Wikipedia-l October 2002

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81 participants
419 discussions

Re: CE / BCE (was: RFC on a few feature requests)
by Jeroen Heijmans 10 Oct '02

10 Oct '02

> > >What *is* our convention on BC / BCE and AD / CE? > >On the en: wiki, the year, century, etc pages are called "BC", but I >think a majority of articles use "BCE". >I bumped into an article specifically about the naming system, which >states that "BCE" and "CE" are now preferred, in general. > >perhaps we should take our own advice? > I think we should give preference to the BC/AD system. Before I found Wikipedia, I had never heard of the other convention, and I think BC/AD is still the most used and best known system - the best reason for preferring it over the other. However, that should be for the article titles, I think we should be free to use it in text if somebody wants to, just like we don't prefer US English over British. Jeronimo

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Power Search
by Karen AKA Kajikit 10 Oct '02

10 Oct '02

Thanks for this snazzy new feature! I just found it yesterday when I got back to the pedia after my holiday... it looks like it will be very useful, especially the ability to search particular namespaces. -- Karen AKA Kajikit To err is human... to really foul things up add kitten and stir. Come and visit my part of the web: Kajikit's Corner: http://Kajikit.netfirms.com/ Aussie Support Mailing List: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AussieSupport Allergyfree Eating Recipe Swap: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Allergyfree_Eating Ample Aussies Mailing List: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ampleaussies/

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Cite your sources...
by Karen AKA Kajikit 10 Oct '02

10 Oct '02

[sorry that this is unthreaded. I'm looking at recent messages in the archive and I'm not sure how you're meant to reply to them!] When I use a website as a source of information, I almost always include it under 'Further Reading', because I am not including ALL the information on the page and someone might want to go there and see the pictures, etc... if I don't list any pages, then the contents of that article were probably dredged up from my memory. :) -- Karen AKA Kajikit To err is human... to really foul things up add kitten and stir. Come and visit my part of the web: Kajikit's Corner: http://Kajikit.netfirms.com/ Aussie Support Mailing List: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AussieSupport Allergyfree Eating Recipe Swap: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Allergyfree_Eating Ample Aussies Mailing List: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ampleaussies/

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RE: [Wikipedia-l] RFC on a few feature requests
by Poor, Edmund W 10 Oct '02

10 Oct '02

I agree with Brion's suggestions for: * count total number of _pages_ (for "most wanted", "most popular") rather than links. * namespace localization (yes, give the non-English Wikipedians whatever goodies they need!!) I'm not sure about page rename: * I like the prospect of eliminating a chain of redirects: Foo links to A, which redirects to B, which redirects to C. If Foo should link to C, then the new feature would eliminate two extra links -- Foo would link directly to C without any intervening redirects. * But what about the look of the link? If I link to [[Hamlet (2000 film)]] and Mav renames the target article to "Hamlet (2000 movie)" -- then what happens to my link? Does it become [[Hamlet (2000 movie)]]? I'm not sure about blocking. *We must make sure we don't inappropriately block valid, logged-in users. (Just yesterday, I accidentally blocked a _valid_, anonymous user who was helping clean up the damage caused by an anonymous _vandal_; I apologized, of course, and will be more careful in the future.) Would this feature change help prevent such mistakes? *Jimbo had said that he reserves the right to ban logged-in users. Perhaps he meant only people antagonizing others with historical revisionism or personal remarks -- not kids who replace entire articles with the word "kool" -- but I'd like to see a clarification from him. Ed Poor

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Meta
by Gareth Owen 10 Oct '02

10 Oct '02

Should http://meta.wikipedia.org/ and http://meta.wikipedia.com/ not point to the same place (at the moment the former points to the standard wiki (or it does when dns looked-up from here... -- Gareth Owen "Wikipedia does rock. By the count on the "brilliant prose" page, there are 14 not-bad articles so far" -- Larry Sanger (12 Jan 2001)

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RE: [Wikipedia-l] Re: CE / BCE (was: RFC on a few feature requests)
by Mark Christensen 10 Oct '02

10 Oct '02

> BTW, what *are* the other systems likely to be encountered? > Muslim and Jewish are all I can think of, but maybe the > Baalists have some preference that hasn't come to my agnostic attention. Don't forget the eastern schemes! The Chinese calendar is far more widely used than the western alternatives to the BC/AD scheme, if only because it had less cultural contact with the main force for standardizing dates in Europe -- the Roman Catholic Church (which drove standards because they wanted everybody celebrating the same feasts on the same day). Mark Christensen

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Re: Re: [Wikipedia-l] some questions concerning copyright
by lcrocker＠nupedia.com 10 Oct '02

10 Oct '02

> Yep. I don't think they are really copyrighted, there rather > appears to be special laws about them (as above). And the problem > I forgot to mention: if we include them in Wikipedia it means we > are putting them under a new licence, the GFDL, which knows nothing > about these restrictions (which still apply). Or do I > misunderstand the concept of GFDL here? So it seems we have a > conflict here. The GFDL only licenses the rights under copyright. The restrictions you mention above are more akin to _trademark_ restrictions, about which GFDL has nothing to say (nor should it). Just because it's OK to put a picture of a Coke can here--or even put such a picture in the public domain--that doesn't mean you could download it and print it on your own cans and sell them as Coke. They still have the right to the use of their logos and such for identification.

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Re: [Wikipedia-l] RFC on a few feature requests
by Daniel Mayer 10 Oct '02

10 Oct '02

Brion wrote: >..... >This can be switched by the simple >addition of "DISTINCT" to a couple >SQL queries; is there any reason to >retain the current behavior? Yes, please do this. The current set-up doesn't make sense. In longish, technical articles with large tables (like the element articles) I will often link a single term in the introduction/definition paragraph, in the table and in the body text under an appropriate heading (one link each). The reason I do this is because each of these areas are often used by readers to the exclusion of other areas; most people will only read the introduction/definition paragraph and quickly glance at the table to get a good idea about what the subject is and why it is important (thus if an important topic is included in the intro then it should be linked). Others will dive right into one of the sections, such as Isotopes, to get info on only that part (therefore it is important to have a topic linked that directly relates to that section). Yet other people will mostly focus on the technical information in the table (links there act as a key for the table, for example; DM -> [[decay mode]], iso -> [[isotope]], or even van der Waals radius -> [[van der Waals radius]] - which may be linked in the body text but not noticeable, etc.). So for an element like strontium which has the notable isotope Sr-90, the term "isotope" may be linked in the first paragraph, in the isotope section of the body text and in the isotope section of the table. Each link is important for the article but I don't think it should be counted three times. >* On blocking vandals; there's still >no interface for blocking by username, >and you can't get the IP address of a >logged-in user except by sifting through >the server logs. Should we retain and >display IP addresses/hostnames of logged-in >editors (as on UseMod), and/or allow >usernames to be blocked? I really like Anthere's idea of blocking by IP /without/ giving away the IP address in the interface. If this isn't easy to implement, then the next best thing would be to limit the exposure of IPs to admins. >* The administrative page rename feature >on UseMod could optionally find and change >links to point to the new name in addition >to just supplying a redirect. We still haven't >implemented this. Desirable? Since all logged-in users can now move pages I think that even having this option would be more trouble than it is worth (maybe this should be an option available only to Admins for at least the time being). But I was wrong on my prediction of calamity that would result from allowing green newbies to have the ability to move pages, so I might also be wrong here. What would be /very/ useful is the ability to automatically fix redirects so that they don't become double redirects. >* While the "Special:" namespace may be >localized ("Spezial", "Speciel" etc), the >names of special pages are hardwired in >English (hence monstrosities like "Spezial: >Recentchanges"). While these are mostly >hidden in the interface by descriptive >names, the links, URLs, and most annoyingly >the tooltips on the links all show the raw >internal English name of the function which >implements the special page. A table of >equivalencies could be set up, allowing more >easily recognizable localized names to be used. >Good idea? Bad idea? The user interface if far more important for localization purposes than the internal stuff and URLs. I would keep it as-is since this doesn't seem very important while it sounds like it might be a lot of work. There is also the fact that you have people like me who just can't keep their hands off of wikis in languages they don't speak. I would be lost if I didn't have some ability to find out what the most important links were. I do this by placing my mouse pointer over a link I suspect is the correct one and then I look at what the URL says. But what I think is secondary to what the heavy users of the non-English Wikipedias think. >* For the French wiki, the Wikipedia: namespace >is tentatively set up as "Wikip�dia" (with acute >accent on the "e"). The parser doesn't accept >namespaces with non-ASCII chars so this doesn't >work, which is a bug I intend to fix, but >additionally one tester asked: >... >In short, allow aliases for namespaces. >Good idea? Bad idea? This seems like a good idea to me. -- Daniel Mayer (aka mav) __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Faith Hill - Exclusive Performances, Videos & More http://faith.yahoo.com

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Re: Re: [Wikipedia-l] some questions concerning copyright
by lcrocker＠nupedia.com 10 Oct '02

10 Oct '02

>> Someone wanted to place the emblem (coat of arms or whatever >> the correct English term is) of a city to the article about it >> and was unsure if this is legal... > It seems unlikely to me that the emblem of a city is copyright. > Aren't most of them really old, at the least? It's almost certainly not copyrighted, but they might still be trademarks. That's no impediment to our using them here, as long as we use them in a way that make it clear that the inclusion of the symbol is for documentation purposes only and does not imply any endorsement or association with the city in question. >> Next question: what's the exact date before which works are >> copyright free in the U.S.? There's no way to set an exact date; it depends on how long authors live, which set of laws the work was copyrighted under, and other factors. >> PS: I heard something about a lawsuit Eldrigde vs. Ashcroft at >> the Supreme Court - will Mickey Mouse law finally be abolished? Lawrence Lessig is arguing the case before the court as we speak. Wish him luck. <http://eldred.cc> >Even if the Supreme Court rules one way, it is possible for Congress >to change their minds. This is somewhat unlikely because (a) the >general public doesn't seem to care much and (b) the people who do >care, care a lot (and contribute mightily to congressional campaigns). The /only/ issue before the court in Eldred is whether or not Congress has the constitutional power to retroactively extend copyrights the way they did in the Sonny Bono act. If the court rules that they do not, there's nothing Congress can do to "change their mind"; "Steamboat Willie" will instantly and permanently become part of the public domain, as will many other works.

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Re: [Intlwiki-l] RFC on a few feature requests
by Brion VIBBER 10 Oct '02

10 Oct '02

Paul Ebermann wrote: > "Brion VIBBER" skribis: >>* "Most wanted" and "Most popular" special pages list the _total_ number >>of links to a page, regardless of how many links there are _per page_. >>Some types of lists can hyperinflate the numbers; a list of video games >>might link [[Playstation]] 389 times (once for each Playstation game >>listed). The behavior that people seem to expect is a count of _pages_ >>that link, rather than the raw number of links. I would tend to agree. >>This can be switched by the simple addition of "DISTINCT" to a couple >>SQL queries; is there any reason to retain the current behavior? > > [en] > Is it possible to make this an option in the user > preferences? The default should be the new behaviour. Sure, in theory, but I really don't see why anyone would _want_ the old behavior. It gets reported as a _bug_ with some regularity... :) > [eo] > Cxu eblas/senchavas fari tion opcio en la preferoj de > la uzanto? La defauxlto estu la nova konduto. Nu jes, teorie, sed mi simple ne komprenas, kial oni _volus_ elekti la nunan. Oni suficxe ofte raportas gxin kiel 'cimo'... :) -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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Wikipedia-l October 2002