Wikipedia:Suggestion box/Archive 3

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[edit] language broblem

hi sir/madam i would like to help me ad i hope that you will.

i am good in listening in english but my problem is speaking and writing reporting. what shiuld i do?

  • Wikipedia can be a useful place to practice your English. Why not start by making small edits - if your English is not great, other editors can fix it. You can also contribute to discussions on the talk pages of articles. If you would like to make an addition but are unsure how to phrase it, you should be able to discuss it there. Alternatively, you might prefer contributing to Wikipedia in a language in which you are fluent - chances are, you'll find an edition listed here. Warofdreams talk 21:51, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
  • There is also a simple English wikipedia (http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page) designed for users who would like to improve their English... I suggest you have a look there as it may be far less daunting than the standard wikipedia... Mikkerpikker 18:18, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] feedback

The following is intended as feedback to the management of Wikipedia on how well the structure of Wikipedia works toward providing accurate and important information. No reply is necessary.

I have technical expertise that would allow me to make significant improvements in 4 Wikipedia articles. I have tried to use it by contributing edits to 3 of these articles. Several man-days into trying to donate my expertise in this way, I've had the following results:

My edit to one article presents accurate and important information to Wikipedia users on an error in a field of engineering but publishing it is contrary to the interests of a number of people. I'm gratified that my edit stands a week after I made it but uncomfortable with the ease with which people can edit out material that is contrary to their interests without technical justification.

Before my editing, a second article contained an error that was woven into its entire fabric. The only way the error could be corrected was with a complete rewrite of the article. I put in the time to do this, then justified my action with a posting to the discussion section. Hours later, someone evidently reported that I had vandalized the article, for a vandal policeman reversed the article back to the form that was in error. Neither the vandal policeman nor the person who reported vandalism bothered to respond to the justification I had provided for rewriting the article. The anti-vandalism feature had, in effect, been used for vandalism.

Before my editing, a third article, on a technical topic, contained a hidden assumption. In technical writing, failing to expose one's assumptions is a flaw, so I contributed a paragraph that exposed the hidden assumption. My contribution cited studies demonstrating that, when it was false, the hidden assumption, could have extremely dire consequences. Hours later, a prior contributor erased this paragraph. In the discussion section, he or she claimed, without citation to any studies, that burying the assumption seldom caused problems. Also, pointing out that two of my citations were to works I had authored, he or she suggested that my motivation for adding a paragraph might well have been personal vanity.

A result of these experiences is that I'm torn over whether to contribute any more of my time to Wikipedia. On the one hand, I hate to see errors or hidden assumptions in works that stand to mislead a mass audience. On the other hand, the structure of Wikipedia seems to make correcting these kinds of problem difficult if not impossible. I conclude that Wikipedia's current process for generating articles may make it more of a danger than a boon to mankind.

I'd recommend getting an account, that way other editors will be more likely to take your edits seriously, and they may communicate with you via the talk page. It sounds like you can make a great contribution to Wikipedia, please stick around. --Commander Keane 21:25, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
From a quick look at one of the articles, it looks like you are violating the no original research rule, and that your theories are not (yet) generally accepted. Wikipedia records consensus positions, documenting variations of opinion within th emainstream. My impression is that you are well outside the current consensus.
Contributing from an IP address doesn't help, especially as the statistics community does appear to be aware of your work. It gives the impression that you are trying make your original research look as though it is being cited by someone else. --David Woolley 21:48, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Compatibility with Palm Treo

Reader Rascheik has posted a question concerning compatibility with a Palm Treo.

I am unable to view the web pages on my Palm Treo 650 (a wireless pda phone) and I use this site for everything. I was just wondering if you guys could make this website compatible with Palm Treo 650

I would be grateful for any advice you could give him. Capitalistroadster 02:37, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

The Wikimedia software actually generates very good HTML by commercial web site standards! Just to prove this I'm replying to this using the text only Lynx web browser. Without further information, I would say that the Treo browser was severely broken if it cannot produce a usable rendering of Wikipedia pages.
If the Treo browser supports style sheets, it might be advisable to disable them. Otherwise, he needs to be much more specific about what he means by "it doesn't work". Nobody supporting software will act on such a report; they need to know what should have happened and exactly what happened. --David Woolley 10:41, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
Per Wikipedia:Browser notes, you should switch to the Colgne Blue skin (in Special:Preferences) or create a custom monobook.css file. -- Rick Block (talk) 04:42, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Categories too unstructured

One of the most annoying things is trying to find something that should be in a category but isn't, usually because someone chose to put them into a subcategory instead of the main category.

For example, Pythagoras isn't under "Category:Mathematicians" or even "Category:Ancient mathematicians" but "Category:Ancient Greek mathematicians".

I was wondering if either a) there was some sort of protocol one could be instructed to follow in terms of managing/creating placing categories or b) there was some sort of way that any article in a subcategory could automatically be placed as a member of the supercategory (I think that's the right term).

Thanks for the help. --mwazzap 04:39, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree it's a problem, and I think it would require a change to the MediWiki software. I wonder if there is a bug rpeort about this somewhere.--Commander Keane 11:46, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
If you think of the categories as a tree structure, then any member of a subcat is already in effect a child of the supercat. If you think of categories as tree structures (as I mostly do), then what you are proposing would effectively destroy the tree structure.
But I feel your pain, I understand where you're coming from. It's too hard to 'see' the tree structure without going through it by hand. There is a tool to show the tree structure of commons, see here. wrote it, he has also written one for de:w. If you (and enough other peopel) ask nicely, he may implement it for en.
Categories are a pain in the arse. pfctdayelise 14:36, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
I suggest you start editing yourself; it's a lot of work trying to improve categories, but up to now the one constructive method. Metawiki help page Vildricianus 19:14, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A general problems with maps

This is something that irks me for quite some time, but what really made me write this was the article Halifax Explosion. But it is not only a problem of this specific article. Many of the maps used in the Wikipedia are very US-centric. When a local area map of a place somewhere in the US is presented, everyone all over the world is assumed to be in the know about every american hinterland village. Imagine the (american) cries of agony if one would do this with a European or Asian location!

I suggest that generally, a local area map should be amended with a map of the globe with a dot or frame indicating the placement of the local area map. A base for this could be a resized version of this map:

Hmmm... an interesting complaint. I find that often articles written by a national of a country are written on the assumption that the reader is also from the country. I have found this in articles about American subejcts, British subjects, Canadian subjects and Indian subjects. In the case of the Halifax explosion article, it is clearly identified in the first line of the article that the explosion occurred in Halifax, Canada, and not in the United States. The map provides a detailed view of the Halifax harbour, and a second map that places Halifax in Nova Scotia. Because Wikipedia is an open-content encyclopedia, you are free to create and add maps to articles placing the location on a world map, and I doubt that you would encounter any opposition from other editors. It would be a worthwhile addition to many articles. Ground Zero | t 14:23, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Factbug, in the article on APA style

Factbug said the article on APA style was a Wikipedia article.

In the last sentence of the article, the writer used the word, "dames", to refer to women. It was even something about gender-neutral language!

Other than that, it was a great article. The other dictionary sources that I have didn't have anything relevant on APA, so this was good, except for the non-gender neutral language.

Thanks for anything you can do,

Pat

  • Hello Pat and thanks for writing to us. The Wikipedia article in question (APA style) was unfortunately vandalised by someone using the IP address 209.181.29.183 on 11 May 2005. As usual with vandalism, it was spotted and cleared up by a Wikipedia contributor. Unfortunately, between the article being vandalised and it being cleaned up, Factbug picked up a copy of the article [1]. They have not updated their copy since, which is a shame as the article has had lots more interesting detail added. There's little we can do about how others use our material (they may respond to a complaint from one of their readers, however) so perhaps the best advice is to suggest you search Wikipedia directly in guture - that way, if you find an error or some vandalism, you can click "edit this page" and remove it immediately for the benefit of everybody! I hope this helps. ➨ ❝REDVERS❞ 16:43, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism

I'm wondering why I was sent a message warning me about vandalism. I've never taken or edited anything from wikipedia. I'm not even registered with wikipedia. I find the articles helpful, but I did not take anything from wikipedia. I sincerely hope this was a mistake.

someone using the same IP address as you vandalized an article and the notice was meant for them. If you make an account (even if you don't intend to edit) then that won't happen. Broken S 03:13, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
  • provided, you are logged in of course. - Mgm|(talk) 14:24, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Printing Alternatives, & Expand/Contract informational Interface.

I was wondering is thier a way to make a link so that you can expand and contract it with a click, and when one print the material in question, you have the option to print the material as seen or vice versa the material that is expanded or contracted, even if it is not seen. in essence you have 3 alternatives to print the material in question. Paul.Paquette 03:00, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Tagline

Just a quickie - I noticed that the tagline below every article header was changed today (at least i'm pretty sure it was today) to "From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit"

I dont know who or how this is edited, but can someone put a full stop at the end of it at least? It's petty, i know, but its annoying me. Ta. </pedant> -- jeffthejiff (talk) 16:21, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

It had a period which was removed. Please bring this up at MediaWiki talk:Tagline if you'd like. -- Rick Block (talk) 17:57, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] How to resume the numeration of an ordered list?

Let's say I start a numerated list:

  1. This is my first item.
  2. Now, let's say I need to write an equation in its own line. According to the Math style manual, I should indent the line with one or more colons:
\mu\left(\bigsqcup_{n=0}^\infty A_n\right)=\sum_{n=0}^\infty \mu\left(A_n\right)

Now I'll resume writing text. Notice that the indentation from the list has disappeared, so I assume the list was terminated here. But I want to continue it:

  1. Aha, I knew it! It should be a 3, not a 1. How do I prevent this?

--Fibonacci 00:54, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Instead, start a numerated list:

  1. This is the first item.
  2. Now, let's say I need to write an equation in its own line. According to the Math style manual, I should indent the line with one or more colons:
    \mu\left(\bigsqcup_{n=0}^\infty A_n\right)=\sum_{n=0}^\infty \mu\left(A_n\right)
    But instead I used a puund sign foolowed by a colon, thus continuing the list. i difd the same for this line
  3. Aha, This is now item 3.

I hope that helps DES (talk) 01:05, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, but there is still a problem. You'll notice that the line right after the equation is more indented than the rest of the text. Is there a way to prevent that? --Fibonacci 21:07, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Watchlist organization

Is it at all conceivable that a way to organize your watchlist by site rather than by date be available? E.g. let's say I have 10 articles on my list. Instead of showing me all the changes that have occurred in the last seven days in chronological order, I can elect to view them separated for each article for which a change has occurred. Thoughts? Comments? -- Hinotori 13:31, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

There isn't a feature exactly like this at present. However, if you have enhanced recent changes selected in your preferences, the related changes for each page appear in a format similar to this. So, if you create a user subpage with links to the ten articles, you can track changes to them in a manner close to that you describe. Warofdreams talk 17:13, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for the suggestion, though it's obviously a great deal more... unwieldy. I realized already that the feature I described doesn't exist. I was wondering if it's conceivable such a feature could be added in the future. Thanks again! Cheers. -- Hinotori 00:37, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] New Policy

I don't know if this is the place to talk about the new policy of preventing anonymous users from creating articles, but I'll just put my complaint and suggestions here:

Why would anybody want to ban anonymous users? They shouldn't because:

1)Some anonymous users contribute greatly.

2)Wikipedia is supposed to be the free encyclopedia.

3)There are many good articles started by anonymous users that may have not be created at all without them.

4)Logged in users vandalize just as much as anonymous users.

5)It is not a good first experience and would not encourage people to log in and use Wikipedia regularly.

6)People should have the right to choose whether to get a username or not. Wikipedia shouldn't force people to get a username to make articles.

7)When you ban out the anonymous users, you ban the good ones as well.

8)It doesn't take much work just to erase vandalized info.

Therefore, this policy should end! Or you could:

1) Whenever an anonymous user wants to make an article, they have to go to a place where other users vote if the person can create it.

2)If an anonymous user vandalizes more than five times (or lesser), ban that person from making articles.

These are my suggestions, but I rather have no policies at all. So, if you can, please get rid of the policies. If not, please do either number 1 or number 2. --anon

You can suggest new policy at WP:VPP. Broken S 03:35, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] No Sowce??

I'm doing an important research project for school and I want to know why I cant find this very common word on this website. Anyone who doesn't know what Sowce is should learn about it and anyone that thinks they do know what it is and then deletes it from public view is a "VANDAL". Mr. Hedley is a big mean poop. He listens to AUQA which means he should not be authorized to make any decisions related to The Sowce. Auqa is a band for chubby ten year old girls that have not yet developed any kind of musical knowledge. No one liked that damn barbie song (accept for chubby ten year old girls) even when they where playing it non-stop on Radio Disney. It's a song that made the nannies of chubby ten year old girls very irritable and bitchy. Mr. Hedley is a blonde single girl in a fantasy world. He wants you to dress him up. Take your time. He's your dollie! Please Mr. Hedley, realize that you are in violation of the laws of Sowce before it is too late.

[edit] Why archaic formating method?

Upon first discovering Wikipedia and its sister sites, I was extremely excited and immediately interested in making numerous contributions. But when I began to dig into the details of exactly how to create articles suitable for posting, I was stopped dead by the apparent need to format the document in a completely manual manner. As I believe that I am quite computer literate, it is difficult for me to understand why, for example, one cannot create an article in Word, format it according to Wikipedia guidelines, and then copy/paste it into Wikipedia.

I sincerely hope that I have overlooked something in this regard. I really would like to contribute, but the hastle of having to manually format long articles makes the prospect a non-starter for me. Can someone shed some light on this for me?

83.77.20.135 08:03, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Easier said than done, mate. Word has its own formatting method which is Microsoft's and not exactly easy to implement, especially in a web page. For the moment at least, most widely used method of inputting text onto the internet (eg, in forums etc) is in plain text with tags around the text, like HTML. Maybe soon they'll be some sort of built-in WYSIWYG editor, but i wouldnt hold my breath.
Oh, and dont worry about getting the formatting right too much - other people can fiddle with that when youve put the content up. -- jeffthejiff (talk) 09:16, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
Thanks Jeff for your response to my message of frustration. Regarding the use of Word, I know that by default documents are created and saved using special MS formating, but there is the option to "Save As" HTML. If a document was to be creaed in Word, saved as HTML, and then pasted into Wikipedia, would it work?
Sorry to continue to make a fuss, but while I prefer to concentrate on the content creation of an article I'm sensitive to the impact appropriate formating has on the reader's ability to absorb and appreciate what has been written. That's why I'm searching for a semi-automatic way to create acceptable formating for Wikipedia.
83.77.20.135 10:10, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
I believe there are HTML to Wiki scripts floating around, but the thing is that Word's Save As HTML option also has some MS-specific stuff in it that Wikipedia wont recognise. Hmm, i cant think of/find any half-decent way to do it..
You're right to make a fuss really, the big cheeses should realise that it needs to be quicker for users to pick up if its going to attract a wider user base. But as i said, as Wikipedia is a community; other people can finish off your work for you. There are people here who solely concentrate on going round formatting things correctly etc, so i shouldnt worry too much. We'll definitely welcome any content you bring to the encyclopedia. :) -- jeffthejiff (talk) 10:27, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
Hang on, i just found this. Its a macro for Word that converts to wikipedia syntax. Hope it helps.
Jeffthejeff is right on. One thing that's central to the concept of Wikipedia is that people contribute as much (or as little) as they wish to. The content is more important than the formatting anyways, and I can guarantee that there are many users (like myself) who are quite anal enough to freak out and format what you put up. :)
-- Hinotori(talk)|(ctrb) 10:58, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
The wiki formatting rules are intended to be simple enough to allow anyone, with any level of computer expertise, to use them with a browser as their only tool. There's always a battle between simplicity and expressiveness, which due to feature creep simplicity generally loses (witness HTML's evolution). The same dynamic has played out here - but the basics are still intended to focus effort on content. -- Rick Block (talk) 17:08, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Stop the neurotic editors from ruining Wiki- Our group is now disinterested

Wikipedia was intended to be an encyclopeda that anyone could contribute to. It has morphed into highly constrictive entity! The many "editors" are reinventing the wheel - by trying to write yet another encyclopedia that cannot be critiqued.

It is beginning to function similar to Acedemia, where simply recording and reiterating something correctly is all that is required. Many "editors" behave highly disruptive and critical of submissions. Many of them have personal pages showing their language skills and talents.

For example: We noticed an article up for deletion on the simple but relevant topic "Ocean Origins". Our coworker reviewed it and wrote in defense of it under the name TikiWiki..

We all felt it should not have been put up for cancellation in the first place.

Many of our own articles have been left published while others were put up for deletion. The process has left myself and a coworker disinterested in contributing.

It is simply too unpleasant for the public to enjoy. It can also be a waste of time.

A decision by the Wiki board is needed to clarify your position.

Wiki should likely make a decision between either 1)creating a perfect encylcopedia... for the hostile vanity of it's editors, and fears of being deemed "unreliable", or 2)it should demand far more relaxed criteria, and keep itself broadly accessible. The second choice would be preferred and all "remove" requests should be tabled for a period of time, to see if a) the article develops b) it has interest. Moreover editors should not be able to request removal of an article after the contributor signs off. They should only be able to post it a week later. Then they should have to receive a 75% majority to remove it.

[edit] Joseph Smith

I commend you for making the life of Joseph Smith, Jr. your featured article for today, it being the 200th anniversary of his birth. I am a lifelong member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, I hold the Prophet in great esteem. I was very much upset to see that some miscreant had substituted Joseph's photograph for that of Adolph Hitler on your site. Please do something about it and make sure that this kind of thing does not happen again. Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.175.173.154 (talk • contribs) 13:37, December 23, 2005

This appears to have been Vandalism. and was reverted promptly. There is no way to compeltely prevent such things while maintianing wikipedia's openness to contributions from the general public, but particularly on prominent articels such as this one, vandalism is usually reverted quite promptly, often in minutes. if you see vandalism, you can revert it yourself -- the revert page explains how to do so. DES (talk) 19:10, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Kevin Norte 7 Friends

Kevin Norte is my best friend. He is listed in Los Angeles people by his first name. It should be by his last name. Also, other Los Angeles people are my friends Abbe Land, Paul Koretz, George Takei, and Brad Altman. Can they be listed as Los Angeles people if they are not already? —the preceding unsigned comment is by FosseTheCat (talk • contribs)

The default sort order for articles in category listings can be overridden, please see Wikipedia:Categorization#Category sorting. I've fixed the sort order for Kevin Norte. -- Rick Block (talk) 20:53, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Maps for countries

The maps in the info box often lead to maps that are no larger (ie the map of the Soviet Union), however some lead to full size maps (ie Russian Federation) How is the coding done to accomplish this? I tried to make a proper version of the Soviet Union map, but the closest I could come was by using a thumbnail, which does not look proper. Tev 20:07, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the help, but it's not necessarily the Soviet Union that I'm talking about, as I know the Republics that comprised it, but country maps in general. Tev 06:31, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
The answer, as Warofdreams said, is that it depends on the size of the original image. There is no coding involved in that. And you can't make a raster image larger without losing resolution. -- Rune Welsh | ταλκ 09:11, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Involuntary logging out

When I leave my Mozilla FireFox window open while I am on Wikipedia and leave my computer for more than about a half an hour, I return to find that I have been logged out. When I purge the system cache or go to a different page, I find that my customary user toolbar has been replaced by ‘Create account/log in’, without me logging out. Is this a problem related to my own computer, or to the Wikipedia server?Akako|☎ 01:38, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

That happens a lot. In Firefox you have to enable the browser to accept cookies from "en.wikipedia.org". Also enable the "remember me" checkbox when you log in with your wikipedia account. That's what works for me at least. -- Rune Welsh | ταλκ | Esperanza 02:09, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Anonymous user privellages

I know they soon wont be able to create articles, I suggest they also not be allowed to edit user pages besides their own, as this just causes vandalism.--Urthogie 20:47, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

I suppose, but I personally think that maybe Wikipedia should have a security image when registering. Just like MSN (when creating a hotmail account), a random image appears and asks you to type in the number or code that appears. Becuase it's an image, a bot (this would be great for persitent vandal bots like Willy on wheels) cannot understand what it is, and thus, cannot create an account. KILO-LIMA 16:20, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
That "random image" is called a CAPTCHA. --cesarb 16:31, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Spanish Keyboards do not have a Tlde key

I saw on New User User:Lamanchica the comment that "Did you know that Spanish keyboards dont have a tilde key?" and I wondered if

  • The writer not really know what the tilde key is, since I had thought it was critical to accents in Romantic languages.
  • Wiki has, or should have, some alternative for that standard, based on what can be found on other keyboards around the world.
    • Then tip about that included in the Welcome Newcomers type pages.

User:AlMac|(talk) 20:39, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

I have no experience with Spanish keyboards, but since the only letter in Spanish that uses the tilde is "ñ", and I know that Spanish typewriters always have an "ñ" key, it would not surprise me if they do not have a separate tilde key. Ground Zero | t 20:58, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Picture of a Spanish keyboard. Odd, it really does not have a tilde — how do people program in C when using it? --cesarb 21:09, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
Found it. A rather complete explanation on how to get a tilde in Spanish keyboards can be found at es:Wikipedia:FAQ#¿Y cómo hago para escribir la tilde en el teclado? No la veo por ningún lado.... --cesarb 21:23, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
They could just hit the signature button in the bar above the edit box. - Mgm|(talk) 14:17, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] (suggestion) use cookie to remember language selection

I read wikipedia in English, therefore each time i go to www.wikipedia.com (which i usually just type "wikipedia" in the address bar in Safari) I have to click on the English version as well. My suggestion is that the web application should be more user sensitive and (via cookie) decide what language version to use based on a previous selection. I don't need to be presented with the full spectrum of languages wikipedia offers, every time I access the homepage.

Just go to http://en.wikipedia.org/ instead of http://www.wikipedia.com/ or http://www.wikipedia.org/. --cesarb 21:31, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Regarding my Article on your portal.

Sir, with due regards I would like to request you that i have found the link of your portal after searching for my hometown Chhapra, Bihar, India on Google. I have added more sound information about this historical place on your given small information. Also, I have registered as your member. But my contribution about that article is not in my profile here. Hence, I request you to re check my complaint and attach my name with that work of mine. So that non other person could try to take the credit of my researched article.

Thanks.

Everyone is allowed to edit your article, but people can view the history of an article to see who put in the major contributions. By the way please sign your posts. --Urthogie 00:42, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
Also, make sure you understand Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and not a portal. - Mgm|(talk) 14:15, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
Further explaination, nothing you or anyone else contributes to Wikipedia essentially donates their contributions. We don't give direct credit to anyone, for their work. Along with seeing your name in the history, people who visit your userpage can read your "User contributions", which shows a list of articles you've edited. -- user:zanimum

[edit] sensitive content

What does Wikipedia do about issue that are real such as sexual contect and discussion of torture and use of slang (curse word)to prevent these issue from being acceses by ages that they may not be appropriate for. While I think Wikipedia is a great fourm. and understand the concept of open fourms and a democratic approach to content. There has to be some sort of filters to prevent informations out of hands of person underage.

Please direct me to areas that I can find this information.

Thomas True thomtrue@swbell.net

Please see Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not#Wikipedia is not censored for the protection of minors and Wikipedia:Profanity. The bottom line is that Wikipedia contains content that some people might think is inappropriate for some ages and/or that some cultures view as unacceptable. There is a link on every page to Wikipedia:Content disclaimer. -- Rick Block (talk) 01:05, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
Right. If you have kids and have site-filtering software you can (and perhaps should) add Wikipedia to your list of blocked sites.Herostratus 15:32, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
Being a parent, I generally think that anything that is encyclopedic should be available to anyone anyway. I certainly wouldn't hide a paper set of encyclopedias from a kid...I'd actually prefer them on wikipedia, where the sex article links easily to the pregnancy article :). As for the porn, gratuitous profanity, and senseless violence (none of which I've seen on wikipedia), any computer used by a child should be protected by software that filters out those types of sites. bcatt 07:35, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Watchlist problem

moved from top of page...

Maybe this is just my imagination, but it seems the watchlist feature doesn't report ALL the changes that have been make to watched pages. Specifically, several times it has happened that all I see on my watchlist page is some editor rvv-ing with the original act of vandalism going unlisted. This makes me wonder whether other acts of (uncorrected) vandalism is passing me by... Any help/comments would be appreciated. Mikkerpikker 18:26, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

watchlists only list the most recent edit.Geni 02:23, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pronounciation key

Pronounciation key is req. to keep this a one-look type thing, otherwise I need to get prononiations from other places.

Wikipedia isn't a dictionary (Wiktionary is), so most entries don't have pronunciations listed. However, where the pronunciation is unusual or otherwise interesting, articles do sometimes list it. If you would like to add pronunciation keys to any articles fitting this description, please feel free. Warofdreams talk 02:11, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Kalman Tihanyi

Hello there!

I put in a search for "Tihanyi + Kalman" and although you do not have an article yet about this, the true inventor of the iconoscope, you do refer the user to Memory of the World. As there is no indication as to Tihanyi's nationality, however, one would not know WHERE to look for Kalman Tihanyi in the Memory of the World list, which goes by countries. To help the user locate Kalman Tihanyi, please indicate that he is a Hungarian. I would also find it helpful if on the Memory of the World list you are showing his bame would be highlighted in blue, just like the others listed there.

Also, there is an article on Kalman Tihanyi on the Hungarian language Wikipedia.

Also: there are some serious problems with your entry on Zworykin. That article is largely based on Britannica's ancient Zworykin entry. The bottom line is: what Zworykin invented in 1923 and 1925 was NOT the iconoscope, merely a rudimentary electronic television very much like the television system described by A.A. Campbell Swinton in his historical article published on December 7, 1911 in Nature!

Thanks for your help,

Katalin Tihanyi Glass

I made the reference on Memory of the World a link to Kalman Tihanyi, but the article doesn't exist yet (so it's a red link, rather than a blue link). You are quite welcome to create the article and to make whatever corrections you think are necessary to any other articles (like the one on Vladimir Zworykin). Please make sure you cite sources for your changes. -- Rick Block (talk) 19:48, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Kazakh Interwiki

I've noticed that the links to the Kazakh Wikipedia appear as қазақша -- notice the lowercase қ. Wouldn't it make more sense to display it as Қазақша? Waynem 23:40, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Is this allowed?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliott_Brothers - in December the entry seems to have been edited to promote a builders merchant and their web designers.

I think different articles and a disambiguation page would be better. I'll do this. -- Rick Block (talk) 03:35, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Why different log-ins in ?

As a French (new) user, I often read some articles in English and in French as well, so as to gather more information. Recently, as I was reading both articles about Philip José Farmer's Riverworld fictional universe, I noticed some details I could improve in the French one, but the French site doesn't allow me to log in, because I am only registered in the English section. Of course, I am OK about registering in each language. However, loggin in "again" whereas I change the access language feels redundant and superfluous (!) to me, because 1) I believe this Free Encyclopedia transcends language differencies (as long as one can read several languages), 2) I still am the same person whether I read French- or English-speaking material, 3) I am a bit bored about remember two passwords and really worry about people who can read five or more languages.

So this is my question (sorry for this long explanations) : Why do people need multiple logins for the different language sections ? Is this a technical issue ? Would it not be more useful or more user-friendly to have only one login/password whatever the language ?

I have a secundary question : to make the information in English available to French-only readers, I would like to translate a few articles from English to French. Are there restrictions ?

Anyway, thank you to all the people here for the excellent source of informations you provide.

--Eutrot 01:51, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Hisotorical reasons. The databases are seperate so seperate logins were required. This resulted in different people useing the same login of differnt projects (for example there is a geni on the german wikipedia that isn't me). this makes cross project logins difficult to implament.Geni 02:04, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

As to your second question, both projects are licensed under the GFDL, so there's no problem about translating articles from one to another. However, I can't personally remember whether the French wiki allows fair-use images (as per the English language version), or not (as per the German version.) As a final note, remember to add [[en:Article]] to the end of the french translation and vice versa, to let others know that the articles exist :) GeeJo (t) (c) •23:57, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Category-specific queries

I have recently tried to access 2 kinds of functionality: Finding out the number of articles in a specific category, and linking to a random article in a specific category. As far as I understood, such functionality does not exist in MediaWiki. Perhaps there should be added a template like {{NUMBEROFARTICLES}} but for a category, and an option for a random article in a category. --Meni Rosenfeld 17:26, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

  • You can easily check the number of articles in a specific category. Simply open the category page and check the counter. Note that it displays a maximum of 200 articles and subcategories combined per page; if there are more than 200, you will need to click on to the next page and do some simple arithmetic.
  • I suppose there could be an option to select a random article in a category, but I doubt it would be much used. If you're keen to do this, you should be able to write a script which will open the category with the argument &from=XXX (where XXX is a randomly generated string of letters), and select the first article listed. Warofdreams talk 18:10, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
  • "Easily"? Suppose we have a category with dozens of subcategories, such as Mathematics. Is opening each subcategory and adding up the number of articles supposed to be easy? It's like saying that finding the number of articles in WP is "easy" by adding the number of articles in all categories and sub-categories. But that isn't easy : Using {{NUMBEROFARTICLES}} to find (and interactively display) that WP has 2,404,906 is easy. Similarly, there should be some template {{math-NUMBEROFARTICLES}} to use in the mathematics portal, etc.
  • Ah, you want to know how many articles are in the subcategories as well. You can find such information from the tree at [2], although the documents it links to are quite large and may be a little out of date. Warofdreams talk 14:46, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
  • I sincerely doubt I am the only person on this planet who finds my suggestion useful. I think it is a very efficient way for, say, a mathematical wikipedian, to sample the quality of articles in his field of interest - and make modifications if necessary. In either case, unfortunately, I do not know how to write such scripts. And what you suggested has the flaw that different articles will have a different probabilty of being selected - Although I do not know if there is a better way. --Meni Rosenfeld 14:20, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Actually I tried once looking for answers in that tree, but couldn't find them. But this is beside the topic - Of course there are ways of finding this information, just really really difficult ones. I do think adding something like my suggestion will prove to be useful. --Meni Rosenfeld 20:18, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Section watch

It has several times happened to me that I have put a question\comment\whatever at some kind of talk page, and wanted to be notified of replies to it, without caring too much about other things happening in that talk page. The problem with adding the page to my watchlist is that having seen that an edit was made, I have no way of telling whether there was an edit that relates to my question or not - And when I do check the page, finding my topic within the page entails some effort. Perhaps a "watch this section" or similar mechanism could be incorporated? --Meni Rosenfeld 17:34, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

An ability to wathch a particualr section would be valuable, but is technically tricky becasue sectins can be reorderd, renamed, or deelted vey freely, and an edit can affect multiple sections. When people edit a specific section, the section title appears by default at the start of the edit summery, you cna look for that, but it is far from foolproof, i fear. DES (talk) 21:15, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

It is perhaps tricky, but that doesn't say it's impossible. Reordering a section doesn't matter because the search should be by name and not by order. Renaming or deleting a section is, I believe, not very common, and in the case they do happen it isn't terrible if the item is removed from the watchlist - Preferably accompanied by some sort of notice that the watch was broken. The problem I am discussing applies mainly to places like the Help desk, where replies to your question (with the approporiate edit summary) will very quickly be replaced in your watchlist by other edits, and where finding your question among hunderds in the page is a nuisance, to say the least. --Meni Rosenfeld 14:28, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately renaming sections is in fact quite common on regular articles. Order matters because section links (which would presumably be the basis of such a feature) use the section's number, not its name, internally, as do section edits. Tricky matters because the developers are all volunteers, and ther is a large backlog of requested features and bugfixes -- for this to make its way to teh top of the list will not be easy. All that said I support sucha feature request, but those are reasons why I donb't expect to see it anytime soon. Of course anyone is free to download the Mediawiki code and create a patch to implemt this feature. DES (talk) 16:50, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Can't argue with those facts :-). Just one note, you mentioned renaming sections is common in articles, however my suggestion is applicable primarily to talk pages, where I guess you'll agree it's not that common. In any case, that's a pity because monitoring my questions at the help desk proved to be a burden. I hope such a feature will eventually be implemented. Maybe I'll try to do this myself once I've acquired the necessary skills. --Meni Rosenfeld 20:08, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't disagree -- but if this feature were implemeted I for one would sue it on articles and policy pages quite often. Frequently i am intersted only in a sub-topic of an articel, so a section watch would be helpful. I suspect many others would so use it as well - in any case it would probably have to support such use. I can see where watching the help desk in paeticualr could be frustrating. I fear that at present there is no good answer -- you could ask at the desk that people leave a pointer on your talk page when/if your question is responded to. DES (talk) 21:56, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia disables ALT-E?

I spotted a comment on the resolved complaints noting that Wikipidia disables ALT-E? I've been pulling my hair out for a while trying to figure out why I can't use ALT-E in Explorer when in Wikipedia to open up Explorer's Edit menu, in the same manner I do in hundreds of other applications. For people using a keyboard, rather than a mouse, this kind of remapping is very painful. How does one disable this on a user by user basis to return normal functionality? I can't find a mention to this except in that resolved comment. Nfitz 19:18, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I think this can be undone by editing your personal css page, but that is not simple. i am copyign this to the technical section of the village pump. I have complained about the wikipedia take over of common shortcut keys on Bugzilla before this. DES (talk) 21:12, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Deleted image path

When image is deleted its path remains inside the article. May be we should do something? :) Brandmeister 17:20, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

There is a bot that goes around commenting images that have been deleted (or are about to). It doen't show the broken image link but the text stays there, so that solves half of the problem already. -- Rune Welsh | ταλκ 19:39, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Veracity of the Information

If anyone can edit an article in this site, how can you ensure the veracity of the information? How do you avoid BS? —the preceding unsigned comment is by 81.191.58.123 (talk • contribs) 23:07, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

It is quite a tough topic on wikipedia, and theres no real straight answer. Users often check back at pages they've edited (using the Watchlist) and delete stuff that is obvious rubbish, or information which isnt fairly common knowledge and hasnt been given with a source. There are commonly arguments involving edit wars and things about whats right and whats wrong. Wikipedia basically works out as a democratic "ideal" which assumes that the majority of users are correct. The majority will often win arguments against a smaller party, particularly if it comes down to a vote situation. And if they aren't correct, theres always admins etc to sort things out.
But we believe its all worth it for the freedom of speech. -- jeffthejiff (talk) 08:17, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
Also see Wikipedia:Replies to common objections. -- Rick Block (talk) 16:59, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bert still lead singer of the used

Hi, some loser has gone and changed the profile of The Used, replacing singer Bert McCracken's profile with his own or someone elses, could you just check it out? Regards, Jessie Stringer —the preceding unsigned comment is by 203.221.239.17 (talk • contribs) 07:51, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Hi, as it say up the top there in fairly large letters - ...not intended for reporting errors in specific articles. Please discuss what exactly is wrong with it on the talk page of the article. -- jeffthejiff (talk) 08:21, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Double articles

I think we have some double articles which have the same title. Request desk may also contain several red links, which Wiki may have under other names. 195.150.224.238 11:18, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

At one point, there was a problem with the software creating duplicate articles with the same name. It's best to leave these for developers to fix, as almost all of them now have been. If you see a red link to a topic which Wikipedia has an article on under another name, you can create a Wikipedia:Redirect to the article. Warofdreams talk 12:42, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Special Characters on "edit this page" pages

What happened to the larger list of special characters that used to be at the bottom of the edit window? It seems to have been replaced by a much shorter list of special characters. --nihon 03:25, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

did you check the drop down box (that lets you select a language/category)? Broken S 04:37, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
Aha. I must be getting tired tonight as I didn't even see that. Perhaps an explanation of the drop down menu could be placed directly above it? That might help avoid future wondering what's up with the missing special characters. :-) --nihon 05:56, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

French is missing, although the same accents can also be found, if you happen to know, in other languages, e.g., Catalan. But much easier simply to include French.Staffelde 14:58, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Please, change it back! Or at least change it to the very logical way that English Wiktionary has the diacritics, with an easily findable drop-down menu. This way makes the characters just impossible to find. I am not seeing any drop-down box anywhere, and it is becoming a real pain (and even worse that the person who made this change will not explain him/herself on any of the pages where I have asked about this. This is making my, and I'm sure many other, editors' work very difficult! Badagnani 08:48, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
OK, the characters are back; click the drop-down menu just below the edit screen (the first line is labeled "Wiki") to get diacritics and character sets for various languages. Badagnani 09:46, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] suggestion: page counters for every page

It is one thing to say, "Anyone can edit this article." It's quite another to say,

"X different registered users have been confronted with the opportunity to edit this article."

or,

"X different users and anonymous IP addresses have been confronted..."

or the usual,

"This article (page) has been viewed X times."

"Peer review" of an article is somewhat reflected by the number/extent/uniqueness of edits, but the number of people who have viewed an article and chosen not to edit it may in many cases be relevant for the individual reader, suggesting (though not proving, of course!) integrity, or the lack of it. But that's all debatable.

On the other hand, it'd be difficult to argue that counters would not produce fun and interesting statistics. --Rwehr 04:50, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Technical FAQ#Can I add a page hit counter to a Wikipedia page?. The basic issue is that adding a page view counter to a site with as much traffic as Wikipedia would be exhorbitantly expensive. -- Rick Block (talk) 05:28, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
  • I am in favor for a counter for individual page, that way one can see who actually editing and being a watch dog for that page in question. From thier one can deduce thier credibility in actually editing that article in question. One would think that the creator of an article will have a vested interest in the integrity of that article. And if another person can vote upon the worthiness of the person in question that editing the previous article, then the counter could be weighted appropriately for each individual that add/subtract/edit the article in question. Paul.Paquette (talk)
  • Each entry have the following Tabs: Article, Discussion, edit this page, history, move, and watch/unwatch. I propose making a Tab call "Worthiness" - Tab name is open for debate, right after the history tab. This page should serve the following: As counter, Show all the contributors to the article in question (this can be limited if needed), A click on thier name will show everthing the individual contribute that is reflected in the current page, but not their past entries (that what the history tab is for), The counter should reflect two group the reader and the editor's. The reader should have an independent counter, and cannot be an editor also. They can vote using some sort rating stystem for example the rating system that is utilize on amazon or ebay. They have the option to rate the article as a whole and/or the the individual editors. If the article in question is poor then it can be alerted to the mass wikipedia community to be work on to bring it up to a quality standards. Once a reader becomes an editor thier vote as a reader is subtracted then they become an editor. The editor can not vote on the quality of the page itself but it can vote on the other editors. Each editor can only rate another editor one time, and can not vote for themself. Each editor can take back thier vote or alter the rating of thier vote in the course of time because a "good apple can turn into a bad apple and vise versa." From all this one will be able to draw the following conclusion of the encyclopedia article in question: "The Reader Rating of the Article in it totality", "The Reader Rating of the Editors", "The Editor Rating of the Editors", and finally "The weighted Rating of the Editor based on the Rating of the Readers and the Editors." Using this method one will create a check and balance in an open format. This Tab should only reflect on the article page and not on the discussion page. Paul.Paquette (talk)
An m:Article validation feature has been implemented in the software. It's been in a "will be enabled soon" state for a while. -- Rick Block (talk) 14:37, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Menus on page move

I was excited to use Wikipedia but I noticed that the menus at the top of the page move completely to the right when I hover over them. Instead of hovering and clicking, I have to chase the link and then click. I'm sure it is a simple change. Please let me know when this is fixed.

Donna Meade donna_c_meade@hotmail.com

I don't see thsi -- what is your browser setup? DES (talk) 23:53, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Firefox search bar

I would like to insert a search bar for Wikipedia on my Mozilla Firefox browser.

How do I do this?

Robby

Mozilla Update:Search Engines. Wikipedia is right there in the bottom right corner. You can add other engines while you're at it too! -- Rune Welsh | ταλκ 17:13, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] usability issues.

hi,

i was trying to suggest merger of three identical articles under three urls. but somehow it proved to be pretty much intractable. i finally managed to do it though.

not i wanted to suggest that such procedures should be made simple. but then i have no easy way of doing the same. and all in all i spent the 40 mins trying to figure that out.


what i suggest is that for lay users things should be made simple. unreasonable to expect every user to be a geek. for simple tasks there should be a wizard like windows (i know it sucks in certain aspects) applications to enhance usability. also the help page contains a zillion links and one invariably gets lost. at least i did. for a site that requires active participation from users simplicity is key. the way google does it.


now again, i dont want to sound as if everything is wrong with wikipedia. forgive me, but it pains me to no end to see such an excelent site (i spend all my free time reading someting or the other on this site) make errors with such far reaching consequences.

before i close, i thank you a lot for all that i get to learn every day. wikipedia makes me a better person on every visit. thank you all anand —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 203.197.126.115 (talk • contribs) .

There's an active project to make Wikipedia more generally usable, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Usability, as well as a project to redesign the help pages, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Help. Please feel free to participate in these. Like the articles themselves, Wikipedia's help pages can be edited and improved by anyone. -- Rick Block (talk) 20:01, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What about main page configurability?

I have some questions about the possibility of users configuring the main page to fit their own tastes, and was wondering what options were available to users right now for accomplishing this. Please click on the heading above to see my questions on this subject. I look forward to reading your replies. --Go for it! 23:52, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Copyright

A page on wikipedia is a blantant violation of copyright (my own) however it is taken from a book not a website so I cannot give an url as the page says? What are my options.


FYI the page is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leviathan_number

And it is word for word from my book Wonders of Numbers: Adventures in Mathematics, Mind, and Meaning. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 2001.

It is the introduction to chapter 83 "The Leviathan number"

It does site a website however that website has specific permission to use the material, wikepedia does not.

                                                                                                - C. Pickover
I've left a note at User talk:210.84.47.188 which is the ip Dr. Pickover was editing from. I deleted the article Leviathan number and replaced it with a rewritten article. FreplySpang (talk) 06:39, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
Such pages can still be reported at Our copyright problem page -- in place of the URL insert a proper citation to the source, and list in the section for violations without an online source. DES (talk) 16:57, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Why do pictures get removed without any warning to the uploader beforehand?

Hi. I checked the South Pole article today, and noticed a picture I'd added some time ago is no longer there. I managed to find where in the history [here] it was deleted from the article, but I don't know how to determine when the actual picture itself was deleted (and why) from wikipedia. How do I find this out please? Thanks. --Rebroad 11:41, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Answered at Rebroad's talk page. FreplySpang (talk) 14:45, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Sorry. What I meant to ask was: Should the uploader be notified before it is deleted so that they have the opportunity to rectify any ommision of license/copyright information? Many thanks, --Rebroad 15:39, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Ideally, yes. But there is no current rule that requires notification, adn with the presure to remove unsourced and unlicesend images asap, notification si often being ommitted. Your only way to avoid this problem is to keep all your images on your watchlist, and even this is not perfect. DES (talk) 16:55, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
  • An even better option is to follow the instructions at the upload page to begin with. - Mgm|(talk) 13:43, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Random" RSS feed

Wikipedia, I am a new member of Wikipedia, I am having trouble subscribing to your "random page" RSS feed.

I can successfuly subscribe to others.

Thanks,

Steven Viemeister sviemeister on wikipedia.org --rtisbute 15:28, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Hi, i checked it myself and the feed doesnt seem to be valid. Someone added the links and im not sure why as they dont work. So i removed them. I wouldnt have thought that a random article feed would be possible as there isnt really anything to update from; its just a button to load a random article. -- jeffthejiff (talk) 19:04, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] atom's maximum diameter

I just read Wikipedia article "Angstrom" stating that atom's diameter varies from 1 A ( hydrogen atom provided as a well-known example) to 5 A (no examples given). The latter figure seemed to me smaller than I thought and I opened another Wikipedia Article, "Atom", where 10 A figured as a mamaximum atom diameter.

Could you please fix this controversy. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Sergei Barbashov Stoughton, MA

Hi, as it says up the top there in large letters, not intended for reporting errors in specific articles. Might i suggest mentioning it on Talk:Angstrom or Talk:Atom. Or maybe you could fix it yourself if you know what adjustment is needed. Thanks. -- jeffthejiff (talk) 18:24, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] a vanity page? please review...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._Casey_Brennan

this guy plasters this all over the internet to increase his searchability...

I will work on this, although I think he appears to be a real person of some notability. However, the article needs to be fixed up, which I started to do just now. -- SCZenz 20:18, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Guards against editor bias?

I'm not exactly a new user, I've been on the site for a few months, but compared to some I guess i qualify as new.. I was wondering if there are any guards against editor bias. In many instances I've noticed some editors leaving quite rude and completely uncalled for comments to other users, making accusations against other editors, making claims about articles that are somewhat unsubstantiated, disregarding some information in an article while ignoring comments on discussion pages in favor of articles by other editors, and having generally peurile behavior. This is not a single, isolated case, by any means. Many editors seem to abuse their power and become arrogant, or biased against things they simply do not like. Is there any way to help cut this down? Could anything like that be started for Wikipedia? Not only do we have to guard against vandalism from clowns outside of the system, but we should have a way to guard against malicious editors, which is sad, but true. Flypanam 00:13, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

While some amount of bias is inevitable, Wikipedia:Neutral point of view is one of the strongest held policies. Personal attacks are a violation of Wikipedia:No personal attacks. Gently reminding editors of the Wikipedia:Etiquette guidelines sometimes may help. In extreme cases, a Wikipedia:Requests for comment can be filed because of user conduct that violates policies or guidelines. -- Rick Block (talk) 03:58, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Heavy Handed Administrators???

I'm newish to Wikipedia, and am gradually learning the ropes and protocols. I understand the concerns about spam and valid information, and applaud these. But today, I added a paragraph to the Stalking article that was a paraphrase of information I found on a well respected stalking information site. The paragraph was promptly deleted by an administrator, with the accusation that I was spamming the article with info from my own website. *The reference was not my site* (although I have used some of the information from the same site on a site of mine--which is a .org site). It is also not a commercial site. So, why is this spamming? To me, it seems like "vandalism" on the part of the administrator. I put the paragraph back, then it was promptly deleted again.

I let it go, but would appreciate it if someone could fill me in on this. I certainly don't want to pick any fights with administrators, and I want to respect the communicty rules, but it seems as if some Admins will abuse their power. Thanks!!Aine63 23:56, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Administrators have no more authority over content disputes than anyone else. You can either contact the administrators (and I see there were two involved) directly on their talk pages to discuss the changes you made to the article or add a note to the article's talk page about it. Any time anyone challenges anything you do, if you disagree the first step is to talk with whoever it is. Administrators have a few extra technical capabilities related to keeping the site running, but are otherwise no different than any other experienced editor (for example, they are volunteers just like you). -- Rick Block (talk) 02:56, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
Remember that admins are often trying to monitor many pages at once and can make mistakes. BrokenSegue 03:06, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the information. I did place a comment on one of their talk pages but it was deleted promptly without comment. (Guess some admins don't like to discuss their mistakes.) (Aine63)

Your comment was added on the user page, not the talk page. And I see from the history of your talk page that you were contacted, you responded, and you then deleted the comment and your response 10 minutes later. Assuming you actually want to resolve this issue, please discuss it using talk pages (see Wikipedia:Etiquette). -- Rick Block (talk) 16:14, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Nope, I meant I placed the comment on the administrator's talk page as I didn't think he would look again at my talk page. He deleted it from his page. (Then i chose to just to let the issue go, but ask about it here for future reference.) In future, I will use the article talk page for such issues. Thanks again for your input. :)

[edit] Bermuda link under Famous People - Clarence Hill - Olympic Medalist

My husband and I were browsing this site when we came across Clarence Hill. When you click on the link, the information that initially comes up is about an American Convicted Murderer. This must be changed. We have seen some small print that allows you to click on to the correct information about this Olympic Medalist; however, this negative information about another Clarence Hill is not appropriate for a man of this stature. We request that it be changed as soon as possible.

I've fixed this. -- Rick Block (talk) 02:45, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Images used on this page

Like the "Templates used on this page" section that appears in the end of the page during edits and lists all the templates that were used in this page even if they were removed or deleted, an "Images used on this page" would also be useful with a similar function. The main reason is that many images are being removed from an article in order to be replaced by better ones, and because there's no categorisation of images, it is really hard to find them again without seraching again in the page history.. CG 04:52, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Note that such a list would only show you the images used in the current version, as that is what the template list shows -- caching issues aside. You would still need to search the history to find images that have been replaced by other ones. Given that, do you still think this would be useful? DES (talk) 20:59, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Writing in the Wrong Direction

I don't know who to inform so I'm writing here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/99_Names_of_God

Please check out the site above – the 99 Names of God. The Arabic is written backwards. It’s difficult to read. Arabic is written from right to left - - NOT left to right.

Roman Alphabet is written left to right. If I were to write the following sentence backwards the way the Arabic is written in your article, you would find it difficult and annoying and stupid to read.

siht si ton eht yaw ot etirw hsilgnE

This is not the way to write English —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.113.221.106 (talk • contribs)

If you have the capabilities on your computer, feel free to edit them so they are written correctly. Be bold! --nihon 16:40, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sandbox

Has anybody else noticed that, among the interlanguage links on the Wikipedia:Sandbox page, the Hebrew and Finnish links are not to the testing page but rather to Sandbox? Pretty weird, huh? The correct link for the Finnish one should be Wikipedia:Sandbox, not Sandbox, and for Hebrew it should be Wikipedia:Sandbox instead of Sandbox. I can't figure out how to change the links myself, so... Just a thought! СПУТНИКССС Р 00:08, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

I may have fixed it, I may not have. I'll have to wait and see. Well spotted, anyway.--Cherry blossom tree 15:02, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, it looks fixed to me. Thank you! СПУТНИКССС Р 00:22, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] right to information act

how far is the right to information Act useful? when there is redtapism and corruption in government and officials what is the use? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sandeept 61 (talk • contribs)

You would be looking for the reference desk, where you will probably be told to do your own homework.--Cherry blossom tree 14:53, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] How to add to Special Search

I want my written articles to be foung when somebody searches in Special search page or mozila firefox's search box. Those are currently being seached useing the left pane search box and that box just throws the control to the desired page and doesn't show a list of matching pages.

please check using search for chadhar or sheikhan Abulfazl 11:38, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

The search function is currently a bit behind real time, possibly a few weeks, I'm not sure. So only articles created before it was last updated will show up. I'm sure another update will be forthcoming.--Cherry blossom tree 14:51, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
The search function always operates on a cached version, for performnance reasons. When the cache is next updated new articles will be included. DES (talk) 18:16, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Plagiarism

I have recently removed material plagiarized verbatim from a website into a Wikipedia article, but I would like to know the official policy on how to handle this, if there is one. See William Burt. Jeeb 17:49, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Copyright Problems for the full policy. The short version is that if you can revert to an alternate version then do so (which you did, so well done there.) If not then the page must be replaced with a copyright violation notice per the instructions on that page. Hope this helps. --Cherry blossom tree 18:08, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
There is indeed. See Wikipedia:Copyright for more details. If the materiel is in fact plagerized (as opposed to a proper cited quotation) it should be removed and a note left on the relevant talk page. If the entire article is plagerized, use {{copyvio}} which takes a parameter giving the URL or other source, and list the article on our copyright problems page. You can also warn the user with {{nothanks}} on that user's talk page. I hope this is helpful. DES (talk) 18:13, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
Yes that's helpful thanks. By "relevant talk page" do you mean the talk page of the user who did the plagiarism or that of article that was plagiarized? Jeeb 03:32, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
I mostly meant the article talk page, to show what content has been removed and why. However, a note to the user, expalining why his edit was a poor idea, and perhaps linking to some of the policy pages above, particualrly Wikipedia:Copyright, is often a good idea also. {{nothanks}} is intended for the common case where an entire article is a copyvio, but a minor modification of this (subst and then edit) might do the job, or feel free to write a msg without using a template. DES (talk) 21:03, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 2 things suggested - "Special:Log/Create", User Contributions Search

1. Special:Log/Create would be helpful in finding newly created articles from the newest, to older ones down the list.

2. Search for a specific contribution of that specific user. For example, on my User Contributions Page, I'd like for there to be a search bar, so if I type in "McDonald's", I could pull up anything McDonald's related that I made contributions to. Same for everyone else- put a search bar on everyone else's contribution page that anyone could happen by, so we could search for specific contributions that user made.

(Hopefully, you understood #2, didn't you?)

They would help a LOT, and get things done on the site faster due to the reduced sifting time as a result of these features.

--Shultz 23:30, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

For your first request, use Special:Newpages. That lists new articles for as far back as the info is kept on the servers. For the secod, just generarte the contributions page and use your browser's built in search of the results. DES (talk) 23:42, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
The Control+F feature only searches for the text on the first page. I have many pages' worth of contributions, so looking through page after page is still undue sifting. The search feature I proposed wouldn't have such delaying constraints because it would search through the entire history of my edits, not just the edits of the contributions page I am on. --Shultz 23:52, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
You can genrate a page that shows up to 5000 contributions at once. this is not the default, but see this link. Do you think that won't be sufficient? DES (talk) 00:09, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Deletion of Articles

Why is it that the same few names show up deleting articles...are there a few people with a lot of time on their hands, and not a particularly vast spectrum of information and or perhaps even immature rancor or more precisely a pejudicial lack of knowledge, allowed to pass their time in this manner? And seeing that they are the same names showing up again and again...who validates them for deleting articles, if their actions seem to be habitual?—Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.81.224.212 (talk • contribs)

As the only people who can delete articles are those with administrator privileges, it's very unlikely they are deleting articles for the reasons you give. Generally, the only articles that are deleted are those that fall outside of the scope of Wikipedia as defined on Wikipedia:Deletion policy. Unless the article is in blatant violation of the rules and guidelines of Wikipedia, the article will always be put up on the Wikipedia:Articles for deletion page, where it's discussed for at least 5 days. If, after those 5 days, no legitimate reason for keeping the article is given, the article will then be deleted. This process is covered in a little more detail on the Wikipedia:Deletion process page. Hope that helps. --nihon 19:46, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cross-subsection referencing

Can a subsection of an article be referred to as the 'main article' in the header of a subsection of another article, which deals with a particular aspect of the topic explained in the 'main article'? If so, there seems to be now way using curly brackets { } to have a typographically clean link — it will either show a hash sign # or squarred brackets [ ].

E.g. form the article Aniconism, subsection Byzantine Iconoclasm:

The following

{{main|Iconoclasm#Byzantine_iconoclasm}}
{{main|[[Iconoclasm#Byzantine_iconoclasm|Byzantine iconoclasm]]}}.

shows up as:

Main article: Iconoclasm#Byzantine_iconoclasm
Main article: [[Byzantine iconoclasm|Byzantine iconoclasm]]


A heavy handed way around is this:

:''Main article: [[Iconoclasm#Byzantine_iconoclasm|Byzantine iconoclasm]]''

producing this:

Main article: Byzantine iconoclasm


/ Abjad 15:18, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Some admin left a lasting scar when he AFD'd Dechronification on the basis of...

...a Google result that Wikipedians say does -not- determine notability. I was told that the # of hits on Google doesn't determine Notability, so why did he base his AFD off of it?

1: How do admins "know" if a remade article had an AFD? In the WP:CVU IRC chat room, does a notice say: "Restoration of AFD'd article: name of article." or something like that? How are they able to tell so fast?

2: Maybe because I was such a noob back in the day, doing noob things, the voters were probably inclined to delete the article I didn't even make(user who started it was Kirby-- something.) likely in order to make me feel worse, or other trollsome motives towards noobs.

3: Who knows if that admin bribed them to delete it?

4: I have Asperger's Syndrome (no, I don't intend on adding the Aspie userbox to my userpage anytime soon), so I do not have good persuasive skills in the WP:Deletion Review to get users to agree to let me restore it.

5: How much must I bribe the admins to let me restore Dechronification again?

That particular admin comes from the former Communist Bloc, so his occupation at those times were probably not the kindest the world had to offer. If he was the way he was, what could an Admin be like that hails from the former North Korea once their peninsula is reunified?? He'd probably make the admin I've been talking about look like a grief counselor.

Please answer my questions. Thanks. --Shultz 05:07, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

The article was deleted the first time round because it was deemed not to be notable enough to merit inclusion within Wikipedia. Few google hits do not equal lack of notability, but they can be taken as an indication. If dechronification was notable enough, the theory goes, lots of people would have written about it and these writings would show up on google. The second deletion was because the recreation of (substantially) identical content to what's already been deleted qualifies for speedy deletion. I doubt WP:DRV would undelete the article anyway regardless of how you argue it. If you really want to include this in Wikipedia then your best bet would be to incorporate it in the Robert Freitas article. Hope this helps. --Cherry blossom tree 13:51, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WYSIWYG option for editing on Wikipedia, please.

Don't you think it would help many, many, many users edit on Wikipedia when we can toggle between the current default option, and a WYSIWYG option? Lives would be made easier for users who aren't as well versed in wiki-markup. There are many teens, and even some children that use Wikipedia, and for their time being, WYSIWYG would help a lot.

WYSIWYG would also benefit those who do not have much time to themselves. Instead of manually typing wiki-markups, they could highlight and select the intended formatting. It's no doubt that this option would save us a lot of time.

Therefore, why don't we have WYSIWYG yet and what will it take for Wikipedia to include this feature? --Shultz 05:14, 12 February 2006 (UTC)


There are some MediaWiki mods that employ a WYSIWYG editor yet I'm not sure on the stability. For bold / italic / links the current buttons work ok it's the tables that I can critically see a need for an editor, I still haven't figured out the tables and I've been on Wikipedia (on various accounts) for over a year! Tawker 05:17, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

First note that I resent you implying that teens and children would require this to edit WP, it's rather adultist. Anyway, I agree, it would be pretty cool. Could be a bit stressful for the servers though. Tawker: If vBulletin is any example, WYSIWYG doesn't do tables. --Rory096 05:20, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
Whoa there. I like kids, so I don't try to be oppressively adultist. I implied that it would be easier for teens and children to edit with WYSIWYG. Teens and children would by no means be required to use this feature. If they want to try to edit the original way, they can certainly feel free. --Shultz 07:16, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
I didn't mean it like that, what I'm saying is that adults would be just as likely to use it anyway, so there's really no reason to point out that teens and kids would use it. Rory096 19:18, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
Now, what will it take to get the Devs to bring this feature onto Wikipedia? --Shultz 07:16, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
I think I remember a developer (Tim Starling maybe) saying that it was really hard (or impossible) to have WYSIWYG. I can't find where he said it unfortunately. I think the problem could be parsing the result, maybe becasue it would be browser specific or something cripling like that. Anyway, the place to request something like this is bugzilla (as a feature request). Make sure you seach first though, maybe it has been requested before.--Commander Keane 06:59, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Alphabetizing on search pages

I presume that these are called "search" pages, but whatever they are called, it is simply un-navigatable.

For example: go to the special page: list users

even if you change it to 500 per page, it would take this side of forever to get to "j", for example. This applies to any page that is simply a long alphabetized list. Adding a clickable alphabet at the top to at least get you that far would be GREAT. --jc37

Yeah, I see what you mean. You can get around it by using a typing http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Listusers&limit=500&offset=500 in to your address bar and then altering 'offset=500' to your taste. For example http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Listusers&limit=500&offset=100000 should show you 500 users starting at number starting at 100001 (or User:BitVypr, who has never edited.) It's not a very elegant solution but it works.

[edit] Transferring images between various languaged wikipedias

There should be a good way to transfer images, for example, between en.wikipedia and de.wikipedia. I think most licenses (public domain, GFDL, ...?) don't make any restrictions that would prevent this.

For example, it'd be nice to use an image from de.wikpedia in an article on en.wikipedia using something like "en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Helmut_Muller.jpg?source=DE"

This way, once an image were "in the system" under a compatible license, users wouldn't need to worry about translating the copyright explanation and reuploading the image. --Johnruble 20:36, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

If the image is under a free license just move it to Wikimedia Commons. Once there you can use it in articles with standard image syntax as if it were stored in your local wikipedia ([[Image:photo.png]] etc.) -- Rune Welsh | ταλκ 20:55, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Shia

I think that we should have an article called true shia...it would be about shias...from many different shia points of views...that way the people can see what shias really believe because the shias themselves made it. Please accept this offer and let me know on my wikipedia account which is : sweetlittlebrat98 Thanks

Each article in Wikipedia should be written from a neutral point of view - that is, not endorsing the views of supporters or critics of a particular viewpoint. Shias are, of course, very welcome to edit any of our articles, and if you feel our article on Shia is misrepresentative, please discuss it on its talk page, or even edit it yourself - but we don't have articles which present only one viewpoint on a topic. Warofdreams talk 22:04, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Highlighting of terms in articles

Apologies if this has been covered elsewhere. I find the continual highlighting of terms in articles offputting and bad for reading. Would it be relatively easy to include an on/off button on each page to get round this ?

Do you mean highlighting like linking (like This?) — Ilyanep (Talk) 22:48, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Exactly that, yes.

If you sign up for an account you can set an option in your preferences so that the links are not underlined. If you're feeling more adventurous then you could also edit the css file that comes with your account to make them even less obtrusive, but you might have to ask at the Help Desk for tips if that sounds too complex. --Cherry blossom tree 23:30, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

hello this is very interesting ..in other words ..anyone can edit or add new information to this "encyclopedia" what if it is someone who is just bent on spreading misinformation for whatever reason..how do wo know anything in this format is fact check ..or just plain intrue? I am not trying to be insulting to Wikipedia, just curious? Irene Chaffee @

See WIkipedia:Replies to common objections which covers your questions.--Cherry blossom tree 08:33, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] logo

Why is "the internet's encyclopedia" so protective of it's logo? Put it JPG format, man (globe in upper left hand). It's impossible to share your logo, when promoting the site. Sharing an encyclopedia that depends upon user interaction, should be easier then sharing neud photos of Demi Moore- heard of the image tag????

The logo is here: Image:Wikipedia-logo-en.png. Doing a little search never hurt anyone. -- Rune Welsh | ταλκ 13:01, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sugar

In the article about Jule Styne there is a link to a page about a show called "Sugar" but the sugar article it links to is about the sweetener. Moreover, this forum seems to be the only readily apparent way to address such a problem.

I've changed it so it doesn't. For other ways to address such problems see the Help Desk, Village Pump, the article's Talk page or most drastically, editing it yourself. --Cherry blossom tree 10:47, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Content in 'Hindi'

Hi,

The content in Hindi across articles has a lot of spelling errors, better proof reading could help.

Thanks.

Thank you for your suggestion. When you feel an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the Edit this page link at the top. The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes — they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons why you might want to). Warofdreams talk 21:59, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
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