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I've seen some signatures starting to get rather large nowadays, using different colours for each letter of their username, for example. I saw one that took up four lines in the edit box (non-maximised window, admittedly). Should we force a signature length limit? 64 characters, for example, should be enough for most cases. violet/riga (t) 19:47, 9 May 2005 (UTC)
There has to be a limit. I proposed it before. It is evil to include images and overly complex layout. When you sign your name on paper, you do it as effortlessly as possible. You do not write a 10,000-word autobiography with a 150-foot tall oil painting of your face as your signature. If you don't do it with your hands in the real world, don't do it here. -- Toytoy 12:56, May 10, 2005 (UTC)
I'd be reluctant to proscribe a precise character limit, but yes, sigs that take more than a couple lines in the edit window I would agree are execessive, and should be avoided. I also agree that any enlargement (or emboldment, etc.) of the sig that implies it is more important than the surrounding text is in extremely poor taste, and should be avoided. Niteowlneils 17:13, 10 May 2005 (UTC)
[[User:Knowledge Seeker|Knowledge Seeker]] [[User talk:Knowledge Seeker|*]]
("
Knowledge Seeker
*"), which is the simplest signature I can think of that links to my talk page, uses 76 characters. I wouldn't mind a general recommendation about signature length (if a character count is specified, though, it has to be higher) and to limit excessive HTML markup. I use a single Unicode character in mine which I think it quite reasonable. I support a rule against using images and templates. I do think that using larger text for your signature is in extremely poor taste, although I don't know if I'd want a rule to say not to use it. Bold text is in rather poor taste too, I feel, unless it is to separate parts of your signature, like for user name and talk, especially if you are trying to avoid lengthy HTML markup. —
Knowledge Seeker
দ 17:57, 10 May 2005 (UTC)
I hesitated a long time before adding that talk page link to my signature... Somehow it disturbs the peaceful essence of my three-letter name. Of course, I care little about signature length. >:-) Incidentally, Knowledge Seeker, the signature "[[User:Knowledge Seeker|]] · [[User talk:Knowledge Seeker|Talk]]" is exactly 64 characters... I'm assuming the raw signature field only counts characters, not substituted markup. JRM · Talk 18:19, 2005 May 10 (UTC)
violet/riga]] [[User_talk:violetriga|(t)
I'd like to see an anthropological analysis of these signatures. I'm not an anthropologist, but I'll make my observations anyway... My guess is that since the signature is about the only image we show to each other, it has become a form of plumage. I'll wager that most fancy signatures belong to young, males on the make. Also, the signatures send a message that the user is very technologically savvy. Most users don't know how to make those fancy sigs, so the message that they send is, "Don't mess with me, I'm smart, and I've been around here a long time, so you better not revert what I write!". Now, I don't think we should encourage either message, so I think we should limit signatures to ~~~~ . I'm serious! -- Samuel Wantman 07:56, 11 May 2005 (UTC)
I think we should all endeavor to be more like ! :) -- Dmcdevit 01:09, 24 May 2005 (UTC)
OK, everyone knows I hate lengthy signatures. Now how about this proposal:
I also propose these non-official peer-pressure limitations:
I have seen signatures that contain two or more images. These signatures shall not be running wild. We shall encourage simplicity here. -- Toytoy 11:36, Jun 8, 2005 (UTC)
I haven't really had a problem with signatures being annoying; perhaps the peacocks on here have stayed away from the Roman Catholic corner. Nonetheless, I agree with the idea of an automatic signature (to avoid having to use ~~~~ ) as well as automatically adding the link to the user's talk page in the signature. I for one hate having to go to the user page first, particularly for those people I message frequently. As it relates to the other suggestions, I support anything that makes Wikipedia run faster, relieves strain on the servers, and limits the amount of wikistress and wikiwarfare that takes place. Essjay (talk) 08:56, Jun 13, 2005 (UTC)
Moved to Talk:FHM-US's 100 Sexiest Women 2005
I noticed that the article on Angers was essentially lifted word for word from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica. Is it general policy at Wikipedia that information in the public domain (such as the 1911 EB) can be used without quoting or citing it? Since the 1911 EB is already online, it's just redundant to reuse its text as the sole source of an article.
-- Vitamin D 2 July 2005 18:49 (UTC)
I have just out of curosity searched for the origin of the name Vancouver, as in George Vancouver and found the following page Etymology of Vancouver. I am curious as to how it is suggested the best way of adding the information of this sort, if it is indeed relavent for an entry of this sort.
I've written up a new policy proposal, with assistance from Ed Poor, to set out some guidelines and basic principles for dealing with naming conflicts of the Gdanzig type. It's at Wikipedia:Naming conflict - comments welcomed. -- ChrisO 1 July 2005 22:51 (UTC)
If we have a webpage that corresponds with the topic, are we allowed to place it inside or will this be considered unwelcome spam? Thanks , just wanted to make sure
Should biographies begin with the full names, including middle names unused in everyday reference, or should it begin with the same name as the article title? See Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (biographies)#Full names. David 25px | Talk 1 July 2005 19:54 (UTC)
This must have been discussed around 100 times already, but there is still no clear policy of how to handle anonymous users voting on VFD, and the decision of whether to count or ignore these votes is left entirely up to the closing administrator. A number of times I have seen anonymous votes commented on with "anonymous votes are not counted" or similar. However, there is no policy which says so explicitly. The closest thing to a policy I can find is the header on the WP:VFD page: "Anonymous and new users are welcome to contribute to the discussion, but their votes may be discounted, especially if they seem to be made in bad faith." Note the word "may". It does not say "will".
For the record I might say what I do with anonymous votes in some common situations. Most debates have no such votes, and most of those who have any have only one. One very common situation is that all the other votes from established users, and if I have no reason to believe that the anonymous vote was cast in bad faith, I will count it just like any other. This is a common situation, when a regular reader (but not a regular contributor) of the encyclopedia reads an article he or she likes and is warned that the article might be deleted, who can blame them for participating in such a discussion? Especially when the VFD-tag comes with the invitation "Please vote on and discuss the matter". Also, I will almost always count the vote made by the article's author, even if the author is anonymous. (Some seem to be under the impression that the article's author or main contributor is not allowed to vote, but as far as I can see, this is completely incorrect.) However, if I start finding 10 different anons all voting keep while all the established users vote delete, I will usually discount them as this is a good sign of bad faith.
Anyway, that is some of the thoughts I have on the matter, but maybe there ought to be a full policy discussion about this topic. Sjakkalle (Check!) 1 July 2005 08:55 (UTC)
A discussion on VfD regarding Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Nottinghamshire v Yorkshire 26 June 2005 has turned into a discussion on the policy of using transclusion to present information in the article space. See also Wikipedia talk:Template namespace#transcluding prose and Talk:2005 English cricket season#subpages and Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Unusual transclusion issue not covered by policy, before joining the discussion. Steve block 30 June 2005 07:58 (UTC)
Why is it that Wikipedia does not allow original research, and yet Wikinews, another Wikimedia project allows original reporting? -- Munchkinguy 02:59, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Doesn't it depend on what you mean by "original"? All entries have to be original because otherwise there would be a breach of copyright. If someone writes a page on an existing topic, that there may be some novel feature about it should not bar its entry. Presumably, there will be a verifiable core (in the sense of references to existing publications) and a sustained chain of argument to support any reasoned novel conclusion that might be reached. The very fact that it is a reasoned conclusion is the means whereby it can be verified — that is an aspect of the scientific method. Obviously, an article on a highly specialised research topic might not be interesting to the vast majority of readers, even if they were aware of it in the first place, but I do not necessarily see that as a bar to publication here. Or, as usual, am I missing something? -- David91 07:00, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Hi, Philip. I've had a quick browse. It seems to be a Janus type of policy: on the one hand, it confronts the problem of POV motivated commentators who threaten to swamp factual pages with unverified opinion; but, equally, it seeks to adress the case of specialists who distill complex ideas into more accessible forms for encyclopoedia use which inevitably will have aspects of novelty about it. The utility of the information to the end-user should be the litmus test. If the naive reader is likely to be misled, then the entry should be edited to exclude the confusing data and/or deleted. If the page is a fair and reasonable explanation of the mass of information and can be relied upon to inform the naive reader, then it should be accepted. I note your invitation to contribute to the debate but, at my age, I think I will leave it to the young and strong to thrash out what they want this place to be. -- David91 17:15, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Moved from WP:HD#definitions_for_.22encyclopedic.22_and_.22overcategorization.22 and forked.
These are at the heart of frequent quarrels, and WP:G does not define them. What exactly do the terms mean? — Sebastian (talk) 18:56, 2005 Jun 23 (UTC)
In addition, overcategorisation could refer to there being too many branches of the hierachy, meaning that a category only has one or two articles in it, and should be merged upwards. Dunc| ☺ 30 June 2005 17:38 (UTC)
I have documented a new policy, Requests for rollback. In a nutshell, this policy is like RfA except giving just the rollback permission rather than the entire set of admin tools. It's intended for those who just desire access to rollback, for various reasons. Discussion welcomed on its talk page. Talrias ( t | e | c) 30 June 2005 21:20 (UTC)
discussion archived at Wikipedia talk:Lyrics and poetry/Poll on inclusion of lyrics and poetry
The article Coin's financial school has a large block of text commented out (I didn't see it until I started editing to fix something). The text is a excerpt from the pamphlet (written 1893) that the article is about which someone commented out as not wikipedia appropriate. Seems it should be transwiki-ed and pruned from the article.
How do I go about suggesting it be transwiki-ed? RJFJR June 29, 2005 01:36 (UTC)
If I want to get an uncopyrighted image of, for example, an album cover, and I own that album, would be it considered copyright violation to scan that image and then upload it on to Wikipedia and put it in the album's article?-- Methegreat 28 June 2005 23:43 (UTC)
Ok, I nominated James Voirin for deletion, on the grounds given in the VfD. Now, the article has been expanded since the beginning of the VfD but, Goldstein307 ( talk · contribs) just closed the debate with a Keep when the voting was 7d, 2k. That is a clear consensus to delete. There was discussion of whether he was sufficiently notable or not, but the voting is very clear indeed, as are the reasons given for the 7 delete votes.
Is there a procedure for contesting the closure of a VfD on that basis? I've let Goldstein know on their talk page.- Splash June 28, 2005 18:13 (UTC)
I am posting this at Village pump (policy) because this is yet another survey/controversy of the inclusion of a photo or drawing that some find objectionable: feces/ talk:feces - after one vote on whether to include a photo of a large human stool that showed a small majority in favor of including the photo, there is a new survey over the size and location of the photo within the article. 28 June 2005 08:58 (UTC)
Moved to Wikipedia talk:Moving images to the Commons
Ed Poor has created the article Wikipedia:Gaming the system. This should be a policy proposal, so I am submitting it to VP (policy) on Ed's behalf. - Ta bu shi da yu 03:02, 27 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Anyone who is interested can check out my guideline proposal: Wikipedia:Homophora.
"...Homophoric reference is not a feature of grammar, but rather is a generic phrase given a particular interpretation in a particular social context. For example, in the United Kingdom, the Queen is a homophoric reference to the Queen of the United Kingdom, whereas in the Netherlands the Queen is a homophoric reference to the Queen of the Netherlands." from exophora.
I think this is becoming a problem (not the Queen example, that's rather obvious), especially with users who use dictionary definition instead of respecting the extralinguistic nature of a word or phrase. Currently, there are no guidelines for dealing with a situation such as this. It's similar to the Neologism guideline (in a sense it's sort of its opposite.)
Anyone well-versed in linguistics is strongly encouraged to check it out (since I'm not a linguist, and the concepts are pretty shaky). And yes, I just learned this term recently, but oh how I have been looking for it.
-- Ben 06:50, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Celesio was begun with press-release. Is it correct that a press release is not copyrighted? RJFJR 15:56, Jun 26, 2005 (UTC)
This may sound like a ridiculous question, but these days, I can't believe it is. I'm wondering what Wikipedia's policy is on knowing that certain "editors" are obsessed with various living people to the point where one can't predict exactly how far the obsession will be taken, but odds are flowers, candy and serenades aren't going to be involved. I'm not referring to people like Fidel Castro or George W. Bush (who surely have special security to deal with whacky Wikipedians), but lesser-knowns. I may have just fallen into an unusual wiki puddle (and I certainly hope so), but judging by a certain group of sock-puppets, there's at least one unpredictable here whose behavior goes somewhat beyond "strange." If an editor repeatedly demonstrates truly extreme dislike of certain individuals in his home territory – by Vfd's, vitriolic stubs and edits, edit-warring, vandalism, etc. – never mind when do we put a stop to him/her? When do we take any further steps? Or is the policy "Don't ask, don't tell?" -- Mothperson 14:15, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
See my user page, SqueakBox 15:43, Jun 26, 2005 (UTC)
The one thing we have on our side is that everything in wikipedia is recorded, and therefore could be used in a court case. When someone gets threatened for their legitimate work here, as I have been, the only option is to be very open about what has happened. I see the fundamental problem being POV warriors who cannot tolerate seeing their work removed by legitimate contributors who do not wish to see others use wikipedia as a political (etc) platform. Angine openly left because of being cyberstalked, and this is a problem that wikipedia could and should address more profoundly. I am sure one day there will be a court case involving wikipedia, and the organisation should be better prepared for said eventuality, SqueakBox 16:22, Jun 26, 2005 (UTC)
Closest I could find was: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style archive ("See also") but it seems to be missing the actual project page! — Ambush Commander( Talk) 02:12, Jun 26, 2005 (UTC)
The 3 rever rule talks about blocking, not banning. So a sysop can block a user after they violate the 3RR, but following the current text of this policy the sysop cannot ban the user for 3RR. The "Decision to ban" section in WP:BAN doesn't list the 3RR as a possible reason to ban.
So a 3RR penalty is a block, not a ban.
But WP:BLOCK does not talk about extending the block or penalizing users who try to get around them (e.g. by returning as anon or using a sock), only the Banning policy does.
So in theory, someone blocked after a 3RR can argue that extending his block via an autoblock or preventing him from returning through a known sock is against the policy (or better said, the policy does not mention this option).
We tried to translate the current text of these policies as the starting point for the set of policies in the Hungarian Wikipedia, and came upon this problem.
So is there really an inconsistency or have I misunderstood something?
Thanks, nyenyec ☎ 21:35, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Okay, this makes sense now, I was thinking that Banning was a term for the long-wanted feature of blocking editing but not viewing on an IP address (-zilla bug 550). Now this is coming back to me w/ the soft/hard bans etc. — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 23:58, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I added an external link describing my testimony in the article post-cult trauma and now the other editor to this article thinks that this should be mentioned in the article. I disagree because I think this would be a self-reference. Any thoughts? See Talk:Post-cult_trauma#Self-promotion Andries 11:22, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I've been gone for a while, but I've noticed a lot of articles have a trivia header/section. Personally, I've tried to reintegrate them into the article. Is there a policy on this? — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 21:54, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Which is the preferred sort key for an article that is the category? [[Category:Fearsome men|*]] or [[Category:Fearsome men| ]]? I would say the latter (and it did seem that the tide has been turning to that method on wikipedia) but after just being reverted I was wondering if there was any policy on this. Oh, and in case people don't know... "*" will sort it with an asterisk as the header while " " will sort it with no header (which to me means that category itself is the header which is precisely the point... gren 16:03, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I just proposed an ethical guideline for dealing with conflicts of interest. I explained my motivation for this on its associated talk page. Briefly, my main concern is employees who write about the companies they work for. -- Yannick 04:54, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Technically this would fall under Wikipedia's POV policy. As long as people stick to an unbiased "just the facts" mentality, I would think that this shouldn't be necessary. Ereinion File:RAHSymbol.JPG 05:27, Jun 27, 2005 (UTC)
This is my proposed policy for wiki closure. We already have too many non-functioning wikis. It gives us a false sense of cosmopolitanism as long as you don't take a closer look at their contents. I propose that we act like responsible adults rather than hopeless day-dreamers. Now let's close some of them. -- Toytoy 06:58, July 24, 2005 (UTC)
I have drafted Wikipedia:Image use policy/Proposal and am opening it to discussion. Please note that this is a first draft and as such is subject to change. Gwk 20:01, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
I've noticed lately that Google Maps seems to be becoming a potential major source of imagevios. I've already found two satellite photos that were taken from that website and added them to WP:CP. The terms of use clearly state that the satellite images can't be used on Wikipedia, and yet I cannot help but think that people are going to keep taking screenshots, cropping them, and uploading them to Wikipedia, possibly in large numbers.
Personally, I think that we should have some kind of policy that states that other than on the Google Maps page, satellite images from Google Maps (the actual maps are something else altogether) can't be used on Wikipedia. I'd like to know what everyone else thinks about this. Gwk 16:02, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
Google derives the majority if not all of its satellite images from the USGS, which means they are public domain as works of the federal government. The fact that they've slapped a copyright watermark on the images is irrelevant. Compare for example the Google satellite images of Washington, DC or San Francisco with the USGS ones found at terraserver.microsoft.com. Unfortunately, terraserver only has the higher res, color images of select locations, so unless someone knows of another site that has the complete set available, we can't do a complete comparison. Postdlf 16:24, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
Are screenshots from NASA World Wind okay to use if attributed to that source?- gadfium 02:30, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
I think we should do more to deal with the attention brought by slashdotted/ farked/etc. articles. We are leaving a very bad taste in their mouths, due to the vandalism their attention attracts. I think we should have a "welcome, slashdotters!" template and also recommend to them that they link to a known-good revision instead of the live article. More discussion here: Template_talk:Slashdotted#Slashdotter_first_impressions - Omegatron 15:00, July 21, 2005 (UTC)
What do you guys think of this proposal? User:Phroziac/Confirmation_of_sysophood I made it a while back but forgot to publicisie it! -- Phroziac ( talk) 04:24, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
There has been some discussion of the use of temporary articles in Wikipedia, mostly in relation to game summaries as part of the Wikiproject Cricket (see Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Essex v Glamorgan 15 May 2005, note particularly the Temporary articles section at the bottom). The idea of temporary articles is new to most of us, it would appear, and as I have found no policy on them I think one should be introduced. Whether the policy forbids temporary articles or merely provides rules and guidelines is what needs to be addressed. This stretches well beyond Wikiproject Cricket and should not be seen as solely relating to the project. - R. fiend 21:32, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
The proposal for expanding the Speedy Deletion Criteria ( WP:CSD) has ended. See Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion/Proposal for details on the outcome. Four new criteria have been added, and one has been reworded. R adiant _>|< 19:17, July 20, 2005 (UTC)
Sorry for crossposting, but I am desparate to involve as many Wikipedians as possible. We've discussed the matter endlessly, and now have a vote to help us reach consensus: Korean naming convention what order should Sea of Japan and East Sea be used in the articles? Kokiri 08:41, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
I've drafted a short set of notes on how not to be a spammer on Wikipedia. This is intended as a summary of "spammer-ish" behaviors I've observed, and could be used as the basis of a guideline on identifying Wiki-spam. I don't intend it to be comprehensive, just to give people an idea of what sort of behavior is identified as "spammy" and how to avoid it.
Please respond on Wikipedia talk:Spam where the proposal is, so as not to make this page any more spammy than it usually is. -- FOo 00:22, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
I've been thinking about this for a long time, but after being subject to a number of vandal attacks I'm starting to brood about the feasibility of making all Wikipedia editors log in before they could make an edit. I know a lot of people will oppose to this, but the gains are so sizeable that might offset the ills. It will certainly deter vandals and make them much easier to deal with. Imagine how much money will be saved each day with this policy. Mandel 21:57, July 19, 2005 (UTC)
I got banned when I added a post into the Tom Cruise Links section. The link was tomcruiseisnuts.com. I added it many times but eventually I got banned due to vandialism. I look at it now and someone else has added with link and no action was taken to that user. I got banned for a whole day and I believe that is unfair and would like to know why. Opt 05 21:44, July 18, 2005 (UTC)
Well, I was doing many things at once and didn't notice the messages comming into me. I though some mad fan didn't want anything like it on the page or something. It is a link that should be added, just because it isn't positive doesn't mean people can't see it. Opt 05 19:45, July 19, 2005 (UTC)
Once it is clear that you are in a dispute, the appropriate thing is usually to take it to the talk page, not to just keep making the same edit without developing consensus. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:06, July 20, 2005 (UTC)
Or can their censorship of criticism be reverted? See [2] - Omegatron 20:26, July 18, 2005 (UTC)
I believe the general feeling has been that if you want a private talk page, register. Many talk pages can hardly be considered "private" anyway, since they go with IPs used by many people. Joyous (talk) 20:36, July 18, 2005 (UTC)
I've proposed an amendment to our User talk page policy at Wikipedia:Talk page/Anonymous talk pages proposal. Briefly, it requires that (non-vandalism) comments be left on anonymous talk pages for a minimum period of time (seven days, perhaps?) before being blanked. If an editor wants more 'ownership' over his talk page, he can register. I'm looking for comments and refinements. TenOfAllTrades( talk) 15:31, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
I'm having a hard time finding any guidance on extremely lengthy summaries of books and movies. An overblown example is Harry Potter (plot). Obviously this page needs to be split into individual articles for each book, but assuming that is done, would those articles be encyclopedic? In other words, is a summary so large that it cannot be on the book or movie's own page worth having in the encyclopedia? James 19:59, July 18, 2005 (UTC)
Why is the {{ PermissionAndFairUse}} tag allowed on Wikipedia? It appears to violate our policies. It is a cop-out for us to allow this tag and claim we're in the right by disclaiming that each re-user needs to evalaute whether they're going to host the images that have this tag. Tempshill 16:54, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
I propose eliminating "Not in use" from the list of criteria for template deletion. I fail to see how this, in and of itself, constitutes a valid reason for eliminating a template. Certainly, a template might have other shortcomings that warrant its removal--but if the only objection is that no one's using it, that's not really a good reason to delete it. The simple fact that it's not being used doesn't actually hurt anything, after all--might as well keep it available in case someone does come up with a worthwhile use for it. Kurt Weber 21:36, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
I would like to address a question related to this proposed policy change, namely, whether or not a TfD should have voting/input suspended while a policy challenge exists. (This would probably apply to VfD, VfU, CfD, etc. as well). The only reasons I bring this up here, are because (a) I'm not sure where else this should be addressed, and (b) because this is an issue that has arisen on WP:TFD specifically because of this purported policy change proposal. Tomer TALK 02:58, July 21, 2005 (UTC)
OK, I'm going to move this to Wikipedia:Category titles. Maurreen 03:21, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
I have redirected the above page to Wikipedia:Categorization/By country as that is a more precise name, and separates the issue of the abbreviations from the country name/adjective/whatever. I've also moved the discussion text that was here to that page's talk page. - Splash 13:10, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
I'm moving it back. Splash's move, in my mind, is prejudging the issue by naming it as categorising by country, when that has not yet been decided. It could be that we categorise by nationality. Steve block talk 13:23, July 19, 2005 (UTC)
The discussion has broadened to consider categories related to the United Kingdom. So if you have an opinion on "of the UK", etc., please see Wikipedia:Category titles. Maurreen 18:08, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
I'm not really all that HTML literate, but ?ref in a url appears to me to be an attempt to track links that come in to that external site from Wikipedia, which I assume is against a Wikipedia policy or guideline. However, I didn't see anything about it in Wikipedia:External links, although there is a lot of discussion of similar external link quality issues on Wikipedia_talk:External links. (posted by User:Spalding — Wahoofive ( talk))
Also, in general, is there a way to search just the Wikipedia:Project namespace? And is anyone else a little disillusioned with the usefulness of Talk pages? They seem to suffer from a lack of traffic, so questions asked there often languish and get no real resolution, which is the main reason I am asking this here instead of on that Talk page. Thanks. Spalding 11:40, July 17, 2005 (UTC)
Following a quick discussion regarding John Stockwell in which his legitimate nephew claims that Stockwell wishes the page deleted - I'm left rather curious what what actual Wikipedia policy is in cases like this? He's a legitimate encyclopaedical entry, being the highest-ranking CIA member to publicly resign his post - and google turns up over 8000 hits for *him* (John Stockwell + CIA) Sherurcij 07:52, July 17, 2005 (UTC)
Stockwell 05:16, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
After I merge 2 articles, can I edit the page to remove the merge request? What about after I fulfill other requests, such as an image request? Thanks.
This section of the NOR is the most commonly quoted and misrepresented part of the NOR:
I've seen more than one user quote it as some sort of get-out for using original research in articles. By arguing that their original thesis are backed up by logic applied to otherwise unrelated primary and seconday sources and citing this section they claim they are not performing original research, even though they clearly are. I think this section needs to be reworded. Axon 15:40, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
It's at
Wikipedia:VfD renomination limits.
Thanks,
Luc "Somethingorother" French 05:55, 14 July 2005 (UTC)
Is there a policy about links to copyvios? I just saw an anon inserting a link to page holding a Scientific American article. -- Pjacobi 20:01, July 13, 2005 (UTC)
Knowingly linking to sites that contain copyright infringements exposes us to contributory liability in the U.S. Postdlf 05:56, 14 July 2005 (UTC)
There was recently a vote to change Wikipedia:Naming conventions (movies), but I believe this major policy change didn't allow enough people to know about it. Shouldn't major changes have a notice posted at Wikipedia:Naming conventions or at least its talk page? Only 7 people voted, for goodness sake. Mackerm 15:16, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
This site uses the text from wiki and places a copyright on it. It does list the http address the data was obtained from. Does this meet the redistribution policy? Vegaswikian 05:17, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
Maybe all those vandals who add nonsense or silly things to articles but aren't particularly malicous could be directed to Uncyclopedia.org? Just an idea. Uberisaac 11:11, July 12, 2005 (UTC)
There is disagreement on the policy for this. Some Wikipedians think we should use modern counties for articles on modern places, but historic counties where appropriate for historical articles and in history sections. Others believe we should use historic or traditional county names in all cases.
There is a clearly-stated policy (now a year old), but some editors are disregarding it. Feelings have run quite high for at least the last 18 months.
If you have an interest in British counties, cities and towns we would welcome your input. Visit the policy page and its discussion for details. Chris Jefferies 13:22, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
Are we ok with articles that have titles like ? Joyous (talk) 01:34, July 11, 2005 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Unicode) (draft). Arbor 07:45, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
The article originally called Beth (letter) (concerning one of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet) has recently been retitled ב rossb 09:25, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
I should add to this that I'm reading this via Windows XP with the latest mulit-lingual versions of Arial and whatnot available and even *I* can't see a couple of the characters rendered above. So how can a user with a pre-OpenType computer even hope to keep up? And is a page URL comprised of "%1932%20421%20024%E3%81%8D" really such a good idea? People like referencing us, but if they get a "dirty" URL like that they might be a little annoyed. Garrett Talk 13:01, 12 July 2005 (UTC)
Whatever will become policy, is an unsuitable article name, as it uses a character of the Unicode Private use area. For example, on my setup it renders a micro-advertisement "Kurd IT Group" from the creator of a font I've installed. I'm sure you are meaning another symbol. But it isn't part of Unicode and so it's a bad example. -- Pjacobi 14:13, July 20, 2005 (UTC)
In the past few days I have come across a distraught dog owner and a very disappointed kid asking questions at the help desk. The help desk help are, understandably, not terribly sympathetic. They get reference desk questions all the time. They have enough to do answering questions from idiotic Wikipedians like me. There is a very simple solution to this problem - RENAME THE BLOODY HELP DESK! I shout because I find the whole thing extremely distressing for everyone involved. This happens over and over again, every day. Call it - I don't know - "Guided Tours" or something. Anything but the help desk. Please. DO something to stop this. -- Mothperson 13:59, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
Given that Wikipedians are supposedly smart enough to find their way to obtaining help with Wikipedia problems, whatever the source of that problem-solving is named, WHY DOES IT HAVE TO BE CALLED A HELP DESK? I can't believe that the poverty-stricken owner of a dog with a collapsed lung is going to be pestering something called "Wikimess" or "Wikipediassness" or whatever. Of course, some will get through. But do you really feel it's necessary to lay down a red carpet and install flashing neon arrows? As for the big pink sign, I'm not a total moron, and even I don't notice it. It doesn't sink in. It's nothing. I do not understand why the name of the help desk can't be changed as the simplest semi-demi-solution to a constant problem, unless we've got some sort of stake in being elitist snobs. I hope we don't. -- Mothperson 20:51, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
There's nothing elitist about calling it the "Help desk." What's elitist is insisting it can't be called anything else, and those fools who come there thinking they will get help deserve nothing better than dismissal. Which reminds me - the Village Pump - I've finally figured out why it's called that. One comes here with an issue, and the answer, in my experience, is "go soak your head." I don't know what the answer to the Help desk problem is, but I thought it was sensible to present it here. I was wrong, and should have known better. I will try some other routes. Never mind. -- Mothperson 22:51, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
You might say that. But I am loath to blame the help desk volunteers, who do enough as it is. It took me two months to figure out the difference between help and reference, because I read labels, pink or otherwise colored, as much as I read instruction manuals - i.e. I don't. It took me three months to realize what the reference desk actually was. [[User:Mothperson| Mothperson]] 20:35, 11 July 2005 (UTC) and cripes, now I have to go over to the help desk to solve my signature problem - these people don't get paid nearly enough
In regards to this article: Seduction, I removed from the article links to sites that give primary information on the subject, ie. how to seduce someone. It's inappropriate because they aren't very "scientific" or adhere to standards that Wikipedia aspairs to. Conceivably there are thousands of such sites on the Internet. Why should we favor one over another? Or are we going to list all the sites related to a topic? We're not a wikified version of Google. I also removed the link to Robert Greene's site, which seems to merely advertise his book on same topic. Basically, anything that links to a site that provides non-encyclopedic information/primary source should not be in the article. I want to know what everyone else's opinion is on this. Please advise. Comatose51 02:59, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
Those interested in this topic may want to weigh in (hmm) at Talk:Ted_Kennedy#fatboy.cc. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:23, July 10, 2005 (UTC)
There is an ongoing debate by several parties at the COTW talk. Please read it before responding. The debate is over whether it is wikipedia policy to not include the COTW and AID templates on the article page. Several others and I claim that it useful to the reader, and since a consensus was never reached on the subject that the templates can go on the page. The other parties disagree and state that they are not interest to the reader. Hopefully they will come here and comment. I'm not sure if I should set up a vote here or not. However, I was told to bring the discussion here. Thanks for all comments. Falphin 01:01, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
Please note that SimonP is unilaterally changing where the templates are located on articles. ~~~~ 12:32, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
Hallo~! This is Deryck from Hong Kong, who originally advocated the change of the COTW template from the talk page to the article page. My point is that, now the template is on the talk page. Even contributors will not notice the existence of this notice, because such stubs are so short that they can't bring up disputes (therefore viewing the talk page is unnecessary). If the notice is put on the article page, it would be easier for readers as well as editors to go voting and later help the brushing up of the article. Deryck C. 01:14, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
The vote is currently going on elsewhere:
Falphin 21:05, 10 July 2005 (UTC) and Deryck C. 01:13, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
I've been working on some framework for The Wikipedia Community for some time. The work is in the form of a WikiProject. The project is called Wikipedia:WikiProject_Community and is built from the standard Template:WikiProject which is really quite a marvelous tool.
Please take a look at the project page and see what you think. ALL are welcome to join and learn, teach discuss, debate, study, and design a better community at //en.wikipedia.org . Thanks in advance for your participation. Quinobi - Community Builders Task Force 9 July 2005 16:45 (UTC)
I for one am quite happy with the hassle of following a link to a webpage through a number of mouseclicks. Indeed, I certainly don't think that following an external link should be part of "reading the article". That's just sloppy writing, encouraged by the wonders of hypertext. Remember that WP prose is supposed to stand on its own. The material at Those amazing checker playing zebras should not be important for understanding the article, and we should expect/force only a tiny minority of readers to read that resource. So a footnote is quite appropriate, which itself can point to a list of external links. Am I making it harder for the reader? No. The external link shouldn't be part of the reading experience, so she shouldn't feel compelled to follow it. Am I making it harder for the author? Oh yes! She is now forced to write a complete, internally consistent article.
So here's what I want:
{{
cite web}}
: Check date values in: |date=
and |year=
/ |date=
mismatch (
help)Arguing that the "two mouse clicks" is too much hassle is irrelevant. Even one mouse click should be more than needed to understand the page. If you're an expert on zebras, or checkers, or a later editor, then you belong to the tiny minority of readers who is expected to follow the link. Arbor 9 July 2005 11:49 (UTC)
As one of the zebras, I find mouse clickings distracting while playing and prefer a quiet experience until the end of the game. Only then might I be interested in leaving the game to discuss some of its finer points. I prefer the text to be as self-explanatory as possible. If further information is available elsewhere, then it should be signed separately at the end of the text. - David91 9 July 2005 11:02 (UTC)
I find pure [http://example.com] links to typically be rather opaque and unclear - I think outside links with titles, i.e. [http://example.com An example website] can be and are useful inline, but just saying heres a website that is somehow relevant is IMO typically insufficient to explain what it's purpose is. If explaining the relevance of the link is not appropriate inline (using titles, parentheses, etc.), then use {{ note}} (or one of the other ones) and explain it at the end. In conclusion, I think numbered external links ought to be fixed when seen, either by expanding on their relevance inline, or turning them to footnotes and expanding on their relevance in the footnote. Thoughts, responses? JesseW 20:52, 9 July 2005 (UTC)
Somewhere in the early 1990s, some engineer at some small nuclear collider, wrote some code, while probably thinking to himself "Now here's a novel solution to the footnote issue". Perhaps we could perhaps stick to his solution, and not revert to the poor mans' methods that came before. :-) Kim Bruning 10:34, 12 July 2005 (UTC)
SEWilco has created an editting tool (i.e. manually controlled bot) for the purpose of standardizing some of the ways that citations appear in Wikipedia articles. As something of a test run, he did such a conversion to a single page, ice core, see the diff [4]. As a result, myself and one other user objected to how he was converting inline URL links into formal reference links.
Apparently such a conversion is supported by statements at Wikipedia:Cite sources and Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links), however these statements seem to be only a few months old and I have been unable to locate any significant discussion of them.
As a result of this disagreement, discussion has ensued at Wikipedia talk:Footnote3#Footnotes_vs._inline_web_references, and we are looking for outside input on this issue.
Dragons flight July 8, 2005 23:07 (UTC)
What follows below is a summary of the formatting styles being discussed for the benefit of those who may be unfamiliar with these different styles.
One way to reference a website is simply to add a link to it in the body of the article. For example, one might write "Zebras like to play checkers [5]", with a simple inline link pointing directly at the site.
Some users dislike inline links like this because they don't provide information on what is available at that site or when it was retrieved. Instead, it has been suggested that we should used the {{ ref}} / {{ note}} style of Wikipedia:Footnote3 and {{ web reference}} for such web references, for example: "Zebras like to play checkers [6]"
References
{{
cite web}}
: Check date values in: |date=
and |year=
/ |date=
mismatch (
help)Where the little superscripted number links to the appropriate reference and the "^" on the reference links back to the little number. This has the advantage of providing additional information on the website source so that it could possibly be found again if the link ever went dead. It also would make website references consistent with book / journal and other references relying on the {{ ref}} / {{ note}} form.
The disadvantage is that to get to the external material one would have to click on the little link and then click again on the link in the references section. Personally, I think this is a big disadvantage since it makes it harder to get to outside material and it doesn't provide a way of distinguishing reference links to books and hard resources from those which are immediately available over the internet.
A potential compromise exists by way of a mixed form with both an inline link and a formal reference, which is to say using "Zebras like to play checkers [7]." Along with:
References
{{
cite web}}
: Check date values in: |date=
and |year=
/ |date=
mismatch (
help)But not using the {{ ref}} / {{ note}} formulation to link between the two. This preserves the direct link from the text but also gives the detailed reference information. However, since the two aren't linked, it is more likely that one may get removed or changed without the other being fixed. Also, there is some concern this could create very long references sections out of what in some cases are fairly innocuous but plentiful links.
A potential compromise exists by way of a mixed form with both an inline link and a linked formal reference, which is to say using "Zebras like to play checkers . [8]" Along with:
References
{{
cite web}}
: Check date values in: |date=
and |year=
/ |date=
mismatch (
help)This creates both types of links but is visually larger, even using a minor code trick of using the sentence-ending period be a short text link. This could be presented differently in several ways: two images can be stacked (images of numbers 1-99 could be addressed), or is there a way to tuck an external link under a superscripted link number? ( SEWilco 9 July 2005 00:03 (UTC))
Comment: Needlessly complicated. Inline is an awesome feature, it's been built in to the Wikipedia software because it encourages newbies to fearlessly and boldly add links; footnotes remain controversial and are not built into the software, FootNote3 in particular is a complicated (and to some unapproachably scary) hack. Stbalbach 9 July 2005 05:26 (UTC)
My understanding is that the footnote styles are used in the ==notes== section, not the ==reference section== See wikipedia:featured article candidates/Geography of India for the discussion and Geography of India for implementation. 1) Text should not be linked to an outside source (as what you have mentioned under hybrid style). I think the footnote style is much neater that the placing of a raw link at the side of the text. Nichalp July 9, 2005 08:34 (UTC)
When disambiguating a movie title wich is best to use ? (movie) as in The Canterbury Tales (movie) or (film) as in Passenger (film) ? -- Melaen 8 July 2005 18:06 (UTC)
I want to change the Wikipedia:Guide to layout, part of the Wikipedia:Manual of Style. The current MoS states that the ==External links== should come after the ==References== section. I totally disagree with this and feel that it should come before the ==References== section. External links are an integral part of an article, unlike the reference section which is used to crosscheck. The World Book is on my side, it has the References at the end. Any objections if I am bold and change it? User:Nichalp/sg July 8, 2005 16:35 (UTC)
What unit types should be used when describing storage capacity in articles?
Multiple-byte units | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Orders of magnitude of data |
A problem has arisen in different related articles on whether to use the MB or MiB. Some articles have decided to stick with using MB, some have chosen to use MiB.
Discussion moved to
Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Unit Disagreement, MiB vs. MB -
Omegatron 23:03, July 9, 2005 (UTC)
A vote has been started on whether these prefixes should be used all the time, in highly technical contexts, or never. - Omegatron 14:45, July 12, 2005 (UTC)
The names of chemical compund pages have been the subject of a number of minor disputes (and some major ones, now hopefully resolved) for some time.
This page resembled more of a discussion than a set of guidelines. I have summarised the discussion that was there (and informed all the authors of signed comments) and added some more comments that have been discussed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemicals.
Any and all comments on the results are welcome. In particular, the page may be a bit too technical at present (help on this would be appreciated!). Have we missed any points?
More discussion on the style of chemistry articles can be found at Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemicals/Style guidelines.
Thanks to all who have already helped, and to those who take the time to add their comments. Physchim62 7 July 2005 11:14 (UTC)
Wondering if we can use pictures from Google earth for reference in wikipedia.
Or how about the kmz files from google earth?
Sveden 6 July 2005 20:58 (UTC)
Putting the pictures on Wikipedia could result in some copyright problems because Google got the license from DigitalGlobe. There is also "2005 Google" sticked onto the images to prevent you from claiming it as your own, and they don't let you do the "save as target" right-click option. — Stevey7788 ( talk) 20:35, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
What is the policy about taking content from another language wikipedia and moving it into the English wikipedia. Does no ownership apply so it's to fine copy anything? Should it be cited anywhere?
Example: I have recently discovered a timeline on the French Wikipedia (here: [9]) and made an English version here
-- Commander Keane 6 July 2005 11:34 (UTC)
There is currently a vote on a large number of proposals to expand the criteria for speedy deletion. If passed, they would tend to place the onus for everyday deletion decisions in the hands of administrators and substantially reduce the number of articles that get discussion time in Votes for deletion and other deletion discussion policy forums. Discussion and votes are required.
Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion/Proposal
-- Tony Sidaway| Talk 5 July 2005 16:14 (UTC)
Proposal 1, which at present looks likely to pass, says that administrators should have discretion to delete "An article about a real person that does not assert that person's importance or significance - people such as college professors or actors may be individually important in society; people such as students and bakers are not, or at least not for the reason of being a student or baker. If the assertion is disputed or controversial, it should be taken to VFD instead."
What concerns me here is that it is left up to one person, instead of Wikipedia editors at large, to decide for themselves what an assertion of importance or significance is. Only a very vague idea is given of what is intended and the administrator is given complete discretion. This proposal needs scrutiny. At present the article would be listed on VfD and discussed for five days, which saves many important articles that were wrongly thought to be deletable. -- Tony Sidaway| Talk 6 July 2005 01:49 (UTC)
You're being a little bit naughty here, Radiant. Why should I mention that unremarkable article are listed on VfD? That's what VfD is *intended* for. It's doing a good job. As for saving time, nobody asks people to vote for delete, and if nobody but the proposer had anything to do with the nomination the article could still be deleted, but would have benefited from five days' listing and potential for discussion (alas even this this was not enough to save the article on the legendary writer and journalist, Davey Winder, which I had to rewrite). There is nothing about VfD's current size that "prevents people from participating". Just go there and look at the page. Unlike in earlier months when it was transcluded, it no longer takes a long time to load and is much more accessible than ever.
If VfD is "less of an instrument of consensus than it should be" how can this be improved by removing articles from VfD and giving the decision on their deletion to a single, demonstrably fallible person?
"Joe Smith is the president of major corporation GnirpGo" is not enough to save an article from speedy deletion under the proposals. Some administrators regularly claim that being the President of a corporation does not make one worthy of an encyclopedia entry.
Denni, I've not suggested that any lust of any kind is involved. It is a fact, which I've proved beyond doubt with actual cases, that being an administrator does not make us better (or even very good) editors. Administrators routinely judge salveagable articles as worthy only of deletion. The carnage at present is low and containable. The proposals will make the load on administrators much higher because some of us will be deleting stuff and the others will be restoring the wrong deletions. VfD saves us from such nonsense, that's why it exists. -- Tony Sidaway| Talk 22:07, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
Well, I put this image [10] in the Wikipedia in spanish, but they told me I needed a license for it, but aparently, the english version doesnt have any problem, so I am guessing it already has a license... I just cant find it, could somebody give it so the image can also be in the spanish version?-- 201.139.132.232 4 July 2005 18:28 (UTC)
Why is the policy only to link to the first mention of something in an entry? I just don't get it.
It's annoying when reading - you get to a certain point in the article and think, "Oh, that thing would be interesting to read about", but it's not linked. Is it just plain not linked, or is it linked somewhere previously in the article? Either way, a pain.
It makes editing more difficult in several ways - for example:
- When entering new text, you have to check whether it was linked in a previous location, and if so, not link it in your new text;
- Similarly, you have to check whether it was linked in a later location, and if so, link it in your text, but unlink it in the later location;
- Deleting text and/or moving text suffers the same problems.
And it's not like there's some sort of resource wasted by linking multiple times.
I'm not saying always link every mention of a subject - it clearly would be overkill in some situations - but it seems like that's actually the far minority of situations. And in those few situations when linking every time would be overkill, people probably wouldn't link every time anyway.
This seems like something that shouldn't have a policy at all, one way or the other.
In practice it's fine to link the same topic multiple times, if the article is long. It's typical for a topic to be mentioned in a summary and then mentioned again when the topic is covered in more detail; in this case it's quite appropriate to link it again. Years may need to be linked multiple times so that date preferences work. Gdr 2005-06-29 13:01:11 (UTC)
Benjamin Gatti created Wikipedia:Wikiblower protection [11], which was nominated for deletion by NicholasTurnbull. Deletion debate was de-listed by Essjay, who archived the deletion debate on Wikipedia_talk:Wikiblower_protection [12]. Subsequently, I am listing the policy proposal here, per Wikipedia:How_to_create_policy. I do not support this policy proposal. EvilPhoenix talk 09:08, August 4, 2005 (UTC)
I read the policy that definitions don't go in Wikipedia but instead in Wiktionary.
I don't understand why the dictionary is separate. It makes readers and editors look in different locations and (I believe) reduces usage and growth.
Why not have a disambiguation page to point people to definition vs. article where both are present? Then everything can be looked up (or edited/contributed) while in the encyclopedia.
I have read a lot of articles about cities, states, and countries in Wikipedia. But they are NOT in a separate Wikipedia Atlas, nor would I wish them to be.
A curious newcomer Sitearm 06:56, 3 August 2005 (UTC)
Ok I'm reading Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not and what it seems to object to is "an article that is nothing more than a definition". But it doesn't say, delete it, it says "see if there is information you can add that would be appropriate for an encyclopedia". I see many words as worthy encyclopedic subjects, for example, " Ms.". New words and new uses of old words are added to contemporary society frequently. Some are registered copyrights and trademarks Dune (novel) vs. Dune {geography). I don't have a problem with shunting pure definitions off to Wiktionary, just with deleting them as not article-worthy. But I still have a concern that splitting off "special" topic wikis means they won't get traffic because new readers and potential contributors won't go there as easily and because the distinction is off-putting (get it right or we'll delete you!). A concerned newcomer Sitearm 15:22, 3 August 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for your service
I noted that there it to date no discussion added to James Tobin entry.
I am wondering how to approach you to link our idea on a new global tax similar to the Tobin Tax. Can it be linked to the Tobin entry? Or can we have an entry in the wikipedia, even though we are not historical, famous or dead?
Attached below to give you an idea, Thanks, Ian Greenwood
Subject: anything to environment? could our new idea reduce tax? Is it more politically do-able than the tobin tax?
How can international trade (where much of the profit ends up untaxed 'off-shore') be made to pay something to the environment (climate change etc) and made to pay something to rectify trade injustice? After all, when all the resources have been stripped out from poor countries by our Western nations, what do we do then? And how can sea level rise be stemmed, when Greenland ice currently melting adds 7 metres to levels, Antarctic ice about 50 m? Much of our most productive agricultural and developed land is at or near sea level and is at risk, globally.
Our proposal below is aimed to slow this process and using excise systems, return more to the environment/education of the recipient nation (of the trade) and an equal share direct to the supplier nation's climate change avoidance/environment/education projects.
Can anyone help me with a comment, by forwarding the message on to others, or by contributing to devise a simple way of calculating the exchange rate advantage and how this could be simply applied?
Ian@steerglobal.org I will post constructive replies on the blog/website we have under construction
Could this be the breakthrough idea to assist the pan-pacific climate change initiative to get the action we need soon enough, as well as help towards Kyoto targets that we are manifestly failing to achieve? That is, release enough funds for renewable energy, not just for the USA Europe and Asia, but also 'developing'/'under-developed' nations who also contribute to global warming and deforestation/desertification by burning timber?
Otherwise it seems we all get tax rises, and future shortages of resources. Instead, our proposal, if adopted, would take a little from the off-shore profits and not necessarily lead to price rises since the market already sets prices to that which the market will stand. An outline is below and attached as a slightly longer 2 page version:
A new idea for a structural adjustment to trade:
Connecting climate change, trade justice and EU unemployment.
Aims
To show how a new economic term could be used. Using this to promote a fund for renewable energy (etc.) returning a chunk to the poorest parts of the world, reducing their need to depend on debt/‘aid’. To slow our rate of “off-shoring”.
This should be of widespread interest, because increased funding for rail and other sustainable transport would reduce congestion, pollution and climate change. Additionally, business would be able to seize the opportunity to accelerate provision of renewable energy and implement other solutions to the climate change problem.
By splitting the proposed fund in half- both halves to be direct to projects enhancing environmental sustainability- the rich and powerful nations get an environmental benefit that is politically popular, against climate change; the poorest nations get a much greater benefit direct to their environmental sustainability projects (addressing their technological deficit) reducing their emissions and the resulting inevitable sea level rise. Could these problems be solved using the advantage that powerful traders have?
Our proposal uses the currency exchange rate advantage that traders and tourists have used for centuries. There is a need to clearly identify this advantage between the two trading partners that is contributing to unfair trade. Part could be put into a new fund, collected by the existing excise system. If 50% of the advantage were used, this could be up to 12% of the final price as an environmental levy, 6% to each region. The fund could then be distributed as described above, direct to projects, half in the 'rich' trading nation and half in the 'poor' supplying nation, where it buys more because of the same currency exchange rate advantage. If some of the fund were also used to plan resource consumption this would protect future generations, education could be devised against needless growth in cargo traffic and the pursuit of quick profits, many of which go off-shore.
The difficulty of collecting tax from those using trusts and off-shore accounts has been testing governments facing reducing revenues (in real terms) for many years (Observer 27-03-05: $255 billion p.a. tax loss). To change the global tax-gathering system like this could enhance security in several senses, but it would not cause a sudden shock to the economic system, nor immediately affect production. Rather it could reduce political and economic tensions between countries over such things as rapid re-location of jobs (loss of trade skills) and climate change (water shortages etc). It could be win-win for rich and poor in terms of enhancing peace, reducing congestion, pollution and sea level rise. The environmental need has been highlighted in discussions on the recent EU budget crisis (Newsnight BBC1 21/06/05). An opportunity could exist for the WTO or EU/USA to link the climate change need to the trade injustice issue and generate environmental economy.
Ian Greenwood +44 121 449 0278
There are two discussions, and a vote going on related to the VfD process:
Paul August ☎ 05:16, August 3, 2005 (UTC)
Hi,
Is there some sort of policy regarding the order of the links to other Wikipedia langauges? I noticed someone had moved the link I added to fit alphabeticlly among the other links.. Yonidebest 21:42, 2 August 2005 (UTC)
A proposed change to the Manual of Style to standarize the use of floating Tables of Contents was proposed after a vote to keep {{TOCright}} in TFD, and has been up for voting for a while now. However, few votes have been casted, and more are required to check if there really is a consensus. Please look at the discussion on that page and vote. -- Titoxd 02:49, 2 August 2005 (UTC)
This article is more about playing the game well rather than the methodology and mathematical calculations behind the game. Therefore it's not really encyclopedic, so by rights shouldn't it be transwikied to Wikibooks? Official rules of Monopoly and House rules of Monopoly are also candidates for nonencyclopedic status (the latter moreso than the former).
For several months now I've been toying with the idea of writing a Monopoly Wikibook, but I still haven't built up the courage to write the core of the book to hold together the specialised info I've already written. But this could be just the jump-start I need.
Anyway, I came here for your opinions, not mine, so tell me what you think. :) -- Garrett Talk 02:37, 2 August 2005 (UTC)
Now that's sorted, what about Official rules of Monopoly and House rules of Monopoly? I would be covering those, although in much, much greater detail, meaning it wouldn't be a meaningless fork of the content... but are they encyclopedic?
Certainly the official rules page is virtually another how-to, but the house rules may just fall within the ideal as many of these rules are very notable, and informing about common house rules is in itself potentially encyclopedic, as long as it doesn't slip over into becoming a gameplay guide for said rules. The other option is to transwiki it in its entirety and only leave a line or two in the core article. Thoughts? Garrett Talk 04:29, 2 August 2005 (UTC)
I do not understand how Monopoly game rules are "not encyclopedic"? The articles for Poker and Backgammon contain equally detailed game rules. Sitearm 06:46, 3 August 2005 (UTC)
I thought initially you were saying game rules shouldn't be posted at all. Are you saying game rules are ok in Wikipedia if they're in a larger context article, but they're not ok in standalone article and should be put somewhere else, e.g., Wikibooks? I'm just a little confused reading over some of these policy discussions about what does and doesn't go into Wikipedia articles because I've found so many unusual things that DO go in (e.g., elaborate histories of fictional characters in literature and web comics). A confused but still intrigued newcomer who appreciates your patience Sitearm 07:07, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
Interested to know your Zionism and Anti-Zionism pages fit in with the above policy. Interesting and knowledgeable discussion on both sides, but there is no way the articles can be considered neutral...
How extensively should the names of places in different languages be put into articles? Of course, when a place has an official name in more than one language, then all should be included, but how about unofficial names? I'm particularly thinking about place names in Finland, which is a bilingual country, with both Finnish and Swedish as its official languages. Thus, there is both a Finnish and Swedish version of many place names. Usually these places are located in a bilingual municipality, in which case it is obvious that both names should be given, but how about places with 'semi-official' names in a municipality where the language is not an official one? These do exist, and most of them are widely used. I couldn't find any advice on policy pages about this. - ulayiti (talk) 18:10, 1 August 2005 (UTC)
I have just begun to notice how many articles there are for contemporary fictional characters, some "famous" (e.g., Horatio Hornblower) and some less famous (e.g., Hanzo the Razor).
Is there a any policy about articles for fictional characters? Somehow these seem less objective than articles about physics or math or even fiction writers.
Is the plan to let the collection evolve and let people write about whatever they want to write about?
A newcomer Sitearm 07:35, 1 August 2005 (UTC)
I am ready to close this section. I like the fictional character articles and have added some myself. I am going to add something to the article Fictional character. Thanks for the helpful comments! An encouraged newcomer -- Sitearm | Talk 21:58, 2005 August 4 (UTC)
We can probably cut vandalism 90% by curtailing anon power. I am not suggesting an all out ban on activity by those without a user account but I am tempted to sometimes. Check the Wikipedia:Vandalism in progress the overwhelming majority of serious vandals come from anon ips many who regularly use other computers when banned. Some use so many IP addresses, they are impossible to monitor. And its not about blanking pages or write cuss words in articles. The guys who have me worried are those who subtly alter a fact here or there, changing a name or date on a history page or screw around with the values on scientific or technical articles. These sort of things can rapidly destroy reputation. They're also difficult to catch. How many people are out there making these changes that we still haven't caught? I think its a lot more than most would like to admit...
Jarwulf 19:37, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
This has been discussed at Wikipedia:Village pump (perennial proposals)#Abolish anonymous users. Joyous (talk) 20:07, July 31, 2005 (UTC)
I've seen a few lines here and there in the manual of style regarding how to use Arabic properly for personal and place names, but I haven't seen much more than is. Have I missed something, or would it be a better idea to formulate a policy on conventions for using Arabic in articles? I think it might be good to have two standards for transliteration of Arabic words (one strict, for scientific transliteration, and one conventional, for casual transliteration) alongside a policy to use customary names where they exist (that is, do not rename Cairo). Use of the Arabic definite article and i`rab would be useful to have some policy. Alongside this could be placed a more full description on how to handle Arabic names, epithets and titles, and how to use Arabic placenames (including the issue when a province and city have the same name). Gareth Hughes 16:05, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
Non-English languages in non-Latin writing systems is the issue. There is usually a scientific transliteration standard (or several, as is the case for Arabic), and then there are a number of ways in which words from that language have been introduced into English. There is already a little policy in the MoS, but it doesn't cover much and is fragmented. For example, I do like the beginning of the article jihad:
Jihad (ǧihād جهاد) is an Islamic term, from the Arabic root ǧhd ("to exert utmost effort, to strive, struggle"),
Here a customary version of the word is used alongside the scientific transliteration and the Arabic itself. Personal and place names would really benefit from standard treatment. Gareth Hughes 16:59, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
The Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Arabic) is still under construction if you'd like to help. CG 09:15, August 1, 2005 (UTC)
I'm concerned over a few new Wikiprojects. Specifically:
My concern is that these pages appear to be created with the sole intent of organizing a group of like-minded wikipedians so that they may organize and better represent their POV on Wikipedia articles. I much prefer people use talk pages to discuss articles, because on a talk page both sides of an argument can be present. However, to group people with a specific POV into a "guild," removes the debate from the public view and can lead to group think.
Anyone else have thoughts on these projects?
-- Quasipalm 14:34, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
He is calling it a guild, but actually the user who created it is a nutbag who is the only member of his so called guild. So, as smoddy says, there is no need to worry about it. Banes 13:08, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
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I've seen some signatures starting to get rather large nowadays, using different colours for each letter of their username, for example. I saw one that took up four lines in the edit box (non-maximised window, admittedly). Should we force a signature length limit? 64 characters, for example, should be enough for most cases. violet/riga (t) 19:47, 9 May 2005 (UTC)
There has to be a limit. I proposed it before. It is evil to include images and overly complex layout. When you sign your name on paper, you do it as effortlessly as possible. You do not write a 10,000-word autobiography with a 150-foot tall oil painting of your face as your signature. If you don't do it with your hands in the real world, don't do it here. -- Toytoy 12:56, May 10, 2005 (UTC)
I'd be reluctant to proscribe a precise character limit, but yes, sigs that take more than a couple lines in the edit window I would agree are execessive, and should be avoided. I also agree that any enlargement (or emboldment, etc.) of the sig that implies it is more important than the surrounding text is in extremely poor taste, and should be avoided. Niteowlneils 17:13, 10 May 2005 (UTC)
[[User:Knowledge Seeker|Knowledge Seeker]] [[User talk:Knowledge Seeker|*]]
("
Knowledge Seeker
*"), which is the simplest signature I can think of that links to my talk page, uses 76 characters. I wouldn't mind a general recommendation about signature length (if a character count is specified, though, it has to be higher) and to limit excessive HTML markup. I use a single Unicode character in mine which I think it quite reasonable. I support a rule against using images and templates. I do think that using larger text for your signature is in extremely poor taste, although I don't know if I'd want a rule to say not to use it. Bold text is in rather poor taste too, I feel, unless it is to separate parts of your signature, like for user name and talk, especially if you are trying to avoid lengthy HTML markup. —
Knowledge Seeker
দ 17:57, 10 May 2005 (UTC)
I hesitated a long time before adding that talk page link to my signature... Somehow it disturbs the peaceful essence of my three-letter name. Of course, I care little about signature length. >:-) Incidentally, Knowledge Seeker, the signature "[[User:Knowledge Seeker|]] · [[User talk:Knowledge Seeker|Talk]]" is exactly 64 characters... I'm assuming the raw signature field only counts characters, not substituted markup. JRM · Talk 18:19, 2005 May 10 (UTC)
violet/riga]] [[User_talk:violetriga|(t)
I'd like to see an anthropological analysis of these signatures. I'm not an anthropologist, but I'll make my observations anyway... My guess is that since the signature is about the only image we show to each other, it has become a form of plumage. I'll wager that most fancy signatures belong to young, males on the make. Also, the signatures send a message that the user is very technologically savvy. Most users don't know how to make those fancy sigs, so the message that they send is, "Don't mess with me, I'm smart, and I've been around here a long time, so you better not revert what I write!". Now, I don't think we should encourage either message, so I think we should limit signatures to ~~~~ . I'm serious! -- Samuel Wantman 07:56, 11 May 2005 (UTC)
I think we should all endeavor to be more like ! :) -- Dmcdevit 01:09, 24 May 2005 (UTC)
OK, everyone knows I hate lengthy signatures. Now how about this proposal:
I also propose these non-official peer-pressure limitations:
I have seen signatures that contain two or more images. These signatures shall not be running wild. We shall encourage simplicity here. -- Toytoy 11:36, Jun 8, 2005 (UTC)
I haven't really had a problem with signatures being annoying; perhaps the peacocks on here have stayed away from the Roman Catholic corner. Nonetheless, I agree with the idea of an automatic signature (to avoid having to use ~~~~ ) as well as automatically adding the link to the user's talk page in the signature. I for one hate having to go to the user page first, particularly for those people I message frequently. As it relates to the other suggestions, I support anything that makes Wikipedia run faster, relieves strain on the servers, and limits the amount of wikistress and wikiwarfare that takes place. Essjay (talk) 08:56, Jun 13, 2005 (UTC)
Moved to Talk:FHM-US's 100 Sexiest Women 2005
I noticed that the article on Angers was essentially lifted word for word from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica. Is it general policy at Wikipedia that information in the public domain (such as the 1911 EB) can be used without quoting or citing it? Since the 1911 EB is already online, it's just redundant to reuse its text as the sole source of an article.
-- Vitamin D 2 July 2005 18:49 (UTC)
I have just out of curosity searched for the origin of the name Vancouver, as in George Vancouver and found the following page Etymology of Vancouver. I am curious as to how it is suggested the best way of adding the information of this sort, if it is indeed relavent for an entry of this sort.
I've written up a new policy proposal, with assistance from Ed Poor, to set out some guidelines and basic principles for dealing with naming conflicts of the Gdanzig type. It's at Wikipedia:Naming conflict - comments welcomed. -- ChrisO 1 July 2005 22:51 (UTC)
If we have a webpage that corresponds with the topic, are we allowed to place it inside or will this be considered unwelcome spam? Thanks , just wanted to make sure
Should biographies begin with the full names, including middle names unused in everyday reference, or should it begin with the same name as the article title? See Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (biographies)#Full names. David 25px | Talk 1 July 2005 19:54 (UTC)
This must have been discussed around 100 times already, but there is still no clear policy of how to handle anonymous users voting on VFD, and the decision of whether to count or ignore these votes is left entirely up to the closing administrator. A number of times I have seen anonymous votes commented on with "anonymous votes are not counted" or similar. However, there is no policy which says so explicitly. The closest thing to a policy I can find is the header on the WP:VFD page: "Anonymous and new users are welcome to contribute to the discussion, but their votes may be discounted, especially if they seem to be made in bad faith." Note the word "may". It does not say "will".
For the record I might say what I do with anonymous votes in some common situations. Most debates have no such votes, and most of those who have any have only one. One very common situation is that all the other votes from established users, and if I have no reason to believe that the anonymous vote was cast in bad faith, I will count it just like any other. This is a common situation, when a regular reader (but not a regular contributor) of the encyclopedia reads an article he or she likes and is warned that the article might be deleted, who can blame them for participating in such a discussion? Especially when the VFD-tag comes with the invitation "Please vote on and discuss the matter". Also, I will almost always count the vote made by the article's author, even if the author is anonymous. (Some seem to be under the impression that the article's author or main contributor is not allowed to vote, but as far as I can see, this is completely incorrect.) However, if I start finding 10 different anons all voting keep while all the established users vote delete, I will usually discount them as this is a good sign of bad faith.
Anyway, that is some of the thoughts I have on the matter, but maybe there ought to be a full policy discussion about this topic. Sjakkalle (Check!) 1 July 2005 08:55 (UTC)
A discussion on VfD regarding Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Nottinghamshire v Yorkshire 26 June 2005 has turned into a discussion on the policy of using transclusion to present information in the article space. See also Wikipedia talk:Template namespace#transcluding prose and Talk:2005 English cricket season#subpages and Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Unusual transclusion issue not covered by policy, before joining the discussion. Steve block 30 June 2005 07:58 (UTC)
Why is it that Wikipedia does not allow original research, and yet Wikinews, another Wikimedia project allows original reporting? -- Munchkinguy 02:59, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Doesn't it depend on what you mean by "original"? All entries have to be original because otherwise there would be a breach of copyright. If someone writes a page on an existing topic, that there may be some novel feature about it should not bar its entry. Presumably, there will be a verifiable core (in the sense of references to existing publications) and a sustained chain of argument to support any reasoned novel conclusion that might be reached. The very fact that it is a reasoned conclusion is the means whereby it can be verified — that is an aspect of the scientific method. Obviously, an article on a highly specialised research topic might not be interesting to the vast majority of readers, even if they were aware of it in the first place, but I do not necessarily see that as a bar to publication here. Or, as usual, am I missing something? -- David91 07:00, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Hi, Philip. I've had a quick browse. It seems to be a Janus type of policy: on the one hand, it confronts the problem of POV motivated commentators who threaten to swamp factual pages with unverified opinion; but, equally, it seeks to adress the case of specialists who distill complex ideas into more accessible forms for encyclopoedia use which inevitably will have aspects of novelty about it. The utility of the information to the end-user should be the litmus test. If the naive reader is likely to be misled, then the entry should be edited to exclude the confusing data and/or deleted. If the page is a fair and reasonable explanation of the mass of information and can be relied upon to inform the naive reader, then it should be accepted. I note your invitation to contribute to the debate but, at my age, I think I will leave it to the young and strong to thrash out what they want this place to be. -- David91 17:15, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Moved from WP:HD#definitions_for_.22encyclopedic.22_and_.22overcategorization.22 and forked.
These are at the heart of frequent quarrels, and WP:G does not define them. What exactly do the terms mean? — Sebastian (talk) 18:56, 2005 Jun 23 (UTC)
In addition, overcategorisation could refer to there being too many branches of the hierachy, meaning that a category only has one or two articles in it, and should be merged upwards. Dunc| ☺ 30 June 2005 17:38 (UTC)
I have documented a new policy, Requests for rollback. In a nutshell, this policy is like RfA except giving just the rollback permission rather than the entire set of admin tools. It's intended for those who just desire access to rollback, for various reasons. Discussion welcomed on its talk page. Talrias ( t | e | c) 30 June 2005 21:20 (UTC)
discussion archived at Wikipedia talk:Lyrics and poetry/Poll on inclusion of lyrics and poetry
The article Coin's financial school has a large block of text commented out (I didn't see it until I started editing to fix something). The text is a excerpt from the pamphlet (written 1893) that the article is about which someone commented out as not wikipedia appropriate. Seems it should be transwiki-ed and pruned from the article.
How do I go about suggesting it be transwiki-ed? RJFJR June 29, 2005 01:36 (UTC)
If I want to get an uncopyrighted image of, for example, an album cover, and I own that album, would be it considered copyright violation to scan that image and then upload it on to Wikipedia and put it in the album's article?-- Methegreat 28 June 2005 23:43 (UTC)
Ok, I nominated James Voirin for deletion, on the grounds given in the VfD. Now, the article has been expanded since the beginning of the VfD but, Goldstein307 ( talk · contribs) just closed the debate with a Keep when the voting was 7d, 2k. That is a clear consensus to delete. There was discussion of whether he was sufficiently notable or not, but the voting is very clear indeed, as are the reasons given for the 7 delete votes.
Is there a procedure for contesting the closure of a VfD on that basis? I've let Goldstein know on their talk page.- Splash June 28, 2005 18:13 (UTC)
I am posting this at Village pump (policy) because this is yet another survey/controversy of the inclusion of a photo or drawing that some find objectionable: feces/ talk:feces - after one vote on whether to include a photo of a large human stool that showed a small majority in favor of including the photo, there is a new survey over the size and location of the photo within the article. 28 June 2005 08:58 (UTC)
Moved to Wikipedia talk:Moving images to the Commons
Ed Poor has created the article Wikipedia:Gaming the system. This should be a policy proposal, so I am submitting it to VP (policy) on Ed's behalf. - Ta bu shi da yu 03:02, 27 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Anyone who is interested can check out my guideline proposal: Wikipedia:Homophora.
"...Homophoric reference is not a feature of grammar, but rather is a generic phrase given a particular interpretation in a particular social context. For example, in the United Kingdom, the Queen is a homophoric reference to the Queen of the United Kingdom, whereas in the Netherlands the Queen is a homophoric reference to the Queen of the Netherlands." from exophora.
I think this is becoming a problem (not the Queen example, that's rather obvious), especially with users who use dictionary definition instead of respecting the extralinguistic nature of a word or phrase. Currently, there are no guidelines for dealing with a situation such as this. It's similar to the Neologism guideline (in a sense it's sort of its opposite.)
Anyone well-versed in linguistics is strongly encouraged to check it out (since I'm not a linguist, and the concepts are pretty shaky). And yes, I just learned this term recently, but oh how I have been looking for it.
-- Ben 06:50, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Celesio was begun with press-release. Is it correct that a press release is not copyrighted? RJFJR 15:56, Jun 26, 2005 (UTC)
This may sound like a ridiculous question, but these days, I can't believe it is. I'm wondering what Wikipedia's policy is on knowing that certain "editors" are obsessed with various living people to the point where one can't predict exactly how far the obsession will be taken, but odds are flowers, candy and serenades aren't going to be involved. I'm not referring to people like Fidel Castro or George W. Bush (who surely have special security to deal with whacky Wikipedians), but lesser-knowns. I may have just fallen into an unusual wiki puddle (and I certainly hope so), but judging by a certain group of sock-puppets, there's at least one unpredictable here whose behavior goes somewhat beyond "strange." If an editor repeatedly demonstrates truly extreme dislike of certain individuals in his home territory – by Vfd's, vitriolic stubs and edits, edit-warring, vandalism, etc. – never mind when do we put a stop to him/her? When do we take any further steps? Or is the policy "Don't ask, don't tell?" -- Mothperson 14:15, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
See my user page, SqueakBox 15:43, Jun 26, 2005 (UTC)
The one thing we have on our side is that everything in wikipedia is recorded, and therefore could be used in a court case. When someone gets threatened for their legitimate work here, as I have been, the only option is to be very open about what has happened. I see the fundamental problem being POV warriors who cannot tolerate seeing their work removed by legitimate contributors who do not wish to see others use wikipedia as a political (etc) platform. Angine openly left because of being cyberstalked, and this is a problem that wikipedia could and should address more profoundly. I am sure one day there will be a court case involving wikipedia, and the organisation should be better prepared for said eventuality, SqueakBox 16:22, Jun 26, 2005 (UTC)
Closest I could find was: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style archive ("See also") but it seems to be missing the actual project page! — Ambush Commander( Talk) 02:12, Jun 26, 2005 (UTC)
The 3 rever rule talks about blocking, not banning. So a sysop can block a user after they violate the 3RR, but following the current text of this policy the sysop cannot ban the user for 3RR. The "Decision to ban" section in WP:BAN doesn't list the 3RR as a possible reason to ban.
So a 3RR penalty is a block, not a ban.
But WP:BLOCK does not talk about extending the block or penalizing users who try to get around them (e.g. by returning as anon or using a sock), only the Banning policy does.
So in theory, someone blocked after a 3RR can argue that extending his block via an autoblock or preventing him from returning through a known sock is against the policy (or better said, the policy does not mention this option).
We tried to translate the current text of these policies as the starting point for the set of policies in the Hungarian Wikipedia, and came upon this problem.
So is there really an inconsistency or have I misunderstood something?
Thanks, nyenyec ☎ 21:35, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Okay, this makes sense now, I was thinking that Banning was a term for the long-wanted feature of blocking editing but not viewing on an IP address (-zilla bug 550). Now this is coming back to me w/ the soft/hard bans etc. — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 23:58, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I added an external link describing my testimony in the article post-cult trauma and now the other editor to this article thinks that this should be mentioned in the article. I disagree because I think this would be a self-reference. Any thoughts? See Talk:Post-cult_trauma#Self-promotion Andries 11:22, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I've been gone for a while, but I've noticed a lot of articles have a trivia header/section. Personally, I've tried to reintegrate them into the article. Is there a policy on this? — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 21:54, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Which is the preferred sort key for an article that is the category? [[Category:Fearsome men|*]] or [[Category:Fearsome men| ]]? I would say the latter (and it did seem that the tide has been turning to that method on wikipedia) but after just being reverted I was wondering if there was any policy on this. Oh, and in case people don't know... "*" will sort it with an asterisk as the header while " " will sort it with no header (which to me means that category itself is the header which is precisely the point... gren 16:03, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I just proposed an ethical guideline for dealing with conflicts of interest. I explained my motivation for this on its associated talk page. Briefly, my main concern is employees who write about the companies they work for. -- Yannick 04:54, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Technically this would fall under Wikipedia's POV policy. As long as people stick to an unbiased "just the facts" mentality, I would think that this shouldn't be necessary. Ereinion File:RAHSymbol.JPG 05:27, Jun 27, 2005 (UTC)
This is my proposed policy for wiki closure. We already have too many non-functioning wikis. It gives us a false sense of cosmopolitanism as long as you don't take a closer look at their contents. I propose that we act like responsible adults rather than hopeless day-dreamers. Now let's close some of them. -- Toytoy 06:58, July 24, 2005 (UTC)
I have drafted Wikipedia:Image use policy/Proposal and am opening it to discussion. Please note that this is a first draft and as such is subject to change. Gwk 20:01, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
I've noticed lately that Google Maps seems to be becoming a potential major source of imagevios. I've already found two satellite photos that were taken from that website and added them to WP:CP. The terms of use clearly state that the satellite images can't be used on Wikipedia, and yet I cannot help but think that people are going to keep taking screenshots, cropping them, and uploading them to Wikipedia, possibly in large numbers.
Personally, I think that we should have some kind of policy that states that other than on the Google Maps page, satellite images from Google Maps (the actual maps are something else altogether) can't be used on Wikipedia. I'd like to know what everyone else thinks about this. Gwk 16:02, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
Google derives the majority if not all of its satellite images from the USGS, which means they are public domain as works of the federal government. The fact that they've slapped a copyright watermark on the images is irrelevant. Compare for example the Google satellite images of Washington, DC or San Francisco with the USGS ones found at terraserver.microsoft.com. Unfortunately, terraserver only has the higher res, color images of select locations, so unless someone knows of another site that has the complete set available, we can't do a complete comparison. Postdlf 16:24, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
Are screenshots from NASA World Wind okay to use if attributed to that source?- gadfium 02:30, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
I think we should do more to deal with the attention brought by slashdotted/ farked/etc. articles. We are leaving a very bad taste in their mouths, due to the vandalism their attention attracts. I think we should have a "welcome, slashdotters!" template and also recommend to them that they link to a known-good revision instead of the live article. More discussion here: Template_talk:Slashdotted#Slashdotter_first_impressions - Omegatron 15:00, July 21, 2005 (UTC)
What do you guys think of this proposal? User:Phroziac/Confirmation_of_sysophood I made it a while back but forgot to publicisie it! -- Phroziac ( talk) 04:24, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
There has been some discussion of the use of temporary articles in Wikipedia, mostly in relation to game summaries as part of the Wikiproject Cricket (see Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Essex v Glamorgan 15 May 2005, note particularly the Temporary articles section at the bottom). The idea of temporary articles is new to most of us, it would appear, and as I have found no policy on them I think one should be introduced. Whether the policy forbids temporary articles or merely provides rules and guidelines is what needs to be addressed. This stretches well beyond Wikiproject Cricket and should not be seen as solely relating to the project. - R. fiend 21:32, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
The proposal for expanding the Speedy Deletion Criteria ( WP:CSD) has ended. See Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion/Proposal for details on the outcome. Four new criteria have been added, and one has been reworded. R adiant _>|< 19:17, July 20, 2005 (UTC)
Sorry for crossposting, but I am desparate to involve as many Wikipedians as possible. We've discussed the matter endlessly, and now have a vote to help us reach consensus: Korean naming convention what order should Sea of Japan and East Sea be used in the articles? Kokiri 08:41, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
I've drafted a short set of notes on how not to be a spammer on Wikipedia. This is intended as a summary of "spammer-ish" behaviors I've observed, and could be used as the basis of a guideline on identifying Wiki-spam. I don't intend it to be comprehensive, just to give people an idea of what sort of behavior is identified as "spammy" and how to avoid it.
Please respond on Wikipedia talk:Spam where the proposal is, so as not to make this page any more spammy than it usually is. -- FOo 00:22, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
I've been thinking about this for a long time, but after being subject to a number of vandal attacks I'm starting to brood about the feasibility of making all Wikipedia editors log in before they could make an edit. I know a lot of people will oppose to this, but the gains are so sizeable that might offset the ills. It will certainly deter vandals and make them much easier to deal with. Imagine how much money will be saved each day with this policy. Mandel 21:57, July 19, 2005 (UTC)
I got banned when I added a post into the Tom Cruise Links section. The link was tomcruiseisnuts.com. I added it many times but eventually I got banned due to vandialism. I look at it now and someone else has added with link and no action was taken to that user. I got banned for a whole day and I believe that is unfair and would like to know why. Opt 05 21:44, July 18, 2005 (UTC)
Well, I was doing many things at once and didn't notice the messages comming into me. I though some mad fan didn't want anything like it on the page or something. It is a link that should be added, just because it isn't positive doesn't mean people can't see it. Opt 05 19:45, July 19, 2005 (UTC)
Once it is clear that you are in a dispute, the appropriate thing is usually to take it to the talk page, not to just keep making the same edit without developing consensus. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:06, July 20, 2005 (UTC)
Or can their censorship of criticism be reverted? See [2] - Omegatron 20:26, July 18, 2005 (UTC)
I believe the general feeling has been that if you want a private talk page, register. Many talk pages can hardly be considered "private" anyway, since they go with IPs used by many people. Joyous (talk) 20:36, July 18, 2005 (UTC)
I've proposed an amendment to our User talk page policy at Wikipedia:Talk page/Anonymous talk pages proposal. Briefly, it requires that (non-vandalism) comments be left on anonymous talk pages for a minimum period of time (seven days, perhaps?) before being blanked. If an editor wants more 'ownership' over his talk page, he can register. I'm looking for comments and refinements. TenOfAllTrades( talk) 15:31, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
I'm having a hard time finding any guidance on extremely lengthy summaries of books and movies. An overblown example is Harry Potter (plot). Obviously this page needs to be split into individual articles for each book, but assuming that is done, would those articles be encyclopedic? In other words, is a summary so large that it cannot be on the book or movie's own page worth having in the encyclopedia? James 19:59, July 18, 2005 (UTC)
Why is the {{ PermissionAndFairUse}} tag allowed on Wikipedia? It appears to violate our policies. It is a cop-out for us to allow this tag and claim we're in the right by disclaiming that each re-user needs to evalaute whether they're going to host the images that have this tag. Tempshill 16:54, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
I propose eliminating "Not in use" from the list of criteria for template deletion. I fail to see how this, in and of itself, constitutes a valid reason for eliminating a template. Certainly, a template might have other shortcomings that warrant its removal--but if the only objection is that no one's using it, that's not really a good reason to delete it. The simple fact that it's not being used doesn't actually hurt anything, after all--might as well keep it available in case someone does come up with a worthwhile use for it. Kurt Weber 21:36, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
I would like to address a question related to this proposed policy change, namely, whether or not a TfD should have voting/input suspended while a policy challenge exists. (This would probably apply to VfD, VfU, CfD, etc. as well). The only reasons I bring this up here, are because (a) I'm not sure where else this should be addressed, and (b) because this is an issue that has arisen on WP:TFD specifically because of this purported policy change proposal. Tomer TALK 02:58, July 21, 2005 (UTC)
OK, I'm going to move this to Wikipedia:Category titles. Maurreen 03:21, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
I have redirected the above page to Wikipedia:Categorization/By country as that is a more precise name, and separates the issue of the abbreviations from the country name/adjective/whatever. I've also moved the discussion text that was here to that page's talk page. - Splash 13:10, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
I'm moving it back. Splash's move, in my mind, is prejudging the issue by naming it as categorising by country, when that has not yet been decided. It could be that we categorise by nationality. Steve block talk 13:23, July 19, 2005 (UTC)
The discussion has broadened to consider categories related to the United Kingdom. So if you have an opinion on "of the UK", etc., please see Wikipedia:Category titles. Maurreen 18:08, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
I'm not really all that HTML literate, but ?ref in a url appears to me to be an attempt to track links that come in to that external site from Wikipedia, which I assume is against a Wikipedia policy or guideline. However, I didn't see anything about it in Wikipedia:External links, although there is a lot of discussion of similar external link quality issues on Wikipedia_talk:External links. (posted by User:Spalding — Wahoofive ( talk))
Also, in general, is there a way to search just the Wikipedia:Project namespace? And is anyone else a little disillusioned with the usefulness of Talk pages? They seem to suffer from a lack of traffic, so questions asked there often languish and get no real resolution, which is the main reason I am asking this here instead of on that Talk page. Thanks. Spalding 11:40, July 17, 2005 (UTC)
Following a quick discussion regarding John Stockwell in which his legitimate nephew claims that Stockwell wishes the page deleted - I'm left rather curious what what actual Wikipedia policy is in cases like this? He's a legitimate encyclopaedical entry, being the highest-ranking CIA member to publicly resign his post - and google turns up over 8000 hits for *him* (John Stockwell + CIA) Sherurcij 07:52, July 17, 2005 (UTC)
Stockwell 05:16, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
After I merge 2 articles, can I edit the page to remove the merge request? What about after I fulfill other requests, such as an image request? Thanks.
This section of the NOR is the most commonly quoted and misrepresented part of the NOR:
I've seen more than one user quote it as some sort of get-out for using original research in articles. By arguing that their original thesis are backed up by logic applied to otherwise unrelated primary and seconday sources and citing this section they claim they are not performing original research, even though they clearly are. I think this section needs to be reworded. Axon 15:40, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
It's at
Wikipedia:VfD renomination limits.
Thanks,
Luc "Somethingorother" French 05:55, 14 July 2005 (UTC)
Is there a policy about links to copyvios? I just saw an anon inserting a link to page holding a Scientific American article. -- Pjacobi 20:01, July 13, 2005 (UTC)
Knowingly linking to sites that contain copyright infringements exposes us to contributory liability in the U.S. Postdlf 05:56, 14 July 2005 (UTC)
There was recently a vote to change Wikipedia:Naming conventions (movies), but I believe this major policy change didn't allow enough people to know about it. Shouldn't major changes have a notice posted at Wikipedia:Naming conventions or at least its talk page? Only 7 people voted, for goodness sake. Mackerm 15:16, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
This site uses the text from wiki and places a copyright on it. It does list the http address the data was obtained from. Does this meet the redistribution policy? Vegaswikian 05:17, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
Maybe all those vandals who add nonsense or silly things to articles but aren't particularly malicous could be directed to Uncyclopedia.org? Just an idea. Uberisaac 11:11, July 12, 2005 (UTC)
There is disagreement on the policy for this. Some Wikipedians think we should use modern counties for articles on modern places, but historic counties where appropriate for historical articles and in history sections. Others believe we should use historic or traditional county names in all cases.
There is a clearly-stated policy (now a year old), but some editors are disregarding it. Feelings have run quite high for at least the last 18 months.
If you have an interest in British counties, cities and towns we would welcome your input. Visit the policy page and its discussion for details. Chris Jefferies 13:22, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
Are we ok with articles that have titles like ? Joyous (talk) 01:34, July 11, 2005 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Unicode) (draft). Arbor 07:45, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
The article originally called Beth (letter) (concerning one of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet) has recently been retitled ב rossb 09:25, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
I should add to this that I'm reading this via Windows XP with the latest mulit-lingual versions of Arial and whatnot available and even *I* can't see a couple of the characters rendered above. So how can a user with a pre-OpenType computer even hope to keep up? And is a page URL comprised of "%1932%20421%20024%E3%81%8D" really such a good idea? People like referencing us, but if they get a "dirty" URL like that they might be a little annoyed. Garrett Talk 13:01, 12 July 2005 (UTC)
Whatever will become policy, is an unsuitable article name, as it uses a character of the Unicode Private use area. For example, on my setup it renders a micro-advertisement "Kurd IT Group" from the creator of a font I've installed. I'm sure you are meaning another symbol. But it isn't part of Unicode and so it's a bad example. -- Pjacobi 14:13, July 20, 2005 (UTC)
In the past few days I have come across a distraught dog owner and a very disappointed kid asking questions at the help desk. The help desk help are, understandably, not terribly sympathetic. They get reference desk questions all the time. They have enough to do answering questions from idiotic Wikipedians like me. There is a very simple solution to this problem - RENAME THE BLOODY HELP DESK! I shout because I find the whole thing extremely distressing for everyone involved. This happens over and over again, every day. Call it - I don't know - "Guided Tours" or something. Anything but the help desk. Please. DO something to stop this. -- Mothperson 13:59, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
Given that Wikipedians are supposedly smart enough to find their way to obtaining help with Wikipedia problems, whatever the source of that problem-solving is named, WHY DOES IT HAVE TO BE CALLED A HELP DESK? I can't believe that the poverty-stricken owner of a dog with a collapsed lung is going to be pestering something called "Wikimess" or "Wikipediassness" or whatever. Of course, some will get through. But do you really feel it's necessary to lay down a red carpet and install flashing neon arrows? As for the big pink sign, I'm not a total moron, and even I don't notice it. It doesn't sink in. It's nothing. I do not understand why the name of the help desk can't be changed as the simplest semi-demi-solution to a constant problem, unless we've got some sort of stake in being elitist snobs. I hope we don't. -- Mothperson 20:51, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
There's nothing elitist about calling it the "Help desk." What's elitist is insisting it can't be called anything else, and those fools who come there thinking they will get help deserve nothing better than dismissal. Which reminds me - the Village Pump - I've finally figured out why it's called that. One comes here with an issue, and the answer, in my experience, is "go soak your head." I don't know what the answer to the Help desk problem is, but I thought it was sensible to present it here. I was wrong, and should have known better. I will try some other routes. Never mind. -- Mothperson 22:51, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
You might say that. But I am loath to blame the help desk volunteers, who do enough as it is. It took me two months to figure out the difference between help and reference, because I read labels, pink or otherwise colored, as much as I read instruction manuals - i.e. I don't. It took me three months to realize what the reference desk actually was. [[User:Mothperson| Mothperson]] 20:35, 11 July 2005 (UTC) and cripes, now I have to go over to the help desk to solve my signature problem - these people don't get paid nearly enough
In regards to this article: Seduction, I removed from the article links to sites that give primary information on the subject, ie. how to seduce someone. It's inappropriate because they aren't very "scientific" or adhere to standards that Wikipedia aspairs to. Conceivably there are thousands of such sites on the Internet. Why should we favor one over another? Or are we going to list all the sites related to a topic? We're not a wikified version of Google. I also removed the link to Robert Greene's site, which seems to merely advertise his book on same topic. Basically, anything that links to a site that provides non-encyclopedic information/primary source should not be in the article. I want to know what everyone else's opinion is on this. Please advise. Comatose51 02:59, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
Those interested in this topic may want to weigh in (hmm) at Talk:Ted_Kennedy#fatboy.cc. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:23, July 10, 2005 (UTC)
There is an ongoing debate by several parties at the COTW talk. Please read it before responding. The debate is over whether it is wikipedia policy to not include the COTW and AID templates on the article page. Several others and I claim that it useful to the reader, and since a consensus was never reached on the subject that the templates can go on the page. The other parties disagree and state that they are not interest to the reader. Hopefully they will come here and comment. I'm not sure if I should set up a vote here or not. However, I was told to bring the discussion here. Thanks for all comments. Falphin 01:01, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
Please note that SimonP is unilaterally changing where the templates are located on articles. ~~~~ 12:32, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
Hallo~! This is Deryck from Hong Kong, who originally advocated the change of the COTW template from the talk page to the article page. My point is that, now the template is on the talk page. Even contributors will not notice the existence of this notice, because such stubs are so short that they can't bring up disputes (therefore viewing the talk page is unnecessary). If the notice is put on the article page, it would be easier for readers as well as editors to go voting and later help the brushing up of the article. Deryck C. 01:14, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
The vote is currently going on elsewhere:
Falphin 21:05, 10 July 2005 (UTC) and Deryck C. 01:13, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
I've been working on some framework for The Wikipedia Community for some time. The work is in the form of a WikiProject. The project is called Wikipedia:WikiProject_Community and is built from the standard Template:WikiProject which is really quite a marvelous tool.
Please take a look at the project page and see what you think. ALL are welcome to join and learn, teach discuss, debate, study, and design a better community at //en.wikipedia.org . Thanks in advance for your participation. Quinobi - Community Builders Task Force 9 July 2005 16:45 (UTC)
I for one am quite happy with the hassle of following a link to a webpage through a number of mouseclicks. Indeed, I certainly don't think that following an external link should be part of "reading the article". That's just sloppy writing, encouraged by the wonders of hypertext. Remember that WP prose is supposed to stand on its own. The material at Those amazing checker playing zebras should not be important for understanding the article, and we should expect/force only a tiny minority of readers to read that resource. So a footnote is quite appropriate, which itself can point to a list of external links. Am I making it harder for the reader? No. The external link shouldn't be part of the reading experience, so she shouldn't feel compelled to follow it. Am I making it harder for the author? Oh yes! She is now forced to write a complete, internally consistent article.
So here's what I want:
{{
cite web}}
: Check date values in: |date=
and |year=
/ |date=
mismatch (
help)Arguing that the "two mouse clicks" is too much hassle is irrelevant. Even one mouse click should be more than needed to understand the page. If you're an expert on zebras, or checkers, or a later editor, then you belong to the tiny minority of readers who is expected to follow the link. Arbor 9 July 2005 11:49 (UTC)
As one of the zebras, I find mouse clickings distracting while playing and prefer a quiet experience until the end of the game. Only then might I be interested in leaving the game to discuss some of its finer points. I prefer the text to be as self-explanatory as possible. If further information is available elsewhere, then it should be signed separately at the end of the text. - David91 9 July 2005 11:02 (UTC)
I find pure [http://example.com] links to typically be rather opaque and unclear - I think outside links with titles, i.e. [http://example.com An example website] can be and are useful inline, but just saying heres a website that is somehow relevant is IMO typically insufficient to explain what it's purpose is. If explaining the relevance of the link is not appropriate inline (using titles, parentheses, etc.), then use {{ note}} (or one of the other ones) and explain it at the end. In conclusion, I think numbered external links ought to be fixed when seen, either by expanding on their relevance inline, or turning them to footnotes and expanding on their relevance in the footnote. Thoughts, responses? JesseW 20:52, 9 July 2005 (UTC)
Somewhere in the early 1990s, some engineer at some small nuclear collider, wrote some code, while probably thinking to himself "Now here's a novel solution to the footnote issue". Perhaps we could perhaps stick to his solution, and not revert to the poor mans' methods that came before. :-) Kim Bruning 10:34, 12 July 2005 (UTC)
SEWilco has created an editting tool (i.e. manually controlled bot) for the purpose of standardizing some of the ways that citations appear in Wikipedia articles. As something of a test run, he did such a conversion to a single page, ice core, see the diff [4]. As a result, myself and one other user objected to how he was converting inline URL links into formal reference links.
Apparently such a conversion is supported by statements at Wikipedia:Cite sources and Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links), however these statements seem to be only a few months old and I have been unable to locate any significant discussion of them.
As a result of this disagreement, discussion has ensued at Wikipedia talk:Footnote3#Footnotes_vs._inline_web_references, and we are looking for outside input on this issue.
Dragons flight July 8, 2005 23:07 (UTC)
What follows below is a summary of the formatting styles being discussed for the benefit of those who may be unfamiliar with these different styles.
One way to reference a website is simply to add a link to it in the body of the article. For example, one might write "Zebras like to play checkers [5]", with a simple inline link pointing directly at the site.
Some users dislike inline links like this because they don't provide information on what is available at that site or when it was retrieved. Instead, it has been suggested that we should used the {{ ref}} / {{ note}} style of Wikipedia:Footnote3 and {{ web reference}} for such web references, for example: "Zebras like to play checkers [6]"
References
{{
cite web}}
: Check date values in: |date=
and |year=
/ |date=
mismatch (
help)Where the little superscripted number links to the appropriate reference and the "^" on the reference links back to the little number. This has the advantage of providing additional information on the website source so that it could possibly be found again if the link ever went dead. It also would make website references consistent with book / journal and other references relying on the {{ ref}} / {{ note}} form.
The disadvantage is that to get to the external material one would have to click on the little link and then click again on the link in the references section. Personally, I think this is a big disadvantage since it makes it harder to get to outside material and it doesn't provide a way of distinguishing reference links to books and hard resources from those which are immediately available over the internet.
A potential compromise exists by way of a mixed form with both an inline link and a formal reference, which is to say using "Zebras like to play checkers [7]." Along with:
References
{{
cite web}}
: Check date values in: |date=
and |year=
/ |date=
mismatch (
help)But not using the {{ ref}} / {{ note}} formulation to link between the two. This preserves the direct link from the text but also gives the detailed reference information. However, since the two aren't linked, it is more likely that one may get removed or changed without the other being fixed. Also, there is some concern this could create very long references sections out of what in some cases are fairly innocuous but plentiful links.
A potential compromise exists by way of a mixed form with both an inline link and a linked formal reference, which is to say using "Zebras like to play checkers . [8]" Along with:
References
{{
cite web}}
: Check date values in: |date=
and |year=
/ |date=
mismatch (
help)This creates both types of links but is visually larger, even using a minor code trick of using the sentence-ending period be a short text link. This could be presented differently in several ways: two images can be stacked (images of numbers 1-99 could be addressed), or is there a way to tuck an external link under a superscripted link number? ( SEWilco 9 July 2005 00:03 (UTC))
Comment: Needlessly complicated. Inline is an awesome feature, it's been built in to the Wikipedia software because it encourages newbies to fearlessly and boldly add links; footnotes remain controversial and are not built into the software, FootNote3 in particular is a complicated (and to some unapproachably scary) hack. Stbalbach 9 July 2005 05:26 (UTC)
My understanding is that the footnote styles are used in the ==notes== section, not the ==reference section== See wikipedia:featured article candidates/Geography of India for the discussion and Geography of India for implementation. 1) Text should not be linked to an outside source (as what you have mentioned under hybrid style). I think the footnote style is much neater that the placing of a raw link at the side of the text. Nichalp July 9, 2005 08:34 (UTC)
When disambiguating a movie title wich is best to use ? (movie) as in The Canterbury Tales (movie) or (film) as in Passenger (film) ? -- Melaen 8 July 2005 18:06 (UTC)
I want to change the Wikipedia:Guide to layout, part of the Wikipedia:Manual of Style. The current MoS states that the ==External links== should come after the ==References== section. I totally disagree with this and feel that it should come before the ==References== section. External links are an integral part of an article, unlike the reference section which is used to crosscheck. The World Book is on my side, it has the References at the end. Any objections if I am bold and change it? User:Nichalp/sg July 8, 2005 16:35 (UTC)
What unit types should be used when describing storage capacity in articles?
Multiple-byte units | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Orders of magnitude of data |
A problem has arisen in different related articles on whether to use the MB or MiB. Some articles have decided to stick with using MB, some have chosen to use MiB.
Discussion moved to
Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Unit Disagreement, MiB vs. MB -
Omegatron 23:03, July 9, 2005 (UTC)
A vote has been started on whether these prefixes should be used all the time, in highly technical contexts, or never. - Omegatron 14:45, July 12, 2005 (UTC)
The names of chemical compund pages have been the subject of a number of minor disputes (and some major ones, now hopefully resolved) for some time.
This page resembled more of a discussion than a set of guidelines. I have summarised the discussion that was there (and informed all the authors of signed comments) and added some more comments that have been discussed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemicals.
Any and all comments on the results are welcome. In particular, the page may be a bit too technical at present (help on this would be appreciated!). Have we missed any points?
More discussion on the style of chemistry articles can be found at Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemicals/Style guidelines.
Thanks to all who have already helped, and to those who take the time to add their comments. Physchim62 7 July 2005 11:14 (UTC)
Wondering if we can use pictures from Google earth for reference in wikipedia.
Or how about the kmz files from google earth?
Sveden 6 July 2005 20:58 (UTC)
Putting the pictures on Wikipedia could result in some copyright problems because Google got the license from DigitalGlobe. There is also "2005 Google" sticked onto the images to prevent you from claiming it as your own, and they don't let you do the "save as target" right-click option. — Stevey7788 ( talk) 20:35, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
What is the policy about taking content from another language wikipedia and moving it into the English wikipedia. Does no ownership apply so it's to fine copy anything? Should it be cited anywhere?
Example: I have recently discovered a timeline on the French Wikipedia (here: [9]) and made an English version here
-- Commander Keane 6 July 2005 11:34 (UTC)
There is currently a vote on a large number of proposals to expand the criteria for speedy deletion. If passed, they would tend to place the onus for everyday deletion decisions in the hands of administrators and substantially reduce the number of articles that get discussion time in Votes for deletion and other deletion discussion policy forums. Discussion and votes are required.
Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion/Proposal
-- Tony Sidaway| Talk 5 July 2005 16:14 (UTC)
Proposal 1, which at present looks likely to pass, says that administrators should have discretion to delete "An article about a real person that does not assert that person's importance or significance - people such as college professors or actors may be individually important in society; people such as students and bakers are not, or at least not for the reason of being a student or baker. If the assertion is disputed or controversial, it should be taken to VFD instead."
What concerns me here is that it is left up to one person, instead of Wikipedia editors at large, to decide for themselves what an assertion of importance or significance is. Only a very vague idea is given of what is intended and the administrator is given complete discretion. This proposal needs scrutiny. At present the article would be listed on VfD and discussed for five days, which saves many important articles that were wrongly thought to be deletable. -- Tony Sidaway| Talk 6 July 2005 01:49 (UTC)
You're being a little bit naughty here, Radiant. Why should I mention that unremarkable article are listed on VfD? That's what VfD is *intended* for. It's doing a good job. As for saving time, nobody asks people to vote for delete, and if nobody but the proposer had anything to do with the nomination the article could still be deleted, but would have benefited from five days' listing and potential for discussion (alas even this this was not enough to save the article on the legendary writer and journalist, Davey Winder, which I had to rewrite). There is nothing about VfD's current size that "prevents people from participating". Just go there and look at the page. Unlike in earlier months when it was transcluded, it no longer takes a long time to load and is much more accessible than ever.
If VfD is "less of an instrument of consensus than it should be" how can this be improved by removing articles from VfD and giving the decision on their deletion to a single, demonstrably fallible person?
"Joe Smith is the president of major corporation GnirpGo" is not enough to save an article from speedy deletion under the proposals. Some administrators regularly claim that being the President of a corporation does not make one worthy of an encyclopedia entry.
Denni, I've not suggested that any lust of any kind is involved. It is a fact, which I've proved beyond doubt with actual cases, that being an administrator does not make us better (or even very good) editors. Administrators routinely judge salveagable articles as worthy only of deletion. The carnage at present is low and containable. The proposals will make the load on administrators much higher because some of us will be deleting stuff and the others will be restoring the wrong deletions. VfD saves us from such nonsense, that's why it exists. -- Tony Sidaway| Talk 22:07, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
Well, I put this image [10] in the Wikipedia in spanish, but they told me I needed a license for it, but aparently, the english version doesnt have any problem, so I am guessing it already has a license... I just cant find it, could somebody give it so the image can also be in the spanish version?-- 201.139.132.232 4 July 2005 18:28 (UTC)
Why is the policy only to link to the first mention of something in an entry? I just don't get it.
It's annoying when reading - you get to a certain point in the article and think, "Oh, that thing would be interesting to read about", but it's not linked. Is it just plain not linked, or is it linked somewhere previously in the article? Either way, a pain.
It makes editing more difficult in several ways - for example:
- When entering new text, you have to check whether it was linked in a previous location, and if so, not link it in your new text;
- Similarly, you have to check whether it was linked in a later location, and if so, link it in your text, but unlink it in the later location;
- Deleting text and/or moving text suffers the same problems.
And it's not like there's some sort of resource wasted by linking multiple times.
I'm not saying always link every mention of a subject - it clearly would be overkill in some situations - but it seems like that's actually the far minority of situations. And in those few situations when linking every time would be overkill, people probably wouldn't link every time anyway.
This seems like something that shouldn't have a policy at all, one way or the other.
In practice it's fine to link the same topic multiple times, if the article is long. It's typical for a topic to be mentioned in a summary and then mentioned again when the topic is covered in more detail; in this case it's quite appropriate to link it again. Years may need to be linked multiple times so that date preferences work. Gdr 2005-06-29 13:01:11 (UTC)
Benjamin Gatti created Wikipedia:Wikiblower protection [11], which was nominated for deletion by NicholasTurnbull. Deletion debate was de-listed by Essjay, who archived the deletion debate on Wikipedia_talk:Wikiblower_protection [12]. Subsequently, I am listing the policy proposal here, per Wikipedia:How_to_create_policy. I do not support this policy proposal. EvilPhoenix talk 09:08, August 4, 2005 (UTC)
I read the policy that definitions don't go in Wikipedia but instead in Wiktionary.
I don't understand why the dictionary is separate. It makes readers and editors look in different locations and (I believe) reduces usage and growth.
Why not have a disambiguation page to point people to definition vs. article where both are present? Then everything can be looked up (or edited/contributed) while in the encyclopedia.
I have read a lot of articles about cities, states, and countries in Wikipedia. But they are NOT in a separate Wikipedia Atlas, nor would I wish them to be.
A curious newcomer Sitearm 06:56, 3 August 2005 (UTC)
Ok I'm reading Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not and what it seems to object to is "an article that is nothing more than a definition". But it doesn't say, delete it, it says "see if there is information you can add that would be appropriate for an encyclopedia". I see many words as worthy encyclopedic subjects, for example, " Ms.". New words and new uses of old words are added to contemporary society frequently. Some are registered copyrights and trademarks Dune (novel) vs. Dune {geography). I don't have a problem with shunting pure definitions off to Wiktionary, just with deleting them as not article-worthy. But I still have a concern that splitting off "special" topic wikis means they won't get traffic because new readers and potential contributors won't go there as easily and because the distinction is off-putting (get it right or we'll delete you!). A concerned newcomer Sitearm 15:22, 3 August 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for your service
I noted that there it to date no discussion added to James Tobin entry.
I am wondering how to approach you to link our idea on a new global tax similar to the Tobin Tax. Can it be linked to the Tobin entry? Or can we have an entry in the wikipedia, even though we are not historical, famous or dead?
Attached below to give you an idea, Thanks, Ian Greenwood
Subject: anything to environment? could our new idea reduce tax? Is it more politically do-able than the tobin tax?
How can international trade (where much of the profit ends up untaxed 'off-shore') be made to pay something to the environment (climate change etc) and made to pay something to rectify trade injustice? After all, when all the resources have been stripped out from poor countries by our Western nations, what do we do then? And how can sea level rise be stemmed, when Greenland ice currently melting adds 7 metres to levels, Antarctic ice about 50 m? Much of our most productive agricultural and developed land is at or near sea level and is at risk, globally.
Our proposal below is aimed to slow this process and using excise systems, return more to the environment/education of the recipient nation (of the trade) and an equal share direct to the supplier nation's climate change avoidance/environment/education projects.
Can anyone help me with a comment, by forwarding the message on to others, or by contributing to devise a simple way of calculating the exchange rate advantage and how this could be simply applied?
Ian@steerglobal.org I will post constructive replies on the blog/website we have under construction
Could this be the breakthrough idea to assist the pan-pacific climate change initiative to get the action we need soon enough, as well as help towards Kyoto targets that we are manifestly failing to achieve? That is, release enough funds for renewable energy, not just for the USA Europe and Asia, but also 'developing'/'under-developed' nations who also contribute to global warming and deforestation/desertification by burning timber?
Otherwise it seems we all get tax rises, and future shortages of resources. Instead, our proposal, if adopted, would take a little from the off-shore profits and not necessarily lead to price rises since the market already sets prices to that which the market will stand. An outline is below and attached as a slightly longer 2 page version:
A new idea for a structural adjustment to trade:
Connecting climate change, trade justice and EU unemployment.
Aims
To show how a new economic term could be used. Using this to promote a fund for renewable energy (etc.) returning a chunk to the poorest parts of the world, reducing their need to depend on debt/‘aid’. To slow our rate of “off-shoring”.
This should be of widespread interest, because increased funding for rail and other sustainable transport would reduce congestion, pollution and climate change. Additionally, business would be able to seize the opportunity to accelerate provision of renewable energy and implement other solutions to the climate change problem.
By splitting the proposed fund in half- both halves to be direct to projects enhancing environmental sustainability- the rich and powerful nations get an environmental benefit that is politically popular, against climate change; the poorest nations get a much greater benefit direct to their environmental sustainability projects (addressing their technological deficit) reducing their emissions and the resulting inevitable sea level rise. Could these problems be solved using the advantage that powerful traders have?
Our proposal uses the currency exchange rate advantage that traders and tourists have used for centuries. There is a need to clearly identify this advantage between the two trading partners that is contributing to unfair trade. Part could be put into a new fund, collected by the existing excise system. If 50% of the advantage were used, this could be up to 12% of the final price as an environmental levy, 6% to each region. The fund could then be distributed as described above, direct to projects, half in the 'rich' trading nation and half in the 'poor' supplying nation, where it buys more because of the same currency exchange rate advantage. If some of the fund were also used to plan resource consumption this would protect future generations, education could be devised against needless growth in cargo traffic and the pursuit of quick profits, many of which go off-shore.
The difficulty of collecting tax from those using trusts and off-shore accounts has been testing governments facing reducing revenues (in real terms) for many years (Observer 27-03-05: $255 billion p.a. tax loss). To change the global tax-gathering system like this could enhance security in several senses, but it would not cause a sudden shock to the economic system, nor immediately affect production. Rather it could reduce political and economic tensions between countries over such things as rapid re-location of jobs (loss of trade skills) and climate change (water shortages etc). It could be win-win for rich and poor in terms of enhancing peace, reducing congestion, pollution and sea level rise. The environmental need has been highlighted in discussions on the recent EU budget crisis (Newsnight BBC1 21/06/05). An opportunity could exist for the WTO or EU/USA to link the climate change need to the trade injustice issue and generate environmental economy.
Ian Greenwood +44 121 449 0278
There are two discussions, and a vote going on related to the VfD process:
Paul August ☎ 05:16, August 3, 2005 (UTC)
Hi,
Is there some sort of policy regarding the order of the links to other Wikipedia langauges? I noticed someone had moved the link I added to fit alphabeticlly among the other links.. Yonidebest 21:42, 2 August 2005 (UTC)
A proposed change to the Manual of Style to standarize the use of floating Tables of Contents was proposed after a vote to keep {{TOCright}} in TFD, and has been up for voting for a while now. However, few votes have been casted, and more are required to check if there really is a consensus. Please look at the discussion on that page and vote. -- Titoxd 02:49, 2 August 2005 (UTC)
This article is more about playing the game well rather than the methodology and mathematical calculations behind the game. Therefore it's not really encyclopedic, so by rights shouldn't it be transwikied to Wikibooks? Official rules of Monopoly and House rules of Monopoly are also candidates for nonencyclopedic status (the latter moreso than the former).
For several months now I've been toying with the idea of writing a Monopoly Wikibook, but I still haven't built up the courage to write the core of the book to hold together the specialised info I've already written. But this could be just the jump-start I need.
Anyway, I came here for your opinions, not mine, so tell me what you think. :) -- Garrett Talk 02:37, 2 August 2005 (UTC)
Now that's sorted, what about Official rules of Monopoly and House rules of Monopoly? I would be covering those, although in much, much greater detail, meaning it wouldn't be a meaningless fork of the content... but are they encyclopedic?
Certainly the official rules page is virtually another how-to, but the house rules may just fall within the ideal as many of these rules are very notable, and informing about common house rules is in itself potentially encyclopedic, as long as it doesn't slip over into becoming a gameplay guide for said rules. The other option is to transwiki it in its entirety and only leave a line or two in the core article. Thoughts? Garrett Talk 04:29, 2 August 2005 (UTC)
I do not understand how Monopoly game rules are "not encyclopedic"? The articles for Poker and Backgammon contain equally detailed game rules. Sitearm 06:46, 3 August 2005 (UTC)
I thought initially you were saying game rules shouldn't be posted at all. Are you saying game rules are ok in Wikipedia if they're in a larger context article, but they're not ok in standalone article and should be put somewhere else, e.g., Wikibooks? I'm just a little confused reading over some of these policy discussions about what does and doesn't go into Wikipedia articles because I've found so many unusual things that DO go in (e.g., elaborate histories of fictional characters in literature and web comics). A confused but still intrigued newcomer who appreciates your patience Sitearm 07:07, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
Interested to know your Zionism and Anti-Zionism pages fit in with the above policy. Interesting and knowledgeable discussion on both sides, but there is no way the articles can be considered neutral...
How extensively should the names of places in different languages be put into articles? Of course, when a place has an official name in more than one language, then all should be included, but how about unofficial names? I'm particularly thinking about place names in Finland, which is a bilingual country, with both Finnish and Swedish as its official languages. Thus, there is both a Finnish and Swedish version of many place names. Usually these places are located in a bilingual municipality, in which case it is obvious that both names should be given, but how about places with 'semi-official' names in a municipality where the language is not an official one? These do exist, and most of them are widely used. I couldn't find any advice on policy pages about this. - ulayiti (talk) 18:10, 1 August 2005 (UTC)
I have just begun to notice how many articles there are for contemporary fictional characters, some "famous" (e.g., Horatio Hornblower) and some less famous (e.g., Hanzo the Razor).
Is there a any policy about articles for fictional characters? Somehow these seem less objective than articles about physics or math or even fiction writers.
Is the plan to let the collection evolve and let people write about whatever they want to write about?
A newcomer Sitearm 07:35, 1 August 2005 (UTC)
I am ready to close this section. I like the fictional character articles and have added some myself. I am going to add something to the article Fictional character. Thanks for the helpful comments! An encouraged newcomer -- Sitearm | Talk 21:58, 2005 August 4 (UTC)
We can probably cut vandalism 90% by curtailing anon power. I am not suggesting an all out ban on activity by those without a user account but I am tempted to sometimes. Check the Wikipedia:Vandalism in progress the overwhelming majority of serious vandals come from anon ips many who regularly use other computers when banned. Some use so many IP addresses, they are impossible to monitor. And its not about blanking pages or write cuss words in articles. The guys who have me worried are those who subtly alter a fact here or there, changing a name or date on a history page or screw around with the values on scientific or technical articles. These sort of things can rapidly destroy reputation. They're also difficult to catch. How many people are out there making these changes that we still haven't caught? I think its a lot more than most would like to admit...
Jarwulf 19:37, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
This has been discussed at Wikipedia:Village pump (perennial proposals)#Abolish anonymous users. Joyous (talk) 20:07, July 31, 2005 (UTC)
I've seen a few lines here and there in the manual of style regarding how to use Arabic properly for personal and place names, but I haven't seen much more than is. Have I missed something, or would it be a better idea to formulate a policy on conventions for using Arabic in articles? I think it might be good to have two standards for transliteration of Arabic words (one strict, for scientific transliteration, and one conventional, for casual transliteration) alongside a policy to use customary names where they exist (that is, do not rename Cairo). Use of the Arabic definite article and i`rab would be useful to have some policy. Alongside this could be placed a more full description on how to handle Arabic names, epithets and titles, and how to use Arabic placenames (including the issue when a province and city have the same name). Gareth Hughes 16:05, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
Non-English languages in non-Latin writing systems is the issue. There is usually a scientific transliteration standard (or several, as is the case for Arabic), and then there are a number of ways in which words from that language have been introduced into English. There is already a little policy in the MoS, but it doesn't cover much and is fragmented. For example, I do like the beginning of the article jihad:
Jihad (ǧihād جهاد) is an Islamic term, from the Arabic root ǧhd ("to exert utmost effort, to strive, struggle"),
Here a customary version of the word is used alongside the scientific transliteration and the Arabic itself. Personal and place names would really benefit from standard treatment. Gareth Hughes 16:59, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
The Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Arabic) is still under construction if you'd like to help. CG 09:15, August 1, 2005 (UTC)
I'm concerned over a few new Wikiprojects. Specifically:
My concern is that these pages appear to be created with the sole intent of organizing a group of like-minded wikipedians so that they may organize and better represent their POV on Wikipedia articles. I much prefer people use talk pages to discuss articles, because on a talk page both sides of an argument can be present. However, to group people with a specific POV into a "guild," removes the debate from the public view and can lead to group think.
Anyone else have thoughts on these projects?
-- Quasipalm 14:34, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
He is calling it a guild, but actually the user who created it is a nutbag who is the only member of his so called guild. So, as smoddy says, there is no need to worry about it. Banes 13:08, 31 July 2005 (UTC)