Jump to content

Wikipedia:Village pump (news): Difference between revisions

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Browse history interactively
← Previous editNext edit →
Content deleted Content added
VisualWikitext
Tobias Conradi (talk | contribs)
37,615 edits
m →Flag templates: iso alpha3, maps, commons, copyright
Vev (talk | contribs)
76 edits
Line 296: Line 296:


:::good idea with the general template. I would favor using ISO-Alpha3 because Alpha2 can change to quick and with Alpha3 we have more room for own inventions as there are more "reserved for own use codes". This codes should possibly used for maps as well. Full name is just to long and we could not use it on commons because people from non-english WPs, e.g. german people, will not use "Germany" but prefer "Deutschland". codes avoid language issues. I know 99% of the alpha2 codes if you wake me up from my deepest dreams, but I do not know nearly 2% of the alpha3 codes. We all will get used to it :-) One downside of alpha3, copyright? [[User:Tobias Conradi|Tobias]] [[User_talk:Tobias Conradi|Conradi]] 12:44, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)
:::good idea with the general template. I would favor using ISO-Alpha3 because Alpha2 can change to quick and with Alpha3 we have more room for own inventions as there are more "reserved for own use codes". This codes should possibly used for maps as well. Full name is just to long and we could not use it on commons because people from non-english WPs, e.g. german people, will not use "Germany" but prefer "Deutschland". codes avoid language issues. I know 99% of the alpha2 codes if you wake me up from my deepest dreams, but I do not know nearly 2% of the alpha3 codes. We all will get used to it :-) One downside of alpha3, copyright? [[User:Tobias Conradi|Tobias]] [[User_talk:Tobias Conradi|Conradi]] 12:44, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

== [[Wikipedia:Savoir-faire]] ==

[[Wikipedia:Savoir-faire]] is looking for help in differents domains. thanks to help us to find people that can help us. --[[User:Vev|Vev]] 15:14, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Revision as of 15:14, 2 April 2005

The news section of the village pump is used to make announcements of new templates, wikiprojects, and details of any other news that does not fit into Wikipedia:Announcements or Wikipedia:Goings-on.

Please sign and date your post (by typing ~~~~ or clicking the signature icon in the edit toolbar).

Start a new discussion in the news section

 Policy Technical Proposals Idea lab WMF Miscellaneous 
« Archives, no archives yet (create)

News archive

Discussions older than 7 days (date of last made comment) are moved here. These dicussions will be kept archived for 7 more days. During this period the discussion can be moved to a relevant talk page if appropriate. After 7 days the discussion will be permanently removed.

Summary of some older announcements

Riposte to Robert McHenry’s anti-Wikipedia piece

Aaron Krowne has put together a compelling essay refuting and arguably demolishing the FUDesque criticisms made of Wikipedia by Robert McHenry, formerly editor in chief of Encyclopedia Brittanica. Well worth a read. --Tagishsimon (talk)

It may be a compelling essay, but it doesn't seem to be a functioning link. -- Jmabel | Talk 03:02, Feb 27, 2005 (UTC)
The link is correct, and worked earlier. They're slashdotted, I guess. -- John Fader 03:08, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Wynn Quon has written a fiery McHenry critquein the National Post (Feb 26, 2005) with a different twist: Look out Britannica. "Let's do the math...2,000 hard-core Wikipedians could paraphrase Britannica's entire content in 80 days". Also "Comparing Wikipedia to Britannica is like comparing a forest to a rock garden". It talks about the key insight McHenry has missed "a sea change in their core market, the way people research and learn in the Internet Age is vastly different from what it was only a decade ago". --Anonymous, 27 Feb, 2005

I've seen several changes to the way that EnBrit appears online. They appeared to switch to displaying only a partial article, and then to hiding it completely except for subscribers. But I can see their point about Wikipedia being a somewhat suspect source (even though it contains plenty of very interesting content IMO). It'll be interesting to see what they do to survive. Perhaps they'll employ a lot more copyrighted multimedia? — RJH 18:35, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Spanish Translation of the Week

The new Spanish Translation of the Week is Hispania. Please help translate if you can. Also, you do not need to speak Spanish to help; you can help copyediting and proofreading. — J3ff 02:11, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Project digests

Sometimes its quite hard to follow changes to Wikipedia. Of course, powerful tools like watchlists, the article history, "Related changes" and so on make it trivial to watch Wikipedia develop incrementally — it would be hard to get more information about how Wikipedia develops! However, it's often very difficult to get an overview of how a topic area is developing using these tools. For this reason, I've put together a summary of the major changes in cryptography articles during this last month of February:

Wired on Wikipedia

This month's Wired has four pages on Wikipedia [3] --Tagishsimon (talk)

Jimbo hits the big time - college radio

As he asked, I'm posting this:

Jimbo will be doing an hour-long interview in about 2 hours from now (16:00 GMT, I think). It should be available live from the radio channel's site, if we don't make it melt.

James F. (talk) 13:59, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

What's this dropdown list?

anyone speak Hebrew? i found there is a dropdown list above the "summary" textbox in Hebrew wiki, what's that? --User:Yacht (talk) 05:12, Mar 5, 2005 (UTC)

What's this?
I don't speak hebrew, but it appears to be a hack for inserting some predefined text elements. It piggybacks on the code for the edit toolbar. --Brion 06:39, Mar 5, 2005 (UTC)
It adds common templates:Category, remark, external links, see also etc

The right text says: "Builders" (as in objects that build - I suppose theproper translation is "Templates") and "Summary" below. in the dropdown it says "Choose from the list to add" and the items are "Category", "Non-visible comment", "Deletion", "Small letters" (as in non-final forms), "External links", "See also", ??, "Redirect", "Definition/Explanation". r3m0t 08:38, Mar 5, 2005 (UTC)

does that mean not all the wikipedias are running in the same version, but each can be with its own characters? --User:Yacht (talk) 10:25, Mar 5, 2005 (UTC)
They are all running the same version, but I imagine the he community requested this feature there. Odd. r3m0t 21:40, Mar 5, 2005 (UTC)
This feature is built in MediaWiki:Summary and was added by User:MeirM. you can watch the code here.

de copied by Spiegel

Spiegel, a major German news outlet, was found to have copied large sections of a de. Wikipedia article on the Rwandan Genocide without attribution. Story here. - BanyanTree 06:03, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

"Major" is putting it mildly. Der Spiegel has a stature in Germany solidly exceeding that of Time magazine in the U.S. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:59, Mar 10, 2005 (UTC)
at least they're not trying to hush it, but come up front and apologize to the German Wikipedians [4]. dab (ᛏ) 07:45, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Indeed. To err is human. To 'fess up is ... something else that is a good thing. --Tagishsimon (talk)

Star Wars Wiki

Thanks to Angela for setting up a Star Wars Wiki at WikiCities - http://starwars.wikicities.com. She has also arranged for interwiki links - [[Wikicities:c:StarWars:Article]]. This is intended to be a coordinated effort among Wikipedians to provide more detailed Star Wars content. While Wikipedia is for more general, encyclopedic knowledge, the Star Wars Wiki is for the Star Wars fan who wants to learn/provide more detail about the Star Wars universe.

This is just getting started, so it will take work to migrate articles over. Please feel free to help move articles that are appropriate.

Thanks! Cbarbry 06:24, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The articles listed in Category:Star Wars Wiki candidates are not yours to "migrate" anywhere, nor are they Angela's or anyone elses. Y'all are welcome to do whatever you like on other wikis, but deleting content on wikipedia and remaking it elsewhere violates the GFDL rights of their many contributors at wikipedia. -- John Fader (talk · contribs) 00:31, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Only if the attribution terms of the GFDL are not followed. If they are, we can move as many things there and delete them here as are collectively agreed to. -- Cyrius|✎ 00:53, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Has there been some policy discussion regarding this that I've missed? -- John Fader (talk · contribs) 01:03, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Fancruft. All information on WikiCities is, in virtue of the rules of being hosted by WikiCities, licensed under the GFDL. If there are specialist fan wikis that are more suitable to certain collection of information that were compiled here initially, it is only reasonable and within our mission to put it there instead of here. This has the practical benefit of encouraging detailed expansion of specialist topics, only in the appropriate place. I myself don't really care about moisture farmers and I really don't think it's the sort of arcane topic we're supposed to be covering. Besides, it's all being fed out through the same pipe. No biggie. --Alterego 01:24, Mar 13, 2005 (UTC)
I don't have a problem with there being a separate wiki, with more liberal guidelines that wikipedia. I wouldn't mind at all if they were migrated to a wikibook or some other Wikimedia place (naturally with the attributions being transwikied too, as they are). But what seems to be in the offing here is moving a nontrivial section of the wikipedia wholesale to the servers of an entirely unrelated organisation, one over which the original submitters have no control. I'm not necessarily saying this shouldn't happen, but it looks like we've progressed pretty far along the lines of privatising a section of wikipedia without (at least as far as I can find, correct me if I'm wrong) a substantive discussion in an open forum on the subject. -- John Fader (talk · contribs) 01:38, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Ah, the Force is strong in this one! Gareth Hughes 01:48, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)
What Alterego said is exactly what's trying to be addressed here. The issue was brought up to the board, and this is what they came back with as an offer. WikiCities is a site that, although separate, was started by Jimmy Wales so it is a related site. And with the Interwiki links being setup, it gives the relationship and ease of use that other Wikimedia projects have. It is my opinion that SWW should be run by the same guidelines as Wikipedia, and not be "proprietary." We are working on a Transwiki process for migrating articles over, keeping history, talk, etc. intact. Once articles are migrated over, they can go through the normal process - whether that be VfD or reduced to take the fancruft out. Cbarbry 21:16, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I was merely stating that such transfers do not violate the terms of the GFDL. They may still be undesirable for other reasons. -- Cyrius|✎ 17:27, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)
If content is being offloaded to another site because it's too specialized, I think it that the more general Wikipedia article should point to it with a BIG sign. The current Star Wars article doesn't even mention wikicities. Alfio 20:13, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Actually it does. It's in the "See also" section listed as Star Wars Wiki. Cbarbry 21:16, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with having a separate Star Wars wiki but be very conservative in what you move (copy there and delete here) since there is no problem with Wikipedia having a great deal of articles in this subject area as well. Wikipedia is not paper. --mav 21:28, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I suppose this is truly the issue. What I had in mind was that if we could get a closely-related site (with Interwiki links, etc.) then both sides would be satisfied. Fans could put all the detail they want into the Wiki without cluttering up the general encyclopedia of Wikipedia. Cbarbry 05:41, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The existence of a Star Wars Wikicity is not in itself a reason to delete any articles from Wikipedia. Anything being removed should be done according to existing policy, and via the usual process of VfD. Wikicities is one of many alternative outlets for content not wanted on Wikipedia. It certainly isn't aiming to take content away from here that ought to remain here. Wikicities:User:Angela. 03:12, Mar 15, 2005 (UTC)

I concur. I think having that outlet for the fan articles will make it easier to keep the Wikipedia articles clear, concise, and uncluttered. Cbarbry 05:41, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I agree. Sometimes I think all the other wikiproject exist just as an outlet of people who want to expand wikipedia beyond an encyclopedia :). Thue | talk 10:27, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I don't see the point of discouraging Fancruft articles on WP. They do no harm. What I'm objecting to are the obscure references under "popular culture" that are strewn across lots of perfectly academic articles, but I don't think that this will reduce them. dab (ᛏ) 11:05, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Because I have been voting on VfD and merging various SWW related articles I feel I should probably make a comment here. I'm happy that a Star Wars Wiki has opened and that we can combine many of the stub Star Wars articles here together however b/c there is a lot of info on Star Wars we have to be careful that the articles don't get too big... I think there has to be some kind of policy created. I suggest that things mentioned in the movies get long articles where possible and things from the Expanded Universe get dealt with in omnibus articles like Minor Jedi characters in Star Wars? Though extra canon info from the Expanded Universe should obviously be used in the articles for movie info here. -- Lochaber 13:37, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Language Domain Requests

Please see New vote on language subdomains, and add your request. Caton 21:29, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Please note that you can discuss the rules here. Caton 20:51, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Not acknowledging wikipedia source

At [5] Global elite wikipedias are using an outdated version of Javier Solana without acknowledging it is from wikipedia, and in spite of the fact that they themselves in the past admonished a user for doing this very thing bacause they said it was illegal. Are they breaking the law? --SqueakBox 22:49, Mar 13, 2005 (UTC)

They have gone offline. I will see what happens when they get back up. --SqueakBox 04:04, Mar 14, 2005 (UTC)

Cumbey threats

These threats were received by email. User:Cumbey claims SqueakBox is hacking into the wiki database. She is going to demand the hard discs from Jimbo Wales so she can get me put down for a long time because of my alleged hacking. She accuses me of having a stash of janja (sic) she means ganja, in my possession, and that she is going to tell the Honduran police about it. She is going to write to Jimbo demanding he reinstate her version of this article. She is very unhappy with the new contributors. She thinks they work for me and I work for Solana.--SqueakBox 14:43, Mar 14, 2005 (UTC)

Have you requested mediation or arbitration? That would probaly be more help than just posting here. --Marnen Laibow-Koser (talk) 18:09, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)
This issue is more serious than that. The policy is that: "Threats or actions which expose other Wikipedia editors to political, religious or other persecution by government, their employer or any others ... may result in a block for an extended period of time which may be applied immediately by any sysop upon discovery. Sysops applying such sanctions should confidentially notify the members of the Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee and Jimbo Wales of what they have done and why." I strongly suggest that you mention this issue on the Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard. If you provide the appropriate evidence, I am confident that you will see a swift and decisive response. GeorgeStepanek\talk 04:25, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Wikifun - Round 5

20 new questions have been posted for Round 5. See: Wikipedia:Wikifun. Have fun, good luck. -- AllyUnion (talk) 11:12, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

WikiProject Photography

Calling all Wikipedian Photographers, Photo Editors and Digital Artists!!! Announcing the new Wikipedia:WikiProject Photography, where it can be a place for photographers, photo editors and digital artists to hang out, chat, share photos and the like. It is also my hope that other Wikipedians would find it useful as a place to request for photos for locations and such. -- AllyUnion (talk) 13:46, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Last chance to guess on Wikipedia:Million pool

As Wikipedia will apparently exceed 500 000 articles today (see Wikipedia:Half-million pool for the lucky winner), that also means that Wikipedia:Million pool will be sealed at midnight. Hurry up and place a guess! Edit: As I wrote this message, Wikipedia went from 499 982 articles to 500 025 articles! Congratulations Wiki! The pool will close at midnight UTC.) — David Remahl 20:56, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Civil War Navy Jacks

(Question moved to Wikipedia:Reference desk.)

Relaunch of UK COTW

I've recently taken over the running of the UK Collaboration of the Week and London was the first 'new' article on nomination (improvement comparison). During the last week, only three articles were nominated with 4 votes in total, so this is an invitation for more people to come and get involved in improving United Kingdom-related articles up to featured article status (UK citizenship not necessary!). Thanks! Talrias | talk 11:49, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Wikimania soliciting presenters, posters and workshops

Wikimania 2005 (The First International Wikimedia Conference) is looking for speakers and presenters, and for tutorial/workshop ideas. See m:Wikimania_Call_for_Papers for the full call for papers. Submit suggestions and abstracts to: cfp--at--wikimedia.org +sj + 20:02, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

autofellatio.jpg deletion poll

The infamous Image:Autofellatio.jpg is on IfD again. This time, I want the poll to be widely advertised to get a true reflection of the community's opinion. Please look at the image, see Image_talk:Autofellatio.jpg, Talk:Autofellatio and also WP:AN/I#Image_talk:Autofellatio.jpg, and cast your vote. dab (ᛏ) 09:08, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Ourmedia.org

So there's this new site called Ourmedia. It's an aspiring non-profit org that hosts as many multimedia files as you want to upload to it, forever, for free. [6] And it lists Wikimedia as one of its "sponsors and partners". I also note that Angela, a Wikimedia board member, is on Ourmedia's advisory board. So what's the story? Is there going to be an upcoming announcement? Is Wikimedia Commons going to be integrated in some way? Does this relate in any way to the Ooglegay ollaberationcay that we aren't supposed to talk about? – Quadell (talk) (sleuth) 02:40, Mar 24, 2005 (UTC)

As far as I understand things, no official connection between the Ourmedia and us exists, but see Commons:Commons:Collaboration with ourmedia. You aren't supposed to talk about the Google thing because there isn't anything to talk about yet. -- Cyrius|✎ 02:57, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Template:Spanish-name and Template:Chinese-name

These are one-line templates that can be added at the top of a biographical article of persons with Spanish or Chinese names, to clarify what their surname is. For instance to clarify that the basketball player Yao Ming is Mr. Yao, not Mr. Ming; or to clarify that president Vicente Fox Quesada is Mr. Fox, not Mr. Quesada.

{{chinese-name|Yao}} →

This person has a Chinese name. Note: family name is Yao
Note: Chinese name, surname is Yao

{{spanish-name|Fox}} →

This person has a Spanish name. Note: family name is Fox
Note: Spanish name, surname is Fox

This could be extended to other languages. There are a number of longstanding existing pages at Category:Names by culture that only need a one-line template similar to the above to link to them. Thus Template:Russian-name could be created to link to Russian name, Template:Japanese-name could be created to link to Japanese name, and so forth, if these are considered necessary (but in these cases there will probably not be any confusion over which is the surname).

-- Curps 05:16, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

As discussed at Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(Chinese)#Names_order, I am very strongly opposed to adding a note on every single Chinese or Spanish biographical article telling readers that the surname goes first. This will get very bothersome after the fifth article I come across and I think implementing something so self-referential and redundant is overkill. Readers should only be told things once. I don't think it's necessary to underestimate (ie insult) the intellegence of the reader. Can't we assume that most readers (NOT the general population) will know about Chinese name order or at least smell something when we keep referring to the person using his/her surname?

Please gain some consensus before implementing this on a mass scale. --Jiang 05:49, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Concur with Jiang. This is usually apparent even to those who do not already know this, simply from how the person is referred to in the article on second and subsequent mention. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:20, Mar 24, 2005 (UTC)

I am not implementing it on a mass scale. As discussed at Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(Chinese)#Names_order, I'm OK with the status quo. I actually proposed this as an alternative to Jiang's proposal to use all-caps to indicate surnames, as in the Esperanto Wikipedia:

  • YAO Ming
  • Vicente FOX Quesada
  • Jimbo WALES ?

Apparently this all-caps surname convention is used in certain other languages such as Esperanto, but certainly not in English.

This issue came up in a discussion of whether it was necessary to indicate surnames more clearly to readers unfamiliar with the surname-first usage of Chinese. Jiang seems to think it is necessary, and an all-caps surname is his proposed solution, although he seems to be saying the opposite in the comment above: "Can't we assume that most readers (NOT the general population) will know about Chinese name order or at least smell something when we keep referring to the person using his/her surname?"

Jiang argues that "all-caps surname" is an international standard, but this is a very unfamiliar usage to most English speakers and is not used by the overwhelming majority of English-language encyclopedias and reference works (Britannica, Encarta, etc. etc. etc.)

-- Curps 07:24, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I prefer the status quo over what you have proposed. The status quo is acceptable, but I believe using all caps will be an improvement. Of course, it isn't necessary, but I don't see how using caps only once per article - in the bolded name - will confuse people. i believe there aren't really costs of using caps. this seems to have been already done in some Hong Konger articles. if people don't get it, what else could they infer? --Jiang 07:35, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)
There would need to be consensus before implementing all-caps. It would also be inconsistent to use it only in Chinese, but not Spanish... actually, it would be inconsistent not to use it everywhere, and I think there would be very little support for such a drastic change. Use of all-caps surnames is simply too unfamiliar in English, just like the German convention of using * and † to indicate dates of birth and death is completely unknown in English.
If we did disturb the status quo, the advantage of using a template is that it allows a link to Chinese name or Spanish name, where everything is properly explained. All-caps doesn't allow that, it really provides no information at all... if a user doesn't already know Chinese naming and is not capable of inferring from repeated used of "Yao" within the article text that it's a surname, then merely seeing all caps "YAO" will not give any extra clue to such a user. They will think that it's a typo or a first name written in caps. -- Curps 10:19, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I think slapping this template over everything would be a bad idea. Readers should hopefully realise that if an article keeps referring to someone by an unexpected name then this is not a mistake but a result of different naming conventions. I think it does insult the intelligence of the reader to put such a message at the top of the page. I'll give you another example of where this sort of thing crops up. A couple of days ago I checked through as many Icelandic biographical articles as I could find to correct errors that had been introduced, namely people changing first name to patronym throughout the article. Example: Davíð Oddsson should properly be referred to as Davíð, because Oddsson is not his surname. Some people who are unaware of the naming conventions think this is overfamiliarity on Wikipedia's part, and change the article. What I did was to put a comment in the wikitext next to the category links to remind people that Icelanders have no surname and should not be sorted under e.g. Oddsson, Davíð. Why not do something like this? Put a comment in the article so that anyone who tries to change it will be set straight, and leave the reader to work it out for themselves. I don't like the idea of using a template. — Trilobite (Talk) 22:26, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Actually the above sounds like a very good argument for the use of Template:Icelandic name. -- Curps 07:43, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)
There are already templates for explaining the format of various German names—{{German title Freiherr}} for example—would it hurt to have a similar one for Iclandic names? --Phil | Talk 15:58, Mar 29, 2005 (UTC)

Just an idea: How about if we linked (only in the introduction of a page about a certain person) to a page Yao (姚 - family name) or so? This would automatically highlight the surname – but the primary purpose would be What Links Here on the family page. That page could also explain some general facts about the name or the family. In case of Chinese names it could also link to benevolent family organizations or such. — Sebastian 09:19, 2005 Mar 27 (UTC)

That would only be applicable to Chinese or Korean, where there is a small enough list of different surnames that we can list all of them. Other languages have a potentially infinite number of surnames, possibly borrowed from other cultures, such as "Fox" for Spanish. But for Chinese, if we really wanted to do it, it could be incorporated into {{Chinese name}}:
Note: Chinese name, surname is Yao
Probably, each of the surnames used in Chinese is encyclopedic.
Back to the original idea, though... are people really implacably opposed to a simple six-word notice at the top of biographical pages? It's really fairly unobtrusive, it could even be in <small> font if necessary, and it provides a link to an informative page about Chinese names (Spanish names, etc). -- Curps 19:59, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)
The Manual of Style suggests that we leave links out of the bolded titles so I dont think that will work. I am opposed to the six-word notice, but we could perhaps hide a link the [Chinese name] or the surname article somewhere in the parenthesis where we provide chinese characters. --Jiang 20:41, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I suspect that either a majority, or a very significant minority, of readers do not understand Arabic, Bangladeshi, Chinese, Icelandic, Pakistani, Roman, Russian and Spanish name usage, all of which differ from the English. I do not think it is normally appropriate to spend biographical article space explaining the particular naming system, unless it is of special significance to the article in question. Capitalisation of the family name is not (unfortunately: I wish it were) standard practice in English. Something that unobtrusively (a) tells me what the family name is and (b) gives me a link to the national naming convention would be very welcome as far as I am concerned. I don't think that a hidden link would do that. I could work out from the references in the article that something "unusual" (at least for a Brit!) was going on with a person's name, but it would read a little strangely if I wasn't used to the particular naming convention, and it wouldn't provide a link to the explanatory page on that convention (so I wouldn't be sure how to duplicate it if writing about another person of the same nationality). I like the idea of the template and believe that people would soon get used to them (even if they dislike them now), but I think it is better to make the text as small and unobtrusive as possible. I don't like the wording "Note: Chinese name, surname is Yao" - it sounds blunt and lecturing, and to a person who is very used to the convention I can understand that this would grind! I think it may be better to avoid the imperative "Note" with something like "Chinese naming: Yao is the surname" (are you sure it shouldn't be "family name"? Brevity is good, but I just wondered whether "surname" is appropriate in the Chinese context!) Anyhow, I just thought I'd give my broad but not unreserved support to Curps here. --VivaEmilyDavies 00:02, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Opinion

Just in the intend to shake new people up, please, participate to feedback here : m:Board agenda/Open questions.

Even if you are rather newbie... :-)

Anthere

Wikifun Round 6

Wikifun Round 6 has started! Good luck to everyone who wishes to participate! Gkhan 23:25, Mar 25, 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia Cited in News Article

Article on highlights in Bobby Fischer's life cited the Wikipedia as a source. Hopefully this trend will continue and people will start to accept the Wikipedia as an authoritative as any other.

You might like to add this to Wikipedia:Wikipedia as a press source 2005 (assuming it's not there already). -- John Fader (talk | contribs) 01:48, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

International writing contest

Submit nominations of great content written this month to the March international writing contest. +sj + 00:39, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Flag templates

Various people including User:Earl Andrew and User:Aris Katsaris and others have created several dozen flag templates, such as Template:POL, Template:ITA, and so forth, and have been gradually introducing them in pages like European Parliament and List of cities by latitude and 2002 Winter Olympics and many other places.

I see a few problem with this:

  • These can be a bit cryptic (for instance, Austria is Template:AUT, and Australia is Template:AUS). This conflicts with the basic wiki idea that "anyone can edit any page", because in order to edit some pages, people will need to be familiar with these three-letter codes.
  • There are occasional conflicts with existing templates, for instance Template:IND (for India) is already taken for another purpose.
  • It's not clear what standard should be followed... one possibility is ISO 3166-1, another possibility is List of IOC country codes (these have major differences). Again there are possibilities for confusion: the IOC code "CHI" is Chile, not China, the IOC code "SLO" is Slovenia not Slovakia, etc.

One suggestion would be to use fully-spelled out names like {{AUSTRALIA}}. Another suggestion from Earl Andrew would be to invent our own five-letter codes (but I think these would be non-standard, and "Austr" still isn't enough to distinguish Austria from Australia or Dominica from Dominican Republic.

Anyway, it might be good to get some wider input into this. What do you folks think? -- Curps 23:36, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

If you need a code for countries, why reinvent the wheel? Use the international standard 2- or 3- letter codes defined by ISO 3166. Gdr 21:37, 2005 Mar 29 (UTC)
Flag templates should not take over country code names. That would be like Template:Country_USA for a flag, when such a name should be for a template relevant to the country as an entity. Perhaps have "flag" someplace in the template name? Of course, such an aforementioned Country template probably should display the proper flag also… (SEWilco 06:15, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC))


There are some cases where non-sovereign or non-state entities engage in international activities (eg, Scotland has its own sports teams, Puerto Rico has its own Olympic team, Taiwan competes as "Chinese Taipei"). If we wanted to add flags to the Francophonie article, we'd need flag templates for Quebec and French Community of Belgium. So neither ISO 3166-1 and List of IOC country codes really fill all the needs... and we might very well want to have flag templates for US state flags or Canadian province flags, for an article on election results for instance.

So, ideally, some general solution should be invented, and without requiring memorization of hundreds of cryptic codes.

Right now dozens of flag templates have already been created a bit haphazardly, so the reason for posting here was to try to gather consensus and ideas. -- Curps 12:44, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Well, Please dont delete the template untill we get a vote here. I want to provide information in both articles regarding the man I dont want to copy paste material as if any change happens it should affect the other page instantly. --Cool Cat My Talk 12:55, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Definitely (oops, I misspelt IMHO) the template names need to contain the word "flag" in some form, eg, template:Flag of FRA. To identify the country/state/place/thing I'd vote for the iso alpha-3 or alpha-2, since some country names are long and have various forms, at least in common use. Since the creators have aleady used the alpha-3 I'd say stick with that. The occasional obscurity of the alpha codes I would not consider to be a meaningful barrier to their use. Sharkford 21:50, 2005 Apr 1 (UTC)
I'll expose my ignorance: Why not {{flag|FRA}}? Or {{country|FRA|flag}}? A Template:country would be for various forms of references to countries, perhaps for symbols, "more info" boxes, or variable text. (SEWilco 05:14, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC))
good idea with the general template. I would favor using ISO-Alpha3 because Alpha2 can change to quick and with Alpha3 we have more room for own inventions as there are more "reserved for own use codes". This codes should possibly used for maps as well. Full name is just to long and we could not use it on commons because people from non-english WPs, e.g. german people, will not use "Germany" but prefer "Deutschland". codes avoid language issues. I know 99% of the alpha2 codes if you wake me up from my deepest dreams, but I do not know nearly 2% of the alpha3 codes. We all will get used to it :-) One downside of alpha3, copyright? Tobias Conradi 12:44, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Savoir-faire

Wikipedia:Savoir-faire is looking for help in differents domains. thanks to help us to find people that can help us. --Vev 15:14, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Village_pump_(news)&oldid=11859661"