Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 10:17, 13 July 2006

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Admin Stalking

I have been online for over 10 years 'playing' all through the ether. In that time I have never had my ip blocked once though I have come across all types in some programs. I have never been targeted online for anyhting apart from a couple of gentle 'boots' from one galah who wasnt viscious or kept it up night after night after night after night. In the last couple of weeks here my ip has been blocked several times when I objected to admin vandalism of stuff I had posted where meaning etc were changed making what I put up a heap of lies. I have made a lot of contributions to wik. I did make some errors as I had no idea what I was doing to start. They were not intentional. I cite most posts immediately, with references on the way in next couple of days re those I dont have the reference immediately to hand. (I have an arm injury so can't pull my cardboard box other filing cabinet off the top of the cupboard to get a couple of things out.) Since I have been on wik I have been continuously stalked by an admin who has been very rude, keeps vandalising stuff I put up, seems to be very fixated on following me around the ether and trying to control my every moove. Of course I told that admin to get lost. I am a former professional stalking/violence worker so have seen how it happens and where it ends up, and dont have regard for that sort of rot. I have never seen it to the extent that I have seen it happen on wik. I will tell any stalker to get lost. Its behaviour that isnt needed anywhere and if I am targeted to the point I am continuously being harassed and my health affected then it needs to stop. WHAT IS GOING ON HERE? IS IT ALWAYS LIKE THIS? I was going to put a heap of valuable stuff up but given how here is then its best to steer clear of the palce for the sake of my personal wellbeing.

• I would be delighted if somebody reviewed either my admin actions or my contributions to the wikipedia - with reference to articles this anon user has also edited. I will take the issues to WP:AN/I for review by other admins. In the mean time I have blocked the user again for ongoing personal attacks.--A Y Arktos\ 09:09, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Now for that admin to find I put the above there that admin had to stalk me again as I had to log off, then come back to be able to post. Fair enough if those admins watching some wik articles do keep an eye on them but this post here shows that where I go all over wik is beign minutely watched. There is no need for that. The admin knows I am not a hoon vandel as such so no need for 24/7 watching and stalking. To post the above post, I came here first after logging back on to the Internet, cut and pasted the already written note above, then I went to the site where the admin was vandalising stuff I had put up (this has now stopped after I sadly had to remove most of the post in dispute - it contained important content). It seems that from me going to that article after here, my new ip has been reg and picked up on then tracked back to here to see what else I had posted under that ip log on number. This is totally ridiculous. Its also stalking. Its that that is uncalled for and highly irregular. CUT IT OUT!

Trigger Happy

Dear Wikipedians: I, like you, am an editor; I create articles and make edits. But, many, I am sure many other people out there, are tired, frustrated and angry with the behavior of many Administrators. I am certain that it is appallingly easy to revert and article, that someone has undoubtedly spent allot of time and effort writing. I have, in the past spent hours, researching, planning, writing, checking and revising an addition to an article only to have the whole lot deleted forever three minutes afterwards.

I know that deletion of material is essential in a free-to-edit encyclopedia, but if you see an article that someone has anonymously devoted their time to writing, why could you not revise it, change it or give a reason for you action? They deserve one.

I know all Administrators are not all Drunk-With-Power-Trigger-Happy-Nazis, many of you do an excellent job and you know who you are.

In closing: Create, don’t Destroy. Make a distinction between “what is right, and what is easy”. Be enriched and enrich others with the knowledge of other people.

And keep that finger off the trigger.

(If I don't cop flack for this one, I will climb the Reichtag Bulding in a Spiderman outfit).

Dfrg.msc 07:28, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

• See also Misplaced Pages:Village pump (policy)#Trigger Happy, begun 6 June. User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 23:33, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages and "Information Drift"

A friend of mine who was considerably older would remark on how the dictionary had changed. He had me go to a 1920s edition of a dictionary and look up several words and then to a current version and look up certain words. The definitions had changed, sometimes to a meaning almost opposite the older one. When looking at the John Seigenthaler Sr. Misplaced Pages biography controversy Talk page, there was a comment made about relying on information from someone you talked to on a bus vs a roomful of experts. It occurred to me that Misplaced Pages, with its roomful of experts, can be a force to slow societal information drift. There is some drift that has to occur, such as in technical and scientific areas... who would trust the 1920s encylopedia on that kind of information? However, prior to this democritization of knowledge, a single, concerted, player could mold definitions and meanings to turn them around, as in the novel Nineteen Eighty-four. It appears to me that Misplaced Pages, with its "roomful of experts" could slow that process and make it more difficult for disinformation merchants to peddle their wares. Of course, without the diligent editing and tracking that is being done by the community at this time, it could be a force for quite the opposite.

Greg 15:51, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages and the KKK

I found this cartoon on Wiki Commons. 3 members of the KKK under a wiki logo... is this funny? Mike-T 20:58, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

While I can't speak for the creator, I believe that it may instead be a depiction of a Nazareno ; the other symbols are clearly based on the Illuminati, so the allusion is probably to the Misplaced Pages 'cabal' as a conspiracy theory. Ziggurat 00:47, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

The captions are in French. Translated, they read:

A cabal? What cabal?

Have you heard of any cabal?

Of course not, there isn't any cabal.

This is of course a reference to There is no cabal and more specifically Misplaced Pages:Words of Wisdom#On_Wikipedia_and_the_Cabal. Deco 04:15, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Frankly, I find this a little sad. Hell, used to be that people could discern between perfectly acceptable complex secret societies with mysterious, yet undeniably sinister intentions, and a bunch of barely literate loudmouth rednecks with bad teeth, decked up in crumpled bedsheets sheets stained with specks of tobacco juice and moonshine. What's the world coming to? -- Captain Disdain 19:08, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Wikimania information: self-reference?

My apologies if this has been discussed elsewhere, but I have issues with how the Wikimania announcement is displayed. First of all, I think it's unattractive, imposing quite a bit of white space. Second, since it appears on the article page itself, I think it might be a violation, in principle, of WP:ASR. Even though it's only a temporary posting, is there a better way to announce it?--Monocrat 02:13, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

WP:ASR applies only to article content, not to the interface. If you would like to suggest it be removed, try asking at MediaWiki talk:Sitenotice. (Note that it only displays for the small percentage of our audience that's actually registered.) —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 04:12, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Vital categories which I have created were deleted!

Recently, most categories which play a vital role in Misplaced Pages in terms of the number of edits made by users were deleted. Please view this page here under sub-section 1.8. Moerover, please view the comments which I made about this here. I hope to receive positive feedback about this as I strongly believe that these types of categories should make a return to Misplaced Pages. There is absolutely no harm in including these into the project. --Siva1979 05:15, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Actually, most people seem to think that those categories didn't play a vital role in Misplaced Pages. They don't seem to have helped build an encyclopedia at all.-gadfium 05:37, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree. They were quite unnecessary. If users want to say how many edits they've made on their user pages, which many - including me - do, they certainly don't need categories to do so. As to them playing a vital role in Misplaced Pages, well... that word, I do not think it means what you think it means. The deletion of these categories will not harm Misplaced Pages. Grutness...wha? 09:08, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

I personally don't think that edit counting is a productive activity and it is quite misleading. Quality of edits is not related in any meaningful way to quantity of edits. How much you contribute is not important but rather whether contributions can be built on by others and have a lasting nature as encyclopedic content. User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 10:46, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Again, I agree. It might be interesting for the individual to know "hey, I've just made my 5,000th edit!" - which is why so many do ike to keep track - but it can misleadingly lead to the assumption that more = better, i.e., "editcountitis". If number of edits alone was indicative, I'd be one of the best editors on WP, but there are editors with fewer than 1000 edits whom I'll readily admit are far, far better. Unfortunately, there's no way to quantify quality. Grutness...wha? 00:56, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Personally I don't mind the categories, and if you don't want to use them, don't use them. CFD, by nature, gets the least exposure while under debate, as people don't often look at the actuall category page once they've categorized something; so it's possible further consensus building could be helpful. The CFD was properly closed, and a drv would not be useful at this time, btw. — xaosflux 13:51, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

so... um... i'm sitting here and i party all by myself...

and i wonder... is wikipedia a place where partyesque peeps hang out?! being a swede and stuff i'm celebrating "midsommar" today and well, to be honest: i'm bored to tears!

--herro!!1 19:37, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, um… I was wondering, would it help Misplaced Pages, if I donated blood? I mean… would you accept it?

Adam s 00:03, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but we can't accept your blood. It's bad for the hard disk drives.-gadfium 04:02, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

but if you're in the UK, your blood would be welcome at these places MikesPlant 10:59, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Dutch language typo

I don't know in which category this fits, so I'm bringing it up here. I've set my preference language to Dutch. This means that the user contributions also show up in Dutch. There's a typo there. It says "niewere 50" (newer 50), whereas it should say "nieuwere 50" (with a u). Is there a way to fix the typo? Aecis 21:30, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, there should be. I suggest you file a bug report at Mediazilla. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 04:14, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Lists

I want to see if anyone has opinions on good rules for whether lists should be allowed on Misplaced Pages. I think it is a popular quote that categories make lists redundant. Anyone have any opinions?? Georgia guy 02:15, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

• Note that this subject was brought to my attention when I saw Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/List of channel 20 TV stations in the United States. Georgia guy 02:26, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Regarding the general comment of This list is made redundant by a category, there is one possible objection someone might make depending on what the list is, which is that categories sort pages alphabetically while the list sorts the items in a special order, such as the Presidents of the United States in the order they served. A thing you could do theoretically is to make the category sort the items in the special order. Note that if a random list is sorted in an order like this and you want to look an item up by name, you could simply use the Control+F option. Georgia guy 02:42, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Generally, I think a list is more appropriate where it can provide context, ordering, and details about each list item that can't be expressed in a category. It might also be appropriate if adding each article to a category for that purpose would be really strange. Deco 04:11, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

• There are a number of lists which probably are made redundant by categories, and perhaps these should go. However, as well as the reasons listed above there is the issue that lists can include items which do not have articles. --MarkS (talk) 08:24, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Lists should only go if they contain no information which is not in the category (which means only the dregs of the lists) and they are no longer being updated. Otherwise, leave people free to choose which to use. Just because they might not make the same choice about how to access information as you would, that doesn't mean their preference is misguided. Chicheley 22:20, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

A relevant guideline is at Misplaced Pages:Categories, lists, and series boxes, although it focuses on when they're useful, not what to do when they duplicate each other. Ziggurat 22:26, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

It's perhaps worth noting that many Misplaced Pages mirrors do not implement categories. IMO, this leads to a fairly compelling argument in the other direction. -- Rick Block (talk) 23:07, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

lists are also very useful if there are lots of red links showing articles that need to be created in cases where there are people actively expanding a topic (like a wikiproject). BL Lacertae - kiss the lizard 23:51, 26 June 2006 (UTC) oop. just realised MarkS already said that. BL Lacertae - kiss the lizard 23:55, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Further evidence that Misplaced Pages is #1 in college plagiarism

"Katherine Tredwell, history of science professor, turned in 16 students for plagiarism on their final papers for her spring class, History of Science Since the 17th Century. She said nine of the cases, all of which are still being investigated, involved misuse of Misplaced Pages, the popular online encyclopedia. Tredwell said that, while Internet plagiarism is hardly new, the faculty as a whole should take notice of the incident." UWire, 6/21/06

9/16 is pretty damn good.

lots of issues | leave me a message 19:53, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm impressed that they'd turn to us first for their plagiarism. Seriously, Misplaced Pages's complete content is available for download and processing by standard plagiarism detection software systems. If they'd bothered to run these submissions through such a system then all Misplaced Pages-based plagiarisms would have been detected easily. Deco 22:00, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

That could be Misplaced Pages's new slogan: "More college cheaters plagiarize from Misplaced Pages than from any other source!" *Dan T.* 22:23, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

It's certainly the case - in the 101 course I was a T.A. for, we caught probly about 30 students cheating off wikipedia because they had all copied the same (fairly nonsensical) sentence. So when the same phrase showed up a bunch of times, but didn't really mean anything, we became suspicious and then found the same phrase in Misplaced Pages. WilyD 16:58, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Yay

Well this is nicely ironic...

Can't we at least redirect it to Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion? --TonyM 13:04, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

It used to do just that. It was deleted by User:Cyde, apparently out of process, as a "cross-namespace redirect". It was subsequently re-deleted by db-repost after posting on RfD at Misplaced Pages:Redirects_for_deletion#Articles_for_deletion_.E2.86.92_Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion. If you care about this, I suggest that you confront User:Cyde. Deco 00:13, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

It was not out of process. Cross-namespace redirects are quite obviously proper speedy deletes. User:Zoe| 03:01, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

This is confusing - article discussion pages

Why do the newest discussions on a talk page for any article go to the bottom of that page. Wouldn't you want the newest discussion at the top? The way wikipedia is set up, old discussions which are sometimes irrelevant to the article now that it has changed often get seen first. I think it'd make more sense to put the newer discussions at the top of the page. Of course, that would probably take a lot of work, so maybe it's not worth it. --Kormerant 16:26, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages's discussion system is in the process of being rewritten. I suggest you comment at m:LiquidThreads if you would like to make suggestions. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 00:41, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages Youth Foundation

Me and lcarsdata where thinking about creating the Misplaced Pages Youth Foundation. Youth (everyone younger then 17) are a minority among active wikipedians and we are thinking of making a "group", this group will have it's own catagories and userboxes (maybe guidelines). It will also serve to encourage them as wikipedia would benefit from some younger members.

So what do you think? Do you support or oppose the idea?

Michaelas10 17:27, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

I like the idea. It would give younger people a chance to work with other younger people and could increase their participation. My only worry would be whether we want to have a clearly identifiable group of young people. I might result in older users dismissing their ideas and it might attract undesirable users who can hide their identity. If we are confident we can get round these issues I'm all for it. --MarkS (talk) 19:46, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

• If I am not mistaken, you have the right of assembly. A variety of voluntary organizations currently exist (see esperanza, deletionists, and inclusionists).

From what I gather, Misplaced Pages neither endorses nor opposses any of these causes. If you want to start another one, I doubt they can deny you that right (perhaps even for hate speech?) --Folajimi 19:52, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

• Just don't call them the Junior Woodchucks.

Haha, of course not. One of the purposes of the foundation is to stop children from vandalising.

Michaelas10 12:36, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Created.

Michaelas10 18:57, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Thank yous

Do we have any developped "thank you"s? I'd like to have something that I can quickly paste into a forum post or email to someone when I see them cite or refer to Misplaced Pages. Replies here & on my talk please. - UtherSRG (talk) 15:23, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Not as far as I know, no. Arguably, this might even discourage further citations, as people think we're making a big deal out of it - I think the best strategy is to follow up with some other relevant Misplaced Pages links of your own. Oh, and please keep discussions in one place only. Deco 22:55, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Fight vandalism with a smile

I couldn't help but think of Misplaced Pages when I read this story on BBC News. Basically, it's a scientific study showing that people behaved strikingly more honestly when they were exposed to an image of human eyes. Perhaps it is this lack of the "human element" that makes us so susceptible as a target for random, pointless vandals. I have no specific ideas of how to implement such a thing, but perhaps if we had more images of friendly faces around, it would discourage this sort of behavior.--Pharos 02:03, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

• Interesting story; it seems Orwell's Big Brother was well aware of this in 1984... --Folajimi 02:36, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
• Maybe all we need is a picture of some eyes staring down at the top of the edit screen to remind editors that other people will see what they have done. --MarkS (talk) 08:41, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

This is an interesting study, and one that can be clearly seen and supported by what we experience in face-to-face discussion and on Misplaced Pages. However, I don't see any logical way human eyes or a more human element can be used at Misplaced Pages. Any ideas? --Randy Johnston (‽) 18:20, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, Mark's suggestion of putting something on the edit screen is certainly technically possible; we could have a banner with eyes and something like "Please be careful in editing." Or maybe we could use some sort of cartoon mascot. Or maybe something else altogether: any more thoughts?--Pharos 08:44, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Great idea, I think the mona-lisa would work well, or maybe we could create a wikimascot. Then we could put it at the top of every type of edit notice (including longpage, protected page etc.) then have a banner next to it saying "think before you click Save page". LC@RSDATA 07:00, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

.... What happend to being bold? Why do we want to cow our editors into being cautious? --The Prophet Wizard of the Crayon Cake 07:22, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

I would not at all want to discourage people from being bold. The point of this would just be to reduce blatant, pointless vandalism like "TRISHA IS GAY" by putting a human face on the editing process.--Pharos 21:50, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

American States

What state touches the most other states?

Missouri and Tennessee tie, each with 8 neighboring states. -- Rick Block (talk) 13:37, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

A question about policy

What is the policy about writing an article about someone you know? Is there a policy about asking them questions in person for information? How would you cite that? Thanks. Wikibout-Talk to me! 16:46, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't think there's an explicit policy about writing about someone you know although aspects of Misplaced Pages:Autobiography pertain, in particular Misplaced Pages:Neutral point of view (unless you are able to keep to a completely neutral point of view, don't write it). Asking questions in person is not a verifiable source, see Misplaced Pages:Verifiability. -- Rick Block (talk) 18:42, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

It is also possible to run afoul of Misplaced Pages:No original research when interviewing someone for an article. The rules can be summarized as "verifiable facts and well-accepted conjectures are OK; most conclusions, analyses, opinions etc. are not" (but read the actual policy!). RossPatterson 23:40, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Ok thanks. I think I can write an article completely NPOV, but many vital facts are missing, like his parents names and date of birth. Wikibout-Talk to me! 00:01, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

The colour red

At one time, wasn't the colour red associated with communism? If so, why is it associated with the conservative states of the USA? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Debber (talk • contribs) .

Have you tried Misplaced Pages's Reference Desk? They specialize in knowledge questions, and will try to answer any question in the universe (except how to use Misplaced Pages, since that's what this Help Desk is for). For your convenience, here's the link: Reference Desk (when you get there, just select the relevant section, and ask away). I hope this helps. Garion96 02:22, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Red is also associated with blood, love, sunsets, heat, Christmas, "stop", and a few thousand other things. See association fallacy. Deco 00:17, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

English articles

The English Misplaced Pages obviously has more than double the number of articles than the language in second place, German. Are there any articles written in any other language that are not written in English as well? I've always been curious. Torvik 08:00, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes. See Misplaced Pages:Translation into English for some of these.-gadfium 08:30, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Avoiding cut and paste between Misplaced Pages articles

I get the general impression that the need to avoid cutting and pasting between Misplaced Pages articles (it loses the attributions that are stored in the page history) is something that it is easy for people to not learn about until rather late in their Misplaced Pages experience. It there a way to make this clearer and to re-emphasise this point?

Also, can someone point me to a single guideline that covers: splitting and merging articles, the need to preserve page histories, and how this is difficult when splitting and merging articles, the need to preserve redirects as a link to page histories (and not to just delete them), and to not cut and paste large chunks of text between Misplaced Pages articles? At the moment, this all seems spread around several different pages, which maybe why people don't always realise that this "cut and paste" method contravenes the GFDL for moving pages, and so it also contravenes it for splitting pages. The specific example here is the discussion here. I would really appreciate it if others could confirm and support what I have said there, or, if I am wrong, to correct what I've said. Thanks. Carcharoth 10:04, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

There is nothing wrong with cutting and pasting large chunks of text where this is necessary for good presentation. However, you should always provide a link back to the place where it was copied from in your edit summary. This way a person who wishes to discover the original authors can still do so. If that page is going to be deleted, the edit history should be pasted on an appropriate talk page. These are just the ad hoc rules that I use, but I think they're adequate. Deco 00:13, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

something else i do if im merging one person's new stub into an existing long article and making the stub into a redirect is add a link to the former stub in the edit summary. BL Lacertae - kiss the lizard 00:31, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

How would you paste the edit history onto a talk page? Is it just the edit summaries that you are talking about, or all past versions of the page?--GregRM 01:48, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

This is all well and good, but my point is that I sometimes see people not putting these links in the edit summaries. This completely breaks the attribution system. As an example, please see User:Carcharoth#How I did a merge. What I think would be even better than just providing a link to the article, is to provide a link to the specific break point in the history of the article you have copied the text from. In other words, the edit summary should go something like:

"adding text cut from Transalpine Gaul during this edit"

That makes it even clearer what has happened.

The alternative is something like this edit. How on Earth can someone five years from now know where that block of text was cut and pasted from?

I mean, I know it was from this edit, but that is only because I was aware of the names and histories of the articles. It would be much more difficult for anyone else to trace the history of the large chunk of text that parachuted into Ptolemaic Egypt with what is, quite frankly, an inadequate edit summary.

What made it worse was that there were serious proposals to delete History of Greek and Roman Egypt along with all the page history! Though your proposal to paste the edit history onto a talk page seems OK, I don't think that is ideal. Is there any guideline that says pasting a page history onto a talk page is an adequate addressing of the problems involved in such cut and paste operations?

The other thing is, once an unlinked edit summary appears, how can it be corrected? Currently, the only way to do it is to revert, and then redo the cut and paste and remember to put the link in the edit summary.

It is all very messy, and I wish more people were aware of how to do such cutting and pasting properly, or to avoid it if they are not sure what to do. How about adding something to the boilerplate warning along the lines of:

"Content must not violate any copyright and must be based on verifiable sources. If you are moving text between articles, please state this and link to both articles in your edit summary. You agree to license all contributions under the GFDL."

Though, of course, no-one reads that bit anyway.

I think my basic point is that there is the possibility that the GFDL is broken because there are large chunks of Misplaced Pages where the attribution is no longer possible because a significant minority of Misplaced Pages editors have been editing without being aware of these issues. Carcharoth 01:27, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

I guess the question is really, what can you do about it? It seems technically infeasible to distinguish these edits from legitimate mass removals or additions of content that aren't copy-paste-without-attribution. Deco 07:07, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, I guess you are right, there isn't a lot that can be done about it if you arrive several major edits later. If only a few minor edits have taken place, it might still be feasible to do an edit that correctly attributes the cut-and-paste. Otherwise, I think a note on the talk page is the best solution - maybe a big colourful template box at the top of the talk page saying "This article's edit <history> includes a <copy-paste-without-attribution>. This took place on <date> and can be seen <here>. This text originally came from <here>, and the edit history for that text can be seen at that page's <edit history>. Please see <here> for details of when such copying and pasting is acceptable and when it is not, and the correct format for the edit summaries." (The bracketed stuff would be links to the relevant pages and diffs). Once a few of those templates appeared on talk pages, people might start to get the message.

Also, could those patrolling RC be made more aware that unintentional damage like this needs to be caught as well as just simple vandalism? I want to make more editors aware of the damaging nature of such well-intentioned efforts. Is there a way to do this? Is there a place where I can get approval for a template like I propose above, and even get someone to design it (I know very little about putting parameters in templates) and also to check something similar doesn't already exist?

And I second GregRM's question - how exactly does this "putting the edit history on a talk page" work? And I'll repeat my question: is there a Misplaced Pages guideline that approves of this method of putting the edit history of such copy-pasted text on a talk page? It seems very unorthodox. Carcharoth 10:38, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

One more point: above you say "a person who wishes to discover the original authors can still do so" - but it is not a case of doing this to be helpful to someone who might just happen to want to find the original authors - this attribution is a requirement under the GFDL. See WP:GFDL:

5. COMBINING DOCUMENTS In the combination, you must combine any sections Entitled "History" in the various original documents, forming one section Entitled "History"

Carcharoth 10:44, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

I also found Misplaced Pages:How_to_fix_cut_and_paste_moves. Carcharoth 11:09, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

And it is on that page that I found an answer to both my question and Greg's question: "you can archive the duplicate page to Talk: space (i.e. by moving it to some suitable title, such as Talk:RandomArticle/OldVersion)." So in this case, I think the idea is that if a page needs to be deleted (for whatever reason) the article page and its edit history (and also the talk page and its history, if a talk page exists) can be moved, using the "move" tab, to a subpage of the talk page of the place where the text was moved to. Since the edit history has been preserved, the article can be safely deleted - usually because the name is needed for something else. Carcharoth 12:11, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Anons flooding AfD

Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/What Really Happened (2nd nomination) was flooded today with Anon IP comments after an announcement about the AfD was posted on an external website. An Admin suggested sorting through the Anons and posting notes about which ones represented first edits (people who came to WP strictly to influence an AfD). I began to place notes on the page but then realized there might be a problem. Aren't some IP adresses dynamic? Does that mean that some of those Anon IPs might actually be long-time contributors? I want to make sure this page gets a balanced review, not unduly weighted either way. And yes, I know this isn't a vote, but whoever closes this AfD is going to have to wade through tons of material and the idea was that this would help the closing Admin. Can someone shed some light on this? --Doc Tropics 02:16, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

• I was going to suggest using {{AfdAnons}}, but I see that someone else beat me to it. As long as the anonymous contributors are aware that their opinions don't count for very much — especially given the context within which they got involved — I say let them be. Folajimi 06:12, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, that works for me. --Doc Tropics 06:14, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Computer Help Wiki

I work for a charity called U Can Do IT (see www.ucandoit.org.uk) which provides computer tuition for disabled people in the UK. I am currently trying to start up a wiki at wiki.ucandoit.org.uk which will fulfill various functions for the charity. Perhaps the most important of these is the provision of a set of Instructions and Course Notes for U Can Do IT students to use while they are taking the course.

I have publicised the wiki amongst other U Can Do IT tutors, but I don't think many of them are particularly experienced in editing wikis. Would any experienced wikipedians be able to provide any help in building the UCanWIKI? Accounts are by invitation only, but there's a link on the main page of the wiki from which you can email me an account request. Even if you don't want to contribute, any general advice (e.g., already-extant sources of computer instructions, general design tips etc etc) would be great.

Thank you! --Jim 10:49, 1 July 2006 (UTC) wiki.ucandoit.org.uk

More cut-and-paste stuff

I've added warning and information boxes for one such cut-and-paste series of edits that I caught. Please see Talk:History_of_Greek_and_Roman_Egypt, Talk:Ptolemaic_Egypt and Talk:Aegyptus (Roman province). Does this sort of thing look OK and is it clear? Would a template involving this sort of thing be useful? Carcharoth 11:56, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

How do you browse Misplaced Pages?

I often browse Misplaced Pages just for fun and to help improve it with a tweak here and there, but I have gotten tired of browsing via watchlist, I'm not as far advanced a Wikiholic to browse recent changes. The Main Page is nice, but what other methods do people use? Random page is a little too random for me. Categories show promise. Spalding 15:11, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

It depends what you like doing. If you want to focus on formatting issues, Category:Articles that need to be wikified is a good place to go. If not, there's all kinds of pages needing different sorts of attention in Category:Misplaced Pages cleanup categories. Angela. 15:23, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Angela. But as usual, an answer breeds another question. In looking at cleanup categories, for instance, there is an underpopulated category American agnostics. A good source is List of agnostics, but what is the current thinking on lists versus categories? Maintain both? Seems like a lot of opportunity for conflicting information and high maintenance. Spalding 19:32, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, both are generally maintained since they serve slightly different purposes. Angela. 04:30, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Open content animal closeups needing to be classified

At http://www.flickr.com/photos/marcodede/sets/72057594099874712/, a Brazilian photographer is making available a great number of stunning animal closeup photographs under a Misplaced Pages-compatible Creative Commons Attribution licence. I'd add them to Wikimedia Commons, but he's not identified the animals. Maybe our resident taxonomists would be interested? These images would be great additions to our articles on animals.

I've added this notice to Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Tree of Life and to Misplaced Pages:Village pump (miscellaneous). Anyone is invited to cross-post it anywhere else where it might be noticed by knowledgeable Wikipedians. Sandstein 15:17, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

illustrating articles

Hi. I have written an ugly script that finds articles without images in our Misplaced Pages, but the quid is that script links to a Commons article with images for to illustrate. The list contains some errors, sorry. Does someone work? :) --Emijrp 16:52, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism

I know that you're not supposed to vandalise and all that, but us vandals want to and don't want to get blocked. Do you think that you could just post a page that us vandals could vandalise?(y'know, like you could paste the text from a serious article in it every day.)--Architect1 20:33, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

You could try Misplaced Pages:Sandbox. Deco 21:45, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

You already know about the Sandbox, and I see you have a personal sandbox too. You can put pretty much what you like in your personal sandbox, so long as it's within the law, and if you don't get ridiculous on use of our bandwidth. We would hope that you'll use the experience you gain from editing in such places to make useful contributions to articles too.-gadfium 21:48, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

if your vandalism takes the form of adding silly "facts" rather than just replacing words with swearing you might alo like to look at Uncyclopedia. BL Lacertae - kiss the lizard 22:55, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

One of the many reasons I love Misplaced Pages

What other reference work has a category for Fictional Chickens? Incredible! Spalding 21:52, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Category:fictional chickens - agreed! Misplaced Pages truely is a god among men. You made me smile :) - Jak (talk) 12:36, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

And with a listing of 28 Fictional Chickens we have a better selection than KFC :) --Doc Tropics 14:21, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages: the Inherently Funny Website. SAMAS 00:59, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Ref inherently funny word. Deco 17:38, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Where is wikipedia?

Where exactly is wikipedia? Where are the servers? But more importantly, where are the hard-drives?? I hope they are protected in an underground bunker surrounded by 17 feet of concrete! Not having wasted all this time (along with thousands of other people) only for the databases to be wiped by an earthquake or an attack or similar occurance. Please tell me our hard work is safe - Jak (talk) 12:36, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Not to worry, the servers are very safe. They would be threatened only in the unlikely event that Florida gets hit with a hurricane...--Doc Tropics 14:18, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Like any good business, I'm sure the Wikimedia Foundation makes regular offsite backups in remote locations. Natural disaster might destroy a few days of work, but not years. Deco 15:00, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

There are hundreds of copies of Misplaced Pages's content on the internet, and probably thousands more in private hands. Because Misplaced Pages is licensed under the GFDL, people are free to copy and republish it under the license's terms. There are more instructions at Misplaced Pages:Database download for individuals interested in having a dump of the entire Misplaced Pages database. Even if the entire Wikimedia Foundation and the whole state of Florida were destroyed, there would still be copies of Misplaced Pages all over the world. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:45, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Trivia

Of the nearly 200 countries in the world, which one do Wikipedians consider the least important country for Misplaced Pages to satisfy?? Georgia guy 16:36, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

None, they should all be treated equally, otherwise we launch ourselves on the slippery slope of indifference. Perhaps a country with no internet users, if one exists, but otherwise, my previous answer remains firm. Why do you ask? -- Zanimum 17:27, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Looking at your recent contributions, it appears you may well be asking about a specific situation. You'll get a much more useful response if you say so in future... Shimgray | talk | 17:34, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Oman. I mean, really, when was the last time OMAN was in the news? Sheesh. Might as well say "O man, nothing happens here!" And don't get me started on Paraguay. --Golbez 21:26, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Copyright status of 30+ year old found photos

A man finds a photo album laying around on the street. He looks in it for contact info, none is found, besides the name of the woman who created them. She appears to have been 70 or so in 1967, so is likely dead. What is the copyright status of these images? Can the finder release them as PD? -- Zanimum 17:26, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Congratulations, we have a textbook case of the orphan work dilemma... They're unpublished in any real sense, so you can't go by expiry of copyright from publication, and have to go from date of death... which will be too recent. And you have no way of contacting the copyright holder - because it'll have passed to an unknown heir - so you're screwed whatever you do. Shimgray | talk | 17:30, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, you're pretty much screwed. You can look at the photos, or scan them into your computer, but you have no rights to publish, distribute copies of, or create and publish derivative works of the photos. This is precisely the reason why the U.S. Copyright Office has recently been soliciting opinions on issues related to orphan works, and Congress may consider related legislation in the near future. If you want to make your voice heard, now is the time. Deco 17:46, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Bleck. Thanks both. -- Zanimum 13:16, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Longer articles = more important?

I recently had a look at the Windows Vista article and what I noticed is that even if it's not out yet, the article is bigger than the ones of other operating systems that are lesser known or older. The same goes for many articles about persons. People that are popular and active in this internet age get a bigger article, even if what they do isn't that much relevant for humanity.

To me it seems now that you can copy & paste information off other websites and press releases (in the case of software), you can bloat an article. I'm not saying that the information by doing this would be irrelevant or false.

I'm aware that this is kind of inevitable, but a longer article about a thing that's currently trendy and in the news distorts the person or thing being written about making it seem more important.

Taking operating systems for example. I think BeOS is/was a very interesting OS, but the article is very short. Of couse I could add informations, but there's not much to copy and paste about it on the internet. On the other hand, Windows is being marketed aggressively and therefore you'll find more information about it that you can copy and paste (a list with the features, requirements...).

In the end, as Misplaced Pages gets older, some articles about not-so-famous, but interesting things will get forgotten, defaced or stay as stuble, while hyped things will make history because they are written by "fanboys" or even the people who were involved in that thing themselves/knew the famous person. Guest Account 19:31, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

First of all, copying and pasting material from the web is in violation of copyright law and against our policy. The articles you mentioned don't do it (although sometimes they may perilously paraphrase such material). It is true that topics receiving more attention will generate more detailed articles; this is just another side to Misplaced Pages's inadvertant selective bias which also, for example, generates longer articles on operating systems than on modern dance. The bias exists, but unlike material within a single article it should not be construed as espousing the relative importance of the topics. A more real danger is that the articles may fall into disrepair for lack of interest - but really even a not-so-great article is better than none at all, and every article should be regularly reviewed for vandalism. Deco 19:55, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Georgia (country) being moved to Georgia

For the past 2 years, the evidence that Georgia (country) will be moved to Georgia is increasing more and more. Somebody please explain why the evidence is not staying as little as it was 2 years ago. Georgia guy 20:11, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand your question, but I'm going to try to answer what I think your question is. If you are asking about moving the page Georgia (country) to Georgia, it seems unlikely that the move would be possible. If you click on Georgia it leads to a disambiguation page. That page lists 19 different articles about "Georgia"...many different Georgias. The Disambiguation page isn't really a ranking system, it's a way for people to find the specific article they want out of the many named "Georgia". Does that help? --Doc Tropics 04:51, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't know if it is happening, but I think that it would be a bad idea. We have a lot of contributors from the U.S. and when they think of "Georgia" it is the state, not the country. Having the links go to a disambiguation page is much better than them going to the wrong article. Also, it would be a pain to change the links to the right page because everyone has to check all of the articles each time they go through "what links here" to correct the links. When it goes to a disambiguation page, you don't have to go through pages that have already been checked, resulting in less wasted effort. -- Kjkolb 05:04, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

I concur. Georgia the U.S. state is better known in North America, and Georgia the country is better known in Europe, especially the eastern half. Indeed, I suspect most American editors (myself included) would support having the U.S. state at Georgia because of the "common names" policy guideline. But many European editors would object. There is no easy solution. We have to keep Georgia as a disambig page. --Coolcaesar 09:55, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

If it gets moved, it won't stay that way for long. User:Zoe| 03:59, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Added a template on how-to articles

You can see it here. It just crossed my mind that not all instructional content needs to be edited out, but it might just require a proper introduction. Anyone willing to check the reasons, discussion and the layout of this newly created template and the relevant category? Santtus 09:40, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages and Metal Bands

Ok I have no idea where to bring this up so I thought I'd leave a note here. Increasingly as I browse the wiki I continually am running into references, and pages to metal bands. Perhaps this extends outwards to other generas, but to date I have only noticed with in metal. These articles tend to be short and reasonable, but the problem centers on the fact that there are TONS of them generally for bands that have released 0-1 albums. These articles tend to use technical terms which aren't clear (though admitly I suppose there could be a difference between the countless ways they string death, metal, and one or other two words into what they appear tto regard as some type of sub genera) and come off as the type entries you'd expect in a more more intrest specific encyclopedic source (such as a metal encyclopedia). The real problem with this though is the clutter, the metal pages have a number of huge list pages, and the bands themselves continually are cluttering the less policed sections of pages such as pop culture references (cthulhu mythos comes to mind), or creating unnecessary disamiguation pages. I've run into this metal clutter from a wide variety of places, lovecraft related topics, comic book pages, film pages, and most recently when looking for information about the bit torrent tracker demonoid.com. I don't know what can be done, but I'd certainly appreciate others looking at this phenomena and making any suggestions they can.--68.231.174.183 14:33, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Give up and do something more useful on wikipedia, is my advice. Let them clutter away; nobody cares, nobody will see their work except other fanboys, so just ignore it. Concentrate on writing/editing/creating good articles, rather than raising your blood pressure over bad articles. This is advice, by the way, from somebody who spent his first three years on wikipedia diligently deleting piffle; I've decided it's not really accomplishing anything, so now I ignore the bad and only work on the good. - DavidWBrooks 15:56, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Image:M60andsoldierwithammoinnam.jpg

Sorry if this is the wrong place, but I figured I should bring this up. I'm questioning the authenticity of this image. The soldier in it looks alot like actor Dylan McDermott from the movie Hamburger Hill. I haven't seen that movie in a while, but I do believe there was a scene that was similar (if not the exact same) as that picture. Does anybody concur?--Kross 15:59, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

U.S.-centrism

U.S.-centrism is complained about a lot in Misplaced Pages. Anywhere besides Misplaced Pages where U.S.-centrism is widely complained about?? Georgia guy 21:38, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

• In my experience, pretty much everywhere outside the US. :-) -- ArglebargleIV 22:21, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
• The easist way around it is to just create a "______ in the United States" article (or some variation). I would suggest renaming the original article "______ in Miscellaneous", but I think that wouldn't fly --bah, philistines... --Bobak 00:04, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
• I don't know how much the word "centrism" is used, but the arrogance, ignorance, self-centredness and pomposity of Americans are complained about millions of times every day all over the world, and complaining about it will only increase the heat. What you need to do it to become a little more modest and engaged. Chicheley 04:56, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
• Alas, modesty is not one of our defining characteristics. We tend to take great pride in our positive accomplishments, while pretending that our "mistakes" happened to someone else. While I will cheerfully admit to being arrogant and self-centered, I really must take exception to "ignorance" (we've actually built several schools here in the Colonies, and one or two have good reputations). Regarding the idea that Americans are pompous, I'm forced to assume that you've never been to France :) (and now I duck quickly to avoid the flaming Frenchmen who will doubtless descend on me.) --Doc Tropics 17:29, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
• There is a considerable amount of US-centrism on Misplaced Pages, but that's par for the course. By that, I don't mean that there is a natural tendency for US-centrism to exist among Americans any more than Foo-centrism exists among Fooians, although there does seem to be somewhat of an excess of it. Part of the reason there is so much on Misplaced Pages, though, is simply that so much of Misplaced Pages is edited by Americans, and as such there is a natural systemic bias towards the US. There also seems to be a very insular approach among a proportion of Americans - reflected on Misplaced Pages - which tends to deal with items in the US as though this automatically means that the whole world has been dealt with - I've seen several items of the form of "Most important X which are really "Most important X in the United States" (My rcent edits to the article University press hopefully fixed the problems that article had in this regard). In my own work for Misplaced Pages, which involves a lot of sorting of geography stubs, I see Foo-centrism from several countries, though, notably the US, UK and - perhaps surprisingly - India. Many many stub articles about palces say things like "Nawaral is a small village 25 kilommetres west of Inkantimbi famous for its temple.", with no mention whatsoever of where Inkanthimbi is - everyone is expected to know where it is and place it alongside London, New York and Moscow in our list of best-known cities in the world. A similar but more subtle thing is (and this is more American than anything else) an automatic assumpton that a two-letter state abbreviation can only possible mean a US state, leading to articles with names like "Newport, WA", which could refer to Washington, Western Australia, or Wales. To the best of my knowledge, Nashville is not in Tunisia and Minneapolis is not in Mongolia. Um... I seem to have strayed from the point... Grutness...wha? 05:14, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

I think you'll find that Newport, WA redirects to Newport, Washington. If it doesn't, it's got the wrong name. User:Zoe| 04:01, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

heh - That example was made up on the spot. I had no idea there even was a Newport in Washington. It's something I see on articles about once a week or more, though. Grutness...wha? 06:05, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

WP missing articles

I came across a WP page entitled "Orphaned Articles" (the G section). There was nothing on the page to give me more info on what this means, or to direct me to someplace where I can read up on it. So I decided to put in a request for it. But then I had trouble finding a page to put in the request; is it just me or is there a problem here :-). Oh, BTW, I also had trouble finding a better place to post this. So, I guess I would have 2 requests: a main page for "Orphaned Articles", and a section in the new article request page for a Misplaced Pages procedures page (or maybe there is such a page and I couldn't find it). Thanks. TheLostOne --Leon7 20:26, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

You're talking about Misplaced Pages:Orphaned Articles/G, right? At the very top, in a smallish sort of font there's a link to Misplaced Pages:Orphaned Articles. Is this what you were looking for? In general, most pages have an associated talk page, accessed from the "discussion" tab at the top. And help is available from the "help" link on the left (in the "navigation" frame). From the main help page, "where to ask questions" is a list of places for asking questions. The Help desk and the New contributors' help page are both meant exactly for questions like yours. Just out of curiousity, how did you end up at Misplaced Pages:Requested articles and here? -- Rick Block (talk) 21:21, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Well... thanks but none of your suggestions got me to a definition... until I thought of searching for "Orphan", which did explain what it was. To answer your question, I was looking at Gerber File, and clicked on "what links here" and found a page link to Misplaced Pages:Orphaned Articles/G, along with several other links (I think I would like to edit Misplaced Pages:Orphaned Articles to give the definition). From the definition in Misplaced Pages:Orphan, it's obvious that the "Gerber File" article is no longer an orphan... if I understand it correctly. So the Misplaced Pages:Orphaned Articles/G page should be edited to remove any articles that have links coming in to them, correct? Apparently the last audit was 2 years ago, which is internet ancient history. Funny thing about these orphans, I thought--once an orphan, always an orphan (à la Pirates of Penzance) :-). Well, at WK, apparently it's the other way around; when an new article gets started, it's usually an orphan, but as it grows, it no longer is. Thanks for your help. --Leon7 01:49, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Did I see really see this template?

I recall seeing a message on a user's talk page which said something like "This User does not respond to unsigned messages". Is there a template saying this? Moriori 22:50, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I can't find one with google (no templates like what you recall with both "this user" and "respond" or "this user" and "unsigned"). Trawling through user pages, perhaps you're thinking of User:Giftexpert or User talk:Tawkerbot2. It would be trivial to create such a template if you want one. -- Rick Block (talk) 17:25, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Regarding the Pokemon test

Misplaced Pages is an encyclopedia, am I right? An encyclopedia not bound by physical limitations. So why are some articles considered "too long", such as the Karen Pokemon? Articles in an encyclopedia, as long as they're written properly and provide useful information on the subject, should never be called too long. The Karen Pokemon article is written very well (as far I know - I'm not into Pokemon) so why is it so bad to have so much detail in a seemingly relatively unimportant article? I bring this up because of my article Bombtrack "barely passing the Pokemon test". Sure, a bombtrack is not nearly as important as lots of things, that's obvious, but that doesn't automatically mean that its encyclopedia article shouldn't be detailed. Yes, of course, the article on Canada should be a hell of a lot longer than Bombtrack, but length does not go hand-in-hand with detail, and likewise, the levels of detail should never change between any article. And, again, this is an encyclopedia. There is no such thing as too much information. Torvik 06:41, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

It's not so much the length or detail that's the issue. As I just noted at the Talk page for that article, the real problem is that your article borders on original research because that term is so obscure. Otherwise for all we know you could be trying to popularize a term you coined. You need to get a citation (preferably several) showing that the term "bombtrack" is actually being used by professional musicians to refer to that type of sound. For example, academic music journals or even Rolling Stone magazine would suffice. --Coolcaesar 09:51, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't imagine Urban Dictionary would work? Torvik 18:19, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

no.Geni 18:32, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

I wasn't aware that there is a Pokemon test. This sounds like an article-specific content debate to me. Deco 19:22, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, Virginia, there is a Pokemon Test. SAMAS 01:49, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages logo

I wanted to bring to the attention of Misplaced Pages community an error in Misplaced Pages Logo. The leftmost jigsaw piece along the equator of the globe in the image has text written in Hindi. However the way it appears in the logo, it seems that it was created on a software that did not have Indic Language Support. Hence, what should be File:Correct hindi vi.JPG appears as File:Incorrect hindi vi.JPG. For technical details of such support, please refer to Misplaced Pages:Enabling complex text support for Indic scripts. I noticed it long back, and had tried to correct it by giving a petition to Angela (talk · contribs) and Anthere (talk · contribs). Because of technical issues and probable lack of drive to fix it, it remains unfixed. I bring it here so that if the community consensus is with the proposal, we should start pushing for the change. I know that it means a lot of work, but shouldn't we make a stitch in time? Also, it will create a bad impression if there are errors in the logo of an encyclopedia. I want to know what the community thinks. Thanks, — Ambuj Saxena (talk) 04:32, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

I would suggest you obtain a high-quality version of the logo and change it (or find someone to change it for you). Once the hard work is done it'll be relatively easy to change the site logo. As we are not centralised, producing just a petition doesn't do much - someone still needs to do the work. I would predict that few (if any) people would object to such a minute change. --Oldak Quill 12:59, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages Integration

WP:ʃ

For the last month, myself and 1-2 other individuals have been jumpstarting a massive cleanup project as an attempt to bring order to Misplaced Pages. I think I have the methodology sorted out: now we need participants. There are more details on the project page. Thank you. Cwolfsheep 12:29, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Need word for grouping ancestry, ethnicity, and nationality

I need a word that would cover ancestry, ethnicity, and nationality to create a category name. Any help would be appreciated. I do not want to create three categories for these closely related and overlapping topics.
&#151;Lady Aleena talk/contribs 19:01, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

heritage?-gadfium 21:39, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps some variation of "identity" as in identity politics? Please be a bit more specific as to the case you're considering.--Pharos 02:25, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I am desperately trying to clean up Category:User templates, and there are separate userboxes for ancestry, ethnicity, and nationality. I would like to lump them together in one subcategory. - LA @ 05:58, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Francophonie or French speaking countries?

Both categories exist, and I don't know which one to use. Anyone who knows? Aaker 12:43, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Category:Francophonie is for members of La Francophonie. I'm not sure where the line is drawn for Category:French speaking countries; I think it is meant to include all countries with a significant French-speaking population, whether that country is a member of the Francophonie or not. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:54, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Trademark dilution

Yeah, you're right. This use of the Misplaced Pages logo is a violation of trademark law, conveying the false impression that their site is affiliated with Misplaced Pages. I think there's some place where you can contact our legal department for follow-up. Deco 19:20, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Brad Patrick is the Wikimedia Foundation's lawyer. You might pass it on to him. I suspect that a politely-worded request from him would set things right. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 13:40, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I left a message for Mr. Patrick. Incidentally, the site's not responding for me right now (doesn't bode well for impressing their future clients, eh?). — Knowledge Seeker দ 03:15, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

School teachers

This is the golden age of Misplaced Pages; the age when school teachers (mine, at least) still think it's acceptable to cite Misplaced Pages as a direct source of information. :-P Torvik 21:28, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

That age is still to come. Just wait for Misplaced Pages:Stable versions. --Oldak Quill 12:52, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Need help with ongoing Anaheim Hills mess

I got fed up with the mess surrounding Anaheim Hills, Anaheim, California and filed a request for arbitration. If you're interested in the long-running conflict over how Misplaced Pages should treat neighborhoods that have no official status and no defined boundaries, I encourage you to join the fray at Talk:Anaheim Hills, Anaheim, California and Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration! --Coolcaesar 00:22, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

AFD

I'm usually more involved in another language WP so I'm always amazed, how comparatively civil AfD debates are conducted here. Particularly, it appears as if hardly anyone comments on other people's delete or keep arguments directly (basically creating a little sub-discussion about a lot of things not related to the question at hand). Is there some guideline people follow automatically or are there others running around moderating the discussions? Any insight would be greatly appreciated. sebmol 11:12, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

AfD, civil? You must only be looking at the boring deletion nominations. I'm sure someone can supply a link to a much more involved deletion argument, such as the recent Misplaced Pages:Categories for deletion/Log/2006 June 19/Wikipedians by politics. Deco 17:52, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Apparently, I must have. Thank you for that link, that was very enlightening ;-) sebmol 18:03, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I think that AfD's reputation is much worse than the reality of what goes on there. Also, I think that it is better than it was last year. I don't know about before that since I wasn't here. I think one of the most common causes of uncivil discussions on AfD is when sockpuppets or meatpuppets are used by one or (rarely) both sides. This really gets people angry. Another problem is when someone accuses another editor of bad faith, like using sockpuppets, making a nomination or "vote" in revenge, stalking and such. However, I think that the vast majority of nominations are civil. If you want to see people get nasty, you could try Deletion Review. It's kind of depressing, though. Deletion Review participants tend to be veteran editors and I've seen many of them behaving very poorly there. -- Kjkolb 18:50, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

If there is any difference in civility here it could be a size factor. One article in a million seems less of a big deal than one in ten thousand on a smaller Wiki. Grutness...wha? 02:09, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

We have about 420,000 articles, which should be about one third. But there still might be some truth in that. It may also have to do with the fact that the attitude in the German WP is in general much more Deletionist. sebmol 06:52, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Another related thing is that the more articles there are, the more likely that a new one will be on a less encyclopedic subject. By 400,000, though, I'd have expected that the german WP would be approaching the level of that that exists here. Grutness...wha? 05:21, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Oh, we do. We get about 100 AfD per day, most of which with "Notability?" as the argument for deletion. sebmol 06:43, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I start several AfDs a week, and have had few problems. Mostly they're from RC patrol, where the article creator removed a "prod" and we have to go to AfD to get rid of an article about their non-notable garage band or favorite minor character from some popular culture work. These usually go to deletion without much trouble. --John Nagle 17:35, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Symbol Name

We are in need of the name of the symbol that is over the e as in Crepe or over the u as in Ragout. Anybody know it?

I think you mean circumflex. HJMG 15:05, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

What does this mean??

Sometimes, when I enter a Misplaced Pages page, for a while the links to my user page, talk page, preferences page, watchlist, and contributions page are on the upper right corner, but then they move to the upper left corner after I move the mouse arrow over them. Any way to fix this?? Georgia guy 17:34, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

This happens to me too, sometimes. I am using IE6. I don't know what causes it or how to fix it, however.--GregRM 01:23, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Same here. Although it only happens with me after I visit the Commons wiki. Garion96 (talk) 02:26, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Link style violation observed

How come question marks are showing up after red links and exclamation marks showing up after stub links? --  Denelson83  18:22, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

You have modified your link style in your preferences. Change it back. Deco 23:22, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Categories for renaming

Do we use subst in Cfr?? When I put a template like this on Category:Women I substed, but a few other Cfr's didn't subst. Georgia guy 23:22, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

It appears per the guides that we do not subst. So I fixed the template to a regular Cfr template. Georgia guy 23:41, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Rule of thumb - use subst if a template

• is never going to be updated
• is permanent
• or leads to a subpage (like Afd)

don't use subst

• if a template is likely to be edited
• if it's temporary (like a stub template)

That works 95% of the time. Since a cfr template is temporary (it will be removed upon the completion of a discussion), you don't use subst. Grutness...wha? 05:25, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

FINDing within edit boxes in Firefox

I just stumbled across this capability in Firefox and thought I would describe it here for other numbskulls who may have been editing for years without knowing about it... When I switched from IE to Firefox back in early `04 I had only one regret: when editing in Misplaced Pages I could no longer use the FIND function (ctrl-G in FF, ctrl-F in IE) inside edit boxes. FIND and FIND NEXT in Firefox turned blind for text inside edit boxes while IE treated edit box text the same as any other web page text-- quite annoying when you're doing a whole page edit and you need to jump to, say, the word "needle" about halfway through. In FF this forces you to eyeball-scroll the entire wikisource until you get to "needle", often requiring 2 or 3 tries. Meanwhile in IE it was place-cursor-in-text-box/ctrl-f/n-e-e-d-l-e/enter/boom.

It turns out, though, that if you have "Highlight All" switched on in the Firefox "Find bar" you can do place-cursor-in-text-box/ctrl-g/n-e-e-d-l-e/scroll-rapidly-looking-for-yellow-highlighted-word. Still not as quick n' easy as IE, but a damn sight better than scrolling without any visual cue.

Something tells me many, many editors are still doing the FF eyeball-scroll-without-highlighting thing, which sounds pretty trivial, but if you're doing a long WP session it can really get to you. The Highlight All workaround isn't perfect but it cuts away a lot of strain. Maybe somebody knows of a "How to Edit" page or tutorial that should mention this tidbit? If so, please add it.

BTW I'm sure there are all kinds of FF extensions and/or homegrown macros that allow for text-find-within-input-boxes á lá IE, but until FF matures just a bit more and can update itself with installed extensions smoothly, I favor regular-featureset trix n' tips, like. I know some folks got around html input box limitations by turning on an activex control, but I never used that for other reasons and now it appears to have been dropped as an available feature anyway. JDG 10:16, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

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