at a school which does not offer internet access, it would be wonderfully useful if there was a copy of the site available for download - of course I'd miss out on updates, but periodically re-downloading it would fix that.
I understand that it'd be a very massive collection of files and folders, and may be nearly impossible from a technical standpoint (I don't know how much of this is generated dynamically), but it would be fantastically helpful to many.
spankypoo att excite dott com
Something I've wondered about, why are redirects not annotated with the reason for the redirect? Is there a policy or accepted way of doing things on this? Thanks. Elde 19:10, 29 Jan 2004 (UTC)
I don't want to sound too Americo-centric here, but I'm wondering just how often the phrase " New England" is used to reference the region in Australia. I ask because it is very commonly used in the United States to refer to the northeastern region, and the vast majority of pages that link to the disambiguation page are for the U.S. region. Would it be fair to move New England (U.S.) to New England with a proper disambiguation block at the top linking to the article on the Australian region? If these two meanings are equally common, then things should stay as they are, and my ignorant inquiry disregarded (but the links still need to be fixed). -- Minesweeper 05:05, Jan 29, 2004 (UTC)
(Note: this article was archived approx. 2 hrs after my last post. I have replaced it. PLEASE BE MORE CAREFUL WHEN ARCHIVING! HappyDog 00:11, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC))
Howdy! Right now the four standard "footer" elements of an article are "See Also," "Related Links," "Further Reading" and "References." I would like to propose "Primary Sources" as a third. This is for links to etexts or online editions of things mentioned in an article. Federalist Papers' "Related Links" are really "Primary Sources" as are the Margaret Sanger etexts linked on her page. This would also smooth out the currently clunky formating some people use for stuff like * Project Gutenberg etext of A Tale of Two Citiesetc, etc. This would also be a good way to promote Wikisource texts. I propose a format like:
===Primary Sources=== * [http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/lookup?num=18 Project Gutenberg Etext: ''The Federalist Papers'']
===Primary Sources===
or something like:
===Primary Sources=== * [http://digital.lib.msu.edu/onlinecolls/display.cfm?TitleNo=129&FT=gif&I=001 Michigan State University Library Etext: ''What Every Girl Should Know'']
===Primary Sources===
When i click edit section for " Mistake on sitewide redirect page" i am directed to edit "Primary SOurces" Section. is this a bug? Sennheiser 04:10, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)
A new MediaWiki software release has been installed. New features include
--
JeLuF et al. 23:38, Jan 29, 2004 (UTC)
Just a technical note: it's not a new release, but a live rollout of the current development snapshot. We'll release the new version at http://wikipedia.sourceforge.net/ after fixing bugs exposed by the rollout. -- Brion 03:38, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Why can't I upload a PDF? I am making PNG versions of the IPA chart, but having a PDF version available for download would be a good thing. Is there a good reason that I am forbidden from uploading PDF files? -- Nohat 22:12, 2004 Jan 29 (UTC)
There's a few articles I would like to help update. The page on scandium for example ( I am one of the few who actually deal with the product commercially ). There's a few other rare earth metals and so on that I can contribute information to. However, I am completely incompetent when it comes to formatting, html, anything that smacks of needing more computer knowledge than simply typing. So, is there some way to partner up with someone, I providing the information, and they putting it in the form that is required ?
Tim Worstall tcw@netcabo.pt
Does anyone know why pages disappear suddenly from Google searches for some time(a week or more) and then equally suddenly come back ? For example if we type the Page name + wikipedia in the search window, there is no link to the page. Ironically there are links to pages where the name of the page is mentioned elesewhere in Wikipedia. This was discussed earlier here without any clue/ solution. I am just bringing this up again because in recent months during the window(time) of disappearance, the parallel page from the Nationmaster site or encyclopedia4u( which use Wikipedia as source of information) comes up prominently( first/second,page etc.,) in the general search in Google.(I have the habit of trying this regularly with the very few pages that I had started/ contributed just to get a high!:-). KRS 09:01, 29 Jan 2004 (UTC)
A few new features will shortly be going live:
-- Tim Starling 08:43, Jan 29, 2004 (UTC)
What's RC? Graham 09:22, 29 Jan 2004 (UTC)
What's "shortly"? -- Phil 11:46, Jan 29, 2004 (UTC)
Questions and answers, after a period of time of inactivity, will be moved to other relevant sections of the wikipedia (such as the FAQ pages), placed in the Wikipedia:Village pump archive (if it is of general interest), or deleted (if it has no long-term value).
See the
archive for older moved discussion links. For the most recent moved discussion see
Wikipedia:Village pump/January 2004 archive 7
Welcome, newcomers and baffled oldtimers! This is where Wikipedians raise and try to answer Wikipedia-related questions and concerns regarding technical issues, policies, and operation in our community. However:
To facilitate ease of browsing and replying, please observe the following:
Related pages:
For old discussion, see: archive
(Press the END key on your keyboard to jump to the bottom of the page)
Welcome, newcomers and baffled oldtimers! This is where Wikipedians raise and try to answer Wikipedia-related questions and concerns regarding technical issues, policies, and operation in our community. However:
To facilitate ease of browsing and replying, please observe the following:
Related pages:
For old discussion, see: archive
FAQ: Images uploaded between January 24 and January 28 are currently not available due to a hardware problem with one of the web servers. We should have the files recovered sooner or later, but feel free to re-upload anything you uploaded in that period to restore it immediately.
Post a question or make a comment about working on Wikipedia now if you don't want to wait for the whole page to be loaded. But consider skimming to see if your question was already asked. Also, do not push the "save page" button multiple times when posting this way! Even if the server temporarily slows down it will almost always respond eventually and repeatedly pressing "save" will then post the question to the page as many times as you pressed "save"!
Sorry for posting this, there's probably lots of links of Wikipedia all over the place, but here's one I happened to stumble upon by chance. http://story.news.yahoo.com/fc?cid=34&tmpl=fc&in=Tech&cat=Computer_Viruses_and_Worms (It says to Computer worm for a definition.) Κσυπ Cyp 22:18, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Some images I had uploaded some days ago haven't appeared yet. Obviously it's about the disk problem. Should I upload again? Optim 22:42, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Is it just me? When I try to run a search I get sent to the front page rather than a google search option. I was also logged out in the middle of an edit. I assume new features are rolling out? :) fabiform | talk 02:53, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)
No it's not just you, the same thing is happening to me. Also when I go to edit an article I see an older version of the article not the one I just submitted. We seem to have a bug in the works. Adam 03:08, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Me too. I'm assuming that there is something seriously wrong somewhere. I cannot get to articles unless I can find an active link. The Status page implies nothing is wrong, but also that nothing is in very good shape either. Were we not due for a change over to something that works here soon? I've had to just stop coming around, because things have become so flaky. But I'm anticipating big changes! Will that be pretty soon? - Marshman 03:21, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)
I'm also having problems with being unable to edit articles that have been changed since I last edited them. I can see the changes, but when I go to edit them, I get an edit screen with the OLD version. I can't get the edit to update to the new version. RickK 05:09, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)
That has been the situation for several hours (except here at Village Pump for some reason). Is anyone with technical expertise awake out there? Adam 06:09, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Three hours later it's still happening. I open Hutton Inquiry, I make an edit, I save it. I open "Edit this page" again, and I see the text as it was before I made my edit, even though the saved version has in fact been changed. Is anyone else still experiencing this? Adam 09:53, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)
I'm afraid I know nothing about IRC. It's on one my list of things I should learn to use one day. Adam 10:19, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)
I had thought that animated gifs weren't permitted, until I ran across one on Flag terminology. So I whipped up a neat one (a flyweight too at 21.4KB) to fill the gaping hole in Central limit theorem, only to discover that gif files get bounced after all. Is there an acceptable animated file format that I can use? If not, can a developer let me upload it to the talk page so that people can see it and decide if they like it? -- Cyan 03:35, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)
I created some orphaned redirects today, and another user said that they personally didn't like the practice. I created The Teacup Poisoner (and variations) to redirect to Graham Frederick Young (a serial killer and what he was nicknamed by the press). Here's my rational as I posted it to the other users talk page as we discussed it: "IMHO orphaned redirects shouldn't be a problem, I mean wikipedia is still growing, and I added those redirects on the offchance that in the future someone will try to link to that phrase. When I'm wikifying an article, I tend to remove incidental links if they come up red rather than leaving them in in case someone creates an article called that in the future, I suspect most people do the same but it doesn't help develop wikipedia into a strong network of links if you think about it. (Did that make sense?)" What's the consensus on orphaned redirects? Am I commiting a solecism and drawing universal hatred upon myself by creating them? :) Fabiform 06:52, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)
I just wrote an article on Ernest King, and I'd like to add a picture to it. The US navy has some great pictures of him that are in the national archives. Are they part of the public domain, and (as such) distributable under the GPL? →Raul654 11:01, Jan 30, 2004 (UTC)
The pump fills up quickly, and Recent Changes is harder to work with. A year ago, I could put a question in the comment line of an edit and hope that someone would catch it, but these days I wonder how long before it is seen. Therefore, I suggest we create "faculty rooms", which would be like Village Pumps centered on different subjects. To start with, maybe just science / humanities / arts, but see how it goes from there. These would be places to discuss new projects and mention pages that need attention -- Tarquin 13:58, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)
How do I use the new
extended image syntax please? I’ve read the Help but it’s still not totally clear how to use it. Here’s a screengrab of the code I’ve used up to now (from the
Hawker Hunter article):
Can some kind person tell me the new code to replace it? You might need to know that my thumbnail is to be 300 pixels across and my Larger Version is usually 750 pixels across (but both pic sizes can vary depending on the quality and aspect ratio of the source pic). Do I still have to upload a thumbnail myself or does the new code generate it? I need the choice of placing the thumbnail on left or right, for the Hunter pic it needs to be on the right.
Thanks,
Adrian Pingstone 17:51, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)
P.S. I notice that the thumbnail the code makes is a little large, it was 36K compared with the 20K I got when I made the thumbnail. So the new code will have a penalty in page loading times. Adrian Pingstone 23:13, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Is there a way to align left the image on Henri_Druey ? Currently the list interferes with the image (it probably also did in the previous version). -- User:Docu
The articles on companies on wikipedia seems to be fairly shallow. I think that is an interesting use of wikipedia to actually describe the companies we are dependent on for so many of the things we use in our lives. People _do_ have very strong feelings about things they buy. But we often fail to connect those things to the companies, and then the people, that bring them into the world.
For example, I added a little note to the Pepsi page in which I referenced that it was an SIC 2080 company, as classified upon its incorporation in the United States. This then led to a list of US SIC 2080 compnaies. I got this list from the US SEC. Many of these companies are huge players in our lives in various ways, yet there are no articles about them.
It seems that there can be a standard bunch of information, such as the boxes that go with some other types of pages, that would show an entity's ownership, employees, geographical reach and other important information. I am not an economist, but I believe it is important to document these market forces.
Does anyone have ideas about good ways to do this? RayKiddy 06:40, 1 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Where did your name Wikipedia come from and what is your purpose other than to provide encyclopaedia services for free?
Short answers:
As a result it is also full of badly-written nonsense, but we are working on that. :) Adam 10:19, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)
From 06:30, 12 Dec 2003 to 21:24, 17 Jan 2004, article "Slashdot trolling phenomena" was the victim of what I think was stealth vandalism, but might possibly be an anonymous editor with very poor English skills.
The vandalism appears never to have been recognized as such, with individual problem phrases being corrected in an ad hoc manner as each was noticed by later editors.
In addition to changing phrases, expansions of abbreviations where removed, and some sub-sections were removed entirely. Some disputable or incorrect factual claims are also made ("Steal underpants" for "Collect underpants", added text under the sycophant troll). I noticed the changes when I went to copy the text of the "Stephen King is Dead" troll to commemorate Captain Kangaroo on Slashdot, only to find the canonical text removed.
I definitely think that the canonical text should be there (which is why I originally added it), but I'm a little reluctant to restore the text for two reasons: a number of other changes have acreted in the meantime, and the original text makes reference to a Slashdot user who shares my Wikipedia username, an addition I originally made only to correct what had been an incorrect attribution (of using the Stephen King troll to announce real deaths) to "Anonymous Coward".
Some of the changed phrases, with the change highlighted:
"This is a list of some of the trolls which may be come across when browsing Slashdot comments."
"Homosexuality is one of the most versatile and so common trolling devices utilised."
The rest can be see in the diff, at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Slashdot_trolling_phenomena&diff=1939119&oldid=1938692
PS: Minesweeper found a similar stealth vandalism in
Slashdot on 20:27, 19 Dec 2003.
My guess is that it's a Slashdot troll trying for some self-referential "humor".
Forgot to sign! orthogonal 14:50, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)
A recent edit of Statue of Liberty has a section that now reads:
French sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi was commissioned to design a sculpture with the year 1876 in mind for completion, to commemorate the centennial of the American Declaration of Independence. It was agreed upon that in a joint effort the American people were to build the pedestal, and the French people were responsible for the Statue and its assembly here in the United States. However, lack of funds was a problem on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. In France, public fees, ...
The edit added links to French, American, French, Atlantic Ocean, and France.
I see a lot of this, and I don't understand it. What purpose is served by linking the word "French" twice, rather than just on its first appearance in the paragraph? And, what purpose is served by linking to these terms in the first place? There seems to be a frenzy in Wikipedia to wikilink anything at all for which an article exists. Isn't it preferable to link only those that are clearly relevant to the article from which they're linked? Dpbsmith 04:24, 1 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Over the last couple of days some pictures have disappeared from this article. What is going on? mydogategodshat 11:00, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)
I posted an entry on Fanya Kaplan, the woman that attempted to assassinate Lenin. Being as her real name is Russian, there is some dispute on how it should be transcribed into English. I have seen it as both Fanny and Fanya. A Google search shows that Fanny is more popular by about two to one, but Fanya seems to appear much more frequently in the scholarly works as opposed to the general ones. In addition, Mikkalai, who unlike me actually speaks Russian, says that Fanny is the more accurate transcription. I'm throwing this one to the consensus of the crowd. 1430 EST 30 January 2004 MK
I just created a redirect from Paso Robles, California to El Paso de Robles (Paso Robles), California. This edit did not show up on recent changes until I changed it to "show bots". And, I'm pretty sure I'm not a bot. Going to this page didn't show it either. At around the same time, another user created a redirect from AUM Shinrikyo to Aum Shinrikyo which was similarly hidden. Other edits, which didn't involve creating redirects, showed up normally in RC. Is this part of an ongoing debugging process? -- Minesweeper 06:49, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)
After you did the redirect did you click on the Recent changes link, or use your Back button? Recently, I've noticed the Back button doesn't give me an updated version of the Recent Changes page. It's been like that for about a week now. I thought it was intentional. RickK 06:53, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)
I'd like to request a feature for generating the number of user contributions someone has made. Like ~~~~, it gets replaced with a number once the article gets saved. I would suggest a format such as {{contributions:Username}}. →Raul654 07:47, Feb 1, 2004 (UTC)
What is the Wikipedia policy on establishing pages for an ongoing FAQ/documentation project for various Open Source software? In particular, I have in mind the increasingly popular Open Office (www.openoffice.org). One of the problems with open source software is that the guides and documentation are frequently written at a single point in time by single authors, even though the software is a moving target. The web typically contains several outdated documents, and leaves some areas which are not well explained. A community effort could quickly keep documentation fresh, and offer assistance through current guides.
I realise that an encyclopaedia is not the place for software documentation, but then again, you wouldn't expect to find cartoon characters in an encyclopaedia either.
Your view and/or ruling on this would be much appreciated.
-- Humanist 00:56, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Who got article 200,000?! :) jengod 00:50, Feb 2, 2004 (UTC)
Who got article 200,000?! :) jengod 00:50, Feb 2, 2004 (UTC)
It seems that a link can't be used in the caption when using the new pic code.
For example this produces a picture:
[[image:luft.a300b4.d-aias.750pix..jpg|thumb|right|300px|<center>''Lufthansa Airbus A300''</center>]]
but this gives no picture:
[[image:luft.a300b4.d-aias.750pix..jpg|thumb|right|300px|<center>''[[Lufthansa]] Airbus A300''</center>]]
(Ignore the double dot in the filename, that has nothing to do with the problem). Are links in captions not now allowed or am I doing something wrong?
Adrian Pingstone 18:04, 1 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Who got article 200,000?! :) jengod 00:50, Feb 2, 2004 (UTC)
I suggest posting a link on the main page to Wikipedia:Celebrating 200,000 →Raul654 01:51, Feb 2, 2004 (UTC)
With two hours today, three articles written by me have been vandalised by anonymous persons ( Robert Menzies, George Panandreou, junior and Panhellenic Socialist Movement) and one subjected to a edit which, while not strictly vandalism, was destructive and pointless ( The Sixties). Users of real encyclopaedia do not expect to open articles and see the word FUCK where they expected to find an article. What happens when parents and schools use Wikipedia and find this kind of vandalism?. Sure it is reverted fairly quickly, but Wikipedia has a high level of traffic and the vandalised version will be seen by some people. When is Wikipedia going to have a serious debate on the proposition Anonymous users should not be allowed to edit articles? Adam 04:08, 2 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Ah well, I see I am not going to persuade many people on this issue. But sooner or later WP is going to have to choose between process and outcome, because the two are untimately not compatible. Real encyclopaedias, ones that readers rely on and come back to and cite in their essays etc, have both stability of content (ie the article on fascism presents the same facts this week as it did last week) and quality control (ie those facts are in fact facts and not somebody's illiterate ramblings). At present WP has neither of those things. Until it does WP will not achieve its objectives of being (and I quote) a complete and accurate encyclopaedia. I certainly would not cite a fact I read at WP without checking it somewhere, whereas I would do so with something I read in the Britannica. At the moment WP exists to satisfy the needs of its contributors (including me), not its readers or potential readers. Sooner or later this must change. Adam 05:27, 2 Feb 2004 (UTC)
PS I didn't find Tim's parody of my page particularly amusing.
I think Adam has some good point, but possibly slightly prematurely. I think Wikipedia is still in a primarily "collecting knowledge" stage, where most of the world's knowledge that might be appropriate for an encyclopedia is not in Wikipedia. Within a few years, I think this will no longer be the case, and Wikipedia will be fairly complete, missing mostly obscure things and being mainly in need of revision and clarification rather than expansion. When that becomes the case, I think something will have to change. Clearly an article that has been painstakingly concocted over a period of a year should not be subjected to massive detrimental edits by a group of new users. So I think at some point in the future we might want to start flagging certain article as "this article is essentially done", and have some way whereby further edits must pass through at least a minimal review process to ensure they really are improvements. -- Delirium 05:56, Feb 2, 2004 (UTC)
Jiang refers to the proposal for a Wikipedia.1 or whatever - this would amount to much the same thing as I proposed at the Meta page linked to above, because articles at WP which were peer-judged to be "complete" and "accurate" would be promoted to WP1, where they could not be further edited except by agreement. We would thus have a 2-tier WP, one where the soundness of articles was in some sense guaranteed, and one where caveat lector prevailed. Delirium may well be right that WP is not yet at the stage where this starts happening. But the sooner the better would be my view. Adam 06:14, 2 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I acknowledge that there is more than one way to achieve these objctives. Pcb21 and Bmills's suggestions are on the same path as mine, but more sophisticated in their means. Incidentally I don't think Tim's link to the parody page was directed at me in a hostile sense. Adam 10:18, 2 Feb 2004 (UTC)
The transwiki protocol looks great, but I've a question... how do I link to an article in the process of transition? Will links to the Transwiki pseudo-namespace be converted to links to the final article when the process is completed? Is this described somewhere and I've missed it? Andrewa 01:37, 1 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Wasn't sure where to post this since it doesn't appear to be vandalism per se, but...the user 130.88.96.66 seems to be deleting large swatches of content in articles related to Sunnis, Christians in Arab nations, etc. (see this for a full list). Unfortunately, I know nothing of the subject matter and can't determine whether or not the guy is a vandal, making things NPOV by omission or what. Perhaps I'm being too cynical and the guy knows what he's doing. Anyways, I at least wanted to make a note of it and ask "What do you do when you're not sure if it's vandalism?" RadicalBender 05:30, 2 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Can anyone who's familiar with Australian English have a glance at sherbert and talk:sherbet and tell me if I have it right. I'm having a hard time confirming it with websearches. Thanks! Replies to talk:sherbet. fabiform | talk 19:40, 2 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I was just looking at Microsoft, and noticed that there was an inline link to ku:Microsoft. I assumed it was an accident in the markup ([[:ku:Microsoft]], like the one just there). But in the source, it is quite clearly correct: [[ku:Microsoft]]. The same problem appears on Bill Gates, and even on the German sandbox, so it seems the software just isn't accepting ku as a proper language. (Yes, I know it's a software issue, and those live elsewhere, but I suspect it's just a switch needs flipping somewhere, rather than a full-on bug...) - IMSoP 17:00, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Hello, My name is Elizabeth L. Nice. I am in the United States. My Father was Franklin Motes Nice and all the Nices dateing back to the 1500-1700's were from Nice, France. I have an official coat of arms and I am looking into my ancestoral background. Any information you could give me would be greatly appreciated. My Grandfathers with the name "Nice" came to the United States we believe sometime in the 1700's--As far as we know, they were all doctors--My father broke that chain and did not become a doctor. I was also told that my ancestors founded Nicetown,Philadelphia. My one Grandfather, John Jacob Mickley has the credit for being one of the men responsible for rescuing the Liberty Bell during the Revolutionary War when the British were coming to attack Philadelphia and destroy the Bell. Thankyou so much for your time and any information about my ancestors from France. Very Sincerely Yours, Elizabeth Lee Nice
I wonder if you could help me.I am trying to fill a form out and it is asking my ethnic group,I am struggling with the answer as my grandad was apparantly jamacan and my grandmother english, and my mother was quite dark half cast and my father english.I was adopted you see so I am a bit stuck with my ethnic group I wonder if you can help Thanks Tracey.
Could someone vistit Monument to the Royal Stuarts, and fix the nifty magnifying glass thing, which I copied from Athens, so that it leads to the big version of the photo as it is supposed to. The big version is uploaded as [[Image:ac.stuarts.jpg]] and the small version as [[image:ac.stuarts2.jpg]]. Obviously I have missed a step in the process somewhere. Adam 11:41, 1 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Many thanks. So I just upload the big version, and then specify in the edit box the width I want the small version to appear as, is that correct? Adam 11:54, 1 Feb 2004 (UTC)
[[image:yourfilename.jpg|thumb|right|300px|<center>yourpicturetitle</center>]]
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A lot of problem articles seem to be works in progress. Someone had an idea, got started, left things just barely started or incomplete, and you can't tell whether the project is still alive.
A related problem, which I think we may see more of, are pages started as school projects (see above, and also see Nurse assistant skills, which is currently the result of my efforts to fix grammar and language in an article of this type).
In such cases, Wikipedians are reluctant to delete the articles if a) the topic is worthy and b) the content that is there is considered to be better than nothing.
Still, it seems to me that it might be useful to have messages that are variants on the stub message. One might say something like "This page is a work in progress. You can help Wikipedia by adding to it." And it also might be useful to have a message that says something like "This page does not meet Wikipedia quality standards. You can help Wikipedia by improving it." In both cases, the message should be dated and should be handled as a sort of postpone vote for deletion. If someone notices that the page with such a notice is bad and hasn't been improved in months, that would be a prima facie case for deletion.
Thoughts? Dpbsmith 13:28, 21 Jan 2004 (UTC)
migration of the apaches? --> Wikipedia:Reference Desk
There's a school project on cosmetics going on. See Mascara, Nail diseases, Manicure (existed already before), Pedicure, Eyebrows, Eyebrow makeovers, and maybe others. All are on Cleanup, the last one also on VfD. See also the page history of Manicure, where the author comments "Begining a page for a grade, do not edit"... I have the strong feeling that the other authors belong to the same class. Most of these articles are in a pretty bad shape, and anyway, others have edited some of them. I'll grant that some of these may yet become real articles, but somehow I doubt it. What to do with these? Lupo 13:00, 21 Jan 2004 (UTC)
See User:Craigbutz for a list of them. There are more than cosmetics articles. My concerns are that we correct and improve the English and they get marked on our corrections, some have been redirected (what mark to they get then?) and some are how-tos. The premise may not understand the wiki concept - people don't own articles here, they are collaborative efforts. Secretlondon 14:17, Jan 21, 2004 (UTC)
I have taken the liberty to write on his talk page and to email him. Hopefully he'll show up and can provide some reassurances and perhaps we can all gain some enlightenment. - UtherSRG 15:39, 21 Jan 2004 (UTC) ⊙
Thank you all for your interest in this experiment. Please do not about students being graded on work they didn't do. I will be looking at page histories, user contribution lists, as well as narrative response papers in assessing. I would think that wikipedians would understand that writing has value beyond the finished product, and have faith that people can be given credit for participating in collaboration.
One of the biggest frustrations of writing teachers is finding assignments to give where the writing actually matters. I work with vocational high school students who are learning a wealth of specialized knowledge worth sharing. Some of them, obviously, struggle with writing. They are the ones who need their writing to matter the most, or they won't take it seriously.
I do now see a number of aspects of the assignment that should be reworked, which I could not have foreseen without letting students giving it a shot. I opted not to have them work up drafts in MS-Word because it would have been a nightmare to explain why formatting doesn't tranfer. Even with a demo and basic guide, many are confused by the mark-up.
In the future, I may have to save this project for more proficient writers. I do like the idea of temporary pages. Is there a protocol for doing that? Would it work to create links to obscurely named articles, then change the titles to their real names when completed? Other ideas? - Craigbutz 00:33, 22 Jan 2004 (UTC)
How about letting the google search be directly from the main page? Instead of the frustration of entering a search and then having to accept a google search (which b.t.w. gives completely acceptable answers) -- anon
I've always wistfully looked to the day when Wikipedia would be able to take established encyclopedias head-on. Just now, I looked up Encarta, and found that their biggest edition has less than 70,000 articles! In two years, we've created more than 2 and a half times the number of articles in Microsoft's encyclopedia. Well done, Wikipedians! -- Lunkwill
Who said "I am going to Heaven because I have seen Hell" while fighting a war and in which war.
Can anyone spot what I've done incorrectly on the John Hanson (disambiguation) page. The links to minor Hansons show up as missing articles. When I click on one (e.g. the John Hanson (musician) ) the pedia gives back an edit page with the existing article. The reverse seems OK, in that the [[John Hanson (musician)]] list of what links here shows the disabiguation page. I've built several of these disambig pages but never encountered this problem before. Thanks, Lou I 18:27, 21 Jan 2004 (UTC)
p.s. I previously posted this on Wikipedia talk:Arbitrators, and I am also posting it on Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines, and maybe the mailing list. Jack 02:28, 23 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Obviously i'm confused, bcz i'm convinced i've found some sort of anamoly in the system. I believe the only action i took was using "Move this page" to reverse what i thot (and would still think, but for the inexplicable situation i now see) was another editor's "Move this page" action.
In a line, neither List of people by name: Mas-Maz nor List of people by name: Mas now includes the history
Yesterday there was an "article", List of people by name: Mas-Maz or Mas-Maz (hereinafter, "the original"; not a conventional article, but a page in the article name-space that was (and i think again is; this note is more urgent than checking) a leaf in the tree whose root is List of people by name). The following extract from about 16:33, 2004 Jan 21 reflects an effort by another editor to turn that leaf into 4 new leaves, to replace the original (i.e. collectively list the people who were listed in the original), each new leaf having the same ancestor as the original:
My judgement was that
(I think i like the other editor's concept, but it needs to be checked, repaired, and evaluated, at leisure, rather than as done, on the copy that is in use.)
I am mystified by the two earliest entries, which appear to me to imply the need for a deletion of List of people by name: Mas if the two entries above them really reflect (a single?) "Move this page" action.
I am more mystified by the fact that my "Move this page" of Mas (back) to Mas-Maz, which i understand to have succeeded bcz of Mas-Maz being a history-less link, lacks any history but the other editor's move. (Yes, i understand why it doesn't reflect both moves, tho i heartily disapprove of that design decision.)
(While not definitive, this helps bolster my illusion of having a dim grasp of what's going on: related stuff that's obviously a place to look.)
I am loath to do anything toward rehabilitation of the data structure and names without resolving the history problem, tho of course users will before too long track mud all over it anyway.
Help!
TIA -- Jerzy 20:08, 2004 Jan 21 (UTC) I said (emphasis added), just above the tabular extract above
But i shouldn't have needed to check: my plan after my "move this page" was to revert to my own last edit, which would have hidden the main (and probably all) links thru the tree to the new leaves; if the history had been intact as i expected, i'd have had the old version to revert to, and i forgot that having nothing to revert to was what led to this appeal. [shrug] -- Jerzy 20:37, 2004 Jan 21 (UTC)
How should we be marking births and deaths on the anniversary pages? (eg January 21) people born on this day who are now dead have their year of death marks as († YYYY), (+ YYYY) or (d. YYYY) (each page seems to be different). For people who have died on this day, births are often not marked, or they use the convention (* YYYY), (+ YYYY), (b. YYYY) or (YYYY - YYYY). I had been changing all the death symbols to the dagger (†) as I thought it was a good symbol of death (stab, stab) and * for births, but another user pointed out that both † and + could be seen as Christian symbols and there was a policy to avoid them. I can't find any policy on this in the manual of style. Fabiform 20:21, 21 Jan 2004 (UTC)
The issue at hand is on pages like January 21 (as indicated) where there is a ==Births== section. In that section, if the person born then has since passed on, it's common to list the year of their death. In what manner should this indication be given. Of the above options, (d. YYYY) is my preference. - UtherSRG 20:55, 21 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Today we have this entry for example- Births
Changing this to (d. 1789) is one thing, but this would look odd IMO-
Fabiform 20:58, 21 Jan 2004 (UTC)
moved to Wikipedia talk:Policies and guidelines Jack 04:35, 23 Jan 2004 (UTC)
The English Wikipedia seems to be the only one still up. Does anybody know what is going on? Andres 06:45, 24 Jan 2004 (UTC)
I've found a beautiful photo online that would be perfect for an article I've been working on while wikipedia's been down. Is there a standard letter I could adapt when I email to ask the copyright holder if they would be willing to release a smaller version of the picture under the GNU License? Cheers, Fabiform 19:07, 24 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Thanks for the offer. Yes, it does seem like merely knowing your subject and being able to write about it isn't quite good enough around here, but I don't want to cause trouble with my edits.
Why? They say the same thing, only the way I said it is far more clear. Merging will merely produce confusion.
There are *not* several versions of Lucy tuning. If there were, I would have said so. What does exist are numerous versions of meantone tuning, of which this is one.
There's a thought--move it to the talk page, and explain the problem you find with it. Should this be done with matter (and it is out there) which is plainly erroneous?
If you know something about the subject, you should know enough about it to be able to increase the length of the article rather than decrease it.
I could. I didn't know the idea was to pad articles as much as possible.
Instead of removing some content now with the intention of adding more later, just delay deleting until you have time to add.
WHere did you get the idea I removed content?
Consider it a courtesy to our weird culture. If you must delete content, you should mention it in the talk page and in the edit summary.
What "content" did I remove, pray tell?
The changes to the article did add information, but also removed information which this user thought was unnecessary.
I removed misinformation, and explained what the tuning is in a way which seems to me clearer. I also added the single most important piece of information about the topic, which must be included in any article if it is to make sense, namely, that it is a meantone tuning. What actual information is now gone?
I tested the waters in my first attempt at editing a Wikipedia article by choosing something I thought would be uncontroversial--Lucy tuning. But immediately, it seems, someone changed it back, and then someone else reversed the descision. Is this common? What in the world is going on here?
Please don't do any merging unless you understand the topic. I'm a professional mathematician and an expert on musical tuning theory, so some degree of presumption of innocence may be appropriate, and to me at least (and I've mentioned this to the tuning list, where the tuning mavens gather, and it has met with approval there) it seems this article, while not on a topic of much significance, has been greatly improved by my edit. I'm afraid I've done some more work, and even added an article; but after all I think the point is to improve the Wikipedia. On the tuning list, it was suggested I take a hard line and tell people please do not change things back unless you first come there, where the experts forgather, and discuss why; but I'm afraid I am just finding out how the system works. But there is a place to find what the expert consensus is on matter related to tuning theory.
Actually, it doesn't say that--it says don't delete useful text. I don't think I did that, but I'm afraid I did some deleting elsewhere. Is the intention to leave the pages bloated and soggy with side issues best addessed in separate articles which already exist?
Thanks. Nothing was suggested about registering a user name. Is it considered acceptable simply to register my own name?
I thought the point was that someone who did know about the subject--in this case, that would be me--could remove factual errors add/or add important information. Does everything need to be justified in detail? Who is going to check it? What does one do about bad writing? If I think an article needs major surgery (and I'm afraid some clearly do) should I put the matter to the talk board for that article, and if I do, will anyone read and reply?
I could give a summary, but I am wondering if more is implicitly being asked here.
Gene Ward Smith
Hello Wikipedia: Do you have any listing for Anthony Kennedy Shriver, Founder & Chairman of Best Buddies International (www.bestbuddies.org), son of Sargent and Eunice Kennedy Shriver? Best Buddies International is a prominent internatonal nonprofit organization that establishes one-to-one friendships between student volunteers and persons with intellectual disabilities.
Did the tallest candidate always win the presidential race? Can you e-mail a list and the match-ups in order of year. I am usding this information for a college class.
thank you ray ruddles UTHRILLME007@YAHOO.COM
Sir, I want to know whether there is any difference between Dynamo and a generator. I learned that dynamo can be termed for both ac and dc generators, then can we call analternator also a dynamo.
In Tamil Wikipedia, the normal wikipedia formats ([[image:file.jpg]] or
) to include images seems not working. Could anyone Help in this. See
http://ta.wikipedia.org/wiki/தà¯à®ªà®¾à®¯à¯ I just included the URL there.
213.42.2.14 19:08, 27 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Are you cancelling this program? If not, can you tell me why you had no programs for 1 1/2 months, then come back with one new program, and now on 1/25 you put on a rerun, and today when I checked the internet, you post no programming for the show for at least 2 weeks. What is going on? Why so sporatic, broken up? What happened to a new program every week? Lesson 101, how to frustrate the general public, do what you're doing. It's not worth watching if you don't produce something weekly. I suppose you know that, so are you trying to sabotage your own program? I have to say, I like it when you show the program, but man, this is really frustrating and not worth my time. I can't imagine I'm the only one that feels that way.
While updating the Interstate 15 article, I came across an interesting situation. The article contains a link to Inland Empire and Inland Empire (California). Both articles contain information about the region near Los Angeles, California, but I don't know enough about the area to merge the articles myself. Also, there's the question of which would be the most appropriate title -- with or without the state name. Is the "Inland Empire" near Portland, Oregon sufficiently well-known to warrant its own entry? If not, I'd think the simpler Inland Empire would be the best place for the article.
I'm not planning to make this change myself, as my hands are full with the List of United States Highways. I'm hoping a Californian will jump into the breach! -- Robertb-dc 23:09, 22 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Hi. Many of you probably know about the Tipping Point idea popularized by Malcolm Gladwell, and if you don't, you should--it rocks. Anyway, I was wondering, does anybody have any predictions about when Wikipedia will tip? Or if it already has? I posit that the tipping and the 2,000,000 articles (English? all languages? I dunno) will happen at about the same time. jengod 00:28, Jan 23, 2004 (UTC)
Gladwell's Tipping Point is (IIRC) at the number 150 -- "the maximum number of individuals with whom anyone can have a genuinely social relationship". Some related stats: [4]. I'm not sure how well Gladwell's work is applicable to Wikipedia, where there are highly varied levels of participation. Martin 01:34, 25 Jan 2004 (UTC)
I'm not sure if this is the right place to report it, but I couldn't find anywhere else. Doesn't seem like a bug that's relevant to sourceforge, more of a server issue. Anyway, I was trying to find the wikimedia homepage, and I typed http://www.wikimedia.org/ into the address bar. I got the following response:
As you can see, the link mentioned points right back to the error page itself! A bit of a search turned up www.wikimediafoundation.org as the correct one to use. Can the link be fixed please? HappyDog 02:00, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Fixed, thanks for the notice. -- Brion 07:15, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Related pages: Mailing lists - IRC - IM a Wikipedian - Talk pages - Wikipedia talk:Software updates - Village pump archive
Welcome, newcomers and baffled oldtimers! This is where Wikipedians raise and try to answer Wikipedia-related questions and concerns regarding technical issues, policies, and operation in our community. However:
To facilitate ease of browsing and replying, please:
See also: Wikipedia:FAQ, Wikipedia:Help, Wikipedia:Please do not bite the newcomers
For old discussion, see:
archive
I'm kinda new here but I have an idea. An author could write an article on a subject such as Computational complexity theory that could take an hour to read. Some people might want an article that long. Some people would rather spend 10 minutes reading the article, others might want to spend 5 minutes and some would only want to spend less than two minutes. I propose we create a system where articles would have different versions with different lengths. One could choose what version they want based on their needs, and we could even have a setting in the prefrences page where users choose what their default size would be. I realize that this might cause problems with minor edits (applying them to each version), and such, but I think we should give it a try. We could only use this system on articles that might need it. I think we might have 2 or 3 versions at most for each article. Tell me what you think. Thanks, and happy editing!. Sennheiser
How do you think about adding an abstract on some articles? Optim 01:14, 22 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Attention clean-up crew: This thread should be moved to Wikipedia talk:News style. -- mav 12:51, 24 Jan 2004 (UTC)
If I have a scanned film picture that I give to wikipedia, what have I given to free domain then?
Same for a digital picture. I give a cropped and resized version, do I still have copyright of the original or not?
Stefan 02:49, Jan 22, 2004 (UTC)
I notice that in the most recent clearing of this page, the discussion of the proposed Javascript edit toolbar has been archived. Am I alone in feeling that this discussion was very much still 'alive', and should therefore be carried on somewhere else if there is no room here? If I am, feel free to remove this comment. - IMSoP 15:19, 22 Jan 2004 (UTC)
thank you wiki.. i love you! ce.
Help I cant see international fonts? --> Wikipedia:Reference Desk
The featured article on the V1 flying bomb is great, but I was a little miffed to see no copyright or source details in the image description page of the photo. IMO this is a real slap in the face for those of us who are putting a lot of work into providing properly GPL-ed images for Wikipedia.
I think the featured articles should be examples of what we want, and I don't think this one currently qualifies on these grounds. Sorry! Andrewa 00:02, 22 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Cf Wikipedia:possible copyright infringements. Best thing, I find, is to talk to the uploader - most are happy to add the info. If not... well then it's trickier. Martin 01:38, 25 Jan 2004 (UTC)
I received a request to permit access to my computer while on Wikipedia. As I did not know it I refused the request -- it was from "mega something.." and sheer habit made me deny acess automatically and miss the full bit -- is it your computer?
thank you
Ray Stirling
Can I create one? I'm linking it to Japanese_language
No one's answered... I guess I will. If I'm not allowed to, tell me asap by User_talk:KevinJr42.
I don't understand what you mean. Do you mean within the Wikipedia namespace? RickK 03:01, 23 Jan 2004 (UTC)
How do you comment on other people's suff or leave them a message on their page? I would really like to be able to do this but can't figure it out. Katie Salyer User # 4.8.161.217
Has Web-Dictionary.org been added to Wikipedia:Sites that use Wikipedia for content, or is it one of the few "undiscovered" ones? It seems to be trying to be compliant, except that its GNU FDL link is broken... If it's not listed, can someone add it for me? At 72Kb, that page is a bit of a pain to edit. -- Minesweeper 08:55, 23 Jan 2004 (UTC)
What is wrong with my Watchlist? It looks like this:
My watchlist (for user "Adam Carr")
<wlsaved>
24 Jan 2004
Adam 14:05, 24 Jan 2004 (UTC)
yes there is a saved version of the watchlist, but it doesn't update. Adam 14:52, 24 Jan 2004 (UTC)
I wasn't sure where to place this comment. Regardless, I would like to immensely thank you for allowing internet users like myself to access this wealth of information for free. One simply doesn't know the scarcity of free educational information anywhere anymore. Furthermore, your content is tacit, to-the-point, and readily understandable. I, and many others, greatly appreciate your hard work in making "wikipedia."
The Wilfredo G. Santa article is currently flagged as listed on Wikipedia:Inclusion dispute but not actually listed. It has previously been listed on VfD.
In view of the latest comment on Talk:Wilfredo G. Santa by Ruiz, I've little doubt myself that the article should be deleted. But I'm not sure how, or whether, to proceed.
Can I have some advice from older, wiser hands? Andrewa 16:08, 24 Jan 2004 (UTC)
I think consensus has developed on Talk:Wilfredo G. Santa to delete the article. Another sysop should proceed with deletion and keep the talk page archived for future reference. -- Jia ng 00:23, 26 Jan 2004 (UTC)
How does one create an "other languages" link at the bottom of an article? In other words if I translate an article I've written?
I just wanted to wish everyone a happy Magnus Manske Day (January 25).
Just how obscure does a topic have to become before it's deemed unworthy of being written up on Wikipedia? I mean, obviously no one needs an article on my cat, but what about things like small schools, small towns, obscure books, songs, and things of that nature? Exploding Boy 14:01, Jan 25, 2004 (UTC)
Is it absolutely necessary to disable "What links here"? This effectively puts a moratorium on all deletions and moves. Is it only off during peak hours; I think it's been off all day now. -- Jia ng 06:09, 26 Jan 2004 (UTC)
The following pages need to be orphaned once the function is enabled:
Is there a place for good jokes? I like, from samovar, "this compares with the Japanese tea ceremony, but only superficially." Unless I wrote it, in which case never mind. -- Charles A. L. 22:08, Jan 26, 2004 (UTC)
you are probably annoyed to have to read this because I'm sure they're are many people who need help, but, well, that's really too bad. I just want to say that this site is awesome. I've been in a class for a quarter now and hardly learned anything. This site taught me what I needed to know for my final project. Without this I would be in trouble. With this site I am leaving my class with an A (hopefully) and with KNOWLEDGE! Thanks everybody!!!!
Is it possible when adding a link to an external site to make it open in a new browser box instead of having to completely leave the wikipedia site?
Steve nova
Web pages are not supposed to dictate how the user navigates - just provide the links and let the user and their agent worry about how pages are displayed and navigated. CGS 20:25, 27 Jan 2004 (UTC).
In Tamil Wikipedia, the normal wikipedia formats to include images seems not working. Could anyone Help in this. See http://ta.wikipedia.org/wiki/துபாய் I just included the URL there. Mayooranathan 19:22, 27 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Hello sir
this is RAM MOHAN RAO ADDURI from INDIA. i want to do a MSC in an international university. i also took the TOEFL EXAM through CBT TEST. in that i got 190 score. I am a MECHANICAL ENGINEERING student so please send me all the details.
I have a condition if it is proved fermat's last theorem will disprove.
contact me at vaka@kerala.cc
I'm posting this here since I can't post to the board itself.
Is anyone else having a problem where they can't post or reply to the Wikimedia bulletin board???
It seems that the two buttons under the text box where you would type your message (which, as I recall, said PREVIEW and SUBMIT) are blank and small and don't seem to do anything except hang the website OR to return you to the posting page with a new blank text box.
Any chance this is a MyDoom issue?
I'm registered on the English site but also would like to edit pages in another language (Hungarian). To get the benefits of registration, do I need to register separately?
(Yes, yes, RTFM but found no answer anywhere...)
-- jtg 10:24, Jan 29, 2004 (UTC)
Didn't the introductory text in the sandbox used to be protected, or is my memory playing up? By the way, I just tried out the new thumbnail feature on Stirling, what a great tool. I no longer need to upload a seperate thumbnail for each large image I have, and the automatic captioning thing works wonderfully. Fabiform 06:04, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)
I am looking for somebody who was on the ski rescue team for the 1960 Winter Olympics. Does anybody know where I can hopefully contact somebody from this team.
Thanks so much
Hello. I am a Canadian who will soon be living and teaching in Gwangju for a year. I was wondering if there are any English-speaking Christian churches in Gwangju that I could attend. Is there any way for me to find out? Any help would be appreciated. If you know of any info, please email me at chiquita2pam@yahoo.com
Thanks.
i have already finished my whole manga but where can i go to publish or edit it?
I am writing a paper about Sweden's Deaf school and would like to know what kind of budget and/or resources are devoted to their education? Any input would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you,
Ginger
Moved to User talk:Gene Ward Smith
Moved to meta:Tipping Point in hopes of refactoring into an interesting page. -- Brion 07:33, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)
moved to Talk:Inland Empire (California)
Can someone else confirm that there's a problem with the images that I recently uploaded? They were working fine previously, but now they seem to be semi-missing. Examples include images on CDROM, LPDA, and telephone. -- Dante Alighieri 21:50, 28 Jan 2004 (UTC)
I can see the CD but cannot see the Belinda Stronach image. Sennheiser 22:44, 28 Jan 2004 (UTC)
The images from MER-B seem to be missing from the server. Sennheiser 22:47, 28 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Uploaded images from en are current on ursula up through January 24, but newer updates are still on pliny and can't be copied off due to the disk errors. If we can't coax it into cooperating remotely, Jason should be able to reset things when he goes in on Friday and copy them off then. Brion Vibber.
I Know! I've written to Angela about this and she didn't understand, so I'm asking that anyone who has the expertise switch the Database from a PC based Server to a Power Macintosh G5 Based server (I've read the MySQL article!) ask permission to do so and to send a message to everyone about the switch. thataway, you'll get the following advantages:
1. No need for a firewall
2. UNIX based strength in the OS
3. Can be left on with no damage
4. No more connectivity issues
5. Gigabit Ethernet
and the best feature of all:
6. No Viruses!
What do you think? Jack Zhang 12:12 Jan 28 2004 (UTC)
Is there any way I can link to an image on the German 'pedia?
I want to include http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bild:Suetterlin.png in Sütterlin, but I can't figure out how to do it. [[de:Bild:Suetterlin.png]] or [[Image:de:Suetterlin.png]] and related tricks won't work. Jo r 17:14, 28 Jan 2004 (UTC)
When was it decided to have article titles like Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson instead of what he is usually known as? This sseems to go against the established guidelines I know of -- Tarquin 14:47, 28 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Hi, We are a new Independent Record Label and wonder if we can be added to your list of indie labels? If so here are our details:
IRL: ShanelsWorldRecords http://www.shanelsworld.com 'We are a new independent Record Label specialising in commercial hip-hop and urabn music'. CONTACT: info@shanelsworld.com
Thanks for your time whether or not you could submit it.
SWR
I failed to find any instructions about putting materials to wikisources. Any advice? Mikkalai 23:08, 27 Jan 2004 (UTC)
There is a list of articles in need of formatting, wikilinking, and other forms of editing at Wikipedia:Cleanup#leftovers. If you have more, please add them to the top of the Wikipedia:Cleanup page. Onebyone 23:06, 27 Jan 2004 (UTC)
I'd like to start an article on cloudy, the photoionisation modeling code that is used in many, many physics simulations - see [7] for more. I've been trying to find where to create the link - any ideas - so far the only idea is Model, but there must be something better. Tompagenet 17:26, 27 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Does it bother anyone that when you follow the link YahooNews:Wikipedia on the main page, the #1 item is: " The Eight Biggest Tech Flops Ever"? :) - Fennec 02:54, 27 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Eeek! It sounds like we've been bombed. That's a known weakness with Yahoo's algorithm. Andrewa 05:53, 27 Jan 2004 (UTC)
What does one do if an edit war seems to be developing? I added comments to the talk page for Lucy tuning, but people reverted to a crackpot form of that article anyway without doing me the courtesy of explaining why. I wrote this there:
I've restored the non-crackpot version again, and moved the kook version to Wikinfo, which does not believe in NPOV. If you don't believe that is a kook version, you should either discuss that here or go to tuning@groups.yahoo.com and present your case to the experts.
This seems to me to be the least someone might do who thinks they know better--stand up and be counted, and have the courage to take the matter up with the experts. - Posted by User:Gene Ward Smith 02:34, 27 Jan 2004 (UTC) (sig added by Anthropos 14:10, 27 Jan 2004 (UTC)
In my opinion someone editing a page on his own at least very controversial theories, which is what I think is happening, is a total violation of NPOV and an utter abandonment of any intellectual standards or notion of peer review.
Standing up for what you believe is right is only to be admired, especially if you can provide rational reasoning and/or documentation for why you are right.
I wrote something in the talk page, which Mr. LucyTuning did not do. I presented a case, he has indulged in what amounts to vandalism. I proposed we take the matter up with the experts, and told where they can be found. What, exactly, do you want out of me--the intellectual timidity born of ignorance?
But, in my opinion, using descriptions such as "crackpot" is nothing to be admired. - Anthropos 06:27, 27 Jan 2004 (UTC)
You are not required to admire my language. However, I am not required to admire the abandonment of any standard of rationality. Is allowing the Wikipedia to become a dumping ground for crank theories really what people want? If so, I have no interest in the project. However, that is not what we are told is the case. Are there going to be some standards of evidence and reason here, or not? Are people going to be allowed to toot their own horn and promote their own goofy ideas, not accepted by their peers, or should that sort of thing be the provence of Wikinfo? In other words, people, are you serious? - Posted by User:Gene Ward Smith 08:32, 27 Jan 2004 (UTC) (sig added by Anthropos 14:10, 27 Jan 2004 (UTC))
Gene Ward Smith 20:10, 27 Jan 2004 (UTC)
This Yahoo News story links to us - someone want to put it where it belongs? - 戴眩sv
Is there a standard page where the current state of the Test Wikipedia is kept up to date? Since the database was wiped, all the instructions for the new experimental rendering features (chess, music and sundry other stuff) seem to have vanished. Also helpful would be documentation for the editing toolbar. I have tried searching but all I can find is the Wikipedia:Sites using MediaWiki page which really says almost nothing. -- Phil 12:07, Jan 26, 2004 (UTC)
I've seen multiple references to Éire where it would seem that linking to Republic of Ireland would be the significantly better option (IMHO as a dumb American). See The Simpsons#TV Channels that air The Simpsons, for instance. I was just wondering if I'm lacking some insight that makes Éire the better choice than Republic of Ireland. Is this some nationalistic thing? Oh well, not a whole lot that can be mucked with at the moment anyway since What links here is currently disabled anyway. — Mulad 08:04, 26 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Could someone sort out Franz Cardinal König? Some idiot insists on putting "Cardinal" in the title. Now the two articles each redirect to the other. Adam 16:33, 25 Jan 2004 (UTC)
<KF> 17:03, 25 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Check Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(names_and_titles)#Clerical_names -- User:Docu
See my note (with apology) at Franz Cardinal König. I did ask here what the policy was, and was told that article titles should not include personal titles of any kind. Why are Cardinals exempt from this rule? Adam 02:01, 26 Jan 2004 (UTC)
That policy was formulated by JTDirl in this edit [10] about nine months ago, and from what I can see on the talk page, it has been uncontroversial... <ominous mood> until now </ominous mood>. -- Cyan 02:29, 26 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Well I have to say I disagree with it, so now it is controversial. Why do Cardinals deserve titles while Archbishops, Bishops, Ayatollahs, Grand Muftis, Grand Rabbis, Moderators, Patriarchs, Doctors, Professors, Knights and Dames do not? Why is Bernard Law entitled to be Bernard Cardinal Law while Rowan Williams gets no title? This appears just to be privileging Catholicism over other religions. What is the justification for this? Adam 02:58, 26 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Why do Popes, Princes, and Princesses get titles while Kings and Queens do not? -- Jia ng 03:00, 26 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Because they change their names - Karol Wojtyla became John Paul II. "Cardinal" is just a title, like Dr or Professor or Rabbi. Please answer my question and don't raise side issues. Adam 03:33, 26 Jan 2004 (UTC)
My view is all biographical articles should use the person's name, unadorned by any title, unless the title has completely replaced the name, as with Popes and the Dalai Lama, for example. Peers as we know have their titles appended to their names, but the peerage is a uniquely complex institution. I see no reason why Cardinals should have a mere title added to their commonly used and well-known personal names, when no other equivalent religious or secular titles are so privileged. Adam 04:14, 26 Jan 2004 (UTC)
My view is that I don't care a whit which name gets the article, as long as both are present and one redirects to the other. -- Jmabel 04:21, 26 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Adam: Linguistic custom. Since at least a few centuries back. Also, commonality. Who would remember John Cardinal O'Connor if you didn't mention he was a Cardinal, for example? The common usage is to do write it like that. - 172.148.55.189 04:27, 26 Jan 2004 (UTC)
"Linguistic custom" and "common usage" would dictate that everyone gets all their titles in their article titles: Sir John Smith, Dr. John Smith, Rabbi John Smith, Emeritus Professor Dame Margaret Smith. If that is to be the convention, fine, but so far it isn't. The convention is no titles. I ask again, why are Cardinals a special case? Adam 04:50, 26 Jan 2004 (UTC)
The issue is not what policies other encyclopaedias have, but what issue Wikipedia has. Its policy appears to be no titles except for Cardinals. Unless someone can give me a convincing explanation for why Cardinals should be an exception to the rule, I will start to move some of the articles listed above. That should flush out the Cardinal-lovers. Adam 09:47, 27 Jan 2004 (UTC)
See Wikipedia talk:Conflict resolution for a possible way to better handle user and article disputes. -- mav 19:03, 24 Jan 2004 (PST)
There has been a lot of talk on WikiEN-l about the need for citations in articles. I tend to agree with that. But our current system of wiki refs only
encourage the creation of footnote-like references to external websites (which is less than ideal).
I have put together a proposal that, if enacted, would create a more wordprocessor-like footnote system that could be used for all types of footnotes (web, ISBN, journal articles, and written out dead tree citations).
See and respond on:
-- mav 01:42, 25 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Anyone heard about that ? http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/04/01/23/182255.shtml?tid=103&tid=123&tid=99
Dear editors My compliments for the Wikipêdia initiative. I already added a lot of links to my pages! The homepage is www.1world2travel.com It is a one-man-site (I really am the only one working on it) promoting countries for tourism and culture. The site is private and non-commercial and started two years ago when I studied the net, learning how to produce a website. You will find most of your links on my country-portals, the 'starttips'. You will find them immediately by going to www.toerisme.starttips.com and then search the continents. These pages started in Dutch but I'm extending them and translating them into English. An example I just finished South Africa (www.zuidafrika.starttips.com) giving a mass of information. China will be next. Some European and African countries underwent these changes already. Maybe you can use my site? Put some links to your pages? I don't think you will find many other sites offering the same volume of information to their visitors. Kind regards Walter Vaerewijck Menegemlei 15 2100 Antwerp +32/475/386-486 wvaerewyck@pandora.be 1w2t@pandora.be
PS - Personal info: I'm a retired journalist. Still active in touristic trade magazines and a tourmanager for the Flemish TO 'VTB'.
I don't know if this is a software glitch or what, but I just saved a page and rather than updating it, it blanked it. mydogategodshat 05:34, 29 Jan 2004 (UTC)
I've noticed that the committees of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate don't have articles. Can they be located somewhere else? I ask so I don't do a lot of duplicate work rewriting them for nothing. Also, if I do write them, what should the titles be? Thanks, Meelar 05:12, 29 Jan 2004 (UTC)
As a student at a school which does not offer internet access, it would be wonderfully useful if there was a copy of the site available for download - of course I'd miss out on updates, but periodically re-downloading it would fix that.
I understand that it'd be a very massive collection of files and folders, and may be nearly impossible from a technical standpoint (I don't know how much of this is generated dynamically), but it would be fantastically helpful to many.
spankypoo att excite dott com
Something I've wondered about, why are redirects not annotated with the reason for the redirect? Is there a policy or accepted way of doing things on this? Thanks. Elde 19:10, 29 Jan 2004 (UTC)
I don't want to sound too Americo-centric here, but I'm wondering just how often the phrase " New England" is used to reference the region in Australia. I ask because it is very commonly used in the United States to refer to the northeastern region, and the vast majority of pages that link to the disambiguation page are for the U.S. region. Would it be fair to move New England (U.S.) to New England with a proper disambiguation block at the top linking to the article on the Australian region? If these two meanings are equally common, then things should stay as they are, and my ignorant inquiry disregarded (but the links still need to be fixed). -- Minesweeper 05:05, Jan 29, 2004 (UTC)
(Note: this article was archived approx. 2 hrs after my last post. I have replaced it. PLEASE BE MORE CAREFUL WHEN ARCHIVING! HappyDog 00:11, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC))
Howdy! Right now the four standard "footer" elements of an article are "See Also," "Related Links," "Further Reading" and "References." I would like to propose "Primary Sources" as a third. This is for links to etexts or online editions of things mentioned in an article. Federalist Papers' "Related Links" are really "Primary Sources" as are the Margaret Sanger etexts linked on her page. This would also smooth out the currently clunky formating some people use for stuff like * Project Gutenberg etext of A Tale of Two Citiesetc, etc. This would also be a good way to promote Wikisource texts. I propose a format like:
===Primary Sources=== * [http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/lookup?num=18 Project Gutenberg Etext: ''The Federalist Papers'']
===Primary Sources===
or something like:
===Primary Sources=== * [http://digital.lib.msu.edu/onlinecolls/display.cfm?TitleNo=129&FT=gif&I=001 Michigan State University Library Etext: ''What Every Girl Should Know'']
===Primary Sources===
When i click edit section for " Mistake on sitewide redirect page" i am directed to edit "Primary SOurces" Section. is this a bug? Sennheiser 04:10, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)
A new MediaWiki software release has been installed. New features include
--
JeLuF et al. 23:38, Jan 29, 2004 (UTC)
Just a technical note: it's not a new release, but a live rollout of the current development snapshot. We'll release the new version at http://wikipedia.sourceforge.net/ after fixing bugs exposed by the rollout. -- Brion 03:38, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Why can't I upload a PDF? I am making PNG versions of the IPA chart, but having a PDF version available for download would be a good thing. Is there a good reason that I am forbidden from uploading PDF files? -- Nohat 22:12, 2004 Jan 29 (UTC)
There's a few articles I would like to help update. The page on scandium for example ( I am one of the few who actually deal with the product commercially ). There's a few other rare earth metals and so on that I can contribute information to. However, I am completely incompetent when it comes to formatting, html, anything that smacks of needing more computer knowledge than simply typing. So, is there some way to partner up with someone, I providing the information, and they putting it in the form that is required ?
Tim Worstall tcw@netcabo.pt
Does anyone know why pages disappear suddenly from Google searches for some time(a week or more) and then equally suddenly come back ? For example if we type the Page name + wikipedia in the search window, there is no link to the page. Ironically there are links to pages where the name of the page is mentioned elesewhere in Wikipedia. This was discussed earlier here without any clue/ solution. I am just bringing this up again because in recent months during the window(time) of disappearance, the parallel page from the Nationmaster site or encyclopedia4u( which use Wikipedia as source of information) comes up prominently( first/second,page etc.,) in the general search in Google.(I have the habit of trying this regularly with the very few pages that I had started/ contributed just to get a high!:-). KRS 09:01, 29 Jan 2004 (UTC)
A few new features will shortly be going live:
-- Tim Starling 08:43, Jan 29, 2004 (UTC)
What's RC? Graham 09:22, 29 Jan 2004 (UTC)
What's "shortly"? -- Phil 11:46, Jan 29, 2004 (UTC)
Questions and answers, after a period of time of inactivity, will be moved to other relevant sections of the wikipedia (such as the FAQ pages), placed in the Wikipedia:Village pump archive (if it is of general interest), or deleted (if it has no long-term value).
See the
archive for older moved discussion links. For the most recent moved discussion see
Wikipedia:Village pump/January 2004 archive 7
Welcome, newcomers and baffled oldtimers! This is where Wikipedians raise and try to answer Wikipedia-related questions and concerns regarding technical issues, policies, and operation in our community. However:
To facilitate ease of browsing and replying, please observe the following:
Related pages:
For old discussion, see: archive
(Press the END key on your keyboard to jump to the bottom of the page)
Welcome, newcomers and baffled oldtimers! This is where Wikipedians raise and try to answer Wikipedia-related questions and concerns regarding technical issues, policies, and operation in our community. However:
To facilitate ease of browsing and replying, please observe the following:
Related pages:
For old discussion, see: archive
FAQ: Images uploaded between January 24 and January 28 are currently not available due to a hardware problem with one of the web servers. We should have the files recovered sooner or later, but feel free to re-upload anything you uploaded in that period to restore it immediately.
Post a question or make a comment about working on Wikipedia now if you don't want to wait for the whole page to be loaded. But consider skimming to see if your question was already asked. Also, do not push the "save page" button multiple times when posting this way! Even if the server temporarily slows down it will almost always respond eventually and repeatedly pressing "save" will then post the question to the page as many times as you pressed "save"!
Sorry for posting this, there's probably lots of links of Wikipedia all over the place, but here's one I happened to stumble upon by chance. http://story.news.yahoo.com/fc?cid=34&tmpl=fc&in=Tech&cat=Computer_Viruses_and_Worms (It says to Computer worm for a definition.) Κσυπ Cyp 22:18, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Some images I had uploaded some days ago haven't appeared yet. Obviously it's about the disk problem. Should I upload again? Optim 22:42, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Is it just me? When I try to run a search I get sent to the front page rather than a google search option. I was also logged out in the middle of an edit. I assume new features are rolling out? :) fabiform | talk 02:53, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)
No it's not just you, the same thing is happening to me. Also when I go to edit an article I see an older version of the article not the one I just submitted. We seem to have a bug in the works. Adam 03:08, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Me too. I'm assuming that there is something seriously wrong somewhere. I cannot get to articles unless I can find an active link. The Status page implies nothing is wrong, but also that nothing is in very good shape either. Were we not due for a change over to something that works here soon? I've had to just stop coming around, because things have become so flaky. But I'm anticipating big changes! Will that be pretty soon? - Marshman 03:21, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)
I'm also having problems with being unable to edit articles that have been changed since I last edited them. I can see the changes, but when I go to edit them, I get an edit screen with the OLD version. I can't get the edit to update to the new version. RickK 05:09, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)
That has been the situation for several hours (except here at Village Pump for some reason). Is anyone with technical expertise awake out there? Adam 06:09, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Three hours later it's still happening. I open Hutton Inquiry, I make an edit, I save it. I open "Edit this page" again, and I see the text as it was before I made my edit, even though the saved version has in fact been changed. Is anyone else still experiencing this? Adam 09:53, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)
I'm afraid I know nothing about IRC. It's on one my list of things I should learn to use one day. Adam 10:19, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)
I had thought that animated gifs weren't permitted, until I ran across one on Flag terminology. So I whipped up a neat one (a flyweight too at 21.4KB) to fill the gaping hole in Central limit theorem, only to discover that gif files get bounced after all. Is there an acceptable animated file format that I can use? If not, can a developer let me upload it to the talk page so that people can see it and decide if they like it? -- Cyan 03:35, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)
I created some orphaned redirects today, and another user said that they personally didn't like the practice. I created The Teacup Poisoner (and variations) to redirect to Graham Frederick Young (a serial killer and what he was nicknamed by the press). Here's my rational as I posted it to the other users talk page as we discussed it: "IMHO orphaned redirects shouldn't be a problem, I mean wikipedia is still growing, and I added those redirects on the offchance that in the future someone will try to link to that phrase. When I'm wikifying an article, I tend to remove incidental links if they come up red rather than leaving them in in case someone creates an article called that in the future, I suspect most people do the same but it doesn't help develop wikipedia into a strong network of links if you think about it. (Did that make sense?)" What's the consensus on orphaned redirects? Am I commiting a solecism and drawing universal hatred upon myself by creating them? :) Fabiform 06:52, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)
I just wrote an article on Ernest King, and I'd like to add a picture to it. The US navy has some great pictures of him that are in the national archives. Are they part of the public domain, and (as such) distributable under the GPL? →Raul654 11:01, Jan 30, 2004 (UTC)
The pump fills up quickly, and Recent Changes is harder to work with. A year ago, I could put a question in the comment line of an edit and hope that someone would catch it, but these days I wonder how long before it is seen. Therefore, I suggest we create "faculty rooms", which would be like Village Pumps centered on different subjects. To start with, maybe just science / humanities / arts, but see how it goes from there. These would be places to discuss new projects and mention pages that need attention -- Tarquin 13:58, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)
How do I use the new
extended image syntax please? I’ve read the Help but it’s still not totally clear how to use it. Here’s a screengrab of the code I’ve used up to now (from the
Hawker Hunter article):
Can some kind person tell me the new code to replace it? You might need to know that my thumbnail is to be 300 pixels across and my Larger Version is usually 750 pixels across (but both pic sizes can vary depending on the quality and aspect ratio of the source pic). Do I still have to upload a thumbnail myself or does the new code generate it? I need the choice of placing the thumbnail on left or right, for the Hunter pic it needs to be on the right.
Thanks,
Adrian Pingstone 17:51, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)
P.S. I notice that the thumbnail the code makes is a little large, it was 36K compared with the 20K I got when I made the thumbnail. So the new code will have a penalty in page loading times. Adrian Pingstone 23:13, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Is there a way to align left the image on Henri_Druey ? Currently the list interferes with the image (it probably also did in the previous version). -- User:Docu
The articles on companies on wikipedia seems to be fairly shallow. I think that is an interesting use of wikipedia to actually describe the companies we are dependent on for so many of the things we use in our lives. People _do_ have very strong feelings about things they buy. But we often fail to connect those things to the companies, and then the people, that bring them into the world.
For example, I added a little note to the Pepsi page in which I referenced that it was an SIC 2080 company, as classified upon its incorporation in the United States. This then led to a list of US SIC 2080 compnaies. I got this list from the US SEC. Many of these companies are huge players in our lives in various ways, yet there are no articles about them.
It seems that there can be a standard bunch of information, such as the boxes that go with some other types of pages, that would show an entity's ownership, employees, geographical reach and other important information. I am not an economist, but I believe it is important to document these market forces.
Does anyone have ideas about good ways to do this? RayKiddy 06:40, 1 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Where did your name Wikipedia come from and what is your purpose other than to provide encyclopaedia services for free?
Short answers:
As a result it is also full of badly-written nonsense, but we are working on that. :) Adam 10:19, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)
From 06:30, 12 Dec 2003 to 21:24, 17 Jan 2004, article "Slashdot trolling phenomena" was the victim of what I think was stealth vandalism, but might possibly be an anonymous editor with very poor English skills.
The vandalism appears never to have been recognized as such, with individual problem phrases being corrected in an ad hoc manner as each was noticed by later editors.
In addition to changing phrases, expansions of abbreviations where removed, and some sub-sections were removed entirely. Some disputable or incorrect factual claims are also made ("Steal underpants" for "Collect underpants", added text under the sycophant troll). I noticed the changes when I went to copy the text of the "Stephen King is Dead" troll to commemorate Captain Kangaroo on Slashdot, only to find the canonical text removed.
I definitely think that the canonical text should be there (which is why I originally added it), but I'm a little reluctant to restore the text for two reasons: a number of other changes have acreted in the meantime, and the original text makes reference to a Slashdot user who shares my Wikipedia username, an addition I originally made only to correct what had been an incorrect attribution (of using the Stephen King troll to announce real deaths) to "Anonymous Coward".
Some of the changed phrases, with the change highlighted:
"This is a list of some of the trolls which may be come across when browsing Slashdot comments."
"Homosexuality is one of the most versatile and so common trolling devices utilised."
The rest can be see in the diff, at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Slashdot_trolling_phenomena&diff=1939119&oldid=1938692
PS: Minesweeper found a similar stealth vandalism in
Slashdot on 20:27, 19 Dec 2003.
My guess is that it's a Slashdot troll trying for some self-referential "humor".
Forgot to sign! orthogonal 14:50, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)
A recent edit of Statue of Liberty has a section that now reads:
French sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi was commissioned to design a sculpture with the year 1876 in mind for completion, to commemorate the centennial of the American Declaration of Independence. It was agreed upon that in a joint effort the American people were to build the pedestal, and the French people were responsible for the Statue and its assembly here in the United States. However, lack of funds was a problem on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. In France, public fees, ...
The edit added links to French, American, French, Atlantic Ocean, and France.
I see a lot of this, and I don't understand it. What purpose is served by linking the word "French" twice, rather than just on its first appearance in the paragraph? And, what purpose is served by linking to these terms in the first place? There seems to be a frenzy in Wikipedia to wikilink anything at all for which an article exists. Isn't it preferable to link only those that are clearly relevant to the article from which they're linked? Dpbsmith 04:24, 1 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Over the last couple of days some pictures have disappeared from this article. What is going on? mydogategodshat 11:00, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)
I posted an entry on Fanya Kaplan, the woman that attempted to assassinate Lenin. Being as her real name is Russian, there is some dispute on how it should be transcribed into English. I have seen it as both Fanny and Fanya. A Google search shows that Fanny is more popular by about two to one, but Fanya seems to appear much more frequently in the scholarly works as opposed to the general ones. In addition, Mikkalai, who unlike me actually speaks Russian, says that Fanny is the more accurate transcription. I'm throwing this one to the consensus of the crowd. 1430 EST 30 January 2004 MK
I just created a redirect from Paso Robles, California to El Paso de Robles (Paso Robles), California. This edit did not show up on recent changes until I changed it to "show bots". And, I'm pretty sure I'm not a bot. Going to this page didn't show it either. At around the same time, another user created a redirect from AUM Shinrikyo to Aum Shinrikyo which was similarly hidden. Other edits, which didn't involve creating redirects, showed up normally in RC. Is this part of an ongoing debugging process? -- Minesweeper 06:49, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)
After you did the redirect did you click on the Recent changes link, or use your Back button? Recently, I've noticed the Back button doesn't give me an updated version of the Recent Changes page. It's been like that for about a week now. I thought it was intentional. RickK 06:53, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)
I'd like to request a feature for generating the number of user contributions someone has made. Like ~~~~, it gets replaced with a number once the article gets saved. I would suggest a format such as {{contributions:Username}}. →Raul654 07:47, Feb 1, 2004 (UTC)
What is the Wikipedia policy on establishing pages for an ongoing FAQ/documentation project for various Open Source software? In particular, I have in mind the increasingly popular Open Office (www.openoffice.org). One of the problems with open source software is that the guides and documentation are frequently written at a single point in time by single authors, even though the software is a moving target. The web typically contains several outdated documents, and leaves some areas which are not well explained. A community effort could quickly keep documentation fresh, and offer assistance through current guides.
I realise that an encyclopaedia is not the place for software documentation, but then again, you wouldn't expect to find cartoon characters in an encyclopaedia either.
Your view and/or ruling on this would be much appreciated.
-- Humanist 00:56, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Who got article 200,000?! :) jengod 00:50, Feb 2, 2004 (UTC)
Who got article 200,000?! :) jengod 00:50, Feb 2, 2004 (UTC)
It seems that a link can't be used in the caption when using the new pic code.
For example this produces a picture:
[[image:luft.a300b4.d-aias.750pix..jpg|thumb|right|300px|<center>''Lufthansa Airbus A300''</center>]]
but this gives no picture:
[[image:luft.a300b4.d-aias.750pix..jpg|thumb|right|300px|<center>''[[Lufthansa]] Airbus A300''</center>]]
(Ignore the double dot in the filename, that has nothing to do with the problem). Are links in captions not now allowed or am I doing something wrong?
Adrian Pingstone 18:04, 1 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Who got article 200,000?! :) jengod 00:50, Feb 2, 2004 (UTC)
I suggest posting a link on the main page to Wikipedia:Celebrating 200,000 →Raul654 01:51, Feb 2, 2004 (UTC)
With two hours today, three articles written by me have been vandalised by anonymous persons ( Robert Menzies, George Panandreou, junior and Panhellenic Socialist Movement) and one subjected to a edit which, while not strictly vandalism, was destructive and pointless ( The Sixties). Users of real encyclopaedia do not expect to open articles and see the word FUCK where they expected to find an article. What happens when parents and schools use Wikipedia and find this kind of vandalism?. Sure it is reverted fairly quickly, but Wikipedia has a high level of traffic and the vandalised version will be seen by some people. When is Wikipedia going to have a serious debate on the proposition Anonymous users should not be allowed to edit articles? Adam 04:08, 2 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Ah well, I see I am not going to persuade many people on this issue. But sooner or later WP is going to have to choose between process and outcome, because the two are untimately not compatible. Real encyclopaedias, ones that readers rely on and come back to and cite in their essays etc, have both stability of content (ie the article on fascism presents the same facts this week as it did last week) and quality control (ie those facts are in fact facts and not somebody's illiterate ramblings). At present WP has neither of those things. Until it does WP will not achieve its objectives of being (and I quote) a complete and accurate encyclopaedia. I certainly would not cite a fact I read at WP without checking it somewhere, whereas I would do so with something I read in the Britannica. At the moment WP exists to satisfy the needs of its contributors (including me), not its readers or potential readers. Sooner or later this must change. Adam 05:27, 2 Feb 2004 (UTC)
PS I didn't find Tim's parody of my page particularly amusing.
I think Adam has some good point, but possibly slightly prematurely. I think Wikipedia is still in a primarily "collecting knowledge" stage, where most of the world's knowledge that might be appropriate for an encyclopedia is not in Wikipedia. Within a few years, I think this will no longer be the case, and Wikipedia will be fairly complete, missing mostly obscure things and being mainly in need of revision and clarification rather than expansion. When that becomes the case, I think something will have to change. Clearly an article that has been painstakingly concocted over a period of a year should not be subjected to massive detrimental edits by a group of new users. So I think at some point in the future we might want to start flagging certain article as "this article is essentially done", and have some way whereby further edits must pass through at least a minimal review process to ensure they really are improvements. -- Delirium 05:56, Feb 2, 2004 (UTC)
Jiang refers to the proposal for a Wikipedia.1 or whatever - this would amount to much the same thing as I proposed at the Meta page linked to above, because articles at WP which were peer-judged to be "complete" and "accurate" would be promoted to WP1, where they could not be further edited except by agreement. We would thus have a 2-tier WP, one where the soundness of articles was in some sense guaranteed, and one where caveat lector prevailed. Delirium may well be right that WP is not yet at the stage where this starts happening. But the sooner the better would be my view. Adam 06:14, 2 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I acknowledge that there is more than one way to achieve these objctives. Pcb21 and Bmills's suggestions are on the same path as mine, but more sophisticated in their means. Incidentally I don't think Tim's link to the parody page was directed at me in a hostile sense. Adam 10:18, 2 Feb 2004 (UTC)
The transwiki protocol looks great, but I've a question... how do I link to an article in the process of transition? Will links to the Transwiki pseudo-namespace be converted to links to the final article when the process is completed? Is this described somewhere and I've missed it? Andrewa 01:37, 1 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Wasn't sure where to post this since it doesn't appear to be vandalism per se, but...the user 130.88.96.66 seems to be deleting large swatches of content in articles related to Sunnis, Christians in Arab nations, etc. (see this for a full list). Unfortunately, I know nothing of the subject matter and can't determine whether or not the guy is a vandal, making things NPOV by omission or what. Perhaps I'm being too cynical and the guy knows what he's doing. Anyways, I at least wanted to make a note of it and ask "What do you do when you're not sure if it's vandalism?" RadicalBender 05:30, 2 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Can anyone who's familiar with Australian English have a glance at sherbert and talk:sherbet and tell me if I have it right. I'm having a hard time confirming it with websearches. Thanks! Replies to talk:sherbet. fabiform | talk 19:40, 2 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I was just looking at Microsoft, and noticed that there was an inline link to ku:Microsoft. I assumed it was an accident in the markup ([[:ku:Microsoft]], like the one just there). But in the source, it is quite clearly correct: [[ku:Microsoft]]. The same problem appears on Bill Gates, and even on the German sandbox, so it seems the software just isn't accepting ku as a proper language. (Yes, I know it's a software issue, and those live elsewhere, but I suspect it's just a switch needs flipping somewhere, rather than a full-on bug...) - IMSoP 17:00, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Hello, My name is Elizabeth L. Nice. I am in the United States. My Father was Franklin Motes Nice and all the Nices dateing back to the 1500-1700's were from Nice, France. I have an official coat of arms and I am looking into my ancestoral background. Any information you could give me would be greatly appreciated. My Grandfathers with the name "Nice" came to the United States we believe sometime in the 1700's--As far as we know, they were all doctors--My father broke that chain and did not become a doctor. I was also told that my ancestors founded Nicetown,Philadelphia. My one Grandfather, John Jacob Mickley has the credit for being one of the men responsible for rescuing the Liberty Bell during the Revolutionary War when the British were coming to attack Philadelphia and destroy the Bell. Thankyou so much for your time and any information about my ancestors from France. Very Sincerely Yours, Elizabeth Lee Nice
I wonder if you could help me.I am trying to fill a form out and it is asking my ethnic group,I am struggling with the answer as my grandad was apparantly jamacan and my grandmother english, and my mother was quite dark half cast and my father english.I was adopted you see so I am a bit stuck with my ethnic group I wonder if you can help Thanks Tracey.
Could someone vistit Monument to the Royal Stuarts, and fix the nifty magnifying glass thing, which I copied from Athens, so that it leads to the big version of the photo as it is supposed to. The big version is uploaded as [[Image:ac.stuarts.jpg]] and the small version as [[image:ac.stuarts2.jpg]]. Obviously I have missed a step in the process somewhere. Adam 11:41, 1 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Many thanks. So I just upload the big version, and then specify in the edit box the width I want the small version to appear as, is that correct? Adam 11:54, 1 Feb 2004 (UTC)
[[image:yourfilename.jpg|thumb|right|300px|<center>yourpicturetitle</center>]]