Wikimedia Forum
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Catalan Can some help me with the editor that updated this new word Catalan. He has blocked my efforts (newbie) to correctly publish my work and copyright. My word is brending and would like your help. I support anything to do with W3C and HTML5. AI will move forward one RDF pack at a time. I promised Steve Jobs to pick u where he left off my Interntwork Expert processes will provide those fact. (Please advise) Need your help. 614-448-0090 brending@live.comJdzarlino 16:46, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
<translate>
The Wikimedia Forum is a central place for questions, announcements and other discussions about the [[<tvar|wmf>Special:MyLanguage/Wikimedia Foundation</>|Wikimedia Foundation]] and its projects. (For discussion about the Meta wiki, see [[<tvar|meta-babel>Special:MyLanguage/Meta:Babel</>|Meta:Babel]].)
This is not the place to make technical queries regarding the [[<tvar|mediawiki>Special:MyLanguage/MediaWiki</>|MediaWiki software]]; please ask such questions at the [[<tvar|mw-support-desk>mw:Project:Support desk</>|MediaWiki support desk]]; technical questions about Wikimedia wikis, however, can be placed on [[<tvar|tech>Special:MyLanguage/Tech</>|Tech]] page.</translate>
Brending John Zarlino
Lars
You are close to implosion. We will had been. Stop it, immediatly.
This was english, to mee.
"Personal Appeal" banners
I'd be inclined to donate a lot more frequently if these banners were removed user-end after donation, like, via a cookie or something. And I know for a fact I'm not in this boat alone.
Having Jimmy Wales ask me to give him money right after I just finished giving him money just makes me dislike Jimmy Wales.
- Oh, come on now. How could you dislike somebody,who could ask for money with his eyes :-)--Mbz1 04:53, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
- Wait, I thought it did remove all banners after someone donates... ? --Yair rand 05:02, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
- Well, apparently it does not. I wanted to try it, to make a donation I mean, but two years ago a user donated $1,000 to wikipedia, told Jimbo (at his talk page) about his donation, got listed in Sustaining Donors on this page and... got blocked by an involved, bully administrator Gwen Gale for making this donation :( So I decided I'd better skip on this :-) Of course maybe they block only users, who are donating a thousand dollars or more, but who knows... :-) It is better to be safe than sorry.--Mbz1 05:14, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
- In most countries the banners go away after you donate. In some countries where chapters control them, they've elected not to hide the banners after donation. But all the ones that the WMF is running set a cookie and go away once you've donated. Philippe (WMF) 14:01, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
- I noticed there's a little |x| check box directly on the banner in the upper-right corner that only closes the banner window. I assumed everyone would also have that option to close them manually. (=SebzX= 08:45, 19 December 2011 (UTC))
- In most countries the banners go away after you donate. In some countries where chapters control them, they've elected not to hide the banners after donation. But all the ones that the WMF is running set a cookie and go away once you've donated. Philippe (WMF) 14:01, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
- Well, apparently it does not. I wanted to try it, to make a donation I mean, but two years ago a user donated $1,000 to wikipedia, told Jimbo (at his talk page) about his donation, got listed in Sustaining Donors on this page and... got blocked by an involved, bully administrator Gwen Gale for making this donation :( So I decided I'd better skip on this :-) Of course maybe they block only users, who are donating a thousand dollars or more, but who knows... :-) It is better to be safe than sorry.--Mbz1 05:14, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia is a great organization but just post ads to sustain (transfered message)
1 : I use and fully support Wikipedia and their diligence in purity of information. I do believe, however, that posting one ad at the top of the page to fund and sustain the organization should be done. It will be as intrusive as the plea from Jimmy Wales. Seriously, one tasteful ad is more than reasonable for sustainability. (without any signature ; see http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Wikimedia_Forum&diff=0&oldid=3024422)
And yet another way to ask for money
I Just proposed it Jimbo, but I'll post it here too. I am sure this appeal posted below will attract more donors because it is simpler, cuter and different.
Please read
A personal appeal from a puffer fish.
I was photographed in Hawaii by a volunteer photographer. My image was uploaded to Wikipedia by a volunteer contributor. Another volunteers wrote article about me. My image is absolutely free. You may use it for your school projects, to print it, and to hang in your office and so on. But images and articles require lot's of space on servers, and servers cost some money. So, if you'd like to see more images of me, and more images like these ones 
and 
and 
please donate to Wikipedia today. Thank you.
--Mbz1 14:20, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
- I love this idea. Have you proposed it at Fundraising 2011? -Pete F 18:42, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
- Thank you. I proposed it at Jimbo's talk, but there was no response. It was a good faith proposal and I wish the very best to Wikipedia.--Mbz1 17:58, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
- Even if I won't run it on Wikipedia, why not on Commons? It will certainly get lots of clicks since people are curious. -- Rillke 12:51, 23 December 2011 (UTC)
A personal appeal from a puffer fish.
-- Rillke 13:16, 23 December 2011 (UTC)
- Again, I'd really strongly suggest bringing this up at Fundraising 2011 -- that's where decisions about the banners are made. Jimbo's talk page can be a good way to reach a variety of volunteers, but you won't get to the WMF's fundraising team there. -Pete F 18:37, 23 December 2011 (UTC)
- This was already brought up with a link to this thread at Talk:Fundraising 2011#A good idea in the Forum, so I think the fundraising team is aware of the suggestion. As Pete indicates, that is the better place to discuss it. ~ Ningauble 15:04, 24 December 2011 (UTC)
- Again, I'd really strongly suggest bringing this up at Fundraising 2011 -- that's where decisions about the banners are made. Jimbo's talk page can be a good way to reach a variety of volunteers, but you won't get to the WMF's fundraising team there. -Pete F 18:37, 23 December 2011 (UTC)
Corruption
I'm didn't do the things that they say on here but they block my page to don't let me talk on here: http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usuario_discusi%C3%B3n:Vigilante_Satan What's next? --Vigilante Satan 17:30, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
- As your talk page is blocked, you may wish to ask a member of that community perhaps via IRC how you go about appealing your block. Different communities have different practices. --Moonriddengirl 16:45, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
Why I will not donate this year
Wikipedia used to be something you could be proud of. What did we do in 2011 that we didn't do in 2007? Nada. Worse. Vandals have taken over the henhouse. I won't mention names, because they'd just block me for exposing them, but there are users who go around bragging about how many legal images they delete and hoping to delete 420K more.
And this is what we were paying you for? Rudeness, Thuggery, and more money every year for an ever-worsening product?
I've been a wikimaniac for a long time. this is the first christmas I won't be giving anything and I hate it. But you can only treat people so disrespectfully in one year. Please put your house in order. --Nobody who will be missed.
- Hi Sorry you don't feel that way. I'm tempted to point out that even on the English Wikipedia despite all our deletionists we still have a growing article count, and on the measures of quality that I know the average quality is still rising. But more pertinently the things that trouble you - rudeness and incorrect deletions are things that the Foundation has been researching and has acknowledged as problems. That doesn't mean we have solutions yet and I won't be trite and say that money is needed to solve them because money only enables you to implement solutions that you've identified. But money would help, and I hope next year you are willing to donate. WereSpielChequers 17:39, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
- Deletionists cause many people to stop donating money to Wikipedia. But worst of all are smug, speedy deletionists who can't have a give-and-take discussion, and who seem to get off on how many deletions they (and usually some team/clique) make, and how fast they make them. They don't want to be bothered with notifying people either. For some recent discussion and info:
- - en:Wikipedia talk:Categories for discussion#Add requirement that category creators be notified
- - en:Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive730#Non-admin close creating new category naming guideline - ignore the not so uncommon closer comment that insults people's motivations. It may take some reading to understand that discussion. But notice that other people soon joined in discussing their problems related to deletions, especially speedy deletions. Requiring notification, increasing participation, getting rid of speedy deletions, and banning non-admin closes would go a long way towards stopping the abuse, the mistakes, the destruction of work, and the lack of accountability. A wikiproject for lessening rudeness by admins and deletionists would help. --Timeshifter (talk) 17:23, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
{unindent)
|
Here are some userboxes. It is too much to expect some deletionists and category workers to give a damn. Also, there is very little arbitration. One way things may change over time is community support via userbox and other education. --Timeshifter (talk) 23:22, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
Another one:
 | Unresolved content disputes combined with abusive admins and policies drive away editors and donations. See also. |
See: User:Timeshifter/Userboxes --Timeshifter (talk) 13:45, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
Please, don't you want to find a solution to the problem “ASKING SOME MONEY WITH BANNERS” ?
hi, you all ;
I see on the Talk:Page of Wikimedia Forum that several persons are speaking in differents manners of the problem of asking some money with banners ; but with which banners ? I always see on the differents WIKIs the photos of differents responsables of Wikimedia, I suppose (I put off those of French Wikipedia, that always hurted me by the great difference between the quality of each page of the French site and these portraits in colours, not adaptated (in my mind) to the graphism of the pages, to the necessary beauty of the Encyclopedia that made a part of its reputation ;
all graphists made beautiful efforts for create an interesting, attractive, <intellectuelle>, professional Encyclopedia, and these banners are shocking with there vulgarity (I apologize for my brutality, but I don't find another manner for saying what I think) ; a bad banner could desinterest the persons who would give some money for helping Wikimedia Foundation ;
so, please you all, do something, ask something, propose something, give or ask some questions about the wikipedian graphism, don't abandon the problem ;
I keep the wish for the comprehension and efforts to do, I would do something myself if necessary, even I am not a graphist ; with my excuses a second time for my brutality (and for my mistakes in English), yours, Buster Keaton 19:06, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
- Hi Buster Keaton - we've actually tested those banners quite a bit, and tried some that were much more beautifully designed. Interestingly, these performed far better than the ones that were designed by (award-winning!) national graphic artists. I'm not sure why it is, but we obviously have to go with the ones that worked. Thank you for your feedback. :) Philippe (WMF) 13:58, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
Why are so very many user accounts on wikipedia banned?
Why are so many blocked as soon as the appear, with no reason given? Is this the way to encourage new editors? Don't understand this reasoning. Why don't blocking admins have to give evidence for a block besides one or too illconsidered edits by the noobie?
Is seems like there is no control over this mass blocking, no attempt to teach the noobie how to make good edits and bring him into the fold. There is no attempt to initiate an interchange with them. One stupid mistake on the first edit or two and the noobie is indefinitely banned.
Admins must particularly relish doing this. Can't admin's be educated. After all, they are usually the first contact a noobie has - and that is in the form of an indefinite block or ban.
Definitely, new editors are being bitten and banned with no recourse. Technical wiki jargon is thrown at them as a way of appealing the ban, jargon that they cann't possibly understand.
And usually they are blocked from editing their talk page and their email is blocked.
No wonder the number of editors is dropping off. All new blood, the future of wikipedia, is being banned, blocked, bitten. Stop throwing the alphebet soup of warning at them. Use plain English! — The preceding unsigned comment was added by SplitTooth (talk) , 4. Dezember 2011, 19:37 (UTC)
- You're painting a very general and generalized picture. Please point to specific examples. Seb az86556 00:10, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
- Templates {{xxxblock}}: {{softerblock}}, {{anonblock}}, {{schoolblock}} on the recent changes page? (rather understood for newbie) Przykuta 17:24, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
- One stupid mistake on the first edit or two is highly unlikely to get an editor blocked. That usually takes multiple clear vandalisms, and as for being blocked from their own talkpage or email that is rare and should only be when there has been abuse by the blocked editor. As for the idea that all new blood is being blocked, we actually have far more accounts that have edited than we have dished out blocks. WereSpielChequers 19:09, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
- I can relate to being a new member as I'm reading this post as I only joined like a week ago and am still a new member myself. One thing I noticed even right from the start was how complex the interface was as it took me a while reading through everything to be able to ask another experienced editor for some advice and tips on an article I am currently working on improving. It's possible that new users are notified of stuff but are unaware of it due to the amount of things on the screen. It took me a few days to become familiar with everything as well such as policies on uploading content, learning how to ask for help via the "Talk" feature, how to sign my name at the end of discussions I post or reply to, and the format in how to write articles properly which was my main concern when I joined. I've seen many new users just like me, but skipping those steps and jumping right into editing posts but without taking a moment to pay attention to what's asked of everyone that posts on Wikipedia, that we follow specific guidelines and use the proper formatting, have verifiable sources, references, citations, and many other things that many new members just skip or don't bother doing. I think it's just due to the complexity of Wikipedia that overwhelms new users which are eager to post, it's easy for new members to make mistakes and not know why edits are reverted or why they got in trouble.
- The editor I asked for tips and advice from shortly after joining, Lithorean, had posted a few tips and a very helpful Welcome Helpful Tips & Links Template section on my page to help get me started that had pretty much everything covered in one place. It definitely made things much easier to locate as I spent a good hour before that on just figuring out how to upload an image and learning about Wikipedia:Wiki_commons. More new members should also take the time to learn Wikipedia's policies if they aren't aware of them already as it's something that they'll be using quite a lot if they'd like to edit and create articles, not just posting random things. (=SebzX= 10:21, 19 December 2011 (UTC))
Not ads but sponsored links
I'd like to propose the idea of sponsored links as used widely across The Net.
I know that this is against the ethos but general internet buying advice says: before you buy anything, go to a voucher site and get a voucher code. I have bought things from sites that offer the opportunity to enter a promotion code. One is lead to believe, by the press and consumer TV programs that one would almost be a fool not to find a voucher code before buying.
Therefore, retailers expect voucher codes as the norm. Therefore sponsored links are the norm.
Readers, please try altering your browser's cookie handling to Always Prompt. You will be stunned at how many ADThis, TrackThat, MediaTheOther cookies have been arriving on your computer without you knowing and every one has generated a small amount of money for someone. Add them all up.
What is a cookie? A small text file that YOU ALLOW to be stored on YOUR COMPUTER. Most people don't even know they exist. For instance, an Ad box at the side of the page may store a cookie signaling that it has shown you Ad 123 already so it can move on to Ad 456. They're mostly harmless BUT EVERY ONE MAKES MONEY!
Challenge: Set your cookie (aka privacy) handling to Prompt Always. Visit your usual websites. Count how many cookie requests you are presented with that are NOT www.TheWebSiteYouWanted.xyz. You will be astonished. Every single one of those cookies has made cash for an advertisting company and their clients.
When you move from one website to another, either following a link or otherwise, the new website can enquire as to where you were before you came here i.e. the Referring website. Wikipedia, I believe, should be paid for its referrals. No money attributed to contributers, so that's that scam squashed, all referral money goes to WP.
I'm now going to stand behind the bomb-proof wall and await the incomming...
Andy North
- (Sponsored links are ads, albeit small ones.) In case anyone is wondering why we are constantly barraged with suggestions that would principally benefit advertising, marketing, and SEO companies, or wondering what impact it would have on the Wikimedia Foundation to adopt these suggestions, I highly recommend Erik Barnouw's book The Sponsor: Notes on a Modern Potentate. ~ Ningauble 21:00, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
- Whether the ad is in the form of a banner or a "sponsored link" if the foundation takes money for them part of the price is our neutrality. I'm sure there are plenty of car companies that would like to put ads on our articles about their competitor's products. The problem is that as soon as we do so we lose our neutral status. Better in my view to stick with an annual fundraiser. WereSpielChequers 17:55, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
- Andy North. See en:Wikipedia:Advertisements. --Timeshifter (talk) 20:55, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
Wiki donation
You should add CVC code from back side of bank card to donation web form.
How can A picture in Wikipedia be rotated?
There's a picture of the Lehigh University Alumni building on "The Rivalry" page that is rotated 90 degrees to the left. Can someone fix it to make it vertical? Can't find how to rotate a picture in Commons in the help files 69.125.207.108 05:29, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
- When you're on the image page in Commons, there's an option to request rotation. (It's possible you need to be logged in to see that option, I"m not sure.) I think this has to do with some software bug where images sometimes get uploaded with the wrong rotation. I'm sure somebody knows more about it than me.... -Pete F 05:31, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
- Actually, I found the image and requested the rotation myself. The message said a bot will take care of it within 12 hours. -Pete F 05:34, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
- The command should be on every commons image, look for a green rotating arrow and the words (request rotation). Unfortunately there has been a big change on Commons recently and a large number of images which had appeared to be rotated are now as the image was taken. Apparently they had been rotated in a way that not all software picks up, so some users were finding images from commons were upside down or on their sides. We no longer support that type of rotation, but that means we now have a number of images that need to be properly rotated. WereSpielChequers 13:15, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
Victims of the Rotate-Mess
In MediaWiki 1.18 "autorotation according to Exif" was introduced. This caused approximately 50 000 images displayed correctly until this update or a purge displaying wrongly orientated. We on Commons try everything to handle those images but we are attacked by upset users who think that those who add the tags to request removal of wrong Exif-data by a bot are responsible for this issue.
I want that the people responsible for these impacts will create a global banner with apologies that links to a page explaining the details. I don't want any more message neither on on my talk-page nor on commons:Commons:Helpdesk or commons:Commons:Village Pump. -- Rillke 17:30, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
- Is there a list of the 50,000? If so I'd have thought the quickest way to fix it would be to call for volunteers to rotate them - I've done a few I've come across randomly but I'd happily do a batch as I'm sure would many others. WereSpielChequers 19:10, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
- Rillke asked me to comment, so I'll add my two cents but I really think you should read the extensive Wikitech-l archives about this issue. I'm not on the tech team so I can't speak for them, but to be honest I doubt they're going to run a banner with apologies in the middle of the fundraiser. As for the images... I think WereSpielChequers suggestion is good. As another option: if it's the tag about EXIF data that bothers them, then make it a hidden category instead of a visible tag. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 17:23, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
- The problem *is not* the making a list (user:Umherirrender made one) or rotation (done by a bot). The problem are the upset users who do not take the time to read what we wrote about Exif-autorotation (which is difficult stuff). And the developers who do not explain anything to the users and just publish software without caring about the impacts. Commons' admins and experienced contributors are the scapegoats. If you add a hidden tag, it would be just more confusing. -- Rillke 21:59, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
- Let's look at this from a data-driven perspective: can you quantify the raw number of complaints that are being seen on this? We need to know what we're talking about, really. You mentioned talk page edits, etc... how many are we talking about? Philippe (WMF) 23:12, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
- Philippe, I think Rillke is making a good point -- though I don't agree with his specific proposed solution -- and I don't think it's fair to ask him to spend his time looking for specific numbers. There are very few people taking care of administrative tasks on Commons; the deletion backlog, for instance, is substantial, and most deletion decisions seem to be made with only one or two people's input. An action that results in a sudden, large number of files to be turned on their sides has two kinds of negative impacts: (1) it affects the quality of a large number of articles on multiple projects, and (2) an unknown, and more importantly a difficult to count, number of people are wading through the wiki maze to find the apparent culprit: Commons, where the files are hosted.
- I think Riilke's point is a principled one, I don't think the effort of trying to quantify the number of complaints/notices is going to move anything forward. If a technical change has brought this problem on, those making the decisions around that technical change should take responsibility for the results. I think acknowledgment of that principle is the important thing here. I don't know exactly who made the decision for that feature to go into the software and missed this substantial side effect; but it would be really nice to hear from those people "Whoops, we missed this, and here's what we propose doing about it." Unlike Riilke, I don't think an apology is needed. But a little tactical thinking and communication about a way to undo the damage in a timely fashion, that doesn't ask for more volunteer work by a group that's already snowed under, would be nice to see. Asking those highlighting the issue to count the number of complaints is just requesting another kind of extra work. I can vouch for this being a problem; I have seen several complaints about this issue while tracking deletion requests and other pages in the last couple weeks. -Pete F 06:55, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
- I'm not really looking for exact, I was looking for "one, one hundred, or one thousand". But Bdk helped out with that, thank you very much. :) Philippe (WMF) 09:30, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
- Philippe, I had (mis)understood from the term "data-driven" that you wanted something rigorous. Thanks for clarifying. -Pete F 16:39, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
- I'm not really looking for exact, I was looking for "one, one hundred, or one thousand". But Bdk helped out with that, thank you very much. :) Philippe (WMF) 09:30, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
- Let's look at this from a data-driven perspective: can you quantify the raw number of complaints that are being seen on this? We need to know what we're talking about, really. You mentioned talk page edits, etc... how many are we talking about? Philippe (WMF) 23:12, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
- The problem *is not* the making a list (user:Umherirrender made one) or rotation (done by a bot). The problem are the upset users who do not take the time to read what we wrote about Exif-autorotation (which is difficult stuff). And the developers who do not explain anything to the users and just publish software without caring about the impacts. Commons' admins and experienced contributors are the scapegoats. If you add a hidden tag, it would be just more confusing. -- Rillke 21:59, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
- I agree. Whilst an apology is perhaps not realistic, the amount of disruption caused by this change absolutely should be treated as an episode to learn from. In general, the developers do seem careful to consider disruptive impacts from tech changes; I do not understand why this case was an exception, and I think it is worth some discussion to see what went wrong in that respect and what can be learned from it. One of the underlying problems, of course, is that lack of a good means for interaction between the community and the developers. I tried once to combat that (en:WP:DEVMEMO), without success. Really, squeezing all such communication through the meat grinder of Bugzilla is unhelpful; I don't understand why there isn't some kind of a tech wiki to go alongside it. Rd232 14:33, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
- +1, and regarding the amount of complaints please note this section on Commons' village pump which gives a first impression --:bdk: 07:14, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
- +1, I think Rillke makes a good point: only some few admins on commons are still confrontated with a change of a software, that surely could have been checked on a dummy-wiki etc., not introduced this way. -jkb- 14:41, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
- I have added rotation templates to a lot of images on Commons, and I agree with Rillke that it would be very handy to have some clear statement somewhere which informs about the problem. Users have several times come to my talk page on Commons and asked questions because they don't understand what's going on. Presumably, they have received an e-mail because a page on their watchlist has been changed by me, and so they ask me about it. I have also seen countless discussions on the Commons Village pump and other places (and I see that many village pump discussions were mentioned above, but only from the English one -- there are also discussions in other languages, e.g. Commons:Commons:Bybrunnen#Rotering, Commons:Commons:Bistro#Problème avec une image., Commons:Commons:井戸端#縦長写真の縮小写真が横長になる現象 & Commons:Commons:Forum#.7B.7Brotate.7C270.7D.7D). Commons:COM:ROTATEFIX describes the problem in detail, but users don't find that page before someone points them to it. Can't a message just be added to Commons:MediaWiki:Sitenotice with a link to Commons:COM:ROTATEFIX? A similar message already appears at ja:MediaWiki:Sitenotice. --Stefan2 01:05, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
- +1, I think Rillke makes a good point: only some few admins on commons are still confrontated with a change of a software, that surely could have been checked on a dummy-wiki etc., not introduced this way. -jkb- 14:41, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
- As RotateBot is limited to a little over 2,000 images a day this could take weeks to resolve. Is there any chance of getting another bot operator to operate a bot wit a copy of rotatebot's code for the next few weeks? Aside from speeding up the whole process the most confusing scenario that is liable to lead to complaints is when an image user goes to the commons page of an image they've long been using but which is now on its side, and sees a rotation request from an editor...... So in my opinion reducing the time from someone requesting a rotation to the image being fixed would be helpful. WereSpielChequers 09:57, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
- A second bot: already suggested and might happen. See various sections at commons:User talk:Rotatebot.
- Users confused by rotation templates on their images: good examples are commons:User talk:Stefan4#Please do not interfere and commons:User talk:Stefan4#Misrotation by automatic bot. --Stefan2 11:49, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
A wonderful way to fundraise!!!
I would love to be able to help this wonderful organization. I recently found an organization that helps non profit organizations receive a residual income through fundraising. I think that It would be a Great way for Wikipedia to receive funds. You can find the information at <redacted>. I think this could be a solution to any funding problems that any non profit may have. Some non profits that use this site are the Ronald McDonald house and MS Society.
I know that this can help you raise funds.
B Sparks
This company has been able to help my childrens school and many churches and other non profits. They say no matter the size of the non profit they can help fundraise.
- Thanks for the suggestion, but that would involve advertising which would compromise our neutrality. WereSpielChequers 10:00, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
- They do not use advertising. You generate income through the use of tool bars. Let any of your supporters down load a tool bar that will generate money through there clicks. :)
- OK I didn't spot they were doing that as well, I just looked at the online shopping mall bit on the site you linked to. If the toolbar is just an alternative search engine then it would undermine our neutrality in the eyes of search engine providers, if it included commercial links it would involve advertising. Neither would be a good move for us. Also the fundraiser we currently use so successfully asks for money from the more than 400 million readers of our sites. Tool bar and per click type schemes are more focussed on your known supporters, as we have a declining base of active editors and a vastly larger and fast growing readership it makes sense to me that we ask our readers for money and don't try to gain a relatively trivial sum from our editors. Especially if that compromised our "No Advertising" ethos which is so fundamental to our editors motivation. WereSpielChequers 17:32, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
Ok Understood. I'm sorry that I couldn't help. Have a wonderful holiday!!
- Not a problem, and a happy holiday to you too. But if you want to help there are plenty of areas that we do need help in, its just that the fundraiser is one of our more successful areas where we look for incremental improvements not revolution. By the way I've taken the liberty of redacting your actual link as it might seem a bit spammy to leave such a link here. WereSpielChequers 22:50, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
etherpad + bugzilla + weblog Downtime again tonight
The maintenace for db9 was successfully completed but some followup maintenace is needed. As a result, you might have trouble with Wikimedia's Etherpad or Bugzilla or CiviCRM sites/services tonight. If interruption continues after 1820 PST please tell us in #wikimedia-tech (webchat link). — ☠MarkAHershberger☢(talk)☣ 15:28, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
Congratulations to WMF on Taking a Stand! (and Christmas wishes)
For what it's worth, here's a happy rant I just posted about how pleased I am with WMF today and how desperately it makes me wish they would take on larger challenges beyond Wikipedia. User:AlecMeta/Christmas Eve 2011- Commendation on WMF taking a stand .
I have philosophically tourettes-- I won't post it to Foundation-L myself and force it into everyone's inbox, I'll leave that to others to decide what weight to give my words. But if there are people who would benefit from hearing about it, please make them aware of it. :)
Good work, WMF. We're all extra proud of you today. AlecMeta 11:13, 24 December 2011 (UTC)
Begging for donatioon
I don't use Wiki P for any serious research and, as such, would never give you money.
You allow domination by US intelligence (??) agencies as well as the Catholic Church who use your site for propaganda. You might even venture to say "The devil is in the deatail".
Change your site name to Wiki Goebbels and at least you are being open about it instead of this pretence and begging. Ask the Catholics and CIA for money buddy, it's really their site.
Even topics such as depression are constantly misused for propaganda and spreading of misinformation. You may think you are well intended and maybe you are but the truth is your site is full of lies and cannot be trusted.
It's the oldest story in the book really. Winners rewrite history as they want it shown. You know that and you not only allow it, you encourage it.
What a dumb idea to use on the internet where every liar, miscreant, devious govt and religion can say what they want and keep changing it back to their misinformed rubbish.
Go do something useful as this is not it.
Importing wiktionary definitions
For a project I need to import wiktionary definitions for english to databse and make sense out of the meaning, like which word is related to which and so on.
I downloaded the definitions from http://toolserver.org/~enwikt/definitions/
The syntax used in the description field is not extremely hard to understand, but there are a lot of variations. Hence I need a documentation regarding it so I do not miss out on anything while importing.
Is there any documentation as to how wiktionary makes sense out of the data in the definition file? I tried googling but was unlucky.
- It's possible that somebody will come along who is able to answer you, but if not, you might want to ask at en:Wkt:Wiktionary:Grease_pit or en:Wikt:Wiktionary:Information desk. I hope that they are able to help you. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) 19:25, 3 January 2012 (UTC)
Template bug
See Talk page of GeoTemplate. Solved there and on Dutch Wikipedia. Probably affects more versions. It's about external linking on Yahoo Maps, a subdirectory called 'broadband' does not work anymore. Happy New Year and cheers, ZeaForUs 12:30, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
how to solve this problems?
running the scf calculation for Si..../run_example: line 126: /home/rooti/espresso-4.3.2/bin/pw.x: is a directory
Error condition encountered during test: exit status = 126 Aborting
problem
hi when i run examples in espresso . this message appeare. how can i resolve this problem?
running the scf calculation for Si..../run_example: line 126: /home/rooti/espresso-4.3.2/bin/pw.x: is a directory Error condition encountered during test: exit status = 126 Aborting
reuse by for profits
as I understand the license, a for profit can re use wikipedia material. this may not matter to some people, but for me, this is un acceptable; I will be da**ed if my hard work is going to make money for somone else. I have made contributions to a number of articles, particularly those that pertain to my professional expertise in molecular biology (the problem of having , again and again, to edit out mistakes (the equivalent of 2+2=5) is another problem, but if the intelligent design people can deal with it, so can I.
- The catch is that a for-profit will be legally required to release its product under the same Creative Commons license. In other words anybody will be able to reuse the said product. So, a for-profit can make some money, but probably not so much. Ruslik 18:30, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
- I came here after seeing a bunch of "books" available for purchase in Google Book Search crediting Wikimedia as the author, but listing "eM Publications" as the publisher. I suppose such reuse of content is within the license, but the so-called eBooks are just the print view of (say) a WikiBooks page stitched into eBook form. (At least, the few samples I examined were so.)
- I guess I'm wondering if such use is legal, and if anything can be done about it. It really makes Google Books and, kind of, Wikimedia look bad. I got a bad feeling looking at the listings.
- Just my curiosity compelling me to dig out my seldom-used Meta account. Tuvok[T@lk/en.wp] 10:06, 6 January 2012 (UTC)
- There are several publishers who do this sort of thing. Sometimes I think they would try to sell you the air that is free for everyone to breathe. There is no law against selling something that is available for free. The cynicism of these peddlers is no reflection on us. ~ Ningauble 13:42, 6 January 2012 (UTC)
Wiki Stamps
The object is to provide a mechanism for paying very small amounts for certain web services. To take the example of Wikipedia where the content is provided free and the user is not charged. However there are hosting costs for the hardware, administration etc. According to the October 2011 report the total expenses for September 2011 were $5.4M and the number of page requests were 15.8 billion, giving a cost of roughly 3000 pages/$.
Currently this is raised by charitable giving by what must be a tiny fraction of the users. The alternative of using advertising is thankfully not contemplated.
We need a mechanism for charging a very small sum to download a page.
Everyone has to pay somehow for access to the internet via an ISP (which might be a telephone operator) and will have an existing financial arrangement, so it makes sense to use them as the financial intermediary rather than invoke a new third party.
For each page downloaded an instantaneous contract would take place between the user, the page supplier and the ISP. The ISP adds the page charge to the suppliers account together with all the charges arising from downloads by all its other clients from this supplier and makes periodical payments when the amount owed becomes significant. The ISP would add the charge to the fees it is already charging clients. For most clients this will be a trivial amount and the ISP might offer several thousand page downloads as one more service it is supplying.
The mechanism of making the contract might be:
- A new HTML token is agreed upon which contains the the identity of the page supplier and the charge.
- When the user downloads a page containing this token, the download is paused.
- The user's browser displays a button displaying the amount charged. The user clicks on this button and thereby agrees to the charge and sends an electronic stamp to the supplier whereupon the download is continued.
- Stamps are issued to the user by their ISP in the form of a single packets of data containing the identity of the ISP and some encryption/key data.
- Both the page supplier and the user send modified copies of the stamp back to the ISP with the transaction data encrypted/stamped in such a way that:
- the ISP knows that the request came from a stamp that it originally issued
- the supplier knows that the user who requested the page is a client of the ISP.
- both agree on the page charge
- a malicious forth party cannot read or modify the details of the contract nor create a false one.
Getting agreement, designing and getting widespread adoption of this mechanism will be a major undertaking and it would be a considerable time before it was ubiquitous. In the interim users that have the properly equipped browser and ISP would be pay via the above mechanism and get the requested page, while users not so equipped would get still get the page but preceded by an advert or, in the case Wikipedia, a request for a donation.
For wikipedia and many other sites the content is provided free by volunteers and the page charge for the physical cost of delivery. Once the mechanism is established it could be used to pay for content on sites where it comes from paid authors.
An example is online newspapers and books. The charges would be at a higher level than for free content, say at the rate of 60 sections/$ for a section that takes about a minute to read, i.e., $1 per hour of reading. John-Greenwood 12:45, 3 January 2012 (UTC)
- The experience of paywalls is that most people are deterred by them. Also I would question your assumption that everyone pays their ISP for access, where I live I'm pretty sure the libraries don't charge for Internet access and I know one of my local housing Associations has a bank of free to surf PCs in their reception available for any of their tenants to use. But I see several major problems with this approach, some are practical, some ethical.
- All "our" data is available under an open license, so if we announced that we were about to introduce a paywall anyone could take a copy of it and either launch a slightly cheaper offer or offer a read only copy free to their subscribers.
- We have no difficulty raising money, each of our fundraisers ends earlier than the last because it hits a rising target in less time than it took us the year before; But we are short of editors and charging people per page read is the wrong way to treat potential editors, especially those who've downloaded hundreds of thousands of pages. OK we could exempt those who've proven themselves, but it would make it much more difficult to recruit editors.
- Our mission is make the knowledge of humanity available to the whole of humanity, and that includes people who can't afford to pay and may not even have access to money. Levying a flat charge per page view would require what some consider to be trivial amounts per page, assuming we turned 1% of our current readers into subscribers we would still have 4 million subscribers, $5 a year, 10 cents a week from each of them and we'd have as much money combined with greatly reduced hardware requirements. But for much of the world $5 is actually quite a bit of cash.
- We are short of editors despite offering them the opportunity to edit one of the most popular sites on the Internet. If we put up a Paywall we wouldn't just lose most of our audience, we would also lose our editors to other sites that stepped into the breach and offered a free to use free to edit encyclopaedia.. WereSpielChequers 00:13, 4 January 2012 (UTC)
- Like paper stamps used on paper envelopes, the Wiki Stamp is a payment for storage and transmission. A paper stamp does not give the postal service any rights or even contact over the contents of the envelope and the Wiki Stamp would not change the status of the data.
- I fully support your "mission is make the knowledge of humanity available to the whole of humanity" and take your point that many poor users would be unable to make payments. This is not a problem if using a stamp can remain optional. A page downloaded without a stamp would have just the same content but with a banner, maybe just with a reminder that a stamp has not been used. Non-poor users have the option of using a stamp and removing a minimal annoyance by paying, for them, an even more minimal amount of money.
- I take your point that nothing should be allowed that puts off editors. but I am sure that some system can be devised whereby as soon as a user does an edit they are automatically relieved from needing stamps for a period.
- Paywalls require the user to enter into a contract with a specific data supplier. This scheme is differs in that:
- The user does not have to do anything to be able use stamps.
- The amounts involved can be much smaller than would be economic under a paywall regime.
- Any supplier could use the same stamps.
- I am glad learn that you are able to raise funds easily, but you are only one part of a movement for making the knowledge of humanity available. There must be many smaller and less well organised people offering free data that struggle to pay for hardware costs.
- John-Greenwood 11:50, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
- Hi John, It isn't just the amount that is a deterrent it is also the process of payment, as soon as you ask people to pay it will deter some, especially if they haven't yet registered for that micropayment scheme or bought any stamps through it. Maybe things would be different if the stamp system was ubiquitous, but at present I don't believe it is. Getting such a scheme off the ground is not a small task, especially if it has to provide global operators such as Wikimedia. We've seen this year the effect on our fundraising now that we can accept payments in several more currencies than we could last year. So I'd be surprised if this sort of scheme were to take off, and even if it did and it worked for others it couldn't work for us because the products we build are freely licensed. Being freely licensed means that you or anyone else is welcome to mirror a copy of Wikipedia, With the costs of running that copy funded if you wish by stamps instead of appeals from Jimbo.WereSpielChequers 01:27, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
made donation. still seeing begging messages.
Despite being desperately poor, I made a donation. When exactly may I expect to stop seeing these annoying pleas? Please?
- Oh come on now. Yes, it used to be a plea, but now it is just a nice "thank you" banner. Don't you see the difference :-) Don't you believe that Wikimedia foundation has the right to thank the readers who made the donations :-)--Mbz1 23:28, 3 January 2012 (UTC)
administrators' noticeboard
Hi there, Excuse me for posting this message here but I cannot find administrators' noticeboard of Meta. Could anyone please provide a link to there? This is urgent. Thanks Americophile 15:59, 4 January 2012 (UTC)
- Please go to Meta:Requests for help from a sysop or bureaucrat for contacting an Administrator. ObsidianCommandtalk 19:10, 4 January 2012 (UTC)
- Really Thanks. I will never forget your help. Regards Americophile 20:00, 4 January 2012 (UTC)
No automated welcome message for new comers on Wikipedia!
Hi,
Can anyone explain to me why sites such as wikipedia don't have an automated welcome message to welcome new users? I undertsand that most editors receive such messages from other editors but why not other's who never receive some welcome message this includes me even though I was aware of wikipedia for several years but have just registered on the 31st December and have received no such message. How long is the process to receive the so called welcome message, on meta I've received one straight away but not on wikipedia. ObsidianCommandtalk 11:00, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
- Not every wiki uses to welcome its users. Meta does, it.wiki does, commons too... Usually there is a reason because of which the wiki doesn't welcome new users: there is no welcome bot on the wiki, therefore sometimes users who welcome may not welcome some users, because, you know, humans have real life. :) Some wiki decided also to deny welcomer bots like en.wiki: en:Wikipedia:Bots/Frequently_denied_bots#Welcome_bot. In this case, the community thinks a bot welcoming new users is much less personal than being welcomed by a real user. :)--Nickanc 20:23, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
Incubator has a welcome bot as well. I got a nice Talk Page one month ago before ever being there with my SUL account. Great! Talking about Incubator:
Incubator down?
http://incubator.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:ZeaForUs&action=submit
Database error A database query syntax error has occurred. This may indicate a bug in the software. The last attempted database query was: (SQL query hidden) from within function "LinksUpdate::incrTableUpdate". Database returned error "1205: Lock wait timeout exceeded; try restarting transaction (10.0.6.44)".
a few minutes later
Sorry! This site is experiencing technical difficulties.
Try waiting a few minutes and reloading.
(Cannot contact the database server: Unknown error (10.0.6.32))
You can try searching via Google in the meantime. Note that their indexes of our content may be out of date.
Wikimedia Incubator WWW
Improving movement-wide communication: a proposal for whips
Discussion at Talk:Finance meeting 2012/Program
not listed IRC channels
See Talk:IRC/Channels#not_listed_channels.--Nickanc 12:47, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
February deployment (test deploy now)
We (Wikimedia Engineering) are planning to deploy Mediawiki 1.19 next month. To avoid post deployment troubles we had during previous deployment we are setting up a test site.
We are going to clone subset of some pages and configuration of several production wikis there to give everyone a chance to test software before it is deployed to production. The test site should be fully operational on 09-January-2012. For now you can, of course, create an account there to test various scripts or even import pages. For larger XML imports please ask petan or hexmode in #wikimedia-labs (webchat link).
In case you found any issue please use this page to report it. In case you have any questions or suggestions let us know! — ☠MarkAHershberger☢(talk)☣ 21:10, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
- Thanks for the information. —Marco Aurelio (Nihil Prius Fide) 04:07, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
citing on wikipedia is difficult and time-consuming-technical barrier-suggestion
As a new contributor to wikipedia, I want to raise the issue that citing on wikipedia is complicated, difficult and time-consuming. It is a technical barrier to contribution. It can certainly be overcome by a drop-like system. Google scholar can detect automatically the characteristics of a reference (author, journal, etc...), why not wikipedia?
- If your question is specific to Wikipedia, can I suggest you post it here? This is where new ideas for Wikipedia are discussed (on the English Wikipedia. There will be different pages for other language projects). QU TalkQu 21:20, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
Please note on the request. The administrator simply do not go there, and meanwhile he hangs nearly a year. In the Belarusian-section Wikisource for more than 1200 pages. How much can we expect to get your own ___domain name? I do not want to point fingers, but there are working sections, where less than 200 pages.--Хомелка 17:48, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
- You should contact the Language Committee. Ruslik 18:30, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
- Thank you so much, I will do it--Хомелка 19:42, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
How to delete an account here
TIA,
I would like to know how to delete an account here. It was created inadvertently.
Thank you.
b4real — The preceding unsigned comment was added by b4Real (talk)
- I'm afraid you can't. You can ask to have the account indefinitely blocked if you wish, or you can have it renamed but deletion isn't possible QU TalkQu 21:16, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
Translation tools workshop: pick your preferred time to participate
I'm planning to give a Translation tools workshop in about two weeks. If you want to learn more about the special pages Special:PageTranslation, Special:Translate, Special:LanguageStats, Special:Translations and Special:MessageGroupStats, go to Translation tools workshop and read up! Thanks. --Siebrand 23:05, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
Announcing Wikipedia 1.19 beta
Wikimedia Foundation is getting ready to push out 1.19 to all the WMF-hosted wikis. As we finish wrapping up our code review, you can test the new version right now on beta.wmflabs.org. For more information, please read the release notes or the start of the final announcement.
The following are the areas that you will probably be most interested in:
- Faster loading of javascript files makes dependency tracking more important.
- New common*.css files usable by skins instead of having to copy piles of generic styles from MonoBook or Vector's css.
- The default user signature now contains a talk link in addition to the user link.
- Searching blocked usernames in block log is now clearer.
- Better timezone recognition in user preferences.
- Improved diff readability for colorblind people.
- The interwiki links table can now be accessed also when the interwiki cache is used (used in the API and the Interwiki extension).
- More gender support (for instance in logs and user lists).
- Language converter improved, e.g. it now works depending on the page content language.
- Time and number-formatting magic words also now depend on the page content language.
- Bidirectional support further improved after 1.18.
Report any problems on the labs beta wiki and we'll work to address them before they software is released to the production wikis.
Note that this cluster does have SUL but it is not integrated with SUL in production, so you'll need to create another account. You should avoid using the same password as you use here. — Global message delivery 16:22, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
- The issue with the password is regarding the testwiki but not here, right? —Marco Aurelio (Nihil Prius Fide) 18:33, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
- Yes, the announcement on the password is about the testwiki. There are concerns that errors / bugs in testing might expose password details, hence keeping it out of SUL QU TalkQu 12:54, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
Support for the SOPA Blackout Protest from an Average, Small Contributor
I just wished to let the Wikimedia Foundation know that, as an American man who contributes annually, and consults the Wikipedia almost daily, I applaud you, and am deeply grateful to you, for deciding to "black out" on the 18th, in protest of growing encroachments by government on the internet. I hope that this "fast day" will have an impact on people and awaken them to the danger of allowing government to throttle the free atmosphere of "cyberspace" which has done so much to revolutionize life on this planet in such a short time.
Robert S. Kissel Hamden, Connecticut