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Wikipedia:Village pump

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

The village pump is a page in the project namespace where Wikipedians discuss technical issues, policies, and operations of Wikipedia.

Subject	Where to post
Newcomers (for questions requiring little or no discussion)	the Newcomers' help desk
Specific facts (e.g. Who was the first Pope?)	Reference desk
Bugs and feature requests	Sourceforge or on Meta
About other Wikimedia projects	The Meta Wikipedia
About specific articles	The article's talk namespace

The policy of the village pump is to delete discussions that have no long term value and are no longer active. If a discussion has value elsewhere in Wikipedia it will be moved to the relevant section (such as the FAQ pages) or else be placed in the Wikipedia:Village pump archive. These moves are summarized in the "Summarised sections" part of this page.

Make sure to sign and date your post (by typing " ~~~~ " or clicking the signature icon in the edit toolbar).

Summarised sections

• New idea: WikiChess. See discussion at User talk:Arvindn/Chess.
• Google search on multiple files. Try filetype:pdf OR filetype:doc *einstein.
• How can I get the source for previous versions?. See instructions at wikipedia:revert
• Blank Map tracings from copyrighted maps. Is this allowed? See Wikipedia talk:Copyrights
• City names and foreign equivalent. How to write a city name and its equivalent in another language. See Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style
• Wikipedia Bookmarklets. Mendel has created some new Wikipedia bookmarklets at here. See Wikipedia:Bookmarklets for discussion.
• Wikipedia namespace titles too long. See redirects at wikipedia:revert and WP:3RR
• Censors. Wikipedia is not censored. Raise issues on Talk:Artificial consciousness
• NPOV page. Suggestion for an NPOV articles like Wikipedia:Featured articles. Moved to Wikipedia talk:Featured articles
• How do I add comments to a page history? See Wikipedia:Edit summary
• Wislawa Szymborska moved to Talk:Wislawa Szymborska
• Aramaic translation - Wikipedia:Reference Desk.
• Any wikipedia entry in any language should have links to the same entry in other languages - Wikipedia talk:Interlanguage links
• 10 most active Wikipedians of the day - Wikipedia talk:List of Wikipedians by number of edits
• Custom footers - how much is too much? - Wikipedia talk:Page footers
• AI & Wikipedia - m:Talk:Wikipedia Virtual Mind
• Who are the coders? - m:MediaWiki Credits
• Extended filmographies - Wikipedia talk:Filmographies and Discographies
• Copyright of works of the government of India - Image talk:India city population.jpg
• Trustworthiness of Wikipedia? - Wikipedia talk:Replies to common objections
• Section stub notices - Wikipedia talk:Make omissions explicit
• Socrates and Hemlock - Wikipedia:Reference desk
• Article about john f kennedy's presidency - Wikipedia:Reference desk
• Wikipedia on a CD Rom? Why doesn't Wikipedia produce and sell a CD rom version? - See m:Wikipedia on CD/DVD
• Policy suggestions - Wikipedia talk:Vandalism in progress
• WikiProject Philosophy - New page WikiProject Philosophy "an attempt to coordinate the efforts of philosophically-inclined contributors"

Lists and floating images

It might be helpful if you told us which certain page. Otherwise, there's not a lot we can do. - IMSoP 23:38, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I find this happens too (in IE). That's why featured pictures candidates uses tables. Have a look at this old version. [1] The comments to the right of the pictures all have two bullet points to force them to the right so that they aren't obscured by the pictures. I don't see any bullets next to those lists in IE6. fabiform | talk 23:55, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Japanese/Chinese character sets

All of the Japanese and Chinese characters show up on my moniter as squares. Where do I go to download the software so that they display normally? --Alex S 02:06, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

It's not a matter of software, it's just a question of what fonts you have loaded. -- Jmabel 03:13, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

On some operating systems, yes. However, Windows requires a little extra component so that it can handle non-Latin scripts appropriately. - jredmond 03:18, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Old Windows versions. NT-based systems (NT 4.0, 2000, XP) should be able to handle them as long as fonts are installed.

In my experience most Linux/Unix distributions and Mac OS X come with the necessary East Asian fonts preinstalled. For some reason Western versions of Windows don't; they're a miniscule amount of disk space compared to modern disk drives, so saving space doesn't sound like a legitimate reason. For Windows 98/ME you should be able to find the fonts in Windows Update; for 2000/XP poke around in 'Regional and Language Options' in the Control Panel. (In XP, 'Languages' tab, select 'Install files for East Asian languages' in the 'Supplemental language support' box.) --Brion 03:25, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I think you can download these fonts, if you are using Microsoft Windows, from their website. Otherwise, there are still some free TrueType fonts around, and you can find them at http://www.unicode.org -- Tomchiukc 04:21, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

These fonts are no longer available at the Microsoft site. They can be found at sourceforge, but the legality of distribution is questionable. Arial Unicode MS which comes with MS Office ("universal font") is a good Unicode font, Code2000 is another one. Neither is free, but Code2000 is downloadable. — Jor (Talk) 13:58, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Returning Anons

If an anonymous contributor is vandalising articles, and I go to their talk pages and find that the same IP address was warned (say) a month ago, what is the likelihood that this is the same person returning and what is the chance that this is a new user who happens to have the same IP address? I guess this boils down to how likely an IP address is to be reused. Any ideas? DJ Clayworth 16:11, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

If you ask them if they are the same as before, do you get an answer? - Bevo 16:21, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Probably the same ... I was wondering how feasible it would be to have some kind of model of what address blocks are dialup modem banks or DHCP etc., and which are fixed IPs. Piece of cake, right? A rather large cake. At least it's not IP v6 that we're trying to sort out.

Anyway some kind of history mechanism that sorts everything by IP and correlates user names ... like I always have the same user name (except when I log out and then finish up something I forgot to do), but my IP will be from a small group, usually, or another group when I'm at school, though the latter category is usually fixed IPs.

User histories can list all the IPs that user has logged in from. Coincidences in IPs across different user names can mean several things, but looking at it "by hand" can reveal patterns ... Are we getting anywhere with this? Talk amongst yourselves ... ;Bear 17:41, 2004 Apr 8 (UTC)

Pipe trick

I may be more gaga than I thought, but does the pipe trick no longer work? (See 1997 in literature.) <KF> 18:03, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

trick...seems to work, what's the problem? Dori | Talk 18:05, Apr 8, 2004 (UTC)

The question mark seems to break it: [[Foo? (novel)|]]. fabiform | talk 18:17, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Yes, that part breaks on many cases, but you can still do this: Foo? Dori | Talk 18:19, Apr 8, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks, Dori and Fabiform. Glad to find out I'm not beyond hope of recovery. <KF> 00:08, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Yes, it is my understanding that the pipe trick does not work if the desired article has a question mark, e.g. [[O Brother Where Art Thou? (soundtrack)|]]. This is an undeniably useful feature because it prevents silly noobs from using the pipe trick when the desired destination has a question mark in the title -- if I need to explain why that would be a Bad Thing, you are clearly whichever sexual orientation offends you the most. </sarcasm> Tuf-Kat 03:51, Apr 9, 2004 (UTC)~

Bomis Babe Report

While conducting a review of sexism and the Internet, we came across this site: http://babes.bomis.com/

Can anyone here add anything to our understanding of the relationship between the Bomis Babe Report and the founders of Wikipedia?

Almost certainly not. It is extremely unlikely you would ask this question if you didn't already know the answer. See also internet troll. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 05:41, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

It would be extremely difficult for me to know in advance what thousands of Wikipedia contributors might be able to add to our understanding. My colleague is exploring the Bomis site, among others, but I suggested a querry on an open Wikipedia question page might develop information on this side of the equation, apparently opening myself to your allegation. I know Bomis is, or was, owned by some of the same people who founded Wikipedia, which is now either owned by, or being transferred to ownership by a foundation. I'm not yet up to speed on perceptions of how Wikipedia reflects the values of Bomis' operators, what happened to Bomis' related more academically oriented product Nupedia, or what place Wikipedia holds in the development process of open encyclopedias, except that it currently holds a major market share. Tre 06:20, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

See Bomis.--Eloquence* 06:08, Apr 9, 2004 (UTC)

I checked that first. I know a bit about wikis and Wikipedia, and from that I know not to assume articles on wikis are complete or current, which is why I querried here about the relationship. The Babe Report does appear to be primarily a Bomis product, but that premise is based primarily on placement of the Babe Report link on Bomis' main page. The Bomis article in Wikipedia is somewhat ambiguous about what is owned by the foundation, what is the property of Bomis, and who actually controls operation of Bomis' or the foundation's open-source products. Tre 06:20, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I don't see what significance that has. All Bomis does is provide some bandwidth to Wikipedia. It is not related to the Wikimedia foundation.--Eloquence* 06:32, Apr 9, 2004 (UTC)

Nor have we yet formulated any conclusions about what significance the relationship might have. If we were to find any significance in the affiliation, it would most likely be in values infused by the founders that might affect operation of the foundation and its products, in the context of meta-data related to value-systems potentially associated with ideas about sexism. Tre 06:52, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

If I understand you correctly, we have a strongly enforced neutral point of view policy which you may want to see. Dysprosia 07:00, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia is written and edited by the consensus of its editors. Of these editors, all but a tiny handful have nothing to do with Bomis or any of its products, and many aren't even aware of them. As Wikipedia's benevolent dictator, Jimmy Wales has final say in community policy (although he rarely exercises this,) and is the original source of Wikipedia's editorial policy, the neutral point of view. Jimbo exercises no control over article content. Articles reflect the values and biases of whatever editors have worked on them, not the values and biases of Bomis, whatever these may be. Isomorphic 07:31, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

See User_talk:Michael3#WikiExperiment and ask: Are Tre and Michael13 the same person? If, like me, you think they probably are, act accordingly. Andrewa 11:54, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Tre, if you have a real interest in the study of wiki systems, you may want to contribute the results of your research to this Wikibooks project. JWSchmidt 12:48, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for the invitation, JW, but we rely on a paying readership to support research for articles. If you watch the non-refereed trade journals related to the topic of Internet psychology, you might notice the results of our inquiry a few months from now. But the article is not primarily about wiki culture, it is about perceptions of sexism in electronically networked communication. Wikipedia would likely be a small part of the article, if it makes the cut at all. A wiki enthusiast could probably briefly summarize our work as fair use, if they find it relevant.

These responses have inspired some thoughts about paranoia and expression of suspicions in networked environments, but we would first need to persuade an editor we have a viable premise before investing any research in that topic. I am still interested in any additional information about why Bomis chose to provide bandwidth to Wikipedia instead of to Nupedia, because the two formats are generally indicative of two coping styles we are exploring. Eventually we might call Bomis' owner and ask directly, but this seems a fair way to querry a network of writers. Tre 23:20, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Bomis is a very small company; for most purposes rather than talking of Bomis as some kind of disconnected entity we should simply speak of Jimmy Wales. Bomis is basically Jimmy, a partner or two, and a few employees. He started Nupedia, hiring an editor (Larry Sanger) and donating hosting for it on Bomis's servers. After a while Nupedia spun off a side project, Wikipedia, which was to be a little more free-form and faster paced and was meant originally to provide draft text potentially to be refined by Nupedia. Work on Nupedia (with high barriers to entry) slowly dried up while Wikipedia (with very low barriers to entry) took off to everyone's astonishment. Eventually a server problem knocked Nupedia offline and there've been relatively few requests to try to restore it. I'd recommend you contact Jimmy directly for more information. --Brion 22:24, 11 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Call for discussion on Talk:Heterosexuality

A long simmering, ongoing dispute has finally resulted in the Heterosexuality page being protected, but the other party to the dispute has (thus far, and once again) failed to return to discuss the problem. Debate is therefore stalled, and since the user persists in reverting any changes made to the problem section (please see Talk:Heterosexuality ==Dispute, contined again==) for further information), nothing can be accomplished without him. The only solution I can think of is to get a few other people to comment and reach some sort of consensus we can all live with. Comments on the talk page greatly appreciated. Exploding Boy 09:01, Apr 9, 2004 (UTC)

Userspace policy?

See Wikipedia:User page and its talk, and consider joining in the discussion there. Andrewa 11:43, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Also see the discussion at Wikipedia:Possible abuse of User namespace. Mkweise 11:58, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Ah, thanks. Do we have Wikipedia:User page in our standard newbie welcome message? -- till we *) 12:03, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I'm not sure that there is such a message, is there? There are several suggested texts, as used by several different people, I forget where these are now. But I'll certainly include it, and I'd recommend others do too. Andrewa 14:06, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

There's one at Wikipedia:Standard user greeting. Angela. 14:21, Apr 9, 2004 (UTC)

Hmmm, yes, that's the page I was thinking of, thank you. And I think it's good that there's no standard, to keep it personal. If we wanted to send the same greeting to everyone, we could easily do that, but it's not the same. Andrewa 23:12, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

The order of interlanguage links

There is no fixed policy yet - but a poll is running for some time already at Wikipedia:Language order poll. Currently the sorting by local language name is leading the poll. andy 19:14, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Tutorial

It looks awesome! I'm learning quite a bit from it myself. Recommended for old hands too, for

• filling in gaps in your knowledge
• understanding better what's going on
• links to reference pages which you may have read but can never remember exactly where
• fun
• and of course you may be able to improve it...

...but I urge caution in editing it, it's pretty polished already IMO. Comments on talk pages might be a better idea, and let the team that wrote it consider these suggestions. And well done to the team! Andrewa 23:34, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Well there's a bit of a blunder on page 4External links (renamed) about external links. [http://www.google.com] displays as [2] not http://www.google.com (I'll leave it to the team to fix, though). Aside from that, it's pretty good :). - Lee (talk) 23:45, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Noticed that at about the same time you did. Corrected now. Thanks! Isomorphic 00:06, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I translated it as de:Wikipedia:Tutorial (not page 7, because to search for the right links is a work of aeons). -- till we *) 01:54, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)

The welcoming committee and its/theirs helpers is/are to be praised for its/theirs (as you like it) work! Pfortuny 09:29, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Novel Synopses

I try to lead through it without putting in every detail. If a scene is not essential to the plot, then out it goes, but all of the major events should be outlined. - Woodrow, Emperor of the United States 23:04, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

For an egregious abuse of synopsis see The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. --Dante Alighieri | Talk 23:16, Apr 9, 2004 (UTC)

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was no more egregious than the one I chopped for Dune (novel) -- at least the WWoO was fairly well written (can't vouch for the accuracy not having read the book). -- User:Alcarillo

Not every event as to reading the Wp synopsis instead of the book/movie, but I think it should give an extensive idea of all of the themes, issues, and characters' stories in the work. But of course there is reason not to have it blow out of control... Dysprosia 10:05, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I dunno. The Dune (novel) entry left me wanting more. It's been many years since I read it and it didn't refresh my memory at all about what happens later in the book among the Fremen. -- Decumanus | Talk 14:08, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Given that some (series of) novels have whole sets of pages devoted to them (see dozens of articles on Tolkien's Middleearth), I don't think we need to worry about excessive detail on a single page. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 15:11, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Traditional Chinese medicine

Polish history

I have taken the horrible mess at List of concentration camps for Poles and moved it to Camps in Poland during World War II, where I have tried to write a decent article. I expect to be attacked by the Polish Nationalist faction, and it would be nice to get some support from people who care about history at Wikipedia. I am getting tired of fighting this battle by myself. Adam 09:51, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Good work, you have my support. Pkmink 10:01, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Yes, nicely done, much more readable. -- chris_73 10:47, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Kyiv vs. Kiev

We could use some more voices in the discussion currently at talk:Kiev. It's been argued that "Kiev" is appropriate because it returns more google hits, but that (Soviet-imposed) spelling is offensive to many Ukrainians. The Government of Ukraine has formally requested that their capitol be spelled "Kyiv" in English; a request that has been honored by the UN and the US State Department. While google hit counts are useful in many cases, I don't feel that we should allow them to enslave us when other important factors are involved. There is precedent for correctness overruling hit count, e.g. with Gdansk/Danzig and Mumbai/Bombay. Please chime in at talk:Kiev so we can reach a consensus one way or the other and get the article unprotected. Mkweise 17:28, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)

This issue seems to come up a lot. The "official" name is different than what everyone else calls it. Consider Mumbia vs Bombay , Kiev vs Kyiv, Makkah vs Mecca. I think we need to be consistent, and I think we need an official policy on this. →Raul654 17:36, Apr 10, 2004 (UTC)

A general policy will be more complicated than you might at first think. Consider for example Burma versus Myanmar, where there is significant doubt that the government edict is supported by the people. Wikipedia currently sides with the military government and the UN, and against the US government, the more common English usage and (probably) the people of the country. I don't think that's too strong a statement, and while obviously this decision is POV either way we need to jump one way or the other. Andrewa 19:27, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)

For the record (and in case this comes up again), we already have a rule on the books for this - "Generally, article naming should give priority to what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature." (Wikipedia:Naming conventions). →Raul654 19:31, Apr 10, 2004 (UTC)

Well, that settles it, simply, clearly and unambiguously, in favor of Burma, Kiev, and Mecca. Danzig/Gdansk (keeping consistently to alphabetical order) is an interesting one: it's not so much figuring out what the average reader will recognize as making sure that the reader will realize that they're the same place. This is due, of course, to Lech Walesa and associates, who made Gdansk real to people all over the world who had neither known the history of the place nor very much cared. The moral: as Scoop Nisker used to say, if you don't like what's in the news, go make some of your own. Dandrake 00:37, Apr 13, 2004 (UTC)

It certainly will come up again. For the present, I think 'Kiev' is overploweringly more recognizable, and I'd never even heard of 'Kyiv' until reading this section. But as long as we have redirects and have sufficient explanation in articles that use the names, we ought to be able to go by our own policy and not be too far afield. ;Bear 20:40, 2004 Apr 11 (UTC)

Recursive {{msg}}s?

Do {{msg}}s transclude recursively? That is, if I create MediaWiki:MessageA, then add {{msg:MessageA}} to MediaWiki:MessageB, then add {{msg:MessageB}} to an article, will I see the full text of MessageA and MessageB in the article?

I want to do this because I have made a complicated task box at MediaWiki:PhilosophyTasks. I want this box to have a border and be right-aligned in most of the pages I include it in, but since I don't necessarily want that layout all the time, I'd like to separate the content from the layout by including the content as a {{msg}} in another MediaWiki: page. Will this work? (I would test it, but I don't want to create unnecessary pages as part of a test.)

Thanks! — Adam Conover † 01:07, Apr 11, 2004 (UTC)

Nope, doesn't work. I guess because it would be too easy to set up an infinite recursion with those things (sticking {{msg:MessageB}} inside MediaWiki:MessageA for example). The best you can do is use {{subst:MessageB}} which would copy the entire contents of Mediawiki:MessageB (including the {{msg:MessageA}}) to the article. - Lee (talk) 01:51, 11 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Bah, that's frustrating. And yeah, infinite recursino would suck, but still. I guess I have to choose between putting the layout code on each page specifically, or having no choice in whether or not the layout appears on each article. I was hoping to separate them so people could choose -- ah, well. Thank you. — Adam Conover † 02:20, Apr 11, 2004 (UTC)

Hm. It would be nice if a sysop could do the experiment -- I would, but I don't want to create pages needlessly. However, I have discovered another strategy, courtesy of an anonymous benefactor -- if need be, I could put the content into a {msg} and then transclude that into a {subst} containing the layout. This would also have the benefit of allowing people to customize the box as they saw fit. — Adam Conover † 04:44, Apr 11, 2004 (UTC)

Thank you, I will! — Adam Conover † 05:09, Apr 11, 2004 (UTC)

Nope, it didn't work. Try previewing {{msg:PhilosophyTasksBox}} to see the results -- it just prints the name of the message. (Incidentally, it would probably be too much to ask that redirects act as aliases for {msg}s, right?) In any case, I went with the {subst} method. Thanks again! — Adam Conover † 05:36, Apr 11, 2004 (UTC)

Transclusion? That's just a silly word made up by Ted Nelson in 1982 to mean exactly the same thing as inclusion or macro expansion. There's no recursive transclusion in MediaWiki ;) There is, however, recursive template inclusion in the current CVS version, to be released as MediaWiki 1.3. It's protected against infinite recursion, and the O(N²) attack spotted by Pakaran, by counting the total number of times each template is included. The limit is 5 by default. The new syntax also allows for parameters. The only thing you can't do is nest double-braces, e.g. {{template|{{parameter}}}}. See m:MediaWiki roadmap for more information about version 1.3. -- Tim Starling 02:36, Apr 12, 2004 (UTC)

Hm, I guess that means that Wikipedia:How to edit a page is wrong, hm? ;) Anyway, thanks for the information! — Adam Conover † 02:44, Apr 12, 2004 (UTC)

Nude scenes

woohoo! Sam Spade 05:32, 11 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Looking forward to it. <KF> 09:39, 11 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I'm not personally enthusiastic about this as an encyclopedia article. I would think there are enough websites that deal with this. I think it would be much more interesting to try to document the ebb and flow of cinematic treatment of sexuality in general (just how hot was the 1913 movie Traffic in Souls? Just when did the Hollywood starting showing married couples' bedrooms with separate twin beds and no toilet in the bathroom? How much skin was exposed in movie prior to the institution of the Hays Office? Dpbsmith 18:47, 11 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I'm willing to research this vital topic if someone is willing to sponser my subscriptions to Celebrity Skin and Celebrity Sleuth. MK 16:52, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Could provide a link... But I won't. Do whatever you feel like, I suppose. Live and let live, and all that. At a risk to my eternal soul, I'm willing to join MK as a researcher. When do I start? -- Itai 13:36, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)

You might start with Ecstasy starring Hedy Lamarr (although not under that name...). - Woodrow, Emperor of the United States 14:30, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Redirects from Article to Wikipedia namespace

Thanks! Done and done. — Adam Conover † 06:11, Apr 11, 2004 (UTC)

heteronormativity

Sam Spade 05:40, 11 Apr 2004 (UTC)]]

Disambigging question

• Would something like "in the film version of The Wizard of Oz" do? - Nunh-huh
• How about "in the film version of The Wizard of Oz"? - कुक्कुरोवाच

• Or leave it as it is and let readers choose which article they prefer to pursue... Formerly the article about the book was on The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and all links to The Wizard of Oz lead to the movie article. Seeing as the title of the book has also been shortened in most editions since 1913, and that several wiki links seemed to be referring to the book but sending to the movie page, I thought it necessary to disambig. I may not have done this in the optimal way, though right now I can't think of a better way to disambiguate. --Woggly 13:02, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

VFD could need your help

I'll help, but what's the procedure on the MediaWiki messages? What do we do with them? Meelar 02:45, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)

If an article is kept, the msg format of the mediawiki deletion debate message should be moved to the article's talk page. If the article is deleted, post the mediawiki link at wikipedia:archived delete debates. Don't forget to delete talk pages and trailing redirects too! --Jiang 06:26, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)

OK, then, I'll start when I get back in a few hours. Meelar 13:51, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Working through Special:Ancientpages

Special:Ancientpages is a list of the oldest articles on Wikipedia, that is, the ones which have been edited the longest time ago. In my experience almost all of these articles could use some loving attention. To approach this more systematically, I have added a box to the Wikipedia:Community Portal where the oldest article at any given time can be featured until it has been touched up at least a little bit. This can happen within days or within minutes - it's up to you. Hopefully this will also give people an incentive to visit the CP more often.--Eloquence* 12:33, Apr 12, 2004 (UTC)

Redirection messages

I think we should add optional custom redirection messages. So, for example, instead of just seeing "Redirected from Dallas" you would see "Dallas, Texas is commonly referred to as Dallas. For other uses see Dallas (disambiguation)." In fact, I've gone ahead and written the code to do so. You can test it out at http://www.mcfly.org/wik/Dallas . It's only 9 lines of code. Here's the diff (I've since added a few additions on McFly, such as italicizing the message, and automatically adding in the &redirect=no to the circular link, but looking at this diff should give you the idea). anthony (see warning)

I disagree. I often make redirects for common spelling errors or alternative spellings. This may make things very confusing. For example, saying that "NATO is commonly referred to as Nato" makes little sense to me. Also, in this example there are multiple redirects (i.e. North Atlantic Treaty Organisation). Are you Anthony DiPierro? (forgot to sign)-- chris_73 00:03, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)

The message can be changed depending on the situation. For nato, the standard (redirected from Nato) might be appropriate. For mispelling, you might want to use "Misspelling is commonly misspelled mispelling." Perhaps I didn't explain myself clearly enough. The idea is that you can put any message in there, by simply editing the redirect. The default is the standard. See http://www.mcfly.org/wik/nato http://www.mcfly.org/wik/North_Atlantic_Treaty_Organisation http://www.mcfly.org/wik/North_Atlantic_Treaty_Organization and http://www.mcfly.org/wik/mispelling . anthony (see warning) 01:28, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Very interesting, but at the moment it would appear to be that the link to the redirect has to be the first word after "#REDIRECT". This could make for some odd grammar. Best, if possible (I've never really dealt with the Wikipedia code), to have the costume redirect message a line below the "#REDIRECT [[something]]". I gather (from Wikipedia:Redirect, obviously) that at the moment one can freely enter an explanation for the redirect at this point - never seen by the user but seen by the wiki editor - but have rarely seen this used in practice (a selection of examples for the use of this can be found at [6]). Other than that, this is an interesting idea, that can greatly contribute to the encyclopedia. Or it could make things a lot more complicated. It should be given a chance, though. (Especially as reverting to the previous version shouldn't be too complicated.) -- Itai 03:03, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Changing the order would be possible, and I thought about this, but it would no longer be backward compatible, at least not with the trivial implementation. I'll try to think about some way to do this. Maybe with some additional syntax, but that would make things somewhat unnecessarily complicated. Looking below, this could probably be done using a pipe. anthony (see warning) 10:07, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I agree. I like it. Something similar to this has been discussed many times, but I like this implementation than the idea as it has previously been discussed. I think the original idea was to change the syntax so one can use #mispelling or #alternative or #deprecated instead of #redirect, thus changing the end message appropriately. Anthony's system allows for more flexibility and is probably easier to use. Tuf-Kat 03:51, Apr 13, 2004 (UTC)

If the message can be adjusted flexible according to the needs, then I have no problem with it (although it is not a high priority for me). For example a syntax like Redirect[[NATO|Redirected from incorrect capitalization '''[[Nato]]''']] may be useful. Note: The comments after the redirect mentioned by Itai do not show on the target page. -- chris_73 08:00, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Hmm, with some tweaks, this might work. I'll try it later today. anthony (see warning) 10:07, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)

OK, I tried "/^#redirect.*(\\[\\[($m[1])(\\|(.+))?\\]\\])(.+)$/i" and a few other minor tweaks, and now you can rephrase it the other way around if you want, using a pipe like "#Redirect [[NATO|Redirected]] from incorrect capitalization [[Nato]]". Should still be backward compatible. http://www.mcfly.org/wik/nato Comments? anthony (see warning) 10:22, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Accents in search field

Maybe this is more an internet explorer question but is there a way to enter accented letters in the search field without cut and paste? (é). Bensaccount 02:40, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Only if you have Dead keys or some equivalent. -- Jmabel 06:12, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Yes. If you can convert decimal to hexadecimal in your head, and really wish to make a point, you can use the table found at [7]. When wishing to enter an accented letter, use "%<Hexadecimal Unicode>". For instance, N%FAmenor. While this only works when searching due to Google's prowess, I assume you meant the "Go" button, in whose case it works perfectly. This also works in the address bar, obviously. (For what's it worth, I feel your pain. I too am bereft of a dead key. I have also been waging a stealthy campaign of revenge against all diacritic-users, but I cannot specify the details thereof in so dangerous an environment. <Evil laughter>) -- Itai 13:31, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)

msg:fac

Should the featured article candidate be put on top of the article itself or its talk page? Pleas add to the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates#Notices if you want. Dori | Talk 14:11, Apr 13, 2004 (UTC)

Bots

The wikipedia:alphabetical index page says that the page was created by a bot. Does anyone have a copy of the source for this or any other similar bots that they could share with me? I'd like to collect a complete list of all pages in the wikipedia namespace and use it to create a topical index (with, hopefully, other people's help.) Perhaps someone has other suggestions? --Voodoo 15:39, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I received the following reply from Angela:

Michael Snow created the list at wikipedia:alphabetical index so you could try asking him on his talk page (user talk:Michael Snow) if he has the source for the bot. There is already a topical index at Wikipedia:Utilities. Angela. 16:01, Apr 13, 2004 (UTC)

Do you want to keep that page name for the topical index(Utilities?) It seems a bit confusing. Should I just edit that page? --Voodoo 16:12, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Copyright violation still contained in page history

T-6 Texan was listed for copyvio and then rewritten before it could be deleted. My understanding is that the article should have been deleted and restarted so that the copyright violation text was removed from the history. On the other hand if we delete it now and start again with an identical (non-copyvio) article we lose the history of how we got here. Is there a way to erase the copyvio text from the history, or to make a new article which retains the existing history only as far back as the edit after the copyvio? Any ideas? DJ Clayworth 15:57, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)

There are probably hundreds of copyvios hidden in the article histories. As of now, single edits can only be deleted manually by someone with direct database access, and is thus only done in real emergencies. However as the german wikipedia is currently much more concerned about such copyvios in the histories, the abilitiy to delete single revisions is in the pipeline for a future MediaWiki release - no idea when it will come to life, nor if it will be something a normal admin can do, or if it will need developer access, or whatever. Yet I think it should be enough to have that ability once the copyright owner complains, but if you are concerned we can collect such hidden copyvios on a special page like Wikipedia:Copyright violations in article history scheduled for deletion, and remove them once its possible without bothering our hard-working developers. andy 16:22, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)

There have also been discussions regarding certain portions of the US Copyright Law that permits educational archival of some copyright violations that Wikipedia's keeping the copyvios in the history may qualify for, specifically section 108 of Title 17, Chapter 1: "Limitations on exclusive rights: Reproduction by libraries and archives." Nohat 23:16, 2004 Apr 13 (UTC)

This is an ongoing problem. Despite the clear text in the copyvio message, people keep ignoring it. The only thing I can suggest is that you try to catch it as soon as you can and in the future. If you catch it after the first edit, then it won't be so bad. Perhaps we could start having admins protect pages when they are listed on copyright problems and are blanked like that? anthony (see warning) 10:05, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Greek art

what's wrong with [8]? it shows up as double redirect but is...? - Listener 18:41, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Greek Art is uppercase Art, Greek art is lowercase art. Makes a difference. -- chris_73 04:46, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

ok, that wasnt the point. If you view the 'what links here' you'll see Wikipedia:Possible copyright infringements as redirect page, but its a redirect for Wikipedia:Copyright_problems where Greek art is listed. What's wrong with the redirect? -Listener 07:17, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Hmmm... now I get it. Very strange indeed. I have no idea why. -- chris_73 07:57, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

server message

why do I get the message "If you've gotten here, you're either having DNS trouble or you've followed some sort of invalid link." ?

Perhaps you're having DNS trouble or followed some sort of invalid link. What was the URL? -- Tim Starling 00:34, Apr 14, 2004 (UTC)

any URL gives me this message, although I issue RFC-compliant GET commands. Your server returns a "HTTP/1.0 200 OK" response but the headers contain "X-Pad: avoid browser bug" and "X-Cache: MISS from wikipedia.org" - can you explain me what this browser bug and what the MISS are? It can work with any other website, but the only one which fails is yours. I get the same for wikimedia.org - I use in-house built custom networking software.

The former message is a rather old thing apache sends, to overcome bugs in antique versions of Netscape. The latter is an informational message from the squid cache, saying the page you requested wasn't it its cache and it had to go fetch it from the actual server. Neither message should trouble you. Other than that, you're going to have to be significantly more forthcoming about what user agent/library you're using, what GET you're sending, and why. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 01:46, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

My software sends simple commands like "GET /wiki/Wikipedia:Village%20pump HTTP/1.0" and is not very different from telnet.

You need to specify a "host:" field, like:

GET /wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump HTTP/1.0
Host: en.wikipedia.org

I think this is because wikipedia has a squid proxy in front of the webservers, and you need to tell it which host behind the squid you want to query. I've verified the above with telnet (to en.wikipedia.org) and it works fine. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 02:21, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Thanks!

blockquote tag

Is there any wiki-markup equivelent of the <blockquote> html tag? It's useful for song lyrics and quotations, but i know it's better to use wiki markup. LUDRAMAN | T 01:43, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

If you start a line with a colon (:), it indents the content of that line, similarly to <blockquote>,. This paragraph is on a line started with a colon Nohat 02:02, 2004 Apr 14 (UTC)

How to transwiki?

I seem to be doing something wrong moving pages to wiktionary, because when I complete a move to transwiki:Wiktionary, it just stays there as though there were nothing "special" about that move target. What am I doing wrong? Mkweise 02:32, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

S L O W

Is it just me? Wikipedia has been very slow for the past several days. Sometimes, I get decent response time, other times, it's pitiful. I've substantially reduced my editing time because it's not worth the painful wait. I don't see anything in the announcements or goings-on. I saw one comment in the Announcements history about an issue with one of the web servers but it was promptly removed. What's the story? RedWolf 04:26, Apr 14, 2004 (UTC)

Same here. At one point I even got a Host Not Found error message. Not sure why. -- chris_73 04:52, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Look at the traffic graph and the response time graph. As you can see, it's been slower than normal for the last few days. There's a number of things going on which could influence this. Coronelli went down, replaced by a borrowed machine from Bomis called curly. This caused slow response for about half a day while curly built up a cache. More recently, moreri has been taken out of the webserver rotation in order to dedicate it to compressing the old revisions of the larger wikis. Thus, we've been running on 4 webservers instead of 5. Compressing the old table is essentially a means of buying time while we wait for a bigger hard drive. -- Tim Starling 05:19, Apr 14, 2004 (UTC)

Call for discussion on Talk:Children's literature

I've suggested a rethinking of the article, and so far, no one has responded to my suggestion. Basically, I don't think the article should contain lists, and I'd like to turn the lists into seperate articles. But a quick peek into the history of the page shows that lists, in different forms, have been deleted and reconstructed at least twice before. If you have an opinion on this matter, please respond on Talk:Children's literature. --Woggly 07:08, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

'Poetic license' for images?

Is there any kind of policy on the relevance of images used on articles? For example, on the page Volterra-Lotka equations, also known as the predator-prey equations, I would like to add a picture of a predator and a prey in action (assuming I can find one). The article is not strictly about predator and prey interactions, but it is the most common interpretation of the equations' dynamics. Is this kind of visual intepretation OK? Similarly for the page on excitable media, a picture of, say, a Mexican wave (an example of an excitable medium) would spruce it up a little. I think that such images could make mathematical articles less dry, and more welcoming than simply a bunch of equations for someone not already interested in the topic. Any thoughts? Chopchopwhitey 08:12, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

No policy, this is still an area where you can simply use your own judgement. I personally don't think that adding a picture of a lion chasing a springbok would add much to that particular article... but if you tihnk otherwise... prove me wrong. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 08:16, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I don't know. I think it may detract a little from an appearance of professionalism. Perhaps if they're done right and tastefully, they could work well. One must identify what our readership is - whether they're users who are expecting a reference source, or users coming to the wp in order to learn more, in order to move a bit forward on the matter, perhaps... Dysprosia 08:20, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Sorry, but I think it's a definite no. A picture of a pair of animals doesn't fit an article on maths, not even to lighten up the page. Apart from a curve or surface or graph or a mathematicians photo, I don't see how maths articles could be illustrated.

Adrian Pingstone 13:11, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Not even a conch shell or the Parthenon in Golden ratio? - jredmond 14:30, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Or a fern in fractal, a pinecone in spiral, a hanging chain in catenary, a stop-motion photograph of a thrown ball in parabola, a turbulent stream in chaos? -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 15:10, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Yes, those are along the lines of what I was thinking. Personally, even as a big fan of maths myself, it is not always particularly inspiring to see a page solely full of equations. A link to something in the natural world can often pique one's interest a little more. But, I can understand, maybe this is not under the remit of an encyclopaedia. Chopchopwhitey 15:57, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Abagnale move

This is not exactly vandalism so I am bit at the loss where to include this: inexperienced anon user: 213.170.47.89 transferred text from Frank Abagnale to Frank William Abagnale Jr. with a cut-and-paste method, meaning that the edit history was severed and exist now only in the former page, which he turned to redirect. Since I cannot delete pages or anything, maybe somebody could do something to it. Sorry for intruding on the Pump. - Skysmith 12:23, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

As Frank William Abagnale Jr. had no edit history aside from the cut-and-paste, I just reverted the changes on Frank Abagnale and made Jr. a redirect to the original. If it's ever decided to do a proper move, then the Jr. page will need to be deleted. -- Cyrius|✎ 12:48, Apr 14, 2004 (UTC)

Changing username

user:666, who goes under the names user:Administrator and user:Vfd. I personally am okay with 666, I know other wouldn't. But, I personally am thoroughly against "Administrator" and "Vfd", which are completely ridiculous. No one should ever have these usernames. -- user:zanimum

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