Wikimedia Forum/Archives/2009-01

Global userpage

I proposed this back in June, but am raising the issue again to find more input and to gauge what the community really thinks of the idea. I propose a global userpage that can be applied to all userpages under a global user's username of their choosing. For instance, on my global userpage for all projects I do not edit or am not active on, I might supply a link to my Meta userpage. I think this idea is useful in that it saves time for people prone to joining new wikis or who are part of cross-wiki vandalism efforts. It also really enforces the concept of a global user; there are global users, so why not global userpages? Of course, one would select the wikis they want their Global userpage to be toggled on for; one likely wouldn't want such a simple redirect on a userpage for a wiki they were active on.

Thoughts? —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 05:16, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Oh, and I'll be drafting up a page on the issue of Global userpages if this gains any traction; I'd prefer to write the content after the community expresses its approval. —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 05:18, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

As I said back then, strong support :) Daniel (talk) 06:13, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Strong Support. Cirt (talk) 12:37, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

• Sounds good for me. Majorly ^talk 13:12, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
• Strong Support from me! --Skenmy ^talk 13:40, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
• Seems good, I support! Soxred93 00:16, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
• I'm not sure how this would be done technically, but I'm sure if you put a couple of devs in a room long enough they'll work it out (I can think of an ugly hack that ought to work, but I proper solution would be good). It's a great idea. --Tango 00:19, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
• While I support this idea, I wouldn't opt in because in some languages such as Chinese, I wish to have a userpage in the native language instead of my generic "one size fits all" English userpage. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 05:59, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

  This is already covered in the proposal: Of course, one would select the wikis they want their Global userpage to be toggled on for; one likely wouldn't want such a simple redirect on a userpage for a wiki they were active on. Cbrown1023 talk 21:00, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

• Global userpage. —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 05:16, 27 November 2008 (UTC)
• This seems like a good idea; I am just not certain how high on the ROI it would be, or indeed, if it would be a positive net effect at all. Making anything toggled/global would involve some kind of communication/linkage between the different projects. I lack the data to even have an intelligent opinion on this. Are the different projects not in different databases? This might have a negative effect on server response time, as the servers waste processes in pulling uPages from across the systems. If that is the case, then I would not support, as harming server response in order to make life a little tiny bit easier as regards what is, after all, personal information not directly related to the projects would be favoring trivia over functionality. Can anyone speak with knowledge and assurance on this? KillerChihuahua 12:21, 27 November 2008 (UTC)
  • I personally don't know. But I wouldn't imagine that any kind of resource for the kind of global tranclusion I'm proposing would cause any kind of noticeable server lag, or, at least, nothing of the degree you're describing. If our servers are capable of handling en's traffic (most times... ^^), I doubt a single feature would tax them in any significant way. Then, I could be way off, because I am hardly a software developer. —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 13:41, 27 November 2008 (UTC)
• I'll leave this here for exactly 7 days starting from now. In seven days time, if consensus doesn't tilt the other way, and if nothing technical comes along to destroy the proposal's basis, I'll forward a request to bugzilla for the devs. I think a week sounds fair. —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 14:49, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

For "global transclusion" see * this request for enabling template transclusions from Commons (doesn't have to be Commons only). --- Best regards, Melancholie 23:37, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Usually, you don't need consensus for trivial features like this. Just file at bugzilla, and if a developer has the time and thinks it's a good idea, it will be implemented. Werdna 23:27, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

I would agree, but I just didn't realise that it was trivial. I thought implementation of a global feature like this would be quite tricky. I'll still stick to my week thing. —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 14:20, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Personally, I'd love for this to be expanded far beyond just userpages; on smaller wikis, we could just transclude the help pages here, rather than trying to sync up a local copy, and it would make implementation of babel boxes very, very simple. EVula // talk // ☯ // 00:48, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Hmm I'm not use if its possible, but I believe one good idea would be to have a new namespace on meta, preferably Global: and users can make their own userpage on it, for example, Global:User:Cometstyles and a bot or preferably a script, will add everything on that page across wiki on the appropriate userpage and the bot/script should be programmed to add to only those userpages that don't already have one or are unified to the main account and when users make changes to the Global page, its applied globally. its a silly idea, but it just might work :) ..--Cometstyles 01:49, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

• Filed request. —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 03:53, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Where? Cirt (talk) 04:06, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Ah, of course: 16575. —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 04:17, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Many thanks. Cirt (talk) 04:28, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I thought this extension would have already been installed on the MediaWiki software, on the Wikia site they already have a Global Userpage extension even a template created, see wikicities:Template:GlobalUserPage, won't you just need to install it on the foundations software to enable it. Dark Obsidian^{@en.wikiversity} 21:22, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

That's not an extension, it's a poor hack that uses Scary Transclusions (named that for a reason) to achieve the same affect. You would still need to create a userpage on each project using that way. Cbrown1023 talk 01:01, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

SUL not working?

I've just had to log in at three different sites. (en.wikiquote, commons, and en.wiktionary) I thought the whole point of SUL was that you wouldn't have to log-in over and over? EVula // talk // ☯ // 17:14, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Hello EVula, it is working fine, that must be some problem in the local settings, please see Help_talk:Unified_login#Same_problem_as_others:_Automatic_login_for_other_site_does_not_work, if You let us know Your configuration, maybe we can be of more help, best regards, --birdy geimfyglið _(:> )=| 17:21, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

This happened to me too just now for a couple of sites but it seemed a glitch or something, usually works fine... maybe you lost a cookie? ++Lar: t/c 23:36, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Looks like its back again, SUL will not work for me under Safari (Browser) - I've also done exactly as the editor stated on MediaWiki and allowed the cookies to be "all ways on" but still I'm having to Log-in manually. Could this probably be another bug problem? Dark Obsidian^{@en.wikiversity} 19:38, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Chinese Wikipedia control contents, and becoming official, or government information release agency!

I hate rise this problem to here, but I have to.

In Chinese and Canto wikipedia, there is a content argument about the page "Gigi Leung"梁詠琪梁詠琪, because some of wiki writer not agree with official version, but some writer does.

Wiki administrator use his administration force, change the content to his favor version, which happens to be the official version, and freeze it by protection.

This is not the first, and only case. From time to time, as seen in wiki history, that wiki administrator in Chinese version doing self censorship, use the administration power to control free wills, favor the rights of upper level, and synchronize information as their own wills.

In Chinese culture, we used to practice politic, rights and forces, from upper to under. Chinese official always have the mind that their wills be done. But as I understood, wiki's knowledge has to be gather from miners to major, from single to groups, from under to upper, which is totally opposite to what Chinese wiki administrator doing, right now at this moment.

At the moment, Chinese wiki writer is being kicked, Chinese Wikipedia become weaker and weaker, just because Chinese wiki administrator is not neutral. I hope someone would be concern about this, maybe before Chinese wiki become political correct, enough to enter the China Great Firewall, which will cover Hong Kong and Macau soon.--Onethe 15:18, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

The same kind of censorship happens on all Wikipedia's. With the rules being what they are, it cannot be helped. Guido den Broeder 17:22, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

On most larger Wikipedias the rules explicitly forbid that a person involved in a content dispute use any admin tools to enforce their opinion. Is this not the case on zhwiki? --Latebird 23:34, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Ce qui m'étonne, c'est qu'il y ait (encore) des gens pour s'en étonner. --Budelberger 00:37, 5 January 2009 (UTC) ().

Onethe is pushing his own agenda and he has only told part of the story. For his actions on Cantonese wikipedia, here is a summary of the argument: the official birthyear (1976?) of the singer is different from the one circulated in the folklore (1972?). Onethe wants to push his version (1972), even engaging in edit warring, without sufficient evidence or attribution to a valid source of information. Per policies of most wikipedias, we have reverted it to the version (1976) prior to the dispute, and which has a better source. Hillgentleman 02:01, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

If such a controversy exists, it is better to make it explicit in the article rather than to seek victory for one of the two opinions. Guido den Broeder 11:22, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Only if such a controversy can be reliably sourced surely? Which from the sound of it it can't. While I can't say for sure without reviewing the discussion and sourcing, if I understand Hill correctly and he is telling the truth, I suspect the same thing would have happenedon the English wikipedia per BLP. BTW, how exactly is this 'becoming official or government release agency'? Is there some reason why the government is pushing the line he was born in 1976 as opposed to 1972? Or was that just trying to scare people? Nil Einne 17:49, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

There is nothing much that we can do. Perhaps the Chinese WP community unite and request for removal of adminship for the particular admin. Diagramma Della Verita 16:08, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Alleged Commercialisation of the French Wikipedia

Initial discussion

fr:Projet:Impression (in English): the French Wikipedia now adds a "print this image" to every image description page via JavaScript. Of course, this feature is non-free and some part of money the commercial print service obtains is paid to WMF and Wikimedia France. Now, here is the question: how can this not violate the non-profitness principle that used to be one of Wikipedia's cornerstones. In their FAQ they claim that Wikipedia already has commercial links in Special:Booksources and so on, there is a blatant misinterpretation: Booksources always provides a number of alternatives. I urge the Wikimedia community to stop this madness immediately. MaxSem^{(Han shot first!)} 07:45, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

• Endorse/Support this request for it to be stopped until the "community" has had the opportunity to discuss the matter. Jimbo has on many occasions said that such exploitation would not occur, see en:w:Wikipedia:Advertisements for the full context of Jimbo comments. Gnangarra 08:18, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
• Stop it I also understand that the licence and Author is not showing on the poster. I believe that is against the licence. Abigor 08:37, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

• I would like to remind you that all Wikibooks projects now offer a feature to collect books and print them via PediaPress. Special:Collection provides only one printer. This is exactly the same thing here (other printers are even considered in the case of the posters), so why should we react differently? Furthermore, it is blatantly false to say that "some part of money the commercial print service obtains is paid to WMF and Wikimedia France"; the money is donated on a voluntary basis by the printer, there has been no signed agreement. Last but not least, I fail to see how the "community" would have any right to interfere and to "stop" a project that has already been approved by the community of the French-language Wikipedia. guillom 09:05, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
• I think this is a seriously bad idea. It is comparable to replacing the ISBN magic link with an Amazon affiliate store, or flogging CafePress merchandise based on our content. I believe it would be a deterrent to people freely releasing images (which is already an issue in a lot of areas where images are scarce) and it makes us look bad. I would, however, have no objection to a pedia shop, where multiple vendors can be featured, with the community giving feedback or ratings. Separating it from being a direct off-the-page link, and making it explicit how much goes to WMF of each dollar spent, and allowing multiple vendors, would likely satisfy a lot of people's inherent opposition to the idea. On a related note, we purged CagePress from mainspace on enWP but see [1] for how many links are on frWP. I wonder if this should be blacklisted to prevent this abuse. Pity we don't have a per-namespace blacklist. JzG 10:58, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
  • As you link shows, CafePress is almost exclusively linked from various pages of frWP's village pump or userpages, as it is on enWP [2]. The only link from the mainspace on frWP is about NeoOffice. I fail to see the abuse. guillom 11:05, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
• This "project" has the potential to be the first step in ruining Wikipedia. We let this slide and we open the door to all kinds of commercial shit. John Reaves (talk) 12:23, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
• I vote that it be stopped, but note my unsureness as to whether here is the place to have such a vote. Have you brought it up on fr.wiki itself at all? —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 13:31, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
• I'm not seeing the harm here... looks like a great funding source to me. To remove charges of favoritism: Change the template or whatever that displays on each image page to include whatever other poster printers wish to be added (and note by each link how much per poster they currently are voluntarily donating per poster printed so that users interested in posters can make their own decisions) to be fair, but otherwise I see absolutely nothing wrong with this. I think those talking of abuse are perhaps taking things too far. "Non commercial" and "charity" do not mean "spurn every attempt to gather donations in a creative way". ++Lar: t/c 14:35, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
  • There is no obligation for this company to make any contributions, as I read the information its actually making contributions to a chapter rather than the Foundation. If the Foundation with community support see this as a worthy way to raise funds thats fine but ATM a small group of editors has added a link to every image to benefit that group, there in lies the problems. Gnangarra 15:35, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

The printer donates to the local chapter because of the 60% french tax deduction. He couldn't get it with a donation to the foundation. Plyd 16:56, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Does Wikimedia France do anything useful for all Wikimedia projects, like WMDE's Toolserver, for example? MaxSem^{(Han shot first!)} 09:38, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Yeah. this; and Wikimedia France actually FUNDS the German tool server Anthere.

Hello, I've been working on this project for six months now. Here is what I think:

Please don't consider this project as a way to gather money for the foundation or for some chapters. This is only a (good?) side-effect of the project.

This project first goal is to encourage distribution of free knowledge by an other media: the posters. Why wouldn't free knowledge be on classroom's posters? Why couldn't our pictures decorate our walls?

I really think this project is a great opportunity to spread our great content outside the internet.

I hope many other printers will join us and help us fulfill that dream to give everyone access to knowledge, by posters or by any other mean.

Thanks. Plyd 16:51, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

I find it ironic that your arguing that paying for free content is the best way to make it free. Gnangarra 12:11, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Can we please get a link to to fr community OKing this? I know the enWP community strenuously disagree

date	against ads	for optional	for
2008-12-21	888 (48+479+361)	30 (23+7)	34 (9+10+15)

with affiliate links and ads like this. -- Jeandré, 2008-12-21t07:10z

• While I am of 2 minds on this (I guess only 1 company expressed their interest in reprinting commons pictures, that's too bad) I'm unsure what meta can do here. This needs to be addressed by the local project. Also, free encyclopedia does not mean that we can't offer merchandise if we wish (see the WP mugs). They are not infringing our copyright and trademark, and are free to do these prints without us having anything to say about it (that what free means). I don't think this is advertising at all anyway. -- lucasbfr ^talk 16:05, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely disagree. Such thing should not be in local projects' area of competence. Only WMF, or multilingual community at large, if the foudation delegates this particular decision to them, should decide on such things. Last time I checked, Wikipedia was a non-commercial project that does not advertise anything. Apparently, it's no so anymore. Sigh. MaxSem^{(Han shot first!)} 17:48, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

(I guess only 1 company expressed their interest in reprinting commons pictures, that's too bad) -- lucasbfr, there were "no expressions of interest" called for this was arranged by one user then implemented. Gnangarra 00:50, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

That's pretty much how 90% of the stuff is done here :). If someone else wants to do it, I wish them the best of luck, the design looks like other providers can easily be appended. -- lucasbfr ^talk 20:09, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

This is bizarre. How is this in any way whatsoever different to WMF's partnership with PediaPress? A partnership is made with a business to conduct a useful service that furthers our aims (disseminating content effectively and globally), that would not otherwise we possible. Printing things costs time and resources. Profit gives businesses the motivation to do this: make our works conveniently available in formats that volunteer-driven no cost models don't make possible. And it's exactly the same level of "advertising": unobtrusive, appropriately placed links. (The link is on the image page, not every article page or anything.)

What the French Wikipedia community has done, is not an exclusive arrangement (probably unlike PediaPress I might add).

How else can I easily obtain a printed book from Wikibooks? How else can I easily obtain a poster print of a Wikimedia Commons image?

--pfctdayelise 04:42, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Large format posters do not print themselves and spontaneously appear at my doorstep in a neat and tidy mailing tube. Or at least none have so far, perhaps I've been doing something wrong? Free content doesn't mean free as in beer. A reasonable copying charge has always been fine under GFL and GFDL after all. No one is prevented from buying a printer and printing off their own posters under this arrangement, but I don't have the money to buy a large format poster printer at the moment so I'd rather not have to do it myself. That, to me is the essense here. ++Lar: t/c 06:05, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

• Can we please get a link to to fr community OKing this? -- Jeandré, 2008-12-22t08:46z
  • Hello, Be careful, I'm not sure such a police action on projects is always correctly appreciated. Nevertheless, I answered there. Plyd 09:24, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
    • "Police action"? John Reaves (talk) 09:40, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
    • w:fr:Discussion_Projet:Impression#Lien s'il vous plaît. says that "the project obtained a (very large) consensus from French-speaking Wikipedians". What I'm asking for is a link to this consensus. I also don't know what the "police action" comment means - is this a translation issue with the word "Demande"? That's how Google translates the English word "Request" - it's not meant to mean the English word "Demand". -- Jeandré, 2008-12-26t13:18z, -- Jeandré, 2008-12-26t13:22z
• But let me ask a question. When I buy a Image (poster) and I receive it on my home adres. Is there on the poster the name and license noticed? Abigor talk 17:23, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

That's a good question, how should they be credited (it does not have to be on the poster itself but I guess it has to be somewhere). I think it is done, since their website states that the images are free as long as the license and author are stated. -- lucasbfr ^talk 20:04, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

I think the should be on the poster. Because when I take a very nice image from Commons and lets say make 20 posters and are willing to sell them there will be no license and author on it. If the Author and License are somewhere else but not on the poster its kind of easy yo lose the attribution. Abigor talk 21:26, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

That's not a requirement, and how would you do if there's more than 1 author? The commons page is apparently printed with the poster, and a link to every page where the image is used is included too. [3] [4] [5] [6] (links from fr:Discussion_Projet:Impression). -- lucasbfr ^talk 23:04, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

If you intend to resell the posters, you are solely responsible for making sure the license is provided with each copy. guillom 10:53, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

• Comment I think there is a gross misunderstanding of this project. This is a very interesting new way to promote the idea of free content and Wikimedia projects at the same time. Offering a poster can spread free content awareness beyond the usual computer savvy people which are the usual contributors of Wikimedia. At the same time, a small profit can be made for Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimédia France. It is an exciting possibility which is also not very expensive. Unless traditional advertising, there is no impact on the content. Best regards, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Yann 13:45, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Another problem

Where's my license, dude?

Here's a screenshot made on my laptop: you can see the "print this image for $$$" link on this page, but you need to scroll down to find out that it actually comes under a license that permits free reuse and you don't need to pay to print it yourself. Given that we regularly receive emails from people who don't have a clue about the rules of reusing our images even after they visited the image description page, doesn't this link add even more FUD? MaxSem^{(Han shot first!)} 15:37, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps some redesign to make that clearer is needed, then. ++Lar: t/c 17:08, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

It doesn't say "print this image for $$$" but "get a poster of this image"; that's quite different. Pretending it reads "print this image for $$$" is FUD, though. guillom 11:03, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

What happening

This appears to still be unresolved, the instruction page is still quoting GFDL licensing for images and saying it prints them with that license yet the licensing of the images is CC-by-xx. That is a violation of the license under which our contributors have provided the images. Gnangarra 22:47, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales

I was told that this is the forum to ask that the donation request banners at the top of Wiki pages be changed to read co-founder Jimmy Wales rather than founder. Can this be corrected by a sysop? Thank you, --98.182.54.151 15:38, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

That is a can of worms that will not be opened by a Meta-Wiki sysop. The only person who would change that is a Foundation staff member in the Fundraising team. Cbrown1023 talk 03:22, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

You think they would change it? Can you imagine Jimmy sipping his coffee and opening his browser to see "co-founder" at the top of the page? Talk about spitting out your coffee. Anyways, thanks! --98.182.54.151 18:24, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

It is nice when controversy is sought by anonymous cowards.. thanks, GerardM 11:55, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

I am sure they have consulted Jimmy on this before it is published. Diagramma Della Verita 16:11, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Saving spaces

One of many problems in Wikimedia is a space problem, actually in english wikipedia. After i looking around of it. I have a suggestion, erased an Sockpuppet Wikipedians and Sockpuppeter Wikipedians user page and user talk are the good way for saving the space.  CHJL  ^Discuss 07:41, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

There is no need to save space. All the Wikipediae together are small enough to fit on one disk and leave room for ages to come. Regards, Guido den Broeder 12:49, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

But on somewhere wikipedia's page, i've found the saving space policy? What does wikimedia want to do if not to be saving their space? 118.136.51.211 07:31, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

The policy is we don't save space.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 07:32, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

The English Wikipedia must be several terabytes, uncompressed (I think most of it is stored compressed, though, but I'm not sure what kind of ratios they get). All the projects together wouldn't fit on one disk. However, there is no need to use one disk - hard drives aren't particularly expensive these days. --Tango 20:21, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

If it is several TB uncompressed (which may be about right), than it will easily go on one disk. The compression factor is quite strong, as most edits only change a fraction of a page, and maximum HD size is beyond several TB now. Guido den Broeder 20:48, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Please note that deleting stuff doesn't actually remove it from the database, it just makes it harder to access. Everything still exists. See also en:Wikipedia:Don't worry about performance. EVula // talk // ☯ // 20:54, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Google vs other search engines

{If your default page is woogle it would be simple to say that you could just reset your browser and just start all over again. NOPE that is not at all what will happen. This creep of a bug gets into every page you could think of I believe it starts in woogle play, documents, power pointz, and other apps. if you have a cellular device it will get into your sin card and memory card. This is a full blown attack, bonus {if you use someone elses device; computer, phone, ipod,etc. the individuals devices will get infected as well. I got this worm in December of 2014 and can still not get into any accounts. Please take care and do not Do Not share your passwords with anyone and I mean anyone. Forgive me if this isn't the best place, but it seemed like it might be. Has Google worked more closely with the foundation and developers then other search engines to make things work well (in recent times)? Nil Einne 14:01, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

No. As far as I know, there's been no interaction at all on technical issues.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 02:06, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

bugzillia help

I saw that gurch on bugzillia had a name on his posts instead of a plain e-mail adress. Please tell me how I can do that and post the awnser on my english wikipedia talk page.--Ipatrol 23:29, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/userprefs.cgi?tab=account Cbrown1023 talk 02:10, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Vietnamese Wikipedia and Non-free content

When dealing with a user's interwiki linking on enwp, I discovered that the Vietnamese Wikipedia had fair use images. When going back through the pages of the policies, I also discovered that these policies were put into place four months following wmf:Resolution:Licensing policy was passed. Does this mean that the Vietnamese Wikipedia is violating foundation policy or am I not reading things properly?—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 08:53, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

As a side note, here are the non-free content policy pages vi:Wikipedia:Nội dung không tự do & vi:Wikipedia:Tiêu chuẩn cho nội dung không tự do, which appear to be English-to-Vietnamese translations of en:Wikipedia:Non-free content and en:Wikipedia:Non-free content criteria, respectively.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 08:56, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Redirect from eo.wikisource.org

Would it be able to create a redirect from "eo.wikisource.org" to "wikisource.org"? The apart Esperanto subdomain hasn't been launched yet but we need to create links to the documents (now situated in the commons repository) so that they would be valid also after creation of a subdomain: ex. eo:s:Baza_Radikaro_Oficiala should be now redirected to oldwikisource:Baza_Radikaro_Oficiala. Is it able? --PAD 19:22, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Try bugzilla. Cbrown1023 talk 21:26, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

International year of astronomy 2009

• Mikeu has been coordinating cross-wikiversity learning projects on the International Year of Astronomy. Everybody is invited to take part. Hillgentleman 12:28, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Language code guidelines?

Currently, there has been a debate going on both of the two Norwegian wikipedias (Bokmål and Nynorsk) regarding the domain of the Norwegian (Bokmål) Wikipedia, which is 'no'. 'no' is not the ISO two-letter-code for Bokmål, but the code for both of the two official written standards of Norwegian. The ISO two-letter-code for Bokmål is 'nb:', which already is a redirect to 'no:'.

Whether the Norwegian (Bokmål) Wikipedia should be moved to 'nb' is the subject of the debate; and upcoming might be a vote on that wikipedia. Personally, I feel that this is not an issue that should be settled through a local vote, but one that should adhere to central guidelines (one important point for this particular case is that the number of Bokmål users greatly outnumber the amount of Nynorsk users).

Originally, Nynorsk was also allowed on the 'no' wiki, but after a Nynorsk wikipedia was set up in 2004, Nynorsk was disallowed there in 2005. At this point, it was not truly 'no' wiki anymore, but rather 'nb' wikipedia. --Harald Khan Ճ 17:41, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

This is clearly a question of minority rights, as nynorsk is the written language of a minority of Norwegians. It is therefore deeply problematic to let the bokmål wikipedia decide on this. As far as I can understand, nynorsk wikipedia must have the same right to "no" as bokmål has. The only right solution is to move no.wikipedia.org to nb.wikipedia.org --Oddeivind 19:28, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Using the prefix no: for only Norwegian bokmål isn't becoming for a website dedicateded to spreading knowledge. This arrangement leads to the misconception that there is Norwegian and then there is Nynorsk, and that Nynorsk isn't proper Norwegian. The ISO-code no: belongs to the macrolanguage Norwegian, with the two written standards Norwegian Bokmål, with ISO-code nb/nob, and Norwegian Nynorsk, with ISO-code nn/non.

It is also creating errors with the interlanguage links for the no: projects that are open for content in both the written standads of Norwegian, like no.wikinews. Because the no: interlanguage link in the In other languages section is set to show "Norsk (bokmål)" that is what is shown also for no.wikinews even though on the wikinews project the correct would be just "Norsk". (See for instance en:n:West Wing of White House evacuated)

Developer Brion Vibber has anounced on Foundation-l that he would like to get some language codes renamed soon.

The nn.wikipedia community has had a vote on the matter and it is clear that we want no.wikipedia moved to nb.wikipedia.

I would like to see input from other Wikimedia users on this matter. --Jorunn 04:14, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Remember, no-wikipedia is Bokmål/Riksmål wikipedia. The nb-prefix excludes Riksmål and can therefore not be used. Riksmål, also known as Standard Eastern Norwegian, is the only Norwegian standard with a complete dictionary and a standard pronunciation (comparable to Received Pronunciation or Standard American English). While Riksmål is regulated by The Norwegian Academy, Bokmål was introduced by the Labour Government during the 30s as a step towards "samnorsk", an artificial language based on Nynorsk and Riksmål. Since then, the state-controlled Bokmål has largely reaffirmed its Riksmål roots in order to be accepted by the Norwegian People. It is still possible to write in a samnorsk way, but most people write close to pure Riksmål.

Bokmål is actually a cluttered standard with great divergences. For instance, the sentence "skogbunnen ble dekket av dugg" (the forest floor was covered in mist) has been the same in Riksmål since 1917, but there have been up to 72 different ways in Bokmål. 81.166.4.30 16:51, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

'no' is still an incorrect code. You will have to find another one. --Harald Khan Ճ 17:48, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

There are Wikipedias in languages with no firmly set written standard or anyone regulating the language. Try figure out in how many different ways they can write "skogbunnen ble dekket av dugg". --Jorunn 19:24, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

This is a problem to be solved by the Norwegian Wikipedia communities, and I don't think anynone said or done here at Meta will have any influence on the result of the ongoing poll. I recommend to leave this discussion dead here. More or less everyone who has left a comment are involved in one of these projects anyway. --EivindJ 09:01, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

If left to the Norwegian wikipedia community, it will most likely never get solved. The majority tramples the minority, and so the conflict loops. --Harald Khan Ճ 17:00, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

I need urgent help! IP deletes pages on Upper Sorbian Wikipedia

Urgent help needed! IP 84.243.224.24 deletes articles. I'm not a sysop, I can't block it! Tahnks, --Michawiki 13:53, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

The danger has been eliminated. Thank you for your readiness and help. --Michawiki 14:55, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Planet Wikimedia

For those of you who have worked with blogging, or with the feed at Planet Wikimedia, there is a draft scope at Planet Wikimedia/Draft which I intend to move and transclude to the Planet Wikimedia page. I want the community to take a look and please edit or suggest, discuss on the talk page. Thank you for your time. NonvocalScream 19:26, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Transfer from wa.wiki to wa.wikt

Hi. In wa.wiki Wikipedia in Walon there is a Walon dictionary embedded: w:wa:Wikipedia:Pordjet_Motî is the portal to it and the lemmata are in the namespace Motî:. I would like to know about the technical feasibility to transfer those lemmata to wa.wikt and where is the proper way to apply for it. Thanks. -0 º 00:54, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Hello0º :)

I would say via wikt:wa:special:import, either You need to ask for sysop rights on wa.wikt and open a bug at bugzilla: that they enable transwiki from wa.wiki to wa.wikt (prefered method imho) or You ask for import rights on wa.wikt and import via xml file. For sysop or importer rights please open a local request on wa.wikt and then on rfp. Atm. there are no sysops there wikt:wa:Sipeciås:Liste_des_utilisateurs/sysop

Best regards, --birdy geimfyglið _(:> )=| 02:27, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, Birdy. There are several thousand pages in Motî: so I actually had thought of some kind of automated transfer with one or some bots so that they could transfer the lemmata without the Motî: bit and with the whole history of every page once trnaswiki from wa.wiki to wa.wikt has been enabled. Can it be done this way if the bot operator is a sysop in wa.wikt? Regards. -0 º 11:52, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Hm, I don't know that, maybe that could be done by bot, but I would not know how. Only thing that comes to my mind right now would be special:export on wa.wiki and exporting all pages that one wants to import and to import them then via the import function (that would be easiest and preserve the version history, note that with that import from an xml file You can import more than one article at once). The only problem is, that these pages are not really in an extra namespace, the namespace "Moti" does not exist there, they just put that as prefix and obviously never requested it at bugzilla.

Therefore the imported pages would be created with the same prefix, so it would be necesary to modify the xml-file before import and replace that moti: beforehand (but that should not be too difficult).

Best regards, --birdy geimfyglið _(:> )=| 21:45, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Such mass transfers can be done by a friendly sysadmin. You can make a shell request in Bugzilla, like bugzilla:12659.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 05:33, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Update asked

Hi. Is there anybody here able to update the wikimediafoundation site with this french page I corrected some days ago ? Thanks. Kropotkine 113 21:56, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Done Cbrown1023 talk 22:29, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Stanton Usability Initiative

Do you want to share views on usability ? I have just began to turn Talk:Stanton Usability Initiative from a red link into a blue one. Teofilo 15:16, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Script for changing sites.

Hi, there is this site: [7] which change the text about the selected website. This could be used for editing wikipedia too for example it could potentially affect all the projects [8] also the script usage is limited of course but we must take care about this. Otourly 16:53, 26 January 2009 (UTC)