Wikipedia:Village pump/January 2004 archive 1

List of Wikipedians by number of edits

Update Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits? --Jia ng

Try the stats. I can't believe it. The last time I checked you were just one above me, now you're like 10 or 15. :-) --Menchi (Talk)â 23:46, 21 Dec 2003 (UTC)

12314 total pages edited

I may be a bit slow understanding how Wikipedia works, but what does "12314 total pages edited since cutoff" mean? (I'm talking about my basically empty "watchlist".) Edited by whom? Certainly not by me - I've only just discovered Wikipedia. Who or what was cut off (ouch)? Wikikiwi P.S. Hope this is the right place to ask this question.

That's 12314 edits by anyone, within the last week or so, or whatever the cutoff time was when viewing your watchlist. (Cutoff time ---> Show last 1 | 2 | 6 | 12 hours 1 | 3 | 7 days all) Κσυπ Cyp 23:36, 21 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Hi and welcome to wikipedia. hope you like out place. feel free to ask questions here whenever you are unsure about how something works. Optim 00:46, 22 Dec 2003 (UTC)

When should there be a picture?

I see lots of entries which I could add a picture. Should I go ahead and add the picture, or are the guidelines as to which articles should and shouldn't have pictures? Eurleif 04:23, 22 Dec 2003 (UTC)

As long as there are no copyright infringements, I think most articles could do with a picture. - Hephaestos 04:33, 22 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Please do! Also, if you find articles that especially need a picture, and you can't provide one yourself, please list them on Wikipedia:Requested pictures. -- Wapcaplet 04:45, 22 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Great new thought - I want feedback!

I just had an interesting idea and I wanted to get some feedback. On the main page, we have catagories for "In the News", "Recent Deaths", "New Articles" and "Anniversaries". The only way for a non-timely article to get put there is just after it is created.

My thought was - why not create a 5th catagory - "Featured Articles"

People could nominate articles on the discussion page (or would could have a special page just for that). That way, nontimely articles get their time on the main page too. Personally, a lot of the editing I do is on technical articles, which never makes it to the front page. I think this is a way of rewarding people who have similiar tastes. ---Raul654 10:48, 22 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Maybe the most recent additions to Wikipedia:Brilliant prose would fit the bill? Bmills 10:50, 22 Dec 2003 (UTC)

or random or rotating selections from that list. Gentgeen 11:15, 22 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I agree. Let's add it under the anniversries bar (take out the second line); there's also space in the enclyclopedia box. --Jia ng 17:08, 22 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I've created a page for further discussion of this topic --Raul654 17:27, 22 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Bard's Tale - Levitating Up a portal--> Wikipedia:Reference desk

Automobile diagrams?

I'm idly considering working on a generalized 3D model of important parts of an automobile, completely assembled, for the benefit of current or future articles that may need illustration. Significant bits I'd like to include:

Engine compartment, including engine block, radiator, air filter, battery, and however much additional detail I can squeeze in
Suspension/steering system and drive train, including shocks, struts, wheels

This is obviously a large undertaking; I am thinking of loosely basing the model on the illustrations in the repair manual for my Corolla, and plan to essentially build the car from scratch, body and all, in Blender. I'm confident that it can be done, but I'd be interested in hearing opinions on whether it would be worthwhile. Eventually, it'd be great to get a fine enough level of detail to make it applicable for illustrating almost any aspect of how a car works. There's probably enough encyclopedia-like information on automobile construction to make a fairly decent WikiProject out of it. Thoughts? -- Wapcaplet 21:14, 22 Dec 2003 (UTC)

How about doing this as part of the illustration WikiProject? I would definitely love to recruit a 3D artist for rendering some ancient temples and machines... ;-) In any case, we certainly need a decent 3D model of an automobile. How would you upload this? Maybe Flash would be an appropriate format here (it's open), to allow rotation of the model.—Eloquence

Still images (jpg or png) would be easy to export, but since the resulting images will be raster, rather than vector, I don't think Flash would be a possibility without additional conversion. Animations are easy enough to do with Blender, but they'd be .avi or another video format, and probably prohibitively large. What kind of ancient temples and machines do you have in mind? Request them and I'll see what I can do :-) -- Wapcaplet 16:43, 23 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I would strongly put my voice in against using Flash. At least inline in the article. --Morven 23:41, 26 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I agree, but I think a still image with a link to "Interactive 3d model (requires Flash)" would be okay. I'd still prefer as much static content as possible though, as this keeps the articles more generally useful outside a WWW context (e.g. a paper version of Wikipedia, or even just individuals printing out an article for personal use). --Delirium 08:26, Dec 27, 2003 (UTC)

Well, with the approach I'm using, Flash is not likely to be a possibility, so no worries on that front. I've finished the basic body of the car (no interior or wheels yet) and have a rough idea of where I'm going to place some of the engine components; I haven't decided how detailed the eventual model will be, but it will certainly have enough detail to indicate where most of the important parts of a car are (though only in the most general way, since vehicles are all different), and probably a little bit about what they look like. Later, I can go further and flesh out the detail of each piece, aiming for something pretty close to functional realism (if not visual realism). I hope to be able to use the diagrams to explain, for example, how coolant flows through the engine, radiator, and heater core; how the gasoline gets to the engine; how the engine drives the alternator to recharge the battery; how the pressurized brake fluid applies the brakes to the wheels, etc. If anyone else out there is proficient with Blender, please let me know, as this is likely to be a complex project! Later, it'll also be good to have the input of people with automotive expertise. -- Wapcaplet 23:50, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Refreshing Brilliant Prose

The voting for this is on going, but there have not been many voters (a notable exception in an almost entirely negative Tuf-Kat). Could a note of this winnowing be put somewhere prominent, eg Recent Changes, to encourage participation? TwoOneTwo 23:46, 22 Dec 2003 (UTC)

When did articles get categories?

I was reading Drum and bass and saw this notice at the top of a table: This article is part of the Electronic music series. When did Wikipedia articles get categories? Where can I find guidelines to incorporating articles into categories?

I don't think there are any guidelines. Do as you see fit and be willing to discuss alternatives if others don't like it. Tables like that have no technical effect -- they're just a method of organizing articles.Tuf-Kat 03:32, Dec 23, 2003 (UTC)

There's a real technical category system in the works (I kinda get tired of saying this -- when will it go live?), but these series boxes are fairly arbitrary. Someone came up with a standard layout for them once and several users adopted it to group related articles together. I think these boxes are quite neat, personally.—Eloquence

Usernames

What is the relationship between Wiki and Clublet? Why won't my Wiki username let me post/reply there. There is not page, that I can find, that lets me register with Clublet seperately. Is it me, or is Saturn too close?--anon

Are you referring to http://clublet.com/c/c/why?HomePage ? If so, that is a completely different website. "Wiki" is simply a name that describes the concept of openly editable websites, Wikipedia is one website (an encyclopedia) which uses this concept. There are many others, and they all require separate registrations (unlike Clublet, most allow anonymous editing). Please read the article Wiki for more details. As for registering on Clublet, when you click "Edit" on a page, there should be a "Sign in" popup window. If you enter a non-existent username and a password you will be prompted for further information to complete your registration. Hope that helps,—Eloquence

Search Log

Back before the Wiki Search was taken down, there used to be a Search log, where we could see what things people were searching for. Is that still available? RickK 06:32, 23 Dec 2003 (UTC)

That was taken out in mid-2002. It wasn't really directly usable for clicking to create articles as most of the entries were misspellings and/or not exact titles (lowercase, missing articles, with extra terms for 'search engine' style). Further, I don't think most people expect that typing something into a search engine will record their query publicly for posterity. There are privacy issues. --Brion 08:50, 24 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Aria Giovanni is #1?

According to the current list of popular articles, the individual whose article is most frequently viewed is Aria Giovanni. This amazes me. For those of you who are unfamiliar with her, Ms Giovanni is a relatively obscure nude model and soft core porno actress. But by at least one standard she's more famous than George Bush, Saddam Hussein, Jesus Christ, or Britney Spears.

I don't have a point to make about this except that I find this very strange. MK 0124 EST 23 December 2003

Please note that this is based on the page counters, which have been disabled for ages. It might have been because of a high Google ranking at the time (it's not high now), while we have no chance to achieve a high ranking on Jesus or Britney (at least until Google integrates us into their UI like they did with dictionary.reference.com).—Eloquence

I suppose there may also be a connection with her being an "adult" subject. Ours is one of the very few pages about Ms.Giovanni that doesn't contain nudity and keywords that would trigger the adult-content filters used by lots of people and institutions. So I'm guessing that if I enter her name into a search that's intermediated by such a filter then ours would be one of the few sites it would permit through. I'd say the same would be true for other people who you'd typically find on adult websites (largely nude-models and porn starlets). The same isn't true for Britney, Jesus, George, or Saddam - so most sites wouldn't get filtered and wikipedia wouldn't enjoy this unusual "unfair" advantage. -- Finlay McWalter 01:41, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Obscure to who? Not to followers of pornagraphy or adult film stars, to them she's very well known.--Elde 16:51, 31 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Tech: external site to wikipedia wikilinking

Hello villagers. As most good ideas in the world, wiki is becoming so obvious now that one is sure one did really have this idea before (which is obviously false, because ideas don't exist before they are realized). But, anyway, I have done a little web-site on Chinese culture (Classics, poetry...) where I wanted to add many cross-links on any name or important noun, but I never made that because it's too hard to code and maintain. It would be awfully convenient for me to be able to do that massive in-text linking using wiki's markup language. I guess I would only need to include the parse-link function in my php, to translate [[link]] into <a href="wikipedia.org/blabla"> bla </a>. Is it possible to grab politely this chunk of code somewhere? I do believe that it's a great improvement for any dedicated web-site to link many names, titles, or words on a ever-evoluting free encyclopedia (mostly because links should never be broken). I know that my question should be written somewhere else, but where? gbog 16:27, 23 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Look up wiki. there is a link to a list of dozens of Wiki engines. -- Tarquin 16:40, 23 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Stubs vs. short articles

Stubs are supposed to be very short articles, supposedly even without a comma. But I've noticed that many short articles, which just need expansion, have the notice "This article is a stub". Should we be doing this?

Real stubs (with or without a comma) are not properly formed encyclopaedic articles, and should be immediately sent to cleanup, while short articles should be listed on something like:Wikipedia:Articles needing expansion. Maybe thay could have a notice, like "This article needs more work. See the talk page for details."

A whole another thing is that some articles may even need to be short. Zocky 16:58, 23 Dec 2003 (UTC)

There seems to be a significant difference of opinion as to what constitutes a stub article. If you look at Wikipedia:Perfect stub article, it certainly sounds like a stub will have full sentences (presumably with commas as needed). On wikipedia:cleanup the term sub-stub is often used to describe a page that doesn't even meet the requirements of a stub.

By the way, I'd strongly discourage the placing of every stub article on cleanup. Perhaps every sub-stub should be listed there, but we sure don't want to flood cleanup with every stub. -Anthropos 16:19, 1 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I agree, but I dislike this terminogy creep. I think "sub-stubs" should be called "stub" and most "stubs" should be called "articles in need of expansion". It's much clearer that way for newcomers Zocky 18:26, 1 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Help with random Graphs

Help!!

I can't find any basic detailed information on random graphs anywhere and neither can my project tutor. If you help me please email strokable@hotmail.com.

If you're for real (with a handle like that, who can tell?) try the Wikipedia:Reference desk. HTH HAND Phil 18:12, Dec 23, 2003 (UTC)

I just tried Googling for "random graphs" (in quotes). Turned up a ton of what looks like relevant stuff. Suggest you do likewise. Dpbsmith 20:06, 23 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Navigation tables

It's great that articles like Architecture of the United States are linked to "sideways" topics like Architecture of the United States. But could we find a way of doing this without a table? They are undesirable for a large number of reasons, and only articles where tabular data is essential should have one. -- Tarquin 17:38, 23 Dec 2003 (UTC)

This case could be done, I believe, with a floating DIV (in much the way we do most images in floating DIVs).

Finlay McWalter 17:51, 23 Dec 2003 (UTC)

even with a floating DIV, it's still a lot of code at the start of the article, which makes it awkward to edit and confusing to the less technically-minded. I think a section at the foot of the article would be better -- Tarquin 18:02, 23 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Given than we have lots of floating (left and right) stuff, perhaps we should have some specific wiki markup for them. You're totally correct that the CSS markup is too technical - I see lots of images on wikipedia that have botched floating markup (plainly copied from some other article). -- Finlay McWalter 18:15, 23 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I copy and paste images and tables from other articles. If there were a simple wiki markup, I would learn but I've never been able to figure out how to do nice tables with backgrounds or things, or how or why to set margins and the like. Tuf-Kat 20:17, Dec 23, 2003 (UTC)

the point is that it would be preferable to have a section using plain markup, like:

Other articles in this series: foo - blah - thingy

No complex markup needed. -- Tarquin 20:43, 23 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Well, there is the new table syntax, which is still slightly complicated. I converted the table on Architecture of the United States to the new syntax. It's still a bit of code at the beginning, but it's a lot prettier than the HTML. -- Merphant 08:07, 24 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Error: duplication of "Hua-Yen" / "Huayan" / "Hua-yen" article(s)

A general notice of an error to be rectified:

There were two different articles on the Hua-Yen / Huayan school of Buddhism. I made their texts consistent (and corrected one misleading statement), but there are still two separate pages.

Also, I'm not the greatest master of HTML, so the formatting could probably be improved.

Here's the text for both articles as they now stand.

One of the sysops should elminate one of the two pages, and make sure that all the links are sorted out.

[Probably, there are other problems with Chinese words being Romanized with more than one method]

E.M.

I fixed this using a redirect. -- Tim Starling 07:02, Dec 24, 2003 (UTC)

"revert" a bad move

How can I "swap" Ann Danielewski and Poe (singer) ?

It was not a move, it was the contents copied from one article to the other - and thus the article with the text did not have the history of the text anymore. Thus all that was necessary was to revert the changes of the anonymous user. If it were a real move then it can be undone be moving the article back - as long as the redirect page has no history of itself it is possible. Only if the redirect page has a history (like now Ann Danielewski) it needs an administrator to delete the redirect before the article can be moved back. andy 21:59, 23 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Thank you. Andy Mabbett 00:36, 24 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Hi

Hello I would only like to know how do I say I LOVE YOU MY WIFE in Romanian I speek english and am for the US please if you could help me I would appriciate it Thanks Ted here is my email tcecilus2000@yahoo.com

Try Wiktionary:I love you -- Merphant 22:47, 23 Dec 2003 (UTC)

"Te iubesc, soţie mea." -- Jmabel 07:39, 24 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Automatic adding of information

Recently added a page for Twin towns and wondered if there was a way of automatically making the towns added to the list generate the twin info on the article for that town.

e.g. On the Twin towns page you might add: Oxford - Bonn; Is there a quick way of getting the pages for Oxford and Bonn to have something like:

Twin town: Bonn and Twin town: Oxford

added to their respective articles

[user:btljs]

No there is no such way right now. You have to enter the information manually. By the way, you can sign your messages with ~~~, or ~~~~. Dori | Talk 00:33, Dec 24, 2003 (UTC)

Organization of articles

Right now there is a slightly-more-than-stub article about the Committee of Public Safety (during the French Revolution) as such, but much more about the Committee in the excellent article on Maximilien Robespierre (largely from the 1911 Britannica). I kind of like leaving the article on Robespierre intact. Should I just add something to the "Committee of Public Safety" saying, "See also Maximilien Robespierre for a good discussion of the committee and its members", or should I duplicate the content, or what? -- Jmabel 07:55, 24 Dec 2003 (UTC)

One of the 1911EB's idiosyncrasies is to focus excessively on individuals, describing many organizations inline rather than giving them their own articles. I would move all the CoPS material into the other article, and prune Robespierre down to just the stuff about him personally. 1911EB articles are good starting points, but if you read a modern bio of the person, you'll likely want to do massive editing anyway, just to reflect what historians have discovered in the past century. Stan 14:25, 24 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Highlighting

What do I add to the end of the URL to highlight certain words on a page? --Jia ng 09:38, 24 Dec 2003 (UTC)

That is a feature of some PHP scripts running some webpages. I suspect the syntax to do this varies from site to site, and far from all sites are served as PHP content. —Sverdrup (talk) 11:18, 24 Dec 2003 (UTC)

IMDB pseudo-namespace

I was browsing SourceForge to see what was happening and I spotted a report about "IMDB InterWiki namespace incorrectly expanded (out of date)" (it's ID 856707: I would link to it but I'm uncertain what all the doo-dads in the SF URL do). I didn't even know there was such a thing, and I have searched in vain for an explanation. I tested the described behaviour (IMDB:American Pie) and it happens just as stated. Where is the official blurb on this feature? Phil 09:41, Dec 24, 2003 (UTC)

That's "interwiki" linking. We've had that for ever. -- Tarquin 09:48, 24 Dec 2003 (UTC)

So it uses the table on ~~Meatball~~ UseMod Wiki at [1]? ~~Is that updated real-time, so if I adjusted the Meatball Wiki table would the links automagically re-adjust?~~ I think the problem reported in the bug report is because the URL created has a "_" (underline) instead of each space. Phil 09:59, Dec 24, 2003 (UTC)

RC → IRC

Just a feature plug: I'm running a simple IRC bot on irc.freenode.net which dumps recent changes to the #enrc.wikipedia channel. Some people might find it useful. French and German bots are also running, at #derc.wikipedia and #frrc.wikipedia. I've recently improved it so that the bot doesn't have to be manually restarted all the time. There are no immediate plans to extend the service to the other wikis, I don't want to annoy our friends at Freenode too much. -- Tim Starling 12:09, Dec 24, 2003 (UTC)

This bot is extremely useful! Optim 06:53, 25 Dec 2003 (UTC)

may I suggest a few points?

In producing a wikipedia in another language (in Hungarian, for instance) it may/would be useful for the Hungarian native speakers to have the option of some sort of alignment between phrases and/or sections of texts in an article or the headwords themselves. In the Hungarian texts one could keep in brackets or otherwise the hypertext links that are to be contrasted with the Hungarian terms/concepts and their domain. That can help further translation or learning English, which may of course be out of your scope. But should be? For instance it is very tempting/challenging to translate and/or write the article knowledge in Hungarian which would result in two words tudás and ismeret respectively. They are then used to form a number of other phrases connected with knowledge and to be detailed within. All that may be necessary to explain, just as similar differences in mapping other words are very likely and call for commenting. Further examples include the names of various courses and degrees, a constant headache for translators of diplomas and certificates for accreditation. ~~apogr~~

Message tags

I've seen tags for the number of articles (6,925,644) and stubs (This article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.). Is there a page somewhere with a complete listing of them? --Raul654 21:22, 24 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Try Wikipedia:MediaWiki custom messages. ~ Jake 22:09, 24 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I'd like an answer to my question

Has Wikipedia or at least the Village Pump been taken over by an authoritarian regime or what? For days now I've been trying to find out why the "list of links" may be incomplete and what could be done about it, but all I get is no reaction (Wikipedia talk:Bug reports) or my question being archived, i e deleted (here, this morning). I don't give up easily, so here it is again. To all of you who believe in Jesus, a merry Christmas! --KF 23:33, 24 Dec 2003 (UTC)

What list of links? If you mean the list for "What links here", there are two reasons, as has been answered many times in the past:

The links tables aren't always accurate.
The list is cut off after the first 500 results as an initial measure against pages that gained ~30,000 links due to user:rambot-created city entries, and an ability to page through the list hasn't gotten added yet.

If you mean something else, please specify. --Brion 00:13, 25 Dec 2003 (UTC)

When I'm reading, say, the 1960s page and I click on "What links here", I get

==1960s==

(List of links)

The following pages link to here:

101st Airborne Division

etc.

So this is why, not surprisingly I think, I referred to it as "list of links".

However, the alphabetical list stops at Co- (Coleco). This never happened, at least to my knowledge, when the list was still chronological.

It was never chronological, though it was previously in no particular order. I explained all this before, who was asking then?

I don't understand what this is to do with the city entries. I don't think it shows 500 results; it seems less. And anyway, if that feature does not work, how on earth are you supposed to build an encyclopaedia? --KF 00:44, 25 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Yes, that shows 500. Count them if you like. --Brion 00:53, 25 Dec 2003 (UTC)

PS When I want to edit a section of this page a different one opens.

That's because people add sections and their numbers change. -- Timwi 01:00, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Actually, there does seem to be a bug. It's caused by your insertion of "==1960s==" somewhere up there (and this will probably worsen it). -- Timwi 01:01, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)

All this sounds unfriendly and impatient to me. Am I supposed to be sorry for asking? Am I supposed to be happy that every other question is answered?

You should not consider it your right to receive an answer. Everybody here is a volunteer and is not getting paid. -- Timwi 01:00, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)

"As has been answered many times in the past": When? Where? By whom?

I'm too tired to continue now, but I don't understand any of this. KF 01:02, 25 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Here, in the pump. When? I don't know exactly, a few weeks ago? It's probably been archived somewhere where it will never be found again. Anyway, I'm right now banging at the code to try to make it possible to page through the results; apologies if I sound impatient, but it's a bit of a hectic time of year. --Brion 01:06, 25 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Merry Christmas!

Merry christmas and best wishes for Peace Profound! Optim 06:51, 25 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Wikipedia & ethics of "sensitive" information

While researching the article on medical prescription, I stumbled across information on what consistutes a valid DEA number (US government's Drug Enforcement Agency). That, is the number of letters and digits and the relationship of the digits and letters within the DEA number. While this information is clearly public, including it Wikipedia certainly aids criminals in prescription forgeries. Should I include it in an article? (The same discussion would apply to credit card numbers, etc.) Samw 00:40, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with these numbers (hey, an article about the numbers would be good) - what legitimate interest would someone have in finding these numbers in an encyclopedia? -- Finlay McWalter 00:48, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)

The information on how valid credit card numbers are constructed is already in Wikipedia, which I don't see as problematic. These are all very simple and openly published checksums, so relying on them to prevent fraud would certainly be foolish. If there is an article in which the DEA number information would be of interest, I would say go ahead and add it. --Delirium 08:38, Dec 27, 2003 (UTC)

I agree. I recall that, at age 15, how to construct a valid credit card number was part of my school syllabus (if my memory can be trusted, they have certian prefixes and a mod 10 checksum). I don't see how a DEA number could be any more sensitive. Stewart Adcock 17:02, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)

No answers, but perhaps I can formulate some questions. The big question is, "is it legitimately of interest to someone who's interested in the subject of prescriptions?" Let's put it another way. We normally accept that encyclopedia articles are of legitimate interest to somebody who is not a professional in the field described by the topic. If we truly believed that "A little learning is a dangerous thing/Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring" there would be no point in having an encyclopedia at all. Your article on medical prescriptions (which looks very good, by the way) already contains information about prescription forgeries. I find this information interesting to know, even though I've never forged and never intend to forge a prescription. Normally we assume that the inclusion of information is not tantamount to an enticement to abuse. Personally, I think that information about the internal consistency check algorithm for a valid DEA number is legitimate, while, say, Bill Gates' social security number is not.

I tend to agree with those who deprecate "security through obscurity." There was a recent research paper by some computer security gurus who looked at the structure of an ordinary cylinder lock with master-key system. They saw analogies to well-known security issues in computer systems and were surprised to find that the system was extremely insecure. Their publication created a minor flap—but then it emerged that the security issues had, in fact, been known to locksmiths and criminals literally for over a century. The only people that hadn't known about them were the people that relied on the security of these locks.

The second question is: can you get in trouble yourself or get Wikipedia in trouble by including some piece of information? I think I'm not going to even try to guess on this one. Dpbsmith 15:01, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for everyone's input. I've added a description of the checksum algorithm to Drug Enforcement Administration. Samw 21:39, 30 Dec 2003 (UTC)

thanks!!!

thank you to whomever fixed the system after the xmas crash. Kingturtle 23:27, 26 Dec 2003 (UTC) P.S. can someone direct me to the this is not wikipedia page so I can retrieve some stuff I was working on during the xmas crash? Kingturtle

I second the motion (and move that $10 of the wikimedia foundation's cash buy that person a few beers). You probably want: [2] -- Finlay McWalter 00:58, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Additional terms in parenthesis

Has it become standard to indicate films by adding "(films)" or "(movies)" after the title. If it is only for disambiguation I don't think Alphaville, une étrange aventure de Lemmy Caution (film) is necessary. TwoOneTwo 00:34, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Sage advice. Does the styleguide say this? It certainly should. -- Finlay McWalter 01:05, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Appletalk/AppleTalk articles

According to Apple documentation, the official correct name for the protocol is "AppleTalk", not "Appletalk". Yet, it's the "Appletalk" page that has the text and the "AppleTalk" page that is the redirect. Anyone going to have a problem with me flipping this inaccuracy? RedWolf 05:44, Dec 27, 2003 (UTC)

Sounds like an eminently sensible change to me...

James F. (talk) 07:15, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Go for it. Dpbsmith 15:01, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Articles flip completed. RedWolf 22:00, Dec 27, 2003 (UTC)

Image linking

Clicking the highlighted text (link) where an image is suggested within an article yields a blank browser screen (IE) with the following URL in the "Address" field:

http://127.0.0.1:1027/clear.cgi?

This URL does NOT match the one revealed in the Status bar when hovering over the given link in the text

(The above URL was obtained by clicking on the highlighted portion of the following entry in the wiki/Special:Imagelist page)
(desc) Kinggus.jpg . . 9050 bytes . . J.J. . . 01:47, 27 Dec 2003 (Government portrait of Swedish King)

Any suggestions?

Most likely you are using some sort of local web proxy; some people use these to filter out advertisements or potentially offensive material. Sometimes these will filter out images that happen to fall in the "/upload/a/ad" subdirectory, for instance. I'm not sure what's triggering this image (http://en.wikipedia.org/upload/2/2e/Kinggus.jpg ) but you should check the settings on your proxy if you're using one. --Brion 08:55, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)

How to chat with an anon user?

Hi! Here's a minor puzzler: an un-logged-in user (24.202.135.211) has made something like 25 edits to Priory of Sion in the past hour or so- how would one go about pointing out the preview button to someone who presumably doesn't check their talk page? Or would one just use the talk page anyway? Thanks for any light you can shed! - Puffy jacket 09:11, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Use his talk page. If nothing else, the alert that he has messages may entice him to click there and read your words. Or if he's clueless, and you are working on the article at the same time, you can write somthing there (just be sure to get rid of it when done!) -- Nauvoo 09:16, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Rainbow 6/six disambiguation help

There are two things called Rainbow six/6, a book and a computer game based on it. The game is at Rainbow 6 (video game) (It was at Rainbow 6, but I changed the name. The book is at Rainbow six. I am fairly new to Wikipedia, at least to editing, as I've been registered for quite a while, so I would like some help in what to do here. One issue is that people would get one entry if they searched for Rainbow six, and another for Rainbow 6.

I think there should probably be a disambiguation page for one of them to the book and game, and the other one should re-direct to the first, but I'm not sure how to do that. Also, the book entry could be turned into a disambiguation as it references the book and game, alternatively, we could create a new disambiguation page, and leave the book entry (Rainbow six) to be just on the book (possibly as a stub).

Basically, I would like some advice on how to handle this, and possibly someone to deal with it themselves, and walk me through the process involved, so I have a better idea of how things work here. Thanks Silverfish 14:13, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)

VfD

After the ballots on Votes for Deletion are closed, IF the tally is in favor of keeping the article, is the article cleansed of all history of prior nomination in VfD?

thanks -- Ensiform

I don't understand your question. All prior versions of an article are kept. It is not possible to erase any. So the history will carry verisons that include the deletion message. -- Tarquin 17:58, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Are lists copyright?

Can a list be copyright? The article List of former members of the U.S. House of Representatives has been copied directly from a website called Nationmaster.com ( [http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Historic-Members-of-the-United-States-House-of-Representatives]), but it's only a list of names and I don't know if a list can be copyrighted. If it is, ought it be deleted? Adam 15:26, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Hello. If you were to read the nationmaster site, you'd see that it is copying from us, legally. Thanks, Morwen 15:28, Dec 27, 2003 (UTC)

Hi, also, I think this list will be somewhat useless if and when we have more complete listings of the members of each Congress. I think that someone has already started working on this. Danny 15:31, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I have been looking for a complete list of members of the House back to 1789 by district and party, but I can only find one back to 1824 - any suggestions? Adam 15:35, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I suggest you write to the Library of Congress? :) Morwen 15:38, Dec 27, 2003 (UTC)

Check Wikipedia. We have computer-generated lists for First United States Congress to Thirtieth United States Congress. ;-) Danny 15:44, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Yes but they don't identify Representatives by District. However, I see that if I cross-reference the lists at the Congressional Biography website (which gives party but not District) with the lists at the Political Graveyard website (which gives District but not party), I can compile a complete table of all Reps by party and District 1789-2003. Am I mad enough to embark on such a project? Possibly - I already created a list of all members of the British House of Commons by constituency back to 1800 so I am capable of anything :) Adam 16:10, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Start with the Senators; there are less of those. I am trying my hand at a table of Senators for the First Congress. Danny 16:18, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I already have a complete list of Senators somewhere, which is easy to get from the Congressional Quarterly Guide to US Elections, which I bought for $50 in San Francisco in 1987. I might turn that into a WP article soon. The House is much harder. Adam 16:23, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)

A plain list can not be copyright. -- Tarquin 17:56, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)

But a sorted list can be. CGS 18:28, 30 Dec 2003 (UTC).

A merely sorted list? Have you got a citation for that? Dandrake 02:13, Jan 1, 2004 (UTC)

Logos

Please continue this discussion at Wikipedia talk:Logos and Wikipedia:Logos

Hello again,
and sorry for my perfectible english. I see that my question about the presence of commercial logos in wikipedia pages has disappeared from the village pump, so I put it again because from my point of view, these logos don't bring any information; on the other side such a logo entertain the image of the company in our minds, that's why I consider it as advertising. Why do you think commercial firms pay a lot of money to have their logos visible during big events? Hémant 15:47, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Please provide examples of (links to) articles where logos might be improperly displayed. I think it is an individual matter dependent upon relevance to the article (for example if not a copyvio, it might well be appropriate to display the logo of CocaCola in the article on colas) - Marshman 17:45, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)
It's generally perfectly appropriate. If a TV news was covering a story about Ford, they'd show the logo. They'd show it if Ford was creating new jobs, firing lots of people, had broken some world record, or made some car that killed its occupants. -- Finlay McWalter 17:51, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Take a look at Wikipedia_talk:Logos and Wikipedia:Logos and join the discussion. Most of the Village Pump discussion was moved there. Discussions here and elsewhere led to the drafting of a proposed policy, which, to date, has not gotten enough discussion and debate.

My own view is that the logo is the the corporate equivalent of a person's portrait. I feel that a picture of Mark Twain or Hans Christian Andersen or Stephen Crane or Nicole Kidman adds something to an encyclopedia article, even though it is hard to make any left-brained logical explanation of precisely what information it conveys. In similar manner, I think that a logo is a very reasonable thing to have in an article about a company. As to the point that the logo promotes the company, well, so does the mere presence of an article (by indicating that the company is significant enough to deserve mention in an encyclopedia). Any article on practically anything of contemporary commercial significance can be regarded as having a promotional effect. Should we not have articles on J. K. Rowling or Nicole Kidman or Eminem on the basis that commercial firms "pay a lot of money" to publicize these people? That's my $0.02, go to Wikipedia talk:Logos and Wikipedia:Logos and let us have yours. Dpbsmith 23:59, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Please continue this discussion at Wikipedia talk:Logos and Wikipedia:Logos

Article creation

During the drafting of my user page many errors were made while scripting the various links.

Does errant scripting of links inadvertently create new article pages?
Is there a wiki listing the most recently created articles? (Did I "wiki" the term "wiki" correctly?)
How are items compiled for the Requested articles list? (How are user/member requests made and processed?)

--azwaldo 16:25, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I take it you mean something like this article doesn't exist with "errant scripting of links"? It doesn't create an article, just provides an easy link for someone wishing to create that article. (The links are useful as well for stuff like investigating which non-existant articles are most in demand)
There is a special page on wikipedia listing all the newly created articles: Special:Newpages
People just add titles that they think should be created but are either too lazy or not knowledgeable enough to create themselves. The page is edited like any other wikipedia article. --snoyes 16:47, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Fictional Universes?

Is there/should there be either a standard designation for the plethora of articles on the characters, locations, etc. of self consistent fictional universes. Those of science fiction and fantasy seem to be especially prevalent (e.g. Star Trek, Star Wars, Tolkien's Middle-Earth, Harry Potter). A few of these could almost sustain a wiki-encyclopedia of their own... As it's traditionally not customary for encyclopedia to include numerous articles on fictional characters... has this issue been hashed out already? - Seth Ilys 21:22, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Numerous times. There's widespread agreement (although no consensus) that it's best to merge these into super-articles like Characters of Middle Earth, with redirects from the respective pages where appropriate. This avoids context duplication and flooding of the article space with what many consider to be unencyclopedic fringe material.

This advice conflicts somewhat with the standards presented in Wikipedia:Contributing to Wikipedia.

Elde 21:57, 31 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Not anymore.—Eloquence

I tweaked the bit to have more of a rationale based on amount of possible content; a lot of the fictional character articles I see can never muster more than "Doggydoo is the lovable sidekick of Smartypants the Bear, and always says 'arf' when he's hungry." The whole fictional characters thing should probably be more organized, because there are hundreds if not thousands of stubly articles wandering around the namespace now. Stan 23:06, 31 Dec 2003 (UTC)

There is in fact a Tolkien wiki and a MediaWiki-based Star Trek encyclopedia, but that doesn't stop the respective fans from hanging out here. I personally have no problem with that but I do detest small articles about individual fictional characters and places.

Perhaps, for those groups for which wikis exist, a prominent link to the relevant wiki could be placed in the appropriate articles... would that discourage their development here?

We do not tolerate fan fiction or other material that is only relevant to very small fringes even within the respective communities.—Eloquence

To put it in perspective, Odysseus and Achilles have been described in encyclopedias for a long time... :-) In general, I think it's sufficient for the first sentence to say "fiction" or "fictional", and supply author/milieu; disambiguators like "(Middle-earth)" are annoyingly verbose in titles, should only be used if necessary. (If you disagree, move him to Achilles (Iliad).) Wikipedia:WikiProject Fictional Series purports to be a project on this, but says little, also there's Wikipedia:Check your fiction. Stan 21:37, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)

It's important to note that these are mythological figures which appear in different stories and in different imagery. When a character becomes so deeply embedded in our culture or in a past one, it clearly deserves its own article (compare also Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck). Also, when it's a very complex character with a long back story, this may also be preferable. On the other hand, an article about Zipper the Fly makes a lot less sense.—Eloquence

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia of encyclopedias. There is therefore nothing wrong with having a great many Middle Earth, Star Trek or Star Wars articles if there is enough to write about each subject. But if all there ever can be is a stub on a subject then it should be merged into a larger article. There certainly is no consensus to do this to the extent the Eloquence suggests. --mav 13:02, 1 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Contribution record on deleted pages

If I'm not mistaken, if a page is deleted, contribution refords on that page is not listed on "User contributions" and "My contributions" pages. But I would like to double-check on this. I and others are now discussing a possible defamation case between two Japanese Wikipedians, and we may soon try to delete a certain summary comment that is allegedly defamatory. Is deleting a page enough to eliminate the comment, or should we possibly have to ask special help? Tomos 01:29, 28 Dec 2003 (UTC)

That's correct. Deleted pages in essence vanish from history. (Unless they're subsequently undeleted, of course.)

If a summary comment is the only thing at issue, though, it could be individually wiped if everyone thinks that would be better. Depends on circumstances. --Brion 02:12, 28 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Welcome back everybody.

Good to see you. Zocky 03:11, 30 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Thanks to all the Wikimedia developers (Brion, et al) and sysads and employees at Bomis (Jason, et al)! Hope that the 23K raised could really help with the redundancy effort. :) --seav 03:32, Dec 30, 2003 (UTC)

Yip, thanks to Brion and all the others involved. --snoyes 03:39, 30 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Time for the most unique rider's club to reunite again, the wikiriders!! LOL!

Antonio Harley Wikipedison Martin

Agreed, thanks to everyone who works so hard on keeping Wikipedia going. And everyone, give yourselves pats on the back for contributing to the fundraiser! (You did contribute to the fundraiser, right? If not, what are you waiting for? :-) -- Wapcaplet 21:05, 30 Dec 2003 (UTC)

List of teenagers

Been thinking of making this, list of teenagers, not people who became famous as children, mind you, only as teenagers, what do you think? Antonio Forever Young Martin

I think we have too many lists already, but that's just my opinion. Metasquares 14:43, 30 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I agree with Metasquares in general. However, if there is a clear need for it, go ahead. If there is no need for it, don't bother. —Frecklefoot 08:52, 30 Dec 2003 (PST)

There is a List of youngsters in history, that has a list of teenagers included in it. Adam Bishop 17:16, 30 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Yet another frivolous list (IMHO). If we have this list, then why wouldn't "list of 20 year olds", "List of 30 year olds", etc. be allowed so as not to age discriminate? RedWolf 17:26, Dec 30, 2003 (UTC)

I have a proposal for a list that we can all find revlevant - the List of hookers. Anyone have suggestions to start the list with? --Raul654 07:25, 31 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Heidi Fleiss? RickK 05:05, 1 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Currently Teenager redirects to Adolescence, which does include a (short and not terribly illustrative) list. I think it might be more appropriate to use Teenager specifically for the emergence of a distinct teen culture, primarily in the US in the 1950s. Or at least there should be such an article under some name. Jmabel 04:41, 31 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Rudolf Hess vs Rudolf Heß

Schnee and I have a question about the following articles - Rudolf Hess and Rudolf Heß. He moved the article from Hess to Heß (making Hess a redirect), and I moved it back again. We talked it over (I am copying our discussion below) and we wanted to get everyone's opinion on which one to make the article and which one to make a redirect . It basically boils down to - Hess is the way it is always spelled in English, but Heß is the proper german way of spelling it.

(From User talk:Raul654)

Hi, with regard to the question which of the two pages given above should be a redirect to the other one - it may be true that "Hess" is the traditional english spelling, but the correct spelling of the (german) name is "Heß", so don't you think that Rudolf Hess should redirect to Rudolf Heß instead of vice versa? Just a thought. :) -- Schnee 01:37, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)

(From User talk:Schneelocke)

My thoughts on the matter were basically:

This is the english wikipedia - I don't think it's a trivial matter that the titles should be only standard english-language characters, or else no one can directly link to Rudolf Heß without copying it first, like I did.
Like I said before, Hess is the way it is spelled in English. (I've never seen it any other way) As precedent, I'd point out the fact that Italia (how Italians refer to Italy) is a redirect to Italy, Deutschland (as a disambig page) to Germany, etc etc. We usually put articles under the name by which they are most commonly known, which is not always the most "proper" name. Where languages are concered, we go with the standard English version.

--Raul654 02:09, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)

There's a difference here, though. "Germany" or "Italy" or translations of the respective names, whereas "Rudolf Hess" is merely a spelling variation of the correct name (Heß). It may be true that it's more difficult to directly link to Rudolf Heß than to Rudolf Hess for someone who can't directly type a ß, but since one of the articles will always redirect to the other, I think that's irrelevant. And for what it's worth, there are several examples where latin-1 characters are used for article titles: take a look at, for example, Kraków, Eugène Ionesco, Josef Hiršal and others.

Furthermore, the fact that this is the English Wikipedia does not mean anything - to quote from Wikipedia:POV, "Also be careful to avoid an English-speaking Point Of View. Although country-specific and similar POVs are often easy to spot, this can be harder to spot." As said above already, "Rudolf Heß" *is* the correct spelling, so this is what should be used for the article. -- Schnee 13:16, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)

You make a good point. Here's what I propose - let's copy the above discussion to the Wikipedia:Village pump as a request for comments and see what everyone says. That way, should another issue like this come up again, the community can enfore uniformity. --Raul654 19:48, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Good idea. Let's do that. -- Schnee 21:36, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English) suggests using English unless the native form is more commonly used in English than the anglicised form, which in this case it isn't as there are only 60 Google hits for "Rudolf Heß" if you limit the search to English pages, compared to over 15000 for "Rudolf Hess". Angela . 06:19, 30 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I agree: use Rudolf Hess as the almost universally-used name in English. In addition, I believe German spelling reform now means that Hess and not Heß is the proper spelling in German as well, though I'm not sure whether this is applied to names or not. --Delirium 09:57, Dec 30, 2003 (UTC)

I think the English page should be Rudolf Hess, but I wonder about the google numbers. A search for "Rudolf Heß" is extended by google to "Rudolf Hess" (at least if I use google.co.uk or google.com from Germany - even with the link above! -, I'm not sure if this applies universally, and finds some 8.000 pages). If I search for "Rudolf Heß" -Hess, it still get's 2.800 pages. Only if one turns it to "english language only", the page number is reduced to 45. -- till we *) 12:58, Dec 30, 2003 (UTC)

I'd say put it at "Hess". Practicality should be more important than issues of whether English or German speakers are using the more "correct" form of the name. The practical issues here are (1) in other articles, it's marginally better to link to the page itself than a redirect to the page, and (2) if you're writing an article in English, you'll always want the visible link text to be "Hess", not "Heß". If the article were at "Heß", then links would thus best be [[Rudolf Heß|Rudolf Hess]] rather than [[Rudolf Hess]]. That wouldn't be very intuitive, and I don't think it's worth it for a point of linguistic etiquette. If the issue needs highlighting, then the article itself should do that, not the title of the article. Onebyone 16:05, 30 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Google tells me there's "about 87" hits for Heß on English pages. I checked some, and many of them are either quoting German text or belong to neo nazi organizations. I say, go with Hess. Zocky 16:18, 30 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I agree that the article should live at Rudolf Hess (much as I love the ß) and want to add a little note thanking Raul and Schnee for demonstrating how disputes on Wikipedia should happen: polite disagreement (not just caving when someone disagrees with you), the decision to make sure the community is involved, and an overall spirit of Wikilove. I'm happier just having read this thread. :) Jwrosenzweig 16:31, 30 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Hear! Hear! Andrewa 21:59, 30 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Aww... I'm flattered :) --Raul654 07:20, 31 Dec 2003 (UTC)

This is the English Wikipedia. We should no more have an article at Heß than at Wien. RickK 05:08, 1 Jan 2004 (UTC)

There are lots of folks like Albrecht Dürer, Ernst Thälmann or Franz Josef Strauß. Should they all be changed to Albrecht Duerer, Ernst Thaelmann and Franz Josef Strauss if google gave more hits with the "wrong" spelling? Or do we make an exception especially for Rudolf? -- User:Moehre 08:04, 1 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Interesting point. As an English speaker with no knowledge of German, I'd have looked for Ernst Thälmann under Ernst Thalmann, which isn't even a redirect. This article is a stub anyway, so perhaps a name change and redirect creation will happen when the article is written.

I think the point about Wien is well made above. The English spelling is Vienna of course. The only consistent and enforceable policy is to use English spellings. Alternatively, we could change the policy to say that so long as the appropriate redirects are there, either spelling can be used for the article. That strikes me as more Wikipedic, but may promote fruitless revert wars. I'd leave the policy as is.

And as the policy stands, the examples given and many more should eventually get changed. It doesn't seem all that urgent to me. Andrewa 14:01, 1 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I tend to favor the actual spelling of anyone's proper name (thus Rudolf Heß not Rudolf Hess). However, it becomes quickly obvious to me that while German uses mostly the same alphabet as English, difficulty in being consistent on this will arise for all languages which do not share the English alphabet — and becoming downright impossible for most Asian languages. So the only consistent approach is to transliterate these names into "English". Nonetheless, that is not necessarily my vote, as it could be argued that this Wikipedia is for English and perhaps other european users primarily, and the case could be made to use "correct" spellings for such proper names, and transliterate all others. - Marshman 22:17, 1 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Preservation

I am always interested on knowing whether examples of a particular aircraft have been preserved. Two of interest, because my father made me models of them, are the Handley Page Hampden and the Vickers Wellington.

Keith Lucas kwl@aber.ac.uk

Wikipedia database problem?

I created the article Éothéod during the wikipedia problems of Dec 28, and the article does exist, but all articles linking to it seem not to be aware: the link is marked as a non-exist article. I have tried to resolve it by performing an edit on Éothéod, but alas without success. Jor 14:24, Dec 30, 2003 (UTC)

See Dragons_(Middle-earth) or Rohan for examples. Jor

This sometimes happens, however the magic is to edit the page which contains the red link (I just did it with Cirion - it needed bolding of the topic anyway), and the link went blue. andy 16:36, 30 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I think you need to edit the linking articles, as they are where the problem lies. I have edited and saved Rohan, which seems to have fixed it. I'll do the others when I get time - unless somebody else does them first. Anjouli 16:37, 30 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for the assistance in fixing the links :) Jor 21:51, Dec 30, 2003 (UTC)

I think that, wherever possible, article titles with such accented characters should be accompanied by a redirect from the unaccented equivalent (in this case Eotheod). Apart from fixing problem arising from this (entirely understandable) misspelling, it avoids the circumstance where some future visitor makes a dupe article at the unaccented name, without knowing the accented one exists. -- Finlay McWalter 17:03, 30 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Self-promotion?

Moved to Talk:M.R.M. Parrott.

DOWNLOAD PAGE BROKEN

Could somebody tell me when ill be able to download tomeraider wikipedia?

Should be back up sometime today with a spanking new January 1 backup; I'll try to get the tomeraider files back online sooner. --Brion 00:13, 1 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Edit-war brewing on Warwickshire...

... again.
*sigh*
Could some non-involved sysop (are there any left, now?) please protect the page, as User:80.255 doesn't seem to want to engage in further discussion ("Ping pong!" as an edit comment isn't terribly inspiring, TBH)?
James F. (talk) 19:39, 30 Dec 2003 (UTC)

- Done --Raul654 20:27, 30 Dec 2003 (UTC)

For those of us who don't have strong feelings about Warwickshire but have an idle and discreditable fascination with edit wars... can anyone explain to us just what this edit war is apparently about? Dpbsmith 17:30, 31 Dec 2003 (UTC)

It's ultimately caused by the fact that in the UK, county boundaries are changed every now and then (or seemingly every five minutes in a few cases). In the case of Warwickshire, a large chunk was taken out in 1974. The war is over whether Warwickshire should be a simple disambiguation page between Warwickshire (traditional) and Warwickshire (administrative), or whether it should just describe the modern administrative county. But for all that, it's still less silly than was the fight over at Birmingham as to how big London is. Onebyone 17:51, 31 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Thanks! Dpbsmith 23:42, 31 Dec 2003 (UTC)

format for quotes

I was taught that punctuation goes before the end quote, but I have seen countless times on wikipedia the punctuation going after the end quote. Was I taught incorrectly? Or have times changed?

the so called "Zagreb Bible," which
 or
the so called "Zagreb Bible", which

the inscription read "Manchu State Postal Administration;"
 or
the inscription read "Manchu State Postal Administration";

SMOP is an acronym for "Small Matter of Programming". 
 or
SMOP is an acronym for "Small Matter of Programming."

Kingturtle 05:27, 31 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I think in the US it's "blah," and in some other countries it's "blah",

I prefer the latter but use the former to be more consistent with most editors in en. Dori | Talk 05:32, Dec 31, 2003 (UTC)

Kingturtle is correct - gramatically (in the US, at least), it's preferred that the puncutation goes before the quotation mark. As a computer engineer, I cringe every time I have to write it that way. --Raul654 07:17, 31 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I think "blah," is the older and more pleasing usage, though this is only an approximation of the real typesetting solution which is to place the quotes further to the left so they're partially above the comma. In recent years, especially outside the US, the form "blah", has become more common as it's clearer from a parsing point of view, since it clearly shows whether the punctuation is part of the quote or not. I think either one is acceptable on Wikipedia, and would discourage changing one to the other. --Delirium 08:22, Dec 31, 2003 (UTC)

For me the crucial factor is whether we are talking about speech or phrase/referred word.

So-and-so said: "I think I will do this-and-that," and went on to do so.

Or the other variety of "quote", where one is just putting "quotes" around a word or phrase. -- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen 09:38, Dec 31, 2003 (UTC)

IMO, it doesn't matter whether the punctuation is inside or outside the quotes except in cases where the "quoted" material is supposed to be exact or verbatim. E.g., "On the C prompt type ‘dir’, then press ENTER, and then you'll see a list of the files in the current directory."