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-- Ideogram 04:16, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
Context goes here. -- tjstrf talk 04:20, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia has 7 featured lists about hurricanes and tropical storms. Whatever it is about Wikipedia and hurricanes, I hope it affects more pages. Durova Charg e! 05:20, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
I do wish someone would standardize the Hurricane article names. -- Ideogram 18:31, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
I am being bullied and I dont like it. First, this person bullied me into making me feel that my article are rubbish and the comments and feedback I got are not very nice. Please talk to me on my talkpage. Thanks -- Hammersmith123 12:34, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
Ok I didnt know that, but otherwise, I am being bullied by this user. -- Hammersmith123 12:48, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
Is it acceptible to humorously vandalize pages that are gonna be marked speedy deletion anyway? For example lovingmelanie — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.16.19.181 ( talk • contribs) 22:36, 26 November 2006
let me know pls. thx 24.16.19.181 21:50, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
Usually, I figure that (at least in high-traffic articles) we find and fix vandalism pretty quickly. However, I recently checked Uncle Tom's Cabin, certainly not an unimportant topic; no one had touched it in over 48 hours, but I found all of this to do just by way of fixing blatant vandalism: [1]. - Jmabel | Talk 23:30, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
Just looking around a few articles and I notice that present tense is used far to often. For example looking at the page of Iffy Onuora, in one section it says he was the last Gillingham player to score a hat-trick. Problem being if the article isn't checked that statement will stay for year to come. In fact I'm not even sure it is true now. True or not I bet if a Gillingham player does score a hat trick this weekend that statement won't be revised. I think it's a big problem here in Wikipedia. Present tense shouldn't be used. The statement should read, up to (enter date) he was the last player to score a hot trick for Gillingham. Jimmmmmmmmm 23:49, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
There are (at least) three separate articles titled "One for the Road" with different capitalizations:
One for the Road
One For The Road
One for The Road
That's a bit silly, but I have no idea how to fix it. Hopefully there is someone here that can change that.
KUTGW,
87.68.147.72
22:47, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
On the Ultimate Elder Scrolls Pages, I saw that there was a counter showing how many times a page has been accessed. Is this possible in anyway on wikipedia? Jabunga 08:42, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
I'm part of a team in a management & organizational analysis at the Stern School of Business at New York University. We selected Wikipedia as the subject of our final analysis, and are specifically interested in what drives people to participate in Wikipedia. To this end we've compiled an anonymous, 5-minute survey that we hoped the Wikipedia community would take part in, everyone from casual readers to editors to members of the Board.
It's available online at http://tramchase.com/wikipedia-survey
Please be as detailed as possible. Your participation is much appreciated!
Does anyone know of any articles or discussions (here, or at WP:AN) about the risks of WP "selling out" or being exploited (be it by Jimbo or others)? I've seen a project page against the answers.com deal, but there was no real discussion there. Thanks. yandman 17:17, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
I created an essay titled: Orthodoxy and heresy at Wikipedia. It is supposed to be somewhat provocative. I am looking for comments and improvements. Please feel free to comment on the essay talk page or make any changes you see fit. Thank you. -- Jayron 32 21:34, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia:You Are Probably Not a Lexicologist or a Lexicographer is a new essay... please help improve!!! MPS 17:16, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
It works right now, but it looks so ugly. There's no bars on the left and top of the screen. What happened? I hope this change isn't permanent. Robocracy 07:26, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
An effort to update the Kennedy Assassination articles using records from PBS and the 1998 work product of the federal Assassination Records Review Board has landed this editor in hot water with a group of editors who like the status quo.
Presently, the group, who believes no new information is needed, has asked this editor be banned for "harassing" them with "Flat Earth" information.
During the course of this arbitration, one of the editors who opposes change, claims he has tried to edit cooperatively. That is good, but his methodology appears flawed. The editor states:
Later he explains to the arbitration panel that this:
Back to the drawing board.
RPJ
21:45, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
Curious to hear what other editors think of History of the Alaska Aces. Ignoring for a moment the article's cleanup issues, this strikes me as way too much detail for Wikipedia's coverage of a minor league hockey team. Before I rush to propose a pare-and-merge, I thought I'd solicit second opinions. Thanks. | Mr. Darcy talk 04:14, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
I am a freelance writer working on an article about the wide array of people who make Wikipedia their life, their passion, their pastime. Wikipedia “addicts” if you will. I’m looking for people just willing to tell their story of how they got sucked into the intellectual whirlwind that is Wikipedia; how you got started editing, how the obsession grew, and what you spend your time focusing on these days? Do you write articles from scratch? Is your main push toward one particular type of article? Do you patrol for typos and errors, or spend your time diligently fixing vandalism? Do you take part in various the “social aspects” of Wikipedia; engaging in animated discussions or decorating your user page with all sorts of internet memes? Do you participate in Esperanza, the Counter Vandalism Unit or other Wiki programs? Have you ever forced yourself to take a “Wikipedia break”? If so, what’s your 20/20 hindsight on the "obsession"? Basically I’m just trying to get an idea of what it’s like for various Wikipedia users, editors and "addicts."
This article is intended to be a light informational piece, nothing too heavy or controversial, just merely introducing readers to a subculture that they likely had no idea existed. So please don’t email me with your conspiracy theories, or your grudge against the Wikipedia hierarchy… unless it directly applies to your overall experience with the site. This article is about the USERS, not about the pros and cons of the site itself.
If you are interested in participating, please email me via my user page.
FFFearlesss 16:52, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
I got a camera, and will try to fulfill requests for pictures related to Mexico, hoping an article or two will get improved. See commons:User:Drini/requests -- Drini 23:11, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
Have you participated in the creation of health information on wikipedia? Have you recently posted on a health wiki page? If so, we would like to hear about your experience. A colleague and I are conducting a study on health wikis. We are looking at how wikis co-construct health information and create communities and are very interested in your opinions.
We would be very grateful if you would consider taking our survey here.
This research will help wikipedia and other wikis understand how health information is co-created and used.
We are from James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia. The project was approved by our university research committee and members of the Wikipedia Foundation.
Please consider telling us about your experience! Thanks!
-- Sharlene Thompson 18:29, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
Is there a Wikipedia policy on what might be called "temporal point of view", involving assertions made in an article that are only true or only make sense within the context of the day or month or other short period of time during which the assertion was made? For example, in a version of the article on actress Carolyn McCormick that I've replaced, I found the sentence "She is currently acting in 'Celebration', a play by Harold Pinter, in New York." This sentence was bound to become outdated, possibly, as far as the editor might have known, the very next day! As a matter of fact, she was in that production over a year ago, and has been in two or three other productions since.
It seems to me these self-outdating statements should be deleted or made non-self-outdating even if they're currently true. If there isn't already a policy, and a standard method of invoking it when a violation is found, should there be one? If there is a policy, how should violations be dealt with? Should I delete the information altogether, or is it my responsibility either to research the chronological information myself and change "currently" to "during two months of 2006" or whatever, or to leave it alone and let someone else figure it out? Or is there a template for marking it for consideration by others — Largo Plazo 18:36, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
There are more tricky problems of this nature. I've noticed that in articles about old cars, there is a tension between writing in the present tense - because these cars still exist - or in the past tense because we are talking about a car that hasn't been made for 50 years? What about a car that they stopped making a year ago - of which millions of examples are still in day-to-day use? We end up with statements like "The 1953 BrandX car was equipped with a V8 engine" - but sometimes I see "The 1953 BrandX car is equipped with a V8 engine". Worst of all, many of these articles switch back and forth between tenses. It's really tricky. When you are talking about a Model T Ford, it sounds weird to say "The Model T Ford can attain a top speed of 45 mph" - but then it also sounds strange to say "The Mini Cooper had a 1.3 liter engine" - when the Mini was still making them in 1999, they are still being driven - and they still have 1.3 liter engines. It seems wrong to say that this was true when it's still true. SteveBaker 19:25, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
I realized after my initial posting that there can't be a blanket rule because many pieces of information do need to convey their own currency if they aren't to sound contrived. An extreme example would be something like "Denmark is a constitutional monarchy", which won't be true if 100 years from now they discard the monarchy and institute a republic. An intermediate example would be "George W. Bush is the president of the United States," which definitely won't be true after January 20, 2009, and which will require editing wherever it appears. I suppose that's life, and the best that can be done is to offer guidelines
For one thing, certain kinds of information are sure to be edited rapidly when they fall out of currency. If the constitutional monarchy in Denmark were to be discarded, it would be so newsworthy that probably dozens of people would fall onto Wikipedia to scour it for text in need of alteration. Some people may already have January 20, 2009, marked on their calendars as Post-Bush Wikipedia Overhaul day. It's the trivia that's very much of-the-moment about the less broadly appreciated topics (such as what production Carolyn McCormick is performing in at this very moment) that's more of a concern, because it has the potential to sit for years after its expiration. — Largo Plazo 20:57, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
I was wondering if there was anybody else here who thinks that the number of information boxes posted on talk pages has become excessive? It's reached a point where in many cases having a "Skip to table of contents" message at the top is needed. There are times when I would like those messages to be the width (but not the height) of the user boxes and scooted over to the right edge so I can access the table of contents immediately. Does anybody else have some thoughts about this? Thanks. — RJH ( talk) 18:04, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
I have a somewhat vague question that I'm looking for input on. I have been very tangentially involved at a very good article that arguably has a serious case of WP:OWN going on, with one (very good) editor acting as a gatekeeper for what can and can't get in. The talk page is awash with incivility that truly borders on hysterics when another tenacious editor tries to include material that editor #1 doesn't like or thinks is against policy. Editor #1's stated aim is to get this article to FA status, and there's a reasonable chance this will succeed. I am wondering what the thoughts are on a FA or FA-nominated article that is in such a tendentious editorial condition - is it a threat to stability/featured-ness if the article, however good it is, is subject to potential frequent edit wars and talk-page incivility? -16:14, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
Well, there is the oldest articles at Wikipedia:Wikipedia's oldest articles. The next question is, who is the oldest still-active editor, ignoring Jimbo Wales? Also, are there any which have still not become admin? Simply south 18:42, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Could someone please create an ASCII version of Image:Barnstar.png for me? I'm thinking of creating a new reward: The Text Barnstar (Used for writing articles or finishing other people's work). Here's where I originated the idea. -- AAA! ( AAAA) 12:26, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
/\ /**\ _______/****\_______ *.******/^^\******.* *.***( () )***.* *.**\,./**.* /**.**.**\ /*.* *.*\ /.* *.\ ' `
What happens to the Terry Davis author information every time is is posted?! YES - there CAN be more than one Terry Davis!!! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 150.228.40.142 ( talk) 21:25, 11 January 2007 (UTC).
I came across this, the other day. Is it actually a genuine Scot's version of Wikipedia, or is it a parody? Not being a native speaker of the Scot's tongue, or laid, it's kind of hard to tell.
I trust that there will soon be versions of Wikipedia available in Pig Latin, Osakan, and Capitol Hill press release speak. I'd also be interested in contributing to the west-coast hip-hop version if one is made.
perfectblue 12:24, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
To reply to the original post, the second introductory paragraph of Scots language explains this pretty well. It's actually an open question whether Scots is a dialect of English or a separate language. Perhaps if Elizabeth I of England had borne children we wouldn't even hold this conversation because Scotland and England would still be different countries and the distinction would seem as natural as the one we make for Norwegian and Swedish (which are also very similar). This makes me want to rent Trainspotting and see whether it carries subtitles. I certainly didn't understand half the dialog when I saw its theatrical release. Durova Charge 01:44, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
We have Irish, Manx, and Scottish Gaelic Wikipedias. All three are Goidelic languages which descend from Middle Irish, and are all considered to be distinct languages. Well, Scots and English are both descended from Middle English, but are considered to be distinct languages. File:Icons-flag-scotland.png Canæn File:Icons-flag-scotland.png 00:47, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
A user has asserted that the use of an image of the FBI logo is a violation of U.S. federal law (United States Code, Title 18). This user claims this law trumps copyright law (under which the image would be PD). Any comment on this issue would be appreciated. -- Ginkgo 100 talk 23:23, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
It's not a logo, it's an image of a badge. Unless you're using it to imply official endorsement, you should be alright. Hell, we're technically not supposed to be using the Fish and Wildlife Service logo on our article about them, but that's working fine. Night Gyr ( talk/ Oy) 00:46, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
I'm not wanting to be a spoilsport. However, last time i did it i got 1,600 or something similar. It took me more time than it actually said. With the size now, i am guessing it would take a day. Could anything on the size or format or whatever be sorted out? Simply south 21:11, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Would adding a list of minigames (without descriptions) be considered "cruft"? While I believe it is, but User:Henchman 2000 believes it isn't, and has been putting back a list of minigames into Mario Party articles that I deleted. We've been an edit war for a while, and other users have tried to tell Henchman to get a consensus, he keeps adding them back. I don't want to revert them any more, as it's getting pointless, so I'd like some other people's opinion of it: Would a list of minigames without descriptions count as cruft? – Llama man sign here 19:38, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Link spam, the addition of links to external sites to increase search engine ranking, is up this week. See 64.74.62.136 ( talk · contribs) and Blathering1 ( talk · contribs) for examples. Watch for links to "www.fxwords.com", which is a phony glossary site full of ads. -- John Nagle 18:19, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
Is there anything like a "sandbox page" in the main namespace (article namespace)? I'm debugging a template which uses ParserFunctions to cause it to appear differently depending on which namespace it is in. Of course, I'm having trouble with the conditions when it is placed in article namespace. I could not find anything at About the Sandbox to help me. I could create a page named something like Page for testing templates which use ParserFunctions but if there is a better alternative, I'd like to use that. :) Thanks! — DragonHawk ( talk) 04:28, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
Discussing the article on journalist John Gorenfeld the question came up if it is a violation of copyright laws, or WP policy, to use information from his personal website without his permission. As I understand it copyright laws protect, well, "copy" but not "information". Steve Dufour 13:44, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
I thought this problem had been solved when the material had been removed and replaced by information gathered from different sources. However the person who tagged the article insists that there has to be a ruling by an administrator. Does anyone know where I can go on WP to ask for help on this? Thanks. Steve Dufour 03:43, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
Has anyone else on RC noticed a user named User:Vandalisimbot that has beenm messing with pages? It needs to be blocked, ASAP!! The Placebo Effect 00:34, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
I'm debating whether or not I should create a Doppelganger account. Technically, my username is "Wdflake", but I prefer to go my "W. Flake", as evidenced by my signature. Would having an account named "W. Flake" be inappropriate under this policy? Thanks in advance. — W. Flake ( talk | contribs ) 00:07, 9 January 2007 (UTC) fixed typo at 00:12, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
Hi! Living at the nl wikipedia most of the time, this is my first post in your lovely village pump. I didn't know where else to go and maybe one of you can help me. I have this funny story over at nl ( nl:Gebruiker:Venullian/Aanvulverhaal, though it will not make a lot of sense to you as it's in Dutch), where each person may post no more than 10 words and then have to wait for the next person to come along. I got the idea from someone who saw it at the en wikipedia, which would be here. Stupidly enough, I didn't interwiki link, and now we all forgot who that user was and where his story is. Is it still alive? Does anybody know about it? Venullian 16:19, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:AtionSong/World's Longest Poem and Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:AtionSong/World's Longest Poem (second nomination) both no consensus. Page is currently located at Wikipedia:Sandbox/World's Longest Poem, not sure when it was moved. If that's not the one you're looking for try Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Once upon a time... and Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Once upon a time.... That one was deleted. Seems kind of inconsistent, but whatever. ~ ONUnicorn( Talk| Contribs) problem solving 17:30, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
What is this site and what's it about? I looked for an article but it's deleted-protected. Can someone tell me? -- AAA! ( AAAA) 05:21, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
Looking at this, a Wikipedian is trying to shut down the site. -- AAA! ( AAAA) 04:10, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
Wikiproject A Series of Unfortunate Events is looking for new members to help and expand the project. If you have an interest in A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket, please join! <3 Clamster 00:17, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
Why is there a category called: Women writers, but nothing called Male writers? :p —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.212.180.9 ( talk • contribs).
Actually any sort of geographer, or anyone interested in a major UK memorial to that late King George V who is commemorated by 471 individual playing fields located in the UK and a few in "foreign climes". WikiProject King George's Fields needs your help. We have all the data in a spreadsheet, but transferring it to WP takes diligence, patience, and a bit of plain hard work. Please come and have a look, and come and join in. Fiddle Faddle 11:37, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
WHILST BROWSING YOUR SITE I FOUND THAT IN THE ARTICLE REGARDING NELSON MANDELA THERE IS A VERY RUDE PICTURE OF MALE GENITALS IN THE PLACE OF HIS PHOTO YOU DONT HAVE A FAULT REPORTING LINK SO I TRY TO REPORT IT VIA THIS LINK HOPE YOU CAN CHANGE IT YOURS THANKFULLY ARMAND JOUBERT (rm email and phone number) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 196.30.245.149 ( talk) 04:06, 6 January 2007 (UTC).
At Wikipedia:Peer review/Controlled demolition hypothesis for the collapse of the World Trade Center the editors who have been refining the article have requested a Peer Review. This is a process open to any editor to contrinute. Please visit the review page and decide whether you wish to review the article and give feedback. Fiddle Faddle 16:31, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
The past few days I have been working on the Polo Montañez article and I have expanded it considerably yet it is still considered a stub. Polo Montañez was only famous for about 2 years before he died so there is not much that can be written about him. How can I make this stub into an article?
Torchic: a featured article on such a useless subject. When did Wikipedia go wrong?
If I release my work under the GFDL for Wikipedia to publish and then the article is deleted from Wikipedia and people are restricted from viewing it (non-admins), wouldn't it be a clear violation of the terms of the GFDL? Here's the relevant text:
You may not use technical measures to obstruct or control the reading or further copying of the copies you make or distribute.
I'm sure that people have looked at this before but I don't know how that could possibly be explained away. This seems like a blatant violation on Wikipedia's part and we seriously need to implement some kind of function to archive deleted pages.
-- froth T C 04:23, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
(bought this up here as the Sandbox talk page gets blanked automatically)
Why is the Sandbox called the Sandbox? I assume it's a reference to a Sandpit, but the word Sandbox doesn't appear to be very common outside the US. Wouldn't something like 'Test Area', 'Test Page' or 'Practice Editing Here' make more sense? MrBeast 21:18, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
I teach a seminar in American legal history, and am thinking of inviting the students (usually about 20) to prepare or edit a Wikipedia entry, observing Wikipedia standards for citation, etc., in lieu of writing one of the two required papers. The course centers on questions of citizenship and rights, and the students are asked to do research on a topic of their own choosing, within the outline of the course. I am new to Wikipedia myself but would try to help ensure adherence to standards and policies. Would this create any problems? I can imagine that such projects could become a tool in edit wars or spamming, but I encourage students to find their own perspective and do their own research, so they would be as diverse as any other editors. Thoughts? Sheldon Novick 20:46, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
Image:Barker famous.jpg is tagged as GFDL and says that it comes from Travis Barker's MySpace page. I really doubt Barker has heard of the GFDL to license anything under it, but I can't check his "photos" section to verify because I don't have a MySpace account. Anyone with an account care to verify that: 1) the image is there and 2) there's something close to a copyright release? – Anþony talk 18:42, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
The bar at the top of Wikipedia has a green line that is getting longer. The money is almost $844,000 as of when I type this. What number will it stop at and what will Wikipedia be like when it is finished?? Georgia guy 01:35, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
Once upon a time I thought I saw an editor's user page which had a type of WP award/recognition, based on length of time connected with WP and number of edits made. There were a series of these awards/recognitions, depending on length of time and number of edits. It was not a barnstar, but a separate type of recognition. As I recall there were both "serious" names for each rank (editor, senior editor, etc.), and made-up, "silly" names for each rank. Now I can't find those editor level recognitions! Anybody able to steer me in the right direction? NorCalHistory 00:03, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
Thanks - Wikipedia:Service awards it is. I guess I didn't mean "silly" - "whimsical" would be a better word. The whimsical names are either made-up or translations of whimsical words from other languages - the creativity that went into these names is appreciated! NorCalHistory 00:10, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
This is a tale of editing Wikipedia, that speaks both to the fragility of the everlasting template on Wikipedia, and time travel. For, I removed a {{references}} tag on an article that I myself had added it to six months ago. The article was unchanged.
It was a hot, sunny day in late June. I happened upon an article on a chemist who discovered that helium could be found in plentiful supply in natural gas. There, however, I found that the dates on the article appeared to be wrong. So, I corrected the dates and, seeing that some parts of the article were not reliable, placed a {{references}} tag on it.
Six months later, on a cold, wintry day in early January, I happened upon an article on a chemisty who discovered that helium could be found in plentiful supply in natural gas. There, however, I found a {{references}} tag, despite the article clearly having references and upon reading it there being no indication that the article was inaccurate. So, I removed the {{references}} tag, perplexed at the idiot who would have put it there in the first place.
Clearly, that idiot was me, apparently from the past, but possibly from the future. — Centrx→ talk • 01:49, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
When I joined Wikipedia back in June, the majority of the time I saw " ". Now, I'm seeing more “ ”. While no problems will arise using one of those two, should we have a standardized version to avoid confusion? Sometimes I see both used on the same page. I think we should stick with " " because some people don't have Word or something similar so they can change it to “ ”, but I'm not really sure - The RSJ ( Sign my book) ( CCD) 22:05, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
Not a comment--I have a question I've already posted on the Village Pump but received no reply. I'm a registered user at both the English and the Hungarian versions of Wikipedia. I'm planning to translate the Donner Party entry (en.Wikipedia), from the English into Hungarian. Although the article is GNU Free, I still may need some special permission. Two more questions, please: how to include the original with my translation, and how to transfer the finished rendering to the Hungarian Wikipedia? Since I'm new at this, I'll appreciate any help I can get. Thank you, Marta 19:07, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
Thank you, Tango. As I mentioned, except for editing text, I'm still an amateur in many ways. For instance: what is a "permanent link," and how to paste the English text into the H. Wiki? Since to translate online is about impossibe (it's a time-consuming process, as I'm sure you know), I printed out the article from the Wiki page; once translated, maybe I can open an entry with the H. editors' help, then type the thing in. Do you think that would work? 23:54, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
{{ NZDCurrencyConversion}} I was editing Lotteries in New Zealand and it occured to me that many English speakers (myself included) would not know the value of a New Zealand Dollar, and so would be hampered in their understanding of the article's content. I suspect there are many articles which frequently refer to amounts of currency not familiar to most English speakers.
I developed Template:CurrencyConversion, a template with parameters to quote the value of a currency unit in US$, GBP and AUS$, as well as a last update parameter. While probably not useful as an up-to-the-minute tool, it could be used to give a rough indication of the magnitude of values quoted in an article with reasonable accuracy.
To the right is the template in action for the New Zealand Dollar, from the Daughter Template Template:NZDCurrencyConversion. What do people think? I haven't added this to any articles, so please improve it mercilessly. -- LukeSurl 00:29, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Three thoughts: 1) It may have some usefulness and I encourage such innovation, so I suggest trying it out by being bold and putting it into a couple of medium-traffic articles and see what kind of reaction a road-test gets. 2) Such templates need to be as compact as possible and I think it might be possible to compact yours a bit more, perhaps by using a smaller image with a single line of currencies and compacting the text into fewer lines and fewer characters. There is a plethora of infoboxes and templates appearing on Wikipedia and pages risk being crowded. 3) In the long run it might be interesting for people to be able to set a currency preference and have automatic conversions appear beside the given currency in an article, analogous to the way date presentation is a preference iteme. Hu 09:32, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps the actual data could be kept in the template somehow, and updated by a bot. -- Jmax- 12:41, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Hey, I don't think I'll be on Wikipedia for about a week, so please take this on "without me" LukeSurl 02:43, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
In the article on former Scientology leader Mark Rathbun he seems to stand accused of bigamy by Barbara Schwarz. I have excused myself from editing the article. Steve Dufour 16:43, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
I have spelled out at Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard#Mark Rathbun why Mr. Dufour's report is false, but to briefly discuss it here: Barbara Schwarz says absolutely nothing about Mark Rathbun being a bigamist. She claims that she was married to Mark Rathbun and Mr. Dufour is combining that with his own beliefs that Mr. Rathbun was married to someone else to arrive at the (false) conclusion that Schwarz "seems to be" alleging Rathbun to be bigamous.
I think it goes without saying that this logic is shoddy. Under this logic, suddenly it's a WP:BLP matter to mention anything that is not agreed by any living person. "John Smith says he was born in 1965, but biographer Richard Roe says he was actually born in 1960." "Well, by saying something different from John Smith, Richard Roe seems to be calling John Smith a liar! I'm reporting it to WP:BLP as 'Richard Roe calls John Smith a liar!'" It is a fact of life that people sometimes have conflicting accounts of events. Wikipedia's policy, at least the last time I checked, was for editors to accurately report the various conflicting accounts -- not to decide their own way of resolving the conflicts (whether it be "Richard Roe is accusing John Smith of lying" or "Barbara Schwarz is accusing Mark Rathbun of bigamy") and trying to use WP:BLP to get rid of accurate reporting of the various conflicting accounts. -- Antaeus Feldspar 01:39, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
The article reports him being married to Anne and then it reports Barbara's saying that he was married to her. If both are true then he would have been a bigamist. Steve Dufour 06:52, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
I saw some screwy-looking weblog comment spam that might lead to trouble for Wikipedia down the road. The comment, here at the physics weblog Not Even Wrong claims to be from a user named Wikipedia and talks about how wonderful Wikipedia is, but the link jumps to a Wikipedia clone site that features banner ads. I assume this is some sort of underhanded attempt to game Google's results and get higher hits, but since it takes Wikipedia's name in vain, I wanted to mention it here. -- Walt Pohl 04:28, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
Hi I'm back after a couple of months break and now find that my watchlist now has numbers after edits. What are they? Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 20:09, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
An hour late, but happy new year everyone!!! Nil Einne 01:09, 1 January 2007 ( NZDT UTC+13)
Happy new 2007, Wikipedia. :) -- Ixfd64 08:44, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
I'm unsure how this might be implemented, but it might be nice to have a way for all those "watching" a given page to communicate, or even to KNOW how many others are "watchers" of a particular page at any given time. Dec. 30, 2006 - frankatca
However, a lot of pages will say "0 people now maintain the quality of this page", and those will become vandal magnets very quickly. -- ran ( talk) 22:25, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I agree that it's possible, though I'm just a simple sysop and has no jurisdiction over this. =) I suggest asking at WP:VPP or WP:VPT where there might be more people involved in the technical aspect of things. Be sure to link back to this discussion as well. -- ran ( talk) 22:53, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
This user altered the deletion result tag in Talk:Lolicon from this:
to this:
He then put a hidden comment that says "dude I put this here myself, it's not vandalism". Can someone make sense out of this? Because I can't =S AQu01rius ( User • Talk) 01:24, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
...I don't know. It isn't offensive...but I guess it is somewhat distracting.
There are 3,000,000 registered users at Wikipedia. At Wikiversity there is almost five thousand. As an active Wikiversity user, I (officially) encourage Wikipedians to flood Wikiversity with their knowledge and good faith efforts.-- Remi0o 06:20, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Please digg the WikipediaWeekly podcast here JACO PLANE • 2006-12-29 23:54
In the article on Scientology critic Tilman Hausherr it mentions a website that is "Scientology-sponsored". That sounds a little odd to me. You wouldn't say a site was "Christianity-sponsored" or "liberalism-sponsored". I tried to change it to "sponsored by Scientologists" but it was changed back right away. Steve Dufour 03:46, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
Look at the amount of donations Wiki receives every week (on top of the page)! They are making a good money on the back of our hard work! Kiumars
I don't know where this would go...so I decided to try it out here. My question is: This page, and all its "cycle" pages, have ridiculously large trivia sections. I was for deleting it, but then ran into the Survivor Trivia page, where its Afd discussion ended as "no consensus". The thing is, much of the trivia is not exactly verifiable, because it deals with things like "weight". How are we supposed to know the lightest contestant, or the tallest, when there are no sources saying so? Moreover, weight changes so frequently that the lightest contestant at time of measurement is not really the lightest contestant. Much of the trivia falls under "original research", and so I think most of this section is totally unnecessary. However, when trivia is deleted, it is put back in. Talking on the talk page does nothing. There are edit wars over certain "facts", because people just randomly insert who they think is correct. Therefore, I would like to know who to go to, and what to do. If this is not the place, please redirect me. :P SKS2K6 01:09, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
This discussion has been archived. Please do not modify it. |
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The following is an archived debate. Please do not modify it. |
main articles: Chinese Wikipedia and Blocking of Wikipedia in mainland China. feel free to add your part of contribution. SummerThunder 01:53, 30 December 2006 (UTC) Chinese in different parts of the world use some different chinese words, such as different translations for the same English words. It is similar to the differences between the American and British English, such as "soccer - football, flashlight - torch." So currently, those moderators have three different pages for mainland chinese, for people from taiwan, for people from hong kong and macau, even though the contents are basically the same! and they ask people to vote to decide which pages they should add!!! how big is hongkong and macau?! and hk and macau are already a part of China. and those moderators made a special page just for those two tiny cities? Even people in beijing and shanghai don't use the same words. I suggested that if the English page only has one page for all people who speak English whether they are from africa or europe or america. how come the chinese site needs to have so many different pages? And if people from hongkong and macau can have a page of their own, then maybe it is time to add more pages for the Chinese people from Sigapore, from thailand, vietnam, south america, etc, etc. After I posted a message commenting their incapability of leading that site, they immediatly deleted my comment. That is how they are managing that page. I don't see any hope for those people and the Chinese site. It is time for the wikipedia governing body to take control of the chinese page, ask them to stop making all those nonsense extra pages for different Chinese readers. There are plenty of softwares that can change all those necessary chinese fonts, etc. SummerThunder 12:07, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
OH. I don't know that. that is why i am writing it here. but you can see my point, right. however, those moderators are totally useless. they can't sort out anything. they can't even decide which page they should use. you know, i just checked on the talk page on meta, it seems that it doesn't have a lot of activities. SummerThunder 10:16, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
at least, you are not like those chinese moderators who deleted all my comments!!! and then banned me accusing me of "vandalism." If they think that they need to make pages for tiny cities Hongkong and macau, simply because they use slightly different Chinese, they obviously are not capable. This is clearly my personal opinion, it is not a "personal attack." I do not make personal attacks, but their disrespect of my freedom of speech make me very upset. Further, the way they are managing the chinese site is ruining its futuer for sure. SummerThunder 20:28, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
well, i did post it on meta discussion. and i was blocked due to "personal attack." I don't know what they are thinking. That is my personal opinion based of real facts. Just like when bush called those few countries axis of evil, no one banned him from the white house. at least, I am glad that no one deleted my comments opinions on here. and people from the world can read about it and make up their own mind. Unlike the chinese commnuist government which blocked many sites, they think that they can think for the people! SummerThunder 21:33, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
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Not sure where to put this... The alexa link on Special:Statistics needs updated. Alexa changed their link structure and the current link does not display the traffic graph correct (correct link is here).
On a similar note- the challenges on Special:Recentchanges need updated to match the ones currently at Wikipedia:Challenges. --- RockMFR 22:23, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
I don't know precisely where this should go, so please feel free to move this request. I am formally requesting rollback privileges, so that I can use them to fight spam and vandalism. I feel there are many editors who can vouch for me, and seeing as how I don't have a snowball's chance in hell of being promoted to admin, I would like to be granted rollback-specific admin privileges. As far as I know, this is technically possible, yet would require some configuration by the developers. Perhaps there are others who desire admin rollback without admin responsibilities that could benefit from a change. -- Jmax- ( talk · contribs · count) 08:41, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Am I missing something or is there a copyrighted image within the fundraising template.. ? thanks/ Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 00:06, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
The Virgin Unite site gives me a blank page when I try to go there. *Dan T.* 00:31, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
yes?
I am curious to know what they called the jet stream before we had jet airplanes? or is it the reverse? did we have jet streams -if so, why the word JET/
Thanks
Tom Brown —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.181.33.117 ( talk) 21:37, 27 December 2006 (UTC).
I am a frequent user of wikipedia. I do not mean to cause problems, but I read an error that may be offensive to other Muslims. Eid al Adha is the commeration of Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son, but that son was Ismail. The misprint on your site is a highly offensive comment that is used against Muslims to degrade their history. I do not think this was your intention, but I wanted to give you the oppurtunity to fix it before other Muslims read it.
I have just put up Round One of WikiQuiz. Those who enjoy Wikifun may be interested, or anyone who likes puzzles. And Wikipedia. And riddles. And finding things. And userboxes for prizes. Whoo! Enjoy. And I apologize for posting similar messages to a few places. -- Goyston (talk) (contribs) 23:28, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
Here's a simple question that might lead to an interesting idle chat: How big does Wikipedia need to become for "high ranking" Wikipedians (stewards, crats, ArbCom, for example) to be notable enough for a Wikipedia article based on their position in Wikipedia alone? My personal opinion is that news coverage will be the main limiting factor - once Wikipedia is big enough for ArbCom cases to become newsworthy (occasionally, anyway - I doubt we'll ever be at a point where all cases are reported in external news sources), members of ArbCom can start being considered for articles. Similar conditions would apply to other Wikipedians. -- Tango 20:00, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
The article on Santa Claus is terrible! It's full of errors both grammatical and informational. There are so many, "Some say"s it's nauseating.
As you may know, it's possible to watch certain pages. But is it possible to watch certain user's contributions? -- AAA! ( AAAA • AAAAAAAA) 13:33, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
What do you do if you find an article which has been in time for some place and which is so completely off skew that the information in it needs to be renamed in a new article and the old article rewritten from scratch? The article Plant perception is obviously in need of being renamed Plant perception (paranormal). Plant perception is entirely unrelated to the article content as it is recognized, very mundane and very normal (even dull) science related to plant physiology. Trilobitealive 00:59, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
Wishing you a happy and safe Christmas season, and a blessed new year. Enjoy where you are, and who your with. Merry Christmas! From, Defrag and Jilly. |
How Did the Wik admins get away with their bullying and lies over Gretaw supposedly being a sockpuppet? If this is the standard wik runs at and on, then it isnt doing real flash - is it. Is wik a place where total bullies hang out to pounce on new editors, give them total grief, then form a larger bully gang when they cannot immediately bend new editors to their perverted dynamics,and tell lies and go on with a heap of other stuff (importing admins from the US for heavans sake, then pushing new people out. Wik is totally sick if this is how it continues to run. The little bully boy admin process is totally sick also. Poor show wik. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 203.54.9.138 ( talk) 01:39, 25 December 2006 (UTC).
If an infinite amount of monkeys are tapping on keyboards, will an infinite amount produce the works of Shakespeare be produced? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Gesiwuj ( talk • contribs) 21:58, 24 December 2006 (UTC).
Infinity is a theoretical concept. We employ it; we don't know that it exists. If it exists, then it is improbable that those cute little devils would not produce Shakespeare's Hamlet. Bus stop 00:53, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
Could someone please help with Template:Baywatch Nav and make it look a bit better please. I have seen such things where they look nice and are a lot smaller and fit the page better. Thank You Samaster1991 17:19, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
In Bombing of Gernika and related articles (e.g. Guernica (painting)), we've been dealing with what I presume is one persistent anonyomous participant who keeps removing all but the lowest respectable estimates of fatalities (trimming the range from 250–1,600 to 250–300, and periodcally removing all citations except one rather vague citation that apparently supports his/her views). There is something of an exchange on this at Talk:Bombing of Gernika#It's a shame!!!. The current text is a reluctant compromise on my part.
This seems to be a content dispute—at worst, editing against consensus—rather than outright vandalism, so I don't think protection would be in order. But, to raise the issue to something slightly more general: how can we possibly resolve a matter where one party to a dispute has no identity, cites sources only vaguely, etc.? Its like wrestling something made of gelatin. - Jmabel | Talk 08:24, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
When you notice something you consider a systemic problem, it is very tempting to immediately start a project to correct it. One common instance of this involved searching out all instances of this problem, listing them, and calling in people to make the edits or set up bots to make those edits.
It's important to act with caution when doing so. Wide spread editing across a lot of articles based on search results can cause disruption, upset and offence to the editors maintaining those articles. Especially when actioned by proceeding through a list by rote.
Advertise your intent somewhere that is appropriate, either here or in an appropriate talk page. You may be mistaken in your actions, and a timely warning from someone might save you embarrassment. Your actions might be achievable in a simpler way, which would save time and effort. There may be notable exceptions to your assumptions which need to be addressed. All of these may be brought up in discussion before you act.
It's important that your actions meet the consensus view on how something should be handled. -- Barberio 20:46, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
I'd have more sympathy for your point of view if a) you didn't come across as more concerned about process then you are about the problem and b) you actually did your research. Telling Dmcedvit to stop deleting links when he hasn't been deleting any only goes to show that you started complaining without actually researching what was actually going on. Secondly, AWB isn't a bot. All of my deletions have involved my making a personal decision in each case and the only automation is that AWB has been sorting the list and helping me find the links quickly. The deletions have been discussed on EL. There is screeds of the stuff there and WP:C is also relevant because its a policy and trumps a guideline. There is no perfect place to discuss this kind of undertaking and I would of thought asking 1000 admins to review activity was a damn fine way of checking that said activity was within the bounds of accepted activity. Remember that policy is what happens, not just what gets written down. You were aware of that weren't you? Finally, the RFC acknowledges that there are a lot of copyvios that need to be removed and also endorses the need to consider links in context. Well, I have been doing that and I know J.smith has as well because we have discussed borderline cases. So, where is the activity outside consensus? Spartaz 00:00, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
To reiterate, the most important part is that projects of this sort should have consensus discussion and support before being acted on. These kinds of project are among the exceptions to 'Be Bold' because of their potential to disrupt.-- Barberio 00:24, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
External Links may not include links to copyright violations. This is policy. YouTube has lots of copyright violations. This is fact. Removal of YouTube links which link to copyright violations is not only allowable, but encouraged. User:Zoe| (talk) 03:38, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
So I found my userpage on some online prescription website, and now I know why I've seen the "This is a Wikipedia userpage. If you're seeing this on some other website..." template on some userpages. What's the name of that template? Xaxafrad 05:31, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
Oh look, I found it, {{Userpage}}. Xaxafrad 05:38, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
There is a big discussion going on about ninjas and pirates. the disscusion topic is "which is more popular, Pirates or Ninjas?". Everybody has a lot to say about this question so please say what you think and don't be afraid because you need to speak to be heard.
Gogoboi662 11:45, 25 October 2006 (UTC)Anthony Schade
Are they fighting on land or at sea? I'd go with ninjas if on land and pirates if they were fighting on different ships. If they were fighting on the same ship, I'd still go with pirates since they might be better in a melee and would be accustomed to fighting on a ship.
If it were cavemen versus astronauts, I'd go with cavemen as long as there were no weapons, or only primitive weapons like sticks. I think all of the hard work that the cavemen do would make them stronger and they'd probably have experience from fighting with other cavemen. -- Kjkolb 09:47, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
If a caveman took somthing from an astronaut, lets say... a laser sword(I'm so immature xD), I think you would run 'cause I don't think an astronaut would have any use for a wooden/bone club.-- Kar_the_Everburning 15:05, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
Ninjas pwn j00 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Laelius1031 ( talk • contribs) 22:32, 31 October 2006
ROBOTS ARE CLEARLY SUPERIOR — Omegatron 01:18, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
The answer is perfectly obvious: given that ninjas and pirates are both good, it surely follows that pirate ninjas (such as Chris) are better than either one. -- AJR | Talk 17:58, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
Pirates, DUH! A7X 900 21:35, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
Given that there are likely far more actual pirates than real ninjas in the world today, I'd say pirates are more popular, even though I personally find ninjas more interesting. But piracy a more popular occupation, judging by acquaintances I have who sail in tropical seas. I've met more people who have encountered real pirates than people who have encountered real ninjas. = Axlq 22:01, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
-- Vic226 03:41, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
Vic226 make's a great point. A7X 900 19:19, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
Dural: has everyone forgotten about pirate ninja mimes? they are the best thing imaginalbe! not only can they do everything pirates and ninjas can, they can also use invisible weapons, deflect anything with their glass boxes, and "fly" using invisible staircases! :poseted by Dural (who is currently NOT a member... but that will change within a week)
Kim Arhee: Now lets stay on task here- this is a popularity contest. The constant bickering over these two classic predatorial archetypes has emerged in recent years due to a combination of media campaigns. Notice how the two most popular Shonen Jump (tm) titles, One piece to piracy as Naruto is to Ninjitsu, and their relatively recent introduction to western popular culture. Admittedly One piece does conincide with the fanatical following of Pirates of the Carribean in a very timely fashion, but Ninja have been supremely popular with the youth of the past generation- Power Rangers, the 3 Ninjas franchise et al. Of course we could go into lots of petty disputes over the romanticizing of oriental assassination in various literary texts and how pirates dress not for practice,but how well the aparell catches the fellow sailors' amourous attention, however im sure we can come to an agreemnt on the "more important" facts like who Frank Sinatra referenced in an obscure song. Focus people, this is not a Johnny Depp character portrayal popularity contest, this is to decide which career is the best for toy companies to market as a fad for all 6 year old children in 1st world countries.
Hey everybody, please stick to my topic question because me and probably every one else are getting confused about what this discussion is really about. I would really appreciate it. Gogoboi662 19:32, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
I am a Pirate, trained in Ninjutsu. Gilgamesh Rex 23:29, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
Ninjas, arrrr. Samsara ( talk • contribs) 19:10, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
Anybody who has read Real Ultimate Power would know that Ninjas own everything. MadHistorian 00:47, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
Its always pirates this, pirates that, heres one: pirates drunk! A ninja would basically need to walk up to any comatose pirate and throw the away with the rest of the trash! It not just that I dont like drinking, its that pirates suck -Charlie34
God gave ninjas the power of flipping out and of being totally sweet. Pirates are just clumsy swashbuckling imitations who wouldn't know a good assassination if it sliced open their jugular or poisoned them in their sleep. -- Gwern (contribs) 04:12 22 December 2006 (GMT)
As amusing as pirates and ninjas are, the Village Pump is not for non-Wikipedia-related discussions. If you wish to converse on this matter, please discuss it on a forum website. -- Gray Porpoise Your wish is my command! 16:38, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
Good point Porpoise. Is there a Wikipedia page dealing with the pirate/ninja controversy? We are obviously in need of some solid facts to help us make this decision. TimVickers 20:09, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
Pirates versus Ninjas -- Gray Porpoise Your wish is my command! 02:43, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
What are these negative and positive red/green numbers that now appear next to edits on my watch page?-- Deglr6328 06:33, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
I typed "pokemon red" in the search box and hit Enter. It took me to an article with a disgusting, perhaps pornographic, image, causing me to immediately click it off. I typed "pokemon red" again, and it was a nice, clean redirect to a nice, clean Pokémon Red and Blue article. I checked the revision histories of the redirect page and the article, but could not find evidence of such vandalism. -- Gray Porpoise Your wish is my command! 03:03, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
I've raised some concerns there about having an automated script do deletions. Trying to keep it short:
My strong feeling is that this is a direction that the community is unwilling to go, that there is neither enough volume of work nor anything emergency-like enough to warrant short-cutting discussion, and that there is a gap between what's going on in bot-land and the zeitgeist.
brenneman
23:58, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
I confess to not understanding the process, and so I miss the point of half of the procedural objection. But the bot currently seems to be doing a good job in a thankless area, there have been no foul-ups or substantive objections. So, all kudos to Cyde, and endorse what he's doing.-- Docg 01:49, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Since this is run by Cyde on his own account (which makes him and his account fully responsible for the bot's actions), it's probably alright, although I would prefer direct supervision. I would suggest that the edit summaries be upgraded with links to appropriate CFD discussions, so that the people unfamiliar with the bot can check that it's doing the right things. Zocky | picture popups 02:01, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
I have no objection to this bot activity, which obviously has gone smoothly and should continue. I do, however, object to Cyde's dismissive response ("Nothing new to see here, move along now." "Please go back to writing articles or somesuch.") and I applaud Aaron's perseverance and eagerness to seek community input on this matter. — David Levy 03:57, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Just to be exactly clear, here's how CFD worked before Cydebot: The bot moves a bunch of pages from category A to category B, then an admin has to come in and delete the old category A. Here's how CFD works with Cydebot: The bot moves a bunch of pages from category A to category B, and then deletes category A. Note that at no point in time is the bot ever deciding what category A and B are; it's going strictly by what trusted users at the consensus-driven CFD process are determining. I simply made the task slightly more automated by having the bot handle the category deletions as well as moving the category text on the pages. -- Cyde Weys 04:03, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
If the Approvals group doesn't care, I don't see why we should. -- Gwern (contribs) 04:11 22 December 2006 (GMT)
Has anyone volunteered to delete these thousands of category pages manually? If so, why should they spend time on that instead of work on the things in the huge Category:Administrative backlog? — Centrx→ talk • 07:57, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
I like it. If it means less dirty work for us that no one's willing to do anyway, I say go for it. — P ilotguy ( ptt) 14:48, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
CFD closure has been handled by 'bots for a long time now — a lot longer than six months. From looking at the logs of Cydebot ( talk · contribs) and Cyde ( talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA), it appears that the only difference now appears to be that rather than an administrator manually deleting the category page after the category has been depopulated by a 'bot, the 'bot is also performing the deletion, via an account with administrator privileges, as well. Having 'bots use administrator accounts is not something to be taken lightly. But there is a difference between a semi-automatic tool where one manually feeds a name to the tool and pulls its trigger, and it does the grunt work involving lots of edits, and a fully automatic tool that pulls its own trigger when it detects certain content or edits. The latter having administrator privileges is more of a concern than the former. Unless someone has come up with an artificial intelligence capable of reading and parsing CFD discussions and applying consensus and our policies and guidelines to make the decision (and simply forgotten to tell the world of this astounding advance in the state of the art in computer science), any CFD 'bot will, of necessity, be of the semi-automatic kind. Uncle G 17:53, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
I support use of this automation in this way. Thank you, Brenneman for keeping us honest, and thank you Cyde, for shepherding this automation so we can concentrate on tasks that need human input far more than this one does. If there are issues, revisit but for now, carry on. ++ Lar: t/ c 21:44, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Hello,
Please, I want to read the tale of "Brigadoon" ( in English because in French there's is nothing ). Some people told that's a german tale ( about a Scottish village ? ) ?
Thanks for all your answers ( name of a book of tales... ) and will you forgive my «very strong accent» whem I'm trying to write in English. --
Arcane17
13:14, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
I think the area for "Edit Summary" should have a larger capacity. I think it is unrealistic to expect people to say all they want to say about why they are making the changes they are making, especially as concerns the reverts of someone else's writing. The Talk page is a good thing, but it is too far away to allow for the immediate explanation that is called for. I think the "Edit Summary" should be further divided into a "brief" section and a slightly "extended" section. The "extended" section should still be very limited. But it should allow several times the length of writing that the present "Edit Summary" allows for. I think this would allow people to appear to be acting in a more humane way towards one another. Presently, it is very common for reverts to engender bad feelings. It is almost impossible to try to smooth over the almost inevitable bad feelings that tend to result from reverts. Bus stop 20:43, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
OK. I will check that out. Thank you. Bus stop 02:48, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
That sounds super cool. I'll have to check that out. But it should be available to everyone, IMHO. Bus stop 02:48, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Are you kidding me? After reading about zh being biased (and it not being true), I decided to check out Arabic Wikipedia. The first page I pulled up on google's translated version was terrorism: [6]. I encourage you to read it, but for those of you who don't have the time, here is its contents:
I checked out some others, and Quran and Zionism didn't appear so bad, though the translation was sometimes poor, and it was hard to tell. Just thought I ought to bring this up here. - Patstuart talk| edits 16:59, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
I could not resist but to create an userbox celebrating ME being the {{User Person of the Year 2006}}. Although, I think I may have to share the award with some others ;) -- Chris 73 | Talk 14:17, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
Hi, My name is Raphael and I'm the co-founder of the project "Subdivisões do Brasil" (Brazilian subdivisions) in the Portuguese Wikipedia and the author of more than 5.000 Brazilian location maps (states, municipalities, mesoregions and also microregions). I would like to know why the Brazilian states aticles don't have a higher priority than their respective capitals. Sorry but my capacity to write in English is very limited. What I'm trying to say is: Rio de Janeiro concerns the City of Rio de Janeiro and Rio de Janeiro (state) the state. The same occours with São Paulo (city) and São Paulo (state). I really don't understand why this is the convention and why the states of the USA are different. e.g. New York for the state and New York City for the city / Washington for the state and Washington, D.C. for the city.
Can I move the Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo related articles to names like the states of the USA?
Thank you all,
Raphael.lorenzeto 09:28, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
This principle of least surprise doesn't apply to Washington and New York? When someone types "Washington" or "New York", they aren't expecting to get the U.S. capital and the big apple? I noticed that exists only two exceptions for naming conventions of brazilian settlements (check talk): "Rio de Janeiro" and "São Paulo". The principle of least surprise applies only to these two cities? ... and, I'm not familiar with the methods of this wiki. Is difficult to ask an admin to make the move?. Raphael.lorenzeto 15:41, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
I have to do an outline, and I am not to sure what is meant by sub-details in reference to supporting details. Can someone please explain this to me. I would greatly appreciate it. Thankyou
I would like to know who deleted the Lumpy the Cook article and why they did it. And I would also like to know if I can recreate the page. A7X 900 02:11, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
Alright, thank you very much... A7X 900 17:21, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
Okay. So, I was looking at the United States of America page and I looked it up in another language. The page in Inuktitut is an obvious WP:AFD. It was created for the sole purpose of demeaning America. The link is [10] but you may not be able to read it. But, the point is, I can't delete it as I am not a user in that language.... nor do they have an AFD page! Any ideas? I doubt they even have an admin I could talk to. It isn't a high trafic page (let alone language, only 70 articles total), but I still don't believe that that should exist. Any suggestions. -Hairchrm 02:43, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
No. It just says " amialika
America, particularly the United States. Contains ᐊᓛᓯᑲ."
And anyone can guess what the last four characters are. Actually, the whole language is silly. It ought to be off the page, as most of the pages are in english, anyways. -Hairchrm 02:54, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
The ᐊᓛᓯᑲ is Alaska. Follow the link, you'll see. -- WikiSlasher 03:56, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
Well, thats great and all, but I'm not able to download the font on school computers. So... anybody else know what it says? The whole language is lacking in many articles. There was a link to the equivilant of our WP:AFD page, but the page was empty. Many of the pages are in English, so I don't even know why they created this language. Any other suggestions? -Hairchrm 20:14, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
What do the numbers in RC mean?? (I'm not wishing for them to go away, I'm just curious.) Georgia guy 23:15, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
When I saw an eBay listing used as a reference in the Hollywood Sign article, I wondered how ofter eBay was being linked to from the Wikipedia. I found 851 links (see [12]). Many of them look like they might be legitimate (used as references in discussions on talk pages, etc.), but in the half-dozen that I looked at, I found one legitimate spam (a link to someone's now ended auction). I don't think that eBay should be added to the spam blacklist, but these links probably should be checked. I'm posting here because I couldn't find a better place to post my concerns. Blank Verse 20:56, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
I saw this brief notice in my local paper:
After a short chuckle, I was compelled to see whether Wikipedia had an article about this guy. After finding his name (Geraint Benney, if you're curious), I only found 2 mentions about his unsuccessful Plaid Cymru candidacy for Parliament. There reasonable verification for the death threats, although one person commenting about this article claims that this is a publicity stunt. So is this guy notable enough to deserve an article on Wikipedia -- even if it turns out that he isn't the only Welsh-speaking Elvis impersonator & the death threats never happened? (I personally feel that if we have an article on Paris Hilton, this guy ought to be a shoo-in, but I won't create the article; I'm more inclined to use it as a convincing reason to AfD Paris Hilton.) -- llywrch 20:41, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/12/358569.html
Someone has already posted something under that article on indymedia to point out to its author that anyone can post to wikipedia, just as they can do in indymedia.
It is regrettable that the author of the article could not resolve his/her disputes within wikipedia, and had to accuse wikipedia of lying.
I think we need to at least keep a note of accusations of lying by wikipedia. I hope this is the correct place for this. Maybe further action needs to be taken against the author of the article. I am not a lawyer, but some of this could be taken as libel against wikipedia. -- Publunch 19:43, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
I don't think that I asked this before, but if I did on another page, I dont rememeber that I did. Anyway, are only administrators allowed to block users or can anyone put the test 5 template on a page? Thanks. Ilikefood 21:18, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
Can be found here [ [13]] in case anyone is wondering. Cryptonymius 17:04, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
I know this is not the right place to talk about this, but that is precisely the point. The banner ONLY links to non-editable content, there is no talk page associated with it at all. I totally understand that there has to be significant locked content there, because you can't just lie about money; but this is a Wiki, there should be one clear place to discuss something with such prominent placing (which could have a bot-protected template saying "This is an open discussion and views expressed here are not etc."). On the one hand, it's an issue of identity and education; on the other hand, it's a practical issue: how can they have an "FAQ" without a chance to submit questions? For instance, the obvious question "what is the fundraising goal?" (A: 1.5 million dollars, right?) is not in the FAQ... anyone reading this, feel free to redirect this criticism to the best place, but the point is that there's plenty of people who can't find that best place and that will be true until the banner has some first- or second- order link to get there. (For instance, the FAQ could have a "further discussion" question that links back to the various language wikipedias.)-- 201.216.139.116 13:34, 16 December 2006 (UTC) Moved from Wikipedia talk:Village pump (news) ~ ONUnicorn( Talk| Contribs) 15:56, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
I joined and started actively editing a few months ago and in general I enjoy wikipedia very much. However, much moreso than vandalism or policy disputes, I find the most frustrating thing about this site to be other editors, good editors, valuable editors, who nonetheless operate in such flagrant disregard of WP:DICK that I feel like I am up against an army of Comic Book Guys. It is actually discouraging me from editing whole categories of articles, participating in certain debates, or posting on particular user and article talk pages. Does anyone have any general advice about dealing with this? Do you have any secret tricks or breathing exercises you'd like to impart before I just wash my hands of the place? (I signed out before I posted.) -- 67.85.183.103 21:00, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
I guess WP:DICK and Don't_be_a_dick [ [14]] are supposed to be funny, but it seems to me that once you start tossing around words like dick and idiot (even within a policy framework) you might as well give up any hope of having a productive discussion because you're really just inviting an arguement, and the reality appears to be that a great many people have difficulty accepting the possibility that they may be wrong, misinformed, or misconstruing the case at hand, so if you can't take a step back and ask a civil question, and consider the answer you get, and weigh it judiciously, you may as resign yourself to having one arguement after another. Cryptonymius 02:16, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
I was working on an editing project in the sandbox and when I posted it to the sandbox I got a notice that I was attempting to post on the main Wikipedia page. What was this and how did it happen? Is there some sort of a problem here with posts sometimes going astray? Trilobitealive 04:31, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
I don't where any other discussion on this is but you know the "You can give the gift of knowledge by donating to Wikipedia!" thing at the top with the meter and $ amount, I was wondering what the number is supposed to be when the bar is full. -- WikiSlasher 14:29, 17 December 2006 (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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-- Ideogram 04:16, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
Context goes here. -- tjstrf talk 04:20, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia has 7 featured lists about hurricanes and tropical storms. Whatever it is about Wikipedia and hurricanes, I hope it affects more pages. Durova Charg e! 05:20, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
I do wish someone would standardize the Hurricane article names. -- Ideogram 18:31, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
I am being bullied and I dont like it. First, this person bullied me into making me feel that my article are rubbish and the comments and feedback I got are not very nice. Please talk to me on my talkpage. Thanks -- Hammersmith123 12:34, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
Ok I didnt know that, but otherwise, I am being bullied by this user. -- Hammersmith123 12:48, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
Is it acceptible to humorously vandalize pages that are gonna be marked speedy deletion anyway? For example lovingmelanie — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.16.19.181 ( talk • contribs) 22:36, 26 November 2006
let me know pls. thx 24.16.19.181 21:50, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
Usually, I figure that (at least in high-traffic articles) we find and fix vandalism pretty quickly. However, I recently checked Uncle Tom's Cabin, certainly not an unimportant topic; no one had touched it in over 48 hours, but I found all of this to do just by way of fixing blatant vandalism: [1]. - Jmabel | Talk 23:30, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
Just looking around a few articles and I notice that present tense is used far to often. For example looking at the page of Iffy Onuora, in one section it says he was the last Gillingham player to score a hat-trick. Problem being if the article isn't checked that statement will stay for year to come. In fact I'm not even sure it is true now. True or not I bet if a Gillingham player does score a hat trick this weekend that statement won't be revised. I think it's a big problem here in Wikipedia. Present tense shouldn't be used. The statement should read, up to (enter date) he was the last player to score a hot trick for Gillingham. Jimmmmmmmmm 23:49, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
There are (at least) three separate articles titled "One for the Road" with different capitalizations:
One for the Road
One For The Road
One for The Road
That's a bit silly, but I have no idea how to fix it. Hopefully there is someone here that can change that.
KUTGW,
87.68.147.72
22:47, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
On the Ultimate Elder Scrolls Pages, I saw that there was a counter showing how many times a page has been accessed. Is this possible in anyway on wikipedia? Jabunga 08:42, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
I'm part of a team in a management & organizational analysis at the Stern School of Business at New York University. We selected Wikipedia as the subject of our final analysis, and are specifically interested in what drives people to participate in Wikipedia. To this end we've compiled an anonymous, 5-minute survey that we hoped the Wikipedia community would take part in, everyone from casual readers to editors to members of the Board.
It's available online at http://tramchase.com/wikipedia-survey
Please be as detailed as possible. Your participation is much appreciated!
Does anyone know of any articles or discussions (here, or at WP:AN) about the risks of WP "selling out" or being exploited (be it by Jimbo or others)? I've seen a project page against the answers.com deal, but there was no real discussion there. Thanks. yandman 17:17, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
I created an essay titled: Orthodoxy and heresy at Wikipedia. It is supposed to be somewhat provocative. I am looking for comments and improvements. Please feel free to comment on the essay talk page or make any changes you see fit. Thank you. -- Jayron 32 21:34, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia:You Are Probably Not a Lexicologist or a Lexicographer is a new essay... please help improve!!! MPS 17:16, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
It works right now, but it looks so ugly. There's no bars on the left and top of the screen. What happened? I hope this change isn't permanent. Robocracy 07:26, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
An effort to update the Kennedy Assassination articles using records from PBS and the 1998 work product of the federal Assassination Records Review Board has landed this editor in hot water with a group of editors who like the status quo.
Presently, the group, who believes no new information is needed, has asked this editor be banned for "harassing" them with "Flat Earth" information.
During the course of this arbitration, one of the editors who opposes change, claims he has tried to edit cooperatively. That is good, but his methodology appears flawed. The editor states:
Later he explains to the arbitration panel that this:
Back to the drawing board.
RPJ
21:45, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
Curious to hear what other editors think of History of the Alaska Aces. Ignoring for a moment the article's cleanup issues, this strikes me as way too much detail for Wikipedia's coverage of a minor league hockey team. Before I rush to propose a pare-and-merge, I thought I'd solicit second opinions. Thanks. | Mr. Darcy talk 04:14, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
I am a freelance writer working on an article about the wide array of people who make Wikipedia their life, their passion, their pastime. Wikipedia “addicts” if you will. I’m looking for people just willing to tell their story of how they got sucked into the intellectual whirlwind that is Wikipedia; how you got started editing, how the obsession grew, and what you spend your time focusing on these days? Do you write articles from scratch? Is your main push toward one particular type of article? Do you patrol for typos and errors, or spend your time diligently fixing vandalism? Do you take part in various the “social aspects” of Wikipedia; engaging in animated discussions or decorating your user page with all sorts of internet memes? Do you participate in Esperanza, the Counter Vandalism Unit or other Wiki programs? Have you ever forced yourself to take a “Wikipedia break”? If so, what’s your 20/20 hindsight on the "obsession"? Basically I’m just trying to get an idea of what it’s like for various Wikipedia users, editors and "addicts."
This article is intended to be a light informational piece, nothing too heavy or controversial, just merely introducing readers to a subculture that they likely had no idea existed. So please don’t email me with your conspiracy theories, or your grudge against the Wikipedia hierarchy… unless it directly applies to your overall experience with the site. This article is about the USERS, not about the pros and cons of the site itself.
If you are interested in participating, please email me via my user page.
FFFearlesss 16:52, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
I got a camera, and will try to fulfill requests for pictures related to Mexico, hoping an article or two will get improved. See commons:User:Drini/requests -- Drini 23:11, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
Have you participated in the creation of health information on wikipedia? Have you recently posted on a health wiki page? If so, we would like to hear about your experience. A colleague and I are conducting a study on health wikis. We are looking at how wikis co-construct health information and create communities and are very interested in your opinions.
We would be very grateful if you would consider taking our survey here.
This research will help wikipedia and other wikis understand how health information is co-created and used.
We are from James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia. The project was approved by our university research committee and members of the Wikipedia Foundation.
Please consider telling us about your experience! Thanks!
-- Sharlene Thompson 18:29, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
Is there a Wikipedia policy on what might be called "temporal point of view", involving assertions made in an article that are only true or only make sense within the context of the day or month or other short period of time during which the assertion was made? For example, in a version of the article on actress Carolyn McCormick that I've replaced, I found the sentence "She is currently acting in 'Celebration', a play by Harold Pinter, in New York." This sentence was bound to become outdated, possibly, as far as the editor might have known, the very next day! As a matter of fact, she was in that production over a year ago, and has been in two or three other productions since.
It seems to me these self-outdating statements should be deleted or made non-self-outdating even if they're currently true. If there isn't already a policy, and a standard method of invoking it when a violation is found, should there be one? If there is a policy, how should violations be dealt with? Should I delete the information altogether, or is it my responsibility either to research the chronological information myself and change "currently" to "during two months of 2006" or whatever, or to leave it alone and let someone else figure it out? Or is there a template for marking it for consideration by others — Largo Plazo 18:36, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
There are more tricky problems of this nature. I've noticed that in articles about old cars, there is a tension between writing in the present tense - because these cars still exist - or in the past tense because we are talking about a car that hasn't been made for 50 years? What about a car that they stopped making a year ago - of which millions of examples are still in day-to-day use? We end up with statements like "The 1953 BrandX car was equipped with a V8 engine" - but sometimes I see "The 1953 BrandX car is equipped with a V8 engine". Worst of all, many of these articles switch back and forth between tenses. It's really tricky. When you are talking about a Model T Ford, it sounds weird to say "The Model T Ford can attain a top speed of 45 mph" - but then it also sounds strange to say "The Mini Cooper had a 1.3 liter engine" - when the Mini was still making them in 1999, they are still being driven - and they still have 1.3 liter engines. It seems wrong to say that this was true when it's still true. SteveBaker 19:25, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
I realized after my initial posting that there can't be a blanket rule because many pieces of information do need to convey their own currency if they aren't to sound contrived. An extreme example would be something like "Denmark is a constitutional monarchy", which won't be true if 100 years from now they discard the monarchy and institute a republic. An intermediate example would be "George W. Bush is the president of the United States," which definitely won't be true after January 20, 2009, and which will require editing wherever it appears. I suppose that's life, and the best that can be done is to offer guidelines
For one thing, certain kinds of information are sure to be edited rapidly when they fall out of currency. If the constitutional monarchy in Denmark were to be discarded, it would be so newsworthy that probably dozens of people would fall onto Wikipedia to scour it for text in need of alteration. Some people may already have January 20, 2009, marked on their calendars as Post-Bush Wikipedia Overhaul day. It's the trivia that's very much of-the-moment about the less broadly appreciated topics (such as what production Carolyn McCormick is performing in at this very moment) that's more of a concern, because it has the potential to sit for years after its expiration. — Largo Plazo 20:57, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
I was wondering if there was anybody else here who thinks that the number of information boxes posted on talk pages has become excessive? It's reached a point where in many cases having a "Skip to table of contents" message at the top is needed. There are times when I would like those messages to be the width (but not the height) of the user boxes and scooted over to the right edge so I can access the table of contents immediately. Does anybody else have some thoughts about this? Thanks. — RJH ( talk) 18:04, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
I have a somewhat vague question that I'm looking for input on. I have been very tangentially involved at a very good article that arguably has a serious case of WP:OWN going on, with one (very good) editor acting as a gatekeeper for what can and can't get in. The talk page is awash with incivility that truly borders on hysterics when another tenacious editor tries to include material that editor #1 doesn't like or thinks is against policy. Editor #1's stated aim is to get this article to FA status, and there's a reasonable chance this will succeed. I am wondering what the thoughts are on a FA or FA-nominated article that is in such a tendentious editorial condition - is it a threat to stability/featured-ness if the article, however good it is, is subject to potential frequent edit wars and talk-page incivility? -16:14, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
Well, there is the oldest articles at Wikipedia:Wikipedia's oldest articles. The next question is, who is the oldest still-active editor, ignoring Jimbo Wales? Also, are there any which have still not become admin? Simply south 18:42, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Could someone please create an ASCII version of Image:Barnstar.png for me? I'm thinking of creating a new reward: The Text Barnstar (Used for writing articles or finishing other people's work). Here's where I originated the idea. -- AAA! ( AAAA) 12:26, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
/\ /**\ _______/****\_______ *.******/^^\******.* *.***( () )***.* *.**\,./**.* /**.**.**\ /*.* *.*\ /.* *.\ ' `
What happens to the Terry Davis author information every time is is posted?! YES - there CAN be more than one Terry Davis!!! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 150.228.40.142 ( talk) 21:25, 11 January 2007 (UTC).
I came across this, the other day. Is it actually a genuine Scot's version of Wikipedia, or is it a parody? Not being a native speaker of the Scot's tongue, or laid, it's kind of hard to tell.
I trust that there will soon be versions of Wikipedia available in Pig Latin, Osakan, and Capitol Hill press release speak. I'd also be interested in contributing to the west-coast hip-hop version if one is made.
perfectblue 12:24, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
To reply to the original post, the second introductory paragraph of Scots language explains this pretty well. It's actually an open question whether Scots is a dialect of English or a separate language. Perhaps if Elizabeth I of England had borne children we wouldn't even hold this conversation because Scotland and England would still be different countries and the distinction would seem as natural as the one we make for Norwegian and Swedish (which are also very similar). This makes me want to rent Trainspotting and see whether it carries subtitles. I certainly didn't understand half the dialog when I saw its theatrical release. Durova Charge 01:44, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
We have Irish, Manx, and Scottish Gaelic Wikipedias. All three are Goidelic languages which descend from Middle Irish, and are all considered to be distinct languages. Well, Scots and English are both descended from Middle English, but are considered to be distinct languages. File:Icons-flag-scotland.png Canæn File:Icons-flag-scotland.png 00:47, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
A user has asserted that the use of an image of the FBI logo is a violation of U.S. federal law (United States Code, Title 18). This user claims this law trumps copyright law (under which the image would be PD). Any comment on this issue would be appreciated. -- Ginkgo 100 talk 23:23, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
It's not a logo, it's an image of a badge. Unless you're using it to imply official endorsement, you should be alright. Hell, we're technically not supposed to be using the Fish and Wildlife Service logo on our article about them, but that's working fine. Night Gyr ( talk/ Oy) 00:46, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
I'm not wanting to be a spoilsport. However, last time i did it i got 1,600 or something similar. It took me more time than it actually said. With the size now, i am guessing it would take a day. Could anything on the size or format or whatever be sorted out? Simply south 21:11, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Would adding a list of minigames (without descriptions) be considered "cruft"? While I believe it is, but User:Henchman 2000 believes it isn't, and has been putting back a list of minigames into Mario Party articles that I deleted. We've been an edit war for a while, and other users have tried to tell Henchman to get a consensus, he keeps adding them back. I don't want to revert them any more, as it's getting pointless, so I'd like some other people's opinion of it: Would a list of minigames without descriptions count as cruft? – Llama man sign here 19:38, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Link spam, the addition of links to external sites to increase search engine ranking, is up this week. See 64.74.62.136 ( talk · contribs) and Blathering1 ( talk · contribs) for examples. Watch for links to "www.fxwords.com", which is a phony glossary site full of ads. -- John Nagle 18:19, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
Is there anything like a "sandbox page" in the main namespace (article namespace)? I'm debugging a template which uses ParserFunctions to cause it to appear differently depending on which namespace it is in. Of course, I'm having trouble with the conditions when it is placed in article namespace. I could not find anything at About the Sandbox to help me. I could create a page named something like Page for testing templates which use ParserFunctions but if there is a better alternative, I'd like to use that. :) Thanks! — DragonHawk ( talk) 04:28, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
Discussing the article on journalist John Gorenfeld the question came up if it is a violation of copyright laws, or WP policy, to use information from his personal website without his permission. As I understand it copyright laws protect, well, "copy" but not "information". Steve Dufour 13:44, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
I thought this problem had been solved when the material had been removed and replaced by information gathered from different sources. However the person who tagged the article insists that there has to be a ruling by an administrator. Does anyone know where I can go on WP to ask for help on this? Thanks. Steve Dufour 03:43, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
Has anyone else on RC noticed a user named User:Vandalisimbot that has beenm messing with pages? It needs to be blocked, ASAP!! The Placebo Effect 00:34, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
I'm debating whether or not I should create a Doppelganger account. Technically, my username is "Wdflake", but I prefer to go my "W. Flake", as evidenced by my signature. Would having an account named "W. Flake" be inappropriate under this policy? Thanks in advance. — W. Flake ( talk | contribs ) 00:07, 9 January 2007 (UTC) fixed typo at 00:12, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
Hi! Living at the nl wikipedia most of the time, this is my first post in your lovely village pump. I didn't know where else to go and maybe one of you can help me. I have this funny story over at nl ( nl:Gebruiker:Venullian/Aanvulverhaal, though it will not make a lot of sense to you as it's in Dutch), where each person may post no more than 10 words and then have to wait for the next person to come along. I got the idea from someone who saw it at the en wikipedia, which would be here. Stupidly enough, I didn't interwiki link, and now we all forgot who that user was and where his story is. Is it still alive? Does anybody know about it? Venullian 16:19, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:AtionSong/World's Longest Poem and Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:AtionSong/World's Longest Poem (second nomination) both no consensus. Page is currently located at Wikipedia:Sandbox/World's Longest Poem, not sure when it was moved. If that's not the one you're looking for try Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Once upon a time... and Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Once upon a time.... That one was deleted. Seems kind of inconsistent, but whatever. ~ ONUnicorn( Talk| Contribs) problem solving 17:30, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
What is this site and what's it about? I looked for an article but it's deleted-protected. Can someone tell me? -- AAA! ( AAAA) 05:21, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
Looking at this, a Wikipedian is trying to shut down the site. -- AAA! ( AAAA) 04:10, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
Wikiproject A Series of Unfortunate Events is looking for new members to help and expand the project. If you have an interest in A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket, please join! <3 Clamster 00:17, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
Why is there a category called: Women writers, but nothing called Male writers? :p —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.212.180.9 ( talk • contribs).
Actually any sort of geographer, or anyone interested in a major UK memorial to that late King George V who is commemorated by 471 individual playing fields located in the UK and a few in "foreign climes". WikiProject King George's Fields needs your help. We have all the data in a spreadsheet, but transferring it to WP takes diligence, patience, and a bit of plain hard work. Please come and have a look, and come and join in. Fiddle Faddle 11:37, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
WHILST BROWSING YOUR SITE I FOUND THAT IN THE ARTICLE REGARDING NELSON MANDELA THERE IS A VERY RUDE PICTURE OF MALE GENITALS IN THE PLACE OF HIS PHOTO YOU DONT HAVE A FAULT REPORTING LINK SO I TRY TO REPORT IT VIA THIS LINK HOPE YOU CAN CHANGE IT YOURS THANKFULLY ARMAND JOUBERT (rm email and phone number) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 196.30.245.149 ( talk) 04:06, 6 January 2007 (UTC).
At Wikipedia:Peer review/Controlled demolition hypothesis for the collapse of the World Trade Center the editors who have been refining the article have requested a Peer Review. This is a process open to any editor to contrinute. Please visit the review page and decide whether you wish to review the article and give feedback. Fiddle Faddle 16:31, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
The past few days I have been working on the Polo Montañez article and I have expanded it considerably yet it is still considered a stub. Polo Montañez was only famous for about 2 years before he died so there is not much that can be written about him. How can I make this stub into an article?
Torchic: a featured article on such a useless subject. When did Wikipedia go wrong?
If I release my work under the GFDL for Wikipedia to publish and then the article is deleted from Wikipedia and people are restricted from viewing it (non-admins), wouldn't it be a clear violation of the terms of the GFDL? Here's the relevant text:
You may not use technical measures to obstruct or control the reading or further copying of the copies you make or distribute.
I'm sure that people have looked at this before but I don't know how that could possibly be explained away. This seems like a blatant violation on Wikipedia's part and we seriously need to implement some kind of function to archive deleted pages.
-- froth T C 04:23, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
(bought this up here as the Sandbox talk page gets blanked automatically)
Why is the Sandbox called the Sandbox? I assume it's a reference to a Sandpit, but the word Sandbox doesn't appear to be very common outside the US. Wouldn't something like 'Test Area', 'Test Page' or 'Practice Editing Here' make more sense? MrBeast 21:18, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
I teach a seminar in American legal history, and am thinking of inviting the students (usually about 20) to prepare or edit a Wikipedia entry, observing Wikipedia standards for citation, etc., in lieu of writing one of the two required papers. The course centers on questions of citizenship and rights, and the students are asked to do research on a topic of their own choosing, within the outline of the course. I am new to Wikipedia myself but would try to help ensure adherence to standards and policies. Would this create any problems? I can imagine that such projects could become a tool in edit wars or spamming, but I encourage students to find their own perspective and do their own research, so they would be as diverse as any other editors. Thoughts? Sheldon Novick 20:46, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
Image:Barker famous.jpg is tagged as GFDL and says that it comes from Travis Barker's MySpace page. I really doubt Barker has heard of the GFDL to license anything under it, but I can't check his "photos" section to verify because I don't have a MySpace account. Anyone with an account care to verify that: 1) the image is there and 2) there's something close to a copyright release? – Anþony talk 18:42, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
The bar at the top of Wikipedia has a green line that is getting longer. The money is almost $844,000 as of when I type this. What number will it stop at and what will Wikipedia be like when it is finished?? Georgia guy 01:35, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
Once upon a time I thought I saw an editor's user page which had a type of WP award/recognition, based on length of time connected with WP and number of edits made. There were a series of these awards/recognitions, depending on length of time and number of edits. It was not a barnstar, but a separate type of recognition. As I recall there were both "serious" names for each rank (editor, senior editor, etc.), and made-up, "silly" names for each rank. Now I can't find those editor level recognitions! Anybody able to steer me in the right direction? NorCalHistory 00:03, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
Thanks - Wikipedia:Service awards it is. I guess I didn't mean "silly" - "whimsical" would be a better word. The whimsical names are either made-up or translations of whimsical words from other languages - the creativity that went into these names is appreciated! NorCalHistory 00:10, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
This is a tale of editing Wikipedia, that speaks both to the fragility of the everlasting template on Wikipedia, and time travel. For, I removed a {{references}} tag on an article that I myself had added it to six months ago. The article was unchanged.
It was a hot, sunny day in late June. I happened upon an article on a chemist who discovered that helium could be found in plentiful supply in natural gas. There, however, I found that the dates on the article appeared to be wrong. So, I corrected the dates and, seeing that some parts of the article were not reliable, placed a {{references}} tag on it.
Six months later, on a cold, wintry day in early January, I happened upon an article on a chemisty who discovered that helium could be found in plentiful supply in natural gas. There, however, I found a {{references}} tag, despite the article clearly having references and upon reading it there being no indication that the article was inaccurate. So, I removed the {{references}} tag, perplexed at the idiot who would have put it there in the first place.
Clearly, that idiot was me, apparently from the past, but possibly from the future. — Centrx→ talk • 01:49, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
When I joined Wikipedia back in June, the majority of the time I saw " ". Now, I'm seeing more “ ”. While no problems will arise using one of those two, should we have a standardized version to avoid confusion? Sometimes I see both used on the same page. I think we should stick with " " because some people don't have Word or something similar so they can change it to “ ”, but I'm not really sure - The RSJ ( Sign my book) ( CCD) 22:05, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
Not a comment--I have a question I've already posted on the Village Pump but received no reply. I'm a registered user at both the English and the Hungarian versions of Wikipedia. I'm planning to translate the Donner Party entry (en.Wikipedia), from the English into Hungarian. Although the article is GNU Free, I still may need some special permission. Two more questions, please: how to include the original with my translation, and how to transfer the finished rendering to the Hungarian Wikipedia? Since I'm new at this, I'll appreciate any help I can get. Thank you, Marta 19:07, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
Thank you, Tango. As I mentioned, except for editing text, I'm still an amateur in many ways. For instance: what is a "permanent link," and how to paste the English text into the H. Wiki? Since to translate online is about impossibe (it's a time-consuming process, as I'm sure you know), I printed out the article from the Wiki page; once translated, maybe I can open an entry with the H. editors' help, then type the thing in. Do you think that would work? 23:54, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
{{ NZDCurrencyConversion}} I was editing Lotteries in New Zealand and it occured to me that many English speakers (myself included) would not know the value of a New Zealand Dollar, and so would be hampered in their understanding of the article's content. I suspect there are many articles which frequently refer to amounts of currency not familiar to most English speakers.
I developed Template:CurrencyConversion, a template with parameters to quote the value of a currency unit in US$, GBP and AUS$, as well as a last update parameter. While probably not useful as an up-to-the-minute tool, it could be used to give a rough indication of the magnitude of values quoted in an article with reasonable accuracy.
To the right is the template in action for the New Zealand Dollar, from the Daughter Template Template:NZDCurrencyConversion. What do people think? I haven't added this to any articles, so please improve it mercilessly. -- LukeSurl 00:29, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Three thoughts: 1) It may have some usefulness and I encourage such innovation, so I suggest trying it out by being bold and putting it into a couple of medium-traffic articles and see what kind of reaction a road-test gets. 2) Such templates need to be as compact as possible and I think it might be possible to compact yours a bit more, perhaps by using a smaller image with a single line of currencies and compacting the text into fewer lines and fewer characters. There is a plethora of infoboxes and templates appearing on Wikipedia and pages risk being crowded. 3) In the long run it might be interesting for people to be able to set a currency preference and have automatic conversions appear beside the given currency in an article, analogous to the way date presentation is a preference iteme. Hu 09:32, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps the actual data could be kept in the template somehow, and updated by a bot. -- Jmax- 12:41, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Hey, I don't think I'll be on Wikipedia for about a week, so please take this on "without me" LukeSurl 02:43, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
In the article on former Scientology leader Mark Rathbun he seems to stand accused of bigamy by Barbara Schwarz. I have excused myself from editing the article. Steve Dufour 16:43, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
I have spelled out at Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard#Mark Rathbun why Mr. Dufour's report is false, but to briefly discuss it here: Barbara Schwarz says absolutely nothing about Mark Rathbun being a bigamist. She claims that she was married to Mark Rathbun and Mr. Dufour is combining that with his own beliefs that Mr. Rathbun was married to someone else to arrive at the (false) conclusion that Schwarz "seems to be" alleging Rathbun to be bigamous.
I think it goes without saying that this logic is shoddy. Under this logic, suddenly it's a WP:BLP matter to mention anything that is not agreed by any living person. "John Smith says he was born in 1965, but biographer Richard Roe says he was actually born in 1960." "Well, by saying something different from John Smith, Richard Roe seems to be calling John Smith a liar! I'm reporting it to WP:BLP as 'Richard Roe calls John Smith a liar!'" It is a fact of life that people sometimes have conflicting accounts of events. Wikipedia's policy, at least the last time I checked, was for editors to accurately report the various conflicting accounts -- not to decide their own way of resolving the conflicts (whether it be "Richard Roe is accusing John Smith of lying" or "Barbara Schwarz is accusing Mark Rathbun of bigamy") and trying to use WP:BLP to get rid of accurate reporting of the various conflicting accounts. -- Antaeus Feldspar 01:39, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
The article reports him being married to Anne and then it reports Barbara's saying that he was married to her. If both are true then he would have been a bigamist. Steve Dufour 06:52, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
I saw some screwy-looking weblog comment spam that might lead to trouble for Wikipedia down the road. The comment, here at the physics weblog Not Even Wrong claims to be from a user named Wikipedia and talks about how wonderful Wikipedia is, but the link jumps to a Wikipedia clone site that features banner ads. I assume this is some sort of underhanded attempt to game Google's results and get higher hits, but since it takes Wikipedia's name in vain, I wanted to mention it here. -- Walt Pohl 04:28, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
Hi I'm back after a couple of months break and now find that my watchlist now has numbers after edits. What are they? Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 20:09, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
An hour late, but happy new year everyone!!! Nil Einne 01:09, 1 January 2007 ( NZDT UTC+13)
Happy new 2007, Wikipedia. :) -- Ixfd64 08:44, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
I'm unsure how this might be implemented, but it might be nice to have a way for all those "watching" a given page to communicate, or even to KNOW how many others are "watchers" of a particular page at any given time. Dec. 30, 2006 - frankatca
However, a lot of pages will say "0 people now maintain the quality of this page", and those will become vandal magnets very quickly. -- ran ( talk) 22:25, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I agree that it's possible, though I'm just a simple sysop and has no jurisdiction over this. =) I suggest asking at WP:VPP or WP:VPT where there might be more people involved in the technical aspect of things. Be sure to link back to this discussion as well. -- ran ( talk) 22:53, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
This user altered the deletion result tag in Talk:Lolicon from this:
to this:
He then put a hidden comment that says "dude I put this here myself, it's not vandalism". Can someone make sense out of this? Because I can't =S AQu01rius ( User • Talk) 01:24, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
...I don't know. It isn't offensive...but I guess it is somewhat distracting.
There are 3,000,000 registered users at Wikipedia. At Wikiversity there is almost five thousand. As an active Wikiversity user, I (officially) encourage Wikipedians to flood Wikiversity with their knowledge and good faith efforts.-- Remi0o 06:20, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Please digg the WikipediaWeekly podcast here JACO PLANE • 2006-12-29 23:54
In the article on Scientology critic Tilman Hausherr it mentions a website that is "Scientology-sponsored". That sounds a little odd to me. You wouldn't say a site was "Christianity-sponsored" or "liberalism-sponsored". I tried to change it to "sponsored by Scientologists" but it was changed back right away. Steve Dufour 03:46, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
Look at the amount of donations Wiki receives every week (on top of the page)! They are making a good money on the back of our hard work! Kiumars
I don't know where this would go...so I decided to try it out here. My question is: This page, and all its "cycle" pages, have ridiculously large trivia sections. I was for deleting it, but then ran into the Survivor Trivia page, where its Afd discussion ended as "no consensus". The thing is, much of the trivia is not exactly verifiable, because it deals with things like "weight". How are we supposed to know the lightest contestant, or the tallest, when there are no sources saying so? Moreover, weight changes so frequently that the lightest contestant at time of measurement is not really the lightest contestant. Much of the trivia falls under "original research", and so I think most of this section is totally unnecessary. However, when trivia is deleted, it is put back in. Talking on the talk page does nothing. There are edit wars over certain "facts", because people just randomly insert who they think is correct. Therefore, I would like to know who to go to, and what to do. If this is not the place, please redirect me. :P SKS2K6 01:09, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
This discussion has been archived. Please do not modify it. |
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The following is an archived debate. Please do not modify it. |
main articles: Chinese Wikipedia and Blocking of Wikipedia in mainland China. feel free to add your part of contribution. SummerThunder 01:53, 30 December 2006 (UTC) Chinese in different parts of the world use some different chinese words, such as different translations for the same English words. It is similar to the differences between the American and British English, such as "soccer - football, flashlight - torch." So currently, those moderators have three different pages for mainland chinese, for people from taiwan, for people from hong kong and macau, even though the contents are basically the same! and they ask people to vote to decide which pages they should add!!! how big is hongkong and macau?! and hk and macau are already a part of China. and those moderators made a special page just for those two tiny cities? Even people in beijing and shanghai don't use the same words. I suggested that if the English page only has one page for all people who speak English whether they are from africa or europe or america. how come the chinese site needs to have so many different pages? And if people from hongkong and macau can have a page of their own, then maybe it is time to add more pages for the Chinese people from Sigapore, from thailand, vietnam, south america, etc, etc. After I posted a message commenting their incapability of leading that site, they immediatly deleted my comment. That is how they are managing that page. I don't see any hope for those people and the Chinese site. It is time for the wikipedia governing body to take control of the chinese page, ask them to stop making all those nonsense extra pages for different Chinese readers. There are plenty of softwares that can change all those necessary chinese fonts, etc. SummerThunder 12:07, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
OH. I don't know that. that is why i am writing it here. but you can see my point, right. however, those moderators are totally useless. they can't sort out anything. they can't even decide which page they should use. you know, i just checked on the talk page on meta, it seems that it doesn't have a lot of activities. SummerThunder 10:16, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
at least, you are not like those chinese moderators who deleted all my comments!!! and then banned me accusing me of "vandalism." If they think that they need to make pages for tiny cities Hongkong and macau, simply because they use slightly different Chinese, they obviously are not capable. This is clearly my personal opinion, it is not a "personal attack." I do not make personal attacks, but their disrespect of my freedom of speech make me very upset. Further, the way they are managing the chinese site is ruining its futuer for sure. SummerThunder 20:28, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
well, i did post it on meta discussion. and i was blocked due to "personal attack." I don't know what they are thinking. That is my personal opinion based of real facts. Just like when bush called those few countries axis of evil, no one banned him from the white house. at least, I am glad that no one deleted my comments opinions on here. and people from the world can read about it and make up their own mind. Unlike the chinese commnuist government which blocked many sites, they think that they can think for the people! SummerThunder 21:33, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
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Not sure where to put this... The alexa link on Special:Statistics needs updated. Alexa changed their link structure and the current link does not display the traffic graph correct (correct link is here).
On a similar note- the challenges on Special:Recentchanges need updated to match the ones currently at Wikipedia:Challenges. --- RockMFR 22:23, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
I don't know precisely where this should go, so please feel free to move this request. I am formally requesting rollback privileges, so that I can use them to fight spam and vandalism. I feel there are many editors who can vouch for me, and seeing as how I don't have a snowball's chance in hell of being promoted to admin, I would like to be granted rollback-specific admin privileges. As far as I know, this is technically possible, yet would require some configuration by the developers. Perhaps there are others who desire admin rollback without admin responsibilities that could benefit from a change. -- Jmax- ( talk · contribs · count) 08:41, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Am I missing something or is there a copyrighted image within the fundraising template.. ? thanks/ Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 00:06, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
The Virgin Unite site gives me a blank page when I try to go there. *Dan T.* 00:31, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
yes?
I am curious to know what they called the jet stream before we had jet airplanes? or is it the reverse? did we have jet streams -if so, why the word JET/
Thanks
Tom Brown —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.181.33.117 ( talk) 21:37, 27 December 2006 (UTC).
I am a frequent user of wikipedia. I do not mean to cause problems, but I read an error that may be offensive to other Muslims. Eid al Adha is the commeration of Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son, but that son was Ismail. The misprint on your site is a highly offensive comment that is used against Muslims to degrade their history. I do not think this was your intention, but I wanted to give you the oppurtunity to fix it before other Muslims read it.
I have just put up Round One of WikiQuiz. Those who enjoy Wikifun may be interested, or anyone who likes puzzles. And Wikipedia. And riddles. And finding things. And userboxes for prizes. Whoo! Enjoy. And I apologize for posting similar messages to a few places. -- Goyston (talk) (contribs) 23:28, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
Here's a simple question that might lead to an interesting idle chat: How big does Wikipedia need to become for "high ranking" Wikipedians (stewards, crats, ArbCom, for example) to be notable enough for a Wikipedia article based on their position in Wikipedia alone? My personal opinion is that news coverage will be the main limiting factor - once Wikipedia is big enough for ArbCom cases to become newsworthy (occasionally, anyway - I doubt we'll ever be at a point where all cases are reported in external news sources), members of ArbCom can start being considered for articles. Similar conditions would apply to other Wikipedians. -- Tango 20:00, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
The article on Santa Claus is terrible! It's full of errors both grammatical and informational. There are so many, "Some say"s it's nauseating.
As you may know, it's possible to watch certain pages. But is it possible to watch certain user's contributions? -- AAA! ( AAAA • AAAAAAAA) 13:33, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
What do you do if you find an article which has been in time for some place and which is so completely off skew that the information in it needs to be renamed in a new article and the old article rewritten from scratch? The article Plant perception is obviously in need of being renamed Plant perception (paranormal). Plant perception is entirely unrelated to the article content as it is recognized, very mundane and very normal (even dull) science related to plant physiology. Trilobitealive 00:59, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
Wishing you a happy and safe Christmas season, and a blessed new year. Enjoy where you are, and who your with. Merry Christmas! From, Defrag and Jilly. |
How Did the Wik admins get away with their bullying and lies over Gretaw supposedly being a sockpuppet? If this is the standard wik runs at and on, then it isnt doing real flash - is it. Is wik a place where total bullies hang out to pounce on new editors, give them total grief, then form a larger bully gang when they cannot immediately bend new editors to their perverted dynamics,and tell lies and go on with a heap of other stuff (importing admins from the US for heavans sake, then pushing new people out. Wik is totally sick if this is how it continues to run. The little bully boy admin process is totally sick also. Poor show wik. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 203.54.9.138 ( talk) 01:39, 25 December 2006 (UTC).
If an infinite amount of monkeys are tapping on keyboards, will an infinite amount produce the works of Shakespeare be produced? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Gesiwuj ( talk • contribs) 21:58, 24 December 2006 (UTC).
Infinity is a theoretical concept. We employ it; we don't know that it exists. If it exists, then it is improbable that those cute little devils would not produce Shakespeare's Hamlet. Bus stop 00:53, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
Could someone please help with Template:Baywatch Nav and make it look a bit better please. I have seen such things where they look nice and are a lot smaller and fit the page better. Thank You Samaster1991 17:19, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
In Bombing of Gernika and related articles (e.g. Guernica (painting)), we've been dealing with what I presume is one persistent anonyomous participant who keeps removing all but the lowest respectable estimates of fatalities (trimming the range from 250–1,600 to 250–300, and periodcally removing all citations except one rather vague citation that apparently supports his/her views). There is something of an exchange on this at Talk:Bombing of Gernika#It's a shame!!!. The current text is a reluctant compromise on my part.
This seems to be a content dispute—at worst, editing against consensus—rather than outright vandalism, so I don't think protection would be in order. But, to raise the issue to something slightly more general: how can we possibly resolve a matter where one party to a dispute has no identity, cites sources only vaguely, etc.? Its like wrestling something made of gelatin. - Jmabel | Talk 08:24, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
When you notice something you consider a systemic problem, it is very tempting to immediately start a project to correct it. One common instance of this involved searching out all instances of this problem, listing them, and calling in people to make the edits or set up bots to make those edits.
It's important to act with caution when doing so. Wide spread editing across a lot of articles based on search results can cause disruption, upset and offence to the editors maintaining those articles. Especially when actioned by proceeding through a list by rote.
Advertise your intent somewhere that is appropriate, either here or in an appropriate talk page. You may be mistaken in your actions, and a timely warning from someone might save you embarrassment. Your actions might be achievable in a simpler way, which would save time and effort. There may be notable exceptions to your assumptions which need to be addressed. All of these may be brought up in discussion before you act.
It's important that your actions meet the consensus view on how something should be handled. -- Barberio 20:46, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
I'd have more sympathy for your point of view if a) you didn't come across as more concerned about process then you are about the problem and b) you actually did your research. Telling Dmcedvit to stop deleting links when he hasn't been deleting any only goes to show that you started complaining without actually researching what was actually going on. Secondly, AWB isn't a bot. All of my deletions have involved my making a personal decision in each case and the only automation is that AWB has been sorting the list and helping me find the links quickly. The deletions have been discussed on EL. There is screeds of the stuff there and WP:C is also relevant because its a policy and trumps a guideline. There is no perfect place to discuss this kind of undertaking and I would of thought asking 1000 admins to review activity was a damn fine way of checking that said activity was within the bounds of accepted activity. Remember that policy is what happens, not just what gets written down. You were aware of that weren't you? Finally, the RFC acknowledges that there are a lot of copyvios that need to be removed and also endorses the need to consider links in context. Well, I have been doing that and I know J.smith has as well because we have discussed borderline cases. So, where is the activity outside consensus? Spartaz 00:00, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
To reiterate, the most important part is that projects of this sort should have consensus discussion and support before being acted on. These kinds of project are among the exceptions to 'Be Bold' because of their potential to disrupt.-- Barberio 00:24, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
External Links may not include links to copyright violations. This is policy. YouTube has lots of copyright violations. This is fact. Removal of YouTube links which link to copyright violations is not only allowable, but encouraged. User:Zoe| (talk) 03:38, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
So I found my userpage on some online prescription website, and now I know why I've seen the "This is a Wikipedia userpage. If you're seeing this on some other website..." template on some userpages. What's the name of that template? Xaxafrad 05:31, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
Oh look, I found it, {{Userpage}}. Xaxafrad 05:38, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
There is a big discussion going on about ninjas and pirates. the disscusion topic is "which is more popular, Pirates or Ninjas?". Everybody has a lot to say about this question so please say what you think and don't be afraid because you need to speak to be heard.
Gogoboi662 11:45, 25 October 2006 (UTC)Anthony Schade
Are they fighting on land or at sea? I'd go with ninjas if on land and pirates if they were fighting on different ships. If they were fighting on the same ship, I'd still go with pirates since they might be better in a melee and would be accustomed to fighting on a ship.
If it were cavemen versus astronauts, I'd go with cavemen as long as there were no weapons, or only primitive weapons like sticks. I think all of the hard work that the cavemen do would make them stronger and they'd probably have experience from fighting with other cavemen. -- Kjkolb 09:47, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
If a caveman took somthing from an astronaut, lets say... a laser sword(I'm so immature xD), I think you would run 'cause I don't think an astronaut would have any use for a wooden/bone club.-- Kar_the_Everburning 15:05, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
Ninjas pwn j00 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Laelius1031 ( talk • contribs) 22:32, 31 October 2006
ROBOTS ARE CLEARLY SUPERIOR — Omegatron 01:18, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
The answer is perfectly obvious: given that ninjas and pirates are both good, it surely follows that pirate ninjas (such as Chris) are better than either one. -- AJR | Talk 17:58, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
Pirates, DUH! A7X 900 21:35, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
Given that there are likely far more actual pirates than real ninjas in the world today, I'd say pirates are more popular, even though I personally find ninjas more interesting. But piracy a more popular occupation, judging by acquaintances I have who sail in tropical seas. I've met more people who have encountered real pirates than people who have encountered real ninjas. = Axlq 22:01, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
-- Vic226 03:41, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
Vic226 make's a great point. A7X 900 19:19, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
Dural: has everyone forgotten about pirate ninja mimes? they are the best thing imaginalbe! not only can they do everything pirates and ninjas can, they can also use invisible weapons, deflect anything with their glass boxes, and "fly" using invisible staircases! :poseted by Dural (who is currently NOT a member... but that will change within a week)
Kim Arhee: Now lets stay on task here- this is a popularity contest. The constant bickering over these two classic predatorial archetypes has emerged in recent years due to a combination of media campaigns. Notice how the two most popular Shonen Jump (tm) titles, One piece to piracy as Naruto is to Ninjitsu, and their relatively recent introduction to western popular culture. Admittedly One piece does conincide with the fanatical following of Pirates of the Carribean in a very timely fashion, but Ninja have been supremely popular with the youth of the past generation- Power Rangers, the 3 Ninjas franchise et al. Of course we could go into lots of petty disputes over the romanticizing of oriental assassination in various literary texts and how pirates dress not for practice,but how well the aparell catches the fellow sailors' amourous attention, however im sure we can come to an agreemnt on the "more important" facts like who Frank Sinatra referenced in an obscure song. Focus people, this is not a Johnny Depp character portrayal popularity contest, this is to decide which career is the best for toy companies to market as a fad for all 6 year old children in 1st world countries.
Hey everybody, please stick to my topic question because me and probably every one else are getting confused about what this discussion is really about. I would really appreciate it. Gogoboi662 19:32, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
I am a Pirate, trained in Ninjutsu. Gilgamesh Rex 23:29, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
Ninjas, arrrr. Samsara ( talk • contribs) 19:10, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
Anybody who has read Real Ultimate Power would know that Ninjas own everything. MadHistorian 00:47, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
Its always pirates this, pirates that, heres one: pirates drunk! A ninja would basically need to walk up to any comatose pirate and throw the away with the rest of the trash! It not just that I dont like drinking, its that pirates suck -Charlie34
God gave ninjas the power of flipping out and of being totally sweet. Pirates are just clumsy swashbuckling imitations who wouldn't know a good assassination if it sliced open their jugular or poisoned them in their sleep. -- Gwern (contribs) 04:12 22 December 2006 (GMT)
As amusing as pirates and ninjas are, the Village Pump is not for non-Wikipedia-related discussions. If you wish to converse on this matter, please discuss it on a forum website. -- Gray Porpoise Your wish is my command! 16:38, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
Good point Porpoise. Is there a Wikipedia page dealing with the pirate/ninja controversy? We are obviously in need of some solid facts to help us make this decision. TimVickers 20:09, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
Pirates versus Ninjas -- Gray Porpoise Your wish is my command! 02:43, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
What are these negative and positive red/green numbers that now appear next to edits on my watch page?-- Deglr6328 06:33, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
I typed "pokemon red" in the search box and hit Enter. It took me to an article with a disgusting, perhaps pornographic, image, causing me to immediately click it off. I typed "pokemon red" again, and it was a nice, clean redirect to a nice, clean Pokémon Red and Blue article. I checked the revision histories of the redirect page and the article, but could not find evidence of such vandalism. -- Gray Porpoise Your wish is my command! 03:03, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
I've raised some concerns there about having an automated script do deletions. Trying to keep it short:
My strong feeling is that this is a direction that the community is unwilling to go, that there is neither enough volume of work nor anything emergency-like enough to warrant short-cutting discussion, and that there is a gap between what's going on in bot-land and the zeitgeist.
brenneman
23:58, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
I confess to not understanding the process, and so I miss the point of half of the procedural objection. But the bot currently seems to be doing a good job in a thankless area, there have been no foul-ups or substantive objections. So, all kudos to Cyde, and endorse what he's doing.-- Docg 01:49, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Since this is run by Cyde on his own account (which makes him and his account fully responsible for the bot's actions), it's probably alright, although I would prefer direct supervision. I would suggest that the edit summaries be upgraded with links to appropriate CFD discussions, so that the people unfamiliar with the bot can check that it's doing the right things. Zocky | picture popups 02:01, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
I have no objection to this bot activity, which obviously has gone smoothly and should continue. I do, however, object to Cyde's dismissive response ("Nothing new to see here, move along now." "Please go back to writing articles or somesuch.") and I applaud Aaron's perseverance and eagerness to seek community input on this matter. — David Levy 03:57, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Just to be exactly clear, here's how CFD worked before Cydebot: The bot moves a bunch of pages from category A to category B, then an admin has to come in and delete the old category A. Here's how CFD works with Cydebot: The bot moves a bunch of pages from category A to category B, and then deletes category A. Note that at no point in time is the bot ever deciding what category A and B are; it's going strictly by what trusted users at the consensus-driven CFD process are determining. I simply made the task slightly more automated by having the bot handle the category deletions as well as moving the category text on the pages. -- Cyde Weys 04:03, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
If the Approvals group doesn't care, I don't see why we should. -- Gwern (contribs) 04:11 22 December 2006 (GMT)
Has anyone volunteered to delete these thousands of category pages manually? If so, why should they spend time on that instead of work on the things in the huge Category:Administrative backlog? — Centrx→ talk • 07:57, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
I like it. If it means less dirty work for us that no one's willing to do anyway, I say go for it. — P ilotguy ( ptt) 14:48, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
CFD closure has been handled by 'bots for a long time now — a lot longer than six months. From looking at the logs of Cydebot ( talk · contribs) and Cyde ( talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA), it appears that the only difference now appears to be that rather than an administrator manually deleting the category page after the category has been depopulated by a 'bot, the 'bot is also performing the deletion, via an account with administrator privileges, as well. Having 'bots use administrator accounts is not something to be taken lightly. But there is a difference between a semi-automatic tool where one manually feeds a name to the tool and pulls its trigger, and it does the grunt work involving lots of edits, and a fully automatic tool that pulls its own trigger when it detects certain content or edits. The latter having administrator privileges is more of a concern than the former. Unless someone has come up with an artificial intelligence capable of reading and parsing CFD discussions and applying consensus and our policies and guidelines to make the decision (and simply forgotten to tell the world of this astounding advance in the state of the art in computer science), any CFD 'bot will, of necessity, be of the semi-automatic kind. Uncle G 17:53, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
I support use of this automation in this way. Thank you, Brenneman for keeping us honest, and thank you Cyde, for shepherding this automation so we can concentrate on tasks that need human input far more than this one does. If there are issues, revisit but for now, carry on. ++ Lar: t/ c 21:44, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Hello,
Please, I want to read the tale of "Brigadoon" ( in English because in French there's is nothing ). Some people told that's a german tale ( about a Scottish village ? ) ?
Thanks for all your answers ( name of a book of tales... ) and will you forgive my «very strong accent» whem I'm trying to write in English. --
Arcane17
13:14, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
I think the area for "Edit Summary" should have a larger capacity. I think it is unrealistic to expect people to say all they want to say about why they are making the changes they are making, especially as concerns the reverts of someone else's writing. The Talk page is a good thing, but it is too far away to allow for the immediate explanation that is called for. I think the "Edit Summary" should be further divided into a "brief" section and a slightly "extended" section. The "extended" section should still be very limited. But it should allow several times the length of writing that the present "Edit Summary" allows for. I think this would allow people to appear to be acting in a more humane way towards one another. Presently, it is very common for reverts to engender bad feelings. It is almost impossible to try to smooth over the almost inevitable bad feelings that tend to result from reverts. Bus stop 20:43, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
OK. I will check that out. Thank you. Bus stop 02:48, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
That sounds super cool. I'll have to check that out. But it should be available to everyone, IMHO. Bus stop 02:48, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Are you kidding me? After reading about zh being biased (and it not being true), I decided to check out Arabic Wikipedia. The first page I pulled up on google's translated version was terrorism: [6]. I encourage you to read it, but for those of you who don't have the time, here is its contents:
I checked out some others, and Quran and Zionism didn't appear so bad, though the translation was sometimes poor, and it was hard to tell. Just thought I ought to bring this up here. - Patstuart talk| edits 16:59, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
I could not resist but to create an userbox celebrating ME being the {{User Person of the Year 2006}}. Although, I think I may have to share the award with some others ;) -- Chris 73 | Talk 14:17, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
Hi, My name is Raphael and I'm the co-founder of the project "Subdivisões do Brasil" (Brazilian subdivisions) in the Portuguese Wikipedia and the author of more than 5.000 Brazilian location maps (states, municipalities, mesoregions and also microregions). I would like to know why the Brazilian states aticles don't have a higher priority than their respective capitals. Sorry but my capacity to write in English is very limited. What I'm trying to say is: Rio de Janeiro concerns the City of Rio de Janeiro and Rio de Janeiro (state) the state. The same occours with São Paulo (city) and São Paulo (state). I really don't understand why this is the convention and why the states of the USA are different. e.g. New York for the state and New York City for the city / Washington for the state and Washington, D.C. for the city.
Can I move the Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo related articles to names like the states of the USA?
Thank you all,
Raphael.lorenzeto 09:28, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
This principle of least surprise doesn't apply to Washington and New York? When someone types "Washington" or "New York", they aren't expecting to get the U.S. capital and the big apple? I noticed that exists only two exceptions for naming conventions of brazilian settlements (check talk): "Rio de Janeiro" and "São Paulo". The principle of least surprise applies only to these two cities? ... and, I'm not familiar with the methods of this wiki. Is difficult to ask an admin to make the move?. Raphael.lorenzeto 15:41, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
I have to do an outline, and I am not to sure what is meant by sub-details in reference to supporting details. Can someone please explain this to me. I would greatly appreciate it. Thankyou
I would like to know who deleted the Lumpy the Cook article and why they did it. And I would also like to know if I can recreate the page. A7X 900 02:11, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
Alright, thank you very much... A7X 900 17:21, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
Okay. So, I was looking at the United States of America page and I looked it up in another language. The page in Inuktitut is an obvious WP:AFD. It was created for the sole purpose of demeaning America. The link is [10] but you may not be able to read it. But, the point is, I can't delete it as I am not a user in that language.... nor do they have an AFD page! Any ideas? I doubt they even have an admin I could talk to. It isn't a high trafic page (let alone language, only 70 articles total), but I still don't believe that that should exist. Any suggestions. -Hairchrm 02:43, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
No. It just says " amialika
America, particularly the United States. Contains ᐊᓛᓯᑲ."
And anyone can guess what the last four characters are. Actually, the whole language is silly. It ought to be off the page, as most of the pages are in english, anyways. -Hairchrm 02:54, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
The ᐊᓛᓯᑲ is Alaska. Follow the link, you'll see. -- WikiSlasher 03:56, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
Well, thats great and all, but I'm not able to download the font on school computers. So... anybody else know what it says? The whole language is lacking in many articles. There was a link to the equivilant of our WP:AFD page, but the page was empty. Many of the pages are in English, so I don't even know why they created this language. Any other suggestions? -Hairchrm 20:14, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
What do the numbers in RC mean?? (I'm not wishing for them to go away, I'm just curious.) Georgia guy 23:15, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
When I saw an eBay listing used as a reference in the Hollywood Sign article, I wondered how ofter eBay was being linked to from the Wikipedia. I found 851 links (see [12]). Many of them look like they might be legitimate (used as references in discussions on talk pages, etc.), but in the half-dozen that I looked at, I found one legitimate spam (a link to someone's now ended auction). I don't think that eBay should be added to the spam blacklist, but these links probably should be checked. I'm posting here because I couldn't find a better place to post my concerns. Blank Verse 20:56, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
I saw this brief notice in my local paper:
After a short chuckle, I was compelled to see whether Wikipedia had an article about this guy. After finding his name (Geraint Benney, if you're curious), I only found 2 mentions about his unsuccessful Plaid Cymru candidacy for Parliament. There reasonable verification for the death threats, although one person commenting about this article claims that this is a publicity stunt. So is this guy notable enough to deserve an article on Wikipedia -- even if it turns out that he isn't the only Welsh-speaking Elvis impersonator & the death threats never happened? (I personally feel that if we have an article on Paris Hilton, this guy ought to be a shoo-in, but I won't create the article; I'm more inclined to use it as a convincing reason to AfD Paris Hilton.) -- llywrch 20:41, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/12/358569.html
Someone has already posted something under that article on indymedia to point out to its author that anyone can post to wikipedia, just as they can do in indymedia.
It is regrettable that the author of the article could not resolve his/her disputes within wikipedia, and had to accuse wikipedia of lying.
I think we need to at least keep a note of accusations of lying by wikipedia. I hope this is the correct place for this. Maybe further action needs to be taken against the author of the article. I am not a lawyer, but some of this could be taken as libel against wikipedia. -- Publunch 19:43, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
I don't think that I asked this before, but if I did on another page, I dont rememeber that I did. Anyway, are only administrators allowed to block users or can anyone put the test 5 template on a page? Thanks. Ilikefood 21:18, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
Can be found here [ [13]] in case anyone is wondering. Cryptonymius 17:04, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
I know this is not the right place to talk about this, but that is precisely the point. The banner ONLY links to non-editable content, there is no talk page associated with it at all. I totally understand that there has to be significant locked content there, because you can't just lie about money; but this is a Wiki, there should be one clear place to discuss something with such prominent placing (which could have a bot-protected template saying "This is an open discussion and views expressed here are not etc."). On the one hand, it's an issue of identity and education; on the other hand, it's a practical issue: how can they have an "FAQ" without a chance to submit questions? For instance, the obvious question "what is the fundraising goal?" (A: 1.5 million dollars, right?) is not in the FAQ... anyone reading this, feel free to redirect this criticism to the best place, but the point is that there's plenty of people who can't find that best place and that will be true until the banner has some first- or second- order link to get there. (For instance, the FAQ could have a "further discussion" question that links back to the various language wikipedias.)-- 201.216.139.116 13:34, 16 December 2006 (UTC) Moved from Wikipedia talk:Village pump (news) ~ ONUnicorn( Talk| Contribs) 15:56, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
I joined and started actively editing a few months ago and in general I enjoy wikipedia very much. However, much moreso than vandalism or policy disputes, I find the most frustrating thing about this site to be other editors, good editors, valuable editors, who nonetheless operate in such flagrant disregard of WP:DICK that I feel like I am up against an army of Comic Book Guys. It is actually discouraging me from editing whole categories of articles, participating in certain debates, or posting on particular user and article talk pages. Does anyone have any general advice about dealing with this? Do you have any secret tricks or breathing exercises you'd like to impart before I just wash my hands of the place? (I signed out before I posted.) -- 67.85.183.103 21:00, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
I guess WP:DICK and Don't_be_a_dick [ [14]] are supposed to be funny, but it seems to me that once you start tossing around words like dick and idiot (even within a policy framework) you might as well give up any hope of having a productive discussion because you're really just inviting an arguement, and the reality appears to be that a great many people have difficulty accepting the possibility that they may be wrong, misinformed, or misconstruing the case at hand, so if you can't take a step back and ask a civil question, and consider the answer you get, and weigh it judiciously, you may as resign yourself to having one arguement after another. Cryptonymius 02:16, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
I was working on an editing project in the sandbox and when I posted it to the sandbox I got a notice that I was attempting to post on the main Wikipedia page. What was this and how did it happen? Is there some sort of a problem here with posts sometimes going astray? Trilobitealive 04:31, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
I don't where any other discussion on this is but you know the "You can give the gift of knowledge by donating to Wikipedia!" thing at the top with the meter and $ amount, I was wondering what the number is supposed to be when the bar is full. -- WikiSlasher 14:29, 17 December 2006 (UTC)