Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)

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4000metres = ?

On several different airport pages, 4000 metres mean several different things. It sometimes states 13120ft, 13123ft, yet i've gotten 13124 on my calulator using 1*3.281. Which is the most correct? It is very confusing...

The actual conversion from meters to feet is 1 foot = .3048 meters [1]. Multiplying meters by 3.281 is an approximation to this (1/.3048 is actually 3.280839895013, more or less). Using this as the conversion factor, I get 13123.359580052 (which rounds to 13123). However, if we're counting significant digits, 4000 only has 4, so using only 4 digits for the answer yields 13120. -- Rick Block (talk) 02:48, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Well actually, 4000 only has one significant digit. It depends on the context, if someone is talking about a 4000m race, for example, then we know that it's 'exactly' 4000m and so an accurate conversion is more appropriate, whereas if 4000m means "nearer to 4000m than it is to 3000m or 5000m" then something more crude would be OK. On an airport page I would expect 4000m to meane "at least 4000m" as it's probably talking about runway length and you wouldn't want to be overestimating their length! You could always remove the imperial measurement. MikesPlant 13:05, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Beware - there is more than one definition for 'foot'. In the US, there is a "surveyors foot" which is still in common use - and a different definition of the foot prior to 1959(!). From the GNU 'units' program data file:

"The US Metric Law of 1866 gave the exact relation 1 meter = 39.37 inches. From 1893 until 1959, the foot was exactly 1200|3937 meters. In 1959 the definition was changed to bring the US into agreement with other countries. Since then, the foot has been exactly 0.3048 meters. At the same time it was decided that any data expressed in feet derived from geodetic surveys within the US would continue to use the old definition."

Notice that last bit...*MANY* existing US GIS data sources (maps and airport runway data) are still using the surveyor's foot - and lots of references pre-date the 1959 (or even the 1866) laws and have "non-metric" feet (isn't that an odd phrase!). Then of course in non-US countries, the laws changed at different times with differing intermediate definitions. Hence it should come as no surprise that everything is a horrible mess! SteveBaker 19:53, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

But the difference is small - 1 200 / 3 937 = 0.30480061 So for a 4000 m runway, that is either 13,123.3333 ft for the old definition or 13,123.3596 for the new definition, ignoring sig. digits. For most applications this is within measurement uncertainty. --BenBurch 00:51, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

you can use google search to convert. but i just tried it. it didn't work this time. how strange. i used to be able to enter a number, then it will convert it to metric system. anyone knows the proper way to use google search to convert? SummerThunder 12:57, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Type your query in the search box so it looks like this: 4000 metres in feet. Tra (Talk) 13:12, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

oh, yes. that is good. i didn't know that. i don't know the standard way to do it. so once in a while, google will give me the result, other times, it won't. SummerThunder 21:41, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Angel Diaz Nieves

What do we do with this redirect?

—Nethac DIU, would never stop to talk here—
17:13, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't see any reason to do anything with it. Is there a problem with it? Does something need to be done with it? ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)} 17:33, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

You could nominate it for deletion. I don't see any reason why someone would switch those two words. Then again, it doesn't really take up that much space. Xiner 18:17, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

My understanding of Iberian naming customs leads me to believe that it would be very likely someone might switch the words.~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)} 21:29, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Accusations of bigamy

In the article on former Scientology leader Mark Rathbun he seems to stand accused of bigamy by Barbara Schwarz. I have excused myself from editing the article. Steve Dufour 16:43, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

You might want to post your concerns at Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard. User:Zoe|(talk) 18:36, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I have done that. Steve Dufour 23:24, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

• What is wrong with bigamy? I wish I could aford it!One to cook, one to look after the kids, one to do the housework and one for …. Well, you know!

Kiumars

Checking your spelling? - DavidWBrooks 21:35, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I have spelled out at Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard#Mark Rathbun why Mr. Dufour's report is false, but to briefly discuss it here: Barbara Schwarz says absolutely nothing about Mark Rathbun being a bigamist. She claims that she was married to Mark Rathbun and Mr. Dufour is combining that with his own beliefs that Mr. Rathbun was married to someone else to arrive at the (false) conclusion that Schwarz "seems to be" alleging Rathbun to be bigamous.

I think it goes without saying that this logic is shoddy. Under this logic, suddenly it's a WP:BLP matter to mention anything that is not agreed by any living person. "John Smith says he was born in 1965, but biographer Richard Roe says he was actually born in 1960." "Well, by saying something different from John Smith, Richard Roe seems to be calling John Smith a liar! I'm reporting it to WP:BLP as 'Richard Roe calls John Smith a liar!'" It is a fact of life that people sometimes have conflicting accounts of events. Wikipedia's policy, at least the last time I checked, was for editors to accurately report the various conflicting accounts -- not to decide their own way of resolving the conflicts (whether it be "Richard Roe is accusing John Smith of lying" or "Barbara Schwarz is accusing Mark Rathbun of bigamy") and trying to use WP:BLP to get rid of accurate reporting of the various conflicting accounts. -- Antaeus Feldspar 01:39, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

In your example if Richard Roe could back up his claim that John Smith was really born in 1960 then that would imply that John was a lair. If it was just a random opinion then it shouldn't be in a WP article. Steve Dufour 06:48, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

So, you're saying that instead of accurately reporting the various conflicting accounts, it is the right and responsibility of editors to decide their own way of resolving the conflicts and then eliminating whatever doesn't fit their "resolution". Do you really actually believe things are that neat -- i.e., either Wikipedia editors can satisfy themselves that John Smith really was born in 1960 (through first-hand research, I suppose?) or no other possibility may be breathed of? -- Antaeus Feldspar 06:59, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

If Barbara could present some evidence that it might be possible that she and Mark were married then her theories could be included in Mark's article, otherwise it is just the opinion of one person out of the six billion in the world. BTW in her own article, Barbara Schwarz the theories are presented - which is fine with me if you think she is important enough to have a WP bio. Steve Dufour 17:03, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

But this has nothing to do with the main issue, which is your claim that Barbara Schwarz "seems to be saying" that Rathbun is a bigamist, which as we have already seen is a completely false claim. I do hope you realize it's not acceptable Wikipedia behavior to make false reports just in order to get your complaints about an article on a noticeboard. -- Antaeus Feldspar 02:40, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

The article reports him being married to Anne and then it reports Barbara's saying that he was married to her. If both are true then he would have been a bigamist. Steve Dufour 06:52, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

But this has nothing to do with the main issue, which is your claim that Barbara Schwarz "seems to be saying" that Rathbun is a bigamist, which as we have already seen is a completely false claim. I do hope you realize it's not acceptable Wikipedia behavior to make false reports just in order to get your complaints about an article on a noticeboard. -- Antaeus Feldspar 19:32, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

An agreement had been reached but someone wasn't happy with it so he reverted the article back so that both Anne and Barbara are listed as possible wives of Mark. Steve Dufour 14:43, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Template windowHome

I created a new template based on an Italian Wikipedia template that I think it could be useful. You can see it in my own page User:Dejudicibus, whereas the tempalte itself is in Template:windowHome. Here is an example:

Wikied world

We got alphabetical writing from India or the Middle East, then the Greek miracle, after that the Chinese empire where from most inventions came for 2000 years; somewhere in between we find Arabic math. Then the Renaissance, Enlightment and 3 industrial revolutions. And now we have WIKIPEDIA.

Currency Conversion Template

Template:NZDCurrencyConversion I was editing Lotteries in New Zealand and it occured to me that many English speakers (myself included) would not know the value of a New Zealand Dollar, and so would be hampered in their understanding of the article's content. I suspect there are many articles which frequently refer to amounts of currency not familiar to most English speakers.

I developed Template:CurrencyConversion, a template with parameters to quote the value of a currency unit in US$, GBP and AUS$, as well as a last update parameter. While probably not useful as an up-to-the-minute tool, it could be used to give a rough indication of the magnitude of values quoted in an article with reasonable accuracy.

To the right is the template in action for the New Zealand Dollar, from the Daughter Template Template:NZDCurrencyConversion. What do people think? I haven't added this to any articles, so please improve it mercilessly. -- LukeSurl 00:29, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Three thoughts: 1) It may have some usefulness and I encourage such innovation, so I suggest trying it out by being bold and putting it into a couple of medium-traffic articles and see what kind of reaction a road-test gets. 2) Such templates need to be as compact as possible and I think it might be possible to compact yours a bit more, perhaps by using a smaller image with a single line of currencies and compacting the text into fewer lines and fewer characters. There is a plethora of infoboxes and templates appearing on Wikipedia and pages risk being crowded. 3) In the long run it might be interesting for people to be able to set a currency preference and have automatic conversions appear beside the given currency in an article, analogous to the way date presentation is a preference iteme. Hu 09:32, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps the actual data could be kept in the template somehow, and updated by a bot. -- Jmax- 12:41, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Hey, I don't think I'll be on Wikipedia for about a week, so please take this on "without me" LukeSurl 02:43, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

I think it is very useful in some articles that are generally about economics or finance. The graphic on top is distracting, though. It would be much more useful if updates could be made to the template itself. Does anyone know how to write such a thing?

Just speaking off of the top of my head, a time parameter would be awesome, so one could specify inputtime=1910 and outputtime=now, and actually see what a 1910 New Zealand dollar is in today's currency. (I read lines in historical biographies like "He was paid $2 an hour", and have no idea if that is good or bad.) The wiki may have all of this info somewhere; otherwise, it would have to be pulled by bot off Yahoo currency converter or somewhere with historical conversion charts. Cheers, BanyanTree 19:16, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I've seen this latter thing suggested before, but the problem is that historical conversions are an art, not a science - there are three or four ways of calculating "the equivalent value" of a historic sum, which can differ by well over an order of magnitude; the appropriate one to use depends heavily on the context, on the amount of the sum, and potentially what the original figure is referring to. It's a good-sounding idea, but I honestly believe it would end up giving us completely meaningless figures at least as often as it would give us useful ones, without any obvious way to tell users which it was putting out. Shimgray | talk | 19:05, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

• I support such a template if it's compact and automatically hidden, but I still recommend people to look on exchange sites or Google if they really don't know. - Mgm|^(talk) 12:59, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

An improvement for Page Watchers

I'm unsure how this might be implemented, but it might be nice to have a way for all those "watching" a given page to communicate, or even to KNOW how many others are "watchers" of a particular page at any given time. Dec. 30, 2006 - frankatca

If you're watching a page, you're also watching its talk page, so simply posting on the talk page would get the relevant people's attention. As for knowing the number of watchers, I've asked this question before, and the answer given was that this would simply encourage vandals to vandalize less-watched pages. -- ran (talk) 19:33, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Admins can find out if a page has nobody watching it. Letting anyone have that info is giving vandals too much help. Perhaps it would help to let admins see how many watchers there are, rather than just if there are none, but I'm not sure how useful it would be. --Tango 21:39, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

My guess is that the majority of pages have a significant number of people watching them, and that a single line in the header (or at the foot of the page) like: XX people now maintain the quality of this page. would inspire greater confidence in the quality of the Wikipedia and would deter at least some vandals. I propose this changed be implemented first on, say, 10 or 50 (random) pages on a trial basis for, say 60 days, and see what happens. If it proves not to be a benefit, then scrub it. Frankatca 22:24, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

However, a lot of pages will say "0 people now maintain the quality of this page", and those will become vandal magnets very quickly. -- ran (talk) 22:25, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

A simple trial on a few pages with a variety of watcher counts will soon show what works and what doesn't. Then we'll know, and can make an informed choice. Yes? Frankatca 22:51, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I agree that it's possible, though I'm just a simple sysop and has no jurisdiction over this. =) I suggest asking at WP:VPP or WP:VPT where there might be more people involved in the technical aspect of things. Be sure to link back to this discussion as well. -- ran (talk) 22:53, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Beyond the fact that knowing a page is unwatched encourages vandalism, knowing a page is watched doesn't give you much information on its quality. Not only are there many things on my watch list that I don't always keep careful track of, but there are many pages being watched only by inactive users. Just because a page is on someone's (or even many people's) watch list doesn't really tell you much about its accuracy. In the vain of getting information about active watcher of articles, the {{maintained}} template was created. I don't think it's being widely used, however. --best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 00:14, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Not only that but it doesn't matter whether users are active or not. I'm fairly active on wikipedia nowadays. I also occasionally do some RC patrolling of pages manually and I do usually revert vandalism on sight and warn vandals (which sadly not many people do). I also have quite a number of pages on my watchlist. But I don't do RC patrolling of my watchlist, indeed I very rarely visit it. I use it more as a bookmark function Nil Einne 02:55, 1 January 2007 (NZDT UTC+13)

Holy crap, I have 86 pages on my watchlist excluding talk pages. Anyway it does demonstrate why it's a bad idea Nil Einne 03:03, 1 January 2007 (NZDT UTC+13)

Happy New Year!

An hour late, but happy new year everyone!!! Nil Einne 01:09, 1 January 2007 (NZDT UTC+13)

Erm...Happy New Year to part of the Pacific Ocean. The rest of us are still in 2006. Durova^Charge! 19:27, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Maybe when I wrote that. But most of the world is now well into the new year. Only a small and insignificant proportion of the world like Americans and some Europeans are still stuck in 2006... :-P Nil Einne 09:15, 1 January 2007 (NZDT UTC+13)

Sniff. I'm still living in last year. Durova^Charge! 01:47, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Happy new 2007, Wikipedia. :) --Ixfd64 08:44, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

What do the numbers mean?

Hi I'm back after a couple of months break and now find that my watchlist now has numbers after edits. What are they? Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 20:09, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

I actually just spotted that today (see above). I think it's the amount of stuff in bytes that was added or removed Nil Einne 09:20, 1 January 2007 (NZDT UTC+13)

Yes I think you may be right! Cheers! Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 20:31, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Just came across a link to this in policy about another matter Wikipedia:Added or removed characters Nil Einne 09:57, 1 January 2007 (NZDT UTC+13)

No male writers?

Why is there a category called: Women writers, but nothing called Male writers? :p —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.212.180.9 (talk • contribs).

• So fix it. Just H 22:04, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia-related weblog comment spam

I saw some screwy-looking weblog comment spam that might lead to trouble for Wikipedia down the road. The comment, here at the physics weblog Not Even Wrong claims to be from a user named Wikipedia and talks about how wonderful Wikipedia is, but the link jumps to a Wikipedia clone site that features banner ads. I assume this is some sort of underhanded attempt to game Google's results and get higher hits, but since it takes Wikipedia's name in vain, I wanted to mention it here. -- Walt Pohl 04:28, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

WP:DENY. Durova^Charge! 07:19, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Translation

Not a comment--I have a question I've already posted on the Village Pump but received no reply. I'm a registered user at both the English and the Hungarian versions of Wikipedia. I'm planning to translate the Donner Party entry (en.Wikipedia), from the English into Hungarian. Although the article is GNU Free, I still may need some special permission. Two more questions, please: how to include the original with my translation, and how to transfer the finished rendering to the Hungarian Wikipedia? Since I'm new at this, I'll appreciate any help I can get. Thank you, Marta 19:07, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

You don't need permission, but you will need to do something to credit the authors of the original article. I'm not sure what the normal way to do that is - linking to the english article (permanent link to the appropriate version) in the edit summary when you create the article on the Hungarian Wikipedia should be enough, I'd expect. If I were you, I would copy and paste the english text (from the "edit the page" textbox, so you get the source code) into a new article on the Hungarian wiki and then start translating it there. You can ask any more questions here - I'll try and find the answers for you. --Tango 23:25, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, Tango. As I mentioned, except for editing text, I'm still an amateur in many ways. For instance: what is a "permanent link," and how to paste the English text into the H. Wiki? Since to translate online is about impossibe (it's a time-consuming process, as I'm sure you know), I printed out the article from the Wiki page; once translated, maybe I can open an entry with the H. editors' help, then type the thing in. Do you think that would work? 23:54, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

" " vs. “ ”

When I joined Wikipedia back in June, the majority of the time I saw " ". Now, I'm seeing more “ ”. While no problems will arise using one of those two, should we have a standardized version to avoid confusion? Sometimes I see both used on the same page. I think we should stick with " " because some people don't have Word or something similar so they can change it to “ ”, but I'm not really sure - The RSJ (Sign my book) (CCD) 22:05, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Interesting... In the header, I can see the difference, in the source code, I can see the difference, but in the parsed paragraph text, both versions look the same... --Tango 23:27, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Look of quotation marks and apostrophes. —Bkell (talk) 23:34, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Encyclopedia of Earth

• • Please see Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Encyclopedia of Earth `'mikka 23:38, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Editor level recognition?

Once upon a time I thought I saw an editor's user page which had a type of WP award/recognition, based on length of time connected with WP and number of edits made. There were a series of these awards/recognitions, depending on length of time and number of edits. It was not a barnstar, but a separate type of recognition. As I recall there were both "serious" names for each rank (editor, senior editor, etc.), and made-up, "silly" names for each rank. Now I can't find those editor level recognitions! Anybody able to steer me in the right direction? NorCalHistory 00:03, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

You're after Wikipedia:Service awards. Not all of the silly names are actually made up though, I think some were from French or something. --tjstrf talk 00:05, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks - Wikipedia:Service awards it is. I guess I didn't mean "silly" - "whimsical" would be a better word. The whimsical names are either made-up or translations of whimsical words from other languages - the creativity that went into these names is appreciated! NorCalHistory 00:10, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

A tale of two editors

This is a tale of editing Wikipedia, that speaks both to the fragility of the everlasting template on Wikipedia, and time travel. For, I removed a {{references}} tag on an article that I myself had added it to six months ago. The article was unchanged.

It was a hot, sunny day in late June. I happened upon an article on a chemist who discovered that helium could be found in plentiful supply in natural gas. There, however, I found that the dates on the article appeared to be wrong. So, I corrected the dates and, seeing that some parts of the article were not reliable, placed a {{references}} tag on it.

Six months later, on a cold, wintry day in early January, I happened upon an article on a chemisty who discovered that helium could be found in plentiful supply in natural gas. There, however, I found a {{references}} tag, despite the article clearly having references and upon reading it there being no indication that the article was inaccurate. So, I removed the {{references}} tag, perplexed at the idiot who would have put it there in the first place.

Clearly, that idiot was me, apparently from the past, but possibly from the future. —Centrx→talk • 01:49, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

It happens. Nobody added the citations between those two edits, and forget to remove the tag? Which article was it, by the way? It sounds interesting. The article on helium doesn't appear to mention the chemist by name. =Axlq 02:00, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Hamilton Cady. —Centrx→talk • 02:10, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Encyclopedia Dramatica

What is this site and what's it about? I looked for an article but it's deleted-protected. Can someone tell me? --AAA! ^(AAAA) 05:21, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

They're the top return on Google for Encyclopedia Dramatica. Why not look for yourself? I prefer Uncyclopedia. Durova^Charge! 07:09, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Um... I think a site filled with shock images would be the last thing I'd want to look at. At least that's what Uncyclopedia says, and I ain't risking it. --AAA! ^(AAAA) 06:39, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Name says it all, actually. A compendium of "knowledge" about internet drama, aka GIANT TROLLFEST. --tjstrf talk 06:46, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

It's kind of blacklisted here for their campaigns to troll wikipedia admins and post embarassing personal information. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 17:00, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Its a really good resource for looking up internet memes (though I'd say Lurkmore's 4chan page is probably better, and Etherchan has a lot of good info also). Other than that, its pretty useless. I would strongly suggest you adblock their image server if you want to browse Dramatica. — Dark Shikari ^talk/_contribs 02:34, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

How do you do that? --AAA! ^(AAAA) 08:07, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Anybody willing to slum it at Myspace?

Image:Barker famous.jpg is tagged as GFDL and says that it comes from Travis Barker's MySpace page. I really doubt Barker has heard of the GFDL to license anything under it, but I can't check his "photos" section to verify because I don't have a MySpace account. Anyone with an account care to verify that: 1) the image is there and 2) there's something close to a copyright release? –  Anþony  talk  18:42, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

It's there ([2]), but there's no caption with it or any text at all, much less a copyright release. --Masamage 05:16, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Class project?

I teach a seminar in American legal history, and am thinking of inviting the students (usually about 20) to prepare or edit a Wikipedia entry, observing Wikipedia standards for citation, etc., in lieu of writing one of the two required papers. The course centers on questions of citizenship and rights, and the students are asked to do research on a topic of their own choosing, within the outline of the course. I am new to Wikipedia myself but would try to help ensure adherence to standards and policies. Would this create any problems? I can imagine that such projects could become a tool in edit wars or spamming, but I encourage students to find their own perspective and do their own research, so they would be as diverse as any other editors. Thoughts? Sheldon Novick 20:46, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

I recently read a Wikipedia Signpost article about this type of activity: Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2006-12-26/Wikipedia and academia. Apparently, there is a also a Wikipedia page dealing with this, as mentioned in the article: Wikipedia:School and university projects.--GregRM 22:24, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that's a very good article. Here's a direct link to the Wikipedia:School and university projects page. I'm a sysop with about 12,000 edits and I'd be glad to follow up on the idea. Post questions to my user talk page through the link in my signature. Welcome to Wikipedia. Durova^Charge! 22:53, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Welcome to wikipedia. Let me also volunteer to help out. My partner recently had her students research wikipedia pages, finding alternative sources which confirmed (or in one case, contradicted) the things said on wikipedia. They then added their sources to wikipedia for extra credit. This project is detailed here and the instructions for students are here. Let me know if you have any questions or need any help. --best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 00:24, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Sandbox

(bought this up here as the Sandbox talk page gets blanked automatically)

Why is the Sandbox called the Sandbox? I assume it's a reference to a Sandpit, but the word Sandbox doesn't appear to be very common outside the US. Wouldn't something like 'Test Area', 'Test Page' or 'Practice Editing Here' make more sense? MrBeast 21:18, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't know for sure, but I'd bet on Sandbox (software development) as the source of the name. BryanG^(talk) 01:08, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Which is itself derived from the American term for the child's play area. Sandbox actually gets more hits on Google than sandpit, incidentally. –  Anþony  talk  01:16, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

I'd bet that both terms share a common source --froth^{T C} 05:08, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Bar on top

The bar at the top of Wikipedia has a green line that is getting longer. The money is almost $844,000 as of when I type this. What number will it stop at and what will Wikipedia be like when it is finished?? Georgia guy 01:35, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

The goal is $1.5M. As for what Wikipedia will be like, you might be interested in http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fundraising_FAQ. -- Rick Block (talk) 04:22, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

GFDL Question

If I release my work under the GFDL for Wikipedia to publish and then the article is deleted from Wikipedia and people are restricted from viewing it (non-admins), wouldn't it be a clear violation of the terms of the GFDL? Here's the relevant text:

You may not use
technical measures to obstruct or control the reading or further
copying of the copies you make or distribute.

I'm sure that people have looked at this before but I don't know how that could possibly be explained away. This seems like a blatant violation on Wikipedia's part and we seriously need to implement some kind of function to archive deleted pages.

--froth^{T C} 04:23, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Once deleted, the text is no longer being distributed to the persons who cannot read it. The persons who can read it have no technical measure obstructing them from reading or copying it. This provision of the GFDL was designed to counter a kind of software poorly called "Digital Rights Management" or DRM, and is to prevent someone from taking GFDL text and distributing it or a derivative work under a file format that can only be read by software that disallows copying or has time limits or iteration limits on reading. —Centrx→talk • 05:27, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Ah thank you for untangling that for me, it makes much more sense now. Thanks --froth^{T C} 07:32, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Scotish Wikipedia

I came across this, the other day. Is it actually a genuine Scot's version of Wikipedia, or is it a parody? Not being a native speaker of the Scot's tongue, or laid, it's kind of hard to tell.

I trust that there will soon be versions of Wikipedia available in Pig Latin, Osakan, and Capitol Hill press release speak. I'd also be interested in contributing to the west-coast hip-hop version if one is made.

perfectblue 12:24, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

It's an actual language, you can read about it here. Tra (Talk) 13:27, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

So, it's a real wiki, not a pet project?

perfectblue 18:31, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, if you consider simple English and all those variants of Chinese to be dialects, then we do indeed support some dialects with their own Wikis. Personally I want a complicated English Wikipedia where only a specialist in the article field can even figure out what it's about. --tjstrf talk 17:59, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

"all those variants of Chinese""

Sore spot alert. One day, I might sit down explain this calmly and rationally. But for now I'll settle for fuming about people not knowing things that they couldn't reasonably be expected to know.

perfectblue 18:31, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Umm..... you were the one who first compared Scots to Pig Latin and Capitol Hill press release speak. Scots:English :: Wu:Mandarin is a pretty apt analogy, especially compared to Scots:English :: Pig Latin:English. -- ran (talk) 20:06, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I know about the reasoning behind the Chinese divisions, actually. But I also know it is a subject of complaint, and it was the first example that sprung to mind. --tjstrf talk 20:00, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

To be brief, some of this is a political tag, rather than an anthropological etc tag. In some cases it only really means that something is within reach of the currently Mainland Chinese government. For example, some Chinese dialects aren't descended from Chinese, and some ethnic Chinese people aren't actually ethnically Chinese save for a bit of cross breeding over the years. It's kind of like calling a Native American language a dialect of English, but here isn't really the correct place to debate the matter.

perfectblue 08:38, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

You mean the postmodern:Wikipedia? Argyriou (talk) 19:05, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Maybe we could move all the knowledge management articles over there. Or "initiate a differential locational shift of the knowledge management textual paradigms" if you prefer. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 19:53, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I think it's a little silly. Given that the differences between Scots and English are almost entirely in orthography and pronounciation, I think some kind of automatic machine translation (much like the Cyrillic/Latin transliteration that sr: does) would make all of en-wiki available in Scots.

There are quite a few Wikipedias in languages that are a bit questionable with few or no native speakers. We've got several languages that are minor variants like Scots, dead languages like Latin and Gothic (only about 500 pages of written Gothic text still exist), and at least three made up "international" languages. At some point there was even a Klingon Wikipedia, but someone thought better of it and locked the database. –  Anþony  talk  19:46, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Latin Wiki has 10,000 pages, and for a "dead language" I'd say it's pretty decently active[3]. Plus Latin is inherently cool. --tjstrf talk 20:11, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia's not about to revive Latin as a spoken language. Pick a random talk page on the Latin Wikipedia and it's almost all in English. It's an academic exercise that doesn't seem to have a real purpose beyond being able to say it's been done ("cool", as you say), no different than Klingon or pig-latin. –  Anþony  talk  21:27, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

You're going to be lynched by Latin Honor Society members, you know. - DavidWBrooks 21:52, 4 January 2007 (UTC) (and, as long as we're indulging personal preferences, I'd say that anybody with one of those obnoxiously distracting color signatures can't complain too loudly about other folks' wiki-practices)

Latin at least helps you understand English and ancient literature better. I personally wish they'd focus more on the Latin Wiktionary, but that's just me. --tjstrf talk 08:44, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

You think Latin is at all similar to Klingon or Pig Latin? —Centrx→talk • 10:04, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

To reply to the original post, the second introductory paragraph of Scots language explains this pretty well. It's actually an open question whether Scots is a dialect of English or a separate language. Perhaps if Elizabeth I of England had borne children we wouldn't even hold this conversation because Scotland and England would still be different countries and the distinction would seem as natural as the one we make for Norwegian and Swedish (which are also very similar). This makes me want to rent Trainspotting and see whether it carries subtitles. I certainly didn't understand half the dialog when I saw its theatrical release. Durova^Charge 01:44, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Scots as a language fails the Weinreich criterion, but if Wikipedia enforced that, we'd have to get rid of a lot of languages. Argyriou (talk) 18:02, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

At least here in the US, Trainspotting carries some subtitles. And a damn good thing, too. - DavidWBrooks 14:06, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Shame, really

Torchic: a featured article on such a useless subject. When did Wikipedia go wrong?

Every article should be of featured quality. That some editors like to edit article about what you and I both consider to be silly fictional cartoon characters is fine - they're not paid to work here. Hipocrite - «Talk» 22:56, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

It goes wrong every time someone decides to complain about things like this rather than put some work into getting "useful" articles featured. We're a community, and we're only as good as we make ourselves. --Masamage

It decided to let anybody edit the pages rather than only a tight group of snobby intellectuals. Oh wait, that's a good thing. --tjstrf talk 01:51, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

No, the problem with this article is it does not have reliable sources. —Centrx→talk • 10:05, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

I see a reference to the Pokémon Ruby game; reliable source problem for all the major data solved. Simple fiction is not subjective, ergo canonical information from it regarding itself is by definition the most reliable source of data you could possibly acquire. --tjstrf talk 10:30, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Which is the major reason why articles about fictional subjects are so easy to write—which, in turn, is the major reason why Pokémon articles continue to get featured, and ancient wars don't. They're just so much easier to research. --Masamage 10:34, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Yep. Where a war requires the careful balancing of sources, may be discoloured by legend, and you have to deal with the POVs of the war survivors who often write about them, Pokemon is a subject with no reliability problems what so ever. In fact, if we were to cite some sort of outside "Pokemon expert" for the basic data about the Pokemon, we would actually be reducing our reliability because we would have introduced a needless layer of human error. An outside "Pokemon expert" would be useful for information that is not readily available from the games themselves, but really, canon meets WP:RS. --tjstrf talk 10:40, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

We could also make extremely accurate articles about vital records and the census, or about every single character that ever appeared even for a minute on every single television show, movie, etc. You cannot create an encyclopedia article on such a subject. An encyclopedia article must have commentary about how the character fits into the story arc, how it fits into the history of the genre, how it offsets or aligns thematically with other characters, etc. You need independent sources for that. An article that is so simple that it could be duplicated by only playing the game is not an encyclopedia article at all. —Centrx→talk • 10:54, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

That would be an accurate source for "Torchic in the Pokemon Ruby game", but characteristics of fictional characters are often different depending on what show, game, etc. you look at. Also, without reliable sources independent of a game the article can have no reliable commentary. The article is simply a plodding account of things that have been mentioned passingly, sourced to unreviewed websites, and if a suddenly a new game comes out that changes its characteristics, all the vapid statements in the article like "Torchic is the only Fire-type Pokémon" and "There are seventeen different Pokémon types" (which is probably repeated verbatim in several dozen other Pokemon articles), "Most Torchic cards are typical, basic Pokémon cards", etc. —Centrx→talk • 10:48, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Although entries about fictional things are usually quite easy to write as their entire description and chronology is laid out for you in the words of its creator, I've seen some nasty arguments before when dealing with fictional characters or concepts. often one user demands that all potentially subjective material be removed under WP:OR unless it can be verified through an independent third party source (the equivalent somebody asking for a pier reviewed journal entry validating an urban myth as being accurate, when all you are trying to do is prove that the myth exists), and one editor says "I saw it in an episode, so it must be true", then another editor pops up and deletes any specialized language that wasn't specifically used in a particular episode on the grounds that it is a neologism. It can get very nasty.

perfectblue 11:30, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Polo Montañez

The past few days I have been working on the Polo Montañez article and I have expanded it considerably yet it is still considered a stub. Polo Montañez was only famous for about 2 years before he died so there is not much that can be written about him. How can I make this stub into an article?

Expand it! For instance, create a Biography section about his life. Expand on his works. Cite sources for why he is considered relevant. Treat it almost as if you were writing a paper about his life and influential works. -- Kesh 18:40, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Your participation is invited in a Peer Review

At Wikipedia:Peer review/Controlled demolition hypothesis for the collapse of the World Trade Center the editors who have been refining the article have requested a Peer Review. This is a process open to any editor to contrinute. Please visit the review page and decide whether you wish to review the article and give feedback. Fiddle Faddle 16:31, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

REPORTING VANDALISM

WHILST BROWSING YOUR SITE I FOUND THAT IN THE ARTICLE REGARDING NELSON MANDELA THERE IS A VERY RUDE PICTURE OF MALE GENITALS IN THE PLACE OF HIS PHOTO YOU DONT HAVE A FAULT REPORTING LINK SO I TRY TO REPORT IT VIA THIS LINK HOPE YOU CAN CHANGE IT YOURS THANKFULLY ARMAND JOUBERT (rm email and phone number) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 196.30.245.149 (talk) 04:06, 6 January 2007 (UTC).

story thingie

Hi! Living at the nl wikipedia most of the time, this is my first post in your lovely village pump. I didn't know where else to go and maybe one of you can help me. I have this funny story over at nl (nl:Gebruiker:Venullian/Aanvulverhaal, though it will not make a lot of sense to you as it's in Dutch), where each person may post no more than 10 words and then have to wait for the next person to come along. I got the idea from someone who saw it at the en wikipedia, which would be here. Stupidly enough, I didn't interwiki link, and now we all forgot who that user was and where his story is. Is it still alive? Does anybody know about it? Venullian 16:19, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Is this it? Tra (Talk) 17:08, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

No I don't think so, it was in somebody's user namespace like mine is. it's more like one big story and everybody adds words to it. It ends up not making sence at all (but it's funny nevertheless)... Venullian 17:24, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

In that case, it would be a lot harder to find, since there are many user subpages to look through. Can you remember anything at all about the user, or about the way the page was named, or about some of the content of the stories there? Tra (Talk) 17:33, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

No not really... that's why I thought I'd ask it here, in case it would ring a bell with anyone reading this :s Venullian 20:52, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Linkspam up this week - keep watch

Link spam, the addition of links to external sites to increase search engine ranking, is up this week. See 64.74.62.136 (talk · contribs) and Blathering1 (talk · contribs) for examples. Watch for links to "http://www.fxwords.com", which is a phony glossary site full of ads. --John Nagle 18:19, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

You can get a list of links on Wikipedia to this website at Special:Linksearch. Tra (Talk) 18:35, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

It just seems to be a bunch of links that don't go anywhere. Can someone reconfirm this and I'll go ahead and remove the whole lot. --Spartaz 20:21, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, they're all links to a spam farm. Delete them. Related domains are "forextradingllc.com" and "gocurrency.com", all of which exist to get Yahoo and Google advertising clicks. See their ad rates and traffic statistics here. --John Nagle 21:12, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Put a note on "Administrator's Message Board" asking for a link block for those sites. --John Nagle 21:35, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Good-bye clowns: U.S Feds stop propagandizing on Wikipedia. You're not wanted here. half trillion $ annual budget can't defend us from 19 guys with box-cutters 'cause you waste too much time here

Comparing JzG/Guy to MONGO is not a very effective defense

MONGO was one of the most notoriously uncivil administrators on record. MONGO would block editors he was engaging in disputes with; often work in teams to block other editors; and actually promoted and continues to promote incivility on Wikipedia. The repeated use of the term troll is a personal attack. MONGO thinks everyone disagreeing with MONGO is a troll. As far as Wikipedia policy is concerned that's the same as going around referring to everyone disagreeing with a particular admin is a "fuckhead". They're both personal attacks and they're both violations of Wikipedia policy. If someone is making obvious bad faith edits than simply say those are bad faith edits. There's no need to call them a "troll" or a "fuckhead". MONGO may make constructive edits in the area of US national parks (I don't know). However, in the politically centered articles MONGO works on there is nothing constructive about his edits whatsoever. So don't invoke MONGO as a defense of JzG. That's just condemning JzG unfairly. Judge JzG on JzG's own merits or demerits. --24.148.91.147 22:00, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Flexing administrative muscle creates more disruption than it ever solves

Go around (like MONGO and apparently JzG) flexing your administrative muscle along with making personal attacks and exuding incivility doesn't solve problems with so-called trolls and disruption. It only creates trolls and disruption. Take the Cplot sockpuppets as an example. MONGO did everything wrong in his interactions with Cplot. MONGO blocked Cplot just to show that he could. MONGO's cohorts then supported the block without showing any wrong-doing on Cplot's part. What did this do? It created the disruption of the Cplot sockpuppets. So simply because MONGO wanted to show off how he can use an administrative bit, Wikipedia now has to endure the unending,, eternal, relentless attack of the Cplot sockpuppets. These sockpuppets can never be blocked and they want to show you that. Sure you can remove their comments, but since most experienced editors browser through the history, that does nothing. MONGO's flexing of muscle has placed an undue burden on every other admin on Wikipedia. There's no net benefit from having MONGO here on Wikipedia. --24.148.91.147 22:00, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

A horrible double-standard that only creates more discontent than it could ever solve

This thread represents an endless discussion over whether JzG should be blocked for obvious incivility and obvious personal attacks (as well as obviously abusing admin tools by blocking someone JzG was in a dispute with). Yet other editors get blocked without almost no discussion. I'm not talking about obvious vandals, I'm talking about the unfortunate editors who find themselves on the opposite end of a dispute with MONGO of JzG. Those editors get blocked without cause and without any discussion (except meatpuppet support from MONGO/JzG allies).. No one ever reminds the other admins: "remember we do not block as punishment, but only prevention". For example, the only cause ever cited for blocking Cplot was beginning to create a new category (and also saying Cplot and MONGO should kiss and makeup as part of an apology; I guess that's less civil than calling MONGO a "useless twat"? I'll let Cplot know that's the right approach once Cplot's unblocked). I mean try to picture that. Imagine another editor with a few edits or nearly 1,000 edits over 6 months like CPlot. Imagine such an editor saying to an admin "fuck off you useless twat". How many of the usual suspects here would be arguing: "well I don't think the word twat is really uncivil". And "maybe this editor has had a bad day at the office." I'll give you a hing: NONE OF THEM! I don't think the policy should be changed. I think administrators should consider their responsibilities as placing a greater burden on themselves than on other editors. If anything greater civility should be expected from admins than other editors. We should expect an admin to never make a personal attack (what's so hard about that). These are not in person, verbal interactions. One has to type something and hit "submit". Clearly there's time for someone like MONGO or JzG to reflect and decide: "You know what, I'm being an asshole and behaving in a manner unbecoming an administrator. I'm not going to hit submit until I fix this." Over and out. --24.148.91.147 22:00, 6 January 2007 (UTC)