Wikipedia:Village pump (assistance)

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The assistance section of the village pump is used to make requests for assistance with Wikipedia.

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Category:Ancient Greek cities

A good number of the cities aren't even part of Ancient Greece

I think there is a case of pov overcategorization. Even the capital of Turkey is an ancient Greek city at the moment.

Many cities in modern Turkey was a part of ancient Greece, ottoman empire, Byzantium empire and god knows what other civilizations I have missed. For example Rome isn't categorized under Roman Empire or ancient roman cities (or whatever).

-- Cat ^chi? 13:18, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree... The category needs a slightly more limited criteria for inclusion. At the moment it seems to include any city that existed in one of the various Helenistic empires... regardless of whether the city pre-existed Greek/Macedonian rule. In the case of Ankara, since it was founded by the Hittites, I have removed it from the category. That said, there are a lot of cities in Anatolia and the Near East that I would categorize as "Ancient Greek cities"... in that they were founded by the Ancient Greeks. Blueboar 14:13, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Categorizing by founder country seems problematic to me. Constantinople was the secondary capital of the roman empire, the capital of Byzantium empire, and it was the later capital of the Ottoman empire. Indisputably it is notable to all three of the empires. It should however not be categorised under either three of them.

I would be more than fine with a List of Ancient Greek cities (in fact it exists). I would find a number of additional lists based on individual Hellenistic empires more helpful.

-- Cat ^chi? 15:28, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

"Who founded it" is but one possible criterium... I agree that there are others ... my point is that some form of inclusion criteria is needed. What makes a city "Ancient Greek"? Blueboar 17:05, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

To throw out one possible (albeit incomplete) solution, why not put the Ancient Greek city tag on the historical articles of those cities/towns? To give an example of what I mean, there are 3 articles covering the capital of Turkey, each focussing on one period of time: Byzantium, Constantinople, & Istanbul. Byzantium would get the Ancient Greek city tag, Constantinople the Roman city tag (if one exists), & Istanbul the Turkish city tag. Obviously, this won't work in all cases (there are a number of small towns or villages where there will always be one article), but at least it's a start. -- llywrch 23:39, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Only "historic" articles (aka articles strictly discussing history) should be tagged by this. Byzantium, Constantinople are such articles. Athens for example is not. Athens is a city in Greece founded by ancient Greeks but it shouldn't be tagged as such as the article covers the city as it is today. -- Cat ^chi? 14:12, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

So whats our status? -- Cat ^chi? 14:17, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Smoking

While I was editing the Psychoactive drug article, I wrote the following sentence:

...nicotine and THC are often smoked...

I noticed that the smoked link redirects to the method of preserving food. So, I wanted to fix the link by redirecting it to an article about smoking. However, when I searched for "smoking," I was redirected to Smoking, a disambig page with links to various different kinds of smoking. The closest things I could find to the general practice of smoking were these articles: Tobacco smoking, Pipe smoking, and Cannabis smoking. However, I feel that this organization leaves a gap... where do I go to learn about smoking in general, such as in that sentence from the psychoactive drug article? An article on smoking in general is needed, as the practice of smoking any substance has a long history, cultural traditions, health risks, physics of evaporation, biology of inhalation, etc. The current organization does not include that kind of general information and ignores the existence of other smoked substances like cloves, salvia, or cocaine.

Shouldn't there be an article with information about smoking in general, not just one particular kind of smoking? Jolb 17:36, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

You're quite right. I think Smoking should be turned into an article about the practice, with sections on the various types of smoking. In fact, I think I'll be bold. – Quadell ^{(talk) (random)} 21:18, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

What do you think? A good start? I'm a non-smoker, so if you could expand and improve it, it would be much appreciated. – Quadell ^{(talk) (random)} 21:47, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

User:Peter Isotalo has done a bang-up job improving this article. It's beautiful now. Hard to believe it was a poorly-formatted disambig just yesterday! – Quadell ^{(talk) (random)} 10:50, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

I've just taken the liberty of fixing the link on the word "smoked" in the Psychoactive drug article, so that it does now point to the article on smoking instead of smoked food. :-) Leevclarke 14:35, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Too many one-sentence paragraphs

I was wondering if there is a warning template for a section that contains too many single-sentence paragraphs? There didn't appear to be anything appropriate on WP:Templates. Thank you. — RJH (talk) 14:55, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

I would suggest {{cleanup-restructure}} or {{cleanup-rewrite}} as the closest, together with a talk page note. Adrian M. H. 22:33, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Even better, instead of a BIG UGLY BOX atop the article concerning a minor situation that is a style judgment call, why not limit yourself to a note on the Talk page with an appropriate comment in the edit summary? Or you could even do the editing that you think needs to be done, instead of telling other people to do it and then moving on.

The biggest complaint I hear from people who use wikipedia - as compared to those of us who edit it - is the explosion of in-your-face boxes squatting at the top of articles. Please don't multiply them unnecessarily. - DavidWBrooks 00:01, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. To me the good thing about a BIG UGLY BOX at the top of the page is that (in some cases) it can serve as a warning to the reader that the page isn't quite at an acceptible level of quality. It can also serve as an incentive to get the page fixed, so I don't have an issue with that approach. — RJH (talk) 15:46, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

If more articles were up to a reasonable minimum standard at the time of their creation, there would be far fewer tags. They help to indicate the expected standard to both readers and editors, from which readers will know that what they see is not the norm and the contributing editors may be prompted to improve their work. Most editors have to divide their limited wikitime between a lot of areas and tasks in which they are most interested or concerned and may not have the time to improve other people's work on a frequent basis. From me, rewrites are quite rare but when they happen, they are usually a committed and total rewrite. Such expenses of time and effort can only happen periodically. Adrian M. H. 16:10, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

That's a good argument for serious issues involving content - lack of attribution or major NPOV violations, that sort of thing - but not for style questions that are judgment calls, particularly a dinky one like "I think the sentences are too short"! (Why not a box reading "This article under-utilizes semicolons; please help improve it"?)

If an editor finds an article that's wrong or misleading, then a notice box to readers is understandable; if we just think it isn't written terribly well, then a nag box is just contributing to the problem by making it harder to read. (In my opinion, of course.) - DavidWBrooks 00:22, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Dubious statement at SaskTel's article

 Done by Black Falcon. BigNate37_(T) 22:55, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

I was hoping someone could take a look at Talk:SaskTel#Controversies, and make a judgment call on whether mine and another editor's concerns are valid. As I explain there, I'm hesitant to touch the article because of a conflict of interest. BigNate37_(T) 17:26, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Superimpose & Location map

Look at these images in Mozilla and in Internet Explorer. On my screen this template works fine in Mozilla but shifts the dots downwards on IE, off the map. Is it just me? --maclean 06:46, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

class=notpageimage| Location	class=notpageimage| Location
Superimpose	Superimpose

Conversion of canal water into drinking water

Hi,

I'm pretty new to this, so someone may tell me this is the wrong place for this, but can someone have a look at this article Conversion of canal water into drinking water, I didn't want to instantly request deletion because, to be honest, I couldn't really work out the page! lol! --LookingYourBest 08:15, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Hi to you.  :-) I have marked this as a candidate for deletion, as it is a pretty terrible excuse for an article. See this article's entry under Articles for Deletion (AfD) to see a log of other users' opinions. The list will grow over the next few hours/days, so keep posted. ;-)

If you see a similar article that you think may be a candidate for deletion (in accordance with the deletion policy), then check out Wikipedia's deletion templates, which is a good place to start if you're not familiar with the process (this is my first time too).

Thanks for bringing this to my attention, and I hoped I have been of help. :-) Leevclarke 15:22, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

External links on Mamod page?

I had removed a number of external links from the Mamod page which linked to several commercial suppliers and a discussion forum, in keeping with WP:EL. However, one anon editor is strongly objecting to the discussion forum removal (see the talk page for our 'discussion'), and the low-contribution-count editor who added the commercial links originally has just undeleteed them.

This person/people seem to think I'm targetting that page out of spite, or something. Could someone else please have a look and see whether I am being too heavy-handed or not?

Thanks EdJogg 12:53, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Numbered Lists

I am an administrator of a MediaWiki based wiki. I would like to change the way the numbered lists appear in the rendered pages. For example,

#    1
##   1.1
###  1.1.1
##   1.2
###  1.2.1
#    2
##   2.1

I have done some googling and saw that this could be set with CSS properties of

ol { counter-reset: item }
li { display: block }
li:before { content: counters(item, ".") " "; counter-increment: item }

Where is the best place to define this? Would common.css be a good place? Thanks in advance. --68.21.231.154 13:49, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Is it a good idea to do this with CSS? - I thought the point of CSS was to separate style from content. By using the CSS to generate your section numbers you effectively are putting content under the control of the CSS. How would such a page be displayed in a non-css capable browser? Chris 13:21, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

In a non-css browser it would be displayed as:

1. Example text
   1. Example text
      1. Example text
   2. Example text
      1. Example text
2. Example text
   1. Example text

Which would still display the content but with a different style of section numbering. Yes, MediaWiki:Common.css is the best place to put those style rules. Tra (Talk) 16:39, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

List of everything related to astronomy

It is in the end of the List of astronomical topics in awful condition. I need automatic interlinking for tens of thousands of words (I do not know how to do it) and making a coherent list with a paragraph for each term. If one knows how to do it, it must be an easy job. So, I am waiting for an ordinary programmist. I am grateful in advance. --Quellem 14:30, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

I attempted to do that a few months back, but it's a hideous job and I eventually gave up. Personally I think the page should just be deleted. It adds nothing that isn't better organized under Category:Astronomy. — RJH (talk) 18:34, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

But User:Misza13 has programming skills that helped me to put in order the first part of a similar list. I am just not able yet to come with him into contact. --Quellem 19:33, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm not convinced that the finished list will be usable, it will be just too large to manage, and I guess there's a chance that the 'Recent Changes' tool will be overloaded. Nevertheless, if you have access to a word processor, then the task should be completable in an evening. The following instructions are for Word 2000 Professional, but other word processors/versions should be able to do similar things.

1. Create your Category Tree output
2. Copy-and-paste the entire list into a Word document
3. Select Find-and-replace, and click More to show the Special button
4. In the Find what field, select ^p (Paragraph mark) from the 'Special' list
5. In the Replace with field, enter ]]^p* [[
6. Click Replace all

   -- You should find that each line is now a wiki-link, on a separate line, starting with a star.

7. 'Select' the entire list
8. From the Table menu, select Sort, then Sort by: paragraphs, ascending
9. Click OK and you have your sorted list!
10. Simply copy-and-paste the resulting list into a Wikipedia edit window, check, and save.

I've just tried this on a small set of articles (12) listed using 'Category Tree'. (You will need to exapnd every category you wish to view...). It was pretty easy, but you are wanting to list a very large number of articles...

Hope this does the trick for you.

EdJogg 22:49, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Wow! I use a slow broadband connection (Verizon wireless) and it just took me over five minutes to download that list! The text alone is worth 360.3kB, and that isn't counting the 222 images, (mostly at full size). This monster is enough to crash many people's browsers, not to mention the fact that cleaning up vandalism on something so huge is bound to be a headache. Since the stated purpose of this list is to harness the Related changes function, and since that function does work when used from a category, I'd have to agree with RJH that it should be deleted. —Elipongo (Talk contribs) 20:10, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Sorry! Sorry! Sorry! Sorry! Sorry! Sorry!

I didn't realise what a monster I would unleash. It took several minutes to load for me, and I have a broadband connection!

I have copied the page to User:Quellem/List of everything related to astronomy so that Quellem has access to his list, and restored the original page to something more sane (for everyone else)!

EdJogg 08:00, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Can someone explain...

...why on Image:HyderabadMosque.jpg, the "File links" section shows the image: page as displaying the image? 68.39.174.238 20:59, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Can't help you, I'm afraid, but it's not limited to that image -- many images exhibit the same phenomenon. EdJogg 22:13, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

AfD on WP:SUMMARY of controversies clamed to be a POV fork... Help?!?

Resolved

Nevermind, moved it back in to the article. BenB4 14:25, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

The Ron Paul article was getting long, and it had a lengthy section on a couple controversies. So another editor, who is actually a supporter of Paul (I'm not), in perfect accordance with WP:SUMMARY, starts Ron Paul controversies. Someone puts it up on AfD because they think it is a "POV fork created for/because of an apparent content dispute in the main article. By definition this article can never be NPOV." But it's not a POV fork, it's a wp:summary style section that got moved, just like Hillary Rodham Clinton controversies and Controversies of Rudy Giuliani. Several people vote "Delete blatant POV fork" and the like.

For now I put in a note to the closer asking him to put it back in the article before deleting. The problem is, there are a lot of little controversies, and this section is going to grow and ought to have its own article. I'd like to keep this state of affairs, and I bet if the AfD voters knew what was going on, they would, too.

What do I do? Canvas the talk pages of all the delete voters explaining about summary style? Wait until it gets deleted and take it to DRV? Wait until it gets deleted and recreate it with a better explanation of summary style?

Sometimes I feel like we ought to limit AfD to people who have been around a certain length of time, in hopes that they might be more familiar with policy and existing articles. I fully understand how impractical that is. Sigh! BenB4 10:01, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Redirecting links

I recently wrote a stub about a book called Garden of Pomegranates, which in its third edition and is now called A Garden of Pomegranates: Skrying on the tree of Life. how do i link AGOP:Skrying on the Tree of Life on other pages to my Garden Of Pomegranates" stub? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Johnny savage (talk • contribs) 19:16, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

You don't need to. Typically, subtitles are not included in the article title on a book. IPSOS (talk) 18:59, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Best location to confirm copyright status

Hi, I have a copyright related question for images on the NSW State Library website. The photos are public domain, but the library claims copyright on the (apparently) bulk-scanned images.

I have asked this question at Wikipedia talk:Public domain and Wikipedia talk:Public domain image resources. So far no response - have I overlooked the correct place to ask that question?

Thanks,Garrie 21:51, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

See Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp. hbdragon88 23:40, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

OK, but in that article's External links it linkst to this response. So, I'm none the clearer. And how does it apply to Australia?

Again, my question here is:have I overlooked the correct place to ask that question? If so - where should I be asking the question "are images of public domain photographs (scanned in Australia) in the public domain or are they copyrighted?"

Thanks,Garrie 04:19, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

I'll still my neck out here with all the "I am not a lawyer and am entirely unqualified to comment on this" caveats I can muster: The quick answers to your questions are, "You haven't really overlooked anything" and "We don't know." The most relevant page, Wikipedia:Requested copyright examinations, appears to be largely inactive. More in depth: Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp hasn't been verified by the Supreme Court, but until such time as it is overruled, it's fair game. Note that museums, including those in the U.S. to whom Bridgeman explicitly applies never acknowledge that they might not own the copies to the PD images they scan, so the museumscopyright.org.uk page you link above is probably about as extreme a bias as you can get. The Australian courts don't seem to have ruled on this at all, but the definition of "artistic work" in the relevant law is "an artistic work in which copyright subsists", which is spectacularly unhelpful. Note also the unhelpfulness of the relevant line in Copyright expiration in Australia#Bridgeman v Corel: "However, this case in American law does not necessarily reflect views on copyrightability outside of the U.S."

Frankly, you can take as a given that the museum doesn't want the scans of its collections used, but also that this has not been legally clarified. If you agree with the museums' argument that scanning a work is an artistic endeavor, don't upload them. If you think this argument is silly, do. If the description of the image notes that significant work has been done to the scanned image, e.g. reconstructing a damaged portion, that might count as creative input, resulting in a copyright reset. If you think the museums' argument is silly but are sympathetic to museums, upload the images as PD but make a note of where the image was scanned both in the image description page and the image caption to assuage your guilt. Note that PD images should go on Commons: and that repeating your question there, where practically all questions revolve around copyright, may get a better answer. - BanyanTree 09:22, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. My opinion is, the library is trying to scare people out of using something for free, that the library hopes to sell. Nothing wrong with selling people bottled water, even if the tap water is a pleasant temperature and fit for human consumption...Garrie 05:54, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

About different places to ask, there is also Wikipedia:Media copyright questions which is quite active. Garion96 (talk) 19:12, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing out Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. I will restate my original question there, so I can get back to the person who asked me!Garrie 05:54, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Dead link

When I click "my preferences" up above, then "Misc", then "Stub link", nothing happens - it doesn't even behave like a redlink. I presume that link was intended to explain what "Threshold for stub link formatting" means. If instead I click "my preferences" then "Editing" then "section editing" or "edit toolbar", those links work. Art LaPella 00:05, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

That's because 'Stub link' is there to demonstrate what a link to a stub looks like and the other links you mentioned are to provide more information on a particular setting. Tra (Talk) 01:05, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Wen Tianxiang - Review of book entry

I entered the following reference for Wen Tianxiang:

• WEN T'IEN-HSIANG: A Biographical Study of a Sung Patriot William Andres Brown, Chinese Materials Center Publications, San Francisco, 1986 (ISBN 0896446433)

I would like to put a short review of this book into Wiki. How would I go about that and where is the best place to create this review? -- Geminni 05:14, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

A review by yourself would be considered original research, and is prohibited. Copying a review from another source into the wiki would be considered a violation of the owner's copyright, and would be also be removed. A freely licensed book review could be linked from the relevant page, and there would be no need to insert it into the wiki. I can think of no situations, off the top of my head, where the addition of a review would add value. Reviews are welcome at sites such as Amazon.com, which may be reached from the wiki by way of the ISBN number link you added. Thanks, BanyanTree 08:41, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

About the Copyrights

i want to ask that can i upload an image of a sportsman taken from TV?--Adeelbutt88 ^talk 17:53, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

In general no since the image would not be free content. An exception is if the image could pass the Wikipedia:Non-free content criteria. Garion96 (talk) 19:09, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Usermessage help

I was wondering if there was a way to make a usermessage similar to the orange "You have new messages" one. It would appear when my userpage is edited by someone other than myself. It would probably be red and say something along the lines of "You have new vandalism". I think it'd be helpful. — Bob • (talk) • 00:04, July 26, 2007 (UTC)

Table

I'm trying to make a table, and for some reason the border color isn't working:

{| class="wikitable" style="border: 2px solid red;"
|-
|thingy thing
|}

makes

thingy thing

However:

{| class="wikitable" style="border: 1px solid red;"
|-
|thingy thing
|}

makes

thingy thing

Help? — Bob • (talk) • 05:58, July 26, 2007 (UTC)

What exactly is the problem? Both seem to make a nice red boarder for me (the 2px being a bit fatter than the 1px, as it should). Perhaps it is a local issue with your computer? Blueboar 14:11, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Could everyone - Bob and Blueboar - please say what BROWSER they are using? For me in Firefox 2.x, the first one has a red border, the second does not. --Golbez 18:06, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Appears to be a Firefox issue. I'm also running Firefox 2.x and see what Goldbez sees. But when I use the IETab extension to switch to IE view, I see what Blueboar is seeing. Acdixon 18:16, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree, and what's more, when I take out the class=wikitable, I see the red border in both browsers. Is there something non-standard in the wikitable class css? – Quadell ^{(talk) (random)} 18:43, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

I guess that's it. I'm running Firefox 2.x (sorry, should have mentioned that). I guess I can just remove the class part. Thanks — Bob • (talk) • 19:08, July 26, 2007 (UTC)

Move of Georgetown College

Recently, User:Paulus89 moved the contents of Georgetown College to Georgetown College (Kentucky) to make way for an article about the undergraduate school of Georgetown University. First, I question whether an article about an entire college should be displaced to make way for one about part of a college, even if the college it is a part of is better known. At the least, perhaps Georgetown College ought to be a disambiguation page. Regardless, the page move was done improperly, as the user just copied the content into a new article, then copied the talk page content to the new talk page and blanked the old talk page. This loses the edit history for the previous article. I should know how to go about fixing this, but I don't. Can someone please help me out? Any comments regarding appropriate disambiguation between the two topics is also appreciated. Thanks. Acdixon 14:27, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

I've fixed the cut-paste move, so at least y'all can fix the naming and disambig issues at your leisure. --Golbez 18:06, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Accedential Edit to [Image:Voyager-bottom.jpg]

Not knowing what I was doing I reverted to a previous version. To undo this effect I reverted to my previous edit from April. Overall I am just letting you know that you can delete those two reverts I did on 2007-07-26T22:03 and 2007-07-26T22:06. --ANONYMOUS COWARD0xC0DE 22:28, 26 July 2007 (UTC)