Talk:Main Page/Archive 29

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Archive 29


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credibility

I'm wondering how credible this site is. I'm wondering how many people are actually attacking this site with intentional false information. I don't mean vandalism but sabotage. I have seen a study that suggests that many points of view can often narrow down to the correct point of view, but according to a recent article, the page on Alexander Hamilton has gone the opposite direction. If there really is a sabotage attempt, you may want to look for a nondestructive method of stopping it.

The credibility of Wikipedia compared to traditional encyclopedias is something that is discussed on this site, and there is much to debate about. This debate won't be resolved any time soon, but should be noted that many news sources have written positively about Wikipedia. You can see awards and news clippings on the Wikimedia trophy page and a more complete listing of news clippings here.

Highlights include:

  • Top 10 reference sites (award) - The UK Daily Mirror, Oct. 17, 2003
  • Top 100 Top Websites You Didn't Know You Couldn't Live Without (award)- PC Magazine, Apr. 20, 2004
  • Web User Awards 2004. "Best Factual Website". Joint winner with BBCi News. From Web User, a UK Internet magazine.
  • "One of the best reference resources on the Web..." (Andrew Kantor, USA Today.com, Mar. 26, 2004)
  • "One of the most reliably useful sources of information around, on or off-line." (BBC News, Apr. 23, 2004)
  • "Surprisingly Good", (The Economist, June 10, 2004)
  • "...Wikipedia is clearly one of the Internet's top five information tools. No other free online resource -- none -- can give you such a quick and useful briefing on practically any subject you can think of.", (Andy Ihnatko, Chicago Sun Times, July 20, 2004)
  • According to a Wall Street Journal article from February 2004, researchers have found that there are frequent instances of vandalism at Wikipedia, but that these are often quickly resolved:
"Recent research by a team from IBM found that most vandalism suffered by Wikipedia had been repaired within five minutes. 'We were surprised at how often we found vandalism, and then surprised again at how fast it was fixed,' says Martin Wattenberg, a researcher in the IBM TJ Watson Research Center, in Cambridge, Mass." [1]
  • "The truth is that Wikipedia reveals what is normally hidden in an encyclopedia: the countless decisions that lie behind each entry. The only difference is that in Wikipedia, the decision-making never stops and the debates are often robust to say the least." the Guardian (UK)

--Nectarflowed 21:19, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Well, Wikipedia has is not based on any logical or scientific approach. That makes it possible to maintain and administrate information that can be contradictory to itself. NPOV is an attempt to cut senseless information, but it fails, because giving room to different ideas what is is not what is. -[Apparently posted by same user as first paragraph -ed.]

The problem are newly created articles, as they have no-one watching them. Sure, obvious nonsense gets deleted, but subtle mistakes survive. It happened a couple of times that I created an article, accidentially containing false information. If I hadn't noticed and gone back to fix it, it would probably have remained there for a long time, because my article passed the superficial 'no-nonsense', and after that, nobody was watching it. I think, nay, know, there is a lot of false information in WP. I guess it will asymptotically improve over time, but I am afraid not asymptotically approaching 100%, but maybe 90% or 95%. WP will never be error-free.dab 14:48, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

But then again, neither will Encyclopedia Brittannica Gkhan 18:23, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)
The is a problem with the wikipedia philosophy that is difficult if not impossible to solve. The problem of truth. Wikipedia will never contain the truth because TRUTH is not about democracy or concensus. On Wikipedia, the majority will write what suits their desires. But we all know that even if only 1 person in the whole world knows the truth about a certain topic, it doesn't cease being true. Wikipedia has become a Point of View archive. True articles are watered down and mutilated to appeal to the majority who disagree with it. False articles are endorsed by the majority that don't know better. Intellectual honesty is not a big component which is unfortunate. Of course there are a few good articles but the trend is sadenning. --Minkwe 22:13, 01 Dec 2004 (ETC)

It's interesting how people regard Wikipedia as having a credibility problem, but other traditional encyclopedia's are assumed to be "right". It reminds me how the population during the Great War regarded newspapers as truthful, and believed everything that was printed, despite the propaganda that was pumped out, distorting the truth. The skepticism that accompanies a Wikipedia reader, along with the discussion pages, and editing history, provide more valuable information than a standard page. Sure, some of the information might be false. But the difference between Wikipedia, compared to traditional encyclopedia's, is that we are forced to do our own research. You'd be a fool to take Wikipedia's articles as fact. But you are also a fool to take Brittannica's as fact as well. Read. Think. Research more. Wikipedia encourages you to look further. Elias Bizannes 02 Dec 2004

This is an important topic many Wikipedia editors and people outside of the project are interested in. Wikipedia should really have an article (e.g. wikipedia credibility)that explores all the points within this issue. --Nectarflowed 08:29, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I think there is a greater reflection of truth here then normally. Say an article seems to be in constant flux because two opposing sides are trying to manipulate it to different ends. I think this reflects that the truth of the matter has yet to be resolved. Articles that are constantly changing are most likely more contentious than others. The many changes represent there ambiguous nature. Also the idea that anyone can really get to "Truth" seems a little out there. I think we have to settle with truth. I think wikipedia reflects truth in a better since than anything else humans have made.

Well, some portions of Wikipedia are more reliable than others. What is good to remember is that Wikipedia is a site for and by white male Euroamerican teenagers.. however, you can expect to find accurate information on, among other things, mathematics, physics, chemistry (except the articles on drugs, which mostly glorify drug use and omit the dangers) etc. Always have a real encyclopedia nearby.

Arab-Israeli conflict

"U.S. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair reiterate calls for a two-state solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict."

"Two-state solution" redirects to "two state solution." This should be fixed. Mkilly 19:55, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Typo

Authorizing, in the Nixon calendar item. Baylink 01:21, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

On American topics, American English should be used (see the guidelines on US vs. UK English). If you still want to edit, go ahead --Eddi 20:30, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Sorry: I wasn't clear. It was mispelt even for American english. And it appeared to be locked, or I *would* have fixed it myself. Baylink 21:18, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I should be sorry for not checking history. Stupid me. :) --Eddi 21:25, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Ex-Britannica Editor Reviews Wikipedia

http://slashdot.org/articles/04/11/16/1319242.shtml?tid=95&tid=1 (somebody go fix Alexander Hamilton ;o) it was of course fixed before I even got there. dab 14:32, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)


Felix the cat Main page

Remove this scandalous image from the article felix the cat !!!!!!--ThomasK 16:39, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)==Felix the cat Main page ==

Remove this scandalous image from the article felix the cat !!!!!!--ThomasK 16:39, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)

Urgh, I was about to report that too. Who did that? --Frankie Roberto 16:42, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I tried to change the main page to point to Martika for a temporarily less offensive link but it didnt work. Pacian 16:43, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)
It does seem to have worked now... --Frankie Roberto 16:45, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Can we get rid of the pornographic picture on the main page please? Perhaps the main page could be made uneditable, infact I thought it was already. I am viewing this in a university and could easily get into trouble for looking at porn. I also suggest that the community portal page be looked at. Kevo00 16:49, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I believe the main page is uneditable, but someone changed the picture in the article itself, so even if the main page cannot be editted, the articles within still can. It appears fixed now. Indigo 16:55, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)
It does not appear fixed to me. --68.57.8.167 18:26, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)
It is not fixed. ---NamfFohyr; 16 Nov, 2004; 18:55 UTC
I edited the template to contain no image, as a last-ditch effort. Better to risk no-cartoon than the current, offensive image! ---rmbh; 16 Nov, 2004; 20:32 (UTC)
Not only didn't my changes stick, I got blamed for vandalising the page! rmbh 23:28, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)
  • Please see "Image vandalism and protection" below


Hello everybody!!!This WIKIPEDIA is a very good innovation, it's a figata!!!Compliments to all who write something in this...cronological speculation(what for cronological speculation?...we don't know!) Bye bye by Vero&Fede Italy...Write soon!!! ^___^

Wikipedia.info redirection?

After reading the earlier discussion about the domain wikipedia.info, I visited the domain in question, and got a "wiki does not exist" message. When I go to wikipedia.com, I'm "redirected" to wikipedia.org. Why not with wikipedia.info? -- Adolph Wales 18:03, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

wcco radio

Image vandalism and protection

Perhaps we ought to protect any images used on the main page for the duration of that use? That way first-time visitors won't be surprised with goatse images (or worse). —No-One Jones (m) 19:47, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

  • What 'e said. The vandals learn fast, I'm afraid; designing the WP to be user friendly makes it easy to master in a short period of time, which means that vandals don't have to work very hard to learn how to screw with us. Maybe (but only maybe) we should go back to having templates on the Main Page be admin-only; I'm not sure it was the image itself that was vandalized, although those are equally vulnerable. -Litefantastic 20:27, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Well, for obvious reasons the images are way more vulnerable because of the way they are implemented in MediaWiki. An admin only front page is the weak answer, I think textwise we're dealing with vandalism very quickly, and thanks to the large amount of editors working on it we have a very dynamic front page which is good, keeps things interesting, people putting goatse images on main should get a perm ban. -- [[User:Solitude|Solitude\talk]] 20:44, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)

Because the amount of vandalism of the featured article write up has increased dramatically recently, I am strongly leaning towards protecting them from now on. →Raul654 21:00, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)

So you all know the discussion of this particular vandal is at Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article/November 16, 2004. -- user:zanimum

I had to turn off the 'In the News' template. I don't think that'll stop the vandalism, but it might get across the point that we're having problems to the people who can protect the pages. -Litefantastic 22:07, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Felix the Cat incident - The Ban

Originally started on Silsor's talk page, by Zanimum

I've extended the ban on 192.197.71.189 to indefinite, because a goatse.cx on the main page is beyond unacceptable. -- user:zanimum

It would probably be better if you shortened that IP block to something more in terms of weeks, since we have no way of knowing how many people use it to access Wikipedia or when it will change hands. Blocking anonymous vandals for a length of time is more useful as a temporary deterrent. silsor 18:49, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)
We should try to track the anon's ISP and contact them, they might be able to track who was using the IP at the time, a willing ISP would be able to take action, especially if it's from a school or university. -- [[User:Solitude|Solitude\talk]] 21:39, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)

WHOIS turns up the following:

[Removed] (see below)

I would suspect the government of Canada looks down on their networks being used to post disgusting pornography on public websites. —No-One Jones (m) 21:44, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Can someone confirm what happened, I think this image was overwritten with the Goatse image: Image:Felix 1936.jpg, but it doesn't show any vandalism in the history, especially not at the time the complaints started raining in. Anyone know for sure what happened? If we're contacting the ISP we need to have an exact time to report, and we need to contact them ASAP. -- [[User:Solitude|Solitude\talk]] 07:45, Nov 17, 2004 (UTC)

Based on the upload log:
  • 18:22, 16 Nov 2004 Palnatoke uploaded "Felix.jpg" (Reverted to earlier revision)
  • 18:20, 16 Nov 2004 Silsor uploaded "Felix.jpg" (Reverted to earlier revision)
  • 18:15, 16 Nov 2004 192.197.71.189 uploaded "Felix.jpg"
  • 17:35, 16 Nov 2004 ALoan uploaded "Felix_1936.jpg" (Reverted to earlier revision)
  • 17:35, 16 Nov 2004 ALoan uploaded "Felix_1936.jpg" (Reverted to earlier revision)
  • 17:15, 16 Nov 2004 Dugnorth uploaded "Felix.jpg" (Felix the Cat)
  • 17:02, 16 Nov 2004 Evil saltine uploaded "Felix_1936.jpg" (Reverted to earlier revision)
  • 17:02, 16 Nov 2004 Evil saltine uploaded "Felix_1936.jpg" (Reverted to earlier revision)
  • 16:46, 16 Nov 2004 Orpheus Machina uploaded "Felix_1936.jpg" (Reverted to earlier revision)
  • 16:38, 16 Nov 2004 Aquatopia uploaded "Felix_1936.jpg" (Reverted to earlier revision)
  • 16:31, 16 Nov 2004 192.197.71.189 uploaded "Felix_1936.jpg"

→Raul654 07:51, Nov 17, 2004 (UTC)

I have sent an extensive abuse report to the Internet support department of the ISP managing the anon's address. -- [[User:Solitude|Solitude\talk]] 08:24, Nov 17, 2004 (UTC)

Hopefully this particular user will be terminated, or at least warned, by the Canadian government agency s/he is with. In any case, there's no need for indefinite protection. Pakaran (ark a pan) 12:14, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The general contact address for [removed]. Any volunteers to contact? Actually, all employees of this and many other departments are listed online. One of the subcategories of [removed] likely names the culprit, whomever they are. -- user:zanimum

Folks - the IP was faked. This has been confirmed by the devs. Anyone who has written needs to consider writing again quick. And perhaps we need to think about only making such complaints through some sort of official channel -- sannse (talk) 21:41, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The IP concerned was faked. Anyone who contacted the registrant for the IP address 192.197.71.189 should withdraw their incorrect report. The IP actually responsible for uploading the image was 158.64.72.230 . That IP created an account called "192.197.71.189" to do the uploading. The IP and image links are as follows:

158.64.72.230 ( [2] not a known proxy)(whois): 83.99.48.97 ([3] not a known proxy) (whois

... work in progress... food has interrupted my research but this may be IPs who I've previously blocked for creating 40+ vandalism accounts. Jamesday 21:54, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Dante Alighieri made me aware of the fact that the 192 anon has been framed, it is worrysome that it is so easy to emulate an anonymous user by using an IP as account name. Why not filter these out at account creation? I have immediately written a new mail to the internet support department explaining the situation. The reason I took action in the first place is because the vandalism already seemed to be disappearing in the Featured article of the day archive. Sending complaints for vandalism through a central organisation or person is a good idea, but that means there should be a policy and a way to actually build these complaints. As it is, WP:VIP is not suitable. -- [[User:Solitude|Solitude\talk]] 21:56, Nov 17, 2004 (UTC)

Has someone brought this bug to a developer's attention? This seems to need fixing ASAP. -- The Anome 10:43, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)
That bug was fixed two years ago already, but was recently reintroduced - and fixed again now according to Brion Vibber on the Village Pump. Strange that some vandals find the security holes so fast. andy 13:04, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

158.64.72.230: hal.lgl.lu — http://lgl.lu/ "Lycée de Garçons de Luxembourg". what an asshole (so to speak:) dab 11:07, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

why do we have the policy of not making public the IPs of edits by logged in users, btw? dab 12:50, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

RIPE gives this abuse contact for this network (158.64.0.0/16):

descr:        Reseau Teleinformatique de l'Education Nationale
descr:        Educational and research network for Luxembourg
person:       Theo Duhautpas
address:      Fondation RESTENA
address:      6, rue Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi
address:      L-1359 Luxembourg
phone:        +352 42 44 09
fax-no:       +352 42 24 73
e-mail:       theo.duhautpas <at> restena.lu

-- Karada 12:52, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

well, that's the national educational network operator. they will not be able to do much about a kid posting goatse from his school's library. If we address the school directly, they may be able to identify the offender, or if not, at least be motivated to threaten sanctions for computer abuse. dab 13:20, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Protect main page?

Moved to Wikipedia talk:Protection policy#Protection of templates and images used on the Main Page

Anti-French Violence

I think linking the phrase "Anti-French Violence" in a lead sentence about the conflict in the Ivory coast to an article title "Anti-French Sentiment"

in the US is POV and silly.

Any help out here?

Wikipedia seems to be very interesting! I'm on a research for a suitable writing script for my language. I want ot combine chinese and japanese scripts with a tutorial in english. At this stage I have no clue whether Wikipedia will help me in my project!

Any help out here?

deebee


you can ask your question at the Wikipedia:Reference desk. Also, it might help if you told us, which is your language -- are we talking about a fictional language? Also, feel free to actually read the articles, Chinese script, Japanese_language#Writing_system. dab 14:14, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Request To Sysops

  • Dear Sysops, can we put up a new section in the Wikipedia In Other Languages of a new section which says Wikipedias with 100,000 articles or more? Thanks, User:Chan Han Xiang

4E5

We just hit the 400,000-articles barrier, people! dab 15:57, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Iraq flag contains propaganda!

better remove this immediately!

  • I'll elabourate on that. The image "Newiraqflag.gif" appears to be a gif animation. After a few seconds of displaying Iraq's flag, the message "Governor Adolph Bush did it only for the oil!" appears. (Also, the source of the image is not specified.)

Image:Newiraqflag.gif

Falsifian 21:37, 2004 Nov 20 (UTC)

Again, this is why we need to protect images that go on the main page! —Lowellian (talk)[[]] 22:33, Nov 20, 2004 (UTC)

  • It appears that this image was never modified, so protection wouldn't have done anything. The original version had the message. Maybe the solution is just to be very wary of gifs. (Are there any other common image formats that support animation?) --Falsifian 23:06, 2004 Nov 20 (UTC)
    • I have removed the message from the image and replaced it. Tom- 01:06, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)
    • it may be propaganda, but it sure is easier on the eyes than goatse (sorry:) dab 12:45, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)
    • Let's avoid animation! =b And no, there are not. -Fennec (はさばくのきつね) 06:15, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
    • My guess is that the image was modified. Until recently there was a security hole that allowed for images to be replaced without any record. It is believed to be fixed. -- Cyrius|✎ 14:44, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Quake "Did you know"

Minor quibble, but in this line:

...that development on Star Wars Quake lasted for six years, and is probably the most famous Quake mod to never be completed?

"Star Wars Quake" and "Quake" should both be italicized. I know that Wikipedia:Tutorial (Formatting) only specifies books and movie names, but lately most Wiki pages italicize game names as well for largely the same reasons (the whole "longer work" deal and all). --Shadow Hog 16:36, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Fixed. Fredrik | talk 16:43, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Thanks. --Shadow Hog 18:10, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Hiding Header

When I put the cursor over the "log in" area at the top right of the screen, it jumps under the logo on the top left. This makes it so you can't reach it in Wiktionary. This happens whether or not you are logged in. I have not checked the other Wikiplaces. Please fix this, someone.

Typo on main page.

Typo: "the Indus Civilization cvered ..." should be "covered".

Sorry about the blanking. I thought I was just editing a new comment. :(

I don't think that that was you. -- ABCD | Talk 02:02, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Featured article copyvio?

See Talk:Indus Valley Civilization; do we have a copyvio on our featured article? I'm unfamiliar with the history of this article and would rather have someone who's worked on the article take a look at it. —Lowellian (talk)[[]] 20:54, Nov 22, 2004 (UTC)

this is appalling . the article was featured at a completely different stage, back in March. [4] It was nominated in January. See Wikipedia:Featured_article_candidates/Featured_log/October_2003_to_April_2004#Indus_Valley_Civilization. There was no discussion at all. Nobody commented, and it was simply considered FA'd. Maybe our FA standards have changed? Maybe we need a FA patrol looking for deterioration of FAs? The person picking the FA of the day should at least do some checking of this kind. In any case, an article that has reached FA standard doesn't necessarily remain on FA standard on WP, this much is obvious. WP is doomed to "eternal vigilance". dab 22:08, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
It wasn't featured in March. Wikipedia:Today's featured article/March 2004 -- user:zanimum
well, the Template:Featured was added in March. So maybe it wasn't really featured at all, ever. dab 11:07, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Isn't there a page for requesting to unfeature articles? Andre (talk) 22:38, Nov 30, 2004 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Featured article removal candidates to remove their status as featured article. As far as taking down a featured article of the day, it's my call, really, but that's extremely rare and has only happened twice (one time unnecessarily, IMHO). →Raul654 23:51, Nov 30, 2004 (UTC)

Charlie Dog Page removed

Sorry, there were false claims against the Chuck Jones cartoon dog character.

user 6:15 P.M.

Fixed. It was a blanking. In the future, you can check the history of the page, click on the previous edit to see what was there before, press edit, and then press save :). Or you can just ask somebody else to take care of it. Thanks for the alert. -[[User:Frazzydee|Frazzydee|✍]] 23:20, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I tried to fix the page as fast, but Jeff Schiller came in, has changed the pages about the dog away from the older version, I got blamed of ruining the article.

Check the history on this (both the Charlie Dog page, the Talk:Charlie Dog page). You (or someone within your IP range) is continually vandalizing this page as well as my own statements on the Talk page. You have also started vandalizing the Bugs Bunny page. Regards, Jeff schiller 00:01, 2004 Nov 24 (UTC)

Many people don't know who the two characters are, but sadly, their old 40's and 50's cartoons are now gone, disappeared from cable television, also people these days don't know anything about classical music.

Wow! Vandalism!

Someone should probably remove it. Comrade Tassadar 06:29, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

how? I thought only the admins could edit the front page. --Jazz Remington 06:31, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Whoa, it appeared one did quite quickly. Ignore this, then. Comrade Tassadar 06:32, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC) Have I become schizophrenic? I just saw it again for a few seconds. Comrade Tassadar 06:33, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Someone also should change the page back to the older version of November 22nd, and protect this page. Despite, I am a classical music fan, but other people claim the dog did appear in the 1970s cartoons with popular music in background, but Jeff Schiller argued he was not, before that, he said he was not involved with the Great-Dane. Well, I give up.

What are you talking about? I fail to see how your comments related to Charlie Dog are relevant to this discussion about vandalism of the Main_Page. With regards to our debate about Charlie Dog, if you can please provide some proof of the 1970s cartoon you are talking about it would be appreciated, but please confine the discussion to the Talk:Charlie Dog page. Regards, Jeff schiller 00:06, 2004 Nov 24 (UTC)

Wikifilm

There's a project called Wikifilm, that I'm proposing. -- user:zanimum

Main Page - remake in CSS

I've re-done the Main Page using CSS instead of tables as much as I can (just one table with two cells remains). Please help test it in any browser you have, it should be almost identical to the current Main Page. Please list any problems on the test page's talk page. Thanks, Tom- 22:15, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

  • Bravo! BLANKFAZE | (что??) 22:26, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • It works fine on my current machine, but remember there's enough browsers out there that are gonna have trouble with this. [[User:MacGyverMagic|Mgm|(talk)]] 16:13, Nov 25, 2004 (UTC)
  • This is now live. Tom- 21:29, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)
    • Awesome. Screw browsers that have problems with it. CSS has been a W3C recommendation for HOW LONG now? BLANKFAZE | (что??) 21:39, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)
      • I haven't actually found a browser which has a problem with it yet. And this version works better than the previous tables version on Netscape 4 - the old version used to crash it! Tom- 21:52, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Hmm. I hope that comment was at least a little bit ironic; some people really don't like being told to "upgrade or else", you know... In fact, somebody on the Help desk the other day was complaining that "Wikipedia crashes Netscape" - they haven't responded to my request for clarification yet, but they seemed to be implying it was just this one page that was triggering the problem; so I wondered if it was the relatively complex CSS that was causing this, but haven't got round to testing it. Do the dates check out with your recoding, or was it still mainly tables at the time that comment was left? - IMSoP 21:56, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)
OK, you're officially absolved of blame for this; I've just tested, and it's a whole lot weirder than one version working and another not... - IMSoP 22:34, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Meh. Now I'm just confused! First I thought your changes might actually be breaking the browser; then they seemed to be irrelevant, and I was getting weird differences between .../wiki/Main_Page (crashed) and .../w/wiki.phtml?title=Main_Page (didn't); now I can't get it to crash at all! I can only think that the weirdness was just a caching issue (this testing was all done after you'd made the change, but not long after). So, um, thanks; and sorry. Um... - IMSoP 22:44, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)
The non-CSS version (with lots of tables) was crashing NS4. The new almost-only-CSS version doesn't crash NS4. You were probably seeing the old version due to caching. Tom- 23:03, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Discovery of Tasmania?

It says today that "1642 - Abel Tasman discovered Tasmania." I would like to disagree. From a NPOV, it would seem like Abel Tasman was the first European (or white person, or whomever) to voyage to Tasmania, as there were an estimated 5000 indigenous peoples living there at the time of his voyage. I would strongly recommend this be changed, I feel it's not NPOV and that it makes Wikipedia seem European-centric, which it should not be. User:Machinebuster

perhap[s change it to "1642 - Abel Tasman was the first European voyager to map Tasmania." Or some such similar. The same should also be said of any explorer opening up regions which are already inhabited. --BrianWalker 07:18, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
The Tazmania article seems to deal with it well, writing that Tasman was the first European voyager to sight Tasmania (I think this is more accurate than "map").--Nectarflowed 08:07, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Abel Tasman discovered Tasmania on that date. The statement does not imply that he was the first person to discover Tasmania. Considering the island and an adjacent sea is now named after him, I see no problem with listing the date that this voyager happened upon the island. If it stated "1642 - Tasmania is discovered" then maybe it'd be a different story. - Mark 06:13, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Wikimedia for the Nobel Peace Prize

Suggested in Wikipedia:Wikimedia for Nobel Peace Prize --Mac 17:52, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Obscene vandalism

i like the penis on the main page. not. 128.61.79.26

I demand capital punishment for this porno idiots. Yes,hard but wikipedia is recently under attack by this crackpots. user:ThomasK
It was reverted almost immediately, so no harm done. user:GrahamN (serial password amnesiac)

There is still harm done, probably coming soon wikipedia will called pornpedia.

These crackpots.

--ThomasK 16:27, Dec 3, 2004 (UTC)

More Vandalism

Important announcement!

Wikipedia contributors are fucking nerds and geeks! Look at the article on African art compared to a silly song called "La La". The fact that such sysmatic bias is apparent is why you should never take Wikipedia seriously!

Expect this to be reverted for vandalism but this is the truth! Lololol! Vandals are always right!


Jesus H. Christ, come on. If you object to the content that much, fix it. - Kade - Dec 3rd, 2004

-- Yes, i'm going to fix it as well but you're faster than me....And JESUS TAPDANCING CHIRST, what the hell is wrong with people these day? Mgz - Dec 3rd, 2004 couple minutes later

The IP address used belongs to the "Greek High-School Internet Network". The actual thing that was vandalized was Template:WikipediaSister. I blocked the IP address for 6 months, although I expect someone is going to say that's an abuse of my admin powers. -- Cyrius|✎ 00:06, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
That's an abuse of your admin powers.
But seriously, of course it's not. Admins are there to block. Six months seems knee-jerk excessive for one instance of vandalism, though, even if the vandalism is particularly "high-profile". If you had the ICBM coordinates of the school, would you use them? :-) JRM 00:20, 2004 Dec 4 (UTC)
24 hours would have been more appropriate. The mischievous will always find an IP that we have not blocked yet. Blocking is only an immediate, short term remedy. You cannot block an entire school from edting for half a year because someone posted "Lololol! Vandals are always right!" from there. [[User:Dbachmann|dab (T) ]] 11:39, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
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