Jump to content

Wikipedia:Village pump archive 2004-09-26: Difference between revisions

Add links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Browse history interactively
← Previous editNext edit →
Content deleted Content added
VisualWikitext
user question
Fredbauder (talk | contribs)
2,319 edits
response to Llywrch
Line 149: Line 149:


Many forums (e.g. Slashdot), have a process for emailling your password to your own email address, which provides for a secure way of recovering it. I don't know if Wikipedia has anything like this ... or if I have to email someone to get this information. -- [[User:Llywrch|llywrch]] 18:13 Nov 10, 2002 (UTC)
Many forums (e.g. Slashdot), have a process for emailling your password to your own email address, which provides for a secure way of recovering it. I don't know if Wikipedia has anything like this ... or if I have to email someone to get this information. -- [[User:Llywrch|llywrch]] 18:13 Nov 10, 2002 (UTC)

There is such a process on the log-in page at the bottom [[User:Fredbauder|Fredbauder]] 18:34 Nov 10, 2002 (UTC)

Revision as of 18:34, 10 November 2002

File:Village pump.JPG

Welcome, newcomers and baffled oldtimers! If you have a question about Wikipedia and how it works, please place it at the bottom of the list, and someone will attempt to answer it for you. (If you have a question about life, the universe and everything, go to Wikipedia:Help desk instead.)

Before asking a question, check if it's answered by the Wikipedia:FAQ.

NOTE - questions and answers will not remain on this page indefinitely (otherwise it would very soon become too long to be editable.) After a period of time with no further activity, information will be moved to other relevant sections of the wikipedia (such as the FAQ pages) or placed in the Wikipedia:Village pump archive if it is of general interest, or deleted.

Moved discussion

Wikipedia Evangelism

Hi, I've mentioned this before and thought I'd mention it again. As I'm browsing the pedia I find articles that might interest friends/coworkers. I pop them a link in a quick hello message and ask them if they confirm the accuracy of the content...the response so far has been first one of wonder, then awe, then enthusiasm! And it's been a nice way to relate to some folks I'm not often in contact with. Anyway, I searched for evangelism and came up with nada around the 'pedia. Is there a place for sharing an evangelical/ 'help us' message of wikipedia? --dgd

There's some stuff at Wikipedia:Building Wikipedia membership. (Hint which wouldn't help here but may in general: after searching, go to the "Power search" box at the bottom of the screen and check the box for the 'Wikipedia' namespace. You'll get various about, help, documentation, etc pages that aren't supposed to show up when you're searching for encyclopedia articles.) Also check the Meta-wikipedia where we keep general project discussion and misc stuff. --Brion 20:42 Oct 22, 2002 (UTC)
How about doing what a lot of news web pages do? They have a box at the bottom, "Send this article to a friend" with some kind of java mailer to ship it off and a box for you to add a signed message. Ortolan88
I like that idea too. Especially, and I know this would require more overhead, but a way to keep my list of folks in memory so I don't have to open my email client (which may not be available esp, as I'm a student and working on diff. machines).

The recent flurry of editing on articles such as The Simpsons/Episode List, list of fictional cats, and felching has made me wonder: is there a "Most ridiculous articles" or similar page? Someplace that lists articles that have encyclopedic value, but at the same time make you wonder, "Why did someone make a page on this?" I looked briefly but didn't find one. I am very happy that we have articles like these; there should be a page celebrating their existence. -- Merphant 08:41 Oct 27, 2002 (UTC)

Just commenting the opnly reason I put The Simpsons/Episode List on a seprate page is that its a very long list. If it was shorter I would haev pt it on The Simpsons.

I understand completely; I recently did the same thing with List of musical instruments and the musical instrument article. It's still funny, though. -- Merphant


Copyrighted sound files

Another copyright question: is it definitely OK to use short (about 15 seconds) sound samples from copyrighted recordings in articles? I want to add illustrative noises to articles like string quartet, flute and Piano Phase. Looking at The Beatles (album) and A Hard Day's Night, it seems to be OK, and I know it was discussed on the White album talk page, but I want to be certain before I start uploading. If it is OK, should I fully credit the recordings on the image page (performers, conductor, etc) or not? --Camembert

Well, as nobody has said "No, don't do it," I'm going to do it. 19 seconds of a copyrighted recording of Borodin's best known piece will shortly be appearing at Alexander Borodin. And I will be giving full credits on the media page, because it says to include any information you know about the recording when you upload (and it's interesting info in any case). --Camembert 17:22 Nov 3, 2002 (UTC)

Does anybody have an explanation for:

They all have a population of zero. If nobody lives there, is there any reason to keep these articles? They seem kinda silly, all this talk about what is apparently a piece of wilderness arbitrarily designated a "community" (I'm referring to Oklahoma here). Thoughts? Tokerboy 07:44 Nov 1, 2002 (UTC)

They're harmless and not worth the effort for removal. One in fact was a census mistake; Belleair Shore, Florida was listed by the US census as having a population of 0 which was a shock to the local residents (51 households). A couple more are probably also census mistakes; Supai, Arizona went from 423 to 0 in 10 years and Sportsmen Acres Community, Oklahoma went from 181 to 0. If these are mistakes then we should find out and if they are true then it would be interesting to find out why these places lost their populations.
Also, whether or not somebody lives at a place shouldn't be a reason for deciding whether we should keep or delete an entry. In fact many central city/downtown areas in the US don't have anybody officially living in them and yet these areas are very important. I'm sure many of these places have interesting history associated with them. Most look like they actually have people and even industries working in them (just like the US downtowns). --mav
http://www.fryeisland.com/
Funny, for a town with no population, you wouldn't expect them to have a domain name, 2 ferries, a 9-hole golf course and I bet those town meetings are a REAL snore. Actually, Frye Island is not only a real town, but it is a world famous vacation hotspot drawing in tourists by the hundreds each year from all over the world. In my opinion, not only should Frye Island have an article, that article should be a whole lot better then the one which exists now. Maybe instead of complaining about it you should do some research and give these towns the credit they deserve! Just my $0.02. Robert Lee 09:48 Nov 1, 2002 (UTC)
I agree - these entries need to be improved not removed. --mav
Just for the information, all these entries had the population data (and other data) marked by the census bureau as "Not Applicable" for whatever reason. I don't know if the census bureau changed the way it counts population or if it is an error. The census bureau publishes a large "errata" so it might be in there (I have not looked). If they are wrong, alas, people who know about the places are going to have to update them. -- Ram-Man
Why is the information (which seems to be from tables) not in tabular form? --Juuitchan

When I uploaded the copyrighted Borodin sound sample I wrote about above (under "Copyrighted sound files") I had to check a box that said "I affirm that the copyright holder of this file agrees to license it under the terms of the Wikipedia copyright." Unless I'm wrong, and samples this size are not copyrightable (which I don't think is the case), then I was lying when I checked this box, and so was everybody else when they uploaded sound samples that are probably perfectly OK under fair use. Shouldn't the message on the checkbox be changed? --Camembert 17:37 Nov 3, 2002 (UTC)

I don't know what your talking about with the checkbox, but sound samples of any size are copywritable. [1] makes for good reading. And as for "Fair Use", [2] is also good reading. There is no easy way to calculate the amount of a work you can distribute without violating the law. By distributing any of the work, you open yourself up for a lawsuit. A judge then decides whether or not you were in violation. Robert Lee

One also needs to avoid copyright paranoia. Common sense goes a long way when dealing with fair use. There are also a lot of steps to be taken before it gets to a judge. Eclecticology 22:10 Nov 3, 2002 (UTC)

All day today, typing in wikipedia.org has brought me straight to the Dutch Wikipedia. English is the one and only language in my browser's (IE5.1Mac) preferences. It's really kinda jarring, though I'm starting to learn dutch (starting with hoofdpagina). Netscape 4.75 does the same thing, and google and yahoo both show me English. Is anybody else having this problem? Tokerboy 09:28 Nov 6, 2002 (UTC)

I messed up the apache configuration; that mod_rewrite's a canine female to confiure just so. Should be fixed now. --Brion 09:44 Nov 6, 2002 (UTC)
It does. Thanks, Brion Tokerboy 09:50 Nov 6, 2002 (UTC)

Could someone with a fast connection zip through the chains pages on Orders of magnitude/Temp, to check they each connect to their neighbours? These need checking before we replace the old OofM page. -- Tarquin 11:52 Nov 6, 2002 (UTC)

Attributed articles now ?

What's the story on the external links in PUCCAMP, please? The images and info are great, although I don't like having pictures before any text, and it needs to be put into complete sentences, but I'm a little dubious of having a foreign-language link without mentioning that it is on the article page, and I'm a lot dubious about the link to the contributor's résumé -- since when are our articles signed? -- isis 01:30 Nov 8, 2002 (UTC)

I've removed the signature to the talk page, and mentioned that the site is in Portugeuse. --Camembert

Why keep it on the talk page? It's already on that user's user page, and we can get there from the history. Do we all get to put our links on the talk pages of articles now? Is that only for the new ones we start, or is that for ones we edit, too? Only major edits, or minor ones, too, like the ones I only put an image in? And am I restricted to linking it to my résumé, or can I link it to my entry in Who's Who in America, too? -- isis 07:15 Nov 8, 2002 (UTC)

Well look, if you want to remove it from the talk page, then do so, it won't bother me. And if you want to try adding links to the talk page of everything you edit, then try it and see what happens (my guess is they'll be removed if it's done en masse rather than just on one ocassion by a newcomer who doesn't know better). --Camembert

I wasn't going by the newbie's putting it there: I was going by User:Chris mahan's ratifying it and your keeping it on the 'talk' page, and now we have mav saying it's okay to have attributions on the 'talk' page. I am surprised at that (as you must be, given your prediction such postings would be removed), because I thought the 'talk' page was for discussions about the subject of the article and 'user' pages were for claiming credit for articles, but the only way I'm going to learn is by asking. -- isis 15:01 Nov 8, 2002 (UTC)

No, you can also "observe a lot by watching" as Yogi Berra might say (see Yogiisms). --Ed Poor
Normally, I would just remove the credit altogether rather than put it on talk (in fact I have done this a couple of times just now) - what can I say, I'm fickle. Personally, I probably wouldn't move article credits from the talk page (there are better things to be doing), but others might. I think there are some cases where we have copyright clearance to use something, and that goes on the talk page - such credits shouldn't be removed, of course. Otherwise, I don't think it's a very big deal - I can't speak for others. --Camembert

Bug Report I could put this on source forge, but then we would not be able to comment without registering with a 3rd party. Anyways: Portland, Maine displays super-wide on Win2k/IE6 sometimes. I have to refresh a bunch of times to get the page to bounce back to normal width. There is nothing that should ever be wide on that page. And other articles do this (like some chess pages). Does anyone know why? Is this IE6 or Wikipedia? I assume its just IE6, but its quite annoying and most internet users use IE6 (appox 97% of netizens use Internet Explorer 6.0). Robert Lee

If it only does it sometimes, it sounds like an IE6 bug. I haven't seen such behavior on IE5.5, nor Mozilla. (However the obscenely large images need to be made smaller, or it's going to be always too wide for a lot of people.) Also note that articles with tables that are set to "width=100%" are guaranteed to be too wide in Internet Explorer. Workaround: don't do that. --Brion 02:13 Nov 10, 2002 (UTC)

This town ain't big enough for both of us

The user name "Throbbing Monster Cock" is overtly offensive, and I am ashamed to be part of Wikipedia whenever it crops up on 'recent changes.' I know only one remedy, so I'm taking it. If that user name ever goes away, I'd appreciate it if someone would e-mail me thru my user page and let me know, so I can come back. Thanks, y'all -- it's been fun. -- isis 02:03 Nov 10, 2002 (UTC)

Enjoy your newfound free time. :) --Brion 02:13 Nov 10, 2002 (UTC)
Great. Not only is TMC trolling about, he's driven a valued contributor away. -- Tarquin 09:18 Nov 10, 2002 (UTC)

I have many many questions about some nifty new images that I'm able to generate for every county in the state. Rather than ask those questions here, I'm asking them on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. Counties page. Any input would be appreciated. -- Thanks, RobLa 02:26 Nov 10, 2002 (UTC)

Integrating Two Integrative Sites

Hi, I'm the webmaster and principal author of the Integration Website http://noosphere.cc. A fascinating thrill went through me when I discovered the Wikipedia Website and the Wiki Websites System in general.

The similarity in the purpose of this site and Wikipedia is striking: both sites aim at constructing, by open Internet cooperation, a thesaurus of integrative knowledge. Still, there are two differences: (1) the Wikipedia site uses an automated software, allowing visitors to edit existing pages online, while this site is manually edited, and (2) the Integration site features an advanced concept of integrative editing, while the Wiki system is described as "a collaborative project to produce a free and complete encyclopedia", and uses the "open content" paradigm. Although the Open Content approach is completely compatible with the Integration approach, the latter goes further because (1) it proposes a series of explicit editing rules (while the Wiki context is much more permissive, and its rules are more intuitive and inspired by common sense), and because (2) this Integration concept assumes that by respecting these rules, if adequately applied, a degree of plausibility probably comparable to scientific certitude can be reached.

As I describe in the Future of this Site page, integration with such an integrative site as Wikipedia will be sought. In a first stage I'll try to add progressively our contents to the Wikipedia site. If, for some reasons yet to discover, this kind of integration proves impossible, we'll try to start up a new Wiki-like site, or introduce the Wiki software into this site.

Any comments? Kris Roose 10 Nov 2002, 14.30 CET

Okay, dumb question time. Either I can't find the answer, or (& I hope this is not the case), no one has addressed this problem.

  • How do recover a password I have forgotten?

I took a quick look thru my email archives, & I never received a welcoming email from wikipedia, so I don't have it recorded there. And I forgot to write it down when I registered.

Many forums (e.g. Slashdot), have a process for emailling your password to your own email address, which provides for a secure way of recovering it. I don't know if Wikipedia has anything like this ... or if I have to email someone to get this information. -- llywrch 18:13 Nov 10, 2002 (UTC)

There is such a process on the log-in page at the bottom Fredbauder 18:34 Nov 10, 2002 (UTC)

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Village_pump_archive_2004-09-26&oldid=417064"