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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Gerry Chester (talk | contribs) at 01:08, 14 July 2008 (→‎Citation needed - North Irish Horse: new section). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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RBAG Spam

Chris is currently being considered for BAG membership. To view the discussion and voice your opinion, please visit click here.

Deletion

Resolved
 – all deleted following three bundled afd discussions, linked below

Can you please start a deletion request for me? I do not know how to do this, since I am coming from the French Wikipedia.

The articles I would like you to deal with are:

The reason why I think those articles should be deleted is that these places contain no more than two or three families each. The articles have been created using a source with enormous errors that gives millions of inhabitants to Réunion whereas it does not even have one.

I am an admin on the French Wikipedia and the one maintaining the Mascarene Portal. Born on the island, I have lived for many years on Réunion until recently. You can trust me when I say that the above articles deal with places that are not even known by the local population, and that a redirect is more than sufficient. Thierry Caro (talk) 13:33, 23 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

True enough, most of these do look like old place names or estate sites (likely from an old map or outdated census record). If you put a {{subst:prod|notability/does not exist}} tag at the top of each of these articles it is likely that most or all will be deleted in 5 days. Gwen Gale (talk) 05:44, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
done in the spirit of entente! - merci, thierry - Privatemusings (talk) 06:08, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. Thierry Caro (talk) 17:52, 29 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(undent) Now at AfD. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 21:12, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

All are deleted following closure of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Le Coeur Saignant, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Commune Ango, and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Girofle. Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 21:08, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Is there any study showing the cultural impact of Wikipedia?

Does anyone know if there is any news article or study that tried to evaluate the benefit that people get from Wikipedia's existance? At this very moment, Wikipedia is no. 7 on alexa.com's top sites. So it should have some significance in people's life. Is wikipedia usefull? If yes, how usefull? I know its not easy to measure this but there should be ways to make an aproximative evaluation. From my point of view, wikipedia is very important part of the "informational infrastructure" that we all see it growing this days and we all take benefit from, but I would like to know if other people think the same way. Thanks Ark25 (talk) 08:07, 4 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A rough guide to usefulness can be estimated by using the Alexa rank. At the moment we can say that Wikipedia is useful and moreover we can estimate that it is probably the 7th most useful website in the world. -- Derek Ross | Talk 13:37, 4 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You are right. However, my point is: if wikipedia is a consistent part of the "informational structure" of this world then the conclusion comes just naturaly: We are pumping a lot of money to build the traditional infrastructure (roads, railroads, schools, hospitals and all others) - by paying taxes. So we should use the money for building the informational infrastructure also. How? we dont need to make donations to wikipedia, we just have to explain to our politicians and make them understand that a part of our money (colected by taxes) should go that way. Is wikipedia worth a chunk of 1% or 10% of the informational structure today? then 1% or 10% of the yearly budget for improving the informational infrastructure should go for improving wikipedia directly or indirectly. When I say indirectly I am thinking about making a national / international database of newspapers articles (from a selected - lets say 100 best and most credible newspapers today). A database publicly accesible, that keeps the news in the same format, implements a great search engine and browsing features, that keeps the URL's of the articles forever without changing them. That kind of thing would help Wikipedia a lot (its my opinion). Because the wikipedia citations will stay valid forever, so that will greatly improve the wikipedia articles verifiability Wikipedia:Verifiability#Reliable_sources. I am just sick of making citations in the wikipedia articles I'm creating/editing and after a while to see that the newspaper deleted the article or moved it to another URL. (I am editor on wikipedia:ro Utilizator:Ark). I make citations mostly from online newspapers, so after a few years how can anyone verify if what I have written is correct or not, if the source disapeared?

Maybe there are other ways to help wikipedia indirectly but at this moment a database of newspapers articles is the only thing i have in my mind.

And by the way, I think wikipedia should make yearly something like "top 20 of the most reliable and verifiable sources". The same way S&P, Moody's and Fitch Ratings are doing ratings for pointing the most reliable investment targets for the use of investor, a core of wikipedians should make something like that: a top of prefered sources for recomending to the other wikipedians to use as citation source. Sorry for my bad englisch. Does anyone think the same way as I do? Or does anyone think my idea is good? I might be crazy but I dont know. I would be happy to get some feedback Ark25 (talk) 01:01, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Got to be careful what you ask for sometimes. He who pays the piper calls the tune, as they say, and if any government were to contribute a share of its tax revenue, it would expect to get its money's worth. For examples where Governments contribute to the "informational structure" of the world, you should study how Canada funds the CBC and how the UK funds the BBC. Check their articles for information. The two countries use rather different funding methods (share of general taxation for Canada, fee for all television receiver owners in the UK) neither of which is perfect. However the bad part (from Wikipedia's point of view anyway) is that both governments have occasionally used their ability to set the budgets for these nominally independent organisations in order to get them to toe the party line. Doubtless they (or their fellow governments) would do the same to WP if any of them contributed enough to gain them significant leverage. -- Derek Ross | Talk 23:41, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the answer. I am happy that I'm not ignored in the first place :). You mean if government will give money to Wikipedia, they will ask for some things. Well, I think that depending on their inteligence they can ask for things that will make wikipedia's life harder OR things that will help wikipedia to develop faster and better. However I think it would be good to have a talk between wikipedia and government to see if they can have a good cooperation. Well anyways at this point I have not much idea how the government can help directly and what can they ask from wikipedia. But I'm very convinced that a national database with newspapers that can be accessed forever would be a very good thing and not only for wikipedia. Wouldn't it be wonderfull, if you can access newspapers articles, allways with the same URL, and if you can access a database with all the major newspapers' articles and such? I must confess I am getting sick of making citations from online newspapers in the wikipedia articles and after a while ... they are gone. Some newspapers simply delete their articles after a while. I really wish to have the option that once I make a reference, it will be valid forever (no broken links). That will make wikipedia articles more easyer to verify and therefore more credible. I hope I am not the only one Ark25 (talk) 09:01, 6 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Ark25 wrote: wish to have the option that once I make a reference, it will be valid forever
I hear you. WebCite is one way to do this. Although, like anything on the web there is no guarantee that it too will not disappear, or like Internet Archive, that it will not be forced to remove the cached page later. At the least, by including the original newsmedia report, it allows us to find alternative sources, or even a hardcopy source. But your point is valid, I have been finding several citations that are dead after a year or so, and if, say, a robot.txt file blocked Internet Archive and the citations have no titles or extra information it is impossible to find an alternative. -84user (talk) 11:26, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

limits?

I wanted to write more but the "Save page" and "Show preview" dont work. I have to delete words then I can submit. Is there any word limit? Ark25 (talk) 09:12, 6 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nope, there's essentially no limit to the amount of content you can add or remove to a page. It may have been a problem with your internet connection or the Wikipedia servers...if the problem persists, feel free to post again. —Pie4all88 (talk) 21:41, 9 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Request for BAG membership

Per the bot policy, I am making this post to inform the community of my request for BAG membership. Please feel free to ask any questions/comment there. RichardΩ612 Ɣ ɸ 16:08, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Calgary Stampede Page Needs Serious Overhaul

Hi

I just wanted to mention that the page on the Calgary Stampede (at least the history section) is not correct at all according to their home page. Since I have no idea what I am doing and its popularity at the moment, I would really prefer not to touch it. I just thought I would bring it up.

Thank you

Canadianprairiewriter (talk) 20:45, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Could you be more specific about which information you believe is incorrect? — CharlotteWebb 11:36, 6 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

List of sustainability topics

Looking for more eyes and opinions on a snag I ran into. User talk:Luna Santin#Merging pages and User talk:Granitethighs#your lists have relevant background, but I'll offer a summary here, as well. Granitethighs (talk · contribs) has started work on numerous lists, including List of sustainability topics (A), List of sustainability topics (B), List of sustainability topics (C), and so on until we reach List of sustainability topics (Z).

Yamakiri (talk · contribs) nominated several (all?) of these for speedy deletion, and suggested a merge to List of sustainability topics, which seemed to me to be the way to go; I hadn't ever seen that sort of alphabetical breakdown, previously, and suggested a topical breakdown might be more useful.

Granitethighs has pointed out List of basic geography topics, which includes both a summary list and multiple pages by alphabetical breakdown. Some discussion regarding the appropriate/desired course of action might be useful; as Granitethighs said himself, "It would seem that either that page of recommendations should be replaced or reworded or that deletion of similar approach to sustainability be reconsidered. Surely you must see the inconsistency..."

So, any feedback would be appreciated. – Luna Santin (talk) 11:26, 6 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe you don't remember the "List of people by name" series (R.I.P.) which were divided according to the first two or three letters. — CharlotteWebb 11:31, 6 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Nominating all for speedy would be an overkill. Just merge them. OhanaUnitedTalk page 03:18, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
OhonaUnited, I did merge them all, now they're just redirects. That's why I'm saying speedy each redirect. No-one's going to type List of Sustainability Topics (Q). Yamakiri TC § 07-7-2008 • 20:09:58
Yamakiri, the problem with that is that the merging you were doing, followed by deleting the separate pages, doesn't preserve the GFDL record of Granitethighs contributions. Anyone looking at that article later will think that you created it (and maybe blame you as well). When you do merging, please link in the edit summary to the article you are merging from, like Luna Santin did here. Carcharoth (talk) 12:31, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Your post on my talk pages leads me to think you don't understand what I was doing. I was trying to clean up his edits, and I CSD tagged the articles after pasting the contents into the one main article. You see, I was not CSD tagging the redirects (Though they should be CSD tagged). Yamakiri TC § 07-11-2008 • 16:34:26
I do understand what you were doing. You were merging stuff into one article (correct); you were not saying in the edit summary where the merged text was coming from (wrong), you were leaving the CSD tags on the redirects (wrong), and the end result was that Granitethighs edits could have been deleted (wrong), leaving you as the apparent author of the text at the merged list (wrong). I've pointed you to an example of how to correctly merge with attribution. You still continue to say "they [the redirects] should be CSD tagged". This is wrong. It is a common mistake made by people who haven't yet fully figured out how the GFDL and page histories and merging works, and how attribution for merged text is often preserved in page histories. Please, as I asked, read WP:MERGE, and in particular: Wikipedia:MERGE#Full-content paste merger. Carcharoth (talk) 16:53, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am also in favour of lists of this type that are only one page rather than 26. One page that is not overly long is easier to use than 26 such pages. I would also like to see the lists at Lists of environmental topics merged into one page. Some of the content can be culled even though I have already reduced the number of links on the pages. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Alan Liefting (talk • contribs)

See also Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of sustainability topics (0-9). Carcharoth (talk) 12:58, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There's been an upsurge in nominations of late, but the number of reviewers remains low. Could anyone interested please head over to WP:FSC and review a few? Thanks! =) Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 23:13, 6 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

can't catch vandalism quick?

Resolved

hi, just make three vandalism, but have not been noticed. wonder how many more are out there? [1] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.184.255.111 (talk) 01:31, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

NYC -- real estate advertiser

An anonymous contributor is repeatedly posting real estate advertising from the New York Post in the external links section of legitimate articles about Manhattan neighborhoods. I reverted what I thought was vandalism last week ... and the same familiar pattern has re-appeared today.

This is beyond my ability to handle. It becomes tedious to revert each edit from nine distinct articles. See, e.g.,

Is there a reasonable way to address this recurring vandalism? At a minimum, what about putting a temporary lock on these articles so that only legitimate editors can made additions or changes?

A similar ploy may be affecting articles about neighborhoods in other NYC boroughs? I only stumbled into this problem because a couple of the above happened to be on my watchlist ....

Curiosity caused me to check a bit further; and yes, there is a similarly current real estate sales/rental link added to articles about Brooklyn's Park Slope and DUMBO neighborhoods and to Forest Hills in Queens.

To me, whatever is going on here seems qualitatively different from neighborhood profiles which are published from time to time in the New York Times or in magazines like New York (magazine). In my view, this whatever-it-is doesn't enhance the quality of Wikipedia. Am I mistaken to construe this as mere advertising rather than as plausibly unhelpful data? --Tenmei (talk) 18:08, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There appear to be no messages posted at User talk:206.15.108.216. The user may not even be aware that what they are doing is against policy. Perhaps you could try using the approach at Wikipedia:Template messages/User talk namespace first?—RJH (talk) 18:45, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I did a whois on the IP. It's owned by News Corporation who own the new york post. Definitely spam. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 18:52, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

See here if anyone feels like helping remove them. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 19:05, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Also see User:Callieleone's contributions Theresa Knott | The otter sank 19:10, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

All done for now. I've removed around 40 links, deleted an advert page and left a note on Callieleone's userpage. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 19:42, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe This will be a productive gambit? I posted an invitation for comment at Wikipedia talk:Policies and guidelines#Corporate vandalism. Perhaps this will turn out to be a good step in a constructive direction ...? --Tenmei (talk) 21:07, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Good catch. Thanks. Alcarillo (talk) 21:49, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Report the situation to Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam, they'll know what to do to keep it from continuing.--Father Goose (talk) 05:14, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I did follow through at Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam --Tenmei (talk) 18:01, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I've added \bnypost\.com\/realestate\/neighborhoods\b to XLinkBot's revert list. There doesn't seem to be anything of encyclopedic value there, but since I haven't had time to see how many of these URLs still exist on the project, XLinkBot is preferred over blacklisting. --Versageek 19:46, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

trawlers nets

does anyone know what the diablo shapped net at the front of a fishing boat are called and for what purpose —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bimbopat (talk • contribs) 18:50, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You want Wikipedia:Reference desk. Hut 8.5 06:43, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

WTF?

File:Wiki Glitch.jpg

I went to Will Smith, (logged out) and saw this. I logged in and it was gone. I logged out and it was still there. Is it a virus? It is not in the wiki code, and is not possible as far as my knowledge, with the logging in and out. What is this? —Coastergeekperson04's talk@Jul/09/08 18:42

Sounds like a caching problem. Logged-out users access a different cache, which presumably still contained the vandalism. This should self-repair quite quickly; if not, a purge should work, though it may require a null edit. Algebraist 19:06, 9 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Then what edit WAS the vandalism? I couldn't find it. —Coastergeekperson04's talk@Jul/10/08 03:21

This retard probably just did this on MSpaint... —Preceding unsigned comment added by ZeroSync678 (talk • contribs) 03:35, 10 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A template was vandalised, not the Will Smith page, which is why you couldn't find it in the history. The issue has been discussed and resolved at AN/I. Gwinva (talk) 04:52, 10 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Minor Watchlist Annoyance, Proposal

At present, my watchlist page tells me:

You have 13 pages on your watchlist (excluding talk pages).

The link points to a help page with information about using the watchlist, while, in order to actually list the pages that I'm watching, I have to click the smaller and harder to find link at the top of the page. This is counterintuitive enough that I have finally decided to complain about it. When I see a link that says just "watchlist", I expect to be taken to the list of pages that I'm watching – i.e. the actual "watchlist" – rather than a help page about watchlists. The design is also illogical in that the page that most people need to read only once or a few times is linked to with greater prominence than those that users are more likely to use on a regular basis. It's a minor complaint, yes, but I can't count how many times I still click on the wrong link trying to see my list of watched pages.

Since suddenly changing the functionality of the link while leaving everything else the same is a bad idea for obvious reasons, I propose a small change like the following:

You have 13 pages on your watchlist (excluding talk pages) [more information].

The exact wording is not as important as the principle that the purpose of the link is now absolutely clear, and users looking for the list of watched pages – the actual "watchlist" – know to look elsewhere. I would also like to see the utility links (display watched changes, view and edit watchlist, edit raw watchlist) given greater prominence, perhaps relocated immediately above or below the links to show/hide bot, self, and minor edits.

I know that even a small change like this would take considerable time and effort to implement because of the use in so many wiki projects in so many languages, but I would still like to see it discussed. This shortcoming has facilitated the same annoying mistake so many times that I felt I just had to complain about it somewhere. —Latischolartalkcontributions 04:09, 10 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi everyone, I was going to post here to see if anyone was interested in having a template for your userpage organizing all the useful links on Wikipedia, but I decided to just go ahead and make it. So I'd like to announce that Template:UsefulLinks will output a long but detailed and carefully organized list of links that are useful to the editors here. I put a note on Template talk:UsefulLinks that explains the different sections present, so you can refer there for more information. I made this because Wikipedia is a huge place, and I haven't seen anything else comprehensive enough that is focused mainly on the editor. I've been using the table of links on my userpage for a few weeks now, and I have to say that I've found it very useful. If nothing else, it gives me a good deal of ideas of things to do when I log on. I can see it being especially useful to new Wikipedians who are interested in contributing to the administrative portion of Wikipedia, but don't have a good feel of which pages they can keep an eye on to help out. Anyways, I thought I would post here to draw some attention to it and because I am interested in feedback, since I may have missed a couple of links. I hope you all find it useful, and encourage you to add it to your userpage or something. Cheers! —Pie4all88 (talk) 05:28, 10 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]


Annoying Categories Trend

I don't know where to put this,, as it may be a policy or it may be a technical thing, but lately I've noticed something in the Categories section, subcategories now have a small pair of brackets next to them displaying the number of subcategories within that category. the problem here is that most search engines such as yahoo or google use these too, only for a slightly different purpose. In a search engine when you see a pair of brackets that signifies that their are going to be that number of pages in that category. Since more people are more likely to visit a search engine moreso than wikipedia I say we change this format in accordance. Deathawk (talk) 05:20, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Agree. -Colfer2 (talk) 10:25, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I agree to the extent that it would be helpful to provide both pieces of information. — CharlotteWebb 13:30, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Falun Gong

Please see WP:AN#Falun Gong for a discussion relating to Falun Gong articles. Moreschi (talk) (debate) 12:55, 13 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A suggestion

I have an idea...

Would there be people interested in recipes from around the world that could be organised via country/lifestyle (eg: vegetarian). It could be called Wikipes or something like that! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.155.132.162 (talk) 19:51, 13 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Citation needed - North Irish Horse

Hello,

I am able to provide verification that the NIH was part of the four Tank Brigades listed. This can be found in the regiment's War Diaries located in the Document section of my website (which is on the page) www.northirishhorse.net

Having just signed up today I was able to make a couple of minor corrections OK, but I am at a loss how to provide the citation.

Looking forward to hearing from you,

Gerry Chester

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