Wikipedia talk:Village pump/Archive 6

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Archive 1 Archive 4 Archive 5 Archive 6 Archive 7 Archive 8 Archive 9

Questions about add information in a Education Organization's topic

Is Alerting people about certain horrible events that an Educational Organization has done and warn them not to study there is labeled as causing damage here? Hope someone can kindly tell me the answer. Thank you!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.79.16.226 (talk) 18:11, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Assuming that you're referring to an article rather than the village pump, I'd say that is a reasonable goal. However, when adding information to articles the information must be documented in a reliable source WP:RS and it must be verifiable WP:V. It must also be presented in a neutral tone WP:NPOV. That means that your own personal experience cannot be used in an article unless that experience has already been documented in a reliable source. Also review guideline WP:TE TallMagic 18:30, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for you advices and links of information for me to read over. It is indeed hard to find some proof that the Organization has done without having them published on some worthtrusty publications, too bad i didnt send the stuff to the news or something like that. The only thing i can do now is sit here and watch the spies (Checked some of the ips / profiles from Undoing my stuff)from that Organization delete the facts and hide their master's ugly faces from the world. Can you please kindly suggest me other ways i can tell my story out to world so people can know about this horrible matter? Thanks once again for your great help. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.79.16.226 (talk) 20:00, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

New category speedy rename criterion

I would like to propose a new speedy rename criterion for WP:CFD: A category may be renamed if a corresponding article with the same name has also been renamed with broad consensus (>80% acceptance) for the rename.

I had thought about this for a while after both doing this myself and watching other people do this. In every case that I have seen at WP:CFD, such renames have been generally undisputed. A current example is Category:Uttaranchal for a state in India. The state was recently renamed Uttarakhand, and the corresponding article was renamed uncontroversially. The category is being renamed Category:Uttarakhand in Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2007 January 8#Category:Uttarakhand; everyone there has supported the rename. As I indicated, this is not the only such example, either.

I would like feedback on this proposal. I would also like to hear people's suggestions on how to make this proposal into reality. Thank you, Dr. Submillimeter 20:41, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Question

Do all queries on the Vilage Pump eventually get answered? Simply south 16:39, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Hopefully as many as possible. It depends whether or not there's anyone that can answer them. Tra (Talk) 16:44, 13 January 2007 (UTC)


Request some help!

hi there how do i go about making a wikiproject? Trust me i have looked all around the start wiki project areas and all they say is do this and that however it doesnt give you a option to acctually start one so how do i do it what link do i go to to start it?? thanks in advance Maverick423 15:28, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Since i have asked for help (above), I feel you at least deserve an answer -in your request for help here. : I honestly don't know what a "wikiproject" is, but let me ask some experts, OK?
ANSWER: http://En.WikiPedia.org/wiki/Wikiproject
Best, --GordonWatts 08:23, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

hi everybody

IMDB and Wikipedia Convergence

I have put this up and people take it down. Can someone help me. How do you go about trying to establish the convergence of IMDB (Internet Movie Database) and Wikipedia. This is a serious question.

Thankyou in anticipation. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Zogin (talkcontribs) 00:20, 27 February 2007 (UTC).

The thread was put in the wrong place. I've moved it to the correct page at WP:VPR#Merge IMDB Database and wikipedia. Tra (Talk) 00:33, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Harder

Should we make Wikipedia harder from people who are vandalists or etc., like a special test?(Trampton 04:15, 7 March 2007 (UTC)).
How exactly would this work (without affecting the fundamental anyone-can-edit philosophy of the project)? – Qxz 18:08, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Well, aren't we being too too easy, I think some users are kinda sick of vandalists and reverting their mistakes.(Trampton 11:20, 16 March 2007 (UTC)).
Yep, we should. The problem is: How do we do so, the current rules are already too sensitive for abuse. I mean there are people here who claim that topics are not notable, just because they do not like or know the field it is significant in. To stop that we should stop with the overlooking equals consenting guideline and replace it with something like you have to have a quorum of people to agree with you. That would stop the vandals abusing the system, but not the advertizers and nonsensical ones, it would give them a field day, so how should we do that?--ThW5 (talk) 18:28, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Job

I wish to work as an addm. here on wikipedia! ho do i get to this point! I have great past knowing of safety & law enforcement on MySpace! It would be nice to know!--Mr.Taka 17:51, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Type in Request For Adminship to the search bar at the top of the page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.187.213.209 (talk) 06:24, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

technical question

I think it would be useful if it was possible to organize the tables by any table heading on the "Comparison of *" articles with all the comparison tables. I'm not sure if this is technically viable or conforms to standards and such. Anyone have any idea? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.148.117.16 (talk) 22:16, 20 March 2007 (UTC).


It would make things better/easier for editors if there were two discussion pages. 1.Discussion-Objective. Referenced facts/factoids could go here that can be quickly checked and then if appropriate added to the main page without all the usual distractions of anywhich thing appearing. Much less clutter to go through. 2.Discussion-Subjective. Assorted and varied questions and commentarys could go here where anarchy is likely to prevail, however, this is a very popular feature of Wiki for most everybody with an interest or idea on that subject. A greater degree of tolerance could be allowed here, but to move up to the Discussion-Objective page it would need a serious reference. A lot of us like to look for odd bits of info even if not sourced which we can followup. Would prefer this to simply everything out of the ordinary being deemed vandalism which implies many people who are simply trying to express an idea have evil intentions. As it is now, tolerance for anything controversal is fairly subjective depending on the editor, the subject, and their particular way of doing things. This would mean a need for more storage space on the net so cost would be a factor but its likely to attract a lot more small donors too.209.101.236.168 22:53, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Fictional character template

Taken from a previous question that I had asked, this question was asked weeks ago and has not been answered:

How would I go about creating a template for a list of fictional characters? I need to devise a way to do so, because there are some fictional charcters (from films and comics) whose articles I have either modified or created and need to thus find a way to have categories for them. --KnowledgeLord 20:03, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Redirect problem - FA comment page lost

Western Chalukya is in the process of FA review. Yesterday the name was redirected to Western Chalukya Empire. Everything was redirected, except now on the Talk page template, the link no longer goes the FA editors comments. It goes to an empty page now. I do not know how to retrieve that link and redirect it. Is this the right place to ask for help on this issue? Thanks! Sincerely, Mattisse 14:51, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

"My watchlist" not working

For the past day, when I click "My watchlist" I have to wait for an eternity, then I get a "Page cannot be found" message. Other WP pages work. I've closed down and restarted my browser, deleted files and cookies, etc., all to no avail. What's the problem? Badagnani 23:41, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Now it's working, but the order of the changes is all wrong, and it lists as "current" some edits that are several edits behind on some pages. Is there a hacker at work? Badagnani 04:50, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Name

Wiki over 1 million users and nearly 2 million articles, I think Wikipedia is no longer a village. Perhaps this should be renamed "city square"? --kingboyk 12:19, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

"City square" loses the water theme. Perhaps "leak in Wikipedia's underground water lines"? Voretus 15:22, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
come on--"global village"??? anyway, I do like city square. how about "village metropolitan" yes, I know its an oxymoron. I like oxymorons.Eddisford 21:10, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
And since only a couple thousand (at most) editors are active at any given time - saying "1 million users" is like saying the New Jersey Turnpike has a population of 10 million because that many people pass through it each day - it's still a village. - DavidWBrooks 21:17, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
Is this sort of a rural play on "water cooler", the stereotypical office place of communication? --Valley2city₪‽ 07:11, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Why won't we call it "general discussion pages" or "main discussion"? Es257 01:01, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

I have never had the occasion to ask about the name of the page before. The expression "the village pump" was current when I was in high school, sometime just shy of the neolithic era, and it was neither a compliment nor a pleasant place to be unless you were an indiscriminate teenaged male. In an even earlier era, the "village pump" would have been referred to as a "round heels". I don't know what the current slang might be, but I have wondered every since I first saw this page, why it would be named for the local girl with whom everybody had had sex? Bielle 23:46, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
Lovely - further evidence, if further is needed, of the glorious messiness that is the English language. (Google "village pump" and you'll find it often used as the name of a forum, pub, newsletter or other community discussion area, dating back from days when a single public source of drinking water was the obvious place for people to gather and exchange banter. The main question is: why the picture of a hand pump that once graced this page is now a picture of a well without a pump. ) - DavidWBrooks 00:25, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
I wondered the same thing. I supposed that the well was without a pump because the individuals comprising the discussion were the pump(s) of the village. Thehyperborean 14:32, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
The village pump is also relevant in a similar way in epidemiology: the village pump or local well is a significant probable disease vector, which applies to the "town trollop" as well as the "main water supply"... I suppose it is in keeping with the 'anybody can edit' that the village pump can be pumped by anyone. User:Pedant 21:27, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
A city square is not a place to gather, and talk to people! That's where you watch the birds, or whatever. But, at a village pump, you talk to the other villagers while you wait to get your water. Makes sense, to me.--Princess Janay (talk) 14:32, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
My vote is City Fountain! Ctolson (talk) 16:57, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Banning of the User Ariana310

Dear Admins of Wikipedia,

this User Ariana310 is an Afghan, an ethnic Pashtune who give wrong informations. in teh samanid, ghurid and some other articles where it is written about Afghans or Persians he changes or deldete the real informations. Instead of sharing the world his knowlegde he is looking to hide and defend facts about Afghanistan or his own people, like in the article Afghanistan. Please handle this. Thanks---Tajik-Professor 20:23, 28 April 2007 (UTC)Tajik-Professor

Um, I'm not an admin but, Wikipedia is not about censorship. If that editor has information that can be attributed to a reputable source, it should be included. If the editor is being disruptive, there is a process to follow, see WP:AIV. If you are in an edit war, perhaps you may consider arbitration or just plain cooling off.
Having said all that, is the information you're adding attributed and have a NPOV? --Kimontalk 12:54, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
Even more curious, User:Tajik-Professor's user page says he/she has been indefinitely banned as a sock puppet of User:Tajik. Bielle 01:59, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
Actually it says: "Blocked: Indefinitely. Sockpuppet of Tajik, used to edit war and avoid an arbitration case filed against you." User:Pedant 21:30, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

How do you change Unreferenced ?

Wikipedia has an abbreviation "Unreferenced" which inserts a bit at the head of a page - how do you edit that? Who ever made it is trying to FORCE a line length by inserting BR's after each line - this of course only works if you use his font size set up - I don't. Which means it looks totally weird in set up.

Instead of looking like this:





It looks like this:


--




---

IceHunter 11:01, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

can anyone please help me

im like doing a case study on: should gene therapy be allowed? 1) Why is it wrong not to use gene therapy 2) What is gene therapy used for

Yes, someone can help you:
  1. first, sign all your posts using 3 or 4 (4 will leave a date stamp with your signature) tilde's: ~~~~ so we can answer on your talk page.
  2. this is an encyclopedia, the way to use it is to look things up, and in so doing, find out information on what you look up. You search by typing in a search phrase in the search box, and pressing the search button. This will search the encyclopedia for the phrase you typed.
  3. Wikipedia requires a neutral point of view in all of its articles, so why gene therapy should not be allowed will not be found as neutrality does not allow an article to state what should or should not be done, if it is a matter of opinion.
  4. You might find some opinions expressed on the discussion (or talk page) part of a relevant article: click the 'discussion' tab to get to an article's discussion. For instance, this is the discussion page for Wikipedia:Village pump. User:Pedant 21:43, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Gundagai Page Manipulation by Wattle and Possibly VS

For months the eds of the Gundagai page have been weilding whips at anyone who dares post there. (Most of the content I have put up then got hunted.)

Golden wattle has now unblocked the Gundagai content page but the discussion page remains blocked.

This does not allow anyone not in the inner circle of the oz editors, to comment on what these same editors do.

Virtual Steve has now deleted the link on the Gundgaai page for Mt Parnassus. I have no idea why he would do this as the name of the Gundagai Mt Parnassus comes from the Greek Mtn of the same name.

However, given the discussion page is blocked, that stops anyone querying what these Oz editors do re their ability to block access all over wiki. It also prevents comment back to that silly muriel person who commented on the Coolac Massacre on the Gundagai discussion page.

Today I had the original family who lived at Pettits, (then called Coolac) contact me. They also know of the massacre and have published materiak re it. However 'muriel' who VS and Wattle encourage to write nonsense on the Gundagai discussion page and then protect that slanging off nonsense by protecting that page, declares very haughtily that she knows the coolac massacre didnt happen when numerous people know it did, and its published by 1800s residents of that area, that it did.

Can someone at wik pull up the australian editors and the silly game they play re 'protecting' discussion pages as a means of pushing out discussion they do not want discussed.

WikiPolice

I was wondering if there is some sort of 'WikiPolice' force that deals with vandalism and dispute mediation. Is there? --MKnight9989 13:42, 13 June 2007 (UTC)


Well, there's the Counter-Vandalism Unit, and the Mediation Commitee. (lemonflash)talk 00:58, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

"The pump don't work 'cause the vandals took the handles."

A reference to the Bob Dylan song Subterranean Homesick Blues - two different Wikipedia uninitentional references there.--h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 20:32, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

something to undelete - silly satanists :/

Silly satanists on here.. i tell ya... i'd love to know who got rid of the 'OLHP', 'Order of the Left Handed Path' aka 'ordo sinistra vivendi' pages... as I know Elonka Dunnin is of it.

so.. if someone could figure out how to undelete 'em, or write anew (as it was a little propaganda filled as it was).. please do! -the good guy, with eyes

Websites

These websites have Wikipedia Users listed on them. Why?

--66.218.17.243 03:38, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

    • It's because they (legally, mind) suck wikipedia content, including userpages. They're just mirror sites with spam-adverts included. Don't worry - there's nothing nefarious going on. That's why we have the {{userpage}} template - Alison 04:29, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Software suggestion

How to suggest a change in the wiki software?

What I want is this: In my watchlist preferences I ticked "Hide bot edits from the watchlist" and I unticked "Expand watchlist to show all applicable changes". The result is that manual edits are hidden when they are superseded by a bot edit. I cannot imagine that this was intended, so I suggest to modify the software. HandigeHarry 06:25, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Help Needed

Is energy material? I couldn't find the direct answer to the question in the article. -PatPeter 17:17, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Question voided. -PatPeter 17:56, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Guys is "ignourant" ever used in old English? Or...

favourite, olde, and withe? I am in a discussion about language on Youtube here. -PatPeter 17:27, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Question voided. -PatPeter 17:56, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Bogus Email

I find it funny that every time I log into wiki, there's another notice, begging me to vote in the Board Elections. Then I get an email from you guys saying:

Hi PericlesofAthens, it appears that you have not yet voted in the current Wikimedia board election, although you appear to be eligible to vote.

Ok, so I finally go to the candidates page, read their statements, make a decision on who I want to vote for, and then I tried to vote. Lo and behold, this is the message I get:

Welcome PericlesofAthens@enwiki!
You are not qualified to vote in this election. You need to have made 400 edits before 00:00, 1 June 2007, and your first edit must be before 00:00, 1 March 2007.
Note that you need to come to the election page via the wiki where you have the most edits. If you came here via meta, go back to your home wiki and then visit Special:Boardvote there.

This is ridiculous. Although I have been a member since mid March (and made over 10000 edits since), I was not a member before March 1st, so why would I get an email from you guys telling me I'm eligible to vote when I am not, only to give me crushing disappointment? Lol. Do you guys enjoy being sadistic or something? Or is this some sort of glitch.--PericlesofAthens 17:03, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't know why you got the e-mail -- but unfortunately you were unqualified for the election, as your first edit was not made before 1 March 2007. MessedRocker (talk) 12:06, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Wider Attention system

{{wider attention}}

I am interested in integrating {{wider attention list}} onto the pages of the village pump based on the system described on User:MessedRobot II. Any objections? MessedRocker (talk) 04:43, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Doesn't anyone use WP:CENT anymore? Nifboy 01:23, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
Think of this box as WP:CENT-cum-automation, where adding a page to the list is as simple as adding a template to a page, and then removing it when you're done. MessedRocker (talk) 01:26, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

This is cool. I like it, and plan to use it. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 10:39, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

I've redesigned the somewhat ugly old box to look a bit like a cleanup template, and added a new shortcut ({{watt}}). To go along with the new shortcut and the theme of shining light on an otherwise neglected or stalled discussion, I added a picture of a light bulb. If someone wants to replace the image with a light bulb icon (or, you know, get rid of it), feel free. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 19:30, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

That's very cunning. I also appreciate how you've been/you're going to be giving my bot business! MessedRocker (talk) 21:08, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Anyways, is there any objection to me integrating the listing into the village pump template? MessedRocker (talk) 14:43, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

I support the integration per MessedRocker and A Man In Black above. User:Pedant 21:50, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

People IGN is *NOT* a professional music reviewer

Seriously, IGN is amongst the most criticisized music reviewers on the internet, if you don't believe me ask ANYBODY on the IGN BOARD yourself. So stop putting IGN's review on a rating part for music. Sure the GAMING section is professional, but not the MUSIC section. Zephead999 08:40, 9 July 2007 (UTC) IGN is not a good source for music reviews. Don't use IGN Music section as a resource. 71.145.162.149 (talk) 01:00, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

is Wikipedia killing itsself?

Whenever I come across something new, and want to know what it means, I turn to wikipedia first. The answer is almost always there. When it is not, I search on and add my findings to wikipedia.

Many times have I found on Wikipedia a balance of thoughts, where as all other websites seem partisan for one side of the debate or another.

The last year or so however, I've seen a trend which I feel is increasing, and disturbing: apparently for fear of being ridiculed or losing 'status' — whatever that may be — wikipedia seems to be trying to conform to majority views instead of factually describing all relevant facts and views fairly and proportionally (NPOV).

I believe this will achieve the opposite of what's intended: in stead of being the place where you can find any information, balanced and fair, wikipedia is becoming partisan. I feel this amounts to OR and is in itself a violation of WP:Guidelines. Paradoxically, in order to purge Wikipedia of every heretic notion which might scare people (or donors?), guidelines are being stretched beyond limits to exclude certain materials, e.g.:

  • It is no longer "allowed" to describe vastly popular political movies when thay are antagonizing the ruling establishment — because that same establishment would be the only criterion for establishing "WP:notability"
  • It is no longer "allowed" to include well documented facts in articles when these would "suggest a conspiracy theory" or in any other sense undermine the picture being painted in the article. Obviously, Wikipedia is indulging in some OR there, I would say.

What can we do to turn this trend?

  • I feel the Wikipedia Community should use its energy to help newcomers to improve articles, help learn them use the guidelines; not with the threat of deletion but the spirit of community.
  • We should stop deleting articles as a simple "solution" to imperfect articles. While this "helps" Wikipedia get rid off the "problematic" articles in the short run, we also loose the enthousiasm of authors which may have potential to become brilliant editors. We should not be too afraid to have an article on something which might be unnotable; the existence of a wikipedia article on something unnotable will not change the future of the planet, it will logically not even be noted that it is there... The notability criterion has been established to avoid cluttering wikipedia with articles on the local school kids club or the neighbours' pet; it is not there in order to marginalize world-wide subcultures of humankind.
  • Before putting up articles for AfD, it should be considered polite and common practice to discuss the matter first with the main contributing editors, seeing how the article can be improved, in stead of fighting Deletion-debates over and over again "behind their back". As a courtesy, I feel one should invite at least 5 major contributers to a Deletion debate. If one Ashuns to do this, maybe (but not necessarily) this is a sign of a less than clear conscience regarging wikipedian collegial spirit.

I welcome any suggestions and critisism on how to deal with this problem. We are scaring away a lot of enthousiastic contributers, folk! — Xiutwel (talk) 08:59, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Can you show me a page which has gone to the way of Majority Point of View? MessedRocker (talk) 09:22, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
September 11, 2001 attacks is completely reflecting a 2/3 majority opinion, and actively patrolling against any fact which gives "undue weight" to "fringe theories", even if the fact itself is acknowledged as meeting WP criteria. Dissident 'facts' are referred to sub-articles, which are reluctantly mentioned in the article. In the sub-articles these facts are deleted as well, but less frequent. — Xiutwel (talk) 12:23, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
And the above-mentioned article states as fact that the aircraft which hit the WTC were the same aircraft as the hijacked aircraft, and other similar 'facts' (theories) which have not been proven and which remain disputable. User:Pedant 21:55, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
And here we are again, today: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Zeitgeist the Movie Is this working towards consensus? The delete mob is making no constructive effort to have a good wikipedia article, but is wishing to delete it because they object to the content of the movie. It's like deleting the article on Adolf Hitler because we do not like his work. — Xiutwel ♫☻♥♪ (talk) 11:14, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia editors tell users it is not a soapbox, but they use it as their soapbox. Balance and fairness is not a Wikipedia policy. Management encourages edit wars by siding with biased editors. I dont use it anymore as a source of information.Electrodynamicist 14:00, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

The treatment of new articles is a travesty of official policy which refers to listening to arguments particularly those backed by citations and not being a majority vote. In fact the referees respond to or cordinate with claques of critics relying on moronic use of derogatory adjectives. Referees do not reply when it is pointed out that they have made blantantly false statements. 82.36.240.102 21:40, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Has become Wikiblogia - By the end of 2007, Wikipedia has evolved into a massive blog forum, due to the sheer volume of over 2 million articles. The info chaos cannot be managed by "asking for NPOV fairness" as was warned (years ago) by early critics of Wikipedia. It's not just the problem of joke vandalism or blanking of article sections, but people actively slanting articles, using automated or group editing, for a shockingly wide range of motives. For example, articles about U.S. actor/director Mel Gibson were "cleansed" to remove the word "Jewish" when describing the arresting officer of his DUI incident, and Jewish was removed about celebrities who spoke of his drunken behavior: the word "Jewish" was removed over 23 times in a 2-week period, by registered users, not by anonymous IP addresses; so rather than "ethnic cleansing" it became info cleansing. Wikipedia policies that simply "ask for NPOV fairness" will not work, and instead, membership must be restricted for a true encyclopedia, where editors are reprimanded or removed for the slanted writing ("tendentious copy"). There are other wiki projects that attempt to control slanted writing, by restricting membership and verifying for sources: see "Veropedia". I don't blame the managers of Wikipedia: they were warned that slanting and hacking would result, and they chose to continue allowing anonymous or pen-name editors to slant, hack or delete articles by banding into suspicious "consensus" groups. I suggest to "Always look on the bright side of life" to keep a sense of humor about the massive, snowballing WP Project, and see the comedy of errors, such as Wackopedia, Cliqueopedia or even Wikiblogia. There is yet no Heaven on Earth, but it is interesting to see every "Tower of Babel" (babble, Tower of Bloggle) as it develops, and then watch the pompous behavior and antics, with a healthy dose of skepticism and humor. -Anon 209.214.44.3 (talk) 13:36, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
On the bright side: I do not see Wikipedia performing less well than the bulk of our society; it's just not as good as I would like. I still love the project, but occasionally can't help hating how it is working out at a particular moment. I believe the rules are very hard to understand, and people seem not to care for the true meaning of the rules once they have found a quote that suits them well. Even administrators. Work to be done! See also: Wikipedia_talk:NPOV  — Xiutwel ♫☺♥♪ (speech has the power to bind the absolute) 22:29, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Viewing Wikipedia from a mobile device

Looking things up on Wikipedia is a bit difficult because the front page does not fit well on my browser (IE for Windows Mobile). After I get to the subject I'm looking for it's not so difficult; the text on the page is confined to a very narrow paragraph but it's still quite readable, I just have to scroll down quicker. Is there already or are there ideas for a Wikipedia for mobile start page that fits better on that size browser and has just the search bar? Something along the lines of Google mobile (www.google.com/m) Thehyperborean 14:23, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

You could bookmark the page Wikipedia:Main Page alternative (Simple Search Box) which just has the search box and some links to various sections. Tra (Talk) 15:15, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
There is also http://wapedia.mobi MessedRocker (talk) 14:22, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
en.wap.wikipedia.org ~user:orngjce223 how am I typing? 17:44, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Is it just me or did someone change something?

I noticed that opposed to a "+" sign on talk pages it says "Leave a comment". Is this just for me due to something I changed in my .js file or is it for everyone? Wikidudeman (talk) 12:22, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Everyone. --Golbez 13:02, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
Where is the discussion for this change? Wikidudeman (talk) 13:04, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
I just noticed it. Is this the same as the "+" sign in function? --Elliskev 13:10, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
Appears to be, I never saw the discussion for it though. Wikidudeman (talk) 13:23, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
I don't know if I like it. At first, I thought it was some kind of WP 1.0 assessment thing, which would have been pretty cool. --Elliskev 13:30, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
Probably to prevent new users from incorrectly adding comments. Wikidudeman (talk) 13:32, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
The discussion is here. Tra (Talk) 15:40, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

This page is for discussion about the village pump only.

I assumed I was talking, at the village pump; it turns out -here- I should have been talking about it. I think an adaptation is due? — Xiutwel ♫☻♥♪ (talk) 11:19, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Rules suck! --Elliskev 01:56, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Misplaced celebrity section...

...moved to Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)#Hey_there.2C_I.27m_going_to_be_a_celebrity_in_4-5_years_and_I_have_a_question_regarding_celebrities_making_edits. where it belongs. Marnanel 21:56, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

...and it was deleted by User:The Storm Surfer, but you can take it up with them. Marnanel 22:31, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

French graphism lab need your help for wikimania !

The graphisme lab of french wikipedia will present a poster at wikimania 2007. We need an english-native user to verify and propose modification in the presentation we made in english, because, of course, our english is ... approximativ :) Please get here and correct us : [1].

Thanks ! - Vibby 2007-08-02 14:51

I've gone through it. Tra (Talk) 15:45, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
So... it is totally ok now (spelling, grammar) ?? Yug 03:20, 3 August 2007 (UTC) (in Taipei !!)
It looks excellent to me, although I can't guarantee that there isn't something I missed. Tra (Talk) 15:04, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Suddenly something is missing...

... but I can't figure out what is missing! ~user:orngjce223 how am I typing? 17:42, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Tool

Hello everyone, does anyone know the name of the tool where you can punch in characters and it will tell everypage that stems from those characters, like if I typed in Wikipedia:B it would tell me every Wikipedia page that starts with b. Someone PM me please if you have the answer. -PatPeter 18:25, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Special:Allpages? THE DARK LORD TROMBONATOR 09:45, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Credibility

I think Wikipedia needs to work on its credibility. Every time I hear about Wiki in the news it's about some high profile case of vandilism. I think we should try to get users more interested in stopping vandelism and maybe make it so when you click "SAVE PAGE" a message came up saying ," your ip address is being documented ect. ect." That might scare peapole enugh to stop them. And what if there was a bot to take of swears?ScientificAndrew-merican 23:04, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not censored, so a bot to catch swear words wouldn't work, especially since most of the vandals can't spell anyway. And ip addresses are only caught for non-logged in users. People with userids don't get their ip addresses seen except by a very, very few sysops. Corvus cornix 21:09, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Request for Comment

The David Miscavige scientology-related article has had a revert war occurring on a particular reference to an affidavit which I cite here:[2] I request commentary if this edit is suitable for inclusion into this article.--Fahrenheit451 01:10, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

SNL Celebrity Jeopardy, Request for Comment

I recently encountered the page for SNL Celebrity Jeopardy while going through wikipedia. I noticed that there is a section that lists the episodes and the name of each character in portrayed in them. Missing was 'Turd Fergusson,' an assumed name used as a gag by Burt Reynolds in one of the episodes. This name should of course be noted parenthetically. So, I made the edit and found an admin warning directing me to the talk page.

The talk page, in large part, consists of numerous users arguing with the admin about this issue. They want the Turd Fergusson edit, he doesn't. They have made the Turd Fergusson eidt, he has deleted it.

Throughout the talk section, he fails to produce a logical reason why this information should not be included in the episodes section. His main talking-point for me has been that the name was mentioned 'only' four times in the episode, and that other gags are mentioned more frequently in the series. This entirely misses my point. Since the 'episodes' section lists the characters' names it should also, parenthetically, list this assumed name. So what if they did a different sort of gag more times, those gags don't concern the characters' name and hence, if listed, would not be listed under 'episodes.'

I believe this admin (Croc) is opposing the user consensus and vandalizing the page he is ostensibly supposed to admin. As such, I would like him reprimanded and/or removed by the real wikipedia administration. I would like the REAL wikipedia editors to review the article and talk pages. I have posted links below for your convenience:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebrity_Jeopardy%21_%28Saturday_Night_Live%29#Episodes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Celebrity_Jeopardy%21_%28Saturday_Night_Live%29 - in particular note item # 19.

For the moment he has kept the 'Turd Fergusson' edit pending further discussion. However, he has sent me a threatening message claiming that I am engaged in an aggressive 'edit war.' I reject that idea since he, in my opinion, is the one vandalizing the page.

I request that wikipedia review this discussion to resolve the issue. 141.166.227.172 03:22, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
What happens on Wikipedia Review has nothing to do with what happens here. Corvus cornix 21:08, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Template db-a11

The template is missing completely. It just shows up as text! Excuse the french but wtf?! --Amaraiel 15:54, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Images not appearing across Wikipedia and editing toolbar not functioning

A number of images are not appearing on wikipedia, but just appear as deleted links and are blank. However when clicking on them the images appear on their own page. This has been widespread, at least on English Wikipedia for the past few days. Also the editing toolbar is not functioning at all, at least for me, as I'm on a computer at my university which it doesn't work, nor does it work on my home computer. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.100.49.89 (talk) 16:29, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Are you sure the images aren't located at Wikimedia Commons, where most of our images are (or at least should be]]). Richard001 00:33, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Category:Blue

Would anyone object to adding categories for significant primary colors? Please contact me if you have a strong objection. (and a good reason vis a vis wikipedia policy) Category:Blue would be a daughter of Category:Color and a parent to for instance Blue; Blue-collar; Blue Whale; Blue Network; Cyan; Sunil; Azure, etc. User:Pedant 22:10, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

What would be the criteria? Just having something to do with blue? What about, say, blues music? Richard001 00:33, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
Personally I would see it as a bit excessive. Maybe not the category itself but the range of things that would be included in it. By the same principle one could create Category:Strong for any article with strong in the name. I think each article explaining the association of the word, if there is one, is more than enough.--Oni Ookami AlfadorTalk|@ 00:51, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
I can't believe it. There are actually articles on COLORS? I've seen it all...--Princess Janay (talk) 14:38, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

This low volume page with unclear purpose, ends up duplicating the efforts of the help desk and editor assistance pages. Even the discussion on its closure has attracted only a few comments - over 3 years. Rmhermen 16:19, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

support the merge per User:Rmhermen. User:Pedant 22:07, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Question

I'm wondering where I can find the discussion on those boxes at the bottom of talk pages of IP addy people. GreenJoe 14:43, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

You mean the WHOIS type ones? Richard001 00:33, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Templates

The templates like this:

{{User WPMILHIST}}

Is there a list of them somewhere? Even cool ones like the

{{User:Scorpion0422/Insect Overlords}} 

template, how do they make them? or where do they get them?

Wikipedia:Userboxes Richard001 00:33, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Abusive users

How can I report an abusive user to a Wikipedia admin? Gawanti 17:05, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Administrators. There is a category of them, so you can take your pick. Richard001 00:33, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

User Pages

Ok, i'm needing a little help on sprucing up my user page, how do I get things like colours and background etc. Thanks. Rick-LevittContribs 18:19, 19 October 2007 (UTC)


Help with Black culture Project

I am looking for help from other Wikipedians for a black music project, whereby people would have a temp- plate linking back to my page, how can I do this?

Deleting of article about religion/spirituality

A while back there was an article about a man named Martinus Thomsen on wikipedia. I have read some of his books and also some information about him on the internet, so i thought i could help by expanding the article a bit, giving some referances to some infomative sites and adding a picture of him to the article. Then about a week later I went to see if the article had gotten any bigger, but then it had been deleted.

I can't really see what the reason would be to delete it, there wasn't anything in it I could find offensive or terribly missleading. I guess the reason to why the article was deleted was becouse somebody got an agenda against that type of information, either a highly relgious guy who didn't want other allteratives to relgion and christianity to be described or a narrowminded materialist who didn't want any others view on how to explain the things that isn't physical e.g. your mind and your spiruality. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nabo0o (talkcontribs) 20:07, 23 October 2007 (UTC)


Claraparks 21:12, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Hi! The article was deleted by User:Future Perfect at Sunrise, who gave the following reason:
previously deleted by AfD, see Martinus
You may wish to contact the deleting admin via his talk page. I cannot say why the article was deleted, please read our deletion policy. The most common problem is lack of notability. Puchiko (talk contribs  email) 16:52, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Archiving system

There is discussion at Wikipedia talk:Village pump (proposals)#Archiving regarding changing the archiving system used on Village Pump pages. Tra (Talk) 16:01, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

New users

Is there a direct link to newly created accounts othyer than in logs? Kaeso Dio 17:46, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Special:Log/newusers is probably the best way to get a list of the newest accounts. Their names are not stored on a Wikipedia page probably because there are so many of them each day. You may also find Special;Contributions/newbies useful, which shows contributions by accounts that are new. Tra (Talk) 21:52, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Kaeso Dio 22:22, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Is this acceptable?

User:Esskater11/Dirty images? Lex94 Talk Contributions Guest Book 23:08, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Are references

from anti-semitic essays acceptable for wiki? i.e. does wikipedia censor such sources? even if they are not used to reference anti-semitic views,statements,facts,etc? (i.e. they are used to referece an issue almost unrelated with semitism) Nergaal (talk) 11:57, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Just a Question

What is the most viewed article on wikipedia? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.44.7.71 (talk) 19:34, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

According to Wikicharts, the most viewed pages are:
  1. Special:Search
  2. Main Page
  3. Special:Watchlist
  4. Special:Userlogin
  5. Wiki
1, 3 and 4 are special pages, which are created dynamically and wouldn't count as articles. The Main Page is not a standard article so that wouldn't count either. This leaves Wiki as the most-viewed article. This would probably be because people type 'Wiki' into search engines when they are looking for Wikipedia and this article appears around the top of the list. Tra (Talk) 20:51, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Wikipædia I think that Wikipedia ought to be spelt Wikipædia. |||| —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cxbdi (talkcontribs) 17:34, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Trouble with the "New message" template

Earlier when I logged on, I had a new message. But when I saw the template, it had a plain white background. Another time when I had a new message, it didn't show up at all. Does anyone know the user who created the template? I'd like to report this on his talk page. --Gp75motorsports 15:56, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Interwiki link

Wikipedia:Village pump (all) has an interwiki link to simple:Special:Statistics. I'm not sure how it's there at all, since it doesn't appear in the page source, but it doesn't seem appropriate at any rate. Anyone able to fix this? -Elmer Clark 12:29, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Picture Licensing

File:Hoplomachus.jpgCould somebody check the licensing on this picture?

Linking to WikiSource

How do I do this? I know how to add a link to commons categories, but have never done it for source. Does the linked-to item have to be in a category with the same name as the article you're linking from? Murderbike (talk) 21:43, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Userpage Question

Is it possible to upload a totally irrelevant image and use it on my userpage? It's silly question I know, but I'd prefer to ask before I barge in and do it. Crazyboy899 (talk) 20:49, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Depends. What is the copyright status of the image? If it's not free then the answer is a definate no. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 13:39, 31 December 2007 (UTC)