Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)

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The miscellaneous section of the village pump is used to post messages that do not fit into any other category. Please post on the policy, technical, or proposals pages, or - for assistance - at the help desk, rather than here, if at all appropriate. For general knowledge questions, please use the reference desk.

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http://twitter.com/Wikipedia

Is this really an "official" Twitter account as it claims? –xeno^talk 18:59, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

It's not verified by Twitter, but that doesn't necessarily mean it isn't an "official" account for Wikipedia. Twitter now tries to authenticate accounts that claim to be famous people/groups/etc so things like this don't happen. Killiondude (talk) 20:10, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Novice editors breaking citations

I've noticed a number of novice editors and IP editors make the same error: They delete some prose along with its reference, but because other parts of the article may call for that same reference (e.g., like <ref name="fubar"/>, where the original "fubar" ref was deleted), it leads to lost information and errors. This seems to me like it's primarily a design flaw of Wikipedia, and it's difficult to explain to new editors what they need to do to prevent the issue or to fix it when it occurs.

Does anyone have suggestions for how best to approach this issue, or how best to explain it to new editors? —Notyourbroom (talk) 23:22, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

There's a feature called "list-defined references" whereby you name all the references in an article and group them into a list in (e.g.) the References section. Citations then use the usual named reference syntax, but because all the definitions are held in one place there's no risk of deleting them along with prose. However, this can make the edit-a-single-section model more difficult. Ideally what is needed is a dual-panel editing paradigm (one panel for article text and the other for references) with drag-drop or similar between them. - Pointillist (talk) 00:24, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

There's also a bot that goes around fixing these. Example edit --Cybercobra (talk) 02:39, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm a user and supporter of WP:LDR; this is an advantage I hadn't considered. Just makes it even better.--SPhilbrickT 22:03, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Can someone move that this be made the default/recommended referencing method? It gets rather hard to edit articles that use massive inline reference templates, since the flow of prose is just so broken up, epescially when several site right next to each other, every few words. 76.66.197.2 (talk) 13:25, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Help in adding category to Domesday Book settlements

There are 13,418 English places listed in the Domesday Book of 1086; and many of the wikipedia articles for English settlements make reference to their inclusion as this is often the first record of a particular place. These articles usually include a link back to the Domesday Book article.

There is a category Places listed in the Domesday Book which is an attempt to link and organise these pages - but the task of manually adding this category to every appropriate article is daunting.

There is not currently a bot to automate this task, so if editors reviewing English settlement/placename articles can add this category to pages where appropriate this will help with categorisation of these articles.

Josephus (talk) 10:52, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Have you considered using WP:AWB to help you add the categories to a list of pages? You'd just about be eligible I think, if you said why you wanted to us it. - Jarry1250 ^{[Humorous? Discuss.]} 17:22, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Since the category currently contains only 11 members, and is very likely to be regarded as not defining by many people, at least for many places, you should certainly take it to WP:CFD before adding the other 13,411. AWB should be saying this to people with such requests. Johnbod (talk) 19:32, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, perhaps a list would be better on reflection. How should AWB be telling people this? - Jarry1250 ^{[Humorous? Discuss.]} 19:41, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, when they ask questions like the one above, for a start. Johnbod (talk) 20:34, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

• CFD now opened Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2009_November_23#Category:Places_listed_in_the_Domesday_Book. Johnbod (talk) 20:34, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia's bad press

There is a new article on the Wall Street Journal: Volunteers Log Off as Wikipedia Ages (under their new payment model, you can only read the intro for free). Yes, another Wikipedia is DOOMED!!! article. But what surprised me most is the comments which are also almost universally negative as well. Several repeating the old saws of "Well, it can never work because...(insert human nature, no advertising, lack of experts, etc." which I would have thought we had well refuted after existed about nine years. But many complaining of deletionists, unfair blocks, excessive beaurocracy and some of just misconceptions ("I couldn't read the talk page until I registered, what a dumb design.) What happened to all the Wikipedia boosters and have we really gotten this bad? 75.41.110.200 (talk) 16:48, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Nothing really new in the comments. I think the main problem with the attitude that most anti-wikipedia people have in general (at least, that type as opposed to "WO sucks because it's unreliable" or whatever) is that they just don't understand what an encyclopedia actually IS. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 17:12, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

ZOMG the deleshunists are destroying teh Wikipedias!!!! The wiki-sky is falling, the wiki-sky is falling, the wiki-sky is falling! Hates to see what those (already) feel about the German Wikipedia... MuZemike 19:30, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Without having read the article (like I'm going to give the WSJ money), I would presume from your description of it that the article illuminates more about the WSJ than it does about Wikipedia. postdlf (talk) 20:29, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Search Google News for "Volunteers Log Off as Wikipedia Ages" to see a free version. -- SWTPC6800 (talk) 03:19, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

The bit that worries me is the number of wackos around who devote their life to twisting things to their point of view. Someone who hates a singer, people with crank maths, religious nuts, legalist deletionists, people who amuse themselves going around being abusive, vandals of all types, all of them with too much time and passion for their calling. It is the changing proportion of not so committed people who help the project and all those just daubing the walls and making everything smell that worries me. Dmcq (talk) 21:22, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Toronto Star Article about Wikipedia

Hi just wanted to let you guys know there is a article about editor exodus in one of Canada's largest newspapers, http://www.thestar.com/news/sciencetech/technology/article/729552--thousands-of-editors-leaving-wikipedia Mike _{(T C)} 01:38, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Would you say it's time for our editors to crack each other's heads open and feast on the goo inside? –xeno^talk 01:50, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

It seems to me the atmosphere has changed around here. My recent interactions on site have been much more negative than what I used to run into, and that's compared to when I was involved in much more contentious editing, of both article and policy. These days, I hardly want to join a discussion, because I'll just get my head bitten off by someone who is too socially maladjusted to know any better, and the community seems unwilling to do anything about it. The "right to be an asshole" has been championed to the point that it smells like an asshole around here, just about non-stop.

We have created an environment where fewer people want to contribute. RfAs have been drying up for a while now, and now some study has noticed that the number of active contributors is dropping off. I'm not surprised.

Part of my inactivity is due to graduate school, but I can do grad school + wikipedia: I got an MS in 2006 while at my peak level of activity. A big part of my reason to stay away are the poisonous interactions I've had here lately.

My favorite thing to blame is the rampant legalism, where we allow rule-lawyers to define all the terms. We used to know how to Ignore All Rules, but nobody cares about that anymore. Too bad, seeing as it was what made the whole thing work, with civil interactions providing the social lubrication. To rules-lawyers, though, civility is not a lubricant; it's a cudgel. We let them win. Damn. -GTBacchus^(talk) 02:25, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Personally, after almost seven years (egad) on WP, I run into far fewer nasty, venomous arguments than I once did. (An opponent in an article dispute once hunted down my boss' name and called him to complain about me - much to my boss' bewilderment, since that was 2005 or so). Nothing like that has happened to me in years. Perhaps you get into more arguments because you've become self-righteous, or perhaps I get into less of them because I've become lazy and timid. Who knows?

There certainly are vastly more rules, and therefore rule-enforcers, but there are also vastly more accomplishments. Without "legalism" in its irritating forms we wouldn't have consistent references and infoboxes and lots of other good stuff.

If we pine for the good old days, pull up some articles from 2003/4/5 and see what they were like - sure, we could play around and create new articles without breaking a sweat then, but WP was much, much, much less valuable. Making it valuable, not creating a wonderful toy for us to enjoy playing with, is supposed to be the idea. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 02:45, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

As I had said before (besides the Chicken Little reference in the above section), this is no longer 2003 or 2004 - this is almost 2010, and Wikipedia – along with the rest of the Internet – has greatly changed since then. Pretending to live back in 2003 and to think that 2003 solutions will work six or seven years later will not work.

Just as P.Diddy said in a famous song of his, the more pages we come upon, the more problems we see. The bigger a website gets in both popularity and size, of course the more issues and the need for control also gets bigger. Just like I'm sure there are fewer issues and complicated rules in quiet, peaceful Aledo, Illinois than there is in busy, rough Los Angeles, California. But maybe I was a different breed of Wikipedian when I came onboard in June 2008. I didn't create a new article until early 2009; I just went to improving and expanding on what has already been created.

Perhaps one problem is this thing that we expect new users to create new pages instead of pointing them towards improving articles that need to be cleaned up or expanding a few of the hundreds of thousands of stubs out there (or perhaps we don't focus on that aspect, or perhaps we don't pay attention to that).

Another problem I also believe is that we get a lot more users who are, for lack of a better non-offensive term to use, computer illiterate. That's something that I think we're just finding out and are already starting to find some solutions on the technical side of things – which I personally think is just a viable problem as the community/behavioral side of things.

That's just a few of my observations, though. MuZemike 03:38, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

I can see how you'd see it as living in the past (2003 solutions and all), but simply because something worked then, doesn't mean it won't still work. A priori, we don't know which solutions work when, so I might not be pretending to live in 2003 so much as suggesting that we lost something valuable. Maybe there was a baby in that bathwater.

Responding to DavidWBrooks: Without "legalism" in its irritating forms we wouldn't have consistent references and infoboxes and lots of other good stuff. I don't believe that for one second. I was working for years in Requested Moves, and we developed new technologies, set up necessary structures, and dealt with thousands of move requests without getting so legalistic. Wikipedia had infoboxes before the lawyers took over.

I don't see it as so obvious that we have to become more legalistic as we grow, nor that we have to coddle antisocial users quite as much as we do. I do see the two as connected, because the more legalistic it gets, the more antisocial it gets. We coddle wikilawyers, and let them define all the terms of discourse. That's an outright abdication of good sense.

I might as well be talking to a wall, though, because we've institutionalized some bad, bad habits by now. If I were the king of Wikipedia... huh. I have no idea what I would do. I'd try to convince people that we need to treat each other better, worry less about rules, and write more. -GTBacchus^(talk) 13:28, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

"we need to treat each other better, worry less about rules, and write more" Can't argue with that! - DavidWBrooks (talk) 20:05, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

I think it's a bit of Eternal September syndrome, mixed with many of the old hands hitting the 3yearhump mark (or their 2nd 3yearhump...).

With the higher number of contributors, there are significantly more people who hold "minority" viewpoints, and discussions/arguments having to be repeated.

With the proliferation of help/guideline pages, and more edge-case articles, there are more forked/duplicated discussions resulting in conflicting instances of 'consensus'.

With WP's increasing respectability, there are more conservative mindsets around, who dispute aspects of IAR and Incrementalism and Eventualism and ... and ... (all the other philosophies that got us to where we are).

We definitely coddle wikilawyers and uncivil editors more, because the processes for dealing with them (WP:RFC/USER etc) are timeconsuming and generally ineffective. Tendentious editors learn how to bend-not-break the rules, and become defensively-stubborn and self-assured, and hence less-likely to ever obtain 'clue'. There seem to be fewer admins (or even editors) who are willing to chastise others for breaches of basic civility.

Ramble ramble coffee. -- Quiddity (talk) 20:25, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

The thing about the methods applied in 2003 is that at least they were invented in or around 2003 ;-) . Not -say- in 1776, or some centuries BCE. If you want to improve wikipedia, start thinking about what makes a wiki work ideally, and what makes a wiki work ideally in 2009 (or 2010), then see how you can apply those.

A big problem, however, is that there is no good way to educate large numbers of people on how to use the wiki most effectively. Acculturating people to our new internet societies is the current largest challenge both inside and outside wikimedia.

In fact, setting up lectures is easy. Convincing people to come is harder. Everyone thinks they know everything, until you show them what's really possible with just a little more effort and understanding. ;)

I wonder if what (other) methods we might have at our disposal to get people up to speed? Any ideas?

--Kim Bruning (talk) 19:59, 25 November 2009 (UTC) And no, the sky is not necessarily falling. A community just needs some folks to invest time to keep it alive. Apparently, currently too few people are doing that, relative to the size of the community.

The acculturation is tricky when you've got influential community members working actively against it. There are too many veterans who are all too willing to throw out all we know about wikis, and start running this place according to some outdated offline model. When I try to promote what seem to be more progressive ideas, I'm drowned out by those who are very, very good at saying, "NOOO!"

We used to say Wikipedia doesn't work in theory, only in practice. That keeps working as long as we keep believing it. Those who believe it are now a vanishing minority. Arbcom won't help us; Jimbo won't help us. Most admins won't help. Most editors won't help. I have absolutely no idea what to do, except start issuing permanent bans for wiki-lawyering, being rude, and making any kind of negative claim about any other editor. We know these are terrible things to do (in a purely pragmatic sense - no normative moral claim here), but we coddle them. How to stop? -GTBacchus^(talk) 21:13, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

This is being discussed on BBC Newsnight right now. 91.110.241.143 (talk) 23:16, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

One moron guest said it's because "people have woken up to the fact that they're giving away their labour for free". He said he couldn't imagine why people wold give away their time and labour for free and wouldn't do so himself. Apparently this guy does not have the concepts of "altruism" (people edit to help their fellow man) or "enjoyment" (people edit same as people collect stamps or own a dog). He then went on to attack the other guest for being a "tenured academic" because he supported the Wiki concept. 91.110.241.143 (talk) 23:22, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

It's not clear to me that anyone edits Wikipedia out of "altruism", but there's obviously some kind of non-monetary reward, or people wouldn't keep working on it. A lot of Wikipedians I've interacted with have made it quite clear that altruism is not a motive.

People work on Wikipedia because they feel empowered here, in a way that they perhaps don't feel in other endeavors in their lives. Wikipedia is a place where you can be someone who matters, if you have some kind of specialized knowledge, coding ability, or talent for research and writing. If people are leaving the project, it must be that the empowerment they used to derive from working here has somehow gone away, or become less alluring. I'm not sure why that would be. Does it have anything to do with, for example User:Raymond arritt/Expert withdrawal? Who knows? -GTBacchus^(talk) 17:05, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

"Wikipedia loses thousands of Editors" Journalism fiasco

Look at these news

http://news.google.com/news/more?pz=1&cf=all&cf=all&ncl=d4SeR4yUq9iajSM33Trb9RfrsdOAM

They portray wikipedia as going ultimately to hell in their frontlines. It appears whenever Wikipedia is putting up a donation plea and people see the amount of dollars it raises it also raises a lot of haters. I've noticed this trend very distinctly: whenever a donation plea comes up, there come the popular press denouncing it with some new doomsday scenario.

Keep hitting. The more you squeeze, the more it comes from the sides. --Leladax (talk) 00:18, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

By the way look how down wikipedia is going http://www.google.com/trends?q=wikipedia I mean we're closing shop tomorrow with that pace. --Leladax (talk) 00:24, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

We raise our profile, but people think our profile is ugly? --Kim Bruning (talk) 03:15, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Of course, with the level of pessimism the media focuses on (i.e. focus on covering murders, scandals, how war, swine flu, and the global recession is going to burn the entire world down), are we much surprised that the media only focuses on the negatives from Wikipedia and not the positives? MuZemike 04:30, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

If I recall the media coverage correctly, Wikipedia has been failing for at least five years now.   Will Beback  talk  05:31, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

While actual numbers say we've only been (net) losing editors for 3? :-P --Kim Bruning (talk) 12:39, 26 November 2009 (UTC) Don't ever simply dismiss news because you don't like it. Check to see if something is actually wrong, and try to figure out what to do about it. Don't be overly alarmed either of course, but don't dismiss out of hand!

En.Wikipedia is only one part of the project. Has anyone checked how other languages are doing?   Will Beback  talk  11:07, 27 November 2009 (UTC) Relatively few editors are active on Wikipedia for more than a year. There is constant turnover. If folks edit a topic of interest and then leave their contributions remain (in the history, if not in the articles). En.Wikipedia doesn't not need to continue to grow indefinitely. While some folks may be needed to maintain it, the project doesn't require a million editors to survive.

aye; the point here is not that they focus on negatives; but on lies.- --Leladax (talk) 16:21, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't see that the stories are entirely fiction. Requests for Adminship has dried up, for example. What's up with that? Is anyone permitted to ask whether there's a negative trend, without being dismissed as a paranoid Chicken Little? Thank you Kim, for making that point as well.

I find that my observations line up with what I'm reading in these stories. I'm not saying they're certainly right. I'm saying that they're maybe-right, and that it's silly to simply dismiss them. This is actually an issue, on which reasonable people may take different positions, like it or not. -GTBacchus^(talk) 17:15, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

I found the comments quoted by the BBC here to be very resonant: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/technology/2009/11/wikipedia_on_the_wane.html. • Anakin 21:10, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Anyone who is in any way unconvinced about the argument should look at the comments section of a Telegraph article on the subject. I no longer edit in article-space for exactly these reasons. Wikipedia has become increasingly legalistic, deletionist and bitey in the 4.5 years I've been here. The insistence on unintelligible reference formats has to be one of the worst things to have happened. Mostlyharmless (talk) 10:56, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

The news coverage and "stats" appear to give the impression that Wiki is slowly become a dead site, floating around the Interweb with no crew. I am a long time Wiki editor who cannot accept the bleak view from either the news stories or editors like Mostlyharmless above. Yes, there are far more rules and regulations on Wiki these days, but better some structure in the process than the way I recall things happening when I first started. Wiki was ripped to shreads in the press for being "lawless" and a "free for all". Now these accusations are replaced with others. Doubtlesssly the stroeis will continue for as long as Wiki continues to exist. I'm nowhere near as pessimistic as some! doktorb _words^deeds 12:22, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Good point. As the old saying goes, "people throw stones at the trees with fruit on them". If Wikipedia were becoming irrelevant then they would simply stop writing about it. --DanielRigal (talk) 13:27, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

I think the coverage points to a significant issue which needs to be taken seriously. All too often we are the "encyclopedia anyone can vandalize." There is a huge amount of blatant vandalism and there is a great deal of more subtle vandalism and POV-shifting which goes unnoticed. We can't deny that Wikipedia has a poor reputation, and we need to confront it as a community. Perhaps doing something about IP edits and new editors. That is where much of the trouble originates. Our vandal-fighting software singles out such edits as having a higher probability of troubles. I'm less concerned about the decreasing number of new editors than I am by the higher noise-to-signal ratio.--JohnnyB256 (talk) 18:25, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

I didn't know wikipedia had even 5000 regular contributors, let alone it losing 49000 of them in 3 months. What are they measuring? The number of inbound and outbound requests by IPs, or the number of registered users who haven't shown any activity since January? - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 18:36, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Mostlyharmless, are you referring to the “don’t feel the spirit of the first years. The articles are very tightly controlled by others now, and that makes it hard to jump in and contribute” quote in the Telegraph story? If so, are you complaining about referencing or about a tendency for editors to try to "own" articles? - Pointillist (talk) 01:07, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

While its a few things, I think that the most important thing has been a very significant cultural shift from assuming that the contribution contribution being made is correct, and assuming good faith, to requiring citations before accepting good faith contributions. Some of this is a good thing, coming from a desire to make Wikipedia more accurate (and Wikipedia's had plenty of criticism here too!). But a lot of it is less willingness to assume good faith on any contribution made without lots of properly formatted citations. And this is a major problem. As standards have gone up, articles have got longer, and use of the citation formats has increased, it has become harder for new users to contribute. Assume you've never edited before: go to the mainpage, and open the FA. You're confronted with a pile of mediawiki markup. You've come to one of the most difficult articles to edit in the entire project. You're also likely to have your edit deleted - this article has been crafted careful and most edits will just make it worse. Editors are also much more likely to revert statements that would be accepted by anybody with basic knowledge of a given subject unless they come with these citations.

This isn't the only problem - zealous deletionists are a significant one - but is I think the most important. The Usability Initiative promises to improve Wikipedia: they need to make improving the citation markup experience a top priority. Mostlyharmless (talk) 08:45, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for that, Mostlyharmless. Personally, I'm in favour of citations being the hub of the editing process: when a fact is well known, it should be easy to find a source; if it's a bit surprising then it's essential to source it properly. One problem is that a lot of editors weren't educated that way, at least not in a general sense outside their major specialisation. Another is that we don't applaud good referencing sufficiently. It can take hours to put together a set of references that collectively count as one edit (e.g. working offline in Notepad), while in the same period another editor may have clocked up tens or even hundreds of minor edits. I agree about citation markup, so initiatives like Mr.Z-man's toolbar are very welcome (I've not tried it myself yet), and I wish there was a way that finding references could be made more effective and even fun. If the next generation of Wikipedia editing is about maintenance and improvement, we must find a way to make that the glamorous and intellectually fascinating heart of the project. - Pointillist (talk) 20:03, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

To summarise most of the contributions this discussion: "They're criticising us because we're AWESOME" Mostlyharmless (talk) 00:28, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Of course, after all, no one ever gets tired of the wikilaywers, vandals, less well informed editors wiping out well considered text in favour of fundamental misconceptions, or any of the other annoying aspects of Wikipedia.

Those that wish portray this project as some kind of panacea would do well to consider what is actually in the project's best interests. Pretending that problems do not exist or asking why people are leaving the project and what can be done to alleviate the situation? CrispMuncher (talk) 19:27, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Wikiproject Editing Trends would be a great place to produce quantifiable evidence showing that article is wrong or accurate. MBisanz ^talk 19:31, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

And how many of those people who are leaving are doing so because WP:AGF is driving away the good contributors while letting the trolls thrive? 99.166.95.142 (talk) 17:31, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

AGF, properly understood, does not let the trolls thrive. The fact that so many people think it does, is problematic. I've banned trolls' accounts while maintaining 100% AGF. Anyone who thinks you have to drop AGF to block and ban hasn't thought it through. -GTBacchus^(talk) 14:40, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm surprised you haven't been raked over the coals and had your admin bit taken away after a lengthy, dramahz filled RfA for banning the poor misguided people who think vandalism and POV pushing is the Right Way. 99.166.95.142 (talk) 16:21, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

That shouldn't be surprising. You must have some strange ideas about how Wikipedia works. Most instances of vandal-blocking and removing bias from articles happens uncontroversially and quietly. The ones that make the vast majority of the noise are a tiny minority of cases. I know how to avoid "dramahz"; it involves not acting stupidly and in ways that are likely to create drama. -GTBacchus^(talk) 16:26, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Table converting tool?

I'm looking to convert the table at machine press from an html format to the Wikipedia format because it's current layout is clumsy/ugly and the code for it is monstrous. Is there any tool for this? Thanks! Wizard191 (talk) 19:56, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

HTML to Wiki Converter - tables —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gadget850 (talk • contribs)

Thanks! Unfortunately it didn't work in this case. At lease I know it exists for future references. Wizard191 (talk) 20:54, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Donation message

So I happened to see the 5 things about Wikipedia most people don't know about. And did anyone else get the opinion for number 3 ("We support more than 100,000 volunteers who have contributed 14.3 million articles in 270 languages.") that the word "support" implied financial support, especially being on a donation page and with one of the donation messages "Please support Wikipedia!" If this is something I've missed, however, how do I get my money? Spencer^{T♦Nominate!} 16:43, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Support → procedural support. For example, the Usability Initiative has put a lot of money into developing new interface options and tools to make it easier to edit; I'm already using the new Vector skin. Most of the support is through technology and organizational representation: users don't buy or maintain servers, nor do they appear credible to third-party organizations. The Foundation supports the volunteers by handling that sort of thing.

There's been occasional speculation into supporting individual volunteers, but that usually runs into the problem of selection (i.e. if some editors were supported but not others, how could the selection process be maximally fair, efficient, and cost-effective? Further, how might it also avoid the appearance of favouritism in certain senses, beyond the actual situation? ("Look, [random group of admins/established users] are getting [example assistance]: this is totally unfair, [new user X] just started doing some good work but hasn't gotten anything") It's generally taken as one of those things that would be awesome to do in theory but not feasible in practice. {{Nihiltres|talk|edits}} 17:20, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Is the point here that it's manipulative of Foundation to imply that they support us financially, in an attempt to receive higher donations? Spitfire^Tally-ho! 17:36, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

So who's paying for the server(s!) you posted this message on? ;-) And who pays the core mediawiki team that provides the software and other tools? And who pays for translations (now, finally :-P ?). And... etc --Kim Bruning (talk) 19:49, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

heh, if the comment was in Re. to mine, I was only asking for clarification on Spencer's comment. Spitfire^Tally-ho! 20:03, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

They do support us: they support our addiction to Wikipedia =) –xeno^talk 19:54, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

I think the word "volunteer" successfully discharges the message of the suggestion that they financially support contributors. Dcoetzee 23:26, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

I've been called a vandal because of an accurate correction; please start punishing such accusers

This is utterly rude and disheartening. I know better since I use wikipedia since forever but I'm sure it would have drove away countless people:

"The recent edit you made to Martial arts constitutes vandalism,"

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:94.71.77.34&redirect=no

and what's the "vandalism"?

"kratos, meaning "nation""

if you are a 7 year old greek and don't know kratos means nation you're an idiot. This is obviously a correct edit at first glance. If it's not a correct edit ultimately it's not a good reason to call people vandals--94.71.77.34 (talk) 22:46, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

You mean 7-year-old Greeks think κράτος is a synonym for έθνος? I would be surprised. [1] Hans Adler 22:59, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

I note that the Greek Wikipedia derives Pankration from παν + κρατείν, the latter being a modern Greek verb. [2] Hans Adler 23:07, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

It's an old edit from January, so it doesn't make sense to highlight this now. Without a source it was indistinguishable from the general drive-by vandalism often seen by IP editors. In future, always use reliable sources when editing Wikipedia, instead of original research. Fences&Windows 02:10, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

See also Kratos. I don't know Greek but I guess the editors of the Greek Wikipedia do. The Google translation [3] of el:Κράτος says: "State in ancient Greek meant power" (where state is Google's translation of the Greek Κράτος). Your edit [4] was about ancient Greek. The second post to User talk:94.71.77.34 probably mentioned vandalism because you repeated the edit after it was reverted the first time where the first post was made, and you didn't give an edit summary or source to your apparently incorrect edit. Deliberate vandalism by unregistered users is unfortunately very common in Wikipedia and good faith but inappropriate edits like yours are sometimes mistaken for vandalism. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:41, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree with the OP that the message left on his or her talk page was inappropriate. Simply saying that an edit such as that constitutes vandalism is quite presumptuous. It's much better to say that an edit appears to be incorrect or unconstructive, and allow that the person might be working in good faith, that to simply declare them guilty of base motives.

We define vandalism very narrowly here, and for good reason. I never find it necessary to even use that word when reverting and leaving warnings for bad edits. -GTBacchus^(talk) 17:31, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

How many Wiki editors are there?

I was just kind of curious how many editors are actually on Wikipedia. Wikipedia says that at one point it was about 524. Is there any place to find detailed, current information on the number of editors/accounts and the distribution of edits among them? IE, how many total accounts, how many accounts that make more than one edit a month or week, etc. AzureFury (talk | contribs) 05:37, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Have a look at Special:Statistics for a couple of metrics. — This, that, and the other (talk) 09:45, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Awesome! Thanks. AzureFury (talk | contribs) 11:01, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Rotten Tomatoes?

Why is Rotten Tomatoes cited on nearly every movie page on Wikipedia? I can't find any policy on this, and WP:Films doesn't have much about this, either. I understand Rotten Tomatoes are a for-profit part of IGN Entertainment. Thanks! FFLaguna (talk) 10:11, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

No great mystery there; it gives a good overview of the critical reception of films.  Skomorokh, barbarian  10:14, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

I was hoping so. I found it interesting that it was on so many pages, however, without any seeming consensus. There was a small discussion a while back about it at Talk:Rotten_Tomatoes#Why_is_rotten_tomatoes_always_cited.3F.21 that I found before posting this VP post. FFLaguna (talk) 10:20, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

The use of particular sources is not something that gets centrally-planned; such trends are simply distributed individual decisions coalesced. There are discussions and consensus over having links to such sites by default in infoboxes, or as external links templates, but nothing that I've seen about use as sources.  Skomorokh, barbarian  10:33, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Smart mob strikes again! ;-) . Wikipedia is still as self-organizing as ever. :-) --Kim Bruning (talk) 12:44, 26 November 2009 (UTC) Quick quiz: Identify all the successful wikipedia systems that utilize smart mobs. Now identify systems where no mobbing occurs?

Digging deeper... it might be a good idea to (double)check exactly who has been adding the rotten tomatoes links. --Kim Bruning (talk) 12:46, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Looking an an unscientifically selected random sample of a dozen or so articles that link to Rotten Tomatoes I see that they just have external links to the site, without any actual discussion of the reviews in the articles. I think that such links should be discouraged. If Rotten Tomatoes is used as a source for article content, such as a respected critic's opinion of a film, then it's fine to cite the site, but I can't see any justification for having an external link when it is not used as a source. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:15, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

The template {{rotten-tomatoes}} should not be used in any citations - {{cite web}} should be used instead for that - it is purely for EL sections.

All of the templates in Category:External link templates (and its many subcategories) are disliked by various individual editors. See point #2 at that category page, for why we continue to link them ("[...] covering the subject in greater detail than Wikipedia does (e.g. IMDb)").

The templates should only be added when they really do provide additional information though, not automatically for every film article. -- Quiddity (talk) 20:50, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

It's use is explained at Wikipedia:WikiProject Films/Style guidelines#External links.

Most of the reviews it links to are 'for-profit', as is imdb, amg, tcmg, metacritic, etc, so that is a non-issue.

Search google scholar for more info on its method and impact.

Discuss with Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Films, if you feel the urge for more. -- Quiddity (talk) 20:50, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Ideally the review of a movie should be described and atributed in the article rather than simply placed as external link, right, but I don't see a problem in linking such reviews as external links in articles at their starting level of development. MBelgrano (talk) 14:19, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Vandalism/content dispute with an IP user

Hello! I have cleaned up Dmitri Bulykin (a footballer) page (moving quotes to WikiQuotes etc) and later came across an IP user who reverted my edits without any proper explanation, just calling them "deletions". I gave them a couple of warnings but failed to stop these reverts. Now, assuming that IP user thinks he's not vandalizing a page but rather participating in a content dispute, I request an uninvolved user to take a look at article's history[5] and comment. Thank you.  Barocci  12:58, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for coming here to ask for input. Your edit is a good one. I suggest first that you stop reverting. There's no deadline, and making the article arguably better now rather than tomorrow is not worth adding any back-and-forth reverts to the article's history. This is a content dispute, and that's why the talk page is there.

The first time you're reverted, it's a very good idea to go to the talk page and state the case for your edit. If they don't reply there, revert, notify, and wait. If they revert again, don't revert them until you get outside input. We're not in a hurry, and what that IP is doing is not close to vandalism. "Vandalism" means intentionally making the Wikipedia worse, by one's own standards. That IP is trying to make it better. -GTBacchus^(talk) 17:47, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Treat newbies differently?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8382477.stm

Wikimedia Foundation counts only people who make five edits or more as an editor

Really? What should we call those who are not yet editors? Suomi Finland 2009 (talk) 16:57, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

“People who are invited to help make Wikipedia's content better by contributing about things that they know about.” Simple! Donal Fellows (talk) 17:38, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

DYK fixation with Louisiana?

I find it curious that almost every DYK has some obscure factoid about Louisiana. Is there someone who is pushing these articles for inclusion in the DYK section, or has Wikipedia taken on the state's trivia as a special project? —Preceding unsigned comment added by JascalX (talk • contribs) 17:18, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

There is one user who writes many articles related to Louisiana. If more people were like him, except for a different subject, Wikipedia would have 50 million articles, not 3. Let's not be too critical about our contributors.Suomi Finland 2009 (talk) 19:22, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Nobody watching Pure Land Buddhism?

It would seem fantastic that Amidism, the #1 synonym of Pure Land Buddhism in English, could be scrubbed from the article with all its sources and nobody noticed for six months, and yet, and yet... I have tried to restore it, but I think some regulars keeping an eye on Pure Land Buddhism would be useful. 62.147.27.150 (talk) 19:44, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Comments sought on community de-adminship

Comments from all interested editors are invited and welcome at Wikipedia talk:Community de-adminship/Draft RfC, where a proposal for community de-adminship is being discussed. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:59, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

RfC on WP:RS

Wikipedia_talk:Reliable_sources#RfC_on_page_move. Should Wikipedia:Reliable sources be moved to Wikipedia:Verifiability/reliable sources to become a subpage of the sourcing policy, WP:V? There would be no change in either page's status: the policy would remain policy, and RS would retain its status as a guideline. 23:43, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Retrieving the today's featured article's name

Does anyone know how to retrieve the current today's featured article's name, I mean, automatically ? Is there some template returning it ? Cenarium (talk) 01:34, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Demise of Wikipedia

Those who haven't already seen it may be interested in the article at:

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/the_web/article6930546.ece —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.133.240.156 (talk) 02:15, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Join the club. MuZemike 09:25, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Maybe it's all the spammers, vandals, and graffitists jumping ship?—RJH (talk) 17:44, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Query

Hello, I just had a little quarry for your orginization.

Wikipedia has a fundraiser going on to raise seven and a half million dollars, and after reading the FAQ's it left me a little bewildered because of conflicting points made in the question and answers section. It says that Wikipedia and it sister projects are a charity and yet, the first question and answer [Where does the money go?] one of the answers was to the people working and helping Wikipedia be up and running ...so they are being paid. And, in a charity, the employee's do not get paid. Or at least that is what the definition states it being.

My question; So, what is Wikipedia? Because saying it's a charity is the incorrect use. I could be reading it wrong though. And if I am, then I do apologize.

--Turnoquiet (talk) 03:53, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Actually, most large non-profit organizations have paid staff members. Wikimedia needs to have professionals to run the backend, staff the office, etc. Tony Fox (arf!) 04:23, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

This may be helpful reading. - Jarry1250 ^{[Humorous? Discuss.]} 11:16, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Red links as a reason for banning users

David Beals (talk · contribs) has built a bunch of UW warning templates to warn-off editors who include redlinks into their edits, see the TfD discussion where they are being considered for deletion. Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2009 November 27

I don't remember seeing a policy that says users who add redlinks should be banned.

Can someone point me to the policy page that says users should not add redlinks?

76.66.197.250 (talk) 07:50, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

The relevant policy is Wikipedia:Red link. Some red links are useful, others aren't. I'd be surprised to see a block just over red linking. Fences&Windows 19:20, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

interpret this for me please I believe it may be

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Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat.

Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.31.101.85 (talk) 16:01, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Lorem ipsum. Offliner (talk) 16:19, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Charts for city/areas

Worldenc (talk · contribs) has created thousands of charts that they added to thousands of articles, only to have their work rolledback in a massive rollback by Hu12 (talk · contribs). I've started a thread here since it primarily deals with articles within the scope of WP:CITIES, but I also wanted to leave a note at the village pump to get more input. If anyone could take a look, and maybe comment, that'd be great. Killiondude (talk) 20:58, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

This is a returning spammer(Current discussion) from a previous spam case. Also see *previous Commons spam case. Commons discussion can be found on Commons:Administrators' noticeboard.--Hu12 (talk) 21:11, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Articles listing exonyms

An exonym is a name for a geographical place not used in that place, such as 'Germany', as the Germans would say 'Deutschland'. We have a lot of articles at Category:Exonyms that list exonyms in various languages. This is the kind of thing you might find in the appendix to a dictionary. There have been quite a few deletion nominations of these articles over the years,[6] but there is no consistency in how they are dealt with. Some are deleted: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hebrew exonyms, and some are kept: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Arabic exonyms. There was no consensus the last time this was discussed in general: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of European exonyms. This is among the most indiscriminate: List of Czech exonyms for places in the Polish part of Cieszyn Silesia. There's various other similar lists, such as Names of European cities in different languages and its subpages, and several at Category:Toponymy. Do we want articles that list translations of words and names in various languages? Wikipedia isn't a usage guide, a dictionary, or a directory, so this material doesn't seem to me to be a good fit. Fences&Windows 00:32, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Arbitration Committee Elections: voting now open

Voting is now open in the December 2009 elections to elect new members to the Arbitration Committee. In accordance with the recent Request for Comment on the election process, voting will be done by secret ballot using the SecurePoll extension. Voting will close on 14 December 2009 at 23:59 UTC.

In order to be eligible to vote, an account must have at least 150 mainspace edits on or before 1 November 2009 (check your account). Blocked editors may not vote, and voting with multiple accounts or bot accounts is expressly forbidden. Note that due to technical restrictions, editors who have made more than 150 mainspace edits on or before 1 November 2009 but no longer have access to the account(s) used will not be able to vote. If you have any questions about this, please ask.

For each candidate, voters may choose to Support or Oppose the candidacy, or to remain Neutral (this option has no effect on the outcome). Voting should be done in a single sitting. After your entire vote has been accepted, you may make changes at any time before the close of voting. However, a fresh default ballot page will be displayed and you will need to complete the process again from scratch (for this reason, you are welcome to keep a private record of your vote). Your new ballot page will erase the previous one. You may verify the time of acceptance of your votes at the real-time voting log. Although this election will use secret ballots, and only votes submitted in this way will be counted, you may leave brief comments on the candidates' comment pages and discuss candidates at length on the attached talkpages. For live discussion, join #wikipedia-en-ace on Freenode.

To cast your vote, please proceed here.

For the coordinators,  Skomorokh  00:01, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Dynesepp & critical theory

User:Dynesepp, who was blocked for sock puppetry, made a zillion edits to add references to "critical theory" to various articles. One was reverted as vandalism (which it isn't), but probably someone should look at the whole corpus and see if additional action is needed.

Apologies if this is not the right place to post this, please let me now on my talk page if I should have done something different. I considered RFC, that seemed too big a production than I was ready for. Ma^t_chups 03:48, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

how much of the money donated goes to the salaries of the employees of wikimedia?

I looked at the information of the past few years' financials but I'm no tax attorney. I was wondering if someone could give me a breakdown of the costs of operation (technology, advertising, etc.,) vs the salaries of the employees. I'm not interested in debates of whether salary is a cost of operation, just want to know what's being spent on people vs. things. It's sort of similar in my mind to overhead of charities. If this is in the wrong section please feel free to move it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.88.88.58 (talk) 21:09, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

According to the 2009-10 plan for expenditure:

All amounts in USD, in thousands.

Salaries and wages....$2,156

Travel expenditure.....$857

All else........................$6,073

Hope this helps Spitfire^Tally-ho! 21:23, 1 December 2009 (UTC)