This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (miscellaneous). Please do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to revive any of these discussions, either start a new thread or use the talk page associated with that topic.
< Older discussions · Archives: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X · 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79
I think I just accessed a worm hole. Found an edit war over Hitler still going on a hundred years from now. http://www.abyssandapex.com/200710-wikihistory.html-- Aspro ( talk) 20:08, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
[[
123Pie|
Talk]]
20:40, 19 March
2108 (UTC)Hi, how can I get Linux to run on my mac? (I think this is the right place for the question) – [[
123Pie|
Talk]]
20:36, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
Today, after reading an interesting article [1] about Internet Historiography, I decided to break my wikiabsence to check on the status of History of the Internet. I was moderately disturbed to discover that the article was, despite still being labeled as a 'Good Article', had suffered sever degradation because of improperly corrected vandalism. What's particularly worrying is that the article, which is pretty prominent, had been in this state since at least October. It's not that the article hasn't been edited by people trying to correct and maintain it, as the article history shows it's been regularly edited consistently. It's just seems that the amount of vandalism overwhelmed the editors who were maintaining the article. I've corrected it for now, but it's likely to end up in a state again, and I've not been made to feel welcome enough here to want to spend my time keeping it maintained.
This seems to me to be a clear warning that the 'identify and correct' response to vandalism is breaking down as Wikipedia has lost more and more capable editors to the attrition of the hostile environment Wikipedia has turned into. There are no longer enough people wiling to give time to the project to be able to cope with the growth, constant maintenance and upkeep needs; and this is a direct result of the failings of the community and foundation. I've been a warning voice saying that the project's been blundering towards this kind of failure for quite some time, and I'm not at all happy that it looks like I'm going to be proven right so quickly. I do hope there is time to correct the state of Wikipedia, and be able to bring back productive editors who've been driven out by the increasingly top-heavy bureaucracy, secrecy and combativenesses. -- Barberio ( talk) 00:17, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
The meta stuff, while it consumes a lot of time, is also an effort to take care of systemic problems and improve processes in ways that will produce benefits in the long run. We need both the metapedians and the exopedians because each is doing something that helps make the other's work worthwhile. As for people covering obscure subjects more than the mainstream ones, that's to be expected. After all, you can do a google search and easily find a plethora of comprehensive information on, say, Edgar Allen Poe. In that sense, having a good Wikipedia article on it might be considered less crucial, from the public's point of view. The obscure subjects, such as blood electrification, might be harder to find, and thus someone goes to the trouble of creating a wiki article on it. Of course, those cases often are on the boundaries of what the community considers notable, and those debates attract more attention to the meta aspects of Wikipedia. Obuibo Mbstpo ( talk) 17:03, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
Greetings,
I feel concerned about wikipedia unintentionnally fostering DRM-piracy by informing Web viewers (and teens) about ways to crack DRM music titles and methods used.
I am not saying that Wikipedia.org is directly explaining how to do it, but a malicious user could gain valuable general information on which strategy to operate to breakthrough the DRM licence.
The topic about the "analog hole" I feel is very technical and I myself wasn't aware of its existence.
One can't foster respect of legality and free sharing of information if that information in turn can help malicious people.
Maybe Wikipedia should strenghten its ethical code by filtering information according to the audience?
For example, the DRM page ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Rights_Management#Methods_to_bypass_DRM) shouldn't be targeted to teens or young people who would be tempted to crack DRM licences. How to do this, I don't know. It might be utopic, since blocking access according to age, country, or status could be seen as discrimination and technically very difficult or impossible. One of copyright holders dream would be to force Web users to share their identity before having access to Internet (so that they can control who is downloading, etc). But that would BIG BROTHER Level 150 and I hope this will not happen anyday. But if the USA does it, then Europe (and the world)would follow, and citizens would have to respect laws,even related to the Internet. But let's face it: porn sites ask if one is under 18 or not because of the content.(and because it's the law). Could one extend the thinking to strategic information contained within Wikipedia articles? Should content editors and writers sign a chart of ethic before postin an article on Wikipedia? Filtering of information does not belong to Wikipedia, true. It is a matter of personal responsibility and personal ethics, true. But is also a matter of PUBLIC POLICY (so it is the government responsibility to manager what information can be damageful to the public). Private companies don't have to restrain information according the user, but they should do it if we all want to live in a safer and more respectful digital world.
I would not want honest and respectful citizens to have to pay for mistakes made by others.(such as more restrictions on downloading of music, higher fees and pricec to limit piracy, discrimination,etc).
Sincerely, —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mavyalex ( talk • contribs) 10:56, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
I need help trying to figure out how to create an entirely new page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jeffduke404 ( talk • contribs) 20:03, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
How can I download an article (for Ex: Cats) and added to my web page that I creating as information and as a link to Wikipedia?
Please advise. Thank you
As unsolicited general advice regarding user categories, editors and administrators may wish to watchlist categories on their user pages, so that they are aware of discussions on the category talk page or deletion discussions at Wikipedia:User categories for discussion. -- Iamunknown 23:01, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
Why is my edit count according to my preferences ~1000 more than the # here? ~EdGl 02:26, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
'Nuff said-- Daftism ( talk) 11:31, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
Hi. I'm interested to know if folk have any opinions about the suggestions here, as the template involved appears in many articles. Hope I've posted this message in the correct Village pump area. Sardanaphalus ( talk) 11:56, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
A project I've been working on for a while has been resurrected. WatchlistBot is an XMPP bot ( Google Talk is an XMPP service, for you gmail folks) that will send messages out when certain pages are modified. It's still in development but is quite stable. Right now it only works with enwiki but interwiki support is planned down the road.
There are only a few people using it right now and I'd like to widen the audience a bit, both so more people can benefit from it and so I can get more feedback about it. If you're interested hop on over. -- Chris (talk) 13:14, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
If you are interested in me explaining my work and how I see its implications for Wikipedia and Wikipedians, here's a video presentation. I recently spoke to high school kids in Calhan, Colorado about how to edit Wikipedia, but also included a discussion of my work and how they can copy me. This is essentially the same talk. --David Shankbone 15:06, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
have noticed numerous articles which are in fact jokes and/or hoaxes and vandalism related to Discordianism. discordianism is a fictional creation of Robert Anton Wilson. Allot of Robert Anton Wilson's work is based on blurring fact and fiction, but it seems that this has infiltrated Wikipedia and there are many articles which are presenting fictional characters or Wilson's as though they were real. Its a funny joke but I think it's a serious threat to the credibility of Wikipedia, and underscores the Achilles heel of the collaborative nature of wikipedia. If allot of people think its amusing, its fairly easy to use Wikipedia to distort the truth. Rich.lewis ( talk) 17:17, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
I'm gonna remove the hoax tag from Kerry and Hill, but leave it at Malaclypse, until the fictionality is made clear. I'll also change the merge tags -- Enric Naval ( talk) 10:27, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
The problem I see here is that it is not acknowledged on the articles that they are talking about a fictional topic, which why I re-added the hoax tags and asked for merging both the Gregory Hill (writer) and the Malaclypse the Younger articles into the Kerry_Wendell_Thornley article, as well that clearing that Kerry is a fictional character created by Robert_Anton_Wilson. (On retrospective, maybe Malaclypse don't need to be merged and could stand on its own as well fictionality and author are also stated there, and the article has enough content) -- Enric Naval ( talk) 14:39, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
OK, first, thanks everyone for taking notice. To go back to what we know are verifiable facts, we have only this: A man named Kerry Wendell Thornley appeared as a witness before the Warren commission. We don't know what he said, although that would be in the transcripts if they are publically available, but that does not make him NOTEWORTHY. None of the other facts on the bio page are verifiable, so in my opinion the article should be removed. However, if the article were to be reworded to clarify that either Thornley is a character in Wilson's Discordianism fantasy world, then most of the statements can stand as is, with the caveat that the article state clearly there is no FACTUAL basis to believe the witness at the Warren commission and the Discordian mythological figure are the same person. For that matter, why not elevate Thornley to the status of a mythological figure. That might actually make some of the Discordians, who are also part of the Wikipedia community, happy.
As far as asserting Kerry Wendell Thornley is a pen name of Wilson's, I wouldn't necessarily say that is verifiable either, which is beside the point. If Wilson has used Kerry Wendell Thornley as a pen name, maybe that’s true, maybe it isn't, but it does not impact my comments about the verifiability of the facts on the Kerry Wendell Thornley bio page. In truth I suspect Kerry Wendell Thornley is a sort of a communal joke amongst the Discordians, many of whom may have hopped on the band wagon and written misinformation under his name. That's the whole point of discordianism, after all, so we would expect a good Discordian to do this sort of thing.
And as for the "real" obituary in the ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION in 1998, first we have only the reference to this article from a Discordian source, hence it is likely a hoax. Furthermore, the article itself has factual errors. It references Thornley as the author of "The Idle Warriors," BEFORE the Kennedy assassination. It is an important piece of Discordian mythology that not only did Thornley "The Idle Warriors" as a bio of Oswald before the Kennedy assassination, but also that THIS was the reason why he was called at a witness by the Warren commission. However, this book is referenced as a source of the Thornley bio page, but published in 1991 by IllumiNet Press. You will find that many works of Discordian fiction are also published by IllumiNet Press. Also notice the listed address PO Box 2808, Lilburn, GA 30226. Again, this is all fiction.
And one more thing, I also submit the bio on Greg Hill is also not noteworthy, other than unverifiable references to Discordian mythology, and should also be removed.
My last statement is that, until these issues are fixed, someone please step up and put back the hoax reference I put on both articles. I don’t think I should do it because that would encourage an edit war. I won't make any more changes to either article; I'll leave it up to others involved to make changes based on objective facts. Rich.lewis ( talk) 15:15, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
Rich.lewis has since stated that "not only are Kerry Wendell Thornley and Greg Hill both real people, but they really did know eachother" ( link). Meanwhile, I have obtained Thornley's obituary from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution website, along with some other AJ-C articles that mention Thornley. A few samples for your consideration:
I've already placed a couple of citations in the article, and will add more at a later time. I move that we close this discussion. Thanks, -- Gyrofrog (talk) 04:50, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
I suggest closing this discussion and going back to the talk pages of the relevant articles. If nobody opposes, I'll put my next messages there -- Enric Naval ( talk) 21:23, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
I can't find my way around well enough to find the proper format to insert "date needed" or even "citation needed" into an article's text. Please, what is the right format, and where can I find things like this myself? Wandering around in TEMPLATE: land has done me no good. -- LisaSmall T/ C 07:30, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
(Shamelessly copied from User Talk:Jimbo Wales, thanks to WAS 4.250. -- Nifboy ( talk) 12:06, 25 March 2008 (UTC))
Erik Moeller says:
Please translate this announcement into other languages and forward it to other mailing lists and village pumps. (The translators list has already been notified and will help with this process.)
The Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia Germany have collaborated, with financial support from Wikimedia France, to support development of a new extension to our software which makes it possible to flag versions of wiki articles as having reached a certain quality. This new toolset could mark the beginning of a new era for Wikipedia and its sister projects, giving readers more transparency than ever about the quality of a given article. A special note of thanks to Aaron Schulz, who has developed much of the functionality as a volunteer -- we would not be where we are today without him. The ongoing support and patience of Philipp Birken from the German chapter was also critical.
Before this functionality will be enabled on any Wikimedia project, it needs to be tested thoroughly for usability, bugs, security and performance. Test wikis have been set up in English and German (because the German Wikimedia community has been driving the development of this functionality from the beginning).
These wikis contain a copy of the Wikibooks database. This copy is completely separate from the "real" Wikibooks, so do not worry about destroying anything of value. Please follow the instructions on the Main Pages to participate. If you do not speak English or German, we encourage you right now to
- set up test wikis independently using the open source extension available from http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:FlaggedRevs , or
- change the user interface preference, and create pages in the English test wiki in your language.
This is due to our limited capacity to set up additional wikis. If you feel you really, absolutely, strongly need a test wiki in your language, please file a request through:
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/
Wikimedia communities will also have to decide what kind of configuration to use for their project. Key questions to answer include:
- What quality attributes should there be?
- Who should be permitted to flag changes as having been reviewed for vandalism, or for other quality attributes?
- Should the default view for unregistered users change to the "stable version" on all pages, some pages, or no pages?
The German Wikimedia community has implemented a particular long-standing community proposal and will probably go live the soonest with this configuration; other communities will still have to develop consensus.
What's next?
The test will run at least until April 10, 2008 before the extension is implemented live on any wiki. This is to allow any serious problems to be surfaced by the community. If there are no critical open issues as of April 10, any language/project community will be permitted to file a request through https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/ to activate the extension. This request will have to point to pages in the project indicating a consensus to move forward. Detailed instructions to do so will be posted on the test wikis.
This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (miscellaneous). Please do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to revive any of these discussions, either start a new thread or use the talk page associated with that topic.
< Older discussions · Archives: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X · 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79
I think I just accessed a worm hole. Found an edit war over Hitler still going on a hundred years from now. http://www.abyssandapex.com/200710-wikihistory.html-- Aspro ( talk) 20:08, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
[[
123Pie|
Talk]]
20:40, 19 March
2108 (UTC)Hi, how can I get Linux to run on my mac? (I think this is the right place for the question) – [[
123Pie|
Talk]]
20:36, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
Today, after reading an interesting article [1] about Internet Historiography, I decided to break my wikiabsence to check on the status of History of the Internet. I was moderately disturbed to discover that the article was, despite still being labeled as a 'Good Article', had suffered sever degradation because of improperly corrected vandalism. What's particularly worrying is that the article, which is pretty prominent, had been in this state since at least October. It's not that the article hasn't been edited by people trying to correct and maintain it, as the article history shows it's been regularly edited consistently. It's just seems that the amount of vandalism overwhelmed the editors who were maintaining the article. I've corrected it for now, but it's likely to end up in a state again, and I've not been made to feel welcome enough here to want to spend my time keeping it maintained.
This seems to me to be a clear warning that the 'identify and correct' response to vandalism is breaking down as Wikipedia has lost more and more capable editors to the attrition of the hostile environment Wikipedia has turned into. There are no longer enough people wiling to give time to the project to be able to cope with the growth, constant maintenance and upkeep needs; and this is a direct result of the failings of the community and foundation. I've been a warning voice saying that the project's been blundering towards this kind of failure for quite some time, and I'm not at all happy that it looks like I'm going to be proven right so quickly. I do hope there is time to correct the state of Wikipedia, and be able to bring back productive editors who've been driven out by the increasingly top-heavy bureaucracy, secrecy and combativenesses. -- Barberio ( talk) 00:17, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
The meta stuff, while it consumes a lot of time, is also an effort to take care of systemic problems and improve processes in ways that will produce benefits in the long run. We need both the metapedians and the exopedians because each is doing something that helps make the other's work worthwhile. As for people covering obscure subjects more than the mainstream ones, that's to be expected. After all, you can do a google search and easily find a plethora of comprehensive information on, say, Edgar Allen Poe. In that sense, having a good Wikipedia article on it might be considered less crucial, from the public's point of view. The obscure subjects, such as blood electrification, might be harder to find, and thus someone goes to the trouble of creating a wiki article on it. Of course, those cases often are on the boundaries of what the community considers notable, and those debates attract more attention to the meta aspects of Wikipedia. Obuibo Mbstpo ( talk) 17:03, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
Greetings,
I feel concerned about wikipedia unintentionnally fostering DRM-piracy by informing Web viewers (and teens) about ways to crack DRM music titles and methods used.
I am not saying that Wikipedia.org is directly explaining how to do it, but a malicious user could gain valuable general information on which strategy to operate to breakthrough the DRM licence.
The topic about the "analog hole" I feel is very technical and I myself wasn't aware of its existence.
One can't foster respect of legality and free sharing of information if that information in turn can help malicious people.
Maybe Wikipedia should strenghten its ethical code by filtering information according to the audience?
For example, the DRM page ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Rights_Management#Methods_to_bypass_DRM) shouldn't be targeted to teens or young people who would be tempted to crack DRM licences. How to do this, I don't know. It might be utopic, since blocking access according to age, country, or status could be seen as discrimination and technically very difficult or impossible. One of copyright holders dream would be to force Web users to share their identity before having access to Internet (so that they can control who is downloading, etc). But that would BIG BROTHER Level 150 and I hope this will not happen anyday. But if the USA does it, then Europe (and the world)would follow, and citizens would have to respect laws,even related to the Internet. But let's face it: porn sites ask if one is under 18 or not because of the content.(and because it's the law). Could one extend the thinking to strategic information contained within Wikipedia articles? Should content editors and writers sign a chart of ethic before postin an article on Wikipedia? Filtering of information does not belong to Wikipedia, true. It is a matter of personal responsibility and personal ethics, true. But is also a matter of PUBLIC POLICY (so it is the government responsibility to manager what information can be damageful to the public). Private companies don't have to restrain information according the user, but they should do it if we all want to live in a safer and more respectful digital world.
I would not want honest and respectful citizens to have to pay for mistakes made by others.(such as more restrictions on downloading of music, higher fees and pricec to limit piracy, discrimination,etc).
Sincerely, —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mavyalex ( talk • contribs) 10:56, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
I need help trying to figure out how to create an entirely new page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jeffduke404 ( talk • contribs) 20:03, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
How can I download an article (for Ex: Cats) and added to my web page that I creating as information and as a link to Wikipedia?
Please advise. Thank you
As unsolicited general advice regarding user categories, editors and administrators may wish to watchlist categories on their user pages, so that they are aware of discussions on the category talk page or deletion discussions at Wikipedia:User categories for discussion. -- Iamunknown 23:01, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
Why is my edit count according to my preferences ~1000 more than the # here? ~EdGl 02:26, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
'Nuff said-- Daftism ( talk) 11:31, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
Hi. I'm interested to know if folk have any opinions about the suggestions here, as the template involved appears in many articles. Hope I've posted this message in the correct Village pump area. Sardanaphalus ( talk) 11:56, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
A project I've been working on for a while has been resurrected. WatchlistBot is an XMPP bot ( Google Talk is an XMPP service, for you gmail folks) that will send messages out when certain pages are modified. It's still in development but is quite stable. Right now it only works with enwiki but interwiki support is planned down the road.
There are only a few people using it right now and I'd like to widen the audience a bit, both so more people can benefit from it and so I can get more feedback about it. If you're interested hop on over. -- Chris (talk) 13:14, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
If you are interested in me explaining my work and how I see its implications for Wikipedia and Wikipedians, here's a video presentation. I recently spoke to high school kids in Calhan, Colorado about how to edit Wikipedia, but also included a discussion of my work and how they can copy me. This is essentially the same talk. --David Shankbone 15:06, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
have noticed numerous articles which are in fact jokes and/or hoaxes and vandalism related to Discordianism. discordianism is a fictional creation of Robert Anton Wilson. Allot of Robert Anton Wilson's work is based on blurring fact and fiction, but it seems that this has infiltrated Wikipedia and there are many articles which are presenting fictional characters or Wilson's as though they were real. Its a funny joke but I think it's a serious threat to the credibility of Wikipedia, and underscores the Achilles heel of the collaborative nature of wikipedia. If allot of people think its amusing, its fairly easy to use Wikipedia to distort the truth. Rich.lewis ( talk) 17:17, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
I'm gonna remove the hoax tag from Kerry and Hill, but leave it at Malaclypse, until the fictionality is made clear. I'll also change the merge tags -- Enric Naval ( talk) 10:27, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
The problem I see here is that it is not acknowledged on the articles that they are talking about a fictional topic, which why I re-added the hoax tags and asked for merging both the Gregory Hill (writer) and the Malaclypse the Younger articles into the Kerry_Wendell_Thornley article, as well that clearing that Kerry is a fictional character created by Robert_Anton_Wilson. (On retrospective, maybe Malaclypse don't need to be merged and could stand on its own as well fictionality and author are also stated there, and the article has enough content) -- Enric Naval ( talk) 14:39, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
OK, first, thanks everyone for taking notice. To go back to what we know are verifiable facts, we have only this: A man named Kerry Wendell Thornley appeared as a witness before the Warren commission. We don't know what he said, although that would be in the transcripts if they are publically available, but that does not make him NOTEWORTHY. None of the other facts on the bio page are verifiable, so in my opinion the article should be removed. However, if the article were to be reworded to clarify that either Thornley is a character in Wilson's Discordianism fantasy world, then most of the statements can stand as is, with the caveat that the article state clearly there is no FACTUAL basis to believe the witness at the Warren commission and the Discordian mythological figure are the same person. For that matter, why not elevate Thornley to the status of a mythological figure. That might actually make some of the Discordians, who are also part of the Wikipedia community, happy.
As far as asserting Kerry Wendell Thornley is a pen name of Wilson's, I wouldn't necessarily say that is verifiable either, which is beside the point. If Wilson has used Kerry Wendell Thornley as a pen name, maybe that’s true, maybe it isn't, but it does not impact my comments about the verifiability of the facts on the Kerry Wendell Thornley bio page. In truth I suspect Kerry Wendell Thornley is a sort of a communal joke amongst the Discordians, many of whom may have hopped on the band wagon and written misinformation under his name. That's the whole point of discordianism, after all, so we would expect a good Discordian to do this sort of thing.
And as for the "real" obituary in the ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION in 1998, first we have only the reference to this article from a Discordian source, hence it is likely a hoax. Furthermore, the article itself has factual errors. It references Thornley as the author of "The Idle Warriors," BEFORE the Kennedy assassination. It is an important piece of Discordian mythology that not only did Thornley "The Idle Warriors" as a bio of Oswald before the Kennedy assassination, but also that THIS was the reason why he was called at a witness by the Warren commission. However, this book is referenced as a source of the Thornley bio page, but published in 1991 by IllumiNet Press. You will find that many works of Discordian fiction are also published by IllumiNet Press. Also notice the listed address PO Box 2808, Lilburn, GA 30226. Again, this is all fiction.
And one more thing, I also submit the bio on Greg Hill is also not noteworthy, other than unverifiable references to Discordian mythology, and should also be removed.
My last statement is that, until these issues are fixed, someone please step up and put back the hoax reference I put on both articles. I don’t think I should do it because that would encourage an edit war. I won't make any more changes to either article; I'll leave it up to others involved to make changes based on objective facts. Rich.lewis ( talk) 15:15, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
Rich.lewis has since stated that "not only are Kerry Wendell Thornley and Greg Hill both real people, but they really did know eachother" ( link). Meanwhile, I have obtained Thornley's obituary from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution website, along with some other AJ-C articles that mention Thornley. A few samples for your consideration:
I've already placed a couple of citations in the article, and will add more at a later time. I move that we close this discussion. Thanks, -- Gyrofrog (talk) 04:50, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
I suggest closing this discussion and going back to the talk pages of the relevant articles. If nobody opposes, I'll put my next messages there -- Enric Naval ( talk) 21:23, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
I can't find my way around well enough to find the proper format to insert "date needed" or even "citation needed" into an article's text. Please, what is the right format, and where can I find things like this myself? Wandering around in TEMPLATE: land has done me no good. -- LisaSmall T/ C 07:30, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
(Shamelessly copied from User Talk:Jimbo Wales, thanks to WAS 4.250. -- Nifboy ( talk) 12:06, 25 March 2008 (UTC))
Erik Moeller says:
Please translate this announcement into other languages and forward it to other mailing lists and village pumps. (The translators list has already been notified and will help with this process.)
The Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia Germany have collaborated, with financial support from Wikimedia France, to support development of a new extension to our software which makes it possible to flag versions of wiki articles as having reached a certain quality. This new toolset could mark the beginning of a new era for Wikipedia and its sister projects, giving readers more transparency than ever about the quality of a given article. A special note of thanks to Aaron Schulz, who has developed much of the functionality as a volunteer -- we would not be where we are today without him. The ongoing support and patience of Philipp Birken from the German chapter was also critical.
Before this functionality will be enabled on any Wikimedia project, it needs to be tested thoroughly for usability, bugs, security and performance. Test wikis have been set up in English and German (because the German Wikimedia community has been driving the development of this functionality from the beginning).
These wikis contain a copy of the Wikibooks database. This copy is completely separate from the "real" Wikibooks, so do not worry about destroying anything of value. Please follow the instructions on the Main Pages to participate. If you do not speak English or German, we encourage you right now to
- set up test wikis independently using the open source extension available from http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:FlaggedRevs , or
- change the user interface preference, and create pages in the English test wiki in your language.
This is due to our limited capacity to set up additional wikis. If you feel you really, absolutely, strongly need a test wiki in your language, please file a request through:
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/
Wikimedia communities will also have to decide what kind of configuration to use for their project. Key questions to answer include:
- What quality attributes should there be?
- Who should be permitted to flag changes as having been reviewed for vandalism, or for other quality attributes?
- Should the default view for unregistered users change to the "stable version" on all pages, some pages, or no pages?
The German Wikimedia community has implemented a particular long-standing community proposal and will probably go live the soonest with this configuration; other communities will still have to develop consensus.
What's next?
The test will run at least until April 10, 2008 before the extension is implemented live on any wiki. This is to allow any serious problems to be surfaced by the community. If there are no critical open issues as of April 10, any language/project community will be permitted to file a request through https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/ to activate the extension. This request will have to point to pages in the project indicating a consensus to move forward. Detailed instructions to do so will be posted on the test wikis.