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Wikipedia:Village pump archive 2004-09-26

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Jimregan (talk | contribs) at 04:41, 21 July 2003 (note about move). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

[[da:Wikipedia:Landsbybr%F8nden]]

File:Village pump.JPG

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Moved discussion

See the archive for older moved discussion links.

Orphan images

Do we have a non auto-generated page (I know about Special:Unusedimages) for listing orphaned images that might be titled something like Wikipedia:Images in need of Wikipedia articles? Mintguy 16:48 15 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I just had a look at Special:Unusedimages, and saw that it's full of images with text in foreign languages. Supposedly, some of them are actually used by the other languages. We should get the ambassadors to resolve that situation. -Smack 21:44 15 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Main Page browser title

move to talk:Main Page

Could the developer change the broswer title of the index from "Main Page - Wikipedia" to something like "Wikipedia - the free encyclopedia"? Because every time I bookmark it to a public computer (my subliminal way of promotion), I have to manually change it to that, because most ppl dunno what WP is, and saying that it's the "Main Page" seems pretty useless.


I'm just talking about the main page/index, the broswer titles of the other article pages are probably fine as is.

--Menchi 17:44 16 Jul 2003 (UTC)

sounds like a feature request. Follow links on Wikipedia:Bug reports? Martin 10:18 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)
The catch is that Main Page is, as far as the system is concerned, just another article. Getting it to display a non-standard browser title would probably involve programming a specific exception in the wiki software, or some such thing.

Good work with the bookmarking, by the way. —Paul A 01:19 18 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Protection log

move to wikipedia talk:protected page

I think it’s a good idea that the admins give a reason when they protect the page and have a log. Does such a thing exist already? If so, it's really hard to find. --Menchi 20:36 16 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Protected pages and the reason for the protection are supposed to be listed at Wikipedia:Protected page. And yes, it is hard to find. A more prominent link would be nice. For example, protecting a page could involve automatically putting a link to the Protected Page article. --Dante Alighieri 00:36 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)
I saw that a while ago once. I've forgotten about it. I'm thinking of an auto-list, parallel to the Deletion log, so we can avoid things like "List of phobias (no reason given)". I mean, I don't even know how people ever knew that that page was protected, unless they follow that page closely -- which I suspect less than 1% of the Wikipedia ever did have that on their Watchlist. So auto-list could force admin to explain their actions and don't just do it for no reason. It's nothing major since admins are trustworthy (should be!), so it's of low priority. --Menchi 00:53 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)
It seems that this could be simply accomplished. Considering that the link in the sidebar that says "Edit this page" is replaced with plaintext "Protected page", it must be possible to have "Edit this page" be replaced with a link Protected page. --Ed Cormany 04:38 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)
It would be better to have a separate page, with a box where sysops can type a reason, exactly like the current deletion page. Then you could have an automatically generated protection log. At the moment it's very easy to protect pages accidentally. So far, all the pages I've protected accidentally, I noticed and unprotected them immediately, but there's been plenty of cases where the sysop in question didn't realise.
The other thing that needs a log but hasn't got one is undeletion. -- Tim Starling 04:49 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Also, unblocking IPs. Martin 10:18 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)

False server down

move to wikipedia:lag

I couldn’t access the website (like it was down) for 2 or 3 hours until just now. I thought it’s just another server thing until I tried another public computer (all in the same room), and it worked fine. Then I closed my broswers (I tried in both IE & NE), and it worked, but pages appear quite slowly when I log in, and very fast when I’m Anon. This false down is really annoying, as I was in the middle of typing something when it suddenly occurred, but I couldn’t go anywhere because I’m using a public comp, so I needed to hog the comp instead of going elsewhere.

  • Q: What caused this false "personalized" down?
  • Q2: Why the slow-fast regi-Anon difference?

--Menchi 20:36 16 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I'm not sure about the "false down", but Q2 is easy -- caching. Because all anon. users see the same HTML, it can easily be cached. If another anon. user has viewed the page recently, no DB access is required. The cached HTML is also compressed, whereas the HTML generated for logged in users is not. -- Tim Starling 00:25 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Can I set my preferences so as to get the cached HTML, if my settings are identical to those of an anon user? Martin 09:59 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)
No, but you can just log out. :) It stores the entire page, including the sidebar and bits in the corner, so you wouldn't get things like the 'move page' link, ability to watch pages, etc.

Archiving

move to wikipedia talk:village pump

I know someone out there likes archiving and cleaning the pump.. it's time.. --Dante Alighieri 00:36 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Tsk, tsk. You're obviously one of those people who finds ordering about easier than doing. Hang on, I'll do it. -- Tim Starling 02:07 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)
I'm one of those people who knows that as soon as I start archiving things, something that is "active" will get archived and people will yell at me for trying to hide things. ;) --Dante Alighieri 02:27 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Don't archive the page then - just move bits of the conversation to the relevant talk pages. You're allowed to do that even for active conversations. Plus, it's better (if more work). Martin 09:56 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Decipher the Code

)> () ))) )') _ ))) ) )- )-( _ )- )-( (- _ )') (- ))) _ ))) () )' ), )> _ () )' )> (- )'

Happy Birthday announcements on Main page

move to talk:Main Page

Ive been trying to push this idea for a long time, for example, say that Walter Mercado and Hilary Duff, who are still alive, share the same birthday, we can go like: Happy Birthday to: Walter Mercado - Hilary Duff -

What do you guys think? -- AntonioMartin

I like it. Though I'd obviously prefer a Main Page/Temp4 style - "Happy Birthday to Walter Mercado, inventor of sliced bread, who is 100 today". Martin 12:39 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)
I'm not sure about the "Happy" bit - "Happy birthday, Osama Bin Laden", for example, doesn't sound right. Can't it just be "People born today" or something? CGS 12:49 17 Jul 2003 (UTC).


Moving and merging

move to Wikipedia talk:Things to be moved to Wiktionary

How does one go about moving pages to Wikiquote or Wiktionary? Manual cut and paste?

How are edit histories merged if a temp article is started?

--Jiang 12:03 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)

U.S. State articles

Comments please to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. States/mockups. (I seem to be making a lot of requests for comments - perhaps we need Wikipedia:Requests for comments? :-) -- Wapcaplet 12:55 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for comments has been created. Please list your requests for comments there. Comments please to Wikipedia talk:Requests for comments. -- Wapcaplet 13:11 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I recently had cause to insert a link to a film/movie/motion picture entitled "Butterfly". I realize that links to movie titles may be fruitless and may remove it, but in the meantime what is the convention for namespaces? I assume it is something along the lines of: MOVIE-NAME (film). — sugarfish 19:40 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)

That's an much debated issue. Some people use movie, some film. I see movie more often, though. CGS 19:52 17 Jul 2003 (UTC).

Translator needed

Can anyone translate that? I'm not even sure which language it is (something arabian I would presume). CGS 19:50 17 Jul 2003 (UTC).

ermmm... it looks like english to me: "the sword also ... ... ... death" -- Tarquin 19:56 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Perhaps.... but that character in the middle of the penultimate line (a sort of dropped t) doesn't look latin to me. CGS 20:06 17 Jul 2003 (UTC).
It's just sloppy (or "artistic") handwriting in English, that dropped t is "+" as an abbreviation for "and". It seems to be "The sword also means clean-ness + death", which is something T. E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) wrote in a letter to Eric Kennington, who incorporated it into the crossed-daggers design on the cover of the first public edition of Seven Pillars of Wisdom, 1935, and since the picture is titled "Seven pillars tooling", it's probably a picture of the cover in question. -- Someone else 20:23 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Yeah - I scanned it from my 1st edition of Pillars. CGS 21:02 17 Jul 2003 (UTC).
Doesn't look like arabic, or any related alphabet, although I see the similarity. Looks to me like "itu sword also medus dearq-uess death". (Which doesn't make any sense to me...) כסיף Cyp 20:32 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)
After edit conflict: Ok, "The sword also means clean-ness + death" seems more likely than what I read... כסיף Cyp 20:32 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Thanks. CGS 21:00 17 Jul 2003 (UTC).

The third word looks much more like "alas" than "also". --Fritzlein 18:18 20 Jul 2003 (UTC)


OneLook.com

move to Wikipedia talk:Sites that use Wikipedia as a source

I came across http://www.onelook.com when checking an article Denial that looked like it was copied from that page (see VfD under July 17). Taking another look or two, I found that they link to many Wikipedia articles from their results pages (search for "Earth" for an example). That looks like a good thing. However, there does not seem to be any further explanation about Wikipedia, they just give you a box "Encyclopedia article" with the article's opening sentences and the link. I've got no clue whether this has any GFDL implications. Has anybody been in contact with OneLook? Kosebamse 10:51 18 Jul 2003 (UTC)

IANAL, but it looks to me like a case of fair use. I think that anything which brings extra traffic to Wikipedia is a good thing! It would be nice if they at least said "Article from Wikipedia" instead of "Encyclopedia article", though. They give a source for all the other hits; they should give one for Wiki as well. -- Wapcaplet 11:30 18 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Already answered at Wikipedia:Sites that use Wikipedia as a source.
Thanks Martin, I didn't know that page. Kosebamse 11:42 18 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Auto Loading (Batch) to Wiki

move to wikipedia talk:bots

I am looking for a program to load a mass of articles (batch load) to Wiki.
I try to add new articles to the newly born Hebrew Wikipedia.
Can U pl. give me some directions? -- Dod1 12:17 18 Jul 2003 (UTC)

read wikipedia:bots.

Slowdowns - blame the foreigners!

move to wikipedia:lag

I just realized something regarding the consistent wikipedia slowdowns. The features that we have turned off to keep the english wikipedia from slowing down, are on on the other pedias. Could this be contributing to the slow downs? MB 14:33 18 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Single database

I can see limitations to wikipedia.org, and also current problems; They have to do with the wikipedian design, and maybe someone could just see if my arguments are valid. Would it benefit wikipedia.org, wiktionary.org, any other wikis on the planet, to instead have one "wiki", that instead of just a website, it is a database, with different reports/interfaces to it? So the ONE wiki holds ALL the data for everything, it would centralize edits, create more content faster, create more quality content faster, and people could come up with all sorts of neet reports: Dictionary, Encyclopedia, Thesaurus, they'd all be queries to the database. I think this interoperability would be great...

BTW: wiktionary.org appears to be far less developed than wikipedia. Perhaps this "merging" of technologies would cause the wiktionary idea to become more of a success.

Then again, I could be nuts. --Daijoubu

It's not obvious that having a single database would make anything faster, but besides that, it would require a lot of work. There's no serious software development going on of any kind at the moment, due to a lack of interested programmers.
Wikipedia is 5 times older than Wiktionary. Plus Wikipedia is more interesting, so it attracts more contributors. -- Tim Starling 15:03 18 Jul 2003 (UTC)
I think this is addressed on meta somewhere. Martin

Illustrated Wikipedia

Discussion moved to User:Wapcaplet/WikiPiki. Please see WikiProject Illustration for an alternative idea. Comments welcome! -- Wapcaplet 02:52 19 Jul 2003 (UTC)

standalone software

Is there stand-alone software (i.e. not browser-based) available for creating/editing Wikipedia entries? For example, that expedites the link-creation process, is WYSIWYG? I've scoured the 'pedia and haven't found a reference to any. —Frecklefoot 18:06 18 Jul 2003 (UTC)

It'd very useful. When I'm not using public 'puter, I use Microsoft, which is not idea because HTML and stuff. --Menchi 18:12 18 Jul 2003 (UTC)
To append the earlier question: Is there any interest in such a (free) program? —Frecklefoot 19:52 18 Jul 2003 (UTC)
A GUI tool would be useful in that it would generate correct markup, but can't it be browser based? Users could either choose to use the current text box source editor, or a graphic editor using DHTML. CGS 20:16 18 Jul 2003 (UTC).
A syntax file for a text editor is all you need. I've been meaning to do one for EditPlus for a while but haven't got around to it yet. I think User:Tim Starling already did one for ... er ... Vi. Tannin
I don't understand: a syntax file only dictates how the source should be colour highlighted in the editor - it doesn't provide a GUI editor. Editors like Vi can only deal with the text source. You could write some macros for Emacs that did things like made the selected text a link - but you would still be looking at the source, and how useful is a macro that just inserts [[..]] around your selection? CGS 10:15 19 Jul 2003 (UTC).
Lots of good, CGS. You can see at a glance if you have got your syntax right. For example, how many times have you had to re-edit a page because you wrote [[Wikipedia:Village pump] when you meant to write Village pump? With a good text editor and a syntax file, your mistake is highlighted in colour and you can spot it right away. Tannin
What you want is a m:Wikipedia Client. It's been proposed but no-one's written one. There's an HTML→Wiki convertor, so you could write the text in an HTML editor and convert it. Unfortunately that doesn't do what I think is most sorely needed: a wikification aid allowing you to quickly determine whether a given page exists, what it redirects to if anything, and whether or not it's a disambiguation page. See Wikipedia:Syntax highlighting for my Vim (not Vi) highlighting file. -- Tim Starling 10:27 19 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Meetup

FYI, I found this neat weikipedia enthuseists website at http://wikipedia.meetup.com/ MB 21:02 18 Jul 2003 (UTC)

read meta:meetup

¡HELP!

How can I get rid of the bloody Nostalgia skin? I just tried it on but now I can't find a Preferences button anywhere! Help will be immensely appreciated. - Piolinfax 21:59 18 Jul 2003 (UTC) You can leave me a message in User talk:Piolinfax. Ta! - Piolinfax 22:12 18 Jul 2003 (UTC)


Hidden blocked IP address?

I believe my IP address has been banned because I swamped the server with a script. (It was retrieving and not updating, but being automated I suppose it qualifies as a bot. I thought it was slow enough, but apparently not.) Strangely, though, my IP address does not show up in Special:Ipblocklist. How do I go about verifying that is what happened, and perform appropriate apologies and grovelling to get re-instated? Thanks for any advice. -- Amillar 19:16 15 Jul 2003 (UTC)

As far as I know, it's only possible to block an ip from changing articles, not from reading them, although I could be wrong, probably better for someone else to answer that. (As for retrieving, it should be possible to download the whole (slightly outdated) database from Wikipedia:Database_download, if you have a few gigabytes to spare. 149mb without article history, compressed. Don't know how much, uncompressed.) כסיף Cyp 07:18 19 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Yes, it is possible to block a user from reading articles. The rest of my reply is on User talk:Amillar. -- Tim Starling 11:29 19 Jul 2003 (UTC)
BTW the cur table is 640MB uncompressed. Old is 8.2 GB. If you're a sysop you can find this out by running the SQL query "SHOW TABLE STATUS". -- Tim Starling 11:53 19 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Wikifying?

move to wikipeedia talk:Manual of Style

Do I have to put blabla on the See also list when I have wikified the blabla already in the text? --webkid 05:45 19 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I never do Theresa knott 07:10 19 Jul 2003 (UTC)
You don't have to. If it's a really important link, you may wish to.
I tend to think we shouldn't, because it's already linked to, and often remove those from see also lists. Vicki Rosenzweig 02:53 21 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Military Science or Space Exploration?

I'm considering making an entry, but I'm not sure which category to put it in. The exploration of space is a multi-category field - trying to pin it down to one science is impossible. Between electronics, astro-physics, life support, etc. etc. etc.; forget it. However, let's assume for a moment that we're actually going to send people to the stars. Add to that assumption the slight possibility of our brave explorers voyaging to a planet, and find themselves as the main course of an alien family... Enter Military Science (or military applications of pre-existing science, in most cases.) While I'm not in favor of the military leading our little expedition, I'm leary about not having any kind of protection from unknown species. Now, the entry(ies??) would be sound, scientifically-based, although I would link to (and probably add) some non-inertial theories of faster-than-light transport. Obvious question is, where do I put this? Draconis

Can't tell, without actually reading it, but if it's put a strange place, it can at least be moved later. כסיף Cyp 08:53 19 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Bird identification

move to wikipedia:reference desk

Can anyone please identify this bird, photographed by myself about a week ago in the tropical house at Paignton Zoo, southern England. I have no information, not even the continent.
File:Bird.paigntonzoo.250pix.jpg
Thanks,
Adrian Pingstone 09:58 19 Jul 2003 (UTC)

No problem, Adrian, I can help you there. Paignton Zoo, southern England is usually considered part of Europe (though it's actually an island just of the coast of that continent). And, to save you asking, today is Wednesday. Or possibly Monday. :) Tannin 11:52 19 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Tony, thanks for your helpful information. I'm sure the Blue-crowned Motmot will be pleased to know its ___location. I will now put it into the taxobox where it can contemplate what day of the week it is.
Adrian Pingstone 12:10 19 Jul 2003 (UTC)
please ask these kind of questions at wikipedia:reference desk

I was just wondering, is it OK to copy photos from other language wikipedias and use them on the English one, I cant see why it would be a problem but I was just making sure. G-Man 11:59 19 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Yes, it's fine. -- Tim Starling 12:01 19 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Is it the User:The_Anomebot that is slowing down the server? -- User:Docu

I doubt it - it's only uploading one image every four minutes. The server is just slow sometimes. --Camembert
Why can't we hide its edits? -- Tarquin 17:36 19 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Apparently it's not registered as a bot yet. I suppose it needs a developer to fiddle with something (sounds like the sort of thing Brion would usually do, but he's away, I think). --Camembert
From User talk:The Anome it seems that the bot has indeed been given bot status, but image uploads aren't hidden, even when done by bots. Evercat 17:52 19 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Ah yes, I was going on the bot's user page. Hopefully somebody can fix that. --Camembert
Read somewhere else, can't remember where, or who from, that it is set as a bot, but the code for hiding bot edits doesn't hide picture uploads yet. כסיף Cyp 18:05 19 Jul 2003 (UTC) (Damn edit conflict... This reply would have sounded more intelligent if the couple of posts above weren't there...)

For most of the day (19 Jul 2003), it ran much faster: one image per minute [1] -- User_Docu

Even one edit a minute is no faster than a human could go (though admittedly, you'd have to be really committed to keep it up for that long). But I admit, I don't know for sure whether it's slowing the server down. It's not doing anything really remarkable if it is, though (User:Rambot went much much faster at its peak, though it was just uploading articles, not images). --Camembert 17:46 19 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Image uploads are probably more complex, possibly the length of Wikipedia:Upload_log slows down things as well. Maybe an administrator can archive it? -- User:Docu

Wikipedia:Upload_log is very slow to load, and currently just a blank page:
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD> <META content="text/html; charset=windows-1252" http-equiv=Content-Type></HEAD> <BODY></BODY></HTML>
Might still be possible move it to an archive, by creating a suitable page-renaming url, but I'm not sure that's a good idea... כסיף Cyp 18:46 19 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I successfully uploaded , but it didn't show on recent changes, and instead of getting the "Image successfully uploaded" response to uploading, I got a page saying:


Database error

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

A database query syntax error has occurred. The last attempted database query was: "UPDATE cur SET cur_timestamp='20030719174604', cur_user=7586, cur_user_text='Cyp', cur_text='Below is a list of the most recent file uploads. See also: [[Wikipedia:Upload log archive|Upload log archive]] <br> All times shown are server time ([[UTC]]). Current server time is: {{CURRENTTIME}} {{CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{CURRENTDAY}}, {{CURRENTYEAR}}. <ul><li>17:46 19 Jul 2003 [[User:Cyp|Cyp]] uploaded \"[[:Image:Erf.png|Erf.png]]\" <em>(Error function, with higher E, made by me.)</em></li> <li>17:45 19 Jul 2003 [[User:Jstanley01|Jstanley01]] uploaded \"[[:Image:G_and_b.JPG|G_and_b.JPG]]\"</li> <li>17:34 19 Jul 2003 [[User:Infrogmation|Infrogmation]] uploaded \"[[:Image:ZocaloMexicoCity1900.jpg|ZocaloMexicoCity1900.jpg]]\" <em>(Zocalo and Cathedral, Mexico City. From stereocard c 1900)</em></li> <li>17:24 19 Jul 2003 [[User:Jstanley01|Jstanley01]] uploaded \"[[:Image:Guns_and_butter.JPG|Guns_and_butter.JPG]]\" <em>(I produced this image)</em></li> <li>17:03 19 Jul 2003 [[User:The Anomebot|The Anomebot]] uploaded \"[[:Image:Map_of_Washington_highlighting_Cowlitz_County.png|Map_of_Washington_highlighting_Cowlitz_County.png]]\" <em>(Public ___domain map courtesy of [http://www.lib.utexas.edu/ The General Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin], modified to show counties. Released under GFDL. See [[Wikipedia:U.S. county map]]s.)</em></li> <li>17:02 19 Jul 2003 [[User:The Anomebot|The Anomebot]] uploaded

<Omitted about a megabyte of text here>

<em>(Picture of John Pilger, taken from Mr. Pilger\'s site, http://pilger.carlton.com/home/biography)</em></li> <li>04:53 1 Jul 2003 [[User:Seav|Seav]] uploaded \"[[:Image:Ph_seal_camarines_sur.png|Ph_seal_camarines_sur.png]]\" <em>(Provincial Seal of [[Camarines Sur]])</em></li> <li>04:47 1 Jul 2003 [[User:Hike395|Hike395]] uploaded \"[[:Image:TreeKill.jpg|TreeKill.jpg]]\" <em>(Mammoth Mountain tree kill area)</em></li> <li>01:05 1 Jul 2003 [[User:Mydogategodshat|Mydogategodshat]] uploaded \"[[:Image:Elastic_demand.png|Elastic_demand.png]]\" <em>(elastic demand)</em></li> <li>01:04 1 Jul 2003 [[User:Mydogategodshat|Mydogategodshat]] uploaded \"[[:Image:Price_skimming_small.png|Price_skimming_small.png]]\" <em>(price skimming)</em></li>', cur_comment='uploaded \"Erf.png\": Error function, with higher E, made by me.', cur_restrictions='sysop', inverse_timestamp='79969280825395' WHERE cur_id=62938" from within function "LogPage::saveContent". MySQL returned error "1153: Got a packet bigger than 'max_allowed_packet'".

From the start to the end, including the omitted text, is 1047870 bytes, surprisingly close to 220. Thought the error message was a bit too long to post all of it here. Haven't seen this error before. 15:03 August 26, 2025 is interesting to know, at least. כסיף Cyp 18:05 19 Jul 2003 (UTC)

OK, I've flushed the current revision.--Eloquence 19:14 19 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Hello, a relative newbie here. Could I get some advice on Robert M. Parker, Jr., please? The page that is there is an excellent biography, but there's quite a bit of other material that I would like to add. Are there copyright or other issues with rewriting what's there, since it was taken from the Parker website? Thanks in advance, Wnissen 19:11 19 Jul 2003 (UTC)

No - when it gets put into Wikipedia (with permission) the text becomes licensed under the GNU FDL. You can edit it freely. CGS 19:15 19 Jul 2003 (UTC).
Thanks very much for the help. I'll be putting some new content in soon. Wnissen 19:28 19 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Is the source code for the protected pages, particularly the main page, available? By 'source code' I mean the wiki markup, not html code. Thanks. IntMan

It is at Main Page/Temp. --Eloquence 00:36 20 Jul 2003 (UTC)

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL ON TALK PAGES

Is it a violation of copyright law to copy two paragraphs from an external web page and put it on a Wikipedia article talk page. The purpose is to explain a word.

Thanks,..Norm2 05:50 20 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Smells like fair use to me. CGS 10:58 20 Jul 2003 (UTC).

Transitory information in entries

I was looking at the entry for Urban tribe which includes the following statement:

Urban Tribes are the rapidly growing groups of never-married's between the ages of 25 and 39 who gather in common-interest groups and enjoy the urban lifestyle.

My inclination is to remove the "rapidly growing" assertion. Even if Urban Tribes are or recently have been rapidly growing (probably subject to debate anyway), such a trend would have to be quite ephemeral. As such, I wonder if it is appropriate for an encyclopedia article. I'm curious how others feel about this. Bill 10:40 20 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Maybe it means that the groups grow rapidly, not the trend. :-) Seriously, I agree that it's not a good idea to have that kind of assertion in there. -- ESP 00:15 21 Jul 2003 (UTC)

United States Government publications and the public ___domain

Are government publications in the public ___domain by default? Does this cover postage stamps? I've seen lots of postage stamps around for older stuff. I just added this image, which is from 2003. Is this kosher? -- ESP 00:10 21 Jul 2003 (UTC)

What I've heard regarding postage stamps is the following:
The USPS hasn't been a government system for a while. I'm not sure about other postal services, but I suggest you do some research before posting any images. MB 01:26 21 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Yes, that's apparently so. Postage stamps produced since 1970 are under copyright of the USPS, and not in the public ___domain. Dang! Well, guess I better put it on the votes to delete page. -- ESP 02:41 21 Jul 2003 (UTC)
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