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[edit] Problem on Era conversion

This topic has been removed to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)

[edit] AntiAnnonymism

Could someone define how well are the Annonymous editors treated by old users? aghnon (talk) 17:31, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

We like to hit them with our canes and tell them to get off our lawn[1]! Or is that not what you mean by "old users"? - DavidWBrooks (talk) 19:32, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
I actually meant how do "experienced" users treat the Annonymous . aghnon (talk) 20:07, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
What exactly do you mean by Annonymous in this case?©Geni 10:29, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

If you mean 4chan Annonymous, we generally beat em off with a stick, unless they were good contributors 'before it was revealed that they are Annonymous

If you mean IP's we generally beat em off with a stick.Drew Smith What I've done 15:06, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I would like to know better the english Wiki-slang. aghnon (talk) 17:22, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

That's not very helpful Drew. Contributions are generally judged based on the contribution and not the contributor. Editors are welcome to contribute whether they register a user name or operate "anonymously" via an IP address. There should not be any discrimination against an editor because they choose not to register an account. Likewise, anyone who violates core policy, or otherwise disrupts Wikipedia will suffer various kinds of sanctions. OrangeDog (talk • edits) 19:00, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

So what is the actual situation? aghnon (talk) 17:46, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
What are you asking? Wikipedia core policy can be found here. OrangeDog (talk • edits) 23:51, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
Unfortunately the actual situation (I assume you are asking what actualy happens, and not what policy says) is pretty much what I described above. If an annonymous edior (I.E. and IP in wiki slang) even bends a rule slightly they will get a templated warning. If the IP pushes the point with an argument like "so and so does it" or "registered users get away with it" they are usually blocked fairly quickly. I.E. beating them off with a stick. If anyone sticks up for blocked IP's people automatically assume they are a sockpuppet of the IP, even if they have a substantive edit history to prove otherwise (its happened to me, so don't say it doesn't happen). Usually, policy is widely ignored when it comes to dealing with IP's, unless said policy is useful for aiding in the beating of an IP.Drew Smith What I've done 07:37, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
As I thought, thats what usually happens in hebrew. aghnon (talk) 12:56, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
Well this is a very disheartening summary. I for one never discriminate against IP editors. Telling people that this is how we do things isn't helping the situation Drew. OrangeDog (talk • edits) 22:55, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
I personally don't do it, but I have witnessed it many times. I'm just telling it like it is.Drew Smith What I've done 03:31, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm unclear on something Drew said, & would like a clarification. The phrase "beating them off with a stick" implies something quite different than "beating them with a stick until they go away." I won't belabor what Drew's phrase implies, except that (1) some of us might not find it as unpleasant as the rest of thinks it is; (2) I honestly have a problem visualizing just how this is done; although (3) I'm sure if I look hard enough, I'll find an illustration of this done over on commons. TIA, llywrch (talk) 21:59, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I am proud to say that your alternate interpretation of this phrase had never occurred to me until I saw this thread. Drew's phrasing is fairly common American slang; we usually omit the (crucial?) words "of me". Unfortunately, I'll no longer be able to use this phrase (even including the words "of me") without picturing things in my head that I don't want to picture. --Floquenbeam (talk) 22:11, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
O.o
Wow.Drew Smith What I've done 10:21, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] acceptable academic resources

Why do you think wikipedia is not considered acceptable academic resources for my assignment in school? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.225.63.10 (talk) 22:57, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia#A caution before citing Wikipedia. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:22, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
As a history teacher I can tell you why I don't allow my students to cite Wikipedia... from an academics view, there is a fundamental flaw to Wikipedia. It is "The Enclyclopedia that anyone can edit"... which means that anyone can edit, whether they know what they are talking about or not, whether they are pushing an agenda or not. This means that, at any given point that my students might be reading an article, the information in that article might not be trustworthy. However, you are incorrect in saying that Wikipedia is not considered an acceptable academic resource... I concider it an excellent resource for compiling a bibliography. It containes a plethora of reliable sources on a wide range of topics, so as a bibliographical resourse it is first rate. Blueboar (talk) 01:49, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
No encyclopedia should really be used as an academic reference; Wikipedia shouldn't really be alone in that respect. Encyclopedias are teriary sources and not necessarily written by someone qualified to do so (in an academic sense). However, most Wikipedia articles include a list of more appropriate primary and secondary sources towards the end (References, Bibliography, even the External Links section sometimes). - AdamBMorgan (talk) 11:35, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
As an add-on to AdamBMorgan's comment, good students (who might find this rule unreasonable) will use Wikipedia as only one of many sources for their research, & may be troubled by not being able to quote the occasional passage which expresses an idea well. (There are a few here, believe it or not.) Bad students tend to plagiarize wholesale, to the point they will copy an entire article verbatim, & not notice (or care) that in the middle of the text there might be a non sequitor such as "You sux fagg." -- llywrch (talk) 18:43, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

People often ask whether or not they should cite a Wikipedia article directly. My favorite answer is this: If it's a bad article, then you shouldn't. If it's a good article, then you won't have to. Simple as that. I also agree strongly with Blueboar's sentiments: as a resource, Wikipedia is unsurpassed. As a source, not so much. Even if you don't intend to compile/check/read an article's references/external links, the article itself is still a great way to get a broad overview of a topic. History of astronomy is a good example. Even though it doesn't have copious inline citations, it provides a solid overview of the subject. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 03:45, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Michelin-starred restaurants

Inherent notability? Or rather, can notability be safely assumed for any Michelin-starred restaurant? Two stars? Three stars? Assuming, of course, that the article is not overly promotional, etc. WP:Notability (restaurants) isn't exactly clear given the lack of an outcome. Cheers, - Jarry1250 (t, c, rfa) 13:21, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

  • I would presume notability for any restaurant with a star. The stars are awarded very sparingly and only to a handful of the very best restaurants; thus, I think a Michelin star is equivalent to the sorts of awards that establish notability in other fields. Any restaurant that gets a star will also undoubtedly be the subject of multiple articles or reviews in food/cooking magazines or by the food critics of other publications. As an aside, if you're interested in a wider array of views you may want to crosspost/move this thread to a page frequented by notability regulars. Cool3 (talk) 17:16, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
    • Any suggestions? - Jarry1250 (t, c, rfa) 17:24, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
      • I suppose you could check in at WP:WikiProject Food and drink. You could also ask at the Humanities reference desk, as some of the regulars there are probably au fait with such things. Not necessarily to ask "is this good enough for Wikipedia", but more along the lines of, "what does it take to be a Michelin-starred restaurant? What does it mean? Who decides? Just how common are the lower-ranking stars?" From good answers to those questions, you should easily be able to judge notability. Maedin\talk 18:23, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
        • Thanks for the suggestions Maedin. The question is more, I suppose, "If I created 50 stubs tomorrow for Michelin starred restaurants, would people try to delete them?". I'm thinking not at the moment, so I may well do that. - Jarry1250 (t, c, rfa) 18:37, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
          • I'd just check in at Wikipedia talk:Notability and maybe cross-post at Wikipedia talk:Notability (organizations and companies). I think if you are actually creating 50 stubs tomorrow, you shouldn't run into trouble, and I'd be willing to help you out with sourcing (so if this isn't just hypothetical leave me a message). Cool3 (talk) 18:40, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
            • (Out of sequence reply) That's an idea. I'm not sure whether I actually would though; I think I prefer the speckling that threads here receive rather than a full review with commentary. And it looks like it's a goer anyhow. - Jarry1250 (t, c, rfa) 18:50, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
            • Before you have a stub-creating spree, remember that it is better for Wikipedia to have 5 DYKs than 50 stubs. It pains me to see articles that could easily be expanded and on the main page left as stubs because of a rush to create. If you do make stubs, let me know at the time so I can check them out and see what can be expanded within 5 days. I would imagine that some restaurants with lots of reviews, change of owners, and brisk business could have enough material for 1,500 words. Thanks, :-) Maedin\talk 18:45, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
              • Sure. The point is that nothing existed on these restaurants before; 0 bytes. Anyhow, that's a debate to save for another day. (I've signed up for WikiCup 2010 btw, so don't worry about where my loyalties lie.) - Jarry1250 (t, c, rfa) 18:50, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
                • Ok, :-) Sorry if I was trying to teach you to suck eggs! Maedin\talk 18:53, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
  • (random outdent). Take a look at Category:Michelin Guide starred restaurants and chefs, it looks there are about 150 articles on Michelin starred restaurants already, and many (most?) 3-stars seem to have articles. All of the 3-star restaurants in New York, for example, are already the subject of an article. Cool3 (talk) 19:02, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies) encompassed businesses such as restaurants from its very first versions onwards. It even used restaurants as some of its examples, during its history. There is no blanket notability, nor should there be. Notability is not a blanket, and attempting to locate blankets by applying short-cuts, be they stars, number of employees, or other metrics, yields bad results. They get us business directories. Wikipedia is not the Yellow Pages. The primary notability criterion is the one to apply. Uncle G (talk) 11:32, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

  • The general notability guideline is not perfect either, in both ways. Some things the tabloids write about is still not notable, and some things are definitely notable even if we haven't been able to locate significant coverage in independent reliable sources. Restaurants with Michelin stars seems like a clear case to me. --Apoc2400 (talk) 00:43, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
    • You're erroneously conflating notability with your subjective judgement of fame and importance. Notability is not fame nor importance. Whatever your subjective judgement of how "notable" something is, if it isn't covered in depth in multiple independent published works by people with good reputations for fact checking and accuracy, it is not notable. Wikipedia isn't about what we, as editors, want to be part of the corpus of human knowledge. It is about what is part of the corpus of human knowledge, and is properly documented as such. This means accepting that some things that we subjectively regard as unimportant and not famous are notable, and that some things that we think to be hugely important or famous are not notable. Human knowledge is lumpy and uneven, and we don't get to level it out into a business directory when what we are writing is an encyclopaedia. The business directory is another wiki entirely, and it takes restaurant entries like this one Uncle G (talk) 15:24, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Jp./Kr. vs. Jap./Kor. in commons:File talk:Dokdo Map.png

I am comfusing about Jp./Kr. vs. Jap./Kor. in commons:File talk:Dokdo Map.png. I think that "Jap" is irravant in this map.but user Valentim said this are adjectives of the belonging languages.I simply ask that shortened of "Japanese: X" is "Jap:X".I am not native.I want to know native feelings.--Forestfarmer (talk) 10:52, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

"Jap" should be avoided as an abbreviation because it is often considered a racial slur. For these languages you will want to use the standard abbreviations "ja" and "ko" in lowercase letters. Also for maps I recommend using the SVG format, as it is much easier to update captions/labels/etc. when they are stored as actual text rather than as pixels. — CharlotteWebb 17:40, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
thanks your reply.I would do as your saying.--Forestfarmer (talk) 23:25, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] AlexFreeAssociationBot

Almost all of these links (based on the reasoning of one "AlexNewArtBot") make no sense. It wouldn't bother me so much if these links would go away after a while, rather than being archived forever. However it's not entirely the operator's fault as criteria for each assumption are freely editable. Right now the flagging done by this bot has an unbelievable false-positive rate, higher than that of the title blacklist even. Right now I'd like to know if anyone:

  • Uses the lists provided by this bot (or would be interested in using them if they weren't too polluted to be useful)
  • Has the time and energy to examine and clean up the "Rules" pages found in this list (possibly not complete, see also [2]).

One might start by removing words which are ambiguous or simply too common, adjusting the point values, etc. in order to leave a robust set of criteria more likely to produce meaningful data. Obviously this cannot be made perfect—the closest thing would be to ignore everything that's not a category or an infobox (however many articles are created without these)—but there is definitely a vast frontier for improvement. Regards and thank you in advance. — CharlotteWebb 17:27, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

To see that there are people using the results, just look at the howls of pain which resulted from the bot not running for about ten days in May.-gadfium 21:37, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] License change

Change in license is welcome - there's a couple of places that need the reference to GFDL changed - specifically http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Contact_us/Top_questions#Can_I_copy_articles_from_Wikipedia.3F and the template for the mobile-formatted pages ( en.m.wikipedia.org ....) --O'Prometheus (talk) 07:40, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Plumbers Wikipedia Project?

Is there a Plumbers Wikipedia Project? Perhaps it comes under something else? --DThomsen8 (talk) 13:11, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

There doesn't appear to be a WikiProject devoted to plumbing. Articles which would come under its remit (those in Category:Plumbing, and possibly Category:Plumbing valves) are not consistent in the projects they are tied to.
For example, "Radiator (Heating)" is tagged for WikiProject Home Living and WikiProject Energy, while "Shower" is just tagged for WikiProject Architecture. "Thermostatic Radiator Valve" is tagged for WikiProject Systems, while "Plumbing" is not tagged for any WikiProject; "Central Heating" is tagged for WikiProject Engineering, WikiProject Architecture, and WikiProject Technology. Proposing new projects is always an option, of course. –Whitehorse1 13:49, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
I found just what you found, several projects, none really on target. I do not want responsibility for a new project, though. --DThomsen8 (talk) 14:09, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
Or do you mean these "plumbers" :-) Jezhotwells (talk) 15:07, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
I wanted to add a Wikipedia project to GreenPlumbers but I don't know what is appropriate. It is clearly about plumbing as a trade, but also providing education on water conservation.--DThomsen8 (talk) 23:39, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
I have added {{environment|class=start|importance=low}} to this article. This is certainly not the only possibility, and does not relate to the tradesman/plumber aspect. --DThomsen8 (talk) 23:51, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Should Wikipedia Press coverage include references to a known enemy of Wikipedia?

Should the Cade Metz entry at Wikipedia:Press_coverage_2009#June be removed from that page and moved to Criticism of Wikipedia? Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 21:54, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't mind this coverage, either way. --DThomsen8 (talk) 23:41, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] What can I/What should I do?

There is some content on a disambiguation page that is non-neutral. Alex Jones is an alternative media journalist. His disambiguation title says "Alex Jones (radio host) (born 1974), radio host, conspiracy theorist, and filmmaker". The point of disagreement is with the conspiracy theorist. The term itself is a push of POV. I don't want to get into convincing you that he is not a conspiracy theorist, that's not the point. It's inflammatory language. I changed it to something more fair and agreeable, and if you look on my talk page, basically you see a user notifying me that it wasn't an acceptable edit because, "It would require an link and you can't have multiple links on a line". I then decide to change "conspiracy theorist" to "paleoconservative" (His article states this). Again, it was reverted by the same user saying "This is what he is known for". What can I do? If I simply keep changing it until he gives up... Well wait, that won't work, he'll probably get me banned for an edit war or some nonesense. How do I eliminate bias from a page without running into "You are not allowed to change this anymore or we will ban you". (that hasn't happened but I know it will).

I believe that the same user that is hawking over this page is also a conflict of interest. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Arthur_Rubin/Archive_2009#About_Alex_Jones_and_your_gradeschool_.27conspiracy_theory.27_charges

I should just say this now, I didn't know that I was running into the same issue raised by another editor 3 months ago.

We shouldn't let him/her just push his POV. JeremiahSamuels (talk) 12:39, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Although I really don't follow the other user's logic, I don't see conspiracy theorist as being an inherently inflammatory or derogatory phrase. As I interpret the phrase, it does not necessarily imply that he is involved in conspiracies or even that he believes certain conspiracies are true. It simply implies that he has theories on conspiracies or. Does he? If so, then keep it. If not, then delete it. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 01:00, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Swaenajayanti grama swarojagar yojana

The article Swaenajayanti grama swarojagar yojana has a name in a language of India. It needs to be wikified, and it has several cryptic abbreviations. I am not so sure that it is in any way notable, but it could be. Can someone else help? If not, maybe it should be marked for deletion. --DThomsen8 (talk) 21:31, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

It appears to be largely be a copy of text from nift-sgsy.com, with no significant content or earlier version that does not infringe copyright. I've tagged it as an apparent copyvio. –Whitehorse1 22:12, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
Thank you. I suppose I could have found this copyvio with Google. (I am still learning!) Can article titles be in foreign languages like this? --DThomsen8 (talk) 23:47, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
The relevant rule of thumb for article titles is at WP:COMMONNAMES. If the most common name for an article is in a foreign language, then there's no reason to translate it into English. See Die Naturwissenschaften (the natural sciences), Jawor (sycamore), or Jujutsu (way of softness) for examples. I'm not sure what Swaenajayanti grama swarojagar yojana means, so I can't really give you a definitive answer for that one. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 03:38, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Random page getting better?

Has anyone else noticed that when you click the random article button that you're much more likely to be sent to an interesting article than, say, a year ago? 'Cause I used to click the random page button a lot, but stopped because I always ended up on a sentence long stub about an obscure place or athlete. Now after not having done it for a while I find myself being sent to all sorts of interesting articles, some on major topics. Anyone else noticed this? Is it because Wiki has grown alot, or (more cynically) maybe the programmers changed the algorithm or something and it's no longer directing users to truly random pages any more? Abyssal (talk) 03:17, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

It never did direct you a truly random article; instead, it selected an article from a constantly changing pool. The pool could conceivably be in a better place at the moment or it's just luck. I doubt that all articles have been improved enough; in fact, the stub to FA ratio has only been increasing. - Jarry1250 [ humourous – discuss ] 09:47, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
Do you have any evidence for this claim, which contradicts WP:FAQ/Technical#Is the "random article" feature really random?? Algebraist 12:28, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:WikiProject Citizendium Porting

I just stumbled over this project and thought it might be worth discussing it on a broader basis. The project describes itself as a "group dedicated to importing content from Citizendium into the corresponding Wikipedia articles and periodically resynchronize when the Citizendium source articles are modified". I wonder

  • a) do we need that

and, more importantly

Citizendium is at [3]. A brief look shows that the articles are well laid out and well illustrated. I did not take the time to compare a Wikipedia article with a Citizendium article. Jakob.scholbach has raised an important question. Is this the best place to discuss what could be a major issue? --DThomsen8 (talk) 12:59, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
According to Citizendium#Content the licences are not compatible except when their article is based on ours and hence GFDL licensed. That will limit the extent to which we can use their content. I also can't see how we can tell which of their articles is GDFL and which is not. I am concerned that some of the synced content might not be ours to take. For example: List of drugs banned from the Olympics is taken from [4]. I can't see anything to say that this is GFDL.
Apart from that, I would hate to see our content being brought into lock-step with theirs but it makes sense to make some careful use their material if they come up with something that we lack and which we are allowed to use. As for syncing stuff back to them, that is an issue for them. I don't know how well their process will be able to cope with it. --DanielRigal (talk) 13:23, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

DanielRigal, I think you missed the recent license switch: we have switched our license from GFDL to cc-by-sa. As far as the legal issues are concerned, there is no problem. As for the point Jakob.scholbach raised, I'm not sure what exactly concerns him. As for (a), yes, the project is a good way to coordinate works if more than one person is engaging in the importation of contents. As for (b), why not? Since when improving Wikipedia becomes a problem? This may lead to digression, but a fair number of pages in Google's knol is licensed under cc-by-sa; e.g., Pacemakers. While we don't want to data-dump religious craps or advertorials to Wikipedia, I wouldn't be surprised if one finds materials in knol that we lack here. In particular, I remember a study that found Wikipedia often suffers from omission of some important facts regarding medicine and health. Even better, this seems precisely an area that knol is the strongest at. Let me ask this then: should we expand the project to include the data-dumping from knol as well? -- Taku (talk) 18:48, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

If importing the material amounts to an improvement of existing (or non-existing) WP articles, it's surely fine. My concern is, though, that importing and, particularly, synchronizing(!) WP articles with Citizendium articles may not be an improvement in all cases and dare to say will not be an improvement in many cases. For example, the project proposes to synchronize the CZ article on prime numbers with prime number. In this particular case, this amounts to actually removing material. I'm confident members of the porting project would not do that, but the mere idea makes me somewhat uneasy. Note also differences between CZ and WP (See also CZ:We aren't WP.). That page says "Citizendium is not a mirror of Wikipedia. Absolutely do not simply copy content from Wikipedia to Citizendium without working on it." I think the same holds true the other way round. Jakob.scholbach (talk) 19:57, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

No, no, no. You've got a completely wrong idea. (Of course, the language in the project page is to blame.) As I understand, the idea is to import materials from CZ that could improve corresponding Wikipedia articles. "Sync" is probably a poor choice of wording. It should be more like: when is the last time an editor checked a CZ article to see anything that could be imported here? This way, more than one editor has to compare CZ and Wikipedia articles. It's meant to save time. Obviously, we (members of the project and the other editors in Wikipedia) won't replace our prime number by its CZ counterpart. -- Taku (talk) 20:49, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Would create licenseing issues since CZ editors have not agreed to atribution by URL.©Geni 00:00, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Care to elaborate? As far as we follow http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/CZ:Reusing_Citizendium_Content we should be fine, legally speaking. -- Taku (talk) 01:33, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
Zee problem is the "You agree to be credited, at minimum, through a hyperlink or URL when your contributions are reused in any form" line in or edit window.©Geni 13:16, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Copyright violation

The section Clarification is clearly a copyright violation, since it is taken directly from the cited source, and is a very long text, so fair use is not applicable. I have never done a copyright violation procedure, and I am reluctant to undertake one now. The Clarification section is very important to the article, so rewriting is in order. The subject is very technical, and filled with jargon. Please help. --DThomsen8 (talk) 12:47, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

What article? Algebraist 12:50, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
Sorry, T-MPLS is the article. I failed to modify the link above, but I fixed that.--DThomsen8 (talk) 13:03, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
I've fixed it by removing the copyvio and pointing to the text as a reference. --Tagishsimon (talk) 20:23, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] New cleanup template

Hey mates. I've created a new article cleanup template at {{unlinkedrefs}}. See Aqueous normal phase chromatography and 832 Karin for examples of where it should be used. I just posted this here so that more people would be aware of it. Also, I pretty much just copied the code from one of the other cleanup templates. Hopefully those creatures more familiar with template coding can have a look and eliminate unnecessary parts and make sure that bots recognize it properly. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 03:28, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Survey 2009

So are there any news about the 2009 survey? It is high time to start discussing it; in particular, what we have learned from the 2008 one and how to make new surveys better. It would also be nice if this survey was more transparent with issues such as data availability for future researchers, and the contributors to meta:General User Survey were finally invited to participate in this project... As this is important for the Foundation, organizing the yearly surveys should probably become an official responsibility of somebody. It does appear that relying on random contributors and self-motivated academics is not working out that well for us. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 16:53, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

WMF is not planning an official 2009 survey (not a general one, at least - probably a few more specialized ones) - our current thinking is to do a big one every two years. There will still be quite a few reports on the last one in addition to the preliminary results already published; I've received two new preliminary reports (one on perception of quality and one on comparison by languages) which are ready to be published pending final approval. And, we've got a commitment from the research team at UNU-Merit to release all the anonymized data from the survey under CC-BY, which I will continue to remind them of :-). That said, any community work on an improved survey framework for next time is much appreciated.---Eloquence* 00:38, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Size and location of the search box

Whenever I visit wikipedia I find it most annoying to have to click on the tiny search box on the left side first before entering anything. The first thing visitors on wikipedia do is search for an article. Therefore the box should jump at you, be bigger and placed at the top of the page, with no need to click on it first. Who agrees with me? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Juclael (talk • contribs) 17:32, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

If you use Firefox or another Mozilla-based browser you can configure it to run a Wikipedia search from the address bar. For example, if I type wp ham sandwich in my address bar, it will direct me to Ham Sandwich (rock band) because that is the first search result for that query. I imagine that every other browser can probably be configured to do the same thing in one way or another. I agree that the Search box could be bigger, but it's also unnecessary because of the address bar. Also, not everyone even uses the search box, some people just type out URL's manually due to some browsers' ability to do URL completion, though I think that is a bad idea myself. -- Soap Talk/Contributions 17:46, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
It is a common request. At the top of Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) it says "No, we will not use Javascript to set focus on the search box. This would interfere with usability, accessibility, keyboard navigation and standard forms. See b1864. There is an accesskey property on it (default to accesskey="f" in English), and for logged in users there is a gadget available in your preferences."--Commander Keane (talk) 12:13, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
Try wikipedia.org. It focuses on the search box. APL (talk) 00:14, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
Wow!! Thank you, that is a great url - and for something like that which I have been looking for for ages. Would this url be somehow added to the navigation section on the left of the page, say under the Wiki globe? 78.32.143.113 (talk) 07:17, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Wikimedia in the UK

What Wikimedia events or activities would you like to see take place in the UK?

We're currently trying to pull together ideas for "initiatives" that Wikimedia UK can support here. There have been lots of ideas posted here which need fleshing out before they can be taken forward. We've also got a list of things that we've already supported here.

We're having an open IRC meeting to discuss possible initiatives, which will take place this coming Tuesday, the 30th June 2009, at 8.30PM BST (19:30 GMT), in #wikimedia-uk on irc.freenode.net . For more information, and to say that you'll be coming, please see [5]

Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of the Wikimedia Foundation, and is set up as a membership-run non-profit UK company limited by guarantee. To find out more information, to join or to donate, please visit our website at http://uk.wikimedia.org/ .

Thanks, Mike Peel (talk) 17:49, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Chair, Wikimedia UK - http://uk.wikimedia.org/

Wikimedia UK is the operating name of Wiki UK Limited. Wiki UK Ltd is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and Wales, Registered No. 6741827. The Registered Office is at 23 Cartwright Way, Nottingham, NG9 1RL, United Kingdom

[edit] Publication interpretations about radon

Hello, Could some neutral observers keep a look at the ongoing discussion about the radon article and (abusive?) usage of references there ? thanks in advance. Biem (talk) 07:11, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia reliability!

Does anyone collect these anecdotes? Wikipedia has a picture of William Cavendish, 5th Duke of Devonshire painted in 1768. The official site of No 10 Downing street shows this person as a prime minister...... but that one died in 1764. So wikipedia is right and allows edits. The No 10 site doesn't appear to have a place to report errors..... ?? Can anyone confirm I'm right? Victuallers (talk) 20:44, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Well the alternative explanation is that the Wikipedia article is wrong and the Number 10 website correct. – ukexpat (talk) 21:06, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
One of wikipedia or the number 10 website looks to have got the picture identifying the wrong person. The details on the number 10 website seem to refer to William Cavendish, 4th Duke of Devonshire not the 5th Duke who wikipedia has the picture as being of. Davewild (talk) 21:12, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
The book I found on google books agrees with wikipedia that it is the 5th Duke - [6] Davewild (talk) 21:23, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
That book is by Deborah Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire (one of the Mitford sisters and an acknowledged expert on this stuff). Amanda Foreman says pretty much the same thing on her website and since her book Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire was adapted from her Oxford DPhil I think we can treat her as a reliable source too. I've updated the commons description accordingly. Well done Victuallers for spotting No 10's mistake! - Pointillist (talk) 22:35, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
He, he - I doubt that many UK citizens would regard No 10 as being a reliable source. Jezhotwells (talk) 22:43, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
I lived in the UK for the first 35 years of my life (and still a citizen) so I know how <sarcasm>absolutely reliable</sarcasm> No 10 is, but someone had to be Devil's advocate here! In any event, this may be a useful anecdote for The Signpost. Has anyone e-mailed Gordon to tell him about the error?! – ukexpat (talk) 01:44, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
Brilliant - one up for wikipedia! It would be nice to make the signpost. I'm going to see if I can make a "DYK" for the main page Victuallers (talk) 09:02, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] A proposal

I've noticed that some of the articles on Wikipedia contain content that definitely isn't appropriate for small children, yet they could still come upon them accidentally by using the random article feature. Therefore, something needs to be done. Wikipedia isn't censored, so that's not what I'm proposing. Rather, any articles detailing the processes of human reproduction (with or without pictures) or excretion (with pictures), as well as anything else that may be determined inappropriate in the future, should be moved to a separate namespace, perhaps "Adult:" or something similar. Then, on the page for that subject in the main namespace, a warning template should be placed stating that the content isn't appropriate for children and containing a link that a person can click to go to the article if he isn't bothered by the inappropriate content. --Aruseusu (talk) 23:08, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

No, it is not appropriate for Wikpedia to self-censor in this way. Jezhotwells (talk) 23:10, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
It's not censoring, since the content would still be there and easily accessible to those who want to see it. My proposal would merely prevent, for example, a young child pressing "Random article" and getting an article about something inappropriate. It would not in any way remove any content from Wikipedia, so it isn't censoring. --Aruseusu (talk) 23:18, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
How do we pick what goes into Adult:? It's a lot harder than you probably think it is. Better to not try. --Golbez (talk) 23:26, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
As I said, anything detailing human reproduction or excretion (the latter only in cases with pictures) would be moved there, as well as any article containing profanity in the title or in a quote on the page. --Aruseusu (talk) 23:28, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
If you start, it will never end. What about articles on other parts of the human body? Breasts aren't involved in reproduction, would they be on your list? What about bondage? What about bad words? What about gory subjects? What about blasphemy? --Golbez (talk) 23:37, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
But what if users (like myself) don't consider any of those things inappropriate for children (especially excretion: are children supposed to not know about this somehow?)? Algebraist 23:32, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
Note that I said that articles about excretion would only be considered inappropriate if they contained pictures (for example, articles with a picture or diagram of a penis or vagina). Also, there is absolutely no reason that children should be exposed to articles about sex. Also, I stated that articles about other inappropriate subjects (such as articles about breasts or articles with pictures containing excessive gore) could also be moved if it is decided that they are inappropriate as well. --Aruseusu (talk) 23:38, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
Not everyone considers basic anatomy an adults-only topic. Algebraist 23:43, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
So you think that articles detailing the step-by-step process of sexual intercourse should be completely accessible without any warning whatsoever? --Aruseusu (talk) 23:46, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
As it happens I do (like most Wikipedians), but I was referring to your excretion-related comments above. Algebraist 23:47, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
It's just ridiculous expose small children to things such as sex. They should find out from their parents when they're older.--Aruseusu (talk) 23:50, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
It's quite ridiculous to give such small children unfettered access to the internet, as well. The solution lies with parents, not with us. --Golbez (talk) 00:06, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) Who will decide what qualifies? With hundreds or thousands of new articles everyday, who is going to check them out?. Exactly what criteria would they use? What is the problem with an encyclopaedia having articles about sex, bodily functions, etc.? What politics do you think are not suitable? Are there books, you would not consider appropriate? Do you think it right that Google self censor the content it delivers in China? Would you think it right that tv and radio and music and books in the library and newspapers and childen in the playground are censored? There are various software devices which uptight parents can use to censor what their children can view on the web, if they so choose. There is no need for this, and no-one to organise it, unless you want to recruit an army of Mary Whitehouses. And despite your statement, your proposal amounts to censorship. What is the problem with a picture of a vagina or penis? Do you really belive that children should not be allowed to havce sex eduction? Jezhotwells (talk) 23:52, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

I believe that children should not have sex education until at least middle school, and possibly not even until high school. This isn't censorship, since the content would still be available if you click on a link below the warning message. The comment about Google China is completely irrelevant. A much more accurate comparison would be to Google's SafeSearch, which also censors out content which is universally considered to be inappropriate. Like SafeSearch, perhaps there could be an option for registered users to turn it off if they so choose. --Aruseusu (talk) 23:58, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
Well you're entitled to your beliefs. It's not entirely clear to me what you mean by 'middle school' and 'high school' since these vary from country to country. But at a guess, I would say 14+. In many countries, this is considered too late Nil Einne (talk) 17:06, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
It isn't necessarily unreasonable to distinguish between what readers find if they search for it, and what they might encounter when they click "Random article", is it? This is a question of unexpectedness rather than censorship: my sister won't kill me if I show my niece the Venus article, the 69 dab page doesn't link to soixante-neuf, Brazil doesn't mention Brazilian waxing, etc. IMO this would benefit from wider debate, though I suspect there are simpler solutions than the proposed "Adult" namespace. - Pointillist (talk) 23:54, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
Bring on the debate. If parents don't want their children to view things via the internet, they can use software blocks or throw the computer in the skip. It is called parental control. Jezhotwells (talk) 00:00, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
Well, most parents, aunts and uncles will realise that the boundaries aren't so clear. There's a difference between articles about body parts etc and technical descriptions of soixante-neuf and Anal sex, so Aruseusu's point about Random Article merits wider discussion. - Pointillist (talk) 00:05, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
The odds of hitting a sexual article through random article, and not, say, an article on a town in Nebraska or a train station in Britain, are so infinitesmially small as to not merit effort to avoid. It's equally possible that they could hit an article about harlequin fetus or flesh-eating disease, both of which I could propose are more damaging to children than analingus. --Golbez (talk) 00:10, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
I would strongly object to random train stations in Britain being encountered unexpectedly - it might lead to children becoming trainspotters or anoraks. Seriously though, if parents, aunties, etc want to leave their children unattended at computer terminals without suitable control then that is their problem, not Wikipedia's. I really can't believe that people wish to object to the chance that an unsupervised "small" (unspecified - presumably capable of operating a computer keyboard) child might encounter articles on common sexual practices. I mean, they might encounter articles on Mutual assured destruction or cluster bombs or the use of White phosphorus use in Iraq Jezhotwells (talk) 00:33, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
Good call on trainspotting but you are missing the point. Wikipedia is a site that parents are reluctant to block, because it is so helpful for understanding how the world works, and in general readers don't stumble across explicit material here unless they are looking for it. Random article is an exception to this and I'd love to see Golbez's stats calculations, which would need data on the number of times Random article is clicked by pre-pubescent readers and the amount of "adult" content across the c. 2.5 million articles here. - Pointillist (talk) 00:34, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
I hit random 50 times; I came up with Knife Juggling, an Olympic athlete, and a village in Poland, but no dicks. Knife juggling sounds pretty dangerous for kids, to me. --Golbez (talk) 00:40, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
If parents don't want their kids to visit a random article, they should block the random article feature. This is easily possible. There is no reason for us to limit the random article feature fo the majority of wikipedians who don't have a problem and are able to click again if they come across something they don't wish to know about Nil Einne (talk) 17:14, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

(outdent again) Well, I would guess - without casting aspersions - that that was just an educated guess on that editor's part, but I don't think that I did miss the point. Problems come when parents, aunties, guardians don't supervise and don't discuss things in an open and honest way. I had more "problems" discussing issues like nuclear war, war atrocities, crooked financiers, biassed referees, etc. with my children than I ever did with sex (or taking a dump!) Jezhotwells (talk) 00:44, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

The fact is, no matter how much people cry out for any kind of system for this, it's been proposed tens (hundreds?) of times over the years and has NEVER been implamented. It's not going to happen, nor should it. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 01:20, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

And I believe that children should not be on the Internet for the most part until middle school or even until high school. At least not until they can demonstrate that they can show a speck of maturity and are able to type in clear, coherent sentences (i.e., no lolololol, rofl, lmao, o_0, xD, ur gay/stupid/stupid and gay, leet, other emoticons, or lack of capitalization/punctuation, or substituting words for letters and numbers like b4). MuZemike 01:35, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
OK, let's start a fresh thread to discuss this. - Pointillist (talk) 01:54, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
This comes up every couple of months. Tagging things as "Adult" is a form of moral judgment, even if it's not total censorship. The question is criteria. People will naturally be very insulted and angered if things that you think should be censored are tagged and things that they believe should be tagged are not. Who are you to say that your interpretation of "adult" is more correct? So then, what about icky surgical pictures? Articles that mention sexuality incidentally? Clean photographs of porn stars? Religious icons? Drugs? Abortion? Photographs of people dieing in natural disaster or being killed in military combat? Predation photographs? Animals mating? Insects mating? What about David(Michelangelo) or Venus De Milo? Darwinism? Half of human culture is offensive to someone.
Here's a concrete example : Homosexuality. It's an important topic in today's society, and one that kids may well want to know about. Most people would say that it would be ludicrous to ban kids from a topic that describes nearly 5% of human population, including the parents (adoptive or otherwise) of many children. However, a small but vocal minority will want that article tagged as "Adult" to shield innocent youngsters. The amount of energy that would be wasted on that single debate would be staggering, and that debate would be replicated a thousand times across the entire Wikipedia project.
That is why, to preserve harmony, Wikipedia must absolutely refrain from making moral judgments, even when the direct consequence of that judgment is relatively minor. (an "adult" tag, as opposed to total censorship.) APL (talk) 14:14, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
I think even the OP's posts prove your point. The OP is apparently opposed to anything with any depiction of genitalia, for children below middle school or perhaps even below high school. (Whatever he/she means by middle school/high school.) Surprisingly there was no mention of violence or anything of that sort. I'm not sa parent and I'm unlikely to be one anytime soon but personally I'd be more worried about a young child come across and article on the Holocaust or slavery or genocide or some other article about the horrible things humans do to one another or perhaps some scary disease then I would be about them coming across a diagram depicting the penis and vagina, body parts that I personally would expect most 10 year olds in the Western world know about, or should know about. Nil Einne (talk) 17:14, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Come on, people. Eveyone knows such tagging is a very good way of getting children to read those articles. Peter jackson (talk) 10:31, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Random article should not appear on unregistered editor interface

Random article should not appear on WP's unregistered (IP) editor interface, because:

  1. The Wikipedia foundation encourages parents/guardians of pre-pubescent minors to permit such minors to access Wikipedia for educational purposes
  2. Random articles may include sexual content that goes beyond explicit anatomical details and may describe unexpected activities
  3. Parents/guardians may wish to prevent minors' access to such materials.

- Pointillist (talk) 01:54, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

This would be an extremely ineffective way of stopping minors reaching 'inappropriate' content. Parents who want to do this should block access to such content (and to Special:Random if they wish) at their end, rather than have us disable a useful site feature to guard against a very low-probability risk. Algebraist 02:01, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
  • Oppose: It's up to parents to monitor the internet activities of their children. To remove the random article facility for all unregistered users is unfairly penalising those who choose not to create an account. – ukexpat (talk) 02:03, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
Researchers often use the Random Page feature to help select a random sample of articles for a study. Such researchers may not have an account. They should not be required to register to use this tool. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 02:10, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia is not a babysitter. Period. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 03:18, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

We should also remove the ability of unregistered users to type "sex" or "lingus" into the search box. --Golbez (talk) 03:30, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

But that would disenfranchise people looking for the Irish national airline. Jezhotwells (talk) 10:23, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
Sounds dirty to me. Also, why would a kid need to know about either Ireland or airlines? Both are taboo subjects in my household. --Golbez (talk) 14:08, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
  • Oppose, of course. It's not our responsibility to implement parental control. And that is quite independent from the facts that we cannot do a remotely useful job without crippling the encyclopedia, that we will have a hard time agreeing what kinds of materials to restrict (Women without a Chador? Image of a Crucifix? Scientology?) and that very few kids spontaneously turn into murdering madmen on the view of a breast. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 11:21, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
  • Oppose - It is not our job to be the parents here. Any good internet filtering system will prevent access to articles which are sexually focused while allowing the rest of Wikipedia to still be open for children. Also, I doubt consensus could ever be reached as to what is inappropriate, so even trying to start this type of thing would just be an enormous waste of time and probably simply attract negative media attention to the site. Cheers! Scapler (talk) 11:54, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
  • Question - This proposal seems to be predicated on the belief that registered users are not children. Is there any basis for that belief? Is there anything that prevents or discourages children from registering? Delicious carbuncle (talk) 14:15, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
Good point. I know a number of minors who are productive registered members. Cheers! Scapler (talk) 01:17, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
  • Oppose. It doesn't seem fair to determine what features of the interface people can use. Secondly, if a child wants to look at the list of sex positions (a particular favourite of mine), we have a handy search box for that. If anything, the random article link is less of a threat. And finally, if parents don't want their blessèd little children accessing rude material, they shouldn't provide them with unrestricted access to the internet. There's a reason parental controls exist... Greg Tyler (t • c) 21:24, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
  • Oppose. As noted above, let parents do their own parenting. It's not our job to filter the internet for them. Resolute 21:32, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
  • Besides, you are seriously deluding yourself if you don't think the first three searches children are making on Wikipedia are anything but "sex", "penis" and "fuck". Removing the random article button certainly will not stop kids from finding what they want to find. Resolute 21:34, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Article which seems like a blatant advert

Hi, I tagged this article yesterday - Nurofen, with the advert tag, but noticed it hasn't gone into any category for any 'Admin' kind of attention. I personally think the whole article needs deleting, and any relevent info from the Nurofen article inserting into the ibuprofen article - such as compound preparations of more than one active ingredient. I notice that concern had previously been raised on its talk page. Regards. 78.32.143.113 (talk) 07:11, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia has many articles on brand name products - as Nurofen is one of the biggest ibuprofen brands it seems reasonable to have an article. I don't agree that it is written like an advert. It isn't particularly promotional. Putting a tag on an article doesn't neccessarily mean 'admins' are going to leap into action. You could try improving the prose yourself. If you feel really strongly about it then raise an AfD. Driveby tagging is not encouraged in Wikipedia. You are an editor so you can act yourself. Don't expect others to do things that you are not prepared to do. Cheers. Jezhotwells (talk) 10:21, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] links_to_essays_in_policy_pages

Please join the discussion in Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)#Links_to_essays_in_policy_pages - Altenmann >t 17:27, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] File:ChinaTJC.jpg

File:ChinaTJC.jpg looks like it's been photoshopped. When I mentioned that to the uploader, their response was, "That is due to the fact that the Chinese govenment does not permit any Christian denomination in China to display the name of their church group on the chapels.". Doesn't that make this image a fake, and not appropriate for Wikipedia? Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 03:01, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

This has been resolved. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 03:02, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

I personally do not mind about the modification because I believe it portrays the situation more accurately. I have added a note below the image caption here clarifying the situation to readers. --George Thompson (talk) 03:25, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
The uploader removed their deletion request from the File page. It is no longer resolved. Please provide some further opinions. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 03:26, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
We should not be illustrating things with faked or doctored photographs. Algebraist 03:29, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
It seems the general consensus would be to delete the image. I have therefore reverted my previous edit.
This issue is now resolved. --George Thompson (talk) 04:34, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
Clearly a useless image. It doesn't portray any situation "accurately" because the church doesn't have its name written on it, and the image should show the church the way it actually looks. I have deleted it. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 04:38, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Page numbering in {cite journal} and {cite book}

I suggested a change to the {{cite book}} template, please see this discussion; any input would be appreciated. Thanks, rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 04:32, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] GLAM -Challenge

On August 6 & 7 Wikimedia Australia is hosting GLAM-Wiki at the Australian War Memorial supported by the

In lead up to the event some of the GLAM institutions(Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums) have donated items to be given away, Wikimedia Australia has organised the GLAM Challenge which will run from 13th July until 23:59UTC on the 19th July. This is open to all registered editors in any Wikimedia project, you dont need to be in Australia to win as prizes will be posted to anywhere in the world. Nominate yourself by the 13th July, see GLAM Challenge for more details. Gnangarra 11:52, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Stubs icons and accessibility

Hello there. I see the community is familiar with alt text for images (Wikipedia:Alternative text for images). But unfortunately, there is no alt text with most icons, such as stubs icons.

By exemple, when a screen reader reads Template:Album-stub and reads the icon, it reads the name of the file (Gnome-dev-cdrom-audio.svg). As you already know, the name of the file is not a relevant information at all.

This icon does not carry important information, so there is no need of a long alt text. The best solution would be "|alt=Stub icon". Here is an example. Since there are hundreds (if not thousands) of templates to edit, I need help. Maybe we could make a Bot request. Do you agree ? Dodoïste (talk) 23:57, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

I understand what you are trying to accomplish with stubs icons. Perhaps images on project templates have the same issue. It seems to me that a Bot could do the job, but I know nothing about how to write a Bot. Remember Be Bold WP:BB, and just go ahead and ask for a Bot to be written. --DThomsen8 (talk) 20:03, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
Well, alternative text should only be used when the image has other meaning than decoration. Why would you want a screen reader to read the "stub icon" to a blind person, for example? So the best alternative for stub icons is alt="". Samulili (talk) 20:57, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
You would be right if the image was not a link. An icon should have empty alt text (alt="") only if the image is not a link. Otherwise, as Graham87 stated, a screen reader would read the file name. See using null alt on an image where the image is the only content in a link from www.w3.org, techniques for WCAG 2.0, for further information. Dodoïste (talk) 09:54, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

It's worth running this idea past Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Stub sorting. I don't know enough about the technicalities of this proposal, but others there will be interested in commenting, I'm sure. Grutness...wha? 01:00, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

As a screen reader user, I'd prefer some alt text like "stub icon", because the filename is read to me if there is no alt text, and "stub icon" would be more informative than the file name. Graham87 03:15, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes, each icon should have e.g., alt="Nurdsburg icon" or alt="[Nurdsburg icon]". The same words that one would "read in their head" if they could see the image. P.S., == Stubs icons and accessibility == should be == Icons and accessibility ==. Jidanni (talk) 20:01, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

I have corrected a major mistake in Wikipedia:Alternative text for images. Please reread my poor english. Many thanks. :-) Dodoïste (talk) 23:35, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

This would also apply to other icons, such as the ones used for portals. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 03:16, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Multiple projects, only one class=C, and NPOV

If an article has several Wikipedia Projects, all of which were unranked in class, and another editor comes along and ranks the article class=C in just one of the projects, what does that mean?

In this instance, I had already marked the article with the POV template, because the last part of the article is preaching a particular point of view. I may agree with this particular preaching, but this is not appropriate in Wikipedia.

So, can an article be ranked as class=C when it has a serious POV issue? I am reluctant to change other project lines to a class=Start, so I plan to await whatever happens as other editors may respond to the POV template. I would appreciate advice here on the issues: several projects, one ranking; and can class=C be justified when NPOV is a serious issue. --DThomsen8 (talk) 18:50, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Shamu and Shammu

I would like the article on Shamu the killer whale to be distinguished from Shammu the Indian actress, but I don't know the proper template to make that happen. I am sure other editors can do it, though.--DThomsen8 (talk) 21:14, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

I used {{distinguish}} in [11]. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:27, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
Close, but not quite. I added it to Shammu, but I am looking for it to say "the killer whale" or "the Indian actress" too. --DThomsen8 (talk) 14:19, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
How about Template:Otheruses4? Rmhermen (talk) 16:35, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Some sort of glitch

I found this article with an AfD notice while clicking on Random article; e-zone, but the discussion page leads to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Flawless (Dance_Group). How did this happen and who/what fixes it? Abductive (talk) 11:02, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Looks like User:Simon1223hk just copy-pasted it in. Algebraist 11:39, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Philophobia

I was wishing to make at least a starter page on Philophobia (fear of being a relationship). It seems there is a band with this name and I don't know how to differentiate and make a separate page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Waldo1967 (talk • contribs) 16:29, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

WP:DAB should tell you all you need to know. Rmhermen (talk) 16:36, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
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