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I have been editing Wikipedia since February. Soon I realized a lot of articles were about topics such as next-door neighbours and aunt's kittens. I began searching for questionable contents... In the last weeks I found that fame and popularity implying notability, which clearly is not the spirit of WP:N. I quit editting for a couple of weeks, first arguing a travel and then arguing exams (which were true). I'm not for either discussing policies or how should they be applied; what I'm asking for is a bit of emotional support... I'm sad I had to appeal here and I would like to stay active, but I will not be able if I'm convinced that editing Wikipedia is a waste of time, because nobody cares about non-popular notable facts. Thank you. Rjgodoy 23:13, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
Thank you very much for your responses =). I'll think about improving some articles and I'll try not to worry so much about trivial activities. Rjgodoy 22:21, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_Gun_Kelly
Upon the bottom of the page is comment about George Machine Gun Kelly's brutal killings.
As far as I could determine upon researching Kelly's life, while he might have been a bad person, he had not killed in the commission of crimes (or otherwise).
http://www.fbi.gov/libref/historic/famcases/kelly/kelly.htm http://www.alcatrazhistory.com/mgk.htm
I am not attempting to "rewrite" history, but as a degree holding historian with an interest historic crimes, and the gangster era I think that the comment is incorrect and is an attempt to make the article reflective of the commonly held beliefs about Kelly rather than the historical person. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.243.165.159 ( talk)
Why do people mark large additions to discussions as minor? Simply south 21:10, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
Surely everyone's seen an article by the name "Criticism of X...". I was just reading Criticism of Windows Vista, for instance. That got me wondering, would it be out of line to make an article called "Support of X..."? It seems only right that if we have criticism articles, we should have support articles. — Preceding unsigned comment added by .V. ( talk • contribs) 23:07, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
The internet is still a fairly recent phenomenon. Whereas communities and groups enjoyed thorough research, theories and knowledge about virtual communities are relatively limited. I am busy with researching how virtual communities communicate, interact and exchange knowledge and information. Most importantly, I am interested in the relation between virtual communities and knowledge creation, especially the correcting mechanism of Wikipedia-the users.
As Wikipedia is one of the biggest and most popular virtual communities, and as it is focused on knowledge creation and knowledge exchange is it perfect to contribute to this research.
I can get lots of data and information from the site it self. But in this context, people are crucial. Crucial for understanding the motivators and visions which are necessary to have a website as successful as Wikipedia.
I am therefore looking for people who are active on Wikipedia who would find it interesting to give interviews. These interviews are necessary to complete this research successfully. Obviously you will be able to express your own opinion and illustrate Wikipedia as you see it.
Just put your name on my user page or send me a message,
thanks NeniPogarcic 13:50, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
Dokdo - See WP:RM(May 21) poll at Talk:Dokdo#Requested Move May 2007. Candidates for a new article name are Liancourt Rocks, Takeshima, Takeshima/Dokdo, and Dokdo/Takeshima. We are trying to "get as many disinterested editors as possible to express an opinion" there. 12:46, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
I just want to say thank you to the creaters and users of wikipedia. This is a great site and has the usefull information I need to get things done. I wish I could make a donation, but I don't have paypal or anything. HAHA!
Thanks a bunch guys. This is helping me out with my English exam very much.
05:25, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
I guess someone has been using too much Wikipedia. Quoted from a current eBay listing:
This week I am listing a 1/2 year of Civil War Newspapers that are very similiar to the Harper's Weekly which I have sold in the past..They are the Illustrated London News and have many stories on the war in America along with prints from England and U.S. as well.They average 22 pages in length(Harper's have 16)...Condition is very good..These are originals!!!....This issue is excellent~~~~
Foreign and Colonial News: America. - Article - February 21, 1863 - (31 paragraphs)
Major-General J.E.B. Stuart, Commanding Cavalry of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. - illustration - February 21, 1863 - (1 paragraph)
Major-General J.E.B. Stuart, Commanding Cavalry of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia.
Some people will just never forget to sign, even if they are not on Wiki! Chris Buttigieg talk 16:04, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Hi! I just uploaded those... they are photos of the army parade in Rome held last saturday, including some shot of military and peacekeeping vehicles, units and corps from all the world (especially Italy, of course).
We need help in categorizing them, adding info about weapons snown, descriptions and so. Since en.wiki is full of weapon-lovin' redn.. has some *very nice* projects about army and weapons :-D i am calling for your help.
If you happen to have some spare time, you could take a look, at last year ones, too... -- Jollyroger 15:54, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
User:Georgia guy for some unknown reason has started stalking me. Can you all please tell him that doing such is inappropriate. I think stalkers should immediately be blocked. Astroguy2 23:58, 4 June 2007 (UTC) Georgia Guy is also calling adding an alterative name to an article vandalism. He clearly doesn't know what vandalism means. Vandalism is adding meaningless content to an article. Alternative names are not meaningless. Astroguy2 00:01, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
BetacommandBot - Can one bot that cause so much angst really be doing the right thing? Should it be allowed as much latitude as it has? -- evrik ( talk) 17:35, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
It is a terrible idea, completely hated by anyone who is practically trying to expand or create new pages in wiki, defended only by hardcore wiki beaureucrats. Very pointless bot. Reaper7 18:10, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
In the sentence, in what articles are you claiming fair use in -- Who is you? There's no you on Wikipedia, per WP:OWN. And in fact, it shouldn't make a different who claims fair use; something is either being fairly used, or it isn't. There are 10 whole criteria dedicated to determining whether or not something objectively is fair use. Are you suggesting that every piece of copyrighted material on Wikipedia needs a Wikipedian to sponsor it? If so, you'd better have a ton of people standing by, or have the Betacommandbot fired up to start pulling all of the copyrighted material OTHER than images, which form the basis for a ton of entries on this project. Every description of a novel, every description/depiction of a copyrighted work of art, every discussion of a song lyric, every place copyrighted material is incorporated into Wikipedia -- for all this, you want individual editors to make the claim? It's preposterous, not needed, and certainly not called for by current Wikipedia policy. Jenolen speak it! 20:28, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
Err, I really don't think wikipedia has or wants to spend the money to defend itself in court over a non-free image, especially when we can be providing correct rationales to start with. This is an unconvincing argument for a couple of reasons. One, Wikipedia has NEVER been subject to any legal jeopardy on the basis of improper fair use of copyrighted material, because, two, Wikipeida's fair use policies are WAY more strict than the law requires. Please remember when dealing with these issues: The law is RARELY a concern for us in these types of questions, because the law permits a much wider latitude of uses! What's up for debate here is Wikipedia's own self-limiting policy, part of its continuing valuation of free content over encyclopedic content. Eagle - you know, from a practical standpoint, there can never be a libre/free version of, say, a Beatles album cover. Album covers are always going to be non-free, but we'd be perfectly protected, and morally "pure" to our principles, if we'd simply add a boilerplate fair use rationale to album covers and logos. It's hard for me to believe that all this is about legally protecting Wikipedia, since there's really no threat. The law would let us go much, much further. Jenolen speak it! 21:30, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
Eagle, the whole point about cover-art image thumbnails specifically on article pages on that particular album is that then we can produce a standard text, because there is a standard rationale that is sufficient in these cases.
Therefore, it makes sense to have a standard piece of text, applicable to any album cover thumbnail, to express this. Jheald 21:46, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
I don't mean to jump into the middle of a-b discussion, but...if you admit that all albums pass the 10 criterions, what's the difference between saying in each one "this image does this...blah blah blah(1) this image does this...blah blah blah (2)" and going down the criterons, on EVERY single album artwork image, and doing the same thing, and having a boilerplate template? That's what i don't get in this whole controversy. If anyone can explain that, then just do. Violask81976 22:20, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
Durin, those would be T-shirts containing an encyclopaedia's worth of album reviews would they? Please. Of course there can be boilerplate text to explain a fair-use rationale, if there is a sufficient rationale that is precisely them same in every case.
On your second point, why is it leading us over the cliff to accept fair-use album thumbnails? Rolling Stone magazine does exactly that in their List of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. Why do you want to hobble Wikipedia not to be able to do likewise? Jheald 22:24, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
@Durin: ways in which a cover art image will significantly contribute to an article are actually explicitly set out at WP:FURG#Necessary components. I assume you have actually read these policies? It actually suggests as potential significance rationales: "Is the image a logo, photograph, or box art for the main subject of the article? Is the image the primary means of visual identification of the subject or topic? (eg, a corporate logo, DVD box art)"
@Nick: as I set out at the top, different standards apply when use of an image is complementary to a normal exploitation of it, compared to when use of the image is substitutive. Use of a cover art thumbnail in an article on an album, because it is likely to be complementary, is a different case to other use of a copyright photograph, which is likely to be substitutive. To establish transformative use in the first case, it is sufficient that the article is presenting a critical review of the album. On the other hand, to establish transformative use of the image in the latter case is a lot harder, and this latter case is when a discussion of some feature or detail of the image must be of crucial inescapable relevance to the writing of the article. The two cases are different. Jheald 01:05, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
@Durin(2): re freedom: the relevant goals here that the Foundation has expressed are to create an encyclopedia; and to encourage free content. The second aim is relevant in all sorts of cases where the Foundation rejects non-free content because it is replaceable with free content. But it is not relevant here, because you can't replace an album cover with your own newly created image. Jheald 01:13, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
Just to let you know, check the non-free album cover template, there is a discussion to add a hardcoded fair use rationale there for all albums. -- ReyBrujo 01:53, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
Durin: Are you saying that an image of an album cover may not be used in an article about that album unless the cover itself is special in some way and the article discusses the cover itself? So you mean that most articles about albums should not show an image of the cover? -- Apoc2400 07:10, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
I wish to voice my disappoval of BetacommandBot. It tagged every page using Image:Coast guard flag.gif as lacking a fair-use rationale. The problem is the file is public domain, since it is a symbol created by the U.S. federal government. Even more of a problem is that the image is used in the Coast Guard Stub template, so over 100 articles had the fair-use rationale needed template added to the talk page. Several people have left messages on the bot and user page, but there has been no response or acknowledgement of mistake, and no effort to correct it. To me this is acting in bad faith. Especially since the bot users continue to criticize the efforts of others before correcting their own mistakes. -- Pesco 02:28, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
Betacommandbot left a message on my talk page about an image I uploaded, Image:National_Front.gif. This image is a replica of a political campaign poster, which makes it a clear cut example of a legitimate fair use image, and had already been noted and categorized as such. It appears in the National Front (France) article where, with an accompanying translation, it serves as an example of that party's anti-immigrant platform and demonstrates the controversial nature of that party's position, which notable and reliably sourced observers have contended is religiously biased and racist.
A picture is worth a thousand words, but recovery of legitimate and encyclopedic images such as this one can take a thousand keystrokes once they get deleted. Copyright violation is a significant and ongoing problem at this site and I support the editors who address the matter. If this bot did a good job identifying frivolous and decorative image use I would support it, but too much collateral damage is happening here. So many complaints have accumulated at Betacommand's talk page that one user actually issued a block warning.
Let's not get as heated as that, but clearly this bot needs to be taken out of service for a while and tweaked so that it doesn't damage useful and encyclopedic content. Durova Charge! 19:01, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
I agree - this bot is extremely disruptive. Many of the images have the Fair Use rational given in the licensing tag itself. License violations can be addressed through the normal process. This nit picky stuff can be address through the improvement process GA & FA. There are no easily identified examples for adding the rational for each type of image. This needs better organization to make this extremely simple for the everyday editor. Heck.. I've been here for 2 years and have read all of these policies and I'm still confused on what is needed. Morphh (talk) 13:47, 06 June 2007 (UTC)
I just wanted to comment that I also support the disabling of this bot. I've already posted my concerns over this bots actions on a high level, not even talking about a specific example on the talk page, and have gotten no response for the bot's author, just other editors who quote policy to justify the bots actions. It makes me wonder what the real purpose of this bot is, it is just an playground for the bots author to see what can be done and the prove a point, or is it a genuine attempt on helping the project? Based on the (lack of) response from the author, it's been impossible for me to assume good faith. // laughing man 14:54, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the fair-use rationales used for the images in the gallery at Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde#Album singles just a boilerplate copy of the rationale used for the main fair-use album cover image in that article? Carcharoth 17:05, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Fair use is a legal doctrine that may be used as a defence against a claim of copyright infringement. Technically speaking, until you've actually been to court and successfully invoked your claim of fair use to defend against such a suit, you're using the work illegally. In practice it's often possible to reasonably anticipate where a claim of fair use will be successful, typically by analogy with cases in which the defence has been successfully raised, and as such, the use is commonly regarded as "kosher", as it were, while still technically being illegal.
This reality raises a couple of issues. Since fair use is a defence, it's necessary to be able to explain on what basis your use falls within that defence. Since the defence applies only to particular uses of a work, you need to be able to make such an explanation for all of your uses of the work. And since claims fall into the "kosher" category by being based on solid analogies with existing cases in which the defence has been successfully raised, you need to explain the analogy you have employed, by reference to the specific fair use factors that apply to the particular work and the particular use in question.
There is no boilerplate fair use claim to be used against copyright infringement, just as there is no boilerplate claim for, say, self-defense in a murder trial, or for an estoppel claim in a breach of contract suit. Fair use claims may be very similar to each other, but that only reflects that the particular analogy being employed is strong (or at least popularly thought to be strong).
Executive summary: since fair use is a legal defence, you need to explain how it applies in every case, and this means there can be no boilerplate claims. -- bainer ( talk) 15:28, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedian bainer wrote: Technically speaking, until you've actually been to court and successfully invoked your claim of fair use to defend against such a suit, you're using the work illegally.
For a perhaps more studied view, let's turn to copyright expert and Creative Commons creator Lawrence Lessig, who wrote: Federal Law allows citizens to reproduce, distribute, or exhibit portions of copyrighted motion pictures, video tapes, or video discs under certain circumstances without the authorization of the copyright holder. This infringement of copyright is called âFair Useâ and is allowed for purposes of criticism, news reporting, teaching and parody.
I'm not sure the fair use of a copyrighted work should be considered "illegal until invoked" -- but fair use is most certainly NOT illegal. And since all of the fair use on Wikipedia is, by design, several orders more strict that what is required by law, I'm gonna' go ahead and say what we've all known all along -- Wikipedia does not have a LEGAL problem when it comes to fair use; this is purely a philosophical problem about internal Wikipedia policies and free/libre purity.
Something to keep in mind... Jenolen speak it! 18:57, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Is it common practice for admins to ban those who disagree with them in irc?
<Blargh> <schiste> any media is a "plus" but should NEVER be the main source <Blargh> <Blargh> what <Blargh> <Blargh> lol <Blargh> <Blargh> what should be the main source <Blargh> <Becca> schiste: that's piffle. <Becca> the media is the only good source on many things. <Blargh> what other source <Blargh> is there <Blargh> besides the media <Blargh> people? * Becca sets ban on Blargh!*@* * Becca sets mode +s #wikipedia * #wikipedia :Cannot send to channel <schiste> official bio, official websites, serious magazine ect... <Sean_William> 0.o * Zscout370 claps <Ryulong> ha ha oh wow <Sean_William> That was fun. <schiste> What the hell ? <Sean_William> Memes are not notable. END OF STORY.
I find this highly unprofessional. I was under the impression that civil discussion was tolerated without being banned for disagreeing. -- BlarghHgralb 06:46, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Posting of irc logs is not acceptable. And may violate the terms of service of the IRC channel provider. Corvus cornix 22:48, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Suggesting an new booktitle for the computer science field (or other more fitting fields):
Amos, Martyn; GENESIS MACHINES - The new science of Biocomputing (c) Martyn Amos, 2006; EDITION: Atlantic Books, London ISBN-13/CIP 978-1-84354224-7
Amos is PhD in DNA computing amd a Senior Lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University and has, with this book created an easy reader for computer history in general, diving for the most of it ito the field of DNA computing (from the Schön-Affair to nowadays).
As it retrieves a pile of journalistic and researcher utterances (bibliography, websources, press releses) it gives a broad access to this field - and by the way - even for me as a Swiss, in very understandable English.
I just wanted to inform you, as I have no access to introduce it in the article itself. For an up-to-date-wiki.
Thanks a lot and many many greetings form Zurich.
Christoph Kujawa — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.75.156.167 ( talk • contribs) 06:08, 4 June 2007
A new task force as part of WikiProject Radio and WikiProject Radio Stations has been started by myself. The UK Radio task force covers UK radio in general, radio shows, the UK radio industry, the radio history in the UK as well as all the stations which broadcast in the UK. What the task force will hopefully be primarily focused on is improving the main articles (including ones not currently on Wikipedia but are of great importance) for UK Radio, of which all but one are currently stubs, which isn't particularly representative of the UK's major contribution and influence to radio broadcasting. Please feel free to join and help improve UK radio station articles on Wikipedia! -- tgheretford ( talk) 14:43, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
I recently created an article on the MOOREHEAD CIRCLE. It is listed as being on MY WATCHLIST, yet the edits (creation and one susequent edit by some-one else) do not appear on MY WATCHLIST per se. 10:52, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
In response to some concerns by some in the community raised in my recent RfA about my actions during a conflict over the Gary Weiss article, I've submitted an RfC on myself here. I welcome any comments or questions from the community in the RfC. CLA 09:19, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
I have recently written an essay on sockpuppetry inspired by discussion at the village pump about legitimate uses of puppets. See it at User:Cool3/Puppets. Cool3 22:09, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
2006 Wikipedia CD Selection wikipediaondvd.com I'm curious which articles they chose and I can't find where a list of it is. SakotGrimshine 14:55, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
⦠is it possible to remove all links to Minor actors and actresses in Harry Potter, which was just deleted by an AfD? I have a Mac and thus am unable to do so myself. Thanks, Fbv 65 e del / ât / âc || 22:51, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
I don't know if this is the right place to bring this up, but I was wondering if it would be alright if I could make an alternate account to make misc edits to my user page. In the past, editing my user page and subpages was a habit of mine and now I try to edit my user pages as little as often, even resorting to using my IP every so often as not to increase the number of edits I've made to them any higher (I've made about 950 edits to user pages, although not all were to my own). Would it be acceptable if I used an alternate account to help me make such edits? Is the number of user space edits I make even something I should worry about? // DecaimientoPoético 21:09, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
The thing is, why would you want to lower your user page edits? As long as the edits are legitimate, there is nothing to fear about editing. Be bold. If you must use a alternate account, its user page should state so, so people will not assume that you have something to hide.-- Kylohk 17:21, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
I don't recommend editing your userpage from an IP address. When looking at Special:Recentchanges, anon edits to userpages look suspiciously like vandalism and such edits could be reverted. Same with an alternative account editing your user page. It's no problem editing your userpage with your regular account. -- Aude ( talk) 17:25, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
Wow, this got a lot more attention than I expected. I was planning on commenting and ending this earlier, but now I'm glad I didn't. And to answer Nil's question, I used to be addicted to editing my user page and my subpages (as I said above) but now I avoid it whenever possible. Well, I now see that making an alternate account would be rather silly and pointless, so thank you, everybody, for talking me out of it, even if not intentionally. Happy editing, everyone, and good luck to me (and every other admin hopeful out there) if and when the time for my RfA comes along! :) // DecaimientoPoético 02:04, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
I wrote to a DoD spokesman, to try to get to the bottom of the DoD's claims that Guantanamo captives "returned to the battlefield". Up until a couple of weeks ago DoD and Bush Presidency spokesmen, including the VPOTUS, claimed there were dozens of Guantanamo captives who "returned to the battlefield". But they had only revealed three names. And when the DoD was forced, by court order, to release the names of all the captives, the three names Cheney et al claimed weren't on the official list.
On May 14th DoD spokesmen revealed six names, in Congressional testimony, the first three who were missing from the official list, and three other guys. Only one of these six names was on the official list.
So, I wrote this DoD spokesman, pointed out to him that the names he cited were missing from the official list, and suggested the DoD update the list.
Here is his first reply:
- "Thanks for the opportunity to comment. I do appreciate it. Many folks in cyberspace don't give us that chance, so I am pleased that you are making efforts to get the story right.
- "I'll have to get back to you shortly with an official response.
- "Best regards,"
But after looking into it, his last reply was:
"As you do not represent any legitimate media, since Wikipedia is a strictly volunteer organization which is forbidden by academic institutions to be cited as a reference for term papers, etc., I must ask you to please refer all further questions to DoD Public Inquiries."
So, how large is the fraction of academic institutions that forbid students from citing wikipedia articles in their term papers?
In his defense, he did release the ID numbers of the six captives from the thirty the DoD claims "returned to the battlefield". But, since he did it in an email, not on the DoD's web-site, it doesn't satisfy WP:VER.
Cheers! Geo Swan 13:56, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
The idea that academic institutions forbid citations from WikiPedia is a bit misleading - most professors reject any encyclopedia as a source because the role of an encyclopedia is to summarize information on a topic and be a starting point for research. So all academic papers need citations to original documents. I realize that some of the academics have made the "rule" (especially high school teachers) based on the perception that Wiki articles are unreliable, and that WikiPedia needs to get the word out that it is in fact a reliable source of general information (see the recent Chicago Tribune article), but the impact of forbidding citations is overblown. The fact is that WikiPedia is the best, and often the only, internet source for important topics that are either not popular enough to make it into commercial publications, or are given cursory treatment when they do.
A brief comment by someone who might be considered by others as an expert in at least one field, and an advanced amateur in a few others. Critics of WikiPedia miss the point, just as supporters often do. There is no other source of free information, mediocre or stellar, available to the general public. Before WikiPedia many tried to provide compilations of scholarly articles to the general public, written by the scholars themselves. These were eventually doomed by the pressure to publish or parish in peer reviewed (subscription) publications, the human trait of procrastination, the desire to be paid for our work, elitists, popularists railing against scholars, fear of marginalization by other scholars if work was included in populist forums, fear of loss of control, copyright laws in general, vandals, etc. Admittedly, these same considerations of human nature plague contributions to WikiPedias.
Nonetheless, WikiPedia represents a source where the wild west of the internet may not be tamed, but it is open to public view and "correction" by a dedicated group of people who are willing to abandon personal gain for the good of humankind. If scholars were willing to do the same all books would be freely available on the net and we would have an Encyclopedia Britannica for the masses, but they simply are not. In most cases scholarly materials are not available without fees ranging from $5 to $75+ per article.
Those who criticise WikiPedia as lacking in substance miss the point. They are the ones who created the need for WikiPedia by their refusal to timely contribute to earlier efforts. WikiPedia is imperfect, to say the least, yet it is the only source of "reviewed" information available to the general public. The choice is not between an Encyclopedia Britannica or WikiPedia. Were it not for WikiPedia, the choice would be between subscription journals and a free for all conglomeration of websites, each with an agenda on their particular topic.— Preceding unsigned comment added by PSSnyder ( talk • contribs)
I think we have developed a culture where "good" wikipedians do not edit controversial articles. Several processes such as RFA discourages controversy involvement.
I have been trying to gather community attention to a number of somewhat controversial issues for a few months now. Practically everyone declined to get involved even if they commented that they agreed/disagreed with me.
What do you guys/gals think about this?
-- Cat chi? 12:51, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
In a typical life cycle of a controversial article, there are often content disputes that go out of hand, with edit wars and all that. I've seen the Joseph Stalin article being the subject of a dispute that one side was blocked by ArbCom. Hence in the end, one side often suffers in controversial articles. And hence many people steer away from them.-- Kylohk 17:30, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
A big part of the problem is people involved in the controversies using Wikipedia to try to influence public opinion. I don't know if anything can be done, however. Steve Dufour 03:45, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
It's a shame, because the controversial articles are the ones where the best editors' skills are sorely needed. The talk pages to the
Islam articles are a nightmare to wade through with all the wailing and gnashing of teeth, and the
Scientology articles are routinely dominated by the same ten edit-warring people over and over again (including myself). Some fresh voices and new blood are needed.
wikipediatrix
16:50, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
User:Georgia guy for some unknown reason has started stalking me. Can you all please tell him that doing such is inappropriate. I think stalkers should immediately be blocked. Astroguy2 23:58, 4 June 2007 (UTC) Georgia Guy is also calling adding an alterative name to an article vandalism. He clearly doesn't know what vandalism means. Vandalism is adding meaningless content to an article. Alternative names are not meaningless. Astroguy2 00:01, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
I've been wanting to make an article on peter answers but the thing says it's protected, so someones making the article, but its been worked on for like, 1 - 1½ months, and the subject isn't all that hard to discribe or write down, it shoudn't be this long for the article to be made, can't something be done?
A new user, User:Astroguy2, created a Billion pool so quickly. Please watch over all of this user's edits and check to see if this user is a sockpuppet of an already-blocked Wikipedian. Georgia guy 23:16, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
Is it common practice for admins to ban those who disagree with them in irc?
<Blargh> <schiste> any media is a "plus" but should NEVER be the main source <Blargh> <Blargh> what <Blargh> <Blargh> lol <Blargh> <Blargh> what should be the main source <Blargh> <Becca> schiste: that's piffle. <Becca> the media is the only good source on many things. <Blargh> what other source <Blargh> is there <Blargh> besides the media <Blargh> people? * Becca sets ban on Blargh!*@* * Becca sets mode +s #wikipedia * #wikipedia :Cannot send to channel <schiste> official bio, official websites, serious magazine ect... <Sean_William> 0.o * Zscout370 claps <Ryulong> ha ha oh wow <Sean_William> That was fun. <schiste> What the hell ? <Sean_William> Memes are not notable. END OF STORY.
I find this highly unprofessional. I was under the impression that civil discussion was tolerated without being banned for disagreeing. -- BlarghHgralb 06:46, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Posting of irc logs is not acceptable. And may violate the terms of service of the IRC channel provider. Corvus cornix 22:48, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Suggesting an new booktitle for the computer science field (or other more fitting fields):
Amos, Martyn; GENESIS MACHINES - The new science of Biocomputing (c) Martyn Amos, 2006; EDITION: Atlantic Books, London ISBN-13/CIP 978-1-84354224-7
Amos is PhD in DNA computing amd a Senior Lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University and has, with this book created an easy reader for computer history in general, diving for the most of it ito the field of DNA computing (from the Schön-Affair to nowadays).
As it retrieves a pile of journalistic and researcher utterances (bibliography, websources, press releses) it gives a broad access to this field - and by the way - even for me as a Swiss, in very understandable English.
I just wanted to inform you, as I have no access to introduce it in the article itself. For an up-to-date-wiki.
Thanks a lot and many many greetings form Zurich.
Christoph Kujawa — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.75.156.167 ( talk • contribs) 06:08, 4 June 2007
Are there snakes in alaska?
There is a movement in the wiki community to create a universal edit button -- an icon which will tell the user that they are looking at a wiki, in much the same way as the RSS icon identifies pages with RSS feeds. But they need more proposals, and more comments from Wikipedians. Visit www.aboutus.org/UniversalWikiEditButton to have your say. -- Tim Starling 22:44, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
or does there seem to be a large recent influx of new users to Wikipedia? In May/early June I have welcomed at least 2-3 new users a day, and normally I only do so once every week at most. I'm not a Welcome committee member, so I am only doing this when I see new users editing pages on my watchlist. What gives? Is it kids getting out of school? Does this happen every June? VanTucky 21:54, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
Hi! I just uploaded those... they are photos of the army parade in Rome held last saturday, including some shot of military and peacekeeping vehicles, units and corps from all the world (especially Italy, of course).
We need help in categorizing them, adding info about weapons snown, descriptions and so. Since en.wiki is full of weapon-lovin' redn.. has some *very nice* projects about army and weapons :-D i am calling for your help.
If you happen to have some spare time, you could take a look, at last year ones, too... -- Jollyroger 15:54, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Very amused, I read Lamest edit wars, but the decision of some of these edit wars made me think... GdaÅsk and Bolzano are named after their current, politically established names, while Kiev and Istanbul after their internationally best known names. Wouldn't a consistent policy help? -- KnightMove 11:21, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Hey, The anon IP message:
Has links to dnsstuff.com. If possible links should be to another better site (not saying dnsstuff is bad) because dnsstuff has limited lookups, and some serious vandal-fighters etc need to be able to make more than 2 lookups a day (or something like that). I thought I would get more discussion on this, as well as the fact I do not know where this message is (I assume in the MediaWiki namespace, or some template). Thanks, Matt - TheFearow 21:52, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
At 01:49, 7 June 2007 the page WP:FAIR was edited to add the following text:
Examples of unacceptable use
At 01:50, 7 June 2007 another user protected the page.
The text, in precisely these terms, had been the subject of dispute and analysis at Critical commentary on album covers on the talk page for WP:FAIR since 15:37, 5 June 2007 (UTC), as both users were well aware, with no sign of consensus as yet.
Whether or not this is a correct, necessary and desired interpretation of current policy goes to the heart of the discussion on this page at BetacommandBot above, and the parallel discussion at WP:AN, now subpaged to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/FURG.
It is shoddy beyond measure for a tag team to try to unilaterally close down the issue in this way. Jheald 07:24, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
I've been thinking about how best to track vandals, and one good way would be to create a Category:Users on their final warning, and add it to the level 4 user warning templates, as well as the level 4im ones. Then users/admins could monitor ths category, and find users who have received their final warnings, and monitor contributions/etc. Not sure if this has been suggested before, but it would be incredibly usefull to newpage and rc patrollers as well as administrators and people monitoring troublesome users.
Thanks! Matt - TheFearow 22:50, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
I guess someone has been using too much Wikipedia. Quoted from a current eBay listing:
This week I am listing a 1/2 year of Civil War Newspapers that are very similiar to the Harper's Weekly which I have sold in the past..They are the Illustrated London News and have many stories on the war in America along with prints from England and U.S. as well.They average 22 pages in length(Harper's have 16)...Condition is very good..These are originals!!!....This issue is excellent~~~~
Foreign and Colonial News: America. - Article - February 21, 1863 - (31 paragraphs)
Major-General J.E.B. Stuart, Commanding Cavalry of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. - illustration - February 21, 1863 - (1 paragraph)
Major-General J.E.B. Stuart, Commanding Cavalry of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia.
Some people will just never forget to sign, even if they are not on Wiki! Chris Buttigieg talk 16:04, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
ORGCHART!!! why didn't wikimedia think of this first?
http://orgchart.forbes.com/ 82.108.170.101 15:58, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Loo kat this place now. wikipedia's at war-with itself. The proletarians are fighting the bourgeoisie, only this time the proletarians are not outnumbered. Wiki will become communist, I tell ya.
So you know, I am no knowledgable Marxist, I only know what I learned in High-School AP World History. Violask81976 01:43, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Yea, but this isn't just a hot debate. the village pump, User talk:Betacommandbot, WP:FUC, WP:FURG, WP:FUR, WP:BLP. That's more then just a hot debate. Violask81976 18:33, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
BetacommandBot - Can one bot that cause so much angst really be doing the right thing? Should it be allowed as much latitude as it has? -- evrik ( talk) 17:35, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
It is a terrible idea, completely hated by anyone who is practically trying to expand or create new pages in wiki, defended only by hardcore wiki beaureucrats. Very pointless bot. Reaper7 18:10, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
In the sentence, in what articles are you claiming fair use in -- Who is you? There's no you on Wikipedia, per WP:OWN. And in fact, it shouldn't make a different who claims fair use; something is either being fairly used, or it isn't. There are 10 whole criteria dedicated to determining whether or not something objectively is fair use. Are you suggesting that every piece of copyrighted material on Wikipedia needs a Wikipedian to sponsor it? If so, you'd better have a ton of people standing by, or have the Betacommandbot fired up to start pulling all of the copyrighted material OTHER than images, which form the basis for a ton of entries on this project. Every description of a novel, every description/depiction of a copyrighted work of art, every discussion of a song lyric, every place copyrighted material is incorporated into Wikipedia -- for all this, you want individual editors to make the claim? It's preposterous, not needed, and certainly not called for by current Wikipedia policy. Jenolen speak it! 20:28, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
Err, I really don't think wikipedia has or wants to spend the money to defend itself in court over a non-free image, especially when we can be providing correct rationales to start with. This is an unconvincing argument for a couple of reasons. One, Wikipedia has NEVER been subject to any legal jeopardy on the basis of improper fair use of copyrighted material, because, two, Wikipeida's fair use policies are WAY more strict than the law requires. Please remember when dealing with these issues: The law is RARELY a concern for us in these types of questions, because the law permits a much wider latitude of uses! What's up for debate here is Wikipedia's own self-limiting policy, part of its continuing valuation of free content over encyclopedic content. Eagle - you know, from a practical standpoint, there can never be a libre/free version of, say, a Beatles album cover. Album covers are always going to be non-free, but we'd be perfectly protected, and morally "pure" to our principles, if we'd simply add a boilerplate fair use rationale to album covers and logos. It's hard for me to believe that all this is about legally protecting Wikipedia, since there's really no threat. The law would let us go much, much further. Jenolen speak it! 21:30, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
Eagle, the whole point about cover-art image thumbnails specifically on article pages on that particular album is that then we can produce a standard text, because there is a standard rationale that is sufficient in these cases.
Therefore, it makes sense to have a standard piece of text, applicable to any album cover thumbnail, to express this. Jheald 21:46, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
I don't mean to jump into the middle of a-b discussion, but...if you admit that all albums pass the 10 criterions, what's the difference between saying in each one "this image does this...blah blah blah(1) this image does this...blah blah blah (2)" and going down the criterons, on EVERY single album artwork image, and doing the same thing, and having a boilerplate template? That's what i don't get in this whole controversy. If anyone can explain that, then just do. Violask81976 22:20, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
Durin, those would be T-shirts containing an encyclopaedia's worth of album reviews would they? Please. Of course there can be boilerplate text to explain a fair-use rationale, if there is a sufficient rationale that is precisely them same in every case.
On your second point, why is it leading us over the cliff to accept fair-use album thumbnails? Rolling Stone magazine does exactly that in their List of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. Why do you want to hobble Wikipedia not to be able to do likewise? Jheald 22:24, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
@Durin: ways in which a cover art image will significantly contribute to an article are actually explicitly set out at WP:FURG#Necessary components. I assume you have actually read these policies? It actually suggests as potential significance rationales: "Is the image a logo, photograph, or box art for the main subject of the article? Is the image the primary means of visual identification of the subject or topic? (eg, a corporate logo, DVD box art)"
@Nick: as I set out at the top, different standards apply when use of an image is complementary to a normal exploitation of it, compared to when use of the image is substitutive. Use of a cover art thumbnail in an article on an album, because it is likely to be complementary, is a different case to other use of a copyright photograph, which is likely to be substitutive. To establish transformative use in the first case, it is sufficient that the article is presenting a critical review of the album. On the other hand, to establish transformative use of the image in the latter case is a lot harder, and this latter case is when a discussion of some feature or detail of the image must be of crucial inescapable relevance to the writing of the article. The two cases are different. Jheald 01:05, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
@Durin(2): re freedom: the relevant goals here that the Foundation has expressed are to create an encyclopedia; and to encourage free content. The second aim is relevant in all sorts of cases where the Foundation rejects non-free content because it is replaceable with free content. But it is not relevant here, because you can't replace an album cover with your own newly created image. Jheald 01:13, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
Just to let you know, check the non-free album cover template, there is a discussion to add a hardcoded fair use rationale there for all albums. -- ReyBrujo 01:53, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
Durin: Are you saying that an image of an album cover may not be used in an article about that album unless the cover itself is special in some way and the article discusses the cover itself? So you mean that most articles about albums should not show an image of the cover? -- Apoc2400 07:10, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
I wish to voice my disappoval of BetacommandBot. It tagged every page using Image:Coast guard flag.gif as lacking a fair-use rationale. The problem is the file is public domain, since it is a symbol created by the U.S. federal government. Even more of a problem is that the image is used in the Coast Guard Stub template, so over 100 articles had the fair-use rationale needed template added to the talk page. Several people have left messages on the bot and user page, but there has been no response or acknowledgement of mistake, and no effort to correct it. To me this is acting in bad faith. Especially since the bot users continue to criticize the efforts of others before correcting their own mistakes. -- Pesco 02:28, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
Betacommandbot left a message on my talk page about an image I uploaded, Image:National_Front.gif. This image is a replica of a political campaign poster, which makes it a clear cut example of a legitimate fair use image, and had already been noted and categorized as such. It appears in the National Front (France) article where, with an accompanying translation, it serves as an example of that party's anti-immigrant platform and demonstrates the controversial nature of that party's position, which notable and reliably sourced observers have contended is religiously biased and racist.
A picture is worth a thousand words, but recovery of legitimate and encyclopedic images such as this one can take a thousand keystrokes once they get deleted. Copyright violation is a significant and ongoing problem at this site and I support the editors who address the matter. If this bot did a good job identifying frivolous and decorative image use I would support it, but too much collateral damage is happening here. So many complaints have accumulated at Betacommand's talk page that one user actually issued a block warning.
Let's not get as heated as that, but clearly this bot needs to be taken out of service for a while and tweaked so that it doesn't damage useful and encyclopedic content. Durova Charge! 19:01, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
I agree - this bot is extremely disruptive. Many of the images have the Fair Use rational given in the licensing tag itself. License violations can be addressed through the normal process. This nit picky stuff can be address through the improvement process GA & FA. There are no easily identified examples for adding the rational for each type of image. This needs better organization to make this extremely simple for the everyday editor. Heck.. I've been here for 2 years and have read all of these policies and I'm still confused on what is needed. Morphh (talk) 13:47, 06 June 2007 (UTC)
I just wanted to comment that I also support the disabling of this bot. I've already posted my concerns over this bots actions on a high level, not even talking about a specific example on the talk page, and have gotten no response for the bot's author, just other editors who quote policy to justify the bots actions. It makes me wonder what the real purpose of this bot is, it is just an playground for the bots author to see what can be done and the prove a point, or is it a genuine attempt on helping the project? Based on the (lack of) response from the author, it's been impossible for me to assume good faith. // laughing man 14:54, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the fair-use rationales used for the images in the gallery at Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde#Album singles just a boilerplate copy of the rationale used for the main fair-use album cover image in that article? Carcharoth 17:05, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Fair use is a legal doctrine that may be used as a defence against a claim of copyright infringement. Technically speaking, until you've actually been to court and successfully invoked your claim of fair use to defend against such a suit, you're using the work illegally. In practice it's often possible to reasonably anticipate where a claim of fair use will be successful, typically by analogy with cases in which the defence has been successfully raised, and as such, the use is commonly regarded as "kosher", as it were, while still technically being illegal.
This reality raises a couple of issues. Since fair use is a defence, it's necessary to be able to explain on what basis your use falls within that defence. Since the defence applies only to particular uses of a work, you need to be able to make such an explanation for all of your uses of the work. And since claims fall into the "kosher" category by being based on solid analogies with existing cases in which the defence has been successfully raised, you need to explain the analogy you have employed, by reference to the specific fair use factors that apply to the particular work and the particular use in question.
There is no boilerplate fair use claim to be used against copyright infringement, just as there is no boilerplate claim for, say, self-defense in a murder trial, or for an estoppel claim in a breach of contract suit. Fair use claims may be very similar to each other, but that only reflects that the particular analogy being employed is strong (or at least popularly thought to be strong).
Executive summary: since fair use is a legal defence, you need to explain how it applies in every case, and this means there can be no boilerplate claims. -- bainer ( talk) 15:28, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedian bainer wrote: Technically speaking, until you've actually been to court and successfully invoked your claim of fair use to defend against such a suit, you're using the work illegally.
For a perhaps more studied view, let's turn to copyright expert and Creative Commons creator Lawrence Lessig, who wrote: Federal Law allows citizens to reproduce, distribute, or exhibit portions of copyrighted motion pictures, video tapes, or video discs under certain circumstances without the authorization of the copyright holder. This infringement of copyright is called âFair Useâ and is allowed for purposes of criticism, news reporting, teaching and parody.
I'm not sure the fair use of a copyrighted work should be considered "illegal until invoked" -- but fair use is most certainly NOT illegal. And since all of the fair use on Wikipedia is, by design, several orders more strict that what is required by law, I'm gonna' go ahead and say what we've all known all along -- Wikipedia does not have a LEGAL problem when it comes to fair use; this is purely a philosophical problem about internal Wikipedia policies and free/libre purity.
Something to keep in mind... Jenolen speak it! 18:57, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
I saw this at somethingaweful.com and thought it might be a fun thing to bring to everyones attention. I know somethingaweful is hardly a major news outlet, but "The Art of Wikigroaning" seems like the type of thing that could make a funny signpost segment or essay or something.
Have a nice day. Smmurphy( Talk) 19:24, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
I know that WP:PEREN#Legal issues says not to worry about the law, but I remain concerned about naming a Young Offender contrary to Canada's Young Offenders Act, ( now replaced by the Youth Criminal Justice Act).
In Canada, Todd Cameron Smith's identity would be protected because the crimes were committed when he was a minor. He's a living person and I'm not sure it's necessary or right to identify him in Wikipedia. Yes, Wikipedia is based in US but other people have been given greater protection for less.
Canuckle 00:15, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
Is it just me, or is this annoying and kind of impolite? I'll revert a vandal, go to the vandal's talk page to leave a warning, carefully compose a warning specific to that particular instance, and by the time I'm ready to save 45 seconds or 1 minute later, I'm edit conflicted because someone with Twinkle or VP or something saw my revert and jumped ahead of me.
I don't think I'll ever go to the trouble of complaining to someone if they do it to me (pretty counterproductive, since my whole complaint is that they're wasting my time), but I'd like to know that I'm morally justified when I mutter mean things about them under my breath. -- barneca ( talk) 14:04, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
Standardized template messages are usually sufficient to warn users. On the other hand, those warnings are a useful deterrant. There are many times that after I gave them the final warning, they stopped altogether. As long as they do not cause trouble within 24 hours, the same effect of a block as been imposed on the vandal, since he's laid low for that amount of time.-- Kylohk 20:27, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
Are both capable of damaging the atmosphere?
I'm having some problems with TheRingess, and would like to hear from any other editors who have had problems with her. Am trying to take suitable steps.
Sardaka 12:56, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
On behalf of the Election Committee,
Philippe 23:05, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
__________________
Dear all,
We, the election committee, hereby announce the opening of a new election for members of the Wikimedia Foundation's Board of Trustees. At least three positions will be filled from this election, with the elected members serving a two year term.
It is important to note that election processes are slightly different this year than in previous years: all candidates should be certain to thoroughly read the FAQ at: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2007/en
From today, June 10th, we're accepting candidates for the Board of Trustees. If you're interested, you must make a candidate statement and list yourself on http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2007/Candidates/en
We also need the help or translators for the elections, so if you're fluent in any language other than English, and willing to help, please list yourself here: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2007/Translations
If you have any questions, please first read the FAQ, then list your questions to the talk page: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2007/FAQ/en
The official announcement is available on Meta: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2007/en
We are confident that this election will draw very qualified candidates, and we wish them the best of luck.
Regards,
Kizu Naoko (Aphaia) Newyorkbrad Philippe Beaudette Jon Harald Søby
I've been working on a new essay entitled Policy shopping. Of course, this is a neologism, and the intent is simply to argue that editors should propose all justifications for a particular change at one time, instead of incrementally trying policies (i.e. if this policy/guideline fails, let me try another one to effect the same change). It is still under construction, but I think at this point it is a rough inclusion of all the points I'm trying to make. I request the community's input... please give it a read and post your comments on the associated talk page. Thanks! / Blaxthos 11:56, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
The Snake Project needs helper and users to help create anf finish the articles. For more information about the project, visite my userpage.
変 Nikro 08:36, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
I left a message on a talkpage, the message was about me having to change something in the userpage and why i have to do it. but the user, i ain't gonna mention WikiDragon295's name, deleted the message and writen me up for vandelism. I had no combat against him because he deleted the reason for "Vandelism" so i looked completely guilty, luckly I got the proof of the reason, and of his deleting of it, from his talkpage history. But noone should be allowed to delete what someone places on the talkpage, and my opion, that's vandelism, I was blamed for something because the user earased my message, just to try and banned me. Something should be done so such actions can't be done.
変 Nikro 05:32, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
Oh for crying out loud. The pair of you, Stop! The village pump is for discussing wikipedia issues. Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 08:16, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
The User " Nikro" has vandalised My Userpage, and he wasn't even punished, They didn't reverse the chnge, i had to rewrite it, i say something should be done about it!!!
崉 WikiDragon295 22:12, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
ok
崉 WikiDragon295 22:51, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
Trust me, he knewn about the reason on his talkpage, and he deleted it, and he told me. And I had permission from him to edit his page.Proove of my reason on hi's talkpage
This following is a copy from the user's talkpage history.
変
Nikro 10:55, 9 June 2007(UTC)
The very idea of winning and losing debates here is abhorrent. Wikipedia works on consesus. I strongly suggest you remove all references to winning from your userpage altogether as it will make you look foolish to the grown ups.
Theresa Knott |
Taste the Korn
08:20, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
I apologize if this isn't the proper place for this question, but if someone would be kind enough to direct me to the proper place to post it, then please do so.
I've noticed that a massive amount of images on commons are about to be deleted, namely because of the incompatible stock.xchng license. They'll be deleted on July 1, a date chosen to give people a good chunk of time to get permission for each individual image they need saved. However, the only way anyone becomes aware of this mass deletion is through clicking on the images' description pages.
Now, I've noticed that {{ ifdc}} is designed to notify readers and editors of an article that an image in that article is to be deleted. It's a good way to spread awareness; articles have tags on them, and now images' captions do too. But now that 800+ images are about to be deleted, I was pondering if a template should be put in these captions to make people aware of these images' status, and give editors a chance to get permission to use them, instead of having them mysteriously disappear in July. Would {{ ifdc}} do? Or should a new one be created? âThe preceding signed comment was added by Cadby ( talk ⢠contribs) 23:59, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
I have created a proposal for a task force here. -- Tλε Rαnδom EδιÏor ( Ïαlκ) 02:41, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
Now, I know that this is WP:BEANS, but I have to ask:
What happens if you "upload a new version of the file" of the picture that is picture of the day. Besides getting banned and blocked. What I mean is will the server let you? It is blocked, right? I'm not going to do it or anything, but if you can, maybe we should report it to the WP:VPT guys so they can stop potential vandalism. I'll post this there too, but I don't know if it really fits there. If this is too WP:BEANSish for you, just delete this section. Thanks!! - Hair chr m 01:44, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
I've just received two personal attacks via email from the blocked user User:Fayden asking why I blocked his account and then going on to say rather nasty things and make threats about me. I had never heard of Fayden until he emailed, and certainly had nothing to do with his blocking. I'm avoiding replying to him as it will give him my email address. Does anyone have any advice? Stannered 13:16, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
This section may contain material
not related to the topic of the article and should be moved to
The Google conspiracy to take over the world by making us spell "cheese" wrong, hyperintelligent zebras, and their possible involvement in said conspiracy. instead. |
Is it possible that a company, like Google (with "did you mean ___?"), changes the spelling of words in Wikipedia articles to find out what people most likely think a word should be spelled like, because it seems like a good idea and they have so many computers, each with a different IP address, it would seem hard to catch them at it. Jeffrey.Kleykamp 11:26, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
WTF? -- tjstrf talk 01:40, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
I've noticed that Hagerman ( talk · contribs) hasn't posted an edit since 16:47, 29 April 2007. His bot, HagermanBot ( talk · contribs) last edited about a month later at 02:42, 25 May 2007. I don't see any kind of Wikibreak notice on his user page. Does anyone know if he's okay? — Elipongo ( Talk contribs) 20:36, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
Hi I created a last.fm radio player widget for Wikipedia. It runs with Firefox.
Further info, see here: User:Csörföly D/last.fm widget
Please make your signature shorter, and don't include an image in it. Corvus cornix 23:26, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
24.82.98.151 and, possibly, others delete their warnings after they get a warning for vandalizing, will that make it look (without going through the talk page's history) like they never vandalized, and make it that they never get caught? And, if so, what can we do about it? Jeffrey.Kleykamp 22:44, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
Maybe we should set up some FAQs? -- Kim Bruning 21:28, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
Some people say we all love weasel words, but a user is really surprised to see that there haven't been any templates, or any good templates at least. I dusted off {{ WW}} today and added categories, documentation, etc. to bring it up to the {{ fact}} standard. Only two articles so far use it. How can some of us promote use of this template. hbdragon88 00:59, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
It turns out that there's {{ weasel-inline}}, though it's quite dreadfully long – I could never type that in. It's even longer than {{ weasel}}! But thanks; I had created Category:Articles with weasel word statements, and now I see Category:Articles with weasel words. Repointed and tagged accordingly. hbdragon88 05:13, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
Nearly everything can be explained and figured out through math and physics. However, on paper Helicopters should not be able to fly. In theory they really don't work, they are a man-made phenomenon.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.148.248.180 ( talk • contribs)
Why are you Americans so box-minded? You should write articles about people independently of where they were born or raised. For example I saw a list of Russian Americans. Why don´t you also make a list of Chinese Americans, Japanese Americans, French Americans, French Brazilians, Black Jews, Mexican English and Swiss tennis players? Those kind of lists are totally arbitrary and don´t make much sense. No wonder there´s so much segregation in the US. You could start by getting rid of some of these lists.
Ok thank you for sharing your opinion.
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I have been editing Wikipedia since February. Soon I realized a lot of articles were about topics such as next-door neighbours and aunt's kittens. I began searching for questionable contents... In the last weeks I found that fame and popularity implying notability, which clearly is not the spirit of WP:N. I quit editting for a couple of weeks, first arguing a travel and then arguing exams (which were true). I'm not for either discussing policies or how should they be applied; what I'm asking for is a bit of emotional support... I'm sad I had to appeal here and I would like to stay active, but I will not be able if I'm convinced that editing Wikipedia is a waste of time, because nobody cares about non-popular notable facts. Thank you. Rjgodoy 23:13, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
Thank you very much for your responses =). I'll think about improving some articles and I'll try not to worry so much about trivial activities. Rjgodoy 22:21, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_Gun_Kelly
Upon the bottom of the page is comment about George Machine Gun Kelly's brutal killings.
As far as I could determine upon researching Kelly's life, while he might have been a bad person, he had not killed in the commission of crimes (or otherwise).
http://www.fbi.gov/libref/historic/famcases/kelly/kelly.htm http://www.alcatrazhistory.com/mgk.htm
I am not attempting to "rewrite" history, but as a degree holding historian with an interest historic crimes, and the gangster era I think that the comment is incorrect and is an attempt to make the article reflective of the commonly held beliefs about Kelly rather than the historical person. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.243.165.159 ( talk)
Why do people mark large additions to discussions as minor? Simply south 21:10, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
Surely everyone's seen an article by the name "Criticism of X...". I was just reading Criticism of Windows Vista, for instance. That got me wondering, would it be out of line to make an article called "Support of X..."? It seems only right that if we have criticism articles, we should have support articles. — Preceding unsigned comment added by .V. ( talk • contribs) 23:07, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
The internet is still a fairly recent phenomenon. Whereas communities and groups enjoyed thorough research, theories and knowledge about virtual communities are relatively limited. I am busy with researching how virtual communities communicate, interact and exchange knowledge and information. Most importantly, I am interested in the relation between virtual communities and knowledge creation, especially the correcting mechanism of Wikipedia-the users.
As Wikipedia is one of the biggest and most popular virtual communities, and as it is focused on knowledge creation and knowledge exchange is it perfect to contribute to this research.
I can get lots of data and information from the site it self. But in this context, people are crucial. Crucial for understanding the motivators and visions which are necessary to have a website as successful as Wikipedia.
I am therefore looking for people who are active on Wikipedia who would find it interesting to give interviews. These interviews are necessary to complete this research successfully. Obviously you will be able to express your own opinion and illustrate Wikipedia as you see it.
Just put your name on my user page or send me a message,
thanks NeniPogarcic 13:50, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
Dokdo - See WP:RM(May 21) poll at Talk:Dokdo#Requested Move May 2007. Candidates for a new article name are Liancourt Rocks, Takeshima, Takeshima/Dokdo, and Dokdo/Takeshima. We are trying to "get as many disinterested editors as possible to express an opinion" there. 12:46, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
I just want to say thank you to the creaters and users of wikipedia. This is a great site and has the usefull information I need to get things done. I wish I could make a donation, but I don't have paypal or anything. HAHA!
Thanks a bunch guys. This is helping me out with my English exam very much.
05:25, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
I guess someone has been using too much Wikipedia. Quoted from a current eBay listing:
This week I am listing a 1/2 year of Civil War Newspapers that are very similiar to the Harper's Weekly which I have sold in the past..They are the Illustrated London News and have many stories on the war in America along with prints from England and U.S. as well.They average 22 pages in length(Harper's have 16)...Condition is very good..These are originals!!!....This issue is excellent~~~~
Foreign and Colonial News: America. - Article - February 21, 1863 - (31 paragraphs)
Major-General J.E.B. Stuart, Commanding Cavalry of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. - illustration - February 21, 1863 - (1 paragraph)
Major-General J.E.B. Stuart, Commanding Cavalry of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia.
Some people will just never forget to sign, even if they are not on Wiki! Chris Buttigieg talk 16:04, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Hi! I just uploaded those... they are photos of the army parade in Rome held last saturday, including some shot of military and peacekeeping vehicles, units and corps from all the world (especially Italy, of course).
We need help in categorizing them, adding info about weapons snown, descriptions and so. Since en.wiki is full of weapon-lovin' redn.. has some *very nice* projects about army and weapons :-D i am calling for your help.
If you happen to have some spare time, you could take a look, at last year ones, too... -- Jollyroger 15:54, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
User:Georgia guy for some unknown reason has started stalking me. Can you all please tell him that doing such is inappropriate. I think stalkers should immediately be blocked. Astroguy2 23:58, 4 June 2007 (UTC) Georgia Guy is also calling adding an alterative name to an article vandalism. He clearly doesn't know what vandalism means. Vandalism is adding meaningless content to an article. Alternative names are not meaningless. Astroguy2 00:01, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
BetacommandBot - Can one bot that cause so much angst really be doing the right thing? Should it be allowed as much latitude as it has? -- evrik ( talk) 17:35, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
It is a terrible idea, completely hated by anyone who is practically trying to expand or create new pages in wiki, defended only by hardcore wiki beaureucrats. Very pointless bot. Reaper7 18:10, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
In the sentence, in what articles are you claiming fair use in -- Who is you? There's no you on Wikipedia, per WP:OWN. And in fact, it shouldn't make a different who claims fair use; something is either being fairly used, or it isn't. There are 10 whole criteria dedicated to determining whether or not something objectively is fair use. Are you suggesting that every piece of copyrighted material on Wikipedia needs a Wikipedian to sponsor it? If so, you'd better have a ton of people standing by, or have the Betacommandbot fired up to start pulling all of the copyrighted material OTHER than images, which form the basis for a ton of entries on this project. Every description of a novel, every description/depiction of a copyrighted work of art, every discussion of a song lyric, every place copyrighted material is incorporated into Wikipedia -- for all this, you want individual editors to make the claim? It's preposterous, not needed, and certainly not called for by current Wikipedia policy. Jenolen speak it! 20:28, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
Err, I really don't think wikipedia has or wants to spend the money to defend itself in court over a non-free image, especially when we can be providing correct rationales to start with. This is an unconvincing argument for a couple of reasons. One, Wikipedia has NEVER been subject to any legal jeopardy on the basis of improper fair use of copyrighted material, because, two, Wikipeida's fair use policies are WAY more strict than the law requires. Please remember when dealing with these issues: The law is RARELY a concern for us in these types of questions, because the law permits a much wider latitude of uses! What's up for debate here is Wikipedia's own self-limiting policy, part of its continuing valuation of free content over encyclopedic content. Eagle - you know, from a practical standpoint, there can never be a libre/free version of, say, a Beatles album cover. Album covers are always going to be non-free, but we'd be perfectly protected, and morally "pure" to our principles, if we'd simply add a boilerplate fair use rationale to album covers and logos. It's hard for me to believe that all this is about legally protecting Wikipedia, since there's really no threat. The law would let us go much, much further. Jenolen speak it! 21:30, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
Eagle, the whole point about cover-art image thumbnails specifically on article pages on that particular album is that then we can produce a standard text, because there is a standard rationale that is sufficient in these cases.
Therefore, it makes sense to have a standard piece of text, applicable to any album cover thumbnail, to express this. Jheald 21:46, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
I don't mean to jump into the middle of a-b discussion, but...if you admit that all albums pass the 10 criterions, what's the difference between saying in each one "this image does this...blah blah blah(1) this image does this...blah blah blah (2)" and going down the criterons, on EVERY single album artwork image, and doing the same thing, and having a boilerplate template? That's what i don't get in this whole controversy. If anyone can explain that, then just do. Violask81976 22:20, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
Durin, those would be T-shirts containing an encyclopaedia's worth of album reviews would they? Please. Of course there can be boilerplate text to explain a fair-use rationale, if there is a sufficient rationale that is precisely them same in every case.
On your second point, why is it leading us over the cliff to accept fair-use album thumbnails? Rolling Stone magazine does exactly that in their List of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. Why do you want to hobble Wikipedia not to be able to do likewise? Jheald 22:24, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
@Durin: ways in which a cover art image will significantly contribute to an article are actually explicitly set out at WP:FURG#Necessary components. I assume you have actually read these policies? It actually suggests as potential significance rationales: "Is the image a logo, photograph, or box art for the main subject of the article? Is the image the primary means of visual identification of the subject or topic? (eg, a corporate logo, DVD box art)"
@Nick: as I set out at the top, different standards apply when use of an image is complementary to a normal exploitation of it, compared to when use of the image is substitutive. Use of a cover art thumbnail in an article on an album, because it is likely to be complementary, is a different case to other use of a copyright photograph, which is likely to be substitutive. To establish transformative use in the first case, it is sufficient that the article is presenting a critical review of the album. On the other hand, to establish transformative use of the image in the latter case is a lot harder, and this latter case is when a discussion of some feature or detail of the image must be of crucial inescapable relevance to the writing of the article. The two cases are different. Jheald 01:05, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
@Durin(2): re freedom: the relevant goals here that the Foundation has expressed are to create an encyclopedia; and to encourage free content. The second aim is relevant in all sorts of cases where the Foundation rejects non-free content because it is replaceable with free content. But it is not relevant here, because you can't replace an album cover with your own newly created image. Jheald 01:13, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
Just to let you know, check the non-free album cover template, there is a discussion to add a hardcoded fair use rationale there for all albums. -- ReyBrujo 01:53, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
Durin: Are you saying that an image of an album cover may not be used in an article about that album unless the cover itself is special in some way and the article discusses the cover itself? So you mean that most articles about albums should not show an image of the cover? -- Apoc2400 07:10, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
I wish to voice my disappoval of BetacommandBot. It tagged every page using Image:Coast guard flag.gif as lacking a fair-use rationale. The problem is the file is public domain, since it is a symbol created by the U.S. federal government. Even more of a problem is that the image is used in the Coast Guard Stub template, so over 100 articles had the fair-use rationale needed template added to the talk page. Several people have left messages on the bot and user page, but there has been no response or acknowledgement of mistake, and no effort to correct it. To me this is acting in bad faith. Especially since the bot users continue to criticize the efforts of others before correcting their own mistakes. -- Pesco 02:28, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
Betacommandbot left a message on my talk page about an image I uploaded, Image:National_Front.gif. This image is a replica of a political campaign poster, which makes it a clear cut example of a legitimate fair use image, and had already been noted and categorized as such. It appears in the National Front (France) article where, with an accompanying translation, it serves as an example of that party's anti-immigrant platform and demonstrates the controversial nature of that party's position, which notable and reliably sourced observers have contended is religiously biased and racist.
A picture is worth a thousand words, but recovery of legitimate and encyclopedic images such as this one can take a thousand keystrokes once they get deleted. Copyright violation is a significant and ongoing problem at this site and I support the editors who address the matter. If this bot did a good job identifying frivolous and decorative image use I would support it, but too much collateral damage is happening here. So many complaints have accumulated at Betacommand's talk page that one user actually issued a block warning.
Let's not get as heated as that, but clearly this bot needs to be taken out of service for a while and tweaked so that it doesn't damage useful and encyclopedic content. Durova Charge! 19:01, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
I agree - this bot is extremely disruptive. Many of the images have the Fair Use rational given in the licensing tag itself. License violations can be addressed through the normal process. This nit picky stuff can be address through the improvement process GA & FA. There are no easily identified examples for adding the rational for each type of image. This needs better organization to make this extremely simple for the everyday editor. Heck.. I've been here for 2 years and have read all of these policies and I'm still confused on what is needed. Morphh (talk) 13:47, 06 June 2007 (UTC)
I just wanted to comment that I also support the disabling of this bot. I've already posted my concerns over this bots actions on a high level, not even talking about a specific example on the talk page, and have gotten no response for the bot's author, just other editors who quote policy to justify the bots actions. It makes me wonder what the real purpose of this bot is, it is just an playground for the bots author to see what can be done and the prove a point, or is it a genuine attempt on helping the project? Based on the (lack of) response from the author, it's been impossible for me to assume good faith. // laughing man 14:54, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the fair-use rationales used for the images in the gallery at Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde#Album singles just a boilerplate copy of the rationale used for the main fair-use album cover image in that article? Carcharoth 17:05, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Fair use is a legal doctrine that may be used as a defence against a claim of copyright infringement. Technically speaking, until you've actually been to court and successfully invoked your claim of fair use to defend against such a suit, you're using the work illegally. In practice it's often possible to reasonably anticipate where a claim of fair use will be successful, typically by analogy with cases in which the defence has been successfully raised, and as such, the use is commonly regarded as "kosher", as it were, while still technically being illegal.
This reality raises a couple of issues. Since fair use is a defence, it's necessary to be able to explain on what basis your use falls within that defence. Since the defence applies only to particular uses of a work, you need to be able to make such an explanation for all of your uses of the work. And since claims fall into the "kosher" category by being based on solid analogies with existing cases in which the defence has been successfully raised, you need to explain the analogy you have employed, by reference to the specific fair use factors that apply to the particular work and the particular use in question.
There is no boilerplate fair use claim to be used against copyright infringement, just as there is no boilerplate claim for, say, self-defense in a murder trial, or for an estoppel claim in a breach of contract suit. Fair use claims may be very similar to each other, but that only reflects that the particular analogy being employed is strong (or at least popularly thought to be strong).
Executive summary: since fair use is a legal defence, you need to explain how it applies in every case, and this means there can be no boilerplate claims. -- bainer ( talk) 15:28, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedian bainer wrote: Technically speaking, until you've actually been to court and successfully invoked your claim of fair use to defend against such a suit, you're using the work illegally.
For a perhaps more studied view, let's turn to copyright expert and Creative Commons creator Lawrence Lessig, who wrote: Federal Law allows citizens to reproduce, distribute, or exhibit portions of copyrighted motion pictures, video tapes, or video discs under certain circumstances without the authorization of the copyright holder. This infringement of copyright is called âFair Useâ and is allowed for purposes of criticism, news reporting, teaching and parody.
I'm not sure the fair use of a copyrighted work should be considered "illegal until invoked" -- but fair use is most certainly NOT illegal. And since all of the fair use on Wikipedia is, by design, several orders more strict that what is required by law, I'm gonna' go ahead and say what we've all known all along -- Wikipedia does not have a LEGAL problem when it comes to fair use; this is purely a philosophical problem about internal Wikipedia policies and free/libre purity.
Something to keep in mind... Jenolen speak it! 18:57, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Is it common practice for admins to ban those who disagree with them in irc?
<Blargh> <schiste> any media is a "plus" but should NEVER be the main source <Blargh> <Blargh> what <Blargh> <Blargh> lol <Blargh> <Blargh> what should be the main source <Blargh> <Becca> schiste: that's piffle. <Becca> the media is the only good source on many things. <Blargh> what other source <Blargh> is there <Blargh> besides the media <Blargh> people? * Becca sets ban on Blargh!*@* * Becca sets mode +s #wikipedia * #wikipedia :Cannot send to channel <schiste> official bio, official websites, serious magazine ect... <Sean_William> 0.o * Zscout370 claps <Ryulong> ha ha oh wow <Sean_William> That was fun. <schiste> What the hell ? <Sean_William> Memes are not notable. END OF STORY.
I find this highly unprofessional. I was under the impression that civil discussion was tolerated without being banned for disagreeing. -- BlarghHgralb 06:46, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Posting of irc logs is not acceptable. And may violate the terms of service of the IRC channel provider. Corvus cornix 22:48, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Suggesting an new booktitle for the computer science field (or other more fitting fields):
Amos, Martyn; GENESIS MACHINES - The new science of Biocomputing (c) Martyn Amos, 2006; EDITION: Atlantic Books, London ISBN-13/CIP 978-1-84354224-7
Amos is PhD in DNA computing amd a Senior Lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University and has, with this book created an easy reader for computer history in general, diving for the most of it ito the field of DNA computing (from the Schön-Affair to nowadays).
As it retrieves a pile of journalistic and researcher utterances (bibliography, websources, press releses) it gives a broad access to this field - and by the way - even for me as a Swiss, in very understandable English.
I just wanted to inform you, as I have no access to introduce it in the article itself. For an up-to-date-wiki.
Thanks a lot and many many greetings form Zurich.
Christoph Kujawa — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.75.156.167 ( talk • contribs) 06:08, 4 June 2007
A new task force as part of WikiProject Radio and WikiProject Radio Stations has been started by myself. The UK Radio task force covers UK radio in general, radio shows, the UK radio industry, the radio history in the UK as well as all the stations which broadcast in the UK. What the task force will hopefully be primarily focused on is improving the main articles (including ones not currently on Wikipedia but are of great importance) for UK Radio, of which all but one are currently stubs, which isn't particularly representative of the UK's major contribution and influence to radio broadcasting. Please feel free to join and help improve UK radio station articles on Wikipedia! -- tgheretford ( talk) 14:43, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
I recently created an article on the MOOREHEAD CIRCLE. It is listed as being on MY WATCHLIST, yet the edits (creation and one susequent edit by some-one else) do not appear on MY WATCHLIST per se. 10:52, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
In response to some concerns by some in the community raised in my recent RfA about my actions during a conflict over the Gary Weiss article, I've submitted an RfC on myself here. I welcome any comments or questions from the community in the RfC. CLA 09:19, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
I have recently written an essay on sockpuppetry inspired by discussion at the village pump about legitimate uses of puppets. See it at User:Cool3/Puppets. Cool3 22:09, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
2006 Wikipedia CD Selection wikipediaondvd.com I'm curious which articles they chose and I can't find where a list of it is. SakotGrimshine 14:55, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
⦠is it possible to remove all links to Minor actors and actresses in Harry Potter, which was just deleted by an AfD? I have a Mac and thus am unable to do so myself. Thanks, Fbv 65 e del / ât / âc || 22:51, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
I don't know if this is the right place to bring this up, but I was wondering if it would be alright if I could make an alternate account to make misc edits to my user page. In the past, editing my user page and subpages was a habit of mine and now I try to edit my user pages as little as often, even resorting to using my IP every so often as not to increase the number of edits I've made to them any higher (I've made about 950 edits to user pages, although not all were to my own). Would it be acceptable if I used an alternate account to help me make such edits? Is the number of user space edits I make even something I should worry about? // DecaimientoPoético 21:09, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
The thing is, why would you want to lower your user page edits? As long as the edits are legitimate, there is nothing to fear about editing. Be bold. If you must use a alternate account, its user page should state so, so people will not assume that you have something to hide.-- Kylohk 17:21, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
I don't recommend editing your userpage from an IP address. When looking at Special:Recentchanges, anon edits to userpages look suspiciously like vandalism and such edits could be reverted. Same with an alternative account editing your user page. It's no problem editing your userpage with your regular account. -- Aude ( talk) 17:25, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
Wow, this got a lot more attention than I expected. I was planning on commenting and ending this earlier, but now I'm glad I didn't. And to answer Nil's question, I used to be addicted to editing my user page and my subpages (as I said above) but now I avoid it whenever possible. Well, I now see that making an alternate account would be rather silly and pointless, so thank you, everybody, for talking me out of it, even if not intentionally. Happy editing, everyone, and good luck to me (and every other admin hopeful out there) if and when the time for my RfA comes along! :) // DecaimientoPoético 02:04, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
I wrote to a DoD spokesman, to try to get to the bottom of the DoD's claims that Guantanamo captives "returned to the battlefield". Up until a couple of weeks ago DoD and Bush Presidency spokesmen, including the VPOTUS, claimed there were dozens of Guantanamo captives who "returned to the battlefield". But they had only revealed three names. And when the DoD was forced, by court order, to release the names of all the captives, the three names Cheney et al claimed weren't on the official list.
On May 14th DoD spokesmen revealed six names, in Congressional testimony, the first three who were missing from the official list, and three other guys. Only one of these six names was on the official list.
So, I wrote this DoD spokesman, pointed out to him that the names he cited were missing from the official list, and suggested the DoD update the list.
Here is his first reply:
- "Thanks for the opportunity to comment. I do appreciate it. Many folks in cyberspace don't give us that chance, so I am pleased that you are making efforts to get the story right.
- "I'll have to get back to you shortly with an official response.
- "Best regards,"
But after looking into it, his last reply was:
"As you do not represent any legitimate media, since Wikipedia is a strictly volunteer organization which is forbidden by academic institutions to be cited as a reference for term papers, etc., I must ask you to please refer all further questions to DoD Public Inquiries."
So, how large is the fraction of academic institutions that forbid students from citing wikipedia articles in their term papers?
In his defense, he did release the ID numbers of the six captives from the thirty the DoD claims "returned to the battlefield". But, since he did it in an email, not on the DoD's web-site, it doesn't satisfy WP:VER.
Cheers! Geo Swan 13:56, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
The idea that academic institutions forbid citations from WikiPedia is a bit misleading - most professors reject any encyclopedia as a source because the role of an encyclopedia is to summarize information on a topic and be a starting point for research. So all academic papers need citations to original documents. I realize that some of the academics have made the "rule" (especially high school teachers) based on the perception that Wiki articles are unreliable, and that WikiPedia needs to get the word out that it is in fact a reliable source of general information (see the recent Chicago Tribune article), but the impact of forbidding citations is overblown. The fact is that WikiPedia is the best, and often the only, internet source for important topics that are either not popular enough to make it into commercial publications, or are given cursory treatment when they do.
A brief comment by someone who might be considered by others as an expert in at least one field, and an advanced amateur in a few others. Critics of WikiPedia miss the point, just as supporters often do. There is no other source of free information, mediocre or stellar, available to the general public. Before WikiPedia many tried to provide compilations of scholarly articles to the general public, written by the scholars themselves. These were eventually doomed by the pressure to publish or parish in peer reviewed (subscription) publications, the human trait of procrastination, the desire to be paid for our work, elitists, popularists railing against scholars, fear of marginalization by other scholars if work was included in populist forums, fear of loss of control, copyright laws in general, vandals, etc. Admittedly, these same considerations of human nature plague contributions to WikiPedias.
Nonetheless, WikiPedia represents a source where the wild west of the internet may not be tamed, but it is open to public view and "correction" by a dedicated group of people who are willing to abandon personal gain for the good of humankind. If scholars were willing to do the same all books would be freely available on the net and we would have an Encyclopedia Britannica for the masses, but they simply are not. In most cases scholarly materials are not available without fees ranging from $5 to $75+ per article.
Those who criticise WikiPedia as lacking in substance miss the point. They are the ones who created the need for WikiPedia by their refusal to timely contribute to earlier efforts. WikiPedia is imperfect, to say the least, yet it is the only source of "reviewed" information available to the general public. The choice is not between an Encyclopedia Britannica or WikiPedia. Were it not for WikiPedia, the choice would be between subscription journals and a free for all conglomeration of websites, each with an agenda on their particular topic.— Preceding unsigned comment added by PSSnyder ( talk • contribs)
I think we have developed a culture where "good" wikipedians do not edit controversial articles. Several processes such as RFA discourages controversy involvement.
I have been trying to gather community attention to a number of somewhat controversial issues for a few months now. Practically everyone declined to get involved even if they commented that they agreed/disagreed with me.
What do you guys/gals think about this?
-- Cat chi? 12:51, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
In a typical life cycle of a controversial article, there are often content disputes that go out of hand, with edit wars and all that. I've seen the Joseph Stalin article being the subject of a dispute that one side was blocked by ArbCom. Hence in the end, one side often suffers in controversial articles. And hence many people steer away from them.-- Kylohk 17:30, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
A big part of the problem is people involved in the controversies using Wikipedia to try to influence public opinion. I don't know if anything can be done, however. Steve Dufour 03:45, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
It's a shame, because the controversial articles are the ones where the best editors' skills are sorely needed. The talk pages to the
Islam articles are a nightmare to wade through with all the wailing and gnashing of teeth, and the
Scientology articles are routinely dominated by the same ten edit-warring people over and over again (including myself). Some fresh voices and new blood are needed.
wikipediatrix
16:50, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
User:Georgia guy for some unknown reason has started stalking me. Can you all please tell him that doing such is inappropriate. I think stalkers should immediately be blocked. Astroguy2 23:58, 4 June 2007 (UTC) Georgia Guy is also calling adding an alterative name to an article vandalism. He clearly doesn't know what vandalism means. Vandalism is adding meaningless content to an article. Alternative names are not meaningless. Astroguy2 00:01, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
I've been wanting to make an article on peter answers but the thing says it's protected, so someones making the article, but its been worked on for like, 1 - 1½ months, and the subject isn't all that hard to discribe or write down, it shoudn't be this long for the article to be made, can't something be done?
A new user, User:Astroguy2, created a Billion pool so quickly. Please watch over all of this user's edits and check to see if this user is a sockpuppet of an already-blocked Wikipedian. Georgia guy 23:16, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
Is it common practice for admins to ban those who disagree with them in irc?
<Blargh> <schiste> any media is a "plus" but should NEVER be the main source <Blargh> <Blargh> what <Blargh> <Blargh> lol <Blargh> <Blargh> what should be the main source <Blargh> <Becca> schiste: that's piffle. <Becca> the media is the only good source on many things. <Blargh> what other source <Blargh> is there <Blargh> besides the media <Blargh> people? * Becca sets ban on Blargh!*@* * Becca sets mode +s #wikipedia * #wikipedia :Cannot send to channel <schiste> official bio, official websites, serious magazine ect... <Sean_William> 0.o * Zscout370 claps <Ryulong> ha ha oh wow <Sean_William> That was fun. <schiste> What the hell ? <Sean_William> Memes are not notable. END OF STORY.
I find this highly unprofessional. I was under the impression that civil discussion was tolerated without being banned for disagreeing. -- BlarghHgralb 06:46, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Posting of irc logs is not acceptable. And may violate the terms of service of the IRC channel provider. Corvus cornix 22:48, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Suggesting an new booktitle for the computer science field (or other more fitting fields):
Amos, Martyn; GENESIS MACHINES - The new science of Biocomputing (c) Martyn Amos, 2006; EDITION: Atlantic Books, London ISBN-13/CIP 978-1-84354224-7
Amos is PhD in DNA computing amd a Senior Lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University and has, with this book created an easy reader for computer history in general, diving for the most of it ito the field of DNA computing (from the Schön-Affair to nowadays).
As it retrieves a pile of journalistic and researcher utterances (bibliography, websources, press releses) it gives a broad access to this field - and by the way - even for me as a Swiss, in very understandable English.
I just wanted to inform you, as I have no access to introduce it in the article itself. For an up-to-date-wiki.
Thanks a lot and many many greetings form Zurich.
Christoph Kujawa — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.75.156.167 ( talk • contribs) 06:08, 4 June 2007
Are there snakes in alaska?
There is a movement in the wiki community to create a universal edit button -- an icon which will tell the user that they are looking at a wiki, in much the same way as the RSS icon identifies pages with RSS feeds. But they need more proposals, and more comments from Wikipedians. Visit www.aboutus.org/UniversalWikiEditButton to have your say. -- Tim Starling 22:44, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
or does there seem to be a large recent influx of new users to Wikipedia? In May/early June I have welcomed at least 2-3 new users a day, and normally I only do so once every week at most. I'm not a Welcome committee member, so I am only doing this when I see new users editing pages on my watchlist. What gives? Is it kids getting out of school? Does this happen every June? VanTucky 21:54, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
Hi! I just uploaded those... they are photos of the army parade in Rome held last saturday, including some shot of military and peacekeeping vehicles, units and corps from all the world (especially Italy, of course).
We need help in categorizing them, adding info about weapons snown, descriptions and so. Since en.wiki is full of weapon-lovin' redn.. has some *very nice* projects about army and weapons :-D i am calling for your help.
If you happen to have some spare time, you could take a look, at last year ones, too... -- Jollyroger 15:54, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Very amused, I read Lamest edit wars, but the decision of some of these edit wars made me think... GdaÅsk and Bolzano are named after their current, politically established names, while Kiev and Istanbul after their internationally best known names. Wouldn't a consistent policy help? -- KnightMove 11:21, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Hey, The anon IP message:
Has links to dnsstuff.com. If possible links should be to another better site (not saying dnsstuff is bad) because dnsstuff has limited lookups, and some serious vandal-fighters etc need to be able to make more than 2 lookups a day (or something like that). I thought I would get more discussion on this, as well as the fact I do not know where this message is (I assume in the MediaWiki namespace, or some template). Thanks, Matt - TheFearow 21:52, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
At 01:49, 7 June 2007 the page WP:FAIR was edited to add the following text:
Examples of unacceptable use
At 01:50, 7 June 2007 another user protected the page.
The text, in precisely these terms, had been the subject of dispute and analysis at Critical commentary on album covers on the talk page for WP:FAIR since 15:37, 5 June 2007 (UTC), as both users were well aware, with no sign of consensus as yet.
Whether or not this is a correct, necessary and desired interpretation of current policy goes to the heart of the discussion on this page at BetacommandBot above, and the parallel discussion at WP:AN, now subpaged to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/FURG.
It is shoddy beyond measure for a tag team to try to unilaterally close down the issue in this way. Jheald 07:24, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
I've been thinking about how best to track vandals, and one good way would be to create a Category:Users on their final warning, and add it to the level 4 user warning templates, as well as the level 4im ones. Then users/admins could monitor ths category, and find users who have received their final warnings, and monitor contributions/etc. Not sure if this has been suggested before, but it would be incredibly usefull to newpage and rc patrollers as well as administrators and people monitoring troublesome users.
Thanks! Matt - TheFearow 22:50, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
I guess someone has been using too much Wikipedia. Quoted from a current eBay listing:
This week I am listing a 1/2 year of Civil War Newspapers that are very similiar to the Harper's Weekly which I have sold in the past..They are the Illustrated London News and have many stories on the war in America along with prints from England and U.S. as well.They average 22 pages in length(Harper's have 16)...Condition is very good..These are originals!!!....This issue is excellent~~~~
Foreign and Colonial News: America. - Article - February 21, 1863 - (31 paragraphs)
Major-General J.E.B. Stuart, Commanding Cavalry of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. - illustration - February 21, 1863 - (1 paragraph)
Major-General J.E.B. Stuart, Commanding Cavalry of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia.
Some people will just never forget to sign, even if they are not on Wiki! Chris Buttigieg talk 16:04, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
ORGCHART!!! why didn't wikimedia think of this first?
http://orgchart.forbes.com/ 82.108.170.101 15:58, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Loo kat this place now. wikipedia's at war-with itself. The proletarians are fighting the bourgeoisie, only this time the proletarians are not outnumbered. Wiki will become communist, I tell ya.
So you know, I am no knowledgable Marxist, I only know what I learned in High-School AP World History. Violask81976 01:43, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Yea, but this isn't just a hot debate. the village pump, User talk:Betacommandbot, WP:FUC, WP:FURG, WP:FUR, WP:BLP. That's more then just a hot debate. Violask81976 18:33, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
BetacommandBot - Can one bot that cause so much angst really be doing the right thing? Should it be allowed as much latitude as it has? -- evrik ( talk) 17:35, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
It is a terrible idea, completely hated by anyone who is practically trying to expand or create new pages in wiki, defended only by hardcore wiki beaureucrats. Very pointless bot. Reaper7 18:10, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
In the sentence, in what articles are you claiming fair use in -- Who is you? There's no you on Wikipedia, per WP:OWN. And in fact, it shouldn't make a different who claims fair use; something is either being fairly used, or it isn't. There are 10 whole criteria dedicated to determining whether or not something objectively is fair use. Are you suggesting that every piece of copyrighted material on Wikipedia needs a Wikipedian to sponsor it? If so, you'd better have a ton of people standing by, or have the Betacommandbot fired up to start pulling all of the copyrighted material OTHER than images, which form the basis for a ton of entries on this project. Every description of a novel, every description/depiction of a copyrighted work of art, every discussion of a song lyric, every place copyrighted material is incorporated into Wikipedia -- for all this, you want individual editors to make the claim? It's preposterous, not needed, and certainly not called for by current Wikipedia policy. Jenolen speak it! 20:28, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
Err, I really don't think wikipedia has or wants to spend the money to defend itself in court over a non-free image, especially when we can be providing correct rationales to start with. This is an unconvincing argument for a couple of reasons. One, Wikipedia has NEVER been subject to any legal jeopardy on the basis of improper fair use of copyrighted material, because, two, Wikipeida's fair use policies are WAY more strict than the law requires. Please remember when dealing with these issues: The law is RARELY a concern for us in these types of questions, because the law permits a much wider latitude of uses! What's up for debate here is Wikipedia's own self-limiting policy, part of its continuing valuation of free content over encyclopedic content. Eagle - you know, from a practical standpoint, there can never be a libre/free version of, say, a Beatles album cover. Album covers are always going to be non-free, but we'd be perfectly protected, and morally "pure" to our principles, if we'd simply add a boilerplate fair use rationale to album covers and logos. It's hard for me to believe that all this is about legally protecting Wikipedia, since there's really no threat. The law would let us go much, much further. Jenolen speak it! 21:30, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
Eagle, the whole point about cover-art image thumbnails specifically on article pages on that particular album is that then we can produce a standard text, because there is a standard rationale that is sufficient in these cases.
Therefore, it makes sense to have a standard piece of text, applicable to any album cover thumbnail, to express this. Jheald 21:46, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
I don't mean to jump into the middle of a-b discussion, but...if you admit that all albums pass the 10 criterions, what's the difference between saying in each one "this image does this...blah blah blah(1) this image does this...blah blah blah (2)" and going down the criterons, on EVERY single album artwork image, and doing the same thing, and having a boilerplate template? That's what i don't get in this whole controversy. If anyone can explain that, then just do. Violask81976 22:20, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
Durin, those would be T-shirts containing an encyclopaedia's worth of album reviews would they? Please. Of course there can be boilerplate text to explain a fair-use rationale, if there is a sufficient rationale that is precisely them same in every case.
On your second point, why is it leading us over the cliff to accept fair-use album thumbnails? Rolling Stone magazine does exactly that in their List of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. Why do you want to hobble Wikipedia not to be able to do likewise? Jheald 22:24, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
@Durin: ways in which a cover art image will significantly contribute to an article are actually explicitly set out at WP:FURG#Necessary components. I assume you have actually read these policies? It actually suggests as potential significance rationales: "Is the image a logo, photograph, or box art for the main subject of the article? Is the image the primary means of visual identification of the subject or topic? (eg, a corporate logo, DVD box art)"
@Nick: as I set out at the top, different standards apply when use of an image is complementary to a normal exploitation of it, compared to when use of the image is substitutive. Use of a cover art thumbnail in an article on an album, because it is likely to be complementary, is a different case to other use of a copyright photograph, which is likely to be substitutive. To establish transformative use in the first case, it is sufficient that the article is presenting a critical review of the album. On the other hand, to establish transformative use of the image in the latter case is a lot harder, and this latter case is when a discussion of some feature or detail of the image must be of crucial inescapable relevance to the writing of the article. The two cases are different. Jheald 01:05, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
@Durin(2): re freedom: the relevant goals here that the Foundation has expressed are to create an encyclopedia; and to encourage free content. The second aim is relevant in all sorts of cases where the Foundation rejects non-free content because it is replaceable with free content. But it is not relevant here, because you can't replace an album cover with your own newly created image. Jheald 01:13, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
Just to let you know, check the non-free album cover template, there is a discussion to add a hardcoded fair use rationale there for all albums. -- ReyBrujo 01:53, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
Durin: Are you saying that an image of an album cover may not be used in an article about that album unless the cover itself is special in some way and the article discusses the cover itself? So you mean that most articles about albums should not show an image of the cover? -- Apoc2400 07:10, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
I wish to voice my disappoval of BetacommandBot. It tagged every page using Image:Coast guard flag.gif as lacking a fair-use rationale. The problem is the file is public domain, since it is a symbol created by the U.S. federal government. Even more of a problem is that the image is used in the Coast Guard Stub template, so over 100 articles had the fair-use rationale needed template added to the talk page. Several people have left messages on the bot and user page, but there has been no response or acknowledgement of mistake, and no effort to correct it. To me this is acting in bad faith. Especially since the bot users continue to criticize the efforts of others before correcting their own mistakes. -- Pesco 02:28, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
Betacommandbot left a message on my talk page about an image I uploaded, Image:National_Front.gif. This image is a replica of a political campaign poster, which makes it a clear cut example of a legitimate fair use image, and had already been noted and categorized as such. It appears in the National Front (France) article where, with an accompanying translation, it serves as an example of that party's anti-immigrant platform and demonstrates the controversial nature of that party's position, which notable and reliably sourced observers have contended is religiously biased and racist.
A picture is worth a thousand words, but recovery of legitimate and encyclopedic images such as this one can take a thousand keystrokes once they get deleted. Copyright violation is a significant and ongoing problem at this site and I support the editors who address the matter. If this bot did a good job identifying frivolous and decorative image use I would support it, but too much collateral damage is happening here. So many complaints have accumulated at Betacommand's talk page that one user actually issued a block warning.
Let's not get as heated as that, but clearly this bot needs to be taken out of service for a while and tweaked so that it doesn't damage useful and encyclopedic content. Durova Charge! 19:01, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
I agree - this bot is extremely disruptive. Many of the images have the Fair Use rational given in the licensing tag itself. License violations can be addressed through the normal process. This nit picky stuff can be address through the improvement process GA & FA. There are no easily identified examples for adding the rational for each type of image. This needs better organization to make this extremely simple for the everyday editor. Heck.. I've been here for 2 years and have read all of these policies and I'm still confused on what is needed. Morphh (talk) 13:47, 06 June 2007 (UTC)
I just wanted to comment that I also support the disabling of this bot. I've already posted my concerns over this bots actions on a high level, not even talking about a specific example on the talk page, and have gotten no response for the bot's author, just other editors who quote policy to justify the bots actions. It makes me wonder what the real purpose of this bot is, it is just an playground for the bots author to see what can be done and the prove a point, or is it a genuine attempt on helping the project? Based on the (lack of) response from the author, it's been impossible for me to assume good faith. // laughing man 14:54, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the fair-use rationales used for the images in the gallery at Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde#Album singles just a boilerplate copy of the rationale used for the main fair-use album cover image in that article? Carcharoth 17:05, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Fair use is a legal doctrine that may be used as a defence against a claim of copyright infringement. Technically speaking, until you've actually been to court and successfully invoked your claim of fair use to defend against such a suit, you're using the work illegally. In practice it's often possible to reasonably anticipate where a claim of fair use will be successful, typically by analogy with cases in which the defence has been successfully raised, and as such, the use is commonly regarded as "kosher", as it were, while still technically being illegal.
This reality raises a couple of issues. Since fair use is a defence, it's necessary to be able to explain on what basis your use falls within that defence. Since the defence applies only to particular uses of a work, you need to be able to make such an explanation for all of your uses of the work. And since claims fall into the "kosher" category by being based on solid analogies with existing cases in which the defence has been successfully raised, you need to explain the analogy you have employed, by reference to the specific fair use factors that apply to the particular work and the particular use in question.
There is no boilerplate fair use claim to be used against copyright infringement, just as there is no boilerplate claim for, say, self-defense in a murder trial, or for an estoppel claim in a breach of contract suit. Fair use claims may be very similar to each other, but that only reflects that the particular analogy being employed is strong (or at least popularly thought to be strong).
Executive summary: since fair use is a legal defence, you need to explain how it applies in every case, and this means there can be no boilerplate claims. -- bainer ( talk) 15:28, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedian bainer wrote: Technically speaking, until you've actually been to court and successfully invoked your claim of fair use to defend against such a suit, you're using the work illegally.
For a perhaps more studied view, let's turn to copyright expert and Creative Commons creator Lawrence Lessig, who wrote: Federal Law allows citizens to reproduce, distribute, or exhibit portions of copyrighted motion pictures, video tapes, or video discs under certain circumstances without the authorization of the copyright holder. This infringement of copyright is called âFair Useâ and is allowed for purposes of criticism, news reporting, teaching and parody.
I'm not sure the fair use of a copyrighted work should be considered "illegal until invoked" -- but fair use is most certainly NOT illegal. And since all of the fair use on Wikipedia is, by design, several orders more strict that what is required by law, I'm gonna' go ahead and say what we've all known all along -- Wikipedia does not have a LEGAL problem when it comes to fair use; this is purely a philosophical problem about internal Wikipedia policies and free/libre purity.
Something to keep in mind... Jenolen speak it! 18:57, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
I saw this at somethingaweful.com and thought it might be a fun thing to bring to everyones attention. I know somethingaweful is hardly a major news outlet, but "The Art of Wikigroaning" seems like the type of thing that could make a funny signpost segment or essay or something.
Have a nice day. Smmurphy( Talk) 19:24, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
I know that WP:PEREN#Legal issues says not to worry about the law, but I remain concerned about naming a Young Offender contrary to Canada's Young Offenders Act, ( now replaced by the Youth Criminal Justice Act).
In Canada, Todd Cameron Smith's identity would be protected because the crimes were committed when he was a minor. He's a living person and I'm not sure it's necessary or right to identify him in Wikipedia. Yes, Wikipedia is based in US but other people have been given greater protection for less.
Canuckle 00:15, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
Is it just me, or is this annoying and kind of impolite? I'll revert a vandal, go to the vandal's talk page to leave a warning, carefully compose a warning specific to that particular instance, and by the time I'm ready to save 45 seconds or 1 minute later, I'm edit conflicted because someone with Twinkle or VP or something saw my revert and jumped ahead of me.
I don't think I'll ever go to the trouble of complaining to someone if they do it to me (pretty counterproductive, since my whole complaint is that they're wasting my time), but I'd like to know that I'm morally justified when I mutter mean things about them under my breath. -- barneca ( talk) 14:04, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
Standardized template messages are usually sufficient to warn users. On the other hand, those warnings are a useful deterrant. There are many times that after I gave them the final warning, they stopped altogether. As long as they do not cause trouble within 24 hours, the same effect of a block as been imposed on the vandal, since he's laid low for that amount of time.-- Kylohk 20:27, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
Are both capable of damaging the atmosphere?
I'm having some problems with TheRingess, and would like to hear from any other editors who have had problems with her. Am trying to take suitable steps.
Sardaka 12:56, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
On behalf of the Election Committee,
Philippe 23:05, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
__________________
Dear all,
We, the election committee, hereby announce the opening of a new election for members of the Wikimedia Foundation's Board of Trustees. At least three positions will be filled from this election, with the elected members serving a two year term.
It is important to note that election processes are slightly different this year than in previous years: all candidates should be certain to thoroughly read the FAQ at: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2007/en
From today, June 10th, we're accepting candidates for the Board of Trustees. If you're interested, you must make a candidate statement and list yourself on http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2007/Candidates/en
We also need the help or translators for the elections, so if you're fluent in any language other than English, and willing to help, please list yourself here: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2007/Translations
If you have any questions, please first read the FAQ, then list your questions to the talk page: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2007/FAQ/en
The official announcement is available on Meta: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2007/en
We are confident that this election will draw very qualified candidates, and we wish them the best of luck.
Regards,
Kizu Naoko (Aphaia) Newyorkbrad Philippe Beaudette Jon Harald Søby
I've been working on a new essay entitled Policy shopping. Of course, this is a neologism, and the intent is simply to argue that editors should propose all justifications for a particular change at one time, instead of incrementally trying policies (i.e. if this policy/guideline fails, let me try another one to effect the same change). It is still under construction, but I think at this point it is a rough inclusion of all the points I'm trying to make. I request the community's input... please give it a read and post your comments on the associated talk page. Thanks! / Blaxthos 11:56, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
The Snake Project needs helper and users to help create anf finish the articles. For more information about the project, visite my userpage.
変 Nikro 08:36, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
I left a message on a talkpage, the message was about me having to change something in the userpage and why i have to do it. but the user, i ain't gonna mention WikiDragon295's name, deleted the message and writen me up for vandelism. I had no combat against him because he deleted the reason for "Vandelism" so i looked completely guilty, luckly I got the proof of the reason, and of his deleting of it, from his talkpage history. But noone should be allowed to delete what someone places on the talkpage, and my opion, that's vandelism, I was blamed for something because the user earased my message, just to try and banned me. Something should be done so such actions can't be done.
変 Nikro 05:32, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
Oh for crying out loud. The pair of you, Stop! The village pump is for discussing wikipedia issues. Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 08:16, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
The User " Nikro" has vandalised My Userpage, and he wasn't even punished, They didn't reverse the chnge, i had to rewrite it, i say something should be done about it!!!
崉 WikiDragon295 22:12, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
ok
崉 WikiDragon295 22:51, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
Trust me, he knewn about the reason on his talkpage, and he deleted it, and he told me. And I had permission from him to edit his page.Proove of my reason on hi's talkpage
This following is a copy from the user's talkpage history.
変
Nikro 10:55, 9 June 2007(UTC)
The very idea of winning and losing debates here is abhorrent. Wikipedia works on consesus. I strongly suggest you remove all references to winning from your userpage altogether as it will make you look foolish to the grown ups.
Theresa Knott |
Taste the Korn
08:20, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
I apologize if this isn't the proper place for this question, but if someone would be kind enough to direct me to the proper place to post it, then please do so.
I've noticed that a massive amount of images on commons are about to be deleted, namely because of the incompatible stock.xchng license. They'll be deleted on July 1, a date chosen to give people a good chunk of time to get permission for each individual image they need saved. However, the only way anyone becomes aware of this mass deletion is through clicking on the images' description pages.
Now, I've noticed that {{ ifdc}} is designed to notify readers and editors of an article that an image in that article is to be deleted. It's a good way to spread awareness; articles have tags on them, and now images' captions do too. But now that 800+ images are about to be deleted, I was pondering if a template should be put in these captions to make people aware of these images' status, and give editors a chance to get permission to use them, instead of having them mysteriously disappear in July. Would {{ ifdc}} do? Or should a new one be created? âThe preceding signed comment was added by Cadby ( talk ⢠contribs) 23:59, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
I have created a proposal for a task force here. -- Tλε Rαnδom EδιÏor ( Ïαlκ) 02:41, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
Now, I know that this is WP:BEANS, but I have to ask:
What happens if you "upload a new version of the file" of the picture that is picture of the day. Besides getting banned and blocked. What I mean is will the server let you? It is blocked, right? I'm not going to do it or anything, but if you can, maybe we should report it to the WP:VPT guys so they can stop potential vandalism. I'll post this there too, but I don't know if it really fits there. If this is too WP:BEANSish for you, just delete this section. Thanks!! - Hair chr m 01:44, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
I've just received two personal attacks via email from the blocked user User:Fayden asking why I blocked his account and then going on to say rather nasty things and make threats about me. I had never heard of Fayden until he emailed, and certainly had nothing to do with his blocking. I'm avoiding replying to him as it will give him my email address. Does anyone have any advice? Stannered 13:16, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
This section may contain material
not related to the topic of the article and should be moved to
The Google conspiracy to take over the world by making us spell "cheese" wrong, hyperintelligent zebras, and their possible involvement in said conspiracy. instead. |
Is it possible that a company, like Google (with "did you mean ___?"), changes the spelling of words in Wikipedia articles to find out what people most likely think a word should be spelled like, because it seems like a good idea and they have so many computers, each with a different IP address, it would seem hard to catch them at it. Jeffrey.Kleykamp 11:26, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
WTF? -- tjstrf talk 01:40, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
I've noticed that Hagerman ( talk · contribs) hasn't posted an edit since 16:47, 29 April 2007. His bot, HagermanBot ( talk · contribs) last edited about a month later at 02:42, 25 May 2007. I don't see any kind of Wikibreak notice on his user page. Does anyone know if he's okay? — Elipongo ( Talk contribs) 20:36, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
Hi I created a last.fm radio player widget for Wikipedia. It runs with Firefox.
Further info, see here: User:Csörföly D/last.fm widget
Please make your signature shorter, and don't include an image in it. Corvus cornix 23:26, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
24.82.98.151 and, possibly, others delete their warnings after they get a warning for vandalizing, will that make it look (without going through the talk page's history) like they never vandalized, and make it that they never get caught? And, if so, what can we do about it? Jeffrey.Kleykamp 22:44, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
Maybe we should set up some FAQs? -- Kim Bruning 21:28, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
Some people say we all love weasel words, but a user is really surprised to see that there haven't been any templates, or any good templates at least. I dusted off {{ WW}} today and added categories, documentation, etc. to bring it up to the {{ fact}} standard. Only two articles so far use it. How can some of us promote use of this template. hbdragon88 00:59, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
It turns out that there's {{ weasel-inline}}, though it's quite dreadfully long – I could never type that in. It's even longer than {{ weasel}}! But thanks; I had created Category:Articles with weasel word statements, and now I see Category:Articles with weasel words. Repointed and tagged accordingly. hbdragon88 05:13, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
Nearly everything can be explained and figured out through math and physics. However, on paper Helicopters should not be able to fly. In theory they really don't work, they are a man-made phenomenon.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.148.248.180 ( talk • contribs)
Why are you Americans so box-minded? You should write articles about people independently of where they were born or raised. For example I saw a list of Russian Americans. Why don´t you also make a list of Chinese Americans, Japanese Americans, French Americans, French Brazilians, Black Jews, Mexican English and Swiss tennis players? Those kind of lists are totally arbitrary and don´t make much sense. No wonder there´s so much segregation in the US. You could start by getting rid of some of these lists.
Ok thank you for sharing your opinion.