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 post on the policy, technical, or proposals pages, or – for assistance – at the help desk, rather than here, if at all appropriate. For general knowledge questions, please use the reference desk.

« Archives, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78

Category:Pages automatically checked for accidental language links

U:

I've noticed User:Wavelength has added

{{shortcut|U:Wavelength}}

to their userpage. I was just wondering, is U: an accepted shortcut? Simply south...... always punctual, no matter how late for just 6 years 17:31, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Doesn't appear to be banned at Wikipedia:Shortcut, so yes, why not. She/he may start a trend. --Tagishsimon (talk) 18:26, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Banned? Not explicitly, but U: doesn't actually redirect to User:, so any pages starting with U: are essentially in article space; so that wouldn't be allowed. Looks like the page has been tagged for speedy deletion already, as it should be. Equazcion ^(talk) 18:53, 26 Jun 2012 (UTC)

Here are links to All pages with titles beginning with U: (two pages) and All pages with titles beginning with UT: (one page).

—Wavelength (talk) 19:16, 28 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

ʻOkina

This ʻOkina is a Hawaiian and Tongan languages. I think that there is a Romanised version. Should this appear in the Latin characters in the editing aids at the bottom of the editing screen? Snowman (talk) 08:41, 27 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Please see Template talk:Okina for the problems displaying this figure in all browsers. Rmhermen (talk) 21:04, 27 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

H. G. Wells RfC

I placed an RfC on the H. G. Wells talk page. This is the first time I have used the template. The text stated that it would be added to the Biographies list, and later that it has been added, but I don't see it on the list, nor has the talk received any attention as far as I can tell. Am I missing something? Regards, nagualdesign (talk) 00:36, 28 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The RfC bot came on 26 June and made a note. I am not sure what the turnaround time is beyond that. I would think that two days would be a sufficient wait but perhaps not. Everything seems okay about your use of the template. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:51, 28 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The problem (I believe) is that the "question" was inside the template, which (if memory serves) is how we did this once-upon-a-time, but not any longer. If I'm right, it should be correctly displaying in the next 15 minutes or so. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:24, 28 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the assistance. Much appreciated. Kind regards, nagualdesign (talk) 02:59, 29 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

MediaWiki 1.20wmf6 deployment on Monday instead of Wednesday

Apologies for only posting in English. The deployment team here at Wikimedia Foundation has decided to shift the deployment time of MediaWiki 1.20wmf6 from it's usual time on Wednesday, July 4 to an earlier time on Monday, July 2, due to the upcoming U.S. holiday. Full timeline and status updates are available on the MediaWiki 1.20 roadmap page. -- mw:User:RobLa-WMF (talk) 22:07, 29 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

HEH! I thought I trimmed English off the list of VP's that I was hitting, but obviously not. For en.wikipedia.org, the deployment is happening as scheduled. -- RobLa-WMF (talk) 22:16, 29 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Article 4 million approaching

Hi, guys. :) As you are very likely aware, we are at 3,986,676 articles and should be reaching 4 million pretty soon. (Updated tally: 6,831,280) This is a massive milestone that the Wikimedia Foundation wants to be sure is celebrated in its blog, as it did the 3 millionth ([1]). Since it's an English Wikipedia specific accomplishment, they felt like it might be appropriate to bring the community in on writing up the event. I've invited people from the Signpost, but since no specific Signpost writer raised their hands Matthew Roth has started up a very bare bones outline at meta:Wikimedia_Blog/Drafts/EnWP_4_Million_Article_Milestone. We've invited anyone at the Signpost who'd like to help out, but of course it's open to others as well. This is open for editing in the usual manner of our work, but anybody with an interest in contributing who doesn't want to edit directly is also welcome to add suggestions or comments at the talk page there. By-lines, of course, for all major contributors...unless you'd rather opt out. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 00:26, 30 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the update, Maggie. I'm hoping one of our veteran editors will jump in here and write up something. I also have a question. The majority of articles that are created end up being deleted through one process or another. How do we determine which article is the 4 millionth if the actual 4 millionth article is deleted? Or do we just use the deleted article? Thanks for any input. 64.40.57.128 (talk) 23:26, 30 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Good question. I don't know when the count is considered "stable". :) I'll ask about that one. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 19:29, 3 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, the 4 millionth article will be the first article to be created and not speedily deleted at a time when there are already 3,999,999 articles. The actual "4 millionth article" may vary with time, as older articles are deleted or merged into other articles or as older redirects are turned into articles, older deleted articles restored. Given that, the most important thing is celebrating the milestone of the 4 millionth article. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 19:42, 3 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Where is an easy link to find the updated article tally? Agne ^Cheese/^Wine 19:46, 3 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There's a counter near the top left of the Main page - "3,989,883 articles in English" -- John of Reading (talk) 19:56, 3 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

LOL! Gawd, how many have I looked at the main page and never noticed that!?!? :P Much obliged for the enlightenment. Agne ^Cheese/^Wine 20:06, 3 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Shrimp and Prawn

The articles Shrimp and Prawn do not appear to follow common usage, and I've started an RfC to address this. In particular, according to Wikipedia, Whiteleg shrimp (Litopenaeus vannamei) is in fact not a shrimp. I think that's ridiculous; but my (overwhelming) evidence based on google hits has been rejected as original research. Due to the desire to restrict the scope of the "shrimp" article to a well-defined biological concept, across Wikipedia the term "shrimp" is now reserved for Caridea, which is much more restrictive than most of the world uses. Comments and help with the RfC would be welcome; thanks. 24.84.4.202 (talk) 23:06, 30 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

These is no common usage of these names as they are used differently in American and British English. Phil Bridger (talk) 11:48, 1 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Is "Guest Pic" Excessive?

Berofe reading see those diddly discussions on my talk page and Leftorium's talk page.

I've been reading many articles of the episodes of the TV series (like the Simpsons, How I Met Your Mother, the Office), and found some articles that have a guest pic of the episode, which is little bit like those Showbiz news sites (like E!, TV Guide and TMZ) to me. Some articles are not mentioning reference to another thing, or have a specific section for the references. And some said that "No Guest Pic Articles" is boring? I don't think so, cause it's more informative without the pic.

So: Is "Guest Pic" Excessive? -Mr a (talk) (contrib) 03:17, 1 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Did you know... there is a cartoon on the main page?!?

Believe it or not, right now there is a 20 minute watchable cartoon on the main page from this article!!! Check it out! – Lionel ^(talk) 09:32, 1 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Renaming categories of ex-Project that are now task forces

I have attempted to rename Category:WikiProject Harry Potter into Category:Harry Potter task force. Unfortunately, people just oppose renaming without "Wikipedia" included. Same thing for WP:SEINFELD and WP:HEROES. This may affect all Projects that have task forces. Also, it would be time-consuming to propose renaming of all categories of task forces, such as of Television Project and of Korea Project. --George Ho (talk) 18:27, 2 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Why do you object to having the category plainly labeled as being part of Wikipedia's infrastructure? Is excluding the word Wikipedia really important? WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:07, 4 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If it means discussing such as Category:Roald Dahl task force articles, then we must discuss this maybe here. Discussing the same thing in every WikiProject with task forces is time-consuming. --George Ho (talk) 02:12, 4 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Even if this means renaming all task force categories, such as ones in Category:WikiProject Novels task forces, how do we propose it and where if I'm not objecting? --George Ho (talk) 02:19, 4 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Why do the others need to be changed? Why do you care what other WikiProjects are doing?

Look: you proposed a name change. Someone suggested a better name. You accept that, and then you are finished. So why do we need to talk about hundreds of other groups? Why do you care what they're doing? You can leave the other groups alone and go work on the articles that interest you. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:22, 4 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Revision history statistics

For some reason, I can't seem to find the revision history stats page for an article. Last month I was on a page that showed a graph of the size of the article over time, a graph of its edits, and many other useful things. For the sake of being generic, say the history of the Wikipedia article. There used to be a link on this page, but now I can't find it. Was it removed? Jesse V. (talk) 23:39, 2 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There is a discussion at User talk:TParis#Articleinfo tool. The tool is/was located here. Chris857 (talk) 23:52, 2 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks very much for the info! Glad to hear that I'm not blind. Hope they get it back. Jesse V. (talk) 04:57, 3 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This tool needs to be restored ASAP. Its a very valuable and informative tool. We keep hearing that storage space is not a problem at WP, so surely someone can find a server, and grant Tparis the storage space he needs. - X201 (talk) 13:20, 3 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

ReferenceTooltips

Background: ReferenceTooltips is a gadget that allows users to roll over any inline citation to see reference information. A discussion on whether to enable the gadget for all users by default went on for about two months before being archived about two weeks ago. (This discussion was mentioned in the Signpost.) The discussion resulted in a some changes to the gadget, such as the addition of a delay to the tooltip, support for touchscreen devices, and an easily accessible settings menu that includes a button to disable RT, as well and options to modify/eliminate the delay, or set the tooltip to only pop up upon clicking the reference link.

The discussion seemed to show consensus in support of enabling ReferenceTooltips by default, though it was never formally "closed" as such before it was archived. Does this matter? Would further discussion be necessary for it to be enabled? Another point: During the discussion, a comment by User:R'n'B suggested users be "informed about the change (maybe by a watchlist notice) before it happens, and given instructions on how to turn it off if they wish". (Turning it off is accomplished by pressing the gear icon at the top-right corner of any tooltip and then pressing the large "Disable Reference Tooltips" button, or alternatively, deselecting the gadget in Special:Preferences.) Does anyone have opinions on whether this would be necessary, and how best to accomplish it if it is? --Yair rand (talk) 19:51, 3 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't follow that discussion, but I can tell you the general rule: 90% of users won't notice or won't care if they do notice, 5% of users will be happy, and 5% of users will be very, very, very loudly upset—but only briefly. A couple of months later, most (NB: "most" ≠ "all") of the users, including most of the noisy opposition, won't even remember what the old system was like.

How much notice you give and how many hoops you jump through to tell people about it depend primarily on how much noise you're willing to put up with in the couple of weeks after the change. No matter how much notice you give, it won't be enough for some people. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:14, 4 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

A quick glance at the discussion shows 39 in support of the proposal, with 14 opposed. That comes out to about a 74% approval rating, which is probably good enough to enable right away. However, I think we should add a watchlist notice, so that people don't scream the way they did with the watchlist change (what ever happened to that RfC anyway?) David1217 ^{What I've done} 16:00, 4 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

(Actually, several of those opposes were conditional all issues that have since been fixed, so it's really 39-11, 78%.) --Yair rand (talk) 03:17, 5 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I'd enable it then, possibly with a watchlist notice (but then you'd have to start a new discussion, and you probably don't want to do that). One thing though: for touchscreen devices, can you make it that clicking anywhere gets rid of the tooltip, instead of just the citation? I've tried it on my iPad, and it annoys me. David1217 ^{What I've done} 04:10, 5 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The intended behavior for touchscreen devices is that clicking anywhere outside the tooltip makes the tooltip disappear. Unfortunately, I don't have a touchscreen device to test it on. I don't understand what you mean by "just the citation" (Just the citation disappears? Only clicking on the citation makes the tooltip disappears? What does "citation" refer to, exactly?) Could you please clarify? Thanks. --Yair rand (talk) 04:16, 5 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am on an iPad right now, and when you tap on the citation, the tooltip appears. Unless you tap on the little blue number thingy (made with <ref></ref> tags), the tooltip won't go away. What I'd like is that if you tap anywhere other than the tooltip, the tooltip disappears. David1217 ^{What I've done} 04:21, 5 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for pointing out the bug. Apparently, in certain situations, iPads won't count touching an element as a "click" unless the user triple-taps. Hopefully changing it to also activate on "touchstart" will fix this. (I've left an editprotected request at MediaWiki talk:Gadget-ReferenceTooltips.js. Hopefully after the sync the bug will be fixed.) --Yair rand (talk) 05:03, 5 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Great, thanks! David1217 ^{What I've done} 05:58, 5 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: ReferenceTooltips is working properly on my iPad now. David1217 ^{What I've done} 05:59, 6 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Does anyone else have a comment on whether to enable ReferenceTooltips by default? David1217 ^{What I've done} 05:44, 6 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

English Equivalent

I have created an article in Persian Wikipedia for which I don't know the English equivalent. It refers to an educational method in which some students who have extra abilities pass two educational grades in one educational year. Do you know English equivalent?Ali Pirhayati (talk) 12:06, 4 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

We probably cover this in our Tracking (education) article, although whether tracking, or streaming, expresses precisely the concept you decide I leave to you to judge. --Tagishsimon (talk) 12:41, 4 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Try Grade skipping or Academic acceleration. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:18, 4 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks a world!Ali Pirhayati (talk) 15:49, 4 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What Twinkle looks like from the receiving end

User talk:Blingdathersly

See what I wrote at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bart Ramsey. Uncle G (talk) 18:56, 5 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Seems a bit discouraging, doesn't it. 64.40.54.4 (talk) 10:16, 6 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]