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Wikipedia:Village pump archive 2004-09-26

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by MartinHarper (talk | contribs) at 15:26, 3 September 2003 (''delete - answered at wikipedia:searching''). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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File:Village pump yellow.png

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Moved discussion

Questions and answers, after a period of time of inactivity, will be moved to other relevant sections of the wikipedia (such as the FAQ pages), placed in the Wikipedia:Village pump archive (if it is of general interest), or deleted (if it has no long-term value).

See the archive for older moved discussion links. For the most recent moved discussion, see Wikipedia:Village pump archive#August 2003 moved discussion.

Broken Redirects

move to wikipedia talk:redirect

Is there a quick and easy way (i.e., not involving DDQs) to find broken redirects? I, for one, wouldn't mind going around making sure that any redirect that points to a red link either gets deleted or given a stub at the redirect site. Broken redirects are A Bad Thing because people won't realize that an article doesn't yet exist if they see the link in text, because it's blue, even if it doesn't go anywhere. This makes it that much harder for people who might be inclined to write an article if they new one was needed. --Dante Alighieri 04:21, 23 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Special:Maintenance has a tool for this, but of course all that's presently disabled to keep the server from dying. At some point these things need to get reworked to be usable. Anyone who wants to code up improvements is welcome. --Brion 04:48, 23 Aug 2003 (UTC)
Until an online query is again available, this might easily be extracted from the weekly SQL dumps, just like Short pages, Long pages, Orphaned pages, Most referenced pages, Most wanted pages. If Brion thinks this a good idea and is willing to run the scripts just like the Statistics scripts and upload the output, I will prepare a production version (= optimized, etc) of my current scripts in a few weeks time. The scripts produce two files per report, one in html format, one in wiki format which someone can copy/paste to the Wikipedia (in order to be able to edit the lists after corrections have been made). Erik Zachte 18:22, 23 Aug 2003 (UTC)
Queries can be requested at Wikipedia:SQL query requests. I have it on my watchlist and so I usually run them within 24 hours, but so far Angela is the only one using it. In this case, an appropriate query would be "select cur_title, cur_namespace from cur,brokenlinks where cur_id=bl_from and cur_is_redirect=1 limit 100". I'll run it now. -- Tim Starling 15:01, 24 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Technical term definition style

moved to Wikipedia talk:Technical terms and definitions

GFDL issues when moving between Wikipedias

move to wikipedia talk:copyrights

If I am moving stuff from here to the Simple English Wikipedia, are there any issues involved in the fact that I am not copying the history of the original? Is it ok just to state in the edit summary that this is from en: or wherever? Angela

IANAL. You should behave as we ask all our other sub-licensees to behave - add a comment that "an earlier version (LINK) of this article was published on Wikipedia on DATE", on the page itself. Assuming that all those words are simple enough... ;-) Martin 22:43, 23 Aug 2003 (UTC)
Is there any reason it needs to be any different to moving info between pages within en:. If half the info at somewhere was more appropriate at somewhere else, you would copy it over without stating that the info had previously exisited at somewhere. The new page will usually be fairly different anyway as it's being simplified. Angela
It's about the same, but I don't think moving within Wikipedia is technically in compliance with the GFDL either. If we can move stuff around without preserving history, then anyone can just copy our stuff without providing a citation to us as well, which we'd like not to allow. --Delirium 02:18, Aug 24, 2003 (UTC)
There is an argument to be made (which may not be determinative) for a non-exclusive license being given to Wikipedia when someone submits it, i.e. "If you don't want your writing to be edited mercilessly and redistributed at will, then don't submit it here" is actually a different license than the GNU FDL which is what Wikipedia is releasing the material under. Under such argument, copying between pages (or projects) would be allowable as all subsequent editors are given the right, not only to copyedit (which is what would conserve copyright between versions) but actually change it, thus everyone who does a substantial edit on a page is a co-author of that page, and co-authors can modify each others work; and as the US does not have any moral rights protection regarding attribution, i.e., it really does not matter what happens once someone submits work to Wikipedia wihtin Wikipedia, the work can be completely changed, blanked, reverted, etc.. However, by cross-attributing between pages one is showing respect and acknowledging the contribution of other Wikipedians, and, if someone is releasing the material to Wikipedia from another GFDL source then attribution histories should definitely be cross-linked as suggested above, IMHO. Alex756 15:11, 24 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Votes for Deletion

Comments on the new format have been moved to 'Wikipedia talk:Votes for deletion.

www.4reference.net

The above site has copied almost the entire content of the English Wikipedia and despite a friendly warning sometime ago, apparently still does nothing more than link to the main page and still does not mention the GFDL. I thought I'd mention this here as ignoring violations of our copyright could cause us problems in the future. Original talk is still at Wikipedia:Sites_that_use_Wikipedia_for_content. Pete 15:11, 25 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Coincidentally I just stumbled upon that web site in researching names for Lemnaceae (duckweeds). They copied (and mentioned Wikipedia) "their" duckweed article word for word from duckweeds. Their problem is that the version now presented is complete with erroneous information that I corrected out of our article. This in itself is a problem, unless they update their stuff very often (doubtful). - Marshman 17:29, 25 Aug 2003 (UTC)
Yeah, but that's their problem. CGS 17:33, 25 Aug 2003 (UTC).
Once someone finalizes a more sternly worded follow-up letter as discussed at Wikipedia talk:Standard GFDL violation letter, someone can send out a follow-up letter. { MB | マイカル } 19:46, Aug 25, 2003 (UTC)
Thanks MB, I have offered some changes to the proposed stern follow up letter on that page. Pete 14:59, 26 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Trying Something New

I know that generally we don't want pages on songs with lyrics listed, but have a look at what I've done with Billy Joel's We Didn't Start the Fire. It needs work (not all the links are right - perhaps an American might have more insight), but I think it's a great starting point for browsing. CGS 17:16, 25 Aug 2003 (UTC).

I like the page, but I'm still worried whether it is ok from a copyright perspective. Andre Engels 09:43, 30 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Mailing list access

I am trying to post to the mailing list using the news gateway. It doesn't work. Shouldn't it? I do not have a suitable e-mail address to use for participation via e-mail. Kat

Get a free mailbox from Yahoo or Hotmail. After signing up, for Hotmail, go to Option -> Mailing Lists -> add wikipedia-l@wikipedia.org and/or wikien-1@wikipedia.org . Then you can send and receive. --Menchi 22:22, Aug 25, 2003 (UTC)

Communication with developers

move to wikipedia talk:bug reports?

Hi, from the moved list above:

As everbody knows, wikipedia bug reports is a reference to the SourceForge, in other words: "if you don't get a SourceForge account and put your feature requests there, nobody will see them". It's not the first time. I really have a problem with that attitude -- Wikipedia is a community, and I really would like to see a place inside Wikipedia where the community and the developers can communicate. I'd like to know if I'm the only one who is frustrated by this attitude, or if there are others ... -- till we *) 23:33, Aug 25, 2003 (UTC)

...I think, this serves as some kind of "filter". If someone has a really burning issue, he will poste it to SourceForge, otherwise it is not important enough. So the developer get only the "real important" issues. I also would like a more Wikipedia-centric approach (same for MAilinglists), but it is the current way it works. Don't get frustrated by this. If you have a really good Idea how to improve this situation, please start with it. But filters are not always just bad ;-) Fantasy 14:04, 26 Aug 2003 (UTC)
PS:I also have a big list of improvements for Wikipedia listed on my page, and for months already I think "one day I will post them on SourceForge"... one day or another... ;-)
I think we should submit bug reports and feature requests in the manner that the developers wish us to submit them, out of sheer gratitude for all the hard work they put in, developing Wikipedia. Currently that's SourceForge, and not the village pump. Martin 11:57, 27 Aug 2003 (UTC)

moved to User talk:Jonhays0

I see a question mark instead of an apostrophe.

In the page for 1945 for November 29 I see People?s instead of People's. Why is this? Do I need to download some more font's? I'm using windows 98 with IE 6.0.2600.0000IC Thanks

No, your computer is fine. One of the contributors accidentally screwed that up, I think it was "smart quotes" before ( ' looking like a miniature 9). I've manually replaced them now (with the plain quotes). If you're interested, we have Wikipedia:Special characters info-page.
Also, you can easily sign your name & date by ~~~~. Feel free to raise any further questions or concerns here.
-- Menchi 05:34, Aug 26, 2003 (UTC)
Thank you very much for your prompt response.
davidzuccaro 06:25, 26 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Flags and Coats of Arms

Can graphic representations of Flags and Coats of Arms be copyrighted? It seems a bit strange to me - but if the answer is yes, does someone know where one could find ones that are in the public ___domain? Sandman 08:38, 26 Aug 2003 (UTC)

While national flags at least are NOT restricted in such a way (I don't know one way or another about coats of arms, but most are too old to be still under copyright), legally a particular DEPICTION of either can be copyrighted as a derived work. Can't help with the public ___domain versions, sorry --Morven 18:39, 26 Aug 2003 (UTC)
I have a vague impression that CIA World Factbook has them. And Images used in Wikipedia are from there. I could be wrong, though. Tomos 13:06, 28 Aug 2003 (UTC)
Some coats of arms are covered under specific legislation to prevent them from being used without the permission of the government in question; for example I had to get special permission from the government to reproduce the Coat of Arms of Saskatchewan. - Montréalais 15:26, 31 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Wikipedia's search function

deleted - question answered at Wikipedia:Searching

Delete page please

deleted - resolved

Death to software patents!

Can you guys do something with http://swpat.ffii.org/group/demo/ or would it violate the neutrality of Wikipedia? -- 212.127.214.105 00:29, 27 Aug 2003 (UTC)

  • See the thread on the Wikipedia-L mailing list [1]. Jimbo said "While I'm sympathetic to the cause, I'm not really comfortable with Wikipedia per se taking part in a political act..."
Can it at least be (neutrally) mentioned on the main page as a "current event"? -- 212.127.214.105 01:31, 27 Aug 2003 (UTC)
There would have to be an article about it first. Something more specific than just the article on Software patent I think. A
I think software patent is just great; it's got lots of background on the subject, and that's what an encyclopedia is for. You hear about the present protests all over, and look up what it's all about on Wikipedia! :) I've put in the link. --Brion 01:43, 27 Aug 2003 (UTC)~

We can still make an individual statement by putting messages on our user pages. -- Tim Starling 03:43, 27 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Can't find the article I wrote - and saved. HELP!

Hi, I just wrote an article about Rose O'Neal Greenhow. I saved the page, and I saw what it was supposed to look like after saving it. (Just like a Wikipedia page looks!) However, when I typed in Rose O'Neal Greenhow into the search box, nothing came up. Also, when I clicked on "My Contributions," nothing came up. Does it take awhile for articles to post? How long? When can I see my article as a part of Wikipedia and a part of "My Contributions"? Thanks

The search function is static so it is not automatically updated. Use the "go" button instead. Rose O'Neal Greenhow is here. I would, hoever, recommend that you wikify it, i.e., put brackets around certain phrases and words to create links. You can sign your name with 4 "~". The article was contributed by an ip address. Maybe you werent logged in.... --Jiang 03:40, 27 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Wikipedia's database schema

delete - feature request - see wikipedia:bug reports

Is there any way to add new fields to the MySQL database schema used by Wikipedia? This way one would be able to perform a much more sophisticated search.

For instance, if I would like to find all artists born before 1955 or all butterflies of the UK, there currently is no way to do this, or is there? Jurriaan 27 Aug 2003

That would be nice - articles could contain meta information to set fields. Howevever, as even out plain text search seriously sucks, we should probably concentrate on that first. CGS 15:25, 27 Aug 2003 (UTC).
You have also to consider one problem: Editing in Wikipedia has to be easy. That is exactly the success of Wikipedia. If you have to click here, fill in that field, add this there... you will not get many people to use it. We have: ONE editfield, ONE comment and a SAVE button. That is great, and people like that. Sorry for not supporting your Idea... ;-) Fantasy 15:37, 27 Aug 2003 (UTC)
Yes, I understand the problem. But still, as Wikipedia grows, it will become quite difficult to actually find information. I think the basic idea is to have a central, open content place of information. This is one of my reasons to contribute here, rather then starting my own project. I think it would be a shame if all this information would be of limited use.
My proposal would be to create some kind of template with standardised fields, like name, date of birth, place of birth etc etc. I don't feel this would make contributing any more difficult. It could even make things easier since with these templates, we could also standardise the lay out. I find it a great hassle that I also have to think about lay out and all those tags while all I want to do is to enter some knowledge.
One more thought. Those template fields could also greatly reduce the size of the database. Imagine for instance all the duplicated references I now have to use for each article I write on Phelsuma species (most of which are described in the same books)! I could of course turn a reference into an article and link to that "article", but that seems a bit silly.
Regards, Jurriaan
This sounds like a utility that may have to exist separate from Wikipedia itself. Perhaps a database of some kind that would access the database once per day and compile basic information of that sort? --Modemac 16:10, 27 Aug 2003 (UTC)

It's easy to add fields to the database schema, the hard thing is writing a decent user interface to go with them. The standard so far has been to include meta-information in the article itself, by using characteristic text of various kinds. The interlanguage links are an example of this. In some cases the characteristic text is extracted as the article is saved, and duplicated in another DB field, to make searching easier. This is the case with redirects, for example. -- Tim Starling 08:57, 28 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I think "metadata" describes part of what is desired. The ability to define information which describes an entry would allow more searching abilities. "Author" and "Creation Date" are common examples. More specialized situations might want "Species", "Publisher", "ISBN", etc. There are formal metadata methods, although a simple one would be to allow entry of "metadata field name" and "metadata field value" pairs, so people could create whatever labels they want. It would get uncontrolled, but this is a wiki... (SEWilco 15:40, 29 Aug 2003 (UTC))
I found something, that could be interresting in this context: meta:Slotipedia_-_A_Proposal Fantasy 13:14, 1 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Before I say very much, let me say that I believe that it should be possible to let users edit content in any manner they wish, and then we can derive meta-information from the documents that result. This is, in the short run, more difficult, but in the long run will make the choas that is wikipedia more interesting. RayKiddy

Second, could somone who knows how to do so go ahead and make this into its own disc page? Thanx.

See wikipedia:bug reports for info on submitting feature requests. Martin 14:53, 3 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Logo voting and account names

moved to meta:talk:International logo vote

Search Engine

delete - answered at wikipedia:searching

It seems to me like the search engine needs to be updated. For instance, typing in "death of a salesman" gives you "Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act," "Blue Screen of Death," "Black Death," and "Dotcom Death" in that order, without brininging up a link to Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman at all. How can this be fixed?

--Alex S 20:17, 27 Aug 2003 (UTC)


...yes, it can be improved, and will be. But it needs time (or someone who does it...). To understand your search-result, please read Wikipedia:Searching. Sorry, Fantasy 20:32, 27 Aug 2003 (UTC)
Yes, searching really shouldn't be case sensitive. Seems like an easy thing to fix. Mkweise 20:42, 27 Aug 2003 (UTC)
It's actually not. If you search for "Death of a Salesman" (click on the "search" button, not "go"), you get the same odd results, despite there being an article with that exact title. It's the "go" button that's case-sensitive, since it looks for an article with exactly that name. I do agree that perhaps "go" should be case-insensitive. But in any case, the odd search results here are a result of some other problem (likely the reliance on MySQL's default ordering, which isn't very good), not a case problem. --Delirium 20:55, Aug 27, 2003 (UTC)

Please read Wikipedia:Searching. --Brion 21:18, 27 Aug 2003 (UTC)

For/against ordering

I'd like to propose a new addition to the Wikipedia style, and I'm not sure where else to suggest it. What I would like to see is a guideline that in any article, if there is more then one point of view, descriptions of the article subject come first, and arguments against it come later. So when I went to an article on Global Warming, say, I got a description of Global Warming first and objections to it later. Likewise when I go to Creationism I should find out what creationists believe first, and only then any reasons why people might think they are wrong. DJ Clayworth 20:49, 27 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable to me. Apart from the fairness issues, it makes the article more comprehensible, as it's rather difficult to contextualize arguments against a position without first having explained the position. In fact, this is my major complaint with the reverse ordering some articles currently have -- they seem to present the arguments as if they're talking to someone who already is familiar with the subject, and I have to read further to find out what it was they were actually talking about. On the other hand, if it's a controversial topic, the intro should mention this; it's just the specific objections that should be left for later in the article, not the fact that there are objections in the first place. --Delirium 20:58, Aug 27, 2003 (UTC)
Has some overlap with Wikipedia:Village_pump#Stating_the_basics. See above. Angela

'Classroom-like' English literature question

I asked the contributor of Death of a Salesman to modified the "Themes and Points of Interest" so that it's more encyclopedic. But when he asks how it can be so, I'm not sure! I mean, the questions are valid: "Why? Do the Loman men have a tragic flaw? What could it be?" -- But I don't think encyclopedia should asks its reader like an English-class teacher asks his/her students (although this may not be the contributor's intent). Those are general questions that can asked of most tragedies.

Should we just provided some possible analysis? Or should we remove those question-sentences? Or should we convert those questions into statements, somehow? --Menchi 21:05, Aug 27, 2003 (UTC)
Seems simple enough in principle: instead of asking questions, give the answers. (But perhaps I only think that because I'm not familiar with the play.) —Paul A 00:57, 28 Aug 2003 (UTC)
The problem is that they're not questions that have a "right" answer - as with most studies of humanities, for each question there are many interpretations. --Alex S 02:16, 28 Aug 2003 (UTC)
So make the section bigger, and describe the different interpretations. —Paul A 02:50, 28 Aug 2003 (UTC)

The new format is driving me nuts

deleted - duplicated at wikipedia talk:software updates

Wikiquote Bug

deleted fixed bug. Brion is a God.

Help with Photoshop and PNGs

wikipedia:graphics tutorials?

Wondering if some helpful party could aid me in resolving a problem I have - I assume it's with Adobe Photoshop, which I use in making PNGs for use here on Wikipedia. They always turn out much, much darker than they appear in the program. Check the history of Image:mtl-metro-map.png - to create an acceptable image I finally had to bombastically lighten the original image in Photoshop. This happens whether I save it in RGB mode or indexed colour mode. Is there a way to ensure that the colours in the file are the same as the colours I see when using the program? - Montréalais 20:10, 28 Aug 2003 (UTC)


is it only PNGs? P-shop has its own gamma correction -- check that. -- Tarquin 20:21, 28 Aug 2003 (UTC)
Montrealais: what browser are you using? Some have broken gamma correction in their display engines. --Brion 21:35, 28 Aug 2003 (UTC)
IE 5.5. Does the image look too light on some other browser? And (at least out of the formats I use) it's only PNGs as far as I know - all the GIFs I created for my website look fine. - Montréalais 23:44, 28 Aug 2003 (UTC)
The first three versions are too dark, the last two are fine (I use IE 6). The only parts that could be even lighter (not the whole thing) are the small words to the right to the blue signs with white rectangles and an up-arrows in them. Like the lower-left one that says: "TRAIN DE BRAMIUE MONTRÉAL DELSON"(?) --Menchi 23:56, Aug 28, 2003 (UTC)
Try fiddling with the color settings in Photoshop. On my Mac at work w/ ps 7 I loaded the (older version) of the file, saw it looked fine, went into the Color Settings (in the apple menu on OSX; probably under File on Windows) and switched the 'Working Spaces' / 'RGB' to 'ColorSync RGB - Generic RGB Profile', and resaved. The resaved file looks great in Safari and Mozilla, at least for me... but I don't know how reliable this is. --Brion
Alternatively, try resaving the files from the Gimp. --Brion 00:07, 29 Aug 2003 (UTC)
I noticed a problem with photoshop's png module also -- depending on how its displayed, it can even be chopped to bits (AcDsee) - with browsers, the transparency quality is inferior to that of the Gimp. Maybe try something like this (I havent tried it yet) http://www.freephotoshop.com/html/png.html -戴&#30505sv 00:22, Aug 29, 2003 (UTC)
I'll experiment with that later. Thanks so much for the help, folks :) - Montréalais 04:33, 29 Aug 2003 (UTC)

User SEWilco is an activist

moved to User talk:SEWilco

Moving Pages

deleted - request fulfilled

Problem with a protected page

Can a sysop unprotect the page Wikipedia:Most wanted articles please. There is a formatting problem with it, which causes the html to show up, and I need to remove a page that I have started. Thanks. --Lypheklub 03:41, 29 Aug 2003 (UTC)

See wikipedia:protected page or Wikipedia talk:Most wanted articles for why this is protected. Lypheklub - you want Special:Wantedpages. Martin 08:48, 29 Aug 2003 (UTC)

real-time computer control

Moved to Wikipedia:Reference desk

request protection for ethics

deleted - request fulfilled


List formatting

In adjoining an item to the list in the article "Disability", the list-closure marker was not available in the EDIT window so that I could precede it by my item. Is this a CORRECTABLE GENERAL PROBLEM? --Jonhays0

It is not a GENERAL PROBLEM like a bug is a GENERAL PROBLEM, no, and I've FIXED the page in question. Unordered lists are formatted by just putting an asterisk before each item (for ordered lists, put a hash before each item). See Wikipedia:How to edit a page for more details on formatting. By the way, you put your new item at disability under "see also", which is a heading usually reserved for internal links to other Wikipedia articles; I've changed it to "Further reading", but if you used that article as a reference, you might want to change it to "References" instead. --Camembert

The Afonsos of Portugal

I'm redirecting the Alphonsos and Alfonsos to Afonso – the proper Portuguese spelling. Because: This Wikipedia is in English - Alfonso is Spanish and Alphonso old Spanish - Since neither is in English, the correct spelling is preferred because Portuguese is as good as language as Spanish - The Spanish kings are left as Alfonso - In this way, I think, everything is covered
Any objection, please mention it in my talk page. Cheers Muriel Gottrop 08:47, 30 Aug 2003 (UTC)

my past contributions

Hello, I have entered the original entry for ITOCHU but I forgot to login, would it be possible to change to original entry from '134.32.130.113' to 'jburati' so I can keep track of my contributions? 

Jburati
Here you can see contributions by this IP Address:

http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Contributions&target=134.32.130.113

If you put this pages on your watchlist, you can always check if this pages are changed. Hope this helps ;-) Fantasy 08:34, 31 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Please edit User talk:Tim Starling using that IP address or a similar one, without logging in, to confirm that you are actually the same person. Was the Julius Hoffman edit you as well? -- Tim Starling 07:55, 1 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Spanish municipality naming format

Please weigh in with your opinions (City, Province vs. City) at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (city names)/Spain. - Montréalais 03:12, 31 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Redirect problem

Is there a problem with the Redirect in the Systems of zoological classification article? When I use the 'Diff' function on the page history, its shows that a "redirect" was added to Scientific classification. Great. But it doesn't seem to be working. Each time I click on the article I see the previous version; the one without the redirect, showing the full text. What is going on? RK 22:25, 31 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Works for me, so probably a cache issue. Try shift-reload. --Delirium 22:29, Aug 31, 2003 (UTC)

Why don't we have a Nazi swastika?

I was looking at swastika and it struck me that it describes the Nazi swastika (red background, white cricle, black swastika at an angle), but the Image:CWswastika.png image next to this is plain grey. Is there a reason for this? It's illegal in Germany, but do we care about that (we ignored Nevada pornography laws when they were discussed)? How about France? CGS 01:19, 1 Sep 2003 (UTC).

While Nazi symbols are illigal in Germany, it is however allowed to display them inside a encyclopedia, so this law will give us no problem here. And the Swastika itself is much older then the Nazi - in the Germanic museum in Cologne is a Roman floor mosaic featuring it as well, and that isn't illigal either. andy 08:02, 1 Sep 2003 (UTC)
I'll put together a Nazi swastika as described. CGS 10:28, 1 Sep 2003 (UTC).

Partnership with Miwiki for yours Wikipedia logos

"Miwiki the ant" is an artwork of french workgroup to design a Wikipedia mascot and submit a logo with it (n°132).

m:International logos (126-150)

But, like Anthere (logo n°17) or Paullus (n°4), you can use Miwiki the ant mascot to make a variant of your logo.

m:International logos (1-25)

Just take picture on this pages :

m:Wikipedia mascot

m:User:Oliezekat/Miwiki logo 5

FrWikipedia:Utilisateur:Oliezekat/Miwiki (in french with several colors)

Or contact me to design myself special picture for your logo variant : Oliezekat

Creating disambiguation pages

When someone replaces an existing page with a disambiguation page, they should make sure to follow the directions in Wikipedia:Disambiguation:

Before creating a disambiguation page, click on "What links here" to find all the pages that link to the page you are about to change. Make sure those pages are fixed or that they won't be adversely affected before you do the split.

Also (and someone please correct me if I'm wrong), the old page should be moved to the new name, instead of just moving the text - that way the edit history goes with it. If a duplicate page already exists at the destination (because someone created it not realizing that the other page already existed), you'll need to get an admin to help you, by using the procedure outlined here.

Now that I'm done saying that, can someone more expert than me help with sorting out the edit histories on ITS and Incompatible Timesharing System? Thanks... Noel 22:53, 1 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I've had a go. Incompatible Timesharing System now has a full history, but ITS has none. It looks like I created the page. Is this ok or is there a way to keep the history of both of them? Angela 16:52, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC)
Alas, I think it's going to take some major wizardy (i.e. above and beyond the procedure I referenced above) to sort this out, since the edit histories of the two different pages (the disambig page ITS, and the OS page Incompatible Timesharing System) were mixed together (originally on the disambig page, now on the OS page), due to the error on the part of the person who set up the disambig page (who didn't follow the guidelines reproduced above).
If anyone can grovel directly, the following versions of the OS page are for the disambig page:
and belong in its edit history; the rest are for the OS and can stay where they are. Noel 17:26, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC)
If you want to swap two pages but maintain the edit history of both pages, you can do it by using a temporary third page. i.e. If you want to swap A and B.
  1. move A to C (a newly created page)
  2. delete A, (which is a redirect to C)
  3. move B to A
  4. delete B (which is a redirect to A)
  5. move C to B
  6. delete C (which is a redirect to B)
Mintguy
That doesn't solve the problem that only one of them has an edit history currently. The Incompatible Timesharing System has the edit history of both documents, whereas ITS has no edit history. I just did the move A to B to C thing before realising this. :) Angela
Can you create a copy of Inc Timesh Sys somehow, and then paste the text of ITS into it as a standard edit? CGS 18:19, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC).
If I'm understanding you properly, that's basically what the person who did the original (incorrect) creation of the disambig page did, and it left the edit history of the OS page on the disambig page. Noel 18:24, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I've noticed that there are pages on Wikipedia that are articles that include, sometimes at the top, but usually way down at the bottom, alternative "definitions" of the article name. These pages are not disambiguation pages because the common use of the word is overwhelmingly the one most people would be seeking. Nonetheless, the alternative word use, separated by a 4-dash line, is sometimes completely lost below the main article. Some Wikipedians solve this problem by putting a one line link to the alternative at the very top, but this is a distraction. I've set up a sidebar box under Elm as a proposed alternative for these situations. As long as the alternatives link out (do not expand on page into another article), this would seem to separate the links from the article text while affording them a bit more visibility. Any comments? - Marshman 18:42, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC)

It's fine in IE6, but the whole page is squashed up in Mozilla. It seems to work in both if you put the table in a div. Angela 19:08, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC)

<div style="float:right; padding:10px;"><table style="float:right" border="2" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="3"> <tr> <td>'''Elm''' is also a text-based [[E-mail]] client. See [[Elm email client]]. </td> </tr> </table></div>

Thanks Angela. Someone fixed it so -- Marshman
That was me doing a dodgy logged in and logged out at the same time. :) Angela

Move in discussion from my talk page on this subject. I can move it all back later; but better exposure/participation here I think

sorry but the floating sidebar on elm is no good -- most screens are simply not wide enough to support it. -- Tarquin 18:53, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I realize that I have a high resolution screen and therefore will not encounter that problem. But how does the other sidebar on that page not cause an identical problem? The sidebar I suggest (as presented at Elm) is right justified and will expand as far left as needed to accomodate text. Use of <BR> can control that to keep it from filling across screen. - Marshman 19:00, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC)


it's best to use tables as little as possible; as for the line, I don't really see how right-aligning it is any better. It's only an extra formatting convention we would now have to replicate throughout wikipedia, and it's ugly markup that confuses the novce editor. Simple is best, in my opinion -- Tarquin 19:16, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC)
If we do not use table formatting as you suggest, I think a standard <DIV> "right" format with bullets or similar at the top would still be preferable to the current practice of dividing lines and bottom billing for these minor alternatives. Of course a disambiguation page is a better solution, but obviously needs to be used only where there is a clear need to split articles. The problem with the bottom billing once the lead artyicle gets large is that a person looking for the minor word use is not going to scroll down through the text he is not interested in (human nature). - Marshman 19:36, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC)
I agree that bottom billing is no good, but I think right-align is needless clutter -- Tarquin 19:42, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC)
At least in IE6, if you have the standard wikipedia sidebar set to right hand side, it overlays the "disambiguation sidebar", no matter what the window width is. This is very ugly. DrBob 23:22, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC)
How about this? Why not use colour for a change? CGS 20:48, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC).
Hmmmm. I can see (in edit) you added gray, but does not look like anything different in my IE6. I'm trying to run a line between having the "secondary" or minor term be right up front (a distraction for most users) and being hidden on the bottom (unnoticeable by the few actually looking for it). At present only top-mounted side-bar box or similar shifted right seems suitable, despite Tarquin objection that this complicates formatting. Eliminating the box simplies formatting a bit, and maybe color is an answer. But shifting right seems necessary to get it separated from main text. - Marshman 22:48, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC)
The English spelling of grey was used which seems to be accepted by Mozilla but ignored by IE. I changed it to #C0C0C0 which will be recognised by both. This might be a bit too light though. Angela 22:58, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC)

It is needless HTML clutter for no good reason. please remove it -- Tarquin 23:14, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I agree with Tarquin. Please avoid HTML whenever possible until we have a template system, it makes pages harder to edit for newbies.—Eloquence 00:10, 3 Sep 2003 (UTC)

At the bottom is not hidden, hence not a problem, as long as it is in the TOC. - Patrick 00:16, 3 Sep 2003 (UTC)
I'd prefer it at the top. It's clear enough why it is there that it is not going to confuse people wanting info on trees. Not all pages that this applies to have a TOC and a quick glimpse at the article would suggest that it is about trees so people aren't going to scroll down just in case there is an unrelated topic at the bottom. I agree with Tarquin and Eloquence about the HTML issue. It's more trouble than it's worth. Angela 00:24, 3 Sep 2003 (UTC)

(Not) signing articles

I can not find the discussion about signing articles (this is almost wikipedia prehistory). Can somebody point it out to me? or was it discussed in the mailing list? thanks --AstroNomer 19:37, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I think it's best if this page is just deleted.

OK, so I'm a new Wikipedian and I recently created a stub for a non-existent (red) link that I found. Later, I realized that the same info was on a page with a more appropriate name. I edited the original link (from which I made the stub) to point to the more approproate page and now I think that the stub I created would best be deleted. The page that I changed the link on is Game which used to point to massive multiplayer online game (my stub which I believe should be deleted), but now more appropriately points to MMORPG. I guess that we could also just turn the full spelling into a redirect page, but currently nothing links to it (although I guess it might in the future). Let me know what you think we should do. Thanks. PolymerTim 00:25, 3 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Hi Tim, I think the long title is a sensible redirect in this case, which is what I've done. If you want to move any of the content you wrote into the MMORPG page, you can retrieve your content from the article history. There is a deletion page which you can leave future requests for deletion on. Angela 00:32, 3 Sep 2003 (UTC)

British Columbian

Hi there! I have problems about famous Canadians or notable British Columbians. Who counts as a Canadian? I have added Leslie Cheung in the list of Canadians, but I am not quite comfortable with it. Leslie Cheung had lived in BC for just three years and then returned to Hong Kong after getting a passport, and he is not a rare example. Did I do the right thing? Or should this kind of "non-Canadian" Canadian be removed from the lists? Wshun

One of the rights guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is the right to leave Canada. No Canadian must maintain any ties with Canada (this is not true for landed immigrants) in order to maintain Canadian nationality. This is protected in sec. 6(1) entitled Mobility rights. There are many Canadians that live outside Canada; this does not (IMHO) make them less Canadian — perhaps other Canadians think otherwise. Many Canadians are forced to live in the US for financial reasons, jobs, or career opportunities. Even some Canadian corporations have many employees stationed in the United States; being in this situation does not make any Canadian less Canadian, they can always return to their mother country and take up residence there again; of course an immigrant who comes to Canada and becomes a Canadian citizen may also have other nationalities. Canada does recognize dual national status; one does not have to renounce their other citizenship(s) when taking the oath to the Queen of Canada like the United States requires of its immigrants. Alex756

Date conversion

It seems the automatic date conversion is not working anymore. The preference option has disappeared. What's going on? --Wik 06:25, 3 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Should be enabled now. (Was it before?) --Brion 07:48, 3 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Help! At Shearwater, I've put in a link to Cory's Shearwater, which is written. The link stays red, but clicking on it goes to the edit page of the new article, not the article itself or a blank page. I'm sure it's something to do with the apostrophes, but I can't sort it out. jimfbleak 06:38, 3 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Works fine for me - blue link leading to Cory's Shearwater, no problem. Are you sure it's not just a caching persistence problem? —Paul A 07:38, 3 Sep 2003 (UTC)
Jim retyped it, and it worked...miraculously. The 1st time I visted that time (after Jim finished Cory's Shearwater), the same thing happened to me: Edit page opened up. And I never visited Shearwater before. The apostrophes look identical to me. --Menchi 07:43, 3 Sep 2003 (UTC)
I don't know if it's relevant, but Cory's Shearwater (Cory's_Shearwater) has a redirect page linking to it called Cory’s Shearwater ([[Cory%92s_Shearwater]]). The different between the straight apostrophe of the article itself and the slanted/curved (depending on font) apostrophe of the redirect page is quite distinct on my computer, though. —Paul A 07:56, 3 Sep 2003 (UTC)
Several people attempted to fix that link (See its hist), but now when we access the old versions -- which didn't work before -- they all work now: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. If it didn't work before, and it works now -- it must be some time lapse or temporal anomaly due to the approach asteroid. Maybe tomorrow will be yesterday. --Menchi 08:02, 3 Sep 2003 (UTC)
Caching problem. (Lest I bet that's what it is. Sure as today is Friday.) Refresh your browser and it will go away. Or just wait. I've met similar weirdness before, now and then. Tannin

Ancient Rome directory

Moved to Wikipedia:Requests for comments

TV screenshots

This is probably a stupid question, but does it violate copyright to upload images from television shows if I capture them? - Evil saltine 08:34, 3 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Probably. Try our wikipedia:boilerplate request for permission. Martin 12:41, 3 Sep 2003 (UTC)
I think TV newscasts are exempt from copyright. IANAL, but I seem to remember this a loophole in the copyright law. You can't plagerize them, but you may rebroadcast their content. You may want to research it further. —Frecklefoot 14:51, 3 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Difference between town and CDP

Just recently someone created a new article about Farmington, Maine, and when I wondered why the county seat does not even have the automated entry yet I discovered there are in fact two, but both orphans. But what is the difference between Farmington (CDP), Maine and Farmington (town), Maine - I can see the numbers are different, but I don't know the meaning of CDP. And there are many more of the CDP/Town entries, which are not linked in the county articles. andy 09:32, 3 Sep 2003 (UTC)


As far as I understand, CDP means something like Census-Designated Place and is used only for counting people, not for administration. It probably includes the town proper plus some farms or settlements around. -- till we *) 11:50, Sep 3, 2003 (UTC)
Seems to be opposite, as the CDP has a smaller area and population then the town. But the actual question is: what to do with these entries? Merge them? Create redirects like Farmington, Maine (pointing to town, CDP, or both)? And how to find them all? Having red links in the counties and orphan articles is definitely not a good situation. andy 12:11, 3 Sep 2003 (UTC)

A little concern about editing

delete when read - further discussion to wikipedia talk:Replies to common objections

I just created an account and found myself able to edit pages. With this ability for new users, how do we know that the information after edition is correct? I have this concern that valuable information could be deleted or altered intentionally or accidentally. Does Wikipedia have some sort of check in place?

I think you can find the answer in Wikipedia:Replies to common objections - there are always others who will read the article later, and whenever a fact look dubious it will be researched. And we always have the editing history, so anything deleted or altered can still be traced back. andy 09:48, 3 Sep 2003 (UTC)
It sure does. We have a Supervising Editor who checks as many articles as possible, and adjusts them as appropriate. This editor's name is 65.148.122.196 (i.e., you). Also me. And every other Wikipedian. We all check each other's work as routine. Sometimes some horrible howlers slip through the net, but not often. Mostly, someone like you will spot the problem and either fix it (if you have the expertise) or at least bring it to the attention of someone who is a specialist in that field.
Welcome aboard, by the way. Stick around, it's a great place. Tannin
You don't even need a user account to edit articles. CGS 10:19, 3 Sep 2003 (UTC).

Ever read Logan's Run

moved to wikipedia:requests for comments
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