Wikipedia:Village pump archive 2004-09-26

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Moved discussion

Questions and answers, after a period of time of inactivity, will be moved to other relevant sections of the wikipedia (such as the FAQ pages) or placed in the Wikipedia:Village pump archive if it is of general interest.

See the archive for older moved discussion links.

Interchangable use of Academy Award and Oscar

I've seen "Academy Award" and "Oscar" used interchangeably (for example, in the new article on Frances McDormand). Should they be? Most people use the words interchangeably, but I didn't know if we ought to choose one for simplicity's sake, and to limit confusion for the many people worldwide who pay little attention to the AMPAS's awards, let alone their nickname? Jwrosenzweig 21:19 22 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Yes, at least in the same article with all parts written by the same person. Being properly chastened, I've changed Frances McDormand accordingly. Bill 21:31 22 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I was thinking, in regard to pages like Yoism, Idealist Press International, Ltd., and so on, that in cases of pages on (really) minor subjects, the pages themselves can be perfectly fine but links to them from major articles are what's really irritating.

I was wondering if this was enshrined in policy somewhere - by all means, create pages on minor subjects (though really, really minor ones may be deleted anyway) but avoid the temptation to link to them in such a way that they seem very important.

If it's not an official policy, it should be. :-) How about Wikipedia:Links to minor subjects? Evercat 01:01 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)

This was kind of implied by the extended discussion of the wikipedia:neutral point of view policy that we nailed down (so long ago, it seems). However, making the point explicit can't hurt.
On this topic, there's been some mention of the "1000-person" or "5000-person" guideline for article inclusion (on the idea that if it's of relevance to less than that many people, we can't really write an article about it). Is this mentioned anywhere on the Wikipedia yet? It's an interesting idea, and it would be nice to have guidelines for "too obscure to be on Wikipedia.". Some refinement would obviously be in order though... --Robert Merkel 04:46 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)
I threw out the idea a while back to see if it would stick, apparently it has. :-) I think I've pondered enough to write up a page now, I just hate to use up my precious article-writing time on meta-pages, and been putting it off. Stan 14:55 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)
I'm not sure I like this idea -- I think there are plenty of encyclopedic things known by fewer than 1000 people. For example, a lot of historical information in relatively obscure fields might fall into this category, or even some of the math pages on more specialized topics of which perhaps only 500 or so researchers in that particular field would be aware. I don't see any reason these sorts of things shouldn't go in an encyclopedia though. --Delirium 00:48 25 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Wasn't it 1000 people affected rather than know about it? That would cover the obscure historical facts, most of which (I assume) affected at least that number. Where it leaves pure maths though is a problem. :-) Evercat 00:52 25 Jul 2003 (UTC)

When certain users repeatedly (I'm talking about the really really bad ones) vandalize Wikipedia, why doesn't Wikipedia seek to press criminal charges or file a civil lawsuit? Vandalism is a crime.

The whole point about Wikiweb is that everyone can format the content of the pages. This will necessarily, by knowing how some (or a lot of) people behave, also have its negative consequences. If Wikipedia would press criminal charges here and there, this would discourage the signup of new users such as myself. Vandalism is a crime, but when you leave your Lambhorgini Diablo unlocked in the streets it will be vandalized. The regular users of Wikipedia, should then see their responsibility in fixing things up. And they / you / we do. In the Norwegian wikipedia, however, I've found alot of articles that really upsets me, but this doesn't allow the management to file charges according to the wikiweb manifesto. That's my opinion..
Sigg3.net 09:41 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Wikipedia, and Wikipedians, reserve the right to complain to ISPs, workplaces, and/or schools, as appropriate, as well as take legal action if appropriate. See also: Wikipedia:replies to common objections. Martin 12:48 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)


It's my understanding that if an image (a painting in this case) is out of copyright, one can't copyright a digital representation of that image. Am I right? CGS 18:31 24 Jul 2003 (UTC).

That's true, but only if the digital image is not a "derived work." This can be tricky and is very much of a gray area -- for example, a cropped image might be "creative," depending on how it's cropped. An image with color-enhancement or sharpening might be a derivative work subject to a separate coypright. It's often nearly impossible to tell whether something is a straight "accurate copy" or a copy with some sort of copyrightable modification.
My policy as of late has been to assume the image is not copyrighted, and just to use it (this goes both for old paintings and for scans of 19th-century photographs). I usually make a note of where I got the digital image from, and a note that I the original work is out of copyright. I figure if someone really thinks their digital image is a creative work subject to copyright, they can always complain to us and we'll take it down at that time. --Delirium 19:50 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Photographs are copyright. If you photograph a nice sunset, the copyright belongs to you: ditto if you photograph a painting in a gallery. Hence galleries normally forbid photography, so that they can sell you postcards they own the copyright to. The copyright is not in the painting (unless it's recent, of course) but in the photo. A 19th-century photo is out of copyright. (IANAL) Gritchka 17:25 25 Jul 2003 (UTC)
In German copyright law, the work has to have an artistic expression to be copyrighted on its own. If the photographer just makes a 1:1 reproduction of the painting, it's the painting's copyright you have to obey. If he also pictures the frame and the little sign below it, the photographer has made a new artistic work and the selection of his motive qualifies for a copyright of the photography. The reason most galleries don't like photos being taken is a) flashlights not being good for the images and b) they want to sell their souvenirs. -- JeLuF 08:10, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Abbreviation Question

In several entries, there is the abbreviated reference "Jellinek, "B. H."" I'm guessing this is Adolf Jellinek, but to what does the "B. H." refer?

Log in problems

For some reason, I keep being logged out every so often. Is anyone else having this problem today? Angela 19:36 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)

LOL, this happens to me everyday. Your login cookie expires I believe. MB 20:13 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)

4Reference?

I stumbled on to 4Reference, which seems to feed exclusively on Wikipedia articles. Does anybody know more about this? -- Mic 20:43 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Yes, see Wikipedia:Sites that use Wikipedia for content. MB 21:29 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)

How to move pages

I've rewritten a stub at Siena College at Loudinville NY. The problem is, a) it's spelled Loudonville, and b) I see no reason why it shouldn't be titled Siena College. How does renaming take place? I'm new enough that I haven't seen how this is done. Jwrosenzweig 20:47 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)

The move this page is for renaming. Moving a page also leaves a redirect to the new name behind. כסיף Cyp 21:12 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Capitalisation of titles

Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? should be the principle article, and all other with similer names should redirect to it. It is not a big deal but it is not quite okay to let Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? to be the principle one. --wshun

Star Trek is spelt with all caps on the show's intro - shall we move that articles as well or use standard rules of English grammar (which would favor Who Wants to be a Millionare, BTW)? --mav
Standard English practice is to capitalize all words of a title except for articles and short prepositions, such as 'a', 'the', 'to', 'of', and so on (except where these are the first word of the title, in which case they are capitalized). So I believe Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? would be the correct way of capitalizing it. Of course the show itself may or may not follow standard English practice in its promotional materials; I haven't looked. as for be, I believe that all verbs in titles should be capitalized. --Delirium 23:02 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)
The explanation is good enough to me. Thanks. wshun 23:08 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)
The show name should be used as they render it. There are enough cases in popular culture where the rules of capitalization and grammar are purposefully ignored. For example, thirtysomething and er are two other TV shows that come to mind. Daniel Quinlan 02:17 25 Jul 2003 (UTC)

North American Man-Boy Love Association

A matter of time. Now we have it: North American Man-Boy Love Association. Now is the time for all good men to go to work. -- Cimon Avaro on a pogo-stick

Fixed. My first article reversion.  :-( is now :-) Maybe this page needs to be protected. Daniel Quinlan 02:17 25 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Page protection should not be used except in extreme circumstances. MB 03:57 26 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Mentoring/ Request for review

I've been inserting articles and editing for a few months now and would enjoy any critical feedback anybody might have so I can improve my contributions to this encyclopaedia. (If this isn't the proper place to ask for this, I apologise.) --MTR (严加华) 01:55 25 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I often feel like this myself. Perhaps we should setup a page such as Wikipedia:Requests for Review so people can ask people to cast an eye over new articles or contributions? This could help catch sp and typo errors. CGS 11:16 25 Jul 2003 (UTC).
I agree that this is a good idea. Perhaps it could include some sort of mentoring and offer advice rather than using the Village Pump for this. I'm not sure about the name Wikipedia:Requests for Review though. Angela 18:17 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Examining IPs of non-logged in users

It would be great if non-logged in users (specifically, their edit history) could be examined by class C network so all 256 (well, not quite 256) addresses on a particular subnet can be examined at once. Why? Because users with dynamic IP addresses tend to move around a lot, but are often allocated an address on the same class C network (especially for smaller ISPs and most non-public providers like companies). Daniel Quinlan 02:12 25 Jul 2003 (UTC)

How to redirect a page (bellringing)

Can someone who knows about these things please do a redirect from Bell ringing and Bellringing to Campanology. I've just put "Bell ringing" into the Search box and apparently there was no article, but there is!
Adrian Pingstone 09:43 25 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Done. For the next time, you can do it yourself, it's rather easy:
  • Open any Wikipedia page.
  • Click into the address-field at the top of your browser. That's where http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Some_article stands.
  • Replace the name of the current article (Some_article in the above example) by the title of the page you want to create. Replace blanks by underscores. Hit Enter.
  • Click Edit this page on the following, empty page.
  • Insert #REDIRECT [[Campanology]] into the article field. Write redirect in upper case. Don't put a blank between # and REDIRECT. Put the target into double brackets.
  • Hit save. That's it.
-- JeLuF 10:03 25 Jul 2003 (UTC)

The article is at Bellringing and suggests that "Bellinging" is the correct term, JeLuf, you've made a double redirect. Mintguy 11:28 25 Jul 2003 (UTC)

No, The Anome was, he moved from Campanology to Bellringing without fixing the redirects 2 hours after I created the redirects. -- JeLuF 08:18, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Special Characters (Spanish enye)

I want to add an entry that contains a Spanish "enye" character - Buñol - should the entry/filename be:


  • Bun~ol
  • Buñol
  • Bu + whatever hex unicode thing it takes + ol
  • Bunyol (English phonetic)
  • Bunol (just pretend the tilde isn't there)

???

AHands 11:58 25 Jul 2003 (UTC)

The usual practice I've seen is to use the unaccended (for example, Vasco Nunez de Balboa), so Bunol should probably be the article title. Of course, you can use the special characters within the article itself; it may also be good to redirect Buñol to Bunol, to aid in searching and whatnot. -- Wapcaplet 13:39 25 Jul 2003 (UTC)


Hello, AHands. According to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English), you should "Name your pages in English and place the native transliteration on the first line of the article unless the native form is more commonly used in English than the anglicized form." So for example the article about Christopher Columbus is there rather than at Cristóbal Colón (an alternative form of his name, which a certain rather controversial Wikipedian once recommended), because he is more commonly known as "Christopher Columbus" in English. However, if there is no well-known English-language form of a name, the native form should be used. Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English) says that "Languages like Spanish or French should need no transliteration". The system we have allows Spanish characters like "ñ" to be used, so you can use them. If a name is always spelt with "ñ" rather than "n", then I think we should use the right character in the title for accuracy. But the form with an "n" should be made a redirect, so that we don't accidentally end up with a duplicate article at the alternative title. -- Oliver P. 16:11 25 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Deletions of text

Could someone take a look at vulva? It contains two image-links which point to deleted(?) images. I presume the whole block of stuff surrounding the links should be deleted, but I am hesitant to do so, since I haven't really figured out this whole image-thing. -- Cimon Avaro on a pogo-stick 14:55 25 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Comments requested on WikiProject Countries

I would appreciate comments on my suggestion on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countries. - Montréalais 18:01 25 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I am creating a page that lists all the books that are reviewed on Wikipedia at List of books. Is there a way to get a list of all the pages that link to Wikipedia:Book sources? Only a few selected non-book articles show up using "What links here" on that page. GUllman 17:32 26 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Vandal banning

I don't know what normal procedure is for banning people, but user:203.59.48.208 appears to deserve it richly. -Smack 18:06 26 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Should be taken to Wikipedia:Vandalism in progress. I will ban this user. --Jiang 18:22 26 Jul 2003 (UTC)
has already been blocked a few hours ago--Jiang

Time bubble (wrong date in contributions)

Have we hit a time bubble? Look at my contributions, right down at the bottom, with red dwarf. I made that contribution today, but it's listed as June 2002! My account didn't even exist then! CGS 20:22 26 Jul 2003 (UTC)

A few questions (lists, see also, redirects)

Is there a bug in the software that adds a newline to large lists?

What's the correct format of the "See also"? When is it a good idea to use it? And should it come before or after the "External links" listing?

If you know that some article might be mispelled, is it a good idea to create a new article and redirect it to the correct one pre-emptively?

thanks

Dori 23:27 26 Jul 2003 (UTC)


Don't know about non bug with long lists... About "See also:" I suppose you should use it every time that you haven't figured out a way to include all the relevant links within the text of tha article itself. I would put it before the "External links". As to format, If I thought there were only going to be a few links, I would go for just plain "See also:" and the links following it on the same line. If I thought that there were going to be a huge list of other links that have something to do with it, then I would do:

== See also: ==

  • link
  • another link
  • third link
  • fourth link

...

and so forth.

About making redirects for misspellings, only advise is to use good sense, do if the misspelling is common, and the subject of the article popular. I would tend to create them pretty liberally, but others might disagree. -- Cimon Avaro on a pogo-stick 23:51 26 Jul 2003 (UTC)

If they're only one or two links on the "see also" list, I prefer not making a new subheading:

See also: [[first link]], [[second link]]

--Jiang 23:54 26 Jul 2003 (UTC)

2000 Census

Throughout the articles on US cities and US states reference data are provided from the US Census. This fact is usually indicated by a statement such as 2000 census.... Should this not be 2000 Census (a proper noun) and an article developed for this significant event? Marshman 19:22 27 Jul 2003 (UTC)

If someone wants to make such an article, I can have the rambot do a mass replace to link to the article. For consideration there is already an article on the U.S. Census Bureau which might contain all the information needed (instead of a specific article for the 2000 census). This article is, however, already linked to from the city/state/county articles. -- Ram-Man 02:26 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Presentations on WP

I've seen people mentioning academic studies (conference presentations/ journal papers) of Wikipedia. Is there a page which lists all of them (known to us?)? Tomos 00:26 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I don't know if someone has started a list yet, but here are some starting points: I did an English presentation at the Open Cultures conference in Vienna (which also covered Slashdot and Kuro5hin), and also one on July 1 at the Merz-Akademie (exclusively about Wikipedia). There appears to be no video online for the latter one, even though it was filmed. I also wrote a four-part-series for the German netzine Telepolis about Wikipedia. [1] Lars Aronsson's Operation of a Large Scale, General Purpose Wiki Website may also be of interest.—Eloquence 00:39 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)
I think it'd very informative (to non-Wikipedians) and fun (to Wikipedians) to see a list of formal or semi-formal oral presentations (academic or not) in which Wikipedia is mentioned (hopefully more than a sentence.) --Menchi 02:41 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Thanks! I tentatively created a list of references on my user page so that others can look or add. Tomos 01:41, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Horary! We're back! CGS 13:05 28 Jul 2003 (UTC).

Thanks to Jimbo, or so it is said. While we're on the topic, I vote Eloquence be given root access. -- Tim Starling 13:12 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)
I second that. (don't know what it means, but it sounds a good idea! FearÉIREANN 13:26 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)


Suggest it on the mailing list. The Wikipedia's really got its fast stripes on now everyone thinks we're down. CGS 13:27 28 Jul 2003 (UTC).
That, and eggs in several baskets in other ways too. -- Cimon Avaro on a pogo stick

P.S. this message brought to you via 4 edit conflicts and counting.

The norwegian SSB (Statistisk Sentralbyrå/Statistical Central Bureau) has a license for its data which states (my translation, see this page for the norwegian version):

SSB gives permission to store electronically, print, copy and propagate material from our web site (text, tables and figures). This permission requires reference to the source from whence the data is taken ("source: Statistisk sentralbyrå"). The source citation must be in direct connection to each table and figure used.

My question is, of course, can data from SSB be used in wikipedia articles, while complying with both their license and the GFDL? -lazyr 14:09 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)

What is the convention for listing the day of someone's death, if the time of death would make it ambiguous with respect to UTC? (For example, Bob Hope died at 9:29 pm Pacific time on Sunday, July 27; if I figured it correctly, this would be 4:29 am UTC July 28.) -lee 14:53 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I would say put it in local time. CGS 15:12 28 Jul 2003 (UTC).
I'm guessing the date he died in his time zone should be used. -- Notheruser 15:18 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Database dumps and mailing list archives

I have some questions regarding downloading the database dumps. On the page it says last dump made July 13. Does that mean what I think it means (i.e. if I download the English and non-English tarballs I only have revisions up to the 13th?). Also, as I understand it, I would only have to download the cur tarballs from here on in (if I saved the old ones), is this correct? I figure having an extra backup of the database can't hurt...especially after last night :). Addendum: should I also download the mailing list archives (from what I gather, they're separate from the dumps)? Geez, another question: is it safe to assume images are not included with the dumps? -- Notheruser 15:42 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)

When Wikipedia was down this morning there was a link to a wiki page on another site. Some of the discussion was quite funny, but I now have no idea where that site is now (and can't use browser history since I was at work at the time). So where was that page? Evercat 17:25 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)

It's berliOS, & the specific page u're looking for is Talk:Wikipedia Status/Archive. --Menchi 17:27 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Please see talk:New Imperialism for discussion of whether New Imperialism (currently protected) should include a link to a temp page. Please reply and vote there rather than here, to avoid duplicating arguments. Thank you for your co-operation. Martin 17:27 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Possible Wikipedia in Nahuatl

I am from Wikipedia in Spanish. I contacted somebody called Citlalin Xochime' from a web Nahuatl-speaking a few days ago and told him about Wikipedia. This is whta he answered me to the suggestion of beginning a wikiversion in Nahuatl (a native American language with more than 1 million speakers):

Niltze! (Hello!) Papalotochtzin (Dear Rabbit Butterfly),
Tlazohkamati (Thank-You) for your email message! I am somewhat familar with the wiki-system and wikipedia sounds like something that stirs my interest. I won't have time to start the Nahuatl wiki-project until September at the earliest. Yet, I may pass along this valuable information to the NAHUAT-LIST :

http://listserv.linguistlist.org/archives/nahuat-l.html

I agree, more Nahuatl speaking people will be attracted to the project, once established. I don't know if you got my email address from my Nahuatl Tlahtolkalli project, but I will surely pass along the information to the people at the Nahuatl Tlahtolkalli as well. My project is located at:
http://www.nahuatl.info/nahuatl.htm
So, once again, I am very interested, and I will pursue this project as time permits. Tlazohkamati for contacting me. (...)
I look forward to sharing Nahuatl with you!
Citlalin Xochime' (from, Nahuatl Citlalxochimeh = star flowers)
Nahuatl Tlahtolkalli
http://www.nahuatl.info/nahuatl.htm

I haven't heard of him/her since but he or other Nahuatl-speaking people may try to contact you. I will not be on Wikipedia for an indetermined period but I mentioned a cople of basics about the system as well as Youssefsan and Brion. I'd really like seeing a Wikiwikinahuatl around! -- Piolinfax 19:17 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)

BerliOS

Another question about the temporary refuge (berliOS ? or was it BERLIos, anyway...) There was a page called This is not Wikipedia, and it spawned a handful of stubbish new articles, with the idea that they would be ported over into Wikipedia, when and if it could be raised again. Now Wikipedia does not outwardly appear to be in imminent fear of collapsing again (well, for all I know some tech-guy may be desperately holding a finger in the dyke, but then...); what I am querying is what is the preferred modus for transplanting those non-autochtonous wikipedia articles beneath the juicy mulch of wikipedia. Cut and paste? Or is there a way to transfer them wiki to wiki, without losing edit histories? Does it matter? Thank you for your attention. -- Cimon Avaro on a pogo-stick 00:18, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Copy and paste is the only viable option I'm afraid.—Eloquence 01:23, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)


Help with images

I have uploaded Image: Sanya.jpg, but its far too big for the page (Hainan), and I don't have Photoshop or any similar software. Any help trimming it down or reducing it would be much appreciated.

I've also got a lot of other images for Hong Kong and Macau-related pages which I need help with Photoshop. If anyone has the time to assist generally, please contact me - David Stewart 03:04, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Nutty sysop queries

I don't know who did it because this can only be seen when the query is finished. But someone started several queries of the form

select count(*) from old

or

select count(*) from old where ...

This is crazy! InnoDB has no rowcount, so it has to go through the entire table to count it -- that can take ages with our multi gigabyte OLD table that stores all revisions. With a WHERE condition on the content it's even worse. Worse, after I manually killed the query the person started it again! Whoever did this should never do an SQL query again because they evidently don't know how to handle this feature properly.

Furthermore, I have disabled SQL queries for the time being because they cause constant slowdowns and I don't want to wonder each time the wiki is slow whether this is caused by yet another out of control query. If you want to run a query, paste it on my talk page, I'll take a look at it and run it if necessary.—Eloquence 03:09, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Tut! Some idiot's ruined it for everyone! CGS 10:24, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC).

Discussion of changes

Can a page be set up so the entire community can discuss the new changes? I'm sure different people have different opinions and not everyone likes the new scheme. I have a couple concerns, but is village pump the place to voice them? --Jiang 05:04, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

This is a wiki -- go ahead and create one. Wikipedia talk:Software updates, for example.—Eloquence 05:21, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Okay, I moved everything over there. -- Tim Starling 05:54, Jul 29, 2003 (UTC)

Speed

Is it just me or does Wikipedia seem real fast right now? Has something changed? If so - me like. :) --mav 06:29, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

It could be my link table optimisation, or it could be your imagination. I'm not sure because we never worked out exactly how much time link updates were taking. BTW, you should probably avoid undeleting for a few days. Eloquence has a feeling I might have broken it, and I haven't checked it out yet. -- Tim Starling 07:48, Jul 29, 2003 (UTC)
The new link update code definitely helped (section editing could also have a minor effect), and the two major slowdowns today were from an inconsiderate sysop who ran (really) idiotic queries. No more sysop queries to bog us down are a good thing. I think they should be disabled on all wikis with more than 10K articles -- right now the Germans or the French can still bog us down because their DBs are already quite large. Then we need to optimize the search and the watchlist and we have a decent response time. For the next couple of months ;-) —Eloquence 07:54, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Why can I not see a "Search" button? Tiles 08:15, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Database problems. Systems slowed down dramatically on searches yesterday, so searching had to be disabled until the reason for the slow down has been found. -- JeLuF 08:35, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Why are the "Move this page" (for non sysops) and "Post a comment" functions only present on the left sidebar but not on the bottom? --Jiang 09:27, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Automated Table of Contents

In many Wikipedia pages there are Automated [Table of Contents]. But I can't see, from an editing view of the page, how this is done. Can we please have some instructions somehwere on how to put an Automated Table of Contents into a page. Thanks. RB-Ex-MrPolo 09:52, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)~

This is a new feature under discussion. The TOC only shows up if their are at least three subheadings on the page. --Jiang 10:09, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)
What I don't like about this new feature is the TOC below the first paragraphs of the article. It should be really on top, below the headline. Otherwise it's just chaotic, see Sociology for an example. -- till we *) 10:11, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Please discuss the new changes at Wikipedia talk:Software updates and not here. --Jiang 10:13, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Done that -- till we *)

Decision making

Wikipedia is cool, but as an "user" more like a developer I still would like to have a chance to discuss important changes (like new TOCs). Couldn't there be something like a CfV in the Announcement section? For example, the new TOC could have been announced some weeks ago with something like "It's planned to introduce a new TOC-feature. If you want to discuss or test this feature, change over to metawiki/testwiki/whatever", so that it is possible for mere users to go into discussions about "big" changes without having to read the lists and the metawikipedia all the time? -- till we *) 10:25, Jul 29, 2003 (UTC)

It was announced on the wikitech mailing list, and discussed (a lot) over the past few months, and tested on the test server; however, I can appreciate that keeping up with all the various discussions going on Wikipedia is almost impossible. Perhaps a development log or somesuch?
James F. 10:37, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I know that it was discussed a lot on mailing lists (or at least I suppose that), but what I want is exactly this: a filtered-down announcement for "big" (what ever that may be) changes early enough so that there is time for all of us to decide if we want to join that particular discussion. Big changes would be major new features (as the TOC) or the new logo or a fictional decision to kill the english edition -- and to find these I just don't want to read a technical mailing list which, I suppose, mostly argues about database tuning etc. -- till we *) 12:10, Jul 29, 2003 (UTC)

This was discused on the general mailing list a great deal - only the technical aspects on how to do it were discused on WikiTech-l. It has also been on the test wiki for at least a month. --mav

Okay, okay, okay -- it's not the dark cellar with leopard on the next planet. But why not make wikipedia even more user-participation friendly and inform about things like that in wikipedia proper, i.e. the announcements section, early enough? -- till we *) 12:18, Jul 29, 2003 (UTC)

Nice of you to volunteer for the daunting task of scanning the mailing list for relevant news and summarizing them on the wiki. I was hoping someone would do that.—Eloquence

I'm thinking about it, but wouldn't it be even nicer if someone who already scans the mailing list(s) for his/her personal use would volunteer to summarize big news? -- till we *) 12:26, Jul 29, 2003 (UTC)

Definitely. Feel free to ask the most active mailing list participants to do it. :-) —Eloquence
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