Wikipedia:Village pump/August 2003 archive 2

Vandal Limbo

Please check out my Vandal Limbo proposal at Wikipedia talk:Vandalism in progress (the larger block of text by the end of the article at this moment), and comment on it. I'll move the discussion somewhere else if it sparks some interest, I'd just want to know if you people think it;s a good idea for now. -- Gutza 09:45, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Anchors

I tried using achors with redicects but they dont seem to work properly. I used Kings of England and typed in this for the redirect #REDIRECT [[List of British monarchs#English monarchs]]. When I go to Kings of England page it does not direct me to the section I want, it doees not seem to understand achors. - fonzy

No, obviously doesn't redirect understand anchors, and maybe that's for the best. It's far too easy to change a heading without knowing of any references to that particular heading, and it's surely more important to keep that easy than to make it easier to use anchors. ;->

-- Ruhrjung 19:45, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Wikipedia Used as a Legal Source

added to wikipedia:press coverage

Pruning this article

Move to Wikipedia talk:Village pump

There is a large cache of lines at the top of this article which indicate where previous discussions have been moved. Currently, this article is 55 Kb long, and that makes it difficult for some browsers to edit. Could we move the moved articles section to another article, or to an archive? RickK 19:39, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Pruning the pump (sounds like a euphemism, doesn't it?) is unpopular. I don't know why - it really boosts your number of contributions. The list of items moved can be archived to Wikipedia:Village pump archive, but the latest few should stay. Be bold! CGS 19:46, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC).

Physics main page is empty !

Move to Talk:Physics

Aug 3, 2003 This page looks empty, although, when trying to edit it, there is text in it. Is it a bug ?

Physics is empty? Try refreshing (F5) the page. -- Notheruser 22:54, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Maxwell's equations page is empty too !

Neither page is empty. What browser are you using? -- Notheruser 18:56, 3 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I still see the Maxwell's equations page empty (http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwell's_equations): it returns (There is currently no text in this page) , whatever the browser. Browsers : Opera 7.11, Mozilla Firebird 0.6 and IE 6.0.26

Hmm, I have some questions (hopefully they can help me help you). Are all Wikipedia pages like this? Have you cleared the cache for each browser? Are you using a proxy server? -- Notheruser 08:01, 5 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Wikipedia on CNN

Added to Wikipedia:Press coverage

I miss Search!

Oops, just created a duplicate article for film director Costa-Gavras. Using the Go button on Costa-Gavras only returned Costa-Rica, so I started a fresh article. Just I discovered he already exists, as Constantin Costa-Gavras. :-(((

Sigh...

I will have to get used to using Google to check these things... Until Search is restored (soon???)... -- Viajero 10:25, 3 Aug 2003 (UTC)

It's a bummer, but if search was enabled, you could not use the site at all right now.—Eloquence 10:29, Aug 3, 2003 (UTC)

Never mind, I merged Constantin Costa-Gavras into Costa-Gavras. I hope this doesn't seem controversial. He is known primarily by Costa-Gavras; moreover his real name is Constantino Gavras.

-- Viajero 10:56, 3 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Why not try with:
http://www.google.com/custom?domains=wikipedia.org;1911encyclopedia.org&sitesearch=wikipedia.org or something similar in your favorite list?
-- Ruhrjung 14:37, 3 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Can't we just put a text box on the Wikipedia site that will automagically redirect you to Google (with site:www.wikipedia.org set) for your query? I see other sites doing this all the time... Kwertii 05:51, 7 Aug 2003 (UTC)

How to make my computer a Wikipedia copy?

I want to make my computer a Wikipedia platform so that I can browse and work offline, but I don't know much about programming, I tried several times to install the PHP, but failed. (It doesn't work! I did everything accroding to the instrument, but the source file just as what it is in .php, I am using Windows XP English edition + IE 6.0). Could anyone help me how to make that work? So that I can just edit articles offline as I do online in the Wikipedia? Or is there any software offering WYCIWYG platform? Thanks! (please leave messages in my talk page, thank you!). --Samuel 13:23, 3 Aug 2003 (UTC)

There's a Mozilla plugin called Spiderzilla that may be able to do the trick. ([1])

Better yet, http://download.wikipedia.org offers the entire database in two archives and it won't kill the server with thousands of connection requests. -- Notheruser 22:22, 3 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Samuel already knows about database downloads, but is having trouble installing the entire Wikipedia suite, which is required in order to view them. That's hardly surprising. I think meta:WINOR is what you're looking for. Its existence hasn't really been publicised, and I haven't tried it myself, so I don't know if it's any good. But according to the blurb, it does what you want. -- Tim Starling 01:18, Aug 4, 2003 (UTC)

Thank you, but the WINOR link is a dead link, i can't download from there. besides, it took me more than 5 hours to convert the sql files into TomeRaider (en version), but it still didn't finished, i had to just cancel the process. --Samuel 03:37, 4 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Yes, I think it's been like that for a while. Email Magnus Manske and ask him to fix it. -- Tim Starling 01:10, Aug 5, 2003 (UTC)

Legal liability of distributing First Aid page?

I would like to copy the main part of the First Aid page and distribute in on Palm handhelds (might save a life!). But then I got worried about getting sued. While the stuff seems correct, I'm no medical expert. What are the legal liabilities here? Should I include a disclaimer? How can I word the disclaimer so that it doesn't undermine the credibilty of the content? --Zipdude 01:00, 4 Aug 2003 (UTC)

NPOV for death years in date pages

It's not a massively important thing, but "date" pages (eg. April 1) have a + indicating the year of someone's death. Surely that's Christian and not neutral? :) -- TY. 04:00, 4 Aug 2003 (UTC)

And I thought it was derived from the look in the eyes of dead comic book characters.

 (+) (+)
    o
  _---_ 

—Eloquence 03:18, Aug 4, 2003 (UTC)

Sillyness aside, it does not represent a Christian cross; the + is a shorthand for a dagger symbol †, but some browsers still can't display daggers so we mostly use the plus sign. --mav 03:28, 4 Aug 2003 (UTC)

The dagger looks, if anything, even more like a Christian cross than the + does, and dagger (typography) explicitly states that it is used as a symbol for death date because of that resemblance. So TY's question still needs to be addressed. —Paul A 03:48, 4 Aug 2003 (UTC)

It looks confusing either way. It doesn't get its intended meaning across to some people. I've got some Wikipedians asking about that on the Chinese WP. And more confusingly so, its opposite: (- 1943), intended to be birthyear. --Menchi 03:32, Aug 4, 2003 (UTC)

Then replace it with "died" - that seems reasonable enough to me. --mav

Or "d." for short would be better. --Jiang

I think in this case, we should use "died" or something similarly obvious as + or † is not clear. However, if we start stamping out any phrase originating to Christianity, it will get really silly and really annoying before too long due to the pervasive influence of Christianity on the English language. We should just stick to trying to communicate clearly and not be politically correct about where words came from. Daniel Quinlan 04:16, Aug 4, 2003 (UTC)

Agreed. The most important thing here is to be clear; + † and even d. are less clear than died. --mav

The old slippery-slope argument, I see. I think that we can expect ourselves to have sufficiently good judgment to curb the annoying silliness when we get that far. In the meantime, using d., died or even deceased instead of a profoundly Christian symbol wouldn't hurt, and neither would changing BC to BCE. -Smack 06:55, 5 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I always thought the plus sign just meant "also" or something. You are looking at the year of their birth and it says "and they also died in (whatever year). As a lapsed Catholic who sometimes finds the pervasiveness of Christianity pretty annoying, I must say it didn't even "cross" my mind that it was supposed to be either a cross or a dagger. Oh well...I would think "died" or "d." would still be better anyway. Adam Bishop 04:30, 4 Aug 2003 (UTC)

[edit] and printable version

Hello, just wanted to mention that the [edit] links (to edit sections instead of the whole page) needs to be removed from the printable versions. Thanks. --Astudent 06:16, 2003 Aug 4 (UTC)

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CNN Piece on Wikipedia

As promised, CNN International Tech Watch aired a segment this morning on the Wikipedia and our student project. See CNN TechWatch videos for a streaming video of the segment. -- Fuzheado 05:34, 4 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Bring over to Wikipedia:Press coverage. --Jiang

Consider it done. - Fuzheado 06:29, 4 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I love that video! It's short, but it captures the anxiety of newcomers, as well as our proud aspects. The download link is here, for those who wanna see our public appearance again and again. Or just want to stare at Kristie's beautiful face. Either way, it's a great clip! Thanks to Fuzheado! I'm looking forward to the day of a one-hour documentary on Wikipedia. ;-) --Menchi 05:49, Aug 4, 2003 (UTC)

It's actually quite funny (scary) because when they came to film the segment, that was the exact time (to the hour!) that they had the massive downtime of Wikipedia (Monday noon HK time, and Sunday night US time). I was panicked because they couldn't do any screen shots of students working on the 'pedia. Fortunately, they were able to get on later, but not nearly as much demonstration as I'd have liked. - Fuzheado 06:29, 4 Aug 2003 (UTC)

That is very embarrassing. I remember other Wikipedians showed their dismay that when "showing off" WP to their friends, WP was down or snail-slow. So the threat of newbies finding us unappealing has always been there because of those technical problem. Now this semi-formal demostration met the down and has cost us some good screeshots -- the number of which I did find a bit lacking in the clip. Something needs to be done about the slowdowns and complete downs if we were to compete with Encarta Encyclopedia (we've beaten Britannica.com already!). --Menchi 07:28, Aug 4, 2003 (UTC)

Get your credit cards ready, it won't be long now. -- Tim Starling 07:46, Aug 4, 2003 (UTC)

In the interview, what did Abbie and Olivia say while they chuckle? Something "fake thin sunglasses... nerdy"? It's after Professor Lih explains the "shallow bug" motto, and Kristie says "a concensus develops... a single takes on the world seems rude". Somebody is asking me about this clip on the Chinese WP, and I've listened to that part six times and still couldn't get it. --Menchi 01:00, Aug 5, 2003 (UTC)

If it's the bit I think you're talking about, they mention that the Wikipedia's take on the world seems to have "thick glasses" -- it's "fairly nerdy". That's entirely unfair ... I, for one, wear contacts :) --Robert Merkel 03:50, 5 Aug 2003 (UTC)

#ifdef HETEROSEXIST_PIG_MODE

As for the Wikipedia mascot, I don't think we need to search any further - Ms. Stout is obviously the standout candidate ;) --Robert Merkel 03:50, 5 Aug 2003 (UTC)

#endif

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Main Page Appearance

• moved to Talk:Main Page/Temp5
• vote at Talk:Main Page/Layout design

TOC placement: Topmost or post-intro

Anon 209 has recently been given a number of medical articles, such as Aortic dissection, subheadings. This created TOCs. That's good. But the Anon also move the introductory paragraphs to be under the first section, "Definition". This made the TOCs to be the first things in the articles (unlike, say the Pump here).

But isn't the intros always assumed to be "good definitions"? Should we keep the intro as a preamble or not?
--Menchi 06:40, Aug 2, 2003 (UTC)

Please see also for instance History of Germany, where Wai-Shun Cheung systematically have reached a similar effect.
-- Ruhrjung 07:25, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

yuck. An article starts with a definition, by definition! reverting/. -- Tarquin 08:38, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

It does mean exactly this until some __TOCHERE__ something or other wiki markup is included in the wiki markup language, which isn't the case yet. -- till we *) 19:34, Aug 2, 2003 (UTC)

Location of Table of Contents

See Maya civilization. Should the table of contents really be located so many paragraphs down into the article? Does the location of the table of contents mean that we're going to have to start putting in an ==Introduction== header in every article to force the table of contents to the top? RickK 19:30, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Scroll this page up a bit. CGS 19:33, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC).

#TOC placement: Topmost or post-intro. --Menchi 19:43, Aug 2, 2003 (UTC)

Table of contents

How is it possible to ensure the table of contents showing up on every article? Shall any Java code be incorporated? kt2 19:27, 4 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I just put four headers on the page. Seems to work. And I would say that a Table of Contents is too obtrusive if you have only three headers. Rednblu 19:33, 4 Aug 2003 (UTC)

It works as you said. At least four headers trigger the table. Putting __NOTOC__ anywhere forces the table not showing up.kt2 19:46, 4 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Many thanx to all for the info, but may I be referred to any current discussion (other than the one here) on how we can control excatly where we want the TOC to show up? kt2 19:57, 4 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Right now the TOC always shows up before the first section header. I will probably implement __TOCHERE__ to let you determine the exact location, but currently that is not possible.—Eloquence

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Ambitious 142.177.12.12

move to user talk:142.177.etc

Someone with experience of this wikipedia project might want to look at http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Contributions&target=142.177.12.12

The user seem to be rather well versed in NPOV and wikipedia lingo. My first impression, particularly based on the democracy article, is however not quite positive. Inbetween additions and edits which I'm not competent to judge, there are also changes which I from my perspective find outrigh wrong (possibly advocating the writer's particular POV?) although presented with the cocksureness of a 21-years old who is sure he knows absolutely everything worth to know about the topic.

It's time to go to bed in our part of the world, why I think it's better if someone else take a look at this.

Good night!
-- Ruhrjung 23:51, 4 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Judging by the IP range, and general editing style, this is a previous difficult user back again. They have been reasonably well-behaved recently, but are still the subject of a hard ban, so feel free to roll back any of their content if you object to it. -- The Anome 11:08, 6 Aug 2003 (UTC)

See user:142.177.etc (though at some point someone should put a more detailed explanation there). Martin 14:13, 6 Aug 2003 (UTC)

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TOC placement revisited

Why is the system putting TOC's in the middle of articles? I understand that it has been instructed to place them before the first subtitle. But in many cases, that is well into an article. I have started putting subtitles at the beginnings of articles, new and extant, but that will take far too long. Is there some way of changing the instructions so yhis dosn't have to be done manualy? mydogategodshat 05:39, 5 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Why is it that people who post comments on the Village Pump never read comments that have been posted on the Village Pump before they post comments on the Village Pump? —Eloquence

I did read the previous discussion. It did not answer my question of whether it was possible to automatically put the table of contents where it belongs, or whether this will have to be done manually? mydogategodshat 05:54, 5 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Then I do not understand your question. The TOC is deliberately placed before the first section heading and not on top, because articles should have a short introductory paragraph (or two) before the table of contents. To prevent it from showing up in the middle, add a new heading, but not on top, but after the intro. —Eloquence 05:59, Aug 5, 2003 (UTC)

I see. It seems that a decision has been made to put the table of contents in the body of the article. I think that is a mistake; the table of contents no more belongs in the middle of a body of writing, than a title page belongs there. But this is not my decision to make.mydogategodshat 06:08, 5 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Opinions can certainly differ on the matter. If you consider it important, feel free to start a vote on the subject.—Eloquence 06:16, Aug 5, 2003 (UTC)

The workaround is to put a header right before the first sentence of the article, maybe something like ==Definition==. That isn't regared as good practice currently, but will give the TOC placement before the article starts. -- till we *) 10:56, Aug 5, 2003 (UTC)

Don't tell anybody that you are doing this. When I did it. adminsitrators systematically reverted the TOC back to the middle of the articles by deleting the headings. mydogategodshat 23:14, 5 Aug 2003 (UTC)

So, change it back ... till we *) 13:52, Aug 7, 2003 (UTC)

floating the TOC might be nice, but it could interfere with tables in the article -- Tarquin 09:41, 5 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I don't see why there should be a need for a "workaround." I think it makes good sense to have a short introductory paragraph (sorta like a preface) before the TOC. Keep the intro paragraph short, and it's not a problem. It may also help to encourage better article structure, since a lot of times the existing headings look very silly when placed into a hierarchical TOC :) Perhaps the TOC placement is something that can be configured in user preferences, for those who want it to come first? -- Wapcaplet 04:43, 8 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I have nothing to say regarding vertical placement, but I do believe that TOC's should be centered. -Smack 22:03, 5 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Chemical Page

The wikipedia chemical page contained a good dictionary definition (formatted as such)), and accordingly I have moved it to wiktionary, which lacked such a definition. However, what do I do with the Wikipedia page? I have left it for the moment with a notice, but obviously this should be removed as soon as possible. Tompagenet 11:33, 5 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Add it to the votes for deletion. --Delirium 23:51, Aug 5, 2003 (UTC)

Links to non-existing wiki-pages

I've got a question: I made some edits to a page: Gambit and now Harris7 removed some links to non-existing pages like Staunton, calling them "stub links". I wonder: I thought it is good to make links to non existing pages (If I think the subject needs a page), so other people can click and start with the page. Or should I just link to existing pages?

You can certainly add more links to non-existing page that are sometimes not added to the list of Wikipedia:Requested articles. More exposure they get, more chances a knowledgeable wikipedian would make them new articles. kt2 16:45, 5 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Links to non-existing pages are generally fine, if an article is likely to be written. I don't know why Harris7 did remove these links. You should probably ask him. -- Cordyph 16:49, 5 Aug 2003 (UTC)

My interpretation, given "stub links", is that Harris7 felt that the potential articles would never be more than stubs even if they did exist. But that's just a guess; you'd have to ask Harris7. —Paul A 16:52, 5 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I've put the links back (and added a few). I think they were fine - it's perfectly possible to write very lengthy articles about these gambits (entire books have been written about them). Note though that the link should be to Staunton Gambit, not just Staunton (which implies Howard Staunton). --Camembert

Ok thanx, it's clear to me Pascal 15:34, 6 Aug 2003 (UTC)

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What's happened to the box

I've just noticed (maybe I'm a bit slow) that the scrolling box which used to be in the top left of the screen (the one where you could access long pages etc) is missing. When and why did this happen. G-Man 17:58, 5 Aug 2003 (UTC)

This was part of the last software update. Unfortunately, the combobox interfered with correct display of the Standard Skin on some browsers. Fear not, however, as the functions you seek are easily available through the "Special pages" link in the sidebar.—Eloquence 20:25, Aug 5, 2003 (UTC)

Simple.wikipedia.com

There are some new pages that just consist of links to entries at simple.wikipedia.com, and those entries in turn are short dictionary entries, not encyclopedic. Did I miss something, or is it cool to delete them? (These items include 109-byte or so articles on New and Principle.) I'm used to actual articles that also point to other Wikipedias, but these have nothing except a boilerplate redirect.Vicki Rosenzweig 18:58, 5 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Well, I'm not an authority or a sysop, but I'd say go ahead and delete them. Our entries aren't supposed to just be links to other resources. However, I think links to Wiktionary for entries would be cool, but with a small icon instead of a text link. But that is another issue. Yeah, delete them IMHO. —Frecklefoot 19:17, 5 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I'm disappointed with simple.wikipedia.com, in practice. I thought that the idea was to write the articles more simply. It appears that what's happening is simply a re-write without reference to the solutions to POV problems that have been addressed here. Maybe it's just my day to be grouchy. Mkmcconn 21:44, 5 Aug 2003 (UTC)

A bit disappointed at the slant of Wikipedia and lack of dialogue

Since we're airing disappointments, here are mine: I've been contributing to Wikipedia for about 6-8 months now, and a few questions have been nagging at me and just won't go away. I love the idea of Wikipedia, and the reality seems exciting so far in many respects. Yet some facets of the experience and the product bother me, to the point where I consider them problems to be actively corrected. These swirling disappointments may be summed up as:

• Wikipedia content seems to be slanted way off into a geekish, fantasy-game obsessed, gadget-implanted, male, US, Grammy Award watching space, and
• I'm trying to add content that seems widely useful or where I have some expertise. I expected my work to be edited, but not to be so fully ignored. (sniff) The experience is very one-sided - I appear to be the only one talking on most of these topics. So where is all the correction, additions, refining and enhancement to come from?

I understand the Wikipedian credo to be that such problems (and all problems?)will self-correct with time and participation by users. Does the Wikipedia experience, objectively viewed and evaluated by data, bear out this belief? Are the issues I describe problems? If so, is there any way to correct them other than waiting for improvement?

User:NuclearWinner 5 Aug 2003

I agree with you on the slant. Just look at all the Harry Potter articles created in the last few days! As for your articles: no edits in the wikiworld usually means people approve! You might want to indoctrinate friends who also know the subject into wikipedia -- Tarquin 23:05, 5 Aug 2003 (UTC)

The slant is a problem, particularly when video-game characters become featured articles (as one did a few days ago). As regards the lack of editing, any given Wikipedian is probably only knowledgeable enough to write on 4% or 5% of the articles we have. You just can't expect the odd knowledgeable person to come upon one of your contributions, and (as Tarquin said) disagree with it and edit it. -- Smack

Many of the U.S. city articles have not been added to, although many have. Yet over time people will add more of cities from other towns in the world. In fact there are a number of Wikiprojects created to do just that. This bias has diminished with the gradual increase of new wikipedians and the addition of new articles. The 'pedia is not as biased towards U.S. cities as it was 6 months ago and it will continue to get better. I've edited articles that I know nothing about, but it just takes time I guess. -- Ram-Man 23:29, Aug 5, 2003 (UTC)

There is definitely a geeky slant, but it's not as bad as it may seem. We have historians, psychologists, mathematicians, biologists, theologians, marketroing experts, ... In my own comparisons with other encyclopedias I have found that Wikipedia often provides much more depth, and more critical analysis. Check out circumcision (ahem, a little self-promotion), Aztalan State Park, Milgram experiment, Bathing machine ... try looking these up in Britannica and Encarta. The Britannica article on circumcision alone is a disgrace, and last I checked Encarta didn't even have one about the Milgram Experiment.

The geeky slant is no big deal, really. It just means that these particular topics will be well-covered. We had a summary of the latest Harry Potter book online shortly after it hit the shelves. From this you cannot logically conclude that other topics are not also well-covered. Our main weakness seem to be the country articles -- these are not up to date, and for many of the more "exotic" countries, we have nothing but the CIA World Factbook information. We need more cosmopolitans! Perhaps Wikitravel will help with that.

As for the lack of corrections, refinements etc. -- I know how you feel. Long articles that are well rounded are often not edited much the moment they appear. The kind of changes made after a new edit appears on Recent Changes are primarily things like style, conventions, wikification etc. If your article is reasonably well written and not in violation of any policy, it will probably not be edited much at that point -- simply because the people who know enough about the subject to do so are probably not online, or busy with other things.

It can take months or even years for these people to discover your article, often via Google, and to make edits to it. If you want to speed up the process, a relatively safe bet is to locate the Wikipedians in your field of interest and to ask them for their input. Most people like getting messages :-). And if you want to be a little more daring, nominate your own page on Wikipedia:Brilliant prose candidates -- that's sure to get you some feedback.

We are still some way from wiki nirvana. In the future, we will have things like categories, and it might be possible to watch for articles in categories that interest you. Right now this is all manual labor. But the process does work. Please do check out Erik Zachte's statistics for the English Wikipedia -- the number of edits per page has been increasing from about 1.3 to 5.6, the mean article size has increased as well. On the other hand, we keep getting those pesky new users ;-), and the rate of new article creation has increased significantly as well. How well we can handle these new articles really depends on how much we can teach the new users to help with the process. The new users that join at this point are less technically sophisticated than those who were initially active, and need more training to become productive Wikipediholics..

We do need better policies for all those fiction articles to prevent them from flooding the system -- characters within one fictional realm should usually be merged into a single page, for example. But I would not worry too much about the slant. Just keep writing articles and ask others for their opinion when you desire immediate feedback.—Eloquence 23:33, Aug 5, 2003 (UTC)

One strategy for increasing article viewership is to include plenty of related "See Also" links. Many people browse Wikipedia using these links. Another strategy is to include "your" articles in any appropriate "lists of related topics". We have to make it easy for browsers (the human kind) to find articles. mydogategodshat 23:47, 5 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Another strategy is to place links at other web sites. For example I placed a link to [[list of marketing topics] at http://www.merlot.org . This is an open source resourse for educators. But beware, most of the users of the Merlot site are experts, so make sure the articles on the list are of a reasonably good quality, or they will give you a poor rating.mydogategodshat 00:21, 6 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Regarding lack of editing: like you, I was initially very put out by the lack of interest in the pages I wrote. The hit counter served to bolster my ego somewhat, but since that is now disabled, you just have to take our word for it: people are reading your pages, they like what they see, so they don't bother editing them. If you want lots of comments, write really badly, or get involved in contentious topics. My best advice would be to stop worrying about interest, and get on with improving Wikipedia to the best of your ability. Your interaction with other Wikipedians will increase with time. -- Tim Starling 00:40, Aug 6, 2003 (UTC)

I just keep throwing stuff up on the wall, and sometimes other people take an interest, and sometimes not. Cross-linking is important; sometimes I'm astonished to find articles that have been almost completely ignored because nobody can find them except by accident. My linking rule is that for every A -> B, one ought to seriously considering adding a B -> A link, or perhaps a B -> list of A. For example, if a famous tavern's sign is a bee, then the tavern link from the bee article will be an interesting bit of trivia, probably more interesting than notable beekeepers :-) or taxonomists' arguments. Sure it's redundant, but readers connect to things by going forward, backlink lists are really only of use to editors. Stan 01:20, 6 Aug 2003 (UTC)

That way we end up with Harry Potter trivia in biology articles. Not good. I agree that we should strive for high interconnectedness, but articles should only discuss their actual subject and not all tangentially related ones. If you want more links, look for articles where they would actually be relevant.—Eloquence 02:07, Aug 6, 2003 (UTC)

"In some cultures, bees are a symbol of industriousness, as seen for example in the state seal of Utah and on the sign of The Busy Bee in the Lincolnshire town of Wankers Corner." That's why I said "consider", not "always do". And to keep things in perspective, a valid Harry Potter connection to a biology article will be of interest to a million schoolchildren, and thus more pedagogically valuable than the navel-gazings of the three taxonomic specialists who care whether the Aleoideae are more similar to the Acanthuridae or the Zoefloridae. Always write for the reader. Stan 04:52, 6 Aug 2003 (UTC)

"Always write for the reader" sounds like a tautology to me. Every writer is also a reader. Always write for the average reader is a meaningful statement, but what does it mean? Does it mean that we should try to make connections to the average reader's knowledge, evoke as many associations as possible within every article? That is not the purpose of an encyclopedia -- the purpose of an encyclopedia is to collect knowledge, and knowledge is only useful if it is structured. Now, by taking the reader's "knowledge" and building it into the article, you risk destroying the already existing structure within that particular field -- effectively you risk destroying knowledge itself. Now, this may sound extreme and it will take extreme examples to prove it -- inserting Ally McBeal references into intellectual property, and so forth. The effect: the reader is no longer presented with a meaningful structure that was developed by the experts in that particular field of law, but instead with a structure that has been optimized for his presumed popcultural "knowledge". This change in structure will negatively affect attempts to gather information that is actually meaningful within the context of the field in question.

"Always write for the average reader" means: Do not presume that the reader knows what you are talking about. Establish context, cite your sources and so on. But it does not mean bathing articles in pop cultural references. Of course I know that you're not suggesting to do this -- however, in the bee example, I would much rather have a specific article bees in culture (yay!) than have the knowledge structure of the bee article negatively affected by such pop cultural references. Keep fields of knowledge separate or knowledge will suffer.—Eloquence 05:14, Aug 6, 2003 (UTC)

Special:Wantedpages

I recognize the fact that regeneration of this page causes lag, but would it be possible to update the links, so that pages that have since been created are displayed as such? -Smack 23:32, 5 Aug 2003 (UTC)

If they were regular free links instead of edit commands, then filled-in ones would show up in blue, and in between updates you could see at a glance which ones remained to be done. Stan 01:25, 6 Aug 2003 (UTC)

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I see that drastic changes have been made to the appearance and functionality of the wikipedia while I was gone... I'm going to have to get used to them! But there is one request that I'd like to make. Please please PLEASE can we have a 'random page' link back at the top of the screen next to 'main page' and 'recent changes'. In the absence of a workable 'search' function it's what I'd expect to use the most when trolling for useful tasks to perform.

Also, I'd consider moving 'New Pages' up a tier and giving it a link over in the left bar so you don't have to filter through the 'special pages' list to get to it. Again, it's one of the most useful functions and the easier it is to access directly the better. KJ 03:37, 6 Aug 2003 (UTC)

G'day Karen. You might be interested to know that the most recent batch of new features prompted quite a bit of discussion when they first came in (about a week ago), and it's now all been moved to Wikipedia talk:Software updates. The random page link sounds like a good idea but no doubt Eloquence will have some opinion on it... -- Tim Starling 03:52, Aug 6, 2003 (UTC)

I don't understand why you want "Random page" in the top bar -- we should keep that as clean as possible because otherwise we get problems in low resolutions. It's already in the sidebar to the left, and if you set your sidebar to "floating" in Special:Preferences, always available and visible. Yes, "New pages" is useful, but usability-wise we've reached the maximum number of links in the sidebar.—Eloquence 04:12, Aug 6, 2003 (UTC)

Right on cue :) -- Tim Starling 04:17, Aug 6, 2003 (UTC)

Names of Portuguese Kings

I just noticed that the Afonso Kings of Portugal (I... VI) are all under Alfonso or Alphonso. This is VERY strange for a portuguese. Is like calling John Charles to the king of Spain. I plan to reorganize the mess in the portuguese kings in the end of August (after i comeback from wonderfull holydays). If somebody wants to object please do in my talk page: i want to discuss this. Muriel Gottrop 08:55, 6 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Yes, Juan Carlos is obviously correct for the current king of Spain as that is how the name is rendered by everyone in both Spanish and English. Sometimes, names are translated/transliterated, though. For example, in English, Christopher Columbus is correct even though it wasn't his real name. Let's see what Google thinks about Portuguese kings:

• 11,800 hits total, 9,770 hits English, 186 hits Portuguese: "portugal Alfonso king OR kings"
• 1,740 hits, 1,670 hits English: 14 hits Portuguese, "portugal Alphonso king OR kings"
• 5,200 hits, 3,870 hits English: 940 hits Portuguese, "portugal Afonso king OR kings"

It seems pretty clear-cut to me. Their name in Portuguese is "Afonso", but, for some reason, probably historical, the name seems to be "Alfonso" in English. I'd leave them as "Alfonso" and note the original Portuguese on each page as is done for Christopher Columbus. The Columbia Encyclopedia, sixth edition, does the same: http://www.bartleby.com/65/al/Alfon1Por.html &mdash perhaps, check to see what other encyclopedias do.

Simultaneously logged in and not logged in?

I registered a few days ago as Vremya and have been adding information to a few articles, mostly on transit subjects. In particular, I have been expanding the rubber-tired metro, Paris Metro, and Fulgence Bienvenüe articles. Because these are closely related, I had them all open in separate browser windows for easy cross-referencing. I also had the editing FAQ open in a fourth window.

To my surprise, I received a welcome message from Cimon Avaro on a pogo-stick under the heading User talk:152.163.252.166. It was only then that I realized that only some of the windows I had open showed me as logged in (that is, showed my username Vremya and the Logout option), while others did not show me as logged in.

Although the weird Schrödingerness of my being simultaneously logged in and not logged in does not seem to have done any damage, it would be nice if I could avoid such surprises in the future, so: What did I do wrong? Do I have to log in each time I open a Wikipedia page in a new window?

Just in case my signature doesn't "take" (this is one of the windows that has me as not logged in): I am Vremya 152.163.252.195 09:13, 6 Aug 2003 (UTC)

The login cookie expires after a while (and fails randomly for me every few days). You probably opened the windows where you are logged out after the cookie expired, and the ones where are are logged in before it expired. Simply log in again. CGS 10:19, 6 Aug 2003 (UTC).

Also, pages that you opened when you were logged in, and then revisit when no longer logged in, will be retrieved from your browser cache if they haven't been edited since. Thus they may still show the login info. --Brion 20:41, 6 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I've seen this happen. If you login in one windows, sometimes you need to Shift-Click on the the Refresh button of the browser in other windows for them to login as well. In case you didn't know, Shift-Click forces the page cache to update the page. I think Ctrl-F5 does the same in IE, but I don't know for sure; I use Mozilla. -- Viajero 13:10, 7 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I have another strange effect, probably unrelated with this one - recently it happens rather often that wikipedia seams to be dead, however when I change the URL from http://www.wikipedia.org to http://130.94.122.199 it works. Which is quite strange as the DNS lookup still works and obviously gives the same IP. And in the Recent Changes I can see it is really alive. andy 11:03, 6 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Some browsers sometimes decide to stop working properly on certain sites, for reasons not necessarily clear. Closing and reopening the browser will likely fix this. --Brion 20:41, 6 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Yes, seems to have been that. I had it again this afternoon, and after closing Mozilla (even had to kill it with the taskmanager) it was back to normal. Thanks for the hint. -- andy 15:58, 7 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I am having similair problems. I have made major contributions to a few video game related articles, and I tend to type rather slowly and re-think my editing as I go. So it isn't uncommon for me to have the edit window open for a couple hours as I type. But then when I save it, my name (Dan Mazurowski) is not credited with the edit. How can I keep the cookie from expiring when I am engaged in a long edit?

Breadth and depth

We seem to have an emerging format for writing broad articles (like New Imperialism) and deep articles (like Rise of the New Imperialism). Is there a page with guidelines for this practice? I would like there to be, so that we can discuss questions like "Can one page be part of more than one series?" and "What's the difference between a WikiProject, a series, and an informal group of pages about related topics?" Maybe at Wikipedia:Series, Wikipedia:Breadth and Depth or Wikipedia:Relationships between articles? DanKeshet 16:47, 6 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I don't think it is necessary. You can always discuss the possibility of cutting up an article in its talk page. -wshun 18:16, 6 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Maybe Dan's idea isn't stupid after all. It might be good to have kind of agreed guidiance for this. I think for instance at pages as World War II which, as far as I can judge, in practice has become shunned by authoritative contributors.

-- Ruhrjung 14:12, 7 Aug 2003 (UTC)

How can I re-claim my meta log-in?

I have a log-in on meta that I set up some time ago in the name GrahamN, but I have forgotten my password. Given that I prefer not to communicate about Wikipedia via E-mail, how can I re-claim my log-in? GrahamN 18:13, 6 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I've set it to the same as your en.wiki password. (Passwords cannot be recovered as such, since only a one-way encrypted hash is stored.) --Brion 20:15, 6 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Thank you. GrahamN 16:16, 8 Aug 2003 (UTC)