Wikipedia:Village pump/September 2003 archive 1

Death to software patents!

Can you guys do something with http://swpat.ffii.org/group/demo/ or would it violate the neutrality of Wikipedia? -- 212.127.214.105 00:29, 27 Aug 2003 (UTC)

• See the thread on the Wikipedia-L mailing list [1]. Jimbo said "While I'm sympathetic to the cause, I'm not really comfortable with Wikipedia per se taking part in a political act..."

Can it at least be (neutrally) mentioned on the main page as a "current event"? -- 212.127.214.105 01:31, 27 Aug 2003 (UTC)

There would have to be an article about it first. Something more specific than just the article on Software patent I think. A

I think software patent is just great; it's got lots of background on the subject, and that's what an encyclopedia is for. You hear about the present protests all over, and look up what it's all about on Wikipedia! :) I've put in the link. --Brion 01:43, 27 Aug 2003 (UTC)~

We can still make an individual statement by putting messages on our user pages. -- Tim Starling 03:43, 27 Aug 2003 (UTC)

(Not) signing articles

I can not find the discussion about signing articles (this is almost wikipedia prehistory). Can somebody point it out to me? or was it discussed in the mailing list? thanks --AstroNomer 19:37, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Signing Articles...? Why would you like to sign an article. The history tells who added what. If you discuss something, you sign it. Is it that, what you mean? Fantasy 21:16, 3 Sep 2003 (UTC)

No, it's not what I meant. When wikipedia was young, there was every now and then somebody that wanted to put "author:Such and Such" at the end of the article itself. That was strongly discuraged, and signatures removed almost immediately, but I don't remember if there was and encyclica by pope Larry I, or a discussion in the list about that. If it is in wikipedia, must be buried in some long forgotten page. I was just hoping that somebody would remember.--AstroNomer 21:26, Sep 3, 2003 (UTC)

There can be 100 or 1000 Authors for one article, so I can't imagine that there was ever a realistic discussion about putting all Authors in an Article... (IMHO) :-) Fantasy 06:23, 4 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Hmm. What about the concept of crediting sources. That is recommended, I believe? The 1911 Britannica is consistently credited, as are many other public domain sources. If someone releases a thesis say into the public domain with the proviso that the author must be credited, a wikipedian who is not the original author should probably credit the original author in the article itself. What should be done about a wikipedia contributor who insisted on requiring attribution within the article as a precondition to writing to the wikipedia, that is a conundrum right enough, especially if we want to be consistent about these matters... -- Cimon Avaro on a pogo-stick 15:14, Sep 4, 2003 (UTC)

First, I tried to find out, where to credit a source some time ago, but I got no answer. (Maybe now we find an answer ;-)

THE GNU Free Documentation License says "Secondarily, this License preserves for the author and publisher a way to get credit for their work, while not being considered responsible for modifications made by others."

Under "MODIFICATIONS" it says: "I. Preserve the section Entitled "History", Preserve its Title, and add to it an item stating at least the title, year, new authors, and publisher of the Modified Version as given on the Title Page. If there is no section Entitled "History" in the Document, create one stating the title, year, authors, and publisher of the Document as given on its Title Page, then add an item describing the Modified Version as stated in the previous sentence."

If I understand this right, the "History" is the place, where you find the author. I don't think, you can add conditions to your contributions to Wikipedia. You are credited in the History anyway and you have to agree to GFDL, so I guess no conditions are possible.

But surely, we could add at the end the name of the first/most important Author, even if that is sometimes quite hard to define exactly...?

I don't know if this was any help, but I look forward for more comments ;-) Fantasy 15:42, 4 Sep 2003 (UTC)

PS: Maybe Wikipedia:Cite your sources is of some help?

I logged in to make some additions to the List of Jews today. I know I got on in my AOL browser instead of the "Internet Explorer" browser I usually use, but still . . . After I edited the page, I got this screen:

User is blocked From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Your user name or IP address has been blocked by Hephaestos. The reason given is this:
Michael

You may contact Hephaestos or one of the other administrators to discuss the block.

Return to Main Page.

What does this mean?

Now it won't post no matter how many times I try entering a change into the browser and hitting "Save Page", and I've lost a larger number of Jews that were added into that article, including Josh Server, David Frum, David Horowitz, Leo Ornstein and Robert Ornstein, Lev Davidovich Landau, Jakob Dylan, Evan & Jaron, Abraham Maslow and William Safire (I hope I remembered them all.) For the rest of the day, I'm going to be posting only from Internet Explorer. Wiwaxia 02:39, 15 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Wiwaxia, it means that somebody thinks you are an alter ego of a known troublemaker, "Michael", who has been banned from the Wikipedia due to his repeated and severe misbehaviour, or that you are posting from the same IP address as him (this can happen if your ISP uses a proxy server). Please take it up with the people mentioned if you have been caught inappropriately by a ban. --Robert Merkel 02:47, 15 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I've unblocked the IP in question. - Hephaestos 02:56, 15 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Is the list of blocked IPs purged frequently? I thought Michael finnally buggered off ages ago. CGS 09:58, 15 Sep 2003 (UTC).

There is no automated purging of the list of blocked IPs. IPs (and usernames) remain blocked until someone manually unblocks them. Depending on the sysop in question, this might be after a few days, or a few months. Martin 10:51, 15 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Well, the last Michaele linked in User:Michael is from September 4th. But seems like his last actions could be stopped so fast that most didn't notice his appearence - for me it also seems like it was ages till I last reverted Michaels nonsense. Let's hope he is really gone now. andy 10:56, 15 Sep 2003 (UTC)

"There is no automated purging of the list of blocked IPs". There will be soon. I've just put my enhanced blocking code into the "stable" version of our software, so it's now ready to go live. It'll probably be up within a couple of days.

• IP blocks will expire after 24 hours
• Sysops will be able to block logged-in users
• Sysops cannot effectively block other sysops
• IP addresses used by blocked logged-in users will also be blocked. Such IP addresses will be hidden to protect privacy.

This has been previously discussed on wikitech-l and wikien-l. -- Tim Starling 14:39, Sep 15, 2003 (UTC)

Okay, recent events (aka User:This is Hephaestos, not Michael) prompted me to move my timetable forward a little bit. This feature is now operational. As you can see at Special:Ipblocklist, I've broken it in. -- Tim Starling 01:03, Sep 16, 2003 (UTC)

It didn't work very well. I managed to block the first username in the two minutes between when he logged out as that user and when he logged back in as the second username. I didn't realise I'd missed him until after he'd finished overall. He never actually saw a block message. -- Tim Starling 02:53, Sep 16, 2003 (UTC)

Hmmm, seems like it isn't working fully, as User:64.175.249.214 (Hephaestos) is still able to do his vandalizing well after your block. andy 18:54, 16 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Are you sure? I only see 4 contributions from him. I've tested the feature on myself; it seems to work, as does the autoblock of banned users' IP addresses... Evercat 19:33, 16 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Plus one moving of Hephaestos' talk page around 20:30 GMT+2 which I already moved back, and thus does not show in that list anymore. But, the block is dated 03:44, 16 Sep 2003, while his first contribution is from 17:44, 16 Sep 2003 well after the block. Or is there a timezone mismatch? andy 19:41, 16 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Hmm, seems you're right, he just moved a page. Perhaps the fact that his username looks like an IP is the problem? Evercat 19:55, 16 Sep 2003 (UTC)

The fact that it looked like an IP was a problem, hopefully I just fixed it. If it works, you should see an autoblocker entry pop up at Special:Ipblocklist -- something like:

• "Evercat blocked #140 (contribs) (unblock) (Autoblocked because you share an IP address with 64.175.249.214 (Hephaestos). Reason: Michael"

Hang on, I'll make sure it's working. -- Tim Starling 01:55, Sep 17, 2003 (UTC)

Never mind, we got the bastard. Look, I even guessed the right ID! -- Tim Starling 02:02, Sep 17, 2003 (UTC)

David G. Monette

This is about as good a place as any to ask I guess; I was about to start looking up info to write a stub on David G. Monette (on the wanted articles list for over a year). Turns out he's head of a company that manufactures mouthpieces for musical instruments. He gets 300 Google hits with the initial. (There are 4000 without, but most seem to be about an unrelated artist). Is this really encyclopedia-worthy? It would be aggravating to do the looking-up for an article that's just going to be deleted anyway. - Hephaestos 19:13, 23 Sep 2003 (UTC)

• IMHO, any person that gets more than 200 google hits is a definite inclusion. So yes. BL 20:33, 23 Sep 2003 (UTC)
  • In that case, I guess I need one quickly. Google gets about 2000 hits on "Andre Engels", an estimated 95% of which are indeed about me (guess made by finding that of the first 50, 48 are about me). Andre Engels 14:02, 25 Sep 2003 (UTC)

200 is way too low! BL, you get more than that and as Martin recently pointed out, he gets more than 500. 3.8 million Google hits Angela 20:51, 23 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Need to Rename Image File

I uploaded a photo of a person awhile back. I named the file after the person's name, but spelled it incorrectly. I used the mispelled image name in the article about the person, so everything there looks okay. But I don't feel comfortable leaving the image spelled incorrectly. Is there a way to rename an image? What I would prefer to do is upload the image file again under the correct spelling and fix the link in the article. Then, delete the old image file. But to delete the image file, I believe I need to put it up for a vote for deletion. Does all of this sound oaky to you folks? Of course, I can't do any of this until uploads are reactivated. --Fernkes 00:43, Sep 25, 2003 (UTC)

Yes, that's all exactly right. Upload a new one, fix the link, and list on WP:VFD. -- Tim Starling 00:47, 25 Sep 2003 (UTC)