Misplaced Pages

Incorporating University of Texas Maps with Misplaced Pages

UT has a number of maps online that could be used to enhance some of the articles.

According to their Maps FAQ - "Most of the maps scanned by the General Libraries and served from this web site are in the public domain. No permissions are needed to copy them. You may download them and use them as you wish."

Has there been any decision on using these? If there's no objection I may start going through the collection and seeing if any Misplaced Pages articles would benefit from their inclusion.

--65.197.68.35 20:53, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC) Gordon

As long as its Public Domain there's no problem, but perhaps you should try to find out which of them are not covered by "most"? Perhaps images that thez have manipulated og images of maps that are less then 50 yrs old or so (=copyrighted)--Dittaeva 21:55, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Dealing with vandals from different IP ranges?

Richard Ramirez has been vandalized by both 216.145.85.36 and 208.183.105.11 in exactly the same way. A) How to deal with vandals that can come from such different ranges, and B) Since I'm at work, I can't really spend the time to clean and monitor this article right now. Can someone help deal with this? Niteowlneils 23:51, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

This is somehow related, but it's range starts with 12. Niteowlneils 23:56, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Systematic error in use of term "Latin alphabet"?

I just put this into Talk:Alphabet, but it struck me I should also put it here. Perhaps this has been debated to death and I missed it while on my wikibattical, but it looks pretty serious to me:

The following from this article Alphabet seems to me erroneous, or at least incomplete:

In modern linguistic usage, the term Latin alphabet is usually used to refer to the modern derivations from the alphabet used by the Romans (i.e. the Roman alphabet).

       A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z

"Modern variations from the alphabet used by the Romans" include Norwegian (30 characters), Italian (22 characters), Spanish (29 characters), etc. And, for that matter, I'm pretty sure, the actual "Latin" alphabet had no J, no U, no Y, no Z. Every single article on a character uses this phrase Latin alphabet, but this is nothing but the English alphabet. Ortolan88 03:41, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I believe the Romans didn't have a W, either. (OK, that's the straight line...) -- Jmabel 05:41, Aug 20, 2004 (UTC)

The term Latin alphabet is accepted and quite acceptable in current use to be the 26 un-accented characters as used in English. Quite clearly this is not the same as the alphabet used by the Romans, any more than the Arabic numerals we are familiar in in the West is supposed to be the same as those used by Arabic writers.

Further, in the Roman alphabet the letters C and G were interchangeable, and C was never pronounced as 'S' (as in Caesar).

--JohnArmagh 06:18, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Also, the K is used rather rarely in Latin. At any rate, I think that the term Latin alphabet really does refer to this alphabet. All the Romance languages I know of use it (of which Norwegian isn't), and accents aren't part of letters, they're separate marks. So Spanish, Italian, and so on have 26 letters. I can confirm it's true for the French alphabet. Andre 07:06, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Actually, I don't know about Italian. A website I just found says it has 21 letters. Andre 07:07, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

While accented letters aren't considered distinct, the use of certain other diacritics—as with ñ, for instance—does introduce distinct letters not present in English (or Latin). Nonetheless, the alphabet used in Spanish and other languages is still "Latin" by all accounts, despite the numerous post-Roman introductions. Austin Hair 07:23, Aug 20, 2004 (UTC)

I wonder how to interpret "In modern linguistic usage...." Is the term "Latin alphabet" used formally by linguists? In any case, there is no ambiguity (I think) in programming circles: the term Latin or Roman alphabet is synonymous with English A thru Z. AdmN 08:02, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

New template: POV check

I created a new template, Template:POV check, which is intended to be placed on articles which at first glance don't appear to have NPOV text, but whose neutrality is not disputed, unlike Template:NPOV. The text when I created it is:

This article needs to be reworded to conform to a neutral point of view. The apparance of this notice does not imply that the neutrality of this article is disputed.

Please discuss appropriateness and other matters. ] 06:12, Aug 20, 2004 (UTC)

In other words, this message is to be used for circumstances in which the article is undisputably POV? What's the point? Austin Hair 06:44, Aug 20, 2004 (UTC)

Not necessarily undisputably. I was thinking that it could be used to mark articles for which a rewrite could be helpful to better bring an article to NPOV standard. Examples of this are newly written articles or articles with text paraphrased from other sites. ] 06:53, Aug 20, 2004 (UTC)

Perhaps this would get the point across more accurately:

This article may need to be reworded to conform to a neutral point of view, however, the neutrality of this article is not necessarily disputed.

zoney | talk 14:33, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Changes made. ] 16:11, Aug 20, 2004 (UTC)

I profess utter bafflement. Why not just slap a template on every article saying

] 23:16, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Too long-winded

Or even better:

;) ] 00:57, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, the original post above concerned where one looks at an article, isn't sure if it's neutral or not, and is flagging it as I've described. Now personally, I suggest merely commenting on the talk page is enough - but the point is, it's not a neutrality dispute. zoney ███ talk 01:37, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

It Came From Dartmouth College

Misplaced Pages has been invaded by a mass wave of newbies posting sub-trivial, detailed non-notable articles about Dartmouth College (the favorite drink of Dartmouth College and how to drink it?) Has Misplaced Pages been suddenly advertised to Dartmouth? Can we look for these and put them on VfD where they belong? RickK 06:51, Aug 20, 2004 (UTC)

Dartmouth - where have I heard that name before? OMG Archemedies Plutionium. Please no. ] 13:49, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Judging from User:Pcw, this is a Dartmouth course project, where the instructor has asked students to go on Misplaced Pages and create article. Andris 16:02, Aug 20, 2004 (UTC)

Well I didn't really think it was Archie, his style of writing is instantly recognizable, he doesn't go in for drinking games only grandious theories. Anyway I think he was fired from Dartmouth if my memory serves me correctly (I haven't been on usenet for years) ] 20:21, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Condition yellow on this one anyway I think. This user is not just violating Misplaced Pages policies to which he objects himself, he's instructing his class of computer students to violate them too. A lose/lose scenario at present IMO. Andrewa 21:13, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Violating policies? I'm not sure I understand. I've looked over the policies and I can't find a clear instance. The biggest problem seems to be that someone feels that the articles are "sub-trivial" and "non-notable." These are pretty subjective designations and, I'm sorry to say, designations that don't seem to have a very neutral point of view. Unfortunately, the policies also encourage me to ask them to "write about what they know". What most of them know is Dartmouth college and, perhaps, something about their home town. Pcw 01:59, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Well, then, write about their hometown. I'm a 14-year old student from Malaysia, and I've written an article on Bandar Utama (though perhaps I should move it to comply with the naming conventions). Settlements, no matter how trivial, are generally accepted. Surely they must have some sort of passion. Linkin Park, Limp Bizkit? What's their favourite food? The relevant articles could use help, and even if they don't know much about them, people passionate about something generally research it. For example, despite being completely ignorant of Beatles trivia six months ago, within that time, I've written Yesterday (song), Something (song) and Hey Jude up to featured level with the help of Google. Johnleemk | Talk 09:00, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Well said.

As to which policies were violated, Misplaced Pages has policies as to what is encyclopedic, but the students appear to have been encouraged to ignore these policies on the grounds that the instructor thinks that they should be changed. Not good IMO. Andrewa 17:40, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

PS see Misplaced Pages:School and university projects for what he should have done. I guess we need to make this page more prominent somehow. Andrewa 21:37, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

PPS see also User_talk:Andrewa#Delayed_deletion. Andrewa 22:26, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The instructor has replied to me personally, and grading in this course will be completed by 25 August. Andrewa 17:40, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Andrewa, I saw your plea for a delayed decision, but the fault lies not with us, for upholding our standards and policies, but with the user for violating them and asking us to, essentially, offer a free web host for his class for a little while. Dartmouth is not an impoverished community college. It is a very, very expensive, well endowed institution with a far more than adequate computing backbone. If Pcw wants his students to learn the wiki, he can have it installed on his campus intranet. I'm sure his computer science folks would be delighted to see someone take the initiative in creating a Dartmouth wiki. I feel very strongly that it is not our place to make an exception to make his life easier. I've taught technology for years, as well as English, and if I send students out of our resources, I figure it's like sending them abroad: they must obey the local laws. I find, further, his continued arguments on VfD that we're all wrong, that it is our policy that is at fault, arrogant and trollish. For my part, I do not plan to make an exception, and I urge others to do the same. Treat these articles like any others, and let Pcw invest in floppy disks, if he needs storage media for his class. This, to me, is extremely distasteful and offputting. Geogre 20:53, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

This should be a community decision, but I still think it would be good to postpone any deletions until Thursday 26, which is only a few days extension in the worst cases. There is no suggestion that standards will be lowered, or that the VfD notices will be removed during this extension.

And I'm appalled at what I see as a suggestion above that we would prefer the students to be directed to an in-house Wiki instead. Did you read the assignment sheet the students received?

We have an excellent opportunity here to make some new friends, and also an opportunity to make some new enemies, including of friends we already have. There are some lessons to learn, certainly, and I agree about the attitude shown by the instructor, and I am also appalled at the thought of what he might have told his students along these lines. But the assignment sheet gives a very different picture, and very in keeping with the valid points you are making.

It is not a matter of helping the instructor, that is a by-product. The articles are contributed by his students, not by him. Andrewa 21:37, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

PS but I wouldn't get too excited. From the voting, it appears unlikely that there will be any extensions granted. It was just a suggestion (plea if you like). Andrewa 21:41, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Andrewa, I did see the instructions, and the instructor asked the students to write articles that fit our guidelines. They do not do so, they have failed the assignment. Indeed, I am quite suspicious of "Pcw" being the instructor, as those instructions and the plea to leave the articles are incommensurate. Would I divert students to a campus instead of Misplaced Pages? If they cannot write articles that fit on our site, then they cannot write articles that fit on our site. If they must exist somewhere so that a teacher can complete his assignment, it would be better if they were on the in-house wiki, yes. Call that snobbish elitism, if you choose. Consider me hostile, if you choose. However, it is utterly unprofessional and unethical academic behavior for Pcw to ask us to change our policies. It is also, I think, inappropriate for us to make such an offer. As an academic, I am appalled at the suggestion that we change our standards for this assignment, especially since the assignment explicitly stated that we should not have to. Geogre 22:15, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Again, you make some good points. Agree it's unprofessional of Peter to have suggested we should change our policies, and unethical for him to have suggested as he seems to have done that his students should violate them. In fact the assignment sheet and his user page are so different in tone that I wonder what's going on. So far as I know, nobody has offered to change our policies. I certainly haven't. So far as students being unable to write articles that fit our site, I think that's over the top. They take a while to learn the ropes. Doesn't everyone? Andrewa 06:30, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

It seems to me that, if the assignment reads, Choose two topics that are appropriate. Make sure they fit inside the definition and are not in the Misplaced Pages already, they have failed. It is not up to US to change our rules to meet Pcw's assignment, it is incumbent upon him to follow his own assignment and to fail every single student who submitted unacceptable material. If these things are being listed on VfD right and left, this is a pretty good indication that the material is NOT appropriate, and does not meet Misplaced Pages standards, and therefore they should get F's, and we shouldn't bend to their needs. RickK 23:06, Aug 21, 2004 (UTC)

And more good points. I'd hope that the fact that despite what the assignment sheet said, several articles submitted in response to it were listed on VfD would cause those students to lose marks. That's one reason Peter's user page defending them and his comments attacking the validity of the VfD listings were of such concern to me, see above.

But the assessment is up to him. My concerns are twofold. Firstly, the current content of Misplaced Pages, that is to say what to do with substandard articles. My suggestion was that normal standards should be followed despite what Peter said, but that we consider a delay of a few days to allow the course to finish as smoothly as possible. Secondly, the future content of Misplaced Pages, which is dependent on the contributors. These students are all newbies. Some of them may become contributors. Some may become trolls. Some will undoubtedly just go away. I think we could be a bit more welcoming to them, at no loss to ourselves and great potential gain.

Peter's future students are also potential contributors. I hope that next time he might tell us in advance, as other instructors have done, and also revise the assignment sheet. Despite what it says, the message didn't get through. Perhaps it should explicitly say that articles listed on VfD and likely to be deleted will lose marks. IMO it should mention speedy deletion, which seems to have caught some by surprise. These aren't computer majors, and they seem not to have understood that Misplaced Pages isn't just another blogg.

I would have liked to get a list of the work submitted by his students. As well as the obvious idea of checking that we have caught all the damage, I'm also interested in why the assignment sheet didn't work as well as it should have, and whether we did get any new contributors as a result. So far as I can see this information isn't publicly available, their website is set up so that only the students themselves and the college staff can see the submissions. If we were in a less adversarial situation I'd ask Peter for a list by email, but frankly I don't even feel like asking in the current environment.

Cool it, guys. It's not all that important if the articles are deleted on our normal schedule. The assignment submission date was last Friday. Any further edits are in their own time, hopefully because they like it here and want to contribute. If Peter needs to see any deleted articles then I can simply email him a copy. I haven't promised him that there would be any extensions, and it doesn't look like there will be. No big deal there. Andrewa 06:30, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• • Andrewa, just a thought: it occurs to me that the assignment is such an extraordinary example of a well written assignment, and the behavior of "Pcw" is so out of line with it, that it's possible that the user is not the instructor. His words and actions seem much more in keeping with a kid trying to ensure that his article stays and he gets good marks than an instructor or professor. It seems to me that the instructor/professor wanted us to act with our usual discretion and wanted to assess his students' abilities to fit in. I also note that the local content of the students is fairly characteristic for students in college. We have a Requested Articles page, and they have a really good library. I hope they do get hooked on Misplaced Pages. Given the fact that each student was to write two articles, we can assume that we have already had some forty submissions from the Dartmouth group. That means that some thirty-five, minimum (if the instructor has more than one class with this assignment, then we have

had eighty submissions), articles that haven't been listed on VfD or been speedy deleted. I welcome each and every one of those authors, and I thank the instructor (whoever he or she may really be) if any one of the students remains engaged and aware. Geogre 21:35, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

You're not the only one to have wondered that, I have (and I've hinted at this above, twice) and so have others who have contacted me privately. But the email address on the assignment sheet is live, the person who responds identifies themselves as user:Pcw, and gives the email address given by Pcw as the return address. So I'd have to say no, there's some other explanation.

Class assignments such as this are going to happen, and more and more as we become better known, and I think we should welcome them as we have previously. They are an excellent chance to give people a very positive experience of contributing if we handle them well. If we handle them badly, on the other hand, they can just as easily be schools for trolls. Some of these people would never have attempted to edit at Misplaced Pages without the assignment. If it's a positive experience some will stay, and that's a win for us, as of course are the good edits they make. On the other hand if it's a negative experience they've been forced into they may find it easier to take it out on Misplaced Pages than on the educational institution, and even if they don't do this deliberately they are unlikely to have contributed much that doesn't need to be deleted or reverted.

I think we should give some thought to promoting Misplaced Pages: School and university projects a bit better. I was wondering at one stage whether perhaps we should even have a policy requiring class projects to be registered, but far better is to have a carrot, a positive reason for instructors to want to register. Ideas? Andrewa 07:39, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

PS your arithmetic doesn't do this justice. They each had to write two 200 word articles that fit inside the definition and are not in the Misplaced Pages already (their linking) to get the thirty points for question five, but to get the full fifty possible bonus points for question six they had to write another five articles. That's 140 new articles if one class of twenty all went for maximum credit, and looking at the assignment, once you've got the hang of the first two articles the bonus points are relatively easily earned IMO compared to the rest of it. I've seen at least one article (and not on VfD) that I thought might have been an attempt at these bonus points. Andrewa 07:56, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• Just adding my two cents here on the controversy: Most of the Dartmouth articles, while probably not notable enought to warrant individual articles, are still important information in a greater whole about Dartmouth College. The wave of "mass deletions" going on at VfD strikes me as reactonary. What I propose is that we take whatever information that can be reduced (edited down) and merge it into the Dartmouth College article. Additionally, several stand-alone articles about aspects of Dartmouth should be created, most notably Dartmouth College student life, Dartmouth College arts and Dartmouth College athletics, which seems to cover most of the content of the articles. Let's work with this influx of energy, instead of fighting it. We might get some new editors of it, and I fear alienating these students. Kevyn 00:12, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Kevyn, I really appreciate your example of Wikilove here. Truly, I do. If I'm frothing a bit, it's because of my experience as a teacher. (I'm a tough, tough grader.) It's exasperating to have bright students wilfully misread an assignment, and it's pretty characteristic for 18 year old college students to either plead ignorance or, more commonly, argue bitterly that it's not fair that their article be deleted. That's just an explanation of my mood about these. As for my votes, those are different. If we merge all of these articles to the Dartmouth College article, we're going to have a Dartmouth article that outweighs the Dartmouth College website. We're getting such excessive detail here on such minutia that our Dartmouth article is going to be four or five times anything else. As much as I think more information is better than less, I also think that we have to provide an overview. We can't duplicate the resources of the rest of the web. How much detail on a particular university does an encyclopedia need, and how much should it allow (different questions). For me, a single sentence ("Dartmouth has many musical groups, including the Dartmouth Dodecaphonics, the Dartmouth Wind Ensemble...") is all we should provide. More than that, and we start to diverge from our path. Major universities and colleges have great traditions and provide a raft of service and community organizations. Each one does, and providing 200 words on each facet of each is simply overwhelming. As for redirects, I think we have to ask the question we always ask of redirects: Will someone search this term? If we're talking about Dartmouth Womens Crew (n.b. the lack of apostrophe), possibly so. Otherwise, we're back to good old notability. Are the Dartmouth Chi Alpha Chi going to be a search term? No. Sorry for going on so long, but I definitely wanted a chance to explain my votes, as well as my mood. The two are unrelated, but they show up in the same vote space, I'm afraid. Geogre 00:47, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)
    • Geogre, I don't think we are quite as far apart in our positions as you think. I agree that we should not try to be the definitive source for Dartmouth, nor is it desireable to be bigger than the Dartmouth website. To repeat what I said: What I propose is that we take whatever information that can be reduced (edited down) and merge it into the Dartmouth College article. Note the emphasis on REDUCE. While I probably wouldn't reduce as far as you would, I agree that we have more information than is necessary. I'd take it down to a paragraph, you say you'd take it down to a sentence -- it's just a matter of degree. On the issue of redirects, my reasoning for making redirects is not for SEARCH purposes -- though it is a remote possibility that these terms might be searched for -- but to put in a placeholder, to discourage future Dartmouth students from creating an article on the subject if they find no article at that location. I think that redirects serve a valuable function in cases like this, where VfD has determined that no article should exist. One other thought on the value of the articles being made into redirects instead of deleting them -- it preserves the history of the page, including the VfD discussion, in case at any point in the future someone wants to know why the article is no longer there. And, in the remote possibility that the subject of the article should become notable (Cue Judy Tenuta saying "It could happen!"), we've got the content already there in the history, ready to go. Kevyn 01:37, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Most of these articles are not violations of Misplaced Pages policies. What they are are examples of articles which are continually deleted via VFD despite their not being violations of Misplaced Pages policies. Some of them also are not very well formatted, but I don't think you can expect new users to learn the obscure formatting guidelines of wikipedia right off the bat. I don't even know many of them myself and I've been here a long time. anthony (see warning) 00:04, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Does anyone think that we were a bit harsh on the Dartmouth folks? Particularly Pcw? --Golbez 22:05, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• VfD can be harsh, I agree. I don't think, though, that we're being too harsh on Pcw. I say that as a former prof. He has had time to correct his students. When the articles began showing up on VfD, he could have mentioned to his class(es) that they needed to look for items that are notable outside of the campus. I, at least, mentioned repeatedly that we have a Requested Articles page. His assignment (whether he wrote it or it came from another section of the class, I don't know) specifically informed students to read what we have, to see what we cover. And yet he has argued repeatedly that we're wrong, that we're calling "the people at Dartmouth not notable." We're not, of course, saying anything about people on VfD. If he is a dispassionate observer using Misplaced Pages as a metric of his class, then he is going to let the chips fall where they may. My own code of professional ethics says that it's wrong to send your class onto anyone else's space and then argue that the space is something you have rights to. Misplaced Pages is for everybody, but it has the same standards for everybody, too. This includes, unfortunately, the cutting comments and exasperation that some VfD voters (Lord knows, me too) will voice. He has to feel beseiged by having 20 condemning voices aimed at him, just as we feel beseiged by having what seems to us to be a flood of inappropriate articles. Both sides get testy. I hate to say what I'm about to say, but I think he should (dang, but I hate saying what anyone should do) work with us to work with his class to ensure greater conformity from them and greater benefit to us, and he can't be personally emotionally invested in the inclusion of any of the articles. Geogre 02:07, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• • Keep in mind that the latest word from User:Pcw is that there were two hundred articles submitted. Perhaps twenty of them ended up in VfD. ] 10:00, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

To answer your question, Golbez, I didn't think that any of the decisions to list on VfD or the votes were particularly harsh. But I do think we could have done it in a more constructive manner. One article was described as crap, for example. IMO that's unnecessary, uncalled for, and violates the spirit of Misplaced Pages policies on personal attacks. The tone of VfD debate overall has been dropping lately IMO, and we need to correct the slide. Moving user subpages elsewhere will help, those discussions have been particularly difficult, and that policy change is in the pipeline. Perhaps we need to do something else too, but I'm unsure what.

Another thing that I notice is of the three newcomers' user talk pages I checked, on two no welcome had been posted although their articles had been listed for deletion. I question whether listing the article on VfD was really a more urgent task than posting a welcome to the newcomer. Ideally do both. In this case the welcome was particularly urgent, as the contributor may not return now that the assignment is over. But any newbie who has scored a VfD nomination needs an urgent welcome IMO. I'm sensitive to this as I scored on VfD myself before I scored a welcome, and I was very nearly not back.

It should IMO be a standard part of listing (or even voting on) an article on VfD to check who the contributors are, and what their edit histories are like, and what links to the article, and I fear this is often neglected at present. I'm not sure what to do to make it more common.

I'm sure there are more lessons to learn as the smoke clears. Andrewa 14:14, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Good articles from Dartmouth?

Someone mentioned somewhere (and now I can't remember where) that they knew of several articles that came from the Dartmouth class assignment that were top-notch articles and valuable inclusions to Misplaced Pages. We all know what the bad ones were, from the VfD controversy. Does anyone know what the good ones were? I'd really like to see the flip side of this mess. Kevyn 23:57, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I know some of them, and you could email the lecturer and ask too, or you can guess them I think. Look for new users who created up to seven new articles in the week or a little more leading up to last Friday, and have done little if anything else. The lecturer has asked me not to identify the ones I know, and for obvious reasons I think.

My observation is that the overall quality is very high indeed, as you would expect. These are college kids, they have lots of interests, and they knew they would be graded on the quality and compliance to standards of the articles. And if under those conditions we didn't get a lot of good articles, then rather than sniping at the instructor and students we should be asking what's wrong with our documentation - which is the thing we can most easily change (and before anyone jumps on me again, I'm not saying lower our standards and have never said that).

But another thing I'm wondering is whether a certain amount of the conflict over those articles that did attract (sometimes valid) criticism is quite deliberate on the part of the instructor. One of the goals of the course seems to be to give the students experience in all aspects of the Internet, including the joys and otherwise of open-source development. IMO they've now seen first hand the worst face of our community, and I'm sure it's been very educational for them. I'd love to be a fly on the wall at any tutorials where the assignment experiences are discussed (I assume you do that in America, we certainly have in the courses I've taught in Australia), or even in the canteen where the students informally compare notes. Food for thought? Andrewa 00:49, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• I just found a partial list of the articles on Pcw's talk page. I've looked over them, and most are, indeed, noteworthy, and fairly well-written, though there are a few that need cleanup. From this class assignment we've expanded our coverage of significant feminist issues, sports stars, Utah ski areas, Korean films, cold war history, weather phenomena and literary landmarks. Clearly, despite the tempest in the VfD-Pot, this was a worthwhile exercise for us. Kevyn 01:44, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• • We've also got some squirrely college stuff on feminist issues. It's what you'd expect, and not bad per se. As a literature person, I get hypertensive about things like the recent changes to Orlando: A Biography that sound like they came straight from a sophomore lecture and got filtered through a student. More a case of generalizing too much, adding trivia of interest, and presenting classroom observations as truth.... Like I said -- about what you'd expect. (In that article: Orlando was not her most successful novel or even close, its being in the fiction rack is no outrage, it's not all about Vita Sackville-West (that's a favorite theory of biographical readers), even if there is an element of that in it. Just enthusiastic. I wonder if the proposed Sexism on Misplaced Pages Pages argument is a Dartmouth IP.) Anyway, that's not a complaint. It's just a different kind of editing that needs to be done -- cleaning up over eager POV. Geogre 03:10, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Some lessons to be learned

Another lesson I think we can learn is that there were some negative comments about the standard of English in which some of the articles were written. Is this covered anywhere in existing policy? Anyway, I've put together something at Misplaced Pages:non English speakers that deserves work and comments IMO. If it's already covered elsewhere it can be merged or whatever. If it's not, it should be linked from a few places probably, and edited mercilessly like any new guideline. Andrewa 01:56, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

And another is that despite consistent policies on the subject, rhetoric is becoming common on VfD. For some thoughts on the subject, see Misplaced Pages:rhetoric. Again, I hope this will be edited mercilessly and if it's not entirely absorbed into other policy documents it should be linked to and from them. Andrewa 07:22, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Dartmouthian Votes for Deletion

I'm sorry... reading the Votes of Deletion page has prompted me to do a bit of humor in creating a special template for these Dartmouth Pages for Votes for Deletion. See Template:Dartmouth-vfd. I am certain it will end up on the tfd page, but anyone who's having a headache right now can get a good laugh out it, I suppose. -- Allyunion 00:33, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Federal depository libraries

I'd just like to make everyone aware of this - as most of you know, US Government documents are public domain. What most of you probably don't know is that some libraries across the country are "Federal document repositories" - IE, they are storehouses for goverment documents. A Federal respository library is *THE* biggest cache of public domain information you will ever find. So if you are in need of pictures, maps, or diagrams on any topic, you can go to one and get them by the kilo. Here is a listing of federal repository libraries. →Raul654 06:55, Aug 20, 2004 (UTC)

Cue article: Federal Government Depository Library, according to a link on Troy Public Library. --Tagishsimon

Analogue disc record

Not sure if this has been mentioned before, but there seems to be a consensus that analogue disc record is the worst-named featured article. There is a on-going vote to move it somewhere more sensible in the talk page, now at the stage of a run-off between the two most popular candidates. -- ALoan (Talk) 10:33, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

With 17 to 13 vote, the article is now at Gramophone record. -- Infrogmation 00:42, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

P.S.: Help in fixing links to the article is encouraged. Especially from those who voiced their dislike of the old title :-) -- Infrogmation 15:52, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Featured articles on politicians

A few days ago the featured article, Barack Obama, was about a politician currently running for U.S. Senate. I had requested it be featured (mainly out of pride), without realizing that having it on the main page could be seen as unfair. It raised several issues about what should go on the main page, so I've started a discussion at Misplaced Pages talk:Featured article candidates. Jump in please, we'd love to have you. Best, ] 13:19, 2004 Aug 20 (UTC)

Article of the week

A note was posted here a while about about the two votes on:

1. the name of the Article of the week—some people have found the name "Article of the week" confusing, thinking that it a way to choose the week's best article, whereas it is actually a way to choose a non-existent article or stub page for everyone to work on to bring up to , the aim being to have a featured-standard in one week; and
2. the policy for ties—this is not hypothetical: two weeks ago, Renaissance tied with Baghdad.

The vote has ended, and the proposal is to:

1. rename "Article of the week" as "Collaboration of the week"; and
2. for the policy for ties to be to extend the vote for 24 hours and then choose whichever article was nominated first (seniority).

If anyone has any strong objections, please comment in Misplaced Pages talk:Article of the week. -- ALoan (Talk) 14:03, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Aozora Bunko: S editing problem

Aozora Bunko: S is 31kb, and my primary browser can not edit the entire thing. I've fixed what I can through my secondary browser, but would someone be kind enough to fix the problem? It probably should be split, but there's no really good place to do so IMHO, since the "Sh"'s constitute the middle third of the list. Please also note all of the linking articles. 24.218.107.75 18:07, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC) (DocWatson42 http://en.wikipedia.org/User:DocWatson42 )

The Aozora Bunko: S page is now sectioned. Hope this helps. Happy editing ! :-) -- PFHLai 02:10, 2004 Aug 21 (UTC)

Thanks! That looks much better than I conceived of. Though the above message was the last bit I had to do, as I am to unfamiliar with Japanese literature to undertake any more. — DocWatson42 19:17, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Links: underlined or not?

Some weeks ago, at the time that the new "wikipedia page appearance" was launched, all the links on the pages lost their underlining. A few days later the underlining was back. Now, in the last few of days, they've gone again. Now there might be somewhere better to discuss this (but I can't find it), so here's my opinion! Links with no underscores definately look slicker and cooler - but they aren't practical in Misplaced Pages. When there are several links next to each other in the text, without the underlining you sometimes can't see whether it is one link or several, for instance:

• computer operating systems looks like 1 link, but is actually 2 (as is 1871 German Empire);
• Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington) looks like it is 2 but is actually 1;
• and can you guess Chinese calligraphy and Romanized Arabic?

To put it simply, it's not always intuitive. See also: Human-computer interaction - or should that be Human-computer interaction? 80.46.184.205 21:14, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I'm not sure whether link underlining is on or off by default (I'll check the source), but you can explicitly enable/disable it in the "Misc settings" tab of your user preferences. FWIW, I agree that Misplaced Pages's default behavior should be to underline links as that's the generally accepted way to say "Hey buddy, this is a link". --Diberri | Talk 21:31, Aug 20, 2004 (UTC)

I see how you can change your preference for whether or not to underline links, but what I can't figure out is how to get the underlines to print. They used to be printed out with underlines as default, but now it seems you can't do this. Eoghan 19:22, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Licensing

Do I misunderstand the GFDL? I thought that the GFDL requires attribution to the author(s). Afaik, Misplaced Pages caters for this by having the history function. However, are not all copy&paste edits (copy from one article and paste in another) violations if the original author/article is not mentioned? Also, I've come across a number of images stating from German Misplaced Pages as source. This is probably true, but should there not be a link (and credit to the contributor), too?

I there a project working on image licensing? (tough on images ;-) I mean making sure images are tagged accordingly or removed? (BTW, what do you think about this source: Image:Michel-foucault.jpg?)

Summa summarum, should we not take licensing a bit more serious? Kokiri 21:25, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

This is a matter of some concern to me also. The issue of other encyclopaedias "grabbing" WP content is also pertinant. They shouldn't be allowed - WP "knows" who its contributors are, and has histories, these others do not. Bah! People getting confused between "copyleft" and "copyabsent". Sue them all I say :o) zoney ███ talk 00:47, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

If they link to the wikipedia article, the edit history there. So no problem. As for images - I do think people should put a link in to the image description page on the other wiki ] 01:12, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Yes, we should advertise this to make wikipedians more aware of the need of attribution. It is therefore also important to remember to use the edit summary to attribute to someone else when copy-pasting, for example by writing "merged from Misplaced Pages:Village tap" when doing a merge, using the links-in-summary feature. ] 17:27, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The history information isn't exported in the cur dump, so it's really hard to get the information without downloading and parsing a multi-gig file. If Misplaced Pages wants individual authors credited, they should make this information more readily available. anthony (see warning) 00:28, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

It does look like copying and pasting anything that is not solely one author's contribution is against the GFDL. If you export the history that should be fine, and you don't need to link to wikipedia, likewise manually attributing to the authors in the history would be ok. If, however, you copied a chunk of text from one article to another within Misplaced Pages, and failed to attribute it to it's author (or its constituent parts to the relevant authors) that would be a violation.

Scanned images of specific editions of books

I see that in the article Childhood (novel), there is a scan of the Penguin Classics edition. I would have thought this contrary to Wiki policy - there are many editions, why are we advertising a particular publisher?

We generally pick an edition, any edition. Current or first would of course be most canonical. If you have a better one to scan, go for it - David Gerard 22:29, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Minor edit symbol

Why does the letter to denote a minor edit in the watchlist/etc constantly switch between an m and an M? Is there some revert war going on with the codebase or what? --Golbez 22:52, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Nope, no one is fighting over the minor edit letter in the MediaWiki namespace. The software must at times be loading Language.php instead (where the minor edit letter is still M), instead of the custom interface. Natryn 00:59, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

For me it's not M or m it's m ] 01:01, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I don't remember ever seeing M, altho' it apparently was the first few weeks I was here. I do remember when N briefly became ! a month or so later. Niteowlneils 02:43, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The "Creatures" Category

Category:Creatures seems to be a bit messed up. --Sgeo | Talk 23:30, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Can you be more specific? I went to the Cat page, and it looked like a normal Cat page to me. Niteowlneils 02:43, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

It has two "C" sections, and two "G" sections --Sgeo | Talk 17:45, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The software doesn't align categories that well, especially when there are a small number of entries, unfortunately. So this category is fine in terms of what we can expect. —siroχo 18:17, Aug 21, 2004 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't notice--I've seen that come and go on the speedy cat so much I don't notice any more when it happens elsewhere. Niteowlneils 01:05, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

white box outside thumbnail border

Could this be removed? It only shows up when the content part of the page has a different coloured background (e.g. user pages). I'm not sure if this is the correct place to post about this, but it is annoying when wiki generally looks so good :o] porge 03:03, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

License violations

Where do I report sites violating the GFDL license in how they use our content? One particularly flagrant example is firstcarhire.com, stealing portions of Misplaced Pages pages without the slightest credit. See, for example, http://www.firstcarhire.com/country-guide/united-arab-emirates/abu-dhabi/ (compare Abu Dhabi). I've seen a number of mirrors also fail to credit. Is there a standard process for reprimanding these sorts of people? Thanks. Derrick Coetzee 08:01, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

And it gets much worse - this site copied the entire encyclopedia, including the project pages, with no credit to Misplaced Pages! They simply say "This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License." These people are getting sloppy. Derrick Coetzee 08:10, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

And even worse! This site claims copyright to our article (Abraham Lincoln)! The page is nothing but a mirror of our content, and it says right at the bottom of the page, "The contents of this web site are Copyright © 2003 Otherground, LLC and Civil-War.ws. All Rights Reserved." I can't imagine it getting much worse than that. Derrick Coetzee 08:15, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

If i understand it correctly, they do not have to credit wikipedia, but they DO have to license it at GFDL! Your last example is definitely a violation. -- Chris 73 Talk 08:31, Aug 21, 2004 (UTC)

No they do have to credit Misplaced Pages. ] 08:34, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

They fail to cite us or mention that it is licensed under the GFDL (thus, their copy is an illegal copyright infringement); worse, they claim they own it. This is a definite violation. →Raul654 08:40, Aug 21, 2004 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Mirrors and forks is probably the place you want, Derrick --rbrwrˆ 09:41, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Ah, thanks. I should've been able to find this. Looks like others are already ahead of me on this. Derrick Coetzee 16:54, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The text at the bottom currently reads "All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License (see Copyrights for details).". Perhaps "It is illegal to copy text here without attributing Misplaced Pages as the source, and linking back to authors' pages". Oh, maybe bold text the illegal bit. I'm not really kidding - this sort of nonsense needs to stop - just cause it's "open" licence doesn't mean one can just STEAL. zoney ███ talk 11:25, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Strange Interwiki

I noticed on East Asia that the interwiki link to ] shows up at the bottom of the article rather than under other languages. (the link works as advertised ;-) Is this just me? Kokiri 08:16, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

No. Me too. -- Chris 73 Talk 08:28, Aug 21, 2004 (UTC)

I noticed the same thing with a similar 'minnan' interwiki on another article (can't remember which one). I suspect it affects many minnan connections, but I can't see why - the links look well formed. -- Solipsist 09:52, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Known bug. Angela. 11:29, Aug 21, 2004 (UTC)

Domain donation — please vote! poll closed

Some time ago, I noticed that the wikipaedia.net domain name was hitherto unregistered.

I registered this domain name and sought to fully turn over it (donate it) to the Misplaced Pages Foundation.
I proposed making wikipaedia.net an alias/redirect to wikipedia.org, just like wikipedia.com and wikipedia.net (which are working aliases).

I did not however get anywhere with this. I got little or no answers to my emails to Jimbo (he's probably a busy man) and nothing concrete developed when I floated this issue on the wikiEN-l and foundation-l mailing lists.

I am now posting the issue here to get a spotlight on this and get your input, to get things done and ticked off my list as soon as possible.

On the mailing lists, some felt that by using the wikipaedia.net domain names, we're running a risk of people confusing us with the wikipaedia.org, wikipaedia.com and wikipaedia.de domains — these domain names are currently controlled by a third party. (This is part of a wider issue which I raised on the wikiEN-l mailing list. See — user name guest, password 1ns4nI+y)

I feel that we have a very valid claim to all the major wikipaedia and wikipedia domain names. It is more than likely that many web users all over the world frequently enter wikipaedia domain names when looking for the Misplaced Pages. I also feel that we can best defend our interests by "claiming our space", adding the wikipaedia.net domain to the valid domain aliases we have and moving to gain control of all other domain names that ought to be in our control. Yielding to what I personally perceive to be cybersquatting is not a good idea.

I also know that some of us don't like wikipaedia domain names per se. However, I would like to point out that the Misplaced Pages name derives from "encyclopedia", and encyclopedia is simply the modern/American form of the English word encyclopaedia. The words are both in use and synonymous. Again, it is more than likely that many web users all over the world frequently enter wikipaedia domain names when looking for the Misplaced Pages. As Wikipedians, we have an important claim to wikipaedia and wikipedia domain names — and considering the scope and importance of our project, it is reasonable for us to control both variations of the name. Ropers 16:56, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Please vote: Poll closed

Should the donation of the wikipaedia.net domain name be accepted and made a working redirect to the wikipedia.org domain?

Please sign below:

Yes

• Ropers 16:56, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• As a Brit, I'm uncomfortable with the missing æ (it just seems wrong) and this site is supposed to be universal, so this is a good move. Necrothesp 17:19, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• "Misplaced Pages" should still be treated as the correct spelling, since that is what is used throughout even the non-English versions, but most likely anyone looking for "Wikipaedia" is looking for us. Maybe we should register wikpedia.org while we're at it... -- Wapcaplet 17:38, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• I stress using "Misplaced Pages" as the proper spelling. ] 18:41, Aug 21, 2004 (UTC)
• Sure. Of course, the name will remain the same, but we're not Misplaced Pages.com, either, and there are no problems with that. Publications frequently get our address wrong (sending them to .com, for instance) so this is a logical step. ] 18:58, 2004 Aug 21 (UTC)
• I doesn't hurt us and can help others find our site. - SimonP 19:39, Aug 21, 2004 (UTC)
• It should definitely be accepted. We aren't talking about changing the name to Wikipaedia here so I really can't imagine what the no-voters have got against the idea. The more avenues we can close off to cybersquatters the better. Trilobite (Talk) 19:42, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Yes. The more entrances we make available, the better we are. --the Epopt 20:16, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Herbert 20:48, Aug 21, 2004 (UTC)
• Derrick Coetzee 21:06, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC): Changing my vote; while I certainly wouldn't encourage use of this as a primary name, having some common misspellings redirect is good, and others using them is definitely potentially confusing.
• ] 21:19, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Sure, no reason not to. —Stormie 22:52, Aug 21, 2004 (UTC)
• Yes, the redirect would be useful. Dieter Simon 23:05, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Of course, Misplaced Pages would remain the correct spelling. -Sean Curtin 01:57, Aug 22, 2004 (UTC)
• I don't see any downside to this one. Let's do it.Antandrus 02:05, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Aye Alexburke 07:41, Aug 22, 2004 (UTC)
• Yes. In fact, seeing as the American standard is taken for Misplaced Pages, we should compromise by having "Misplaced Pages, the free encyclopaedia" as the image tagline ;o) zoney ███ talk 15:47, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Obviously. ] 16:57, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• As Neutrality said in fewer words (; —siroχo 19:26, Aug 22, 2004 (UTC)
• 172 19:39, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

No

• Mikkalai : Cybersquatting is cybersquatting is cybersquatting regardless who's doing it. If people are looking up 'wikipedia', they will eventually find it. If people are looking up an subject, they land into wikipedia good time. IMO wikipedia is already littering the cyberspace too much (with mirrors and cybercash cows). Sometimes it is takes pains to find an independent source on a subject. Mikkalai 17:59, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Unless someone is willing to donate the annual registration fees, this is a waste of money. If someone is willing to, then I'm ambivalent. I don't think very many people are going to type in "wikipaedia.net". If it were .com or .org, then maybe... anthony (see warning) 19:45, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Agreed but as reproducers of our content tend to use every trick in the book to get a top rank in Google, if cybersquatters had this address it's conceivable that someone could do a search and come up with a "Wikipaedia" page and think they were looking at the real thing. At least reproductions which don't use variants of our name don't taint our reputation too much with their pop-up ads etc. One with a similar spelling might. — Trilobite (Talk) 22:58, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

You make a valid point, but at the same time, when will it end? There are a large number of top level domain names, and other variations on the spelling of Misplaced Pages. Should we register every single one of them, just because someone might use them to illegally abuse our trademark? I don't think the damage that would potentially be done outweighs the cost of maintaining every single one of the possible variations of wikipedia.org, and I don't think maintaining the registration of just this one variation does anything to reduce the possibility of harm. anthony (see warning) 13:17, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• No, at least not unless the offer is accompanied by wikipaedia.org - I think Misplaced Pages is an .org or, at best, a .com, but certainly not a .net. Having only the .net is not much use in my eyes. (Yes, I'm one of the three remaining people who believe that generic top-level domain names should have a little meaning.) -- pne 19:41, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Please see below for answers to some of these concerns. Ropers 22:41, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Ambivalent

• While I can't see any major harm in using www.wikipaedia.net and redirecting to www.wikipedia.org, I do see a point in having users get used to one domain only.
  RoseParks 17:04, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I don't see that it would matter even if someone used Misplaced Pages all the time under the impression that it was spelt Wikipaedia because that was the address they used. They would still be coming here, and anyway we can't go round policing people's minds to ensure adherence to US spelling. — Trilobite (Talk) 17:10, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Oh, it's actually even better:

Go to http://en.wikipedia.com/Color_Graphics_Adapter. (Note that that's .com.)

See how using that .com URL seamlessly redirects you to the "correct" .org one?

If wikipaedia.net gets set up the same way, then there wont ever be the least chance of anybody hanging around at the "wrong" URL. They'll get to the wikipedia.org address regardless — thus people will notice pretty quickly that we're "really" at wikipedia.org. The wikipaedia.net domain name is really just another door we're opening to our users (and at the same time closing to traffic hijackers). Ropers 18:08, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

May I close this poll?

Seeing the response, I don't think there remains any chance on the "No" votes overtaking the "Yes" votes. Also, I have just gotten an email from Jimmy. If nobody objects, I will proclaim this poll closed some time tomorrow. Please only respond if you want to object to me closing the poll. Putting up a second poll on whether to close the first one would be absurd. Feel free to still sign while the poll remains open. Ropers 03:59, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Since Britain is a U.S. colony, couldn't we simply ask them to spell things in proper American...? ;-) AdmN 19:26, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Poll Closed

This poll is now closed.

That's not to prevent anyone from still voicing their opinion, but we have to draw a line somewhere and count. Also, I'm readying this to get archived off the main Village Pump site, which is very crowded.

Results

• In favour: 20
• Against: 3
• Ambivalent: 1

Thanks to everyone who voted. :)

I may add:

This donation doesn't cost the Foundation anything right now. The domain name is payed for a year. A cost would incur if it was intended to transfer the name to another registrar (which can be done anytime after the first 60 days of registration). A cost would also incur if the domain name were to be renewed. I would be very much for that, but my donation doesn't come with any strings attached.

This is in fact a very minor contribution (Go google for the cost of a domain registration. See?), but one which still hasn't been ticked off the to-do list.

I registered this domain because I ended up on wikipaedia.org and found out that... -- see here for my writeup of my findings: (user name guest, password 1ns4nI+y) It was in the course of this noble waste of time that I realized that wikipaedia.net was not yet taken.

And yes, I am all for us getting the wikipaedia.org, wikipaedia.com domain names into the fold (and maybe the German wikipaedia.de as well).

I feel they belong to the Misplaced Pages and I fail to see any legitimate, non-traffic hijacking reason why anyone would want to use, say, wikipaedia.org.

I suggest we get working what we've got (wikipaedia.net) ASAP and then proceed to claim wikipaedia.org and .com as well, under the terms of the ICANN UDRP.

Ropers 22:41, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Overzealous spam filter

I am unable to edit the page Misplaced Pages:Copies of Misplaced Pages content (low_degree_of_compliance) to report violating copies because it already contains regular expressions considered spam by the spam filter. I see no way to repair this, since it's all over this project page, and it also won't tell me what expressions it's using. I have to wonder if it's doing its job properly even on article pages. Derrick Coetzee 17:15, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

m:Talk:Non-development tasks for developers

chocolateboy 04:09, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Help vandalism on Thai wikipedia

User: 203.145.13.22 is emptying all pages on the Thai wikipedia. I do not have moderatorrights there. I am one on the Dutch wikipedia. Can someone either block the guy, or give me some rights? Waerth 17:31, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Why is no one coming to help the Thai wikipedia is geting destroyed !!!!! Waerth 17:40, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Help!!!! Waerth 17:45, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

You're temporarily an admin there, and I've blocked 203.145.13.22. Angela. 17:57, Aug 21, 2004 (UTC)

Affirmative action

Please give a hand, this article needs alot of work, and alot of help from as many editors as possible. Sam 18:23, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Does "E-mail this user" ever work for anyone else?

I've tried contacting other users about four times this way; never any responses. Then I tried to test the feature by trying to send an E-mail to myself. Didn't receive it. Finally I created a sockpuppet (sorry) just so that I could test whether I could send E-mail to myself from an account that wasn't my own. Nothing. Every time Misplaced Pages's software says the E-mail has been sent. Does this feature work for anybody else? Is my ISP doing overzealous spam filtering and blocking E-mail from Misplaced Pages without telling me? ] 18:32, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I've never gotten any either, though I have sent messages (or thought I did). I just sent you a message--did you get it? Antandrus 18:35, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Yeah, I did. ] 21:52, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I just sent a mail to myself, and it seemed to work fine. I've never tried to mail anyone else, or received mail from anyone... — Kate | Talk 18:37, 2004 Aug 21 (UTC)

Seems to work fine for me, I get emails sometimes. A few of the times I tried to use it to send one they didn't have email enabled, but at least one time they did and I was able to send the email just fine. Sam 18:38, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I have never used it to send e-mail, but I have received e-mail a number of times, so it works for me. Adam Bishop 19:00, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Received a couple of them, but not many. -- Cyrius|✎ 19:02, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I've sent several and I received quite a few. Always seems to work fine for me. →Raul654 19:09, Aug 21, 2004 (UTC)

The one time I emailed another user w/ this feature it did work ok. Ropers 19:44, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I've gotten a couple of death threats that way. A kind message of support I sent, on the other hand, was not received. I think it filters for hate speech. Try screaming and yelling. That will probably get through. :-) Geogre 20:56, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)