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Miscellaneous archive

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Religion

Although Meta contains List of Wikipedians by religion, little is said of religions specific to Wikipedia. I've written a brief article about the role of religion in the Wikipedian community, which can be found at Religion and Wikipedia. --[[User:Eequor|ηυωρ]] 07:19, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Uh, Ninjas? -- Solitude 06:49, Oct 3, 2004 (UTC)

LOL! This is extremely funny! :) func(talk) 02:33, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Yes it is! Can we start a list of Wikipedians by these religions? I want to sign up as an Inclusionist. Spalding 11:45, Oct 9, 2004 (UTC)

You may want to join the Association of Inclusionist Wikipedians. -- Felix Wan 01:07, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Very funny - and important. Paul August 15:55, Oct 17, 2004 (UTC)

Year articles

At Talk:1, there are a few Wikipedians who think that a better choice for articles 50 and less is for the number articles to be titled the number alone 20 and the year articles to be titled something like 20 A.D., as opposed to 20 (number) and 20. Does anyone have any comments?? (Please note that this is for 1 to 50 only, not 51 and above, which is where years should have no suffix and numbers should have the (number) suffix as agreed by everyone.) 66.245.114.60 20:28, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I think 20 A.D., etc. should redirect, but an awful lot of articles are already in existence and a lot of editors are already in the habit of doing it the way it is. If someone wants to change rather than just add, it's going to mean a commitment to go through existing articles (maybe bot-assisted) and make a lot of changes. -- Jmabel 22:05, Oct 1, 2004 (UTC)

20 A.D., 20 AD, 20 C.E. and 20 CE should all redirect. There was an idea to have cross references to other date systems - did anything ever happen there? The Recycling Troll 23:23, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I don't think redirects are needed, after all, there's not much links to the examples you provided. zoney ♣ talk 23:39, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

It wouldn't because of redirects, but so that people searching would be redirected, rather than getting the impression that the article does not exist. I think that 20AD is probably a more common way of saying year 20 than simply 20, it seems reasonable to redirect common ways of writing the dates. The Recycling Troll 17:25, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)

There's already a redirect from AD 20. Remember that AD goes before the year. (Putting "AD" after the year is not only less correct, but less common: compare for example Google for "54 AD" Nero with Google for "AD 54" Nero.) Gdr 11:35, 2004 Oct 12 (UTC)

Before changing things, please read Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) and the long debates on this subject in the multiple archives of the talk page in which the current convention for article names was agreed. Gdr 01:07, 2004 Oct 18 (UTC)

AD is overtly religious - so those cannot be used as page titles. --mav 17:58, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

AD is the only internationally understood term and should therefore be the only term that's used. It's hardly overtly religious. If we replaced it with an English translation 'In the year of Our Lord' each time it appeared, that would be overtly religious!! Also, placing AD in front of the year appears to be universally acceptable, placing it after the year is considered incorrect by many. jguk 19:26, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Text alignment: left-aligned or fully justified

I have just noticed that paragraphs in articles are fully justified rather than merely left-aligned ('ragged right'). I don't know if this is a recent change to the Wikipedia general style or if I did not notice it before. Does anybody else think it is not as good as left aligned?

As it is part of the preferences everyone can set it the way he wants. However I earlier also had a aligned article, and after doing a Shift-Reload it showed ragged-right as it should according to my preferences. Might be that caching does not remember if it saved a aligned or a non-aligned version. andy 13:33, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Ah. Good clue. I tinkered with a few things and rebooted. I now see that it is gone back to ragged right. I don't know what the problem was but it is fixed now. That was before I found the preference setting for 'Justify paragraphs. It is unchecked, as it should be. If it happens again, I will look there first. Thanks.

I've also run into this now. I'm curious, is there something I can add to my personal stylesheets (like User:Mulad/monobook.css) to disable the full-justification of text? It might be a workaround for the Squid proxy strangeness... —User:Mulad (talk) 18:10, Oct 17, 2004 (UTC)

Theophilus II article needs edit

There is an error in the article Theophilus II namely that he is not the "II" at all. I feel a little reluctant to make the change myself because it means changing all the links to the page, and I am not sure how to find them all. If someone could either do this or tell me how I would appreciate it. Barrett Pashak | Talk 15:55:51 , 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Use the "What links here" on the left side of the screen. It looks like there is a Theophilus II, grandson of Theophilus who claimed the throne in 867 after his father was assassinated. That one is not on our List of Byzantine Emperors. Theophilus II will need to be moved to Theophilus (emperor). Rmhermen 18:13, Oct 4, 2004 (UTC)

Indeed - there is also a Theophilus (aka Theophilus of Antioch, an early church patriarch), and Theophilus I of Alexandria (another patriarch, I think). Which is the most notable? Presumably a disambiguation page wouls be a good idea too. -- ALoan (Talk) 18:30, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Okay, but how do I change the name of the article from Theophilus II to Theophilus (emperor)? Barrett Pashak 20:03, Oct 4, 2004 (UTC)

On the left side of the page there is a link labelled "Move this page." Click it. Type in the new name of the article. If nothing else is at that namespace, it will move the article and all its history & it's Talk page. — Frecklefoot | Talk 20:06, Oct 4, 2004 (UTC)

The links to it will be automatically redirected, and can be fixed at your (or someone elses) leisure. Mark Richards 21:46, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Curious, I'd already got a note on trying to sort out the references to Theophilus (without and numeral), for which I've noted three different people:

1911 Britannica = East Roman emperor (829-842), the second of the " Phrygian " dynasty.
Modern Britannica = 12th Century Benedictine Monk, metalurgist, and armourer
Wikipedia/ A Dictionary of Christian Biography Patriarch of Antioch c.180

Which shows there are plenty of disambig problems associated with this name. -- Solipsist 22:11, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The 12th century monk was Theophilus Presbyter, "probable pseudonym of Roger Of Helmarshausen". We don't seem to have an article under any name for him. I moved Theophilus to Theophilus of Antioch but I didn't have time to change the links so we could use Theophilus as a disambig. page. Otherwise we could use Theophilus (disambiguation), I suppose. Rmhermen 22:43, Oct 4, 2004 (UTC)

That's pretty weird, lots of people have worked on the list of emperors, I'm surprised we never noticed that before. For what it's worth, the original article came from the 1911 EB, but the original anonymous author (or importer) must have followed the link from the list page itself, which was created (with the Theophilus II link) back in 2001 by a user who hasn't been around for three years. Anyway, Theophilus (emperor) would be a good place for this, there are other emperor articles like that already. Adam Bishop 04:50, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I've changed all the links (except here) to Theophilus II to Theophilus (emperor). Theophilus II should now be deleted unless we want to write an article on him. Perhaps what Rmhermen wrote above: "Theophilus II, grandson of Theophilus who claimed the throne in 867 after his father was assassinated." is enough for a stub? Also I started to change the links to Theophilus to Theophilus of Antioch but I was uncertain if they were all correct. Someone (who knows more than I do) should probably look through them. Paul August 21:40, Oct 18, 2004 (UTC)

OK I've made a start on the disambiguation page at Theophilus. It should help a little in sorting out the confusion and mopping up any unclear links that remain from Theophilus of Antioch. It looks like there is a German article on Theophilus Presbyter. -- Solipsist 08:47, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

By the way Theophilus I of Alexandria should probably be "Theophilus of Alexandria", since I can find no reference to him with a "I" fllowing his name. Prehaps this "Theophilus I" and "Theophilus II" business was some (Wikipedia or otherwise) editor's attempt to disambiguate them. Aso I've removed the rediect from Theophilus II. Paul August 18:01, Oct 23, 2004 (UTC)

Ok I've moved Theophilus I of Alexandria to Theophilus of Alexandria, and changed all the links. ~~So now Theophilus I of Alexandria should be deleted.~~ Paul August 20:21, Oct 24, 2004 (UTC)

A couple of editors want to keep Theophilus I of Alexandria as a redirect, but I don't know why. Paul August 21:55, Oct 25, 2004 (UTC)

Might as well keep it, redirects don't hurt anything, especially since that one in particular has recently been moved. And who knows, there may be a Theophilus II of Alexandria someday. Adam Bishop 22:29, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Fine. My concern is that having such a redirect fosters the notion that there is a Theophilus II ;-) Paul August 02:23, Oct 26, 2004 (UTC)

Can we get one of our numerous micronation editors to simply declare himself Theophilus II of Alexandria? ;-) func(talk) 03:26, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia is being pirated!

Hello! Not sure if this is the right place to post this, but after wandering about for a while was the best place I found, so advanced aplologies...

This is just to say that a commercial site is using wiki content (straight, including formating) without any acknowledgment: http://www.wordiq.com/. They disguise themselves as some sort of meta-search engine, but I tried a few times and all results came from Wikipedia, again without any link or acknowledgment. Is there anything to be done about this? Cheers, and keep doing this amazing work!

Mario.

If you go into a Wikpedia article from this site, at the bottom of each page is the correct Wikipedia citation and licensing info. I would agree, though, it would have been polite for them to have had something about us on their opening page. Apwoolrich 10:59, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Curiously though, besides the, citation and license info they also include at the bottom: "The list of authors can be found here", but it turns out that "here" is a link to the edit history for the "Main page". Paul August 02:57, Oct 19, 2004 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks for the full list of websites like wordiq. Many credit Wikipedia as their source and also have the link to the original page, others "forget" about that or do it in so small letters noone will notice it. Note that it's perfectly legal to copy Wikipedia contents if the credits are given. andy 18:48, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Sorry all, went there and saw the small text indicating the source. My fault. Even though, I agree with Apwoolrich: insofar a lot of their contenc came from Wikepedia it would be fairer to place a bigger/more visible link to Wikipedia. Mario.

This sooo needs to go in the FAQ and at the top of the page. We get worried newbies posting messages like this every couple weeks, without fail. If ever there was a frequently asked question at Wikipdia, then "OMG xxx.com site copied all your content!" is one of them. Nohat 00:34, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Miscellaneous FAQ Dysprosia 23:37, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)

indications about bibliographic item(s) (see Catalog)

Dear friends, looking at different xx.wikipedias I realize over and over again that many articles about persons do not have indications about how to find them in catalogues. It mainly relates to persons living in Middle age, coming from other cultural societies and it is not obvious how to find their work: names as Erasmus, Arabic names with abu or ibn, Icelandic names ...
Most of the medieval names are used differently in many languages as Copernicus, Juan Luís Vives ... Should there be a link to a new biblio.wikipedia.org where these variants could be listed?
I can imagine that some work has been done at international level so far. We should reference to it or to the actual (evolving) state.
I am aware, that this is a meta issue. Please let me know where to find more details about this subject and how it is handled in wikipedia. Regards Gangleri 23:15, 2004 Oct 9 (UTC)

Ideally, variant names should be listed in the article, and redirects should be made there. See Solomon Ibn Gabirol for example. Adam Bishop 04:50, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Thanks Adam Bishop for your contribution. I am researching about Juan Luís Vives and could see so many spellings. I think that some recommendations should be available somewhere to have a comon look and feel. I am new here and any comment is wellcome. I do not know how calagogues in US and Canada are build up. I searched at [1], [2], [3] ... In talks and e-mails we discussed to mention the names in Catalan (now a new ortography is used), Spanish, English, Latin (because he wrote in this language), Hebrew (the family was an old rabbinic family forced to convert to christianity) and for translation in Wikipedias in other languages of cause the spelling in that language as Jean ... for French, Jan for Polish. Regards Gangleri 14:32, 2004 Oct 10 (UTC)

Additional notes added at (see timestamp): Gangleri 01:39, 2004 Oct 11 (UTC)

Well, don't use too many names - I suggest using his name in his native language (Catalan?), his name in Latin (if he wrote in Latin he probably signed his name with a Latin form), and English (because this is the English wikipedia). His names in French or Polish are not relevant here. Adam Bishop 22:17, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Oh I see...well then, whatever his name is in other languages is up to those wikipedias to decide. Adam Bishop 02:58, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Halló! The search to find out why completely different forms for Al-Idrisi / Al Idrisi / Idrisi where used in different articles took some hours. Please take a look at Talk:Muhammad al-Idrisi and Talk:Ahmad ibn Fadlan. Thanks! Regards

this is part of the larger issue of consistent transliteration of foreign languages (written in non-latin alphabets). We should draw up guidelines for that, as it will be a pain to clean up the encyclopedia for consistency later. Consistency is not the first concern: The spelling chosen for the article title is of course the one most current in English. (For example, we wouldn't move "bin Laden" to "ibn Laden" if our guidelines demanded that, because "bin" is clearly the current form. But in the case of "Al-Idrisi", who is not current at all, there should be guidelines to prescribe a particular spelling. The same applies to Chinese, Japanese etc. etc.... dab 21:50, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I see not why it should be part of another project Gangleri... However, some more guidelines are certainly necessary to clarify all this. SweetLittleFluffyThing 22:12, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)

a good example is Al Battani. We have redirects from Al-Battani, Al-Batani and the latinized Albatenius, Albategnius, Albategni. The full name is also given right at the beginning of the article. dab 08:08, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC) from: User talk:Dbachmann#Arabic names Gangleri 14:23, 2004 Oct 18 (UTC)

Added comments to Talk:Al Battani and Talk:Solomon Ibn Gabirol. Gangleri 20:50, 2004 Oct 18 (UTC)

meta name="KEYWORDS" content="..."

Some articles about persons, plants, animals, objects could be refered also by many alternative names and / or misspelled variants very commonly used and having top rankings at search engins listings.
What is your opinion having somthing like <content> list of alternative names / spellings </content> to influence meta name="KEYWORDS" content="..."?
Should meta name="KEYWORDS" content="..." contain olso the REDIRECTed variants?
This could make live easyer. At the end of a page Alternative names, Biographical names could be written with smaller size followed by Misspelled variants, eventualy with REDIRECTed variants. Regards Gangleri 20:41, 2004 Oct 14 (UTC)

for goodness sake, no mis-spelled variants, please. we don't want to feed the web with those. common alternatives are normally listed initially, in the lead section. dab 22:32, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Note: This issue is related to different spellings / translations of names (Greek, Arab, Chinese, Japanese, Middle Age - names etc.), locations (latin names, in old and new ortography, names in different languages spoken there (see Cluj-Napoca) etc.), animals (and breeds) and so on. Gangleri 01:39, 2004 Oct 18 (UTC)

Question about Solar Tower article

I've been working on cleaning up Solar Tower, which was riddled with trademark symbols and likely advertisements for a specific company that develops solar towers. I'm concerned that the article describes generic solar chimneys, but presents them as the property of a company. This company goes by the names "Enviromission," "AEldwood," "Solar Mission," "Opensource Energy," among others. The company owns the trademark for the term "Solar Tower," note the capitalization in both the term and the Wikipedia article. An anonymous user, who I believe is affiliated with Enviromission, recently moved the article from Solar chimney, a term which I believe is unencumbered. The user added numerous links to the company, and a confusing note about the trademark status. Personally I think it's odd that someone invoking the spirit of open source would care so much about protecting their IP, but that's beside the point.

What do we do about this article? I think all generic information should be moved back to Solar chimney, and Solar Tower should focus on the activities of the company which owns that trademark. Right now we are muddling the technology with a specific product. It's like if Operating system redirected to Microsoft Windows. Thoughts? Also posted on the article's talk page. Rhobite 14:02, Oct 12, 2004 (UTC)

I've written stubs to replace three inappropriate redirects from solar tower, solar power tower and solar chimney. The Solar Tower project is an instance of the last two, it's not even an instance of the first. Lots still to do to remove promotional material from the article itself, and yes, some historical material should be moved back to solar chimney.

And if you want an example of how one contributor's passion can introduce bias into a range of articles, look no further than its link list, it's now linked to from everything from hydrogen to PEMFC (which needs some work too). Andrewa 11:03, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

This same one contributor has a very questionable user page, (spam-like). I've left him a note about it on his talk page. func(talk) 02:17, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

He's also angrily quit Wikipedia twice, then promptly resumed editing. He also called me a turkey. Rhobite 02:25, Oct 19, 2004 (UTC)

Name disambiguation

It turns out there are two drummers named Roger Taylor, in the bands Duran Duran and Queen. The current disambiguation setup has them at Roger Taylor (Duran Duran) and Roger Taylor (Queen), which isn't ideal as first of all because the Queen Roger Taylor has a solo career which would warrant a Wikipedia article even had he not been in Queen (and so he is not just the drummer from Queen); Also Roger Taylor (Queen) looks kind of odd to users accustomed to there being an is-a relationship between the subject and parenthesised label (though this isn't always true). Does anyone have a better suggestion for naming? (I've taken this here as I think the issue deserves a slightly wider audience and people who don't know/care about either Roger Taylor can still give useful answers). --fvw 20:36, 2004 Oct 13 (UTC)

Analogously to Roger Taylor (tennis player) I'd suggest Roger Taylor (Duran Duran drummer) and Roger Taylor (Queen drummer). Or perhaps Roger Taylor (Queen and solo drummer). Sharkford 21:08, 2004 Oct 13 (UTC)

The easiest way to handle it would be simply to use their full names (Roger Meddows-Taylor and Roger Andrew Taylor) for the article titles. You could then add any type of redirect necessary to get to those pages. Also it is worthwhile to note that Roger Taylor points to a disambiguation page and would be unaffected. —Mike 01:39, Oct 14, 2004 (UTC)

Ooh, they have fuller names. How utterly convenient, good idea. --fvw 15:43, 2004 Oct 14 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names) says to use the most common name instead of full name. Discussion of this is happening at Redirects for deletion#October 13 if anyone is interested. --fvw 21:54, 2004 Oct 14 (UTC)

What in the world is the most common name?

I recently added some data and moved Ken Ribet to Kenneth Alan Ribet, which it seems might have been a boo-boo. However, the man does not publish under the name "Ken"; it's what friends and collegues call him, but they are probably not the ones who need the article. I think it's wrong to carry this "most common name" business to the extent of making the primary article about "Ken" and not "Kenneth". Wikipedia is, I presume, supposed to be a serious reference work, and "Ken" simply strikes me as inappropriate. I note by the way that it's C. S. Lewis, not Jack Lewis, but everyone who knew him called him Jack. Should we go simply by what form of the name (in this case, it would be Kenneth A. Ribet) appears in print? user: Gene Ward Smith

By the way, how do I add the time stamp doo-dad? I forget.

You can sign your name with a timestamp by typing 4 tildes, like this: ~~~~. 5 tildes produce a timestamp alone. Paul August 15:42, Oct 21, 2004 (UTC)

How to handle alternate spellings and punctuation?

One sometimes notices people changing spelling and punctuation from US to UK-style, and vice versa, not in the course of a rewrite but just out of the blue. What's the consensus etiquette on that?

It feels strange to add a significant portion of text to an article using my US-style while the remainder of the article is in UKese--the inconsistency diminishes the appearance of quality. But it also feels provincial to alter others' spellings, etc. Does one rewrite in toto or adopt the existing style?--NathanHawking 02:30, 2004 Oct 16 (UTC)

To boil down the general guidance from the Manual of Style:

If the article is directly related to an english-speaking country, use spelling and vocabulary preferences of that country.
Otherwise, in most cases you should defer to the preferences as established by the original author of the article.

So to answer your specific question, you should probably adapt your writing to the existing style. Of course, there's lots more about this in the MOS. And for articles where inconsistencies have already crept in, some revision is needed--and at that point it is a bit of a toss-up. My thought is that if inconsistencies have been allowed to stay in the article for more than a few months or so, then one can assume that the original author has lost interest in the article and it can safely be edited to the preferences of whoever is willing to do the work cleaning up the inconsistencies. However, that's if the inconsistencies are relatively even--if there a marked imbalance, the revision should favor the majority style used in the article. older≠wiser 02:48, Oct 16, 2004 (UTC)

Just to point out: not all of us are fully acquainted with the complete spelling and punctuation styles of every English speaking country in the world, (I'm not even fully acquainted with the complete spelling and punctuation rules of my own country). I think people should simply contribute what they know, and allow members of the Typo Team to take care of the details. For instance, it would be inappropriate to fault someone for using the word "defense" in a UK article if they had never before seen it spelled "defence". func(talk) 17:25, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Also, the supposed differences between versions of English are not altogether fixed. Variant spellings appear in dictionaries. There is no compulsion on anyone to use the particular preferred spelling in any particular dictionary, especially when sometimes a variant spelling is equally popular (perhaps even more popular). The -ize ending is favored by the Oxford English Dictionary over -ise. Some editors ignorantly fix this in British English, replacing -ize by -ise. Canadian dictionaries sometimes give a British form priority and sometimes not. Consistancy within an article on endings -re against -er, on -or against -our, on -l- against -ll- and so forth is a reasonable requirement. But in general spelling correction should be done with a very light hand. If it is a correct form in English of whatever standard variety, leave it alone. Jallan 20:13, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Whilst agreeing with the comments raised above, I personally suggest that, wherever possible, words and phrases should be chosen so they aren't particularly UK/US/another form of English. For instance - instead of 'organisation' or 'organization', you can use 'group', don't refer to a 'public' school, but use 'private' school instead. Sometimes this isn't possible, and the flow of the article is more important than thinking of a universally accepted alternative word/phrase. But wherever possible, use a linguistically neutral term. jguk 20:43, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)

In the United States, "public school" and "private school" are mutually exclusive. Maurreen 21:00, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I don't think it's necessarily a good idea to restrict usage of a word simply on the grounds that it has various spellings. That would impoverish our language. One of the great strengths of English is that there are such a large number words having similar but subtly distinct meanings and connotations, providing for a wonderfully rich texture of nuanced possibilities ;-) Paul August 17:54, Oct 19, 2004 (UTC)

I know. I meant to write that us Brits shouldn't use 'public' but 'private' instead, and some equivalent message for Americans, but I'm tired and forgot. In the UK they more or less mean the same thing. A school the parents have to pay fees to get their children in. What you Americans call a public school, we'd call a 'state school'. That's why the term 'public school' should be avoided: the UK version is the exact opposite in meaning to the US version. jguk 21:17, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)

This whole AE/BE preference problem is something that has probably got up the nose of very many Wikipedians over there years. I'm certainly one of them. I have a proposal for a relatively simple software solution that may be useful in other areas too. Some time ago we managed to kill off the debate about whether to use [[DD Month]] [[YYYY] or [[Month DD]], YYYY by implementing a system whereby wikified dates appear in one or other format depending on what the user has selected in their preferences. This works great but it only works for wikified dates. My solution world also work for unwikified dates. If we had a BE/AE option in preferences we could then have the flag checked when an article is displayed. Problematic words or phrases could be tagged e.g. "... he came to her {[defense/defence]} as soon as he could and ..." - and the appropriate word could be chosen as required. Mintguy (T) 01:03, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Are you kidding me? We can't even get them to turn two hyphens into an en/em/whatever dash. ;-) func(talk) 03:34, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I'm certainly not kidding. The implementation would be trivial. I'm going to suggest it to Tim. Mintguy (T) 14:12, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Home Army

Since there is no Wikipedia:Contact an administrator page yet I decided to put this here. Could any of the admins move the Home Army page to Home Army (disambiguation) and make the earlier article a redirect to Armia Krajowa? I posted this solution as a proposal on Talk:Home Army two weeks ago and notified the original author of Home Army page ([4]), yet there was no opposition whatsoever, so I assume that this should be acceptable. [[User:Halibutt|Halibu tt]] 05:46, Oct 16, 2004 (UTC)

Home Army (disambiguation) was a redirect to Home Army with no history other than a redirect. This means you could have just moved Home Army there without an admin needing to delete anything. This is only the case for history-free redirects. Anyway, it's moved now. Angela . 06:40, Oct 16, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks a lot, I didn't know that. [[User:Halibutt|Halibu tt]] 11:01, Oct 16, 2004 (UTC)

There is a page Wikipedia:Requested moves for this but it is very new. Rmhermen 13:01, Oct 16, 2004 (UTC)

Maybe Wikipedia:Contact an administrator would be a good idea? Filiocht 11:53, Oct 18, 2004 (UTC)

date/time format for page update

At the bottom of every page I see something like this:

This page was last modified 15:45, 14 Oct 2004.

As far as I can tell, that is not even one of the standard date time formats referred to in the Wikipedia Style Guide, nor does it correspond to the ISO order. This "SMALL:SMALLER, BIG:BIGGER:BIGGEST" format is almost as bad as the traditional screwy "Unix order". Why not make it conform to the ISO date/time format ordering? Largest unit to smallest. I think that, except in situations where you have an explicitly requested user preference, you should always default to a locale neutral "spelled out ISO" format:

This page was last modified 2004-Oct-14 15:45. (my personal favorite)

This page was last modified 2004 Oct 14 15:45.

This page was last modified 2004 October 14 15:45.

or something similarly universal for English speakers if you don't want to go to full universality with 2004-10-14 15:45. (And I can understand why you might want to avoid the all numeric form in an English-language article for clarity.)

Because it's more common the way it is - it's the normal way of writing time/dates - and I very much dislike seeing the year first. I also very much dislike to see the mm/dd/yy format. violet/riga (t) 09:27, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)

You ought to be able to choose the form with Chinese characters for "year, month, day" even in English text. There should be a "preferences" option for this. I am saying use Chinese characters because absolutely no English equivalent exists. As for pronunciation, I don't worry about this. Think about how "$14" is pronounced: "four-teen-dollars", right to left, even though in general English is left to right. -User:Juuitchan

"United States" being used as an adjective

Discussion moved to: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (US vs American)

Olbers' paradox - surely the skies would be dark?

In reference to Olbers' paradox my grasp of physics is fairly elementary, but surely the wave nature of light means that this paradox should state that the sky should be dark? Light behaves as a wave. For the uniitiated, Putting a source of light through two slits in a card shows this effect with bands of darkness "rippling" outward. This occurs with any waveform when two waves beocme perfectly inversely corrleated with each other (that is to say the pattern of peaks and troughs of one respectively match the torughs and peaks of the other) and they cancel each other out. If there were an inifinite number of light sources, there would be an infinite area of peaks and troughs in every direction resulting there being no visible light. Would a nice science person be kind enough to comment? Dainamo 12:32, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)

You're thinking in terms of amplitude; think instead in terms of energy, and it's a lot easier to reason about. -- The Anome 12:35, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Thank you, but doesn't the amplitude determine what the output is? Dainamo 12:39, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The light of infinitely many stars are not necessarily in phase with each other, which explains why the two-slit analogy doesn't work; A lightbulb, or a sole star doesn't give rise to an interference pattern, because the phase constantly varies, also only a laser, not a lightbulb would create a pattern in the two-slit experiment. ✏ Sverdrup 16:01, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)

If there are an infinite number of stars then every bit of light will have another in phase with it, this has to be so from the nature of an infinite number of them. The experiment uses a normal light source and the point of the slits is to narow this down. Dainamo 17:47, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Hmm you make a good point! I can't think of a thoeretical way to dispute your argument yet so I'm going to go the science route and point to experimental data. When we look at an extended light source such as the sun, the different bits of the suns light do not cancel one another out. This is true even though the sun is huge, with a very large number of photons emerging from it. So it's clear that photons that are not in phase simply do not cancel each other out, even though i can't explain why. Theresa Knott (The torn steak) 19:20, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)

On that last point Theresa, the sun is truly massive (in our terms) but it is not inifnite so even if things did cancel out there would still be a huge net output. However, I have what I think is a satisfactory explantion from Calair which is on the Olbers' paradox discussion. Thank you Calair for a fascinating and enlightening answer. Dainamo 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Announcing the creation of the U.S. Northern wikipedians' notice board

An invitation is hereby extended to all U.S. Northern Wikipedians and all Wikipedians interested in the U.S. North to the U.S. Northern wikipedians' notice board board, also known as WP:ANSWER (A Northern States Wikipedia Effort and Resource). Bowl of chowdah for everybody! [[User:Neutrality|Neutrality (hopefully!)]] 00:23, Oct 17, 2004 (UTC)

Er, looking at the map on that page, shouldn't this be called the U.S. Northeastern Wikipedians board? Last I checked, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota were all northern U.S. states. older≠wiser 00:33, Oct 17, 2004 (UTC)

Indeed. I live in Seattle, so I'm north of any of these guys. -- Jmabel | Talk 00:45, Oct 17, 2004 (UTC)

Every Northern is invited. [[User:Neutrality|Neutrality (hopefully!)]] 01:12, Oct 17, 2004 (UTC)

Although according to U.S. Northern states, the Pacific Northwest is not normally included in "Northern" states. Makes sense, since I doubt California participates in the Southern collaboration either. But if there isn't sufficient demand, might as well make this for the entire North. Rhobite 04:18, Oct 17, 2004 (UTC)

My put is to have a separate Northwestern states board for those of us up here near the Pacific NW. We probably have more in common. ;-) -- RJH 19:52, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The Original 28 Articles

I read on a statistics page that when Wikipedia first started in January 2001, there were 28 articles added in the first month. I'm now curious what those 28 articles were and if they can still be seen in their original form. MK 04:38, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I was going to give you a link, but it seems there's nothing there. Any ideas what happened to that page? func(talk) 04:44, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)

A wild guess: Slashdot, 2001, Ontology, Nupedia, Wiki, United States

Even if it was active ancient pages wouldn't be much use, it shows the pages that have not been edited recently not the first created. From what I have heard it is unlikely the Wikipedia from January 2001 could be recreated. In the early days Wikipedia did not keep permanent page histories and it is impossible to see the history of some articles prior to the fall of 2001. In the first year user pages were also in the main namespace so I would not be surprised if LarrySanger, JimboWales and some more of those twenty-eight were really user pages. Also remember that CamelCase links were then used and when this was corrected all the moves were by cut and paste, so the old history is at pages like UnitedStates. - SimonP 07:39, Oct 17, 2004 (UTC)

Guess you're wrong. See here and here. OntOlogy and NuPedia are both listed. [[User:Poccil|Peter O. (Talk)]] 15:08, Oct 17, 2004 (UTC)

That's intersting: ThomasEdison (in CamelCase) shows up as Wales' first contribution, on 23 Jan 2001. It is very strange looking: words in the article are also in CamelCase, like WilliamKennedyLaurieDickson and LightBulb. func(talk) 16:59, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)

CamelCase was used in the original Wikipedia to designate links. Rick K 05:39, Oct 18, 2004 (UTC)

A lot of the article histories were scrambled by the software changes. There are several articles that list me as the first author when all I really did was change a typo or something similarly small. I was impressed that the ThomasEdison article included a full first sentence which mentioned the article title. I notice it didn't yet have /talk at the bottom to enable the talk subpage. Sometimes we would get competing /talk and /discussion pages on the same article. Rmhermen 17:27, Oct 17, 2004 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia:Announcements January 2001, there were 617 "pages" by January 31. Of course "pages" isn't the same as articles which have also been counted differently in the past. Rmhermen 23:35, Oct 17, 2004 (UTC)

The slashdot article is an example of the missing histories. The first edit in the article hiistory is from Dec 3, 2001 while the first talk page comment is from much earlier, Jul 18, 2001. (The redirects date from 2003). Rmhermen 00:08, Oct 18, 2004 (UTC)

Vandalism close to home?

It seems that someone with an IP address very close to mine (presumably within Australia) has been "vandalising" articles since mid-September. The IP in question is 202.67.65.166. Can anyone tell me which articles have been vandalized by this user?

Regards,

Alokavon;

17/10/04

Try http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Contributions&target=202.67.65.166 -- Chuq 06:34, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Dispute with IP

I'm having a POV dispute with 4.23.83.100. They seem to be a Korean user who is adding blatantly POV Korean apologetics and attackes on Japan to multiple Korea and Japan-related articles. I've left a message on their talk page, and I'll leave a message on a talk page of one of their articles, but if there's no response, what's the procedure then? I don't know if people should be blocked for POV stuff, or what, probably not. So what's the routine? Just reverting all their changes every time they make it? RfC? RfA?

Basically, what's the procedure when dealing with a noncommunicative IP? --Golbez 07:16, Oct 17, 2004 (UTC)

I would revert and protect the articles in question in order to force him to talk. Theresa Knott (The torn steak) 00:31, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Strawpoll for settling dispute about sexual intercourse

Could intact men and the women who love them please settle a dispute at talk:sexual intercourse. Basically, please just answer this simple question:

¿Can the mucusa/skin-system of an intact man move independent of the erectile tissue; thus, reducing friction; thus, reducing the need for artificial lubricants?

Ŭalabio 10:19, 2004 Oct 17 (UTC)

Comments:

You have asked multiple questions here, and then suggested that a simple yes or no will do the job. You've also asked hidden, agenda-driven questions. (after the confusing terminology is removed):

Can the foreskin of an uncircumcised man move independently of the penis?
If it can, does this reduce friction during intercourse? (and masturbation? You guys seem to talk about masturbation a lot).
Does any of this have anything to do with artificial lubricants?

These are the hidden questions you've asked:

Do circumcised men use artificial lubricants?
If so, do they do so more often than uncircumcised men?
If so, does all of this support my POV pushing?

This is my question:

For those people who use lubricants, why do you use them?

This is my answer:

As women grow older, they begin to experience difficulties in self-lubrication.
Some younger women also experience difficulties in self-lubrication:
- some for medical reasons
- some for psychological reasons
- some because they have an insensitive lover who does not engage in foreplay and other arousing activities
Some people use lubricants so that they may engage in forms of non-vaginal intercourse.
Some men (who seem to call themselves intactivists) apparently use lubricants during the act of masturbation, and they're pretty upset about it....

func(talk) 14:31, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Ŭalabio 10:19, 2004 Oct 17 (UTC)

I demonstrated to two accounts of Robert Brookes the simple engineering principle which allow intact men two make love with intact women for hours without artificial lubricants. Robert Brookes (currently Robert the Bruce) refuses to concede. Here we go again:

The skin/mucosa-system of the penis is not fused to the underlying structures. Women can lubricate continuously for the same reason men cannot spit every minute on the minute for hours at a time.

During coitus, as the time goes by, the amount of lubrication drops. The skin/mucosa-system sticks to the inside of the vagina. For an intact man and his paramour, this is of little consequence because they can continue to make love.

With circumcised men, as sex goes on, the lubricant drops off, and the skin/mucosa-system stick to the vaginal walls. Since most circumcised men have no modile tissue on their penile shafts, coitus literally grinds to a halt (unless one uses artificial lubricants).

¿Any Questions?

Ŭalabio 18:29, 2004 Oct 17 (UTC)

Yes, a few:

Why are you trying to use Wikipedia for original research? Where are the medically peer-reviewed studies that back up this mucosa thing?
Why are you and others (self-admittedly) using Wikipedia as a platform for social and political change? Can you show me any other encyclopedias that state extremely marginalized viewpoints as "facts"?
Why is it that you and your crew can't stick to the obvious articles where one would expect your POV pushing? Why do you also have to have to drag unrelated articles like violence, infant, and pseudoscience into your agenda?

¿Any Answers?

func(talk) 19:20, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)

This is not original research. Robert Brookes refuses to concede. I figured that this might force him to stop vandalizing. ¿Have any of you ever tried to work with Robert Brookes or his sockpuppets? Please read talk:sexual intercourse and you will see what I mean. He lost but he keeps reverting. He refuses to understand the issue (he believes that this dispute is about smegma as a lubricant). He is the most infuriating user whom I ever had the displeasure to meet.

Ŭalabio 20:39, 2004 Oct 17 (UTC)

I, for one, have tried to work with both factions in the circumcision debate and I think both are equally bothersome. Maybe Robert has been a bit more rude, but in terms of expanding the scope into unrelated articles, you and DanP win the prize. Rhobite 01:34, Oct 18, 2004 (UTC)

I've read the question, the article, and the talk page. What possible need is there for this to be on [sexual intercourse], beyond a nod to the possible differences in sensation and certain difference in mechanics? This is obviously a POV, hidden agenda, kind of thing. And I'm strongly anti-circumsision. P.S. Anyone can screw for hours without artificial lube, it's called spit.

WTF?! Mark Richards 17:49, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)

OMG!? Someone set us up the bomb. ;-) func(talk) 19:20, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Libel

I've seen a few potentially libelous articles, with statements along the lines of someone was "arrested for ..." If the person hasn't been convicted or pleaded guilty, the sentences should be reworded. For example, "Joe Blow was arrested for killing his wife" says Joe was arrested because he DID kill his wife.

That can be avoided by writing "Joe Blow was arrested and charged with killing his wife" or "... arrested in connection with his wife's death" or "on suspicion of killing his wife.”"

"Sued for" is a similar problem. Maurreen 23:15, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Google returns about 410 hits for site:en.wikipedia.org "arrested for". Gdr 00:33, 2004 Oct 18 (UTC)

Good point. Paul August 18:02, Oct 19, 2004 (UTC)

Add: Biography - Peggy Kerry

Just click this link and you can add it yourself. Gdr 01:08, 2004 Oct 18 (UTC)

Done. anthony (see warning) 17:53, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

And now it's listed on VfD. anthony (see warning) 19:12, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Accusation

I thought this was a regular, online encyclopedia. I came here to look something up and got the message:

User talk:152.163.100.135 From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Please stop adding nonsense to Wikipedia. It is considered vandalism </wiki/Wikipedia:Vandalism>. If you want to experiment, please use the sandbox </wiki/Wikipedia:Sandbox>. Thank you. - Lucky 6.9 </wiki/User:Lucky_6.9> 22:45, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I haven't posted to this enclopedia previously. I understood that I needed to create an account to post. I did that to respond to the accusation. I clicked in the posters name/number but I think I'm Alice in wonderland. It seems there is so much extensive info for using this site and I don't collaborate in writing. So Lucky 6.9, wherever you are, I think you may have misidentified me. Sorry for your trouble, maybe retracking your steps will help.

Sincerely,

Bastet3cats@wmconnect.com

The most likely answer is that someone else from your ISP was vandalizing Wikipedia, and eventually, you got that IP (152.163.100.135 in this case). This is easily possible if you dial in to your ISP, instead of having a constant cable or DSL connection. That way, the ISP gives you a different IP every time you log in, and that's why, eventually, it was possible that you'd get this one. So you have nothing to worry about... Lucky did the right thing in attempting to warn *that* user, and there's little we can do to prevent that message from being given ot others. Maybe we should construct a more user-neutral message? Like "Someone from this IP has been vandalizing ... if you aren't them, please disregard", etc. --Golbez 01:26, Oct 18, 2004 (UTC)

As it says immediately after the part that you quoted:

"This is the discussion page for an anonymous user who has not created an account yet or who does not use it. We therefore have to use the numerical IP address to identify him/her. Such an IP address can be shared by several users. If you are an anonymous user and feel that irrelevant comments have been directed at you, please create an account or log in to avoid future confusion with other anonymous users."

Obviously someone else from your ISP has previously vandalised Wikipedia, and Lucky 6.9 was quite correct to try to contact him by leaving a message on that talk page -- I've done the same myself. -- Arwel 11:43, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)

How long does the big orange "You have a message" warning last for an IP? - SimonP 17:44, Oct 18, 2004 (UTC)

Until somebody using that IP goes to the Talk page. Rick K 22:11, Oct 19, 2004 (UTC)

viz article

Hi. I'm new to Wikipedia, and I've recently made a change to a page and would like to know if I did all right or if I didn't and should just leave everything alone. The page is viz.

After reading a book for class, I found viz interspersed frequently in the text. After not finding it in the dictionary, I came here. The definition seemed a little lacking. There was only an "ambiguous" page. Anyway, after learning more about viz I returned here and altered the page.

Please give me feedback.

okay. We're all nice here, well most of the time. We welcome any sensible contributions from you. We only don't like you if you're a vandal, and even then we're strangely accomodating! (See template:welcome). I have to warn you though that Wikipedia is not a dictionary; we have Wiktionary for that. Viz probably should be on the British magazine containing rather unfunny and rude cartoons of the same name. Dunc|☺ 16:43, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I don't believe you read much of it to dismiss it all as "unfunny" Dainamo 17:59, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I can't believe we don't seem to have an article on Viz (magazine)! Any takers? The Recycling Troll 17:03, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)

It is already done as VIZ.--Jirate 18:03, 2004 Oct 18 (UTC)

All right. Thanks. You're right about a definition of viz being inappropriate for an encyclopedia. Is there any way to get comments like yours without having to post a message here? I'd hate to have made that viz contribution and never learning how unhelpful it was.

If there is anything else interesting to say about it, it won't be just a dictionary definition. I added a bit about the origin of the abbreviation, I hope that helps. Adam Bishop 05:05, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia in court cases

Wikipedia has been cited in some court cases. From The Volokh Conspiracy.

"The Eleventh Circuit case that struck down mandatory metal detectors (pdf) for protest attendees (cited by Orin Kerr below) is noteworthy for one reason besides its important and likely controversial holding: It cites Wikipedia, a free online collaborative encyclopedia, for information on the Department of Homeland Security Advisory System."

One of the other people on that site is concerned about Wikipedia being used for things like this and checks some pages and finds USA PATRIOT Act to be factually incorrect in many ways in it's overview section. - [[User:Cohesion|cohesion ☎]] 18:13, Oct 18, 2004 (UTC)

The thought of wikipedia being used as a source for evidence in a court case is scary. "It said on wikipedia, your Honor, that the defendant is t3h gay!"

Chinese paper art

(picture request moved to Wikipedia:Requested pictures)

Request for help:

A special request: Saving Þeyr
I’m writing an article about Þeyr (an Icelandic band of the 1980s) and their discography. However I was told by one of the musicians that there are no images of the band nor the CD covers that I desperately need to finish the articles in Spanish (I’m working there). Even more: as the masters of Þeyr’s albums are believed to be lost or stolen there are no reissues and the only release in CD format was Mjötviður til Fóta in 2001. I have this one, so I don’t need its CD cover.

Here you have Þeyr’s full discography:

Albums:

1980 - Þagað Í Hel (SG-hjómplötur)
1981 - Mjötviður Mær (Eskvimo)
1982 - As Above ... (SHOUT)

Singles:

1981 - Iður til Fóta (Eskvimo)
1981 - Life Transmission (Fálkinn/Eskvimo)
1982 - The Fourth Reich (MJÖT)
1983 - Lunaire (Gramm Records)

So, I thought there should be someone who knows about it or has the original records (in vinyl format). I need the records’ covers to illustrate my articles and then I will make a translation into English. Please, I hope there’s somebody there who could help me since there’s too little about them and I’m afraid if I don’t write about these topics all the information about their existence will disappear…Lmb 23:03, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Can't help, but I'm quite surprised that the band is that obscure. [[User:Poccil|Peter O. (Talk)]] 06:09, Oct 25, 2004 (UTC)

There will be an international event for Wikimedia projects in 2005. This will be held in Dublin, Frankfurt or Rotterdam.

I'm helping to plan the programme for the event and would appreciate any suggestions for potential speakers and workshops. If you'd like to volunteer, or have a suggestion for a notable person who might want to make a keynote presentation, please add it to Wikimania:speakers on Meta. Thanks. Angela . 03:46, Oct 19, 2004 (UTC)

Indonesia-interwiki

Hi, I noticed that on the "Recent Changes"-page there is no "interwiki-link" to the Indonesian wikipedia (Bahasa Indonesia). Can one of the moderators fix this? MartijnL 08:05, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Done. However it didn't need a moderator to do it, every user can edit the Recent Changes - just use the small "edit" link in the "Projects" row on top. andy 16:23, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

List of pages to watch for NPOV?

Is there a list of p[ages to watch for NPOV? Of particular worry to me are the Lauren Jackson and Erik Morales pages; I keep on NPOVING them and the original posters keep reverting them to the original, point of view filled, versions.

Thanks and God bless! "Antonio The Incredible Martin"

It's an interesting question, athletes and entertainers seem to be the target of positive POV from anonymous users who might think this is a review site or a fan site. Don't know the solution, but I guess we all need to branch out on the type of articles we watch. Rhobite 18:30, Oct 19, 2004 (UTC)

This is probably what you are looking for? Category:NPOV_disputes Tomos 23:18, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

WikiProject Countering systemic bias template SPAM

The Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias appears to have decided 1 to plaster templates 2 on any page which the small number of participants on that project feel come within their remit. Example 3. Which is, presumably, anything which might fall into the categories listed on the project page 4. I cannot say I'm teriffically thrilled about this for the following reasons:

I deplore wholscale annexation of pages by single issue groups. I recall the Alternative Medicine project used to do this srt of thing.
I supsect that these templates, once placed on a page, may well remain there forever, as a form of spam which serves more to advertise the project than to promote editing of the page.
I'm unhappy that a single small goup has taken it upon itself to be the judge of pages.
Where the community has decided that such notices are of use - e.g. Collaboration of the Week - the template used is discreet and temporary; in contrast the CSB template is relatively large and imo sinister looking.

I wonder if the community has thoughts about the matter. --Tagishsimon

There are two WP:COTW templates - the more common one for candidate articles (20-30 at a time) goes on the talk page (on the grounds that it is directed mainly at editors, not readers); the "current COTW" template appears at the top of the COTW article for one week only and is relatively discreet (if you like green boxes). The other COTWs (WP:UKCOTW, for example) use a similar style.

If the WP:CSB people want to tag pages to ask editors to have a go, I think it would be better for the template to go on the talk page. If the intention is to warn readers that there is bias, there is no need for a tag: they should look at the Wikipedia:General disclaimer. -- ALoan (Talk) 18:14, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I would suggest that if the purpose of this is for the CSB people to find it, a maintenance category would be a lot more discreet than a template. -- Jmabel | Talk 20:28, Oct 19, 2004 (UTC)

Tagishsimon's opposition to the idea of templates for the WP:Bias project can be understood in the context of these Mr Logic style arguments he made when it was first discussed on the VP:

I cannot help but feel that the premise of Xed's argument is a little shaky. A pejoritive accusation of systematic bias is at best a value judgement. What underpins it? Why is a war in the Congo worth more wiki-inches than Babylon 5? Who decides these things, and who is able to make apple versus orang-utan comparisons? Whereas I tend to share what I assume is Xed's opinion, that it would be more worthy to read about or even write about the Congolese civil war than Bablylon 5, I note that we already have a number of Wikipedia:Requested articles pages which go some way to address/answer Xed's call for action; and also have Wikipedia:List of encyclopedia topics. In what way do these differ from Xed's section on the Wikipedia:Community_Portal suggestion? Beyond that, his/her argument seems to be a good example of the best driving out the good. --Tagishsimon

'Why is a war in the Congo worth more wiki-inches than Babylon 5?' - because the Congo Civil War resulted in 3 million deaths and is possibly the largest war since WW2. Surely it can't be difficult to see why it needs more coverage. Look how much coverage 9/11 has on Wikipedia, and that was only 3 thousand deaths. The Wikipedia:Requested articles page does not deal specifically with the issue of systemic bias.--Xed 00:15, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

You should also complain to EB then. Their article on it is even shorter than ours. -- Wapcaplet 02:08, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

If it is "not difficult to see", then why are you unable to explain why it is more important? If you are unable to explain why, then perhaps it is just a value judgement on your part. Waving the magnitude of the death toll does not amount to an argument. --Tagishsimon

I have explained. Your arguments would only make sense coming from a robot or a lawyer--Xed 00:58, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

There I must beg to differ: you have not explained. You have articulated a value judgement with no explanation whatsoever, and you do not eecognise your judgement for what it is. Your premise is indeed flawed, and I submit that any resolution based on a flawed premise will itself be flawed. Neither have you explained by what mechanism will be determined the actions that must be taken to correct the supposed systematic bias. All in all, much heat but not very much light. --Tagishsimon

It should be exceedingly obvious that a war affecting the lives of millions of real people and having a profound impact on the politics of several nations is far more important than a television program which cannot reasonably be said to have significantly affected the lives of anyone. See abstraction, problem of universals, phenomenology, abstract structure, and reification. --[[User:Eequor|η

υωρ]] 01:08, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Doubtless it should be but it isn't. It depends upon your frame of reference, and of necessity is a value judgement. That is the way of these things; all else is little more than hysteria. But you made a slightly better stab at it than did Xed. --Tagishsimon

01010110100100110111010100011 beep beep. Would you regard the Holocaust article more or less important than Babylon 5? Or would that be a value judgement?--Xed 01:24, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Obviously, importance can't be proven, but if the Wikipedia notion of notability does not mean that the Congo Civil War is more important than Babylon 5, then it means nothing at all. I have to hope that Tagishsimon is simply trolling. -- Jmabel | Talk 23:25, Oct 19, 2004 (UTC)

Indeed, Xed. but it would be helpful if you discussed the matter of the CSB project's intention to spam articles. Avoidance of the argument does not by default make your case. --Tagishsimon

I have posted a proposal at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Messages in the article namespace that all messages for editors, including the stub message, should go on talk pages. Filiocht 08:45, Oct 20, 2004 (UTC)

Regarding "the matter of the CSB project's intention to spam articles" I've posted an explanation of the reasoning behind the inititiative at the same place. Although I absolutely understand some of Tagishsimon's concerns, I think there are good arguments for both views. I would welcome a constructive dialogue on this issue. Alarm 19:13, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

2001 invasion of Afghanistan

(copied from archive - archived in error Paul August 17:03, Oct 19, 2004 (UTC))

I tried asking this August 8 at Talk:Global protests against war on Iraq so I'm trying here: Is there any article similar to Global protests against war on Iraq with respect to protests against the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan? MathKnight and I have covered some of this ground in Post-September 11 anti-war movement, but that might not be the best place for some of this. -- Jmabel 00:51, Sep 30, 2004 (UTC)

There was less protest, so there's probably no separate page. National entities which were able to sell reactors to Iraq and whose leaders were able to profit from the "Oil for Food" money laundering scam protested less about Afghanistan, as there was no money to be made there. Things might have been different if the U.N. had started an "Opium for Food" program. - Émpire

In the UK there was opposition from the communists (a small but very organised and very vocal minority) and some Muslims, and some pacifists to the Afghanistan Campaign. In contrast the Iraq War was opposed by major a political party (the LibDems, with the SNP and Plaid Cymru, and certain sections of the Labour Party. In London, a million people marched against the War -- opposition was popular rather than coming from those who profited from money laundering, as suggested. The communists did take it upon themselves to organise everything. Once Iraq started, everyone forgot about Afghanistan anyway, so it's probably worth mentioning in the background section rather than having its own article. Afghanistan also put together the for the first time the alliance of the Muslims and the communists. Dunc|☺ 12:05, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)

A New Vandal in Town

Hi. There's a anon user around that has vandalized some articles by erasing information for no good reason or by addind controversial sentences. If you check his/her list of contributions, however, you will notice that in a few instances he/she appears to have made some valid contributions. Those are vastly outnumbered by what we would classify as vandalism though. Incidentally, the history of contributions suggest that this person is either Indian or has a particular interest in India-related articles (although some unrelated articles were vandalized as well). Should we do something about this or just wait and see if he/she is even coming back? I should note that I personally think it to be a total waste of time to place one of those "please experiment in the sandbox" messages in a anon user's talk page — he/she will never read it, and even if he/she did, since this person has nothing better to do than to vandalize this project, that is highly unlikely to have any effect on his/her disposition. Regards, Redux 18:20, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

It's an outgoing web proxy for The Indian Institute of Technology Madras, so its not just one person. Much like the AOL proxies, there's little we can do without preventing a lot of people from editing, apart from keeping a critical eye on all activity from this IP. --fvw 18:59, 2004 Oct 19 (UTC)

Project Pages

Someone should make a list of Wikipedia project pages including Wikipedia:Wikipediholic and Wikifun

Wikifun was missing from Wikipedia:Topical_index#Fun_stuff, but it's there now. Niteowlneils 23:46, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I also added it to Wikipedia:List of pages in the Wikipedia namespace and Wikipedia:Alphabetical index. Niteowlneils 23:52, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Can't move page

I have tried to move the page British Rail class 170 to British Rail Class 170 to standardise the naming of the pages, and also because the correct British Rail system uses "Class" not "class" (Our Phellap 16:56, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC))

Done. older≠wiser 17:20, Oct 20, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks (Our Phellap 14:43, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC))

GNAA Popeye

I have noticed that GNAA Popeye has been blocked indefinitely. I would like to know what the reasons for his blocking were. According to the block log, the reasons were "changing around people's comments, not [being] a legit contributor, and [that] GNAA announced a victory over Wikipedia." On the other hand, on my talk page it has been stated that he was banned for vandalism on my page.

I didn't find a case of him "changing comments around" (unless he is responsible for the sockpuppet accounts sabotaging the VfD process), and the only his vandalism on my talk page consists of writing EOF at its end (again, unless he is responsible for the rest of the edits; I do not believe that they were so offensive to warrant a permanent ban.)

I'd like to know what were the reasons for his blocking; if he was blocked in violation of the policy, he may be unblocked.

Sincerely, Mike Rosoft 12:37, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I'll second this. As far as I can tell, his conduct within Wikipedia has been fine. And some Wikipedians' conduct toward him -- e.g. reworking a VfD page to make it look like he had proposed deleting Wikipedia:Wikipedians, when in fact he had proposed deleting Wikipedian -- has not been. -- Jmabel | Talk 18:10, Oct 21, 2004 (UTC)

User:GNAA Popeye has probably not done much wrong (besides being annoying, juvenile, and sometimes outright insulting, apparently inviting hordes of friends to ballot-stuff this VfD page, and generally behaving rather troll-like (though superficially exhibiting an exquisite courteousness) in his relentless efforts to defend this self-promotional "article"). In a word, he's a major pain in the arse, but that is not suffient for blocking. Kosebamse 18:39, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I unblocked him for this reason. Mark Richards 19:06, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Reblocked. silsor 22:02, Oct 21, 2004 (UTC)

According to the GNAA talk page, he was blocked for disrupting Wikipedia with this article. — David Remahl 19:15, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Can someone be blocked for writing articles outside Wikipedia? Intrigue 21:02, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)

No, but they can be blocked for trolling Wikipedia. silsor 22:08, Oct 21, 2004 (UTC)

Oct 15 00:23:21 <Popeye>        my weekend getaway is trolling wikipedia and browsing hentai on 4chan.

silsor 21:58, Oct 21, 2004 (UTC)

So someone can be blocked for saying they troll Wikipedia? Paul August 18:09, Oct 23, 2004 (UTC)

And apparently also for having a sense of humor, since it's pretty obvious that almost nothing he says on his user page is true. -- 18:37, Oct 23, 2004 (UTC)

No, for actually trolling Wikipedia. silsor 08:21, Oct 24, 2004 (UTC)

Perhaps it would be helpful if you cited the exact pages which are the evidence for this. Paul August 19:34, Oct 24, 2004 (UTC)

See his "contribs." [[User:Neutrality|Neutrality (hopefully!)]] 19:38, Oct 24, 2004 (UTC)

Can someone explain exactly why he was blocked? As we all know, 'trolling' is not a sufficient reason. Mark Richards 19:44, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

On the contrary, I believe deliberately trolling the Wikipedia community is sufficient grounds for blocking. silsor 03:06, Oct 27, 2004 (UTC)

Robert the Bruce's incivility (Bensley/Boyle survey)

Robert's demands regarding the Bensley Boyle survey seem unreasonable. User_talk:Robert_the_Bruce and Talk:Medical_analysis_of_circumcision -- DanBlackham 16:57, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)

In my opinion Robert's behavior on Talk:Medical_analysis_of_circumcision has created an acrimonious and disrespectful atmosphere. What level of incivility is tolerated at Wikipedia? -- DanBlackham 09:19, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Well, he's certainly abrasive and disrespectful. He calls a scientific paper "another pile of dog shit," and calling everything he disagrees with "trash" isn't conducive to developing consensus. If Robert the Bruce is the same user as Friends of Robert and Robert Brookes, I think his behavior is unacceptable due to his past personal attacks and his pattern of disregarding NPOV. If he is a different user, I don't know. He's been obnoxious but he hasn't really broken any rules, maybe 3 revert, but I didn't look through his history. I think you should try to build consensus on including the study but at this point I think MANY people are sick of the activists on both sides of this silly debate. Rhobite 14:19, Oct 22, 2004 (UTC)

He is the same person, and he is abusive, often outrageously so. That said, he is good at challenging waffling, false conclusions, POV, and nonsense attempting to pass itself off as medicine or science. If he were able to interact with others in a mature way, his contributions would be much more valuable. As it is, there's not much that can be done, as Wikipedia almost never enforces its rules regarding civility. Jayjg 14:40, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

If contributors from either side of the issue are allowed to repeatedly violate the community standards of civility without consequences, in my opinion Wikipedia starts to resemble Usenet. Robert is also good an inserting his own pro-circumcision POV and attempting to pass off pro-circumcision nonsense as medicine or science. When someone questions his POV edits he responds with hostility and insults. From a medical perspective the bottom line regarding infant circumcision is that it is not medically necessary. That is not just my opinion; it is the official policy of professional medical organizations in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Medical_analysis_of_circumcision#References -- DanBlackham 08:53, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I understand your deep concern Dan. There are two surveys which you use as the cornerstone argument around your desire to promote the foreskin. First the O'Hara survey which is an absolute disgrace in that its participants were recruited directly through an anti-circumcision newsletter. The results are valueless other than to confirm what anti-circumcision true believers believe (or would like to believe is the truth). It is effectively trash and should be deleted from Wikipedia. The second is the Bensley/Boyle survey of all of 35 women (it is claimed). Now given the O'Hara deceit and Boyle's radical anti-circumcision activism one should insist that the full detail of the questions asked, the methodology of participant recruitment, and all the results etc etc. It appears to be available nowhere online yet some appear able to quote from it. (strange). The one certainty is that had they had nothing to hide they would have been rubbing the detail in everyone’s face on a daily basis. Quite simply then in the absence of the published detail all we have is carefully selected snippets of information (or rather just innuendo). This too should be deleted from Wikipedia until all the full detail is available to be scrutinised in detail. In fact it stinks like week old smegma. There should be no argument about this Dan. You (and the other anti-circumcision activists here) should either put up the detail to support the quotes or accept that it be deleted and that your wikicrime has been discovered. I do understand only too well that you have allies among certain of the admin types around here. It is sad that they seem willing to assist your ilk with POV pushing while in so doing compromising their own integrity. Your open anti-circumcision position and subsequent blatant POV pushing this welcomed as opposed to those admins who feign neutrality and support your POV from behind that mask. Wikipedia should be strict in dealing with this disgraceful dishonesty. So yes Dan you have friends here and when you can't (or rather won't) come up with the Bensley/Boyle survey detail and it gets deleted they will rally to your assistance. It all so predictable. - Robert the Bruce 17:31, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Help with botched redirect

Hi, my name is Bsktcase and I'm a moron.

I was trying to move Blue Lodge to Masonic Lodge but accidentally moved Talk:Blue Lodge there instead. (See "moron", above.) I moved Talk back where it belongs, but now Masonic Lodge exists, so I can't move Blue Lodge to it.

I am reluctant to put Masonic Lodge on the speedy deletion page, because I'd like to recreate it properly immediately and I'd rather it didn't have a big bullseye painted on it when I do. (However, if that's the best solution just let me know.) The goal here is to have the content and edit history of Blue Lodge moved to it, with a redirect, in the usual manner.

(Blue Lodge is a regionally-specific colloquialism for the more general and accurate term Masonic Lodge, which is why I initiated the move and redirect in the first place.)

Please help! Thanks! —Bsktcase 21:28, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I think I fixed it. Take a look. Andre (talk) 22:13, Oct 21, 2004 (UTC)

1952 Lynmouth

Can anyone resolve Lynmouth floods and deaths in 1952 (see discussion page for 1952). -- SGBailey 10:35, 2004 Oct 22 (UTC)

See Lynmouth and Talk:1952. -- ALoan (Talk) 11:43, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Public Domain

This book apparently was published in 1924

http://kuratrading.com/Islam/Caliphate/index.htm

Would it still have a copyright? Or is it public domain?

Can I cut/past sections from it in the relevant articles? OneGuy 11:01, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The complete book can also be downloaded in a zip file from

http://zipfiles.answering-islam.org/muir_caliphate.zip

The author William Muir died in 1905. I assume this is now public domain? OneGuy 11:25, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Yes, in that case it would be public domain. But be careful about simply cutting and pasting from a source that is so old. Watch out for factual errors (more recent research may have changed things), POV and obsolete language. — David Remahl 11:33, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Well, the Abbasid caliph series from Al-Muntasir till the last Abbasid has nothing there. How about cutting and pasting relevant information in these sections (birth, how came to power, death, etc), then cleaning these up latter? OneGuy 11:53, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The web page says "A NEW AND REVISED EDITION BY T. H. WEIR ... 1924 " - would Mr Weir have any copyright? -- ALoan (Talk) 12:09, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Probably: why not do some rewording to be sure to be sure. Filiocht 12:20, Oct 22, 2004 (UTC)

Yes, in cleanup process it will have to be reworded because of the archaic language. The book is also on this site:

http://www.answering-islam.org/Books/Muir/Caliphate/

I doubt all these sites could have uploaded it on the web if the book had copyright? OneGuy 12:29, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

In any case, I don't want to past the whole book anyway. Just small relevant parts that relate to each Caliph starting from Al-Muntasir ( a page or less for each Caliph or so) right now there is nothing there OneGuy 12:39, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

DIP

There are two pages for DIP(the electronic thingy), Dual-Inline Package and Dual in-line package, both with history. I think it shoud be Dual Inline Package myself, since the common usage is the acronym 'dip', but maybe someone who works with DIPs knows better. jericho4.0 19:32, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

"Dual in-line package" wins the goole test. Merge the articles and make redirects from all possible hyphenations. Gdr 23:01, 2004 Oct 22 (UTC)

Dual in-line package would be my vote too. Move this discussion to talk:dual in-line package. Andrewa 03:58, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Category:Years in fashion

I'm not really opposed to this budding new collection of "Year in..." articles, but all the ones I looked at are simply a single image of one type of European/Western womenswear, with a caption, but no other content or context. I'm really getting concerned about the proliferation of micro-stubs. Random ones here and there by anons is OK, but when (mostly) newer Wikipedians create a series of dozens, or even hundreds, of one or two sentence articles, it really over-taxes New Pages and Recent Changes patrol. It's getting to the point I thinking of suggesting that a series of articles under 300 bytes be speedy candidates, even tho' many would probably consider that Wiki-heresy. A series of record albums that contained nothing but a 'see also' and a category tag were recently speedied for lack of content/context. Niteowlneils 03:18, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Indeed I do consider it wiki-heresy to suggest deleting all articles under 300 bytes. Wikipedia is not tidy, and won't be. I mean, if one piece of info other than the title is imparted, then one can't blanket delete. Certainly in many cases it's untidy, because usually the information should be merged or expanded, as it's not much better than a red link. But there's no way one can just delete them all and insist on red links rather than solitary facts. It's not clear to me how we can avoid Wikipedia being full of "untidiness". zoney ♣ talk 16:03, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Abortion-Breast Cancer (Issue? Debate? Link?) Article

I too am unsure if this is the appropriate forum for this, but here goes. I have the intention to write an article on the Abortion-Breast Cancer debate. Not exactly an easy task by any means... and this is abundantly illustrated by my inability to figure out an appropriate Article title that is clear, and unbiased. Then should it be hyphenated or not? Here are the options, and why I like/dislike them... but choose I (we?) must.

Abortion-Breast Cancer: Too ambiguous? But definitely neutral.

Abortion-Breast Cancer Issue: Ambiguous again... actually that isn't much different from the first one. :')

Abortion-Breast Cancer Debate: More to the point, indicating there is an ongoing discussion about the subject at hand, and it is neutral. Some people, particularly the very liberal among us, don't consider it a debate... and just a scare tactic. Well in the spirit of open dialogue; I urge you to reconsider that position.

Abortion-Breast Cancer Link: To the point, but biased title.

Once a title is selected I'll get an introductory definition in quickly, and then add another section meta-analyzes of Abortion-Breast Cancer. Thereby allowing me to move the breast cancer reference in Abortion to the new article and replace it the introductory article reference of Abortion-Breast Cancer. (just like Abortion Law in the Abortion article)

Then go from there, adding entries on everything from rat studies and the discussion of their usefulness... to Dr. Daling and other enlightening material like recall bias studies. RoyBoy 14:05, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia - the target of anti-circumcision zealots

Wikipedians should know what the anti-circumcision zealots have planned.

--- Å¬alabio <Walabio@MacOSX.COM> wrote:

> To: intact-l@cirp.org
> From: Å¬alabio <Walabio@MacOSX.COM>
> Subject: ¡Circumcisiophiliacs attack Daivid Peter
> Reimer
>  !
> Date: Sat, 23 Oct 2004 00:35:45 +0000
> 
> 
> Â¡Hello!
> 
> Â¿How Fare You?
> 
> The circumcisiosexuals desecrate the article about
> David Peter Reimer. 
>   Some of us share the fate of David Peter Reimer,
> and the any one of 
> the rest of us could have shared his fate.  I do not
> care what those 
> perverts do among themselves, but I hate the way
> those pÃ¦dophiles go 
> after children, and I refuse to let them vandalize
> David Peter Reimer.  
> If it were not for those perverts he and his brother
> Brian might be 
> alive today and the family Reimer would be much more
> happy.
> 
> If the want total editwar, Â¡we will give then
> total editwar!
> 
> The article is here:
> 
> HTTP://WikiPedia.Org/wiki/David_Peter_Reimer
> 
> This is its history:
> 
> 
>
HTTP://WikiPedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=David_Reimer&action=history
> 
> This is the page for discussing changes to the
> article:
> 
> HTTP://WikiPedia.Org/wiki/Talk:David_Reimer
> 
> Â¡Hurry!  Â¡Create an account, login, and help!
> 
> Intactivistically,
> Å¬alabio
> 
> -- 
> 
> Â¡Dubya Shrub is a Saudi-Lover  --  Saudi-Mite!
> 
> Â¡The Bin-Bushes bend over _"*FOR*"_ the
> Bin-Ladens!

This isn't the first time that User:Walabio has sent out a "call to arms" to his activist group. The situation is distressing. There are alot of "zealots" on Wikipedia, POV pushing everything from astrology to biowar-decontaimination-cyborg theory (I'm not kidding about that), but the members of this cirp.org group have become truly problematic. They fully admit themselves that they are here on an "agenda" --they don't deny it-- Wikipedia accurancy and credebility doesn't mean anything to them, so long as they get to push their POV. func(talk) 17:36, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Yes, the POV pushers are here. According to User:Geogre's page:

Wikipedia, I think, is a prime target for the most motivated, and the most motivated are always the ones with a score to settle or a score to make.

[[User:Poccil|Peter O. (Talk)]] 20:53, Oct 23, 2004 (UTC)

Well they are going to be a bit dissapointed when they come to win the war over this particular page because i've just protected it. Theresa Knott (Not the skater) 21:57, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

This is the second time you have moved to protect this individual from himself. Is there something you should share with wikipedians about this? - Robert the Bruce 03:34, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Yes. I consider the quality of wikipedia article, and the atmosphere of cooperation in wikipedia important. I think POV pushing zealots like you (in all you sockpuppet forms) and Walabio should fuck off back to your mailing lists, forums, Usenet of where you all came from, and leave us to write a NPOV encylopedia. Theresa Knott (Not the skater) 13:23, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Take it easy Theresa. Until someone contested the truth of what had been and continued to be inserted in the related articles you were quite happy to lie back, close your eyes and think of England. Now it is clear the content has moved closer to NPOV than ever before and if only you would cease providing succour to the head bangers they would slowly start to drift away and seek another place to push their POV. If you believe I am pushing POV you are welcome to raise that issue on a case by case basis. But I am afraid I am less than convinced that everyone around here is really working towards a NPOV solution. As they say we are all human. If you are indeed commmitted to NPOV then join up and contribute rather stand off to one side and weild a stick like some Dickensian harridan. I guess your actions will indicate what your decision will have been. One can but live in hope. - Robert the Bruce 14:27, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

And protecting a page to stop an edit war provides succour how exactly? Theresa Knott (Not the skater) 15:21, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Oh I can think of at least two pssiblities. I am sure other can as well. I guess your game is up theresa. - 198.54.202.242 18:56, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)
- Sure Robert what ever you say. When I act against your POV pushing it's proof according to you that i am an anticirc activist. When I act against the antitcirc mob's POV pushing, it's also proof according to you that I am an anticirc activist. And it's not just me. Any admin who get's in your way is also an anticirc activist. But you know what? We don't care what you say. Because Robert, you saying something doesn't make it true. Anyway, you haven't actually answered my question above. Theresa Knott (Not the skater) 02:11, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I believe that people who send out such calls to arms (and the GNAA stuff comes to mind as well) should be blocked from editing. Rick K 22:53, Oct 23, 2004 (UTC)

I don't know Rick but we do need to do something about this, that's for sure. Anyone here who is not attempting to write articles from a neutral POV shouldn't be made wellcome. Theresa Knott (Not the skater) 13:23, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I agree that contributors who post a "call to arms" should be banned from editing the article in question. In my opinion the practice is not in harmony with Wikiquette. -- DanBlackham 04:55, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Instead of just playing good guy/bad guy why not take it up with him on that list where he made the appeal (as you are a member there). Then you can post what you guys of the foreskin list have decided about him, DanP, Glass and others who are more than a little off the wall (to say the least)and seem intent to haunt the articles of Wikipedia? - Robert the Bruce 06:35, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Some of you are mad that I tried to call in help for protecting David Peter Reimer. I have my reasons:

Ever since 1966-04-27, the circumcision-pushers, have tried to escape responsibility for their actions. The Version of David Peter Reimer up to a week ago was an unstable compromise:

It pointed out that phimosis (nonretractability) is not a disease in infancy. As a bone to those who insist that something must have been wrong with the intact genitals of Brian and Bruce because they were intact, it lists a plausible pathology.

I personally have doubts that anything other than benign ballooning occurred. Well anyhow, the compromise no longer holds. Starx rightfully points out that Encyclopædia WikiPedia.Org is no place for speculative compromises. I say we work this out once and for all:

Facts:

The Parents Reimer reported that something happened when Bruce and Brian urinated
An unknown pædoprician (¿Does anyone know who this is?) diagnosed Bruce and Brian as developing phimosis (an inappropriate diagnosis in infancy because the glance and præpuce of infants are suppose to be fused)
No evidence exists that anyone tried a less radical treatment before circumcising
Max Cham and Jean Huot decided to use a Bovie Cautery Machine
One should not use a Bovie Cautery Machine on extremities and genitals
Jean Huot and Max Cham burned off the penis of Bruce Reimer
After the accident of Bruce Reimer, one cancelled the circumcision of Brian Reimer
Brian Reimer continued to develop normally as an intact boy and man, thus proving that the circumcision of Bruce Reimer was totally medically unnecessary and nontherapeutic.

I integrated the facts into a paragraph:

"The parents Reimer worried about how Brian and Bruce urinated. The pædiatrician gave an impossible diagnosis of phimosis (phimosis is a tight nonretractable præpuce, but infants have a tight nonretractable præpuce anyway). Non tried a less radical procedure before attempting circumcision. 1966-04-27, the doctors Jean Huot and Max Cham tried to use a Bovie Cautery Machine for circumcising Bruce Reimer, which is not for use on extremities and genitals. Max Cham and Jean Huot burned the penis of Bruce off. After the accident of Bruce Reimer, the hospital canceled the circumcision of Brian Reimer. Brian Reimer continued to develop normally as an intact boy and man, thus proving that the circumcision of Bruce Reimer was totally medically unnecessary and nontherapeutic."

¿Any comments?

I wish to have a binding decision so that we can move on. The final version should include all of the facts listed above. I suggest that we get the input of Doctor Alteripse.

Ŭalabio 01:57, 2004 Oct 25 (UTC)

Ŭalabio, please see my response under the discussion page. I agree with other posters that it is not appropriate to make a 'call to arms' to an activist group over this or any other issue. An activist group, by definition, is essentially opposed to NPOV (preferring to push its own POV), and so such an action strikes at the heart of Wikipedia. - Jakew 11:16, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I have seen your changes changes, and I believe we can reconcile our differences. I shall respond on talk:David Reimer soon. You are much easier to work with than a certain other user. I believe that it is a good thing that we got rid of the compromise about listing a plausible pathology for satisfying others world view about something having to be wrong in some way to intact genitals. The truth is better. I shall have my counterproposal soon.

And now User:DanP is trying to drag Breastfeeding into the long list of attacked articles that having nothing to do with circumcision. func(talk) 04:34, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Yes our DanP is one of them. Here is his earlier call to arms to the same list:

> To: intact-l@cirp.org
> Subject: Need some help on Wikipedia
> From: Dan P <mail2danp@yahoo.com>
> Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2004 15:27:55 -0700 (PDT)
> Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
> Reply-to: Dan P <mail2danp@yahoo.com>
> Sender: owner-intact-l@cirp.org
> 
> Dear group,
> 
> I have been battling the pro-circumcision folks on
> Wikipedia again, hoping to list "circumciser" as a
> valid article entry.  I have tried to keep the article
> as factual as possible and related to world cultures.
> 
> If you are active on Wikipedia, please go to that
> article and give me a hand.  So far, the pro-MGM side
> has been voting to delete, and I could use some
> assistance.
> 
> Thanks,
>
> Dan

It is a known fact that painful medical procedures may be a contributing factor for breastfeeding failure. In the United States neonatal circumcision is probably the most common surgery preformed on infants. When it is done in the hospital circumcision is often performed before a successful pattern of breastfeeding has been established. Having said that, a consensus was reached to list "Discomfort, possibly due to recent surgery or medical procedures (for example, circumcision)" in the "Breast refusal" section of the Breastfeeding article. In my opinion that is the appropriate way to include the information that surgery, including neonatal circumcision, may be a factor in breastfeeding failure. -- DanBlackham 06:17, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Yea right Dan. Why not admit that you are also on that list that Walabio posted that call to arms to. - Robert the Bruce 17:22, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Problem with WP:VfD

Someone has listed Anton Solomoukha for deletion. But the page which was created was Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Anton Solomouka (without "h" in the name) and there is no section title "Anton Solomoukha" in the list in W:VfD. I've seen that and have thought that moveing Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Anton Solomouka to Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Anton Solomoukha would "repare" that, but there is still no entry title in W:VfD, just the text of the page after the section for Hoatan ([5]) and before the section for Agitation ([6]). Could someone "repare" that? Ma'ame Michu 17:28, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Google Corp. or Inc.

I just split Google the company and Google the search engine into 2 separate articles (still working out some details) but I'm not sure about...

What the best article name or how to refer to Google the company it it...Google Corporation, Google (company) (the current one), Google Inc.. To tell you the truth I don't really know the difference between Inc. and Corp. The wikipedia article on Inc. redirects to Corp. The stock ticker for GOOG lists it as Google Inc.

I have fixed the company article so it uses the correct "Inc.". I don't know if/how the terms are used in other countries, but in the US, Corporation/Corp. and Incorporated/Inc. are entirely synonymous--the correct one being whichever the company chose as part of it's formal name, which in Google's case is the latter, and I have editted the article to reflect that (along with a bunch of typos). Having Google disambiguate to two separate articles doesn't make much sense, and I have a slight preference for Google (company) over Google, Inc., if for no other reason than that gets into whether to include the period, and I think Wikipedia articles are more likely to be without, but I'm pretty sure its appearance is inconsistent, so I think the names currently in use are fine. Niteowlneils 02:23, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I'm having some problems deciding where the boundary between the two articles is drawn (Ex. is Froogle separate from Google search). Should there be duplicate information on the two pages to make the site easier to navigate or should the boundary be firmly defined? Much of the Google (company) text was cut from the Google article. BrokenSegue 20:24, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

"Google Inc." sounds reasonable. [[User:Poccil|Peter O. (Talk)]] 21:00, Oct 23, 2004 (UTC)

If they're going to be divided, I would suggest Google (company) and Google (search engine). Maurreen 21:42, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Bad idea. More people will want the search engine than the company. [[User:Poccil|Peter O. (Talk)]] 22:27, Oct 23, 2004 (UTC)

I would make the boundary between their websites, and the company that makes the websites. Niteowlneils 02:23, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

As for whether or not to split the article, I see no reason not to follow the guidelines at Wikipedia:Article size. The full article is 36K, so it should be split. As for where to split the article, I'd say Google, Google search engine, Google services, and Google tools. Keep a brief summary of each, and move the rest of the section over. anthony (see warning) 02:54, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The article was already split. My boundary line was things go one the corporate site if it is not a search technology or it is not easily found on Google.com BrokenSegue 15:26, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

You'll recall that 32k limit was around for archaic browsers and when we didn't have section-editing. Nowadays that limit is routinely broken (I imagine a big chunk of featured articles breach the limit for example). The decision is all about how long an article feels, whether it is cohesive and on a well-defined topic. I would certainly suggest a single well sectioned article on Google would be the way to go. The split into "Google the search engine" and "Google the company" at the moment is a mess (lots of duplication) though I suppose the demerger is still in progress. Pcb21| Pete 16:48, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Without disturbing images, please.

Discussion moved from the reference desk. func(talk) 05:03, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Abu Ghraib scandal

I would like a version of the page on the Abu Ghraib scandal without the disturbing images. That way, I (and others) could get the information without having to see more than we want to. There are many minors who use this site; shouldn't there be an appropriate version for them?

What about a separate, linked article for the images? That way it can be linked from the main article in a prominent way, but there can be a warning so that people will know what to expect. I do think that it's appropriate to be considerate of our younger readers, as long as the information is retained. [[User:Aranel|Aranel ("Sarah")]] 21:14, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

You could use a browser that allows switching off images. Opera has a very easy quick-toggle for this but Mozilla/Firefox and Internet Explorer let you do this in the preferences too. --fvw 21:58, 2004 Oct 22 (UTC)

You could also save the entire page to your computer and delete the images --Cvaneg 22:08, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The problem, I think, is not so easily solved. (In order to do either of those things, it would be necessary to first look at the images in order to determine that I wanted to remove them.) I agree that the information is important, but at the moment the text of the article is practically inaccessible to anyone who has a hard time looking at those images. I'm not so much concerned for myself as for young people who may be trying to access this information. Sure, there is a warning at the top of the page, which is helpful, but if you read the warning and decide you don't want to contine, there is no way to get the information. Perhaps there could be a text-only sub-page? [[User:Aranel|Aranel ("Sarah")]] 02:12, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

You could go to the page, read the warning, then turn off the images in your browser and reload. Or yuo could could just look at the source code of the page. (in IE it's view--> source,Similar in netscape, and firefox, i don't know about other browsers but i expect it would be similar) The text would be there after the initial HTML header stuff, but the images would not be visible.Theresa Knott (Not the skater) 14:29, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The images are the story. Mintguy (T) 05:17, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Aranel has something of a point. What about a disclaimer, that linked to a subpage? [[User:Rhymeless|Rhymeless | (Methyl Remiss)]] 05:30, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

If we are going to go this far, we might as well start a new system. Say there is a basic image in place of the actual images as a placeholder. People could read the disclaimer and click a different link within the disclaimer for the full article (i.e. offensive pictures and/or profanities included). This should apply to language, as well. For example, the article entitled Fuck. Suprisingly, I do believe this article deserves its place on Wikipedia; however, I doubt parents would appreciate their children seeing it. In a case such as that, we may have to use a page with only a disclaimer and then a "go forward" link to the article. I don't know how much support this would get, but if we are going to do this on principle to a single article, we might as well propose it as Wikipolicy. Skyler 1534 15:04, Oct 23, 2004 (UTC)

Hmm as a parent i can say I certainly do want my teenage children to see the images. Mintguy is right the images are the story. Yes they are disturbing and disgusting, because the behaviour is distubing and disgusting, becasue IMO war is disturbing and disguisting, and i want my children to grow up knowing that this is what war is about. For smaller children i can't see a problem becasue they probably wouldn't look at the article anyway, and should be supervised by their parents whilst online anyway. As for Fuck. it's an entirely different sort of article. Harmless, well written and very interesting. Someone who objected to profanities would consider the page title itself objectionable and so certainly wouldn't visit the page. Theresa Knott (Not the skater) 15:22, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

There are too many pictures, imo - perhaps some could be taken out and placed in an image gallery. violet/riga (t) 18:48, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Shouldn't this be moved to the Village pump? func(talk) 16:35, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Yes, indeed. --Edcolins 21:22, Oct 23, 2004 (UTC)

Why do the disturbing photos (and there are many of them) have to be on the main page? A number of articles already have links you can click on to see further images. Cat and Adolf Hitler spring to mind. Nothing wrong in doing something similar here, albeit for a different purpose. jguk 20:24, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Kids Wikipedia?

Discussion moved to m:Talk:Wikijunior

Mark B. Cohen

User:Zulitz (and an anonymous IP which I suspect belongs to him) has been inserting quotes from a Pennsylvania state representative in a million places. I can't think of a specific policy that this violates, and I'm hesitant to go reverting him without some kind of formal justification. On the other hand, it's ridiculous for Wikipedia to be quoting an obscure state representative as an authority on everything from social stereotypes to the Iron law of oligarchy to Dave Winer to the United States Democratic Party to Three Mile Island. Any thoughts? RadicalSubversiv E 05:25, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

It turns out that Cohen ran for Congress and keeps a blog, which is presumably the origin of all the quotes. Still doesn't make him an expert on no-fault divorce, though. RadicalSubversiv E 05:40, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Oh... no. I am a Philadelphian, and I happen to (more or less) support Cohen, but this is just plain wrong. It is political spam, and should be treated no differently than when someone inserts corporate or website spam. It should all be reverted, IMHO. Jeeze... I really hope this is just a "fan", rather than someone working for him. func(talk) 06:03, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

While Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not does say "But of course an article can report objectively on what advocates say, as long as an attempt is made to approach a neutral point of view.", most of the quotes don't seem designed to suit that use, but are merely random commentary, which doesn't seem encyclopedic, and I think violates WWIN's "Wikipedia is not a soapbox or discussion forum." Also, at least one paragraph containing a Cohen quote has been removed as "political spam". Contrib lists are here[7] and here[8]. Note that, since these have been added as far back as August, just because the contrib is no longer on "Top", does NOT mean it has been removed--of all that I have checked so far, only the one has been removed. Also, even if the contrib doesn't include a Cohen quote, it still probably needs wikification (EG Marcus Foster) and typo fixes. Niteowlneils 17:32, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I removed a bunch of these for reasons given above. I left some in where they seemed relevant -- Three Mile Island for example. —No-One Jones ^(m) 20:02, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I believe the quotes from Cohen are relevant to the subjects at hand and are factually accurate. A citizen built encyclopedia should be able to quote citizen sources, not just nationally recognized experts with PhD.s and a lot of books to their credit.

The Cohen quotes tend to raise new points and can be rebutted if there are other points of view or superseded by quotes from more famous people if such are available. The Wikipedia is a constantly in flux, ever-changing work in progress, and striking quotes with no claim that they are inaccurrate or irrelevant but merely in too many articles is counterproductive to the goal of building up the Wikipedia as an encyclopedia, as thoughts from one person tend to lead to thoughts from other people. Quotes from individuals ought to be evaluated on a case by case basis by people who are interested in the underlying subject, not in sweeping fashion by anyone offended that someone he or she does not think of as prominent has informed opinions on diverse subjects.

Further, to consider purging all my contributions, the vast majority of whose wordage does not mention Cohen, also seems counterproductive to the goal of building up the Wikipedia. The Wikipedia is rapidly growing, and the Cohen quotes are generally a small part of the articles that contain them, while the articles that contain them are an extremely small part of the Wikipedia. Zulitz

I have no idea who wrote this or what it's about. I believe you are presuming a context that most of us reading this page do not have. -- Jmabel | Talk 04:44, Oct 25, 2004 (UTC)

The issue here is basically whether the Wikipedia is limited in quotations to those who are nationally prominent, or whether it can quote people who know something about a given subject but who are not nationally prominent. Nationally prominent people often try to limit themselves to a relatively small number of topics: politicians call it controlling the message, or message discipline. What does Kerry think about the Iron Law of Oligarchy? What does Bush think about it? What does the President of the American Political Science Association think about it? Nothing stops any of them from having a public opinion on this, but they probably don't. The Iron Law of Oligarchy--promulgated in 1911 and generally obscure--deals with political organizations, and it reasonable that a guy like Cohen (21 years on the Pennsylvania Democratic State Committtee, 31 years as a member of the Pennsylvania House Democratic Caucus, nearly half of which he has served as an elected leader) has something of value to say on this.

Purging his opinion of the Democratic Party, of which he has been a four decade participant, and leaving in the opinion of Nader Vice-Presidential candidate Peter Camejo, who has never been a Democrat, is just silly. I didn't quote Cohen as an authority on the Green Party or on the Nader 2004 campaign, but on the party whose members elected him a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 2004. Of course many other Democrats are far more prominent, and the extremely long article on the Democratic Party contains countless references to some of them, and more references to more Democrats will certainly be added with time.

Similar defenses can be made about the other objected-to quotes. Cohen knows Dave Winer from BloggerCon2, he was a leader in the Pennsylvania legislature for no-fault divorce, and he has fought the pernicious effects of social stereotypes in countless instances, three of which I listed in the article.He is one of many, many people who are worth quoting on subjects in which they are familiar, and the English-speaking Wikipedia--on track to have well over a million articles within a few years--is both more comprehensive and more valuable when it quotes knowledgeable people than when it merely limits itself to bland generalizations attributed to no one, or to academic authorities who have not directly participated in the things they have studied. Zulitz

Moved to under the previous discussion. func(talk) 13:06, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

A plea against "fancruft"

I'd just like to ask that people on wp:vfd please remember that civility means civility to all. Specifically, I'd like to ask one thing--can we remove "fancruft" from our collective vocabularies?

After thinking about it for a time, I've come to the conclusion that the word serves no purpose that is not pejorative. For example, compare these two articles. One is Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/John Boone; the other, found at User:Meelar/A nicer VfD, is the same text, but with "fancruft" replaced in all instances by "non-notable". Aside from a few easily fixable things, there is no meaning lost--but the whole thing, viewed from an observer's perspective, seems much less contemptous.

Is there any reason to maintain "fancruft" in favor of alternatives that are less offensive to the person whose prose is being considered? I don't think there is. I'd ask people to keep this in mind, and avoid using "fancruft", instead substituting non-pejorative alternatives.

Thank you, [[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 21:04, Oct 24, 2004 (UTC)

I second that emotion. Catherine | talk 07:37, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I've literally never used the word, but I disagree that it's useless. It tends to give me a clue that not only is there a claim that this is non-notable, but that it's not going to turn out to be (for example) an academic or a school that I may think merits an article. -- Jmabel | Talk 07:48, Oct 25, 2004 (UTC)

Well, I suppose there are usable replacements. Articles that could only be of interest to devotees of one particular game/book/band/OS and which are utterly useless to anyone else, and which make Wikipedia look like a everyone's worst stereotype of a Star Trek convention. Hm. A bit wordy, perhaps. I think a better approach to this would be a header on every f*ncr*ft (hey, that looks good) page, for example {{pokemon}}, that would expand to "This information is specific to Pokemon (game) and is not to be interpreted as factual in any other context." And then add the ability to filter out categories from Special:Randompage so that people can not be bothered by fanboy clutter. Signed, someone who can tell you every detail of every ST:TOS episode and every lyric to every pre-1976 Bob Dylan song. --jpgordon{gab} 15:40, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I'm trying to think of a way to say this while coming off as polite. The above comments are precisely why I don't like the term fancruft—it implies exactly the sort of comments you just made, which I, and many others, find deeply offensive. Personally, I think that it's bad articles we should be fighting, not articles on subject matters which some people find uninteresting and insignificant. Be that as it may, when you (and others) make comments such as "this is giving Wikipedia a bad reputation" and "this is only of interest to fanboys" (note that the latter term is considered extremely derogatory in some circles—even aside from the blatant gender stereotyping), my (and many people's) knee-jerk reaction is to arm for war, even though most of the time you are not referring to anything that I have done. It's just not conducive to intelligent, rational, conversation in the spirit of cooperation.

Most fans want to make the articles here better. Personally, I'm tired of being afraid to edit Middle-earth articles for fear that someone will notice them and plop them on VFD. I would much prefer for everyone to take us seriously, and I am diligently (but slowly—it has to be slow, because some people feel strongly about this) improving articles and merging and removing irrelevant information. Many fans would like to work with you on this, but throwing around terms like fancruft makes it difficult for us to work together. [[User:Aranel|Aranel ("Sarah")]] 21:46, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I think that the attempts above to come up with alternatives above are revealing. Articles that could only be of interest to devotees... everyone's worst stereotype of a Star Trek convention... Well, I don't think I'm a devotee, as I haven't seen any of the movies or anything beyond the original series, but even I found the trilithium article interesting. What I think the writer means is simply that they aren't personally interested in these details. And fair enough, and that's probably what fancruft means too, in which case it's not a valid reason for deletion. I don't think votes that give no valid reasons should be completely ignored, but I'd give a little more weight to a vote that gave no reasons at all than to one that gave an invalid reason such as this. Food for thought? Andrewa 13:30, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

People deleting articles because they seemingly of interest to no-one or a small group of people should not be encouraged. It does happen currently - and is by no means limited to articles about fictional subjects. People seem to a) forget that Wikipedia is not paper and b) forget that we don't insist on deleting bad articles, rather improving them (irregardless of the dire state of Cleanup). Until we decide that a poorly written article should be deleted rather than improved, I would really like to see people leave VfD for the real cases for deletion. zoney ♣ talk 15:50, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Yes, while we're at it, let's get rid of 'notability', which is just another term for 'I'm not interested'. We will not improve Wikipedia's coverage of more weighty subjects by deleting good coverage of factual material of interest to a minority. Intrigue 19:45, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

As I have tried to stress in my own VfDs, I believe non-notable articles of popular culture - hey, that works - deserve deletion, no matter what my personal thoughts are on their subject. I've pressed for the deletion of such articles based around Futurama, which I love with a passion, and I could probably write a dozen articles of such magnitude on it. However, I also love Wikipedia, and I still feel its credibility is hindered by such inconsequential articles. Not the "beyond fan knowledge/importance" stuff, mind you - Meelar will attest to you that I just did some extensive work on Kefka, the villain from Final Fantasy VI. But I don't feel minutiae has a place here. I will continue to VfD said articles, but this was an intelligent, civil request with a proper reason behind it, so I will try to heed it. At the same time I realize I haven't always been the nicest guy about my VfDs, but I'm also very passionate on this particular issue. I'll tone it down. Ian Pugh 00:43, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Sexton

Sexton is a dis-ambiguation page with 3 choices, the first of which looks to me like a dictionary definition, the second is a good article, and the third is a person's last name for which anyone who wants to search for would simply type Anne Sexton. Any comments about moving the second of these choices to simply Sexton?? 66.32.250.110 23:32, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Sounds like proper disambiguation policy to me. I could do this myself, but for your info, here's the steps:

1. Move Sexton to Sexton (disambiguation).

2. Place a request here or at the Help desk for an admin to delete the new redirect at Sexton, to make room for the other article to be moved. (Do NOT copy and paste text into this article -- the history will be lost.)

3. Move Sexton (artillery) to Sexton. Add a disambiguation block at the top that says This article is about the artillery vehicle. For the church office, see sexton (office); for other uses, see sextion (disambiguation).

4. Edit Sexton (disambiguation) to reflect the changes.

5. IMPORTANT: Click "What links here" (in the sidebar toolbox menu) for each article in the set to make sure that all links are pointing to the proper pages.

Good catch, and good luck, Catherine | talk 07:19, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

And why is it that you think the artillery vehicle is a more likely lookup than the church office? Just because right now it's the better article? -- Jmabel | Talk 07:50, Oct 25, 2004 (UTC)

My question exactly. It's not obvious to me that either of the specific sextons is more worthy of the direct link. Ironically, if Sexton (office) were elaborated, for example to make it clear that the term is obsolete and obscure (neither of which is proven by my own ignorance of it), it might be more clear that the artillery piece deserves it. As it stands, I don't think I see a reason to spoil the symmetry of the status quo. Sharkford 21:10, 2004 Oct 25 (UTC)

Four Separate Wikipedias

Discussion moved to m:Talk:Wikijunior

Parental rating system for Wikipedia? (PICS?)

Hi can everone please come to meta and continue the discussion there. Theresa Knott (Not the skater) 18:12, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Israel/Palestine

Lately the articles relating (directly and indirectly) to Israel/Palestine have been the subject of the Wikipedia equivalent of war. This has spilled out into some articles that are only tangentially related to the Israel/Palestine conflict: see, for example, Talk:Jew.

Most recent activity in this area has been by people with a very strong Zionist or anti-Zionist views (and some of us somewhere between but probably just as firm in our views: to lay my cards on the table, I support a two-state solution, and would have no objection -- other than the sheer improbability of it ever happening -- to a unified secular state). Many of the people have been well-behaved, but others are not, and lately a lot of the discourse on the talk pages has been uncivil, and there have been edit wars and even article-move wars. Some of the people seem to be willing to stoop to even the most questionable sources as long as those support their beliefs, and reject even the most authoritative when they disagree. Or they are putting in views that go way beyond their own, basically trolling, just to heat things up further. Frankly, I'm getting pretty sick of it.

Israel/Palestine is not one of my major areas of work, nor of expertise, but having even a few related articles on my watchlist I feel like I'm getting sucked down a black hole. I keep getting pulled into more articles as talk on one article relates to another, etc. I really would rather be writing articles about things I really know, doing translations, etc.

We need some some people working on these pages who don't feel a strong stake in the politics but do feel a strong stake in scholarship, citation of references, etc. (Understand, most of the "partisans" have respect for these things, but lately it's gotten so heated that I think even some people who usually care about standards are taking cheap shots.) I urgently request that some experienced Wikipedians with no axe to grind get involved in this area.

I won't try to list the articles involved; because I came to this from an interest in writing about the history of the Jews as a people in diaspora, not from a focus on this region, any list I made would be overly biased toward specifically Jewish topics, and I'm sure that a lot of the same is going on in articles that focus on Arab/Palestian matters and probably even Muslim matters. I will merely single out Israeli-Palestinian conflict as an obvious place to start, as I am sure that much of what is at one or two removes from that is involved. Have a look at the talk pages and the histories (and the NPOV and dispute notices) and it will be obvious which articles have issues.

Anyone who wants to discuss this should feel free to get hold of me. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:28, Oct 25, 2004 (UTC)

Eyewitness

Another interesting problem: on Talk:Sabra and Shatila Massacre we've had someone come forward -- he's even taken a Wikipedia account -- who (almost certainly accurately) identifies himself as John Harbo, who worked as a correspondent for a Norwegian paper in Beirut at the time, and who was present in the aftermath of the events, and who is quoted in some of the best-known documents about the events. He has additional material he'd like to add to Wikipedia, but it appears it wasn't in these documents. I've asked if he's ever published any of this anywhere (e.g. in his own journalism, which would certainly be citable), so we can quote it without violating our rules on auto-biography and original research.

Still, this all seems a bit weird to me: as Wikipedia gains in importance, things like this are going to happen more and more: people directly involved in historically significant events will approach us with attributable (but previously unpublished) information. It seems really weird if we can't cite them. Is there any way within our current rules to accommodate this? And if not, should we consider a way to change that? Maybe some wikipedia equivalent of an affidavit? -- Jmabel | Talk 23:04, Oct 26, 2004 (UTC)

Hi I'm only 13!

Hi I'm Lyndsey Perry and I'm only 13!

Hello, Lyndsey. It is somewhat unusual for a 13 year old to be so enthusiastic about their age. Can we help you? func(talk) 01:09, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

¡Hello, oh Lyndsey Perry!

¿How fare you?

I understand your enthusiasm; but unfortunately however, it is not wise to reveal so much about yourself on the Internet. Although 99% of all people on the Internet are good, that bad 1% does nothing else than look for people like you. You must be very careful.

I hate to sound preachy. I myself advocate for the rights of children as everyone here can attest to their chagrin -- most of the people here wish I would not be so vocal -- but this is very serious. I know that if I continue to preach, you will tune me out, so I shall stop here, with one least warning:

Never ever meet anyone from Cyberspace in Meatspace or give anyone any information which one could possibly use for finding you.

Regards, Ŭalabio 02:04, 2004 Oct 26 (UTC)

On the other hand, you might want to know that there are at least two other comparably young and very active Wikipedians, User:Revolutionary and Ilyanep. -- Jmabel | Talk 23:13, Oct 26, 2004 (UTC)

Many more, actually. See m:Wikipedians by age. [[User:Neutrality|Neutrality (hopefully!)]] 03:33, Oct 27, 2004 (UTC)

Question: Using images from other Wiki sources

Apologies if I've missed the answer to this in one of the help files. But is there some simple way to use images from Wiki articles in other languages in EN: wiki pages? Or does one have to download the image and reupload it?

--Sf 11:06, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

You have to download and upload again. There are, however, scripts that automate this process. Check out pywikipediabot. — David Remahl 13:03, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Hopefully soon the Wikipedia Commons will be fully integrated - that is supposed to be the central point for non-language-dependend free graphics, and images from there will then be accessible in all wikipedias without the need to upload then individually. andy 16:04, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Numerical prefixes

Look at the articles for 3 (number), tri-, Greek numerical prefixes, and Latin numerical prefixes. According to them, tri- is the Greek numerical prefix and tre- is the Latin numerical prefix. However, I don't think there are many tre- words, and I think tri- words can in fact be either Greek or Latin. Any comments in improving these articles?? 66.32.243.1 21:41, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Gmail invites

Gmail invites, have no use for them. please put <s></s> around them if you register them.

-- Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 23:02, 2004 Oct 26 (UTC)

Great bit of vandalism

On The Weavers page, I found the following sentence "The group had a big hit in 1949 with Leadbelly's Goodnight Irene, backed with the Jewish traditional folk song Tzena, Tzena, Ike and Tina Turner."

While my initial thought was that it was extremely doubtful that a Jewish traditional folk song would reference the 1960s soul duo, I thought I should perform a quick internet search first before deleting (as my mind began to throw up the theory that Annie Mae Bullock changed her name to Tina as part of some private joke). Of course, beyond the mild amusement of seeing all the Wikipedia mirrors also claim that Ike and Tina Turner are revered in Hebrew verse, there were only references to "Tzena, Tzena". But bravo to User: Viajero (if I've checked the page history properly) for his foresight on 8 June 2004 to give me the opportunity to recommend something to BJAODN. --Roisterer 04:26, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)