Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)/Archive 32

I edit Wikipedia. Ask me how!
I have a blog on Livejournal and I've just made a post to it where I have come out to my friends list as a wikipedia editor and invited them to ask me questions and come to me for help if they ever want to edit on a wiki.

Is this a good idea. Should I try to to get other wikipedians to do this too? Any idea how to make an "I edit Wikipedia. Ask me how!" user icon?

I am --filceolaire (talk) 13:42, 3 April 2011 (UTC)


 * you should really worry about articles and content than making a place if users get stuck. this doesn't seem really relevant at all>Bread Ninja (talk) 13:44, 3 April 2011 (UTC)


 * It's one of those things that would have to be left to the individual user.©Geni 15:31, 3 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Advertising to your friends and acquaintances is a great idea; thanks for doing that. There are a lot of help pages intended for the new editor.  You might encourage them to read Introduction or similar pages.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:37, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Advertisement in a page of city in wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambala

The Educational consultant column is clearly an advertisement to promote one's own company. As far as I remember, the last time I check Ambala's page, there were plenty of schools and a few colleges mentioned in the educational institution columns. But now, there are none.

Please rectify the problem.

Thanks

PS: I didn't know where else to post this topic. Hence, I came here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Harshm2u (talk • contribs) 12:42, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Yep, I have removed that educational consultant stuff as spam. With regards to the rest of the material: It seem seems User:Dr. Blofeld removed it while cleaning up the article . Yoenit (talk) 13:18, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Again
It's the problem from Village pump (miscellaneous)/Archive_31 again. User:DGG no longer feels capable of dealing with the situation. The anon is edit warring to discredit the researcher, e.g., saying that "he alleges" facts that are uncontested by anyone except the anon and that the sources (high-quality newspaper articles and scholarly journals) are all wrong or don't contain the material that they plainly do contain, apparently on the grounds that they don't support the anon's personal beliefs. We need help at The Man Who Would Be Queen. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:18, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I'll have a look at it over the next few days; there's been a somewhat lively discussion on my talkpage. I definitely don't want to be the only person over there, though; please someone else drop in as well. The Blade of the Northern Lights  ( 話して下さい ) 18:31, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Image question
Would someone (ideally well-versed in image and Commons policy) be able to tell me what to do with ? It was uploaded for a page that was repeatedly speedied in mainspace, and the original AfC submission was deleted here. The creator was indeffed as a disruption-only account, and this gigantic image of himself doesn't serve any useful purpose. I only ask because it was uploaded to Commons, and I haven't learned to navigate them. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい ) 16:34, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I've nominated it for deletion on Commons, see here. --RL0919 (talk) 17:19, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks; I know how to do that here, but I haven't quite figured out the Commons deletion process. Something to work on for the future. The Blade of the Northern Lights  ( 話して下さい ) 18:07, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Jerry Lewis (California) move to Jerry Lewis (politician)?
Currently, the non-uniquely-named politician, Jerry Lewis, has a biography entitled, "Jerry Lewis (California)." Convention, if I'm not mistaken, holds that this should be "Jerry Lewis (politician)." I'm not admin-grade, so I can't do this even if I was right. Suggestions? Jpatch (talk) 14:29, 8 April 2011 (UTC)


 * It looks like that was the former name, and someone decided that politicians should be named according to their constituency. Have you tried to WP:MOVE it?  Autoconfirmed editors can usually move pages over redirects (unless there was a bunch of editing before the redirect was created).   WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:35, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Jerry Lewis (politician) has two edits in the edit history, so it needs an admin to move it. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい ) 20:51, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Need just a couple more helpers at Requests for feedback
Greetings, I've been helping out at Requests for feedback and found it to be the most rewarding experience I've had improving others' WP efforts. I'm getting great response and feedback, seeing some "deletion worthy" articles turned into easily C-class in a matter of days, and just generally seeing some real impact. The downside is that I'm pretty much 90% of the RfF for the last couple weeks, so I could really use some backup. Even just two or three people would be a huge help. It's very easy, and even with literally 10 minutes a few times a week you can provide valuable feedback to newb editors eager to learn. Thanks for anyone who can drop by to help, even if it's just a handful of times here and there. MatthewVanitas (talk) 05:18, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Invitation to take part in a pilot study
I would like to invite you to a study conducted by KAIST (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology). The study is about  “motivation to contribute to the Wikipedia articles”. The purpose of this research is to gather information on the English Wikipedia users’ perception on their contribution. For that reason, we will be surveying people like you, asking them to complete a very short questionnaire including only 22 questions, expecting you to spend 5 minutes. If you are willing to participate, our questionnaire will ask you about your motivation to contribute to Wikipedia. There are no foreseeable risks nor benefits to you associated with this project. All responses are confidential. Your participation is voluntary and you may withdraw from this project at any time. Thank you very much for your time. To participate in the survey, please visit the online form of the survey cooldenny (talk) 20:03, 13 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the three Wikipedia users who spent their time in completing the questionnaire up to now. I invite more users to the pilot survey with a very short question list. cooldenny (talk) 07:15, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Has anyone from the US government contacted Wikipedia about File:US-OfficeOfScienceAndTechnologyPolicy-Seal.svg?
The NASAWatch website got a takedown notice from the federal government about using the OSTP's logo (File:US-OfficeOfScienceAndTechnologyPolicy-Seal.svg) on their pages. This is reminiscent of the FBI's attempts to get Wikipedia to take down the FBI logo a while back. I notice that didn't work. Corvus cornix talk  21:57, 13 April 2011 (UTC)
 * That logo is property of the citizens of the United States of America and they do not have the legal right to demand we not use so long as we do not use it to falsely imply that we represent their office. If NASA wants to give in to pressure that's their problem. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:46, 13 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, the property of no-one. But yes, if the same legal code is being used as with the FBI, I would think that the WMF would continue to oppose removal. After Godwin's letter I don't think there's much else politically they can do, but I wouldn't like to say. Either way, we'd wait for a takedown, and for the last couple of months the Foundation has been publishing DMCA takedowns on a regular basis. - Jarry1250 [Who? Discuss.] 09:08, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

A request for reviewing a questionnaire of a study about the English Wikipedia
I am preparing a study about why people contribute to Wikipedia though the direct benefits does not exist. For the study, I have established the following questionnaire. Please let me know whether or not there are the mistakes from the perspective of the Wikipedia actual users. cooldenny (talk) 20:24, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

the question list
contributing to the English Wikipeida by editing any kind of the English Wikipedia articles.
 * D1a1A: My contribution to the English Wikipedia by editing any kind of the English Wikipedia articles helps realizing the belief of making a freely available encyclopedia.
 * D1a2A: I feel that my contribution to the English Wikipedia by editing a kind of the English Wikipedia articles helps realizing that knowledge should be freely open to everyone.
 * D1a3A: When I contribute to the English Wikipedia by editing any kind of the English Wikipedia articles, the probability of realizing that online information should free increases.
 * D1a4A: The probability of the world in which everyone to be able to access the required knowledge with no fee will increase by contributing to the English Wikipeida by editing any kind of the English Wikipedia articles.
 * D1b1A: My contribution to the English Wikipedia by editing any kind of the English Wikipedia articles is capable of helping others who want to learn a set of knowledge
 * D1b2A: I feel that my contribution to the English Wikipedia by editing a kind of the English Wikipedia articles is capable of helping your children or grandchildren learn a set of knowledge.
 * D1b3A: When I contribute to the English Wikipedia by editing any kind of the English Wikipedia articles, the probability of helping students learn  a set of knowledge increases.
 * D1b4A: The probability of making the world better through helping others will increase by contributing to the English Wikipeida by editing any kind of the English Wikipedia articles.
 * D1c1A: My contribution to the English Wikipedia by editing any kind of the English Wikipedia articles makes the job only attainable by considerably large number of people successful.
 * D1c2A: I feel that my contribution to the English Wikipedia by editing a kind of the English Wikipedia articles helps achieving the work not being able to compelete by small people.
 * D1c3A: When I contribute to the English Wikipedia by editing any kind of the English Wikipedia articles, the probability of extremely difficult job being able to completed only by the collective.
 * D1c4A: The probability of the collaborative work that small number of people cannot finish will increase by contributing to the English Wikipeida by editing any kind of the English Wikipedia articles.
 * D2a1A: My contribution to the English Wikipedia by editing any kind of the English Wikipedia articles helps improving the quality of the specific articles edited by me.
 * D2a2A: I feel that my contribution to the English Wikipedia by editing a kind of the English Wikipedia articles adds additional value to the specific articles edited by me.
 * D2a3A: When I contribute to the English Wikipedia by editing any kind of the English Wikipedia articles, the probability of the articles about the specific topics chosen by me having good quality increases.
 * D2a4A: The specific topics of the articles edited by me will be reliable by contributing to the English Wikipeida by editing any kind of the English Wikipedia articles.
 * D2b1A: My contribution to the English Wikipedia by editing any kind of the English Wikipedia articles helps making the specific topics of the articles chosen by me more popular.
 * D2b2A: I feel that my contribution to the English Wikipedia by editing a kind of the English Wikipedia articles enables more people to know the specific topics of the articles edited by me.
 * D2b3A: When I contribute to the English Wikipedia by editing any kind of the English Wikipedia articles, the specific topics of the article chosen by me gets more notable.
 * D2b4A: The specific topics of the articles edited by me will be well known by contributing to the English Wikipeida by editing any kind of the English Wikipedia articles.
 * D3a1A: My contribution to the English Wikipedia by editing any kind of the English Wikipedia articles gives me the pleasure of writing collaboratively with other English Wikipedia users.
 * D3a2A: It feels that my contribution to the English Wikipedia by editing any kind of the English Wikipedia articles gets me excited about writing collaboratively with other English Wikipedia users.
 * D3a3A: When I contribute to the English Wikipedia by editing any kind of the English Wikipedia articles, writing collaboratively with other English Wikipedia user makes me excited.
 * D3a4A: I am excited in writing collaboratively with other English Wikipedia users when contributing to the English Wikipedia by editing any kind of the English Wikipedia articles.
 * D3b1A: My contribution to the English Wikipedia by editing any kind of the English Wikipedia articles improve my reputation from other users in the English Wikipedia community.
 * D3b2A: I feel that my contribution to the English Wikipedia by editing a kind of the English Wikipedia articles make me earn respect from other English Wikipedia users.
 * D3b3A: When I contribute to the English Wikipedia by editing any kind of the English Wikipedia articles, my status among English Wikipedia users will be improved.
 * D3b4A: Other English Wikipedia users recognize me by contributing to the English Wikipeida by editing any kind of the English Wikipedia articles.
 * D3c1A: My contribution to the English Wikipedia by editing any kind of the English Wikipedia articles helps me earn the privililege endowed by the English Wikipedia community.
 * D3c2A: I feel that my contribution to the English Wikipedia by editing a kind of the English Wikipedia articles helps me attain privililege positions in the English Wikipedia community.
 * D3c3A: When I contribute to the English Wikipedia by editing any kind of the English Wikipedia articles,it contributes to leading the English Wikipedia community to approve my request for official rights.
 * D3c4A: The probability of me earning the official power endowed by the English Wikipedia community increases by
 * D4a1A: My contribution to the English Wikipedia by editing any kind of the English Wikipedia articles demands more time than I can usually afford.
 * D4a2A: I feel that my contribution to the English Wikipedia by editing a kind of the English Wikipedia articles demands more time than I can usually afford.
 * D4a3A: When I contribute to the English Wikipedia by editing any kind of the English Wikipedia articles, I cannot do other activities due to insufficient time.
 * D4a4A: I do not have the sufficient time due to contributing to the English Wikipeida by editing any kind of the English Wikipedia articles.
 * D4b1A: My contribution to the English Wikipedia by editing any kind of the English Wikipedia articles demands more cognitive effort than I can afford.
 * D4b2A: I feel that my contribution to the English Wikipedia by editing a kind of the English Wikipedia articles demands more cognitive effort than I can afford.
 * D4b3A: When I contribute to the English Wikipedia by editing any kind of the English Wikipedia articles, more cognitive effort than I can afford is required.
 * D4b4A: I have to do more cognitive effort than I can afford when contributing to the English Wikipeida by editing any kind of the English Wikipedia articles.
 * D4b5A: It is cognitively laborious to contribute to the English Wikipedia by editing any kind of the English Wikipedia articles.
 * D4b6A: The cognitive effort is high for me to contribute to the English Wikipedia by editing any kind of the English Wikipedia articles.
 * D4b7A: I am worried that if I contribute to the English Wikipedia by editing any kind of the English Wikipedia articles, I will have to spend additional cognitive memory.
 * D4b8A: I am afraid that my contribution to the English Wikipedia by editing any kind of the English Wikipedia articles will evoke additional clarifications or requests for discussion.

comments

 * Holy cow ... the US census form wasn't nearly that long. Who's going to take this survey, unemployed people looking to kill an entire day? - DavidWBrooks (talk) 20:39, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I very much doubt that you would get many responses to such a survey unless you eliminate the 90%+ of those questions that are redundant to one another. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:58, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your sincere opinion about the questionnaire I had posted, DavidWBrooks and Phil Bridger. The question list is so long (about 40 items) and most questions of the list are redundant to one another as you addressed. However, this redundant questionnaire is a typical method in the social science studies, so I cannot reduce the items though the questions can be made into only 10 items. I am using English as a second language. If you give me advice on the English writing on the question item, it is better for me. Thanks in advance. cooldenny (talk) 06:18, 13 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Many of the questions do not actually make any sense at all - the English is not really good. I think you should first write the questions in your own language and then have them translated by a someone more fluent in English that also understands the science behind it. You could also reduce the number of questions quite easily - for example the first three questions are effectively identical.
 * You use the word "realizing" incorrectly. In many European languages it's primary meaning is "to make something real" to create or make something happen. In English that meaning is relatively obscure - some would call it archaic and many don't even know it at all. The primary meaning of "realize" in English is "to become aware of something" (that already exists).
 * Could you devise a way to present each participant with just a few of questions (for example 5 questions selected randomly out of the total) and then agregate all the answers at the end. That way each participant only answers 5 questions but your still get a sufficient number of answers to each of the questions. Roger (talk) 07:32, 13 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree. It would need to have a thorough copy edit and a tighter focus before most people would respond. RJH (talk) 19:22, 13 April 2011 (UTC)
 * On the other hand, "it is cognitively laborious to contribute to the English Wikipedia" is a really wonderful phrase that I plan to use as soon as possible. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 19:57, 13 April 2011 (UTC)


 * About the premise... A number of editors do get direct benefits from editing articles.  See WP:MEDCOI for a list of some of the usual ones seen in medicine-related articles.  It's not a comprehensive list; for example, a few patients edit articles with the goal of making friends and family more sympathetic.  (See, e.g., Multiple chemical sensitivity and related articles.)  I talked to someone who once deliberately vandalized an article to prove to his boss that they shouldn't blindly trust Wikipedia's contents.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:04, 14 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I think you're going to have to get professional-quality translation help. I attempted some copyediting in a sandbox here, but the it's not just a matter of grammar or spelling.  The basic intention behind some of the questions isn't clear, and changes that look minor might accidentally change the meaning significantly.  Good luck,  WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:28, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
 * In this area, there will be some important shades of meaning which simply aren't captured by the questions. My motivations are best expressed in economic terms - improving a wikipedia article creates a positive externality which far outweighs my own effort. bobrayner (talk) 18:15, 16 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your constructive comment, bobrayner. I left a message on your user talk page. cooldenny (talk) 08:07, 17 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I appreciate your comments,WhatamIdoing. I will clarify the questions on the questionnaire, following your recommendation, and consider direct benefit from editing articles you addressed. cooldenny (talk) 08:07, 17 April 2011 (UTC)


 * You asked for help- so I scanned the text, and will be honest and give eight positive suggestions.
 * The language level is wrong for your target- so simplify,
 * Wikipedia editors are helpful but short of time- so shorten the questions
 * In certain languages complexity is seen as being good- not in English. KISS principle- Keep it Sweet & SIMPLE.
 * Many of your sentences start with a subordinate clause- this is possible but WRONG. Put the main subject first.
 * The reader will only read seven words before formulating an answer-- if he hasn't reached the question the quality of answer will be low and the data worthless.
 * In many of your questions you use the clause When I contribute to the English Wikipedia by editing any kind of the English Wikipedia articles this can be reduced to When editing an article or even When editing. The rest is understood by the context.- This is the most important thing to do
 * The clause When I contribute to the English Wikipedia by editing any kind of the English Wikipedia articles attempts to be very precise, correct but English doesn't work that way- When I contribute by editing- is WRONG for several reasons- all editing is contributing so contribute is redundant- that form adds a nuance of meaning, that in many circumstances implies the speaker is patronising the reader. Second language speakers, and young people should just not attempt that.
 * Many of your questions contain the same clause. Make that a section head, and place all those questions beneath-then remove the clause from each.
 * When all this is done, please send me a copu of the questionnaire and I can review it further. Best wishes- do pop round for a coffee sometimes --ClemRutter (talk) 22:15, 16 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Thank you so much for your wonderful review for the survey. Following your recommendation, I will send you a copy of the questionnaire after modifying the questionnaire. cooldenny (talk) 07:48, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Section needs expansion
I know there is a template to be placed in a section to say it needs expansion, but I don't know what it is. Please point me to it. --DThomsen8 (talk) 13:21, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
 * ☞ . — Bility (talk) 16:57, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Watchlist spam
One of the nice things about the rollback feature is that it allows one to quickly see if a particular edit is still the latest when looking at a user's contributions page. This is especially nice when checking for subsequent edits that might revert or modify a bold change. The same feature is also a quick way to browse a vandal's edit history, to see if they still have the last edit on any pages. This makes the mass edits generated by semi-automated tools, e.g., AWB, rather annoying. Bots, at least, can be hidden from watchlists, but every tiny AWB edit will jump right to the top, potentially obscuring more significant previous edits. I'm not suggesting that anything be done, but I would like to know how other users feel about this. Feezo (send a signal | watch the sky)  10:00, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I believe the difference is in the oversight required. Having edits on everyone's watchlist makes sure people check them. AWB, as is included in the documentation, requires care - ultimately AWB edits do require checking. I don't know whether an option in preferences would be accepted, though, that seems less controversial that hiding anonymous users' edits, for which there is already an option. A javascript hack or similar might be on the cards as well. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 10:26, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, this would help, but there's another issue: it's disconcerting that editors are making literally hundreds of thousands of edits to articles without appearing to read or evaluate them. For example, last month I read the short new article Hawaiian shame, and saw that an AWBer had tagged it for cleanup with uncategorized less than an hour after creation. Something just feels "off" to me about this &mdash; the lack of categories was one of the least important things about that new article. Yet because AWB is not a bot, tagging it implies that a human read the article and considered the tagged issue to be the most pressing concern. Feezo (send a signal | watch the sky)  05:23, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
 * That's not really how AWB works--all the operator needs to do is to approve the change being made on the page; there's no sense that the operator has actually looked over the full page. And if all you're doing is cross-categorizing pages, that's not necessarily a problem. When I see an AWB tag on an edit, I never assume the editor looked through the page or that the change was "pressing"; I simply assume that the editor felt the change(s) was useful and confirmed that it was appropriate before saving it. And then I check the change(s) myself to be sure. Also, doesn't AWB allow for changes to be marked as minor? I find the "minor edit" feature to be just as problematic in obscuring big changes if I have "hide minor edits" selected on my watchlist. Aristophanes  68   (talk)  16:05, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

BAG nomination
I'm required by BAG policy to notify this noticeboard of my nomination for BAG member. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 07:44, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

report unethical behavior
Hi, I would like to know where can I report unethical behavior of a scientist (in this case a linguist) who systemically edited articles to include his theory. 79.177.33.134 (talk) 13:31, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Seems like something for the Conflict of interest/Noticeboard. Yoenit (talk) 14:13, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Yikes! Giant Pornographic Pic in an article about Porn
The article Hentai (explicitly pornographic Japanese comics) is illustrated with a really explicit image right at the top of the page. An editor who removed it said it was self-advertising, but the person who first placed it put it back saying Wikipedia is uncensored.

I don't really wish to get into the middle of this, but are there not problems with using this sort of imagery?

Or is it self-advertising after all and thus simply to be removed? It is not an example from any comic, but someone's personal drawing. The image when you click on it goes to a truly gigantic picture file, one so big you could print professional posters from it, which seems to have a ton of earlier states of the image also uploaded, as if the artist put up every version as he worked on it. I mean seriously, the file history just goes back and back. And it's HUGE! I originally linked to it in this message, but it was too gargantuan to include. It's File:Hadako-tan.png. And it's only use is in this one article.

Maybe if it has *any* reason to stay it could be put lower on the page so it's not the first thing you see? There are other illustrations, one classical Japanese and one from actual comics, which are appropriate and just fine.

But really, it looks like someone trying to game the Wikipedia system.Artemis-Arethusa (talk) 21:52, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
 * It's a compatibly licensed image depicting an example of the subject of the article and Wikipedia is NOTCENSORED. Seems fine to me and has no watermarks, so I don't get how it's advertising. This site has a long history of protecting "explicit" images in articles, so I doubt you'll have much luck trying to get an image of this type off the article. See also WP:PERENNIAL. — Bility (talk) 22:15, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia is not censored, period. That includes 'hiding' images, putting them further down the page, whatever. It's a perfectly relevant image, and I find the idea of being all squicky about sex utterly bizarre given where your username comes from. → ROUX   ₪  22:19, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia currently has no method to control content other than manually blocking individual images for logged-in users. There is an ongoing discussion on adding content control features; see meta:2010 Wikimedia Study of Controversial Content: Part Two, especially the section User-Controlled Viewing Options. See also WP:NOTCENSORED, WP:CHILDPROTECT and Guidance for younger editors. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 22:34, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
 * The discussion about such features has actually progressed since the study's proposals, as recently reported in the Signpost: "'Personal image filter' to offer the ability to hide sexual or violent media" (however, there is still no decision by the Foundation to actually implement such a system).
 * Regards, HaeB (talk) 23:17, 18 April 2011 (UTC)


 * The image, in my opinion, illustrates the topic well and is presented appropriately according to our conventional style guidelines. Of course if you click on it you'll get a larger version - that's true of all images. The full resolution image is for use in print versions, derivative works, etc. - only thumbnails are shown in articles, or on the image description page The correct way to link to images is with the syntax File:Hadako-tan.png, not with the syntax [[File:Hadako-tan.png]] . Dcoetzee 23:42, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Thank you, Dcoetzee, for the information on the linking syntax. It's interesting to hear what the Wikipedia policy is. I understand that Wikipedia needs to be honest. I do think it odd, though, that even the main article of Pornography does not have any imagery this explicit.Artemis-Arethusa (talk) 18:12, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
 * One can look at Phan Thị Kim Phúc or Thích Quảng Đức for, IMO, more graphic images than that. Although I must say, I'm not exactly sure why the lolicon image is in the hentai article; lolicon and hentai aren't really the same thing.  Related, but separate.  Maybe an otaku can confirm/correct that for me. The Blade of the Northern Lights  ( 話して下さい ) 01:38, 20 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Is it just me, or does the common sense idea "If you don't want to see porn, you shouldn't be looking at porn" not apply here? If the possibility of a topic offends one, why would one then seek out that topic?  -- Jayron  32  02:26, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
 * The hentai article says it's "sexually explicit or pornographic comics and animation, particularly those of Japanese origin", so lolicon would be a subset, not something entirely different. — Bility (talk) 02:52, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
 * My (albeit very limited) experience with lolicon is that it's not so much explicit as implied, but I don't doubt there is some that is explicit. I suppose that would make sense.  The Blade of the Northern Lights  ( 話して下さい ) 03:32, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Since when is a user providing a completely free, high quality image to wikipedia "gaming the system"? No one would make the argument User:XXX is producing a couple dozen high quality maps and then placing them in their respective articles, they must be removed for self promotion, and by the way they are huge when you click on them, I mean, really big. And to one of the users up above who is calling the girl with adult sized body proportions (longer limbs in proportion to body) and the gigantic breasts a child because of her childlike facial features needs to look at an anime character sometime, yes they have big, cute eyes that take up half their face. You see this girl, she is fifty years old, but on another body could pass as a child. (site blacklisted) This girl looks underage, but she is in her 30s. It's called moe, Japanese like cute looking things, Japanese art in general uses pure lines and shapes, simple colors, and has a child like playfulness to it. The introduction of these conventions in anime of big eyes, and stylized characters is the natural extension of their culture into their animation, seeking to portray the essence of people and things rather than physically depicting them in a realistic manner.AerobicFox (talk) 03:59, 20 April 2011 (UTC)


 * If you're concerned about the size of an image, you can always make (or ask someone else to make) a low-resolution copy and link to that instead. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:50, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Survey? What survey?
A banner is appearing with the text Please take the 2011 Editor Survey by clicking here. Share your experiences and improve Wikipedia. You can save the survey at any time and finish it later, but this may be the only time you will see this message. Actually, I've seen the message several times—it has appeared at the top of various pages—but the linked words "clicking here" lead nowhere; the link simply adds a pound sign to the url of whatever page I'm on. What is this survey and where can it be found? Rivertorch (talk) 03:50, 21 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Hi Rivertorch, can you give us browser/OS data so we can check whether this is a banner bug? Thanks,--Eloquence* 06:18, 21 April 2011 (UTC)


 * It seems to be a browser-specific issue, at least on my Mac. Running a recent Firefox build, it works fine; with Safari 3.0.4, not. (I should have checked this out before posting because I've seen this sort of thing before.) Rivertorch (talk) 06:39, 21 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the report; I'll pass it on. If I'm not mistaken that's a pretty old version -- we may not be able to support it.--Eloquence* 00:21, 22 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Works for me in Safari 4. Kaldari (talk) 01:00, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Sound clips
Unless I'm remembering this incorrectly, pages such as "Cheetah" had a link which would play the cry of the cheetah. Is it possible I could see the code for it? Abce2 (talk) 17:22, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Take a look at Template:Listen. --RL0919 (talk) 17:55, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Frustration with unregistered editor
An unregistered editor with few edits has made a change to each of the nuclear power plant articles in the US, which is his right. Furthermore, he has made it in favor of "no nukes" which is also his right. Okay to have a pov.

However, the material is poorly integrated with the former material and would seem non-WP:TOPIC to a npov reader. Because of the fairly large amount of work involved, he is not interested in discussing a way of integrating it and dismisses/intervenes with discussions about improvement. I cannot change all of these poorly attended articles myself. More importantly, I cannot change them at all without his consent. It is easier for him to rv my change than to help integrate it. And why should he? He also has a few registered user cronies who are probably not that pov, but he intervenes anytime I try to discuss it with them.

For example, his changes could be part of a "homeland security" set of articles. but he refuses to discuss this because a) it would require changing 60 articles or so in detail, and b) it might dilute his "no nukes" stance.

Not sure how to proceed here. To abandon the articles seems to presage a time when we may all be overwhelmed by "Barbarians at the Gate" which will probably happen someday. I was hoping later rather than sooner! :) Student7 (talk) 20:44, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Can you provide more specific information? Looking at a sample, consensus at Talk:Turkey Point Nuclear Generating Station seems to be against including the surrounding population figures, but the editor who added it has also made numerous good, neutral edits to related articles, e.g., . In any case, having a POV is very different from pushing it on an article, which is definitely not allowed. Can you provide specific examples of the latter? Feezo (send a signal | watch the sky)  22:25, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Maybe I can shed light. I posted the material to which Student7 objects. (He refers to me as "an unregistered editor" -- I have no idea what this means, and perhaps other editors can shed light on this.) The information on population surrounding nuclear power plants is well-sourced, and relevant: Nuclear power plants have evacuation zones and emergency plans; how many people live in those areas is relevant to any discussion about nuclear power plants and safety. The material is stated in as neutral a fashion as possible: It has no pro-nuclear or anti-nuclear tone or content at all. User Student7 objects to the posting of census data on the population around the plants, claiming that posting this information is part of a "no nukes" argument. The user has no basis for this claim whatsoever. I have no view on nuclear power; I do not oppose it nor support it. I have no POV on nuclear power, and certainly have not pushed any view. His stated view, opposing this census information on population, has not gained a consensus on the talk page, yet he continues to remove the information wholesale. I and others have asked him not to delete the information, but to discuss it on the talk page. In this process he has become increasingly hostile, or as he describes it, "frustrated," reverting with snide comments and posting long political diatribes asking why we don't post similar population in the area around rubber plants (?) or GE or Apple, or even post the same information about people who live near Governor Dean (???). He has stated repeatedly his political POV that nuclear power is safe, that posting information about population about the plant must be an attempt to describe nuclear power as not safe, and that therefore this information must be removed. (Similarly he's engaged in edit wars to try to stifle any mention of which nuclear power plants in the U.S. have the same design as the troubled Fukushima Dai-ichi plant in Japan. His reasoning is that the design didn't cause the problems -- the earthquake and tsunami did. That's a reasonable point of view, but his fear of mentioning the connection, presuming that stating the connection itself is a "no nukes" POV statement, is unreasonable. There's no reason to be so afraid of facts, and moreover Wikipedia is not the place for him to be pushing a political argument.) He asks repeatedly for the relevance of the population figures, and as I and other users continue to point out: Nuclear power plants have evacuation zones; it's a perfectly reasonable question to ask, how many people live near the plants; the new 2010 census data in the news article cited give an authoritative answer for that population in the area around every nuclear power plant. Yet this user cannot see the posting of this information as anything other than a "no nukes" stance, as he puts it. It's not clear why he insists on this view. So count me as frustrated as well. I've asked him repeatedly, if he objects to the census data on population, please discuss it on the talk page, and stop removing the information wholesale. He is an experienced editor, but seems to be losing his cool on this one. His comments increasingly disparage other editors who disagree with him as "screwballs" or "Barbarians" or "cronies," or otherwise use hostile language. I'm glad he's aware enough of his frustration to come to the village pump to discuss it. It may be time for him to back away from the horse slowly.Extremely hot (talk) 02:54, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I would be willing to act as an informal mediator on this if both parties are agreeable. It looks like there's some history here, and I would like to give the discussion a chance for a fresh start. Feezo (send a signal | watch the sky)  03:03, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
 * That's certainly welcome, though I have no idea how that would work. If I post census figures, which are neutral, and the editor perceives them as a "no nukes" statement, I'm not sure how to handle that. As you noted, I also posted "seismic risk" figures, which the editor did not perceive as a "no nukes" statement, so he left them alone. Neither the population figures nor the seismic risk figures are pro-nuclear or anti-nuclear; they just are useful, relevant facts; people on either side of the nuclear debate may use them to support their position if they choose. There seems to be some sort of political lens: If he perceives a fact as agreeing with him, then it's a neutral fact, but if he perceives it as disagreeing with him, then the editor is accused of COATRACK, NPOV and a host of sins. I'm not sure how mediation can help in that case; it seems more like one where the editor needs to thicken his skin, not act from a political point of view, and let the talk page process work.Extremely hot (talk) 03:11, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Mediation will be under User talk:Feezo. Feezo (send a signal | watch the sky)  21:19, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

I thought someone might be interested, because I am
Does anyone know, has a block of /16 (650000) IPs ever happened before? Take a look at this if you don't believe: block at hr. Regards, --Biblbroks (talk) 21:55, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
 * those get handed out regularly. ΔT The only constant 22:04, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Our first recorded /16 block was back in January of 2005 . ΔT <sup style="color:darkred;">The only constant 22:10, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
 * PS I just ran a database query and we have 2,364 recorded cases where a /16 has been blocked. ΔT <sup style="color:darkred;">The only constant 22:12, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
 * You mean just on en? I suppose you have to have some extra privileges to find out this info on any wikipedia. And larger than /16 hasn't happened? --Biblbroks (talk) 22:16, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I do have some extra access that normal users do not have. I just ran a query on hr.wiki and there are 47 logged blocks on /16 addresses. the oldest being: which was April 2006. ΔT <sup style="color:darkred;">The only constant 01:16, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
 * /16 is the max permitted by MediaWiki. You can query the database using the API, but there's a limit on the number of entries that will be returned. (500, or 5000 for bots and sysops.) .5% of the last 5000 blocks were /16 range blocks. <font style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, Book Antiqua, Palatino, serif;"><font color="#BBAED0">Feezo <font size="-2">(send a signal | watch the sky)  22:59, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I suspect that is at least part of the reason why we have seen a steady decline in edits over the last few years. Blocking large groups like this is no doubt due to vandalism, and a reduction in vandalism is also a reason for the reduction in edits, but I suspect that there were a lot of good and meaningful edits being performed as well as vandalism. --Kumioko (talk) 02:26, 25 April 2011 (UTC)


 * By the way, you're off on an order of magnitude there. A /16 is $$2^{32-16} = 2^{16} = 65,536$$, not $$650,000$$.  -- Cobi(t&#124;c&#124;b) 05:29, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

A few comments, if I may:
 * An IP address is just that, an IP address. The amount of usage on an IP address depends on the ISP's assignment of it as well as the amount of people assigned to it. If only ISPs were more efficient and responsible in their handling/distrubution of IP addresses, but in reality they really aren't.
 * An "open encyclopedia" is a double-edged sword. That is, if you allow anyone to edit it, then you consequently allow anyone to abuse it; this is especially true if such "open encyclopedia" also happens to be one of the most popular and most visited websites in the entire world. Given our current MediaWiki software and community/social norms, there is not much overlap in that.

–MuZemike 02:33, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Essay: When to link back to one from a policy page
Greetings. I just finished my first essay and I wasn't sure when an essay is considered good enough to link back to from the policy page. My essay is written to try and explain the Verifiability Policy to beginners. I don't want to link back to it from the main policy page unless it has already been peer reviewed; I don't want any problems. Any help would be appreciated. (Note: I wasn't sure which category this should go in, so I decided to play it safe and ask here. Crisco 1492 (talk) 10:10, 16 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Very good work on that essay, Crisco. I would also say that there are stub articles with little or no inline citations, awaiting further effort by their creators or others. These are often geographical. See Cook's Creek, Pennsylvania Other than that, a very good start.  --DThomsen8 (talk) 13:32, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
 * You can also request copy-editing at WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors/Requests. Notice that even very good articles aspiring to GA or FA status have requests for copy-editing, among others that are just plain weak in grammar and spelling. --DThomsen8 (talk) 13:36, 18 April 2011 (UTC)


 * So just a little addition about uncited articles? I will look at it. Thanks for the input! But when is an essay considered to be good enough to be linked to in a policy page? Is there a peer review process? Crisco 1492 (talk) 03:39, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
 * There's no formal process for linking to essays from policy pages. Just ask on the policy's talk page, and if no one objects, or consensus favors adding it, then go ahead. <font style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, Book Antiqua, Palatino, serif;"><font color="#BBAED0">Feezo <font size="-2">(send a signal | watch the sky)  05:12, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks Fenzo. I will try that. Crisco 1492 (talk) 09:39, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Aw shucks. I went to this essay expecting it to be along the lines of "too much participation in discussing policy can be hazardous to your mental health", but it was about something else. (Now that topic would be worth writing about.) -- llywrch (talk) 16:03, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Dance your PhD
And now for something completely different. I thought people might like to see an entry 'The negotiation of contributions to public wikis' in the 2010 Dance your PhD contest, just search for 'wiki'. In fact the Chemistry video 'Selection of a DNA aptamer for homocysteine using SELEX' was the overall winner. Dmcq (talk) 19:09, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Ok... What is this post have to do with Wikipedia? This seem like plain advertising. Should I close it? --<i style="font-family:Kristen ITC; color:green;">Tyw7</i> (☎ Contact me! • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 21:43, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Calling that page spam or advertisement is ridiculous, the only ads you'll see if you go there or click on the full explanation at are for the American Association for the Advancement of Science saying they sponsored the contest and the hosting site for the videos in the heading. What it has to do with wikipedia is it was a dance showing how interactions on a wiki are done as interpreted by a person doing a PhD on the subject. What makes you say it looks like an advertisement or spam? Dmcq (talk) 01:48, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
 * But why are you advertising the link here? IT certainly looks like spam to drive up visitors. --<i style="font-family:Kristen ITC; color:green;">Tyw7</i> (☎ Contact me! • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 01:53, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I put the link here because I thought people here might be interested in in the concept of a researcher interpreting wiki conversations in dance. This is the miscellaneous village pump page is it not? Where would a person note someone doing something strange like this in relation to our interactions or do you think such things should not be brought to any notice at all? Dmcq (talk) 01:59, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Outdated video
Isn't this video outdated?



File:Wikipedia_video_tutorial-2-Reliability-en.ogv

Its showing the old interface. --<i style="font-family:Kristen ITC; color:green;">Tyw7</i> (☎ Contact me! • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 00:25, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Like everything else here, someone has to have the time, ability, and inclination to update it. It's a pretty minor point anyway, there is only about 2 seconds of video that is actually outdated, and if you hover over the "watch" star a popup will tell you what it is. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:52, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
 * That's assuming, newbys know the star = watch --<i style="font-family:Kristen ITC; color:green;">Tyw7</i> (☎ Contact me! • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 02:15, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
 * As I just said, if you hover a cursor over it will tell you what it is. Beeblebrox (talk) 02:42, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Baidu make copyright violation to Wikipedia in three languages
The Chinese encyclopedia Baidu Baike which have 3 millions and more articles, however about 1600+ articles is copy from Wikipedia, and 28 of them is copied from English Wikipedia. See the list at zh:WP:BD for details. You are invited to sign the letter to Baidu on zh:WP:VPM by putting your signature there. A press release will also be sent out with the name of Chinese Wikipedia community. Them will be send out within a few weeks. More discussion may be found at foundation-l --HW (talk) 01:00, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Survey issues
OK, I took the survey today. It had some problems, some of which are fairly serious. Hobit (talk) 01:36, 22 April 2011 (UTC)
 * The reasons I don't donate money to Wikimedia weren't on the list but it wouldn't let me move forward without selecting at least one. Personally I find other charities more important to donate to and I've gotten sick of the banner ads.
 * The long, long, section on feeling discriminated against was, well, too long.
 * Parts of the survey felt like an ad for donating money. Something like a Push-poll.
 * While I am willing to take further surveys I was unwilling to share my e-mail address--something the survey form wouldn't allow (ok, this one is minor, but still)


 * You might consider posting your thoughts at meta:Talk:Wikipedia Editors Survey 2011. It looks like a page that the survey-takers will be watching.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:54, 22 April 2011 (UTC)


 * You must be kidding. Nobody reads the page and nobody answers the questions. It really proves only that the survey is a hoax and that wikipedia is just pretending to be interested in editors' views. Afil (talk) 00:10, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Question about an image
Some time ago, I uploaded this image that I believed was a portrait of Kentucky Congressman Alney McLean and added it to his article. Later, someone removed the image, saying it was not of Alney McLean, but Illinois Congressman John McLean. The removing editor cited The Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, which does indeed show a hazier version of this image as John McLean. I did not have time to do much research at the time the image was removed, but I just found the same image in historian Otto Rothert's History of Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, where it is labelled as Alney McLean, circa 1820 (p. 71). I wasn't sure whether to list the issue at the John McLean talk page, the Alney McLean talk page, the questioning editor's talk page, or the image's talk page (which is on Commons), so I'm listing it here! Please advise as to how I should proceed. Acdixon (talk • contribs • count) 14:29, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Since the image is at Wikimedia Commons rather than Wikipedia, how about we have the discussion at Alney's article with a note left at John's article and anywhere else the image is used? -Rrius (talk) 17:43, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Done. Hopefully, we can untangle this mess! Acdixon (talk • contribs • count) 13:25, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

== Regarding the comment at User talk:Biblbroks which is i believe regarding me addressing the problem at WP:AE in my response to a request given there ==

I think it is best for me, and i hope others also, if i express my apology for violating the WP:1RR one revert per week parole to which all editors/editresses of the article Kosovo are subject to. So i apologize for that. Wish you all the best, --biblbroks (talk) 07:32, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Extra step in File:Videoonwikipedia.ogv
There is one extra step in this video  You DO NOT have to click your own name in order to access preference. Just click on peference... --<i style="font-family:Kristen ITC; color:green;">Tyw7</i> (☎ Contact me! • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 14:11, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Argument over Award
there seems to be an argument over an Award renaming proposal i entered Here

The proposal i brought up, is the template:Working Man's Barnstar should not have any gender parameters and be renamed to "Hard Worker" to give the Barnstar a clearer meaning and making it more general without over-personalizing the Barnstar. However, i see these poor reasons to why it should be kept and seem to neglect the purpose of the proposal. That and i find it Bias and almost sexist. It would be great if i had more input on it (oppose or support, i just want a good reasons)>Bread Ninja (talk) 23:13, 25 April 2011 (UTC)


 * That was your opinion. Others differed from you. There's lots of decisions on Wikipedia I've disagreed with, I see no problem with that. Wikipedia isn't a discussion forum for people to air their views and convince others, all that matters is improving the articles. And personally I do not see that ensuring we have to talk about ploughperson's lunch instead of ploughman's lunch is going to help improve the articles. Dmcq (talk) 08:28, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
 * it's the general idea that counts. For something being passed off as legit, should we really add a personal trait such as gender?Bread Ninja (talk) 08:58, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I do not follow, what do you mean by being passed off as legit? Legitimate in what sense or who is passing it off as such? As far as I'm aware they are simply given by one person to another and anyone can set up a barnstar. You seem to be trying to remove the facility to say man or woman in it and yet you actively identify yourself as female on Wikipedia. That seems a bit confused to me. Are you saying you want people to know you are a woman but you want them to then ignore the fact and refer to you in a gender neutral fashion? And you want to remove the facility for someone to refer to another person as a man or woman in an award when they have identified as such? I simply cannot go along with such silliness. Dmcq (talk) 09:08, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
 * It's offensive because, the default is "working man", the phrase is commonly used with man and doesn't sound as good with woman or wikipedian, plus not that direct.


 * I'm saying we shouldn't pass of mediocore awards for legitimately is what i'm saying.Bread Ninja (talk) 09:12, 26 April 2011 (UTC)


 * The default is "Wikipedian's" and you can always set up your own award and try and publicise it on that project. I still don't see what you mean by legitimate and I don't see the problem with Wikipedian's or Woman's compared to Man's, in what way are they not 'direct'? How would I know if one award is legitimate and another is not? Dmcq (talk) 09:35, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
 * You're missing the point. I'm not even sure you're trying to. Like I've stated before, The Working Man's Barnstar is based of a phrase mainly due to "man" the gender is m=man, w=woman, n=wikipedian according to the template page. The template is still titled "working man". Kind of like if hypothetically a barnstar was called "Man up" because it's a phrase, but to add neutrality, they adapted that phrase into "woman up" and "wikipedian up" but still doesn't have the same ring to as "Man up"


 * It's not that it isn't legitimate award, just that it's legitimate but doesn't follow the standards of other awards. It's one of the main general awards. As you can see in WP:BARNSTAR it's write under the original and editor. Yet it doesn't go up to the same standard as the other awards. The idea is to replace the award basically with one more generally accepted. Why is this so difficult?Bread Ninja (talk) 09:54, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
 * 'I'm not even sure you're trying to' Well that ends this for me. Dmcq (talk) 10:05, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Anyone else with a more neutral view? I'm exhausted of seeing these type of editors.Bread Ninja (talk) 10:12, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Bread Ninja, what is your motivation for bringing this concern to the Village pump? Raising the same issue repeatedly on different pages is a bit puzzling and is often considered disruptive. It isn't really beneficial to seek out various forums in hopes of getting the answer you want. A more appropriate choice would be to choose one forum for the consensus discussion and offer a clear, concise statement or proposal regarding your concern. The proposal was appropriately brought up to the Wikiproject members, resulting in discussion to reach consensus. I would recommend that you continue to discuss your concerns in that forum. On another note, for the sake of clarification, the nature of Barnstars is actually rather frivolous. The process lacks guidelines, along with qualifying measurements or standards. There is no real purpose for them, outside of simple encouragement or offering an editor some "warm fuzzies" or a pat on the back. I don't wish to minimize your concerns. That said, while the desire to be politically correct in real life is admirable for some individuals, it is not a universal goal or concern on Wikipedia. Honestly, there's just bigger fish to fry. Best regards,  Cind. amuse  10:42, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Again, it's not just for political correctness....but overall, i think it depends on where it's appropriate and where it's not. Basically if it's challenged for something that could be a major problem, then the editors should accept that instead of waiting until another situation rises. The process of making them does lack guideline, but the general idea of giving awards is to reflect on their contributions. Though the awards are also meant to encourage editors aswell. I brought it up here in the hopes of seeing a more general, less bias opinion.Bread Ninja (talk) 10:55, 26 April 2011 (UTC)


 * You want a "neutral" response? Here it is: unless someone finds the name of this barnstar offensive, & explains persuasively why it must be changed, it's going to remain "The Working Man's Barnstar". And even then, its name may remain the same. (Look at the old AD/BC vs. CE/BCE debate, which generated lots of smoke but no light.) And as Bill Price pointed out in the original discussion, your insistence on a "neutral view" is offensive because the wording discounts the opinions of anyone who disagrees with you on this matter. I suggest you let this matter go & move on. I understand that there are hundreds of thousands of stubs waiting for someone to turn them into complete articles: find a few that interest you, & work on them. -- llywrch (talk) 16:40, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
 * And by that you mean an opinion that agrees with your own? You say that you want any opinion, but anytime someone disagrees with you (here or at the other discussion), you just discount their opinions by asserting that they're biased or being "unreasonable". Mr.Z-man 16:43, 26 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Not exactly, not that i'm saying the comments on here are bias. but i'm referring the ones in the discussion at WP:AWARD. And i'm asking an opinion based on both sides, not just one. And i do find the barnstar offensive. I've said so time again. What i'm asking is something less bias is all. Which you cannot deny, the reasons given there aren't fully thought up to why it should be kept.Bread Ninja (talk) 18:38, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
 * So when you said "Anyone else with a more neutral view? I'm exhausted of seeing these type of editors." when Dmcq disagreed, what or who were you referring to? I'm sorry, but if you want to actually get consensus, you have to actually accept that people might have a different opinion than yours, not assert that your own opinion is inarguable fact and forum shop until you get people who agree. Mr.Z-man 19:17, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
 * it's not the opinion, but the reason to push that opinion forward. I'm tired of seeing people use half-baked reasons. Let's not act like Dmcq was a saint in this discussion either. I asked for readers with a more neutral "view". I do find it heavily unreasonable if one editor declines because in his mind alone, he thinks that "Hard Worker" means "Not very bright" despite knowing the fact that he knows not everyone will see it that way ,nor does the implication actually exist. Or maybe it should be kept because "Working man" is a "time-honored phrase" neglecting Working Woman and Working Wikipedian (the adapted names that don't give off the same catch as the original phrase).Bread Ninja (talk) 19:48, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

This is really what we have to argue about? Why don't we try to spend the time arguing over this on improving articles. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.3.29.68 (talk) 20:15, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Bread Ninja, at this point it does not look like there is any consensus to change the award. Here are some things you can do so that you don't get offended by it.  1. You can create your own gender neutral award and try to get it used instead of this one.  2. If someone gives you one of these awards you can refuse it and let the presenter know you don't like it.  3. ignore the barnstars and work on articles.  GB fan (talk) 20:48, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
 * i'm already doing number 1. number 2 is highly unlikely now. they know it offends me. and i have been working on articles. still offends me an award meant more for males exist out there.Bread Ninja (talk) 20:53, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Honestly, I can't be bothered with such minute details. For goodness sake, its just a name of an award!!! If you want, just set up a redirect called the Template:The Working Barnstar. These "political correctness" is just a dumb waste of time! -- <font face="Kristen ITC" color="Green">Tyw7  (☎ Contact me! • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 21:35, 26 April 2011 (UTC) It's the principle....plus it is offensive. When you use political correctness, you say it's done fort he sake of that. Which is not.Bread Ninja (talk) 21:39, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Who the **** cares! Its just a fricking name! Get on with this. Ok suppose you're right what do you want done? Rename? Just for the sake of closing this arguement, let's rename it! If not it's gonna go on forever, or at least till the world ends in 2012. --<i style="font-family:Kristen ITC; color:green;">Tyw7</i>  (☎ Contact me! • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 21:41, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
 * It's not just a simple "rename" it's to remove "gender" overall. it's just not appropriate in wikipedia. And seriously? Why can't i just find one person on here who actually contribute....Why post on here? You say this is a waste of time, so why do you even make a mess to this discussion?Bread Ninja (talk) 21:49, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Its because a. its useless, b. Unless we refer to everone as "they", s/he, or the genderless Wikipedian, it doesn't make any sense. For example, the dog is his or hers? S/he is twenty one years old. --<i style="font-family:Kristen ITC; color:green;">Tyw7</i>  (☎ Contact me! • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 22:12, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Did you read the entire discussion? Do you know what we are talking about? It's an award given in 1st-person. The gender will be even useless to put in, but still offensive. How come i'm seen as the uncivil jerk, when people are doing just the same (potentially worst)Bread Ninja (talk) 22:15, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
 * From what I've seen, the only "gender" is used in the naming of the award. The rest of the message is up to you! So what should we call the award? The Working Genderless being award? --<i style="font-family:Kristen ITC; color:green;">Tyw7</i>  (☎ Contact me! • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 22:22, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Again, i ask, if you even looked at the discussion...i proposed "The Hard Worker's Barnstar". The title does significant enough.Bread Ninja (talk) 22:29, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
 * How's that? I've changed the style of the neutral gender option and added a new "f" (female) switch. WIth everybody's agreement, perhaps we can move the page? But this may break links used by other Wikipedia pages --<i style="font-family:Kristen ITC; color:green;">Tyw7</i> (☎ Contact me! • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 22:53, 26 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I apologize if you have already answered this somewhere else, what do you want to happen? Simply a rename of the current template to "The Hard Worker's Barnstar" or do you want more, such as a fundamental change to the template to remove all possibility of using gender in the award? GB fan (talk) 22:56, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

As an effort to pacify this discussion, I have added two more options and moving the "Working Wikipedian's" to the "wiki" option and making the "Hard Worker's" option the default (n). This is done so that all sides are happy. All options are still there (for those who want those) but for Bread Ninja's sake, the "default" option is changed --<i style="font-family:Kristen ITC; color:green;">Tyw7</i> (☎ Contact me! • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 22:59, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

P.S. It's not me who want the changing. It's User:Bread Ninja --<i style="font-family:Kristen ITC; color:green;">Tyw7</i> (☎ Contact me! • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 22:59, 26 April 2011 (UTC) ✅ Moved to requested name... Hopefully no further rebuttals/reprisals by others. Redirect of old name in effect --<i style="font-family:Kristen ITC; color:green;">Tyw7</i>  (☎ Contact me! • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 23:07, 26 April 2011 (UTC)


 * No, i wanted to redirect the entire template into a simpler one. For those who do want it, will have to put it in Manually. I highly doubt this will hurt people. It's still leaning towards man, because the given phrase was originally "working man" and adapted to "working woman". Like i said before with the example of "Man up".Bread Ninja (talk) 23:05, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
 * This is done for legacy purpose to preserve all other older perimeters --<i style="font-family:Kristen ITC; color:green;">Tyw7</i> (☎ Contact me! • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 23:08, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
 * What do you mean Legacy Purposes? We could just add a note saying that it originally had aparameters for a different name.Bread Ninja (talk) 23:14, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
 * See legacy system. This is done so that those still wanting to use the old perimeters could still do so.  Actually this is done to pacify both sides of the arguements, those who want the "gender" and those who doesn't. --<i style="font-family:Kristen ITC; color:green;">Tyw7</i>  (☎ Contact me! • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 23:18, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
 * It's not really a guideline nor a policy nor an essay. I don't know if we should base it on that. But lets say for example, that i would agree with that idea, the title for both male and female have to be equivalent (meaning it would have to make up it's own phrase that didn't originate from a specific gender). The problem i have with the gender the most is that it originated from a phrase used for "man", the phrase adapted to "woman" and "Wikipedia" (which doesn't have the same catch as the male version). Which is why i proposed something more "universal" instead of "optional". That and the barnstar itself really complicates things. More than it should. Compared to the rest, the very Barnstar itself contradicts the others. Unless there were 2 or 3 more that had gender (which i don't see in WP:BARNSTAR)Bread Ninja (talk) 23:41, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

This discussion is going nowhere: the same point has been repeatedly made by several different people, & for some reason Bread Ninja either doesn't understand the point, or doesn't want to understand it. It's clear that the name of this barnstar will not be changed in the near future, & further posts to this thread by anyone will not change that. I propose that we end this discussion, & everyone move on to something else. -- llywrch (talk) 17:38, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
 * The name of the template WAS changed by me and BreadNinja's suggestions were added as the default "option" for neutral genders. But apparently BreadNinja wanted to do away with the gender issue altogether (I kept the old options for legacy purposes and to appease both sides). --<i style="font-family:Kristen ITC; color:green;">Tyw7</i>  (☎ Contact me! • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 22:02, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
 * not really....i just don't agree Llywrch. And we shouldn't make up things such as "Legacy purposes" unless there actually is an essay about it, which i would consider. And idk but "wanting to do away with the gender issue altogether" sounds pretty good. there's no down side but to remove personal preferences to those who want to give the award for some odd reason.Bread Ninja (talk) 22:12, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Just imagine that on Windows that you was used to doing things a particular way. But suppose Microsoft changed the entire interface completly? How would you feel? You would feel lost and fusturated.  That's why, for legacy purposes, certain commands still remains.  For example, run cmd still brings up command prompt (instead of something completely different). That's what "for legacy purpose" means.  It means so that those that is used to the gender options can still access it. If you want, go ahead and change the template to the way you want if only this issue was resolved! --<i style="font-family:Kristen ITC; color:green;">Tyw7</i>  (☎ Contact me! • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 00:04, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

The barnstar was renamed even though there is no consensus on this. This should not have been done. See Wikipedia_talk:Barnstars. — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 11:17, 29 April 2011 (UTC)


 * And now the original name doesn't seem to work - it outputs the redirect statement - and who wants to be a drudge with hard working? Can there be a bit of discussion please before renaming to something like hard working? Dmcq (talk) 11:31, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I renamed the template in an effort to close this age old arguement. If not, we would be going in circles around here.  Trying to break that circle. --<i style="font-family:Kristen ITC; color:green;">Tyw7</i>  (☎ Contact me! • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 12:59, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I guess I've a thing against editors who are extremely hard working but impede accomplisment. I'd prefer it for many accomplishments rather than hard working. The other actual texts output seems okay though to me - the working mans/womans/wikipedians barnstar. Dmcq (talk) 13:53, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
 * @Tyw7: Legacy purposes isn't an issue in here. If things change, then things change. Legacy purposes within computer systems don't even compare to this situation. It's not a policy, a guideline, nor an esssay, so we can't use that reasoning only. If the system offends someone(which i find it very offensive) then it should be replaced with a gender neutral version.


 * @Dmcq:You're missing the point. there are other barnstars, and usually a barnstar is added for certain contributions that the one giving the award appreciates. It's subjective to the giver, not the given.But whatever, if "Worker's Barnstar" is better suited then fine.Bread Ninja (talk) 14:59, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't understand what point you think I was making or missing. By the way I see your two statements here as a bit contradictory. I wouldn't be keen on just being called hard working but you say it is just up to the giver irrespective of the person receiving it and on the other hand you disagree with people giving or receiving one that mentions their sex even when the receiver obviously wants to be identified that way. You never did explain why you put such a marker on your user page if you wish people to not use it. Dmcq (talk) 16:07, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I've said several time the "working wikipedian" and "working woman" doesn't have the same catch as "working man" because the phrase originated off "working man" but adapted to woman and wikipedian just to allow female and neutral to obtain that award (so it's leaning towards males). There's no absolute proof that the receiver wants to be given a gender through a reward (especially since this is the one and only award that gives gender). regardless, that's not a contradiction if you think about per the motives of disliking it. Who would get mad for complimenting them for working hard? highly doubt anyone would get angry, not the best compliment in the word, but its a compliment nonetheless. Who would find the barnstar template itself sexist by using a phrase originally meant for males but adapted for females and neutral? idk the number exactly, but the fact i bring it up says something.


 * I still think you're missing the point though. this is the only barnstar that gives gender, so saying ppl want to an award adressed to their gender aswell is highly unlikely.Bread Ninja (talk) 16:22, 29 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I have avoided this conversation, in the (apparently vain) expectation that changing the default to a gender-neutral name would solve the problem and we could all get back to doing something useful.
 * I am one of the relatively few women on Wikipedia, and I object to the proposed gender erasure.
 * I further believe that "hard worker" does not have the same meaning as "working man". "Working man" connotes an effective, competent, skillful person:  an artisan or master craftsman produces "workmanlike" results.  Saying that someone is a hard worker is a positive compliment, but a compliment for their character qualities rather than for their skills.  One can be a hard worker and be completely unskilled.
 * "Working man" also has class connotations: A working man is a blue-collar worker, not a fancy lawyer or rocket scientist.  I could imagine folks working within the scope of WikiProject Organized Labour using this barnstar for more than its "official" use.
 * IMO the solution is to create a completely separate "hard worker" barnstar for those that choose to use it, and to leave the old one available to those that choose to use it. Surely we could extend the principle of NOTCENSORED, usually trotted out by young, single, white males in defense of pictures of naked women, so far as to say that we are not going to prevent people from acknowledging editors' genders in barnstars.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:01, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
 * You're still missing the point though. the idea is to find a phrase that works with both male, female, and unknown regardless if it is equal to the original. Why bother making one equal to "working man" if the phrase is merely adapted to female and neutral? WP:NOTCENSORED is for articles. The main problem is, that the template was named man, the phrase was taken from man. woman is just an adapted form. Ackowledging gender means nothing though...again missing the point.Bread Ninja (talk) 17:13, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

I have avoided raising the obvious concern here, waiting for somebody else to bring it up, but since they haven't, I will: Why does the star have five points? Who decided on this prime number-centric choice, this pandering to phalages, this warlike reference to the Pentagon? The four-pointed star is, of course, vastly preferable for its numerical neutrality, its alignment to the four main compass points, its correspondence to the dimensions of our space-time continuum. I am outraged that nobody has changed it! - DavidWBrooks (talk) 17:41, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
 * LOL but well said! --<i style="font-family:Kristen ITC; color:green;">Tyw7</i> (☎ Contact me! • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 17:47, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Again missing the point, and might i add that sounded too sarcastic.....sigh...i hate it when things get like this.Bread Ninja (talk) 18:02, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
 * That WAS sarcastic... --<i style="font-family:Kristen ITC; color:green;">Tyw7</i> (☎ Contact me! • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 19:06, 29 April 2011 (UTC)


 * You know, I generally try to maintain my composure on Wikipedia, but honestly, in my opinion, all of this has been highly disruptive. Quite frankly, I think it's a disgrace. On one hand, we have an individual forum shopping, after the community in the Wikiproject rejected the first proposal. Then, when this forum is found, the community is essentially brow beaten with the proposal at every crossroad, disregarding the rejection of the community in the second forum. Then another editor comes along, gets tired of the constant haranguing, and chooses to ignore the community, by arbitrarily changing the barnstar... wholly disregarding the community consensus. And even THAT wasn't enough to appease! Where's the sanctions against this action? All this exercise revealed is that if you yell the loudest and throw the biggest stink, you can get anything you want. On that note, I would like to make a proposal to change the Working Wikipedian's Barnstar to the Working Wikipedian's Barnsquare. Can I get a witness? What do I have to do... er, wait. I know how to make it happen! I just need to follow the fine example above, and the Wikipedia world will be mine! ::evil grin::  Cind. amuse  19:09, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
 * At first, I tried to appease BreadNinja by inserting the "hard working" option into the article but even that did not make him happy! So I went the extra mile in changing the name of the article but that wasn't enough! Also, I kept all the old names so that both could be used. On a second note, how about copying the template to BOTH name? That may stop this discussion once and for all! --<i style="font-family:Kristen ITC; color:green;">Tyw7</i>  (☎ Contact me! • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 19:20, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Asking with sincerity, can you please explain why you believed that it was your option to acquiesce to the demands and change the barnstar in any capacity? It puzzles me that you would disregard the consensus of the community and make the changes. I have no interest in suggesting changes for you to make to appease further. That is, unless you want to acknowledge the hasty nature of your decision; revert your changes to the initial Working Man's Barnstar introduced by Blankfaze on July 6, 2004; then make an official proposal, open to the community at large through an RfC; then possibly create or revise barnstars with the blessing of appropriate community consensus. Anything short of that? I'm really not interested. When all is said and done, I offer my best regards,  Cind. amuse  20:03, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Well anyone is entitled to set up a barnstar and basing it on a previous is perfectly okay so I don't see any problem with having the new one. Removing the old one from WP:BARN and substituting the new one is more problematic - they're arranged in date order for one thing. Dmcq (talk) 20:19, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Sure, anyone can create a barnstar and base it on a previous one. However, it is not okay to replace one with another, like was done with The Working Wikipedian's Barnstar. Heck, when you look, you'll also see that The Working Wikipedian's Barnstar indicates that it was introduced by Blankfaze on July 6, 2004. I really don't think that's appropriate. The Working Man's Barnstar should have been left there, in accordance with community consensus. I have no problem with someone creating an additional template, then adding it to the WP:BARNSTARS page and offering accurate attribution, but what was done was off the mark.  Cind. amuse  20:59, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

I didn't say this the first time around, because I didn't want to keep this thread going ... but since it has continued regardless of my actions, now I will. Anyone else here suspect that Bread Ninja is simply trolling us? If you do, then act accordingly. -- llywrch (talk) 20:33, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
 * No, I don't believe this for a minute. User:Bread Ninja has made thousands of valuable edits to the project. My view is that she has an infectious zeal and fire for what she believes. Generally, zeal of this level is admirable. I don't fault her for that. She simply lacks a comprehensive understanding of the community protocols upon which Wikipedia functions, and chooses to plunge on ahead, with seemingly disregard for the beliefs of others.  Cind. amuse  21:07, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

And C. Northcote Parkinson is proven right yet again... Mr.Z-man 22:03, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I get frustrated with the reasoning against it in the original one was lacking. I brought it here, wasn't exactly expecting a discussion here. But still the point i have been trying to make has been ignored so i'm too tired. I've said all i could say>Bread Ninja (talk) 22:26, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Kronum
Apparently, the article about Kronum has been created only because, when proposed to deletion on the french Wikipedia, someone noticed that this new sport was so few notorious that it didn't even have its own page on the english Wikipedia. At its creation, the english article was tagged "possible autobiography or conflict of interest" but the tag was quickly removed, the same day, by its creator himself, what it's not permitted. So I would like to get opinions on the admissibility of this article. I'm not familiar at all with the structure of the Village Pump, it's the first time that I come here, so I hope I've asked my question in the correct place. Thank you in advance for your opinions. -- Basilus (talk) 12:55, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The tag that was removed was an "unreviewed" tag. These are not really supposed to be removed by the article creator, but it is not a big issue. The "possible autobiography or conflict of interest" is an wp:Edit filter tag, which are logged separately. A quick look at the sources in the article shows this sport has received enough coverage to meet our general notability guideline, so wikipedia should have an article about Kronum. The motives behind the creation of the page play no role on whether it should stay. Yoenit (talk) 14:42, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks a lot for your detailled answer. -- Basilus (talk) 15:22, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Invitation to a Survey for a Study with $50 lottery prize (updated)
Hi Wikipedia colleagues,

The purpose of the research is to understand what motivation factors influence your contribution to Wikipedia. For the reason, we will be asking Wikipedia users, both registered and unregistered to complete this online survey about their contribution to Wikipedia, their perception on motivation factors, and their demographic background. The entire survey consists of four sections and takes approximately 10 minutes to complete.

You will receive an entry in a lottery for a $50 donation prize to the Wikimedia Foundation or a $50 Amazon.com gift card for participating in the study, when the number of valid respondents reaches 200. The odds of winning are approximately 1/50. The lottery winner will be drawn using a random number generator at the end of data collection. We will donate $50 for each lottery winner in his/her user name after notifying you are a winner of the lottery or send you a $50 Amazon.com gift card via your email address.

After collecting and analyzing the data collected, we will provide Wikipedia with a brief report that contains a descriptive summary of the data and the results of testing the hypotheses in our research model. Only aggregated data will be provided; no individual responses will be disclosed at any time. We will not reveal your identity or the content of your response to the public or any other individual. As a result, there are no foreseeable risks associated with this project.

Your opinions are very important to us. Your participation is completely voluntary, and you may withdraw from this project at any time. We ask for your Wikipedia user name (Not Mandatory) only so that we can match your answer with your editing history on Wikipedia and choose the lottery winners. After the data collected from questionnaire responses are matched with your actual user name, your user name will be replaced with a numerical ID. Your responses will not be identifiable in any way when the data analysis begins.

If you are willing to participate, please click on HERE to begin the online questionnaire.

Your assistance in improving our understanding of why people contribute to Wikipedia is most appreciated.

If you have any questions or comments, please contact us on my Wikipedia talk page or at the email address or phone number on the online survey form. If you would like to know the information about me, please visit the online survey page. As you know, I cannot post our real names and email addresses here because of the Wikipedia policies and guidelines. However, you can see our information on the first page of the survey.

Yours truly, cooldenny (talk) 01:36, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
 * You refer to "we" and "us" several times, but don't say to whom those pronouns refer. It is very difficult to evaluate your claim that "there are no foreseeable risks associated with this project" without that information. I know of no Wikipedia policy or guideline that precludes your posting that information, for example I edit under my real name and it has never been suggested that I shouldn't do so. Phil Bridger (talk) 17:57, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your interest. I am not sure that I have wrong information on posting personal information on Wikipedia page. Anyway, you can see the information on on the first page of the survey. cooldenny (talk) 16:02, 3 May 2011 (UTC)


 * How about you offer an entry in a lottery for a $50 credit good at the online bookseller of the winner's choice instead? That would motivate me to participate in a survey on the reasons why I contribute content. -- llywrch (talk) 18:04, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
 * First, I had though about what you suggested. However, I do not know how to do. if you know, please let me know the way. cooldenny (talk) 16:02, 3 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Do you want IP editors to participate or not? You say above that you do, but when I got to the end of page 3, on some questions requesting quite specific details about the participant's editing history, I found the instruction, If you were an unregistered user, please skip these questions. and an error message, Looks like you have a question or two that still needs to be filled out. when I took that instruction at face value. 76.244.155.165 (talk) 02:53, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I am sorry for you inconvenience. I change the direction for IP users. Thanks. cooldenny (talk) 16:02, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Secret archives?
Hi folks!

While preparing hu:user:Bináris/TOCbot (see above) and gathering archive name patterns, I found three secret archives in your wiki: None of them is linked from anywhere in the Wikipedia! Neither the header of Village pump (policy), nor the "older discussions" page, nor anywhere. I don't know if there are such hidden archives of other pages, I just listed the subpages of policy with my bot. You may think to link them somewhere and search for others. They are also valuable because TOCbot won't list archives made by difflinks such as Village pump archive. Sincerely, Bináris (talk) 18:28, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Village pump (policy)/Archive 2004-11-15
 * Village pump (policy)/Archive 2004-11-20
 * Village pump (policy)/Archive 2004-12-11

One more: Village pump (policy)/Archive2 (not to be confused with Archive 2) is not linked from the header either. You have a good many skeletons in the cupboard. :-) Bináris (talk) 18:54, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The first three are copies of the village pump technical archives from those same dates. The originals can be found at the bottom of wp:Village pump archive. Dunno why they were created, they should probably be nominated for deletion. Not sure about the other archive page though. Yoenit (talk) 22:09, 5 May 2011 (UTC)


 * A related point is that the complicated and varied archiving systems sometimes result in some material being omitted altogether. Peter jackson (talk) 09:55, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Archive name patterns wanted, dead or alive
Hi! If anyone knows archive names, either those of community pages or private talk archives that are composed using please let me know, too. I am working on a bot that will create table of contents from archives (see hu:user:Bináris/TOCbot), and I need some examples for testing. Thanks a lot, Bináris (talk) 18:58, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
 * hexadecimal numbers
 * binary numbers
 * Roman numbers
 * any exotic but regular pattern


 * Have you considered the archives listed at Administrators' noticeboard navbox? It's not the pattern that we usually use here.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:56, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, my bot is able to handle all of those patterns, and you will soon be able to browse the contents of them. :-) Bináris (talk) 06:21, 2 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Talk:Metrication opposition seems to have an I, II and III; a Google search for <tt>site:en.wikipedia.org inurl:"archive_ii"</tt> throws up a couple of others. Similarly, Television episodes/Review uses A, B, C, etc. Shimgray | talk | 22:54, 5 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Great, thank you very much! Bináris (talk) 15:21, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

So..
After being inactive from Wikipedia (except for edits to my mainspace and a couple articles every time I used Wikipedia to look something up) for two years while going to college, what have I missed? :) — <font color="DD0000">Moe <font color="0000FF">ε  22:40, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
 * It's a little more bigger than before (over 3.5 million articles, now), a couple of new people banned, a couple unbanned, and a couple of new serial vandals. However, the level of useless drama seems to be about the same. –MuZemike 00:42, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * "the level of useless drama seems to be about the same" - no it isn't! :P Rd232 talk 02:04, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I took one look at WP:AN and WP:AN/I and concluded the same to be honest :p — <font color="DD0000">Moe <font color="0000FF">ε  02:42, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * On the bright side, you can now move files (see policy). John Vandenberg (chat) 12:30, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you, I appreciate it, even though you called me old! :p — <font color="DD0000">Moe  <font color="0000FF">ε  16:34, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

File:Great seal of the state of New Mexico.png
The file, which is used on a very large number of pages , has been deleted on Wikimedia Commons for the following reason: Per. Rather than notify a large number of talk pages I am raising this on WP:AN and WP:VP to obtain the right intervention.
 * What to do
 * Check for the type of usage in articles and templates (usually infoboxes)
 * If the deletion of the image will cause a problem, try to fix it:
 * Using a local redirect
 * By using a different image (i.e. in an infobox)
 * Contact someone at commons to delay deletion or work out a plan to overcome issues with the deletion

This notification is provided by a Bot, currently under trial --CommonsNotification (talk) 15:24, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Please help, edit
Please help, edit this abstract (only 2-3 paragraphs). Aaabbbvvvqqq (talk) 18:53, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Err what? This is the village pump for Wikipedia, not for "Wikilivres". I've never actually even heard of Wikilivres, and per "This site does not belong to the Wikimedia Foundation" on the main page of that site, this seems kinda spammy.  S ven M anguard   Wha?  20:41, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

I only asked for help from Wikipedians. I'm going to use this abstract in writing an article on Wikipedia. Aaabbbvvvqqq (talk) 21:15, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
 * It would probably get more attention then if you created it as a userspace sandbox draft (say at User:Aaabbbvvvqqq/Sandbox,) then asked a few users you know to help you, and then finish by taking it to WP:AFC. That's generally the most recommended path for new articles.  S ven M anguard   Wha?  01:43, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

File:Coat of arms of the Kingdom of Hawaii.svg Deleted
The file, which is used on a very large number of pages , has been deleted on Wikimedia Commons for the following reason: Per. Rather than notify a large number of talk pages I am raising this on WP:AN and WP:VP to obtain the right intervention.
 * What to do
 * Check for the type of usage in articles and templates (usually infoboxes)
 * If the deletion of the image will cause a problem, try to fix it:
 * Using a local redirect
 * By using a different image (i.e. in an infobox)
 * Contact someone at commons to delay deletion or work out a plan to overcome issues with the deletion

This notification is provided by a Bot, currently under trial --CommonsNotification (talk) 22:09, 9 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Do we have a stopgap to redirect this to? There's a good copy of the seal at the gates of 'Iolani Palace apparently, if there are any Hawaiians around that could snap a photo for us. I'll look now for a replacement, although I got nothing on a Google search.  S ven M anguard   Wha?  01:49, 10 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Would File:Coat of arms of Hawaii (1886).png apply? -- Jayron  32  05:33, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
 * It's ugly, but it beats what I've been able to find, which is all fair use. I'll do the redirect now.  S ven M anguard   Wha?  06:43, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Article Proposal
I think there should be an article about Mississippi River floods. The Mississippi River article is quite weak on the subject. Unfortunately, when I tried to find the place to make this suggestion, I couldn't. It would be nice if Wikipedia would automatically ask if someone wants to suggest an article when one cannot find an article on a given topic, as it used to. 05:54, 5 May 2011 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 211.225.34.173 (talk)
 * You could try adding it to Requested articles/Natural sciences or Requested articles/Natural sciences.&mdash;RJH (talk) 20:02, 5 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm surprised that we don't have that article already.BigJim707 (talk) 13:41, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I have made a disambig or list page at Mississippi River floods. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 01:08, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Problem article
I just came across this article while checking out the topic of folklore: Lifter Puller Folklore. It doesn't seem to have anything to do with folklore. I'm fairly new here so I don't want get into the deletion thing myself. Maybe it just needs to be retitled or something. Thanks. BigJim707 (talk) 13:39, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I added project templates to Lifter Puller and Lifter Puller Folklore, and I agree that there are music lyrics, not folklore stories involved, but I am not interested in doing more. Perhaps someone who knows this music can help, with a name change or a merger proposal. --DThomsen8 (talk) 15:14, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I can see that the people involved care a lot about this. I don't plan to do anything since I don't really know anything about the band and I don't want to charge in like a "bull in a china shop." BigJim707 (talk) 17:11, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Why Wikipedia and Arbcom can utterly ruin your life.
Not helping anyone here. Get it gone. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 05:00, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Do a Google Search for my username. It's my real name.

First page that comes up, if you're in the UK, anyway - which I am, is a WikiSynergy page, http://www.wikisynergy.com/wiki/Adam_Cuerden_%28Shoemaker%27s_Holiday%29

It's an attack site. And what does it use to attack me?

Requests_for_arbitration/Matthew_Hoffman - an ArbCom case which the ArbcCom themselves, years later, admitted was false, should never have been taken, and involved Charles Matthews, then an arbitrator, abusing his powers to attack someone who accidentally disrespected him.

The case was about a block that had happened three months earlier which Charles Matthews asked me to undo, giving no reason, while I was about to head into exams. I offered to hand off to ANI. However, Charles Matthews was upset that I didn't just undo a block that I did not remember because it was several months previous, and didn't have toime to investigate as ''I was in the run in to exams. This wasn't good enough for him, so he decided to vindictively go for my head - and this after the user in question had been unblocked.

The blocked user was undeniably a single-purpose account, and an ANI thread had reviewed an accepted the block and presumption of sockpuppetry, and an independent admin had reviewed it, and declined to unblock before Charles came around.

Calling it a "test case", he called, for my head, and before I had evven given my evidence, UninvitedCompany had, at the request ofhis fellow-arbitratr, written a proposed decision calling for me to be desysoped, and many pother things. Because, you know, rushing to judgement before the defendant has had a chance to defend himself clearly shows this isn't a kangaroo court.

Charles MAtthews went mad, attacking many respected admins. Quotes from him:


 * "At best User:Moreschi regards policy as an inconvenience for admins. And User:Jehochman here is a meddling hypocrite, at best. On a later occasion User:Adam Cuerden validated a controversial block of User:Jehochman's."


 * "two admins and a dog" (Attack on Jehochman)


 * "I cannot see how it is acceptable to summarise a user in the block log, which is an indelible record, as a "vandalism-only account", when it is no such thing."

Oh, really, Charles Matthews? And yet, four years later, noone can see that block log, but your attack page is the first ranking in Google. Further, knowing that this was a possibility, I was forced to fight this case through my exams, since I'm the only person of my name in the world. This resulted in me having to drop out of university. Oh, and late in the case, they admitted that no other dispute resolution had occured. So they opened an RfC. The RfC came out strongly against a desysop. UninvitedCompany stated that the community were simply "circl[ing] wagons" and thus could be ignored.

Meanwhile, Arbcom circled wagons around Charles Matthews.


 * Uninvited: "Let's try and leave Charles Matthews out of this"
 * Paul August: "The issue at hand is what to do about Adam, not what to do about Charles... I can't imagine any reasonable editor thinking that Charles needs anything done about him."

Charles Matthews never received any negative consequences from this case, except for losing his next election in a landslide of anger at him. As mentioned before, the next arbcom reviewed, and ddeclared the case was a farce.

The Arbcom has now accepted that the case was a mistake from start to finish. But they refuse to make any meaningful amends. The top-ranked page in my name is an attack page based on their ethical failures. They could issue a statement, attempt to edit the attack wiki, discuss the problem with others, or many other options. They will do none of those.

Wikipedia has ruined my life.

Adam Cuerden (talk) 00:13, 6 May 2011 (UTC)


 * The real lesson here would be WP:REALNAME (i.e., don't use your real name). That, and sometimes you have to put Real Life even over the most dramatic wikidrama. PS As for the "attack page" - I doubt Arbcom can do anything, and if you can't realistically threaten WikiSynergy with a libel action (probably not), then there's probably nothing you can do beyond putting your own version of events out there.Rd232 talk 00:20, 6 May 2011 (UTC)


 * It has crept up the rankings because we have deleted everything else. Adam, you were vanished, and you came back, and then even resumed editing under your own name.  By coming back, you've lost any right to claim Wikipedia has hurt you as you have made a conscious decision to resume editing under your real name. John Vandenberg (chat) 00:21, 6 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Look at what's actually linked, Vandenberg. It's not on Wikipedia, it's an attack site which Arbcom has known about for ages. And that's an incredibly self-serving statement, I might add. "We've hur you, but because you showed up again, we can ignore the permanent harm caused". Adam Cuerden (talk) 00:26, 6 May 2011 (UTC)


 * "it's an attack site which Arbcom has known about for ages" - so? Arbcom has no control over it, and any attempt to even influence it will surely be rejected. Rd232 talk 00:27, 6 May 2011 (UTC)


 * In other words, Arbcom has no responsibility to correct injustices caused. Adam Cuerden (talk) 00:38, 6 May 2011 (UTC)


 * What resolution do you seek? —David Levy 00:43, 6 May 2011 (UTC)


 * "In other words, Arbcom has no responsibility to correct injustices caused" - no, I said quite precisely that it had no power to address your specific concern [or if it wasn't clear, I meant rejected by WikiSynergy]. If you can show that it has any such power, there is something to talk about. Rd232 talk 00:53, 6 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Were the risks of using your real name in this context not obvious to you? If "David Levy" weren't such a common name, I probably wouldn't.  —David Levy 00:43, 6 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I was fairly young, rather naive because of my upbringing, and foolishly trusted Wikipedia and the safeguards put in place such as Arbcom to be a safe place. Adam Cuerden (talk) 00:48, 6 May 2011 (UTC)


 * You describe your behavior as "foolish." I decline to express disagreement.  —David Levy 01:00, 6 May 2011 (UTC)


 * You could claim to be young when you vanished after the ArbCom case, however you unvanished in May 2009 in full knowledge of the fact that Arbcom isnt able to control what is said off Wikipedia. When you unvanished, the wikisynergy page looked like this. John Vandenberg (chat) 01:02, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Quick reality check. This edit of yours - "while I was suffering from severe depression, illness, and on the verge of nervous breakdown from the monetary situation at the time - I was literally faced with being homeless" - suggests there was plenty of other bad stuff going on in your life. Arbcom is not to blame for your exit from university and the ruination of your life. At best it is the author of a wikidrama which should be seen as such. Besides, with the best will in the world, who searches for you (or might at the time have been presumed to have been searching for you) on the internet? What is the connection between a spat on wikipedia findable in google, and the ruination of your life? Have you no sense of perspective? And is not this thread you rekindling the wikidrama. WTF? How on earth do you expect to be taken seriously. As to the so-called attack site, it seems remarkably neutral in tone, and corroborates the claims you make here, that arbcom nullified its own decision. Unwelcome as it may be to have a page about one's self on the internet, exactly how is that website attacking you? --Tagishsimon (talk) 00:52, 6 May 2011 (UTC)


 * You know what? Fuck you all. Adam Cuerden (talk) 01:03, 6 May 2011 (UTC)


 * What an interesting response from someone concerned about online content injuring his reputation. —David Levy 01:07, 6 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I point out that Wikipedia has ruined my life. I got made fun of in exchange. I get told that Wikipedia thinks that it's perfectly fine that everything happened. I didn't even get a modicum of sympathy. So, yeah, fuck you. I give and give to Wikipedia. I get begged to come back, but if I do, the abuse just starts up again, and I feel dirty for having sunk my self esteem yet again because I thought that the goals of the site were worth it. Adam Cuerden (talk) 01:10, 6 May 2011 (UTC)


 * The problem is, your claim is self evidently bogus. That makes it difficult to proceed. We can, and I do, sympathise with your predicament. But your analysis I find deeply flawed and your actions self-injuring. The irony - if there is one, and if I understand correctly - is that the premise of the so-called attack site, is that you're a bad man for demanding that fringe science claims be supported by reliable sources, something which fringe science is not all that happy about. In any rational perspective, that puts you on the side of the angels (if you'll forgive the metaphor) and ought to be seen as a badge of honour. It's a shame you don't see it that way. --Tagishsimon (talk) 01:19, 6 May 2011 (UTC)


 * See also Locus of control. --Tagishsimon (talk) 01:21, 6 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Who's made fun of you? Who's opined that your misfortune is "perfectly fine"?
 * You appear offended by any response other than unconditional agreement that Wikipedia is horrible and single-handedly ruined your life through no fault of your own or any outside entities. —David Levy 01:24, 6 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Seems like displaced anger, when really, as Tagishsimon points out, the "attack page" (it's not that bad) should be a badge of honour. Rd232 talk 01:29, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

My observations of Wikipedia is that it can be stressful, abusive, and grind people up. There is a sort of excuse I call the "one straw argument". Very often, when someone's life goes badly wrong, there is not one sole, single, isolated cause. There are typically multiple aggravating factors. But there's something wrong where for each factor, the cry goes up "I'm just one straw! It was the fault of all those other straws! - and since they obviously caused problems, I can't have caused a problem, so it's not my problem!" -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 02:29, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree that Wikipedia can be all those things and more. I do like your "one straw argument".  In this case, "Wikipedia" (ArbCom) tried to accept it's role and limit the ongoing damage (granting Adam C a "vanishing" and then revising the old ArbCom decision(turning it into more of a contorted mess than it already was)).  No doubt we could have done more to assist, but I get tired of being personally blamed for a decision made by someone else years ago (and at a different stage of Wikipedia/arbitration) and required to go to extraordinary lengths to fix the problem, esp. given that Adam C has resumed using his own name again on Commons and Wikipedia.  Grown ups around here need to accept the consequences of their actions.  Wikimedia needs to be more clear that it wont protect its users. John Vandenberg (chat) 03:07, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Clarification requested - Have you been personally blamed, in the sense of called out by name? Or do you mean that in a looser, more metaphorical sense of the phrase? -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 03:32, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Reality check, part 2.

The initial case, whether Charles was right or wrong, was about misuse of admin tools, and that misuse was well evidenced. If Charles had never existed or had avoided his part, your misuse of admin tools to block content dispute opponents on false grounds and multiple occasions over a period of several months in 2007 was still more than enough for a desysopping case. Your story and claims related to your personal background led to a compassionate offer to consider extenuating circumstances. You were offered your adminship back if you coulkd show stability for a few months. Your story also changed or turned out to include significant contradictory details which didn't impress me very much either (details excluded here because I have no doubt you were genuinely in deep distress and these were partly covered in AC emails as well as in personal correspondence to individual arbs and on-wiki). Nonetheless you were correctly allowed and helped to vanish and multiple apologies for the procedural matters were made to you by various arbs both informally and formally. In 2009 (wrongly as I still believe) the case was fully vacated due to procedural concerns even though in fact its core findings of admin misconduct were not in doubt. You used this, and still use it, as a platform to claim loudly that everything was incorrect - it was not. You then continued to make a loud noise and also resumed editing under your own name.

This is where the sad tale leads. With compassion, you have created most of your own mess here. I wish you had not, but that is what the evidence says. In May 2009, 2 years later and knowing without doubt from the past the possible effect of real name editing, you asked to have your pseudonym account renamed so that you could edit under your real name again, knowing more than most the effect real name editing can have. I stopped keeping an eye on the case around 2009. Now 3.5 years on, here you are ranting again about Charles Matthews and UC, and events from 2007 and making fallacious claims about how others view you.

In sum, you had exceptionally helpful handling, vacating of a case in which you clearly (procedure aside) had done wrong to other users, help vanishing, even an offer of reinstatement as an admin if you could show yourself to be back to stability for a reasonable period of some months. You knew precisely the potential for problems from real-name editing by 2009, having previously vanished. You largely placed the fire under your own cauldron and jumped in. That is why others are linking to terms like locus of control and suggesting displaced anger. You have my sympathy for the outcome, but I cannot let you fully blame others for it in the manner you have done. FT2 (Talk 02:52, 6 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I don't think this is about whether the title should be "Why Wikipedia and Arbcom can be major stressors and when in combination with other stressors, utterly ruin your life". Tip - one gets the moral right to lecture only after one has done something to address the stressor. Otherwise, it's extremely unhelpful hectoring. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 03:11, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Indeed I did something. Several somethings, as the user knows. I reviewed the case de novo, removed grounds that were poorly founded (one proposed issue dated back 8 months and was "out of time"), clarified the evidence on the rest, repolaced a keyt finding he objected to with one more accurate, negotiated recognition of the personal issues and that he could have a relatively easy route back to adminship and the past overlooked, and refrained from jumping on any bandwagon. So by your criterion I have the right to make a comment. But even if I had not done so, there are two other "rights" in the frame. They are the right of others to not have their deeds unfairly described (and the ethics of staying silent when I have good cause to believe claims against others are poorly founded), and the right of the user himself to have straight honest talk and responses from those who knew about the case and to understand where others agree or disagree with his points. FT2 (Talk 03:40, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

I agree that Wikipedia can grind people up, but in this case, that's not what's important. I suppose that I have to applaud ArbCom for not responding to this by listing the laundry list of very bad things Adam has done over his three account history. The first Adam Cuerden is a "Vanished" account, which despite him breaking all the rules of Vanished, I won't give the number of, you can figure that out yourselves. As a vanished user, he has no right to come back as Shoemaker's Holiday, and no right to come back as Adam Cuerden again (mind you, the first and third accounts have the same name, but the edit history is not shared.) By any reasonable standard, Adam Cuerden is not a person to be trusted. I should know, he burned me. He came back a few months ago and started doing wonderful things for Featured Sounds, and I knew he had a history there as Shoemaker's Holiday, (I did not know about the first account), so I ended up trusting him to help steer FS. He used that trust to turn me against Tony1, someone whom I worked well with as a 2010 ArbCom election coordinator, and someone I worked well with at the signpost on a one shot basis. Most of the details of the Tony1/Adam/I affair are sealed under the terms of a mediation agreement agreement, but I'll let you use your imagination as to how Adam shaped the Tony1/Adam/I affair when I tell you that some weeks after the mediation agreement was signed, Adam approached me in the IRC and asked me to help him find a reason to topic ban KleinZach from Featured Sounds. By this time I was realizing a pattern with Adam, he tried to turn me against Tony1, Durova, and then KleinZach. He said Durova used his own work to land a job and then abandoned Wikipedia. He blamed Tony1 and KleinZach for driving everyone out of Featured Sounds back in 2008 and causing it to collapse. '''Adam has a savior complex, he wants to be praised for saving Featured Sounds. Couple that with that he handles any disagreement as an attempt at sabotage, and what you have is a manipulative, demanding, possessive, angry person.''' I left Featured Sounds because he put me in an uncomfortable ethical position. Had I stayed, he would have continued to try and get me to spy/conspire for him. I realized, not quickly enough, that I would have been very unlikely to have locked horns with Tony, at least not at the magnitude which I had, if not for Adam's machinations. I bailed from a corner of the project that I very much enjoyed because Adam made me uncomfortable on a consistent basis. Why am I saying this now? This isn't dancing on graves. '''Adam isn't gone. He's "retired" from Wikipedia at least five times, as the Adam Cuerden that vanished, as Shoemaker's Holiday, several months ago as this Adam Cuerden (he got blocked after getting into a brawl with me and said he was done forever), several weeks ago (he said he was leaving for months and came back in days, and this retirement now. That's only the ones I know about. He isn't gone, he will be back, maybe under this name, maybe another one. I will never trust Adam again, but that dosen't mean that he won't be looking for new people to manipulate. ArbCom dropped the ball, Adam violated the terms of his vanishing, he's used multiple accounts abusively, and he's still around. It's time we clean up this mess and ban Adam Cuerden once and for all, we should enforce this latest sham retirement for him.  S ven M anguard   Wha?'''  03:23, 6 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I have read what you have written. I would like to stay focused on what has been requested vis-a-vis what can be done. Seth Finkelstein (talk) 03:34, 6 May 2011 (UTC)


 * This seems like really unpleasant scab-picking and gnawing the bones of old wounds, from both sides. Without any comment on who's right and who's wrong (and honestly, I really don't give a flying fuck; I remember this mess when it first started and it was, to put it mildly, a clusterfuck of epic proportions), can we just archive this and move on? Whether or not there were problems in how it was handled, Adam is doing himself no favours here, and this is just going to devolve into s/he said-s/he said drama. In the interests of both reducing drama and showing compassion for Adam (and his Google results--blah blah, noindex, yeah sure that always works), anyone object to closing this? → ROUX   ₪  03:39, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Endorse and courtesy blank thread Nothing served, bad judgment to have opened an epic "why I am pissed" that can only end up biting the author himself. FT2 (Talk 03:46, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Agreed. This user seemingly needs protecting from himself. The only question is whether (per Sven Manguard's comments) others also need protecting from him. Rd232 talk 03:55, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
 * To the comment on others needing protection from Adam, I would say so, but I have a stake in the matter. As to the issue of blanking, I suppose there's really nothing for me one way or the other. He's going to be back, and when he comes back, he might want to respond. For all he is, Adam is clever, what he does in public is rarely blockable, what he does in private is rarely verifiable. Unless ArbCom blocks him for breaking the vanished policy or breaking any other promises he made with them, I'm neutral on the blanking issue. If ArbCom does indefinitely block or ban Adam, then yes, I'd say blank this, as he would no longer be around to defend himself.  S ven M anguard   Wha?  04:18, 6 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Adam, have you tried to contact the folks at Wikisynergy? Or are you asking our volunteers to do something that you won't do yourself?  I don't know anything about the other site, but if it's like us, then we sit up and take notice when the affected person contacts us himself (e.g., through OTRS), not when some third-party contacts us with some story about how the other guy is upset with them.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:21, 6 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I removed a second posting here, on account of the fact that I really have far better things to do with my time than continue with this. The fact of the matter is this. I believe I am right. Adam believes he is right. The two of us do not have an agreed upon set of facts to use as a starting point for any sort of dispute resolution, so there really isn't anywhere this can go. I'm sure there's other drama elsewhere for people to go watch, if they are so inclined. As far as I am concerned however, this incident is thoroughly tapped out.  S ven M anguard   Wha?  01:57, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

A statement by John Vandenberg was going to go up today, politely dealing with Sven's statements in the collapsed section above, as part of an attempt to peacefully resolve Sven having violated the terms of a mediation agreement we were party to, and which Sven's statements had violated the terms of. Last night, Sven used the private communications of the attempt at mediation as the basis for a further attack:.
 * Sven is now in violation of a Mediation agreement

In this attack, Sven has gone so far as claiming that me privately providing evidence from our chatlog to the person negotiating peace between us is a sign of malice. Before I did so, however, I sent Sven full copies of the logs I have, which I cannot post in full to John or anyone else, as they contain private information about User:La Pianista, and the first section of the log is him telling me, when we had only recently met, the full details of the secret project of Tony's which later became the focus of the dispute. He then restates previous attacks.

I only have an older draft of the statement John was going to make today, as John was going to make some final changes after running it by Sven. I'll going to go ahead and post the first draft here. Among other things, he had agreed to fix the sentence beginning "It is possible that...", because the point of that sentence was that there was no reports of any problems, but the phrasing is the sort of thing used in newspaper reports when they want to imply something without being libellous. It was very early in the morning for him. We were also going to add in a very brief mention that he had seen evidence that Sven was wrong about his claims of me turning him against Tony1, etc, but I didn't want to go into too much detail, or ask him to judge the merits of that, as, whatever past disputes I had with them, they are past. I was in the process of leaving Wikipedia; I was hoping to have got by with John handling this himself.

- [redacted; see history]

As stated before, John, Sven, User:Tony1, and I were under a mediation agreement, which required Sven to have used dispute resolution, not vicious attacks. The agreement states it must be quoted in full if violated and negotiations broke down, and so is quoted below

- [redacted; see history]

Quite simply, Sven is a fantasist. He rewrites the past to suit him, and, when presented with evidence from chat logs - the second section of the chat log I have is him saying that because Tony1 was being too mean to certain users in his featured sound reviews that he hated him; this was long before I mentioned some other past issues.

I just don't want to go into details on Sven's claims, because the other users don't deserve it. Suffice to say, of the claims directly involving me, John Vandenberg has shown me innocent; the rest of Sven's testimony is no more accurate.

I would ask that Sven be censured for his behaviour.

Goodbye.

86.176.75.157 (talk) 10:18, 10 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Sheesh. If I was worried about employers seeing something I'd done on the internet this is certainly not how I would go about fixing the problem. For something this old I'd simply just never refer to it and try and do something more saleable to an employer instead that would show up higher on google. HR says 'this guy has been in a spat on the internet for yonks about something I don't understand' ... next CV. Dmcq (talk) 11:50, 10 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I've reverted Sven's redaction of the agreement to avoid any controversy. If someone wants to re-redact it from the live thread, I have no objections.  To head off any controversy, the oversights in history are not related to the content of the agreement being posted, but rather a contributor who was accidentally logged out of his account, and in doing so, publicly revealed his IP.  The oversights carried out here were only to remove that information, something that is fully in line with the suppression policy. Courcelles 22:25, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I re-redacted them. Sure, I'm involved, but Adam was using private communications in an effort to attack me. Considering that Wikipedia looks poorly upon the posting of off-wiki communications in such a manner, and considering that contrary to Adam's posting, the mediation is still in force, these needed to be removed. I also moved the collapse box down. This is nothing but drama at this point.  S ven M anguard   Wha?  04:04, 11 May 2011 (UTC)
 * On May 10 I told both you and Adam that "I give up" - 48 hrs had elapsed long before then, but that was when it was clear that private attempts to resolve this had failed. As a last ditch attempt to allow everyone to move on, here is Adam's removed post.  I'm not joyous about the mediation agreement and my draft post being published, but I don't believe Adam did anything wrong by posting them. John Vandenberg (chat) 00:03, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Due to Sven's behaviour, I have been advised I will need to submit a report to move forwards; this is at Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents. I really don't want to be here anymore, but this will not die... Adam Cuerden (talk) 02:44, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Do editors have the authority to ban notification templates from their talk page?
I noticed a less than civil response from an editor regarding the usage of templates on their talk page. It is my understanding that Templates are authorized by the community as a standardized neutral way to notify a user of information. As part of their page's Edit notice they ban people from using templates on their talk page. If someone uses one of the community standardized tools (Like Twinkle, Huggle, or other tools) or follow the required community procedures they are likeley to get a abusive message back threatening the template placer. What does the VP(m) community think? Hasteur (talk) 15:21, 11 May 2011 (UTC)
 * It's not so much that they are (or can be) banned, but it's been strongly suggested that you do not template the regulars. ··· 日本穣 ? · 投稿  · Talk to Nihonjoe ·  Join WikiProject Japan ! 16:14, 11 May 2011 (UTC)
 * So if I discuss the editor at AN or ANI, I am required to template the user. Yet the user has banned the use of templates on their page.  See the conundrum? Hasteur (talk) 16:30, 11 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The editor can not ban their use, they can discourage their use and can remove them, but there is nothing stopping you from using them. You on the other hand don't need to use a template to notify the user of the AN/ANI discussion, you can leave a personal note on their talk page.  GB fan (talk) 16:34, 11 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I have never agreed with WP:TEMPLAR and I'm not the only one. It's not a policy, never has been, and probably never will be. The reason people don't like it is because it makes them feel less like they are part of the club of "established editors" who can sometimes get a free pass to do things we would block a newbie for. Sorry for your hurt feelings, don't do things you should already know not to do and you won't get templated like some newbie. Beeblebrox (talk) 16:59, 11 May 2011 (UTC)
 * An abusive reply to a template can be actionable, no matter what notices the editor put up. One conclusion that I've come to over the years is that a sure sign of a problem editor is that he feels he has the right to ban people or templates from his talk page. No editor actually has either right.&mdash;Kww(talk) 17:16, 11 May 2011 (UTC)
 * It is inappropriate and appears to show a refusal to work cooperatively to ban template warnings from a user's talkpage. If someone has made a number of good-faith, useful edits to Wikipedia, then it is more appropriate to post a personal note on his page, informing his that his remarks were inappropriate somehowand asking him to remove or change them, for instance. I have done this, and still gotten angry replies on a number of occasions, from editors who feel they can do no wrong, or who are strongly committed to some school of thought (deletionism or inclusionism, for instance). It is still worth a try. When it comes to vandals using an IP address or a throwaway account created only to see how many vandal edits they can make before getting blocked, it is counter productive to spend a lot of time writing carefully constructed pleas for them to stop the vandalism, since 10 times as much effort would go into writing the notice than goes into the vandalism. Additionally, there are dozens of vandals for each volunteer who works to keep the encyclopedia encyclopedic, and the quality of the encyclopedia would quickly drop into a collection of vandalized vanispamcruftisements indistinguishable from Uncyclopedia. A heartfelt plea carefully explaining to the vandal why it would be better to edit productively would be exactly the reward of attention he may be seeking. A warning posted using Twinkle is exactly appropriate for a clearly bad-faith new account, which may be one of many accounts the vandal has used. I could see devoting greater time to someone who naively wants to post his own, his company's, or his rock band's story, or who does not understand the requirements for verification and reliable sources, or for notability, but again the ratio of potential spammers to volunteers might make this a losing campaign to keep articles consistent with Wikipedia policies and guidelines. I personally am not fond of some  user posting inappropriate warning templates on my own talk page, when some action of mine got in the way of his goals, but I typically just reply both on my page and on his talk page if the template warning is not well grounded. If the template is well-grounded, I would just apologize and refrain from repeating the inappropriate action. Any user is free to archive or delete a templated warning from his talk page; that just allows others to assume he has read it. I object to anyone deleting a warning with an edit comment intended to mislead others (like "Clearing page of settled matters" or worse "Revert vandalism"). Even so, the talk page history should show what warnings had been posted, so the deceit does not remove the track record. It is better to archive warnings than to delete them. Nothing good comes from templating long-term editors; they are very unlikely to agree with the complaint and amend their ways. A friendly note is far more likely to get someone to remove some inappropriate posting, or to get them to engage in discussion on the talk page of an article rather than continuing a revert war. At best a template is a tool to establish a history of disregarded warnings to support some escalated process leading to blocking or a topic ban, all of which could also be done buy a non-template communication with a clear edit summary to allow finding the relevant communications later if needed. For a new problem editor, a series of escalating level templates establishes the groundwork for requesting a block at Administrator intervention against vandalism for those doing vandalism patrol who are not administrators. A clear "Final warning" before the last act of vandalism is influential there. Edison (talk) 17:47, 11 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Thank you, I'm inquiring to make sure I'm not off the deep end of the opinion pool. I had half a mind to file an RFC/U on the abusive "No-Templates" editor, but as it's only been 2 occurances that I've seen, it hasn't transitioned into a repeated cycle of abuse.  I'll use this thread as an example of the community's general sense if/when I file the RFC/U. Hasteur (talk) 17:58, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

See Perennial proposals. It is a legitimate option that a user may reject automated messages, and delete them from his talk page on sight. It is not forbidden to send them automated messages anyway, but it's a thing of common courtesy to avoid doing that. In any case, if you are required to warn a user that (for example) you are talking about him at a noticeboard, and the user deletes the message and refuses to comment in the noticeboard, there is no problem: it's all in the talk page history, that you wrote to him and that he read it (the removal implies that the user had read the comment). Similarily, if a user is escalating warning templates on some issue, three removed warnings are the same than three warnings still in place, to consider if the user has been "warned enough". Warning templates are not meant to work as a "badge of shame", but neither their removal stops the process they warn about Cambalachero (talk) 21:34, 11 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Sometimes, in fact, they are badges of honor. Most people who work on recent changes  have received a warning against edit-warring from a spammer, vandal, or other undesirable user.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:44, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Rate this page?
At Darul Uloom New York there is a box on the bottom with the title "Rate this page" that does not show when I edit the page. I also can't find a place in the pages history when the box was placed. What's going on? Guy Macon (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 10:13, 12 May 2011 (UTC).


 * Never mind. Found it at http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Article_feedback Guy Macon (talk) 10:18, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Can I interview you about Articles for deletion?
I am a Ph.D. researcher at the Digital Enterprise Research Institute in Galway, Ireland. My Ph.D. topic is online discussions, specifically the reasoning and arguments people use. I am currently studying WP:AfD, to understand how article deletion decisions are made.

I am working on a prototype argument assistant to help newcomers understand what kinds of arguments make sense, much in the way that the Article Wizard provides guidance for creating an article. From reading discussions, I am learning what kinds of arguments people use in AfD, especially to see what comments advance the discussion. Next I need to get some perspectives from editors!

I'm looking for Wikipedians to interview about the deletion process. I envision a 30 minute skype or phone conversation. I'm interested in learning about what works well in AfD discussions, any frustrations you have with it, and why you generally do or don't !vote in AfD.

I hope to talk with Wikipedians with a wide variety of experience editing (from newcomers to EN-WP, to regular EN-WP editors, to admins, especially admins who close discussions), with people who spend little time commenting in deletion discussions, as well as those who do.

Would you be willing to talk with me? Let me know the best times for you; you can reach me via wiki email, leave public comments on my Talk page or find more contact info on my webpage. Jodi.a.schneider (talk) 14:02, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Question
Is there any list of all users & IP's that were blocked? Just curious... Darkjedi10 (talk) 12:52, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Special:Ipblocklist. <font color="#00ACF4">╟─TreasuryTag► stannary parliament ─╢ 12:58, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion#Request for Discussion concerning the future of AfD
I would appreciate your thoughts. - jc37 23:20, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_deletion

Great American Wiknic CentralNotice for US editors
I'd like to propose a geo-targeted CentralNotice for the Great American Wiknic in June. See also here.--Pharos (talk) 21:16, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Bot to add help on referencing to unref'd Articles For Creation
I've been adding help on referencing when people submit unref'd AFC's, and it does seem to help (in some cases), and do no harm in others. It doesn't affect the remaining process of AFC, but the timely info helps.

Now seeking this to be automated, and was thus advised to mention it here. See Bots/Requests for approval/ChzzBot IV.  Chzz  ► 17:26, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Geographic.org
Everyone is invited to participate in Articles for deletion/Geographic.org, a discussion about over 2,500 articles. Due to the unusual character and the potential impact of the discussion, I believe that more participation than usual would be beneficial to get a true sense of the community's opinion on this. Fram (talk) 08:24, 11 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Noting: AfD "Result was Procedural close, as there are now no articles in the named category".  Chzz  ►  02:36, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

NYT archives
Is anyone else having trouble with these? I haven't been able to open a .pdf archive file from the New York Times for two days now. Gatoclass (talk) 22:11, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
 * May be related to their new paywall, which limits non-subscribers to 20 articles a month. But their archives have always been separate, so I don't know if there would be an effect. oknazevad (talk) 00:43, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Pic compressed horizontally
Looking at the history of File:Shwedagon-Pano.jpg, it looks like after having uploaded the file in 2006, the original poster compressed the file a little bit vertically and quite a bit more horizontally, so the pagoda's dimensions are definitely different. Unless there is some reason the original upload might have been stretched horizontally. The image appears to be in use in a lot of Wikipedia language versions (even though it appears to be hosted on en) and I doubt a message left on the user's Discussion page on the Commons will be read. How should I proceed? I didn't want to just revert the image. Comet Tuttle (talk) 00:08, 17 May 2011 (UTC)


 * The uploader's Global Contribs shows that  were active on German Wikipedia  within the past month.  have email enabled, so I'd try that: .  Chzz  ►  00:42, 17 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes that's strange, the original picture does looks to me more like the actual site so the edit had no point that I can see. Dmcq (talk) 09:16, 17 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks Chzz &mdash; I've left him or her a message on their de talk page. Cheers - Comet Tuttle (talk) 21:56, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Data storage size (English Pages).
Hello, I was curious about the data size (Terabytes) of the 3,636,000 or so English articles stored amongst the Wikipedia servers. What storage space would be required to hold a single copy of them all? Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Winallmoney (talk • contribs) 05:06, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The current revisions at any given second of all represents about 14 gigabytes of text, see Size in volumes for an analysis.  The actual space needed to save Wikipedia is MUCH MUCH larger, likely in the terrabytes, because ALL revisions (even those that have been deleted) to ALL articles, and ALL non-article space is also saved on the servers.  But if you were to take a "snapshot" of Wikipedia and take just the article space, it would take up about 14 gigabytes.  This is still pretty damn big; in terms of printed volumes it would take 1534 Brittanica-sized books to hold it all.  -- Jayron  32  06:11, 17 May 2011 (UTC)


 * If one applied compression to the data my guess is you could squeeze it by a factor of twenty. On the other hand if you are interested in information rather than data you'd have to subtract the disinformation from the information so reading it all including the deleted revisions would suck any useful information out of you and leave you a gibbering idiot. ;-) Dmcq (talk) 08:35, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Just had a look and the best compressors do a factor of six compression on the data from Wikipedia. I don't know what happens about all the pictures in Wikipedia because they would be very difficult to compress. Dmcq (talk) 09:10, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I'll bet if you could just compress the signal and eliminate the noise, your compression ratio would be much, much higher. Maybe 1,534 to 1 or better. ;-) RJH (talk) 14:46, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
 * See Database download for detailed information on the above. The complete database for en.wikipedia is over five terabytes. <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, Book Antiqua, Palatino, serif;" color="#BBAED0">Feezo <font size="-2">(send a signal | watch the sky) 09:32, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I guess I can buy 3 (2 TB) external hard drives and store all of wikipedia on it Hijotee (talk) 20:07, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Maria Gomes Valentim
An un-registered Wikipedian keeps saying Maria Gomes Valentim is older than Besse Cooper. Some registered Wikipedian please study the edits of this user to help see if this is right, and give MGV an article. Georgia guy (talk) 14:35, 18 May 2011 (UTC)
 * This user is User:115.193.13.151. Georgia guy (talk) 14:41, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

E-mails from Wikimedia

 * ''See also Village_pump_%28technical%29

Hi there, for some reason, completely out of the blue, I have started receiving emails from  everytime somebody posts on my talkpage. Not only is this annoying, but I haven't changed any setting to allow this....anybody know how I can stop it? Thanks, GiantSnowman 14:07, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The default setting must have been changed. Go to <tt>My preferences » User profile</tt> and deselect <tt>E-mail me when my user talk page is changed</tt> near the bottom of the page. – Allen4names 14:40, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
 * That's great, thank you very much! GiantSnowman 15:13, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Allen is correct. This is because 5220 has been fixed at last (see foundation-l). Nemo 08:32, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

NB: there is now Help:Email notification as a place for info about this. Rd232 talk 00:21, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

RefDesk request
CAN ANY ONE HELP WITH THIS REQUEST. IF ANYONE KNOWS THEN PLEASE LET ME KNOW —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.142.87.110 (talk) 10:48, 22 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Try asking the question at this desk. Please try to release your caps lock when you do as "all capitals" looks like shouting when written down. Britmax (talk) 11:13, 22 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I've retitled the section. That was just too ugly an ALL CAPS HEADER. Rd232 talk 00:23, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

italkbb
why is there no article on this telephone company, it's infamous in the chinese community. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.99.131.84 (talk) 01:19, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Because none of the volunteer editors have taken the time to write the article. GB fan (talk) 01:23, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually, articles at italkbb and iTalkBB have been deleted and protected against recreation. See Articles for deletion/iTalkBB. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:27, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * So, an article related to what's possibly a moderately large Chinese company has been salted because 4-5 users have decided that it's "not notable"? What kind of sense does that make? ...off to User talk:Melchoir I go. *sigh* — <span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace ;font-style:italic">V = IR (Talk&thinsp;&bull;&thinsp;Contribs) 01:35, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Sorted. Thanks Melchoir. — <span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace ;font-style:italic">V = IR (Talk&thinsp;&bull;&thinsp;Contribs) 02:09, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Is this considered vandalism?
Someone is undoing my edits just so they can do the same thing i am.Bread Ninja (talk) 18:47, 18 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Could you direct us to some diffs that show us that this is happening? -- Jayron  32  20:08, 18 May 2011 (UTC)
 * This could be the most interesting wiki troll/vandal I've ever heard of. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 20:35, 18 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Interesting or not, he's also a sock puppet. –MuZemike 23:40, 18 May 2011 (UTC)
 * well if it happens againor see any more signs or sockpuppetry, I'll report it immediately.Bread Ninja (talk) 00:23, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Can't you just look in your edit history, or his? - TrendyLegs  ( talk ) 16:59, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Sometimes I've seen an editor undo an edit, then think better of it and restore the previous edit. (Heck, I've done it myself on occasion.) I take it this isn't the same thing?&mdash;RJH (talk) 19:01, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * @trendylegs: i did, the eprson does the exact same thing.
 * @RJHall. no this person deliberately admitted it.Bread Ninja (talk) 19:05, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I would consider it a civility problem like stalking and should be reported to AN/I if it is causing problems see WP:HOUND Dmcq (talk) 19:14, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah, that seems like it would fall under WP:HOUND. Hall of Jade (<font face="MS Mincho" color="black">お話しになります ) 21:52, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Can you participate in a survey to help us improve the RfA process?
The Communicative Practices in Virtual Workspaces research group in Human Centered Design and Engineering department at the University of Washington (http://courses.washington.edu/commprac/) is inviting editors like yourself to participate in an online survey that allows us to find connections among users in Wikipedia. We are particularly interested in the Wikipedia Request for Adminship (RfA) process. The survey will allow us to better understand the RfA process and to research tools that could make the process easier for members of the Wikipedia community. The survey will only take about 15 minutes to complete and no personally identifiable information will be linked to your survey responses. We want to research how the community is managed and how it makes decisions, specifically the process in which a person is decided by the community to be promoted to administrator status in Wikipedia. Questions in the survey will ask you how you evaluate an RfA candidate, what characterisics are most valuable when evaluating the candidate, and what information you use to evaluate the candidate.

The link to my user page is []. Here is the link to the survey: https://catalyst.uw.edu/webq/survey/commprac/135246

Thank you and please share this opportunity to help our research group with other Wikipedia users you know. --Avdelamerced (talk) 20:20, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

(Note: The 18 and over confirmation is standard practices in research. It was required to include this in our survey.) --Avdelamerced (talk) 05:40, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you to those who have participated in this survey. Your data will be put into good use as we progress further in our research group. We will be closing this survey on June 24th, which is next week. If you have not completed the survey, here is your chance to participate and we would still greatly appreciate your contributions. Thank you again!

Feature all Vital Articles Project!
Hey, I've just started a project to try to get featured the vast and daunting topics listed at WP:VITAL. Please join up, people, as this highly worthwhile effort can not be done without lots of participation. Just head on over to WP:FAVA and take a look. Cheers, ☻☻☻Sithman VIII !!☻☻☻ 10:14, 18 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Why is this a separate project rather than a part of WikiProject Vital Articles? Yoenit (talk) 10:43, 18 May 2011 (UTC)
 * It isn't really so much a wikiproject as a page for organizing systematic collaboration on individual Vital Articles. ☻☻☻Sithman VIII !!☻☻☻ 13:14, 18 May 2011 (UTC)
 * But that's precisely the purpose of a wikiproject. Cambalachero (talk) 13:54, 18 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Vital articles tend to be among the more difficult pages to bring up to FA. Because they are well known topics, they tend to have had a lot of unsourced contributions, making it laborious to get them properly cited. It requires considerable work to get them cleaned up, properly organized, edited and trimmed of superfluous material. Vital articles also tend to be more contentious pages because many hands are in the pie, resulting in a greater likelihood of tiresome, demoralizing disputes. This is tedious, unappealing stuff. From personal experience, you can more readily build a FA page on an obscure topic where there is one primary editor and a handful of checkers. This is probably why so many front page articles are on little-known topics. Shrug. :-) Regards, RJH (talk) 15:06, 18 May 2011 (UTC)
 * All of this is true, but it is now clear that our articles on major topics are often badly letting the project down. I gave some thoughts on this & related topics to the UK chapter last month. Johnbod (talk) 15:15, 18 May 2011 (UTC)
 * A pair of basic problems. First, other projects work around a certain topic, and their users are likely to have some level of knowledge of all the articles within that topic. The "Vital articles", however, are distributed across all topics. Most users may provide valuable info on certain vital articles, but have average or below-average knowledge of others. It will be hard to make an organized work on them.
 * And second, the problem of general topics is precisely that they are too general. Knowing the history of a country is one thing, knowing human history in general is another. Knowing about many bands of a certain genre is one thing, knowing about music as a whole is another. Cambalachero (talk) 15:50, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Comment: this is clearly a worthwhile endeavour (though I'd start with the lower aim of getting them all to WP:GA status), but as pointed out, very difficult. Anyone willing to try deserves encouragement, and I'll add the suggestion that attempting to get different wikiprojects on board to actively collaborate would probably be helpful. Rd232 talk 19:04, 18 May 2011 (UTC)
 * PS It's worth pointing out though that this endeavour would be better off as a part of WikiProject Vital Articles - possibly as a taskforce, if you want space to organise it. Rd232 talk 03:46, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Rd232 raises a good point; to improve quality it would be really helpful to get relevant wikiprojects involved (if an article is "vital" to wikipedia it must surely be of great importance to a related wikiproject). I would point out, though, that there may still be some CSB issues with the list of "vital" articles. Why does it have, say, Submarine but not Green Revolution? bobrayner (talk) 13:43, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree that publicising this effort to interested WikiProjects is a fantastic idea, but I'd like to keep it in the primary Wikipedia namespace (Wikipedia:). The reason for this is that I think that it is of large public interest.  Wikipedia simply cannot be taken seriously as an encyclopedia if its most basic, essential articles are not of professional quality.  I consider Wikipedia one of the most monumental scholarly accomplishments of mankind, but its essence, these vital articles, must be maintained and elevated.  I, for one, was surprised when I discovered the Vital Articles that not even the top ten had all been featured.  How could this be?  They are the oldest, most important articles.  They deserve better than what they are.

tl;dr version: plz keep WP:FAVA in Wikipedia:     ☻☻☻Sithman  VIII !!☻☻☻ 02:27, 21 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Sigh. Nobody disagrees with your objective, and your "how could this be?" question has already been answered (they're the hardest articles to do well enough to qualify). Rejecting the existing collaboration mechanism (wikiproject) for no good reason is shooting yourself in the foot. The task is quite hard enough as it is. Enthusiasm is all very well when you're working by yourself, but when you're trying to organise collaboration, you need to stick with conventions and "what people are used to" or give a damn good reason why you're not. Rd232 talk 03:56, 21 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I don't understand the request. All WikiProjects are kept in the Wikipedia namespace.  FAVA is a WikiProject, even if that's not apparent from the name.  There are several WikiProjects that have non-standard names, like the New page patrollers and WP:Tambayan Philippines.   WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:13, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

CPJ Template
I've been trying to create templates for a few human rights/freedom of expression awards today, including Template:Footer Gwangju Prize for Human Rights laureates and Template:Footer Homo Homini Award laureates, which went well, and Template:Footer CPJ International Press Freedom Award laureates, which is going very badly due to the number of past winners (4-6 a year for twenty years). Would anyone with more experience in templates be willing to take a look at the latter and let me know if they have a formatting suggestion that would make this template more attractive and/or helpful? Or should I just give this one up as a lost cause? Thanks, Khazar (talk) 07:18, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Tried it with two column table format. That look any better? — Bility (talk) 20:07, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Brilliant--thanks much for the assist. Khazar (talk) 20:09, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

request an admin unban me
Will someone unban me please? (User TCO). 71.246.153.105 (talk) 21:52, 24 May 2011 (UTC)


 * My ban is almost complete...71.246.153.105 (talk) 21:52, 24 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Huh? TCO isn't blocked. -- Doctorx0079 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 21:58, 24 May 2011 (UTC).
 * If you wish to be unblocked, you must login and use the unblock template on your userpage. Or you may email unblock-l@lists.wikimedia.org. Editing while logged out when your account is under a block is known as block evasion and is likely to result in your block being made longer, not shorter. → ROUX   ₪  22:01, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Roux, I suggest you check the blocklog before comments like these. This block was selfrequested, so block evasion is really not an issue. Yoenit (talk) 22:07, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Office hours with WMF Executive Director Sue Gardner this week
Per past suggestions on Meta about wider announcements for IRC office hours, I just wanted to post a quick note that there will be one with Sue Gardner this week on Thursday the 26th at 17:00 UTC. Instructions and local time conversions are on the office hours Meta page I just linked to. If you have suggestions for how to improve awareness about these meetings, please let me know. Also feel free to translate this message to other Village Pumps as you like. :) Thanks, Steven Walling at work 20:44, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Log posted. Thanks to everyone who attended! Steven Walling at work  19:15, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Can we get an unbiased editor
Custodial elements affiliated with Church_of_the_SubGenius are busy trying to keep a valid mention of a SubGenius affiliated criminal from their webpage due to the nature of his crimes. A couple of unbiased arbiters would be in order. 71.102.18.173 (talk) 19:49, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The bestplace to ask is at Third opinion. -- Donald Albury 20:29, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * No time. After making a snap judgement without doing research on the matter. editor roux is preparing to ban me. Ask for an editor, get a turkey looking for a pissing contest who took less than 10 minutes to research dozens of newsgroup posts that had been verified by a third party source as being by the criminal in question. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.102.18.173 (talk) 05:06, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually no, I'm going to have you blocked for repeated personal attacks. Do try and be honest. → ROUX   ₪  05:16, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
 * You are the one who made a snap judgement without researching the provided third party source that verified the source material presented as valid. Face it, you need to lay off the Starbucks. Whether I'm blocked or not, you still did shoddy research and now you have your ass in a roar. Poor show. -1 Barnstar. 71.102.18.173 (talk) 05:29, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Mathematics articles with no "comments" subpage
I am getting no response here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2011_May_17#Category:Mathematics_articles_with_no_comments


 * Am I making the request in the wrong place, and if so, where is the right place? Guy Macon (talk) 06:46, 26 May 2011 (UTC)


 * (Sound of Crickets...) Guy Macon (talk) 17:01, 26 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Found the solution. Speedy deletion G8 worked. Guy Macon (talk) 00:34, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

File:Deoband.jpg
The file, which is used on a very large number of pages , has been marked for nominated deletion on Wikimedia Commons for the following reason: Deletion requests May 2011. Rather than notify a large number of talk pages I am raising this on WP:AN and WP:VP to obtain the right intervention. A discussion about whether to delete the file will now take place on Commons. If you feel the deletion can be contested then please do so (commons:COM:SPEEDY has further information). Otherwise:
 * What to do
 * Check for the type of usage in articles and templates (usually infoboxes)
 * If the deletion of the image will cause a problem, prepare to fix it:
 * Using a local redirect
 * By using a different image (i.e. in an infobox)
 * Contact someone at commons to delay deletion or work out a plan to overcome issues with the deletion

This notification is provided by a Bot, currently under trial --CommonsNotificationBot (talk) 15:13, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
 * n.b. The large number of uses seems to be because of its use in Template:Deobandi. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 15:52, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

African word?
I may be seen to be nitpicking here, but upon reading the article on the animal Potto just now, I reacted when the author asserted that: ""Potto" possibly comes from the African word "pata"". To my little mind, The idea of an 'African language' makes about as much sense as the idea of an 'European language'. Instead, I would think there are hundreds of languages spoken on the continent of Africa, just as there are many languages within the continent of Europe. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potto Deemdanna — Preceding unsigned comment added by Deemdanna (talk • contribs) 17:03, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
 * That sounds right to me. We would not use "Asian" or "European" for a word (although we would use "Indo-European"). It sounds like sloppy writing to me. If it's referenced you could check the ref and find the actual language family or at least a more specific location to stand in for it ("West African word" would, in my opinion, be an acceptable although not ideal shorthand for "Word found in several of the various language families extant in West Africa"). If there's no ref then the passage should be deleted, and if the ref just says "African" I doubt that it's of a level of scholarship to be acceptable and the passage should arguably be deleted.


 * But all this should be handled on the article's talk page. You should post there instead of here. Herostratus (talk) 01:03, 27 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Oxford had suspicions about the origin of this word, back in 1905: Rmhermen (talk) 04:34, 27 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Well in that case and since it is unsourced I removed it. Deemdanna, you could have WP:BOLDly done this yourself, with perhaps a note on the talk page explaining why you did so. (A note on the talk page is not necessarily required in all cases like this, if you can provide a concise explanatory edit summary, but it never hurts). Herostratus (talk) 05:48, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Template:Non-free historic image
I have proposed a change to the wording of Template:Non-free historic image (see the template's talk page for my proposal) but it needs more eyes and someone with the right permissions to edit the template, since it is protected. Barrylb (talk) 02:29, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

I need some help
I am trying to make this list and that list, this one and this one a little shorter. Many hands make light work. Thanks in advance, <b style="white-space:nowrap;text-shadow:#000 0em 0em 0.4em,#5a0 -0.2em -0.2em 0.4em,#00a 0.2em 0.2em 0.4em;color:#ddd">Wasbeer</b> 02:58, 23 May 2011 (UTC)


 * The first is a list of articles that contain ==Heading text== rather than a proper heading. These are all 'accidentally clicked a button in the toolbar' sorts of things.  Anyone with even five minutes to spare could help solve these very simple problems.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:25, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I suggest using wp:AWB for these type of edits, it is designed for things like this. Yoenit (talk) 21:59, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * ✅ <b style="white-space:nowrap;text-shadow:#000 0em 0em 0.4em,#5a0 -0.2em -0.2em 0.4em,#00a 0.2em 0.2em 0.4em;color:#ddd">Wasbeer</b> 11:17, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia as part of academic curriculum -pointers?
I wanted to know if we have a Wikipedia project that documents instances where editing of Wikipedia by the students was a part of academic curriculum. I am in the midst of doing this currently with my students and any pointers to previous instances and best practices therein would be of immense help. TIA. --Strategyprof (talk) 09:40, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * School and university projects would be the best start point, I think. --Tagishsimon (talk) 10:23, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks a ton! I also found WP:WPCC - both these are very helpful. --Strategyprof (talk) 11:13, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * We now also have a portal at the outreach wiki, which is still being developed, but has most of the educator related materials up, Sadads (talk) 11:17, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Wow! This is even more comprehensive. Thanks. --Strategyprof (talk) 11:34, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * My students have started creating articles but some of them could not create login ids and got an error message saying that more than 6 ids cannot be created from the same ip in 24 hours. Is there a way around this? Currently I only have 12 students but next month I plan to scale it up to around 200 students. This would definitely become an issue at that time as we have residential programmes with more than 2000 people sharing the same ip. Any relief in this regard would be of great help. Also, please let me know if this is not the right forum to ask this question. Thanks. --Strategyprof (talk) 14:12, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Have them create accounts through Request an account with a comment they are part of your course. It would probably help if you warned the people running that process in advance as well, but I am not really sure what would be the best way to contact them. No doubt somebody else will come along who knows that. With regards to asking questions, wp:HELPDESK is probably the best place. Yoenit (talk) 15:04, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
 * User talk:Mdennis (WMF) is probably a good person to ask about the issue and/or to alert whoever's behind the Request an Account service. Maggie's the new just-in-post community liaison person. --Tagishsimon (talk) 19:44, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Thank you both. I will contact User talk:Mdennis (WMF). --Strategyprof (talk) 16:42, 27 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Regular solution: just request the "accountcreator" right temporarily, explaining this situation, and then create all the accounts yourself. It's faster than ACC (Request an account). / ƒETCH COMMS  /  01:34, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

ah ha
According to this, "If you take any article, click on the first link in the article text not in parentheses or italics, and then repeat, you will eventually end up at Philosophy." Make of this what you will. Herostratus (talk) 06:39, 26 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I tried it. It's true. From random article (a town in Italy) to Philosophy in about 20 clicks. Damn. Herostratus (talk) 06:45, 26 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Naturally, there is a Wikipedia page on this: Get to Philosophy. Guy Macon (talk) 06:48, 26 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Well of course. LOL. Herostratus (talk) 06:56, 26 May 2011 (UTC)


 * However, take a look at Talk:Science--it appears that some editors may be intentionally changing articles not to improve them, but to make the "loops" go away.  Note for instance this revision, with several "changed" entries in the "Articles likely to loop instead of going to Philosophy" . That, to me, makes me concerned about the existence of the page.Qwyrxian (talk) 07:03, 26 May 2011 (UTC)


 * It's a real problem, but getting rid of Get to Philosophy isn't the solution. The edits to remove loops are driven by mentions on Reddit, XKCD, and other high-traffic sites. One has to wonder how many pages are edited to remove loops without the editors being stupid enough to announce their motives. Guy Macon (talk) 07:13, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Trying on a few, so far all had to pass either "science" (7 times) or "mathematics" (3 times) before they arrived at "philosophy". Fram (talk) 07:23, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Well that's a good point. In my one runthru, I did pass thru both Science and Mathematics before reaching Philosophy. So maybe the "always devolves to philosophy" meme is misleading. Herostratus (talk) 00:32, 27 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Ah yes, forgot to mention that to get from science to philosophy, you also have to pass mathematics, so basically nearly every article that gets you to philosophy will get yuo to mathematics first. Perhaps we have to rename and clarify the page about this? Fram (talk) 07:48, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Lawsuits
Is there a list where I could find lawsuits and legal action against Wikipedia? SwisterTwister (talk) 02:03, 28 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Go here and there's a section called "lawsuits". Darkjedi10| |Click Here! 13:18, 28 May 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Darkjedi10 (talk • contribs)


 * You probably want the Wikimedia Foundation more. There have been some lawsuits but they haven't got far. Some people just seem to want to waste money on lawyers. Dmcq (talk) 15:10, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Duplicate articles
St. Petersburg International Economic Forum and SPIEF are duplicate articles. --MZMcBride (talk) 21:19, 28 May 2011 (UTC)
 * histmerged, and that's probably a total copyvio. i.e., . Someone should look into that more, my Internet refuses to work right for half of the pages I load right now. / ƒETCH COMMS  /  03:50, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Rate this page
Why do the Rate this page ratings not include negative ratings? I'm looking at Jonathan Drubner, an unrefenced BLP, and would have preferred to issue negative ratings for the article, but that's not an option. 216.93.212.245 (talk) 03:43, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
 * That's something to suggest at mw:Talk:Article feedback/Public Policy Pilot/Workgroup, but I think that a rating of 1 star means "this article is complete crap in this area", which would make sense for an unsourced page. Although, a 0 would make more sense—I don't know whether it detects a lack of a star as zero or if it ignores it. / ƒETCH COMMS  /  03:46, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Wikimedia Board of Trustees Election, 2011
This probably isn't the right place to discuss this, but I have no idea where is.

I saw the watchlist notice that the Wikimedia Board of Trustees election had begun, and I clicked on "please vote." That took me here. When I clicked on "go to the voting server," it said "Welcome, SlimVirgin," but it exposed my IP address in the top right corner, because it's a Foundation page, and I don't have a Foundation account.

Is this meant to happen, or does it raise privacy concerns? SlimVirgin TALK |  CONTRIBS 01:11, 29 May 2011 (UTC)


 * That's not to worry about — it's only displayed there. I'll contact SPI and have it go away, though, just to minimise confusion. &mdash; Andrew Garrett  &bull;  talk  02:37, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Just wondering—how did they detect my username, and how does the SPI site check to see if someone meets the criteria at Board elections/2011/en? / ƒETCH COMMS  /  03:44, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

If you're interested, I've documented it at Wikitech. &mdash; Andrew Garrett  &bull;  talk  03:59, 29 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the replies, Andrew. SlimVirgin  TALK |  CONTRIBS 04:20, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

File:Lascaux2.jpg
The file, which is used on a very large number of pages , has been marked for nominated deletion on Wikimedia Commons for the following reason: Deletion requests May 2011. Rather than notify a large number of talk pages I am raising this on WP:AN and WP:VP to obtain the right intervention. A discussion about whether to delete the file will now take place on Commons. If you feel the deletion can be contested then please do so (commons:COM:SPEEDY has further information). Otherwise:
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I need some advice
Hy there, I'm hereby asking for some advice. To cut things short: I found a translated English quote used by a reputed scholar and finding it interresting I went after the German orginal statement. To my surprise I found some rather important discrepancies between the German original and the English translation.

Now, I need to know if there any Wiki policy about this matter. Can and should we remove the translated sentence and replace it with a better one? Should the article only use the translated sentence which is used by the scholar despite its poor quality? Should the translation be tagged with a "dubious" or something else? Flamarande (talk) 16:45, 29 May 2011 (UTC) PS: In case this request is on the wrong place could someone indicate me the proper place? Thanks
 * This plays to WP:V and WP:OR. The quote they used is the quote they used, so if they mistranslated it (according to you?) we can't and should not "correct it". If others have noted the apparent mistranslation, we can note that. If not, it would be improper synthesis for us to draw that conclusion in the article (you could note it on the talk page). If we have a link to the original, e.g. on Wikisource, we could provide it to let the reader do their own research. Fences  &amp;  Windows  20:46, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Found the original quote and the page in question, commented there (probably slightly contradicting myself). Fences  &amp;  Windows  21:34, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Drug Box on Belomycin
(If this is the wrong forum for this, feel free to move it to the correct forum ! )  I just made a cosmetic change on the drug box for Bleomycin, as I've never worked with a drug box before I've left a note over there  On the talk page. Feel free to take a look, and if I've botched it up, feel free to change it and let me know where I erred. Thanks KoshVorlon Naluboutes ''AeriaGloris 18:05, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

find all articles with same start date
I searched for answers to my question, but found nothing similar. Please let me know if there is an existing thread or a more appropriate location for raising it.

Does anyone know if it is possible to get a list of all articles with a given start date? Ideally, I would like to be able to find all articles with initial rev_timestamp within a given range. I'm sure I could do it by crawling Wikipedia, but that would cause a lot of unnecessary traffic to the millions of pages that don't have the desired timestamp. I'm hoping someone knows of an easier way. Thanks in advance. Wikipositivist (talk) 18:22, 20 May 2011 (UTC)


 * One possible option is to pull the entire database and only extract the revisions table (I can't host multiple terabytes of uncompressed wikistuff, anyway). It should be possible to query that table for lowest rev_timestamp values within a given range.  That is less than optimal since it would require downloading the entire compressed English wiki database when I have no way to use the entire database... particularly the text table (since it is enormous even for some single articles). Wikipositivist (talk) 20:12, 20 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Does anyone know if it is possible to download specific tables from the wikipedia database rather than downloading the entire database and extracting only the two or three tables I want? Wikipositivist (talk) 20:47, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * No need, you just want to get someone with appropriate permisssions (e.g. me) to run a Toolserver database query. You want pages created between two times, right? What times? - Jarry1250 [Weasel? Discuss.] 11:00, 21 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I'll take the discussion to your talk page, but please let me know if you think it should stay here. Wikipositivist (talk) 22:05, 21 May 2011 (UTC)


 * My quest to access articles by start date continues. Does anyone else have suggestions on accessing articles by start date?  Is this a question better suited to the technical board? 192.197.54.34 (talk) 19:14, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Do you mean a list of articles which where all created on the same day? ΔT <sup style="color:darkred;">The only constant 02:12, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes - although I might stretch the window wider than a single day. If there is some easy way to search by create date, that would be very useful.  Wikipositivist (talk) 14:15, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Ill do you one better, give me a few days to run all the queries needed but ~betacommand/start_date_1 is the list of the first million pages (via page_id) its about 13Mb of data, Im running page ids 1-2 million now. ΔT <sup style="color:darkred;">The only constant 11:51, 26 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks! Sorry for the delayed response... the non-digital universe had me in a headlock for a few days.  I was trying to figure out a query to give just certain startdates, but the full db of startdates is much, much better.  Are those only articles (namespace=0, I think), or are talk and meta-talk pages included?  I hadn't thought of MIN rev_id... I was running MIN timestamp.  I can run queries on that data locally to find start dates in whatever range.  I dumped that page into a local table to start in on pulling specific ranges.  It looks like about 330k articles.  Does that sound right, or did I miss something?  Wikipositivist (talk) 15:22, 31 May 2011 (UTC)


 * You might try asking MZMcBride if he can modify Yanker to do it. Or you could go to Special page and ask if the Special page All pages can be modified. Personally I think the all pages special page needs to be modified anyway because the lists it currently generates can be uselessly long anyway. --Kumioko (talk) 15:04, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks Kumioko. I had not seen yanker.  It may be possible to modify it to do this, but it looks like it could be interesting and useful as is.  I was thinking about trying to pull all articles in a specific project, and it may be able to do that for me :).  I will poke around All pages - I hadn't thought about asking for modifications there.  I'm not sure how many people would be interested in groupings by start date, but agree that All pages could use an update.  Do you know if there is a discussion about that underway anywhere?  Wikipositivist (talk) 16:19, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Yanker is a pretty good tool. I recently asked MZM to make a couple changes for me as well so at some point he may get to those but he is very busy so I will pateintly wait and work on other things. As far as I know modifying the page hasn't been discussed yet. As far as pulling in articles for a project, if you are referring to WikiProjects you can look do that by going to the WikiProject category. For example if you wanted to look at the Articles for WikiProject United States you would look in Category:WikiProject United States articles. Depending how you define United States though there are about 200 WikiProject that pertain to US stuff (states, cities, National register of Historic places, US history, US military history, US roads, etc). Also, Most of the 1700+ WikiProjects start with WikiProject but there are a few that do not. Some also do not have all the same categories (some don't track importance, some are inactive or defunct, etc). If you are looking for a specific one let me know and I might be able to help. --Kumioko (talk) 16:38, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the pointers. I'll take a look at the WikiProjects pages and see what looks most interesting.  I'm still playing around with different things to work on, but the projects look like they may be quite fascinating. Wikipositivist (talk) 23:10, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

File:BrunetBoy.jpg
The file, which is used on a very large number of pages , has been marked for speedy deletion on Wikimedia Commons for the following reason: Other speedy deletions. Rather than notify a large number of talk pages I am raising this on WP:AN and WP:VP to obtain the right intervention. Speedy deletions at commons tend to take longer than they do on Wikipedia, so there is time to respond. If you feel the deletion can be contested then please do so (commons:COM:SPEEDY has further information). Otherwise:
 * What to do
 * Check for the type of usage in articles and templates (usually infoboxes)
 * If the deletion of the image will cause a problem, try to fix it:
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A further notification will be placed if/when the image is deleted. This notification is provided by a Bot, currently under trial --CommonsNotificationBot (talk) 11:33, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Used in the userbox User:Tibullus/brunet. I've notified Tibullus of this. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 11:41, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

File:.jpg Deleted
The file, which is used on a very large number of pages , has been deleted on Wikimedia Commons for the following reason: Unused and implausible, broken, or cross-namespace redirects. Rather than notify a large number of talk pages I am raising this on WP:AN and WP:VP to obtain the right intervention.
 * What to do
 * Check for the type of usage in articles and templates (usually infoboxes)
 * If the deletion of the image will cause a problem, try to fix it:
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This notification is provided by a Bot, currently under trial --CommonsNotificationBot (talk) 18:24, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
 * All links to this file were already broken, I think (in mainspace, certainly). Nothing to panic about, but the mainspace list should be cleared (I just did half a dozen). - Jarry1250 [Weasel? Discuss.] 21:20, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Non-free content
Must images of historical importance be "subjects of commentary" before we can use them under a claim of fair use? See RfC here. Input from uninvolved editors would be particularly appreciated. SlimVirgin TALK |  CONTRIBS 05:02, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Legal threat or joke?
Is this edit to the article "cease and desist" worth some special (legal) attention? Cheers, --Edcolins (talk) 20:24, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
 * They've been blocked, so we can safely ignore it. --Golbez (talk) 20:44, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
 * It is clearly a very poor joke, so just ignore it. Yoenit (talk) 20:48, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

File:Clash 21051980 12 800.jpg
The file, which is used on a very large number of pages , has been marked for nominated deletion on Wikimedia Commons for the following reason: Deletion requests June 2011. Rather than notify a large number of talk pages I am raising this on WP:AN and WP:VP to obtain the right intervention. A discussion about whether to delete the file will now take place on Commons. If you feel the deletion can be contested then please do so (commons:COM:SPEEDY has further information). Otherwise:
 * What to do
 * Check for the type of usage in articles and templates (usually infoboxes)
 * If the deletion of the image will cause a problem, prepare to fix it:
 * Using a local redirect
 * By using a different image (i.e. in an infobox)
 * Contact someone at commons to delay deletion or work out a plan to overcome issues with the deletion

This notification is provided by a Bot, currently under trial --CommonsNotificationBot (talk) 23:31, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Spanish Wikipedia sucks
I need help, Is there any global council for injustice in Wikimedia? I was a veteran wikipedian user with 4 years in spanish wikipedia. I have blocked for 6 months in Wikipedia by a dictatorial group that they control everything from year ago. Spanish wikipedia has a problem. We need help! Jimbo Wales! Someone for stop that injustice please!! Thor8 (talk) 19:36, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Do they have an ArbCom? English Wikipedia has no jurisdiction over Spanish Wikipedia. The talk page over there is es:Usuario Discusión:Thor8. Fences  &amp;  Windows  20:30, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
 * You know, calling people things like "dictatorial" was one of the reasons you were blocked, I think, along with edit warring over calling the Libyan conflict a rebellion or a civil war. I can answer my own query about an ArbCom: they shut down their es:Wikipedia:Comité de Resolución de Conflictos. Fences  &amp;  Windows  20:36, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
 * The CRC doesn't exist now. I asked for something in Wikimedia not in enwiki. We need a interwikis Justice council, it's incredible the political machine in spanish wikipedia. There is even a blog where is reported each abuse: Desenredando la maraña Very important the resume of the first post: Una entrada para el wikicirco:
 * I translate the first paragraph: "That the Spanish Wikipedia is in the grip of a mafia is a secret that is spoken everywhere but not in our own Wikipedia. Many people have abandoned the project, tired of the corruption of a system that, far from the enlightened principles that should support it, has ended up becoming a social club where there is more despicable political machine". Thor8 (talk) 10:22, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
 * You may contact Jimbo at User talk:Jimbo Wales, wikimedia-wide topics are discussed at Meta. I'm aware of your concerns, I had been a regular editor there until a year and half ago: an admin insulted me, I reported it, and got indefinitely blocked for reporting the insult. And, in the time I had been there, I noticed plenty of abuses and arbitrary actions.
 * However, I never asked for support at those places, and I don't advise you to try it. The relation of wikimedia projects is similar to a Federation, each project has its own self-governance, and the Foundation has the right to bypass it and impose office action, but rarely does so, and hardly for a project-specific concern. To report admins there, you should find a really gross violation of the Founding principles (and a single block can hardly be so). And, of course, do so with evidence in hand (diffs, archives, etc.), a blog written by yourself does not prove anything, even if it "says the truth". Cambalachero (talk) 22:31, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Follow up of WP:Village pump (proposals)/Proposal to require autoconfirmed status in order to create articles
A draft of how to run the trial is now located here. Crossposting from WP:VPR. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい ) 19:11, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Maps, Maps, Maps ! Call for mapmakers !
Is there some graphists ? Users loving to draw ? There is a Wikipedia:Graphic Lab/Illustration workshop and a Graphic Lab/Map workshop. in need of creators. Most maps requests don't get comments and need a graphists. These places are some kind of graphic forum and school : we receive requests, discuss about them, share /Graphic & Map tutorials, a learn on the way. We need graphists to come, inject fresh knowledge, and help around on the Graphic Lab/Map workshop. People interested, please come ! Map making is a specific skill, almost easy to do, while maps, or relate technical diagrams are wonderful tools to explain and illustrate articles and knowledges. Inkscape (Download!) is a nice free software to create SVG maps. So come, come, come, and do what you like ! : ] --Yug (talk)  04:28, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

"gay date"
This user said he is an adm on Wiki-en. Is this true? He was looking for a "gay date" on Wiki in portuguese language. What is this?? If he is, I want his sysop tools removed NOW for bad behaviour. (Wiki-pt main page talk section is not an AOL sex room) MachoCarioca (talk) 05:34, 4 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I would bet money that is not, but instead somebody who is impersonating him. –MuZemike 08:19, 4 June 2011 (UTC)
 * It's a sock puppet of, as has already been blocked here. –MuZemike 08:21, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Wikimedia Board of Trustees Election, 2011 - do I have the right to vote?
I may give away my ignorance in this question, and perhaps this is the wrong place to ask, but I will place the question here all the same. I was given the notice "The Wikimedia Board of Trustees election has started. Please vote", and I would like to participate and place my vote. However, when I was ready to place my vote, I realised that the voting was taken place at wikimedia, not wikipedia, where I have no account. Do I have the right to place my vote? I assume that a notice about the election would not have been sent to me otherwise? I have no account on wikimedia, which may disqualify me. Forgive me if I seem ignorant - I have been a member of wikipedia for several years but I have mainly been active in editing rather than taking part in the other sides of the project. Thank you in advance! --Aciram (talk) 21:31, 4 June 2011 (UTC)
 * This says the requirements to vote (you seem to meet the requirements). You probably want to unify your account globally so your username can be used on any Wikimedia wiki. Killiondude (talk) 23:30, 4 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much!--Aciram (talk) 21:15, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

File:Creation of the Sun and Moon face detail.jpg
The file, which is used on a very large number of pages , has been marked for nominated deletion on Wikimedia Commons for the following reason: Deletion requests May 2011. Rather than notify a large number of talk pages I am raising this on WP:AN and WP:VP to obtain the right intervention. A discussion about whether to delete the file will now take place on Commons. If you feel the deletion can be contested then please do so (commons:COM:SPEEDY has further information). Otherwise:
 * What to do
 * Check for the type of usage in articles and templates (usually infoboxes)
 * If the deletion of the image will cause a problem, prepare to fix it:
 * Using a local redirect
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This notification is provided by a Bot, currently under trial --CommonsNotificationBot (talk) 19:29, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
 * n.b. The deletion discussion seems like it will result in a keep. (At the time of posting.) Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 20:13, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
 * "Deletion requests 2011" doesn't sound like a strong reason to nominate an image for deletion ;) . ☻☻☻Sithman VIII !!☻☻☻ 09:34, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Unbroken
The dab page Unbroken has a rating thingy at the bottom. Explain to me why a dab page would need to be rated. Can someone remove this? Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • (Otters want attention) 16:36, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I just went to it and the rating thingy wasn't there. GB fan (talk) 19:50, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
 * It's there for me. mw:Article feedback/FAQ says: "The Article Feedback Tool is currently deployed on approximately 100,000 randomly selected articles on the English Wikipedia". This includes disambiguation pages. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:55, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Non-indexed articles
Can someone please go through the lists of articles with Template:NOINDEX transcluded in them and determine (on a case-by-case basis) which of those articles should be indexed? I've already removed Template:NOINDEX from the following:


 * Dalavia
 * List_of_cigar_brands
 * Powerglove_(band)
 * Iran_national_football_team_results
 * Global_Business_Network
 * Casual_(rapper)

I attempted to remove the template from more articles, but I reverted myself, since I felt that the decision belonged to more knowledgeable users. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 03:16, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't think it has any effect on it; I thought NOINDEX was disabled for articlespace, so removing the templates won't do anything. I could be wrong, but I think the devs intentionally didn't allow noindexing in mainspace. The Blade of the Northern Lights  ( 話して下さい ) 04:33, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Correct. Template:NOINDEX says: "<tt> __NOINDEX__ </tt> is disabled in article space and this template consequently has no effect there." Some userspace drafts use NOINDEX and don't remove it after a move to mainspace, but it doesn't matter. If you get your browser to view the html source of Inatel then you can confirm it doesn't contain "noindex" while for example User:Blades/HardwareWiki contains . PrimeHunter (talk) 11:46, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I didn't realize that. Sorry. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 12:00, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Not a problem. Now we can remove a useless (in mainspace) template from articles. The Blade of the Northern Lights  ( 話して下さい ) 13:23, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Just took care of it myself; just got AWB access earlier today, so it was neat to test it out a bit before doing something that could have a more significant impact. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい )

Calling attention to an AfD discussion
I'm participating in a discussion about whether or not to delete this article, and it's pretty off-putting to see how little participation there has been. Hopefully some more editors will come and weigh in. Thanks! Hermione is a dude (talk) 09:46, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

V.M.F. 113
While going through an old box of my father-in-law I found a photo of the group from vmf 113 Capt Loren D. Everton Commanding May 8, 1943. I am interested to know if there is anyone out there who might want a copy of this picture or maybe I can figure out how to put it on the computer. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pdajg (talk • contribs) 01:38, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
 * If you are now the owner of these possessions, Commons], our sister project and host for all our freely-licensed images, would love for you to upload a copy under a suitable license. These images are part of our history and they would be more then happy to have them I suspect. -- ۩ <strong style="color:#B13E0F;">M ask  08:24, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Just saw this
Sinaia hasn't had a single reference in a while, and has been tagged as unreffed for over two years. Is there any sort of organized citing effort for ancient unreffed tags? -- ۩ <strong style="color:#B13E0F;">M ask  08:22, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Not really, it is the biggest backlog we have, with some 250.000 articles tagged, dating as far back as July 2006. You might be interested in wp:URBLP though, which has almost cleaned out the backlog of unreferenced BLPs (some 40.000 articles) in the last year and a half. Yoenit (talk) 08:30, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Seeing this, I cited both of the oldest ones (July 2006). Island Monkey talk the talk 17:08, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I think that actually meant sourcing approximately 60,000 articles, though I may be wrong. My 60 odd pale in comparison (0.1%). Huge respect for people who do this on topics they do not even like. - Jarry1250 [Weasel? Discuss.] 19:46, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Santorum (neologism) RfC
Uninvolved eyes would be much appreciated at Talk:Santorum (neologism). Many thanks, SlimVirgin  TALK |  CONTRIBS 16:49, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Admin abuse.
Re http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:212.219.249.5 the year long ban of all public computers in a city for no real reason.

Does anyone know why User:Syrthiss is claiming to be the chief Administrator for The Wikipedia? I can find nothing about this on his User page. See:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Syrthiss. Ansotu (talk) 17:30, 7 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I see no such claim on their use page. – ukexpat (talk) 17:38, 7 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Create an account, it has many benefits. – ukexpat (talk) 17:39, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Re the situation I talked of. As stated on that page the Administrator/s concerned blocked the opening of new accounts. That is part of the matter I am raising. Ansotu (talk) 18:16, 7 June 2011 (UTC)


 * There are over 1000 Administrators. Syrthiss is one of them. (I think you just misunderstood "Administrator".) Rd232 talk 17:39, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I did not misunderstand "Administrator". A call was made for an un-block due to the block being excessive. One year for no real reason. The call, or "appeal against the block" in Wikipedia jargon, asked for the block to be reviewed by responsible administrators and for a general review by the same. Syrthiss came into the situation and acted like his word was law on behalf of the whole wikipedia. He didn't explain who he was or what 'authority' he had for his comments. When he didn't bother to understand the request in the appeal, and just posted abuse. Hence my airing it to the community. Ansotu (talk) 18:07, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Uninvolved Editor Looking at the previous warnings and their extent I feel that this block is slightly over the top, but still in principle justified. IP editor's semi-familiarity with en.WP policies and tools leads me to believe that a sock or block evading user has used this access vector to spew their uncivil attacks. Hasteur (talk) 19:33, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
 * It's an ISP involving many users, a single ISP number. The council has chosen the same ISP city-wide. Some users will be teenagers, but many won't be. Ansotu (talk) 15:24, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

As one of the administrators I am trusted by the community to respond to unblock requests and make decisions on those unblocks. We don't need any community review of simple blocking situations like this, though you as the IP are welcome to post another unblock request at that page if you feel my answer wasn't sufficient. If you're just looking for someone to be mad at, I'm happy to take the focus away from the original blocking admin. Glad to see you took my advice and made an account. Happy editing! Syrthiss (talk) 11:07, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm never just looking for people to be mad at. In my life I wouldn't even have the time. I said what I said because I believe it. I don't think the censorship of so many people is right or justified. I have my own computer and broadband at home if I was only concerned about myself - like most people seem to be - I would never have bothered to raise it. Ansotu (talk) 15:21, 10 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Well, there are other options. For example, you could call the ISP that's been blocked, and ask them to contact us—maybe WP:Abuse response—to figure out which one of their customers is the persistent vandal.  It shouldn't be too difficult for them to compare their logs with our records and identify the customer.  If they commit to blocking the vandal (something they should be able to do with a web proxy or various sorts of filters), then I'm sure we could release the block on the rest of their customers.
 * Of course, if they aren't willing to take steps to help us with the abuse that their paying customer is committing, then we have no particular incentive to take steps to help them with the rest of their customers. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:50, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
 * The ISP is used by lots of people and the complaints by Admins has been on a number of different individuals. The computers are in public libraries.


 * I've just discovered another example here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:86.12.126.186, and it is annoying, I can see, when, what looks like kids, are 'vandalising'. But this is a milder example. And the issue is more complicated for the case I raised: by Admins calling opinion, helpful comments etc. "vandalism". And by the large amount of users involved: in reference libraries and other libraries.) Thanks for your trouble. Ansotu (talk) 15:23, 11 June 2011 (UTC)
 * In this new example, all of those warning messages are from 2009, and that IP address is not currently blocked. In your original example, I think it is important to note that the entire ISP has not been blocked, but rather that specific IP address, though it could affect a number of editors.  Editor(s) using that address had a long history of vandalism, dating back to 2007 and resulting in a total of six blocks in that time.  I'll make no comment on the current block itself, except to say that escalating block lengths is the norm, so a one-year block following a six-month one is normal.  This is why we encourage editors to register, even while it is not mandatory.  You won't get caught up in the actions, warnings and blocks meant for others.  Cheers! Resolute 17:07, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Commons category structure
I've started a discussion at Village_pump about changing the Commons category structure to more explicitly use English Wikipedia's category structure as a starting point. I don't want people charging over there to comment, but I'd like some sense here of what people's experience of using Commons' category system is. You may ask, by the way, "why base it on en.wp"? The answer is that as long as we don't have proper multilingual categories (probably years off; see Village_pump) and/or a really good system for category redirects (ditto), Commons uses English category names by default. Given that, there's an obvious benefit in aligning Commons' and en.wp's category structures except where there's an actual reason not to. And en.wp's category system is generally more developed than Commons', so it makes sense to do the aligning in this direction. Also, a lot of the time this aligning is happening anyway, but in a disorganised, haphazard way; this would just write that down and build on it, and give the opportunity to clarify necessary exceptions. So - thoughts? Experiences? Rd232 talk 21:31, 10 June 2011 (UTC)


 * There are sections of the en.wiki cat tree that I know my way around moderately well, but I deal with the rest much like I deal with Commons: search on keywords until I find something.  The only thing at Commons that has ever seemed really strange is all of the "___ as aliments" categories, e.g. Commons:Category:Bananas as aliments.  Also, is it my imagination, or has someone been changing from plural cat names to singular? I discovered WP:HotCat the other day.  It was a lot of fun.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:15, 10 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep in mind differences such as Category:American writers and commons:Category:Writers from the United States. The latter style is used at Commons for greater accuracy in an environment where not everyone is a native English speaker and for whom "American" would include North and South America. – Adrignola talk 18:15, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, but those sorts of differences are interesting. Flipping through some old CFD discussions, there is certainly some support for the "United States" approach vs "American". But more broadly, Commons has "People from X" with typically a category redirect from "X-ian people", whilst WP has "X-ian people" (so a change away from "American writers" would probably only happen with a change in the entire naming approach). That's the sort of difference which is easily summarised, and there's no need to change it one way or the other, as long as each one is internally consistent so that people know what to expect when moving between the schemas. There's even commons:User:RussBot to clean up miscategorisations in the redirect category. So that's the sort of difference which wouldn't be an obstacle, and explaining the difference clarifies things. Rd232 talk 18:35, 12 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Have in mind as well that categories here are for articles, and Commons' are for images. Category:Logical fallacies is unlikely to ever have a Commons version, and it is unlikely that we would ever have a "People sitting in art" category Cambalachero (talk) 18:45, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Researcher user right
Hi everyone, I just wanted to let people know that I am in the midst of assigning the <tt>'researcher'</tt> user right to a few people working with the Foundation. (More about the rights here and here.) This is a temporary assignment until September 1st. You can see the full list of project participants, as well as our research questions and results so far, on Meta at Research:Wikimedia Summer of Research 2011. Thanks, Steven Walling at work 19:24, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I created the following page to keep track of <tt>researcher</tt> permissions: meta:Research:Special_API_permissions/Log --DarTar (talk) 01:34, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
 * That's great! I've added it to User access levels. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 16:27, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Creating a DRV entry
I created Deletion review/Log/2011 June 16 by following the directions on the WP:DRV page, but it isn't being transcluded onto DRV. What did I do wrong? The Mark of the Beast (talk) 01:21, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Ah, well, it showed up finally. The Mark of the Beast (talk) 06:03, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Sometimes you have to purge the system's cache or purge your browser's cache. Killiondude (talk) 16:32, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I did that several times, nothing happened. :)  The Mark of the Beast (talk) 19:59, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

More sporadic fundraising testing this week
(moved from Policy village pump)

Hi everyone-

WMF's Fundraiser Team will continue to test banners, landing pages and analytics systems this week. The banners will appear for about 30-60 mins per country, and this week we should be working with USA, Saint Lucia, Samoa, Belize and Barbados.

I will update this thread in case we add any new countries to the testing schedule.

Thank you,

Wikimedia Foundation Fundraiser Team Ppena (WMF) (talk) 17:30, 13 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Just to let you all know we'll be testing some banners on en.wikipedia today (Thursday) for about an hour. They will appear for anonymous users in the USA and most other countries (those without local fundraising chapters). Pcoombe (WMF) (talk) 16:16, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia android portable
Hello, I looking for applications android and applications homebrew for my psp and my phone that are using Wikipedia based dictionary and Wikipedia offline and i looking for to see offline articles from Wikipedia like books. Do you can help me?

I know Wikipediadictionary from a korean one, bjkim but I can not to find it with google. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Futbol Flamenco Fiesta (talk • contribs) 13:07, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

River Shannon
The debat is heating up about the wehereabout of the River Shannon. Most people and the paper Encyclopedia Britannica state that it is the longest river on the island Ireland. Others, mostly (but not exclusively) English, state that it is the longest river on the British Isles. Unfortunately that last term is politically sensitive. The debat is heating up, so some cool opinions are very welcome on the talkpage there. Night of the Big Wind (talk) 01:17, 19 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Sadly, I think the simplest solution to this might be to shorten the Shannon... AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:23, 19 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Well yes, and would you believe that some editors are trying to do precisely that. Van Speijk (talk) 10:56, 19 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for admitting that. Now we can start talking. ((smiley}} Night of the Big Wind (talk) 14:50, 19 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Or the Irish should invade England and exploit it as a colony for the next 800 years, as they did with Ireland. Night of the Big Wind (talk) 14:50, 19 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Not do I think it correct to say the debate is hearing up. There is a long standing consensus position that has the River Shannon as the longest river in Ireland and Loch Neagh as the largest lake in the British Isles.  Rather like the Derry for the city, LondonDerry for the county compromises.  All statements are sourced.  As is the norm of NBI issues we have new accounts (or ones that have been silent for a year but then get activated on this issue) and a range of views being expressed on individual editors.  Its a pity that once a compromise is reached we can't just let it be --<font color="#801818" face="Papyrus">Snowded  <font color="#708090" face="Baskerville">TALK  18:47, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Asking for participants in an AfD discussion
For two weeks only one person has said anything in Articles for deletion/Mondlango (2nd nomination), and he is unfortunately an IP editor. If a few people would go there to review the evidence and vote that would be fantastic. Hermione is a dude (talk) 15:40, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Halis Aydemir
This biography page was clearly written by the same person as an autobiography to promote himself. He is not a welknown academic in his native Turkey and his biography page doesn't exist in Turkish Wikipedia for not meeting the required criteria. --Abuk SABUK (talk) 16:30, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

A trend perhaps?
Perhaps it's a statistical fluctuation, but it's interesting that the quantity of humanities topics up for PR now seem to vastly outnumber the science, technology and engineering articles. Are editors starting to give up trying to slog difficult, technical articles through the FAC process? :-) Regards, RJH (talk) 22:04, 9 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Donno. My tack is actually some of the harder math/phys/chemistry articles have been given too much a pass on formatting and prose. Basically we are so happy to get anything we let some stuff through.  Also...really remember there are a LOT of other outlets for writing about science (or anything).  Books, papers (popular and technical), blogs, websites, ec.  Biology articles tend to be more compliant to prose and formatting requirements, but (I feel) are sometimes needlessly technical (especially for topics that are easy to describe in normal words...not particle physics).  But they do seem to get churned through.  Long term, if we are going to have high quality popular science articles, we need to do a better job at attracting and engaging people who are able to write them.  Figure out how to get some retirees in here.  This place has such a youth bias...and such a turnover of high school and college students.TCO (talk) 21:48, 18 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Hmm, well that hasn't really been my experience. If anything, the reviewers spend too much effort on stylistic and minor format issues. The FAC process seems to spends an astonishing amount of effort in getting the references and images to look "just so". Thanks. Regards, RJH (talk) 16:57, 19 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Exactly and this might be something in particular (good) science writers have little interest to bother with. Another thing is that science articles are increasingly written with different audiences in mind (or rather specific target audiences) because in practice WP serves 2 functions here being a general encyclopedia but special subject encyclopedia as well. Though while in parts explicitly written for the general audiences technical stuff needs to be minimized, it is nevertheless required/desired for the target audiences of many science articles.--Kmhkmh (talk) 06:48, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Unencyclopedic essay in Indonesian
I've just PROD-ed a new article,, as being a non-English unencyclopedic sociology essay. Since it should – presumably uncontroversially – be deleted on numerous grounds, is there any quicker way to get this done? Best, <font color="#FFB911">╟─TreasuryTag► directorate ─╢ 15:16, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Why? Does it harm the encyclopedia by lingering for 7 days? Yoenit (talk) 15:19, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
 * No more than I like to eat cocoapopz harms the encyclopedia by lingering for 7 days, but we have speedy-deletion criteria for that sort of thing, and I was asking whether or not a comparable system exists for this case. If you don't have an answer to the question, your commenting in 'response' isn't altogether helpful... <font color="#FFB911">╟─TreasuryTag► constabulary ─╢ 15:21, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
 * No. Yoenit (talk) 15:31, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Perhaps I should have specified, "If you don't have a correct answer..." <font color="#C4112F">╟─TreasuryTag► voice vote ─╢ 15:52, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually, it was the correct answer at the time. WP:CSD is for non-English articles that exist on other projects. This one didn't exist on another project until 3 minutes prior to its deletion here. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 16:25, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
 * If I were to want to read it how do I find where it has gone? Is there an easy way? Just interested --ClemRutter (talk) 21:57, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Ideally the deleter should point to the new location in the deletion summary. The deleter did not, so now only admins can see. ▫  Johnny Mr Nin ja  07:03, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually he did post a link to the new location on idwiki (click "exists"), but that article was deleted as well. Yoenit (talk) 10:28, 23 June 2011 (UTC)