Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)

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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.
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Google news archive search?

Hey, I just noticed today that Google News archive search -- the function that allowed us to search for WP:RS going back decades, has been abruptly killed off. If so, this is going to have a big impact on how we find RS. Has anyone else noticed this -- or know of some way that it's still available via some different means? Shawn in Montreal (talk) 16:29, 6 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Does this not work? PS. Are you referring to how the link {{Find sources}} appears broken? Chris857 (talk) 16:32, 6 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Chris. The two are indeed related, I believe. With that first link (which is a new interface in my experience), neither the "anytime" nor custom dates seem to take the search past one month. Which means that the {{Find sources}} is going to have to be changed -- and will be a vastly less powerful search tool, apparently limited to 30 day old Gnews searches only? If so, a bad day for our efforts here to verify notability (and on a personal note, I'm so disappointed at Google for continuing to kill of valuable online tools at their whim). Shawn in Montreal (talk) 16:55, 6 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Apparently this was foretold a while back, in a blog post related more to genealogy searches. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 17:19, 6 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
This page at Google purports to explain how to search for older news content using the standard web search: Find news archive content Even assuming that there were valid reasons to change the existing interface, I have no idea why they've made it hard to find the explanation, but anyway: it seems that there will no longer an easy way to limit searches to newspaper content, but you can limit searches to Google-scanned newspapers by adding the following parameter to a web search: site:google.com/newspapers . We will evidently have to adjust the "find sources" template to deal with this most unwelcome change.--Arxiloxos (talk) 17:38, 6 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, yes, I see that does work, if one pastes site:google.com/newspapers into any web search. At least for now. Thank you very much. --Shawn in Montreal (talk) 18:24, 6 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
As of right now, if you use Chrsi857's link and use the "date added" parameter, you can still get old news archives. But it is frustrating that Google, of all companies, keeps coming up with ways to frustrate the ability to find information. Resolute 02:51, 9 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Worse than I thought I just tried searching for Donald Howard Menzel which used to bring up more than 100 results.
    • Using Chrsi857's link news.google.com/news/advanced_news_search?as_drrb=a&q=%22Donald+Howard+Menzel%22 came up with no results.
    • Using the meta news search www.google.com/search?tbm=nws&btnmeta_news_search=1&q=%22Donald+Howard+Menzel%22 came up with no results.
    • Using Google's news archive www.google.com/search?q=%22Donald+Howard+Menzel%22+site%3Agoogle.com%2Fnewspapers gave only 4 results.
We need a better solution. 64.40.54.208 (talk) 05:10, 9 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Adding Google's new news search no longer covers newspaper archives like the New York Times and doesn't cover newspaper archiving services such as NewsLibrary and others. So it misses almost everything. 64.40.54.208 (talk) 06:03, 9 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Depends on how you do the parameters. It's still there, just harder to get to. On your first link, I changed it to "Donald Menzel" and added a date range of 01/01/1900 - 01/01/2000 and got this. Including NYT and other paid archives. Resolute 14:37, 9 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I love how Google has decided the "anytime" search option does not automatically include, well, anytime. I've tried the advance search option using date parameters for a person's name, one that I'd searched for quite recently, and it's definitely missing stuff, now. But I suppose this will have to do for now. thanks, Shawn in Montreal (talk) 15:34, 9 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
If the actual data is still available, and only the search interface is damaged, maybe this can be compensated for by writing some kind of php or python script to put on a web site that would let users specify the search they want, it goes through and pulls out data from Google with all the tricks you people can think up, then throws out the unwanted links and delivers a polished set? Is that possible? Wnt (talk) 23:16, 9 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
It might be possible using multiple searches using <searchterm> site:<NameOfArchive> and fill in <NameOfArchive> with all the sites listed at Wikipedia:List of online newspaper archives. But there are hundreds of those and it might violate Google's terms of use. Google is fairly picky about automated searches. That's why CorenSearchBot (talk · contribs) was down for a year. 64.40.54.29 (talk) 03:26, 10 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I suppose if need be, it could be peer-to-peer software, some, say, Firefox plug-in that conducts each one of the hundreds of searches using a different user's browser as the user agent. They'd be hard pressed to find a way to block that! Wnt (talk) 04:15, 10 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
@Resolute. thanks for the help. Unfortunately that search finds a lot of people other than the astronomer and it missed this result from the NYT archives. So it appears to need some tweaking. I'll keep playing with it to see if I can get something better. Thanks. 64.40.54.29 (talk) 03:43, 10 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
@Mr. Stradivarius: thanks for the help. As soon as I can find a solution, I'll ask for the template to be updated. Best. 64.40.54.34 (talk) 04:04, 15 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

An open letter to Google

At this point I'm so frustrated with Google that I'm at my wits end. This cripples much of our referencing ability and significantly harms our efforts as a community to write verifiable content. So if anybody else is as upset as I am, feel free to start drafting an open letter to Google voicing our dissatisfaction. Yeah, I know, it won't do any good, but "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!" 64.40.54.87 (talk) 06:09, 11 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Eric Schmidt, Larry Page, Sergey Brin and Google Inc.

"Don't be evil." Early in your company's history you used these words to express the idea that it would be better for your company and shareholders to "help the world" rather than go for short term gains. Your recent change to your Google news search that restricts search results to the last 30 days has had a significantly negative impact on the volunteers that make up the Wikipedia community. We rely heavily on newspaper articles to ensure that our content is verifiable using reliable sources, many of which come from the news outlets around the world. In making this change, you have significantly restricted our ability to find these sources of news. This not only affects our project, but also impacts the millions of readers that have come to rely on the information in our articles. We, the community of volunteers that make up Wikipedia, wish to express our deep dissatisfaction with your recent changes and encourage you to work with our community to find a solution to this problem.

Sincerely, the undersigned.

I'm too upset to just sit here, so I had to write a draft at the very least. If somebody wants to copy this to WP:An open letter to Goolge so that others can work on it, it would be much appreciated. 64.40.54.87 (talk) 06:59, 11 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

(Better, WP:An open letter to Google.) Thnidu (talk) 00:55, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Am I missing something? As far as I can tell, one can still set custom ranges for news. -- Ross Hill • Talk • Need Help? • 02:16, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
@Ross Hill: please try this. Using the example from above, go to Google and search for "Donald Howard Menzel" with quotes, then set the custom date range and search again, you'll see that Donald Howard Menzel is no longer in quotes. Add quotes to that search with the custom dates. When I did this, I got zero results. Before, searching for Donald Howard Menzel gave over 100 results. I tried this with several notable scientists from the 1930s, 40s & 50s and they all came back with zero results when using quotes. When searching without the quotes, there were many results but none of them were for the astronomer Donald Howard Menzel (or the other scientists I searched for). If you are able to get a search result that includes the scientist Donald Howard Menzel, I would be very happy to know how you did it. Thanks very much. 64.40.54.139 (talk) 02:49, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Adding OK, I've modified template sandbox {{X10}} to be a Google news search using the date paramters set to 1900 → 2000 and also to include quotes. You can test it out by using {{X10|<SearchTerm>}}. For example, to search for Donald Howard Menzel I use {{X10|Donald Howard Menzel}} and I get this → link. If somebody is able to update {{X10}} to actualy give the results it used to before Google crippled it, it would be much appreciated. Thanks. 64.40.54.139 (talk) 05:42, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hi, my name is Matt and I am a Google Community Manager for Google News. We are performing a much needed facelift on our News Archive search function as we swap out an old system for an improved one. We are focusing engineering resources on building this new system, and as a result, for the next several months users will only be able to access archived stories through Google Search, as explained in our Help Center Article. We recognize that Wikipedians regard News Archive as a valuable resource and apologize for any inconvenience caused as we carry out this work. For further help, please refer to the Google News forum. Matt Bariletti - Community Manager (talk) 21:20, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • Matt, I appreciate the information, but it would be even more helpful if Google were to post their plans to eventually restore the News Archive search on Google News itself. The Help Center doesn't say anything about the News Archive search being restores after any system upgrade, and the Google News forum doesn't say anything about the removal of the Archive search at all. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 05:25, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
@Metropolitan90: one of these links should get you what you want [1], [2], [3] they should all end up at the same place at Google They say essentially the same thing that Matt said. That the news search will be down for several months, but will eventually come back after it has been upgraded. 64.40.54.251 (talk) 06:24, 19 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, 64.40. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 15:05, 19 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Wikipedians on Editor review

What was the CFD that led to the deletion of this category? The deletion reason this bot gave is a redlink... TeleComNasSprVen (talk • contribs) 18:54, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know why the bot added that broken link, but looking at the history of Category:Wikipedians on editor review, it looks like the capitalized title was moved at that time. Chris857 (talk) 19:03, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah... the category in question was not really deleted... it was moved to a different title with corrected capitalization. Moves like that are usually non-contentious, so there was probably no CFD discussion (note: if you object to the move, or think it needs discussion, you can always start one). Blueboar (talk) 16:51, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Swedish wikipedia should be shut down.

The English Wikipedia has absolutely no governance over the Swedish Wikipedia. Bring this to w:sv:Wikipedia:Begäran om åtgärder, or to Meta. -- Ross Hill • Talk • Need Help? • 06:31, 15 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I am swedish, and wikipedia is one of the main sources I turn to whenever I need to learn something.

However, I always turn to the english version.

The people involved in the swedish version are compromised. We're talking about seriously sick people.

The original article regarding racism at swedish wikipedia was short. It was correct and to the point. http://sv.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rasism&oldid=14239

The current article is long, ambigous and more or less include everyone as a racist. Any attempts to change it has so far ended up in bans.

Swedish wikipedia is a joke, the people involved compromised. I ask you to close it down. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.64.182.124 (talk) 05:40, 15 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

DYK needs help

Did you know, the process whereby new articles are showcased on the front page of Wikipedia, is massively backlogged and could really use more editors both to review articles and to promote articles to the preparation areas to go into the queue. The queue and preparation areas have been operating on only one set of hooks per cycle for the past week or so, causing the bot making the updates to partially break down. If you can help out, please do. -Kieran (talk) 06:20, 19 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"អំពី Wikipedia" in en-CA

I have the language of the menus set as en-CA (Canadian English) in my preferences. For some reason, this changes what says "About Wikipedia" in the other two versions of English to "អំពី Wikipedia", which apparently means "About Wikipedia" in Khmer. This shows up both on the side menu and at the bottom of the page. The en and en-GB versions are normal. Cloudlet (talk) 07:38, 19 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, some months ago a Khmer translator accidentally translated a number of messages using the wrong language codes. This one was not fixed until very recently (a few days ago), and the translations update hasn't run since. The problem will be fixed soon. --Yair rand (talk) 10:06, 19 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

2013–14 Euroleague

Could someone fix it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.103.125.139 (talk) 22:44, 19 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I suggest you post at Talk:2013–14 Euroleague with the specifics of what parts of the article need to be fixed. Good luck! GoingBatty (talk) 04:25, 21 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Google and Yahoo's use of Wikipedia articles

Both Google and Yahoo use excerpts of Wikipedia pages in a right-hand side content pane. For example, you can search for "jean claude van damme". Both sites "cite" Wikipedia by including a link to "Wikipedia" that simply points to the article. That's it. I'm not well versed in the intricacies of licenses but it seems pretty obvious to me that both Google and Yahoo may not be in compliance with the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. For instance, there's no link to that license. I'm also not sure how the "Share Alike" cause works in conjunction with the search result pages returned. Anybody with a deeper understanding of this issue want to comment? Is merely a link to a CCAS 3.0-licensed article itself sufficient for attribution? Jason Quinn (talk) 11:42, 21 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

They link the excerpt to the Wikipedia article where it is taken from. That takes care of the attribution part. As for 'providing a link to the license', I think that only applies when they copy the entire work, not merely one sentense. — Edokter (talk) — 12:37, 21 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

BAG Membership request

I have been nominated for BAG membership. Input is invited. The request can be found at Wikipedia:Bot Approvals Group/nominations/Cyberpower678 2.—cyberpower OnlineMerry Christmas 14:23, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

British Library "Mechanical Curator" image collection

Wild Turkey - Sportsman and Naturalist in Canada.jpeg, from the Mechanical Curator collection.

Looking for something worthwhile to do on Boxing Day, once you've finished all the mince pies?

A week ago, the British Library uploaded just over a million free images to Flickr, scanned from over 50,000 mostly nineteenth-century books. (BL blog post; news reports). There are some real gems in there -- here's a curated set of highlight images put together by the BL team, along with other sets, including 'Portraits', 'Maps', 'Christmas' and 'Science Fiction', found by the community, in addition to which the eponymous Mechanical Curator posts a new random set of 100 images each Friday.

However, one initial issue is the collection has so far been rather hard to search. The BL are hoping that people will eventually be able to crowd-tag it, but as of yet very few tags are in place right now; so at the moment it's quite hard to find images about a particular place or topic. (And certainly hard to find all of them).

And this is where we can come in. Commons now has a full list up of all the titles that were scanned, and is starting to work up a synoptic topic and subject index to them (though it's still at quite an early stage).

As a first step, the subject index has been been populated with a search for the word "history", for books with more than 15 images, and then the results organised geographically. This can produce quite a lot of hits, as shown by e.g the U.K. and Ireland page. But it's just the tip of the iceberg of what's still out there -- for most places and most topics there are still significantly better titles in the collection to be found than the ones so far included in the index.

So what would really make a difference -- what would open the doors to make this collection properly accessible -- would be any help that can be given to go through the list of books, either from the top or for particular keywords, and systematically build up this index.

Ultimately the value of these images is to be able to use them, and the wonderful thing is that they are all 100% public domain CC-0 free, so we are completely free to bring the images over to Commons and use them for any purpose we want. (See the project page on Commons for important details about how Commons would like images tagged if you do bring them over to put into articles, so we can keep the Commons pages in step with any information that gets added to their Flickr pages.)

Finally, it's worth noting that the BL is also making freely available the pdf files of the full scans of all the books in the collection, which can be accessed by hitting the 'more information' link in the panel on the right-hand side of any image. So if we can get this index in place and properly comprehensive, it will open the door not just to all the images, but also to over 50,000 volumes of public domain text content, that we can then freely re-use in whatever way we wish for articles. Jheald (talk) 18:15, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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