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I'm looking to convert the table at machine press from an html format to the Wikipedia format because it's current layout is clumsy/ugly and the code for it is monstrous. Is there any tool for this? Thanks! Wizard191 ( talk) 19:56, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
So I happened to see the 5 things about Wikipedia most people don't know about. And did anyone else get the opinion for number 3 ("We support more than 100,000 volunteers who have contributed 14.3 million articles in 270 languages.") that the word "support" implied financial support, especially being on a donation page and with one of the donation messages "Please support Wikipedia!" If this is something I've missed, however, how do I get my money? Spencer T♦ Nominate! 16:43, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
This is utterly rude and disheartening. I know better since I use wikipedia since forever but I'm sure it would have drove away countless people:
"The recent edit you made to Martial arts constitutes vandalism,"
http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=User_talk:94.71.77.34&redirect=no
and what's the "vandalism"?
"kratos, meaning "nation""
if you are a 7 year old greek and don't know kratos means nation you're an idiot. This is obviously a correct edit at first glance. If it's not a correct edit ultimately it's not a good reason to call people vandals-- 94.71.77.34 ( talk) 22:46, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
I agree with the OP that the message left on his or her talk page was inappropriate. Simply saying that an edit such as that constitutes vandalism is quite presumptuous. It's much better to say that an edit appears to be incorrect or unconstructive, and allow that the person might be working in good faith, that to simply declare them guilty of base motives.
We define vandalism very narrowly here, and for good reason. I never find it necessary to even use that word when reverting and leaving warnings for bad edits. - GTBacchus( talk) 17:31, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
I was just kind of curious how many editors are actually on Wikipedia. Wikipedia says that at one point it was about 524. Is there any place to find detailed, current information on the number of editors/accounts and the distribution of edits among them? IE, how many total accounts, how many accounts that make more than one edit a month or week, etc. AzureFury ( talk | contribs) 05:37, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
Hello! I have cleaned up Dmitri Bulykin (a footballer) page (moving quotes to WikiQuotes etc) and later came across an IP user who reverted my edits without any proper explanation, just calling them "deletions". I gave them a couple of warnings but failed to stop these reverts. Now, assuming that IP user thinks he's not vandalizing a page but rather participating in a content dispute, I request an uninvolved user to take a look at article's history [5] and comment. Thank you. Barocci 12:58, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
The first time you're reverted, it's a very good idea to go to the talk page and state the case for your edit. If they don't reply there, revert, notify, and wait. If they revert again, don't revert them until you get outside input. We're not in a hurry, and what that IP is doing is not close to vandalism. "Vandalism" means intentionally making the Wikipedia worse, by one's own standards. That IP is trying to make it better. - GTBacchus( talk) 17:47, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
Why is Rotten Tomatoes cited on nearly every movie page on Wikipedia? I can't find any policy on this, and WP:Films doesn't have much about this, either. I understand Rotten Tomatoes are a for-profit part of IGN Entertainment. Thanks! FFLaguna ( talk) 10:11, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
Ideally the review of a movie should be described and atributed in the article rather than simply placed as external link, right, but I don't see a problem in linking such reviews as external links in articles at their starting level of development. MBelgrano ( talk) 14:19, 27 November 2009 (UTC)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8382477.stm
Wikimedia Foundation counts only people who make five edits or more as an editor
Really? What should we call those who are not yet editors? Suomi Finland 2009 ( talk) 16:57, 27 November 2009 (UTC)
I find it curious that almost every DYK has some obscure factoid about Louisiana. Is there someone who is pushing these articles for inclusion in the DYK section, or has Wikipedia taken on the state's trivia as a special project? —Preceding unsigned comment added by JascalX ( talk • contribs) 17:18, 27 November 2009 (UTC)
There is one user who writes many articles related to Louisiana. If more people were like him, except for a different subject, Wikipedia would have 50 million articles, not 3. Let's not be too critical about our contributors. Suomi Finland 2009 ( talk) 19:22, 27 November 2009 (UTC)
Comments from all interested editors are invited and welcome at Wikipedia talk:Community de-adminship/Draft RfC, where a proposal for community de-adminship is being discussed. -- Tryptofish ( talk) 21:59, 27 November 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia_talk:Reliable_sources#RfC_on_page_move. Should Wikipedia:Reliable sources be moved to Wikipedia:Verifiability/reliable sources to become a subpage of the sourcing policy, WP:V? There would be no change in either page's status: the policy would remain policy, and RS would retain its status as a guideline. 23:43, 27 November 2009 (UTC)
Does anyone know how to retrieve the current today's featured article's name, I mean, automatically ? Is there some template returning it ? Cenarium ( talk) 01:34, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
Hello, I just had a little quarry for your orginization.
Wikipedia has a fundraiser going on to raise seven and a half million dollars, and after reading the FAQ's it left me a little bewildered because of conflicting points made in the question and answers section. It says that Wikipedia and it sister projects are a charity and yet, the first question and answer [Where does the money go?] one of the answers was to the people working and helping Wikipedia be up and running ...so they are being paid. And, in a charity, the employee's do not get paid. Or at least that is what the definition states it being.
My question; So, what is Wikipedia? Because saying it's a charity is the incorrect use. I could be reading it wrong though. And if I am, then I do apologize.
-- Turnoquiet ( talk) 03:53, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
David Beals ( talk · contribs) has built a bunch of UW warning templates to warn-off editors who include redlinks into their edits, see the TfD discussion where they are being considered for deletion. Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2009 November 27
I don't remember seeing a policy that says users who add redlinks should be banned.
Can someone point me to the policy page that says users should not add redlinks?
76.66.197.250 ( talk) 07:50, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi.
Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat.
Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.31.101.85 ( talk) 16:01, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
Worldenc ( talk · contribs) has created thousands of charts that they added to thousands of articles, only to have their work rolledback in a massive rollback by Hu12 ( talk · contribs). I've started a thread here since it primarily deals with articles within the scope of WP:CITIES, but I also wanted to leave a note at the village pump to get more input. If anyone could take a look, and maybe comment, that'd be great. Killiondude ( talk) 20:58, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
Voting is now open in the December 2009 elections to elect new members to the Arbitration Committee. In accordance with the recent Request for Comment on the election process, voting will be done by secret ballot using the SecurePoll extension. Voting will close on 14 December 2009 at 23:59 UTC.
In order to be eligible to vote, an account must have at least 150 mainspace edits on or before 1 November 2009 ( check your account). Blocked editors may not vote, and voting with multiple accounts or bot accounts is expressly forbidden. Note that due to technical restrictions, editors who have made more than 150 mainspace edits on or before 1 November 2009 but no longer have access to the account(s) used will not be able to vote. If you have any questions about this, please ask.
For each candidate, voters may choose to Support or Oppose the candidacy, or to remain Neutral (this option has no effect on the outcome). Voting should be done in a single sitting. After your entire vote has been accepted, you may make changes at any time before the close of voting. However, a fresh default ballot page will be displayed and you will need to complete the process again from scratch (for this reason, you are welcome to keep a private record of your vote). Your new ballot page will erase the previous one. You may verify the time of acceptance of your votes at the real-time voting log. Although this election will use secret ballots, and only votes submitted in this way will be counted, you may leave brief comments on the candidates' comment pages and discuss candidates at length on the attached talkpages. For live discussion, join #wikipedia-en-ace on Freenode.
To cast your vote, please proceed here.
For the coordinators, Skomorokh 00:01, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
User:Dynesepp, who was blocked for sock puppetry, made a zillion edits to add references to "critical theory" to various articles. One was reverted as vandalism (which it isn't), but probably someone should look at the whole corpus and see if additional action is needed.
Apologies if this is not the right place to post this, please let me now on my talk page if I should have done something different. I considered RFC, that seemed too big a production than I was ready for. Ma t c hups 03:48, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
I looked at the information of the past few years' financials but I'm no tax attorney. I was wondering if someone could give me a breakdown of the costs of operation (technology, advertising, etc.,) vs the salaries of the employees. I'm not interested in debates of whether salary is a cost of operation, just want to know what's being spent on people vs. things. It's sort of similar in my mind to overhead of charities. If this is in the wrong section please feel free to move it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.88.88.58 ( talk) 21:09, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
I stumbled upon a school project where a bunch of people (re)write wikipedia articles (and it seems they are doing a good job, too). I gave some off-the-head advice immediately related to the issues I noticed. However it occurs to me that it must be not the first case. Is there a wikipedia guideline targeting such school "microWikiProjects"? If not, I'd suggest to write one. - Altenmann >t 17:47, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
It would seem fantastic that Amidism, the #1 synonym of Pure Land Buddhism in English, could be scrubbed from the article with all its sources and nobody noticed for six months, and yet, and yet... I have tried to restore it, but I think some regulars keeping an eye on Pure Land Buddhism would be useful. 62.147.27.150 ( talk) 19:44, 27 November 2009 (UTC)
Most likely, this issue was discussed more than once, but I'd like to get to know how to deal with vandal edits such as this one. When I'm engaged in massive vandalism reversion, I usually miss disputable edits, and other productive rollbackers probably too. Sometimes (now I don't remember specific instances) I used to notice several hard-to-detect disruptive edits which remained in the entries for weeks. So, do we have any effective ways to prevent this harm?-- Microcell ( talk) 17:21, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
How do you know the edit was vandalism? You might have rolled back a perfectly sincere attempt to improve the article. At least you should have used "undo" rather than "rollback", so you could have left a proper edit summary. The message you left at the user's talk page is too aggressive for an unproven first offense, anyway. Use {{ uw-vandal1}} where there is any possibility that the edit may be in good faith, even if erroneous. Please stop using rollback until you have learned more about editing here. - Pointillist ( talk) 18:12, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
I don't understand what "annoyed" you about that editor. The birth year 1941 was used on the article for 14 months until July 2008, and then it was changed to 1943. That editor hasn't done bad things elsewhere. - Pointillist ( talk) 18:50, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
Back when I had 1,138 pages on my watchlist, I collated these stats:
All users Exclude me 1 day 27 2.4% 20 1.7% 7 day 153 13.4% 111 9.7% 28 day 457 40.1% 352 30.9%
because I'd noticed that I was fairly reliably getting about 3% of my watchlist turning up, day in, day out. This is everything on, bots, minors, the lot. I wanted to ask: what about you, is your watchlist getting ~3%/day activity? If not, why are you different to me? Josh Parris 10:44, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
I should know the answer to this, but don't, so I'm hoping someone can help. I'm working on the bio of David Icke, where a reliable source says his website gets 600,000 hits a week, which sounds a lot, and I wonder if there has been a mistake. What is the best way to check how many hits a particular website gets? I have found this, but it apparently gives only U.S. stats. SlimVirgin 12:47, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
I found a vandal who has been aggressively adding a libellous BLP statement to an article on a high school. In the process of trying to figure out how to get an admin's attention (the user had been blocked previously), I was shown an automated message accusing me of being in an edit war -- which is true, except I believed myself to be exempt from 3RR because I was reverting clearly libellous BLP matter. Of course, that made me throw up my hands and give up. The BLP violation is surely back up again now, but hey, I tried and failed. There should be an easier way to just get an admin's attention -- any admin -- when a user's behavior is so obviously in violation. - PorkHeart ( talk) 06:07, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
While working on a unified {{ xfdl}} in the sandbox, I noticed some discrepancies in the nameing scheme used to store the deletion logs.
XfD | Log name |
---|---|
Articles for deletion | Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/{article name} Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2009 December 1#{section header} (index) |
Miscellany for deletion | Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/{page name} Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Archived debates/December 2009 (index/summary) |
Categories for discussion | Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/{cat name} (pre April 2006) Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2009 December 1#{section header} (current) |
Redirects for discussion | Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2009 December 1#{section header} |
Templates for discussion | Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/December 2004#{section header} (pre 2005) Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/Not deleted/January 2006#{section header} Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/Deleted/January 2006#{section header} (pre January 4, 2006) Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2009 December 1#{section header} (current) |
Deletion review | Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2009 December 1#{section header} |
Stub types for deletion | Wikipedia:Stub types for deletion/Log/2009/December/1#{section header} |
Files for deletion | Wikipedia:Files for deletion/2009 December 1#{section header} |
User categories for discussion | Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/User/Archive/2009 December#{section header} (current) |
|
Notice that SfD uses a different date format from the other, FfD does not use /Log, and User categories use /Archive instead of /Log and only includes the year and month, while the others use year, month, and day. I'm proposing that we have some consistency with the log names for CfD, RfD, TfD, DRV, SfD, FfD, and UCfD. — Farix ( t | c) 12:38, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
I think that all XfDs should be in the format of "Wikipedia:XXX for deletion/{page name}", so that watchlisting is useful for individual discussions. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 21:03, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
It might make keeping track of them slightly easier, but it would make archiving some of them much harder. There are good reasons why different XfD pages use different archiving systems. The system you suggest as a uniform one works perfectly for AfD, where there are 100+ nominations per day - it would work very badly on the likes of SfD where there are two or three nominations per week and where archives are stored as month-long pages (e.g., Wikipedia:Stub types for deletion/Log/2009/October). It is rare that an SfD day-page has more than one nomination, and several of the other process pages only have a handful of items per day (e.g., TfD). It's far easier for the maintenance of those pages to have them archived with daily transclusions rather than a by-case basis. Grutness... wha? 23:41, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
This choice to prioritise convenience for the current method of maintenance ahead of functionality for the users is inward looking and sad. If archiving backwater XfDs would be difficult (I really don't understand why), then merge them into MfD. Why have a separate XfD if traffic is slow so low? -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 04:40, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
I created a Happy Holiday Template.
{{User:Zink Dawg/Happy Holidays}}
Copy and past it to your user page.-- Zink Dawg -- 00:21, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
What it makes
Happy New Year |
Category:LGBT is under Category:Same-sex_sexuality which is under Category:LGBT. Can anyone fix the illogical category relation? -- Quest for Truth ( talk) 02:00, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
Hi all, I think the Article Collaboration and Improvement Drive can still serve a useful purpose in improving core/encyclopedic articles which will be too big for a single editor to tackle. However. it has had a very stop/start existence. I did try and give it a kick start earlier in the year but I have been sidetracked on other endeavours. I think this approach exemplifies the idea of collaborative editing and hopefully boosts camaraderie. I also see this as a good way of balancing bias of Good and Featured content, much of which is concentrated in a few wikiprojects (eg. Birds, Mil-history). I am not suggesting an official coordinator as such, but at least a few editors prepared to do the housekeeping. Or shall we just let it lapse for the time being? Cheers, Casliber ( talk · contribs) 03:38, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
This is a short note to remind all interested editors that the December 2009 elections to elect new members to the Arbitration Committee is still open for voting. The voting period opened on 1 December and will close on 14 December 2009 (next Monday) at 23:59 UTC.
The voting this year is by secret ballot using the SecurePoll extension. All unblocked editors who had at least 150 mainspace edits on or before 1 November 2009 are eligible to vote ( check your account). A list of votes is kept at the real-time voting log, and a separate list of voters is maintained on an on-wiki log. If you have any questions or difficulties with the voting setup, please ask at the election talkpage.
There are twenty-candidates standing in the election, from whom nine arbitrators are expected to be chosen. Prospective voters are invited to review the candidate statements and the candidates' individual questions pages. Although voting is by secret ballots, and only votes submitted in this way will be counted, you are invited to leave brief comments on the candidates' comment pages and discuss candidates at length on the attached talkpages. For live discussion, join #wikipedia-en-ace on freenode.
Follow this link to cast your vote
For the coordinators, Skomorokh 08:57, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
Can someone point me in the right direction of the humour page that said that actually despite common belief, admins were not human but that in tthe title as well as food, drink and other sorts? Simply south ( talk) 19:04, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
See this discussion if you have any opinion on the "smiley" template. Thanks! Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 00:26, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
The Wikimedia Foundation could really use descriptions of projects "that study scale-up of STEM education innovations" involved with Wikimedia projects, with durations up to five years. So, if you had up to five million US dollars, and you could spend it on that, please answer the following using less than 15 printed pages of text (less is better; less is far, far better!)
Thanks! This is due in only a few weeks.
My initial impulse is simply to propose spending $5,000,000 to document existing Foundation practice for each of the major projects, with the understanding that studying the practice is likely to affect it, so we should spend as much as possible to make sure that the interaction is as successful as possible, because of the Foundation's track record of success in these areas. 99.62.186.125 ( talk) 19:39, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
An exonym is a name for a geographical place not used in that place, such as 'Germany', as the Germans would say 'Deutschland'. We have a lot of articles at Category:Exonyms that list exonyms in various languages. This is the kind of thing you might find in the appendix to a dictionary. There have been quite a few deletion nominations of these articles over the years, [8] but there is no consistency in how they are dealt with. Some are deleted: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hebrew exonyms, and some are kept: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Arabic exonyms. There was no consensus the last time this was discussed in general: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of European exonyms. This is among the most indiscriminate: List of Czech exonyms for places in the Polish part of Cieszyn Silesia. There's various other similar lists, such as Names of European cities in different languages and its subpages, and several at Category:Toponymy. Do we want articles that list translations of words and names in various languages? Wikipedia isn't a usage guide, a dictionary, or a directory, so this material doesn't seem to me to be a good fit. Fences& Windows 00:32, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
How can I get an RSS feed for the individual 'Days of the year'? I have been looking for a good online almanac. Your format is ideal:
* 1 Events * 2 Births * 3 Deaths * 4 Holidays and observances * 5 External links
¡Gracias! GBH
I'm going on a non-stop 24-hour editing binge, and would like to think up a new type of Wikifauna to associate with someone who has done this. I know that WikiOgres go on editing binges, but I think a 24 hour binge is something special and deserves its own fauna. We could keep it related, and call it a WikiOgre Chieftain, or something new, like WikiTitan. I've already heard and discarded WikiSpeedfreak. Anyone have any other ideas? ɳoɍɑfʈ Talk! 16:38, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
Sillyness from McSweeney's: I Am Locking the Wikipedia Article On Our Sex Life. I'm sorry if this is the wrong place to post it, or if everybody on the whole internet already sent it to you in long, private e-mails. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cheezycrust ( talk • contribs) 08:49, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
Reminder: comments from all interested editors are invited and welcome at Wikipedia talk:Community de-adminship/Draft RfC, where a proposal for community de-adminship is being discussed. -- Tryptofish ( talk) 18:17, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
What on Earth is this? It sounds rather awesome. Pressumably to send a nuclear missile to ED? But seriously, does anybody know what this sysop-tool does? Jolly Ω Janner 00:05, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
Okay, I know Wikipedia is not a social networking site and all that, but seriously, 200,000 edits! Relax (or, better, ignore) the rules for a bit and swing by my 200,000th edit party. Cheers! bd2412 T 03:38, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
Not sure if you are aware of this but my two children (13, 18) have been instructed not to use wikipedia as a source as it is unreliable. This is what the Montgomery County teachers in Maryland are instructing their students. I know that wikipedia is but one source to use. But to say wikipedia is totally unreliable baffles me. Their main premise is that anyone can edit material on wikipedia changing correct information to something else. I use wikipedia to learn but I verify this against another source always when I need to reference something.
My main point in writing this is if teachers are instructing their students nationwide/worldwide you will have less users in the future. Do you reach out to the educational communities to provide them confidence in your product.
Robert Bravo15:22, 6 December 2009 (UTC)~ —Preceding unsigned comment added by Beto1619 ( talk • contribs)
Sounds like Agne47 has come across the correct way citation needed ;-) to use wikipedia. It's definitely how I started. :-) -- Kim Bruning ( talk) 02:59, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
(responding to the original issue) By that logic students shouldn't rely on book because just about anyone could write a book. User-submitted content, reviews, blogs, personal websites, and feeds are and a major information channel and a significant force in society. Wikipedia is probably the most important of these and requires some familiarity and training to get right. That's the kind of thing schools can be teaching if they want to prepare kids for the future. I think students should nearly always consult Wikipedia, but go beyond the article to its sources, and not cite Wikipedia as a rule. That goes for newspapers as well, and press releases, and most magazines. You wouldn't write a serious article about most subjects with a Time Magazine article as a source. - Wikidemon ( talk) 23:04, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia has over 600 links to the legendary publishing periodical Editor & Publisher, which is now ceasing publication. I suspect that the website will soon be shuttered as well. We need a massive effort to 1) preemptively archive (via WP:WebCite?) many of these articles as possible and 2) repair already dead links (via WP:WAYBACK?). The list is here. Please see Wikipedia talk:Linkrot to help coordinate. -- Blargh29 ( talk) 03:27, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
I am having trouble figuring out what to do with the article Amal Jyothi College. It is poorly referenced and regularly vandalized (by students of the college?). I've cleaned it up a couple of times, but get reverted/overwritten by vandals rather quickly. Maybe protection is called for, but I don't really know what should be protected... I haven't found many references about the institution, and don't really know what the article should actually say. Perhaps it should just be deleted? It is essentially an orphan. Anyone want to take a stab at it? — Epastore ( talk) 02:23, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
The article David Newbury, which I started less than an hour ago, is already on the second page of Google search , out of over 29,000 results. Does anyone know how Google ranks this? It's not that I don't think it shouldn't be on the first page of results, but I don't know how Google knows that. - Banyan Tree 14:49, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
I've recently found some edits that break pages because they replace braces ({}
) with parentheses (()
). Quite often they also translate the page. After I reverted one of those edits to
David Napier (marine engineer), the anonymous editor
contacted me, why I reverted his addition. (The first comment there is in Czech, my native language, but grammatically incorrect, it translates roughly to “I'd like to know why my new information about David Napier's Aglaia cannot be accepted.”) I tried to explain him, that he broke the page, but I don't think he understood me. Most of these edits are from anonymous users, but the only edit
User:Igor melo did follows the same pattern. I don't know whether this is only one person, or not, but they are too similar to be unrelated. Is there something that can be done about this? Or can someone at least provide an explanation, why or how (the breaking of pages may be unintentional) are they doing it? Some examples:
[9]
[10]
[11]
[12]
[13]
[14].
Svick (
talk)
14:48, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
This is a brief reminder to all interested editors that today is the final day to vote in the December 2009 elections to elect new members to the Arbitration Committee. The voting period opened at 00:01 on UTC 1 December 2009 and will close at 23:59 UTC on 14 December 2009 as initially planned. Updated 20:54, 13 December 2009 (UTC).
The voting this year is by secret ballot using the SecurePoll extension. All unblocked editors who had at least 150 mainspace edits on or before 1 November 2009 are eligible to vote ( check your account). Prospective voters are invited to review the candidate statements and the candidates' individual questions pages. Although voting is by secret ballot, and only votes submitted in this way will be counted, you are invited to leave brief comments on the candidates' comment pages and discuss candidates at length on the attached talkpages. If you have any questions or difficulties with the voting setup, please ask at the election talkpage. For live discussion, join #wikipedia-en-ace on freenode.
Follow this link to cast your vote
For the coordinators, Skomorokh 12:54, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
See the link in my signature. ― A. di M. — 2nd Great Wikipedia Dramaout 23:07, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
Can anyone explain in simpler words what he ment with this sentence: "I know that engagement with repressive regimes lacks the satisfying purity of indignation."
Indignation is the feeling of being worried about something. I don´t understand how this relates to engangements in repressive regimes. Worried about how the regime could create problems for the people if a foreign force tries to get rid of the regime, or what?
Lidingo SWE (
talk)
10:37, 13 December 2009 (UTC) Sweden.
I wish Jimbo would just allow one google text ad at the bottom of pages instead. Daniel.Cardenas ( talk) 21:43, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
The new version of the WP 1.0 bot is ready for some initial beta testing. More information is at User_talk:WP_1.0_bot/Second_generation#Beta_testing_2009-12-16, where any comments and suggestions will be deeply appreciated. — Carl ( CBM · talk) 01:51, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
I would be very grateful to anyone willing to pitch in and regularly help out in these understaffed areas of dispute resolution. They are essential for resolving disputes before they reach a point of entrenchment with its accompanying disruption to the project in the affected topic areas. Thanks for considering this request for assistance. Vassyana ( talk) 06:30, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
^ -- MZMcBride ( talk) 15:43, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
about {{ 1911}}
I added to this article here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_%C3%89tienne_Louis_Camus
and tried to copy the way that the curly bracket reference template tells you about Britannica. I couldn't fathom out how to do this, so I put the text in verbatim. Would appreciate some help. I have a copy of Watkins that I scanned and would be useful to have a template to do this. I tried 'help templates' but couldn't get very far. Thanks. John.
Just a thought: Are we to see just about every article linked to www.fotopedia.com? External links to it only occurs on 33 articles so far but who knows... -- Aspro ( talk) 13:43, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
Fotopedia seems to have some attractive gallery navigation features. I wonder whether something like that is feasible as an alternative way of browsing Commons, perhaps combined with Wikipedia taxonomies and article links. Thoughts? - Pointillist ( talk) 12:04, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
I sometimes get the feeling I'm recently being followed around by a rather immature editor, that coupled with seing this got me thinking. Obviously the "view contributions" function can be misused, but since it is very useful it can not be removed.
How about improving it instead by adding more transparency? Whenever you view someones contributions you are (in an acceptable way) violating their privacy, but in return the person you have investigated should have the right to know that you did so, e.g. be able to see who reviewed their contributions, and when.
As an example; In Sweden you can check the financial status of anyone, it is publicly available info. However, as a check against frivolous checking, the person that was investigated receives a letter home informing them that such and such received their financial information.
Comments? -- Stor stark7 Speak 15:20, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
I imagine this question has been asked many times before, and I'm sure there's a good answer to it - though I wouldn't know where to find it.
What procedures are place so that if some time in future the worst happened and Wikimedia Foundation suddenly folded for currently unforeseen reasons, everybody's contributions up to (very nearly) the time would still be available for use in other projects?
In principle it is straightforward: you just fork from a recent mirror and carry on. The trouble of course is that most mirrors are inadequate for this purpose - they provide a single snapshot, whereas what is needed is full page histories, for lots of reasons but most importantly attribution for license compliance.
What mirrors currently exist which satisfy all of the following?
Thanks.
Weedier Mickey ( talk) 11:25, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
A related question: Does Wikimedia have multiple copies of everything at multiple physical locations - to prevent a single disaster (hurricane, fire, flood, bomb, war, whatever) from wiping the whole lot out? Roger ( talk) 13:42, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
Well I have full revision dumps form a few years back, probably. If not certainly someone else does. We have the revison metadata, which may be enough (this article was created by the following 56 editors...) Rich Farmbrough, 07:56, 20 December 2009 (UTC).
Has wikipedia ever been purge-bombed. When you purge a page it causes more load on the servers right? So if someone purge spammed wikipedia pages that were heavily traffic'd what would be the repercussions? andyzweb ( talk) 05:19, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
Well BEANS aside, I watched the server load as some serious purge events occurred and were handled by the servers with nary a blip. The load from purging a given page will be unlikely to show across the several hundred servers - basically one re-render per purge then the page is cached. Other more subtle potential problems are dealt with by the wikitechs and sit mainly behind the user-effect field. Rich Farmbrough, 00:39, 21 December 2009 (UTC).
So as a reader of Wikipedia (and irregular contributor) I've always wondered:
What's the purpose of the citation needed tag?
It seems to me that if a fact is placed on wikipedia that is uncited, it should be removed (/moved to talk page) and not appear again until it is cited.
Unlike notability, it's not like there are degrees of "citedness": either something is cited or it is not. Similarly, either it is Wikipedia's policy to have uncited content on the encyclopaedia, or it is not.
Given that it is plainly against policy to have uncited text in the wiki, why does this tag even exist?
Don't mean to sound impertinent, just hoping to hear from one of the more experienced editors :-) Andy (or, -- 86.26.160.235 ( talk) 00:46, 19 December 2009 (UTC) )
Fact was moved to Citation needed because it was thought that it was clearer. Certainly if you look at some of the redirects to Citation needed they imply disbelief (Lies! Proveit [15] in the same way Lol wut, Huh? and Eh? redirect to Clarify) and might be better pointed to Dubious (or deleted). Rich Farmbrough, 00:45, 21 December 2009 (UTC).
For (Scalable Vector Graphics files which can be scaled. This is the best thing since OGGs which can be played and fried bread. Hands together for whoever fixed that one thankyou.), I hereby award Village pump (miscellaneous) with the “
Cool Award.” ~
R.
T.
G
09:14, 20 December 2009 (UTC)
In Great Pacific Garbage Patch, could someone with an SVG editor fix File:Currents.svg The words "current" in the bottom right key have been truncated. I put this message on the talk page a month ago and noone has done it, so I thought I'd ask here. Thanks -- SGBailey ( talk) 22:57, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
A quick legal question. Extremely frequently I see 'works' like File:GJ1214b size comparison.png licensed as cc, despite the fact there is absolutely no new copyrightable information within them, and all the pre-existing information is in the public domain. The same happens with collages, animations of pd maps, hell, even cropped photos. It crops up with almost ALL derivatives of WP:MAPS as well. The original is in the public domain, someone slaps a circle on it, or colours in France, and suddenly they are able to claim copyright and re-license? I don't know whether this is allowed, seems like it shouldn't be, but then again pd is a unique legal status for information and hence why I'm asking here. PS: I get the nagging feeling there's a Legal discussion page, but I can't find one. — what a crazy random happenstance 04:33, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
There is a new article on the Wall Street Journal: Volunteers Log Off as Wikipedia Ages (under their new payment model, you can only read the intro for free). Yes, another Wikipedia is DOOMED!!! article. But what surprised me most is the comments which are also almost universally negative as well. Several repeating the old saws of "Well, it can never work because...(insert human nature, no advertising, lack of experts, etc." which I would have thought we had well refuted after existed about nine years. But many complaining of deletionists, unfair blocks, excessive beaurocracy and some of just misconceptions ("I couldn't read the talk page until I registered, what a dumb design.) What happened to all the Wikipedia boosters and have we really gotten this bad? 75.41.110.200 ( talk) 16:48, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
Without having read the article (like I'm going to give the WSJ money), I would presume from your description of it that the article illuminates more about the WSJ than it does about Wikipedia. postdlf ( talk) 20:29, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
Search Google News for "Volunteers Log Off as Wikipedia Ages" to see a free version. --
SWTPC6800 (
talk)
03:19, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
I am sort of new here. Even though I started editing at Wikipedia in 2007, my initial reaction was not favorable and I stopped coming to Wikipedia for a while. I only became more active recently, mostly because of a lull in my other activities. Since I was not intimately invloved here I did not know that what the WSJ said (I have not read it yet) is a persistent complaint about Wikipedia, and that many have forecast its doom. I myself am quite in awe of how far it has come in such a short time, and am still trying to figure out how things work here. I find it amazing that so much information has been collected, most of it of high quality, despite running into a lot of evidence of discontented Wikipedians, people who have left in a huff, cynical people, etc. Ottawahitech ( talk) 23:35, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
Hi just wanted to let you guys know there is a article about editor exodus in one of Canada's largest newspapers, http://www.thestar.com/news/sciencetech/technology/article/729552--thousands-of-editors-leaving-wikipedia Mike ( T C) 01:38, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
We have created an environment where fewer people want to contribute. RfAs have been drying up for a while now, and now some study has noticed that the number of active contributors is dropping off. I'm not surprised.
Part of my inactivity is due to graduate school, but I can do grad school + wikipedia: I got an MS in 2006 while at my peak level of activity. A big part of my reason to stay away are the poisonous interactions I've had here lately.
My favorite thing to blame is the rampant legalism, where we allow rule-lawyers to define all the terms. We used to know how to Ignore All Rules, but nobody cares about that anymore. Too bad, seeing as it was what made the whole thing work, with civil interactions providing the social lubrication. To rules-lawyers, though, civility is not a lubricant; it's a cudgel. We let them win. Damn. - GTBacchus( talk) 02:25, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
Responding to DavidWBrooks: Without "legalism" in its irritating forms we wouldn't have consistent references and infoboxes and lots of other good stuff. I don't believe that for one second. I was working for years in Requested Moves, and we developed new technologies, set up necessary structures, and dealt with thousands of move requests without getting so legalistic. Wikipedia had infoboxes before the lawyers took over.
I don't see it as so obvious that we have to become more legalistic as we grow, nor that we have to coddle antisocial users quite as much as we do. I do see the two as connected, because the more legalistic it gets, the more antisocial it gets. We coddle wikilawyers, and let them define all the terms of discourse. That's an outright abdication of good sense.
I might as well be talking to a wall, though, because we've institutionalized some bad, bad habits by now. If I were the king of Wikipedia... huh. I have no idea what I would do. I'd try to convince people that we need to treat each other better, worry less about rules, and write more. - GTBacchus( talk) 13:28, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
The thing about the methods applied in 2003 is that at least they were invented in or around 2003 ;-) . Not -say- in 1776, or some centuries BCE. If you want to improve wikipedia, start thinking about what makes a wiki work ideally, and what makes a wiki work ideally in 2009 (or 2010), then see how you can apply those.
A big problem, however, is that there is no good way to educate large numbers of people on how to use the wiki most effectively. Acculturating people to our new internet societies is the current largest challenge both inside and outside wikimedia.
In fact, setting up lectures is easy. Convincing people to come is harder. Everyone thinks they know everything, until you show them what's really possible with just a little more effort and understanding. ;)
I wonder if what (other) methods we might have at our disposal to get people up to speed? Any ideas?
-- Kim Bruning ( talk) 19:59, 25 November 2009 (UTC) And no, the sky is not necessarily falling. A community just needs some folks to invest time to keep it alive. Apparently, currently too few people are doing that, relative to the size of the community.
We used to say Wikipedia doesn't work in theory, only in practice. That keeps working as long as we keep believing it. Those who believe it are now a vanishing minority. Arbcom won't help us; Jimbo won't help us. Most admins won't help. Most editors won't help. I have absolutely no idea what to do, except start issuing permanent bans for wiki-lawyering, being rude, and making any kind of negative claim about any other editor. We know these are terrible things to do (in a purely pragmatic sense - no normative moral claim here), but we coddle them. How to stop? - GTBacchus( talk) 21:13, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
This is being discussed on BBC Newsnight right now. 91.110.241.143 ( talk) 23:16, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
One moron guest said it's because "people have woken up to the fact that they're giving away their labour for free". He said he couldn't imagine why people wold give away their time and labour for free and wouldn't do so himself. Apparently this guy does not have the concepts of "altruism" (people edit to help their fellow man) or "enjoyment" (people edit same as people collect stamps or own a dog). He then went on to attack the other guest for being a "tenured academic" because he supported the Wiki concept.
91.110.241.143 (
talk)
23:22, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
People work on Wikipedia because they feel empowered here, in a way that they perhaps don't feel in other endeavors in their lives. Wikipedia is a place where you can be someone who matters, if you have some kind of specialized knowledge, coding ability, or talent for research and writing. If people are leaving the project, it must be that the empowerment they used to derive from working here has somehow gone away, or become less alluring. I'm not sure why that would be. Does it have anything to do with, for example User:Raymond arritt/Expert withdrawal? Who knows? - GTBacchus( talk) 17:05, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
With all due respect to Simon Pulsifer (Toronto Star article):
I do agree with his sentiments expressed at the end of the article: the percentage of edits that get rejected at Wikipedia is way too high, at least from my perspective. It seems to me that there are more Wikipedians who get their jollies from deleting material added by others, than those who take the time to encourage and incubate newbies. I am also curious about the statistics cited at the beginning of the article: what exactly is the definition of current editors:
Look at these news
http://news.google.com/news/more?pz=1&cf=all&cf=all&ncl=d4SeR4yUq9iajSM33Trb9RfrsdOAM
They portray wikipedia as going ultimately to hell in their frontlines. It appears whenever Wikipedia is putting up a donation plea and people see the amount of dollars it raises it also raises a lot of haters. I've noticed this trend very distinctly: whenever a donation plea comes up, there come the popular press denouncing it with some new doomsday scenario.
Keep hitting. The more you squeeze, the more it comes from the sides. -- Leladax ( talk) 00:18, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
We raise our profile, but people think our profile is ugly? -- Kim Bruning ( talk) 03:15, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
aye; the point here is not that they focus on negatives; but on lies.- -- Leladax ( talk) 16:21, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
I find that my observations line up with what I'm reading in these stories. I'm not saying they're certainly right. I'm saying that they're maybe-right, and that it's silly to simply dismiss them. This is actually an issue, on which reasonable people may take different positions, like it or not. - GTBacchus( talk) 17:15, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
Anyone who is in any way unconvinced about the argument should look at the comments section of a Telegraph article on the subject. I no longer edit in article-space for exactly these reasons. Wikipedia has become increasingly legalistic, deletionist and bitey in the 4.5 years I've been here. The insistence on unintelligible reference formats has to be one of the worst things to have happened. Mostlyharmless ( talk) 10:56, 27 November 2009 (UTC)
To summarise most of the contributions this discussion: "They're criticising us because we're AWESOME" Mostlyharmless ( talk) 00:28, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
Those who haven't already seen it may be interested in the article at:
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/the_web/article6930546.ece —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.133.240.156 ( talk) 02:15, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
I was actually going to start a topic about a similar topic just prior to this story blowing up. There are always a bunch of inaccuracies in these stories, so it's certainly easy enough for us to pick these commentaries apart and therefore ignore them. I think that's a huge mistake in this case, largely for the same reasons that GTBaccus has talked about above. The sky is not falling, and Wikipedia itself is fine; there's absolutely no reason for us to give in to the hyperbolic rhetoric that the mass media touts as headlines. However, there's clearly some sort of a problem here right now. Personally I've just given up. I'm decided that the only way to be a contributor here is to simply ignore the Wikipedia space, and probably more importantly to ignore those of you who edit and cite the Wikipedia namespace. You people are, as a group, assholes. Most importantly though, it generally doesn't matter what is said or done here. The back end of Wikipedia is slowly turning into Usenet, and personally I've given up on it. I do hope though, that those of you with more interest and experience in the community here are able to fix things.
—
V = I * R (
talk to Ω)
19:20, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
Sometimes I think that if we just started issuing automatic 48 hour blocks for each ad hominem remark, we'd attract users who are not inclined to make those remarks in the first place. Unfortunately, a lot of people who are technologically proficient are not socially proficient, and vice versa. There's no way I can see to shift the power towards people who are willing to get good - to even try to improve - at social interactions.
Wikipedia may not be dead, but I think WP:CIVIL and WP:AGF are. Too many people used them sociopathically, forgetting to ignore "rules". Now it's pretty much taboo in some parts of the wiki to suggest that we treat each other with dignity. It's when I propose that we try to hold a high standard of respect and collegiality that I'm attacked the most viciously and bitterly, and the community stands idly by. We're letting the dicks win. - GTBacchus( talk) 18:34, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
...I make more edits anonymously than I do logged in these days. I'm pleased to report that I have yet to be attacked for any reasonable edit made from an IP address. Not all newbies are bitten, it would seem. Of course, when I edit from an IP, I apply clue and make good edits. Not all newbies can do that... - GTBacchus( talk) 18:37, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
If I started doing that, how long do you think it would take me to be de-sysopped? ;) - GTBacchus( talk) 22:39, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
I'm willing to look at the Conservapedia example. What are their automatic blocks for? A priori, I don't see that all automatic blocks are created equal. If they have automatic blocks for behavior X, and we try it for behavior Y, then the comparison is not necessarily a helpful one, eh?
What I'm suggesting you haven't tried - because no one has tried it here - is a strict enforcement of "comment on the content, not the contributor". If we were to actually create an atmosphere where people knew that any ad hominem remark would get them blocked for 48 hours, then people would be forced to stop making such remarks, or leave. Is that what Conservapedia does?
I don't see how you can be certain enough to dismiss a suggestion out of hand, when it's something we haven't tried. I know it's inconsistent with the usual wiki-philosophy, but we're in completely uncharted waters here, and I'm willing to try stuff. - GTBacchus( talk) 14:26, 20 December 2009 (UTC)
I saw that mentioned above. So is that surprising? Look at what people have to go through, "Admin is no big deal" has gone out of the window. Also the research suggests that contrary to what is suggested those involved in admin-like activity are less likely to "pass" rfa. Maybe rfa should be two phase - RFA - only "Hell no!" objections allowed, otherwise automatic adminship after 3 days. And then if there is a "Hell no!" objection a discussion could take place. Serial unjustified "Hell no"ing would be considered a Bad Thing. Rich Farmbrough, 22:50, 19 December 2009 (UTC).
Just in case anyone's interested, today's edition of BBC Radio 4's Start the Week includes a discussion about Wikipedia with Andrew Dalby and Evgeny Morozov. It's available for the next seven days here. Phil Bridger ( talk) 18:21, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
Their should be a podcast if you have the technology. Rich Farmbrough, 07:54, 20 December 2009 (UTC).
I happened to see this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)/Archive_70#Wikipedia_in_the_future which has already been archived even though it started sometime in Decemeber 2009. I believe the topic is very important and wonder if there is a way to continue it? Ottawahitech ( talk) 15:12, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
I'm still a bit of a noob, but I've been over at Wikiquote looking for a while and I see that all the regular users aren't available; both the reference desk and the village pump are completely neglected (and thus the whole project, for the most part). I'm asking for as many eyes as possible from over here (who have the time) to read the Wikiquote policies and take a quick glance over there; give a hand! It needs some more help...!
I've added coordinates templates to some articles at Wikipedia. In some cases, I can see those articles in Google Maps/Google Earth, but in other cases the articles never show up. Is there any manual checking done by Google that filters which wikipedia articles get included there. -- Soman ( talk) 12:29, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
Not entirely sure what to make of this:
http://www.mrt.com.mk/en/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=7892&Itemid=27
© Geni 03:09, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
I've been told to not fix double-redirects, is that right? Double-redirects should no longer be fixed? See User talk:Collectonian#Future predator that. 70.29.211.9 ( talk) 05:02, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
Sometimes it is helpful to take notes during dead time when all you have is a phone. You may not be able to post well formed prose, but you can post notes on a talk page or revert vandalism etc. Nerdseeksblonde ( talk) 15:19, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
If you have a moment, please see
Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Religion#Biblical disambiguators. Thank you!
—
V = I * R (
talk to Ω)
07:02, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
If you're in the U.S., or are a U.S. citizen, please read and respond to this Request for Public Comment from the Office of Science and Technology Policy regarding enhancing public access to archived publications resulting from research funded by Federal science and technology agencies. All are urged to respond to this pivotal opportunity, as individuals and on behalf of institutions and organizations. Your input will be critical in helping the administration form a deep and balanced view of stakeholders' interest in ensuring public access to publicly funded research.
Please email publicaccess@ostp.gov or post comments to this blog no later than January 21, 2010 (the deadline was extended two weeks) answering these questions:
1. How do authors, primary and secondary publishers, libraries, universities, and the federal government contribute to the development and dissemination of peer reviewed papers arising from federal funds now, and how might this change under a public access policy?
2. What characteristics of a public access policy would best accommodate the needs and interests of authors, primary and secondary publishers, libraries, universities, the federal government, users of scientific literature, and the public?
3. Who are the users of peer-reviewed publications arising from federal research? How do they access and use these papers now, and how might they if these papers were more accessible? Would others use these papers if they were more accessible, and for what purpose?
4. How best could federal agencies enhance public access to the peer-reviewed papers that arise from their research funds? What measures could agencies use to gauge whether there is increased return on federal investment gained by expanded access?
5. What features does a public access policy need to have to ensure compliance?
6. What version of the paper should be made public under a public access policy (e.g., the author's peer reviewed manuscript or the final published version)? What are the relative advantages and disadvantages to different versions of a scientific paper?
7. At what point in time should peer-reviewed papers be made public via a public access policy relative to the date a publisher releases the final version? Are there empirical data to support an optimal length of time? Should the delay period be the same or vary for levels of access (e.g., final peer reviewed manuscript or final published article, access under fair use versus alternative license), for federal agencies and scientific disciplines?
8. How should peer-reviewed papers arising from federal investment be made publicly available? In what format should the data be submitted in order to make it easy to search, find, and retrieve and to make it easy for others to link to it? Are there existing digital standards for archiving and interoperability to maximize public benefit? How are these anticipated to change?
9. Access demands not only availability, but also meaningful usability. How can the federal government make its collections of peer-reviewed papers more useful to the American public? By what metrics (e.g., number of articles or visitors) should the Federal government measure success of its public access collections? What are the best examples of usability in the private sector (both domestic and international)? And, what makes them exceptional? Should those who access papers be given the opportunity to comment or provide feedback?
Please be sure to include your name, title and affiliation if applicable, city, and state. Thank you for making these important comments! 99.34.78.67 ( talk) 03:53, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
Nerdseeksblonde ( talk) 12:07, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
I've been told to not archive a talk page Talk:Primeverse/Archive 1 because the editor said the actual talk page was an archive Talk:Primeverse but at the time I did it, it was active [18]. See User talk:Collectonian#Future predator. I don't see why a talk page to an page Primeverse should be turned into an archive, since the page is still live. Where would you discuss the redirect? I have seen discussions on the redirects themselves occur on redirect talkpages.
Are redirect talk pages live? Shouldn't they be live? 70.29.211.9 ( talk) 05:02, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
This is due notification that I have been nominated to become a member of the Bot Approvals Group. My nomination is here. @ harej 05:46, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
Here's something I don't recall running across before: an article ( Titus Canyon) that repeats, word for word, the content of a section within another article ( Places_of_interest_in_the_Death_Valley_area#Titus_Canyon. The content was added in both places by the same editor on the same date. It has issues—including how-to, travelogue, sourcing, and probably OR—but before cleaning or tagging I'd like to know what to do about the redundancy and don't know of a relevant policy or guideline. Rivertorch ( talk) 06:53, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
See: national post.
-- Kim Bruning ( talk) 13:40, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
I added a reference to Wen Tianxiang by David Burgess.I have the following link to the library source for the Maters Thesis. I would like to know what is the best way to add it to the reference. I have reviewed the template information and I have not been able to find anything.
http://catalog.wrlc.org/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?BBID=2449118
Thank You
Geminni —Preceding unsigned comment added by Geminni ( talk • contribs) 17:40, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
I had already gone to that page, but none of the categories seem to fit. url = is for references to copies of the book or parts of the book exist. doi = is for a digital object identifier. There are several other link references, but none seem to fit. The reference I have noted above will only give you information on were to find the source in the George Washington University. Do you have any other suggestions? Originally, I made a note after the entry, but it became surrounded by a dotted box. I was not sure what the dotted box indicated, so I took it out.
Thank You--
Geminni (
talk)
21:28, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
when you start lines with superflous whitespace
[19], thanks to this perfectly sane editor. – MuZemike 04:24, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
I just read this article on
Ars Technica that I figured many of you would appreciate:
Purging the Queen's English of "tweet," "app," and "sexting". Enjoy, and Happy New (Decade)!
—
V = I * R (
talk to Ohms law)
00:19, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
Why do so few of the pages have a criticism section anymore? This makes all the article seem like a one sided discussion. You will lose many readers and have fewer visitors to this web site because there are so few open minded articles in it anymore. I liked wiki how it was before.
BRING BACK THE CRITICISM SECTIONS!!!
from wiki user J Jensen seatle wa —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.2.216.137 ( talk) 13:57, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
See
Wikipedia:Criticism sections. Their not forbidden, but their decidedly discouraged. From personal experience, integrating most of the content in criticism sections usually (not always) makes for a better, easier to read, article.
—
V = I * R (
talk to Ω)
02:31, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
I'm currently requesting approval for a bot that will place a message on the talk page of any new namespace 0, 6, 10 or 14 article with ambiguous links. See Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approval/WildBot. Josh Parris 03:00, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
It seems that the site http://www.zaped.info/ is a "distorted mirror" of Wikipedia. It serves WP articles after arbitrarily replacing a percentage of the words by other words, so that the articles look right but are actually nonsense. See e.g their Iron article. Since they are offering advertising space, I suppose that the motivation is to fool the Google filters that supress duplicate hits. Should we be concerned? Is there someting we can do? All the best, -- Jorge Stolfi ( talk) 04:45, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
{{ Progress meter}}
I've been working on this for about three days, and it is now done. Please note that I did most of the initial work on test-wiki. That aside, when I was creating this template, I was not aware of others such as Template:Progress bar or Template:Progress, or others. However, looking at the code, they are not a nearly customizable as the one I have created. I just hope that it can be useful.— Dæ dαlus Contribs 03:29, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
From my understanding, administrators have the privilege of viewing any user's deleted edits (as in edits that occurred in an article that was later deleted). What is the rationale behind this? We're completely restricted from viewing any record whatsoever of deleted edits; we can only find out the number. If the means are available to admins, why are they not at least partially available to regular users?-- Stinging Swarm talk 09:45, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
It's hilarious! :-) See the video here and the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Featured_article_candidates#Video_spoof. Enjoy! Colds7ream ( talk) 11:56, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
All is there a MOS that applies to linking to categories in the article text or infobox such as Template:Nationfilmlist if not can can users offer there opinions Gnevin ( talk) 17:31, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
I borrowed (and credited, before anyone asks) the userpage design I current have from Phaedriel. She has a system to cycle her today's wikipedian section so that every 24-hours it auto-rotates, and I was considering doing something like that for quotes and thoughts and observation that I like to make occasionally. Before I went forward with the idea I wanted to know if that was frowned on in any respects. TomStar81 ( Talk) 06:58, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
Will somebody please help me merging these 3 images to Wikimedia Commons? I can not do it myself.
[[File:Rotunda interior steinway hall nyc mia laberge art case piano.jpg]]
[[File:Artist mia laberge at kennedy center unveil of art case steinway.jpg]]
[[File:Artist mia laberge with henzy z steinway.jpg]]
At Commons there is a category named Steinway & Sons. The 3 images can be added to this category.
Thank you. Fanoftheworld ( talk) 09:46, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
This notice is to formally announce that I will be retiring from the role as chair of the Mediation Committee, effective from 10 January 2010. After discussion on the committee's mailing list, it has been decided that the position of chair will be divided between two users; Seddon ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and Xavexgoem ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log).
May I take this opportunity to thank members of the committee for their hard work and cooperation this year. May I also thank all members of the community who have used the mediation process over the last year - without your good faith in entrusting us to help solve your disputes there would be no Mediation Committee and I've enjoyed interacting with each and every one of you. It's been an absolute pleasure to serve as the chair of the committee over the last year and in many ways I'm sad that I'm leaving the role. That said, I'm looking forward to the new found enthusiasm that Seddom and Xavexgoem will no doubt bring. I wish them both the best of luck.
Regards,
Ryan PostlethwaiteSee the mess I've created or let's have banter 01:45, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
Moved from Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. -- MZMcBride ( talk) 07:29, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
[Link removed see below]. In October while I was told about this website as a place where concerned editors were discussing what to do about BLPs, and that the board was private and pseudonyms were being used, and that there were a number of people using it (24?). Rather than detail all the rumours I was told, I thought I'd throw it up here and see what folks thought. At the time, I told the arbitration committee and left it with them. However, upon thinking about it, I am not comfortable with the idea that there is another secret board which I have on idea about whether it is wound up or...what? How do folks feel? Discussing this may highlight to WMF how frustrated some folks are with the BLP issue. I was tempted to make an RfC but there was no dispute as such so....do other editors want the board made not-secret? or what? Casliber ( talk · contribs) 05:15, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
I have seen it again and again, when veteran editors don't support an initiative, they will use procedural grounds, such as "wrong forum" to close the topic.
Casliber, a former arbcom, has a link showing possible evidence of a new secret mailing list. I suspect there is probably more evidence too?
Beeblebrox, ARK, Peripitus are you members of secret mailing list?
Casliber, if you don't start a RFC, I will. Will supporters of the flagged revision attempt to procedurally close the RFC too?
Ikip
12:21, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
Unresolving. The word on the street is that this was a forum that was dedicated to tightening up BLP practices and that its members were coordinating to affect the outcomes of AFD discussions. There was nothing visible there because threads were deleted as soon as a discussion was closed. I'm hearing things about who was a member there, but am not repeating any names without independent confirmation. It appears possible to test the veracity of this by writing a script to test for unusual clusters of recent participation at AFDs of BLP subjects. Would one of our coders look into that avenue, please? At the very least it would help to settle the concerns if this is untrue. And if it is true (or nearly so) I would for my own part suggest amnesty for anyone who steps forward and explains this to the community within the next 24 hours. Durova 386 04:06, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
I skimmed this thread and was left with two questions:
I'd suggest re-archiving this thread. I don't see any good coming of it. Though, as always, sense will be tossed aside in favor of wiki-sleuthing over a lazy holiday. *shrugs* -- MZMcBride ( talk) 07:20, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
I'm still curious (perhaps concerned is a better word) about your motivations, which didn't look particularly pure from the start and you've certainly done nothing over the past few days to make them look any purer (though undoubtedly you'd say the same of me). You say you're after some type of "user conduct" review, but you know that trying to regulate off-site behavior is a powder keg. When you're posting to AN/I about the erotic fiction that some users administer or the other off-site activities that Wikipedians are involved in, it'll make your quest for "review" here seem a bit more legitimate. But you know that it's patently none of your damn business what people choose to do (or discuss) elsewhere. You're truly in no position to judge what others do with their free time, you can only judge what people do on-site. If you find a pattern of impropriety on Wikipedia by specific users, by all means, feel free to post to AN/I and ask for review. But that's not what you did. You didn't do your homework and then ask for help when you got stuck, did you? (And, as Risker notes, the irony here is that if you did a large-scale analysis of voting behavior in deletion discussions, the odds heavily favor finding collusion among inclusionists, not deletionists.)
You've known about this site since October and only decided to discuss this now. Why? I don't know. Perhaps you've just been busy, but when I look at the broader pattern of your behavior lately, it looks like you're hitting some stage of burnout. This could be an isolated week for you, but I doubt it. Simply put, for all intents and purposes, it looks like you're trolling. Nobody goes to post at AN/I unless they're looking for drama. Nobody goes to file a deletion discussion for a page involved in a weeks-long nasty dispute unless they're looking for drama. I'm not saying I agree or disagree with your actions, but they're pretty transparent trolling (to me, at least, "it takes one to know one," as they say). And trolling is usually one of the stages of burnout ( Cremepuff222 just re-demonstrated this lesson pretty spectacularly). If we go back a bit further, I think there are some pretty clear indicators you're (slowly) burning out. The best example of this would probably be your quick drop out from the Arbitration Committee when presented with the opportunity. This is why I politely suggested you take a break, though you blew off the suggestion. Oh well. I've watched this burnout pattern happen a lot (to myself and a lot of others). I'm fairly confident you'll be able to recover, though. So it's not all bleak. :-)
You didn't ask for my analysis or opinion, but I provided it anyway, with the caveat that I could be completely wrong. Though, after a couple of years here, I'm fairly good at spotting these kinds of things. If you want to have a calm and rational discussion about biographies of living people, the benefits and detriments of off-site discussions about biographies, or something similar, here is a pretty good place to start (or on my talk page). I'm more than happy to have a conversation with you if you stop the bullshit and the antics. I hope you're enjoying the holidays. -- MZMcBride ( talk) 01:32, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
Well from poking around on the site I can confirm it existed and that the forum was named Sisyphus. Not much else.© Geni 03:56, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
I have reason to believe that it was Professor Plum ... in the library ... with the candlestick. Hurry now, there's not much time before these people take over the world, one free Encyclopedia that anyone can edit at a time. - Rjd0060 ( talk) 19:51, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
Just a reminder that honours are only officially conferred when they are conferred (now there's an oxymoron!). Until such time it is incorrect to refer to the subject of any honour by their post-honorific title. I see the obvious showbiz one (Mr Patrick Stewart) had already been knighted which I have corrected but everyone needs to be sharp about this. CrispMuncher ( talk) 08:06, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
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.
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I'm looking to convert the table at machine press from an html format to the Wikipedia format because it's current layout is clumsy/ugly and the code for it is monstrous. Is there any tool for this? Thanks! Wizard191 ( talk) 19:56, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
So I happened to see the 5 things about Wikipedia most people don't know about. And did anyone else get the opinion for number 3 ("We support more than 100,000 volunteers who have contributed 14.3 million articles in 270 languages.") that the word "support" implied financial support, especially being on a donation page and with one of the donation messages "Please support Wikipedia!" If this is something I've missed, however, how do I get my money? Spencer T♦ Nominate! 16:43, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
This is utterly rude and disheartening. I know better since I use wikipedia since forever but I'm sure it would have drove away countless people:
"The recent edit you made to Martial arts constitutes vandalism,"
http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=User_talk:94.71.77.34&redirect=no
and what's the "vandalism"?
"kratos, meaning "nation""
if you are a 7 year old greek and don't know kratos means nation you're an idiot. This is obviously a correct edit at first glance. If it's not a correct edit ultimately it's not a good reason to call people vandals-- 94.71.77.34 ( talk) 22:46, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
I agree with the OP that the message left on his or her talk page was inappropriate. Simply saying that an edit such as that constitutes vandalism is quite presumptuous. It's much better to say that an edit appears to be incorrect or unconstructive, and allow that the person might be working in good faith, that to simply declare them guilty of base motives.
We define vandalism very narrowly here, and for good reason. I never find it necessary to even use that word when reverting and leaving warnings for bad edits. - GTBacchus( talk) 17:31, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
I was just kind of curious how many editors are actually on Wikipedia. Wikipedia says that at one point it was about 524. Is there any place to find detailed, current information on the number of editors/accounts and the distribution of edits among them? IE, how many total accounts, how many accounts that make more than one edit a month or week, etc. AzureFury ( talk | contribs) 05:37, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
Hello! I have cleaned up Dmitri Bulykin (a footballer) page (moving quotes to WikiQuotes etc) and later came across an IP user who reverted my edits without any proper explanation, just calling them "deletions". I gave them a couple of warnings but failed to stop these reverts. Now, assuming that IP user thinks he's not vandalizing a page but rather participating in a content dispute, I request an uninvolved user to take a look at article's history [5] and comment. Thank you. Barocci 12:58, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
The first time you're reverted, it's a very good idea to go to the talk page and state the case for your edit. If they don't reply there, revert, notify, and wait. If they revert again, don't revert them until you get outside input. We're not in a hurry, and what that IP is doing is not close to vandalism. "Vandalism" means intentionally making the Wikipedia worse, by one's own standards. That IP is trying to make it better. - GTBacchus( talk) 17:47, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
Why is Rotten Tomatoes cited on nearly every movie page on Wikipedia? I can't find any policy on this, and WP:Films doesn't have much about this, either. I understand Rotten Tomatoes are a for-profit part of IGN Entertainment. Thanks! FFLaguna ( talk) 10:11, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
Ideally the review of a movie should be described and atributed in the article rather than simply placed as external link, right, but I don't see a problem in linking such reviews as external links in articles at their starting level of development. MBelgrano ( talk) 14:19, 27 November 2009 (UTC)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8382477.stm
Wikimedia Foundation counts only people who make five edits or more as an editor
Really? What should we call those who are not yet editors? Suomi Finland 2009 ( talk) 16:57, 27 November 2009 (UTC)
I find it curious that almost every DYK has some obscure factoid about Louisiana. Is there someone who is pushing these articles for inclusion in the DYK section, or has Wikipedia taken on the state's trivia as a special project? —Preceding unsigned comment added by JascalX ( talk • contribs) 17:18, 27 November 2009 (UTC)
There is one user who writes many articles related to Louisiana. If more people were like him, except for a different subject, Wikipedia would have 50 million articles, not 3. Let's not be too critical about our contributors. Suomi Finland 2009 ( talk) 19:22, 27 November 2009 (UTC)
Comments from all interested editors are invited and welcome at Wikipedia talk:Community de-adminship/Draft RfC, where a proposal for community de-adminship is being discussed. -- Tryptofish ( talk) 21:59, 27 November 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia_talk:Reliable_sources#RfC_on_page_move. Should Wikipedia:Reliable sources be moved to Wikipedia:Verifiability/reliable sources to become a subpage of the sourcing policy, WP:V? There would be no change in either page's status: the policy would remain policy, and RS would retain its status as a guideline. 23:43, 27 November 2009 (UTC)
Does anyone know how to retrieve the current today's featured article's name, I mean, automatically ? Is there some template returning it ? Cenarium ( talk) 01:34, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
Hello, I just had a little quarry for your orginization.
Wikipedia has a fundraiser going on to raise seven and a half million dollars, and after reading the FAQ's it left me a little bewildered because of conflicting points made in the question and answers section. It says that Wikipedia and it sister projects are a charity and yet, the first question and answer [Where does the money go?] one of the answers was to the people working and helping Wikipedia be up and running ...so they are being paid. And, in a charity, the employee's do not get paid. Or at least that is what the definition states it being.
My question; So, what is Wikipedia? Because saying it's a charity is the incorrect use. I could be reading it wrong though. And if I am, then I do apologize.
-- Turnoquiet ( talk) 03:53, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
David Beals ( talk · contribs) has built a bunch of UW warning templates to warn-off editors who include redlinks into their edits, see the TfD discussion where they are being considered for deletion. Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2009 November 27
I don't remember seeing a policy that says users who add redlinks should be banned.
Can someone point me to the policy page that says users should not add redlinks?
76.66.197.250 ( talk) 07:50, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi.
Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat.
Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.31.101.85 ( talk) 16:01, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
Worldenc ( talk · contribs) has created thousands of charts that they added to thousands of articles, only to have their work rolledback in a massive rollback by Hu12 ( talk · contribs). I've started a thread here since it primarily deals with articles within the scope of WP:CITIES, but I also wanted to leave a note at the village pump to get more input. If anyone could take a look, and maybe comment, that'd be great. Killiondude ( talk) 20:58, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
Voting is now open in the December 2009 elections to elect new members to the Arbitration Committee. In accordance with the recent Request for Comment on the election process, voting will be done by secret ballot using the SecurePoll extension. Voting will close on 14 December 2009 at 23:59 UTC.
In order to be eligible to vote, an account must have at least 150 mainspace edits on or before 1 November 2009 ( check your account). Blocked editors may not vote, and voting with multiple accounts or bot accounts is expressly forbidden. Note that due to technical restrictions, editors who have made more than 150 mainspace edits on or before 1 November 2009 but no longer have access to the account(s) used will not be able to vote. If you have any questions about this, please ask.
For each candidate, voters may choose to Support or Oppose the candidacy, or to remain Neutral (this option has no effect on the outcome). Voting should be done in a single sitting. After your entire vote has been accepted, you may make changes at any time before the close of voting. However, a fresh default ballot page will be displayed and you will need to complete the process again from scratch (for this reason, you are welcome to keep a private record of your vote). Your new ballot page will erase the previous one. You may verify the time of acceptance of your votes at the real-time voting log. Although this election will use secret ballots, and only votes submitted in this way will be counted, you may leave brief comments on the candidates' comment pages and discuss candidates at length on the attached talkpages. For live discussion, join #wikipedia-en-ace on Freenode.
To cast your vote, please proceed here.
For the coordinators, Skomorokh 00:01, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
User:Dynesepp, who was blocked for sock puppetry, made a zillion edits to add references to "critical theory" to various articles. One was reverted as vandalism (which it isn't), but probably someone should look at the whole corpus and see if additional action is needed.
Apologies if this is not the right place to post this, please let me now on my talk page if I should have done something different. I considered RFC, that seemed too big a production than I was ready for. Ma t c hups 03:48, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
I looked at the information of the past few years' financials but I'm no tax attorney. I was wondering if someone could give me a breakdown of the costs of operation (technology, advertising, etc.,) vs the salaries of the employees. I'm not interested in debates of whether salary is a cost of operation, just want to know what's being spent on people vs. things. It's sort of similar in my mind to overhead of charities. If this is in the wrong section please feel free to move it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.88.88.58 ( talk) 21:09, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
I stumbled upon a school project where a bunch of people (re)write wikipedia articles (and it seems they are doing a good job, too). I gave some off-the-head advice immediately related to the issues I noticed. However it occurs to me that it must be not the first case. Is there a wikipedia guideline targeting such school "microWikiProjects"? If not, I'd suggest to write one. - Altenmann >t 17:47, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
It would seem fantastic that Amidism, the #1 synonym of Pure Land Buddhism in English, could be scrubbed from the article with all its sources and nobody noticed for six months, and yet, and yet... I have tried to restore it, but I think some regulars keeping an eye on Pure Land Buddhism would be useful. 62.147.27.150 ( talk) 19:44, 27 November 2009 (UTC)
Most likely, this issue was discussed more than once, but I'd like to get to know how to deal with vandal edits such as this one. When I'm engaged in massive vandalism reversion, I usually miss disputable edits, and other productive rollbackers probably too. Sometimes (now I don't remember specific instances) I used to notice several hard-to-detect disruptive edits which remained in the entries for weeks. So, do we have any effective ways to prevent this harm?-- Microcell ( talk) 17:21, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
How do you know the edit was vandalism? You might have rolled back a perfectly sincere attempt to improve the article. At least you should have used "undo" rather than "rollback", so you could have left a proper edit summary. The message you left at the user's talk page is too aggressive for an unproven first offense, anyway. Use {{ uw-vandal1}} where there is any possibility that the edit may be in good faith, even if erroneous. Please stop using rollback until you have learned more about editing here. - Pointillist ( talk) 18:12, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
I don't understand what "annoyed" you about that editor. The birth year 1941 was used on the article for 14 months until July 2008, and then it was changed to 1943. That editor hasn't done bad things elsewhere. - Pointillist ( talk) 18:50, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
Back when I had 1,138 pages on my watchlist, I collated these stats:
All users Exclude me 1 day 27 2.4% 20 1.7% 7 day 153 13.4% 111 9.7% 28 day 457 40.1% 352 30.9%
because I'd noticed that I was fairly reliably getting about 3% of my watchlist turning up, day in, day out. This is everything on, bots, minors, the lot. I wanted to ask: what about you, is your watchlist getting ~3%/day activity? If not, why are you different to me? Josh Parris 10:44, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
I should know the answer to this, but don't, so I'm hoping someone can help. I'm working on the bio of David Icke, where a reliable source says his website gets 600,000 hits a week, which sounds a lot, and I wonder if there has been a mistake. What is the best way to check how many hits a particular website gets? I have found this, but it apparently gives only U.S. stats. SlimVirgin 12:47, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
I found a vandal who has been aggressively adding a libellous BLP statement to an article on a high school. In the process of trying to figure out how to get an admin's attention (the user had been blocked previously), I was shown an automated message accusing me of being in an edit war -- which is true, except I believed myself to be exempt from 3RR because I was reverting clearly libellous BLP matter. Of course, that made me throw up my hands and give up. The BLP violation is surely back up again now, but hey, I tried and failed. There should be an easier way to just get an admin's attention -- any admin -- when a user's behavior is so obviously in violation. - PorkHeart ( talk) 06:07, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
While working on a unified {{ xfdl}} in the sandbox, I noticed some discrepancies in the nameing scheme used to store the deletion logs.
XfD | Log name |
---|---|
Articles for deletion | Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/{article name} Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2009 December 1#{section header} (index) |
Miscellany for deletion | Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/{page name} Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Archived debates/December 2009 (index/summary) |
Categories for discussion | Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/{cat name} (pre April 2006) Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2009 December 1#{section header} (current) |
Redirects for discussion | Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2009 December 1#{section header} |
Templates for discussion | Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/December 2004#{section header} (pre 2005) Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/Not deleted/January 2006#{section header} Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/Deleted/January 2006#{section header} (pre January 4, 2006) Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2009 December 1#{section header} (current) |
Deletion review | Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2009 December 1#{section header} |
Stub types for deletion | Wikipedia:Stub types for deletion/Log/2009/December/1#{section header} |
Files for deletion | Wikipedia:Files for deletion/2009 December 1#{section header} |
User categories for discussion | Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/User/Archive/2009 December#{section header} (current) |
|
Notice that SfD uses a different date format from the other, FfD does not use /Log, and User categories use /Archive instead of /Log and only includes the year and month, while the others use year, month, and day. I'm proposing that we have some consistency with the log names for CfD, RfD, TfD, DRV, SfD, FfD, and UCfD. — Farix ( t | c) 12:38, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
I think that all XfDs should be in the format of "Wikipedia:XXX for deletion/{page name}", so that watchlisting is useful for individual discussions. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 21:03, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
It might make keeping track of them slightly easier, but it would make archiving some of them much harder. There are good reasons why different XfD pages use different archiving systems. The system you suggest as a uniform one works perfectly for AfD, where there are 100+ nominations per day - it would work very badly on the likes of SfD where there are two or three nominations per week and where archives are stored as month-long pages (e.g., Wikipedia:Stub types for deletion/Log/2009/October). It is rare that an SfD day-page has more than one nomination, and several of the other process pages only have a handful of items per day (e.g., TfD). It's far easier for the maintenance of those pages to have them archived with daily transclusions rather than a by-case basis. Grutness... wha? 23:41, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
This choice to prioritise convenience for the current method of maintenance ahead of functionality for the users is inward looking and sad. If archiving backwater XfDs would be difficult (I really don't understand why), then merge them into MfD. Why have a separate XfD if traffic is slow so low? -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 04:40, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
I created a Happy Holiday Template.
{{User:Zink Dawg/Happy Holidays}}
Copy and past it to your user page.-- Zink Dawg -- 00:21, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
What it makes
Happy New Year |
Category:LGBT is under Category:Same-sex_sexuality which is under Category:LGBT. Can anyone fix the illogical category relation? -- Quest for Truth ( talk) 02:00, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
Hi all, I think the Article Collaboration and Improvement Drive can still serve a useful purpose in improving core/encyclopedic articles which will be too big for a single editor to tackle. However. it has had a very stop/start existence. I did try and give it a kick start earlier in the year but I have been sidetracked on other endeavours. I think this approach exemplifies the idea of collaborative editing and hopefully boosts camaraderie. I also see this as a good way of balancing bias of Good and Featured content, much of which is concentrated in a few wikiprojects (eg. Birds, Mil-history). I am not suggesting an official coordinator as such, but at least a few editors prepared to do the housekeeping. Or shall we just let it lapse for the time being? Cheers, Casliber ( talk · contribs) 03:38, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
This is a short note to remind all interested editors that the December 2009 elections to elect new members to the Arbitration Committee is still open for voting. The voting period opened on 1 December and will close on 14 December 2009 (next Monday) at 23:59 UTC.
The voting this year is by secret ballot using the SecurePoll extension. All unblocked editors who had at least 150 mainspace edits on or before 1 November 2009 are eligible to vote ( check your account). A list of votes is kept at the real-time voting log, and a separate list of voters is maintained on an on-wiki log. If you have any questions or difficulties with the voting setup, please ask at the election talkpage.
There are twenty-candidates standing in the election, from whom nine arbitrators are expected to be chosen. Prospective voters are invited to review the candidate statements and the candidates' individual questions pages. Although voting is by secret ballots, and only votes submitted in this way will be counted, you are invited to leave brief comments on the candidates' comment pages and discuss candidates at length on the attached talkpages. For live discussion, join #wikipedia-en-ace on freenode.
Follow this link to cast your vote
For the coordinators, Skomorokh 08:57, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
Can someone point me in the right direction of the humour page that said that actually despite common belief, admins were not human but that in tthe title as well as food, drink and other sorts? Simply south ( talk) 19:04, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
See this discussion if you have any opinion on the "smiley" template. Thanks! Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 00:26, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
The Wikimedia Foundation could really use descriptions of projects "that study scale-up of STEM education innovations" involved with Wikimedia projects, with durations up to five years. So, if you had up to five million US dollars, and you could spend it on that, please answer the following using less than 15 printed pages of text (less is better; less is far, far better!)
Thanks! This is due in only a few weeks.
My initial impulse is simply to propose spending $5,000,000 to document existing Foundation practice for each of the major projects, with the understanding that studying the practice is likely to affect it, so we should spend as much as possible to make sure that the interaction is as successful as possible, because of the Foundation's track record of success in these areas. 99.62.186.125 ( talk) 19:39, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
An exonym is a name for a geographical place not used in that place, such as 'Germany', as the Germans would say 'Deutschland'. We have a lot of articles at Category:Exonyms that list exonyms in various languages. This is the kind of thing you might find in the appendix to a dictionary. There have been quite a few deletion nominations of these articles over the years, [8] but there is no consistency in how they are dealt with. Some are deleted: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hebrew exonyms, and some are kept: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Arabic exonyms. There was no consensus the last time this was discussed in general: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of European exonyms. This is among the most indiscriminate: List of Czech exonyms for places in the Polish part of Cieszyn Silesia. There's various other similar lists, such as Names of European cities in different languages and its subpages, and several at Category:Toponymy. Do we want articles that list translations of words and names in various languages? Wikipedia isn't a usage guide, a dictionary, or a directory, so this material doesn't seem to me to be a good fit. Fences& Windows 00:32, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
How can I get an RSS feed for the individual 'Days of the year'? I have been looking for a good online almanac. Your format is ideal:
* 1 Events * 2 Births * 3 Deaths * 4 Holidays and observances * 5 External links
¡Gracias! GBH
I'm going on a non-stop 24-hour editing binge, and would like to think up a new type of Wikifauna to associate with someone who has done this. I know that WikiOgres go on editing binges, but I think a 24 hour binge is something special and deserves its own fauna. We could keep it related, and call it a WikiOgre Chieftain, or something new, like WikiTitan. I've already heard and discarded WikiSpeedfreak. Anyone have any other ideas? ɳoɍɑfʈ Talk! 16:38, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
Sillyness from McSweeney's: I Am Locking the Wikipedia Article On Our Sex Life. I'm sorry if this is the wrong place to post it, or if everybody on the whole internet already sent it to you in long, private e-mails. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cheezycrust ( talk • contribs) 08:49, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
Reminder: comments from all interested editors are invited and welcome at Wikipedia talk:Community de-adminship/Draft RfC, where a proposal for community de-adminship is being discussed. -- Tryptofish ( talk) 18:17, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
What on Earth is this? It sounds rather awesome. Pressumably to send a nuclear missile to ED? But seriously, does anybody know what this sysop-tool does? Jolly Ω Janner 00:05, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
Okay, I know Wikipedia is not a social networking site and all that, but seriously, 200,000 edits! Relax (or, better, ignore) the rules for a bit and swing by my 200,000th edit party. Cheers! bd2412 T 03:38, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
Not sure if you are aware of this but my two children (13, 18) have been instructed not to use wikipedia as a source as it is unreliable. This is what the Montgomery County teachers in Maryland are instructing their students. I know that wikipedia is but one source to use. But to say wikipedia is totally unreliable baffles me. Their main premise is that anyone can edit material on wikipedia changing correct information to something else. I use wikipedia to learn but I verify this against another source always when I need to reference something.
My main point in writing this is if teachers are instructing their students nationwide/worldwide you will have less users in the future. Do you reach out to the educational communities to provide them confidence in your product.
Robert Bravo15:22, 6 December 2009 (UTC)~ —Preceding unsigned comment added by Beto1619 ( talk • contribs)
Sounds like Agne47 has come across the correct way citation needed ;-) to use wikipedia. It's definitely how I started. :-) -- Kim Bruning ( talk) 02:59, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
(responding to the original issue) By that logic students shouldn't rely on book because just about anyone could write a book. User-submitted content, reviews, blogs, personal websites, and feeds are and a major information channel and a significant force in society. Wikipedia is probably the most important of these and requires some familiarity and training to get right. That's the kind of thing schools can be teaching if they want to prepare kids for the future. I think students should nearly always consult Wikipedia, but go beyond the article to its sources, and not cite Wikipedia as a rule. That goes for newspapers as well, and press releases, and most magazines. You wouldn't write a serious article about most subjects with a Time Magazine article as a source. - Wikidemon ( talk) 23:04, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia has over 600 links to the legendary publishing periodical Editor & Publisher, which is now ceasing publication. I suspect that the website will soon be shuttered as well. We need a massive effort to 1) preemptively archive (via WP:WebCite?) many of these articles as possible and 2) repair already dead links (via WP:WAYBACK?). The list is here. Please see Wikipedia talk:Linkrot to help coordinate. -- Blargh29 ( talk) 03:27, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
I am having trouble figuring out what to do with the article Amal Jyothi College. It is poorly referenced and regularly vandalized (by students of the college?). I've cleaned it up a couple of times, but get reverted/overwritten by vandals rather quickly. Maybe protection is called for, but I don't really know what should be protected... I haven't found many references about the institution, and don't really know what the article should actually say. Perhaps it should just be deleted? It is essentially an orphan. Anyone want to take a stab at it? — Epastore ( talk) 02:23, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
The article David Newbury, which I started less than an hour ago, is already on the second page of Google search , out of over 29,000 results. Does anyone know how Google ranks this? It's not that I don't think it shouldn't be on the first page of results, but I don't know how Google knows that. - Banyan Tree 14:49, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
I've recently found some edits that break pages because they replace braces ({}
) with parentheses (()
). Quite often they also translate the page. After I reverted one of those edits to
David Napier (marine engineer), the anonymous editor
contacted me, why I reverted his addition. (The first comment there is in Czech, my native language, but grammatically incorrect, it translates roughly to “I'd like to know why my new information about David Napier's Aglaia cannot be accepted.”) I tried to explain him, that he broke the page, but I don't think he understood me. Most of these edits are from anonymous users, but the only edit
User:Igor melo did follows the same pattern. I don't know whether this is only one person, or not, but they are too similar to be unrelated. Is there something that can be done about this? Or can someone at least provide an explanation, why or how (the breaking of pages may be unintentional) are they doing it? Some examples:
[9]
[10]
[11]
[12]
[13]
[14].
Svick (
talk)
14:48, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
This is a brief reminder to all interested editors that today is the final day to vote in the December 2009 elections to elect new members to the Arbitration Committee. The voting period opened at 00:01 on UTC 1 December 2009 and will close at 23:59 UTC on 14 December 2009 as initially planned. Updated 20:54, 13 December 2009 (UTC).
The voting this year is by secret ballot using the SecurePoll extension. All unblocked editors who had at least 150 mainspace edits on or before 1 November 2009 are eligible to vote ( check your account). Prospective voters are invited to review the candidate statements and the candidates' individual questions pages. Although voting is by secret ballot, and only votes submitted in this way will be counted, you are invited to leave brief comments on the candidates' comment pages and discuss candidates at length on the attached talkpages. If you have any questions or difficulties with the voting setup, please ask at the election talkpage. For live discussion, join #wikipedia-en-ace on freenode.
Follow this link to cast your vote
For the coordinators, Skomorokh 12:54, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
See the link in my signature. ― A. di M. — 2nd Great Wikipedia Dramaout 23:07, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
Can anyone explain in simpler words what he ment with this sentence: "I know that engagement with repressive regimes lacks the satisfying purity of indignation."
Indignation is the feeling of being worried about something. I don´t understand how this relates to engangements in repressive regimes. Worried about how the regime could create problems for the people if a foreign force tries to get rid of the regime, or what?
Lidingo SWE (
talk)
10:37, 13 December 2009 (UTC) Sweden.
I wish Jimbo would just allow one google text ad at the bottom of pages instead. Daniel.Cardenas ( talk) 21:43, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
The new version of the WP 1.0 bot is ready for some initial beta testing. More information is at User_talk:WP_1.0_bot/Second_generation#Beta_testing_2009-12-16, where any comments and suggestions will be deeply appreciated. — Carl ( CBM · talk) 01:51, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
I would be very grateful to anyone willing to pitch in and regularly help out in these understaffed areas of dispute resolution. They are essential for resolving disputes before they reach a point of entrenchment with its accompanying disruption to the project in the affected topic areas. Thanks for considering this request for assistance. Vassyana ( talk) 06:30, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
^ -- MZMcBride ( talk) 15:43, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
about {{ 1911}}
I added to this article here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_%C3%89tienne_Louis_Camus
and tried to copy the way that the curly bracket reference template tells you about Britannica. I couldn't fathom out how to do this, so I put the text in verbatim. Would appreciate some help. I have a copy of Watkins that I scanned and would be useful to have a template to do this. I tried 'help templates' but couldn't get very far. Thanks. John.
Just a thought: Are we to see just about every article linked to www.fotopedia.com? External links to it only occurs on 33 articles so far but who knows... -- Aspro ( talk) 13:43, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
Fotopedia seems to have some attractive gallery navigation features. I wonder whether something like that is feasible as an alternative way of browsing Commons, perhaps combined with Wikipedia taxonomies and article links. Thoughts? - Pointillist ( talk) 12:04, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
I sometimes get the feeling I'm recently being followed around by a rather immature editor, that coupled with seing this got me thinking. Obviously the "view contributions" function can be misused, but since it is very useful it can not be removed.
How about improving it instead by adding more transparency? Whenever you view someones contributions you are (in an acceptable way) violating their privacy, but in return the person you have investigated should have the right to know that you did so, e.g. be able to see who reviewed their contributions, and when.
As an example; In Sweden you can check the financial status of anyone, it is publicly available info. However, as a check against frivolous checking, the person that was investigated receives a letter home informing them that such and such received their financial information.
Comments? -- Stor stark7 Speak 15:20, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
I imagine this question has been asked many times before, and I'm sure there's a good answer to it - though I wouldn't know where to find it.
What procedures are place so that if some time in future the worst happened and Wikimedia Foundation suddenly folded for currently unforeseen reasons, everybody's contributions up to (very nearly) the time would still be available for use in other projects?
In principle it is straightforward: you just fork from a recent mirror and carry on. The trouble of course is that most mirrors are inadequate for this purpose - they provide a single snapshot, whereas what is needed is full page histories, for lots of reasons but most importantly attribution for license compliance.
What mirrors currently exist which satisfy all of the following?
Thanks.
Weedier Mickey ( talk) 11:25, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
A related question: Does Wikimedia have multiple copies of everything at multiple physical locations - to prevent a single disaster (hurricane, fire, flood, bomb, war, whatever) from wiping the whole lot out? Roger ( talk) 13:42, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
Well I have full revision dumps form a few years back, probably. If not certainly someone else does. We have the revison metadata, which may be enough (this article was created by the following 56 editors...) Rich Farmbrough, 07:56, 20 December 2009 (UTC).
Has wikipedia ever been purge-bombed. When you purge a page it causes more load on the servers right? So if someone purge spammed wikipedia pages that were heavily traffic'd what would be the repercussions? andyzweb ( talk) 05:19, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
Well BEANS aside, I watched the server load as some serious purge events occurred and were handled by the servers with nary a blip. The load from purging a given page will be unlikely to show across the several hundred servers - basically one re-render per purge then the page is cached. Other more subtle potential problems are dealt with by the wikitechs and sit mainly behind the user-effect field. Rich Farmbrough, 00:39, 21 December 2009 (UTC).
So as a reader of Wikipedia (and irregular contributor) I've always wondered:
What's the purpose of the citation needed tag?
It seems to me that if a fact is placed on wikipedia that is uncited, it should be removed (/moved to talk page) and not appear again until it is cited.
Unlike notability, it's not like there are degrees of "citedness": either something is cited or it is not. Similarly, either it is Wikipedia's policy to have uncited content on the encyclopaedia, or it is not.
Given that it is plainly against policy to have uncited text in the wiki, why does this tag even exist?
Don't mean to sound impertinent, just hoping to hear from one of the more experienced editors :-) Andy (or, -- 86.26.160.235 ( talk) 00:46, 19 December 2009 (UTC) )
Fact was moved to Citation needed because it was thought that it was clearer. Certainly if you look at some of the redirects to Citation needed they imply disbelief (Lies! Proveit [15] in the same way Lol wut, Huh? and Eh? redirect to Clarify) and might be better pointed to Dubious (or deleted). Rich Farmbrough, 00:45, 21 December 2009 (UTC).
For (Scalable Vector Graphics files which can be scaled. This is the best thing since OGGs which can be played and fried bread. Hands together for whoever fixed that one thankyou.), I hereby award Village pump (miscellaneous) with the “
Cool Award.” ~
R.
T.
G
09:14, 20 December 2009 (UTC)
In Great Pacific Garbage Patch, could someone with an SVG editor fix File:Currents.svg The words "current" in the bottom right key have been truncated. I put this message on the talk page a month ago and noone has done it, so I thought I'd ask here. Thanks -- SGBailey ( talk) 22:57, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
A quick legal question. Extremely frequently I see 'works' like File:GJ1214b size comparison.png licensed as cc, despite the fact there is absolutely no new copyrightable information within them, and all the pre-existing information is in the public domain. The same happens with collages, animations of pd maps, hell, even cropped photos. It crops up with almost ALL derivatives of WP:MAPS as well. The original is in the public domain, someone slaps a circle on it, or colours in France, and suddenly they are able to claim copyright and re-license? I don't know whether this is allowed, seems like it shouldn't be, but then again pd is a unique legal status for information and hence why I'm asking here. PS: I get the nagging feeling there's a Legal discussion page, but I can't find one. — what a crazy random happenstance 04:33, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
There is a new article on the Wall Street Journal: Volunteers Log Off as Wikipedia Ages (under their new payment model, you can only read the intro for free). Yes, another Wikipedia is DOOMED!!! article. But what surprised me most is the comments which are also almost universally negative as well. Several repeating the old saws of "Well, it can never work because...(insert human nature, no advertising, lack of experts, etc." which I would have thought we had well refuted after existed about nine years. But many complaining of deletionists, unfair blocks, excessive beaurocracy and some of just misconceptions ("I couldn't read the talk page until I registered, what a dumb design.) What happened to all the Wikipedia boosters and have we really gotten this bad? 75.41.110.200 ( talk) 16:48, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
Without having read the article (like I'm going to give the WSJ money), I would presume from your description of it that the article illuminates more about the WSJ than it does about Wikipedia. postdlf ( talk) 20:29, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
Search Google News for "Volunteers Log Off as Wikipedia Ages" to see a free version. --
SWTPC6800 (
talk)
03:19, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
I am sort of new here. Even though I started editing at Wikipedia in 2007, my initial reaction was not favorable and I stopped coming to Wikipedia for a while. I only became more active recently, mostly because of a lull in my other activities. Since I was not intimately invloved here I did not know that what the WSJ said (I have not read it yet) is a persistent complaint about Wikipedia, and that many have forecast its doom. I myself am quite in awe of how far it has come in such a short time, and am still trying to figure out how things work here. I find it amazing that so much information has been collected, most of it of high quality, despite running into a lot of evidence of discontented Wikipedians, people who have left in a huff, cynical people, etc. Ottawahitech ( talk) 23:35, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
Hi just wanted to let you guys know there is a article about editor exodus in one of Canada's largest newspapers, http://www.thestar.com/news/sciencetech/technology/article/729552--thousands-of-editors-leaving-wikipedia Mike ( T C) 01:38, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
We have created an environment where fewer people want to contribute. RfAs have been drying up for a while now, and now some study has noticed that the number of active contributors is dropping off. I'm not surprised.
Part of my inactivity is due to graduate school, but I can do grad school + wikipedia: I got an MS in 2006 while at my peak level of activity. A big part of my reason to stay away are the poisonous interactions I've had here lately.
My favorite thing to blame is the rampant legalism, where we allow rule-lawyers to define all the terms. We used to know how to Ignore All Rules, but nobody cares about that anymore. Too bad, seeing as it was what made the whole thing work, with civil interactions providing the social lubrication. To rules-lawyers, though, civility is not a lubricant; it's a cudgel. We let them win. Damn. - GTBacchus( talk) 02:25, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
Responding to DavidWBrooks: Without "legalism" in its irritating forms we wouldn't have consistent references and infoboxes and lots of other good stuff. I don't believe that for one second. I was working for years in Requested Moves, and we developed new technologies, set up necessary structures, and dealt with thousands of move requests without getting so legalistic. Wikipedia had infoboxes before the lawyers took over.
I don't see it as so obvious that we have to become more legalistic as we grow, nor that we have to coddle antisocial users quite as much as we do. I do see the two as connected, because the more legalistic it gets, the more antisocial it gets. We coddle wikilawyers, and let them define all the terms of discourse. That's an outright abdication of good sense.
I might as well be talking to a wall, though, because we've institutionalized some bad, bad habits by now. If I were the king of Wikipedia... huh. I have no idea what I would do. I'd try to convince people that we need to treat each other better, worry less about rules, and write more. - GTBacchus( talk) 13:28, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
The thing about the methods applied in 2003 is that at least they were invented in or around 2003 ;-) . Not -say- in 1776, or some centuries BCE. If you want to improve wikipedia, start thinking about what makes a wiki work ideally, and what makes a wiki work ideally in 2009 (or 2010), then see how you can apply those.
A big problem, however, is that there is no good way to educate large numbers of people on how to use the wiki most effectively. Acculturating people to our new internet societies is the current largest challenge both inside and outside wikimedia.
In fact, setting up lectures is easy. Convincing people to come is harder. Everyone thinks they know everything, until you show them what's really possible with just a little more effort and understanding. ;)
I wonder if what (other) methods we might have at our disposal to get people up to speed? Any ideas?
-- Kim Bruning ( talk) 19:59, 25 November 2009 (UTC) And no, the sky is not necessarily falling. A community just needs some folks to invest time to keep it alive. Apparently, currently too few people are doing that, relative to the size of the community.
We used to say Wikipedia doesn't work in theory, only in practice. That keeps working as long as we keep believing it. Those who believe it are now a vanishing minority. Arbcom won't help us; Jimbo won't help us. Most admins won't help. Most editors won't help. I have absolutely no idea what to do, except start issuing permanent bans for wiki-lawyering, being rude, and making any kind of negative claim about any other editor. We know these are terrible things to do (in a purely pragmatic sense - no normative moral claim here), but we coddle them. How to stop? - GTBacchus( talk) 21:13, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
This is being discussed on BBC Newsnight right now. 91.110.241.143 ( talk) 23:16, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
One moron guest said it's because "people have woken up to the fact that they're giving away their labour for free". He said he couldn't imagine why people wold give away their time and labour for free and wouldn't do so himself. Apparently this guy does not have the concepts of "altruism" (people edit to help their fellow man) or "enjoyment" (people edit same as people collect stamps or own a dog). He then went on to attack the other guest for being a "tenured academic" because he supported the Wiki concept.
91.110.241.143 (
talk)
23:22, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
People work on Wikipedia because they feel empowered here, in a way that they perhaps don't feel in other endeavors in their lives. Wikipedia is a place where you can be someone who matters, if you have some kind of specialized knowledge, coding ability, or talent for research and writing. If people are leaving the project, it must be that the empowerment they used to derive from working here has somehow gone away, or become less alluring. I'm not sure why that would be. Does it have anything to do with, for example User:Raymond arritt/Expert withdrawal? Who knows? - GTBacchus( talk) 17:05, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
With all due respect to Simon Pulsifer (Toronto Star article):
I do agree with his sentiments expressed at the end of the article: the percentage of edits that get rejected at Wikipedia is way too high, at least from my perspective. It seems to me that there are more Wikipedians who get their jollies from deleting material added by others, than those who take the time to encourage and incubate newbies. I am also curious about the statistics cited at the beginning of the article: what exactly is the definition of current editors:
Look at these news
http://news.google.com/news/more?pz=1&cf=all&cf=all&ncl=d4SeR4yUq9iajSM33Trb9RfrsdOAM
They portray wikipedia as going ultimately to hell in their frontlines. It appears whenever Wikipedia is putting up a donation plea and people see the amount of dollars it raises it also raises a lot of haters. I've noticed this trend very distinctly: whenever a donation plea comes up, there come the popular press denouncing it with some new doomsday scenario.
Keep hitting. The more you squeeze, the more it comes from the sides. -- Leladax ( talk) 00:18, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
We raise our profile, but people think our profile is ugly? -- Kim Bruning ( talk) 03:15, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
aye; the point here is not that they focus on negatives; but on lies.- -- Leladax ( talk) 16:21, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
I find that my observations line up with what I'm reading in these stories. I'm not saying they're certainly right. I'm saying that they're maybe-right, and that it's silly to simply dismiss them. This is actually an issue, on which reasonable people may take different positions, like it or not. - GTBacchus( talk) 17:15, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
Anyone who is in any way unconvinced about the argument should look at the comments section of a Telegraph article on the subject. I no longer edit in article-space for exactly these reasons. Wikipedia has become increasingly legalistic, deletionist and bitey in the 4.5 years I've been here. The insistence on unintelligible reference formats has to be one of the worst things to have happened. Mostlyharmless ( talk) 10:56, 27 November 2009 (UTC)
To summarise most of the contributions this discussion: "They're criticising us because we're AWESOME" Mostlyharmless ( talk) 00:28, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
Those who haven't already seen it may be interested in the article at:
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/the_web/article6930546.ece —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.133.240.156 ( talk) 02:15, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
I was actually going to start a topic about a similar topic just prior to this story blowing up. There are always a bunch of inaccuracies in these stories, so it's certainly easy enough for us to pick these commentaries apart and therefore ignore them. I think that's a huge mistake in this case, largely for the same reasons that GTBaccus has talked about above. The sky is not falling, and Wikipedia itself is fine; there's absolutely no reason for us to give in to the hyperbolic rhetoric that the mass media touts as headlines. However, there's clearly some sort of a problem here right now. Personally I've just given up. I'm decided that the only way to be a contributor here is to simply ignore the Wikipedia space, and probably more importantly to ignore those of you who edit and cite the Wikipedia namespace. You people are, as a group, assholes. Most importantly though, it generally doesn't matter what is said or done here. The back end of Wikipedia is slowly turning into Usenet, and personally I've given up on it. I do hope though, that those of you with more interest and experience in the community here are able to fix things.
—
V = I * R (
talk to Ω)
19:20, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
Sometimes I think that if we just started issuing automatic 48 hour blocks for each ad hominem remark, we'd attract users who are not inclined to make those remarks in the first place. Unfortunately, a lot of people who are technologically proficient are not socially proficient, and vice versa. There's no way I can see to shift the power towards people who are willing to get good - to even try to improve - at social interactions.
Wikipedia may not be dead, but I think WP:CIVIL and WP:AGF are. Too many people used them sociopathically, forgetting to ignore "rules". Now it's pretty much taboo in some parts of the wiki to suggest that we treat each other with dignity. It's when I propose that we try to hold a high standard of respect and collegiality that I'm attacked the most viciously and bitterly, and the community stands idly by. We're letting the dicks win. - GTBacchus( talk) 18:34, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
...I make more edits anonymously than I do logged in these days. I'm pleased to report that I have yet to be attacked for any reasonable edit made from an IP address. Not all newbies are bitten, it would seem. Of course, when I edit from an IP, I apply clue and make good edits. Not all newbies can do that... - GTBacchus( talk) 18:37, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
If I started doing that, how long do you think it would take me to be de-sysopped? ;) - GTBacchus( talk) 22:39, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
I'm willing to look at the Conservapedia example. What are their automatic blocks for? A priori, I don't see that all automatic blocks are created equal. If they have automatic blocks for behavior X, and we try it for behavior Y, then the comparison is not necessarily a helpful one, eh?
What I'm suggesting you haven't tried - because no one has tried it here - is a strict enforcement of "comment on the content, not the contributor". If we were to actually create an atmosphere where people knew that any ad hominem remark would get them blocked for 48 hours, then people would be forced to stop making such remarks, or leave. Is that what Conservapedia does?
I don't see how you can be certain enough to dismiss a suggestion out of hand, when it's something we haven't tried. I know it's inconsistent with the usual wiki-philosophy, but we're in completely uncharted waters here, and I'm willing to try stuff. - GTBacchus( talk) 14:26, 20 December 2009 (UTC)
I saw that mentioned above. So is that surprising? Look at what people have to go through, "Admin is no big deal" has gone out of the window. Also the research suggests that contrary to what is suggested those involved in admin-like activity are less likely to "pass" rfa. Maybe rfa should be two phase - RFA - only "Hell no!" objections allowed, otherwise automatic adminship after 3 days. And then if there is a "Hell no!" objection a discussion could take place. Serial unjustified "Hell no"ing would be considered a Bad Thing. Rich Farmbrough, 22:50, 19 December 2009 (UTC).
Just in case anyone's interested, today's edition of BBC Radio 4's Start the Week includes a discussion about Wikipedia with Andrew Dalby and Evgeny Morozov. It's available for the next seven days here. Phil Bridger ( talk) 18:21, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
Their should be a podcast if you have the technology. Rich Farmbrough, 07:54, 20 December 2009 (UTC).
I happened to see this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)/Archive_70#Wikipedia_in_the_future which has already been archived even though it started sometime in Decemeber 2009. I believe the topic is very important and wonder if there is a way to continue it? Ottawahitech ( talk) 15:12, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
I'm still a bit of a noob, but I've been over at Wikiquote looking for a while and I see that all the regular users aren't available; both the reference desk and the village pump are completely neglected (and thus the whole project, for the most part). I'm asking for as many eyes as possible from over here (who have the time) to read the Wikiquote policies and take a quick glance over there; give a hand! It needs some more help...!
I've added coordinates templates to some articles at Wikipedia. In some cases, I can see those articles in Google Maps/Google Earth, but in other cases the articles never show up. Is there any manual checking done by Google that filters which wikipedia articles get included there. -- Soman ( talk) 12:29, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
Not entirely sure what to make of this:
http://www.mrt.com.mk/en/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=7892&Itemid=27
© Geni 03:09, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
I've been told to not fix double-redirects, is that right? Double-redirects should no longer be fixed? See User talk:Collectonian#Future predator that. 70.29.211.9 ( talk) 05:02, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
Sometimes it is helpful to take notes during dead time when all you have is a phone. You may not be able to post well formed prose, but you can post notes on a talk page or revert vandalism etc. Nerdseeksblonde ( talk) 15:19, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
If you have a moment, please see
Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Religion#Biblical disambiguators. Thank you!
—
V = I * R (
talk to Ω)
07:02, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
If you're in the U.S., or are a U.S. citizen, please read and respond to this Request for Public Comment from the Office of Science and Technology Policy regarding enhancing public access to archived publications resulting from research funded by Federal science and technology agencies. All are urged to respond to this pivotal opportunity, as individuals and on behalf of institutions and organizations. Your input will be critical in helping the administration form a deep and balanced view of stakeholders' interest in ensuring public access to publicly funded research.
Please email publicaccess@ostp.gov or post comments to this blog no later than January 21, 2010 (the deadline was extended two weeks) answering these questions:
1. How do authors, primary and secondary publishers, libraries, universities, and the federal government contribute to the development and dissemination of peer reviewed papers arising from federal funds now, and how might this change under a public access policy?
2. What characteristics of a public access policy would best accommodate the needs and interests of authors, primary and secondary publishers, libraries, universities, the federal government, users of scientific literature, and the public?
3. Who are the users of peer-reviewed publications arising from federal research? How do they access and use these papers now, and how might they if these papers were more accessible? Would others use these papers if they were more accessible, and for what purpose?
4. How best could federal agencies enhance public access to the peer-reviewed papers that arise from their research funds? What measures could agencies use to gauge whether there is increased return on federal investment gained by expanded access?
5. What features does a public access policy need to have to ensure compliance?
6. What version of the paper should be made public under a public access policy (e.g., the author's peer reviewed manuscript or the final published version)? What are the relative advantages and disadvantages to different versions of a scientific paper?
7. At what point in time should peer-reviewed papers be made public via a public access policy relative to the date a publisher releases the final version? Are there empirical data to support an optimal length of time? Should the delay period be the same or vary for levels of access (e.g., final peer reviewed manuscript or final published article, access under fair use versus alternative license), for federal agencies and scientific disciplines?
8. How should peer-reviewed papers arising from federal investment be made publicly available? In what format should the data be submitted in order to make it easy to search, find, and retrieve and to make it easy for others to link to it? Are there existing digital standards for archiving and interoperability to maximize public benefit? How are these anticipated to change?
9. Access demands not only availability, but also meaningful usability. How can the federal government make its collections of peer-reviewed papers more useful to the American public? By what metrics (e.g., number of articles or visitors) should the Federal government measure success of its public access collections? What are the best examples of usability in the private sector (both domestic and international)? And, what makes them exceptional? Should those who access papers be given the opportunity to comment or provide feedback?
Please be sure to include your name, title and affiliation if applicable, city, and state. Thank you for making these important comments! 99.34.78.67 ( talk) 03:53, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
Nerdseeksblonde ( talk) 12:07, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
I've been told to not archive a talk page Talk:Primeverse/Archive 1 because the editor said the actual talk page was an archive Talk:Primeverse but at the time I did it, it was active [18]. See User talk:Collectonian#Future predator. I don't see why a talk page to an page Primeverse should be turned into an archive, since the page is still live. Where would you discuss the redirect? I have seen discussions on the redirects themselves occur on redirect talkpages.
Are redirect talk pages live? Shouldn't they be live? 70.29.211.9 ( talk) 05:02, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
This is due notification that I have been nominated to become a member of the Bot Approvals Group. My nomination is here. @ harej 05:46, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
Here's something I don't recall running across before: an article ( Titus Canyon) that repeats, word for word, the content of a section within another article ( Places_of_interest_in_the_Death_Valley_area#Titus_Canyon. The content was added in both places by the same editor on the same date. It has issues—including how-to, travelogue, sourcing, and probably OR—but before cleaning or tagging I'd like to know what to do about the redundancy and don't know of a relevant policy or guideline. Rivertorch ( talk) 06:53, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
See: national post.
-- Kim Bruning ( talk) 13:40, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
I added a reference to Wen Tianxiang by David Burgess.I have the following link to the library source for the Maters Thesis. I would like to know what is the best way to add it to the reference. I have reviewed the template information and I have not been able to find anything.
http://catalog.wrlc.org/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?BBID=2449118
Thank You
Geminni —Preceding unsigned comment added by Geminni ( talk • contribs) 17:40, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
I had already gone to that page, but none of the categories seem to fit. url = is for references to copies of the book or parts of the book exist. doi = is for a digital object identifier. There are several other link references, but none seem to fit. The reference I have noted above will only give you information on were to find the source in the George Washington University. Do you have any other suggestions? Originally, I made a note after the entry, but it became surrounded by a dotted box. I was not sure what the dotted box indicated, so I took it out.
Thank You--
Geminni (
talk)
21:28, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
when you start lines with superflous whitespace
[19], thanks to this perfectly sane editor. – MuZemike 04:24, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
I just read this article on
Ars Technica that I figured many of you would appreciate:
Purging the Queen's English of "tweet," "app," and "sexting". Enjoy, and Happy New (Decade)!
—
V = I * R (
talk to Ohms law)
00:19, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
Why do so few of the pages have a criticism section anymore? This makes all the article seem like a one sided discussion. You will lose many readers and have fewer visitors to this web site because there are so few open minded articles in it anymore. I liked wiki how it was before.
BRING BACK THE CRITICISM SECTIONS!!!
from wiki user J Jensen seatle wa —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.2.216.137 ( talk) 13:57, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
See
Wikipedia:Criticism sections. Their not forbidden, but their decidedly discouraged. From personal experience, integrating most of the content in criticism sections usually (not always) makes for a better, easier to read, article.
—
V = I * R (
talk to Ω)
02:31, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
I'm currently requesting approval for a bot that will place a message on the talk page of any new namespace 0, 6, 10 or 14 article with ambiguous links. See Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approval/WildBot. Josh Parris 03:00, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
It seems that the site http://www.zaped.info/ is a "distorted mirror" of Wikipedia. It serves WP articles after arbitrarily replacing a percentage of the words by other words, so that the articles look right but are actually nonsense. See e.g their Iron article. Since they are offering advertising space, I suppose that the motivation is to fool the Google filters that supress duplicate hits. Should we be concerned? Is there someting we can do? All the best, -- Jorge Stolfi ( talk) 04:45, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
{{ Progress meter}}
I've been working on this for about three days, and it is now done. Please note that I did most of the initial work on test-wiki. That aside, when I was creating this template, I was not aware of others such as Template:Progress bar or Template:Progress, or others. However, looking at the code, they are not a nearly customizable as the one I have created. I just hope that it can be useful.— Dæ dαlus Contribs 03:29, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
From my understanding, administrators have the privilege of viewing any user's deleted edits (as in edits that occurred in an article that was later deleted). What is the rationale behind this? We're completely restricted from viewing any record whatsoever of deleted edits; we can only find out the number. If the means are available to admins, why are they not at least partially available to regular users?-- Stinging Swarm talk 09:45, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
It's hilarious! :-) See the video here and the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Featured_article_candidates#Video_spoof. Enjoy! Colds7ream ( talk) 11:56, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
All is there a MOS that applies to linking to categories in the article text or infobox such as Template:Nationfilmlist if not can can users offer there opinions Gnevin ( talk) 17:31, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
I borrowed (and credited, before anyone asks) the userpage design I current have from Phaedriel. She has a system to cycle her today's wikipedian section so that every 24-hours it auto-rotates, and I was considering doing something like that for quotes and thoughts and observation that I like to make occasionally. Before I went forward with the idea I wanted to know if that was frowned on in any respects. TomStar81 ( Talk) 06:58, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
Will somebody please help me merging these 3 images to Wikimedia Commons? I can not do it myself.
[[File:Rotunda interior steinway hall nyc mia laberge art case piano.jpg]]
[[File:Artist mia laberge at kennedy center unveil of art case steinway.jpg]]
[[File:Artist mia laberge with henzy z steinway.jpg]]
At Commons there is a category named Steinway & Sons. The 3 images can be added to this category.
Thank you. Fanoftheworld ( talk) 09:46, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
This notice is to formally announce that I will be retiring from the role as chair of the Mediation Committee, effective from 10 January 2010. After discussion on the committee's mailing list, it has been decided that the position of chair will be divided between two users; Seddon ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and Xavexgoem ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log).
May I take this opportunity to thank members of the committee for their hard work and cooperation this year. May I also thank all members of the community who have used the mediation process over the last year - without your good faith in entrusting us to help solve your disputes there would be no Mediation Committee and I've enjoyed interacting with each and every one of you. It's been an absolute pleasure to serve as the chair of the committee over the last year and in many ways I'm sad that I'm leaving the role. That said, I'm looking forward to the new found enthusiasm that Seddom and Xavexgoem will no doubt bring. I wish them both the best of luck.
Regards,
Ryan PostlethwaiteSee the mess I've created or let's have banter 01:45, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
Moved from Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. -- MZMcBride ( talk) 07:29, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
[Link removed see below]. In October while I was told about this website as a place where concerned editors were discussing what to do about BLPs, and that the board was private and pseudonyms were being used, and that there were a number of people using it (24?). Rather than detail all the rumours I was told, I thought I'd throw it up here and see what folks thought. At the time, I told the arbitration committee and left it with them. However, upon thinking about it, I am not comfortable with the idea that there is another secret board which I have on idea about whether it is wound up or...what? How do folks feel? Discussing this may highlight to WMF how frustrated some folks are with the BLP issue. I was tempted to make an RfC but there was no dispute as such so....do other editors want the board made not-secret? or what? Casliber ( talk · contribs) 05:15, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
I have seen it again and again, when veteran editors don't support an initiative, they will use procedural grounds, such as "wrong forum" to close the topic.
Casliber, a former arbcom, has a link showing possible evidence of a new secret mailing list. I suspect there is probably more evidence too?
Beeblebrox, ARK, Peripitus are you members of secret mailing list?
Casliber, if you don't start a RFC, I will. Will supporters of the flagged revision attempt to procedurally close the RFC too?
Ikip
12:21, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
Unresolving. The word on the street is that this was a forum that was dedicated to tightening up BLP practices and that its members were coordinating to affect the outcomes of AFD discussions. There was nothing visible there because threads were deleted as soon as a discussion was closed. I'm hearing things about who was a member there, but am not repeating any names without independent confirmation. It appears possible to test the veracity of this by writing a script to test for unusual clusters of recent participation at AFDs of BLP subjects. Would one of our coders look into that avenue, please? At the very least it would help to settle the concerns if this is untrue. And if it is true (or nearly so) I would for my own part suggest amnesty for anyone who steps forward and explains this to the community within the next 24 hours. Durova 386 04:06, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
I skimmed this thread and was left with two questions:
I'd suggest re-archiving this thread. I don't see any good coming of it. Though, as always, sense will be tossed aside in favor of wiki-sleuthing over a lazy holiday. *shrugs* -- MZMcBride ( talk) 07:20, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
I'm still curious (perhaps concerned is a better word) about your motivations, which didn't look particularly pure from the start and you've certainly done nothing over the past few days to make them look any purer (though undoubtedly you'd say the same of me). You say you're after some type of "user conduct" review, but you know that trying to regulate off-site behavior is a powder keg. When you're posting to AN/I about the erotic fiction that some users administer or the other off-site activities that Wikipedians are involved in, it'll make your quest for "review" here seem a bit more legitimate. But you know that it's patently none of your damn business what people choose to do (or discuss) elsewhere. You're truly in no position to judge what others do with their free time, you can only judge what people do on-site. If you find a pattern of impropriety on Wikipedia by specific users, by all means, feel free to post to AN/I and ask for review. But that's not what you did. You didn't do your homework and then ask for help when you got stuck, did you? (And, as Risker notes, the irony here is that if you did a large-scale analysis of voting behavior in deletion discussions, the odds heavily favor finding collusion among inclusionists, not deletionists.)
You've known about this site since October and only decided to discuss this now. Why? I don't know. Perhaps you've just been busy, but when I look at the broader pattern of your behavior lately, it looks like you're hitting some stage of burnout. This could be an isolated week for you, but I doubt it. Simply put, for all intents and purposes, it looks like you're trolling. Nobody goes to post at AN/I unless they're looking for drama. Nobody goes to file a deletion discussion for a page involved in a weeks-long nasty dispute unless they're looking for drama. I'm not saying I agree or disagree with your actions, but they're pretty transparent trolling (to me, at least, "it takes one to know one," as they say). And trolling is usually one of the stages of burnout ( Cremepuff222 just re-demonstrated this lesson pretty spectacularly). If we go back a bit further, I think there are some pretty clear indicators you're (slowly) burning out. The best example of this would probably be your quick drop out from the Arbitration Committee when presented with the opportunity. This is why I politely suggested you take a break, though you blew off the suggestion. Oh well. I've watched this burnout pattern happen a lot (to myself and a lot of others). I'm fairly confident you'll be able to recover, though. So it's not all bleak. :-)
You didn't ask for my analysis or opinion, but I provided it anyway, with the caveat that I could be completely wrong. Though, after a couple of years here, I'm fairly good at spotting these kinds of things. If you want to have a calm and rational discussion about biographies of living people, the benefits and detriments of off-site discussions about biographies, or something similar, here is a pretty good place to start (or on my talk page). I'm more than happy to have a conversation with you if you stop the bullshit and the antics. I hope you're enjoying the holidays. -- MZMcBride ( talk) 01:32, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
Well from poking around on the site I can confirm it existed and that the forum was named Sisyphus. Not much else.© Geni 03:56, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
I have reason to believe that it was Professor Plum ... in the library ... with the candlestick. Hurry now, there's not much time before these people take over the world, one free Encyclopedia that anyone can edit at a time. - Rjd0060 ( talk) 19:51, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
Just a reminder that honours are only officially conferred when they are conferred (now there's an oxymoron!). Until such time it is incorrect to refer to the subject of any honour by their post-honorific title. I see the obvious showbiz one (Mr Patrick Stewart) had already been knighted which I have corrected but everyone needs to be sharp about this. CrispMuncher ( talk) 08:06, 31 December 2009 (UTC)