Wikipedia:Village pump/November 2003 archive 3

Compass on Canadian Cities, can it be made dynamic

Does anybody know how I can use a generic flash file on pages and load links off the page. Check out Caledon, Ontario to see the textual one, but what I wan't is to make that into a flash movie that can be placed on every page, and then place the 4+ links on each page that flash will load. This will help clean the mess of html code so people can more easily copy and past it and change the names of the north, east, west, south, and city name texts Fizscy46

I thought people already generally agreed that the "compasses" were not really helpful and that they did not add encyclopedic value beyond the hassle, size, and ugliness. I really don't like them myself. Daniel Quinlan 18:15, Nov 13, 2003 (UTC)

Flash is big no-no in my book. I stay away from pages with flash and I have it disabled in my browsers. Although I am sure Flash could be put to good use, currently it is used for ads most of the time and you can't turn it off. It's funny, if you right click on a flash page it often has the options to disable the play and/or the loop, but those options never work. I really hate flash and it usually turns me off to sites that won't work without it. I would hate for Wikipedia to become like that and I am sure other people feel the same. That's just my opinion. Dori 18:34, Nov 13, 2003 (UTC)

Agreed. As an off-topic aside, I didn't enable flash until I found the Mozilla "click to play Flash animation" extension. Basically, it supresses the flash unless you click on the flash animation to start it. Prior to getting that, I just avoided flash pages. orthogonal 22:37, 13 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I didn't even know such an extension was available. I was waiting for bug 94035 to get fixed. Thanks for the tip. Is it this one? Dori 23:45, Nov 13, 2003 (UTC)

Yup. orthogonal 00:00, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Is there a policy for Flash content in Wikipedia? I personally think the articles should just contain text and images, but I've never encountered this before. If there isn't a policy, it seems like there should be one. —Frecklefoot 19:21, 13 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I would second that (for the most part), as flash editing is not available to me [and probably some others]. If it's not "editedable" by the vast majority of editors/readers ... should it be included as a navigation element? what if the structure of the pages change? I could see where static content where things like flash would be good [demonstrations of a pendulum, mabey] ... but not as a nav element ... but that is only IMO ... sincerely, reddi

I didn't think it was all that difficult to fix those tables, when I made them smaller a couple of days ago (actually, that was Vancouverguy's idea, I just implemented them). You can just copy the whole thing and replace the city names, they are pretty obvious within all the HTML. I'm not sure how that would work with Flash because I don't know how Flash works in the first place, and whether or not the tables are really necessary is another story, I suppose. Adam Bishop 07:09, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Man, you guys must be old classics,sticking to the BBS and stuff. Flash adds interactivity and simplicity. Its annoying to go through the html. Much easier to just type out the 4+ links and have flash automatically do the rest... And who disabled flash... Cause you don't know what you are missing. Fizscy46

It's not about being old or classical, it's about maintiaining a level of backwards compatibility. As an encyclopedia, we have to be as open as possible to all, and thus with all browsers. Dysprosia 02:27, 17 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Not to mention the fact that flash is not an open standard and only has proprietary software implementations. --Lexor 02:41, 17 Nov 2003 (UTC)

You actually think there are people with Internet explorer 1 and 2?Fizscy46

No Flash is my view. I have to have it installed but it's usually disabled via a registry block an I strongly dislike having to check the source code of the page I'm viewing to see just what ActiveX control the page is trying to get me to grant permission to run. And no, not checking is not an option - ActiveX controls are inherently unsafe. I'm also not keen on encouraging people to install something which is most often used as an ad engine to cicumvent browser restrictions on animation. JamesDay 12:06, 17 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Redirect to headers not allowed?

Am I right in thinking that you can't REDIRECT to a Header within a page? I'm sure I read this somewhere shortly after discovering Wikipedia but I can't find where I might have seen it. I'm asking because I want to know how difficult it might be to combine several pages into one, one section per, and have each of the old pages REDIRECT to the appropriate header. How mad am I? (Serious answers only please :-) Phil 17:09, Nov 13, 2003 (UTC)

not that I know that it's "legal" to or not ... but wouldn't "#REDIRECT [[main article#heading]]" work? more later [mabey] reddi

Yes, Reddi is correct that will work. I tried it once and was immediately reverted with the comment that it was not a good idea because headers change or are easily changed, rendering the redirect impotent w/o the the person redoing the header knowing a problem was created. I guess I'd consider why you want to combine several articles. If each is rather small by themselves then the redirect to the combined page should not really need directs directly to a header; if there is that need for clarity, consider just keeping the pages separate. The way things link together around here (hypertext) the need to have a subject all laid out on a single outlined page is not so great as in a printed doc - Marshman 17:30, 13 Nov 2003 (UTC)

On that "header change" thing, it should (?) defualt to the top of the page (when the anchor isn't found) ... and I haven't found any other info on this =-\ ... reddi

Well I found a clue lying around under my desk, seeing as I was too lazy to go out and buy one :-), and I tested this with a couple of Subpages off my User Page. And it appears not to work. If you go to the REDIRECT page and click on the link it says it REDIRECTs to, it goes straight to the correct header. If you actuate the REDIRECT, it doesn't, it just goes to the top of the correct page. What I don't know is whether this is conclusive since it might be the fact that I'm doing it in a User page, and it's quite obvious that they work differently since I don't get a TOC. I'm rather loath to play around anywhere else (and possibly mess something up) just to satisfy my curiosity if someone who actually knows can tell me. Just because it might be a stupid question doesn't mean I'm too embarassed to ask. And no, that doesn't mean I'm not embarassed :-) Phil 17:30, Nov 13, 2003 (UTC)

It does not work. I have put in a feature request, but the feature request will only get filled if a developer finds it an interesting project. If anybody good at snazzy web design can think of a way to emulate this with javascript, that would be very cool. DanKeshet 18:44, Nov 13, 2003 (UTC)

Wikipedia Application Program

Hi2all,

I'm quite fascinated with Wikipedia, but I thought it would be useful if there is a (easy to use) application using Wikipedia Data to have a easy offline way to search for stuff. I know there is a Palm/PDA Version for this, but I didn't find any PC form of such a program. Is there such a program in development? Is there an interset in programming such a program?? Ska1do 18:59, 13 Nov 2003 (UTC)

An offline web browser tool may be the most useful. Plucker is a tool to convert web pages into electronic books of several formats, most employing compresion of some sort. Alternately, one could just download some subset of pages of interest, and browse the local copy with your HTML browser of choice. More ambitious would be to request a dump of the Wikipedi database, and mirror it locally; as the wikipedi's based on open source software, you could have your "own" wikipedia. Also, though I don't know what Palm/PDA version you refer to, most Palm readers have PCs versoiosn as well. orthogonal 22:31, 13 Nov 2003 (UTC)
- Theoretically all one needs to do is crawl through every possible page, save the generated html and images, and convert the links to be localized. Then all that is needed is a browser. Of course, this will be a big load on the 'pedia so it might need to be done on someone's own setup with a recent dump. If you had a listing of all the pages, you could do this very simply with a script or java program. The biggest effort would be in setting up a machine and getting the list of all pages. It doesn't seem that bad if someone (other than me) wants to do it :) Dori 23:39, Nov 13, 2003 (UTC)
Did some digging, and found http://download.wikipedia.org/. I hope this is what you need. -- Cyan 23:52, 13 Nov 2003 (UTC)

See old discussion at meta:Wikipedia Client and elsewhere. There are several static HTML dump generation scripts floating around somewhere. Magnus Manske has been working on a MediaWiki-compatible wiki parser which can be used as a CGI with a lightweight web server for a local browsable copy with a local web browser or HTML viewer; code is in our CVS on sourceforge[1], module "Waikiki". Demo versions with Windows binary: English Wikipedia ~160megs, German Wikipedia ~30megs. --Brion 00:46, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Automatically generated logs

I just stumbled upon the Wikipedia:Protection log and I was wondering if there is a list of all the automatically generated logs somewhere. I am asking about this because I couldn't figure out where/if such a log exists in the other language 'pedias (specifially http://sq.wikipedia.org that I translated). I know of Wikipedia:List_of_articles_in_the_Wikipedia_namespace but it does not seem to be complete. thanks, Dori 00:17, Nov 14, 2003 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Upload log
Wikipedia:Deletion log
Wikipedia:Protection log (recently added)

That should be it that's log pages. --Brion 00:39, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Oh, OK. For some reason I thought there'd be more. thanks Dori 03:16, Nov 14, 2003 (UTC)

Not quite the same thing, but there's also the Blocked users log. Angela

"Dear Readers"

What is that thing at the top of Local Church about? Is it just some rant or legitimate comment? Even if it's comment, shouldn't it be in Talk? --Menchi 05:52, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I think that the standard NPOV (and maybe factual accuracy) warnings should replace this personalized message, which in turn should be moved to the talk page. I'll do it tomorrow unless I am preempted or hear dissenting opinions. -- Cyan 06:00, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)

You have been preempted. Daniel Quinlan 07:59, Nov 14, 2003 (UTC)

Israel security wall

moved to Talk:Israeli security barrier

Image copyright

wikipedia talk:image use policy/copyright

When searching for public domain images, I often find the note: "All images on this page are believed to be public domain." Would you consider such a note as sufficient to include the images in Wikipedia, or should I regard the word "believed" as a warning not to touch these images? Example: [2]. -- Baldhur 08:17, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I think that note means: "I like the image, so I took it from another website without checking or asking the owner. If you are his or her lawyer, please don't suit me. I mean, please!!! I am ignorant, I said "I believe", didn't I? I didn't say "I know"!"

I wouldn't use them, I don't know about others. --Menchi 08:43, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I think you need to go on an image by image (and site by site) basis. A lot of sites just copy images from anywhere without regard for copyright. Some sites are better than others and you can still ask the site what criteria they use for images. There are some initial/skeleton guidelines on Wikipedia:Copyright. Daniel Quinlan 08:51, Nov 14, 2003 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for your answers, Menchi and Daniel!! I did not use these images up to now, and I won't do in the future. -- Baldhur 14:29, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Whatever you decide to do, say what you did on the wikipedia:image description page. Personally, I would have no real qualms about using such images, provided I made the uncertainties explicit in the image description page, unless I had some reason to doubt that they were in fact public domain. Martin 18:20, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Those will often be Fair use, particularly for the online or print Wikipedia, but you must consider them individually. It's routine for sites to have global copyright notices which don't apply and for sites to use images they don't have rights to. The Google image search is one option if you want to try to track own an image. Always worth remembering that it's preferable (strongly preferable) to use public domain or less restricted images if you can but we are trying to build an excellent encyclopedia, including one using lots of images. If you do use one of those images, please document where you got it from and why you think that it is fair use - such images are very likely to be reported as possible copyright infringements and providing good source information helps a lot. JamesDay 12:17, 17 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Copyvio?

Is a summary based on a web page considered a copyvio? An example could be Alternative metal and http://www.bobsmusicindex.com/Alternative-Metal.html . TopCamel 13:41, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)

No, it is not a copyvio, that one would be if you copy it word by word. However it is good style to add the source of your text as well, e.g. in a References list, both for giving the author of the original source their credit, as well as to allow others to check the information in that article. andy 13:58, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Andyis correct. You can even copy a sentence from something without violating copyright.(unless that sentence is a one of a kind pasterpiece) ALWAYS INCLUDE SOURCES NO MATTER WHAT!!! Sincerly yours, Alexandros 14:06, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Exactly! You can certainly quote people, pages, web pages, etc. if indicated as a quote and cited from what/where. If you want to take something from a web site not as a quote, but as information, then reword it to your own words but still give credit to the source, as a listing in "References" at the bottom of the article. Knowledge is something you mostly gain from others. Your duty here is to reword what you read and credit where you learned -- Marshman 03:26, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Diff inconsistency

I've noticed sometimes a page diff will have unnecessarily narrow columns (about 1/4 page wide), while other times the columns are too wide (about 2/3 of the page each, forcing one to scroll). Why does it vary? Is there anything I can do about it?
Tualha 16:14, Nov 14, 2003 (UTC)

The Nov 14, 2003 (Tualha) "last" diff for Scheme programming language illustrates some other problems with the diff generator. Inserting a blank line after a section header caused synchronization to fail in the "Advantages of Scheme" section. In the "Examples" section, two added lines are not shown in red. It would be nice if corresponding lines were lined up, too.
Tualha 16:28, Nov 14, 2003 (UTC)

Is there some standard page for reporting wiki code bugs, wishlist items, ideas, etc? Tualha 16:29, Nov 14, 2003 (UTC)

http://sourceforge.net/projects/wikipedia is what you're looking for. A better place though would probably be the tech mailing list. --snoyes 17:14, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Thanks! - Tualha 18:11, Nov 14, 2003 (UTC)

"SHYSTER"- ethnic slur?

I am not sure that i am in the right place, but I used the word "shyster" and i was referred to "List of ethnic slurs-Wikipedia." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_slurs. I am not sure how wikipedia works, but i believe the intended word was "shylock." I have checked several dictionaries and none of them list "shyster" as an etnic slur. If anyone can clarify this, please e-mail me at sealadaigh@aol.com.

It isn't an ethnic slur, it's just a slur. I'm pretty sure you found http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=shyster ; that's the normal usage. DJ Clayworth 17:22, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)

It's a slur. Sheister - Jews - Like a shyster lawyer. One who carries on any business, especially legal business, in a mean and dishonest way. [3] reddi

Not according to my dictionary

 Main Entry: shy·ster 
 Pronunciation: 'shIs-t&r
 Function: noun
 Etymology: probably from German Scheisser, literally, defecator
 Date: 1844
 : one who is professionally unscrupulous especially in the practice of law or politics

-- Maximus Rex 18:14, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)

notice the German origin ... may be historical relic which has a more general meaning now ... reddi

So in the end, has anyone managed to find any document (even a good secondary one like a respectable dictionary) that supports a derivation of the term as an ethnic slur? Or, for that matter, good documentation of a shift into an ethnic slur? If not, the feeling that it might be an ethnic slur should go in the same class as the supposed association of "handicapped" with begging and (believe it or not) "picnic" as a reference to lynching. Both of these are patently recent inventions; is shyster any different? Dandrake 08:18, Nov 16, 2003 (UTC)

I checked the OED. It too has the date 1844 as the earliest use. Of the origin it says merely: "Of obscure origin." Does not even mention a possible German derivation. I think it is safe to remove it, until someone comes along with a solid reference. -- Cimon Avaro on a pogostick 03:23, Nov 17, 2003 (UTC)

I checked the Webster Unabridged and it doesn't have a date but it does say this in the etymology "probably alteration of earlier shicer contemptible fellow, from German scheisser, literally, one that deficates." It also says that it is a person who is professionally unscrupulous in politics and law. Funny thing is that it also has it as a verb. -- M1shawhan 08:35, Nov 18, 2003 (UTC)

Authors

I thought that it might be a good idea to have a special page for each articles titled "Authors" or similar. All it would do is give a simple list of users/IPs that had ever contributed to said article. Firstly it would give contributors the credit that they are due. A similar thing is already being done in "page history", but is not present anymore when an article is moved, for example. Also, the "authors" page would be much simpler than having to wade through "page history". WDYT? --snoyes 17:09, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Plus it could be ordered by % contribution? (but that may cause over verboss articles Archivist 18:29, Nov 14, 2003 (UTC)

I'd like that feature. % contribution would be cool too, but what if someone deleted a whole huge segment of an article? Would that + or - his percentage? —Frecklefoot 19:31, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)

It's an interesting idea, but probably not trivial to implement. Most of all the diff needs to be smarter to notice moving of text inside the article without loosing the credit for that text. BTW: If an article is moved the edit history is moved together with the article, it is only lost when the article is moved by copying the contents. But the credit will be lost for sure if articles are merged or split. andy 20:20, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Suppose instead the page history gave a number of lines added/deleted/edited. That would give a fair idea of who had made significant contributions. DJ Clayworth 20:59, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I don't see how it would work. If someone vandalises an article by blanking it and I revert them, thereby adding 1000 words, it's going to look like I've made a huge contribution, when all I've done is pressed the rollback button. Angela 21:03, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)

IBM had technology to solve that problem. I can't remember the link. Martin 21:20, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I guess you mean IBM History flow but I'm still not sure that would solve it. Angela 21:32, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)

They're not going to share the technology with us, are they... --Menchi 00:12, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Not all articles are the target of vandalism. It seems that most of articles are primaly written by one or a few authors and many other people copyedit it. Givning credits is always a good way to recognize hard-work. The one of wikipedia's harsness is that good works are rather not given good attention while only heated debate receives public attention. This I believe make contributors feel as if they were not valuable or their works were not welcomed. The most of cases is that one or a very few of your works are controversial but the hudernreds of rest are completely welcomed. I mean so I strongly support this idea. -- Taku 23:53, Nov 14, 2003 (UTC)

Brevity is the soul of wit; let's order the list by the amount of text removed by editors. orthogonal 22:27, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I don't think it would work out too well. There are many issues with how the authors' works will be cited/listed and in the end it will probably end up something like the history page. This might also attract more trolls and vandals, or simply people who want their name in the list and simply make unnecessary changes. I would think most of us edit on the Wikipedia because it's fun and because it's something that will be useful to others, and not for getting our names in a list. Still, no one wants their work to be credited to someone else and we like to be recognized, but that is what the history page is for (well, among other things :). Some people list their major contributions on their own pages, so that's another outlet. That's my opinion anyway. Dori 00:02, Nov 16, 2003 (UTC)

I like credit for my work as much as the next person. But I see potential trouble in giving authorship credit for articles. The current relative anonymity minimizes the temptations for egotism to arise. If enacted, some people would be running around doing pointless edits on articles just to get their name listed. Others would be targeting authors they dislike. And all of us would become involved in endless disputes of whether or not someone had contributed enough to get a credit. MK 01:36 (EST) 16 November 2003

Umm, actually I don't think troubles pointed out above would materialize. Simply listing primary authors is not a big deal. You can think it is very similar to a THANKS file in open source programs. I don't see why the same trivial thing in open source doesn't work with wikipedia. You don't have to worry about that people started to make a trivial edit to have their name listed. We probably appoint someone who maintains such a list of contributors. There would be no debate who should be given credit or not. I mean have you ever seen a heated debate regarding a THANKS file? You may claim that the maintainer is not fair enough, then you don't have to stick to him. Go to other places. -- Taku 19:14, Nov 16, 2003 (UTC)

A similar thing is already being done in "page history", but is not present anymore when an article is moved, for example. Actualy, it is. The whole point of the page move function is that ir preserves history. -- Tarquin 19:48, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Revertion wars

The rule of three: Do not revert the same page thrice in the same day

Words to wiki by. See Wikipedia talk:How to revert a page to an earlier version. Martin 21:19, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Perfect stub article

On the Wikipedia:Perfect stub article, the first suggested guideline is to add a link to your stub from Wikipedia:Find or fix a stub. However, when you get to Wikipedia:Find or fix a stub, there is no place there to do so. Something has to be changed. But I don't know what. Kingturtle 04:46, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Perhaps it's supposed to be a link from your stub to [[Wikipedia:Find or fix a stub.? Adding the stubnote certainly does this Dysprosia 04:48, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Beat me to it, but I changed the involved text :) Dori 04:51, Nov 15, 2003 (UTC)

Kingturtle, it's actually a link to Wikipedia:Find or fix a stub so that if you click What links here from within Wikipedia:Find or fix a stub you get a list of the stub pages. Dori 05:04, Nov 15, 2003 (UTC)

WikiProject Chemistry

I know it's fun editing articles about Macedonia, the Catholic and Mormon churches, and maybe tomorrow we can have some fun arguing over spelling Mother Teresa's name... but, I think it's time to resurrect Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemistry. I only spend about 10% of my time on classic sciences (originally I was a biochemistry/cell biology major), but I know you real scientists (and I don't mean computer, I'm one of those) are out there.

To start, I've added some information about the hard-to-find Inorganic table information to the project page. Is there a similar Organic table information somewhere? If not, we need to get one created and rationalize the two tables.

Once we get that done, maybe we can prioritize a list of compounds to be fixed up, etc. Daniel Quinlan 04:56, Nov 15, 2003 (UTC)

No, there are no organic tables that I'm aware of. See Talk:Inorganic table information. The excel spreadsheet and template used to create the inorganic tables can be found here. -- Tim Starling 05:58, Nov 15, 2003 (UTC)

Nupedia

What's up with Nupedia? Google has the text: "Unfortunately, Nupedia is unavailable due to some server problems" shown when you search for "nupedia", which means it must have beend own for a while. On Nupedia, the external link says "temporarily offline due to server troubles". According to the page history that change was made on September 26th! There is some talk on Talk:Nupedia but nothing current. I'm inclined to believe that it is truly dead. I mean how can they keep web traffic and editors if the site has been down for almost 2 months? dave 05:59, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Nupedia had been fairly inactive for some time, but putting it back online is solely a matter of restoring things from database backups. I'm assuming these exist, but I've never been directly involved in Nupedia so I don't know the details. --Brion 02:45, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I e-mailed Jason at the e-mail listed on the current Nupedia page about this, but heard nothing. Can somebody else ping him as well? At the very least it would be nice to pull out the old text from the database so we can reuse, particularly the articles-in-progress section which had much good stuff that I was in the process of porting, (see Wikipedia talk:Nupedia and Wikipedia). It could be just static HTML and graphics for all I care, so long as we don't lose the work done to date. I tried using Google and archive.org to pull the old cached text, but neither of them archives the a-i-p section. --Lexor 02:47, 17 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Inline external links

I noticed on a recent edit to World Wide Web by Mav that his summary stated:

DO NOT sublink external links under body prose; use wiki refs or the external links section

yet I encounter this technique of embedded links regularly, like in this short article which has seven (!) such links in the body text:

Pijnacker-Nootdorp

Is there any kind of concensus about this? -- Viajero 13:39, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I'd copyedit it ... mv'ing the links to a external link area (if needed) ... and mabey a ref to "see below" (as needed) ... don't know what the std nor concensus is though. Other than that you can always do a brackets notation citations (ala. [1]; how events does it), puttin' the link inline with the cited text.reddi

I have done the latter now, that is sometimes more convenient for the reader than links in the External Links section. Patrick 22:45, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)

It is perhaps better but it is still far from ideal. For example:

departure schedules: to rtd [1], to gvc [2], DB site [3].

This is not exactly intuitive, especially since such links customarily refer to citations; moreover, the text is written in a kind of shorthand (what is rtd and gvc? And many people in the Anglophone world may not know that DB stands for Deutsche Bahn. It looks like you are writing for an Dutch audience!). It is a tiny article. Why not put the all external links at the bottom with clear labels? -- Viajero 00:19, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)

The labels could be expanded, but it is not essential, they are already an extra compared with "departure schedules: [1], [2], [3]". I have no strong feelings either way regarding placing the links in the Ext. links section, but it would either give some duplication or some article content would be moved there too. - Patrick 11:43, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)

If you like to demonstrate another arrangement, you could also pick another municipality, and add contents and links in the process, rather than just rearranging them. - Patrick 12:36, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I always delete inline links when I encounter them and move them to an External Links section. If they're kept inline, it's hard to tell that they're references to non-Wikipedia sites. Putting them in the External Links section makes that clear. RickK 19:58, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I think what Mav meant is that body text shouldn't be hyperlinked. Wikipedia will covert a link by itself to a footnote format, which is perfectly desirably as footnotes. I suppose the Wikipedia software could be enhanced one day to automatically list these links in a reference section at the bottom of the article. Samw 01:19, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Samw, the page was just changed; look at the previous version and you'll see what I mean. -- Viajero 13:36, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Recording Wikipedia Content

Hi, I was wondering how this works with the license.

I want to make recordings of some of the content on Wikipedia, and I want to do it legally. My intention (if possible) is to make Compact Discs containing some of the text in spoken form, together with other text I have produced personally.

It is not my intention to make money out of Wikipedia content, but I am obviously free to charge for that proportion of the CD that is made from my own personal content.

I am very happy to reference the source of the Wikipedia in the manner outlined on the license (I could obviously not hyperlink), and the proposed cost of the CDs isn't going to be a great deal more that of the raw materials.

Can anyone advise on what I should do. Many thanks.

Not a lawyer so don't know the issues intimately, but my understanding is that you can use the works and even charge for them as long as you attribute correctly and you make available any derivative works from the wikipedia. See the GFDL for more specific information. Dori 16:20, Nov 15, 2003 (UTC)

(Also not a lawyer) Yes I think Dori has it right. Any materials you prepare deriving from Wikipedia content (and I think a spoken word version of articles counts in this respect) and then redistribute, would have to be available under the same licence. It would be brilliant if they could be available on the web and our pages could say "a spoken version of this article is available for download at ...." Pete 22:21, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Questions moved the Wikipedia:Reference desk.

Wikipedia logo policy

Moved discussion to: Logo policy talk page.

Longest article title?

I just came across MrsFalafel's Ale, Mustard and Winter Vegetable Pie. I was curious if, at about 50 characters long, it was the longest article title in Wikipedia. Turns out, I made a few that are longer (how embarassing, really):

Well, I'm curious to find out, what is the longest article title? Kingturtle 18:14, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)

What about Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (69). Longest place with an article may be Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch (but that's just a redirect.) -- Morwen 18:17, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)

List of localities in Britain where rare ant species had previously been recorded but are no longer considered to be present (104) is also a redirect. Angela 18:35, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahinthara Ayuthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom Udomratchaniwet Mahasathan Amon Piman Awatan Sathit Sakkathattiya Witsanukam Prasit (188) is a redirect to Bangkok. Jay 19:54, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)

There are huge resources of information out there, on the internet, in public libraries and other soruces; a lifetime could make only a small dent on reading all of it. Lots of that information is, of course, not particularly interesting or insightful, but even subtracting that out, you're sitll left with more than a person could ever hope to read. Thus, if you want to gain an understanding of this world through reading, you have to be selective. Paul Klenk 01:11, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Two long East Asian ones:

--Menchi 01:54, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I did a database search, and the longest page title is Acetylseryl.. (a redirect to Acetylseryltyrosylserylisol...serine - and still much shorter than the actual 1185-character 'word' that the page actually is about). Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahinthara Ayuthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom Udomratchaniwet Mahasathan Amon Piman Awatan Sathit Sakkathattiya Witsanukam Prasit comes second.

More interestingly perhaps, the longest non-redirect page titles are:

Andre Engels 11:44, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I tried to create acetylseryl.. just now, but instead it recreated the Acetylseryl.. already there, in recent changes showing my edit at MN, but in the article history as M, with no earlier edits... Coincidentally, the length of the article it recreated happens to be 2⁸-1=255 characters long. Κσυπ Cyp 12:07, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I personally don't see the point of having articles with such long names. No one will ever get the title right when they're looking for the subject and they really mess up the formatting of pages. Perhaps the length of a title should be limited (better get a flame-retardant suit on :). Dori 17:53, Nov 16, 2003 (UTC)

I'd be against a "title limit". And i think the 1st two are UN bills (which would be right title for a search). Not sure about the others though ... JDR

Google/Wikipedia search engine problems

I have a question about the current Google/Wikipedia search engine, or comment. Namely, it seems to produce very inconsistent, incomplete, or paradoxical responses to inquiries. A few examples:

Oftentimes, I will read an article, and then do a search on the title of that article (EXACTLY as it is in the title, verbatim, down to caps even) and it fails to be found by Google to be on wikipedia. I find this very strange. Sometimes, nothing is found; other times, other articles, that only very indirectly link to the article, are produced. For instance, if one does a search on "Modular group" or even "Modular group Gamma", one doesn't get a link to the article entitled "Modular group Gamma", instead one gets a link to a user page, where "Modular group Gamma" is listed among several hundred pages created and/or edited by the user. What is going on here?

Another example: If you do a search on "Gauss" (or even "Carl Gauss"), then you won't get the article on Gauss the person for at least a couple pages (if that, I gave up after a while), you get lots of articles with "Gauss" as a keyword, or linking to "Gauss", but not to the article on Gauss himself. This seems very strange.

Many times, when looking for a specific article, (to see if it's there) I do a search and get absolutely nothing. But then, I say, "well, Google has failed me in the past, let me try directly" and I type in the actual URL of what should be the article page, and up in comes!! There it is!

This is what I find most disconcerting about the search engine. Someone will look something up, not get any results, and just assume that it is not present in the wikipedia. They won't know the little tricks about following other search results, going to more "meta-" pages (e.g. in math, going to major mathematical pages and looking around), or typing in URLs directly. This doesn't give a bad impression to newcomers, but it certainly fails to take advantage of everything that IS here. And it's a major inconvenience to people who use the wiki.

I would like to know if I am the only user that this happens to. I only bring it up in the village pump because it has been a common, persistent, recurring problem for me ever since I started (or ever since the Google/wikipedia page came up). It's not just an isolated incident with a few searches. Revolver 15 Nov 2003

I think this is because google is confused about www.wikipedia.org, en.wikipedia.org, and en2.wikipedia.org. I suspect it will settle down some in the following weeks. Also, google will often (some say always) be inconsistent on results for a website that (like this) changes often - different search servers at google (all which _appear_ to be www.google.com) are looking at subtly different sets of crawl-data. So sometimes (especially during the "googledance", when they progressively update these database-copies) two identical queries will produce different results. And as to the "right link being way down the search", that's a function of google's (secret, and utterly arcane) pagerank algoritm - there's not much we can do about that, as manipulating google's rankings (for good or ill) is notoriously difficult. -- Finlay McWalter 20:51, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I also had similar experiences. I have a theory for this. According to my theory, Google/ whatever might consider a page for searching only some time after the article is written, probably because it allows time(which seems to be around a month or so) for vetting by enough number of people. But the links to user pages and individual words in articles comes into the realm of search because in most cases the user page and the words that link exist much prior to the creation of the article. However, having said that, one of pages which had been there for sometime in the third page in Google suddenly disappeared for me totally, even after including the word wikipedia. I can't figure this one out. KRS 05:06, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I duuno about that. I've seen articles I've written pop up in the index within a day or two, but they have been ones that were listed (I think) for a day or so on the main page. -- Viajero 13:39, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Google only shows an article when it rescans that portion of the site. An article with few or no links may take a lot of time to be found and indexed on Google. An article listed on the main page will be found and indexed very quickly. To help, it's useful to link to articles from their parent subjects and to link to related articles, so Google and other search engines can follow the web of links between related items. Jamesday

Google supposedly has automatic functions to remove pages that "spam the engine", by creating synthetic cross-links or by posting many identical pages on different domains. Because of the license model, there are many fairly identical copies WP pages on non-WP sites. And of course WP has heavy internal cross-links. Could this be causing a 'false positive' in the Google spam-killer? Anjouli 07:28, 18 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Revert a page: How?

Wikipedia talk:How to revert a page to an earlier version says a lot about why or when to revert a page, but doesn't actually explain the mechanism.

How does one revert a page, other than by copying and pasting the text of the version desired? orthogonal 01:04, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)

See:Wikipedia:How to revert a page to an earlier version. Maximus Rex 01:15, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Signing different name

I've noticed that some users, like Ed Poor and Lir, always sign as something besides their actual user name - how does one set it to do that?

Special:Preferences → write something at "Your nickname (for signatures):". Done. --Menchi 05:15, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Ok thanks - I guess that was just too obvious for me or something *blush*. -- Pakaran 05:16, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)

It took me half a year to get what "Add pages you edit to your watchlist" means in the Preferences. And I didn't figure it out on my own. :-) --Menchi 05:19, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)

You can edit the pages??? orthogonal 06:39, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)

That isn't the ambiguous part... is it? --Menchi 02:50, 17 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Someone (historian) please preserve the above conversation - Marshman

AIDS

I don't see this as vandalism, so I'm putting it here for want of a better place. A logged-out user changed the article substantially to indicate that immunity to AIDS is a myth - I linked it to Wikipedia:Accuracy Dispute for now, but I'm tempted to just revert. I know nothing about medicine though. -- Pakaran 05:10, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Revert it. It's only one group's opinion, nowhere near a consensus. RickK 05:50, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I don't see anything objectionable in the changes. Have I overlooked something? It's correct to talk about relative susceptibility rather than an absolute immunity. -- Someone else 06:21, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I'm no expert on AIDS, but the anonymous contributer seems pretty much correct IIRC. HIV is not SIV, the FIV stuff I hadn't heard about. But the contributor didn't say immmunity was a myth, he said that studies showing babies being spontaneously uninfected were flawed. As far as I know, only a small number of Northern European-descended persons are immune, thanks to having been selected in the Black Death (which virus entered the cells in the same way AIDS does). orthogonal 06:37, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)

- You're referring to people with variant (delta 32 CCR5) cytokine receptors, and it would still be better to talk about them having a lower susceptibility to HIV infection rather than an immunity to HIV infection. I think our anonymous friend can be given an all-clear. -- Someone else 07:01, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)

- - Yes, I am, but clearly, not as clearly as you are. orthogonal 08:40, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Google Indexing Update

It seems to me it's been a while since Google updated its Wikipedia index. Is that our fault (i.e., did we accidentally tell its robots to go away in one of our files), or is it their fault, or is it my psychotic delusion? -- Someone else 11:22, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Having a look at the stats for this month [4] (second to last table) the googlebot has made over 90,000 visits and accounts for 1.25% of all hits. Going by percentage and comparing with previous months this is about normal. However going from www. to en. seems to have affected the rankings of wikipedia pages in google. Also having both en. and en2. addresses doesn't help. But it will hopefully settle down in a month or two. -- Popsracer 11:54, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Short stories

I am writing an article on Hackers (short stories) and I was wondering if short stories should each have their own article. There isn't much to say on a short story, but they might deserve their own article nonetheless. Opinions? Dori 17:49, Nov 16, 2003 (UTC)

When an article about a short story becomes complex enough to warrant its own page, re-factor and give it its own page. Were I reading it, I'd want at least blurbs about each story on one page, and an "In-depth analysis" link where required; then I could use it easily both as a casual browser ("What are those short stories about") and as a more serious student ("I need to know more about 'The Greatest Short Story Ever Told: Jesus the Scrivner'"). orthogonal 18:05, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)

It's fine, knowing that there are people who want to include every CD albums on this planet. --Menchi 18:07, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I would oppose an article on each short story - it would make more sense to cover them all in the same page. Martin 19:38, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I think it largely depends on a story. Some short stories have remarkable influence or context while many other just are parts of collection books. For example, Minority Report is actually very short but one of well-known stories of Philip K. Dick. -- Taku 00:30, Nov 17, 2003 (UTC)

I guess I will write an overview of each story on the page itself otherwise that page would be nothing more than a list. If someone decides that one or more of the stories deserves an article on its own, they can move it. thanks, Dori 01:11, Nov 17, 2003 (UTC)

This fits into the one longish article/lots of shortish articles decision. My personal preference is the former. The "wiki way" is probably the latter. (cf the completely disorganised but totally absorbing wikis such as the MeatballWiki). Pete 12:28, 17 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Blank maps

I just finished making some little locator maps for the country articles, and someone suggested that I could make the basic unedited world map I used available for other people. This would make it easier for people to modify anything I've made, and might even be useful for something else. As I created the maps myself, there's no problem about usage permission, and so I've put links to them on my user page. I was wondering, however, whether there was anywhere better to put them - people aren't likely to notice them where they are. Whether they'd be of any use to people, I don't know, but I thought that there's no harm in making them available (especially to facilitate correcting what I've already done). Is there somewhere I should put a mention of them? - Vardion 04:37, 17 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I copied it to Wikipedia:Blank maps. - Patrick 04:58, 17 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Wouldn't Meta be better as other languages are likely to want to use it? Angela 05:04, 17 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Re-emerging debates

Is there some kind of guideline on what to do when, after consensus or at least a majority decision has been reached (delete it, merge it, keep it as a stub for the time being, or whatever) and a particular matter is accordingly dropped, it is revived at a later point by someone who has just discovered Wikipedia or that particular article?

I'm asking this question in the context of the re-emerging AIDS kills fags dead discussion (I don't have to worry about the correct link here, do I?), but there are others I could think of. --KF 09:35, 17 Nov 2003 (UTC)

There is something called Wikipedia:Votes for undeletion; and AIDS kills fags dead has been a regular there IIRC. But apparently, since all our deletions are in general fairly uncntroversial, it gets very little play most of the time. In fact, people probably easily forget it exists. -- Cimon Avaro on a pogostick 19:11, Nov 17, 2003 (UTC)

If the article is not deleted then all debate should be collated on the talk page (or an archive thereof) of the article in question. If the article *is* deleted then archived talk should be put on some page and then linked to from Wikipedia:Archived delete debates. Newcomers are always welcome to re-open debates, although old hands will always encourage them to read old talk to save where possible going through the same debate (this doesn't always work perfectly!) Pete 20:58, 17 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I think people should look at the archived deletion debate, and make sure they fully understand the backlog, then add any new arguments they can bring to the table, then discuss the issue with those who previously expresse an opinion, and if they think they can get a rough consensus in favour of some outcome, then and only then raise the issue on VfD.

Of course, all this takes effort, and sadly some folks think it's easier to just list the article on VfD. Martin 21:09, 17 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Unstubbing a stub

When is a stub no longer a stub? And who can remove the stub note? See Irish literature for an example. I guess everyone but me knows the answers. Bmills 17:11, 17 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Irish literature is definitely not a stub. Do the honors! There are no fixed rules. Some subjects can be dealt with in a sentence or two and such articles are not stubs. Other articles are still stubs even with three or four paragraphs.

Done and thanks. Now, if anyone feels like helping with the article, .... Bmills 17:34, 17 Nov 2003 (UTC)

My threshold for stub display (see preferences) is 2000 bytes. Any article that is substantially complete with less 1000 bytes is probably not on a particularly good topic and may be ripe for merger with a parent article. Of course articles with way more than 2000 bytes may be incomplete... but I wouldn't call them stubs. Pete 20:00, 17 Nov 2003 (UTC)

VfD Interpretation?

How is the consensus of a VfD debate determined? I'm particularly curious regarding Talk:Easter Bradford/delete. orthogonal 23:17, 17 Nov 2003 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Deletion_guidelines_for_administrators#Rough_consensus and also Wikipedia:deletion policy. However, note that these decisions are currently in a somewhat unsettled state, with varying views on the correct approach. Martin 23:36, 17 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Cimon avaro would be the person to ask about that particular decision. Angela

I didn't make the determination of what the form of the delete debates utcomes were easily, or with haste; and even much less did the discussion guided determinations follow my own predilection on the articles in question. I followed the discussion, and the views therein. That is just about all I will add to the above. -- Cimon Avaro on a pogostick 00:35, Nov 18, 2003 (UTC)

Deletion policy?

I am a little confused about the deletion policy of Wikipedia. I am not an admin or a sysop; can I list things on the Wikipedia:Votes for deletion page? If not, what can I do when I see a page that should be deleted (like BlogLines)?

(Err.. disregard that BlogLines example--that was deleted quickly! But my confusion about my deletion powers remains.)

Anyone can list things on VfD, and after 5 days, if there is a rough consensus to delete it, a sysop will delete it. Angela

And you can vote! *Blinking-teeth smile* Exercise your democratic power! --Menchi 01:27, 18 Nov 2003 (UTC)

However you don't necessarily have to list every bad article on VfD - if the new article has potential to be converted into a valid stub, then list it on Wikipedia:Cleanup instead. And most of the time the obvious nonsense articles are deleted by admin quickly, only those which survive more then lets say 10 minutes would be worth to list to make sure they don't get forgotten. andy 09:16, 18 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I have real problems with the deletion policy. It is not democratic in the slightest! I would like to propose that instead new pages are put on 'Probation' for a month. There is an attached -VoteToKeep page linked to it and at the end of the month if there is a clear democratic majority then goodbye. But at present the time-period is too short, too unclear and hidden and opaque... ABC

Not undemocratic, hidden, nor opaque. Voting is just that -- democratic. Not hidden, since a blurb is put at the top of the page to indicate that it has been proposed for deletion and where to go to discuss it. And not opaque, since the Votes for Deletion page explains what is going on. RickK 16:37, 20 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Not so sure about that. It seems to me that if a listed page is in the least controversial, the votes get lost in a welter of arguments. It might help in these cases if, at the end of the five days, all interested users came back and did a simple Yes/No vote having considered all the pro and con points raised. Bmills 16:54, 20 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Or separate a VfD entry into two parts, argument and vote, e.g.:

Foo Bar Baz.
- Discussion: (Initial reason for listing:) This is page is a vanity page authored by Mr. Baz. orthogonal 16:57, 20 Nov 2003 (UTC)
  - I disagree, Mr. Baz is world famous in Japan! !orthogonal 16:57, 20 Nov 2003 (UTC)
- Votes:
  - Delete. orthogonal 16:57, 20 Nov 2003 (UTC)
  - Keep. !orthogonal 16:57, 20 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Access to /w/wiki.phtml is denied?

I have a confession to make... now and then I count how my contributions I have made to Wikipedia. I used to do this at the click of a button - I ran a Python script that grabbed my user contributions page and then counted the number of relevant lines. However I have just tried to do this and the page returned says "You don't have permission to access /w/wiki.phtml on this server"... however I can access my contributions page perfectly happily in Internet Explorer. Has there been a software change in the last couple of months that has restricted to me only being able to access via IE? Any ideas? THanks. Pete 23:41, 17 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Yes, there's been a software change. You have to set the user-agent string to something identifying your bot. Sorry, I don't know how to do this in Python. -- Tim Starling 23:48, Nov 17, 2003 (UTC)

Thanks Tim. It's bound to be possible to check the user-agent id. I will find out. Given that the script would formally qualify as a bot should I do anything other than make a promise that I don't use it very often honest, gov?

Any pythonistas out there may like to know that to do this you need to subclass the URLOpener class in the built-in standard module urllib such that the attribute 'version' is overwritten with whatever user-agent string you fancy. Less difficult than it might sound! Pete 00:44, 18 Nov 2003 (UTC)

As long as you don't use it to edit or create pages in large numbers, and don't use it to an amount that much exceeds normal browsing speed, it should not be a problem. By the way, if you're interested in Python-based Wikipedia bots, take a look at http://sourceforge.net/projects/pywikipediabot/ and http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/pywikipediabot/pywikipedia/. Andre Engels 11:57, 18 Nov 2003 (UTC)

On a bright note: what the developers taketh away the developers giveth too... it seems like the "offset" bug on the contributions page has been fixed since I last tried. Thus when I have sorted the user-agent string my script will hit the server even less as I can give it an estimate of the minimum number of edits I have done to avoid counting them over again... Thanks ever so much for whoever took the time to fix that. Pete 00:15, 18 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Scouring for (ab)use of wikipedia content

I'd like to just stand on this here Village Pump Soapbox quickly: Can anyone who has got a minute to spare (and if you're editing WP, then you do ;-)) just paste some bit from any Wikipedia article into Google. Then check Wikipedia:Sites that use Wikipedia for content to see whether the search returns any usage that is not already listed on Wikipedia:Sites that use Wikipedia for content. Quick hint: choose a continuous block of words which seems somewhat unique and enclose it in quotes. Like so (from Stephen King): "wealth itself: his earliest works (Carrie, The Shining,". Here are some links to improper usage of Wikipedia content that I found in doing a few such searches (Some of them not just improper, but downright criminal): [5], [6], [7], [8]
Cheers, snoyes 08:12, 19 Nov 2003 (UTC)

ezResults.com Uses wikipedia articles as encyclopedia. Added an entry to Wikipedia:Sites that use Wikipedia for content hope that's appropriate : ChrisG 13:46, 19 Nov 2003 (UTC)

The japan-101.com page mentions the text is from Wikipedia way down at the bottom, so I guess it is compliant. I didn't ad the site to Wikipedia:Sites that use Wikipedia for content though. —Frecklefoot 15:46, 19 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Well it doesn't mention the GFDL or link to the page it is taking content from... so its not really compliant at all... perhaps it'd be best if you did list it on Wikipedia:Sites that use Wikipedia for content.

Interesting work, Snoyes. One thing that intrigues me is that all the sites that use our content claim all rights reserved copyright on all non-wikipedia elements. I thought the licence was supposed to be viral in the sense that if people take free content then derived works are similarly free. This doesn't seem to be happening at this embryonic stage in Wikipedia development, in contrast to similar software projects. Pete 17:41, 19 Nov 2003 (UTC)

See wikipedia:verbatim copying. Martin 02:39, 20 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Image attribution / sig

Can image artists sign names on their works when they agreed to let WP use their images? --Menchi 09:39, 20 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Menchi, I don't know what you are asking. Can you be clearer?

Adrian Pingstone 09:45, 20 Nov 2003 (UTC)

When an artist draws a map/diagram/illustration and contributes it to WP, can s/he sign his/her name on it? Most artists like to sign their names on their work, and it may take some persuasion to make them not do that. Or they may just don't contribute their work to WP at all because a sense of authorship -- which is saddening. --Menchi 09:48, 20 Nov 2003 (UTC)

AFAIK (IANAL) there is no legal reason why they can't sign their work, and there's no legal reason we could just airbrush it out and resubmit it. GFDL requires that we credit the authors, but I don't think the authors can dictate the particular form of that credit. Since we generally frown on overt displays of authorship, I think we should discourage artists from signing work, crop or airbrush it out if possible, or look for another equivalent image if it is not possible. -- Tim Starling 10:28, Nov 20, 2003 (UTC)