User:Timeshifter/Archive 1

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This is Archive 1 for User:Timeshifter.

Note: Some of the info on this archive page is out-of-date.

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Just another guy with a PC. The PC is mightier than the sword! Well... sometimes. :)

My Wikimedia commons user page is at commons:User:Timeshifter.

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship is an important page to put on your watchlist.

Partisan admins can cause a lot of problems.

Contents

[edit] The Wikipedia Signpost
Wikipedia policy
Article standards
Neutral point of view
Verifiability
No original research
Biographies of living persons
Working with others
Civility
Consensus
No personal attacks
Dispute resolution
No legal threats
Global principles
What Wikipedia is not
Ignore all rules
Kindness Campaign This user is a member of the Kindness Campaign.
CSB This user is a member of the Wikiproject Countering Systemic Bias

I am also a member of these WikiProjects:

This user is a member of WikiProject Userboxes.
This user is a participant of WikiProject Lists
This user is a member of AWWDMBJAWGCA
WAIFDSPBATDMTD.

[edit] Map resources

The overall category for working on maps is Category:Wikipedia maps. For categorized maps themselves see Category:Maps.

[–] Wikipedia maps
[+] Coordinates templates
[+] Wikipedia geographic imagemaps
[+] WikiProject Geographical coordinates
[+] Geolinks templates
[+] Wikipedia requested maps
[+] Mapping templates
[+] User-created maps


Please see commons:Category:Maps for even more map resources, and many more categorized maps.

Wikipedia needs more public domain, or free-license, maps. If you find some suitable maps, please pass them on to others by uploading them to the wikimedia commons. Use Commons:Upload. Don't forget to add a copyright tag: Commons:Copyright tags#United States.

Map resources:

Maps can also be found with Google searches. Some of the maps may be in the public domain. Example of Google image search for maps:

[edit] Iraq War casualty photos

Please see Casualties of the Iraq War. Here are some image categories linked below. There are very few photos on wikipedia, or on U.S.-military-associated websites, that show badly wounded Iraqis, Americans, etc..

People need to see some images showing some of the harrowing Iraqi casualties of the war. I can't find any good ones on wikipedia. I mean photos such as the ones I found recently here:

I found those photo pages while browsing around looking for some more images for Casualties of the conflict in Iraq since 2003. Here is a non-bloody photo below, Image:VS-1.6 anti-tank mine.jpg, that is harrowing nevertheless:

Staff Sgt. Kevin Jessen checks the underside of two anti-tank mines found in a village outside Ad Dujayl, Iraq.
Staff Sgt. Kevin Jessen checks the underside of two anti-tank mines found in a village outside Ad Dujayl, Iraq.

Wikipedia is not censored. See WP:NOTCENSORED. So we can put almost any casualty image we want on wikipedia. Let us show the reality of war with some bloody photos of casualties from all sides.

I have been showing the images in this section at the 300-pixel-wide size of the infoboxes in many articles.

Here is about the rawest image I could find on wikipedia so far: Image:Army.mil-2007-03-27-114351.jpg.

A soldier carries a wounded Iraqi child into the Charlie Medical Centre at Camp Ramadi, Iraq, on March 20, 2007.
A soldier carries a wounded Iraqi child into the Charlie Medical Centre at Camp Ramadi, Iraq, on March 20, 2007.

Please encourage people to upload more casualty photos.

There is a disturbing May 2007 New York Times slideshow of American casualties after an IED bombing. It is linked from the story here:

Casualty photos:

[edit] Barnstars

These were copied from my user talk page, and its archives. The latest one is on top.

The Working Man's Barnstar
For your work on compiling detailed maps, free images, and in your efforts in categorization. Tiamut 20:24, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
The Barnstar of Diligence
For your efforts at organizing regional maps in the commons and your patience in explaining those efforts Tiamut 22:32, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar
For remaining cool and encouraging others to do so, while retaining editorial integrity and passionately advocating for the truth (all POVs) to be presented :) Tiamut 10:51, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
The Barnstar of Diligence
For diligence on the Iraq War subtitle debate and for helping solve a very tough issue. Also, nice work on keeping everyone (myself included) honest on the various casualties sections. Nicely done. Publicus 21:10, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Lists and charts.

Quotes from guidelines and policies may become out of date as they are revised. Please go to the sources for the latest versions.

[edit] Lists, charts. Conflicting notability guidelines

Quote below from WP:NOT#DIR policy:

Of course, there is nothing wrong with having lists if their entries are famous because they are associated with or significantly contributed to the list topic, for example Nixon's Enemies List. Wikipedia also includes reference tables and tabular information for quick reference. This site search, and this one, pull up thousands of examples of lists and comparison tables. Merged groups of small articles based on a core topic are certainly permitted.

Quote below from Wikipedia:Notability guideline:

Notability guidelines give guidance on whether a topic is notable enough to be included in Wikipedia as a separate article, but do not specifically regulate the content of articles, which is governed by other guidelines such as those on using reliable sources and on handling trivia. The particular topics and facts within an article are not each required to meet the standard of the notability guidelines. List articles, though, should include only notable entries; for example, only notable writers should be in List of English writers.

The last sentence in the above quote was probably tacked on later as a not-well-thought-out quick and temporary solution to some problem articles.

Some thoughtful discussion is archived here:

There has probably been a lot more discussion since then. I haven't been keeping up with it.

[edit] Lists, charts. Wikipedia guidelines and policies.

Wikipedia:WikiProject Lists

This user is a participant of WikiProject Lists

Please watchlist this page linked just below, and vote to keep worthy lists and charts:

Lists of lists.

This site search, and this one, pull up thousands of examples of wikipedia lists and comparison tables.

Templates.

Relevant guideline/policy pages.

[edit] Lists and charts. Problems

Humor: Wikipedia:Don't be a fanatic and Wikipedia:Don't-give-a-fuckism and Wikipedia:No angry mastodons

The battle between good (inclusionists in general) and evil (deletionists in general) continues!

 ;)
See: Category:Wikipedians by Wikipedia philosophy
See: Conflicting Wikipedia philosophies
This user is a member of AWWDMBJAWGCA
WAIFDSPBATDMTD.

Imagine if someone, or a whole blanking crew, parachuted into a wikipedia article you and others had spent many hours, days, months, or years working on, and then stated that some misinterpreted, out-of-context, wikipedia guideline/policy allowed them to delete large parts of the article and/or source links. Usually it is a sleep-deprived editor, or crew of editors, on some kind of "mission from god". Don't just get mad, get the facts!


[edit] Lists and charts. Pragmatic solutions

My thoughts after much study of the wikipedia guidelines/policies quoted on my user page here. Many lists inevitability become long enough to require some weeding out of some of the entries. In that case the page editors often have to make some rules as to which entries are allowed on the list/chart page. Another alternative is to break up the lists/charts and to create spinout articles.

From Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies) guideline:

"Notable means 'worthy of being noted' or 'attracting notice.' It is not synonymous with 'fame' or 'importance.' Please consider notable and demonstrable effects on culture, society, entertainment, athletics, economies, history, literature, science, or education."

In the specialized world of software, freeware, shareware, open-source, etc. I believe that we can reference the online publications noted by that community. The lists and reviews maintained by CNET, for example.

So notability comes from CNET, etc., and all the other types of secondary sources. Features are verified by using the primary sources. So, many of the entries may have both secondary and primary sources. Lists without features, notes, and annotation are just directories, and are not allowed on wikipedia unless all the entries have separate wikipedia articles. In that case they are covered by Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and series boxes. I think this is where the blanking crews get confused. They are applying unannotated list guidelines to annotated lists/charts.

There is NO requirement that an entry has to have a separate wikipedia page. It would be nice if eventually more and more of the entries could have them. But they don't usually start that way. Even lists and charts that now meet featured-article status had to start somewhere.

It is far more important that readers be able to access the primary source for verifying features, than it is to meet the imagined "linkfarm" standards of uninformed blanking crews on a spam mission from God. So for entries without separate wikipedia pages there need to be primary source links.

Concerning the determination of notability of software there is this from the Wikipedia:Reliable sources guideline (emphasis added):

What is a reliable source? Reliable sources are credible published materials with a reliable publication process; their authors are generally regarded as trustworthy, or are authoritative in relation to the subject at hand.
The reliability of a source depends on context; what is reliable in one topic may not be in another. A publication by a world-renowned mathematician may not be a reliable source on topics of biology. In general, an article should use the most reliable sources available to its editors.

In the case of software, that would be the many download compilation sites such as CNET, etc. that maintain software lists, reviews, etc..

{{Not verified}}

The above template may show up on the list or chart page you are editing if some misguided editor deleted or hid all the source/citation links. In fact, the same editor, or his/her crew, may add the banner, or ask that entries without sourcing or separate wikipedia articles be deleted. Lists and charts need verifiable sourcing just as all wikipedia articles do.

The editors of many list and chart pages seem to have arrived at similar pragmatic solutions to sourcing. They use embedded inline source links for entries without separate wikipedia articles. See Wikipedia:Embedded citations.

This way there is no duplication of links back to a website. Thus the appearance of spam linking is avoided. The hallmark of spam linking is multiple links from wikipedia back to a website. There is only one link allowed with this pragmatic sourcing solution. It shortens dialup user load times too. Because a long list of embedded URLs can take longer to load. In some lists where many of the entries have separate wikipedia articles, there are few embedded inline source links needed. Because the source links are in the separate wikipedia articles for the entries.

Footnoted links are fine too for entries that don't have their own wikipedia page. See Wikipedia:Footnotes.

[edit] Lists, charts. Relevant quotes.

Emphasis added to quotes below

Quote from m:External links Wikimedia Meta-Wiki essay:

Supporting references or footnotes need not be kept to a minimum, but they should be separated from other external links.

Quote from Wikipedia:External links#What should be linked guideline:

What should be linked. Articles about any organization, person, web site, or other entity should link to the official site if any.

Quote below from WP:Vandalism#Types of vandalism policy:

Blanking
Removing all or significant parts of pages, or replacing entire established pages with one's own version without first gaining consensus. Sometimes important verifiable references are deleted with no valid reason(s) given in the summary. However, significant content removals are usually not considered to be vandalism where the reason for the removal of the content is readily apparent by examination of the content itself, or where a non-frivolous explanation for the removal of apparently legitimate content is provided, linked to, or referenced in an edit summary. An example of blanking edits that could be legitimate would be edits that blank all or part of a biography of a living person. Wikipedia is especially concerned about providing accurate and non-biased information on the living, and this may be an effort to remove inaccurate or biased material. Due to the possibility of unexplained good-faith content removal, {{uw-test1}} or {{uw-delete1}}, as appropriate, should normally be used as initial warnings for ordinary content removals not involving any circumstances that would merit stronger warnings.

[edit] Lists, charts. More on notability.

There are conflicting guidelines on notability of items in lists and charts. But common sense allows article editors to reach a balance. It is obvious that some lists such as List of English writers could not include all writers. Wikipedia editors alone number in the millions! It is equally obvious to many that technology and software lists should include more than just the big corporate products. Some lists even have separate sections for freeware, shareware, and/or open source.

All 3 of those forms of software are notable in themselves. The topic of the lists are notable. Basic WP:NPOV encyclopedic fairness requires some balancing by the article editors for any list. There has to be a balance between corporate and non-corporate entries on lists. There have to be decisions made as to notability in the community of freeware/shareware/open-source -- versus notability in the corporate press where previous ad money often talks in getting press and reviews. Decisions need to be made as to the number of users using a program, product, or entry. Sometimes long lists may require limiting list/chart entries to certain thresholds of number of users for each category. Also, decisions as to whether an entry is fading into disuse, and therefore unworthy of taking up an entry slot if a list or chart is already long.

So, editors should not just parachute into a talk page, make a few muddied wikipedia guideline/policy declarations, and then delete/blank large parts of the articles, entries, or sources/citations. All without participating in the long consensus process that preceded them on the talk page. There is no rush.

Emphasis added to quotes below.

Quote from Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines policy:

Avoid bias. Articles should be written from a neutral point of view, representing views fairly, proportionately and without bias.

Various quotes below from Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies) guideline:

Notable means "worthy of being noted" or "attracting notice". It is not synonymous with "fame" or "importance". Please consider notable and demonstrable effects on culture, society, entertainment, athletics, economies, history, literature, science, or education. Large organizations are likely to have more readily available verifiable information from reliable sources that provide evidence of notability; however, smaller organizations can be notable, just as individuals can be notable, and arbitrary standards should not be used to create a bias favoring larger organizations. ...
Individual chapters of national and international organizations are usually not notable enough to warrant a separate article unless sufficient notability is established through reliable sources. However, chapter information is welcome for inclusion into wikipedia in list articles as long as only verifiable information is included. ...
If the product or service is notable, it can be broken out into its own article. If it is not notable, it should not be broken out into its own article but should have whatever verifiable information about it that exists presented within an article that has a broader scope, such as an article that deals with all of the company's products and services.
If a non-notable product or service has been written about in its own article, be bold and rename, refactor, or merge the article into an article with a broader scope, such as the company's article, creating it if necessary.

[edit] Lists and sourcing.

Emphasis added to quotes below.

Quote below from Wikipedia:Verifiability policy:

The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. "Verifiable" in this context means that any reader should be able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source. Editors should provide a reliable source for quotations and for any material that is challenged or is likely to be challenged, or it may be removed.

Quote below from Wikipedia:Footnotes guideline:

Wikipedia:Verifiability, a key content policy, says that any uncited information may be removed from an article - and if it is, the burden of proof is on the editor who wishes to re-add the information, to back it up with a citation.
Footnotes are one way to cite sources. Alternative methods are embedded citations and Harvard referencing (also commonly known as author-date or parenthetical referencing). For more information, see Wikipedia:Citing sources, the main style guide on citations.

Quote below from Wikipedia:Citing sources guideline:

Any material that is challenged and for which no source is provided may be removed by any editor.

Quote below from Wikipedia:No original research#Primary, secondary, and tertiary sources policy:

Primary sources are documents or people very close to the situation being written about. An eyewitness account of a traffic accident is a primary source. United Nations Security Council resolutions are primary sources. Primary sources that have been published by a reliable source may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it's easy to misuse them. For that reason, anyone—without specialist knowledge—who reads the primary source should be able to verify that the Wikipedia passage agrees with the primary source. Any interpretation of primary source material requires a secondary source.
Examples of primary sources include archeological artifacts; photographs; newspaper accounts which contain first-hand material, rather than analysis or commentary of other material; historical documents such as diaries, census results, video or transcripts of surveillance, public hearings, trials, or interviews; tabulated results of surveys or questionnaires; written or recorded notes of laboratory and field experiments or observations; and artistic and fictional works such as poems, scripts, screenplays, novels, motion pictures, videos, and television programs.

Quote below from Wikipedia:Verifiability policy:

Material from self-published sources and sources of questionable reliability may be used in articles about themselves, so long as:
  • it is relevant to their notability;
  • it is not contentious;
  • it is not unduly self-serving;
  • it does not involve claims about third parties;
  • it does not involve claims about events not directly related to the subject;
  • there is no reasonable doubt as to who wrote it.

Reference, note, and footnote methods vary widely. Here are some articles others suggested I look at:

Note that the detail varies greatly in the various end sections. Also note the 2 different types of footnote coding.

See also: Template:Summary of casualties of the 2003 invasion of Iraq - It uses the ref/note method so as not to conflict with the referencing used in the article pages into which it is transcluded. See Wikipedia:Footnote3 for more info on this system of referencing.

[edit] Labeling of embedded inline citation links.

A relevant guideline concerning labeling of inline citation links. Emphasis added to quotes below.

Quote below from Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links)#Link titles:

You should not add a descriptive title to an embedded HTML link within an article. Instead, when giving an embedded link as a source within an article, simply enclose the URL in square brackets, like this. [10]

It is OK, though, to label links in the end sections of articles.

Quote below from the same section:

However, you should add a descriptive title when an external link is offered in the References, Further reading, or External links section.

[edit] Impolite spam fighters

I have thousands of edits on wikipedia. I am not a newbie. So I know a little about wikipedia guidelines and policies. Yet spam fighters even insult me when I question their treatment of newbies.

There seems to be a subculture at the spam-fighting notice boards that allows, and even promotes, this abuse. It is another systemic bias at wikipedia.

Many spam fighters communicate poorly with newbies. Wikipedia guidelines and policies still apply when talking with newbies. I am specifically talking about WP:BITE and WP:STALK. The way some spam fighters hound newbies who are following the wikipedia injunction to click the edit button and be bold is unseemly. Calling someone a spammer is an insult and thus it is a violation of WP:CIVIL.

The correct thing to say is that they are breaking the conflict of interest guideline WP:COI, and that they should suggest links on the talk page, and not add them themselves if there is a conflict of interest. At no point during initial communications with them should someone call them a spammer. In the real world that is an insult. If after initial communications they continue to add links in violation of COI, then they can be called a spammer because they now know the WP:COI rule.

I suggest a paragraph or 2 on the spam-fighter notice boards explaining these rules of basic civility and politeness. Newbie spam fighters follow the example of admins, and more-experienced spam fighters, and the instructions given them all. Are there any instructions on politeness on the spam-fighter notice boards?

[edit] Spam-fighting fanatics support Microsoft and big commercial interests

Note: This may be of interest too: Portal:Free software.

The following is revised from a reply I wrote to someone.

In reply to your comment on my talk page, I do not want to get back in this fight. I suggest taking it up at Wikipedia:Lists. That is the guideline page. I had some old info on my user page. It is out of date. It is now archived at User:Timeshifter/Archive 1.

I believe that some spam fighters go well beyond the spam guidelines and are extremely destructive to wikipedia. Some admins too. They have destroyed many longstanding pages on wikipedia. Also, the list guidelines change periodically, and are subject to various (sometimes twisted) interpretations.

My solution for most spam is to eliminate the right of anonymous users to add links to external link sections of articles. That would eliminate most of the spam links that are being added. See my discussion at

I don't consider links for list entries to be spam. This is a fundamental difference I have with some spam fighters. If the list entry is allowed then so is the link for it. A single link on wikipedia is not spam. Spam fanatics think that even a single link on a list is spam. It is totally illogical, and many of them can't be reasoned with. Some admins support this illogical thinking, and so unless you can find admins who understand the progressive versions of Wikipedia:Lists (before they get changed back to the regressive versions), then you will make little progress.

I believe that some spam-fighting fanatics are near-psychotic. This is not a personal attack. It is a generalization. Feel free to copy this anywhere. I can't promise to waste time defending it, though. Good luck. You'll need it. It could sour you completely on wikipedia. Spam fanatics are some of the most destructive things on wikipedia, and they frequently get away with insulting many people. They probably do more harm to wikipedia's image in many readers' minds than anything else.

Some spam-fighters constantly confuse notability for the topic of an article with the need for reliable sourcing for the entries in a notable list. This subtlety eludes them. See my archived user page, User:Timeshifter/Archive 1, for more info from wikipedia guidelines. If the topic of a software or other computing-related list is notable, then one can add entries to the list if those entries are within the umbrella of what the list covers. Each entry on the list does not have to meet the notability standard just as many facts in an encylopedia article do not have to meet the notability standard. They meet reliable sourcing standards, and primary sourcing counts as reliable sourcing for non-controversial facts such as whether something exists or not.

The list topic is notable. The facts meet reliable sourcing standards. Primary sourcing counts for something as non-controversial as whether a piece of software is of a certain type, or if a web host is of a certain type. Otherwise all software lists and web hosting lists would only have big commercial sites, programs, and web hosts. Those that get media coverage. Lots of freeware, web hosts, and open-source software do not get mainstream media coverage, or even smaller media coverage. They might get niche coverage online only.

So, many spam fighters actually end up being agents for big commercial software companies like Microsoft. All just to stop a single link to a web host, or a freeware or open-source software program's home page.

All my comments are in the public domain. They are freeware comments like all of wikipedia text. Copy them anywhere. Edit them there too. Combine them with your thoughts too.

[edit] A nice cup of tea

I wholeheartedly support WP:NPOV. Please join and watchlist some WikiProjects. They help mediate controversial topics, and the more WP:NPOV-oriented members help moderate the more hotheaded members of the various projects. Probably, most editors can get hotheaded at times.

Also, please watchlist and participate in discussions at wikipedia guideline and policy pages. Some editors will try to edit those pages in ways that favor various POVs and methods of editing. Feel free to revert controversial edits added without consensus. These busy pages are the heart of wikipedia and need all the help they can get. Use the page links in the right sidebar at the top of this talk page to get started.

Kindness Campaign This user is a member of the Kindness Campaign.

Here you go. Have a nice cup of tea. :)

Wikipedia:A nice cup of tea and a sit down
A nice cup of tea
A nice cup of tea
CSB This user is a member of the Wikiproject Countering Systemic Bias
WikiProject Countering systemic bias open tasks
This project creates new articles and improves neglected ones.


[edit] Wikipedia:WikiProject Arab-Israeli conflict

Please support this WP:NPOV project.

You can copy the link code below to relevant pages, and to your user pages. Code:

[[Wikipedia:WikiProject Arab-Israeli conflict]]

It produces this link:

Wikipedia:WikiProject Arab-Israeli conflict

You can copy the banner code to the top of relevant article talk pages. Code:

{{WikiProjectNotice|Arab-Israeli conflict}}

See the banner on the talk page for the project, and on the relevant article talk pages.

[edit] Image categories

[edit] Maps

See the Atlas of Palestine at the wikimedia commons. It is an organized and commented collection of geographical, political and historical maps of Palestine and the Palestinian territories.

See also the Atlas of Israel and Category:Maps of Israel and Maps of the history of Israel

The overall wikipedia map index is Category:Maps

The overall wikimedia commons map index is here:

For maps of Palestine before the creation of Israel in 1947-48 please see this category:

For maps of the Palestinian territories after the creation of Israel in 1947-48 please go here:

[edit] Map categories on Wikipedia and the commons.

Note the many map categories and subcategories at English wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Maps

Each of the wikipedia sites in various languages has their own category system. They usually prioritize their categories to mainly include images labeled in the language of that wikipedia. If the images have text on them. So people using English wikipedia categories do not have to wade through the many maps labeled in other languages on the commons. Also, non-English wikipedias use their own language to name their categories. So it is usually easier to find images in the category system set up for each other-language wikipedia.

Most English Wikipedia readers and editors want to click the image they see on Wikipedia, and then immediately see the image categories linked on the local image description page (IDP) that shows up.

Readers see category links on the bottom of article pages. So it is intuitive for readers to look for category links on the bottom of image pages.

That way they get to see English-labeled images first without having to wade through all the other-language images on the commons, especially for map labeling. There are also images in English Wikipedia categories that would not be accepted in the commons. Such as Gif images, fair use images, etc..

From the English Wikipedia category there is often a link to the commons category, too. That is if someone has added that link to the commons category from the Wikipedia category page. The link to the commons category allows readers amd editors to explore more maps as they are added to the commons. Maps labeled in many languages.

If one starts at the commons, the commons page for a particular image does not list the English wikipedia pages on which that image is being used. But if one clicks an image in an English Wikipedia page, one sees the list of English Wikipedia pages using that image.

Without that list of English-language Wikipedia pages using an image it would be very difficult to quickly find and replace a particular image on multiple English-language Wikipedia pages with a better image.

Most English Wikipedia map categories also have links to higher-level English Wikipedia categories, and to English Wikipedia subcategories. It is common for a map image to be in several categories. Maps, for example, often show several nations, territories, etc.. So one can hunt around the various map categories and subcategories to find other maps labeled in English for any nation or territory of interest.

If you are at French wikipedia, the map category names are in French on their local image description page. There are links to the commons categories. This way people have the option to check out more maps at the commons. The commons categories are labeled in English since it is an international resource for many Wikipedia sites in many languages.

The local map category names are in the language of that particular wikipedia. There are many map categories and subcategories at French wikipedia. See the French wikipedia map category names here:

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat%C3%A9gorie:Carte_g%C3%A9ographique
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat%C3%A9gorie:Carte_d%27Asie

[edit] Images in categories

A lot of people do not read English. The commons categories are in English. Also, similar articles and images are categorized differently in the various other-language wikipedias. I read French. They do not have the same category trees as in English wikipedia. There are many reasons for this. There is no universal logical category scheme. There is no quick fix to this naming problem concerning categories in many different languages. The category trees are different in the various languages.

So when people look in a category in their language, they want to see the images for that category, not just the articles. Images are just as important as articles. They want graphics labeled in their language, too, if there is text on the image. Images without text on them still have the problem of the difference in languages for the categories themselves. And finding the correct category in English to look for related images can be impossible for a native French speaker who also speaks fluent English. Because the categorization is oftentimes different in many confusing ways. This confusion has caused many problems that has been discussed many times on commons talk pages.

[edit] Commons images in English wikipedia categories

Commons images are frequently categorized on both commons and wikipedia image description pages. There are several good reasons for this.

The commons image is still stored on commons servers. It is transcluded into the wikipedia image description page.

When one clicks on a commons image as found in an English wikipedia article one is taken to the English wikipedia image description page with the commons image transluded into that page. If someone has added categories to that page, then one can find related articles on English wikipedia.

One can't find the related English articles for a commons image by looking at commons categories.

It is often useful to go up and down image and article category trees on English wikipedia in order to find English articles of interest. With interwiki links to the commons one can even alternate between Wikipedia and commons categories to find many articles and images of interest.

Even though the commons is categorized in English, its categorization can frequently differ from the categorization on English wikipedia. So English wikipedia image categorization is very useful at times.

Many commons graphics images are not labeled in English. Maps, charts, and diagrams for example. Many English wikipedia readers do not want to have to wade through many commons images labeled in other languages. They prefer to look first at English-labeled commons images that have been categorized on English wikipedia category pages.

[edit] More on categories

I have many category help and guideline pages bookmarked on both the commons and wikipedia.

From Wikipedia:Categorization#Categories do not form a tree (emphasis added):

Categories do not form a tree
Wikipedia's category system. Definitely not a tree structure.
Wikipedia's category system. Definitely not a tree structure.
Each Wikipedia article can appear in more than one category, and each category can appear in more than one parent category. Multiple categorization schemes co-exist simultaneously. In other words, categories do not form a strict hierarchy or tree structure, but a more general directed acyclic graph (or close to it; see below).
Nevertheless, parts of the category graph will be tree-like, and it may be convenient to think of parts of the category graph as being like multiple overlapping trees. When applying the guidelines above, consider each tree to be independent of the overlapping trees. A person browsing through a hierarchy should find every article that belongs in that hierarchy. This can lead to a good deal of debate as to what the hierarchies actually are. To clarify the structure of the hierarchy and help people browse through it, you can add a classification to each category. For more about this, see Wikipedia:Classification.

The commons and wikipedia do not base their categories on strict hierarchies like those used for species.

[edit] Spinout articles

This comes up now and then.

See WP:SPINOUT: "Sometimes, when an article gets long, a section of the article is made into its own article, and the handling of the subject in the main article is condensed to a brief summary. This is completely normal Wikipedia procedure; the new article is sometimes called a 'spinout' or 'spinoff' of the main article, see for example wikipedia:summary style, which explains the technique. Even if the subject of the new article is controversial, this does not automatically make the new article a POV fork. However, the moved material must be replaced with an NPOV summary of that material. If it is not, then the 'spinning out' is really a clear act of POV forking: a new article has been created so that the main article can favor some viewpoints over others."

See also: Wikipedia:Summary style.

[edit] Sandboxes.

My personal sandboxes. Please do not use them unless invited. You can look, but don't touch. :)

  • /Sandbox
  • /Sandbox2
  • /Sandbox3
  • /Sandbox4
  • /Sandbox5
  • /Sandbox6
  • /Sandbox7

[edit] Quick links.

Please check out: Wikipedia:Template messages and Category:Wikipedia templates. Those pages can save you a lot of time in finding banner code you can copy and paste. See also Wikipedia:Template messages/User talk namespace.

Here is a good quote to use from the talk page guidelines: "Keep headings neutral: A heading should indicate what the topic is, but not communicate a specific view about it."

A good quote from the "No personal attacks" guidelines: "Abusive edit summaries are particularly ill-regarded."

From the "No personal attacks" guideline is this: "Do not make personal attacks anywhere in Wikipedia. Comment on content, not on the contributor."

Just copy and paste any of the code below into the relevant talk pages for articles and users.

[[Wikipedia:Guidelines for controversial articles]]

[[Wikipedia:Assume good faith]]

[[Wikipedia:Civility]]

[[Wikipedia:Please do not bite the newcomers]]

[[Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines]]

[[Wikipedia:No personal attacks]]

[[Wikipedia:Resolving disputes]]

[[Wikipedia:Wikiquette alerts]]

[[Wikipedia:Third opinion]]

[[Wikipedia:Requests for comment]]

[[Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents]]

[[Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard]]

Here are the working links:

[edit] Link bars for articles and categories

This code is good for finding an old, deleted, or redirected page, talk page, old revisions, old diffs, revision histories, etc..

Copy the code below into any talk or user page. Substitute the old or new article name.

{{Article|ARTICLE NAME}}

Here is an example:

{{Article|Iraq War}}

Iraq War (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

You can also use this code below. "la" must stand for "linkbar article"

{{la|Iraq War}}

Iraq War (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

If you want small-size text use

{{lass|Iraq War}}

Iraq War (edit talk links history logs)

For categories:

{{lc|CATEGORY NAME}}

Here is a linkbar example for ‎Category:Maps of the Palestinian territories

Do not use the "category" word in this code:

{{lc|Maps of the Palestinian territories}}

Category:Maps of the Palestinian territories (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

If you want small text use:

{{lcss|Maps of the Palestinian territories}}

Category:Maps of the Palestinian territories (edit talk links history logs)

[edit] Wikipedians for optional advertisements

Ads are OK if they are optional, and if advertisers have zero power over Wikipedia.

See this category page: Category:Wikipedians for optional advertisements

From http://www.calacanis.com/2006/10/30/wikipedia-advertising-proposal-part-ii-and-i-shouldnt-have-us/ - I like this excerpt:

So, how about this as a suggestion: Wikipedia put up one Google Adsense leaderboard and there is a large link under it that says "Turn off advertising" and users could select if they donated to Wikipedia with their eyeballs or with a cash donation. Heck, you could even have a selection when you first load the site: "I'd like to support the wikipedia by having one, two, or three ads per page."

I think wikipedia is getting swamped. I see frequent server slowdowns, and many areas needing new software programming. I think wikipedia needs more paid staff, programmers, board members etc.. But there are dangers when more money is involved.

To protect against these dangers I think the board should elect itself. I mean that new members should be added to the board whenever a majority of existing members decides to choose a new member to add. A few board members could be elected by users, too. But the board should be able to eject any member of the board by a majority vote of the board.

I hope some good lawyers are found to make sure that wikipedia lasts, and that it can withstand all attacks. So that wikipedia is never taken over and ruined by advertisers, partisan user groups, etc..

[edit] User page

This is a Wikipedia user page.

This is not an encyclopedia article. If you find this page on any site other than Wikipedia, you are viewing a mirror site. Be aware that the page may be outdated and that the user to whom this page belongs may have no personal affiliation with any site other than Wikipedia itself. The original page is located at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Timeshifter/Archive_1.

[edit] Your comments

This is Archive 1 of Timeshifter's user page. All comments found here from other users are moved to Timeshifter's talk page: