Wikipedia:Village pump/July 2003 archive 4

Orphan images
Do we have a non auto-generated page (I know about Special:Unusedimages) for listing orphaned images that might be titled something like Images in need of Wikipedia articles? Mintguy 16:48 15 Jul 2003 (UTC)


 * I just had a look at Special:Unusedimages, and saw that it's full of images with text in foreign languages. Supposedly, some of them are actually used by the other languages.  We should get the ambassadors to resolve that situation. -Smack 21:44 15 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I recently had cause to insert a link to a film/movie/motion picture entitled "Butterfly". I realize that links to movie titles may be fruitless and may remove it, but in the meantime what is the convention for namespaces? I assume it is something along the lines of: MOVIE-NAME (film). &#151; sugarfish 19:40 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)


 * That's an much debated issue. Some people use movie, some film. I see movie more often, though. CGS 19:52 17 Jul 2003 (UTC).

Single database
I can see limitations to wikipedia.org, and also current problems; They have to do with the wikipedian design, and maybe someone could just see if my arguments are valid. Would it benefit wikipedia.org, wiktionary.org, any other wikis on the planet, to instead have one "wiki", that instead of just a website, it is a database, with different reports/interfaces to it? So the ONE wiki holds ALL the data for everything, it would centralize edits, create more content faster, create more quality content faster, and people could come up with all sorts of neet reports: Dictionary, Encyclopedia, Thesaurus, they'd all be queries to the database. I think this interoperability would be great...

BTW: wiktionary.org appears to be far less developed than wikipedia. Perhaps this "merging" of technologies would cause the wiktionary idea to become more of a success.

Then again, I could be nuts. --Daijoubu


 * It's not obvious that having a single database would make anything faster, but besides that, it would require a lot of work. There's no serious software development going on of any kind at the moment, due to a lack of interested programmers.


 * Wikipedia is 5 times older than Wiktionary. Plus Wikipedia is more interesting, so it attracts more contributors. -- Tim Starling 15:03 18 Jul 2003 (UTC)


 * I think this is addressed on meta somewhere. Martin

¡HELP!
How can I get rid of the bloody Nostalgia skin? I just tried it on but now I can't find a Preferences button anywhere! Help will be immensely appreciated. - Piolinfax 21:59 18 Jul 2003 (UTC) You can leave me a message in User talk:Piolinfax. Ta! - Piolinfax 22:12 18 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Hidden blocked IP address?
I believe my IP address has been banned because I swamped the server with a script. (It was retrieving and not updating, but being automated I suppose it qualifies as a bot. I thought it was slow enough, but apparently not.)  Strangely, though, my IP address does not show up in Special:Ipblocklist. How do I go about verifying that is what happened, and perform appropriate apologies and grovelling to get re-instated? Thanks for any advice. -- Amillar 19:16 15 Jul 2003 (UTC)


 * As far as I know, it's only possible to block an ip from changing articles, not from reading them, although I could be wrong, probably better for someone else to answer that. (As for retrieving, it should be possible to download the whole (slightly outdated) database from Database_download, if you have a few gigabytes to spare. 149mb without article history, compressed. Don't know how much, uncompressed.) &#1499;&#1505;&#1497;&#1507; Cyp 07:18 19 Jul 2003 (UTC)


 * Yes, it is possible to block a user from reading articles. The rest of my reply is on User talk:Amillar. -- Tim Starling 11:29 19 Jul 2003 (UTC)


 * BTW the cur table is 640MB uncompressed. Old is 8.2 GB. If you're a sysop you can find this out by running the SQL query "SHOW TABLE STATUS". -- Tim Starling 11:53 19 Jul 2003 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the tips on the database. As to the blocked IP address, I still have no answers.  Who should I contact next?  -- Amillar 16:27 22 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Military Science or Space Exploration?
I'm considering making an entry, but I'm not sure which category to put it in. The exploration of space is a multi-category field - trying to pin it down to one science is impossible. Between electronics, astro-physics, life support, etc. etc. etc.; forget it. However, let's assume for a moment that we're actually going to send people to the stars. Add to that assumption the slight possibility of our brave explorers voyaging to a planet, and find themselves as the main course of an alien family... Enter Military Science (or military applications of pre-existing science, in most cases.)  While I'm not in favor of the military leading our little expedition, I'm leary about not having any kind of protection from unknown species. Now, the entry(ies??) would be sound, scientifically-based, although I would link to (and probably add) some non-inertial theories of faster-than-light transport. Obvious question is, where do I put this? Draconis


 * Can't tell, without actually reading it, but if it's put a strange place, it can at least be moved later. &#1499;&#1505;&#1497;&#1507; Cyp 08:53 19 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I was just wondering, is it OK to copy photos from other language wikipedias and use them on the English one, I cant see why it would be a problem but I was just making sure. G-Man 11:59 19 Jul 2003 (UTC)


 * Yes, it's fine. -- Tim Starling 12:01 19 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I successfully uploaded, but it didn't show on recent changes, and instead of getting the "Image successfully uploaded" response to uploading, I got a page saying:

=Database error= From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

A database query syntax error has occurred. The last attempted database query was: "UPDATE cur SET cur_timestamp='20030719174604', cur_user=7586, cur_user_text='Cyp', cur_text='Below is a list of the most recent file uploads. See also: Upload log archive All times shown are server time (UTC). Current server time is: July 29, 2024. 17:46 19 Jul 2003 Cyp uploaded \"Erf.png\" (Error function, with higher E, made by me.)  17:45 19 Jul 2003 Jstanley01 uploaded \"G_and_b.JPG\" 17:34 19 Jul 2003 Infrogmation uploaded \"ZocaloMexicoCity1900.jpg\" (Zocalo and Cathedral, Mexico City. From stereocard c 1900)  17:24 19 Jul 2003 Jstanley01 uploaded \"Guns_and_butter.JPG\" (I produced this image)  17:03 19 Jul 2003 The Anomebot uploaded \"Map_of_Washington_highlighting_Cowlitz_County.png\" (Public domain map courtesy of The General Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin, modified to show counties. Released under GFDL. See U.S. county maps.)  17:02 19 Jul 2003 The Anomebot uploaded



(Picture of John Pilger, taken from Mr. Pilger\'s site, http://pilger.carlton.com/home/biography)  04:53 1 Jul 2003 Seav uploaded \"Ph_seal_camarines_sur.png\" (Provincial Seal of Camarines Sur)  <li>04:47 1 Jul 2003 Hike395 uploaded \"TreeKill.jpg\" (Mammoth Mountain tree kill area) </li> <li>01:05 1 Jul 2003 Mydogategodshat uploaded \"Elastic_demand.png\" (elastic demand) </li> <li>01:04 1 Jul 2003 Mydogategodshat uploaded \"Price_skimming_small.png\" (price skimming) </li>', cur_comment='uploaded \"Erf.png\": Error function, with higher E, made by me.', cur_restrictions='sysop', inverse_timestamp='79969280825395' WHERE cur_id=62938" from within function "LogPage::saveContent". MySQL returned error "1153: Got a packet bigger than 'max_allowed_packet'".

From the start to the end, including the omitted text, is 1047870 bytes, surprisingly close to 220. Thought the error message was a bit too long to post all of it here. Haven't seen this error before. July 29, 2024 is interesting to know, at least. &#1499;&#1505;&#1497;&#1507; Cyp 18:05 19 Jul 2003 (UTC)


 * OK, I've flushed the current revision.--Eloquence 19:14 19 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Hello, a relative newbie here. Could I get some advice on Robert M. Parker, Jr., please? The page that is there is an excellent biography, but there's quite a bit of other material that I would like to add. Are there copyright or other issues with rewriting what's there, since it was taken from the Parker website? Thanks in advance, Wnissen 19:11 19 Jul 2003 (UTC)


 * No - when it gets put into Wikipedia (with permission) the text becomes licensed under the GNU FDL. You can edit it freely. CGS 19:15 19 Jul 2003 (UTC).


 * Thanks very much for the help. I'll be putting some new content in soon. Wnissen 19:28 19 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Is the source code for the protected pages, particularly the main page, available? By 'source code' I mean the wiki markup, not html code. Thanks. IntMan


 * It is at Main Page/Temp. --Eloquence 00:36 20 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Searching questions
Maybe I'm missing something (highly likely), but it seems to me that searches in Wikipedia are still primitive in some ways. One thing I noticed recently is that searching seems to change if a new node is created.

For example, suppose I do a search for "yyxxxzzz" in Wikipedia. If there is no node for "yxxxzzz", then I will probably see a list of entries which contain this string. However, if I now create a node for "yyxxxzzz", and do the search again, the search will find the new node, and short-circuit all the other entries. While this is often useful, it is not always ideal, and makes it harder to find entries which should cross-refer to each other. Perhaps there are features of the search facility which I don't know about, but this behaviour does seem unhelpful. -- David Martland 10:39 21 Jul 2003 (UTC)


 * There is a difference between the behavior of the search button and the go button. See Go button for details. --Eloquence 12:29 21 Jul 2003 (UTC)


 * That's helpful, thank you. However, it doesn't solve all problems. I've been experimenting, and discovered this, for example. Try typing in "Theobald Boehm"

and then hit either Search or Go. Neither should find any page. Firstly, Theobald Boehm does not yet exist as a node in WP. However, it does exist as a proto-link on the page flutist. Surely this should be picked up? Perhaps the problem here is that the search term makes use of two words linked together? (There's some odd formatting here, not sure why!) -- David Martland 12:52 21 Jul 2003 (UTC)


 * The reason for that is that the fulltext search is currently disabled on the English Wikipedia for performance reasons. It's still dog slow, though ..--Eloquence 13:00 21 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Anon user 64.119.193.140 is adding links to http://www.maintour.com pages for every Southern California town. They seem borderline to me, because the pages contain a tiny bit of encyclopedia info and massive advertising. Are these worth keeping, or are we just being used to generate traffic? Stan 19:24 22 Jul 2003 (UTC)


 * It looks like the IP address belongs to Grand Pacifc Resorts. So it would seem they are trying to use the 'pedia to beef up business?  I'd revert the edits--they don't add any useful information. &mdash;Frecklefoot 19:44 22 Jul 2003 (UTC)


 * Alright, I have put a temporary block on the IP address. Feel free to unblock it at anytime.  MB 19:55 22 Jul 2003 (UTC)

How do I search the mailing list archives? -- Tarquin 12:38 23 Jul 2003 (UTC)
 * Can at least search some of it, with [29 ]. Don't know if there is a better way. &#1499;&#1505;&#1497;&#1507; Cyp 12:49 23 Jul 2003 (UTC)


 * There is. MARC has searchable archives of Wikipedia-l, wikien-l, wikitech-l and intlwiki-l. --Eloquence 16:34 23 Jul 2003 (UTC)


 * Could we add those links to the page about the mailing list? Why doesn't our mailing list archiving system offer a search facility itself? -- Tarquin 16:59 23 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Birthplaces
I think it'd informative to, in a place-article (e.g., Shiraz, Iran), list the people born there. For example, who actually have heard of Shiraz because they bought those exotic carpets from there? I think the place has became quasi-famous recently only because the recently deceased Bijani twins and Zahra Kazemi were born there.

It probably isn't gonna work on London, since so many people were born there and proportionally many gained fame. But for small cities and towns, and non-European, non-American cities, it'd give the reader a chance to read more life of, say, Shirazi people as case studies.

What are your thoughts?

--Menchi 19:29 23 Jul 2003 (UTC)


 * Absolutely - for many small towns it's the most notable thing about them. :-) Note that many big cities also have lists of native notables attached to their articles, so there's precedent for that. Think of a potential visitor to the city wondering what famous persons are from there - a good list would also mention existence of plaques, memorials, statues, etc. Stan 20:49 23 Jul 2003 (UTC)


 * Thx. --Menchi 21:20 23 Jul 2003 (UTC)


 * For big cities it might make sense to break it out into a separate article with information about notable natives of the city and any statues/plaques/memories/etc. to honor them. --Delirium 22:05 23 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Added. --Menchi 21:20 23 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Well now that I've calmed down a bit about what made me quit - I want to not let a couple of people ruin my participation in this interesting project. I want to make a suggestion to fidgety busy-bodies. It won't hurt the project to wait more than 2 minutes before you start stepping all over something someone else is in the current process of working on. In my case as a newer user, it may take me an hour, but it is satisfying when I can accomplish it and then "set it free to the wolves". During the process helpful hints are welcome, but constantly having a tug-of-war of working on something, edit conflict, reverts, repeat... is tiresome. Have a bit of patience. Let me quote the helpful hints I got before I threw up my hands and said, "this isn't worth it.": Dmsar 01:05 22 Jul 2003 (UTC)


 * You've created an article at Bulletin Board. This is in the Wikipedia namespace, which meas it's for utility pages. There was an article for bulleten board already at Bulletin Board, which you have redirected. Why is this? Mintguy


 * Material moved from incorrectly named page:
 * 1. album by The Partridge Family
 * 2. Hacker jargon
 * 3. Standar usage of bulletin board
 * This is a disambiguation page. If you followed a link here, you might want to go back and fix that link.
 * What is this for? Mintguy 23:13 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)
 * Are you trying to start an article? You've put it in the wrong place. Meta pages are not for articles, but for information relating the the operation of this site. Put you article at Bulletin board. and sign your name with 4 "~". --Jiang 23:27 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)
 * Nonono!!!! This doesn't belong here. Why put it on a utility page? Plus, you redirect should be #REDIRECTBulletin Board for it to work. Please move the contents of this page (minus the discussion) there and this one will be deleted. --Jiang 23:47 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)
 * End of moved material Enchanter 23:54 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)
 * Are you trying to start an article? You've put it in the wrong place. Meta pages are not for articles, but for information relating the the operation of this site. Put you article at Bulletin board. and sign your name with 4 "~". --Jiang 23:27 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)
 * Nonono!!!! This doesn't belong here. Why put it on a utility page? Plus, you redirect should be #REDIRECTBulletin Board for it to work. Please move the contents of this page (minus the discussion) there and this one will be deleted. --Jiang 23:47 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)
 * End of moved material Enchanter 23:54 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)
 * Nonono!!!! This doesn't belong here. Why put it on a utility page? Plus, you redirect should be #REDIRECTBulletin Board for it to work. Please move the contents of this page (minus the discussion) there and this one will be deleted. --Jiang 23:47 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)
 * End of moved material Enchanter 23:54 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)
 * End of moved material Enchanter 23:54 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)
 * End of moved material Enchanter 23:54 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I came across this site a couple of days back and was amazed! It's a fantastic example of the exercise of freedom with responsibility and what is possible in future societies- a functioning anarchy in the positive sense where knowledge is free and not elitist. Actually I discovered how little I knew in concrete, black and white terms in my own areas of interest when I thought of attempting a written equivalent of verbal extempore - I didn't want to commit myself to information that could be wrong. I feel that many more people should be made aware of this site so that the level of contributions could become much better with more participation. I discovered it through a search for a topic in Google. I am now telling many people about this site. Is there any way the site can feature better in page rank orders of search engines- ofcourse without resorting to unethical practices.


 * Hi anon, thanks for your comments. You may want to create a user account to sign your comments (type three tildes,, when logged in to insert a signature). The search engine ranking depends on a lot of factors; in Google's case mainly on the number of pages that link to a page. A good way to increase a page's ranking is therefore both to link to it from more pages inside Wikipedia and outside of it. An incomplete list of pages that are ranked highly on Google can be found on Top 10 Google hits, A-K and Top 10 Google hits, L-Z respectively. By the way, Wikipedia is not entirely anarchistic -- see Power structure on the Meta-Wikipedia for details. --Eloquence 12:22 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)


 * Why does this top 10 list have 600 entries? CGS 17:47 24 Jul 2003 (UTC).


 * Firstly, there are 604 entires as of right now; secondly, the 'top ten'-ness is of the ranking of the required search, not a 'top ten' listing itself.
 * James F. 19:18 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)