Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)/Archive 5

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Village pumps: Policy • Technical • Proposals (persistent) • Assistance • Miscellaneous
Village pump (miscellaneous) archive  
This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (miscellaneous). Please do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to revive any of these discussions, either start a new thread or use the talk page associated with that topic.

< Older discussions | Archives: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
11, 12, 13, 14

Contents

[edit] Current Events

(moved from WP:VP(P)) Is it just me, or is the current events page significantly less busy than it used to be? Is there any reason for this? AndrewRT(Talk) 23:34, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I have noticed a lot less activity there recently. But this topic would probably be better off here. - Rjd0060 (talk) 00:40, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Preservation of web sources

Is there a way that you can preserve sources you find on the web? For instance, I edit a lot of sports (college football) articles and so I use a lot of information that I find online about season/team/player previews and game recaps. Some sources that I used for a 2006 article have already been broken and I can't find a replacement. It would really be nice if there was a way I could take a screencap or print the article as a PDF and have it saved somewhere where it would remain indefinitely. Does Wikipedia have any plans for maybe adding a repository to WikiSource (or somewhere) for stuff such as this? I could print the web page to a PDF and upload to Wikipedia/Wikisource and then it would be saved forever. {{Cite news}} already has an archiveurl parameter so the original URL could go in the url parameter and the saved version could go in the archiveurl parameter. I've also had instances where I quoted a newspaper and after a year or two, that newspaper dropped the article from the web, so I in turn dropped the URL from the reference. The article is still available in print for the given day, but the web article is gone. With the proposal above, that source would be preserved. I just think this would resolve a lot of issues with broken links all over Wikipedia.↔NMajdan•talk 20:55, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I believe that you can save pages at WebCite. Often you can find old pages at [1] (the "Wayback Machine"). In general, see Wikipedia:Citing sources#What to do when a reference link "goes dead". -- John Broughton (♫♫) 22:06, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
I'll check out WebCite. Typically, the news articles I typically use are buried deep in the website and thus are not usually archived at archive.org. Also, I am very familiar with the wikilink you provided. My proposal was to help prevent links going dead.↔NMajdan•talk 23:55, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
If you're talking about copyrighted newspaper articles, then putting a pdf or other copy on the web, linked to from a Wikipedia article, is - unfortunately - a clear copyright violation. A lot of newspapers - fewer, these days, thankfully - have as a business model (often via a third-party provider) the selling of old articles. Or they want readers to register before reading. Such newspapers aren't going to be happy with copies that are freely accessible to everyone. So, to answer the larger question - I doubt that the Wikimedia Foundation will ever create a repository for copyrighted content of any type. (And yes, I agree that this would be nice to have.) -- John Broughton (♫♫) 15:10, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
Unfortunately, that makes sense.↔NMajdan•talk 17:38, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] univox u45b

i am trying to reach the person who posted the picture of this amp! I own the exact amp pictured here, not 1 like it, but that exact amp pictured here and was wondering when he owned it and how much he paid for it. i purchased it from ebay from a guy in north carolina i believe, anyway i replaced the caps in it and tubes with some high quality NOS tubes (mullard)and a better speaker eminence private jack and now it sounds awsome! it is a small world indeed! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.109.75.88 (talk) 17:41, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

If you're referring to Image:Univox U45B amplifier.JPG, then it appears it was uploaded by Jerry picker (talk · contribs) in May of this year. To get in contact with this person, leave a message on their talk page.↔NMajdan•talk 18:30, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] CZ to use "commercial" Creative Commons license

This is big news:

Our gift to the world: CC-by-sa (2007-12-22). Retrieved on 2007-12-21.

This means we can now start importing CZ articles to Wikipedia. -- Taku (talk) 22:36, 21 December 2007 (UTC) I also created {{cz}} by modified {{1911}}. -- Taku (talk) 00:50, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

There seems to be a problem. [2] says:

In the course of piecing my thoughts togehter, I also came to think that derivatives of CC-BY-SA 2.0'd works and 2.5'd works cannot be released under GFDL.

I haven't found out if this is also true with cc-by-sa 3.0. -- Taku (talk) 04:54, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

The quote from [3]:

Creative Commons' initial work has focused on achieving compatibility with the FDL. As part of this work, CC explored the possibility of introducing one-way compatibility with the FDL. (See Discussion Draft — Proposed License Amendment to Avoid Content Ghettos in the Commons [44]), which generated some discussion. CC then responded to some of the concerns raised by this discussion [45] but ultimately concluded that one-way comaptibility with the FDL was not possible because CC licensors could not be guaranteed the same protections under the FDL that they enjoyed under the CC BY-SA.

In other words, no data dumping from cz. -- Taku (talk) 05:07, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

If this goes through then it might become possible. Arthena(talk) 15:43, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
I was under the impression that there was a one-way-compatibility: cc-by-sa -> GFDL, if not the other way. Anyway, we just have wait a little bit more for our Christmas present. -- Taku (talk) 01:47, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Need little translation

Hello!

I need translation in Hebrew of this text:

Siamo in attesa di Gesù che viene.
Stiamo pronti ad accoglierlo
come lui vuole incontrarci.
Buon Natale!

In English sound like as:

We are waiting for Jesus who is coming.
We are ready to welcome
him when he wants.
Merry Christmas!

Thank You! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.88.82.94 (talk) 09:42, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

The best place to go would either be the Hebrew Wikipedia (they probably have an English embassy there) or to the Language section of the Reference Desk. --Golbez (talk) 18:56, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] {{ArticleHistory}} deprecates other templates?

Editors may be interested in the discussion that is starting here. Happy‑melon 12:41, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

I'd just like to wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from Budapest, Hungary.
Sólo quisiera desearles una feliz Navidad y próspero año nuevo desde Budapest, Hungría. --TheMexican (talk) 18:53, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Millwall F.C. article

Hello, I have just noticed that this site: www.millwallfcyears.com is using the article and have copyrighted as theirs. Thank you 'Arry Boy (talk) 19:05, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] I cant find an answer anywhere!

i want to know and this one is tricky i would like to know if a car was traveling at 100 mph's and an airplane was traveling at 100 mph's are they both going the same speed or is one faster if you got an answer can you email me at china_mike650@yahoo.com thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.38.9.195 (talk) 23:36, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Short answer: miles per hour is a measure of speed, so by definition they are going at the same speed.
Long answer: Well, that depends on your reference point. Due to Einstein's theory of relativity, from the car's reference point, it is standing still and the airplane may or may not be moving depending on the direction they're going in; the same is true for the airplane. If your reference point is the Earth, then technically the Earth's curvature and rotation would lead to the car covering a greater distance around the Earth because the airplane would be moving in a larger circle around the Earth. Also, again with the reference point on the Earth, the light reflecting from the car, assuming it's on the ground, would reach a ground-level observer's eyes a fraction of a second before the light from the airplane, assuming it's in the air and further away. There may be other factors that could affect this, such as if there was a black hole's event horizon nearby, which could cause some distortion of time that would make it appear from the ground as though the airplane was slowing down and make it appear from the airplane that the universe was speeding up; of course, due to relativity, both would be equally true. Another possible factor was (since no universe was specified) whether this takes place in the universe we're in, or whether it is in a universe with different laws of physics; if that is the case, there is no definite way of being sure. However, you can probably safely go with the short answer.
And some advice: For more information, ask in the science section of the reference desk. Hope this answers your question! Pyrospirit (talk · contribs) 00:10, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

More mundanely, it's complicated by the fact that, as far as I know, airplanes typically measure their speed relative to the air, rather than the ground, so the speed and direction of wind matters for such comparisons —Random832 16:02, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Copyright laws/policies for Guernsey stamps

As I know nearly nothing about British (and absolutely nothing about Guernsey) Copyright Law, and very little about the copyright policy of the English version of Wikipedia: Is it possible to publish Guernsey stamps here? Under what conditions? Do Wikimedia Commons accept Guernsey stamps?

And, by the way, does anyone own these stamps or can otherwise provide a better image? I would like to illustrate Sibyl Hathaway with one of these stamps.--Hannesde Correct me! 12:04, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

There is a specialized page for such questions: Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. I'm guessing, however, based on this forum discussion, that it could be done as fair use. But again, you're better off again a more "official" (aka better-informed) answer elsewhere. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 17:56, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
I asekd the questions there. Thanks.--Hannesde Correct me! 09:03, 26 December 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hannes2 (talk • contribs)

[edit] nostalgia Wikipedia

I've just found http://nostalgia.wikipedia.org/wiki/HomePage

  • Is that a mirror of current sites?
  • Are there other styles as well? Is there a documentation or content link here?
  • Where do I find further information?

--84.56.6.95 (talk) 09:28, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

That nostalgia site is for very ancient (i.e. 2001) versions of pages - it's useful because some of the pages on here are missing part of the history from that far back. —Random832 16:01, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Barack Obama

In Senator Obama's article (probably one of the most visited right now) there is an editor who has removed the information about the races of his father and mother, based on the theory that "race" is just a construct made up by racists to justify the bad things that they do. Although this is partly true, I think it is kind of a fringe theory. I also think that people are interested in Obama's racial background and the information should be given in the article. I don't want to get into an edit war but I wonder if anyone else might be interested in checking out the discussion on the talk page and seeing what you think. Thanks. Steve Dufour (talk) 11:02, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Research Project

Hello! I’m KRLS and I’m making a Research Project to know which are the indicators that determine the quality of a Wikipedia. To find them all, I need you, as an experienced wikipedian, to answer this survey right here. This way, I would have the opinion of a part of the community about the indicators I’ve found and maybe, the ones I have not took in count. It won’t be very long, it’s a 5 minutes task. I need it before January 1st. The survey is written in English because I’m afraid I don’t speak your language. Thank you very much!

The survey: here – KRLS, 83.45.208.41 (talk) 18:19, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

With all due respect, most of the survey makes absolutely no sense. First, some of the questions refer to the quality of a single article, while others refer to the Wikipedia project as a whole. At minimium, you ought to separate the questions into two groups. Second, it appears that English is not your primary language; you ought to get someone who does know English really well to revise the wording of the questions, rather than hoping that editors here are individually going to try to figure out what the questions mean. Third, it would really help for you to explain what you're trying to do - editors here have other things to do than answer a survey that seems of limited use to them. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 20:59, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
John Broughton has said it all. Even though I read Spanish, I could not understand what you wanted to know. You have missed out two stage in your research. You should have tested the questions on a small sample Wikipedia editors, to test the questions validity, then tested the revised questions on a group of Native speakers to check that the English is unambiguous. So here are a few suggestions:
  • State what the research is for- newspaper/university/secondary school- English faculty, Sociology, Media Studies. I assume that this is a first year project for your first degree.
  • General Question should be included. What is your home wikipedia?
  • If you asking for a value judgement on a scale of 1 to 10, you must make a complete statement.
    Question 1. "I judge the quality of a Wikipedia by the number of articles it contains"
    You will then see the questions need to be grouped.
  • If this is intended to gather the opinions of a random independent sample, your technique is flawed. By the respondant reading other responses; the sample is no longer independent.
  • As a wikipedia editor I am happy to help with your methodology- but filling in surveys is just boring.
On a positive note some of your question show insight into the quality process. They could be developed into something useful later.
See Questionnaire construction and Statistical survey for further ideas.
ClemRutter (talk) 23:01, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
OK if you can't or doesn't want to reply my survey, no problem. Another langguages had reply for your. Survey: here– KRLS--CarlesCat (talk) 22:41, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] life and health

I am 36 years of age and i think and ponder so much it herts. i fell 47 feet and became disabled due to bi lateral wrist damage. Now like i said this may sound strange to some so i wount say all but can someone knock this one around. Medicine is made of chemicals, all elements have there own energy frequency;Why not take the electric frequency from the meds and allow the human race to have the frequency instead of the pill? Or would that cost the economy and maybe some lives? e=mc2 sorry typing no good using one finger.well thank you teresa im not saying you are wrong but im saying im right please think on this one i dont know how to send things on the pc but this frequency will change ur knowlege off things think out off the box

Well you'd need to take this to the Wikipedia:reference desk but a short answer is, chemicals do not have thier own energy frequency, not in the way you are thinking anyway. They don't give off energy. You can't just grab energy from an element I'm afraid and why would you want to? It's not the energy that is needed it is the specific chemical reactions that the medicines partake in inside the body that counts. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 23:41, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Flame

You are lying when you say that people who are burned when touching a hot stove will continue to touch the stove again and again. You are lying when you deny that people work for a salary.

Here is my article and reference where are yours? You have have no references only lies. Why don;t you admit that you post lies because rich people tell you to.

Reward and punishment are terms that are used to explain behavior. In simple terms reward is a result that the organism likes i.e. getting candy for doing a simple task. Punishment can be thought of as a result that the organism doesn’t like; getting burned when touching a hot stove.

Another term for reward is reinforcement. Reinforcement is thought to influence or affect future behavior by making it more likely that an act that is reinforced is repeated. Punishment in the same way is thought to decrease the odds of a behavior being repeated. While reward and punishment is not absolute certain results strongly influence how most organisms react. This idea is no different then the common sense notion that people go to work to get money and they avoid touching a hit stove.

There are two other forces which strongly influence they way people act past behavior and regression toward the mean. Past behavior also called habit strength says that people tend to do what they did in the past. Regression toward the mean is anything way of sayings that people tend to behave like others behave. Those effects in the short term overwhelm reward and pun —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.44.99.107 (talk) 00:12, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Huh? Please see Wikipedia is not a soapbox. Thanks, --S.dedalus (talk) 03:40, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Re: "Mood Ring Colors Chart"

To; All Wikipedians,

Thank You to All Wikipedians for your insiteful, interesting & critical (constructive) input in response to the entry that I made earlier today regarding the "Mood Ring Colors Chart" (In the "Miscellaneous Section"). Also, thanks to Steve for editing my "Mood Colors Chart" out (as I knew that it would be)- I did not have the heart to do it myself. I guess that I received my 15 seconds of fame (lol)! However, in the future, should anyone repost it- I will delete it myself (unless someone else does so) as I know that it does not accurately reflect the history of the "Mood Ring". Arguments on both sides can be made as to whether there is any correlation between mood & one's own body-temperature. I am more than well aware that "Mood Rings" are merely an entertainment-novelty item. I am also asking that the E-article in "The Wikipedia" on "Mood Rings" not be completely removed as "Mood Rings" have earned their place in history, Pseudo-Silly (Pseudo-Scientific) as they are. On my Google Blog I clearly mention to; "Enjoy Mood Rings, But Don't Take Them Too Seriously". They were & are just a marketable/trendy item for fun & to make money off of, economically-speaking. I might post a "Mood Color Chart" that reflects the idea/concept behind the "Mood Ring" from a documented historical reference. Then again, I might let someone else do that who knows more about "Mood Rings" than I do?! Have a "Happy New 2008"!! Dawnofrabbits (talk) 21:00, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

The article does not seem at risk. The article has been around for years, and discussion of the colors is on its Talk page. -- SEWilco (talk) 21:10, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
It seems to me that you could post the chart at some other site and if you mentioned that in the WP article nobody would probably object. Steve Dufour (talk) 12:32, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Is Barack Obama black?

Please check out Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard#Barack Obama and Michelle Obama. I may be being paranoid. Steve Dufour (talk) 12:29, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Are Lurkers unwelcome or discouraged in wikipedia culture?

Those who are interested can see my contributions and determine for themselves if I am a legitimate editor before addressing my inquiry. For a long time before I joined Wikipedia I watched what was going on: how editors edit and how editors relate to each other. I tried to learn about policies by reading the appropriate articles and watching how others do things. I am not well suited for conflict with fellow editors. I simply watch the goings-on at some of the more controversial articles and do not make edits often out of the desire to avoid conflict. After all, I am interested in Wikipedia in general and would like to see the 'pedia succeed. In sum, I try to make good and positive edits where I am able but for the most part I have behaved as a Lurker. For an editor such as I, is lurking behavior discouraged or is it acceptable? I ask this with genuine and sincere interest -- I want to participate in Wikipedia according to the predominant Wikipedia culture and so I am willing to modify my behavior to match with the culture here. If any editors are interested I would greatly appreciate sincere guidance, and would humbly ask that you treat this inquiry as legitimate. Please respond here rather than on my talk page. Thank you. Phlegmswicke of Numbtardia (talk) 19:16, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Anybody that shows a desire to improve Wikipedia, whether that be by adding to articles (the core goal of the project), or by participating in policy discussions and other "meta-wiki" activities, is welcome.↔NMajdan•talk 19:28, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
We call them readers and that's who we write for. More editors are welcome, particularly ones such as yourself who learn the environment. Help:Contents points to a lot of information, and if something is not documented then it should be. -- SEWilco (talk) 19:29, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
Basically, lurkers don't hurt us, and we don't mind them, but we'd be glad if you helped us (lurkers are neutral-they neither harm nor hurt us. Contributors are positive-they help us). You don't need to learn all the policies and stuff before contributing -all I read was WP:5P. Puchiko (Talk-email) 20:47, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
Thank you for your replies, explanations, and encouragement! Phlegmswicke of Numbtardia (talk) 13:41, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
Honestly, if you ever need any help with anything such as help with an article or explanation of a certain policy, there's many places to ask. Any administrator would surely be willing to help (I would), and there's always the helpdesk or one of the village pumps.↔NMajdan•talk 14:07, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
And I think that knowing someone is watching other people will hopefully make people contribute a little more responsibly. x42bn6 Talk Mess 00:02, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
Enjoy being a lurker while you can. The more heavily addicted of us envy you... -- RoninBK T C 13:19, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Art WikiMarathon

I'm helping to organize a group of artists and art historians to contribute contemporary art additions and entries to wikipedia on Jan 26th. We're all setting aside a day to add as much as information as possible and calling it Art WikiMarathon. So far the people involved are all very net savvy and experienced with wikipedia. We'll be doing our best to create quality content that is referenced, links up other pages, etc. and we'll be editing each others work to improve it. If anyone has any suggestions or would like to participate, please let me know. —Preceding comment was added at 17:58, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Probably worth posting notes at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Contemporary Art, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Arts, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Visual arts. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 18:56, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
Thanks, doing that now. User_talk:Dronthego

[edit] wikipedia's appearance

just wanting to voice my opinion that the main page of wikipedia has grown too colorful and bold. i would prefer a plain page with little or NO color. \

~awats —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.165.212.113 (talk) 00:11, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi, you can suggest improvements on the design for the Main Page at Talk:Main Page. You could also have a look at Category:Main Page alternatives which lists a number of different versions of the Main page and see if there's any designs there that you prefer. Tra (Talk) 01:22, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Will work for barnstars

I need barnstars. I've edited Wikipedia for years, mostly as an unregistered user. Under my past account (had it years ago, can't remember the name), I never got any barnstars. Maybe I hadn't connected enough with the community, or more likely, barnstars are somewhat difficult to get because of how most users are loners.

So, here's my proposal: Give me a task. I will do it in exchange for a barnstar of your choice. Reasonably small tasks are preferable. Insurmountable tasks, such as "Improve Quantum harmonic oscillator" and "Remove all bias from Wikipedia" will be ignored. There is no limit to how many tasks I'll do, however if a large amount of people respond, I will stop accepting requests at a certain point. Zenwhat (talk) 03:23, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

This sort of thing is not the reason barnstars were created. Be patient and your hard work will be noticed if it is worthy of notice.
Assuming you like performing work for others with well-defined tasks, Wikipedia:Bounty board might be a good place to check out, with the money benefiting not you, but the Wikimedia foundation. --YbborTalk 03:33, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
No, some people just never get barnstars while some people get tons of them. It's kinda like jury duty – some people get called all the time and some people never get called. Sarsaparilla (talk) 04:01, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
WP:REWARD? Anyways, I think that, if Zenwhat is really a good user who has not been recognized (I don't have the time to review his works right now, since I am in the middle of an article update), I don't see anything wrong in publicly stating that. I suggest you to join a WikiProject, that is the easiest way to get recognized. WikiGnomes have a harder time getting noticed. If you want, drop by my talk page, I have always tasks to do but never time for them. -- ReyBrujo (talk) 05:56, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi, and welcome. Over at Wikipedia:WikiProject Textile Arts we've got plenty to do (and our very own barnstar to give away). Right now we're working on bringing Navajo rug up to a good article and improving History of clothing and textiles. If that sounds like fun then grab a few library books and hop in! Cheers, DurovaCharge! 06:04, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

See User:The_Transhumanist/Award_Center. Dcoetzee 06:24, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Bot fight :)

So this is what it looks like when bots go at it [4] :) Looks like OrphanBot was the victor. MBisanz Talk 06:32, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] WikBack - New discussion forum

I started a new web-based discussion forum two days ago, called The WikBack. Approximately 75 members have joined, including people from the wikien-l mailing list, IRC, and the arbitration committee. Registration is not required to read existing posts, but is open to any Wikipedia who wishes to post their own views. There is a thread on the forum discussing the pros and cons of web-based forums compared to mailing lists, the wiki, and other discussion venues. Please consider taking a look. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 03:24, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Provisionally, I'd say this was fine and even useful; however, I hope there will be a policy of NO OUTING and of NO TROLLING.

So far, it doesn't look that good. Does the world need a special forum just to beat on Durova? No. I'd like to see to what extent [User:UninvitedCompany|The Uninvited]] responds to the above. Rhinoracer (talk) 19:19, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Who wrote this quote?

I remember someone writing about "an x number of wikipedians with an agenda could control everything here". Who was that, and where did (s)he write that? I was reminded of this just now, and Google is providing not much. User:Krator (t c) 22:46, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Snapshots

How does the snapshot thing work? Are articles reviewed over a long period of time and checked and added one by one, or is the whole site captured at the same time? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.42.88.239 (talk) 03:48, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

The whole site. MilesAgain (talk) 08:10, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
Is there a schedule for when the site will be captured? When is version 0.5 to be snapped? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.42.88.239 (talk) 11:58, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Version 0.5 did not include the entire site. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 19:37, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] A dangerous trend on Wikipedia

Does Wikipedia have a problem? Are we creating more articles than people are wiling to maintain? Even since I registered an account here over a year ago many projects and collaborations have slowly lost steam or died altogether. Cleanup Taskforce is considering whether they can continue. Article Collaboration and Improvement Drive which used to be booming is now all but gone. Even mainstream Wikiprojects like WikiProject Classical music are seeing decreasing levels of activity. Admittedly it is still the holiday season, but what I’m seeing is a long-term trend. It seems to me that most work these days is done by isolated people or small groups that bear most of the workload. Any thoughts? Happy New Year by the way! --S.dedalus (talk) 04:06, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, we definitely could use more editors. I've started reaching out to my connections in real life to see if anyone wants to collaborate on wiki articles on various subjects. E.g., I asked my econ professor if he knows of any students who have papers they might be willing to submit (which I would revise to conform to the Wikipedia:Manual of style) and/or if he knows any students who might want to collaborate on some projects. I haven't had much success with this strategy either, though; nor on reaching out to various wikiprojects for collaboration on articles related to subject areas under their purview. So, I end up writing featured articles mostly by myself and getting some help as needed to get them up to snuff as far as style/formating is concerned. Most of the gruntwork they expect the nominator to do though, after perhaps showing how to do it by way of example. So, I'm not exactly churning out a lot of FAs these days because it takes a lot of work and doing it by myself gets old. Sarsaparilla (talk) 06:07, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
This seems to confirm what S.dedalus is saying User:Dragons flight/Log analysis, but also there is a natural peaking point and aging. Best example I can think of is Latin as a spoken language. It died out and other languages replaced it. Projects live and die over time. We're just new enough that we're not used to seeing a graveyard. Mbisanz (talk) 06:16, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
Indeed. I think the project has matured and has entered a gradual downhill trend. In some ways it has become a victim of its own success: the prominence of Wikipedia makes it an irresistible target for every huckster, conspiracy theorist, fringe pseudoscientist, and other brand of bullshit merchant in the internet-enabled sectors of the galaxy. These days most of my energy is sapped by undoing the damage created by sockpuppets, vandals, POV pushers, and just plain lunatics. The project needs to come to terms with this situation or the downhill slide that is now in its early stages will accelerate. There are two solutions: enlist more constructive editors to overwhelm the bad ones, or do a better job of reining in those whose net contribution is negative so that others can get on with useful work. The former is difficult, while the community appears to have no appetite for the latter. Raymond Arritt (talk) 06:23, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
Yes, and the more articles we have the more energy will have to be expended to keep the pages up. Eventually we’ll reach a critical mass where we can’t recruit new editors fast enough to stop the vandals etc. Perhaps we’ve already reached that point. It might be time to look into your second option. --S.dedalus (talk) 07:49, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
(ec) So you don't think it's deletionism/uncivil behavior/etc. driving people away? Sarsaparilla (talk) 06:25, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, I’m not sure what’s causing this, but something’s got to be done or else I see us gradually losing our inertia and sliding into oblivion. The most worrying thing for me is that there are fewer and fewer contributors willing to do grunt work like cleanup or vandal reverting. This in turn results in bad articles which discourage potential contributors from joining. During the time it took me to type this perhaps two dozen new articles have been created and thousands of pages have been vandalized. Maybe we’re just being overwhelmed. We also have a reputation now for being an untrustworthy source. As far as I can tell the only part of Wikipedia that is still very busy is the reference desk.

The death of projects may be natural, but it doesn’t change the fact that we’re still growing. Ultimately it may be a question we must take to the board of directors and the developers. Personally I’m not ready to concede defeat for Wikipedia. I guess the first thing that must be done though is see how large a problem this is. --S.dedalus (talk) 07:39, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

I am not seeing an increase in vandalism in the pages on my watchlist. If anything, it's been decreasing. MilesAgain (talk) 08:11, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
That’s good news. I don’t usually use my watch list so I wouldn’t know. Perhaps because I work on low traffic pages more often I see a lot of spam and vandalism, even quit old vandalism. There also seem to be a lot of “former good article” pages around. --S.dedalus (talk) 08:25, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

It's the holiday season so we have no bored kids at school vandalizing. Then again, I caught a shock image vandal early today (you don't get them very often). MER-C 10:55, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

User:Dragons flight/Log analysis appears to show that regardless of what we’re seeing individually, vandalism on a broad scale is increasing faster than constructive edits are. --S.dedalus (talk) 21:29, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
I think that's so. Also—although it would be impossible to quantify this—I think we're facing a lot more sneaky vandalism. Articles fabricated out of whole cloth don't even raise eyebrows anymore. Cool Hand Luke 19:20, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

I can see why people are leaving the project... I notice a lot of no-win situations these days, e.g. you try to satisfy CSD A1 and A7, and end up getting CSD'ed for G11. I don't really support G11, since I think it violates WP:AGF. Maybe people see so much junk on new page patrol, they start to see everything as an ad/spam/whatever. I think overall, we do a good job at keeping that stuff out, and vandalism gets reverted quickly. Gone are the days when some nude picture copied over an image file used to stay on the Main Page for several hours. Now we need to make sure we don't go too far the other way and drive away good editors... the newbies are in kind of a similar situation to new articles, in that they are most susceptible to getting whacked by friendly fire. They don't know the policies and processes, plus they look suspicious because they don't have a lot of edits and therefore could be a sockpuppet/spammer/etc. If I'm getting hit, I'm sure they are all the more... Sarsaparilla (talk) 22:42, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Answering the original post, well, that is what makes us unreliable by definition: we need cleanup/fact checking/maintenance to become a reliable tertiary source. Of course we will have more stubs than finished articles, because we don't have coordinate efforts to improve existing ones. And that is because here everyone does what they want, and very few like to spend time polishing an article. -- ReyBrujo (talk) 22:52, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
My personal opinion is that nothing is going to change until policy changes: you shouldn't be able to add new information to an article unless you cite a source (and if you fail to cite a source, that information should be treated as with WP:BLP - remove on sight). Plus anything in a new article that is unsourced should immediately be removed, and the article then evaluated per CSD.
If we don't change the mindset from "is that information plausible?" to "is that information reliably sourced?", Wikipedia is just going to continue to be a playground for POVers and COIers and sophisiticated vandals and people who vaguely remember something. I'm sure that we'd lose a lot of editors - not particularly valuable ones, in my opinion - if policy changed, and there would be a lot of griping ("but I used to be able to do that without anyone objecting!"), but after it did change, I think there would be a huge improvement in quality, and a whole lot less fighting. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 23:55, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
You're welcome to be bold and remove unsourced statements; no policy change is needed. CSD is lame in that it goes against standard concepts of a wiki, by removing the ability of an article to progressively evolve; instead, the new article has to be started from scratch. I think we should only do that after discussion, which will help prevent unjustified deletions by involving more people. (Unfortunately, that appears to be a minority view.) The damage from unjustified deletions is not just the loss of the article itself, but also the harm to morale. As to ReyBrujo's statement, see WP:LF. It's well-established that Wikipedia benefits from the fact that people can work on whatever they want. The incentive to polish an article comes from a desire to bring it to Featured Article status so that it can gain greater prominence. Sarsaparilla (talk) 01:45, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
You're welcome to be bold and remove unsourced statements; no policy change is needed. There may be no explicit policy statement about it, but removing unsourced but plausible material in any kind of systematic way isn't in accord with consensus. Otherwise, the (tens of?) thousands of completely unsourced articles would have been swept away by CSDs a long time ago. (First, delete all the unsourced information, then - since the article is now blank - CSD it.) Or someone would have put together a bot to delete all sentences tagged as "citation needed" and still unsourced after two or three months. Plus, until policy explicitly supports adding no more unsourced information to Wikipedia, the problem of quality is going to persist. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 18:30, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
It takes about twice as much time to cite sources, and sometimes it's unnecessary. Is there any other encyclopedia that cites every single statement? Sarsaparilla (talk) 01:39, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
Who cares if it takes additional time to cite statements? Using that as an argument against citation requirements is nothing more than an appeal to laziness. Of course, citations aren't needed for uncontroversial and uncontested facts and claims. However, if they are controversial or contested there's an absolute need and requirement for referencing. The comparison to other encyclopedias doesn't hold. Other encyclopedias generally don't reference their statements, but other encyclopedias aren't written by amateur volunteers, instead being authored by experts under a strong editorial system. Our amateur and volunteer nature is what drives the need for reliable referencing, in combination with our goal (enshrined in the Foundation-level policy of NPOV) to summarize existing information from reliable published sources. Vassyana (talk) 03:32, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
sometimes it's unnecessary (to cite a source) - Sarsparilla - did you even read that essay? It's not about when you do and don't need to cite a source - it's about the lack of value of putting "cite" tags on things, a completely different subject.
Of course, citations aren't needed for uncontroversial and uncontested facts and claims. Sorry if I appear to be dogmatic, but my basic position is laid out here: User:Uncle G/On sources and content#Always work from and cite sources. Yes, that's more work. Yes, we'd have fewer editors if it were policy, not just (arguably) a best practice. But we'd avoid arguments about what is "uncontroversial" and "uncontested"; we'd have sources to expand articles; we'd catch a lot of non-blatant vandalism more quickly; and we would (eventually, after a lot of cleanup) get a reputation as a high-quality (as well as high-quantity) source of information. —Preceding unsigned comment added by John Broughton (talk • contribs) 14:11, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

I find it hypocritical, Dedalus, that you would lament the loss of the Article Collaboration and Improvement Drive, and yet you do not contribute to it. Look within yourself before faulting others, sir. A crow 'pon my shoulder, R.A Huston (talk) 10:11, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] m:Wikicommunity

I am proposing the establishment of an experimental community-building project to encompass content that would normally be deleted from here. This would include chess games, signature-building shops, etc. Accordingly, I am proposing the undeletion of certain content so that it can be used as examples of what we might transwiki there. If anyone has some more examples, please see Category:Wikipedia administrators who will provide copies of deleted articles to get assistance. We can coordinate at m:Talk:Wikicommunity. Thanks, Sarsaparilla (talk) 04:19, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Editor's index to Wikipedia

Now in projectspace. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 16:30, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] GeoHack renaming

We're moving GeoHack to Stable Toolserver and we are looking for suggestions/consensus(?) for a better name. —Dispenser (talk) 01:57, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Temporary resignation due to conflict with other editors

While unlikely to yeild any relevant changes, I am posting this in hopes that someone might read and address the issues that plauge this once grand endevour.

For the time being, I am refraining from editing or contributing to Wikipedia. Certain members of this site have removed any interest from this site. Wikipedia is plauged from within from populists who remove anything that does not fit with their philosophy. They use the tyranny of the majority to remove articles that they believe does not hold any relevance, wither by direct deletion or moving to other wikias. This is not how one should build an encyclopedia. Because of these disagrements, I feel that it is best for me to take leave.

--Eldarone (talk) 18:54, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Everybody needs a break every once in awhile. And, unfortunately, I believe its true that those with a "harsher" interpretation of Wikipedia's rules and guidelines (e.g. deletionists, fair use police, etc) tend to have more of an overall affect on the project that those of us that have a less harsh interpretation. Take your break, but do come back cause this project can't afford to lose good contributors.↔NMajdan•talk 19:40, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
I believe most of our problems can, in one way or another, be traced back to bad policies and the improper application of policies, which includes overzealous deletionism, as well as the other things that drive away good editors. Every process that has a backlog, every undeveloped article, every unanswered request for help, etc. is linked to missing Wikipedians - those who left or who didn't come here to begin with because there was less of an encyclopedia to attract them than what it would have been. Those many notices in which people say "I'm leaving," etc. can be traced, as if by invisible lines, to articles that haven't been created, stubs that haven't been expanded, peer review requests that haven't been fulfilled, policy debates missing the insightful viewpoint that could have made the difference for a better Wikipedia. In their overly hasty efforts to clear out allegedly non-notable material and squash the deformed saplings of articles that hadn't yet lifted up their heads, the deletionists have ironically limited our progress and slowed the growth of the editor base whose swelling ranks would have provided the seed of a new crop of admins, AfD reviewers, RC patrollers, etc. who would have provided the needed manpower for more thorough article reviews. In the shortsighted race to speedily delete articles based on a perceived need to save time by shortcutting normal processes, we have reduced the supply of labor that would have solved the problem. If we are to return to exponential growth, we must make organize more effectively, use the strength of our ideas to help others see the merits of inclusionism and ultimately wrest power from the deletionists and take back our encyclopedia. Who is with me? Sarsaparilla (talk) 05:14, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
Wow. That should be a Wikipedia essay. Well said and easily the most eloquent description of the state of things. Wow. VigilancePrime (talk) 06:10, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
Um, no. First off, exponential growth is not desirable. At this point, exponential growth means we get exponential amounts of utter crap. And second, your version of "deletionism" includes everyone who wants to delete anything. The only alternative to this is deleting nothing, which would be much more harmful than people leaving because of evil deletion. And I'm curious to see where these other encyclopedias that don't make judgements on notability are. -Amarkov moo! 06:22, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
There is still an incredible amount of growth this encyclopedia needs to become comprehensive. Look at articles such as play, for instance, which are in great need of expansion. Many WikiProjects are floundering for lack of participants. We need more editors to sustain a vibrant community, and to attract and keep them, we should strive to make this a pleasant place to stay. I think that WP:CHANCE should eventually become a guideline; We should give people the benefit of the doubt even if that means letting the occasional spammer/hoax/etc. get one over on us; we should reform CSD; and as the encyclopedia grows in readership and editor base, we should consider expanding notability criteria. There are going to be tradeoffs wherever our encyclopedia goes on the inclusionist-deletionist spectrum. But my view is that the consequences of losing good articles and editors are worse than the consequences of keeping a few bad ones. In cases where something does have to be deleted, we can be nicer about it than we are now. Is it necessary that on the AfD pages we rush to make judgments about their motives (e.g. "spam," in cases where there could be reasonable doubt as to whether the contributor is trying to promote a product, or just believes it's a topic that should be covered, or "madeup" or "hoax" when it could just be unverifiable)? The result – deletion – is the same, but keep in mind we're deleting someone's work (albeit sometimes we have to) and how we handle it could affect someone's enthusiasm for wanting to stay here.
I was thinking about spam/cruft/advertisements the other day. In a way, are not all contributors pushing their own "cruft"? We create and expand articles on subjects we are interested in and feel are important. Sometimes we push them all the way to featured article so the information can be put out there all the more prominently. Our motives may be to increase awareness of a particular cause, organization, product, idea, activity, fact, etc. but at the same time we improve the encyclopedia. Some people have an interest in more obscure topics, and may push the limits of what the community is willing to accept under notability guidelines. We should consider, what are the purposes of our notability policy? The neighborhood I spent seven years living in, Westgate, in Manassas, Virginia, might not be notable enough to warrant an encyclopedia article right now. Probably there would be few visitors to that article and it would stagnate for lack of edits. But what if everyone were a voracious Wikipedia reader and editor? Would the limits of notability expand, because there would be readers interested in even the niche subjects, and there would be a sufficient editor base to maintain good articles on even the currently obscure topics? Could notability ultimately encompass pretty much everything that's verifiable? To the extent that inclusionism brings in more readers and editors, then, it could be a process that feeds on itself. Taken to the other extreme, the fewer subjects we consider notable, the smaller our encyclopedia, to the point where there are fewer articles coming up on google searches for obscure topics, which means a smaller readership and probably fewer editors, which creates a justification for deleting more obscure articles on the basis that nobody cares about them and we don't have enough editors to monitor/improve all those articles and keep them high-quality.
Switching subjects, if an doesn't meet a certain basic CSD criteria such as clearly stating importance or context, is there really that much urgency to speedy it without a hearing or a chance to bring it up to snuff with the CSD criteria? I'm wondering if we shouldn't either eliminate the CSD process altogether and use prod instead or make the CSD reversible by non-admins. There would be tradeoffs – some stuff that shouldn't be here would remain a little longer – but I think it would be less harmful than what we are seeing under the current system. Sarsaparilla (talk) 15:40, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
  • I for one think Sarsaparilla makes some excellent points, and, sad to say, I am not surprized to see an editor feeling the need to withdraw for a while. I disagree profoundly with the claim about exponential amounts of utter crap. This encyclopædia has great gaps in a huge range of areas, just today I thought I would look up the subject of a biography that my Mum is reading. Notable kind of fellow, first white to travel overland Cape-to-Cairo, intelligence work in the Kaiser's War, advised Milner at the Paris Peace Conference, developed Kenya's railways and shipping, article in ODNB - and nothing at all on Wikipedia - no redlinks, not a sausage. There are great gaps in coverage of industrial history, and in coverage of much of the Third World. If we don't get the contributors - we won't get the content. DuncanHill (talk) 15:53, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
Of course we don't have anything about him - he hasn't been mentioned on the Simpsons. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 16:27, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
The real question is, why haven't you created a stub on the fellow yet? –Pomte 13:28, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
Let's see - Christmas, having other articles to research, an unwillingness to write a stub about a clearly notable person in a climate of deletion-happy idiots, and my mum is still reading the book! DuncanHill (talk) 18:31, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
I found a page that mirrors many of my views: Wikipedia:Editors matter. By the way, I couldn't figure out who that specific guy is but perhaps he's part of Milner's kindergarten. http://www.bilderberg.org/roundtable/histmilner.html Sarsaparilla (talk) 22:29, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks everyone for your views. Maybe I will return, but I do need this temporary leave. Merry Christmas. --Eldarone (talk) 13:02, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Some people seem to be saying that we because we are missing a lot of important stuff (which is true) we shouldn't care if we have exponential growth of crap. This makes no sense. It's true our coverage is weak in many areas but simply allowing the large amount of crap which is deleted every day to stay, isn't going to somehow magically help us get articles which we urgently need. I also find the often made claim that we are scaring of a large number of editors by deleting crap too fast to be suspicious. Some people do leave which is unfortunate. But I fail to see how letting an editor work on a crap for a long while only to have it deleted several weeks or months later because it was ultimately crap is going to be better. IMHO it's likely to be much worse and may not only scare of that editor for good but other editors who've wasted time on it. Yes sometimes editors get a resonably quick lesson in policies but this is better from hiding our policies from then until it's all too late and they really get pissed. And preserving all the crap we get for eternity is not a good idea either. Wikipedia already covers a lot of things in a lot of detail and sadly (IMHO) it's often the 'fluff' that get's the best coverage. This is an accepted part of wikipedia and its editors. But it doesn't mean we should extend our coverage to include crap. I'm not saying all editors should contribute to the quantum physics article simply that there is already enough fluff for editors to contribute to without expanding to include crap. I for one would leave if we start to expand from 99.999% fluff, 0.00099% important, 0.00001% real important to 99.999% crap, 0.00099% fluff, 0.00000099% important & 0.00000001% real important. And I think many of those who can contribute to important areas both in terms of content and maintaining wikipedia (this is NOT me) will either leave or never become part of wikipedia either if we just seem to be completely full of crap and little else Nil Einne (talk) 09:06, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

So, lets just hit a few points.

  • I would prefer a newbie editor to cut his teeth on some irrelevancy than waste my time by inserting his POVs on one of the articles I am working on.
  • Wikipedia may contain fluff, and irrelevancies I just never see it. In the same way, a lot of publishing is romantic fiction- I never look on the fiction shelf in Waterstone's- for me it doesn't exist. Live and let live.
  • A sign of Linux's success is the ferocity of the attacks from Gates- as we get better, the attacks on Wikipedia will become more vicious. Enjoy them.
  • Deletionists have a place in society, in same way a slug has a place in the garden. When the flower has bloomed and decayed, slugs convert the rotting remains into useful material- in the same way, a stub is planted, it grows according to the direction of the wind into a straggly article, it flowers into a GA, we prune it to make it more attractive FA and here the slug can be useful.
  • The Christians bible would have been a none starter if some copy editor had got hold if it and deleted all the copvios, unreferenced statesments non notable links. No comment.
  • Reading and writing has produced a lot of fluff- obviously delete the alphabet and you strangle them all at source. No comment.
  • As an article has a life or growth cycle, so does an editor. There is a policy WP:BITE to cover the early years, but then there is adolescence, maturity and the stage I am reaching now.Yes writing about Miscellaneous on the village pump.
  • Just cool it, discuss your POVs but don't impose them on others whose philosophy is more accepting. Put those scissors away.

ClemRutter (talk) 16:54, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Problems; 1st point: not really in the spirit of wikipedia plus you might actually find their edits make the page better, your not that good. 3rd point linux's success results in attacks on gates than attacks on wikipedia would indicate the success of a competitor, is that what you mean. I think your entire post was a bit self rightous clemrutter, you seem to think your the greatest, its people like you that make others leave, but you always know best don't you.--AresAndEnyo (talk) 06:00, 10 January 2008 (UTC)