Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)/Archive 7

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Village pumps: Policy • Technical • Proposals (persistent) • Assistance • Miscellaneous
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[edit] Super-vandalism

Has super-vandalism been common on Wikipedia in recent months?? To clarify what I mean, the definition is:

An edit that is vandalism but that has an edit summary that suggests it is not, such as the edit to Pythagorean triple that I reverted. Georgia guy (talk) 22:44, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

It happens off and on. Some vandals are more clever than others. Tony Fox (arf!) 22:45, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia may need a heuristic "spam filter". That would be a significant Wikimedia enhancement, but perhaps the core code can be borrowed from e.g. Thunderbird email. I know Wikimedia's written in PHP and Thunderbird in C++ but: (a) a C++ batch program that flags possible vandalism would be a good start; (b) converting C++ to PHP would be laborious but probably not very difficult for the most part.
Before such a project could be justified, it would be good to get a decent idea of how large the super-vandalism problem is. The only idea I can see at present is to set up a "special" page in which possible instances are logged. Philcha (talk) 08:40, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
Oooh I did that once. Ages ago before I registered, testing if using a false edit summary ("fix spelling" or something) would get around the vandalism patrollers. It didn't - and my IP got blocked. When patrolling vandalism now I never trust the edit summaries - I check everything. I have one suggestion though: don't call it "super-vandalism". It goes against WP:DENY and glamorises vandalism, which is not what we need. "Deceitful vandalism", "False summary vandalism", maybe, or anything that doesn't make it sound good. • Anakin (contribs • complaints) 16:52, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

What's really bad is the stuff I call "mega-vandalism" where they add like seven external links simultaneously, six of which are legit and are designed to throw off the RC Patroller, and the other an advertisement. Then of course there are the "ultra-vandals" who do two edits in quick succession, the first one including spam or vandalism, and the second one a legitimate edit, to throw off people who just check the most recent edit on their watchlist. Finally, there is the supercalifragilisticexpialidocious-vandalism in which they combine all three types of vandalism mentioned above to achieve a synergistic effect. Ooh, I can't stand those. And now I have that Mary Poppins song in my head. Um diddle diddle diddle um diddle ay! Sarsaparilla (talk) 02:09, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Which version of English?

I see articles being edited to change spelling between British and US variants. Wikipedia needs a clear policy on which is the standard dialect for English, and for any other international langhuages that have simialr splits. Once upon a time I'd have said the US variant should be standard for English (although I'm a Brit), but the rise of India may be making the British variant the majority dialect for online use. Philcha (talk) 08:45, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Perennial proposal. Perennial Solution: If article was started in British English, continue using British English. If article was started in American English, continue using American English. If article started in Some Other Lingo, use common sense ;-) --Kim Bruning (talk) 08:47, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
More information: WP:ENGVAR. Puchiko (Talk-email) 10:32, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
I'm British but I make sure to use US English on Wikipedia unless there's a good reason not to (e.g., clearly Britocentric article already using British spellings). I can avoid arguments about it that way. • Anakin (contribs • complaints) 16:56, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
Actually per engvar, you are fully entitled to use British English on any articles you create and any articles which are alrady using British English even if they are not Britocentric articles (provided they aren't North American centric of course). Of course you don't have to if you don't want to but you are fully entitled to do so Nil Einne (talk) 07:12, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Notification of MfD nomination for WP:WEA

A nomination has been open to delete WP:WEA at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:wikipedia-en-admins (3rd nomination). All wikipedians are encouraged to participate. --Joopercoopers (talk) 15:20, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] BBspot note

Is there a template for something like this [1] as there is for slashdotted pages. MBisanz talk 00:48, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

You mean, when a board links to us? Not really, I usually post a note in the talk page if the board is somewhat important (or if you expect a great influx of users). If you are talking about when BBspot links to us, then it is not necessary, since they just took a screenshot from us. If you think the site will bring a lot of users here (I don't know it, so I don't know the amount of traffic it could be), just add a note in the article talk page, or the high traffic template. -- ReyBrujo (talk) 01:19, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] IPA pronunciations

The W'pedia system seems to have at least one way of automatically representing IPA pronunciations of words. While this is a useful feature (and infinitely better than attempts to render pronunciation informally), the text is shown in brackets. This implies a narrow transcription, yet most of these representations are broad. What's needed is for such transcriptions to start and end with a slash.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonetic_transcription#Narrow_vs._broad_transcription

 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.140.57.113 (talk) 11:05, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
Am I the only one to be totally confused by IPA. Living near Chatham, Kent, Trottiscliffe and Wrotham where every village has a pronunciation that is unpredictable- and varies, what are we supposed to be recording? A neighbours 16 year old will pronounce Chatham differently according to the listener. Her friends from Rochester, Gravesend will cause a slight shift towards and away from a glotal stop. To me, to a teacher, to a tourist from London or from Germany and her pronunciation will change consciously, to accomodate. However, there are age differences in the speaker, religion, class, and regional origin that also affect the pronunciation. So who and to whom are we trying to record? If the answer is RP- RP in which year? When it comes down to it, saying 'Trottiscliffe' to rhyme with 'Crossley' as in 'Crossley Motors' might just be infinitely more accurate than broad IPA.ClemRutter (talk) 12:38, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
Indeed - ClemRutter makes an excellent point. From my own experience, if we were to go with RP for Cornish placenames, we would be exposing visitors to the area who relied on Wikipedia to ridicule. There is a notable city in the north-east of England called Newcastle - again, RP is completely at variance with the local pronunciation. As Clem also pointed out, pronunciation also varies with a host of factors. I think an insistance on IPA is premature, and should not be imposed until Wikipedia can reach a consensus as to which of the many actual pronunciations of a word or a placename should be given. IPA further suffers from the disadvantage that it is incomprehensible to many, and unwriteable even by many of those who can read it. DuncanHill (talk) 12:46, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
Err what about Welsh, eg., Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch !
To get the pronunciation of these place names right, one also needs detailed instructions on how to spray everyone in the audience with just the right amount of saliva.--Aspro (talk) 13:06, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

I used to read alt.usage.english some, and one thing I kept hearing there was that slashes specifically imply a phonemic transcription - i.e. it's an assertion that every single symbol shown is a phoneme, which is not necessarily true of all broad transcriptions. —Random832 16:22, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Recentism and newysness

I know wikipedia and wikipedians are often guilty of too much recentism and newysness but I just came across several examples which IMHO really take the cake, Effect of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake on Indonesia (permanent link), Effect of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake on Sri Lanka (permanent link, Effect of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake on India (permanent link) & Effect of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake on Thailand (permanent link). Reading these articles, one would presume the Tsunami happened a few days or weeks ago. Examples:

  • The unmanageably high number of corpses strewn all over the cities and countrysides, limited resources and time for identifying bodies, and the very real threat of cholera, diphtheria and other diseases have prompted emergency workers to create makeshift mass graves. One of the most urgently required supplies now are body bags.[21] (emphasis added)
  • What little aid has reached the remote regions of Aceh province is trickling in primarily by boat and air.
  • Across the island collections are being taken for those who have lost everything, vans with PA systems driving around calling on people to give whatever they can. Even in the poorest, most remote areas people flock to the roadside to hand over money, clothes, bottles of water and bags of rice and lentils.
  • Aftershocks continue to rock the area. [2]
  • The Andaman region is still experiencing aftershocks of varying intensities.
  • The government has been asked to remain vigilant in light of these after shocks without affecting the relief and rescue operations and normal life.
  • Thailand is holding legislative elections on 6 February, and the tsunami disaster has been increasingly drawn into the election campaign. Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has accused the former Democratic Party of Thailand government of Chuan Leekpai of ignoring warnings in 1998 of the possible risk of a tsunami affecting Thailand.

This was in late 2004 obviously. Have things gotten significantly better since then or are we still producing these sorta excessively newsy and WP:recentism articles which are then left unattended resulting in rather poor articles which are liable to confuse anyone not aware that this happened several years ago and simply hasn't been updated at all. From what I have seen myself, things are no longer this bad (although still often bad) but I would be interested if anyone has any similar examples. Nil Einne (talk) 07:23, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

This does indeed need attention... I see similar problems with many "news" articles. While an event is new and fresh in peoples' minds, editors get all excited and want to add every scrap of new information to the article. Once time has passed, and the event becomes "old news", editors lose interest and stop updating the article. You end up with articles such as Nil has outlined above. The solution to this is to encourage editors who wish to be journalists, who like to write about ongoing events, to shift to Wikinews. Wikipedia editors should not write articles on news events... we should write articles on historical events. I am not sure how it takes for something to shift from news to history... that probably depends on the event itself... but what ever that time frame is, we should wait for an event to play out before we write about it. We need time to assess the impact of the event, to see its historical significance and ramifications. Wikinews is for ongoing events... Wikipedia is for older events. Blueboar (talk) 19:39, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] m:Kartografio de la Vikipediistoj

Wikipedians' world map - but where's English Wikipedia? ;) --<Flrntalk> 13:08, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] BAG confirmation running

Just a quick note that there's a WP:BAG confirmation (from the trial membership) of myself at Wikipedia talk:Bots/Approvals group#Confirmation under the old system (Snowolf). As has been required in the past, I'm posting this notice on WP:AN, WP:BOWN, WP:BRFA & WP:VP. Snowolf How can I help? 16:07, 1 February 2008 (UTC) Changed link based on change to that page Martinp23

Similarly there is a confirmation running for Cobi (talk · contribs) at the same location. Martinp23 18:28, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
As well as Dreamafter (talk · contribs). ~ Dreamy § 21:24, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] User pages/User sub pages

Question: what is the policy on what is acceptable and not acceptable on user pages?

Also what is the policy on user sub pages?

--pete 22:57, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't believe there is any policy per se on userpages. The relevant guideline is Wikipedia:User page. Algebraist 23:12, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
The userspace, which is your userpage, talk page and all its subpages, is also covered under Wikipedia:User page somewhat (the talk page is a little different, but in the same spirit). x42bn6 Talk Mess 03:01, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Stillman Wiki Wall Photo Contest

Hi folks, I just announced the Stillman Wiki Wall contest on Foundation-l and Commons-l. Wanted to share the news here. Visit http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Stillman_Wiki_Wall_Photo_Contest for more details.

Thanks,
JayWalsh 00:15, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wrongly accused of sockpuppetry; consequent case was illegally handled and wrongfully executed

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Suspected_sock_puppets/Mickylynch101

I have been forced to create this account to defend myself. Please look at both the Markanthony talk page edit history where I provided evidence several times before it was deleted. Someone with a conscience must end this injustice. The way I have been treated makes me sick. Markanthony102 (talk) 14:20, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

I've looked at their contributions and they don't look all that similar other than both having a misunderstanding of the inclusion criteria - Markanthony101 has a tendency to nominate AFDs, whereas Mickylynch101 did speedy tags. The names are fairly generic, and you can't think that _everyone_ who happens to have anything in common in terms of their stance towards deletion is a sockpuppet. Is there any better evidenc I'm not seeing? —Random832 15:52, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
The timeline evidence provided at the SSP page doesn't fit, either. Mickylynch101's block expired 03:44, 27 January 2008, Markanthony101 wasn't created until 17:24, 27 January 2008, thirteen hours later. Block-evasion sockpuppets are usually created while blocked, not after a block has been expired for half a day. —Random832 16:01, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Analysis of evidence

  • Similar usernames: Capitalized first name, lowercase last name, and 101 on the end, without any spacing.
    The first letter of a username is always capitalized; we can just as easily assume that one or both of them typed it in all lowercase. Spacing being allowed in usernames at all is fairly uncommon, probably about one in five cases at WP:CHU are people wanting to change spacing or capitalization because they didn't know what the system allowed when they registered.
  • Similar motives: see Mickylynch101 and Markanthony101's contributions- both mark articles for deletion that they say shouldn't remain on Wikipedia, despite policy saying they should.
    I could say the same for any of hundreds of deletionists. Whether or not policy indeed says they should stay is a matter for discussion, and oddly enough we have an entire section of the site dedicated to such discussion.
  • Markanthony101 created two days after a 31 hour block was placed on Mickylynch101's account.
    I've addressed the timing issue above - this is in fact evidence AGAINST it being the same person.

—Random832 16:07, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Given the unblock declines on both talk pages User_talk:Mickylynch101#Sockpuppetry_case and User_talk:Markanthony101#Sockpuppetry_case, his tone in his complaint on my talk page, and doing what he complained of back to me (Filing VP complaint before I can respond, I'm not overly inclined to help him. If someone else wants to go out on a limb and unblock him, it's on them. — Rlevse • Talk • 17:09, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
And I seriously oppose unblocking, per these remarks made to other editors: "Removed the insult. Reinserted the threat.", "Someone has a problem with basic reading and writing", "I think you are a snivelling moron unworthy to be a member of an encyclopedia project", "Your (sic) a moron", "Never delete tags placed on articles by me. You are an imbecile", "Never delete tags placed on your articles. Imbecile.". (Disclaimer: I filed the SSP report mentioned above.) Nwwaew (Talk Page) (Contribs) (E-mail me) 20:54, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
I've seen those diffs, but nobody is suggesting unblocking Mickylynch101. Can you point to any similar contributions from Markanthony101? —Random832 01:02, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, 'Rlevese', you can certainly understand my anger. You blocked me before giving me a chance to defend myself (Not all of us spend every hour of our lives online) and then ignored my defences, which all pointed towards a logical explanation for everything. I'll start again here, using the defence that was reverted on my talk page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Markanthony101&diff=188163741&oldid=188158089 Markanthony102 (talk) 13:19, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Am I the only person incredibly angry about this conspiracy? Randon832 has proven to me that there are good men among bad ones, but the actions of the blocking admins beggars belief. The lack of logic they have shown in the blocking procedure and in this subsequent defence (My unblock requests replies were absolutely pathetic, look at how illogical their declines were) I have simply never being this angry in my entire life, and I DEMAND justice, and a full apology from the blocking admins. There must be a system to deal with great injustices such as this. Markanthony102 (talk) 14:50, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Brilliant. Insulting people and making more wild accusations with assuredly NOT win them to your side. Since you obviously don't grasp the nature of a collaborative project such as this, I suggest you go find some other endeavor to participate in. — Rlevse • Talk • 15:00, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
Well, he is right. IF they are two different people and admins can't even take the time to look at who made what contribution, there's something wrong. If Markanthony10 and Mickylynch101 are two different people, then you could at least get it straight. Just sayin...-Violask81976 19:20, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
I've filed a CheckUser to see if we can get to the bottom of this. Nwwaew (Talk Page) (Contribs) (E-mail me) 19:41, 2 February 2008 (UTC)


Your right. My anger helps and solves nothing. But you must admit Rlevese your unprofessionalism is stark in itself. The way the case was originally handled was a scam (I wasn't allowed to defend myself) and then your reaction to my unblock requests was non existant. There was logical explanations for everything and all the evidence provided against me is shaky and circumstantial. My anger and isults are inexcusable and I accept that but I have fully legitimate objections and have every right to air them. Markanthony102 (talk) 16:20, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:RFCU#Markanthony101, I think someone owes me an apology. — Rlevse • Talk • 10:57, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Village stocks

Notice is hereby given of the construction of the village stocks in Wikipedia's town square, to allow humorous humiliation of wiki-idiots (aka. editors who have a lapse in their usual sense and do something really stupid like deleting the sandbox and crashing wikipedia). Gwinva (talk) 00:35, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

To be fair, at the time the editor was trying to prevent readers from being affected by a Javascript exploit in the Sandbox, and they could not have anticipated that Mediawiki's implementation of delete would be inefficient on pages with long histories. If they had oversight they could have just reverted and erased the relevant revisions, but they didn't, so this course of action seems perfectly understandable. Dcoetzee 18:31, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Delete reason dropdown script

Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Delete reason dropdown script —Random832 17:26, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Image talk:Arrivavoyager.png

Looking at the deletion log, it was nuked along with the image, undeleted, moved, and the resultant redirect deleted. Could someone please tell me where it was moved to? The page contained useful discussion that ideally should be preserved somewhere (and I need to refer to). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.203.45.168 (talk) 18:18, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

It was moved to Image talk:Arrivavoyagernew.png/Archive 1 and then to Editing Image talk:Arrivavoyagernew.png, then deleted outright. Bloody mess. J Milburn (talk) 11:40, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] New Archive Box

I have created a new archive box to replace the current {{archives}}, {{archive box}}, and {{archive box collapsible}} templates. It incorporates all of the necessary parameters. Could I please get some comments/suggestions on it. And how would I go about implementing it? Thanks, MrKIA11 (talk) 03:19, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Why do vast pieces of Wikipedia (big articles) seem to be disappearing? I see more and more red links

I have gotten many notices recently on my talk page about articles being deleted or proposed for deletion, usually due to lack of notoriety. Some of these have been barely more than stubs, so while I disagree with their deletion, it's not that big of a deal. But just today I came across this example of a red link to Foxboro Company, and then when doing an Internet search I turned up this huge article on it at answers.com, which as I understand it is a Wikipedia mirror that takes snapshots of Wikipedia at some interval. http://www.answers.com/topic/foxboro-company?cat=biz-fin

So I am assuming that this article got deleted because of notoriety, but The Foxboro Company is a pretty big piece of US industrial history, so I sure think it is notable. My frustration comes from the fact that once an article is deleted, there's no easy to use record left behind of why or that allows it to be restored, so all that information is just destroyed and lost forever as far as I know. So the net result is that the mirrors are on their way to becoming more inclusive than Wikipedia, but as far as I know they can't be edited, so it's like having object code with no source code - not good! And as an editor, it makes me pretty angry that something I may have worked on pretty extensively or even created can be wiped out so easily and in my opinion, capriciously. And the end result of this will be that I am less likely to contribute to Wikipedia. In fact, it has already happened, my confidence in it has been severely reduced. And to a lesser extent, as a long time red link fixer, I believe that the appearance of more red links detracts from the Wikipedia experience, like pieces or pages missing from a book or newspaper.

Admittedly I am a somewhat casual and increasingly infrequent Wikipedian so I don't know all the ins and outs of deletion policy and procedures, but I think this rampant deletionism should be changed. Has there been some fundamental change in policy that I missed? I always liked the "Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia" argument for inclusiveness, and I think the "notoriety" card is being overplayed. Yes, I agree that not every high school should have an article, but I think industrial and commercial company history has to play a big part in a good Encyclopedia. Is there anything I can do to help stem the tide of deletions? And can anyone explain to me why this gestalt seems to be taking hold? Spalding (talk) 14:20, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Best I can tell (from the admin side) that there never was an article at Foxboro Company. There are many cases where there are likely large notable corporations that no one has yet created an article, instead of the fact that these were removed for being non-notable (which, based on WP:ORG is not a huge hurdle for most large companies to achieve. --MASEM 14:28, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
I have looked at Foxboro, Foxboro Company and The Foxboro Company, and I couldn't find any trace of an article about this company. Also, I would like to emphasize that deletion doesn't mean that the content is lost forever. It is still visible for admins, and it can be deleted after for instance a deletion review. If you want to know why an article has been deleted, you can find out at the deletion log. AecisBrievenbus 14:32, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
Answers.com is not just a mirror of Wikipedia. They get articles from other sources too. Arthena(talk) 16:28, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
Oops, I didn't realize that. Thanks, Arthena. So is there any way for regular users to see if there used to be an article at a red link? Spalding (talk) 23:29, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
You can browse the deletion or move log to see if that article exists on it anywhere. --Golbez (talk) 00:13, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
If you follow a red link to somewhere where there used to be an article, you will see a message to that effect. For instance see Saro. Arthena(talk) 17:59, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
That example seems to have become a redirect. Here's another example that isn't likely to change: People from Tazewell County, Virginia, which was created by mistake. If you click on that red link, you'll see the deletion log entry for the article. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 14:19, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

re Aecis: WARNING ABOUT DELETION. (hey, the text itself was in all caps too :-) )

(but otherwise no worries) :-) --Kim Bruning (talk) 15:22, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "Foreign Country" redirection

"Foreign Country" redirects to the article on an album by the Concretes, which though an excellent album by a group from a foreign country (American here), doesn't quite explain the concept of a foreign country. :P

Found the link at the bottom of the article on "wilayet"

(Sorry if this is posted in the wrong place.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.129.203.26 (talk) 18:28, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Keep in mind that Wikipedia is not a dictionary; that's a separate project, Wiktionary. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 14:14, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Maybe a Manwha Project or a Korean Project

I notice that the Japanese manga and anime are getting a lot of support. But I notice a lot of the Korean anime and manwha are completely left red. I think Wikipedia should have a Korean project. I'm really getting into Korean manwha and Korean anime so it would be nice for more information on them. Thank You. 71.142.214.138 (talk) 05:57, 5 February 2008 (UTC)Rem

It's unclear what you mean by "Korean project". There already is Wikipedia:WikiProject Korea. And if you think that Wikipedia:WikiProject Anime and manga should have a Korean working group/task force/subproject, the place to propose that is at the WikiProject, not here. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 14:11, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
Actually, WP:ANIME states that Manhwha and Korean animation don't fall under its scope. Instead, you should look at the sidebar on WP:WikiProject Council, and look at what's required to start up, say, WikiProject Korean animation and manwha. Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 04:20, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia Skins

I don't know whether this is in the right area but here we go

Recently, I was using http://www.blackle.com

This website is essentially google, but in black. This saves energy by using a darker display.

For more information, go onto the site, and click about at the bottom.

Either way, I would like the idea, of having 'skins' for wikipedia.

These would just be format sets, so

Black background, white text White background, black text (default)

etc. etc.

There could be user presets, or just a set format.

This may be useful for environment friendly users, or people just looking for personalization.

Just a thought, though I don't know how hard this would be to implement. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.36.126.70 (talk) 22:33, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

You may be interested in this: [2]. As for skins, there is such a feature although it is used for other things: All registered users have their own CSS file that they can edit so they can change their own interface: Mine is located at User:x42bn6/monobook.css (currently has nothing on it). So they can write their own stylesheet to change colours if they so desire. x42bn6 Talk Mess 23:22, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
You'll find more info at m:Customization:Explaining skins, and you may find m:Gallery of user styles to be interesting. Wikipedia already has 8 skins; if you were a registered editor (it's free), you could select one of the seven non-defaults via "my preferences". -- John Broughton (♫♫) 14:09, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Not sure if this is a legal question

Would it be possible to use a picture from Wikipedia with a novel I am typing? If this is a legal question, which I'm not sure it is, sorry for posting this. Please reply. I'll be needing a picture of either some kind of gem, or an Elf. Please reply soon. Wikiman73 (talk) 00:01, 8 February 2008 (UTC)Wikiman73

Click on the image and you will see what license it has been published under. Probably GFDL or CC, and there will be a link to the text of the license. -- SEWilco (talk) 01:02, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:No original research/noticeboard

Just letting everyone know that we have a new NOR noticeboard, where people can ask questions about material they think might be OR, or where they can ask for help if they're accused of engaging in OR but they disagree. The shortcut is WP:NORN, and the talk page is at WT:NORN. Cheers, SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 22:25, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

It doesn't seem like their is a project like that. Could you please tell me where I could announce my project idea. 71.142.214.138 (talk) 03:52, 9 February 2008 (UTC)Rem

[edit] Unreverted vandalism

I have never seen anything like this. This vandalism went unreverted for a year and half. The Evil Spartan (talk) 08:03, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

You're reading it wrong. That edit was less than 48 hours ago. [3]. ^_^ • Anakin (talk) 02:44, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wiki for corporate use

Hello,

I was tasked to research the concept of using a wiki for corporate use. The content and format of wiki is ideal for the transfer of company information, product knowledge, tech repair knowledge, hints on application use, etc.

I realize that the en.wikipedia.org is a public site, used for public information, staffed by volunteers, funded by various groups. The wiki site I was thinking of would be run and funded by our corporate staff, and used by our employees inside our firewalls. We are only in an early concept study of this idea.

Thanks for your help.

John —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.156.77.13 (talk) 16:47, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Well the Wikipedia software is available for download for free, to all, from http://www.mediawiki.org/. Good help and technical resources on using the software are also available there. Many companies do use software like MediaWiki for this sort of stuff. I'd say it's a lot easier to set up and put together than developing custom software, although it won't ever be as user friendly. As a simple example, you should sign comments on discussion pages by typing four tildes: ~~~~. On Wikipedia, SineBot signed your above comment, but the robots do not come with a default MediaWiki installation. That's just one example of the learning curve of MediaWiki. See if there's anyone in your company who's an experienced Wikipedia editor; they'll be able to advise you directly and will already know all this. • Anakin (contribs • complaints) 17:50, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
A company I worked for would just plonk down a mediawiki wiki anytime they needed collaboration (like when writing documentation, etc). Of course, these were unix gurus. YMMV. :-) You're quite welcome to use mediawiki. You can plonk it on a cheap LAMP server, lock it down and use it on your corporate intranet with nary a problem. --Kim Bruning (talk) 18:05, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
I work at a company that uses wiki software (although not MediaWiki). It is a much easier way to document code than conventional means. They are useful, especially if all your reporting tools are in web context (we use a wiki and bugzilla, and can link back and forth). It also allows you to have a list of modifications (which are usually not kept when you just write reports in Microsoft Word format, for example). -- ReyBrujo (talk) 20:59, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

There's a low road if you want to go very low-tech: My company has 40, staff, perhaps 25 of whom sit at computers. I'm responsible for the implementation and support of an ERP system we bought last year. I've got a folder on our server called CompanyNameWiki where I write word documents with plenty of hyperlinks to support use of the ERP software for our core processes. There's no protection on the docs, so anyone can change them as they see fit. The whole thing is effectively archived by our daily backup, and I also create a new folder monthly where I save and protect the wiki at that point in time. It seems to have reached critical mass level 1 - my users use it; and I'm watching for critical mass level 2 - my users write in it. As it stands it has 120 articles authored by me. There are 2! by other users - plus a smattering of other edits (but I can't really monitor this the way you can here). It's unsophisticated, but it has two advantages: 1. It's completely transparent to all users, and completely accessible, except for the monthly archives. 2. If we need more sophistication, it will ramp up in a natural way - they're only word docs after all. Joesydney (talk) 01:38, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

I run a MediaWiki installation for my company (~80 people). It's for internal use only, mainly by engineering. It works very well for glossary/documentation, moderately well for recording minutes of meetings and current status of systems, and rather poorly when people attempt to use it as a project management tool. Regarding meeting minutes, I often run a meeting entirely from a Wiki page: I seed the page with the agenda, some bullet points, and any key hyperlinks; during the meeting I note key points and conclusions. Not only is this on the screen for all to see (in place of, say, PowerPoint), but if I save continually, people on the 'phone can also follow along. It's not quite as slick as a WebEx, but it works well enough, and produces an enduring result. To take another example, time and again I have seen someone send out a proposal by email only to have a dozen people make the same objection; if they had sent a link to a Wiki page instead, they could have improved the document before most people got around to reading it. There's a couple of things that would make the Wiki even more useful: a calendar system that would let us create events and view under various filters; and an email archive. Bovlb (talk) 01:05, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] 190 million served

The odometer just rolled over. Do they get their groceries free? Did anyone have User:Pietervhuis in the pool?

Any bets on who will make the 200,000,000th edit? Better yet, in what week will it occur? Franamax (talk) 19:30, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Oh goody sounds like another sweepstake in the making! Anybody want to make the sweepstake page? :) • Anakin (talk) 02:40, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
What would be a good page title? I'll give it a shot, I can just re-jig your reference. To make it interesting, how about you have to guess the week of the 200M'th edit and predict what your own edit count will be when the counter turns? That'll confound the linear-regression artists. Franamax (talk) 23:33, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Population figures

Historical populations
Census Pop.  %±
1860 8,236
—
1870 12,854 56.1%
1880 20,768 61.6%
1890 44,843 115.9%
1900 53,531 19.4%
1910 92,777 73.3%
1920 116,110 25.1%
1930 140,267 20.8%
1940 149,934 6.9%
1950 182,121 21.5%
1960 189,454 4%
1970 175,885 −7.2%
1980 163,034 −7.3%
1990 159,936 −1.9%
2000 181,743 13.6%
Est. 2006 178,858 −1.6%

Where can I find the population figures for a specific city (such as the one on the table) all in one place? 71.35.232.133 (talk) 00:42, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

This is probably a good question to ask at the reference desk. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 19:12, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Creating New Wikipedia Pages

I was Googling for an old folk singer favorite of mine named Richard Dyer-Bennett, and there does not appear to be a Wikipedia entry for him. However, answers.com has a good biographical sketch, and there is other material available (e.g., his discography).

So what is the process in creating new Wikipedia pages? Do they have to be approved first, by some group of administrators or something? And if one does that for a musical performer, how does it get cross-referenced into the other Wikipedia areas that it relates to? (At the bottom of some pages there are links to various lists, like "folk musicians of the 1960s" etc.) Thanks. --Davolson (talk) 18:02, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Any signed in user can create an article, but the article does have to meet certain standards right from the start or it is likely to be deleted. See Wikipedia:Your first article. The links to lists are categories, and every article should be placed in at least one. See WP:CAT.-gadfium 22:10, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
Many thanks. I actually discovered there is a page for this singer... his last name has just one T in it. But I appreciate the reference on creating new pages should the issue arise again.--Davolson (talk) 17:00, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
I created a redirect for readers who misspell the name - Google shows about 25% of the time that is in fact the case - including pages with both spellings. I also linked to the answers.com bio (it's a bit embarrassing that it's so good, compared to what's in Wikipedia). And I added a stub template. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 18:53, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Censorship in Lusophone Wikipedia

The words Wikipedia and censoring always have been together in the media only when the first was victim of the later: the Chinese government access restrictions or German Justice's ordering to shut down local Wikipedia. But now a censoring act had occurred just inside Lusophone Wikipedia community.

An article about Brazilian NGO "Brasil para Todos" (Brazil for All) was deleted after a poll started by an user (identified as OS2Warp). The accusation was that the referred NGO was a "moviment with no relevance/notability".

The NGO members (including me) contacted people arguing that the "Brasil para Todos" actions had received substantial coverage by the media, supporting messages from several personalities and institutions, and even hard criticisms by other personalities and institutions - what would made the "no relevance" argument absolutely untenable. Other users had argued against article deletion too.

But is was of no use, the article was deleted from encyclopedia logs.

One of the "Brasil para Todos" members (me) asked for a "Reversion of Deletion Action". But the plead was reject with the most absurd "justificatins". One of them was that the article could not be undeleted because it was deleted after polling - if so the Deletion Review would be totally useless, since any deletion would be ratified automatically. Another "justification" was that the NGO was a new one - I wonder if Kurdstan becomes independent from Iraq right now we have to wait for two or three years untill it turns into an "old" subject.

As the Anglophone Wikipedia says about subject notability (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:N): "A topic is presumed to be notable if it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject", the "Brasil para Todos" is totally eligible as notable subject.

Such a kafkesque story could be followed in:

(in Portuguese)

The Wikipedia project always was criticized by the fact that it could be edited by anyone, resulting in an unreliable content. However, a work published in Nature (Jim Giles - 2005. Special Report Internet encyclopaedias go head to head. Nature 438, 900-901| doi:10.1038/438900a) that analysed the Anglophone Wikipedia founded that it has so many errors as Encyclopedia Britannica in technical articles. They said that it was because the Wikipedia community has self-correcting mechanisms and that some members have special powers and make a quality control. These, however, seem not to work in Lusophone version. A little group have captured the special administrative powers and they are using it to create their own rules over an work that must to be communal. And they break their own rules as their conveniences.

In the Lusophone Wikipedia deletion politics one could read: "The deletion is against the initial spirit of the wiki culture. Such a possibility was introduced in Wikipedia because content with no relation with an encyclopedia has proliferated. For that reason, the article deletion attribution is available on to the administrators. But the administrators do not choose which pages or images must be deleted. They only delete content after a decision made by all community." ("A eliminação é contrária ao espírito inicial da cultura wiki. Esta possibilidade foi introduzida na Wikipédia devido à proliferação de material que nada tem a ver com uma enciclopédia. Por esta razão, a função de eliminação de páginas só está disponível para administradores. Os administradores não escolhem, entretanto, quais páginas ou imagens devem ser excluídas. Eles apenas executam a função de eliminação de acordo com uma decisão que é tomada por toda a comunidade.") http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Pol%C3%ADtica_de_elimina%C3%A7%C3%A3o

Well, if the deletion is against the spirit of wiki culture, it must be applied with rigid criteria and in a very special cases. If an article is nominated as irrelevant and it is proved with facts that it is relevant, the article must not be set to be voted to deletion. And if such polling is done, the result must no be regarded as valid - what is more valuable, the spirit of wiki culture or the opinion of a few users with privileges? (Yes, privileges, because it is not every registered users that could vote - only those with 100 or more edition logs by the time that the poll was setted.)

Other violation of rules of Lusophone Wikipedia: "the administrators do not choose" ("[o]s administradores não escolhem"), but the administrator that nominated the article for deletion poll had voted and the administrator that deleted the page had voted too (of course, both had voted for deletion). The rule isn't "the administrators do not choose by themselves" but "the administrators do not choose" - if they do not choose, they could not vote. (If they concede that administrators vote since the decision must be made "by all community", so the restriction to vote to only those with 100 or more edition logs is against what is understood by "all community".)

The poll deadline was violated too. Votes made after deadline was counted (even though the majority of off-time votes was to keep the article).

If such administrators - unable to do a fast search with Google to evaluate a topic relevance and relying in their own ignorance - were a token to the Wikipedian with special powers, the future of the Lusophone Wikipedia will not be a bright one. But there is a had evidence that the poll had ideological background and not a technical one (about encyclopedic relevance) neither a good-faith ignorance: the user that started the poll is a practicing catholic one - the "Brasil para Todos" plead for the banning of religious symbols of places held by Government powers.

The deletion reversion plead process - "Pedido de Restauro" - is a biased one. The same people that voted to deletion is the people that analysed the reversion plead. When they was debunked about "encyclopedic relevant criterium", they started to not take it into account and saying that anything could be done because the bygone is bygone ("Anyway, whatever was the argument, the article was voted at PE and deleted. There is no way to undelete the article." - "Mas enfim, qualquer q seja o argumento, ele foi votado na PE e apagado. Não tem mais como recriar o artigo.").

Wrong, many things could be done to correct such a gross error, one of it is to show indignation against such arbitrary actions of a few people that wanna kidnap a communal work as if it was their property. That group act selfishly and not to the spirit of the wiki culture, as anyone could see.

Roberto Takata [4] 189.79.73.194 (talk) (member of Brasil para Todos) —Preceding comment was added at 08:20, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Whatever takes place on the Portuguese language Wikipedia is the responsibility of the community there. We at the English language Wikipedia have nothing whatsoever to say over our sister projects. If you disagree with an action taken there, you have to raise it there. If that falls on deaf ears, there's nothing we can do. AecisBrievenbus 18:47, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
I'm just warning everybody about what is going on Lusophone Wikipedia. If you don't care about censorship, it is your right. If you don't care about Darfur, it is your right. Roberto Takata [5] 189.79.104.244 (talk) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.79.104.244 (talk) 23:01, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
Ah, the sweet smell of self-righteous indignation ... - DavidWBrooks (talk) 23:16, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rant

Well I sure learned my lesson on this one. After receiving umpteen bloated "Disputed Fair Use" messages from another bloody bot, I've decided I'm not going to upload any more fair use scans. It's just not worth the annoyance. Especially after satisfying the fair use requirements once and then having it come back to me again just because I didn't use some standard template that gives the same freaing information. I'll just let them vanish and good riddance. Grr...—RJH (talk) 15:27, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Like most complaints about that bot, this one seems completely unfounded. Checking the last four images that the bot provided notice about, there was no fair use rationale at the time of notification.[6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13] The problem is the complete lack of fair use rationales, not the bot. Vassyana (talk) 16:27, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
Did you catch when the images were uploaded? GracenotesT § 16:35, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
Yes well that stands to reason as I gave up five images ago. But whatever.—RJH (talk) 18:17, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Unprotect Wikipedia:Esperanza

I propose unprotecting Wikipedia:Esperanza. It was protected for awhile due to a content dispute, but no expiration date for the protection was given. Wikipedia:Page_protection#Content_disputes suggests that protection in this type of case should only be temporary.

The problem with permanent page protection is that consensus can change, and even if the page currently reflects users' opinions, that may change in the future, and then it is impossible to alter the page to reflect that without administrator intervention. The wiki process is generally not supposed to work that way. Consensus has already changed at least once on this issue, as evidenced by the fact that it took two MfDs to kill Esperanza.

This page also seems unique within the context of Wikipedia. It calls itself an essay, but unlike most essays is not open to edits, and almost appears to be promulgating policy: "This essay serves as a warning to all editors that existing projects must be open and transparent to all editors at all times, not to be overly hierarchical lest they are to meet a fate similar to Esperanza's." That language was added here and is a direct quote from Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Esperanza.

Although the consensus may have been to salt Esperanza, normally when a deletion debate closes as delete after a bunch of comments that articles of that type don't belong here, we don't post a warning in its place. E.g., we didn't replace Wikipedia:WikiProject iPhone with a protected essay, "This is a warning that pages like this will be deleted." We just leave the MfD there to speak for itself, and save the warnings for policy/guideline pages, which can be edited through the normal consensus process. Ron Duvall (talk) 17:29, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Do we have to bring up Esperanza again? If there's one thing that protecting it does, it keeps it dormant to the reasonable satisfaction of both sides. Normally, unprotection would be in order, but imho there's no reason to here. I think the essay currently there is best kept as it is: it is, in fact, unique within Wikipedia (as far as I know), which follows from the unique nature and decline of Esperanza. But regardless of what to do with the essay, extensive discussion on the collapsed organization is something I think we should avoid. To quote a comment in the DR: "Let the dead rest (ie Endorse) • No really. Zombies aren't that fun, and they try to eat your brains. On a more serious note, this is just continuing the very divisive and polarising events that Esperanza encouraged when it existed. This ghost still haunts Wikipedia. Let's excise it. Let's leave it be. Cheers, Peter M Dodge." Whether feelings are still this strong or not (i.e., new influx of Wikipedians who weren't around when Esperanza was), I still don't see the point of unprotection. GracenotesT § 18:14, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
Can we at least set an expiration date? If the edit warring resumes, we can always reprotect it, perhaps for a longer period. That's the process we use on other pages, and it works pretty well. Ron Duvall (talk) 21:31, 15 February 2008 (UTC)