Wikimedia Forum: Difference between revisions

I'm setting up my first Mediawiki site and have two questions.

1. The image Image:PD-icon.svg is missing. What directory should I place a copy into?
2. Where should I be asking questions like this?

Thanks - Sakshale

• I solved the problem by enabling image uploads.

They get loaded to wierd subdirectories under /images. Sakshale 05:37, 2 May 2007 (UTC)SakshaleReply

You should ask Mediawiki about this since it is the website of Mediawiki and more people with that kind of expertise might be more active there.Felipe Aira

Today in huwikibooks I've noticed that headings don't work very well. The "Contents" div can't make a difference between == ... == and === ... === headings. I would like to ask that are here similar problems in enwikibooks? Maybe developers've misdone something? See this page 4xampl, after "megjegyzések" title all titles there should be third-order. Please answer on my wikibooks hun talkpage, or leave a short message there if you answer here. 100×thx: Hun. admin. Gubbubu 10:12, 2 May 2007 (UTC)Reply

This is discussed at en:Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Incorrect_TOC_formatting and the developers claimed to have fixed it already (in their Mediawiki version). Another problem with TOC nod hiding completely is also discussed below on the same page. Alex Smotrov 19:19, 3 May 2007 (UTC)Reply

Yes: I experienced that too. Thank for your answer very much. I hope this problem will be solved (in every wiki). Gubbubu 15:31, 4 May 2007 (UTC)Reply

I have a copyrights and policy question. I am asking because we, in the Russian Wikipedia have a kind of discussion regarding use of materials under GFDL from external sources and proper ways of giving credits to these sources:

There are two paragraphs in the en-wiki copyright policies:

• the first one states that Wikipedia content is available under GFDL, but "with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts";
• the second is the en:Wikipedia:Copyrights#Introducing invariant sections or cover texts in Wikipedia section, which regulates use of outside GFDL content in Wiki and in particular states: "You are satisfied that these invariant sections and cover texts are not listed elsewhere than in the "page history" of the page where these external materials are placed"

My question is: Is all this a Wikimedia Foundation policies, and thus mandatory for all language versions, or just a local guideline of the English Wikipedia?

Thanks for your answers, Levg 18:07, 3 May 2007 (UTC)Reply

(I moved this question from the top of the page)

Let me add some more details to this question: is Wikipedia required to put a notice like "this material is originally taken from the site [link] under GFDL" in the article? And what would prevent any marginal site from publishing some useful material under GFDL and then bringing it to Wikipedia with such a spam link? Alex Smotrov 19:19, 3 May 2007 (UTC)Reply

One way to rank how internationally famous an historical person is, is to count how many wikipedia-languages there are with articles on that person. I manually counted interwiki-links for people from Norway to generate a top-10 list for my country, and people I showed it to found it interesting, and not particulary flawed or very different from what they would expect if asked who the most world famous persons from Norway (dead or alive) are. (That the person toping the list had such a huge "lead" to number two, was a bit surprising, though.) All the top-8 on that list are dead.

And I was thinking this could be done for people from all nations by using a bot to count interwiki-links in articles under en:Category:People by nationality. We could then publish these lists (with all the apropriate disclaimers of course), and let newspapers around the world publish the list for people from their country. The media love national rankings like this, several TV-shows are about creating similar lists, and I think it would give us good press-coverage on the inter-language aspect of Wikipedia. For some countries, the list might be topped by, how should I put it, persons that country isn't particulary proud of (I'd expect Hitler to rank high on both the German and Austrian lists, for instance). But I'd guess that's fine.

I wasn't sure where to put this suggestion, but as I think it's a project that would give the foundation some (good hopefully) press, I hope this is a good place, and that I can get some response. Or maybe a pointer to where a suggestion like this is more apropriately raised. Thanks! Shanes 10:23, 4 May 2007 (UTC)Reply

I am using the parser extension in a mediawiki environment.

The #IF: {{{var}}}|then ...|else...}} construction produces empty lines if the else part if empty and the condition isn't true. I am using this extension in connection with tables so these table looks crazy because of this empty lines.

Changing parser.php on line 2105 helps. I'm sure this isn't the right way.

 						// paragraph
 						if ( '' == trim($t) ) {
 							if ( $paragraphStack ) {
 	//		$output .= $paragraphStack.'<br />';
 								$paragraphStack = false;
 								$this->mLastSection = 'p';
 							} else {
 								if ($this->mLastSection != 'p' ) {

request for comments--Armin.Egner 20:13, 9 May 2007 (UTC)Reply

a{{#if:|then ...}}b gives ab, it does not give blank lines here.--Patrick 21:03, 9 May 2007 (UTC)Reply

this example shows the problem

no{{#if:|then ...}} problem
{{#if:|then ...}}
emptyline

--Armin.Egner 10:54, 10 May 2007 (UTC)Reply

This only shows that the rule that two consecutive newlines cause a new paragraph is applied after template expansion. However, it seems that for wikitables there can be complications, so a change in the php code may be useful.

With the current code it may in these cases be better to use HTML syntax for the table, that does not require newlines.--Patrick 00:05, 13 May 2007 (UTC)Reply

Cannot find any solution for this stuff not with XHTML nor with HTML--Armin.Egner 17:46, 18 May 2007 (UTC)Reply

It works fine, just don't put newlines in the code:

abc

ghi

abc

def

def

def

ghi

--Patrick 00:11, 19 May 2007 (UTC)Reply

ㄅㄆㄇㄈㄉㄊㄋㄌㄍㄎㄏㄐㄑㄒㄔㄕㄖㄗㄘㄙ一ㄨㄩㄛㄜㄝㄟㄠㄡㄣㄤㄥ

I have begun the process of rewriting Arbitration Committee to make it more global and applicable to all Wikimedia Foundation projects, as opposed to just the English Wikipedia. Help welcome. Picaroon (Talk) 01:33, 19 May 2007 (UTC)Reply

Hi, Can somebody assist in changing the logo for Wikispecies temporarily? We decided some time ago to disable uploading of images to Wikispecies, but now that we want to celebrate our 100,000th article, we can no longer change the logo. Any advice? Maybe enabling upload for a while? Lycaon 07:30, 21 May 2007 (UTC)Reply

Try to file a request as a bug in bugzilla (set product to Wikimedia). You can attach the image file to the bug request or upload the image file to commons, have it protected there, check that it is protected and it has not changed, and give a link to the image on commons). -- AnyFile 21:20, 5 June 2007 (UTC)Reply

There is a very useful looking tool that is part of the Wikia sites for uploading images (see image to the right). It is on the 'edit' toolbar and guides you through uploading an image, setting thumbnail size and caption, then adds the wiki text to the page you are editing. Have scoured the web and managed to find very little about this.

It seems it would be a valuable tool on the Wikimedia projects as it very much simplifies the upload process. It would also be very useful for those of use that run other mediawiki sites. Does anybody know of the code is available for this tool, and could it be used on Wikimedia sites? -- CharlesC 18:34, 21 May 2007 (UTC)Reply

It's SpeciaL:MiniUpload + a hacked wikibits.js Created by Tristan, Wikia's intern There's very little information about it. Seems worth to convert into a extension if we can get the code. Platonides 11:20, 1 June 2007 (UTC)Reply

It's not yet working properly in MediaWiki 1.10. It lacks the Licenses drop-down box that lets you select what license an image is under. I expect this would cause rather major problems at least on the larger Wikipedias where everything must be tagged and sourced. I'm not entirely convinced that Wikimedia projects should have easier uploads since they have enough problems with unsourced images as it is. Angela 13:57, 1 June 2007 (UTC)Reply

OK, thanks for the response, and your comments relating to Wikimedia projects are understandable. Although it would be a great tool for those of us that manage other wikis based on mediawiki, both on the internet and intranets. The license drop-down box isn't usually an issue here. I am very fond of Mediawiki, however one of the biggest criticisms I get from users is the file upload procedure. MiniUpload would help a lot with this. Might the code be available for people to use in other wikis? -- CharlesC 17:34, 4 June 2007 (UTC)Reply

Moved to here...

I have had to create User names for each of the different projects I have joined, luckily I have been able to create the same user name for all of the projects, now including Meta-Wiki. Wouldn't it be easier to have one large bank of users for all of the Wikimedia Projects. They are so interconected now it would be far more conveiniant for the User, especially a new user to not have to create a new account each time they hit a hyperlink.

Sadads 12:15, 31 May 2007 (UTC)Reply

See H:UL--Nick1915 - ^{all you want} 15:54, 31 May 2007 (UTC)Reply

Ah, I just registered here to ask about that actually. Excellent news. RC Master 17:14, 28 June 2007 (UTC)Reply

Yes a unified User name account for all the projects is what we need here. I find it really inconvenient to create an account for each project. Felipe Aira

As I administer Commons, sometimes I have to edit Wikipedias in languages that I do not understand. I prefer not to show my IP, but having to register in each site is not easy, so if feasible, a unified User name account for all the projects should be started.--Jusjih 04:22, 20 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

We don't need to make an argument for why a universal login feature would be handy; nobody debates that. It's more the sheer amount of data involved; realize that there are several million accounts, with millions upon millions of edits that would need to be reattributed. It's not something that can just be done at the drop of a hat (while I'm not sure what the exact reason for it not being implemented is, I'm sure that the amount of information involved is definitely a sticking point).
As for registering for multiple projects, I feel your pain. :) EVula // talk // ☯ // 05:23, 20 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

If the Universal User Names cannot be made, I have no problems. I just register only when I have meeds. Thanks.--Jusjih 02:16, 21 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

I had asked this question some months ago and was referred to some interface in the testing phase that was intended to do just that. What it did was to go and control if your user name didn't cause a conflict on other wikis. It seemed to work fine when I registered, but it was still not active by the time I registered on pt:wiki a short while back. Now, of course, I can't find it anymore. Does anyone know what happened to that project? · Michel 09:20, 21 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

Hi,

Because of the controversy surrounding some articles on wikipedia it seems interesting to start a thread on how to authenticate the content for reliability.

Why not approve 'entities' to literally put a stamp on content as 'approved by *entity-name* on *date*'. Changes to approved content could notify both moderator and 'entity'. The stamp in itsef would contain a signature for uniqueness and a timestamp. Entities could be organisations and/or persons.

Not only would such a mechanism increase the respectability of this community driven website but also introduce a minor version revision control with built in quality control.

Thank you for your consideration,

Joris Lambrecht

joris744 @ hotmail . com

Well, why call them 'entities'? For a person to approve something, they must have an account, so it would be users who would be doing the approving. Your proposal wouldn't work though - a good quality article would have almost everything checked, which would mean every change would notify someone. Instead, letting people put things on their watchlist and let them check edits manually is a much better idea and doesn't require any hardware resources. Trying to get a more organized article watching system is one of my current goals. Having regular article reviews may be a better idea for checking reliability, though there aren't even enough people to maintain featured articles, let along review them. By the way, it might be advisable to create an account here so you don't have to post your email address after each message you post. Richard001 09:27, 10 June 2007 (UTC)Reply

• Recently Atlanta (Boy Band) - Liverpool UK - had an entry created on Wikipedia, there seemed to be no problem, until it was entered into the category of Group and Boy Bands, then calls came for the entry to be deleted. The debate got very heated and with insults to the creator and some of the citation sources submitted. Citations for what was claimed under "notability" were questioned, the creator produced information as requested but it seemed clear nothing was ever going to be accepted.

It is my opinion that for anyone new to Wiki, it is not the easiest site to navigate at first and with so many conditions, would it not be helpful and for the good name and reputation of WIKI if those who join debates could be more helpful and at least polite, we are never all going to agree on everything.

When the deletion went to appeal to be re-posted the tone on the debate really sank low with insults to the creator, it was clear that most points of "notability" has been achieved and evidence produced. Today the appeal was turned down and closed. If anyone looks into the debate it was the same few people who kept endorsing deletion, is this "democracy" in action and for a body that wishes "charity" status. To see the offices and good name of "Kensington Palace" called into question, does nothing for the credibility of WIKI. Many false accusations and comments made to the Group and Creator, but none where forthcoming or any action for monitors.

In 2007 I feel there needs to be a a better way for appeals to be dealt with rather than a few being "Judge & Jury" - The decision today to delete and also my own personal registration has shocked the offices of those who provided the evidence to demonstrate the credibility of Atlanta (Boy Band) - A well respected Soul Music website in the USA, today discussed how the entry on Wikipedia for the Original Motown Group THE SUPREMES has one of the founder members Cindy Birdsong down as a former nurse, when she never was! - contributor's to the the discussion thought it was typical and what they expected. For me time spent on making sure the encyclopeda is correct with facts like this, would be time better spent.

I now going to take a more active part in WIKI, it is a source I have used like millions do, but never felt I needed to take part in debates.JBS 18:56, 30 October 2007 (UTC) JohnReply

I just edited a page on Wikipedia, thinking I was on commons. Silly me, I put a speedy tag on the page, but then I thought 'why do they all look the same anyway?'. Of course, a certain degree of homogeneity is necessary, but perhaps it would be better if we had different colours for each project. I don't mean radically different, they would all stay very nearly white of course, but one could be pink, another aqua, another light blue, light mauve, lime etc. Is there any advantage to having precisely the same colour, or any disadvantage to having different colours? Besides being practical in a small way, it would also look quite nice to have a unique visual identity for each project. Richard001 09:27, 10 June 2007 (UTC)Reply

Since you have an account on them wikis you could do it yourself by modifying Special:Mypage/Monobook.css. I myself have done a similar thing (by changing the color of the navigation headings) because I hid the logo, however this is likely to be opposed because the logo clearly shows which project you are on and which language it is in. Lcarsdata 17:36, 12 June 2007 (UTC)Reply

The marketing committee is currently preparing a visual identity reform that includes a "one color per project" part :) guillom 09:27, 16 June 2007 (UTC)Reply

I have a huge problem with interwiki resolution. Try creating the interwiki graph for the Danish page da:Forening or the corresponding category da:Kategori:Foreninger. A "Forening" is a type of organisation, could perhaps be compared with an "association". But interwiki for this links to anything from "governmental organisation", "non-profit organisation", "organisation", "club", "society" and many other terms bouncing back and forth between all wikipedias.

Where do I go to resolve this? I cannot be asked to go to all these wikipedias and start a discussion in their embassies in order to understand, what each of their categories represent - can I?

What to do to solve this? --Barklund 13:37, 12 June 2007 (UTC)Reply

• I fully endorse and understand your frustration. Wikipedia at some stage if it is to sustain it's claim as a "Free Reliable Encyclopaedia" base Must go to Professional full time staff to monitor and make decisions or resolutions, it is not fitting at all that a "minority" who may have no expertise in a subject are allowed to ask for an entry to be "deleted", often these individuals are expressing personal opinions only. Also the ability to change or alter an entry by any individual must be seriously looked at. JBS 09:17, 31 October 2007 (UTC)JohnReply

Good afternoon. I am taking the time to begin this discussion because I would like to voice my opinion on the the subject of Neutral Point Of View policy. Now, we all know what this policy is and what it requires of us users (hopefully). But the question I bring before everyone is this: Is enough currently being done about it as of yet? The reason I have reason to even ask this question is because on in my experience in editing on the English Wikipedia, I have seen a number of users who are quite selective when they choose which articles they are going to edit, and are even more selective when choosing what type of information goes or stays, in terms of citations and such. It is a given that legitimate users with the right intentions are free to edit any article they wish, but at what point should users be suspected of POV pushing?

For example, there is a particular user, who for the sake of civility shall remain nameless, who I am convinced uses the English Wikipedia to push conservative views. This user does not do so in an obvious way but rather takes certain steps such as nominating for deletion, only articles which he believes makes his ideology look bad. This user also has a history of following various users around and reverting every edit they make (and this happened to me for about one month) if he feels the edit in question conflicts with his own ideas. Once again, such conduct is difficult to detect, and believe me, I feel a left-leaning user of the same nature (and they exist too) is just as harmful. So here is the question: Would it be a bad idea to put users who hold this type of editing history on some type of POV "Watchlist", where admins can closely monitor these users for a certain amount of time to ensure constructive editing? Users could then be blocked if it is determined by admin consensus that NPOV policy is in fact being disregarded, or they can be taken off the list if no evidence of violation is found. What would be the benefits of such a function, and if put into place, would it have any significant flaws? I'm open to any and all opinion on this matter.The Kensington Blonde T C 22:29, 18 June 2007 (UTC)Reply

NPOV has always been an ideal to which we should all aspire. But, no doubt, having perhaps read the articles which I pointed you at a few days ago, the problems between ideal and the implementation of the ideal are perhaps a little more self-evident. There are moreover degrees of POV and NPOVness. I can remember a series of longwinded debates on the subject in which I became horribly entangled back in the day, before stepping back a few and becoming somewhat more laissez-faire in my approach to the whole subject. At the end of the day, it's my experience that edit wars in certain subject areas are inevitable purely because of the inherently emotive nature of the subject matter.

Conflict resolution in itself is a fine art and while I am unhappy with the philosophical premise of having such measures as Arbcom within a wiki, they have a practical and necessary role to play within the day to day improvement and operation of WP projects. As an admin, I can tell you, fact, that there are some users we like to keep an eye on, thankfully, in my case and ambits of operation, they are few and far between (not much POV/NPOV controversy as a rule in the worlds of Anglo Saxon history or Norse mythology or poetry! :) ). But areas such as politics and modern history and religion are inevitably the front lines of many an intellectual and not-so-intellectual battlefield. WP will inevitably attract ideologues of all sorts of factions; spotting most of them is fairly straightforward, but you should also note that there are some very skillful operators out there more than capable of reversing the tone of an entire article by the deft insertion of a key phrase or word or two here and there.

We can weed out the egregious NPOVvery very quickly; the subtle stuff just takes longer. On the whole I can think of few articles which I have looked at or worked on recently which have verged on the truly horrible from the point of view of their one sidedness or POV, and gradually the hagiographies which have sprung up during the early spurt growth of Wikipedia are beginning to acquire some balance. A lot of this early acquisition of POV and nonsense was the direct result of the widespread importation of material from the 1911 Britannica, a retrograde step in my view although one which was no doubt acted upon from pure pragmatism, q.v. the article on Robespierre as an example of an article which is exponentially more balanced than the original EB import which basically put Robespierre on the same pedestal others reserve for the baby Jesus.

Blocking of NPOV authors is a difficult subject area for most admins. Policy really only works for you when the persistent offender engages in direct and overt breach of policy such as, for example, the three revert rule; and even in cases such as this as an admin you have to be continually aware that some of the most of clever and subtle offenders are smart enough to set it up such that the real victim cast as perpetrator is the person trying to restore some sort of order to proceedings. Explicit POV watchlists are an intriguing idea, but the reality is a bit 1984 for my taste and I much prefer as an admin a more casual and case-by-case approach. Just my 2 cents worth.:) Sjc 08:36, 21 June 2007 (UTC)Reply

Hi, in Chinese wiki, we're currently discussing the feasibility of holding a re-election to deal with the conflicts between admins and users, but as one administrator pointed out, even if an admin fails to be re-elected, no one in Chinese wiki has a right to cancel his admin rights. Could anyone advise us what to do? If we have an admin failed to be re-elected, is it possible that the meta takes a follow-up action according to the re-election results? Thanks a lot. --Kevin wong 09:24, 19 June 2007 (UTC)Reply

user:Shizhao can desysop people as he is a steward, requests can also be made here with a link to the page where it was decided to desysop (ie. not reelect) the admin. Stewards will remove rights based on community decisions. It'd be helpful if next to the section titles in Chinese you have the section titles in English so stewards can tell what the result of the election was. An example would be (please note that I don't speak Chinese, I used google translate for this):

• 支持连任 - Support reelection
• 反对连任 - Oppose reelection

Yonatanh 10:21, 19 June 2007 (UTC)Reply

Stewards cannot desysop admins on the wikis they are active unless the stepping down admins hope so themselves. Therefore such revoking should be performed by stewards who are active on any other wiki but Chinese wiki(pedia?), and such a request should go to RFP. --Aphaia 13:38, 19 June 2007 (UTC)Reply

Thanks again. When we reach a consensus on desysop and debureaurat,　 where can we request a steward in other wikis to take a follow-up actions? --Kevin wong 20:48, 19 June 2007 (UTC)Reply

you had mentioned it's RFP. --Kevin wong 20:50, 19 June 2007 (UTC)Reply

the issue is more complicated now. The steward now finds himself at the center of storm and the community is discussing if he has to be desysop. [1]

However, no desysop or re-election procedures have actually been established in Chinese wiki, so the current issue is not about judging the qualification about a single member, but it's about establishing the desysop procedures that can avoid abuse and maintain balances of different interests.

We're holding a public hearing now, and hopefully we may draw up a conclusion over next few weeks, but we face a big deadlock that none of us have a right to desysop according to the community decision. Shizhao stated clearly that no one in chinese wikipedia can desysop anyone.

So i'm wondering that if Chinese community members reach a consensus to desysop steward(appointed by meta), admin or bureaucrat, is it okay to ask Meta take a follow-up actions for us? --Kevin wong 11:07, 19 June 2007 (UTC)Reply

You can desysop him, debureaurat him, if it is your concensus, but stewardship is not your business. They are elected by a global vote, and respected as such. On the other hand, steward are annually confirmed by community vote, usually on November/December. --Aphaia 13:38, 19 June 2007 (UTC)Reply

Conflicts may arise if a steward, who is debureaurat/desysop in a particular wiki, continue to exercise his admin rights in the wikipedia that denies its creditability. Are there any solution to avoid it? --Kevin wong 14:22, 19 June 2007 (UTC)Reply

It could happen and actually happened, a steward fails on his request for adminship on particular wiki. But it doesn't affect his stewardship. I expect all stewards have good common sense to solve it in their particular situations. --Aphaia 02:25, 20 June 2007 (UTC)Reply

yeah, i hope so. If a steward fails to be re-elected on the wiki he's active, it's a strong enough message for a reasonable man to know what to do. --Kevin wong 10:46, 20 June 2007 (UTC)Reply

Hi, I'm seeking an advice about the feasibility of holding a poll on policies of Chinese wikipedia in Meta.

In recent days, the conflicts between our admins and users has sparked a very worrying proposal to split the whole Chinese community into different regional wikis. It's akin to propose to split English wiki into British, American, India version. This is a worrying trend.

The main issue is that we don't have an arbitration committee to solve big issue, all decisions are overwhelmingly taken by one or two admins, but they haven't yet gained a sufficient respect and decisions are always disputed.

Contrary to Wiki's policy on "wiki is not a test platform for democracy", all legitimate decision in Chinese wiki purely base on super-majority votes. If 20 people come to oppose a decision, then 81 people have to show up their support, or else a policy is disapproved. In one case, after a long and in-depth discussion, >60% people think that if admin fails to gain 50% confidence, he could be desysop. But a few admin proposed 20% confidence is enough. Poll then faced a deadlock.

Under this system, all local policy development has been halted for over a year. Conflicts then escalate, users can only choose to take it, yell at it or leave it. Admin also faced a big challenge to introduce a new policy. In recent case, an admin falsely claimed that according to the "policy", all album photos in a non-album entry must be banned, i.e. no matter how much information is about MJ's album--Bad or Dangerous in en:Michael Jackson, if we don't have an independent entry for the albums, these album photos must be deleted. It led to a huge amount of deletion, until it was discovered that the rule was secretly added by him. His reputation is controversially disputed.

Wiki is not a test for democracy. Super-majority polls don't necessarily mean anything. So I'm wondering if we can hold a poll here in Meta and let the arbitration committee to judge our poll results. --Kevin wong 11:41, 20 June 2007 (UTC)Reply

I highly doubt a poll on meta would work\be acted upon. It does, however, seem like there's a growing need for a system where people can vote outside of the jurisdiction of the local project, where the admins can heavily affect the vote. There is no Wikimedia-wide arbitration committee to judge your poll results and the English Wikipedia Arbcom has no jurisdiction over other projects. Yonatanh 12:22, 20 June 2007 (UTC)Reply

It seems that arbitration committee of Meta can rule over the decision in all wikipedia. I don't know if it's true? --Kevin wong 12:55, 20 June 2007 (UTC)Reply

Perhaps irrelevant, but it is sad for me to see Chinese community show a little interest in the forthcoming election, but in their argument on one sysop, and seem to take it is more serious concerns. --Aphaia 03:48, 21 June 2007 (UTC)Reply

It's quite a misinterpretation. The main issue in Chinese wiki isn't about a single sysop or any single member. There's just a growing sentiment about apparently never-ending conflicts and a system that is disabled to solve further conflicts. I think board election is mainly participated by senior members, but active member size in Chinese wiki has grown too slowly. Keeping members active and discourage people to leave seems more relevant to chinese wiki at this moment. --Kevin wong 18:27, 21 June 2007 (UTC)Reply

• Just for the record, "Under this system, all local policy development has been halted for over a year. " is simply false. One of the most important policy development that had taken place in the past few months was the ratification of zh:WP:共識. It still needs fine tuning, but it has helped reduce the frequency of polls. Hillgentleman07:19, 18 August 2007 (UTC)Reply
• I think your community really needs a third-party arbitration. May be community om meta and your community will agree about ad hoc rules? Foe example, you may request monitoring from meta-wiki on your elections or really hold your poll here. Or may be we really shoul try 3-rd party arbitration? --Dima io 19:28, 19 September 2007 (UTC)--Reply

Wikinews should be holding another writing competition after the board elections. Additional prizes would be most welcome, as would suggestions on how people think the competition should be formulated to encourage the maximum number of new participants. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 13:19, 20 June 2007 (UTC)Reply

A user claims he isnt the one responseble for disposing my privacy yet a checkuser has found that all his other names are vandals and names with private names on it shoud he be bloceckd?--יודל 10:29, 2 July 2007 (UTC)Reply

Is it possible to block an IP-address for all wikis? I think all the administrators are pretty tired of deleting page w/w/w/index.php over and over again. it would be easier to block the IP-addresses all over wikipedia projects with one blocking. one of IP-s which keeps entering text 62M53u Test myfunction comment is '81.177.22.111'. At least in Estonian wikipedia, wikiquote, wikibooks etc. Avjoska 11:58, 3 July 2007 (UTC)Reply

I'd like to invite comment on the new wiki-philosophy essays wikidemocratism and wikithoritarianism. In particular, I'm not sure they have much relevance outside of the English Wikipedia (my experience on Spanish Wikipedia suggests that this issue hasn't developed there yet to the same degree). Please comment on their respective talk pages. Walton^talk 13:43, 5 July 2007 (UTC)Reply

Shall we have a request page for user name changes (on Meta and on other wikis)? (I mean similar to other request pages.) At the moment they are put to Meta:Requests for help from a sysop or bureaucrat and Meta:Requests for permissions, but I think the first page is only for sysop/crat help on Meta itself, not for name changes in other wikis, and the second one is for permissions not for name changes. I would make it if there are no objections against it (and if nobody is faster than me ;o) ). I imagine to make a list of local request pages of the larger wikis and put it there that people easier find them. (I know in some wikis there is no name change request page, but anyway.) Grtx, --Thogo (talk) 19:09, 10 July 2007 (UTC)Reply

Right now CU requests for Meta and for other wikis are together on one page. I keep thinking we should split them (and maybe transclude Meta's local one in the other, or maybe even not, just link to it). So I think this is a good idea but I suggest two pages, one for local changes (which Meta Crats can handle) and one for non local changes, with links to all the known local pages (just as the CU page has links to local CU request pages), which stewards have to handle. Make sure you use lots of templates. :) ++Lar: t/c 19:12, 10 July 2007 (UTC)Reply

Hm, sounds pretty good. (Not the template thing, of course, but the split thing. ;o) ) Hm, I wait a day or so for other opinions (maybe there are good arguments against doing that which we don't see atm). Btw., that's a very good example what problem we have... --Thogo (talk) 20:13, 10 July 2007 (UTC)Reply

Sounds like a good idea. It should be made clear that username changes on other wikis cannot be performed by the bureaucrats here though, people are mixing the pages up. Majorly (talk) 20:26, 10 July 2007 (UTC)Reply

Precisely why I think a split into local and other would help. (and ditto splitting into local and other for CU requests. I'm gonna just go do it sooner or later, I think... oh, AND add lots of new templates!) ++Lar: t/c 20:32, 10 July 2007 (UTC)Reply

Hehe, yes. Do you want to do it for the CUs? Ok, as soon as I finished my new WP article that I'm writing at the moment, I will make pages for username changes. (With a lot of funny templates.) --Thogo (talk) 20:36, 10 July 2007 (UTC)Reply

Give it a day? (Since we're talking about this pretty fast) ... and if no one squawks I'll do CU and you do Username... ++Lar: t/c 20:49, 10 July 2007 (UTC)Reply

Well, ok, :o) --Thogo (talk) 21:10, 10 July 2007 (UTC)Reply

I concur with everybody. (I was waiting for a username change for a few hours now...) (→vishwin60 - he's still at it) 20:52, 10 July 2007 (UTC)Reply

Ok, the day is over... I would propose to add the list of local renameuser request pages to the tables in WM:IRP. What do you think? --Thogo (talk) 21:27, 11 July 2007 (UTC)Reply

(outdent) I agree. Links to local things are handy. They'll get out of date so maybe a note to the stewards on the other wikis request page that if they reject because there is a local crat, can they update that section? The page looks good so far! I haven't done CU yet, hot problems at my client right now but I will, I think probably tonite. ++Lar: t/c 22:09, 11 July 2007 (UTC)Reply

I came across the bot request page... It doesn't look like being appropriate for Meta ("...bot flag on a Wikimedia wiki with no bureaucrats"...), but on WM:IRP the link for bot requests on Meta goes there nevertheless... Did I miss something or do we really have no page for bot requests for Meta itself? (And if they _are_ and should be done on that page, the text should be changed anyway.) --Thogo (talk) 22:14, 11 July 2007 (UTC)Reply

Looks like another loose end to me. ++Lar: t/c 22:42, 11 July 2007 (UTC)Reply

I have a question. On the Volapük Wikipedia, as I have just noticed, disambiguation pages are being counted as good pages in the statistics page despite being marked with a template ({{Telplänov}}) which I have placed in the disambiguation list here at meta. Is there some other place where I should list this information, so that disambiguation pages are not counted as full articles? Smeira 2007 yulul 13, 20:32

Is there anything to do on Wikimedia besides discussions? I want some ideas to help so if ther is, please tell me.

Thanks,
Skunkmaster II 03:59, 16 July 2007 (UTC)Reply

You can edit or add to a compendium of human knowledge, a database of source texts, a dictionary, a collection of user-created documents and quotations, citizen news, a public-access image repository, and a database of species. Take your pick. :) —{admin} Pathoschild 14:43:18, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

I guess the question was really on this wiki rather than on the projects it supports? --AndrewCates 08:50, 25 July 2007 (UTC)Reply

AndrewCates is right. I know what I can do on the projects, I'm just wondering if there is anything to do on this wiki, Wikimedia Met-Wiki. -Skunkmaster II 02:31, 4 September 2007 (UTC)Reply

There is the Communication Projects Group. We are actively looking for more participants.</advert> Greeves ^{(talk • contribs • Wikipedia)} 02:41, 4 September 2007 (UTC)Reply

I checked out the ComProj page and I don't think I want to do that. Is there a list anywhere of projects on Wikimedia? Or does anyone have any suggestions?--Skunkmaster II 03:04, 4 September 2007 (UTC)Reply

What are you thinking about opening new Wikipedia? Wikipedia for Montenegro language ? Montenegro is new country created breakup Serbia and Montenegro (Serbia have Wikipedia). --Marin Bobek 10:29, 19 July 2007 (UTC)Reply

Wikipedia is by language not by state --84.28.2.108 10:42, 19 July 2007 (UTC) P.S. it's me User:OoswesthoesbesReply

Language and script in Montenegro, Language and script in Serbia, Montenegrin language, Serbian language.

Montenegro has one official language, the Ijekavian dialect of Serbian. But Montenegro has own language (just 22% people speak Macedonian).The montenegrin language is written in latin and cyrillic alphabets, but there it is a growing political movement that wants to use officially only the latin alphabet when Montenegro will enter the European Union. Serbia use just cyrillic alfabeth.--Marin Bobek 14:00, 19 July 2007 (UTC)Reply

Hello Marin. You can request new language Wikipedias here. Thanks, Majorly (talk) 14:36, 19 July 2007 (UTC)Reply

Montenegrin has been refused in the last year. GerardM 18:16, 31 August 2007 (UTC)Reply

See Meta:Babel#Meta:Administrators.27_discussion_index ... there are now two discussion indexes (one for local Admin traffic, one for Steward traffic) run by User:BryanBot, which you may want to watchlist. If you're also interested in general (not specific to admins or stewards) discussion, please (over there) suggest pages to be tracked in a general index... This technology was first deployed at Commons with great success and brought here by request. Bryan may well be willing to set up for other wikis if desired, contact him for more information. ++Lar: t/c 11:27, 25 July 2007 (UTC)Reply

Would wikimedia projects be eligible for help from Google Grants ? --Chris ^Grant 10:44, 27 July 2007 (UTC)Reply

I believe so. Wikimedia and its projects are none profit. Felipe Aira

Wikipedia already appears at the top of many Google searches, and Wikimedia has received at least one large donation from Google. I see no reason why Google would reject this idea, but at the same time see no reason to go forward with it. Can you be more specific to what you think should be displayed? 69.233.68.227 20:20, 2 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

hi! i am developing a wiki-project now. I have a task that i cannot perform for about three days. The task is: I have some template page with table. There must be something to rate different tables' rows (some button). it must be on the article page not (only) in the edit page. And of course values will go to database. How can i make this idea come real? I tried to edit edit_page.php and article.php and now i just have red eyes and headache. please, people help me! - User:Anurbol

Is there really that much difference between Wikibooks and Wikiversity? Could Wikibooks not become a section of Wikiversity, considering Wikibooks, that is, textbooks, is a tool one uses to learn; is not learning the entire purpose of Wikiversity?

If you disagree, please clarify the distinction between the two. --203.217.72.77 09:15, 11 August 2007 (UTC)Reply

A travel guide is a perfectly valid candidate Wikibook, and in fact I think Wikibooks has some already. However it is not a textbook. Ditto for a cookbook, which I know for sure Wikibooks already has. Therefore the missions are not congruent. Hope that helps. Good lateral thinking though! ++Lar: t/c 13:04, 11 August 2007 (UTC)Reply

I wonder if there is metapub in English language only, here on meta, or also in other languages.

Is there one in Italian language?--ChemicalBit 19:00, 14 August 2007 (UTC)Reply

I am not completely sure about this, but I believe that all languages use this page, though it is mostly English discussion here. I could be wrong though. Greeves ^{(talk • contribs • Wikipedia)} 00:31, 15 August 2007 (UTC)Reply

As Greeves said, this page is aimed to multilingual discussions, so Italian language is also welcome. But for your information there is already Polish page Bar, older than Metapub, and now seem not used for a year and more. --Aphaia 02:46, 15 August 2007 (UTC)Reply

• 你可書義大利文。Hillgentleman
  • note: translated "you can write in other languages here" -anon 68.101.123.219 16:56, 23 September 2007 (UTC)Reply
    • additional note: correctly "you can write in Italian language." --Aphaia 18:10, 23 September 2007 (UTC)Reply

Ok, anyhow it's not a trouble to me to write in English (or I hope so).

I was just looking for the best place to contact most Italian-spaking user (that are user of WMF pojects in Italian languages).--ChemicalBit 12:25, 18 August 2007 (UTC)Reply

I'm afraid there is no such neat place. Bar in Italian Wikipedia or the mailinglist itwiki-l are near to what you are searching for, while they are not intended to use for this purpose. --Aphaia 11:23, 28 August 2007 (UTC)Reply

Thank you, Aphaia. But, as I'm going to work with inter-projects matters (look at Where does we manage same-language projects cooperation and collaboration? section below) I'm looking for a more "super-partes" and coordinating place.

Off course if I will get to manage how to start this idea, I will notice it out at it.Wikipedia and all other WMF projects in Italian language.

The aim of my question in this section was to know where to talk about my idea, so to rach the most of italian-spaking user here in meta --ChemicalBit 16:56, 29 August 2007 (UTC)Reply

Wikimedia Italia has loads of Italians on Meta, if that is of any help. Greeves ^{(talk • contribs • Wikipedia)} 02:44, 4 September 2007 (UTC)Reply

Suppose someone was willing to donate land or a large (or small) sum of money to Wikiversity for the use in research or projects. How could this be done properly and with the blessing of everyone needed? Whose blessing would be needed? Also, does anyone have ideas how this money could be allocated fairly and to that it is used responsibility by those who will use it to further the mission of Wikiversity? Thank you! --Emesee 05:41, 16 August 2007 (UTC)Reply

It would depends how the money would be planned to be used. I would suggest that a group of wikiversity editors write down a proposal of how they want the money to be specifically used (such as development of a feature, freeing a copyrighted text, scanning documents, organizing an event etc...), and depending on what type of projects is planned, see the most practical way to receive the money and to spend it. Let's say the money would be donated to organize an event, if there is a chapter in that country, the chapter could be used to receive the donation and manage payments. If it is to pay a developer to do something specific, the donation could be given to a chapter or to the Foundation, who would in turn hire the person. If such a project is planned, it should however be handled to the community members. In terms of land donation, we were only one confronted to the situation and we opposed it. We are not currently able to handle such a property. Can you be more specific in your reequest ? Anthere

There has been on-going old proposal for a Sandbox Server. v:Wikiversity:Sandbox ServerHillgentleman

I didn't mean to be so delayed in my response. However, the sandbox server would probably serve as a good example. --Emesee 10:19, 28 August 2007 (UTC)Reply

I created some templates that add a page to a category: this way, for example, if I write {{{ugly}}} this puts the page in the Ugly category. As a side effect, the template itself is addedd to the Ugly category: how do I keep this from happening?

You can put <noinclude> </noinclude> around it. This way, it only adds the category when it is transcluded. Greeves ^{(talk • contribs • Wikipedia)} 15:19, 20 August 2007 (UTC)Reply

Or either <includeonly> </includeonly> would work, and the category will only be added to the page when it's used, whether substituted or included (i think). Thunderhead 02:57, 23 August 2007 (UTC)Reply

Thunderhead is correct here. I must have been half asleep when I wrote this. ;-) Greeves ^{(talk • contribs • Wikipedia)} 14:43, 23 August 2007 (UTC)Reply

Thunderhead and I are hoping to revive the LSS for foundation-l. It will probably be done on a monthly basis. Anyone interested in helping us out? Greeves ^{(talk • contribs • Wikipedia)} 01:27, 23 August 2007 (UTC)Reply

I can't help with the summarising work but I think I can help with the translation into Italian language. --Massimiliano L. 16:36, 28 August 2007 (UTC)Reply

I am interested in helping in any way I can. I used to translate into French, but I could also give some limited help in summarising, like one week every month ? every 2 months ? I guess what takes the most time is reading every single E-mail posted on the list, and this is independent from whether the summary is monthly or weekly. On the other hand, what makes the summary attractive for readers might be its ability to produce "fresh news", and this would be a reason for keeping a weekly basis. Teofilo 11:19, 2 September 2007 (UTC)Reply

I'm wondering how to set the local time for specific Wikipedia such as Thai Wikipedia. The time zone is on UTC+7. But when I use {{LOCALTIME}}, it appears as the same as {{CURRENTTIME}}. --Manop 06:14, 25 August 2007 (UTC)Reply

You are invited to file a bug to Bugzilla for changing Thai project local time settings. --Aphaia 08:59, 25 August 2007 (UTC)Reply

Thank you. I submitted the bug now http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=11074 --Manop 21:08, 26 August 2007 (UTC)Reply

Please check the recent changes. Action should probably be taken against a certain user and a variety of pages deleted. --Emesee 01:24, 26 August 2007 (UTC)Reply

Done, by Majorly. Please use WM:RFH next time, thank you :-) --.anaconda 21:15, 26 August 2007 (UTC)Reply

Thank you admins (and especially Majorly) for taking care of that. I will be sure to utilize WM:RFH next time. --Emesee 10:19, 28 August 2007 (UTC)Reply

Are subpages supposed to be capitalized? Is there reference in policy or guidelines about this? Thanks. --Emesee 19:06, 27 August 2007 (UTC)Reply

I don't think there is any written guideline nor even a standardized convention. It depends interlingual templates and so on, ad from this reason, some subpages are not to be capitalized (Election related pages, translation requests with the status table etc). I recommend you leave existing subpages as is. --Aphaia 11:20, 28 August 2007 (UTC)Reply

Okay. I will leave them alone until consensus is reached on the matter. --Emesee 03:11, 30 August 2007 (UTC)Reply

I think that more cooperation and collaboration amongst different projects in the same language would be useful. (I'm used nearly only with Italian language projects, but the same matter is possible for each language )

For example at it.wikipedia, we delete or transfer not few page created by new user becouse "Wikipedia is not a dictionary". Informing those users that they should write pages f that kind on it.wiktionary would be usefull.

And many other things could be managed in cooperation.

Are there pages on meta already that are each a point of reference and aggregation for the projects in every language (Italian language, for example, as concerning me)?

If they are not, is possible to start them? --ChemicalBit 14:02, 28 August 2007 (UTC)Reply

For many languages, Wikipedia seems to be their defacto coordinating place. Polish community launched their meeting point on meta (Bar), now inactive. Japanese comminity used once Talk:メインページ (Main Page in Japanese), but it was an old story. English projects has no visible meeting points, and cross-project communications are not coordinated, but spontaneously happen on meta, mailinglist, or sometimes public discussion pages, sometimes on some individuals talk page. Sometimes it may be private correspondence ... Metapub intended to be such a place, and you are welcome to start any topic in your favorite language, but if you think Italian community needs to have its own meeting place, it could be an idea to start a page, like Metapub/it (or bar/it?). --Aphaia 06:30, 30 August 2007 (UTC)Reply

I think that a specific page it would be better, as talk would be moslty in italian language. (Off-course, if we would find out some good idea, we will suggest it also here in english then).

I should think about the page name. (The page itself would not be a talk page, but a list of "to do", "working on", information and so on that we will write soon or later. And talks would be in the related talkpage. So I think that a page name like Metapub/it or bar/it would not be good )

Thank you. --ChemicalBit 22:28, 30 August 2007 (UTC)Reply

In matter-of-facts, it would be a kind of noticeboard. And its talk would be a place for discussions. Right? I think it would be a nice idea: what about a title like coordinamento lingua italiana (italian language coordination)? --Massimiliano∞ 09:02, 2 September 2007 (UTC)Reply

I fear that "coordination" word may be fowen upon by someone, as it may make people believe that there is an editorial office in wikimedia projects.

What about a title like "cooperation", "collaboration" (with a full name "cooperation among same language projects")? ("cooperazione" in Italian language)

I thought about another title, that I like more, but (while in Italian language is just one word, "aiutiamoci") in English is a long one "let's help each other" --ChemicalBit 12:03, 12 September 2007 (UTC)Reply

There's a derisive political groupspeak used on the frontpage of the Foundation ([2]) — the Wikipedia, which is run in the academic literary norm of Belarusian language is labelled as "Наркамаўка" (see en:Narkamauka) there.

Unfortunately, I can't find the way to edit the frontpage, nor can I access it's edit history.

Therefore, I request from those in charge the change of the label to the "Акадэмічная" (meaning "Academic") which is objective, neutral etc. etc.

Also,it'd be nice to see at least some reprimand issued in the general direction of the daring soul who provided the frontpage of the Foundation with the derisive political groupspeak.

Thank you! Yury Tarasievich 17:09, 1 September 2007 (UTC)Reply

Whoops, sorry, that soul was me. I simply didn't know it's considered offensive. I apologize. Fixed now. MaxSem 11:15, 2 September 2007 (UTC)Reply

I'm writing a paper on cyberstalking, which I hope to hand to the Foundation with a view to educating them about it, and if possible improving their responses to it.

I'd like to include in it some examples of cyberstalking or offline stalking that have happened to users as a result of their participation in any of the Wikimedia projects, and particularly where the target/victim is an administrator.

If you've been a target of this yourself, or if you know of anyone who has, I'd appreciate hearing from you at slimvirgin at gmail dot com. Your name would not have to be included in the final document for publication, and if you're worried about being exposed in any way, I can also change all identifying details. What I'm most interested in hearing about is how the cyberstalking made you feel, and what happened when you tried to find support from other Wikipedians. I'd particularly like to hear from women who feel they were subjected to additional harassment or attention because of their sex.

Many thanks, SlimVirgin ^(talk) 22:57, 3 September 2007 (UTC)Reply

What does it mean when the report says this?

Updates for this page are currently disabled. Data here will not presently be refreshed.

I use this report on wikispecies extensively.

Thanks, --Open2universe 03:10, 7 September 2007 (UTC)Reply

I'm assuming you are referring to the English Wikipedia. It means that updates for this page are currently disabled, and data there will not presently be refreshed. Basically they're not updating it for whatever reason. Majorly (talk) 07:43, 7 September 2007 (UTC)Reply

No I am not referring to the english wikipedia. I am referring to the Wikimedia project at http://species.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page . How can I turn the updates back on? Thanks --Open2universe 13:11, 7 September 2007 (UTC)Reply

Well that's what it means, data won't be refreshed. I assumed the update was disabled for species too. You cannot turn it back on unfortunately; I think it was turned off for performance reasons. You could file a bug request about it. Majorly (talk) 14:04, 7 September 2007 (UTC)Reply

Hi! I've got a little doubt. Who edits the "main site" of Wikimedia? (that is, wikipedia or wikinews.) I mainly ask because Wikinews' "main site" has to be updated (both fr and es have passed sv, thus being: en, de, pl, it, fr, es). If anyone can answer my question I'll be really grateful... - Jurock 13:14, 8 September 2007 (UTC)Reply

• Visit www, you find the template ... --Aphaia 13:23, 8 September 2007 (UTC)Reply

A user at Wikipedia's village pump pointed out that the sidebar interwiki link to the Neapolitan Wikipedia incorrectly reads "Nnapulitano" instead of "Napulitano". This should be fixed, if possible. --CrazyLegsKC 17:15, 16 September 2007 (UTC)Reply

You are invited to file a bug to Bugzilla:.--Aphaia 23:27, 18 September 2007 (UTC)Reply

The "double consonant" is a typical structure in the pronunciation of some southern italy dialects. I guess it is used in typing too, since most of those languages copy the writing from the oral sound. So it could be correct with the double Ns --Jollyroger 13:12, 20 September 2007 (UTC)Reply

Confirming that: nap:Lengua_napulitana

'O nnapulitano, è uno d''e dialette ca se parlano 'int'â Campania

"Nnapulitano is one of the dialects spoken in Campania" --Jollyroger 13:14, 20 September 2007 (UTC)Reply

HI! My English is not very good. I´m from German Wikinews. 1. I got an idea that other NEWS-Sites already realised. I mean counting the clicks of an article. If we had such a tool we could see more faster how often an article was opened. That would be a great tool in Wikinews. I already got the answer that this tool is not availble anymore because that would be too much for ther servers. Is that right or is there an tool for that? 2. On other NEWS-Sites the Users can rate the articles. Each User just one time (surely). could we get this tool, too? I think with 5 stars. 3. on Other NEQWS-Sties the Users can comment the articles. That functuion is already in the English Wikinews realised but there is no automaally counter of the comments. Do you understand my questions? -- Joschy 19:26, 17 September 2007 (UTC)Reply

I like your thinking and I've had some of those ideas, personally, some of the Wikia code would be good for this since the new templates allow for article rating. --Patrick Mannion 23:39, 18 September 2007 (UTC)Reply

Mediawiki software allow counting the number of times a page has been viewed. This is disable on most large sites due to performance reasons.--ChemicalBit 13:50, 26 September 2007 (UTC)Reply

I just heard that this feature ist turned off. The List is an starting. But, there too much differences to the numbers. 7% are much too much. To make another tool with this feature might be a better idea. To Java, Javascript or somethinge lik that. That would be my choice. But there will be much work to do to implement this on the sites. -- Joschy 09:00, 27 September 2007 (UTC)Reply

I saw on Images on Wikipedia that every language project has specific rules and policies for dealing with images and their use. They seem to be based on the legistlation of the country where the languages in question are spoken. But what happens to e.g. planned languages, which do not belong to any specific country? I notice that the Esperanto project, though listed on that page, does not seem to have any specific policies. What is the procedure on this case? (The reason why I'm asking is that a contributor in the Volapük wikipedia has wondered if we Volapükists have the right to use coat-of-arms images that are allowed on certain Wikipedias -- fair use or local legislation -- but not on others. How can we know if it's OK to use them in the case of Wikipedias in planned languages?) --Smeira 13:16, 23 September 2007 (UTC).

I think it would be best to have a Commons only policy on the type of projects you are referring to above. Request turning off local uploads on bugzilla and change you upload page accordingly. More information can be found on commons:Commons:Turning off local uploads. Cheers! Siebrand 19:23, 23 September 2007 (UTC)Reply

That's certainly wise advice; thanks Siebrand! But I notice that the Esperanto Wikipedia does seem to have coats of arms (their policy statement -- discussed here -- is basically a -- not yet fully translated -- version of its German equivalent, which does allow coat of arms use, it seems to me). Is the Esperanto Wikipedia doing something wrong? I hope not; and, in this case, can the Volapük Wikipedia do the same? It seems to be such a pity not to be able to add coats of arms to city articles/stubs!... Smeira 05:50, 24 Sept 2007.

Many projects are doing things wrong related to images. Usually this comes for a combination of lack of knowledge and lack of interest. We (those interested in Wikimedia on a meta level) do not have the task force/person power required to sweep the whole Wikimedia universe of all the crap. Hence the push to a centralised wiki like Commons, where all crap is at least in one place... I have indeed noticed before that the Esperanto Wikipedia has a lot of untagged/fair use/unsourced images. Cheers! Siebrand 09:46, 24 September 2007 (UTC)Reply

Oh well, OK. My conscience tells me you're right. A little before I came to the Vükiped, and some time after that too, another user (Manie) uploaded a number of coats of arms -- I'm not sure they were free. During next week I'll find some time to change vo.wiki to a commons-only policy (if possible in writing) and to delete everything that's not in commons. An example: vo:Magod:Logo_yakro.jpg, originally taken by Manie from fr:Image:Logo_yakro_jpg. I suppose this one is not OK and has to be deleted, right? Smeira 01:20, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

The image you link to on fr.wp is no longer there. The deletion log on fr.wp has no entry on this particular object. That should be marked unsource and deleted after a while if you proper source is given. Cheers! Siebrand 10:44, 26 September 2007 (UTC)Reply

See Talk:CheckUser policy#Local adaptation of CheckUser policy.--Cave cattum 10:14, 2 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

Shouldn't it be a good idea to disable image uploading for new approved wikis? I think this would be very good. Now there are already some wikis which have disabled it, under which the Spanish Wikipedia. SPQRobin 10:00, 27 September 2007 (UTC)Reply

I think that would be a good idea. I personally think all our images should be free ones on Commons, and all wikis should have uploads disabled. But then there's the problem of images being used in the interface... Majorly (talk) 10:05, 27 September 2007 (UTC)Reply

Hmm, that's a good point. Maybe it's possible to add a software feature to protect images from being deleted, then images which are important on other wikis can be protected. SPQRobin 10:45, 27 September 2007 (UTC)Reply

Isn't it possible to disable updates for not-sysop accounts? --Ooswesthoesbes 16:16, 27 September 2007 (UTC)Reply

Ah yes, I think it is. Majorly (talk) 16:24, 27 September 2007 (UTC)Reply

Pages in the namespace Images on Commons can be protected. That means that the image cannot be updated by non-sysops and that the image description page cannot be updated. Commons also uses {{EditProtected}}. Siebrand 14:57, 28 September 2007 (UTC)Reply

Actually, who can decide things like this? Because I think this will just be archived without anything else... SPQRobin 20:32, 24 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

I think this is really a very good idea, take 5 small-projects per random and have a look at their uploaded images, I am 100% sure You will find copyright-violations and or files without source and licence. The image upload should per default be set to sysops only. This should not only apply to new projects. Best regards, --birdy geimfyglið _(:> )=| 20:36, 24 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

I think it shouldn't be done, it takes away all freedom, except if a Wiki becomes inactive or has no sysops (active). --OosWesThoesBes 20:38, 24 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

imho it would only take the freedom to upload copyrighted images. The uploads would not be impossible, there is Commons, and the uploads would be redirected there. If it is limited to sysops the only locally needed files (Wiki.png) are no problem. Best regards, --birdy geimfyglið _(:> )=| 20:45, 24 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

Yes, a general restriction to sysops could be helpful, *but*, in many small wikis people are sysops who themselves don't really think about licence of images and so on. It's not like in the greater projects where only people are elected sysop if they show that they at least know that copyright images can not be freely uploaded and used. So I think it would be better to advice the sysops of smaller projects if they request the sysop flag on Meta. I mean, it could be a good idea to make a kind of short sysop manual that every sysop candidate who is not given the flag by local bureaucrats should read and accept before getting the flag. And of course every local bureaucrat should be adviced too. It would be a lot of work to make sure that the instructions are understandable (they should be available in as many languages as possible, of course), but anyway, I think we need something like that. Not only thinking of image uploading, but also of advicing local sysops how to keep the wiki clean of crap and vandals. --Thogo (talk) 21:22, 25 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

I would like to suggest that it would be better if we had unified archives here. What I would like to say is the files uploaded to the Wikipedia Tagalog will be viable in Wiktionary English, Wikipedia Thai, so-on and vice-versa. I know that we can upload files into Wikimedia Commons so that it can be available in all projects. But what I want to suggest is that we do not have to upload it to Wikimedia Commons anymore. That we can upload it in Chinese Wikipedia and still it will be uploaded in Wikimedia Commons. This is so that we can prevent repetitive uploads over projects for editors to find it more convenient not to upload images anymore that are available on other projects, and that Wikimedia servers will be more efficient. With many same files over different projects, we can save gigabytes of memory. And also the user accounts, I wish that it will also be that if I am a member of English Wikipedia, I can also use the same account on other projects or languages. Thank you. Felipe Aira

What files are being repeated across multiple projects? The only things I can think of would be Fair Use images (examples: [3][4][5]). However, we (in theory, if not in execution) need to come up with Fair Use rationales for each and every FU image we use on each and every project, meaning that a single "catch-all" rationale would be difficult.
As for the account, you're asking about a unified login, which is something that is being worked on (but, given the scope of all the WM projects, isn't something easily achieved). EVula // talk // 16:35, 4 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

Could someone please bring Talk:Resolution:Licensing policy to the attention of the right people? I've made various noises about this over at en-wikipedia, and pointed it out to at least one Board Member, but nothing seems to have happened. I'm raising it here because the current page is a redirect to a translation request and it would have been nice to get this clarified before translation took place. Any help with actually getting some response on this (even if it is to say that no changes are needed) would be nice. Thanks. Carcharoth 11:16, 02 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

Is today international vandalism day? They keep coming! I'm getting crazy of it! --OosWesThoesBes 14:18, 6 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

• Is wikipedia read and reviewed by professors of their fields, at least for complicated scientific articles above high school?
• Is there a general rule or schedule on how long one can be an adminstator of a wikipedia and keep office before he is either retired or required to be reelected?
• Is there a general rule as to how long an administrator in a wikipedia may be completely inactive before he is retired? A person may have died or lost her password, or turned to another hobby, et cetera.

Retiring here means, revert back to not be administrator.

Excuse me if it is here wrong place for to ask, but I could not find a better one. We are talking about why is wikipedia reliable in my school class and how it is accomplished by which rules and habits? --88.76.209.86 11:53, 7 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

I think Wikipedia is used by many acedemics, although it should not be considered totally reliable unless everything is fully sourced. I don't know about reviewing, but perhaps professors who are editors will correct mistakes they come across.

On the English Wikipedia, admins are currently "for life", unless the are removed if they are found to have abused or misused their admin tools in a big way. Of course, admins can resign whenever they like, by asking a steward. On other projects, such as Simple English Wikipedia, two inactive admins were recently removed, and here on Meta, there are yearly confirmations of each admin - some get removed that way.

Finally, there is no rule as such. Admins are simply left to become inactive (at least on enwiki - as I said in other projects there are different rules). Majorly (talk) 13:01, 7 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

Since the questioner is concerned with "talking about why is wikipedia reliable in my school class", it could be better to determine which language Wikipedia is concerned in particular? There are over 200 active language versions. However, since admins are not editors in the way of traditional publications, I have no idea why you think admin related system is related to the reliability of content. --Aphaia 13:11, 7 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

• Wikipedia is a good place to start references, but then it is best to check it by a totally "reliable" source, I feel there can be "flaws" in the process used of accepting and deleting any entry on Wikipeida, when the persons who do this may not be qualified in that subject and are only expressing personal opinions. Also it is far too easy for "any" individual to change or alter an entry. Fact references demanded for entry on Wikipedia are not always fully reliable, while others are rejected. JBS 09:09, 31 October 2007 (UTC) JohnReply

I absolutely love this feature both here and on Commons. Why isn't it used on more projects? I could understand that it could be a major performance slammer on larger projects (like en.wp), but surely it could be activated for the smaller ones, like Wikispecies, Test Wiki, or the Incubator. (though really I'd prefer seeing it activated on all the projects). EVula // talk // 16:30, 8 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

You can make a proposal on a wikis to activate the email on change feature. Once you have reached consensus that it is a wanted feature, you can request the feature to be activated through an issue in bugzilla:. Cheers! Siebrand 07:40, 19 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

This is just what I have noticed on almost all Wikipedias, they have news templates in their main pages. I think this should not be since we have Wikinews available in most major languages in Wikipedia and Wikinews in other languages are already under incubation. I believe that instead of putting news templates in Wikipedia we should put a link and promote Wikinews for news reports because the main goal of Wikipedia is to create an encyclopedia. Templates in the main pages of Wikipedias should be those related to Wikipedia like featured articles and pictures, new articles et cetera. And for me news reports is not really as near to the goal of Wikipedia. So finally I suggest that we remove "In the news" or any of its kind in Wikipedias of all languages or at least discourage it and promote Wikinews more.--Felipe Aira

Well, there's no real way to transclude Wikinews content directly onto other projects, and we can't just copy and paste from Wikinews to, say, Wikipedia, because of opposing copyright tags (Wikinews is Creative Commons, while pretty much everywhere else is GFDL). At most, pages like w:Template:In the news could link to Wikinews for the individual items that are listed, but often times related articles don't exist. There's already a link to Wikinews right at the bottom, which is probably the best way of doing it (there's no actual benefit to the user for being sent off-site for everything). EVula // talk // 15:40, 16 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

I've been implementing my own take on the "this article in other languages" template that appears at the top of some articles. For examples of this, see {{Megalomaniacal}}, {{ConflictingPhilo-lang}}, and {{Wikistandards-langs}}.

I suppose I should at least see if converting everything over to this simple little style works for everyone else before going too far. :)

I'd also like to strip out the inline CSS and put it in the monobook, but that'd come after getting more feedback. Thoughts? EVula // talk // 15:46, 16 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for your work. Please note that a base template already exists, {{Other languages}}; maybe the templates you created should use it? At least, I think their design should be consistent (whatever style is chosen). Korg + ⁺ 15:46, 17 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

Well... crap. :)
There is at least one major (functional) difference between the two templates: {{Other languages}} only allows for the articles to be sub-pages of the English version of the article. Pages like 冲突的维基百科理念 would have to be moved to Conflicting Wikipedia philosophies/zh-hans. Alternatively, {{Other languages}} would have to be altered to support putting in entire links... not necessarily a bad thing, but it'd take a bit of work.
I do agree that a standardized method of display is a good thing, regardless of which it is. Since I just discovered a CSS flaw with my current styling that shows itself when the template spans two rows, I'm kind of leaning towards the existing template for the overall layout, but I prefer my method of displaying the native language name alongside the ISO code and the language-independent "edit this template" link. I think I'll play around with a new version to see if I can marry the two effectively. EVula // talk // 18:30, 17 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

I played around with it and came up with {{Other languages/sandbox}}. This standardizes the look using the existing template (which I think sets it apart better than my own version), is multi-lingual (in both the native display of the name, which the current one does anyway, but also displaying the ISO code, and the language-neutral edit link), and is flexible enough that it won't require renaming everything just to shoehorn it into a template's fields.
I kinda like the idea of keeping all the related templates as sub-pages (like {{Other languages/Wikinews/Vote}}). It would certainly help standardize the naming scheme. Thoughts? EVula // talk // 21:42, 17 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

Could you explain the benefits of displaying the ISO 639 code? The standard template displays each language name in that language, which seems logical to me; there's no reason for someone to look for the French version unless they can read français. It seems rather cluttered to me with the ISO 639 codes.

Also, the current standard uses lowercase language codes in the page names (your template uses sentence case), since they're used more like disambiguators than subpages. It would be preferable if the merged template used the same standard. To address an earlier comment, the template does not assume that the top page is English; you could have a French top page with an English disambiguator, or even better no top page (as with the 2007 board elections pages). Some pages have redirects from the subpages to the translated titles, so even the subpage standard can be transparent. —{admin} Pathoschild 22:35:23, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

In the Board Elections example, the top page is still English (/2007 redirects to /2007/en, and the page itself is still named "Board elections"); I'm referring more to the title of the page being translated into the language used on the page (to use my previous example, "冲突的维基百科理念" instead of "Conflicting Wikipedia philosophies/zh-hans"), which I think is more helpful to keep in the native language for some things (stuff like board elections, on the other hand, make more sense to keep in a highly structured and organized manner; I'm not suggesting for an instant that they be changed).

I'm incredibly biased towards displaying the ISO code, as I'm routinely editing in languages that I can't actually read (which is everything except English), but can readily identify their ISO code. I can't tell the difference between something written in Русский, Македонски, Српски, or Українська, but if I see ru, mk, sr, and uk, I know it's Russian, Macedonian, Serbian, and Ukranian. Is it a major issue? No. But it's one more step towards language neutrality, which I consider to be rather important in a multi-language environment like Meta.

Not sure what you mean by "your template uses sentence case". One of the things I like about my way of doing things is that it's flexible enough that it doesn't matter how the articles are named (and if there are redirects, why use them when you can bypass them?). If they (the language subpages) were all upper caps, all lower caps, or sentenced caps (It, En, Ru, etc), it wouldn't matter. EVula // talk // 23:06, 17 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

I agree, the merged template should use the language-neutral edit link and allow any page name in parameters, like the internationalization templates on Commons.

Regarding the ISO code, I agree with Pathoschild that it overloads the template a bit, but I understand your point. Just a thought: what about adding it in the "hover box" over links, as in en:Template:Wikipedialang? (example: Conflicting Wikipedia philosophies • 冲突的维基百科理念). It's rather unnoticeable however... Korg + ⁺ 00:58, 19 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

Adding the full page titles and ISO 639 codes to the parameters rather defeats the purpose of the template, which is to make translating and cross-linking pages extremely easy. Besides simplicity being a generally good idea, much translation is done by anonymous or new users who most benefit from that simplicity. For example, try adding the parameters to make your suggestion possible, then compare the usage complexity with the current syntax.

One can easily translate titles and have very simple template usage by using redirects, as is done on Droit de disparaître. In most browsers this also allows you to easily see the ISO 639 code in the status bar by hovering over the links (especially since they're usually sorted alphabetically by code). —{admin} Pathoschild 03:11:29, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

One of the things I dislike about relying on redirects is that you lose the "you are here" effect (dead black and bold link) in the template that you get when it links directly to the page. I realize this is a relatively minor squibble, but I'm a web designer by day, and these are the things that just irk me. :) EVula // talk // 03:17, 19 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

Hmm... hiding it in the title attribute isn't too bad a compromise (though I do agree that it's rather unnoticeable). Right now it runs off of {{ill}}, and I'm not going to experiment on a live template; compare {{Megalomaniacal/sandbox}} to {{Megalomaniacal/sandbox2}}, which achieves the effect through brute coding rather than the elegant solution I'm sure to come up with for the final version. ;)
Comparing them side by side, I still don't find the fully displayed ISO codes that distracting; quite the opposite, as I find the black regular text helps to break up the grouping of links, and makes it less cluttered.
It'd be possible to code the final template in such a way as to have the codes easily turned off by a personal monobook.css modification (or, for that matter, have them turned off by default and use personal CSS tweaks to turn them back on)... that'd certainly allow both camps to have what they want. :) EVula // talk // 03:13, 19 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

More pesky language template pushing

Conversation seems to have petered out (the fundraiser waging certainly doesn't help with that, either), but I'd like to start cranking on these. I still prefer the ISO-visible version ({{Megalomaniacal/sandbox}}) to the plain version ({{Megalomaniacal/sandbox2}}), as it allows for a greater amount of information available to the average user; those that dislike the code can simply turn it off with a monobook.css modification. It would also (probably) be possible to code it so that the code is displayed in both the template itself and in the hover code, so even those that chose to not show the codes would have them available if they happened to need it.

Does this seem like a good middle-ground road for the template? EVula // talk // ☯ // 20:05, 26 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

I still think the way the language codes are displayed adds a lot of clutter. Following is my attempt at a middle route, showing the language codes in a more concise form and delimiting with box formatting instead of with characters. This would have very little code overhead once the CSS was moved to the stylesheet, and usage would not change (so this could easily be implemented while we discuss more debated issues).

 ar/العربيةde/Deutschen/Englishfi/Suomifr/Françaisit/Italianoja/日本語nl/Nederlandspl/Polskipt/Portuguêsru/Русский+-

What do you think? —{admin} Pathoschild 20:53:06, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

I like your CSS-based way of marking the breaks between the sections. Incorporating the ISO codes like that does shave a bit of space off the template; I'd say that it's a reasonable middle-ground between form and function. Just a little of tweaking:

 ar/العربيةde/Deutschen/Englishfi/Suomifr/Françaisit/Italianoja/日本語nl/Nederlandspl/Polskipt/Portuguêsru/Русский+/-

Floating the edit link to the right (and removing the border) sets it apart from the body of the template a little bit more, and leaves the languages nice and open.

Something I've noticed in some templates, like {{List of Wikipedias/Languages}}, have "Languages" (or similar) in the page's native tongue. Personally, I find the template intuitive enough that we could probably drop the verbiage (especially since I'm pushing for a language-neutral template). I hate to wreck our freshly-found middle ground with another factor to consider, but what does everyone think? EVula // talk // ☯ // 21:40, 26 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

I don't really like the floated edit link, particularly since it floats outside the box in my browser. I didn't even notice it until I read your comment about it floating to the right. Some of the users translating pages probably don't know to look for two tangentially related symbols off to one side outside the box (even if they're the traditional symbols for us). Putting the link immediately after the last language makes it immediately visible even to new editors, and its position makes its purpose a little clearer. Further, the way it floats outside the box will conflict with other floating elements, particularly right-floated infoboxes.

I have no objection to leaving out the "in other languages" labels; the original purpose of the icon was to represent languages in a more multilingual and concise way. —{admin} Pathoschild 22:04:39, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Eep, the float should still be staying inside the box. I had no clue that the edit link was floating outside the box (which it shouldn't be doing). Sure enough, it shows up in my Mac version of Firefox (I'm using Safari)... hrm. I whole-heartedly agree that it should not be outside the box, and with that particular rendering glitch, I'm definitely retracting my suggestion.
I might try to work on a work-around to it, but for now, I think I'll just work on creating a fully-functional (and easily manipulated) template based on your above example. Another benefit I found over the existing template is that, for some pages, the link target is off-meta, which the current system (basepage/lang) doesn't support. EVula // talk // ☯ // 23:25, 26 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

I'll switch {{other languages}} to the new format, since we agree on at least that. :) —{admin} Pathoschild 23:49:22, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

I found on the page w:Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not saying that Wikipedia is under the Florida State law since the main server locates in the Florida? (1) So I'm wondering if this applied to other-languages Wikipedia, or just only the English Wikipedia? (2) I'm from Thai Wikipedia and would like to know if Thai law also applies. (3) I heard that there are other severs in Hollands and South Korea, does the laws there apply as well? Thank you. --Manop 17:08, 17 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

Hello. All Wikimedia databases (which contain the wiki content) are in Florida. I think there are some "squid caches" in other countries that perform various server tasks, but they don't host the content so that doesn't affect the legal situation of wikis.

So, only US law applies on all language wikis. Thai law does not apply to the Thai wiki, although it might apply to contributors from Thai. That said, There are some cases where foreign law will be important in US law, particularly in copyright (for example, the Uruguay Round Agreements Act). —{admin} Pathoschild 22:43:34, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Thank you so much for the clarification. --Manop 03:49, 18 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

Can someone stop the closure? I want to create articles, I speak Wolof. here. SF-Language 09:57, 20 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

Please to any who has the power to make changes in the multiligual portal of Wikipedia, I advise you to read this:

I am a user from the Tagalog Wikipedia and this Wikipedia has more than 10,000 since this day so please can you move the Tagalog link in the Wikipedia multilingual portal from +1,000 to +10,000. Thanks.--Felipe Aira 04:42, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Congratulations! I've updated the portal. Regards, Korg + ⁺ 03:09, 22 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

Our non roman script languages wiki projects are very much dependant on Site notice facility Which we do use to inform first time visiting users in guiding to link page which guides them how to install and use read and write our set of language fonts.

From en vilage pump I am given to understand site Notice facility is suspended for all wiki projects without any alternate facility available without any prior notice to any local wikipedia communities.

Can some one throw more light on this issue .

Mahitgar 17:05, 22 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

Sysop from Marathi Language Wiktionary

The Village Pump topic that Mahitgar is talking about is most likely en:Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Displaying some of the more exotic languages.... I, too, am curious about the sitenotice issue. EVula // talk // 17:11, 22 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

The site notices are automatically replaced by the new CentralNotice. It was only visible on the English Wikipedia at first for development and debugging, but it still disabled the site notices on other wikis. It should be visible everywhere now. Brion Vibber, the developer, hoped to make site notices work at the same time by today, though I'm not sure if he's succeeded yet. —{admin} Pathoschild 23:15:44, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Once the fundraiser stuff is done, will the original site notices be restored? On some of the more "exotic" language editions, there are often instructions on how to install fonts necessary to using the site, which is rather important (and the whole reason I posted the en.wp Village Pump topic in the first place). EVula // talk // ☯ // 16:13, 26 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

I assume so. —{admin} Pathoschild 16:32:45, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, somewhat silly question, especially since I realized that I could still manually go to MediaWiki:Sitenotice on any wiki and get the original notice. *egg on face* EVula // talk // ☯ // 18:58, 26 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

I've put together an AJAX solution to the problem, if you want to display the site notice below the fundraiser box. —{admin} Pathoschild 05:16:45, 02 November 2007 (UTC)

I am a temporary sysop on the Akan Wikipedia. Unfortunately, the interwiki link states Akana instead of Akan. How do I get this corrected?--Natsubee 15:00, 23 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

Please submit a request on bugzilla. Regards, Korg + ⁺ 20:49, 23 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

Thanks.--Natsubee 15:48, 25 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

There is a Spanish translation for Jimmy's video here: Meta talk:Babylon#Spanish translation for Jimmy's Video. Please add subtitles in Spanish with this or another translation. Thank you. --190.10.12.103 15:09, 25 October 2007 (UTC) (André Oliva - Talk page)Reply

Who would support building consensus on the formating of subpages, capitalization and otherwise? What would you support? --Emesee 16:02, 26 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

What exactly are you referring to? EVula // talk // ☯ // 16:09, 26 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

This just came out of my curiosity: what is the official English dialect of the Wikimedia? Is it British or American? I believe this would be useful in Wikipedia article titles where there are spelling differences between the two dialects. -- Felipe Aira 09:02, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

• "Official"? -Hillgentleman 09:08, 2 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

• There isn't an "official" dialect. For certain words, such as "program" vs. "programme", usually the topic being discussed will determine which version of English is used. For example, Jeeves and Wooster is a British television show and uses "programme" in the article, while Firefly is an American show and uses "program". EVula // talk // ☯ // 13:43, 2 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

Aren't both of the Englishes allowed? --Edmund the King of the Woods! 17:34, 5 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

Perhaps both are acceptable and neither is more official than the other. The same applies to date formats.--Jusjih 02:48, 20 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

Both? Aren't Canadian English, Australian English, South African English and Indian English also allowed? See also Multilingualism. --Boivie 10:27, 21 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

All seem to be acceptable. For Chinese language, traditional and simplified characters are both used, but without an automatic converter here, which is an even worse nuisance than what English speakers encounter.--Jusjih 23:21, 25 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

In the discussion of the proposal for closing the Volapük Wikipedia there have been intereting debates, which perhaps should be more widely discussed. In particular, a couple of people mentioned to me that it might be good to discuss bots and bot-created stubs and articles in general, not only in the context of the Volapük (vs. German) Wikipedia. Would this be a good place to start a discussion, or should I perhaps create a specific page for this here at Meta? Or is there some other procedure? --Smeira 00:13, 5 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

IMHO this is a decision made by the local community and therefore should be discussed locally, best regards, --birdy geimfyglið _(:> )=| 10:02, 5 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

Well, at least my statement was meant globally - i would like to see bots banned from all projects as i see their work very critical. For the lack of originality as bots can only replicate existing databases, and for discouraging human authors to research a topic, once the link is blue - even if the article is only a bot-generated database excerpt (see examples in the discussion linked above - or just compare en:Ulysses, Kansas and vo:Ulysses (Kansas) with de:Ulysses (Kansas), and for those who don't read German: http://www.legendsofamerica.com/OZ-Ulysses.html). And I don't know any better place for a discussion about that. --h-stt !? 17:16, 7 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

I think it depends on the bot and the data source it copies. For example, a bot could (should...) generate very good articles about proteins by using public domain data at www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov, if well programmed. Bot-generated articles from the 1911 Encyclopedia Brittanica helped get the English Wikipedia on its feet in the beginning. But of course they can be a mixed blessing. "To err is human, but to really foul things up you need a computer..." And no doubt the smaller the number of contributors to a Wikipedia, the more they're going to rely on quick and dirty editing solutions and the uglier the bot-work is going to become. The Volapuk deletion proposal makes sense enough, but a Wikipedia with one contributor really shouldn't direct policy regarding larger projects. 70.15.116.59 18:56, 7 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

H-stt - Do you mean that, in your editorial work, a blue link would satisfy you, that you do not bother to check whether you have referred your readers to a good article or a bad article with misinformation? :-) Hillgentleman 19:14, 7 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

Btw., most articles about US villages and towns in en.wikipedia are bot-generated and are really bad, too. But if the community doesn't decide to delete that junk, it just remains. It's a local decision, not ours. --Thogo (talk) 19:20, 7 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

Frankly, usually yes. When I write about an historic event or period and link to a place from it, I usually don't have the time or the motivation to check that article too and maybe do research on the place in other times and/or today. I'm working at capacity with my core topics and sysop stuff, and edit stray articles beyond small tidbits only occasionally. If a link outside of my scope is blue, most of the time I will leave it the way it is. --h-stt !? 11:58, 8 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

Why would those articles on proteins be better then a simple link to the database? Why do we need articles on proteins, if they say nothing beyond excerpts from an already existing and public database? Shouldn't we write articles only after a human has decided which information are notable? --h-stt !? 11:58, 8 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

Now you're getting into a debate about inclusion, which is again a local decision, not a global one. Personally, I don't see how we could call ourselves a comprehensive encyclopedia if we didn't include articles on specific proteins... EVula // talk // ☯ // 16:29, 9 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

Ack, proteins are clearly relevant for an encyclopedia. But I don't understand why this is discussed here... --Thogo (talk) 18:34, 9 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

It's often very difficult for voters in the U.S. to obtain meaningful data about most of the items on the ballot, such as school board membership, local commissioners, and any member of the judiciary. Once I go through the process of finding out this information, I then have nowhere useful to put it. Many candidates and some of the office holders are not notable enough for Wikipedia or Wikinews, for example.

I would like to see Wikimedia coordinate with the League of Women Voters to bring all of the content collected by that organization into a Wiki format, supplement it with all the information on file at governmental sites, and then encourage further editing in the manner of the other projects. While all nations should be pursued eventually, the U.S. is the logical place to start with a pilot project.

There was a time when coverage of local elections might have been too ambitious for Wikimedia, but no longer. Even within a township many people will visit Wikimedia sites daily, and once alerted to the new project surely many would be interested. The impact of the project could be no less than to breathe some reality back into the democratic process. Mike Serfas 17:33, 6 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

Note: Wikielection.com is the property of domain name squa... advertisers. I would hesitate to suggest a catchy new name for this project until after the name has been purchased.

Something like this would probably do well on Wikia, rather than an "official" WMF project. That's just my opinion, however. EVula // talk // ☯ // 16:30, 9 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

Couple of IPs and newly registereds are posting items discouraging people from donating, are basically throwing mud over Wikipedia, and, in one case, are even making a semi-personal attack on an en admin. Do we remove these comments, or leave them so as to not look like we are trying to quiet these critics up? --Anonymous Dissident^Talk 09:49, 10 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

I would just ignore them (thus leaving them unanswered, "don't feed ..." you know ;o) ), and only remove stuff that contains personal attacks. --Thogo (talk) 10:42, 10 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

Work is underway to prepare the pages needed for the upcoming Stewards elections. If you want to help or comment, see Talk:Stewards/elections_2007 where much of the work is being coordinated and discussed. ++Lar: t/c 19:19, 11 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

( moved from meta:babel )

Are there any efforts, policies, discussions, about cross language consistency between same topic articles? I'm new to the WP community and I'm interested in this issue. The contents of same topic articles are sometimes quite different, especially in controversial topics which have a regional/language bias (e.g., see Falklands/Malvinas in English and Spanish). NPOV discussions and consensus negotiations in talk pages are usually kept within a language, potentially making same topic articles diverge substantially across languages. I have searched across WP and WM and haven't found much on this, other than a Q&A section on Wikipedia: Multilingual coordination that says: Q) "How are the various Wikipedias going to be coordinated, if at all? Will we have several quite different articles in different languages? Will English be a lingua franca? A) "In the embassy we are coordinating efforts between languages." So, my questions are: how is this coordination done? what does it entail? has this issue been discussed before? where? Thanks, Delmate 22:27, 11 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

• The English wikipedia has en:Wikipedia:WikiProject_Countering_systemic_bias/Project_details. Hillgentleman 23:30, 11 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

Thanks Delmate, for bringing it up. It's very important things we need to be careful. Besides the project Hillgentrleman mentioned, I don't know systematic approach (and I am not so much active on Wikipedia in general, so there may be another attempt). But it doesn't mean any attempt on our project. It's a bit difficult to separate this kind of inter-lingual coordination from accusation of canvassing, we can hardly think editors who are active on multiple projects sometimes bring a pieces of dispute on a project to another. As far as I know, I have been sometimes invited to such kind of disputes, not a meditator, but potentially-interested participant. Or I saw some other editors asked for opinion on such issues.

As for the role of ambassadors and their coordinations, it is not proactive, as far as I know, but rather request-driven. For example:

• If you find a message in a foreign language and you want to understand it fully, you may want rely on volunteering translation which a Wikimedia ambassador could offer rather than machine translation.
• If you have a message in your language and want to spread it, (repeat the latter part of the above).
• In corollary, if you find a user in trouble who are not good at your language, you may want to ask a Wikimedia ambassador for help.
• If you need reliable sources on a foreign subject but your library couldn't be informative, you would like ask for help of a Wikimedia ambassador who speak that langauge, if he or she is willing to help more sources.

But, from my experience, I doubt even if this kind of passive coordination efforts are common on the project. Since most of people don't seem Wikimedia Embassy, and therefore ask for no help at all ... --Aphaia 11:21, 15 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

The process of transclusion is well documented. However, is it possible to transclude a page so that all headings in the transcluded page appear as lower order headings in the target page?

eg:

transcluded page

---

==A heading==
===A heading two===

target page

---

==Target page==
<transcluded page here>

would result in:

==Target page==
===A heading===
====A heading two====

That is, all headings in the transcluded page have been reduced in order.

It would have been great, but I don't think so. For an effect different but of a similar type, using NavFrames, see my talkpage, or v:WV:THREADNAV. Hillgentleman 03:40, 15 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

I would think this is doable with parserfunctions or noinclude tagging. See the w:WP:RFA pages on en which do tricks with whether things do or don't have headings based on whether they are included or not (or did at one point) Hope that helps. ++Lar: t/c 14:20, 15 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

You may wish to review the above website. The domain is owned by an SEO businessman in Israel. 87.230.11.166 02:19, 18 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

Can this claim be verified? Does the foundation know? - Mtmelendez ^(Talk) 23:00, 19 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

Check [http://www.completewhois.org/cgi-bin/whois.cgi?query_type=auto&ip_whoislookup_cyberabuse=ON&ip_nameservers_hostlookup=ON&query=wikipedia.co.il whois. As far as the Foundation knowing, I don't know. That's why it was posted here. 87.98.217.43 02:52, 20 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

Not so long ago, pt.wikipedia has created (after a poll) the "Anexo" namespace (number 102), which includes lists, tables, etc (list of pages). The problem is our search tool. The only default search namespace is Main, but sometimes when a reader doesn't find what he was looking for, it's in the Anexo namespace. Can both Main and Anexo be turned into default search namespaces? MATHEUS WAHL ▪ 19:12, 21 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

On Commons, clicking on the logo in the top left takes you to a different page based on the language you specify. A user on Wikispecies is asking how we can set up the site to have something similar, as it's also a language-neutral project. How would I go about having this changed? I'm thinking it might involve a post to Bugzilla, but I'm not even sure what to ask for. EVula // talk // ☯ // 01:58, 23 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

This should be helpful. I believe you just create /lang-codes from the sidebar's items (that's for altering the sidebar's items). As for the logo, I believe it would just work with the "mainpage-url" or "mainpage", but I'm not entirely sure. (i.e. To create a link the main page in pt, you would create wikispecies:MediaWiki:Mainpage/pt.) You could also ask on the Wikitech-l mailing list. Cbrown1023 talk 03:11, 23 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

Well, hopefully my Wikispecies RfA will be closing in a couple of days, so I'll be able to start playing around in the MW namespace and do the tests. Thanks for the leads. EVula // talk // ☯ // 04:35, 23 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

I've answered on Wikispecies. SPQRobin 12:59, 26 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

Dear community,

due to the projectwide vandalism consisting of page moves I came to the conclusion that page moves should not only be prohibited for IPs but also for new Users, just like the semiprotection.

This is already the case in some big wikipedias, like en. or de. but in most of the WMF - projects not!

I recently opened the bug bugzilla:12071 but it was closed and demanded to announce this plea somewhere central, which I am now doing.

I hope that many of You support this request, please follow the links provided in the bugreport to realize the urgent need of this.

Many thanks in advance, best regards, --birdy geimfyglið _(:> )=| 12:25, 26 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

• I warmly support that. And long live SWMT. DarkoNeko 12:30, 26 November 2007 (UTC)Reply
• Hehe, +1. That would be a great help. Another suggestion additionally to that would be to set uploads to autoconfirmed as well, except on Commons. (Considering all the many uploads on Meta that are speedied.) --Thogo (talk) 12:35, 26 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

• Hi Thogo, that I would also support very much, but imho this is a more delicat issue, please can You therefore request this seperately, thanks, best regards, --birdy geimfyglið _(:> )=| 12:50, 26 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

• Ok, I will bring that back into the minds after this here has been finished. --Thogo (talk) 21:45, 26 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

• Also agree, new users are unlikely to need to move pages. Majorly (talk) 12:40, 26 November 2007 (UTC)Reply
• I agree as well, this will do a lot more good than harm. Cbrown1023 talk 15:11, 26 November 2007 (UTC)Reply
• I support this. I've seen many vandals registering and then moving pages. SPQRobin 15:22, 26 November 2007 (UTC)Reply
•  Support Apoyo. Las ventajas sobrepasan ampliamente a las desventajas. drini ^[es:] _[commons:] 16:20, 26 November 2007 (UTC)Reply
• Yes, that would be an appropriate measure. MaxSem^{(Han shot first!)} 16:23, 26 November 2007 (UTC)Reply
• Agree, this is useful, most vandals do not seem to be patient enough to wait four days. --Complex 21:50, 26 November 2007 (UTC)Reply
•  Support. Strong support, in fact. This small bit will prevent all sorts of page-move vandalism, or page-move mistakes that we shouldnt have to deal with otherwise. --Whiteknight (meta) (Books) 22:07, 26 November 2007 (UTC)Reply
•  Support It will save us trouble, IPs and new users often being unfamiliar with naming conventions. chtit_draco ^{talk page} 22:20, 26 November 2007 (UTC)Reply
•  Support Londenp 22:46, 26 November 2007 (UTC)Reply
•  Support It seems reasonable. \Mike(z) 23:34, 26 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

For portals like http://www.wikipedia.org, we have the page project portals. But does someone know where I can view the template used for new created sites like http://br.wikiquote.org/w/index.php?title=Degemer&oldid=1 ? SPQRobin 13:18, 26 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

It's in the MediaWiki software, I believe, you need a developer to change it. Perhaps report it to MediaZilla:? Cbrown1023 talk 15:12, 26 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

It's something Wikimedia-specific I think, because MediaWiki uses MediaWiki:Mainpagetext + MediaWiki:Mainpagedocfooter by default. SPQRobin 15:37, 26 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

That may be true, but I still believe it's only editable by the developers. Cbrown1023 talk 16:17, 26 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

Yes, off course. While I'm waiting until someone knows it, I made a proposal to update the current one. SPQRobin 17:12, 26 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

I'm having a problem on WP:fr. A number of weeks ago, I added to three related articles on WP:en, WP:da and WP:fr a link to a well-documented, app.. 120,000 word long analysis (including notes). It didn't raise an eyebrow on the otherwise heavily edited WP:en articles. Following some objections at the beginning and my justification of the link's validity, its presence wasn't questioned anymore on WP:da. On WP:fr, on the other hand, all hell broke loose, as the article was immediately erased as alleged "spam". For weeks, in spite of my trying to carry a sensible discussion, two WP:fr editors have insisted upon having the link removed while even refusing to look into it in an adequate manner, apparently basing their judgement on nothing else but a few words which they disapproved of. All the while I was being threatened of being denounced for "spamming".

Today the situation escalated: as I realised that we wouldn't be getting anywhere with this Gordian knot of sorts, I placed a request for arbitration. At the same moment, the users opposing the link brought the issue to the Bistro, i.e. WP:fr's pub. Just in the course of this one day, with hardly any participation from my side, an atmosphere for which I can find no better word than... lynching has developed there, not only against myself (which hardly matters) but primarily against the article - which for obvious reasons no one has had the time to read. The hysteria has now reached such heights that a consensus has almost been reached to blacklist the URL, or the domain, as spam, not only on WP:fr but also on the whole of Wikipedia.

Now, I'm not asking anyone here to judge whether the study behind the link is valid or not. It may also well be that something in the connotations of the word spam has escaped me in contemporary French. My point is not to have anyone decide what the procedures specific to WP:fr should be. Rather, I am bringing this here to ask how to "protect" the URL from being blacklisted over the whole spectrum of localized versions by what I've called the Wikipedian Holy Inquisition, in particular as it would have an effect on existing wiki articles where this domain is referenced to.

How do I do this without getting into more bureaucratic hassle (I've had more than my share today with this request for arbitration business).

I'll post any relevant links if requested.

·Michel 20:42, 26 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

Hi, please visit Talk:Spam blacklist in the remove section, make a short statement for removing Your link from the blacklist (if it is even listed there), thanks, best regards, --birdy geimfyglið _(:> )=| 20:51, 26 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

Thanks a lot, I'll keep an eye on it. · Michel 20:58, 26 November 2007 (UTC)Reply