Wikipedia:Village pump/February 2004 archive 3

General philosophy/Not Invented Here?

Having just used the argument on VfD that, if a film exists in IMDB [1], it's legit and therefore subject to Wiki having an article about it (specifically in reference to porn entries but I see that someon else used the same argument in reference to an obscure individual), I do wonder, philosophically, whether Wiki really intends to reinvent every encyclopedic database that already exists--such as IMDB, which has been around for quite a long time and is quite exhaustive in its film-related data. Thoughts? Has this already been discussed somewhere? Elf 02:53, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Well, my immediate reaction is that "everything" has already been done - there are, after all, already encyclopedias, and even internet-accessible ones. But different sources of information will have different "slants" on that information - in other words, we should cover things covered by, say, IMDb, because they'll be covering them in an IMDb-y way, and we'll be covering them in a Wikipedian way. All just my opinion, of course... - IMSoP 03:05, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

It's all been done (a-woo-hoo-hoo). Information about nearly every article in wikipedia can be found on the web. The value in wikipedia is surely not the content per se, but the organisation and collation of that content into a single, searchable, easily navigatable collection. ShaneKing 03:22, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I used to think that too. However Wikipedia contains a lot of material taken from "dead-tree" published works by the authors, which was not previously on the web (although once it's there via Wikipedia it tends to quickly propagate). - Hephæstos|§ 03:25, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

IMO Wikipedia would be pointless if we merely distilled what was on the web. But, many Wikipedians do seem to see it as this, and I respect their opinions. We see this attitude reflected in the VfD arguments to delete something merely because it doesn't get Google hits. Google is not God. Lots of independent Google hits are a good sign, but the fact that something isn't (yet) on the WWW shouldn't bar it from Wikipedia, surely! Andrewa 16:40, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)

IMDb is only as good as what its users put on it. Although that may be said about Wikipedia, there really isn't any reason why our information isn't different from theirs. RickK 03:08, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Ouch! "...really isn't...reason why...isn't different..." Too many negatives! It may be because it's late, but I have no idea what that actually means. - IMSoP 03:14, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

LOL. I think what I meant was that even though we may have information on the same movies, etc., our work could and probably would be different from theirs.  :) RickK 03:27, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

IMDb is not a free project. I think it is the case that Amazon is now the owner of a whole load of work submitted back when the db appeared to be free like WP is actually free. 217.159.40.50 10:08, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Clean up Requested Pictures

Wikipedia:Requested pictures: Looks like there are tons of fulfilled requests still hangin'. If you made requests, please check 'em to be sure you got what you want & remove request. (Snoyes, there's still no photo for Crushing by elephant ;-) ) Elf 05:11, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Crushing by elephant, eh? There's an engraving depicting just that in An Historical Relation of the Island Ceylon by Robert Knox (London, 1681). As it happens, I have access to both the original 1681 book and more modern facsimiles, so I'll see if I can get a copy/scan of the picture. There are a handful of copies on the web already but not very good quality ones, alas. -- ChrisO 11:12, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Damn! :) I'll have a look at clear out some of the cruft. - snoyes 15:16, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Is it just me?

My auto-log in no longer works, not a serious problem; but when I do log in and then return to the Main Page I find I am logged out again. ping 07:27, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Vote: space between periods in initials?

Some style guides dictate that initials in people's names, or companies named after them, should be written with spaces after the periods and a space between the initials and the name, ie W. E. B. Du Bois. Others dictate against putting spaces between the initials, only a space between the initials and the name, ie W.E.B. Du Bois. Modern typographical practice in book and newspaper publishing leans towards the latter. (Currently, Wikipedia has a mixture of both.)

Please cast your vote: Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions

-- Viajero 09:26, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

discussion continues at --> Wikipedia_talk:Naming conventions

Playground project

On the light side, I've started a playground equipment project--small project probably but photos would be good and existing entries (not enough of them) need excavating, reorganizing, expanding--see discussion at the project. Everyone's welcome to play. Elf 14:10, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Trust

Following a discussion on the mailing list, I knocked up Wikipedia:Trust network to see if the "web of trust" concept has a chance of working. Comments welcome. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 14:55, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Auto-highlighting of self links

I stumbled on to this new (?) feature by accident. Since when did self-links become highlighted non-links? This would certainly make the job of creating lateral links (e.g. to other countries on a country's page) easier. --seav 15:38, Feb 17, 2004 (UTC)

Summary line

This is probably not a useful place to do this, but I would like to urge, encourage, and beg people to use the summary line when you edit articles. Just a brief indication of the changes made, or "see talk page" if the changes can't be described briefly. Even -- especially -- if you're just fixing spelling or punctuation or wikifying something. --Charles A. L. 18:16, Feb 17, 2004 (UTC)

Here, here! I'd like to add that even discussion page comments should be summarised - if there's more than one heading, it makes it so much easier to guess from your watchlist whether it's worth loading. - IMSoP 18:24, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

People might want to bear in mind that it's only the top edit that shows in people's watchlists too. So if you follow (complete rewrite) with (typo) it might be a good idea to say something like (spotted typo in complete rewrite) instead. But yes, please fill the summary field for every edit, whether major or minor, so many sysops (who should know better?) don't do this. /pet peeve. fabiform | talk 22:12, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Agree. Agree. It makes my Wikipedia time so much more pleasant and productive when people use the summary line! Andrewa 02:02, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)

How about chaing the software so that a default summary (fixed typos,wikified) can be selected for minor edits. I know it seems lazy but it might encourage more people to fill out this field, when making very minor changes. I admit to being an occasional offender. Also it often seems a bit redundant to fill in summaries for talk pages. An automatic default (see comment, or some such) would be useful here. Washington irving 11:56, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure under what circumstances a default would be meaningful - unless it was a set of "commonly used choices" that could be selected by radio buttons. Section editing might be worthy of this approach, though, especially for discussion and meta (as in Wikipedia:) pages - something like "Change in section ==Summary line==" I was going to say "Comment in section..." but that would only work for Talk: pages, which this, for instance, isn't - but maybe that's not such a big deal. - IMSoP 14:03, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Well I would make it a set of commonly used choices to be selected from a drop down list, but that's the basic idea. Some default text could also be generated from the first few words of the "diff" output, or something similar (just so that its not completely empty). Washington irving 15:06, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)

The reason I was thinking of radio buttons is that I don't think HTML has an editable dropdown list element - either it's a text box, or it's a list, not both. You could probably make a JavaScript gadget that filled in the text box with items from the commonly-used list, and they would then be editable; but I'm not overly keen on features that rely on JavaScript unless absolutely necessary. I've mocked up what it might look like in pure HTML [1] (beware, extremely dodgy HTML, but it shows some possible layouts) - IMSoP 15:47, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)

They look cool. Just what I had in mind! Note that it would be fairly easy to automatically use the "commonly used list" only when 1. an item had been selected and 2. the text field was empty (i.e., no need for the radio buttons/tick boxes in versions 1 and 2). The fall back position (if neither of these was done) would be to automatically generate a summary based on the "diff" output. Guess this suggestion should go to the MediaWiki Feature Request pages at sourceforge (is that the right place to put the suggestion?) Washington irving 16:08, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)

My only initial concern was that it would be non-obvious which out of the manual and preset summaries would be used, but I guess if it defaults to a non-entry as in "Version 0" on my test, it's pretty clear. Note that on clicking "preview", a selected preset summary could be copied into the text box for custom tweaking - which I think we want to encourage. [And some people advocate forcing preview, at least for some users] Sure, go ahead and submit to sourceforge - if I wasn't supposed to be doing coursework, I'd play about and try and implement it myself... - IMSoP 16:51, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC) (Oh, and you forgot to put an edit summary when you made your last comment! :-p)

Our of IMSoP's mockups [[extlink], Version 2 would be clearest for a newer user. If Version 2 automatically selected the correct radio button when someone types or selects a summary, it might be a go. Version 0 is certainly the simplest/cleanest (also a benefit)--but not as clear. Someone might try to both type and select. That could maybe be fixed by changing default to something like "Or: Select a common editing summary".

BTW, even if nothing else changes, "Summary of edit:" shd be displayed instead of just "Summary:"; might get more people to type something once they know what it's a summary OF, which confused me at first. :-)

Final thought--need to be very careful in choosing summary list; e.g., if "comment" is a choice, expect to see thousands of "comment"s. Elf 17:00, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Atlantium

The msg:NPOV tag needs to be added to Atlantium. --> done

Sir,

Sir,

We are students from a local high school working on the creation of a website.

We are in need of information on HTML entities.

• First, two notes: 1, you're not really 'local'- based off of your IP, you're in Brazil, which is local to very few of us here. 2, the place to ask specific questions is at Wikipedia:Reference desk. But I suggest you look at http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/sgml/entities.html - that's the official list. -- Jake 23:04, 2004 Feb 17 (UTC)

questions from a canadian

I am a Canadian and i am wondering if it is possible to join your countries army..I need the requirements and if it is possible adn what i ahve to do to get adn and does the srmy sponsor me through employment to get it the army

What country's army? We're not an army...and we're not from one country (for example, I am also Canadian...) Adam Bishop 22:47, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

If you are referring to the US army (which I suspect you are), then yes - I know for a fact that foreign citizens are allowed to join. During operation Enduring freedom they did interviews with foriegn citizens serving in the US army. IIRC (and I could be wrong about this part) those serving in the army can be naturalized in 2 years instead of the normal 5. →Raul654 23:12, Feb 17, 2004 (UTC)

Just a quick note, Raul: I don't think it's very polite to try and "tidy up" other people's comments - it's as though you are trying to change what they've already said, and rewrite history. Unless you're summarising, of course, but then you can make clear that it's not a direct quote. This is only my opinion, of course; feel free to disagree. [Plus, you didn't do a very thorough job]. - IMSoP 23:44, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I think you're nitpicking here - while answering his question, I took the time to to correct obvious typos (ahve->have, adn->and, et al) to make it easier to read - honestly, I just did it out of habit without even giving it a second thought. I did not change his comment in any meaningful way other than to make it more readable. However, if the community agree with you, I'll stop. →Raul654 23:50, Feb 17, 2004 (UTC)

Well, yes, I was rather - it was a very trivial change in this case, but it's kind of the thin end of the wedge. Had you corrected all the errors (including ones you missed, like "srmy"->"army", "adn and"->"and"), you would've changed quite a lot of the comment. And what if we were to extend it to grammatical errors as well? Then you are basically rewriting the comment... And you could "correct" "it the army" to "into the army", but then you're making an assumption about what the original message meant, and hiding the original version from other users who might have different interpretations... - IMSoP 23:58, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

You're right - that's why I only went for the really obvious ones, even though there were other errors I saw and could have corrected. I didn't want to change the comment in any material way. It's a judgement call, and I think I did the right thing. →Raul654 00:03, Feb 18, 2004 (UTC)

Fair enough, I guess I was just erring on the side of caution or whatever. The ability to do it is a rather disorienting side-effect of using Wiki-pages for discussion. - IMSoP 20:46, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Talk page states ...typing errors, grammar, etc are always fair game, and remove personal attacks where you can, but don't edit someone's words to have them say something they don't believe in...

Wikipedia talk:Remove personal attacks also has some relevant discussion about refactoring other people's words. My personal view is that it should be encouraged. I wish people would fix my typos on talk pages. :) Angela. 23:37, Feb 18, 2004 (UTC)

"Anatole of Paris" by Sylvia Fine

--> Wikipedia:Reference desk

WikiProject prototypes

Would anybody be interested in the various WikiProjects choosing something to be their representative article? The one that includes everything an ideal article should, and is written well, etc. Perhaps to be a running list at Wikipedia:Featured articles (i.e. every WikiProject that has reached such a stage has the article listed at the top, with more added as the newer projects develop). Please respond at Wikipedia talk:Featured articles. Tuf-Kat 07:00, Feb 18, 2004 (UTC)

Change in article count?

Has there recently been any change in the automatic article count algorithm? Andres 08:49, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)

No, but an error in the counter was corrected. --Brion 09:07, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Mobile phone access to Wikipedia

Hi -- does anybody know if there is a way to access the Wikipedia from a mobile phone (cell phone)? This would entail a XHTML Mobile Profile or WML (WAP) version of the Wikipedia that could be accessed on pretty much any modern mobile phone. This would make a fantastic handheld access channel to the Wikipedia, with you at all times. -Ronan

A new xhtml skin that displays well on mobiles is underway, modeled after the Plone xhtml skin. A quick mockup is available at http://wp.aulinx.de/, more information at meta:Skins Have you tried the current skin btw? Shouldn't be too bad really as it's tableless as well. -- Gabriel Wicke 11:32, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I use the Google proxy to browse Wikipedia using a WAP phone, which works quite well, though is a bit impractical on pages as large as the village pump. See http://www.google.com/options/wireless.html. This only allows browsing, not editing. Angela. 23:37, Feb 18, 2004 (UTC)

Angela, Gabriel -- good information and suggestions. From experience in the mobile field, however, I think more than just a new skin is required. With small screens and limited input methods, the use cases tend to change. Browsing becomes painful (slow page loads), targetted search works better. Also, most mobile browsers have a max page size limit that is quite small. I would suggest a minimal search interface and an article display that uses just plain text, and chunks longer articles into (say) 2Kb pages. I've downloaded the SQL dump and I will do a little work on an interface and let you know how I get on. -Ronan

Ronan: What kind of mobile phone do you have? I would suggest trying the Opera Browser if it's available for your phone. The Opera Browser can browse ordinary web-pages using a reformatting technology. If you have Opera on you desktop, you can press shift+F11 to see how a web-page looks on a mobile phone. I spend a lot of time surfing the web with my mobile phone. I have to add that I work for Opera Software, but I started working there because I love the browser. -Frode

trining in your company

sir i m third year student of B.Tech (chem. engg.)studing in LIT, Nagpur. i have got 76% in 5th sem & my overall avarage is 70%. i want to do industrial training in your company please give me a chance to get training in your company RAHUL P. GAWANDE rahul_elite2000@yahoo.com

Great work Rahul, but we're not a company, so we can't provide "training" exactly, and we all "work" here out of our own free will, and we aren't paid. If you do want to edit and contribute here however, feel free to drop by this page and pick up a user account. Thanks Dysprosia 10:06, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Where Can I Find A Transcript of Klingon from Star Trek?

Hi Trekkies and other folks enjoying Star Trek! I'm looking for a say 1 screen transcript of Klingon. From a series or movie of Star Trek. (A part of one of the books in Klingon seems less nice to me.)

It is for an article I'm editing about a special phenomenon that occurs only rarely in languages. Klingon has been made up using this phenomenon because it makes Klingon sound counterintuitive and weird. (Actually a sentence like "Ba'thar destroyed the ship with a photon torpedo" in Klingon becomes "The ship destroyed Ba'thar with a photon torpedo".)

To make the article (actually Object Verb Subject) more lively and to illustrate why this phenomenon is so rare it would be very nice to translate a fairly large piece of Klingon back to English but keeping the higly unusual word order of Klingon.

Where can I find such a transcript, preferably with extended translation annotations? I'm thinking of having a look at the Star Trek WikiWiki, but I really haven't a clue where to look else for this. BTW (by the way) if someone wants to make such a quasi-translation himself I'd really welcome that as I'm absolutely not familiar in Klingon and I have a hard time writing new text. Editing and copyediting text is much easier for me, so I can help extensively with such a translation.

I think it's nicest to use some Klingon text that people might have seen already on tv or could rent a video of (then the movies would be best). In this way I think it's also appealing for people that are not die-hard Trekkers but interested in language, or are just curious. (And reading Wikipedia for it's entertainment value, like I do File:Tongue.gif.) Paul/laudaka (add me to your Y!M/AIM/etc. list if you like!) | Talk 16:41, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)

(This is so sad that I actually know the answer to this) You can get your answer from the Klingon language institute. Their a group based in Minnisota (or somewhere around there), founded by Mark Okrand. Okrand is the guy who was tapped to "invent" klingonese (T'ling Hol) for the Star Trek movies. The URL is www.kli.org. →Raul654 17:58, Feb 18, 2004 (UTC)

PS: I'm just going to hide my face in shame for a little while.

Minor change flag

Spanish Wikipedia has just modified its "minor change" marker (in Recent Changes and elsewhere) from an uppercase M to a lowercase m. The consensus view is that it's easier on the eyes, less likely to get confused with the "new" marker N, etc. Would English Wikipedia benefit from such a change, or are we too set in our ways? – Hajor 18:16, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Good idea. --Patrick 22:56, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Good idea. Elf 23:40, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Good idea. Andrewa 02:43, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Dont really care, I've never mixed up the two... How about instead of changing M to m, we change N to ** or something a little more conspicuous? It'd make things look a bit clearer in RC and perhaps inspire some editing? Dysprosia 04:59, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Three in favour and one more general expression of interest in fiddling with the flags. (A more conspicuous option for N – how about N?) Does anyone with protected page access feel like playing about with MediaWiki:Minoreditletter or MediaWiki:Newpageletter? –Hajor 17:10, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I'd like to, but since this is a big change, I'd like to get more support for a change before trying something out. (I've got an italicised bold N in mind...) Dysprosia 08:40, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

How to get the attention of an admin/sysop

Apart from the current confusion over what to call them, there is something I've always wondered about sysops/admins - what if you aren't one, but want to use a facility that only they have access to? What I mean is, is there a page somewhere where I can say "Excuse me, can an admin do X for me please." - and if not, should there be?

I've come up against this twice lately: firstly I spotted a cut & paste move on Miguel Induráin - no big deal, but I understand admins can merge the Page Histories when this happens; and secondly, I spotted a nonsense edit of Talk:Simon_Grabowski in Recent Changes - again, no biggy, and it looks like someone else spotted and deleted it, anyway, but what if they hadn't? Hunting around, I came across the contraversial Wikipedia:Deleted test, which would probably have done for the second case, but what to do about the first?

I suggest making a page where reasonably experienced users who aren't admins could post comments, which admins would have on their watchlists and work their way through periodically. Most things could just be done and unlisted, anything non-trivial/contraversial could be sent somewhere else - either way, the admin could put a message on the requesters User_talk: page saying what they did. I hope I'm not opening a can of worms here, but I think this would be rather useful. - IMSoP 20:01, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Just do it on the article's talk page, or ask a sysop on his/her talk page. →Raul654 20:23, Feb 18, 2004 (UTC)

Well, I thought of both of those possibilities, but the first one assumes a magic ability on the part of admins/sysops to "hear" when they are being "called"; and given that there's no "who's (probably) online" list for this website, the second is rather a gamble, given that there's a whole list of admins, and some of them might be on holiday for 3 weeks for all I know. - IMSoP 20:29, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)

If you do it on the article's talk page, put "I need a favor from a sysop" as the summary. If you want to know whose on at any given moment, just check the recent changes. →Raul654 20:31, Feb 18, 2004 (UTC)

I guess that would work (using the summary line, that is) - as long as a sysop/admin looks at RC at about the right time. I'm not going to go through and compare all the names on RC with all the names in the list of admins just to see who's online though - if their names were formatted differently (a concept I'm used to, as an h2g2 user), I might agree with you about picking someone to ask. I still think it would be more efficient to have a request page, but let's see if anyone else has an opinion. - IMSoP 20:42, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC) [via edit conflict with Anthony's below]]

I'd support a Wikipedia:Request for sysop attention page. Would make a good pointer page to all the other ones we have out there, like votes for deletion, redirects for deletion, etc. Anthony DiPierro 20:37, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I'm not fond of that idea. There's already a *LOT* of pages that have to be maintained around here. The last thing we need is another one. →Raul654 21:58, Feb 18, 2004 (UTC)

Presumably entries would be short-lived, one edit to add, one edit to remove when handled, doesn't seem so onerous. My guess is it won't get much use, since users that know about sysops will generally know one to ask, but seems worthwhile anyway. Stan 22:11, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I created Wikipedia:Requests for sysop attention, but only as a pointer to the pages that already exist for such requests. Angela. 23:37, Feb 18, 2004 (UTC)

One very quick note on sending them (or rather, us) here versus a specific page - this is always cluttered, and requires complicated maintenance procedures to try and make it less busy. A specific page could, as Stan says, have a "1 edit to add, 1 edit to remove" policy. But IANAA / IANAS, so for all I know, nobody wants to check such a page. - IMSoP 01:06, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)

IANAS either, but I think the page might work. Suck it and see. If sysops find it useful and hang out there, and other bods use it to ask for help regularly, it will work. If not, try something else. Most good ideas don't work, but a few do, and the only way to tell is to try it. Andrewa 08:49, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Another technique- you can usually find a random sysop or three hanging out in the IRC chat (#wikipedia on irc.freenode.net).

My UserAgent Is Being Bounced

fixed, see Wikipedia:Village pump/February 2004 archive 2

Wikipedia article titles for specific literary works

--> Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions

Safari Browser not allowed?

fixed --> Wikipedia:Village pump/February 2004 archive 2

submitting URL

Dear Sir:

I would like to suggest a website to submit to your denomination directory:

Canadian Evangelical Christian Churches

Website: www.cecconline.com

Email: cecc@rogers.com

Thank you for your consideration.

Yours truly,

Dr. David Lavigne, President

Wikipedia is not a directory. Angela. 23:37, Feb 18, 2004 (UTC)

Where do I find information on homelessness in Monroe County,NY?

--> Wikipedia:Reference desk

New user log

This is more of an announcement than a query, but there's a new page up at Wikipedia:New user log. It's a place where new users can introduce themselves. It seems to be in active use now, so if you're interested, check it out periodically. Also, encourage new people to sign in if they haven't yet. Oh, and I would welcome any further ideas on how to welcome and integrate new people. Isomorphic 04:54, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Excellent! Andrewa 08:38, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Plautus satire

As per the Wikipedia:Dispute resolution, I have started Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Plautus satire in an (emergency) attempt to gauge community opinion on the problem. Comments there are very much appreciated. →Raul654 05:05, Feb 19, 2004 (UTC)

This situation is now largely defused (at least for the moment.) Nothing to see here. Move along. Isomorphic 08:10, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)

If so, delete this thread then... --Menchi 10:22, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Given recent conversation at User talk:Plautus satire, I think comments would still be appreciated on both sides. I wouldn't describe things as fully defused. Jwrosenzweig 23:24, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Table of contents

How do I insert a table of contents similar to that on this page? There are a couple of articles that I am thinking of adding it onto. Arno 06:25, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Section. --No-One Jones 06:26, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)

stomach banding

--> Wikipedia:Reference desk

REDIRECTing to Wikitionary?

--> Talk:Wiktionary

Image Usage

--> Wikipedia talk:Image use policy

Edit wars

--> Wikipedia talk:Edit war

Bathyscaphe Triest

In your report you state that the Bathyscaphe Trieste reached the bottom of Challenger Deep. If this is indeed the case and all that was found where sole,shrimp and carp. Then what where the demensions at the bottom. Was there a shelf of any sort. Where there any tunnels or shafts? Was the entire bottom covered in a silt? Any rocks or other such matter?

I would appreciate if you or a representative would write back to me at b_m_hacking@hotmail.com

The article referring to the fish etc is actually Marianas Trench, and the information was provided by user:Timvasquez. Andrewa 22:53, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Poets / songwriters needed!

Calling poets, songwriters or anyone with the ability to rhyme (that counts me out). A small request... I've translated the literal meaning of four lines of a lullaby into English, but would love to have a natural/idiomatic version for the article as well. You can see it, and suggest a loosely translated but nicer version here: Talk:P'ti quinquin. Thanks! fabiform | talk 21:20, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a national encyclopedia

User:Optim introduced a new rule in Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not seeking to protect and emphasise the international spirit of our project. See [[Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not. Optim 02:29, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Uqbar, and accuracy disputes

This may be one of those cases where I have failed ever to observe a mechanism that is well known to other wikipedians, so I am here for advice. Back on 1 Dec 2003 I added an accuracy dispute notice to Uqbar, and spelled out my concerns, as well as what I could ascertain, on its talk page. Knowing that this was an obscure article, and I might not get any responses, I looked at Wikipedia:Accuracy dispute, hoping to find advice on how to move this forward. I found nothing relevant in terms of how to proceed. I asked about this on Wikipedia talk:Accuracy dispute: no one responded. I suspect I am overdoing this by bringing this to the Village Pump, but I really don't know where else I should be turning. Can anyone advise? -- Jmabel 00:15, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Changing the case of existing entry names to capitals

Does the spelling of existing topic names can be changed? I.e. the title of the page [TCP] protocol is written in capital letters, but when I wanted to add an entry about the [SOCKS] protocol, there was already a page with only a redirect to [sock].

I'm confused. There seems to be nothing at all at SOCKS. Just create your page there. If there were, you could still edit via http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=SOCKS&redirect=none -- Jmabel 01:12, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Graphics-float question

I've moved this comment into the section it was replying to above - IMSoP 01:26, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Problems in editing page sections

I was trying to edit Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration, and every time I clicked on the "edit" link, it gave me the wrong section to edit. I had to edit the entire page. RickK 02:06, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

This behavior is due to a bug I reported a few weeks ago at [2]. It is caused by sections in the wikitext which have been commented out. None of the developers seems to have addressed it yet. --Nohat 02:12, 2004 Feb 20 (UTC)

Silly question, but what if we "<nowiki>" the text inside the comments....would that take away the section problem? I don't know much about these things. Jwrosenzweig 02:18, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

PROPOSAL: Separate Databases/downloadable files

Summary: Proposal to have separate databases for userpages, talkpages and articles. See User:Optim/Userpages. DO NOT REPLY HERE. Failure to do this will result in your comments being moved to User:Optim/Userpages by User:Optim. Optim 03:53, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)