Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)/Archive

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Contents 1 Paintings by Walter Slezak 2 bad jokes 3 Do you know the joke that fits this punchline? 4 history of france 5 redundancy? 6 Model T pictured in Wikipedia's automotive history section is BADLY misidentified. 7 Condolences on talk page 8 Growth Slowing 9 The (Hopefully Reversible) Decline of Wikipedia 10 design 11 Wikipedia for sale on Ebay 12 Page Deleted for Unknown Reason 13 Some recent warning templates I created

[edit] Paintings by Walter Slezak

O have a painting that I believe was done by Walyer Slezak. Where can I find more of his paintings & compare signatures. Thanks Judy Birchett

Please try the Reference Desk. -- Satori Son 05:54, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] bad jokes

What happened to the bad jokes and other deleted nonsense page/s? I can't find it anywhere. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.6.80.241 (talk • contribs) .

It's at Wikipedia:Bad Jokes and Other Deleted Nonsense Tra (Talk) 18:44, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Do you know the joke that fits this punchline?

Sorry if I'm doing this the wrong way. If I am in error here, please feel free and let me know and/or delete this message.

A friend of mine and I were talking a couple of months ago about (what we thought to be, but apparently is not) a very well known joke. But although neither one of us could come up with the joke itself, we certainly remembered the punch line.

We have both absolutely SCOURED the internet, picked the brains of the funniest people we know, and even tried creating our own versions to see if it would jog our memory.

I absolutely need to know if anyone out there actually knows the whole joke that belongs with this punch line:

"Rectum, damn near killed 'em!"

How does this one sound...

Teacher: "Little Johnny, what have you been doing?"

Johnny: "Me and Jimmy were sticking firecrackers up frog's arses!"

Teacher: "Rectum, Johnny, rectum".

Johnny: "Rectum, damn near killed 'em!"

Oh and this should probably go on the Reference desk! -- Chuq 22:03, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

More precisely, it should've been posted at the Miscellaneous reference desk. —EdGl 01:18, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] history of france

Hi! I wanted to know what should we deduct from history of france. Thanks a lot

Try discussing this at Talk:History of France Tra (Talk) 18:47, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Please don't. That's not what article Talk pages are for. Take it to the Reference Desk. User:Zoe|(talk) 03:40, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

It depends what you mean by 'deduct'. If you mean 'deduct' as in 'remove from the article' then the talk page would be the best place to discuss it. If you mean it as in 'deduce' then the reference desk would probably be the best place to go. Tra (Talk) 03:54, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] redundancy?

i didn't expect this Ohio 2nd congressional district election, 2006, and this Ohio 13th congressional district election, 2006, to still say "will take place on November 7th, 2006" (at the time of writing), but even if they were updated, don't you think wikipedia is getting a bit bloated with sub-sub-sections? try not to think of it in terms of how something "works" now, think of the maintainability of such articles in a few years in case they are forgotten and in case popularity of wikipedia doesn't grow. i'm not saying it should get as "general" as it gets, but i think some restrain should be in order. better not through strict regulation, more through agreement in way of operation. --87.194.72.129 07:09, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

A deep question that has been debated since I started on wikipedia three years ago - and was being debated for the two years it was operating before that! I used to be err on the side of deletion, now I err on the side of inclusion - leave it in; even if it gets outdated or never finished, what's the real harm? Has your usage of wikipedia been harmed by all those %$#@ Pokemon articles or badly written fancruft on flash-in-the-pan bands? Then it won't be harmed by hundreds of single-election articles that may not be as complete as we'd like. In fact, what would be the harm is even greater hair-splitting - say, Ward 11, Ohio 2nd congressional district election, 2006? - DavidWBrooks 16:35, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

i'd prefer keeping that simply deleting, but what i'm saying is maybe more 'balance' on it is needed. e.g. it's not nice having a short encyclopaedia but it's not nice having one filled with stubs either --87.194.72.129 07:55, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Model T pictured in Wikipedia's automotive history section is BADLY misidentified.

First let me clarify that I am using a friend’s computer but I usually must use the library's computer for any internet use. However I do have an email address so anyone who wishes to challenge my accuracy is welcome to so do. However, bear in mind that it may take a week or two before I can reply because I have no home internet and I do not live on this thing.

So let me introduce myself. I am <e-mail redacted for spam protection>. I am a self-taught amateur automotive historian and would not venture to correct anything this public and this BODLY as well unless I was 100% sure of my facts.

So here is to what I am referring; the beige model T pictured under "automotive history" is a 1925, 1926, or 1927 model T YET captioned as "the brass-era model T." YES, the model T was introduced and produced throughout the brass era. As such, THAT PICTURE is highly misleading because that particular model T AND the majority of the 15 million model T's produced, including MOST of the BLACK-ONLY model T's were produced AFTER the END of the brass-era. Of all the model T enthusiast I have ever heard of, they NEVER refer to a BLACK-ONLY model T as a BRASS-ERA. Furthermore and just to thoroughly crystallize the point at hand, model T’s were available in colors BOTH at their beginning, BRASS-ERA years, AND ALSO at least from 1925 through their discontinuance (due to the availability of the then new Duco high-speed painting-process). I am not completely sure, but colors may have also been available in 1924.

What I am POSITIVE of is that the model T PICTURED is NOT a 1908 through 1913 which are the REAL BRASS-ERA model T's. The BRASS-ERA model T's have hoods and radiators which are VERY angular and look a little like the Rolls Royce's of that period. Furthermore, they have fenders that stick straight-out similar to the first Jeeps and DO-NOT curve down. Please do not just take my word for it. Look at that picture again and notice the SILVER RADITOR as opposed to a brass colored one. I believe you will notice that the radiator in the picture is chrome. ;>) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.165.101.255 (talk • contribs) .

You're right; that's a 1927 car and the Brass Era as described in the article ended in 1914. I have removed the image from that article. In the future you are more than welcome to remove or correct such inaccuracies yourself should you find them. Just remember to leave an "edit summary" (it's the little box between the main edit window and the save page button) to explain what you are doing and why. ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 15:36, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Condolences on talk page

Talk:Gerald_Levert now has six messages, all of which are expressions of sympathy or the like on the death of Gerald Levert (an American R&B singer who died today at age 40 of a heart attack). This doesn't strike me as an appropriate use of an article talk page, well-intentioned though those editors may be. Should I delete these messages? | Mr. Darcy talk 05:38, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

• • While I see your point and what you are sayinig, it is, after all, a talk page. There was some talk in the same lines about a page dedicated to someone on the talk page. I don't remember how it ended but I don't think anything was done. I mean, yeah this is a serious (though characters like me try to show the lighter side of it) encyclopedic piece of art but any way we put it a talk page is a talk page, and well, people use it to....talk. I really respect and value your job patrolling our pages. Thanks and God bless you!

Antonio Cuming 2u Martin

[edit] Growth Slowing

Did anybody else see on the Announcements page that the monthly new article count is way down? Is is possible that we've run out of new things to write about? (I feel that this is actually a good thing. The existing articles will get longer, more detailed, and, in theory, of a higher quality.) Any different opinions? Just curious. Steveo2 20:16, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, I always wondered what the record will be. Here is a question. How many Wikipedia article titles are possible?? To calculate the answer to the question, take the number of unicode characters, and call this number U. The number is U + (U*(U-1)) + (U*(U-1*(U-2))) + (U*(U-1*(U-2*(U-3))))... with the last term being the product of all the integers from U down to U-255. Although this is a big number, it's still finite. Anyone know what it is?? Georgia guy 20:48, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Oh, I messed up. I made the mistake of thinking that characters cannot duplicate. So, the answer is U + U^2 + U^3 + U^4... with the last term being U^255. Georgia guy 20:49, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, obviously it depends on what value U has; I don’t know what that might be. Estimating 100,000 for U, U²⁵⁶ would be 10¹²⁸⁰ We’re not there yet. — Knowledge Seeker দ 22:28, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

According to the Unicode site, this is how many characters are currently assigned:

Graphic        96,248
Format         134
Control        65
Private Use    137,468
Surrogate      2,048
Noncharacter   66
Reserved       878,083

The "graphic" ones (96,248) would be the ones that are currently suitable for use within article titles, though in theory the 137,468 "private use" ones could be assigned meanings that might be specific to Wikimedia projects, and the 878,083 reserved ones might have standard meanings in the future. *Dan T.* 12:59, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

This is, of course, silly. We're never going to write articles at titles resembling random and meaningless combinations of characters, which constitute well over 99% of these combinations. I think it's an interesting question why the new article count has dropped, but I doubt it's because we're out of things to write about - there are still many underdeveloped areas much in need of expansion, and many new subjects appearing everyday in the world worthy of articles. Deco 23:31, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

This of course has already been done see The Library of Babel. --Salix alba (talk) 18:09, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

One possible explanation for the growth slowdown is the expansion of the speedy deletion criteria. Oldelpaso 17:30, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

No, it's because we've caught up with all the Simpsons references. And Pokemon characters. Once we're finished with every human being who ever appeared on a Dr. Who episode, the new-article count will plummet into single digits. - DavidWBrooks

[edit] The (Hopefully Reversible) Decline of Wikipedia

I've used Wikipedia for years. I've had an account for years. I'm posting this anonymously because, in the past, when I've been candid, I've found some people become personally abusive as a result.

Tonight, I happened on a page where perfectly legitimate, double-sourced material was removed as "defamatory" in a POV edit by what appears to be both an ignorant and overzealous "administrator" cum "censor." I checked the administrator's record; he/she has been a Wiki user for less than a year. This "administrator" clearly doesn't understand defamation (I am an attorney -- I do).

To me, this sort of behavior articulates the growing problems with Wikipedia in a nutshell: Wiki used to be about building a big base of free knowledge. Now it's all about people trying to become administrators and their petty powers and suck-up circle. (When I see people asking to be administrators and organizing little suckup campaigns, my first reaction is, "that person does not deserve nor merit to be an administrator.") The levels of bureaucracy and rules and policies and templates here make the DMV look like a lemonade stand. Wikipedia is now an AV Society of Asocial Geeks who are obstructive and self-protective of their ridiculous little circles of power. To preserve that power, they're destroying Wikipedia in the process.

As a result, Wikipedia is narrowing its potential pool of contributors by becoming an entrenched bureaucracy as petty as the faculty of any also-ran community college. Just look how frickin' complex footnotes have become; how is a new contributor supposed to understand all that coding? Who wants to waste time learning? What was wrong with the old, simple footnote policy? How many tasks forces and little online committees and requests for proposals were necessary to come up with that byzantine silliness?

Most dangerously, Wikipedia is now self-destructing with this "living persons" policy which, absurdly, actually is exposing Wikipedia and all of its assets to legal peril. Wikipedia, simply put, is voiding its 47 USC 230 (c)(1) protection with all this heavy-handed screening and editing. You're inviting yourself to be sued by doing this and, in the process, voiding your own legal protections.

So what is my solution? I didn't just come here to bitch. My solution: simplify. Go back to the basics of what made Wikipedia great. Trim back all the bureaucracy and all the layers upon layers upon layers of policies and reviews and tasks forces and procedures and yada yada yada. Make CONTENT king; don't make the petty and monstrous bureaucracy king, as it is now. I can remember when Wiki's policies took ten minute to read. Now it would take ten days to read. That's just absurd.

I will continue to use and contribute to Wikipedia. I was here in the beginning, long before the vast majority of present administrators had even heard of the site and were still busy wasting their time on Friendster. I fear, however, that what made Wikipedia great is being lost. It's about information, people, not the bureaucracy. It's about content, not petty little turf wars and seeing how you can flex your little administrative powers. I'm constantly shocked by the rude and heavy-handed actions by administrators. Police yourself, people, before you try to make yourself look big by being small. 207.69.137.12 05:59, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Could you expand upon the 47 USC 230 part? -- Kjkolb 08:05, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

I will do so on the Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons page as that seems the more appropriate place.207.69.138.10 17:22, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

If this editor is actually a lawyer and a seasoned contributor then I'm surprised he or she would choose to express complaints in this way. The obvious method for a practicing attorney to share a concern about potential lawsuit exposure would be to contact the Wikimedia foundation or its counsel. There are several ways to express misgivings about a particular administrator's actions. Open a dialogue with the administrator. Post to WP:AN or open a user conduct WP:RFC.

You state, The obvious method for a practicing attorney to share a concern about potential lawsuit exposure would be to contact the Wikimedia foundation or its counsel. The exact opposite is true. Because I am an attorney, it would be inappropriate for me to do so, and, possibly, violate the ABA Code of Professional Responsibility. That notwithstanding, you clearly don't understand the purpose of my statement. I didn't post this here to bitch about a particular administrator; I deliberately did not do so. You immediately dismissed the content of my complaint and, instead, began an ad hominem attack on me. That only underscores the scope of my original statement -- it doesn't sound like you're interested in improving Wikipedia; instead, you're interested in protecting the petty fiefdom of administratorship.207.69.138.10 17:22, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

The way this editor presents the dispute, by making anonymous bad faith accusations against administrators in general and providing no page diffs or links, makes me doubt its credibility. Durova 19:00, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

I am shocked by the above comments of User:Durova; however, his/her reaction actually examplifies the anon's remarks. I fully agree with anon's comments, as I'm annoyed by the irrelevant clutter that is currently being increased about WP:NOR as more explanation about primary and secondary sources is being prepared while in fact no mention of such distinctions is required at all -- it's running out of control.

About footnotes however I have an intermediate opinion: for an effective application of WP:V it's very useful if not essential to have inline citations, and the basics of it are easy. Harald88 03:03, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Per above, you also have missed the point and are turning this into an ad hominem attack on me. This was not about a particular administrator. Don't make it into something it isn't. Don't insist on missing the forest for the trees.207.69.138.10 17:22, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

In a 61 minute span the IP edited this page, Talk:Michele Bachmann, and Curt Weldon. It looks like this is about election politics. Durova 19:11, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

I assume very good faith on the part of this anonymous IP. Perhaps, our check-users should be able to know of his/her real user identity, if he/she has one, so editing with a user name or an IP is immaterial. One has all the right to edit anonymously and to impute any motive to such anonymous edits is perhaps not a good idea. I also do believe that she/he is an attorney. Why he/she would assert so if he/she were not one? I also find that her/his general assertions are true. Wikipedia's style of functioning has become more rule-oriented and process-oriented, and this may not be killing wikipedia, it may be making the life of real editors and content builders difficult. --Bhadani 00:55, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

This user has chosen to raise several serious allegations in a manner that almost guarantees they will not be resolved. Wikimedia's legal counsel probably doesn't spend much time at Village pump investigating anonymous allegations. However, I am an administrator who would investigate a situation where other users may have acted improperly. Because this appears to involve current events I would prioritize the matter. However, this editor has given almost no leads. I checked the recent edit history to look for subjects of interest. The time frame is not a subjective comment on the quality of the anon's edits, rather an observation that this randomized IP address was probably assigned to the same user during a single login. Checkuser is not for fishing expeditions. If this editor would like to follow up either on this thread or via my e-mail I'd give the situation an impartial review. Durova 14:56, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks to Bhadani and Durova for having an open mind. However, I didn't post this here to complain about a particular administrator; I actually began that process elsewhere. I posted it as a wakeup call to begin a dialog. Wikipedia is seriously off track. People are too close to the archania to notice the big picture. I'm trying to get people to look at the big picture once again.207.69.138.10 17:22, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

BTW, if one has done his/her homework fine, and preapred the materials, he/she could do more pages in 61 minutes. If one works off line for say one month, one may upload 10 good articles in 5 to 10 minutes. There is nothing surprising in such fast edits. --Bhadani 01:00, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Not sure whether this anon thinks I have an open mind or am defending my petty fiefdom, but I'll accept the nomination: okay, I'm a Rouge admin. Durova 19:45, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

We already know about these problems. Do you have a solution? Saying "let's go back to the way things were" isn't a solution. Unless you also want to ban everyone who's joined since then, I guess, and delete all the articles they've created. Things that worked for a wiki that no one knew about with 100 contributors and 1000 articles will never work for a wiki with thousands of contributors that comes up as the first result for many Google searches, is treated as an authoritative source in discussion forum battles, and has biographies about resentful people who want to discredit it. — Omegatron 20:38, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

You ask, "Do you have a solution?" I already included a number of solutions in my original post. One: simplify. Everything. Simplify everything. Policies used to be a few pages. Now it would take days just to find all of them, let alone read them. The footnotes policy is a perfect example. Wiki for years had a simple footnote coding policy. Now it's been made infinitely complex so it only makes sense to people who spend hours on here every day.

I think the biggest problem is the complexity of the bureaucracy, which has created a need for way too many administrators, and many of those administrators are woefully unqualified. By simplifying the rules and procedures, Wiki will be more open to users at all levels. I think the whole policy of people begging to be administrators, then running campaigns, is a self-destructive way to run a system. Many of these new -- and very young -- administrators only have computer skills and nothing else. People who have been on here six or eight months shouldn't be administrators. They're more interested in playing with software and "administrative blocks" than improving content. I'm constantly amazed how destructive and rude many of these new administrators are.

I think the administrator/contributor function also needs to be split. You're either one or the other, but not both. If you're both, inherent conflicts-of-interest and turf wars arise. As well, administrators need to learn not to speak in jargon. Many newer users don't know what the hell they're talking about. So it makes Wikipedia seem an unfriendly place. Don't say, you're violating WP:3RR. Say, you're violating the three-revert rule; click here to learn more about it. Too many administrators like to show off their knowledge of jargon -- or how fast they can jump down someone's throat -- as opposed to actually helping out. (And, the three-revert rule notification process is another example of something that has become infinitely complex; the coding only makes sense to an advanced Wikipedia user -- the old system was far better.)

Another important solution would be to dial the hostility way back. Your response to me is immediately hostile and combative. I never said to go back to the way Wiki was when there were 100 contributors -- so please don't put words in my mouth. You're making this about me, not about Wikipedia. That's counter-productive. Let's make this about improving the system. Most of the discussion here has been to admit there are problems, and then immediately attack me without discussing the actual problems. 4.232.60.33 00:08, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

I know this does not address the primary theme of the initial post. It does address some of the secondary themes.

The main reason that I have not contributed but have only edited has been the complexity of the site. I have spent many hours wandering around in the guidelines and have yet to find a format for footnotes. I know that Kate Turabian is out of favor and the latest edition that I have of her book is quite old. I am not certain of the current status of MLA but, again, the only version that I have of that is probably older than most Wikipedians.

The number of templates confuses me. The incessant and aggressive use of jargon is distracting and often unintelligible. (From the original post in this subject, “The levels of bureaucracy and rules and policies and templates here make the DMV look like a lemonade stand. Wikipedia is now an AV Society of Asocial Geeks who are obstructive and self-protective of their ridiculous little circles of power.” When I see “DMV” I think “Department of Motor Vehicles” whose rules and policies seem to me to be fairly straightforward. When I see “AV” I think “Audio-Visual” which is obviously not what was meant.)

The only problem that I have with the editing that I have seen is the prevalence of the assumption of bad faith. If something appears to be wrong, instead of attempting to correct the error or giving notice that the contributor of the apparent error will be contacted to make some sense of the matter, the perceived error is deleted, no questions or discussion.

JimCubb 01:55, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

The user who started this thread hasn't offered any evidence in support of these claims. As this chart demonstrates, the English language Wikipedia has only 1 administrator for every 2489 registered accounts. That's the third lowest ratio of all Wikipedia language projects. The ratio of admins to users has actually declined steadily since January 2004. We're barely adding sysops fast enough to keep up with the growth in articles.[1] If an administrator abuses trust, go ahead and open a review at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/User conduct or visit Wikipedia:Requests for de-adminship. There are also dozens of administrators, myself among them, who have volunteered to stand for reconfirmation if six editors request it Category:Administrators open to recall. Before I became an administrator I amassed nearly 9000 edits, contributed 3 featured pages, and opened the Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Medieval warfare task force - so it's surprising that anyone would question my commitment to building an encyclopedia. Anyone who thinks administratorship is granted too lightly is welcome to join Wikipedia:Requests for administratorship and vote on open nominations. Also, anyone who wants to help organize and streamline Wikipedia's rules and guidelines is welcome to do so. Just go to an appropriate talk page and join the discussion or begin a new proposal. Wikipedia really is a flexible and open project. Durova 02:46, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

I'd say the decline in number of administrators is the reason some of them are grouchy. We are each responsible for the well-being of 1377 articles, if distributed evenly among us, and everything is our fault when one of them goes bad. I have 2,180 on my watchlist (a lot of redirects, I hope) ;-) But it gets taxing. Jimbo's original idea of administrators was just people who had edited a while and proved they were trying to contribute to the encyclopedia; someone that could be trusted not to break things.

I just wanted to say that becoming a sysop is *not a big deal*. I think perhaps I'll go through semi-willy-nilly and make a bunch of people who have been around for awhile sysops. I want to dispel the aura of "authority" around the position. It's merely a technical matter that the powers given to sysops are not given out to everyone. I don't like that there's the apparent feeling here that being granted sysop status is a really special thing.

—Jimbo

— Omegatron 04:13, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

• I tend to agree with a lot of what the anon has said here, and I don't think people should disregard the message based on the method of presentation. It used to that we assumed good faith, it's a shame people attribute motive to communications to dismiss it rather than engage with the ideas presented. Wikipedia does need scaling back on the policy side and it does need better engagement from the board on legal issues, to be honest. Steve block Talk 10:01, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

If I had disregarded the message I would have disregarded it. Instead I extended enough good faith to list my concerns. This anon's replies were extremely cursory: they not only fail to provide any supporting evidence but the anon appears to have mistaken me for two different people (after accusing me of running a petty fiefdom, the same anon thanks me in a later section for having an open mind). I still haven't received any substantiation of these claims either here on this board or in my e-mail. I've provided evidence for why I don't think this anon identifies any systemic problem - if you disagree then go make Wikipedia better! This is not a closed shop. Durova 16:43, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

I never thought it was a closed shop, and I have argued the point the anon raises or ones similar to it at different times in different venues, and am currently, but thanks for the advice. My words were not directed at you in nature but outwards, and aimed in general. Steve block Talk 18:29, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

If nothing else, I agree with the policy issue. We're suffering from a serious, serious case of bloat. It's just mind-boggling sometimes to try and find something, anything on the policy/WP side because there's a million-and-a-half links on every page. And for every policy, there are 10 pages to read, to boot. We need to hack-and-slash the entire WP namespace to the bare bones of what is necessary. Simplicity is wildly under-appreciated here. --Wolf530 (talk) 02:30, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Wrong - it's greatly appreciated, just impossible to accomplish. The problem is that my simplicity is your lack of value; what I think is necessary you think is superfluous; what I regard as intelligent pruning of pointless blather you regard as vindictive destruction of a great and noble institution ... and vice-versa, of course. All human institutions produce impenetrable rules, regulations, policies and procedures; the notable thing about wikipedia is that we've created so many of them so quickly. - DavidWBrooks 03:06, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Not impossible to accomplish at all. It's just time to start going through the WP namespace and editing. We need to be more like book editors -- every word and link has to be absolutely critical. If we can get along without it, we need to. That's simplicity. That's accomplishable. --Wolf530 (talk) 03:14, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree, despite the natural tendency of complicating matters, counterforces are at work.

For example Wikipedia:Attribution is a current attempt to merge and simplify the policies WP:V and WP:NOR with the essentials from the guidelineWP:RS which can then be dropped.

Only I doubt that enough people (and with fresh ideas) are involved in this. Harald88 16:08, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

To the original poster: I am currently working on an article about the "social aspects" of Wikipedia. I'd be very interested in talking to you about what you view as "suckup campaigns" and the need for people to become adminstrators. If you're interested, please email me at brianwrites@gmail.com68.39.158.205 02:41, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

I think what the anon original poster of this thread is missing is that, in his yearning for the halcion days of wikipedia's youth, he has missed the problems associated with the exponential growth wikipedia has experienced. I understand his concerns, I do. I personally think the rediculous number of notability guidelines only serves to obfuscate the purpose of the concept of notability. The issue is that people have become creative and sneaky about being intentionally disruptive to the editorial process. The whole beaurocracy of wikipedia exists to protect it from disruptive, anti-productive editing. I understand the general problem that thousands of users with sysop access generates. The question is: Do we simplify, as suggested, even if that means allowing disruptive editors to degrade the quality of wikipedia, or do we keep the huge, unweildy beaurocracy to deal with the problem, even if it means that some people who are admins don't belong there? Thus is the conundrum. Do you come down on the side of freedom, or law-and-order? Sounds like the same debate happening in every community of any size at any point in the entire history of the world. --Jayron32 05:49, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Re: The (Hopefully Reversible) Decline of Wikipedia:

Wikipedia has existed in a vacuum for a long time, but by proving the collaborative model successful, it now has serious competition. Competition is good. It will force Wikipedians to implement improvements. However, the "business rule" is that innovations sparkle for a while, but eventually get replaced by improved versions produced by stronger competitors. I would hope that Wikipedia would be an exception to the rule, but based on "hundreds of unfulfilled feature requests" and the prevalent culture of defensiveness and resistance to change, excellent leadership will be required to reverse Wikipedia's otherwise eventual decline. 70.112.29.65 09:52, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Culture of defensiveness. Hadn't thought of that term... describes very well what goes on around here a lot. --Wolf530 (talk) 03:18, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] design

is it just me, or do == headings look different than before? and the main page headers are centered and only as big as the text... design change? i don't like it. 80.41.217.63 14:51, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

I think that's been fixed now. Clear your cache to see the old design. Tra (Talk) 15:52, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia for sale on Ebay

Check this out!! And for about 1 dollar or 2 pounds??? Either this is a joke or our Jimmy Wales has gone Wales over his top.Wikipedia at Ebay for sale. Thanks and God bless you!

Antonio the licka from Puerto Rica Martin

Umm, that's W1KIPEDIA.COM, not WIKIPEDIA.COM (notice the number, 1). --wj32 ^{talk | contribs} 07:21, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

And the actual Wikipedia is at WIKIPEDIA.ORG'; note the .org TLD indicating a noncommercial organization. *Dan T.* 18:28, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Page Deleted for Unknown Reason

For what it's worth I see no citation of a criterion for speedy deletion here. We can't just delete 

things that seem non-notable on sight. Please exercise discretion. Deco 11:41, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

It was moved to the user space at User:NEaB/Nowhere-Else and Beyond and then the redirect that was 

created by the page move was deleted. RJFJR 16:37, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

I know why it was deleted, I talked with the admin that deleted it and found out why; but there was no citation of a criterion for speedy deletion given on the page which made it a bit frustrating to find. Also, it was not moved to the user space until I requested it for revision. Garth of NEaB 14:20, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

The article was deleted for fairly obvious reasons. You might read WP:COI and WP:NOT. In general, articles are not ever moved into userspace without a direct request. --Doc Tropics ^{Message in a bottle} 15:58, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Some recent warning templates I created

User:Iced Kola/T
User:Iced Kola/T2
User:Iced Kola/T3
User:Iced Kola/T4

I'm going to start using these as my warning templates (I love creating them =p), and I'm even going to inset them into my vandalproof. I'm just asking any and all users here on wikipedia if they can check them out and improve them/give me feedback on them. Thanks. I c e d K o l a ^{(Contributions)} 23:53, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

These look good. I'd say remove the class attribute in T, T2 and T3 because you're not really expecting people to customize how they appear through monobook.css. (It's OK in T4 because that's a standard class used in Wikipedia). You might also wish to consider inserting the code ~~<includeonly></includeonly>~~ immediately before the closing div tag, so that when it's substituted, your signature appears as part of the message between the lines. Tra (Talk) 00:57, 14 November 2006 (UTC)