Wikipedia:Village pump/March 2004 archive 4

Horizontal dividing lines

Where can I find a Wikipedia guideline for the usage of horizontal dividing lines, like the one above, especially within articles? Thanks! olivier 10:11, Mar 2, 2004 (UTC)

Here: Horizontal dividing line use. Cheers! —Frecklefoot 14:58, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Thanks. But isn't there anything clearer? I am trying to explain to a user that such lines are not appropriate for dividing sections of an article. The paragraph you are refering to is not very explicit in this respect. I think I remember having read something about this in the Manual of Style but I cannot find it any longer. Any idea? olivier 12:16, Mar 3, 2004 (UTC)

Well, they are appropriate for dividing sections of an article, but only if the article discusses two distinct items: "A horizontal dividing line is sometimes used as division demarcation for sections which are logically main sections, such as an article that contains two distinct meanings of a term." As an example, see Call Me. The first entry discusses an album called "Call Me." The entry at the bottom discusses a seperate song called "Call Me." Other examples would be Vanity and Avatar. Seperating these distinct items is the only appropriate use for horz dividing lines. Sorry I can't find a page that describes it more clearly, but I'm sure others will back me up on this here. :^) —Frecklefoot 15:00, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I'm not sure if this is the best place to bring this up, though it does relate to the horizontal dividing line, but this has really begun to irritate me. At the top of every page on the left hand side is the column of "easy access items" (Main Page, Recent Changes, etc) with three horizontal lines stretching across every page. The problem that exists (at least for me and my computer) is that wherever I go to in Wikipedia I am incapable of clicking on anything to the right of that column of links. This column and the horizontal lines that go with it seem to overlap the tops of every page making it impossible to use the search utility at the top of the page and keeping me from logging into Wikipedia if I am somehow logged out. The situation needs some attention. Katagelophobia 10 Mar 2004

Missing Information

I am not a very good writer but I have some reliable/independent sources for a (large) entry. Without that information the entry seems lacking and misleading at some points. Is there a more experienced editor to add the information or should I take my chances?

Be bold. But if you really don't dare you can also put the informations you'd like to have inserted on the talk page associated with the article (the "Discuss this page" link), and then hope that someone will spot it there and do the updating. andy 11:45, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Barred IP addresses

-->Wikipedia talk:Bans and blocks

Supreme Court Act 2003

→ Wikipedia:Reference desk

Yahoo!

Archived at Wikipedia:Co-operation with Yahoo!

Community Portal link in sidebar

There is a discussion and opinion poll at Wikipedia talk:Community Portal#Visibility poll over whether a link to the "Community Portal" should be added to the sidebar, and what if anything should be removed to make way for it. Please add your opinions there; thank you - IMSoP 19:44, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Main page thumbnails?

The article Revised Standard Version is a featured article. I have taken a beauty shot of the cover of the 2002 anniversary edition I plan to upload. What's the specs on using this image as the main page thumbnail when this article's time comes?

--iHoshie 20:18, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Best post it on MediaWiki talk:Feature.—Eloquence 13:04, Mar 3, 2004 (UTC)

Downloading the database

On the 'Wikipedia' article it says that one can download the wikipedia database. How can this be done?

See Wikipedia:Database_download -- user:zanimum

NetSweeper hates Wikipedia Spanish

The NetSweeper internet monitoring software that blocks out unsavoury sites for parents and school boards alike censors out Wikipedia Spanish as a "Sex Site". Unless it is a risque Wikimedia project that I didn't know about, we should look into getting them to change this automated decision. -- Senor Wences

There's a "Website Scanner" you can access from the website (Home Page) which says that it can't categorise http://en.wikipedia.org/ but that http://es.wikipedia.org/ is indeed a "Sex Site". Weird. --Phil 17:58, Mar 3, 2004 (UTC)

Not weird at all, in fact I'm very impressed they don't list all the Wikipedias as sex sites considering some of the articles we have. There's no way I'd give a child access to Wikipedia. Jimbo has commented that he wouldn't show it to his mother (or grandmother, forget which).

IMO the answer to this is not censorship on the existing project, but an independently filtered version based on the existing (continuing as is) project. Elsewhere I have called this a G-rated Wikipedia.

Some day soon I predict it will be worth someone's while to set up such a G-rated Wikipedia. I'd like it to be Wikimedia that does it, but there's insufficient interest at present, so it's possible it will be a fork instead. There are pros and cons to this. Neither exercise is trivial. Andrewa 22:52, 5 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Out of interest, how many people use this stuff? Mark Richards 07:12, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Recombining protected and unprotected page lists

-->Wikipedia talk:Unprotected page

Wikipedia:Deadend pages

-->Wikipedia talk:Deadend pages

Naming conventions (common names)

-->Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (common names)

Script to convert to new table syntax

-->Wikipedia talk:How to use tables

Front page design...

-->Talk:Main Page (table free)

Make Edit Summary compulsory for anonymous users == -->Wikipedia talk:Edit summary

Compulsory summary and copyrights on images

-->Wikipedia talk:Copyrights

Tables

about id=toc -->Wikipedia talk:How to use tables

Spoiler Warnings

A technical suggestion: it would be great if a spoiler warning lead to a message in the <head><title></title></head> of the page in question, rather than just in the body. My feeling is that if you are looking something up in an encyclopedia, you should already be ready for potential spoilers. So I see the spoiler warning as often more useful for people navigating in from Google searches and the like, who might not realize that they are about to get a plot summary. As such, it would be nice to put the warning somewhere that Google searchers will notice it right away. Chinasaur 19:37, Mar 6, 2004 (UTC)

That seems good lateral thinking to me. Interested in other thoughts on the matter. Andrewa 12:14, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

IMO those per article spoiler warnings should be depreciated now that we have disclaimer links on the top and bottom of every page. Note that on Wikipedia:General disclaimer there is a link to Wikipedia contains spoilers and content you may find objectionable. Spoilers won't harm you in any way - why are spoiler warnings needed in actual articles instead of before and after? --mav

I almost never consciously look at the title of a webpage when I go browsing. Dysprosia 04:17, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Alternatively, we could not include any plots in the articles and instead have a Plot of... page. I think this would make it very clear. --Kokiri 09:39, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

That's a possible solution but I'd rather find all the info on a movie in one place. Maybe the plot shd always be the last thing on the page. In ANY event, the global "spoiler" disclaimer is not sufficient, IMHO. That would prevent me from ever reading any article! It's common practice in the universe at large (don't really know about anything outside the solar system, though) to put the spoiler warning specifically with the text--either at the top of the article or immediately preceding the spoiler section. But please let's not rely on a generic applies-to-all-articles-in-WP! Elf 21:32, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

"neurodermitis melánica"

Looking at a source for the article on Ezequiel Martínez Estrada, I have run into a Spanish-language term I do not know who to translate: "neurodermitis melánica". I have translated this conservatively as "a form of neurodermatitis", but I would like to be more precise. Does anyone know the English-language equivalent? -- Jmabel 22:16, 6 Mar 2004 (UTC)

According to the Cancerweb dictionary [1], neurodermatitis is an extremely variable affliction of the skin caused by prolonged vigorous scratching, and expressing itself in lesion of the skin. Lesion is defined, by the same dictionary, as 'Any pathological or traumatic discontinuity of tissue or loss of function of a part.' So I'd suggest a definition like 'An affliction of the skin caused by prolonged vigourous scratching, the main symptom of which is the skin becoming dysfunctional, be it by flaking, or by ceasing to regenerate, or in any other way.'

Melánica appears to come from the Greek word for black. Compare melanism, which in Spanish is melanina; all three words share the same root. Putting these two together, I would guess that the concept in question is some sort of skin affliction which causes or leaves dark blotches on the skin. If you really want to know, I suggest you ask your physician: Spanish terms are close enough to Latin medical jargon for him to make an educated guess. You could also try to contact somebody at a hospital or university: just contact the medical faculty via the website, and ask "Can anybody help me, or else redirect me?" As it's a rather simple question, most people will be glad to help you.

Conclusion. I read your article, and personally, I do not think it imperative to actually say what form of dermatitis Mr. Estrada had - the article is very good as it is. However, I agree it's nice to be comprehensive, and if you would prefer to make this final touch, you had best ask a professional for a moment of his/her time.

Sietse

Overwikification

To be moved to Wikipedia:Make only links relevant to the context

I apologize if I'm raising this issue in the wrong forum or if it's already been discussed. But I've noticed several examples of what I'd call overwikification. Check out these articles: List of Ambassadors to Canada, Survivor: Pulau Tiga, Tom Berenger, Twelfth United States Congress. There's over two hundred red links to empty articles on these four pages alone. And looking at the titles of these empties, it's likely nobody is ever going to fill them in with any article, let alone one worth reading.

Maybe we need to discuss some informal standard an empty article needs to rise to before someone creates a red link to it. MK 22:30, 6 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I can't really see the harm. It's possible that they may just inspire an interested party to write a series of articles for them - it's certainly happened before. Ambivalenthysteria 22:53, 6 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I'm with MK. I find it prevalent and an annoying irritation. I suspect the practice of wikifiying almost everything regardless of whether the linked article exists was more useful when Wikipedia was getting started. I don't believe a word should be linked unless you either a) know that an article for the linked term exists or b) feel strongly that the article should exist and have a reasonable expectation that someday it will exist. Dpbsmith 22:59, 6 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Well, I can't speak for everybody, but I "strongly feel" that an article for every member of the U.S. House (past and present) should exist, along with an article on every movie in IMDB and every band at Ultimate Band List. I've got no problem with these articles. Meelar 23:02, 6 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I agree that in narrative text, overwikification is very annoying. But I'd draw a distinction between narrative text and lists: in lists of films, books, credits, etc, like those pointed to by MK, it's less annoying to have them all wikified. And many of them will come to have articles eventually: several of those in Tom Berenger's list, for example have three or more links to them already. - Nunh-huh 23:07, 6 Mar 2004 (UTC)

What Nunh-huh said. On lists like 12th Congress, all of those names eventually (sometime in the next decade) should get articles of their own. In actual articles overwikification is a huge problem, especially with dates. But in lists is cool...

What? you want us to re-wikify them all after they exist, which means once the links are available, we have to search them all in wiki and wikify them? I guess that's more annoying! Besides, i have to check out all the links in my article to see if they exist before i submit it. which one is more annoying? i strongly believe that a red link gives Wikipedians a desire to creat it. What we need to worry about, is the vandalism, IMO. PS: I DON'T like repeated wikified links in one article... --Yacht 12:17, Mar 7, 2004 (UTC)

So people are claiming that there actually will someday be an article on Philémon Yunji Yang, the current Cameroonian ambassador to Canada? A solid biography of Mr Yang (I'm assuming Phil's a mister) and a brief but thorough history of his diplomatic and political career? Hopefully it'll appear before someone else has suceeded him as Ambassador because an article on the former Cameroonian ambassador to Canada seems pointless.

If we're going to have a standard that any subject potentially deserves an article because someone may be interested, why do we discourage vanity pages and high school articles?

My personal suggestion is that when you're wikifying an article, ask yourself these questions before creating a red link: Should this article exist? Would there be information in this theoretical article that goes beyond what's in this existing article? Is it ever likely to be written? Would someone be likely to be looking for an article with this subject?MK 16:26, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Very amusing. Phil's been taken care of. Which is one down; one hundred and thirty three to go. Which will complete one page of the four I mentioned. Which were only four random examples of the hundreds of similar pages that surely exist. Starting to get an idea of the size of the job?MK 15:04, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Yes, MK. The job sounds massive--almost as though someone was trying to build the world's largest free encyclopedia using only volunteer editors. :-) Seriously, MK, it doesn't sound any more daunting than, well, doing what we've been doing for the last several years. Red links mean we add more articles. And frankly, there is a difference between a vanity page for "the owner of Mountlake Terrace's largest 7-Eleven" and an article describing, in brief, the diplomatic actions of Cameroon's representative in Canada. Are you opposed to an article on the United States' ambassador to the United Kingdom? If so, I wonder who does qualify for articles. If not, then why should we look down on ambassadors from poor countries/Third World countries/countries most Wikipedians have not traveled to? I think there is a bias here. After all, I'm sure I could find a page full of red links to people MK thinks should have articles, and I can't imagine you want those pages dewikified, else you'll never know the articles need writing. The problem you are asking to have solved is not a problem, in my opinion. Jwrosenzweig 17:49, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I guess there's little point in arguing against the consensus. Personally I think that Anglo-American relations are more objectively important than Cameroonian-Canadian relations and I think this is a reflection of reality not bias. If everything is equally relevant, than why say that an ambassador is more important than a store owner?

Let me say again, I have no objection to people writing these pages. The problem is people not writing these pages. But pages are still be creating, literally by the thousands, that nobody will ever write. Do we really want to reach a point where the majority of this project is empty boxes? In my opinion this would make a mockery of what we're doing here. MK 07:23, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

To me this seems to be 2 slightly different arguments going on here, firstly what deserves an article, and secondly that red links are bad. The first argument I am going to steer well away from. The second one however, seems easy, (philosophically at least). If there are a reasonable amount of people who find the missing links annoying we should add a user config option to not display incomplete links, (yes I know this isn't the place to suggest software mods but I was just trying to help solve a disagreement, if others agree I could add the request on sourceforge). In my suggestion there would be 3 choices for the display of bad links, red, question mark or plain text. Steven jones 02:50, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Warbox

I know there is a Wikipedia:WikiProject Battles battlebox, but is there a page (apparently it's not Wikipedia:WikiProject Wars) that itemizes a "warbox"--just want to ask about recent adds to U.S. wars. jengod 23:43, Mar 6, 2004 (UTC)

I've seen those as well, but I've never seen a discussion about it...it looks interesting though. Adam Bishop 23:44, 6 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Squid problems?

My Netscape 7 only let me see the last four village pump entries in this very big issue after I went into the edit box -- even a forced reload didn't get me actual content. Maybe a problem related to file size and the caching system? -- till we *) 00:12, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I've been having a lot of mysterious problems with pages not being up-to-date in the last few days. Edits apparently not taking, and so forth. Forced reloads don't work, emptying my browser's cache doesn't work. I've tried using IE rather than Safari. No difference. What does work for me is to log out of Wikipedia and then log in again. Dpbsmith 03:07, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Automatic lists

Is there any way to automatically generate a list of related articles? Such as all Unterseeboots that have articles? --Pascal666 03:02, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

No, right now there is no such way. Unless you can get what you want by clicking "What links here." The other way is to run a query on the database, administrators used to have access to queries, but I am not sure if that's the case anymoe (it slows down the db server). Dori | Talk 04:55, Mar 7, 2004 (UTC)

Special:Allpages/Unterseeboot might yield what you are looking for. -- User:Docu

The logging-out bug

Could somebody please fix the bug that causes a user to become logged-out when they hit the "Save Page" button after editing an article, and now also causes the edit to be lost. (It used to be that if you got logged out in this way you could hit "Back" and your edit would still be there. Now it lost for good.) This has happened to me twice in recent days, causing me to lose a lot of work. I know others have complained about this bug for a long time, but it has never been fixed. (Yes I know I should save all edits somewhere else before attempting to "Save Page," but I don't always remember.) Adam 04:32, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

What exactly happens when you try to save the page? Does it time out? Does it return a blank page? Does it give an error message? What happens if you click refresh after the error? What happens if you click back? What happens if you click back and then refresh? When you go to another page after this has happened, does it appear as if you are logged out? Does it ever seem to spontaneously log you back in? How were the answers to these questions different before the problem got worse? Can you remember the time of the error and article title, so that we can look up the event in the log files? -- Tim Starling 10:08, Mar 8, 2004 (UTC)

I doubt this is worth much, but I have never seen this problem across the various OS/browser flavours I've editted with. I always use permanent log-in.. is the problem limited to people who log in for one browser session only, possibly, maybe? Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 10:25, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Put it on Votes for Deletion or one of the other similar pages, depending on the reason for deletion. Andre Engels 09:00, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Deleting a page

How does a Wikipedian go about deleting a page? JB82 16:55, Mar 6, 2004 (UTC)

In general we don't like deleting pages - we'd prefer to see them fixing in some way, if possible. See Wikipedia:Deletion policy for more, and how to delete a page when it really needs to be deleted. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 10:19, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Talking to Wikipedians using UserTalk

I was wondering how do you talk with other Wikipedians using UserTalk if they don't have a link to their talk page? JB82 15:07, 6 Mar 2004 (UTC)

They have a link to their user page. Hit that, then hit "Discuss this page" to get to their talk page. Does that answer your question? Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 10:17, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Making most wanted more useful?

At the moment, Special:Wantedpages is not updated automatically, but created only once in some days (to help the servers with their burden). That is okay -- but what is confusing is the use of edit links, because they stay red. That is no problem if Wantedpages is generated every time one calls it, but in the current state of affairs, it would be more useful if one actually can see if a wanted page (say: Toto (band), which is still listed on the top of most wanted) has been created by someone else in the meantime. So I propose to introduce another link (to the page, not to editing the page) for every item in the Special:Wantedpages to make it easier to check if the item got created meanwhile. -- till we *) 13:13, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I *STRONLGY* agree with the above - there's no way of telling which ones have been written and which ones haven't. →Raul654 16:42, Mar 7, 2004 (UTC)

I agree with you, the current situation for this (and other special pages) isn't that great. A solution could be to place the content on Wikipedia:Most_Wanted_Articles and edit it there. Special:Wantedpages would just suggest to look there. -- User:Docu

Additionally, the script needs some work, many many of the most wanted pages list ten or more links to the Most_Wanted_ articles page..... this is _not_ useful. I love killing wanted, it's sorta my hobby, but it's getting frustrating. Additionally, the CURRENT version has a just plain wrong wanted as the first one (Deaddead) with over 32K wants... uh No Rick Boatright 05:30, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Ouch! I suspect this of being a dummy value in the scripts that's being interpreted literally for some reason - it's even showing up as the target of a redirect from As of 2000! Perhaps a developer could look into this and find out what's going on (maybe the same bug as the other whatlinkshere problems, or an attempted fix?) - IMSoP 18:57, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Search engine limitation?

I have a search-engine question over at the Talk:Ballard,_Seattle,_Washington page.

--c3k 17:04, Mar 7, 2004 (UTC)

Replied there. By the way, someone needs to align the two search forms at MediaWiki:Googlesearch as it doesn't look very professional right now. If you're not an admin, just paste it on the talk page, and someone will get it. Dori | Talk 17:11, Mar 7, 2004 (UTC)

Done. Check MediaWiki talk:Googlesearch. Lupo 09:55, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

And pasted in successfully. Thankyou Lupo! Tannin 10:01, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

University of Bristol

I am a little uneasy about recent edits in University of Bristol by someone from an IP address (137.222.50.154) at that institution. Nothing terrible but a bit of a PoV feel (to me) and perhaps some kind of agenda, maybe an official Bristol one, being promoted. Claims about its prestige, claims about mediocre depts holding back the ratings. Maybe it's OK really but I would be grateful if someone with more experience than I would take a look at it please. 82.35.17.203 20:55, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

The same user said something very similar at Imperial College, London. I moved it to talk without having seen his edits to other articles. The user clearly has a point s/he wants to make! Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 09:41, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Help me make this article NPOV?

I recently added a lot of information to the Microsoft antitrust case article. However, another user believes the article to be biased, and has added a disclaimer saying so to the top of the page. I've discussed it with him offsite; he can't point to anything specific he believes to be biased in my additions to the article, but he believes the general tone of what I added is biased, perhaps in my choice of what facts to add. Would someone else please have a look at the article and either help me bring it further NPOV or else remove the disclaimer? - Brian Kendig 23:25, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

An NPOV header needs to be substantiated, Brian. In other words, it is not good enough to say "I object to this", you must say why you object. A vague "I don't like the presentation of the article" doesn't cut it. On these grounds, I removed the header. Tannin 23:39, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I found a passage in there that comprised allegations against Bill Gates but which offered no source to explain who was making the allegations about his courtroom demeanor. The non-durable links pointed to sites outside of wikipedia. I removed the offending point of view. It appeared the writer either wanted to deprecate Gates or was so acustomed to deprecating Gates it seemed normal to post allegations without saying who made them. Negative connotation 08:30, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

so acustomed to deprecating Gates it seemed normal

This sadly seems to be a systematic bias in Wikipedia articles. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 16:35, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

If I disclosed enough identifying data, Microsoft's database could tell them I am no fan of Bill Gates, but this sort of uninformed hatred is scarcely the way to approach the situation. The open source movement can be as aggressive and improprietous in its marketing approach as can any corporate machine. My objection to the approach is that it is reactionary and stands in place of effect approaches to dialogue that would allow progressive community trusts to gain market share.

At this point in Wikipedia's development I believe aggressive confrontation of covert political manipulation in the context of articles or community interaction, with attention toward construction of language and precise logical coherence, will best serve the project, the readers, the world at large and life in general.Reality check

I believed that providing a link to the offsite article which gave the quote was enough. I now understand that it wasn't, and I've amended the Wikipedia article to directly attribute the quote as well as providing the offsite link. I have as much interest in presenting an unbiased account of the facts as anyone else here does; please do not assume "uninformed hatred" or "covert political manipulation" where cluelessness sufficed. Brian Kendig 00:35, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I imaging it feels crummy to know someone suspects your of spreading hateful thoughts, but supressing honest opinions is not the way to get to the bottom of these things. I agree Gates is a bit of a corporate thug, but I recognize that his thuggishness is used to justify thuggishness among his critics. For many of us who have confronted these behaviors for decades, it matters less what a persons political, relgious or cultural affiliations are than it does what standards they set in human relations.

Now for many, I dare say the main stream, those standards involve the basic social niceities - please, thank you, that kind of stuff. But for me and some folks I work with, those things are salve for a corrupt language that is used to convey information about how other people should be treated. Anytime a person is reduced to a symbol we can suspect that there is emotional manipulatin going on.

In your case, I trust that you honestly want to be free of these influences, but as you admit, you don't know how. It is our position that it is best to be very frank and none too gentle in telling people they are being used to advance dehumanizing memes. After one has stood in a few race riots, it is much easier to aggressively confront the ways of thought that underly much human conflict, and to ignore the emotional pleas of those who don't wish to be so confronted. Though you did not appreciate the approach, I am glad you found it effective and thank you for reinforcing my confidence in the direct approach when it comes to confronting depradation of human rights or dignity. Despite cocktail party contempt among some Wikipedians for those who are more interested in fairness than niceness, I am sure Wikipedia is better because of your now improved understanding. Scene2Much

Excuse me? I'm "supressing [sic] honest opinions?" I was "thuggish?" I "don't know how" to be free of these influences, and you have to be "none too gentle" to tell me I'm being "used to advance dehumanizing memes?" This is NOT an issue of "depradation of human rights or dignity." This is an issue of me wanting someone to read my edits and say, "Hey, you really ought to attribute those quotes directly in the Wikipedia article rather than relying on offsite links." That's exactly the sort of feedback I was looking for -- and if someone else wanted to add the attributions instead of waiting for me to, so much the better! It makes no sense for someone to read my edit and assume I'm on a smear campaign and start throwing around words such as "hatred" and "manipulation." That doesn't do anyone here on Wikipedia any good, and I'm insulted by the insinuation that I'm somehow too corrupt to see my own corruption. I doubted the NPOV of what I wrote, and so I came here asking other people to help me balance the article; what should I have done differently? Brian Kendig 14:59, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Greek Letters

Anybody happen to know how Georgios Papanikolaou would be written in the Green alphabet? jengod

I would hazard something like Γεοργιος Παπανικολαου but I'm probably wrong :) Dysprosia 03:15, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Nearly, but you're forgetting the accents! (Sorry about the mishmash of HTML entities and Unicode - Wikipedia does weird things to posted Greek characters. Does anyone know of a handly online converter?) Γεώργιος Παπανικολάου. And there's a website with a picture of his bust here. -- ChrisO 12:55, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

This should do the trick in Unicode: Γεώργιος Παπανικολάου -- ChrisO 14:38, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

error

There is an error in the spelling of monatomic on one of the pages about helium. I just thought that I would send this message so you all know. I do not know how many other errors there are on this word but I thought I would let you know that there was at least one. Monatomic was typed in as monoatomic instead.

Sincerely, Dan Knapp

Dan, you can go ahead and fix it, just click on "Edit this page" when you notice something wrong and correct it! - Nunh-huh 03:37, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia allows both American English and British English spellings of words. The British spelling Monoatomic is just as correct as the American spelling Monatomic -- Popsracer 13:02, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

- Spellings should be consistent to a particular dialect across a single article though.. and given we have "odorless" and "colorless" in the first line or two... I think it is safe to say this particular article (Helium) has been bagged by the Americans :-). Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 13:14, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Monoatomic is a rare spelling, even in Britain. I don't have the OED to hand, but The Times Digital Archive 1785-1985 has nine citations for monatomic and none for monoatomic. A trawl through Google's results shows that the spelling monoatomic is used mostly in the context of pseudoscience. -- Heron 09:27, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

USA meet up

[2] Come on down! Sam Spade 05:28, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Make wikiproject a namespace

I would like to see 'Wikiproject:' become a namespace, so we can avoid the uberlong Wikipedia:Wikiproject ... Thanks. SV(talk) 06:49, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I agree, though I think this is unlikely to happen any time soon. Tuf-Kat 02:47, Mar 9, 2004 (UTC)

You got my support too. Does this involve any developer bussiness? -- Taku 08:13, Mar 9, 2004 (UTC)

Yes it would, for various reasons. You could create a page at Wikiproject: Blah (don't do this!) and it would function exactly as if it were an article in the main namespace, though.. but this is no solution. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 16:21, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

What links here

The page http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Whatlinkshere&target=RCS indicates RCS is linked to by "Concurrent versions system". In fact, it lists it twice! I've fixed the one link it had, and can find no others. What gives? --Pascal666 07:47, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Found another one. The page http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Whatlinkshere&target=CVS lists KDE four times and SourceForge twice, even though neither of them point there anymore. --Pascal666 08:06, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I'm sure this is a known bug. Take a look at Windows. Almost none of those pages link there. If you want to report a bug take a look at Wikipedia:Bug reports for instructions. --Minesweeper 08:21, Mar 8, 2004 (UTC)

It is a known bug, the link table somtimes does not update correctly. Another page where it is even worse is Wagner - there are more than 10 links listed from LOTR, but only one was there before I fixed that link. Or it had a case shortly ago where a link stayed red whatever I did, it only works now as on Skytrain a redirect to Vancouver Skytrain is used, linking the article directly isn't working. It seems to me that this bug is getting more and more prominent - but maybe just because the broken link tables accumulate, and thus the chances to stumble into such a broken table are rising. andy 08:53, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Yup, bugID 802814. Thanks! --Pascal666 09:20, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Latin to Cyrillic Unicode converter wanted!

Does anyone know of a Unicode character converter that will transliterate text written in Latin and turn it into the Cyrillic equivalents in Unicode - for instance, turning RESPUBLIKA into the Unicode for РЭСПУБЛIКА? It would also help if the same converter could translate Windows Cyrillic characters into Unicode. -- ChrisO 10:39, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Take a look at this page, but don't forget this one. Pfortuny 08:40, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

information

hi i'm called jonathan boysoft from cameroon.i have the age of 18 and i school and leave with my parents .i also do drawing alittle bit of painting and designs.actually i want to imform you that seeing into my own self that your company produicies lots of cars i have also desided to produce two cars models for the toyota company to see or why not produce.these marks are the (voltan 4; and the otic 104 models which i succeded to design.i also want to say that if you are interested then write me by using my e-mail adress <email address removed> and my school adress which is

ekoko jonathan massango
form5science G.B.H.S.
deido douala box8335
  (cameroon).

thanks for yours understanding. from jonathan boysoft.

Jonathan, you have the wrong impression of Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not a car company, but an encyclopedia. You are free to contribute any encyclopedic information about cars or your country if you want. Dori | Talk 17:14, Mar 8, 2004 (UTC)

It might be entertaining to collect the most amusing requests on Wikipedia:Amusing requests to the pump or similar -- Gabriel Wicke 11:14, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I had the same idea :-) I've put them on Wikipedia:Unusual requests. Feel free to move if a different name is more appropriate. -- Wapcaplet 20:02, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

conditions for using banners and logs of Wikipedia

What kind of condition I can use banners or logs of Wikipedia on?

What the term "Feel free to grab these for your website." on Wikipedia:Banners and buttons mean? Can I use these banners not under terms of GNU Free Documentation License or only under GFDL?

How about logs of Wikipedia?

Sorry for my poor English.
Thank you! --MIzusumashi 14:19, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

You're right, as it is you might think that they are under the GFDL, but they should be public domain. Still, if you just want to put up a banner with a link to Wikipedia, I don't think anyone will complain, and you can probably do so under fair use anyway. I'll leave a not on the banner talk page and see if the authors can update their images to be public domain. Dori | Talk 17:16, Mar 8, 2004 (UTC)

Thank you for your answer and proposal on Wikipedia talk:Banners and buttons!

If some banners were public domain, we could update some banners on other language Wikipedia(s) - some of them made from English version banners -. (I'm user of Wikipedia Japanese.)--MIzusumashi 05:47, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

New Wiki idea

I would like to start a wikitree editable family tree. I don't know if wikimedia would be willing to administer the system... Perl 15:26, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Have you checked out Genes Connected, which is a spin-off of Friends Reunited? --Phil 15:48, Mar 8, 2004 (UTC)

I think its a good idea. How about WikiFamily? Ludraman | Talk 18:15, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Anyone ever edit at Wikibooks?

I need help. The university project that has been working at Customer experience management has hit snags here, and the project leader, Karsten, has been talking with me about how to solve things. I suggested Wikibooks, and he's agreed that the project they're trying to do is a better fit for Wikibooks (at least, as I explained Wikibooks). Problem is, I've never moved stuff to Wikibooks, and I've never worked there, so I really need an editor who knows something about Wikibooks to volunteer to help Karsten (who is a very intelligent and pleasant person, and most willing to learn) transfer the stuff over to Wikibooks and be a point of contact there should he have questions. I've asked on their mailing list (which seems very infrequently used), but I was hoping there'd be someone here who'd know. Please help if you can! Jwrosenzweig 17:56, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Try posting your message to the Wikibooks:Staff lounge. --mav 08:05, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Ah, silly me. Thank you, mav. Jwrosenzweig 16:48, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Move can't overwrite a redirect anymore??

It seems that the move function will no longer allow me to overwrite a page that's never been anything but a redirect. Would someone please delete Halva (most common English spelling) and move Halvah there. Mkweise 21:23, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Certainly. However, I note Halva _does_ have a page history, so there is no change. Morwen 21:25, Mar 8, 2004 (UTC)

Before going too far with this, note that AHD4 online has an entry under "halvah," no entry under "halva," and describes "halva" as a variant spelling of "halvah." In other words... why do you say "Halva" is the more frequent spelling? Dpbsmith 21:40, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I think a Google search was the source, although frankly I agree with you that I'd always thought "Halvah" was the correct spelling (my mother always spelled it that way). Jwrosenzweig 21:42, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Google shows that halva is by far the most common spelling, and halvah isn't even 2nd:

halva: 182k google hits
halwa: 36k
halvah: 32k
helva: 14k

Halvah is the Jewish spelling, and may at times be used to refer specifically to the Jewish (heavily sesame-flavored) variety. Mkweise 21:54, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Buena Vista Social Club lost completely: developers, help!

I tried to move it for disambiguation. A a result, I've got a page with

REDIRECT _Buena_Vista_Social_Club_(movie) -- (to an empty page)

and no history!

Developers, please restore. Mikkalai 21:26, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I'm not a developer, but the problem seems to be the leading "_" which is trimmed away by the DB lookup. -- till we *) 21:54, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Underscores are inserted by the engine. Removal of them doesn't help. Mikkalai 23:22, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

The page was somehow moved to an invalid title. This shouldn't be possible, it's a security flaw. I've renamed it using an SQL query to Buena Vista Social Club (movie), and will look into the matter. -- Tim Starling 03:46, Mar 9, 2004 (UTC)

Concern about Grape seed oil

The following section was removed by Pcb21, stating that he/she was removing something else. I presume it was an error and am restoring it. (Pcb21, if you meant to remove this, please explain why, and/or suggest a better palce to put it):

I am somewhat concerned about medical information offered in grape seed oil, but am not an expert in the area. I have made a few preliminary notes at Talk:grape seed oil, but would like to ask someone more knowledgeable to have a look. Hopefully VP is the right forum for this sort of thing. Securiger 17:34, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

--Securiger 02:38, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I moved some material to the talk page. If I took too much someone should put it back, but if it is questionable, it should not be in the article. -- WormRunner 05:18, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

The removal was a complete accident, I don't even know when I did it :)! Apologies. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 09:26, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Thumbnail borders... what do you want to see?

There's less than a week left to make suggestions in the design competition to replace the grey border & magnifying glass icon around thumbnails. Even if you don't have the time/ inclination/ html knowledge to suggest a replacement yourself, please come and vote in the straw poll to say which features you most want to see. :) fabiform | talk 04:29, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Bird, SoCal, Raptor, Bad Faith, etc.

-->User talk:David Newton/Bird Dispute

Restore Page

I read the mandrake article, and saw that at the bottom of the article it had a list of other things mandrake might refer to. So, I thought, I'll move this page to Mandrake_(plant), and make this a disambiguation page. But now, the Mandrake_(plant) page contains the disambig page, and the mandrake page makes a redirect, and I'm sure I never typed a redirect. What happened, and how should I get back the original article? Sietse 10:55, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Seems like you did edit mandrake (plant) instead of mandrake, maybe because the second one redirected you to the first one - that's what the move did automatically. If you want to edit a redirect you need to click on the link "redirected from" in the top of the page. I fixed it for you now - but you still need to set the links to Mandrake to their correct target. andy 11:17, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Will do. I'd already started, but stopped when I noticed the problem. Thanks!

Sietse 14:02, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Getting help on editing/grammar

I'm kinda newcomer here. I like to know is there anyway to get grammar/editing help from other native speakers (My first language is Tamil). (I'm not referring peer reiview) -- Rrjanbiah 12:06, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Normally when you post something with broken grammar/spelling, there'll be someone lurking on the Recent Changes to check your additions and fix it eventually. But sometimes it slips through, and then it will only be fixed if someone stumbles upon it later. But as long as your writing is comprehensible even a bad grammar article with good facts is better than good writing without the facts. So don't worry too much about it. If you still worry you can also add the article in question in Wikipedia:Cleanup, but the list there is growing faster than being purged :-( andy 12:47, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for your input. Wikipedia:Cleanup is what I was looking for.--Rrjanbiah 05:25, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Wikimap

Is there any map work going on in Wiki? or Could I suggest you such map project? -- Rrjanbiah 12:08, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

If you mean adding maps to wikipedia articles, then Wikipedia:WikiProject Maps would be a good starting point. However we are still in the process of defining the map styles we prefer. You're welcome to join there if you like to create maps yourself, there's also a subpage where you can request maps. For a more broad view meta:Maps is about doing something like automated map creating. andy 12:35, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia:Maps for some resources. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 16:23, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm not aware of meta:Maps--this is what I was suggesting. --Rrjanbiah 05:27, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Need suggestion on formatting

I tried to add the PIN format for Chennai. Right now, I've added it as 600 ddd. I used d to represent any digit. Is it ok? or Should it be 600 xxx or any other Wiki format? TIA -- Rrjanbiah 12:14, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

xxx is probably best, but there is no set format for this. The Postal Index Number article is a little weak because it's scope is so small. Could you write an article on the Indian Postal Service and include the PIN content there? Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 16:18, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for your input. I'll use xxx. My language is bit weak. So, I don't know how to write such non-technical (historical) page. Anyway, I'll try to do my level best. --Rrjanbiah 05:34, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

If you feel able to add the basic data, then do it. There are many people around here who will "mercilessly" edit the language to make it read well. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 09:22, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

External images

y can i use external images in Chinese WP(don't need to upload), while it's not allowed in English WP? --Yacht 17:28, Mar 9, 2004 (UTC)

IIRC it was disallowed on en: because it became a popular defacement to add a link to the hello.jpg. It also has the advantage that everything - text and images - are present on the same server, so it's easier to download the "full" wikipedia. andy 20:02, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Image namespace bug (:Image:Image) or confusion?

I'm confused enough about the various namespaces already, so I can't figure out whether this is a bug or a feature. There's an image at [[:Image:AustrCattleDogBlueFace wb.jpg]]. Somehow I inadvertently type [[:Image:Image:AustrCattleDogBlueFace wb.jpg]] (duplicating the :Image part), which takes me here. It displays a brand-new page, *with* the image, but without any of the text or history of the image. Clearly it thinks it's a different *article* but the same *image*, but why that combination? And should it allow this? Elf 19:47, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Intriguingly, Image:User:AustrCattleDogBlueFace_wb.jpg has the same result, but Image:Dog:AustrCattleDogBlueFace_wb.jpg doesn't - the second namespace has to be valid in order to be ignored (even Special: and MediaWiki: behave the same). Also, the Image: has to come first, and you can't have more than two levels of nesting - neither User:Image:AustrCattleDogBlueFace_wb.jpg nor Image:Image:Image:AustrCattleDogBlueFace_wb.jpg contains the image. This may give someone familiar with The Source™ a clue as to what's going on here; or it might just have been a vaguely amusing use of 5 minutes of my life. ;-) IMSoP 22:12, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Removing Opentask/Merge Notation

I have merged the U.S.-North Korea article that is currently listed in the Opentask/Merge notation. How do I remove the article from that listing? (I'm just a bit confused I guess, since I assumed that the Opentask list was created by the database finding random articles with the Duplicate boilerplate tag. The U.S.-North Korea article has had that removed, so I'm not clear on how that article remains in the Opentask notation.) --Wolf530 19:54, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Online Moderation

(Cross-posted from the reference desk because it related directly to wikipedia)

I'm writing a paper comparing different forms of online moderation (which I plan to include Wikipedia in). Wikipedia:Administrators contains a pretty good description of how our system of moderation works. I'd like the equivalent of that for other important sites (slashdot comes to mind). Thanks for the help. →Raul654 21:30, Mar 9, 2004 (UTC)

The Wikipedia doesn't currently have an effective moderation system. It has several structures but grossly inadequate routine enforcement at the early stages of poor conduct, which cause the poor conduct to grow and discourage the community. That's my opinion as a long-time moderator of online communities. Jamesday 06:54, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

HR-3261

Called the Database and Collections of Information Misappropriation Act - ?alabio kindly left this on my talk: Very interesting... Wired news story

History of the Middle East

DO NOT REPLY TO THIS - Reply in the Requests for comment section

I want this article to focus on Southwest Asia, although not completely exclude Northern Africa.

Here's an example of what I want in the article...

The entire Ottoman section should be left alone in this regard, as the North African lands are part of their empire, and whatever happens there affects Southwest Asia. However, in this sentence... "When republican revolutions brought radical anti-western regimes to power in Egypt in

 1954, in Syria in 1963, in Iraq in 1968 and in Libya in 1969, the Soviet Union, 
 seeking to open a new arena of the Cold War in the Middle East, allied itself with Arab rulers such as 
 Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt and Saddam Hussein of Iraq."

IMO, Libya should be taken out there, as this doesn't show interactions between them and the Southwest Asian countries. Yet Egypt should stay, as they are better connected to the other Middle Eastern countries, and part of their country is in Asia.

I also want to put "This article is a general overview of the history of the Middle East, (This article uses the Southwest Asia definition). For more detailed information, see articles on the histories of individual countries. For North Africa, see History of Africa.", but Adam Carr doesn't want me to do this.

Perhaps I should have "This article is a general overview of the history of the Middle East, For more detailed information, see articles on the histories of individual countries. For more detailed information on countries in North Africa, see History of Africa.

See: Talk:History of the Middle East for more information.

Discuss about it in Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment WhisperToMe 23:37, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC) DO NOT REPLY TO THIS - Reply in the Requests for comment section

Is your question whether Egypt can be considered part of the Middle East or not? -- User:Docu

How do I 'claim' a not-logged-in edit?

I forgot to log in; how do I 'claim' an edit as my own, so that my login name shows up in the page history instead of my IP address? I know I saw information about this once, but I've just now scoured the Wikipedia help, and I can't find the information again. Brian Kendig 00:19, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Log in, make a trivial edit, then claim credit for the IP address in "Summary." pstudier 00:54, 2004 Mar 10 (UTC)

Go here: Wikipedia:Changing attribution for an edit. You can show you're that IP and the edits you made with that IP can be added to your user contributions. fabiform | talk 00:56, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Press Release

I'm asking Wikipedia, please, please, every user, send off the Wikipedia:Press releases/February 2004 press release off to your local paper, a few local papers, a dozen papers in Tibet. We need to get this out to the media, and can only do it with your help! Even contacting one local paper will make a world of difference. Secretlondon once said, "If some of the people who helped write the thing had helped send it out we would have the world covered by now." -- user:Zanimum

Just the release itself? Do we need to write a cover letter? How should this be done? --Jia ng 19:42, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)

If someone could put together some kind of standard form letter or instructions, that would be helpful. I mean, how seriously would a local paper take an emailed press release from some random person (like me)? --Minesweeper 02:33, Mar 4, 2004 (UTC)

Ditto on these requests. I looked at the press release page when it first came out but couldn't figure out what I was supposed to say or include in my email, so did nuthin'. Elf 03:09, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Find instructions at How to send a press release

Any journalists working at WP? :O --Yacht 05:17, Mar 10, 2004 (UTC)

Note to the person who's been blanking this page

Have you checked out http://www.wikinfo.org ? They encourage a sympathetic point of view editorial style which you may find preferable to Wikipedia, and you can build on the existing work here via an automated import system. Build up where you'll be welcomed; don't waste your time here. --Brion 07:50, 2004 Mar 10 (UTC)

What happened today? i found this page was kept being destroyed today! Who's suppressing critical discussion of Wikipedia by the news media? :S --Yacht 09:15, Mar 10, 2004 (UTC)

Vote: proposed policy to ban any user for 24 hours who engages in revert wars

Vote on the proposed policy to grant sysops the power to ban a user for 24 hours if they engage in revert wars. All replies/comments to that page please. fabiform | talk 09:20, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Guidence for admission in C.P.E

Respected Sir, I have honour to learn about common Professional Examination.I am a law graduate (LL.B.) from Pakistan.Besides it i have done masters in Political Science.I have also done Human Rights diploma from Faculty of Law, University of Peshawar with the colloberation of university of Oslo, Norway.I am doing practise of law from last three years. Now, i am intrested to equip my self with law in England and for this purpose as per my information i have to do C.P.E. Therefore, I may be provided with guidelines/requirements for the same and obliged.

Sincerely yours Hassan Agha <both email addresses removed>

Excellent. I'm not sure I understand your question / comment though. Could you clarify? Thank you, Mark Richards 07:13, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)

A moment in Wikipedia history

Greatest. Wikipedia Quote. Ever. From History of Somalia:

In 1935, the British were pretty sick of Somalia.

Runner-up, from the same page, is:

Ethiopia's favorite national past time, i.e. "Lets go conquer the Somalis".

-- Walt Pohl 11:05, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

This was written by User:Vroman, who also has a tendency to upload copyrighted images. Someone may want to go through his contributions.—Eloquence 11:09, Mar 10, 2004 (UTC)

Spambot

Wikipedia is suffering a distributed spambot attack. The bot adds links to a site called "emmss", from around 10 different IP addresses. It's probably made over 1000 edits. The following wikis may need help cleaning up:

ms - done
gn - done
gl - done
fy - done
ja - done
sq - done

-- Tim Starling 14:13, Mar 10, 2004 (UTC)

I'm making a few people sysops on those wikis temporarily, in case anyone's wondering. -- Tim Starling 14:31, Mar 10, 2004 (UTC)

Many thanks to Fuzheado and Andre Engels for cleaning up several wikis, Suisui who worked on ja, and gwicke and jeronim working on the technical side. -- Tim Starling 15:10, Mar 10, 2004 (UTC)

Many thanks to you all for stopping this severe attack. Ellywa 17:37, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Fortunately on cy the spambot only edited our sandbox! (Must be a virtue of only being a small Wikipedia!) -- Arwel 00:28, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

No, it's more like being lucky - gl, fy and ms are not much larger than cy, and gn is a lot smaller (vandalizing 20 pages on a 3-page Wikipedia - that's what I call large scale vandalism!) - Andre Engels 11:36, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

TV Guide covers

Is a TV Guide cover fair use, say, a cover of Oprah in the Oprah article, a Cookie Monster cover in the Cookie Monster article, that sort of thing? -- user:zanimum

No. They're copyrighted by TV Guide (now owned by Gemstar). None of them are old enough to be out of copyright. DavidWBrooks 14:59, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Well, the question whether it is fair use is independent of that. See Wikipedia:Fair use. Use the "Can we realistically get a free image of this person / object / fictional thing" guideline. In cases of individuals, even celebrities, the answer is usually yes.

The matter is complicated by the fact that companies try to expand the concept of copyright beyond all expectations. For example, in Germany, the artist couple de:Christo und Jeanne-Claude temporarily wrapped the Reichstag in cloth. They successfully sued a postcard maker for copyright violations because he had taken and published his own photos of the Reichstag. They claimed that the art of the wrapping itself was copyrightable, and this was confirmed by Germany's highest court.

So if you took a picture of someone in a cookie monster costume, the copyright owner of the "cookie monster" might well sue you for violation on the same principle.

The truth is that the very idea of intellectual property is totally fucked up, and more and more people are starting to notice that.—Eloquence 15:21, Mar 10, 2004 (UTC)

The Oldest Article

Note: The conversation was moved to Wikipedia:Wikipedia's oldest articles and reformatted. I've moved it back to this archive from the earliest version of that page. Graham87 12:25, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Just out of interest - what is the oldest article on Wikipedia. Shouldn't we frame it and put it on display somewhere?! :-) Ludraman 14:55, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

It has Special:Ancientpages which lists those page which haven't been edited for a long time. However which article was the very first one I have no idea, I am just active for one year now - someone who knows should add that information into the Wikipedia article. andy 15:05, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Likely no way of knowing, I believe early on Wikipedia history, the history of the pages were lost. - user:zanimum

A lot of information was lost during the conversion from Phase 1 software to Phase 2 software in February 2002. User:Brion VIBBER heroically rescued all that could be possibly be rescued... thus you can find page histories going back to e.g. 20 February 2001: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Leisure&oldid=263360. Note that Leisure is still not that good three years later! The very very early edits (January 2001), are lost forever. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 15:52, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

7 February 2001: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=WolfgangMozart&oldid=294311. Hope an SQL query to find the oldest article would hog the servers too much... otherwise it would spoil my fun! Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 15:58, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Sorry Pcb21, it doesn't, and I did it while you saved your edit. According to the search, the oldest still existing version of a page is at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=UuU&oldid=291430. It is the page UuU (now at U), version 16 January 2001 (which I think was the second day of Wikipedia). From that same day we have:

There are 11 pages from 17 January, not including 6 more versions of ScottMoonen. The oldest page for which there is no break in the history because of being changed into a redirect is List of female tennis players, which has a version from 6 February 2001, but it seems that that one will have been moved nevertheless - it just was moved with moving the history. - Andre Engels 16:07, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Thanks, Andre, interesting stuff. I'll sign off with the oldest recorded edit made by Jimbo - http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=ThomasEdison&oldid=286375 - on the 23rd January 2001. I believe Jimbo said he made the first ever edit to Wikipedia, a test edit. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pcb21 (talk • contribs) 15:30, 10 March 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Netzero users?

I just got the following email:

Dude, this is now my fourth e-mail you have banned 67.74.81.169. I am loggin on through Netzero so my IP is always going to hae 67.74 in the beginning of it....please unblock your FAR OVER-REACHING ban on such IPs you are hindering me from making progress on MY user page and reseach projects. PLEASE STOP.

The problem is that the range *has* to be blocked in order to block the vandal, if he takes the time to power cycle his modem. Suggestions?

And, yes, he's sent me four emails - the one I pasted is just an example. Pakaran . 16:27, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

One way of mitigating the problem is to allow previously-existing users that are not on a username blacklist to log in from otherwise banned IPs. New users could not be created from those IPs, and non-logged in edits would not be allowed. Now with this IP-changing vandalism, it may be necessary to extend the idea... This has been suggested before... thought it got implemented? Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 16:38, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I just don't know how I could have hancled that situation *without* a range block (and one covering the vast majority of the range this one does). Pakaran . 16:40, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

On another note, I was initially going to block 67.94.96/20 or something, but the bad user once showed up *just* before the beginning of that range.... Pakaran . 16:41, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Couldn't you do it by blocking the range for anonymous edits, but allowing non-blocked usernames? Mark Richards 23:08, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

The problem is that we can't -- not mustn't, but can't -- do that as the software presently works. Pakaran . 15:56, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Interesting - where can I learn more about the technical issues involved? Thanks Mark Richards 07:15, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Link colors/signature

I'm new. I don't understand why some links are red and others are blue. I've tried searching around for an answer with no luck. Also the "signature" button doesn't appear to be working for me- when I press it, the screen kinda shifts, and a "-" apears, but not sig. Can anyone help me? -elliott shultz

The red links are for articles that don't exist yet (i.e. there is no text in them), whereas the blue ones are for articles that have been saved. Depending on your preferences, you might have links of another color for very small articles (stubs). To write a signature just type ~~~ or ~~~~ (adds timestamp). I don't use the toolbar so I have no idea what's going on with it. hth Dori | Talk 17:28, Mar 10, 2004 (UTC)

The toolbar buttons are quite new and we are still looking for feedback from new users about how good it is or not. What do you think of it? Also what web browser are you using... different browsers support different toolbar functions. For now you can do what Dori said to get a signature (it will appear after you save the page). Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 17:33, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Wow! I was expecting to check back for an answer in a couple days! thanks guys. I got the timestamp/name down I think. I like the toolbar, but the signature button doesn't seem to work for me. I'm using Netscape 7.1 on Windows ME. While we're here, do I need to add a comment everytime I edit an article? Thank You! -Elliott Shultz 18:04, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Regarding comments, it's always nice and recommended to put something in the summary (see Wikipedia:Summary) so that people have an idea of what's going on. Major changes (especially deletions) on heavily edited articles should probably be discussed first on the talk page. Dori | Talk 18:07, Mar 10, 2004 (UTC)

The buttons are JavaScript. I have confirmed they only seem to work as intended when using IE (the ones I tried don't work for me using Mozilla, Opera, or Netscape). Niteowlneils 00:09, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)

POV & NPOV

I'm still puzzled by this concept and wondered if you could enlighten me.

Suppose I were writing 500 years ago in Ye Olde Wykipedia and I put: "Travel north and you will reach the North Pole". Someone else would have come along and changed this to: "It is claimed that if you travel north you will reach the North Pole." Fair enough - they wouldn't have wanted to be burned alive at what was claimed by church authorities to be a stake.

But times have changed. It would be absurd for anyone now to claim that you could travel in any direction other than north to reach the North Pole. Therefore NPOV is time-dependent, based on the state of current knowledge.

Now when I have knowledge about something, surely it is more useful for my readers to know that something is true rather than just claimed to be so, i.e. this is an important distinction to make in a so-called encyclopedia. How do I make that distinction without well-meaning trolls coming along and changing all my certain truths into mere claims? The answer must have something to do with the authority of the original writer. Or is this a lost cause, and I have to accept one of the weaknesses of the wikipedia conception is that all its truths are mere claims, all part of the trend towards relativism wherein nothing can really be known by anyone. Matt Stan 18:16, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Not at all. Most statements in Wikipedia simply sit there as statements, and no one has contested them as POV. Fringe views are usually indicated as such. Keep in mind, though, Wikipedia is not primary research. It is at most a secondary and often a tertiary source. That is the nature of an encyclopedia. As a rule, on any matter where controversy exists, it is best to indicate the source of a claim. This tends to be particularly important in areas that are inherently POV (importance of a particular work of literature, a definition of "left-wing" in politics, names of a city that has had different official languages at different times). It also certainly crops up for disputable issues in history (causes of the French Revolution, origins of a prehistoric tribe). But it should not generally arise for a modern figure's birth dates, or whether the United States has a written constitution (although, in that last case, it certainly would come up for discussions of the relationship between Supreme Court decisions and that constitution). -- Jmabel 19:19, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Ancillary question: if only things which are accepted to be generally known don't have to claimed to be known under wikipedia NPOV guidelines, and things which aren't generally known do have to be claimed to be known, then surely wikipedia cannot in and of itself ever claim to push forward the extent of knowledge - it will always be held back absolutely by the NPOV dogma. Matt Stan 19:11, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Yes. True. This is precisely what is meant by the policy of not doing primary research here. This is about disseminating knowledge, not promulgating new theories. -- Jmabel 19:19, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Agreed. But my point is that if the reader doesn't already know about what he or she is reading then that reader couldn't know whether or not the material was disseminated or new. Back to my North Pole point. If I was the first explorer who'd ever actually been to the North Pole and had published my learned paper at the National Geographic Society, then reviewers who hadn't read that paper might still come along and imply that travelling north might not really take you to the North Pole, because there might be another point of view. How do I indicate that I am disseminating something that is known rather than something that is just claimed to be known, in order to that readers might make the useful distinction that I am concerned about?

This is a general problem about disseminating knowledge even in a University if the professor isn't the primary source he can disseminate a knowledge that is proven false by other. This lead to epistemology what is a scientific truth ? It's something that's is reconized as true by the scientists... When will scientific truth become "the Truth" for the common man : when it has been largely disseminated and accepted by a large majority.... Ericd 19:55, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I have gotten very lost by this entire conversation, which I believe I understood at first. Matt, this is a case where I think we need a concrete example. Please point to an article and a claim of truth you want to make there, so I can have an example to mull over? Thanks, Jwrosenzweig 20:00, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Somebody put this on my talk page, regarding the evolution of an article, I suppose, or perhaps a bit of wikicynicism:

A: "X is a fact"

B: "Some claim that X is true"

A: "The view that X is true is becoming increasingly prevalent"

B: "Some claim the view that X is true is becoming increasingly prevalent"

A: "According to the esteemed Mr Y, X is true"

B: "According to Mr Y, revered by the proponents of X, X is true.

Nothing there about anyone knowing anything! To give an example, as requested, I have been editing the Fathers' rights page, a potentially contentious subject if there ever was one, no doubt (or as some might claim)! Now I also happen to be a divorced father, and a media spokesperson and trustee of a national UK charity called Fathers Need Families. I encounter much that is generally not known in the secret world of family law. I have been exhorted by Bob Geldof to get political. It therefore might be that my polemics are not appropriate for an encyclopedia. Might I not acheive more by setting up a personal blog somethwere else? On the other hand this is a topical issue that many might find interesting, and one that is climbing up the political agenda. Therefore Wikipedia is an obvious place to provide up-to-date information about how the situation develops (as it did during 9-11). My challenge, which I think only wikipedia can provide, is to produce a piece that stands in spite of everybody having the opportunity to wreck it. Then it will have a far far greater likelihood of being taken as true than if I had just promulgated it without wikipedia's relentless peer reviev process. Therefore wiki exposure is a crucial part of my polemic itself. My problem, though, has been one of muted accusations of NPOV and my writing has been hacked about a bit by people acting in good faith (I think) to apply the NPOV dogma to something they know very little about, or find very hard to believe. In general I have found the application of NPOV to my work to be constructive and helpful. But the result has on occasion been that the article is made to say the opposite of what according to Mr Y, revered by proponents of X, is true. - which I see as the application of NPOV leading to the dissemination of misinformation. This led to my musings and ramplings here about the true and claimed nature of NPOV. There are plenty of excamples if you delve into the Page History of the Fathers' rights page, though I can dig some out and put them here if requested. Matt Stan 18:53, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Matt, I guess I'd say, though I don't know the subject well, that an editor who knows they are biased on an issue (perhaps so much so that Wikipedia isn't the optimal place for them to edit, or at least they themselves suggest that) is someone who should be more careful than ever to attribute ideas rather than declare facts. We don't say "fathers have fewer rights than ever in the United Kingdom", we say "Fathers have lost rights X, Y, and Z in the United Kingdom as a result of ABC legislation." It is easy to be convinced that something is a plain fact when in fact it is an attributal piece of data. Some people look at a poll that says "75% of Americans support gay marriage" and believe that they should put the fact "Most Americans support gay marriage" in Wikipedia. In actuality, all they can say is that a certain poll indicates that (or a number of polls, or most polls, or whatever you like). The more controversial a subject and the more biased one believes they are likely to be, the more important it is to be very careful in attribution. It is frustrating at first, I know. In time you'll see, I trust, that it can't be any other way here. I do know that some people, in the name of NPOV, skew articles away from neutrality -- the only answer, I believe, is to work it out by finding middle ground, respecting opposing viewpoints, and generally demonstrating on the talk page that you know what you're talking about but you are interested in a good NPOV article and want to find a compromise that satisfies as many people as possible. Not easy, but it's very nice when you can acheive it. I hope my thoughts make some kind of sense. :-) Jwrosenzweig 19:04, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I think you may have hit the mail on the head with I do know that some people, in the name of NPOV, skew articles away from neutrality. I shall remain on guard. And of course one of the beauties of the wikiwiki is that all the evidence is preserved in the page history for anyone who cares to find out. I shall carry on contributing until a new obsession possesses me. Matt Stan 19:19, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

The perfect model for hitting a hockey ball

moved to Wikipedia:Reference desk

main function

is there any full form for main().function in c.please let me know <email address removed>

"Full form" is unclear in meaning. I wrote this person to say so and to encourage a clarification. -- Jmabel 19:10, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

int main(int argc, char *argv[]) ? Presuming you meant the prototype... This should be a the refdesk, in any case...

Table problem on Citric Acid page

The article for Citric Acid has a problem rendering its table. The closing table tag gets rendered with & lt; and & gt;, making it visible, instead of closing the table. The opening paragraph ends up formatted as part of the table using some browsers. The HTML looks OK per my reference material, and the person that added the table commented that he was also unable to find a problem with the HTML. I removed the closing table tag so it wouldn't display, but the text, at least using MS-IE, is formatted incorrectly. And omitting the closing table tag is bad HTML.

   May look correct (I suspect the intention is actually to have the first
    paragraph formatted to the left, like the rest of the article):
    http://ginger-or-mary-ann.com/CitricAdicMozilla.jpg 
   Doesn't look correct: http://ginger-or-mary-ann.com/CitricAcidIE.jpg

~~While we're at it, according to the w3.org HTML validator, the MediaWiki TOC code seems to generate incorrect HTML. Niteowlneils 23:17, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)~~ (moved to its own section)

I didn't see exactly the problem that you were seeing, using IE 5.1. But I did see *a* problem, which went away when I fixed a missing and then closed the table. How does it look now? Elf 01:27, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Beeeautiful--exactly as I assumed was intended, on IE5.5, Netscape 7, Opera 7, and Mozilla 1.4. Here I was mostly focusing on the table-related tags, given the nature of the problem. Also helped with Netscape 4.77--the table wasn't showing up at all, but now is, altho slammed left (of course the right pane is at the very bottom of most if not all pages with 4.77). Niteowlneils 02:12, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Taxobox Formatting

I've had a serious problem with taxobox formatting in biological articles. Much of the time, it appears on the left, whether I'm using Netscape 4.7 or Explorer 4.0. I finally realized that what the articles had in common that had the taxoboxes misplace was other languages for the article. So I started inserting a space, four hyphens, another space between the languages and the taxobox, like this:

EXAMPLE:

[ [ pl:Okrytonasienne ] ]

[ [ sv:Fröväxter ] ]

————

And this has solved the problem! The extra line doesn't even appear on the page. jaknouse 23:21, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Please get an up-to-date browser. Your extra line is not needed for them, and it does show up. WormRunner 23:31, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

The problem with getting an up-to-date browser is that I am too poor to buy a system that can run a newer browser. I think there are many people in my position. jaknouse 23:34, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Have you tried Opera? The point is that your kludge is not invisible to other browsers. WormRunner 23:41, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Can you point to an example of the problem? I have netscape 4.7 on an old windows 95 box and I tried going to old versions of vascular plant which you modified and I cannot reproduce the table showing up on the wrong side. Is anyone else getting this problem? WormRunner 01:04, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

A few pages it's still happening in: Fern, Impatiens, Honeysuckle family, Ginkgo. jaknouse 02:15, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Well, I'm puzzled. I can't reproduce the issue on any of those pages on my win95 box. The table is on the right as it is supposed to be. Perhaps there is something peculiar to your settings or box. WormRunner 02:36, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

The problem I see on these pages with Win2k/NN4.77 is that the text to the left of the box is all one skinny column, but widens out once the box stops. (of course 4.77 has display problems with the common parts of every (or at least most) page). Niteowlneils 02:57, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Yes, I would say to try opera since it is still designed for a small footprint and is standards compliant. WormRunner 03:22, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I just tried NN 4.77 on my Mac (sys 9.1) and they display beautifully. Maybe you should get a Mac. ;-) (Just kidding...) Elf 03:43, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

New poll re: sidebar

Due to the confusing nature of the last poll, we have restarted the poll about what to remove from the sidebar in order to link the Community Portal page. Vote at Wikipedia talk:Community Portal#New sidebar poll.

U-tern movie

Question moved to Wikipedia:Reference desk.

Possible MediaWiki bug

The W3.org HTML validator finds an erroneous </p><p> in the Honeysuckle article--there's no such thing if you click Edit this page. (You have to save the whole page and upload it--if you try and run the validator direct on the site it gets a 403 error.) Niteowlneils 02:44, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

OK, I should have made it clear that this error appears on other articles, as well--this is just one of the more clearer examples. And I was seeking the advice/conformation from someone more knowledgable about Mediawiki and/or HTML, as I am an expert on neither, before listing it as an actual bug. Niteowlneils 21:59, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

A humble observation

Why is it that we don't tell people how much their contributions are appreciated until after they leave? Wouldn't it be a lot better to give someone a kind word while they're here? →Raul654 03:11, Mar 11, 2004 (UTC)

From someone who has been thinking about their future here following the tiring edit wars by anon IPs going on today, yes (to the second question). -- Graham :) 03:15, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Most editors seem to leave without having given much warning. They just get fed up with everything and pack it up. It's not that they don't understand that most other editors appreciate their work, it's that they can't stand to deal with those who don't. Telling good editors who have left how much they and their work is appreciated is simply an attempt to get them to change their mind. Alas, I don't think it works in most cases (I am glad Alex is back, wish that Daniel would come back). People just make up their own minds either way. Dori | Talk 03:16, Mar 11, 2004 (UTC)

We could all try to be more aware of what others are doing and let fly some random acts of appreciation. I've been on Wiki only a month and a half and I think 3 different people have let me know that they think I'm doing a good job or at least that they appreciate my effort. I don't know how people manage to be so observant and thoughtful, but yes it really is a nice thing to hear! Elf 03:45, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

While not disagreeing with any of the above, I would have doubts about any contributor who left simply because they were not getting enough praise. If you don't enjoy writing encyclopaedia articles for their own sake then this site is probably not your bag. GrahamN 07:31, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I think you misunderstand. It's not that they leave because they aren't getting enough praise - they leave because the trolls here are becoming progressively more vicious and getting rid of them has gotten quite a bit harder. Praise helps alleviate the feelings of burnout that constant warring can cause. →Raul654 07:33, Mar 11, 2004 (UTC)

I completely agree. As in any society, you cannot expect people to behave always well for free without showing your support and appreciation. It is not a matter of I want to be complimented but of preventing oh, what the heck, this is awful, I work for nobody and moreover, the trolls attack me. Happy people are better workers. And it is generally easy to make people smile and feel appreciated. Pfortuny 08:06, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I've been thinking about this for a while, before, and thought of something like "Wikipedians Appreciation Day", where on one day (but definately not restricted to one day), everyone should express their appreciations to other Wikipedians out there! Dysprosia 10:00, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Hmm. Sounds like a pretty good idea (though you don't necessarily need a day to appreciate people - if you see a good contribution, go and say so on the contributors talk page). Could it be co-incided with any important date in the History of Wikipedia? Ludraman 10:15, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Naturally, but dedicate one day each year to showing others how much they are valued will improve the WikiAura around here considerably :) Dysprosia 11:05, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I really like that idea! Wikipedia appreciation day - that would be a great idea! →Raul654 14:18, Mar 11, 2004 (UTC)

I think there's already a day to appreciate the Wikipedia, what I'm proposing is a day to appreciate the cogs in the machine, the Wikipedians :) All that remains is to pick a day and to wait for it, then... Dysprosia 06:00, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC)

If every editor made a point of sending one nice comment to another editor each day, this would look like a very supportive place. If you find yourself saying "whoa, good article" while reading one, just let everybody know! Stan 17:42, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Or we could do a MacDonald like thing say, Wikipedian of the month. Or some sort of Oscars. I can imagine the thrill... Muriel 17:57, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Whoa! What a brilliant comment. Congratulations on a great contribution to Wikipedia! :-) Ludraman | Talk 08:34, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)

How do you use the little check boxes in the article history?

When I hover over a check box a little yellow rectangle appears that says "Select any two versions to diff them". This sounds like a terrific new feature (thank you to whoever had the idea, and whoever programmed it) and I'd like to make use of it, but I don't understand what I'm supposed to do. I've selected two versions. There are two little ticks next to the versions I want to "diff". What do I do now? Sorry to trouble you with this, but I can't find an answer in the help pages. GrahamN 05:01, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

You click two boxes, and you should automatically be taken to the diff page (the diff between the two pages you checked). If you are not getting this, you might have the relavant setting in your browser disabled. →Raul654 05:08, Mar 11, 2004 (UTC)

Oh. Is it JavaScript or Active-X or one of those things? If I turn all that nonsense on it just slows down this crappy old 486 computer I'm using. Is there not a simpler way? GrahamN 05:19, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

yes it's javascript based, I also disable jscript and miss the feature. Richard cocks 06:23, Mar 11, 2004 (UTC)

Maybe some nice developer could add a little "show diff" button that we script refuseniks could click on to make use of this fantastic new feature? GrahamN 06:47, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Sssshh! Don't say that too loudly or someone'll probably move this thread over to Wikipedia:Ignored feature requests. →Raul654 06:49, Mar 11, 2004 (UTC)

Don't worry, it's already being happily ignored as a SourceForge bug - I even made a prototype replacement (untested) which uses radio buttons instead. -- IMSoP 12:47, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

In my defense, sourceforge bug reports make every effort to hide the fact that a patch was attached. I'm looking at it now... --Brion 04:58, 2004 Mar 12 (UTC)

Image thumbnail weirdness

OK, another weird thing. The thumbnail in the Australian Shepherd breed table displayed fine 20 minutes ago. I didn't change the Image statement at all, but I did go to the image page and edited its text. Now the thumbnail doesn't display. Clicking the magnifying glass works OK. (Simply editing the image description page doesn't seem to be the problem, because I tried it with one of the other thumbnails.) Can anyone else see the thumbnail? If not, anyone know why it's gone? Elf 05:36, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC) I quit out of my browser and restarted and that fixed it. Elf 05:52, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Wikiprojects and ease of use vs. ease of editing

More and more article types (Space Shuttle Missions and Albums, to name a couple) are getting rather complex standard formats, apparently under the heading "Wikiprojects". While I can see that from a user's perspective these are nice, if not necessarily more useful than straight text, but from a potential editor's perspective they are daunting. Two weeks ago if a neophyte potential editor clicked "edit this page" at Four Symbols, for example, he/she got a nice window with the first couple paragraphs of source text in it. A few formatting characters, too, but nothing he/she had to know to make an edit. Today if a newbie tries to edit the same page they get a faceful of quasi-HTML code -- run away! Yes, they can, if they are brave, scroll down to where the meat is, but I think folks who know and are comfortable with such markups highly underestimate the chilling effect they have on potential editors. As far as I can tell, Wikipedia has always valued content over form; it seems we want everybody, not just web gurus, to be able to effectively participate in the 'pedia both as a user and as an editor, right? Then there needs to be a way to do a formatless edit (actually an edit of text only keeping the existing format in place). I'd go so far to say that fancy formats should be put on hold until such a tool exists.

Forgive me if this has been or is being hashed out somewhere else, and if so, please point me. I think it's important, though. Jgm 06:03, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

In the meantime, I've been trying to put comments at the beginning and end of the table code to make it clearer what's happening. This has apparently been suggested several times in various places but it bears repeating. Try Edit this page at German Short-haired Pointer. Elf 06:17, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Jgm makes a very good point, in my opinion. Content should always be more important than form, and we should be actively working to remove anything that might put new contributors off. I'd like to second the request that fancy formatting should be put on hold until "formatless editing" is the default. GrahamN 06:47, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

While I completely agree Jgm your point, I think this is a problem of dillema--dillema between the goal of wikipedia and wiki-like writing. For example, I usually cannot put fancy math equations because I don't know about the syntax of <math>. Of course, you can learn the syntax but the premise of wiki is you can just write contents without learning syntaxes. But the question can we get rid of those fancy syntaxes? The new image syntax, while complex, solves a number of problems. The virtue of UNIX is solve 90% because the rest of 10% is inherently hard to solve probably. Because we want to make wikipedia a 100% encyclopedia, we have to sacrify some simplicity, quickness and low-learning curve. I suspect we eventually adopt some sort of database feature or something, possibly with xml formats. -- Taku 07:12, Mar 11, 2004 (UTC)

Maths symbols are a special case, because they are content, not form, so they should not be suppressed in formatless editing. But I see no reason why "form-only" mark-up could not be suppressed. GrahamN 07:31, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I have also been concerned at the growth in complexity of the wiki-markup. The mix of tables and {{msg:}} can be daunted. With parameterized messages on their way, things are only going to get more complex. There are of course advantages: power users are able to do more with the time they donate to Wikipedia. One way to mitigate the problems a bit is to use HTML comments in the markup. E.g. if you see an article that begins with a horrendous bit of a HTML (like the articles with taxoboxes do) consider adding a HTML comment at the top :

If it were possible to transclude articles in the same way as using {{msg:...}}, we could put complicated tables such as in Four Symbols in a "sub-article" (say Four Symbols\\table--note that the \\ currently breaks the link so we could probably ~~subvert~~ use that :-) and transclude it into the main article. Then the table could be edited separately and not clutter up the main article. Hey, is that a feature suggestion? I bet it's been thought of before. HTH HAND (thinking of adding that to my sig) --Phil 09:32, Mar 11, 2004 (UTC)

I heard that parameterized messages are coming real soon now.. so before what you suggest happens we are going to start seeing stuff like {{template:UK Prime Minister|Tony Blair|Labour|1997|to date}} at the top of articles instead of html tables. The template namespace will of course look hellish... it will be HTML code inter-mixed with positional parameters e.g..... <tr><td>$1</td><td>$2</tr> ... but at least they are out of sight of new users... Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 10:45, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

The WikiProject Aircraft data table includes a comment line that tells new editors that the actual "meat" of the article can be found by just scrolling down a little.

[interjecting] Hmm... I could sworn I heard that somewhere before :) Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 11:21, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Adoption of the wikicode for tables also makes things look far less daunting than html table code. --Rlandmann 11:19, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Help

Dear Sir, We have 20 pair ariel Telephone Cable. We want to lay out the cable to connect our telephone lines from the last delivery point available at the site, which is about 3 kilometer Distance from our office. Due to some reason, we have to take about 1.5 kms in the ground 3 feet deep. We would like to know is it ok to take 20 pair ariel cable underground plus, please advice what precautions should we take during layout as there is water seepage in some parts of the land dig out for the cable.

An early answer will be appreciated as we have to lay cable as soon as possible.

from

Najmul Hassan Pakistan.

Umm, this is an encyclopedia, wish I could help, but why would Wikipedia know the answer to that? I am always amazed by these kinds of questions. Sometimes I wonder if it's just one guy having fun with us. Or perhaps, Wikipedia has an Ask Jeeves kind of vibe for people. The know-it-all place, where all your questions shall be answered. We should rename it to WikiOracle or something. Dori | Talk 16:54, Mar 11, 2004 (UTC)

I work for a newspaper, and in the pre-Google days, newspapers served this role. We'd get phone calls about all kinds of weird stuff, from library hours to questions about local history. That has largely dried up, though ... I guess they come here now. DavidWBrooks 17:39, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

That still happens...recently someone called us to ask how much money the mayor of the city makes, and to find out what day the Duke of Kent visited the city in 1942...I would have thought to look that stuff up online first though :) Adam Bishop 05:04, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)

It's starting to look like we might need to form a Wikipedia:Unusual requests to keep an archive of some of the bizarre things people ask around here :-) -- Wapcaplet 19:42, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Mr. Hassan in his haste forgot to tell us what sort of cable he purchased. Perhaps Mr. Hassan could contact our Department of Homeland Security. Perhaps they will be able to determine if you have shielded cable suitable for direct burial. Think about it, gang, who with enough money to buy 3km of 20 pair cable would address an open letter to an encyclopedia to get instructions on how to use it? Either a recruiter or an investigator, maybe. Kareem 04:10, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I'd recommend trying the Straight Dope Message Board at http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/ It's a general information message board where people ask questions and hope that another poster can answer it. MK 05:37, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)

The reason is surely that Wikipedia is a bunch of people obsessed with researching and publishing information. It's a fair chance that someone will be interested and inclined to answer the gentleman. For better or worse, we're a community of compulsive altrustic researchers. Mark Richards 07:21, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Okay, then, but if I get busted for aiding and abetting I'm gonna look you up, Mark. Like I said, we need to know what kind of cable Mr. Hassan has. He needs something shielded suitable for direct burial. And the gain amp probably needs to be hardened, and I mean hardened depending on where you are in Pakistan. But these are questions one poses to a manufacturer, not to an open encyclopedia. And Mr. Hassan can call the manufacturer to make an informed choice. Would you spend thousands of dollars to bury thousands of dollars worth of cable on the advice of an anonymous discussion group?

As a matter of fact, it would be irresponsible and could involve criminal liability simply for gross negligence if a cable were buried improperly. Say on our advice he buried the wire in a wet area where there is also an electric line. Wikipedia is not a reliable source for those standards nor will it be until Wikipedia systematically keeps its not-yet-published-here standards up to date with the prevailing standards. But Mr. Hassan needs to know what standards and rules for buried cable apply in Pakistan, not in the United States.

I am reluctant to write any detailed articles on communications or utility infrastructure. However, if we want to go there, this encyclopedia can describe every vital link and method used in the civil infrastructure. Kareem 10:46, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)~

Personal Images Copyright

I'm a keen photographer and have posted some of my own images like on this page. At present I've put on the GFDL tag but I'm wondering what is most appropriate. I really only want to permit the photos use on Wikipedia. Any ideas?? Jgritz 13:18, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

You can find a lot of explanation on Wikipedia:Copyrights. If I understand it correctly, if you upload images here under the GFDL, that means you still keep the copyright of that image, that means you can still do whatever you want with it. However you did not only allow Wikipedia to use it, but any other copy of Wikipedia which follows the GFDL. This may be a fork like wikinfo.org, it may be a website which uses wikipedia contents like those listed in Wikipedia:Sites that use Wikipedia for content. They only need to follow the GFDL, that means most of all list you as the author of the image. BTW: That image of the Tasmanian devil really rocks :-) How about making a photo album subpage like mine? andy 15:53, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

What are your concerns with releasing the photos under the GFDL? Anthony DiPierro 16:01, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

The idea of the GFDL is to allow/encourage people to freely copy GFDL'd material and freely diseminate it. What you are proposing is directly counter to the GFDL. You can post them here under a Do-not-copy license, but Jimbo's new image-acceptance policy says that we would prefer to use an alternate GFDL/public domain picture instead, and if one were available we would use it instead. . →Raul654 16:10, Mar 11, 2004 (UTC)

Under the new acceptance policy, images contributed by the copyright holder must be released under the GFDL. Anthony DiPierro 16:49, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Is the operative phrase there by the copyright holder? That would help explain why GandhiServe's Mahatma photo is a no-no but Madame President of Ireland and Antonio Martin's aeroplanes are OK. –Hajor 05:17, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I have wondered about this too. Pics I draw in xpaint I gfdl cheerfully, pics I shoot I can accept to gfdl, but I have also felt that I'd like to put "permission to use in wikipedia context only" on some pics. I made a small experiment with my user pic (this one) by writing "Not gfdled" on it. Noone took notice though. I have an idea of "donating" submitted pics to wikipedia though; if a pic is donated to wikipedia, it doesn't have to be GFDLed for wikipedia to use it, right?

I will be understading if this-all is not possible, though. — Sverdrup 21:38, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

"Fair use" is for images which can not be obtained through any other methods. It is not for images submitted by the copyright holder for which the submitter merely doesn't want to license under the GFDL. Anthony DiPierro 01:36, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)

If I put the version on Wikipedia under GFDL, does this just cover the jpg, or the actual image as a visual concept- e.g. If I sell a copy of my high-res version of the Tasmanian Devil to a stock library, is the high-res version seen in a different light. Or am I prohibited to sell it in any form if it comes under the GDFL. You know what I mean??? BTW, the entry under Wikipedia:Copyrights for Original Works simply states "You Rock!". Not overly helpful... Jgritz 08:35, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Licensing the image to Wikipedia under GFDL will not impair your ability to license it to other groups under different terms. -- Cyrius 09:10, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Yep you can still do what you like with the high-res image. I do the same. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 16:14, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)