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Village pump (miscellaneous) archive  

This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (miscellaneous). Please do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to revive any of these discussions, either start a new thread or use the talk page associated with that topic.

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What is it with Wikipedia and Hurricane articles?

--Ideogram 04:16, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Context goes here. --tjstrf talk 04:20, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Ideogram, tjstrf was pointing out that your comment requires context. Please provide some. | Mr. Darcy talk 04:29, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Everything I meant to say was said in the header. --Ideogram 04:31, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

I can't tell if you're saying we have too many, or not enough, or that we have the right number but they all suck, or that we're vehemently opposed to articles about hurricanes, or that they're are best group of articles and you can't figure out why, or... CONTEXT! --tjstrf talk 04:50, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm not saying. I'm asking. Which of those statements do you believe? --Ideogram 05:00, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Har har, Socrates. --tjstrf talk 05:06, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

That's not quite my intent, but that's a philosophical issue impossible to discuss here. --Ideogram 05:13, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

...I'll be going somewhere else now... If you ever feel like actually asking your question, I'm sure someone else will be able to help you. --tjstrf talk 05:18, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia has 7 featured lists about hurricanes and tropical storms. Whatever it is about Wikipedia and hurricanes, I hope it affects more pages. Durova^Charge! 05:20, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Hey, I'll second that! We have tens of thousands of articles that could benefit from that kind of quality and attention to detail. --Doc Tropics ^{Message in a bottle} 05:29, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Count a third vote for the condition that has affected our hurricane articles to spread to the entire encyclopedia! ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)} 16:24, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

I do wish someone would standardize the Hurricane article names. --Ideogram 18:31, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Take it up on WP:TROP then, an outside view would be valued. I think there is an issue in the article names of the older storms (pre-1950). With more recent storms there is as much consistency as there can be; I really don't think Hurricane Katrina should be at Hurricane Katrina (2005) for example. Which article names do you have a problem with? (disclaimer: I'm a wikiproject member)--Nilfanion (talk) 18:44, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

I wasn't aware there was a good reason for this. It's not important enough to me to pursue. --Ideogram 19:23, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Um, they are standardized. Retired tropical cyclones have their name on the "main", disambiguated article page; the rest of the articles have a year disambiguator on them. If there's only one occurrence of a name ever used, then that page gets the main article page as well. Also, storms that reach hurricane or typhoon intensity get their name from the basin in which they first reach that intensity; for example, Hurricane Ioke formed in the North-central Pacific Ocean, so it receives the "hurricane" designation for our purposes, in spite of it being known as Typhoon Ioke while on the Northwestern Pacific. Titoxd^(?!?) 20:09, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I am being bullied by admin User:FisherQueen

I am being bullied and I dont like it. First, this person bullied me into making me feel that my article are rubbish and the comments and feedback I got are not very nice. Please talk to me on my talkpage. Thanks --Hammersmith123 12:34, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

• FisherQueen is not an admin. - Mgm|^(talk) 12:44, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Ok I didnt know that, but otherwise, I am being bullied by this user. --Hammersmith123 12:48, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

• You create articles like "The Effects of Eyesight while consuming Bacon" and then consider FisherQueen's (under the circumstances) polite warnings about vandalism bullying? You're not getting any sympathy here. --Roisterer 12:52, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

User:Hammersmith123 has been indefinitely blocked as a vandal-only account. Gwernol 13:05, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

is it acceptible

Is it acceptible to humorously vandalize pages that are gonna be marked speedy deletion anyway? For example lovingmelanie — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.16.19.181 (talk • contribs) 22:36, 26 November 2006

No. | Mr. Darcy talk 22:49, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

How do I delete pages

let me know pls. thx 24.16.19.181 21:50, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Deletion policy. What's the page in question? Also, if it's a page you created and no other editors have added content, put {{db-author}} at the top and an administrator will speedily delete it for you. | Mr. Darcy talk 22:05, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Lovingmelanie 24.16.19.181 22:34, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

The vandal wars

Usually, I figure that (at least in high-traffic articles) we find and fix vandalism pretty quickly. However, I recently checked Uncle Tom's Cabin, certainly not an unimportant topic; no one had touched it in over 48 hours, but I found all of this to do just by way of fixing blatant vandalism: [1]. - Jmabel | Talk 23:30, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Apart from the "30 books" line, most of that doesn't look like vandalism to me, just poor Wikiformatting. Lankiveil 05:57, 27 November 2006 (UTC).

Present tense

Just looking around a few articles and I notice that present tense is used far to often. For example looking at the page of Iffy Onuora, in one section it says he was the last Gillingham player to score a hat-trick. Problem being if the article isn't checked that statement will stay for year to come. In fact I'm not even sure it is true now. True or not I bet if a Gillingham player does score a hat trick this weekend that statement won't be revised. I think it's a big problem here in Wikipedia. Present tense shouldn't be used. The statement should read, up to (enter date) he was the last player to score a hot trick for Gillingham. Jimmmmmmmmm 23:49, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Not an uncommon problem, agreed. I was looking for template tags that specifically address this matter, as I thought they might exist, and the closest might be Template:update or Template:copyedit. Personally, I would be more concerned with the verifiability, notability and neutrality of content over grammatical rectitude, but that is coming from someone who is by no means a grammarian. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 02:40, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

One for the Road: Disambiguation

There are (at least) three separate articles titled "One for the Road" with different capitalizations:
One for the Road
One For The Road
One for The Road

That's a bit silly, but I have no idea how to fix it. Hopefully there is someone here that can change that.

KUTGW,
87.68.147.72 22:47, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

What to do about this is discussed at Wikipedia:Disambiguation. I've moved these to (respectively)

One for the Road (play)

One for the Road (short story)

One For The Road (album)

One for the Road is now a disambiguation page listing all of them, and the others redirect to the disambiguation page. I also fixed all the links to point to the right article. -- Rick Block (talk) 00:39, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Good job in creating the dab page. I reformatted the line items to more closely match prevailing style guidelines for dab pages, but that's a minor embellishment on your work. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 02:45, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Times Accessed

On the Ultimate Elder Scrolls Pages, I saw that there was a counter showing how many times a page has been accessed. Is this possible in anyway on wikipedia? Jabunga 08:42, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Nope. Zetawoof^(ζ) 08:50, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

There is, however, wikicharts which gives this information for the top 100 most-viewed pages. Tra (Talk) 17:59, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

University students seek Wikipedia contributors for usage survey

I'm part of a team in a management & organizational analysis at the Stern School of Business at New York University. We selected Wikipedia as the subject of our final analysis, and are specifically interested in what drives people to participate in Wikipedia. To this end we've compiled an anonymous, 5-minute survey that we hoped the Wikipedia community would take part in, everyone from casual readers to editors to members of the Board.

It's available online at http://tramchase.com/wikipedia-survey

Please be as detailed as possible. Your participation is much appreciated!

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Jamiew (talk • contribs)

One might perhaps be able to make inferences about the degree of cluefulness of the survey's designers from the fact that they link back to Wikipedia using the address wikipedia.com, not the more correct wikipedia.org (it's run by a noncommercial organization). *Dan T.* 00:41, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Not to mention the facts that a) the contribution here was not signed and b) the student(s) did not bother to create a userpage, which they could use to manage the communications around this matter to some degree. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 02:54, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Selling out?

Does anyone know of any articles or discussions (here, or at WP:AN) about the risks of WP "selling out" or being exploited (be it by Jimbo or others)? I've seen a project page against the answers.com deal, but there was no real discussion there. Thanks. yandman 17:17, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

This topic comes up occasionally, see for example the "Wikimedia vs Wikipedia" thread on this version of WP:VPP. I think the bottom line is that although the risk of this happening is not actually zero it's extremely close to zero (and, even if it were to happen, someone else could recreate all the existing content at another website). -- Rick Block (talk) 18:29, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. yandman 18:41, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

shamless self promotion: Created a new essay, want others to read and comment on it:

I created an essay titled: Orthodoxy and heresy at Wikipedia. It is supposed to be somewhat provocative. I am looking for comments and improvements. Please feel free to comment on the essay talk page or make any changes you see fit. Thank you. --Jayron32 21:34, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

WP:NOTLEX

Wikipedia:You Are Probably Not a Lexicologist or a Lexicographer is a new essay... please help improve!!! MPS 17:16, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

I would if I knew what a Lexicologist was...--SonicChao ^talk 17:25, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

a dictionary writer MPS 18:51, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

What happened to Wikipedia?

It works right now, but it looks so ugly. There's no bars on the left and top of the screen. What happened? I hope this change isn't permanent. Robocracy 07:26, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

It appears the same as always to me. — Knowledge Seeker দ 07:29, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

You may need to adjust or reset your browser; I haven't noticed any differences. --Doc Tropics ^{Message in a bottle} 09:12, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps you changed your skin, or the browser didn't load one of the stylesheets. The first issue can be fixed by Special:Preferences, the second by doing a hard reload, see Wikipedia:Bypass your cache. Hope that helps, Kusma (討論) 09:18, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Failed experiments: A method for gaining cooperation

An effort to update the Kennedy Assassination articles using records from PBS and the 1998 work product of the federal Assassination Records Review Board has landed this editor in hot water with a group of editors who like the status quo.

Presently, the group, who believes no new information is needed, has asked this editor be banned for "harassing" them with "Flat Earth" information.

During the course of this arbitration, one of the editors who opposes change, claims he has tried to edit cooperatively. That is good, but his methodology appears flawed. The editor states:

“I don't like you. I think you're an obnoxious jerk.”

Later he explains to the arbitration panel that this:

“[I]s an attempt to find common ground between [the other editor] and myself and move forward with editing the article productively.” [2]

Back to the drawing board. RPJ 21:45, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Summary style violation?

Curious to hear what other editors think of History of the Alaska Aces. Ignoring for a moment the article's cleanup issues, this strikes me as way too much detail for Wikipedia's coverage of a minor league hockey team. Before I rush to propose a pare-and-merge, I thought I'd solicit second opinions. Thanks. | Mr. Darcy talk 04:14, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Sitting here in the UK it looks like way too much information for a minor Hockey team on the west coast of the states. However, to people who live in Alaska this might be quite important and they would welcome the information. My point is that our view on what's important and how much information should be carried in an article depends on our own personal interests and where we live. So I'd be careful about removing too much information. Having said that there does seem to be too much detail and in the process of cleaning up the article I'd look to cut back the information. Once this article has been cleaned up then I decide if it should be merged. --MarkS (talk) 09:41, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Article about Wikipedia Users

I am a freelance writer working on an article about the wide array of people who make Wikipedia their life, their passion, their pastime. Wikipedia “addicts” if you will. I’m looking for people just willing to tell their story of how they got sucked into the intellectual whirlwind that is Wikipedia; how you got started editing, how the obsession grew, and what you spend your time focusing on these days? Do you write articles from scratch? Is your main push toward one particular type of article? Do you patrol for typos and errors, or spend your time diligently fixing vandalism? Do you take part in various the “social aspects” of Wikipedia; engaging in animated discussions or decorating your user page with all sorts of internet memes? Do you participate in Esperanza, the Counter Vandalism Unit or other Wiki programs? Have you ever forced yourself to take a “Wikipedia break”? If so, what’s your 20/20 hindsight on the "obsession"? Basically I’m just trying to get an idea of what it’s like for various Wikipedia users, editors and "addicts."

This article is intended to be a light informational piece, nothing too heavy or controversial, just merely introducing readers to a subculture that they likely had no idea existed. So please don’t email me with your conspiracy theories, or your grudge against the Wikipedia hierarchy… unless it directly applies to your overall experience with the site. This article is about the USERS, not about the pros and cons of the site itself.

If you are interested in participating, please email me via my user page.

FFFearlesss 16:52, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

small service

I got a camera, and will try to fulfill requests for pictures related to Mexico, hoping an article or two will get improved. See commons:User:Drini/requests -- Drini 23:11, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

As a suggestion you might check Wikipedia:Requested pictures from time to time to see if any requests show up. Also you can always look for article pages on Mexico that are in need of a photograph. Thanks. — RJH (talk) 18:31, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

You can also check out Category:Wikipedia requested photographs in Mexico. --Sherool (talk) 07:13, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Health Wiki Research

Have you participated in the creation of health information on wikipedia? Have you recently posted on a health wiki page? If so, we would like to hear about your experience. A colleague and I are conducting a study on health wikis. We are looking at how wikis co-construct health information and create communities and are very interested in your opinions.

We would be very grateful if you would consider taking our survey here.

This research will help wikipedia and other wikis understand how health information is co-created and used.

We are from James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia. The project was approved by our university research committee and members of the Wikipedia Foundation.

Please consider telling us about your experience! Thanks!

--Sharlene Thompson 18:29, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Temporal point of view

Is there a Wikipedia policy on what might be called "temporal point of view", involving assertions made in an article that are only true or only make sense within the context of the day or month or other short period of time during which the assertion was made? For example, in a version of the article on actress Carolyn McCormick that I've replaced, I found the sentence "She is currently acting in 'Celebration', a play by Harold Pinter, in New York." This sentence was bound to become outdated, possibly, as far as the editor might have known, the very next day! As a matter of fact, she was in that production over a year ago, and has been in two or three other productions since.

It seems to me these self-outdating statements should be deleted or made non-self-outdating even if they're currently true. If there isn't already a policy, and a standard method of invoking it when a violation is found, should there be one? If there is a policy, how should violations be dealt with? Should I delete the information altogether, or is it my responsibility either to research the chronological information myself and change "currently" to "during two months of 2006" or whatever, or to leave it alone and let someone else figure it out? Or is there a template for marking it for consideration by others —Largo Plazo 18:36, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

The general consensus is that statements of that type should always be avoided, and phrased something like "beginning in December of 2006, she appeared in X play" or perhaps "as of January 2007, she is appearing in X play." Because wikipedia is vastly stacked toward topics of current interest, like celebrities and news stories, this is always an issue and to a certain extent we just have to deal and make changes when they are warranted.--Dmz5*Edits**Talk* 18:50, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

There are more tricky problems of this nature. I've noticed that in articles about old cars, there is a tension between writing in the present tense - because these cars still exist - or in the past tense because we are talking about a car that hasn't been made for 50 years? What about a car that they stopped making a year ago - of which millions of examples are still in day-to-day use? We end up with statements like "The 1953 BrandX car was equipped with a V8 engine" - but sometimes I see "The 1953 BrandX car is equipped with a V8 engine". Worst of all, many of these articles switch back and forth between tenses. It's really tricky. When you are talking about a Model T Ford, it sounds weird to say "The Model T Ford can attain a top speed of 45 mph" - but then it also sounds strange to say "The Mini Cooper had a 1.3 liter engine" - when the Mini was still making them in 1999, they are still being driven - and they still have 1.3 liter engines. It seems wrong to say that this was true when it's still true. SteveBaker 19:25, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

IMHO, if at least one sample still exists, use the present tense - the Model T can attain 45 mph today, just as it could in 1905, and the Wright flyer still has a wingspan of ... well, whatever it is - even if there are few practical examples of its being used. If none of them exist, use the past tense - the T. Rex was very large (none are still alive) and Roman chariots had a wheelspan of XYZ. There will be uncertain cases, though; no Wright flyers exist that can fly, so should we say its top speed is or was? Is, I think; it still exists. The top speed of Icarus, on the other hand, would be was if we had a number.- DavidWBrooks 19:52, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Dropping off on a tangent, I think it's fair to say that Icarus's top speed was 195km/hour. Durova^Charge 20:17, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

I realized after my initial posting that there can't be a blanket rule because many pieces of information do need to convey their own currency if they aren't to sound contrived. An extreme example would be something like "Denmark is a constitutional monarchy", which won't be true if 100 years from now they discard the monarchy and institute a republic. An intermediate example would be "George W. Bush is the president of the United States," which definitely won't be true after January 20, 2009, and which will require editing wherever it appears. I suppose that's life, and the best that can be done is to offer guidelines

For one thing, certain kinds of information are sure to be edited rapidly when they fall out of currency. If the constitutional monarchy in Denmark were to be discarded, it would be so newsworthy that probably dozens of people would fall onto Wikipedia to scour it for text in need of alteration. Some people may already have January 20, 2009, marked on their calendars as Post-Bush Wikipedia Overhaul day. It's the trivia that's very much of-the-moment about the less broadly appreciated topics (such as what production Carolyn McCormick is performing in at this very moment) that's more of a concern, because it has the potential to sit for years after its expiration. —Largo Plazo 20:57, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

there's a guideline about not using statements that date easily somewhere, and tagging statements that will date with updateafter templates. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 23:05, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

That's why I used the 'cars' example - there is no definite date at which no more Model T Fords will be able to be driven (let alone at 45mph) - and there is a good chance that on the day that the last one can't make it, nobody will be paying close enough attention to change the "can" to a "could". In general, there is a wide grey area in which neither present nor past tense seems obviously applicable. SteveBaker 03:27, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I think the best way to do it is use past tense in the sense of "was offered with" or "was sold with" XYZ engine, features, etc. There aren't any more Model T's rolling off the line, and so it's never going to change that it was offered only in black and sold with such and such an engine. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 07:11, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

And then (the universe having its own perverse sense of humor), you just know that Ford would offer a "Centennial Edition" Model T, with new type engine and every conceivable color of paint.... -- Ben 16:30, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I've had some frustrating problems in the past with users who refuse to allow historical perspective and opinions to be recorded on pages where the subject was widely believed in the past, but has since been discredited. They seem intent on ensuring that only the public reaction now is recorded, not the public reaction at the time that it was happening.

Honestly, it's pretty difficult to write a page about something that was widely believed to be true in the 1950s when you've got a user on your back insisting that you only include data from today, when said something is known to be false and has fallen out of view. perfectblue 14:11, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

When I write articles about movies, I tend to mix tenses in what, to me at least, seems to make sense. I start off with "Movie name is a 2007 film which tells the story of ... It stars ..." because when you watch it today, you see that story and you see the stars. But then I say, "It was written by ... and directed by ... " because those things happened in the past. Again, it's probably ideosyncratic on my part.  :) User:Zoe|(talk) 17:17, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

The guideline is WP:DATED. John Broughton | ♫♫ 02:27, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Excessive talk page boxes

I was wondering if there was anybody else here who thinks that the number of information boxes posted on talk pages has become excessive? It's reached a point where in many cases having a "Skip to table of contents" message at the top is needed. There are times when I would like those messages to be the width (but not the height) of the user boxes and scooted over to the right edge so I can access the table of contents immediately. Does anybody else have some thoughts about this? Thanks. — RJH (talk) 18:04, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Talk page templates. :-) Kirill Lokshin 18:16, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Unfortunately it appears that a number of the talk boxes are not aware of the "small=yes" requirement. — RJH (talk) 17:39, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

FA and WP:OWN

I have a somewhat vague question that I'm looking for input on. I have been very tangentially involved at a very good article that arguably has a serious case of WP:OWN going on, with one (very good) editor acting as a gatekeeper for what can and can't get in. The talk page is awash with incivility that truly borders on hysterics when another tenacious editor tries to include material that editor #1 doesn't like or thinks is against policy. Editor #1's stated aim is to get this article to FA status, and there's a reasonable chance this will succeed. I am wondering what the thoughts are on a FA or FA-nominated article that is in such a tendentious editorial condition - is it a threat to stability/featured-ness if the article, however good it is, is subject to potential frequent edit wars and talk-page incivility? -16:14, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

If that characterization is fair, the approach usually washes out at article review or WP:FAC. If you mention the name of the article I could give it a look. I investigate similar situations pretty regularly. To be fair, sometimes this type of complaint turns out to originate from editors who want to insert some non-notable POV. There's no way to tell without actually investigating. Durova^Charge 20:23, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Oldest still active

Moved from talk:Main Page#Oldset still active

Well, there is the oldest articles at Wikipedia:Wikipedia's oldest articles. The next question is, who is the oldest still-active editor, ignoring Jimbo Wales? Also, are there any which have still not become admin? Simply south 18:42, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

The Nupedia crowd - User:Larry Sanger, and User:RoseParks, and probably some others. Raul654 18:54, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

You might also be interested in Wikipedia:List of non-admins with high edit counts. —Cuiviénen 18:56, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Er, Rosa has made one edit in the last year and almost all edits made by Larry in the last couple years have been to talk pages defending his role in the founding of Wikipedia, slamming Wikipedia, and plugging for whatever anti-Wikipedia project he was currently working on. I wouldn't call either active Wikipedians. --mav 15:05, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

This has little to do with Wikipedia's MainPage. Please move this survey to WP:VP. --64.229.5.164 15:50, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

I have moved it. Simply south 15:14, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

You could have a look through Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians in order of arrival/2001 for some of the oldest Wikipedians. Tra (Talk) 15:43, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Image/award request

Could someone please create an ASCII version of Image:Barnstar.png for me? I'm thinking of creating a new reward: The Text Barnstar (Used for writing articles or finishing other people's work). Here's where I originated the idea. --AAA! ^(AAAA) 12:26, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

How about something like this:

          /\
         /**\
 _______/****\_______
 *.******/^^\******.*
   *.***( () )***.*
     *.**\,./**.*
      /**.**.**\
     /*.*    *.*\
    /.*        *.\
    '            `

Tra (Talk) 15:39, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, that's very good! I've saved it as an image and will upload it to commons. Now I just need to propose it. --AAA! ^(AAAA) 23:21, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Cool! I was just going to suggest '*'.  :-) SteveBaker 03:29, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Terry Davis the author page?

What happens to the Terry Davis author information every time is is posted?! YES - there CAN be more than one Terry Davis!!! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 150.228.40.142 (talk) 21:25, 11 January 2007 (UTC).

I suggest you create a page for Terry Davis, the author, at Terry Davis (author). --Stormie 04:40, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Scottish Wikipedia

I came across this, the other day. Is it actually a genuine Scot's version of Wikipedia, or is it a parody? Not being a native speaker of the Scot's tongue, or laid, it's kind of hard to tell.

(—Not "Scot's", "Scots". —Largo Plazo 18:40, 14 January 2007 (UTC))

I trust that there will soon be versions of Wikipedia available in Pig Latin, Osakan, and Capitol Hill press release speak. I'd also be interested in contributing to the west-coast hip-hop version if one is made.

perfectblue 12:24, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

It's an actual language, you can read about it here. Tra (Talk) 13:27, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

So, it's a real wiki, not a pet project?

perfectblue 18:31, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, if you consider simple English and all those variants of Chinese to be dialects, then we do indeed support some dialects with their own Wikis. Personally I want a complicated English Wikipedia where only a specialist in the article field can even figure out what it's about. --tjstrf talk 17:59, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

"all those variants of Chinese""

Sore spot alert. One day, I might sit down explain this calmly and rationally. But for now I'll settle for fuming about people not knowing things that they couldn't reasonably be expected to know.

perfectblue 18:31, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Umm..... you were the one who first compared Scots to Pig Latin and Capitol Hill press release speak. Scots:English :: Wu:Mandarin is a pretty apt analogy, especially compared to Scots:English :: Pig Latin:English. -- ran (talk) 20:06, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I know about the reasoning behind the Chinese divisions, actually. But I also know it is a subject of complaint, and it was the first example that sprung to mind. --tjstrf talk 20:00, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

To be brief, some of this is a political tag, rather than an anthropological etc tag. In some cases it only really means that something is within reach of the currently Mainland Chinese government. For example, some Chinese dialects aren't descended from Chinese, and some ethnic Chinese people aren't actually ethnically Chinese save for a bit of cross breeding over the years. It's kind of like calling a Native American language a dialect of English, but here isn't really the correct place to debate the matter.

perfectblue 08:38, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Ermm.... no. All Chinese "dialects" are members of the Sinitic branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. All Chinese "dialects" except Min have demonstrable regular sound changes going back to Middle Chinese in their core vocabulary, while all Chinese "dialects" including Min have demonstrable regular sound changes going back to Old Chinese in their core vocabulary. Your comparison of Chinese "dialects" to Native American languages isn't apt, since there are no Native American languages that are even part of the Indo-European language family, let alone ones that are close in any way to English.

A much better analogy to the Chinese "dialects" would be the Germanic languages, both Western Germanic (English, Dutch, German, Yiddish, Afrikaans, etc.) and Northern Germanic (Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic, etc.). If these languages shared a common written standard based on one of the Germanic languages (in some alternate universe), then the analogy to Chinese would be perfect.

You're right however in saying that the Han Chinese "race" has absorbed an enormous amount of southern, non-Han admixture. -- ran (talk) 08:10, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm notice that you use the grouping Sino-Tibetan language family. I'm afraid that I'm one of those people who does not support the validity of this family, and who supports an alternative breakdown (this isn't really the appropriate place to discuss it though). I wonder though, what is your opinion on the validity as "Chinese dialects" on the native tongues spoken in Taiwan; which are austronesian, Uyghur; which is Turkic, and the non-tonal Tibetan dialects.

perfectblue 08:54, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

It's perfectly valid to not support the Sino-Tibetan language family, and to split out Tibetan, Burmese, Qiang etc. in some other way. However, as far as I am aware, there is no serious academic opposition to the Sinitic language family, which encompasses all modern Chinese "dialects".

As for those other languages that you speak of, of course they are not Sinitic in any way, and no serious linguist would say that they are Sinitic languages, let alone "Chinese dialects". Tibetan, Yi etc are Tibeto-Burman languages. Uyghur, Kazakh, Kyrgyz etc are Turkic languages. Mongolian, etc are Mongolic languages. Manchu etc are Tungusic languages. Taiwanese aboriginal languages are Austronesian languages. Miao, etc are Hmong-Mien languages. Zhuang etc are Tai-Kadai languages. Of the above, only Tibeto-Burman is generally classified as Sino-Tibetan (and certainly not Sinitic); the others are not Sino-Tibetan at all.

Tone in Tibetan dialects is irrelevant to this discussion. Tibetan dialects come from Old Tibetan, itself a Tibeto-Burman language, and tone is a recent innovation in Tibetan, arising independently. -- ran (talk) 20:07, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Sadly, the Mainland Chinese government believe all of them to be Chinese, even when they are not.

perfectblue 07:46, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

The Mainland Chinese government believes all of the above ethnicities to be Chinese from a nationalist point of view, but it does not believe their languages to be (Han) Chinese from a linguistic point of view. And even if they did make such an assertion, that's no reason to go for the other extreme and argue that languages that are generally accepted in linguistics to be Sinitic aren't actually Sinitic.

No serious linguist, in China or outside, would classify Tibetan, Uyghur, Zhuang etc. as Chinese dialects, just as no serious linguist, in China or outside, would classify Min, Yue, Hakka etc. as non-Sinitic languages. There is general agreement in linguistics that Min, Yue, Hakka, Mandarin, Wu, etc belong in a group that descends from Old Chinese and (for all except Min) Middle Chinese, and that this group differs sharply and should be classified separately from surrounding languages like Tibetan, Uyghur etc; the dispute, which is essentially semantic in nature, lies in what to call this group, a family of Sinitic languages, or dialects of a single Chinese language.

-- ran (talk) 00:56, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Linguists-sminguists, I'm talking about the self-centric world that half of the Chinese population, and all of the Chinese government, live in. The sad truth is that most Mainland Chinese don't know what is descended from what and just believe that all languages spoken by people classed as being 中国人 or 华人 are Chinese. The differentiations that you and I are talking about exist in textbooks, but not the national mentality.

perfectblue 08:28, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps some Chinese people would be ignorant about the linguistic situation of China, but most educated people in or outside China, as well as the Chinese government, are well aware of the fact that the Tibetan, Uyghur, Mongolian languages etc aren't Sinitic languages. The ideology of a multi-ethnic Chinese nation (Zhonghua Minzu) is based on nationalism, not claims to linguistic uniformity. -- ran (talk) 19:16, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

I think that you're grossly overestimating the amount that foreigners know about China. While you know about this because you're overseas Chinese, I doubt that you're average North American or Western European knows what a Sinitic language is, let alone how they are categorized. It's not something that you would learn in highschool, and it's not something that you would hear on TV unless you were heavily into the Discovery channel, which most people aren't. These days, I've known many foreigners who arrived in my town knowing that there was Mandarin and Cantonese, but not that the main regional dialect was Gan, or even that Gan existed, let alone that there are languages spoken in China that aren't linguistically related to Chinese.

On your last point, I wasn't actually saying that 中华民族 was being applied to language, rather, I was saying than people never get far enough ahead in their thinking to consider language. It all stops at "We are Chinese". Especially when you watch the military news.

perfectblue 19:45, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

You mean the postmodern:Wikipedia? Argyriou (talk) 19:05, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Maybe we could move all the knowledge management articles over there. Or "initiate a differential locational shift of the knowledge management textual paradigms" if you prefer. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 19:53, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I think it's a little silly. Given that the differences between Scots and English are almost entirely in orthography and pronounciation, I think some kind of automatic machine translation (much like the Cyrillic/Latin transliteration that sr: does) would make all of en-wiki available in Scots.

There are quite a few Wikipedias in languages that are a bit questionable with few or no native speakers. We've got several languages that are minor variants like Scots, dead languages like Latin and Gothic (only about 500 pages of written Gothic text still exist), and at least three made up "international" languages. At some point there was even a Klingon Wikipedia, but someone thought better of it and locked the database. –  Anþony  talk  19:46, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Latin Wiki has 10,000 pages, and for a "dead language" I'd say it's pretty decently active[3]. Plus Latin is inherently cool. --tjstrf talk 20:11, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia's not about to revive Latin as a spoken language. Pick a random talk page on the Latin Wikipedia and it's almost all in English. It's an academic exercise that doesn't seem to have a real purpose beyond being able to say it's been done ("cool", as you say), no different than Klingon or pig-latin. –  Anþony  talk  21:27, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

You're going to be lynched by Latin Honor Society members, you know. - DavidWBrooks 21:52, 4 January 2007 (UTC) (and, as long as we're indulging personal preferences, I'd say that anybody with one of those obnoxiously distracting color signatures can't complain too loudly about other folks' wiki-practices)

Latin at least helps you understand English and ancient literature better. I personally wish they'd focus more on the Latin Wiktionary, but that's just me. --tjstrf talk 08:44, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

You think Latin is at all similar to Klingon or Pig Latin? —Centrx→talk • 10:04, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

That wasn't my point at all. I'm saying the motives for creating a Wikipedia in such languages is pretty much the same: because we can. These projects aren't really serving anyone who isn't much better served by a Wikipedia in their native language. –  Anþony  talk  21:16, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

To reply to the original post, the second introductory paragraph of Scots language explains this pretty well. It's actually an open question whether Scots is a dialect of English or a separate language. Perhaps if Elizabeth I of England had borne children we wouldn't even hold this conversation because Scotland and England would still be different countries and the distinction would seem as natural as the one we make for Norwegian and Swedish (which are also very similar). This makes me want to rent Trainspotting and see whether it carries subtitles. I certainly didn't understand half the dialog when I saw its theatrical release. Durova^Charge 01:44, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

The differences between Scots and English go beyond spelling and pronunciation, and extend to vocabulary and grammar. A couple of years ago Scotland was one of the featured countries and the annual Smithsonian Folk Life Festival in Washington, D.C. Explanatory signs were written in English and Scots (and Gaelic, but that's beside the point). The Scots version was largely decipherable, but in some cases only because I have background in Germanic languages other than English, and there was plenty that I wouldn't have been able to interpret, especially without the availability of the English version. —Largo Plazo 18:51, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Scots as a language fails the Weinreich criterion, but if Wikipedia enforced that, we'd have to get rid of a lot of languages. Argyriou (talk) 18:02, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

At least here in the US, Trainspotting carries some subtitles. And a damn good thing, too. - DavidWBrooks 14:06, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Weinreich's observation was probably tongue in cheek, and certainly he was aware of its deficiencies. Using his definition, Icelandic and Navajo aren't distinct languages and Canadian English is. —Largo Plazo 18:52, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

There is a Bokmål Wikipedia and a Nynorsk, and they're both variants of Norwegian. User:Zoe|(talk) 17:28, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

We have Irish, Manx, and Scottish Gaelic Wikipedias. All three are Goidelic languages which descend from Middle Irish, and are all considered to be distinct languages. Well, Scots and English are both descended from Middle English, but are considered to be distinct languages. File:Icons-flag-scotland.png Canæn File:Icons-flag-scotland.png 00:47, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Possible legal problem with image

A user has asserted that the use of an image of the FBI logo is a violation of U.S. federal law (United States Code, Title 18). This user claims this law trumps copyright law (under which the image would be PD). Any comment on this issue would be appreciated. --Ginkgo100 ^talk 23:23, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

• It's still PD copyright-wise, but unofficial use of some government insignia is prohibited in the US. Now, would they really go after us for using the FBI logo on a Wikiproject award?-probably not. But, would they have the legal right to?- yes, in my opinion. Note that this has no effect on the use of the logo in encyclopedia articles.--Pharos 23:55, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

There are lots of laws that could apply in some cases to things on this site, in addition to copyright laws. Nobody has shown any that actually do in the case of police-related insignia, however; the laws seem to be against doing things that mislead people into thinking you're affiliated with a police agency for the purpose of getting them to do things you want (e.g., when you're trying to collect debts), not against the display of the insignia to illustrate an article about the agency in question that's clearly not an official document of theirs. *Dan T.* 00:19, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

That's what I meant– that's it's fine to illustrate an article, but perhaps questionable to use it in a Wikiproject logo, as it was being used in the example cited.--Pharos 00:36, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Are they using it to imply that the WikiProject is affiliated with the FBI? --Carnildo 09:55, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

It's not a logo, it's an image of a badge. Unless you're using it to imply official endorsement, you should be alright. Hell, we're technically not supposed to be using the Fish and Wildlife Service logo on our article about them, but that's working fine. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 00:46, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Wikipediaholic test

I'm not wanting to be a spoilsport. However, last time i did it i got 1,600 or something similar. It took me more time than it actually said. With the size now, i am guessing it would take a day. Could anything on the size or format or whatever be sorted out? Simply south 21:11, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Cruft

Would adding a list of minigames (without descriptions) be considered "cruft"? While I believe it is, but User:Henchman 2000 believes it isn't, and has been putting back a list of minigames into Mario Party articles that I deleted. We've been an edit war for a while, and other users have tried to tell Henchman to get a consensus, he keeps adding them back. I don't want to revert them any more, as it's getting pointless, so I'd like some other people's opinion of it: Would a list of minigames without descriptions count as cruft? –Llama man^{sign here} 19:38, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm not an expert on the subject, but as an outside observer, a list of the minigames seems like perfectly reasonable content for these articles. - SimonP 02:27, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

The minigames are the substantial content of the games, so a list with brief descriptions is pretty much the best thing you could actually put in the gameplay sections. --tjstrf talk 03:09, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Linkspam up this week - keep watch

Link spam, the addition of links to external sites to increase search engine ranking, is up this week. See 64.74.62.136 (talk · contribs) and Blathering1 (talk · contribs) for examples. Watch for links to "www.fxwords.com", which is a phony glossary site full of ads. --John Nagle 18:19, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

You can get a list of links on Wikipedia to this website at Special:Linksearch. Tra (Talk) 18:35, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

It just seems to be a bunch of links that don't go anywhere. Can someone reconfirm this and I'll go ahead and remove the whole lot. --Spartaz 20:21, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, they're all links to a spam farm. Delete them. Related domains are "forextradingllc.com" and "gocurrency.com", all of which exist to get Yahoo and Google advertising clicks. See their ad rates and traffic statistics www.gocurrency.com/advertise-with-us.htm here. --John Nagle 21:12, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Put a note on "Administrator's Message Board" asking for a link block for those sites. --John Nagle 21:35, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Howdy All, I've been trying to follow up with specific Amdin on this, but to no avail yet. Link Spam is definitely annoying, but in regards to fxwords and gocurrency in particular, please see: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:MaxSem#FXwords_and_GoCurrency_Link_Spam —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.74.62.136 (talk) 02:20, 12 January 2007 (UTC).

Need article-namespace sandbox

Is there anything like a "sandbox page" in the main namespace (article namespace)? I'm debugging a template which uses ParserFunctions to cause it to appear differently depending on which namespace it is in. Of course, I'm having trouble with the conditions when it is placed in article namespace. I could not find anything at About the Sandbox to help me. I could create a page named something like Page for testing templates which use ParserFunctions but if there is a better alternative, I'd like to use that. :) Thanks! —DragonHawk (talk) 04:28, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Do you actually need to save the page? I'd suggest using "Show preview". --Dapeteばか 15:22, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Whenever you want to test something, you can create a test page in your own User space, such as User:DragonHawk/Parser Functions. When finished, put {{db-author}} on it, and an admin will come along and delete it for you. User:Zoe|(talk) 17:35, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

That wouldn't work, because DragonHawk needs to test how something appears in the main namespace. Dapete's suggestion of Show preview would probably be a good idea, but if you do need to save the page, you could try testing it in testwiki: but since it's a different wiki, if you're referencing templates they will all need to be recreated there. Tra (Talk) 19:25, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Meaning of copyright

Discussing the article on journalist John Gorenfeld the question came up if it is a violation of copyright laws, or WP policy, to use information from his personal website without his permission. As I understand it copyright laws protect, well, "copy" but not "information". Steve Dufour 13:44, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Information is not copyrightable, but phrasing is. If you just use data from the site, it's all right, but if you use the words he uses to lay out the data, then it's a copyvio. User:Zoe|(talk) 16:57, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Zoe. That is how I understand it as well. What ended up happening is the material was removed and then rewriten based on other sources. Steve Dufour 18:12, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

I thought this problem had been solved when the material had been removed and replaced by information gathered from different sources. However the person who tagged the article insists that there has to be a ruling by an administrator. Does anyone know where I can go on WP to ask for help on this? Thanks. Steve Dufour 03:43, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Admins don't "rule" on anything. If there is a dispute, it should go to WP:DR, or one of you can file an WP:RFC for further eyes to review it. User:Zoe|(talk) 17:33, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

BAD USER

Has anyone else on RC noticed a user named User:Vandalisimbot that has beenm messing with pages? It needs to be blocked, ASAP!! The Placebo Effect 00:34, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Vandalismbot (talk · contribs · logs · block user · block log) has already been blocked. Well done spotting it! --TeaDrinker 01:03, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Judgement Call

I'm debating whether or not I should create a Doppelganger account. Technically, my username is "Wdflake", but I prefer to go my "W. Flake", as evidenced by my signature. Would having an account named "W. Flake" be inappropriate under this policy? Thanks in advance. —W. Flake ( talk | contribs ) 00:07, 9 January 2007 (UTC) fixed typo at 00:12, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Are you looking to start using the account yourself or just prevent anyone use from taking it? If it's the former, you can change your username outright. Otherwise you don't need anyone's permission to create a doppleganger account. – Þ  21:23, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

If you want to create another account, for any reason, then do so. The only rule is that you mustn't use the accounts dishonestly - for example, don't contribute to an AfD with both accounts. If they have very similar names, then no-one is likely to suspect you of foul play, so just do what you like. --Tango 22:45, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. —W. Flake ( talk | contribs ) 00:02, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

story thingie

Hi! Living at the nl wikipedia most of the time, this is my first post in your lovely village pump. I didn't know where else to go and maybe one of you can help me. I have this funny story over at nl (nl:Gebruiker:Venullian/Aanvulverhaal, though it will not make a lot of sense to you as it's in Dutch), where each person may post no more than 10 words and then have to wait for the next person to come along. I got the idea from someone who saw it at the en wikipedia, which would be here. Stupidly enough, I didn't interwiki link, and now we all forgot who that user was and where his story is. Is it still alive? Does anybody know about it? Venullian 16:19, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Is this it? Tra (Talk) 17:08, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

No I don't think so, it was in somebody's user namespace like mine is. it's more like one big story and everybody adds words to it. It ends up not making sence at all (but it's funny nevertheless)... Venullian 17:24, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

In that case, it would be a lot harder to find, since there are many user subpages to look through. Can you remember anything at all about the user, or about the way the page was named, or about some of the content of the stories there? Tra (Talk) 17:33, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

No not really... that's why I thought I'd ask it here, in case it would ring a bell with anyone reading this :s Venullian 20:52, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

It does ring a bell, and the bell is saying it was deleted a month or so ago. I'll look around and see if I can find the MFD discussion. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 17:22, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:AtionSong/World's Longest Poem and Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:AtionSong/World's Longest Poem (second nomination) both no consensus. Page is currently located at Wikipedia:Sandbox/World's Longest Poem, not sure when it was moved. If that's not the one you're looking for try Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Once upon a time... and Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Once upon a time.... That one was deleted. Seems kind of inconsistent, but whatever. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 17:30, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia:Sandbox/Add a Word Story and Category:Wikipedia games. – Þ  17:57, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it was the poem. It could have been the Once upon a time, but I'll interwiki Add a Word Story for now. Thanks for all the help! Venullian 10:18, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Encyclopedia Dramatica

What is this site and what's it about? I looked for an article but it's deleted-protected. Can someone tell me? --AAA! ^(AAAA) 05:21, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

They're the top return on Google for Encyclopedia Dramatica. Why not look for yourself? I prefer Uncyclopedia. Durova^Charge! 07:09, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Um... I think a site filled with shock images would be the last thing I'd want to look at. At least that's what Uncyclopedia says, and I ain't risking it. --AAA! ^(AAAA) 06:39, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Name says it all, actually. A compendium of "knowledge" about internet drama, aka GIANT TROLLFEST. --tjstrf talk 06:46, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

It's kind of blacklisted here for their campaigns to troll wikipedia admins and post embarassing personal information. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 17:00, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Not "embarrassing" information, just real-life information that was being used for real-life harrassment. User:Zoe|(talk) 17:24, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Its a really good resource for looking up internet memes (though I'd say Lurkmore's 4chan page is probably better, and Etherchan has a lot of good info also). Other than that, its pretty useless. I would strongly suggest you adblock their image server if you want to browse Dramatica. — Dark Shikari ^talk/_contribs 02:34, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

How do you do that? --AAA! ^(AAAA) 08:07, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Looking at this, a Wikipedian is trying to shut down the site. --AAA! ^(AAAA) 04:10, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

How do you know it's a Wikipedian? User:Zoe|(talk) 17:23, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Read the first sentecnce. He claims to be one. --AAA! ^(AAAA) 13:10, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Wikiproject Looking for Members

Wikiproject A Series of Unfortunate Events is looking for new members to help and expand the project. If you have an interest in A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket, please join! <3Clamster 00:17, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

No male writers?

Why is there a category called: Women writers, but nothing called Male writers? :p —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.212.180.9 (talk • contribs).

So fix it. Just H 22:04, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Surely going by precedent it should be Category:Men writers? :) GeeJo ^(t)⁄_(c) • 06:57, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Pedantic geographers needed!

Actually any sort of geographer, or anyone interested in a major UK memorial to that late King George V who is commemorated by 471 individual playing fields located in the UK and a few in "foreign climes". WikiProject King George's Fields needs your help. We have all the data in a spreadsheet, but transferring it to WP takes diligence, patience, and a bit of plain hard work. Please come and have a look, and come and join in. Fiddle Faddle 11:37, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

REPORTING VANDALISM

WHILST BROWSING YOUR SITE I FOUND THAT IN THE ARTICLE REGARDING NELSON MANDELA THERE IS A VERY RUDE PICTURE OF MALE GENITALS IN THE PLACE OF HIS PHOTO YOU DONT HAVE A FAULT REPORTING LINK SO I TRY TO REPORT IT VIA THIS LINK HOPE YOU CAN CHANGE IT YOURS THANKFULLY ARMAND JOUBERT (rm email and phone number) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 196.30.245.149 (talk) 04:06, 6 January 2007 (UTC).

Thanks for reporting vandalism on Nelson Mandela (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). The vandalism has since been cleaned up. You can usually remove such vandalism yourself by reverting the page to its former, unvandalised state; see the link for details. Sandstein 08:41, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Your participation is invited in a Peer Review

At Wikipedia:Peer review/Controlled demolition hypothesis for the collapse of the World Trade Center the editors who have been refining the article have requested a Peer Review. This is a process open to any editor to contrinute. Please visit the review page and decide whether you wish to review the article and give feedback. Fiddle Faddle 16:31, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Polo Montañez

The past few days I have been working on the Polo Montañez article and I have expanded it considerably yet it is still considered a stub. Polo Montañez was only famous for about 2 years before he died so there is not much that can be written about him. How can I make this stub into an article?

Expand it! For instance, create a Biography section about his life. Expand on his works. Cite sources for why he is considered relevant. Treat it almost as if you were writing a paper about his life and influential works. -- Kesh 18:40, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Shame, really

Torchic: a featured article on such a useless subject. When did Wikipedia go wrong?

Every article should be of featured quality. That some editors like to edit article about what you and I both consider to be silly fictional cartoon characters is fine - they're not paid to work here. Hipocrite - «Talk» 22:56, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

It goes wrong every time someone decides to complain about things like this rather than put some work into getting "useful" articles featured. We're a community, and we're only as good as we make ourselves. --Masamage

It decided to let anybody edit the pages rather than only a tight group of snobby intellectuals. Oh wait, that's a good thing. --tjstrf talk 01:51, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

No, the problem with this article is it does not have reliable sources. —Centrx→talk • 10:05, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

I see a reference to the Pokémon Ruby game; reliable source problem for all the major data solved. Simple fiction is not subjective, ergo canonical information from it regarding itself is by definition the most reliable source of data you could possibly acquire. --tjstrf talk 10:30, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Which is the major reason why articles about fictional subjects are so easy to write—which, in turn, is the major reason why Pokémon articles continue to get featured, and ancient wars don't. They're just so much easier to research. --Masamage 10:34, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Yep. Where a war requires the careful balancing of sources, may be discoloured by legend, and you have to deal with the POVs of the war survivors who often write about them, Pokemon is a subject with no reliability problems what so ever. In fact, if we were to cite some sort of outside "Pokemon expert" for the basic data about the Pokemon, we would actually be reducing our reliability because we would have introduced a needless layer of human error. An outside "Pokemon expert" would be useful for information that is not readily available from the games themselves, but really, canon meets WP:RS. --tjstrf talk 10:40, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

We could also make extremely accurate articles about vital records and the census, or about every single character that ever appeared even for a minute on every single television show, movie, etc. You cannot create an encyclopedia article on such a subject. An encyclopedia article must have commentary about how the character fits into the story arc, how it fits into the history of the genre, how it offsets or aligns thematically with other characters, etc. You need independent sources for that. An article that is so simple that it could be duplicated by only playing the game is not an encyclopedia article at all. —Centrx→talk • 10:54, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

That would be an accurate source for "Torchic in the Pokemon Ruby game", but characteristics of fictional characters are often different depending on what show, game, etc. you look at. Also, without reliable sources independent of a game the article can have no reliable commentary. The article is simply a plodding account of things that have been mentioned passingly, sourced to unreviewed websites, and if a suddenly a new game comes out that changes its characteristics, all the vapid statements in the article like "Torchic is the only Fire-type Pokémon" and "There are seventeen different Pokémon types" (which is probably repeated verbatim in several dozen other Pokemon articles), "Most Torchic cards are typical, basic Pokémon cards", etc. —Centrx→talk • 10:48, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Although entries about fictional things are usually quite easy to write as their entire description and chronology is laid out for you in the words of its creator, I've seen some nasty arguments before when dealing with fictional characters or concepts. often one user demands that all potentially subjective material be removed under WP:OR unless it can be verified through an independent third party source (the equivalent somebody asking for a pier reviewed journal entry validating an urban myth as being accurate, when all you are trying to do is prove that the myth exists), and one editor says "I saw it in an episode, so it must be true", then another editor pops up and deletes any specialized language that wasn't specifically used in a particular episode on the grounds that it is a neologism. It can get very nasty.

perfectblue 11:30, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

GFDL Question

If I release my work under the GFDL for Wikipedia to publish and then the article is deleted from Wikipedia and people are restricted from viewing it (non-admins), wouldn't it be a clear violation of the terms of the GFDL? Here's the relevant text:

You may not use
technical measures to obstruct or control the reading or further
copying of the copies you make or distribute.

I'm sure that people have looked at this before but I don't know how that could possibly be explained away. This seems like a blatant violation on Wikipedia's part and we seriously need to implement some kind of function to archive deleted pages.

--froth^{T C} 04:23, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Once deleted, the text is no longer being distributed to the persons who cannot read it. The persons who can read it have no technical measure obstructing them from reading or copying it. This provision of the GFDL was designed to counter a kind of software poorly called "Digital Rights Management" or DRM, and is to prevent someone from taking GFDL text and distributing it or a derivative work under a file format that can only be read by software that disallows copying or has time limits or iteration limits on reading. —Centrx→talk • 05:27, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Ah thank you for untangling that for me, it makes much more sense now. Thanks --froth^{T C} 07:32, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Sandbox

(bought this up here as the Sandbox talk page gets blanked automatically)

Why is the Sandbox called the Sandbox? I assume it's a reference to a Sandpit, but the word Sandbox doesn't appear to be very common outside the US. Wouldn't something like 'Test Area', 'Test Page' or 'Practice Editing Here' make more sense? MrBeast 21:18, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't know for sure, but I'd bet on Sandbox (software development) as the source of the name. BryanG^(talk) 01:08, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Which is itself derived from the American term for the child's play area. Sandbox actually gets more hits on Google than sandpit, incidentally. –  Anþony  talk  01:16, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

I'd bet that both terms share a common source --froth^{T C} 05:08, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Class project?

I teach a seminar in American legal history, and am thinking of inviting the students (usually about 20) to prepare or edit a Wikipedia entry, observing Wikipedia standards for citation, etc., in lieu of writing one of the two required papers. The course centers on questions of citizenship and rights, and the students are asked to do research on a topic of their own choosing, within the outline of the course. I am new to Wikipedia myself but would try to help ensure adherence to standards and policies. Would this create any problems? I can imagine that such projects could become a tool in edit wars or spamming, but I encourage students to find their own perspective and do their own research, so they would be as diverse as any other editors. Thoughts? Sheldon Novick 20:46, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

I recently read a Wikipedia Signpost article about this type of activity: Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2006-12-26/Wikipedia and academia. Apparently, there is a also a Wikipedia page dealing with this, as mentioned in the article: Wikipedia:School and university projects.--GregRM 22:24, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that's a very good article. Here's a direct link to the Wikipedia:School and university projects page. I'm a sysop with about 12,000 edits and I'd be glad to follow up on the idea. Post questions to my user talk page through the link in my signature. Welcome to Wikipedia. Durova^Charge! 22:53, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Welcome to wikipedia. Let me also volunteer to help out. My partner recently had her students research wikipedia pages, finding alternative sources which confirmed (or in one case, contradicted) the things said on wikipedia. They then added their sources to wikipedia for extra credit. This project is detailed here and the instructions for students are here. Let me know if you have any questions or need any help. --best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 00:24, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Anybody willing to slum it at Myspace?

Image:Barker famous.jpg is tagged as GFDL and says that it comes from Travis Barker's MySpace page. I really doubt Barker has heard of the GFDL to license anything under it, but I can't check his "photos" section to verify because I don't have a MySpace account. Anyone with an account care to verify that: 1) the image is there and 2) there's something close to a copyright release? –  Anþony  talk  18:42, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

It's there ([4]), but there's no caption with it or any text at all, much less a copyright release. --Masamage 05:16, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Bar on top

The bar at the top of Wikipedia has a green line that is getting longer. The money is almost $844,000 as of when I type this. What number will it stop at and what will Wikipedia be like when it is finished?? Georgia guy 01:35, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

The goal is $1.5M. As for what Wikipedia will be like, you might be interested in http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fundraising_FAQ. -- Rick Block (talk) 04:22, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Editor level recognition?

Once upon a time I thought I saw an editor's user page which had a type of WP award/recognition, based on length of time connected with WP and number of edits made. There were a series of these awards/recognitions, depending on length of time and number of edits. It was not a barnstar, but a separate type of recognition. As I recall there were both "serious" names for each rank (editor, senior editor, etc.), and made-up, "silly" names for each rank. Now I can't find those editor level recognitions! Anybody able to steer me in the right direction? NorCalHistory 00:03, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

You're after Wikipedia:Service awards. Not all of the silly names are actually made up though, I think some were from French or something. --tjstrf talk 00:05, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks - Wikipedia:Service awards it is. I guess I didn't mean "silly" - "whimsical" would be a better word. The whimsical names are either made-up or translations of whimsical words from other languages - the creativity that went into these names is appreciated! NorCalHistory 00:10, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

A tale of two editors

This is a tale of editing Wikipedia, that speaks both to the fragility of the everlasting template on Wikipedia, and time travel. For, I removed a {{references}} tag on an article that I myself had added it to six months ago. The article was unchanged.

It was a hot, sunny day in late June. I happened upon an article on a chemist who discovered that helium could be found in plentiful supply in natural gas. There, however, I found that the dates on the article appeared to be wrong. So, I corrected the dates and, seeing that some parts of the article were not reliable, placed a {{references}} tag on it.

Six months later, on a cold, wintry day in early January, I happened upon an article on a chemisty who discovered that helium could be found in plentiful supply in natural gas. There, however, I found a {{references}} tag, despite the article clearly having references and upon reading it there being no indication that the article was inaccurate. So, I removed the {{references}} tag, perplexed at the idiot who would have put it there in the first place.

Clearly, that idiot was me, apparently from the past, but possibly from the future. —Centrx→talk • 01:49, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

It happens. Nobody added the citations between those two edits, and forget to remove the tag? Which article was it, by the way? It sounds interesting. The article on helium doesn't appear to mention the chemist by name. =Axlq 02:00, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Hamilton Cady. —Centrx→talk • 02:10, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Encyclopedia of Earth

• • Please see Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Encyclopedia of Earth `'mikka 23:38, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

" " vs. “ ”

When I joined Wikipedia back in June, the majority of the time I saw " ". Now, I'm seeing more “ ”. While no problems will arise using one of those two, should we have a standardized version to avoid confusion? Sometimes I see both used on the same page. I think we should stick with " " because some people don't have Word or something similar so they can change it to “ ”, but I'm not really sure - The RSJ (Sign my book) (CCD) 22:05, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Interesting... In the header, I can see the difference, in the source code, I can see the difference, but in the parsed paragraph text, both versions look the same... --Tango 23:27, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Look of quotation marks and apostrophes. —Bkell (talk) 23:34, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Translation

Not a comment--I have a question I've already posted on the Village Pump but received no reply. I'm a registered user at both the English and the Hungarian versions of Wikipedia. I'm planning to translate the Donner Party entry (en.Wikipedia), from the English into Hungarian. Although the article is GNU Free, I still may need some special permission. Two more questions, please: how to include the original with my translation, and how to transfer the finished rendering to the Hungarian Wikipedia? Since I'm new at this, I'll appreciate any help I can get. Thank you, Marta 19:07, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

You don't need permission, but you will need to do something to credit the authors of the original article. I'm not sure what the normal way to do that is - linking to the english article (permanent link to the appropriate version) in the edit summary when you create the article on the Hungarian Wikipedia should be enough, I'd expect. If I were you, I would copy and paste the english text (from the "edit the page" textbox, so you get the source code) into a new article on the Hungarian wiki and then start translating it there. You can ask any more questions here - I'll try and find the answers for you. --Tango 23:25, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, Tango. As I mentioned, except for editing text, I'm still an amateur in many ways. For instance: what is a "permanent link," and how to paste the English text into the H. Wiki? Since to translate online is about impossibe (it's a time-consuming process, as I'm sure you know), I printed out the article from the Wiki page; once translated, maybe I can open an entry with the H. editors' help, then type the thing in. Do you think that would work? 23:54, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Currency Conversion Template

{{NZDCurrencyConversion}} I was editing Lotteries in New Zealand and it occured to me that many English speakers (myself included) would not know the value of a New Zealand Dollar, and so would be hampered in their understanding of the article's content. I suspect there are many articles which frequently refer to amounts of currency not familiar to most English speakers.

I developed Template:CurrencyConversion, a template with parameters to quote the value of a currency unit in US$, GBP and AUS$, as well as a last update parameter. While probably not useful as an up-to-the-minute tool, it could be used to give a rough indication of the magnitude of values quoted in an article with reasonable accuracy.

To the right is the template in action for the New Zealand Dollar, from the Daughter Template Template:NZDCurrencyConversion. What do people think? I haven't added this to any articles, so please improve it mercilessly. -- LukeSurl 00:29, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Three thoughts: 1) It may have some usefulness and I encourage such innovation, so I suggest trying it out by being bold and putting it into a couple of medium-traffic articles and see what kind of reaction a road-test gets. 2) Such templates need to be as compact as possible and I think it might be possible to compact yours a bit more, perhaps by using a smaller image with a single line of currencies and compacting the text into fewer lines and fewer characters. There is a plethora of infoboxes and templates appearing on Wikipedia and pages risk being crowded. 3) In the long run it might be interesting for people to be able to set a currency preference and have automatic conversions appear beside the given currency in an article, analogous to the way date presentation is a preference iteme. Hu 09:32, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps the actual data could be kept in the template somehow, and updated by a bot. -- Jmax- 12:41, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Hey, I don't think I'll be on Wikipedia for about a week, so please take this on "without me" LukeSurl 02:43, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

I think it is very useful in some articles that are generally about economics or finance. The graphic on top is distracting, though. It would be much more useful if updates could be made to the template itself. Does anyone know how to write such a thing?

Just speaking off of the top of my head, a time parameter would be awesome, so one could specify inputtime=1910 and outputtime=now, and actually see what a 1910 New Zealand dollar is in today's currency. (I read lines in historical biographies like "He was paid $2 an hour", and have no idea if that is good or bad.) The wiki may have all of this info somewhere; otherwise, it would have to be pulled by bot off Yahoo currency converter or somewhere with historical conversion charts. Cheers, BanyanTree 19:16, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I've seen this latter thing suggested before, but the problem is that historical conversions are an art, not a science - there are three or four ways of calculating "the equivalent value" of a historic sum, which can differ by well over an order of magnitude; the appropriate one to use depends heavily on the context, on the amount of the sum, and potentially what the original figure is referring to. It's a good-sounding idea, but I honestly believe it would end up giving us completely meaningless figures at least as often as it would give us useful ones, without any obvious way to tell users which it was putting out. Shimgray | talk | 19:05, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

• I support such a template if it's compact and automatically hidden, but I still recommend people to look on exchange sites or Google if they really don't know. - Mgm|^(talk) 12:59, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Accusations of bigamy

In the article on former Scientology leader Mark Rathbun he seems to stand accused of bigamy by Barbara Schwarz. I have excused myself from editing the article. Steve Dufour 16:43, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

You might want to post your concerns at Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard. User:Zoe|(talk) 18:36, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I have done that. Steve Dufour 23:24, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

• What is wrong with bigamy? I wish I could aford it!One to cook, one to look after the kids, one to do the housework and one for …. Well, you know!

Kiumars

Checking your spelling? - DavidWBrooks 21:35, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I have spelled out at Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard#Mark Rathbun why Mr. Dufour's report is false, but to briefly discuss it here: Barbara Schwarz says absolutely nothing about Mark Rathbun being a bigamist. She claims that she was married to Mark Rathbun and Mr. Dufour is combining that with his own beliefs that Mr. Rathbun was married to someone else to arrive at the (false) conclusion that Schwarz "seems to be" alleging Rathbun to be bigamous.

I think it goes without saying that this logic is shoddy. Under this logic, suddenly it's a WP:BLP matter to mention anything that is not agreed by any living person. "John Smith says he was born in 1965, but biographer Richard Roe says he was actually born in 1960." "Well, by saying something different from John Smith, Richard Roe seems to be calling John Smith a liar! I'm reporting it to WP:BLP as 'Richard Roe calls John Smith a liar!'" It is a fact of life that people sometimes have conflicting accounts of events. Wikipedia's policy, at least the last time I checked, was for editors to accurately report the various conflicting accounts -- not to decide their own way of resolving the conflicts (whether it be "Richard Roe is accusing John Smith of lying" or "Barbara Schwarz is accusing Mark Rathbun of bigamy") and trying to use WP:BLP to get rid of accurate reporting of the various conflicting accounts. -- Antaeus Feldspar 01:39, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

In your example if Richard Roe could back up his claim that John Smith was really born in 1960 then that would imply that John was a lair. If it was just a random opinion then it shouldn't be in a WP article. Steve Dufour 06:48, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

So, you're saying that instead of accurately reporting the various conflicting accounts, it is the right and responsibility of editors to decide their own way of resolving the conflicts and then eliminating whatever doesn't fit their "resolution". Do you really actually believe things are that neat -- i.e., either Wikipedia editors can satisfy themselves that John Smith really was born in 1960 (through first-hand research, I suppose?) or no other possibility may be breathed of? -- Antaeus Feldspar 06:59, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

If Barbara could present some evidence that it might be possible that she and Mark were married then her theories could be included in Mark's article, otherwise it is just the opinion of one person out of the six billion in the world. BTW in her own article, Barbara Schwarz the theories are presented - which is fine with me if you think she is important enough to have a WP bio. Steve Dufour 17:03, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

But this has nothing to do with the main issue, which is your claim that Barbara Schwarz "seems to be saying" that Rathbun is a bigamist, which as we have already seen is a completely false claim. I do hope you realize it's not acceptable Wikipedia behavior to make false reports just in order to get your complaints about an article on a noticeboard. -- Antaeus Feldspar 02:40, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

The article reports him being married to Anne and then it reports Barbara's saying that he was married to her. If both are true then he would have been a bigamist. Steve Dufour 06:52, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

But this has nothing to do with the main issue, which is your claim that Barbara Schwarz "seems to be saying" that Rathbun is a bigamist, which as we have already seen is a completely false claim. I do hope you realize it's not acceptable Wikipedia behavior to make false reports just in order to get your complaints about an article on a noticeboard. -- Antaeus Feldspar 19:32, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

An agreement had been reached but someone wasn't happy with it so he reverted the article back so that both Anne and Barbara are listed as possible wives of Mark. Steve Dufour 14:43, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia-related weblog comment spam

I saw some screwy-looking weblog comment spam that might lead to trouble for Wikipedia down the road. The comment, here at the physics weblog Not Even Wrong claims to be from a user named Wikipedia and talks about how wonderful Wikipedia is, but the link jumps to a Wikipedia clone site that features banner ads. I assume this is some sort of underhanded attempt to game Google's results and get higher hits, but since it takes Wikipedia's name in vain, I wanted to mention it here. -- Walt Pohl 04:28, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

WP:DENY. Durova^Charge! 07:19, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

What do the numbers mean?

Hi I'm back after a couple of months break and now find that my watchlist now has numbers after edits. What are they? Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 20:09, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

I actually just spotted that today (see above). I think it's the amount of stuff in bytes that was added or removed Nil Einne 09:20, 1 January 2007 (NZDT UTC+13)

Yes I think you may be right! Cheers! Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 20:31, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Just came across a link to this in policy about another matter Wikipedia:Added or removed characters Nil Einne 09:57, 1 January 2007 (NZDT UTC+13)

Happy New Year!

An hour late, but happy new year everyone!!! Nil Einne 01:09, 1 January 2007 (NZDT UTC+13)

Erm...Happy New Year to part of the Pacific Ocean. The rest of us are still in 2006. Durova^Charge! 19:27, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Maybe when I wrote that. But most of the world is now well into the new year. Only a small and insignificant proportion of the world like Americans and some Europeans are still stuck in 2006... :-P Nil Einne 09:15, 1 January 2007 (NZDT UTC+13)

Sniff. I'm still living in last year. Durova^Charge! 01:47, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Happy new 2007, Wikipedia. :) --Ixfd64 08:44, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

An improvement for Page Watchers

I'm unsure how this might be implemented, but it might be nice to have a way for all those "watching" a given page to communicate, or even to KNOW how many others are "watchers" of a particular page at any given time. Dec. 30, 2006 - frankatca

If you're watching a page, you're also watching its talk page, so simply posting on the talk page would get the relevant people's attention. As for knowing the number of watchers, I've asked this question before, and the answer given was that this would simply encourage vandals to vandalize less-watched pages. -- ran (talk) 19:33, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Admins can find out if a page has nobody watching it. Letting anyone have that info is giving vandals too much help. Perhaps it would help to let admins see how many watchers there are, rather than just if there are none, but I'm not sure how useful it would be. --Tango 21:39, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

My guess is that the majority of pages have a significant number of people watching them, and that a single line in the header (or at the foot of the page) like: XX people now maintain the quality of this page. would inspire greater confidence in the quality of the Wikipedia and would deter at least some vandals. I propose this changed be implemented first on, say, 10 or 50 (random) pages on a trial basis for, say 60 days, and see what happens. If it proves not to be a benefit, then scrub it. Frankatca 22:24, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

However, a lot of pages will say "0 people now maintain the quality of this page", and those will become vandal magnets very quickly. -- ran (talk) 22:25, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

A simple trial on a few pages with a variety of watcher counts will soon show what works and what doesn't. Then we'll know, and can make an informed choice. Yes? Frankatca 22:51, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I agree that it's possible, though I'm just a simple sysop and has no jurisdiction over this. =) I suggest asking at WP:VPP or WP:VPT where there might be more people involved in the technical aspect of things. Be sure to link back to this discussion as well. -- ran (talk) 22:53, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Beyond the fact that knowing a page is unwatched encourages vandalism, knowing a page is watched doesn't give you much information on its quality. Not only are there many things on my watch list that I don't always keep careful track of, but there are many pages being watched only by inactive users. Just because a page is on someone's (or even many people's) watch list doesn't really tell you much about its accuracy. In the vain of getting information about active watcher of articles, the {{maintained}} template was created. I don't think it's being widely used, however. --best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 00:14, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Not only that but it doesn't matter whether users are active or not. I'm fairly active on wikipedia nowadays. I also occasionally do some RC patrolling of pages manually and I do usually revert vandalism on sight and warn vandals (which sadly not many people do). I also have quite a number of pages on my watchlist. But I don't do RC patrolling of my watchlist, indeed I very rarely visit it. I use it more as a bookmark function Nil Einne 02:55, 1 January 2007 (NZDT UTC+13)

Holy crap, I have 86 pages on my watchlist excluding talk pages. Anyway it does demonstrate why it's a bad idea Nil Einne 03:03, 1 January 2007 (NZDT UTC+13)

Can someone tell me how this is not vandalism?

This user altered the deletion result tag in Talk:Lolicon from this:

This article was nominated for deletion on January 14, 2006. The result of the discussion was Speedy Keep. An archived record of this discussion can be found here.

to this:

This article was nominated for deletion on January 14, 2006. The result of the discussion was Speedy Keep, ZOOOOOM. 8) An archived record of this discussion can be found here.

He then put a hidden comment that says "dude I put this here myself, it's not vandalism". Can someone make sense out of this? Because I can't =S AQu01rius (User &#149; Talk) 01:24, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

It's an old story and edit war. It's even mentioned on WP:LAME. --Wildnox(talk) 01:28, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

It's a mod with a sense of humour, not vandalism. Leave it. --tjstrf talk 19:53, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

...I don't know. It isn't offensive...but I guess it is somewhat distracting.

Wikiversity

There are 3,000,000 registered users at Wikipedia. At Wikiversity there is almost five thousand. As an active Wikiversity user, I (officially) encourage Wikipedians to flood Wikiversity with their knowledge and good faith efforts.--Remi0o 06:20, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

As soon as Single User Login comes through, you'll have 3 mil too. And that rhymes, lovely! ;) JoeSmack ^Talk 19:25, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

WikipediaWeekly podcast Digg

Please digg the WikipediaWeekly podcast here JACOPLANE • 2006-12-29 23:54

Dugg! JoeSmack ^Talk 19:26, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

"Scientology-sponsored"

In the article on Scientology critic Tilman Hausherr it mentions a website that is "Scientology-sponsored". That sounds a little odd to me. You wouldn't say a site was "Christianity-sponsored" or "liberalism-sponsored". I tried to change it to "sponsored by Scientologists" but it was changed back right away.Steve Dufour 03:46, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

The issue may be that you are using too broad an analogy. While one would likely not use the examples you supply, one can easily come up with appropriate usages for, for example, "Presbyterian-sponsored", "Whig-sponsored", or "Kiwanis-sponsored". In response to the potential argument that there are Scientologists who are not part of the Church of Scientology -- and therefore not sponsors, even indirectly of the website in question, I would say that, equally, there are those who identify as Knox-descended Protestants, anti-Tories, and even lunchtime social/networking afficionados who do not identify with their respective representative institutions -- but that the overwhelming practice is still to refer generally to those institutions in terms parallel to using "Scientology" to refer to the church. Robertissimo 04:54, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

In that case I think it would be more clear if the article said "sponsored by the Church of Scientology", if that is the case. Steve Dufour 06:07, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

While the Church of Scientology International Inc is a major organization under the Scientology umbrella, it certainly isn't the only one, nor the most senior. The Religious Technology Center handles copyright and trademark legal cases, the International Association of Scientologists collects a large warchest of funds for many actions, there are a whole series of Church of Scientology incorporations at the continental and lower levels, there are unincorporated organizations such as the Sea Org, the Office of Special Affairs and the Scientology Parishioners Committee. The courts and organizations like the US IRS frequently lump this tangle under the name Scientology.

Non-Church of Scientology Scientologists (Free Zone and others) can informally call themselves that, but the RTC holds the trademark on the word Scientology and is quite dedicated to enforcing it, so they can't use the term formally for anything they do, especially offering services using the name. So Scientology not equivalent to Presbyterian or Whig. AndroidCat 14:49, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Only a person really into Scientology would know this. To most outsiders I think "Scientology-sponsored" sounds like jargon. Steve Dufour 16:24, 27 December 2006 (UTC) But then again they might be too low on the vibrational scale to understand anyway. :-) Have a great 2007!!!

Hypothetical outsiders would never have heard of break-away groups from Scientology. 22:14, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

"Hypothetical" might be the key word after all.  :-) the real Steve Dufour 06:57, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Donations!

Look at the amount of donations Wiki receives every week (on top of the page)! They are making a good money on the back of our hard work! Kiumars

• The Foundation is not-for-profit. To discuss matters relating to the foundation, you are welcome to participate in discussions at Foundation-l, the mailing list for announcements, cross-project matters and Wikimedia Foundation issues.Steve block Talk 17:50, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

America's Next Top Model

I don't know where this would go...so I decided to try it out here. My question is: This page, and all its "cycle" pages, have ridiculously large trivia sections. I was for deleting it, but then ran into the Survivor Trivia page, where its Afd discussion ended as "no consensus". The thing is, much of the trivia is not exactly verifiable, because it deals with things like "weight". How are we supposed to know the lightest contestant, or the tallest, when there are no sources saying so? Moreover, weight changes so frequently that the lightest contestant at time of measurement is not really the lightest contestant. Much of the trivia falls under "original research", and so I think most of this section is totally unnecessary. However, when trivia is deleted, it is put back in. Talking on the talk page does nothing. There are edit wars over certain "facts", because people just randomly insert who they think is correct. Therefore, I would like to know who to go to, and what to do. If this is not the place, please redirect me. :P SKS2K6 01:09, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

This isn't advice you want to hear, but I'd say just ignore it. The show's fad will pass and the article can be cleaned up in a few months, when nobody cares about it any more. Life is too short to fixate on such trivia; find some worthwhile articles to work on, and enjoy yourself that way. - DavidWBrooks 03:12, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Good Advice! :-) Happy New Year! Steve Dufour 06:50, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Special:Statistics

Not sure where to put this... The alexa link on Special:Statistics needs updated. Alexa changed their link structure and the current link does not display the traffic graph correct (correct link is here).

On a similar note- the challenges on Special:Recentchanges need updated to match the ones currently at Wikipedia:Challenges. --- RockMFR 22:23, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Done and done. —David Levy 22:58, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Request for Rollback

I don't know precisely where this should go, so please feel free to move this request. I am formally requesting rollback privileges, so that I can use them to fight spam and vandalism. I feel there are many editors who can vouch for me, and seeing as how I don't have a snowball's chance in hell of being promoted to admin, I would like to be granted rollback-specific admin privileges. As far as I know, this is technically possible, yet would require some configuration by the developers. Perhaps there are others who desire admin rollback without admin responsibilities that could benefit from a change. -- Jmax- (talk · contribs · count) 08:41, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

• This is probably going to end up at perennial proposals. There was a request for this about a year ago, Wikipedia:Requests for rollback privileges, but it failed to gain consensus. However, there are some scripts which allow an effect similar to the rollback button, looking at Wikipedia:WikiProject User scripts it appears User:Misza13 has a godmode-light.js. Hope that helps. Maybe you should have a crack at adminship anyway. You never know. Steve block Talk 11:35, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

The version of godmode-light I found (by User:Olliminatore) does not work so well. I will note my request at VP (proposals). -- Jmax- 21:59, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Virgin Unite

Am I missing something or is there a copyrighted image within the fundraising template.. ? thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 00:06, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

The Virgin Unite site gives me a blank page when I try to go there. *Dan T.* 00:31, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

• Try [5]; that's where it should point to. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 00:45, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
• Cyde covers what's going on pretty damn well at Talk:Main Page in this edit. Steve block Talk 00:58, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Thanks for the show of faith, I try :-P Cyde Weys 01:03, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
    • You're welcome, although I think it's fair to point out I've heard it said you are very trying indeed. :-P Nah, in all honesty I thought you hit it on the head, and it would've been wrong to just steal your explanation. Anyways, I'm off to bed. Take it easy. Steve block Talk 01:55, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

why is this called village pump?

yes?

Please see Wikipedia talk:Village pump#Where does the name "village pump" come from?. -- Rick Block (talk) 22:17, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

jet stream

I am curious to know what they called the jet stream before we had jet airplanes? or is it the reverse? did we have jet streams -if so, why the word JET/

Thanks

Tom Brown —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.181.33.117 (talk) 21:37, 27 December 2006 (UTC).

"High winds" or "high westerlies"; they were mostly an academic curiosity until the 1940s, when we finally got high-altitude aircraft encountering them. See Jet stream#Discovery. Shimgray | talk | 21:55, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Eid al adha

I am a frequent user of wikipedia. I do not mean to cause problems, but I read an error that may be offensive to other Muslims. Eid al Adha is the commeration of Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son, but that son was Ismail. The misprint on your site is a highly offensive comment that is used against Muslims to degrade their history. I do not think this was your intention, but I wanted to give you the oppurtunity to fix it before other Muslims read it.

It looks like the wording is already changed. I made a small change.Steve Dufour 03:50, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

User:Goyston/WikiQuiz

I have just put up Round One of WikiQuiz. Those who enjoy Wikifun may be interested, or anyone who likes puzzles. And Wikipedia. And riddles. And finding things. And userboxes for prizes. Whoo! Enjoy. And I apologize for posting similar messages to a few places. --Goyston (talk) (contribs) 23:28, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedian's being notable

Here's a simple question that might lead to an interesting idle chat: How big does Wikipedia need to become for "high ranking" Wikipedians (stewards, crats, ArbCom, for example) to be notable enough for a Wikipedia article based on their position in Wikipedia alone? My personal opinion is that news coverage will be the main limiting factor - once Wikipedia is big enough for ArbCom cases to become newsworthy (occasionally, anyway - I doubt we'll ever be at a point where all cases are reported in external news sources), members of ArbCom can start being considered for articles. Similar conditions would apply to other Wikipedians. --Tango 20:00, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia will never be big enough for "high ranking" Wikipedians to be notable enough for a Wikipedia article based on their position in Wikipedia alone. The criteria from Wikipedia:Notability (people) apply, specifically subject of multiple non-trivial published works. -- Rick Block (talk) 21:14, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Santa Claus Article

The article on Santa Claus is terrible! It's full of errors both grammatical and informational. There are so many, "Some say"s it's nauseating.

Thank you for your suggestion! When you feel an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the Edit this page link at the top. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons why you might want to). The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes — they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. User:Zoe|(talk) 17:29, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Watch users?

As you may know, it's possible to watch certain pages. But is it possible to watch certain user's contributions? --AAA! ^{(AAAA • AAAAAAAA)} 13:33, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Not by any automated process. You could keep a link to their contributions page and observe that from time to time, but beware of being considered a stalker. User:Zoe|(talk) 16:53, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

I've written a javascript tool to do this; you can see details at User:Tra#User watchlist. Tra (Talk) 17:07, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm not using it to stalk people. It's for a vandal I'm trying to take care of. --AAA! ^{(AAAA • AAAAAAAA)} 23:39, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

WP:AIAV is probably an easier way to go. Circeus 02:18, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Actually, it's more like WP:RFI (sockpuppets included). --AAA! ^(AAAA) 02:20, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

What if an article needs to be rewritten from the beginning?

What do you do if you find an article which has been in time for some place and which is so completely off skew that the information in it needs to be renamed in a new article and the old article rewritten from scratch? The article Plant perception is obviously in need of being renamed Plant perception (paranormal). Plant perception is entirely unrelated to the article content as it is recognized, very mundane and very normal (even dull) science related to plant physiology. Trilobitealive 00:59, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

You can just use the "move" button at the top of the page. However, you should probably leave a note on the current talk page to see if there are any objections and give people a few days to respond. - BanyanTree 14:56, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm amazed that so many of my newby questions have such obvious answers. I've been posting in the talk page, have just put up a statement of intent and will give it a few more days before moving.Trilobitealive 15:46, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Christmas Card

Merry Christmas! Wishing you a happy and safe Christmas season, and a blessed new year. Enjoy where you are, and who your with. Merry Christmas! From, Defrag and Jilly.

Thanks! --AAA! ^{(AAAA • AAAAAAAA)} 13:33, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

How Did the Wik Admins Get Away With Their Bullying and Lies over Gretaw Supposedly being a Sockpuppet?

How Did the Wik admins get away with their bullying and lies over Gretaw supposedly being a sockpuppet? If this is the standard wik runs at and on, then it isnt doing real flash - is it. Is wik a place where total bullies hang out to pounce on new editors, give them total grief, then form a larger bully gang when they cannot immediately bend new editors to their perverted dynamics,and tell lies and go on with a heap of other stuff (importing admins from the US for heavans sake, then pushing new people out. Wik is totally sick if this is how it continues to run. The little bully boy admin process is totally sick also. Poor show wik. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 203.54.9.138 (talk) 01:39, 25 December 2006 (UTC).

This Anon is banned from Wikipedia. "Gundagai editor" -- Bidgee 03:22, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Infinity hurts so much

If an infinite amount of monkeys are tapping on keyboards, will an infinite amount produce the works of Shakespeare be produced? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Gesiwuj (talk • contribs) 21:58, 24 December 2006 (UTC).

Yes, theoretically, see Infinite monkey theorem. If you have any further questions, please ask at the reference desk. Tra (Talk) 22:27, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

No, probably not. The keyboards would wear out first. Philip J. Rayment 00:11, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Infinity is a theoretical concept. We employ it; we don't know that it exists. If it exists, then it is improbable that those cute little devils would not produce Shakespeare's Hamlet. Bus stop 00:53, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

This doesn't stop The Library of Babel from being a fascinating read, though. GeeJo ^(t)⁄_(c) • 19:46, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Help

Could someone please help with Template:Baywatch Nav and make it look a bit better please. I have seen such things where they look nice and are a lot smaller and fit the page better. Thank You Samaster1991 17:19, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I've had a go with it. Does it look any better? Tra (Talk) 19:23, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Looks a lot better thanks Samaster1991 20:25, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Bombing of Gernika

In Bombing of Gernika and related articles (e.g. Guernica (painting)), we've been dealing with what I presume is one persistent anonyomous participant who keeps removing all but the lowest respectable estimates of fatalities (trimming the range from 250–1,600 to 250–300, and periodcally removing all citations except one rather vague citation that apparently supports his/her views). There is something of an exchange on this at Talk:Bombing of Gernika#It's a shame!!!. The current text is a reluctant compromise on my part.

This seems to be a content dispute—at worst, editing against consensus—rather than outright vandalism, so I don't think protection would be in order. But, to raise the issue to something slightly more general: how can we possibly resolve a matter where one party to a dispute has no identity, cites sources only vaguely, etc.? Its like wrestling something made of gelatin. - Jmabel | Talk 08:24, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

This person seems to use a variety of IP addresses so I've semi-protected both pages. Notify me when you think they're ready to unprotect. Durova^Charge! 14:34, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. So you feel article protection is the best way to deal with this? I guess it's not the worst, but what's to stop someone just opening throwaway accounts? - Jmabel | Talk 08:42, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Most vandals don't have the patience to wait four days. Open up a request at WP:RFI if this one does. Durova^Charge! 13:11, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

This one's been doing this on and off for three months. We are dealing with a POV-pusher, not a common vandal. - Jmabel | Talk 03:46, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

A caution for people starting projects that will generate lots of edits.

When you notice something you consider a systemic problem, it is very tempting to immediately start a project to correct it. One common instance of this involved searching out all instances of this problem, listing them, and calling in people to make the edits or set up bots to make those edits.

It's important to act with caution when doing so. Wide spread editing across a lot of articles based on search results can cause disruption, upset and offence to the editors maintaining those articles. Especially when actioned by proceeding through a list by rote.

Advertise your intent somewhere that is appropriate, either here or in an appropriate talk page. You may be mistaken in your actions, and a timely warning from someone might save you embarrassment. Your actions might be achievable in a simpler way, which would save time and effort. There may be notable exceptions to your assumptions which need to be addressed. All of these may be brought up in discussion before you act.

It's important that your actions meet the consensus view on how something should be handled. --Barberio 20:46, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

see WP:OWN.Geni 21:35, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Would two threads in WP:AN and 3 conversations with highly respected admins/checkusers on IRC count as "Advertise your intent"? ---J.S ^(T/C) 21:46, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

No. WP:AN is not a place for advertising or discussing non-administration tasks and projects. Conversations on IRC do not equate to or replace consensus discussion on the wiki, no matter how highly respected the individuals involved may be. --Barberio 23:26, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I'd have more sympathy for your point of view if a) you didn't come across as more concerned about process then you are about the problem and b) you actually did your research. Telling Dmcedvit to stop deleting links when he hasn't been deleting any only goes to show that you started complaining without actually researching what was actually going on. Secondly, AWB isn't a bot. All of my deletions have involved my making a personal decision in each case and the only automation is that AWB has been sorting the list and helping me find the links quickly. The deletions have been discussed on EL. There is screeds of the stuff there and WP:C is also relevant because its a policy and trumps a guideline. There is no perfect place to discuss this kind of undertaking and I would of thought asking 1000 admins to review activity was a damn fine way of checking that said activity was within the bounds of accepted activity. Remember that policy is what happens, not just what gets written down. You were aware of that weren't you? Finally, the RFC acknowledges that there are a lot of copyvios that need to be removed and also endorses the need to consider links in context. Well, I have been doing that and I know J.smith has as well because we have discussed borderline cases. So, where is the activity outside consensus? Spartaz 00:00, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

1. You should have gained consensus support before starting.
2. Asking others to delete links is deleting links.
3. The amount of people who have complained at Wikipedia_talk:External_links over this 'project' and remain unconvinced that it should proceed as-is does not indicate to me that there is consensus on the issue.

To reiterate, the most important part is that projects of this sort should have consensus discussion and support before being acted on. These kinds of project are among the exceptions to 'Be Bold' because of their potential to disrupt.--Barberio 00:24, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Your objections is very odd. I've repeatitdly asked for people to show me links I've removed in error and I have gotten only one example of such. 1 out of 500 seems to be a good trackrecord, if I don't say so myself. Feel free to dig though my contributions and see if you can find more.... but I assure you both spartaz and I have done an excelent job sorting out the "keeps" and "removes." I'll even reactive the project so you have something more recent to look though. ---J.S ^(T/C) 17:19, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps then Cindery was right, and the real source of the problem is one particular editor who has been persistently re-deleting YouTube links even after being informed that the links are not copyvio. Should I drop the RfC and all else, and just file a user-conduct RfC against that one editor? Argyriou (talk) 04:07, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

External Links may not include links to copyright violations. This is policy. YouTube has lots of copyright violations. This is fact. Removal of YouTube links which link to copyright violations is not only allowable, but encouraged. User:Zoe|(talk) 03:38, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia ripoffs?

So I found my userpage on some online prescription website, and now I know why I've seen the "This is a Wikipedia userpage. If you're seeing this on some other website..." template on some userpages. What's the name of that template? Xaxafrad 05:31, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Oh look, I found it, {{Userpage}}. Xaxafrad 05:38, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Where? Patstuart^talk|edits 17:59, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

{{Userpage}}; just type what Xaxafrad wrote above on your page. Xiner 18:19, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

No, I meant, where's the rip off site? -Patstuart^talk|edits 21:23, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Ninjas or Pirates?

There is a big discussion going on about ninjas and pirates. the disscusion topic is "which is more popular, Pirates or Ninjas?". Everybody has a lot to say about this question so please say what you think and don't be afraid because you need to speak to be heard.

Gogoboi662 11:45, 25 October 2006 (UTC)Anthony Schade

Pirate all the way! yo ho! yo ho! A Pirates life for me! also people love Caption Jack Sparrow and how many famous ninjas can you list? hmmmmmmmmm? ШнΨ ʃǏĜĤ†¿ ĞІνΣ ÎИ тФ ΤĦƏ ɖĄГĶ Ѕǀɠё фʃ ʈНę ʃФŖĆÉǃ 20:58, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Let me see. The Ninja Turtles? That makes five for starters? Samsara (talk • contribs) 19:37, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

pirates spend alot of time so drunk they can't move, the ninja would have no trouble. by theonlysmartoneherelol

Pirates, naturally. ;)--The Corsair 00:39, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Ninjas, clearly. Deco 07:25, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Pirates. The fact that I'm former Navy has absolutely nothing to do with it. ;) Durova 13:18, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Pirates will own ninjas any day :P --Kar_the_Everburning 22:37, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

I think ninjas may be better disciplined than pirates, but then after watching a docu-drama on the BBC about Blackbeard, I think they might be evenly matched.

Also pirates have cannons. Do ninjas have cannons? I don't think so. :P--Kar_the_Everburning 14:12, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Then again, do pirates have weapons which can barely be pronounced? I don't think so. --Joti 22:55, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Are they fighting on land or at sea? I'd go with ninjas if on land and pirates if they were fighting on different ships. If they were fighting on the same ship, I'd still go with pirates since they might be better in a melee and would be accustomed to fighting on a ship.

If it were cavemen versus astronauts, I'd go with cavemen as long as there were no weapons, or only primitive weapons like sticks. I think all of the hard work that the cavemen do would make them stronger and they'd probably have experience from fighting with other cavemen. -- Kjkolb 09:47, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

This is going to change into a whole different subject because of your post, Kjkolb o.O

If a caveman took somthing from an astronaut, lets say... a laser sword(I'm so immature xD), I think you would run 'cause I don't think an astronaut would have any use for a wooden/bone club.--Kar_the_Everburning 15:05, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Ninjas pwn j00 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Laelius1031 (talk • contribs) 22:32, 31 October 2006

Pirates, of course. (Oh, and the fact that my username, minus the numbers, is a synonym for pirate is completely coincedental!) Picaroon9288 00:55, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

ROBOTS ARE CLEARLY SUPERIOR — Omegatron 01:18, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

INDEED. SUPERIOR TO BOTH PIRATES AND NINJAS (WHILE STILL INFERIOR TO ROBOTS) WOULD BE THE PIRATE NINJA. - Robovski 00:12, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

The answer is perfectly obvious: given that ninjas and pirates are both good, it surely follows that pirate ninjas (such as Chris) are better than either one. -- AJR | Talk 17:58, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Puh-lease. Just picture the Pirate/Ninja stealthily sneaking into the bedroom under cover of darkness - clinging to the ceiling with tiny bamboo-leaf sucker cups attached to fingertips and toes - and assasinating your enemy with a single drop of lethal poison by trickling it down a fine thread lowered into his mouth....with an eye patch, one wooden leg, a hook for a hand and a damn great red and blue parrot on his shoulder incessantly yelling "PIECES OF EIGHT!! PIECES OF EIGHT!!" ??? I didn't think so. SteveBaker 23:14, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Pirates, DUH!A7X 900 21:35, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Given that there are likely far more actual pirates than real ninjas in the world today, I'd say pirates are more popular, even though I personally find ninjas more interesting. But piracy a more popular occupation, judging by acquaintances I have who sail in tropical seas. I've met more people who have encountered real pirates than people who have encountered real ninjas. =Axlq 22:01, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

That's because nobody who meets a ninja lives to tell about it! Deco 09:51, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Ghost pirates!(i've posted too many times here >.<)--Kar_the_Everburning 14:59, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

• There is a need for more practice of Piracy. Ninjitsu is an overrated and loathesome past time that need not be afflicted upon the peoples of the world. Someday the pirates wil be up in arms and all the Ninja will do is a pretty backflip onto some roof in the horizon, then prance about with flashy stars and I will be in my house laughing and consuming the maids latest affrontary on the consumable medium. May Satan save us all.--R.A Huston 08:30, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

• Dude! Ninjas all the way! Kyo cat^meow! 06:47, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

• Ninjas Clearly way cooler than pirates --Fittysix 03:54, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

• Ninjas...for obvious reasons... ;) --さくら木 11:11, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

• 20 legit reasons that pirates are better (from a Facebook group; I'm not responsible for any contraversial points as I didn't make them):

1. Ninjas don’t choose to be sneaky, they have to be. The only way that they can kill anyone is if they sneak up and stab them in the back and then run away. Pirates basically announce that they are coming because they know that no one can stop them.
2. Ninjas have poor social skills. That is why they are such loners. Do you ever see a loner pirate? No.
3. Pirates get all the booty.
4. Famous pirate movie: Pirates of the Caribbean (Johnny Depp is a pimp)... Famous ninja movie: 3 Ninjas (enough said) (What? did you say "what about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?" Well see #10 below duh.)
5. Pirates get pet monkeys and parrots. Ninjas get nothing.
6. Pirates eat meat off the bone. Ninjas eat low fat yogurt (it’s the only thing that is transportable enough for them to carry in their black clothes or whatever the heck they wear).
7. Pirates get to use cool words such as “Yo Ho,” “wench,” and “argh.” Ninjas don’t talk (poor social skills, remember?).
8. 84% of ninjas are homosexual. Look it up. It’s a fact.
9. Pirates speak English. People who speak English are BETTER THAN EVERYONE ELSE. Plus, they have cool accents.
10. One might say, “Well, what about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?” Now, I will admit that the Ninja Turtles are awesome. Unfortunately, they are NOT ninjas. According to TheFreeDictionary.com, The definition of a ninja is “a person skilled in ninjitsu.” The definition of a person is “a living human.” Therefore, a ninja is “a living human skilled in ninjitsu.” Since they are turtles, they are not ninjas.
11. George Washington was a pirate.
12. Pirates have been known to eat up to 70 pancakes in one sitting. Can a ninja do that? No sir.
13. Pirates have a universal symbol: the Jolly Roger.
14. Ninjas have no famous Disney characters. Pirates have Captain Hook.
15. Pirates sing pirate songs. Ninjas just read Cosmo.
16. No one can make artificial limbs look cool like pirates can.
17. Pirates get to pillage. Pillage...what a freaking cool word.
18. Shakespeare prefers pirates. There are pirates in The Tempest. Are there ninjas in any of Shakespeare's works!? No!
19. In the song "That's Life", Frank Sinatra sings, "I've been a puppet, a pauper, A PIRATE, a poet, a pawn and a king." Frank Sinatra is a pirate, FRANK SINATRA. Beat that, ninjas.
20. Ninjas don't get to keep the stuff that they steal, they give it to their government. You know what that means?, Ninjas work for the man, that's right, THE MAN. Nobody likes the man.

--Vic226 03:41, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Vic226 make's a great point.A7X 900 19:19, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Dural: has everyone forgotten about pirate ninja mimes? they are the best thing imaginalbe! not only can they do everything pirates and ninjas can, they can also use invisible weapons, deflect anything with their glass boxes, and "fly" using invisible staircases! :poseted by Dural (who is currently NOT a member... but that will change within a week)

Kim Arhee: Now lets stay on task here- this is a popularity contest. The constant bickering over these two classic predatorial archetypes has emerged in recent years due to a combination of media campaigns. Notice how the two most popular Shonen Jump (tm) titles, One piece to piracy as Naruto is to Ninjitsu, and their relatively recent introduction to western popular culture. Admittedly One piece does conincide with the fanatical following of Pirates of the Carribean in a very timely fashion, but Ninja have been supremely popular with the youth of the past generation- Power Rangers, the 3 Ninjas franchise et al. Of course we could go into lots of petty disputes over the romanticizing of oriental assassination in various literary texts and how pirates dress not for practice,but how well the aparell catches the fellow sailors' amourous attention, however im sure we can come to an agreemnt on the "more important" facts like who Frank Sinatra referenced in an obscure song. Focus people, this is not a Johnny Depp character portrayal popularity contest, this is to decide which career is the best for toy companies to market as a fad for all 6 year old children in 1st world countries.

Hey everybody, please stick to my topic question because me and probably every one else are getting confused about what this discussion is really about. I would really appreciate it.Gogoboi662 19:32, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I am a Pirate, trained in Ninjutsu. Gilgamesh Rex 23:29, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Ninjas, arrrr. Samsara (talk • contribs) 19:10, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Anybody who has read Real Ultimate Power would know that Ninjas own everything. MadHistorian 00:47, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Its always pirates this, pirates that, heres one: pirates drunk! A ninja would basically need to walk up to any comatose pirate and throw the away with the rest of the trash! It not just that I dont like drinking, its that pirates suck -Charlie34

God gave ninjas the power of flipping out and of being totally sweet. Pirates are just clumsy swashbuckling imitations who wouldn't know a good assassination if it sliced open their jugular or poisoned them in their sleep. --Gwern (contribs) 04:12 22 December 2006 (GMT)

As amusing as pirates and ninjas are, the Village Pump is not for non-Wikipedia-related discussions. If you wish to converse on this matter, please discuss it on a forum website. --Gray Porpoise_{Your wish is my command!} 16:38, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Good point Porpoise. Is there a Wikipedia page dealing with the pirate/ninja controversy? We are obviously in need of some solid facts to help us make this decision. TimVickers 20:09, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Pirates versus Ninjas --Gray Porpoise_{Your wish is my command!} 02:43, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

New feature

What are these negative and positive red/green numbers that now appear next to edits on my watch page?--Deglr6328 06:33, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm guessing it is a feature that shows how many characters were either removed (in red) or added (in green) to the article difference. I've just noticed this too, I'm sure there will be a detailed post on the notice board on the CP or some such. JoeSmack ^Talk 06:36, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Close, it's bytes, not characters. See Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Colored_numbers_in_Watchlist. (There's a big notice at the top of my watchlist telling me to go read that, I'm not sure why not everyone's seeing it.) --Sam Blanning^(talk) 13:16, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

What just happened???

I typed "pokemon red" in the search box and hit Enter. It took me to an article with a disgusting, perhaps pornographic, image, causing me to immediately click it off. I typed "pokemon red" again, and it was a nice, clean redirect to a nice, clean Pokémon Red and Blue article. I checked the revision histories of the redirect page and the article, but could not find evidence of such vandalism. --Gray Porpoise_{Your wish is my command!} 03:03, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

I see that it was vandalism to Template:Pokémon games. --Gray Porpoise_{Your wish is my command!} 03:09, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Approval for deletion by bot

User_talk:Cyde#Wikipedia:Deletion_review.2FLog.2F2006_December_19

I've raised some concerns there about having an automated script do deletions. Trying to keep it short:

• Con
  • Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/TawkerbotTorA shows that there is not community consensus for unsupervised administration actions.
  • There's been no substantial discussion of this anywhere, including at Wikipedia talk:Bots/Requests for approval.
• Pro
  • It's uncontroversial work
  • The Wikipedia:Bots/Approvals group is unfussed per Cyde's talk.

My strong feeling is that this is a direction that the community is unwilling to go, that there is neither enough volume of work nor anything emergency-like enough to warrant short-cutting discussion, and that there is a gap between what's going on in bot-land and the zeitgeist.
brenneman 23:58, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

I think the assertion that the community is unwilling to allow this is incorrect, you even say so yourself in the Pro section above when you say it's uncontroversial. It's work that needs to be done, doesn't hurt anything, quite provably makes Wikipedia better in every respect, and is A Good Thing. Objecting to this is the triumph of process over Doing The Right Thing. I urge the community to look at the LENGTHY history of this semi-automated operation and come out strongly in favor of the thankless, useful, positive work that Cyde is doing and stop this in its tracks. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 00:15, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

My main objection to the above statement is the suggestion that I'm trying to get a form filled out in triplicate. My objection is much more along the lines of decisions being made by fairly small groups without broader input or even any sort of accountability trail. But I'll be quiet now, and hear what the crowd has to say. - brenneman 00:31, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

The bots that empty and feed categories to delete are ok, because no one really wants to do that kind of work anyways. I don't see the issue (as it is a secret as badly-kept as Curps' blockbot). TawkerbotTorA doesn't really apply as a precedent, as the premise is different: blocking Tor nodes from an external site is not the same as an admin feeding a category that has been deemed to be deleted by consensus into a script. It's no different than having a public script installable by admins. Titoxd^(?!?) 00:18, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, seeing as it has run without problem for months, I don't see much of a problem with it. Unlike the TawkerbotTorA plan to block open proxies, people will notice if the bot deletes something it isn't supposed to, won't they? The people who participated in the CFD in the first place are likely to notice if a cat with 2 deletes and 7 keeps goes missing, it seems. Furthermore, the bot is operating on Cyde's main account, so he'll be able to keep it under close watch. In conclusion, since it's run without problem for a while already, I say just let it run until it screws up (and if it doesn't screw up at all, then everything's fine and the worrying will all be for nothing.) Picaroon 00:24, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Endorse, given the BAG have given their approval. That's enough in other cases, so I see no reason why it shouldn't be here. Daniel.Bryant ^{[ T · C ]} 00:38, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

First, let me give some context for uninitiated readers, as I had no idea what everyone was talking about until I dug a bit. Cyde's deletion log shows deletion of categories, with edit summaries "Robot: ..." Meanwhile, Special:Contributions/Cydebot show that it is removing or replacing those categories from pages.

I appreciate brenneman's concern about small groups making decisions about sysop bots. I also wish that the BAG would have made their approval more explicit. That said, I've occasionally, when doing category work, wondered what sad sack was slogging through CFD. I'm a little relieved to find out that it's bot work and support its continued use. - BanyanTree 01:21, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I confess to not understanding the process, and so I miss the point of half of the procedural objection. But the bot currently seems to be doing a good job in a thankless area, there have been no foul-ups or substantive objections. So, all kudos to Cyde, and endorse what he's doing.--Doc^g 01:49, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Since this is run by Cyde on his own account (which makes him and his account fully responsible for the bot's actions), it's probably alright, although I would prefer direct supervision. I would suggest that the edit summaries be upgraded with links to appropriate CFD discussions, so that the people unfamiliar with the bot can check that it's doing the right things. Zocky | picture popups 02:01, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I have no objection to this bot activity, which obviously has gone smoothly and should continue. I do, however, object to Cyde's dismissive response ("Nothing new to see here, move along now." "Please go back to writing articles or somesuch.") and I applaud Aaron's perseverance and eagerness to seek community input on this matter. —David Levy 03:57, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Just to be exactly clear, here's how CFD worked before Cydebot: The bot moves a bunch of pages from category A to category B, then an admin has to come in and delete the old category A. Here's how CFD works with Cydebot: The bot moves a bunch of pages from category A to category B, and then deletes category A. Note that at no point in time is the bot ever deciding what category A and B are; it's going strictly by what trusted users at the consensus-driven CFD process are determining. I simply made the task slightly more automated by having the bot handle the category deletions as well as moving the category text on the pages. --Cyde Weys 04:03, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Just a few things regarding that -

• It's opaque to most people who's doing what in this case, and the point of bot accounts is to resolve that ambiguity. So when refering to "Cydebot" most people are going to think "the account linked to User:Cydebot" not "the bit of python script that's running on Cyde's machine that is has the filename 'Cydebot'".
• While there are quite a few of these emptied categories, the number is hardly overwhelming, about 115 a day it looks like. Is there a reason that this cannot be done AWB style in a bot-assisted deletion rather than simply feeding it the list and letting it go?

And while I understand the arguments of "it's working just fine, why complain?" I'd like some assurances from the bot approval group and/or Cyde that, whatever the outcome of these discussions, slightly more care is taken in the future? Either re-write the policy pages to reflect reality (which would require community consensus) or follow the policy pages as they are written.

brenneman 04:16, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

The bot approval group has given you repeated assurances on this issue. It appears as if you're not getting the response you anticipated, but I encourage you to pause for a moment, see that consensus already exists, and accept it. You've expressed your concern, and it's clear that we support the thankless, necessary, and good work that Cyde's script is doing. Cyde remains accountable for all of his actions, this is no different. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 04:22, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Okay, here are some responses. First of all, that magic sauce in Cydebot is actually written in Perl, not Python. And I don't have any files named Cydebot anywhere (Cydebot just happens to be the name of the user account I run the scripts on). You say is there a reason it can't be done in an AWB bot-assisted deletion ... I would counter with, is there a reason it cannot be done in an automated fashion? Why force people to unnecessarily perform 115 individual deletions when a bot can handle it perfectly on its own? I guess you weren't around before Cydebot but WP:CFDW would frequently get weeks of backup. There was an overwhelmingly large amount of work required to process it, and it was really sluggish. That's what happened when the only tools available to us were manual AWB runs that could only handle one category move at a time. Why would we want to return to those days? Now, with Cydebot, WP:CFDW is pretty much empty most of the time! --Cyde Weys 04:23, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

If the Approvals group doesn't care, I don't see why we should. --Gwern (contribs) 04:11 22 December 2006 (GMT)

If it's working, then leave it alone. I frankly don't see the problem with bot-run administration tasks in which there is a very specific task that they do. Definitely not enough of a problem to stop a bot that has been running with approval and without problems, and probably not enough to stop one that was running without approval and without problems. Sure, it's only a few hundred edits, but why waste a human's time with mechanical edits in general? --tjstrf talk 04:29, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

This is a non issue; Bot Approval group members have repeatedly endorsed this, and the script has been handling Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Working for five months now, allowing the rest of us to focus on improving other areas of the wiki. No objections here either, please carry on and accept my thanks as well. Can't sleep, clown will eat me 05:27, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Has anyone volunteered to delete these thousands of category pages manually? If so, why should they spend time on that instead of work on the things in the huge Category:Administrative backlog? —Centrx→talk • 07:57, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

• Could Cyde's pseudobot also handle IFD, AFD, TFD and MFD deletion backlog (close the discussion, delete any images that only appear in that article, remove any incoming wikilinks, delete the article with a link to the xFD in the edit summary) if restricted to only uncontroversial discussions? Say, 100% consensus to delete, no multiple article xFDs, more than 5 delete 'votes'. This would free up us dumb, slow humans to tackle the copyvio, image fair use and speedy backlogs. Proto::► 10:22, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Are you under the impression that the deletion of an article calls for a sysop to "delete any images that only appear in that article"? Have you been doing this? There is no such policy, and a recent discussion demonstrated no consensus for instituting one. —David Levy 14:03, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Deleting an article is not as simple as just hitting delete on the article. There can be other concomitant tasks as well, such as dealing with incoming redlinks and ensuring that any fair use images that become orphaned as a result of the deletion are marked for deletion under Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion#I5. Uncle G 17:53, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm well aware of that, but Proto didn't mention "fair use images" in that context. Proto inquired as to whether Cyde's bot could "delete any images that only appear in that article." —David Levy 03:58, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

• Given the sheer amount of backlogs we get, I see no problem with this particular form of automation. If the bot starts making mistakes we can undo them and block the bot while we discuss it. >Radiant< 12:22, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I like it. If it means less dirty work for us that no one's willing to do anyway, I say go for it. —Pilotguy (ptt) 14:48, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

CFD closure has been handled by 'bots for a long time now — a lot longer than six months. From looking at the logs of Cydebot (talk · contribs) and Cyde (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA), it appears that the only difference now appears to be that rather than an administrator manually deleting the category page after the category has been depopulated by a 'bot, the 'bot is also performing the deletion, via an account with administrator privileges, as well. Having 'bots use administrator accounts is not something to be taken lightly. But there is a difference between a semi-automatic tool where one manually feeds a name to the tool and pulls its trigger, and it does the grunt work involving lots of edits, and a fully automatic tool that pulls its own trigger when it detects certain content or edits. The latter having administrator privileges is more of a concern than the former. Unless someone has come up with an artificial intelligence capable of reading and parsing CFD discussions and applying consensus and our policies and guidelines to make the decision (and simply forgotten to tell the world of this astounding advance in the state of the art in computer science), any CFD 'bot will, of necessity, be of the semi-automatic kind. Uncle G 17:53, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I support use of this automation in this way. Thank you, Brenneman for keeping us honest, and thank you Cyde, for shepherding this automation so we can concentrate on tasks that need human input far more than this one does. If there are issues, revisit but for now, carry on. ++Lar: t/c 21:44, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Per Lar. Thank you Brenneman, thank you Cyde; now, let's all get back to work. Ral315 (talk) 09:50, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Brigadoon

Hello,
Please, I want to read the tale of "Brigadoon" ( in English because in French there's is nothing ). Some people told that's a german tale ( about a Scottish village ? ) ?
Thanks for all your answers ( name of a book of tales... ) and will you forgive my «very strong accent» whem I'm trying to write in English. --Arcane17 13:14, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

You might want to try the reference desk for help with this. Tra (Talk) 13:16, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

"Edit Summary" capacity

I think the area for "Edit Summary" should have a larger capacity. I think it is unrealistic to expect people to say all they want to say about why they are making the changes they are making, especially as concerns the reverts of someone else's writing. The Talk page is a good thing, but it is too far away to allow for the immediate explanation that is called for. I think the "Edit Summary" should be further divided into a "brief" section and a slightly "extended" section. The "extended" section should still be very limited. But it should allow several times the length of writing that the present "Edit Summary" allows for. I think this would allow people to appear to be acting in a more humane way towards one another. Presently, it is very common for reverts to engender bad feelings. It is almost impossible to try to smooth over the almost inevitable bad feelings that tend to result from reverts. Bus stop 20:43, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

I recently brought up a similar idea on the the proposal page. Why not comment there? ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)} 20:50, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

OK. I will check that out. Thank you. Bus stop 02:48, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

He He (:evil grin:), you can get it around it if you have the right tools. If you use the web developer toolbar on Firefox, it has an option for "remove form lengths". So far, I've only used it a few times, and only gone a little over the ragular maximum length, but it's worked every time for me 9the edit summary shows up and all). -Patstuart^talk|edits 00:51, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

That sounds super cool. I'll have to check that out. But it should be available to everyone, IMHO. Bus stop 02:48, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

There was already a feature request on the bugtracker for longer edit summaries a while ago. I don't think the devs were particularly interested, since their reasoning went that it was long enough for usual use, and if you really needed more space to explain yourself, you should probably be editing the talk page. --Gwern (contribs) 04:43 22 December 2006 (GMT)

Arabic Wikipedia

Are you kidding me? After reading about zh being biased (and it not being true), I decided to check out Arabic Wikipedia. The first page I pulled up on google's translated version was terrorism: [6]. I encourage you to read it, but for those of you who don't have the time, here is its contents:

• Constant and ridiculous anti-Jewish propaganda: e.g., "Prior to the eleventh century, the most prominent two terrorist attacks are carried out by the secret sect of the Jews..."
• Lots of mention of Al-Qaeda. OK. But always tempered by examples of "Zionist" terrorism.
• (Bad translation, tried to fix): Currently, though Osama bin Laden and the organization Al-Qaeda are described as terrorists, the significant number of us in the Arab and Islamic world refuse terrorism."
• "The definition of terrorism contained in the Holy Quran in clear language undisputable interpretations..." (keep in mind that about 10% of the Arab world is Christian, and doesn't think the Quran should be called "holy")
• Blunt statements that American raids in Iraq are terrorism ignored by the media, while acts by Hamas are unfairly treated as terrorism by the media (I guess blowing up school buses of kids isn't so).

I checked out some others, and Quran and Zionism didn't appear so bad, though the translation was sometimes poor, and it was hard to tell. Just thought I ought to bring this up here. -Patstuart^talk|edits 16:59, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

There's something about this approach that rubs me the wrong way. The Arabic Wikipedia has slightly over 20,000 articles. It's just getting off the ground and it's one of the world's most widely spoken languages. There's a fair chance that this article does reflect mainstream sources in that language. Take a look at the original terrorism article in English from 26 December 2001.[7] To me that looks like the editor has attempted NPOV but the sources and presentation do reflect U.S. bias. Rather than calling out some of Wikipedia's smaller projects and berating them over specific articles, how about submitting translation requests for some of the best pages in other languages? Anne Frank is a featured article in English and Hebrew, but she doesn't have a page on the Arabic Wikipedia. Durova^Charge! 20:05, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Just to be completely accurate: The above link does not represent the original En:Wikipedia article on terrorism (The edit summary is "(Revert vandalism)"). The older history was lost in an early software upgrade. I checked as I couldn't believe that we didn't have an article on terrorism until 3 months after 9/11. Rmhermen 20:21, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough. Can you still accept it as a snapshot of the English language edition's early stages? Durova^Charge! 20:32, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

I was unaware that Arabic only had 20000 entries. I guess it doesn't have a lot of users. A certain user named Eagle was able to revert some "serious NPOV issues" at this point: [8], so I guess not all hope is lost. That being said, has the English Wikipedia ever allowed main articles to have off the wall statements like like "We Western Christian know better than this because the Holy Bible says so"? I won't complain too much, as I realize the Arabic society is very religious. But it was so flatly not NPOV that I was quite saddened. I don't think we ought to look down on any other wikipedia, but we oughn't patronize them and baby them either to assume they can't figure out NPOV on their own. -Patstuart^talk|edits 00:17, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm assuming good faith: mainstream sources in Arabic often relate a very different perspective on this sensitive topic than mainstream sources in English. Ideally the project will grow to the point where it presents this from what might be termed a more neutral global perspective. I think it would be more fruitful to approach this in the spirit of how can we help make this better? Translation will become increasingly important as the overall project grows. After I raised Joan of Arc to FA, other editors translated the article into Indonesian and Chinese. A few days ago I discovered Meta's Translation of the Week project and proposed the article there, specifically mentioning that the Arabic version is only one paragraph long.[9] One of the things I hope happens is that the best articles about similarly important historic figures of Arab, Indonesian, and Chinese culture get their articles translated across languages too. Durova^Charge! 05:25, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Person of the Year 2006

I could not resist but to create an userbox celebrating ME being the {{User Person of the Year 2006}}. Although, I think I may have to share the award with some others ;) -- Chris 73 | Talk 14:17, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

I love it! -sthomson 15:10, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Shouldn't it be in userspace? ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)} 16:52, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

User templates are usually in the template space with user at the beginning. Should be Ok i think -- Chris 73 | Talk 10:23, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I love it to and have already stolen it!--Esprit15d (talk ¤ contribs) 19:21, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Brazilian states

Hi, My name is Raphael and I'm the co-founder of the project "Subdivisões do Brasil" (Brazilian subdivisions) in the Portuguese Wikipedia and the author of more than 5.000 Brazilian location maps (states, municipalities, mesoregions and also microregions). I would like to know why the Brazilian states aticles don't have a higher priority than their respective capitals. Sorry but my capacity to write in English is very limited. What I'm trying to say is: Rio de Janeiro concerns the City of Rio de Janeiro and Rio de Janeiro (state) the state. The same occours with São Paulo (city) and São Paulo (state). I really don't understand why this is the convention and why the states of the USA are different. e.g. New York for the state and New York City for the city / Washington for the state and Washington, D.C. for the city.

Can I move the Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo related articles to names like the states of the USA?

Thank you all,

Raphael.lorenzeto 09:28, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

New York City technically has a different name than New York. As for why we have the article titles that way, I don't know. My guess is that the cities are the better known subjects in the English speaking world. (For Rio De Janeiro that's certainly true.) --tjstrf talk 17:40, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Those articles were probably created when wikipedia was young and very USA-centric - up here we know of the city of Rio much more than the state. Similar issues have cropped up before, the best example being Georgia, which was created for the US state rather than the central Asia country of the same name. I think the moves you propose make sense, but they should be mentioned on the Talk pages of the stories first, to get reaction. (Also, do you know how to do a proper move, rather than a cut-and-past? From all your experience, I'm sure you do.) - DavidWBrooks

I'm going to post this topic in articles to get "reaction" as you said and yes, I know how to do a proper move. Thank you all again. Raphael.lorenzeto 01:37, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I have listed my opposition. The state is not what you would expect to get if you type in Rio, it would violate the least surprise principle. Also a admin would be required to make the move, if it were supported. Rmhermen 15:13, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

This principle of least surprise doesn't apply to Washington and New York? When someone types "Washington" or "New York", they aren't expecting to get the U.S. capital and the big apple? I noticed that exists only two exceptions for naming conventions of brazilian settlements (check talk): "Rio de Janeiro" and "São Paulo". The principle of least surprise applies only to these two cities? ... and, I'm not familiar with the methods of this wiki. Is difficult to ask an admin to make the move?. Raphael.lorenzeto 15:41, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

For what it's worth, in the U.S., the capital is most commonly called "Washington, D.C." even in speech. It's not unusual to hear that shortened to "D.C." rather than "Washington", especially when talking about the city itself rather than the government. That is, "popular in Washington" would more likely mean "well-liked by the government", "popular in D.C." would more likely mean "well-liked by the city's residents." - Jmabel | Talk 22:42, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Persuasive Essay Outline for College

I have to do an outline, and I am not to sure what is meant by sub-details in reference to supporting details. Can someone please explain this to me. I would greatly appreciate it. Thankyou

You might try the Reference desk rather than the Village Pump (which is for discusion about Wikipedia). - Jmabel | Talk 21:47, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Lumpy the Cook's Page is Gone!

I would like to know who deleted the Lumpy the Cook article and why they did it. And I would also like to know if I can recreate the page.A7X 900 02:11, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Why was my page deleted?. -- Rick Block (talk) 04:53, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Alright, thank you very much...A7X 900 17:21, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Non-English Page

Okay. So, I was looking at the United States of America page and I looked it up in another language. The page in Inuktitut is an obvious WP:AFD. It was created for the sole purpose of demeaning America. The link is [10] but you may not be able to read it. But, the point is, I can't delete it as I am not a user in that language.... nor do they have an AFD page! Any ideas? I doubt they even have an admin I could talk to. It isn't a high trafic page (let alone language, only 70 articles total), but I still don't believe that that should exist. Any suggestions.-Hairchrm 02:43, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

If you can read it, could you improve it? Durova^Charge! 02:47, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

No. It just says " amialika

America, particularly the United States. Contains ᐊᓛᓯᑲ."

And anyone can guess what the last four characters are. Actually, the whole language is silly. It ought to be off the page, as most of the pages are in english, anyways.-Hairchrm 02:54, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

User:Thogo ([11]) appears to be the only active admin there - and he is off for Christmas. Rmhermen 03:00, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

The ᐊᓛᓯᑲ is Alaska. Follow the link, you'll see. --WikiSlasher 03:56, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

It appears you need a special font to read the characters; they come out as question marks for me too. They're actually in some Unicode range that's not in standard fonts. *Dan T.* 05:11, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, thats great and all, but I'm not able to download the font on school computers. So... anybody else know what it says? The whole language is lacking in many articles. There was a link to the equivilant of our WP:AFD page, but the page was empty. Many of the pages are in English, so I don't even know why they created this language. Any other suggestions?-Hairchrm 20:14, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

I vaguely seem to remember seeing something on Meta about closing down several inactive language projects and for some odd reason think that might be one of them. I'll try to dig up a link. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)} 21:05, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

[The page is here], but that language isn't one of the proposed ones. Any rate, poking around Meta might be more helpful to you than poking around en's villiage pump. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)} 21:15, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Numbers in RC

What do the numbers in RC mean?? (I'm not wishing for them to go away, I'm just curious.) Georgia guy 23:15, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

I found out the answer; the number of new characters added or taken away. Georgia guy 23:16, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

eBay links

When I saw an eBay listing used as a reference in the Hollywood Sign article, I wondered how ofter eBay was being linked to from the Wikipedia. I found 851 links (see [12]). Many of them look like they might be legitimate (used as references in discussions on talk pages, etc.), but in the half-dozen that I looked at, I found one legitimate spam (a link to someone's now ended auction). I don't think that eBay should be added to the spam blacklist, but these links probably should be checked. I'm posting here because I couldn't find a better place to post my concerns. ^BlankVerse 20:56, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Is this person notable?

I saw this brief notice in my local paper:

The world's only bald, Welsh-speaking Elvis impersonator has been receiving death threats.

After a short chuckle, I was compelled to see whether Wikipedia had an article about this guy. After finding his name (Geraint Benney, if you're curious), I only found 2 mentions about his unsuccessful Plaid Cymru candidacy for Parliament. There reasonable verification for the death threats, although one person commenting about this article claims that this is a publicity stunt. So is this guy notable enough to deserve an article on Wikipedia -- even if it turns out that he isn't the only Welsh-speaking Elvis impersonator & the death threats never happened? (I personally feel that if we have an article on Paris Hilton, this guy ought to be a shoo-in, but I won't create the article; I'm more inclined to use it as a convincing reason to AfD Paris Hilton.) -- llywrch 20:41, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Go ahead and make it! Make sure you cite the sources you've found.~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)} 21:37, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Dunno... sounds kind of dubious. Only bald Welsh-speaking Elvis impersonator certainly doesn't cut the mustard, and from what I know of the guidelines for American politicians, failed candidacies don't establish notability either. --Gwern (contribs) 04:39 22 December 2006 (GMT)

Wikipedia accused of lying

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/12/358569.html

Someone has already posted something under that article on indymedia to point out to its author that anyone can post to wikipedia, just as they can do in indymedia.

It is regrettable that the author of the article could not resolve his/her disputes within wikipedia, and had to accuse wikipedia of lying.

I think we need to at least keep a note of accusations of lying by wikipedia. I hope this is the correct place for this. Maybe further action needs to be taken against the author of the article. I am not a lawyer, but some of this could be taken as libel against wikipedia. --Publunch 19:43, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Libel — Omegatron 20:06, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

I've added this to the Wikipedia Signpost Tip Line (Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Newsroom/Suggestions#UK_Indymedia_accuses_Wikipedia_of_lying) --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 14:10, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Blocking

I don't think that I asked this before, but if I did on another page, I dont rememeber that I did. Anyway, are only administrators allowed to block users or can anyone put the test 5 template on a page? Thanks. Ilikefood 21:18, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Only administrators can block, putting {{test5}} on their talk page is only a message to inform the user they have been blocked, it doesn't actually block them. If a user vandalises too often, non-admins can report them at WP:AIV. Tra (Talk) 21:32, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Wiki Financials

Can be found here [[13]] in case anyone is wondering. Cryptonymius 17:04, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Donation banner

I know this is not the right place to talk about this, but that is precisely the point. The banner ONLY links to non-editable content, there is no talk page associated with it at all. I totally understand that there has to be significant locked content there, because you can't just lie about money; but this is a Wiki, there should be one clear place to discuss something with such prominent placing (which could have a bot-protected template saying "This is an open discussion and views expressed here are not etc."). On the one hand, it's an issue of identity and education; on the other hand, it's a practical issue: how can they have an "FAQ" without a chance to submit questions? For instance, the obvious question "what is the fundraising goal?" (A: 1.5 million dollars, right?) is not in the FAQ... anyone reading this, feel free to redirect this criticism to the best place, but the point is that there's plenty of people who can't find that best place and that will be true until the banner has some first- or second- order link to get there. (For instance, the FAQ could have a "further discussion" question that links back to the various language wikipedias.)--201.216.139.116 13:34, 16 December 2006 (UTC) Moved from Wikipedia talk:Village pump (news) ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)} 15:56, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Dealing with editors

I joined and started actively editing a few months ago and in general I enjoy wikipedia very much. However, much moreso than vandalism or policy disputes, I find the most frustrating thing about this site to be other editors, good editors, valuable editors, who nonetheless operate in such flagrant disregard of WP:DICK that I feel like I am up against an army of Comic Book Guys. It is actually discouraging me from editing whole categories of articles, participating in certain debates, or posting on particular user and article talk pages. Does anyone have any general advice about dealing with this? Do you have any secret tricks or breathing exercises you'd like to impart before I just wash my hands of the place? (I signed out before I posted.) --67.85.183.103 21:00, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Whole categories of articles? Well - on controversial subjects that's par for the course. If there's some specific situation that has you frustrated then provide some details. Durova^Charge! 05:24, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't mean because there is POV pushing or anything, I just find some editors to be jerks and I try to avoid their "domain." An innocuous example is when I politely (and reasonably) suggested, on one well-known and respected editor's talk page, that a recent article s/he had been working on might be a candidate for deletion under one interpretation of the criteria; s/he responded with a condescending, excessively long response (featuring lots of "oh gee, hmm, let's think about this, shall we?" kind of statements) that came very close to calling me stupid. Another editor almost hysterically accused me of blatant vandalism, sockpuppetry, bad faith, and also basically being stupid because I edited a very POV and unreferenced section of an article s/he had been working on, even after I put a request for discussion on the talk page and noted it in my edit summary (two venues the other editor did not feel the need to use.) These are just general things but I run into it at least once a day, and I generally do not make controversial edits or deal with hot topics. I just get easily frustrated, I guess.--67.85.183.103 19:46, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Ummm, it's rather hard to deal with your case unless you give us a bit more information. What editor came close to calling you stupid? What editor accused you of blatant vandalism? And why not post under your username instead of your IP? Yuser31415 (Review me!) 20:01, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm with you, anon person. I find a lot of people acting like that and I act that way myself sometimes and the reason is simple: that's the easiest way to get your way on here. Just be haughty and sarcastic and a dick and get as close as you can to calling someone names (Perish the thought! That's against policy! Oh damn, I'm even doing it now...) without actually doing so. If there were a good way of dealing with that kind of behavior, it wouldn't be so prevalent. Maybe if we had a policy against sarcasm... Recury 21:49, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia has fewer than 1 sysop for every 2700 accounts. Right now, anon, you have my attention. If you'd like to actually present evidence that I could act on, please do so. Otherwise this type of thread is unhelpful because it poisons the atmosphere without offering any means of solution. Durova^Charge! 23:29, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, alas, jerks abound in wikipedia as they do in many online environments, where the negative side of human nature is inflated by relative anonymity. (I know that I'm much more pleasant and cooperative in the flesh, for example.) There's no solution aside from patience, choosing your battles, and remembering that this is just a bunch of people typing and not worth raising your blood pressure over. Don't let it stop you from doing as much good work as you want to do. - DavidWBrooks 23:41, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Me too! Me too! Let me help! Yuser31415 (Review me!) 01:16, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

I guess WP:DICK and Don't_be_a_dick [[14]] are supposed to be funny, but it seems to me that once you start tossing around words like dick and idiot (even within a policy framework) you might as well give up any hope of having a productive discussion because you're really just inviting an arguement, and the reality appears to be that a great many people have difficulty accepting the possibility that they may be wrong, misinformed, or misconstruing the case at hand, so if you can't take a step back and ask a civil question, and consider the answer you get, and weigh it judiciously, you may as resign yourself to having one arguement after another. Cryptonymius 02:16, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

How did this happen?

I was working on an editing project in the sandbox and when I posted it to the sandbox I got a notice that I was attempting to post on the main Wikipedia page. What was this and how did it happen? Is there some sort of a problem here with posts sometimes going astray?Trilobitealive 04:31, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Fundraising

I don't where any other discussion on this is but you know the "You can give the gift of knowledge by donating to Wikipedia!" thing at the top with the meter and $ amount, I was wondering what the number is supposed to be when the bar is full. --WikiSlasher 14:29, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

1.5 million dollars. S Sepp 21:12, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

That's a lotta moolah. --WikiSlasher 02:42, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Considering what this project accomplishes, it's darn thrifty. Durova^Charge! 05:25, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

True dat. Remember, Wikipedia is one of the top ten most popular websites in the world. Sites far below it in the traffic rankings spend a heckuva lot more than just the current 2 or 3 millions dollars a year. As Rob likes to describe it, saying the devs are keeping us up on a shoestring budget is to vastly understate the issue. --Gwern (contribs) 04:29 22 December 2006 (GMT)