Wikipedia:Village pump/Archive K

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This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump. Please do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to revive any of these discussions, either start a new thread or use the talk page associated with that topic.

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Stating the basics

This is mentioned elsewhere, but I think it's worth reminding the collectivity of it: remember to state the obvious -- or rather, remember that that is obvious to you is not so to the average reader. I had to add this to the start of the new article on the Ford Thunderbird: The Ford Thunderbird is a car manufactured in the USA by the Ford Motor Company. -- the authors did not stop to suppose that the reader does not necessarily know it's a car. This ties in with news style and the 5Ws. -- Tarquin 17:23, 22 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Ah, that one was mine. One forgets, also, that a reader might not have arrived from a related page and therefore have context. The word 'car' DID appear a sentence or two later, though, so it's not that it was never mentioned, just not probably as soon as it might have. What I did utterly forget to mention was this was a vehicle by Ford USA; as a transplanted Brit myself, you'd think I would know better than being so americentric, but clearly not! That's why second pairs of eyes help, to catch the first author's assumptions. -- Morven 06:26, 23 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Agreed. Pretend an alien anthropologist from Alpha Centauri somehow understands English, and is reading Wikipedia to learn about humans. You can't assume anything. -- Wapcaplet 19:37, 22 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I agree with Tarquin, I am not sure whether you do, it may be irony. - Patrick 20:43, 22 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Irony? I think the word you want is sarcasm. And no, it's not :-) -- Wapcaplet 00:19, 23 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Okay, we agree then that stating the basics is good (some people disagree and object against sentences like "A female child is called a girl, a male a boy." and "Sleeping is typically done lying in a bed"). - Patrick 06:56, 23 Aug 2003 (UTC)

There is a difference between including the necessary basic information as suggested by Tarquin and treating your reader like a moron. Everyone knows that one sleeps in a bed; not everyone knows what a Thunderbird is. -- Viajero 09:36, 23 Aug 2003 (UTC)

The alien anthropologist from Alpha Centauri does not. - Patrick 09:41, 23 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Of course he does! He understands English. He couldn't have learned it without acquiring a certain amount of basic information, like what a bed is for. -- Viajero 10:03, 23 Aug 2003 (UTC)

He may know what it is (seen it, felt the soft surface), but not what it is used for. - Patrick 10:16, 23 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I think a better rule of thumb than imagining your audience is from Alpha Centauri may be to imagine that our civilization is destroyed utterly, and our descendants are fortunate enough to uncover an operational Wikipedia while digging through the ruins. We have so much trouble learning about the basic details of ancient civilizations because their writers generally failed to state the obvious... let us not make the same mistake. --Nelson 13:28, 23 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Recent changes

On Wikipedia:Recentchanges the requested articles "Ruth Barcan Marcus - Panjshir - YWHA - wage rate - Ed Fagan - modal logic -Dingle" haven't changed in about four days. Can we get rid of them and put up something else? Mintguy 18:38, 22 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I see no reason why not. Four days is enough and it's not like you're going to run out of choice. Angela 03:39, 23 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Votes for Deletion

Any particular reason someone savaged the VfD page?

Votes for Deletion

Any particular reason someone savaged the VfD page?

good question. It's dreadful. If it's too long, I think we should split off by type: "suspected copyright", "illegible junk" for example - Tarquin 09:17, 24 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I especially like the part where someone made a unilateral decision to drastically alter the whole page and then botched the job.

It's not undoable, and it wasn't the unilateral decider (me) that botched it. Nonetheless, if sorting by type is better, let's do that. Yes, 93K is too long. -- Someone else 09:38, 24 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Read the edit history. When you stopped you didn't do anything past Aug. 21. If that's not botching it, I don't know what is.

I wasn't "stopped" till it was done. I was, however, considerably slowed down by the "help". Comments on the VfD format should go on the VfD talk page, BTW.-- Someone else 09:53, 24 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Just testing

Just testing that bug is fixed.

American or "international" names on videogames

The user WhisperToMe is moving all videogame systems to their Japanese rather than English title. I checked on Google "Super Nintendo" returns 373,000 hits, while "Super Famicom" returns 32,700. I think they should stop and return the pages to where they were originally to avoid creating confusion. M123 16:50, 17 Aug 2003 (UTC)

This is the English language wikipedia. The names he is using are the correct international names used in most of the English speaking world. For example, I'm English and I am used to the names he is using (in most cases). CGS 17:02, 17 Aug 2003 (UTC).

I've never heard of Super Famicom. If the page exists as Super Nintendo, it should be left there and Super Famicom set up as a redirect. There is no need to create extra work by moving pages around. Angela 17:10, 17 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I've followed the video game market a little, and have heard of Super Famicom. I'm fairly certain that in Japan, only, was the SNES marketed as the Super Famicom; almost everywhere else in the world, it was marketed as the Super NES. I think it should stay at its old title, with perhaps a mention of the Super Famicom name. Same for Famicom and NES, and any others that had different Japanese market names. -- Wapcaplet 17:58, 17 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Since almost the entire world (except Japan) calls the system SNES, the article should be Super Nintendo Entertainment System and not Super Famicom. Marknew 19:25, 17 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Super Famicom is only one example. A better example is moving Genesis to Megadrive because that is the name most people know it by. CGS 18:12, 17 Aug 2003 (UTC).

The terms Famicom and Megadrive are unknown in North America. As for Genesis/Megadrive. Google gives 196,000 for "Sega Genesis" and 47,200 for "Sega Megadrive". Whisper is moving pages from where they've been for years to new places, which I think is unneccesary. M123 18:16, 17 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Just moved "Mega Man" to "RockMan" a quick googling 109,000 '"Mega Man" Nintendo' vs. 1,660 '"RockMan" Famicom'. M123 18:48, 17 Aug 2003 (UTC)

One of the problems created by these moves is that throughout the entire article it apparently becomes necessary to say "Mega Man/Rock Man" or "NES/Famicom", which makes it pretty hard to read. I don't have a problem with articles being moved to a new name as long as the majority of the English-speaking population knows it by that name, but I disagree with moving Mega Man to Rock Man. Every gamer I have ever met, and even a lot of non-gamers, are familiar with Mega Man. Only the more dedicated gamers are aware of the name Rock Man. -- Wapcaplet 19:37, 17 Aug 2003 (UTC)

That's gamers that you have met. Unless you have travelled a lot, that's just your neck of the woods. CGS 20:35, 17 Aug 2003 (UTC).

I think the Google counts are a good indicator of which name is more popular in the online English-speaking world. We are not interested in English speakers who are not online because they are not reading Wikipedia. Therefore, let us bow to the majority, and put everything back to their US names. --Nelson 00:20, 18 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Well, Google counts are a good indicator of which name is more popular among those who are involving "English web-site creation"! The first change is not necessary, but a revert maybe equally unnecessary. wshun 01:33, 18 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I seriously think that English pages on the WWW are definitely skewed towards the United States. So it should be no surprise that most names would be the American version. I myself know MegaMan as RockMan. --seav 05:00, Aug 19, 2003 (UTC)

Brazilian rocket explosion

moved to Talk:Current events

And thus we see our US bias. Nobody has bothered to write up anout any of this: Brazilian Space Agency? Alcantara space base? Do we even have these articles?. Current Events for that day starts with a HUGE paragraph about Alabama, knocking events in Brazil, Ecuador, and British Columbia into the minor details. You can bet if a rocket had exploded and killed 19 on US soil, an article would have been whipped up in a frenzy, with full biographies of all the dead, telling us everything down to their favourite flavour of jelly bean. -- Tarquin 08:50, 24 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Well, could it possibly be that the only available info at this point seems to be from Reuters and gives hardly enough information to justify an article? Also, I don't happen to speak Portuguese (as is the case for many Wikipedians, especially on the English 'pedia, I'm sure) and most of the source information from Brazil is in that language. Have YOU written the article yet, Tarquin? Perhaps you have a US bias too. ;) --Dante Alighieri 10:57, 24 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I'm not much of a current affairs hack myself. plenty of material, and we should cover the Brazil space programme in general, surely -- Tarquin 12:30, 24 Aug 2003 (UTC) PS I thought of contacting the ambassador of the portuguese wikipedia -- but there isn't one listed at the Wikipedia:Embassy.

Protected pages

Help? I just protected Homelessness because User:JoeM continues to vandalize it. I know I'm supposed to list that the page was protected somewhere, but I can't find the page to do it. Can somebody point me there? RickK 23:52, 17 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Protected page --Evercat 23:55, 17 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Ugh. I tried to do a search for "protected" and it wouldn't come up. :( RickK 00:01, 18 Aug 2003 (UTC)

The quick search only searches the actual articles. To specify that you're searching for a Wikipedia: page, you have to use the search form with all the checkboxes at the bottom of the search results page. —Paul A 06:12, 18 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Different pages for different meanings of the same word/ phrase

Getting too long for the Village pump so moved to Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation

Is weasel terms really a good term?

Discussion moved to Wikipedia talk:Avoid weasel terms

American or "international" names on videogames

moved to Talk:Super Nintendo Entertainment System

Skeptic influx?

moved to Wikipedia talk:Skeptical solicitation

Brazilian rocket explosion

moved to Talk:Current events

The use of Lists

For the last couple of days I have taken a break from writing articles and have concentrated on compiling lists of business articles. The following lists cover all the business articles that I have been able to find:

Finding related topics

list of corporate leaders

list of companies

I have placed this at the end of about 20 articles as an experiment. My objective is to make every business article easy to find and available with only two mouse clicks.

My questions to the wiki-experts are “Will appending this list to articles conflict with the new category system being developed? If so, how should I modify it to prevent future problems?” mydogategodshat 06:06, 19 Aug 2003 (UTC)

My answer is: I think it's a very bad idea to place a whole slump of often little significant links on the bottom of pages, whether we have a category system or not. A single link to an encompassing subject, I can imagine, but 14 categories when it belongs to one or two? You may be happy that I'm not much on the English version or on business topics, as I'd delete them on sight. Andre Engels 14:08, 21 Aug 2003 (UTC)

You have stated your opinion that having easy access to these lists are a bad idea but have given no reason why you feel this way.

You then state that there should only be one or two lists. It is true that all of these lists could be compiled into one or two lists but the list would be so long and so diverse in scope that they would be useless. Who can find what they are looking for on a list of 1000 entries? That is why I subdivided them into the catagories that are taught in business schools. Business schools offer either majors and minors in all these the fields (with the exception of lists of people, of course). When someone tells me that these are all one topic, what it says to me is that the person is not familiar with the depth or scope of the topic. It is equivalent to a non-scientist saying that all science topics belong on one list. The number of subdivisions we include reflects the level of expertise we have in the field. I do not feel we should revert back to a time when Wiki was a project by and for geeksmydogategodshat 15:52, 21 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I am not saying that they are all one topic. Rather the reverse. I am saying that they are rather different, sometimes closely sometimes less closely related topics. And because of that, if you put this whole list on a page, most of the links will not be closely related to its subject. The reason I think it is a bad idea, is that a page with subject 'X' should be about subject 'X'. Some links to subjects closely related to X are good. But a long list of links of subjects that are often of just little significance to X are not. One page will probably fall under one or two of the topics above. Add links to the lists for those topics, and leave out the rest. Andre Engels 18:06, 21 Aug 2003 (UTC)

We seem to be starting from different first principles. You seem to be starting from a category scheme that you feel is ideal (or at least optimal) for organizational reasons. I am trying to create a user-freindly environment and I feel this first principle takes precidence over categorical or organizational conciderations. Being from a business background, I see customer satisfaction (or user friendliness) as the prime driver of all decisions. If a venture is to be sucessfull, all other considerations, no matter how important, must first pass this criterion.

That is why having easy access to the lists are so important. As you are aware there are currently two ways of using Wikipepia ; Seaching and browsing (the "see also lists"). Using the search engine is effective if : 1) you know exactly what you are looking for; 2) you know the term commonly used to describe what you are looking for ; 3) there is only one or two common terms for the item you are looking for; 4) you know how to spell the terms involved. Browsing or surfing is useful when you do not have a specific goal in mind. Unfortunately, in most cases these criteria are not met. That is why most people find specific online searches so frustrating. You know that the information is available somewhere but finding it can take hours. What these lists do is address this void. They provide access to related topics so that users can find what they want without having to do ten or twenty searches. And do it with just two mouse clicks. I have yet to hear a sound argument for why this additional functionality should not be used to make Wiki a more user friendly place. mydogategodshat 22:06, 21 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Apparently I am the only one against here, and seeing that I am less active on at least the English Wikipedia, I'll bow my head here. I'm not happy, though. Andre Engels 06:40, 22 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I think could be a good idea but in a sligter shorter form like the links to other languages. Jensp 07:09, 22 Aug 2003 (UTC) Like this:

Lists of business topics: management, marketing, human resource, economics, finance, accounting, information technology, production, business law, ethics, political economy, and philosophy, theorists, economists, corporate leaders, companies

I think that the lists should be easily accessible from the articles but not in this way. Firstly, it's too big. Secondly, and more important, imagine that you want to add new list to the list: you'd have to do so in all articles with the list and there could easily be hundreds of them. I think that the right solution is to make List of business lists (List of business topics has already been taken and has another purpose) and link that to the articles. Nikola 07:49, 22 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I prefer the streamlined version too. The only reason I used the "title and bullet" format is I thought that was the direction Wiki was going with the new TOC format of multiple edit points. Having a single link to a list of lists is not a bad idea. However it has two dissadvantages. It reduces flexibility. We should be able to modify these to suit each page. Articles in the information technology management area, for example, would benefit from the inclusion of list of computing topics and list of Internet topics. The other disadvantage is that it would require three clicks each time rather than two. mydogategodshat 09:05, 22 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Personally, I'd add the list of lists only to the lists themselves (as the box on List of people by name).

On the article, I'd just link to the list(s) (or the topic) it belongs to. Once (if ever) a category feature is available, I'd suppose it might be possible to use the lists to add that to the articles automatically. Of course, you'd better ask a developer about this.

-- User:Docu

So I'm not alone in my opinion after all. Good to hear. Andre Engels 17:18, 23 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Docu, Why would you not make a range of lists of related topics readily available?mydogategodshat 19:49, 23 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I agree with Andre that huge lists at the end of articles are not a good idea. Angela

Thanks for your opinion Angela. I am still waiting for someone to give a reason why they don't want the lists available. mydogategodshat 10:56, 24 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Default settings for Table of Contents

Is having "Show table of contents" OFF the default setting? I hope it is. Kingturtle 02:06, 19 Aug 2003 (UTC)

It's not, and it shouldn't be. If you see a broken TOC, fix it.—Eloquence 02:30, Aug 19, 2003 (UTC)

I think he means that we should have an option for having our TOCs show up either shown or hidden -- I already put it on BriansTDL. -戴&#30505sv 04:58, Aug 19, 2003 (UTC)

Teaching with the WikiPedia - curriculum development project

Hello all. This is my first post here.

I'm thinking about developing a "Teaching with the WikiPedia" curriculum. It would be aimed at kids from about grades four through eight (US). The idea is for the kids to use the WikiPedia as the main reference source to complete their assignments, but also to understand the special issues associated with it. For example They might look up civil rights on the Wiki. What do they see? How to the entries in the Wikipedia differ from what they may see in a mainstream encyclopedia? Is it better or worse? Does the ability to edit other people's work improve the content, or is it a chance for personal opinions and political philosophies to creep into the entries?

I think this could be a great teaching tool because of the classroom discussions it would inspire. But this prompts two questions.

1) I don't want to re-invent the wheel. Is anyone else working on this?

2) I worry that kids, being kids, will quickly figure out they can add to the Wikipedia, and they will make a mess of it. (Swear words, spam, etc.) I know that’s the way I would have behavved if left unsupervised back in 7th grade. So I'm thinking of creating a read-only version of the Wikipedia just for use in this curriculum. That would solve potential vandalism, of course. But it would sort of also change the way The Wiki operates for them. (Though this might be a necessary compromise.)

Thoughts? --Shawn McCarthy

 service@diagonalmediagroup.com

Regarding your second question, I'd have to say that this would be wrong. If they're using a pedia they can't edit, they might as well use some other (and officially approved thinking about school) pedia. I think there's a kid-wikipedia being made somewhere, I read about it here not so long ago. Maybe you could use that instead? I want that everyone can edit, but I don't want 11 year olds spamming the place, either. - Sigg3.net 15:36, 22 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I think we can handle a class-full of kids trying to muck about with articles. We've had far worse! There's a textbook wiki project, that might be what you're looking for -- Tarquin 17:12, 22 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Yeah, you might want to try finding that kid-friendly Wiki. In addition to academic subjects, this 'pedia discusses some subjects you may not want kids delving into. For an example of what I mean, you probably wouldn't want kids following all the links from human sexuality. —Frecklefoot 18:04, 22 Aug 2003 (UTC)

That's the web. -- till we *) 18:14, Aug 22, 2003 (UTC)

Brazilian rocket explosion

moved to Talk:Current events Please stop moving this guys -- this really is an important example of our US-POV. Some sniper in the US takes out three people and we have an article on it in hours. Whereas the Brazillian space programme isn't covered at all -- not even the recent events, it isn't covered at all. Shame on us. -- Tarquin 13:58, 24 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Spelling

Can someone post a link to a free, English English dictionary? I don't want to pay the $550 the OED wants. I usually will correct spelling mistakes i run across but I don't want to mistakenly use American English spelling for an acceptable British English spelling of the word. I'm aware of words like colour and programme, etc. Today it was "likelyhood" that I sorely wanted to change to likelihood but didn't want to start an across the pond dispute. Thanks, StinKerr 22:27, 18 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Webster has American English as main entries, but include British English as See-also entries. But it has no redirect. :-) --Menchi 22:36, Aug 18, 2003 (UTC)

Thanks, Menchi, I usually use Webster and have noted the "middle English" entries but I want to be sure I don't miss anything. I've already offended by making an entry to a link from the U.S. Constitution too "U.S.-centric" StinKerr 02:04, 19 Aug 2003 (UTC)

On the general topic of spellings, can I add an appeal for people to check for variant spellings with a dictionary, e.g. http://www.onelook.com/, and in general not change spellings if it's an acceptable one? Sure, if you see "Pearl Harbour", then it's probably OK to change that as i) it's a US topic, and ii) that's not the normal spelling. But some of those of us who use British spellings would rather the rest of you not implicitly accuse us of being illiterate morons by "correcting" our spellings. Thanks! Noel 18:50, 19 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I second onelook.com as a good site for spellings and definitions. Martin 19:03, 19 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Thanks Noel and Martin. That is exactly what I want to avoid. Onelook.com is now on my reference list. StinKerr 06:53, 20 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Video on wikipedia

I seem to remember a discussion about using video media on wikipedia, but can't find it. Does anyone recall where it is? I have some .avi files that I think would be a welcome addition.. what (if anything) can I do with them? Pete

Well you can transcode them for a start. We would have to look at open video standards. I think Xiph (people behind Ogg Vorbis) has an open video codec. CGS 11:40, 19 Aug 2003 (UTC).

Given the load on the Wikipedia server, the bandwidth costs of making video available, and the various format issues (in terms of freeness, availability, video quality, and required bandwidth). I think some extended discussion might be wise before people start uploading videos. --Robert Merkel 11:38, 23 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Workaround for Mozilla Bug no longer necessary

I noticed that in Mozilla Firebird 0.6.1, there are serious problems with the handling of <hr> in general, and in an especially obvious way on the Postal Service. Apparently this is due to a workaround for a bug older versions of Mozilla had in displaying <hr>, there's a temporary hack that reverts to quirks mode for Mozilla browsers. So the people on the Mozilla Forums (http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=20420) told me to tell you guys that the bug is fixed. --Nelson 00:02, 18 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Possible spam?

...at Abstract interpretation; see talk. I want someone else's opinion before I delete the offending links. k.lee 00:27, 19 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Spelling

Moved to: Wikipedia:Writing resources

Past tense vs. present tense for history

moved to Talk:Nikola Tesla

Not exactly vandalism

The discussion on removing dates that can not be verified can now be found at Wikipedia talk:Verifiability/Dates.

Workaround for Mozilla Bug no longer necessary

moved to Wikipedia:Village pump/August 2003 archive 4

The use of Lists

move to ... ????

For the last couple of days I have taken a break from writing articles and have concentrated on compiling lists of business articles. The following lists cover all the business articles that I have been able to find:

Finding related topics

list of corporate leaders

list of companies