Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)/Archive 45

• Village pump
  • Policy
  • Technical
  • Proposals (persistent)
  • Idea lab
  • WMF
  • Miscellaneous

Village pump (miscellaneous) archive  

This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (miscellaneous). Please do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to revive any of these discussions, either start a new thread or use the talk page associated with that topic.

---

< Older discussions · Archives: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X · 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 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, 79, 80

Page length

2013 in film is 332,397 bytes (without images). Please discuss whether or not to sub-divide it, at Talk:2013 in film#Length. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:23, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

I agree with the general idea, and will go to the talk page to comment.--DThomsen8 (talk) 02:23, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Why can't long articles just be paginated? Praemonitus (talk) 01:08, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Editors who created many new articles

Somewhere there is a list of editors who created many new articles, but I do not see how to find it. Please tell me.

Beyond that, how can I know how many articles I have created can be counted? Is there a tool?--DThomsen8 (talk) 02:18, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by article count? For articles you created, this should do it, but it seems to be having trouble or is running really slowly for me. Chris857 (talk) 02:35, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

The Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by article count has the top 5000 editors, and currently that means 100 articles created. I currently have about 60, but I have a New Year's Resolution to create 100 new articles in 2014. Thank you for your prompt reply.--DThomsen8 (talk) 04:06, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Frankly it would be much more valuable to improve 100 existing articles. The new articles fetish has become a major handicap to the project imo. Johnbod (talk) 14:25, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

www.wikipediasurvey.org

Any idea why the site is gone? I am looking for this report, which was still online a few weeks ago. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 22:21, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

No idea about the site itself, but archive.org has the report here. Chris857 (talk) 04:04, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia:The Core Contest

running for a fifth time - 10 Feb to 9 march....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 21:24, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Alakol, Kazakhstan

Should the article Alakol, Kazakhstan, which provides a list of places in Kazakhstan called "Alakol", have a {{WikiProject Central Asia|class=stub|importance=low|Kazakhstan=yes|Kazakhstan-importance=low}} talk page, or a {{disambiguation}} talk page, or should it have a Set index talk page, or should something else be done to the article itself? Advice, please. --DThomsen8 (talk) 22:49, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

There's nothing wrong with having a disambiguation page listing places that share a name, but in this case, "Alakol" does not appear either in the titles or in the text of any article on the page except Lake Alakol. bd2412 T 03:56, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

I fixed it.--Ymblanter (talk) 08:41, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Very good work. Thank you.--DThomsen8 (talk) 14:10, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

What are those 8-tuples of 4 hex digit numbers in Wikipedia article histories and how can my own edit show up like that?

At times when you display a Wikipedia article history, instead of the Wikipedia user name (for registered users) or the IP address (for non registered users) you get something like this 2605:a601:448:cf01:d857:6ccf:a737:a59d. (I take it this is a sequence of 8 numbers in 4 hex digit format).

What are those things and how can I get my own edit to be displayed under such a token?

Contact Basemetal here 17:46, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

What you're seeing are the IPv6 version of IP addresses. That's what appears for editors whose domains have been converted to the new system. If you contribute as an anon editor, your IP address will appear the same when your domain converts. — Frεcklεfσσt | Talk 17:58, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Should WMF have enough cash reserves to live forever off the interest?

Here User:Jimbo Wales said

There can and should be some debate about what the appropriate level of reserves is, and some debate about whether we should be pursuing an endowment strategy (i.e. trying to get enough money now such that Wikipedia could survive and thrive from interest earnings alone, or some other similar target).

— Jimbo Wales 16:58, 14 November 2013

Anyone interested in discussing that?

The WMF should have enough in reserve to run the servers and provide the technical support we need for a few years, of course. That's prudent.

However, the readers love the encyclopedia - the articles we write - and want it to survive; they don't care which little group of people provides technical support and runs the servers, and I'm sure they're not donating so that the present bunch can have guaranteed jobs for life regardless of the quality of service they provide. If the day comes when our readers lose interest in funding the WMF projects, the WMF can fade away. Our articles will survive. And a more relevant project will arise. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 11:24, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

In the UK the Charities Commission (govt regulator) recommends that all charities should aim to have reserves equal to 2 years expenditure (which relatively few do). The WMF currently has a bit over one year's worth of spend as reserves I think (having built that up pretty quickly), and decided not to expand that significantly a while back. At current interest rates that's a very small % of what they'd need to live off their interest income. Quite apart from their responsibility to the projects, as an employer of about 200 people they have responsibilities to them to ensure security of funding. Personally I think they should continue to grow reserves to about the 2 year level. If the WMF "fades away", how will "our articles survive" - on Answers.com? Johnbod (talk) 14:19, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Given the goodwill we presently enjoy, raising two years worth of reserves should be quite doable and would be prudent in my opinion. (Though, once we have an effective and stable visual editor and internal communications system, and some easy and effective audiovisual and translation infrastructure, the annual expenditure should drop considerably, and two years worth of establishment spending should expand to four years or more of simple management expenditure.)

I think Answers.com is a for-profit company, but I can think of half a dozen existing successful and efficient nonprofits whose missions would permit them to run our servers and provide the technical support we need, should the WMF lose the ongoing support of our readers - a scenario I find improbable, but not impossible given their track record.

I was hoping to focus on his second question: should they pursue an endowment strategy: build a reserve whose principle can't be spent, but all or part of whose earnings can be used to fund operations. If the annual spend drops back to $10 million, a well-managed $250 million should cover that.

It might help transparency-wise if parties to this discussion who are directly or indirectly paid by the WMF (or plan to be) could point that out. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 14:58, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

As to your last question no, and no. 1) This is not an English Wikipedia policy issue. 2) Non-profits in the US regularly raise endowments, so if the WMF should be somehow different in that respect, that should be raised with the WMF board who has the fiduciary duty to the survival of the foundation. Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:56, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Hi Alan. I'm not following you. Are you saying we can't discuss this here?

I'm not sure what duties the WMF owes to itself. The Gates Foundation is structured to cease to exist a few years after the death of the founders. Are the documents that compel the WMF to ensure its own survival, even if our readers stop donating, on the public record somewhere? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 16:07, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

(We had an edit conflict but your added edit emphasizes my point) I'm saying this is not the right place to discuss it, so it will likely lead to fruitless, frustrated debate of probably baseless opinion (or worse). If you want to change the governing documents of the foundation, you will have to address it to the foundation and its governing board. But it is probably best, if you wish to do so to 1) know what those documents say and 2) look at it also from the perspective of the duties the board has to the foundation, and that the foundation has to multiple projects beyond this one. Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:27, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

This is indeed the best and most accurate response on all points. Kudos, Alanscottwalker. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 16:35, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, Alan, I'm still not following this. Jimmy said there can and should be some debate about this. He used the passive voice, so it's not completely clear, but I assumed he wanted people to discuss it, and I thought en.Wikipedia's village pump would be as good a place as any to do that. After all, we're talking about something that directly impacts this project. If they are bound by their bylaws to ensure their own survival, then I guess they have no choice but to opt for the endowment strategy, and I wonder why Jimmy even raised the question.

If you'd rather not join the conversation, I'm OK with that. What's baffling me is you seem to think it's appropriate to tell me this topic is not to be broached here. Yes, it's about WMF. So what? What rules that out as a topic for discussion here? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 16:49, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

I do not know why you are baffled, as I have tried to explain why I have advised, what I have advised. Jimmy did not say, it makes sense to discuss it here. Regardless, whether you or others take my advice (concerning a mixed question of non-profit, foundation business and law) that advice still is what it is. Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:00, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

I'm baffled that you think you can tell people what they're allowed to talk about here. This is the village pump. The place where Wikipedians talk about stuff. I don't need your or Jimmy's permission to discuss the foundation here. If you don't want to discuss something, don't. Don't tell others what they can and can't discuss. It's tiresome - and you do far too much telling people what they can and can't say around here. Learn some manners. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 23:27, 26 January 2014 (UTC

Manners? When you ask people to talk about something, then they should be able to reply however they think suitable to adressing the issue. Evidently, it is you that need to learn manners, since you have suddenly decided to make this personal. Alanscottwalker (talk) 00:19, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Alan, you told me to shut up. You do that a lot. It's rude. stop it. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 00:46, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

No. I did not. I said there was a much better forum. So, you need to stop being rude. Alanscottwalker (talk) 00:55, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

You said this is not the right place to discuss it, as if there is only one right place to discuss this. This is one of many "right places" to discuss it. This issue affects en.Wikipedia as much as WMF affects Wikipedia, and we may discuss it here. We should discuss it here. All projects should be discussing it if the board is seriously contemplating going down this road. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 01:07, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Actually, I explicated reasons why this was not the place, and I am sorry you did not listen to them because those have come to pass. Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:12, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Agreed with you Anthony. We talk about this on Meta but not as many people would be aware of it and participate then. Personally I think WMF needs to start investing seriously. II | (t - c) 00:05, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

So, you'd endorse them building an endowment whose earnings would fund the WMF forever without them having to rely on ongoing reader support? (What's the best forum on Meta for discussing this kind of thing - the water cooler?) --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 00:46, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Yes, although I think they should continue to receive reader support but they should also try grow reserves significantly and get more experience investing those reserves so that if necessary they can function independent of reader support. I don't know about where on meta - this was a big discussion in the last board elections and I recently mentioned WMF's investing philosophy at m:Talk:Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_Handbook#Treasurer_versus_CFO. All this talk about an endowment seems a bit silly when WMF won't even invest any of their substantial reserves to get moving in that direction. And there's no reason to have the endowment specifically split out by separate donations. II | (t - c) 01:55, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. I think it's important they don't become in any way independent of ongoing broad reader support. (In fact I'd rather they also didn't accept donations larger than $100,000 so they aren't unduly beholden to the rich or powerful - but that's a slightly different topic.) --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 02:43, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

I don't see anything wrong with WMF getting as much money as it can from whatever sources it can so long as this is walled off from influencing the content of the project. Alternately, however, we could certainly create any number of separate (and separately governed) organizations to solicit funds for establishing server farms and other resources, which we could then lease in perpetuity to Wikipedia for a pittance, on the condition that Wikipedia remain neutral, ad-free, and the like. bd2412 T 22:47, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

New article

Draft:Integral flour can someone please help me with this? Thanks in advance. Alex ^{discussion ★} 20:31, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Is this the same as whole-wheat flour? Qwfp (talk) 20:40, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

I don't know. Quite frankly I'm not an expert in this field. Does anybody else know this? If that's true, this draft needs to be renamed to integral flour and then redirected to whole-wheat flour. Am I right? Alex ^{discussion ★} 20:54, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

I made that redirect for you, Alex, though I am not sure what effect you wanted. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 17:22, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

It's possible that the redirect ought to be whole-grain flour, which may or may not involve wheat. I don't really know. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:20, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Yes, probably, but we don't have that article yet, nor do we know if it can be written. Aleksa moved the redirect from draft space to article space, so I think we are done. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 15:51, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Please save a copy of one webpage on your computer for me, to help me get some spam articles deleted

Hi all!

I hope to soon start a mass AfD for all the articles created by a certain paid editor.

I wonder if two people — one administrator and one non-administrator — could please help me out? Please simply save a copy of http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:www.freelancer.is/projects/Article-Rewriting-Article-Submission/Replace-existing-WIKIPEDIA-page-maintain.html on your computer. This is a Google Cache page which includes strong evidence that the editor is paid. Please let me know below once you have done so.

Such strong evidence is available only in Google Cache — not on the open Web.

If you volunteer now, then once I start the AfD, I may call on you again: I may ask you to post a comment to help back up my accusation of paid editing.

WebCite cannot save Google Cache pages.

One administrator, plus one non-administrator, will be sufficient. I do not need more volunteers than that.

I thank you in advance.

Cheers, —Unforgettableid2 (talk) 08:13, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

I've saved a copy - as you suggest, an admin doing the same might be advisable. AndyTheGrump (talk) 08:54, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

The freelancer page says "We wish to replace the current page with our page and to maintain it on Wikipedia." (our page = permalink; current page = Turkish Taffy). It looks Bilby was unfriendly on 18 April 2012 with this edit which has edit summary "Reverted to last good version - appears to have been copied from http://www.bonomoturkishtaffy.com/MuseumHistory_ep_40.html". I doubt that an AfD would be successful as my guess-without-looking is that notability could be established. We'll just have to add it to the list of pages that need to be monitored forever. Johnuniq (talk) 10:11, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

AfD would not be appropriate if the subject is notable. If the paid editor is the only contributor, and there are significant problems with the article, WP:TNT might need to be applied, but more likely it will be a case of mass reverts, rollbacks, and article trimming. MChesterMC (talk) 09:54, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

This appears to be basically a content dispute: the current owners want to say that their grandfather personally invented the candy and someone else wants to say that it wasn't grandpa, but the employee of a company that grandpa bought. The thing to do would be to get something like Ray Broekel's book on American candy bars and see what the reliable sources say. This may be one of those times in which the only thing we can do is document both claims. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:00, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

Hello

When died Masaaki Tsukada, on january 27 or 29? Scymso (talk) 18:53, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

January 27. I'll add this reference to his article. --Jayron32 19:54, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kat Walsh

Please take a look at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kat Walsh

Smallbones_(smalltalk) 20:17, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

(Already completed with decision to redirect; not necessary to look, now, only out of personal interest. --Gryllida (talk) 04:24, 1 February 2014 (UTC))

Notification of a TFA nomination

In the past, there have been requests that discussions about potentially controversial TFAs are brought to the attention of more than just those who have WP:TFAR on their watchlist. With that in mind: Fuck (film) has been nominated for an appearance as Today's Featured Article. If you have any views, please comment at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests. Thank you. Bencherlite^Talk 12:34, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up. — Frεcklεfσσt | Talk 16:48, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Editor review#Mark Historical?

There is a discussion on whether the Editor Review should be marked historical. Input would be appreciated. KonveyorBelt 16:33, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Kilometerbanks, kilometerboekjes

These are traintickets where kilometers (miles?) are bougth in bulk and deducted on each trip. There is a Dutch article nl:Kilometerboekje and a German one, de:Kilometerbank. There used to be a lot of other examples in many countries. I try to gather more sources to get an overview of these type tickets. They maybe known under other names. I have received two German sources:

• Kilometerkarte für die Elektrische Bahn St. Gallen-Gais-Appenzell-Altstätten
• Kilometerhefte

Could somebody help in getting more sources or idealy a book or source where all the information has been collected? If someone want to write an English article on the subject I wil help with information on the Dutch railways.Smiley.toerist (talk) 23:49, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Testing a new template

I recently created a template, {{Service award progress}}, which shows your progress towards the next service award. I'm looking for people to try it out and notify me somehow if they find any bugs. To use it, all you have to do is stick it on your userpage somewhere and pass in the same things you pass into {{Service awards}} (i.e. |year=, |month=, |day=, and |edits=). Bugs and suggestions should be posted on the template's talk page; if I don't respond, you can put a {{Talkback}} on my talkpage. Thank you very much! APerson (talk!) 02:16, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

APerson«Service awards are a simple way of acknowledging an editor's level of contribution» (emphasis added by me). No, thank you. --Gryllida (talk) 04:14, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Note that this VP thread was intended for editors who were testing the new template, not editors who wanted to protest its creation. APerson (talk!) 20:05, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Media Viewer in beta...

...you can tick it in your Beta tab in Preferences. Its main goal is viewing image preview and basic info without going away from an article.

Please actively add your thoughts and healthy criticism it at its feedback page (as also linked in its entry in the Beta tab). It is a thing that directly faces the contributors daily after all, and your feedback would be valuable. --Gryllida (talk) 04:10, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Church of Scientology Editing on Wikipedia, the book

The first Scientologist to cite this book in the Church of Scientology editing on Wikipedia article wins the "Self-referential Circular Reference of the Decade" barnstar! Kaldari (talk) 07:17, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Old news: Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks/Abc#Bookvika Publishing. Keφr 08:57, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

== Is it safe? ==

I want to add back the orange bar notification (the so-called "bar of doom"). And I saw a warning which said that the script code may contain malicious content which may compromise my account, I just want to make sure if it is safe. And if it is not, is there another way to re-create it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Andrei Marzan (talk • contribs) 17:35, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Is it safe?

I want to add back the orange bar notification (the so-called "bar of doom"). And I saw a warning which said that the script code may contain malicious content which may compromise my account, I just want to make sure if it is safe. And if it is not, is there another way to re-create it?--Yutah Andrei Marzan Ogawa 17:35, 1 February 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Andrei Marzan (talk • contribs)

As a drive-by comment, the warning about malicious code is a blanket statement that something you write/copy there might not do what you expect. I myself have not tried the OBOD notification script, but it is most likely fine. Chris857 (talk) 03:41, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Ok, thanks.--Yutah Andrei Marzan Ogawa 08:54, 2 February 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Andrei Marzan (talk • contribs)

Arbitration Clerks seeking new volunteers

The Arbitration Committee clerks are currently looking for a few dependable and mature editors willing to serve as clerks. The responsibilities of clerks include opening and closing arbitration cases and motions; notifying parties of cases, decisions, and other committee actions; maintaining the requests for Arbitration pages; preserving order and proper formatting on case pages; and other administrative and related tasks they may be requested to handle by the arbitrators. Clerks are the unsung heroes of the arbitration process, keeping track of details to ensure that requests are handled in a timely and efficient manner. Clerks get front-line seats to the political and ethnic warfare that scorches Wikipedia periodically, and, since they aren't arbitrators themselves, are rarely threatened with violence by the participants.

Past clerks have gone on to be (or already were) successful lawyers, naval officers, and Presidents of Wikimedia Chapters. The salary and retirement packages for Clerks rival that of Arbitrators, to boot. Best of all, you get a cool fez!

Please email clerks-llists.wikimedia.org if you are interested in becoming a clerk, and a clerk will reply with an acknowledgement of your message and any questions we want to put to you.

For the Arbitration Committee clerks, Rschen7754 04:59, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Discuss this

Can't Edit (text disappears)

I wanted to tweak the opening/closing ceremony dates for the 2014 Winter Olympics but when I attempted to make the edit the text is not there. What's this all about, why does text disappear when I try to edit? 24.193.43.35 (talk) 13:26, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

What's the browser you use? Have you tried a different browser? Rehman 13:27, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

I'm using Chrome and I also tried to edit using SeaMonkey, neither worked. 24.193.43.35 (talk) 13:32, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

The dates are in the relevant templates. If you explain what you want to change, and why, then someone may be able to help you. --David Biddulph (talk) 13:40, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

I'm confused. What exactly are "relevant templates" ? 24.193.43.35 (talk) 14:29, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

In many places, Wikipedia uses templates to ensure that information is presented in a consistent manner. In this case the article uses Template:Infobox Olympic games, and that in turn calls up subpages. As I said, if you tell us what you were wanting to change and why, someone may be able to help you. --David Biddulph (talk) 15:19, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Thank you but why can't I just edit it myself?? 24.193.43.35 (talk) 17:12, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Do you mean why can't you find the information or why did somebody hide it away like that? Why can't you find it? There are several sub-template pages involved, you need to find the correct sub-template containing the information you wish to change. This is why you are being asked which information you wish to change. Why did somebody do it this way? I guess it seemed like a good idea at the time - probably to allow other display usages or something. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 17:35, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

I think this has been resolved at Wikipedia:Help desk#Can't Edit (text disappears). Please only ask a question in one place. PrimeHunter (talk) 04:04, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Long lost gems from the Wikipedia of yesterday

I'm thinking of collecting a bunch of old revision URLs for Wikipedia articles that used to be very detailed in the past, however have become stubbified, shortened or made into redirects as a result of a rise in the enforcement of policies such as WP:N, WP:V, WP:NOR and WP:RS at around 2009. Back in the old days, many many years ago, Wikipedia was essentially the place where anyone could show up and dump whatever they want, and in some cases you could find huge piles of niche information; then one day, the community decided to revamp the system once and for all, and place greater emphasis on reliability. Many of the articles purged had to do with things such as television shows, films, computer and video games, and music, since these are the things that are often the most difficult to properly reference and verify niche information for very specific audiences. During the 2007-2008 era, "in popular culture" sections used to be the absolute plague of Wikipedia, from what I remember.

Currently I know of three old versions of articles that are quite detailed:

• PlayStation Portable homebrew, at 21:53, 17 June 2008
• Supersoldier, at 08:34, 21 July 2008
• Barnacle (Half-Life), at 05:08, 15 March 2008

Does anyone else happen to know of any other such examples? This is just something I'm doing for fun and to fill in my curiosity, and simply that; I'm interested in finding out what other things old Wikipedia used to have in store, hidden away in a dark corner. --benlisquare_T•C•E 17:24, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Basically, every article on a non-canon Star Wars character. They were all moved to Wookiepedia. Kaldari (talk) 00:03, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Minority casualties during Vietnam

A few sources claim that minorities, particularly blacks, suffered a disproportionately high number of casualties during the Vietnam War. I've been trying to verify this or debunk it, but a lot of the information I've been finding is contradictory. I'm not really an expert on Vietnam or the methods they used to collect data about race, and the only two reliable sources I've been able to find contradict each other. Vietnam War casualties doesn't mention the controversy at all, while Winter Soldier Investigation#Racism Panel treats it like a given.

Some of the unreliable sources I've seen claim that in at least one year, blacks were 20% of the casualties, but less than that in other years, enough to bring the number back down to 12-15%. Some claim that Latinos were counted as whites. There are claims about discriminatory drafting, but also that minorities were denied combat roles because of the racism against them. I just can't make heads or tails of this. Are there any experts out there who know something about this? PraetorianFury (talk) 17:45, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Good article reassessment

I was told to take this to the village pump so apologizes find I took this to the wrong place. But I really want to address this problem I have with GAR as of late. What's happening with GAR is that all the reviews it has on its board is completely stalled out. Its oldest review, for Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, has been up since November 2nd of last year and nothing has been done about it. The GAR for Frank Underwood (House of Cards) was requested to be withdrawn and as of this writing, is currently at GAN. What I'm saying is that the process is mismanaged and there needs to be some sort of reform or management added to it. This is just depressing to look at. GamerPro64 04:04, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

The process isn't mismanaged, it isn't managed at all. You can't manage volunteers, they review what they want to review when they want to review it. If you want certain articles to be reviewed then you must do it yourself or wait for someone else to decide to do it.AioftheStorm (talk) 04:40, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Link fixed

File George Izard.jpg already in commons.
Please, delete File:George Izard.jpg, thank you. --Francois-Pier (talk) 04:07, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Notifications

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T62906

I don't know why, and i don't konw if this the place for leave a message, but i have the whole day with a notification, the problem is doesn't appear a message or another thing, but a error message with this text.

Could not find the requested workflow. Return to Main Page.

. --Ravave (talk) 18:24, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

That's probably due to an editor testing WP:Flow. If the notification won't go away (i.e., the number stays red), then I believe that one solution is to go to Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-echo, uncheck the new notification option for Flow, and then save your preferences. Then you can reenable the pref if you want. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 23:35, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

@Ravave:Yup, thats a bug that will be fixed this afternoon (within the next hour, afaik). No changes to your preferences are needed. Sorry about the problem/distraction. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 23:41, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Bug fixed. If you still have the undismissable [1], see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Comics#Accidental ping for 3 solutions. Sorry again for the confusion and distraction. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 02:32, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

@Whatamidoing (WMF):@Quiddity (WMF):: Thank you for you two. Fixed, and i hope there aren't more bugs xD. And don't worry, Quiddity. Everybody (myself too) makes some errors. --Ravave (talk) 11:42, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Arnaldus_de_Villa_Nova year problems

In Arnaldus_de_Villa_Nova, his birth and death years are listed as circa 1235–1311. The last sentence in the second paragraph reads "About 1313 he was summoned to Avignon by Pope Clement V, who was ill, but he died on the voyage off the coast of Genoa.". This is problematic in several ways: 1) We are first told that Arnaldus died in 1311, so is the 1313 date wrong? 2) Sentence is unclear about who died on the voyage: If it was Arnaldus, then the aformentioned birth and death dates are in conflict with the 1313 date. If it was Clement V, then 1313 is wrong or Pope_Clement_V is wrong. Would someone who knows more about these two people please check the two articles for accuracy? -- Frotz(talk) 11:23, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Use of the revision history search tool reveals that 89.57.153.52 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) changed the death year in the lead sentence from 1313 to 1311 on 10 November 2007. I've just changed it back to 1313. Qwfp (talk) 11:55, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

mistake the word port instead of pork

In the article about "Epilepsy" there is a section called "Prevention" where it names "port tapeworm". Click on this name and you get "pork tapeworm"

Prevention[edit]While many cases are not preventable, efforts to reduce head injuries, provide good care around the time of birth, and reduce environmental parasites such as the port tapeworm may be effective.[3] Efforts in one part of Central America to decrease rates of port tapeworm resulted in a 50% decrease in new cases of epilepsy.[10] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.32.29.1 (talk) 12:04, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. I have changed it to say pork tapeworm.[1] You could also have fixed it yourself by clicking the edit link to the right of the section heading. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:22, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Animated icons

Horrified today to discover that my "Watchlist" star icon is animated, spinning cutely whenever I click it. Any competent UI designer knows that this kind of thing is at best controversial and will alienate users who find such things distracting or even distressing. Yes, we do exist. To me, such tricks are just thoughtless nastiness by people who simply don't care about those of us who suffer distraction and distress from peripheral animations. C'm on, guys, prove you are not prejudiced bigots and please get rid of this little horror. Keep editing Wikipedia truly accessible to all, not just to the people you want us to be. My apologies if I post this in the wrong place, but there seems no obvious slot for such a comment. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 13:37, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

It should only spin for half a second when you click it. In the past I have seen it keep spinning due to a problem but not currently. Does it keep spinning for you? If so then what is your browser? The MonoBook skin at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rendering has many design differences. One of them is a "watch/unwatch" tab instead of a spinning star. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:12, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for replying. It spins for about second, noticeably more than half a second. But that is quite long enough to do my head in, thank you. You know, a bullet can rip through your heart in a hundredth of a second but you stay dead an awful lot longer, that kind of effect. I am using the default skin. If people want spinning stars and other exciting toys, by all means offer them as a choice once they start to play around, but do not force them on first-time users by including them in the default skin. This really is fundamental User Interface design stuff. Monobook has other design issues, otherwise I would have chosen it before and guess it would have been the default skin anyway. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 17:48, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

The watchlist star has been animated for years. Did you just switch from a different skin to Vector? Kaldari (talk) 00:02, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Yep this is nothing new. I agree with you it's not nice (very gimmicky) but it's been animated for some time. Did you recently upgrade your browser or has anything else changed in your setup that may have shown you this? Jdlrobson (talk) 00:12, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

I enabled javascript to get the extra [edit] link for the lead (That's another thing, why is just one [edit link] javascript and not like the others, ugh). I am now torn between clunkiness and irritation. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 10:26, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

You'll get used to it :) The top [edit] link requires javascript because it needs to be cloned from another [edit] link. The spinning star is a simple animated GIF (newer browser display an SVG animated through CSS). — Edokter (talk) — 11:43, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Forgive me, but "you'll get used to it" is about as patronising as one can get. FYI there was a time before my doctor found the right tablets that an animation like that in my peripheral vision could trigger a migraine. And, as I began this thread with, it still troubles me today. Not something one ever gets used to, I assure you. I neither know nor care about how the code works, I just know that the end result is destructive. Maybe that link could be cloned before the page is served, maybe there is some bug somewhere that bundles gif animation in with javascript, either in my browser or in the Wikipedia code base, maybe there is no fix and I just have to suffer it as a "feature", I don't know. But I am of the humble opinion that the code serves to deliver the UX, and not the other way round. If nobody points out these things, code developers are apt to forget that they need pointing out. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk)

There is a 'No animation' gadget, but it does not affect the watch icon yet. I do intend to rectify that once the updated code (using the SVG) has been deployed. — Edokter (talk) — 14:40, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

There are also browser extensions and settings to stop all animated gifs everywhere. You may want to look into that, because Wikipedia is not the only website in the world that uses them. As for this one, if we could find the name of the image, then it should be possible to block that one specific image for you, too. commons:Category:Vector skin has the static stars, but I couldn't find the spinning one itself. Perhaps someone else will be able to find it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:10, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

It's stopped. Adblock plus reports it as two separate png images now. Me happy bunny, and many many thanks to whoever you are. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 19:53, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

I believe the star images are all static, and are rotated via CSS Transform (See clear example, and browser-support list (most)). I'm not sure where the code is coming from though; Wikipedia:Catalogue of CSS classes is long out of date.

[Edit 2] (Hmm, probably from [mediawiki/core.git]/skins/vector/components/watchstar.less,[2] which has .rotation(700ms); in it.)

[Edit 3] ahh, gerrit 99258 and bugzilla:35335 is where those lines came from, which was merged and closed on January 29. And one of the gerrit comments says that we did used to use an animated gif for this. Huh. So much to learn! –Quiddity (talk) 05:03, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Another oddity - that CSS Rotate example is not working for me. I wonder if it never has or whether my browser has somehow given up on the things - I haven't touched anything. Maybe a NoScript update but I don't recall one that recently. Weird. Means that my reports of what does not rotate can not be trusted. Off topic, that CSS Rotate page suggest using it to deliver a gallery of images. Sheesh! I know, let's divide web code into structure, semantics and style, then deliver content using the styling code. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 11:09, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Shesh. I, for one, like the animated icon. — Frεcklεfσσt | Talk 16:16, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

hello to the people had a good at heart

Hi I'm Anita I originally from Philippines and reside from a small village in hindang Leyte in the Philippines. We have around 100 family lives there but we don't have enough resources especially water. It is very difficult if you don't have enough water coz water is very important in our daily life use in laundry, cooking, taking a shower, in use to water the animal to drink and water the plant. We have water but not enough to cater for the people who live there. Some people there not taking a bath everyday coz don't have enough water for the village. We have water there but its just far from our village and it is difficult coz you carry it by bucket or pail or water container and it was heavy to carry for woman. I'm urging those have kind at heart to help my village people to have water pump so we can build our water tank and we can supply the water in every houses. I am organizing it on my behalf coz we ask already in our local government but the refuse our project coz the said. We don't have enough people there help if our village had 500 resident. But in my opinion our village are few but non the long year ahead our village are growing. Now its almost 300 hundred plus residents at the moment. Pls help us thank you — Preceding unsigned comment added by 112.120.251.94 (talk) 07:52, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Sorry to inform you, but here at WP:VP, we don't actually manufacture and supply real-life village water pumps. It would be a good idea to seek assistance at a better location. --benlisquare_T•C•E 03:40, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Photos taken of members of the European Parliament

Logo

From Monday 3 February to Thursday 6 February a group of about 50 Wikimedians were present in the European Parliament in Strasbourg to take photos of members of the European Parliament. From about half of all members (766) of the parliament there have been photos taken during these days. Still a lot of them have to be uploaded to Commons. Also from members from the UK and Ireland photos have been taken. A part from the pictures already have been added to articles on the various language Wikipedias, but many not. Please help us with that. If you add a photo in one language, it would be recommended to add the photo also to the articles in other languages.

The category with photos can be found on Commons here and includes also the other photos that have been taken by the group members during the project in Strasbourg.

In the past weeks on several Wikipedias users started a project to write all missing articles at least from the country a language is mostly spoken in, but certainly also from all other countries of the European Union. All members of the European Parliament have an article on at least one language version of Wikipedia, but on a lot of language versions their articles are missing and still need to be written. This writing project currently happens on for example the Dutch Wikipedia.

The project page for having been at the European Parliament is at Commons at Commons:Wikipedians in European Parliament. The project is part of a larger project to take photos from members of national and regional parliaments. In the past years Wiki loves parliaments was for example active in the state parliaments in Germany. Which parliament shall be next?

Thanks for the help! Greetings - Romaine (talk) 15:33, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

• Congratulations to everyone for this great opportunity, and I hope that everything goes smoothly. I request, however, that photographers leave a little bit of headroom. File:Salvatore Caronna 01.JPG is far too tight of a crop, and if the other images are similar, it meas meaning the images are not flattering (and as such may damage further attempts to work with the European Parliament). — Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:43, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Please remove username and edit count from the new pages feed

Please participate in the discussion I linked in the subject of this section. Thanks. --Gryllida (talk) 04:22, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation February 12 2014 update

Frank Schulenburg has been named as the Executive Director of the Wiki Education Foundation. Here is the press release giving more details. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:22, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Hi Guys and gals

Not relevant to the English-language Wikipedia - though if it were, I'm sure we'd have something to say about a contributor who uses the word 'autistic' as a term of abuse. AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:23, 14 February 2014 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
This message is just not relevant for "AndytheGrump" who claims to speak on behalf of millions of readers. What a pity. My original text, no reason for censorship, here: Hi all. Congrats for being the most varied and read Wikipedia of all. My name is Xibalba, some older folks may know me as Torero... My experience with Wikipedia started some 11 years ago and I immediately embraced the idea of spreading knowledge. Since then I've done that quite enthiuastically, I must say. I worked some 3+ years as Torero but until some crazy manhunt of people who really have nothing better to do than bullying others, and mainly those who speak up against the autistic authorities, kicked me out. "Forever". Haha, live-long sentences on Wikipedia. Come on, these people take themselves seriously? Idiots, no other words for them. Later I came back and worked under Xibalba. Built a portal which is in unfinshed state because these creeps think I should be excluded for 1 year (!) (after being banned forever? the dictators seem to be confused) from Wikipedia because I "sock puppet"ed? What the f*ck? Who uses that kind of language? I did my best in providing the Dutch readers some insight into Colombia (various topics) and geology. And that was just some of the things I did. Take a look at some "vandalistic work" (yeah, you don't believe it, but check this: I have a "file", like I am some kind of criminal or so. Really that is how these people think, can you imagine?, absolutely VERBOTEN to delete or obscure. No I shall be the terrorist. Idiots. My earliest work nl:Gebruiker:Torero/Mijn_bijdragen nl:Portaal:Aardwetenschappen - together with highly respected colleague nl:Gebruiker:Woudloper Recent work (with own quality scale) nl:Gebruiker:Xibalba nl:Overleg gebruiker:186.28.35.72 - others I cannot even find anymore, even that is banned!?? Recent and older articles I take pride in are nl:Portaal:Colombia nl:Geologie van Colombia nl:Cerrejón-formatie nl:Geo von Lengerke nl:Vichada-structuur nl:Eje Cafetero nl:Joe Arroyo nl:Lagerstätte nl:Carbonemys nl:Aardbeving Cúcuta 1875 nl:Malpelo nl:Múcura - not on other wikis, own photos nl:Lijst van eilanden naar bevolkingsdichtheid nl:Zuidwalvulkaan nl:Tsumeb nl:Lijst van mineralen - described some 60-70% of these Unfinished because of the destructive vandals nl:Natuur in Colombia nl:Precolumbiaanse geschiedenis van Colombia nl:Mijnbouw in Colombia nl:Geologie van Bonaire Photos nl:Gebruiker:Torero/Foto's User:XibalbaWikiCommons - Commons My objective is and has always been clear; "inform as many people as possible, on such a level that both amateurs are intrigued and experts still can learn something, using all the different formats Wikipedia provides us, volunteers who want to donate our knowledge and/or amateur interest to the World. Free, well-accessible, heavily linked (and red links should not be ignored -as is on the Dutch-speaking counterpart- but encouraged; they are the seeds for new knowledge-sharing pages) information made visual and interesting to read. Presented in an orderly manner using Commons as our vault of making things visual to the general public. Backed by reliable sources." Obviously the Dutch-speaking "friends" did not embrace this idea, as I have tried so many times, no "keeping the status quo" and "not using creative street language" was more important for these autistic idiots who don't know anything about the outside world. A dead horse has more flexibility and insight in what readers want then they do. I have been in 52 countries and counting. 18-year old autistic (even proudly presented on his User Page) attic nerds who became moderator just 3 weeks before (a birthday present, how cute) who claims he can befather, object without arguments or harrass me. Doesn't know shit about Colombia, geology, databasing, anything, but think they have to play the boss over me, my knowledge and experience. Seems to know a lot about computer games ans Muse concerts, so that's a great comfort in bringing something good to our offspring. What do I find here guys? A welcoming embrace and motivation to continue to spend my valuable and scarce free time, experience and knowledge here? A professional, respectful, open for new ideas, environment I helped to create myself, when setting up an internal Wikipedia in one of the largest companies in the world? Do I find respect here, not grotesquely uninformed edits in beautiful articles by literally people who do not even read the article? Or do I find the same autistic tight-assed nerds without any feeling for scale or what's important, like the Dutch dominating forces (respect for the few but very enthusiastic really valuable people who keep the (paleo)biology well-maintained there. All others who know I respect them because of how they spend their wiki-time -on articles, not on others!-)? You tell me and I might register. Have a good night, 186.28.35.72 (talk) 04:30, 13 February 2014 (UTC) (Xibalba/Torero) P.S.: Oh, and when you talk to my former Dutch-speaking 'friends', tell them how deeply ashamed I am to confirm what I observed for so many years; the eternal blindness, deafness and unwillingness to make something of a misleadingly "big" Wikipedia. Completely unreadable and uninteresting lists of Pokemon-shows MUST be kept at all costs but for instance this informative list was removed completely (by the same person, luckily I had a back-up): nl:Lijst van mijnbouwgebieden in Colombia A deeper shame about my own people I cannot feel and that has unfortunately to be expressed in the most modest way possible. Maybe you don't like my style, but I know from a broad experience that our clients (the readers), whose voices are never heard, do. They are not the slightest bit interested in all the bull sh*t behind these Wiki-doors. Ah, I see, the same unrespectful deaf mafia here. Cheers for your ignorance about how "serious" Wikipedia is perceived in the world. No time to waste here, so much is clear. Get a life man, 186.28.80.201 (talk) 08:19, 14 February 2014 (UTC) Please see WP:NOTFORUM. If you want a place to describe your Wikipedia activies, you might create a user account and put something on your user page. Johnuniq (talk) 09:27, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

We are all Diu

I believe it is little known across the Wiki Community: the Greek user Diu (el.wiki) has been personally sued by a politician and is now in legal trouble for an edit which our Greek Colleagues call correct. Diu added a sourced fact, in the politician's article, that he found in local press; he has been sued, the journalist has not. The whole story is in English here.
It is something which may happen to everyone of us just for making correctly our work in the encyclopedia. This is why the Greek Wikipedians' protest is called "We are all Diu". I believe they are right: we all are... --g (talk) 01:49, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Ugh. I wonder if Diu is aware of meta:Legal and Community Advocacy/Legal Fees Assistance Program. Anomie⚔ 02:52, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

I do not see mention of the WMF being contacted, so I have left a note at User talk:Philippe (WMF)#Greek user needs legal assistance. Johnuniq (talk) 05:11, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Thank you, Johnuniq. BTW I believe that the Greek Community and Diu himself would also morally benefit from feeling supported by other Colleagues from outside. Greeks keep on working in their Project despite a particularly hard general context, imvho it wouldn't be unappropriated if they can feel they are not being left alone. --g (talk) 09:43, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

There is a new blog post about this at http://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/02/14/wikimedia-foundation-supports-wikipedia-user-subject-to-defamation-lawsuit-in-greece/ Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 22:51, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Section numbering is gone?

Hmmm, did I make some strange accidental change to my preferences somehow, because I notice that all the section numbering in articles is gone... or did I fail to get the memo on this one??? Roberticus (talk) 21:53, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Are you referring to numbers in the TOC (table of contents)? Like at Talk:Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act#Why no numbers in article Contents box? If so, it is because someone thought that it was desirable to format the TOC in that fashion, using this wikitext:

<div class="nonumtoc">__TOC__</div>

In general, technical issues are best asked at WP:VPT. Johnuniq (talk) 00:34, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply User:Johnuniq, and I guess I should've logged out (yes, TOC numbering re-appears) to determine it is indeed related to my preferences, that's strange... at this point though, I think I don't mind it this way... I will also keep WP:VPT in mind as a good place for these types of questions Roberticus (talk) 11:21, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

In The News

Y'all wrote:

> At least 76 people are killed when a military plane crashes in Algeria.

I would like to suggest using "proper English," e.g., "At least 76 people were killed when a military plane crashed in Algeria."

I.e., proper use of tenses. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.25.58.182 (talk) 10:39, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

The present tense is also "proper English". It's a normal convention to use it to convey the actuality of an event, hence its use in the context of news reporting. Kim Traynor | Talk 10:53, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Normal in headlines and chronologies, that is; not normal in all forms of running text. But "In the News" is a list of current events and news, so it's quite appropriate there. --Thnidu (talk) 20:27, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Harold Wilson Conspiracy Theories

Are you sure the army actually took control of Heathrow in '74? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.30.132.30 (talk) 17:29, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Transsexualism

This is listed under diseases. how to we change that. Very unhappy trans people out there. http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Transsexualism — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.160.137.87 (talk) 04:17, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

Which list are you referring to? PrimeHunter (talk) 02:29, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps there is some confusion or some outdated information. The article on Transsexualism is listed only under Category:Gender and Category:Transgender. It is not listed in Category:Diseases and disorders. It does mention the fact that it's listed in the DSM and ICD, as well as the fact that seeing it as a "disease" is considered insulting. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:56, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Peter Florin

please note that Peter Florin died. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.185.175.84 (talk) 09:03, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

I can't see anything on Google yet. Are you sure? Britmax (talk) 09:24, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Fixed. German Wikipedia was already updated and had a source, although in german. Bjelleklang - talk 09:25, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

banned user shrine / memorial

Is there some policy or essay against creating "shrines" or "memorials" to banned users? Thought I came across one once but I'm not finding it now. NE Ent 13:12, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Deny recognition#See also has a link to No shrines for vandals at Wikiversity. Wikipedia:Revert, block, ignore says "No longer!" about shrines. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:14, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Backlog at 3O

There's quite a backlog at 3O if anyone would care to lend a hand. Best regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 14:52, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Beg?

I need some advice on Mir Yar Beg, Mir Yar Beg Sahibzada, and Mohammad Murad Beg. It would seem that Beg is a title, although not specifically for Tajikistan. What I want to know is how these three names should be shown on the talk page listas, and on the article's Person template and {{DEFAULTSORT}}. Currently the articles and talk pages have a variety of name orders. What should they be?--DThomsen8 (talk) 02:09, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Note that Sahibzada is also a title, not a name. The list of Beys/Begs/Baigs at Baig#Notable Begs/Baigs may be of some use to you. — Scott • talk 15:15, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

The list of Beys/Begs/Baigs does not have Mir, Yar, or Mir Yar. For now, I am going to leave it alone.--DThomsen8 (talk) 00:49, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Dis-ambiguation page with 2 primary topics

I would like to know if there's any rule about the maximum number of primary meanings a dis-ambiguation page may have. Go to Charleston. I see it as having 2 primary meanings, and I moved them to the top of the article. Any opinions?? Georgia guy (talk) 22:38, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

• Looks good to me. Regardless of whether there's a rule or not I feel (and think) that context would trump it in this case. Similarly, I added "Charleston (dance)" to the top section as well. Promotes 'discoverability' and keeps with the principal-of-least-surprise for readers.

Charleston, SC is likely the most common modern usage—from an American perspective at least. Then—as a State capital—Charleston, WV warrants prominent billing and 'the charleston' dance get's regular mention in both historical and cultural settings.

p.s.— No need to hyphenate "disambiguation". :  }

--Kevjonesin (talk) 03:01, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Also, it's "principle" of least surprise. :-P — Scott • talk 12:07, 19 February 2014 (UTC) </pedant>

Stick to your principals. Use superglue when you shake them by the hand Fiddle Faddle 12:14, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

LULZ, so it is ... --Kevjonesin (talk) 01:19, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Editing the notice at Special:Cite

There is some text at the top of Special:Cite titled "important note". There seems to be no way to discuss or edit this text. Is this note contained in a template anywhere on which users can comment? Who has the authority to change this kind of text? Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:00, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

That is MediaWiki:Cite text, so presumably discussions happen at MediaWiki talk:Cite text. Any admin can change pages in that namespace. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:07, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Essay announcement

My new essay and MFD-magnet: The Wikiderata. Enjoy. — TransporterMan (TALK) 19:41, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

File:Thumbsup emote.gif --Kevjonesin (talk) 01:45, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Love templates and design? :)

We have a paid wiki-design contract position with the Wikimedia Foundation: We need your help making it easier for Wikimedians to participate in the movement and with each other!

• Travel and Participation Support Grants is looking for someone to help design and build a new portal on meta-wiki to make this grants program easier to navigate and more fun to use. You'd be working with me, to make something suitable for this program that fits with other grants pages on meta-wiki. We’d prefer someone with wiki and template knowledge (this would outweigh other experience). Please see the job description for details, pass it along to anyone you know, and feel free to ask me or Siko if you have any questions. We look forward to speaking with you!

(We’re posting around the community because we’d love to hire a Wikipedian and thought some people here might be interested - if you apply, please include some info about your Wikimedia experience!)

heather walls (talk) 23:35, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Blacklisted reference

On Talk:Zavkhan Province I am told about a blacklisted reference. I am unsure what I can or should do about it. Please provide some guidance to me. --DThomsen8 (talk) 00:45, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I replied there. Johnuniq (talk) 07:17, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Comic-Con Panel

So at 2013 Comic-Con International, other wikipedians and myself had a small meetup and since one of the attendees was hosting a panel at that years Comic-Con, I was thinking perhaps Wikipedia can propose a panel to Comic-Con as we have become one of the most popular sources of information, including about "comics and related popular artforms" (as stated in the Comic-Con International's mission statement). Since then I have become far less active than I once was. However, if we can come up with a panel idea, perhaps we can pitch it to the convention, and see if it'll work for this year or next years programming. I am thinking the worse thing that can be said to us is no.

Perhaps it can be about how Wikipedians attempt to neutrally document comics and related popular artforms in a readily accessible encyclopedic manner? Or, it can be a presentation on how anyone can become a Wikipedian? These are just two ideas for a panel topic. I would like to hear from others regarding this idea, so I'll be inviting others to this conversation.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 11:28, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I (for the foreseeable future) don't have plans to make it out to San Diego, but I think this is a great idea. With the advent of increasing scrutiny and interest in comic films, Wikipedia is the first place people look for the up to date info on them. As well, large cross overs like Infinity and Forever Evil have large page views, as people expect us as regular editors to cover the scope of the event. I would support either idea, or even a combination of the two. I hope others like the idea of this, and if you proceed, it gets accepted! - Favre1fan93 (talk) 16:30, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Well I am starting this conversation to find consensus as to what would be the best topic to propose as a panel for Wikipedia at Comic-Con. Are any of my already stated ideas adequate? Are there better ones?

Also at what point should we contact the foundation about this discussion?--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 09:39, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

public invitation to manipulate Wikipedia

Not sure whether this is the right place, but I wanted to notify the community about this.
Using the misleading headline "In Defense of Wikipedia’s Credibility", a recent piece[3] in Cornell Daily Sun by some Christo Eliot openly invites its readers to manipulate entries in Wikipedia and even provides advice how to do it undetected. Cite from the piece: Am I suggesting that everyone go onto the Internet and add bogus information to Wikipedia pages? Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying. --Túrelio (talk) 13:48, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Without specific articles or editors, there is nothing we can do proactively. We are pretty good at catching such edits. See Wikipedia:Wikiality and Other Tripling Elephants for some past media pushed editing. --  Gadget850 ^talk 16:41, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

"The first 100" links to an image

When Special:Random took me to Borajna, I became curious whether there was an article on the flag. I clicked on the image File:Flag of Bosnia and Herzegovina.svg and scrolled down to the "File usage" section, where it said:

More than 100 pages link to this file. The following list shows the first 100 page links to this file only.

First a side comment: "page links" is wrong. The same page may contain multiple links. What it means is "pages that link". Also, "only" is badly placed, seeming to refer to "this file" rather than "first 100".

Now my main point. I looked at the list, and when I got this far down the alphabet:

• Fine Gael
• Flag of Europe
• Foreign relations of Armenia
• Foreign relations of Bosnia and Herzegovina
• Foreign relations of Croatia

I deduced that there was no article "Flag of Bosnia and Herzegovina" linking to this file. I then followed the link to Bosnia and Herzegovina and searched in the page for the word "flag". It turned out that in the navbox Template:Bosnia and Herzegovina topics at the bottom of the page, "National Flag" is a link to Flag of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It exists after all, and of course it links to the image.

So why did that not show up in the "File Usage" list? Because even though the list of the "first" 100 links is in alphabetical order, it does not mean the first 100 links in alphabetical order. I don't know what it does mean. Is it the first 100 in order of creation, or are they in a meaningless and essentially random order like when a hash table is interrogated for a list of its keys?

If I click on the link offering me a "full list", I get one, starting with the "first 20" links and options to step forward or back in the list and to show more at a time. The first 100 items in this list are almost the same ones as on the original page (I assume the few differences reflect recent edits for which the pages are not yet updated), but they are no longer in alphabetical order. I suppose, again, that they are in order of creation or in a random order like a hash table. But this means that if I want to see whether a certain page has a link to this file, I potentially have to page through the entire list.

I think that if this feature is to work this way, then it should be changed so that people see what they're getting and aren't fooled by the alphabetical order as I was. So either the words "first 100" should either be changed to something meaningful (like "100 oldest" if that's what it is) or else it should say say "Here are 100 of the pages that link to this file". And I think that if people follow the link to the full list, it should either say what the order is (if it is by date, show the dates) or else say that the order is arbitrary.

But I don't see why the list couldn't be stored in alphabetical order in the first place, in a data structure associated with the image page. The list only needs to be regenerated when an article is edited in a way that adds the first, or removes the last, link to the image. That seems like a simple piece of programming. And then the "File Usage" page could show something meaningful — the first 100 links alphabetically — and stepping through the list would also be meaningful. In addition, the File Usage page could then show how many entries there are in the list instead of the vague "more than 100".

--50.100.193.30 (talk) 04:47, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Re "But I don't see why the list couldn't be stored in alphabetical order in the first place": The links are stored in the imagelinks table in the database, and the titles of the linking pages in the page table. With the way the database works they wind up having to be fetched in order by linking page_id. Retrieving them in any other order would cause the retrieval to be much slower, and storing them as you suggest would potentially require additional database changes on every page edit which would be prohibitively complex. Similarly, it only shows "more than 100" because actually counting the number of links can be excessively slow. Anomie⚔ 13:54, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Then what I'm proposing is a change to the way that part of the database works: provide a suitable form of indexing so that they can easily be retrieved in alphabetical order. And, preferably, so that a count is maintained.

And if nobody wants to do that, then I'm requesting a wording change to avoid misleading words such as "first 100". --50.100.193.30 (talk) 06:41, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Listing order on a category page

Speaking of order, Category:Xanth books lists the pages for books in the Xanth novels in their order of publication, by the trick of specifying each book's serial position in the page's category link:

[[Category:Xanth books| 0nn]]

I've described this on the talk page and put a pointer on the Category page for use in adding future books in the series.

I haven't seen this trick before. On the one hand, it seems useful; on the other, it makes it harder to find a book in the series by its title, and the purpose is just as well served by the list in Xanth#Books; on the gripping hand, changing it would require editing the articles on all 35 books. What are people's opinions about it? To contact me please use {{ping}}.

I was going to post this question at WikiProject Novels, but that project seems moribund at best. --Thnidu (talk) 05:46, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

I do not think it is a very good idea. As you point out, it makes finding the files articles harder as they are not arranged alphabetically. A simple solution would be to remove the sorting keys from the file articles, and then adding a usage note to the top of the category page (as you have done) setting out the reading order. — SMUconlaw (talk) 08:18, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Articles listed in a category should be in alphabetical order to help editors and readers find a specific article. Sorting articles based on order of publication should be left to the article that covers the series itself. 24.149.117.220 (talk) 13:13, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Frankly, it's high time we make categories more searchable. Suppose I want to look at the contents of the category in strict alphabetical order, regardless of defaultsorting or other coding to "fix" its location? Suppose I want to see pages listed in a category in order of time of creation (as they show up on "what links here" pages)? Suppose I want to search by "most recently edited", or by article size? All of those options should be available. bd2412 T 14:26, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

That would require metadata + mods to mediawiki. The metadata is probably being covered appropriately through the new wikidata stuff - perhaps start a discussion with those working on that? I agree that the Xanth books should be done alphabetically, no reason to have this one cat behave differently than all others.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 14:41, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

I agree that articles in the Category should be in strict alphabetical order. The order of the books can be found here, where it should be. Good idea, but categories need to be in alpha order. — Frεcklεfσσt | Talk 15:13, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

"Suppose I want to look at the contents of the category in strict alphabetical order, regardless of defaultsorting"

And what about articles that start with "A", "An" or "The"? What about biographical categories? What about separating a main article in a category from the sub-articles so that it can be easier to find?

"Suppose I want to see pages listed in a category in order of time of creation . . . or by article size?"

Nifty ideas, but not particularly useful.

"Suppose I want to search by "most recently edited"

There already is a tool link called "Related changes" over on the side for that. 24.149.117.220 (talk) 16:31, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Re: what about articles that start with "A", "An" or "The"? Yes, suppose I want the option to look at articles in a category in exactly that way, strictly by how their titles appear? I am not suggesting to make this a default view, but an option that can be selected. There are many reasons why it may be useful to look for articles by creation date or by article size (to find shorter non-stub articles that may need more material added, to find really old pages that may require updates to reflect a specific event that effects everything in the category). Thanks for pointing out the "Related changes" usage, though - I had actually never thought about using that on a category page. bd2412 T 17:32, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Some of the category intersection tools, like [4] may be of help here, they can do different types of sorting. (seems to broken now, but will likely be fixed soon) For example, this will sort them by last date modified [5]. I'm just not sure this is a high priority for mediawiki interface changes, which this would require. I'd much rather see them focus on category intersection, which would massively reduce the complexity of our current category system.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 17:40, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Any way of keeping an eye on new user without confrontation?

I'd prefer not to post my query here, but this new user is a single purpose account being explicitly used to opine as to the lack of NPOV on article talk pages. While this wouldn't normally bother me, he's out to bait someone and I non-admin WP:OOPSed by querying him on his trying to get someone else to develop some hearsay on his behalf. Yes, I am stupid and, yes, I've trout slapped myself already.

It doesn't exactly fit the 'vandal' profile for reporting, but the number of edits he's making on talk pages in order to make a redundant point and, now, to call me out - which I won't respond to - on a page that is rife with traffic at the moment is disruptive: see from here to here (1 initial + 3 edits), and here to here (5 edits in total). I'm not sure whether he's just a sad soul trolling just to engage with someone, or whether he's spamming for self-promotion (his own project?). Is there any method by which to keep an eye on his activities in order to prevent another outbreak of disruptive use of a talk page as a forum? --Iryna Harpy (talk) 06:13, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

This is not the proper place for this. You're having a minor dispute and bringing it here seems to accomplish nothing and can only serve to escalate the issue. You are already aware of how to watch users using "Special:Contributions", so it seems to me that you aren't really looking for a way to "keep an eye on a user without confrontation" but canvassing for support against this user. This user has basically only edited two talk pages more than a few times. He/she does seem to try to explain their point of view. The best you can do is stay neutral, engage in good faith discussion, and calmly explain policy and guidelines as needed. Doesn't mean you have to agree with their point of view at all. If this user irks you personally, maybe your best bet is to just ignore them. Should their editing become truly problematic, there are already channels to address that. For example, you can start at Wikipedia:Dispute resolution or proceed to use some of the resources at {{Noticeboard links}}. Jason Quinn (talk) 17:14, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

Apologies for being disruptive, Jason Quinn. Yes, it certainly does read as canvassing, even if I wasn't consciously aware of it at the time. I realised it was best not to continue antagonising him and have refrained from doing so. Thanks for the slap. It's deserved. Skulking off to put on my dunce cap now. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 00:04, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Pablo Casals

There is currently a request for comments on Talk:Pablo Casals in which some users might wish to participate. The issue involves Casals' first name on pages that link to Pablo Casals. Full information is provided on the talk page. 131.111.185.66 (talk) 21:58, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

Just a thought...

It seems like there are a lot of pages on Wikipedia titled "criticisms of..." and no pages entitled "affirmations of...". I'm just saying... Eatmark (talk) 02:12, 6 March 2014 (UTC)Eatmark

• Excellent thought. Thank you. --Kevjonesin (talk) 04:25, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

please help with RfC about syrian people

please if you are interested in Syrians people participate in the RfC atTalk:Syrian people--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 12:46, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

the conflict was resolved, thanks any way--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 14:45, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Speedy inclusion?

Is there a way to facilitate a 'speedy inclusion'? Regarding Draft talk:Abby Martin#Additional coverage. It seems that administrative support is needed to free up the article name in mainspace. A reworked version of the article Abby Martin—with improved referencing—was declined 28 Feb. 2014 with little or no specific explanation. Then just days later Ms. Martin was featured in articles by both NBC and the Huffington Post.

--Kevjonesin (talk) 22:48, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

• Resolved. There is now a page at Abby Martin (journalist). --Kevjonesin (talk) 21:01, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Location of articles for creation

Why are articles for creation under the Wikipedia talk namespace? I'd think that there'd be a breakdown between the article being drafted, under the Wikipedia namespace, and discussion of the article, under Wikipedia talk.—Largo Plazo (talk) 19:43, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Unregistered users can only create pages in talk namespaces –- at least before the new draft namespace was made. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:47, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Ah. Thanks. —Largo Plazo (talk) 19:59, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

• Perhaps it would be better to have a subsection/alternate_page for unregistered users to make Article for Creation submissions rather than employing a solution which by default limits everyone. It seems that the spirit of community and consensus would be better served if the AfC format were changed to readily allow multi-party input. i.e. It would be nice to have a standard primary-and-talk page setup to allow open discussion and more detailed transparent review. --Kevjonesin (talk) 23:25, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

• There already is the option to move the talk page to Wikipedia space and then talk about it on the talk page. Also AFC welcomes the use of comments on the contributed page anyway, so no need so much for an extra talk page. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 20:43, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

• At various places in WT:AFC there is discussion about having "AFC" articles created in the relatively new Draft: namespace with Draft talk: also being available. See also Wikipedia:Drafts. Thincat (talk) 23:57, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

The free encyclopedia has gone missing

When I am logged in, the page title (as shown in browser tab) now takes on the format of "Article name - Wikipedia", whereas before it was "Article name - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia". On the page itself, there is still a line below the article title that says "From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia". I was wondering why the titles have changed and where was this discussed? I use monobook. Rcsprinter₁₂₃ (push) @ 22:33, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

I'm still seeing it, though I'm using the default skin. Ian.thomson (talk) 22:39, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Same here. The source of this page gives me <title>Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia</title>. Bjelleklang - talk 22:43, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

What browser and system are you using? Ian.thomson (talk) 22:49, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

It happens on both PC and tablet, using Chrome and Safari. See this. Rcsprinter₁₂₃ (yak) @ 22:50, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Wow, that is weird. I'm using a PC, Firefox. It's gotta be something on their end. Wait, the PC you're using, what OS does it have? Maybe it's an Apple issue? Ian.thomson (talk) 22:59, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

My PC uses Windows 8. Rcsprinter₁₂₃ (state the obvious) @ 23:20, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Chrome on Linux for me, working just fine. Bjelleklang - talk 23:28, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Do we have any other Windows 8 users here? I'm on Win 7. Ian.thomson (talk) 00:17, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

I just spent a few hours at Wikipedia:Meetup/NYC tutoring newbies, sometimes using my Dell XPS-10 with Windows 8.1 RT. I don't remember how the page titles looked and am busy tonight with the real computer running Vista. Tomorrow after a night's sleep I shall pull the tablet out of the bag and take a look. Jim.henderson (talk) 01:02, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

I am on Windows 8 with Chrome 33.0 and the title of this page is "Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia" Same thing on IE 10 and Firefox 25.0 GB fan 01:08, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

I have a Windows 8 system here, but orders are that no such systems are allowed to be connected to the network. Go figure. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 01:23, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

I guess Rcsprinter123 doesn't have the default language "en - English" at Special:Preferences. Compare for example https://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Example?uselang=en and https://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Example?uselang=en-gb. The former says "Example - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia" due to MediaWiki:Pagetitle. The latter only says "Example - Wikipedia" since MediaWiki:Pagetitle/en-gb has not been created. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:57, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

The tagline below the article name says "From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia" for both en and en-gb since MediaWiki:Tagline and MediaWiki:Tagline/en-gb have been created with the same content. For https://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Example?uselang=en-ca (Canadian English) it only says "From Wikipedia" since MediaWiki:Tagline/en-ca has not been created. PrimeHunter (talk) 03:05, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

I think you've identified the problem as I did change my global language prefs to en-gb last week. Why has MediaWiki:Pagetitle/en-gb not been created? Rcsprinter₁₂₃ (discuss) @ 09:15, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

There are hundreds of language codes we could customize messages for but we rarely bother, so users who change language setting get the default MediaWiki message for their language. Help:Preferences#User profile says (written by me): Many messages have been customized at the English Wikipedia but usually only for the default "en - English". It is therefore not recommended to select "en-GB - British English" or "en-CA - Canadian English". By selecting en-gb you get a handful of British spellings in interface messages, and lose a lot of customized messsages. The language choice does not affect wikitext. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:41, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

I've changed it back then. Rcsprinter₁₂₃ (speak) @ 18:18, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Do wikilinks to Category pages show in article talk, Wikipedia namespace?

I will also try here to wikilink Category:Living people ("Category:Living people")...

ahh, based on my preview it doesn't work here either...

is this a technical thing, or are my settings messed up, as I can't see my attempted wikilink? Thanks! Roberticus talk 13:53, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

hmmm, it looks like "AnomieBot" has corrected and provided a link to explanation of the rule with the colon, now I get it... otherwise my previous edit would've added the Village Pump to the category so it's considered accidental when in the text like that... Roberticus talk 14:20, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Catalan Culture Challenge

The Catalan-speaking world... Want to find out more? From March 16 to April 15 we will be organising the Catalan Culture Challenge, a Wikipedia editing contest in which victory will go to those who start and improve the greatest number of articles about 50 key figures of Catalan culture. You can take part by creating or expanding articles on these people in your native language (or any other one you speak).

We look forward to seeing you!

Amical Wikimedia--Kippelboy (talk) 07:11, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation February 2014 update

A new update has been posted for the Wiki Education Foundation at the Education Noticeboard. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 08:52, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

500,000

Depending which numbers you follow, sometime in the past week or so I became the tenth Wikipedian to pass 500,000 edits. I believe I am entitled to some kind of key or something. Cheers! bd2412 T 20:31, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

If I had a key, I'd give it to you, but I don't so congratulations. That's a LOT of edits. And thanks.--S Philbrick(Talk) 14:34, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Damn. That's a LOT! Congratulations! Rehman 14:48, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks! bd2412 T 18:41, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Input wanted: orphan works

This Monday and Tuesday, the U. S. Copyright Office is holding a workshop on orphan works and mass digitization. Orphan works are works for which the copyright has not yet expired, but the rightsholder is unknown or uncontactable, and the work is thus unavailable for reuse. The workshop is for the Copyright Office to get perspectives on potential legislation to legalize the reuse of orphan works under certain conditions.

The president of Wikimedia District of Columbia, James Hare, is on one of the panels for this workshop, and we're looking for specific examples of how the unavailability of orphan works on Wikimedia projects hurts our educational mission. So if you've wanted to use a work in the past but couldn't because the author or rightholder was unknown, reply here and tell us your story, and we might retell it to the Copyright Office. Thanks! Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 17:53, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

• This is above and beyond the issue of people using digital images online without crediting the source, right? As in, images where the copyright holder of a work cannot be determined even through print media? — Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:21, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

That is correct. One example might be a photograph found in an archive that contains no metadata about the photographer and publication status. Another might be a book published by a company that has long gone out of business, so that the identity of the current rightsholder (if any) is unknown. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 01:15, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

It doesn't really. Generally even if you know the author getting permission is enough of a pain that people don't tend to bother. "reuse of orphan works under certain conditions" wont amount to a free license so is of no use to us anyway. It might help libraries and museums a little but to be honest I suspect the only groups that will really gain are book publishers and TV channels.©Geni (talk) 05:52, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

A clear definition of an orphan work would at least enable "fair use" I think. Sometimes a routine photograph is plainly of no great value but would be useful to illustrate an article, except that a diligent search finds no living copyright owner. Such photos are in the possession of family members, museums, or were printed in newspapers that went out of business long ago. -- econterms (talk) 07:25, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Such an image wouldn't be free and we already allow a level of fair use. Oh and for family members copyright inherits. As for newspapers their residual assets including copyrights tend to be purchased by someone (usually surviving papers) who isn't going to react well to you claiming that their works count as orphan works.©Geni (talk) 19:40, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

• Another case is where material has gone public domain in their country of origin and in the US copyright still applies thanks to 1996 restoral of copyright. The original copyright holders no longer have interest, believing copyright has expired. One example is crown copyright in commonwealth countries, where the expiry is not recognised by USA, but where the responsible government org has no interest in granting permission any more, as they agree it is out of copyright. (probably not orphan as you should know who) Graeme Bartlett (talk) 20:40, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

  err those aren't orphan works. That situation is best dealt with by contacting the governments in question and getting them to state that they release the copyrights worldwide. In the case of the UK government this has already been done.©Geni (talk) 09:22, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

• A particularly interesting (and still current) case concerns File:EzraPound&IsabelPound1898.jpg, a image that has been extremely carefully researched and for which quite a lot is known about its provenance. Its "non-free" categorisation has been raised here, spilling over to commons. Issues have arisen of whether the photographer, his employer or the subject might have been the original copyright holder. It seems for early US photos the subject was generally the default copyright holder. Bearing in mind that possibly no one ever knew who the copyright holder was it cannot be determined whether any of its publications over the years have been lawful and so copyright expiry cannot be determined. However, it seems to be accepted that WP's current use of the image (if it is still in copyright) meets WP's non-free use policy, Thincat (talk) 23:31, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

That is a very good example, thanks! Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 02:33, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

• For sound recordings produced by Edison Records, the copyright situation is unclear and may be worth considering along the lines of orphan works (copyright issues regarding pre-1972 recordings probably do not make things any easier.) --Elegie (talk) 04:35, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

• There are a lot of postcards published in Europe by postcard companies such as Nels. These companies used employes or local people to take photographs. They nearly never print the name of the photographer and I very much doubt that the postcard company concerned ever kept records of the old pictures. Most of the time there is no date on the postcard except when it is posted. A lot of these pictures are uploaded under Anonymous-EU Commons license. They must be 70 years or older. Most of the times the date can be estimated out of the local content. I think they are compagny works and therefore only the publishing date is of interest. The same way as we treat newspaper pictures, unless the photographer is specificaly mentioned. These pictures have a lot of historical value for the local places. I find it very interesting that the governments in question can release the copyrights worldwide. Why cant the EU do this? Then we can avoid this URAA mess.Smiley.toerist (talk) 15:55, 10 March 2014 (UTC)
• Maybe they could go further to prohibit the removal of CMI and the practice by entities such as Twitter from stripping metadata in order to stem the production of more orphaned works in the future. Saffron Blaze (talk) 16:29, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Actually, some of the panelists brought up that very issue. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 05:12, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Multiple same-purpose templates

Template:Infobox surname works the same as Template:Infobox family name. I suggest that the two templates be merged. 175.156.59.135 (talk) 09:02, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Usually, in cases like this, one will have a great deal more transclusions than the other. Tag the less-used one with {{db-t3}} so it can get changed to a redirect. VanIsaac_WS^cont 17:57, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

They have different parameters. Unless you want a bunch of them to break, there will have to be an actual merge of the template contents. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:07, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

"Grey Crowned Crane" or "Grey crowned crane"

This section is a violation of Wikipedia:Canvassing (specifically "Campaigning" as defined on that page). I would have removed it entirely, but it has already been commented on by a second person. Sven Manguard Wha? 15:26, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Hello everybody. On the page Talk:Crowned Crane, there is an ongoing discussion about how to capitalise the title of articles about bird species. Many of them are currently capitalised, apparently because some organisations and guidelines regarding birds recommend this. Some also pretend that animal species names are not proper nouns (!) and argue that capitals would be useful to avoid possible confusion is some cases (e.g. Common Starling). But they are not proper nouns and the secod argument is not valid as anybody can use link to Wikipedia articles to make everything clear (e.g. common starling avoid any potential uncertainty). More importantly, the conventions of Wikipedia clearly say that one should not capitalise animal species name and page titles (WP:TITLE, WP:FAUNA and WP:NCCAPS). Finally, even if ornithologists like to capitalise species name, a convention clearly say that the general consensus of not capitalising animal species should prevail over a local habit (WP:CONLEVEL). I think it is an important discussion and do not hesitate to come and give your opinion on Talk:Crowned Crane. Mama meta modal (talk) 06:07, 12 March 2014 (UTC). That's a fascinating interpretation. I don't keep up with that page, but hasn't FAUNA say something remarkably similar to "always capitalize the common names of bird species and subspecies in ornithology articles" basically since its creation? Perhaps you should check to see whether that guideline has been "accidentally" changed without consensus. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:30, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Request for comments

There is now also an ongoing request for comments on the same subject: Talk:Crowned Crane#Request for comments.

Do not hesitate to come and comment on this question. Mama meta modal (talk) 08:53, 16 March 2014 (UTC).

I have removed this from Village pump (policy), and had WhatamIdoing not commented above, I would have removed it here. Giving a completely one-sided summary and then asking people to comment at the RfC is canvassing, something that the community has a very low tolerance for.

How?

Hi, I want to know how to make a menu (variation 11) since I don't know the parameters, for more information on what I want, ask here and place a talkback notification on my talk page. Cheers! --Yutah Andrei Marzan Ogawa¹²³|UPage|_☺★ (talk) 15:10, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Andrei Marzan, since you asked here, I'm going to answer here. The code to do it is located here. It uses the table "pipe" syntax, which can be a little bewildering to the novice. Good luck! — Frεcklεfσσt | Talk 16:13, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Well, that guide doesn't help me enough, it's for making tables.Yutah Andrei Marzan Ogawa¹²³|UPage|_☺★ (talk) 01:28, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes, the menu you want IS a table, it just doesn't look like one. Here:

1. Click on this link. See all that strange syntax? That's table wikimarkup, which is explained in the link I gave above. But you really don't need to understand it to use it.
2. Copy and paste all that code to where you want it (which I assume is your user page).
3. You're done.

If you like, you can hunt through the code and change the images and wikilinks as you like. It will help to understand wikimarkup and the table pipe syntax to do it. — Frεcklεfσσt | Talk 15:54, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

It's bewildering me and making me mad just to understand this thing, I'm asking for the parameters (color and things like that), not that helpful. - Yutah Andrei Marzan Ogawa¹²³|UPage|_☺★ (talk) 18:56, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

With all due respect, Andrei Marzan, you weren't that clear. There aren't parameters like a function call or anything. You'll have to look at the source and modify the "parameters" in there to change colors "and things like that". You can see the source by following step #1 above. It will be helpful to you to understand the table syntax first so you understand what the source means. If there is one SPECIFIC thing you want to accomplish (e.g. "I want to change the border color to blue instead of purple"), I may be able to point you in the right direction. Otherwise, you'll have to dig through the syntax yourself. — Frεcklεfσσt | Talk 22:13, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

OTRS statistics for 2013

Hello all,

The Wikimedia Volunteer Response Team (also known as OTRS[1]) had an extremely busy year answering emails from Wikimedia users, readers and other interested people. We have once again prepared a statistical report of administrator activity and ticket volume for the year 2013.

I invite you all to review this report on Meta[2]. If you have any questions at all feel free to leave them on the talk page. If you wish to review the first report, published last year with data from 2012, you may also view that on Meta[3].

1 - m:OTRS
2 - m:OTRS/Reports/2013
3 - m:OTRS/Reports/2012

For the OTRS administrators, Rjd0060 (talk) 20:49, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Please comment about General References vs Inline Citations in Afc submissions

Dear editors: I have started a discussion at the following location about whether and to what degree inline citations as opposed to general references should be required in Afc submissions before they are accepted to mainspace. My comments there are based on my understanding of relevant Wikipages such as WP:GENREF, WP:MINREF, and WP:Notability. I would appreciate discussion about whether I have interpreted these pages correctly. Here is the discussion:

Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Articles for creation/2014 6#Please comment about General References vs Inline Citations

—Anne Delong (talk) 21:20, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Page view statistics for redirects

I make a lot of redirects (example). I click "View history", then "Page view statistics" to see if people are really using them; in this case, 14 times in the last 30 days. However, almost all those figures are in the range of 5 to 20, and it's too often to be a coincidence – although a few are used much more often, and Pom Pom Pull Away is only once in 30 days. So are real people using redirects like Phillip Ashton? Or is it counting how often bots look at them, which would account for similar statistics? Art LaPella (talk) 19:53, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Hi. You might like the FAQ I started and others have added to: User:Killiondude/stats. More specifically, "Are they real pageviews?" Killiondude (talk) 22:57, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Thank you. Art LaPella (talk) 01:25, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Use of Tilde-Sign for Signature

Hi Village Pump, does anybody know why wikipedians use four tildes as a signature? IN German Genealogy the tilde stands as short cut for baptism, si that a possible background? BR Serten (talk) 06:25, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure we use 4 tildes simply because the tilde is rarely used in the English language. It's just a handy use of an otherwise unused key. I'm almost positive it has nothing to do with baptism. — Frεcklεfσσt | Talk 12:24, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

I always thought that, as a squiggle, the tilde has a (very) vague resemblance to a signature, too. — Scott • talk 12:52, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

the genalogical use is set. According the German "Auskunft", on a ADM-3A tilde shared the same type with "Home". Unix uses Tildes as shortcuts for /home/chris as well. Serten (talk) 14:31, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

You would have to query the original developers of the MediaWiki software. --  Gadget850 ^talk 15:58, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

I got my answers: de:Wikipedia:Auskunft#Verwendung_der_Tilde_als_Signatur - MediaWikiversions included! Thnx nevertheless Serten (talk) 20:58, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Fundraising for laptops for the class of Sinenjongo High School

I am moving this to here from VPPR after it got reverted there ···Vanischenu (mc/talk) 13:36, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Hello,

While I am an employee of the Wikimedia Foundation, I write this email as a volunteer.

So now since the effort started by this class of students at Sinenjongo High School has had a level of success I thought - what could I do for them for all they've done that would also be good for the Wikimedia Movement? I asked a few of the students (all of whom have now graduated / matriculated high school) and they suggested that they could use some laptops for their schoolwork. I couldn't imagine being in college today and not having a computer, so I started a crowdfunding campaign here to buy one for each of the students involved in this effort

What everyone on this list needs to understand is that this whole class knows how to edit Wikipedia. Four Wikipedians (two from South Africa, one from Botswana and me from the USA) all showed them how twice during their one hour per week in front of a computer in high school. I blogged more about them here.

They all speak Xhosa natively - a language that could use some work (xh.wikipedia) and all I'd have to do is ask them to promise to keep editing that Wikipedia in exchange for the computers. They are very poor so this is a huge break for them - AND we'd get additions to xh.wikipedia.

That's my rationale for posting here - I don't think a grant for hardware like this on such a 'small' scale would warrant a WMF grant because its several thousand dollars that could probably be better spent in other areas, so I started the crowdfunding campaign. So far we have $500, which is enough for a little more than one laptop. The goal just over 20.

I'm open to ideas for what kinds of ordinary affordable laptops we could get that might be available in bulk in and around Cape Town, South Africa.

Also -

I'm saddened to say that one of the students in this class at recently passed away in a traffic accident last weekend. His name was Ntsika Kellem. You can see a moment I had with him here:

Ntsika Kellem talks about what Wikipedia means to him

Or you can see him at 0:15 - 0:20 mentioning the names of South African Cellular carriers here:

Ntsika at 0:15-0:20

We are putting finishing touches on the documentary about him and his class and their effort and we plan to dedicate the film to him or some other appropriate gesture.

Here is his memorial on meta

Ntsika Kellem

Here is his Xhosa userpage

If this is an inappropriate place to post this, or you have better ideas than I do about where this should go, please let me know. Thank you everyone, for reading.

Victor Grigas (talk) 23:09, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Odd user names

Over the last few months I've seen a lot of edits done by strange code names, such as these on

• Judy Garland:

3/21, User:2601:7:1940:4b:617f:b78d:3953:27a

3/20, User:2602:306:2474:FA29:64A3:CC0C:B09E:FD50

3/18, User:2601:7:1940:4B:B8AA:FA0B:A89F:7BBA

• Larry Fine

3/21, User:2601:7:1940:4B:617F:B78D:3953:27A

3/16, User:2602:306:37EB:49E0:2C73:2090:AA53:1EA1

1/13, User:2001:558:6031:2C:545A:906D:DCA3:85B6

12/27, User:2602:306:37EB:49E0:9D47:5B3:EBCA:B7D6

12/11, User:2602:306:37EB:49E0:477:2801:FC7D:21E2

11/26, User:2602:306:37EB:49E0:FD13:EDB:D02D:3E8D

• Frank Oz

2/19, User:2001:5B0:23FF:3CF0:0:0:0:36

Some of these were clear vandalism and others seemed OK. What are these? --Light show (talk) 17:39, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

IPv6 addresses. –xeno^talk 17:40, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Helping our COI editors do the right thing

We ask editors with a COI to refrain from editing articles directly, and instead, request an edit on the talk page. We even provide a template, which creates a log of requests. Category:Requested edits. However, that list has 87 items, going back to November. If everyone watching this page addressed one item a month, we would catch up in less than two days. I do not realistically expect everyone to pitch in, but it would only take a few to get the backlog down to a less embarrassing level.--S Philbrick(Talk) 14:17, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

Request for Comment

There is currently a RFC on Coat of arms of the Netherlands. All are welcome to comment. Fry1989 ^eh? 17:21, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

choose more interesting subjects for featured article of the day.

First let me say I find Wikipedia itself to be a wonderful resource. But my comment is, I find the featured article to usually be of no interest. Rather boring subjects are chosen even though I have very wide interests. For comparison, please take a look at the article of the day , this day in history and news on this day, on the Free Dictionary by Farlex website. www.thefreedictionary.com/ I would like to see Wikipedia attain their standard for interest and presentation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Johnkeevil (talk • contribs) 16:38, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

You do realize that those are our articles shown on that site? We only choose our best (featured) articles for the spot on the front page and they can only be used once. You can help bring more articles that interest you up to featured standards. See WP:Featured article candidates. Rmhermen (talk) 16:48, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

Help with RfC Mistake

I made a well-intentioned, but stupid, mistake with two RfC. I started an RfC on Talk:Ukraine regarding the map. I then thought it would be best to do this for Talk:Russia as well since the disputed is between them. In retrospect, this was not the best idea as it may result in different outcomes. I did not want to seem like I was vote gaming or anything bad faith and reverted my removal-closure of the RfC on Talk:Russia per the advice of Iryna Harpy and came here to ask for advice. What should be done with the Talk:Russia RfC? EvergreenFir (talk) 04:45, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Just to confirm that EvergreenFir's opening an RfC on two talk pages was done in good faith, and by no means should it be construed as WP:FORUMSHOP or WP:GAMING. There was a lot of pressure brought to bear on the article content as the result of high profile media reportage and, consequently, high traffic on both the Russia and Ukraine articles (which are still out of sync with each other). I'd actually suggested that an RfC should be opened and EvergreenFir acted on it.

We're desperately in need of neutral admin intervention to help sort things out. It doesn't qualify for a DRN, an ANI... or any other related form on intervention. If someone could at least point us in the right direction, we'd be extremely grateful. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 05:19, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

How to hide the left column (list of links) of the wiki page?

Hello,

It's been some time that I have the following problem with the wikipedia's web page API, i.e.

  How to hide the left column of the wiki page?

This is critical for a computer display with a limited width or horizontal resolution. On a Windows PC, I can use the "Print/export -> Printable version", but all the links in the text and other HTML features will get lost.

Suggestion: 1. A "hide" button on the vertical dividing line to control the display/hide for the whole left column; or 2. a switch to the format that is similar to the current display format and controls on an Android cell phone.

Thanks.

--- Chang — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chang zhou (talk • contribs) 23:03, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Hi Chang, you can use User:PleaseStand/Hide Vector sidebar to hide it. But this will work only when you are logged in.···Vanischenu (mc/talk) 13:11, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

I've got another implementation in my nothingthree.js script collection, using mostly CSS3, but the documentation's sorely out of date. {{Nihiltres|talk|edits}} 14:37, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Vanischenu, that works on Chrome+Ubuntu. Nihiltres, I couldn't get your script to work on the same setup. Lesser Cartographies (talk) 15:31, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Lesser Cartographies, my scripts aren't nicely packaged for drop-in use: individual functions need to be activated elsewhere for it to have an effect. The library itself tries to call a nothingthree-config.js page in your userspace, as with User:Nihiltres/nothingthree-config.js. The setup's awkward, but it does work. For example, run this test in your Chrome console: importScript("User:Nihiltres/nothingthree.js");nothingthree.sidebar.toggleTab();. {{Nihiltres|talk|edits}} 17:38, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Amazon donations

I'd like to donate to Wikipedia, but my only way to do it is through Amazon. Unfortunately, I can't do that, since I only use gift cards for it and it doesn't let you send money directly from your account to here. Anyone know a workaround? Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 04:01, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

Ways to Give --108.38.196.65 (talk) 23:44, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

Hm, alright, thanks. Maybe later, then. Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 01:10, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Hello

PLease note that Roger Somville has died. Thank You. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.185.175.84 (talk) 07:08, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

You don't need to post it here - all you need is a reliable source confirming his death. K6ka (talk | contribs) 15:45, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

How to get list of articles with classes

Hello all, another question: I've got a list of articles I've created on my userpage (and I'm thinking about adding one of significantly improved by me), and I want to put the little symbol for what class it is next to each name. I've seen it done somewhere (a wikiproject?), but I can't for the life of me remember where. Is there a way to do this, and if so, is there a way to make it auto-update (i.e. Magic: The Gathering Conspiracy getting upped to Start-class while it's marked as a stub in my userpage)? Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 03:00, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

You can use the template {{Class/icon}} to produce the icon. I don't think it can be updated automatically though. As far as I know most Wikiprojects update their Wikiproject pages using the WP 1.0 bot and the articles themselves are modified manually. Zell Faze (talk) 14:39, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

To answer where you can find articles, each Wikiproject has their own categories such as Start-Class Magic: The Gathering articles, but if you want to see all of them, you should be able to check Start-Class articles. This category may also be useful for you. Zell Faze (talk) 14:45, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Alright one last thing. This might be the table you were thinking of from the Wikiproject page? Hope this all helps. Zell Faze (talk) 14:47, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

@Zellfaze: That's the template I was looking for! The table wasn't it, the closest thing I could find to what I was talking about was this (I think there's one for every WikiProject), but when I find what I was referencing, I'll put it here. Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 00:39, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

This still isn't it, but it's a lot closer. Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 11:32, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

(other languages) link to wikidata following a red link

An example link is after the red link in this section, and I am skeptical of its value. Has this kind of use of an interwiki link been discussed somewhere? Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 23:27, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Biosthmors I've never seen one like it before, but I would think it was valuable personally. Maybe someone who knows a bit more about them could say more. Zell Faze (talk) 11:18, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Did Wikipedia font just change?

Hey, did Wikipedia's font change just now? My browser is set to display serif fonts always, but now I see sans-serifs everywhere on the wiki... Was something changed that causes the Wikipedia website not to respect the user's font settings on the browser? How can I get serif fonts on Wikipedia and make it a joy to read (and edit!) again? Thanks, Sofia Koutsouveli (talk) 03:41, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes. No strain for me but see here Jim.henderson (talk) 03:55, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Badge of Shame

Hello. At one point, I tried to submit Misandry as a candidate for AfD. Looking back, I realize it was due to bias and self-hatred a while back. I do not plan to do this again, but I have to ask: How can I make things right? What should I add to my user page as a reminder to never do that again, and to notify people of what I did as incentive to contribute in a more positive manner in the future? --Pichu0102 (talk) 23:57, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Maybe a little notice along the lines of "I made a bad AfD a while back, however, I have since reconciled my ways." I know, it seems corny, I'm no good at writing stuff like this, but it's an idea. "Reformed Wikipedians" is a real thing, this is just a much more minor version of those former socks and the like. Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 02:32, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Pichu0102, you raise and interesting point: we don't have a formal method of apologizing (and no apology is expected). An informal, unobtrusive reminder might be template:troutme (see template:trout for an explanation). That's a good way of communicating that (a) you realize you've done silly things in the past, and probably will again in the future; and (b) you're open to other people pointing out when you're doing silly things. As far as making good: don't make that particular mistake again, and be gentle when you see other people making that mistake. The fact that you're thinking about these things tells me you're likely to have a long and productive career as an editor. Best, Lesser Cartographies (talk) 03:25, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

New system for suggesting "Today's featured article"

WP:Today's featured article/requests is using a new system on an experimental basis. Firstly, the old requirement to calculate how many "points" the suggested article had has gone. Secondly, we are using a nomination template based on that used at DYK in the hope that this will make the process easier to complete. If you would like to nominate a featured article that has yet to appear on the main page – whether written by you or by others – please come along to WP:TFAR and give the new system a go. All feedback welcome. Thanks, Bencherlite^Talk 13:40, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Citizenship

I'm not sure if it's the same as nationality << there are native speakers of English invited to discuss. TIA,  Klaas|Z4␟V:  12:42, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Technically, citizenship is membership of a state, while nationality is membership of a nation. However since most states nowadays are nation-states there is very little difference in practice. -- Derek Ross | Talk 03:36, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

For many people nationality is tied up in their cultural and ethnic identity and not the passport they hold (Citizenship). Think of the Waloons in Belgium, the Catholic Irish in Northern Ireland and I'm quite happy to consider myself English although my citizenship is British. In the US your nationality is often seen as your ethnic background not your citizenship and in the FSU everyone had an internal passport which described their nationality but everyone was a Soviet citizen. Spartaz ^Humbug! 10:58, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

In the U.S. your nationality is American. Your ethnicity is your ethnic background. Rmhermen (talk) 16:03, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

In the US your citizenship is American and on the landing cards for UK immigration where it asks for Nationality, many people people put down their ethnic background. Spartaz ^Humbug! 16:46, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Spartaz, there's an ENGVAR problem here. What you Brits call "nationality" (not unreasonably, given the legal history of the British Isles) is what everyone else calls National identity or sometimes Ethnicity, depending on the context.

In the rest of the world, nationality is more of a legal concept, and whether you are "happy to consider yourself" as belonging to a specific group is irrelevant. You can be an American national without being an American citizen (although, in the USA, all American citizens are also American nationals). WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:38, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

I think that's what I said but the problem does seem to be more US centric then you might suppose. Before I was a manager I stamped passports for 15 years and must have seen 100,000s of landing cards. Non-English speakers rarely got their nationality wrong but it was endemic with people from the US - and not just from the while anglo-saxon community either. African americans would say they were negros or black, Hispanics would put that down, Native Americans would say that and all the countries of origin going back 4 generations would appear on the others. We rarely saw this from other nationals so I would posit that most people can work out that nationality = citizenship but that in the US you uniquely think it means national/cultural identity. Spartaz ^Humbug! 22:18, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

There's a Constitutionally-valid difference in the United States between "nationality," "natural-born" status and "citizenship," not generally recognized. Only a "natural-born" citizen of the United States may be elected President or Vice-President of the United States under Article_II_of_the_United_States_Constitution#Clause_5:_Qualifications_for_office. This is different from "naturalization," in which US citizenship is extended to someone from another country.

Someone born overseas NOT to American citizens or not in (say) the base hospital of an overseas military installation of the US Armed Forces doesn't qualify as "natural-born," while Senator John McCain did so qualify because he was born at the base hospital in a US naval base in Panama where his father was stationed. This issue recurs in the popular media, most recently in the "birther" controversy surrounding the current President of the United States of America, Barack Hussein Obama. Prior to that, the seemingly ascendant political careers of former governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger, a native of Graz, Austria and former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger (born in Fürth, Bavaria, Germany) sparked discussion of their eligibility for the Presidency of the United States of America.

Most recently, a lively discussion turns on US Senator Ted Cruz's eligibility to be elected President of the United States. While he was born in Alberta, Canada, his mother met the existing requirement at the time of being a US citizen who had lived in the US for 10 years for her child to be eligible for both Canadian and US citizenship. That Sen. Cruz has announced (see the Wiki article United States presidential election, 2016 for details) that he is in the process of renouncing his Canadian citizenship seems to indicate his belief and that of his legal advisors that he is, indeed, Constitutionally eligible for election to the Presidency of the United States; he has already polled as a front contender for the office in the 2016 Presidential Election in the United States of America. loupgarous (talk) 19:39, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Promoting imaginary statements

The article Texas says:

If it were still an independent country, Texas would be the 40th largest behind Chile and Zambia.

This is a statement answering an imaginary question, namely "How would Texas rank if it were a country of its own and not part of the United States??" I would like to know if there's any consensus about whether answering imaginary questions is allowed in Wikipedia. Georgia guy (talk) 00:02, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

I think, if it's reliably sourced, it'd be determined on a case-by-case basis. I can't see any reason for that to be in there, but maybe someone actually involved has a very good explanation for it. Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 00:10, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

This is a pretty common type of comparison in some sources (newspapers seem to anoint California as the fifth largest economy in the world every year), and it's particularly handy as a comparison point for people who know (in the case) Chile and Zambia. "Texas, one of 50 states, is a little smaller that your entire country" is a practical reference point for some readers. Comparisons in the other direction are also helpful: the entire state of Rhode Island is smaller than King Ranch in Texas. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:14, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Whilst it may be fair to make some comparisons as to size, the way it is written, seeking to compare Texas with other countries, seems highly speculative to me. Texas isn't a country and isn't likely to be one any time soon. -- Ohc ^¡digame! 03:22, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

There may be a reason to exclude as it a silly comparison, but its hypothetical nature doesn't have to be a reason. Instead of, if Siberia were independent it would be the largest country in the world, just change to, Siberia is part of Russia but it is larger than any other country. Or for Texas, only 39 independent countries are larger. Jim.henderson (talk) 19:52, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

The question is neither moot nor imaginary. There is an influential group of Texans and sympathizers with Texas who feel that its interests might be well served by secession from the United States of America. This question actually has come up in other member states of the Union, with citizens from ALL 50 states petitioning for secession from the United States of America on the White House's "We the People" web site (see Secession in the United States for more info).

If anything, this is a "speculative question," not an "imaginary question." The tragic recent history of the Balkans shows that secession, if not handled in a humane manner respecting the civil rights of national minorities, is definitely not "an imaginary question."

Texas was admitted to the United States after having existed as a separate country "The Republic of Texas" for some time. Legalities aside, it has a plant at which thermonuclear weapons are dismantled, which implies that there are thermonuclear weapons there at any given time which are intact, and it has at least one Strategic Command air base capable of supporting military aircraft capable of delivering nuclear weapons of various types. They have Fort Hood, the garrison post for III Corps, First Army Division West with support organizations for all the necessary military activities for modern ground warfare, and a number of other significant military bases. It has a large enough economy as a state that it can operate these organizations without Federal funding if it must.

That places Texas in the "We've been a country before, and we could project significant military power if we became a country again" category. If Texas reverted to being the "Republic of Texas" again, a seat on the UN Security Council might not be entirely out of the question for it - based SOLELY on how well it meets the same economic and military criteria the current permanent members of the UNSC meet. loupgarous (talk) 20:02, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Delusional cowboy daydreams aside (nukes! a seat at the UN! chest-pounding and long-neck beers!), the statement that launched this discussion is a legitimate comparison for the article. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 21:35, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Actor starring on US band 'Heart' music video 1990

Help Me Find An Actor David Gordon Please

Hi

I am trying to find out what ever has happened to the actor David Gordon whom stars in the music video by Heart performing 'All I Wanna Do Is Make Love To You'. which came out in March, 1990. I believe his name is David Gordon but can't find any information about this actor. He is also in Elton John music video 'You Got To Love Someone'.

Thank you for your help. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 101.162.44.223 (talk) 05:52, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Requests like this go to the appropriate talk page. Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 16:10, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

And that appropriate page would be... right here! Please re-post your question there and it will be quickly answered by some thoughtful and helpful Wikipedians. — Frεcklεfσσt | Talk 16:51, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Appearance

Is it just me, or has Wikipedia changed its typeface?--The Theosophist (talk) 19:28, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Correct. See Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 124#Changes to the default site typography coming soon. — Edokter (talk) — 19:33, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

See also mw:Typography refresh for the FAQ, and links to other details. It's a MediaWiki-wide change, so affects all projects/wikis. HTH. –Quiddity (talk) 19:36, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

I really love the serif headings, but the body now depresses a bit, as it is more sans-serif than it was. Is there a way to view the old version?--The Theosophist (talk) 19:43, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

No, not yet anyway. But if demand is high, someone will cook up some CSS. — Edokter (talk) — 19:46, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

In fact (I know I'm asking a lot) it would be even better if all users could chose their own typeface at their preferences. I had actually made this thought about a year ago and was looking forward to tabling it.--The Theosophist (talk) 19:57, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

User:Kephir/vector.css seems to be the opt-out being recommended to people who are having significant problems. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:12, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Preferences → Gadgets → Vector classic typography (use only sans-serif in Vector skin) --  Gadget850 ^talk 23:28, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Sadly the gadget version produces a FOUC. Using the vector css is slightly better, plus you can pick & choose which elements to retain that way. (eg. I really like the minor font-size increase, and I wouldn't want to revert that part, although the gadget doesn't); however it's more complicated to setup, and personal css can't be tweaked en-mass, so that's its downsides. –Quiddity (talk) 23:33, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

This is the first time I see a gadget flash. I asumed CSS-only gadgets were top-loaded, but I may need to explicitly tell it to do so? I'm not too versed in the internals of ResourceLoader. My gadget does reduce the fontsize from 0.875em to 0.8125em (14px to 13px). — Edokter (talk) — 00:28, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm not a fan of the change. It's harder to read on my browser. Praemonitus (talk) 01:19, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

It's changed the relative on-screen sizes of the various display elements, which means I can't get comfortable with the size of the body text, which is either too big or too small as I toggle. The text size between the body and infoboxes has also shifted. And if I have the approximate size I like in read mode (which I don't), the font size is minuscule in edit mode. I have to fiddle with the font sizes each time I open the edit window. A right pain. I'm sure someone will write a css for it. I can't wait... -- Ohc ^¡digame! 01:32, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

The fonts are all oddly blocky in places and the kerning seems poor. It's not an attractive look. Praemonitus (talk) 05:32, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Where is Khorasan, Iran?

Where is Khorasan, Iran? This place in the lede of WP:Central Asia and refers to a disambiguation page. Can someone who knows Iran fix this so it is clear where this place is lcated?--DThomsen8 (talk) 00:34, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

 Done--Ymblanter (talk) 19:34, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

Deleting an AfD

Hi again, I just AfD'd a one-sentenced unsourced BLP at the same time that someone else CSD'd it. I removed the AfD tag from the article, but how do I get rid of it at the list of current AfD's? Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 19:44, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

It should be closed, not removed. I will take care of this.--Ymblanter (talk) 20:08, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

Actually, I decided to let the AfD run and replaced CSD with PROD as it is an unreferenced BLP article.--Ymblanter (talk) 20:13, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 23:35, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia: How does this happen?

I browse Wikipedia on a weekly basis and find numerous blatant errors (incorrect names, incorrect birth dates/years, blatant grammatical errors, blatant text errors, etc) almost every time. Usually I don't bother to correct them, but what I'll often do is make note of the article and come back every so often to see if the blatant error has been corrected. 90% of the time (even if it's months later) the error remains on the WP article. So here is my question: how does this happen, and how can WP be considered reliable and legitimate when these flagrant errors abound and remain uncorrected for long periods of time?

Two recent examples:

The Dennis Kozlowski article had an incorrect first name (a totally blatant error for an encyclopedia) going back to January 2011. That's over THREE YEARS where an article had somebody's name wrong.

In February 2013 a user added a second surname to the David Parker Ray article. I did a google search and could find ZERO reliable sources for that surname. So a completely made-up name remained on a WP article for over a year, again how does nobody catch this stuff?

24.193.119.220 (talk) 06:07, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Somebody did catch it. You did. Trouble is that you didn't do anything to fix it. Why not? Wikipedia may not cost you money but there is still a price. That price is that you fix things that are wrong. You haven't been paying the price. -- Derek Ross | Talk 16:39, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Vandalism happens, people purposely mess things up sometimes, but its typically someone making a mistake. The second one is pretty obvious vandalism [6]. The Dennis Kozlowski one seems to be a good faith mistake that predicates upon the assumption of good faith. [7] Neither of these articles are well maintained or properly covered - this stuff happens and fixing it is best. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 06:17, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up. Wikipedia is crowd-sourced, and could do with more manpower; such reports are always welcome. What would be even better is if you would help correcting any errors that you might come across. Cheers, -- Ohc ^¡digame! 06:34, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Not to put too fine a point on it, but it happens because people who notice the errors don't fix them. VanIsaac_WS^cont 13:14, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

What I can't quite understand is how so many people can come across a blatant error and not fix it. If 1,000 people visit a particular WP article over say a 40 day period you'd think that maybe ONE person would take a minute or 30 seconds and correct the error. However that seems to not be the case since I have been browsing WP for about a year now and numerous times an error can remain (again not a minor error but a MAJOR/BLATANT ERROR) on an article for months or even years. IMO this decreases the credibility and legitimacy of WP, and frankly is just embarrassing. 24.193.119.220 (talk) 23:57, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

User:Art LaPella/Is this criticism constructive? Art LaPella (talk) 01:21, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

I don't know if it's constructive, you tell me. Blatant errors abound on WP and yet it's supposedly the "go to" website for all sorts of information on various topics, bios of numerous noteworthy people, etc. (usually it shows up in the top five search results on google). 24.193.119.220 (talk) 06:22, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

I think the problem is one of interpretation. The "go to" website and a credible source for otherwise unsubstantiated information are two very different things. As I understand the purpose of WP, while it's great that it's a "go to" tertiary source, it was never intended to be the arbiter of validity, just a source to point you to reliable sources. I agree that with the explosive popularity of WP society has changed its expectations to something very different, to a one-stop shop for reliable information with no verification required from credible primary and secondary sources. But that's just not what it was ever meant to be. I'm not going to be berate you for your "research design" -- you're free to fix errors or not as you see fit -- but it seems you're trying to debate a straw man argument about Wikipedia being an ironclad reliable source, without any references needed. That's coming from society, not from Wikipedia itself. I suggest you learn more about what a tertiary source is, specifically within the Wikipedia context. -- PhilipR (talk) 22:04, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

@24.193.119.220 You use Wikipedia daily but rather than contribute by fixing things, you prefer to chastise people for not fixing things? Pretty hypocritical. Either Wikipedia:SIGNUP or quit complaining. Also, read 1% rule (Internet culture) because it may give you some insight into how the Internet works. As for expecting perfection from an openly editable encyclopedia with almost 5 million articles, many which have low traffic, it's an absurd notion. Maybe after editing a while you'll better understand the nature of the project. It is what it is. If you don't like it, stop using it. Nobody is forcing you. And it's far more accurate than your summary judgment gives it credit. Jason Quinn (talk) 06:26, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

I'm not really sure anyone (except the original poster) is being chastised, anyway. [EDIT: Actually, that's just referring to the original post. Comments like "frankly is just embarrassing" turn up the rhetorical volume, no doubt about it.] These sound to me like very legitimate questions about the ecosystem of Wikipedia, the sort of questions that researchers in information science pose all the time. In this case these questions may be borne out of a misunderstanding about Wikipedia's own claims versus society's ideal for this magical know-all encyclopedia (see above) but asking the question isn't the same as chastising IMO. - PhilipR (talk) 22:11, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

You can't just blow him off by saying he doesn't have a account. Thousands don't, and they have every right to notice and correct our mistakes. KonveyorBelt 15:52, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Editors without accounts can fix almost any error they find, but that is not what is happening here. The OP finds errors and doesn't fix them, just jots down the error near their computer and then comes back months later and if no one else has found the error and fixed, then they will fix it. Then comes here and complains that there are errors that stay in articles for long periods of time and wants to know how this happens. GB fan 18:45, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

• WRONG. I do it to see if other people correct them first, it's sort of like an experiment I guess you could say to see how bad WP actually is. 24.193.119.220 (talk) 18:50, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

What did I say that is wrong? From your own admission, you find errors, you jot them down next to your computer, you come back months later to see if they have been fixed, you then fix them if they haven't been fixed, you complain here that people didn't fix the errors and you asked how that happens. These are all things either you have said or have done, I didn't make any of it up and am not wrong about it. I didn't say what your motivations are, just what you have done. GB fan 19:30, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

If you find an error, but don't fix it, you're part of the problem, surely? doktorb _words^deeds 06:47, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Let me clarify - what I would do is make note of a problematic article by jotting it down on a piece of paper I keep near my computer, then check back usually after several months (sometimes sooner) and approx. 90% of the time the error was still not corrected. I would then correct it myself if it was still unchanged. 24.193.119.220 (talk) 07:54, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

The question you're being asked is, why don't you correct it the very first time you lay eyes on it? Often, all it takes is clicking to the page history and hitting the WP:UNDO button, which is probably faster than making a note on paper. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:42, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

You could also just correct the mistake, and then look at the article's history to find out how long the mistake has been present.AioftheStorm (talk) 20:55, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

• Also posted at WP:Help desk#Wikipedia: How does this happen?. GB fan 12:44, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

The first answer from ChrisGualtieri is the best answer to your question. Vandalism happens and not all pages are watched by a great number of editors. Some articles have incorrect information to start with, but, again, they're usually not high-profile subjects that numerous editors are likely to come across. Your best bet is to check sources that articles link to to verify information. — Frεcklεfσσt | Talk 16:01, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

• GB fan and Jason Quinn you are confused. The reason I'm posting here is to point out how inaccurate, unreliable, and riddled with double-standards Wikipedia is. I've noticed on numerous occasions how "WP Admins" or other editors who have been on WP for a while and have somehow "gained credibility" will squabble with "lesser" WP editors over a minute issue, or revert an accurate piece of information (usually because the source of info was deemed "unreliable" due to arbitrary rules that WP employs). 24.193.119.220 (talk) 18:04, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes, Wikipedians often miss the forest for the trees, because trees are what we can get volunteers for. Wikipedia has some mistakes, but if you really want to solve that problem, Wikipedia:WikiProject Editor Retention is more likely to solve it than berating the people who are helping already. Art LaPella (talk) 18:14, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

• I'll give an example of what I'm referring to. The past year or so that I have browsed and read articles on WP I've noticed the California Birth Index (CABI) is used as a reliable source for dates of birth (after all that website is about as reliable as you can get). I also have noticed on numerous articles (I'm fascinated by birth dates and number sequences, don't ask why) those very same references and DOB entries get removed because they are not "reliable". 24.193.119.220 (talk) 18:34, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

If you think Wikipedia:Reliable sources is too strict, then its talk page is the best place to discuss changing it. Art LaPella (talk) 19:07, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Dates of birth sourced solely to such primary sources should be removed from biographies of living persons, not because such sources are not reliable, but because of the sections of Wikipedia's policy about biographies of living persons on avoiding misuse of primary sources and privacy of personal information. Qwfp (talk) 19:39, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

@24.193.119.220 Presumably you came here to discuss the accuracy of Wikipedia. The article Reliability of Wikipedia can help you. Concerns about accuracy are valid; however, the way you've framed your discussion seems to me nonconstructive and studies show you're exaggerating your case. Your talk about "WP Admins" vs "Lesser editors", it's a off-topic, unfocused, red herring. Jason Quinn (talk) 19:56, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Random statement: Have you checked the page view traffic on the articles you're using for this self-proclaimed "experiment"? Have you asked people you know have seen the article if they noticed the error at all? You may have been the only person who saw it and knew it was an error. What if no one has edited the article in a few years? That could mean that people aren't fixing it (whether or not they see it) OR that people who do not know they can edit Wikipedia are looking at the article. (Or in rare cases, it could mean no one is looking at the article, in which case, nothing will be fixed because, well, if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it...) - Purplewowies (talk) 21:32, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

What I do not like about a lot of people is how they diss of Wikipedia very easily just for factual errors in the article. The thing is, there are lots of articles that are as accurate as the sources that back them up. Many of my teachers are against Wikipedia, but I know a few that, like me, think Wikipedia is a WIP and should be improved by everyone whenever possible, instead of just complaining about it. If this was the Encyclopedia Britannica, then obviously you have nothing to do but complain. But on Wikipedia, the edit button is right freaking there! Wikipedia encourages people to go and fix mistakes in its articles. That's how the encyclopedia grows and improves. Remember that Wikipedia is a permanent Work-in-Progress, and Wikipedia is (in most cases) allowed to remain imperfect. Besides, this doesn't mean that other sources are error-free. I have a lot of supposedly "non-fiction-books-that-are-obviously-more-reliable-than-the-Internet" sort of scheme when the Internet was first launched. In one of them, it said that "Blood in the human veins are blue". It is a misconception that blood in the veins is blue (it looks blue, but it actually is darkish-reddish and purplish, but not blue like food colouring), so something "unreliable and obviously wrong" like Wikipedia apparently knew better than a "reliable" book. And remember the old saying - "If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem." K6ka (talk | contribs) 18:46, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

There's this little thing called WP:SOFIXIT that, if more people would at least attempt to follow, can really help out here. Yes, Wikipedia's got its own little internal squabbles, but have you ever been part of a group that doesn't? With thousands of registered users and a bunch of IP's editing millions of pages (almost 5 million just in en.wikipedia) and the hundreds of somewhat less visible pages (such as this one), there's naturally gonna be some conflict. There's also an extensive list of articles that nobody watches at all (I was recently in a discussion about it, and the people who can see the list (It's sysop-only to stave off vandalism) say that the first thousand don't even get past the digits), plus the articles about some niche topic that the only people involved have long since retired. Sorry if I seem harsh, but it really irks me how many people hate Wikipedia just because of a few mistakes. Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 03:51, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

• 24.193, perhaps you're unusually good at spotting errors. I know that could sound facetious, but I mean it seriously. I don't spot nearly that many. It could be to do with the types of articles that you look at, maybe, or maybe you are just naturally really really good at spotting them. I'd be interested to hear how many you spot in a regular encyclopedia (I spot basically none). Balaenoptera musculus (talk) 19:49, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Gender gap

I have been reading everything I can about the Wiki-gender gap, as part of some work I am doing on inclusivity. This article is rather interesting, although it rather understates the percentage of women editors at 10%.

It does however say "Early computer programmers were women, but this is generally not known and has been ignored on the Wikipedia page about the history of computer programming." I was surprised, because I know we cover Ada Lovelace and Grace Hopper particularly well. I also knew we had articles on all six pioneer ENIAC programmers - they are listed on the [[Computer programmer] article, together with Lovelace, making 7 of the 8 named programmers women. (Turing is not mentioned.) We do not have an article History of computer programming, but we do have History of computer science, perhaps that is what is meant? Outline_of_computer_programming#History_of_programming is a good general resource.

Maybe someone can point Taylor Ulrich to this question, so that the omission can be found and rectified. I'd also be interested to know what the outcomes of the "Wikistorming" are.

All the best, Rich Farmbrough, 07:03, 13 April 2014 (UTC).

Rfc: Please contribute

A request for comments on the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater article has been posted on the article's talk page. Please contribute your thoughts and ideas. 71.139.142.29 (talk) 14:31, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

Help

Can a kind soul mark this page as reviewed for me? I'm tired of seeing the review toolbar on the side §FreeRangeFrog^croak 17:45, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

Well, as an admin you have the autopatrol right, which means the page was marked reviewed when you created it. As far as I know, the page curation toolbar shouldn't be showing up on that page at all, and yet... Novusuna ^talk 21:35, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

And yet it does! Weird, right? Not sure what's going on there. §FreeRangeFrog^croak 16:47, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Oxford University Press databases free of charge this week

As part of the U.S. Library Week, Oxford University Press is giving free access to their online materials until Saturday. This is limited to U.S. and Canadian users. Please repost where you see fit. See here for login details: OUP page. The Interior (Talk) 00:08, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Update Wikipedia Bio on Frank J. LaBuda

Hon. Frank J. LaBuda has served as the elected justice of the highest trial level court in the State of New York since 1997. During his tenure as a trial judge he has authored more than 154 officially published decisions addressing constitutional, statutory and common law issues. Judge LaBuda’s decisions have provided legal precedent for other trial judges on issues of evidence, trial procedure, criminal, civil, Surrogate’s and negligence law.

    	Judge LaBuda established two Special Courts in Sullivan County—Drug Court, which provides diversion programs to defendants with substance abuse issues, and Vetrac, a specialized court that  addresses the unique circumstances of criminal defendants who are veterans.

           Judge LaBuda’s legal career spans over                 four decades; prior to being elected State            Judge and Surrogate, he spent over twenty years in private practice and in the public sector. In his private practice, Judge LaBuda handled civil and criminal jury trials in both federal and state courts. He also served as a Prosecutor prior to taking the bench. For ten years as a Prosecutor he held the distinguished position of Chief Assistant District Attorney of Sullivan County for all criminal prosecutions. 
    In addition to his notable legal career, Judge LaBuda first served as a Captain in the Judge Advocate General Corps from 1975 to 1978, and then returned to active duty for a second time during the 1990-1991 Persian Gulf War as a U.S. Army Major in Operation Desert Storm. During the Gulf War he conducted investigations into various war crimes and was engaged in field operations and logistics in Kuwait and Iraq. Following the war, Judge LaBuda has been an advocate for Veterans rights and issues. He is also a member of the International Association of Criminologist (IAK) for European police and security investigators.
    Judge LaBuda earned his Doctor of Jurisprudence with honors from Case Western University School of Law in Ohio and is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Lehman College of the City University of New York. He also graduated from the U.S. Army Judge Advocate School at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, and has attended many specialized training seminars for State and Federal Judges through the George Mason University School of Law and Economics Center. The Judge has also been a professor of law at the State University of New York at Sullivan County; a speaker at continuing legal education seminars for judges in New York State, and a judge at the annual “Gabrielli National Law Competition” at the University of Albany School of Law in New York. 
   Judge LaBuda, who is fluent in the German language, has traveled extensively throughout Europe and Central Asia as a speaker on constitutional law, the Judiciary in the U.S., Arbitration and Trial practice. He has lectured and participated in legal symposia in Ghana, Hungary, Korea, Kosovo, Serbia, Slovenia, and Uzbekistan.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.29.158.22 (talk) 16:17, 15 April 2014 (UTC) 

WP:FRINGE and self-declared countries

Since WikiProject International Relations appears to be quite inactive, I don't know of any other place to ask apart from here. Is there a way of dealing with users pushing a WP:FRINGE agenda of a little-known, non-notable self-declared country? Special:Contributions/Mountstella (who has also previously edited beforehand as an anon IP) has added mentions to multiple articles about the so-called "Kingdom of Colonia St John", using the alleged kingdom's official website as a citation. I'm under the impression that if a self-declared nation has very little demonstrated notability, forcing its insertion into articles is WP:UNDUE and perhaps even WP:PROMO depending on who's doing it. Has there been any precedent in the past to use as a reference? --benlisquare_T•C•E 14:28, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

benlisquare: Given that this user has only edited two articles under this name and that there's no ongoing edit-warring, I don't think there's a need to do anything further. I've watchlisted the two articles just in case. If the user starts up again, and the user isn't responsive to attempts to discuss your concerns on the article talk pages, then I'd recommend asking for additional input at WP:FTN. Lesser Cartographies (talk) 20:45, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

Talk:Albert Levy (soldier)

I am proposing moving and renaming Albert Levy (soldier) for the reasons cited in the talk section. As it is an obscure article, I thought a more public place would be good to seek input on this. Thanks. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 01:19, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

changing of Wikipedia username

I don't understand what happened to my request to change my username from Cherilm93 to CheriLM. I was under the impression Cherilm would become my new login, but that never changed. Then I thought all instances of my login name would change to the new login name. Is it so that maybe it never happened? I got a confirmation in a message, but everything is still the same.Cherilm93 (talk) 00:54, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

log out and log into the new name. –xeno^talk 01:01, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Remember that usernames are case sensitive. You need to login as User:Cherilm, not as User:CheriLM. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:50, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Well, I tried that, both ways, and neither one works, but Cherilm93 still operates fine. So I'm not sure what is happening. Possibly I am in a very long queue for the change to actually happen?? When login in as the new one it says both ways that the user does not exist.Cherilm93 (talk) 23:01, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Cherilm (talk · contribs)

Cherilm93 (talk · contribs)

Click the contribs for Cherilm above. Is that you? Confusingly, this edit is Cherilm asking for the current name of Cherilm93 to be renamed to Cherilm. Johnuniq (talk) 23:27, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

This is so crazy. Cherilm "does not exist", so I can't login that way. I edited the 93 out of my login name in my article in Talk, but when it signs it at the end it says Cherilm93 made the edit. So now I am REALLY confused. I suppose the nice thing is not that many people are seeking out information on this article.Cherilm93 (talk) 21:00, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Both accounts exist now. You were renamed 22 March.[8] Special:Log/Cherilm93 shows that long after that, the old username was recreated, probably because you logged in with that name or visited the English Wikipedia while you were already logged in with the name at another wiki. The renaming only affected the English Wikipedia and the username still existed in the global login system, so you were able to recreate the account here but without your edit history which was moved to the new name when you were renamed. Does it really say "does not exist" when you try to log in as Cherilm at Special:UserLogin? If not then please quote the exact message you get after pressing the Log in button. When I try it with a random password I get "Incorrect password entered". If I try it with a non-existing account then the message says "There is no user by the name". PrimeHunter (talk) 22:47, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

"Grandma style vandalism"

Been seeing this tag on Recent Changes here and there. Don't remember ever seeing it before. Um... what's it mean? Evan ^{(talk|contribs)} 05:53, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

I don't see it at Special:Tags or in the 5000 most recent changes. Are you sure it's a tag and not an edit summary? Please post an example edit with it. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:56, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

[9] Evan ^{(talk|contribs)} 00:22, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. I cannot determine where the tag comes from. Special:Contributions/50.141.83.0 shows another tag I'm also unable to trace. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:07, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

If I had to guess, I'd say the IP editor is getting creative with their edit summaries. If not, then I have no clue what's going on there. Novusuna ^talk 02:39, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

It's outside the parentheses, though. How the heck do you do that? Evan ^{(talk|contribs)} 02:44, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Erm, hold on. Evan ^{(talk|contribs)} 02:44, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

I daresay we've figured it out. Novusuna ^talk 02:51, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Right, the false tags are in the wrong place. They should be after the "undo" link in page histories but they are before so it's part of the edit summaries. The generated html is also missing tag classes. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:37, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Christopher Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley

How much space should be discussing his climate change views? See Talk:Christopher_Monckton,_3rd_Viscount_Monckton_of_Brenchley#Undue_weight. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 22:35, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Goat Island

Why someone keep add Goat Island in TV channel?-John123521 (Talk-Contib.) RA 03:08, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Sounds like something to take to that talk page. Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 14:38, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Location of active Wiki Education Foundation page

There is a discussion about the appropriate location for an actively updated Wiki Education Foundation (WEF) page that I would like to invite editors interested in the education program to comment on. The question is whether to soft redirect that page to m:Wiki Education Foundation, where the WEF will be maintaining active pages about its activities, or leave it as it currently stands. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 17:31, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia "Unvisited" application in Google Play

Has anyone tried Wikipedia:Unvisited? Is it open source? Is the author a Wikipedian? The idea seems very good, but the lack of any links back to Wikipedia/Commons on the Google Play page makes me a bit suspicious. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 07:25, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Hi, I'm the author. Unfortunately, it's not open source. What should the wording be for a link back to Wikipedia/Commons? I'll put it in. I just didn't want to make it sound like it was an official Wikipedia app, or endorsed by Wikipedia. Faolin42 (talk) 12:35, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

@Faolin42: Hi. Would you mind explaining the benefits of closed source? For me it simply means that the app 1) will stop working when you lose interest and 2) it may contain potentially malicious code I cannot check for. If you make it open source, you can probably get an official endorsement from the Foundation, they often like and support such ideas. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 14:09, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

@Piotrus: Actually, I think the chances of an endorsement are pretty low - the WMF requires open source software for anything it funds or endorses, almost without exception. I suppose it's possible that that could be waived, but I can't think of a reason it would be. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 17:54, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Note: Someone has (correctly) pointed out that what I said here was kind of confusing. It sure was. That's what I get for typing during meetings. Yes, what Piotrus said is correct - we woudln't consider endorsement of a closed source program. Even then, endorsement is pretty hard, but if you contact me offline, I"ll direct you to the right person. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 18:07, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

The way I l look at it, if the project was open source, we could have a community discussion and straw poll on whether to recommend the endorsement to WMF or not. Won't happen without open source, of course. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:38, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Shakespeare's "birthday"

(I cannot find the place to discuss this, so I am entering it here as a fall -back. When will accessing Wikipedia editing-related pages be made reasonably accessible?)

According to our article on William Shakespeare, the 450th anniversary of his baptism is on April 26th. I recommend that it be put onto the front page in one of the categories, e.g., featured article or on this day in history. 211.225.33.104 (talk) 10:38, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes, something should happen, but the people who edit in that area have been rather quiet lately. The matter was raised at the wikiproject. In general, you can ask questions at WP:HELPDESK, and find wikiprojects at the top of the talk page for an article. Johnuniq (talk) 11:00, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

A picture of the former Shakespeare Memorial Theatre has been selected as WP:Picture of the Day for 26 April: see WP:Main Page queue#In three days. I'm not sure if the date is coincidence? Qwfp (talk) 11:25, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

Not a coincidence. Some last minute planning took place on Talk: Main Page. Novusuna ^talk 15:35, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

How to deal with an RfD issue

Could any experienced user please have a look at Wikipedia talk:Redirects for discussion#Doubled listing? That page is rather inactive and this is mildly time sensitive. Also, we should probably start auto-archiving that page or something, because it's huge. --NYKevin 20:44, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

WP mentioned today on BBC Radio 4

On tonight's The World Tonight they were talking to someone from the Liverpool Echo about this:Shocking Hillsborough insults added on Wikipedia from Government computers. Fairly unremarkable vandalism by Wikipedia's standards, so could perhaps have done with someone familiar with WP that and how easily it's dealt with. Don't know if it's of wider interest or will see any more press coverage (the Echo is a local paper though well known nationally).--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 22:30, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Discussed in more detail at Talk:Hillsborough disaster, and more specifically at the subsection Talk:Hillsborough disaster#Any other pages involved?. --Arxiloxos (talk) 17:00, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Wiki-Hell

This has been sitting in my userspace for a while, and since it already had a WP redirect, I figured I'd just make it official. It is now a Wikipedia-space essay. While I was at it, I did the same with Wikipedia:Neoplorgismanteau. Cheers! bd2412 T 16:33, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Very nice! Johnuniq (talk) 00:17, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia contracts with Comic-Con

I would like to know about the contracts Wikipedia has with Comic-Con. I realised that in articles about stars almost always pictures of them at Comic-Con are prefered (even if there are much better ones), mostly with the logo visible and a link to Comic-Con (e.g. http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Jennifer_Lawrence). So there are thousands of links from Wikipedia articles to Comic-Con (http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Special:WhatLinksHere/San_Diego_Comic-Con_International). So obviously there is some kind of "collaboration" between Wikipedia and Comic-Con, but I couldn't find anything about it. --188.101.3.198 (talk) 11:39, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia has no link to Comic-Con. Wikipedia requires that pictures are properly licensed, and that all but requires that the photographer who takes the picture agrees to release said pictures under the correct license (CC-BY-SA and GFDL). That means that a volunteer needs to take a photograph of someone (usually in a public place) and release it. What often happens is one volunteer photographer attends a major event, like Comic Con, but also like SXSW or major movie premiers, or things like that, and takes a bunch of pictures of a bunch of different people. If you find multiple pictures of people at Comic Con, that is only because it's a convenient public place to take pictures of people. That's all. Also, the fact that other articles link to Comic Con doesn't mean anything. While I count about 1800 other articles that link to Comic Con, I also find that about 11,000 articles link to Roman Empire. That is not evidence that the Roman Empire has contracted with Wikipedia. --Jayron32 12:31, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

WHAT?!? Wikipedia doesn't have a contract agreement with the Roman Empire?!? There goes my aspiration of rising to the rank of Caesar... — Frεcklεfσσt | Talk 12:56, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

You can't seriously compare Comic-Con to Roman Empire, the latter is known to everybody. And it can't be just coincidence that when a lot of pictures of a person exist (e.g. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Jennifer_Lawrence) in most cases the ones at Comic-Con are chosen for prominent placement. And in cases like Jennifer_Lawrence where even a cropped version without logo exists (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jennifer_Lawrence_by_Gage_Skidmore_%28cropped%29.jpg) there is still the version with Comic-Con logo used. I looked at quite a lot of Wikipedia articles in recent time, and it is much too obvious that Comic-Con pictures are prefered to others at Wikimedia Commons. --188.101.3.198 (talk) 12:59, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Wikimedia Commons is a separate entity from the English Wikipedia in most respects; though they share the same parent organization (the Wikimedia Foundation), the two groups have different goals and policies. That said, Commons will accept just about any photograph that is uploaded with an appropriate license. (Whether that image is useful or not, and whether that image is similar to another on Commons or not.) There is very little pruning of their collection. If there are lots of Comic-Con photographs hosted on Commons, it is because there were lots of photographers at Comic-Con who uploaded their work (or a few photographers who took lots of photos!)—not because of some special arrangement with Commons. (And photos taken at Comic-Con tend to have Comic-Con logos in them because, well, Comic-Con knows their marketing and branding, and puts logos everywhere.)

Looking specifically at the Jennifer Lawrence photo you've linked, it's technically problematic. It was obviously a relatively difficult shot for the photographer to get at all (long distance, iffy lighting), as the original image used a very long lens, stopped wide open, at high ISO. It's very obvious that the focus is just a touch off if you look closely at the original image. Cropping the image magnifies the defects, and poor Jennifer's face becomes conspicuously unsharp. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 13:37, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Jayron32 is right. Though there are a number of Comic-Con photos on Wikipedia, it doesn't mean we have any type of agreement with them. All Wikipedia content is added by volunteers. Comic-Con is just a convenient public gathering to snap photos of celebrities. Contrast it with the Oscars Red Carpet, where only professional press is allowed. — Frεcklεfσσt | Talk 13:03, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

I didn't say that Wikimedia Commons only has pictures of Comic-Con, but that of the sometimes very many pictures that Wikimedia Commons has of a person in most cases the ones at Comic-Con are chosen. --188.101.3.198 (talk) 13:07, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

From what I've seen of most major cons (or hell, any place where you can take pics of celebs, like red carpet events), the organizers usually put the celebs in front of a backdrop that features at least their logo, if not their sponsors, repeated enough that you're going to get a pic of the logo somewhere in the photo. Leaving the Comic-Con logo in there also provides some reasonable evidence that the photo was indeed taken there. Ian.thomson (talk) 13:25, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Are the other images better? Looking at the alternatives for Jennifer Lawrence, most of the other images are relatively poor with her looking away from the camera, poor lighting, blurry, or lots of people in the background. File:Jennifer Lawrence at the 83rd Academy Awards crop.jpg is probably the only other really good one (and is the 2nd image in the article), but it's 2 years older than the Comic-Con image. "Chosen" simply means that someone decided to put the image in the article. There is often no discussion, people are just being bold because they think a particular image is better. Mr.Z-man 14:01, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

In this case there actually was discussion at Talk:Jennifer Lawrence#Which image to use? PrimeHunter (talk) 16:28, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

It is one of 224 photos from the 2013 San Diego Comic-Con uploaded by the same user in two days.[10] I guess a lot of them have found their way to Wikipedia articles. And commons:User:Gage indicates the user has been attending and taking photos since 2007. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:43, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

The most likely explanation is that a good photographer and Wikipedia volunteer was in the right time and place. Any other con, or event, could have had the same happen - if not for the fact that there are very few people taking photos for Wikipedia in the first place. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 05:10, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

If you look a bit wider you will find a lot of our actor/TV personality/celebrity pics are taken at conventions. Its on of the few times that such people and geeks who care about free content licenses are in the same place at the same time. If they are giving talks talks or the like they tend to be pretty stationary which makes their easier to photograph. Comic con just happens to be convention must likely to get A-list speakers so is the one you are most likely to run across pics from.©Geni (talk) 17:12, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Capitalization of theorem titles

I realize most page titles just capitalize the first letter, but I just notices pages for mathematical theorems, lemmas, etc. seem to follow this pattern also. See: Schreier refinement theorem, Zassenhaus lemma. These are names of significant theorems, etc. and each word should be capitalized. What's the best way to fix this? --Yoda of Borg (talk) 02:19, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

My opinion is that they shouldn't be, especially for theorems that do not include the names of any people or places. For example, we do not usually capitalize divergence theorem or fundamental theorem of calculus when referring to them in-line.--Jasper Deng (talk) 04:05, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

WP:NAMECAPS and (later on the same page) Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Science and mathematics seem very clear on this to me. According to them, we should only capitalize the person's name, not the other parts of the title. There are some exceptions; for instance "abelian" is never capitalized despite being a form of a person's name. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:09, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

What David said. I'm not aware of any consensus on whether "noetherian" is capitalized or not (ditto for artinian, etc). -- Taku (talk) 12:46, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

We've been following this convention for more than a decade and this probably involves more than five-thousand titles. It is true that many writers in contexts other than Wikipedia use capitals in things like Fundamental Theorem of Calculus, etc. Maybe some day we'll have software with which we could seek out and suitably edit five-thousand articles whose titles follow this convention and a hundred-thousand occurrences in the bodies of other articles, including links to them. Michael Hardy (talk) 14:51, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

David, thanks for the link to the manual. I still don't know how to find all that stuff and likely won't ever have the time to be as fluent in Wiki as I'd like. I don't however, believe it's as clear as you claim. It calls out concepts, and we don't capitalize concepts like continuous, connected, and isomorphic. Even when used as nouns such as continuity or continuous function, these are common nouns. Names of theorems reference unique entities and are proper nouns. Disagreeing with Jasper, I would capitalize Mean Value Theorem, First Isomorphism Theorem, etc. inline. --Yoda of Borg (✉) 02:25, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

You're free to an opinion on how it should be done, of course, but here the convention is to not capitalize any of those things. Changing that would be a lot of work, as Michael Hardy points out above, and I don't see a lot of benefit to be gained by it. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:59, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

@Yoda of Borg: (Wikipedia:Don't abbreviate Wikipedia as Wiki) Not really. My calculus textbooks do not concur (none of any of the ones I have), and nor does my physics textbook. My reasoning would be that the name of the theorem is a modifier of the common noun "theorem"; you would not capitalize "Fred's Car" but instead write "Fred's car". Likewise, you do not usually capitalize concepts in general, for example, "physics" is not capitalized in-line as a common noun.--Jasper Deng (talk) 03:15, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

@Jasper Deng: <-- 1. Neat way to call someone's attention to an updated conversation. Do I have to type out the {{ping|name}} tag every time, or is there a shorthand tag that will get converted on the page save the way ~~~~ gets converted to the signature?

2. I wasn't abbreviating Wikipedia. I was simultaneously referring to the Wiki markup language, and all Wikis (including Wikipedia) that use the Wikimedia Foundation's markup language.

3. My experience is the opposite. I rarely find named theorems, lemmas, etc. that don't use title case. In fact I would say Wikipedia is one of the few exceptions to the convention. I searched Google for "the fundamental theorem of calculus". On the first page, Wikipedia and Khan's Academy were the only ones that used sentence case, the other 8 (including 4 universities and Wolfram MathWorld) used title case. As a conceptual title (not the formal statement, the title at the top) you would write "Theorem: Integrals and derivatives undo each other", but as a named theorem you would write "The Fundamental Theorem of Calculus". True you wouldn't capitalize "Fred's car", but if his car were named "the great flying wombat", you would write it "The Great Flying Wombat". As I said in my 25 April post above, the name of a theorem is not the same as a concept, and thus Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Science and mathematics doesn't adequately address the topic at hand. I'm pragmatic enough to see that those who care enough to chime in, wouldn't support a proposal to clarify and fix the policy, so I'm willing to move on. --Yoda of Borg (✉) 05:44, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

One remark I will make. Boxes containing statements of the theorem itself are an exception in my textbooks. It is when we refer to the theorems that they become lower-case. My books are introductory college-level books on multivariable calculus and physics, if it helps. By the way, Wolfram Mathworld isn't actually a reliable source if I recall correctly, as assessed by editors. You might want to bring this up at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics (oh, {{ping}} is necessary every time to give a notification) (you seem to love capitalizing, to the point of capitalizing the common noun wiki!).--Jasper Deng (talk) 05:54, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Technically, it isn't necessary to use {{ping}} to trigger a notification, any link to a user's page will do. For example: Jasper Deng. The ping template and related templates are just convenient. Novusuna ^talk 06:01, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Almost to 4.5 million articles

We're approaching a milestone: 4,500,000 (4 and a half million) articles on the English Wikipedia. The current count is at 4,499,966. It shouldn't be long, maybe two hours... --Jakob (talk) (Please comment on my editor review.) 03:00, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Here you go. I am a bit bored (and created it), but that was 4.5 million by my count. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 03:50, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Cool! --Jakob (talk) (Please comment on my editor review.) 11:45, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Think of all the trees we've saved. bd2412 T 16:49, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Congratulations to us! :-) Sumana Harihareswara 22:17, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Account with blank password

I just found an account with a blank pasword. See Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2006-02-06/Password security. Is there anything that needs to be done? Any way the account has 0 contribs. -- Fauzan^{✆ talk} _{✉ email} 11:32, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Report it to the Administrators' noticeboard. It's better that we shut these down then allow them to be used for spam, vandalism or worse. — SMUconlaw (talk) 12:31, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

OK, so I emailed Callanec. -- Fauzan^{✆ talk} _{✉ email} 18:25, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Page rename request, how long does it take

How long after I've requested (on its Talk page) that a page be renamed, when it's obvious from the content that it does need renaming, does someone typically come along and fix it? I don't know whether I'm being too impatient. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SpringFwd (talk • contribs) 17:36, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

If the request is only on the talk page and entered as a text request without the template, it will depend on how trafficked the article, is and may take weeks. If it is listed at Wikipedia:Requested moves, which should be automatic if using the template, it should only take a few days, especially if non-controversial.--S Philbrick(Talk) 18:33, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Based on your contributions, you must be talking about Climate Action Plan. I moved it to Boulder Climate Action Plan and converted the original to a DAB page about climate action plans that have articles. GB fan 18:44, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Invitation to discussion

Please join the merge discussion in Talk:Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople. Thanks. --Why should I have a User Name? (talk) 20:29, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia contracts with Comic-Con

I would like to know about the contracts Wikipedia has with Comic-Con. I realised that in articles about stars almost always pictures of them at Comic-Con are prefered (even if there are much better ones), mostly with the logo visible and a link to Comic-Con (e.g. http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Jennifer_Lawrence). So there are thousands of links from Wikipedia articles to Comic-Con (http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Special:WhatLinksHere/San_Diego_Comic-Con_International). So obviously there is some kind of "collaboration" between Wikipedia and Comic-Con, but I couldn't find anything about it. --188.101.3.198 (talk) 11:39, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia has no link to Comic-Con. Wikipedia requires that pictures are properly licensed, and that all but requires that the photographer who takes the picture agrees to release said pictures under the correct license (CC-BY-SA and GFDL). That means that a volunteer needs to take a photograph of someone (usually in a public place) and release it. What often happens is one volunteer photographer attends a major event, like Comic Con, but also like SXSW or major movie premiers, or things like that, and takes a bunch of pictures of a bunch of different people. If you find multiple pictures of people at Comic Con, that is only because it's a convenient public place to take pictures of people. That's all. Also, the fact that other articles link to Comic Con doesn't mean anything. While I count about 1800 other articles that link to Comic Con, I also find that about 11,000 articles link to Roman Empire. That is not evidence that the Roman Empire has contracted with Wikipedia. --Jayron32 12:31, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

WHAT?!? Wikipedia doesn't have a contract agreement with the Roman Empire?!? There goes my aspiration of rising to the rank of Caesar... — Frεcklεfσσt | Talk 12:56, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

You can't seriously compare Comic-Con to Roman Empire, the latter is known to everybody. And it can't be just coincidence that when a lot of pictures of a person exist (e.g. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Jennifer_Lawrence) in most cases the ones at Comic-Con are chosen for prominent placement. And in cases like Jennifer_Lawrence where even a cropped version without logo exists (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jennifer_Lawrence_by_Gage_Skidmore_%28cropped%29.jpg) there is still the version with Comic-Con logo used. I looked at quite a lot of Wikipedia articles in recent time, and it is much too obvious that Comic-Con pictures are prefered to others at Wikimedia Commons. --188.101.3.198 (talk) 12:59, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Wikimedia Commons is a separate entity from the English Wikipedia in most respects; though they share the same parent organization (the Wikimedia Foundation), the two groups have different goals and policies. That said, Commons will accept just about any photograph that is uploaded with an appropriate license. (Whether that image is useful or not, and whether that image is similar to another on Commons or not.) There is very little pruning of their collection. If there are lots of Comic-Con photographs hosted on Commons, it is because there were lots of photographers at Comic-Con who uploaded their work (or a few photographers who took lots of photos!)—not because of some special arrangement with Commons. (And photos taken at Comic-Con tend to have Comic-Con logos in them because, well, Comic-Con knows their marketing and branding, and puts logos everywhere.)

Looking specifically at the Jennifer Lawrence photo you've linked, it's technically problematic. It was obviously a relatively difficult shot for the photographer to get at all (long distance, iffy lighting), as the original image used a very long lens, stopped wide open, at high ISO. It's very obvious that the focus is just a touch off if you look closely at the original image. Cropping the image magnifies the defects, and poor Jennifer's face becomes conspicuously unsharp. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 13:37, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Jayron32 is right. Though there are a number of Comic-Con photos on Wikipedia, it doesn't mean we have any type of agreement with them. All Wikipedia content is added by volunteers. Comic-Con is just a convenient public gathering to snap photos of celebrities. Contrast it with the Oscars Red Carpet, where only professional press is allowed. — Frεcklεfσσt | Talk 13:03, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

I didn't say that Wikimedia Commons only has pictures of Comic-Con, but that of the sometimes very many pictures that Wikimedia Commons has of a person in most cases the ones at Comic-Con are chosen. --188.101.3.198 (talk) 13:07, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

From what I've seen of most major cons (or hell, any place where you can take pics of celebs, like red carpet events), the organizers usually put the celebs in front of a backdrop that features at least their logo, if not their sponsors, repeated enough that you're going to get a pic of the logo somewhere in the photo. Leaving the Comic-Con logo in there also provides some reasonable evidence that the photo was indeed taken there. Ian.thomson (talk) 13:25, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Are the other images better? Looking at the alternatives for Jennifer Lawrence, most of the other images are relatively poor with her looking away from the camera, poor lighting, blurry, or lots of people in the background. File:Jennifer Lawrence at the 83rd Academy Awards crop.jpg is probably the only other really good one (and is the 2nd image in the article), but it's 2 years older than the Comic-Con image. "Chosen" simply means that someone decided to put the image in the article. There is often no discussion, people are just being bold because they think a particular image is better. Mr.Z-man 14:01, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

In this case there actually was discussion at Talk:Jennifer Lawrence#Which image to use? PrimeHunter (talk) 16:28, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

It is one of 224 photos from the 2013 San Diego Comic-Con uploaded by the same user in two days.[11] I guess a lot of them have found their way to Wikipedia articles. And commons:User:Gage indicates the user has been attending and taking photos since 2007. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:43, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

The most likely explanation is that a good photographer and Wikipedia volunteer was in the right time and place. Any other con, or event, could have had the same happen - if not for the fact that there are very few people taking photos for Wikipedia in the first place. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 05:10, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

If you look a bit wider you will find a lot of our actor/TV personality/celebrity pics are taken at conventions. Its on of the few times that such people and geeks who care about free content licenses are in the same place at the same time. If they are giving talks talks or the like they tend to be pretty stationary which makes their easier to photograph. Comic con just happens to be convention must likely to get A-list speakers so is the one you are most likely to run across pics from.©Geni (talk) 17:12, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Capitalization of theorem titles

I realize most page titles just capitalize the first letter, but I just notices pages for mathematical theorems, lemmas, etc. seem to follow this pattern also. See: Schreier refinement theorem, Zassenhaus lemma. These are names of significant theorems, etc. and each word should be capitalized. What's the best way to fix this? --Yoda of Borg (talk) 02:19, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

My opinion is that they shouldn't be, especially for theorems that do not include the names of any people or places. For example, we do not usually capitalize divergence theorem or fundamental theorem of calculus when referring to them in-line.--Jasper Deng (talk) 04:05, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

WP:NAMECAPS and (later on the same page) Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Science and mathematics seem very clear on this to me. According to them, we should only capitalize the person's name, not the other parts of the title. There are some exceptions; for instance "abelian" is never capitalized despite being a form of a person's name. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:09, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

What David said. I'm not aware of any consensus on whether "noetherian" is capitalized or not (ditto for artinian, etc). -- Taku (talk) 12:46, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

We've been following this convention for more than a decade and this probably involves more than five-thousand titles. It is true that many writers in contexts other than Wikipedia use capitals in things like Fundamental Theorem of Calculus, etc. Maybe some day we'll have software with which we could seek out and suitably edit five-thousand articles whose titles follow this convention and a hundred-thousand occurrences in the bodies of other articles, including links to them. Michael Hardy (talk) 14:51, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

David, thanks for the link to the manual. I still don't know how to find all that stuff and likely won't ever have the time to be as fluent in Wiki as I'd like. I don't however, believe it's as clear as you claim. It calls out concepts, and we don't capitalize concepts like continuous, connected, and isomorphic. Even when used as nouns such as continuity or continuous function, these are common nouns. Names of theorems reference unique entities and are proper nouns. Disagreeing with Jasper, I would capitalize Mean Value Theorem, First Isomorphism Theorem, etc. inline. --Yoda of Borg (✉) 02:25, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

You're free to an opinion on how it should be done, of course, but here the convention is to not capitalize any of those things. Changing that would be a lot of work, as Michael Hardy points out above, and I don't see a lot of benefit to be gained by it. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:59, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

@Yoda of Borg: (Wikipedia:Don't abbreviate Wikipedia as Wiki) Not really. My calculus textbooks do not concur (none of any of the ones I have), and nor does my physics textbook. My reasoning would be that the name of the theorem is a modifier of the common noun "theorem"; you would not capitalize "Fred's Car" but instead write "Fred's car". Likewise, you do not usually capitalize concepts in general, for example, "physics" is not capitalized in-line as a common noun.--Jasper Deng (talk) 03:15, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

@Jasper Deng: <-- 1. Neat way to call someone's attention to an updated conversation. Do I have to type out the {{ping|name}} tag every time, or is there a shorthand tag that will get converted on the page save the way ~~~~ gets converted to the signature?

2. I wasn't abbreviating Wikipedia. I was simultaneously referring to the Wiki markup language, and all Wikis (including Wikipedia) that use the Wikimedia Foundation's markup language.

3. My experience is the opposite. I rarely find named theorems, lemmas, etc. that don't use title case. In fact I would say Wikipedia is one of the few exceptions to the convention. I searched Google for "the fundamental theorem of calculus". On the first page, Wikipedia and Khan's Academy were the only ones that used sentence case, the other 8 (including 4 universities and Wolfram MathWorld) used title case. As a conceptual title (not the formal statement, the title at the top) you would write "Theorem: Integrals and derivatives undo each other", but as a named theorem you would write "The Fundamental Theorem of Calculus". True you wouldn't capitalize "Fred's car", but if his car were named "the great flying wombat", you would write it "The Great Flying Wombat". As I said in my 25 April post above, the name of a theorem is not the same as a concept, and thus Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Science and mathematics doesn't adequately address the topic at hand. I'm pragmatic enough to see that those who care enough to chime in, wouldn't support a proposal to clarify and fix the policy, so I'm willing to move on. --Yoda of Borg (✉) 05:44, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

One remark I will make. Boxes containing statements of the theorem itself are an exception in my textbooks. It is when we refer to the theorems that they become lower-case. My books are introductory college-level books on multivariable calculus and physics, if it helps. By the way, Wolfram Mathworld isn't actually a reliable source if I recall correctly, as assessed by editors. You might want to bring this up at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics (oh, {{ping}} is necessary every time to give a notification) (you seem to love capitalizing, to the point of capitalizing the common noun wiki!).--Jasper Deng (talk) 05:54, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Technically, it isn't necessary to use {{ping}} to trigger a notification, any link to a user's page will do. For example: Jasper Deng. The ping template and related templates are just convenient. Novusuna ^talk 06:01, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Almost to 4.5 million articles

We're approaching a milestone: 4,500,000 (4 and a half million) articles on the English Wikipedia. The current count is at 4,499,966. It shouldn't be long, maybe two hours... --Jakob (talk) (Please comment on my editor review.) 03:00, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Here you go. I am a bit bored (and created it), but that was 4.5 million by my count. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 03:50, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Cool! --Jakob (talk) (Please comment on my editor review.) 11:45, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Think of all the trees we've saved. bd2412 T 16:49, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Congratulations to us! :-) Sumana Harihareswara 22:17, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Account with blank password

I just found an account with a blank pasword. See Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2006-02-06/Password security. Is there anything that needs to be done? Any way the account has 0 contribs. -- Fauzan^{✆ talk} _{✉ email} 11:32, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Report it to the Administrators' noticeboard. It's better that we shut these down then allow them to be used for spam, vandalism or worse. — SMUconlaw (talk) 12:31, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

OK, so I emailed Callanec. -- Fauzan^{✆ talk} _{✉ email} 18:25, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Page rename request, how long does it take

How long after I've requested (on its Talk page) that a page be renamed, when it's obvious from the content that it does need renaming, does someone typically come along and fix it? I don't know whether I'm being too impatient. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SpringFwd (talk • contribs) 17:36, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

If the request is only on the talk page and entered as a text request without the template, it will depend on how trafficked the article, is and may take weeks. If it is listed at Wikipedia:Requested moves, which should be automatic if using the template, it should only take a few days, especially if non-controversial.--S Philbrick(Talk) 18:33, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Based on your contributions, you must be talking about Climate Action Plan. I moved it to Boulder Climate Action Plan and converted the original to a DAB page about climate action plans that have articles. GB fan 18:44, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Invitation to discussion

Please join the merge discussion in Talk:Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople. Thanks. --Why should I have a User Name? (talk) 20:29, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Talk pages refresh

Is this how the talkpges on wikipedia are going to be in the future? -- Fauzan^{✆ talk} _{✉ email} 18:24, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

No. That's mw:LiquidThreads, which is not capable of handling discussions on something the size of the English Wikipedia. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:34, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Anyway, I read somewhere on wikipedia that the custom signatures would be disabled, and a new talkpage format would be implemented... yes got it, Wikipedia:Flow. -- Fauzan^{✆ talk} _{✉ email} 04:23, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

@Fauzan: Yup, that's the ongoing project. It's still in fairly early stages, and has a large feature planning list, so what you see now at the various early-adopter locations is not the final product by any means. More feedback is appreciated, over the short and long terms. You can test it at Wikipedia talk:Flow/Developer test page or mw:Talk:Sandbox (as always, MediaWiki has a one-week-newer version). The busiest location using it for non-Flow-related purposes, is currently mw:Talk:Beta Features/Hovercards. There's a large overhaul to the front-end coming soon, and they'll be looking for more wikiprojects to volunteer to help trial the software, once that is live. HTH. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 21:03, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. -- Fauzan^{✆ talk} _{✉ email} 23:57, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Dataset of popular stub-class articles

I have gathered a dataset of 6,140 stubs that in February were more popular than the average Featured Article and posted it on User:Nettrom/datasets/March 2014 popular stubs. The articles come from the March 4, 2014 dump and were identified using a combination of computer classification and article assessments, as well as viewership data from Wiki ViewStats. A more detailed description of our method is found at the bottom of the dataset page.

Would love to know what others think of this dataset. Is it useful? Are these articles you'd like to work on improving? Given their popularity and current low quality, they should be prime candidates for improvement, right? Cheers, Nettrom (talk) 20:30, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

I'll be leaving #3 on the list, Ted Thorpe (footballer born 1910), which supposedly had 180K views in 3 days in February, but has now had 43 views over the last 30 days. #1 .45 (film) had 384K views in Feb, over a week, but only 2k in the last 30 days, and #2 Kong (dog toy) 300K and 1K. #4, Stratton Oakmont is the subject behind The Wolf of Wall Street with views now falling off. At the top of the list, all you are doing is capturing things that are topical (or something). None of the top 10 except Stratton Oakmont would even be on the list if you repeated the excercise now - # 11 Nærøyfjord is also a flash in the pan, but would make it in low down. The Sochi Winter Olympics will have hugely distorted the list - right at the bottom of the list, Eric Lesser got an "average" 128 views per day (actually very concentrated round his win); now he's getting that a month. If you repeated the excercise for say May, and combined or averaged the views, more useful data would result. None of #1,2, & 4 are actually stubs, but we know that a huge proportion of "stubs" have out of date ratings. Some articles, like Chelsea bun, are short and might be called stubs (would be by most graders), but actually give you as much as you are likely to need, and should be a "C" in my book. Pappardelle, consistently over 200 views per day, probably does deserve a bit more more than 2 lines, likewise Salad Niçoise. Food dishes are common on the list - I suspect many if not most hits want recipes. Herbaceous plant does the job, and is not a stub, but could be longer. Most graders look purely at the length & number of references, disregarding totally the scale of the topic, which is not what they are supposed to do. Not that I want to discourage you, of course. Lists sorted by project would be the most helpful. Johnbod (talk) 21:38, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

@Johnbod: Thank you so much for such detailed feedback, I appreciate it tremendously! You bring up a good point with the issue of popularity changing so much, I was worried about that but at the same time hoping that averaging over the whole month would mitigate the issue somewhat. Given that some topics see so much popularity over a short time period I will look into ways of measuring and reporting that in a way that can be more helpful.

I am also thankful for your feedback on to what extent the stub rating is fitting for the article. A lot of my research is about quality in communities like Wikipedia. While I know that there's often a lag in article assessments being updated, the issue of what rating is right for an article is also important. Is an article really a stub if it covers the subject well although it is short? One of my current takes on the situation is a variation of Zawinski's law of software envelopment : "Every Wikipedia article will expand until it is capable of becoming a Good Article. Those which cannot will be merged into those who can." I've already seen that there's a lot of confusion between some of the middle-quality classes (Start, C, B), not sure if that's good or if something can be done about it, but I'll keep it in mind as I think the issue of what rating is fitting for an article is an interesting problem.

Lastly, thanks for the suggestion for getting the list sorted by project. I've added that to my todo and will try to get that done as quickly as possible, shouldn't be much of a problem given the software I've written. Cheers, Nettrom (talk) 13:12, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Turns out that these articles are covered by some 800 WikiProjects. I'll spend some time on figuring out how to condense it down to a manageable number of projects, it'll take a few days. Cheers, Nettrom (talk) 18:43, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

I have now updated the dataset so it lists popular stubs per WikiProject. Because there are so many projects (610 after some cleaning) I have broken it into four parts depending on how many stubs they each have listed. There's also an overview table so it's possible to search for specific WikiProjects to find which subpage their popular stubs are listed on. I'll be looking into the issue of short-lived bursts in popularity when I next have time, as that can potentially provide useful additional information. Regards, Nettrom (talk) 19:48, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

UCLA grad students looking for input on WEF assignments

I am the Wiki Education Foundation campus ambassador for a grad school class studying the atmospheric boundary layer at UCLA. I pinged WikiProject Meteorology more than a week ago to no avail. I have eight grad students that are working in their sandboxes and are eager for your input. Chris Troutman (talk) 03:12, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Unfortunately there isn't a lot of feedback to provide: the articles are all in a relatively undeveloped state. All I can suggest is to read the Wikipedia:Article development process, try and follow the WP:Manual of Style during article development, and, ideally, aim to achieve Wikipedia:Good articles status. When the articles are well developed, you could try WP:PR for detailed feedback. Praemonitus (talk) 05:18, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

.wiki

Three new top level domain name registries have asked ICANN to allow them to register two character domain names under their TLDs. New TLD registries aren’t allowed to offer two character second level domain names per their agreements with ICANN, but I expect this to change in coming years. The requests are very different.... .Wiki applicant Top Level Design has asked for two character domains with the support of Wikimedia Foundation, the group behind Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation wants to register two letter second level domain names to forward to matching wikipedia.org domains, e.g. fr.wiki to redirect to fr.wiki.x.io and en.wiki to en.wiki.x.io.

— 3 new domain registries ask ICANN for two character domain names, Andrew Allemann, Domain Name Wire, 29 April 2014

A) If this is true, why has there been no public announcement of it by WMF?
B) Likewise, if this is true, the plan is to engrave the common mistake of referring to Wikipedia as just "Wiki" in DNS forever? That's just great.
C) Is this related to strategy:Proposal:.WIKI. and .WK. top level domains, a proposal from 2009 that appeared until now to have gone nowhere? — Scott • talk 14:15, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia certainly isn't the only organization that would use a .wiki TLD, so I really don't understand the point of question B. It makes perfect sense to use en.wiki as a redirect to en.wiki.x.io if the domain names will be available. Particularly given that if the foundation doesn't claim those names, someone else will. Resolute 14:36, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

• I think the source has misinterpreted what the foundation wants because I've seen nothing of that sort discussed on the mailing list.--Jasper Deng (talk) 16:45, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Same feeling. For the original poster, the mailing list thread is here. (Note that I don't know anything more than what's written in that thread, and I'm not involved in that area.) --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 10:36, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
• Regarding B: calling Wikipedia "Wiki" (or the/The Wiki) is analogous to people calling New York City "The City" - everyone in the general area knows what you're talking about, even though it's not the only one. I honestly don't see why everyone thinks it's such a big deal. 206.117.89.4 (talk) 02:36, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

• Of course since The City is another city entirely. ;-) Also, the new vanity gTLDs are lame, I've said so in multiple venues, and I'm disappointed if we waste time and money on them. ^demon^{[omg plz]} 23:21, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

• Hah, I'm originally from the area, but still refer to NYC as "The City". 206.117.89.4 (talk) 11:04, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

• Pfft! You colonials are so cute. — Scott • talk 23:37, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Bare transclusions of Template:Infobox

There is a list at User:Pigsonthewing/Direct calls to Infobox of 2398 articles which use {{Infobox}} directly. While that's not prohibited, of course, there's often a more suitable template to use, such as in this edit. Some are simply frames for images. Please feel free to strike through items in that list if you convert them (or if you check and nothing needs to be done; in which case, please leave a comment there also). Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:56, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Umepedia Challenge

Competition time: Write new and improve existing articles out of a list of subjects related to Umeå. Exclusive prizes. The challenge carries on from 1 May to 31 May. Read more at meta. --Jan Ainali (WMSE) (talk) 22:45, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Watch out. The last time someone tried this, the community rose up in arms and tried to ban Gibraltar from Wikipedia. Still never figured out why. But for some reason, encouraging people to make Wikipedia better causes resentment towards geographic regions. Good luck though! I think it's a good idea. The community, for some reason, didn't think it was when someone did this for Gibraltar. Let's hope they're more reasonable today. --Jayron32 23:34, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Well I shouldn't worry too much, @Jayron32. I'm pleased to see you have said what the dozens of volunteers involved also said. However Gibraltar had 1,000 new articles and ~3,000 new images with lots of stuff in both Africa and Spain including putting Ceuta "on the map" which now has lots of articles too. I think this is possibly the second most successful GLAM project in terms of new articles generated. Since Gibraltarpedia there have been successes for Joburgpedia. We have a QRpedia code on Mahatma Gandhi's house. Praguepedia locations have been on the front page lots of times as has Bremenpedia and Freopedia. I hav'n't mentioned all the wikitowns. A new Australian town will be announced in the next few days. .... Victuallers (talk) 15:26, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Hiding an article against deletion

I noted what seemed an odd addition to Plumpy'nut; the editor was apparently trying to find a citation, but apparently found one on his own. Now there appears to be legal baggage attached to his finding. I tagged it with a cn. Are there policies for allegations, similar to BLP, but for NGOs, organizations like Doctors without borders? Do I mean Wikimedia? For what it's worth, I simply moved the addition to its own article. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 06:40, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

No, there is nothing like BLP for companies (although a recent discussion at User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 162#Legal persons and BLP (permalink) proposes one—I have only skimmed that discussion but the proposal has very little chance of success as it completely misunderstands the purpose of BLP). However, WP:NPOV applies and from a very quick look at the article it seems someone wanted to claim that a company did some bad thing, and that claim is utterly bogus and inappropriate (they killed "millions of children"!). Re Citadel spread: please examine WP:CWW which says that if material is copied from page A to page B, the edit summary adding the material to B must contain a link to A indicating that A is the source. That article currently contains a cut-down version of the extravagant claim about the company—I don't have any spare energy at the moment or I would try to get that page deleted or at least pruned. I do not understand the wording in the section header. Johnuniq (talk) 10:47, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

What do you think of Media Viewer?

Media Viewer lets you browse larger images on Wikipedia.

Hi folks: we'd love to hear what you think about Media Viewer, a new tool that aims to improve the viewing experience on Wikipedia and its sister sites.

This multimedia browser displays images in larger size and with less clutter, providing a more immersive user experience, as described here. It was developed in collaboration with many community members -- including over 12,000 beta users here on English Wikipedia, who have been testing it since November 2013. The current plan is to release this tool gradually in coming weeks: it is already enabled by default on over a dozen sites (including the Dutch, French and Polish Wikipedia), and will be deployed more widely throughout May, as described in this release plan.

Can you share your feedback about this tool, to help address any critical issues before its May 15 release on the English Wikipedia? To try it out, please log in and click on the small 'Beta' link next to 'Preferences' in your personal menu. Then check the box next to 'Media Viewer' in the Beta Features section of your user preferences — and click 'Save'. You can now click on any thumbnail image on this site to see it in larger size in the Media Viewer. For more info, check out these testing tips or this Help page.

Once you've tried the tool, please share your feedback in this discussion, to help improve this feature. You're also welcome to take this quick survey -- or join this in-depth discussion on MediaWiki.org, as you prefer. Thanks for sharing your insights! Fabrice Florin (WMF) (talk) 00:29, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

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.

---

The arrest of Gerry Adams isn't front page news according to Wikipedia

I originally posted this to the Main Page, but unsurprisingly, it's beind censored from their by the people who I am complaining about, on the technicality that it's not directly related to the Main Page. This seems to be the closest place I can find here to a complaints page, so, I'm going to put it here instead. if anything, I'm just extremely interested to see what excuse they will find to remove it from here to. Apparently they find it extremely uncomfortable to talk about this at all. Strange attitude for a website which likes to present itself as an open collboration.

Here it is:

If you want to know why, read the Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates page. There you will find all sorts of uninformed, illogical, and downright dishonest claims about the UK legal system and the way the British press works. You will also see the quite idiotic claim that, by ignoring this news, Wikipedia is somehow defending Adam's from defamation - something apparently the rest of the world's media (and indeed Wikipedia's own article on Adams), isn't apparently all that concerned about. If like me, you think this is contemptible, and want to challenge it - then you will just have complain to your congressman I guess, because it has become clear to me today at Wikipedia talk:In the news that the people at Wikipedia who make those sort of arguments, will absolutely, positively, not answer any questions at all about it - and others will apparently defend their rights to do so, by closing down such discussions. Apparently it's 'disruptive' to question the logic that goes into faulty Wikipedia decision making like this. As always, if you want to know what's going on the world, consult the other 'old media' outlets who, for all their faults, still make it their job to report on the news in a serious and credible manner. Only come to Wikipedia if you want to know about video games and other stuff nobody really gives a crap about. Lokie Dokie (talk) 13:25, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

This is all terribly fascinating but many items don't gather enough consensus to be posted at ITN, it's just the way it goes. You're in a mini-rage because this particular item didn't make it (and will almost certainly be a non-story as Adams is released in due course) and we can all see that. Sorry that you've been disappointed by the outcome. But forum shopping for sympathy doesn't tend to have the outcome desired by the shopper. YMMV. The Rambling Man (talk) 13:54, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Wow. Well at least you didn't try to censor this complaint. Progress I guess. Yes, I'm angry at how that went. And I'm not really interested in any more patronising guff from people who will apparently say or do anything at all, except justify the decision in a mature, logical, manner. You keep calling this consensus, but I wonder if you've even looked up what that's supposed to mean here. Because talking utter crap, such as this ludicrous claim that this will be a non-story if (no, let's get it right, as you just claimed - when) he gets released, is not it. If that's what yuo really believe, you're either a liar, or deluded, or both. Nobody is in the slightest bit interested in whether you personally think it shouldn't be news, that process is only apparently supposed to be about whether it was actually news. Which it undoubtedly was. Big news. The issue here though is not that it didn't go the way I wanted because that place seems to operate to different rules than most normal people would understand, the story here now is why you closed down my complaints about that at Wikipedia talk:In the news in very short order, with the completley useless 'more heat less light' comment (the irony of you referring to light, given you've apparently got nothing insightful to say about why it was rejected at all (beyond of course the banally obvious point that 'sometimes stuff doesn't succeed'. As I said there, your actions seem to be nothing more than a transparent attempt to avoid all discussion of why that happened. Soemthing which only usually happens when people are so utterly embarassed and ashamed by what they've done, they'll do anything to just make it go away. Sort of what you'd expect to happen in a cult. But not really what you're usually led to believe happens at Wikipedia. Lokie Dokie (talk) 14:26, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Again, sorry it didn't work out the way you wanted it to. That often happens to me, but you just shrug your shoulders and get on with it. I'm sure if Adams is charged we can have this delightful tete-a-tete all over Wikipedia all over again. One word of advice, reduce your verbiage. Most often less is more, especially so in this case. The Rambling Man (talk) 14:30, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

I'm sure all sorts of things don't happen here the way you want - that will happen if you're trying to enforce your personal views of what's newsworthy onto Wikipedia. Unfortunately, for Wikipedia's reputation at least, you seem to be more succesful at it than others probably imagine. If he is charged, yes, I'm sure all sorts of rubbish will be said about how that is newsworthy now, but wasn't these last few days. Which is obviously utter crap. More importantly though, we'll probably not see anyone admitting that the level of news coverage that news will get in the real world will be exactly the same as the arrest got these last few days, and if, as is likely, he won't have said a word to the police, the actual facts of the matter won't have changed one bit. Nobody will be seen explaining why Wikipedia waited. The decision processes used by this particular part of Wikipedia, which you laughingly like to claim is consensus in action, will look as stupid and dishonest then, as it does now. If only someone had tried to figure out why this happened, by asking questions about precisely these things, at, say, a place like Wikipedia talk:In the news. Lokie Dokie (talk) 14:50, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Again, there's no issue here other than your clear disappointment that a news item you wanted to see on Wikipedia's front page didn't get anywhere near enough support. Never mind, as I said, try again when he gets charged or better still, when he gets convicted. If you want to contribute to a news ticker, by the way, try Wikinews! The Rambling Man (talk) 14:52, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Um, no. That's how you would like people to interpret this complaint. If people want to know what my actual issues are with the way this was defeated, they need only to look at the section I started at Wikipedia talk:In the news. Obviously, thanks to your wise and thoughtful intervention, if anyone has anything to respond to that, by way of an actual explanation - something a little more thought out than what you're offering here - they can't. But thankfully at least your actions didn't extend to completely removing it from view, as you've done elsewhere. They can at least see what sort of complaint strikes the fear of God into you, and makes you want to completely shut it down, lest you have to, y'know, explain/justify/respond at all. It's obviously really threatening to you to have the logic employed in that section questioned at all. Better to just ignore it, forcefully shut it down, and then hope the complainent goes away. Mabye even issue them with some bogus threats, if that's not enough to shut them up. Try and act the big man. Welcome to Wikipedia everyone! The cult of all cults. Say whatever the hell you like - if you really don't want something to be on the main page, just make up a reason, it will be taken into account, no matter how divorced from reality, no matter how indefensible. This is the democratic way. This is the wiki way. Throw out all that old media, this is the future. Lokie Dokie (talk) 15:15, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

And oh wow. User:Doktorbuk just tried to close this section too. I'm sure that had absolutely nothing to do with the fact he is a regular commenter in the discussions there, and he was actually one of the people I criticised for their comments in the LA Clippers section, in the section I started on Adams at Wikipedia talk:In the news. I'm sure he thought nobody here would have realised that, and maybe might have assumed he had no hand in this dispute whatsoever. Circling the wagons really does seem to be a big part of the lives of the folks who like to decide what happens over there. What on Earth can be so scary about having their logic questioned, that they need to go to these extraordinary lengths to shut me up? Lokie Dokie (talk) 15:54, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

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.

A question about Verifiability

Dear Wikipedians, I want to ask a question about verifiability for some articles. Some edits (such as this) completely remove most of the contents in the page because of verifiability. (Btw, I haven't contributed to this article) No sources have been added to the article, but most of it's content can be verified with an easy web search. When I see some edits like these, it also removes the work of previous wikipedians. My question is, How should we interpret this rule? Does it strictly impose that every sentence should be cited? In my opininon, a tag like , or might be used in the first place. I think we should give some space for the editors to cite their work. Cheers.. --joseph ^msg 08:29, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

My advice... to quote Star Wars... "Let the Wookie Win". When someone comes along and demands sources, don't get into arguments about whether the sources are needed or not. You can spend weeks arguing about whether a source is needed, and such arguments simply stresses everyone out. If (as you say) most of the material can be easily verified with a simple web search... great. Do that web search and return the material with some sources. It takes far less time, and is far less stressful to supply sources than it is to argue that they are not needed.

That said... The real issue with the particular article you point us to is that it does not properly establish that the subject matter (a Turkish TV show) is notable. Not every TV show is notable. The article needs to explain what makes this particular TV show special, what makes it different from other TV shows. Has it won any awards? Has it received note worthy praise or criticism? That's the sort of thing the article needs. Blueboar (talk) 21:13, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation Monthly Report for March 2014

Just a note to let anyone who's interested know I've posted the Wiki Education Foundation's Monthly Report for March, both on wiki and on Commons. My apologies for the delay; hopefully we've worked out the process kinks and can get the April report out in a more timely manner! I welcome any suggestions for what would make this report more useful for you in the future. --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 03:09, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Please honor the efforts of the Wikipedians who helped rescue an article on ESWiki

Dear English Wikipedia community,

Please honor the efforts today of the men and women who helped this Spanish Wikipedia article survive the a deletion process: es:Liceo Mexicano Japonés (Liceo Mexicano Japonés). This helped preserve not only a Wikipedia article, but it also preserved a record of an internet account of an important institution of an ethnic group in Mexico City, the Japanese Nikkei, and it helped ensure young men and women in Mexico City would learn more about their history and their culture.

Please recognize the efforts of these Spanish-speaking Wikipedians...

• es:User:AVIADOR
• es:User:Rosymonterrey
• es:User:Zerabat
• es:User:Enrique Cordero (for discovering mistakes in the Spanish and explaining how to fix them)
• es:User:Shalbat (minor corrections)
• es:User:AnselmiJuan (adding additional possible sources to the article)

...and these Japanese-speaking Wikipedians...

• en:User:Oda Mari
• Professor Yamada (ja:User:山田晴通)
• ja:User:Ichiro Kikuchi
• ja:User:Ks aka 98
• ja:User:あるうぃんす

...in helping rescue the article. (If I forgot anyone, I'm sorry!)

In addition, please honor the efforts of those on Reddit. http://reddit.com/u/enomooshiki has provided to me and others in the Wikipedia community a difficult-to-access master's degree thesis by Chizuko Watanabe ("The Japanese Immigrant Community in Mexico: its History and Present", California State University Los Angeles, 1983). In addition to the rescue of the article, more people will learn about Chizuko Watanabe's scholarship and her work will become available and known to many around the world. In addition, http://reddit.com/u/fabianhjr had given me a list to the Google Scholar sources which helped me find a Japanese source.

Thank you, - WhisperToMe WhisperToMe (talk) 00:01, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Suggesting new entry

Greetings. Please send me the address of someone who can suggest a new entry. It's so obvious I'm amazed it's not here.

(It's a topic of political sensitivity, so I don't want to divulge it in this space.)

Thanks,

dpf — Preceding unsigned comment added by Frazierdp (talk • contribs) 01:35, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Anyone can suggest a new entry, including you. In fact anyone can add a new entry, including you. So why not do that instead? -- Derek Ross | Talk 17:17, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

VisualEditor citation tool going live

I've just enabled the citation tool in VisualEditor, which adds a prominent menu in the toolbar listing the most common citation templates to insert as new citations. You can also use this tool to edit most existing references that use these templates, bypassing the need to edit a template inside a reference. Feedback welcome!

Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 14:38, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

See also section

Hi, I'm from Persian Wikipedia and I have a question about WP:ALSO. one of our users added Timeline of United States inventions (1946–91) in See also section in more than 200 articles (includes Personal computer, C (programming language), Video game console, Digital camera, Mobile phone, Firewall (computing), Perl, Ethernet, Internet, ...). I didnt saw anything like this in English Wikipedia. the translation of Timeline of United States inventions (1946–91) in our wiki just have year and titles without any descriptions, and we have the year of inventions in article's History section. also we have related categories such as Category:20th-century introductions and Category:1975 introductions for these articles. one of our Administrators thinks these edits are fine but me and some other users thinks its wrong and if we think like that anybody can add any unrelated links to See also sections. what do you think about this ? should we rollback them ? the user has thousands of edits like this. is this vandalism or not ? Thanks   ARASH PT  talk  15:20, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Every language edition has its own rules. If this were done on the English Wikipedia, then it would definitely not be vandalism. Vandalism is deliberately trying to cause problems. This person seems to be trying to help (even if you don't think he was successful).

Whether you should keep these links is entirely up to the editors at the Persian Wikipedia. Perhaps it would be good to keep these links for some articles but not for others. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:52, 9 May 2014 (UTC)