Wikimedia Forum/Archives/2007-07

Where do images belong?

I'm setting up my first Mediawiki site and have two questions.

1. The image Image:PD-icon.svg is missing. What directory should I place a copy into?
2. Where should I be asking questions like this?

Thanks - Sakshale

• I solved the problem by enabling image uploads.

They get loaded to wierd subdirectories under /images. Sakshale 05:37, 2 May 2007 (UTC)Sakshale

You should ask Mediawiki about this since it is the website of Mediawiki and more people with that kind of expertise might be more active there.Felipe Aira

Headings bug(?) in huwikbooks

Today in huwikibooks I've noticed that headings don't work very well. The "Contents" div can't make a difference between == ... == and === ... === headings. I would like to ask that are here similar problems in enwikibooks? Maybe developers've misdone something? See this page 4xampl, after "megjegyzések" title all titles there should be third-order. Please answer on my wikibooks hun talkpage, or leave a short message there if you answer here. 100×thx: Hun. admin. Gubbubu 10:12, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

This is discussed at en:Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Incorrect_TOC_formatting and the developers claimed to have fixed it already (in their Mediawiki version). Another problem with TOC nod hiding completely is also discussed below on the same page. Alex Smotrov 19:19, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes: I experienced that too. Thank for your answer very much. I hope this problem will be solved (in every wiki). Gubbubu 15:31, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Copyrights

I have a copyrights and policy question. I am asking because we, in the Russian Wikipedia have a kind of discussion regarding use of materials under GFDL from external sources and proper ways of giving credits to these sources:

There are two paragraphs in the en-wiki copyright policies:

• the first one states that Wikipedia content is available under GFDL, but "with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts";
• the second is the en:Wikipedia:Copyrights#Introducing invariant sections or cover texts in Wikipedia section, which regulates use of outside GFDL content in Wiki and in particular states: "You are satisfied that these invariant sections and cover texts are not listed elsewhere than in the "page history" of the page where these external materials are placed"

My question is: Is all this a Wikimedia Foundation policies, and thus mandatory for all language versions, or just a local guideline of the English Wikipedia?

Thanks for your answers, Levg 18:07, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

(I moved this question from the top of the page)

Let me add some more details to this question: is Wikipedia required to put a notice like "this material is originally taken from the site [link] under GFDL" in the article? And what would prevent any marginal site from publishing some useful material under GFDL and then bringing it to Wikipedia with such a spam link? Alex Smotrov 19:19, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Using wikipedia to rank fame

One way to rank how internationally famous an historical person is, is to count how many wikipedia-languages there are with articles on that person. I manually counted interwiki-links for people from Norway to generate a top-10 list for my country, and people I showed it to found it interesting, and not particulary flawed or very different from what they would expect if asked who the most world famous persons from Norway (dead or alive) are. (That the person toping the list had such a huge "lead" to number two, was a bit surprising, though.) All the top-8 on that list are dead.

And I was thinking this could be done for people from all nations by using a bot to count interwiki-links in articles under en:Category:People by nationality. We could then publish these lists (with all the apropriate disclaimers of course), and let newspapers around the world publish the list for people from their country. The media love national rankings like this, several TV-shows are about creating similar lists, and I think it would give us good press-coverage on the inter-language aspect of Wikipedia. For some countries, the list might be topped by, how should I put it, persons that country isn't particulary proud of (I'd expect Hitler to rank high on both the German and Austrian lists, for instance). But I'd guess that's fine.

I wasn't sure where to put this suggestion, but as I think it's a project that would give the foundation some (good hopefully) press, I hope this is a good place, and that I can get some response. Or maybe a pointer to where a suggestion like this is more apropriately raised. Thanks! Shanes 10:23, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Using parser extension

I am using the parser extension in a mediawiki environment.

The #IF: {{{var}}}|then ...|else...}} construction produces empty lines if the else part if empty and the condition isn't true. I am using this extension in connection with tables so these table looks crazy because of this empty lines.

Changing parser.php on line 2105 helps. I'm sure this isn't the right way.

  // paragraph
  if ( '' == trim($t) ) {
  if ( $paragraphStack ) {
  // $output .= $paragraphStack.'<br />';
  $paragraphStack = false;
  $this->mLastSection = 'p';
  } else {
  if ($this->mLastSection != 'p' ) {

request for comments--Armin.Egner 20:13, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

a{{#if:|then ...}}b gives ab, it does not give blank lines here.--Patrick 21:03, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

this example shows the problem

no{{#if:|then ...}} problem
{{#if:|then ...}}
emptyline

--Armin.Egner 10:54, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

This only shows that the rule that two consecutive newlines cause a new paragraph is applied after template expansion. However, it seems that for wikitables there can be complications, so a change in the php code may be useful.

With the current code it may in these cases be better to use HTML syntax for the table, that does not require newlines.--Patrick 00:05, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Cannot find any solution for this stuff not with XHTML nor with HTML--Armin.Egner 17:46, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

It works fine, just don't put newlines in the code:

abc

ghi

abc

def

def

def

ghi

--Patrick 00:11, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

ㄅㄆㄇㄈㄉㄊㄋㄌㄍㄎㄏㄐㄑㄒㄔㄕㄖㄗㄘㄙ一ㄨㄩㄛㄜㄝㄟㄠㄡㄣㄤㄥ

Arbitration Committee rewrite

I have begun the process of rewriting Arbitration Committee to make it more global and applicable to all Wikimedia Foundation projects, as opposed to just the English Wikipedia. Help welcome. Picaroon (Talk) 01:33, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

wikispecies.

Hi, Can somebody assist in changing the logo for Wikispecies temporarily? We decided some time ago to disable uploading of images to Wikispecies, but now that we want to celebrate our 100,000th article, we can no longer change the logo. Any advice? Maybe enabling upload for a while? Lycaon 07:30, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Try to file a request as a bug in bugzilla (set product to Wikimedia). You can attach the image file to the bug request or upload the image file to commons, have it protected there, check that it is protected and it has not changed, and give a link to the image on commons). -- AnyFile 21:20, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

'MiniUpload' form

MiniUpload form to make uploading and inserting images easier (Click to enlarge)

There is a very useful looking tool that is part of the Wikia sites for uploading images (see image to the right). It is on the 'edit' toolbar and guides you through uploading an image, setting thumbnail size and caption, then adds the wiki text to the page you are editing. Have scoured the web and managed to find very little about this.

It seems it would be a valuable tool on the Wikimedia projects as it very much simplifies the upload process. It would also be very useful for those of use that run other mediawiki sites. Does anybody know of the code is available for this tool, and could it be used on Wikimedia sites? -- CharlesC 18:34, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

It's SpeciaL:MiniUpload + a hacked wikibits.js Created by Tristan, Wikia's intern There's very little information about it. Seems worth to convert into a extension if we can get the code. Platonides 11:20, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

It's not yet working properly in MediaWiki 1.10. It lacks the Licenses drop-down box that lets you select what license an image is under. I expect this would cause rather major problems at least on the larger Wikipedias where everything must be tagged and sourced. I'm not entirely convinced that Wikimedia projects should have easier uploads since they have enough problems with unsourced images as it is. Angela 13:57, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

OK, thanks for the response, and your comments relating to Wikimedia projects are understandable. Although it would be a great tool for those of us that manage other wikis based on mediawiki, both on the internet and intranets. The license drop-down box isn't usually an issue here. I am very fond of Mediawiki, however one of the biggest criticisms I get from users is the file upload procedure. MiniUpload would help a lot with this. Might the code be available for people to use in other wikis? -- CharlesC 17:34, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Welcoming Users

Moved to here...

Universal User Names

I have had to create User names for each of the different projects I have joined, luckily I have been able to create the same user name for all of the projects, now including Meta-Wiki. Wouldn't it be easier to have one large bank of users for all of the Wikimedia Projects. They are so interconected now it would be far more conveiniant for the User, especially a new user to not have to create a new account each time they hit a hyperlink.

Sadads 12:15, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

See H:UL--Nick1915 - ^{all you want} 15:54, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Ah, I just registered here to ask about that actually. Excellent news. RC Master 17:14, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes a unified User name account for all the projects is what we need here. I find it really inconvenient to create an account for each project. Felipe Aira

As I administer Commons, sometimes I have to edit Wikipedias in languages that I do not understand. I prefer not to show my IP, but having to register in each site is not easy, so if feasible, a unified User name account for all the projects should be started.--Jusjih 04:22, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

We don't need to make an argument for why a universal login feature would be handy; nobody debates that. It's more the sheer amount of data involved; realize that there are several million accounts, with millions upon millions of edits that would need to be reattributed. It's not something that can just be done at the drop of a hat (while I'm not sure what the exact reason for it not being implemented is, I'm sure that the amount of information involved is definitely a sticking point).
As for registering for multiple projects, I feel your pain. :) EVula // talk // ☯ // 05:23, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

If the Universal User Names cannot be made, I have no problems. I just register only when I have meeds. Thanks.--Jusjih 02:16, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

I had asked this question some months ago and was referred to some interface in the testing phase that was intended to do just that. What it did was to go and control if your user name didn't cause a conflict on other wikis. It seemed to work fine when I registered, but it was still not active by the time I registered on pt:wiki a short while back. Now, of course, I can't find it anymore. Does anyone know what happened to that project? · Michel 09:20, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia approved content

Hi,

Because of the controversy surrounding some articles on wikipedia it seems interesting to start a thread on how to authenticate the content for reliability.

Why not approve 'entities' to literally put a stamp on content as 'approved by *entity-name* on *date*'. Changes to approved content could notify both moderator and 'entity'. The stamp in itsef would contain a signature for uniqueness and a timestamp. Entities could be organisations and/or persons.

Not only would such a mechanism increase the respectability of this community driven website but also introduce a minor version revision control with built in quality control.

Thank you for your consideration,

Joris Lambrecht

joris744 @ hotmail . com

Well, why call them 'entities'? For a person to approve something, they must have an account, so it would be users who would be doing the approving. Your proposal wouldn't work though - a good quality article would have almost everything checked, which would mean every change would notify someone. Instead, letting people put things on their watchlist and let them check edits manually is a much better idea and doesn't require any hardware resources. Trying to get a more organized article watching system is one of my current goals. Having regular article reviews may be a better idea for checking reliability, though there aren't even enough people to maintain featured articles, let along review them. By the way, it might be advisable to create an account here so you don't have to post your email address after each message you post. Richard001 09:27, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

• Recently Atlanta (Boy Band) - Liverpool UK - had an entry created on Wikipedia, there seemed to be no problem, until it was entered into the category of Group and Boy Bands, then calls came for the entry to be deleted. The debate got very heated and with insults to the creator and some of the citation sources submitted. Citations for what was claimed under "notability" were questioned, the creator produced information as requested but it seemed clear nothing was ever going to be accepted.

It is my opinion that for anyone new to Wiki, it is not the easiest site to navigate at first and with so many conditions, would it not be helpful and for the good name and reputation of WIKI if those who join debates could be more helpful and at least polite, we are never all going to agree on everything.

When the deletion went to appeal to be re-posted the tone on the debate really sank low with insults to the creator, it was clear that most points of "notability" has been achieved and evidence produced. Today the appeal was turned down and closed. If anyone looks into the debate it was the same few people who kept endorsing deletion, is this "democracy" in action and for a body that wishes "charity" status. To see the offices and good name of "Kensington Palace" called into question, does nothing for the credibility of WIKI. Many false accusations and comments made to the Group and Creator, but none where forthcoming or any action for monitors.

In 2007 I feel there needs to be a a better way for appeals to be dealt with rather than a few being "Judge & Jury" - The decision today to delete and also my own personal registration has shocked the offices of those who provided the evidence to demonstrate the credibility of Atlanta (Boy Band) - A well respected Soul Music website in the USA, today discussed how the entry on Wikipedia for the Original Motown Group THE SUPREMES has one of the founder members Cindy Birdsong down as a former nurse, when she never was! - contributor's to the the discussion thought it was typical and what they expected. For me time spent on making sure the encyclopeda is correct with facts like this, would be time better spent.

I now going to take a more active part in WIKI, it is a source I have used like millions do, but never felt I needed to take part in debates.JBS 18:56, 30 October 2007 (UTC) John

Colour schemes of the Wikimedia wikis

I just edited a page on Wikipedia, thinking I was on commons. Silly me, I put a speedy tag on the page, but then I thought 'why do they all look the same anyway?'. Of course, a certain degree of homogeneity is necessary, but perhaps it would be better if we had different colours for each project. I don't mean radically different, they would all stay very nearly white of course, but one could be pink, another aqua, another light blue, light mauve, lime etc. Is there any advantage to having precisely the same colour, or any disadvantage to having different colours? Besides being practical in a small way, it would also look quite nice to have a unique visual identity for each project. Richard001 09:27, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Since you have an account on them wikis you could do it yourself by modifying Special:Mypage/Monobook.css. I myself have done a similar thing (by changing the color of the navigation headings) because I hid the logo, however this is likely to be opposed because the logo clearly shows which project you are on and which language it is in. Lcarsdata 17:36, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

The marketing committee is currently preparing a visual identity reform that includes a "one color per project" part :) guillom 09:27, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Where to discuss wikipedia interwiki resolution?

I have a huge problem with interwiki resolution. Try creating the interwiki graph for the Danish page da:Forening or the corresponding category da:Kategori:Foreninger. A "Forening" is a type of organisation, could perhaps be compared with an "association". But interwiki for this links to anything from "governmental organisation", "non-profit organisation", "organisation", "club", "society" and many other terms bouncing back and forth between all wikipedias.

Where do I go to resolve this? I cannot be asked to go to all these wikipedias and start a discussion in their embassies in order to understand, what each of their categories represent - can I?

What to do to solve this? --Barklund 13:37, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

• I fully endorse and understand your frustration. Wikipedia at some stage if it is to sustain it's claim as a "Free Reliable Encyclopaedia" base Must go to Professional full time staff to monitor and make decisions or resolutions, it is not fitting at all that a "minority" who may have no expertise in a subject are allowed to ask for an entry to be "deleted", often these individuals are expressing personal opinions only. Also the ability to change or alter an entry by any individual must be seriously looked at. JBS 09:17, 31 October 2007 (UTC)John

New measure for enforcing NPOV. Can/should it be done?

Good afternoon. I am taking the time to begin this discussion because I would like to voice my opinion on the the subject of Neutral Point Of View policy. Now, we all know what this policy is and what it requires of us users (hopefully). But the question I bring before everyone is this: Is enough currently being done about it as of yet? The reason I have reason to even ask this question is because on in my experience in editing on the English Wikipedia, I have seen a number of users who are quite selective when they choose which articles they are going to edit, and are even more selective when choosing what type of information goes or stays, in terms of citations and such. It is a given that legitimate users with the right intentions are free to edit any article they wish, but at what point should users be suspected of POV pushing?

For example, there is a particular user, who for the sake of civility shall remain nameless, who I am convinced uses the English Wikipedia to push conservative views. This user does not do so in an obvious way but rather takes certain steps such as nominating for deletion, only articles which he believes makes his ideology look bad. This user also has a history of following various users around and reverting every edit they make (and this happened to me for about one month) if he feels the edit in question conflicts with his own ideas. Once again, such conduct is difficult to detect, and believe me, I feel a left-leaning user of the same nature (and they exist too) is just as harmful. So here is the question: Would it be a bad idea to put users who hold this type of editing history on some type of POV "Watchlist", where admins can closely monitor these users for a certain amount of time to ensure constructive editing? Users could then be blocked if it is determined by admin consensus that NPOV policy is in fact being disregarded, or they can be taken off the list if no evidence of violation is found. What would be the benefits of such a function, and if put into place, would it have any significant flaws? I'm open to any and all opinion on this matter.The Kensington Blonde T C 22:29, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

NPOV has always been an ideal to which we should all aspire. But, no doubt, having perhaps read the articles which I pointed you at a few days ago, the problems between ideal and the implementation of the ideal are perhaps a little more self-evident. There are moreover degrees of POV and NPOVness. I can remember a series of longwinded debates on the subject in which I became horribly entangled back in the day, before stepping back a few and becoming somewhat more laissez-faire in my approach to the whole subject. At the end of the day, it's my experience that edit wars in certain subject areas are inevitable purely because of the inherently emotive nature of the subject matter.

Conflict resolution in itself is a fine art and while I am unhappy with the philosophical premise of having such measures as Arbcom within a wiki, they have a practical and necessary role to play within the day to day improvement and operation of WP projects. As an admin, I can tell you, fact, that there are some users we like to keep an eye on, thankfully, in my case and ambits of operation, they are few and far between (not much POV/NPOV controversy as a rule in the worlds of Anglo Saxon history or Norse mythology or poetry! :) ). But areas such as politics and modern history and religion are inevitably the front lines of many an intellectual and not-so-intellectual battlefield. WP will inevitably attract ideologues of all sorts of factions; spotting most of them is fairly straightforward, but you should also note that there are some very skillful operators out there more than capable of reversing the tone of an entire article by the deft insertion of a key phrase or word or two here and there.

We can weed out the egregious NPOVvery very quickly; the subtle stuff just takes longer. On the whole I can think of few articles which I have looked at or worked on recently which have verged on the truly horrible from the point of view of their one sidedness or POV, and gradually the hagiographies which have sprung up during the early spurt growth of Wikipedia are beginning to acquire some balance. A lot of this early acquisition of POV and nonsense was the direct result of the widespread importation of material from the 1911 Britannica, a retrograde step in my view although one which was no doubt acted upon from pure pragmatism, q.v. the article on Robespierre as an example of an article which is exponentially more balanced than the original EB import which basically put Robespierre on the same pedestal others reserve for the baby Jesus.

Blocking of NPOV authors is a difficult subject area for most admins. Policy really only works for you when the persistent offender engages in direct and overt breach of policy such as, for example, the three revert rule; and even in cases such as this as an admin you have to be continually aware that some of the most of clever and subtle offenders are smart enough to set it up such that the real victim cast as perpetrator is the person trying to restore some sort of order to proceedings. Explicit POV watchlists are an intriguing idea, but the reality is a bit 1984 for my taste and I much prefer as an admin a more casual and case-by-case approach. Just my 2 cents worth.:) Sjc 08:36, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Re-election of Chinese wiki administrator

Hi, in Chinese wiki, we're currently discussing the feasibility of holding a re-election to deal with the conflicts between admins and users, but as one administrator pointed out, even if an admin fails to be re-elected, no one in Chinese wiki has a right to cancel his admin rights. Could anyone advise us what to do? If we have an admin failed to be re-elected, is it possible that the meta takes a follow-up action according to the re-election results? Thanks a lot. --Kevin wong 09:24, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

user:Shizhao can desysop people as he is a steward, requests can also be made here with a link to the page where it was decided to desysop (ie. not reelect) the admin. Stewards will remove rights based on community decisions. It'd be helpful if next to the section titles in Chinese you have the section titles in English so stewards can tell what the result of the election was. An example would be (please note that I don't speak Chinese, I used google translate for this):

• 支持连任 - Support reelection
• 反对连任 - Oppose reelection

Yonatanh 10:21, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Stewards cannot desysop admins on the wikis they are active unless the stepping down admins hope so themselves. Therefore such revoking should be performed by stewards who are active on any other wiki but Chinese wiki(pedia?), and such a request should go to RFP. --Aphaia 13:38, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks again. When we reach a consensus on desysop and debureaurat,　 where can we request a steward in other wikis to take a follow-up actions? --Kevin wong 20:48, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

you had mentioned it's RFP. --Kevin wong 20:50, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

the issue is more complicated now. The steward now finds himself at the center of storm and the community is discussing if he has to be desysop. [1]

However, no desysop or re-election procedures have actually been established in Chinese wiki, so the current issue is not about judging the qualification about a single member, but it's about establishing the desysop procedures that can avoid abuse and maintain balances of different interests.

We're holding a public hearing now, and hopefully we may draw up a conclusion over next few weeks, but we face a big deadlock that none of us have a right to desysop according to the community decision. Shizhao stated clearly that no one in chinese wikipedia can desysop anyone.

So i'm wondering that if Chinese community members reach a consensus to desysop steward(appointed by meta), admin or bureaucrat, is it okay to ask Meta take a follow-up actions for us? --Kevin wong 11:07, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

You can desysop him, debureaurat him, if it is your concensus, but stewardship is not your business. They are elected by a global vote, and respected as such. On the other hand, steward are annually confirmed by community vote, usually on November/December. --Aphaia 13:38, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Conflicts may arise if a steward, who is debureaurat/desysop in a particular wiki, continue to exercise his admin rights in the wikipedia that denies its creditability. Are there any solution to avoid it? --Kevin wong 14:22, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

It could happen and actually happened, a steward fails on his request for adminship on particular wiki. But it doesn't affect his stewardship. I expect all stewards have good common sense to solve it in their particular situations. --Aphaia 02:25, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

yeah, i hope so. If a steward fails to be re-elected on the wiki he's active, it's a strong enough message for a reasonable man to know what to do. --Kevin wong 10:46, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

feasibility of holding a poll here?

Hi, I'm seeking an advice about the feasibility of holding a poll on policies of Chinese wikipedia in Meta.

In recent days, the conflicts between our admins and users has sparked a very worrying proposal to split the whole Chinese community into different regional wikis. It's akin to propose to split English wiki into British, American, India version. This is a worrying trend.

The main issue is that we don't have an arbitration committee to solve big issue, all decisions are overwhelmingly taken by one or two admins, but they haven't yet gained a sufficient respect and decisions are always disputed.

Contrary to Wiki's policy on "wiki is not a test platform for democracy", all legitimate decision in Chinese wiki purely base on super-majority votes. If 20 people come to oppose a decision, then 81 people have to show up their support, or else a policy is disapproved. In one case, after a long and in-depth discussion, >60% people think that if admin fails to gain 50% confidence, he could be desysop. But a few admin proposed 20% confidence is enough. Poll then faced a deadlock.

Under this system, all local policy development has been halted for over a year. Conflicts then escalate, users can only choose to take it, yell at it or leave it. Admin also faced a big challenge to introduce a new policy. In recent case, an admin falsely claimed that according to the "policy", all album photos in a non-album entry must be banned, i.e. no matter how much information is about MJ's album--Bad or Dangerous in en:Michael Jackson, if we don't have an independent entry for the albums, these album photos must be deleted. It led to a huge amount of deletion, until it was discovered that the rule was secretly added by him. His reputation is controversially disputed.

Wiki is not a test for democracy. Super-majority polls don't necessarily mean anything. So I'm wondering if we can hold a poll here in Meta and let the arbitration committee to judge our poll results. --Kevin wong 11:41, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

I highly doubt a poll on meta would work\be acted upon. It does, however, seem like there's a growing need for a system where people can vote outside of the jurisdiction of the local project, where the admins can heavily affect the vote. There is no Wikimedia-wide arbitration committee to judge your poll results and the English Wikipedia Arbcom has no jurisdiction over other projects. Yonatanh 12:22, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

It seems that arbitration committee of Meta can rule over the decision in all wikipedia. I don't know if it's true? --Kevin wong 12:55, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps irrelevant, but it is sad for me to see Chinese community show a little interest in the forthcoming election, but in their argument on one sysop, and seem to take it is more serious concerns. --Aphaia 03:48, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

It's quite a misinterpretation. The main issue in Chinese wiki isn't about a single sysop or any single member. There's just a growing sentiment about apparently never-ending conflicts and a system that is disabled to solve further conflicts. I think board election is mainly participated by senior members, but active member size in Chinese wiki has grown too slowly. Keeping members active and discourage people to leave seems more relevant to chinese wiki at this moment. --Kevin wong 18:27, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

• Just for the record, "Under this system, all local policy development has been halted for over a year. " is simply false. One of the most important policy development that had taken place in the past few months was the ratification of zh:WP:共識. It still needs fine tuning, but it has helped reduce the frequency of polls. Hillgentleman07:19, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
• I think your community really needs a third-party arbitration. May be community om meta and your community will agree about ad hoc rules? Foe example, you may request monitoring from meta-wiki on your elections or really hold your poll here. Or may be we really shoul try 3-rd party arbitration? --Dima io 19:28, 19 September 2007 (UTC)--

Wikinews writing contest

Wikinews should be holding another writing competition after the board elections. Additional prizes would be most welcome, as would suggestions on how people think the competition should be formulated to encourage the maximum number of new participants. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 13:19, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Yi.wiki

A user claims he isnt the one responseble for disposing my privacy yet a checkuser has found that all his other names are vandals and names with private names on it shoud he be bloceckd?--יודל 10:29, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Help needed

Is it possible to block an IP-address for all wikis? I think all the administrators are pretty tired of deleting page w/w/w/index.php over and over again. it would be easier to block the IP-addresses all over wikipedia projects with one blocking. one of IP-s which keeps entering text 62M53u Test myfunction comment is '81.177.22.111'. At least in Estonian wikipedia, wikiquote, wikibooks etc. Avjoska 11:58, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Wikidemocratism vs. wikithoritarianism

I'd like to invite comment on the new wiki-philosophy essays wikidemocratism and wikithoritarianism. In particular, I'm not sure they have much relevance outside of the English Wikipedia (my experience on Spanish Wikipedia suggests that this issue hasn't developed there yet to the same degree). Please comment on their respective talk pages. Walton^talk 13:43, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

User name changes

Shall we have a request page for user name changes (on Meta and on other wikis)? (I mean similar to other request pages.) At the moment they are put to Meta:Requests for help from a sysop or bureaucrat and Meta:Requests for permissions, but I think the first page is only for sysop/crat help on Meta itself, not for name changes in other wikis, and the second one is for permissions not for name changes. I would make it if there are no objections against it (and if nobody is faster than me ;o) ). I imagine to make a list of local request pages of the larger wikis and put it there that people easier find them. (I know in some wikis there is no name change request page, but anyway.) Grtx, --Thogo (talk) 19:09, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Right now CU requests for Meta and for other wikis are together on one page. I keep thinking we should split them (and maybe transclude Meta's local one in the other, or maybe even not, just link to it). So I think this is a good idea but I suggest two pages, one for local changes (which Meta Crats can handle) and one for non local changes, with links to all the known local pages (just as the CU page has links to local CU request pages), which stewards have to handle. Make sure you use lots of templates. :) ++Lar: t/c 19:12, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Hm, sounds pretty good. (Not the template thing, of course, but the split thing. ;o) ) Hm, I wait a day or so for other opinions (maybe there are good arguments against doing that which we don't see atm). Btw., that's a very good example what problem we have... --Thogo (talk) 20:13, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea. It should be made clear that username changes on other wikis cannot be performed by the bureaucrats here though, people are mixing the pages up. Majorly (talk) 20:26, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Precisely why I think a split into local and other would help. (and ditto splitting into local and other for CU requests. I'm gonna just go do it sooner or later, I think... oh, AND add lots of new templates!) ++Lar: t/c 20:32, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Hehe, yes. Do you want to do it for the CUs? Ok, as soon as I finished my new WP article that I'm writing at the moment, I will make pages for username changes. (With a lot of funny templates.) --Thogo (talk) 20:36, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Give it a day? (Since we're talking about this pretty fast) ... and if no one squawks I'll do CU and you do Username... ++Lar: t/c 20:49, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, ok, :o) --Thogo (talk) 21:10, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

I concur with everybody. (I was waiting for a username change for a few hours now...) (→vishwin60 - he's still at it) 20:52, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Ok, the day is over... I would propose to add the list of local renameuser request pages to the tables in WM:IRP. What do you think? --Thogo (talk) 21:27, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

(outdent) I agree. Links to local things are handy. They'll get out of date so maybe a note to the stewards on the other wikis request page that if they reject because there is a local crat, can they update that section? The page looks good so far! I haven't done CU yet, hot problems at my client right now but I will, I think probably tonite. ++Lar: t/c 22:09, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I came across the bot request page... It doesn't look like being appropriate for Meta ("...bot flag on a Wikimedia wiki with no bureaucrats"...), but on WM:IRP the link for bot requests on Meta goes there nevertheless... Did I miss something or do we really have no page for bot requests for Meta itself? (And if they _are_ and should be done on that page, the text should be changed anyway.) --Thogo (talk) 22:14, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Looks like another loose end to me. ++Lar: t/c 22:42, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

How to stop disambiguation pages from being counted?

I have a question. On the Volapük Wikipedia, as I have just noticed, disambiguation pages are being counted as good pages in the statistics page despite being marked with a template ({{Telplänov}}) which I have placed in the disambiguation list here at meta. Is there some other place where I should list this information, so that disambiguation pages are not counted as full articles? Smeira 2007 yulul 13, 20:32

What can I do?

Is there anything to do on Wikimedia besides discussions? I want some ideas to help so if ther is, please tell me.

Thanks,
Skunkmaster II 03:59, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

You can edit or add to a compendium of human knowledge, a database of source texts, a dictionary, a collection of user-created documents and quotations, citizen news, a public-access image repository, and a database of species. Take your pick. :) —{admin} Pathoschild 14:43:18, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

I guess the question was really on this wiki rather than on the projects it supports? --AndrewCates 08:50, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

AndrewCates is right. I know what I can do on the projects, I'm just wondering if there is anything to do on this wiki, Wikimedia Met-Wiki. -Skunkmaster II 02:31, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

There is the Communication Projects Group. We are actively looking for more participants.</advert> Greeves ^{(talk • contribs • Wikipedia)} 02:41, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

I checked out the ComProj page and I don't think I want to do that. Is there a list anywhere of projects on Wikimedia? Or does anyone have any suggestions?--Skunkmaster II 03:04, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

New Wikipedia

What are you thinking about opening new Wikipedia? Wikipedia for Montenegro language ? Montenegro is new country created breakup Serbia and Montenegro (Serbia have Wikipedia). --Marin Bobek 10:29, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is by language not by state --84.28.2.108 10:42, 19 July 2007 (UTC) P.S. it's me User:Ooswesthoesbes

Language and script in Montenegro, Language and script in Serbia, Montenegrin language, Serbian language.

Montenegro has one official language, the Ijekavian dialect of Serbian. But Montenegro has own language (just 22% people speak Macedonian).The montenegrin language is written in latin and cyrillic alphabets, but there it is a growing political movement that wants to use officially only the latin alphabet when Montenegro will enter the European Union. Serbia use just cyrillic alfabeth.--Marin Bobek 14:00, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Hello Marin. You can request new language Wikipedias here. Thanks, Majorly (talk) 14:36, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Montenegrin has been refused in the last year. GerardM 18:16, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Discussion indexes

See Meta:Babel#Meta:Administrators.27_discussion_index ... there are now two discussion indexes (one for local Admin traffic, one for Steward traffic) run by User:BryanBot, which you may want to watchlist. If you're also interested in general (not specific to admins or stewards) discussion, please (over there) suggest pages to be tracked in a general index... This technology was first deployed at Commons with great success and brought here by request. Bryan may well be willing to set up for other wikis if desired, contact him for more information. ++Lar: t/c 11:27, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Google Grants

Would wikimedia projects be eligible for help from Google Grants ? --Chris ^Grant 10:44, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I believe so. Wikimedia and its projects are none profit. Felipe Aira

Wikipedia already appears at the top of many Google searches, and Wikimedia has received at least one large donation from Google. I see no reason why Google would reject this idea, but at the same time see no reason to go forward with it. Can you be more specific to what you think should be displayed? 69.233.68.227 20:20, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

how can i add a javascript(or just php) effect to the article page?

hi! i am developing a wiki-project now. I have a task that i cannot perform for about three days. The task is: I have some template page with table. There must be something to rate different tables' rows (some button). it must be on the article page not (only) in the edit page. And of course values will go to database. How can i make this idea come real? I tried to edit edit_page.php and article.php and now i just have red eyes and headache. please, people help me! - User:Anurbol