Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)/Archive 21

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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This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (miscellaneous).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.

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Petition for UK residents

Related to recent controversy and may be of interest to you, particularly if you care about public domain artwork. Comments appreciated on talk page. - Jarry1250 ^{[ In the UK? Sign the petition! ]} 13:23, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Need help copy-editing Research journal content for wikipedia artilce

I am dyslexic and I am currently helping to edit some of the Wikipedia:WikiProject Dyslexia new sub articles, which require new content sourced from complex research papers. We are trying to avoid possible copyright issues, but we lack the copy-edit skills to transfer the information from the supporting research papers in to acceptable Wikipedia article content. The articles which require the most immediate help are Genetic research into dyslexia, Orthographies and dyslexia and Brain scan research into dyslexia Any help will be very much appreciated dolfrog (talk) 18:23, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

The sources should be rewritten in one's own words, which requires medical expertise. If you could do that, it would be easy to copyedit your spelling etc. (which by the way isn't bad compared to what I've read elsewhere on Wikipedia). Art LaPella (talk) 02:06, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

due to the nature of my disability which causes me to be dyslexix, that is the bit I have real problems with. I have word recall problems in conversations whioch is bad enough, and when i try to write how I see the world, but to rewrite the words of others, is almost impossible for me, and yes some of the medical terms are difficult to work around, I have the same problems with wiki jargon that many editors use. I have noticed the corrects you have already made, I would never have spotted them thanks dolfrog (talk) 02:45, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Common names and official names

A discussion is currently in progress about Talk:Willis Tower about whether the tower should be known by its official name as the Willis Tower or by the common name, used by general public and reliable sources alike, as the Sears Tower. Could someone clarify the policy here, when a common name and an official but unused name are different, which one should we use? Empire NJ (talk) 19:03, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Cf discussions at Talk:Catholic Church & Talk:Orthodox Church, where this issue comes up. Peter jackson (talk) 10:27, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

ANI curiosity

A couple of comments at the administrator's noticeboard (AN) about the quality of ANI discussion have led to a short post at the talk page asking for perceptions:

A user's suggested in an AN discussion that they feel there can be issues at ANI: "For whatever reason, discussions at WP:AN seem to be a little more calm and rational than ANI" "ANI is a bit like throwing chum into a pool of sharks. It's just the mentality there" "AN doesn't seem to attract as many drama seekers [as ANI]" Quick feedback: some truth to it? A lot? Not much?

Users welcomed to comment. (link)

FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 10:28, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Fair use creative commons licensed image ?

Here: File:Martha_My_Dear.jpg it's a fragment of an opening Beatle's song, definitely copyrighted. It has a (to my view a bit weak) fair use claim, yet it firmly states it's free content under a free creative commons license. Could someone take a look? -- m:drini 00:28, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

'nother: File:Beatles Blackbird.jpg, someone may want to review the user's uploads. -- m:drini 00:31, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Basicaly the image has a mix of copyrights as it is a derivative work based on a copyright protected work. The derivative stuff is CC but the stuff it is being derived from is being used under fair use.©Geni 11:22, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Interesting. As it claims to be an original transcription, Walter v Lane suggests a new copyright is created, but I suspect that Apple Corps would dispute this stridently. I suggest deleting the images if the uploader requests it. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 20:55, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Apple Corps would accept the copyright claim but would argue that you can't use it (beyond fair use and simular) without their permission because they also have a copyright claim over it.©Geni 22:43, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Problem with the article about the USA

There is still a problem with this page, in spite of the intervention of a bot (see the history of the page). Gwen42 (talk) 14:41, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Eh? Could you explain that please? Greg Tyler ^{(t • c)} 15:06, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

there was vandalism on the United States article which was reverted by a bot. Gwen, try clearing your cache. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 21:56, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

www.baiamonti.it advertising techniques to breach security of Wikipedia

I am a wikipedia reader. I am not a wikipedian and am unable to assess the significance of the security breaches documented by the author of the above mentioned website. Someone should check this out. Unluckily, the document is in Italian.

Best wishes! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.4.229.213 (talk) 15:30, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

You can traslate it with Babelfish. Is here.--151.81.174.6 (talk) 14:42, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Site completely rewritten in date 1/9/2009.--Nicolayvaluev (talk) 20:52, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

I need help whith an article

Hello. I need help with the article Panamanian literature. Please, anyone can check it??? Thank you. --Kamerad luis (talk) 18:59, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

As a native English speaker I did basic proofreading. Art LaPella (talk) 23:27, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Sending email to OTRS and users privacy?

I need to forward an email containing a permission to OTRS. I want know can a user with OTRS access see my IP address in the email header (X-Originating-IP)? Can a user with OTRS access trace my PC IP address? Mpics (talk) 17:36, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

I am not the most tech-savvy OTRS volunteer on the block, but I've had a look at several e-mails in the OTRS queue, and I don't see an originating IP anywhere, just e-mail addresses. There certainly is no handy tool for tracing your IP address. I believe that only checkusers have that capability. Perhaps a more tech-savvy OTRS volunteer will pop by, but, if not, I hope that helps. :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 18:52, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for the reply, but dose OTRS email interface have some option like "Full header", "View original" or "View source" similar to Yahoo, Gmail and Hotmail? Mpics (talk) 04:51, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

That seems like an odd thing to be concerned about with OTRS in particular, seeing as anyone you send email to, ever, can see those headers -- especially given the extensive vetting process involved with getting access to OTRS, there are other groups or people you should probably be much more worried about. I would be surprised if someone concerned about this sort of thing wasn't already using some proxy or other anonymizing service. My understanding is that OTRS volunteers are indeed able to see email headers, but given the work load I doubt they're going to worry much about it unless they have some reason to. – Luna Santin (talk) 06:45, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm an OTRS members. Yes we can see the full headers. BJ^Talk 06:50, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

So what about users privacy? sending a simple email to OTRS can work as CheckUser and expose users IP address. the only different is that only few users have CheckUser access and it have some rules but for OTRS many users may have access to emails, I think this is a privacy issue, for me maybe I just don't send email to OTRS but for hundred of other users whom may not be aware that they are exposing their IP address this is really a concern, someone should make a rule about it and maybe eliminate Originating-IP or complete header from OTRS email interface. Mpics (talk) 06:06, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

I think you're missing the point here. Anytime you send an email to anyone, they can see your IP. As Luna said, the OTRS volunteers are not going to look at or think twice about the IP unless they have some reason to. The OTRS permissions people do not run mini-checkusers on every email that they get. If you don't want people to be able to see your IP address, the solution is to just not use the internet at all. Anytime you do anything on the internet, someone somewhere can see your IP. Given that for the vast majority of people, an IP address isn't really personally identifying information, my advice would be to just take off the tinfoil hat, but its your life. Mr.Z-man 15:17, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Not to hijack the thread, and I don't personally need to see more than I see, but I'm curious: where? I see from/to/subject/created/attachment. From seems only to be originating e-mail address. Of course, I've only just figured out how to "watch" a ticket, so it might be obvious to some. :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 15:34, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Why not simply use an Anonymous remailer? APL (talk) 18:09, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Please do not misunderstand me, I do every week email to lots of people, that's not a problem, and I don't even think about those people knowing my IP, I am also aware that many websites collect lots of information, even if Wikimedia Collect my personal info I don't care, but when it comes to some indevisual person, who is don't have any responsibility in Wikimedia foundation, that's a big concern, I can not just assume that all the wikipedia editors have good faith. right now many users have OTRS access and I am sure that you don't know all of them, you don't know what they might do and you don't necessarily trust all of them.
IPs are not necessarily dynamic, some of us may use Static IP, even dynamic IP address have lots of useful information, and someone, some company or organization or some goverment may use that information.
Well it's a wikimedia policy that when someone register and sign in to wikipedia nobody can sees it's IP except in especial cases like Sock puppetry and users personal information should be confidential. Also APL's solution may be good and little complicated but that not cover and protect all the users around the world. I believe this kind of information should be confidential so why not simply remove those email headers and Originating-email information from OTRS email interface? Mpics (talk) 05:52, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

When you send an e-mail to anyone (including the OTRS team), you disclose your IP address. If you don't want to disclose it, don't send any e-mail. End of the story. guillom 07:46, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Please read my comment thoroughly, this is not about sending email to anyone (ordinary people) this is about a privacy hole in Wikimedia caused by OTRS system, where Wikimedia Privacy policy should be applied. Mpics (talk) 16:11, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Mpics: If I understand the above correctly, only the very limited set of people with OTRS access can see the headers. They are all highly trusted by the community. Yes, it might be possible to trim headers, but then it would sometimes be hard to validate that the permission came from someone in a position to grant that permission. These are the people we are trusting to verify the identity of people granting permissions. It would be perverse not to let them see the email headers. - Jmabel | Talk 16:32, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

I did read your comment thoroughly. And my answer remains the same: if you don't want to disclose your IP address, don't send any e-mail to OTRS. The WMF's privacy policy is about wikis, not OTRS (see §2). And we're not going to change how we do things because of a few paranoid users. Hence why this discussion is moot. guillom 18:12, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Actually, the Privacy policy covers all avenues by which users can access private information via Foundation-operated sites and servers. Which is why OTRS volunteers are explicitly included in the list of 'users with access to nonpublic data' and are required to identify to the Foundation. From a privacy perspective, OTRS volunteers are trusted by the Foundation to the same level as CheckUsers. Happy‑melon 22:54, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

An easy solution: the "email this user" function of Mediawiki does not include your IP address in the headers. So if absolute privacy is needed, you can send an email directly to the username of an OTRS volunteer and ask them to forward it to the OTRS queue. — Carl (CBM · talk) 19:20, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

You can also send an email to User:Wikipedia Information Team, though it might take longer to be routed to the correct queue, especially for permissions. Mr.Z-man 21:35, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Another easy solution: use Gmail's web interface. It omits your IP from the headers. Pslide (talk) 23:43, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Reference: mail.google.com - User IP Addresses - Pointillist (talk) 23:09, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

I am sorry, but isn't some sort of identifying information actually needed for OTRS to do it's work. When we seek permissions to use media under an open license it is preferable that the person granting the license is identifiable. Same goes for legal issues. Taemyr (talk) 14:35, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Dashes on main page

Should the spaced em dashes on the main page be changed to en dashes, if only to set a MoS-compliant example? Pslide (talk) 10:32, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Nobody objected to Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)/Archive 20#Edit screen message, so I don't think anyone will object here either. If nobody objects in a few days, I'll change Template:WikipediaOther. Art LaPella (talk) 02:35, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. That archived topic is actually why I decided to post. Pslide (talk) 16:56, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

 Done Art LaPella (talk) 23:30, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Not to be too fussy, but should those em dashes be spaced ens, to match the rest of the main page, particularly On this day? Pslide (talk) 00:26, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

You're right again!  Done Art LaPella (talk) 00:09, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

HowTo Wiki !

I think wiki foundation should make a dedicated service-wiki or howtodo-wiki. There are not easy to find how to do things on internet, like how to fix things on your specific car, how to fix things on your house, how to fix your laptop or how to get that sunflowers in your garden to grow.

My idea how to build such site. Each guy can make their own detailed 'how-to' with preferably many pictures and maybe video. It should be the easiest how to available, so even untrained persons are able to do it. Also with an optional easy and short step for step only text sript for short and fast description of procedure. Users may give out stars to each how-to, and owner of the 'how-to' may choose to whether allow people modificate it or come with suggestins or adding comments to it. Every person can make his own how-to on the subject. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikikalus (talk • contribs) 19:16, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Actually the foundation provided this for us years ago. Take a look at WikiBooks which lets you write books on all these service and how-to topics. -- Derek Ross | Talk 19:19, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Check out Wikia. – ukexpat (talk) 19:20, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Or wikiHow. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 21:45, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

How others see us

Recommended listening for anyone who is starting to take editing here too seriously. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:07, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Very funny. I particularly liked the "teddy bears" article. -- Derek Ross | Talk 23:33, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Signature

I want to customize my [Wikipedia] signature, but I don't know how. --Di-Gata Connexion (talk) 20:58, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Click on "my preferences" on the top right hand corner of the screen. Scroll down to the signature section and follow the instructions. Just don't use any templates or subst any templates. Hope that helps, MuZemike 22:11, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

For more advice on the Do's amd Don't of customizing your signature, see here. - Pointillist (talk) 20:49, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

You might look around to see other people's signatures, and find one that you like, then edit a page that has that signature on it, to see how the User created it. Be sure to click "Sign my name exactly as shown" on your Preferences page once you've set up your signature. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 17:44, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Best practices documentation team

Best practice in public outreach is a collection of articles describing experiences in winning new volunteers, partner, contents and audiences. Given that several chapters already developed successful projects to engage new target groups or deepen relationships to newly Wikimedians, the Best practices in public outreach page is a forum for those who want to share their knowledge and for those who want to spread the word.

We are looking for contributors to be involved. If you would like to be involved in public outreach, please list your name at m:Best practices documentation team, and participate in the discussions. If you think someone you know would be good for this, please point them to this page. --Cary Bass (talk) 16:56, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Moving an image on en:wp

Hi,

I am trying to insert commons:File:Suitcase2.jpg to Luggage locks, but there is an identically named File:Suitcase2.jpg on en:wp. In order to use an image on commons, I need to delete File:Suitcase2.jpg and re-upload it with a different name. I am unfamiliar with these procedures, so I would appreciate if anyone could do these for me. Thanks, in advance.--Tomo_suzuki ( talk ) 18:05, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Just do the upload to En WP with the new file name and tag the "old" version for deletion as a duplicate. Make sure you change the image links in articles where the old image is used. It may take a little while for the old image to be deleted, so please be patient. – ukexpat (talk) 18:31, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Luffa

Can someone revert the article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luffa, the 'Use by Humans' section has been vandalised and is possibly libelous. Regards 90.205.32.78 (talk) 12:11, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

If you mean this, someone reverted it. In the future, when you see obvious vandalism like that, you can click "undo". See WP:UNDO and for more information, WP:VANDALISM. Art LaPella (talk) 00:49, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Style on DAB name pages

The link from Joseph Baker, Republican on the Rutland-1-2 Vermont Representative District, 2002-2012 goes to the Joseph Baker disambiguation page. I added him on that page as follows:

• Joseph Baker (Vermont), Republican member representing the Rutland-1-2 Vermont Representative District, 2002-2012

However, I am unsure that this is the correct approach, and I am unsure about adding (Vermont) when it could be (politician) or something else. My questions:

1. Should the disambiguation page say Joseph Baker (Vermont) or Joseph Baker (politician) or something else?
2. Should whatever is chosen as the answer to the above question appear on the Rutland-1-2 Vermont Representative District, 2002-2012 article, turning it red, instead of having the red link on the disambiguation page?
3. After answering the first question, should I go around looking for other mentions of Joseph Baker as a member of the Vermont legislature, and change those mentions to be red links, too?

This is not the only instance of this problem for the Vermont House of Representatives members, and very likely it happens elsewhere, too. An editor puts Joseph Baker in a list, sees it is blue, but doesn't follow the link to see the disambiguation page. Worse, sometimes the disambiguation page has a link to the actual bio, when that link should be at the first instance of the name.--DThomsen8 (talk) 12:34, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

I am not in a position to lecture, but I can tell you what I just did with another disambiguation. 1) Politician, if no other Joseph Bakers are politicians, and Joseph Baker was notable mainly for being a politician 2) Yes. This is half the use of redlinks on disambigs I guess : to set out, in an organised fashion, which title the page should be at. In fact, you should only include the redlink if the term is redlinked elsewhere. Thus, it is appropriate to make them red links most of the time. 3) Yes, per 2). Anomie's link classifier can help established editors know when they've just linked to a disambiguation page; many WikiGnomes help in this respect. I can't recall any obvious cases where John Smith was a disambiguation when only one actual person was called John Smith and the other bluelinks were the names of companies or whatever. I can imagine a two page company vs. name scenario though, and then its done of which is the most common / should there be two different pages anyway? Sorry for the lack of useful links, but I hope that helps. - Jarry1250 ^{[ In the UK? Sign the petition! ]} 13:53, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, that helps a lot. I will fix the Joseph Baker situation, and I will know what to do with this kind of situation in the future. Perhaps I will look into the Anomie link classifier, too, but the Joseph Baker link was there already for me to stumble upon in the course of doing a different kind of fix. --DThomsen8 (talk) 19:49, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

College course assignment: improve the Wikipedia articles you use

I teach a "first year seminar" course at Penn State for bioscience students. They each choose a topic to present to the class and lead discussion. I encourage them to start their research with Wikipedia, as it is a quick way to orient themselves to a topic and find further references.

This year I want to add a new component to the assignment. They will be required to choose at least one Wikipedia article to which they will be required to make substantive additions and/or improvements based on their further research.

Question: does the community have any ideas or resources that will enrich this assignment, either for the students or for Wikipedia? Preferably both.

I'm a sometime author and frequent anonymous typo fixer, so I think I can find the materials to train them in the technique and cultural ethos of Wikipedia editing. I'm looking for something fanatical wikipedians could suggest, nonobvious to dabblers like me, that might enhance this assignment.

In particular, are there community standards that I could use to evaluate this assignment rigorously?

James Endres Howell, Penn State University 16:05, 31 July 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jimmer (talk • contribs)

Being a student myself, I can't vouch for completeness or accuracy, but WP:SUP seems to be a good collection of information on using Wikipedia in this way if you haven't seen it already. Piotrus is one user I know uses Wikipedia as a teaching tool. It will also help, I think, if everyone has a go - both teachers and students! Anyhow, good luck. - Jarry1250 ^{[ In the UK? Sign the petition! ]} 16:13, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm glad you asked Jimmer - I hadn't seen WP:SUP before. I knew there were somethings going on, but I hadn't realized how many. Hope to see your project added to the list - maybe updating that page could be an assignment - I'm trying to decide whether it should be a reward for the best student, or a punishment for the worst:)--SPhilbrickT 20:56, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

User:Jbmurray ran a similar project, and has written a couple of essays about his experience: Was introducing Wikipedia to the classroom an act of madness leading only to mayhem if not murder? and Advice on Using Wikipedia in Colleges and Universities which you might find useful. He used the community rating standards of FA and GA to evaluate the articles. Gwinva (talk) 02:34, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks so much, everyone! Those references are precisely what I was hoping for! James Endres Howell, Penn State University 13:09, 3 August 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jimmer (talk • contribs)

Also, you might want to take a look at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Classroom_coordination, if you haven't already. Sophus Bie ^(talk) 22:01, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Apology

About two years ago, I made one of the worst decisions of my WikiLife. My RFA was a gigantic failure, and I lacked the maturity to understand that. I would like to apologize for my lack of maturity back then, two years later, I can clearly see my mistakes. To be honest, I am very glad that I was denied adminship, as my behavior would have been totally destructive towards Wikipedia.

My answers towards the questions come off as a complete joke today, my violent opposition to vandalism has changed. I misunderstood nearly every one of the policies regarding Wikipedian interactions with others. I failed to assume good faith, I fed the trolls, I didn't stay cool. I seriously and authentically am sorry for my misinformed opinions on Wikipedia. To think that I behaved like that once totally disgusts me, I acted like a troll towards fellow users, I treated Wikipedia as a source of social-networking, as a place to have mischievous fun. Needless to say, I totally misconstrued the meaning of Wikipedia. Despite a familiarity with WikiCode, not having the maturity to treat work seriously makes the most knowledgeable of scholars deeply destructive towards the project.

About a year and a half ago, took up admin coaching with Bibliomaniac15 to identify many of my problems, both ideological and Wiki-Wise. In retrospect, I find most of the problems that were identified came from a need to appeal to others: in short, I cared too much about what others thought of me, forgetting about my purpose as an editor in the first place.

I think you should ask yourself not how to improve your image, but how to improve the encyclopedia. Likewise, you should not desire adminship. It's like growing up, you always wish you could grow up so you can do things that you couldn't do before, but at the end it turns out that they're a dreary, dreary existence exacerbated by stress and conflict. I truly think that you are a user with much potential (which is why I offered to coach you); you have great zeal and dedication for the encyclopedia, but I believe that you need more experiences to actualize that potential. Occasionally, (to be perfectly honest), I find that you may have some trouble with staying mature. This is a problem that you have largely overcome since your past username, but it's still something to watch for. I believe the best course of action for you is either: to build up an article to GA or even FA status, or to help mediate disputes, say at third opinion. It is only through passing through trials and tribulations that you can gain the trust of the community and the mop. bibliomaniac15 05:34, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

My misunderstanding can also be traced to my level of knowledge at that time. I failed to understand the importance of civility, arbitration and the role of an administrator. I mistook the mop to be a "medal of honor", and pursued it without regard to those who may be affected by my actions. I have been through many real-life experiences since then, and those experiences have taught me a lot about myself and my interactions with others.

I've spent over a year editing sparsely, and after a long period of inactivity, I wish to make a return to Wikipedia. This time, I want to be a helpful and constructive editor. As a person, I have went through radical changes to my lifestyle and worldview, those changes have greatly impacted my ability to communicate and collaborate with others. Thus, I feel that I am now ready to contribute constructively.

I am deeply sorry about my past as an editor. From the Userpage Contest to my RFA as well as my non-constructive contributions to deletion discussions and RfAs, I want to apologize for everything I did wrong.

Thank you.

 Marlith (Talk)  05:11, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, I can only speak for myself when I say that I don't an apology is necessary. Simply being the closest you can be to a model contributor is plenty. Cheers. – ClockworkSoul 06:40, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

May your new-found maturity show you a better side of wikipedia. I dream of horses (T) @ 02:19, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Alma mater - abstract question

Just a real unscientific straw-poll, of which I'm asking here (and generically) because I want the community's reaction without any other influencing factors...

Suppose Mr. X attended an accredited university for a couple of semesters before dropping out. Credits earned were not used towards any degree, and Mr. X never earned a degree. Is it proper to list the University as an "Alma Mater" for Mr. X?

I will also cross-post this question to the infobox talkpage. Thanks in advance! //Blaxthos ( t / c ) 17:00, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

• How does the dictionary define "alma mater"? Niteshift36 (talk) 18:47, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

  Dictionary definition is "a school, college, or university at which one has studied and, usually, from which one has graduated.". /20:39, 2 August 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.191.130.232 (talk)

• I remember being "corrected" that as long as the person attended even one semester, they could "claim" to be an Alum of said University/College. Not sure how that effects the bio or info box ect or if that is even correct. Anyways, --Tom (talk) 19:01, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

  Agree -- this one could go either way (hence abstract query here seeking wider input). I think, however, that while "technically possible", I think such a designation in an encyclopedic article is a dubious assertion at best (and probably will imply to most readers that the subject actually graduated). //Blaxthos ( t / c ) 20:45, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Good question, Blaxthos and Niteshift36. The OED has:

Alma Mater:

[Latin. alma māter bounteous mother.]

A title given by the Romans to several goddesses, especially to Ceres and Cybele, and transferred in English to Universities and schools regarded as ‘fostering mothers’ to their alumni.

It's probably helpful to look at the word alumnus, "foster son" in Latin, and the feminine version alumna, "foster daughter". The idea is that a graduate is a foster or adopted child of Alma Mater ("nourishing (i.e., dear) mother").

alumnus:

The nurseling or pupil of any school, university, or other seat of learning. Also, a graduate or former student (chiefly U.S., esp. in pl.).

Usage examples: 1823 J. & R. C. Morse Traveller's Guide 320 The number of alumni, that is, the number who have been educated at each college since its establishment. 1906 Springfield (Mass.) Weekly Republ. 28 June 10 Tuesday was alumni day at Yale, when hundreds of old graduates..gathered in alumni hall.

alumna: Plural alumnæ. [L., fem. of alumnus.] A female graduate or former student of a school, college, or university. Chiefly U.S.

It seems Alma Mater usually refers to the university Mr. X graduated from, though it's sometimes used for a former non-graduated student. Mainly though, it seems to be used to define the university/college from which someone did graduate. –Whitehorse1 20:55, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps attended would work better? Soxwon (talk) 21:00, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

"Attended" is fine in the article text (though lack of graduation should be noted)... however this query specifically is to address the use of the "alma mater" tag in {{infobox person}} template. //Blaxthos ( t / c ) 21:03, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

• Might be an idea to post at WikiProject Universities directing here. –Whitehorse1 21:38, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

So a good example would be Steve Miller (musician), who attended, but dropped out of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. MuZemike 21:37, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

A simple solution is to stop using the ambiguous term "alma mater"; that is, you can say "Mr. X graduated from XYZ" instead of saying "he is an alma mater of XYZ." In an encyclopedia writing, it's always better to prefer an unambiguous language to ambiguous one. -- Taku (talk) 22:20, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree with TakuyaMurata that the meanings of infobox fields should be unambiguous, and I would go further: infobox fields should have the same meaning on every wikipedia, because that allows (semi-)automatic translation. It is confusing to see that en:Angela Merkel, es:Angela Merkel and it:Angela Merkel all use Alma mater while fr:Angela Merkel has Diplômé de, or that es:Richard Feynman has Alma máter at Princeton, fr:Richard Feynman has Diplômé at MIT, and en:Richard Feynman has Alma mater at MIT and Princeton.

Given the choice between Attended and Graduated from I agree with Soxwon that Attended would work better. For example:

• Attended and Alma mater both imply "influenced by" or "formed by" (which I think is what Образование means in the ru:Angela Merkel article). You don't have to graduate from an institution to be formed by it.
• Some students don't graduate because of war, illness, family circumstances, transfer to another university, etc., (see this search) but if they become famous their original institutions are nevertheless keen to recognise them as alumni (e.g. Bill Gates and Michael Dell);
• It is safe to convert Alma mater into Attended automatically, but it isn't safe to convert it into "Graduated";
• Anyway, for BLP purposes, it is usually easier to find evidence of Attended than evidence of Graduated from.

BTW, I don't know where you've cross-posted this question to, but it would be useful if you could encourage all the answers to be posted in a single place. - Pointillist (talk) 23:44, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

• And simply changing the template from "Alma mater" to "Schools attended" was my suggested solution to this issue in the article that spawned this question. Niteshift36 (talk) 13:38, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

• I think that if the dictionary (I used Random House, feel free to use your own) meant for the term to mean "always graduated from", they would have said so. But they said "usually", which means that the use for a person who attended a college but didn't graduate from it is correct. Look at the bio on Barack Obama, which lists one of his alma maters as Occidental College. He did not graduate from there. The bio on Jimmy Carter lists Georgia Southwestern College as an alma mater, but he didn't graduate from there. It also lists Union College as an alma mater, but his sole attendence there was a non-credit course. Even the wikipedia article Alma mater says in it's opening paragraph: "In modern times it is used to refer to the university or college a person attended." The same article goes on to repeat: "In the English language, it is often used in place of the name of the university or college from where a person has attended or graduated". So clearly the dictionary feels that the use for a school someone attended but didn't graduate from is appropriate. So does the Wikipedia article on the topic. And there is precedent for it in other bios. If the body of the article clearly states that someone attended, but didn't graduate, where is this "false impression" coming from? Niteshift36 (talk) 05:23, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
  • Whether the use of a term is "appropriate" per a dictionary and what many people think can be very different. In this case, using "alma mater" will definitely mislead some readers in those cases where an individual attended but did not graduate. Is that their fault? That's irrelevant: Wikipedia editors should use "attended" where a person did not graduate (or graduation status is uncertain), or "graduated", where appropriate, and leave out the latin term altogether. Clarity first. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 14:56, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
    • Are you suggesting that "graduated" means we cite a reliable source to confirm it, or do you mean we should assume graduation unless we have a reliable source casting doubt on it? Sounds a bit of a maintenance minefield to me: wouldn't using "attended" in its natural sense be the easiest and safest approach? - Pointillist (talk) 15:17, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
      • John, at what point do we stop worrying about what might happen and just deal with facts? If a person glances at an info box and doesn't bother to read the article, then I say shame on them. Life isn't all sound bytes and Headline news. I agree that "attended" makes more sense and I already proposed that in an article where this topic is under discussion. But I hate to think we are doing it just to dumb it down for those too lazy to actually read the body of the article. Niteshift36 (talk) 17:38, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

That people, in your view, "should" read articles as well as infoboxes doesn't mean that we should put stuff in infoboxes that might be misleading. Why have an infobox at all if we're totally OK with the possibility that someone will be misinformed from having read it? Croctotheface (talk) 21:11, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

• Why write articles at all? Let's just have page after page of info boxes? Just because people, in your view, may misunderstand what alma mater really means doesn't mean that we should just throw the actual definition out in favor of one based on the opinions of a few wikipedia editors. I don't see why people would be misinformed. Nothing untrue is being stated. That some people have an incorrect understanding of a term is their shortcoming. I'd be interesting in watching the reaction if someone tried to remove Occidental College from the Barack Obama article. That is a feature article that does the exact thing we are talking about here...listing an alma mater from which the subject did not graduate. Perhaps you haven't thought of the flip side of this. Maybe someone will see the infobox, then read in the body of the article that the subject didn't graduate and this will lead them to actually find out what alma mater means instead of just assuming they know. Is that any less plausible than your theory?Niteshift36 (talk) 21:29, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Niteshift36, smartassed comments are unwelcome and unproductive. For one, most people would argue that you're misusing the term (or at least trying to stretch its meaning to the limit). For two, Barack Obama actually has several degrees, so your analogy doesn't really carry -- the point here is that Mr. X has no degree, and his credits were never awarded, conferred, or transferred. As croc said above, let's just not put misleading or ambiguous information into infoboxes. What's the harm in leaving it out? None, but there's plenty of opportunity to give a factually incorrect impression by putting it in. It almost looks like you share some sort of partisan ideology with the subject and are trying to give readers the incorrect impression that Mr. X did receive a degree from said university... //Blaxthos ( t / c ) 21:12, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

• And being called a smartass is unwlecome too. For one, you claim "most people" would argue that I'm misusing the term. Well guess what friend? I see people agreeing with me. My Obama and Carter examples are right on point. Your claim is that alma mater means a school you graduated from. Neither man graduated from all the alam maters listed in their bio. You're just trying to bootstrap with your "well they got a degree somewhere" backpeddling. And don't give me the "they transferred credits" song and dance either because you and I both know that Jimmy Carter didn't transfer a NON-credit course, especially since he didn't obtain another degree after that class. As for your "partisan ideology" theory.....well, I will reamain civil even though you won't.Niteshift36 (talk) 01:59, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Dude, as someone else also noted, your comment about "why write articles at all?" is obvious smartassery and should be called out as such on sight (and to which I will offer no apology) -- it is unwelcome, unproductive, and disrespectful to both Wikipedia and your fellow editors. With regards to the rest: Now it's Jimmy Carter... This thread was started without trying to align the discussion to any particular person or ideology, and is clearly noted in both the section title and the original statements. It would appear that your zeal for arguing along ideological lines only serves as further evidence that this isn't a good faith argument, but rather a transparent attempt to wage a battle along your ideological perspective. Indeed, the thread was moved here to get away from that sort of partisan hackery and more towards a neutral discussion of the proper use of the term "Alma Mater." I think it's unfortunate you've attempted to turn this into a battelground as well.  :( //Blaxthos ( t / c ) 12:49, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

• And your calling it "smartassery" is disrespectful, unproductive and unwelcome. I still have not made ideology an issue here sport. I haven't mentioned who or a political position at all. You're just hung up on my userboxes and can't see past that. I used the Jimmy Carter bio as an example of where a school is listed as an alma mater, but the person didn't graduate from. Some have tried to bootsrap an excuse for others by saying "they transferred the credits", but the Carter bio disproves that excuse as well. That is what makes it an ideal example, not political ideology. It's unfortunate that you can't get past your own opinions of me to see the blatantly obvious validity of the example. Niteshift36 (talk) 21:46, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

I think definitely change it to "attended". Both to make it less ambiguous and less Americani(s/z)ed. I've certainly never heard of the term "Alma Mater" outside of a U.S. context. OrangeDog (talk • edits) 00:58, 5 August 2009 (UTC) No, in UK English it's only used with the ironic awareness that it's an affected expression. Deipnosophista (talk) 14:48, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Sections template

I just added the{{sections}} template to Siege of 's-Hertogenbosch, but I cannot find any mention of that template on Help:Sections, or by searching. I did it by just trying it. This template should be mentioned on Help:Sections, but only with a link to the documentation, which I have not found yet. --DThomsen8 (talk) 12:33, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

When you use a template, it is mentioned below the edit box for the page. Just click on the link and it will take you to the help page for the template. For your reference, here it is. — Frecklefσσt | Talk 13:50, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for that information. When I want to figure out what template to use, I need to figure out the name of the template. I have added Template:sections to the Help:sections See also to guide other editors. Perhaps I should go further and create a section on that page. What do you think? --DThomsen8 (talk) 15:02, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

2,980,990 articles in English

I see 2,980,990 articles in English today, and no doubt this will rise. Is there a celebration at three million articles? --DThomsen8 (talk) 12:51, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Three-millionth topic pool. Dabomb87 (talk) 20:55, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Translation

File:Model tanker.JPG shows a name on the ship, unfortunately I can't read her name. Can someone translate the name in English, or even give her IMO number? --Stunteltje (talk) 20:16, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't know Russian but with a little use of Russian language#Alphabet I got СИГУЛДА = SIGULDA which is indeed the name of a tanker - and a town. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:57, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Thank you very much indeed. Found the ship, she is renamed. Clipper Skagen --Stunteltje (talk) 05:38, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Review Needed (Of An Article On A Eastern European Dictatorship)

Dear Wikipedia. Could editors of Wikipedia please do a reassessment of the Josip Broz Tito article. The article is embarrassing. The Eastern European Dictator is portrayed as some sort of pop star (what is this all about/also it's very strange) and should not be in any nominations other than the article that lacks NPOV. Also considering he was responsible for war crimes, mass massacres, torture & mass imprisonment makes Wikipedia look like ad for Eastern European Dictatorships. One to mention is the Foibe Massacres (there are BBC documentaries). Wikipedia has an article on this so it’s just contradicting itself. You have one feel-good article about a Dictator then you have an article about the Massacres he approved and organized with the Yugoslav Partisan Army. Then there were Death squads in Southern Dalmatia (the Croatians are putting up monuments for the poor victims & their families now). Also it’s important to mention that the Croatian Government is paying compensation to his former victims. Surely a more critical historical article should be written or this present article should be removed altogether. What is next? A Stalin feel-good article? What about the respect towards the poor victims who suffered those awful events? Can the editors please look into this & how on earth did this article come about?Sir Floyd (talk) 07:33, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

The article came about because an editor created it, and many different editors expanded and changed it, adding text and citations. There is nothing to "look into", in that regard, and there is no one here who is responsible for doing so. Yes, the article certainly needs improvement, as does virtually every article in Wikipedia. But it's up to you or others who decide to get involved to actually get changes done.

So, if you really want to improve the article, you should post specific suggestions about what you would like to see added, deleted, and reworded, at Talk:Josip Broz Tito. Please do not comment there about possible motivations of other editors; this is a violation of WP:AGF, WP:CIVIL, and WP:NPA. Rather, you should focus strictly on what article changes you'd like. And please do this incrementally: start with (say) two or three suggestions, each in a separate section. Finally, if you want to be taken seriously, it's best if you provide citations (whether on-line or off-line) to sources that support your proposed changes. (This isn't necessary if you're pointing out where cited sources don't support the text of the article, or where the language is not neutral. Please read WP:RS about what types of sources are and are not acceptable. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 15:12, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks John Sir Floyd (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 01:58, 5 August 2009 (UTC).

Please note guys, this is a sock trying to stir-up trouble. He's probably User:Luigi 28, but could be User:Brunodam as well. This message was copy-pasted just about everywhere in an effort to create a fake conflict about a non-existing issue. Considering the barely disguised POV-pushing, there's really little doubt its just another in a long, looong line of socks belonging to one of the so-called "irredentist users". A group of a dozen or so (mostly Italian) POV-pushers that got banned from enWiki for edit-warring, sockpuppeteering, block-evasion, harassment, etc.. They surface now and again to make spiteful edits and insult people. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 23:30, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Descriptive and prescriptive policy: fresh input needed

Fresh eyes should be appreciated at Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not#Descriptive not prescriptive --> descriptive as well as prescriptive. Should WP:NOT say the policies are "descriptive, not prescriptive" or "descriptive as well as prescriptive"? SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 09:43, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Paper

The article on Paper and the articles on specific kinds of paper like Cotton paper mostly have the Wikipedia China project template on the talk page, which is correct, since almost everyone agrees that paper was invented in China, with maybe some dissent advocating Egypt. However, origin and history is one thing, but the technology is certainly another. I could not find a paper related article with any kind of technology project template. I am cautious about merely adding the technology template, but I am unsure what other template would be more specific. Ideas? Comments?--DThomsen8 (talk) 13:34, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

I would bring the subject up either at Wikipedia Talk:WikiProject Technology or on the specific article talk page(s) which you are considering adding to.
— Ω (talk) 03:18, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Do we have some way to identify pages as being high-risk for commercial spam?

I have a proposal, but I'd rather not post at :Proposals until I've gotten all the bugs worked out (those people are exacting!). Please take a look at this:

My friends at WP:Law just got through removing the spam at Lawyer referral service, and it got me wondering whether we have (or should have) an annotated list of pages that are at high risk for nuanced commercial spam?

At this resource, we wouldn't simply LIST the pages; we'd attempt to CHARACTERIZE the riskiest spam. That's why I say "nuanced"; there are some forms of spam that take some ... ummm ... calibration to get used to: Calibration#External_links, for example. The entry for Au Pair would attempt to characterize this drivel.

Having dedicated patrolers isn't enough to fight this sort of "nuanced" spam, because to the untrained eye it might look like a helpful contribution. This page would serve as an "encyclopedia of wikipedia spam" to let people know what to look for.

Thoughts? Andrew Gradman ^talk/_WP:Hornbook 05:30, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

I think this idea has some merit... I removed a particularly stealthy example this evening from human papillomavirus. I posted a summary about the peculiarities of the site here. – ClockworkSoul 05:47, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

• Perhaps a template {{spamwatch}} at the top of the talk page. But rather than typing the warning into the template, the text of the warning is transcluded from a central page, so the text can't simply be blanked. (keeping folks from deleting the template, though: that's a problem.) Andrew Gradman ^talk/_WP:Hornbook 06:21, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

We need to discriminate here. Some articles need more helping hands in reverting spam than others.

Maybe we can make up some kind of new page patrol/flag protection for something like this? I dream of horses (T) @ 02:23, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

A wikiproject specific to the task seems to be an obvious solution, to me.
— Ω (talk) 03:20, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Funny you should mention it -- i just stumbled across Wikipedia:WikiProject_Spam. As soon as I return from the Wikibreak I'm taking to write an overdue seminar paper (!) I'll repost this idea there.  :) Andrew Gradman ^talk/_WP:Hornbook

Real Life Occupations of Editors

(Please insult and redirect me if this posting is misplaced!) I'm contemplating my future career and I know I want to be in the business of organizing information, on a global scale if possible. I figure most WP editors feel the same way, so I want to hear what other editors do in their day job. So far, I've largely considered the library field but they have only isolated pockets of information and are often rather backwards technologically speaking. I'd love to work with Google, but I don't meet their high standard. What do others think? --Ephilei (talk) 16:27, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Maybe talk to a career guidance adviser? – ukexpat (talk) 17:03, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, the village pump pages are "used to discuss the technical issues, policies, and operations of Wikipedia". I'm not sure where to redirect you, however. Perhaps you could ask a WP friend on his or her talk page for advice? Otherwise, I'd take it off-wiki (try IRC). hmwitht 18:02, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Ask Metafilter is a great place to ask this and other kinds of questions and get very useful comments and suggestions. It's $5 to join (you can read it for free). Might be a good investment in your future. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 20:55, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

I can't answer your question, and I'm sorry that for now we have to refer you offsite. If I may paraphrase your question ("Are there careers that offer the joys of editing wikipedia?"), it's something we're all trying to figure out; maybe someday there will be a page devoted to answering the question. WP:Paid inspires so much controversy because we haven't yet figured out how to do this. A symptom is wikipediholics like myself who whose editing interferes with their careers! Andrew Gradman ^talk/_WP:Hornbook 22:01, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Fresh eyes would be appreciated at this RfC

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Rorschach test images. Should Rorschach test display all ten images used in the test and the common responses, or should we act on psychologists' concerns that doing so undermines the test? SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 17:03, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not censored. — Frecklefσσt | Talk 17:31, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Exactly, what else is there to discuss? – ukexpat (talk) 17:35, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Please discuss/endorse positions at the RFC, not here. –xeno^talk 17:37, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Political Red Cross (Russia, ca 1890?-1940?)

I'm looking for sources and help in finding out more about the Political Red Cross, an independent league of support groups much like Amnesty International which was active from sometime around the turn of the last century into the 1930s. Solzhnitsyn mentions it in passing in the last chapter of Pt 1 of The Gulag Archipelago (which deals with prisons as opposed to camps proper, and hunger strikes) and seems to assume that his Rusaian readers will know about it. The translations I've seen give no explanation. It's clear from his text that PRC was a kind of relief network for political prisoners during late Tsarist times and some groups survived into the 1930s, notably the Moscow group led by Maxim Gorky's wife Ekaterina Pehkova.

I am working on some Gulag/stalinism-related articles here and on the Swedish WP. Don't know Russian but have read a good deal about late Imperial Russia and the early Soviet Union, so could someone here who does know the language help me get in touch with people at the Russian WP who might want to cooperate on this? I'm fluent in English and French. Is there any article on PRC at the Russian Wikipedia? If so, what's the name of that article, in Cyrillic writing, so one could post a query like this over there? /Strausszek (talk) 14:50, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

perhaps these people can help -- Category:User_ru. Andrew Gradman ^talk/_WP:Hornbook

Also, to find Russian speakers who are more likely to respond to your request, maybe it's possible to use Wikipedia:CatScan to find the intersection of this category with Category:Wikipedia administrators? Andrew Gradman ^talk/_WP:Hornbook

Sorry, I could have been more helpful. Using google's translation tool, "political red cross" may have been "политического Красного Креста" in the original. A google search shows that this was in fact the name in the original russian. Google lets you translate the results; as I read through them, it seems that frequent reference is made to the "Moscow Committee of the Political Red Cross" (Московского комитета Политического Красного Креста).

Here is the google translation of the Wikipedia search for "политического Красного Креста":[1].

Here is the google translation of the Wikipedia search for "Московского комитета Политического Красного Креста": [2]

Now, why am I editing the village pump when I am on Wikibreak writing a seminar paper?! Andrew Gradman ^talk/_WP:Hornbook 22:49, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

User requesting password

Resolved

 – Smallman12q (talk) 16:30, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Hey, a user (not me) requested a new password. the IP it was requested from is: 218.103.63.121 I am not watching this page, but don't mind correspondence relating to this. --Callek (talk) 20:00, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Replied at user talk. Just ignore it. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:14, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

United States federal publications, COinS?

Does anyone know if US FedPub numbers (ie.: "NASA SP-2001-4407") have a... ContextObject(?) which can be used to generate COinS metadata for citations?
— Ω (talk) 20:03, August 8, 2009 (UTC)

Apparently not? :(
— Ω (talk) 21:22, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Brackets in the article Anna (name)

Within the Variant forms section, some of the languages are in brackets(e.g."Anabel" line, "Spanish"), but others are out of brackets(e.g."Anabel" line, "English"). Who can tell me what do those brackets mean?

P.S.I'm a Chinese English-speaker, so my English may not be so fluent.--FrankLSF95 00:55, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I see no reason why most language names are in parentheses, while a few are not. All of them should have parentheses around them. I also don't see why the language names are wikilinked; there isn't any particular reason why someone reading the article Anna (name) would want to jump to the article English language, for example. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 01:58, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

But I thought there should be some reasons...Maybe I should ask the main editor of this article. Anyway, thanks for your reply--FrankLSF95 04:23, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Worst sleazy wikipedia scraper?

I just stubmled onto "Wacklepedia" - I won't give the link, because heavens knows we don't want to sent traffic their way - which is blatant do-nothing-but-scrape-wikipedia site. What's amusing about it, however, is that the scrapes are incredibly old; I stumbled on one with me listed as part of the article, a bit of silliness that was removed in 2004 - that's right, 2004! - DavidWBrooks (talk) 14:38, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Just out of curiosity, how exactly is scraping or mirroring Wikipedia "sleazy" exactly?
— Ω (talk) 21:20, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

It's already listed at Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks/Vwxyz#Wacklepedia.com. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:20, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Tagging pages containing sexual content

Discussion moved to Village pump (proposals) as a more relevant forum. --Cybercobra (talk) 22:47, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Possible vandalism

User:Engineman appears to have put large numbers of spam links to "Calverton energy" (its a private wiki) surreptiously into wikipedia's energy related articles. I am currently working, and cannot attend to this problem immediately, and would appreciate other editors looking into the problem. A quick search turns up dozens of external links across many articles. If someone who has time can look into this, this would be great! Search link User A1 (talk) 04:31, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Why don't you report is at WP:WikiProject Spam? Jezhotwells (talk) 02:06, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Would appreciate some experienced editors' input on an AfD that's turning nasty

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Leonardo Ciampa is being overwhelmed by SPAs and anonymous and infrequent users who are beginning to attack me personally (I initiated the AfD). The subject of the article has mentioned it on his personal blog, which may explain where some of the users are coming from. One other experienced editor who supported deletion has withdrawn from the discussion because of harrassment (including his/her personal information being published on Wikipedia, the subject of the article trying to contact him/her personally, and a bogus sockpuppet allegation being filed against both of us). I would appreciate some sane input on the AfD, whether for or against. Cheers. Grover cleveland (talk) 02:15, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Wow, that AFD's...uh...special, isn't it. Perhaps someone should look into all those IPs (and maybe User:BonGens) for sockpuppetry themselves, because the whole thing is beyond silly. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 04:37, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Grover, props to you for maintaining your cool under the fire. By the way, my favorite is the blog post. What a debacle. Andrew Gradman ^talk/_WP:Hornbook 05:09, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

I would say if you have a problematic AFD it's the kind of issue Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents was made for. An admin is going to have to close that one, especially if any deletions, blocks, or even creation protection is in order. Probably best you post this notice over there. -Optigan13 (talk) 05:15, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

I've stepped in to try to work things out a bit and semiprotected the page to cut down on further SPA-related nastiness. For what it's worth, I think this sort of discussion is probably better at WP:ANI. Cool3 (talk) 05:16, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice and help, everyone. I've reposted at WP:ANI, as suggested. I see that Cool3 beat me to it. Grover cleveland (talk) 05:46, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Awesome presidential username aside, you're a motherfuckin' champ: "This article, which I have just paid $5 to view in the cause of Wikipedia" ~ Amory (user • talk • contribs) 06:01, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Board election gaming?

Recently I got mail informing me that both I and my bot were eligible for voting in the ongoing Board of Trustees election. This obviously raises the question: couldn't someone easily create a dozen accounts and vote with all of them? All they'd need is to do some editing under each one. Checkuser is not a great solution, since it would be unfair to disenfranchise users who happen to share an IP (e.g. behind the same NAT). Is there any interest in making board elections secure, and if so how? Dcoetzee 04:49, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Per this page, the requirements for voter eligibility include:

1. have made at least 600 edits before 01 June 2009 across Wikimedia wikis; and
2. have made at least 50 edits between 01 January and 01 July 2009.

So yes, someone could create a lot of accounts, but they'd also have to do a lot of editing with each one. Seems like a lot of work to do something that isn't likely to sway the election one way or another anyway. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 20:53, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

If I make 100 accounts, and have them each make 10 random trivial edits per day using a script (not having bot approval would be irrelevant to someone looking to game the system), then I could easily generate 100+ votes all by myself. The point being, online voting is (currently, and for the foreseeable future) inherently, and extremely, insecure. The only real solution to this, while retaining an online voting mechanism at all, is to assume good faith. If there is a real requirement for secure voting, the only true alternatives require moving the vote offline (using a snail mail system is the obvious choice).
— Ω (talk) 03:10, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Interesting challenge: create a bot that can make 1000 constructive edits per day to random pages - that is, edits that won't get the account warned and eventually blocked. That certainly could help Wikipedia a great deal. (If by "trivial" you meant something like "editing a personal sandbox", then it seems obvious that it would only take a relatively short investigation, if someone was at all suspicious, to identify all of the bogus accounts that did stack voting. So I'm assuming that "trivial" doesn't mean "meaningless", but rather doing things useful things like fixing spelling errors and grammatical mistakes.) -- John Broughton (♫♫) 01:50, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

You're just lacking imagination! LOL. All it would take is for them to run around and change some punctuation, or something equally trivial. It doesn't even matter if the edits are reverted, or if some of the bots end up being caught. There's basically an infinite supply of proxies available, and restarting a bot is as easy as running a program... It's exactly like terrorism or workplace safety really, in that it's impossible to guarantee results. That doesn't mean that you do nothing, but trying to absolutely prevent either voting fraud (especially electronic), terrorist acts, or workplace accidents is a fools errand.
— Ω (talk) 02:11, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Hence why we don't. Protonk (talk) 01:18, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia will never have 3M articles

Compared to in 2003-2004, when Wikipedia was easy for me to look at as developing, now it looks so developed. What will it look like in 2014?? Georgia guy (talk) 13:04, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

If we were to just stop afd'ing articles, we'd have 3M in no time. :) --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 13:18, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

But there are hardly 10,000 articles to go to the 3 million mark. You sure we're not gonna make it? :) Shereth 14:17, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

We have several 3M articles. See Scotch Tape, Post-it note, Scotchgard and many others. Hope that helps. Mike R (talk) 14:19, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I LOL'd! My thoughts exactly when I saw the heading. Now if it had said 3MM articles... – ukexpat (talk) 15:02, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

There's always going to be future developments that will facilitate more articles being created. We'll get there, eventually. MuZemike 23:02, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

We have a ton of articles on 20th century pop culture but are sadly lacking in articles on 19th century pop culture. If you want to get to 3 mega-articles start adding articles on 19th century magazines, 19th century subcultures and 19th century minor celebrities. There are loads without articles. All you need is to do some research oops, bad word, reading on Google Books and hey presto! one article closer to 3,000,000 -- Derek Ross | Talk 01:26, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Of course we will reach 3 million and 4 million and 5 million articles. Plenty of unworthy (IMHO) artciles survive AfDs because few people bother to comment. Likewise potentially Good Articles sometimes die the death. As has been said above ther are plenty of topics to create artciles on. Jezhotwells (talk) 02:03, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't know, I have the feeling that many users are afraid to comment at AFDs perhaps because of fear of being pigeonholed or labeled, while others get discouraged with the process and the high amount of wikilawyering and incivility that often goes on there. MuZemike 17:44, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Purpose of Wikipedia

It has always been my idea that Wikipedia can be used to create knowledge, by allowing society to edit what we know/think. We can add information, and then whittle it down into what we as a society agree on, thereby creating knowledge, and, to a point, truth.

Is Wikipedia a societal agreement on the definitions of the world?

9:50 EST August 11, 2009

-Prometheustole18 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Prometheustole18 (talk • contribs) 01:51, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Mostly right, but we don't create the truth. Anyone can say that anything is truth. A better word to use instead of "truth" is verifiability, which is plainly reporting the facts as stated in as a neutral of manner as possible from the most reliable of sources that can be found. We don't engage in our own research of anything; we write what has already been researched by scholars and lay people across the world. That's how "the sum of all human knowledge" (as Jimmy Wales puts it) is best constructed. The rest of it is how to build and organize said human knowledge. Hope that helps, MuZemike 02:10, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia would have to be considered a societal agreement. I think the original questioner is right. That society would be the society of Wikipedia editors, but that society can only write what is supported by reliable sources.

Please sign your comments with four tildes (~), like this: ~~~~. Bus stop (talk) 02:25, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

So does wikipedia have the right/ability to, in its own way, regulate the knowledge of the world? do we bring what is known to the masses? where do we get that right from, or did we seize the mantle because no one else did (at least in the way wikipedia does)?

Prometheustole18 (talk) 19:02, 12 August 2009 (UTC)prometheustole18

In my personal opinion we regulate nothing. There is the function of organizing material for access in what is called an information age. Who are the masses? If the masses have internet access then they are potential compilers of the stuff found on Wikipedia. I don't understand what you mean about having a right to do something of this nature. Why would someone need a right to organize information? I think the reverse question has more substance -- is there any prohibition on compiling knowledge? I think in specific instances the answer would be yes. But in the vast majority of instances I think the answer is no. You see, the information is already out there. In fact synthesizing information or proposing heretofore nonexistent ideas is not allowed on Wikipedia. I personally have tons of ideas. Most of them might be useless. But whatever the case may be -- Wikipedia is not an outlet for my personal ideas. That is called original research and is not allowed. Bus stop (talk) 19:20, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia brings what is worthwhile to know to those with internet access (minus a few CDs). There is no "right" involved in that. It's similar to the theoretical concept of what television news networks and radio could/should be, although lord knows they haven't ended up that way. Essentially, Wikipedia presents more information more accurately with less bias in more languages for free (as in beer, if you get a free beer when you pay for your internet access). That's all. ~ Amory (user • talk • contribs) 20:34, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia may not bring forth the individual truths of its users, but because anyone can edit it, refine it, it has the ability to shape what we think as a nation. take the definition Wikipedia has on abortion - "An abortion is the termination of a pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus/embryo, resulting in or caused by its death." does the fact that this is Wikipedia's, the representation of society on the internet, definition mean that it is what we agree on? if we all can change it, the fact that it remains unchanged means that we agree. we agree on the ideas we post, refine them if necessary, tweak them and fix them, and in the end, we have, as a people, created a definition. we have created a truth of our own, a working truth that we can use in real life. no?

Prometheustole18 (talk) 20:45, 12 August 2009 (UTC)prometheustole18

Society will rarely, if ever, agree on anything, especially in a country where 55% is considered a mandate. Wikipedia doesn't assume any role, society abdicates theirs. If Wikipedia were completely unviewable, it would still behave the same way and to the same end. ~ Amory (user • talk • contribs) 20:59, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Doesnt the existence and success of wikipedia prove that we can agree? despite the occasional freeze on a topic, most subjects on the website are more like forums, where anyone can add information. we agree that each person can be like a reporter to a topic, or at leats a general editor; we agree to work on wikipedia, and the rest of the world who uses the website, simple by using it, agrees by default to what we do on the site. society does agree to use wikipedia, and wikipedia agrees to, in this social contract between society and wikipedia, try to serve as both a showcase for what we know and an encyclopedia for what we, as a nation and a world, think.

Prometheustole18 (talk) 19:46, 13 August 2009 (UTC)prometheustole18

Is it ok to delete talk/discussion pages?

Recently I undeleted and moved to my userspace a useful discussion on a now-deleted template (User talk:Piotrus/Sandbox/Template:PolandGov). I am also aware that discussion pages of deleted pages (articles, images, templates) are often deleted, and so are talk pages of editors who request it. I wonder if this is a) helpful to the project (as such pages may contain important references/document Wikipedia history) and b) compatibile with our licenses. Some of the deleted pages contain my input ([3], [4]) - and I never gave permission (nor was asked for it) for their deletion. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 19:31, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Probably best to discuss this at WT:CSD as these are considered WP:CSD#G8 deletions. The "not giving permission for its deletion" is probably covered by our boilerplate disclaimer at the bottom of the editing window. –xeno^talk 19:39, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia_talk:Content_forking#Proposed_revision_to_the_lead

I started out proposing some tiny revisions to the Lead of WP:Content forking, but on further reflection, this is a pretty nuanced concept, and now I'm proposing some larger changes. The page doesn't get much attention, so I'd like to invite your contributions. Thanks. Andrew Gradman ^talk/_WP:Hornbook 03:33, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

We should systematize the way in which encyclopedic, Public Domain sources are identified and integrated

I put this proposal on another page, but someone told me it didn't belong there. Exiled, it settles here.

As you know, much of Wikipedia's growth has come from swallowing up & citing other encyclopedic, public domain sources. (For example: articles marked with {{1911}} contain stuff from the 1911 Britannica; similar sources have been listedhere. For a journalist's description of the phenomenon, do a full-text search for "Britannica" in this article.)

I think we should try to systematize the process by which these special sources are identified, assigned to articles, and then incorporated into these articles. If we did so, this content would be incorporated into Wikipedia at a much faster rate, and yet also in a more controlled and supervised fashion.

I co-created a template with User:Drilnoth that performs these functions in a rudimentary way. This is only a proof of concept; I just am looking to find people who might collaborate with me to improve this system.

You insert {{refideas}} at the top of an article's discussion page, and include a hyperlink to one or more of these special sources. The text of the template reminds editors that such content, properly cited, can be added to an article without infringing copyright.

Here's the important part: these pages are automatically aggregated in this category. Hopefully, some people will view this category as a "portal" pointing to articles where they can make mindless, yet high-quality, contributions. For example, over the last month I created approximately 1000 articles usingthis Congressional Research Service Report, and credited the source using {{CRS}}, a new template created for the purpose. I expect that some of the most transformative edits to articles on this list will be made by middle-school students who have no knowledge of the topic whatsoever -- simply by copying, pasting, and citing.

Thoughts? Andrew Gradman ^talk/_WP:Hornbook 05:55, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

I suggest you add the category to the page Wikipedia:Maintenance, including the navigational template on the right (specifically, the "Referencing" section). (In general, the best way to make this category more useful, as well more used, is to provide links to it from the pages which editors already visit.) -- John Broughton (♫♫) 14:50, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

This is just plain awesome. —harej (talk) (cool!) 01:02, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

I have a real problem with this... it sounds like we are encouraging lazy editors to go out and cut and paste material from free sources into our articles. We don't want Wikipedia articles to be a cut and paste job of material copied from other sources... we want Wikipedia to be a unique resource... better than other sources. We want to encourage editors to actually read other sources and summarize what they say. I think this idea is flawed. Blueboar (talk) 14:54, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Revised proposal

Even though I don't share Blueboar's opinion, I think it's a legitimate one. I also recognize that it's the view of a large number of Wikipedians. In fact, the reason I'm posting here is to adjust my proposal to accommodate these perspectives. I'm grateful for this continued feedback.

1) Any scholarly endeavor must be accompanied by a "source gather", yet "External Links" or "Further reading" have not been designed to serve this purpose. Therefore, there should be a template that's placed on the talk page of articles, whose purpose is to gather, annotate, and otherwise organize sources that have not yet been integrated into the text.

2) This template should specially identify whether each source is "public domain"; NPOV; and/or well-footnoted. PD sources are especially valuable because they do not pose any threat of legal liability to Wikimedia.

3) If the template contains a source that falls into all these categories (CRS Reports are of this character), it should add the article to a category like this one.

4) What people choose to do with the items in that category is another question, and a contentious one. The page should probably be closely scrutinized and supervised, and should include a detailed banner detailing Wikipedia's policies on POV, citation, copyright, plagiarism, etc.

5) {{refideas}} meets these conditions in a rudimentary way, but it would need a major overhaul before I would advocate its use.

Andrew Gradman ^talk/_WP:Hornbook 23:14, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Andrew... another concern for you to think about. There is a good reason to discourage the use of free-content sources... a lot of the free-content sources are old works that are no longer under copywrite (for example, the 1911 Encyclopedia Britanica). While perhaps good for historiographical use (ie statements as to what people thought about a subject back in 1911), such sources are considered obsolete and out-of-date. Do we really want to encourage editors to incoproate out-of-date material into their articles? Blueboar (talk) 15:36, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

I share Blueboar's reservations to some degree: while I haven't come to any firm views either way, the wider issue of importing from or heavily using old PD sources, compared with sourcing using modern scholarship, gives me pause. I agree with Andrew Gradman's point on the need and importance of a collaborative way to gather sources. The Further reading section is normally, I thought, intended to list "If you would like to read more about the topic, try these books" reader resources. Although {{expand further}} is a template I came across the other day, and haven't used as yet, that considers them differently.

The {{refideas}} template seems a smart idea. A related template {{findsourcesnotice}} has some overlap I think (cf. {{findsources3}}). The user who created it hasn't edited awhile, shortly after going through a certain onsite process. Would you and Drilnoth consider incorporating it into the template you created? –Whitehorse1 22:26, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Contrary to Blueboar's opinion, I believe it's useful to import public domain sources, as long as those sources intend to describe topics in an encyclopedic way. It doesn't matter if they're out of date, or have the wrong tone or style - that's a matter for article cleanup. However, its source should be clearly identified (and identified as having been copied from that source rather than just based on it). This came up before in a Wikipedia Signpost discussion of plagiarism. This isn't about editors being "lazy" - this is a rapid way to develop initial content that would take much longer for human volunteer labour to produce. Dcoetzee 00:03, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

• RE Whitehorse1: absolutely, I'd like this template to incorporate this awesome feedback -- my whole purpose for posting here was to solicit improvements. I just invited Drilnoth (who wrote the code) to look at this discussion as well. Andrew Gradman ^talk/_WP:Hornbook 05:07, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

• I don't really have an opinion on whether the incorporation of PD sources is good or bad, so I'm not going to get involved in that discussion. I like Whitehorse1's suggestion for adding in some common links, but I think that {{Findsources}} would be better than {{Findsources3}}... why do we need all of the additional links? I'd be happy to incorporate that once a consensus is reached. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 20:21, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
  • I'd prefer incorporating {{Findsources}} in too. {{Findsources3}} is just one I mentioned after noticing it while commenting earlier. The downside of Findsources right now is it's hardcoded: there's no user ability to add sources, be they citations as a text string, book titles, or even as URIs. Incidentally, modifying the gnews string of Findsources to remove the press release-oriented exclusions would be needed, since they're usable as sources in certain circumstances. Thanks, –Whitehorse1 11:59, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
    • A further thought: {{Refideas}} documentation says it can include up to 20 refs. Making it collapsible, perhaps optionally, after 5 is a nice-to-have. –Whitehorse1 22:03, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

The whole concept of encouraging editors to perform "mindless" editing and article creation is quite appalling to my mind. I have no problem with the use of PD sources, but as outlined by User:Blueboar, this has to be done with care. I have frequently come across articles which are copy paste from Britannica 1911 and which require considerable work to make encyclopaedic. The world has changed in the last 98 years, even geographically so often little from that source is now relevant and certainly some (possibly much) is inaccurate. Jezhotwells (talk) 14:23, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, everyone, for your feedback. It has really helped me clarify my thoughts on this. For those of you who are interested in continuing this discussion, I've jump-started the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Plagiarism. Andrew Gradman ^talk/_WP:Hornbook 16:06, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Slashdot comments

I was left somewhat shocked by the comments on the recent Slashdot story regarding elitism/protectionism/etc. on Wikipedia. Of course, I'm open-minded about the possibility that there'll be a few vocal users with complaints like "They deleted the article about my high school teacher, Wikipedia sucks", but the number and description of these complaints makes you wonder.

Assuming this problem is real, can anything be done about it? --Vladimir (talk) 01:17, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

• Don't bother reading /. comments on anything other than highly technical, non-political articles. There are very real complaints about wikipedia which never get aired here because people don't know that we have a DR mechanism or don't care. The only way to deal with those complaints is to nominate better admins over time and to be vigilant about AGF and BITE. However, that won't make comments on /. any friendlier. Most of the discourse that goes on there involves whining or perceived persecution of some variety and you will quickly grow hoarse attempting to explain that "No, jimmy Wales doesn't control all admins with a flick of his wrist" and "Jeez, most of the 'scandals' people mention are 4 years old" and "How is the next best alternative doing?". Protonk (talk) 01:31, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
• You'll notice the first ones are all praiseworthy, and well-worded. Pretty quickly the discussion turns quickly. That's /. in a nutshell - a few good comments, then a few bad ones turn half the population via groupthink, and turn the other half right off commenting. I have my viewing preferences set to only display high-karma posts for a reason. Besides, nobody ever reads TFA. /. is an internet juggernaut, but so is youtube and so is Wikipedia. The group may be brilliant, but the individuals... well, I'll let xkcd do the talking. Water off a duck's back my friend, water off a duck's back. ;) ~ Amory (user • talk • contribs) 02:09, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
  • Thanks for the replies. I shudder at the thought of putting /. and Youtube commenters at the same level, though. Also, I went back to look through the comments (set the filter to the second-from-highest setting, so it displayed the highest-rated 44 comments), and tried to classify them into those criticizing or defending Wikipedia. I counted roughly 24 criticizing comments (stories of article "ownership", unargumented deletions and reverts, etc.) and 8 defensive ones, and there were actually more neutral/defensive comments near the bottom, so that somewhat goes against your statement.
    Considering so many people were apparently turned away by persistent editors, perhaps the procedures for dispute resolution should be made more immediately accessible? For example, should an edit be reverted without a specified reason, a bot could leave a message on the editor's talk page, as well as on the talk page of the user who reverted the edit (is there any reason not to explain reverts on the article or user talk page other than massive vandalism?). --Vladimir (talk) 03:15, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
    • A few comments. Yes, once you up your viewing threshold the signal to noise ratio improves almost instantly. A lot of the comments detail genuine complaints. A lot of the comments are very compelling. But that doesn't mean that the comments we see on today's /. article are made by someone different than the comments made last month or last year. It also doesn't mean that their comments represent real grievances (remembering that hearing their comment doesn't contextualize the problem)--a lot of them fall into the "I said something true and those ppl wanted sources, lol" at their core. I do agree that we turn away lots of editors, but regardless of our actual policies, people will complain on /. Protonk (talk) 04:31, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
      • Yes it appears that some individuals have an axe to grind with wikipedia, and an occasional few of those comments I can empathize with. Perhaps the wikipedian community needs to post a few thoughtful /. editorials or studies of their own to counter misperceptions?—RJH (talk) 18:21, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
        • Or we could just let comments in /. threads stir as they will. My experience is that the first and strongest reaction to a wikiepdian entering the lion's den (as it were) is accusations of conspiracy and/or brainwashing. Time will eventually bear out who is right about wikipedia. Protonk (talk) 03:47, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia_talk:Citation_needed#so_much_simpler

When I was reviewing the AFD at Leonardo Ciampa, I was surprised that User:Grover Cleveland had encountered so much hostility when he was trying to insert into places. I think that sort of hostility could be avoided if WP:Citation needed were clearer. I made some proposals at the above hyperlink. Please let me know what you think. Andrew Gradman ^talk/_WP:Hornbook 04:52, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Some editors object to overuse of this tag, perhaps because it seems aggressive. In the case of multiple issues, it may be better to simply add a more general tag to the section or article. The editor could also try posting a friendly message to the talk page listing their concerns.—RJH (talk) 18:16, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

How often is an average article looked at?

The History button for an article offers a look at viewership for the article, by month. I seems to recall seeing lists of "Most viewed" articles, but I am looking for "Average" stats. Overall, how many times is the average Wikipedia article viewed in a month? Thanks. Edison (talk) 16:24, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

There are "most viewed" lists? That would be cool. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 16:34, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

This doesn't answer your question, but it's cool. http://stats.grok.se/en/200908/dog. this is cooler. http://stats.grok.se/en/200908/ Andrew Gradman ^talk/_WP:Hornbook 16:37, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

I found some stats: [5] appears to say that in July 2009, the English Wikipedia had 5,802 million page views, or 5.803 x 10⁹ page views. Then [6] does not give total articles for July 2009. It only gives total articles up to May 2009, and shows 2.9 million articles. Is that a correct interpretation? The present main page shows 2.99 million articles on English Wikipedia, so 2.9 million to 3 million would be a good estimate for July 2009, wouldn't it, giving 1933 to 2000 views per article as an average for July 2009. I need someone to confirm this. Thanks. Edison (talk) 16:43, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

I can't confirm this, but I seem to recall some study that found that views (or was it edits?) followed a power law distribution across articles. This is relevant not so much because of the numerical properties involved, but because of the shape of the distribution: averages are effectively meaningless for power law distributions. There's a joke that illustrates this well: a billionaire walks into a bar, and suddenly everyone in the bar becomes, on average, millionaires. :D {{Nihiltres|talk|edits}} 18:17, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

I ask the question because someone in an deletion debate claimed that a particular article was not one that anyone was likely to look at. Average or above average views would refute that, though readership stats have not generally been a factor in deciding which articles to keep in Wikipedia. Edison (talk) 22:09, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Number of page views is irrelevant to notability, so that person's argument is invalid. John Brownlee sex scandal, as an example, averages only a couple hundred hits per month, but is a featured article and was recently on the main page as TFA. Resolute 22:42, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

executive chair that has a trigger

anyone having knowledge of such a chair please contact me at danafcobb325@aol.com. I am 80 years of age and probably well never be able to find this site again.

I also do not buy whatever you may be selling so please do not fill my screen with offers.

the chair is constructed entirely of bentwood and steel by a master maker. when the trigger is touched it flies into peices with enough force to knock more than one person down.

I know the history since WWII and it has never been activated in all these years. after using it since 1995 I was walkig by and strcuk it with my walker. my left shouler was bruied very badly, something hit my right arm between the shouler and elbow with enough force to damage the radial nerve so much that I may never have use of my hand.

your will be appreciated. I —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.34.15.65 (talk) 18:06, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

This question is probably best posed at the Reference desk. –xeno^talk 18:09, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

View prot' status of grouped articles?

Is there a method or tool to view the protection status (i.e., prot'd/semiprot'd plus date status changed) of articles in a given WikiProject or category, without looking up each one individually? Thanks. –Whitehorse1 19:07, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

WP:UND and speedy advice

Now that Wikipedia:Requests for undeletion is up and running, should {{db-band-notice}} and similar templates be changed to direct editors there rather than to Category:Wikipedia administrators who will provide copies of deleted articles?  Skomorokh  20:53, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Sainsbury TV adverts

Does anyone know the name of the actress who plays the mum in the UK Sainsbury TV adverts, please? Smile a While (talk) 00:25, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Nifty template for reminding yourself stuff

I just finished writing {{Delayed notice}}. Might prove useful to some of you. In a nutshell, you write a message, and specify at what date you want the message be shown. It's sort of a message with a "reverse expiry date". Feedback/comment appreciated. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 06:11, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Great template! I assume it just show nothing until that date? Cool3 (talk) 06:15, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Bingo.Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 06:27, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Copyvio or allowed?

An editor has nominated the above file for discussion of its purpose and/or potential deletion. You are welcome to participate in the discussion and help reach a consensus.

---

An editor has nominated the above file for discussion of its purpose and/or potential deletion. You are welcome to participate in the discussion and help reach a consensus.

I found this drawing in the article on Peabo Bryson. I like the image very much, but is it allowed? As it is definitively based on this photograph of which the copyright status is unknown to me. Clausule (talk) 15:13, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Probably a copyvio derivative work, unfortunately. Nominate it for deletion. Dcoetzee 20:00, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, assuming that the artists actually did contribute the drawing for public domain, then would it not be permitted? In that case, wouldn't simply contacting the artist and affirming the PD status be sufficient?[7]—RJH (talk) 22:33, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

No. A drawing based on a photograph is a derivative work of the original photograph, and the copyright holder of the photograph may restrict its use. Dcoetzee 22:48, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Copyright provides the photographer with the exclusive right to produce derivatives of their work, so the artist who drew the picture of the photograph (while free to draw for their personal enjoyment under the fair use clause) doesn't have the right to release a derivative under any conditions without permission from the photographer (assuming copyright on the photograph still exists, which seems very likely). So no, the artist's release alone is insufficient. (Naturally I'm not a lawyer, and this is merely how I understand the situation.) – Toon 23:00, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

• It's a derivative work that is very likely copyrighted. Should be nomed for deletion. Protonk (talk) 05:53, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
  • Well, IANAL, but since it is a sketch that is not an exact facimile and includes artistic expression, doesn't that constitute originality? In that case, might it be excused from the exclusive rights clause? (Cf. Andy Warhol.)—RJH (talk) 18:29, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
    • I don't know. What I do know is that a sketch like that (as opposed to a scan, as you note) puts us in two binds. If it were a facsimile, we would treat it just like the original image (in other words, if it were a scan of a pd picture, we would rebuff claims from the person who scanned it that it was no longer pd). However since it is a sketch and includes some interpretation, one could argue that it is a work in itself. However, it is still a derived work (insofar as our policy is concerned), so the fact that it is derived from a non-free work makes it non-free. I'm going to list it. Protonk (talk) 06:17, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
• Listed at FfD. Protonk (talk) 06:21, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Approach to dropping all references to www.newworldencyclopedia.org

In an article some information was supported by a reference to the www.newworldencyclopedia.org which I argued that it was dubious given the funding and support was from the Unification Church but the more serious angle is that we could be hitting WP:CIRCULAR as many articles on the New World Encyclopedia have relied on Wikipedia (it is listed in Wikipedia:Mirrors_and_forks) and so it seems wrong that we should have so many links back to this site [8]. The first few are the easiest examples e.g. Pope Innocent III has a link to "www.newworldencyclopedia.org" to support the claim "His papacy asserted the absolute spiritual authority of his office, while still respecting the temporal authority of Kings.[17]". Gee well that helps the poor reader ! How do I (we) resolve this ?. Can I get the www.newworldencyclopedia.org added to that bad link 'bot or would I have to manually go through and remove the references ?. or is there a generic RFC for Sources I need to work through first. Ttiotsw (talk) 13:29, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

It's OK. I'll go through each and delete if they fail WP:CIRCULAR by comparing if the old WP text exists before the NWE text was created. Ttiotsw (talk) 09:16, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

MediaWiki documentation under GFDL?

According to the unreliable source Wikipedia, MediaWiki documentation is still under GFDL. Is that true? Does it seem strange to have documentation that isn't compatible with the rest of the projects? ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 16:34, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

• AFAIK, the GFDL was actually written with documentation for software in mind. The mediawikisoftware itself is released under the GPL. Though it is odd that the mediawiki Project:Copyrights 'copyright' notice at the bottom of every page (Updated w/ correct info) link goes to CC and the disclaimer link shows the GDFL. Protonk (talk) 16:56, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
  • I don't know why GFDL would be desirable for this, but wouldn't it at least make sense to dual-license it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by JohnnyMrNinja (talk • contribs) 2009-08-15 19:36:55
    • I don't know why it is desirable either, but then again I don't write software documentation. I also know that the licensing of MW documentation is totally independent on en.wiki concerns. I think you may be able to rustle up a response on IRC from mw admins. Protonk (talk) 22:14, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

If you are genuinely concerned about the verifiability of the MediaWiki article, then note that a source isn't cited to cover that statement in the article. So it would be productive to hunt up a reliable source, read what it had to say, and fix the article, source in hand.

If you are less interested in the encyclopaedia article and out-of-date reliable sources, and more interested in MediaWiki itself, and what the reliable sources might not have noticed yet, then go and look at what the copyright licences actually are for MW:Manual:Contents and MW:Help:Contents (as you can find explained in MW:Project:Manual and MW:Project:PD help). Uncle G (talk) 21:50, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

• Or more precisely, at mw:Project:Copyrights. Protonk (talk) 22:14, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Wikistalk.py

I had been using this tool off toolserver to get a unique list of articles I've edited. At some point something happened to that users account and the tool doesn't work anymore [9]. Anyone know if there is an alternate tool I can use to find unique lists of articles I've edited? Possibly including the ability to sort that list by numbers of edits. I sometimes like to go back and find old articles I might have left a single note on the talk page of and see if there has been any update on issues I may have noticed, so finding articles I've edited a couple times is helpful.--Crossmr (talk) 08:06, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

• [10] Try that. Protonk (talk) 16:57, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
  • Protonk , that's awesome. How do you learn about these special search tools? Is there a single page that aggregates them? Andrew Gradman ^talk/_WP:Hornbook 21:48, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
    • Yes. Start at m:Toolserver. Uncle G (talk) 21:57, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

 Fixed. BJ^Talk 08:49, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Three Million Day?

44.35% of statistics are made up on the spot

It's looking likely that the three millionth article will appear in the next 24 hours. Currently, there are about 6,904,528. Special:Statistics isn't completely accurate, but it gives some idea.

Apparently, the one millionth article was on 1 March 2006, Jordanhill railway station, Scotland. See Press release.

The two millionth article was 10 Sept 2007, El Hormiguero, a Spanish language television show (according to Tech crunch).

I don't know if this will sound like 'spam' - if it does, please feel free to remove it - but I'm running a little 'countdown bot' on IRC, if anyone is interested, in channel ##chzz on freenode - which can be accessed via this.

I just think it's mildly interesting, and possibly an excuse for a pint. Cheers,  Chzz  ►  08:00, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

It looks like the 3 millionth article will be reached around 2AM EST. Not that I've been sitting and preparing for this all day, or anything. Shii (tock) 01:30, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

“ Not that I've been sitting and preparing for this all day, or anything. ”

This, coming from the user who created articles 2999997 and 2999999 (Nichijin, Nichiji). I was thinking of preparing a few dozen new articles in a bunch of browser tabs and then, when the article count reached 299,980, "launching" them all at once like bottle rockets. My guess is that you had the motivation that I lacked? ... Andrew Gradman ^talk/_WP:Hornbook 05:32, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Some guy submitted 15 different articles about fossils just before the 3M mark, he missed it though =D Icewedge (talk) 05:36, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

I guess everyone had this idea ... including the winner! Special:Contributions/Lampman. Andrew Gradman ^talk/_WP:Hornbook 05:52, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

3,000,000 articles!

Congratulations, Wikipedia! The 3,000,000th article was just created, it is Beate Eriksen. It took a little over 8 years, but hey, we got it! (X! · talk)  · @213  ·  04:06, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

• Yippee! But we should check to see whether any articles were deleted between the creation of Beate Eriksen and Portuguese Fireplace. If that happened, then Beate Eriksen would be Wikipedia's first 3 millionth article, and the next article created would be Wikipedia's second 3 millionth article. No reason to be stingy with the honors. Andrew Gradman ^talk/_WP:Hornbook 04:19, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
  • I was running a bot that read the live Wikimedia IRC feed. The results are here: http://soxred93.pastebin.com/f65020b0a (X! · talk)  · @225  ·  04:24, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
    • Pray for me (song) doesn't count as it is a redirect. so i guess that would make the Portuguese Fireplace the 3000,001st article. Simply south (talk) 13:06, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Favicon.ico

Anyone know why this redirect get so many hits?  Skomorokh  16:29, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

• My Guess is that people are looking for the wikipedia favicon? Empire3131 (talk) 17:28, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Do you think they know it's actually found here?--Unionhawk ^{Talk E-mail} 23:48, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

How much traffic comes from google?

Does anyone have a hard number (not just a guess) for how much of WP's traffic comes from google directly to a specific article? How much comes from typing something in the search bar? How much comes from clicking on internal links? Cool3 (talk) 19:33, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

I think I recall a discussion at WR in which it was credibly asserted that the proportion was about one half. Sorry no link,  Skomorokh  00:00, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Some comes from ordinary Google searches, and some comes from wiki:England kinds of searches, using a keyword to search in Wikipedia first. Google does better than Wikipedia for such inquiries. --DThomsen8 (talk) 02:10, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Neilsen Online said last year that four out of five referring web sites were search engines, mostly Google. A snippet of the article is available without signing up for a "free trial". Another article reporting the Neilsen results is at softpedia.com. This doesn't quite answer your query, since it doesn't give any figures for how much traffic is from internal links or the search bar.-gadfium 02:15, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

According to Alexa Internet's traffic statistics for wikipedia.org, 15.28% of the traffic comes from google.com. Please be aware that theses statistics concern Wikipedia in every language. Plus, there are many namespaces for google, such as google.fr and google.de. Here is a copy of the statistics:

1. 15.28% google.com
2. 4.68% yahoo.com
3. 3.36% youtube.com
4. 3.24% google.fr
5. 2.63% google.de
6. 2.57% google.com.br
7. 2.18% google.es
8. 2.18% facebook.com
9. 2.00% google.co.uk
10. 1.89% google.com.mx

The percentage of visits to wikipedia.org that came from a search engine: about 60%.

:-) Dodoïste (talk) 04:55, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Your input on proposal

I made a proposal at Wikipedia_talk:Stub#Lines_before_stub_template. I'd appreciate your input / opinion. Debresser (talk) 16:58, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Does the summary of a Reality TV programme count as a work of fiction...

...and therefore not need to be sourced per WP:MOSTV#Plot section? We're currently debating whether the "Summary" and "Nominations table" sections of Big Brother 2009 (UK) need sourcing per the aforementioned policy. Please join in with the discussion here. Thanks, DJ 21:20, 18 August 2009 (UTC).

Userbox for editor whose content has been used elsewhere?

I have searched for this but can't find it. It seems sort of anti-Wikipedia for an individual editor to note that his work has been used elsewhere in the media, but I think I have seen some userbox or other device for this purpose. Content I wrote on Wikipedia has been scraped onto another site. It would be fun to post something about this on my user page. Suggestions?  –Newportm (talk • contribs) 04:09, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

{{tmbox}}, and just write something custom up?
— Ω (talk) 06:04, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

http://www.yerich.net/userbox/ looks similar, though I haven't really looked closely at it. Andrew Gradman ^talk/_WP:Hornbook 06:09, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

need advice about article Im writing

In 2010, Mexico celebrates the 200th anniversary of its Independence, and 100 years after the Mexico Revolution. I am working on a article about this (yeah, I know it´ll have to be rewritten after its over) but Im in a quandry over the scope/title. Both anniversaries are being celebrated over the course of the year (2010) and the countdown clock in Mexico City has both. It is obvious that the Revolution anniversary is taking a back seat (both from what I see living in Mexico City and my research for the article), though care is being taken to promote both together. My question is this, Im inclined to put the two together, but that would yield a title like Mexico Bicentennial of Independence and Centennial of the Mexican Revolution. I think this might be confusing for non-Mexicans. If I separate them, I lose an important aspect of how 2010 will be celebrated here. Need your advice.Thelmadatter (talk) 22:10, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

I assume that people won't be reaching the page through the search bar, but rather through Google and/or internal WikiLinks, so we're just looking for a descriptive and non-awkward title for the single page, right? A similar problem has been solved by writers of German history with November 9th in German history -- that could be a good jumping off point.

How about Mexican political anniversaries in 2010, for example. Andrew Gradman ^talk/_WP:Hornbook 22:23, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Or Celebration of Mexican political anniversaries in 2010. Andrew Gradman ^talk/_WP:Hornbook 22:26, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

No offense, I think they lack "pizazz" but Ill use one of them as a jumping off point. It will allow for the creating of separate Bicentennial/Centennial articles later if anyone is inclined to do that. Or maybe someone will come up with a better idea. I appreciate your input and I should have the article up very soon (its about 90% done), maybe today! Thelmadatter (talk) 23:01, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/CheckUser and Oversight/August 2009 election

Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/CheckUser and Oversight/August 2009 election doesn't appear to have been updated. I assume the results have been posted somewhere? ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 08:13, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Fixing. Give me five minutes tops. MBisanz ^talk 08:31, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Updated, sorry for forgetting to cross-post. MBisanz ^talk 08:34, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Who Makes up Wikipedia?

I've been thinking about this for a while; who is the Wikipedia society made up of? Not in terms of race or age, but of the people who choose to assist in the goal of creating the "sum of all human knowledge." Is it idealists, or does Wikipedia bring out the innate need in people to contribute to something? Does Wikipedia matter?

Does Wikipedia really contribute to Knowledge?

What's the philosophy behind Wikipedia.

Prometheustole18 (talk) 21:23, 19 August 2009 (UTC)Prometheustole18

Regarding motivation, you may be interested in the motivation study "Wikipedians, and Why They Do It", among others. Dcoetzee 22:53, 19 August 2009 (UTC) (link defunct, archived version here) Pavel Vozenilek (talk) 16:03, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

How are these questions different than these questions? Bus stop (talk) 23:17, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm trying to answer the stuff that wasnt answered in my previous ones. I just want people's opinion on the philosophical side of Wikipedia, the psychological reason's why people use Wikipedia, and how Wikipedia is more than just an encyclopedia.

72.153.169.185 (talk) 23:50, 19 August 2009 (UTC)prometheustole18

What do you mean by "the philosophical side of Wikipedia? And what possible "psychological reasons" could exist, other than simply the desire to create an encyclopedia? And finally, what makes you think that "Wikipedia is more than just an encyclopedia?" Bus stop (talk) 23:58, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

• (edit conflict)I don't wantPrometheustole18 to feel like s/he's not welcome to rephrase the original question. This is one of the few wikipedia pages where you can ask questions like this.
• To answer your question, I haven't got a clue. I'm glad Dcoetzee pointed you to a scientific study: As individual editors, we can only provide anecdotes and speculation. Another good jumping-off point would be History of Wikipedia.
• There are probably as many visions of what Wikipedia "is doing" as there are editors. There is a large contingent who are attached to educational institutions -- as university students and professors, high school students and teachers, etc. We contribute because we recognize that it will make our existing work easier; only as a side effect, and after the fact, have we recognized that we've actually changing what it is we're doing
• That's just one example of how not every editor needs to be aware of the broader impact of her work for it to have that impact.
• These are really good questions. I personally think that, despite of Wikipedia's policy on no original research, the simple act of arranging the existing knowledge as accessibly as we do will have the effect of spurring new insights. For example, creating a "list of Nobel Prize winners who are left-handed" would not violate that policy, but it is something that has probably never been attempted outside Wikipedia -- and if they're disproportionately left-handed, that could inspire a research hypothesis that wouldn't have existed without us. Andrew Gradman ^talk/_WP:Hornbook 00:02, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

• Hey Bus stop -- you may want to take a look at [this http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WikiPedia]:

My question, to this esteemed Wiki community, is this: Do you think that a Wiki could successfully generate a useful encyclopedia? -- JimboWales

Yes, but in the end it wouldn't be an encyclopedia. It would be a wiki. -- WardCunningham

• Don't place the burden on a newbie to justify to US why Wikipedia might be more than an encyclopedia. Has the thought really never occurred to you? Andrew Gradman ^talk/_WP:Hornbook 00:06, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

I love the 'left handed nobel prize winners' idea, and to be honest, that what I'm really interested in. How can Wikipedia be used to spur new idea, to create knowledge. I know that I'm reiterating on my previous ideas, but I just want to see what other people think of my idea that Wikipedia is like a mirror of society; if something is on Wikipedia, and remains the same, doesn't that mean that it can be seen as what we think? Most encyclopedia's have their own definitions, but Wikipedia lets society use what they agree on, and when they agree on something...we just created knowledge. ideas!

72.153.169.185 (talk) 00:27, 20 August 2009 (UTC)prometheustole18

Sorry for my negative attitude. I wasn't really aware of the purpose of the Village pump. The ensuing conversation has been so far interesting. I think I was wrong — I stand corrected. Bus stop (talk) 01:03, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

One good thing I've noticed about my activities concerning Wikipedia is that it is educational to me, perhaps in coincidental ways. One can't help but run up against things one didn't know before. I think this may be so regardless of how one interacts with Wikipedia. I sometimes ask people, "Do you edit Wikipedia?" And they generally look at me like I'm nuts. I think they think I'm suggesting a "giving" activity, and their "generosity" is not up to snuff at that moment. But what they fail to understand is that one receives a random education from editing Wikipedia. Also, even just the potential to alter something, I think converts that material into something that feels more proximal. One scrutinizes it for errors of any sort. That may potentiate it educationally. Bus stop (talk) 01:28, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

That's very true. I created an article for a secondary road in Fairfax County, Virginia. I wanted to fill up a "History" section, and found details and stories from the Civil War and colonial days. I put up an open invitation for anyone to expand on that history. As Bus stop said, one can't help but run up against things like this from time-to-time. It makes the editing process very self-satisfying, and also satisfying in the knowledge that you may be raising the education level of someone else: they may say, "I didn't know that!" --Tim Sabin (talk) 03:22, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

I really like the idea that Wikipedia inadvertently teaches. Wikipedia is really the best learning tool; you just go from one idea to another, click of a button. But is Wikipedia just for learning? It is a huge storage site of knowledge, or is Wikipedia a forum for views and ideas about certain issues and concepts? If something is on Wikipedia, what does that mean in general, about the people that post or and all?

also, can i quote anyone on this for a paper I'm writing?

Prometheustole18 (talk) 23:43, 20 August 2009 (UTC)prometheustole18

User ADM

Hi all. I work on the french version of Wikipedia, and in our Village pump we're currently having a talk about one of our former users. He created somewhere around 12 000 redirects on religious topics. Some of them made sense, some were just... 'creative' to say the least. We're now having a major issue as to which ones we should delete. People have said that we should just let you know since he's now on your wikipedia, so you may just want to watch out if he starts writing redirects. Note that I don't keep up with your village pump so if somebody wants to answer, just come over to our village pump and search for ADM to insert a message. Cheers, Philippe Giabbanelli (talk) 09:36, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Articles on hamlets (To be or not to be?)

I have noticed an increasing number of articles being created on unincorporated hamlets. I discussed this with an editor here, and also perused discussions at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 59#Needs resolution: Are places inherently notable? and Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 62#New level of geographical notability?. It seems to me that while any incorporated community is notable, unincorporated hamlets are not necessarily so. Should articles on hamlets be systematically created with nothing more than coordinates and a GNIS entry? Powers ^T 13:09, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Also see Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)/Archive_65#Should_Wikipedia_list_every_settlement_as_if_it_were_a_travel_guide.3F and Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Cities#Not_all_settlements_are_notable_and_deserve_an_article.3F. There are probably many, many other discussion threads to this effect buried in archives here or there. Sometimes I wonder if a conclusion will ever be reached. Shereth 14:21, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

What does "unincorporated" mean? DuncanHill (talk) 14:35, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

It is a fairly US-centric term, to my knowledge. See Municipal corporation. Put simply, it is an "unofficial" town, one without a governing body, official boundaries, city/town services, etc. Shereth 14:40, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Then the the proposal could only ever apply to settlements within the USA. To base inclusion criteria for settlements outside the USA on a definition which only applies within the USA is unworkable. DuncanHill (talk) 14:45, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

The problem is even internal, to an extent. The way local government is run definitely varies from county to country, and within the US it varies from state to state. An "incorporated place" in California is not necessarily the same thing as an "incorporated place" in New Jersey. For that reason alone, using incorporation alone as a standard of inclusion is not terribly helpful. Any proposal to help quantify "notability for populated places" needs to be made more general. Shereth 14:55, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

The term "unincorporated" may be US-centric, but the concept is more general. A hamlet (place) is not a US-specific concept. I'm not aware that anyone is suggesting that "unincorporated" be used as an inclusion criteria. There are many unincorporated places (or hamlets, if you prefer) that are clearly notable. The question arises though, of whether there should there be an encyclopedia entry for every named populated place, regardless of size, significance, or governmental status? Such lists are commonly available for many countries and some have proposed using bots to generate stubs based on such lists. older ≠ wiser 16:25, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

I think it was rather the idea that "incorporated" would be used as a standard for inclusion and that it is too narrow. I agree that the concept is broader but that would have to be explicitely stated in any kind of guideline. Personally, I have a relatively concrete idea of what should and should not be considered "notable by default" (I've written those ideas down here, though I imagine it's not a popular interpretation). I'm no fan of the oft-repeated mantra that "populated places are automatically notable". There's no real consensus for that, just a lack of consensus to strike the idea down. None of the recent debates on the topic have made any headway in one direction or another. Shereth 16:40, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, yes; I should have clarified that this is primarily a US situation. In my state, New York, the state is divided completely into 62 counties. Each county is subdivided completely into zero or more cities plus zero or more towns (townships to most people). All of these entities are incorporated, and as recognized governmental layers that completely fill the state, I believe they're inherently notable.

There are also incorporated communities called villages which are non-exclusive with towns (that is, any territory within a village's borders is also considered to be inside a particular town, and a village can span more than one town). Villages are also very notable, because they have their own governments.

Hamlets are named places with no defined boundaries and no municipal government. Rarely they may have a post office. Rarely, they may be a former village that dissolved (in which case it would have historical boundaries); since notability is not temporary, these hamlets would likely be notable just as villages are. Some hamlets may have general notability, subject to the general notability guideline. But I don't believe all hamlets are notable the way all villages are notable. A hamlet may have an official name in the GNIS, but no one living there who knows it. Or they could know the name but consider it historical and not use it. Without a reliable source beyond the GNIS, I don't think we can support articles on all of these little hamlets.

Is there a better location I could try to have this discussion, or is this as good as any?

-- Powers ^T 17:29, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

WP:VPP or WT:CITY are logical places and have hosted similar discussions before. WT:N possibly. Shereth 17:42, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

ABCD syndrome

Sorry, but I'm french and my english is not good. Please read ABCD syndrome. Perhaps, it's a canular (hoax?). Aquadancer101, in this version [11] added this reference:

Waardenburg PJ (September 1951). "A new syndrome combining developmental anomalies of the eyelids, eyebrows and causes their butt to explode, nose root with pigmentary defects of the iris and head hair and with congenital deafness". Am. J. Hum. Genet. 3 (3): 195–253. PMC 1716407. PMID 14902764.

and it's not the real title - fr:user:HB, 21 August 2009.

• LOL puerile, but funny... anyway, fixed. Thanks,
  — Ω (talk) 01:35, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

footballers

why do many random articles seem to be about unknown or insignificant athletes? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.232.51.155 (talk) 00:23, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Because of WP:ATHLETE. The criteria for inclusion in enWikipedia is notability, and it has been determined that everyone who has played in the highest professional (e.g. NBA) or highest amateur (e.g., Olympics) is notable. Hence, we have a lot of athletic stubs. Just because I don't know who on Earth they are doesn't mean someone else doesn't; that person might be willing to pay millions of dollars a year for the rights to that person's feet/arms/etc. ~ Amory (user • talk • contribs) 00:37, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

To new individuals contributing to....

Per the suggestion made by User_talk:Iceblock#Thanks._:.29 I have decided to announce (show?) my little table that I made for new users on my talk page (at the very top) User_talk:Calaka. I believe Iceblock thought of the table as quite useful to new contributors and hence others (that patrol new pages or deal with new users for example) could benefit from utilizing such a table (a copy or similar version of theirs based on their principals/beliefs on Wikipedia editing). I am not 100% sure if this is the correct place to post it or if anyone would want to use such a thing (I don't mind if you do) but yeah, just thought I would post it here. Kind regards.Calaka (talk) 12:32, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

My reaction to phrases like "crappy horrible articles" would be "This guy must think he's God!" I think it should be more like "The Wikipedia consensus has determined it should be this way" and less like "I decreed it should be this way". Art LaPella (talk) 21:34, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I guess that is a bit of a side effect from seeing a number of articles that made me throw up a little bit in my mouth (new page patrol). :p But point taken, I will tone it down a bit to make it a bit nicer. Cheers!Calaka (talk) 08:28, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

It's a wonder that we have new users coming here at all... Please allow me to point you in the direction of Wikipedia:Please do not bite the newcomers. There is a good purpose for the new page patrol, just as there are legitemate reasons to have the AfD process and things like the notability guidelines (mentioned because both are topics that I think are fundamentally broken, currently). My main point being, if you're seriously coming across articles that "made me throw up a little bit in my mouth" then perhaps you should find something more appropriate to contribute to here on Wikipedia?
— Ω (talk) 04:04, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

I will assume good faith in you thinking that I did not already know about that rule/page. Anyway you did not seem to realize my exaggerated humor on the whole wanting to throw up bit (Note that these articles are the ones that get speedy deleted and/or the user never ever edits again after subsequent delete). Just because I said that here, does not mean I bite the newcomers and insult/abuse them. I am sure you already checked out my recent contributions page to confirm this (who else welcomes new users with the fricken cookie template? - HAH!) and I would like to reiterate that my intention is to reduce the amount of crap that remains on Wikipedia (the stuff that doesn't get speedy deleted anyway) and increase the new users skill in creating decent articles with my hope being that they read the "bot" advice we offer them. Furthermore: Have you ever looked at some of the new pages that get created? Spend some time browsing through some of the yellow un-patrolled pages to see the very best a POV,unclean,advert-COI-unref hoax article has to offer. Finally, just because an article may be in a horrible state does not mean that there is no hope for it. My favorite example is this: [12] to this: [13] and due to letting the article not get speedy deleted this: [14]. Oh and re: Why I spend time at newpagespatrol if the articles make me metaphorically "sick"? Well as it turns out, newpagepatrol is an easy process and I like helping out in a Wikipedia task that could use more hands. I also like welcoming new Wikipedians (contrary to what you might think) with a bot welcome and am really happy to actually help them with questions they may have when they occasionally ask for it.

Question: Notability and AfD broken? How so? Am I naive in saying this? Have AfD/Notability guidelines changed recently?

To somehow bring this back on-topic, do you think I am biting the newcomers with my little template on my talk page? Or were you 100% referring to my above comment? Calaka (talk) 16:22, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

OK, so "throwing up" is understandable hyperbole for a feeling I share for some new articles. The author is presumably proud of his article, and he probably regards anyone who considers his article "crap" (that newcomer-biting word is still in there) to be ignorant of his wonderfulness. To tell such a misguided person you're doing him a favor by labeling his masterpiece as crap, invites a smart-aleck reply like "I'm doing you a favor by telling you to [obscenity] so you won't look like such a ridiculous [obscenity]!" But you promised further updates, so I presume the "biting" will be removed and the reasoning will be based on the author's assumptions, not just ours. For instance, I would write "Because it needs to be wikified" as "Because Wikipedians have agreed articles should be wikified [insert appropriate guideline here, such as WP:UNDERLINK.] Art LaPella (talk) 17:24, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Aside from all of the above, if you really want to help Wikipedia then push away from the relatively meaningless process driven "crap" and actually improve some articles instead. Click Special:Random, and whatever comes up start copy editing it, or adding something to it.
— Ω (talk) 23:10, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

I will take those suggestions in and eventually get around to modifying that table. Thank you for that! Now re: the crap articles comment, I think it will be best for me to just stop here before this goes any further.

Finally re: really helping Wikipedia, yes I know (and someone else has told me before) that to really help Wikipedia it would be better to improve the articles myself but as I have mentioned on that table, that would actually require work/effort/time and my full attention to Wikipedia (I am currently multitasking between here and life commitments) whereas newpage patrol and talkpage banter I can do with my eyes closed (metaphorically hehe) and hence why I have decided to help out on the easy tasks. I wish had real life been a bit easier (and I was a billionaire or such with no need to study/work) I would spend a lot more time helping Wikipedia (excluding all the times I would be doing billionaire related things hehe). But anyway, I do what I can (however little it is appreciated). Kind regards. Calaka (talk) 01:46, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

out of scope user page ?

Are next user page User:Aculina Strasnei Popa out of scope ?--Musamies (talk) 05:09, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

no. I brought up this posting to the user. Ikip (talk) 14:45, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

False Priest

Hi, I don't know if this is where things like this should be posted, but I'd like to bring attention to the fact that the article about of Montreal's new album (False Priest) is an obvious hoax. Please delete it and all mentions to it from other pages, as it is only misleading people. Thanks. --Roadunsafety (talk) 11:01, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Here is the way to deal with a hoax. I will try a proposed deletion or a deletion discussion is necessary.--Commander Keane (talk) 07:46, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Article seems to be appropriately sourced to various music magazines - what makes you think it is a hoax? Jezhotwells (talk) 17:34, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Mucking around with process?

Moved to Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 51#Policy and Guideline improvement drive 01:21, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Etiquette about AFD

What is the Wikipedia etiquette for AFDs? If it is a wacky article, then it is clear. Nominate it. What if it looks reasonably written but just doesn't fit the notability criteria. There is an elementary school article that I saw. High schools are deemed notable. Elementary schools must prove their notability.

However, other crap exists. Should one be on a rampage and AFD the other crap? Or kindly suggest that notability be explained on the talk page first and either do nothing or AFD if nothing is done?

What would the best behaved and respected Wikipedian do?

FYI, the article is Red Hill Elementary School. User F203 (talk) 17:47, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

There is no rule, but it is always a good idea to do a search yourself, to see if you can come up with any sources to establish notability; see WP:BEFORE. If you come up empty-handed in a search, it is probably safe to go ahead and nominate it for deletion. If the article is relatively new or looks like it is being (somewhat) actively worked on, and looks like it might be salvageable (except for the notability issue), it would be a good idea to tag it for citations and wait some time before coming back and nominating - but abandoned articles, or ones that look unlikely to be fixable, go ahead and nominate. In summary : read WP:BEFORE and use some common sense. Shereth 17:52, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

To address your specific example, a Google search turns up little of interest. Google News archives pull up 3 matches, none of which are more than tangential. Nothing in the article indicates that this school is notable, and it looks like the article isn't in any state of active improvement - probably safe to nominate this one. Shereth 17:57, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Would anyone think that an AFD of this article is bad behavior or overly aggressive? User F203 (talk) 18:10, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

I can't imagine why they would. That doesn't mean someone won't come out of the woodwork and complain, but as long as you follow WP:BEFORE, you've got the bases covered and there really is nothing to worry about. Shereth 18:12, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Don't go on point-making sprees. Follow the procedure in User:Uncle G/Wikipedia triage#What do to. Uncle G (talk) 13:54, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

As a principled inclusionist, the use of notability in this manner is a real sticking point to me personally. Luckily for "my side", there seems to be a number of admins with similar concerns, so it appears that most articles being nominated solely due to notability concerns end up not being deleted anyway (yay!). Out of curiosity, why does Wikipedia having these articles concern you at all? I've always been bewildered at the deletionist attitude when it comes to this subject, so if anyone here can provide some insight I'd appreciate it.
— Ω (talk) 21:56, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't know how much good it would do to explain it. The framing of your paragraph prevents serious debate on the topic. You are a principled inclusionist yet I have a deletionist attitude. Kinda makes things hard. Protonk (talk) 01:20, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Humm, I don't know if it will help or not, but finishing the sentence "Notability is a problem because..." might help.
— Ω (talk) 22:30, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

This is one of those things where I think Citizendium has the better policy: Maintainability is more important there then Notability. Maybe I'm just peeved because Webcomics are treated much harsher then Literature even with the same amount of sourcability. Yeah, I'm of those people.----occono (talk) 17:36, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

In my view, maintainability and the overall wiki-concept of notability do overlap in a sense, whilst others may even argue that they're one in the same. That is, the presence of reliable secondary sources makes articles more maintainable as they naturally would be more accurate and acceptable by others. Notability provides an arbitrary bar as to how many such sources at a minimum can be used to provide a minimal sense of maintainability in the article. MuZemike 20:32, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Anyway to automatically superimpose the pages in a category into one page?

I have Category:Articles tagged for deletion and rescue is there anyway have the full text of these 12 pages automatically, dynamically put onto one wikipedia page, without a bot?

I checked mw:Magic Words and could find no way to do this. Ikip (talk) 14:43, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

With a bot this would be simple, and I'm sure you could easily find someone with a bot already who would be willing to complete this task. Without a bot, this would be extraordinarily challenging to do as it's just not the sort of thing that MediaWiki is set up to do. I have some rather half-formed schemes, but all of them would involve doing some very weird things and probably wouldn't work out. Cool3 (talk) 16:03, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Wouldn't that be a copyright violation, unless the entire edit history including the attributions of each user, is included on the target page? Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 18:16, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

corrupt administrators

How/where do I file a complaint about corrupt administrators? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.163.63.37 (talk) 06:56, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents is where such things are discussed, but make sure you present your argument as fairly as possible; if you just want to say you disagree with someone, use his or her talk page instead. Powers ^T 13:19, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for the information. It is not a disagreement, it is administrators acting in bad faith (for example, not saying the truth). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.163.63.37 (talk) 14:01, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Bolognia push 2009

Please help make sure wikipedia has articles on every dermatologic condition. There are many new articles and redirects to be made, and we at WP:DERM are looking for more help! ---kilbad (talk) 15:10, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Copyright

Please help answer my question on this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Role_conflict. Nobody seems to be watching it. Thanks ReluctantPhilosopher (talk) 18:03, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Please see WP:COPYVIO to find out how to attract attention to this problem. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:07, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

I need your opinions

Please see my proposal on Category_talk:Wikipedia_deletion. This is a rarely visited page, so I came here to ask for your input. If it will have consensus, could somebody please make the change. Because of a restriction, in connection with a conflict between me and an editor who contributed to that page, I am not allowed to make any changes myself. Debresser (talk) 19:39, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

One user has had a look, and agreed with my proposal so much, that he made the change immedeately. I thank him for that, but would still invite you to have your say in the discussion, even if only to show whether this was indeed an edit with broad consensus or not. Debresser (talk) 20:09, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Daily Mail journalist plagiaries from Wikipedia?

Would this count as plagiarism? The Church Street article hasn't been edited since May.

"The attack consisted of a car bomb set off outside the Nedbank Square building on Church Street at 4:30pm on a Friday. The target was South African Air Force (SAAF) headquarters, but as the bomb was set to go off at the height of rush hour, those killed and wounded included civilians."

The August Daily Mail article says [15], "The Church Street attack involved a car bomb set off outside the Nedbank Square building at 4.30pm on a Friday. The target was the South African Air Force headquarters, but as the bomb was set to go off at the height of rush hour, those killed and wounded included civilians."

Advertisingguru (talk) 00:36, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

This doesn't surprise me, the Daily Mail is a shoddy rag full of plagiarisms, inaccuracies and and reactionary opinions. I doubt any reputable journalist would want to work on it. Jezhotwells (talk) 01:26, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

It is extremely common for journalists to use Wikipedia for background knowledge on a subject and they often just copy it word for word. I'm not sure it is a long enough bit of text to count as a copyright violation, but it would certainly have been better to prefix it with "According to Wikipedia". --Tango (talk) 01:28, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Sure the wikipedia article wasn't copied from the newspaper? - DavidWBrooks (talk) 01:49, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

We can probably assume that no Wikipedian has access to a time machine. And please don't call the Mail a newspaper: "rag" is the proper term. Algebraist 09:37, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

The Mail's a perfectly good tabloid, you've just got to appreciate the bias, or else risk getting very, very depressed. I don't think it's any more (or less) open to plagurism than other papers. On the key issue, yes, it's clearly copied. Is it worth getting worried about? Not really. From the paper's point of view, a similar scale would be required to damage the paper as it would to damage Wikipedia in any meaningful way, which IMO is more than two sentences. That's not to say we shouldn't keep tabs on this sort of thing, though. - Jarry1250 ^{[ In the UK? Sign the petition! ]} 10:34, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

How to setup edit notices?

How do I get an edit notice to be shown when someone edits a talkpage (i.e. when they're editing, some warning/advisory text is also displayed)? Talk:Wiki and WT:About get random content or questions posted to them frequently, I'm hoping this might cut down on it. --Cybercobra (talk) 11:57, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Editnotice. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:34, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Basque Wikipedia

Hi from the Basque Country!
This is a message to the administrators of wikipedia in English or for someone who can help me with this issue:

I´m an user and contributor of the Basque Wikipedia., Basque language is one of the oldest in Europe and the world, it has thousands of years old and is one of the few languages that survived the arrival of Indo-Europeans to Europe. Perhaps being one of the oldest nations or countries of the world not even have their own state, but our language is our homeland and pride. It put us on the map and give a reference recognizable to English speakers, the city of Pamplona (Iruña in basque language), where they celebrate the internationally famous festival of San Fermin are in the Basque Country.

After this brief introduction I would kindly ask you this request:

On July 15, 2009, in the Basque wikipedia we exceed the figure of 40,000 items, today (August 8, 2009) and we have 42,000 items, achievement of which we are very proud, because if we compare proportionately the number of speakers of the Basque language (about a million) with other spoken language Wikipedia in more than one state or nation in the world with millions of speakers is like to be proud.

Because one of the aims of Wikipedia in addition to expanding human knowledge worldwide is also to expand the knowledge of all languages of mankind: From the Basque Wikipedia We wanted to make the request to the users and particularly to the Admin of the English wikipedia would be possible if you put the link to Basque Wikipedia in your English Wikipedia´s language list of everyone in your main cover ("Languages" section: as is currently the case Galician or Catalan language) and the Wikipedia list of more than 40,000 items that is below your main entrance page ("Wikipedia languages" section). Since English is currently the most powerful, influential and widespread in the world (your wikipedia already has 3,000,000 articles), the presence of Basque Wikipedia in your list of the world would be a great help to supervival of our language and their knowledge in the world.

Awaiting your reply.

Greetings from the Basque Wikipedia.
. --Euskalduna (tell me) 15:05, 26 August 2009 (UTC) (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.86.101.120 (talk)

Congratulations on getting over 40,000 articles on Wikipedia! I looked on the List of Wikipedias page, and saw Basque in the 10,000+ table. I believe your request may better be handled over there. --Tim Sabin (talk) 14:02, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, Tim. --Euskalduna (tell me) 15:05, 26 August 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.86.101.120 (talk)

Speedy Deletion, PROD, or AFD? or other?

I stumbled across Wikipedia:What_You_Need_To_Know_About_Cancer_booklets earlier today. It looks like it should be delated or moved or something. What do you think should happen? Empire3131 (talk) 23:32, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

It could be improved - why don't you have a go? Jezhotwells (talk) 23:49, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Move to a subpage of WikiProject Medicine if they want it? Else it will probably have to go thru WP:MfD. --Cybercobra (talk) 23:51, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Largest wikiproject?

Is the largest wikiproject military history?

Is there a list of largest wikiprojects?

If not anyone object to me starting one? Ikip (talk) 05:05, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

I think the answers will be "Yes, No, No," but you should verify that here. Andrew Gradman ^talk/_WP:Hornbook 05:09, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Define largest: by number of articles, number of registered editors, number of featured articles? ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 02:59, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Then it should be a strategic concern, over at WP:LAW, to convince all those people to go to law school.  :) Andrew Gradman ^talk/_WP:Hornbook 03:09, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Number of editors, I found this from 2007:

User_talk:Dev920/Archive6#Top_20_WikiProjects

Many of these projects are no longer active.

Video games seems as large or the second largest compared to wikiproject military history.

But military history says they remove inactive users, Videogames appears to not to.

Based on what I found, I created this:

Other wikiprojects: Video games 1,281 members Military history 967 active members Biography 596 members Wikipedians against censorship 577 members Comics 547 members May 2009

Ikip (talk) 14:47, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

This isn't official (I only checked the article counts of some of the main topic Wikiprojects) but I believe it is, based on the number of articles, WikiProject Biography. They were the only one I saw with a six figure article count (currently 726,979). - kollision (talk) 15:26, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

I would probably say that WP:MILHIST is the largest WikiProject out there, just because it is that much more comprehensive and deals with a larger volume of articles than VG does – MILHIST has about 93,000 articles while VG has about 23,000. Being a WPVG member, I would also agree that the VG project's member numbers might be inflated and may include retired/inactive members because the project at large doesn't do any membership updating. MuZemike 18:28, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

It's worth noting, incidentally, that "Wikipedians against censorship" isn't a WikiProject in the conventional sense of the term; it doesn't deal with a particular topic area or maintenance task. The page should probably be renamed to just Wikipedia:Wikipedians against censorship, and considered a more general Wikipedian organization, not a WikiProject. Kirill ^[talk] [pf] 19:50, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, now that the WikiProject platform is being used to impose accountability on article content, I agree that it interferes with that purpose to have WikiProjects like "Wikipedians against censorship". I agree that we should propose making it a WP: page. Though I need some more peer pressure before making the proposal over there myself. Andrew Gradman ^talk/_WP:Hornbook 23:12, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) Again, as Gadget850 noted, how you define largest is relevant. Do you refer to the number of articles under its scope, the number of editors involved, etc.? If you are discussing the number of articles under its scope, WikiProject Biography has, at present, 726979 out of a total of 3,008,285 articles Wikipedia wide. That is over 24% of the entire encyclopedia, not counting the many that have not yet been assigned a category. Wildhartlivie (talk) 22:03, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Moreover, as most editors aren't members of any Wikiproject, it seems safe to assume that many of the articles within the scopes of various projects have had nothing to do with the project. I'm one of the coordinators of the Military history project and regularly scan the lists of new articles, and a high proportion of them aren't tagged as being within the project's scope by their creator. Nick-D (talk) 23:00, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

I recall cruising through the milhist list of active and inactive users recently; if I recall correctly, the total number from both lists came out to something like 1,600 members. The list are off by about 200-300 names; our active members total nearly 1,000 and the inactive totaled something like 700. These should be taken with a grain of salt though since I'm not sure when the last update of our membership lists occurred. TomStar81 (Talk) 18:41, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

In terms of the number of articles dealt with, then I'd say Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting has all the others beaten. However many of the articles don't stay around longer than a week. Thryduulf (talk) 20:35, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Date formatting redux (TfD {{start date}})

With reference to the recent poll about date (auto-)formatting, please note that {{start date}} is listed on Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion/Log/2009_August_24#Template:Start_date. -- User:Docu at 03:15, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

The result of the discussion was "Speedy keep", owing to supporting the reason being false. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 19:42, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

What is wrong with the Favicon?

I don't know if you noticed, but why is the Yahoo! favicon in the place of the wikikipedia one? SCG 147 21:05, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

File:Favicon fail.JPG

I did not edit this

It looks fine for me. Perhaps your browser is misbehaving :) Shereth 21:11, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Favicons do this quite a lot in my experience (in FF 3). Algebraist 21:12, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Can it be fixed? SCG 147 21:14, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Have you tried restarting your browser or clearing your temporary internet files? Shereth 21:18, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

It's all cleared up now. Thanks! I wonder if I can keep the image up. SCG 147 00:58, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

2009 Hudson River mid-air collision. Is the phone call relevant?

I opened an RfC on this article, 2009 Hudson River mid-air collision, and got no takers. The issues raised touch on WP:NPOV, WP:NOTNEWS and WP:NOTCENSORED, so pumpers take note. So please read the article, and read the RfC, and discuss there. Talk:2009 Hudson River mid-air collision#Rfc: Is the phone call relevant patsw (talk) 13:46, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Portals: When do we create/delete one?

Since the policy behind Portals is a bit unclear, a discussion started in Wikipedia_talk:Portal#Does_a_portal_need_to_be_actively_edited_in_order_to_be_useful.3F. Please raise your voice. -- Magioladitis (talk) 01:19, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Website White House Black Market uses same tab logo as Wikipedia

I just noticed it's the same logo, the black W in a white square. Is this going to cause any problems?--12.48.220.130 (talk) 20:02, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

• HOLY CRAP. Just FYI, the reference is to the Favicon. WOW. Andrew Gradman ^talk/_WP:Hornbook 23:15, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
• 1)I don't see what you're referring to. 2) what sort of problem do you see as a possibility? 3) assuming that there is some sort of problem... we're just users. Shouldn't the WP:OFFICE take care of potential legal issues?
  — Ω (talk) 23:17, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
  • Re :1) http://www.whitehouseblackmarket.com/favicon.ico = http://en.wikipedia.org/favicon.ico. Otherwise I'm not sure if this is a legal issue or just poor form from the designer of that site. - Optigan13 (talk) 23:20, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
    • I've just posted a link to this thread at WT:OFFICE. Is there anything else we should do to bring this to the attention of the right people? Andrew Gradman ^talk/_WP:Hornbook 23:41, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
      • • Ah, I see what you're referring to now. Note the license on commons:File:Wikipedia-favicon.png, though
          — Ω (talk) 02:34, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
    • WP:OFFICE only applies to legal complaints and stuff TOWARDS Wikipedia. However, that favicon isn't specifically a Wikipedia trademark, and I'll give them a free pass since their logo appears to be in the same font (or similar) used in the Wikipedia logo. ViperSnake151  Talk  14:39, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
      • As mentioned above, the favicon is not copyrighted in any event and there is simply no action to be taken here. Shereth 14:44, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
        • Well it's obviously not eligible copyright, but are there any non-copyright issues, like trademark? Powers ^T 15:22, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
          • No—it's impossible to trademark the letter "W". Dendodge _T\^C 15:25, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
          • (ec) To my knowledge, the only thing trademarked around here is the Wikipedia name itself. Shereth 15:28, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
        • The best doctrine would be Passing off rather than design marks. The "W" as a favicon is arguably well known and so this other company is passing off their browser tab as the much more widely known Wikipedia. I imagine that the public also glance down a list of bookmarks and hunt for the "W". IANAL. Ttiotsw (talk) 16:29, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
          • Yeah, but it's just a "W" in Times New Roman, or some font like that. It's not like it's much of a design, like the Google colored G. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 17:22, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
            • To me, the icon actually looks more like two overlapping Vs than a standard W. —Ost (talk) 20:32, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
              • Ah, the joy of falsely generalizing from some 20th century computer fonts to what is "standard"! ☺ I suggest reading our article on W. Uncle G (talk) 13:26, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Question about research

I wanted to ask a question about some research I want to do. I want to search approximately 20 different terms in google and find out where the Wikipedia page for each term ranks compared to other online resources. Specifically, I would be looking at terms for dermatologic conditions. So, for example, with the following search [16] on my results screen Wikipedia is the first entry, followed by medscape. Can I use google trends/"Google Insights for Search" to accomplish this? Or is there some other way I can compare google pageranks? ---kilbad (talk) 21:07, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

As there are only 20, why not just Google each one as you have done? OrangeDog (talk • edits) 12:50, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Maybe kilbad wants to easily find the PageRank and not just the SERP position. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:13, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Categorisation

If there is a category named after a person, should the various categories be listed on that particular category page or on the article page itself? Chesdovi (talk) 22:36, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

I encountered the same problem. I would say: not all of them. I think the deaths/births categories should not be included for example becasue they cause problems moreover, if you are lokking in xxxx births category you only need to look for the person not the category after the person. Maybe the only category that it should be subcategorised is the most relevant with the person, usually the profession-- Magioladitis (talk) 14:47, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

There is some discussion at Category talk:Categories named after people. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:20, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Input needed on rename proposal in silent corner of Wikipedia

Please see Wikipedia_talk:Stub_types_for_deletion#Rename and comment there. Thank you! Debresser (talk) 18:59, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Academic Research Study Survey: Final Call

Thank you to the Wikipedia community for your participation so far in this ongoing research study, and for your response to our previous post on the village pump. We plan on keeping this survey open for one more week and would like to encourage anyone who has not yet had the opportunity to participate to take the survey described below.

As part of an ongoing research project by students and faculty at the Carnegie Mellon University School of Computer Science and headed by Professor Robert Kraut, we are conducting a survey of anyone who has participated in the Request for Adminship (RfA) process, either voting or as a candidate.

The survey will only take a few minutes of your time, and will aid furthering our understanding of online communities, and may assist in the development of tools to assist voters in making RfA evaluations. We are NOT attempting to spam anyone with this survey and are doing our best to be considerate and not instrusive in the Wikipedia community. The results of this survey are for academic research and are not used for any profit nor sold to any companies. We will also post our results back to the Wikipedia community.

Take the survey

Thank you!

If you have any questions or concerns, feel free comment on my talk page.

User:CMUResearcher (talk). 20:04, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

5,000,000 files!

Wikimedia Commons has just reached 5,000,000 files uploaded. Congrats, Commons! BobAmnertiopsis∴_ChatMe! 11:49, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

So, what was the 5,000,000th?--Unionhawk ^{Talk E-mail} 22:22, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

According to Commons:Main Page, it was File:Kjøbenhavnsposten 28 nov 1838 side 1.jpg. --Floquenbeam (talk) 22:28, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict)There's a press release here: wmuk:Press releases/Wikimedia Commons 5 million files, but this thread on Commons is probably more descriptive in some areas. :-) The (suspected) 5,000,000th file is File:Kjøbenhavnsposten 28 nov 1838 side 1.jpg. Killiondude (talk) 22:31, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Quotation mark on Wikipedia

I noticed that basically all quotation marks on Wikipedia are written "like this". However, this is wrong, it should be “like this” (look carefully).

Since there are too many articles to edit it manually, could there be a very clever bot doing this? sl:Lagos 86.61.29.194 (talk) 22:17, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

• Actually, according to the manual of style, the former is correct.--Unionhawk ^{Talk E-mail} 22:21, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
• Curly quotes = kill with fire. Basically because it might lead people to use them in templates, which of course, will break them. –xeno^talk 22:35, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
  • Not to mention they're a pain in the ass to type. MediaWiki is not Microsoft Word. --Cybercobra (talk) 22:57, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
• While they are different in the editing box, for me at least (I use the default skin so far as I know, and FF3.5) it shows up as normal quotes in the text. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 00:08, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
• Curly quotes are a Microsoft Word invention. Before Microsoft all characters used were part of the ASCII or EBCDIC character set. Straight quotes are not only what Wikipedia has standardized on, but they're a lot easier to type (" is on all QWERTY keyboards, whereas non-PC machines may or may not have a way to type curly quotes).

  Note that Wikipedia does use curly quotes when a quotation template is used. It's fairly easy to find examples of this. --Tim Sabin (talk) 01:39, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

  • And I've always found those excessive. I'm not sold on the benefits of {{quote}} versus plain old blockquote, nevertheless {{Cquote}}. Seems like users of Cquote are the same ones with rotating doodads in their signatures who refuse to believe that a cleaner layout is easier on both the readers and editors having to figure out the markup in the editing window. - BanyanTree 04:25, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
  • I'm saddened to find that our articles on quotation mark and quotation mark glyphs are not good enough to correct the quite large errors in the above. Curly quotation marks — i.e. inverted commas — pre-date the existence of Microsoft by at least a couple of centuries. Uncle G (talk) 04:30, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

You may look at any book or newspaper and I am sure there will be typographic quotation marks. It’s just the standard… it’s professional. I think the problem discussed should be how to repare the wrong qoutes in all this articles – if repare them at all – and how to make further writing with such quotes more user friendly. sl:Lagos 95.176.210.105 (talk) 07:37, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

• Printed and electronic media are different, and Wikipedia is rarely read in printed form. The place to suggest a change to curly quotes would be Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style but an archive search there shows wide support for straight quotes. I also support that. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:37, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
  • Do you not see the "Breaking templates" and "Pain in ass to type" above? Both of them are true! I can do straight quotes right here, but with curly quotes, I literally have to go into word, and copy them in.--Unionhawk ^{Talk E-mail} 11:50, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
• I just noticed something. The curly quotes appear differently on different computers. Or, even at different times on the same computer! (Yesterday, at work, they appeared curly; today at work they appeared straight.) Another good reason not to switch. --Tim Sabin (talk) 12:11, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

I see there is already a lot said about this, and I am not sure if it is worth adding another déjà vu topic.

Although, I disagree about printed vs electronic document. In both cases it’s just text! (And printed text was once digitally written as well.) Maybe you meant that it’s not displayed: yes, for some users, but not majority and amount is decreasing (specifically, for users with ClearType turned off there is no difference between "" and “” – but ClearType is on by default in newer versions of Windows (Vista, 7) and in some newer browsers (IE 7 and above), which means with upgrading difference in appereance is slowly improving.)

Also I don’t think there was wide support for straight qoutes, there was no consensus at all. But I did’ read everything.

BTW, you can click on insert characters and get curly quotes – still, user interface could be done much better in this case. And would templates really be a problem? sl:Lagos 95.176.160.143 (talk) 13:38, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Until keyboards come with keys for opening and closing quotation marks (both single and double), inserting curly quotes will never be as quick or as easy as typing straight ones is. It is an issue not nearly important enough to warrant hoop-jumping on the part of editors. Powers ^T 15:28, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Ok, there is obviously no interest in this. Just a final thought: despite inconvenience in editing & writing – which could be improved, IMO – using typographic quotation marks is standard in printed texts and is a sign of professionalism on web pages. For example, Britannica Online uses this kind of qoutes. WP stays in amateur camp this time… :-( sl:Lagos 95.176.222.232 (talk) 07:25, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Possibly living people

There are a number of biographical articles which have birth dates recorded, but no death dates. This is presumably because once they had their moments of fame (for example, in competitive sport) they retired and faded in the background. People (i.e. reliable sources) lost track, and so we have no idea of whether they are alive or not. Now, the list here is a fairly long one, but, for obvious reasons, we need only concern ourselves with those born 1900 or after. Obviously, it's preferable to have a dead person marked as living (with all the added precautions that entails) than the assumption that a living person is dead. So do we add Category:Living people to all of them? Where (in terms of birth date) should be draw the line? - Jarry1250 ^{[ In the UK? Sign the petition! ]} 13:22, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

This runs into a conflict between WP:V and common sense. Someone born in 1880 is pretty much guaranteed to be dead by 2009. But if it's not verifiable, it's not verifiable. I would suggest splitting the 'possibly living' category into 'possibly living' and 'presumed dead' with a cutoff of 100 years. → ROUX ₪ 13:31, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

At the moment, pre-1887 are already de facto presumed dead and can be automatically (no human interaction required) tagged with "Year of death missing". - Jarry1250 ^{[ In the UK? Sign the petition! ]} 13:36, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

In that case I really don't see the need for anything to change.. → ROUX ₪ 13:38, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Okay, well the decision (as I see it) is whether we want BLP-things (unreferenced variation, warning on talk page, edit notice) to apply to those people born after 1887 where no death has been established. At the moment, human assessment is necessary for Category:Possibly living people (or Living people) to be applied which (given the size of the task) is a bit clunky. - Jarry1250 ^{[ In the UK? Sign the petition! ]} 13:43, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Having some thousands people falsely reported as alive in a project that covers 700k+ articles is not that bad. We have 20-25k biography articles unsorted yet. This should be our first aim. Tomorrow I am updating Wikipedia:Uncategorized biographies of living people/BLPPotential. Of course we have Category:Biography articles without living parameter as well. -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:56, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Proposed move of "denial of the Armenian Genocide" to "Armenian genocide dispute" and merge in "recognition of the Armenian Genocide

It would help if editors other than the "usual suspects" were to get involved in the debate on whether to move "denial of the Armenian Genocide" to "Armenian genocide dispute" and merge in "recognition of the Armenian Genocide" -- PBS (talk) 14:27, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

I am glad to help here, saying Support the merger, but whatever my position, I have no particular involvement in the "dispute" which is actually a controversy raised by those who deny there was a genocide. --DThomsen8 (talk) 15:14, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

announce on the wikiproject for Armenia and turkey. Ikip (talk) 15:34, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Creating a new wiki

I am currently planning creation of a new wiki that will begin as a fork of part of Wikipedia. I won't be needing editors for a couple months yet (need to iron out domain, hosting, etc), but when I do, what is the best way to go about getting interested editors from Wikipedia without spamming/being accused of spam? My guess is there will be too many potentially interested people to make individual tpage notices (even with AWB) practical. → ROUX ₪ 15:41, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

I even consider this post of yours to be spammy - I don't recommend that you personally make any edits about this idea on Wikipedia itself. I think an external blog and/or getting coverage in a news service like Wikipedia Signpost or WikipediaWeekly (or even the New York Times) is the way to go.--Commander Keane (talk) 10:07, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, except for the fact that I said nothing about what it is, and indeed will not respond to any inquiries, it's definitely spam. Your suggestion about the signpost or WW is good, pity you couldn't make it without being rude. → ROUX ₪ 22:41, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

WADR, Commander Keane has a point. Your post makes it sound like you merely intend to use Wikipedia as a soapbox for your own personal project. Nowhere on Wikipedia would people consider it acceptable to abuse the site's userbase in such a way. That is, as I say, assuming your project is as personal and unrelated to the 'pedia as it sounds. If not, then I certainly endorse the suggestions above as good places to communicate with editors en masse. Greg Tyler ^{(t • c)} 22:40, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Political correctness or appropriate language?

Schmirius(talk|contribs) just edited two dozen articles, changing occurrences of the phrase "confined to a wheelchair" to "uses a wheelchair", commenting that it is the "preferred usage". In at least a couple of cases ([17][18]) it appears to weaken the prose in which the confinement to (required use of?) a wheelchair was central to the point. In other cases it seems to introduce a certain ambiguity, as many people who have limited mobility (those who are only able to take a few hundred steps daily following knee surgery, for example) use a wheelchair to extend their range. The phrase "uses a wheelchair" seems appropriate there, where "confined to a wheelchair" does not. Striking the latter phrase from our vocabulary would remove this distinction. Wikipedia has no reason to go out of its way to offend, but how far out of its way should it go to avoid offending, perhaps at the price of less precise language, and is this even such a case? Is there any policy that addresses this topic? WP:PC, to my disappointment, is about press coverage. -- Thinking of England (talk) 10:17, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

WP:SPADE might apply. Powers ^T 13:17, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

It doesn't. It is an essay on project-space behavior, not article content. Mike R (talk) 17:50, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

I must say it makes sense to me to distinguish between those who simply use a wheelchair for ease and those who are physically unable to get around without one. Language has a lot of little ways of doing things and killing that in cases like this seems a bit too POV. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 14:13, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

I can't offer any guidance, but I must say that I get goosebumps hearing about systematic revisions like this. I once saw a thread (I don't remember where) in which someone said they were systematically removing, from biographies, statements like "so-and-so was born to Jewish parents" or "raised ethnically Jewish" etc. He claimed that he was offended by the "racist" implication that Jewishness was a factor in that person's accomplishments, but I assume this person has done much towards making Wikipedia -- dare I say it? -- Judenrein. Andrew Gradman ^talk/_WP:Hornbook 17:47, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Maybe it's my European insensitivity, but while I understand the semantic difference between "uses" and "confined to", why would one of the phrases be considered more or less PC than the other? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:58, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

In the first instance, it could say, "A user of a wheelchair for mobility, ..." In the second instance, it could say, "...when he was restricted to using a wheelchair..." Bus stop (talk) 19:41, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

In PC-speak, "confined to" has a negative connotation to it (directly implies powerlessness) whereas "uses" is more neutral (implies some kind of choice on the user's part). A bunch of silliness if you ask me, but there you have it. Shereth 20:06, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Without taking sides in the overall debate, I reverted one change, to Spike (Buffy the Vampire Slayer), because the "confined to" wording appropriately conveyed a plot point, accurately depicting how a normally able-bodied vampire was reduced to a wheelchair-bound state and supplanted in the "pecking order", thus motivating him to sell out another vampire to Buffy. The issue in this case was that the negative conotation was intentionally applied to a fictional character, and the attempt to use more sensitive language actually reduced the focus of the sentence in a way that a non-content expert would not have realized. Jclemens (talk) 21:13, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

An IP address has been continuing to make such changes, with non-AGF edit summary language. It doesn't look like the same person, but is probably someone sympathetic to the original editor with a bit less tact. Jclemens (talk) 22:13, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not censored. Being precise and factually correct is far superior to being politically correct. OrangeDog (talk • edits) 00:39, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

It reminds me of my language Danish where there has been successful PC campaigning to get people to say drivechair (Danish: kørestol) instead of rollchair (Danish: rullestol). It sounds more active to drive than to roll (it has never been called wheelchair in Danish). At least there is no significant difference in function in that case. I don't like systematic change to "uses a wheelchair" without consideration of the context. I wonder whether "wheelchair-bound" with 367 Wikipedia search hits will also be targeted by PC. Oh, after writing that sentence I see Schmirius is also doing that.[19] PrimeHunter (talk) 02:04, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

The Access Center offers Talking About Disability: A Guide to Using Appropriate Language which advocates these language changes. Also, Schmirius has not edited since this discussion was started less than a day ago, and he should be given a reasonable time to accept his invitation to respond here. -- Thinking of England (talk) 02:49, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

We appear to have consensus to date that it would be appropriate to revert those changes where the confinement to (required use of?) a wheel chair was central to the point. What about more general cases? Taking one edit at random (to Kim Jong-il):

Old text: In a subsequent best-selling book, The True Character of Kim Jong-il, Shigemura cited apparently un-named people close to Kim's family along with Japanese and South Korean intelligence sources, claiming they confirmed Kim's diabetes took a turn for the worse early in 2000 and from then until his supposed death three and a half years later he was confined to a wheelchair.

New text: In a subsequent best-selling book, The True Character of Kim Jong-il, Shigemura cited apparently un-named people close to Kim's family along with Japanese and South Korean intelligence sources, claiming they confirmed Kim's diabetes took a turn for the worse early in 2000 and from then until his supposed death three and a half years later he was using a wheelchair.

Does the loss of precision justify reverting these changes in general? -- Thinking of England (talk) 03:05, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

"Use a wheelchair" is clearly more precise than "wheelchair bound" or "confined to a wheelchair" in at least 99% of the cases - the users are not hogtied, locked, or criminally sentanced into the chair. In the specific example above, depeding on what the source actually says, the grammar of the rest of the sentence can be changed: "from 2000 he was not seen in public without using a wheelchair" or somesuch-- The Red Pen of Doom 03:16, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I'd say that's a bit less precise since the earlier forms communicated that the wheel chair was necessary to the person's mobility, rather than something they merely used for any other purpose, hell a healthy actor could "use" a wheel chair for a part, or someone could merely need one for occasional assistance or when leaving surgery, or anything. I'm struggling to think of a better way to say it (I have a feeling that "Bob is dependent on a wheelchair" isn't an improvement.)"Bob requires a wheelchair for mobility"? "Bob relies on a wheel chair for mobility"? Abyssal (talk) 04:10, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

The Red Pen may be falsely conflating precision with accuracy. I would agree that "confined to a wheelchair" is not literally accurate, but that it is a figure of speech which is precise and well understood. It is also, because of its literal connotations, offensive to some. Perhaps the difficulty behind finding precise, terse replacements for figures of speech is that they carry meaning beyond their literal words. -- Thinking of England (talk) 09:19, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Is there a reason why we would not want to be literally accurate as well as factually acurate? -- The Red Pen of Doom 10:44, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

"Restricted to" eases some of the ugly imagery associated with "confined to." "For mobility" specifies the reason for the referred to wheelchair use. I think the language could use a refresh. It is not just about political correctness. I think there is a slight issue of perpetuating outdated and false impressions and stereotypes associated with disability. If we are quoting someone else's reference we quote it verbatim. Stephen Hawking is also restricted to using a wheelchair for mobility. Bus stop (talk) 11:14, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

A noble goal, but I don't think "restricted to a wheelchair for mobility" is a well-recognized idiom in English. Powers ^T 12:41, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

I didn't say "restricted to a wheelchair for mobility." Those two sentence fragments have to be separated. That could be "reliant on a wheelchair for mobility." That might also represent an improvement. Bus stop (talk) 12:55, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

It seems quite clear that none of the participants in this discussion so far are themselves wheelchair users. I am, so permit me to bring some actual real world experience to the topic. "Wheelchair bound" is rapidly becoming just as stigmatised as "crippled" or "retarded", please try not to use it. The simple fact is that wheelchair users are not literally tied into their chairs. To distinguish someone who has to use a wheelchair all the time from someone who uses it only in certain circumstances we have "wheelchair user" (without a qualifier) or "fulltime wheelchair user" versus "occasional wheelchair user" or "part-time wheelchair user". If one looks at sources such as web forums for wheelchair users you would notice that usages such as "wheelchair bound" and "confined to a wheelchair" are being slapped down quite often. A common explanation given for why "confined to a wheelchair" is incorrect is that a wheelchair is an instrument of freedom, not confinement. If you need one but you don't have it, you are truly confined - usually to a bed or wherever someone else (your caregiver) puts you. Roger (talk) 13:13, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

And so the euphemism treadmill progresses. Soon "wheelchair user" will start to become stigmatized, too. Powers ^T 13:30, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

It is not euphemism. It is perspective. One can chose the perspective of liberation or confinement. Bus stop (talk) 13:48, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Roger, thanks for this information. You actually changed my mind on this topic. It sounds like "uses a wheelchair" should be our generic text, and if we know more info (e.g. the person is "confined" to a wheelchair) our text should be, "he uses a wheelchair, and is unable to walk" or something. Our goal should be to present information, not perspectives. Andrew Gradman ^talk/_WP:Hornbook 18:48, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

The 'perspective' should be NPOV, not necessarily one of empowerment or "liberation". 72.10.110.109 (talk) 21:41, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Is "Fulltime Wheelchair user" commonly used anywhere? I've never heard it. I am not confined to a wheelchair, nor do I use one, but "fulltime [X] user" sounds vaguely critical and gossipy to my ear. I instantly try to imagine some sort of drug abuse, except with a wheelchair. Which puts my imagination in a weird place. 72.10.110.109 (talk) 21:36, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

"Fulltime" and "Part-time" are simply adjectives to disambiguate (if really necessary) the situation raised by some of the previous posts, where it would otherwise be incorrect to call an occasional user "wheelchair bound". The term is simply "wheelchair user". If we accept the claim by some that it is just an undesirable PC euphemism, by the same logic the terms "black" or "African American" are also merely undesirable PC euphemisms for "nigger". Roger (talk) 08:58, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

That last is an inflammatory comparison. An equally inflammatory and unjust reply would be to ask how you would respond to an editor following NAMBLA speech guidelines and changing all references of pedophilia to "intergenerational relationship". More enlightening would be to consider how we would respond to an editor changing "atheists" to brights. Some might argue that a large fraction of the group do not identify with the new name, but the more important point is that it is not the common term used (although one goal of the Brights movement is to change this). Languages do change, and occasionally these changes are directed. For Wikipedia to be on the vanguard of nascent directed change is clearly POV. What we must consider in this case is if the new idiom (and yes, "uses a wheelchair" is an idiom if it implies "requires use of a wheelchair for mobility") is sufficiently entrenched in the language, if the old idiom has been sufficiently replaced, and, if they are both in common use, then does the new offer a suitable and desirable replacement for the old in all contexts. I don't know the answers and that is why I raised the question here. At this point I would say that the developing consensus I remarked upon earlier is no longer present. -- Thinking of England (talk) 15:50, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

I consider the comparison to be valid. People who use wheelchairs take offense at the term "wheelchair bound" just like black people are offended by "nigger" (notwithstanding its use by rap artists). Your "pedophilia" analogy is not equivalent because it refers to a crime that causes actual harm, to "whitewash" it is even more deeply offensive. Being black or paralysed is not at all comparable to being a pedophile. But that is a side issue, so lets leave it. The simple fact is that the term "wheelchair bound" is considered offensive by a significant proportion of affected people - it is not proper for WP to be gratuitously offensive. Roger (talk) 17:32, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

I just ran across this edit in Christopher Pike (Star Trek), where "confined" is about as accurate as you can get. One of the other editors and I compromised with "dependent on a wheelchair". --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 17:39, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

The logic given in the case of the Captain Pike thing is obviously false logic. It's entirely possible to be confined to something that enables you. There is no logical conflict. The conflict is entirely emotional. Pilots are said to be confined to their cockpits. Submariners are confined to their ships. In both cases confinement in one sense results in freedom and enablement in another. No one would complain about this usage. An astronaut on EVA is probably the least confined human in the universe, but it's entirely appropriate to describe him or her as "confined to their suit".

(That's not to say that it might not still be offensive, of course. But any claim that the word "confined" is technically incorrect because of a perceived contradiction, is an incorrect argument.) APL (talk) 18:55, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

I can live with "dependent on a wheelchair" or "wheelchair dependent". Roger (talk) 18:01, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

That phrase does have the advantage of not being an idiom -- of standing on its literal meaning -- and also of being as terse as what it is being proposed to replace. -- Thinking of England (talk) 18:43, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

One can say exactly the same of "wheelchair user" or "uses a wheelchair". Roger (talk) 19:30, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

"Wheelchair dependent" at least has the advantage of successfully communicating that the subject requires a wheelchair and is not simply using one for who knows what unspecified reasons. It's not required to speak in idioms. APL (talk) 21:03, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Newspapers and the AP seem to routinely use "wheelchair bound", "wheelchair user" seems to be almost exclusively a self-label. Perhaps in the future "wheelchair bound" will be considered as offensive has "negro", but that obviously hasn't happened yet.

While WP shouldn't be intentionally offensive, is appropriate for Wikipedia to be "leading" this revolution in nomenclature? Should WP be used as a champion for the oppressed? I hate to see Wikipedia being used as a driving vehicle for a societal change, even a minor one like this. APL (talk) 18:30, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

It has to do with the spin put on the locution. Bus stop (talk) 18:53, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes. Locution just means 'word choice'. This certainly is a discussion about word choice, but how does that specifically related to what I just said? To briefly put it in your terms I argued that Wikipedia should not make a conscious effort to "spin its locution" away from commonly accepted styles used by the majority of print media, towards a style favored only by a small minority. Then I implied, but didn't quite say, that making this sort of change before the major media outlets, was a form of minor POV pushing. ("Spin pushing?") APL (talk) 19:03, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm not going to argue. I think each editor speaks in his/her own language, even if it is all English. No two editors are going to come up with the same language to express a thought. If it is obvious that a quote has to be used, then that is going to determine the particular word construction, or locution. But we are just going to write as we choose, and if someone challenges our particular phrasing, that will be a little disagreement that will be somehow resolved. I think there is a limit to how productively and extensively something can be argued in the abstract. After awhile the participants are no longer focussed on anything. Each writer will write with their own language, and I think there is a point beyond which it becomes impossible to nail down language any further. Bus stop (talk) 19:50, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

That it is a "Self label" is an interestiong observation. The WP:BLP rules require us to adhere strictly to "self labels" for things like religion and ethnicity of a subject, why not also apply it to disability? Roger (talk) 19:30, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but, for example, Pike never self-identified as anything. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:53, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

WP:BLP seem to require it to be evaluated on a case by case basis. (Which is sort of what Bus Stop is saying above, I think.) If someone is known to self-identify with or prefer some certain term, then using that term seems to be indicated. Otherwise, I guess the next best would be to use the wording used by the cited source. (Especially important in cases of folk who are no longer LPs.)

This line of reasoning would probably wind up with a lot of articles using the more positive, but less familiar phrasing. However, it would seem to speak strongly against going through and changing the articles wholesale on general principal. (Which is what started this conversation.)

I wonder how that applies to Captain Pike. APL (talk) 21:03, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

P.S. I have tampered with the threading and post order to restore what I believe is the intended flow for this conversation.

If I understand correctly from the comments above, the only reason not to say "uses a wheelchair" instead of "confined to a wheelchair" is to distinguish between people "choosing" to use a wheelchair, and people who "must" use it to get around. But 99% of the time, this can be easily gleaned from context. In the remaining 1%, where it's actually important to distinguish (and this is theoretical; I can't think of an actual, practical case where it's important to make it explicit (and by "practical", I mean, "not Star Trek")) adding the words "sometimes" or "often" in front of the former solves the problem.

If we were being asked to start using the phrase "kerfinkles a wheelchair", I could understand the resistance. But this is a trivially simple change, uses clear, standard English, and is evidently more respectful to some of our fellow humans. Why in the world would we insist on not using it? --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:25, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

There is an understandable recalcitrance toward modifying articles in a fashion that seem to put a euphamistic spin on things. While the intent in this particular case is noble enough on its face (attempting to use a term/phrase that is more acceptable toward those with disabilities) there is a certain amount of validity to the "slippery slope" argument; how far are we willing to go in altering our language to placate a certain group? I am personally somewhat ambivalent toward the distinction between "uses a wheelchair" and "confined to a wheelchair", but the systematic replacing of the latter with the former smacks of political correctness for its own sake, with no benefit in terms of encyclopedic content. Ultimately it is a POV issue. Shereth 21:32, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

"Uses a wheelchair" is not a euphemism. It is clear, straightforward, descriptive, standard English. It is certainly not POV. I don't think POV actually comes into this, but if it did, "confined to" is more POV than "uses". I don't use a wheelchair, and I guess not particularly empathetic, so I'm not offended by "confined", but I can accept that someone who does use one might be. Since they are replacing one crystal clear phrasing with another crystal clear phrasing, and doing slightly less harm in the process, what actual harm is accrued if someone wants to systematically reword every instance in the Encyclopedia? Rather than worry about slippery slopes, I'd be inclined to wait until someone proposes something that is actually even remotely unreasonable before resisting. --Floquenbeam (talk) 22:10, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

There is no inherent harm in it, but again, there is no benefit in terms of encyclopedic content. I apologize for being less than clear - I don't believe that the phrase "uses a wheelchair" is POV, what I was alluding to is that it is ultimately a subjective question as to whether or not "uses a wheelchair" is better than "confined to a wheelchair". The improvement (or harm) in making this change is inherently subjective, and I believe therein lies the resistence. People like to see a solid, objective rationale behind systematic changes, simply because it becomes increasingly difficult to "draw the line" down the road. Hence the slippery slope. Shereth 22:30, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Ah, OK, sorry, I thought you were saying changing to "uses a wheelchair" was a POV issue. I see the point of what you're saying as a general comment on the general idea of systematic changes, but in this particular case I'd be inclined to let it lie; for one thing, I'm willing to defer to those actually affected by the term, and in any case, following the dictum "choose your battles". Still, I think I see your point now. Cheers, --Floquenbeam (talk) 22:37, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

I would agree that "confined to a wheelchair" is, in pretty well all cases, inaccurate language, as I'm sure that there are very few wheelchair users who don't get out of the chair and into bed to sleep (with or without help), but "uses a wheelchair" is a gross understatement as a description of people who need a wheelchair to get around - plenty of people use wheelchairs temporarily or occasionally without it being a defining part of their lives. The wording for each case needs to be decided according to the subject and the context, and will usually be something between the two phrases in question such as "needs a wheelchair for mobility", but I disagree with any formulaic editing that doesn't consider each subject as an individual. I must also point out that this sort of "political correctness" often does a disservice to the people being written or spoken about. I suffer from a chronic illness and cringe every time that I hear a health care practitioner say that I "have" the condition rather than "suffer" from it, or refers to me as a "service user" rather than a "patient". Phil Bridger (talk) 21:11, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

I am a C5/6 Complete Quadriplegic & self identify as a "wheelchair user" (ex POV) or say that I "use a wheelchair" (1st POV). Informally & dependent on context, slang such as "Quad" usually suffice to qualify that my mode of ambulation is not simply a matter of personal preference (though I understand some prefer strictly PC language while for others further clarification may be needed). Bound, Confined, Inflicted, Restricted, Suffering etc, while able to be interpreted as objectively accurate, are certainly not ideal for literal & personal reasons. Able-bods are not "confined to shoes" or "pants bound". Kyebosh (talk) 10:00, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Class of articles valid?

Should articles of the type "<sportsperson> with <team> in <year>" or <sportsperson> in <championship series> in <year>" (for example, Michael Jordan in the NBA Playoffs in 1991 or Manny Ramirez in the World Series of 2004 be an acceptable class of articles? A test case has arisen. Your opinions welcome at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sam Loxton with the Australian cricket team in England in 1948. --Hammersoft (talk) 23:09, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Those seem somewhat spurious comparisons; as several editors (including myself) have noted in the AfD the Australian team during the 1948 'Invincibles' tour of England and its members have received vastly more coverage in reliable sources than would be expected of just about any other team in any other series (as demonstrated by no less than four of the articles which are up for deletion being FA class and most of the remainder being well on the way to FA status). No-one in the AfD has proposed that combinations of individual players in individual series are inherently notable. Nick-D (talk) 23:38, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

• Centralized discussion is available at the AfD that away. It is not my intent to fork discussion. Please consider moving your comments there. Thank you. --Hammersoft (talk) 23:43, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

We can discuss it here a a general case not specifically focusing on those article only. So that a policy or consensus should be developed for such cases.--yousaf465' 16:06, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

• Perhaps. But to avoid forking discussion, I think it best we wait until the AfD closes. --Hammersoft (talk) 16:34, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Ok. We can wait for it.--yousaf465' 02:04, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

SVG conversion request for external files.

Can anyone convert these two .ai files into SVG format? I don't know how to do it:

• "KT_logo_W.ai" in http://file.kt.com/kthome/pr/data/cibi/ci/KT_logo_02.zip
• The first top one with white background, on the "KT_logo.ai" in http://file.kt.com/kthome/pr/data/cibi/ci/KT_logo_02.zip

If done, please replace File:KT logo.jpg and File:Olleh KT.jpg on the article KT (telecommunication company) with the SVG files. JSH-alive ^{talk • cont • mail} 14:58, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

You'll probably get the best results at WP:Graphic Lab/Image workshop. hmwitht 15:04, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. :D -- JSH-alive ^{talk • cont • mail} 03:57, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Standardisation on Infobox settlement

It seems that the people maintaining {{Infobox settlement}} have a declared aim of standardising all regional settlement-related infoboxes on their model; i.e. use of IS should be mandatory worldwide and region-specific infoboxes should be deprecated and deleted. To that end, a series of templates have been listed for deletion at TfD (see Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2009 September 6#Template:Infobox Australian Place for the largest discussion).

The proponents of such standardisation seem to think the benefits of standardisation are self-evident (I am not yet convinced) but even if standardisation is the way to go, deleting templates and only then coming to grips with the migration process etc. seems to me to be putting the cart before the horse. It is a recipe for chaos, at least in the short term.

I do not think anyone is, was or will suggest deleting one of these types of templates before migrating it. In fact migration is part of the deletion process. Rich Farmbrough, 14:16, 7 September 2009 (UTC).

I suggest speedily closing the current settlement infobox TfDs and then creating a centralised discussion about the benefits or otherwise of standardisation, followed by development of a rational migration plan should consensus determine that a move is necessary. To my mind, this will generate a better end result than processing each template through TfD and will avoid generating mountains of work for those editors having to deal with the unintended consequences of a hasty deletion. -- Mattinbgn\^talk 02:54, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Seconded. I think the benefits of "standardization" and "maintenance" are far over stated, but agree this is a much bigger issue than TfD should have to deal with. Articles can be updated with different templates without changes being forced on them by unrelated editors deleting in-use templates. It seems as if editors are trying to slip this under the radar and delete templates en mass, creating huge amounts of work for other editors without consulting them. I so far haven't seen notices posted to Wikiprojects, let alone the usual "This template has been proposed for deletion" integrated into the template itself.-- Patrick {_oѺ^∞} 05:53, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

That is not entirely true, the people standardising the templates are the ones doing the work to change them, often using AWB or a bot, they certainly do not leave any extra work lying about for project members to have to deal with.. Himalayan 10:22, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

So the process takes place without any consultation with the editors who actually work with the relevant articles? While that is consistent with the manner in which you have taken the debate forward to date, it is also a recipe for disaster. Believe it or not there is some useful expertise at the regional WikiProjects, if you actually take the time to ask them for advice and assistance. Why you want to disregard their input is beyond me. -- Mattinbgn\^talk 11:14, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. I think there is a false philosophical assumption that because we are a global encyclopaedia, therefore all content must be globally consistent. We live in a diverse world with cultures, languages, customs, histories, terrain, political traditions and local oddities all playing their role in keeping it that way. There is no reason why Wikipedia cannot reflect this whilst still being appropriate to a global audience. I'm also concerned at the manner in which the group here has been operating - it is similar to other examples I have seen in entirely unrelated areas (eg CfD, the diacritics disputes, etc) where a small group decide they know better than anyone else, that obtaining feedback is simply a hindrance to achieving their goals, and that Wikipedia policy can therefore be completely ignored in the pursuance of some "greater good" and everyone should just do exactly as they say. The fact that there's no obvious migration process in mind and that several useful fields and links would be sacrificed by such changes is a good enough reason to step back and think what is best for our community as a whole. Orderinchaos 07:02, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

I am thirding this, just because no one else has commented here. I'll save further comment for a centralised discussion. Donama (talk) 08:44, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

I note WP:ENGVAR works quite well and on the same basis that local solutions to local problems are most often better than attempts to dictate from above. -- Mattinbgn\^talk 10:12, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

I support standarisation. This is the english wikipedia. Since we can do more of that with {{Infobox settlement}}, I don't understand why not. TfD's arebases on the fact that these templates are covered by a standard one. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:54, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

OK, but what is the benefit in standardisation? Standardisation for its own sake seems pointless to me. I am willing to listen if someone is willing to point out why a global template is better than a tailored local template but no one seems to want to make that argument. -- Mattinbgn\^talk 10:12, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

As I mentioned at the original TfD, the generic template is actually quite problematic in that it has a very high bar for entry in terms of usability, it does not contain any built-in intelligence and it is more prone to error because of the amount of manual coding necessary to make the template work. In addition, it's ugly. Orderinchaos 12:17, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Consistancy and simplification above anything. I think having a single template for settlements aids the notion of the "free encyclopedia that anybody can edit". Editors become accustomed to editing the standard template which is used for most countries on here, then when they come across a completely differently built one it is a whole new learning curve. I for instance wanted to add a location map to Alice Springs but because I was unfamiliar with the template I couldn't. We do live in a diverse world but that is where english wikipedia tries to unite the masses to produce a consistant, high quality encyclopedia. I for one believe we should strive for similar articles to have a similar format and layout and referencing from whatever country, sorry you disagree. Himalayan 10:18, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

I've used {{Infobox settlement}} in a few American articles and I've found it a lot harder to use then {{Infobox Australian Place}} which I found to be far easier to use (Once you read the Doc). Also there is a reason why articles use local language (eg. American, British, Australian english), use of metric or imperial but I could go on so I see no need to use one template for all. Bidgee (talk) 10:51, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Consistency where functionality is lost is not a positive step. There is nothing simple about Infobox Settlement. It contains generic fields for which the purpose is not immediately clear as the documentation is particularly lacking. Contrast this with IAP where the documentation is extensive and the purpose of appropriately named fields within the template is immediately clear. As I indicated at the TfD, IAP includes automatic categorisation, linking and conversions which would be lost with IS. Try actually reading the documentation for IAP instead of just making assumptions that this or that doesn't exist, as you have done, and actually using the template and you'll see why a built for purpose template is much better than a generic bloated template that tries to be all things to everything. --AussieLegend (talk) 11:26, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Generally in IT, standardisation results in either loss of flexibility or increased complexity. This is a rather nice example of the latter - while I agree that it will improve consistency, it is at the cost of simplicity. For example, in the Settlement infobox, we need to specify both that postcode type and the postcode - that's two lines to enter data that could have been entered in one on a less generic template. Similarly, to enter the state for a given town, you need to fill in subdivision_type and subdivision_name, not just a more specific "state" field. The result is an infobox with over 90 fields, many of which are explaining data that is to follow or which is cover data that is going to be irrelevant for large regions. Personally, while I can see the case for standardisation, and it is a very nice template, I'd be pushing for some standard practices across existing infoboxes, rather than replacing them with a more generic and more complex alternative. Or using it as teh basis for more narrowly designed templates. - Bilby (talk) 13:13, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

I understand, but the vast majority of people who have commented on this are not seeing things from a global perspective, they are seeing it from an Australian point of view. You are all accustomed to how the Aussie template works but editors outside the Australian project who may want to contribute independently may find it harder to learn a whole new system. It is the same with how you see the standard template as how I see the Aussie template. It is not what each of us are accustomed to, this is why there is a conflict of interest. Himalayan 10:57, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Look if you had of started a discussion with the Australian's they would be happy to explain why the Australian Places template is needed, Your comments on nationality isn't helping and really is bad faith to the community as a whole. Edits on and article creation on places on Australia are done by new users and IP's all the time and I'm yet to see a large number of them having issues using the Australian template system, So why fix something if it's not broken (and it not broken). Bidgee (talk) 11:05, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

You keep saying that Australian editors are incapable of seeing a wider view. That is nonsense, you have failed to make your argument and want to dismiss all objections to your proposal as parochial. How about actually taking their objections seriously. -- Mattinbgn\^talk 11:14, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Mattinbgn. Standardization for it's own sake has very little benefit when it comes to cultural differences, which this issue clearly includes. This whole proposal seems ill-conceved, including the fact that I don't rember seeing anything about it being posted on WP:VPR (which, for a change that would affect a huge cross section of the English Wikipedia, I would think would be a bare minimum standard to meet for any proposal). I guess I could/should go and say something at all of the TfD's (yet another structural failing of the proposal, using multiples TfD's), but I don't really see the point. I seriously doubt that any admin would go through with a deletion anyway, but someone who has already posted to them should point to this discussion.
— V = I * R (talk to Ω) 13:55, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

The nominator has now closed the TfD, suggesting that (hopefully calmer) discussion might continue on the {{Infobox Australian Place}}'s talk page. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 14:17, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

IMO, those promoting the standardization are going about it completely backwards. First, the interchangeability of the templates should be clearly demonstrated and second the project(s) that use the templates should be engaged to produce a consensus supporting the switchover. Neither has happened -- initiating the discussion by nominating a template for deletion is almost certain to provoke greater opposition than if the topic were first broached on a project page and clearly delineated the advantages. Furthermore, as others have discussed above and elsewhere, the philosophical approach of one-size-fit-all is deeply problematic in it that usually either results loss of features or in greater complexity (i.e., a higher obstacle for usability). older ≠ wiser 14:29, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm working hard to reduce the number of redundant infoboxes about places (and people, but that's another story). What I've tried to do (and I didn't nominate {{Infobox Australian Place}}, nor did I know in advance that it was to be nominated) is to concentrate on those closest to {{Infobox settlement}}, particularly those with low usage, and work towards the more diverse, in order that we can determine the balance-point (if there is one) at which such mergers are no longer sensible. Of course I might do things differently with hindsight, but to label me as a bully and accuse me of mendacious plotting, as others have done, is not only wholly unacceptable, but clearly stark, staring bonkers. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 15:12, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

I can't tell if your comment is a response to mine -- I did not label you as a bully or accuse you of mendacious plotting. My point is that the approach taken to standardization is all wrong for a few reasons. First, many users of these templates do not have the templates themselves on their watchlists and do not necessarily pay very close attention to the nitty-gritty details of how the templates are constructed. Second, it is rhetorically a bad strategy for those persons who use a template to first become engaged in a discussion about that template when it is framed as a discussion about deletion. That is almost certain to provoke opposition that might have been avoided if the users were engaged more directly, by say, through the wikiprojects that use the templates. older ≠ wiser 16:17, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Agreed, and I think that's what's happening. When we over at WikiProject:Universities nominated a navbox for deletion, we put a notice directly into the template, and posted on the affected pages. That's step III according to WP:TFD, and I don't feel it's at all been followed. Andy et al, either you are lazy or you are too afraid of the opinions of other editors. Neither is an excuse for why you did not to attempt to engage Wikipedians on the proposed changes to the articles you wish to drastically change. TFD says "it is considered civil to notify the creator and main contributors of the template that you are nominating the template." There are ways of doing what you propose to do, but I humbly suggest that we go about it a much different way, where you are more interested in broad community input. Otherwise you will continue to anger established users like myself.-- Patrick {_oѺ^∞} 17:04, 7 September 2009 (UTC)"

You are in breach of both AGF and WP:NPA. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 17:09, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Andy, you are acting contrary to the suggestions on how to go about deletions, and if we're discussing policy, I'm going to call you out on it. I don't like getting this upset over a little thing, but you need to work on how you interact with editors. Throwing out accusations of not following policy is an example and belies the question. And you have nominated a number of other templates in the last three days. I will suggest that for the future, we might post a notice of the intention first on template's talk page, and allow some time to pass before bringing it to TfD.-- Patrick {_oѺ^∞} 17:18, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Upset or not, there is no excuse for your fallacious ad hominem accusations. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 18:30, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

You didn't follow printed directions. Show me where you notified the creators of these templates you nominated at TfD and I'll recant. Again, deletion pages are not the place to bring concerns first.-- Patrick {_oѺ^∞} 18:47, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

My use of the words as others have done was deliberate; and I will remind you again that I did not nominate this template for deletion. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 17:12, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Bilby is quite correct that standardisation can result in loss of flexibility, or increased complexity. Nonetheless it also brings benefits, not the least of which is that it reduces the divergence between the templates, so that things which are common remain the same. I have proposed elsewhere that for these situations there are solutions better than either an infobox for every national flavour or one huge infobox with a thousand parameters (bearing in mind that infoboxes have a tendency to attract crufty parameters anyway). The two main possibilities I was thinking of are plug in templates as used by {{Infobox album}} I think, and meta-templates where the parameters are passed through local templates utilising the generic fields in a specific way "subdivision name1= commune / subdivision1 = " so to the end user (editor not template hacker) it appears as if it's a custom template, but the style, layout, microformats, maintenance categorisation etc. are consistent. However I have come across two more models:-

• {{Geobox}}es2: these seem to parse efficiently using the default parameter to drive variations viz: {{Geobox | River | name = ....
• {{Infobox officeholder}}: this uses a whole bunch of redirects but the key is the skeleton templates for the different roles. This I have suggested elsewhere, but seeing it in action is good. (They could even be subst-only templates themselves to save all that cutting and pasting!)

Summary: It is not an "either one F.O. big template or many small ones" debate, or at least it shuold not be.

Rich Farmbrough, 14:34, 7 September 2009 (UTC).

Don't worry I've withdrawn the nomination and I now hope we can work together to sort the mapping issue out. See my comments to User:Orderinchaos for what my intentions actually are/were. Himalayan 14:37, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Rich Farmbrough, and I think the alternatives proposed are well worth exploring. I've argued for standardisation on some (non-wiki) projects, just as I've argued against it. In this case I think there's room for discussion. But, as it stands, the proposal being made (which isn't the case for the Australian Infobox any more, but still holds for others) was to replace a relativly simple specific-purpose infobox with a more complex but standard generic one. Under those situations, standardisation isn't enough of an argument - a case needs to be made about whether or not there are better models, the total cost of making the change, and what the benefits of standardisation are. :) As an aside, this isn't really about the Australian Infobox, so much as the current process with Infobox Settlement, so closing the TfD helps, but further discussion may be worth doing anyway. - Bilby (talk) 15:05, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

The TfDs I've raised have' been to determine whether "a case [exists] about whether or not there are better models", etc.. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 15:13, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm sure that was the intent, and I have no doubt that the nominations were in good faith, and many are probably warranted. That said, it seems like it may not be best to use TfD to explore options. - Bilby (talk) 15:38, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Speaking for myself only I am only too happy to listen to options for better integrating the look and feel of IAP with IS (or even an outright merge) if that is what is wanted by the community. However, from the nomination, through to the discussion and beyond, the proponents of deleting IAP have gone out of their way to ensure that there was no local support for the change. If the proponents of standardising on IS are serious about what they want to do, they might start by taking a bit more of a humble approach and engaging with the users of the templates first, taking the time to answer their questions and perhaps developing a model that has a bit of local support. Listing at TfD as a first step does nothing except alienate the very people the proponents of standardisation should be trying to bring on side. Dismissing their concerns as parochialism or GETOFFMYLAWN will only get these people further offside. Not everyone has the same understanding of how complex templates work or even how TfD is supposed to work and some time spent explaining this before listing at TfD would be well spent. I realise a policy of engagement will take more time than simply trying to ram through discussion at TfD but it might actually get a better result.

I am not convinced that the use of IS everywhere is a good thing. We use multiple versions of infoboxes for people rather than a generic version. I see no reason why a similar approach should not be used with settlements. The "Soviet Tyre Factory" approach to infoboxes seems to me to be a poor idea. Widespread use of IS in areas where there is little use or technical support for a specific box seems to me to be a good idea. However, in cases such as Australia, UK, France etc. etc. where the specific box is widely used and is reasonably well maintained, it seems to me to be preferable to keep them reasonably independent of IS. -- Mattinbgn\^talk 21:17, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Some more thoughts: I have seen no evidence that the generic IS template is better than any number of specific "settlement"-type infoboxes, including this one. The proponents of IS seem to think that standardisation around IS is a done deal. Well, it is not and the case for moving to IS should be made clear and debated widely. Just because we have the capability to create a monstrous template that can do everything is not sufficient reason for actually doing that. Why stop at standardising around IS, we could create one "infobox" with all fields coveing everything from localities to people to organisations etc. At some point, the returns to scale from having one infobox doing everything is outweighed by the increasingly bulky size and difficulty of use of that template. There is a legitimate discussion to be had on that point, despite what the proponents of deletion state. -- Mattinbgn\^talk 03:32, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

• I've been asked to comment because my close of the Infobox Australian Place TfD included a statement arguing for greater template standardization. I'll leave an abbreviated comment here because the discussion appears to be long enough. I don't see standardization as a panacea, but I think the hyperbole above about 'soviet style' this and 'cookie cutter' that is not helpful or accurate. Standardization has an inherent advantage for structural elements of the encyclopedia. It limits duplicated work and offers fewer possibilities for bugs to enter in (but obviously raises the impact of root level bugs). It allows major changes (such as new meta data, new media formats or new arguments) to be promulgated across more templates with fewer edits. It also offers an easier method to standardize aesthetics across different portions of the project. I don't actually do a lot of template work. But (for various reasons) I have had User:Thumperward's talk page on my watchlist for a year now. Chris is active in template editing and migration, and I often look at templates immediately prior to migration and afterwards. Obviously some templates are very well developed--not everything is a hackjob approximating what template syntax would look like. But some are, and migration/standardization tends to solve that. Protonk (talk) 03:38, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
  • Another trouble is that the selection of which templates to leave parochial is not necessarily based on technical considerations. I suspect (not trying to ABF, just throwing this out) that political economy can better explain why we have certain parochial templates. Lima, Peru uses IS, as does Manila and Greater Tokyo Area. I would argue that there is just as much distinction between the cities in Japan, The Philippines and Peru and the United States (which I presume is the reference point for IS) as there is between Australian cities and American cities. Advocacy doesn't mean that the parochial templates are bad, but it means that we aren't using them for the best reasons, necessarily. Protonk (talk) 03:47, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

    I agree. Some of the conversion "stress" can be mitigated by converting the backend of the template first, and most importantly, making every effort to keep any interested editors "in the loop". I personally appreciate reducing duplication, using more uniform field names, and attempting to achieve a more uniform appearance, when it makes sense. I also appreciate the less than desirable result of pasting a large empty infobox settlement into a small stubby article. A "lighter weight" frontend to a more powerful and complicated backend (like settlement) may be the best compromise. My two pence. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 03:50, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

    • I agree, the decision on which infoboxes to keep would not based on technical considerations at all; Australia (for example) isn't any more different than Peru etc. from the standard US model. I have no problem with IS bring used for most places worldwide. My objection to compulsory standardisation is that where a well used and adequately maintained template is being used, there is does not seem to be sufficient reason to get rid of it for the sake of "standardisation" alone. Standardisation has a cost as well as a benefit and this needs to be factored in as well. I am not in the business of defending poorly maintained or rarely used infoboxes, only those that have some merit. Further, any successful migration/merge is best done in consultation with, and with the support of, the users and maintainers of the existing template, if a smooth transition is the end goal, rather than just getting your own way. Acting like the Borg and stating "You will be assimilated" isn't likely to engender goodwill from the existing users, regardless of whether merging is a good idea or not. -- Mattinbgn\^talk 05:06, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
      • There can be no "compulsory" standardisation, so please drop that straw-man. There must be consensus for such a change: but that means consensus across Wikipedia, not an individual project. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 13:04, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
        • Sigh... Instead of trying to win cheap debating points, how about addressing some of the issues raised above. Your sole contribution to the discussion, here and at TfD seems to be state "redundant" time and time again and then complain when when your supposed position is miscontrued. Well, here is an opportunity to put your case, how about doing so. -- Mattinbgn\^talk 13:31, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
          • Another straw-man and more dishonest accusations. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 22:17, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

The functionality provided by {{infobox settlement}} already exists through the creative use of MediaWiki markup. A table with all of the functionality and all the formatting of the infobox could be replicated by the creative use of WikiTable elements. However, expecting editors to know how to do this is unreasonable, thus we have created these templates to perform the technical work for them. We have {{Infobox U.S. state}} so that users can easily manipulate the data in either Arizona or Louisiana comfortably, efficiently and seamlessly. This is a good thing. I can understand the desire that some users have to unify templates when possible, reducing the number of redundant templates that we have running around. It would be silly for us to have {{Infobox U.S. Western state}} and {{Infobox U.S. Eastern state}} when one template can handle them both. This seems obvious. An argument can be made that, by reducing the templates to genericized parameters when needed, templates for different types of places (states, counties, cities, and so on) can also be merged into a single template. Eventually this argument can be extended to encompass more and more topics. By making the parameters sufficiently generic, could we not reasonably hope to include countries in our genericized template? Corporations, musical groups, people? Theoretically all that is required is to make enough parameters generic enough that they can encompass practically every topic imaginable. The problem is, once that point is reached, we are right back where we started - a duplicate of the raw WikiTable syntax. The question is therefore not whether we can merge the templates, but whether we should. Templates exist to help users create reliably similar datasheets for similar topics, in a way that does not require them to know and understand the code therein. {{Infobox U.S. state}} has successfully distilled out the information shared among U.S. states in such a way that users can plug in a few data points and be on their way. Overeager merging of these templates is a step back, creating additional work for the end user and removing simplicity for what is viewed as a "technical" elegance. Let us not forget that templates exist to make life easier for Wikipedia editors, not template maintainers. Shereth 16:43, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Sure, if one infobox were enough for everything, there would just be {{infobox}}. However, I do think it would be a good thing even for users if there were some level of commonality in terms of the names used for parameters, the method used for specifying coordinates, the method used for listing population, area, elevation, etc.. Using infobox settlement at least as a backend, where it makes sense, would encourage some commonality, and would make the presentation of this information a bit more uniform. In some cases it does make sense to just simply use infobox settlement, especially when the number of uses is fairly small. In other cases, it may be preferable to only use infobox settlement as a backend, to reduce the complexity for the user. In very rare cases, it could conceivably make sense to not use infobox settlement at all. However, I have not been presented with such a case yet. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 19:33, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

There is a case to be made for the use of {{infobox settlement}} as a backend, but to my knowledge that is not what is being proposed by the push to unify geography templates. There is also certainly something to be said for an expectation of common parameters, such as the method for specifying geographical coordinates. These points can be addressed with a far less heavy-handed approach than a brute-force merger of the various place templates. Again, it is the ease of use for the editor that is of paramount importance when dealing with these kinds of templates, not making life easier for the maintainers thereof. Shereth 19:45, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Three has been and can be no "brute force merging". Each merger has been and will be discussed in accordance with WP policy. You imply that multiple templates make life easier for editors; but overlook that the variety of choice, and the plethora of terms used for the same field, can make things more difficult for them. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 22:15, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Would you care to discuss what is being done, and proposed, rather than posting a hypothetical and emotive slippery-slope fallacy? Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 22:15, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Okay, here's a tl;dr version : Templates exist to make life easier for the editor. When (proposed) template mergers require additional work from the end user, the purpose of templates is being defeated and the proposed merger is not worth considering. Shereth 22:20, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

A "pointedly concise reply to someone who described something in an unnecessarily verbose way"? Hardly applicable. In any case, your latter comment is true to a point, but supposes 1) that additional work is required and 2) that any such additional work is not outweighed by work (or other problems) avoided elsewhere. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 22:44, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

My reply was never meant to be an outright opposition to the merger of any templates, but rather meant to do exactly what you've stated : presupposing a merger would require more work on the part of the editor, I oppose it from the start. I hold no such prejudice against mergers that do not result in a larger workload for the editor. Shereth 22:49, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Andy, would you like to lay out, clearly and in detail, exactly what your goal is with regards to standardisation to Infobox settlement and your proposed plan to get there. It is getting tiresome being accused of dishonesty everytime I try and understand where you are coming from so perhaps you can take the opportunity to lay all your cards on the table, so to speak. So far, in this thread alone you have accused three different editors of dishonesty, spreading fallacy or outright lying. That all these people seem to miscontrue your intentions but of some concern to you, right? I'm sorry if this comes across as assuming bad faith but you seem unwilling to expand on your migration plans and unwilling to expand on what role, if any, users of the existing templates will play. What I see from my end is an attempt to ram through a massive migration program with minimal consultation with the wider community. Certainly, you don't seem to be willing to take any advice or criticism from anyone who does not support your goal. If you are a little more open in explaining what you are trying to achieve, perhaps your actions and motives will not be so easily misconstrued. -- Mattinbgn\^talk 22:52, 8 September 2009 (UTC)