Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)

The miscellaneous section of the village pump is used to post messages that do not fit into any other category. Please try to post within policy, technical, proposals or assistance rather than here. For general knowledge questions, please use the reference desk.

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Placing address in an article

I'll make this short. Can a user place an address or a list of addresses in his/her articles? If it's not allowed which rule's applied? Thanks in advance. Kurniasan (talk) 07:19, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

When you say "his/her articles", do you mean onto a user/user-talk page? And what address would you want to place? Franamax (talk) 07:28, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I mean in an article not the user or user talk page. The addresses that I meant are posting addresses. Btw, thanks for replying. Kurniasan (talk) 13:41, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

certainly the editor cannot put his address or signature at the bottom of an article. His contribution is recorded in the Article history--and if he wants to be contacted he could put his email address on his user page, though I would recommend instead simply enabling the Wikipedia e-mail feature in his preferences. (If the editor should, despite WP:COI insist on writing an article about himself, then it is appropriate to put an official home page as an external link--a person who is notable would presumably have one, not just a personal home page. But of course such articles will be looked at with extreme skepticism.) DGG (talk) 14:05, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As far as policy, leaving aside the COI question of posting your own organization address, I think the relevant guideline would be WP:NOTDIRECTORY, "Wikipedia is not the white pages" and "Wikipedia is not the yellow pages". Franamax (talk) 17:22, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That means if any pages or articles contents an address or a list of addresses, the address/es should be remove from the page or article? But, what if someone that place the address keeps on undoing you edit/s (of removing the address)? Kurniasan (talk) 08:59, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ask them to discuss it on the article's talk page. If they ignore that, drop some warning templates on their talk page. If they reach the top level of warnings (or violate WP:3RR), they can be reported as vandals. If they stop to discuss the matter and simply refuse to agree, it might be necessary to go through the dispute resolution process. -- Kesh (talk)

I think I got all my answers. Thanks very much for your help guys. Kurniasan (talk) 07:25, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Katha - The Art Of Story Telling In India should be renamed

Moved to Talk:Katha - The Art Of Story Telling In India

History merge needed?

Basilisk: The Kouga Ninja Scrolls needs a history merge to Basilisk (manga) but does Basilisk (Mutant) need one with Basilisk (comics)? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 00:38, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is an issue better raised on the relevant talk pages. Dcoetzee 07:57, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Encyclopædia Britannica WebShare

Resolved

As partner of WebShare with my weblog http://archiv.twoday.net/topics/English+Corner/ I have a free one year account and am able to make EB articles free by linking to them (no limit). Let's imagine some possibilities for WP:

Wikipedian A asks webpublisher and Wikipedian B for assistance on his discussion page or a WP: page because he wishes to read some EB articles as background information (no copyvio, of course!!) for WP articles (feel free to ask e.g. me). B gives him the links by writing them on the page.

Wikipedian C puts free EB links in (i) the weblinks section, (ii) the reference section of an article.

Wikipedian D makes here a list of known free EB articles.

I don't know if the links also expire after a year but I don't think so.

Some thoughts? --Historiograf (talk) 12:55, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sample: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1192818/Wikipedia --Historiograf (talk) 12:59, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Answered on the Help Desk. Please don't cross-post questions, as it causes duplication of effort. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 13:57, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I got the account too with my user page [1] being the web site. If I understand correctly, you can access any britannica article by simply editing my page. I'm not sure what they are thinking. -- Taku (talk) 07:31, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

He is talking about sharing references. Wikipedia:WikiProject Resource Exchange is a place where editors can list reference material they have access so that others can use it upon request. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 08:34, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

WikiWax

I occasionally find a helpful hand from the lookahead search engine WikiWax and was surprised that we have no article. Looking further I noted that there had been some deletions. Further, there is no mention of the WW engine on our list of search engines. So, not wanting to step on any tender toes here, is there something taboo about this omission or should I boldly ... well, you know. --hydnjo talk 23:26, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Reading the deletion discussion, the main concerns were lack of sources and notability, so you would probably want to see if the search engine has enough sources to establish notability before writing a new article on it. Tra (Talk) 09:47, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Official Election Notice

The 2008 Board election committee announces the 2008 election process. Wikimedians will have the opportunity to elect one candidate from the Wikimedia community to serve as a representative on the Board of Trustees. The successful candidate will serve a one-year term, ending in July 2009.

Candidates may nominate themselves for election between May 8 and May 22, and the voting will occur between 1 June and 21 June. For more information on the voting and candidate requirements, see <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2008>.

The voting system to be used in this election has not yet been confirmed, however voting will be by secret ballot, and confidentiality will be strictly maintained.

Votes will again be cast and counted on a server owned by an independent, neutral third party, Software in the Public Interest (SPI). SPI will hold cryptographic keys and be responsible for tallying the votes and providing final vote counts to the Election Committee. SPI provided excellent help during the 2007 elections.

Further information can be found at <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2008/en>. Questions may be directed to the Election Committee at <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Board_elections/2008/en>. If you are interested in translating official election pages into your own language, please see <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2008/Translation>.

For the election committee,
Philippe Beaudette

What could I do, if I found a website, which uses my image without giving me a credit?

Thank you.--Mbz1 (talk) 02:44, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Supposing your image requires attribution, you can contact the webmaster or the owner of the site (or leave a comment if that is available where the image is) stating that the image is released under a license that requires attribution, point to the Wikipedia link where it is stored and the license explained, and request in good terms that you would like them to give you credit as the license stated. Try a couple of times, and if it still does not work, you will have to threaten with legal action. Unfortunately, Wikimedia does not enter into legal problems by itself, so nobody from here will do this for you.

I noticed that people usually accept if all they need to do is give you credit (when Gary Gygax passed away and many sites used the image from Wikipedia in their own articles, I went to the ones that did not credit the author, and fortunately all of them corrected the attribution in hours).

Note that if your image is dual licensed under GFDL and something else, or if it is in the public domain, or exclusively licensed under GFDL, you have no right to request attribution. -- ReyBrujo (talk) 02:55, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, all.--Mbz1 (talk) 13:07, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Deletionpedia Patrol

Deletionpedia Patrol has been launched. It is an effort to find pages that should not have been deleted, and get them undeleted. All are welcome to join. Chin Chill-A Eat Mor Rodents (talk) 14:58, 28 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And it has been shut down; the editor who created it was a sock of a banned user. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 02:07, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Dealing with systematic erroneous corrections

I've noticed in several articles on several independent occasions a user (usually an anonymous user) "correcting" the word "provably" to "probably", which is of course incorrect and completely invalidates the accuracy of the statement; I'm sure if I searched the database I could come up with 20 or more examples of this. On another occasion I was forced to add HTML comments to an article to discourage users from erroneously "correcting" an explanation of polynomial addition mod 2 (the users didn't get the mod 2 part and assumed it ought to work like normal polynomial addition). I've also frequently seen changes to example source code that either made the code incorrect (introducing bugs) or even made the code not compile at all. Edit summaries usually provide vague justifications showing they either didn't understand the original code or hadn't really thought the change through.

My question here is, what can we do to combat erroneous corrections by an endless supply of well-intentioned users who misunderstand the article? It seems futile to simply point out the error and revert, as new users with the same misunderstanding will inevitably come along. There is the argument that these type of corrections are a signal of potentially confusing issues in the article and the right course of action is to clarify the article, but this may come at the expense of clear and concise presentation for the readers who aren't confused. What should we do about this? Dcoetzee 21:53, 28 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What you have done - correct the error, attempt to explain it, move on. There's no systematic way to prevent erroneous edits in a project that is open to the masses. The hope is that when you make the correction you are not only improving wikipedia, you are educating some person somewhere in the world. It's like a twofer! (I took the liberty of breaking up your comment into two paragraphs, by the way - it's a pretty big chunk of text to keep in one 'graph) - DavidWBrooks (talk) 22:23, 28 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Re: History merge needed?

Was my comment unseen? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 00:57, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You're basically requesting assistance of an admin, though you didn't so state. WP:VPM is a bad place to do that. And you confused the situation by not seeming clear as to whether this assistance was needed in one case or two. It should be rather clearcut as to whether enough content was merged from one article to another to justify a history merge; it's inappropriate to ask an admin to decide (and you're better suited to decide than the typical editor reading your question; if you can't, then - yes - ask at the article talk pages.)

So, back to admin assistance (again, decide first if you need this in just one case, or in two cases, or work the cases separately) - I suggest posting at Wikipedia:Cut and paste move repair holding pen. If that doesn't seem the right place, then try WP:VPA. And reword for clarity. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 02:05, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Church of Scientology Flag Service Organization, Inc.

I came across this newly created article Church of Scientology Flag Service Organization, Inc., which looks to be a propagandistic puff piece. The sources are either internal or other Wikipedia articles made into footnotes. If one does a Google new search, one finds many news articles which are, um, decidedly different in their emphases. I don't think this article is appropriate for Wikipedia in its present state, but am unsure about what to do about it. Phlegm Rooster (talk) 08:18, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

All of the information in the article seems both factual and supported by citations. The Google news search you mention turns up a lot of court cases (I suspect fairly closely related), but only a couple of old news stories, none of which are really about the organization per se. But to answer your question: you can (a) add missing information, and see what happens - if someone objects to that, then you have lots of options with regard to content disagreements, and/or (b) you can remove information, either because you think it is minor/trivial or because you think it gives undue weight/balance (a violation of WP:NPOV). My strong recommendation is that you do (a); I didn't see anything that jumped out (like a listing of the board of directors) as being excessive fluff, so it's better (I think) to expand the article, for balance, then to try to shrink it, for balance. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 01:53, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Article being used for marketing?

In regards to Image:EdSim Clitoris anatomy.jpg, Image:Edsim Vascular.jpg, and Image:Edsim clitoral glans innervation.jpg; while the copyright issues involved have supposedly been resolved, am I the only one who is uncomfortable with the fact that the external links that are being put into articles in these images' captions are to video teasers for the poster's product? ~~Then there's the fact that the poster, BioSim (talk · contribs), is in violation of the username policy.~~ The editor's even put the promotional external links into the *infoboxes* of the Corpus cavernosum clitoridis and Clitoral crura articles. My own opinion is that neither the computer cartoons nor their screenshots add significantly to the articles. Actually, I think that the existing diagrams and photographs do the job better. Is it worth having Wikipedia being used for promotion just to have these images? As an aside, even though the marketing nature of this makes it likely that the poster does own the copyrights, isn't the usual procedure to have them either go through WP:OTRS or create an orphan page on their website with the licensing release and link to it from our image page? —Elipongo (Talk contribs) 13:02, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The username policy point no longer applies, the editor requested and got a change of username [2]. I would like to thank LearnAnatomy (talk · contribs) for being so proactive. My thoughts about the external links remain the same, though, and I was hoping to get some feedback on whether my concerns are shared or if I'm way off base. Am I in the proper forum, or should I bring this to WP:AN? —Elipongo (Talk contribs) 22:07, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I was unaware of the username policy on Wikipedia. Therefore, I have changed my name to comply with it. I have also removed the links from the clitoral pages as requested. However, I’ve noticed a lot of pages on Wikipedia have an external links section which contributors have featured links to “promote” their websites. So I was curious why you flagged the pages I edited. Are there guidelines regarding the posting of links in the external links section? Consequently, I have removed the links as mentioned and look forward to any further suggestions that you may have to help me contribute to Wikipedia properly. --LearnAnatomy (talk) 02:11, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, the guidelines are at WP:EL. -- Kesh (talk) 02:45, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for removing the external links from the image captions, that's extremely understanding of you; most people put up more of an argument! :) I don't have an objection for the video links being placed in the "External links" section of the Clitoris article and perhaps a couple of the others. As for the image permissions, you might want to use the suggestions at Wikipedia:Donating copyrighted materials#Granting us permission to copy material already online. The method I think works best is to create a page on your website with the images and a copyleft release, then you place a link to that page on the image pages here. Thanks again for being so very understanding! —Elipongo (Talk contribs) 07:09, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Backlogs / Cleanup listings for WikiProjects

There has been a lot of discussion about the massive backlog of articles flagged for cleanup, and how to remedy this. My hope is that the topical WikiProjects could play a larger role in the cleanup process, if they can become aware of articles in need of attention (which is currently not that easy).

In an attempt to improve the situation, I offer to generate project-specific listings of articles flagged for cleanup. See further details here: User:B. Wolterding/Cleanup listings

I am currently looking for some WikiProjects that would be willing to give this new method a try. Volunteers are welcome.

Also, the per-project notability listings (announced last month) have recently been updated; see Wikipedia:WikiProject Notability/Listing by project. --B. Wolterding (talk) 21:14, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

newwikipedia.info - with ads

Is anyone here aware of this? http://www.newwikipedia.info/ They compied wikipedia's all articles and put paid ads on the website and they use the wikipedia name. Is this legal? I suppose they shall not use the wikipedia name, because it is a trademark, right? --Timish ¤ Gül Bahçesi 11:01, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

They appear to give attribution to Wikipedia, as required under the GFDL, at the bottom of every page, so copying info and adding ads isn't a problem. Hundreds of sites do the same, e.g. Answers.com. However, "Wikipedia" is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation and I believe this counts as infringement. Anyone know who we report these things to nowadays? - Banyan Tree 23:53, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Don't know. But you can consult Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks. -- Taku (talk) 00:09, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Vancouver, British Columbia meet-up

Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 15:29, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

RecentChangesCamp 2008 -- May 9-11, Palo Alto, California

RecentChangesCamp is the world-wide unconference for wiki admins, developers, and users. The fourth RCC will take place from May 9-11 in Palo Alto, California. More information is available at the RecentChangesCamp 2008 organizational wiki. The 2-day event is free of charge for all participants and uses Open Space Technology to focus on peer-to-peer working sessions.

Any Wikipedian who hasn't heard of the event is heartily encouraged to check out the above Web site. Many Wikipedians, other Wikimedia project contributors, WMF board and staff, and developers will be there. Social, organizational, technical, and editorial issues for wikis will all be under discussion, and people involved in related fields, not directly wiki-oriented, will be there to talk, too.

I've been to all three previous events and I've really enjoyed each one. Open Space is a very wiki-esque method for event scheduling, and getting to talk with people who care as much about wikis and Wikipedia as I do is really great. --ESP (talk) 19:13, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Some Comments to be heard

I do not want to sound rude, but I have some opinions to share with Wikipedia itself. I don't want to start any war or anything. I don't want to get banned I just want to express some concerns that I have. In my opinion I think Wikipedia is edited by hypocrites.

I do not like some of the policies that are around. In Wikicommons you are suppose to give a picture credit for the original author (for example a picture like Mona Lisa and we said the author was Me that would be incorrect because it was painted by Leonardo Da Vinci.) But in anime articles though, in Wikipedia, they say the romanticized English name is the official and the correct name, but that isn't true. The English didn't create the anime or manga you should leave the names the way the original author had attended them, not the English licensed and the way the English intended them.(I know its an English Wikipedia, but you're not giving credit to the write author.) It goes back to the Mona Lisa you are saying the English created the names when they didn't.

In certain articles such as the buttocks article they are using photoshopped images of a womans butt and a mans butt. Those aren't what butts look like. And on the discussion page they say that the womans hair is disgusting and it wouldn't look right. People are people they do have hair. Its all right to show a hairy butt of zebra all natural, but not a humans butt we have to photo shop those images. They have normal human private parts such as the vagina and the penis, but a butt isn't okay.

This one is all cleared up, but it still makes a point another valid point. Recently in the human feces article people were saying a picture of human poo was gross and made them sick. That is why they removed the first image. But in the animal feces article it showed a nice picture of horse crap piled up high. Its okay to show animals poo, but not human poo. This has been cleared up now with many complaints of there not being a picture, but still its kinda hypocritical to have pictures of animals poo and not humans poo.

Well I hope you heard this and read this. I hope you understand my opinions and my concerns. I don't want to disrespect anyone. I just want people to realize the silliness going on and the problems that people might see.

Thank You

Always

Cardinal Raven

Cardinal Raven (talk) 21:52, 30 April 2008 (UTC)Cardinal Raven[reply]

I agree that the article on human feces ought to display a photograph of human feces. It's clearly on-topic and appropriate in that particular article.

As for using Romanized names, it's conventional to use standardized or official English-language versions of names on English Wikipedia, because that's the name our readers know these subjects by; it's not an issue of credit but of familiarity. The same applies to many world cities. We still list the native name as well. Dcoetzee 17:29, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I still think the native name should be the official name not the romanticized no matter the fact that this is English Wikipedia. Since I watch anime in the Japanese format the native names are correct. But other then that at least thank you for replying to this.

But what about the photo bucket pictures of the human buttocks? You never gave me an answer on that one. Cardinal Raven (talk) 04:41, 2 May 2008 (UTC)Cardinal Raven[reply]

I felt free to give my opinion on the human feces talk page, I think removing the picture would be a ridiculous act if it is for such reasons that "we all know what it looks like". I will most likely be participating in discussions that take place there. Regards, Zouavman Le Zouave 13:08, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree. The picture of human feces is unnecessary and inappropriate People should be able to read about it with out seeing a picture. The least that can be done is to put the picture on a separete page or hidden in a drop down menu fashion. The picture of animal feces is less repulsive and shown in manure form. We don't have photos of people having oral sex or penile vaginal intercourse but we have drawings instead. We do have photos of animals having sex though. Do you want to see pictures on wikipedia of a man jackhammering his penis into a woman's vagina? We don't have photographs of beastiality but we to have drawings of it. Do you want to see pictures that are legal in some states and countries but not others on wikipedia? We'd have to move wikipedia's servers from florida to texas or california if pictures like that on here. Where do we draw the line? I think it is only a matter of time before someone argues for the inclusion of picture of virtual child porn on here (after all the supreme court says it is legal). Maybe a non photographic picture of human feces would suffice. --209.104.244.164 (talk) 01:17, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And I disagree with you 209. We have picture of real men's penis have you read the article. We have real pictures of woman's vagina. I also disagree because its silly to say that an animal shit is not as repulsive as human shit. They are bough just as repulsive, but at the same time there are necessary.71.142.208.226 (talk) 06:42, 3 May 2008 (UTC)Cardinal Raven[reply]

Pseudoscience and alternative science

I have asked ArbCom to endorse discretionary sanctions in pseudoscience and alternative science topics, broadly construed. See Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration#Request_to_amend:_Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration.2FPseudoscience_and_Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration.2FMartinphi-ScienceApologist.. Vassyana (talk) 12:49, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Not the Wikipedia Weekly

New episodes are available. Durova^Charge! 00:33, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Episode 10: guests Seth Finkelstein of The Guardian, Matt Sanchez (Bluemarine) of Worldnetdaily , and David Shankbone Wikinews.
Episode 11: guest Brian Bergstein of the Associated Press.
Episode 12: (just the usual suspects from NTWW).
Episode 13: guest Gerard Meijssen (GerardM), Open Progress Foundation Chairman.

New Project

Myself and several other editors have been compiling a list of very active editors who would likely be available to help new editors in the event they have questions or concerns. As the list grew and the table became more detailed, it was determined that the best way to complete the table was to ask each potential candidate to fill in their own information, if they so desire. This list is sorted geographically in order to provide a better estimate as to whether the listed editor is likely to be active.

If you consider yourself a very active Wikipedian who is willing to help newcomers, please either complete your information in the table or add your entry. If you do not want to be on the list, either remove your name or just disregard this message and your entry will be removed within 72 hours. The table can be found at User:Useight/Highly Active, as it has yet to have been moved into the Wikipedia namespace. Thank you for your help.

P.S. - Sorry for posting this here, but I didn't want to post on everyone's individual talk page (I started to, but I felt like I was spamming everyone). Useight (talk) 03:05, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]