cleanup vs. merge vs. copyvio? |
Erich gasboy (talk | contribs) dealing with difficult behaviour proposal |
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Thanks! - [[User:Kenwarren|Kenwarren]] 23:22, Jul 17, 2004 (UTC) |
Thanks! - [[User:Kenwarren|Kenwarren]] 23:22, Jul 17, 2004 (UTC) |
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== dealing with difficult behaviour proposal == |
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While there is debate about how significant a problem disruptive editors actually are on Wikipedia, many of us believe we could handle them better than we have been. So a few of us have been tinkering with a formal approach at [[Wikipedia talk:Dealing with disruptive or antisocial editors]] ([[WP:DWDAE]]). This idea aims to improve on the proposals at [[Wikipedia:Dealing with trolls]] and [[Wikipedia:Trolling poll]], by providing a framework more in keeping with principles of [[natural justice]]. The policy should place a fair system in the gaps between the [[Wikipedia:Dispute resolution]] process, [[Wikipedia:Banning policy]], [[Wikipedia:Blocking policy]], [[Wikipedia:Dealing with vandalism]] policy and the [[Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee]]. It does '''not''' seek to replace any of the above, but allows efficient management of recalcitrant, difficult, problem behaviour. |
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In summary, an ad hoc tribunal of three admins may summarily block a user for 24 hours for repeated antisocial or disruptive behaviour, if they follow due process. |
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# First warning to user and notice to community that a user may need direction |
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# Final warning to user if problem edits continue |
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# Presentation of two edits made after final warning, followed by institution of block |
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Users that repeat problem behaviour despite previous blocks, or sock puppets attempting to bypass blocks, are given less leeway and may be blocked for up to 96 hours. |
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The time line for refining and considering this policy: |
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# '''Editing by all interested parties until about midday UTC 23 July 2004''' |
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# A minor edit only cooling off period of 48 hours (to prevent any deliberate last-minute subversion of consensus) lasting until midday 25 July 2004 |
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# A two week voting period finishing midday UTC 8 August 2004 |
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# If there isn't a clear consensus, but hope of reaching one then this cycle may repeat until an ''acceptable'' consensus is reached or hope fades. |
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On first read the proposed policy is complicated, so it does need a bit of your time to consider it. But if accepted this proposal would be a significant change in the way things work. '''Please come and have a look, especially if you think you may have trouble supporting it.''' We still have until midday UTC 23 July 2004 to ''get it right''. Best wishes [[User:Erich gasboy|Erich]] 23:38, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC) |
Revision as of 23:38, 17 July 2004
I want... | Then go to... |
---|---|
...help using or editing Wikipedia | Teahouse (for newer users) or Help desk (for experienced users) |
...to find my way around Wikipedia | Department directory |
...specific facts (e.g. Who was the first pope?) | Reference desk |
...constructive criticism from others for a specific article | Peer review |
...help resolving a specific article edit dispute | Requests for comment |
...to comment on a specific article | Article's talk page |
...to view and discuss other Wikimedia projects | Wikimedia Meta-Wiki |
...to learn about citing Wikipedia in a bibliography | Citing Wikipedia |
...to report sites that copy Wikipedia content | Mirrors and forks |
...to ask questions or make comments | Questions |
[[da:Wikipedia:Landsbybr%F8nden]]
Summarised sections
- Swedish spellings are being changed to Finish. Can sysops help? --> User talk:Tuomas
- New WikiReader. See Wikipedia:WikiReader/William Shakespeare
- NEH grant. See m:NEH grant
- Pejorative labels --> User talk:Bodnotbod
- I want to nominate something for the main page. These are from the list of featured articles. See Wikipedia:Featured article candidates to nominate a new one. For the "did you know" section see Template talk:Did you know
- Citing legal sources --> Wikipedia talk:Cite sources
- Hectares: a debate on the use of the unit, hectares, is occurring at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers).
- Adding semantic to hyperlinks --> Wikipedia:Ignored feature requests
- Wikipedia Hall of Fame page. Various awards suggested. See also Wikipedia:Great editing in progress.
- LaTeX rasterizer --> Wikipedia talk:TeX markup
- What content should we have here? --> Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia is not a dictionary
- Disappearing page history. Archived. Please report bugs to sourceforge
- A question of Wikiquette --> User talk:Neutrality
- AskMyTutor. New copier listed on Wikipedia:Copies of Wikipedia content (low degree of compliance)
- Racism policy. Archived.
- Other language Wikipedia links on the Main Page. See Template:Wikipedialang
- Associated Press citation --> Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia as a press source
- Arbitrary background colours in articles --> Wikipedia:Ignored feature requests. Discuss features at meta or on sourceforge.
- Related changes. Find help at m:Help:Related changes
- Bad rendering. Typing in RFC 1000 produces a link to the document for that RFC on faqs.org. Placing this in a wikilink screws things up. Bug report filed.
- What is Going On? Images not showing? Please report bugs at sourceforge.
- Wikipedia:Dealing with trolls: poll on whether sysops should be permitted to ban obvious trolls. See also Wikipedia talk:Dealing with disruptive or antisocial editors
- Image help. Help requested converting the bmp and gif files to jpgs at Calvin and Hobbes.
- Followup on "The database did not find the text of a page that it should have found....". The error msg in the heading has been dealt with.
- How many redirects for a same article? --> Wikipedia talk:Redirect
- New project: Wikipedia:WikiProject Victoria Cross Reference Migration
- Bad interwiki? known bug
- Recent Changes no longer enough. Archived
- Simple English collaboration. Archived
- Metrics for entries on wikipedia. See Wikipedia:What is an article
- That sheep. Not implying that Wikipedians are sheep. Name change discussion at Wikipedia talk:Village pump/Agora
- Theatre/Theater --> User talk:DJ Clayworth
- Photos --> Wikipedia talk:Image use policy
- Proposed changes to Sandbox and interface messages: Template talk:Sandbox and Mediawiki talk:Newarticletext
- "Preview" in "Login Successful" screen page title. Wikipedia:Ignored feature requests. Please suggest features on meta or sourceforge.
- User:Golden Dreams - Bird, Lir or Michael? See Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Lir
- New York Subway needs Category --> Talk:New York Subway
- On naming an article. Now at 10th of August (French Revolution)
- Supply and Demand question moved to Wikipedia:Reference Desk
- Fictional Characters vs. Living, Breathing People --> Wikipedia talk:Check your fiction
- Page content being doubled. Known bug
- Non-credited mirrors --> Wikipedia talk:Mirrors and forks
- Borderline Fair Use --> Wikipedia talk:Fair use
- Could use some help with naming an article --> Talk:Dragon Ball
- Differnet Browsers - Differnent Content --> Archives. Please report bugs at sourceforge.
- Attribute change backlog --> Wikipedia talk:Changing attribution for an edit
- Suitable Licencing of my own images --> Wikipedia talk:Copyrights
- Wikipedia:Requested articles/music messed up? Fixed now?
- Copy pictures --> User talk:Wwoods
- I can't see newly-created articles --> Archived. See m:bugs
- Database weirdness. History messed up. Known issue.
- Template messages and what links here not working due to a temporary bug on July 9 which will be fixed with a script.
- Terry Baum needs checking.
- International Version of Wiki . Feature request: let users choose the language of the UI.
- SLOW! Wikipedia was slow on 10 July.
- BC vs. BCE for dates? --> Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers).
- Copyrights and Public Domains --> Wikipedia talk:Copyrights
- Rant: "Box of chocolates" linking considered harmful --> Wikipedia talk:Principle of least astonishment
- Wikipedia Lookups from IE or Mozilla --> Wikipedia talk:Searching
- Consensus? See Wikipedia:Consensus
- New database server in use as of 11 July. There was a problem with large watchlists which should be fixed now. Please report remianing problems with this to Jamesday.
- Bold --> Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style
- smartpedia.com --> See Wikipedia talk:Mirrors and forks
- What's worth covering? --> Wikipedia talk:What's in, what's out
- Rules for card games --> talk:card game
- Yet another policy page. Feedback welcomed at Wikipedia:How to create policy
A:Visited links
Hi,
When going through the diffs on my watchlist, I noticed that in some cases, after I'd clicked on a diff link and refreshed the page, the diff link would appear in the a:link color instead of the a:visited color. To put that differently, the links I've clicked appear in purple instead of blue (like they should). Is there any reason for this?
Also, I'm wondering who keeps modifying monobook.css. With the current style, the difference in color between visited links and regular links is very small, so it's a bit hard to differentiate. Where would it be appropriate to discuss issues like this (and that strange blue background that seems to have disappeared)?
Acegikmo1 01:55, 11 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- See MediaWiki talk:monobook.css for changes to the skin.
Image doesn't exist, yet does
This image was uploaded by the vandal User:John Smith.
If you click on it, you'll get the "Wikipedia does not have an article on this topic yet", and there's no history. So the image doesn't exist, but you're viewing it just the same.
An admin apparently was deleting it at the same time I was slapping a "speedy delete" tag on it, and weirdness ensued.
- No, that wasn't the reason. For images there are two deletions necessary - one is the image description page, and the other is the actual image itself. While the first one works the same as the deletion of normal articles, the image itself must be deleted via a second "delete" link next to the image revision list. Apparently not all admins know about that - I myself did wrong deletions until I discovered a mention of the "correct" deletion on the German village pump. Maybe the "deletion successful" text should have a note about images? andy 10:07, 12 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- This question inspired me to write the Administrators' how-to guide which explains how to delete images properly, along with other things new sysops might not know. Angela. 00:54, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- That's really a good page. I can remember that when I became an admin, I was wondering a lot what this new "rollback" button is supposed to do, and only after searching through several pages in the wikipedia namespace I could find it, so a list like that one would have helped me a lot. Now we just need to make sure every newly created admin is guided to that page. andy 07:23, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Wikipedia for Cell Phones
I am wondering if there is any type of movement toward developing a cell phone web interface for Wikipedia?
I have spent significant time developing for and doing research with cell phone technology, and truly believe that providing a cell phone interface (text based, possibly just read-only) for Wikipedia (or an information source like it) could be a dramatic step forward in information sharing and availability world wide. With the broad use of cell phones, and their increased internet access, I believe that the opportunity to carry the world's largest and most dynamic encyclopedia around in your pocket might be incredible. (Additionally, a phase 2 operation that allows users to enter articles and post images from their camera phones, has the potential for an exponential increase in wikipedia data)
I am new to Wikipedia, so do not know exactly how all of the business management works, but would be more then happy to lead this initiative if it has not already been started, assuming that the idea receives interest from others.
- This is a great idea. You'll want to contact the Wikimedia software project about it, since that's where it would inevitably have to plug in. It may also influence the hardware infrastructure if it were put in. The trickiest part would be designing an efficient interface for the smaller screen. Good luck with this. Derrick Coetzee 20:51, 12 Jul 2004 (UTC)
This has been mentioned a little over at meta:Mobile_subdomain. I've personally had good success accessing Wikipedia with the 'MySkin' skin on my Treo, although I guess you're probably talking about adding some sort of WAP interface. --NeuronExMachina 01:20, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)
That red box
The box is now editable by sysops at MediaWiki:Fundraising notice. Full details at m:Fundraising site notice. Discussion at m:Talk:Fundraising site notice.
Text jumping to new lines
I've noticed that the text beside wikilinks has strangely appeared on a new line in List of Governors of Massachusetts and Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship. What's going on?
Acegikmo1 16:57, 12 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Would someone mind going to 1938 in film and fixing the page. Thanks. JillandJack 17:52, 12 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Vandalism
I'm sorry if the answer to this problem is easy (and I daresay it is), but I've had a look through various sections on Wikipedia, and am unable to find a page for reporting vandalism. There are various offensive remarks on pages related to Seinfeld, such as Jerry Seinfeld, Jason Alexander and Michael Richards. Should I go into the page history and revert these pages to their previous versions? And where should I report the offender?
As I say, I'm sorry if this query seems somewhat plebian, but help would be appreciated!
- Yes, you can just go into the history and revert any vandalisms, see Wikipedia:Revert, and for reporting vandalisms, see Wikipedia:Vandalism in progress. Dori | Talk 19:09, Jul 12, 2004 (UTC)
- The fact that someone looking for such a page could not find it is indicative of a problem with the interface. Could you describe your experience, what you tried and so on? It would be helpful feedback. Derrick Coetzee 05:20, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Opt-in Google-ads?
Please discuss at m:Opt-in Google-ads
Carrying on a discussion with another user, back and forth between his User_talk and mine?
What's the generally-accepted method of carrying on a discussion with another Wikipedia user? Say someone adds a comment to my User_talk page... if I reply beneath it, he doesn't get any notification that I replied, does he? So I go post to his User_talk page instead, and then posts his reply to mine, and I post my reply to his... and then each of our User_talk pages has half a conversation, and someone wishing to read the whole conversation has to keep jumping back and forth between two pages. Is there a better way, short of resorting to email? Or does Wikipedia have a way of letting me know if someone's replied on his User_talk page to a comment I left there? Brian Kendig 23:17, 12 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- If you post something at some users talk page tick the 'watch this page' box, this will inform you when he/she responds. --Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 23:21, 2004 Jul 12 (UTC)
- Generally, you can reply to them and just say "see reply on my talk page", letting them know that the conversation will continue there. [[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 23:20, 12 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- I never no what to do... (it gives me the same anxiety I get about if I'm supposed to shake hands or not) :-) Erich 08:53, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- Once the discussion is over (and hope it gets over!) copy the bits and parts and format them on your user-talk page. If your talk partner/s are interested, they can do the same with their user-talk pages. Jay 17:08, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Deleting items from my watchlist
I am unable to delete items from my watchlist using display and edit the complete list. I click the right buttons, and am told that the items have been removed from my watch list, but they stay. I am using mozilla firefox 0.8 (actually mozilla webgiraffe, but never mind :))Thue | talk 23:18, 12 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Does wikipedia represent the entire world?
and related sections moved to User talk:Drbalaji md
Doubling (Tripling) problem
OK, I obviously just tripled the above poll. What causes this? I can only guess it has something to do with using the "Show Preview" button, because I previewed twice, but maybe something else is at work. Peace, --Fritzlein 00:13, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Or could it be that the 'almighty' wants this poll to reproduce itself (may be that is the only way to act democratic here!) --Drbalaji md 00:17, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)
VFD dupe problem
So9mething has gone wrong with VfD in the last half hour, probably at least a partial duplication. E.g., there's a block of new stuff after a block of inter-lang links. Perhaps just repair under way, but intro section shows as new material. --Jerzy(t) 00:28, 2004 Jul 13 (UTC)
Section editing broken on ref desk
Section editing on Wikipedia:Reference desk seems to be off by one. That is, when I go to edit the section on clouds, I end up editing the question about the Peace Cross, and I have to go to the next question to talk about clouds. I've seen this before, something about comments in headings or something? Anyone know how to fix it? moink 00:34, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- Nevermind, I fixed it. moink 00:36, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- How'd you fix it? I noticed that meta:MediaWiki 1.3 comments and bug reports was off by 2 a day or so ago. --ssd 05:24, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- If a HTML comment precedes a header, it'll act as if the header is still there. Each commented-out header has to be "escaped". I think that's the reason, I can't remember for sure. Dysprosia 06:42, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I created a page called Wikipedia:Promotional buttons as an example of how we could encourage promotion of Wikipedia via the web. I'm no graphics designer so they're not great buttons, but they get the point across. Please go to the talk page to help decide if this is a good idea. —siroχo 11:25, Jul 13, 2004 (UTC)
- You might want to put those in the public domain or free-distribution at least. It's a bit of a trauble to follow the GFDL just for one button, distrubute a licence and such. -- Ævar Arnfjörð 12:29, 2004 Jul 13 (UTC)
- Would we want to do that? Isn't the logo trademarked? [[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 13:23, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- You don't have to use the Wikipedia logo in the buttons. It makes it a lot easier for other sites to display banners and buttons if they don't have to think about the GFDL. Might I remind people that there is also a Wikipedia:Banners and buttons. Dori | Talk 13:31, Jul 13, 2004 (UTC)
- Would we want to do that? Isn't the logo trademarked? [[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 13:23, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)
What is the policy with terms from other languages. As this is en.wikipedia, shouldn't this be listed as Districts of Serbia? - DropDeadGorgias (talk) 16:52, Jul 13, 2004 (UTC)
- Yes, it should. Zocky 20:38, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- The policy is at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English). Gdr 21:43, 2004 Jul 13 (UTC)
Minnam
Minnan links do not show as real interlanguage links. This is a known bug. (summarised)
Category:Candidates for speedy deletion is jacked UP!
It's not as bad as it was earlier, but it still looks crizzappy. For some reason, the category list content is getting stuck inside the "shortcut" box. Don't know why. Someone take a look at it, will ya? blankfaze | (беседа!) 01:02, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- It went funny when the shortcut text was replaced by the Template:Shortcut template. Don't know why. I've hardcoded the template contents in there for now, hopefully someone more knowledgeable can take a look? —Stormie 02:50, Jul 14, 2004 (UTC)
I need an image is a frequent request at Wikipedia. Last month there was a discussion on the VP, and some wikipedians were happy to receive tips about how to get an image from Google or somewhere else. I think there is the need for a summary of such kind of advice, and since I was doing a lot of work on Wikipedia:Requested pictures, I had some experience and wrote a Wikipedia:Finding images tutorial. Please let me know if this is useful, and feel free to add links and (hust) fix my grammar and spelling (hust). happy editing -- Chris 73 | Talk 05:07, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- I would also like to see a Request for Diagrams page. I'd like to make diagrams for many pages that need them, and have already done so for many pages I've found, but I don't know which pages need them most. Derrick Coetzee 05:18, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- A diagram is an image, so just add it to Wikipedia:Requested pictures. I have previously added images for a number of diagram requests there -- Chris 73 | Talk 05:25, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Redirects on RC and NP
I don't know how technically feasible this is, but it seems to me that it'd be very handy for the Special:Recentchanges and Special:Newpages to show when an entry simply contained a #REDIRECT. As someone who patrols RC regularly and NP occasionally, I think it'd be good to know at a glance which entries can be disregarded completely because they're just redirect pages. Sometimes people indicate this in the edit summary, or by marking a new page as a minor edit (so that it shows up as "Nm" on the list), but this isn't always that consistent. Could we get some kind of notation on the lists (maybe an "r" where "N" and "m" go?) or, failing that, a push for more widespread usage of the new-and-minor convention? —Etaoin 06:30, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- Trouble is, is it really safe to disregard anything if you are on the lookout for vandalism? I am sure we all know of cases where something that can be marked as innocuous and might be disregarded has had a more serious effect than you'd think, at first sight. As the system gets cleverer the vandals will too ... <sigh> --Nevilley 07:12, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- On the newpages the redirects are already filtered out - only those redirects show up which are for whatever reason broken - like #redrict [[target]] - and thus if you spot a short page on NewPages which looks like a redirect it is a redirect which needs fixing. However not all redirects are good - I recently had to override some with disambiguation pages, as the one who created those redirect did not check what articles linked there and did not notice that the lastname of a famous person was also the name of a city, and then a link to that city led to a totally unrelated article. Thus they should be listed on recentchanges at least. andy 07:14, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Weird timestamp of 1969
Image:Hit.bmp shows a timestamp of "23:59, 31 Dec 1969". How come ? Jay 07:17, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- Images that don't exist show the beginning of the Unix epoch as their timestamp. Maximus Rex 07:23, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Dumb question
How does one find out the current size of a page? Bmills 11:34, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Number of bytes. Bmills 11:58, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- Dumb answer: Go to edit mode, select all text, copy to clipboard, open notepad.exe (or any other plain text editor), paste, save as file, select file in explorer, watch properties. OK, quite a lot of steps to do, but AFAIK the only page which shows the size of an article is the special:NewPages. andy 12:02, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- Wikipedia:Page size might be helpful too. TPK 12:04, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- What a good use for the Search facility! Thanks all. Bmills 12:12, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- In a very long article, you will get a warning about its size, with the size displayed in Kilobytes. Its a handy way to know when to split up an article. Krik 14:25, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC).
Usage of Request for Comment
WP:RFC is a rather useful page, but I'm not sure how to make use of the subpages for disputes regarding users' conduct. Can someone give me a quick runthrough, as another sysop has asked me the same thing and I was only able to give an "I think..." answer? From what I gather, if somebody has been directly involved in discussion with the user in question, and attempted to resolve the conflict, they are permitted to add their own summary of events and various proofs to the "Statement of dispute" section. Is this true? Also, WP:RFC is rather vague on what sort of action will be taken after a user has passed the two negotiator threshold, which brings me to my next question: How can one achieve this threshold? Is it by adding one's summary of events to the "Statement of dispute" section as I discussed above, or is it possible too to count somewhat unrelated experiences in "Outside view" to what is mentioned in the "Statement of dispute" section, but related to violations of the policies the user is alleged to have broken? Thanks for any and all help — and if this is any indication, I think the page should be overhauled, because I had enough trouble trying to figure out the formatting for subpages (thank goodness there's an example). Johnleemk | Talk 12:39, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I can't edit WP:VFD
I just get a database error. I do however, need to add the following:
Zyzzva
- moved to Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Zyzzva, referenced on Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/temp
Dr. Ani Jones
- moved to Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Dr. Ani Jones, referenced on Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/temp
Caché
- moved to Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Caché, referenced on Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/temp
Well it won't flipping go on the vfd page! Dunc_Harris|☺ 14:40, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Ghey
- moved to Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Ghey, referenced on Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/temp
Extended warranty
- moved to Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Extended warranty]], referenced on Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/temp
Same problem for the above two entries here. Lupo 14:49, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Shall we set up a page at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/temp? Can someone with the power to do stuff with whizzy things and the like sort this problem out? Is the page too long? Dunc_Harris|☺ 14:54, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- This has been going on for quite a while. Does anyone understand what is happening? Is there an estimated time for a fix? -- Jmabel 06:22, Jul 15, 2004 (UTC)
- Per suggestion above, we are now using Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/temp until WP:VFD is fixed.
Searching within external links
I just removed a bunch of spam links to [2] that had been posted by two different anon IPs to seemingly random pages (for example, Stevenage and Leisure Suit Larry). Is there any way I can search within the content of external links to see if this URL has been posted from any other IPs? I've tried a Google search, which found me one of the IPs (and enabled me to remove some spam for the same site from the Belorussian and Polish Wikipedias - my first international edits!) -- ALargeElk | Talk 15:55, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Deleting
If anyone is in the mood for deleting some copyvios, Wikipedia:Copyright problems is pretty full. I just don't have time for that big a task right now. Dori | Talk 17:27, Jul 14, 2004 (UTC)
Permissibility of Including Promotional Images
I was wondering, for articles on such artistic creations like comic books and films and related articles, is it permissible to include images of magazine covers and video packages in the articles? These are images that are supposedly meant to be freely displayed in a marketing effort.
- IANAL, but I'm fairly certain that use of such images is covered under fair use. That is, pictures of such things are covered under fair use, but I am not certain you can just lift an image off a web site and use it here. But I have used scans I've made of covers of books and such in several articles, and they are covered under fair use. If you want to use someone else's scan, for example, contact them and ask for permission. If they give it, include that information with the image when you upload it. — Frecklefoot | Talk 18:37, Jul 14, 2004 (UTC)
- It is hardly "anal" to request clarification on a matter of image policy. - User:Kchishol1970
- Hehe. IANAL = "I am not a lawyer". I'm pretty sure that covers are Wikipedia:fair use as well. - DropDeadGorgias (talk) 19:22, Jul 14, 2004 (UTC)
- Sorry about the acronym. I've found this site, AcronymFinder, pretty helpful for acronyms I don't recognize. :-) — Frecklefoot | Talk 21:16, Jul 14, 2004 (UTC)
Editing offline with a text editor
Is there any software I can download to enable me to see texts I am editing whilst off line? I make use of stuff from 1911 Encyclopaedia, edited in NoteTab Pro, which enables me to get foreign accents and also the spelling right. I would like to be able to do this and then go online to upload only when I am satified the job looks right. Apwoolrich 19:39, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- I was working on an application called WikiEdit that would allow you to WYSIWYG edit text (and images, tables, etc.) for Wikipedia. It'd let you see the rendered text in one pane while editing with Wikimarkup in the other pane. It also had spell check and such. The text would then save out in wikimarkup, ready to be uploaded to the 'pedia. But no one else seemed interested in it, so I abondoned the project. I haven't heard, but perhaps someone else has such an editor. — Frecklefoot | Talk 20:32, Jul 14, 2004 (UTC)
- I'd be interested in such a project, even if it wasn't full WYSIWYG. At present I often copy from an edit box, in order to get the unformatted Wikitext, and then edit that offline using a dumb editor. It wouldn't be hard to improve on that, surely! On the other hand, it seems to work quite well, perhaps because I'm accustomed to using the edit box online, which is also a dumb editor (even dumber than the ones I use offline) and seems to work well too.
- But the main problem with the approach I currently use is it doesn't even warn of edit conflicts, you need to check for these manually. I see a potential problem there if a smarter editor was available for offline editing use than for online editing. The prospect of a generation of newbies all innocently editing offline with no edit conflict warnings is horrible to contemplate. This is IMO not a trivial thing to solve, I may be wrong there. Andrewa 21:41, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- That would just be divine. -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽ 03:37, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- Edit conflicts are a concern, but it is rare that I edit an article and run into one (I guess I don't edit popular articles often). That being said, since conflicts are a concern, the user would need to check to see if anyone edited his article since the time they "grabbed" the text from the edit box (I envisioned taking existing text from the edit box to get the current wikimarkup). If not, they could paste their text in with no worries. If they authored a brand new article, however, no worries. :-) — Frecklefoot | Talk 15:13, Jul 15, 2004 (UTC)
What's wrong with MozEx? :) --ssd 04:30, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- See Wikipedia:Text editor support for more info about MozEx and discussion of wikipedia support in emacs and vim. - Brona 02:29, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Info needed on wiki specifics
- I need to know how to edit the boilerplate links eg {India}} ?
- I once came across some wikipedia user statistics showing the most active contributors, and other such data. Where do I find it?
- The Snow article contains records which seem to be US records? Are these the world records or US records? If the latter, can corrections be undertaken by someone?
Thanks ¶ nichalp 20:35, Jul 14, 2004 (UTC)
- Boilerplate text accessed by {{India}} is in Template:India, and so on. Marnanel 20:38, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits lists data and also links to several relevent pages, although the data listed on the current page may not be accurate. Acegikmo1 21:10, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Nude Pictures
Is there a policy? I think as long as they are not porn pictures we should be able to post them
- It has pretty much been decided that clinical-esque photos (such as those on penis and clitoris) are just at the edge of what is acceptable. →Raul654 03:15, Jul 15, 2004 (UTC)
Eh? Decided where? Don't remember that at all. I don't think we have really visited the question at all. I think that the question would merely be of showing that there is a reasonable rationale for the image, and that it is suitable for the subject of the article. For example images of porn have been posted in articles, but mostly only from "classical" era or previous. This question has yet to be seriously tested. -- Cimon
- I think each picture would have to be discussed on its own merits, probably on the talk page of the article the image is added to. What are you proposing? Everybody will have their own boundaries of taste. For example, I'd readily accept a black and white nude photograph taken by a respected photographer if it was indicative of his work and we had permission to use it. However, I don't see that a picture of full, penetrative, amateur sex is going to add much to pornography. --bodnotbod 15:25, Jul 17, 2004 (UTC)
We allow people to link all sort of pov links both pro and con to certain people and topics why can we not allow people to post extral links to nude pix?
Oddity in a table
There's an oddity in the table on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166-2:ID where the first line "Bali" is indented, by way of having extra spaces in the html <pre> even though in the wiki source I can't see a reason for it. ;Bear 21:25, 2004 Jul 14 (UTC)
- Seems due to the tabs in the wikitext, hence it seems better to use spaces.--Patrick 23:07, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Categorizing images
- Hello I am a user from to Wikipedia in spanish. My propose it´s show you that I discovered two days ago.
- The images may to be categorized, and then it´s more easy for users to find the image what they need for those article. In "enWikip" you have 11360 images, and so it´s very difficult to find one image for to put in one article. If you will be categorize all images, for theme (topic), then to search the image it´s easy.
- How?: In the page of the image you must edit and to put the [[Category: Topic (image)]] where "Topic" it´s the category like it to have in the articles, but adding the suffix (images) (witn a space between). So in all images. Each images accept several categories, it´s very "recomendable" what not only edit one category, but also all categories which the images "in".
- The categories so creates, they must categorized in the three o subcategorized, where the category master it´s : [[Category:Images]] . This category, and the rest of subcategories, appear in the page of categories but, they difference from categories of articles, in the suffix (images) .
- I have create the category images and i have introduced one image for to show you like this to do. You can to see Category:Images for details.. in the Spanish Wikipedia, y have categorized around 80 images and you can to see there, if here you don´t understand the "how" : http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Im%E1genes
- I´m sorry , what you now for me you hace more work , but it´s one step more, for to arrive to our "meta"...
- If you have any doubts quetion me, (in the wikipedia spanish, please : shame user), but me english it´s bad... lucky: .. --Crescent Moon 22:25, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- One more thing: you must to tel this to another wikipedia´s in another countries ... --Crescent Moon 22:31, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Links within Pages
I want to put a link from the German Page de:Commodore Produktübersicht to the Product line section of the Commodore International page. I tried [[Commodore International#Product line]], but that didn't work. I tried [[Commodore_International#Product_line]], but that didn't work either . Salasks 03:36, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- Interwiki links to sections do not work, except with external link style. Hence, the link has to be in the page, instead of in the edge (done). The HTML has the code %23 for #, which does not work.--Patrick 11:02, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Can't edit all sections of an article?
Maybe it's just me, since I just started looking on this thing today, but I could swear that there is no way to edit the first sections of articles. An example of this is that the first editable section of the entry for Bakersfield is Geography, while there is a whole paragraph above that. Specifically, I was wondering what to do about the factual error(s) in the heading for the "Jesus" entry.
Hope I'm not just being a newbie... but that's what I am.
- Instead of hitting the [edit] button, hit the "edit this page" tab at the top. You should be able to edit anything there. Fuzheado | Talk 06:05, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- Unfortunately, that loads the entire page, which may not be entirely desirable. This bug has been submitted at sourceforge. Dysprosia 06:16, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- What I usually do is to load the first edit button, then change the "1" at the end to a "0". Annoying, but better than nothing. Ambivalenthysteria 06:37, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Proposed renaming of Wikipedia:Sandbox
I should really be asking this at Wikipedia_talk:Sandbox but I doubt too many people have that on their watchlist, and it is liable to get trashed. I think it would be a good idea to rename the sandbox to Wikipedia:Test area. At least in the UK, the word sandbox is not widely known - it is generally restricted to computer-savvy users for whom the sandbox is a common concept. As happily WP now has lots of non-computer-savvy editors, it would be good to help them out. I think a test area would be more widely used than the sandbox, thus reducing the clean up burden on RC-watchers.
I have a feeling that sandbox has a wider usage in the US? Even if this is true, Americans will still understand test area, so I see this as no-lose change. Sound ok to you? Pcb21| Pete 08:07, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- Sound good to me, at least :). Thue | talk 11:09, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- Sandbox. It's a box. Has sand in it. Little kids play around in it and make sandcastles. :) - Fennec (はさばくのきつね) 12:32, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- I don't like it. Sandbox is a feature of any wiki, and it's well known as such. Dori | Talk 12:59, Jul 15, 2004 (UTC)
- It is aimed at being helpful to the general reader, rather than those already familiar with wikis (who probably don't need to use it! :)) Pcb21| Pete 13:12, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- It's also been mentioned as a Sandbox in many news articles. It will confuse those first time readers who come looking for a Sandbox and have trouble finding it. Dori | Talk 13:21, Jul 15, 2004 (UTC)
- I really don't buy that at all. I think it is more that you just like the old name better. Pcb21| Pete 15:07, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- Isn't that what a REDIRECT is good for? Actually I think someone's already done it, so unless there's one of those war thingies over it, this is now a moot point. --Phil | Talk 13:33, Jul 15, 2004 (UTC)
- I agree completely with what Dori said. Having a sandbox is as much part of a wiki as having "edit this page". Please don't change it. Angela. 14:20, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- What's next? Will we be moving Wikipedia:Village pump to Wikipedia:Talk area? I strongly concur with Dori and Angela. Please move it back. -- Hadal 14:25, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- Another 'vote' to keep it the way it was and has always been. As my own English is a mixture of British and American English, I never realized there was a difference in what a sandbox is called. Which brings me to the point: what is the sand-filled box in a playground called in the United Kingdom? This is only a matter of curiosity. No matter what the response is, I think the page should remain where it is. - David Remahl 14:28, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- It's called a sandpit.
- I personally find the reasons to move it back utterly unconvincing. Wikis traditionally have a sandbox because they grew out of computing background where there is a history of using this word with (roughly) this meaning. No-one has told me why my original point about accessibility was wrong, only said something about "wiki tradition". Wikipedia is about the least wiki wiki there is! Pcb21| Pete 15:07, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- Fair 'nuff, move it back again. Then we can have a REDIRECT at Test Area to satisfy those who like that name, and everybody will be happy... and later on in the show, a troop of monkeys will fly out of my butt singing the Hallelujah Chorus --Phil | Talk 14:35, Jul 15, 2004 (UTC)
- Basically US english speakers will know what a sandbox is. UK english speakers will known it is some sort of computer test area (if they've come across it). Until recently I had no idea that a sandbox was a sandpit. I just presumed it was jargon. Secretlondon 20:11, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- It's also been mentioned as a Sandbox in many news articles. It will confuse those first time readers who come looking for a Sandbox and have trouble finding it. Dori | Talk 13:21, Jul 15, 2004 (UTC)
- It is aimed at being helpful to the general reader, rather than those already familiar with wikis (who probably don't need to use it! :)) Pcb21| Pete 13:12, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Test area is far too suggestive, at least to my mind, of nuclear testing. Do we really want to go there? A redirect is okay, but certainly not renaming. By the way, I've created Wikipedia:Sandpit as another redirect. --Michael Snow 17:56, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Given that the nature of the page means there is no need to preserve the data on this page, we can easily support both names. -- Jmabel 01:17, Jul 16, 2004 (UTC)
- I'm sitting on the fence here. As a British, non-technical person I found Sandbox not at all intuitive. However, I think it's cute ;o) But I do feel that any time you have two names for one thing confusion reigns. The uninitiated are bound to assume that the two names refer to different things. --bodnotbod 15:32, Jul 17, 2004 (UTC)
MERGE TIME!
The Mirabal sisters and Mirabal sisters need to be merged. Thanks and God bless you1
"Antonio (singing like Elton John) Merger life!! the Merger of life..lol! Martin"
- We have an entire page for listing duplicate articles. -- Cyrius|✎ 13:27, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Wikipedia advertising
I believe some of the money we donate should go to t-shirts' posters and the so...I could talk to Jimmy Wales about it if you guys think its a good idea. I was thinking of Black shirts for the guys, with the Im a wikipedian in white on front and Are you Wikipedia.org on back, with the same for girls but inverse colors on shirt and lettering. The idea would be for us wikipedians to buy these products , hats, posters, shirts, 9specially clothes items) and wear them on our reunions, school, trips to the mall, in oder to promote the site to other, future writers. We could also have bumperstickers in our cars, etc etc..
I believe we can be the Sex and The City of the 2000s, the thing people will talk about most when they remember our decade and when I love the 2000s is madeby MTV we should be there.
What do you guys think?
Thanks and God bless!
Sincerely yours, "Antonio, Mandy and Tiffy are the 2000s! Martin
- See Wikipedia merchandise at CafePress if you haven't already. David Remahl 12:34, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- Glad to see there's already some merchandise because I think the phrase Are you Wikipedia.org stinks. What does it mean? And why no question mark? --bodnotbod 15:43, Jul 17, 2004 (UTC)
Pronouncing highlighted words
Hello, This is my first time writing at any website, so here goes... I am wondering if it is possible to include the proper/standard pronounciation of a featured (highlighted) word.
Specifically: I clicked on "cloture" from the cover page and was wondering if it is pronounced as it would be in French, or if it has been Americanized. (With the accent on the first or second sylable/hard or soft 'u'?)
(I know there is a dictionary here, as well,... but thought it might be useful to include a quick reference pronounciation so that you don't have to jump around so much; as I find this website so engrossing that I often spend WAY too much time semi-mindlessly grousing from one place to another...)
PS - I'm trying to sign this! Please bear with my/our newbieness! Sincerely, hotdiggittydave (and Lauria)
- P.S. It's "CLO-chure". HTH.
Thanks for the tips/clarification and Welcome!!! Keep up the great work :-) ```` -hotdiggittydave and Lauria
Bot request
Bot request moved to Wikipedia_talk:Bots --Wclark 15:05, 2004 Jul 15 (UTC)
Save, VFD, Save
I keep on getting database errors when saving VFD. It's getting annoying. JFW | T@lk
- See Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/temp. Apparently, it's a database error. Best, [[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 19:53, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- This is fixed now. Sorry it took so long. -- Tim Starling 05:59, Jul 16, 2004 (UTC)
66.2.146.0/24 blocked for 48hrs
It said to announce it here on Range blocks, i've blocked that range because of extreme unpoliteness to say the least to two user pages, Lucky 6.9 and Noisy, you can read the history yourself but it's not pretty. -- Ævar Arnfjörð 20:17, 2004 Jul 15 (UTC)
- Belongs to Allegience Telecom. Secretlondon 21:05, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- One wonders how someone actually finds it worthwile to invest time to write such utter nonsense? -- Solitude 21:54, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- it's pretty easy to write nonsense. You don't have to spend time researching the facts, or even thinking about what you are going to say. Even the tubgirl link is a very easy URL to remember. Takes almost no effort. Why they want to do it is beyond me. There is no hack value vandalizing a wiki. Some people are just strange. theresa knott 22:14, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- Hear, hear. Oh, the examples I could list. This is a bitter, uneducated little freak we're dealing with here. Such a man. I'd love to see the look on his face if he was standing in front of me! What's more, I went and looked at the edit history and I wasn't mean to the guy regarding my delete vote. I even said it was a nice gesture! - Lucky 6.9 23:03, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)
The dude really likes to vandalize my user talk page in the early hours of the morning, when he knows I'm not on. Mike H 01:26, Jul 16, 2004 (UTC)
new design
I've been off wikipedia for a while and have only just come back lately. I have been meaning to say that the new look given to wikipedia is absolutely fabulous. The page layout is clean, the placing and boxing of pictures very professional, headlines excellent. If only hardcopy encyclopaedias were as well designed. Full marks to those responsible. (This may already have been discussed ages ago when the design happened, but please accept a belated congratulations. JtdIrL (the user also known as FearEireann but who can't type the 4 little squiggles because of a crap keyboard on this public computer.)
Internal error
Ugh, this can't be good, getting an error when uploading an image:
- From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
- Could not copy file "" to "/usr/local/apache/htdocs/en/upload/2/27/Tuned_Honda_CRX.jpg".
Solitude 22:09, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Broken images
It is probably nd IE 6.028 issue as much as anything, but it looks like there is a problem on Wikipedia that kills image rendering on IE6. For example if I visit Leonardo da Vinci, I usually won't get any futher than the thumbnail for [[Image:Monalisa.jpg]] being rendered. And after that, no linked images in IE6 will be displayed, until I restart the browser. -- Solipsist 23:09, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- I'm not an expert, but it seems like you need to clear your cache...Ctrl-F5. Ilyanep (Talk) 01:47, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- This is more than a cache problem; IE6 has a bug in its image-rendering engine that crashes it when certain re-sized jpgs are loaded. I can't recall the fix offhand; my best suggestion would be to use a different browser. :-) Radagast 23:28, Jul 16, 2004 (UTC)
Prince Hall
I messed up nicely here: not realizing that Prince Hall Masonry was covered under the Freemasonry topic, I created a separate Prince hall topic. However, Prince Hall is a person, and this link should probably go to him. Unfortunately, I don't know much about him besides what's already covered in the Masonry topic. Suggestions? Thanks. --SarekOfVulcan 03:08, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- I've written a short stub on Prince Hall and moved Prince hall to Prince Hall. If you want to merge some of what you wrote with Freemasonry you could take a look in the history. Hope this works out. -- Solitude 09:41, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Looks reasonable. Thanks! --SarekOfVulcan 16:16, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Penrose triangle
For some reason the image displayed at Penrose triangle is missing the bottom line of the triangle. If you actually click on the image it is fine, it is just being displayed wrong in the article. In case this is browser specific, I'm using IE 6 right now. --Pascal666 07:08, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- It shows fine here with Mozilla 1.7. andy 07:27, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- That's my image. I get the same problem in IE, and it is a bug in the browser. It should be able to be fixed using explicit markup, but a workaround is to add a white row to the bottom of the image. Derrick Coetzee 07:43, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)
"List of topics" pages
There seem to be a number of these, for instance, List of gay-related topics. Should they be merged into categories? —Ashley Y 08:01, 2004 Jul 16 (UTC)
- No. Categories have their place, lists have their place. Sometimes they overlap, and both can still be useful. Ambivalenthysteria 08:35, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- See also Category:Lists that should be categories and Category:Lists. --ssd 08:09, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- I think most lists should not become categories. It's specifically "lists of topics" that I think are good candidates for becoming categories.—Ashley Y 20:33, 2004 Jul 17 (UTC)
Wikistats inaccurate?
Wikistats indicate that the number of new articles per day is rapidly decreasing, from about 600 a day a few days ago to 258 per day in July (as of July 14) [3]. I have some doubts whether this is accurate. Clicking on Special:Newpages shows that there are 750 new pages in last 24 hours and 4878 pages created in last 7 days (4878/7=698 per day) which is a lot more than 258 per day. Could this be a bug? Andris 10:30, Jul 16, 2004 (UTC)
- Please see the Wikipedia growth since February 2004 greatly slowed thread on Wikien-l which is discussing whether the stats are right. Jimbo's response says "there are significant problems with the averages due to some missing data". Angela. 11:23, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Wikipedia logo has aliasy text
The main Wikipedia logo has the words "The Free Encyclopedia" in an italic font. These words are very ugly, being full of aliasing. It is a shame that the beautiful multilingual spherical jigsaw is spoilt by this. Can someone improve it? At this size of text, I think an upright font would come out better than an anti-aliased italic font. The italic version could still be used at large sizes or higher resolutions. Gdr 13:01, 2004 Jul 16 (UTC)
Missing sources for images
Wikipedians have produced many maps, diagrams, graphs and figures available under the GFDL. But just having the image isn't quite enough, because it's hard to edit a diagram unless you have the sources that were used to make it. All you can really do with the image is scribble over the top.
(A real example: I noticed a couple of missing ships on User:Gsl's excellent map at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Battle_of_Aboukir_Bay.png. With access to the GIMP source for the image, I could have added the ships myself. But lacking the source, instead I asked Gsl to improve it.)
So I think that Wikipedia should encourage illustrators to upload their sources along with the image. Of course, not every contributor will be able to use the GIMP, or Adobe Illustrator, or 3D Studio Max or whatever. But having the source will mean that several people can work on an image, and there is a chance to continue to make improvements to the image when the original illustrator is busy or away. Gdr 13:01, 2004 Jul 16 (UTC)
- I second this request. I try to upload the source (wether .psd, source code of some sort, etc) along with pictures. It is sometimes problematic, when the source is a lot larger than the image, but I think it is worth it. David Remahl 16:00, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Wiki Link Contest?
I thought of a nice idea to encourage users to browse through the Wikipedia pages:
A small contest, that requires users to 'click' through subjects to get from one subject to another, with the least possible stages.
For instance:
Get from: Tombstone, Arizona
To:
This is how i did it, there are possible other (shorter, funnier) ways as well...
Tombstone, Arizona -> Gunfight at the O.K. Corral -> Discovery Channel -> List of Discovery Channel programs -> The Blue Planet -> Ocean -> Titan (moon) -> Cassini-Huygens Mission
It could be possible to post a new challenge every day/month/week, and the one with the shortest route wins that contest (and ofcourse, receives enternal fame).
I did not know where to post this proposal, so i did it here. Maybe i could make an article of it, but its not really an encyclopedia article ;-)
--K-Mile 12:35, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- Nice idea. You've picked a tough one to begin with, though, because your end point is actually a redirect rather than the main article, so not much links to it. In terms of length (though it's rather dull) how about Tombstone, Arizona -> 2000 -> 2003 -> October 15 -> Cassini-Huygens Mission. -- ALargeElk | Talk 13:12, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- Someone beat you to this - Wikipedia:Six degrees of Wikipedia :) Adam Bishop 13:13, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- There should be a limit at six. You know, like six degrees of Wiki. Mike H 15:12, Jul 16, 2004 (UTC)
- 6 Degrees of Wiki is not a challenge, it is just existing links. What i had in mind was that the shortest, and most original/funniest links would be mentioned on the page. And, the 2 endpoints are set for that contest, so it's not just that you can find any link, it must be the specified one. (And back again :)) Wiki Link Contest <- I Will put it here -- K-Mile 15:38, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- Nice idea. You might also like the Wiki-link Game -- Solipsist 23:09, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Wiki Link Contest for some more rather critical discussion of this idea. Please keep discussion in the VfD subpage to the topic of whether or not the page should be deleted. Andrewa 01:02, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Bug reporting
Would it be possible to request a page somewhere in the Wikipedia: namespace where bugs can be reported? The instructions at the top of this page lead to one page, which leads to another, which leads to another, and the instructions for reporting are about as clear as mud. Would it be too much to ask for either a page here where suspected bugs can be reported, or clearer instructions on how to do it? I don't have access to IRC by the way so that's not an option either. -- Graham ☺ | Talk 22:50, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- The problem with this is that problem reports really belong in the Meta, not in the English Wikipedia. Few if any of the problems are specific to English Wikipedia. Having said that, it's a reasonable request, because many Wikipedians don't have Meta signons.
- MediaWiki software problems belong on Sourceforge. There are two reasons that this isn't an adequate problem management strategy in the long term. Firstly, many genuine problems aren't with the MediaWiki software at all, but with things like skins, database corruption, SQUID configuration or the like. Secondly, Sourceforge is a bit daunting for first time users.
- But anywhere on the Wikipedia site, be it in the Meta or the English Wikipedia, is a poor solution for two reasons. Firstly, the very time it's most important to have the problem management site available is the time that the WIkipedia site is having troubles and may not be usable. Secondly, even if the site is usable, the added stress of logging the problems is exactly what we don't want when the site is under stress already.
- As an interim solution, I'd strongly support an English Wikipedia project namespace page. We would need to have a team dedicated to doing first level problem determination of problems raised on this page, and raising the problems on the Meta or on Sourceforge as appropriate, for it to work. To do this we'd also need to design the system so that a minimum of cleaning up and reporting back was necessary. It will only be possible to attract these people if the system is good enough that it saves them more time than it takes, a reasonable ask surely. For reporting back, normally only a link would be required. People without Meta signons and without Sourceforge experience can easily read pages there if they are provided with proper hyperlinks.
- Long term, we need to think of something a bit more strategic. Andrewa 00:42, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- The only place that developers are guaranteed to find bug reports is at sourceforge. The bug tracker has a box where you can type in the problem. Add your username or email in the box as well so they can contact you for further details if necessary. You don't need to get an account or log in to do this. Just type in the box! That's all. A lot of people are scared of it, but it really is that easy. If you absolutely don't want to use Sourceforge, there is a page of bugs at m:bugs (the full page title is m:MediaWiki feature request and bug report discussion). There is a separate page for bugs that you think might be related specifically to the new release of the software at m:MediaWiki 1.3 comments and bug reports. However, these two Meta pages total 345 MB, so the pages are very difficult to edit, and quite unlikely to be read. Bugs reported only on the village pump are increasingly likely to be ignored as the page is archived every few days and such reports are just removed. Bugs reported in the Wikipedia namespace will lead to pages that are too large for many users to edit, as shown by pages such as m:bugs. If you think it is possible to use a wiki page for this, try looking at those pages on meta - it clearly isn't working. I can't see why it would work any better on this site than it does on meta. Angela. 00:47, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- Yes, it's at Wikipedia:Bug reports, which used to be linked from the sidebar. Maybe it should be put back again? Angela. 01:11, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Here's a few suggestions for format for a footer table, taken from Ronald Reagan:
Preceded by: Jimmy Carter |
President of the United States 1981-1989 |
Succeeded by: George H. W. Bush |
Preceded by: Pat Brown |
Governor of California 1967-1975 |
Succeeded by: Jerry Brown |
Preceded by: Jimmy Carter |
President of the United States 1981-1989 |
Succeeded by: George H. W. Bush |
Preceded by: Pat Brown |
Governor of California 1967-1975 |
Succeeded by: Jerry Brown |
- First line: Preceded by and Succeeded by are bold, names aren't, title isn't.
- Second line: Preceded by and Succeeded by are bold, names aren't, title is.
- Third line: Title and names are bold.
- Fourth line: Only names are bold.
I don't want a formal vote, just an idea from someone other than me - which of these is easiest on the eyes and most immediately readable? Thanks. --Golbez 01:41, Jul 17, 2004 (UTC)
- I would say 2 is the most legible. - SimonP 05:18, Jul 17, 2004 (UTC)
- Second is gentler on the eyes. Ocon | Talk 05:19, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- Yeah, I thought that would work - it doesn't bold the links (which for some reason just looks wrong to me :P) and it keeps all the bolds on the same level. --Golbez 05:33, Jul 17, 2004 (UTC)
- The third form is how they're normally done, on many thousands of pages (e.g., Winston Churchill, Tony Blair, &c.). James F. (talk) 10:08, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Sound format
Can user have a look to Wikipedia talk:Sound. I'm not conviced that this change is a good thing and I don't think it has received large support. Ericd 12:15, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- User:Zarni02 has instituted a new Wikipedia policy allowing the use of WAV and MP3 sound files instead of just OGG. However he has gathered very few comments and run no polls before instituting this change. It was announced on Requests for comment. Rmhermen 12:56, Jul 16, 2004 (UTC)
- In my opinion this new policy is evil. WAV is an horrible solution from a technical POV. MP3 has patent issue. From a legal POV I see it like accepting copyright violations or deciding that Wikipiedia is not GFDL.
- I don't know what happened, but I never heard about the Wikipedia:Request for comments posting until it was over. (I check my Wikipedia watchlist at least 10 times a day, but never saw the edit to Wikipedia:Sound and Wikipedia that announced it. More Wikipedia technical problems?) I applaud the effort to broaden sound support on Wikipedia, though not necessarily the path taken. (I'm still reviewing that.) However, I want to point out that there are some very vocal OGG users who seem fixated on preventing WAV and MP3 files from being used by Wikipedia on specious legal grounds. There are certainly practical concerns about the size of WAV files, although the recommended WAV and MP3 filesize limit of 64KB is certainly more restrictive than the up-to-2MB files that OGG users have already uploaded. The OGG crowd routinely rejects the complaint that OGG is virtually unheard-of outside the world of open-source when compared to WAV, MP3, and other popular formats. (The software support alone for OGG — a dozen or so players and encoders and no inline browser plugins — compared to hundreds of software components for each of many other formats is an obvious argument for WAV, MP3, etc.) It seems to me that this whole dialog is confined primarily to a sizable number of existing OGG users and a few new folks looking to use a more readily-available format. The problem is that few of the latter seem to be speaking up on the issue, leaving the argument to default in favor of the OGG crowd. I think User:Zarni02's proactive, bold action is a commendable effort to bring this issue to the forefront. -- Jeff Q 23:10, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- Sorry Jeff I rememberalong time ago some wikipedian arguing that it was very cool to upload copyrighted images. Yeah it was cool !. Yes, it's not cool to have to install a Direcshow filter. When your vanilla Media Player can play MP3. Yes, legal issues are annoying everyone.
- Ericd 22:20, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- Sorry, Ericd, but your ad hominem attack accusing me of wanting WAV and MP3 support because it's "cool" is totally unfounded on anything I've written. Unlike what your above statement implies about you, I have never uploaded any copyrighted material, and I have never in my 42 years bowed to any trend considered cool, which is more than I can say about anyone I've ever met. (Your implicit accusation is also unfounded on anything I want to upload, which I've made clear from the start — illustrative sound samples for encyclopedic topics that I create, hold the copyrights to, and license under GFDL, just like the images in my very modest gallery.) You should avoid personal attacks and try to stick to the topic at hand. You might also want to review Wiki pages on polite discourse. By the way, you might try reading the reference document you so helpfully posted on Wikipedia talk:Sound. It covers encoders and decoders only and specifically states "this license does not cover the right to distribute, broadcast and/or stream mp3 / mp3PRO encoded data". I could have provided the relevant link myself, based on information on that page, but I see no reason to help someone who has more interest in ridiculing people that making cogent and concise arguments. -- Jeff Q 23:20, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)
(moved this down) A discussion about this is now at Wikipedia_talk:Sound#MP3_on_Wikipedia, announced here, at goings on and the mailing list -- Ævar Arnfjörð 02:52, 2004 Jul 17 (UTC)
VfD precedents
I spent the day scanning through the history of VfD from late 2001 until September of last year. I did so to gather information to make a new page: Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Precedents.
This page is an attempt to make a collection of precedent setting VfD decisions. These decisions are the first time I noticed Wikipedians confronting a certain issue, or the first time a convention breaking decision was reached.
While pages like What Wikipedia is not play an important roll in VfD decisions the body of precedent we have created also plays a crucial roll. However, those precedents tend to be only vaguely remembered and only by veteran Wikipedians. It is hoped this page can act as a quick reference to remind old users and educate new ones of previous landmark VfD decisions. - SimonP 05:10, Jul 17, 2004 (UTC)
- Should we rename you SimonP Wendell Holmes? -- Jmabel 05:59, Jul 17, 2004 (UTC)
- Nice, makes for quite an interesting read, although I think Wikipedia policy and standards change faster than law, so we should keep it in perspective. -- Solitude 08:49, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- Congratulations on a useful piece of work, it must have taken a very long time to prepare - Adrian Pingstone 08:59, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- What would now be a good idea would be to review some of these decisions by renominating pages for deletion. For instance, under current practice there is no way Puchland or MineSweeper3D would have survived VfD. - SimonP 15:50, Jul 17, 2004 (UTC)
Main_page link to wikiquote (at the bottom) might be wrong.
Sorry, I don't know where to post this, but the link there goes to quote.wikipedia.org. I thought maybe it should point to wikiquote.org since the quote.wikipedia.org does not exist. Dijiyd 09:49, Jul 17, 2004 (UTC)
The interwiki link "Wikibooks:" does not work anymore, it goes to the non-existing http://en.wikibooks.org/ instead of http://wikibooks.org/ ! I changed the redirect in for now, but lots of links must be broken!--Patrick 18:57, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- http://en.wikibooks.org/ may exist quite soon if there consensus at Wikibooks about it, so don't worry about the changing the links just yet. They will probably work again soon, and if Wikibooks doesn't split to sub-domains, the shortcut link will be fixed to point to just wikibooks.orrg again. Angela. 21:20, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Good or Bad?
I found that more and more foreign-made words are being poured into English WP as entries. I don't know if these words make sense to English speakers, and I am wondering if it's good or bad for the developement of English WP? --Yacht (talk) 10:17, Jul 17, 2004 (UTC)
- Examples, please. David Remahl 10:31, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I can't give you the accurate examples, because English is not my mother tongue, i just come across some words i don't think they are normal English words, or foreign-like words (like Führer, Fribytaren på Östersjön, Yuri, Yuzu etc.) I don't know if they are already widely used in English, or just neologies (aren't there any corresponding English words for them? I don't even know how to read them). I am just worrying if this may happen: every language creates the corresponding synonym entry for that in English.--Yacht (talk) 16:16, Jul 17, 2004 (UTC)
- I believe the policy is to use the English name if it exists and it is more popular. Otherwise, the local name is used with any appropriate redirects. Dori | Talk 16:39, Jul 17, 2004 (UTC)
You could make a case that a large part of English stolen foreign words! 'I', 'Found', 'word' all come to Old English from proto Germanic roots, 'foreign' and 'pour' are from old French, 'made' comes to English from West Germanic, 'entry' is from Middle French. Wiki of course is Hawaiian, 'pedia' probably from Greek, misunderstood by Latin scholars. You were 'wondering', which comes to us through old English from proto Germanic, whether this affects the 'development' (a French word). Interestingly, noone seems to know where 'bad' comes from, but 'good' is another proto-Germanic word. I wouldn't let it keep you up at night. PS. Yacht is from Norwegian! Mark Richards 17:17, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)
There's quite a well-known and oft-quoted saying: The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary. [4]. Führer is a commonly understood word from the events of the 1930s and 40s; the second example is the title of a Swedish book which I'm unfamiliar with, though the article gives a translation; Yuri I've not come across, while Yuzu apparently is a Japanese fruit, so it's not surprising that there isn't an English name for it. I thought Yacht came from Dutch! [5] -- Arwel 18:33, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- Could be Dutch - probably one of them stole it from the other! It's actually good to have the vigor which comes from importing words, it helps to keep language vibrant. The point about mapping Latin grammar is also good, the Victorians thought that latin should be the model for languages. In Latin you CAN'T split and infinitive, so in English you shouldn't? Go figure. Mark Richards 18:49, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)
British summer
Jesus, it is absolutely pissing it down out there. This has got to be the worst summer in Britain on record. Mintguy (T) 10:28, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- Hehe it's really nice in Denmark, sitting on my patio with a beer and Wikipedia stretched outbefore me. NM, I guess I will get rained on in a few weeks when I come back to watch Plymouth Argyle F.C. in action at the weekends Sjc 10:35, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- I'm in London and it's warm in an oppressive way. I suppose I don't help myself much in that I tend to walk very quickly and wear my moleskin jacket (otherwise I have no pocket to put my mp3 walkman into). I end up returning home with steam rising off my back like a racehorse. --bodnotbod 15:53, Jul 17, 2004 (UTC)
Michigan
I'm taking a trip in Michigan now, and I've been thinking of taking some pictures for Wikipedia. I'll be spending the bulk of the time in three places:
- Jackson, Michigan
- Brooklyn, Michigan
- The Detroit area (definitely Romulus, Michigan and possibly Detroit proper)
Are there any Wikipedia articles that are about landmarks near those places, where the article has no picture? If so, I might be able to come there and photograph it. We're considering going to a Tigers game, and I notice Comerica Park doesn't have a picture, so if we go, I'll take a picture for Wikipedia. But are there any other articles that could use pictures?
Also, should airport articles have pictures? 4.165.192.87 18:56, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC) (User:LuckyWizard who didn't take the time to log in)
- ANY article can benefit from a picture that adds to the understanding of the subject matter. Airports would benefit best, likely, from layout diagrams and such; if the architecture is notable, then a photo would certainly be in order; or any other unique and beneficial visual information. Just my 2 cents on that. Radagast 22:57, Jul 17, 2004 (UTC)
Search function
I've just written a stub on Fay Weldon's novel The Life and Loves of a She-Devil. I do remember reading the title spelled slightly differently (i.e. probably wrongly -- "Lifes" or "Lives" or no hyphen, I don't know) in another Wikipedia article some days ago, but there is no way I can get at it through the search function ("Go", "Search", or whatever). Who can help? <KF> 19:54, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- Placing your search terms in quotes works. Hence searching for "she devil" turns up Dillie Keane. - 20:08, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC) Lee (talk)
- Great. Thanks an awful lot. <KF> 20:13, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Image change request
Can someone chop off the blank lower half of File:Africa-northern-countries.png? Thanks. Neutrality 22:57, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- Done. Radagast 23:05, Jul 17, 2004 (UTC)
cleanup vs. merge vs. copyvio?
I was looking for something to do, and happened across Aramean. I did a search on Google and came up with http://www.elexi.de/en/a/ar/aramaean.html, from which Aramean appears to have been copied, then minor edits performed (rearrange, change a word here and there, etc., but nothing substantive). There's a comment in German at the bottom that may say that the article was based on information from Wikipedia, but I don't read German. Should I list it as a copyright violation?
Also, I applied a cleanup and rewrite to Abraham Merritt for similar reasons earlier. Was that appropriate?
Thanks! - Kenwarren 23:22, Jul 17, 2004 (UTC)
dealing with difficult behaviour proposal
While there is debate about how significant a problem disruptive editors actually are on Wikipedia, many of us believe we could handle them better than we have been. So a few of us have been tinkering with a formal approach at Wikipedia talk:Dealing with disruptive or antisocial editors (WP:DWDAE). This idea aims to improve on the proposals at Wikipedia:Dealing with trolls and Wikipedia:Trolling poll, by providing a framework more in keeping with principles of natural justice. The policy should place a fair system in the gaps between the Wikipedia:Dispute resolution process, Wikipedia:Banning policy, Wikipedia:Blocking policy, Wikipedia:Dealing with vandalism policy and the Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee. It does not seek to replace any of the above, but allows efficient management of recalcitrant, difficult, problem behaviour.
In summary, an ad hoc tribunal of three admins may summarily block a user for 24 hours for repeated antisocial or disruptive behaviour, if they follow due process.
- First warning to user and notice to community that a user may need direction
- Final warning to user if problem edits continue
- Presentation of two edits made after final warning, followed by institution of block
Users that repeat problem behaviour despite previous blocks, or sock puppets attempting to bypass blocks, are given less leeway and may be blocked for up to 96 hours.
The time line for refining and considering this policy:
- Editing by all interested parties until about midday UTC 23 July 2004
- A minor edit only cooling off period of 48 hours (to prevent any deliberate last-minute subversion of consensus) lasting until midday 25 July 2004
- A two week voting period finishing midday UTC 8 August 2004
- If there isn't a clear consensus, but hope of reaching one then this cycle may repeat until an acceptable consensus is reached or hope fades.
On first read the proposed policy is complicated, so it does need a bit of your time to consider it. But if accepted this proposal would be a significant change in the way things work. Please come and have a look, especially if you think you may have trouble supporting it. We still have until midday UTC 23 July 2004 to get it right. Best wishes Erich 23:38, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)