Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)

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The miscellaneous section of the village pump is used to post messages that do not fit into any other category. Please post on the policy, technical, or proposals pages, or - for assistance - at the help desk, rather than here, if at all appropriate. For general knowledge questions, please use the reference desk.

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Original Research in "White Argentinian"

Moved to Wikipedia:No_original_research/Noticeboard#Original_Research_in_.22White_Argentinian.22 —Preceding undated comment added 00:56, 9 November 2010 (UTC).

I think Wikipedia should urge Wikileaks to change its name

since Wikileaks is no longer a wiki, it is misleading to advertise itself as such. Serendi^podous 14:26, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Since Wikipedia is neither the only wiki, nor does it hold any control over the term, and since I very much doubt Wikileaks cares a whit about what Wikipedia says, I see no point to this. --Golbez (talk) 14:29, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

The WMF already made WikiLeaks change their name once; it's initial incarnation was "The Wikipedia of Secrets". Wiki is a general term that can't be copyrighted, so the only terms under the WMF's control are "Wikipedia" and "Wikimedia" (and of course Wikia, which is its own separate entity, is copyrighted). When Julian Assange first founded The Wikipedia of Secrets, the WMF forced him to change the name, because that was infringement; WikiLeaks, however, is not. And before this gets asked, someone at the WMF defensively registered the WikiLeaks domain, and the domain transfer hasn't been completed, hence it may appear that WikiLeaks is owned by the WMF. But if people can't be arsed to do their goddamn reading, and confuse the two, it's their fault, not WikiLeaks or the WMF. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 06:14, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Wikileaks really is a poor name considering they've long since abandoned the wiki model; they are not editable and carefully weigh the consequences before releasing any information (just about the only thing they have in common with wikis is accepting contributions from anonymous sources without verification of their identity). However, the name is so widely recognized now due to press coverage that it's become a powerful brand; changing it would be counter to their interests. Dcoetzee 12:57, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

They do, however, use the MediaWiki software. While Wikipedia may have created the "wiki-" prefix, it doesn't have any say in how it is used outside of the project. 174.20.220.94 (talk) 02:27, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia did NOT create the term or prefix Wiki. It may be the most famous website to use it now, but the term existed for some time before Wikipedia. According to the article Wiki the term was first used on a Wiki-style website as early as 1994. Neither Wikipedia nor the Wikimedia Foundation has any right or claim to being the first or only site to use the term. --Jayron32 04:59, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't think it is right to request that Wikipedia 'urges' Wikileaks to change its name here. This sort of thing should be done by the WMF, IMO. Kayau Voting IS evil HI AGAIN 11:47, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

I must be the only person on Earth to have thought Assange had taken the "Wiki" part of his name not from Wikipedia, but from Ward Cunningham's inspiration for the name "Wiki" -- the Wikiwiki bus at the Honolulu airport. Thus "WikiLeaks" was supposed to imply "Speedy Leaks". Oh well. -- llywrch (talk) 07:21, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure it came from "Wiki[pedia]"+"leaks". Apparently "when Wikileaks first launched, they put out a press release calling themselves something like "the Wikipedia of secrets"" (quote from Jimbo Wales, WP:NOTLEAKS), so I think that means that "Wiki" probably refers to Wikipedia. --Yair rand (talk) 16:11, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Fledgling Jason Steed

"Why does Wikipedia carry articles on seemingly non-notable books such as Whispering to Witches, yet repeatedly deletes an article on Fledging Jason Steed - a book which has been named as a favourite by stars such as Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift on the Ellen show, and by Malia Obama on the Teen Zone show?[1] Steed seems to meet at least the minimum Wikipedia book notability guidlines, including reviews by Wikipedia-approved "reliable sources" such as Kirkus,[2] and being stocked at more than 70 libraries across America,[3]. Yet, however, it is repeatedly deleted by Wikipedia within minutes of articles being created. --80.176.190.43"

This comment was placed at the Wikipedia help desk a couple of days ago. I was very interested to see what replies might be given, but very little so far. Does anyone else have any comments?--BullLane (talk) 15:54, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm sure that if the article on Whispering to Witches was sent to AfD, it would have the same fate as the article on the book the IP is complaining about. It simply a matter of no one noticing and nominating it yet. —Farix (t | c) 17:55, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

The status of Whispering to Witches is really irrelevant to whether Fledgling Jason Steed is retained or not. The latter article apparently failed to establish notability per WP standards. See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Fledgling Jason Steed (2nd nomination). Sounds like if suitable sources are provided, it may re-created.—RJH (talk) 17:57, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

2,000 + files without a license

Hi! If anyone wants to help checking files that does not seem to have a valid license there is this list of more than 2,000 files User:MGA73/No license.

There could be a valid license hidden in file history (removed by vandalism) or the template could be substed. If so just add the right license. If there is no license please tag file and inform uploader. If there IS a valid license on the file please give me a notice so the script can be fixed. --MGA73 (talk) 19:13, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

You can also just add the correct license if you know which one it should be. This should only be done if you are sure of which license it should be listed under. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 23:56, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Not true, as you can't license something unless you own it. However, you could mark it as containing no copyrightable material if such were the case. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 20:08, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

However if something is clearly in the public domain, such as marking something as {{PD-old}} or as you say not containing anything which can be copyrighted.... that would clearly fit. I think the above comment is more about if you can dig through the comments when the file was uploaded or find something from the original "uploader" who says "I want this under the GFDL" or "adding Creative Commons License", would that count as proper licensing of the image? Also, if you can find the source of the image and there is licensing information there, clearly you can mark the license based upon the licensing information from the original source. Just because the license template isn't properly formatted shouldn't be an automatic rationale to presume that licensing for use on Wikipedia was not intended... although I'll be the first to admit that somebody being sloppy with licensing generally is uploading stuff that should have the copyright licensing questioned. --Robert Horning (talk) 15:12, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes there are cases where you can see from the text what uploader wanted. Sometimes they subst the license template and in that case you can just add the right license. I suggest we just fix all the easy ones and save the hard ones untill later. --MGA73 (talk) 15:32, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

I was disagreeing with Nihonjoe, not MGA73. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 22:50, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, like I said (and others here agree): if you know what the license should be, you should put the proper license on the file rather than tagging it for deletion. If you can't determine it, then you should ask the uploader which license it should be and have them put the correct one on it. Otherwise, feel free to tag it for deletion. Remember, this is a cooperative project, so if you can fix something correctly, then do so. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 16:47, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

About {{Recent changes article requests}} (again!)

Now again there're some blue links on the template (not redirects): Post-Kantian philosophy, Hirter, Constitutive ablation, Mean-shift algorithm, King Lincoln Bronzeville v. Blackwell, Maladi Olaad, 500-channel universe, Xenodiagnosis. Please replace them with Agriculture in Ukraine, Agriculture in Hungary, Agriculture in Switzerland, Agriculture in Finland, Agriculture in Norway, Agriculture in Denmark, Agriculture in the Netherlands, Agriculture in Italy.--RekishiEJ (talk) 10:16, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

And OlEnglish, please restore the blue links you removed which you do not make any substitutions and replace them with red links on disambiguation pages, lists, navigational templates and subpages of WP:RA and WP:MEA, as there are still many notable topics which do not have independent articles here, such as experimental sociology and experimental animation.--RekishiEJ (talk) 10:30, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

If you do not know which red links can be used to replace the blue links you removed before, you may use red links on Wikipedia:Requested articles/Applied arts and sciences/Computer science, computing, and Internet, especially the software section, as there are many notable software which do not have independent articles in English Wikipedia, such as Advanced BKF Repair, Advanced Exchange Recovery, Advanced Outlook Express Repair, Copywhiz, Driver Genius Professional Edition, MainType, PE Explorer and SpAsm.--RekishiEJ (talk) 07:55, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

FFS. The {{Recent changes article requests}} temlate has been updated for the past many years without need for this ridiculously prescriptive advice on the village pump. Red links turn blue, and are replaced by more red links. The process does not need your input in this forum, RekishiEJ. Indeed, from the looks of it, the selection of links is based on a script acting on the corpus of links at {{Recent changes article requests/full}}. If you want to do something useful, you could monitor that list and delete blue links from it; and refill it with redlinks from the sources indicated in {{Recent changes article requests}}--Tagishsimon (talk) 15:18, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

But to alter the links inside the template I must be an administrator or bureaucrat, but I'm now just an autoconfirmed user (I just want to be a Wikipedian, not an administrator!).--RekishiEJ (talk) 10:24, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

{{Recent changes article requests/list}} - which as I understand it is the place to change the list of article titles from which selections are made by the template - is not protected and you (or an IP) can edit it. I would ask you, in view of your contributions here to date, to make very sure that you know what you're doing before you do it, since you're not showing a very great deal of understanding of the the process right now. --Tagishsimon (talk) 11:30, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

I truly wanted to edit the template, but a message box showed up saying :

This page is currently protected from editing because it is transcluded in the following page, which is protected with the "cascading" option:

Template:Recent changes article requests

--RekishiEJ (talk) 18:49, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Okay; apologies. Seems it's me who hasn't a clue. You're right; it's locked. Which is a pest. So my best suggestion is to find something else to do. It may be worth suggesting on the template talk that the protection level for the /list page seems a bit high, and might be better as "Pending-changes level 2 with Semi-protection", and not cascaded from the template's "Full protection". It does not seem right that someone who has been here since 2006 should not be able to edit it. See also Template_talk:Recent_changes_article_requests#Protection_change_request. --Tagishsimon (talk) 22:41, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

biography of a living person

Please see "the knot in my handkerchief" under User:Crowsnest/Work list. A living person's name is referenced. Shouldn't that name be protected from defamation of character in a manner similar to the warning banner placed on the discussion page of all biographies? Does anyone really believe that the evidence used in a "sock" case at WP even starts to approach the evidence rules in a court of law? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.82.64.32 (talk) 04:05, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

I can't see any "living person's name" being referenced, but in any case, in answer to your question, no, a 'sock' case may very well not "approach the evidence rules in a court of law". It doesn't have to. (or if it does, this is the wrong place to ask, we can't give legal advice). AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:19, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Please make your allegation more explicit. —Tamfang (talk) 06:41, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Agreed; I fail to see any serious issues with this subpage. Kansan (talk) 20:50, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

You could also try, you now, talking to the person whose subpage it is. I have now notified them of this discussion. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:51, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

I removed the discussed info regarding the sock case from my work page, since there exist objections. Which I would also have done if asked. It was a __NOINDEX__ page anyhow. -- Crowsnest (talk) 21:06, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

You are clearly one of the most brilliant people on here which our biophysicist friend essentially shows in his reference to u at www.gewp.org . IDK what the namespace is for tags, but why add something like "not as famous as George Washington" as u seem to be expunging his name around WP? Why not add to the encyclopedia instead of starting another monkey trial in Kansas? Look at his litigation record. Why provoke him? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.82.64.18 (talk) 21:31, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

I do not take your legal threats seriously. -- Crowsnest (talk) 08:54, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

No threat is intended. Let me restate: Why make this George Washington remark on a Biography of a Living Person? And, as both of you have ocean wave power interests, why not let someone else do this editing? GEWP is PD. So with out ur real name how can u clear urself of patent interests? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.82.64.16 (talk) 23:37, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Let it go. Or go and have your discussion somewhere else. This is no longer a matter for the village pump. --Tagishsimon (talk) 23:58, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

How do you insert text which is visible only in the edit mode?

I've seen it done, but I don't remember what the software codes are to designate something as a hidden remark. HowardMorland (talk) 14:43, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

See WP:COMMENT. You can also use an Editnotice. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 14:47, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Many thanks. That's what I was looking for. HowardMorland (talk) 14:53, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

<!-- insert hidden comment here--> is the simple answer for those of you watching at home. Beeblebrox (talk)

Looking for extra eyes

Could I get some extra eyes at Special education? We have a newbie who keeps removing a large section on the grounds that it's unsourced (despite containing ten foonotes to seven different sources).

If someone else wouldn't mind watching the article for a few days, I'd appreciate it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:43, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

I've added it to my watchlist and posted a warning about edit warring on the talk page. I may not be around much next week though, so more even more eyes would be good. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:43, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

I've added it to mine as well. oknazevad (talk) 04:08, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

We could particularly use a couple of people who are here over the weekend. She keeps trying to remove information, or to say that it's exclusively US-only concepts (which is wrong, although two of the terms are American terms, since the article is written in American English).

At least three different editors have reverted the mess over the last couple of days, but most of them are gone for the weekend, and the steady opposition doesn't seem to have any impact: She just puts it back to what she wants to believe. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:39, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Need help welcoming newbies

Our List of common misconceptions has been mentioned on XKCD,[4] a high-traffic web site. The number of edits to this article have increased by many orders of magnitude. If you have the time (and patience!) to welcome the newbies and explain our policies and guidelines to them, your assistance is appreciated. Thanks. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 00:49, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Mormon apologetic site is tracking editors

Ran across this on the Internet the other day - a prominent Mormon apologetic site (run by the Foundation for Apologetic Information & Research) is tracking editors that are active on Mormon articles - with what appears to my (admittedly cynical) eye to be an attempt to discredit them, or the pages they work on. Maybe this it totally legal, and maybe this has happened before, but I am quite offended by it since some of the editors mentioned are people I have worked with a great deal on Mormon related articles. It feels like an attack. Here are a few links:

• http://en.fairmormon.org/Mormonism_and_Wikipedia
• http://en.fairmormon.org/Mormonism_and_Wikipedia/Editors

Thoughts? --Descartes1979 (talk) 22:37, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

It could become a problem if the site is being used to coordinate attacks within Wikipedia. Otherwise, unless they are "outing" otherwise anonymous editors, I'm not sure it's worth worrying about.—RJH (talk) 23:02, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

There's precious little we can do about it in any event. While I don't care for their list of users, the other page where they instruct users on how to edit actually contains some very sound advice. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:17, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

I tend to agree with you, though I think their list of editors gives a fairly fair view of how they edit. And yes, I realize that last sentence sounds sorta punny... ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 16:56, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Google books search

A search on +x +y returns hits not found by a search on +x. Any idea why?Racconish ^Tk 09:23, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

The search engine uses a logical OR between statements?—RJH (talk) 17:41, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Actually I meant +x +y on one side, +x +y +z on the other. I find it weird that adding a "z" search term returns hits including "x" and "y" not found by the +x +y search.Racconish ^Tk 17:55, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Okay, according to Help:Searching it uses a logical AND rather than an OR. So yes, that seems a bit odd.—RJH (talk) 21:39, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Could it be that there are just too many hits under the looser search so it ignores some? Peter jackson (talk) 10:55, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Possibly. I could speculate that the search engine weighting function works differently when there is a single term than when there are multiple terms, and maybe it has a weight cut-off. But I don't really know. The help page recommends posting technical questions to Wikipedia talk:Searching, so you might try that.—RJH (talk) 17:52, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Looking for a project? This is sorta fun

If you go into google maps, activate the "wikipedia" overlay, and then hover your mouse over wikipedia articles that appear in bodies of water, you will see that there are quite a few articles that are obviously misplaced simply because they refer to land features (e.g. I found a village in Turkey, a mountain in Slovakia, and a FEATURE OF A JOVIAN MOON in the Pacific ocean).

I find that it's kind of fun to go hunting for these and fixing the coordinates. Just make sure that you indicate on the article talk page that you've done so, because Google takes a little while to re-index these things, and we don't want the same article to be "fixed" more than once. AGradman / how the subject page

at 06:09, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

I think this could be done partially automatically: If almost all coordinates of pages in Category:Geography of Slovakia are clustered in quite a small space and few of them are far away, those could be reported, so that someone could have a look at them. Svick (talk) 16:48, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Request for comment

I have proposed the renaming of a category, and wanted to know if you would consider commenting on the proposed renaming over at that link. ---My Core Competency is Competency (talk) 04:43, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Reactions section

I have seen it before when there's some earthquake. Now it's with the Congresswoman's shooting in Arizona.

Some people want a reactions section. Typically, Obama is mentioned. If it's an earthquake, the Pope will be mentioned.

There are 3 major scenarios, possible more. Please discuss.

1. There should not be a reactions section. After all, all major politicians will comment. All will express sadness or shock. Nobody will say the tragedy is good.

2. There should be a reactions section.

2a. Reliable sources should decide whose reaction is notable. It is original research for Wikipedia people pick and choose who they want. If CNN reports some reactions, they are deemed notable reactions.

2b. Wikipedia editors should decide who they want listed. Ignore all rules and let me pick and choose. Then majority votes for who's reaction stays.

I tend to lean to 2a. However, I can understand 1. Hakkapeliitta (talk) 00:32, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Please stop forum shopping. Nakon 00:34, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Please stop hounding me. This is not forum shopping. This is to decide the issue from a Wikipedia standpoint. It can help with future events, like the 2012 giant earthquake, the 202x killing of a famous person, the 2012 typhoon, Hakkapeliitta (talk) 00:38, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

This is the incorrect venue to discuss the content of the article. You need to discuss it on the talk page of the article. --Diannaa ^(Talk) 00:42, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

This is the CORRECT place for discussion. It is most applicable to articles that do not yet exist but we know will exist. I will be a fool if I create an article called "2012 huge earthquake" and start a discussion on the reactions section. Hakkapeliitta (talk) 00:50, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

H has a point. What is the proper place to propose a policy for a potentially large but necessarily ill-defined class of articles (and future articles)? —Tamfang (talk) 01:47, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

It's hard to generalise these situations, and the relevant policies are already established elsewhere. Do we include some reactions? Sure, some are notable. Do we include every reaction? No, it would normally be undue weight in an often short and developing article. We intelligently use the external sources to assess the importance of a reaction, and include the most important in the article. What else is there to say? Trebor (talk) 02:21, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Hakkapeliitta, some of the relevant concepts are explained at WP:Reception. It doesn't deal very specifically with your issue, but the principles are there.

Tamfang, the place to propose a change to an existing policy (any single advice page) is on that policy's talk page. Alternatively, you can discuss it at WP:Village pump (policy) (especially appropriate if you don't know what policy/other advice page applies). WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:50, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

It would be very easy to write something like "politicians usually express sorrow after major disasters. The listing of them shouldn't be in WP except if they are especially noteworthy". I am sure the Pope will regret that the big 2012 earthquake in some country occurred. Hakkapeliitta (talk) 01:52, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

WP:UNDUE and talk page discussion should be more than enough to handle this. --Jayron32 03:26, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Talkback template

I posted a suggestion at Template talk:Talkback for adding an automated signature to that template. The template is fairly widely used but I suspect most users don't have the template itself on their watchlist. Is this Village Pump page a good place to solicit additional input in a case like this? If not, what's an alternative? I considered simply putting in an editprotected request and seeing what the responding admin did, but that seems like passing the buck, and an RfC seems a bit excessive. What's good protocol for something like this? Mike Christie (talk – library) 04:54, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Hopefully this post will be sufficient to draw more attention to it, a lot of people watch this page. Beeblebrox (talk) 07:16, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

DATERET policy issue

I moved the discussion to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#DATERET conflict.—RJH (talk) 18:36, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

No... (no, no, yes, no)

No, I don't want to join in celebrating Wikipedia's anniversary, and if I did, I still wouldn't want to store a cookie for the privilege of not being asked to again for eternity.

No, I don't want to apply for a scholarship for Wikimania 2011 (whatever that is), and if I did, I still wouldn't want to store a cookie for the privilege of not being asked to again for eternity.

No, I don't want to meet Wikipedia's sister projects, I don't care if there's more, because I already knew there were more, though I didn't personify it as female siblings, and if I did, I still wouldn't want to store a cookie for the privilege of not being asked to again for eternity.

Yes, if I thought storing the hidesnmessage cookie would only disable nonsense ads that I don't care about and not disable notices I do care about having to do with things actually important to the project like those having to do with policy or voting, etc., I would store it, but...

No, I don't think people should have to look at these nonsense ads regardless.

¦ Reisio (talk) 22:20, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

hear, hear!--92.251.255.11 (talk) 22:24, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

I happen to think all of these deserve a sitenotice. Wait 3.5 more days, and they'll be gone. --Yair rand (talk) 22:28, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

(Actually, the WM2011 scholarships notice will probably stay up until applications close on January 31, and steward election candidate submissions open on the same day as WP10, so there will probably be a new sitenotice about that...) --Yair rand (talk) 22:37, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Mmm. ¦ Reisio (talk) 22:39, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Okay, well, they can be annoying, but do you have a better way to get these kinds of things done? --Yair rand (talk) 22:49, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

The text ones bother me significantly less, and as I said, I would happily store that cookie forever if I didn't think I'd miss policy discussion notices & bureaucrat voting, etc. (separate out social event stuff and policy stuff into two cookies?). It's also more annoying because first the page loads and then the JS pops the notice in and moves everything down, much like the old edit page JS toolbar did (but not the new/vector one), which was the same kind of annoying. ¦ Reisio (talk) 23:15, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Unidentified cathedral

Hello. Does anyone know this church/cathedral ? (long debate on fr:wiki; apparently not Rouen). Jack ma (talk) 13:13, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

 Done We've found it: Ely Cathedral, seen from the market place. Jack ma (talk) 15:30, 12 January 2011 (UTC)