Wikipedia:Village pump (assistance)

The assistance section of the village pump is used to make requests for assistance. Please sign and date your post (by typing ~~~~ or clicking the signature icon in the edit toolbar).

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Assistance archive

Discussions older than 7 days (date of last made comment) are moved here. These dicussions will be kept archived for 7 more days. During this period the discussion can be moved to a relevant talk page if appropriate. After 7 days the discussion will be permanently removed.

Muslims took over all Islam-related Wikipedia content

I believe the greatest strength of an encyclopedia is its NPOV. However, all Islam-related Wikipedia pages (Islam, Muslim, Infidel, Islamophobia, Qur'an, et al) are edited and by rabid Muslims with strong POVs. I am not religious, and I'm deeply saddened by this fact. Not really sure what can be done about it. As an example, it's a well known fact that Qur'an prescribes killing infidel, but none of these pro-Muslim sites will allow you to learn this, rather important aspect of Islam, and instead are ranting about anti-muslim intolerance, etc. no end. I am just one man and I can not spend 100% of my time sitting on Wiki and fighting these bigots who use this great site to advocate religion, so I'm asking for your help. User:68.107.102.129

This anonymous user has been systematically vandalising articles about Islam, but don't take my word for it look at the contributions:

Islamophobia: Islamophobia is the fear of having your head cut off.
Infidel: Islam calls for the killing of infidels, which may be the reason why Muslim countries rarely live in piece their non-Muslim neighbors.
Qur'an: The Qur'an is the training manual for terrorists.

That should be enough evidence, but there is more. I think the user has it backwards, they are the source of the problem. Edward 12:47, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I'm not vandalizing anything. I'm trying to correct the POV articles.

Muslims should not be allowed to edit Islam - they have a POV and that's why they are Muslims (Just like Christians should not be allowed to edit Christianity).

For example there is a fella policing Islam-related content who calls himself 'Mustafaa' - he says on his user page his POV is about some finer aspects of Qur'an, while it's still obvious he's a Muslim with a huge POV (he's religious.... hello?)

P.S. Stop deleting what I'm saying here. I have a local copy. Information wants to be free. Truth wants to be heard. User:68.107.102.129

People with strong opinions should be prepared to sign their name on their postings. Maxx 14:03, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

It is daft to say that somebody with a religious view is not allowed to edit the associated article - they know things about that topic (more than most because it's their religion) and should therefore be allowed to continue editting them. It does not mean to say that their edits are POV. As for your comments being removed I think you'll find that you were reverted for removing comments against you. violet/riga (t) 13:59, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

There are plenty of scholars who study Islam and know more about it than religious fanatics. (I know a thing or two about Islam, having studied it in college, but I'll be the first to admit that I'm not an expert). Anywho, the ratio of non-prejudiced (academic, say) scholars of a religion like Islam to Muslims is too low, and if Muslims are allowed to continue policing Islam-related wikipedia content (which they do with a religious fervor, of course), Wikipedia will never have a NPOV on these issues. IOW it is daft to say that someone with a religious view is allowed to edit the associated article if NPOV is the real, not imaginary, goal. User:68.107.102.129

Is this what you learnt in college - [1]? What college did you go to to learn that? -Xed 14:39, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Terrorists destroyed the WTC. Don't let them take away our freedom of speech! (I realize that freedom is probably an empty sound to people who call themselves subjects as opposed to citizens )

This has nothing to do with free speach. You vandalised that page. Wikipedia is not a soapbox for your opions. You are always free to download the wikimedia softwear and start your own wiki. I also fail to see the relivance of the britsh constitutional system to the topic uder disscussionGeni 15:25, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

It's speech, not speach; Relevance, not relivance; opinions, not opions (And to "Londoner", 'Edward', it's islamophobic, not islamophic). It's clear that you are all a foreign horde out to destroy our western freedoms.

You'll have to explain what you mean by your bracketed comment. - Xed 15:27, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

ffs, it's just a troll. phobia: commenting typos as "you are all a foreign horde out to destroy our western freedoms". I say. ignore him, or block him. dab 18:41, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

i am sick of the troll from 68.107.102.129; all s/he does is deface entries and still refuses to show his or her face to the community by even bothering to register. why is s/he still around? sometimes it might be appropriate to BLOCK someone. em zilch 20041128 1517 (EST)

Clearly this is trolling. We don't have (or want) articles suggesting on the basis of Leviticus that Jews and Christians are out to kill people for wearing poly-cotton slacks, either. -- Jmabel | Talk 01:45, Nov 29, 2004 (UTC)

I have been working on the Islamic articles -- I'm a Buddhist. Yes, there have been a number of editors (usually anonymous IPs) who try to turn the articles into religious brochures. There are also anonymous IPs who try to deface the articles and turn them into anti-Islamic rants. The current complainant has vandalized the Islam article twice within the last hour. Zora 21:31, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

if you are a Buddhist, as you say, how do you explain your obsession with Islam-related articles? I simply don't believe you. To the readers: I tried adding the following to Islam, which is 100% verifiable: " The Muslims are unique in that their holy book tells them to kill members of other religions [2] [3] " Please check the references. Both of them support this FACT. (There is no opinion involved). In Quran, see verse 8:12, and don't let Islamists lie to you about "context". See for yourself, what the context is. There are dozens of verses like that one in the Islamic holy book.

in response to your query, anonymous from 68.107.102.129, i am a buddhist & i am interested in islam-related articles. you obviously aren't a muslim - what's your excuse? your other comments here and elsewhere demonstrate you are about as far from a neutral point of view as you can get & you keep defacing websites. why do you feel the need to do this, and can't someone block this troll? em zilch 20041210 1805 (EST)

how many edits before voting

Context: the following relates to the various 2004 U.S. election voting controversies articles now on VfD. -- Jmabel | Talk 09:32, Dec 6, 2004 (UTC)

User Reene sent me a message that I could not vote on keeping a particular page because I had not done enough edits.

I had already done a number of edits a few days ago on one of the pages in question which was slated for deletion.

I think that my edits were responsible and factual, and they in fact, were not reverted. (I did the edits without an account, but an IP check will show that they came from my machine)

Is his/her comment correct? How many edits are "necessary" before one is "allowed" to vote on keeping or deleting a page? --Boscobiscotti 03:43, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

this is what was posted to my talk page:

Please take note of the fact that you are ineligable for voting on VfD issues until you have a reasonable number of edits to articles on your contributions list. Joining just to vote on VfD is not allowed. Your votes are therefore invalid. Reene (リニ) 03:07, Dec 6, 2004 (UTC)

This user's contributions list show no such edits [4] as I just explained to them on their talk page. Reene (リニ) 03:48, Dec 6, 2004 (UTC)

Indeed my contributions list does not show the edits. in fact , as I mention above, the edits to were done a few days before I registered as a user. If someone wants to examine my edits to verify that they were legitimate enhancements to the page in question , take a look at [5] My interest in being involved in this wiki page is in helping to make the page more factual and to add references. --Boscobiscotti 07:30, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

In looking at the discussion, I now see that this user has removed my vote on this page, and presumably other pages. --Boscobiscotti 07:46, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I have done no such thing. I made a footnote beneath each vote stating they were invalid with a link to your contributions page. False accusations are NOT a good way to start your career as a good contributor to Wikipedia. Also, as I said, it matters not that you made the edits anonymously before. Even if you'd made edits to that page with that account your vote still wouldn't count. Read the policy on such matters. Reene ^✎ 08:07, Dec 6, 2004 (UTC)

I read the page you mention. I presumed you removed my vote, because I looked at the discussion page after your edit and my vote was no longer showing. So it was an administrator that made that change to my vote? Did you read the page you mentioned? It mentions that an administrator "may" disregard a vote if it was made "in bad faith" and then gives examples of situations including "only edits are to page in question" however, it does not stipulate "must" it leaves the matter open to interpretation.--Boscobiscotti 08:47, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

It doesn't have to have been an admin, it could be any editor, check the history, do some diffs from that (you should be able to work this out; you should also be able pretty easily to work out how to restore your edited-out remarks, if only by cut and paste); also, I believe there is a way to arrange to get "credit" for your pre-registration edits: can someone explain how to do this? -- Jmabel | Talk 09:28, Dec 6, 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Changing attribution for an edit? Johnleemk | Talk 15:31, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

IMO, Reene shouldn't have outright stated that the vote was to be disregarded; IMO, that's for the admin/editor handling the particular VfD when voting is over to decide. However, there is nothing wrong with noting a user's edits to assist the admin's final decision. It's a sad fact of life that your vote can and will be disputed if you don't have a substantial amount of edits. Johnleemk | Talk 15:31, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

We should assume good faith. Always. You do not "earn the right to vote" with edits; everyone is a priori entitled to vote, just as everyone is a priori entitled to contribute. If you can make plausible that a vote isn't valid (sockpuppet or co-conspirator), do so, but don't just kick it out; not even admins should do this. All votes should be kept until the time comes for tallying; evaluating whether a vote is valid based on the annotations is not typically a difficult process. Someone falsely accused of casting an invalid vote should be able to convince the accusors to withdraw the claim well before the actual tallying takes place, without the need for "exterminate on sight" policies. So basically, what Johnleemk said. :-~

I've got less than a thousand edits, so I hope I can make these sorts of bold statements. :-D WikiLove to all. JRM 15:57, 2004 Dec 6 (UTC)

1) I would like to apologize to Renee for assuming she(he) had removed my vote. In retrospect, I believe I misread, and assumed my vote was removed. 2) What contributed to my misreading the page, were Reene's statements on my talk page, and on the page [6]

Which stated flatly "Your vote is invalid." Read my comments there for more discussion. Boy am I getting an education in Wikipedia! If anyone wants to contact me offline, I will send them a note by email which details my experience with Computer Security issues! I came to this wiki wanting to make a contribution to the issue of e-voting - and to make the information more readable and factual, and have spent most of my time since then justifying myself! --Boscobiscotti 19:26, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

So what exactly is our policy on who can vote? There seems to be a disagreement here. That implies to me that our policy needs to be made more clear. While there will often be disagreements about what our policy should be, there shouldn't be any disagreements about what our policy is. Paul August ☎ 21:34, Dec 17, 2004 (UTC)

Help with possible copyvios

I'm a bit out of my depth on this one. I wikified the article Davy Spillane which was contributed by User:Ogg, and its style made me wonder if it had been copied from elsewhere. I mentioned this on user talk:Ogg and Ogg readily admitted that it was originally copied from another site, though in comparing the two it has been changed quite a bit in the details, though retaining much the same style and structure as the original. As far as I can see the original text (on [7]) is not copyright free. Ogg also contributed a number of other biography articles which seem to show a similar style and lack of wikification that suggest they were cut and pasted from elsewhere, but with changes. I just don't know if these violate WP's copyright policies or not - my feeling is that they do. Could somebody a bit more au fait with the issues take a look at the pages (and the discussion at user talk:Ogg) and see whether anything should be done. Thanks Graham 22:29, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Hmm, I guess after three days with no response, it means nobody cares. Fair enough, I'll drop it. Graham 00:09, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Who has the time to update the offline reports?

Unfortunately we seem to be short on users with access to the database. I'm asking for someone to update the offline reports against a recent version of the database. (I can't do this because I have a slow connection and have other Wikipedia tasks to do.) [[User:Poccil|Peter O. (Talk, automation script)]] 07:03, Dec 8, 2004 (UTC)

Suppressing certain items in user CSS

How can I suppress certain items in my user CSS file? Specifically, I would like to stop seeing certain obtrusive metadata templates, especially {{cleanup}}, that tell me things I can already see at first glance. (On the other hand I would still like to see important warnings like {{NPOV}} and {{accuracy}}—I can't necessarily tell if an article is biased or inaccurate.) If it's at all possible, how would I go about hiding anything wrapped in, say, <div id="cleanup">? —No-One Jones 12:54, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Like this:

   /* hide anything inside <foo id="cleanup" ...> ... </foo> */
   #cleanup { display: none; }
   /* hide anything inside <foo class="cleanup" ... > ... </foo> */
   .cleanup { display: none; }

—AlanBarrett 14:14, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Many thanks. —No-One Jones 15:17, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The movie called Harlan county U.S.A.

I am looking for a copy of the movie "Harlan County U.S.A. I have had no luck finding this movie. Any help on where to get it would be great. If you can help email me at hotrod701802@yahoo.com

Wikipedia isn't meant for this purpose, but three minutes on Google turned up: [8] and on Amazon: [9]. You have heard of Google, right? Graham 00:16, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

help for poetry page!!!

Somebody messed up the poetry page. it now says somethings about roses and violets and "poo". please, someone, help get the old poetry page back!!! THANKS

I've fixed it. You could have fixed it yourself, see Wikipedia:How to revert a page to an earlier version.-gadfium 23:49, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Assistance from a Greek speaking user needed

Hi. I have started this article on a Greek person. As it is standard in Wikipedia when writing articles on people/places/etc. whose native alphabet is not the Roman, I would like to add to the article the name of this person as it is written in Greek. Most unfortunatelly for me, I don't speak Greek, and thus I'd like to request the assistance from a Greek user. If someone who speaks Greek would be so kind as to visit the article and add the Greek form of the name, I'd appreciate it very much. Thanks in advance. Regards, Redux 03:38, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

You might contact one of the people listed at Wikipedia:Translators_available#Greek-to-English. I doubt they monitor the Village Pump. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:31, Dec 9, 2004 (UTC)

Well, if you're lucky someone might just happent to read your request! Just added his Greek name. Adia 06:42, 2004 Dec 9 (UTC)

Pliny 1883

I am interested in a conversation with someone who has done the research for the entry on Pliny the elder. I am interested if a pendant I have with Pliny on one side and 1883 on the other has value.

 JFKoplin 12/8/2004   jfkoplin@comcast.net

How start Wrap-around?

Currently when I start a new article, all of my sentences stretch out to the right for miles! How do I install "wrap around" so that my line fits within the six-inch wide box, and then automatically goes to the next line? Can someone post a FAQ regarding this matter, please? --Flagman

The behaviour of the edit box is solely down to your browser. Which browser are you using? Maybe it has a setting somewhere to alter this, though by the sound of it it's just a bug. Try using an alternative browser and see if the problem remains. Graham 04:43, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Assuming you mean when you are writing an article, go to Special:Preferences, click on "editing", and set the width of your edit box appropriately. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:34, Dec 9, 2004 (UTC)

If you're talking about when you Save/Preview, don't begin any lines with a space or a tab (see Chaim Bar-Lev history). Niteowlneils 22:13, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Removing 'spam links' from external links

I recently started contributing to a few areas of Wikipedia. I noticed on one of the pages the external links where pointing to sites very low on content, full of pay-per-click ads and scraped data from the DMOZ.

I know for a fact that this topic has a particularly high concentration of listings in the DMOZ so there are a huge number of high quality resources associated with the region.

Obviously half the answer is to put up the quality links but what about removing the spam - I realise this is a relatively subjective desicion but at some point, someone has to make the decision.

Suggestions on protocol? --Surfgatinho 09:34, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

External links should be the best the web has to offer. If an article is linking to low content sites, then they should be deleted. I suggest you just be bold and remove them, noting the reason in the edit summary, but if you want to be careful you can move them to talk for discussion. [[User:MacGyverMagic|Mgm|^(talk)]] 11:16, Dec 9, 2004 (UTC)

The word "bristle"

Look at the index and the word bristle only brings up the town of Bristol relating to the mode of speech

This seems rather strange as of course bristles are things used in brushes of all kinds So how does one start a new page dealing with bristles per se. ????

Jack Hill

You are redirected to the page "Bristol". At the top of the page is a line saying (Redirected from Bristle). Click on the link to go to the "Bristle" page. And edit that as usual. Be sure to change the redirect there in a link to Bristol. Something like:

This article is on bristles. For the British city, go to Bristol. and keep that line at the top of the page.

-- [[User:MacGyverMagic|Mgm|^(talk)]] 11:31, Dec 10, 2004 (UTC)

Big Bertha.

The index has the words Big Bertha and this brings up articles on the large gun used by the Germans during the 1914/18 war.

There is, however another Big Bertha which was the nickname given to a steam locomotive with a 0-10-0 configuration and used as a banker on the Lickey Hills south of Birmingham. How do I get that new page started???

Jack Hill 09.12.04

Just click on Big Bertha (locomotive) to get it started. [[User:Poccil|Peter O. (Talk, automation script)]] 21:39, Dec 9, 2004 (UTC)

There's also a well-known saloon racing car called Big Bertha, though perhaps more famouse in its later Baby Bertha form. I've been planning to write these articles for ages, but haven't got around to it yet (actual proper research required). So eventually we could need a Big Bertha dismbiguation page - maybe bear that in mind.Graham 23:54, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

stolen Wikipedia material

I remember at some point seeing a page that listed abuses -- Wikipedia material elsewhere on the web that was stolen wholesale and not attributed to Wikipedia at all. I found such a site:

http://www.e-paranoids.com/s/st/stranger_in_a_strange_land.html

The material on this site about the Robert Heinlein book was stolen word-for-word from Wikipedia.

I want to report this problem however I now cannot find the page where I'm supposed to report it. Help!

If you'd read the article till the bottom you'd find: This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Wikipedia. Thus it's just one of many mirrors of Wikipedia material, and already listed on Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks. Note that it's perfectly legal to copy Wikipedia material provided you give credit to your source. andy 23:07, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Yes, thank you. Mirrors and Forks was the page I was trying to find, I remembered seeing this page or possibly the (now outdated) "low compliance" page before. Actually I did look on the e-paranoids page for the reference to the GDFL and link to Wikipedia but somehow missed it even though it was right there in the footer. Thanks for your help.

Creation vs. evolution debate

talk:Creation vs. evolution debate. We are having some major NPOV problems on this page, and any help would be appreciated. Also, user user:Ungtss just violated the 3 revert rule and has admitted in the discussion that he has been being a troll. I don't know how to find a sysop to enforce the rule, but anyone who wants to check out the discussion page would be welcome. Bensaccount 21:59, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Ungtss may have violated rules, but on the appropriate content of the article, I believe he is entirely correct, so I, for one will not block him for this. -- Jmabel | Talk 22:19, Dec 10, 2004 (UTC)

Just for the record, Ungtss has admitted to trolling in the discussion and should not even be writing on this article considering he has admitted to being biased toward one side of the debate. Bensaccount 23:06, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Remember that, while being biased is one thing, consistently injecting your bias into articles is another. It's possible to write from the NPOV regardless of your own bias. — Matt Crypto 23:18, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

With that in mind, look at the history of Creation vs. evolution debate and note that user:Ungtss stands out as the most major contributor. Bensaccount 23:39, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Template:TV Listing

I am trying to create Template:TV Listing but the link isn't working properly. This is possibly a technical error, but I need someone to look it over. I'm using Yahoo! TV Listings, which allows me to avoid specifying a timezone or a cable station or sign up for that matter. By far, I think it's the least intrustive. -- AllyUnion (talk) 01:40, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I think it may just be too ugly for the MediaWiki URL parser. -- Cyrius|✎ 07:38, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Porting work

Not many people may be aware of this, but we have a lot of work to do moving information to Wikipedia. While browsing the Wikipedia:Alphabetical index, I noticed three pages displaying the porting status of three free information sources:

I'm sure there are others as well. [[User:Poccil|Peter O. (Talk, automation script)]] 06:48, Dec 11, 2004 (UTC)

Alignment issues

Is there any way to make the TOC appear to the right of the first image on Pulaski Skyway (if it will fit), but have Introduction below the image? Thanks for any help. --SPUI 13:52, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Since there's already a big honkin' table on the right, I think stuffing in an image as well is overkill. Also, articles really need to start with a short definition paragraph outside of any section. I've moved things around a bit; let me know what you think. JRM 14:30, 2004 Dec 11 (UTC)

Eh, I see your point. I like where you put the image; it definitely makes sense in the trucks section. I guess my main concern though is that on bigger screens the text will end up being shorter vertically than the pictures, and nothing will match. Though I can make the pictures smaller... why not? --SPUI 14:47, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Personal photos on user pages

So I just registered the other day mainly so I could post images, and a couple of days later, I decided to give myself a user page -- with a photo of myself, of course, now that I could put one up. But then it occurred to me that maybe I wasn't supposed to clutter Wikipedia's servers with personal photos. So who's right? Me circa yesterday or me circa now? I clicked through to a bunch of personal pages and nobody seemed to have a photo, which makes me suspicious.

If it's not allowed, how would I go about deleting it? --Masterofzen 18:00, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Many people have self-photos on their user pages. See here, and here, and here and here just to name a few. Also check out the Facebook. Joyous 18:20, Dec 11, 2004 (UTC)

Well! Many thanks for the reassurance. --Masterofzen 19:48, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Just don't abuse to host a personal photo gallery and you're okay. -- Cyrius|✎ 23:04, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Complex templating stuff

Wikimedia support I guess, rather than wikipedia, but...:

Is it possible to create a template which takes a page-name as its argument, and inserts the wikitext of that page into the output?

I'm trying to create a collaborative document, with each chapter/section etc. on its own page.

To obtain the final document (for printing, etc.) I'd like to include the text of each document's chapters, into the document itself.

(The reason it can't all go into one page, is that each section may be included by reference in several documents)

I can create a template "subDocument" which links to other documents, creates the right titles, etc. but I can't seem to "include the wikitext of the linked document here ".

(I've been though everything I can find on the help/templates page, and I'm trying this with the most recent development version, not the wikipedia itself)

thanks,

Ojw 19:07, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I'm not sure how far this applies outside Wikipedia, but check out my user page. The boxes on there are included from a subpage of my user page, so I think that simply using template syntax "{{Blah}}" is likely to work if a template by the same name doesn't exist on the wiki you use. [[User:MacGyverMagic|Mgm|^(talk)]] 19:38, Dec 11, 2004 (UTC)

Just use the regular template syntax, but add a colon before the page name to override the default "Template:" namespace. For example, {{:Chapter 1}}{{:Chapter 2}}. Or, if you really wanted the wikitext (as you said) rather than the result of interpreting the wikitext (as I suspect you meant), then use {{msgnw::Chapter 1}}{{msgnw::Chapter 2}}. —AlanBarrett 07:38, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Question about what is suitable for Wikipedia

I am a member of a community of scenario designers for a variety of Real Time Strategy games. Many games (RTS's especially) have a "Scenario Editor" included which allows users make custom scenarios (essentially miniature games). Examples are computer games like Neverwinter Nights and Age of Mythology. Anyway, a friend recently linked me to wikipedia.com and suggested that it was an ideal resource for us. Scenario design usually has little to no developer support, so it's almost always up to the community to help out new designers and compile information on the subject. The suggestion was that for the next game our team moves to, we should start a wiki which allows people to combine together information on design and make it easily accessible. This won't be for just over a year, so there isn't a rush, but I'm not sure what course we should pursue to make it a reality. A couple ideas:

1) Dedicate a section of the Wikipedia encyclopedia to it. I'm not sure if computer game information like this is worthy of an encyclopedia, though.

2) Find some other public wiki which is dedicated to the correct type of information

3) Start our own wiki. We might be able to manage it, but this would be totally community run, so money is nonexistant.

Again, I appologize for my mistakes and inability to follow proper wikipedia protocols. Like I said, I've been here for only a few hours.

--68.147.162.246 06:59, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Wikibooks, our sister project, is a better alternative than Wikipedia. [[User:Poccil|Peter O. (Talk, automation script)]] 08:03, Dec 12, 2004 (UTC)

There's also Wikicities, which is operated by Wikipedia's benevolent dictator, Jimmy Wales. -- Cyrius|✎ 18:40, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

This project is most definitely not suitable for Wikipedia. But there are bound to be better alternative. Check out the SwitchWiki, a more or less complete list of all public wikis. There might be one for you. Otherwise, if you don't find the wiki, but are serious that you need one, check out http://wiki.taoriver.net or any other WikiFarm. On a WikiFarm you can have your own Wiki for free or for a relatively small hosting fee (I am sure you can afford $100/year or something like that). Just look around. Paranoid 19:58, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Coloured text

How does one change the colour of text with the Wiki Markup? And, can this be done on signatures too? Please reply on my talkpage. Thanks, --[[User:Gabriel Webber|Gabriel (please reply on my talkpage!!)]] 13:38, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Check with User:Aranel who made her signature red on purpose, because she likes the color. [[User:MacGyverMagic|Mgm|^(talk)]] 09:33, Dec 13, 2004 (UTC)

Syrup

Hello fellow Wikipedians.

There is a discussion/debate going on on the Talk:List of words having different meanings in British and American English about whether or not the Cockney rhyming slang word 'syrup', meaning wig or hairpiece (coming from 'syrup of figs - wig), should be included in this particular list or not.

I WLD would like some further opinions as the current four contributors to the discussion WLD, violet/riga, Necrothesp, and Chris Q are in disagreement, but no group is in the majority.

Please accept my apologies if this is the wrong or inappropriate place to ask. WLD 09:50, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

violet/riga pointed out this should have been in WP:RFC. I have put an entry there. Sorry for going to the wrong place. -- WLD 23:43, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Vandalism by 202.156.2.171

202.156.2.171 is vandalising computing articles. I've been reverting his changes as soon as I see them. But I'm going out now. Could someone do something about this guy. AlistairMcMillan 11:14, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Contributions&target=202.156.2.171 AlistairMcMillan 11:17, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

help indenifying jacket patches

My father was in the 20th Air Force--677 B Squadron--flew the Hump I'm tring to identify or get the meaning of several patches that he wore on his flight jacket. I know I don't belong on this site but don't know where to go. Thanks Tim Borden timborden1@mindspring.com

Apothecary article missing

There used to be an entry for Apothecary (it is in the Google cache) but it no longer exists. I don't understand how this has happened and why? --mervyn 16:37, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The contents was apparently transwiki'd to Wiktionary, as the article was just a dictionary definition of the word. You can find it now at http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Transwiki:Apothecary. andy 22:44, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

It's a pity it wasn't copied to Wikitionary, with the stub left to be expanded. Am I missing a reason why this is not a better option? -- WLD 23:40, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Apparently it was speedy-deleted. It should not have been. I will restore it. I can't stop anyone from putting it on VfD if they disagree, but if you flesh it out a bit, it will probably stay, or at worst be subject to a redirect-and-merge. -- Jmabel | Talk 00:23, Dec 14, 2004 (UTC)

There is a very interesting account of the history of the Apothecary in Britannica 11ed, so readily available for downloading as the basis for expanding the article. It looks very reliable and was based on a history published in 1905. Also check if the Apothecarys of London have a web page. As a London Livery Company they still exist. Apwoolrich 12:02, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Talk:Bombing of Dresden in World War II

There is a straw poll taking place on Talk:Bombing of Dresden in World War II#Avoid weasel terms please read what has been written and vote if it interests you. Philip Baird Shearer 20:19, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The World at/At War

A nice person turned The World at War into a redirect to The World At War, declining to merge the two articles. The "at" title is arguably the correct one (and has more history and had more content), so I'm tempted to just revert the redirect, merge content from "At", and make that the redirect. Is that the right thing to do? Thoughts from the floor? Any policy niceties to observe? -- Avaragado 21:42, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

In this case it is more preferable to merge the data before redirecting to an appropriate title. [[User:Poccil|Peter O. (Talk, automation script)]] 22:28, Dec 13, 2004 (UTC)

Why? I'm not sure I understand. The appropriate title is the one with all the history and more of the content: the one that's just been blanked and turned into a redirect. -- Avaragado 09:14, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

In that case, what you suggested was the right thing to do. [[User:Poccil|Peter O. (Talk, automation script)]] 20:00, Dec 17, 2004 (UTC)

United States History question - nationalism

What were the causes—and most important signs—of the new nationalism that developed in the period between 1815 and 1824?

I have a final that will have this question on it, and I'm having trouble finding information. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Tchris227 02:58, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Perhaps you could post this question on the Reference Desk? --MaxPower 21:04, 2004 Dec 15 (UTC)

Search logs at Wikipedia?

I am a researcher at a university institute. My team conducts research on next generation search engines. I'm seeking assistance on this question: would it be possible to obtain search logs from Wikipedia for non-profit research purposes, i.e. whatever strings people have entered in the "search" box. This would not include IPs or anything like that, only the search strings. Who could I contact about this? Search logs are used e.g. to analyze queries and conduct realistic search experiments. Wikipedia would naturally receive full attribution in case the logs were used. MakyoDetector 16:33, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Spam filter

While trying to revert vandalism to Paris Hilton, I keep getting my edits refused by some "Spam Filter", a feature I've never run into previously. Can someone fix it? — Matt Crypto 18:29, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Announcements. -- Cyrius|✎ 20:47, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Interesting, but this doesn't help. I'm having the same problem, the URL www.1stop-penguins.com is being blocked because it begins "www.1stop-". This is silly. How do I contact a Meta sysop? I've looked around the meta site, and can't find an equivalent of the Village Pump there. I could pick one at random, but that doesn't seem the best way of doing things to me. They might be on holiday. I have put a note on the meta:Talk:Spam_blacklist page. That should be linked from the Spam warning page that you get when an edit is blocked, if that is the proper conduit. Linking to a list of administrators is unhelpful. — PhilHibbs | talk 12:26, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Also, the spam filter should not block edits to talk pages. I will raise this on bugzilla. — PhilHibbs | talk 12:27, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

M Dash and N dash

Should I ALWAYS use "—" and "–" as an alternative to typing in the symbols directly from my keyboard? Jaberwocky6669 03:54, Dec 15, 2004 (UTC)

A hyphen is a hyphen: for example, it is correct to use a hyphen in "Marxism-Leninism". However, if you want to produce an m-dash ("—") or n-dash ("–"), yes, use HTML markup: "—" and "–". For example, "1960–1983" gives "1960–1983", which looks better than "1960-1983" (and makes the MoS types happy). -- Jmabel | Talk 06:39, Dec 15, 2004 (UTC)

As opposed to typing in "–" or "—". -- ALoan (Talk) 18:42, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Yes, because we are not yet storing Unicode, and apparently there is some inconsistency as to the 8-bit representations of these. I think it's an Apple vs. Microsoft incompatibility, but I'm not sure. -- Jmabel | Talk 22:28, Dec 15, 2004 (UTC)

Or it might be more of an old computer v. new computer thing. —Mike 04:10, Dec 16, 2004 (UTC)

Technically it's a character encoding thing. The english wikipedia is in ISO-8859-1, a character encoding which encodes all characters as a single byte, and has no — and – characters (It does have a hyphen (-) character, which is part of ASCII, which ISO-8859-1 is a superset of). Microsoft Internet Explorer however ignores the fact that wikipedia tells it the page is ISO-8859-1 (this is a bug, though one that microsoft are not willing to fix), and instead uses Windows-1252, a proprietary codepage which does have the — and –. To software that has not worked around this bug these dashes do not display correctly. If someone with a browser that adheres to standards edits the page after you've inserted a single-character —, their browser is likely to correctly refuse to send the invalid ISO-8859-1 data, and instead sends a '?' or something similar to make the data valid.

One day en.wikipedia will switch to UTF-8 and this bug will stop affecting us. &#0xfeff;--fvw * 18:48, 2004 Dec 16 (UTC)

This discussion is interesting to me. I am doing some edits using Firefox and the Windows clipboard, and I have a niggling concern that I might introduce errors. I select the text, copy it to the clipboard, run a Perl script (via a keyboard shortcut) that performs automated transformations on the text, then paste the text back in. I have tested this on accented characters, and it works. Can anyone think of any potentially problematic characters that this might break? I'm not very well-versed in character set issues. I might go and read up on the differences between ISO-8859-1 and Windows-1252, and try out a few characters that don't exist in one or the other. Thanks for the info. — PhilHibbs | talk 12:32, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Hm. It appears that ÿ does survive the process, but not if I paste it into my editor to do manual changes. I will have to watch out for that one. — PhilHibbs | talk 12:42, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Need help looking up scientific articles

I'd appreciate if someone with access to scientific publication databases (anyone working or studying in a university is likely to have it) could look up some papers relevant to the Polyphasic sleep article. If anyone could either summarize them for the article, or just copy their text somewhere so that other users could acquaint themselves with these papers, that would be really splendid! The titles of the papers are (from Talk:Polyphasic sleep):

Sleep inertia. Patricia Tassi, Alain Muzet, Sleep Medicine Reviews, Volume 4, Issue 4 , August 2000, Pages 341-353
The effects of a 20 min nap in the mid-afternoon on mood, performance and EEG activity. Hayashi, M. / Watanabe, M. / Hori, T., Clinical Neurophysiology, Feb 1999
Effects of sleep interruption on REM-NREM cycle in nocturnal human sleep. Miyasita, A. / Fukuda, K. / Inugami, M., Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology, Aug 1989
Attempts to modify the sleep patterns of the rat. Webb, W.B. / Friedman, J., Physiology and Behavior, Apr 1971
Pre-sleep cognitive intrusions and treatment of onset-insomnia. Sanavio, E., Behaviour Research and Therapy, Jan 1988

Thanks in advance. Paranoid 11:42, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Norman Lowell & Impe_rium Eur_opa and racist theories

Hi, This is about the fresh page Norman Lowell referencing Impe_rium Eur_opa. Please do a search on that without underscores. It seams that it's a racist organisation. From front page : A Europid bond forged through Spirituality closely followed by Race, nurtured through High Culture, protected by High Politics, enforced by the The Elite.

I don't see anything regarding promotion, referencing, of racism in the WP. Should something be done about that ? Is there a clear policy in such a suspicion case ?

Personaly I would shocked to see even indirect passive promotion through WP. Gtabary 15:11, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

the policay as always is NPOV (the imperium Europa article currently fails on this) there are articles on the Ku Klux Klan, Stormfront and jew watch amounst others. As always we apply NPOV. No I don't like these organisation but I don't like Nazism either but I thinmk you would agree we should have an article on itGeni 15:55, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

(via edit conflict) We have all sorts of articles on racists and racist organizations. I mean, if there were dictates against writing about any form of racism or any racists, there would go the articles on Adolf Hitler and Nazism (for starters). As long as the articles are NPOV, verifiable, and reasonably noteworthy (of enough importance that a Wikipedia article would not significantly raise the subject's public profile), I don't see the problem.

If your question is about linking to racist sites, it makes sense to link to them in the proper context, i.e. articles about racists and racism. Links to racist sites inserted into articles on, say, Judaism or Martin Luther King, Jr. (as people try to do every so often) are invariably removed. —No-One Jones 15:59, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for precisions. I understand and agree there can be articles on the subject of racisme. In this case I have the feeling (only IMO) that article is just there for the sake of an extra link to a site. In other words: article is not really worthy, it's a kind of cheet just to have one extra link. Because it's not openly saying "this is a link to racist theory stuff" I am suspicious about good faith. Maybe a clean-up or a vfd ? Gtabary 17:29, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

cleanup if anything.Geni 18:03, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

taking credit for changes

I posted an edit to a page, but I forgot to sign in before making the edit. As a result, the IP address shows up instead of my username. Is there a way I can replace that IP with my username after the fact?

Thanks --Kendrick Hang 16:28, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Changing attribution for an edit. Note that this can only be done if you're still using the same IP address as you were when you made the edit, and also note that there's a bit of a backlog on that page. —No-One Jones 00:37, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)