Wikipedia:Simple talk/Archive 15

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Criteria for becoming an Admin

It looks like there are a set of ideas what is needed to become an Administrator. Most regular editors will know those rules. To be able to point candidates to a written text, I have created Wikipedia:Criteria for Adminship. Please add your comments to its talk page. The idea would be to get this to a status of a Guideline, if not even a Policy. I have made some changes, to what most of you will be familiar with:

There is no minimal number of edits (as a number). This resulted from various discussions, and the fact that there was confusion about the 1.000 edits being main namespace edits, total edits, etc.
Any successful request must have at least 5 votes.
Neutral votes and comments are not counted as votes
No direct promotion to Bureaucrat.

Thanks for voicing your opinion. --Eptalon 12:08, 11 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I made some changes to it. Majorly (talk) 12:15, 11 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No reason for any changes to your joint text. Thanks for the guide. ---barliner--talk--contribs- 16:16, 11 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Actors by country and subcategories

I recently noticed we have followed two entirely different criteria to name the Actors by country subcategories. We currently have several ones that follow the "Actors from-" form (ie. Actors from Australia); while others use the "Nationality-actors" one (ie. American actors). Shouldn't it be appropriate that we agree on either form to have a uniform criteria in these cases? Which leads me to the second point: which one is the one we should actually follow? I personally lean towards the first one, as it appears to be simpler; but I'd like to hear your thoughts on the matter before putting it into practice. Best regards, Phaedriel - 12:54, 11 August 2007 (UTC) [reply]

Actors from seems simpler. I'm sure the system could be applied to other nationality based categories too like "Wikipedians in England" cf "Peruvian Wikipedians". ---barliner--talk--contribs- 16:10, 11 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. Actors from is a better idea. ???ian actors gets hard to understand, even for those with an intermediate English understanding, because not all nationalities have a name derived from the country name; the most obvious example is Dutch instead of Netherlandian! - Huji ^reply 18:23, 11 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

One thing to realize with this is that this one category is only a small part of the issue. Changing it would require redoing pretty much the entire category tree for dealing with people. Most larger countries have a category for <Demonym> people and in many cases that cat is filled with sub cats. Nearly all would have to be changed. It would also have to be researched for many people whether they are actually from that country or just listed as a member of that country (Examples: Naturalized American citizens are Americans, but they are not technically from the United States. Mel Gibson is from the United States, he is American, but he is also Australian, but not from there.) The United Kingdom itself would be mind-numbing just dealing with the fact that many people are British, but have never even been to the United Kingdom (too many foreign territories to list, multiple people born to dignitaries in foreign lands, etc). There are already issues when dealing with British vs English/Welsh/Scottish.

Understanding even the most bizarre demonym is not extremely difficult as it should only take one or two clicks to follow the Category back to its country. While a little more effort would be required, this would only be for the extreme corner case countries as most are fairly straight forward if not completely obvious. Also, ideally the category itself should have a description (especially the likely confusing demonyms) of what it is about including links to the main country the group of people in question is dealing with.

Consistancy does need to be addressed though. Looking at it from a consistency aspect, for this category, there are roughly 50 actors listed as "actors from country" and around 350 listed as demonym actors. Most peoples categories are listed as demonym <group> on simple. US people cats are about as inconsistent as we can get.. American actors, United States politicians and Writers from the United States create three separate formats being used through out the one category (People from the United States - one of the few to actually use that format, it and the Philippines)..

Over all, the "From" format is far more constrictive of who it includes, and a whole lot more work involved in shifting everything over to it. -- Creol(talk) 20:18, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I read your comment very fast, and didn't get into it completely. Just wanted to let you know that, getting a list of cats with demonyms is fairly easy for me, with my toolserver account. Also, moving the cats should be easy with a bot (we've done it elsewhere). So all in all, I think it is not the renaming or moving part which is the problem, but reaching a standard is the most important part. - Huji ^reply 20:22, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That bot will need to be able to verify the information in every article prior to the changes. The actual shifting is easy enough, but nearly every bio article would need to be verified to ensure the person is actually from a country and not just a citizen of that country. Mel Gibson's article is currently categorized wrong as while he did live there for a time, he is not actually from Australia even though he is Australian, he is US born and lived most of his life in the US. There are many others that are listed as a people group because of ancestry (first generation children of immigrants for example) yet have never been from that country. Ralph Nader and Jamie Farr are both Lebanese but neither is from Lebanon. "From" country causes issues when dealing with dual citizenship and the American actors category alone has quite a few cases of dual citizens which a bot can not handle and it is only the tip of this particular iceburg. American actors is not the exact same as Actors from the United States but teaching that to a bot would be next to impossible. -- Creol(talk) 20:48, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Creol makes several excellent points, and alludes many issues involved in the search for a solution for this particular problem. Yet, I see this as opportunities to reach a uniform criteria and put it into practice, rather than absolute impossibilities to do so. One thing we must keep in mind is, we're steadily becoming a larger community, and the number of our articles increase day by day. If we're able to identify inconsistencies in our every day practice, but we don't do anything to address them, someday we will inevitably have to; and when we do, the work involved in arranging the mess will be far greater and harder.

Now regarding this particular problem: I completely agree that such a recategorization would have to be done manually to detect inconsistencies and mistakes. Again, I don't see this as a problem in itself; in fact, I happily volunteer myself to do it, no matter the system that we choose. But the thing is, we "must" choose one, now - and stick to it.

Now, the problems commented on by Creol regarding the "from country" form are accurate, and true (and I thank you very much for your thoughtful comments and explanation, dear Creol!). A good way to deal with the initial difficulty of the hardest denonyms could certainly be a main category article and a description to consult when browsing it. It also avoids the double citizenship and ancestry issues, which are certainly not minor. Switching to denonyms entirely would only mean the renaming of no more than 10 actors subcategories, and fixing just 50 articles or so; not really a very big task, yet one that would pretty much solve this matter and eradicate any possible confusion (as it happened to me at the beginning, being unable to locate a "Category:Italian actors" after following the denonym form of the American one; only to discover later that it existed as "Actors from Italy"). Thoughts? Best regards, Phaedriel - 23:40, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm scared to be bold

I really want to create WikiProject United States of America, but I am afraid it won't be good, because this is a first for me and no one here really is part of a WikiProject. On the other hand I'd be "being bold" which is a good thing. I'm not sure which direction to follow is better: the road to safety where I know I don't have to do anything on a WikiProject or being bold and taking a risk which might not be so good for me? I'd really like it if people would voice their opinions, because I think I'll need some help with this. Thanks. --:::::::::Lizix::::::::: (u · t · c) 04:03, 12 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

While all wikimedia projects encourage users and IP users to be bold in editing wikipedia (except for vandalism), unlike the en wikipedia which is a larger and more complex encyclopedia than us, the simplewiki is a few stages short for starting wikiprojects in my opinion. But if it was okay to start wiki projects, I'd strongly want to create a tropical cyclone wikiproject like the one in en wiki, but I also have a similar resistant on doing so. But I'd wait on what other wikipedians would think about starting wikiprojects now. --§ Snake311 _{(T + C)} 04:50, 12 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

WikiProjects help users by means of managing their activities. A wiky project with few users doesn't help a lot. It may even have disadvantages; for example, if three or four users start a WikiProject and tagged articles etc, and then they didn't continue, these tagging stuff can remain as a scattered mess, and no one may dedicate his/her time to fix them.

So in my point of view, as long as we can manage our edits without WikiProjects, we should do it that way. Are there more than three active editors who are interested in Tropical Cyclones? If there are, let's start by defining tasks and setting up goals, all inside the user talk pages. When they reached the point that the user talk namespace couldn't fit all their needs for management, it's the time to create a WikiProject page in Wikipedia namespace. That is how I think. - Huji ^reply 09:20, 12 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I thought about creating a wikiproject too. The size of this community stopped me, for the reasons User talk:Huji gave. The project template stays in my sandbox, ready for the day ... ---barliner--talk--contribs- 14:18, 12 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think there are a few editors who live in or is interested in the United States. i.e Snake311, Browne34, and Phaedriel :)--:::::::::Lizix::::::::: (u · t · c) 17:35, 12 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Good start. Now you need to narrow it a little. "United States" is a very broad topic. Maybe you can start by, for example, completeing the articles about each of the states. - Huji ^reply 18:20, 12 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Although I agree with Huji, but I've also noticed that in the en wikiprojects, there are some wikiprojects that are "descendents" of other wikiprojects, like the tropical cyclone wikiproject for example is a descendent of the weather wikiproject. I don't really know if there are individual US state wikiprojects or even for individual cities. --§ Snake311 _{(T + C)} 21:27, 12 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well I didn't mean a WikiProject to be created yet, and I didn't mean a WikiProject for each state. What I meant was, if there are people who are interested in USA related topics, they can start with all states, complete their articles and review them, create the red links, etc. This way, we could end up in more very good articles as well. - Huji ^reply 05:28, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hi all! I'll give you my modest perspective on this matter, if you don't mind. I agree with the view that it's just too soon to kickstart Wikiprojects right now, given the small size of our community. Wikiprojects tend to be created at EnWP when such a big number of articles on a given subject exist, that a coordinated effort and a comprehensive, solid criteria is needed to put order in them. This usually means a great endeavour in terms of creation of Categories, Templates, Portals, and new articles. Of course, such a great deal of work is only worth the time and effort when there's a considerable amount of information on the subject. As Wikipedia becomes bigger in terms of number of editors and articles, traditionally new Wikiprojects, descendent of a parent one, get created to deal with more specific subjects. A clear example is the United States project, which sparked single Wikiprojects for each state when the volume of information got incredibly large.

But right now, appealing as this sounds, we're not there yet. Our main goal, from my modest point of view, is to create as many articles as we can and improve them. We're currently standing at around 1% of the number of articles EnWP has, and our community is simply too small. There will be a time to create them (and when that time comes, I will most certainly create a Movies Wikiproject! :) - but we must be patient and focus on our primary goals now. Our time is far better employed in writing, writing, and writing right now... at least, I think it is! :) Best regards, Phaedriel - 07:45, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Still, I think it is somewhat sad... if we're trying to get at least 5% maybe on article numbers to measure up to the regular wikipedia, we're kind of competing to me. I really suggest that we work on in improving via wikiprojects... a WikiProject that we can all help out with. I'm sure... Isis is interested in history, Phaedriel's interested in movies, Snake is into tropical cyclones, and I'm interested in the whole world. What kind of WikiProject can we make? At least 1!!!! 1!!! WikiProject. --:::::::::Lizix::::::::: (u · t · c) 03:18, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

How about, Wikiproject:Simple English Wikipedia? ;) Just kidding - but you get the point, dear Lizix. It's not competing; it's trying to improve ourselves, and keep growing and expanding our own project, regardless of what happens at EnWP. Still, it's inevitable that we look at EnWP to search for ways to improve, because we can benefit in many ways through their experience. Yet, one lesson that we can also learn from it is, when an initiative doesn't attract enough interest, it ends up being a one-editor thing. I see our present as very promising; we're slowly but steadily attracting great editors who choose to stay, and I dream that, by the end of the year, we may be at least twice as many, and aim for somewhere between 30,000 to 40,000 articles. In a few months, we may find ourselves in need of coordinating our efforts in many areas; but it's a little too soon yet. Be patient, young Padawan ;) Love, Phaedriel - 06:27, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Simple Talk

Is it just my cache or has simple talk losts its sidebar link to "current events" ---barliner--talk--contribs- 14:21, 12 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If you mean the link which appears inside the getting around box, it is still there for me! - Huji ^reply 16:53, 12 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Now I see "simple talk" in the getting around box again, anyone have any ideas why the link was replaced by "current events" ---barliner--talk--contribs- 19:53, 12 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Happened to me, too. Maybe just a minor glitch. --:::::::::Lizix::::::::: (u · t · c) 20:01, 12 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I noticed it earlier today and fixed it. For some reason, the sidebar keeps resetting itself to the default. To fix it, you need an admin to edit MediaWiki:Sidebar, change nothing and just click "save" and it'll go back. Archer7 - talk 21:53, 12 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm confused how you've fixed it earlier today (yesterday indeed), Archer. Neither your edit history, nor that of MediaWiki:Sidebar show a relevant change. - Huji ^reply 05:32, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, when you don't actually change anything on a page MediaWiki won't count it as an edit. Archer7 - talk 09:14, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well. Right at the moment, I don't see al ink to "current events" there, neither on MediaWiki:Sidebar. Could you try to fix it again? And have you reported this on BugZilla? - Huji ^reply 16:58, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The link to current events was part of the problem. That link was part of the default version, which we replaced with the one that you see now. No, we haven't reported it on BugZilla (to my knowledge), but it doesn't happen very often. Archer7 - talk 17:03, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That doesn't count, in my point of view. Even if it happens rarely, it is a major bug in parsing the page. :( I didn't get the first part. Why was the link a problem? - Huji ^reply 20:24, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The "Current Events" link is a problem because it has no use here. Simple does not have a Portal:Current events page (the page's target on most wikis). We are not a news source and do not deal with News events here so there is no need for the link. -- Creol(talk) 20:32, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sound files

I realise that images can't be created here, but what about sound files? I don't just mean sound files that read the article out loud, but it could mean samples of songs, music compositions and theme music. Can they be uploaded here? RaNdOm26 14:55, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Music samples can go to Commons if they're freely licensed. Spoken articles should be uploaded here. Please make them all OGG files. Archer7 - talk 17:01, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Removal of references

In the article on nouns, I noted that pronouns are a particular case of nouns, citing the Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Blockinblox doesn't seem to agree, so he removed both the content and the reference. This strikes me as going against the guidelines.--Brett 17:28, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have re-added your ref to noun, hopefully in a way that is an acceptable compromise. Blockinblox - talk 17:43, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think it is valid to discuss pronouns briefly in the noun article. If the problem Blockinblox has with the info is that it is placed under the "Kinds of nouns" subsection, perhaps we could add a new subsection called "Nouns and pronouns" like en:wiki has. Frankly, I do not know enough about it to know whether it would be classified as a "kind of noun" or not. But surely it at least deserves a mention. · Tygartl1^·talk· 19:02, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Good articles

Hello everyone! I wanted to bring it to the community's attention that Snake311 has created a page called Wikipedia:Good articles. I think that as a community, before we instate this as a procedure for articles to follow, we should discuss first of all, if we want or need this. If we decide we want to proceed, we need to discuss what this process should involve and what the criteria should be. I welcome Snake311 to share with the community the purpose behind it and what his idea is, since I am unclear on what all this would involve, etc. What are everyone's thoughts? · Tygartl1^·talk· 20:31, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I read your discussion (which was not concentrated on one page indeed). I think, we are working on VGA on a snail speed; so if you ask me, it'd be a good idea not to start the GA now. However, a future, larger community may deserv it, and I'd be supportig the idea at that point of time, for sure. - Huji ^reply 20:34, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, I'm in two minds regarding this idea (and before going on, I'd like to applaud Snake's initiative to be bold and try to improve our project), but I'm not convinced it's the best time to implement this system yet. Certainly, it'd promote an increase in the quality of our articles; but at this stage, I think the Very Good articles stage suffices that purpose, given the number of regular editors and articles we currently have; and I fear that the creation of a new layer of bureaucracy in the matter would have the opposite effect.

I'll repeat what I said above regarding Wikiprojects: it's perfectly understandable and natural that, in our enthusiasm to improve our project, we try to imitate EnWP initiatives that work smoothly there. But let's not forget the huge number of regular contributors EnWP has. EnWP Featured Article Candidates thrives with dozens upon dozens of active editors and critics, and the requirements for an article to become Featured are extremely stiff and harsh; that was the reason why their Good Article initiative was created, and it attracted an entirely different area of editors (myself, for example; I have never tried to be a regular at FAC, yet I have two GAs and keep reading that page often). Our own requirements for Very Good articles, while not easy at all, are far from being that hard (a natural thing, considering said requirements increase over time and number of involved editors; and we're a smaller, younger community). Splitting the effort that dedicated users like Snake himself, Huji, Eptalon, Isis, Random and others currently invest into Very Good articles, far from helping to improve our articles, may result in the VGA losing part of its strength; for it's hard to think it will create a new group of editors interested in it, but that the same VGA regulars will have to split themselves between both projects.

To sum it up: recognizing the excellent intentions of improving our articles by this, and the clear motive of making our project better, I don't think that creating new instances of bureaucracy and meta-initiatives is an appropriate thing to do yet, either Good Articles, WikiProjects, Portals, et al. I personally believe that writing new articles and improving our existing ones with the tools we presently have serves the current size of our community adequately. There will come a time when they become necessary, and the sooner, the better; but we're not there yet. Again, my personal thoughts... feel free to disagree. Best regards, Phaedriel - 00:10, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think, that if we want to go on with this, we need a list of criteria to weight against, we also need a name of the beast (and no, there are no Featured Articles here). Then, our thirty-odd editing community will have the choice. We also need to choose the name in such a way as to not be confusing; Ideally, the criteria should overlap: Good articles meet certain of the Very good article criteria...--Eptalon 13:18, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In my opinion, starting the good article is a little too premature at this moment, we currently have too little amount of very good articles, so I don't think we can begin starting a different project. We might start though if we can differentiate well between Good and Very Good articles. Also, Eptalon, I honestly thought the Very Good articles are the same as featured articles.... how come?! They have the star that's the same as the FA star in other Wikis... If they are not, should the star be changed to show they are different from FAs? RaNdOm26 10:18, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

History of Nevada

Can someone simplify the article I wrote on my wiki, and copy it to SEWP? ionas ^talk _cont _ribs 05:58, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've just seen your message, and complied. I hope you'll agree with my simplifications, I also added some links but most come up red since your wiki isn't (at the moment) very big. They're under an IP address though, because I forgot to create an account.

I also added the info to our wiki article on Nevada, maybe you'll want to look over it? Thanks for the information though! It was well written and easy to understand.

Gwib^-(talk)- 07:56, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I did not want you to simplify it there, I wanted you to copy the article there to here, and then post a simplified version her. But, I do plan on expanding and creating a Simple English Nevada Wiki. BTW, Gwib, anyone who creates an account gets adminship ASAP. That is one of the benefits. :) ionas ^talk _cont _ribs 08:56, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oh sorry, but you can just revert the changes (I hope). I'd love to join! (and the adminship is a cunning ploy :D), but what is the wiki about? Does it only deal with a certain theme or just Nevada on a whole?

Gwib^-(talk)- 09:00, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It is about Nevada as a whole. Places, history, culture, and trivia, and anything else relating to the state, are all welcomed. ionas ^talk _cont _ribs 09:04, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

A note

I have created a template, Template:Pro-wres-stub, and this resulted in a corresponding note on my talk page from Phædriel. Do we need the stub categories, or should we leave it as it is, with no specific stub category? ionas ^talk _cont _ribs 09:00, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I lean towards just using the generic stub tag for all articles. As I understand it, the point of having it on English Wikipedia is to draw attention to the articles in a certain area of interest that need work. Since, at this time, so many of our articles need a lot of work, I just don't see the point. I'd say that a lot of our categories have almost all articles in them classified as stubs. I don't think it would serve the same purpose here. · Tygartl1^·talk· 16:04, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I completely agree with Tygart, and that's the reason why I suggested Ionas to post this note here. The generic stub template and its associated category serve our current needs adequately. Might I suggest any admin the deletion of the template above, then, please? Best regards, Phaedriel - 02:09, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I wanted to do the same when I was new here. Like Tygart and Phaedriel, I do not believe different stub templates are needed. Even if you wanted to create different stub templates, don't you think you should at least ask the community first? --Isis §^(talk) 02:15, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Please delete the template. Commuunity decision.ionas ^talk _cont _ribs 03:52, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Please don't be diheartened, dear Ionas. Being bold in making changes is a good thing; but such deep changes need some discussion, that's all. :)

As far as creating specific stub templates goes, it's agreed that, right now, we don't need to change our current system. But when we do, in the future, it may be a good idea to start with very generic categories, ie. Arts, Sports, Geography, History, Economy, etc. before moving on to very specific types like the one linked above. My opinion, of course. Best regards, Phaedriel - 08:06, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

English VS American

I don't think that this is a particularly important issue, but it is an issue none the less. What is to be done about the American/English spelling? If I see, on any page, color or defense, should I change them to read colour or defence?
There are many other words that fall into this sorry conflict, there is even an article on them here. What should be done?
Gwib^-(talk)- 13:04, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

As there are many other dialects/spelling variants around (most notably: India, Australia, New Zealand, Parts of Africa), I think we should not bother; if you want to do something, look that it is consistent. That is, it is defense all the time, and not defence once, and defense the other time (on the same page). --Eptalon 13:08, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There's a section about this in EnWP's manual of style. British spelling is used for an article on a British subject, American for an article on an American subject, and the same goes for other kinds of English as well. If the subject is general, any kind of english may be used. Just make sure it is consistent throughout the article. --Isis §^(talk) 13:12, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Brilliant, I got what I needed. Thanks both for the quick replies! I'll get on editing :)

Gwib^-(talk)- 13:14, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

M.I.A.

May I delete the information about M.I.A. as I am working on it ? LIAM !

I'm afraid I don't understand your question. Could you please be more specific? Thanks. · Tygartl1^·talk· 16:06, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Be careful not to mix up M.I.A. and Maya. --rimshot^talk 16:56, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sockpuppet

I copied the en:Template:Blockedsockpuppet source code, and then pasted it into Template:Sockpuppet. For some reason, it is not working. Help me. ionas ^talk _cont _ribs 03:36, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Two other users have edited the template since you created it. Does it work as you want it, or do you still need help? - Huji ^reply 11:55, 17 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Criteria for becoming an Admin, part 2

Hello again! The process for deciding criteria for adminship is coming along quite well. Right now there is a discussion/informal vote going on to decide how we should set up the voting for adminship. To participate in this conversation, you may follow this link and voice your opinion. Thanks! :-) · Tygartl1^·talk· 16:42, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Signature

How do you change your signature? And what does putting in a nickname in "My Settings" do? Panda Bear 18:36, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I did it my making a nice signature (Gwib^-(talk)-), and then I copied the script from it into the nickname bar in "My settings" and checked the "Raw signature" box. Then whenever I did the four tildes, it showed what was in that box, which was my signature :)

The raw code looks like this, if you want an example:

[[user:Gwib|Gwib]]-([[user talk:Gwib|talk]])-

Hope this helped! Feel free to cannabalise my sig for your own uses, that's what I did to get it :)

Gwib^-(talk)- 18:46, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

And if you want to cannabalise mine, it would be:

[[User:RedCoat|RedCoat]]

:) RedCoat 19:05, 15 August 2007 (UTC) [reply]

OK, Gwib, the signature doesn't have to have because 1. there is no font called "Ariel", the name is spelled "Arial", and 2. the font automatically appears in Arial if left unchanged (at least on MSIE 7.0, Windows XP). ionas ^talk _cont _ribs 04:52, 16 August 2007 (UTC) My sig is: [[User:Ionas68224|<tt>ionas</tt>]] [[User talk:Ionas68224|talk]] [[Special:Contributions/Ionas68224|cont]][[special:Mycontributions|ribs]][reply]

Oops! I didn't realise that about the font when doing it. I just copy-pasted it to MS word from one of Gwib's sigs. Besides, It doesn't add that much length to it, so it's no big deal. :) --Isis §^(talk) 12:51, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

E-mail

If you become an admin, do you have to specify an e-mail adress? Panda Bear | Talk | Changes 19:26, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. --Isis §^(talk) 19:44, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

>:-( Panda Bear | Talk | Changes 03:47, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What's wrong, you don't know or forgot your e-mail address? Or is it because of security reasons? --§ Snake311 _{(T + C)} 06:48, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Please note that no one will find out your email address, provided you only reply through the web-forms. --Eptalon 10:34, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I knew no one would find out my e-mail adress. Panda Bear | Talk | Changes 16:03, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

So why the angry face? :s

Gwib^-(talk)- 16:15, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm a little confused with what is said here:

Panda Bear asks if one has to (=must) provide an email address when promoted to admin level. From a technical point of view, and as far as I can recall, the answer is "no". Whether a community decides that all admins must provide email addresses, is a different thing.
Eptalon says "no one will find out your email address, provided you only reply through the web-forms". It is incorrect. The correct sentence is this: "If you do not provide an email address to the wiki, and send an email to a user from the web-form, they will not know your email address, but also, they cannot reply your email." Or this is what I think. - Huji ^reply 12:02, 17 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Admins and crats

Admins can delete, protect, block, unblock and revert easily, right? Can the 'crat do that, too? If it can, then what's the difference between a 'crat and an admin? --:::::::::Lizix::::::::: (u · t · c) 16:58, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Crats can rename users. That's all I can think of right now, but I know they can do more. :) --Isis §^(talk) 17:28, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

jep, grant or revoke bot status --vector ^_^ (talk) 17:29, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, bureaucrat status is always given in addition to admin status. Bureaucrats can promote people to admins and bureaucrats, grant or revoke bot status, and rename users. However, Wikimedia bureaucrats can't revoke any admin and bureaucrat flags. Archer7 - talk 18:24, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

From a technical point of view, it is better to say that bureaucrat's cannot delete/protect/block, and they only can promote other users to sysop or bureaucrat level, and can rename user accounts, and grant falgs to bot accounts. However, as Archer said, it is usual for a user to become a bureaucrat after becoming a sysop, so they will be sysop+bureaucrat, and the former means they can delete/protect/block. - Huji ^reply 11:57, 17 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

But to run for bureaucratship, this wiki's policy says that their is no direct promotion to bureaucrat. Only admins can for for beaucratship. But bureaucratship (as Huji said above) is just an additional way of gaining more access across this wiki. --§ Snake311 _{(T + C)} 18:16, 17 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

So, we shouldn't say bureaucrats can delete/protect/block; we should say bureaucrats of this wiki have those permissions because they all are sysops as well. - Huji ^reply 19:01, 17 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Film rating systems

I've posted a question on the article's talk page. Panda Bear | Talk | Changes 18:03, 17 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I posted another message on the article's talk page. This time it's a suggestion. Panda Bear | Talk | Changes 21:47, 17 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Websites as references

Hello,it just came to me, that it does not look very good to simply have a website URL, as a reference. I think it would be better to use the cite web template. --Eptalon 09:08, 18 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I storngly support it. Also, for books and journals, there are citation templates which should be used for better reference. - Huji ^reply 11:20, 18 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Completely agreed. The use of the citation templates must be encouraged, and I think the best way to do this is to require their use at Very Good articles. Out of our current 9 VG articles, only 3 use them; the rest use the basic website ref system. The same thing occurs with the books and publications referencing. It might be worth to consider adding this as a requirement for an article to be promoted to VG. As a side note, I see that although we do have the Template:cite book, the proper documentation wasn't imported when it was brought here, and I believe this must have been confusing to anyone who tried to use it. I'll take care of it asap. Phaedriel - 16:44, 18 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Fundamentally changing the criteria now the system is there, as a guideline will be hard. We can try though, by starting a discussion on the respective discussion page. I'll add something there. --Eptalon 16:53, 18 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In that case, maybe we should simply request it informally every time an article is submitted for consideration, instead of adding it as a guideline itself. As time passes and it gets requested more and more, it could hopefully become a de facto practice. Note aside, I've been having a few thoughts lately regarding the VGA system that I'd like to share with you. I'll be messaging you soon, I promise. Best regards, Phaedriel - 17:01, 18 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I am of course always open to messaging, in any form. But, please remember, changing the guideline is hard, but if it needs to be done, it should be done now, that there are few articles. Because any changes in the guideline will mean adapting all articles. So rather do it sooner than later. --Eptalon 17:09, 18 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent point, dear Eptalon. I'll try to put my thoughts together today, and we'll talk more about it soon, I promise. Best regards, Phaedriel - 17:35, 18 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I commented there too. And, I don't think changing a guideline is that hard. Actually, as far as I know, the old FAs of English Wikipedia were not as good as the new ones are, and their standards for FA has also changed over time. It is a good idea to change the criteria when needed, and it is a good idea to be brave enough to remove "very good" status of an article which no longer meets all (or best part) of the criteria. - Huji ^reply 18:32, 18 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Final request for comments about the new main page

We currently have nine very good articles. It was decided by the community to change the main page, as soon as we have ten very good articles, in a way that a section on the main page would present a briefing of one of these, and the main page article would be automatically changed every few days.

As some of you might have noticed, we have implemented this on Main Page/Test 1. I would like to ask you for your finalizing comments on Talk:Main Page/Test 1. I'm hopeful we will change the main page in the next week.

Best, - Huji ^reply 11:55, 18 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

22th Century ?

In As of 2006 article, there is a table which says 20th century, 21st century then 22th Century. No article on the next century exists - anyways, should it not be 22nd century? I am changing it but... LIAM !

Changed 2005 and 2006. Please use the da´te stamp. I know its not the exact time but it does let everyone know roughly when you posted ---barliner--talk--contribs- 20:58, 18 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Da`te stamp ? Never heard of it ! if yr talking about the date stamp, I hate it. Sometimes even the date is wrong. It sucks. If someone would make it so you could choose yr time zone, I would do it. LIAM !

Blocking

User:198.170.192.10 clearly needs to be blocked indefinetly. Not only has the user not made an edit since May, but the edits are vandalism edits.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Liam.gloucester (talk • contribs) 14:33, 18 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ip's are usually never blocked indefinitly unless there are open proxy's and because there owners can change over time. Oysterguitarist 15:36, 18 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]