Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 11:38, 9 April 2005

Wikimedia collaboration

Thanks for the note at http://mi.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Misplaced Pages:K%C3%B6rero&curid=629&diff=0&oldid=0 - Regrettably, we still have no regular contributors on "mi" who are fluent Maori speakers. We have fairly new contributors who are native Taiwanese and Galician, but their knowledge of Maori is not even up to my standard yet. One day... - Robin Patterson 20:30, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Tagline for Indonesian Misplaced Pages

I know this may not be the best place to ask about Indonesian Misplaced Pages. But how can I put a tagline (like the "" in English Misplaced Pages) in the Indonesian Misplaced Pages? Can you take a look at it please? Thanks! Hayabusa future 00:39, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

See Wikicities:Help:Tagline. You need to edit id:MediaWiki:Tagline and id:MediaWiki:Monobook.css. Angela. 00:45, Apr 4, 2005 (UTC)

It worked, thanks! Hayabusa future 01:02, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

OII

Hi Angela,

Sorry to bother you again, I just want to check Jimbo did get the invitation to talk at the Oxford Internet Institute in the end, and it wasn't buried under a pile of spam. I'd hate for it to fall through cos of an accidentally deleted e-mail. (I posted a message on Jimbo's talk page about this, but he's maybe not quite as organised as you are...)

Thanks, --cfp 16:00, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Old POTD mechanism

Hi Angela,

Do you know how the older version of POTD used to work?.

Today, I came across a couple of users who include

{{msg:pic_of_the_day_{{CURRENTDAYNAME}}}}

on their user page. However Template:Pic of the day Tuesday and similar are stuck on POTDs from last November, because no one has been updating them since the move over the the newer auto-archive version of POTD. However, I noticed that you've edited some of these pages before User:Solitude took over.

I was thinking to replace each of the with a redirect to Template:Pic of the day, but I wasn't sure this would do the trick and it would lead to some double/tripple redirects. There also seems to be a set of MediaWiki:Pic of the day Tuesday, but I have no idea what they are for (interface messages?).

An alternative might be to update each user page linking to the older templates and then delete the POTD-Dayname templates. -- Solipsist 18:43, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I think redirects would be better than deleting them. I never followed how the new version of them worked so I might not be the best person to ask about this, but as far as I can tell, redirecting them all to Template:Pic of the day should work. Angela. 10:14, Apr 9, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks Angela, I think User:Solitude left sometime around last December (which is a shame), but I spotted your reply on his talk page. My guess is he may have been the last one to know how the previous system worked. Nevertheless I'll take on the tidying up and hope I don't break anything that matters. Most people are using the new mechanism, so the only bit that gives me pause for thought is the MediaWiki link. -- Solipsist 11:38, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Fair use and the Spanish version

Spanish version against fair use:
On your last message you asked me whether there was a consensus against fair use images and that I could upload them in other versions.
Yes, it was determined by November 2004 that fair use was no longer available there. Administrators next to several users voted in favor of using free-license images only. But before getting into deep details, let me tell you a little more of my work there and my thoughts:
I started by mid 2003 and thought I could be an integral part at the Spanish version for one big reason: only 2% of Internet content is in Spanish and my topics of interest are mostly unavailable in my mother tong. So I immediately began to write articles about music, I started with Beck and Björk, and as I saw it was too much to write about I decided that I would devote almost entirely to Icelandic music and thus I would complete an entire area of interest. Of course I have other passions: astronomy and geology, next to some economics issues.

Several of my works there are huge, and I’m known for having written the largest articles, where 12 of them were selected as outstanding. As the time passed by I managed to published almost 500 articles of varied quality. But things started to get nasty: first I discovered that some images of the biographies had been deleted because I delayed in justifying their existence, then when I wrote about an article titled “Heavily Indebted Poor Countries” I was accused of discriminating poor countries and that it was unfair that I didn’t mentioned the rich countries that are heavily indebted as well. But the title of my article is correct because it was a definition from the Club of Paris, the IMF the World Bank and other creditor institutions. It is an official term used for countries that have a certain amount of income and their debts go beyond a particular percentage threshold. When I tried to give explanations I was ordered to delete my article, but I refused because of the ignorance about those topics and because of the disrespect embodied in a meaningless argument. I was about to drop out, but chose to go on. Later I found this of the fair use and that really annoyed me. I mean, don’t you think all Misplaced Pages’s versions should have the same rules? After all Misplaced Pages’s server is located in the USA and it doesn’t matter where you’re writing from. Everybody could lie and anyway, Internet reaches all the corners of the Earth. For instance, the German version is more restricted, and a German guy told me that some images there are prohibited due to copyright laws, but where is the solution in banning images on the German version if you could get the other versions there? Does the language make a difference?

I complaint about the decision against fair use on my version explaining that I couldn’t vote because I was out but at least I gave some arguments. I got an answer from a virtual foe I have there: he even questioned my attitude of having images at my user page saying that I should create my own Web site. Just imagine this: What could a person like this say about your user page? That is ridiculous. Anyway, I chose to go on again. But once more, things got even nastier: the same foe (an administrator) started to promote the deletion of some articles devoted to Beck’s singles. He said I was trying to create some sort of a “CD catalogue”, then when I gave my explanations and arguments in favor of the existence of those articles, besides telling him that they hadn’t been finished at that time, he answered back arguing that he agreed that some singles could be important, but he found the others “irrelevant”, a word that ruffled my feathers and reacted with a rather sarcastic sense of humor. Then he told me that those articles were “microstubs”. So, I know he’s editing under a biased position, but I’m the only one who seems to see this.

I’m currently working here, because I have more freedom and it is nice to count on people who are always extending a hand to help you out. It is beautiful and strange to explain, but my passion for writing articles has been revived here again. I will translate into English my Spanish articles and span my areas of interest in the future.

I no longer care about the Spanish version: it’s all up to them to make the right decisions. If they are willing to harbor these biased behaviors I don’t think it would be wise to support their attitude with further collaborations. And now everybody there is wondering why the Spanish version has been lagged behind by the English one…. I think you have the answer now. Kind regards, Luis María Benítez 22:29, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)
PS: sorry of the big message!!!

I Need Your HELP

Hi Angela, On July 8, 2004, I created the article Cardinal Luis Aponte Martinez. User:69.157.173.5 moved and redirected the page to Luis Cardinal Aponte Martinez on August 20, 2004 without transfering the edit history. Therefore, half of the edit history is still in the original "REDIRECT" page. Can you please fix that for me? Thank you. Tony the Marine

New admin for wikispecies

Hello Angela, I recently sent a request to the stewards for making en:UtherSRG an admin for Wikispecies - he proposed and was supported a while ago and I can't do it - could you, please? Thank you, Benedikt

Done. Angela.

wikibooks.org disaster

Please just disable the server until you can put a stop to user "Gumba gumba", IP block and all. He's very fast at trashing the main page. He has also trashed at least dozens of other important pages. It'll take some time to clean up the full mess.

BTW, it would be nice if I had the necessary rights to do more than just revert or (faster) blank his crud.

AlbertCahalan 20:23, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

mav had blocked that user before you left this message, Isn't there a vandalism page at Wikibooks where you can report such events? Angela. 10:27, Apr 9, 2005 (UTC)

Yes, there is. b:Wikibooks:Vandalism in progress, which the vandal hit and mav cleaned up. Gentgeen 10:42, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)